Growing Grace-full

Church of the Open Wound

2012-01-30T07:37:00.000-05:00

A COLLEAGUE recently brought my attention to this portion of Jürgen Moltmann's The Trinity and the Kingdom (p. 49):

God and suffering belong together, just as in this life the cry for God and the suffering experienced in pain belong together. The question about God and the question about suffering are a joint, a common question. And they only find a common answer. Either that, or neither of them finds a satisfactory answer at all. No one can answer the theodicy question in this world, and no one can get rid of it. Life in this world means living with this open question, and seeking the future in which the desire for God will be fulfilled, suffering will be overcome, and what has been lost will be restored.

The question of theodicy is not a speculative question; it is a critical one. It is the all-embracing eschatological question. It is not purely theoretical, for it cannot be answered with any new theory about the existing world. It is a practical question which will only be answered through experience of the new world in which ‘God will wipe away every tear from their eyes’. It is not really a question at all, in the sense of something we can ask or not ask, like other questions. It is the open wound of life in this world. It is the real task of faith and theology to make it possible for us to survive, to go on living, with this open wound.

The person who believes will not rest content with any slickly explanatory answer to the theodicy question. And he will also resist any attempts to soften the question down. The more a person believes, the more deeply he experiences pain over the suffering in the world, and the more passionately he asks about God and the new creation.

Moltmann's underpinning panentheistic doctrine of God notwithstanding, let's focus on two themes that arise as he writes of theodicy and the so-called "problem of evil":

The question of God and suffering is an "all-embracing eschatological question," because it can "only be answered through experience" of the new heavens and earth. Right now, it is, in fact, not really question at all. It just is; it simply hangs here all heavy and stifling, just like an . . .
. . . "open wound." Theodicy is the open wound of life in this world. It can't be answered sufficiently this side of the eschaton: "Life in this world means living with this open question."

It seems to me that the reality of a fragmented church in a world that has witnessed the ascension of God's Christ also falls under the "question" of theodicy. And it is a great evil too easily dismissed by Protestants in general (Carl Trueman and others like him being exceptions)—and by evangelicals in particular (leading to a kind of gnostic ecclesiology, as the folks over at Called to Communion often note).

Just a few short centuries ago, we Protestants were, of course, Roman Catholic. And our forebears—of the first generation, at least—from the start had their eyes on reforming their Mother, the church of Rome. In this, I'm reminded of Stanley Hauerwas' 1995 Reformation Sunday homily:

Reformation names the disunity in which we currently stand. We who remain in the Protestant tradition want to say that Reformation was a success. But when we make Reformation a success, it only ends up killing us. After all, the very name ‘Protestantism’ is meant to denote a reform movement of protest within the Church Catholic. When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema. If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday.

To put it as Trueman did in the hyperlinked article above, "Protestants need a positive reason not to be Catholic."

At any rate, my Roman Catholic friends would deny the possibly of real body fragmentation, that is, of members of the body being severed from the body. No doubt, they do think people can be separated from the body, but they're not taking a part of the body, so to speak, with them.

I, along with everybody who isn't Roman Catholic (and perhaps Eastern Orthodox), demur.

The notion of a "perpetual divine protection of the unity and orthodoxy of the church through the apostolic succession of the bishops, by virtue of its being a continuation of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, in his mystical body" makes little sense in light of the realities of the church's history, which continue to surround us ("St. Ignatius of Antioch on the Church"). It's not the latter points with which I have problems (apostolic succession; the church being a continuation of the life and ministry of Christ); it's the former—the "perpetual divine protection of the unity and orthodoxy of the Church." That conflates the truth with the proclamation, or participation in, the truth (ousia vs. metousia). Scripture, tradition, and reason demand otherwise. And "the person who believes will not rest content with any slickly explanatory answer" that attempts to justify God's ways in this matter.

Thus, the disunity of the church catholic is an open wound. Put another way, I think Roman Catholics (helped by none other than John Calvin, who took his cue from Cyprian & Cyril!) are right to demand that the ontological connection between Christ and his church by the power of the Spirit be upheld, but I think they're wrong that her being necessarily leads to an infallible act. Again: the church's union and communion with Christ in ontological relation doesn't by its very nature procure infallibility. The words of Jesus and his apostles regarding the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, like the prophetic utterances of old, are to be construed as goadings toward righteousness—toward that oneness, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity—not as absolute promises or blueprints of infallibility that will simply unfurl throughout the course of history.

Let me try to put it more plainly: I think that the church is to be one in this time between the times. One, not just in will and purpose, but one physically and ontologically—in a collegial episcopate (in contradistinction to the universal jurisdictional claims of the Roman pontiff). I think this is what God wants. But I also think that we have failed miserably in this regard, that the body has indeed fragmented, that toes have left their feet, that wrists have left their arms and have caused whole hands to suffer the same.

In other words, the church—both catholic and local, invisible and visible, one and many—suffers from an open wound. I therefore think God would have us continually aching for reattachment, of having broken hearts at the church's division, or else we're left with being an end in ourselves, that is, anathema.

But whence the credo? How can we pray, "I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church," if it doesn't quite exist?

With hope.

It may be that this open-wound ecclesiology can only be resolved in "the future in which the desire for God will be fulfilled, suffering will be overcome, and what has been lost will be restored," but ignoring the charge to be one (or worse, to theologically justify fragmentations) is fatalistic at best and heresy at worst.

Yet More Perspectives on the Sabbath

2012-01-18T11:52:00.001-05:00

Scott Oakland of ReformedCast called me on Monday for a live podcast revolving around the book Perspectives on the Sabbath.

The time flew by, but I do think this was one of my more articulate presentations. I could be totally wrong on that score (I know one thing, participating in radio/podcast interviews are quick lessons in humility—the boring, monotone sound of my own voice; the fumbling diction; incorrect facts; sticking my foot in my mouth, etc.). Why not listen for yourself?

Dominical (& Ecclesiastical) View of the Sabbath

2012-01-05T14:03:00.006-05:00

ON PAGE NINE of Perspectives on the Sabbath, I outlined the four views ensconced in the book. As a final note, I wrote that "Roman Catholics, traditional Anglicans, and the Orthodox, while maintaining a much stronger magisterial and thus 'dominical' view of this matter, exegetically fall somewhere in between Arand [the Lutheran] and Pipa [the puritan sabbatarian]."

Truth be told, I had wanted the Lutheran position position to fill this gap, but, as it turned out, Arand ended up being a little too close to Blomberg. Had I known, I would've also invited an Anglo-Catholic, Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox thinker to contribute (while retaining Arand's important discussion in the mix as a mediating position between the aforementioned group and Blomberg).

When writing the above, I footnoted two sources: the Cathechism of the Catholic Church, III.ii, 1.3 (also para. 1166); and These Truths We Hold—The Holy Orthodox Church: Her Life and Teachings ("Orthodox Dogma and Doctrine: The Ten Commandments, no. 4").

All this to say that I came across Taylor Marshall's brief synopsis of Aquinas on the Lord's Day. I had not read this bit from Thomas in quite some time and thus forgot about it as I was preparing the manuscript for Perspectives on the Sabbath. It doesn't contradict any of the above, of course, just further elucidates the so-called "dominical" view and its quasi-sabbatarian leanings (in even asking the question, "May Catholics Work on Sunday?"), even though it does posit a significant (redemptive-historical) break between old covenant sabbath observance and new covenant worship.

AS AN ASIDE, it is commonly asserted that Calvin and other early reformers held to this "dominical" view. At least as far as Calvin is concerned (and Luther, with a slightly different twist), I think this holds true. Put differently, I think Gaffin is essentially right in his thesis that Calvin represents a via media. While Gaffin downplays the disparity between the reformer and Westminster on this point, he nonetheless acknowledges it. This is another reason why I wrote in the introduction to the book that the view "exegetically falls somewhere in between Arand and Pipa."

As an aside to this aside, Gaffin also argues that Calvin saw Rome as perpetuating a strict continuation of the old covenant sabbath. I forget what the literature concludes on this subject, but I do recall some of it highlighting the increasing sabbatarianism of the medieval church (e.g., Bauckham argues that starting in the sixth century pockets of legislative activity supporting Sunday sabbatarianism began appearing, until finally it became assumed practice by the late Middle Ages [From Sabbath to Lord's Day, 302–304]).

What I'm sure about is that there was increasing canonical enforcement of Sunday worship (and thus "servitude to another man," in Aquinas' words, was forbidden on the Lord's Day); what I don't think holds up, however, is the notion that it was "any day is as good as another" when it comes to the gathering of God's people before that, in the early church and in apostolic times. Gaffin's use of Rome as a foil is, I think, overstated. And, besides, criticizing High Middle Ages sabbatarianism is a bit ironic for a Westminsterian, don't you think?

Final aside: the "dominical" view is also necessarily an "ecclesiastical" view, because everybody that holds to some form of the dominical view, to varying degrees, grounds Lord's Day practice both in scripture (e.g., Jesus' resurrection on the first day of the week—as opposed the idea that the old covenant sabbath carries over into the new covenant) and church tradition (some of which is actually inscripturated).

1 Out of 7 Is Bad

2011-12-14T07:34:00.004-05:00

TWO MISTAKES accompany most discussions on gluttony. The first is that it only pertains to those with a less than shapely waistline; the second is that it always involves food. In reality, it can apply to toys, television, entertainment, sex, or relationships. It is about an excess of anything.

The ancient pagans got this right. At Delphi (in lower central Greece), the sanctuary of Apollo had inscribed upon it, wisely, “Nothing in Extremes.” The problem with this, of course, was that the judge of such excessiveness was the individual, whereas for followers of Christ it is the Creator God Himself. And we know His thoughts on this subject not because we fall into some kind of trance and speak his words—as the oracle at Delphi supposedly did—but because we have his Word to us. See, for example, Proverbs 23:1–3: “When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite. Do not desire his delicacies for they are deceptive food.” This is basically a warning to exercise self-control when faced with the extravagance of the ungodly rich who may seek to lure you into their way of thinking.

Sound familiar? Whose life, before Jesus was born, best illustrates this for us? Daniel was the one who sat at the opulent table and “resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food” (Dan. 1:8). Again, this same principle applies to any good thing that God has created. Surely we are to enjoy them (this is no call to rigid self-denial), but we are not to consume them with ravenous gluttony, demanding more from these simple pleasures than Spirit-filled prudence allows.

Prudence, by the way, is the opposite of gluttony. Prudence, in the sense of wise frugality or temperance, is the heavenly virtue that, according to the church fathers Chrysostom and Jerome, was severely lacking in Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden; indeed, so much so that due to their wild appetite they were cast out of Paradise, for they exalted themselves as the judges (much like the ancient Greeks and Romans) of what was excessive.

Gluttony, or a lack of moderation, also leads many of us to demand all things to be exactly the way we want them. A more subtle form of gluttony, this vice is not merely tolerated in churches today but acclaimed. It has become respectable. You’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who, as the old Romans did, desired so much pleasure that after eating a meal they purged themselves in order to eat some more. But a keen eye will notice in many quarters what we may call a gluttony of delicacy.

In his Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis describes this vice as it inflicts “the patient’s mother.” She is a “positive terror to hostesses and servants . . . always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sigh and a smile ‘Oh please, please . . . all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast.’” Lewis points out that because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognizes as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others. She will, in fact, “be astonished to learn that her whole life is enslaved to this kind of sensuality.” And it is this kind of gluttonous sensuality, Wormwood instructs Screwtape, that has as its chief use “a kind of artillery preparation for attacks on chastity.” On the battlefield, the artillery bombarded the enemy’s defenses to prepare the way for an incisive attack. As long as we are deadened to this in us (and the fact that this is seldom discussed among us doesn’t help), we will continue on our merry way and in the end be as astonished as the patient’s mother.

Along with this gluttony of delicacy is often found a tendency to demand too much from others, thus exasperating them to the point of withdrawal or anger. Friendships (to say nothing of the marital relationship) are true gifts from God, yet they too can be objects of gluttony. Having high expectations is one thing; having unrealistic expectations—demanding more from others (like from a child) than is appropriate—for the gluttonous pursuance of pleasure is another thing entirely.

But there’s good news. Gluttony, which is admittedly a matter of the heart, is nonetheless often limited by our bodies. If we eat in excess, many times our bodies let us know. If we are too fussy about having everything just so, we’ll be told to do it ourselves. If we demand too much from others, they will not want to be around us. And all these can serve as catalysts to change.

Thanks be to God, change is possible. By the power of his Spirit, we are enabled to pursue such changes, to practice self-control and a healthy dose of self-denial (hard for us Americans, to be sure).

We Christians have unthinkingly embraced our society’s desire “for just a little more” as we pursue our supposed main objective in life — upward mobility. But these are little more than the sanctified vice of gluttony; indeed, they are respectable sins.

{Part of this originally appeared in Tabletalk 32.5 (May 2008): 12–13}

Out of Africa?

2011-12-07T14:06:00.000-05:00

THOMAS C. ODEN'S How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the Seedbed of Western Christianity made its way across my desk more than two years ago, and I have been meaning to publish this short response to it. I remember at the time having my own personal list of books I wanted to read that year already "set in stone," so I resisted the urge. But it just sat there staring me, all short and interesting looking.

So I picked it up.

And I'm glad I did—though not because Oden makes an open-and-shut case for his thesis, which is, in a nutshell, stated in the title of the book itself. The book has indeed given me much to consider and remember when it comes to the magnanimous influence African churchmen have had on Western Christianity. Now, I'm not too familiar with Oden, only by way of his Justification Reader and a few of the Ancient Christian commentaries. He's not above sometimes chipping away the corners of a square peg, as a few reviewers of his Reader have noted. This short book is no different in that regard; one gets the sneaking suspicion that some conclusions have been slightly exaggerated. But Oden anticipates all this, which does his argument service.

The evidence for the thesis itself apparently became manifest to him (and others) during the course of his many years of work on the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. "We were not prepared for the breadth and power of this evidence," Oden writes. "Nowhere in the literature could we find this influence explained. Everywhere in the literature it seemed to be either ignored or resisted. It came only from decades of experience with African texts and ideas. Finally we learned to trace the path back from Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Nisibis and Rome to its origins in Africa" (p. 29). From this good report comes one of the more annoying features of the book, however. And that is Oden's penchant for seeming somewhat shrill in his brief and scattered diatribes against the neglect of his thesis over the past few generations of historical scholarship. But once you get used to those jarring interruptions, the easier it is to tune them out.

At its best, this short book does serve as an exhortation to be on the lookout for "European chauvinism" (p. 23), when the evidences for the history of the transmission of African Christian traditions have been largely ignored, when the movement of Christian thought headed north out of Africa instead of south into Africa.

Closer to Fine

2011-11-16T16:46:00.001-05:00

IF SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHIES disgust or madden or bore you, then you'll want to visit here another time. I usually don't read them, so I understand. It's well-nigh narcissistic to think others would want to read these kinds of details about one's own life.

Life. Nice segue. I'm trying to tell you something about my life / Maybe give me insight between black and white.

During that angst-ridden era of flannels, Camels, and Reality Bites, I found myself barely hanging on to some semblance of spirituality. This guy Jesus really existed a long time ago, but we couldn't be much surer about anything else. It took a few years after my "conversion experience" to get to this place, but it had been moving in that direction since the very night I wept at the end of the aisle. (The reason being, overemphasis on the experience of conversion by nature sets people up for failure—unless you're on the road to Damascus, I suppose.)

If I could put my finger on one particular moment I began noticeably to unravel, it was after saturating myself with the Renaissance humanists. Or, rather, it was after misconstruing the entire movement that we now call Christian humanism. In short, my puerile understanding and attempt to put into practice the ideals of this movement quickly devolved: the Christian part fell by the wayside and I was left with the humanist part alone. But the wages of humanism is death. (In a moment of perfect confluence, "Imagine" just came on the radio as I write this.)

Literature and music. Both play a key role in my spiritual development, which gets me to the point of this post.

During my early-to-mid 20s, the liner notes to Moby's Everything Is Wrong (Mute, 1995) became my manifesto. It had all the right mix of disdain for the Christian Right, support for environmentalist causes, social justice (for the poor and hungry), universalism, and syndicalism. This was the kind of stuff that preached to me. I rarely rolled out of bed on the Lord's Day. Music and literature, especially that which employed biblical allusions, remained my primary source of inspiration and discipleship.

Enter the Indigo Girls. While I haven't kept up with them that much since, nor did I rush out to buy everything they ever produced at the time, one particular album remained my daily bread in the mid 90s: the self-titled Indigo Girls (Epic Records, 1989).

Each track, in some way or another, seemed to describe my journey: "Secure Yourself"—choose your identity wisely, this world is dark, and the journey is long; "Kid Fears"—the juxtaposition of normal childhood fears versus those tragedies we sometimes hear about on the news; "Prince of Darkness"—a testament to family, friends and support systems in the face of diabolical forces that threaten to pull you under; "Blood and Fire"—all about the obsessive-compulsive, and thus dangerous, kind of love; "Tried to Be True"—faithfulness and compromise in the little choices you make everyday; "Love's Recovery"—the redemptive power of selfless love; "Land of Canaan"—the shame and pain and loneliness of unrequited love; "Center Stage"—through several allusions to historic nursery rhymes, we are given the exhortation to make our actions sure and to accept the consequences; and "History of Us"—a double entendre: make certain your story tells the tale of one who was present in every moment, who entered into the often pain-filled messiness of other's lives, who answered the call of the living God, before time makes history of you.

How did they do it? How did they sound so naturally a part of my world? Come to find out later that Amy Ray graduated Emory with a degree in English and religion, and Emily Saliers, who also went to Emory, is the daughter of Don Saliers, professor emeritus of theology and worship at Candler School.

My favorite was the album's opening song, "Closer to Fine" (read the lyrics). It struck all the right chords. It also became a favorite cover for the folk band I started (as a ploy to get my now wife to fall in love with me). In the first line (quoted in the second paragraph above), the singer sets the tone: seeing the world in blacks and whites alone avoids the issue. She needs help to see all the shades of gray (in order to realize that the answer lies in the seeking), and coming to grips with this leads "me [to] take my life less seriously" because "it's only life after all." In other words, relax. You're not expected to find all the answers.

Analyzing every lyric from this tune would turn this already long blog post into an unbearably long one. But at its core, this song sings of gaining stability through the awareness of instability—becoming "closer to fine"—in the face of the vertigo-like symptoms that result from the apparent relativity and confusion of life that appears in response to the search for something definitive, something black and white, from one source. Add to this the realization that that search is couched in an everyday life clearly dependent on its social construction, and seeking "solace in a bottle or possibly a friend" sounds about right.

These days, I've learned to be more critical—less gullible—when listening or reading. And I've certainly learned to cling to God's Word (enfleshed and spoken/written/tasted in the bread and wine and passed through in the waters of baptism) and thus seek more from this "source for some definitive." Nevertheless, I'm still a recovering progressive; I'm still a humanist ever-seeking for the Christian to gain ground. I'm still walking that "crooked line."

God Is Against Us, After All

2011-11-09T08:54:00.000-05:00

[This is part five in what I'm thinking will be an eight-part series.]

God is indeed against us. And how could it be other? In the face of genocide in Europe, Russia, Africa, the Balkans, or the south side of Chicago (for that matter), of child prostitution in southeast Asia, of the killing of untold millions on various battlefields of this earth — just in the last century, one cannot forever presume upon the kindness and mercy of God (once again, see Rom. 2:4).

One hardly needs to make the case that God is holy and just, that is, perfect and fair. His holiness is incomparable—no other gods even come close (Ex. 15:11). His throne room occupies the highest penthouse one can imagine (Isa. 57:15). And just like anything else that can be said about God, he doesn’t simply act holy or just, he is himself holy and just (Deut. 32:4). Given all this, surely he couldn’t be considered perfect and fair if he turned a blind eye to all the atrocities mentioned above. His faithfulness depends on it.

But it’s all too easy to point the finger at the likes of Auschwitz or Hiroshima. We’d do well to remember that we’ve all added to this mess. From the time of the disobedience and fall of Adam and Eve, sinfulness has been bequeathed to all their heirs (however that was done), and all their heirs have contributed their own share to it (Rom. 5:12). None of us escape this problem, at least not on our own.

We all reenact the same sin of the first pair too. In the garden, an open, honest and loving relationship with the creator was rejected for the supposed pleasure of making their own rules. It was a failed grasp at autonomy, to do things according to their own agenda, not God’s. In so doing, Adam and Eve betrayed their confusion: they thought they were God himself, rulers and sustainers of all that is. Being the pinnacle of God’s creation, they clung to that status and, indeed, became intoxicated with it.

We all do the same.

The result of this fall was that God cursed the serpent who deceived them (Gen. 3:14–15). He then cursed Eve, and thus all women, to suffer during childbirth (which childbirth, ironically, paved the way for the history of God’s unfolding plan of redemption) and to become profoundly alienated from her husband, especially through tedious power struggles in their relationship. Adam, of course, also receives these curses, along with every man related to him and who acts like him; there is indeed a cosmic significance attached to his sin (see, for example, Rom. 5:15–19). The earth, too, faced God’s judgment (Gen. 3:17–19):

You listened to your wife and ate the fruit which I told you not to eat. Because of what you have done, the ground will be under a curse. You will have to work hard all your life to make it produce enough food for you. It will produce weeds and thorns, and you will have to eat wild plants. You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed. You were made from soil, and you will become soil again.

And finally, they were both kicked out of Paradise (Gen. 3:23–24). God’s temple-garden had to be cleansed, protected—both acts that Adam failed to do. Upon seeing that old dragon he should’ve throttled it and wrestled it out of the garden. But in that crucial moment, he sat back, all lazy and careless like we men are wont to do.

Kahnweiler's Boon

2011-10-11T09:35:00.000-04:00

AS I MENTIONED in the last post, one painting in particular jumped out at me when I was last at the Institute. A little lie. Another one did too, but not as boldly. They're totally different from each other, though stylistically Chagall's White Crucifixion follows the trajectory of this one.

Picasso's Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1910) was the first to grab my attention. Kahnweiler was an important person in Picasso's life, not least because as an art dealer (he's also an under-appreciated art historian) he championed Pablo's new, 'radical' style (Cubism) and thus worked tirelessly to promote his and other's (almost always those who had no audience or collectors) works in his gallery in Montparnasse.

Picasso wrote of Kahnweiler, "What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn't had a business sense?"

What, indeed. Creatives would starve if not for the Kahnweiler's of this world.

In this portrait, the subject has been fractured into various planes and shapes, and is presented from several points of view. From flickering, partially transparent planes of brown, gray, black, and white emerges his upper torso, hands clasped in his lap. Typical of cubist art, Picasso, is inviting us to examine the figures and shapes that are broken down and recombined in totally new ways.

The reason this painting has stuck with me is hard to articulate, however. There's something slightly pensive about it, and, being the melancholic type, it spoke into my life and hasn't let go. I'm no art critic, so no doubt much more could be said about this piece. I am, however, an aspiring theologian, and, like all good theologians ought, I'm going to resist shape-shifting this into some pious point or another, but rather enjoy a little art for art's sake.

The Painter & the Painted

2011-09-23T12:42:00.003-04:00

AS I LEARN MY WAY around Chicagoland, one spot has become a semi-regular stop—the Art Institute of Chicago.

The last time I was there, one painting in particular jumped out at me—Chagall's White Crucifixion (1938). There's a couple of elements in this painting that have kept me thinking about it:

The first is the juxtaposition of the central figure—Jesus on the cross—with the surrounding images of Jewish oppression (from all over: Nazi Germany, Lithuania, and communists in Russia). Jesus the suffering Jew is thus shown to be in solidarity with the suffering Jews of history.

Thumbing his nose at the typical taken-for-granted notion (not by Jews, of course) that the cross of Christ represents Jewish oppression (a misconstrual of St. Matthew's "Crucify him!"), Chagall depicts Jesus' crucifixion as a symbol (if not one in a long line) of suffering and oppression against the Jews. This further reminds me of a passage from Moltmann's The Crucified God (one that, if I remember correctly, my old professor, John Frame, railed against once in class). The main quote itself actually comes from Auschwitz-survivor Elie Wiesel's Night:

The SS hanged two Jewish men and a youth in front of the whole camp. The men died quickly, but the death throes of the youth lasted for half an hour. “Where is God? Where is he?” someone asked behind me. As the youth still hung in torment in the noose after a long time, I heard the man call again: “Where is God now?" And I heard a voice in myself answer: "Where is he? He is here. He is hanging there from the gallows . . .."

"Any other answer would be blasphemy," Moltmann writes. "There cannot be any other Christian answer to the question of this torment" (pp.273–74). Love it or leave it.

The second aspect of this painting I wish to highlight (one that Chagall may not have had in mind but one to which Moltmann points), I believe, is the corollary to the first aspect—the cosmic or universal nature of the Messiah's atonement. That is to say, given the Christ's solidarity with all who suffer, God's Christ is the one through whom all can be rescued from the day of judgment. He is not the property of any one people group, not least those who would argue, like the elitist gnostics of yesteryear, that he was crucified and resurrected for them alone.

Incidentally, it also represents with the brush what theologians would increasingly articulate and emphasize with their pens: the Jewish roots of the Christian story (note that Jesus is wearing a tallit).

Finally, what I think Chagall succeeds in painting here is, in short, the gospel. Only suffering overcomes suffering. "Through his own abandonment by God, the crucified Christ brings God to those who are abandoned by God. Through his death he brings eternal life to those who are dying" (God Crucified, p. 47).

Christ the Center

2011-09-23T10:13:00.000-04:00

I FAILED TO POINT THIS OUT when it hit the podcast shelf back in August, so here's the link to Christ the Center's interview with me, Camden Bucey, and Jeff Waddington discussing Perspectives on the Sabbath.

As one commenter noted, "Doesn’t sound like you cleaned up the audio very much," to which Mr. Bucy replied, "You should hear the original recording." The moment provided some challenges, technology such as it is. But it was thoroughly enjoyable, and I hope you may find it the same.

New Job, Cut Me Some Slack

2011-08-08T11:27:00.001-04:00

I'll be around, but as I've just begun a new gig at Trinity International University (director of communications), things will be quiet here for a couple more weeks.

C.

Uncommon Grace: the Rain God

2011-07-25T11:21:00.001-04:00

Baal statuette
14-12th cent. BCE

I ONCE HAD A PROFESSOR who repeated a particular mantra throughout the course of his class on the first five books of the Bible: “Rain + Grain = Life.” His point was simple enough: in the tribal atmosphere of Canaan, the Israelite’s loyalty to the true God alone (see Deut. 6:4–5) would have constantly been challenged. But they needed to remember that their God (not Baal), was also the creator God. As such, he was the one who brought rain needed for grain, which, of course, was needed for sustaining life itself. Here we see how creation and promise-keeping are bound together: if God promised to Abraham that through him all the nations would be blessed (Gen. 26:4), then God was determined to sustain the family (Israel) through which that would happen (in other words, praying for rain was to 'remind' God of his promise).

Importantly, it wasn’t just the Israelites who received such kindness from God; everyone around got it too. The big difference (or ought to have been) was that God’s chosen people thanked him for such kindness. The same principle applies to us today, of course. One major difference between Christians and the rest of the world is (or ought to be!) the simple act of expressing gratitude to the one and only God, our utterly faithful Lord, for his kindness in giving us the things we take for granted everyday.

Such blessings even extend to the smallest details—like birds, lilies, and the hairs (no matter how few) on our heads (Matt. 6:26–30; 10:29–30). Hopefully, this doesn’t give us the picture of a really big and powerful meddler. Rather, I hope the picture is one of a really big, powerful and personal God, one who doesn’t so much meddle in the affairs of men as much as lead, in love, all creation toward his goal, which is, in brief, to fill his creation with his glory (Isa. 6:3).

This particular point, that God lovingly directs his creation for a purpose, to a destination, is often called God’s “government” of the universe. In Romans 8:18–21, the apostle Paul writes about how all creation can hardly wait for what is coming next. Both creation and the history of humankind are moving toward that end (or is it a beginning?), which, according to the author of Hebrews, is a big part of the Messiah’s work, to bring creation to that goal, for he is carrying the world from one point to another through time (Heb. 1:3).

This goal toward which all of creation is being driven, again, shows us that God’s continued kindness in sustaining the universe becomes something of a self-imposed necessity. After all, if his renewal plans for the cosmos include the cosmos, he’s going to have to sustain the cosmos until that day. It is as if God continually calls every moment into existence. “The creation of the world was completed . . . but its administration is perpetual, and God incessantly works in maintaining and preserving its order. . . . all things stand so long as the Spirit of God enlivens them, and they would immediately cease if they were deprived of his vigor” (John Calvin, 1536 Institutes 6.1). Creation, while certainly having a beginning, must also be thought of in terms of being continually sustained by the power and kindness of God.

This is not because, as we’ve already seen, that to keep the universe together is to keep God himself together. Remember, the two are separate, even if the creature is utterly dependent upon the creator for life. Stressing this distinction again also highlights the destiny for which all things were created—to be filled up with the glory of God—because currently it’s not. This stated purpose doesn’t mean the universe itself will become part and parcel of the triune God, but it does mean that God will be in everything, that his glory will fill his creation to the brim (see 1 Cor. 15:28).

God’s preservation of his creation reminds us simply of the fact that everything besides God needs him to survive. Without that intention, as mentioned in previous posts in this series, all the galaxies of the universe would be reduced to a heap of scrap.

*This is part four in what I'm thinking will be a six-part series.

Uncommon Grace: Good God

2011-07-20T13:50:00.000-04:00

IT SHOULD GO without saying that the creator of the universe exercises control over that universe. To be sure, he exercises that control in ways that are not so evident to the naked eye. Now, I don’t intend to suggest that “control” here means something close to “puppeteering,” but it ought to come as no surprise that the creator God has created the world with principles and laws that reflect his rule. Freedom may abound, but not outside the order with which he himself has gifted his universe. Consider the care of the earth, the rain that is needed for growth, the grain that is needed for life—we needn’t hesitate to ask such things from God and to give him credit when such things occur:

You show your care for the land by sending rain;
  you make it rich and fertile.
You fill the streams with water;
  you provide the earth with crops.
This is how you do it: you send abundant rain on the plowed fields
  and soak them with water; you soften the soil with showers
  and cause the young plants to grow.
What a rich harvest your goodness provides!
Wherever you go there is plenty. (Ps. 65:9–11)

God waters the mountains, the psalmist sings, so that the earth is supplied with plenty of water. He makes sure the hay grows for the livestock so that they can plow the hard ground. He calls forth the vines so that people can cultivate them and drink wine and be happy. Indeed, they’ll have “faces glowing with health, a people well-fed and hearty” (The Message, Ps. 104:13–15). This is, of course, not to deny the existence of such evils like flood, drought and famine; it is, however, to admit that the blessings of rain and feast are the rule, not the exception. God is happy to feed his creation (Ps. 135:5–7), giving us the blessing of ordinary seasons (Gen. 8:22) while keeping the tumultuous waves where they belong—in the sea (Jer. 5:22).

He does all these acts of kindness, and we’d be missing the point entirely if we became anxious over how much control he actually has, as if our lives are to be spent clenched in the dreadful anticipation that God is going to zap us at any moment. This principle actually applies across the board to everything that happens. Just because God acts on something does not mean that we humans are unable to simultaneously act on that same thing. The two are not opposed. God is no puppet master, and humans are not God. So long as we keep these two facts in mind, we might be less inclined to think God is out to get us.

His control ought to give us comfort. Why? Because God has said he is good: “My love is constant, and I do what is just and right. These are the things that please me. I, Yahweh, have spoken” (Jer. 9:23–24). These characteristics, in other words, are his trademarks; they’re what he’s known for, and he delights in those who practice them. No doubt, if the creator God were a God filled with hate, then we’d have much to fear (the wrong kind of fear, that is). But such is not the case. His control, his rule, is good because he himself is good.

*This is part three in what I'm thinking will be a six-part series.

Uncommon Grace: Creative Love

2011-07-06T10:39:00.007-04:00

WHEN GOD LOVINGLY and self-sacrificially assigned functions¹ to the cosmos, to the satellites, to the earth, its creatures, and its vice-regents in Genesis 1, he saw that it reflected his glory, that it was made for him and that therefore it was “very good.”

The act of creation was loving and self-sacrificial because God didn’t have to do it. This means that he was not coerced, either from without or within, to do so. It’s not the same as saying that God can still be God and not be faithful, for faithfulness is characteristic of who God is. He does what he says he’s going to do (he doesn’t have to say he’s going to do anything, of course) precisely because he is himself faithful. If he did not, then he would not be the God revealed to us in the Scriptures (Isa. 49:7; 1 Cor. 1:9; 1 Thess. 5:24).

But the same doesn’t apply to his creative act of calling the earth and all that is in it to fulfill the purposes he has planned. He could have done otherwise (like not create) and still remain God. So it is that creation itself was a free act of God, and as such, it was a gracious and kind act. Creation therefore has no claim on him; it can’t demand anything from him, nor does his deity, his “Godness,” depend upon the earth, the sky, the stars or anything else. This leads us to one more (hopefully obvious) point about the creation: it is not God.

God is not on one end, the holy end, of the spectrum, while his creation is at the other end. The two are distinct, yet creation depends upon God; indeed, all things exist “by his grace, his will, and his word . . . so that they can even cease to exist, if the creator so wishes” (Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.20). While good, the creation itself was nevertheless fashioned bearing the marks of transience. Now, that transience (like the decay of autumn and the new life of spring) itself points us to a further purpose for creation, which humans, according to Genesis, were to help bring about. (So much for that.)

The creator has his own characteristics that are his alone, and the same holds true for the creation (both of these come together, of course, in the God-man, the Messiah. See the Definition of Chalcedon for more about this). This Creator-creature distinction has the benefit of keeping us mindful of our place in this universe. God is in control; the creation serves him by serving its purpose.

In all of this, we must remember that it was the material world and the functions he assigned to it that the creator God was referring to when he called it good (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31); he is not as concerned with things that we cannot touch, taste, hear, see or smell as much as we might think. Proof of this is seen in the fact that God so loved the world, the groaning creation (Rom. 8:22) and all the fallen people in it—not wispy, ethereal shadows—that he sent his one and only son. In fact, we know from Revelation 21 (where the new Jerusalem descends to earth) that God’s plan doesn’t end with people dying and going to heaven, “graduating” to some spirit world with wings and harps on clouds. Rather, it ends in a glorious picture of bodily resurrection on a renewed and material earth.² This picture, this glimpse of future hope, is precisely why God continues to be kind to his world. He has plans for it.

This last point is important for a lot of reasons, not least because God’s act of creation was not an end in itself. It was one act, indeed—as it turned out—the first act, of God’s redemptive purposes. Such purposes are hinted at in the event of Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God’s commands. What happened when they disobeyed? The creator didn’t drop them—he didn’t kill them immediately like we would’ve thought (Gen 2:17, though they did die in one sense that day); he didn’t turn his back on them, nor did he discontinue his care and concern for the entire universe. Creation and redemption go together. But that’s getting ahead of what we need to look at next if we’re going to stop thinking that the Almighty is against us when life doesn't go our way: God’s providential care for the world. We'll take up this theme in the next part of this series.

———————
1. See John H. Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One (IVP Academic, 2009) for more on this idea of “created” as “assigned functions.”
2. See Cornelis P. Venema’s The Promise of the Future (Banner of Truth, 2000), pp. 454–88 and Tom Wright’s Surprised by Hope (HarperOne, 2008).

*This is part two in what I'm thinking will be a five-part series.

Even at the Close of the Year

2011-06-30T07:30:00.063-04:00

Even at the close of the year
the sun beat down, fighting

back cold bones. The girls
were playing on the north-side
of the lake when it crept in,
feeling good at first. Before long,
branches soon broke under their icy burden,
pre-shaping what spring would be:
heavy wheat fields overgrown with tares,
the ground never giving
the plow-blade its turn.

In June, more than our tools nearly broke
when the weed pressed against the grain—
fearful of the thresh and imminent fire.
We could only wait for the wheat to hold
(my reluctant conviction).

But the poor neighbors'
stubborn hands
took to action,
ripping the unwanted tares by the root,
confusing wheat for that bitter weed;
damaged irreparably, it suffered
the same fate.

By the beginning of Advent
at the close of that next year,
the lake,
slick-white,
drove the girls to dolls and tea indoors,
while I faced the empty farm, leaning,
arms crossed, hollow on my porch.

Uncommon Grace

2011-06-27T07:52:00.003-04:00

“Don't you have better things to do than pick on me?” —Job

Job's Complaint, William Blake (1793)

Some time ago, a well-established middle-aged man entered into what seemed to everybody around him like a curse. He was known for being an honest man, filled with integrity in all his dealings. His investments portfolio was strong; he had many resources, and much capital besides. Even more striking, he was a man of God. He was truly committed to him, so much so that he was not only mindful of his own holiness but for the holiness of others as well. In fact, he was known to intercede on behalf of his family, so concerned was he for their right standing before God.

But then his skies darkened—and all at once too. In no time, his investments had plunged, and his remaining surplus was spent on just staying afloat. Then the real tragedy struck. One evening, while his children and their friends were all gathered at his eldest son’s house, a tornado swept through town and completely flattened it. When the chaos had cleared, the extent of the horrors became clear: not one of his children had survived.

Despite all this, he remained, at least on the outside, steadfast. It wasn’t much longer, however, before his health began to give way. In time, the man could only wallow in his newly cursed life, fatigued as he was and unable to move because of the pain. A few friends ventured to visit him, to console him, to sit with him, to listen to him and, of course, to offer their advice. Some of it was good; some of it was bad (some of it was real bad). He became indignant. Believing in his integrity with which he followed God, he began to wonder just what had gone wrong. He began to seek his day in court, as it were, with the great judge himself. Anger began to creep in, until one day he looked up (to God) and said, “Why are people so important to you? Why pay attention to what they do? You inspect them every morning and test them every minute. Won’t you look away long enough for me to swallow my spit? Are you harmed by my sin, you jailer? Why use me for your target practice? Am I so great a burden to you?” (Job 7:17–20).

At one time or another, we all face trials. Call them what you will—unexpected deaths, heartbreak, depression, financial instability, sheer discontentment. Almost equally universal is our penchant—whether we’re Christian or not—to think that God is against us when painful experiences come our way. We think that there's a big, cosmic bully up there stepping on our backs and spitting in our faces, that he has made it his priority to pick on us (as Job thought). Put another way, we’re thinking that God doesn’t love us.

But despite all appearances at times to the contrary, such is not the case, and those who are united to Christ, who have been baptized and confess with their mouths and believe in their hearts that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead (Rom. 6:1–14; 10:9), of all people ought to know and practice this reality. The fact that we don’t tells us a lot of things—about our thoughts, lives, churches and society. In reality it just shows us that “the world is too much with us” (as William Wordsworth wrote in his poem of the same name).

Thinking that God doesn’t love us when trials come simply won’t do, especially since, at least in one important sense, God loves everything he has created. In seeking to undo such misguided, knee-jerk reactions to life’s trials, we might as well start with the first act in recorded history: the creation of the earth (which we'll look at in the next post in this series). In it, we see God’s beneficence, or kindness, toward everyone and everything.

*This is part one in what I'm thinking will be a five-part series.

10-Minute Spill

2011-06-20T08:44:00.003-04:00

Fr. Henri tapped on my window earlier
than usual this morning, which means he
probably skipped or kept short his intercessions.
Just as the dawn broke light on the world
and reached the sharpened pencil on my study table,
the old prior shuffled inside, wearing,
oddly enough, an orange waistcoat.

“But it’s St. Patty’s Day!”
My laughter was met with a mutter:
“I lost a bet.”

There's No Turning Back?

2011-06-15T06:52:00.000-04:00

YOU KNOW THAT OLD CLICHÉ, "There's no turning back"? You know how in almost every circumstance when it's employed that it's not exactly true? More often than not, it's a cop-out, used when we've stepped in a steaming pile and subsequently refuse—out of pride and stubbornness—to clean off our shoe and turn around.

It has its origins in the "die is cast" metaphor/cliché, which was apparently coined by Julius Caesar in 49 BC to describe a military move into Italy across the river Rubicon, which he knew would give rise to a conflict that he must then win.

I faced such a conflict once—in the middle of the High Peaks Region of the Adirondack Mountains. Turning back was as equally dangerous as going forward, but with the added displeasure of defeat. In October 2007 I was playing the best man in a cousin's wedding in the Cascades, after which a small group of moderate hikers (myself included) made our way west to Phelp's trailhead from the small town of Keene Valley. What follows are a few journal entries from that trip.

18 October 2007
Camp. Shoulder of Mts. Basin and Saddleback,
Adirondack, New York.

I've seen the most spectacular vistas this day; I've also accomplished the most challenging hike of my life. From Slant Rock, we hiked up Mt. Marcy. It was a moderate hike, and it took most of the morning. After lunch, we then caught a spur up Little Haystack (overlooking Panther Gorge) and then on to Mt. Haystack, ascending some 400 feet with a few near vertical pitches (the so-called "Devil's Half Mile"). We climbed with our packs on (average weight about 40 lbs.). I don't recommend this (turns out, neither does the guidebook).

After reaching the summit, we immediately began our descent to the foot of Mt. Basin via the State Range Trail, with hopes of finding some water, since we were running out of both it and light. This descent (part of which we had just ascended) was the hardest and dangerous hike of my life, not least because of the burden on my back. The most nerve-racking part was the single-foot width path along a ledge that simply . . . vanished. Mt. Basin's peak was our third for the day, which I also don't recommend attempting, what with the shape we were in. By the final descent to the pocket below my legs were shaking from the strain. Finally, we entered the shoulder—battered, bruised and exhausted, and with no water!

For now: Sleep. Tomorrow: Saddleback, and then on to child's play.

It wasn't until we set up camp and I consulted the trail book, however, that I realized what was "comin' round the mountain." The next entry, which I wrote on the flight home, chronicles our final day.

As expected, we awoke around 6:45 on the 19th. All night the wind had been howling, spitting constantly with a rattle above our heads on the tent roof. I wondered how it was that our tent wasn't lifted up, the wind as furious as it was. That, coupled with my fear of climbing in such weather and the guidebook's warning: "Turning L at the end of the ledge, the trail descends [we ascended, coming from the west] precipitously over ledges where extreme caution is needed"
—made for a restless night. To be honest, it bordered on anxiety with intermittent fits of panic. I worried about someone in the group getting hurt; I worried about myself; I worried about slick, iced-over rock; I worried about the paralyzing fear that can overtake someone on a precipitous ledge; I just worried.

But in the end, it was for naught. It's hard to describe—climbing ledges where a single slip meant death; climbing such ledges as an inexperienced climber with a backpack on—but it was every bit as precipitous as you'd imagine. The wind continued to push and the rain pelted our faces and made the rock slippery. It was stupid or brave. Perhaps both?

Of course, all this blather is relative to my experience. Were I a seasoned climber, I'd probably laugh at the drama. But it's drama we all experienced—together. We learned very little at the top of each summit; the mountainsides taught us the most. The hike ended thus:

Reaching Saddleback's summit in about an hour and a half, we saw nothing but fog and mist and decided to move on quickly before the weather worsened. Our descent took about the same time, but it was mostly hiking with less climbing involved. We had been out of water since the previous night. I spared a gulp for everyone when we reached the summit, as B.P_____ had done for us that morning. Every muddy puddle looked delicious. At around 10:45 a.m., we hiked down to the headwaters of the Orebed (now on the Orebed Brook Trail), and gorged ourselves with water and Ramen Noodles. From there, we made our way to Johns Brook and stuck close to it on the Southside Trail, one that offered magnificent views of the rapids and popping yellow and auburn leaves that lined its banks. After hopping a few rocks (thankfully, the water wasn't too high), we walked out of the woods earlier than expected—Friday evening instead of Saturday midday—on account of foregoing the climb up Gothics and putting our LORD God to the test.

So, that night we hobbled into the Ausable Pub & Inn, and, enjoying the food and ale, we decided to stay at this trustworthy establishment for the night. Therewith we proceeded with much mirth and merriment.

I'm sure there's a few devotional points embedded in this story somewhere, but I'll let the reader figure those out. All of these photos were taken with a junky point-and-shoot Sony Cypershot. Click on an image to get up close and personal.

Atop Mt. Marcy

Marcy Men: B.P., K.S., C.D., C.O.

A fairly typical climb—but not one of the steepest by a long shot

Random barn

Our walk out, flanked by the rushing brook on our left and wrapped in golden yellow

Photography Friday (7)

2011-06-10T16:27:00.000-04:00

MAYBE IT WAS OUR VENTURE onto the island of Mykonos that led me to tack on a few visual escapades from a couple of other Greek isles next: Santorini and Rhodes. My usual intent is to mix it up a little more than this, say, from a paradaisical island to the horrors of Buchenwald. Perhaps subconsciously (and now quite consciously) I don't want to go anywhere near that stuff today.

We'll start with Rhodes, as I only have two from our stop there. There's a remarkable acropolis atop the ancient city of Lindos that has a killer vista of the coastline and the sea beyond (facing east). From there I offer five more photos from the eye-candy isle of Santorini (notably revealing my obsession with doors and facades).

One of the more memorable bits of tid about Santorini was the fact that water is a precious commodity on the island, and so they conserve it religiously. A glass of Vin Santo is often poured in its stead. I suppose it could be worse. As is typical, all of these photos were taken on a Canon AE-1 with E100VS (slide film). Click on an image to get a closer look.

A side shot of the Doric temple of Athena (the entrance is around the corner to the right),
the dominating feature of the acropolis in Lindos, which was completed in 300 BC.

With my back to the temple, I snapped this shot of the horseshoed Lindos Beach,
aka St. Paul's Bay. I think only the tour guides call it this, because there's no evidence
that the apostle stopped here on his way to Patara in 51 AD (see Acts 21:1). Given that the
city of Rhodes was a hopping place in those days, it seems more likely that
the travelers would've stopped there.

To my immediate left and down the rock face exists a cave where The Guns of Navarone was filmed.

A cool brick facade and door in Santorini's principal city, Fira.

The red pops against the white wall and the blue Aegean, doesn't it? I think on
the other side of this door were stairs leading to a house's entrance.

One of the many (understatement) chapels that dot the island, though this one
was bigger and stood alone (most are attached to houses).

There's something about this palette of colors . . .

Here's a view of a part of Fira across a collapsed volcanic caldera (Santorini is
essentially what remains of an enormous volcanic explosion that tore apart a
single island around 3,600 years ago), with a cool tilt-shift effect
added by me in Photoshop.

This Pornographic Life

2011-06-07T12:43:00.004-04:00

YOU'VE DONE IT AGAIN. Once more, you find yourself looking where you ought not. And this you have willfully done. You’ve begged God to remove this blight, these gross desires. You even made some headway. But you’ve gone off and done it again. Forget confession, God doesn’t want to hear that same old prayer, especially not when you know you’ll be breaking your commitment before long. But wait, maybe God doesn’t care that much about all this? After all, he made you; he knows your natural desires, he knows what you need. Why would he make you this way and get all worked up when you act on it? It’s not that big of a deal if done in moderation; he doesn’t think you need to confess.

Well, you couldn’t be further from the truth—on both counts.

It's well known that marriages fall apart at an alarming rate these days. Challenges come from all sides, not least from within. Our failure to recognize that life is not about feeling happy but about bringing glory to our God starts us off in the direction toward marriage FAIL, and a great deal of the way is paved by our collective addiction to pornography.

A quick glance reveals a few surprising statistics from 2010:

89% of porn is created in the United States
Close to $3 billion in revenue was generated from U.S. porn web sites
$3,000 per second is spent on porn
72% of porn viewers are men
The average age a child first sees porn is 11
There are 116,000 searches for "child pornography" every day

This, of course, doesn’t take into account the sex industry as a whole, which topped at around $5 billion. In the case of the internet, this means that any and all types of pornography can be easily accessed, with spouses none the wiser—in this case, mostly wives. For those not willing to pay for such thrills, the number of free sites is equally staggering. All of this amounts to the ruin of the marital relationship—in the case of single men and women, before it even comes into fruition. (For those who want their heads to spin with more stats, here's a 19-page .pdf.)

There was a time when pornography was a luxury reserved for the upper echelon, and there was a time, more recently, when one had to drive to a sleazy part of town, walk into a certain section in the video store, or ask the clerk behind the counter in order to find pornography. It was public. But no longer. All that has changed. Everyone can afford it now, and in the privacy of one’s home too. And even though there are many “free” web sites out there, the cost is never free, for the toll it takes is destruction itself.

The reason for this is simple, and scripture speaks to it clearly. When the creator God commanded Adam and Eve to take care of his earth, part of that calling involved sexual intimacy (Gen. 1:28). Indeed, because woman was “taken out of man,” a man therefore “shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:23–24). Holding fast, or cleaving, unites them as they become one. At the least, this involves sexual intimacy, and it provides a wonderful picture of God’s covenant commitment to his people as well. It ought not surprise us, then, that upon breaking God’s command Adam and Eve became ashamed of their nakedness (Gen 3:7).

From the narrative of Genesis to the poetry of Solomon’s Song, we see that God has created and values sexual intimacy within the context of marriage. Saint Paul also assumes as much in 1 Corinthians 7:2–5 when he writes of the mutually satisfying and God-glorifying intimacy between husband and wife, which models the very love Christ has for his bride. But all that can be trashed in moments. This is why the use of pornography is so dangerous—it’s an act of hatred toward the spouse, toward the community of believers, toward the very God who has called us to covenantal commitment.

Like any addiction, it requires more from us the more we use it, which is why it cannot be dealt with alone, nor can it be ignored once confession has been made. Slaves are not freed on their own. Confession, repentance, accountability, openness with the spouse, and counseling must come into the equation. There is no quick fix for this, just as there are no quick fixes for the killing off of our sin in its entirety. Only through the everyday, rote, pursuance of the healing power of God’s grace—in participation with other believers—can we avail ourselves to this cause.

It's bigger than you too. The eyes into which you've looked into for six minutes or so could be the eyes of a desperate, manipulated, or outright trafficked human being. You never know. Why feed it?

This pornographic life must begin on our knees, agonizing over what God would have us do to deepen our love for him, for our spouses, for our fellow believers, and, finally, for a world that hates the one, true God, and us, by flaunting its twisted view of sex in our faces, in our children’s faces, and in the face of our God, the Creator.

{Part of this originally appeared in Tabletalk 32.3 (March 2008): 24–25}

{Update: found a helpful infographic for your viewing displeasure}

Two Cheers for Existentialism

2011-05-31T08:55:00.005-04:00

ONCE UPON A TIME, I was reading Jürgen Moltmann (I believe it was God in Creation) wherein he wrote in passing on his way to some point or another how the only serious atheists were the likes of Sartre and Camus. I remember being somewhat surprised at this, mainly because the two folks mentioned were also the most enthusiastic and consistent existentialists; I daresay they have no competition even today. At any rate, I decided to re-read The Stranger, as well as portions of Being and Nothingness (though I can only read philosophy in small chunks separated by periods of both being and nothingness), and I was quickly reminded of why atheists such as these ought to be taken seriously: they almost got it right.

The first cheer for this brand of atheistic existentialism comes because it recognizes the absurdity of life and the universal desire of humanity to attain authenticity nonetheless. In Voltaire’s Candide, for example, the characters face the meaninglessness of life (embodied in Leibniz’s “metaphysical optimism”) by doing the authentic—ending up where they started, working in their gardens. Throwing off such naivety and exhibiting real human resilience was for Voltaire the authentic existence.

That life is absurd hardly needs much support. The radical contingency of this world is everywhere evident. The star philosopher of the ancient Near East, Qoheleth (the Preacher), conveys this through his incessant use of the leitwort (an intentional use of a word over and over again to highlight a theme within a text), hebel: “Life is useless, utterly useless” (Ecc. 1:2b). But despite this absurdity, the Preacher still calls on the individual to an authentic existence: “Have reverence for God, and obey his commands . . .” (Ecc. 12:13a). Thus for all who take this text seriously, God is stable, all else is uncertain. The parallel here is clear. Just as the existentialist would have us throw off the shackles of non-definition, non-essence, so too are we who know God to be separated from the world by fearing God and keeping his statutes, thus defining ourselves by our actions in the present. Put differently, as the meaning unfurls, it unfurls correlative to the application. Action dictates meaning. Ironically, both for the existentialist and the Christian, freedom comes as a result of throwing off the universe. What that universe is, of course, would be hotly debated.

The second cheer for this brand of existentialism comes because it recognizes our freedom to make moral choices, as well as puts responsibility of a particular action squarely on the shoulders of the individual who performed it (a fact the language of pop-Christian culture does everything in its power to negate). In other words, the only people we have to blame for the atrocities in the history of this world are we ourselves. Seeing that society and reality are in a reciprocal relationship (Providence not precluded), this point should not be too hard to assume. What the concept of “bad faith” is to Sartre, the doctrine of human responsibility is to the Christian (to pretend something is necessary when in fact it is voluntary). In the midst of an often intolerant culture, true Christian authenticity comes by standing for the Word of truth despite the consequences. Hiding behind socio-cultural roles, mores, and norms is indeed a move in “bad faith.” For example, the judge who administers capital punishment because “the law requires it,” while at the same time being convicted of its moral reprehensibility, has become the ultimate imposter. He is no human, after all. The choice to take the bench and resign before the sentence is given had always been an option.

Ministers and church leaders ought to take note of this. Too often, we find ourselves relinquishing the high-ground for the sake of expedience or because “this is the way it has always been done” (“always” almost always referring to the past two or three generations). Can we all not think of at least one action within the practice of the church that is taken for granted (and would be better left off)?

Man is radically free to choose, and he is responsible for the effects this choosing has on others (the very possibility of "bad faith" exposes the reality of freedom). To be sure, it is a dreadful freedom; one that we cannot shirk; one that sits heavily on our shoulders every day—how we work, vote (or not), worship, eat, etc.—freedom such as this reminds us that every time we complain we are in part complaining about ourselves. Every time we bemoan practical atheism in the American church, of not taking the challenge of Jesus seriously, we must see that we are part of that problem. Every time we choose expedience over loving God totally and our neighbors as ourselves, we treat ourselves and others as objects, sighing (in self-justification) at the inevitability of the decision we have made in light of our pasts and stations in this life.

What stands in the place of a final cheer is a jeer. Existentialists like to harp on autonomy, as if such a thing existed. Sartre’s authentic man simply trades in one lie for another. Even when this so-called authentic character does something completely out of character, the action itself has no weight, no basis (and indeed, it baselessly values that “authentic” action). He or she has done it for entirely irrational reasons—reasons, I might add, that have been shaped by the culture at-large (which, ironically, relativizes the relativizers). This is the same for the believer, and especially for the modern American Christian. The herd mentality has taken over. And this is “bad faith” in the extreme. In the end, maybe we are not free at all. And thus the choice we have to face is, to what will you be chained?

As Bob Dylan sang, “You Gotta Serve Somebody.”

The Logical Order of Things About Which We Know Next to Nothing

2011-05-23T10:40:00.001-04:00

Augustine (6th c. fresco)

THERE HAVE BEEN, at times, moments of expected flack since I’ve outed myself as a single predestinarian. At worst it’s deemed a belligerent betrayal, at best with a wink and a nod it’s seen as a defect—often in intelligence. Not too long ago, a dear friend approached me quite concerned about not having vocalized my thoughts on this subject to him or others near to me (he did this for all the right reasons; we all should be so lucky to have at least one friend who cares to this extent), also suggesting my thinking has changed on this issue. With my typical smug chuckle, I didn’t offer any explanation one way or the other—but I thought there wasn’t much of a point when it’s a presumed fact that the breadth of the Reformed tradition excludes single predestination.

But the truth is, my thinking hasn’t changed at all. Over the years, I’ve only become more convinced that single predestination is most faithful to scripture. And I’ve only ever been an Anglo-Lutheran, two traditions that established single predestinarian views early on in their respective histories (the 39 Articles and the Book of Concord). Nevertheless, had I taken the full plunge into Presbyterianism (and I have been a member of two Presby churches—liturgical anomalies that they were), I would still be rooted deeply within the Reformed tradition as a single predestinarian. Why is it that some of the most strident defenders of Calvinian double predestination have chosen to be dismissive of their own tradition’s history on this front? Part of the answer lies in the fact that they’ve likely received the tradition from Henry Cole and Loraine Boettner (both of whom treated the double predestinarian views of Calvin and Zanchius as representative, if not determinative, of the entire tradition), and not from the historic Reformed confessions. There are of course others—more recent and even living proponents of this kind of thinking—but in most instances it can be traced back to Cole and Boettner.

Thomas Aquinas (Fra Angelico)

Incidentally, it’s this kind of thinking that creates a world in which single predestinarian views are best kept secret. When anything other than double predestinarian views are espoused and they’re treated like a betrayal or a defect of the Reformation heritage, it’s no wonder that the ‘misfits’ will keep their mouths shut. Modern fundamentalism is nothing if not fickle. And this is the reason it’s worth writing about today: No longer ought the unnecessary narrowing of the tradition prevail on this score. Single predestination is as Reformed, if not more classically Protestant (and, indeed, ancient), than double predestination. It has on its side Scripture, tradition, and not a few of the sixteenth-century Reformed confessions. In our current milieu, it behooves single predestinarians to actively—yet patiently and graciously—remind our brothers and sisters of the breadth of their heritage.

When it comes to the doctrine of election, it is at its best a “consolatory” doctrine (I’m borrowing the term from Ken Stewart here, though he doesn’t make a judgment call on this issue in Ten Myths About Calvinism, and I have no idea where he stands—single or double), which means that the doctrine’s primary import has to do with the “foundation of the church and the anchor of the Christian life” (Ten Myths, 50). It isn’t concerned with speculating about how God’s predestinating people to life relates to those who finally reject the gospel. It instead chooses to say in biblical terms, as Bullinger did, that the ground of condemnation of the ungodly was “because of their own sin and guilt, because they had not received the savior” (ibid., 58).

Heinrich Bullinger (Hans Asper)

With these parameters around the doctrine of election, let’s add a few Reformed confessions to the mix. The 39 Articles (art. 17) I’ve already mentioned, but even more important to Presbyterians and the Reformed, however, are those documents that sprang up on the continent (both Germany and Switzerland). In this regard, read the following: Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 54; Belgic Confession, art. 16; and the Second Helvetic Confession, chap. 10. Add to this the Scots Confession, chap. 8.

These documents, all of which are witnesses of no small stature, were composed before the more vocal remonstrance to the Reformation/Augustinian doctrine of election that arose in the seventeenth century. The importance of this fact is that dissenting views, which clearly aligned themselves with the Reformed movement, cropped up from the very beginnings of the Reformation. They are not contrary to Calvin’s doctrine of predestination (unlike the Five Articles of the Remonstrants) but are simply at variant with him (and, e.g., Zanchius, Beza, Perkins), in that none of them go as far as he did in articulating a decree of reprobation. Naturally, these various views were espoused by people who had already held to them before they jumped ship from Rome (Ten Myths, 63). Again, no surprise there, given that single predestination is the historic position of the (Western) church (another post for another time; but see, e.g., the conclusion of the canons of the Council of Orange). Stewart wisely warns: “When this pre-Arminian dissent against predestination as Calvin articulated it is acknowledged, it prevents us from so easily treating dissenters with impatience or exasperation” (ibid.).

So, then, what do you think—is there a Truly Reformed™ position when it comes to single or double predestination?

Before you answer that, read a couple of Reformed statements that were written in the middle of seventeenth-century Arminian dissent—the Canons of Dordt, head 1, art. 15; and the Westminster Confession 3.3, 7.

Maybe the better question is: In which direction do the Reformed confessions lean? How hard do they lean?

Land of the Lost: Nutshell

2011-05-19T09:04:00.004-04:00

THE TIME HAS COME for the last post about John Walton's Lost World of Genesis One. [update: Walton's expanded edition on this subject hits the shelf this October—Genesis One as Ancient Cosmology.]

According to Walton, a responsible reading of Genesis 1:1-2:3 will approach the text as ancient literature, not modern science. In so doing, we will understand that the author's original intent was "far different from what has been traditionally understood" (p. 162)—not least since the days of flood geology. The original intent has to do with the functions of the cosmos (why it was created) as opposed to the material structure of the cosmos (how it was created). Walton calls the ancient view of creation the "cosmic temple inauguration view." This means that the events of Genesis 1 describe how "the cosmos was given its functions as God's temple, where he has taken up his residence and from where he runs the cosmos. This world is his headquarters" (ibid.).

The Genesis 1 account can therefore be seen as a literal seven-day inauguration period of the cosmos, in which God set up its functions for the benefit of humanity (key point), "with God dwelling in relationship with his creatures" (p. 163). We cannot, on the basis of Genesis 1, object to any description scientists offer as to how the universe came to be (we can object, but we can't use the biblical text to do so). Walton thinks then that any view proposed by scientists that is deemed substantial can be met with, "Fine, that helps me see the handiwork of God." This includes biological evolution, but we must keep in mind that it's teleological, that is, evolution with a purpose, as opposed to standard neo-Darwinism. Seeing evidences of design in the material world should therefore come as no surprise.

Do you jive with this reading? Why or why not?

At once, for those of us concerned that all of Scripture be accurate no matter what topic it touches upon, we're met with this dilemma: if the ancients held certain views of creation that touch upon how God created, and these views were naturally a part of the thinking of the author of Genesis 1, then wouldn't Genesis 1 be teaching something false regarding how God created? Granted the focus may be on functional origins, but is it really true that there is no information whatsoever being conveyed, or at least assumed, about how God created? In order to protect the infallibility of Scripture (at least how the doctrine's articulated today), we have to say that the text does not, in any way, convey anything about material origins (which Walton does). The author of Genesis 1 could assume (and did, naturally so) false scientific information without writing it down, and thus the Spirit protected God's Word from error.

Does our doctrine of Scripture have to change in order to accommodate this "cosmic temple inauguration view"? Does Walton want to have his (layered) cake and eat it too?

Review of Perspectives on the Sabbath

2011-05-13T13:00:00.000-04:00

Andy Naselli provides a brief review of Perspectives on the Sabbath, wherein he highlights some of the elements that make the book "an excellent example of how different views use different hermeneutical approaches and theological methods." Check it out.

Land of the Lost, part 11

2011-05-11T12:20:00.004-04:00

"ON THE BASIS OF THE VIEW THAT Genesis 1 is a discussion of functional origins," Walton writes, "we may now tackle the question of what is appropriate in the classroom" (p. 153). If you've been following along, you'll remember that Walton removes from the interpretation of Genesis 1 the possibility that it says anything about material origins (i.e., how the cosmos was created); it instead speaks of the world's functional origins (i.e., why the cosmos was created). As such, and as we saw in part 9 of this series, "whatever explanation scientists offer in their attempts to explain origins, we could theoretically adopt it as a description of God's handiwork" (p. 132). One important question thus remains for Walton: What is acceptable to teach regarding the purpose of the universe in a public school science class? Answer: nothing. Why? Because teleology is beyond the scope of science (see part 7, Prop. 13, for more on this).

Proposition 18: Public Science Education Should Be Neutral Regarding Purpose

Empirical science is, by definition, based on methodological naturalism (i.e., it necessarily brackets the metaphysical, because such is not verifiable one way or the other with the tools of empirical science).

Empirical science is focused on descriptions of the world's origins that are falsifiable, and thus their strengths and weaknesses are to be acknowledged (evolution, as well as any other origins theories, included).

Empirical science is, by definition, agnostic (i.e., neutral) regarding purpose. It is not designed to be able to define purpose (or no purpose), even though (theoretically) it may be able to deduce rationally that purpose is logically the best explanation. This therefore precludes Genesis 1, metaphysical naturalism (atheism), and design theories from empirical science classes.

According to Walton, the answer to the fact that many biology teachers (for example) teach as fact dysteleology (i.e., no purpose, metaphysical naturalism) is not to introduce metaphysical supernaturalism or a teleological description of origins into the science class. Young-earth, old-earth, and Intelligent Design theory posit precisely this, and are thus outside the scope of empirical science, which science is supposed to be taught in such classes.

The answer to the problem of science teachers overstepping their bounds is to call them and their administrators to the mat, by (1) demanding they maintain teleological neutrality to the best of their ability; (2) demanding that publishers of curricula maintain the same and that administrators select curricula based on this demand; (3) demanding that administrators introduce philosophical curricula—in which various metaphysical options can be considered—to the lineup.

Christian too have to come to terms with a few things, namely, (1) Quit trying to impose their own teleological views on public science education; and (2) thus quit pressing the Scriptures into service in public education (especially since it doesn't offer a description of how God created the material world).

This raises one final issue, which serves as a supplement to Walton's views here regarding the nature of science and what is or is not helpful to teach, by definition, in a classroom that purports to teach one of the empirical sciences. It has to do also with the nature of the kingdom of God, and whether or not it's to be construed as two kingdoms or one. If the latter, as theonomists are wont to do, then the first point in the above paragraph will be abhorrent (as is the very idea of public schools, of course). Imposing their particular beliefs on society at large is precisely what many of them advocate. If one holds to the former (a two-kingdoms construct), then these suggestions will come as no surprise; the kingdom of man, understood to be under the rule of the kingdom of God and his Christ, is nevertheless not equivalent to the kingdom of God. The two will remain at odds until the king's return (how much at odds, I believe, is up to the church and its commitment to God's mission, i.e., the Great Commission).

One more thought: if a person holds to both (1) a two-kingdoms model of this age and the Commission and (2) any kind of creationism that thinks the Bible teaches something about material origins isn't an inconsistency immediately brought to fore? I mean, if a two-kingdomite agrees that you got to keep 'em separated (church & state, and thus teleological theories & empirical science), what does that person do if she believes that the Bible mandates certain scientific views about material origins? Wouldn't said views therefore necessarily need to be included in any discussion regarding origins taking place in the public school science class?

Land of the Lost, part 10

2011-05-04T11:49:00.000-04:00

IF MAKING SENSE of the creation narrative in light of other portions of Scripture, ancient Near-Eastern contexts, and the relationship between science and faith isn't enough, Walton further argues, in his next proposition, that the theology produced in this construct is formidable—less shallow—than the resulting theology in competing views (not sure exactly which view he has in mind here, but my guess is young-earth creationism). It does nothing to weaken the picture of God (particularly his sovereignty and glory) laid out in Scripture.

Proposition 17: Resulting Theology in This View of Genesis 1 Is Stronger, Not Weaker

In contrast to pushing God to the periphery in the pursuit of understanding the natural mechanisms of the cosmos, when science is seen (presuppositionally) to give definition to what God is doing and how he is doing it, we regain a healthier view of his role in everything.

The one, triune God is the creator—past, present, and future. Creation is not merely an historical act that took place in the past but an ongoing act that occurs when every baby is born, every plant grows, every cell divides, and every nebula forms.

We live in a world of functions, which is the result not merely of physical structures but of God's creative purposes. This strongly counters materialistic naturalism, unlike other creation views that give priority to material creation over against functional creation. "The Bible considers much more important to say that God has made everything work rather than being content to say God made the physical stuff" (p. 144). The purpose of creation, the most important part, incidentally, is located and observed in the functional, not the material.

When the "natural world" is rightly conceived as God's "cosmic temple," things change. We gain perspective and an appreciation for "sacred space." If there were ever an ecological impetus, it's found here. The world is not ours to exploit; we are its stewards. Its resources are, properly speaking, sacred—not natural.

Adopting the view that Genesis 1 has to do with functional creation rather than material creation tweaks our understanding of the sabbath and the rest it commands (of course this line of thought interests me, since I've edited a book on this subject).
"Sabbath isn't the sort of thing that should have to be regulated by rules. It is the way that we acknowledge that God is on the throne [upon which he sat on the seventh day of assigning functions to his creation], that this is his world, that our time is his gift to us. . . . If the sabbath has its total focus in the recognition of God, it owuld detract considerably if he had to tell us what to do. Be creative! Do whatever will reflect your love, appreciation, respect and awe of the God of all the cosmos. (This is the thrust of Isa 58:13–14.)" (p. 147)

God's creative work has established order in the cosmos just as he has established order in society and in all other areas. Wisdom is aligning/conforming oneself with that order.

While the world is God's place, he has tailored to humanity's needs (not his, for he has none). Contra most ANE cosmologies, we are not slaves to God, and against modern materialism, we are not mere physical forms having no purpose other than to survive. We have a privileged role in the functioning of his cosmic temple.

Creation being "good" (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31) makes the best sense in this construct. It is not a moral good so much as a functional good. We ought not therefore look for moral goodness in the cosmos, as if it consistently reflects God's attributes (cf. Job 38). The created world has never been "fair." Gravity is not just; it rains upon the righteous and unrighteous, even when no one's around (cf. Job 38:25–27).

Remembering God's Grace

2011-05-02T11:05:00.001-04:00

FOR MANY OF US, at the beginning of our Christian journeys, we thought of and spoke often about the radical forgiveness of a God who has been greatly sinned against. I remember myself going on and on about God’s longsuffering and patience, and how grateful I was for it. I also recall having conversations with friends who did not convert out of a debauched past, who had never known a time they didn’t consider themselves Christian.

Some were a bit dispirited about not being able to share in such supposedly illustrious conversion experiences. I’d always say to be grateful for that. Possibly knowing of God’s mercy in a more intimate way than a few others doesn’t eradicate the ramifications and reality of the past. And besides, whatever heightened sense of the grace of God great sinners possess almost always deteriorates over the years. In other words, I don’t go on and on about God’s longsuffering and patience these days; I’m more likely to go on and on about how longsuffering and patient I am, or so I think, the fool that I am.

Yet there is an antidote for this kind of amnesia, and Saint Paul summed it up nicely in his first letter to Timothy: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1:15b). The apostle is not bent on continually flogging himself here, as if he were only a worm before God. Nor is he thinking merely of his murderous self before Damascus. Rather, as Saint Paul grew in holiness by the power of God’s Spirit in union with Christ, he became increasingly mindful of his own sinfulness. It’s likely, then, that if we continue to grow in holiness, we too will become increasingly aware of our sinfulness. And being ever-mindful of God’s grace toward us can mean only one thing: we will repent (which is more than saying sorry, James 2:17) for the rest of our days.

Gone will be the notion that professing our allegiance and repenting to the one, true God revealed in Jesus Christ is a one-shot deal accomplished at the end of an aisle. Gone, too, will be the notion that if we sin badly we’ll need to rededicate our lives to Christ however many times it takes before it sticks. Gone will be our conversion experiences, and we’ll welcome the journey, albeit long, that lies ahead, fully trusting in the mercy, kindness, and patience of a God who wants us all to repent—for life (Acts 17:30; Rom. 2:4; 1 Tim. 2:4; 4:10; 2 Peter 3:8–10).

{This originally appeared in Tabletalk 31.10 (Oct. 2007): 25}

Land of the Lost, part 9

2011-04-27T11:53:00.002-04:00

Homo Habilis

THE RUMBLINGS CONTINUE around the topic of the historicity of Adam and Eve. It so happens that today's Proposition from John Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One nudges up against that question. Suffice to say, not everyone associated with BioLogos can be accused of denying the actual existence of a single first pair (see, e.g., Tim Keller's somewhat recent paper).

Proposition 16: Scientific Explanations of Origins Can Be Viewed in Light of Purpose, and If So, Are Unobjectionable

Genesis 1 was never intended to be an account of material origins but rather one of functional origins in relation to people in the image of God viewing the cosmos as a temple.

Homo Erectus
Thus, while "the Bible upholds the idea that God is responsible for all origins (functional, material, or otherwise), if the Bible does not offer an account of material origins we are free to consider contemporary explanations of origins on their own merits, as long as God is seen as ultimately responsible. Therefore whatever explanation scientists offer in their attempts to explain origins, we could theoretically adopt it as a description of God's handiwork" (p. 132).

This cuts to the heart of the matter, incidentally, since, according to Walton, many arguments against affirming modern scientific explanations of origins center on the notion that they are somehow godless. But this reveals more about the one with the problem—he/she is demanding, like Job, why God would create in this or that manner, which appears to them to be, in some way, discordant with God's nature. Walton responds by reminding his readers of their limited knowledge with respect to their understanding of God's ways:
"God in his wisdom has done things in the way that he has. We cannot stand in judgment of that, and we cannot expect to understand it all. . . . Our question then cannot be whether one model or explanation of the cosmos and its origins is reconcilable with the nature of God. We don't have information to make that assessment. We can only ask what the Scriptures requires us to defend." (p. 134)
Obviously, this is precisely the point for young-earth creationists, who think the Scriptures do require us to defend, in detail, their view. Equally obvious is the fact that the less the Scriptures require us to defend on this particular point (how God created), the more open we can be to modern scientific explanations regarding origins (presupposing God as creator, of course). Convenient? You tell me.

Walton again reminds us of the theologically unsound bifurcation between the natural and the supernatural (which did not exist in the ancient world) and then launches into Psalm 139:13 to illustrate this point (each child being the creator of each human being while we, at the same time, know in great detail the embryology of the development of a child). I would add to this, maybe ironically, John Piper's great discussion about how the raindrop falls. There's no either/or here; it's both/and.

Homo Antecessor

Most of us treat the study of history this way; why do we have such a big problem when this same approach is applied to the science of origins? In other words, we are unable to see God's hands clearly in the course of historic events (i.e., unable to make pronouncements about the intricacies of God's hand in them—unless you're a Falwell or a Robertson), and none of us object to purely naturalistic cause-and-effect explanations of such events. Why, then, do we object when the same is done in, say, the narrative of biological evolution on earth (the barking of materialists who suggest a choice must be made between God and science notwithstanding)?

Walton then goes on to face the three most common objections to biological evolution by those who take the Bible seriously: (1) Theology (evolution pushes God out of the picture; (2) Genesis 1 (it demands a YEC interpretation); and (3) Genesis 2 and Romans 5 (imago Dei, the nature of sin, and the historicity of Adam and Eve).

The latter point concerns me most, because the first two, to my mind, are not significant objections (i.e., they're answered easily). Many voices out there in the blogosphere are suggesting that the historicity of Adam and its attendant issues are a fault line within evangelicalism right now.

Adam & Eve, Lucas Cranach
the Elder (1528)
Some attempt to resolve apparent contradictions between the creation narrative and the anthropological fossil record by suggesting that somewhere along the line in the evolutionary process, humans became endowed with the image of God and then disobeyed God's command, which constituted the fall and initiated our sin nature. Some argue that this occurred through a historical "first pair" (the first pair to bear God's image), while others argue that Adam and Eve symbolize the first humans (the first image bearers), corporately speaking.

I've often wondered about the validity of the first option, and first heard of it from George Murphy. Walton, however, takes umbrage with both (the latter more than the former). The Scriptures speak clearly as to the historicity of Adam and Eve, he writes, as indicated in their role in genealogies. His final thoughts on the matter are typically ambiguous, but they affirm everything they need to in this matter, in my opinion. It's worth quoting in full:
"Whatever evolutionary process led to the development of animal life, primates and even prehuman hominids, my theological convictions lead me to posit substantive discontinuity between that process and the creation of the historical Adam and Eve." (p. 139)

Whatever that looked like, I guess. What about you—do you think any explanation of origins scientists offer could be (theoretically) adopted as a description of God's handiwork? Is holding on to a special, intervening creation of homo sapiens sapiens necessary (as opposed to seeing them simply fit into the evolutionary chain)?

In the Service of the King

2011-04-25T08:22:00.003-04:00

Haymaking, Julien Dupré (1880)

OUR STORY BEGINS in the thick of the action: a middle-aged Martin Luther is busy at work reforming the doctrine of the provincial German churches. He soon settles on issues surrounding the Christian life. In response to the medieval church’s insistence that the only truly Christian calling necessarily involved a withdrawal or retreat from society (by becoming a monk), Luther began arguing that calling can and ought to affirm the spiritual value of work in this world. In other words, ordinary, everyday work has significant religious value. It may seem silly to us, but this was a reinterpretation of calling in Luther’s day—and it was radical at that.

No longer was the monastery the only place where a Christian could fulfill his or her “higher” calling, for the farmer and the housewife stood just as high in God’s eyes as the monk. The catch for monks, farmers, and housewives, however, was that in order for their work to be pleasing to God it must be performed in sincere faith, responsible to God and contributive to the community.

All Protestants affirmed this redefinition of calling (or recapturing of Scripture; more of that soon), but perhaps none more vigorously than the English puritans. Society was found religiously valuable if and only if it was made to conform to the will of God as revealed in Scripture. This meant that one’s vocation, or calling, was never to be separated from one’s love and obedience to God, as well as the loving of his neighbor as himself. To this they added all that they deduced from Scripture “by good and necessary consequence” (Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.6) and thereby aspired to bring all work under the discipline of Christianity.

But this balancing act didn’t last forever. Soon, under the increasing religious and political repression of the seventeenth century, devotion to the Christian ideal of vocation began to wane. It wasn’t long before people were leaving their religion at home when they left for work each day. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that this happened at precisely the same time the fatalistic hyper-Calvinism of certain puritans gave way to the mechanistic Deism of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. When one’s god is so very far away, so very irrelevant to everyday life, it’s no wonder that making the world a better place becomes the sole reason for religion. Westerners eventually found out, especially once they rid themselves of such silly superstitions like the supernatural world (putting faith in modern technology instead), that they could make more money and experience more luxuries right now if they shrugged off this Christian baggage once and for all.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of how a beautifully recaptured Christian doctrine like “calling” devolved into a secular (utilitarian) notion that placed value on anything achieving “the greatest good for the greatest number of people.” Today, we Western Christians live within this tension, the tension that recognizes the brilliance and the benefits of a free-market economy along with the fact that many of those benefits sometimes come at the expense and exploitation of God’s good creation, not least of which, people—real, flesh-and-blood, thinking and feeling, people—with names and faces and families. How do we find our way through this dilemma? Do we retreat from the world like the monks of yesteryear, or do we simply shrug our shoulders and sing “Que Sera, Sera”? Is the duty we have toward our vocations irrelevant or integral to the Christian faith? What we need, it seems, is to recover our sense of calling. We need to go to the Scriptures and see what the Reformers saw.

What they saw was Abraham, forsaking all comfort, faithfully answering the vocation to which God called him. They saw John the Baptist, who believed his vocation was to “prepare the way of the Lord” (Matt. 3:3). Surely he wouldn’t have risked his life by offering an alternative (baptism) to the temple cult if he didn’t think he was called to do it. Think also of the apostle Paul, who, thrown from his horse on the way to Damascus, came to believe that the long-awaited Messiah had finally come, and that his vocation, his calling, was to herald the good news to an idolatrous world. But most of all, let us think about the Messiah himself. This was a man who knew his calling. Indeed, he “came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10), “not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt. 9:13). He believed he was sent as Messiah and heir to the throne of David (see Matt. 15:21–28), and to preach this good news was his purpose (Luke 4:43)—the good news that the great exodus was underway, that sin and death would stand condemned, and that the kingdom of God, come in person and in power, has arrived. And, lest we forget, these last two persons were also known as a tentmaker and carpenter, respectively.

This changes things. If we are in Christ and thus saved from God’s wrath as members of his forgiven family, it changes our status on this earth, and it changes the way we approach our everyday work. Salvation does not take us out of the world, for while we have been made new creations in Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit, God has nonetheless called us to a life of faith and faithfulness in this world (see 2 Cor. 5:17–21 and John 17:13–19). Thus we are simultaneously citizens of this world and of the world this one will become, and our vocations are to be dutifully fulfilled in light of this truth.

Our callings in life, from husband to wife, from father to mother, from son to daughter, from farmer to statesman to minister to housewife, flow from God’s call and love for us in Christ. And, mysteriously, our work somehow plays a part in the drama of that final day when the entire creation will be set free from its bondage (Rom. 8:18–28.). This means that the world will be liberated when those in Christ are revealed in glory at the day of their resurrection. But it also means we are called to work toward that liberation in the present by fulfilling our callings as wise stewards of God’s creation, as well as of society, just like he always intended.

What this has to do with our jobs is simply this: “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). That is to say, in our obedience of faith we are to live and work knowing that there is a direct correlation between being called by God to trust in Christ alone for salvation and his call to live like the new day has already dawned—yes, even in the commonplace world of everyday work. For it is in this world that God is working (through our work) to bring his kingdom, his will, to bear on earth as it is in heaven.

{This originally appeared in Tabletalk 31.9 (Sept. 2006): 16–18}

Land of the Lost, part 8

2011-04-18T12:15:00.002-04:00

SO, HERE WE GO, part 8 of my review of John Walton's Lost World of Genesis One. I can't remember why I took such a long hiatus from posting this material (I think I just got sick of the subject around the time of last year's hoopla revolving around Bruce Waltke). It was the good discussion / series going on over at Jesus Creed, however, that served as the impetus to finish what I started.

As as an aside, on the day I began writing this post (about a year ago), I found myself sitting in the corner of Ligonier's studio listening to a live interview with Stephen Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell. He helpfully clarified a few misgivings that I've shared with others about Intelligent Design, the main one being his explanation that ID does not attempt to say anything about the Christian God, for it cannot. Its cumulative case for design simply shows that the design itself is not "apparent"; rather, it demands something intelligent standing behind it. That's as far as it purports to go. Thus ID is not religion masked as science.

I'm sure I could find something to disagree with there, but Dr. Meyer did a great job articulating the differences between ID as a scientific endeavor and the subsequent philosophical/theological speculations that come after the theory of design is established. I'm still left wondering about the observable chaos of the cosmos and how that relates to all this, but I suspect that will be my lot in this life (i.e., wondering) since, after all, I've no intention of becoming a molecular biologist or physicist.

PROPOSITION 14: God’s Roles as Creator and Sustainer Are Less Different Than We Have Thought.

Two extremes are to be avoided in this construct that Walton has presented: (1) that God's work as creator is simply a finished act of the past; and (2) that his work as creator is an eternally repeating present.

The potential deism of #1 is the most popular notion among Christians today (creation and providence are often unnecessarily bifurcated). Both young-earth creationists and certain theistic evolutionists can be guilty of this kind of thinking. It can further break down between those who see God simply winding up the clock and letting the natural laws he put in place to wind themselves out and those who see God intervening at critical junctures to accomplish major jumps in evolution. But they both betray the assumption that God is either irrelevant to natural history or that natural history is due to direct interventions. There is a middle way, writes Walton: "That God might be working alongside or through physical and biological processes in a way that science cannot detect" (p. 120).

The other extreme is that creation is a constantly recurring process. But one immediate objection to this view is that it destroys the telos of creation. In order for there to be a goal and a purpose, there must be a beginning and an end.

Here Walton also has an eye on Jürgen Moltmann (see his God in Creation). Contra Moltmann, creation work after Genesis 1, properly speaking, is basically "sustaining and maintaing work," and thus are not "creative acts." In short, it's a difference between originating and preserving.

In contrast to the first extreme, creation is not over and done with. In contrast, to the second extreme, origins is rightfully distinguished from God's sustaining work, but both could be considered in the larger category of creation.

This shakes out practically in our weekly practices within the community of faith: "We recognize his role of Creator God by our observance of the sabbath . . . recogniz[ing] that he is in charge. . . . [And] even though God does not reside in geographical sacred space any longer, he is still in his cosmic temple, and he now resides in the temple that is his church (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19)" (p. 124).

PROPOSITION 15: Current Debate About Intelligent Design Ultimately Concerns Purpose.

Walton wants to state the obvious here—that his book is all about presenting a teleological view with respect to the material world; so all of it, by definition, is intelligent and therefore designed.

ID takes it in another direction, arguing that the appearance of design in the cosmos is not illusive, but is the result of an unidentified intelligent designer.

One of the primary ways ID-ers attempt to show this is through the identification (in nature) of what they call irreducible complexity. Since certain structures (an eye, for instance) need a multitude of parts that need to be functional all at once for the structure to continue to exist and do its job, it could not have evolved one piece at a time.

They're not at the point where they're offering alternative scientific mechanisms; they're just challenging the reigning paradigm of the neo-Darwinian synthesis. ID does not offer a theory of origins.

And here's the point: while irreducible complexity or mathematical equations and probabilities may challenge the reigning paradigm, empirical science cannot embrace ID simply because science, by definition, is not capable of exploring the teleological (see the layer cake analogy, Proposition 13).

Put differently, ID does not advance scientific understanding because it does not (cannot?) offer scientific observations to support its premise—the existence of an intelligent designer. Such is not testable or falsifiable. When you're simply promoting a negative ("natural mechanism cannot fully account for life as we know it") and then inferring from that an intelligent designer, our discussion has left the realm of science.

In short, even if ID-ers are simply content to claim that a principle of design is testable and falsifiable, they ultimately succumb to promulgating a "God of the gaps" theory. Proving a negative requires that all possibilities have been considered, which in turn requires that all possibilities are known. "As a result design cannot be established beyond reasonable doubt . . . and it can only fall back on the claim that the currently proposed naturalistic mechanisms do not suffice" (p. 129). In other words, to say that X structure is designed (as a matter of science) only works when there's a gap in our knowledge about what we know today about X structure. Tomorrow, we may uncover what's been missing in the equation, and so the design claim clearly becomes irrelevant.

Neo-Darwinists (materialists) offer nothing better. They presuppose anti-teleology, just as the ID-ers presuppose the opposite. Both presume a metaphysical premise, which is, again, by definition anathema to science.

And this is appropriate, writes Walton. The response to the proven inadequacies of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, if there are such, is not to admit the existence of an intelligent designer (again, that's outside the realm of science) but to work out the science and thus propose alternative naturalistic mechanisms.

As Christians we ought to be all about this pursuit of the truth. We ought to want to know exactly how the natural mechanisms of the cosmos work, which, as Christians, will only lead us to greater awe and thus deeper worship of our creator God.

So, you tell me, is it even possible to bracket the metaphysical (i.e., not to be neutral, but to be as neutral as possible) when doing science? Should it be bracketed?

Baptism: Death by Qualification?

2011-04-14T12:16:00.004-04:00

And that water is a picture of baptism, which now saves you, not by removing dirt from your body, but as a response to God from a clean conscience. It is effective because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (1 Pet 3:21)

Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. (Rom 6:3–4)

A baptism at the Church of Debre
Sina Maryam in Ethiopia

Yet I must maintain that it's a non-saving and loseable identification. When one is baptized, she shares in Christ's verdict pronounced over her by the Father at the resurrection. But this may be lost. I think this rightly emphasizes the promises to which baptism points, and, in a certain sense, confers, though not indissolubly. Luther states it plainly enough:

We are not found in a state of perfection as soon as we have been baptized into Jesus Christ and his death. Having been baptized into his death, we merely strive to obtain (the blessings of) this death and to reach our goal of glory. Just so, when we are baptized into everlasting life and the kingdom of heaven, we do not at once fully possess its full wealth (of blessings). We have merely taken the first steps to seek after eternal life. Baptism has been instituted that it should lead usto the blessings (of his death) and through such death to eternal life. Therefore it is necessary that we should be baptized into Jesus Christ and his death. (Commentary on Romans, p. 101, Kregel 1976)

So, Baptism identifies its recipient with the dead and resurrected Messiah and therefore all the promises of God in Christ are pointed to therein. Ridderbos sharpens the focus a bit:

. . . baptism accomplishes in its own way what already obtained in another way [predestinarian, redemptive-historical incorporation into Christ], and thus occupies its own place in the whole of the divine communication of redemption. What that mode and that place are can only be viewed in the proper light when one does full justice to the various aspects of the divine appropriation of salvation. It is just as incorrect to say that the comprehension of the church in Christ take place only by baptism, as it is that baptism merely symbolizes or confirms a posteriori what is already an accomplished fact. (Paul, pp. 409–10)

But what, then, of an individual's faith? Is "coming to Jesus" entirely irrelevant? Hardly. "That which the believer appropriates to himself on the proclamation of the gospel God promises and bestows on him in baptism. It is salvation by the washing of regeneration for everyone who with his mouth confesses Jesus as Lord and in his heart believes that God has raised him from the dead (Rom. 10:9; Tit. 3:5)" (p. 412).

'He that Cometh' Maketh the Church (3)

2011-04-12T13:18:00.004-04:00

SHALL WE NOT CLOSE THIS SERIES? It's well past time. In the first and second posts on this topic, I briefly covered Hans Boersma's three reasons for recapturing Henri de Lubac's views on Holy Communion: (1) help us recapture the pre-modern, sacramental view of the world (over against the rationalism of the High Middle Ages and the neo-scholastic theology of the early 20th century); (2) reappropriate a pre-modern "sacramental" hermeneutic with respect to Scripture (here Boersma has in mind St. Augustine's exegetical approach of literal meaning pointing beyond itself to spiritual meaning); and (3) apply the genuine ecumenical potential inherent in de Lubac's sacramental outlook.

In this (hopefully) final post, I want to look at the crux of de Lubac's objection against both mere sacramental symbolism and the complete identification between the sacramental symbol and the reality to which it points, which, according to Boersma, paves the way for authentic ecumenical action. As mentioned in part 2, de Lubac's church (not to mention the Protestants) had forgotten the very purpose of the Eucharistic body, thus suffering from a severly truncated ecclesiology.

Following Augustine's lead (in Sermon 227), de Lubac argued that believers—not the bread—became the body of Christ. They found their impetus for this in 1 Cor 10:16b–17: "And when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body." Note that the bread here is used in two different ways: the first way, in v. 16b, refers to the Eucharistic body (of Christ; i.e., his presence); the second way (v. 17) refers to the ecclesial body (of Christ; i.e., the church). Boersma concludes:

As by faith we share in the one Eucharistic body, the Spirit makes us one ecclesial body. As St. Augustine would put it: we become what we have received. Or, as de Lubac phrased it: the Eucharist makes the Church.

And here we arrive at the point of de Lubac's objection (to his compatriots, the neo-Thomists), so Boersma: They focused so much on what made a legitimate Eucharist, and zeroed in so much on the Eucharistic body, that they forgot that the sacramental purpose of this Eucharistic body was to create the ecclesial body. In short, and this is for Roman ears, as much as it is for Constantinopolitan and Protestant ears, "The sacramental reality to which the Eucharistic body pointed and which it made present was the ecclesial unity of the Church."

In keeping with his ancient views on nature and grace (i.e., they're not to be strictly separated), de Lubac saw the Eucharist not as a supernatural intervention from above, but as a true "mystery" (conceived of as an action, not a thing), one that actively created the one body of Christ, the church. Its focus is not to be construed in an either/or fashion—either strictly focused on the church's unity as the intended reality of the sacrament, while forgetting that this reality was tied to its origin in the actual bread of the Eucharistic body (Protestantism); or strictly focused on the sacramental presence of Christ in the elements, while forgetting that this real presence was inextricably tied to its purpose in creating the ecclesial body (Catholicism).

And this is where the genuine ecumenical potential comes in. De Lubac cuts through the middle of both over-emphases. On the one hand, there's complete separation between the sign and the reality to which it points; and on the other, there's a strict identification of the sign and the reality. Boersma wraps up the discussion by commending his evangelical readers to not get overworked about transubstantiation. He argues that de Lubac's moderate view, now called "communion ecclesiology," has become ensconced in Catholic dogma through Vatican II, and as such "offers new prospects for fruitful dialogue." In like manner, now that the Catholics have begun to focus more strongly on fellowship among all "branches" of Christendom, Protestants ought to celebrate "much more unambiguously the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist."

'He that Cometh' Maketh the Church

(I'm following David Daube's lead here, even if I'm not convinced entirely of his conclusions.) One of the ways we can celebrate this as Protestants, without having our heads explode or our eyes bleed at the notion of thanking Aristotle every time we receive Holy Communion, is to understand the Eucharistic body, the bread, to be "he that was to come, has come, and will come again," namely, the messiah, not in any transubstantiated or merely memorial sense, but in the sense that he is actually present in his person during the Eucharistic feast by the power of the Spirit. Whether the focus of that presence needs to be on location or time (or both), makes little difference, I think. And as far as the "how" is concerned, I will only cry, "Union with Christ!"

Perspectives on the Sabbath Interview

2011-04-05T10:22:00.003-04:00

Today (Tuesday, 5 April 2011) at 1 p.m. on Knowing the Truth, I'm being interviewed about the book I've edited, Perspectives on the Sabbath (you can see a generous portion of it through the "Look Inside" feature at Amazon).

Update: Listen to or download the entire interview.

Baxter's soup, Wright's soap, and Helm's in deep

2011-03-29T00:08:00.005-04:00

[ I wrote this entry about three years ago. Its introductory paragraph will explain why I haven't pressed the publish button until now: ]

IT IS WITH SOME trepidation that I post this. If you move within my circles, you'll know why. When writing and responding to the [former, et passim] Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, if you're not careful to distance yourself from him on certain points, you could find yourself in trouble. This is, of course, appropriate—we are, after all, a confessional bunch, and promoting doctrines that directly contradict the essential elements of one's confession (to be understood as conscience) is neither right nor safe (to borrow from Luther at Worms).

Too often among us, responses to him range from one extreme to the other—with the minority adoring everything the good bishop writes and many others offering only knee-jerk reactions as if everything he has written deserves being tossed in the waste bucket. But no thinker has gotten everything wrong (even Shelby Spong, as hard as that is to imagine), just as no thinker has gotten everything right. All deserve criticism and all deserve the benefit of the doubt. We would do well to blaze a middle way.

Richard Baxter

This post comes after having read Professor Helm's fascinating thoughts on the supposed parallels between Baxter and Wright. Now, my own studies in seventeenth-century history and theology some years ago also heightened my sense of the possible parallels between Wright's "fresh" perspective and neonomianism. But the more I think on it, the more it seems that the similarities are incidental at best.

Reformed folks worth their salt have always had a robust doctrine of sanctification. It is as integral to the equation of salvation (systematically understood) as justification. Indeed, the two are to be distinguished, but never separated. They are two sides of the same coin. Put differently, they are two distinct legs on the way to salvation—and none of us will be hopping into heaven. That said, one does indeed have priority, for the latter (sanctification) must needs flow from the former (justification). With this background, when I've read Wright on the future of justification, and then when I read Professor Helm's critique, I get the feeling that I've missed something. Maybe I've given the Wright too much credit, too much benefit of the doubt. It is in this spirit, therefore, of seeking to learn that my response is posted. I'd like to know where I'm wrong on this score, and if my Reformed goggles have tainted my reading of Wright on this particular point.

In the professor's analysis, he quips that he's unable to “see neither Wright nor Baxter come close to saying anything about what is to be done at the judgment about the believer’s continuing shortcomings.” I’m not so sure about Baxter, but it seems to me that Wright deems such shortcomings to be entirely irrelevant (with respect to the sweeping picture of redemption). This is not to suggest that he finds no place for the continuing struggle and the confession of sin in the Christian life (see his commentary on Rom. 6:11 in NIB); it is to say that I think he thinks that continued imperfections are simply not a problem for those who are in Christ—not a problem, that is, in the sense that they’re irrelevant to God.

Why? Because of Christ. He writes: “...Paul was a realist, about himself, about his fellow Christians, about suffering, pain, depression, fear and death itself. These were not enemies he took lightly. But his entire argument in this chapter [Rom. 6] so far...is that the Christian, facing these enemies, stands already on resurrection ground. This is ultimately a truth about the Christian’s Lord, the Messiah, but because of baptism it becomes a truth about the Christian himself or herself” (p. 541). I assume that when he writes that this is a truth about Jesus, he means that despite the fact we Christians still struggle with sin, the fact that the sinless Jesus was utterly faithful to God’s covenant to the point of death (and resurrection) means, insofar as we’ve been united to Christ, that our continuing imperfections, in the final analysis, are caught up and done away with as a result (arguably akin to what Helm termed “double justification” in his critique—which has no relation to Bucer’s or Regenburg’s formulation, as confusing as this [oversight?] might be). In short, quite precisely because the Christian is assured of this pardon and that his or her works will be pleasing to God on that final day, possibly, then, Wright thinks the continued imperfections are irrelevant.

And, whatever else can be said of Wright, in Augustinian fashion he does think sanctification to be definitive (“the Christian...stands already on resurrection ground”). In his commentary on Romans 8:29–30 he begins: “In order to show the branches that they are indeed to bear blossom and fruit, Paul...goes back behind justification itself to God’s purpose and call, and behind that again to God’s foreknowledge” (601). About foreknowledge, he writes, “Foreknowledge is a form of love or grace; to speak thus is to speak of God reaching out, in advance of anything the person may do or think, to reveal love and to solicit an answering love, to reveal a particular purpose and to call forth obedience to it. More particularly, this foreknowledge produces God’s foreordaining purpose” (p. 602). After going on a side trail about how God’s sovereignty does not render human actions insignificant, Wright argues that “all these things [predestined, called, justified, glorified] have happened already to and in Jesus, the Messiah; and what is true of the Messiah is true of his people” (p. 603). “The steady beat of the verbs within Paul’s solemn rhetoric underscores the steady beat of God’s unshakable purpose set forth in the Messiah and completed by the Spirit” (presumably, by the Spirit in God’s people, p. 604).

Because of this certainty with which Wright speaks of the presently justified’s glorification, it would seem that his point about being justified in the future on the basis of the whole life lived is a sure thing. In other words, Christians will certainly burst forth in spontaneous obedience to God (freely given according to God’s grace and empowered by God’s Spirit), which obedience plays a part in their final justification, and which obedience, however tainted by sin, is made acceptable because of the acceptable-ness of Christ himself. Thus, the continuing sins of Christians are ultimately irrelevant to the redemptive program of God (keeping in mind, of course, that confession of sins itself falls into that category of Spirit-led obedience). As I've written and thought about this post over several months now, I find yet again support for this in Wright's newest book on the subject Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision on page 223:

The present verdict gives the assurance that the future verdict will match it; the spirit gives the power through which that future verdict, when given, will be seen to be in accordance with the life that the believer has then live.

Finally, Professor Helm asks, “On Wright’s account is there any place, then, in the final judgment for God justifying the ungodliness of the godly? If so, how does it happen?”

Maybe the bishop's answer would be that “ungodliness,” for those who are in Christ, is that which is passed over by “sheer grace to any and all who, despite their ungodliness, trust in this God” (commentary on Rom. 4:4–5, p. 492). And given Wright’s commentary on Paul’s discussion of how Christians occupy, as it were, a different sphere or place than they did previously (see pp. 542–547 of NIB), Wright might add that “ungodliness” is not a proper word for describing the life of a Christian (one might consider the validity of their profession otherwise). Maybe now the question could be more forcefully asked: “Is there any place in the final judgment for God justifying even just one account of ungodliness of the godly?” I assume Wright would say that that has already been taken care of in Christ, so let’s not fixate on that which has been dealt with (indeed, exposed by the law, which brings no condemnation for those in union with Christ Jesus).

Quid tibi est?

Carl Trueman on Public Witness

2011-03-21T10:37:00.001-04:00

My interview with Carl Trueman revolving around his new book,
Republocrat, has been posted on Q: Ideas blog. Check it out.

What You Do vs. Who You Are

2011-03-17T13:18:00.000-04:00

THIS IS A SNIPPET from an interview/testimony I delivered at the church of my youth—Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida. In this bit I was attempting to hammer home the notion that salvation isn't so much about what we do but about who we are and to whom we belong.

Ramblings and Remorse

2011-03-14T10:51:00.007-04:00

THE CAREFUL READER will have noticed the subtitle of this blog—"ramblings and remorse." You get what you pay for here. After my last ramble ("Why I'm Not Young, Restless, & Reformed"), I have a little remorse for not being as clear as I should have been. Sacrificing clarity for the sake of pithy provocation is not the best way (accomplishing both at the same time may be, however).

Further explanation is warranted with respect to a couple of the more theological points in that post:

#2. When I wrote "Piper has exacted virtually no influence on my theological formation, save to make me a more resolute paedobaptist," what I didn't mean was that Piper is damaging to the church or that God hasn't used him in significant ways in global Christianity. I was speaking personally about my own journey. The whole "Christian hedonism" thing never did it for me; it never tugged at my heart. His sermons and teachings on baptism, however, did challenge me, and through wrestling with those I became a more resolute paedobaptist. So, it's not quite right to say he has had virtually no influence on my theological formation; indeed, he did—just by via negativa. In his regular preaching, there are a host of things he has said that I enjoy and agree with more than disagree with, but those are also things that have been said before in the church's history (he just says them, as we used to say in poetry class, "with gusto"). I have in mind here especially his missional emphases as well as his biblical expositions on God's sovereign grace.

Piper is, of course, hailed as the grandfather of the young, restless, and Reformed crowd. Not being my spiritual grandfather, I therefore don't have this in common with that crowd. It's really as benign as that.

#6. When I admit to being "basically a hypothetical universalist," I mean nothing less than thinking the syllogism "sufficient for all, efficient for the elect" is outright biblical (I'm not at all concerned with the debates about the order of God's decrees). To my mind, it's the only way to make sense of a handful of certain passages that speak of a universal atonement. The way those passages have been handled by certain Calvinists makes me cringe (wax-nosing "world" to mean "the elect of every tribe, tongue, and nation," or something similar).

Variations on this theme have good street cred, folks: there's Lombard, Aquinas (and again), Calvin, Vermigli, Davenant, Ussher, Hodge, and Dabney, among others.

#7. Regarding predestination, perhaps I should've said I'm a single predestinarian according to (and articulated most clearly in) the Book of Concord (or of "Discord," as an old professor once quipped), since what the Lutherans wrote there comes closer to my concerns than what the Council of Orange was combatting. Nevertheless, I'm not left with only the Lutherans in this matter: there's always Berkouwer, I guess (if one wants to avoid Brunner, et al.). I don't think for a moment that this position is somehow more gracious than double predestination, I just think single is clearly articulated in scripture, while double is not—and that's a fearful thing to "deduce by good and necessary consequence."

Ken Stewart's recent book, Ten Myths About Calvinism, speaks to this point and is worth quoting in full:
"While a whole succession of sixteenth-century Reformed theologians had essentially reiterated the view of Bucer and Calvin that all men are predestined to one of two ends, a movement had begun before that century expired to limit the language of predestination to persons made the object of God's saving mercy. This was the conception of predestination to life. Bullinger, Vermigli—and in time—the Canons of Dordt and the Westminster Confession themselves took the view that the ultimate end of the unsaved did not proceed from the eternal will of God in the same manner as the end of the saved. The cause of ultimate condemnation, according to this second understanding was none other than the unbelief and sin of the condemned."
Thus, those who would seek to squeeze double predestination into the Reformed consensus documents (like Dordt and Westminster) while looking suspiciously at those who demur simply don't have history on their side. Moreover, the desire to label the position defined here as "asymmetrical double predestination" will not do. The attempt ends up being a distinction without a difference. In short, Calvin's view of double predestination does not enjoy some kind of normative status within the Reformed tradition (see Carl Trueman's "Calvin and Calvinism," in The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, pp. 225–226).

#8. I'm a big fan of a few puritans, but not the "precisianist strain" and moralism that developed with a vengeance in seventeenth-century England and New England.

Turretin, while no doubt one of the most precise Calvinists ever (I've used his Elenctic Theology extensively in my own research), hardened the lines of what constitutes "truly" Reformed theology and, in my opinion, unnecessarily narrowed the tradition.

Edwards (who is an heir, incidentally, of that precisianist strain) is of course one of America's foremost philosopher-theologians, but I'm not a philosopher by training. I'm not that good at it and thus I have little patience for it. I'm not a "big fan." It means I don't take much pleasure in reading him other than as it relates to historical research.

Now, as Abraham Lincoln was known to have said: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Ah well, so it is, ramblings and remorse.

Why I’m Not Young, Restless, & Reformed: By One Guy Who Should Be

2011-03-02T17:23:00.027-05:00

(With apologies to Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck for ripping off their title.)

[Update: See this clarifying follow-up.]

This can’t go the way of thesis/antithesis. I’m young (36, to be exact); I’m quite restless, often moving about; and I asked Calvin into my heart a long time ago. But here’s why I’m not really a part of the Young-Restless-and-Reformed-story (jungeruhelosundreformiert-geschichte), in no particular order:

1. My pathway into the Reformed world was through infant baptism while studying the contours of covenantal theology in the scriptures and Calvin (note the -al at the end).

2. John Piper has exacted virtually no influence on my theological formation, save to make me a more resolute paedobaptist.

3. I’ve been a hipster since 1987 and have had a soul patch since 1992.

4. I like hard rock more than indie music.

5. I think the “five points of Calvinism,” or the “doctrines of grace,” comprise but one small facet of what it means to be Reformed.

6. I’m basically a hypothetical universalist (no, not with respect to life after death [though I am a hopeful one] but regarding the extent of Christ’s atonement). This is not equivalent to being a “four-pointer,” for I do indeed affirm that Christ’s atonement is limited—efficaciously—to the elect alone. No, I will not define elect presently.

7. I’m a single predestinarian, according to the Council of Orange.

8. I’m not a huge fan of certain puritans, Turretin, and Edwards, though hands-down I’ll admit their brilliance and piety.

9. I’m Anglican. I like the smells and the bells.

I'm therefore not so much Young-Restless-and-Reformed as Reformed Catholic.

update: I just realized there's no call to action here. So, come on everybody, join the movement—and will somebody write a book about it already?

update 2: My goodness, I just realized this could also be construed as . . .

Heaven help me.

Photography Friday (6)

2011-02-22T15:57:00.065-05:00

This next stop in my photography series takes us to Mykonos, tourist destination extraordinaire, and prized cosmopolitan member of the Cyclades, a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea (one of which is Ios, the supposed locale of Homer's gravesite).

Mykonos was just an eye-candy break for us as we were making our way through some of the ancient apostolic routes recorded in the New Testament. It made for some fun picture-taking, though. One memory I have of the place is blowing kisses to an elderly babushka standing on her balcony draped in black; she raised her face toward the sun and held her hands over her heart in response.

Logistically, nothing's new here—all shots were taken on a Canon AE-1 with E100VS (slide film). Click on an image to get a closer look.

Here's a fairly typical Mykonos house, complete with
its whitewashed exterior and popping trim

Similar to that Lake Lucerne tilt-shift photo, this view from the south side
of the bay in Chora met us as we made our way (slowly) back to the ship.

On some backstreet somewhere, we experienced a car sighting.

Even the sun attends Vespers over here.

And last, but not least, the famous windmills of Mykonos. They go back a
few hundred years and were used primarily for the crushing of
soon-to-be-exported agricultural yields (mostly wheat).

God, the Master of Puppets?

2011-02-16T10:51:00.009-05:00

I became comfortable with the moniker "Reformed" when I read this article by Robert Rayburn. That was back in 1997. Now, 13 years later, if one were to admit this publically, not a few Reformed folk would look at that person askance, thinking, Blasted Federal Visionist!

But the point to notice here is that it was not—emphatically—the idea of God's sovereign election that got me there. Anybody can adhere to the idea that sovereign grace envelops salvation, that is, procures it from beginning to end (as many did prior to Calvin's incarn—er, birth). For example, I came to the conclusion that God was indeed utterly sovereign with respect to salvation back in college ('92–'97). Admittedly, I also had serious issues with the notion that God withheld that grace from some people. So I was contented to think, like James Relly and John Murray (no, not that one; see also the Trinitarian universalists), that God, in his sovereignty, would indeed draw all men to himself through and because of Christ alone, by the power of his Spirit.

I'm not contented to think that any longer, of course, save to hope that all would (not must!) be saved (á la Balthasar). At any rate, it was baptism, specifically infant baptism and its relationship to God's covenant promises, that finally convinced me being called a Calvinist was okay. Since my journey, it seems, was not representative of a great many who consider themselves Calvinists (most often cite the so-called Five Points as the impetus for their "conversion"), this may explain why one particular aspect of that great Calvinist confession, Westminster, has always stuck in my craw. It's found in the very first sentence of chapter 3, section 1, "Of God's Eternal Decree":

God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.

It's important to note from the outset that what I mean by "stuck in my craw" is not "I don't believe it" flat out; it's probably more like "I suspect this is true, but I don't like it so much," and that's probably due to my own lack of understanding. I had always thought (when I was working through these things over fifteen years ago) that when we're talking about God's sovereignty we were talking about his work of salvation among the mass of perdition (i.e., the world). I came to find out, however, especially among converts to Calvinism, that it also had to do with "whatsoever came to pass." There are a few points worth considering, however, that come to light when looking at this clause more closely.

Out of the scripture proofs offered by the Westminster Assembly after this sentence, all of which, incidentallly, were written when the authors were discussing election, only Ephesians 1:11 speaks to the idea articulated in the above quote. You'll see in this passage that God is he who "works all things according to the counsel of his will." But even here the "all things" the apostle is thinking of has to do specifically with the plan revolving around his people (even more specifically, the first Christians, i.e., the Jews, in this context) and the goal to which he has guided their history: to live for the praise of his glory (v. 12). Yes, eternally. But, again, it has to do with the elect being claimed by God as his portion, not "whatsoever comes to pass," not whether my dog will live to see tomorrow, or my last batch of brew will produce a rich, creamy head.

And, in contradistinction to the Confession on this point, the emphasis is hardly on everything being ordained "from all eternity" but on God's salvific purposes in time (no doubt anchored in his eternal election, the sum total of his design)—the purposes of a personal God active in this world, working out his will in wisdom and grace. This has little to do with the idea that God's purposes are a kind of blueprint of history that automatically take place as the years and centuries pass by. Such a notion would reduce God to a puppetmaster. Absolutely, God's unconditional freedom is highlighted here; whatever he has planned and decided to do will certainly come to pass. But that's a little different than stating God has "ordained whatsoever comes to pass."

Robert Letham unpacks WCF 3.1 thus (and I paraphrase): In short, if something happens, it happens because God ordained that it happen. In the case of humans, the thing that happens is of their own choosing. In the case of natural events, the thing that happens is in accordance with the laws of nature. "In other words, God has so created the universe as to maintain its own contingent freedom within the scope of his unchangeable purpose" (p. 184). I find this most aggreable, and if that's all the Confession was intending to say when using the word ordained on this point, then simply forget this post.

No other Reformed confession, or Reformed consensus document, that I have found articulates the equivalent of WCF 3.1, sentence 1 (The Canons of Dordt, First Point, Article 6 comes closest, but, like number 1 above, it doesn't stand alone as an abstract doctrine unhinged from election). For those of you who say you have a high ecclesiology (i.e., are confessionalists), this ought to carry significant weight. Why did Westminster go the extra mile in this matter? What did they gain by it? What did they lose?

In the end, how this active ordaining on God's part totally clears him from the charges that the Westiminster divines were eager to clear him of, I'm not so sure. Immediately after the clause quoted above, they wrote:

…yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

These are exactly the things that are called into question when we suggest that God (actively) ordains whatsoever comes to pass; merely saying it doesn't is of little comfort. I know that for the majority of Reformed folks, God is no master of puppets, and for that I am grateful. I can, along with Westminster, freely confess Romans 11:33, but, contrary to Westminster, only in the context of St. Paul's discussion of God's sovereign election of the unjust to life in him.

A Face-to-Face Encounter

2011-01-24T10:47:00.006-05:00

Jacob's Ladder

At its core, sin stems from failing to worship (or love) God exclusively and failing to love our neighbors as ourselves. The patriarch Jacob and his family are guilty of both. After God calls on him to fulfill his vow at Bethel (Gen. 35:1), Jacob wisely commands his entire entourage to “put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments” (v. 2). Removing any and all hindrances from the exclusive worship and allegiance to the one, true God of Israel is absolutely essential to keeping the covenant, even though it wasn’t until much later that this actual command was codified for the people (see Ex. 20:3–5 and Deut. 6:4–5). Jesus, too, thought it important, so much so that He considered it to be the greatest commandment of all, along with, of course, the “royal law” (James 2:8) of Leviticus 19:18: “. . . you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jacob, as his household’s representative before God, is clearly guilty of breaking the foremost commandment—his house was filled with idols and earring amulets associated with pagan deities. They were guilty of renouncing in practice the great confession of God’s people in every age—the shema (found in Deut. 6:4ff.).

Jacob was also guilty of breaking the second. His failure to swear sole allegiance to the one and only God led to his failure to love his household as himself. Instead of leading his family and all who served him into obedience and exclusive worship of the creator God, he simply tolerated the idolatry in his midst, denying those under his care the very purpose for which they were created (to worship God).

Then God called him out to fulfill his vow in Bethel. And Jacob listened, as did his family (Gen. 35:4), showing that he finally recovered the spiritual leadership in his house after the sad events at Shechem recounted in chapter 34. His command to “put away the foreign gods” among them was nothing less than a call to repentance, a call to forsake one direction for an entirely different path. It was a call to cease and desist from pursuing God’s promises (involving his kingdom) in the manner they saw fit and to follow his program, on his terms. Far more than feeling regret or sorrow for this or that sin, Jacob’s call to repentance involved one’s entire life—to change one’s way of thinking and acting. We might think that Jacob, the very one who wrestled God face to face and lived (Gen. 32:30), would have understood this by now. But, then, we’re speaking of one who took well-nigh a century to prevail with God.

The Baptist's head on a platter

Jacob’s blessings were great, yet there was a prophet to come whose blessings were greater.
This prophet also saw God face to face and lived. But unlike Jacob (Gen. 32:29), this prophet heard his name. Indeed, he was the greatest prophet—no, rather, he was more than a prophet, he was the immediate forerunner of the one to whom all the Law and Prophets pointed. Thus he prepared the way for the Lord more clearly than all those who came before him. In this, John the Baptist fulfilled the prophecies of Malachi (3:1; 4:5–6).

But lest we think too much of this one, Jesus tells us that he is the greater (Matt. 11:11), despite his being younger and despite his preaching the kingdom after John. Usually we think of ourselves as “the least” in God’s kingdom. But it is not primarily about us, at least not directly. In short, “the one who is least” here is Jesus. Being “the least” is commonly understood as a negative thing. But in this context, “the least” is best understood as a reference to time; that is, though Jesus came later than John, he is, of course, as the Messiah who brings in the kingdom, greater than John. Jesus is here saying that he himself, the one who truly represents God’s people, is the one who will enact what the prophets saw from a distance. In other words, if John “is Elijah who is to come” (v. 14), the last of the prophets who prepared the way for God’s coming judgment and salvation, then Jesus is the one, the Servant, who was to come, and the people need not look any further.

The least in God's kingdom,
Jesus the Christ

Yet we are included in this greater standing too, those who are in Christ, because “what is said of the Redeemer can also be said of the redeemed” (Reformation Study Bible, notes on Eph. 2:5–6). What a privilege to be considered great in God’s kingdom!

How could this be? Which of us has been the object of prophecy? Are we not those of whom the prophets spoke: “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved’” (Rom. 9:25, citing Hos. 2:23; see also 1 Peter 2:9–10)?

But which of us has held council face to face with God and lived? Are we not, by virtue of our union with Christ Jesus, “seated with him in the heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6)? Indeed, “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). And our access to divine council is assured: “ . . . we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus . . .” (Heb. 10:19).

So, all those in Christ are greater than John, because we actually participate in that which John and the prophets anticipated, and we point to him, the Christ, more clearly than all of them. Is this mighty privilege taken for granted, we who stand in a greater redemptive time than Abraham, Jacob, David, and John? May we show our appreciation, then, by deliberately seeking God’s face in all we do, patiently and submissively waiting on and wrestling with our loving Lord. For we can be confident that our limping in this world will burst forth into unceasing praise and life in the kingdom to come.

{This originally appeared in Tabletalk 12.6 (June 2007): 21–22}

“Against the Law: Milton's (Anti?)nomianism in De Doctrina Christiana”

2011-01-10T15:41:00.001-05:00

After about three years (finally!), my essay on John Milton's view of the relationship between Christians and the (Mosaic) law has been published in Harvard Theological Review. You can find (and read) it here. I haven't been to the local seminary library in a while, so I'm not sure this is on the shelf yet.

Also, I didn't get to do this anywhere in the footnotes, so I'd like to thank Professors Frank James and John Frame, both of whom critiqued early versions of this essay about eight years ago.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . peace
Of Conscience, which the Law by Ceremonies
Cannot appease, nor Man the moral part
Perform, and not performing cannot live.
So Law appears imperfect, and but giv’n
With purpose to resign them in full time
Up to a better Cov’nant, disciplin’d
From shadowie Types to Truth, from Flesh to Spirit,
From imposition of strict Laws, to free
Acceptance of large Grace, from servil fear
To filial, works of Law to works of Faith.

— Paradise Lost, XII.296–306

Leper Messiah

2011-01-05T14:40:00.002-05:00

If you're like me at all, with a family of little ones and a full-time job, your creative output often comes in fits and starts. I began making this video a few years ago and it's still waiting to get done (what's more, I couldn't figure out how to remove the WMV watermark in the videos I ripped off of youtube, so I kind of gave up). It's pretty self-explanatory.

'He that Cometh' Maketh the Church (2)

2010-12-23T13:27:00.007-05:00

Henri de Lubac (1896–1991)

IN THE FIRST POST ON THIS TOPIC, I briefly covered Hans Boersma's three reasons for recapturing Henri de Lubac's views on Holy Communion. The first two were glanced at there; some preliminary work as we gear up for the third reason will occupy us here.

Picking up where we left off, the Counter-Reformation scholastics kind of mutilated St. Augustine when it came to the Eucharist (as did their twentieth-century heirs). Case in point, for Boersma, was the way these folks handled the bishop's well-known Sermon 227 on the unity of the body of Christ that resulted from the celebration of Communion. In it, St. Augustine allegorizes the grains that join together to form one loaf, comparing that to individual believers coming together to form one body. There's no talk of real presence, let alone transubstantiation, notes Boersma: "All the focus seems to be on the unity of believers, on their fellowship or communion, which resulted from the many grains being joined together in a loaf of bread." In short, the Eucharist makes the church.

But the scholastics and their modern counterparts were fundamentally unable to deal with these kinds of thoughts, and so they simply ignored and eventually abandoned them. Boersma, through de Lubac, goes so far to suggest that one might not find today's Roman Catholic teaching on the Eucharist explicit in St. Augustine, and, as a result, the neo-Thomists lost St. Augustine altogether.

Fear, that tired, old nemesis, steps up to take the blame once again. Fear, according to de Lubac, was to blame for his church's inability to properly appreciate St. Augustine and other pre-modern theologians. Fear of what? Protestant symbolism. But fear of a vacuous Eucharistic theology is not sufficient reason to buy into neo-scholasticism. At his core, de Lubac rejected the radical separation of nature from grace, as well as the latent rationalism rampant among his peers, which led to his recapturing of a (pre-modern) sacramental approach to reality: supernature, grace, was not some kind of arbitrary imposition on a self-sufficient natural world; rather, the two are not to be separated—nature was never without God's presence. A sacramental view of the world, argued de Lubac (writes Boersma), "began with theology and with the assumption that what we saw around us was the gift of the Creator-Redeemer God."

Therefore, symbol in Eucharistic doctrine is not to be feared. Contra Protestantism, symbols did not just relate to some completely different, distant reality. The symbol and the reality were not to be strictly separated; the symbol (sacrament) shared or participated in the reality to which it pointed. But contra neo-scholasticism . . .

. . . the symbols only gave us a small inkling of the great sacramental reality that upheld them. De Lubac's problem with neo-Thomism was that its "realism" completely identified symbol and reality. . . . This approach insisted that once we have grasped the symbol, we have comprehended also the Body of Christ; there was no sacramental reality reaching beyond the human symbol.

So much for Aristotle. De Lubac's church (not to mention the Protestants) had forgotten the very purpose of the Eucharistic body, thus suffering from a severly truncated ecclesiology.

Coming up next: The crux of de Lubac's objection, which, according to Boersma, paves the way for genuine ecumenical action.

Bénédictions sur Vous, mon Frère

2010-12-12T13:33:00.004-05:00

A MOST BLESSED BROTHER AND FATHER in the faith died yesterday. There will be many places that one can find words on the contours of his life and the arc and trajectory of the ministry God gave him. But here you will find only a reflection.

Brother Roger Nicole (his title of preference) last wrote for Tabletalk this past February (we had hoped to have him interviewed for an upcoming issue—the request was out, but I don't think it was completed). Back in August 2009, he called me a few times regarding his February 2010 article; and a couple of times he left voicemails. I saved them, first, because the Roger Nicole was calling (and how often does one get such a thing from a theologian of his caliber?), and, second, I thought to myself, who knows how long he'll be around? So I wanted an audio record of him and his unforgettable thick accent (which grew thicker with age).

My experiences with Professor Nicole go back well before last year, however. When I arrived on the Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando) campus in 2000, one of the first classes I signed up for was his seminar on the Westminster Assembly. Beyond that, and a few reading electives, I found myself often sitting across from him in his office (with his highly prized and ancient monographs behind him) discussing the contours of Christian theology, especially of the Reformation period, and especially on the doctrine of the atonement.

It wasn't at all unusual to be discussing this or that finer point of theology with him (me often struggling to make sure I got everything he was saying, because, seriously, he would ramble on in encyclopedic fashion—that and his aged accent made it difficult), and then suddenly he'd jump up directing you to follow him, at a quick pace, downstairs to the library, which library housed his personal library of some 20,000 volumes. At the time, his collection was uncategorized, except for in his mind. On these occasions, he'd lead you right to a book (or books) that dealt with the exact topic you've just been speaking about. (How he remembered where everything was, I'll never know. I have problems with my own 700-volume library.) His gift of a first-print edition of John Milton's De Doctrina Christiana in English (1825) stands as one testimony to such occurences (he also imparted his secret about how he obtained so many books without it breaking him).

As far as I could tell, he thrived in this atmosphere, spending genuine time with students, gently challenging their assumptions, and pointing them in directions he hoped they'd go. And he did this, it seemed, primarily because he loved the Christ of God and the people for whom that Christ atoned. I know he sometimes dreamed about writing more, but for whatever reason it never materialized. Quite incommensurate with his lack of celebrity status is his lasting legacy in Christ's kingdom, for he has touched the lives of countless would-be pastors and teachers who went on to serve God's people face to face.

May his love for Christ and his church—manifested in his passion for the Holy Scriptures, his exactness regarding the doctrine of the atonement, his allegiance to the God revealed in his Word, his desire for true Christian unity, the gentleness with which he dealt with doctrinal differences, and his concern for biblical equality among all people in the church—be ever true of us.

2K or Not 2K?

2010-12-09T09:31:00.001-05:00

. . . so wonders my colleague. Read his review of David VanDrunen's Living in God’s Two Kingdoms and wonder with him (for me, the answer is yes, but not exactly in the [minority] fashion proposed by VanDrunen and others).

'He that Cometh' Maketh the Church (1)

2010-12-08T16:07:00.010-05:00

Henri de Lubac (1896–1991)

IN THE NOV/DEC ISSUE of Books & Culture, Hans Boersma wrote an article, "The Eucharist Makes the Church," in which he uses Henri de Lubac's views on the Supper as a grand moderating position that ought to do three things: (1) help us recapture the pre-modern, sacramental view of the world (over against the rationalism of the High Middle Ages and the neo-scholastic theology of the early 20th century); (2) reappropriate a pre-modern "sacramental" hermeneutic with respect to Scripture (here Boersma has in mind St. Augustine's exegetical approach of literal meaning pointing beyond itself to spiritual meaning); and (3) apply the genuine ecumenical potential inherent in de Lubac's sacramental outlook.

It is the last area that interests me most here. With respect to the other two, simply note that Boersma's narrative (which he implies is de Lubac's) goes something like this: Postmodernity is little more than modernity coming home to roost. These, kicked off, as it were, by the rationalism of the High Middle Ages . . .

. . . are predicated on the abandonment of a pre-modern sacramental mindset in which the realities of this-worldly existence pointed to greater, eternal realities, in which they sacramentally shared. Once modernity abandoned a participatory or sacramental view of reality, the created order became unhinged from its origin in God, and the material cosmos began its precarious drift on the flux of nihilistic waves.

Recovering de Lubac is of particular importance, therefore, because he fought the same battles many of us are fighting, according to Boersma. What battles? Why, the ones precipitated by the neo-scholastics, of course! They are (1) the strict separation between nature and the supernatural and (2) the rationalist apologetic approach to the Bible and the history of Christian thought.

So, in short, "the pre-critical sacramental outlook of the medieval tradition," good; High Middle Ages, not so good. The Catholic renwal movement of nouvelle théologie, good; Pope Leo XIII's neo-scholastic love affair with St. Thomas, not so good. Leo's encyclical, Aeterni Patris, and policies "entrenched Thomist philosophy and theology as the normative system of Catholic thought."

With respect to the Eucharist, Boersma casts de Lubac (or, rather, de Lubac casts himself—I need a historical theology expert of this era to confirm or deny) as situated between two extremes: Protestantism on the one hand, and Catholic neo-scholasticism on the other. De Lubac mentions John Calvin by name as one who "watered down" both the reality of Christ's presence in Holy Communion and the traditional idea of the church as the body of Christ. The two go hand in hand, he argues, because with only a "virtual presence" of Christ in the sacrament, one would end up with only a "virtual presence" of Christ in the church, too (I know my friend Keith Mathison would take serious umbrage with this charge of "virtual presence." I am glad to see that Calvin was de Lubac's Protestant target, however—probably because his view is the only Protestant one worth holding; if anyone can figure out Luther's, let me know).

But de Lubac's main antagonist, writes Boersma, was his Catholic compatriot (both his contemporary neo-scholastics and their 17th-century predecessors). All of them were unable to find transubstantiation in the early church, most notably in St. Augustine, and "this difficulty led them to engage in mental gymnastics in their interpretation" of the North African bishop.

Coming up next: We'll look at de Lubac's recapturing of St. Augustine's sacramental outlook and Boersma's attempt to push it in an ecumenical direction. And I'll clear up the title for this post too.

Survey Says?!

2010-11-18T15:19:00.013-05:00

I TOOK PART IN A SURVEY the other day as suggested by the Cathedral Church of St. Luke. It revolved around music, with an eye on revising the hymnal currently in use. What follows are a few of my thoughts I wrote down in the "Got Anything Else to Say" section:

I'm not opposed at all to new music, provided it's beautiful (according to what I say is beautiful, of course) and theologically sound—by which I mean orthodox, according to the Scriptures and the tradition of the Christian church and her seven ecumenical councils.
I cannot stand sappy music, and much of what came out of Western revivalism is just that. I'd excise those portions from the hymnbook right now, if I could.
All Anglican churches, including my own, ought to devote more time to the singing of the Psalter.
I do not trust a revision of the hymnal, unless those revisions include: (1) the removal of revivalistic Americana [and its attendant civil religion]; (2) the inclusion of ancient hymns both Western and Eastern; and (3) the absence of any modern hymns one may find in a Unitarian-Universalist's hymnbook.

Let me know your thoughts on these thoughts, if you care so to do.

The survey also ended with the ridiculous question, "If you were stuck on a desert island, which eight songs would you want to have with you?" It's ridiculous, of course, because who can pick just eight songs? Everytime I look at this, I want to change it, but here's what I wrote:

"Across the Universe" —the Beatles
"Blackbird" —the Beatles
"With or Without You" —U2
"Until the End of the World" —U2
"Song Remains the Same" —Led Zeppelin
"Ramble On" —Led Zeppelin
"All I Want" —Joni Mitchell
"St. Matthew's Passion" —Bach (it has two movements, but it's broken up in several parts on youtube)

This time, tell me which eight you'd want with you.

The Four Beasties Met Their Match

2010-11-10T12:33:00.001-05:00

"I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.”
(Dan. 7:13–14)

IT'S ADMITTEDLY DIFFICULT to come down hard on the details of certain texts that have to do with eschatology ("end times"), but the pastoral points remain the same—the Messiah is now enthroned. He has an eternal rule over the whole earth (Dan. 7:14; Luke 1:32–33). King Jesus, the fully divine and fully human Son of God and son of David, will judge all things before the very throne of the Almighty, the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:10; Matt. 25:32). For those in union with this King, the Christ of God, the verdict will be “not guilty” (Rom. 8:1; 1 John 2:1–2). Not so for the four beasts—and especially for the fourth beast: his “dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and destroyed to the end” (Dan. 7:26). This is good news, indeed!

The panmillennialist’s mantra—“It’ll all pan out in the end!”—is surely agreeable at this point. But we needn’t be content with just that. There’s always more to say, not least with respect to eschatology, and not least with respect to Daniel 7, a magnificent portion of God’s Word. Daniel’s vision climaxes with the installation of one like the son of man as the eternal king in 7:13–14. Contrary to popular opinion, this scene has to do with the Messiah’s first coming, not his second, final coming (and I’m no postmillennialist). Clearly, the vantage point of Daniel's vision is from the heavenly court—not earth—and one like a human being ascending toward it. John Calvin picked up on this long ago when he argued that this passage is best understood as a vision of Christ’s ascension to the right hand of the Father after his resurrection (see Acts 1:9–11; 2:33; 5:31).

Thus, Christ is enthroned now. But much like when David the shepherd boy was anointed by Samuel and spent the following several years waiting and fighting to see that kingship manifest itself fully, “all authority in heaven and on earth” has been given to Christ Jesus, complete with its own set of marching orders that are to be carried out while we await, and fight for, the full manifestation of that heavenly kingship: “Go therefore and make disciples” (Matt. 28:18–19). We couldn’t even begin to do the latter if the former were not true.

Keith Mathison argues convincingly in From Age to Age that the “coming Son of Man” sections of Matthew’s gospel that are often understood as pointing to Christ’s second coming actually refer to Jesus’ installation as the eternal king and judge during the entirety of his first advent, but most notably at his ascension (e.g., Matt. 10:22–24; 13:40–42; 16:26–28; 19:27–29; 24; 26:63–65, and parallels). In other words, all of these sayings are fulfillments of Daniel 7:13–14, when Jesus receives the kingdom from his Father, the Ancient of Days.

Let us praise the Lord this day that the linchpin of history has already been banged into place. The promised restoration of creation, including the blessing of all nations, is well underway. “Despite resistance, tribulation, and suffering, all the forces of hell will not be able to stand against the church, for Jesus has overcome the powers of death and hell, and nothing will ever be the same” (Mathison, p. 387).

When You're Strange

2010-10-25T12:26:00.003-04:00

“Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to be with him: I beg you, my friends, not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has come. . . . So then, our friends, stand firm and hold on to those truths which we taught you, both in our preaching and in our letter.” (2 Thess. 2:1–2a, 15)

The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple
by Titus in AD 70.

People are strange. Jim Morrison was just singing the obvious. High on my list of strange these days, besides those who use the Bible to push tee totaling, are those caught up in a particular sort of millennial madness. The cream that has risen to the top of that crop are those who print T-shirts to bring attention to their cause.

The one T-shirt I’ve seen lacking the most creativity is also the one that helpfully marks its wearer out as having succumbed to an egregious error. It reads: “Jesus came back in 70 AD” in big, white type on a black shirt. The apostle Paul would have a few choice words for that fellow, no doubt, and, love it or hate it, Eugene Peterson’s Message paraphrases him well enough: “Now, friends, read these next words carefully. Slow down and don't go jumping to conclusions regarding the day when our Master, Jesus Christ, will come back and we assemble to welcome him. Don't let anyone shake you up or get you excited over some breathless report or rumored letter from me that the day of the Master's arrival has come and gone. Don't fall for any line like that” (2 Thess. 2:1–3).

“Slow down and don’t go jumping to conclusions. . . . Don’t fall for any line like that.” And yet so many still do. I’m not suggesting here that the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 wasn’t a major event in the history of Israel after their return from exile. But it was only an initial fulfillment of the “day of the Lord” that foreshadowed that final day of the Lord, when Jesus returns—literally, not “spiritually”—like the emperor he is, triumphantly marching through town after having defeated his enemies once and for all.

God has promised to judge the world’s systems that set themselves up over against his sovereignty, whether it be at the end of history as we know it, or even occasionally during that history. The catastrophe that took place in AD 70 qualifies as one of these days of the Lord. But it is not the final return to which Jesus and the prophets pointed.

For starters, such apocalyptic events like the revelation of the man of lawlessness and the great apostasy have yet to take place (to be sure, men of lawlessness and apostasy within the church have come and gone). Paul warns the Thessalonians, and us, not to be misled regarding the royal return of Christ, that the “day of the Lord” has already come. We must be on guard against such deception, and one of the surest ways to protect ourselves is also one of most mundane (so we think): attending to the Word and sacraments and prayer in the communion of saints. These are what God has decided will empower his people to “stand firm and hold to the traditions” taught to us by Christ and the apostles (v. 15).

In the end, it’s about God and what he has promised to do: he remains sovereign over all, and he has chosen a people, “the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13). Here is our assurance, not least in the midst of strange people caught up millennial and heretical madness: God’s election guarantees the elect’s salvation. It depends on him alone. He will overthrow all men of lawlessness, all antichrists, all false teachers, and he will keep his church steadfast in the beliefs and practices passed down through the apostles from the divine Master himself.

Waiting for Godot?

2010-10-22T10:11:00.012-04:00

“For you yourselves know very well that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief comes at night. . . . But you, friends, are not in the darkness, and the Day should not take you by surprise like a thief.” (1 Thess. 5:2, 4)

Vladimir and Estragon

The church in Thessalonica had a good reputation. The gospel had an immediate effect on the lives of those who came to life in Christ in that city: their hospitality to Paul and his companions, to the message they brought, their turning to God from idols, and their waiting for God’s Son, who they now know to be their deliverer from the coming fury (1 Thess. 1:6, 9–10).

Remarkably, people were talking about this new church without even being asked—their fame echoed throughout the land. But the exciting news wasn’t just about them; it was about the way in which this church had come to be. The gospel, not the people who believed it or preached it, was the hero (may that be true of us in the midst of evangelicalism’s celebrity syndrome!). And it was that gospel that wrenched those dead idols from the hands of the Thessalonian Christians, causing them to wait for God and his coming wrath with confidence.

It may seem commonplace to us, but eschewing idols was simply unheard of in the first century. “It would be like asking people in a modern city to give up using motor cars, computers and telephones,” notes one commentator.

Embracing the living God meant embracing his resurrected Son and his way of doing things. It meant living with one of the most unique characteristics of Christianity—hope. This hope, as is often said, was no weak desire for something that may or may not happen. Rather, it was a confident anticipation of the royal coming (parousia) of the Messiah from the throne room of God. This coming marks both condemnation and reconciliation. On the one hand, God, through his Christ, will condemn all that distorts and defaces his creation; on the other hand, through this condemnation, his people will be delivered and he will restore all things. Such is the stuff that Christian hope is made of (to paraphrase Bogey, not Shakespeare).

But it’s not a passive waiting, like we do in a doctor’s waiting room or at home when waiting for a loved one to arrive. It’s an active life of holiness and witness to God’s righteousness. It’s a confident anticipation that God will show mercy to his people, returning them from exile to the Promised Land—a new heaven and earth. So, we are not in darkness and the Day of the Lord shouldn’t take us by surprise like a thief (1 Thess. 5:4). May we strive this day to recognize that a future day is coming when God will deal with every form of evil, and may we take comfort in our only defense—the work and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Syncretism, the great American temptation

2010-10-19T13:29:00.004-04:00

I'm over at Ref21 this week (again), "Reading with M'Cheyne" (see earlier posts here and here), and have decided to repost the blog entries a day later over here, since there are probably some of you who don't (or won't!) venture over to Ref21. Here's my first entry from yesterday:

“There are some Jews whom you put in charge of the province of Babylon—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—who are disobeying Your Majesty's orders. They do not worship your god or bow down to the statue you set up.” (Dan. 3:12)

If there’s a simple gospel call to the nations that hasn’t changed in two millennia, it’s this: put away your idols and worship the true God revealed in Israel’s Messiah, Jesus. This refrain came constantly from the lips of the Apostle to the Gentiles, who enjoined people everywhere to hear the announcement of the good news, which will “turn you away from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven, earth, sea, and all that is in them” (Acts 14:15).

Not much has changed since then. Syncretism is the great American Temptation (along with french fries, of course) among Christians as much as in the surrounding culture. But “how can God's temple come to terms with pagan idols?” asks Saint Paul. “For we are the temple of the living God!” (2 Cor. 6:16a).

It's important to note at this point that we confessionalists aren’t, historically at least, fundamentalists (I use the word in its post-Scopes Trial sense): the dangers of syncretism don’t undo the radical freedom that is ours in Christ. Christians have always been, rightly, a synchronistic bunch (that whole “being in the world” bit) while nonetheless being warned to guard against the syncretistic temptations that come along with that synchronistic life (“but not of the world”). We are in essence called to live deliberate lives in this time between the times, but we are not to do it, even if it were possible, with a separatist posture. While we need to be cautious to avoid unchristian syncretistic practices, we also need to uphold the freedom to practice wise dominion in this earth as we await our Lord’s return. This goes for eating meat offered to idols (which is nothing, if you know the one and only God created the food and you are not eating it as a symbolic gesture of worship of the idols, so the apostle in 1 Cor. 8) or practicing yoga. We can boldly, yet humbly and with gratitude toward the triune God, eat that halal gyro and then attempt to work it off with a tuladandasana or utkatasana pose.

At any rate, mixing Christianity with idolatry happens even among us confessional types. Where are those points of syncretism in our own lives? What beliefs and practices do we take for granted this very day that give accord between Christ and Belial (1 Cor. 6:15)? Pray with me and ask that the true God would root out the idolatry within our own hearts, from which will spring beliefs and practices that delight our Father in heaven.

Deliberate unhealthiness poses dangers to genuine Christian faith

2010-10-07T10:15:00.008-04:00

{a parody for you (dis)pleasure, regarding a subject I have no business writing about}

Should Christians Practice Lethargy and a Poor Diet?

Some questions we ask today would simply baffle our ancestors. When Christians ask whether believers should live sedentary lifestyles, while eating poorly, they are asking a question that betrays the strangeness of our current cultural moment—a time in which being deliberately apathetic about such matters seems almost mainstream in America.

It was not always so (see Michael Powers and Jay Schulkin's The Evolution of Obesity for a good discussion on the morphing of humanity's activity into inactivity and its results). No one tells the millions-of-years-old story better than Powers and Schulkin, whose recent book is a masterpiece of evolutionary history as it relates to our expanding waistlines.

Childhood obesity, diabetes, and related illnesses are becoming major health problems in America, who are the second-flabbiest people in the world (the South Sea Islanders are larger). Parents' reluctance to monitor their children's eating habits; the marketing tactics of fast-food companies, which influence us to overeat; the preponderance of fad diets; the phasing out of physical education programs in schools; and the sale of fast foods at schools to save money on dining facilities all factor in to this mess. And, no surprise, lower-income families have higher rates of unhealthy weight regardless of race, ethnicity, and gender.

To a remarkable degree, the growing acceptance of poor diets and sedentary lifestyles, especially among evangelical Christians, points to the retreat of wholistic thinking among believers, and indeed, a retreat of biblical Christianity in the culture. Deliberate apathy with respect to health begins and ends with an understanding of the body that is, to say the very least, at odds with the Christian understanding of a human being as a whole person—body and spirit—made in the image of God. Christians are not called to think with their stomachs or see the human body as a means of connecting to and coming to know one's hedonistic threshhold. Believers are called to act like their bodies are parts of Christ's body—not to treat it like it doesn't matter, to join it with all kinds of fat-inducing processed foods, to let it sit sedentary throughout the day.

Clearly, today's dilemma cannot be extricated from its evolutionary roots (see Powers and Schulkin above), but, still, most Christians seem unaware that lack of exercise and a poor diet cannot be separated into physical and spiritual dimensions. The physical is the spiritual in such a lifestyle, and its practice is meant to do little else than assuage the systemic narcissism and ravenous consumption in the name of Amorica, America's indigenious pagan deity (whose most common manifestation is the Self).

When Christians live lives like this, they must either deny the reality of what such a lifestyle represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of such a way of life. The contradictions are not few, nor are they peripheral. The bare fact is that sedentary ways and a poor diet are vices by which its adherents are trained to use the body as a vehicle for achieving one primary goal—the fulfillment of their own pleasure (I do realize that the same could be said for those who are overly health conscious). Christians are called to consider themselves as very members incorporate in the mystical body of God's Son. We are not called to escape whatever it is we're trying to escape by overeating and remaining sedentary but to follow Christ in the way of treating our bodies as temples of the Most High.

There is nothing wrong with eating fast foods occasionally and not exercising everyday, and, besides, such isolated actions in themselves are not the main issue. But when these actions become the defintion of one's lifestyle, consider this—if you have to take medications to alleviate or avoid problems associated with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high chloresterol, coronary artery disease, stroke, among other conditions, it is no longer merely something for which excuses can be made.

The embrace of deliberate obesity is a symptom of the systemic narcissism embodied by Amorica, and, to our shame, this exaltation of the sedentary lifestyle reaches into the church. Christians who practice this way of life are embracing, or at minimum flirting with, a physical and spiritual practice that threatens to enslave their own lives to Amorica. What? Don't you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, that you are slaves of the one whom you obey? Should any Christian willingly risk that?

"So then, don’t let sin rule your body, so that you do what it wants. Don’t offer parts of your body to sin, to be used as weapons to do wrong. Instead present yourselves to God as people who have been brought back to life from the dead, and offer all the parts of your body to God to be used as weapons to do right. Sin will have no power over you, because you aren’t under Law but under grace" (Rom. 6:12–14).

Keep Yourselves in the Love of God

2010-09-23T15:39:00.006-04:00

It’s easy to miss the fact that Isaac strove with God for twenty years over his wife’s infertility before seeing a positive answer. His son, Jacob, showed similar persistence when he wrestled with the angel at Peniel. This is not to be confused with stubbornness; rather, Jacob's striving is synonymous with brokenness. His long night of wrestling is described by the prophet Hosea as follows: “He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor” (12:4). In other words, he threw himself upon the mercy and grace of the one, true God upon whom the blessing to Abraham rested in its entirety. It would have been the same for Isaac, which leads us to see his twenty-year prayer as an extraordinary act of faith during a time that is one of the most difficult trials a married couple will ever face. They had known the promise of God, and they, like Abraham and Sarah, were brushing up against old age without that promise fulfilled. So their challenge wasn’t solely infertility; it was: Will God be true to his word? Has it failed?

We know he was, and we know his word didn’t fail. But during those twenty years, their distress must have been great. No doctors, no advanced medicine, no other alternatives—only waiting. Yet just because there are so many more medical options today with respect to infertility doesn’t make facing infertility any easier for us. It may in fact make it harder, since the first assumption we moderns make is that we can fix any situation—given the proper treatment. But God’s arm is no more twisted now than it was back then. Isaac and Rebekah’s challenge was great, and their story, especially that of Isaac’s twenty-year prayer, serves to instruct us (see 1 Cor. 10:11). In what way? In faithfulness, particularly in prayer.

Not a few Christian couples, potentially great parents, ever experience the blessing of children. It is a sad reality in this fallen world. Faced with what feels like the inexplicable judgment of God, the infertile couple might move from anger to depression to practical atheism—just giving up, as if God won’t hear the plea because he doesn’t care; or worse, that he can’t, because he doesn’t seem to exist. What if Isaac had played the atheist during this trial? It is safe to assume that God’s plan would not be thwarted, but it is also safe to assume that Isaac would have grieved and displeased his covenant Lord. Some folks shy away from such talk, that one of God’s people might displease him. But Jude warns us clearly: “Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life” (v. 21). Hard times are no excuse to play the atheist or to grumble against the living God.

Those who argue that God doesn’t get angry at his children might treat such portions of Scripture as purely hypothetical: “Keep yourselves in the love of God (you can’t help but do otherwise) . . . .” But this won’t do, for it not only ignores the plain sense of the many texts on this subject, it cheapens the grace of God to the point of making him unable to sanctify or chasten his people (Rom. 8:18–25; James 1:2–3; 1 Peter 4:12–13). It also may lead to a church’s exalting preference and lawlessness under the guise of “freedom in Christ.”

But that freedom has obligations. Consider: “Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love . . .” (John 15:9b–10a). Even the ancients were not unfamiliar with such conditions: “I the LORD your God am a jealous God . . . showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Ex. 20:5–6).The psalmist agrees: “But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments” (103:17–18). While we may understand the motivation behind easing these demands—eschewing anything that smacks of legalism—we ignore these Scriptures at our peril. Yet they can also be misused, and indeed they are.

If the love of God is tied entirely to our obedience, or to our faithfulness to the covenant, we will find ourselves in an anxious tailspin. It’s one thing to combat lawless “freedom” with these injunctions, it’s quite another to make God’s covenant love conditioned solely upon them. Such notions would drive us away from the gospel and back to the vicious angst that characterized us before the Spirit’s gracious call and the freeing forgiveness of the cross of Christ.

The answer to this is: the “love” that Jude wrote about, for example, is different from the efficacious, electing love of God; it is the love that distinguishes our every-day relationship with him. This we can mess up. Badly. But in no way can we remove ourselves from God’s foreordaining love.

In John 6:37–40 we see that if Jesus were to lose one whom the Father has given him, then he would either be deliberately disobeying his Father’s will or finding himself unable to enact it. Denying this, then, does real violence to the doctrine of God and the Trinity. In short, God’s electing love is unconditional, steadfast, and gripping.

Yet we may still find ourselves under the displeasure of God insofar as disobedience defines our faithfulness, much like my dog, which has a propensity to run from my side in fits of frenetic activity, receives the pinch collar. I love the thing, and don’t want it to get hit by a car. And I assure you, that pinch collar feels like anything but love.

{This originally appeared in Tabletalk 12.2 (Feb. 2007): 22–23}

Where is the "Fun" in Fundamentalism?

2010-09-08T14:43:00.013-04:00

"Grace" Christian School

I'm one of those who fall in the "[Christian] fundamentalism breeds atheism" camp. True, it may be better, at least it's more honest, to be an atheist than a functional one (i.e., a person who explicitly denies the existence of deities vs. a confessing Christian living as if God doesn't exist). But, still, my childhood experiences with fundamentalists, while standing in contrast to a few of my adult experiences with them, push me in the direction of using the moniker pejoratively. Put differently, Warfield's fundamentalism (with which I've come into contact in the past decade—the good kind) is not the kind of fundamentalism that arose during/after the modernist controversy of the early twentieth century.

I generally disdain fundamentalism, and I must confess this bias openly. It is a framework and a people with whom I feel little kinship, having experienced it firsthand in the realms of education and church in my formative years (and now only when it's unavoidable). I wasn't raised in a fundamentalist (a.k.a. "indy-fundy") home, but we lived down the street, out in the boondocks, from a private school that had a stellar reputation for teaching its kids the good stuff. Academically, this was true; spiritually, not so much. Although grace was in the name, the place hardly exhibited it. Even less so within its ecclesial life (not unlike Hawthorne's seventeenth-century Boston). After a couple of years of attending church there, my folks, thankfully, had had enough (though we stuck around the school for a year or so longer. Not surprisingly, it was the Lutherans that showed us what providing a decidedly Christian education in a healthy way looked like. I think there's some pretty interesting reasons for this, but that's another post.)

On the other hand, Meic Pearse writes in Why the Rest Hates the West: Understanding the Roots of Global Rage that "by their constant, mindlessly inaccurate resort to the 'f-word'—fundamentalism—to describe the upsurge of religious fervor in much of the non-West, Western secularists are employing a boo-word that long ago lost its original meaning and has come to signify 'more-religious-than-I-happen-to-like'—and thus to say more about the speaker than about the persons, things, or phenomena described" (p. 27). For this reason alone, I've pretty much left off using fundamentalism pejoratively, for fear of accusing myself of disdaining others because they're "more-religious-than-I-happen-to-like" and thus hold certain views and act certain ways, so I think, because of that super-religiosity. In other words, giving them such sleight of hand fails to take them seriously (and, incidentally, probably betrays a supercilious pattern in one's life). Recognizing the duty to show others dignity means treating them seriously, at least at first (i.e., giving them the benefit of the doubt).

Okay, so, John Piper called his readers some time ago to give fundamentalism the benefit of the doubt, to "feel a good breeze" from the wasteland (actually, he wrote, somewhat more nicely, "from the fevered landscape of controversy"). I don't remember how I came across this post recently, but I'm just now reading Kevin Bauder's article (warning: .pdf file). Piper pulls out the nuggets from the piece: that the best of the fundamentalism that Bauder knows comes from those who "refused to become giants," who were not trying to create or control empires; who revered the Word of God and delighted in expounding the scriptures; who fought the battles of their day, but did so without losing their gentleness and kindness.

Of course, it goes without saying that being popular has nothing to do with the desire to create one's own kingdom, however small. This is exactly the tendency I've seen and experienced during my tenure among the fundamentalists, and none of them were/are popular, being quite content to play God's unquestioned voicebox among their particular community. Bauder himself notes: "I have been watching this version of fundamentalism [the "hyper" type seen today—his word] for forty years or so. It is filled with demagogues and bullies. I want nothing to do with it" (p. 4). This goes for a good many of those raised in it, and, alas, they've chosen atheism as a higher road—and I don't blame them.

Bauder thinks there's a fundamentalism "worth saving" (p. 2–3). I demur; unless there's a wholesale realignment with the old Princetonians, to my mind, there's little hope of salvaging it. Nevertheless, I totally understand his tenacity. The idea of jumping from the fundamentalist ship and sinking into the vast evangelical sea is probably scarier than being associated with people whose demagoguery is at least easy to spot (yes, I'm biting my lip here).

On the Pathological Reliance on Medicine

2010-08-19T15:49:00.006-04:00

I witnessed a convergence of ideas the other day when reading Rob Moll’s The Art of Dying: Living Fully in to the Life to Come. (A book, incidentally, that I think ought to be read, along with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' classic On Death and Dying.)

A few months ago I came across (again) Gilbert Meilaender's brief article "I Want to Burden My Loved Ones" (first published in 1991 in First Things—back when it was less of a rag). Moll then brought it up in The Art of Dying and unpacks it a bit:

"Meilander gently argues against the application of living wills or advance directives as the modern fix-all to the tendency of doctors to rely too heavily on medicine. We say we don't want to burden our families with making difficult choices when we cannot make medical decisions on our own, so we turn to legal documents that outline what we would and would not want should we ever be unable to tell a doctor ourselves. . . .

[But] this appeal to a piece of paper overturns what families are supposed to do—carry each other's burdens. When we allow someone else to care for us, make decisions for us, Meilander says, we most often discover that they are willing and eager to pick up our burdens." (p. 90)

Advance directives are, of course, not inherently wrong, but "it is best when a range of people . . . are part of the conversation about what medical care a patient desires." The main benefit of advance directives is getting the conversation started.

Moll also writes early on in the book about what he alludes to in the above quote—relying too heavily on modern medicine. "Our hope in medicine can lead to an unrealistic expection that medicine can cure whatever disease we or our loved ones might have. Such expectations tempt us to believe we need not contemplate and prepare for our death or that of our family members." He goes on: "Aggressive medical care may always be our first option, but by pursuing powerful medicine until there is 'nothing left to do' we likely forgo time with loved ones, final pursuits or perhaps a spiritual deepening in anticipation of life with God" (p. 35). Such is the irony of certain Christians' proclivities toward being "so pro-life [that] we're anti-death" (in the words of one Christian gerontologist, p. 33).

Then along came Hauerwas. In "America's God Is Dying," he writes (among other things that are actually the piece's focus):

"The fear of death is necessary to insure a level of cooperation between people who otherwise share nothing in common. In other words, they share nothing in common other than the presumption that death is to be avoided at all costs.

That is why in America hospitals have become our cathedrals and physicians are our priests. I'd even argue that America's almost pathological reliance on medicine is but a domestic manifestation of its foreign policy. America is a culture of death because Americans cannot conceive of how life is possible in the face of death. And thus 'freedom' comes to stand for the attempt to live as though we will not die."

The point about foreign policy aside, think how this same culture (of triumphalism and glory) has gripped the American church—the very place where the cross ought to be rooted. Christians here cannot conceive of how life is possible in the face of death. And so American Christians, just as much if not more than non-Christians, die poorly, precisely because they have forgotten how to die well, which means they've forgotten how to live.

Growing Grace-Full

2010-08-06T09:35:00.000-04:00

(What follows is an incomplete introduction to . . . what, I don't know—yet.)

“But you, friends, are well-warned. Be on guard . . . .

Grow in grace and understanding of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.

{Peter, in his second letter to the scattered exiles, 3:17–18}

You say, “Dawson?” I say, “What?” You say, “Dawson . . . .”

I’ll never forget that common refrain coming from the mouth of Dawson McAllister, especially since it was at a youth beach camp in 1991 where he was speaking that I walked down the aisle for the first time of my life, a shattered young man. Whenever I blow it big (as in “really”), usually in private, and usually revolving around lust or arrogance or anger, I start to replay that moment of a muggy summer night in Florida, walking the aisle, suddenly overcome with tears. I can’t help but wonder, what kind of tears were they?

That’s the question that has plagued me over the years, not least when I’m struggling with deep, personal sins. They weren’t quite tears of joy; they didn’t feel much like tears of sorrow. And that’s what worries me—the authenticity of that “conversion experience.” What was I crying about? My obsession with analysis drives me to categorize those tears. But they defy categorization. They mock me.

Then I remember those mysterious words penned by Saint Paul:

The moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. (Rom. 8:26–28)

We’ll get to the meat of this passage later on, but for now, read that phrase again: “ . . . wordless sighs, our aching groans.” That sounds about right. Overwhelmed as I was at the end of that aisle, surrounded by friends and acquaintances, whispering encouragements and praises in prayer while laying on hands, my groaning was too deep for words. God, who knows me better than I know myself, when I didn’t have the words to even attempt to explain why I got up and walked toward the front, was right alongside helping me along—indeed, giving me wordless sighs and aching groans, to the glory of his grace. I suppose that’s a category, but it still defies explanation.

Of course, that doesn’t dissuade theologians from attempting to do so (thankfully). One such theologian writes that what the apostle is speaking of here is “an agonizing in prayer, a mixture of lament and longing in which, like a great swell of tide at sea, ‘too full for sound or foam,’ the weight of what is taking place has nothing to do with the waves and ripples on the surface” (Tom Wright, comm. Rom 8:26–27, p. 599). The Spirit of the living God comes alongside and intercedes at that precise moment—the moment when the individual faces the ruin and misery of the fallen world, finding that no words can express his or her sense of futility and longing for redemption. God, in other words, by his Spirit enables us to finish our intercessions, despite the outward cry being “reduced” to wordless sighs and aching groans. And they reach him. Yes, they reach him like so many beautiful drops of love on the ear of a beloved. What did I do to deserve this? In a word, nothing. I could cry and stammer all day long, but without God’s Spirit lifting up those inarticulate sounds, it’d all be for naught.

The funny thing about this experience of mine is that I had no intention or desire for it to happen. Up to the very last moment, that is, even while walking down the aisle, I had no inkling of futility, no lamentation, no remorse. In fact, a close friend came over to me during the fifteenth chorus of “Just as I Am” and whispered something inaudible; I thought he had asked me to come up to the front with him. You know, support and all. “Sure,” I said, and proceeded to follow him. But by the time I reached the end of that aisle I transformed into a crumpled mess. And I didn’t know why. At that moment, indeed, knowledge was completely irrelevant. I’m the last guy wanting to be seen quoting Bono (to be super-cool, one must avoid, at all costs, doing what cool people do), but damn it if he didn’t write the perfect lyrics for what it was I felt (“Until the End of the World,” Achtung Baby, 1990):

In waves of regret and waves of joy,

I reached out for the one I tried to destroy.

You, you said you’d wait ‘til the end of the world.

So it goes—we, God-haters all, when the time comes according to his good timing, reach out and find, amazingly, his presence, because that’s what he promised he would do. The various authors of Holy Scripture write about this in various ways, and one of those ways is with the language of “election.”

But, contrary to all the over- and under-statements about this doctrine, election is not about being specially chosen to a place above the rest, as a part of some special club or something like that; it’s about being specially chosen to die to self, to be the salt of the earth and a light to the world—to have, in short, lives providentially shaped “along the same lines as the life of [God’s] Son” (Rom. 8:29).

My ulterior motive for mentioning election at this point is mainly because it has a reputation as a doctrine that divides. The world in the church would tell you that’s a bad thing. Of course, division isn’t good, and we ought not divide over the truths found in Scripture. But the ramifications of believing the lie that doctrine must therefore be avoided outweigh the potential divisions that might arise as a result of discussing doctrine. What often needs to stop is not the discussion of doctrine, but how we go about discussing said doctrine. Growing grace-full can help with that.

Left Behind—by the Grace of God!

2010-07-29T15:15:00.005-04:00

THE STORY OF LOT isn’t particularly nice. It is, in fact, one of the more gross stories in the Old Testament. A recalcitrant man of faith, a self-centered wife, two incestuous daughters, obstinate daughters and sons-in-law, and a city full of violence and perversion—great characters all—for a tragedy. Yet it is not without hope. For despite his depressing mistakes, Lot was a righteous man whose faithful soul was tormented over the lawless deeds of the Sodomites (2 Peter 2:7–8). God, ever utterly faithful to his covenant, did not abandon Lot (for Abraham’s sake, Gen. 19:29); rather, he repeatedly delivered him, providing ample opportunities for him to return to the covenant community. Our continual prayer ought to be that God would do the same for us when judgment strikes, lest we be caught vacillating like Lot’s wife.

The comment in the narrative about his wife in turning into a pillar of salt (Gen. 19:26) serves one major purpose: to show what becomes of those who identify themselves with the objects of God’s wrath. In looking back, Lot’s wife directly violates the command in verse 17 (“Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley.”). She therefore shows her solidarity with the evil city and forfeits her salvation (see Matt. 6:24; 13:22). Before we stand on our own self-constructed pedestals, however, consider some of the reasons why Lot’s wife would have looked back: her husband was a judge in that city (Gen. 19:1), and she undoubtedly enjoyed riches and respect; her home and all her possessions collected over a lifetime were destroyed; and, not least, her other two daughters, who stayed behind with their husbands, were suffering a horrific, burning death. Would you not linger?

So great is the temptation to become identified with the luxuries given by God’s grace that Jesus Himself warned his disciples to “remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32). Lot’s wife, not surprisingly, had become something of an omen in the stories of Israel. She represented the one who, faced with the reality that life and luxury were slipping away, clung tightly to what this world offered, thereby rejecting the salvation of Israel’s covenant Lord. The context in which this warning appears should provide further light on its application for us today.

Readers familiar with Luke 17 know that it’s not easy to understand. As the Pharisees grill Jesus about the coming of God’s kingdom (they in no way consider Jesus’ ministry to be a sign that the kingdom has come), he responds that it is within their grasp—if they weren’t blind to the fact that standing before them was God’s Anointed One. He further remarks that despite the present reality of God’s kingdom in and through his life’s work, judgment is coming. And it will be swift.

Just as in the days of Noah and Lot (vv. 27–29), so too will devastating judgment fall upon those who fail to heed the divine warning. Jesus did not want his disciples falling prey to this destruction, for this destruction would not be preceded by any supernatural signs of imminent danger (vv. 20–21). Therefore, they must be alert. They must not be swayed by false messiahs (see Luke 21:8–9), for the “days of the Son of Man” will be clear to all, like lightning flashing in the sky (17:22–24). When that happens, Jesus warned, flee: “On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back” (v. 31).

Well, on what day would this occur? Presumably, “wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together” (v. 37, NKJV). This answer, to us now probably cryptic, may not have been so to His hearers. It is a point of fact that when Rome marched, their imperial standard bore the eagle. Possibly this whole discourse, then, is about the forthcoming destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, the once-great city that rejected her Messiah and Lord.

It is in this context that our Savior exhorted his disciples to remember Lot’s wife. When the judgment of God through the legions of Rome began, they were not to look back. Nostalgia is not worth facing God’s wrath. As the Roman army swept through the city, the chaotic and seemingly random sword of death took one and left another—whether in bed or in the field (vv. 34–35). Ironically, in this situation, being “left behind” is a good thing, for it is those who are left, who are saved from being taken in judgment, that are rescued by God (with apologies to Tim and Jerry).

If we too are to be left behind, receiving the justice of God reserved for his elect (18:7–8), then we must pay heed to the divine warning. And that warning is the gospel itself. The Messiah has come, vanquishing sin and death through suffering and rejection (17:25; see John 5:24–25 and Rom. 8:3). God’s wrath has been turned from his people (1 Thess. 1:10), and their sins have received atonement (1 John 1:7). To ignore God’s way of peace, to exalt oneself, is to lose the very life so tenaciously grasped (Luke 17:33). Has our generation given itself up to worldly, godless living, just like in the days of Noah and Lot? Will we, too, be taken up by surprise in divine judgment and destruction? With which city do we identify?

True, life and luxury are slipping away, but the word of our God stands forever (Isa. 40:8). And that Word, now come in the flesh, whose Spirit fills every believer, enables us to endure patiently, whatever the cost in self-sacrifice, and to be instantly ready for the return of our King. Remember Lot’s wife!

{This originally appeared in Tabletalk 11.6 (Nov. 2006): 23–24}

Who Cares About the Sabbath?

2010-07-16T16:18:00.008-04:00

That's the question my introduction of this Perspectives volume on the Sabbath seeks to answer. In so doing, it sets up the rest of the book, which presents in point-counterpoint form the four most common views of the Sabbath commandment that have arisen throughout church history, representing the major positions held among Christians today (and despite their absence, Catholics and Orthodox can also be found on the continuum this project articulates). The publisher summarizes the book as follows:

Skip MacCarty (Andrews University, Pioneer Memorial Church) defends the Seventh-day view, which argues the Sabbath commandment is a moral law of God requiring us to keep the seventh day (Saturday) holy. It must therefore remain the day of rest and worship for Christians. Jospeh A. Pipa (Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary) backs the Christian Sabbath view, which reasons that ever since the resurrection of Christ, the one day in seven to be kept holy is the first day of the week. Craig L. Blomberg (Denver Seminary) supports the Fulfillment view, which says that since Christ has brought the true Sabbath rest into the present, the Sabbath commands of the Old Testament are no longer binding on believers. Charles P. Arand (Concordia Seminary) upholds the Lutheran view that the Sabbath commandment was given as Torah to the Israelites alone and does not concern Christians. Rest and worship are still required but not tied to a particular day.

It doesn't hit the shelf until April 2011, but this project, from its acceptance to final manuscript, has taken about 2.5 years. And I've been talking about it for about four. Glad that it's done on this end, and hoping that it serves the church well.

Reading with Whom, Again?

2010-07-05T10:14:00.012-04:00

Once again I've taken the plunge and contributed a second installment of devotionals over at Reformation 21's "Reading with M'Cheyne." My first set appeared back in March (see this post for links to those and for some helpful background information about M'Cheyne); this next set starts today (July 5), with a new post coming each day until this Friday (July 9). I'll update this post with links to each as they are posted over there.

— Who Will Put Security for Me?
— The Inexhaustible Grace of God
— Getting Our Dirty Hands Dirty
— Unlimited Forgiveness
— Recovering Christian Humanism

That's all, folks. Thanks for reading.

Vanhoozer's Decahedral

2010-06-30T11:18:00.008-04:00

In the July/August 2010 Modern Reformation, Kevin J. Vanhoozer contributes a short article where he lays down "a ten-point checklist for fledgling theological interpreters of Scripture." It basically articulates a way of reading the Bible as Scripture—as God's self-communication—in a canonical and ecclesial context (pp. 16–19).

This is nothing new, of course. But it's still unwelcome among large swaths of religious academia. I'll just reprint the theses here; Vanhoozer provides commentary under each one in the article. Here's how he describes his decahedral: "The ten theses are arranged in five paris: the first term in each pair is properly theological, focusing on some aspect of God's communicative agency; the second draws out its implications for hermeneutics and biblical interpretation." Without further adieu:

The nature and function of the Bible are insufficiently grasped unless and until we see the Bible as an element in the economy of triune discourse.
An appreciation of the theological nature of the Bible entails a rejection of a methodological atheism that treats the texts as having a "natural history" only.
The message of the Bible is "finally" about the loving power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16), the definitive or final gospel Word of God that comes to brightest light in the Word's final form.
Because God acts in space-time (Israel, Jesus Christ, and the church), theological interpretation requires thick descriptions that plumb the height and depth of history, not only its length.
Theological interpreters view the historical events recounted in Scripture as ingredients in a unified story ordered by an economy of triune providence.
The Old Testament testifies to the same drama of redemption as the New Testament, hence the church rightly reads both testaments together, two parts of a single authoritative script.
The Spirit who speaks with magisterial authority in the Scriptures speaks with ministerial authority in church tradition.
In an era marked by the conflict of interpretations, there is good reason provisionally to acknowledge the superiority of catholic interpretation.
The end of biblical interpretation is not simply communication—the sharing of information—but communion, a sharing in the light, life, and love of God.
The church is that community where good habits of theological interpretation are best formed and where the fruit of these habits are best exhibited.

Vanhoozer sums it up:

Scholars know deep down that they can and should do better than stay within the confines of their specializations: "For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the interpretive good I want, but the historical-criticism or proof-texting I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but interpretive habits that have been drilled into me. Wretched reader that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of secondary literature?" Thanks be to God, there is a way forward: the way, truth, and life of collaboration in Christ, where sainthood and scholarship coexist, and where theological exegesis and exegetical theology are mutually supportive and equally important.

Now, I'll admit to being blinded by a slight infatuation with Vanhoozer, especially after reading books like Is There Meaning in This Text? I've not much to say here by way of criticism. I'm hoping some others can pick that up, not least the "apocalyptic" bunch floating around out there, as I'm not quite sure what view, if any, they might have with respect to hermeneutics (if "they" even have a "view"). I'd also like to see some discussion about how Vanhoozer's implicit criticisms here cut to the quick of a lot of modern confessional Reformed exegesis and theology.

Also, this touches upon what I've grown increasingly comfortable saying publicly as of late: Theology done without an eye on (i.e., in service of) the church is useless. But on second thought, it might be best to break off this subsequent and tangential discussion from this post and deal with it later. For now, I'll leave the Decahedral to stand alone for the reader to digest.

Father Abraham Had Many Sons

2010-06-14T12:07:00.008-04:00

AT THE PRECISE MOMENT we’re introduced to the pagans from Ur of the Chaldeans in the book of Genesis, we meet the one whom the God of creation called to start fixing the evil mess Adam and his children made. Through Abraham and his children and grand-children, God eventually sent his Son to fulfill finally and faithfully the vocation to which his ancestors were called. And Abraham was the one who left everything behind, walking by faith, even when he didn’t know where he was going (Heb. 11:8). For this, he was revered by the people of Israel as a model of true piety. Such was their reverence that the anonymous Jewish priest who wrote Jubilees thought, “Abraham was perfect in all his deeds with the Lord, and well-pleasing in righteousness all the days of his life” (23:10). Indeed, Abraham was thought to have not even sinned against God (see The Prayer of Manasseh). He was their father, one in whom they could be proud.

This may bring to mind that elementary school Bible song:

“Father Abraham had many sons,
Many sons had father Abraham;
I am one of them and so are you,
So let’s all praise the Lord!”

We’d then scream something about our right arms and left arms, and by the end of the song we all looked like we were marching in place (with the added, though inexplicable, nodding of the head). It must have been quite a scene to behold—a sanctuary full of pre-pubescent adolescents awkwardly lurching about. (I couldn't link to just one version—see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, from all different peoples around the world.)

Well, the song serves it purpose—to expend energy. But what about it? Just who are the sons of Abraham? Can we modern, Western children really be Abraham’s sons?

One portion in particular of Saint Paul’s letter to the churches in Rome gives us the answer. In chapters 3:27–4:25, the apostle begins to unpack one central theme he discussed in 3:21–26, namely, “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (v. 22). The obedience of Jesus is everywhere drawn out in this portion of the letter as the sole ground of God’s free justification, with faith its sole means.

After he contests the importance of the Mosaic law as a means to justify oneself, the apostle Paul appeals to the story of Abraham to bolster his claim that righteousness is credited only by faith. The reasons he does so should interest us. As we just saw above, Abraham was widely revered throughout Israelite history. It is probable that Paul wanted to show the largely Gentile Roman churches that those he had had arguments with (certain Jews and Jewish Christians) were not understanding Abraham rightly according to the Scriptures. Thus he argues, contrary to Jubilees and The Prayer of Manasseh, that Abraham was not so much “perfect in all his deeds with the Lord” but was justified by faith: for “to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). Because Abraham is an exemplar of faith in God’s promises — not “perfect in all his deeds”—he is truly the father “of all who believe without being circumcised” (v. 11; see also Gal. 3:7, 29). By the way, those “who believe without being circumcised” are those modern, Western children, giddily stomping and swinging their arms to the tune of “Father Abraham Had Many Sons.”

It is no surprise that Abraham held such a prominent position in Israelite history; after all, the Old Testament gives him that place. He is the father of the chosen nation and the one in whom the promise of God was sent forth, and we mustn’t miss the fact that God’s plan all along was to include Gentiles in his promise—the promise of adoption and reconciliation (Gal. 3:8). Now we can see one reason why Abraham is given so much space in Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans: if his gospel is “the gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1), the very same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then the apostle needed to show how his gospel stood in continuity with the Word of God given to the prophets, while at the same time showing, for the Gentile Christians’ sake in Rome, that there is a certain amount of discontinuity, especially with respect to the Mosaic law. In short, they didn’t need to be circumcised, because righteousness is credited by faith (apart from Torah) in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which draws “all people” to him (John 12:32).

In this way, we Christians today, who are so far removed from the world in which Abraham lived, can call him our father. We didn’t deserve this, of course, but God obligated himself to do it on the day he walked the gauntlet of animal carcasses while Abraham was sleeping (Gen. 15). Moreover, the Apostle to the Gentiles teaches that our ability to call Abraham father is proof that God has kept the promise he made way back in Genesis 15. This promise is grasped by faith and rests on grace alone, and it is “guaranteed to all [Abraham’s] offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all” (Rom. 4:16). So Abraham, the father of the faithful, kept on believing God, and any person, if he or she believes like him, will also be reckoned righteous (see Rom. 4:11, 23–24).

Finally, all of this depends on the character of the life-giving creator God who made such promises. And we can be sure, as Saint Paul was, that this God will keep them, because he is the only one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (v. 17).

{This originally appeared in Tabletalk 30.6 (June 2006): 22–23}