When AHA started doing “Church Repent” several years ago, I thought, “How can they go to a church they’ve never been to and pick on them?” Over the years, I’ve realized that you can go to any random church and exhort them and it is a great way to tell whether they are good or bad.
When confronting an American church with abortion apathy and IVF information, the typical, bad church will say, “Why are you picking on us? Have you listened to a sermon? We love the Bible!” A good church says, “What can we do to help? We want to repent of our apathy. We want to do something.”
If they’re a good church, you can go to them. If they’re a bad church you can go to them. The object is to raise awareness of the abortion holocaust and stand up for orphans. Not to please people. Here’s an example of a typical, worthless, wicked church and pastor. Maybe you can hold out hope that they were caught off guard or need more time to consider the situation, but I don’t think so, based on my analysis. I would hold out hope that if they were humble and studied the Bible a lot more, God could change them but their errors are just so basic and egregious.
Playback on other websites has been disabled by Matt Wiersema, the guy who posted it, but you can go watch it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBgJJXNgp6o&t
It starts out with an off-duty cop working security for the church. That’s the first problem. Cops are contrary to Scripture in many ways, which I’ve gone over in the past many times. I don’t have a problem with someone trained with the ability to use a gun roaming around the church property to protect people who are to a certain extent sitting ducks for a random gunman, but I do have a problem with hiring a cop, but that’s just a minor point so far.
A huge problem is that the cop, as is typical, doesn’t have any idea that a sidewalk is a traditional public forum for free speech. Anyone can stand on a sidewalk in any neighborhood with a sidewalk running along a public street and hold any kind of sign, pass out literature and speak loudly any message they want, even if it’s offensive. I think this cop is stupid and ignorant rather than knowing the law and intending to deceive. This indicates that he is poorly trained, and also that Christians aren’t out spreading their message. There may be limitations to sound amplification, and that would depend on local ordinances.
The cop doubles down on the stupidity saying that if anyone is offended by the message, it is disorderly conduct. I don’t want to be too critical of Matt, but I want to point out a couple things that he could have done better (from my armchair quarterback, 20/20 hindisight position), so that we can all do better next time. Matt should have said he was offended by the cop and by the guy that walked up on him saying he doesn’t want Matt to mess with his kids and eventually the pastor. Would the cop have written himself and those other guys tickets? No, he’d be put to shame for saying that if anyone offends someone, they can be cited for disorderly conduct.
When the cop says the church has asked him to leave, so he has to leave, I kind of suspect that he’s lying. Can anyone be that stupid? Surely he’s deceiving, but maybe he actually is that stupid. You can tell he’s quite stupid, but is he that stupid? I don’t know. You decide whether he’s extremely stupid or just that evil.
Starting at 3:12, the cop says he has to provide ID, because he’s being detained. Over and over again, there are copious examples of Texas cops demanding IDs. They can ask and they can demand all they want. No one has to provide an ID unless they’re under arrest per Texas Penal Code 38.02. In a couple of videos I’ve seen Matt, while in Texas, identify himself even though he wasn’t under arrest. Every state is different, so look up the law in your state, and generally, I’d recommend obeying the law because police, lawyers and judges are psychopaths and unpredictable. You can sue them later. But, don’t identify if you’re not required by law, either.
At 3:56, the jackass in the blue plaid shirt says, “Your rights end where mine begin.” This is just absurd retardation. No one has the right to not be offended. This is just shocking stupidity. How did we get to this point in America where people can be this stupid?
As they go on making fools of themselves, the biggest fool walks up. While the lame-brain “pastor” talks, the disorderly conduct talk is put on the back burner. I would bet that if the pastor had stood up for common sense and Scripture and said that it’s the cop’s job to protect everyone’s right to free speech, the whole thing would have been over.
If you look at this church’s website, you’ll see that this is Doug, the senior pastor. If you read his bio, you might even be impressed. He has a pretty good pedigree, suggesting he may even be reformed, which would put him in the top 10% of pastors as far as I’m concerned. The website of the church looks very good and biblical. But the shocking stupidity that comes out of his mouth in this interaction is just such basic false teaching.
As soon as the “pastor” starts talking, it’s all about him and what he’s doing and there is zero humility. Matt is there about IVF. I’d bet $10,000 right now that that church has members who have taken part in IVF and those people currently have babies frozen in test tubes, and the “pastor” knows about it and can name their names. Even if they don’t, I would bet $10,000 that he’s never preached a sermon against IVF. I’d bet another $10,000 that they are doing nothing more to fight abortion than maybe an occasional sermon and maybe donating to a crisis pregnancy center. But no one will take those bets.
One million babies are murdered by abortion every year. NO ONE has a strategy to fight abortion that is 100% effective at this point. Abolition is a glimmer of hope that the vast majority of Christians know nothing about. It is at least Scripturally correct, even if it hasn’t produced a lot of results yet. Our hearts should break and we should humbly receive any ideas or correction on this issue. Orphans are being murdered among us and no American Christian at any church has any room to receive Matt’s exhortation with the conceit this guy has. The way we treat unborn babies is heartbreaking. Keep that in mind while listening to this pompous, lost (lost as in, unregenerate, unbelieving, dead in his sin and headed to hell) “pastor”.
At 6:35, this evil “pastor” says Matt should respect the dirty, ignorant cop. He would have told Jesus to stop calling Herod a fox. He takes the Hitler hermeneutic in his interpretation of Romans 13. That is the typical, but wrong, approach towards Romans 13 among most Christians.
At 7:29, he says that he’ll call out Matt’s sin of judging. This is absolutely moronic. There’s no way this guy has read the Bible in decades. The Bible teaches that judging is good. Hypocritical judging is bad, but one of the main goals in Christianity is to mature to the point that you can judge properly (John 7:24, 1 Cor. 2:15, Hebrews 5:14, etc.). And, if he thinks it’s a sin to judge, then when he tells Matt that it’s a sin to judge, he’s committing the type of hypocritical judging that is forbidden in Matthew 7. I feel like I learned this stuff so long ago and I cannot believe that someone who has read the New Testament once in the last 10 years could say anything this stupid. I’m shocked.
Furthermore, the “pastor” has obviously NEVER done any type of public evangelism. If you do any type of literature distribution or public evangelism more than a couple hours, you will have the cops called on you. You will learn very quick what the law says. You will learn to stand up for your right to preach the gospel publicly. So this idiot “pastor” turns Matt over to the state. Rather than being wronged (which he wasn’t being wronged) he turns the matter over to laws created by unbelievers.
At that point, the dirty cop asks for Matt’s ID. What I would have done at this point, were I Matt, is to tell him that I’m not required to identify. As I said earlier, I would generally recommend, if there is any doubt about the legality of the situation is to avoid arrest or citation and deal with the misunderstanding via lawyers. I’d pay a lawyer if needed or I’m sure Matt has a pro-bono Christian civil liberties lawyer. I’ve had two situations where I’ve needed a lawyer, and both times Liberty Counsel helped for free, and I later made a donation. There is no shortage of lawyers who will take a case like this. In this situation where Matt was obviously right, I’d ask for the dumb cop to call a supervisor. And if the supervisor is just as idiotic, which is a real possibility, I’d be tempted to take the ticket or even be arrested. If you’re arrested, you will sue and win a lot of money quite easily. The only gray area in this case was the use of amplification, which wasn’t in the video.
I hope Matt did something about this, but he could spend a lot of time on these types of situations at the detriment of preaching the gospel as well, so I don’t blame him if he didn’t.
What’s the lesson? As far as you could tell by looking at the website, or attending the service, this would appear to be a good church. You could attend for years and be content that the Bible is being preached. Matt comes along and exposes the idolatry and stupidity in a few minutes. I support Matt and Church Repent Project in general. I oppose ministry industrial complex businesses like this one.
There are good churches out there. They would respond humbly and with sorrow for the orphans who are being led to the slaughter in our country. But you can’t tell whether the church is good or bad by looking at their website or even attending their services for years. One way you can tell is by standing in front with a graphic abortion sign. You will find out what kind of church they are very quickly.