He writes:

I have found it crowded with more or less two types: ascetic legalists and sophomoric libertarians who used to be ascetic legalists. . . . Then there is the liberty camp. Blowing smoke into the faces of their past, these find true piety to be measured by relative consumption. There seems always something to prove to some phantom somewhere in the individual or collective self, real or imagined. The way an adolescent speaks a bit higher on the phone so her parents know she is fraternizing with the neighborhood bad boy, certain libertarians want the details of their consumption known to their phantoms.

As I have admitted, this is a point that all Reformed Protestants who revel in the strong consciences need to consider.

But from the other side of the aisle comes the Reformed tradition itself. One of the more puzzling features of the original Protestant movement was a concern for eating meat – an act that hardly anyone but the most world-and-life view crazed would regard as essentially religious.. In one of the earliest Reformed creeds, Zwingli’s “Sixty-Seven Articles,” we read that the Christian “is free to eat all foods at any time.” This stemmed from the first outbreak of Protestantism in Zurich, eating sausage on Friday, a day on which Roman Catholics fasted by abstaining from meat. And not very long after Zwingli’s creed came the Tetrapolitan Confession which devoted four chapter to eating – or more precisely, to eating in contrast to fasting. One of the chapters was “Of the Choice of Meats.” The chapter on fasting has this:

When, therefore, we saw very evidently that the chief men in the Church beyond the authority of Scripture assumed this authority so to enjoin fasts as to bind men’s consciences, we allowed consciences to be freed from these snares, but by the Scriptures, and especially Paul’s writings, which with singular earnestness removes these rudiments of the world from the necks of Christians. . . . For if St. Paul (than whom no man at any time taught Christ more certainly) maintains that through Christ we have obtained such liberty in external things that he not only allows no creature the right to burden those who believe in Christ, even with those ceremonies and observances which God himself appointed, and wished in their own time to be profitable, but also denounces as having fallen away from Christ, and that Christ is of none effect to those who suffer themselves to be made servant thereto, what verdict do we think should be passed on those commandments which men have devised of themselves, not only without any oracle, but also without any example worthy of being followed, and which, therefore, are unto most not only beggarly and weak, but also hurtful; not elements – i.e., rudiments of holy discipline – but impediments of true godliness? (Ch. VIII)

One possible point to draw from this difficult prose, as sophomoric as it might appear, is that to have a theological journal, the NTJ, dedicated to the chemical found in tobacco is to bear witness to a prominent streak in the Reformed tradition about the importance of proclaiming and demonstrating Christian liberty. If meat on Friday was the way to expose the tyranny of man-made rules and false teaching in the sixteenth-century church, how much more is tobacco today a way to expose the sacred cows of both believers and citizens in the greatest smoke-free nation on God’s green earth?

First, say I am a political theorist who greatly admires the Federalist Papers (which I am not) and the arguments found there about the need for a Constitution that specifies the branches of a new federal government and their powers. If someone came along and said that federalism was the most wicked political notion ever known to man because it violated the divinely ordained rule of monarchs, would I not object because of my federalist convictions? In other words, would it matter to my federalist convictions that the attacker of federalism did not name John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, or James Madison explicitly? Wouldn’t I understand an attack on federalism to include those figures most identified with developing federalist thought (at least in the United States)?

Second, say I am a huge fan of the Coen Brothers’ movies (which I am) and someone comes along and tells me that the Coen brother’s are some of the least gifted and most adolescent of indie American directors who dabble merely in fashionable postmodernism, would I not feel my aesthetic toes trod upon even if this critic of the Coens did not mention their two best movies by name, “Miller’s Crossing” and “Hudsucker Proxy”? I mean, is a general put-down of the Coen brothers easier to take simply because it is general and lacks specifics? Or is the general rejection more sweeping because it lacks specifics that might provide wiggle room for hurt feelings?

The point here is that a criticism of a general category would certainly seem to involve the specific embodiments (whether in persons or texts or artifacts) of that larger truth or expression. Again, if I say Russians are a beastly lot, would not admirers of Alexander Solzhenitsyn naturally think I had him in view until I explained that I had in mind rather the kind of Russians one associates with Stalin? Or if someone attacked the regulative principle of worship without mentioning T. David Gordon or W. Robert Godfrey, would it not be fair to think that the criticism of the building block of Reformed worship applied not simply to the idea but also to those who maintain and defend the idea?

Why is it, then, if someone criticizes the spirituality of the church or the two-kingdoms doctrine that this criticism is somehow in good taste as long as it does not mention specific proponents of these ideas? The critic of two-kingdoms may not know the entire cast of characters who espouse this view – those such as Mike Horton, Scott Clark, David Van Drunen, and the bloggers at oldlife.org. And if the critic found out that these people held the spirituality of the church and wanted to change his criticism because he personally respected one or more of these men, he could conceivably do so by offering an explanation of his initial criticism. But short of such amendments or revisions, it seems eminently reasonable to conclude that those who argue for the two-kingdom perspective are included in any general critique of two-kingdom doctrine.

What then of a spirituality of the church advocate who only objects to criticism when one of the doctrine’s expounders, say Mike Horton, is criticized but feels no twinge about general complaints about the two-kingdom view when Scott Clark is holding it? It seems reasonably fair to conclude that such a reaction would be selective and personal.

Carl Trueman makes a similar point when he issues his Second Law, namely: “in any exchange of views, sooner or later one or more of the participants will describe themselves as hurt or in pain as a result of somebody else’s comment; and at that point it is clear that they have lost the real debate.” He explains this rule with the following hypothetical:

What, for example, should I do when I receive a note from someone who claims to be “hurt” by something I have written which she described as a “personal attack,” despite the fact that I have never heard of her and was completely unaware of her existence until she chose to contact me? Now, I am no philosopher, but it would seem to be logically necessary for me to know of the actual existence of somebody before I can launch a personal attack upon them. Thus, to respond as this person did would seem to point to one of two possible explanations: she was a narcissist and thus incapable of understanding that articles written by another could possibly not be aimed at her; or (and frankly, more likely), she was clueless about controversial discourse and unable to separate critique of a particular viewpoint from a malicious attack on any person who might hold to said viewpoint. Whichever was the case, however, the use of the language of hurt and pain as primary involved both a trivialization of those concepts in themselves and a sidestepping of the real issue, i.e., was the argument I proposed right or wrong?

It is a good point and one that many seminary administrators, theological faculty, and church officers should consider before concluding that the sort of criticism that traffics at this blog or in the Nicotine Theological Journal, let alone the pages of Ordained Servant or the Westminster Theological Journal, is beyond the pale of Christian charity or intellectual and doctrinal rigor.

From: Glenn Morangie

To: T. Glen Livet

Date: 9/23/96 5:03pm

Subject: Re: Psalmody -Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply

Glen,

I have been so long in responding because they actually want me to do work here. Go figure.

I also couldn’t help but revel in your remark that I was “right on target.” Letting that go on the superhighway for two or so weeks was about as much delight as I have had in a long time. Yes, I do lead a sheltered life.

Finally, you didn’t write anything with which I disagree. I believe we have come to about as good a resolution as possible — which is, I think, 1) that the case for exclusive psalmody is not tight, 2) that the direction of redemptive history indicates that other songs reflecting later acts of God are worthwhile, if not necessary, 3) but that the theological insights which informed the case for psalms are pretty good, and 4) that our tradition was appropriately suspicious of hymns.

If you can live with that I’ll still be your friend. Though that friendship part may be hard to swallow. I hope Rikki goes easy on you. But if not, you can always pull out your gun.

Hugs and kisses,

Glenn

_________

From: T. Glen Livet

To: Glenn Morangie

Date: 9/24/96 8:12am

Subject: Re: Psalmody -Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply

Glenn,

We could even add a fifth principle. Parts of our tradition were suspicious, not only of hymns, but of music per se. Obviously Zwingli was, and Calvin was also (to a lesser degree), fearing that the merely sensual delight in music would detract from the duty of praise. If he was right, then, even some psalms, if set to unusually fine melodies, would be problematic, as Calvin himself said. Boy, life sure is difficult in the fallen world.

Yours,

Glen

_________

From: Glenn Morangie

To: T. Glen Livet

Date: 9/25/96 1:18pm

Subject: Re: Psalmody -Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply

Glen,

You shall have the last word. Now that is especially difficult in a fallen world.

Glenn

With reference to the article “Priorities” in the last NTJ (Winter 2009), the editors unreservedly apologize for implying that there is any tension between the position of Carl Trueman and Richard Gaffin on the matter of justification regarding the bounds of confessional orthodoxy; we also apologize for the fact that Dr. Gaffin was quoted out of context in the article in a manner that distorted his views, and we affirm that his recent response to John Fesko in Ordained Servant (March 2009) represents a satisfactory clarification of the comment we misquoted; we further apologize for implying that Dr. Gaffin’s views are contrary to the Protestant confessional consensus on justification and for writing that they constitute “a new perspective on Paul,” which uses eschatology to overturn the consensus of the Reformers and the Reformed creeds; and we acknowledge that the biblical notion of union with Christ does not contradict or contravene, directly or impliedly, anything taught in the Westminster Standards.

D. G. Hart and John R. Muether

If truth be told, the idea for the section of the NTJ called, “39 Alexander Hall,” was one part Machen, the other part Neuhaus. We not only wanted to use the space to editorialize in the royal we, we hoped to replicate in a small way Neuhaus’ combination of wit, sarcasm, nay-saying, and clarity of conviction in “The Public Square.”

Not so fast, pilgrim. To read this piece in its entirety, you need to subscribe to the NTJ.

Sure, Fuller like Westminster had tried to replicate Old Princeton’s commitments to historic Protestantism and first-rate scholarship. But FTS received the Princeton tradition more awkwardly than WTS. Even if Westminster, like Fuller, was a parachurch institution and so free from the oversight of a governing church, WTS was so closely tied to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church – all its faculty were OP ministers – that Westminster is still often confused as the seminary of the OPC. In addition, WTS tried to perpetuate Old Princeton’s pursuit of polemical theology as part of its mission to maintain and defend the Reformed faith; Fuller by contrast hoped to achieve a kinder, gentler Old Princeton as part of its effort to wean fundamentalism from meanness. (Fuller’s kindness would eventually take the form of concluding that Machen too was mean and his polemics unnecessary.) Furthermore, Westminster’s faculty subscribed the Westminster Standards in their entirety – maybe the name was important, ya think? Fuller could only embrace a modified Calvinism through its own statement of faith. These differences led to the supposition that FTS could not happen to WTS.

(Not so fast, pilgrm.  To read the entire essay, you need to subscribe to the NTJ.  You don’t have to smoke to get it.)

Nicotine of Hippo 

   We recently heard a wonderful suggestion about the name of our journal, one that might help readers who want their church libraries to take the NTJ but fear what other church members will make of the title and its association with the evil weed. Why not tell your church librarian about what a wonderful publication the NTJ is, how it is chock-full of wisdom and carries a style of argumentation rarely found in religious periodicals. Don’t say it’s smart alecky. When asked about the name, respond with as straight a face as possible that Nicotine is not what he or she thinks. Say that Nicotine is Augustine of Hippo’s obscure younger brother, whose obscurity is almost complete thanks to the modern jehad against RJR/Nabisco. Add that if the church would readily subscribe to a journal named the Augustine Theological Journal then no one could possibly object to the Nicotine Theological Journal, a publication dedicated to the memory of the first Old School Presbyterian. And because Nicotine was African the NTJ will make your church library a multi-cultural place.

Also, make sure that when you pronounce our journal’s title you put the accent on the second, rather than the first syllable of nicotine (as in ni-CO-tine), and make the last “i” short (as in “tin”).

Actually, we have a better way for churches to subscribe to the NTJ short of violating the ninth commandment (as the Reformed count them). In response to great demand (actually one EPC pastor in Texas inquired) we are now offering bulk subscriptions for congregations. Churches that order between ten and fifty subscriptions may receive the NTJ for $4 per subscription. The rate goes down to $3 per subscription for orders over fifty.

(By the way, we need to give credit to George and Lucie Marsden who suggested the new derivation of Nicotine but who have yet to subscribe and so should not be accused of sharing the NTJ’s outlook or bad habits.)

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York: Dutton, 2008. 296 pp.

The editors of the NTJ asked me to review this book. Readers have heralded it, they said, as a sophisticated body blow to secularism, but maybe the author is only talking to the already converted. What did I think?

Keller serves as the astoundingly successful pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York. Presbyterian readers of NTJ will forgive me if I say he reminds me of a latter-day Henry Ward Beecher, an effective exponent of Christian ideas to a prosperous northeastern urban audience looking for guidance in the modern world. The book exemplifies the more or less systematic exposition of Reformed Protestantism that Keller’s sermons present, and that he promotes in his ministry.

[Not so fast. To read the rest of this article from the current issue of the NTJ, you need to subscribe.]

• Allen E. Rich Growth Without Growing Up
• Bryan A. Pieters The Reformed Faith & Its Latest Substitute
• Townsend P. Levitt Big Sky Diarist: Worship Disenchanted
• 39 Alexander Hall
• Second Hand Smoke
• Index of Articles from Volumes 1-10

PDF Download

It is the embodiment and practice of the Reformed faith that will be the subject matter of the Nicotine Theological Journal. Here our concern is not with dotting the I’s and crossing the t’s of Reformed orthodoxy, as important as that work is. Instead, our aim is to explore the ways in which the Reformed faith is more than correct doctrine, the ways in which correct doctrine takes visible form in the lives and practices of believers and the organized church, and the ways in which certain practices and habits cultivate Reformed orthodoxy. To use the language of the apostle Paul in Titus 2, the NTJ is about those aspects of our daily and weekly lives that are “fit” for “sound doctrine.” Or to borrow some ideas from the sectarian mainline Methodists, Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, we want to use the pages of the NTJ to explore the practices that make confessional Presbyterians “resident aliens.” Like Hauerwas and Willimon, we believe the church is at war with the world, that the kingdom of God is in conflict with the powers and principalities of this age. And just as God gave the Israelites a pattern for daily life that set them apart from the surrounding nations, so we believe that God has given his church specific habits and practices that make believers holy, that is, set apart, distinctive, or as Hauerwas and Willimon put it, “weird.”

This does not mean that we do not recognize important differences between Israel and the church. We do. We are not theonomists. But we also believe that the calling of God’s people in both the old and new covenants is to be different because God is holy. So while the church’s practices will be significantly different from Israel’s (e.g., a lot less bloody both in worship and in government — the church does not bear the sword even if Israel did), Christians will still be odd people in the way they order their lives, from observing the Sabbath to enjoying the good things of God’s creation. The NTJ is about this oddness. In other words, we are committed to recovering the real meaning of practical theology.

Why do we need this kind of publication? We believe that one of the besetting problems of twentieth-century confessional Presbyterianism is the huge disparity between faith and practice. Conservative Reformed folk have been very good (for the most part) about doctrinal fidelity. But they have not been very astute about maintaining distinctively Reformed practices, and we believe that without the “plausibility structures” of these practices, Reformed orthodoxy will die a slow and painful death, which is another way of saying, it will have nothing to say about the way we daily order our lives. Confessional Presbyterians these days are virtually indistinguishable from any garden variety evangelical. They are involved in the work of their local churches, both on Sunday and throughout the week, they listen to Christian radio, subscribe to evangelical publications, watch wholesome television shows, and listen to Christian music. The odd thing, however, is that confessional Presbyterian theology is markedly different from the lowest-common-denominator theology that holds evangelicalism together. Yet, conservative Presbyterians behave in remarkably similar ways. Either that means there is really no difference between Presbyterianism and evangelicalism, or that Presbyterians have let evangelicals establish the patterns for how they practice the Christian faith.

Our intention here is not to imply that Reformed believers will always look different from evangelicals, or even that Christians will always look different from non-believers. Reformed, evangelicals and non-believing people all eat from the bounty of God’s creation. But while unbelievers do not ask for God’s blessing upon their food, and while evangelicals pray before meals, Reformed believers of an older sort used to pray before and after meals along with reading from Scripture. And those who value the passing on of traditions from parents to children, in other words, who confess the importance of covenant relationships, as the Reformed should, may also linger longer over their meals, and recognize the virtue of fellowship, telling stories and playing games. According to C. S. Lewis, “the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him.” Though Lewis was no Presbyterian, we believe that when he wrote those lines he was expressing Reformed wisdom about the simplicity and depth of creature comforts.

We would even go so far as to suggest that one’s profession of faith may also affect the food one eats. If God calls us to moderation and self-control, then we may tend to eat simple fare, avoiding either the excesses of heavy sauces and elaborate recipes on the one side or the inhuman mass-produced food of TV dinners and Boston Market on the other end. In the NTJ, then, you may find discussions of what Old School Presbyterians should serve at a party and how they might structure the festivities. You may also find recipes for church pot luck suppers as well as for noon meals on the Lord’s Day. These tips flow from our conviction that Reformed theology has something to say about these seemingly ordinary and irrelevant matters. This is a world-and-life view with a vengeance.

Yet, we also need to say that we believe in Christian liberty. The practices and habits we plan to explore in these pages are not settled; we recognize that they are contested and that Scripture does not speak to them directly. Of course, some aspects of Presbyterian practice involve explicit commands from Scripture that the Reformed tradition has propagated and defended, such as the Sabbath, worship, psalm-singing, and the observance of the means of grace. These more obvious elements of the Reformed tradition will be subjects for discussion in the NTJ. We even hope to encourage debate about these ordinances, allowing for dissent and reservation while also giving preference to the tradition itself, assuming that our forefathers in the faith are innocent until proven guilty. But in other areas of the Christian life, those things that take place on days other than the Sabbath, we believe there is liberty for God’s people. So we don’t want to give the impression that there will be only one way of practicing the Reformed faith, suitable for all times, places and cultures.

But too often Christian liberty has been taken to mean silence. In other words, the liberty that believers have for ordering their lives throughout the week has led to the idea that our faith does not have much to say about our earthly and secular callings except in the case of moral matters that play themselves out in United States’ politics. We want to cultivate thoughtful discussions about the way we practice our faith so that we will do it more self-consciously and, we hope, more faithfully.

Now about our name.  Vice President Gore’s sanctimonious and tearful pledge to fight the wicked weed that produced part of his family fortune is but the latest example of the fierce public hostility to tobacco in our day. And it is another reminder of the necessity to explain why we employ the metaphor of tobacco for the purposes of this publication. We should begin by clarifying what we are not. This is not a Reformed version of Cigar Aficionado. We are not a hobby magazine, and these pages will not be devoted to cultivating yuppie trappings. So don’t expect to hear about the latest seasonal offering of the Boston Beer Company, or what Demi, Madonna and Rush are puffing on these days.

Then why nicotine? First, in order to affirm the social utility of tobacco. As Wendell Berry writes, “Tobacco is fragrant, and smoking at its best is convivial or ceremonious and pleasant.” Smoke and drink are conversation stimulants and together they suggest the relaxed and engaging atmosphere that we want to establish for the arguments and topics you will find here. We also want to suggest that the kind of conversation that accompanies the moderate use of tobacco and alcohol is very important for sustaining us on our pilgrimage this side of glory. It may even be a foretaste of the fellowship we will enjoy when our Lord returns.

Second, tobacco exposes the hypocrisy with which people, including Reformed believers, treat the matter of health and well-being. The anti-tobacco crusade can be a convenient way to overlook the many other distractions of modern life — from sports, to entertainment, money, politics and sex. We have reduced health to mere physical health, but physical health is not man’s chief end. So the modern obsession with physical fitness and material well-being is often unhealthy. In this connection, we can hardly improve on the words of Garrison Keiller (whom we promise not to quote often), “nonsmokers live longer, but they live dumber.”

Third, the cultural antagonism toward tobacco mirrors well the evangelical dismissiveness toward confessional Presbyterianism. Our commitments to things like Sabbath and psalms can’t even gain a hearing in most evangelical quarters. (Raise a question about holidays like Christmas and Advent and evangelicals think you just arrived from Mars.) Like most smokers, confessional Presbyterians are feisty and cantankerous because that is the only way one can take the Reformed confessions seriously in our day. In the light of the ascendency of mass-marketed evangelicalism, it is necessary for confessional Presbyterians to be resistance fighters. Our resistance will often take confrontational, dogmatic and sectarian forms — and we believe in the good senses of those words. But we will endeavor to avoid arrogance and narrow-mindedness. So, for example, along with offering reflections about the value of Sunday evening services, we will also recommend a good blend of Scotch every now and then. And while we have yet to be persuaded of exclusive psalmody, we also remain unconvinced about the virtues of chewing tobacco; nevertheless, we will entertain arguments for both.

Finally, our name sets a tone of lightheartedness that we want to characterize these pages. The NTJ will be occasional and occasionally serious. Along the way we hope to have fun, not least by poking fun at ourselves. Several friends have asked if smoking and drinking are requirements for membership in the Old Life Theological Society. Of course, the answer is no. One can be an Old School Presbyterian in spirit if not Old School in spirits (though there are some things we will expose as irredeemably New School, such as light beer or any alcohol-free pretender). As for smoking, to borrow a phrase from Richard John Neuhaus, we only ask those who refuse to light up that they at least strive to lighten up.

Whatever readers may think about tobacco or our title, the more important issue concerns the way we practice our faith. We hope that all Reformed (and not so Reformed) believers who are troubled by the increasing disparity between Reformed orthodoxy and Reformed practices will read and write for this publication. And for those who love Reformed theology but have not thought about the visible and tangible ways in which believers express and are sustained in those convictions, we trust that they will also read the NTJ because sound theology cannot be abstracted from the means that God has ordained for cultivating and encouraging faithfulness. Ultimately, our profession is only as good as our practice.

This originally appeared as the first editorial in the Nicotine Theological Journal.