They Can’t Admit to an Ideal

As a follow-up to my last post about why progressives / leftists / revolutionaries can’t stop, following is my comment on a recent video by Paul VanderKlay, entitled “If the CRCNA [Christian Reformed Church of North America] Can’t Agree on God’s Ideal FOR Marriage, it won’t be able to Negotiate Boundaries.”

Regarding the issue for PVK, keep in mind he is, and his father and grandfather were, pastors in this denomination.  The CRC is about as important an institution in his life as any.  He sees this issue of what to do about gay marriage as one which could likely tear his denomination apart.

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Paul, I know this is a troubling issue for you – your concern about the longevity, or not, of your denomination.  You have offered many valuable lines in this one.  All just as applicable to the red and blue of America as they are to this issue within the CRC (and all traditions struggling with this); all common in the strategy of the left, whether in the country or the church.

From PVK (some paraphrased):

–          Those who want a change know that they are in the minority.

–          Conservative churches are the ones leaving the denomination.

–          In the progressive group there is a fear that synod is going to act against them.

–          It is important to have an ideal and state the ideal.

–          The LGBTQ movement has moved to destroy the ideal.  It has evolved fast.  I don’t think it started out that way.

–          Those out in front of this movement can’t say what the ideal is. We see ideals as unjust.

–          If progressives wanted to maintain the subtle “don’t ask don’t tell” status quo, they should probably leave well enough alone.

–          There are more conservatives in danger of being lost than progressives in this struggle.

–          The progressive’s activism is toward changing the minds of those who are more conservative than themselves.

–          Conservatives have no such agenda for progressives.  They have given up trying to change hearts and minds.

My comments are reasonably as applicable to America as they are to this (and other social) battle(s) within the church.  The progressives have long known they were in the minority; for this reason, they only want to chip away (the long march through the institutions).  They cannot state an ideal, because this requires a belief in objective truth and objective values – this admission runs contrary to all that progressives believe.  It admits that there is an end to “progress”; this cannot ever be admitted, because it would bring an end to the revolution.  Progressives can’t be progressive if there is an end point.

Conservatives take Matthew 10: 14 to heart: “And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.”

Progressives, who cannot admit to an ideal as to do so runs contrary to all that they confess, can only destroy ideals.  Whose work is this, the work of destroying ideals?  Ephesians 2:2 and 6:12 answer this question.  Sadly, it is as true in the church as it is in the country, no matter how much we want to believe in the other’s “good faith.”

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Conclusion

Or, as more succinctly said by an anonymous commenter to my aforementioned previous post:

This, exactly. Liberalism has no limiting principle. Liberals will not stop until somebody stops them.

Reprinted with permission from Bionic Mosquito.