Well, the island of Manhattan is about one thousand miles from South Holland, and of course the cultures are universes apart. But harmonic convergence happens.
With apologies to Nick Batzig who pointed this out to me, Tim Keller has an essay on the gospel and the poor at Themelios that echoes Shepherd’s attempt to bring faith and obedience closer together.
Keller writes:
We all know the dictum: “we are saved by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone.†Faith is what saves us, and yet faith is inseparably connected with good works. We saw in Jas 2 that this is also the case with the gospel of justification by faith and mercy to the poor. The gospel of justification has the priority; it is what saves us. But just as good works are inseparable from faith in the life of the believer, so caring for the poor is inseparable from the work of evangelism and the ministry of the Word. . . . We cannot be faithful to the words of Jesus if our deeds do not reflect the compassion of His ministry. Kingdom evangelism is therefore holistic as it transmits by word and deed the promise of Christ for body and soul as well as the demand of Christ for body and soul.
Several times Acts makes a very close connection between economic sharing of possessions with those in need and the multiplication of converts through the preaching of the Word. The descent of the Holy Spirit and an explosive growth in numbers (Acts 2:41) is connected to radical sharing with the needy (2:44–45). Acts 4 is a recapitulation: after the filling of the Spirit, the economic sharing of the people inside the church accompanies the preaching of the resurrection with great power (4:32–35). After the ministry of diakonia is more firmly established, Luke adds, “so the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly†(6:7). Luke is again pointing out the extremely close connection between deed-ministry and word-ministry.
Arguments like this show that the spirituality of the church depends on maintaining the centrality of justification by faith alone, with the call for good works, obedience, or personal righteousness kept at a safe distance from the human propensity for works righteousness. David VanDrunen makes that case about the close ties between the priority of justification to sanctification and two-kingdoms theology particularly well in his recent inaugural lecture, “The Two Kingdoms and the Ordo Salutis: Life Beyond Judgment and the Question of a Dual Ethic,†(WTJ 70 [2008] 207-24). But Keller supplies unintended support because the effort to join faith and obedience in the individual seems inevitably to slide into linking word and deed in the church.
All the more reason why the words of Peter Berger, a secular Lutheran, are worth hearing again:
Any cultural or political agenda embellished with such authority is a manifestation of “works righteousness†and ipso facto an act of apostasy. This theological proposition, over and beyond all prudential moral judgments, “hits†in all directions of the ideological spectrum; it “hits†the center as much as the left or the right. “Different gospels†lurk all across the spectrum. No value or institutional system, past or present or future, is to be identified with the gospel. The mission of the church is not to legitimate any status quo or any putative alteration of the status quo. The “okay world†of bourgeois America stands under judgment, in the light of the gospel, as does every other human society. Democracy or capitalism or the particular family arrangements of middle-class culture are not to be identified with the Christian life, and neither is any alternative political, economic, or cultural system. The vocation of the church is to proclaim the gospel, not to defend the American way of life, not to “build socialism,†not even to “build a just society†– because, quite apart from the fact that we don’t really know what this is, all our notions of justice are fallible and finally marred by sin. The “works righteousness†in all these “different gospels†lies precisely in the insinuation that, if only we do this or refrain from doing that, we will be saved, “justified.†But, as Paul tells us, “by works of the law shall no one be justified.†[Berger, “Different Gospels: The Social Sources of Apostasy,†Erasmus Lecture, January 22, 1987]
Old Life 
I think you’ve just discovered why the Federal Visionistas and the evangelical progressives in the PCA seem to find it so easy to make common cause on (or against) so many things. Especially when those things are things that the orthodox Reformed (i,e the T.R.’s) want. Well done!
LikeLike
Deja Vu,
Interesting assessment. It also crosses over nicely with postmillenialism and theonomy. Not that I believe all postmils would go this route by any means, but it does seem to present at least the temptation.
For some reason I’m reminded of a quote by C.S. Lewis:
“…Plato, with his transcendent forms is the doctor of all Protestants. Aristotle, with his immanent forms, is the doctor of all Catholics.”
This does seem like a dangerous case of Aristotelianism infelicitously applied, with perhaps a dab of postmodern irrationalism thrown in, to boot.
Kindest Regards,
Brian.
LikeLike
Brian, I agree with what you say about the PCA. I see it all over the place.
Regarding the Lewis quote, are you sure that a Platonic dualism is better than Aristotelian immanentism? Both surely are faulty.
Regards, Tim
LikeLike
First the Coen Brothers and now Tim Keller. Hey, hands off my heroes!
LikeLike
But Keller is just the child of Harvie Conn and Edmund Clowney (as they embraced the “Contextualist” school of missiology). It would be interesting to know how Conn and Clowney responded to the Shepherd case. And where was the proper response to Conn when he was writing and speaking on missions, advocating a blend of justification by faith alone, plus “social justice”, so many years ago (1970s, 80s, 90s)?:
LikeLike
Tim,
No, I’m not sure it is better at all.
Blessings,
Brian
LikeLike
Clowney spoke highly of DeGraff’s Promise & Deliverance and (Dutch) covenantal writings, and was for a time cautiously a supporter of Shepherd, especially as N.S. clarified and modified some things in course of Faculty and presbytery discussions. But 2 things changed for Clowney: WTS was under fire, losing support, and simply could not shake free of “the troubles” from all sides; WTS was danger and needed definitive action to protect and restore its reputation and support. 2nd, Clowney studied Shepherd’s course lectures (finally, in summer of 1981), other lectures and came to conclusion that Shepherd’s views of covenant were the broader and deeper problem; therefore Shepherd had to go, for the good of WTS. What of Harvie Conn? Conn was noticeably silent – or publicly silent – in all of this. Harvie Conn was the “teflon theologian” – if anything was tossed his way it couldn’t stick. Conn would say something, and no matter how provocative it was, he could follow it with a guffaw, a laugh, and everything was disarmed or dispelled. I think Conn was always given the benefit of the doubt because he had paid his dues as missionary in Korea. Conn’s ministry or life prior to coming on WTS faculty granted him a large amount of leeway that was not granted to others. I am unaware of where Conn came down with respect to Mr. Shepherd; never heard him publicly state anything; have never seen his name in/on anything. No doubt Conn was not a member of Presbytery of Philadelphia, so half the time it was not directly an issue for him.
My bona fides in this observation: student at WTS, PA (1977-1982, MAR, 80; MDiv, 82); member of OPC at the time.
LikeLike
If you’re a fan of Joel and Ethan, I’m not sure how you inhabit the world of the Gospel Coalition. Only the 2 kingdoms will help you with that bi-polar disorder.
LikeLike
Well, the other interesting wrinkle here is that Keller owes a great debt to Jack Miller. I often think of Redeemer NYC as New Life Jenkintown on steroids. And to connect the dots, Shepherd may have been reformulating justification precisely out of objections to Miller’s easy believism (e.g. Sonship). All of that to say, it’s very hard to preserve justification from our agenda for personal or social righteousness.
LikeLike
But Darryl, aren’t you at least pleased to see the language of “the gospel of justification” as that which “saves us,” as well as giving it the “priority?” You may not be happy about how he articulates what justification produces, but it doesn’t seem he compromises the centrality and significance of justification.
LikeLike
From a 2K, means of grace ministry perspective, what is the place of the deaconal ministry? Is the deaconate not office in the church. I love your emphasis on Word and Sacrament. How about the ministries of prayer and mercy? I hear precious little about those things from your theological stream. Also, when you put Word and Sacrament in one kingdom (the visible institutional church) and then things having to do with people’s temporal well being in the other kingdom (everything else) and never the twaine shall meet, what business does the visible institutional church, which consists of ordained officers administering the preaching of the word and the sacraments and that alone, have to do with an office of deacon? If your going to criticize Keller here I wish you would respond to his exegesis and also say something about what the Church as the church has to do with mercy, because I don’t know what you do with an ordained office of deacon. Isn’t that just the church getting involved in the kingdom of men?
Furthermore, I may be showing my ignorance of Shepherd and a bunch of other history, but are you denying that we are justified by faith alone, but not a faith that is alone? What more has Keller said than that about the individual believer? And what more has he said about the ministry of the visible church than that it concerns itself both with Word and Sacrament (and prayer) ministry, and with a deaconal mercy ministry? When did such claims become heresy? You’ve lost me. That may be just my ignorance, but you’ve lost me.
LikeLike
Steven, Good question. I wonder if you’ve considered that in the marks of the church diaconal ministry is not mentioned. Word, sacrament, and discipline. What does that say about diaconal ministry?
Also, have you noticed that the Westminster Standards do not teach about diaconal ministry except in the chapter on the communion of saints? That suggests that diaconal work is part of the fellowship that believers have with each other, not an outreach ministry.
As far as the exegesis goes, I wonder if Keller has ever exegeted 1 Tim. 5, which gives pretty strict guidelines about diaconal ministry to widows. The Reformed hermeneutic is one of letting the clear passage interpret the unclear. 1 Tim. 5 is about diaconal ministry. Phil. 2 is about the humiliation and exaltation of Christ. You don’t appeal to Phil. 2 as the basis for diaconal ministry when you have a clear passage.
Who said anything about heresy? Why are you so defensive? Could you suffer from the Hindu problem?
LikeLike
John, good point. That must be the Jack Miller talking. He was, as I understand, not on the same page with Shepherd.
LikeLike
Zrim,
Your comment about a “sunny, New-School-ish assessment of human ability” makes a connection I have been thinking about for a while. The good news of Tim Keller is that he preaches (or I at least have heard him preach) a beautifully clear forensic justification, along with many other strong doctrinal emphases that are precious to the Old School. So much of what he has done has proclaimed the gospel in a way that the New School wouldn’t even think of. But it often is the case that highly-gifted men who are ambitious to do big things for Christ (and we really must praise God for this desire in Tim Keller) will find themselves being pulled in multiple directions. It seems to me that this is the case when it comes to diaconal and word-deed ministries for a pastor seeking to reach a city like New York. I, for one, and not ready to write this off or even to criticize this approach wholly. But there are elements that I think present, as you put it, precisely a New Schoolish face to things (and let’s not forget, it was Jonathan Edwards’ original disciples who launched the New Divinity). This is particularly acute with all the talk of the culture as means of redemption and the culture as an object of redemption. I greatly appreciated Mark Dever’s critique last year, that we should not speak of redeeming culture, much less of redeeming through culture. We redeem sinners from “this present evil age”, i.e. the culture. Again, I suspect that Tim Keller, in trying to be strategic and ambitious for the gospel in our time (and for this I laud him), is being pulled in multiple directions. Where we seem to be seeing the New Schoolish trends in full bloom is with at least some of the men brought up under the Redeemer influence, including many who no longer can abide in the PCA because of our attitude towards the culture and our Old School gospel.
LikeLike
Rick,
Good points. I have often suggested that, when it comes to messianic fulfillment, a theonomist’s theonomy gets in the way of his good confession. That is to say, press him far enough and he’ll readily admit that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. Yet one is left wondering, if that’s true, what gives with the fixation on law?
In the same way, I wonder if it could be said that Keller’s transfrormationsim gets in the way of his justification-orthodoxy, taking away with one hand what is given with the first. But shouldn’t orthodoxy beget orthopraxis, or, as Dever suggests, a redeeming from culture instead of a redeeming of culture?
LikeLike
Dr. Hart,
The neo-Cal – 2K discussion here over that last few months has been helpful in clarifying some of my thinking. I am curious though, how do you see gospel proclamation to the nations functioning in a 2K context? Would “outreach” or other deed ministries exist in a 2K context, and if they would what might they look like?
LikeLike
this is sloppy scholarship. Another demonstration of the kind of thing I have come to expect from evangelicals (which you are, sorry to burst your bubble) who can do nothing more than poke a few holes. Anyone can string two quotes together and call it a name and dismiss it without getting their hands dirty.
LikeLike
Paul,
Your comment includes name calling and dismissal, but where are your two quotes strung together?
LikeLike
Jed Paschall, outreach exists whenever preachers preach. Diaconal service is part of what churches do. That’s part of 2k. But it sounds like you’re after more than preaching or providing for the physical needs of church members.
LikeLike
SCHOLARSHIP!!?? You go to a blog for scholarship? Like, hello.
LikeLike
Thank you for your response Darryl. You’ve pointed me to some new lines of thought to pursue. If the diaconate is part of the believers’ fellowship, and not a ministry of the church, that would make me wonder why deacons are ordained in Acts. Of course, Keller and Redeemer’s session aren’t even ordaining their deacons and deaconesses, a point I would be critical of.
As for my question about heresy, your warning is well taken. No one said anything explicit about heresy. I’m not quite sure though how to take your whole move of linking Keller to Norman Shepherd. In light of the gravel that has come down in regard to Shepherd’s denial of justification by faith alone (heresy? yes? no? maybe?) your linking Keller to him seemed like quite a hefty charge of theological guilt by association. I’m not sure it was the most helpful or becoming way to critic Keller. Your quote from Berger too seems awful suggestive: “The ‘works righteousness’ in all these ‘different gospels’ lies precisely in the insinuation that, if only we do this or refrain from doing that, we will be saved, ‘justified.'”
In regard to Keller’s exegesis, I’m not sure what you are referring to in regard to Phil 2. The passage from Keller that you quote deals with the church in Acts moving forward. Also, as I read your quote from Keller, he distinguishes the ministry of the Word from the diaconal works of mercy. His point seems to be that where you find one you find the other, not that their are one thing. The parallel he makes with justification is that where you find justification you also find sanctification, not that sanctification is justification. Rather, the two are distinct, though both present together. The one place where I can see he may be faltering in distinguishing them is where he talks about Kingdom evangelism as holistic, transmitted by word and deed.
LikeLike
But Steven, sanctification is not mercy ministry. You appear to be following Keller in blurring categories, taking the clear and making it fuzzy in order to pump up the significance of the thing you are advocating. So if you can make mercy ministry on a par with sanctification, then — voila — you’ve got your biblical warrant. This kind of theological reflection can get really sloppy and it ignores explicit guidelines about mercy ministry as given in 1 Tim 5.
Putting Keller in the same neighborhood as Shepherd is not saying they live in the same house. But don’t you think we need to be on guard against all forms of works righteousness?
LikeLike
it’s bad scholarship and worse entertainment. i’ll stick with perez hilton and benny hinn.
LikeLike
Actually, I don’t think I am after more than preaching or diaconal ministry at all. I want to come to a fundamental understanding of the outworking of the conversation. My transition into the Reformed faith and practice has certainly created a lot of questions that go far beyond the five points of Calvinism. Keller, Carson, and Piper all had an instrumental part in my understanding of Reformed soteriology, but honestly I have had little to no exposure to Reformed ecclesiology.
Maybe I could not have articulated it but the transformationalist eccesiology has always seemed a bit screwy to me, it represents such and outward focus in the church that the congregations starve even as they grow. Frankly it represents the kind of church I want to escape. My perspective is certainly shaped by my own experience, but 2K theology seems to line up with scripture without all kinds of hermenutical gymnastics to make it fit.
Honestly, this is like learning a new language. Cultural whiplash is the best way I can describe it.
LikeLike
I’ve got a good neck brace for you — Machen’s Selected Shorter Writings.
LikeLike
The Kelly Capowski imitation is funny, but I think we all knew what he meant by “scholarship”. I think you used the word “sloppy” at Steven above to refer to his theological reflection. Maybe the two thoughts are similar. I wonder what you mean, though, when you say “sanctification is not mercy ministry”? Is it that mercy ministry is not the whole of sanctification. Or are you saying that mercy ministry is no evidence of sanctification. To me it seems like a distinction without a difference. If there is a difference I’m not certain why one would want to make much out of it. Unless you want to keep sanctification a vague category that no one can get their hands around.
LikeLike
John Paulling: so are you saying that sanctification and mercy ministry are so closely tied that I can find the rationale for the diaconate in chapter 18 of the Confession of Faith? Or might it be that for diaconal ministry I go to places like Acts 6 and 1 Tim 5, and for sanctification I go to places like Rom 6?
Analogy of faith, man!
LikeLike
John Paulling,
Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
Mercy ministry, however you define it, is something WE do.
Mercy ministry may be the fruit of sanctification.
Surely it is clear that sanctification and its fruit are not the same thing. Related, sure, but not the same thing.
One might make the exact same kind of distinction between faith and works. If I say that faith is not works, then I am distinguishing faith from its fruit. These two things must always go together, for “faith without works is dead” (or simply isn’t faith). Yet if you fail to distinguish faith and works, the Apostle Paul will rebuke you harshly, probably saying something about “another gospel” and his wish that you would go emasculate yourself (Gal 5).
If the distinction between sanctification and mercy ministry is a distinction without a difference, then so is the distinction between faith and works, because in both cases, the thing and the fruit it produces are being distinguished. If you fail to make the first distinction, you might as well not bother with the second.
Doesn’t it seem more plausible now for DGH to put Keller and Shepherd in the same neighborhood?
LikeLike
DGH,
Something I’m growing increasingly annoyed at is the increasing focus of the reformed world on numbers. There seems to be this frantic need to simply put warm bodies in the pew. And this responsibility is increasingly being laid at the feet of the layman.
My problem with this is manifold. First, it treats people like a notch on the bedpost instead of like human beings made in the image of God, worthy of dignity and respect. Human beings are not simply numbers. They are not cattle. Evangelicals are increasingly employing the same tactics to get people to “make a decision for Christ” as young men use to get an intoxicated young woman into bed. Just as this kind of thing treats the woman like a mindless piece of meat, so too do these kinds of evangelism tactics. Mercy ministries look more to me like buying that cute girl at the end of the bar a drink, tipping the bartender to put extra alcohol in it to make the woman more pliable.
We are Christians, not door to door salesmen! Your “witness” is to live a quiet, pious life, worshiping God and upholding his law as best as you are able. Do that and the people around you, the people with whom you already have relationships of various kinds, WILL ask you about your hope, because it will be evident in everything you do. It is in the context of relationships that we bear witness to Christ with the most credibility. Accosting strangers on the street is rude, inappropriate, ineffective, obnoxious, and treats people like statistics. When you accost a stranger on the street and try to cram your religion down their throat you are not being loving to them at ALL, even if you think you are. Instead, you are sending the message that you want more people in your church, filling the pews and filling the offering plate.
If you people who like to do “street evangelism” are so impressed with yourselves and your piety and effectiveness, then just show me your vast numbers of believers who were converted by a street evangelist. Just show them to me. Show me how they went on to become members of the Church in good standing and how they are thriving to this day after you accosted them on the street 5 years ago. My guess is that every single person you talk to in a church is there for one of two reasons: they were either raised by Christian parents or someone they knew well was a Christian.
But my biggest problem with all of this is the burden it puts on laymen. To demand of people that they go up to complete strangers and embarrass themselves, embarrass the people they’re accosting, making a fool out of everyone involved – to demand that people do this is nothing short of wicked bondage. You make being a goofy extrovert into piety, into righteousness. You make the ideal Christian into a staff member for Campus Crusade. The Christian ideal of piety is to be always reaching out to college students, constantly confronting them with “the gospel”.
In fact, you’re not confronting them with the gospel at all, but demanding that they obey the law. You’re not promising them the forgiveness of sins so much as you are demanding that they DO something, namely turn their entire life on its head. And it has nothing to do with the content of your words. In this case, the medium is the message.
And what is the big hope you are offering to non-Christians? That you TOO can be this super extroverted goof ball who constantly goes about cramming his religion down his throat. No matter what the words are, laymen accosting strangers on the street sends only one message: “You need to be like me.”
It is wicked bondage to put these demands on laymen. It is wicked to spread this message, which is inherently contrary to the gospel because of its medium, in the name of the church.
Quit lusting for numbers. Let’s be reformed. Instead of focusing on getting as many warm bodies in the pews as we can, let’s focus instead on adoring Christ as we ought. The two are mutually exclusive.
LikeLike
Though that post was addressed to DGH, obviously I wasn’t speaking to him the entire time.
LikeLike
Thanks for the recommendation.
LikeLike
It was never my intention to say or suggest that mercy ministry is sanctification or that mercy ministry is on a par with sanctification. I don’t believe these ideas result from anything I said either. Also, in clarification, please note that I have no settled commitment to Keller’s philosophy of ministry and I have not set out to argue for it. Rather, my comments concerned the accuracy of your reading of Keller. I was trying to clarify my reading of him as opposed to the one you offer in your original critic. In other words, it seems to me you are criticizing him for saying or suggesting something he hasn’t really said or suggested. It seems to me that where Keller is trying to illustrate one point, you are reading him as arguing another.
Again, what I gather from the quote you provide is that Keller is referencing an understanding of the relationship between justification and sanctification in order to illustrate his understanding of the relationship between the ministry of the Word and the ministry of mercy, not in order to relate justification itself to gospel ministry or sanctification itself to diaconal ministry. In other words, he is saying that mercy ministry is to evangelism as sanctification is to justification not that mercy ministry is sanctification or evangelism is justification. The former does not imply the later. To say that as cold is to hot so dark is to light is not to say that cold is dark or hot is light. Now, you may take issue with Keller’s idea that the relationship between mercy ministry and evangelism is really like the relationship between sanctification and justification, but that is another question
You might also take issue with the appropriateness of Keller’s analogy, especially given how he relates mercy ministry to Word ministry. What Keller seems to want to say is that just as justifying faith is not present where good works are absent, so true ministry of the Word is not going on where we do not minister in deed. Where I see his illustration getting problematic is when he starts describing his idea of the relationship between mercy ministry and Word ministry. As I started to get at in my previous comment, he doesn’t seem to distinguish between mercy and preaching ministry when he says, “Kingdom evangelism is therefore holistic as it transmits by word and deed the promise of Christ for body and soul as well as the demand of Christ for body and soul.†If we reason from here back into Keller’s analogy then we do get into trouble in a Norman Shepherd direction as we would seem to suggest that justification is holistic as it is based on both faith and works and we would fail to distinguish justification and sanctification. Perhaps this is where Keller’s illustration ceases to be helpful as an analogy, because as with even good analogies it breaks down. Or perhaps it simply never was a helpful analogy to begin with. And might it not be more accurate anyways to say that the ministry of the Word is supposed to lead into Christian fellowship, the mutual edification of the body, in which deeds of mercy take place, rather than that the ministry of the Word is both preaching and deeds of mercy?
As to distinguishing between houses and neighborhoods, I can accept that. I don’t quite follow the analogy since if someone is in the wrong neighborhood I don’t know how he can be in the right house. I assume though that you mean to say Keller may be with Shepherd on a non-essential where he shouldn’t be, but that doesn’t preclude him from being with us on essentials as he should be. Or perhaps what you mean is even that Keller’s thinking is running in Shepherd’s direction and he should take heed lest he follows it out and end up where Shepherd did. And yes, we certainily do need to guard against falling into any form of works righteousness.
LikeLike
It does seem more plausible. As I mention in my last reply to DGH, when Keller describes the relationship between evangelism and mercy ministry he seems to ceases to distinguish the two. If this is supposed to parallel the relationship between faith and works, you have to worry about his idea of the relationship between faith and works (ie. works being part of faith like mercy ministry is part of Word ministry). It seems to me like he starts out from a good articulation of the relationship between faith and works, but he fails to actually parallel that in his delineation of the relationship between Word and diaconal ministry as he makes us think he’s going to do. It would make one worry about how he actually thinks about the relationship between faith and works. I think the charitable assumption is that Keller has made poor choice of analogy by trying to relate the two as parallels not realizing that not only does it not fit, but it could also have some disturbing ramifications to the gospel. If he had tried working through his analogy backward rather than only forward (poorly) maybe he would have caught himself and either changed his philosophy of diaconal ministry or changed his mind about trying to draw a parallel to the relationship between faith and works.
LikeLike
Steven, thanks for your qualifications. I concede that I may have attributed too much to the parallels between Shepherd’s and Keller’s reasoning. But the larger point concerns the nature of good works in relation to faith if justification is central to our understanding of salvation. This is why VanDrunen’s inaugural lecture is so important for connecting some of the dots between justification by faith alone and the spirituality of the church. I tend to think that Keller is good on the gospel. I don’t think his idea of mercy ministry sustains his understanding of the gospel. “Works righteousness” is always a no no.
LikeLike
If I was Tim Keller I’d be thinking, “What? Guys, go make love with your wife — she’d probably like the level of attention you’re giving me.”
LikeLike