Part One

Extremism

In the first year of living back in Indiana, my wife and I tried fried chicken at two regional, renowned restaurants.  When I say that, get in your mind very homey places like Wagner’s Village Diner in the small town of Oldenburg.  It won the James Beard award in 2023 for its chicken.  Why do these restaurants do better than others?  They are extremists, compared to others.  Each goes to far reaches to prepare the best chicken.

In reading through the Bible again, today I read in 2 Chronicles, where my schedule has me.  In 2 Chronicles, Solomon builds the temple and at the dedication he offered God 22,000 oxen and 20,000 sheep.  I was thinking, “That’s extreme. . . . in a very good way.”

Where I left off in my Bible reading today in 2 Chronicles 15, it says in verses 15-16:

15 And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them: and the LORD gave them rest round about. 16 And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron.

Today most people would call that extreme.  Yet, it’s what God wanted — what should be normal behavior, but isn’t.

Extremism, a Pejorative

What is extremism anyways?  Like when someone such as Mark Ward calls a godly individual an extremist and dangerous?  Extreme compared to what?

In general, when someone calls someone extreme, he means it as a pejorative, a personal shot, probably implying some craziness to the person.  However, Christianity has so declined, what was once normal is now extreme.  Regular preaching of the gospel in our community, I’ve found, is extreme where I live in the Bible belt.  For sure, it was extreme in California.

I attended public elementary school.  My fifth grade teacher had a paddle hanging from his wall. He regularly swatted students for bad behavior.  Now no public schools do that.  Our Christian school was the last one to use corporeal punishment in California, a state of almost 40 million people.  It’s considered extreme.

A “Balanced Approach”

One of Mark Ward’s favorites, Mark Minnick, preaches that ladies must wear head coverings in church.  In 2015, he did an eight part series on it and is a favorite in “the head covering movement.”  Is that practice extreme?  Really, what Ward expects for non-extremism is something he wrote in support of fundamentalism in the MarchApril2017 of the FBFI magazine:

I am not willing to say that all Christians who listen to contemporary styles of Christian music are living in active, conscious rebellion against God.  I do not believe that every Christian whose church has a praise band, a drum set, and tattooed worship leaders that I must abandon to Satan a la 1 Corinthians 5.

1 Corinthians 5, I agree, isn’t the best passage to use for separation over false worship, that is, offering the thrice holy God fleshly and worldly music as worship.  He could use 2 Thessalonians 3, 1 Timothy 6:3-6, or 2 Timothy 2:20-22, because among other places that church violates Romans 12:1-2, 1 Peter 2:5, and 1 John 2:15-17 among other places.  I know though.  What I now believe and practice, men like Ward call an extreme form of separation.  Expect more rock bands in church with the association of Mark Ward and others.  It’s too extreme now to stand up against that like his alma mater once did.  Now they take, what their newest president calls, a “balanced approach.”

Anyone who isn’t “balanced” is now extreme.  Balanced means that you look at the “extremes” and find the sweet spot in the middle.  The Bible doesn’t teach that.  Interestingly, it’s only one extreme that gets most of the attention even from evangelicals such as Ward, who slides further from even a former fundamentalist mooring.

Jesus the Extremist and Danger to Religious Society

Jesus, while on earth, told people these things:

Matthew 5:19, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Luke 14:26, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”

Matthew 22:37, “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”

Mark 9:42, “And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.”

So much of the Bible is extreme compared to what people teach or say today.  Jesus was considered an extremist by the religious people of his day.

When someone is dangerous, I believe Mark Ward means that he’s leading someone astray from the truth into something harmful.  Nothing is more harmful for someone than eternal damnation.  Thomas Ross mentioned how that Ward works for Logos Bible Software as a “ministry.”  Logos publishes “Roman Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, theologically modernist, and other damnable heresy.”

Ross is exactly right.  Apparently Ward sees those groups as part of “the church” that Logos equips to grow (his words).  They get silence, while those propagating and protecting faith in the perfect preservation of scripture receive reproach.  This manifests the priority of keeping together ungodly coalitions instead of the truth.  To use KJV terminology, making money off a false gospel is “greedy of filthy lucre.”

The Divine Expectation

Jesus in His culture was an extremist and dangerous.  He was dangerous to the religious leaders.  He threatened their popularity with the people and brought potential wrath of the Roman Empire.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus provided the Divine expectation of every “jot and tittle” of His Word.  The Pharisees diminished the Divine standard so they could attempt to keep it on their own.  Jesus illustrated the paucity of the Pharisaical approach in Matthew 5 and 6.  It wasn’t just the keeping of God’s Word, but also the internal attitude and motive.  You could murder someone by hating him in the heart and treating him with contempt.

I’m sure Ward would agree with the above verses from Jesus:  their practice in real life though, extreme and dangerous.  This is not believing what Jesus and the Apostles said.  The author of Hebrews writes in 13:13:  “Let us go forth therefore unto him [the Lord Jesus] without the camp, bearing his reproach.”  I invite others to go forth unto Jesus without the camp and bear the reproach of “extremism” and “dangerous.”  Return to normal and stand against the decline of true, biblical Christianity.  While those reproaching double down on their reproach, remain steadfast in God’s will for the cause of Christ.