Perpetual Doubting Thomas

I really appreciate the wit and humor of Tominthebox News Network.  The author has an awareness of what the Church faces and points them out using that wit.  This is no different.

I’ve often wondered how many young children are saved ‘again’ and baptized ‘again’ and it all has to do with whether their parents tell them or ask them if they are children of God.

If parents understood they were shepherds of children who belong to God (and talked to them that way), rather than thinking they were missionaries to heathen children given them by God (and talking to them that way), then many children wouldn’t be getting ’saved’ and ‘baptized’ again week after week.  It can be as simple as telling your child he belongs to God instead of asking him if he’s a child of God.

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mattb

I recently posted a blog commending the Supreme Court’s upholding the Partial Birth Abortion ban.  I have since heard many among Christians who are upset by this decision, claiming that it is incrementalism and simply lessens the shock of a crime as abominable as abortion.  The cry is that incrementalism is an evil whose aim is to appease Christians and God and should be avoided.  This is an all-or-nothing war.

What saith the Scriptures?  Are there any examples–positive or negative–of incrementalism?

1Kings 15:11-14 And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, as David his father had done. -12- He put away the male cult prostitutes out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. -13- He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. And Asa cut down her image and burned it at the brook Kidron. -14- But the high places were not taken away. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true to the LORD all his days.

Asa, along with several other kings like him, seemed to practice a sort of incrementalism.  They would cleanse the land of impurities (like an idolatrous queen mother), but often fall short of a total cleansing.  The Bible doesn’t say why they would fall short, but it can be reasonably understood that a total cleansing may have led to popular revolt.  It was better in these cases to work through incrementalism.  Now, even if this reasonable assumption is not reasonable, incrementalism still can be seen in a positive light.  It is clear the failure to take away the high places is put forth as a negative, but the heart of the king who attempted to cleanse the land is still seen as being true to the Lord.

So is incrementalism evil?  If what Asa and other kings after him did is incrementalism, then no.  If what they did is not incrementalism, then the question is yet to be resolved.  Incrementalism must then be defined.   Meanwhile, I will promote an all-or-nothing approach, but be pleased with incrementalist victories when they occur.

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mattb