Hiscox's definition of a Christian church

from Edward T. Hiscox's Principles and Practices for Baptist Churches (Judson Press, 1984; repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1980), 20.

"A Christian Church is a company of regenerate persons, baptized on a profession of faith in Christ; united in covenant for worship, instruction, the observance of Christian ordinances, and fo such service as the gospel requires; recognizing and accepting Christ as their supreme Lord and Lawgiver, and taking His Word as their only and sufficient rule of faith and practice in all matters of conscience and religion."

Is this definition accurate? Is his definition too narrow?

Motivation to throw out your television

from Jonathan Edwards' sermon The Christian Pilgrim, which I dare say is singly better than the sum total of evangelical ink spilled in the last fifteen years. You would do well to read it.

Labor to obtain such a disposition of mind that you may choose heaven for your inheritance and home, and may earnestly long for it and be willing to change this world, and all its enjoyments, for heaven. Labor to have your heart taken up so much about heaven, and heavenly enjoyments, as that you may rejoice when God calls you to leave your best earthly friends and comforts for heaven, there to enjoy God and Christ.

Be persuaded to travel in the way that leads to heaven: viz. in holiness, self-denial, mortification, obedience to all the commands of God, following Christ’s example [and] in a way of a heavenly life, or imitation of the saints and angels in heaven. Let it be your daily work, from morning till night, and hold out in it to the end. Let nothing stop or discourage you, or turn you aside from this road. And let all other concerns be subordinated to this. Consider the reasons that have been mentioned why you should thus spend your life: that this world is not your abiding place, that the future world is to be your everlasting abode, and that the enjoyments and concerns of this world are given entirely in order to another. And consider further for motive.

1. How worthy is heaven that your life should be wholly spent as a journey towards it. — To what better purpose can you spend your life, whether you respect your duty or your interest? What better end can you propose to your journey, than to obtain heaven? You are placed in this world with a choice given you, that you may travel which way you please, and one way leads to heaven. Now, can you direct your course better than this way? All men have some aim or other in living. Some mainly seek worldly things. They spend their days in such pursuits. But is not heaven, where is fullness of joy forever, much more worthy to be sought by you? How can you better employ your strength, use your means, and spend your days, than in traveling the road that leads to the everlasting enjoyment of God: to his glorious presence, to the new Jerusalem, to the heavenly mount Zion, where all your desires will be filled and no danger of ever losing your happiness? — No man is at home in this world, whether he choose heaven or not: here he is but a transient person. Where can you choose your home better than in heaven?

John Piper on the Arminians being logic-driven

Although desiringgod.org has a great selection of John Piper's resources, Monergism fills the void by offering many additional audio resources you cannot find at Piper's own site, including his biographical sketches, Hebrews sermons, his series on fasting, and several other series.

I have been listening to his series on TULIP, and thought that this bit was good from his fourth lecture (part 1):

The accusation against me—and I have protested back and forth—is that Calvinists deduce their doctrine of the atonement by logic from the other four points of TULIP. . . . I heard that argument in seminary which is why I didn’t become one—that is, a “five pointer”—for a long time, because I’m not going to let ostensible logic drive against plain texts, and there are some texts which don’t look very limited when it comes to the atonement. . . . So I want not to be driven by logic.

I think the indictment of being logic-driven falls far heavier on Arminians than it does on Calvinists, because Arminians bring to the text the apparently logical assumption that in order to have accountability you have to have free will. Nowhere is that taught in the Bible. That is brought to the text. So if anybody is bringing presuppositions and logic and pressing texts into it, it’s those who believe that in order to be accountable you have to be self-determining. You cannot find that in the Bible. Zero. It is not there.

So it cuts both ways. Everybody needs logic, I’m putting one sentence after another, Paul uses logic, logic is God-given, and it is precious, but it is so easily manipulated, so easily twisted, distorted, spun, that if you put it against texts, you probably have bad logic, just as likely as you have bad exegesis.

Those remarks are good, no matter what one believes about limited (or definite) atonement. John Piper calls himself a "five-pointer," embracing even what he calls "definite atonement." He agrees that the saving benefits after faith were purchased by the death of Christ, and a bona-fide invitation to faith in Christ can be made to any person in saying that Christ died for sin. He even agrees that Christ's death is sufficient for the sins of the world. He says the difference between Arminians and Calvinists on atonement is that the death of Christ purchased the faith of the believer, as well as the benefits after faith. He believes Christ's death purchased more for the believer than the unbelieving world.

"If I could shut the Gate"

I found this anonymous poem in The Oxford Book of Christian Verse edited by Lord David Cecil (London: Oxford University Press, 1940).

'If I Could Shut the Gate'

If I could shut the gate against my thoughts

And keep out sorrow from this room within,

Or memory could cancel all the notes

Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin:


How free, how clear, how clean my soul should lie,

Discharged of such a loathsome company!

Or were there other rooms without my heart


That did not to my conscience join so near,


Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart

That I might not their clamorous crying hear,


What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess,


Freed from their horrors that my soul oppress!

But, O my Savior, Who my refuge art,


Let Thy dear mercies stand 'twixt them and me,



And be the wall to separate my heart


So that I may at length repose me free;



That peace, and joy, and rest may be within,


And I remain divided from my sin.

Darryl Hart on the Regulative Principle

Joel emailed me the link to this article about a month ago, and I used it as I was studying to write my post "Religious Movies and Regulative Principle." To give you an idea of John Frame's idea of the "Regulative Principle," he allows for liturgical dance and skits. Darryl Hart is a Presbyterian. You can find the entire debate (a lengthy read) here.

"But it also reflects evangelical anti-formalism. Ever since the advent of revivals, evangelicals have been telling us that it doesn't matter what form the gospel takes. As long as it brings people to Christ we may do it. Thus Whitefield itinerated sometimes against the desires of local clergy, Finney gave us the new measures, all the way down to Billy Graham who now instead of featuring solos from George Beverly Shea has Christian Hip-Hop bands function as his warm up acts. In a certain way this is pragmatism, which I believe is evident in contemporary worship since so much of it is designed to make the gospel accessible to the unchurched. But in another way it is a kind of Donatism which tests everything on the basis of its conversionistic capacities. If you do it they will convert.

But I would argue that forms matter. One form upon which practically all conservative Presbyterians agree is that of human anatomy. We don't ordain women, even though the message of female preachers may be just as good as the preaching of a man, because the Bible prescribes a physical form for ordination. In worship I would also argue that the Bible prescribes the forms of prayer, the word read and preached, song, and the sacraments. These are the forms Christians are to use in worship. Frame says the Standards do not prescribe a liturgy. I would submit that he is wrong. These are the elements prescribed by chapter 21 of the [Westminster] Confession. Granted, how we order them is left to the discretion of the session. But these forms do matter. These are the only ones we may use. No juggling EVER, no dance, no drama (except the drama of assembling in God's presence). And this is what the RPW is designed to protect. Churches may only bind the consciences of individuals by using these elements. The Bible may not forbid elements other than those in the Standards. But unless there is a clear biblical warrant we are illegally binding or wounding the consciences of worshipers by doing things other than prayer, the word, song, and sacrament."

Is George W. Bush a conservative?

If you think so, you should listen to this.

On the use of Scripture in application

I wrote this comment over at Scott Aniol's blog Kara Ministries Weblog, and, after seeing it was nearly a blog post in and of itself, thought I would revise it a bit and post it here. You can find the original thread here.

I believe that every “application” of a Biblical principle is built upon some extra-Biblical “minor premise.” Calling it a “minor premise” is a simplification, really. But it illustrates, I believe, what is going on in application. There may be an entire string of argumentation informing us as we move from Bible to “application.” But demanding that the Bible address every situation, and saying that, if the Bible does not address it, the matter of concern is simply “helpful” or “unhelpful” (not "right" or "wrong") is a pretty stilted understanding of the Bible. That is exactly the problem: the Bible says “dress modestly,” but does not exactly tell us what modesty is. It says, “worship reverently” but it does not tell us explicitly what every expression of reverent worship is. The principle is the same in both instances. Here are some examples of what I mean:

Major premise from the Bible: Immodest dress is not permitted by the inspired Scriptures (1 Pet 3:1-5; 1 Timothy 2:9-10; etc)

minor premise: Every low-cut blouse worn by a woman is immodest dress.

Therefore, Every low-cut blouse worn by a woman is not permitted by the inspired Scriptures.

MP: All irreverence towards Jesus Christ is condemned by the inspired Scriptures (Phil 2:6-11; 1 John 2:22; 1 John 4:3; 2 John 1:7).


mp: The crucifix in a jar of urine is irreverence towards Jesus Christ.

Therefore, the crucifix in a jar of urine is condemned by the inspired Scriptures.

MP: Reverent expressions are characteristic of the proper worship of God (Hebrews 12:27-29).

mp: Some gospel songs are not reverent expressions.

Therefore, Some gospel songs are not characteristic of the proper worship of God.

The principle from Scripture must be, of course, true. My point is not that every minor premise is right. That, of course, is the question. My point is twofold: 1) that the minor premises are always statements about matters outside the realm of what the Bible directly addresses; and 2) that if the minor premises are true, the conclusion of the above syllogisms are as binding on our lives as the Bible itself. And if I am right about that, I am free to argue for their validity in the interest of true and pious religion. If I am right that some gospel songs are not reverent, I am right in banning them from worship. For someone to say, at this point, that the question becomes “helpful” or “unhelpful” because the Bible does not address reverent worship as explicitly as he (or any of us) would like or because it does not give us a comprehensive list of songs and styles and even performances which are reverent, limits us from saying anything is right or wrong. Otherwise we cannot condemn the blasphemous art. I am not saying that what is right or wrong should be done with a spirit of pride or self-righteousness, but that it nevertheless should be said, and sometimes earnestly and even with zeal.

Is the heart of the worshipper of importance as well? Absolutely. No one is denying that. But to say that is where the question ends neglects the other imperatives in Scripture. In John 4, It is not like Christ shrugged off the woman’s theological question about who was right about the place of worship, the Jews or the Samaritans. He answered it in verse 22. Let us not say that we worship God only “in spirit.” We must worship him in spirit “and in truth.”

You ask, Do you really contend that the issue of musical style is a) that clear, b) that pervasive, c) that important?

A) The issue is clear enough, though not explicitly demonstrable from the Bible (just like low-cut blouses and the appalling crucifix).



B) This does not matter. I think the principle of reverent worship is pervasive.



C) It is as important as blasphemous art or immodesty, if not more important. After all, we are talking about how we worship the One True and Living God.

Something else to buy at Half-Price Books 10 years from now

When I saw the Oxford Scofield Bible with the NIV, I scratched my head. Somehow I felt that Oxford did not know who their target audience was.

Alas, the puzzlement continues. Now you can be a "young fundamentalist" dispensationalist and have it in the hip "young fundamentalist" Bible, too.

It's a kind of "Old school-New school" hip "young fundamentalist" mixture.

Darryl Hart on P&W (contra John Frame)

Darryl Hart argued this in early 1998. The whole piece can be found here. When reading this, it boggles when one considers how much the Christian mainstream has moved in eight short years.

"Diane West in an article for The Weekly Standard wrote about the trend of political conservatives who attempt to show that they are cool. . . . West admits "an all-but-irresistible culture force pulls from Right to Left," luring the middle-class into anti-middle-class guises. But this cultural drift cannot change the fundamental antithesis between bourgeois values, namely, "responsibility, fidelity, sobriety, and other badges of maturity," and the "cumulative" message of rock culture -- "sexual and narcotic gratification, anarchism, self-pity, and other forms of infantilism."

"Now if West is right, and she is not the only one arguing this way about rock music, soft or otherwise, then we might reasonably pause in using its forms to communicate praise to God. And this isn't because we are hoping to preserve middle-class culture. It is because music that expresses sexual and narcotic gratification, anarchism, self-pity, and other forms of infantilism is not a fitting form (more on forms below) for worship. It cannot carry the weight that we want to put on it. So my response to praise songs is that they are irreverent, no matter how much Prof. Frame insists they are. Of course, we could do a better HE SAID, SHE SAID exhibition than the President and Monica are now giving us, and our imitation of the Miller Lite commercials, LESS REVERENT, MORE RIGID will not solve anything. But I wonder if Prof. Frame has ever considered the subtler message conveyed by the music he uses in his service. Again, as a good Van Tilian I would think he would see that nothing is neutral, even cultural forms. And therefore, the cultural message of rock music is one that stands for something other than the virtues that Paul says are fitting sound doctrine in Titus 2 (sobriety, moderation, self-control). Why should we exhibit these things in our lives (which may mean I should give up my U2), but not in our worship? I also wonder if what is going on at New Life Escondido is the J. C. Pennification of American Presbyterianism -- the effort of uptight, middle-class, white folk trying to be hip. Prof. Frame is right. I have never been to his church and so I should be cautious in what I say. But I do not live in a bomb shelter. Our CRC congregation went hip during my time on the consistory there, and at that time we lived close to Willow Creek, whose influence in the Chicago area was enormous (literally). So I know a little more of what I speak that what Prof. Frame incautiously alleges in his book and in this debate.

"Maybe the reason why Prof. Frame cannot see the problems of contemporary music is because of his understanding of what it means to be biblical. It is an unhistorical, abstract, and largely individual notion. . . .

"This is where charismatic worship, I believe, falls woefully short. It is not reverent nor does it exhibit godly fear. (New heavens, new earth worship will also express godly fear, if Revelation is any indication, something which argues against the kind of "ecstatic joy" that Frame thinks we should now display because of what Christ has accomplished.) Frame and I can go back and forth, DOES TOO, DOES NOT until our microprocessors melt. But his insistence that P&W music is reverent will not be convincing in the light of what I have said above about rock music (no matter how soft, and therefore bland and vanilla it is). Even more important, however, in the context of the RPW is the consideration of all the consciences of God's people in worship. I think it should trouble Prof. Frame that there are critics of contemporary Christian music who are saying that it wounds or binds the consciences of believers. Unless he can argue that the Bible commands this kind of music, then love for neighbor would force him to find music to which no one may possible object (see the recent article on the Charity and the RPW in the Nicotine Theological Journal), music that does not needlessly carry cultural baggage at odds with the very thing we are doing in worship."

I love Antonin Scalia

The first part of the session by Antonin Scalia on Outsourcing American Law is an excellent lecture. Then the session gets even better when he starts getting questions from the products of the American public school system.

Mark Noll on hymns and evangelicalism

The following lecture by Mark Noll is pretty informative. I think he goes a bit overboard in trying to help us understand the reception of hymns (over psalms) in early evangelical worship, but the lecture is interesting nonetheless. I am going to refrain from commenting on Noll's singing.

The Crucial Role of Hymns in Evangelical History

W. B. Johnson (1792-1863) on reading the New Testament

from "The Gospel Developed" in Polity: Biblical Arguments on How to Conduct Church Life: A Collection of Historic Baptist Documents

"The New Testament is comparatively a small book, and can be deliberately read through in two days’ continuous reading. It will be practicable, then, to read this book through once a month with care, so that a comprehensive view of the whole may be obtained in that time. And if such a reading of this book was to be observed once a month, it would be read through twelve times in a year. And what an acquaintance with the commands of Christ would be received in this period of time. And if to this frequency of reading this book, prayer, spiritual, fervent prayer for the aid of the Holy Spirit, be added, and if, when believers met, they would talk about what they had read, and assist each other in understanding it, and yet again, if they would faithfully obey the teachings of that book as fast as they learn them, who could calculate the amount of knowledge which they would acquire—knowledge, not speculative, but practical, spiritual, sanctifying—in one year? O! what a different aspect would the churches then present! What a moral power would they exert upon the world, for they would then be removed from the false position in which they now too generally appear, and occupy their right position."

Religious movies and the regulative principle

We are nearly finished now. I have been discussing the presumption that movies (or drama, by inference) should be used for evangelistic ends. I know I have been testing the patience of my readers with this, but I try not to get caught up in the time-defying fury of blogging. Your patience has been appreciated. Other posts in this series include:

A Response to Jason Janz's "Why we say 'Gospel'"




A continued response to the idea of religious movies







An Incitement to Postman (by Joel Zartman)







A continued response to the idea of religious movies: Tozer on acting







and, more incidently:







Speaking of religious movies







Spurgeon's protege finally speaks out against religious movies

My final plea is an appeal to the Regulative principle. I believe that all the previous reasons I have given thus far are sufficient more or less to cause a man in Christian leadership not to use religious movies (or even drama) in worship. The appeal of this article, I believe, is the strongest reason why we should not use religious movies for worship.

Christian leaders have always been tempted to introduce novel elements to worship. Whenever we decide to branch out from what God has prescribed, we hazard ourselves and our progeny. That the Lord Jesus was zealous for purity in worship is seen in his cleansing the temple. One shudders to think what he would think of our movie house temples today. Would he start with the projectors or the screen?

Tozer admonishes,

"Every generation is sure to have its ambitious amateur to come up with some shiny gadget which he proceeds to urge upon the priests before the altar. That the Scriptures do not justify its existence does not seem to bother him at all. . . . Soon it is identified in the minds of the Christian public with all that is good and holy. Then, of course, to attack the gadget is to attack the Truth itself" ("The Menace of the Religious Movie," in Tozer on Worship and Entertainment [Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1997], 184-85).

Protestants have long been criticizing the extra elements imposed by the Roman Catholic Church, yet our own versions of worship go by unscathed.

The basis for the Regulative Principle stems from sola scriptura. Only the Holy Scriptures may direct the form and content of Christian worship. The Bible is God-breathed, profitable and sufficient for the all of the church's life, whether teaching or correction (2 Tim 3:16); this must include the corporate worship of the body of Christ. Paul instructed the Colossian church in Colossians 3:16-17 to have the Word of Christ dwelling richly in their midst. If the Bible is our primary source for theology, then it is our primary source for ordering and regulating worship as well. One could also bring up many other theological themes in Scripture, like mankind's sinful bent toward idolatry, the "truth" side of John 4:24, and the very nature of the Church's submission to Christ as Lord. I do not have time to give a full-fledged defense of the Regulative Principle here, but the basis stems from certain texts (like Acts 17:24-25, Col 2:16-23), but also from the principle, found in both Old and New Testament, that God does not delight in "humanly devised" worship.

The Second London Confession (1677) says,

"The acceptable way of Worshipping the the [sic] true God, is instituted by himself; and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations, and devices of Men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way, not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures" (XXII.1, in William Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith [Valley Forge: Judson, 1959], 280).

The Second London Confession was a Baptist confession; we are talking about a Baptist principle (for example, have you ever wondered why Baptists have only two ordinances or sacraments? You can see the comments of another Baptist, Mark Dever, on this here). Of course, these men realized that certain circumstances of worship were prudential. Earlier the 2nd London Confession says,

"There are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and the government of the Church common to humane actions and societies; which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed" (I.6 in Ibid.)

The important distinction here is between elements of worship and the circumstances of worship. The elements of worship are solely those things Biblically prescribed (prayer, Bible reading, singing, administration of the sacraments, preaching, etc). The circumstances include incidental matters (posture, place of meeting, times of services, etc.). And even though they allowed for some liberty in these matters, the Baptist confession (and the Reformed tradition) still admonished us to monitor these things "ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the Word." Let me say this clearly: Religious movies do not fall under the "circumstances" of worship. You cannot hold to any form of the Regulative Principle and accept movies as a legitimate element of worship. I agree with what Kevin Bauder said (on his sadly now dormant blog), "None of us has been granted the authority to . . . deploy a single new practice that is not revealed in Scripture." He adds,

"Why are any of [the extra-Scriptural elements] thought to be expedient? Because they are meaningful to God? How would we know that? Only if He tells us. Otherwise, any notion of expedience simply signifies that they are meaningful to us. In other words, we are doing them because they please us, not because they please Him. And that is simply another way of saying idolatry."

J. Ligon Duncan III echoes similar sentiments when he says,

"The key benefit of the regulative principle is that it helps to assure that God--not man--is the supreme authority for how corporate worship is to be conducted, by assuring that the Bible, God's own special revelation (and not our own opinions, tastes, likes, and theories), is the prime factor in our conduct of and approach to corporate worship" ("Does God Care How We Worship?" in Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship: Celebrating the Legacy of James Montgomery Boice [ed., P. G. Ryken, D. W. H. Thomas, and J. L. Duncan III; Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2003], 24).

Again, to reiterate my point, the Bible must be our sole authority, and this includes the elements with which the Church worships. Religious movies and drama receive absolutely no warrant from Scripture. We have just as much warrant to introduce "Christian cooking seminars" as part of the corporate worship of the Church. Some may give examples of the number of souls won through the use of movies in evangelism. I am sure that Christian cooking seminars, if they only had the chance, would produce similar effects. Neither have the privilege of a Biblical warrant.

One wonders how many of those advocating the religious movie would react if I proposed that we start housing religious operas on Sunday morning or for our casual entertainment.

A. W. Tozer asks,

"For the religious movie where is the authority? For such a serious departure from the ancient pattern, where is the authority? For introducing into the Church the pagan art of acting, where is the authority? Let the movie advocates quote just one verse, from any book of the Bible, in any translation, to justify its use. This they cannot do. The best they can do is to appeal to the world's psychology or repeat brightly that 'modern times call for modern methods.' But the Scriptures--quote from them one verse to authorize movie acting as an instrument of the Holy Ghost. This they cannot do. ("Menace," 199).

Tozer, in saying this, knew that some would believe that movies are simply a new medium to communicate the gospel--an improvement on writing and speech. To this he responded: "The movie is not the modernization or improvement of any scriptural method; rather it is a medium in itself wholly foreign to the Bible and altogether unauthorized therein" (Ibid., 199). He adds, "Arguments for the religious movie are sometimes clever and always shallow, but there is never any real attempt to cite scriptural authority" (Ibid., 200).

It simply will not do to say to all of this, "I am not a Regulative Principle purist." Those who embrace the Regulative Principle do so with a profound concern for its purity. A great number of contemporary evangelicals and fundamentalists, of course, today reject the Regulative Principle. But those who embrace it do so with its purity in the forefront of their mind. Moreover, what right have you or anybody else to inflict your whims of religious experience and preference on other believers? How do you know that God is pleased with your little "Christian" movie? You have absolutely no warrant or mandate from Scripture. We should mourn the state of the church we have now stooped to the point where in so many corners the Bible no longer holds a firm sway over the Church's worship. Is Christianity a mere man-made religion that one feels the liberty to trifle in this way with great and holy God Jehovah? Where is Jesus Christ in all of this? Where is his Lordship? It would be an extremely good thing in American Christianity for pastors everywhere to remember the examples of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 or Paul's sober words in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 before they ever acted so carelessly with the Church's holy worship.

paleoevangelical: Dever on Entertainment and Church Dramas

paleoevangelical: Dever on Entertainment and Church Dramas

This is more of the same. I do enjoy having people like Mark Dever on my side.

What's wrong with "I've got a mansion" anyway?

Dr. Albert Mohler makes the following remark in his lecture "The Nature of True Beauty":

"As you continue reading about the New Jerusalem, you will understand its beauty reflected in the precious and semi-precious stones and elements, streets of gold. This has been turned into the stuff of gospel music, but the picture is much more of beauty than of opulence."

Mark Dever on "fundamentalists," with a group-participation question

Mark Dever said the following in his Capitol Hill talk, "Church History from the Civil War to the Present":

"Those who united around the fundamentalists soon became known as the "fundamentalists." The term then had a rather precise meaning of those who affirmed the foundation, the "fundaments," the foundation of the doctrines of orthdoxy. It soon, however, became to be used more broadly and more disparagingly as it is today, to refer to a kind of militancy that's intolerant and anti-intellectual."

Question for group-participation: Is this true of today's fundamentalists?

***THIS IS MY 100th IMMODERATE POST***

Some Neil Postman for a Monday morning

from Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Viking Penguin, 1985), 8-9.

"The clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation. I might add that my interest in this point of view was first stirred by a prophet far more formidable than McLuhan, more ancient than Plato. In studying the Bible as a young man, I found intimations of the idea that forms of media favor particular kinds of content and therefore are capable of taking command of a culture. I refer specifically to the Decalogue, the Second Commandment of which prohibits the Israelites from making concrete images of anything. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water beneath the earth." I wondered then, as so many others have, as to why God of these people would have included instructions on how they were to symbolize, or not symbolize, their experience. It is a strange injunction to inlcude as part of an ethical system unless its author assumed a connetion between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture. We may hazard a guess that a people who are being asked to embrace an abstract, unverisal deity would be rendered unfit to do so by the habit of drawing pictures or making statues or depicting their ideas in any concrete, inconographic forms. The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking. Iconography thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could enter a culture. People like ourselves who are in the process of converting their culture from word-centered to image-centered might profit by reflecting on this Mosaic injunction."

Interestingly, Ligon Duncan cites this paragraph in the book Give Praise to God

The Orthdox Creed (1678) on the three creeds

The Orthodox Creed is an early Baptist confession from the late 17th century.

XXXVIII ARTICLE.

Of the three Creeds.

The three creeds, viz. Nicene creed, Athanasius’s creed, and the Apostle’s creed, as they are commonly called, ought throughly to be received, and believed. For we believe, they may be proved, by most undoubted authority of holy scripture, and are necessary to be understood of all christians; and to be instructed in the knowledge of them, by the ministers of Christ, according to the analogy of faith, recorded in sacred scriptures, upon which these creeds are grounded, and catechistically opened, and expounded in all christian families, for the edification of young and old, which might be a means to prevent heresy in doctrine, and practice, these creeds containing all things in a brief manner, that are necessary to be known, fundamentally, in order to our salvation; to which end they may be considered, and better understood of all men, we have here printed them under their several titles as followeth, viz.

C. S. Lewis on bad hymns

Found by Joel Zartman

"I question whether the badness of a really bad hymn can ordinarily be so irrelevant to devotion as the badness of a bad devotional picture. Because the hymn uses words, its badness will, to some degree, consist in confused or erroneous thought and unworthy sentiment."

From "Christianity and Literature"

Spurgeon's protege finally speaks out on the idea of the religious movie

I originally believed that this quote was by Spurgeon himself. I was listening to a sermon called "Deviant Worship" by Sam Horn and he read this quote, attributing it to him. It seems it was actually made by Archibald Brown, Spurgeon's student and contemporary, the man who conducted Spurgeon's funeral. This entire tract seems like a real gem to read. Brown says, ""Providing recreation for the people" will soon be looked upon as a necessary part of Christian Work and as binding upon the Church of God, as though it were a Divine command, unless some strong voice be raised which will make themselves heard."

Before I give the quotation, let me make a comment about why I am doing all of this work against the religious movie. This is not intended to be a vicious attack against anybody, including Jason Janz. But there are those of us who are convinced that worship and entertainment is, as Tozer said, a great heresy of our age. And we have seen many fundamentalists quick to agree with this sentiment. But in our study, we have found that entertainment and popular culture and fundamentalism have long been bed-fellows. We want purity in this regard, a reformation of sorts, even within fundamentalism. It does no good to accuse Bill Hybels and Rick Warren and Michael W. Smith of merging entertainment and worship and then have a Bible college drama team the next Sunday. I will not belabor this point. The other reason I am doing this is because the last thing I want is for the assumption that movies are legitimate vehicles for communicating the gospel to go unchallenged. This cannot become a standard assumption, that the movies are an appropriate means of propagating the Christian religion. We have already seen it in the posts at Sharperiron. Suddenly and increasingly, the test for "evangelical" movies is how clearly the gospel is being presented. We disagree with the presumption here. It is faulty. I have already given some reasons for this disagreement, and early next week I will give what will probably be my final reaosn why we cannot tolerate this idea in the Christian church.

Now we turn to Mr. Brown's comments on entertainment and the church, some of which has application to our discussion here on the religious movie:

"The mission of amusement utterly fails to effect the desired end among the unsaved; but it works havoc among the young converts. Were it a success, it would be none the less wrong. Success belongs to God; faithfulness to His instructions to me. Bit it is not. Test it even by this, and it is a contemptible failure. Let that be the method which is answered by fire, and the verdict will be, "The preaching of the Word, that is the power."

Let us see the converts who have been first won by amusement. Let the harlots and the drunkards to whom a dramatic entertainment has been God's first link in the chain of their conversion stand forth. Let the careless and the scoffers who have cause to thank God that the Church has relaxed her spirit of separation and met them half-way in their worldliness, speak and testify. Let the husbands, wives, and children, who rejoice in a new and holy home through "Sunday Evening Lectures on Social Questions" tell out their joy. Let the weary, heavy-laden souls who have found peace through a concert, no longer keep silence. Let the men and women who have found Christ through the reversal of apostolic methods declare the same, and show the greatness of Paul's blunder when he said, "I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." There is neither voice nor any to answer. The failure is on a par with the folly, and as huge as the sin. Out of thousands with whom I have personally conversed, the mission of amusement has claimed no convert."

Some interpretative musings on Romans 1:16-17

In the first chapters of Romans, Paul seems to be concerned with making at least two arguments: 1) the gospel is available to all who believe, both Jewish person and Gentile, and 2) the gospel he preaches (justification by faith alone) is in full continuity with the salvation revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures.

Consider verse 2, which says that the gospel was "promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures." Then he describes the gospel in vv. 3-5 following,

"concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,"

The blessed Apostle continues he wants to go to Rome so that he can preach the gospel to the Gentiles there, "in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish." He earnestly desired to preach the gospel to the Gentiles in Rome. Then he continues his line of reasoning,

ου γαρ επαισχυνομαι το ευαγγελιον του χριστου δυναμις γαρ θεου εστιν εις σωτηριαν παντι τω πιστευοντι ιουδαιω τε πρωτον και ελληνι δικαιοσυνη γαρ θεου εν αυτω αποκαλυπτεται εκ πιστεως εις πιστιν καθως γεγραπται ο δε δικαιος εκ πιστεως ζησεται. (For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith.")

Thus when Paul says "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," he does not mean shame in the sense that we speak of it today. The emphasis is in the "to everyone who believes"; He is confident that it is able to work in all who believe, and it does not matter if they are Jew or Greek. In fact, Paul says "to the Jew first and also to the Greek." I think he means here that the Jewish people, based on their status as God's chosen people, first heard the good news concerning the coming Messiah, first believed, and were first justified. This is a chronological first, not a first of priority (though I am not yet willing to die on that hill). The Jewish people first heard the gospel of salvation through the coming Christ. It worked in them, now Paul is confident that God will work through the good news in the Gentiles as well (he uses "Greek" as a synonym for "the nations" (v 5). I think he is speaking chronologically here foreshadowing what he will say in Romans 9:4-5,

"They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen."

Then in the eleventh chapter, Paul says,

"So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!"

It is on this basis that Paul admonishes the Gentile believers in vv 17-18,

"But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches."

Therefore in a real sense, the Jewish people were the first to have the gospel working in them; now the Gentiles have it. By the way, I believe that there is a sense in which the Jewish people have a "priority" over the Gentiles. But I do not believe that is the import of 1:16-17.

Paul continues that he knows all of this because in the gospel "the righteousness of God has been revealed εκ πιστεως εις πιστιν (from faith to faith)." This is, of course, a difficult phrase to interpret. 2 Corinthians 2:16 has a similar construction when it says (starting in v 15), "For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death [εκ θανατου εις θανατον], to the other a fragrance from life to life [εκ ζωης εις ζωην]. Who is sufficient for these things?" I think that we can look at this passage and see a kind of transfer of death and life, from the believers to unregenerate and from the believers to those who believe. When Paul says in Romans 1 that the righteousness of God has been revealed in the gospel "εκ πιστεως εις πιστιν," he means "from their faith to our faith." We have seen the justifying work of the gospel throughout all time from the faith of the Jews beforehand to the faith of the Gentiles at the present time. The gospel has remained the same throughout: God justifying the ungodly.

Therefore he can say later in Romans 3:21-26 that all can be saved. The emphasis here again is that anyone, including the Gentiles, can be saved by faith. How is this possible? He answers, "Since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Since all have sinned, all can be "justified by his grace as a gift." God justified the Jewish people by faith, now he is justifying the Gentiles by faith. Notice that Paul even points out that the sacrifice of Christ provided righteousness for the sins God had "passed over" in "divine forebearance," and righteousness for the sins "at the present time." It is in this that God shows himself to be the "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Whether that faith is forward-looking (the Jewish people) or backward-looking (and forward-looking for us), when we believe in Jesus, we are justified. This is the way it has always been. The importance of the continuity of this faith is part of reason Paul shows that this "justification by faith alone" gospel he is preaching was the same thing believed by Abraham and David (ch. 4). And it is for this reason the Apostle says in Romans 10:11-13,

"For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

All English Scripture cited is from the English Standard Version.

Capitol Hill Baptist Church on Christians, dating, and sexual union

This audio from Capitol Hill Baptist Church (pastored by Mark Dever) is extremely helpful, better than nearly anything I have heard in American evangelicalism and fundamentalism on the topic of dating, relationships, and their related issues. If you have a ministry with teenagers, singles, or young adults, or know someone in the aforementioned group, or even plan on having children, you need to listen to this. Even if you do not fit any of the near-exhaustive categories of persons I just mentioned, you should listen to these; they are a rich source of encouragement and admonishment toward purity in these matters.

I have not listen to all of these, but here are all of the "talks" that seem to be related to the subject at hand:

Men's Talk on Christian sexuality


Men's Talk on Christian sexuality Q&A


Women's Talk on Christian sexuality


Women's Talk on Christian sexuality Q&A

Modesty


Modesty Q&A

Jesus and the Seventh Commandment


Does Thin Equal Beautiful?

Review of the Complete English Hymnal, vol. 3

Today I posted a brief entry at the Kara Ministries Weblog highlighting of one of albums I contributed to Religous Affections Radio.

Speaking of religious movies

Here you go, people. If we can 50 of us to get together and go to Michael W. Smith's new movie Second Chance, we could WIN him to come and LEAD WORSHIP at our church!

Can somebody shout glory?!? Does that pump you up about Jesus or what?

Let's get the list going NOW! Sign yerself up!

A continued response to the idea of religious movies: Tozer on acting

We have been discussing of late the idea of the religious movie. I began with a response to Jason Janz's article "Why We Say 'Gospel.'" My next article attempted to show that all movies are entertainment, and as such they should not be used for corporate worship or gospel presentations. Then I asked Joel Zartman to follow that article up with some of the ideas of Neil Postman on the media of television and motion pictures to supplement some of the deficiencies of my second article. Today I want to talk a bit about acting itself. I intend to address this topic at least one more time following today's article.

Tozer believed that "the most precious thing anybody possesses is his individuated being; that by which he is himself and not someone else; that which cannot be finally voided by the man himself nor shared with another" ("The Menace of the Religious Movie," in Tozer on Worship and Entertainment [Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1997], 193). Tozer believed this "selfness" was sacred, as a distinct creation of and thereby gift of God.

This means that man as a being has responsibility before God, and that God judges him according to his virtue or lack thereof. The nature of man being such as this, "sincerity" is essential to his living the virtuous life. In the virtuous man is nothing impure or hypocritical. "He is all of one piece; he has preserved his individuality unviolated" (Ibid., 194). This means he is himself at all times. The Pharisees lacked this quality of sincerity, and were thereby the objects of Jesus' judgment. They attempted to portray themselves as something they were not.

Tozer is quick to show that the roots of the word "hypocrite" were from the stage. He says, "An actor is one who assumes a character other than his own and plays it for effect. The more fully he can become possessed by another personality, the better he is an actor" (Ibid., 194). The more skillful an actor is, the more dangerous it is to his soul. He is taking on the character of another in replacement for his own. "However innocent his intentions, a man who assumes a false character has betrayed his own soul and has deeply injured something sacred within him" (Ibid., 194). Later Tozer says that anyone who plays a religious person in a dramatic role "cannot escape the secret working of the ancient laws of the soul. Something high and fine and grand will die within him" (Ibid., 206).

Tozer then shows the stark difference between the insincerity of acting and worship. "No one who has been in the presence of the Most Holy One, who has felt how high is the solemn privilege of bearing His image, will ever again consent to play a part or to trifle with that most sacred thing, his own deep sincere heart" (Ibid., 195). Acting as such has no part in worship. So also the imitations of the actor in the religious movie who must fake praying, counterfeit preaching and repentance and sorrow, and in many other ways "play at worship," should be reprehensible to anyone with a sense of reverence.

Perhaps we can say that there may be some tie between the absence of sincerity in acting and the notorious lives of actors. Tozer observes (prophetically, it would seem), "Hollywood and Broadway are two sources of corruption which may yet turn America into a Sodom and lay her glory in the dust" (Ibid., 196). One wonders what he would say now to the movie reviews by Christianity Today and the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, or even the demand that these actors should in some way be presenting the gospel!

Tozer also appears to know the history of drama. He is aware of "religious plays" during the Middle Ages (c.f. Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: Part IV: The Age of Faith [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950], 1027-1030), but this leaves him unconvinced of acting's merits. He says, "The vogue of the Miracle Play coincided exactly with the most dismally corrupt period the Church has ever known" ("Menace," 197 [emphasis original]). Preaching brought about the Reformation, not drama. Tozer adds,

"History will show that no spiritual advance, no revival, no upsurge of spiritual life has even been associated with acting in any form. The Holy Spirit never honors pretense" (Ibid., 197 [emphasis original]).

The religious movie is contrary to a spirit of godliness. Of the great preaching and writing of truly religious men of all ages, from Elijah and Jeremiah to Peter and Paul, from Luther to Wesley to Edwards, the religious movie is far removed from their ilk. When one compares the religious movie to these, says Tozer, "if he cannot see the difference in kind, then he is too blind to be trusted with leadership in the Church of the Living God" (Ibid., 205).

Those are Tozer's words, not mine.

"The Baptist denomination, in its many branches, now numbering more than the Presbyterians and Congregationalists united, has never had any sympathy with the Theater; and whatever certain individuals, ministers or laymen, in the great centers, may think or do, the spirit of the body is overwhelmingly against the institution."

- J. M. Buckley, The Christian and the Theater, 1875

For those of you out there who neglect your wives because of blogging

Which, of course, does not include me.

All you "blog-widowers" should listen to this. I am not sure whether you should let your wife listen to it.

Concerning St. Valentine's Day

Consider the major holidays we Americans observe. I define a major holidays as a holiday for which retail stores have large inordinate displays for several week prior to the actual day of celebration. How many are genuinely observed?

Halloween is a mere caricature of what we it was. No one knows what they are celebrating in Halloween. They simply dress up for dressing ups sake. They give out candy for the sake of giving out candy. People are completely clueless.

Thanksgiving, similarly, is where we give thanks. To whom we are to give this "thanks," we have no idea. For many, it is merely a cause to be thankful that they do not live with their relatives year-round.

That any true meaning of Christmas has been largely boiled down to many is no secret.

The Fourth of July barely makes the list, and it does have a remnant of meaning left--some kind of vague idea of patriotism and whatnot. But it does have some meaning (though we hasten to add that it is not about fireworks).

Perhaps it should not surprise us that the holiday which most Americans have really embraced for all that it means is Valentine's Day. There is no denying that we love our amore, and we know how to celebrate it. Yes, EROS--now there's an idea we Americans can really get behind with all our heart, soul, mind, and body. And we have all the essentials to make it a truly religious experience: oblations (wine), food offerings (candy and chocolates), sacrifices (roses--okay, maybe that's a stretch), ritual music , priestly garments (you just have to walk by the ladies department this time of year), and so forth.

What should our response as Christians be to this most holy day? Perhaps we Christians can do some work to reform the culture and bring back some good-old fashioned Christian meaning to the day, like calling it "Marriage Day," or "Abstinence Day." Or we can use the culture's acute awareness of love to proclaim that God loves us--that Jesus is our Valentine. If we could the PAX or TBN television networks behind this we may be able to really "confront" our culture. The possibilities are endless. Of course, we must walk carefully. We do not want to be accused by the holiday's devotees of taking the "Eros" out of Valentine's Day. That would really spark the culture wars.

Note to the reader: the previous was satirical. The author is not reprimanding those believers who commemorate this day in any way.

John Owen on the condescension of the Lord

from The Glory of Christ (Grand Rapids: Sovereign Grace, 1971), 325.

“How glorious, then, is the condescension of the Son of God in his susception of the office of mediation! For is such be the perfection of the divine nature, and its distance so absolutely infinite from the whole creation,–and if such be his self-sufficiency unto his own eternal blessedness, as that nothing can be taken from him, nothing added unto him, so that every regard in him unto any of the creatures is an act of self-humiliation and condescension from the prerogative of his being and state,–what heart can conceive, what tongue can express, the glory of that condescension in the Son of God, whereby he took our nature upon him, took it to be his own, in order unto a discharge of the office of mediation on our behalf?”

I came across these lines recently while preparing a sermon. I wonder if we (I) struggle to really grasp the profundity of the condescension of Jesus. I think that part of our problem has to do with our American equalitarianism, the belief that all persons are equal. This is so pervasive in our society that we begin to suppose, I think, that God is our equal, or much more so than He actually is. The condescension does not end up being that great; "in fact," we muse to ourselves, "why wouldn't Jesus want to come down and save us?" We have become big and God has become small. Oh, how imperative it is for our moral imagination to capture the idea of the greatness of God, and then to marvel at the profound condescension of Jesus Christ.

Phil 2:6-11

ος εν μορφη θεου υπαρχων

ουχ αρπαγμον ηγησατο

το ειναι ισα θεω



αλλ εαυτον εκενωσεν

μορφην δουλου λαβων

εν ομοιωματι ανθρωπων γενομενος



και σχηματι ευρεθεις ως ανθρωπος

εταπεινωσεν εαυτον

γενομενος υπηκοος μεχρι θανατου

θανατου δε σταυρου



διο και ο θεος αυτον υπερυψωσεν

και εχαρισατο αυτω ονομα

το υπερ παν ονομα


ινα εν τω ονοματι ιησου

παν γονυ καμψη

επουρανιων και επιγειων και καταχθονιων

και πασα γλωσσα εξομολογησηται οτι

κυριος ιησους χριστος

εις δοξαν θεου πατρος

"An Incitement to Postman" by Joel Zartman

The following article was written by Joel Zartman.

Neil Postman. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Penguin: New York, 1985.

This book is one of the books nobody ought to neglect. It isn’t hard to read. It isn’t long either. It is twenty years old now and the only thing that has changed is that it rings more true than before. We have not listened very closely to Postman’s warning.

Postman is one of those chaps who sat around thinking about things. Unlike most people who sit around thinking about things and then perpetrate them on the public either by way of ink and paper or a blog, he was actually more successful at thinking about things than not. His books are worth reading. His trouble is that he’s a friendly critic of modernity. But for what he’s doing, that is no great trouble. Postman remembers the age of print and holds it up against the age of the image, the age when public events are being reported and even conducted on the television. His argument is that the age of the image is an inferior age, one that is antagonistic to serious discourse because the medium in which it is conducted has a bias against reasoned discourse.

What Postman argues is that the medium of film and television have a bias. Every medium has a bias. For example: he argues that the printing press, while capable of reproducing images, is biased against them. The printing press did not usher in books filled with illustrations. There were illustrations, there were even books full of illustrations, but in the main, the medium of print gave us books full of letters and words and sentences. This is its bias. The bias of television and film is toward images. In one chapter Postman lists the possible uses he has known that are made of a TV. It can be used as a lamp, as a table, as a bookshelf even or as a flat surface on which to project text. But its bias is revealed in that for which it is most successfully used. And this use, he argues, tends toward irrational associations that degrade serious discourse.

I should go so far as to say that embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anticommunication, featuring a type of discourse that abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction. In aesthetics, I believe the name given to this theory is Dadaism; in philosophy, nihilism; in psychiatry, schizophrenia. In the parlance of the theater, it is known as vaudeville (105).

Want proof? Consider, Postman urges, how long anything takes on a TV news report. How long is an "in-depth" story? Look about the little pictures they flash beside the talking head and ask how much it really has to do with the story, how much it really adds, or why they keep showing that same tedious sequence. Ask yourself about the value of "live" reports, why they need to conjure up the air of immediacy with spontaneous comments from generals or civilians with nothing really useful to say. Just notice what the basis of the appeal is for most commercials. On what grounds do they expect you to get their product?

In the first half of the book Postman explains the basis for the evaluation he is making. Here is where he talks about mediums of communication and their bias. Here is where he contrasts the previous ages with the present age and where he gives you the explanations of the differences between language and image very thoroughly. I think anybody who engages in communication in our day ought to read this. I think people who put vaguely associated little pictures on their blogs ought to consider it. Seriously, the way he treats this whole matter applies to blogs and I think some with their fondness for clever and cute graphics and magazine illustration pretensions ought to regard what postman says. Postman convinces at least me when he points out the ways in which irrational behavior is less than harmless. And it says much of our age that we even need an argument to demonstrate that irrational things are harmful. But try putting that in the comments of a post with some very vaguely connected image. You will either receive fatuous derision and scorn, or a dismissal.

The second half of the book deals specifically with the degrading of serious discourse in four areas of life, then draws conclusions. First Postman deals with the degradation of current events that forms what we know as "the news." Then he lights into TV evangelists and the whole sordid world of religion on TV which he treats in such as way as would make a saint rejoice exceedingly. It is a very salutary bit of writing and if you need something to make your heart glad and to expose the folly of the unrighteous as it should be exposed, try this. Then he deals with politics specifically, showing how campaigning has deteriorated. He calls the chapter "Reach out and elect someone." The last chapter before the conclusion is the one that deals with so-called educational television. This chapter takes on Sesame Street and has the power to set you against the whole genre, if you aren’t already. One very thought-provoking suggestion that Postman makes at the end of the chapter on religion which ties in with the educational chapter is how the TV spreads outside of itself and starts fashioning the religious and educational endeavors of real life into its own degraded image. It is humiliating to think that the structure of our worship of the living God has so much in common and draws so many of the unquestioned assumptions on which it rests from a medium unsuited to anything but the most vulgar entertainment. But it is not surprising, for the thoughtlessness that is the bias of this media is the thoughtlessness that characterizes and permeates all our lives.

You might wonder if this is an overstatement. There has been thoughtlessness in ages quite devoid of cathode ray tubes, antennae or remote controls. I would answer that we have only increased our capacity for thoughtlessness (more precisely, we have decreased our capacity for thoughtfulness and live at a disadvantage). We are worse off.

Now the reason I was urged by Ryan to work on something out of Postman was to address his present attempts to challenge the assumption about the Gospel and film in the whole situation which we shall here designate Sharper Spear. Postman’s argument is that putting anything serious into the medium of the TV will inevitably degrade it. "Entertainment is the supra-ideology of all discourse on television" (87). Nobody who really cares about their message will do so. Perhaps you will ask if Postman distinguishes film and television. He does. Do you know what he says? It is in the context of telling us why TV is worse than other mass media such as radio or records or films. "No one goes to a movie to find out about government policy or the latest scientific advances" (92). His point is that we do expect serious things from TV. Isn’t it telling that Postman assumed that movies were only used for entertainment, not serious business? Isn’t it curious that the people who seem to think films can be used for talking about government policy and religion are Michael Moore and Jason Janz? Now it seems to me that what Postman says suggests two things: either those who want the Gospel put into a film are ignorant, or they are evil. They are ignorant if they neglect to consider the nature of the medium they employ. They are evil if they understand the nature of the medium they employ and use it to degrade the message given out. Charity suggests we chalk it up to ignorance. For that ignorance we recommend Postman’s book.

J. Ligon Duncan III on worship and Boice on hymns

Good stuff.

from J. Ligon Duncan III, "Does God Care How We Worship" in Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship: Celebrating the Legacy of James Montgomery Boice (Philip Graham Ryken, Derek W. H. Thomas, J. Ligon Duncan III, ed.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2003), 25-26.

"Evangelicals do think that worship matters, but they also oftne view worship as a means to some other end that that of the glorification and enjoyment of God: some view worship as evangelism (thus misunderstanding its goal); some think that a person's heart, intentions, motives, and sincerity are the only things important in how we worship (thus downplaying the Bible's standards, principles, and rules for worship); and some view the emotional product of the worship experience as the prime factor in "good" worship (thus overstressing the subjective and often unwittingly imposing particular cultural opinions about emotional expression on the worshipers). Evangelicals believe these things about worship, but they do not think there are many biblical principles about how to worship or what we are to do and not to do in worship."

from James Montgomery Boice, Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 180.

"One of the saddest features of contemporary worship is that the great hymns of the church are on the way out. They are not gone entirely, but they are going. And in their place have come trite jingles that have more in common with contemporary advertising ditties than with the psalms. The problem here is not so much the style of the music, though trite words fit best with trite tunes and harmonies. Rather the problem is with the content of the songs. The old hymns expressed the theology of the church in profound and perceptive ways and with winsome, memorable language. They lifted the worshiper's thoughts to God and gave him striking words by which to remember God's attributes. Today's songs reflect our shallow or nonexistent theology and do almost nothing to elevate one's thoughts about God.

"Worst of all are songs that merely repeat a trite idea, word, or phrase over and over again. Songs like this are not worship, though they may give the churchgoer a religious feeling. They are mantras, which belong more in a gathering of New Agers than among God's worshiping people."

Hodge on Calvin's view of the self-existence and subordination of Jesus Christ

This entire selection is from Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; repr. Henrickson, 2001), 467.

"Calvin was accused by some of his contemporaries of teaching the incompatible doctrines of Sabellianism and Arianism. In a letter to his friend Simon Grynee, rector of the Academy of Basle, dated May, 1537, he says the ground on which the charge of Sabellianism rested, was his having said that Christ was 'that Jehovah, who of Himself alone was always self-existent, which charge,' he says, 'I was quite ready to meet.' His answer is: 'If the distinction between the Father and the Word be attentively considered, we shall say that the one is from the other. If, however, the essential quality of the Word be considered, in so far as He is one God with the Father, whatever can be said concerning God may also be applied to HIm the Second Person in the glorious Trinity. Now, what is the meaning of the name Jehovah? What did that answer imply which was spoken to Moses? I AM THAT I AM. Paul makes CHrist the auth or of this saying' (Calvin's Letters.vol. i. pp. 55, 56, edit. Presbyterian Board, Philadelphia). This argument is conclusive. If Christ be Jehovah, and if the name Jehovah implies self-existence, then Christ is self-existent. In other words, self-existence and necessary existence, as well as omnipotence and all other divine attributes, belong to the divine essence common to all the persons of the Trinity, and therefore it is the Triuine God who is self-existent, and not one person in distinction from the other persons. That is, self-existence is not to be predicated of the divine essence only, nor of the Father only, but of the Trinity, or of the Godhead as subsisting in three persons. And, therefore, as Calvin says, when the word God is used indefinitely it means the Triune God, and not the Father in distinction from the Son and Spirit."

Chrysostom on the theological force of Philippians 2:6ff

from John Chrysostom's Homilies on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians. Hom. VI: Phil 2:5-8

"And last of all he says this, “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant.” (Philip. ii. 5–7.) Attend, I entreat you, and rouse yourselves. For as a sharp two-edged sword, wheresoever it falls, though it be among ten thousand phalanxes, easily cuts through and destroys, because it is sharp on every side, and nought can bear its edge; so are the words of the Spirit. (Heb. iv. 12; Rev. i. 16.) For by these words he has laid low the followers of Arius of Alexandria, of Paul of Samosata, of Marcellus the Galatian, of Sabellius the Libyan, of Marcion that was of Pontus, of Valentinus, of Manes, of Apollinarius of Laodicea, of Photinus, of Sophronius, and, in one word, all the heresies. Rouse yourselves then to behold so great a spectacle, so many armies falling by one stroke, lest the pleasure of such a sight should escape you. For if when chariots contend in the horse race there is nothing so pleasing as when one of them dashes against and overthrows whole chariots with their drivers, and after throwing down many with the charioteers that stood thereon, drives by alone towards the goal, and the end of the course, and amid the applause and clamor which rises on all sides to heaven, with coursers winged as it were by that joy and that applause, sweeps over the whole ground; how much greater will the pleasure be here, when by the grace of God we overthrow at once and in a body the combinations and devilish machinations of all these heresies together with their charioteers? . . .

"Arius confesses indeed the Son, but only in word; he says that He is a creature, and much inferior to the Father. And others say that He has not a soul. Seest thou the chariots standing? See then their fall, how he overthrows them all together, and with a single stroke. How? “Have the same mind in you,” he says, “which was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God.” And Paul of Samosata has fallen, and Marcellus, and Sabellius. For he says, “Being in the form of God.” If “in the form” how sayest thou, O wicked one, that He took His origin from Mary, and was not before? and how dost thou say that He was an energy? For it is written, “The form of God took the form of a servant.” “The form of a servant,” is it the energy of a servant, or the nature of a servant? By all means, I fancy, the nature of a servant. Thus too the form of God, is the nature of God, and therefore not an energy. Behold also Marcellus of Galatia, Sophronius and Photinus have fallen.

"Behold Sabellius too. It is written, “He counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God.” Now equality is not predicated, where there is but one person, for that which is equal hath somewhat to which it is equal. Seest thou not the substance of two Persons, and not empty names without things? Hearest thou not the eternal pre-existence of the Only-begotten?"

Christ lay in death's bondage (BWV 4)

J. S. Bach's "Christ lag in Todesbanden" (BWV 4) is a wonderful cantata.

You can hear a streaming recording of it by P. J. Leusink with the Holland Boys Choir and the Netherlands Bach Collegium here (to be played on Real Player). If you listen to the streaming audio, you can skip back and forth between the "tracks" (this is a really nice feature).

The text for the cantata comes from a hymn written by Martin Luther in 1524. The German is available here. An English translation is available here. You can see Bach's score (though only for piano and voice) here. Of course, all of these things (and more) is available at the very helpful bach-cantatas.com site.

You should listen to this cantata. Bach composed it in his twenties (1707 or 1708). This cantata is different from many of his others, in that it has no recitatives or da-capo arias; Bach simply repeats each verse as Luther wrote it. Bach has structured the cantata symmetrically: Chorale–Duet–Solo–Chorale–Solo–Duet–Chorale. All of the movements are in some way related to the tune (a chant) or chorale to which Luther originally assigned this text.

My Pseudo-Commentary

As you listen to the first chorale (which follows the brief sinfonia), you will notice the sopranos "holding out" the chorale tune above the other parts. Each verse ends with an "hallelujah," and the one at the end is marvellous to hear and tremendously complex.

I think the "hallelujah" at the end of the second verse is interesting in that is more subdued. The dissonance here is more pronounced. I muse that Bach rendered it more somberly because of the text of the second verse.

The thing I would like to highlight about the third verse (the tenor solo) is the sixth line, "Da bleibet nichts denn Tods Gestalt" (Here bideth nought but death's mere form), where Bach stops the music after "nichts" (nought), and draws the worshiper's attention to the remaining line: "but death's mere form." This is not as obvious on the Leusink recording, but it is still noticeable.

In the fourth verse and central (fifth) movement, one can hear the "awesome strife" in the complex contrapuntal setting of the voices. The altos sing the chorale tune amidst the "battle."

The fifth verse is a bass solo and has a memorable spot where the bass drops a diminished twelfth (from "b" down to an "e-sharp"!) on the word "Tode" (death) in the sixth line ("Our faith doth it to death display").

The sixth movement quite joyously celebrates the Paschal feast, and the returning chorale concludes the cantata.

Sources: liner notes for Hanssler's CD Cantatas BWV 4-6, by Andreas Bomba, Simon Crouch; Timothy Dickey, Carol Traupman-Carr, and my imagination.

A Continued Response to the idea of religious movies

In my first article, I tried to deal with Jason Janz's article "Why We Say 'Gospel'." My intention in writing all of this is not necessarily to pick on Janz or Sharperiron, but to provide another alternative to the debate. The prevailing grievance has been that ETE did not present the Gospel clearly in their film The End of the Spear; the prevailing assumption undergirding this grievance has been that Christians should be using films in a evangelistic or churchly way. With this I strongly disagree.

Over the coming days, I want to give a few reasons why we should not be using movies for religious purposes. I realize that this is not the prevailing sentiment, when large institutions, even within fundamentalism, have their own kind of unusual movie studios. And let me also say that I realize that the order of my articles is somewhat backwards. My reasons for rejecting movies in worship are logically prior to my disagreements with Janz's position. I hope the gentle reader will patiently forgive the strange order.

Today I want to highlight that all movies are intended to be entertainment, and that entertainment as such is incompatible with religious exercises. What is entertainment? This is certainly a difficult thing to pin down (somewhat akin to attempts to find a definition of "is" or "essence.") Entertainment is our devoting our time in a non-profitable way to more trivial things intended to hold our attention; entertainment is closely related to amusement and divertissement. A. W. Tozer once responded to someone who told him that singing a hymn was entertainment by saying,

"When you raise your eyes to God and sing, 'Break thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me,' is that entertainment--or is it worship? Isn't there a difference between worship and entertainment? The church that can't worship must be entertained. And men who can't lead a church to worship must provide the entertainment. That is why we have the great evangelical heresy here today--the heresy of religious entertainment" (from Success and the Christian, pp 6-7, cited in Tozer on Worship and Entertainment [Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1997], 115).

I believe that all religious motion pictures are intended to be entertaining. I cannot, of course, prove such a bold statement easily. I would like to ask the liberty to discuss this more in depth on another day. For the time being, let me say that I cannot think of a single motion picture containing acting, produced by the "entertainment industry," that was not intended to be entertaining in some way. This is particularly true of religious motion pictures. What exceptions are there? Perhaps Left Behind: The Movie? Or Every Tribe Entertainment's The End of the Spear? Even The Passion of the Christ is intended, though not in a trivial way, to hold the attention of and entertain the audience, partially through its sensationalized violence and gore.

That worship and entertainment should be distinct is still today in great dispute, of course. Let me quickly qualify that I believe that religion and entertainment are incompatible in whatever way we try to mix them, whether in our music, literature, or the arts, not just in motion pictures. A. W. Tozer observed back in the 1950's,

"That religion and amusement are forever opposed to each other by their very essential natures is apparently not known to this new school of religious entertainers. Their effort to slip up on the reader and administer a quick shot of saving truth while his mind is on something else is not only futile; it is, in fact, not too far short of being plain dishonest." ("The Menace of the Religious Movie" in Tozer on Worship and Entertainment, 191).

Later he adds, "Most responsible religious teachers will agree that any effort to teach spiritual truth through entertainment is at best futile and at worst positively injurious to the soul" (Ibid, 192). As one friend of mine put it, "There are certain activities which require the sort of response or involvement from us that demands all our powers and faculties. These activities are not those we pursue for entertainment or amusement." Entertainment never demands all our powers and faculties. Worship always does.

Do you go to church to be entertained? I must believe that all mature Christians would reject this idea outright. Then we have established a difference between a kind of entertainment enjoyment of church and, for lack of a better term, what we may call a "religious" enjoyment of church. When we are being entertained, the thing entertaining us is holding our attention; true entertainment demands a more passive posture. We are the recipients of entertainment.

The difference here is perhaps the nature of the appeal; motion pictures are much more prone to affect the emotions directly, bypassing the will. Tozer is helpful on this point as well. He says,

"Deep spiritual experiences come only from much study, earnest prayer and long meditation. It is true that men by thinking cannot find God; it is also true that men cannot know God very well without a lot of reverent thinking. Religious movies, by appealing directly to the shallowest stratum of our minds, cannot but create bad mental habits which unfit the soul for the reception of genuine spiritual impressions" (Ibid, 192).

The religious motion picture may indeed have a powerful influence on the emotions, but we should not confuse this kind of a response with the workings of the Holy Spirit. Religion is far too serious to using entertaining ways of evangelism, edification, or worship. Entertainment is too frothy and frivolous to communicate the things of God in a responsible way; the demand of "loving God with all our minds" is taken away from the process of worship. Elsewhere Tozer offers this dire warning:

"I cannot determine when I will die. But I hope I do not live to see the day when God has to turn from men and women who have heard His holy truth and have played with it, fooled with it and equated it with fun and entertainment and religious nonsense" (Tozer on Worship and Entertainment, 113).

You can read Joel Zartman's "An Incitement to Postman," a continuation of this series, here.

Another selection from The Pilgrim's Progress

Now I saw in my Dream, that the highway up which Christian was to go, was fenced on either side with a Wall, and that Wall is called Salvation. Up this way therefore did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back.

He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending, and upon that place stood a Cross, and a little below in the bottom, a Sepulchre. So I saw in my Dream, that just as Christian came up with the Cross, his Burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the Sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.

Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death. Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him, that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his Burden. He looked therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks. Now as he stood looking and weeping, behold three Shining Ones came to him and saluted him with Peace be to thee; so the first said to him, Thy sins be forgiven: the second stript him of his Rags, and clothed him with Change of Raiment; the third also set a mark in his forehead, and gave him a Roll with a Seal upon it, which he bid him look on as he ran, and that he should give it in at the Cœlestial Gate. So they went their way.

Who's this? the Pilgrim. How! 'tis very true,




Old things are passed away, all's become new.




Strange! he’s another man, upon my word,




They be fine Feathers that make a fine Bird.

Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on singing,

Thus far did I come laden with my sin;





Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in




Till I came hither: What a place is this!




Must here be the beginning of my bliss?




Must here the Burden fall from off my back?




Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?




Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be




The Man that there was put to shame for me.

A Response to Jason Janz's "Why We Say 'Gospel'"

Whenever I go to a fast-food joint, I do not expect to eat a healthy meal. I do not expect the hamburger patties to be made of premium beef, or, really, even beef at all. Neither do I expect the ingredients to be hand-selected or even fresh. I expect junk food. What is the point of eating junk food at all if it is not junk food? It’s all about your expectations. I would be a fool to expect something from something that exists to be the antithesis of that thing I expect.

So it is with Every Tribe Entertainment. Now, before I begin my discussion, it would be a good thing to take a step back for a brief exercise crucial for my point. I know it may sound a bit sarcastic, but I have a point here. Let’s say the name of this fine Christian institution three times. Ready?

Every Tribe Entertainment.

Every Tribe Entertainment.

Every Tribe Entertainment.

For those of you who don’t know, Every Tribe Entertainment produced the new movie The End of the Spear, a movie about the missionary endeavors of Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, and the rest of the men who gave their lives in an attempt to evangelize the Waodani people. Jason Janz at Sharperiron.org has raised objections about ETE’s hiring a person who practices and promotes homosexuality to play the part of Nate Saint. Now Jason has added an article articulating his biggest problem with The End of the Spear: the “Gospel message was truncated.”

In order to make his point, of course, the underlying assumption must be that motion pictures may legitimately be used for evangelistic purposes. Before I discuss this, however, I would like first to say a couple things about the studio itself. Here is an organization, by its very name, that wants to “entertain” every tribe. For a moment, let us assume the unassumable: that movies should be used for gospel proclamation. Do we really want an organization whose mission is “to create quality entertainment for a broad audience that inspires hope through truth [?]” to be articulating the gospel at all? Do we want people to be entertained into salvation? Of course, I must be fair here. ETE says that it wants to do more than just entertain (though certainly no less than this); they desire to “bring to life stories of courage and strength of the human spirit. Courage, tolerance, mercy, forgiveness, faith and love. We base our film choices on what we hope to inspire rather than what we hope to sell.” Fine. They stand firmly in the American "evangelical" tradition of the reduction of Christianity. As J. Gresham Machen would remind us, their mission statement is not Christian. It is, at best (I shudder to say it), a kind of advocation of general morality. The point here is that we should not expect an institution devoted to entertainment to give the Gospel, because a presentation of the Gospel and entertainment do not go together. I am not angry to find that my Big Mac does not come with medium-well prime rib in between the three buns, lettuce and special sauce.

I would like to add one more unrelated note. I think we ought to think twice before we believe that a movie about the death of these missionaries should be made (assuming, of course, that motion picture dramas should be made at all). I have not seen the movie, which I acknowledge opens me up to great ignorance on this (I did watch half the trailer!), but I believe that a motion picture reenacting the martyrdom of missionaries is near blasphemy. Here is the recreation of the brutal slaying of these courageous men for the entertainment of the regenerate and unregenerate alike. We are, I believe, spitting on their tombs to revel in this kind of violence, even if the overall point is somehow to portray the virtue of these men. Would we desire to see a reenacting of the lions eating our Christian fathers? Or perhaps Polycarp burning at the stake? Why do we want to see these kinds of things? Why do they bring us enjoyment or even entertainment value? How true the words of Augustine ring today, who wrote in his Confessions,

“At that time, in my wretchedness, I loved to grieve; and I sought for things to grieve about. In another man's misery, even though it was feigned and impersonated on the stage, that performance of the actor pleased me best and attracted me most powerfully which moved me to tears. What marvel then was it that an unhappy sheep, straying from thy flock and impatient of thy care, I became infected with a foul disease? This is the reason for my love of griefs: that they would not probe into me too deeply (for I did not love to suffer in myself such things as I loved to look at), and they were the sort of grief which came from hearing those fictions, which affected only the surface of my emotion. Still, just as if they had been poisoned fingernails, their scratching was followed by inflammation, swelling, putrefaction, and corruption. Such was my life! But was it life, O my God?”

The real issue, however, is the underlying premise of Jason’s remarks: that motion pictures should be used for evangelism. As I said, this assumption is a given throughout nearly the entire article. I am pleased that Jason is considering the remarks of A. W. Tozer on the religious motion picture. Yet I propose that Janz is inconsistent with his remarks in the first four-fifths of the article and his fifth point. He begins his article with a pretty good defense of clearly communicating through preaching the specific content of the Gospel. He provides a good defense of “words” over images and preaching the content of the gospel and communicating the gospel thoroughly. He rightly emphasizes the work of God in evangelization rather than “focusing on the recipient” and becoming “man-centered.” He keenly observes the emotional power of motion pictures and the tendency of this medium to manipulate a decision in evangelism. He notes the necessity of using “clear words” and the content of the gospel. These were all good remarks, and I am glad that he made them. Many of the things he said reminded me of things that I have been concerned to communicate here at Immoderate, and I am glad that we have come to similar yet independent conclusions on these matters. More people need to be saying these things, and I am glad Jason is one of them.

He then, however, seems to contradict these points he made centering on the clear communication Gospel through preaching. He says that he believes a movie can “aid in proclaiming the Gospel.” Huh? The good Christian films, he says, were the ones not made for the “big screen.” He will later all but contradict this statement as well. He conveniently gives his justification for the use of films in evangelism: the effectiveness of the “Jesus Film Project.” Evidently he witnessed its being used (with preaching) to see “hundreds” coming to Christ in Africa. I do not necessarily doubt the truthfulness of his story, but this is, in a word, pragmatism. I am truly baffled by the fact that Jason Janz, who has attended fundamentalist seminaries, and seems to embrace much of what it means to be a conservative evangelical, and who had just finished articulating the supposed dangers of the “seeker” bent in ETE would offer this kind of a basis for use of movies in evangelism.

My question to Jason, with respect, is What is the difference between you and them? You criticize ETE of using whatever means necessary to evangelize, but then you believe that motion pictures and dramas may be used for evangelism? What warrant do you have from Scripture or anywhere else to take such a liberty in the Lord's work? Jason has criticized those who defended the movie by saying they “minimize the effectiveness of preaching” and “God’s primary ordained means of communicating his good news.” He criticized the movie representative and movie company because he “disparaged preaching.” Yet he believes that movies can be used to “aid in proclaiming the Gospel”? This does appear to be inconsistent. Jason has big problems with their using whatever means necessary for evangelism (in this case by their abandoning preaching for "story"), yet he "baptizes" his own justification for movies because of what he supposes to be the "effectiveness" of movies. ETE would argue that their method is justified in the results it produces. Jason seems to have put himself on similar ground.

After defending the use of movies in evangelism, he rightly muses that “if . . . Christian drama and the Christian message are so mutually exclusive, then Christians ought to opt out of the industry entirely.” In other words, Christians should probably not be producing movies for the the general theater-going public. This is surely a good (though inadequate) point, until he then goes on nearly to deny it. Janz follows this warning with two examples of movies he believes were able to incorporate the Christian message in a drama and still “engage the medium” (i.e., produce the film for a wide audience). His first example is God and Generals, and he lists the instances of uncompromised “spiritual content.” Jason had just finished chastising the The End of the Spear for not mentioning the Gospel in total, including “the blood atonement,” yet the instances of “spiritual content” he lauds in Gods and Generals do not include any aspect of the gospel, including the “blood atonement” he demands from The End of the Spear. Then he mentions the virtue of the movie Luther; this movie does speak of the blood atonement. He concludes, “So, one can produce a film that proclaims the Gospel and does not compromise the story to the point that it’s a shadow of what it once was.” Jason, what exactly is your position on the use of motion pictures and the Gospel?

I realize that at this point it is necessary for me to articulate some actual reasons why movies should not be used in evangelism. I intend to say some things concerning this in the coming days, and I will tip my hand that the majority of my remarks will come from A. W. Tozer’s The Menace of the Religious Movie. For the time being, I will simply say that the use of drama in evangelism has no warrant from Scripture, which remark will hopefully temporarily suffice.

You can read my continued response here.

Hiscox's definition of a Christian church

from Edward T. Hiscox's Principles and Practices for Baptist Churches (Judson Press, 1984; repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1980), 20.

"A Christian Church is a company of regenerate persons, baptized on a profession of faith in Christ; united in covenant for worship, instruction, the observance of Christian ordinances, and fo such service as the gospel requires; recognizing and accepting Christ as their supreme Lord and Lawgiver, and taking His Word as their only and sufficient rule of faith and practice in all matters of conscience and religion."

Is this definition accurate? Is his definition too narrow?

Motivation to throw out your television

from Jonathan Edwards' sermon The Christian Pilgrim, which I dare say is singly better than the sum total of evangelical ink spilled in the last fifteen years. You would do well to read it.

Labor to obtain such a disposition of mind that you may choose heaven for your inheritance and home, and may earnestly long for it and be willing to change this world, and all its enjoyments, for heaven. Labor to have your heart taken up so much about heaven, and heavenly enjoyments, as that you may rejoice when God calls you to leave your best earthly friends and comforts for heaven, there to enjoy God and Christ.

Be persuaded to travel in the way that leads to heaven: viz. in holiness, self-denial, mortification, obedience to all the commands of God, following Christ’s example [and] in a way of a heavenly life, or imitation of the saints and angels in heaven. Let it be your daily work, from morning till night, and hold out in it to the end. Let nothing stop or discourage you, or turn you aside from this road. And let all other concerns be subordinated to this. Consider the reasons that have been mentioned why you should thus spend your life: that this world is not your abiding place, that the future world is to be your everlasting abode, and that the enjoyments and concerns of this world are given entirely in order to another. And consider further for motive.

1. How worthy is heaven that your life should be wholly spent as a journey towards it. — To what better purpose can you spend your life, whether you respect your duty or your interest? What better end can you propose to your journey, than to obtain heaven? You are placed in this world with a choice given you, that you may travel which way you please, and one way leads to heaven. Now, can you direct your course better than this way? All men have some aim or other in living. Some mainly seek worldly things. They spend their days in such pursuits. But is not heaven, where is fullness of joy forever, much more worthy to be sought by you? How can you better employ your strength, use your means, and spend your days, than in traveling the road that leads to the everlasting enjoyment of God: to his glorious presence, to the new Jerusalem, to the heavenly mount Zion, where all your desires will be filled and no danger of ever losing your happiness? — No man is at home in this world, whether he choose heaven or not: here he is but a transient person. Where can you choose your home better than in heaven?

John Piper on the Arminians being logic-driven

Although desiringgod.org has a great selection of John Piper's resources, Monergism fills the void by offering many additional audio resources you cannot find at Piper's own site, including his biographical sketches, Hebrews sermons, his series on fasting, and several other series.

I have been listening to his series on TULIP, and thought that this bit was good from his fourth lecture (part 1):

The accusation against me—and I have protested back and forth—is that Calvinists deduce their doctrine of the atonement by logic from the other four points of TULIP. . . . I heard that argument in seminary which is why I didn’t become one—that is, a “five pointer”—for a long time, because I’m not going to let ostensible logic drive against plain texts, and there are some texts which don’t look very limited when it comes to the atonement. . . . So I want not to be driven by logic.

I think the indictment of being logic-driven falls far heavier on Arminians than it does on Calvinists, because Arminians bring to the text the apparently logical assumption that in order to have accountability you have to have free will. Nowhere is that taught in the Bible. That is brought to the text. So if anybody is bringing presuppositions and logic and pressing texts into it, it’s those who believe that in order to be accountable you have to be self-determining. You cannot find that in the Bible. Zero. It is not there.

So it cuts both ways. Everybody needs logic, I’m putting one sentence after another, Paul uses logic, logic is God-given, and it is precious, but it is so easily manipulated, so easily twisted, distorted, spun, that if you put it against texts, you probably have bad logic, just as likely as you have bad exegesis.

Those remarks are good, no matter what one believes about limited (or definite) atonement. John Piper calls himself a "five-pointer," embracing even what he calls "definite atonement." He agrees that the saving benefits after faith were purchased by the death of Christ, and a bona-fide invitation to faith in Christ can be made to any person in saying that Christ died for sin. He even agrees that Christ's death is sufficient for the sins of the world. He says the difference between Arminians and Calvinists on atonement is that the death of Christ purchased the faith of the believer, as well as the benefits after faith. He believes Christ's death purchased more for the believer than the unbelieving world.

"If I could shut the Gate"

I found this anonymous poem in The Oxford Book of Christian Verse edited by Lord David Cecil (London: Oxford University Press, 1940).

'If I Could Shut the Gate'

If I could shut the gate against my thoughts

And keep out sorrow from this room within,

Or memory could cancel all the notes

Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin:


How free, how clear, how clean my soul should lie,

Discharged of such a loathsome company!

Or were there other rooms without my heart


That did not to my conscience join so near,


Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart

That I might not their clamorous crying hear,


What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess,


Freed from their horrors that my soul oppress!

But, O my Savior, Who my refuge art,


Let Thy dear mercies stand 'twixt them and me,



And be the wall to separate my heart


So that I may at length repose me free;



That peace, and joy, and rest may be within,


And I remain divided from my sin.

Darryl Hart on the Regulative Principle

Joel emailed me the link to this article about a month ago, and I used it as I was studying to write my post "Religious Movies and Regulative Principle." To give you an idea of John Frame's idea of the "Regulative Principle," he allows for liturgical dance and skits. Darryl Hart is a Presbyterian. You can find the entire debate (a lengthy read) here.

"But it also reflects evangelical anti-formalism. Ever since the advent of revivals, evangelicals have been telling us that it doesn't matter what form the gospel takes. As long as it brings people to Christ we may do it. Thus Whitefield itinerated sometimes against the desires of local clergy, Finney gave us the new measures, all the way down to Billy Graham who now instead of featuring solos from George Beverly Shea has Christian Hip-Hop bands function as his warm up acts. In a certain way this is pragmatism, which I believe is evident in contemporary worship since so much of it is designed to make the gospel accessible to the unchurched. But in another way it is a kind of Donatism which tests everything on the basis of its conversionistic capacities. If you do it they will convert.

But I would argue that forms matter. One form upon which practically all conservative Presbyterians agree is that of human anatomy. We don't ordain women, even though the message of female preachers may be just as good as the preaching of a man, because the Bible prescribes a physical form for ordination. In worship I would also argue that the Bible prescribes the forms of prayer, the word read and preached, song, and the sacraments. These are the forms Christians are to use in worship. Frame says the Standards do not prescribe a liturgy. I would submit that he is wrong. These are the elements prescribed by chapter 21 of the [Westminster] Confession. Granted, how we order them is left to the discretion of the session. But these forms do matter. These are the only ones we may use. No juggling EVER, no dance, no drama (except the drama of assembling in God's presence). And this is what the RPW is designed to protect. Churches may only bind the consciences of individuals by using these elements. The Bible may not forbid elements other than those in the Standards. But unless there is a clear biblical warrant we are illegally binding or wounding the consciences of worshipers by doing things other than prayer, the word, song, and sacrament."

Is George W. Bush a conservative?

If you think so, you should listen to this.

On the use of Scripture in application

I wrote this comment over at Scott Aniol's blog Kara Ministries Weblog, and, after seeing it was nearly a blog post in and of itself, thought I would revise it a bit and post it here. You can find the original thread here.

I believe that every “application” of a Biblical principle is built upon some extra-Biblical “minor premise.” Calling it a “minor premise” is a simplification, really. But it illustrates, I believe, what is going on in application. There may be an entire string of argumentation informing us as we move from Bible to “application.” But demanding that the Bible address every situation, and saying that, if the Bible does not address it, the matter of concern is simply “helpful” or “unhelpful” (not "right" or "wrong") is a pretty stilted understanding of the Bible. That is exactly the problem: the Bible says “dress modestly,” but does not exactly tell us what modesty is. It says, “worship reverently” but it does not tell us explicitly what every expression of reverent worship is. The principle is the same in both instances. Here are some examples of what I mean:

Major premise from the Bible: Immodest dress is not permitted by the inspired Scriptures (1 Pet 3:1-5; 1 Timothy 2:9-10; etc)

minor premise: Every low-cut blouse worn by a woman is immodest dress.

Therefore, Every low-cut blouse worn by a woman is not permitted by the inspired Scriptures.

MP: All irreverence towards Jesus Christ is condemned by the inspired Scriptures (Phil 2:6-11; 1 John 2:22; 1 John 4:3; 2 John 1:7).


mp: The crucifix in a jar of urine is irreverence towards Jesus Christ.

Therefore, the crucifix in a jar of urine is condemned by the inspired Scriptures.

MP: Reverent expressions are characteristic of the proper worship of God (Hebrews 12:27-29).

mp: Some gospel songs are not reverent expressions.

Therefore, Some gospel songs are not characteristic of the proper worship of God.

The principle from Scripture must be, of course, true. My point is not that every minor premise is right. That, of course, is the question. My point is twofold: 1) that the minor premises are always statements about matters outside the realm of what the Bible directly addresses; and 2) that if the minor premises are true, the conclusion of the above syllogisms are as binding on our lives as the Bible itself. And if I am right about that, I am free to argue for their validity in the interest of true and pious religion. If I am right that some gospel songs are not reverent, I am right in banning them from worship. For someone to say, at this point, that the question becomes “helpful” or “unhelpful” because the Bible does not address reverent worship as explicitly as he (or any of us) would like or because it does not give us a comprehensive list of songs and styles and even performances which are reverent, limits us from saying anything is right or wrong. Otherwise we cannot condemn the blasphemous art. I am not saying that what is right or wrong should be done with a spirit of pride or self-righteousness, but that it nevertheless should be said, and sometimes earnestly and even with zeal.

Is the heart of the worshipper of importance as well? Absolutely. No one is denying that. But to say that is where the question ends neglects the other imperatives in Scripture. In John 4, It is not like Christ shrugged off the woman’s theological question about who was right about the place of worship, the Jews or the Samaritans. He answered it in verse 22. Let us not say that we worship God only “in spirit.” We must worship him in spirit “and in truth.”

You ask, Do you really contend that the issue of musical style is a) that clear, b) that pervasive, c) that important?

A) The issue is clear enough, though not explicitly demonstrable from the Bible (just like low-cut blouses and the appalling crucifix).



B) This does not matter. I think the principle of reverent worship is pervasive.



C) It is as important as blasphemous art or immodesty, if not more important. After all, we are talking about how we worship the One True and Living God.

Something else to buy at Half-Price Books 10 years from now

When I saw the Oxford Scofield Bible with the NIV, I scratched my head. Somehow I felt that Oxford did not know who their target audience was.

Alas, the puzzlement continues. Now you can be a "young fundamentalist" dispensationalist and have it in the hip "young fundamentalist" Bible, too.

It's a kind of "Old school-New school" hip "young fundamentalist" mixture.

Darryl Hart on P&W (contra John Frame)

Darryl Hart argued this in early 1998. The whole piece can be found here. When reading this, it boggles when one considers how much the Christian mainstream has moved in eight short years.

"Diane West in an article for The Weekly Standard wrote about the trend of political conservatives who attempt to show that they are cool. . . . West admits "an all-but-irresistible culture force pulls from Right to Left," luring the middle-class into anti-middle-class guises. But this cultural drift cannot change the fundamental antithesis between bourgeois values, namely, "responsibility, fidelity, sobriety, and other badges of maturity," and the "cumulative" message of rock culture -- "sexual and narcotic gratification, anarchism, self-pity, and other forms of infantilism."

"Now if West is right, and she is not the only one arguing this way about rock music, soft or otherwise, then we might reasonably pause in using its forms to communicate praise to God. And this isn't because we are hoping to preserve middle-class culture. It is because music that expresses sexual and narcotic gratification, anarchism, self-pity, and other forms of infantilism is not a fitting form (more on forms below) for worship. It cannot carry the weight that we want to put on it. So my response to praise songs is that they are irreverent, no matter how much Prof. Frame insists they are. Of course, we could do a better HE SAID, SHE SAID exhibition than the President and Monica are now giving us, and our imitation of the Miller Lite commercials, LESS REVERENT, MORE RIGID will not solve anything. But I wonder if Prof. Frame has ever considered the subtler message conveyed by the music he uses in his service. Again, as a good Van Tilian I would think he would see that nothing is neutral, even cultural forms. And therefore, the cultural message of rock music is one that stands for something other than the virtues that Paul says are fitting sound doctrine in Titus 2 (sobriety, moderation, self-control). Why should we exhibit these things in our lives (which may mean I should give up my U2), but not in our worship? I also wonder if what is going on at New Life Escondido is the J. C. Pennification of American Presbyterianism -- the effort of uptight, middle-class, white folk trying to be hip. Prof. Frame is right. I have never been to his church and so I should be cautious in what I say. But I do not live in a bomb shelter. Our CRC congregation went hip during my time on the consistory there, and at that time we lived close to Willow Creek, whose influence in the Chicago area was enormous (literally). So I know a little more of what I speak that what Prof. Frame incautiously alleges in his book and in this debate.

"Maybe the reason why Prof. Frame cannot see the problems of contemporary music is because of his understanding of what it means to be biblical. It is an unhistorical, abstract, and largely individual notion. . . .

"This is where charismatic worship, I believe, falls woefully short. It is not reverent nor does it exhibit godly fear. (New heavens, new earth worship will also express godly fear, if Revelation is any indication, something which argues against the kind of "ecstatic joy" that Frame thinks we should now display because of what Christ has accomplished.) Frame and I can go back and forth, DOES TOO, DOES NOT until our microprocessors melt. But his insistence that P&W music is reverent will not be convincing in the light of what I have said above about rock music (no matter how soft, and therefore bland and vanilla it is). Even more important, however, in the context of the RPW is the consideration of all the consciences of God's people in worship. I think it should trouble Prof. Frame that there are critics of contemporary Christian music who are saying that it wounds or binds the consciences of believers. Unless he can argue that the Bible commands this kind of music, then love for neighbor would force him to find music to which no one may possible object (see the recent article on the Charity and the RPW in the Nicotine Theological Journal), music that does not needlessly carry cultural baggage at odds with the very thing we are doing in worship."

I love Antonin Scalia

The first part of the session by Antonin Scalia on Outsourcing American Law is an excellent lecture. Then the session gets even better when he starts getting questions from the products of the American public school system.

Mark Noll on hymns and evangelicalism

The following lecture by Mark Noll is pretty informative. I think he goes a bit overboard in trying to help us understand the reception of hymns (over psalms) in early evangelical worship, but the lecture is interesting nonetheless. I am going to refrain from commenting on Noll's singing.

The Crucial Role of Hymns in Evangelical History

W. B. Johnson (1792-1863) on reading the New Testament

from "The Gospel Developed" in Polity: Biblical Arguments on How to Conduct Church Life: A Collection of Historic Baptist Documents

"The New Testament is comparatively a small book, and can be deliberately read through in two days’ continuous reading. It will be practicable, then, to read this book through once a month with care, so that a comprehensive view of the whole may be obtained in that time. And if such a reading of this book was to be observed once a month, it would be read through twelve times in a year. And what an acquaintance with the commands of Christ would be received in this period of time. And if to this frequency of reading this book, prayer, spiritual, fervent prayer for the aid of the Holy Spirit, be added, and if, when believers met, they would talk about what they had read, and assist each other in understanding it, and yet again, if they would faithfully obey the teachings of that book as fast as they learn them, who could calculate the amount of knowledge which they would acquire—knowledge, not speculative, but practical, spiritual, sanctifying—in one year? O! what a different aspect would the churches then present! What a moral power would they exert upon the world, for they would then be removed from the false position in which they now too generally appear, and occupy their right position."

Religious movies and the regulative principle

We are nearly finished now. I have been discussing the presumption that movies (or drama, by inference) should be used for evangelistic ends. I know I have been testing the patience of my readers with this, but I try not to get caught up in the time-defying fury of blogging. Your patience has been appreciated. Other posts in this series include:

A Response to Jason Janz's "Why we say 'Gospel'"




A continued response to the idea of religious movies







An Incitement to Postman (by Joel Zartman)







A continued response to the idea of religious movies: Tozer on acting







and, more incidently:







Speaking of religious movies







Spurgeon's protege finally speaks out against religious movies

My final plea is an appeal to the Regulative principle. I believe that all the previous reasons I have given thus far are sufficient more or less to cause a man in Christian leadership not to use religious movies (or even drama) in worship. The appeal of this article, I believe, is the strongest reason why we should not use religious movies for worship.

Christian leaders have always been tempted to introduce novel elements to worship. Whenever we decide to branch out from what God has prescribed, we hazard ourselves and our progeny. That the Lord Jesus was zealous for purity in worship is seen in his cleansing the temple. One shudders to think what he would think of our movie house temples today. Would he start with the projectors or the screen?

Tozer admonishes,

"Every generation is sure to have its ambitious amateur to come up with some shiny gadget which he proceeds to urge upon the priests before the altar. That the Scriptures do not justify its existence does not seem to bother him at all. . . . Soon it is identified in the minds of the Christian public with all that is good and holy. Then, of course, to attack the gadget is to attack the Truth itself" ("The Menace of the Religious Movie," in Tozer on Worship and Entertainment [Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1997], 184-85).

Protestants have long been criticizing the extra elements imposed by the Roman Catholic Church, yet our own versions of worship go by unscathed.

The basis for the Regulative Principle stems from sola scriptura. Only the Holy Scriptures may direct the form and content of Christian worship. The Bible is God-breathed, profitable and sufficient for the all of the church's life, whether teaching or correction (2 Tim 3:16); this must include the corporate worship of the body of Christ. Paul instructed the Colossian church in Colossians 3:16-17 to have the Word of Christ dwelling richly in their midst. If the Bible is our primary source for theology, then it is our primary source for ordering and regulating worship as well. One could also bring up many other theological themes in Scripture, like mankind's sinful bent toward idolatry, the "truth" side of John 4:24, and the very nature of the Church's submission to Christ as Lord. I do not have time to give a full-fledged defense of the Regulative Principle here, but the basis stems from certain texts (like Acts 17:24-25, Col 2:16-23), but also from the principle, found in both Old and New Testament, that God does not delight in "humanly devised" worship.

The Second London Confession (1677) says,

"The acceptable way of Worshipping the the [sic] true God, is instituted by himself; and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations, and devices of Men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way, not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures" (XXII.1, in William Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith [Valley Forge: Judson, 1959], 280).

The Second London Confession was a Baptist confession; we are talking about a Baptist principle (for example, have you ever wondered why Baptists have only two ordinances or sacraments? You can see the comments of another Baptist, Mark Dever, on this here). Of course, these men realized that certain circumstances of worship were prudential. Earlier the 2nd London Confession says,

"There are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and the government of the Church common to humane actions and societies; which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed" (I.6 in Ibid.)

The important distinction here is between elements of worship and the circumstances of worship. The elements of worship are solely those things Biblically prescribed (prayer, Bible reading, singing, administration of the sacraments, preaching, etc). The circumstances include incidental matters (posture, place of meeting, times of services, etc.). And even though they allowed for some liberty in these matters, the Baptist confession (and the Reformed tradition) still admonished us to monitor these things "ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the Word." Let me say this clearly: Religious movies do not fall under the "circumstances" of worship. You cannot hold to any form of the Regulative Principle and accept movies as a legitimate element of worship. I agree with what Kevin Bauder said (on his sadly now dormant blog), "None of us has been granted the authority to . . . deploy a single new practice that is not revealed in Scripture." He adds,

"Why are any of [the extra-Scriptural elements] thought to be expedient? Because they are meaningful to God? How would we know that? Only if He tells us. Otherwise, any notion of expedience simply signifies that they are meaningful to us. In other words, we are doing them because they please us, not because they please Him. And that is simply another way of saying idolatry."

J. Ligon Duncan III echoes similar sentiments when he says,

"The key benefit of the regulative principle is that it helps to assure that God--not man--is the supreme authority for how corporate worship is to be conducted, by assuring that the Bible, God's own special revelation (and not our own opinions, tastes, likes, and theories), is the prime factor in our conduct of and approach to corporate worship" ("Does God Care How We Worship?" in Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship: Celebrating the Legacy of James Montgomery Boice [ed., P. G. Ryken, D. W. H. Thomas, and J. L. Duncan III; Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2003], 24).

Again, to reiterate my point, the Bible must be our sole authority, and this includes the elements with which the Church worships. Religious movies and drama receive absolutely no warrant from Scripture. We have just as much warrant to introduce "Christian cooking seminars" as part of the corporate worship of the Church. Some may give examples of the number of souls won through the use of movies in evangelism. I am sure that Christian cooking seminars, if they only had the chance, would produce similar effects. Neither have the privilege of a Biblical warrant.

One wonders how many of those advocating the religious movie would react if I proposed that we start housing religious operas on Sunday morning or for our casual entertainment.

A. W. Tozer asks,

"For the religious movie where is the authority? For such a serious departure from the ancient pattern, where is the authority? For introducing into the Church the pagan art of acting, where is the authority? Let the movie advocates quote just one verse, from any book of the Bible, in any translation, to justify its use. This they cannot do. The best they can do is to appeal to the world's psychology or repeat brightly that 'modern times call for modern methods.' But the Scriptures--quote from them one verse to authorize movie acting as an instrument of the Holy Ghost. This they cannot do. ("Menace," 199).

Tozer, in saying this, knew that some would believe that movies are simply a new medium to communicate the gospel--an improvement on writing and speech. To this he responded: "The movie is not the modernization or improvement of any scriptural method; rather it is a medium in itself wholly foreign to the Bible and altogether unauthorized therein" (Ibid., 199). He adds, "Arguments for the religious movie are sometimes clever and always shallow, but there is never any real attempt to cite scriptural authority" (Ibid., 200).

It simply will not do to say to all of this, "I am not a Regulative Principle purist." Those who embrace the Regulative Principle do so with a profound concern for its purity. A great number of contemporary evangelicals and fundamentalists, of course, today reject the Regulative Principle. But those who embrace it do so with its purity in the forefront of their mind. Moreover, what right have you or anybody else to inflict your whims of religious experience and preference on other believers? How do you know that God is pleased with your little "Christian" movie? You have absolutely no warrant or mandate from Scripture. We should mourn the state of the church we have now stooped to the point where in so many corners the Bible no longer holds a firm sway over the Church's worship. Is Christianity a mere man-made religion that one feels the liberty to trifle in this way with great and holy God Jehovah? Where is Jesus Christ in all of this? Where is his Lordship? It would be an extremely good thing in American Christianity for pastors everywhere to remember the examples of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 or Paul's sober words in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 before they ever acted so carelessly with the Church's holy worship.

paleoevangelical: Dever on Entertainment and Church Dramas

paleoevangelical: Dever on Entertainment and Church Dramas

This is more of the same. I do enjoy having people like Mark Dever on my side.

What's wrong with "I've got a mansion" anyway?

Dr. Albert Mohler makes the following remark in his lecture "The Nature of True Beauty":

"As you continue reading about the New Jerusalem, you will understand its beauty reflected in the precious and semi-precious stones and elements, streets of gold. This has been turned into the stuff of gospel music, but the picture is much more of beauty than of opulence."

Mark Dever on "fundamentalists," with a group-participation question

Mark Dever said the following in his Capitol Hill talk, "Church History from the Civil War to the Present":

"Those who united around the fundamentalists soon became known as the "fundamentalists." The term then had a rather precise meaning of those who affirmed the foundation, the "fundaments," the foundation of the doctrines of orthdoxy. It soon, however, became to be used more broadly and more disparagingly as it is today, to refer to a kind of militancy that's intolerant and anti-intellectual."

Question for group-participation: Is this true of today's fundamentalists?

***THIS IS MY 100th IMMODERATE POST***

Some Neil Postman for a Monday morning

from Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Viking Penguin, 1985), 8-9.

"The clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation. I might add that my interest in this point of view was first stirred by a prophet far more formidable than McLuhan, more ancient than Plato. In studying the Bible as a young man, I found intimations of the idea that forms of media favor particular kinds of content and therefore are capable of taking command of a culture. I refer specifically to the Decalogue, the Second Commandment of which prohibits the Israelites from making concrete images of anything. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water beneath the earth." I wondered then, as so many others have, as to why God of these people would have included instructions on how they were to symbolize, or not symbolize, their experience. It is a strange injunction to inlcude as part of an ethical system unless its author assumed a connetion between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture. We may hazard a guess that a people who are being asked to embrace an abstract, unverisal deity would be rendered unfit to do so by the habit of drawing pictures or making statues or depicting their ideas in any concrete, inconographic forms. The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking. Iconography thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could enter a culture. People like ourselves who are in the process of converting their culture from word-centered to image-centered might profit by reflecting on this Mosaic injunction."

Interestingly, Ligon Duncan cites this paragraph in the book Give Praise to God

The Orthdox Creed (1678) on the three creeds

The Orthodox Creed is an early Baptist confession from the late 17th century.

XXXVIII ARTICLE.

Of the three Creeds.

The three creeds, viz. Nicene creed, Athanasius’s creed, and the Apostle’s creed, as they are commonly called, ought throughly to be received, and believed. For we believe, they may be proved, by most undoubted authority of holy scripture, and are necessary to be understood of all christians; and to be instructed in the knowledge of them, by the ministers of Christ, according to the analogy of faith, recorded in sacred scriptures, upon which these creeds are grounded, and catechistically opened, and expounded in all christian families, for the edification of young and old, which might be a means to prevent heresy in doctrine, and practice, these creeds containing all things in a brief manner, that are necessary to be known, fundamentally, in order to our salvation; to which end they may be considered, and better understood of all men, we have here printed them under their several titles as followeth, viz.

C. S. Lewis on bad hymns

Found by Joel Zartman

"I question whether the badness of a really bad hymn can ordinarily be so irrelevant to devotion as the badness of a bad devotional picture. Because the hymn uses words, its badness will, to some degree, consist in confused or erroneous thought and unworthy sentiment."

From "Christianity and Literature"

Spurgeon's protege finally speaks out on the idea of the religious movie

I originally believed that this quote was by Spurgeon himself. I was listening to a sermon called "Deviant Worship" by Sam Horn and he read this quote, attributing it to him. It seems it was actually made by Archibald Brown, Spurgeon's student and contemporary, the man who conducted Spurgeon's funeral. This entire tract seems like a real gem to read. Brown says, ""Providing recreation for the people" will soon be looked upon as a necessary part of Christian Work and as binding upon the Church of God, as though it were a Divine command, unless some strong voice be raised which will make themselves heard."

Before I give the quotation, let me make a comment about why I am doing all of this work against the religious movie. This is not intended to be a vicious attack against anybody, including Jason Janz. But there are those of us who are convinced that worship and entertainment is, as Tozer said, a great heresy of our age. And we have seen many fundamentalists quick to agree with this sentiment. But in our study, we have found that entertainment and popular culture and fundamentalism have long been bed-fellows. We want purity in this regard, a reformation of sorts, even within fundamentalism. It does no good to accuse Bill Hybels and Rick Warren and Michael W. Smith of merging entertainment and worship and then have a Bible college drama team the next Sunday. I will not belabor this point. The other reason I am doing this is because the last thing I want is for the assumption that movies are legitimate vehicles for communicating the gospel to go unchallenged. This cannot become a standard assumption, that the movies are an appropriate means of propagating the Christian religion. We have already seen it in the posts at Sharperiron. Suddenly and increasingly, the test for "evangelical" movies is how clearly the gospel is being presented. We disagree with the presumption here. It is faulty. I have already given some reasons for this disagreement, and early next week I will give what will probably be my final reaosn why we cannot tolerate this idea in the Christian church.

Now we turn to Mr. Brown's comments on entertainment and the church, some of which has application to our discussion here on the religious movie:

"The mission of amusement utterly fails to effect the desired end among the unsaved; but it works havoc among the young converts. Were it a success, it would be none the less wrong. Success belongs to God; faithfulness to His instructions to me. Bit it is not. Test it even by this, and it is a contemptible failure. Let that be the method which is answered by fire, and the verdict will be, "The preaching of the Word, that is the power."

Let us see the converts who have been first won by amusement. Let the harlots and the drunkards to whom a dramatic entertainment has been God's first link in the chain of their conversion stand forth. Let the careless and the scoffers who have cause to thank God that the Church has relaxed her spirit of separation and met them half-way in their worldliness, speak and testify. Let the husbands, wives, and children, who rejoice in a new and holy home through "Sunday Evening Lectures on Social Questions" tell out their joy. Let the weary, heavy-laden souls who have found peace through a concert, no longer keep silence. Let the men and women who have found Christ through the reversal of apostolic methods declare the same, and show the greatness of Paul's blunder when he said, "I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." There is neither voice nor any to answer. The failure is on a par with the folly, and as huge as the sin. Out of thousands with whom I have personally conversed, the mission of amusement has claimed no convert."

Some interpretative musings on Romans 1:16-17

In the first chapters of Romans, Paul seems to be concerned with making at least two arguments: 1) the gospel is available to all who believe, both Jewish person and Gentile, and 2) the gospel he preaches (justification by faith alone) is in full continuity with the salvation revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures.

Consider verse 2, which says that the gospel was "promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures." Then he describes the gospel in vv. 3-5 following,

"concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,"

The blessed Apostle continues he wants to go to Rome so that he can preach the gospel to the Gentiles there, "in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish." He earnestly desired to preach the gospel to the Gentiles in Rome. Then he continues his line of reasoning,

ου γαρ επαισχυνομαι το ευαγγελιον του χριστου δυναμις γαρ θεου εστιν εις σωτηριαν παντι τω πιστευοντι ιουδαιω τε πρωτον και ελληνι δικαιοσυνη γαρ θεου εν αυτω αποκαλυπτεται εκ πιστεως εις πιστιν καθως γεγραπται ο δε δικαιος εκ πιστεως ζησεται. (For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith.")

Thus when Paul says "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," he does not mean shame in the sense that we speak of it today. The emphasis is in the "to everyone who believes"; He is confident that it is able to work in all who believe, and it does not matter if they are Jew or Greek. In fact, Paul says "to the Jew first and also to the Greek." I think he means here that the Jewish people, based on their status as God's chosen people, first heard the good news concerning the coming Messiah, first believed, and were first justified. This is a chronological first, not a first of priority (though I am not yet willing to die on that hill). The Jewish people first heard the gospel of salvation through the coming Christ. It worked in them, now Paul is confident that God will work through the good news in the Gentiles as well (he uses "Greek" as a synonym for "the nations" (v 5). I think he is speaking chronologically here foreshadowing what he will say in Romans 9:4-5,

"They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen."

Then in the eleventh chapter, Paul says,

"So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!"

It is on this basis that Paul admonishes the Gentile believers in vv 17-18,

"But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches."

Therefore in a real sense, the Jewish people were the first to have the gospel working in them; now the Gentiles have it. By the way, I believe that there is a sense in which the Jewish people have a "priority" over the Gentiles. But I do not believe that is the import of 1:16-17.

Paul continues that he knows all of this because in the gospel "the righteousness of God has been revealed εκ πιστεως εις πιστιν (from faith to faith)." This is, of course, a difficult phrase to interpret. 2 Corinthians 2:16 has a similar construction when it says (starting in v 15), "For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death [εκ θανατου εις θανατον], to the other a fragrance from life to life [εκ ζωης εις ζωην]. Who is sufficient for these things?" I think that we can look at this passage and see a kind of transfer of death and life, from the believers to unregenerate and from the believers to those who believe. When Paul says in Romans 1 that the righteousness of God has been revealed in the gospel "εκ πιστεως εις πιστιν," he means "from their faith to our faith." We have seen the justifying work of the gospel throughout all time from the faith of the Jews beforehand to the faith of the Gentiles at the present time. The gospel has remained the same throughout: God justifying the ungodly.

Therefore he can say later in Romans 3:21-26 that all can be saved. The emphasis here again is that anyone, including the Gentiles, can be saved by faith. How is this possible? He answers, "Since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Since all have sinned, all can be "justified by his grace as a gift." God justified the Jewish people by faith, now he is justifying the Gentiles by faith. Notice that Paul even points out that the sacrifice of Christ provided righteousness for the sins God had "passed over" in "divine forebearance," and righteousness for the sins "at the present time." It is in this that God shows himself to be the "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Whether that faith is forward-looking (the Jewish people) or backward-looking (and forward-looking for us), when we believe in Jesus, we are justified. This is the way it has always been. The importance of the continuity of this faith is part of reason Paul shows that this "justification by faith alone" gospel he is preaching was the same thing believed by Abraham and David (ch. 4). And it is for this reason the Apostle says in Romans 10:11-13,

"For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

All English Scripture cited is from the English Standard Version.

Capitol Hill Baptist Church on Christians, dating, and sexual union

This audio from Capitol Hill Baptist Church (pastored by Mark Dever) is extremely helpful, better than nearly anything I have heard in American evangelicalism and fundamentalism on the topic of dating, relationships, and their related issues. If you have a ministry with teenagers, singles, or young adults, or know someone in the aforementioned group, or even plan on having children, you need to listen to this. Even if you do not fit any of the near-exhaustive categories of persons I just mentioned, you should listen to these; they are a rich source of encouragement and admonishment toward purity in these matters.

I have not listen to all of these, but here are all of the "talks" that seem to be related to the subject at hand:

Men's Talk on Christian sexuality


Men's Talk on Christian sexuality Q&A


Women's Talk on Christian sexuality


Women's Talk on Christian sexuality Q&A

Modesty


Modesty Q&A

Jesus and the Seventh Commandment


Does Thin Equal Beautiful?

Review of the Complete English Hymnal, vol. 3

Today I posted a brief entry at the Kara Ministries Weblog highlighting of one of albums I contributed to Religous Affections Radio.

Speaking of religious movies

Here you go, people. If we can 50 of us to get together and go to Michael W. Smith's new movie Second Chance, we could WIN him to come and LEAD WORSHIP at our church!

Can somebody shout glory?!? Does that pump you up about Jesus or what?

Let's get the list going NOW! Sign yerself up!

A continued response to the idea of religious movies: Tozer on acting

We have been discussing of late the idea of the religious movie. I began with a response to Jason Janz's article "Why We Say 'Gospel.'" My next article attempted to show that all movies are entertainment, and as such they should not be used for corporate worship or gospel presentations. Then I asked Joel Zartman to follow that article up with some of the ideas of Neil Postman on the media of television and motion pictures to supplement some of the deficiencies of my second article. Today I want to talk a bit about acting itself. I intend to address this topic at least one more time following today's article.

Tozer believed that "the most precious thing anybody possesses is his individuated being; that by which he is himself and not someone else; that which cannot be finally voided by the man himself nor shared with another" ("The Menace of the Religious Movie," in Tozer on Worship and Entertainment [Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1997], 193). Tozer believed this "selfness" was sacred, as a distinct creation of and thereby gift of God.

This means that man as a being has responsibility before God, and that God judges him according to his virtue or lack thereof. The nature of man being such as this, "sincerity" is essential to his living the virtuous life. In the virtuous man is nothing impure or hypocritical. "He is all of one piece; he has preserved his individuality unviolated" (Ibid., 194). This means he is himself at all times. The Pharisees lacked this quality of sincerity, and were thereby the objects of Jesus' judgment. They attempted to portray themselves as something they were not.

Tozer is quick to show that the roots of the word "hypocrite" were from the stage. He says, "An actor is one who assumes a character other than his own and plays it for effect. The more fully he can become possessed by another personality, the better he is an actor" (Ibid., 194). The more skillful an actor is, the more dangerous it is to his soul. He is taking on the character of another in replacement for his own. "However innocent his intentions, a man who assumes a false character has betrayed his own soul and has deeply injured something sacred within him" (Ibid., 194). Later Tozer says that anyone who plays a religious person in a dramatic role "cannot escape the secret working of the ancient laws of the soul. Something high and fine and grand will die within him" (Ibid., 206).

Tozer then shows the stark difference between the insincerity of acting and worship. "No one who has been in the presence of the Most Holy One, who has felt how high is the solemn privilege of bearing His image, will ever again consent to play a part or to trifle with that most sacred thing, his own deep sincere heart" (Ibid., 195). Acting as such has no part in worship. So also the imitations of the actor in the religious movie who must fake praying, counterfeit preaching and repentance and sorrow, and in many other ways "play at worship," should be reprehensible to anyone with a sense of reverence.

Perhaps we can say that there may be some tie between the absence of sincerity in acting and the notorious lives of actors. Tozer observes (prophetically, it would seem), "Hollywood and Broadway are two sources of corruption which may yet turn America into a Sodom and lay her glory in the dust" (Ibid., 196). One wonders what he would say now to the movie reviews by Christianity Today and the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, or even the demand that these actors should in some way be presenting the gospel!

Tozer also appears to know the history of drama. He is aware of "religious plays" during the Middle Ages (c.f. Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: Part IV: The Age of Faith [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950], 1027-1030), but this leaves him unconvinced of acting's merits. He says, "The vogue of the Miracle Play coincided exactly with the most dismally corrupt period the Church has ever known" ("Menace," 197 [emphasis original]). Preaching brought about the Reformation, not drama. Tozer adds,

"History will show that no spiritual advance, no revival, no upsurge of spiritual life has even been associated with acting in any form. The Holy Spirit never honors pretense" (Ibid., 197 [emphasis original]).

The religious movie is contrary to a spirit of godliness. Of the great preaching and writing of truly religious men of all ages, from Elijah and Jeremiah to Peter and Paul, from Luther to Wesley to Edwards, the religious movie is far removed from their ilk. When one compares the religious movie to these, says Tozer, "if he cannot see the difference in kind, then he is too blind to be trusted with leadership in the Church of the Living God" (Ibid., 205).

Those are Tozer's words, not mine.

"The Baptist denomination, in its many branches, now numbering more than the Presbyterians and Congregationalists united, has never had any sympathy with the Theater; and whatever certain individuals, ministers or laymen, in the great centers, may think or do, the spirit of the body is overwhelmingly against the institution."

- J. M. Buckley, The Christian and the Theater, 1875

For those of you out there who neglect your wives because of blogging

Which, of course, does not include me.

All you "blog-widowers" should listen to this. I am not sure whether you should let your wife listen to it.

Concerning St. Valentine's Day

Consider the major holidays we Americans observe. I define a major holidays as a holiday for which retail stores have large inordinate displays for several week prior to the actual day of celebration. How many are genuinely observed?

Halloween is a mere caricature of what we it was. No one knows what they are celebrating in Halloween. They simply dress up for dressing ups sake. They give out candy for the sake of giving out candy. People are completely clueless.

Thanksgiving, similarly, is where we give thanks. To whom we are to give this "thanks," we have no idea. For many, it is merely a cause to be thankful that they do not live with their relatives year-round.

That any true meaning of Christmas has been largely boiled down to many is no secret.

The Fourth of July barely makes the list, and it does have a remnant of meaning left--some kind of vague idea of patriotism and whatnot. But it does have some meaning (though we hasten to add that it is not about fireworks).

Perhaps it should not surprise us that the holiday which most Americans have really embraced for all that it means is Valentine's Day. There is no denying that we love our amore, and we know how to celebrate it. Yes, EROS--now there's an idea we Americans can really get behind with all our heart, soul, mind, and body. And we have all the essentials to make it a truly religious experience: oblations (wine), food offerings (candy and chocolates), sacrifices (roses--okay, maybe that's a stretch), ritual music , priestly garments (you just have to walk by the ladies department this time of year), and so forth.

What should our response as Christians be to this most holy day? Perhaps we Christians can do some work to reform the culture and bring back some good-old fashioned Christian meaning to the day, like calling it "Marriage Day," or "Abstinence Day." Or we can use the culture's acute awareness of love to proclaim that God loves us--that Jesus is our Valentine. If we could the PAX or TBN television networks behind this we may be able to really "confront" our culture. The possibilities are endless. Of course, we must walk carefully. We do not want to be accused by the holiday's devotees of taking the "Eros" out of Valentine's Day. That would really spark the culture wars.

Note to the reader: the previous was satirical. The author is not reprimanding those believers who commemorate this day in any way.

John Owen on the condescension of the Lord

from The Glory of Christ (Grand Rapids: Sovereign Grace, 1971), 325.

“How glorious, then, is the condescension of the Son of God in his susception of the office of mediation! For is such be the perfection of the divine nature, and its distance so absolutely infinite from the whole creation,–and if such be his self-sufficiency unto his own eternal blessedness, as that nothing can be taken from him, nothing added unto him, so that every regard in him unto any of the creatures is an act of self-humiliation and condescension from the prerogative of his being and state,–what heart can conceive, what tongue can express, the glory of that condescension in the Son of God, whereby he took our nature upon him, took it to be his own, in order unto a discharge of the office of mediation on our behalf?”

I came across these lines recently while preparing a sermon. I wonder if we (I) struggle to really grasp the profundity of the condescension of Jesus. I think that part of our problem has to do with our American equalitarianism, the belief that all persons are equal. This is so pervasive in our society that we begin to suppose, I think, that God is our equal, or much more so than He actually is. The condescension does not end up being that great; "in fact," we muse to ourselves, "why wouldn't Jesus want to come down and save us?" We have become big and God has become small. Oh, how imperative it is for our moral imagination to capture the idea of the greatness of God, and then to marvel at the profound condescension of Jesus Christ.

Phil 2:6-11

ος εν μορφη θεου υπαρχων

ουχ αρπαγμον ηγησατο

το ειναι ισα θεω



αλλ εαυτον εκενωσεν

μορφην δουλου λαβων

εν ομοιωματι ανθρωπων γενομενος



και σχηματι ευρεθεις ως ανθρωπος

εταπεινωσεν εαυτον

γενομενος υπηκοος μεχρι θανατου

θανατου δε σταυρου



διο και ο θεος αυτον υπερυψωσεν

και εχαρισατο αυτω ονομα

το υπερ παν ονομα


ινα εν τω ονοματι ιησου

παν γονυ καμψη

επουρανιων και επιγειων και καταχθονιων

και πασα γλωσσα εξομολογησηται οτι

κυριος ιησους χριστος

εις δοξαν θεου πατρος

"An Incitement to Postman" by Joel Zartman

The following article was written by Joel Zartman.

Neil Postman. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Penguin: New York, 1985.

This book is one of the books nobody ought to neglect. It isn’t hard to read. It isn’t long either. It is twenty years old now and the only thing that has changed is that it rings more true than before. We have not listened very closely to Postman’s warning.

Postman is one of those chaps who sat around thinking about things. Unlike most people who sit around thinking about things and then perpetrate them on the public either by way of ink and paper or a blog, he was actually more successful at thinking about things than not. His books are worth reading. His trouble is that he’s a friendly critic of modernity. But for what he’s doing, that is no great trouble. Postman remembers the age of print and holds it up against the age of the image, the age when public events are being reported and even conducted on the television. His argument is that the age of the image is an inferior age, one that is antagonistic to serious discourse because the medium in which it is conducted has a bias against reasoned discourse.

What Postman argues is that the medium of film and television have a bias. Every medium has a bias. For example: he argues that the printing press, while capable of reproducing images, is biased against them. The printing press did not usher in books filled with illustrations. There were illustrations, there were even books full of illustrations, but in the main, the medium of print gave us books full of letters and words and sentences. This is its bias. The bias of television and film is toward images. In one chapter Postman lists the possible uses he has known that are made of a TV. It can be used as a lamp, as a table, as a bookshelf even or as a flat surface on which to project text. But its bias is revealed in that for which it is most successfully used. And this use, he argues, tends toward irrational associations that degrade serious discourse.

I should go so far as to say that embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anticommunication, featuring a type of discourse that abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction. In aesthetics, I believe the name given to this theory is Dadaism; in philosophy, nihilism; in psychiatry, schizophrenia. In the parlance of the theater, it is known as vaudeville (105).

Want proof? Consider, Postman urges, how long anything takes on a TV news report. How long is an "in-depth" story? Look about the little pictures they flash beside the talking head and ask how much it really has to do with the story, how much it really adds, or why they keep showing that same tedious sequence. Ask yourself about the value of "live" reports, why they need to conjure up the air of immediacy with spontaneous comments from generals or civilians with nothing really useful to say. Just notice what the basis of the appeal is for most commercials. On what grounds do they expect you to get their product?

In the first half of the book Postman explains the basis for the evaluation he is making. Here is where he talks about mediums of communication and their bias. Here is where he contrasts the previous ages with the present age and where he gives you the explanations of the differences between language and image very thoroughly. I think anybody who engages in communication in our day ought to read this. I think people who put vaguely associated little pictures on their blogs ought to consider it. Seriously, the way he treats this whole matter applies to blogs and I think some with their fondness for clever and cute graphics and magazine illustration pretensions ought to regard what postman says. Postman convinces at least me when he points out the ways in which irrational behavior is less than harmless. And it says much of our age that we even need an argument to demonstrate that irrational things are harmful. But try putting that in the comments of a post with some very vaguely connected image. You will either receive fatuous derision and scorn, or a dismissal.

The second half of the book deals specifically with the degrading of serious discourse in four areas of life, then draws conclusions. First Postman deals with the degradation of current events that forms what we know as "the news." Then he lights into TV evangelists and the whole sordid world of religion on TV which he treats in such as way as would make a saint rejoice exceedingly. It is a very salutary bit of writing and if you need something to make your heart glad and to expose the folly of the unrighteous as it should be exposed, try this. Then he deals with politics specifically, showing how campaigning has deteriorated. He calls the chapter "Reach out and elect someone." The last chapter before the conclusion is the one that deals with so-called educational television. This chapter takes on Sesame Street and has the power to set you against the whole genre, if you aren’t already. One very thought-provoking suggestion that Postman makes at the end of the chapter on religion which ties in with the educational chapter is how the TV spreads outside of itself and starts fashioning the religious and educational endeavors of real life into its own degraded image. It is humiliating to think that the structure of our worship of the living God has so much in common and draws so many of the unquestioned assumptions on which it rests from a medium unsuited to anything but the most vulgar entertainment. But it is not surprising, for the thoughtlessness that is the bias of this media is the thoughtlessness that characterizes and permeates all our lives.

You might wonder if this is an overstatement. There has been thoughtlessness in ages quite devoid of cathode ray tubes, antennae or remote controls. I would answer that we have only increased our capacity for thoughtlessness (more precisely, we have decreased our capacity for thoughtfulness and live at a disadvantage). We are worse off.

Now the reason I was urged by Ryan to work on something out of Postman was to address his present attempts to challenge the assumption about the Gospel and film in the whole situation which we shall here designate Sharper Spear. Postman’s argument is that putting anything serious into the medium of the TV will inevitably degrade it. "Entertainment is the supra-ideology of all discourse on television" (87). Nobody who really cares about their message will do so. Perhaps you will ask if Postman distinguishes film and television. He does. Do you know what he says? It is in the context of telling us why TV is worse than other mass media such as radio or records or films. "No one goes to a movie to find out about government policy or the latest scientific advances" (92). His point is that we do expect serious things from TV. Isn’t it telling that Postman assumed that movies were only used for entertainment, not serious business? Isn’t it curious that the people who seem to think films can be used for talking about government policy and religion are Michael Moore and Jason Janz? Now it seems to me that what Postman says suggests two things: either those who want the Gospel put into a film are ignorant, or they are evil. They are ignorant if they neglect to consider the nature of the medium they employ. They are evil if they understand the nature of the medium they employ and use it to degrade the message given out. Charity suggests we chalk it up to ignorance. For that ignorance we recommend Postman’s book.

J. Ligon Duncan III on worship and Boice on hymns

Good stuff.

from J. Ligon Duncan III, "Does God Care How We Worship" in Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship: Celebrating the Legacy of James Montgomery Boice (Philip Graham Ryken, Derek W. H. Thomas, J. Ligon Duncan III, ed.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2003), 25-26.

"Evangelicals do think that worship matters, but they also oftne view worship as a means to some other end that that of the glorification and enjoyment of God: some view worship as evangelism (thus misunderstanding its goal); some think that a person's heart, intentions, motives, and sincerity are the only things important in how we worship (thus downplaying the Bible's standards, principles, and rules for worship); and some view the emotional product of the worship experience as the prime factor in "good" worship (thus overstressing the subjective and often unwittingly imposing particular cultural opinions about emotional expression on the worshipers). Evangelicals believe these things about worship, but they do not think there are many biblical principles about how to worship or what we are to do and not to do in worship."

from James Montgomery Boice, Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 180.

"One of the saddest features of contemporary worship is that the great hymns of the church are on the way out. They are not gone entirely, but they are going. And in their place have come trite jingles that have more in common with contemporary advertising ditties than with the psalms. The problem here is not so much the style of the music, though trite words fit best with trite tunes and harmonies. Rather the problem is with the content of the songs. The old hymns expressed the theology of the church in profound and perceptive ways and with winsome, memorable language. They lifted the worshiper's thoughts to God and gave him striking words by which to remember God's attributes. Today's songs reflect our shallow or nonexistent theology and do almost nothing to elevate one's thoughts about God.

"Worst of all are songs that merely repeat a trite idea, word, or phrase over and over again. Songs like this are not worship, though they may give the churchgoer a religious feeling. They are mantras, which belong more in a gathering of New Agers than among God's worshiping people."

Hodge on Calvin's view of the self-existence and subordination of Jesus Christ

This entire selection is from Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; repr. Henrickson, 2001), 467.

"Calvin was accused by some of his contemporaries of teaching the incompatible doctrines of Sabellianism and Arianism. In a letter to his friend Simon Grynee, rector of the Academy of Basle, dated May, 1537, he says the ground on which the charge of Sabellianism rested, was his having said that Christ was 'that Jehovah, who of Himself alone was always self-existent, which charge,' he says, 'I was quite ready to meet.' His answer is: 'If the distinction between the Father and the Word be attentively considered, we shall say that the one is from the other. If, however, the essential quality of the Word be considered, in so far as He is one God with the Father, whatever can be said concerning God may also be applied to HIm the Second Person in the glorious Trinity. Now, what is the meaning of the name Jehovah? What did that answer imply which was spoken to Moses? I AM THAT I AM. Paul makes CHrist the auth or of this saying' (Calvin's Letters.vol. i. pp. 55, 56, edit. Presbyterian Board, Philadelphia). This argument is conclusive. If Christ be Jehovah, and if the name Jehovah implies self-existence, then Christ is self-existent. In other words, self-existence and necessary existence, as well as omnipotence and all other divine attributes, belong to the divine essence common to all the persons of the Trinity, and therefore it is the Triuine God who is self-existent, and not one person in distinction from the other persons. That is, self-existence is not to be predicated of the divine essence only, nor of the Father only, but of the Trinity, or of the Godhead as subsisting in three persons. And, therefore, as Calvin says, when the word God is used indefinitely it means the Triune God, and not the Father in distinction from the Son and Spirit."

Chrysostom on the theological force of Philippians 2:6ff

from John Chrysostom's Homilies on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians. Hom. VI: Phil 2:5-8

"And last of all he says this, “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant.” (Philip. ii. 5–7.) Attend, I entreat you, and rouse yourselves. For as a sharp two-edged sword, wheresoever it falls, though it be among ten thousand phalanxes, easily cuts through and destroys, because it is sharp on every side, and nought can bear its edge; so are the words of the Spirit. (Heb. iv. 12; Rev. i. 16.) For by these words he has laid low the followers of Arius of Alexandria, of Paul of Samosata, of Marcellus the Galatian, of Sabellius the Libyan, of Marcion that was of Pontus, of Valentinus, of Manes, of Apollinarius of Laodicea, of Photinus, of Sophronius, and, in one word, all the heresies. Rouse yourselves then to behold so great a spectacle, so many armies falling by one stroke, lest the pleasure of such a sight should escape you. For if when chariots contend in the horse race there is nothing so pleasing as when one of them dashes against and overthrows whole chariots with their drivers, and after throwing down many with the charioteers that stood thereon, drives by alone towards the goal, and the end of the course, and amid the applause and clamor which rises on all sides to heaven, with coursers winged as it were by that joy and that applause, sweeps over the whole ground; how much greater will the pleasure be here, when by the grace of God we overthrow at once and in a body the combinations and devilish machinations of all these heresies together with their charioteers? . . .

"Arius confesses indeed the Son, but only in word; he says that He is a creature, and much inferior to the Father. And others say that He has not a soul. Seest thou the chariots standing? See then their fall, how he overthrows them all together, and with a single stroke. How? “Have the same mind in you,” he says, “which was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God.” And Paul of Samosata has fallen, and Marcellus, and Sabellius. For he says, “Being in the form of God.” If “in the form” how sayest thou, O wicked one, that He took His origin from Mary, and was not before? and how dost thou say that He was an energy? For it is written, “The form of God took the form of a servant.” “The form of a servant,” is it the energy of a servant, or the nature of a servant? By all means, I fancy, the nature of a servant. Thus too the form of God, is the nature of God, and therefore not an energy. Behold also Marcellus of Galatia, Sophronius and Photinus have fallen.

"Behold Sabellius too. It is written, “He counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God.” Now equality is not predicated, where there is but one person, for that which is equal hath somewhat to which it is equal. Seest thou not the substance of two Persons, and not empty names without things? Hearest thou not the eternal pre-existence of the Only-begotten?"

Christ lay in death's bondage (BWV 4)

J. S. Bach's "Christ lag in Todesbanden" (BWV 4) is a wonderful cantata.

You can hear a streaming recording of it by P. J. Leusink with the Holland Boys Choir and the Netherlands Bach Collegium here (to be played on Real Player). If you listen to the streaming audio, you can skip back and forth between the "tracks" (this is a really nice feature).

The text for the cantata comes from a hymn written by Martin Luther in 1524. The German is available here. An English translation is available here. You can see Bach's score (though only for piano and voice) here. Of course, all of these things (and more) is available at the very helpful bach-cantatas.com site.

You should listen to this cantata. Bach composed it in his twenties (1707 or 1708). This cantata is different from many of his others, in that it has no recitatives or da-capo arias; Bach simply repeats each verse as Luther wrote it. Bach has structured the cantata symmetrically: Chorale–Duet–Solo–Chorale–Solo–Duet–Chorale. All of the movements are in some way related to the tune (a chant) or chorale to which Luther originally assigned this text.

My Pseudo-Commentary

As you listen to the first chorale (which follows the brief sinfonia), you will notice the sopranos "holding out" the chorale tune above the other parts. Each verse ends with an "hallelujah," and the one at the end is marvellous to hear and tremendously complex.

I think the "hallelujah" at the end of the second verse is interesting in that is more subdued. The dissonance here is more pronounced. I muse that Bach rendered it more somberly because of the text of the second verse.

The thing I would like to highlight about the third verse (the tenor solo) is the sixth line, "Da bleibet nichts denn Tods Gestalt" (Here bideth nought but death's mere form), where Bach stops the music after "nichts" (nought), and draws the worshiper's attention to the remaining line: "but death's mere form." This is not as obvious on the Leusink recording, but it is still noticeable.

In the fourth verse and central (fifth) movement, one can hear the "awesome strife" in the complex contrapuntal setting of the voices. The altos sing the chorale tune amidst the "battle."

The fifth verse is a bass solo and has a memorable spot where the bass drops a diminished twelfth (from "b" down to an "e-sharp"!) on the word "Tode" (death) in the sixth line ("Our faith doth it to death display").

The sixth movement quite joyously celebrates the Paschal feast, and the returning chorale concludes the cantata.

Sources: liner notes for Hanssler's CD Cantatas BWV 4-6, by Andreas Bomba, Simon Crouch; Timothy Dickey, Carol Traupman-Carr, and my imagination.

A Continued Response to the idea of religious movies

In my first article, I tried to deal with Jason Janz's article "Why We Say 'Gospel'." My intention in writing all of this is not necessarily to pick on Janz or Sharperiron, but to provide another alternative to the debate. The prevailing grievance has been that ETE did not present the Gospel clearly in their film The End of the Spear; the prevailing assumption undergirding this grievance has been that Christians should be using films in a evangelistic or churchly way. With this I strongly disagree.

Over the coming days, I want to give a few reasons why we should not be using movies for religious purposes. I realize that this is not the prevailing sentiment, when large institutions, even within fundamentalism, have their own kind of unusual movie studios. And let me also say that I realize that the order of my articles is somewhat backwards. My reasons for rejecting movies in worship are logically prior to my disagreements with Janz's position. I hope the gentle reader will patiently forgive the strange order.

Today I want to highlight that all movies are intended to be entertainment, and that entertainment as such is incompatible with religious exercises. What is entertainment? This is certainly a difficult thing to pin down (somewhat akin to attempts to find a definition of "is" or "essence.") Entertainment is our devoting our time in a non-profitable way to more trivial things intended to hold our attention; entertainment is closely related to amusement and divertissement. A. W. Tozer once responded to someone who told him that singing a hymn was entertainment by saying,

"When you raise your eyes to God and sing, 'Break thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me,' is that entertainment--or is it worship? Isn't there a difference between worship and entertainment? The church that can't worship must be entertained. And men who can't lead a church to worship must provide the entertainment. That is why we have the great evangelical heresy here today--the heresy of religious entertainment" (from Success and the Christian, pp 6-7, cited in Tozer on Worship and Entertainment [Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1997], 115).

I believe that all religious motion pictures are intended to be entertaining. I cannot, of course, prove such a bold statement easily. I would like to ask the liberty to discuss this more in depth on another day. For the time being, let me say that I cannot think of a single motion picture containing acting, produced by the "entertainment industry," that was not intended to be entertaining in some way. This is particularly true of religious motion pictures. What exceptions are there? Perhaps Left Behind: The Movie? Or Every Tribe Entertainment's The End of the Spear? Even The Passion of the Christ is intended, though not in a trivial way, to hold the attention of and entertain the audience, partially through its sensationalized violence and gore.

That worship and entertainment should be distinct is still today in great dispute, of course. Let me quickly qualify that I believe that religion and entertainment are incompatible in whatever way we try to mix them, whether in our music, literature, or the arts, not just in motion pictures. A. W. Tozer observed back in the 1950's,

"That religion and amusement are forever opposed to each other by their very essential natures is apparently not known to this new school of religious entertainers. Their effort to slip up on the reader and administer a quick shot of saving truth while his mind is on something else is not only futile; it is, in fact, not too far short of being plain dishonest." ("The Menace of the Religious Movie" in Tozer on Worship and Entertainment, 191).

Later he adds, "Most responsible religious teachers will agree that any effort to teach spiritual truth through entertainment is at best futile and at worst positively injurious to the soul" (Ibid, 192). As one friend of mine put it, "There are certain activities which require the sort of response or involvement from us that demands all our powers and faculties. These activities are not those we pursue for entertainment or amusement." Entertainment never demands all our powers and faculties. Worship always does.

Do you go to church to be entertained? I must believe that all mature Christians would reject this idea outright. Then we have established a difference between a kind of entertainment enjoyment of church and, for lack of a better term, what we may call a "religious" enjoyment of church. When we are being entertained, the thing entertaining us is holding our attention; true entertainment demands a more passive posture. We are the recipients of entertainment.

The difference here is perhaps the nature of the appeal; motion pictures are much more prone to affect the emotions directly, bypassing the will. Tozer is helpful on this point as well. He says,

"Deep spiritual experiences come only from much study, earnest prayer and long meditation. It is true that men by thinking cannot find God; it is also true that men cannot know God very well without a lot of reverent thinking. Religious movies, by appealing directly to the shallowest stratum of our minds, cannot but create bad mental habits which unfit the soul for the reception of genuine spiritual impressions" (Ibid, 192).

The religious motion picture may indeed have a powerful influence on the emotions, but we should not confuse this kind of a response with the workings of the Holy Spirit. Religion is far too serious to using entertaining ways of evangelism, edification, or worship. Entertainment is too frothy and frivolous to communicate the things of God in a responsible way; the demand of "loving God with all our minds" is taken away from the process of worship. Elsewhere Tozer offers this dire warning:

"I cannot determine when I will die. But I hope I do not live to see the day when God has to turn from men and women who have heard His holy truth and have played with it, fooled with it and equated it with fun and entertainment and religious nonsense" (Tozer on Worship and Entertainment, 113).

You can read Joel Zartman's "An Incitement to Postman," a continuation of this series, here.

Another selection from The Pilgrim's Progress

Now I saw in my Dream, that the highway up which Christian was to go, was fenced on either side with a Wall, and that Wall is called Salvation. Up this way therefore did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back.

He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending, and upon that place stood a Cross, and a little below in the bottom, a Sepulchre. So I saw in my Dream, that just as Christian came up with the Cross, his Burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the Sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.

Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death. Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him, that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his Burden. He looked therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks. Now as he stood looking and weeping, behold three Shining Ones came to him and saluted him with Peace be to thee; so the first said to him, Thy sins be forgiven: the second stript him of his Rags, and clothed him with Change of Raiment; the third also set a mark in his forehead, and gave him a Roll with a Seal upon it, which he bid him look on as he ran, and that he should give it in at the Cœlestial Gate. So they went their way.

Who's this? the Pilgrim. How! 'tis very true,




Old things are passed away, all's become new.




Strange! he’s another man, upon my word,




They be fine Feathers that make a fine Bird.

Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on singing,

Thus far did I come laden with my sin;





Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in




Till I came hither: What a place is this!




Must here be the beginning of my bliss?




Must here the Burden fall from off my back?




Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?




Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be




The Man that there was put to shame for me.

A Response to Jason Janz's "Why We Say 'Gospel'"

Whenever I go to a fast-food joint, I do not expect to eat a healthy meal. I do not expect the hamburger patties to be made of premium beef, or, really, even beef at all. Neither do I expect the ingredients to be hand-selected or even fresh. I expect junk food. What is the point of eating junk food at all if it is not junk food? It’s all about your expectations. I would be a fool to expect something from something that exists to be the antithesis of that thing I expect.

So it is with Every Tribe Entertainment. Now, before I begin my discussion, it would be a good thing to take a step back for a brief exercise crucial for my point. I know it may sound a bit sarcastic, but I have a point here. Let’s say the name of this fine Christian institution three times. Ready?

Every Tribe Entertainment.

Every Tribe Entertainment.

Every Tribe Entertainment.

For those of you who don’t know, Every Tribe Entertainment produced the new movie The End of the Spear, a movie about the missionary endeavors of Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, and the rest of the men who gave their lives in an attempt to evangelize the Waodani people. Jason Janz at Sharperiron.org has raised objections about ETE’s hiring a person who practices and promotes homosexuality to play the part of Nate Saint. Now Jason has added an article articulating his biggest problem with The End of the Spear: the “Gospel message was truncated.”

In order to make his point, of course, the underlying assumption must be that motion pictures may legitimately be used for evangelistic purposes. Before I discuss this, however, I would like first to say a couple things about the studio itself. Here is an organization, by its very name, that wants to “entertain” every tribe. For a moment, let us assume the unassumable: that movies should be used for gospel proclamation. Do we really want an organization whose mission is “to create quality entertainment for a broad audience that inspires hope through truth [?]” to be articulating the gospel at all? Do we want people to be entertained into salvation? Of course, I must be fair here. ETE says that it wants to do more than just entertain (though certainly no less than this); they desire to “bring to life stories of courage and strength of the human spirit. Courage, tolerance, mercy, forgiveness, faith and love. We base our film choices on what we hope to inspire rather than what we hope to sell.” Fine. They stand firmly in the American "evangelical" tradition of the reduction of Christianity. As J. Gresham Machen would remind us, their mission statement is not Christian. It is, at best (I shudder to say it), a kind of advocation of general morality. The point here is that we should not expect an institution devoted to entertainment to give the Gospel, because a presentation of the Gospel and entertainment do not go together. I am not angry to find that my Big Mac does not come with medium-well prime rib in between the three buns, lettuce and special sauce.

I would like to add one more unrelated note. I think we ought to think twice before we believe that a movie about the death of these missionaries should be made (assuming, of course, that motion picture dramas should be made at all). I have not seen the movie, which I acknowledge opens me up to great ignorance on this (I did watch half the trailer!), but I believe that a motion picture reenacting the martyrdom of missionaries is near blasphemy. Here is the recreation of the brutal slaying of these courageous men for the entertainment of the regenerate and unregenerate alike. We are, I believe, spitting on their tombs to revel in this kind of violence, even if the overall point is somehow to portray the virtue of these men. Would we desire to see a reenacting of the lions eating our Christian fathers? Or perhaps Polycarp burning at the stake? Why do we want to see these kinds of things? Why do they bring us enjoyment or even entertainment value? How true the words of Augustine ring today, who wrote in his Confessions,

“At that time, in my wretchedness, I loved to grieve; and I sought for things to grieve about. In another man's misery, even though it was feigned and impersonated on the stage, that performance of the actor pleased me best and attracted me most powerfully which moved me to tears. What marvel then was it that an unhappy sheep, straying from thy flock and impatient of thy care, I became infected with a foul disease? This is the reason for my love of griefs: that they would not probe into me too deeply (for I did not love to suffer in myself such things as I loved to look at), and they were the sort of grief which came from hearing those fictions, which affected only the surface of my emotion. Still, just as if they had been poisoned fingernails, their scratching was followed by inflammation, swelling, putrefaction, and corruption. Such was my life! But was it life, O my God?”

The real issue, however, is the underlying premise of Jason’s remarks: that motion pictures should be used for evangelism. As I said, this assumption is a given throughout nearly the entire article. I am pleased that Jason is considering the remarks of A. W. Tozer on the religious motion picture. Yet I propose that Janz is inconsistent with his remarks in the first four-fifths of the article and his fifth point. He begins his article with a pretty good defense of clearly communicating through preaching the specific content of the Gospel. He provides a good defense of “words” over images and preaching the content of the gospel and communicating the gospel thoroughly. He rightly emphasizes the work of God in evangelization rather than “focusing on the recipient” and becoming “man-centered.” He keenly observes the emotional power of motion pictures and the tendency of this medium to manipulate a decision in evangelism. He notes the necessity of using “clear words” and the content of the gospel. These were all good remarks, and I am glad that he made them. Many of the things he said reminded me of things that I have been concerned to communicate here at Immoderate, and I am glad that we have come to similar yet independent conclusions on these matters. More people need to be saying these things, and I am glad Jason is one of them.

He then, however, seems to contradict these points he made centering on the clear communication Gospel through preaching. He says that he believes a movie can “aid in proclaiming the Gospel.” Huh? The good Christian films, he says, were the ones not made for the “big screen.” He will later all but contradict this statement as well. He conveniently gives his justification for the use of films in evangelism: the effectiveness of the “Jesus Film Project.” Evidently he witnessed its being used (with preaching) to see “hundreds” coming to Christ in Africa. I do not necessarily doubt the truthfulness of his story, but this is, in a word, pragmatism. I am truly baffled by the fact that Jason Janz, who has attended fundamentalist seminaries, and seems to embrace much of what it means to be a conservative evangelical, and who had just finished articulating the supposed dangers of the “seeker” bent in ETE would offer this kind of a basis for use of movies in evangelism.

My question to Jason, with respect, is What is the difference between you and them? You criticize ETE of using whatever means necessary to evangelize, but then you believe that motion pictures and dramas may be used for evangelism? What warrant do you have from Scripture or anywhere else to take such a liberty in the Lord's work? Jason has criticized those who defended the movie by saying they “minimize the effectiveness of preaching” and “God’s primary ordained means of communicating his good news.” He criticized the movie representative and movie company because he “disparaged preaching.” Yet he believes that movies can be used to “aid in proclaiming the Gospel”? This does appear to be inconsistent. Jason has big problems with their using whatever means necessary for evangelism (in this case by their abandoning preaching for "story"), yet he "baptizes" his own justification for movies because of what he supposes to be the "effectiveness" of movies. ETE would argue that their method is justified in the results it produces. Jason seems to have put himself on similar ground.

After defending the use of movies in evangelism, he rightly muses that “if . . . Christian drama and the Christian message are so mutually exclusive, then Christians ought to opt out of the industry entirely.” In other words, Christians should probably not be producing movies for the the general theater-going public. This is surely a good (though inadequate) point, until he then goes on nearly to deny it. Janz follows this warning with two examples of movies he believes were able to incorporate the Christian message in a drama and still “engage the medium” (i.e., produce the film for a wide audience). His first example is God and Generals, and he lists the instances of uncompromised “spiritual content.” Jason had just finished chastising the The End of the Spear for not mentioning the Gospel in total, including “the blood atonement,” yet the instances of “spiritual content” he lauds in Gods and Generals do not include any aspect of the gospel, including the “blood atonement” he demands from The End of the Spear. Then he mentions the virtue of the movie Luther; this movie does speak of the blood atonement. He concludes, “So, one can produce a film that proclaims the Gospel and does not compromise the story to the point that it’s a shadow of what it once was.” Jason, what exactly is your position on the use of motion pictures and the Gospel?

I realize that at this point it is necessary for me to articulate some actual reasons why movies should not be used in evangelism. I intend to say some things concerning this in the coming days, and I will tip my hand that the majority of my remarks will come from A. W. Tozer’s The Menace of the Religious Movie. For the time being, I will simply say that the use of drama in evangelism has no warrant from Scripture, which remark will hopefully temporarily suffice.

You can read my continued response here.