Hard or Soft?

Published on by D. G. Hart

Yesterday I participated in an ETS panel on The New Calvinism. (Here is one of the presentations. Here is evident of another ETS sighting.)

One thing that I kept asking myself and then asked everyone in open discussion was why so few New Calvinists ask hard questions about the movement. People talk a lot about how big, successful, important, and spiritual the whole enterprise is. People even mention the phrase, “work of God.” But who is willing to ask whether it is a work of God? And if you ask are you guilty of Pharoah’s disease — hardness of heart? And yet, it sure seems to me that one of the biggest differences between the Old and New Calvinists is that the former ask hard questions and make hard distinctions. Newbies don’t ask hard questions. Their softness of heart makes them see the good in everything. And that leads to a squishiness of conviction and teaching.

To illustrate the point, I submit a post by John Piper Tony Reinke (thanks to our southern correspondent) on celebrity pastors. The bottom line is that we can’t condemn them and we certainly can’t do without them. “Choose ye this day?” Do we have to? (And yet these are the people who are supposed to oppose lukewarm going-through-the-motions Christianity.)

Piper is interacting with Tommie Kidd about George Whitefield:

It doesn’t always work perfectly, but there’s no reason why a Christian celebrity should exist without accountability to a plurality of elders and congregation in a local church. The New Testament pattern for the local church is sufficiently capable of caring for celebrity Christians. The key is commitment and intentionality. “Celebrity preachers and artists would do well to build in real accountability structures for themselves within their church — and are they actually connected to a church to begin with? Some Christian celebrities today, if you scratch under the surface, are actually not involved with church. That is a serious warning sign” (Kidd).

Hello! Whitefield was a priest of the Church of England. He was supposedly under the oversight of a bishop and he wasn’t a mere Celebrity Christian the way that Amy Grant is/was a Celebrity Christian. He had taken ordination vows. His status as a preacher derived in part from his membership in the Church of England. So how much integrity did he have when contrary to church laws, laws he had vowed to uphold, he acted like those laws didn’t matter and went fellowshiping around with Protestant Dissenters?

Inquiring Old Calvinists want to know.

Here’s another hard question: do you ever worry about appearing to be self-serving?

Rejecting Christian celebrities on the basis of their fame is foolish. Paul tells us to do the opposite, and to see faithful Christian celebrities, not as idols, but as divine gifts. “So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:21–23).

In other words, celebrities like Whitefield and More are part of God’s cascading eternal gifts. In the end, if you can anticipate a day when you will inherit the earth, then you have begun to discover the freedom you need to humbly and joyfully embrace every celebrity God has given the church — celebrity teachers, preachers, artists — as gifts. Such wide-hearted gratitude is the antitoxin for the poison of elitism.

Love Celebrity Christians. Love George Whitefield. Love John Piper.

One last query: could it be that fame clouds the way a Celebrity Christian sees himself? If you think it’s all a work of God (and forget that we have been here before with the First and Second Pretty Good Awakenings and the revivals of Billy Graham), that is, if you accent the positive and look at hard questions as just so much evidence of the lack of the fruit of the Spirit, then you may be the soft underbelly of the body of Christ.

For my (body of Christ) part, put me down for the pain in the neck.

60 thoughts on “Hard or Soft?”

  1. Small correction.

    Unless Piper has a pseudonym I’m unaware of, the author of the DG post on celebrity pastors is Tony Reinke.

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  2. There are so many jaw-droppers in the Desiring God piece (whoever wrote it) that you just can’t take them in at once. Celebrities are a foretaste of glory divine? Some people say they don’t want to go to heaven if there are no dogs (cats?) there. I’m less excited about it if it’s just a better version of the acronymistic New Calvinish conferences.

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  3. That DG article, in the words of the Round Mound of Rebound, is turrible. New Calvinists, please get over yourselves.

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  4. Desiring God’s article in a wrestling quote:

    “I don’t want to blow my own horn, but TOOT TOOT.” – Arn Anderson

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  6. Piper’s hand gestures are not far from Flair’s.

    With his lovable snark and quick wit, Dr. Hart would make a great Mean Gene Okerlund.

    Carl Trueman would be Paul Heyman.

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  8. Many have tried to demonstrate the fatal flaws in the New Calvinist’s armor, but to the New Calvinists, asking the hard questions, putting correctives in their path, and being critical of the movement is merely a cover for a jealous and envious heart for what God has done through them. The only repentance that is needed is for those who would dare question their “succcess.”

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  10. While you’re in town, come up to Escondido. I’ll buy you an Arrogant Bastard at the brewery. I can walk there from my office. I’ll be drinking the new Lucky Bastard though.

    Jed knows of a good bar or two down in the Hillcrest area if that doesn’t work…

    Back to the topic – Compare Paul’s celebrity with the New Calvinists:

    For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
    14 I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

    Gotta love Paul’s self-promotion. Not sure the last time I heard a New Calvinist promo coming anywhere remotely close to that.

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  11. Hard questions? How many are prepared to be a drink offering (Phil 2:17)? God’s libation on the altar? God’s joy is found in being accountable to a board of elders? Talk about Laodicean over confidence!

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  12. The fellow that wrote that post was CJ Mahaney’s right hand man for many years. No wonder the post reads like it does.

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  13. 12. “Embrace your obscurity”

    What if part of embracing my obscurity is not following Christian celebrities?

    Totally coincidental that this article came out just after the Driscoll/Mars Hill implosion. Totally coincidental.

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  17. Thanks, DJ. This helps explain why the piece is such a ham-handed, overwrought, ill-considered bit of butt covering. Small talent pool in New Calvinia, eh?

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  18. Yesterday I participated in an ETS panel on The New Calvinism.

    A “panel” or a kangaroo court?

    You should tell your readers the relevant facts and numbers. Who was there to refudiate you?

    I don’t give a fig for The New Calvinism either, but frankly, Darryl, your Calvinism is so lame that God shouldn’t have even bothered to create the earth, let alone send His Son to die for it.

    “Erik Charter” posting YouTube movie clips.

    Dude. You used to be somebody.

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  20. Here is a hard question. Do you think that those Old Calvinists who oppose what the new Calvinists are doing are doing the work of God? Many of the criticisms of the New Calvinists here remind of the prayer of the pharisee in the parable of the two men praying. Yes, the New Calvinism itself has faults and needs correction. And so does the Old Calvinism.

    And btw, the chain of command in which Whitfield was a part does not imply that he was accountable. It simply says that the structure was there but that implies nothing about how accountability was implemented.

    Finally, what was the Apostle Paul’s reaction to fame? Did he say embrace it? Did he embrace his own fame? Yes, the New Calvinists might be a bit disingenuous when it comes to their reaction to Christian Celebrities. After all, who is the most famous modern Calvinist today? But what is the harm in tempering one’s reactions to Christian Celebrities? At the most, all you do is lose a little bit of authoritarianism. And that isn’t really that bad.

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  21. Curt, the Unicorn bus to Happy Land leaves at noon — don’t miss it.

    Tom, you’re slipping into fear, loathing, and paranoia. Way to take an innocuous statement and run with it to lunatic extremes. I believe you’re a decent guy, but get a grip.

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  22. Matt – How did the word celebrity EVER become part of the church’s vocabulary?

    Erik – Matt, you need to stop asking questions like this and just love and embrace Christian celebrities. Didn’t you read the article?

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  23. Tom,

    Could you register the name of your shrink with the Webmaster in case your crack-up reaches the breaking point? We need someone to call to come check on you, feed the cats, and bring in the mail.

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  27. Many of the criticisms of the New Calvinists here remind of the prayer of the pharisee in the parable of the two men praying.

    Curt, with all the emphasis on humility and restraint over against display and glee?

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  28. Curt, sure they’re doing the work of God. It’s called word and sacrament ministry. Old Lutherans, Old Baptists, maybe even Old Methodists are doing the work of God. The Passion Conference is not an ecclesiastical ordinance.

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  29. Thank you God for not making me rich and famous like old Machen.

    Mark 10: 37 They said to Him, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.” 38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

    39 They said to Him, “We are able.”

    So Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink the cup that I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized; 40 but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared.”

    41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be greatly displeased with James and John.42 But Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 Yet it shall not be so among you….

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  31. Rumor has it these guys were the bomb before their drummer spontaneously combusted onstage:

    The Cookies commenced in 1979

    The group featured Ken Custer (guitar), Tom Van Dyke (bass) and Diamond Jim Tansley (drums).

    With the help of manager Joe Harris and producer Frank “Rat Bastard” Falestra the band quickly made a name for themselves in the South Florida music scene.

    In 1981 Ken Custer left the band and soon after Michael “Twee” Tansley fulfilled the guitar duties.

    In 1983 the band moved to Los Angeles and shortly after had suspended their live performances.

    After a long hiatus, in the late 90’s the original lineup Ken, Tom and Jim got back together in Los Angeles and recorded about 18 songs.

    Twee also contributed some guitar and vocal tracks to this project.

    The band members still keep in touch and are looking forward to the day when they will record again.

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  32. Reminds me a bit of “Television”:

    If a manager named “Rat Bastard” can’t get you over the top, who can?

    This does explain how Tom married over his head (that’s a compliment, Tom). He was a legit rocker back in the day.

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  34. Like any good journalist I protect my sources, lest he has to join you & me in the witness protection program on the day Tom cracks.

    I forgot one more to go along with Nightcrawler and Travis Bickle:

    He’s not going to be ignored, Darryl.

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  35. But, Darryl don’t “some” people think the same way about Horton, Trueman, Clark,White, Leithart, Wilson, D. Hart? It seems that whatever the place a peticular Reformed person happens to be positioned, all other places are Called to Reformation, like us.
    Maybe you don’t read Modern Reformation, but I’ve noticed the pivot work of The White Horse Inn gang…..they run through a Catholic at their back while pressing forward against a plethora of cultural relevent/ entertainment seeker mega-churches. After the smoke clears The Gospel according to Calvin ownes the citadel(at least that’s the way they see it)
    The thing about bench sitters….their existence means there will always be a first string, and first stringers sometimes don’t see themselves as celebrities nor leaders of “movements”.

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  36. Susan – peticular

    Erik – An odd combination of “Particular”, “Peculiar”, and “Tick”. I guess that fits.

    Susan and Sean must have gone to the same school judging by their shared idiosyncratic sentence structure.

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  37. This doesn’t mean that I don’t understand that the Reformers see themselves as the true heir of the gospel, and up against The Church prior as well as any movements post Reformation. I get that,so I don’t fault the Reformers for their vision since they are convinced that the split was necessary, it’s just that there is no logical reason to have faith that this is how the world should look, and there is no way, sola scriptura wise, to make it happen.

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  38. Erik,

    Oops, that’s funny. Well, at least I can be comforted by the knowledge that though my spelling is atrocious my reasoning is still okay. I’m from the south, what can I say.

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  39. Susan,

    Who are we to say how the world should look? We are but clay who take the world as we find it.

    Only utopians talk about how the world should look and Christianity is not utopian, although the notion of an infallible magisterium and Pope appears to be.

    Were the Jews utopian or did they learn how to live as aliens and strangers?

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  40. Susan, it all depends on what network/alliance said Reformed Protestant is trying to protect. We all protect friends. But I’m sure you know protecting Pope Francis is different from protecting Bergaglio.

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  43. Susan,

    What about 2 Corninthians 5:7?

    “for we walk by faith, not by sight”

    or Exodus 20:4-6?

    “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

    Giving you images and men to build up your faith doesn’t seem to be a priority of God’s.

    If it was, why have Jesus disappear for 2,000 years?

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  44. And if Reformed theology is promoting the “brotherhood of men”, that’s news to most everyone else on the Christian landscape (and Tom Van Dyke) who thinks we’re a-holes.

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  45. To All,
    Not that they are perfect, they certainly aren’t. But are some NeoCalvinists doing NeoCalvinist things that some 2kers should be doing too?

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  46. Susan, and the book stops before the rise of biblical criticism among contemporary Roman Catholics. So it’s a good book if you want to be confirmed about the history of Rome before the proverbial shite hit the fan.

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  48. Erik,

    It’s interesting that you mentiond Jesus disappearing for 2,000, for that was a big part of my existential crisis two years ago, which is answered in the Eucharist. He hasn’t left us, Erik.

    Since God instructed Moses to build the ark of the covenant out of gold and to put angles on the mercy seat, and also since the bronze serpent was built at God’s bidding, I’m sure that protestant theologians have interpreted incorrectly.
    Also to take note of, is that Ancient Egyptians actually had a cow deity (Hathor) and so when the Hebrews were led into the desert they weren’t worshipping “I AM” in the image of the colden calf as the one who led them out of captivity, they were worshiping the Egyptian god that they worshiped back in Egypt who is…

    “Thou art the Mistress of Jubilation, the Queen of the Dance, the Mistress of Music, the Queen of the Harp Playing, the Lady of the Choral Dance, the Queen of Wreath Weaving, the Mistress of Inebriety Without End.”

    IOW, they were synthesizing the true God with a pagan god, not trying to fashion a likeness of the God of Moses.

    When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”

    “18 Moses replied:

    “It is not the sound of victory,
    it is not the sound of defeat;
    it is the sound of singing that I hear.”

    19 When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain.”

    If the early church had icons,( and they did) then something is amiss in Protestant exegesis, because clearly in the OT, there were icons too.

    2129 The divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy explains: “Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure. . . . “66 It is the absolutely transcendent God who revealed himself to Israel. “He is the all,” but at the same time “he is greater than all his works.”67 He is “the author of beauty.”68

    2130 Nevertheless, already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze serpent, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim.69

    2131 Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons – of Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new “economy” of images.

    2132 The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,” and “whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it.”70 The honor paid to sacred images is a “respectful veneration,” not the adoration due to God alone:

    Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.71

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  49. Susan – consider John 20:12. The ark and the cherubim on either end were merely a foreshadowing of what was ultimately fulfilled at the resurrection. No, not things to be worshipped in and of themselves, but a physical representation of the true God for the benefit of Israel, in keeping with their primitive view of things unseen, as influenced by surrounding pagan culture. Once the final fulfillment took place at the resurrection there was no longer any need for any kind of physical representation of anything since God appear in the flesh and walked among men (John 14:9). Icons are obsolete.

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  50. Susan,

    You Catholics should start an “Images Gone Wild” series to rival “Girls Gone Wild”. It would play especially well in Latin America. Not buying. God can not be imaged.

    Werner Herzog on Catholicism/Idolatry in Latin America:

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  51. Susan,

    No existential crisis needed. Just trust Christ, hear the Word preached, receive the supper, go about your work & family business, help others, and die with confidence.

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  52. Hello George,

    ‘The ark and the cherubim on either end were merely a foreshadowing of what was ultimately fulfilled at the resurrection. ”

    Was it? How’s that? Could you give me the a Church father on this, thanks? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I would just need the consensus of the Fathers, who held to a four-fold method of interpretion.
    But even if you’re correct, we are not yet in heaven and so maybe images are still helpful to spur us on to the sacraments in the church, or to enliven our faltering faith. Think about it further….did the ancient Israelites worship the ark and the cherubim? If not, then icons today are not a stumbling block if thir purpose is the same as it was in ancient Israel.

    ” No, not things to be worshipped in and of themselves, but a physical representation of the true God for the benefit of Israel, in keeping with their primitive view of things unseen, as influenced by surrounding pagan culture.”

    They better of not have been worshiped. They never were.

    “Once the final fulfillment took place at the resurrection there was no longer any need for any kind of physical representation of anything since God appear in the flesh and walked among men (John 14:9). Icons are obsolete.”

    But, that is only according to one school of thought and it doesn’t harmonize with early church practice.

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  53. Erik,

    “God can not be imaged.” Yes, I agree but since the incarnation we know that he has a human face.

    Since you mentioned Utopia, I think I’ll watch one of my all time favorits,A Man For All Seasons.

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  54. Susan,

    Not just a human face – a specific human face. That’s why some picture that is supposed to be him is bogus. It’s like Napoleon Dynamite walking around with a picture of the glamour shots girl, acting like it’s his girlfriend.

    Since Jesus also has a real human body it has to be in one specific place, not in millions of Catholic mouths all over the world at the same time.

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  55. @Susan

    did the ancient Israelites worship the ark and the cherubim?

    They tried to 1Sam 4. God punished them by having them losing a battle even worse than before and having the ark be captured by their enemies. So yes, the command against idolatry applies to the ark itself. That analogy doesn’t help your cause.

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  57. Curt, right nagging and demeaning, like when a petition to protest a new strip club is sent around the transformer-table-of-deacons and the lone 2ker quietly lets it pass, wondering how he might broach the irony of continuing to fund the Christian schooling (etc.) of the out-of-wedlock mother of three whose latest was also just happily baptized. Nagging and demeaning depends on perspective.

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  58. Zrim,

    Have non/anti-2k approaches and movements in history and today benefited you in any way? If so, do you feel bad about that or indifferent? Or is it a Michael Moore “Capitalism is bad, but thanks for the wealth” mentality?

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  59. CvD, the short answer is yes and neither but thankful. The extended answer is that, while some may disagree, I’d contend that neo-Calvinism still has more Reformation in it than broad evangelicalism, and one bright spot for disaffected evangelicals is in its being much more world-affirming. Unfortunately, it takes a quick left turn at Albuquerque and creates the kind of Christian ghetto the disaffected were trying to escape. Sure, way better food and drink but cultural redemption of whatever variety is in the final analysis misguided.

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