Axe to the Root with Bojidar Marinov | Reconstructionist Radio Reformed Network

Welcome to Episode 37 of Axe to the Root Podcast, part of the War Room Productions, I am Bo Marinov, and for the next 20 minutes we will be talking about an institution established by the law of God in Ancient Israel: the concubinage. When I say “institution,” of course, I mean it in the broader sense, as a cultural norm and legal practice, not as some official bureaucratic system. We will take a look at the nature of the concubinage, and also at the purpose of it. In the process, we will have to look also at the broader ethical context within which it has been instituted; and especially, at why it had to be instituted in the first place. We will also look at the lessons the concubinage teaches us about the influence of the Gospel in history. Thus, we will see in this particular institution of the Law of God the glory of the goodness of the Father contrasted to the wickedness of men, we will see the meaning of the redemption, and the power of the Holy Spirit in changing culture and history.

Every now and then, in the ongoing debates between Christians and atheists, some village atheist who runs out of arguments resorts to the old slogan of, “The Bible allows men to take women as sex slaves!” And then they point to the institution of concubinage in the Law of God. Now, purely pragmatically, I don’t know why atheists keep using this argument; I have never seen one Christian persuaded by such argument to become an atheist. If there is an argument that has proven to be a failure, it is this one: a person has to already have made up his mind in order to accept it as valid. I would guess, there are other factors involved for the use of this argument. Perhaps it is the personal dreams and fantasies of some atheists, which they project onto the Bible. Or something else, who knows. The bad part, though, is not that atheists use such argument – after all, atheists are such an insignificant portion of the world’s population that hardly anything they say or do is statistically significant. The bad part – and that’s what statistically and culturally significant – is that Christians don’t know what to answer. And because they don’t know what to answer, the position of their opponents wins by default when it comes to cultural and legislative influence. Why can’t Christians answer such an argument? Because they don’t think covenantally, that is, they don’t think in terms of ethical/judicial standards, in terms of the law of God. They don’t know what the Law of God says on such issues, and they remain silent when someone else re-interprets the Law of God against them. They allow their enemies to re-define the terms for them; and they allow their enemies to choose the battlefield for them. Christians have the greatest God with the greatest and most comprehensive and consistent and coherent worldview and ideology of knowledge, thought and action; but because they are ignorant of that worldview and of the Word of their God, they are pushed around. The largest religious group in the world, with the richest resources and infrastructure at their disposal, is pushed around by a vociferous tiny minority and silenced into submission. Not because of the power of that minority, but because of the ignorance of Christians. I have talked in previous episodes of the reasons for this powerlessness of Christians. We will talk about how to deal with it in future episodes.

Of course, since the terms are decided not by the Christian majority in America but by their enemies, the meaning of the term “concubine” is decided by the unbelievers. And in the commonly accepted meaning of the word “concubine,” the word means a woman who lives with a man without being his legal wife. Usually this is because there is some legal impediment to their marriage. One reason would be their social status: if they are from different castes or different social groups and marriage between these groups were banned. Such was the case with many white men in the American South who took black women as concubines, because the law forbade legal marriage between whites and blacks. (But it didn’t forbid fornication between them. So much for the allegedly Christian culture in the South.) Another reason would be the legal ban on marriage for certain groups: for example, the Roman Catholic clergy has had the practice of taking concubines ever since celibacy was legislated and enforced. Another meaning of the word would be closer to the atheist imagination of a sex slave. It was an established practice in many pagan cultures (like China, India, the Muslim world) for men of authority to have a harem of concubines whose purpose was strictly sexual satisfaction of their master. In Islam, the very ultimate promise for the faithful is a personal harem of 72 sexual slaves per man forever. So because the terms are already defined by someone else, and Christians – and especially their leaders – do so little to redefine them, in the final account, the terms are used against them. “See, the Bible speaks about the legitimacy of the concubinage, it must be because the Bible approves of a man taking sex slaves for himself.”

The Biblical meaning of the word “concubine,” however, has nothing to do with the modern meanings. And it has nothing to do with fornication, or illegal cohabitation, or with sexual exploitation of helpless girls. After all, in the Bible, it was the father of the girl who gave his girl away to be a concubine; why would a father sell his daughter to be a sex slave? A concubine was a legal wife, with all the rights of a legal wife, without some privileges. But before we move to learning about the nature of the concubinage, and the differences between a wife and a concubine, we need to first understand the difference between the legal status and the economic status of a person in the society. Without understanding that difference, we won’t be able to understand how a concubine was a legal wife, and yet, at the same time, a second-rate wife. And we won’t be able to understand how the institution of the concubinage was meant to protect women, not to debase them.

In short, in any society, a person is always viewed through the lens of two different value systems. One system is legal, and it assesses a person in relation to the ethical and judicial boundaries in the society. That is, what things are banned, what things are allowed. What is considered good and acceptable for him and what is considered evil and unacceptable. What are his rights and responsibilities in relation to other people. The other system is economic, and it assesses a person in relation to the assets and liabilities in a society. That is, how much control he has of them, and how much he can afford to consume, or invest, or waste. What is affordable for him and what is not affordable. What are his opportunities in relation to other people. There is no dichotomy between the systems, neither is there contradiction within the context of the Dominion Covenant. One system denotes ethical boundaries; the other system denotes productive purpose. The two value systems are summarized as one task in the first specific mandate given to mankind in Gen. 2:15: Adam was placed in the Garden to work and to protect. That is, capitalize righteousness and keep wickedness out.

To put it in another way, our legal status denotes our rights. Our economic status denotes our privileges. That’s why we say we are all equal before the Law but we are all unequal on the market. The lack of understanding – or the perversion – of this basic principle of justice is what fuels modern statism. Modern statism in all its forms is based on an ethical system that conflates economic and legal status. One form of statism – socialism – wants to turn the economic privileges of wealthy people into legal rights for all people. Another form of statism – fascism, or crony capitalism – wants to turn the economic privileges of a small group into legal power for that same group. The two forms are not so opposed to each other, as some imagine, they are the same form, but we will talk about this in more detail in a future episode.

Under the Law of God, a wife in marriage had both full legal and full economic status. Her full legal status established her rights to have the basic things a wife is entitled to: food, clothing, and marital relations, with the last leading to children, who were her main inheritance. That legal status came by default, by the very act of marriage, it was not granted to her. These rights were so basic, she could walk out of the marriage if she was not given these three by her husband, and have no obligations to him whatsoever. This would be a serious economic setback for the husband, for under the Law, he was expected to pay a bride price for her. His wife walking out of the marriage meant he lost the bride price, and if he wanted to take another wife, he would have to pay it again. On the other hand, her full economic status established her privileges of being a ruler of her husband’s house, over his economic resources. The Proverbs 31 woman is such a wife: she manages her husband’s household while he is in the city gates. Such rulership over his house is not a “delegated” authority, as in the ideology of modern patriarchalism; she has it by default, whether her husband likes it or not. Contrary to what modern patriarchalists believe, a woman is supposed to tell her husband what to do in the home. It’s her job under the Dominion Mandate. (As R.J. Rushdoony commented on Genesis 3, Eve’s sin was not that she told Adam what to eat; it was her job. Her sin was that she told him the wrong thing.) The foundation for this economic power and privilege of the wife was her dowry. The bridegroom paid the bride price; the father returned the bride price as a dowry for his daughter, and perhaps also added some of his own assets. Thus, a wife entered marriage having personal ownership over part of her husband’s money (the brideprice) plus over her own. In a normal situation, therefore, she would be richer in resources than her husband – which may be the reason why Genesis 2:24 speaks of the man cleaving to his wife rather than the other way around. Being richer than him, plus being a wife of full rights and privileges, she had authority of her own under God.

A concubine, on the other hand, was a woman for whom the bride price was paid, but her father did not return it as a dowry with her. In marriage, she acquired the legal status of a wife: the Law of God did not legalize sexual relations without such legal status. Having the legal status of a wife, a concubine was entitled to all the rights a wife had: she was entitled to food, clothing, and conjugal relations. If she was not provided these things by her husband, she could walk out of the marriage with no guilt, and her father didn’t have to restore the bride price to her husband (Ex. 21:7-11). Her husband’s refusal to care for her was a sufficient reason for divorce and she was free. In terms of her economic status, however, the situation was different. She entered marriage without money, and therefore she had no economic or financial claim on the family. To put it in Biblical terms, she was without inheritance. While her rights were protected, she was not given any privileges. Economically she was no different than a dependent in the family, or a servant. She was free, of course, to work with her hands and accumulate her own assets; but she had no power over the economic dealings of her husband’s property, except where he delegated responsibility to her. (This is one of my disagreements with modern patriarchalism; by making the authority of the wife dependent on her husband’s delegation of authority, patriarchalists demote modern wives to the position of concubines.) Her children were her inheritance, and, as in the example of Hagar, if the concubine left, her children left with her, and they provided for their mother, not having inheritance in the house of their father. Notice, for example, in Judges 9, Abimelech, the son of Gideon’s concubine, considered his mother’s family as his relatives, not his father’s family. Legally, because of the marriage covenant, she was a wife of full rights. Economically, because of her lack of inheritance, she was a servant with no privileges. Thus, Jacob’s wives were given to him as concubines (Gen. 31:14-16). Ruth the Moabite, on the other hand, entered her marriage as a full wife, with her inheritance (Ruth 4:5).

There was also a special case of a concubine, that of the war bride; the case in which a soldier in an occupying army takes a woman from the defeated nation. This case is special because while technically, the woman was a concubine – she entered marriage without a dowry – the law did not allow the man to treat her as a concubine; the text specifically says that he should be her husband and she his wife. Thus, a captive woman from a defeated nation had the opportunity to escape the devastation of her native country by becoming a wife of full rights and full privileges. He could not sell her for money; she was not his slave or servant. The reason for this privilege was, according to the Biblical text, that he “humbled” or “afflicted” her. The Law of God provided special protection for non-combatants from defeated nations (of which we will talk in a future episode); and a war bride had special privileges. She had inheritance in Israel, in the house of her husband, without bringing in any dowry of her own.

A war bride who married a Hebrew soldier achieved full legal rights and full economic privileges, her children had the right to inheritance, and in case of divorce, she was a free woman with the right to re-marry. Of course, that came with a cost: her male relatives and her home were destroyed in the war. A Hebrew concubine without a dowry had only the legal protection in marriage but not the economic privileges of a wife. Biblical symbolism is outside the scope of our study here, but, shortly, in a way, we can see in these cases a picture of Israel and the Church; Israel being the concubine who had no inheritance but was adopted by God (remember, Paul compares Israel to Hagar the slave wife, Gal. 4:24-25); and the Church who was Jesus’s war trophy, his foreign bride which He acquired and led in captivity to His home to make her His wife of full right and full privilege; as Paul in Ephesians 4:8 quotes from Psalm 68:18, “As He ascended on high, He led many captives in captivity, and gave gifts to men.” (The original verse, by the way, says the opposite, that He received gifts from men; but why Paul misquoted that verse is another topic altogether.) Whatever conclusions we can draw about Biblical symbolism, however, one thing is clear: contrary to the fantasies and the dreams of our atheist detractors, the Law of God does not condone sexual slavery. The Biblical concubine was a legal wife, and she all the rights of a legal wife. She didn’t have the economic privileges of a wife, but as far as her person was concerned,, she was a full-fledged member of the society, and she could leave an abusive marriage without any guilt or scorn or stygma on her.

In the New Testament, of course, the institution of the concubinage was abolished, together with a number of other institutions pertaining to the application of the law to OT Israel – like no-fault divorce, the Jubilee re-distribution of land, etc. There are no second-rate wives in the New Testament; women are co-heirs with men, and therefore taking a wife means that she is automatically the ruler of the man’s house irrespective of the differences in their economic status. Monogamy was restored as the original principle, and with monogamy, the perpetuity of marriage was restored as well. (Mark 10:6 makes no sense in the context of polygamy.) A wife in the New Testament has full economic and legal status, irrespective of her economic and legal status before the marriage. Sometimes this creates conflict with existing customs in pagan societies where missionaries are sent to work. While Christian missionaries are supposed to honor those existing social customs on the mission field with the purpose of smooth transition and protection, they are still obligated to teach the Biblical ideal.

One reason for the abolition of the concubinage is that it had a revelatory function; it pointed to the status of Israel and the Church, and taught the covenant people a lesson about their true legal standing before God: having rights in His covenant but not privileges, until the Son conquers His enemies and takes His Church as His war bride. So now that these truths have been revealed in Christ, there is no reason for the existence of the shadow that pointed to the light. So the institution is abolished. But the more important question for us is not why it was abolished; we all somehow feel in our hearts that a woman must have the full status of a wife when she enters marriage. The more important question is, besides teaching the ancient Israelites a lesson about the covenantal status of Israel and the Church, why did God have to institute a second-rate status for girls of poor families? Couldn’t He institute equality, as under the New Covenant?

The answer to this question is this: God tied the hands of men in order to provide for women. And that because of the hardness of the hearts of the men before the Cross.

We in our day often have hard time understanding the redemption which the Gospel of Jesus Christ brought to this world. We tend to read the Bible and imagine that the world was pretty much the same place as today, and that people were pretty much the same people as today. Every now and them we will encounter a story about exquisite cruelty in the ancient world and we would shiver at the thought of it, but we normally think that the people back then perhaps had the same revulsion towards cruelty; and probably had the same moral conscience as today. The truth is, however, the world before Christ knew very little of empathy, compassion, love, care, respect, and all these other good things we have today which keep our society together. Men could inflict pain and never think of it as anything wrong. Roman women used to torture their female slaves for entertainment; these same Roman women sat in the Coliseum with their men and their children while Christian men and women were raped by soldiers and torn by wild beasts in the arena. Centuries before them the Assyrians – the heirs of the same people of Nineveh who were saved by Jonah’s preaching – used to flay or burn alive thousands of prisoners as part of their military routine. The hearts of men were so hard, we can hardly imagine anything close to it today; so much has our world been changed by the Gospel. When we hear of much lesser atrocities in our own day, we wonder what kind of a person can have such cruel heart; in the ancient world; such were everyday occurrence. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the world after the Cross has done a miracle to the world, and we seldom realize it.

In such a world, a girl in a lower economic status could hardly rely on the empathy of the men in the society, even in Israel. Not having any money to bring into marriage, she would hardly be attractive for any suitors. The result would be that such a girl would run a very low chance of marrying and having children, who would be her only inheritance. A girl would be vulnerable to abuse in such a position; she is a second-rate person anyway because of her economic status; being left alone without a husband and with elderly parents would be a life of nightmare for her. To provide for such girls in a world where hardness of heart was common, God gave a law which acknowledged the lower status of such girls, but built walls of protection around them. A man could take such girl for his wife now without granting her economic privileges; but he was obligated to provide for her basic rights. He had a certain minimum he had to meet: he couldn’t leave her starving, or naked, or without children. On the other hand, there was no ceiling on what privileges he could bestow on her; he could make her a full status wife with all the privileges a wife has. Leah was given to Jacob as a concubine, without inheritance, and she wasn’t his favorite wife; and yet, at the very end of his life, in Gen. 49:31, Jacob asked to be buried with her in the same place where Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah, and Isaac was buried with his wife Rebekah; indicating that in the final account, Leah who has never had his favor, was now to him what Sarah was to Abraham and what Rebekah was to Isaac. The law established a bottom limit of legal treatment, and no limit on mercy. Mercy to the weakest members of the society, in a world of zero empathy and compassion; that’s what God’s Law was about.

This brings us to the modern application. Obviously, concubinage is abolished in the New Covenant economy. But the moral and judicial principle behind it is still in force. And that moral and judicial principle is that for Biblical justice to be complete in a society, we can’t rely on a mechanical ideology of equality before the Law. The Law of God established and protected rights as part of its system of justice, but in the process, it also acknowledged and guarded against hardness of hearts. To do that, it acknowledged the weakness and the vulnerability of certain individuals and groups in the society. And since in an imperfect world powerful and more privileged individuals will always be tempted to use their power and privilege to oppress, the Law established special boundaries around the weaker members of the society. Thus, part of our work in restoring Christendom is to identify in our society those groups and individuals who for one reason or another are in a weaker position, and make sure we establish boundaries of protection. But this will be a topic for future episodes.

The reading I will assign for this week is three chapters from Gary North’s economic commentary on Exodus, Authority and Dominion, part of his economic commentary on the Bible. Now, don’t rejoice too much that I am giving only three chapters of a book, those are long chapters. The chapters are the following: From volume 3 of Authority and Dominion, chapter 31, “Servitude, Protection, and Marriage,” and chapter 32, “Wives and Concubines.” From volume 4, chapter 48, “Oppression, Omniscience, and Judgment.” Read them carefully, you won’t find such detailed exposition of Biblical Law in too many places around.

And, as usual, I will ask y’all to consider Bulgarian Reformation Ministries; a mission in Eastern Europe that has proven effective in bringing the comprehensive message of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to Bulgaria, through translating and publishing of books, media presence, helping and encouraging Christian homeschoolers and entrepreneurs, working among the minorities, and social activism. Visit Bulgarian Reformation.com, subscribe to our newsletter, and Donate. God bless you all.

Welcome to Episode 36 of Axe to the Root Podcast, part of the War Room Productions, I am Bo Marinov, and for the next 20 minutes we will be talking about a topic that has been very popular in our modern day: Immigration. It has become popular in the last 20 years. Until 20 years ago, the only two groups in America who were concerned about the issue of immigration were the trade unions and a few Democrat politicians. Oh, and also, the Marxist propagandists among the Hispanics who were already here. It would be good to remember that the first vigilante patrols on the border with Mexico were organized by Cesar Chavez and his Marxist goons; they tracked Mexican immigrants (legal or illegal) and beat them up, forcing them to go back to Mexico. This was at the time when Texas ranchers worked to keep the border open and helped their Mexican workers get legal papers in the US. In the 1980s it was Ronald Reagan who called for open borders and amnesty, and was blocked by an alliance of liberal Republicans and Democrats – although, the amnesty did pass, somewhat. In 1995, it was Harry Reid who called for building a wall on the border and for closing the borders. For most of the history of the US, ordinary working Americans didn’t care about immigration one way or another – except that immigration proved to them the superiority of the American way of life, people from all over the world wanted to be Americans. Thus, it was always welcomed; for ordinary working Americans remembered that they were all immigrants. In fact, for most of its history the US didn’t have any immigration controls; the Constitution did not grant this prerogative to the federal government. The feds were allowed to control naturalization, not immigration. The first law regulating and restricting immigration appeared in 1921. Even then, Texas refused to comply for another 30+ years, and kept its border open. It wasn’t until the 1950s when President Eisenhower used troops returning from Europe to force Texas into compliance, in the so-called Operation Wetback. In that Operation, multiple farms in Texas were raided, people were murdered, thousands of Hispanics – most of whom were born in the US – were rounded up and taken to the Sonora Desert in Mexico and left there; as a result, many died. Immigration restrictions in the US have a history of murder and robbery by the government that many Christians today don’t know about.

It was in the 1990s when socialists in government changed the tactics and expanded their anti-immigration rhetoric to reach the majority of Americans and specifically Christians and conservatives in general. It was part of the same campaign whose goal was to replace what was conservative American values with the agenda of socialism, but this time under conservative disguise; that same agenda that included foreign wars and a militarized police state. In the late 1990s, conservative organizations and pundits like Ann Coulter and the John Birch Society criticized immigration restrictions and the police state (in the Elian Gonzalez case) and Bill Clinton’s warmongering and nation-building around the world. (In fact, one of George W. Bush’s political platform points was no nation-building and the return of US troops home.) Within just a few years, both Coulter and the John Birch Society, plus almost everyone else within conservative and even Christian circles was rooting for wars and police state, and for Harry Reid’s idea to build a border wall. It took about 5 years to convert conservatives to what used to be a socialist agenda, on all its points, including immigration. Today, all conservatives and Christians think and speak on immigration as Democrat politicians and union bosses of 20 years ago, and as Cesar Chaves 50 years ago.

A few years ago I delivered a series of three lectures on immigration from a Biblical perspective. The specific occasion was the so-called Honduran children crisis, where thousands of Honduran children were dropped by their parents at the care of smugglers, with the hope of being able to get into the United States and have a better life than in their poverty-torn country. The real ethical/judicial problem, of course, was not immigration but how to organize care for these children. Most American conservatives and Christians, however, saw in this an immigration conspiracy against the United States, and called for deportation of the children. (Keep in mind, no one even knew who and where their parents were; so basically it was a call for virtually leaving these children to die.) The Honduran children were made into another scare campaign, with conservative pundits everywhere predicting the imminent demise of America within a few years if these children are allowed on American soil. Well, it is several years later, and like any other scare, this one was forgotten. Whatever nefarious and destructive purposes these Honduran children may have had in their minds, have been thwarted.

In my lectures, I showed the Biblical view of immigration, the history of immigration laws in Christendom, and gave an analysis of the situation with the immigration laws today. To make a long story short, the Biblical view of immigration is that the government should not be involved in controlling the movement of non-criminal individuals. People should be free to cross any borders and settle and do business and get hired and hire anywhere they desire, as long as they do not commit crimes. Criminals should be dealt with the same way, whether they are homeborn or foreigners. (Not deport foreign criminals.) The line should be drawn at the voting booth: migration is a right, voting is a privilege. Thus, the Biblical system is open borders and limited political franchise.

The response to the lectures was unexpectedly positive by many Reformed Christians; there was pushback as well. I didn’t expect any positive response to start with, so it was OK. But in the pushback, there was one recurring theme present, or, rather, one blind spot revealed in the thinking of all those who today have adopted the socialist view of immigration controls. This blind spot – shared by almost all defenders of immigration controls – is the executive power of the state. Somehow, when defending immigration controls, all of them miss the whole picture: that immigration control and regulations are not an abstract concept without any institutional embodiment. Behind all such concepts, there is the institutional implementation. Or, rather, every time we come up with some principle for civil legislation or action, we need to remember that the principle comes with its own institutional implementation. If we don’t want to speak in abstract, we need to consider the whole picture: principle plus implementation. If we don’t want to be surprised by the results, we need to consider the whole picture: principle plus implementation.

I talked briefly about this necessity in my two lectures at the Law and Liberty Conference several years ago, organized by Chalcedon. When we go to the Law, we don’t just want to know what the Law says. We also want to know to whom it says it. If the Law says we need to take care of the poor, it is of utmost importance to also know who it is, what institution it is that is commanded to take care of the poor. Because if we pick the wrong institution – not the one the Law prescribes for the action – we will end up in socialism, and the final result will be not care for the poor but making everyone poor. We can’t separate the abstract meaning of the Law from its institutional implementation. This principle also needs to be kept in mind when we consider modern legislation and government practices. For every law we insist to see enforced, there is an institution that will enforce it; and if we don’t take in account the nature and the goals of that institution, we will end up surprised. This has already happened in the area of education; American conservatives wanted free government education, they got it. We now discover that free government education comes with government educators and educational bureaucrats, whose agenda is destructive to everything we believe; and, as an additional bonus, we get an increasing tax burden, because, free education translated into real-world terms means school districts as a taxing authority of unlimited power. And guess what, if you don’t pay up, you can lose your house.

The same ignorance of real-world implementation, of institutional embodiment is seen in the immigration debate. For most – if not all – defenders of immigration restrictions and control, these immigration restrictions are some abstract reality out there, and if “we just obey the law,” there would be no problems, and everything will be alright. What is always missed is that behind these abstract immigration laws they want to see enforced, there is an institutional arrangement, and that that institutional arrangement is just as destructive to America as are the government schools. And certainly more destructive to America than any threat open borders could involve. That institutional arrangement is the same executive state of which I have talked before. The same executive state which is characteristic of pagan societies, because the Law of God does not allow the civil government to control non-criminal individuals, whether homeborn or foreigners. And every time we insist that these immigration laws are enforced, all we are insisting is that more power is given to the Federal government to control people. We imagine that it is to control only foreigners, but the real purpose of these laws is control over us, the US citizens.

Let’s take one of the most common objections of many Christians and conservatives in general against the idea of open borders (which, by the way, is the original constitutional arrangement of the US): “We can’t have open borders with a welfare state. We need to keep the borders closed until we remove the welfare state, and only then open the borders.” Taken in its abstract form, this proposition makes perfect sense; many immigrants come here only for the welfare, so let’s limit immigration by law, meanwhile work to abolish the welfare state, and then finally, we can open the borders and have only those who would come here to work. In a world of idealized theorizing, this theory is quite convincing. Let’s have a process of sifting visitors and immigrants, until we deal with the problem.

The problem comes when we connect the theory to the real world. Who do you think profits the most from the welfare state? Federal bureaucrats of the executive branch. Thus, who do you think is your real enemy in the war against the welfare state? Federal bureaucrats of the executive branch. And now, listen carefully. Who do you think, according to the immigration law, controls the admission of immigrants? Yes, you got it. Federal bureaucrats of the executive branch. So, what is the logic of trusting the same enemies whom you are fighting politically over the welfare state, to provide an administrative defense of your fight against the welfare state? In whose favor do you think they will tilt their decisions when they admit immigrants, in your favor or in favor of their own political agenda?

I have asked this question hundreds of times. I have never gotten an answer from those who use this argument. And yet, they continue repeating the same abstract mantra. Somehow, for most Christians and conservatives in general, the practical application of their abstract ideas has no value whatsoever. The real world doesn’t matter.

And, of course, we can add another practical argument here: What exactly are you protecting when protecting welfare money from immigrants? Is that money yours to use? It is stolen money, and you are not getting it back. By protecting that money, aren’t you protecting and perpetuating the very welfare state that you want to fight? Isn’t it better to let more people hang on it so that it collapses under its own weight? Why are you so concerned about the solvency of the very thief you claim to resist? If you are so concerned about that money, then you don’t really believe that money was stolen from you, you see that money as still belonging to you in some way, and therefore you are simply legitimizing the very system you want to fight.

We can file under the same heading of “abstract nonsense” another argument: “I am not against legal immigration, only against illegal immigration.” Again, the abstract logic seems to hold water perfectly well: rule of law, you know, thus, those who break the law are not welcome. But if you are legal, you are OK.

Well, er, what do you think the difference is between legal and illegal? For most people, there is some kind of abstract law somewhere, and immigrants are defined “legal” or “illegal” according to that abstract law. Not in the real world. According to the Immigration and Nationality Act currently in force, all final decisions about immigration or non-immigration travel are made by two top-level bureaucrats of the Federal executive branch: the Secretary of State and the Attorney General. Of course, in the real world, these two are not going to be reviewing every single case before they decide. In reality, it is low level bureaucrats in the consulates or in some office in the US who make the decisions. In the case of immigrants, they have to be persuaded that the applicant is not going to be a burden to the society. How is that done objectively? In the case of non-immigrant travel, the consular worker must be persuaded that the applicant is not a potential immigrant. How is this done objectively? Other than direct information of committed crimes or terrorist activity (which applies to less than one-tenth of a percent of all applicants), there are no objective rules by which that low-level bureaucrat is expected to operate. His decisions are entirely arbitrary. It is on these arbitrary decisions that the difference between “legal” and “illegal” hangs on. And when you hear a Christian or a conservative say that he is all for legal but not for illegal immigration, he is actually saying, “I am all for trusting the subjective decisions of low-level unelected bureaucrats.”

This also brings us to another argument, concerning the recent issues about amnesty, and the conservative outcry against Obama who supposedly wanted to enforce amnesty for illegal immigrants. Now, I said “supposedly,” because the facts of the real world show that Obama is actually the President who deported more illegal aliens than all the 19 presidents before him (taking the whole 20th century), taken together. Between 2.5 and 3 million people were deported under Obama. But let’s suppose that he does really want to enforce amnesty. The conservative cry is, “Obey the law, no amnesty.” So, in that idealized view, the law has objective standards, and amnesty is some kind of perversion or violation of the law.

But in the real world, the Immigration and Nationality Act currently in force actually gives the executive branch that legal power of amnesty. There is no limitation on the executive branch as to who and how and why would be amnestied and allowed to stay. Any applicant can apply and re-apply. And the decision in the hands of the bureaucrats. They can amnesty each one according to the same law that conservatives wan to be obeyed. When they cry “Obey the law,” their real cry is, “Use your power according to that law, including the power to amnesty.”

And yet, when I mention this detail of the real world, nothing changes in their views. Obviously, abstract ideas trump practical understanding of reality. And then conservatives love to tell you how impractical and schizophrenic liberals are.

Another argument is that, why do they have to come here illegally, why not just apply and wait until their turn is come? Again, as an abstract argument this seems quite reasonable. Because abstractly, the laws do not stop anyone from applying, they just establish some sort of a legal order for the process of application and approval. Just like getting a driver’s license: you can apply, there’s just a procedure how you are gonna get that driver’s license.

In reality however, the Immigration and Nationality Act is not about an administrative procedure, like a driver’s license. The Act is discriminational. It declares the eligibility of certain people for applying for immigrant status, and it excludes the vast majority of potential immigrants from even applying. This is the very introductory text to the main body of the Act in the very first text of Chapter 1:

Exclusive of aliens described in subsection (b), aliens born in a foreign state or dependent area who may be issued immigrant visas or who may otherwise acquire the status of an alien lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence are limited to–

and then it describes three or four specific classes: family-sponsored, employment-based, and diversity-visa lottery. And then, a little later, people seeking assylum. Which means, an industrious, entrepreneurial individual who has no relation in the US, and doesn’t live in a war-area, but wants to immigrate and work and become a loyal contributor to the American society and economy (and perhaps also a loyal citizen), is by default banned from even applying. In many situations, such individuals are also banned from traveling to the US to establish contacts and relations, under the heading of “potential immigrant.” And how do the bureaucrats in the consulates determine who is a “potential immigrant”? Hold on to your chair: Because he has a high chance of being hired in the US. Yes, you heard it. I know of many such examples. In one of them, a real example, an American man of means with an office of his company in Moscow invites his female secretary to the US with the intention to marry her. She speaks several languages, has degrees in banking and business administration, and is young and pretty. The US consulate in Moscow refuses her a visa – even to travel. When he calls them to find out why, the answer of the consular worker is, “She is young, pretty, smart, educated, and she knows English, I can’t let her go. She is a potential immigrant.” Apparently, the policy of the State Department is to keep America old, ugly, stupid, and uneducated. There are a number of such bright individuals out there who want to immigrate and contribute to America, but the immigration laws in the US exclude them from applying. Ironically, it is only when someone is already here illegally, that they can apply for a change in status, and then everything depends on the arbitrary decision of a low-level bureaucrat. And these arbitrary decisions seldom have anything to do with morality or with the American interests. Several years ago, a young British scientist was deported because a government bureaucrat refused to grant him a visa; the young man had graduated from an American university and had gotten a job with a company. He applied for a work visa, which was rejected because the bureaucrat couldn’t see a reason for the company to hire a Brit over an American. In another case, a young woman who was born in the US to legal immigrants was scheduled for deportation, because many years ago her parents failed to complete some document required by the immigration authorities. She knows only English, she had graduated from an American school and then an American university, she had gotten a job – she is an American through and through, and yet, she would be deported to a country where she has never been before, because of some obscure paper many years ago. This is how immigration laws work in the real world.

And how about that other argument, that the Federal government can easily round up and deport all illegal aliens? Again, as an abstract proposition, it makes perfect sense, why not? The question is, How would Federal agents practically know legal from illegal? And then, even worse, how would they know a citizen from non-citizen? No US citizen is obligated by law to carry a proof that he is a US citizen. The only way for such an action to be possible in the real world is if US citizens are obligated to carry some sort of a federal ID, which means National ID. And, guess what, anti-immigration politicians have been trying to push National ID on the American people for over 20 years now. Perhaps there is a connection here, in the real world of applied legislation?

And on, and on, and on. All the arguments for immigration controls are of the same sort: foolish, unrealistic, and abstract. All of them miss the practical reality of the nature of government and the nature of its institutions. All of them, when applied in practice, lead to worse problems. All of them, when taken to their logical conclusions, will in practice lead to the enslavement of the American society under the jackboot of the Federal government.

Deep behind that folly, of course, is a covenantal issue; it is an issue of lack of understanding concerning the Biblical view of government, and the nature of modern government. Biblical government is only judiciary: courts which are activated only when there is a crime committed or where there is a dispute to be resolved. Biblical government doesn’t control non-criminal individuals, whether they are homeborn or foreigners. (Remember, One law is there to be for the homeborn and the stranger, Ex. 12:49.) At the other end, a pagan government is always executive: an all-encompassing state which controls everyone for the purposes of a small elite of social engineers. That small elite decides where a person can live or not live, where he will work or not work, and where he will travel or not travel. The hope of the supporters of pagan government is that the government will always use its executive power against other groups. The truth is, the government always ends up using its executive power against them. And it is there where the folly of modern American Christians and conservatives is – they believe that they can trick God against His Law. But God is not tricked; and neither is He mocked. And the more Christians and conservatives root for un-Biblical laws on immigration, the deeper under tyranny they will fall.

The assigned reading this week will be not reading but audio lectures on the Biblical view of immigration: Bojidar Marinov, Biblical immigration series on YouTube. In these lectures, I cover these three topics: Immigration and the Sabbath (or, what the Bible says about immigration and the stranger), a history of the immigration laws in the US and the West (or, how we went from a Christian policy to an anti-Christian policy), and a logical and theological analysis of the modern anti-immigration arguments.

And again, my appeal to you, following our last episode about missions, is to consider supporting a mission that has proven effective in bringing a comprehensive Gospel to the mission field. Visit BulgarianReformation.com. Subscribe to the newsletter, and Donate. And God bless you all.

Welcome to Episode 35 of Axe to the Root Podcast, part of the War Room Productions, I am Bo Marinov, and for the next 20 minutes we will be talking about my most favorite topic. Well, of course, most favorite, relatively. The most favorite topic of every Christian should be the Kingdom of God, for it is the topic of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. For it is this Kingdom that we are supposed to earnestly seek, and talk about, and work for, every single day and minute of our lives. But that topic of the Kingdom of God is quite large – in fact, it encompasses the whole world (and its surroundings, as my father would say) – and within that gigantic and comprehensive topic, there are thousands of smaller topics, and each one of us is given different talents, and different abilities, and different levels of courage (or ignorance of danger, which often passes for courage), and therefore are given some topics that are their favorite.

My favorite topic? Missions. Remember, in the very beginning of the Axe to the Root Podcast, in the introductory episode, I mentioned that while I in this podcast I try to lay the axe of covenantal thinking to different issues of life and thought and action in modern America and in the world, in the final account, missions is where my heart is. Specifically, missions in Eastern Europe, but also missions in any other part of the world. I also mentioned a few times that I have certain criticisms against the currently prevalent model for missions, and that it needs to be changed – or, reconstructed, if you like. It is not the Biblical model, and worse than that, it is not even based on the Biblical worldview, and it produces results that are not just poor, they are actively harmful to the purpose of missions.

I was asked this question by a listener of Axe to the Root: “So, what is your philosophy of missions? How is your view of missions different? How do you go about doing missions in Eastern Europe, and why is what you are doing better than what the American mission organizations have been doing so far?” Good questions. Not only good in themselves, but also good for our present purposes, for if I am asking my listeners to support Bulgarian Reformation Ministries, I should explain what makes us different. They are also good questions in a strategic sense, because as the church goes, so do its missions. And if the American church today deserves an axe to its root, so do its missions. And its philosophy of missions, as well. I have already written extensively and spoken extensively on these issues, and I have sermons on SermonAudio, articles on different websites and in different Christian magazines which many listeners might have read already. But I love talking about missions and how to do missions. So, you will have to bear with me for another 20 minutes.

Let me start with the obvious: the buck, and the bang for it. The numbers I will give you now are taken from several sources and of averaged out; the sources pretty much agree, with small differences. Some sources only cover the US, others cover Christianity in the whole world, so if somewhere the numbers don’t add up, it’s not because I can’t do math, it’s because the data is not always perfect.

We are talking about money here. As a whole, the money donated or spent on Christian causes around the world amount to about $660-670 billion. That looks like an awful lot, but it sounds real to me. Of this, around $280 billion is spent on churches – that would include everything from the Roman church in the Vatican, through the established state churches in some countries, to the Protestant denominations and non-denominational churches in the US and Canada. Another $450 billion is spent on non-church and para-church organizations. Now, it may look strange that much more money is spent on non-church activities but remember, this includes publishing, education (Christian schools and universities), media, charity organizations, etc., so it is only logical that more money would go into that. All this excludes missions, home and foreign. When it comes to missions, between $20 and 25 billion is spent on home missions, that is, missions within the so-called “evangelized” nations, that is, the nations where more than half of the population claims to be Christian, whether they are really saved or not. The US and Canada would fall into this category, most of Western Europe, and most of Latin America. Finally, between $2.5 and $3 billion dollars a year is spent on foreign missions, which, in the context of all above, means missions to still unevangelized countries (the majority of the people still don’t self-identify as Christians) or to unreached peoples. Of this $2.5 to $3 billion, about half billion goes to missions to the unreached, and the rest supports missions in nations that are reached but not evangelized. Examples: Eastern Europe, China, India, Africa, etc.

Now, some mission organizations use this data in a rather manipulative way, to send their subscribers on a guilt trip: “Look how much money is spent on maintaining the churches and the para-church organizations within the evangelized world – over $600 billion dollars – and how little is spent on foreign missions – no more than $3 billion.” As a missionary, I reject this guilt manipulation. The numbers are as they should be: This is not a guerrilla war, and in a strategic war you spend more resources on fixing your home base before you advance. So it is only logical that much more money will be spent on maintaining and growing Christianity at home. Now, whether that $600 billion dollars is really spent wisely for the results returned, is a different issue, and I have talked about it in previous episodes, like “Denethor Ministries.” It also logical that 10 times more money would be spent on home missions than on foreign missions. After all, a missionary in France or in the inner cities of Atlanta or Detroit will face higher expenses than a missionary in Bulgaria, or Uganda, or in the Amazon rainforest. And, as we will see, the $2.5 to 3 billion spent on foreign missions is plenty enough, no need to increase that giving. In all these cases, it is not the amount of money given that needs to be fixed, but the form and the output of work. And I will leave the other areas to other episodes, here I will talk about foreign missions.

When it comes to the $2.5 to $3 billion given to foreign missions, the lion share of that giving falls on the shoulders of the American church. Canada, Australia, South Korea, and the UK compete for a distant 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place – very, very, very distant. American Christians are very uniquely generous to their own missionaries – and to other missionaries as well. A good number of Australian and Canadian missions, while manned by non-US missionaries, are still funded with American money. Not only are American Christians generous in absolute numbers, they are generous in terms of per capita as well: The average American Christian donates to missions far more than the average Christian in any other industrialized nation. While there are many things for which the American church can and must be prophetically called to account, in terms of the individual commitment of the average American Christian to see the world evangelized – and open his wallet to this purpose – American Christians must be commended. As a missionary, I must say, there is no other nation on the planet where a missionary can call his listeners to donate, and see genuine understanding, compassion, and willingness in their eyes. That’s why when I am often asked, “You think God’s judgment on America is imminent?”, I reply, “Not yet. If He had planned to judge her, He would have given that willingness to donate to another nation. We still have plenty of time to turn things around.”

Given all this, it is safe to assume that the American church spends on missions about $2.5 billion every year. It may look insignificant compared to all the other expenditures of all churches in the world, but in reality, it is an enormous amount of money compared to the task. The American church supports a little over 50,000 full-time missionaries around the world, with an estimate of another 50,000 part-time mission workers; given that the majority of these missionaries are in Third World countries where the living standards are very low, this is a very generous support, and, as I said, God bless the American church for it. At the current price of gold, $2.5 billion is about 67 tons of gold – or two 18-wheelers’ net cargo weight of gold – spent on missions. While I don’t have the exact data of the cost of missions before 1900, it is reasonable to accept that the whole church didn’t spend that much – what only the American church spends in a year – on missions between AD 30 and AD 1900. We have been extremely blessed, and we have served as a blessing, and that’s good.

But this is where the good news end.

For despite all this money we have spent on missions in the last decades, we have no bang to show for the buck. The results are, at best, meager. That is, if we have any results at all. Missionaries in the past have converted whole nations on a shoestring budget. Some missionaries even went to their mission fields as servants, or worked with their own hands to provide for themselves some meager existence while proclaiming the Gospel. Others spent years in jail, or were even tortured and executed. No, I am not saying that modern missionaries necessarily have to go through all this, persecutions in themselves do not warrant success; although, God does have persecutions in store for some modern missionaries, undoubtedly. But these missionaries in the past converted whole tribes and nations, without having all the wealth of our modern world. Forget about whole nations, out of 50,000 full-time missionaries around the world, we don’t even have a thousand examples of successfully developed missions that have impacted their cultures. We probably do have some in some marginal and peripheral tribes in some areas – in fact, I recently watched a movie about such a missionary to Papua New Guinea who changed several tribes from a culture of death and even cannibalism to a Christian culture. But these are rather exceptions. In the vast majority of cases – tens of thousands of them, missionaries don’t make any impact on the culture, and even where they are able of planting a church, that church later disintegrates when the missionary gets called back home. Presbyterians and Baptists and Methodists are notorious for their low rate of success on the mission field; Pentecostals and Charismatics are much better at planting churches, but their cultural influence seems to always lag behind, if it exists in the first place. In Europe, there are well-developed and established branches of American Presbyterian and Baptist mission organizations in almost every country. Despite the fact that they are very well-funded even for the European standards, such missions have had close to zero growth, let alone any cultural impact. In Eastern Europe, when the fall of Communism presented an unprecedented opportunity for missions, Presbyterians just failed to appear until almost 10 years after 1989, and then, their missions have been just lingering aimlessly and without results. Baptists and Charismatics did fill the gap early, and they they did some mass evangelism. There was some growth in the mid-90s which later reversed, because it failed to produce impact. As of now, Europe maintains its fame of being a “graveyard for missionaries.” Situation is a little better in the Muslim world, but then, it is not clear who can claim the merit for the increased number of conversions, the missionaries or the horrors of war. In short, we have next to nothing to show for the two truckloads of pure gold we have been burning on missions each year for the last several decades. Or, to put it another way, new converts on the mission field are becoming dearer and dearer to us with every year – really dearer – and there is no cultural impact whatsoever. Where there is growth of Christianity around the world – like in China – it can’t be connected in any meaningful way to American missions. But then again, the growth of Christianity in China has been only at the individualistic level; there is no change of culture yet, and no visible impact on the culture.

The obvious question here should be: why are American missionaries so unsuccessful in relation to the means they are provided with? Why are the results so meager? Why do we have missionaries who spend years in a field, and produce not more than one local church which later disintegrates? Granted, sometimes God may use our visible failures to produce success for His plan, but that is not always the case; and besides, our job is to plan for success, not to plan for failure and then find excuses in God’s secret plans. Which means we need to answer these questions. Why are we a failure? What needs to be changed to make us a success? And in the answers to these questions is where my philosophy of missions becomes clear; and also where the character of Bulgarian Reformation Ministries is seen.

Here’s the answer (ready?): Modern missions have abandoned the comprehensive message of the Gospel which addresses the whole man. That is, man, his individual faith and thinking, his individual ethics and conduct, but also man in his institutions and his culture, family, local community, civil government, economic and business practices, education, science, monetary policies and taxation, issues of liberty and justice. Put it another way, modern missions have abandoned the comprehensive Gospel of the Kingdom. Missionaries advertize their missions as “planting churches” and “converting souls” at home: this is what the home churches expect to hear. (Thus, the problem to a great extent is the American church itself.) When missionaries go to the mission field, this is what they focus on: converting souls and planting churches. Sometimes they speak about “discipleship,” but as I said in my article on ChristendomRestored.com, “The Empty Rhetoric of Making Disciples,” discipleship is simply a rhetorical buzzword, there is no Biblical difference between discipleship and conversion. The essence is all in the content of the message, not in the technique of delivering it. This is an important truth to remember, so I will repeat it: Changing the technique of delivering the message won’t help, if the message is truncated; changing the message will do the work. And more than that, changing the worldview of the message, from a truncated, individualistic, pietistic worldview of personal salvation and church planting to a comprehensive, kingdom-building message of addressing the whole culture in everything it believes, speaks, and does, will only do the work.

Modern missionaries are seldom trained to understand, and therefore seldom realize that the Gospel is comprehensive, it affects the whole culture, and therefore a society permeated by the Gospel will by necessity develop a different culture than a society that is not evangelized. It is like the personal moral character of a man who has been evangelized: evangelism is not simply changing formal intellectual propositions in a man’s head: evangelism means challenging his whole way of life and changing his whole way of life, until there is visible transformation in the life of a person. If a missionary doesn’t work towards that transformation of the personal life of his listeners, he is not really preaching the Gospel to them. The same with the culture in general: evangelism is not simply offering intellectual propositions to a culture, nor simply saving a few people out of it; it is challenging the whole way the culture lives and operates, and changing the whole way the culture lives and operates, until there is transformation in the life of the culture. If a missionary doesn’t work towards that transformation of the life of the culture, he is not really preaching the Gospel to that culture. And when he is not preaching the Gospel, he won’t have any results.

I have seen it in practice: when American missionaries hit the field, their automatic assumption is that everyone else is just like Americans, and that every culture is just like the American culture; it’s just the people need to “believe in Jesus.” They do not address the foundations of the culture: they either do not understand the religious character of these foundations or don’t care to address it. They do not understand why pagan nations have the family and business and education practices they have; they have no idea of how these practices are related to the prevalent religions in these cultures. They do not understand the religious foundation of government corruption and injustice. Etc., etc., etc. And because they do not understand them, they do not address them. And when they do not address them, they only address issues that are peripheral to the culture’s life. And the rule of evangelism – or any kind of public actions and speaking – is this: when you only address the periphery, you are relegated to the periphery. When missionaries in Europe, for example, are relegated to the periphery of the society and no one listens to them, it is only because their message has only touched the periphery of the European culture. When the message is an “axe to the root” message, hitting at the central issues of a culture, and the religion behind these issues, and offering the solutions of the Gospel, then only can a missionary gain hearing in a culture.

The people out there are not stupid. They have a comprehensive view of reality. And when a missionary comes with less than a comprehensive view of reality – and comprehensive solutions for problems – he is ignored. That’s how a “graveyard for missionaries” is formed – and the blame is on the missionaries.

This leads us to the philosophy of Bulgarian Reformation Ministries. In fact, to the philosophy of any and every mission effort in the future which will be successful in challenging the darkness and bringing the light of the Gospel to the nations. And the philosophy is simple: no holds barred. There is no topic in the society that is outside the scope of the Gospel. There is no headline in the newspapers that is outside the scope of the Gospel. There is no government policy, or educational practice, or business practice, or family issue, or a court verdict, or social action, that should escape his scrutiny and be safe from his judgment. Being a missionary is not a one single issue job; it is the job of a revolutionary, one who takes on the world and defeats it, in all its complexity.

But just speaking on issues in itself is not enough. That speaking must be God’s speaking; therefore, a missionary must have a comprehensive theology from beginning to end, whose ends are all tied to Jesus Christ and His Gospel. Whether he speaks on personal righteousness or social justice, his speaking must start with the presuppositions of the Bible and end with the conclusions of the Law of God, for every area of life. He can’t afford to be ignorant of the worldview of the Bible; and he can’t afford to compromise that view with the views of the world. He must go to the religious roots of everything he speaks on. If he speaks on taxation, he must know what religion and what religious presuppositions are behind it. If he speaks on science, the same thing applies: what religion is at the bottom of modern science? And so on, with all the other topics he must speak on. And when he exposes the religion at the bottom of all these elements and practices of a culture, his next job is to present how these elements and practices would change if the Gospel was at the bottom of all of them. “Here’s your current system. Here is the list of injustices and wrongs and desolation and destruction it produces. Here’s the religion and the religious presuppositions at the bottom of it; why you have this system and not something better and more just and more practical. And here’s what you can have if the Gospel was at the foundation of your thinking and action.” This tactics is called “pushing the antithesis.” If you haven’t heard of it, google Cornelius Van Til, and then Greg Bahnsen.

And finally, a missionary is supposed to replicate himself. Believe it or not, with all the seminaries we have today, and all the money that goes into them, and the high cost of seminary education, theologically trained missionaries are a rarity. I mean, trained in the applications of their theology. That’s an issue we will cover in a future episode, when we talk about seminaries. But if theologically trained missionaries are a rarity, then theologically trained local disciples are doubly so. Education has always been the Achilles’s heel of missions, the chief reason for the death of missions after the missionary has gone back home. A simple routine of attending church and listening to a sermon doesn’t constitute education. There has to be a concentrated effort of getting his listeners to read, learn, understand, and communicate on their own, with the same depth and the same vigor and aggressiveness as the missionary himself; and with the same laying the axe at the religious roots of the culture. The prophetic voice of the missionary must be multiplied in many prophetic voices of those who have converted to Christ through him.

Only then, a mission will be successful. And in future episodes, we will go into greater details about building an intellectual foundation, and about the principles of organizing local covenant communities, and about creating an alternative society of alternative presuppositions and alternative solutions. A mission can’t be a simple factory for personal conversions. It is a war of worlds.

Back to Bulgarian Reformation Ministries. How did we go about the task of missions? What did we do? Why is there in Bulgaria today, a little over 20 years after we started the mission work of Christian Reconstruction in Bulgaria, such a significant presence? It started with one family, Maggie and I. There was no Reformed theology in Bulgaria. There was no Christian education. There was barely any Protestant Reformed presence in the culture or in the public arena. Today, we have more than a hundred Christian homeschooling families, a homeschooling association and legal professionals working for it; Reformed churches in several large cities; a publishing house which prints and sells the books we translate; work among the minorities which changes cultures that used to have deep pagan roots, wide presence in the political and influence within the libertarian movement, media presence, entrepreneurs and professionals. And it has been growing exponentially in the last several years. I keep meeting people who are product of our ministry through other people, not through me. And all on a shoestring budget.

How did we do it? Simple. No holds barred. Address everyone and everything on the foundation of Gospel, and give the solutions of the Law of God. And don’t apologize for your faith. And never limit your testimony to personal conversion and church planting.

And in future episodes, we will talk about the importance of books, and then about how to establish local communities.

The book I will assign this week is Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica: The Acculturation of the Slavs, by the Greek professor and historian, Anthony-Emil Tachiaos. Read carefully to see how Eastern Europe was Christianized. And then think twice where you donate your money for missions.

So, visit BulgarianReformation.com. Subscribe to the newsletter to see how we have done it, and continue doing it. And help me continue the work. Pray and donate. And God bless you all.

Welcome to Episode 34 of Axe to the Root Podcast, part of the War Room Productions, I am Bo Marinov, and for the next 20 minutes we will be talking about the whole hullabaloo about Christmas. Specifically, the hullabaloo about whether Christmas should be celebrated or not. Because, you know, as some say, it is a pagan holiday. Or, wait, it was a pagan holiday, and some emperor just mandated that Christians have a holiday on that day. No, it wasn’t that, it was Mithra’s birthday, and because Christianity stole religion from Mithraism, it also stole the holiday. Or, better, yet, coming from the other end of the spectrum, the day is an abomination because it is a Romish holiday, and they celebrate the mass on that day. Or because the Bible doesn’t mandate its celebration. Because, you know, the regulative principle of worship. It is a false holiday, and we should avoid it. We are not liturgical, after all, we don’t believe that liturgy brings us closer to God; so let’s make it that non-liturgy brings us closer to God. Etc.

I have laughed at all this, but to be honest, I have also stayed away from the debate. And I have also celebrated Christmas – and have celebrated it with gusto. I mean, I don’t care for the externals: house decorations, Christmas trees, special liturgical services, etc. It’s OK if some people love them: as long as they don’t fall prostrate to worship that Christmas tree, or add Santa as another god in their pantheon, all is good. (Although, I sometimes see parents in cars with a bumperstickers, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” picking up their kids from the public school. I think there is more hope for those who believe in Santa than for these parents. But anyway.) I have not paid attention to the debate, the debate was not interesting to me, and I have celebrated Christmas with my family. Sometimes with friends, sometimes just us. But we have celebrated it. And I haven’t given much thought to it.

Until recently, when I started thinking about the nature of the celebration, and about the nature of our faith. And about the nature of the Kingdom of God and of the civilization we want to build on the foundation of the Gospel of Christ. And thinking more about that nature, thinking more of the nature of our celebrations, and of their place and role in that civilization. And I am coming to the conclusion that I can’t remain neutral on the issue. Christmas has to be defended. Well, not Christmas as the current cultural traditions and rituals, but Christmas a principle – or, rather, celebrations as a principle. Not as liturgical pageants – although, I won’t care if someone does, as long as they don’t believe that liturgy brings them closer to God. Not as general cultural mythology and commercial practices – although, presents are good. But as something else, something that is commanded as a principle in the Bible, and commanded in a way that gives us the liberty how and when and where to do it, as long as we do it. Because, if we don’t do it, we are in trouble. And Christmas is one way to do it.

I, of course, have my ready answers to all those who are using all kinds of arguments to tell me why, as a Reformed Christian, I am supposed to not celebrate Christmas. Sometimes an unbeliever would come to me and tell me that Christmas used to be a pagan holiday – so, see, nothing Christian about it, pagans used to celebrate on the same day. My answer to this is, “See, those pagans were smart, figured it out and switched it to the right reason for the season. What are you waiting for?” When a Christian comes and tells me that the day of Christmas used to be a pagan celebration, my answer is: “Almost every single church built on the Balkans between 3rd and 6th centuries was built on the site of a pagan temple or altar. Some of them still remain, and the stone table for the Communion was the former stone altar on which pagans sacrificed goats and even dogs. And you know what? This is what victory is: Pointing to the world and everything in it and say, This used to be pagan, it now belongs to Jesus Christ. And one day is still too small of a victory, my friend. You’ve seen nothing yet.”

Then, of course, I sometimes meet old-style Congregationalists and Covenanters, and they tell me that Christmas should not be celebrated, because it violates the Regulative Principle of Worship, that is, it is not specifically commanded in the Bible. I will leave to another episode the question of whether the Regulative Principle of Worship is even Biblical; enough to say here that the Bible speaks of no such principle, it is a forced interpretation; and besides, those who insist on it always seem to leave important parts of the Bible out. For example, somehow the only chapter in the New Testament which describes in detail a church worship service – 1 Cor. 14 – always manages to remain unheeded by those who claim to be faithful to the principle; while vague and Biblically unsupported rules – like, ban all instruments in worship – are strictly followed. But, then again, this is not the only contradiction in the position of such folks. Keep in mind that our modern Thanksgiving Day followed an earlier tradition by the older Presbyterian Synods to designate special days of thanksgiving for their members, which were supposed to be assiduously kept. Now, according to the Westminster Confession, thanksgiving is a special part of worship; and given that thanksgiving days were not specifically commanded in Scripture, they would be a violation of the Regulative Principle of Worship. Now, why a day of thanksgiving would be legitimate worship and a day of celebration and thanksgiving for Jesus’s birth (even if it didn’t fall on that day, historically) would be idolatry, is beyond me. Some of them reply that on that day the Romish church has their liturgies. I shrug. The Romish church is the Romish church. Not all celebrations are liturgies, and not all that is called “liturgy” presupposes an occult and magical worldview. And, by the way, occult and magical worldview can be present even where there is an official rejection of liturgies. For example, in the Exclusive Psalmody principle, which postulates that adding a tune to an inspired text outside the Psalms (like “Holy, Holy, Holy” in Isaiah 6:3) automatically makes it false worship. I can’t think of anything more occult and magical than the belief in the power of a musical tune to change true worship into a false worship. So these arguments against Christmas don’t hold water either.

But these are still deconstructive, negative arguments to silence the critics. As good as they are, they are only a defense of celebrating Christmas against those who want to spy out our liberty. But I said earlier that there is something more: not just liberty to celebrate and give thanks in any way that does not involve violating the Law of God, but also that there is a principle that commands us to celebrate Christ and everything He has done in any way possible. And Christmas is not simply an arbitrary choice of celebration, but it is a small part of that larger principle, which we are commanded to follow and obey – not in the specific details of tradition, but in the spirit and the truth of the celebration. What I am saying is, I see celebrations as a command in Scripture, not simply a permitted activity. So what is this principle, and what is this command?

To see it, I have to ask you to return one of the first episodes of Axe to the Root, the one about Covenantal Thinking. In it, we talked about the nature of covenantal thinking, namely, that it is ethical/judicial; that is, it has to do with a standard for good and evil. The spiritual, or covenantal, man is one who judges all things in terms of an ethical/judicial standard, and declares verdicts on all things. In this, he is to follow God’s example from the very beginning, Genesis chapter 1, where God judged everything He had created every day, at the end of the day, and then all of it at the end of the work week.

A legitimate question can be asked here, about such a view of the Christian faith: What makes it different from good plain old-style, Jewish legalism – or any other kind of legalism? After all, Jewish legalism did have its obsession and idolatry of ceremonies, but there was also a strong ethical/judicial element in it. The Jews abhorred the other nations because they were not following their ceremonies, but there was also a rejection of the moral abominations of these nations: theft, murder, abortion, prostitution, adultery, etc. Also, even outside Christianity, one can still find some good old moralism without a divine covenant: Albert Schweitzer’s type of secular moralism comes to mind. True, today, most secularists in the West tend to degenerate into a-moralism or plain immorality. But there are still secularists who insist on sound morals, and they have their children and treat their workers and co-workers fairly and take care of the poor etc., etc., etc. So what is the difference between our covenantal, ethical/judicial religion and the ethical/judicial religion of these Jews or secularists?

The answer is this: justice and righteousness are at the center of the Christian faith, but they are not the foundation of the Christian faith, as they are for the Jews and the secularists. The Jews sought salvation and today still seek salvation in the Law and through the Law; the foundation of their religion is the Law. So the Law becomes an object of veneration itself, not simply a description of the character of God. God is, to a great extent, unknowable: He hasn’t spoken to the Jewish nation for 2,500 hundred years now. For all practical purposes, the God of the Jews today is no different from Allah of the Muslims: The Great Unknown and Unknowable. In fact, for all practical purposes, He is not different from the non-existent god of the secularists; for a god Who is silent is not different than a god who is not there. In this context, the Law becomes divine itself: not simply divine in its character, but it becomes a deity on its own accord, the Jewish god of salvation himself, and the only thing the Jews are left with is a strict adherence to that Law and a love for that Law. The situation is even worse with the secularists, for their adherence to some morality doesn’t even carry with itself the hope of salvation – for salvation is not even an option in a world where death is the end of all things. For both religions – Jews and secularists, but for everyone else as well – there is no foundation beyond bare morality.

Compared to this, Christianity looks at the Law of God as a central, but relative characteristic of the Christian faith. Now, don’t be confused by the word “relative.” “Relative” not in the sense of “changing according to the circumstances and the whims of the person.” But “relative” in the sense that the Law is not absolute in itself; it only relates a higher reality to us as Christians. It only relates to us the moral and judicial character of God, Whom we know outside the Law, in and through a Person, Jesus Christ. The Law and its ethical/judicial character, therefore, makes sense only in a covenantal setting, only in the context of a prior covenant – or commitment – to a personal god. Outside this commitment, there is no real reason for anyone to be moral; there is no real reason for anyone to commit to any specific set of rules and principles, whether objective or subjective.

A good comparison would be a contract between two parties: The rules of the contract make no sense whatsoever unless there is a prior commitment to work with another person for specific goals. Making a contract with oneself to obey certain rules makes no sense whatsoever – and, honestly, creates a legitimate suspicion about the sanity of the party in the contract. Making a contract with a person whom you have never met and will never meet and know and have personal interaction with falls in the same category – and indeed leaves an even deeper impression. Only a direct personal interaction with another person can lead to a real contract, and only such contract justifies the existence and the validity of the rules in the contract.

This is what defines the Christian faith against the other moralistic and judicial religions: the Law, the ethical/judicial rules are the center of the covenant, but they are not the foundation of the Covenant. There is a higher reality behind it.

What is that higher reality? That higher reality is well explain in the first question and answer in the Westminster Shorter Catechism: What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Now, I have an issue with making this the first question of the catechism; it looks rather humanistic to me to start a catechism with the chief end of man before it lays down the question of the chief purpose of God. But laying this aside, the question is legitimate, and the answer is doubly so.. the chief end of man is not to be moral, and not to obey the Law of God. It is to glorify God. The Law comes later, for glorifying God means certain things. And some of these things – in fact, most of them – include man being conformed with the image of Christ, that it, conformed with Christ’s moral character: Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. But amazingly enough, that perfection is not seen in the Bible as a fixed rule for the covenantal man. Man is seen as glorifying God even in his imperfection. In fact, even the claim that we can be without sin in this life already makes man a liar, according to 1 John 1:8-10. So, what is it? Man is under obligation to be conformed to the ethical/judicial image of God, but he can’t be, and he is even a liar if he says he is. So what then is at the foundation of that faith?

Amazingly enough, though, while committing sin still can be forgiven – and is forgiven, when there is repentance – another action gets a much stronger condemnation: And that is, the failure of proclaiming God. Jesus delivers a very strong condemnation in Mark 8:38: “If anyone is ashamed of me before men, I will be ashamed of them when I come in My glory.”

The difference, then, and even the opposition between Christianity and the other judicial and moralistic religions and worldviews is clear: Christianity is a religion of proclamation first and foremost, and its ethical/judicial character serves that fundamental and paramount purpose of proclamation. Man must strive to perfection, that is a given. But this striving to perfection – or even attaining that perfection, if that were at all possible – is useless unless it is done with a purpose: and that is, proclaiming the person and the reign of Jesus Christ. So important is that higher purpose that even our imperfection should not stop us from pursuing it – and in fact, even our own imperfection should be used for the purpose of proclamation.

This is why the opponents of Christianity are so often confused about it; all of us have encountered the argument: If Christianity was true, then why are Christians so imperfect; and how could you continue being a Christian if you see all these Christians acting immorally? Our answer is: That’s not the point. That is, in fact, a confirmation of the point. Ours is not a faith of being good – although, being good is a consequence of it. Ours is a faith of proclaiming, declaring, and bringing good news. It is an evangelical faith.

This is why Christianity is a creedal faith. Enemies of Christianity have always pointed with disdain at the quarrels and the striving in the early church on defining the minutest details of the Church’s doctrines and creeds? What’s the big point there, they ask? Isn’t it more important to just be a decent person? Can’t one be a moral person without polishing their creeds and confessions? One can, of course, and there are a quite a few good people who have no confession or believe if monstrously twisted and false religions. (I recently had a conversation with a gentleman who himself is very moral, but holds to a radically subjectivist view of reality and morality, and he himself admitted that he has no way to say why the concentration camps were evil.) But the creeds and confession are not simply arguing over semantics; they are arguing over what faith, and what God will be proclaimed to the world, and what nature of the Kingdom of Christ will be made known to men? It is about revelation. It is about “news.” And the “news” are the fundament of the Christian faith.

This was the case in the Old Testament as well. The Jews fell in the occult belief that the rituals at the Temple were somehow redemptive and powerful to save them. The rituals, however, were not given to them to save them and purify them; God saved them and purified them, and He could do it and did it without the rituals. After all, He was with them in captivity, while the Temple lied in ruins. The rituals had a different purpose altogether: they were the Gospel of the Old Testament; they were declaring God to the Jews themselves, and to the pagan nations around. It is for this reason the Gospel, the kerygma, the good news in the New Testament have borrowed almost the whole terminology from the OT ceremonies – think of purification, blood, fire, sacrifice, and at least a hundred other terms related to the ceremonies. It is for this reason that Paul chided the Galatians in Gal. 3:1: Who has bewitched you to go back to the old, partial news, when the real news, the real declaration of our faith, the real good news was publicly displayed before your eyes? The conflict, obviously, was not between the Law and grace; the conflict was between modes and levels of revelation and proclamation. And the whole Epistle to the Hebrews continues the same theme. And it is for this reason Jesus established the Lord’s Supper: drinking of the cup is proclamation of His death, until He comes.

But what about Christmas, then?

Given that our faith is a faith of proclamation, then the main activity of any Christian should be proclaiming the person and the reign of Jesus Christ. This is well understood by some modern evangelicals; the problem is, they often limit it to elementary evangelism and knocking on doors. This proclamation goes well beyond it. It goes to teaching the nations to do everything Christ has commanded, from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. It goes to our moral conduct in our personal affairs; but it also goes to Christian societies and civilization of justice and righteousness where even the enemies of Christ want to live, compared to the societies of their own religions. It goes to discovering and proclaiming the principles of Christ’s kingdom in academic knowledge and practical technology. It goes to raising families and conquering the future through productivity. In all these, we are worshiping God by proclaiming Christ and His reign as the foundation of all we do, and the foundation of all life, in fact. As Abaraham Kuyper said, there is no one inch in the world of which Christ doesn’t say, “This is Mine.” Well, guess what. This is our job too: To point to every inch in the world and say, this is His.

Including celebrations. Yes, every day, and any day. Yes, with or without occasion. Yes, specifically commanded in Scripture or not specifically commanded in Scripture. With wine and strong drink or without wine or strong drink. With our families or with our friends. Or both. Or the whole town. Or the whole nation, and even civilization. Whether commanded by an emperor or not – and who cares about emperors anyway, why should they be the reason to our celebration of Christ or the obstacle to it? Celebrations are intended to be a proclamation to the world, and their form and details don’t matter; the Bible doesn’t lay specific rules for any of them, neither does the Bible ban those that are not specifically mentioned in it. Celebrations are commanded, period. Especially when they are celebrations specifically related to Christ – and especially His incarnation. And whether His birth occurred on that specific date is of no consequence. And whether it used to be a pagan holiday is of no consequence. Actually, even better: It was pagan, it Christian now. As the world will be, eventually in history. Christmas is one of the best ways to display before an unbelieving world the beauty of Christ’s coming. And not only this, but, ironically, force the very unbelieving world to confirm it in songs, and traditions, and radio programs. They can’t escape the testimony.

In this, the war against celebrating Christmas – or against any celebration that proclaims Christ and the Kingdom of Christ – is not only useless, it is actively evil. It not only tries to suppress our Christian liberty; it actively tries to suppress our proclamation and constrain it in the shackles or moralism which is no different from the Jewish moralism we talked about earlier. It subjects the kerygma of God to moralistic rules, and finally, stifles it. It is no wonder that evangelism is all but absent among the groups who wage that war against Christmas. Once you spy out the Christian liberty of others to declare the good news of Christ, you end up without such liberty yourself. God is not be mocked.

As for me, I will be celebrating Christmas in a couple of weeks. And I will tell every single pagan I meet: “Christ was born. And you are in trouble, because of that.”

The book I will assign for reading this week is Christ and the Caesars, by Ethelbert Stauffer. Some things in the book are controversial. But the theme of declaring Christ by all means possible, and the liberty to do it, is what you need to pay attention to.

And, as always, help be deliver the good news of the Kingdom of Christ to Bulgaria and Eastern Europe – by all means possible, in all liberty of expression and action. Visit Bulgarian Reformation.com, subscribe to our newsletter, and donate. And Merry Christmas, y’all.