In the Summer 2009 issue of The City there is a superb piece of writing that diagnoses a creature that I come across quite a bit online and sometimes in the flesh up in D.C. – the evangelical hipster. John Mark Reynolds wrote the piece, where he diagnoses the persona of these individuals:
Secularists should stop worrying about a theocracy: Anderson finds young Evangelicals to be like young Mark Studdock in the C.S. Lewis novel That Hideous Strength—more spaniel than pit bull in their desire to charm rather than snub those that despise them. In fact, Anderson’s article essentially accuses young Evangelicals of being just like the characters Mark and Jane Studdock. Like Mark, young Evangelicals desire admission to the “inner ring” of the culture more than any other temptation. Like Jane, they are lightly educated, but take their thoughts very seriously. Unlike Mark and Jane, young American Evangelicals are given Blue Like Jazz rather than Taliesin through Logres.
Although I have often seen this, I’ve never quite put my finger on it like Mr. Reynolds does. The admission to the inner ring of the culture is THE temptation for me and many folks who have moved beyond Left Behind and Christian bookstores and think they have it all together. To me, the solution is to take a stand and appear to be a (gasp) fundamentalist on some issues. I realized some years ago that one thing which makes men like Tolkien great is that he had beliefs and he stood for them. We can easily quibble with his obscurantist stands on motor cars, roads and airplanes, but he had reasons for believing and he believed! He was not a perpetually vacillating ninny who never arrived at a position and did not stand up for the Creeds and culture which gave him birth. Read the rest of this entry »
Mark Horne has a helpful post on why he is not a Roman Catholic. An excerpt:
Idolatry is a huge sin and praying through icons (whether 3d or 2d) is idolatry. I cannot possibly engage in such a practice, allow anyone in my guardianship to do so, or excuse such a thing, without falling into rank unbelief.
Necromancy is almost as huge a sin and praying to the departed saints is necromancy. See #1 above. People raised thinking bigamy is Christian may be true Christians, but people who know better are living in sin and without hope of eternal life unless they repent of such behavior.
The way some Roman Catholic constituencies provide ministry opportunities for defectors from Protestantism is, of course, tempting–but it can hardly count as anything more than thirty pieces of silver if #1 and #2 hold. If one must be marginalized and impoverished in the Protestant world due to sectarian sins, well, God has called many Christians and their families to far worse martyrdoms.
Claiming unity can be achieved by everyone else joining one’s own denomination is exactly the sect spirit that is so loathsome in many Protestant groups, and it gains no more attractiveness in Rome.
While Mark’s honesty will offend many who justify idolatry by appealing to John of Damascus, we have an opposite example in the Internet Monk’s interview with Bryan Cross, someone who has made that plunge into idolatry. I don’t know why these issues are never raised in these ecumenical interviews. Many Protestants still seem to assume that justification is the core issue between us and Rome, while in fact idolatry is and always has been one of the central concerns of the Reformation, if one that is often ignored today.
I just finished listening to a 9Marks Audio installment where Mark Dever interview Christian hip hop artists shai linne and Voice. I’ve heard shai linne’s “Atonement Q&A” before; it’s something like a rap catechism that’s part of his album “The Atonement.” Shai and Voice are both theologically Reformed, and they view their work as a way to build up the church with “lyrical theology.” If you’re interested in their explanation of the purpose of their work, the best 15 minutes to listen to are from about 40 minutes in through about 55 minutes in. They see their artistry as God’s redemption of a sinful medium to be used for his glory. It’s not intended to replace preaching or congregational music, but instead to do what rap does very effectively: communicate a worldview. Dever has become a fan and actually says that no other form of music matches the “theological density” of shai linne’s music.
In the last 30 years or so, there have been a lot of Christian “knock-offs” of secular music, clothing, etc. I think that the “holy hip hop” movement is more original and edifying, although I don’t know for sure yet. For one opinion, check out Thabiti Anyabwile’s short explanation here. Read the rest of this entry »
Christianity Today’s Katelyn Beaty interviewed sociologist Christian Smith for the current issue. Smith’s new book, Souls in Transition, looks at the religious attitudes and practices of 18-29 year-olds. The idea that this phase of life is now a prelude to married life has come out in several things that I’ve read. Some good examples are an article about twentysomething “child-men” from the City Journal (warning: some crude descriptions of a crude young male culture), Joel’s post dissecting the attitudes of “Our Mad World,” and Christianity Today’s recent article “The Case for Early Marriage.” Here is Smith’s explanation of this development:
Much social transformation since the 1960s and ’70s has created it. A higher proportion of American youth are spending more years in higher education. They are waiting a lot longer before they get married and have kids. That’s partly related to wanting to stay in school longer. It’s partly related to wanting to be “free” longer. It’s also associated with things like the availability of artificial contraception. Read the rest of this entry »
Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America is a historical and sociological study of white evangelical attitudes toward white-black relations. I found it fascinating. I should also try to read some reviews by trained sociologists who may be able to offer some insight into their research methods.
Emerson and Smith state that America is a racialized society in which “race matters profoundly for differences in life experiences, life opportunities, and social relationships” (7, emphasis in original). They define racism sociologically, in that it does not have to be intentional; instead, it is an inequality in power that disadvantages one group or another. One interesting example of this is that more educated whites tend to have fewer prejudices against black people, but at the same time tend to take actions that increase racialization because they are able to pursue higher-quality schools and neighborhoods that tend to be predominantly white. Thus they are actually more segregated from African Americans. They also quote another study that argues that racializing practices are becoming more hidden and institutionalized rather than direct and expressed in the language of race (9). Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been episodically reading David Engel’s Zionism in Pearson’s “Short Histories of Big Ideas” series. It seems like a good, fair, and readable introduction to the topic.
He distinguishes Zionism from “activist messianism.” The latter, a religious movement, grew in the 16th and 17th centuries and resulted in migration to Palestine in the 18th and 19th centuries. A small group of Jews hoped that their efforts would lead God to send the Messiah.
Zionism, on the other hand, is a more secular movement based on trends in Europe, where so many Jews lived. Many of the Zionists were influenced by European trends of the 19th century:
Nationalism was the most powerful influence, as Jews began to think of themselves as a national group without a state. As other ethnic groups began to seek political unity based on a shared culture, influenced by the nationalist and liberal political ideas of the French Revolution, Jews found themselves defined as not part of the “nations” among which they lived. This happened especially in Eastern Europe in the multinational Austrian and Russian empires, where about 85% of European Jews lived. Jews were often assimilated into Western European countries, although anti-Semitism could flare there too (the Dreyfus Affair in France and Aryan supremacist thought in Germany are two examples). Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, I listened to Thabiti Anyabwile’s talk on expositional preaching in non-white contexts (you can find the audio here). Late in the talk, he broadened non-white to “subcultural.” He said that there is a conception that expositional preaching (where the preacher focuses on explaining the text) is often thought of as a white or socially elite way to preach, whereas the distinctive emotionalism of preaching in the black church (or the hwyl in the Welsh church that Martin Lloyd-Jones refused to imitate) is thought to preclude expositional preaching.
Anyabwile, an African American who now pastors in the Caribbean, used the example of the reading and explanation of the Law in Nehemiah 8 as proof that expositional preaching is not “white,” for it moved the Jews who had returned from exile to observe their faith. Instead, he argued, the exposition of the Word of God is part of the culture of the “new humanity,” the community of people from all nations redeemed in Christ. Read the rest of this entry »
While it’s traditionally called the “Second Letter of Clement,” Michael Holmes notes that it’s neither by Clement nor a letter. 2 Clement is actually a sermon or some other kind of address, the first complete Christian sermon outside of the New Testament. The author and date are difficult to establish, although Holmes discusses some interesting theories.
2 Clement seems to be addressing baptized Christians (Holmes also notes another historian’s theory that it is addressed to catechumens), urging them to live in a manner that will please Christ and will ultimately result in a favorable judgment by him. Here was one of the more striking exhortations:
For if we do the will of Christ, we will find rest; but if we do not – if we disobey his commandments – then nothing will save us from eternal punishment. And the scripture also says in Ezekiel, “Even if Noah and Job and Daniel should rise up, they will not save their children” in their captivity. Now if even such righteous men as these are not able, by means of their own righteous deeds, to save their children, what assurance do we have of entering the kingdom of God if we fail to keep our baptism pure and undefiled? Or who will be our advocate, if we are not found to have holy and righteous works? (2 Clement 6:7-9)
As an evangelical Protestant, I found this kind of language jarring at first. Ligon Duncan also noted the importance of works in 2 Clement as opposed to the emphasis on the cross in this interview about patristics with Sovereign Grace Radio. Read the rest of this entry »
Kevin DeYoung, pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan, did a series this week on his five-part plan for “reaching the next generation” with Christ: “Grab them with passion. Win them with love. Hold them with holiness. Challenge them with truth. Amaze them with God.” The focus of the series is this: substance is more important than style, truth and depth and holy living are more important than a cool presentation or appearance, and a challenging, God- and gospel-centered message is more important than being non-threatening. In fact, DeYoung argues, these meaningful things are often what people want, rather than something watered-down or shallow. Presentation is important, he says, and there’s nothing wrong with thinking about presentation, but more important is what you’re presenting.
The whole series is good, but I thought that I would pull out a couple of things out. From the post on love:
The evangelical church has spent far too much time trying to figure out cultural engagement, and far too little time just trying to love. If we listen to people patiently and give people the gift of our curiosity we will be plenty engaged. I’m not arguing for purposeful obscurantism. What I’m arguing for is getting people’s attention with a force more powerful than the right lingo and the right movies.We spend all this time trying to imitate Gen X culture or millennial culture, and to what end? For starters, there is no universal youth culture. Young people do not all think alike, dress alike, or feel comfortable in the same environments. Moreover, even if we could figure out “what the next generation likes” by the time we figured it out they probably wouldn’t like it anymore. Count on it: when the church discovers cool, it won’t be cool anymore. I’ve seen well meaning Christians try to introduce new music into the church in an effort to reach the young people, only to find out that the “new” music included “Shine, Jesus, Shine” and “Shout to the Lord.” There’s nothing worse than a church trying to be fresh and turning out to be a little dated. Better to stick with the hymns and the organ than do “new” music that isn’t new or do the new music in an embarrassing way.
As the post on holiness makes clear, DeYoung sees these five ideas as important for parents, too:
Remember, the next generation is not just out there. They are also in here, sitting in our churches week after week. We often hear about how dangerous college can be for Christian teens, how many of them check out of church ones they reach the university. But studies have shown that most of the students who check out, do so in high school, not in college. It’s not liberal professors that are driving our kids away. It’s their hard hearts and our stale, compromised witness that opens the door for them to leave.
One of our problems is that we have no done a good job of modeling Christian faith in the home and connecting our youth with other mature Christian adults in the church. One youth leader has commented that how often our young people “attended youth events (including Sunday school and discipleship groups) was not a good predictor of which teens would and which would not grow toward Christian adulthood.” Instead, “almost without exception, those young people who are growing in their faith as adults were teenagers who fit into one of two categories: either (1) they came from families where Christian growth was modeled in at least one of their parents, or (2) they had developed such significant connections with adults within the church that it had become an extended family for them.” Likewise, sociologist Christian Smith argues that though most teenagers and parents don’t realize it, “a lot of research in the sociology of religion suggests that the most important social influence in shaping young people’s religious lives is the religious life modeled and taught to them by their parents.”
The take home from all this is pretty straight forward. The one indispensable requirement for producing godly, mature Christians is godly, mature Christians. Granted, good parents still have wayward children and faithful mentors don’t always get through to their pupils. But in the church as a whole, the promise of 2 Peter 1 is as true as ever. If we are holy, we will be fruitful. Personal connections with growing Christians is what the next generation needs more than ever.
He closes the series with this observation:
We have an incredible opportunity before us. Most people live weightless, ephemeral lives. We can give them substance instead of style. We can show them a big God to help make sense of their shrinking lives. We can point them to transcendence instead of triviality. We can reach them with something more lasting and more powerful than gimmicks, gadgets, and games. We can reach them with God.
Imagine that. Reaching the next generation for God by showing them more of God. That’s just crazy enough to work.
A local church plant sent out fliers to each home advertising a free Starbucks gift card to all who would show up. They are also running ads on Facebook with the title “Free Starbucks Gift Card”. If people choose a church because they can receive a free Starbucks gift card, then I would seriously question whether such folks really want to meet with God. I would also question whether the church is seeking to be a purveyor of goods to meet superficial cravings and needs, or if they are preaching Christ as a matter of life or death.
I would like to think that our worship service brings people to God…that is our intent at least. Guests to our Church should be warned that they might encounter the living God who speaks to us through Word and Sacrament, revealing the secrets of their hearts and bringing them to their knees in confession of our desperate need for Him.
There was once a poor man who thought he most needed silver and gold. Peter said that he had nothing of what the man was seeking, but instead offered him Christ and the lame man was healed. The poor man got better than he initially sought.
Well…..there was once a church, desperate for a big crowd, offered willing attenders a free Starbucks card if they would dare visit their new church. Some flocked there, awkwardly inquiring about the card, glad to finally receive it. They sat through the blaring loud music, thinking that the “band” was trying too hard to sound like U2 (but really sucked).
The pastor got up and “shared” with the group, giving 5 “relevant and practical” points on how to be a more gracious person. The attender thought to himself, “I guess I can implement the ‘life points’ this ‘pastor’ just gave me. Seem simple enough”. Deep down, curiosity struck, “Why do I feel empty? Is this the really good news…that I get a Starbucks card and a message on how to be a happier person? Is that what Jesus died for?”.
On the way out the door, a happy smiley person walks up and quips, “Hope you enjoyed your visit and enjoy your Starbucks coffee. While we don’t hand out gift cards to repeat guests, I hope you found the worship to be cool and relevant, the message to be practical and relevant, and the people to be ‘real’ and relevant, and hope to see you next week at our cool, rocking, practical, real, and relevant church”.
The guest gave an awkward smile in return and endured a patting on the back as if he was now this guy’s best friend.
On the way home, the man felt somewhat guilty for even having come to church for a Starbucks card, “How shallow can I get?”
He realized his need for God and wanted desperately to seek Him out. As he thought for a moment about returning to the church he had just visited, his guilt over receiving a Starbucks card dawned on him, “How shallow can they be?”. He concluded that this wasn’t the type of church that would most satisfy his deepest questions and longings in his life.
Deep down he needed God, but went to church for a Starbucks card. After being told by a church-member how cool, relevant, real, and practical their church was, he concluded that they were anything but.
Starbucks, rocking music, and friendly people they did have, but not the Jesus he so desperately needs.
This is a brief quote from the article, “Young, Restless, and Reformed” (link).
“If there’s an appeal to students, it’s that we’re not playing around,” Hughes said. “We’re not entertaining them. This is life and death. My sense is that’s what they’re interested in, even from an old man.”
I know this article and quote are old, but just came across it in some recent reading and thought it relevant. Unfortunately so many worship services in America exude with triviality and over-casualness. I spoke to some college students that chose to attend our church after visiting some of the local churches and asked them why they settled here. Their response was essentially that the other churches felt too much like a “production”. In an attempt to be relevant, many are becoming overly-relevant and thus not relevant at all.
I would describe our worship service as being semi-liturgical, with a core emphasis on God and approaching Him with reverence. I preach as a dying man to dying men. Their is a gravity to worship and preaching in “Calvinism” which reaches deep down into the soul and meets our greatest need. It is my prayer that more young people will realize they need Jesus before loud, rocking U2 wannabees, a pastor guru who “shares” his thoughts on living for Jesus, and freebies.
I pray that they would hunger for Biblical preaching over a multimedia experience,
that they would hunger for the Lord’s Supper more than lunch following service,
that they would long for fellowship with the elderly and handicapped more than merely their niche peer group.
I know this is a bit choppy, but I made it for my personal use and it might not be reader-friendly. This is a condensed commentary on Matthew 5:4 for the homegroup I am leading right now. We are going through the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”
- This beatitude connects to the previous one in that “being poor in spirit” acknowledges one’s poverty and need for help. Important to note that the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t advocate “works righteousness”, nor is “law” for Jews only. It begins with our poverty and need of grace.
- Being “poor in spirit” will manifest itself in mourning.
Our faith is a “crying one”:
“We need, then, to observe that the Christian life, according to Jesus, is not all joy and laughter. Some Christians seem to imagine that, especially if they are filled with the Spirit, they must wear a perpetual grin on their face and be continuously boisterous and bubbly. How unbiblical can one become? No. In Luke’s version of the Sermon Jesus added to this beatitude a solemn woe: ‘Woe to you that laugh now.’1 The truth is that there are such things as Christian tears, and too few of us ever weep them.”[1]
- “I fear that we evangelical Christians, by making much of grace, sometimes thereby make light of sin. There is not enough sorrow for sin among us. We should experience more ‘godly grief’ of Christian penitence, like that sensitive and Christ-like eighteenth-century missionary to the American Indians David Brainerd, who wrote in his journal on 18 October 1740: ‘In my morning devotions my soul was exceedingly melted, and bitterly mourned over my exceeding sinfulness and vileness.’ Tears like this are the holy water which God is said to store in his bottle. Such mourners, who bewail their own sinfulness, will be comforted by the only comfort which can relieve their distress, namely the free forgiveness of God” (Stott, John).
It seems like the challenge I face in this world is that I am drowning under waves of information. Twitter feeds, Facebook stream, Google Reader constantly shooting more articles at me. Newspapers arriving at the door, books glaring from the shelf, papers on various subjects. Movies to watch, shows to keep up with, sports talk bombarding me with the soap opera that is the NFL.
All of it crashes in upon my brain every day and I have to try to prune it back, manage it, reduce my inbox, get my unread items to zero. I am tempted to cut the tether binding me to the Empire of Information, but I can’t summon the willpower to do it. What if I miss some amazing trend in theology or come up short when someone mentions the name of a 16th century author whose works have recently been unearthed from a dig in central Saxony? I would like to change, but not today, not today Lord.
Brief post here, but wanted to share a couple funny things that happened with my girls today.
This morning as I was packing up my book back, Kira (5 year old who is learning to read) saw my commentary on Romans and was asked by mom to read the title. She struggled through the word “epistle”, but continued quite well on the proceeding words “to the”. She paused at the word “Romans” and proceeded to say quite boldly…”Mormons”. “The Epistle to the Mormons” she says…maybe she is on to something. She knows more of what she knows not what she speaks.
Later in the afternoon, while watching the news, Lexi perks up at the appearance of President Obama and exclaims “Dada”. She doesn’t talk like a baby but pretends once in awhile. Surprised, we asked here if Obama was her daddy and she nodded yes.
The girls provide laughter on a daily basis…what a blessing they are!!!
I finished my Sunday evening by watching C-Spans special on the Supreme Court and then flipped over to C-Span 2 to watch their feature of all-everything Hugh Hewitt (link). I used to listen to him while driving through southern California rush hour and was somewhat fond of him. After hearing him take questions for close to 2 hours, my esteem for him has grown.
He describes himself as simply Christian in the tradition of C.S. Lewis, whom he also lists as his favorite non-fiction author, as an Evangelical Roman Catholic, who is also Presbyterian. He said all with a smile and chuckle and didn’t elaborate on how all that fits together. Anyhow, I just wanted to give some props to him. He also demonstrated a charity towards our president that evidences Christian maturity, but also boldly criticized him on a handful of issues. He also cited with conviction that it seems inconceivable to him how one can be a “Christian” and support abortion. I was surprised a bit by how bold he was in his assertion.
He also pointed out the inconsistency of liberals who care more about fish than humans in the much publicized issue of the Californian farmers whose water has been shut off. He also levied some attacks at liberal policies that prohibited California firefighters from using certain techniques to prevent the spread of the recent wildfires because they had to respect the property of some endangered rat. Lastly, I found rather insightful his comment that the National Parks were Republican ideas which sought the preservation of land for “human” public enjoyment. Teddy Roosevelt promoted “conservationist” policies that have an enduring legacy and Hewitt encourages Republicans wear the “conservationist” banner proudly and revive the issue in matters of what’s best for the public.
Kevin DeYoung links to an article by Ray Pennings about how four different Reformed camps think about the ancient question of Christian engagement in culture. It’s short but interesting. I’m a little surprised by the names that Pennings gives to the camps, but it looks like he explains them in a print-edition only article of December 2008 issue of Comment magazine.
Matt Harmon summarizes the views of the camps that Pennings delineates:
(1) neo-calvinism, which focuses on the comprehensive claims of the gospel; (2) two kingdom approach, which stresses the distinctiveness of the church from the culture; (3) neo-puritans, who emphasize the sovereignty of God and the role of the individual in seeking the good of the city; (4) old-calvinism, which contends that cultural engagement inevitably leads to worldliness.
Check out the whole article if this is a topic that interests you.
Two weeks ago, my fiancée and I went to a Missionary Baptist Church in Kankakee, Illinois, where I live and work. I’ve been to predominantly black churches before, but this time I heard something that I had not before: the pastor of the church and the guest preacher both talked a bit about the role of the listeners in a preacher’s performance. It’s something that one can see in the black church, but I had never heard it discussed specifically before.
When the pastor gave a lengthy introduction to Dr. William H. Copeland, one of the most prominent figures in Kankakee’s black community, he encouraged the congregation to get involved. He said something like, “Preaching isn’t just the pulpit, it’s also the pew. When you ‘Amen,’ you can help a preacher preach.” He also exhorted the congregation to do no less for their guest than they would for another preacher.
For me, one of the most visually striking things about the African-American Christian tradition is the image of the preacher at the pulpit flanked by one or more other preachers urging him on. When Dr. Copeland came to the pulpit, he talked about the need for other preachers, seated behind him and on either side, to support him as well. He joked that there are some “jackleg preachers” that sit up front with their legs crossed and flipping through a Bible rather than voicing their support for their colleague at the pulpit, and told us to let him know if any of the four up there with him were doing that. Dr. Copeland preached about hell with the story of Lazarus and the rich man as his text, beginning softly and building up to a passionate conclusion and gospel invitation.
The music was tremendous, with a medium-sized choir accompanied by an organ and drum set. I don’t want to be a white person who idealizes the black church, or feels that he has to be ashamed that white Protestantism is too low key and therefore not “spiritual” enough. I mean, really, if I hear one more white person sheepishly call his congregation “the frozen chosen” because they don’t clap their hands, I might go nuts. But I have loved the few experiences that I have had in black churches, and I do hope that God’s people in this country and around the world can find more ways to worship together and learn from each other’s traditions. All of God’s people are going to be worshipping together forever, so why not start now?
Our school has a Constitution Day celebration every Sept. 17. I’ve given a brief speech for our 2007, 2008, and 2009 ceremonies. I thought that I would post them here, too. This was the one that I gave today:
Our past three presidents have inspired both intense devotion from their admirers and intense condemnation from their detractors. Compare, for example, the joyous celebrations in Chicago’s Grant Park after President Obama’s election with the fiery rhetoric of his critics. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have had their presidencies and their policies called illegitimate, immoral, illegal, dishonest, and disgraceful by their critics, while they have enjoyed praise from their supporters that often reaches dizzying heights.
This has certainly been the case before in our history. Presidents Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, almost always ranked as our nation’s greatest chief executives, heard criticisms that may surprise us when we read them today. But to have such polarization around three presidents in a row suggests that historian Andrew Bacevich’s description of the presidency in the modern period is quite accurate. Since the election of John F. Kennedy, he says,
the occupant of the White House has become a combination of demigod, father figure and, inevitably, the betrayer of inflated hopes. Pope. Pop star. Scold. Scapegoat. Crisis manager. Commander in Chief. Agenda settler. Moral philosopher. Interpreter of the nation’s charisma. Object of veneration. And the butt of jokes. All rolled into one.
On Constitution Day, though, it’s worth taking a look at the basis for the presidency. Article II of our Constitution, which describes the presidency, is fairly short, especially in comparison to the description of Congress in Article I, where the major powers of the federal government are discussed. The duties and powers of the president are vitally important, but they are also relatively few: acting as commander in chief of the armed forces, running the executive branch, granting pardons, making treaties, and appointing officials and Supreme Court justices. Congress, rather than the president, seems to be the star of the Constitution.
The Federalist Papers that address the presidency also give the impression that the president, while powerful, would not be the center of attention. Alexander Hamilton famously argued for “energy in the executive” in Federalist Paper No. 70, but at the same time he tried to persuade his readers that this president would not be another King George III.
Now, my points here are not a call to return to a more innocent age, where the balance between the branches of government was perfect. Whatever age we chose, the inhabitants would probably be surprised that we considered their time so innocent. Our powerful presidency reflects that times have changed since the 1700s. America is a world power with a complex economy, and in many ways the more powerful presidency has probably been a good thing.
But some perspective from our history is valuable, too. Knowing the intentions of the people who put together our system of government helps us to understand how this system plays out today. And so I think that it’s good to remember two things.
First, the president is the head of just one of three branches of the federal government. We’ve all learned this at some point, even if many of us forget. No matter what other powers Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have, they can’t make laws and they can’t settle disputes over laws. The Constitution separates these powers between three branches. And yet very few people vote when it’s not a presidential election. Andrew Bacevich, who I mentioned before, warns us that too much focus on presidential elections diminishes the importance of the other branches of government. We ought to remind ourselves of the roles of the other branches of government and understand how they impact our lives.
Second, the federal government is only one layer of authority provided for in the Constitution. State and local governments affect our lives in many ways that the president never can.
So, on Constitution Day, it’s worth remembering that while the American presidency ranks among the most powerful offices in the world, politics and government are about much than the heroes or villains, sinners or saints, that have occupied the White House. It’s something that their most devoted supporters and their loudest critics should think about too.
Milton Acosta of Biblical Seminary of Colombia in Medillín gives his readers an introduction to the trends in Latin American Pentecostalism. He says that churches are often disconnected from either Catholicism or Protestantism and the pastors often get theology degrees from an unregulated degree market. There are also trends of “Protestant shamanism” and the prosperity gospel:
[Historian Arturo] Piedra says that the “religious space of ‘prophets and apostles’ is dominated by an anachronistic Protestant shamanism, made up of individuals (actores) who pretend to save the world through an animist manipulation of evil spirits.”
Under the umbrella of spiritual warfare has grown a body of clergy specializing in discerning hidden forces. These preachers focus more on the fear of spirits than on the hope that Christ gives. They are also “experts” on curses and all sorts of practices like geographic cornering and blowing and whistling to subject evil spirits. This is quite the opposite of the defeat of Satan!
Like Argentine Methodist theologian José Míguez Bonino, Piedra holds that there is a weak historical connection between Latin American Protestantism and the Protestant tradition, as there is little or no emphasis on sola gratia, sola Scriptura, or justification by faith alone. Sadly, the apostles and prophets are not teaching the central message of the gospel, but a gospel of prosperity.
Television is a powerful influence on Latin American theology. The TV channel Enlace (owned by the Trinity Broadcasting Network) has become “a true magisterium” beyond denominational beliefs and practices. It is available in most Latin American countries. Most evangelicals turn it on several times a week. No matter what topic Enlace is dealing with, the message boils down to making “pacts” with God, wherein a person must demonstrate the seriousness of his prayer request by sending money along with it. Pastors with little or no training imitate Enlace preachers, and the effect intensifies.
Many Enlace-style churches have reduced the message of the gospel to economic prosperity. Based on belief in evil spirits’ hidden conspiracies that can only be averted by economic pacts—a contemporary version of indulgences—some of these churches end up in clear continuity with the surrounding culture of amulets, or magical ways of quickly obtaining wealth and happiness. The celebrities who represent this kind of overnight wealth are Mafia members and druglords. The final product, says Piedra, is religious consumerism.
Acosta says that theological training is badly needed in Latin America. Echoing his concerns, a long-time missionary to Colombia, who is part of a group that is trying to give Colombian pastors training, told me once that becoming an evangelical pastor is supposed to be a great way to get rich in Colombia.
Latin American is obviously a dynamic place for those who claim Christ. I pray that God will lead the Church there to more knowledge of Himself and greater faithfulness to His Word.
Multnomah University professors Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger discuss principles for worship, based on John D. Witvliet’s Worship Seeking Understanding. The one that spoke most to me was their third principle:
Integrating liturgy and culture requires us to be critical of our own cultural context. Worship leaders need to critique the culturally generated worship forms they use, asking whether each form enhances or degrades authentic worship. Contemporary forms must be examined to see not only if they engage the church through commonly understandable symbols, but also if they are able to represent God and the gospel with integrity.
Few people, perhaps, would question that popular cultural worship forms can engage a broad spectrum of people. People who already identify with contemporary music and computer graphics will find themselves easily drawn into the worship experience when such forms are used. But thoughtful worship leaders and theologians have recognized that there can be a downside as well. As theologian Donald Bloesch has written,
“Worship is not a means to tap into the creative powers within us rather than an occasion to bring before God our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. Hymns that retell the story of salvation as delineated in the Bible are being supplanted by praise choruses that are designed to transport the soul into a higher dimension of reality.”
Worship is not about a search for meaning or experience, but an acknowledgment that meaning and salvation are found in God’s incomparable act of redemption in Christ. Methodist pastor Craig Rice agrees: “As long as the church continues to confuse the hunger for God, extant in every human heart, with the same yearnings that drive a market culture and a consumerist society, its worship will remain irrelevant at best and an outright impediment at worst.”
There is no question that authentic worship will meet people’s needs. The problem occurs when worship forms are focused on meeting people’s felt needs. Each week, the church is filled with people whose felt needs have been defined for them by a consumer culture that generally urges them to focus on self-fulfillment. The role of the church in worship is not to meet felt needs but to show people that their real needs go deeper.
Can contemporary worship forms address people’s real needs? Certainly. But in choosing only forms that are comfortable and familiar, there is always the tendency to cater to what people want to hear and feel, rather than confronting them with God, whose presence is not always so comfortable. And a God made comfortable by market-driven worship is unlikely to confront sinners with their need for repentance or a gospel that is fundamentally about self-denial rather than self-fulfillment. Quoting Martin Marty, theologian Marva Dawn remarks that when worship is driven by the market, it “draws crowds, but it is so fully adapted to the not-yet-born-again ‘that worship becomes measured by the aesthetics and experience of those who don’t yet know why we should shudder.’”
I largely agree with the quote from Donald Bloesch about praise choruses, although I know that many people find them meaningful and that I have different preferences from many of my friends. I don’t wish to denigrate the newer music without trying to understand more about its appeal. But, to me, the real value of their discussion comes with their contrast between the common perception and the real meaning of worship: “Worship is not about a search for meaning or experience, but an acknowledgment that meaning and salvation are found in God’s incomparable act of redemption in Christ.”
I wouldn’t really recommend watching the entire Bill Moyers Journal panel discussion with Cornel West, Union Theological Seminary president Serene Jones, and Union professor Gary Dorrien (video and transcript here). They talk about the economic crisis in the ways that you might expect three liberal theologians to talk: a lot about how greed got us into it and how economic democracy is the key to fixing it. Not bad points, necessarily, but nothing too new, either.
But you might find the end of the conversation interesting. Union has a long history in the liberal theological tradition, and these three are teaching a course together there. It’s no secret that the more theologically liberal mainline Protestant churches have been losing a lot of members, so the most intriguing portion came when Jones claimed that there is a new wave of students at Union:
BILL MOYERS: What are you seeing and hearing right now that give you some sense of encouragement, despite the fact that everything that’s tied down is coming loose?
SERENE JONES: What I see in my students is powerful. It is a sense that, in the crumbling of all of this, what is being unleashed is an intense sense of the embodied character of faith. Call it Pentecostal. You can see it in my students now. What does it mean to call them Pentecostal? It’s not the traditional things we think of. But these are students who are coming off the set of “American Idol.” Or they’ve been on a war ship outside of Iraq.
Or they’ve been stocking shelves in Texas. And they’re coming to Union committed to social justice. And open to the power of the spirit in physical ways that give them this kind of zealousness that, for a large swath of time, the liberal left lost. They’re doing this as a whole new generation for whom tactility, thinking about the way the body lives in the world. It’s actually exciting to me. Because I think, in their own lives, we’re seeing the contestation of the power of the market to configure desire. Because they don’t want those market desires in the same way my generation did. They’re critical of them. They’re coming up with new forms of music. And they’re very committed to a sense of passion in it. To use a very scholarly term, I think we need to use it more often, I think it’s a crisis of metaphysics. These students are asking, and their liberal professors, questions about, you know, “Do you really believe that God exists?”
Now, the liberal church is sort of, you know, wanting to say, “Well, it might be a myth. It might be a symbol. We can say this about it. We can back away.” These students are saying, “I’m not going to get out there on the front line, and I’m not going to reconfigure my interior world to desire different things…” If this isn’t real, they want something real that is an alternative.
GARY DORRIEN: Certainly, from our experience of the course, this is an extraordinary generation. I mean, it’s, they are connected. They care. They’re looking for, they’re always sort of obsessing about what’s real. I mean, they’ve got radar for what’s unreal.
For what is just merely abstract, or it doesn’t really speak to their condition. What isn’t going to make a difference. What kind of learning doesn’t make any difference at all. They’ve got radar for that. But they’re very hungry for what is going to make a difference. And how it is that they can live out their faith in this world that we’re creating.
SERENE JONES: They’re not afraid of hard thinking. But they also want, they want beauty. The beauty of the thought to inspire.
CORNEL WEST: This is one of the reasons why these new forms that we’re talking about find black forms and afro-American forms so attractive.
SERENE JONES: Absolutely.
CORNEL WEST: Because here you got this leaven in this larger American loaf been sitting here all this time. These young white brothers and sisters, they want to get into hip hop. They want to be able to move their bodies. They want to have an orality that is smooth like Jay-Z. There is something about the black experience in America, at its best.
We know we got black gangsters like anybody else. At its best that speaks to these kinds of issues. You’ve got Martin as the best, in many ways, in the political sphere. You got Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin. So much of the best in the cultural sphere. Now the young folk are hungry for it. We’ll see. We’re in a new transition.
I hope that these students keep asking the tough questions and see that while liberal theology has perhaps preserved some important parts of the Christian faith, it has not preserved the heart: God’s justified wrath against us and His gracious offer of salvation by grace through faith in His crucified and resurrected Son Jesus Christ, which are told to us in His authoritative Word. It is a message that is offensive to the modern sensibility in which liberal theology is grounded, but I hope that God will use the serious questions that the students are asking to lead them to Himself.
I want our elected officials to do what is best of our country, even if such decesiions are seemingly unpopular. A politician can’t always vote with a finger in the wind, however I looked at some polls today and found the following noteworthy:
Public opposition to Health Care is at all-time high as of 9/15 (link).
Obama’s approval ratings are at a -6 index on those who feel strongly for their position and a -1 index on general opinion (link).
Obama has experienced the quickest drop in approval ratings to dip below 50% since Gerald Ford.
There are a bunch of other interesting stats, but the one that SCARES me is the following, which is pasted from Investor’s Business Daily (link):
Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.
The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors’ own lobby — the powerful American Medical Association — both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.
It also calls into question whether an overhaul is even doable; 72% of the doctors polled disagree with the administration’s claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.
The IBD/TIPP Poll was conducted by mail the past two weeks, with 1,376 practicing physicians chosen randomly throughout the country taking part. Responses are still coming in, and doctors’ positions on related topics — including the impact of an overhaul on senior care, medical school applications and drug development — will be covered later in this series.
Major findings included:
• Two-thirds, or 65%, of doctors say they oppose the proposed government expansion plan. This contradicts the administration’s claims that doctors are part of an “unprecedented coalition” supporting a medical overhaul.
It also differs with findings of a poll released Monday by National Public Radio that suggests a “majority of physicians want public and private insurance options,” and clashes with media reports such as Tuesday’s front-page story in the Los Angeles Times with the headline “Doctors Go For Obama’s Reform.”
Nowhere in the Times story does it say doctors as a whole back the overhaul. It says only that the AMA — the “association representing the nation’s physicians” and what “many still regard as the country’s premier lobbying force” — is “lobbying and advertising to win public support for President Obama’s sweeping plan.”
The AMA, in fact, represents approximately 18% of physicians and has been hit with a number of defections by members opposed to the AMA’s support of Democrats’ proposed health care overhaul.
• Four of nine doctors, or 45%, said they “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” if Congress passes the plan the Democratic majority and White House have in mind. Read the rest of this entry »
Kudos to James O’ Keefe and Hannah Giles for exposing what lies, unlawful, and treachery lies beneath the covers of ACORN. BUT, will the left media pay much attention to this? Will Obama speak out against this? Apparently, this is “just some smear campaign”. Wow, denial (or secrecy of corruption) is the quite the virtue to many. Does one think that out of this large organization, only these two women were corrupt? Oh please. Take off the blinders. I’m sure not everyone in ACORN is corrupt, but one is too many and I’m pretty sure it didn’t start, stop or will end with these two women. Another say story. Another example of human nature’s fallen nature. All the more reason to cling to the truth of the gospel, lest you fall into the trap.
Tragic proof yet I read an article where they said “alleged sex trafficking” and alleged this and that or “supposedly”. The video speaks for itself.
Except for Glenn Beck, Where’s the news media coverage? Where’s the community outrage? Where’s the accountability? No where. Go figure.
James Pouillon, a well-known activist in the town of Owosso, Michigan was killed by some derranged guy with a great chip on his shoulder on a very evil day. Where is the outrage by the country? Why isn’t it on the news? IF not for a few weeks, at least a day or two? Why isn’t this news worthy? But when the abortionist Dr. Tiller was killed, it made all the news and stayed tuned for weeks. The rage from the left was fumed and fanned. Conservatives & religious leaders alike came out and spoke against such acts of violence. This is such garbage!
Malcolm Muggeridge wrote about British Prime Ministers and what he said applies entirely to our elected leaders:
We like to persuade ourselves that our leaders betray the trust imposed in them and distort the aspirations of those who elect them. Actually they represent us all too exactly…No one is miscast. Each leaves the country appreciably poorer and weaker, both spiritually and materially, than when he takes over, giving an extra impetus to the Gadarene rush already under way.
The story of this book begins in the 1990s when Wilson and his fellow Presbyterian minister Steve Wilkins wrote a pamphlet called “Southern Slavery as It Was.” Controversy erupted when they argued that the abuses of Southern slavery were exaggerated.
Black and Tan reiterates the main points of that pamphlet and discusses the controversy that resulted from it. The central points might be listed as follows:
The Bible does allow for slavery within certain guidelines, although as the gospel does its work within nations, slavery will be abolished because the institution of slavery is against the logic of the gospel
Racism and the slave trade are roundly condemned by the Bible
Slavery was abolished in the United States in a radical and unbiblical way rather than that gradual way that it should have been if the gospel had done its work in American culture
The Civil War empowered the federal government in such a way that it overthrew the truly federal system of government that the Constitution provided for, and this empowerment of humanistic instead of Christian values (which he compares to the French Revolution) paved the way for the current culture wars over abortion and gay marriage by, for example, giving the Supreme Court the power to overturn all states’ abortion laws
In my view, there are great strengths and important weaknesses in this book, and I’ll discuss the strengths first. Wilson’s explanation of the biblical view of racism leaves no doubt that God’s will is to replace racial hatred with racial reconciliation in Christ. Wilson is emphatic and convincing that racism is sinful. His discussion of slavery is also good. Wilson is careful to state that he does not miss slavery and believes that God judged the South for its sins by handing it defeat in the Civil War.
He also does not defend the Southern practice of slavery as biblical, although he does believe that the conditions have been exaggerated. Wilson believes that Southern slavery was more humane than ancient Roman slavery or slavery in the Caribbean plantations. This is something that I don’t have the expertise to weigh in on before reading more about it, and the details are not discussed much in this book. I believe that it is discussed more in the original pamphlet, and this portion became part of the plagiarism controversy that enveloped it because Wilkins did not footnote material that he had taken from a book called Time on the Cross. I hope to check out the full pamphlet sometime. For now, it is enough to say that I was impressed with Wilson’s principles and exegesis on slavery, the slave trade, and racism. An honest look at the Bible will show that slavery with limits appears in the Bible, and I think that Wilson does an admirable job interpreting what it means.
There are some weaknesses that need discussion too. His characterization of the American Revolution against Britain as “not a true revolution in the modern sense of the word,” with the true revolution coming with the Civil War, is useful but also too simple. Much of the leadership of the American Revolution indeed did not want anything like the French Revolution, but the Revolution also unleashed democratic, anti-authoritarian forces in such a way that they frightened some of the Founders (see Federalist No. 10, for example, where Madison openly says that democracy is bad). Mark Noll’s America’s God and Gordon Wood’s The Radicalism of the American Revolution discuss this trend well. Peter Leithart commented on the radical nature of the American Revolution recently when he said, in response to a review of a book on aristocracy and revolution:
Different as France and America were, the example of America was key for French revolutionaries, since the US (in Doyle’s words) “showed the European world beyond America that a society without nobles was possible, and could work.” American opposition to nobility is enshrined in the Constitution (Article 1, sections 9-10). For all the “conservatism” of the American revolutionaries, Armitage’s review neatly captures just how radical the American experiment was. To European conservatives, the US – with its rejection of throne, throne and altar, and nobility – must have appeared to be an effort to change the operating system of human society.
I think that most historians would argue that there was a democratizing trend that continued from the Revolutionary period through the 19th century.
One example of revolutionary nature of the American Revolution is its most famous document, The Declaration of Independence, which is hardly anti-revolutionary. It traces government’s authority to “consent of the governed” rather than God, and has its intellectual heritage in Enlightenment deism rather than traditional Christianity. I think it’s far better to see the American Revolution as supported by different people for different and overlapping reasons rather than as simply conservative or radical, Christian or deist.
Also, although Wilson writes that the North was not monolithic, he tends to identify the North with secular humanism because of people like radical abolitionists and Harvard’s Unitarian leadership. His view doesn’t allow for enough nuance in viewing Northern society in the 19th century.
He also refers to the inferiority of African culture when compared with European culture without much description of why. Now, it’s important to say that he does not do this on a racial basis. He gives some details on European barbarism before Christianization, and he says that he looks forward to the day when Christianized Africans will produce the magnificent cultural achievements that European culture has. For him, the key is the gospel’s influence in culture rather than any notion of innate European superiority.
Because I have secular training in the discipline of history, I’m sure that I have my own blind spots on this. To me, though, his easy assignment of inferior African culture didn’t seem particularly reflective. I’m not so sure that a traditional culture, once Christianized, has to take the same route as European culture. The key is faithful Christian living, which will certainly change the culture, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will produce the cathedrals and grand musical compositions that Wilson expects. Secondly, his point of view doesn’t do very well in explaining Mesopotamia, Egypt, or China, which all had quite “advanced civilizations,” by most people’s standards, without the gospel. I’d like to hear more from Wilson on this point, but I think what he has in Black and Tan is too simplistic.
At not much more than 100 pages, Black and Tan is worth reading. Wilson’s a great writer, discussing important ideas with clarity and an economy of words. His sense of humor is outstanding as well. It will make you think about the origins of the culture wars and the trajectory of American history, even if you can’t agree with him on everything. As he points out in the introduction, one needn’t be a professional historian to write about history. And though I have disagreements with the book, I’m glad that he didn’t keep his opinions to himself.
This corrupt procedure is admirably described by Paul, when he says, that “thinking to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22). He had previously said that “they became vain in their imaginations,” but lest any should suppose them blameless, he afterwards adds that they were deservedly blinded, because, not contented with sober inquiry, because, arrogating to themselves more than they have any title to do, they of their own accord court darkness, nay, bewitch themselves with perverse, empty show. Hence it is that their folly, the result not only of vain curiosity, but of licentious desire and overweening confidence in the pursuit of forbidden knowledge, cannot be excused (Calvin, John: Institutes of the Christian Religion. Bellingham, WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, S. I, iv, 1).
Nothing being less accordant with the nature of God than to cast off the government of the world, leaving it to chance, and so to wink at the crimes of men that they may wanton with impunity in evil courses; it follows, that every man who indulges in security, after extinguishing all fear of divine Judgment, virtually denies that there is a God. As a just punishment of the wicked, after they have closed their own eyes, God makes their hearts dull and heavy, and hence, seeing, they see not (Calvin, John: Institutes of the Christian Religion. Bellingham, WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, S. I, iv, 2).
Calvin goes to great lengths to show that man, and man alone, is culpable before God. Man is the initiator in rebellion. God is not actively causing people to sin. Calvin’s testimony aligns with Scripture, and especially Paul in Romans 1, where he uses the phrase “God gave them over” three times to explain the depravity of man. God is therefore seen as the restrainer of evil within His grace, but where it is shunned and evil is desired, God relents and gives them over. Notice that God is removing His hand. Hardly the picture some attribute to Calvin of a God who is not removing His hand, but rather pushing people away to rebel.
God has only so much patience with OUR rebellion. It is ours entirely. Calvin warned against “omni-causality”, seeing God as a causal agent for every event. It is more nuanced and requires further explanation, but suffice it to say that this Calvinist does NOT believe that God is the causal agent for my rebellion. Rather, He permitted and allowed me to do what I wanted to do. It all accords within His providential rule, but He didn’t decree my sin as an active agent. James says that God neither tempts or is tempted. Calvin would lend a hearty “Amen” to the clear teaching of Scripture on this matter.
Rick Hogaboam
Chad
mimi
Brian Andrews
joelmartin
Scott Kistler
