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On
a December 2005 broadcast of Paul
McGuire's radio show, which currently
broadcasts in southern California and
St. Louis, the topic for the evening was
the failure of certain department store
chains failing to recognize the purpose
of celebrating the Christmas season
(which is the birth of Jesus Christ). At
the time of the show Wal-Mart, K-Mart,
and Target stores were accused of
anti-Christian values. There were
several call-ins threatening to boycott
these stores. There were others calling
in from the front-lines of the
battlefield who were picketing a
Wal-Mart store in California. The main
issue it seems, is that the district
managers of these stores, in an effort
to present themselves as acceptable to
all religions, were forbidding the use
of the phrase "Merry
Christmas" when greeting customers.
I'm sure many people were listening
furiously to the testimonies of those
who went to one of these stores in the
"Christmas spirit", only to be
crushed by an insensitive "happy
holidays" as they left the store.
But the more I listened to the hype over
this issue, I became angry with the
message that was being sent to the tens
of thousands of potentially un-saved
people that were listening to this show.
I called in to the show and made a
statement to see if I could get the more
important issue to be presented… the
gospel of Jesus Christ. My statement was
(paraphrased); "As Christians,
isn't it our responsibility to preach
the gospel. And if so, shouldn't we be
doing that instead of arguing over
principles? If we were to preach the
gospel, and these managers were to be
saved, they probably wouldn't have an
problem standing up for Jesus and saying
merry Christmas to customers." And
I hung up. As I expected, my statement
was not very well accepted. Paul McGuire
said (paraphrased); "This kind of
viewpoint is a "piest"
viewpoint, these people tend to
compartmentalize things as spiritual and
non-spiritual". I was shocked. I
listened to Mr. McGuire ramble for a
couple of minutes about how Piests
believe they should separate themselves
from the world and never share the
truth. I decided I had to call back. The
call screener asked Mr. McGuire if he
would take a second call from me and he
obliged. When I was welcomed back on the
air I said (paraphrased): "That was
pretty much the answer I expected from a
Dominionist like yourself". He
responded; "I am not a Dominionist,
I'm not working toward a
Theocracy."
(I
would like to add here; my intention
with this conversation was not to
belittle Mr. McGuire or argue over
doctrine or principles. My intention was
to expose Paul McGuire for the Catholic
Reformed Dominionist he is; and present
the truth to the listeners who may have
been deceived by his false gospel.)
For the next approximately half hour,
Paul McGuire and I debated the
"kingdom of Christ" issue.
Paul McGuire's stance is that since God
created everything, and God is Spirit,
then all things are spiritual. Since we
are God's ambassadors to earth, it is
the Christian's responsibility to
dominate the earth and it's systems.
THIS IS DOMINION THEOLOGY! And Paul
McGuire, although he denies it, is a
Dominionist. We debated the subject
through a couple of commercial breaks,
then Mr. McGuire ended the show with a
recorded sermon by Francis Schaeffer on
the subject of "The Culture
War".
Many Christians today are being
influenced by men like Paul McGuire who
are teaching this heresy. Today there is
a "Culture War" going on
between the "liberals" and the
Conservative Christians", but this
is nothing but a political war. The only
thing this political war is going to
accomplish is to change the moral
standard of society; it does NOTHING to
exalt the name of Jesus Christ. There
are a couple of points that I touched on
in my conversation with Paul McGuire
that I would like to elaborate on here.
First, it needs to be understood that
repentance of sin is something that is
granted by God, it is not something that
can be induced into society to make that
society more godly (Acts 11:18, 2Tim
2:25). Repentance of sin is also only
expected of a child of God. We should
never overstep our boundaries where God
is concerned. Our job as a Christian is
to present the Gospel, not to try and
mold a culture to our beliefs, that is
God's job. By forcing or coercing the
managers of Wal-Mart to repent and
acknowledge Jesus Christ as the reason
for the Christmas holiday, you are
practicing dominion.
Secondly this piest worldview, according
to Paul McGuire is guilty of
compartmentalizing certain things as
spiritual and other things as
non-spiritual, such as the world. We are
apparently being accused of alienating
ourselves from the world, and thereby
unable (or unwilling) to effect the
world in a positive way. The truth is,
we do not alienate ourselves from the
world; we are to be in the world, as the
salt and light of the world. This
doesn't mean we are to take the moral
standards we acquire from Jesus and
impose them on the world, but we are to
show the world Jesus.
Jesus is the embodiment of truth,
wisdom, understanding and righteousness.
Any truth we try to convey to the world
apart from simply presenting Jesus
Christ Himself, is not truth - it is a
social philosophy. Any righteousness we
try to convey to the world is nothing
but socially acceptable behavior. Any
wisdom we try to convey to the world, if
it is not in the context of Jesus Christ
Himself - it is total darkness. If you
are opposing the principles and
humanistic doctrines of the world, and
you are not presenting Jesus, you are
nothing but a hypocrite. You are
essentially presenting truth, wisdom,
understanding, and righteousness as if
it were some attribute of yourself.
John
W. Hardin
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