by: Dr. Bruce Goddard
“Many of the Supreme Court decisions are correct!”
“There are good people on that Supreme Court!”
When the Supreme Court made its recent decision, we saw a blurring of the lines of right and wrong. We see their crossing the lines as a violation of what we stood for throughout these many years. We saw it as a betrayal of the great people who helped build this nation we love. The lines are being blurred everywhere, crossed regularly, and the very lines of right and wrong are being moved.
When a preacher puts himself up as a leader of fundamental Christian people, be it a pastor, Bible college teacher or conference speaker, he has a responsibility to NOT BLUR THE LINES.
When a preacher stands in fundamental pulpits of America and other pastors entrust their young people to that man be it in a college or youth conference, if he then joins himself with the conferences clearly on the other side of the fundamental spectrum, that man is blurring the lines every bit as much as the Supreme Court, not to mention betraying the trust of the pastors and parents who believe in him.
Like our conferences, some might say, “Many of the Supreme Court decisions are correct!” One could add, “There are good people on that Supreme Court!” I would agree with both of those statements, but they are blurring the lines. The next generation is not going to see clearly because of these blurred lines. As young preachers see you going from one side of the fence to the other, they are getting a confused vision for their own values and beliefs.
Are you voting with the Supreme Court to eliminate the very foundational convictions upon which we were brought up? Are you blurring the lines about the things you heard thundered out as right and wrong for the last few decades? Is your choice of fellowship telling the next generation that the old beliefs are archaic and out-of-date?
I refuse to hang around the “big conferences everyone attends” listening to those who mock the very preaching upon which I was called, surrendered and trained under to preach the Gospel?
In 34 years of pastoring, I have never been in the spotlight, never spoken at nor sponsored a nationwide conference. Yet, somehow God has used our church to put as many people into Bible college and the ministry as any church I know of. Now why, Supreme Court Justices, are you trying to rewrite the very faith upon which you were trained? You are announcing by your fellowship and camaraderie what you think of our historic positions. You are saying that the truth upon which you were spiritually weened is inadequate.
Maybe it is time to stand up like Justice Antonin Scalia and declare what side you are on.
“I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy,”
“Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court,”
“This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.”
– Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
It’s a shame when a Supreme Court Justice stands more boldly than preachers.
Bruce Goddard
Pastor
Faith Baptist Church
Wildomar, CA