Month: April 2009

The End of Christian America

Published on by D. G. Hart236 Comments

Jon Meacham wrote a less provocative piece than its title for the magazine he edits on “The End of Christian America.”  Reactions have been mixed even if it is hard to argue either with the data that prompted the article or Meacham’s Augustinian conclusion:

The columnist Cal Thomas was an early figure in the Moral Majority who came to see the Christian American movement as fatally flawed in theological terms. “No country can be truly ‘Christian’,” Thomas says. “Only people can. God is above all nations, and, in fact, Isaiah says that ‘All nations are to him a drop in the bucket and less than nothing’.” Thinking back across the decades, Thomas recalls the hope—and the failure. “We were going through organizing like-minded people to ‘return’ America to a time of greater morality. Of course, this was to be done through politicians who had a difficult time imposing morality on themselves!”

Two years ago in the epages of Ordained Servant, T. David Gordon reached a similar conclusion, and he didn’t need to quote a columnist:

Indeed, if there is any real evidence of the decline of Christianity in the West, the evidence resides precisely in the eagerness of so many professing Christians to employ the state to advance the Christian religion. That is, if Ellul’s theory is right, the evidence of the decline of Christianity resides not in the presence of other religions (including secularism) in our culture, but in the Judge Moores, the hand-wringing over “under God” in the pledge of allegiance, and the whining about the “war on Christmas.” If professing Christians believe our religion is advanced by the power of the state rather than by the power of the Spirit, by coercion rather than by example and moral suasion, then perhaps Christianity is indeed in decline. If we can no longer say, with the apostle Paul, “the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly,” then perhaps Christianity is indeed in significant decline. If we believe we need Christian presidents, legislators, and judges in order for our faith to advance, then we ourselves no longer believe in Christianity, and it has declined. Christianity does not rise or fall on the basis of governmental activity; it rises or falls on the basis of true ecclesiastical activity. What Christianity needs is competent ministers, not Christian judges, legislators, or executive officers.

Sometimes when the church is really the church she even beats journalists to the real story.

Trotter is Funny, Trueman Isn't

Published on by D. G. Hart2 Comments

If the Reformation 21 Blog were a blog, this conversation could go on over there. But seeing how its authors have chosen only to mix it up among themselves, reactions to their posts turn into posts on other blogs.

So Carl Trueman makes a good point about the inconsistency of evangelicals in the Church of Scotland objecting to the ordination of a gay minister but being fairly silent about the ordination and ministry of liberals. Trueman wrote, “Evangelicals who have not fought denials of the resurrection among office bearers — and some of whom stood by in silence as fellow evangelicals were beaten up by the church courts over refusals to ordain women — should not fight homosexuality. Indeed, they have absolutely no grounds upon which so to do; and it just looks like bigotry to the onlooking world. Too little, too late.”

This is a legitimate point and one the NTJ has made often about evangelicals in the PCUSA. It seems that mainline Presbyterian evangelicals get worked up on matters of sex, but matters of orthodoxy do not receive the same sort of diligence, as if the second table of the law were really the first.

In response, Michael Bird, says that Trueman doesn’t know the true state of evangelicalism in the Church of Scotland (thanks to Art Boulet for the link).   For instance, Trueman doesn’t give any credit to groups like Forward Together that are fighting the good fight in the Church of Scotland.  Nor does Trueman apparently know the wisdom of Kenny Rogers who sung about knowing when to call your opponents’ bluff in a poker game.  Bird also accuses Trueman of inconsistency himself.  It’s one thing to see the problems on the left when conservatives have plenty of problems to their right.  According to Bird, “those who hold to a KJV-onlyism, mandate that unaccompanied metrical psalms (sometimes it is exclusively the Scottish Psalter and not the modern Sing Psalms) is the only form of acceptable worship, those who won’t let women pray in church, professors who teach that ‘God has a covenant with America’, or those who treat the Westminster Confession with a greater authority than Scripture.”

Bird’s list of whacky right-wingers is curious, since something like the Westminster Confession is (or used to be) one of the standards in the Church of Scotland and the KJV and Christian America were not.   Could it be that if the Church of Scotland actually upheld Reformed, as opposed to evangelical standards, the ordination of gay ministers would not be an issue for the Kirk?  In fact, would Bird really turn away from the Church of Scotland men who affirmed the Westminster Confession, preached from the King James Version, chose to sing only psalms from the hymnal, and opposed women’s ordination?  It would appear that Trueman really does have a point about the incoherence of evangelicals in the Church of Scotland.  Do the folks at Forward Together really welcome only those ministers who have Jesus in their heart but then will ordain people that fall outside the qualifications Jesus revealed?  Is working with a psalm singer really as bad as working with a homosexual?  That’s a pretty arbitrary call, not to mention a much narrower standard than the apparently exclusive terrain on the Right.  In fact, the folks who oppose women’s ordination, who preach from the KJV, and who adhere closely to the Westminster Standards are capable of rallying behind Reformed orthodoxy.  It remains clear whether evangelicals in the Kirk are or ever will be.

Of course, that raises another question, one that boomerangs back on Trueman.  Why do some conservative Presbyterians continue to defend evangelicalism and at the same time voice some of the most telling criticisms of born-again Protestantism all the while maintaining a reputation as a good evangelical?  If Ref 21 would ever open itself up for comments, we might get an answer.

Update: the plot thickens.  Trueman calls attention to a petition on behalf of the evangelical position on homosexuality within the Church of Scotland.  He then appropriately has reservations about making homosexuality rather adultery the defining issue in the case before the Kirk.   Phil Ryken then takes Trueman mildly to task and explains why he signed the petition.   I guess that’s why they call it an Alliance.

Just Grow Up

Published on by D. G. Hart2 Comments

(From NTJ, January 1999)

A recent visit to Yale, complete with watching a Yale-Princeton hockey game, reminded us of the suffocating ubiquity of post-1950s popular culture. Being some twenty years removed from college life it was curious to see Yale undergraduates participating in the rah-rah spirit that college students of our generation studiously avoided in the name of being independently cool. Even more surprising was to see the overwhelming support for the Yale band, an extracurricular activity that certain boomers associated with losers and nerds. But here we were, in 1998, watching kids supposedly indoctrinated in the dogma of political correctness and postmodernism not just playing in but singing along with the band. Perhaps even more remarkable was that these nineteen- and twenty-year olds knew the words to the songs the band played. The Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Credence Clearwater Revival – it didn’t matter. These students sang along. The scene was almost surreal. These college students were joining in the singing of music that in our generation was supposed to be a pronounced statement against joining anything. Of course, one of the great myths of popular culture is that of the solitary individual who does his own thing, even while two-thirds of the teenage population are doing exactly the same thing. Continue reading “Just Grow Up” →

Lent is Like Spring Training

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

With friends of the church calendar like this, who needs Presbyterian critics?

Craig Higgins, a PCA pastor in Westchester, NY, wrote over at PCA Conversations (how did we miss this?) a couple of posts about the value of observing Lent. In the first, he gave two main reasons. The second was that Lent is part of the traditional wisdom of the church, “a tradition the church has observed for centuries.” He adds, “we dishonor our spiritual ancestors when we casually disregard their wisdom.”

That raises an interesting question: were indulgences part of “the church’s” wisdom? How about monasticism, clerical celibacy, prayers to Mary? To paraphrase Alasdair McIntyre, just which church are we talking about, and whose wisdom? And what of the particular wisdom of the Presbyterians who repudiated the observance of the church calendar?  Are the Westminster Divines chopped liver?

Higgins’ other reason, his first, is that Lent is like Spring Training for baseball players. “Just as a baseball player may work at staying in shape year round but still give special attention to conditioning before the start of spring training, so we may find great spiritual benefits in setting aside a few weeks to give special attention to the state of our souls.”

Does this mean that coming out of Lent, just as pitchers are generally ahead of the hitters (you wouldn’t know this from following the 2009 Phillies), are some Christians more sanctified than others?

It is a curious defense of Lent, one that spawned surprisingly little conversation at a site dedicated to PCA Conversations.  It is also a post that would be a lot easier to take if sanctifying the Lord’s Day were as much a part of Reformed piety as Lent.  In fact, if Lent is useful, as Higgins argues, for taking stock of our lives, an annual “spiritual” exam, wouldn’t the practice of weekly ordering our lives to set aside Sunday for worship and rest be more effective (not to mention the sort of self-examination that goes with partaking of the Lord’s Supper, or the daily help of “improving our baptism”)?  Come to think of it, maybe Reformed piety does not need the lift of the church calendar, which was sort of the point in one of the Reformation’s many reforms.

If the Bible Speaks to All of Life, Why Not the Confession?

Published on by D. G. Hart34 Comments

I do not do Facebook, though I might sign up for MyFace. I am happily uninterested in Twitter, which as T. David Gordon has suggested, is what twits do. So using a blog to tell others about what I’m doing seems silly if not narcisistic.

With those qualifications out of the way, a recent speaking engagement at Grove City College (where I heard Gordon make a very compelling presentation on the need for caution in using technology that requires batteries and plugs) got me thinking about the world-and-life-viewitis that has reached epidemic proportions among Protestants. Most evangelical Protestant colleges these days are justifying their existence and identity by saying they provide a wholistic vision on learning that is grounded in the Christian faith. The Lordship of Christ, the authority of Scripture, even the cultural mandate come in for aid and comfort.

This ideal is an honorable one and springs from generally wholesome motives. Who would not want to see Christ honored in all aspects of the created order, and who would want to be unfaithful where Scripture has revealed God’s holy will?

There’s just one problem: the Bible doesn’t speak to all the arts and sciences, let alone whether incoming freshmen should receive a laptop or whether it should be an Apple or an IBM machine. In fact, the one place where Christ is revealed, the Bible, has very little to say about the curriculum of an undergraduate education. If we say that it does, we are in danger of putting the imaginations of men above the Word of God — that is, making the Bible say what we want it to say. Continue reading “If the Bible Speaks to All of Life, Why Not the Confession?” →

The Great Debate: Psalms vs. Hymns III

Published on by D. G. Hart9 Comments

(From NTJ Jan 1997 and April 1997)

From: Glenn Morangie
To: T. Glen Livet
Date: 9/3/96 3:21pm
Subject: Psalmody -Reply -Reply

Glen,

Are you a ninny or what? How can you say that Reformed worship is not centered on the Word and then in the next sentence write, “God speaks to us and we speak to him.” That sounds to me like words are pretty central, and that it is God’s word at the center, both in calling us to his presence, and in guiding what words we say to him. Just a nitpick.

The example of preaching does not entirely settle the issue of non-inspired words in worship. If the Second Helvetic confession is right and the sermon, even from an unregenerate man, is the word of God, then there is something going on in preaching that is different from the words that non-ordained people speak. It certainly is not inspired in the sense of canonical revelation. But it is more on that order than the poem some proto-Unitarian wrote in the 18th century. Preaching and praying, then, are of a different order than poetry. Granted they are all words. But preaching and praying done by one of God’s appointed undershepherds causes something different to happen. God has promised to bless them in a way that he has also promised to bless his inspired word. But I don’t see any promise attached to the hymns the church may produce. Continue reading “The Great Debate: Psalms vs. Hymns III” →

2K Food Fight?

Published on by D. G. HartLeave a comment

Over at Heidelblog, Scott Clark takes some exception to the proposal at Old Life for a Bureau of Weaker Siblings.

Among the points he makes, these are the most interesting:

Hart mentions a natural law approach to resisting fornication (that the act of fornication is contrary to the creational intent of sex for procreation). This view seems to concede the Romanist view of sex. We should rather say that fornication is contrary to creational intent because, by definition, it entails sex outside of marriage. I’m not ready to concede the case that birth control is sinful. He also suggests that the hotel owner might not have “access” to natural law. This is an odd concession. Who doesn’t have access to natural law? To whom has natural law not been revealed? Isn’t one of the points of NL that it is universal? (Rom 1-2)? Continue reading “2K Food Fight?” →

Booalism

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

Why is the idea of dualism so threatening to many contemporary Reformed Christians? To talk about two kingdoms or to introduce the idea of differences between sacred and common jurisdictions is apparently a concession to secularism and a denial of Christ’s Lordship over every square inch of created order.

But in point of fact, a streak of dualism runs through the Reformed tradition. To help the medicine go down, the following quotations may show that dualism is less scary that it first seemed.

Therefore, to perceive more clearly how far the mind can proceed in any matter according to the degree of its ability, we must here set forth a distinction: that there is one kind of understanding of earthly things; another of heavenly. I call “earthly things” those which do not pertain to God or his Kingdom, to true justice, or to the blessedness of the future life; but which have their significance and relationship with regard to the present life and are, in a sense, confined within its bounds. I call “heavenly things” the pure knowledge of God, the nature of true righteousness, and the mysteries of the Heavenly Kingdom. The first class includes government, household management, all mechanical skills, and the liberal arts. In the second are the knowledge of God and of his will, and the rule by which we conform our lives to it. John Calvin, Institutes, II.2.13
Continue reading “Booalism” →

Why Should Lutherans Have All the Good Poetry?

Published on by D. G. HartLeave a comment

“Seven Stanzas at Easter” (a meditation on 1 Corinthians 15)
John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

[Written in 1960 for a religious arts festival sponsored by the Clifton Lutheran Church, of Marblehead, Mass.]

Thanks to Gregory Reynolds, OPC pastor in Manchester, New Hampshire for passing this on.

Bureau of Weaker Siblings

Published on by D. G. Hart24 Comments

Imagine the following scenario (not apparently one conceived by John Lennon): a hotel owner refuses to let out a room to couples whom he knows may engage in fornication, adultery or sodomy. The owner decides upon this policy out of his own Christian convictions. But the owner conducts his business in a civil polity that grants civil rights to fornicators, adulterers, and sodomites. What is the owner to do?

This is a conundrum which supposedly trips up two-kingdom thinking because the idea of a distinction between civil or common and religious realms denies the possibility of the existence of anything like a Christian hotel. If no such religious hotels exist, then apparently the owner should, according to 2k logic, change his policy and make rooms available to those who violate God’s laws. But if he insists on his policy, informed by his conscience, then he should sell his hotel because he lives in a land that will prohibits “Christian” hotels. One other option is to suffer the penalty for his violation of civil rights and either pay a fine or go to jail.

This test case for two-kingdom thinking actually fails to recognize that the alternatives here are actually more than two, and that the either-or approach that afflicts so much anti-thetical analysis does not do justice to the variety of God’s creation and providence. First, the hotel owner could actually appeal to natural law as a common standard for local laws. He could argue that sexual encounters outside marriage are inappropriate because they ignore the telos of sex, namely, procreation and reproduction. Second, if natural law is unavailable to this Christian hotel owner, he could appeal to the mercy of his local magistrate and petition for an exception to the laws of the county, city, or state. If he asked for such an allowance, he might actually find a kinder hearing than if he simply asserted to the town council, while wagging his finger, that the state’s laws were an affront to God’s moral will.

Third, to ensure that his hotel was thoroughly Christian, he could also deny rooms to liars, blasphemers, idolaters, thieves, and murderers, as well as anyone who has considered such acts and words in his or her heart. Of course, the owner might have to go out of business because no patron, not even a saint, could meet the owners’ righteous standards. Fourth, the owner could show his zeal for God’s law by also refusing to cohabit with his spouse and children for violating any one of God’s laws in heart, word, or deed.

The last option might be the most ingenious of all. If the Christian hotel owner is a member of a Presbyterian Church, he might prevail upon his session to petition the local magistrate in a case “extraordinary,” as tolerated by the Confession of Faith, ch. 31. What the session could do would be to work with the local government to establish a Bureau of Weaker Siblings in which the church would provide members of a public committee whose charge would be to evaluate the religious scruples of this hotel owner, and similar cases, to determine if he qualifies as one of St. Paul’s weaker brothers. Owners who cannot provide services to sinners, or to those who perform certain, more heinous kinds of sin, clearly lack the strong conscience that allows other Christians to regard such services to sinners as a legitimate part of their calling before God and love of neighbor. If a person, like the hotel owner in this example, were approved by the bureau as a weaker sibling, then he could gain permission from the state to be exempted from the scope and sanctions of laws that violated his conscience. Certificates of Weakness would be valid ideally for sixty days, and renewable, after meeting monthly with the Bureau, up to ten times.