Incrementalism
I was at an event last night that talked about the great principle of interposition. Everything was well said, except for one bad precept that was put out. The speaker spoke against incrementalism and for immediatism, meaning that instead of taking steps we should only support legislation that directly accomplishes the end goal of ending abortion. A few problems with that:
1) Nothing can be accomplished by mortals immediately. There is always a process, a timeline and steps (i.e. work). Only a few times did God just work an immediate miracle to change things, most of the time men had to work over a period of time to solve the problem. Israel didn't take Canaan in a day, most wars they were involved in had battles they fought along the way. Wilberforce took 20 years to get slavery abolished in England, and there were many steps along the way.
2) Immediatism is a heretical concept that makes man God, putting the miracle of accomplishment in men's hands. Men do their work bound by time, and some accomplishments take generations. It was a doctrine that came out of Unitarianism, an anti-christian religion formed out of the fusion of christianity and the enlightenment; in fact the 6 financial backers of John Brown the violent abolitionist were Unitarian ministers.
3) Even immediatists have to work incrementally, because just abolishing abortion wouldn't take care of all the problems related to that concept (though it would be a great start). They are also time-bound and have to do their work.
Caveats: Not all incrementalism is good, some is just useless show, and the speaker spoke well against that type of incrementalism (he just went too far beyond that).
The end result of a belief in immediatism is that those who are concerned about the issue won't get involved in the political process unless they are working on the ultimate legislation. They won't work on the steps in-between, and use immediatism to justify their apathy. Just like the anarchists in Fairbanks, who encourage people not to vote, they are just selling people that there are only two options: passivity or revolution. God works in many ways, not just those two, and we should always do what we can to move in the direction of abolition, but that will take some steps to get there.
A few good points made by Doug Wilson:
https://dougwils.com/books/incrementalism.html
https://dougwils.com/books/book-monthapril-2016.html
1) Nothing can be accomplished by mortals immediately. There is always a process, a timeline and steps (i.e. work). Only a few times did God just work an immediate miracle to change things, most of the time men had to work over a period of time to solve the problem. Israel didn't take Canaan in a day, most wars they were involved in had battles they fought along the way. Wilberforce took 20 years to get slavery abolished in England, and there were many steps along the way.
2) Immediatism is a heretical concept that makes man God, putting the miracle of accomplishment in men's hands. Men do their work bound by time, and some accomplishments take generations. It was a doctrine that came out of Unitarianism, an anti-christian religion formed out of the fusion of christianity and the enlightenment; in fact the 6 financial backers of John Brown the violent abolitionist were Unitarian ministers.
3) Even immediatists have to work incrementally, because just abolishing abortion wouldn't take care of all the problems related to that concept (though it would be a great start). They are also time-bound and have to do their work.
Caveats: Not all incrementalism is good, some is just useless show, and the speaker spoke well against that type of incrementalism (he just went too far beyond that).
The end result of a belief in immediatism is that those who are concerned about the issue won't get involved in the political process unless they are working on the ultimate legislation. They won't work on the steps in-between, and use immediatism to justify their apathy. Just like the anarchists in Fairbanks, who encourage people not to vote, they are just selling people that there are only two options: passivity or revolution. God works in many ways, not just those two, and we should always do what we can to move in the direction of abolition, but that will take some steps to get there.
A few good points made by Doug Wilson:
https://dougwils.com/books/incrementalism.html
https://dougwils.com/books/book-monthapril-2016.html
Labels: christian biblical conservative incrementalism immediatism abolition
posted by Lance Roberts at 2:09 PM
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