I am not the shy, retiring sort, in real life or online. I believe and practice according to the old adage “men speak directly,” which endears me to some, but is absolutely unacceptable to others. So when issues arise, whether they be related to the family, our civil society or are more more ecclesial in nature, I have but one voice, tempered (it is hoped) by the character of Christ, especially that characteristic which is referenced in Matthew 12:20, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench…” Some folks are genuinely trying to ascertain what’s true or not, and can engage in good-faith conversations.
However, some folks are so very entrenched in their unproven assumptions that it’s hard for me not to go for their logical jugular at times. In the best of situations, it can still be difficult in application, especially during these days where pandering to feminine sensibilities in our modern evangelical churches is just the cost of doing business. That is, if you want to keep some families in attendance. One man’s direct speech is another man’s “you’re just being uncharitable.” Some men get used to operating within that environment—it’s the very air they breathe—and have adapted themselves to it. I’m aware of Churches that seem otherwise vibrant and believing, but are still cranking out emotive liberal women of both sexes, and doing so in the name of having a big tent. I would love to sit in on one of their staff meetings, and what a rollicking great 10 minutes that would be! “Security—you’re needed in the pastor’s study.”
Either/Or Fallacy
“Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Or you will also be like him.
Answer a fool as his folly deserves,
That he not be wise in his own eyes.”
Recently, I’ve used a certain handy old phrase in quite a few conversations—“you can walk and chew gum at the same time, you know.” It’s a verbal meme of sorts, and conveys the idea that the person you’re addressing is making a kind of excluded middle fallacy, commonly known as an “either/or.” So we’re not confusing things, there are most definitely genuine either/or issues we grapple with and proclaim as gospel truth—as in, it’s either Christ or chaos; one is either in Christ, or in Adam; either spiritually alive or spiritually dead; you are either for Jesus or against Him—those are real binaries. The Bible uncompromisingly presents a real either life/or death framework when it comes to the gospel and the nature of God’s character. The fallacy of the either/or comes in when there are genuinely more options than just the two being presented.
For example, a common either/or fallacy is often cited when discussing the Lord’s Supper, that is, communion. One man will say it’s a means of grace. Another responds and says no, it’s a memorial. That’s an either/or fallacy because we can respond with “it’s actually both—no less than a memorial, but also used by God as a means of grace, strengthening and encouraging His people.” It isn’t either a memorial or a means of grace—it combines both of those aspects into the one observance, and this isn’t all that controversial.
Here’s one that has popped up in more recent conversations: Imagine you say something along the lines of “Christians should prioritize taking care of their own families first, then their Church, and only then the rest of the human community.” Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? But right on time, someone’s bound to pipe up and claim Christ’s words as a stand-alone statement: “…stretching out
His hand toward His disciples, He said, ‘Behold My mother and My brothers!” (Matt. 12:49). Well, there you go. Or, if someone makes a statement like, “the Church should really be about discipling its own members,” someone else is required to immediately ask, “What about evangelism?” The reductionist gladly played his only hand.
One more fun and glaring example: Christian Nationalism. If you say, “I don’t want 150-ft. pagan Hindu demon-god statues cluttering up the view,” invariably, here it comes: “Don’t want those statues in America? Preach the gospel. Our weapons are spiritual, not carnal.”
In all of those examples, there is a tendency to reduce everything down to a strategic binary and commit the either/or fallacy. Of course, it’s not illegitimate for a man to care for his own people and also care for others; for a Church to teach and preach in such a way that Christians mature in the faith and reach the lost; to lobby zoning boards to forbid erecting blasphemous idols and pray for and proclaim the gospel to Hindus and Muslims and other idolaters. Sometimes these answers are a form of “Jesus-juke” (pietistic virtue-signaling), and sometimes they result from years of sub-biblical teaching. Or both—either way, it’s still fallacious and wrong.
These false binaries are so common now that I prepared my own little meme that says “walk and chew gum as the tag.” When ICE recently rounded up a group of illegal immigrants working at a food processing plant near Omaha, one man piped up, “I thought the focus was on gang bangers, murderers, and rapists?” Respond accordingly: “ICE can do both—walk and chew gum.” One man said that the fact that I like heavy metal was a disqualifying trait for the pastorate, and that he likes “Americana.” I like both—walk and chew gum. (Reminds me of the classic Blues Brothers line: “Here at Bob’s Country Bunker we have both kinds of music—country and western.”)
More importantly, however, are discussions surrounding a prospective Christian nation and being a Baptist, with some still conflating categories of Church membership with citizenship in a nation, and the resultant quandary question as to whether a nation can be considered “Christian” even without every citizen being personally justified. A friend of mine said that this was why he couldn’t ever be a Baptist, since Baptists’ insistence on a regenerate Church membership precluded the idea of a general Christian consensus. I responded: “Not when it comes to the government, no. This may fit with modern ‘Radical 2-Kingdom’ stuff, but not with Baptists historically, especially given 17th and 18th-century history. I agree—we should work to encourage and ‘build the plausibility structures’—but also shoot for regenerate Church membership. Walk/chew gum.”
Kocman posted on X about his oldest turning 13, then after many encouraging words (from Christian nationalists, no less), the comments soon turned vicious, since his oldest is adopted and has a much higher melanin count than either Alex or his wife. It was sheer, ignorant lunacy. Alex then posted this: “You can reject self-hating, rootless, deracinating, cosmopolitan, globalism without embracing race essentialism, biological determinism, or sinful partiality.” That is precisely the right approach: not confusing categories, not being relativistic, not mere hand-waving over an issue. It was balanced, logical, and biblical, even with no specific verses cited.
I personally try to model a legitimate “both/and” to my congregation. As a pastor and as a nationalist of the Christian variety, I lead the congregation in prayer each Lord’s Day, and consistently ask that God would grant reformation to His Church and revival to this nation. It’s a sort of foil towards those who make the illegitimate “either/or” regarding my stated position. They claim that you can’t make a nation Christian just by passing laws (a straw-man argument as well), and besides, our own churches are so unhealthy—so “just preach the gospel.” I say “walk and chew gum”—pass good laws based on God’s ethical requirements and simultaneously reform unhealthy Churches. Work and pray to produce solid Christian disciples of integrity.
Mission Drift
“Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand, doing the work and the other holding a weapon. As for the builders, each wore his sword girded at his side as he built, while the trumpeter stood near me.” – Nehemiah 4:17-18
In my denomination (the Southern Baptist Convention), the either/or fallacy is best illustrated by comments uttered from the platform—those statements articulated by the establishment wing of the SBC. We’ve all heard the one about the pastor who gets imbalanced in his political and cultural engagement, losing sight of his primary responsibility to the Church. Maybe not—the pattern is hardly seen when the political or cultural engagement leans leftwards in its emphases—whether it’s immigration, egalitarianism, opposition to equal protection bills, food stamps/SNAP, racial issues, inequality of any kind, or so-called ‘side-b’ sexuality—anyone promoting those social-gospel issues usually gets a fairly wide berth. That’s called being gospel-centered, applying an interpretation of the teachings of Jesus that doesn’t unnecessarily offend the more progressive demographic in society.
It’s when you dare to lean to the right—that’s where the cries of “you’ve lost your way now!” begin to ring out. In that scenario, you’re not gospel-centered—you’re a shill for the party of law and order, morals, and free markets, and you probably have a patriotic service on the 4th of July—and what a crying shame that is. You’re now guilty of mission drift, no longer on the straight and narrow road on which the Church is traveling, and you’ve headed into the ditch. But this is simply inconsistent—it’s a highly selective application of Christ’s Kingly authority to social concerns. If I am to apply the gospel to all of life (I am) and I love the neighbor whom I can see, the one in closest physical proximity to me (again, I am), and I then prioritize my own citizen-neighbors with my time and help, that doesn’t mean that I am automatically guilty of dismissing the pitiable conditions of those in 3rd world nations or even guilty of ignoring world missions! In fact, maybe I would like to see the conditions in those nations improve. Walk and chew gum.
Here’s a great example where this inconsistency has been exposed and come home to roost: Recently, 9Marks President Jonathan Leeman distanced himself from certain comments he made at the 2018 9Marks at Nine event, saying he was wrong to suggest that Christians should have the freedom to vote for pro-choice candidates, and that they can even keep a clear conscience about it. This is their (9Marks and Capitol Hill Baptist Church) fundamental political strategy: punch right and coddle left, since (his own words) “you’re in Washington, DC in the 90’s and early 2000’s and you’re desperately trying…you’re trying very much to appeal to both Republicans and Democrats for gospel purposes…I think we said that too long…”
Hear what he’s saying—he knew it was wrong at the time, but went ahead with the plan “for gospel purposes.” The problem is that now, over 5 years after the fact, given the events of the tumultuous summer of 2020, Leeman’s direct participation with BLM marches, and his immediate “not so fast” article responding to John MacArthur’s Church reopening, all trust has been broken. All of their gesturing to the progressives has been exposed for the pragmatic posturing that it was. He (and 9Marks) could have applied the “walk and chew gum” paradigm back in 2018 and said, “we welcome all who desire to follow Jesus, both Republican or Democrat, and repentance has to be applied to all of life, including the ballot box.” But that would have been seen as “getting political” and as promoting right-wing causes, all the while his original comments about voting were unironically seen as magnanimous, welcoming, and gospel-centered. Anyone for equal weights and measures?
It is a general truism that if you’re in the SBC and you pull your punches towards more left-leaning causes, you’re hailed as a caring and compassionate believer, soon rewarded with a place at the “cool kids’ table.” It is also a truism that if you’re in the SBC and you champion right-leaning causes, then you’re undoubtedly a cold, heartless iceberg, probably a racist, a “troubler of Israel” (2 Kings 18:7— don’t worry—you’re in good company), and the real kicker—you’re guilty of mission drift.
They argue that since the Church’s primary mission is to preach the gospel and reach the lost, then your rightward activism has, at best, intruded on your primary calling or, at worst, shut the doors of the Kingdom on those who lean left in their political alliance (9Marks’ operating principle). After all, no lefty is going to darken the doors of a church like mine, which is publicly and self-consciously right-wing. Makes perfect sense. But what about that vast unreached people group who are outside the faith and yet are right-wing in their politics? Why are they ignored as the Church promotes “MeToo” egalitarianism, reparations, and the Immigration Table? I have a few suspicions, but at the top of my list is a disdain for the rest of us normal, average, rural hicks who occupy what P.J. O’Rourke calls the “purgatory of freedom,” and who end up paying for everyone else’s egalitarianism, reparations, and Immigration Tables. It costs a lot of money to be neutral, you know, and we’re just unhip enough to be stuck footing the bill.
Some Neutrality
Luke 11:23: “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.” In applying wisdom and discernment, we have to be careful, too, so watch your step. The general direction in our culture is definitely not skewed towards hard-and-fast rules or drawing lines in the sand. There are so many other examples of where we can see the either/or fallacy on display, but it is far more common to see a “both/and” fallacy exist simply because no one wants to come off as a rigid old Fundamentalist.
All that talk of Christ’s exclusive claims to Kingship, that there’s only one way for God to be reconciled to sinful man, the penal and substitutionary atonement Christ made on the cross—that all sounds so unloving. But we need to think and act like men (1 Cor. 16:13), and be self-aware of our own propensity to veer outside of legitimate categories to score points against the left. We need a whole Bible approach in order to navigate our way through God’s world. Prudence demands that we recognize true biblical binaries while also being cognisant of when to answer a fool, and when to ignore him; when someone is avoiding an issue by employing the either/or fallacy. We can walk and chew gum at the same time— make mine Wrigley’s Doublemint.
