Immoderate

Immoderate is moving

2006-03-18T08:01:00.000-06:00

Unless I am struck my a sudden blow of fickleness, the new home for Immoderate will be:

http://immoderate.wordpress.com.

All future posts will be there. For the two or three of you out there, please change your links.

I will be automatically redirecting from this site to the new one after a few days.

Immoderate is back . . .

2006-03-17T13:53:00.000-06:00

Blogger stinks, that's all I'm saying. I think I have been up a grand total of two and a half hours over the past few days (that may be an exaggeration). I guess I should accept their "sincere apology" for the inconvenience, but one cannot but start considering the values of wordpress.com as a host site instead of blogger.

What do you think? Should I do it? Give it a look:

Immoderate

Williams Stokes on Creeds (1855)

2006-03-16T14:20:00.000-06:00

William Stokes, a Baptist from the mid-19th century, wrote,

"It is sufficiently suspicious that the only public bodies that have opposed themselves to the employment of Creeds have been those of the Arian and Socinian schools, with others, or portions of others, of a kindred theology. With the exception of some few excellent individuals from among the orthodox, . . . [avoiding creeds] has been confined to members of these several schools. But who are the most to be admired,--those who, conscious of honest sincerity and a thorough love of truth, declare openly the great principles of their faith;--or those who surround their profession with this mysterious reserve, and who in too many instances lead along an unknown path until it is too late to escape from the gloomy labyrinth? The advantages of an open-hearted honesty in a matter of such a moment, are far too great to be bartered for the dry sentimentality of the Arian, or the frigid, genteel, but Christless morality of the Socinian part; and when it is remembered that our forefathers set the example with bonds, imprisonment, and death, as the penalty of their fidelity; surely it is not too much to expect that we rigidly adhere to a pattern so noble."

William Stokes, The History of the Midland Association of Baptist Churches, from its Rise in the Year 1655 to 1855 (London: R. Theobald, Paternobter Row, 1855), 15.

Three parables: parable 3

2006-03-15T07:29:00.000-06:00

A church was going through a battle in the worship wars. About half the congregation wanted liturgical lap dancing (a ministry to the married congregants only, of course), where the other half were taking a firm stand against it. Finally the Sunday came where the Pastor sat down with the leaders of the different factions to hash things out. Tensions were high. Disagreements were profuse. Then the Pastor had a moment of unparalleled wisdom.

"Listen, these are matters that outside of what the Scripture explicitly addresses. That makes them matters of personal opinion. Got that?"

"Sure do, Pastor" the men said.

The Pastor continued, "The unity of the church is really being upset by the side that wants lap dancing and the side that doesn't. So I have something to say to the side that does not want lap dancing during the worship service. Listen, you are trying to impose your personal preference on the rest of the congregation when you have no chapter and verse. Don't you know that what may be irreverent to one believer may be reverent to another? You are guilty of severely harming our unity. You should have known that you had no right to make your extra Biblical conclusions about lap dancing as authoritative as the Scripture itself. You can share your opinions around here (you know that we care about those), but you cannot preach your opinions."

"Wow, Pastor, that was profound," said the leaders of the conservative faction. "We'll do our best to be more accommodating in the future."

Three parables: parable 2

2006-03-15T07:28:00.000-06:00

A conservative and a liberal minister had been hotly at odds for several years over the doctrine of inerrancy, particularly in the area of scientific and historical matters. One afternoon, the conservative minister stopped by the office of the liberal minister and asked to see him.

"Sir, I have an apology to make," said the conservative.

"Oh?"

"Yes. I have been wrong. All these years I have been condemning your stance against inerrancy as heterodox. I have finally awakened to the fact that I was terribly sinful."

"What's that?" asked the liberal.

The conservative answered, "Well, I tried to find a chapter and verse that said the Scriptures were inerrant at all, let alone with regard to where it addresses historical and scientific matters. I couldn't find one. If there is no verse, then I was merely preaching opinions."

"So you finally saw the light that your extra-Biblical doctrines cannot be as authoritative as the Bible itself?" the liberal asked.

The conservative looked up in sorrow. "Essentially, yes. And it was wrong for me to make this extra-Biblical doctrine so important that it dissolved the unity we could have had together. Will you ever forgive me?"

Three parables: parable 1

2006-03-15T06:51:00.000-06:00

A man and his wife were preparing to go out one evening. The wife came up to the husband and said, "Is this outfit modest?"

"I dare not say," replied the man.

"Honey, I'm just asking if you think the outfit is modest or not."

The husband said, "I should not speculate concerning this matter. I have a personal preference, but I dare not give that."

"Why not?" the woman replied.

"Because I do not have a chapter and verse to tell me whether or not that is modest. The Holy Spirit is bound to use the word alone. Shouldn't I?"

More Bible verses against the use of P&W

2006-03-15T06:10:00.000-06:00

"O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. " - Psalm 79:1

Chapter and verse, please

2006-03-14T12:10:00.000-06:00

I need a chapter and verse to validate the books we use in our present canon of the Bible. Anybody got one?

Anybody have a chapter and verse proving that Christ was the same substance as the Father? Or that he had two natures in one person?

Anybody have a chapter and verse telling me that the marriage between two of the same gender would be immoral (after all, wasn't Paul just condemning pre-martial sodomy?)? Or a chapter and verse telling me that Christians (as long as they are not the pastor) should not be polygamists? Or a chapter and verse telling me that married couples should not have relations in public? Or a chapter and verse telling me what immodesty is? Or giving me the definition of reverence?

Does anyone have a chapter and verse telling me that I need a chapter and verse?

Baptists deserve the name Calvinists

2006-03-14T07:28:00.000-06:00

G. B. D. Pepper (1833-1913), professor of church history at Newton and Crozer, said,

"Finally, faith is the Holy Spirit's fruit. God calls it into exercise by his own efficient acting. It is, indeed, the sinner's own personal, rational act, conditioned by appropriate knowledge and mediated by appropriate motives, but the sacrifice of the sinful self is not product of the sinful self sacrificed. It is an act of one who is born of God, of the Spirit, from above, Squarely has the denomination asserted this, firmly believed it, earnestly maintained it. This supernatural element of faith involves the doctrine of Election. It presupposes that salvation is by God's own sovereign will, hence, by his own sovereign act. So have Baptists borne, and deserved to bear, the name of Calvinists, as holding in this capital doctrine with Calvin rather than with those who either co-ordinate the divine and the human, or condition God's acting on man's faith, and not man's faith of God's acting. Were Baptists to cease, thus far to be Calvinists, they would cease to be Baptists. . . . Baptists maintain it at their centre and circumference, and at every point intermediate."*

I know a "true Calvinist" would not bear to hear this said, but I like the remark nonetheless.

*"Doctrinal History and Position," in Baptists and the National Centenary, ed. Lemuel Moss (Lewisburg, Pa.: Heritage Pub, 1976; repr. Philadelphia: American Baptists Publications, 1876); quoted in Tom Nettles, Ready for Reformation: Bringing Authentic Reform to Southern Baptist Churches (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2005), 23 (emphasis mine).

More Bible verses against the use of P&W

2006-03-13T12:01:00.000-06:00

"See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise." - Ephesians 5:15

American Evangelicalism has issues (Entertainment Evangelism)

2006-03-13T06:42:00.000-06:00

The name of the book says it all: Entertainment Evangelism. But let us allow the publisher to expand on why you should purchase this volume filled with deep spiritual substance; consider this bit taken from the front flap:

"We have the most important, the most exciting, and the most revolutionary news in all of human history. So we must find the most creative, the most innovative, and the most irresistible ways to attract the attention of pre-Christian persons. When we become committed to this apostolic task, then persons will line up to see, hear, and experience the good news that we are compelled to proclaim.

"Walt Kallestad came to this conclusion as he passed by the long lines of persons outside movie theaters and concert halls. Then he began to design and develop a ministry within a congregation that would surpass the excitement, the passion, the energy, and the joy offered by a world that is saturated with media and entertainment products such as films, books, television, CDs, sports, and theme parks."

Good thing we fundamentalists don't do anything like this.

You may purchase this classic of western spirituality here.

O Splendor of God's glory bright

2006-03-11T19:30:00.000-06:00

by Ambrose and translated by Robert Seymour Bridges

O splendor of God’s glory bright,
O Thou that bringest light from light;
O Light of light, light’s living spring,
O day, all days illumining.

O Thou true Sun, on us Thy glance
Let fall in royal radiance;
The Spirit’s sanctifying beam
Upon our earthly senses stream.

The Father, too, our prayers implore,
Father of glory evermore;
The Father of all grace and might,
To banish sin from our delight.

To guide whate’er we nobly do,
With love all envy to subdue;
To make ill fortune turn to fair,
And give us grace our wrongs to bear.

Our mind be in His keeping placed
Our body true to Him and chaste,
Where only faith her fire shall feed,
To burn the tares of Satan’s seed.

And Christ to us for food shall be,
From Him our drink that welleth free,
The Spirit’s wine, that maketh whole,
And, mocking not, exalts the soul.

Rejoicing may this day go hence;
Like virgin dawn our innocence,
Like fiery noon our faith appear,
Nor known the gloom of twilight drear.

Morn in her rosy car is borne;
Let Him come forth our perfect morn,
The Word in God the Father one,
The Father perfect in the Son.

All laud to God the Father be;
All praise, eternal Son, to Thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the holy Paraclete.

Quiz time

2006-03-11T15:07:00.000-06:00

I wish I had a bunch of free TNIVs like Ben Wright, but I want to ask a question concerning your Scripture knowledge nonetheless, just to see if anybody out there knows it. Perhaps I will send you a free autographed copy of Immoderate: the Book, or an autographed picture, or maybe I'll even autograph your Bible if you get it right. Enough vain promises--here are the rules and the question:

Rules: No sources may be used in answering this question except your memory.

Question: Can you name all the sons of Jacob, with their respective mother and in order of birth?

More Bible verses against the use of P&W

2006-03-11T13:24:00.000-06:00

"When the waters saw you, O God,
when the waters saw you, they were afraid;
indeed, the deep trembled.
The clouds poured out water;
the skies gave forth thunder;
your arrows flashed on every side.
The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
your lightnings lighted up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
Your way was through the sea,
your path through the great waters;
yet your footprints were unseen.
You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron." - Psalm 77:16-20 (ESV)

Some Bible verses against the use of P&W

2006-03-11T13:20:00.000-06:00

"Glorious art thou, more majestic than the everlasting mountains.

But thou, terrible art thou!
Who can stand before thee
when once thy anger is roused?
From the heavens thou didst utter judgment;
the earth feared and was still,
when God arose to establish judgment
to save all the oppressed of the earth." - Psalm 76:4, 6-9 (RSV)

Tell us what you really think

2006-03-10T23:23:00.000-06:00

I could not pass up posting this remark by Alexander Campbell on Baptists:

"I had unfortunately formed a very unfavorable opinion of the Baptist preachers as then introduced to my acquaintance, as narrow, contracted, illiberal, and uneducated men" (The Millennial Harbinger, V. No. 1, Third Series, 345-347. Bethany, VA., 1848; quoted in John T. Christian, A History of the Baptists of the United States: From the First Settlement of the Country to the year 1845 [Texarkana, TX: Bogard, 1926], 422).

The Church is an outpost of pilgrims

2006-03-10T07:52:00.000-06:00

D. G. Hart and John R. Muether in With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002) say,

"Manna in the wilderness was a peculiar experience for the Israelites. It was unlike anything in their Egyptian diet. At times they were given to grumbling, for it was less appetizing than Egyptian fare. So too ought we to see something strange about the spiritual diet God provides for us. To change the metaphor, some have compared worship to the process of mastering a foreign tongue. 'We must learn Christianity,' writes William Willimon, 'even as we learn a foreign language' [Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 114]. Peter Leithart suggests that 'worship is a language class, where the Church is trained to speak Christian' ["Cult and Culture," First Things 29 (Jan 1993): 7]. One learns a language by mastering difficult rules through repetition. We have no hope of speaking any language fluently if its conjugations and declensions change every week. . . .

"The church that properly worships will be peculiar to the world. Its ways will seem at odd and irrelevant, and its language will sound strange. In a word, God's holy pilgrims will appear to be sectarians. This is because the church, saved by God in order to worship him, sees itself in light of God's purposes, not the world's expectations. God has elected us by his good pleasure, delivered us from the bondage of sin, and set us apart from the world, where, like the Israelites in exile, we are to sing the Lord's song in a foreign land" (59-60).

I think the authors are right in identifying the church as pilgrims. God has, after all, "delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Col 1:13-14, ESV). Thus we can identify with the spirit and faith of the patriarchs when it says of them in Hebrews 11:13-16,

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Correctly viewing the church as an outpost of pilgrims frees the church to pursue wholly after the Lord in worship, without giving a backward glance to what the world may think of it. We can freely go to the Scriptures and let them prescribe our worship, without fearing whether or not it will be "relevant" to someone who does not even know what true Relevance is. We are freed to worship God with boldness and conviction, not hedging our culture and teaching around the dictates of the present age. Understanding the church in this way frees us from having to entertain or amuse, from feeling like we have to compete with the pagan liturgy of Saturday night. Understanding the church as an outpost of pilgrims for the Kingdom frees us to worship the true and living God as He is.

the development of a line in the Baptist Faith and Message

2006-03-09T12:21:00.000-06:00

The New Hampshire Confession (1833), upon which the SBC's Baptist Faith and Message is based in part, wrote concerning God,

"There is one, and only one, living and true God, . . . revealed under the personal and relative distinctions of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; equal in every divine perfection, and executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption" (Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, 362).

The original Baptist Faith and Message (1925) wrote,

"There is one and only one living and true God . . . He is revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being" (R. Baker, A Baptist Source Book with Particular Reference to Southern Baptists [Nashville: Broadman, 1966], 201; quoted in S. Harmon, "Baptist Confessions of Faith and the Patristic Tradition" [PRSt 29 Wint 2002, 350, n. 7]).

The Baptist Faith and Message 1963 revision slightly altered this and added subsections on the three persons of the Trinity,

There is one and only one living and true God. . . . The eternal God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence or being" (Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions, 393).

The 2000 and current revision of the Baptist Faith and Message reworked this,

"There is one and only one living and true God. . . . The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being."

Why the Nicene creed is not enough

2006-03-08T07:34:00.000-06:00

Although we insist in holding up the patristic symbols as necessary articulations of the orthodox Christian doctrine, we dare not muse that the Nicene Creed (or any of the others) is a sufficient theological articulation for us today. They simply leave too many doctrinal questions unaddressed. It is for this reason that Steven Harmon, one (apparently) sympathetic with theological liberalism, advocates that we do return to it. He believes that setting forth the Nicene symobl would first guard against the tendency of the left towards "doctrinal minimalism." He continues,

"Yet at the same time, the Nicene Creed is potentially more inclusive of diverse theological positions than most Bpatist confessions have been. It addresses neither the nature of biblical inspiration nor the gender of clergy, for example, nor does it require that one folow its example in the use of gendered God-language" ("Baptist Confessions of Faith and the Patristic Tradition," in Perspectives of Religious Studies 29 [2002], 355).

Here we have illustrated two important lessons: 1) articulations of doctrine happen (in part) because persons are concerned to set forth clearly what they believed to be the Scriptures' teaching on a particular point; and 2) that some would, for whatever reason, rather not articulate clearly what they believe.

On this latter point, here is my group-participation question: Is it ever right not to state your beliefs (assuming you've reached some conclusions) as clearly as possible on a particular point of doctrine or practice?

Forbidding creeds is tyranny

2006-03-07T10:56:00.000-06:00

Campbellism was a movement that not only taught baptismal regeneration, but also against the use of creeds or confessions, arguing that creeds ended up being a kind of replacement for the Scriptures. Baptists reacted strongly against this, with the Kentucky brance of the American Baptist Association writing in the 1820's,

“Creeds formed or enforced by the civil authority, are usurpatious, leading to persecution and to despotism; while those formed by voluntary Associations of Christians, enforced by no higher penalty or sanction, than exclusion from the membership in the society are not only lawful, but necessary, in the present state of the religious world. To deny any religious society the privilege of expressing their views of the Bible in their own words and phrases, and of denying admission to those who reject their views, is a violent interference with the rights of conscience–it is tyranny.

“By a creed we mean an epitome, or summary exhibition of what the Scriptures teach. Are we to admit members into the church and into office, are we to license and ordain preachers, without enquiring for their creed?” (from A Sourcebook for Baptist History, edited by McBeth).

This last paragraph introduces an important question for American Baptist churches today: Do we place enough importance on the "creed" of those seeking to be members in our churches?

When evangelism is disobedience

2006-03-06T12:14:00.000-06:00

The Christian church has long acknowledged the importance of evangelism. After all, the Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ himself, said,

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:18-20; ESV).

The activities associated here with the command to "go" are often truncated in our understanding to mean merely "convert" or "soul-win." But our Lord had much more in mind. We are to "make disciples," baptize, and, even more staggering, "teach them to observe all whatsoever I have commanded you."

Although I believe that we can and should rightly distinguish between the time a person confesses Christ and the rest of his perservance in the Christian religion, we are in danger of error when making evangelism (in the sense of conversion) as some kind of "end in itself." Instead, we are to immerse every convert into the Christian religion, baptizing them and teaching them all things, including, presumably, how to worship the true and living God. Our goal is to bring every convert "to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood" (Eph 4:13). Any understanding of the Great Commission that is less than this is disobedient to our Lord's command.

Hart and Muether on "discipleship"

2006-03-06T07:25:00.000-06:00

from D. G. Hart and John R. Muether, With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002), p. 46.

"What then is discipleship? To many people it means assimilation. This is the process of getting new members more fully involved in the life of the church, whether through Vacation Bible School or small-group Bible studies, singing in the choir, or serving in the nursery. We prefer, however, to use an older phrase--Christian nurture--to describe the process of discipleship. In this sense discipleship means being conformed to the whole counsel of God as it is revealed in his only begotten Son. It trains God's people for good works and sustains them with spiritual food for their pilgrimage in the wilderness of this world. Christian nurture sees salvation not as a momentary occurrence but as a continuous and arduous process, from which all Christians are prone to wander. It acknowledges that God's people are in need of salvation continually, from regeneration until death. In other words, the way to measure discipleship may have less to do with how active one is in the programs of the church than with how effective the people of God are in resisting worldliness."

Sometimes Presbyterians really put us Baptists to shame.

Love's Immensity

2006-03-04T22:07:00.000-06:00

I found this poem by Gerhard Tersteegen (unknown translator) in The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, edited by A. W. Tozer (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1963).

    O past and gone!
How great is God! how small am I!
A mote in the illimitable sky,
Amidst the glory deep, and wide, and high
    Of Heaven's unclouded sun.
There to forget myself for evermore;
Lost, swallowed up in Love's immensity,
The sea that knows no sounding and no shore,
    God only there, not I.


More near than I unto myself cna be,
    Art thou to me;
So have I lost myself in finding Thee,
Have lost myself for ever, O my Sun!
The boundless Heaven of Thine eternal love
Around me, and beneath me, and above;
    In glory of that golden day
    The former things are passed away--
        I, past and gone.

Piper adds to our motivation to dispose of the boob-tube

2006-03-04T00:51:00.000-06:00

This quote comes from one of his lectures (I think it was the third one) in the "Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning" series, which you can download here.

'You’ll never hear me on Sunday morning saying, “The problem with this service is people don’t come here to give, they only come to get.” That’s not the problem. You know what the problem is? The problem is people stuff their faces with the white bread of the world and then they come to the banquet table of God’s word and they’re not hungry. And I’m talking television mainly and a lot of other junk that we waste our time on. The world as I look at it is just filled with triviality. . . . Almost all T.V. is trivial. Almost all ads are trivial. They’re silly. It’s an epidemic of silliness, so that the soul that feeds itself on this an hour or two a night . . . can’t help but just shrivel up to the smallest capacities for real, magnificent, glorious joy. . . .

'How . . . much silly stuff . . . can you watch before you begin to realize you’re a stick-figure, you’re a puppet, you’re just a silly little echo of the silliness coming through that tube continually? . . .'

Technical notes

2006-03-03T20:33:00.000-06:00

This is a technical note for anyone who has recently tried to rummage through the Immoderate Archives.

The archives are working again.

Wordpress messed them up when I was trying to import to my prototype wordpress blogsite (which I will probably not be using any time soon).

I have also changed by RSS feed to feedburner and would encourage you to use it instead of the blogger feed. You can link to it here (http://feeds.feedburner.com/immoderate) or on the syndication icon to your right. If you do not have a feed subscriber, I heartily recommend Google desktop.

One thing that did not change in the transition from Old to New Testament worship

2006-03-03T07:54:00.000-06:00

Many notice the changes from Old Testament to New Testament worship. For example, the gathered local church is the temple of God where God's Spirit resides (1 Cor 3:16-17), in contrast with worship centered locally at the Jerusalem temple. We are also to approach the throne of grace with boldness on the basis of our Great High Priest Jesus Christ who has passed through the heavens (instead of the veils) (Heb 4). There are many examples of this.

Although there are some certain discontinuities in this present economy from the previous economy, I believe that some things remain the same. One of these things, quite obviously, is the object of the worship: the one true and living God (whom we now know, by virtue of progressive revelation, exists in three Persons). Another element of continuity is the reverence and awe that God requires. The gravity of worship has not changed, just as the object of that worship has not. The same fear and wonder that the children of Israel had at the foot of Sinai should be present in our worship. So Hebrews 12 reminds us,

6At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." 27This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of things that are shaken--that is, things that have been made--in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29for our God is a consuming fire.

In fact, if the repeated refrain of the author of the Hebrews, present even in this passage, be taken seriously, we should have more fear, more reverence, and more awe than the children of Israel had, for we have experienced something greater and more awesome than Sinai--Jesus Christ the Son. The inspired writer says in the verses preceding these,

18For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20For they could not endure the order that was given, "If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned." 21Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear." 22But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

And so may we render to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.

Opportunity

2006-03-02T22:41:00.000-06:00

Here is your opportunity to help me out.

I am obviously missing something. Could someone please tell me who Phil Johnson is and why I should listen to him talk about anything, particularly fundamentalism? I am not a big John MacArthur follower or anything like that. Perhaps this is my problem?

John Piper on perseverance and the doctrines of grace

2006-03-02T12:52:00.000-06:00

I know I have been simply throwing a lot of quotations up lately, and I hope that is acceptable to my readers. I promise to have more original and controversial remarks coming in the next few days. Every once in a while it is good to take a break from critiquing things and show people what you love and what is on your mind. And if you quote people saying the things you agree with, the folks who disagree with you tend not to get as upset.

I want to recommend to you John Piper's discussion of the doctrines of grace, and the seventh lecture (part 1) in particular. I believe the Lord will use his conclusion of the exposition of these doctrines as a great source of encouragement for you. He begins the lecture finishing his discussion of perseverance, and then moves into why he loves that glorious flower we all call TULIP. You can find all the lectures here.I transcribed a couple of paragraphs of the lecture for your reading enjoyment.

Oh how many Christians in America treat their eternal life as if it’s, “I’m going to heaven; I can just live like everybody else.” And the Bible says, “Grab it! Grab it! Hold on to it! Reach out for it!” . . . There’s so much coasting in American Christianity. “Take hold of eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession among many witnesses.”. . . To stay a believer is a fight, if you don’t have a fight in your life, you are in terrible spiritual condition. If you are not fighting the fight of faith, you are drifting backward . . . because all of the current of the stream of this culture and of your own remaining corruption and of the Devil is backwards towards destruction. Christianity in this fallen age will always be a stroke. . . .

[The doctrines of grace] function as a kind of antidote to what I regard as a culture that is drowning in banality, cuteness, and cleverness, with television being the main purveyor, not of sex and violence—I almost want to say, “who cares about sex and violence? The Bible’s full of it. You know what the Bible’s not full of—not a verse? Triviality. Not a verse. Find it. Find one joke. The Bible is a deadly serious book. Lots of sex, and lots of violence, but no cuteness in the Bible. No silliness. No trifling. No banality. It is all blood-earnestness. . . . And America is exactly the opposite. . . .

What I find is that there are doctrines that function in an amazing antidotal way against the barrage of silliness in the world and make me serious about life. I hope not morose. [There’s a] huge difference between morose, glum, negative, sour and serious joy. Huge difference! And everybody knows it who’s stood at the graveside of a saint, and sung a song of joy with tears. Everybody knows the difference.

When I hear Piper talk like this, I wonder why his worship looks the way it does. I believe it communicates all the things he is speaking against here. It strikes as a "total disconnect."

Hiscox on preaching as worship

2006-03-02T08:04:00.000-06:00

from Edward T. Hiscox's Principles and Practices for Baptist Churches (Judson Press, 1984; repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1980), 217.

"As public religious serice is usually arranged by evangelical Churches generally, preaching holds a foremost place and the service is secondary. With a liturgical Church it is different. There the service rules, and preaching largley subordinate. Preaching, strictly speaking, is not worship, though calculated to inspire and assist worship. Preaching is a proclamation of truth, not an address to the Deity. The preacher is a herald (kerux), a proclaimer, and his address (kerugma), a message delivered to an audience. . . .

"The true object and design of preaching is the salvation of sinners and edification of the saints by means of instruction and persuasion. Instruction may properly be said to be the first object of preaching. Most emphatically it is not to entertain or recreate an audience; nor to crowd the house with hearers, nor to build up welathy and fashionable congregations; nor to rent pews and replenish the treasury; nor to teach literature, science, or art; but to save and sanctify souls by an exhibition of Christ crucified."

Another word from old Jonathan

2006-03-01T22:35:00.000-06:00

Read this little selection, and then go read his sermon "The Christian Pilgrim":

"Heaven is that place alone where our highest end and highest good is to be obtained. God hath made us for himself. “Of him, and through him, and to him are all things.” Therefore, then do we attain to our highest end, when we are brought to God: but that is by being brought to heaven, for that is God’s throne, the place of his special presence. There is but a very imperfect union with God to be had in this world, a very imperfect knowledge of him in the midst of much darkness: a very imperfect conformity to God, mingled with abundance of estrangement. Here we can serve and glorify God, but in a very imperfect manner: our service being mingled with sin, which dishonors God. — But when we get to heaven (if ever that be), we shall be brought to a perfect union with God and have more clear views of him. There we shall be fully conformed to God, without any remaining sin: for “we shall see him as he is.” There we shall serve God perfectly and glorify him in an exalted manner, even to the utmost of the powers and capacity of our nature. Then we shall perfectly give up ourselves to God: our hearts will be pure and holy offerings, presented in a flame of divine love.

"God is the highest good of the reasonable creature, and the enjoyment of him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. — To go to heaven fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows. But the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean. — Therefore it becomes us to spend this life only as a journey towards heaven, as it becomes us to make the seeking of our highest end and proper good, the whole work of our lives, to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labor for, or set our hearts on anything else, but that which is our proper end, and true happiness?"

Some Augustine

2006-03-01T07:36:00.000-06:00

from Augustine's Confessions, XI.27. I think that an American evangelical today would probably rework this more like, "Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Who Art Beauty Relative to My Own Cultural Preferences."

Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! too late I loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert within, and I abroad, and there I searched for Thee; deformed I, plunging amid those fair forms which Thou hadst made. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Things held me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, were not at all. Thou calledst, and shoutedst, and burstest my deafness. Thou flashedst, shonest, and scatteredst my blindness. Thou breathedst odours, and I drew in breath and panted for Thee. I tasted, and hunger and thirst. Thou touchedst me, and I burned for Thy peace.

Hiscox's definition of a Christian church

2006-02-28T20:27:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-28T20:10:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-28T11:01:00.000-06:00

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"

2006-02-25T12:52:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-25T12:49:00.000-06:00

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?

2006-02-24T14:37:00.000-06:00

If you think so, you should listen to this.

On the use of Scripture in application

2006-02-24T00:04:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-23T01:18:00.000-06:00

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)

2006-02-23T01:03:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-22T15:51:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-22T13:21:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-22T00:31:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-21T08:40:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-20T16:17:00.000-06:00

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?

2006-02-20T16:04:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-20T13:17:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-20T08:15:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-19T14:31:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-19T14:02:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-17T12:18:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-17T00:08:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-16T12:28:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-16T12:23:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-16T01:19:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-15T08:19:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-14T15:22:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-14T12:26:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-14T08:30:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-13T08:13:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-12T21:19:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-11T11:14:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-10T14:16:00.000-06:00

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)

2006-02-09T22:28:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-09T07:07:00.000-06:00

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

2006-02-07T15:05:00.000-06:00

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'"

2006-02-07T08:31:00.000-06:00

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.

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.

American Evangelicalism has issues (True Images Bible)

2006-02-05T22:30:00.000-06:00

Forgive me for posting what may be old news to most of you, but I just stumbled across the "True Images Bible" in a WorldNetDaily article and found it unbelievable. The article begins, "A Bible created especially for girls age 13-16 that includes profiles of fictional teenagers discussing oral sex, lesbianism and "dream" guys is drawing sharp criticism from some Christian parents who say such material should not appear alongside Scripture." Although I would probably not express my concerns along these exact lines, I found the article describing this "Bible" incredible. Here are a couple paragraphs from the article:

"In putting 'True Images' together, our guiding principle was to be as edgy as the Bible is and no more," Cameron Conant, Zondervan's public relations manager for Bibles, told WorldNetDaily. "We've forgotten that the Bible is filled with sex and violence, and God's redemptive role in the lives of sinful people. The Bible itself is a pretty provocative book."

Zondervan worked with the Livingstone Corporation, a Bible content developer that has worked on many study Bibles, to put together the publication. Conant explained that Livingstone did extensive research on 13 to 16-year-old girls to identify the main issues of concern to them.

"Again and again and again, the issues that repeatedly came up were a lot of issues related to sex," he said. "Today's teens are just bombarded with … highly suggestive, highly sexual media messages every day."

If anyone can tell me how Christianity has sunk to these levels, I would really appreciate it.

Ah, holy Jesus

2006-02-04T18:15:00.000-06:00

I will be singing this hymn written by Johann Heerman (a reknowned German poet of the 17th century) and translated by Robert Bridges to Johann Cruger's tune HERZLIEBSTER JESU for the evening service this Lord's Day. This hymn, including this tune, was used by J. S. Bach in his St. Matthew's Passion, and was loosely based on a Latin hymn attributed to Augustine and Anselm.

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast Thou offended,
That man to judge Thee hath in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by Thine own rejected,
O most afflicted.

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone Thee.
’Twas I, Lord, Jesus, I it was denied Thee!
I crucified Thee.

Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;
The slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered;
For man’s atonement, while he nothing heeded,
God interceded.

For me, kind Jesus, was Thy incarnation,
Thy mortal sorrow, and Thy life’s oblation;
Thy death of anguish and Thy bitter passion,
For my salvation.

Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay Thee,
I do adore Thee, and will ever pray Thee,
Think on Thy pity and Thy love unswerving,
Not my deserving.

Church is for worship

2006-02-03T07:14:00.000-06:00

I am convinced that the purpose of the believers assembling together is so that they may worship God. I do not intend this essay to be a full-fledged treatise on this matter, but a mere offering of some observations. I think a number of passages teach us that the church is for worship. One of the most pointed passages concerning the purpose of the church in the New Testament is Ephesians 4:11-16:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (ESV).

The penultimate purpose of the Lord's giving the gifted individuals here is "until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God." This is certainly "doxalogical" or pointing toward God, which is the essence of worship. In fact, this passage instructs us that the "faith and knowledge of God" is the end to which even edification ('building up') points. Colossians 3:16 describes the body of Christ as a place where the word of Christ dwells richly, and instructs us to sing our songs in the assembly "to God." 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 describes the assembly of believers as the holy "temple of God," the locale of worship in the Old Testament. Of course, John 4:24 and Romans 12:1-2 make it clear that for the believer all of life should be devoted to worship, but this should not detract from our resolving to make the assembly of believers particularly devoted to worship. In fact, if all of life is worship for the believers, how much more should a gathered assembly of many believers be devoted to worship!

This principle is quite easy to abandon. In fact, even though we may confess that the purpose of the gathered assembly of believers is worship, we can be neglectful in our worshiping God. Perhaps we can even distort our worship into a worship of ourselves. Consider John Piper's remarks on this matter:

"This distortion of divine love into an endorsement of self-admiration is subtle. It creeps into our most religious acts. We claim to be praising God because of his love for us. But if his love for us is at the bottom his making much of us, who is really being praised? We are willing to be God-centered, it seems, as long as God is man-centered. We are willing to boast in the cross as long as the cross is a witness to our worship. Who then is our pride and joy?" (God is the Gospel [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005], 12-13).

The danger is changing God--of committing the sin of creating a false god in our imagination, to which God in judgment says, "you thought that I was one like yourself" (Ps 50:21). We can easily commit the heresy of Finneyism, in some way altering or stripping down our gospel presentation so that an unregenerate may be more likely to embrace it. But we should also refrain from doing this for the church. The church must be confronted with the pure gospel, just like the unregenerate must be. I am concerned that we clearly communicate the gospel, but there is a difference between clarity and conformity. And the task of recognizing and incorporating this distinction is imperative, for in so doing we "keep ourselves from idols." Whether in evangelizing or edifying, our primary goal should be glorifying God--and we cannot let the overuse of that phrase cloud our thinking on this matter. We should boldly be proclaiming the one true Triune God, seeking to set him before the eyes of men as He is. Church history serves us well here, in showing us how we in our current cultural setting have, for better or for worse, altered the Christian gospel. And make no mistake, in this age of unbelief, the task is difficult, but this is the way it has always been. A possible objection raised at this point would be that this is adding too much complexity to the Christian faith, perhaps with an appeal that we should just go "back to the Bible." Though I understand and appreciate the sentiment, that is exactly the problem. Our American evangelical baggage has in some ways distorted our reading of the Bible. But, even if it had not, rigorous thought in these matters is warranted; loving God with "all our minds" demands nothing less than careful thought concerning who God is, and precise articulation of (while acknowledging his transcendence) exactly whom we are to believe in and grow in the knowledge of.

a selection from Pilgrim's Progress

2006-02-02T13:24:00.000-06:00

From Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, ll. 497ff. The following reminded me of some recent events.

At last things came to a hubbub and great stir in the Fair, insomuch that all order was confounded. Now was word presently brought to the Great One of the Fair, who quickly came down and deputed some of his most trusty friends to take those men into examination, about whom the Fair was almost overturned. So the men were brought to examination; and they that sat upon them, asked them whence they came, whither they went, and what they did there in such an unusual Garb? The men told them that they were Pilgrims and Strangers in the World, and that they were going to their own Country, which was the Heavenly Jerusalem; and that they had given no occasion to the men of the Town, nor yet to the Merchandizers, thus to abuse them, and to let them in their Journey, except it was for that, when one asked them what they would buy, they said they would buy the Truth. But they that were appointed to examine them did not believe them to be any other than Bedlams and Mad, or else such as came to put all things into a confusion in the Fair. Therefore they took them and beat them, and besmeared them with dirt, and then put them into the Cage, that they might be made a spectacle to all the men of the Fair.

----------

Then a convenient time being appointed, they brought them forth to their Tryal, in order to their condemnation. When the time was come, they were brought before their enemies, and arraigned. The Judge’s name was Lord Hategood. Their Indictment was one and the same in substance, though somewhat varying in form, the contents whereof was this:

That they were enemies to and disturbers of their Trade; that they had made Commotions and Divisions in the Town, and had won a party to their own most dangerous Opinions in contempt of the Law of their Prince.

Now Faithful play the Man, speak for thy God:
Fear not the wicked’s malice, nor their rod:
Speak boldly man, the Truth is on thy side;
Die for it, and to Life in triumph ride.

Then Faithful began to answer, that he had only set himself against that which had set itself against Him that is higher than the highest. And said he, as for Disturbance, I make none, being myself a man of Peace; the parties that were won to us, were won by beholding our Truth and Innocence, and they are only turned from the worse to the better. And as to the King you talk of, since he is Beelzebub, the enemy of Our Lord, I defy him and all his Angels.

Then Proclamation was made, that they that had ought to say for their Lord the King against the Prisoner at the Bar, should forthwith appear and give in their evidence. So there came in three witnesses, to wit, Envy, Superstition, and Pickthank. They were then asked if they knew the Prisoner at the Bar; and what they had to say for their Lord the King against him.

Then stood forth Envy, and said to this effect: My lord, I have known this man a long time, and will attest upon my Oath before this honourable Bench, that he is—

Judge. Hold! Give him his Oath.

So they sware him. Then he said, My Lord, this man, notwithstanding his plausible name, is one of the vilest men in our Country. He neither regardeth Prince nor People, Law nor Custom; but doth all that he can to possess all men with certain of his disloyal notions, which he in the general calls Principles of Faith and Holiness. And in particular, I heard him once myself affirm That Christianity and the Customs of our Town of Vanity were diametrically opposite, and could not be reconciled. By which saying, my Lord, he doth at once not only condemn all our laudable doings, but us in the doing of them.

---------

Then went the Jury out, whose names were, Mr Blindman, Mr No-good, Mr Malice, Mr Love-lust, Mr Live-loose, Mr Heady, Mr High-mind, Mr Enmity, Mr Lyar, Mr Cruelty, Mr Hate-light, and Mr Implacable; who every one gave in his private Verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the Judge. And first among themselves, Mr Blind-man the Foreman, said, I see clearly that this man is an Heretick. Then said Mr Nogood, Away with such a fellow from the earth. Ay, said Mr Malice, for I hate the very looks of him. Then said Mr Love-lust, I could never endure him. Nor I, said Mr Live-loose, for he would always be condemning my way. Hang him, hang him, said Mr Heady. A sorry Scrub, said Mr High-mind. My heart riseth against him, said Mr Enmity. He is a Rogue, said Mr Lyar. Hanging is too good for him, said Mr Cruelty. Let us dispatch him out of the way, said Mr Hate-light. Then said Mr Implacable, Might I have all the world given me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death. And so they did; therefore he was presently condemned to be had from the place where he was, to the place from whence he came, and there to be put to the most cruel death that could be invented.

They therefore brought him out, to do with him according to their Law; and first they Scourged him, then they Buffeted him, then they Lanced his flesh with Knives; after that they Stoned him with stones, then pricked him with their Swords; and last of all they burned him to ashes at the Stake. Thus came Faithful to his end

True Defamation

2006-02-02T08:29:00.000-06:00

Evidently Greg Clifford, chief operating officer for Every Tribe Entertainment, and Neela Banerjee, New York Times Reporter, need to take a course in remedial reading. I wonder what it will be like when their eyes are opened up to the vast and wonderful world of satire. What a universe of pleasure and reading delight they are missing! Their understanding of Kevin Bauder's remarks, as reported in the NYT, is woefully inaccurate.

I really do not expect the press to read and report on someone's statements as a student of the humanities would; that would be adding in complexity and subtlety, which does not work well in mass media.

But I am outraged that Clifford would inform the Times of Bauder's article and his "reporting it to the F.B.I." (as it appears that is exactly what he did in the article). This is somewhat akin to one Christian recommending to Nero another believer who he thinks would burn well in the emperor's garden.

Maranantha.

HT: Ben Wright

The House of Bread, like, rocks, man

2006-01-31T22:15:00.000-06:00

Okay. So I was sitting at work today minding my own business when my brother called. I did not expect it to be him on the other side of the line. I have caller-ID at work; my brother lives in Wisconsin; the call was local (relax, Jonathan Edwards used more than one semi-colon every once in a while). Sure enough, there was R----, giving me his standard greeting.

I like R----. He is one of the best brothers I have, falling quite easily into the top three. Every year R---- comes up to J--- -----'s "House of Bread" Pastor's Conference. Every year he forgets to tell me when he's coming up. Then he calls me when he's already up with scarcely sixteen hours before he leaves, and wants me to do something with him. Well . . . actually . . . not really. He calls because he knows that if I find out that he is within 60 minutes of the Twin Cities and does not contact me in some way, shape, or form, that I will give him a stern lecture in the proper manifestations of brotherly love (that's phile-o for those of you following along in your Greek Bibles). So in an effort to dodge a guilt trip, he calls at the last minute, confesses that he is within striking distance, and apologizes for not calling me sooner. Yeah, right. I've heard that before.

R---- told me that his next session was a mere three and a half hours away. Meanwhile, I was hoping to work a little later tonight because I'm currently swamped. And the President was speaking at 8:00 p.m. I had my evening nicely planned. Things were a little tight, but they were nicely planned, all the same. Nevertheless, I decided to break my neat and tidy plans and go take him out to dinner.

So I drove down to get him. This ended up being an ordeal. Really, (and I am being serious here), I can handle downtown Minneapolis just fine, thank you. Except tonight. So I finally found the Hilton (it's all about getting on the right one-way street at the right time) about ten minutes after I said I would. I picked him up and took him up to the North part of Minneapolis. We stopped by one place, but the entrees starting with $19.95 lamb chops on the menu outside the door deterred us. So I decided to take him to Wendy's instead (this story is completely true). We both were in the mood for their Spicy Chicken sandwich (I love that thing). We ate, and talked about how conservatives love the "rule of law." A good time was had by all.

Then we headed back to the Hilton for R----'s evening session at the conference. I had no intention of going to the session, partly because I was not a paying participant, and mostly because I was still hoping to catch the State of the Union address (I ended up missing the best part, which appears to be the Cindy Sheehan debacle before it started). But not going to the conference does not mean that I could not reasonably stop by the conference book store. So we pulled up, R---- worked some magic with the bell-hop, I parked my van in their drive-up, yielded my keys and was soon started up the escalators to the third floor to book-buying glory (Bethlehem's bookstore has good prices and a pretty good selection). As I entered the third floor, where the conference was taking place, I was either running into or seeing a fundamentalist every ten feet. If you randomly threw up a water balloon, odds would be good that you'd hit a fundamentalist.

The book area was in the room adjacent to where the conference sessions were held. The room is very large with a large ceiling--bigger than many church auditoriums I have seen, perhaps as big as a half-gym. They have over a dozen tables with many books. Great amounts of money could be spent here: Puritans, Bibles, commentaries, studies, biographies, church history, audio sermons and really cheap prices on Piper's books. A young man with not much less restraint than I could have easily lost his control in that great hall. As I was busy methodically making my way through the place, I was beginning to sense that my time to depart was nearing. R----, who was still with me (he was actually off a couple tables over eyeing some other items), would soon need to be joining the rest of the men in the final evening session.

That's when I heard it . . . the sound of war.

The madness was beginning, the drums and the bass were beginning to warm up. A kind of singing followed. It sounded like someone was playing a worship CD in the next room--very loudly.

With the music's loudness ever increasing, I made my final selections and headed toward the exit with R----. As we walked by the room, the doors were open and the session was filled with men and women standing in front of their chairs. I could see up to the front of the room several yards away a choir on platform raisers. The choir was swaying to the rhythm. The people in the back did not look like they were involved. In fact, most people were just kind of staring. I was kind of doing the same thing--it's just I was walking while I was doing it. I could not see the people in front, but I assume they must have been the ones who were "into it." I was kind of doing the same thing--it's just I was walking while I was doing it.

I am at the point now where I just find these things funny. They are so far beyond anything related to the Christian tradition I know, I just laugh at it. And that's what I did tonight. I laughed. I was astonished. These things are good for me to see; they remind me that there are actually people out there who like this stuff. I said to my brother, "You know, this is what many called 'enthusiasm' during the first Great Awakening." I asked my brother if he liked the idea of a frenzy. I have no real idea how conservative he is on these matters, but I am not one who usually passes up a chance to state the point of the situation. I asked him what he thought of an unbridled frenzy, where one "worships" whether they like it or not.

I remember one of the few times I have had the pleasure of hearing J--- ----- "in person," he spoke on the necessity of loving God with our minds, and how we do it. I had a distinct disconnect as he concluded speaking--what about contemporary worship? How is that loving God with all your mind? The exalted poetry? The thought-provoking music? This is not to say that I am smarter than J--- ----- (okay, you can stop laughing now), or even that I love God with my mind in any way as well as he does, but that was an area where he seemed really inconsistent.

My brother and I parted ways before I descended the final escalator. It was good seeing him again. It was also good to remind myself why I am not planning on attending the "House of Bread" Pastor's Conference.

B is for Baloney

2006-01-31T21:36:00.000-06:00

If somebody could tell me the difference between a Democrat and a Republican, I would really appreciate the clarification.

Thomas Tallis

2006-01-31T14:46:00.000-06:00

This Naxos podcast features a brief biography of Thomas Tallis and samples his Spem in Alium. It's kind of funny because this old guy tells bad (and dry) jokes trying to make Tallis hip, but it is a half-way decent introduction.

Premoderns wonder

2006-01-30T23:13:00.000-06:00

The common distinctions between the prevailing epochs of the thought-constructs of mankind are threefold: premodern, modern, and postmodern. Myron Penner summarizes:

“In premodernity rational thought begins with an attitude of wonder, and the basic orientation for philosophical reflection is characterized as an attempt to explain the perplexities of the universe (which cause one to wonder). . . . There is a sense of awe and mystery, and even gratitude, that accompanies premodern philosophical reflection” (Christianity and the Post Modern Turn [Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005], 23). Incidently, Penner adds two other characteristics of premodern thought: no intrinsic antithesis between faith and reason, and the life of reason is a communal event. This radically changed from the Enlightenment. Penner explains, “The form of rational inquiry inherited from the premoderns becomes, in modernity, inherently suspect. . . . Thus doubt, not wonder, is the fundamentally rational posture, for doubt is the only means for a modern self to guarantee that he or she is not deceived” (24).

Richard Weaver is insightful on this principle of wonder. He says (in one of the most remarkable extra-Biblical paragraphs I have ever read),

“When we affirm that philosophy begins with wonder, we are affirming in effect that sentiment is anterior to reason. We do not undertake to reason about anything until we have been drawn to it by an affective interest. In the cultural life of man, therefore, the fact of paramount importance about anyone is his attitude toward the world. . . . We begin our other affirmations after a categorical statement that life and the world are to be cherished” (Ideas Have Consequences [Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948], 19).

There is the spirit of wonder shining through. This reminds me of another Weaver remark in his essay “Up from Liberalism”: “I found myself in decreasing sympathy with those social political doctrines erected upon the concept of a man-dominated universe and more and more inclined to believe with Walt Whitman that ‘a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.’”

And this reminds me of G. K. Chesterton, who wrote,

“The ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none. A forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, by dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country” ("The Ethics of Elfland" in Orthodoxy).

Which in turn reminds me of a Latin hymn:

O magnum mysterium
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent
Dominum natum,
jacentem in præsepio.

O great mystery
And astonishing sacrament
That animals should see
The birth of the Lord
Lying in a manger.

Gonald on divorce

2006-01-30T12:28:00.000-06:00

This passage comes from the excellent talk by Christopher Olaf Blum, available at ISI. The speech principally concerns the conservatism of Louis de Bonald, a foremost thinker in the French conservative tradition. You should listen to this speech, for conservatism should extend far past our politics, but into our church life as well. Bonald emphasized the importance of good work and the traditional mores that come from being tied to your agrarian community. He was also a politician who helped bring about a change from the legalization of no-fault divorce in France in the mid 19th century. Bonald said concerning divorce,

"When society has come to the point with the head-strong loves of the young: that inexstinguishable nourishment for the arts, have in countless ways become the concern of people of every age (women, old and young are obsessed with these things), when marital authority is the butt of jokes, when paternal authority thought to be tyrannical, when obscene books, displayed everywhere, sold or lended at so low a price they seem to be given away teach the child things that nature does not reveal to the grown man, when human nudity that distinctive characteristic of extreme barbarism, offers itself everywhere to our eyes in public places, and when the woman itself, clothed without being covered, has discovered the art of insulting modesty without offending good taste, when religion has lost all its terror, and when enlightened spouses see in their reciprocal infidelities only a secret to keep from one another or perhaps a secret to share, in times such as these, to tolerate divorce is to legalize adultery. It is to conspire with man's passions against his reason, and with man himself against society."

And to think that some conservative Christians are quickly willing to balk at this important issue of divorce in our society and churches. I say that we should instead be prophets in the midst of this dark land, as Bonald was in his, extolling the virtue of keeping our vows! In his talk, Blum has many memorable things to say, including this gem:

"The times are dark indeed, and in these times we conservatives especially need to cultivate the virtue of hope. . . . For marriage and family come from God, and in His providence God protects the good things that He ordains for our protection, our perfection, and our happiness. God is a conservative."

from John Donne's Holy Sonnets

2006-01-28T14:10:00.000-06:00

Holy Sonnet XI

Spit on my face you Jewes, and pierce my side,
Buffet, and scoffe, scourge, and crucifie mee,
For I have sinn'd, and sinn'd, and onely hee,
Who could do no iniquitie, hath dyed:
But by my death can not be satisified
My sinnes, which passe the Jewes impiety:
They kill'd once an inglorious man, but I
Crucifie him daily, being now glorified;
Oh let mee then, his strange love still admire:
Kings pardon, but he bore our punishment.
And Jacob came cloth'd in vile harsh attire
But to supplant, and with gainfull intent:
God cloth'd himselfe in vile mans flesh, that so
Hee might be weake enough to suffer woe.

Way to be born, Mozart

2006-01-27T07:48:00.000-06:00

I am sure that the blogosphere will be ringing today with the accolades of Mozart on this 250th anniversary of his birth. My original idea was to show how he was inferior to Bach. That, however, would be not be proper.

I like Mozart. Although I would not by any means consider myself a Mozart expert, I am convinced that he was a genius. Music was more than mere composition for Mozart; it was a language. Some argue that Mozart is "the quintessential composer of joy." I am not sure I agree with that. Often while listening to Mozart, I have the distinct feeling that the guy is pulling a fast one on me. Here is someone composing at the apex of the "classical period," and exploiting it as if it were a simple game. I hear this in his sublime 21st piano concerto, where the simply melody of the first movement plays dissonance against resolution like a man with a child's toy. The very famous 3rd movement of the Serenade for Winds (K. 361) begins with pulsing chords, subtly anticipating the entrance of that one single pure note lingering above the steady rhythm. The dissonance created is not resolved any time soon, but remains prolonged and drawn out for several measures, even after the held note moves onto the more developed melody. It's nearly as bad as Wagner. Even his more exuberant pieces sound like someone simply playing with the score, adding trivial turns and general frivolity. His "musical joke" in F Major is well known. Other examples of this phenomenon include his Divertimento in D Major (K 131), German Dance No. 3 in C Major, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, even the Adagio from his Clarinet Concerto in A Major. I realize I am probably reading popular ideas I have of Mozart into the man's music. I am not sure the classical era achieved much higher heights, and it is this cultural situation in which Mozart found himself that redeems him to a great extent. Often one senses refinement and a kind of pure musically logical perfection, with the satisfaction that the music does exactly what it should do--more or less (every once in a while, you get the impression that the borrow chord he just threw in was a bit extravagant).

The most serious music Mozart composed with which I familiar was the infamous and nearly mythical Requiem Mass (you can hear a discussion and excerpts here). This is surely not frivolity. Here Mozart is at his post powerful, profound, and beautiful (with the possible exception of his fugues). But his portrayal of death is very grim. The musical tradition concerning death did not develop or evolve from Bach (who was greatly concerned with death), but seemingly lost its bearings. There is, it would appear, no hope (and I am not talking about the kind of denial seen in, for example, Faure's Requiem). It is far better for us to sit under the instruction of Bach or even Brahams concerning this matter of death than Mozart. Yet the music is still profound and meaningful, both beautiful and foreboding. Even the tempestuous Dies irae can teach us something of God's wrath.

So Mozart is for me an enigma; in the end, I have mixed feelings about the little master consumed with bowel movements and opera and sex (et. al.). Mozart's music serves well as a diversion and demonstration of musical genius, but I am skeptical of its value for piety or religious affection.

American Evangelicalism has issues (ChristianBibleStudies.com)

2006-01-26T23:02:00.000-06:00

Do you find the Bible boring? Perhaps you would be like the Bible if a movie came along with it? Then look no further than Christianity Today's subsidiary ChristianBibleStudies.com. This noble company offers "dozens of ready-to-download, ready-to-use Bible studies on topics as relevant as today's headlines. From Islam to genetics, politics to spiritual growth, you'll find plenty of studies that will catch your interest." Best of all, their Bible studies "facilitate lively discussions and interaction." In other words, if you find something else more exciting than the Bible, perhaps you can appease the guilt you feel for neglecting the good book by getting the Bible in with that other thing you enjoy more! It's the best of both worlds! Who doesn't like to say that they're part of a Bible study? What's more pious than that? Can somebody shout "Glory"?!

But that is not all (this is where it gets really good). Not only can get your Bible slipped in with all sorts of other, more interesting topics, but one of those more interesting topics can be movies! They offer Bible studies that go hand in hand for teen movies (like "The Matrix" or "Napolean Dynamite"), family movies (like "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "Elf"), and, of course, for your more sophisticated Bible studies, for adult movies, too. They offer many selections, including "Spiderman" (1 and 2), "the Notebook," "Saving Private Ryan."

I could tell just by looking at this site that their best offering must be the Bible study that goes along with "Bruce Almighty," a noted pious "comedy that illustrates the power, presence, and goodness of God." Yes, I am sure that you thought that this flick starring the ever-so reverent Jim Carrey would make a pure mockery out of God. Not so, my fine Christian friend. First, this is obvious because it stars Morgan Freeman as God, and Morgan Freeman is not a homosexual (Jim Carrey becomes "God" for a bit, and I guess he doesn't like it or something). But, more importantly, now you can redeem this movie to be used in a Bible study that tackles such thorny issues as God's "injustice," "communication with God" (some Christians call that "prayer"), "God's active presence in our lives" (some theologians call that "process theology"), and "God's goodness" (that's where God lets you sin all you want). And you get to talk about all that while watching "Bruce Almighty"! Download this little gem of a "Bible study guide" and you can make up to 1,000 copies for your church! That's nearly enough for Sunday morning! Be careful about some of the young people in attendance (heh, heh, they will all be in children's church watching their Bible study based on "Mary Poppins"), "Bruce Almighty" is rated PG-13 (but only for language, sexual content, and some crude humor).

Nos Sobrii: The Idea of Fundamentalism

2006-01-26T12:41:00.000-06:00

You must read Kevin Bauder's post for today.

Nos Sobrii: The Idea of Fundamentalism

A. W. Tozer on the Christian "mystic"

2006-01-26T08:19:00.000-06:00

Tozer edited a book of Christian poetry he called The Christian Book of Mystical Verse (you really need to get this book; I know I've said that before, but this time I really mean it). In his introduction, he tries to explain why he used the word "mystic" in the title. He acknowledged that there were some called "mystics," who tended toward the "bizarre and prodigious"'; these kinds of individuals whose psychic disposition tended toward the occult should not be considered "mystics."

Tozer explains that a "mystic" is one who partakes in the "personal spiritual experience" which saints of Biblical and post-Biblical times enjoyed. He is speaking, he explains, of "the evangelical mystic who has been brought by the gospel into intimate fellowship with the Godhead" (vi). The source of theology for the mystic is "no less and no more" than what is found in the Bible; fellowship in the same commitment to truth that the reformers and Puritans enjoyed.

So how does the mystic differ from other Christians? Tozer answers, "Because [the mystic] experiences his faith down in the depths of his sentiment being while the other does not. He exists in a world of spiritual reality. He is quietly, deeply, and sometimes almost ecstatically aware of the Presence of God in his own nature and in the world around him. His religious experience is sometime elemental, as old as time and the creation. It is immediate acquaintance with God by union with the Eternal Son. It is to know that which passes knowledge" (vi).

Jonathan Edwards on Christian Liberty

2006-01-25T12:41:00.000-06:00

"In the service of God, there is true liberty to do whatever tends most for our pleasure. A great and chief argument of Satan to dissuade men from the service of God is that it abridges of all manner of pleasure; it ties one up from seeking our own pleasure, but [we] must be obliged to be mopish and melancholy, and must never more pleasure and divert ourselves.

To this I answer that in the service of God there is full and free liberty to seek as much pleasure as we please, to enjoy the best kind of pleasure in the world, and as much of it as we possibly can obtain with all our might and main. There are no restraints.

Here, perhaps you may object and say how can this be: don't the law of God command us to mortify ourselves and to deny ourselves of sensual pleasures, to take up our cross, to take Christ's yoke upon us; will not allow us the full enjoyment of any worldly pleasure, [and] is not this a restraining of our liberty to do so?

This I answer. How can that be called an abridging our liberty which only restrains us from those pleasures that in a little time would turn into torments? Only from those that are honey in the mouth but a tormenting poison in the belly. Doth a father or mother abridge the child of liberty because he is not suffered to drink sweet poison? Is the child abridged of liberty because the mother will not suffer it to play with the flame of a candle?

Doth the law of God abridge us of liberty because it will not suffer us to run into hell, because he forbids those lusts that have a seed of hell in them? . . . Is it such an unreasonable thing in the law of God that it will not suffer us to be miserable when we desire it? All the liberty that we are denied by God's law is this: he will never grant us liberty by his law to be eternally miserable.

God don't restrain from true pleasure and satisfaction; yea, he obliges us to do that which will bring us to the highest pleasure and the greatest delights. He don't restrain from pleasure in this world; indeed, he restrains us from the beastly pleasure of drunkenness and of fornication: that is, God will not give men liberty to be beasts. But the noblest, the most excellent, the sweetest and most exalted pleasures, we may exercise ourselves in them as we please. We may recreate and delight ourselves in those sweet angelical pleasures without any restraint or prohibition. We may refresh ourselves with those delights and none will hinder us: our consciences will not restrain us; God will not hinder us; we may roll ourselves in these pleasure as much as we will."

- "Christian Liberty," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards vol. 10: Sermons and Discourses 1720-1723 (New Haven: Yale, 1992), 627-628.

The Word of Christ dwelling richly among the Church

2006-01-24T21:09:00.000-06:00

Today I also posted an article on the Kara Ministries Weblog entitled "The Word of Christ dwelling richly among the church." Please stop by and join the conversation.

What the early church thought about movies

2006-01-23T20:56:00.000-06:00

I know, I know. You're all sick of the movie discussion. There are movie discussions all over the web, and we just had a big movie discussion here. I hate beating dead horses, and there a lot of sites that do just that; yet consider this a one time indulgence of horse-beating. I told some folks that I wanted to do this, simply to show that drama and the church have not always been the bedfellows they are increasingly becoming in American evangelicalism. So here are some selections from the early church fathers about drama. The references at the end of each selection give you where you can find it in the Ante-Nicene Fathers.

"The utter ribaldry in pretentious tones and they act out indecent movements. Your daughters and your sons watch them giving lessons in adultery on the stage." Tatian (vol. 2, p 75)

"Neither can we watch the other spectacles [i.e., the theaters], lest our eyes and ears be defiled by participating in the utterances that are sung there. . . . And as for adultery, both in the case of men and of gods, whom they celebrate in elegant language for honors and prizes, this is made the subject of their dramas." - Theophilus (vol. 2, p. 115)

"What base action is there that is not exhibited in the theaters?" - Clement of Alexandria (vol. 2, p. 290)

"We renounce all your spectacles. . . . Among us nothing is ever said, seen, or heard that is anything in common with the madness of the circus, the immodesty of theater, the atrocities of the arena, or the useless exercise of the wrestling ground. Why do you take offense at us because we differ from you in regard to your pleasures?" - Tertullian (vol. 3, p. 46)

"We are evaluated by our character and modesty. Therefore, for good reason, we abstain from evil pleasures, and from your pomps and exhibitions. We know the origin in connection with religious things, and we condemn their mischievous enticements. . . . In the drama games, the madness is not less. Rather, the debauchery is more prolonged. For now a mime either expounds or acts out adulteries. . . . The same actor provokes your tears with pretended sufferings, with vain gestures and expressions." - Mark Minucius Felix (vol. 4, p. 196).

"Men who claim for themselves the authority of the Christian name are not ashamed . . . to find a defense in the heavenly Scriptures for the vain superstitions associated with the public exhibitions of the pagans. . . . They say, 'Where are there such Scriptures? Where are these things prohibited? On the contrary both Elijah was a charioteer of Israel and David himself danced before the ark. We read of the psalteries, horns trumpets, drums, pipes, harps, and choral dances. . . . Why, then, may not a faithful Christian man gaze upon that which the divine pen might write about? . . . However, the fact that Elijah was the charioteer of Israel is no defense for gazing upon the public games. For he did not run his race in a circus. And the fact that David led the dances in the presence of God is no sanction for the faithful Christians to occupy seats in the public theater. For David did not twist his limbs about in obscene movements." - Novatian (vol. 5, pp. 575-576).

"Now I will pass from this to the shameless corruption of the stage. I am ashamed to talk about the things that are said there. In fact, I am even ashamed to denounce the things that are done--the tricks of arguments, the cheating of adulterers, the immodesty of women, the indecent jokes. . . . People flock there to the public disgrace of the brothel, for the teaching of obscenity." - Novatian (vol. 5, p. 577).

"Things that have now ceased to be actual deeds of vice become examples. . . . Adultery is learned while it is seen. . . . The matron who has perhaps gone to the spectacle as a modest woman, returns from it immodest. What a degradation of morals it is! What a stimulus to abominable deeds, what food for vice!" - Cyprian (vol. 5. p. 277).

"And I am inclined to think that the corrupting influence of the stage is still more contaminating. For the subject of comedies are the dishonouring of virgins, or the loves of harlots; and the more eloquent they are who have composed the accounts of these disgraceful actions, the more do they persuade by the elegance of their sentiments; and harmonious and polished verses more readily remain fixed in the memory of the hearers. In like manner, the stories of the tragedians place before the eyes the parricides and incests of wicked kings, and represent tragic crimes. And what other effect do the immodest gestures of the players produce, but both teach and excite lusts? whose enervated bodies, rendered effeminate after the gait and dress of women, imitate unchaste women by their disgraceful gestures. Why should I speak of the actors of mimes, who hold forth instruction in corrupting influences, who teach adulteries while they feign them, and by pretended actions train to those which are true? What can young men or virgins do, when they see that these things are practised without shame, and willingly beheld by all?" - Lactantius (vol. 7, p. 187)

If all these were not enough, consider the entire book De Spectaculis by Tertullian, where he lays into many common Roman entertainments. He knows that many heathen want to argue that "human enjoyment, by any of our pleasures" is pleasing to God. Yet, Tertullian wants to prove that "these things are not consistent with true religion and true obedience to the true God. This work, like the other citations that I have made here, are remarkably contemporary, even today, addressing many of the same allurments. Consider, for instance, the argument commonly made by some that the Bible never forbids drama:

"How vain, then—nay, how desperate—is the reasoning of persons, who, just because they decline to lose a pleasure, hold out that we cannot point to the specific words or the very place where this abstinence is mentioned, and where the servants of God are directly forbidden to have anything to do with such assemblies!"

Or consider this remark on the consistent witness of believers:

"Do we not abjure and rescind that baptismal pledge, when we cease to bear its testimony? Does it then remain for us to apply to the heathen themselves. Let them tell us, then, whether it is right in Christians to frequent the show. Why, the rejection of these amusements is the chief sign to them that a man has adopted the Christian faith. If any one, then, puts away the faith’s distinctive badge, he is plainly guilty of denying it. What hope can you possibly retain in regard to a man who does that? When you go over to the enemy’s camp, you throw down your arms, desert the standards and the oath of allegiance to your chief: you cast in your lot for life or death with your new friends."

Perhaps it seems to us sophisticated American evangelicals that such remarks (strangely akin to the now antiquated "fundamentalism") is a "little over the top." But may we not dismiss such statements in such a cavalier manner! Tertullian says,

Are we not, in like manner, enjoined to put away from us all immodesty? On this ground, again, we are excluded from the theatre, which is immodesty’s own peculiar abode, where nothing is in repute but what elsewhere is disreputable. . . . The very harlots, too, victims of the public lust, are brought upon the stage, . . . I say nothing about other matters, which it were good to hide away in their own darkness and their own gloomy caves, lest they should stain the light of day. Let the Senate, let all ranks, blush for very shame! . . . But if we ought to abominate all that is immodest, on what ground is it right to hear what we must not speak? For all licentiousness of speech, nay, every idle word, is condemned by God. Why, in the same way, is it right to look on what it is disgraceful to do? How is it that the things which defile a man in going out of his mouth, are not regarded as doing so when they go in at his eyes and ears—when eyes and ears are the immediate attendants on the spirit—and that can never be pure whose servants-in-waiting are impure? You have the theatre forbidden, then, in the forbidding of immodesty."

Augustine, too, had very little good to say about the theater. In book 3 (chapter 2) of his Confessions, he said,

Let us, however, love the sorrows of others. But let us beware of uncleanness, O my soul, under the protection of my God, the God of our fathers, who is to be praised and exalted--let us beware of uncleanness. I have not yet ceased to have compassion. But in those days in the theaters I sympathized with lovers when they sinfully enjoyed one another, although this was done fictitiously in the play. And when they lost one another, I grieved with them, as if pitying them, and yet had delight in both grief and pity. Nowadays I feel much more pity for one who delights in his wickedness than for one who counts himself unfortunate because he fails to obtain some harmful pleasure or suffers the loss of some miserable felicity. This, surely, is the truer compassion, but the sorrow I feel in it has no delight for me. For although he that grieves with the unhappy should be commended for his work of love, yet he who has the power of real compassion would still prefer that there be nothing for him to grieve about. For if good will were to be ill will--which it cannot be--only then could he who is truly and sincerely compassionate wish that there were some unhappy people so that he might commiserate them. Some grief may then be justified, but none of it loved. Thus it is that thou dost act, O Lord God, for thou lovest souls far more purely than we do and art more incorruptibly compassionate, although thou art never wounded by any sorrow. Now "who is sufficient for these things?"
But 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?

I know that the following men should not be considered "the early church," but let me add some contemporary remarks about drama. More recently, drama has been condemned by the likes of William Law and A. W. Tozer. In his Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, William Law says,

Instead of the vain, immodest entertainment of plays and operas, I have taught you to delight in visiting the sick and poor. What music, and dancing, and diversions are to many in the world, that prayers and devotions, and psalms, are to you. Your hands have not been employed in plaiting the hair, and adorning your persons; but in making clothes for the naked. You have not wasted your fortunes upon yourselves, but have added your labour to them, to do more good to other people.

A. W. Tozer believes that the motion picture itself is a neutral medium, but that motion pictures portraying drama is wrong. In his essay, The Menace of the Religious Movie (You need to get this. You can buy it here--the entire book is well worth owning), he argues that the gospel ought never be communicated in a motion picture (I can think of some embroiled in current "religious movie" controversies that should spend some quiet time in Tozer). Part of his prohibition stems from his belief that drama is itself illegitimate. He says that acting is "a violation of sincerity." Tozer says,

"In order to produce a religious movie someone must, for the time, disguise his individuality and simulate that of another. His actions must be judged fraudulent, and those who watch them must with approval share in the fraud" (195).

Later he adds, "History will show that no spiritual advance, no revival, no upsurge of spiritual life has ever been associated with acting in any form. The Holy Spirit never honors pretense" (197). He goes so far to say that,

"[The movie] is a medium in itself wholly foreign to the Bible and altogether unauthorized therein. It is play acting--just that, and nothing more. . . . The printing press is neutral; so is the radio; so is the camera. They may be used for good or bad purposes at the will of the user. But play acting is bad in its essence in that it involves the simulation of emotions not actually felt. It embodies a gross moral contradiction in that it calls a lie to the service of truth" (199).

I am sure I am leaving out some key Christian figures and their remarks on drama. The point here has not been to be comprehensive, but to provoke our thinking. To be sure, fundamentalism has not always articulated their opposition to movies in the best terms. Fundamentalism has also commonly showed an inconsistency in their approach to movies and drama, as the most hallowed universities and institutions have given a blessing to the medium for religious purposes. But this should not lead us to an outright rejection of the sentiment. Let us hear some others address the subject. The men I have cited are just that--men. But they bring before us a perspective nearly entirely forgotten in 21st century American evangelicalism. We would do well to listen and thoughtfully consider what they say.

Religious Affections Radio officially launches

2006-01-23T12:16:00.000-06:00

Scott Aniol received a donation to his website last year and, instead of buying his long desired Ipod, decided to use it to start an internet radio station, Religious Affections Radio.

I am very happy that Scott has started this station. I have wanted to do something like this for quite some time, so I asked him if I could help, and I was able to help him get the station going.

The station is nothing elaborate--simply streaming music. All of it is religious, and varies from J. S. Bach to King's College Choir to Soundforth (I really gave Scott a hard time about putting "BJ stuff" on the station, and tried everything I could to persuade him otherwise). The station is run through Live365, which means that you will either have to subscribe to what they call their "VIP membership," or put up with really annoying commercials. The advantage to membership is that you will then have access to all the Live365 stations without commercials. The disadvantage is that it costs some money.

We have been pretty picky with most of the music selected for this station. The most "edgy" we get is some John Rutter and the most corny we get is some Soundforth, though all of the selections from both of these sources were made critically. Unfortunately, we do not have much sacred music sung in foreign languages, which eliminates much of the greatest sacred music written for the Western church.

Nevertheless, I have been listening quite a bit to the new station, and enjoy it a great deal. For someone who listens regularly to Internet audio, this station will be a welcome respite. Serious sacred music was very hard to find in this format with very poor offerings available. If you enjoy the station, I would encourage your donating to it. I know that this will not be free for Scott to operate, and the station's existence may very well depend on small donations from its few listeners.

I Love My God

2006-01-21T17:18:00.000-06:00

by Jeanne Marie de la Motte-Guyon (1648-1717), translator unknown, taken from The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, edited by A. W. Tozer (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1963).

I love my God, but with no love of mine,
For I have none to give;
I love thee, Lord; but all the love is Thine,
For by thy life I live.
I am as nothing, and rejoice to be
Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in Thee.

Thou, Lord, alone, art all Thy children need,
And there is none beside;
From Thee the streams of blessedness proceed
In Thee the blest abide, --
Fountain of life, and all-abounding grace,
Our source, our center, and our dwelling place.

On morality and the limits of Scripture (Part 2)

2006-01-19T22:10:00.000-06:00

I am concerned with these two posts to establish both the limits of Scripture and the truthfulness of our conclusions we make outside of Scripture. On Thursday, I limply tried to establish that there are limits to the questions we should ask of Scripture. For example, we do not ask the Bible how we should lose weight, for the Bible does not intend to address that question. Moreover, to assume that the Bible's lack of a condemnation towards some activity you happen to enjoy justifies the activity is an argument from silence, for the Bible does not commend that activity to you either. This is both a faulty understanding of the nature of the Scriptures (since it is not a comprehensive legal guide to the Christian life) and a misunderstanding of what is good. We are to prove what is good and what is evil, I insisted.

But what about the truthfulness of what we prove? As I asked in part 1, "Do we impose a "second book of authority" when we insist that there is truth outside yet derived (secondarily) from the Scriptures? To be sure, the Bible must play a role in determining the morality of our actions. But what about when it does not explicitly address our cultural particulars? Can we be sure? Can we assume that our conclusions are truth?"

The contemporary world has become global, and so we are met with what seems to be myriad ways of looking at reality. To be certain, our exposure to other cultures and other cultural expressions should give us pause before blindly accepting the validity of our own. But this is not to say that every individual or culture reigns sovereign. I believe that we must reject cultural relativity.

But the point here is not to attack cultural relativity (perhaps on a different day I will try to climb that mountain), but to offer that truth outside the Scriptures exists--that we can reach certain conclusions and that our convictions about things we have concluded from the Bible are true. My favorite proof of extra-Biblical truth is the Greek word homoousios.

Theology is closely related to ethics in a number of ways. For conservative evangelicals, theology begins with the foundational things you have been taught in Sunday school and by the sermons you heard at church (or by watching Sesame Street or wherever else you got your theology), which is then (hopefully) corrected or substantiated by the Bible. The evangelical method for determining ethics closely resembles our method for theology. They are both "Biblically based." But ethics, like theology, is in large part a "second order" discipline. Every evangelical says he believes the Bible. But the immediate question following is What does the Bible say? By the way, this is in large part why creeds (a.k.a. "doctrinal statements) and church covenants are so important. When someone adheres to a summary of doctrine (creed) or practice (church covenant), we better know what he believes. We can compare his doctrine and practice with our own. We can see where his differs from ours and where they are alike.

Creeds and covenants are not first order sources for theology, The Holy Scripture is. I view theology as primarily teaching--taking the Scriptures and communicating it to the church. Again, theology is a second-order discipline, whereby the Scriptures are taken and applied to contradict certain false teaching (negatively) or to articulate and summarize and systematize the Christian teachings found in the Bible (positively).

When we use the "rapture," we are using it with reference to an understanding of the Bible's teaching concerning a particular point of eschatology. When we use the word "inerrancy," we are again making theological deductions about the Bible based on its own teachings. The Bible never uses the word "rapture" or "inerrancy." Although the Scriptures teach inerrancy, nowhere do they give a nice tidy "doctrine of inerrancy." Yet we must believe the truth of inerrancy. When we confront what seem to be problem texts that do not neatly mesh with our system, we can change our pre-existing system, but we also sometimes bring our current system to bear on the text, which in turn informs how we understand the way that text coheres with our system. Of course, the goal for every conservative evangelical theology is conformity with the text of Scripture.

So it goes with the homoousios. What does homoousios mean? This is a Greek word that was crucial to the early church's articulation of the Trinity. Roughly, it means "the same essence," and was spoken of Christ against the moderate sect's similar word, homoiousios "the similar or like essence." Jesus Christ is of the same essence or nature or substance as the Father. As the Nicene Creed says,

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.

If Christ is of a different substance, then he is not truly God. If he was made by the Father (and not eternally begotten), then he is of a different substance. This word demonstrates that we can and should make theological pronouncements that not explicitly found in the Scriptures. We believe the historic doctrine of the Trinity, and declare that it is the true teaching of the Scriptures, even though some of their words and summaries, like homoousios, are not explicitly found in Scripture. In a certain sense, they are as true as the Scriptures, because they accurately summarize the teaching of the Scriptures. If they were not the correct teaching of Scriptures, we should reject them. Yet if they are, then we should believe them with all our heart. Christian churches throughout history have accepted the Nicene creed as the orthodox teaching of the Bible. In fact, this Trinitarian teaching was to a certain extent a reaction to teaching which was not Biblical, namely that of Arius and others.

So we believe the truthfulness of certain things that are outside the explicit address of Scriptures. And just as this is true for theology, it is true in the realm of ethics and morality. For example, I believe that abortion is immoral. How do I know this? In part from my understanding of Scriptures, and (in part) from my understanding of what abortion is. My having a correct understanding of abortion is essential to my making accurate conclusions about the morality of it.

This is not to say that we somehow hold the conceived truthfulness of our theology or our moral conclusions like some immovable stalwart. Humility is essential, for if we recognize that it is possible for other persons to err (since they don't agree with us!), then we should recognize that it is possible for us to error. Particularly when we determining ethics and morality, we should always be studying, always "proving" (1 Thess 5:21-22), and always seeking to better understand ourselves and the nature of things. This can only be done when we fuse the horizons of different "cultures" (those who hold differing theologies, mores, and ethics) with our own. Hopefully their eyes will help confirm what we already understand, but also give us a perspective as to the shortcomings of our own milieu. This is what Jonathan Edwards and Augustine and Calvin and Anslem and the Cappadocian fathers and Bach (!) have done for me--they have shown me a different kind of Christian world, one that critiques my own American fundamentalist/evangelical setting (while I am inevitably critiquing theirs).

All this is to say that when we are convinced that some doctrine or practice is the Biblical teaching on the subject, we should believe it to be truth. We are not preaching an easy road to truth, yet we are condemning the philosophies propagated that any "second order" theology or ethics are in the end unknowable. Just because there is some degree of agnosticism does not mean that we cannot know. Nor should we say that just because an issue is not taught explicitly in the Bible that it is not as important, or somehow relegated as an issue simply of "Christian liberty." In my view, homoousios and inerrancy and abortion are not matters of "Christian liberty." They are in essence the Biblical teaching on their respective subjects. There are other second order teachings and practices (the rapture, church government, smoking, whether or not someone has cable) that similarly represent the Biblical teaching, but may not be as crucial to the faith as these other doctrines. Nevertheless, they are still important, and equally represent the Bible's teaching on that given subject as we understand it. Although my point is not to discuss Christian liberty, let me say that the main principle of Christian liberty seems to be how we treat brothers who are prone to building their Christian ethics simply off the influence of others, simply taking as their own what other people embrace or shun. Finally, weighing the importance of the doctrines is very important in this whole discussion. Paul says eating meat should not be judged (because God will judge that person), but he calls the person who neglects to care for his widowed mother "worse than an infidel."

In conclusion, I have tried to establish that both theology and mores are both second-order disciplines, summarizing the truths of and deriving their truthfulness from the Word of God. I believe that we should consider these teachings and practices to be the truth though with humility. Moreover, we should not banish all such "second-order" statements and beliefs to the realm of relativity simply because the Bible does not teach them explicitly. Thus our Christian life should be lived understanding the tension between the limits of what the Bible explicitly teaches and the truthfulness of our conclusions of how we apply what it does teach to our faith and practice.

On morality and the limits of Scripture (Part 1)

2006-01-19T07:58:00.000-06:00

While the Bible is the sufficient word of God, we should not try to make it address every question life poses. Lately I have been more and more encountering those who try to make the Bible speak to things it does not. But not only this, a more prominent idea being thrown around out there is a kind of quasi-relativism, where if the Bible does not speak to the issue, we can not and should not make with any certainty any statements whatsoever.

First, this is a logical error, and to a certain extent, it shows the epistemological crisis within many evangelical circles. The Bible has been (correctly) the ground for the all the doctrines of the faith. It is our primary source for all the orthodox teachings of the Christian faith (more on this later). But this emphasis has resulted in no small amount of confusion concerning the nature of truth outside the revealed Word of God.

The truth is that there is truth that man can apprehend outside the Scriptures. In fact, the Bible in several places tells us to work at determining this truth. 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 says, "But test everything; hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil." Some believe that this refers to the prophesying mentioned in verse 20, but I do not believe so. The conjunction could be connecting the previous idea, but it could also be a mere casual addition of a new element to the list. The point, I believe, is that Paul wanted the Thessalonian church to prove what is right and what is wrong. I have written more on the importance of this theme in the New Testament elsewhere. When these things are proven, they are true.

This is not to say that proving what is right and wrong in certain situations is always easy. Nor I am saying that we always know "without a shadow of a doubt" that what we have proven is the Truth. Sometimes there is a great deal of doubt. If we doubt, we should not partake in the activity. Paul makes that much clear in Romans 14:23. The "high road" is better in these situations.

Therefore when someone asks for a "chapter and verse" to say that Christian contemporary worship is anti-worship, they error on a couple fronts. First, they bring an inconsistent standard into the conversation. I might as well ask them to give a "chapter and verse" that contemporary worship is good worship.

But more importantly, they misunderstand the nature of Scriptures. The Bible is not a rule book intending to give regulations for every possible activity that will come up. In fact, the Bible itself tells us to prove the rightness or wrongness of things.

As I said, usually in debates concerning whether questions are right or wrong, the test demanded is "what is wrong with it?" But the underlying assumption here is as dangerous as the absurdity of the question. For to ask "what is wrong with it" assumes that the adherent of the activity believes the practice to be good. This only leads to an equally important question: why is it good? I believe that we should be working as best we know how to prove not only the immorality of actions, but the morality of actions as well. We should not only be able to show why what we do not do is evil, but why what we do do is good.

I would like to return, though, to the question of the truthfulness of our conclusions. Do we impose a "second book of authority" when we insist that there is truth outside yet derived (secondarily) from the Scriptures? To be sure, the Bible must play a role in determining the morality of our actions. But what about when it does not explicitly address our cultural particulars? Can we be sure? Can we assume that our conclusions are truth?

I will conclude with these questions tomorrow.

Richard Weaver agrees with me

2006-01-17T21:39:00.000-06:00

After posting Tuesday's piece, "Christian goes to the movies," I found this quote. It is rather comforting when you find that someone like Richard Weaver agrees with you, particularly when you made the statements before referencing him. What this actually shows is that he is probably the source of the original "seed thought" for the post, though I read him a few years ago. This remark from Ideas Have Consequences (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948) must have incubated in my mind since I first read it:

"We need not speak of the enormous influence of this synoptic depiction of life [the motion picture] upon children and adolescents. That is a point concerning reticences and proprieties toward different classes of persons; our interest is rather in the deleterious effects of movie-going upon even adult mentalities that find satisfaction in it. That the public as a whole misses the issue of the motion picture's influence can be seen from its attitude toward censorship. For what the public is reconciled to seeing censored are just the little breaches of decorum which fret bourgeois respectability and sense of security. The truth is that these are so far removed from the heart of the problem that they could well be ignored. The thing that needs to be censored is not the length of kisses [!] but the egotistic, selfish, and self-flaunting hero; not the relative proportion of undraped breast but the flippant, vacuous-minded, and also egotistic heroine. Let us not worry about the jokes of dubious propriety; let us rather object to the whole story, with it complacent assertion of the virtues of materialist society. We are speaking here, of course, from the fundamental point of view. A censorship of the movies, to be worthy of the name, would mean a complete reinterpretation of most of their themes, for the belief which underlie virtually every movie story are precisely the ones which are hurrying us on to perdition. The entire globe is becoming imbued with the notion that there is something normative about the insane sort of life lived in New York and Hollywood--even after that life has been exaggerated to suit the morbid appetite of the thrill seeker" (100-101).

Christian goes to the movies

2006-01-17T12:24:00.000-06:00

I am painfully aware that the current fad among young evangelicals and, more and more, among young fundamentalists is not to criticize movies. How doth the argument typically go? Something about how any protest against movies is pure legalism or whatnot. After all, even Touchstone and World magazines have movie reviews! And what is the difference between going to a movie theater and watching a DVD/VHS movie in your living room? Well, actually that is a good question for those who insist on a dichotomy between the two. But I typically resist such dialectical revolutions of cultural norms. Anyway, I am quickly digressing into incoherence.

My main grievance is the naive (pardon my French) approach of many Christians to the movies. I am now speaking of the test of the Great Three exerted by Christians upon movies:

1. No female nudity or sex.
2. No swearing--er, at least no "using the Lord's name in vain."
3. "Not too bad" violence.

Yes, there they are--the "holy three" of movie standards. Yes, good Christian, if the movie passes this great and reverent test, the movie is good. Of course, if the movie is "really, really good," then we can perhaps ignore one or two of these precious (and, oh, so legalistic) standards. As if these are the only elements of danger for believers! What about irreverence or the idea of tolerance? What about sentimentalism (loving the wrong things too much) or brutality (loving the right things too little)? Are these elements not present in the vast majority of the films being belched up by the world? Let me let you in on a secret: movies do not become good simply because you have "Curse-Free TV."

O, yes, I hear the objection: but after you watch it, then you can "talk about" those negative elements. Sure. Whatever. Talk all you want. Which is more persuasive: your debunking all these ideas by "talking through them" or your entering into the story and its supporting world-view with your whole person, allowing the art to communicate to you as it is intended while you sit there passively taking it all in? Perhaps I am proposing a false dilemma; but my point here is rhetorical. Why do we believe that we can escape this? Perhaps we really do not understand the power of movies.

You see, most Christians really worship on Friday night. That is the apex of their week. They have given themselves over to the working the entire week, probably working too much (you have to make a living, don't you know), and so they finally get to "unwind" and "take in a good movie." This is their escape. This is their joy and delight. Movies are their way of worshiping the Entertainment Deity. And now they poor themselves into their rite, complete with libations (soda pop) and meal offerings (popcorn). And they completely let go. This, after all, is the real power of movies. For one to watch a movie as it was intended to be watched, one must give himself over to it, and allow himself to be swept away. He must enter into the lie. The greater the lie, the greater the movie. And how do we know the movie is good and "harmless"? As long as it meets the standard of the Almighty Three. And here, while our guard is most down (we already know it's a good movie--remember the test?), the world comes in unawares and subtly convinces us of its moorings. You see, "the Great Three" is really simply a surface danger; I believe the real danger lies below, and, because it comes in so subtly, Christians are more prone to fall prey to these underhanded elements. To a certain extent, I am not even talking about anti-Christian themes like adultery or gambling. I am speaking about world-views. The real danger of movies is not at looking at a naked woman, but the redefinition of modesty. The greater danger of movies is not the actors' taking "the Lord's name in vain," but arrogant disbelief. The violence of movies is nothing compared with the idea that it is cruel to execute a murderer. These things are more dangerous, because they are more subtly present. And we wonder why the church is worldly.

The American Evangelical-Patriotic-Hallmark Church Calendar

2006-01-16T12:51:00.000-06:00

Yesterday my church honored "Sanctity of Life Sunday." The sermon and Scripture reading were both about the importance of life in the face of abortion in the United States. It appears that my church did it a week early. I have no idea who invented "Sanctity of Life Sunday," determined its date, or anything, which is part of the reason why I am struck that we observe this holy day. I do not necessarily have a problem with honoring "Sanctity of Life Sunday," but it makes me to wonder what causes churches like mine from shunning so much of the church calendar. When I say this, I hope the reader will not take this as some kind of rant against my church's leadership; I love my pastors and pray for them.

The circles I run in (not just my church) seem to be rather inconsistent with respect to the observance of holy days. While days like Trinity Sunday, Lent, Maundy Thursday, Epiphany, and so forth are not observed, other days like Mother's Day, the Fourth of July, Christmas, and so forth are observed. How did we go to the point where we embraced this "American Evangelical-Patriotic-Hallmark Church Calendar"? We have days like "Pastors' Day," but we do essentially nothing on Reformation Sunday.

I suppose that there could be at least two responses to my remarks. One may want to defend the status quo, but to this individual I would simply observe that it seems somewhat inconsistent to embrace an ad hoc calendar fusing the sacred and the secular, while excluding the calendar of traditional Christianity.

Another response would be to eliminate holy days altogether. To a certain extent, I am sympathetic to this approach. Pauls says in Col 2:16-17, "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ" (ESV). Unless I am reading this passage wrong, I would say that this is a warning against mandating any observance of holy days. We should not feel guilty if we decide not to observe a particular holy day. Yet, at the same time, I would encourage us to consider adopting more of the church calendar (Kevin Bauder also argues for this here). The principle is this: someone will be planning your church's liturgy on any given Sunday. This person is a man (not God). Thus, we may conclude that the origin of your liturgy is from man. Likewise, certain men developed the church calendar over time. It is difficult to see why implementation of the church calendar (which has been used by some Baptists, by the way) is in itself evil. There may be certain circumstances wherein your church may shy away from the church calendar (like a large converted Catholic contingency), but by and large it serves to help the local church reflect on the life of Jesus Christ and certain key doctrines and figures throughout the year in a systematic way. The church calendar also seems to have with it a large amount of Scripture reading for the public worship, and most fundamentalist churches with which I am familiar could use a good bit more of that as well.

My God, My God, And Can it Be

2006-01-15T15:11:00.000-06:00

This hymn is by Fredrick W. Faber. I know it to the tune NEWBURY from Hymns Ancient & Modern: Shortened Music Edition (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1939).

My God! my God! and can it be
That I should sin so lightly now,
And think no more of evil thoughts
Than of the wind that waves the bough?

I sin, and Heav’n and earth go round,
As if no dreadful deed were done;
As if Thy blood had never flowed
To hinder sin, or to atone.

I walk the earth with lightsome step,
Smile at the sunshine, breathe the air,
Do my own will, nor ever heed
Gethsemane and Thy long prayer.

Shall it be always thus, O Lord?
Wilt Thou not work this hour in me
The grace Thy Passion merited,
Hatred of self, and love of Thee!

O by the pains of Thy pure love,
Grant me the gift of holy fear;
And by Thy woes and bloody sweat
Wash Thou my guilty conscience clear!

Ever when tempted, make me see,
Beneath the olives’ moon pierced shade,
My God, alone, outstretched, and bruised,
And bleeding, on the earth He made;

And make me feel it was my sin,
As though no other sins there were,
That was to Him Who bears the world
A load that He could scarcely bear.

The problem of evil

2006-01-12T21:34:00.000-06:00

Every once in a while you attempt to articulate something and fail so miserably that you wonder if anything is going on in your head. Usually these displays of cogitive impotence are when the stakes are highest. Thus when you confront theologians (who do call themselves Augustinian but seem to resemble Arminians) who do not want to acknowledge that God has for his glory ordained by his providence the sin committed by moral agents, the reason given for embracing this doctrine being that you would not want to tell grieving people of this truth, you get especially frustrated with your inability to dice this kind of theology up. So you go read Calvin, and everything gets better very quickly. Order and beauty and the glory of God are restored to the world; providence is displayed, and you are invigorated to go and preach the good tidings of God's sovereignty to all people--or until you fail again.

Here are some conclusions I have reaffirmed:
1) God is sovereign in the world. If God has by his own pleasure seen fit to orchestrate and cause the death of his Son (Acts 2:23; 4:27), the world's ultimate evil, why should we shy away from attributing lesser evils to him? Not only is the crucifixion of Jesus attributed to the foreordination of God, but the Bible attributes countless such instances. I found that Wayne Grudem laid out all such passages in a very helpful fashion on pp 323-27. Although Job recognized that God is the ultimate cause for these things, for him "to blame God for evil that he had brought about through secondary agents would have been to sin. Job does not do this, Scripture never does this, and neither should we" (Systematic Theology [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994], 325).

2) The relationship between these moral actions we commit for which we are responsible and the sovereign providence of God is inscrutable. We affirm that we are responsible for our willing actions, and that we are guilty for our sin, and we affirm that God is sovereign.

3) God uses all things for his glory. I am not sure how someone can take any comfort in a universe over which God is not providentially controlling all events. What emotional duress is alleviated by our denying God's involvement? If God is not responsible for the evil actions of men, why doesn't he stop them from committing the act when he sees it coming? Why does he still allow it to happen? How does God's merely allowing men to act "freely" better solve the problem of theodicy? In the framework I am advocating, God is ordaining the event to be done for his glory. In the other framework, God is allowing the men to act "freely," and knows that the event will be done (with some kind of "middle knowledge"), but does nothing to stop it. To say that God caused the death of a loved one gives us hope in this One we trust and love that he is control, and has worked all things for the good them that love him and are called according to his purpose.

4) God hardens men by removing the influences (i.e., common grace, the Spirit) that were preventing them from sinning to great extents. God's act of hardening is not a positive act. Jonathan Edwards articulates this well:

He hath mercy on some, and hardeneth others. When God is here spoken of as hardening some of the children of men, it is not to be understood that God by any positive efficiency hardens any man's heart. There is no positive act in God, as though he put forth any power to harden the heart. To suppose any such thing would be to make God the immediate author of sin. God is said to harden men in two ways: by withholding the powerful influences of his Spirit, without which their hearts will remain hardened, and grow harder and harder; in this sense he hardens them, as he leaves them to hardness. And again, by ordering those things in his providence which, through the abuse of their corruption, become the occasion of their hardening. Thus God sends his word and ordinances to men which, by their abuse, prove an occasion of their hardening ("God's Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men").

5) If man's "free will" were really the ultimate determination of the events of the world, they would be in control, not God. Calvin says, "Because we know that the universe was established especially for the sake of mankind, we ought to look for this purpose in his goverance also" (Institutes I.XVI.6 [LCC XX; John T. McNeill, ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960], 204). In other words, if nature is determined by God (and we must affirm this, despite the protests of science), why not man as well, since the world was made for him? Calvin continues, "Let them now say that man is moved by God according to the inclination of his nature, but that he himself turns that motion whither he pleases. Nay, if that were truly said, the free choice of his ways would be in man's control" (Ibid, 204). He cites Jer 10:23, Prov 20:24 and Prov 16:9 as examples of the ways of man "choice and determination" being ascribed to God.

6) We should still pray and plan and take precautions. Calvin cites Prov 16:9, "Man's heart plans his way, but the Lord will direct his steps," and again helps us understand this phenomenon:

"This means that we are not at all hindered by God's eternal decrees either from looking ahead for ourselves or from putting all our affairs in order, but always in submission to his will. The reason is obvious. For he who has set the limits to our life has at the same time entrusted to us its care; he has provided means and helps to preserve it; he has also made us able to foresee dangers; that they may not overwhelm us unaware, he has offered precautions and remedies" (Institutes I.XVII.4, 216).

Finally, I offer one more summary articulation of the doctrine by Calvin to conclude these thoughts:

"We do not, with the Stoics, contrive a necessity out of the perpetual connection and intimately related series of causes, which is contained in nature; but we make God the ruler and governor of all things, who in accordance with his wisdom has from the farthest limit of eternity decreed what he was going to do, and now by his might carries out what he has decreed. From this we declare that not only heaven and earth and the inanimate creatures, but also the plans and intentions of men, are so governed by his providence that they are borne by it straight to their appointed end" (Institutes I.XVI.8, 207).

Lints has it right (I think)

2006-01-11T16:01:00.000-06:00

The fourth chapter of Richard Lints' The Fabric of Theology* addresses the “trajectory of theology,” or the development of revelation and, ultimately, theology through time. He begins by addressing the culture, the influence of culture on our understanding of revelation, and how to move forward communicating God’s revelation ourselves in the midst of culture. The Christian faith is passed on to generation after generation, and with each new generation the faith must be defended against the errors that are levied against it by that generation’s non-Christian culture. Unfortunately, this has become somewhat difficult in light of the abandonment of tradition by both “antitraditionalism” (liberalism) and “antitraditional traditionalism” (American evangelicalism).

In discussing the “antitraditional traditionalism” of evangelicalism, Lints has one of his most illuminating passages in the book (91-96). He notes that evangelicalism has developed to their current state because of the emphasis on 1) inductive interpretation of the Bible divorced from any coherent tradition, 2) the parachurch identity which minimized theological and denominational distinctives, and 3) an ahistorical piety, uniformed by the Christian past. Concerning the trend of the "private Bible" in contemporary evangelicalism, he writes, "The Bible becomes captive to the whims of the individual freed from external constraints, and in such a situation the individual can imagine the text to say whatever he or she wants it to say" (93). The effect of the "parachurch church" culture in evangelicalism is one of theological reduction in its organization around evangelical "essentials," and even its defense of those essentials. This parachurch trend inevitably results in much of evangelicalism severing itself from theological traditions. In other words, in attempting to articulate that evangelicalism has a core, the tendency is to diminish the importance of other doctrine. Finally, Lints criticizes the effects of "temporal piety" in evangelicalism, lamenting, "The classics of evangelical devotional literature stretch back no further than 1952 [!] with the publication of C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. . . . They have convinced themselves that every important thing has happened in the present century and every important book (excepting the Bible, of course) has been written in their own lifetime" (95-96).

Noting the present cultural state, he convincingly demonstrates that culture does serve as a lens that can often distort theology. Yet, Lints says, “The theologian’s hope lies not in an ability to remove our cultural blinders so that we might see God but in the power of God to break through our cultural blinders and thereby enable us to see ourselves more clearly by the radiance of his glory” (106). Lints believes that cultures can “communicate beyond their barriers” (104), and that God himself communicates across cultural frameworks. Yet the theologian should be aware of his cultural predilections, particularly as he moves from exegesis to doctrine. A similar truth holds for the evangelical perspective of the use of reason. A both native and cultural rationale exist in man, and we should appeal as much as we can to this reason, complex as it may be, with our theology and articulations of the gospel. “We must seek to ensure,” Lints concludes, “that cultural expressions in the theological framework always remain open to correction by the Scriptures themselves. The framework of the Scriptures must take precedence over the cultural expressions of that framework” (135).

*Lints, Richard. The Fabric of Theology: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.

A Lutheran discusses the Gospel and the Ordination of Women

2006-01-09T17:37:00.000-06:00

I really really shouldn't be doing this, as I am in the midst of a class with Dr. Bauder, all the while earnestly preparing for a new class to begin on Wednesday. But this one is a bit difficult not to share, and it is a quote, so it is relatively easy to put up (and it has been a few days since my last post).

David P. Scaer writes the chapter, "How do Lutherans 'Do Theology' in Today's World?" in the book Doing Theology in Today's World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991). In it, he discusses the way the ordination of women relates to the gospel. I found it pretty interesting, particularly in light of some other conversations we have been having here Immoderate.

"How Lutheran theology is done today on the basis of the Scriptures and the Gospel principle can be seen in the case of the ordination of women as pastors, a practice that most Lutherans accept, but which under careful examination contradicts both the scriptural and the Christological principle in Lutheran theology. Paul's prohibitions against women's preaching should logically bring one to the conclusion that women should not be ordained as pastors. The argument could go something like this: (1) Since women may not preach, only men may, (2) Ordination is reserved for those who preach. (3) Therefore, only men, and not women, should be ordained as preachers. This argument is clearly valid, but Lutherans know that the Christological principle is the necessary foundation on which such argumentation must be constructed. Without it, theology remains biblicistic, i.e., citing passages without reference to the Gospel, and not necessarily Lutheran. A women who preaches the word and distributes the sacraments in Christ's stead distorts the image of the Incarnation for the congregation and thus misrepresents him, even if her message should in all points be doctrinally correct. A women standing the place of Christ distorts the image of him as God's Son and in turn of God as the Father. Her appropriating the office to herself gives a false impression of Christ to the congregation and contradicts her message--assuming that is a correct preaching of the Gospel. When the Gospel is damaged (perhaps fundamentally), it no longer functions as the norm of theology. The Gospel does not allow her, if we dare speak like this, to be a pastor. A woman functioning in the role of a pastor conflicts with the truth of the Gospel that the Son of the Father became incarnate in the man Jesus. Where the Incarnation is denied by a visible contradiction (a woman as pastor), the Gospel is also denied" (213-214).

I, of course, would hesitate to embrace all the Scaer argues here. But when we think about the importance of certain issues, particularly as they relate to the Gospel, this, I think, is a thought-provoking example of how we should do it.

D. A. Carson on exegesis

2006-01-06T22:24:00.000-06:00

This is pretty good (although I think his word choice is poor at the end):

"If the Bible is nothing less than God's gracious self-disclosure, then as important as it is to understand it on its own terms it must surely be no less important to respond to God as he has disclosed himself. Can the exegesis that is formally 'correct' on this or that point but is not cast in terms of adoration, faith, obedience be at heart sound? I do not mean that scholars must wear their faith on their sleeves or parade their piety each time they take up their pen. On all kinds of technical and disputed points the most dispassionate weighing of evidence is necessary. But is such work cast in the matrix of scholarship devoted in thought (and therefore in form) to serve the God whose revelation is being studied? To put the matter rather crudely, is there not an important responsibility to ask, each time I put pen at paper, whether what I write pleases the God of Scripture, the God of all truth, rather than worry about how my academic colleagues will react? Is exegesis perennially devoid of such flavor genuinely faithful exegesis? Now if such exegetical work is possible, it will flow out of lives that have experienced God, that have been struck with the awesomeness of his holiness, melted with the depth of his love, moved by the condescension of his compassion, thrilled by the prospect of knowing him better."

D. A. Carson, "The Role of Exegesis in Theology," in Doing Theology in Today's World: Essays in Honor of Kenneth S. Kantzer, (ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 67-68.

Jonathan Edwards on deification

2006-01-06T12:21:00.000-06:00

It does not appear that Jonathan Edwards was a big fan of deification. He says in Religious Affections,

Thus not only the manner of the relation of the Spirit, who is the operator, to the subject of his operations, is different; as the Spirit operates in the saints, as dwelling in them, as an abiding principle of action, whereas he doth not so operate upon sinners; but the influence and operation itself is different, and the effect wrought exceeding different. So that not only the persons are called spiritual, as having the Spirit of God dwelling in them; but those qualifications, affections, and experiences, that are wrought in them by the Spirit, are also spiritual, and therein differ vastly in their nature and kind from all that a natural man is or can be the subject of, while he remains in a natural state; and also from all that men or devils can be the authors of. It is a spiritual work in this high sense; and therefore above all other works is peculiar to the Spirit of God. There is no work so high and excellent; for there is no work wherein God doth so much communicate himself, and wherein the mere creature hath, in so high a sense a participation of God; so that it is expressed in Scripture by the saints "being made partakers of the divine nature," 2 Pet. 1:4, and "having God dwelling in them, and they in God," 1 John 4:12, 15, 16, and chap. 3:21; "and having Christ in them," John 17:21, Rom. 8:10; "being the temples of the living God," 2 Cor. 6:16; "living by Christ's life," Gal. 2:20; "being made partakers of God's holiness," Heb. 12:10; "having Christ's love dwelling in them," John 17:26; "having his joy fulfilled in them," John 17:13; "seeing light in God's light, and being made to drink of the river of God's pleasures," Psal. 36:8, 9; "having fellowship with God, or communicating and partaking with him (as the word signifies)," 1 John 1:3. Not that the saints are made partakers of the essence of God, and so are godded with God, and christed with Christ, according to the abominable and blasphemous language and notions of some heretics: but, to use the Scripture phrase, they are made partakers of God's fullness, Eph. 3:17, 18, 19, John 1:16, that is, of God's spiritual beauty and happiness, according to the measure and capacity of a creature; for so it is evident the word fullness signifies in Scripture language. Grace in the hearts of the saints, being therefore the most glorious work of God, wherein he communicates of the goodness of his nature, it is doubtless his peculiar work, and in an eminent manner above the power of all creatures. And the influences of the Spirit of God in this, being thus peculiar to God, and being those wherein God does, in so high a manner, communicate himself, and make the creature partaker of the divine nature (the Spirit of God communicating itself in its own proper nature); this is what I mean by those influences that are divine, when I say that "truly gracious affections do arise from those influences that are spiritual and divine."

This is a difficult thing for Dr Edwards to say. I am trying to figure this doctrine out right now, and his calling these kinds "heretics" gives me more pause. He believes that in our "partaking of the divine nature," God has communicated himself, and the goodness of his nature in particular. I cannot help but notice that he does not cite the passage that most opened me to the "Orthodox" view, Col 2:9-10: "For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority" (ESV [οτι εν αυτω κατοικει παν το πληρωμα της θεοτητος σωματικως και εστε εν αυτω πεπληρωμενοι ος εστιν η κεφαλη πασης αρχης και εξουσιας ]).

Notice the striking repitition of the πληρω- words here. All the "fullness [πληρωμα] of the Godhead" dwells bodily in Christ, and then comes the haunting words: you have been "filled" [πεπληρωμενοι] in him.

I still have a lot of questions, and I repudiate the Mormon idea that we become "gods." But in some way we share in the fullness in which Christ himself shares. I don't know what that way is, and I am not terribly anxious to try to articulate it specifically. But I am open to the idea that, as the Apostle Peter reminds us, we have "become partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4 (ESV) [γενησθε θειας κοινωνοι φυσεως]).

American Evangelicalism has issues (TBN)

2006-01-05T07:25:00.000-06:00

I kept hearing on the news that last night's college football national championchip was supposed to be a "really good game," so I decided to watch some television "while I read my book" for a class I have coming up (listen, we all need down time, right?). Well, between plays (sometimes sports lose my attention), I decided to venture over to my favorite station, TBN. This provided more proof that American evangelicalism has issues.

First, they had an advertisement for a new "Christian reality" show that they're putting together called "Gifted." I think this is based on the popular "American Idol." Too bad they didn't name it "Christian Idol" instead. The advertisement had a spot with some member of the boy band "Backstreet boys" (I think it was Brian Littrell). It's nice to see that this young man could stop singing about fornication long enough to come help out a upstart Christian television program. Perhaps the best thing about "Gifted" is its name. I mean, think about it. Isn't this just what Paul meant in the Holy Scripture when he talked about our receiving gifts from the Spirit? We're the ones who are "gifted." And I think I read once in one of those "recognized your spiritual gifts books" that one of the best ways to tell that you're gifted is to go on some talent contest and win after you've danced all over the stage bellowing out some "praise to God." And isn't that the point of being gifted? I think Paul does say something like, "But earnestly desire the higher gifts." (1 Cor 12:31, ESV). You see, that's a bad translation. What he is actually trying to say here is that we should strive to find out if we are the most gifted.

The second thing I saw was an actual television program starring (I love that word in a Christian context) that great television star from the 80's or 90's (or whatever), Kirk Cameron. I think the name of the program was "Way of the Master" or something. On this program they taped Kirk or somebody (the camera wasn't on the "evangelist") trying to "soul win" out on the streets. I had a friend tell me about this once. They were video-recording this "real" on-the-street "evangelism." Now let's think about this. How would you have liked to have been video-recorded when you were confronted with the gospel? Let's say the camera was "in tight" following you as you walked down the aisle. How would you have like to have been video-recorded when someone was trying to convict you of sin? I felt like I had to turn my head or leave the room (or turn the channel!). Here is what is supposed to be one of the most intimate of all decisions, the decision upon which all of life hangs, and they are video-taping it! Can we offer these people no privacy? Being called a liar or fornicator or sinner is no great honor, why must we publically humiliate them while we do it? Sin and hell and grace and salvation are too important to be handled in this manner. And this brings me to my other point on this. Who ever acts like himself while being recorded on video? If anything, the presence of the camera makes us less prone to truthfulness or honesty--we want to put on a show (and all "reality television" is proof of this). Well, I'm glad they can provide this little experiment with these persons' souls. Then we can all learn how to evangelize in real-time.

Bruce Springsteen on rock music

2006-01-03T12:33:00.000-06:00

"The subtext of all rock songs is 'Will you pull your pants down?'"

"Any pop song or rock song worth its salt--[frustration's] gotta be in there. . . . It is music made by frustrated people. . . . It's in everything, everything. that was one of the fundamental elements--the tools, the stones that you worked with--came out of your personal life and it also came out of the form."

So says Bruce Springsteen. But, of course, you really didn't need him to tell you this.