Should Women Be Ordained to Ministry? Deacons or Otherwise? Part 3

 

 

 

Should Women Be Ordained to Ministry? Deacons or Otherwise? Part 3

 

As the twentieth century has seen a great increase in the control that national governments exercise over their citizens, so too with ecclesiastical organizations there is a trend toward centralization, bureaucracy, and an indifference toward inalienable rights.  Well publicized gatherings of Protestant prelates parade in robes, and the press reports the colorful pageantry.  Impressive imitation of popery!  And the same eventual results are to be expected.

God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to His Word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship. So that to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.  . . . [WCF 20:2 WCS].

The changing majorities of a Council or General Assembly which push a conjectural translation of the Bible one year and another year issue Sunday School lessons whose conjectures are still worse, may boast that their theology is not static but dynamic.  A different doctrine every decade—while the orthodox fuddy-duddies keep on believing the same thing all the time!

But what moral chaos there is, when the law of God is abandoned for the latest style of unbelief.  It used to be [Albrecht] Ritschl’s value judgments; now it is paradox; next it will be—who can guess?

The law of God is stable because God is unchangeable.  Those who believe God do not need to change their moral principles with the passing years.  Nor will they change their worship, push the Bible to one side, put an altar in the center, pray to the saints and the Virgin, nor . . . engage a troupe of ballet dancers to fill an empty pulpit.

Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  Essays on Ethics and Politics.  John Robbins, ed.  (Jefferson:  Trinity Foundation, 1992).  Pp. 21-22.

 

I make the above point because it seems that the larger a denomination becomes, the more centralized its ecclesiastical polity becomes.  I am currently attending a new church plant in Lexington, South Carolina.  It is already becoming apparent that the pastor and the elders do not want any sort of dissent as that would cause a problem with “the peace, purity, and prosperity of this congregation as long as” I am “a member of it.”  I am referring to the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church as a denomination.  The general synod in 1969 made the decision to allow the ordination of women as deacons; however, it was determined that each session or church within the denomination could decide whether or not to ordain women to the church office of the deaconate or deacon.  

This is a strong indication that there are liberals within the denomination who wish to have women ordained to every church office.  [See:  “Women in the Life of the Church: A Position Paper Approved by the General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church:   June 2005”.]  I was shocked to see that one of the authors and signatories on this document was Rev. William B. Evans.  Evans recently announced that he was leaving the ARPC and joining the PCUSA.  His reason is detailed in a blog article he posted here:  A Change in Ecclesial Affiliation for the Ecclesial Calvinist!  Obviously, Mr. Evans is one of the liberals whom I mentioned.  He argues in 2005 that the reason for decline in the ARPC is holding true to the fundamentals.  In order for the denomination to grow, it must accommodate to the times and the culture:

By 2010 or so, however, I sensed that the ARP Church had lost its sense of identity and direction.  When I served as Moderator of the ARP General Synod in 2005 I warned the body that a dire situation awaited if the church did not recover a coherent identity and sense of mission.  Serving on the subsequent General Synod Vision and Strategic Planning Committees reinforced the sense that we were wandering in the weeds and on the edge of precipitous decline.  As a church historian I knew the story well—that ARP identity had historically been predicated on certain praxis distinctives (exclusive psalmody, non-instrumental worship, strict Sabbatarianism, and closed communion), and that by the mid-20th century all of that had dissolved and the church was searching for a new identity.  From 2004 until 2012 I had written/edited the ARP Adult Quarterly Sunday-school curriculum, but beginning in 2012 I began to pull back from my denominational involvements to concentrate on scholarly writing and research.

During this time, I also noticed that the ARPC was becoming more rigidly conservative (largely because of the decline of Erskine Theological Seminary and the rising influence of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, NC) even as I was growing older and a bit more flexible theologically.  A clarifying moment occurred in the last few years when I chaired a Synod committee to study the issue of women serving in the diaconate in the ARPC.  The Committee presented a sensible report noting that the current policy of allowing women in the ARPC to serve as deacons has worked well for decades, that Scripture can reasonably be read either way, and that no one’s conscience is bound by the current policy.  The floor debate on the report was disheartening, and it was evident that a large minority of the court wanted to do away with women on the diaconate completely.  Particularly clarifying for me was an obviously premeditated speech by a younger minister asserting that those in favor of women in the diaconate were capitulating to the feminist and transgender agenda!  No one called him to task, and I realized at that point that the Overton window had shifted to such a point that I was in the wrong church!

It is here that Evans’s theological compromise is revealed openly.  He straightforwardly admits that he has become “more flexible” with age.  Ironically, his views seem to be inflexible when it comes to acknowledging the plain teaching of Scripture, which he claims can be “read either way.”  I am speculating that the sections in the position paper of 2005 dealing with arguments from the other side were all written by Evans because he agrees with them.  The paper quotes Evans as saying:

While traditionalists have often been tolerant of progressive thinking, they themselves are often not tolerated once women’s ordination is instantiated in a denomination.  That has been the trend in the Church of Scotland, the PCUSA and elsewhere.  The pattern here is for conservatives to be grandfathered for a time, but sooner or later ordination requirements are rewritten to include support for women’s ordination.  This is due primarily, not to liberal meanspiritedness, but to the logic of Reformed polity.  The offices of minister and elder are the foundation of the polity, and everybody has to own the polity, to accept the ground rules of the game.   Reformed churches cannot tolerate the presence of those who would challenge, even implicitly, the legitimacy of a large group of officeholders.  (ARPC Position Paper, p. 4).

Ironically, Evans laments the fact that Ligonier Ministries has had a profound effect on the denomination because many of the ministers are coming from Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina instead of Erskine Theological Seminary in Due West, South Carolina or the campus in Columbia, South Carolina.

There are other issues with the denomination, including other liberal professors at Eskine University and Erskine Theological Seminary.  The church plants that I have observed in the greater Columbia, South Carolina area have mostly followed the pragmatic approach of the church growth movement rather than the biblical mandate to make disciples.  In short, the Westminster Standards are a mere afterthought, an option.  No need to instruct the congregation in the doctrines of the Bible as summarized by the Westminster Standards.

The late Dr. Gordon H. Clark brought up another issue in regards to the ordination of a young man to the ministry:

In addition to these elements of liberty, which particularly concern us in our individual lives, Christian liberty includes liberty of conscience in the face of tyrannical ecclesiastical organizations.  Some years ago a young man presented himself to a Presbytery for ordination.  As he was known to believe that the boards and agencies of that church were infiltrated with modernism, he was asked if he would support the boards regardless of what they did.  When the young man declined to make any such blind promise, the Presbytery refused to ordain him.  [Clark, p. 21]

The church plant that I am attending in Lexington, South Carolina has a new members class.  I am facing a similar decision.  The last vow of the seven vows requires me to promise “loving obedience” and to submit myself “to the government and discipline of this church, promising to seek the peace, purity, and prosperity of this congregation as long as” I am “a member of it.”  But can I do that?  The appointed pastor of the church plant is Jeff Tell.  He is apparently following the accommodation tactics of church growth pragmatism and the leftist theology of the late Tim Keller among others, including James K.A. Smith.

Moreover, the question of the ordination of women as deacons seems to have an obvious answer when considering that the Bible is the final authority in all matters of belief, doctrine, theology, ethics, morality, worship, and practice.  (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 1 Peter 1:24-25; 2 Peter 1:19-21).  As I mentioned already in the first post, the most plain and perspicuous Scriptures against the ordination of women should apply first.  Without going into extensive and detailed exegesis of the passages, I will now show that women should not be ordained to any church office whatsoever, as ordination in the church is restricted to men only.

First, the final authority must be the Bible, not church synods.  When the doctrinal standards of the Bible and the Westminster Confession of Faith are minimized due to either cultural relativism or ecclesiastical tyranny, it becomes necessary for the laity to stand against such accommodation to culture.  The Bible makes it very clear that the deaconate is restricted to men only, just as the offices of teaching and ruling elders are restricted to men only:

2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, . . . (1 Timothy 3:2 KJV).

12 Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, . . . (1 Timothy 3:12 KJV)

I should point out that the Bible nowhere makes a distinction between ruling elders, who handle the administration of the church, and teaching elders who handle the preaching of the word and the administration of the two gospel sacraments.  If elders do not teach or preach, following the logic of the liberals, it would seem that the door is wide open for women to become ruling elders as well as deacons.  If any object that the deacons are only to serve tables and not to handle the preaching of the word, it should be pointed out that the deacons in the book of Acts were handpicked by the apostles.  (Acts  6:1-8).  Furthermore, the most prominent deacon mentioned in the pericope is Stephen.  He is said to perform miracles:

And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. (Acts 6:8 KJV)

In other words, the office of deacon is more than just visiting widows, doing pastoral visits, or serving communion.  Even then, women should not be serving communion at the Lord’s table.  None of the men chosen by the apostles were women:

And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch: (Acts 6:5 KJV)

The clincher for this argument is that Stephen was stoned after he preached a sermon to the Jews who disagreed with the Gospel message of the apostles:

Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen. 10 And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. 11 Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God. 12 And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council, 13 And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: 14 For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. 15 And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. (Acts 6:9-15 KJV)

After Stephen preached the council condemned him to death by stoning.  (Acts 7:1-8:1).  Saul was there and participated in the council and the stoning of Stephen.  Does this sound like an office for women?  I think not.

As for the other passages of Scripture, most of the women mentioned are spoken of as being in the company of their husbands.  Priscilla and Aquila are emphasized by Pentecostals as a husband and wife team.  (Acts 18:2). But were they?  Pentecostals like to point out that Priscilla is mentioned first in the text.  (Acts 18:18; Romans 16:3).  But in the other occurrences, Aquila is mentioned first.  (Acts 18:2, 26; 1 Corinthians 16:19).  The Pentecostal argument that seems strongest is also weak:

And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. (Acts 18:26 KJV)

This is a one-time occurrence in the Bible.  As one commentator once said, a doctrine that is mentioned only once in the Bible and is contradicted by other verses is probably a weak doctrine.  Of course, how many times does God need to say something for it to be true?

Here ends this post.  In part 4 I will discuss the biblical evidence for Junia being among the apostles.  Also, I will discuss the four prophesying daughters of Philip.

Here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2 of this blog series.

Should Women Be Ordained to Ministry? Deacons or Otherwise? Part 2

 

“Calvinistic ethics depends on revelation.  The distinction between right and wrong is not identified by an empirical discovery of natural law, as with Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, nor by the logical formalism of Kant, and certainly not by utilitarianism’s impossible calculation of the greatest good for the greatest number, but by God’s revelation of the Ten Commandments.  This revelation came first in God’s act of creating man in his own image so that certain basic moral principles were implanted in his heart, later to be vitiated by sin; second, there were some special instructions given to Adam and Noah, which no doubt overlapped and expanded the innate endowment; third, the more comprehensive revelation to Moses; plus, fourth, the various subsidiary precepts in the remainder of the Bible.” 

Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  Essays on Ethics and Politics.  John Robbins, ed.  (Jefferson:  Trinity Foundation, 1992)  Pp. 3-4.

 

 

Should Women Be Ordained to Ministry?  Deacons or Otherwise?  Part 2

 

In this post I will discuss the creation of humanity, or the more accurate term, mankind.  The revisionists are continually trying to rewrite the common English language to reflect their ideological agenda.  Recently, there was a story where a feminist congress woman said that we cannot use the term manufacture because the word has “man” in it.  The ridiculousness of the progressive Marxist movement is out of hand, and it has infiltrated the Evangelical churches through an unbiblical ideology of egalitarianism in the Christian family. 

The first mention of the creation of mankind is in Genesis chapter 1.  However, in chapter 2 of Genesis we have a further particularization of how God created mankind.  In chapter 1 we are told that God created them male and female.  Notice that in chapter 1 the reference to humanity is singular and then plural: 

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Gen. 1:26-27 KJV)

If you doubt that the King James translation is accurate in giving the singular and plural forms of the Hebrew words, you can consult Biblehub.com to check the Biblical Hebrew Interlinear:  Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 1:27.

In chapter one we have two different words that convey God’s creation.  In Genesis 1:1 the word used for God’s creating the heavens and the earth is the Hebrew word “bara”.  This word in verse 1 refers to creation by divine fiat or ex nihilo, out of nothing.  But in Genesis 1:26 the word used for God’s act of creating is the word “asa”, which means to fashion or work.  In other words, mankind is not created out of nothing as was the universe in verse 1, but God creates man and woman out of pre-existing materials that He had already created ex nihilo or by divine fiat.  We also know this from the parallel account of creation in Genesis 2:7, 21-23.  It should be noted, on the other hand, that in Genesis 1:27 the word “bara” is used, not “asa”.  This is because only man of all the animals created is created in God’s image.  Man alone of the animals is the rational and intellectual image of God.  (John 1:1, 9; Genesis 1:27; Genesis 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7).

However, in Genesis 1:27 we have a play on words.  Whereas verse 26 uses the word “asa” to make mankind, a qal imperfect cohortative, to show what He is planning to do, the verse says also that God will “make” man (singular) after “our” (plural) image.  Note also that the word for God in Genesis 1:27 is Elohim, the majestic plurality.  Here the verse is clearly referring to mankind as a whole.

Moreover, in chapter 2 we learn that God creates the first man as one person, Adam.  Next, God sees that Adam of all the animals is alone and has no mate or helper.  So out of Adam’s rib God creates Eve, the mother of all humanity.  This is important because the apostle Paul elaborates on this information.   Adam was formed first; then, God formed Eve from Adam’s rib, and Adam called her woman because she was taken out of the man.  (1 Timothy 2:13; 1 Corinthians 11:8; Genesis 2:23).  Liberals will contend that Adam and Eve are not historical persons because the Genesis creation account in chapter 1 and 2 are disparate accounts, not parallel accounts of the same historical events.  The critics also contend that the Hebrew word is not the name of a man but is instead a generic term for mankind as a whole.  Thus, they see chapter 2 as an etiological myth to explain the difference between male and female human beings. 

In contradiction to this, the Bible assigns a name to the woman.  Her name is Eve, the mother of all the living.  (Genesis 3:20).  We can then see that Adam is not just a generic term but the name of the first Adam.  (Genesis 3:9).  This is confirmed in the New Testament as well.  (Romans 5:12-14).  In fact, Adam is called the Son of God, the first man.  (Luke 3:38).  It is no mistake that the Reformed theologians refer to Adam as the federal head of the human race, not Eve.

Modern feminist theologians have tried to re-imagine God as a female.  However, the use of masculine pronouns in reference to God throughout the Old Testament flies in the face of this innovation.

In 1995 during my field training class required to obtain the master of divinity degree from Asbury Theological seminary, I opted to do my field experience by doing one unit of clinical pastor education through Hospice of the Bluegrass in Lexington, Kentucky.  There is another major seminary in the Lexington area which is associated with the Disciples of Christ.  The Disciples of Christ was originally a product of the Second Great Awakening.  The Cane Ridge revivals just north of Lexington produced growth in several denominations in the area, including the Methodists, the Presbyterians and the Baptists.  In order to preserve the fruits of the revival, Charles Finney and others decided to stop emphasizing doctrinal distinctives and reject formal creeds and confessions of faith.  Thus, the saying was that there is no creed but Christ.  Unfortunately, this position has led to the extreme liberalism of the Disciples of Christ as a mainline denomination.

Of the students in the class there was a retired mainline Presbyterian minister who was a member of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, another liberal denomination.  There was a female student from Lexington Theological Seminary, which is the Disciples of Christ school.  And, there was a male student from the Free Methodist Church who had recently graduated from Asbury with the M. Div. degree.  The supervisor of the class was an intern herself.  She was a nun with the Roman Catholic Church.  At the beginning she told us that she would be evaluating us as students, and, that we would be evaluating her to determine if she would become a supervisor in the CPE program.

At the time, I was still a Pentecostal and had no objections to the ordination of women.  I stupidly thought that this would deflect any criticism by the two liberals and the Roman Catholic nun.  I misread the Free Methodist, who was doing another unit of CPE because he was employed by Hospice of the Bluegrass.  I thought the Free Methodist would be immune to any re-imaging of God as a female.  I was wrong.  I was familiar with the re-imaging movement by feminists because at that point in time it was being openly promoted and even affirmed by some progressive Evangelicals.

The fireworks started on day one because the Roman Catholic nun, an elderly lady, insisted that we pray together as a group.  What I did not know is that apparently there was interaction already taking place before I arrived in the class.  When I prayed, I ended my part of the prayer with a traditional ending to most impromptu Pentecostal prayers.  The ending goes something like this: “Father God, thank You for hearing our prayers and petitions.  I thank You and praised you in the wonderful name above all names, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” 

The next time we met I was immediately called out and challenged by the supervisor, Jean.  This was the beginning of many challenges I had to face during that class, which met at the offices of Hospice of the Bluegrass.  However, early on I decided that I would never compromise my faith to appease papists and theological liberals or even mainline Free Methodists.  The very first thing that happened on the second meeting was that Jean, the Catholic nun, objected to my prayer.   I was confused at first because I did not see that there was anything controversial about it.  Jean said that I should not pray to God as my Father.  Now this really piqued my interest because I had been taught to pray the model prayer since about first grade through the fourth grade in elementary school in Weaver, Alabama.  “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . .”  (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2).

When I asked why not I was informed that the married female student from Lexington Theological Seminary had been sexually molested as a child by her biological father.  So, my first dilemma is whether to cave to the liberals and the papist, all of whom said that they had no problem praying to God as “mother.”  I decided then and there that there would be no compromise and that no one had the right to tell me what to believe.  The Bible is the final authority for me, and it has never changed.  Unfortunately, there are Pentecostals and Charismatics today who no longer believe that the Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice.  Their Pentecostal experiences trump and override the Bible.

So began a theological debate in which I was put on the defensive by the other three students and the papist nun.  Asked why I refused to compromise, I explained that the Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice because it is the inspired, inerrant and infallible Word of God.  I explained that the Bible determines what I believe and not what any theologian has to say on such matters.  I also explained that Jesus was a male and that He taught us to pray to our Father in heaven, which, I pointed out, even the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church calls for.  At this point, the papist nun, Jean, stopped me in my statement and informed me that her church did not pray to God the Father.   I argued with her about it and said that I happen to know enough about the Roman Catholic Church to know that whatever her parish was doing was not in line with the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.  She persisted in saying that it was not true, despite the fact that she was obviously equivocating.  She played the victim card, insisting that I should not pray to God as Father.  To which I responded that the molestation of the female student was not my problem and that I would not compromise simply because her biological father had molested her and that she had a problem with imagining God as her Father.

Jean brought up a couple of biblical metaphors where God is said to care for us as a mother nurses her baby.  You can see a few examples of these verses here:  Female Images of God in the Bible.  Apparently, there is a movement within the Roman Catholic Church to push for the ordination of women as priests.  As I said before, at the time I did not object to the ordination of women because of my affiliation with the Assemblies of God.  But the line they wanted me to cross was praying to God by the title of “Mother God.”  I informed the nun that Pentecostals do not pray to Mary as the mother of God.  But she insisted that this was praying not to Mary but to God as the Mother.  I was taken aback to be honest.  The next thing she brought up after I insisted that Jesus was a male and the Son of God was that in the book of Proverbs Jesus is personified as a female, Sophia.  After some study, I did find out that the Septuagint translation of the book of Proverbs does indeed use the Greek word Sophia for the word “wisdom”.  However, I informed her that the Protestant churches do not view the Septuagint as an inspired translation.  The Hebrew word is not Sophia.  In short, there is no reference to any woman named Sophia in the book of Proverbs.  Rather than go into a long detour on the matter, I refer you to the article from “Got Questions?” here:  “Does the Bible teach that Sophia is the goddess of wisdom?”

After I insisted that I would not be changing the way that I prayed, Jean suggested that I was being insensitive to the female who had been molested.  My response was clear and unambiguous.  I would not pray to God as mother because the title that Jesus Himself commanded us to use was God the Father.  Jesus prayed to God as Father many times in the Bible, even saying that He and His Father were one.  (John 10:30, 12:45, 14:7, 14:9, et. al.).  The entire class that session turned into a theological debate.  I held my ground.  At the end, Jean asked me not to pray that way.  To which I responded that I would not. So, she asked me what solution I could offer.  I offered that we should not pray together at all.  This was something of a shocker to me because I had expected the fake Evangelical Free Methodist to back me up.  Instead, he sided with the liberals.  Honestly, I was not comfortable praying with liberals and papists anyway because I did not view them as born again Christians.

In a later attack, they asked me how I felt about homosexuals.  I again stood my ground and said that it was an abomination because the Bible said so.  Then, they played the victim card again.  Turns out that one of the social workers at the hospice was a gay man whose name now escapes me.  Before that session I had gotten along fine with that social worker.  I noticed later that his countenance had changed toward me.  I did not compromise.  I treated him as I would anyone else, not withstanding my objection to the sin of homosexuality.

During the course, I was attacked over and over again and at one point I openly asked Jean if she was planning to fail me for the class because of my commitments to the Bible as my authority.  She refused to answer, implying to me at the time that she was planning to write a bad review.  So, that was a mistake on her part.  I was so incensed by even the thought of my being discriminated against because of my Evangelical faith that I wrote a scathing review of Jean’s handling of the situation.  I said pretty much what I said above and charged her with constantly attacking my faith.  In short, the supposedly tolerant ones were intolerant of my Evangelical faith and my right to the freedom of religion.  No one has the right to tell anyone else what their religious beliefs should be.  (Acts 5:29).

On the final day of the class, we all read our reviews.  The other students all went first.  Jean read her review of me, in which I was surprised to learn that she had not rejected me from passing the evaluation.  I read my review last.  It was a scathing review, as I said before.  I stand by that review because I felt attacked by all four of the others during the entire class.  After I read the review, I was reminded by the other students that Jean needed a good review from all four of us in order to pass her evaluation to become a CPE supervisor.  I told them that I could not lie about what I truthfully thought about her treatment of me in the class.  I got up and left first.

Jesus promised us that when we were called before councils and authorities that God would give us the words to say.  (Luke 12:11-12).  Jesus kept that promise. 

In my next post, I will address several passages of Scripture used by the Pentecostals to justify the ordination of women.  Ironically, most of these passages are same passages used by the liberals, progressives and feminists to justify the ordination of women to church offices.

 

You can read the previous post of this series here:  Should Women Be Ordained to Ministry? Part 1.

 

 

Gordon H. Clark Quote of the Day: Christianity and Capitalism

 Dr. Gordon H. Clark:

"It is sometimes said, particularly by people who wish to destroy capitalism, that Christianity is not tied to any one politico-economic system.  There is one sense in which this is true; there is another in which it is false.  True it is that the New Testament assigns the authority of capital punishment, waging war, and collecting taxes to the government.  The New Testament also instructs us to obey whatever government is in power insofar as its laws do not conflict with our duties to God.  But only thus far, and no further.  So it was in the Old Testament too, as is seen in the disobedience to Pharaoh's order to drown the Jewish baby boys.  But obedience to a Roman, Egyptian, or Communist government does not imply that Christians should be indifferent to politics.  Christianity may indeed survive under hostile rule; but it is quite another matter to say that Christianity approves of hostile rule.  The Bible definitely disapproves of some types of government and approves of others.  Scripture approves of private property.  Christ asserted the right of an employer to set wages he will pay; he advised investment for gain in the marketplace.  There is nothing socialistic in New Testament political economy.  Indeed, Christianity clearly supports a capitalistic, free enterprise system."

Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  What Do Presbyterians Believe?  The Westminster Confession Yesterday and Today.  1965.  (Unicoi:  Trinity Foundation, 2001).   P. 229.