Nehemiah and Dialogue

A sermon on Nehemiah 4:

"One of the tenets of liberal theology that we need to be careful to stay very far away from is the idea that all differences can be overcome with constructive dialogue... any chasm, no matter how great. This is an expression of a particular religious worldview.

A telltale sign of trouble is when someone says, "These are difficult issues. We need to wrestle with these difficult issues." Now, that's a code word. "Wrestle with difficult issues" means we wrestle with it for a time and then we capitulate and give up.... Nehemiah didn't want to wrestle with the difficult issues that Sanballat was presenting to him. He wanted to build the wall. He wanted to win. He wanted Sanballat - this is another arcane concept - to lose. We can sum up the Scriptures with four words, as you turn the last page of the book: we win - they lose...

This is going to sound haughty and arrogant.... but we don't solve that problem by pretending that everything can be worked out in some negotiated settlement. And Nehemiah doesn't even try.

Doug Wilson - 3/12