For those of us who didn’t know (myself included), Tom Minnery is the long-time political director of Focus on the Family. He was recently interviewed on Deace in the Afternoon, and Steve really made Tom feel right at home. You can listen to the interview here.
It got a bit heated, sure, but Steve’s interview with Ann Coulter was bloodier IMHO. That one is here.
Tags: abortion, Lesser of two evils, RINO, Steve Deace, Two Kingdoms
Two interesting interviews. Risking oversimplification I have these comments.
The nature of politics is compromise. The nature of the the church is proclamation of the truth. It seems that whenever Christian leaders have sought political power there is compromise. It may be the responsibility of an individual to be a good citizen and participate in the political process but I don’t see how it is correct for believers collectively to seek political power. How is that fulfilling the great commission?
Amen. By the way, there are very few people who will actually listen to this and even fewer who will listen to the end. I strongly suggest that if anyone wants to just stop, skip ahead and just listen to the monologue in the last five minutes. 33:39 is the time stamp. But only do so if you are prepared to be convicted by looking straight into the wood, hay and straw that we have been using as our building materials for the last 30 years in much of the parachurch movement.
I listened to the entire interview with Tom Minnery. I seems to me that Steve is only looking to support “perfect” people, which in this world there are none. Ask him this question. When he was born again and saved, did he believe he was an absolute perfect christian who knows everything there is to know about GOD right then and there,leaving no quarter for those who are not up to his caliber, or is he still in a growing process in humility continually searching the endless and unsearchable mind of GOD?
I am interested in Steve Deace’s biographical sketch or vita. I read his “Lutheran: Time to drop out” this morning and found it impressive and provocative and full of truth. I am a member of the WordAlone Network Board of Directors working for reform and renewal in the Evanglical Lutheran Church in America. I will be following the Churchwide Assembly, August 17 – 23,in Minneapolis with intense interest for the vote outcome on the social statement on human sexuality and the four resolutions implementing changes in ministry standards.
http://www.whoradio.com/pages/stevedeace.html
Here is his page on whoradio.com. I could answer a few questions based on what he has said before. Abortion is a very personal issue with him, as failed abortions are why both he and his wife are around today. He sees the compromising on this and other issues reprehansable from both sides of the aisle. He didn’t go out to find out the ugly truth, it found him as he began to raise questions about things that had puzzled him.
The crux of the disagreement between Minnery and Deace is contained in a sentence about 4/5ths of the way through the interview, when Deace asserted [I'm paraphrasing from memory] that “Our rulers are chosen by God, not by us. We’re not sovereign down here, and the problem is that we keep acting like we are.”
Deace’s position flows from that basic conviction that *we are not sovereign* political outcomes belong to God, not to us, and that a Christian’s role in the political process is to be uncompromisingly prayerful and righteous, and trust the future to God.
Minnery’s position starts from exactly the opposite basis. He takes the Constitution at face value, and what the Constitution tells him, as a Citizen of the United States of America, is that he *IS* sovereign. A sovereign, the Bible teaches us, carries a heavy burden of responsibility that falls to the sovereign alone. To carry that burden responsibly, a ruler must sometimes make moral compromises in the service of the common good.
On balance, I prefer Deace’s reasoning. Only a prideful man would choose to walk the morally perilous road of a sovereign, given the choice.