Month: December 2009

Laud's Last Laugh

Published on by D. G. Hart17 Comments

Arbp LaudOr how Purbyteritans (because it’s silly to distinguish between Presbyterians and Puritans) learned to love the Prayer Book

Archbishiop Laud was of course the Church of England official who opposed Puritanism and sought to enforce high church ways on Protestants in England and Scotland. He was sufficiently scary to prompt Puritans to head for Massachusetts Bay and to lose his head when the Puritans who remained in England achieved victory over the Stuart Monarchy and initiated their topsy-turvy experiment with republicanism.

Laud, thus, stands for the state-church policy of ramming liturgical practices down the throats of low and medium-church pastors. Because he leaned toward Roman Catholicism, he gets no sympathy from oldlife.

But few seem to notice the irony that contemporary low-church Calvinist worship is indelibly stamped with the Prayer Book that Purbyteritans opposed as a breach of liberty of conscience. In view here is the practice of putting the long pastoral prayer in the first half of the worship service, with the sermon taking up the second half, plus a short prayer, hymn, and the benediction (or prayer of blessing for the really low church Calvinists). Hughes Oliphant Old has long contended that this arrangement simply follows the Prayer Book’s order for morning prayers with a sermon tacked on.

It has no inherent defect except that putting the long prayer in the first half of the service, instead of placing it as the pastoral prayer after the sermon, has several disadvantages. One, it departs from the liturgies (dare I use the term?) of most Reformed churches if Peter Wallace’s work is accurate. In other words, most of the Reformers placed the long prayer after the sermon and used it as a vehicle to pray for the congregation in the light of the text just preached.

Another disadvantage is that it lets the congregation speak its longest words to God before he gets to give his lengthiest words to the congregation in the sermon. I don’t know why Christians would need to speak longer before God does, but the logic of the dialogical principle would suggest that God’s longest words should go first.

The final disadvantage is that if the long prayer went after the sermon, then the preacher could apply the points of the sermon to the congregation and larger church in the form of prayer instead of having to end the sermon not with indicatives but imperatives.

This is yet another irony of Purbyteritan fear of liturgy.

Dual Citizens

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Dual Citizensby Jason Stellman

Endorsements
For too long I struggled to recommend reading on the subject of living the Christian life as “resident aliens.” Often I was reduced to directing readers to liberal Methodists (such as Hauerwas and Willimon) as the best embodiment of Christian convictions. At last I can point to practice that is firmly grounded in Reformed theology. Dual Citizens is written by someone who loves the world: its movies, its music, and its authors. But this is a rightly ordered love because it is a penultimate love. Here is a robust pilgrim theology that marches on to Zion while avoiding the pitfalls of asceticism and legalism. By putting earthly kingdoms in their proper place, Pastor Stellman demonstrates how rightly to use the present world even as one eagerly awaits the next. John R. Muether

The subject of Christ and culture have never been as popular among conservative Protestants in the United States as it is today, and the topic has never needed as much attention from the perspective of the church. It gets that attention in this important book by Jason Stellman. Dual Citizens will certainly upset those used to thinking of Christ as mainly the transformer of culture. But for genuine wisdom not only on the culture wars, but on the culture, ways, and habits of the church, Stellman’s discussion is the place to go. D. G. Hart

Update: Lunch with Cordelia

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

HexTurns out I went with my carbohydrate friendly and folk heritage – Pennsylvania Dutch – for lunch. (You may breath now.) The turkey salad on Amish sandwich roll was enjoyable as I watched Blood Simple next to the kitten with teeth and claws from hell.

BTW, has anyone noticed how great Carter Burwell’s scores are for the Coens, and that barely no one else in the movie business seems to use him. What’s up with that?

Then I decided to be productive. I purchased a shopping cart for post-automobile urban life en route to purchasing a case of Yards IPA.

In case you thought that was a full day, I am now posting at oldlife.org before Secret Cinema, mind you.

How could Twitter ever do justice to such a day?

Where is Justin Taylor When You Need Him?

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

MeSome bloggers use their page as a clearance house for what others are saying – sort of like Matt Drudge does the news. So if you want to know what John MacArthur thinks about the Manhattan Declaration, you could go here. Such places allow you to keep tabs on the doings and whereabouts of certain evangelicals with star power.

Others use the blog to promote their own appearances, merchandise, and ideas published elsewhere. Of course, Oldlife promotes the views of its editors and sometimes reprints material first published in the Nicotine Theological Journal (a subscription would make a nice stocking stuffer, by the way). But we have resisted using this e-space to publicize current activities and duties. This is supposed to be a place to discuss what it means to be Reformed – not a vehicle to learn about the Muether or Hart family vacation plans.

All of this is a way of explaining the awkwardness of what follows: I have posted a piece over at Front Porch Republic on the Manhattan Declaration. Because some of the comments in recent weeks have asked for my impressions of the statement, this notice is a tad more understandable. And because the specter of J. Gresham Machen hovers over the keyboards of the NTJ’s editors, and because my study of Machen has clearly informed my take on the Declaration, mentioning that post here also makes sense. But self-promotion still feels odd.

And so to complete the circle, readers may also be interested to know that I will be dining today (dv) at lunch on hot pork sandwiches purchased at Reading Terminal Market while watching – I haven’t yet decided – either Barton Fink or Blood Simple. This is less a Thank-God-It’s-Friday moment than it is a reaction to the end of the semester at Temple University. Later today, my wife and I will be watching films from Temple’s city archives at the program of Secret Cinema, a wonderful cultural resource in Philadelphia. On Sunday, we will be worshiping with the saints a Calvary OPC, Glenside.

Question: Who cares? Answer: I do and my wife does sometimes. It’s hard to tell if our cats, Isabelle and Cordelia, even think.

Should a Reformed Christian Receive Treatment at a Roman Catholic Hospital?

Published on by D. G. Hart28 Comments

heart-monitorAfter a visit to my father at his local hospital, I had a worldview moment. What should have alerted me from the outset was the name of the place – St. Mary’s. But then I noticed that the spiritual services wing of the hospital had dropped off for him a brochure about their activities which was included with information about television channels and daily menus – talk about trivializing the eschaton. But the kicker was the crucifix in my dad’s ICU room. Shazzam!!! That’s a whole lot of idolatry for a man who is on a heart monitor.

But is Roman Catholic medicine really any different from Reformed medicine or even – dare I say – secular medicine. If worldviews go all the way down to the very tips of our toes, and if we can’t escape the claims of Christ in any parts of our lives, can I really look the other way in good conscience when entering a hospital room that displays an image of Christ on a cross?

And then there is the concern for quality of health care. If Abraham Kuyper was right that Roman Catholicism “represents and older and lower stage of development in the history of mankind” and if Protestantism occupies a “higher standpoint,” shouldn’t my dad try to find treatment at a Protestant hospital? Kuyper, by the way, wasn’t real complimentary of Roman Catholicism on science either.

It could be that I have once again misunderstood the claims of neo-Calvinism and that some algorithm exists for taking the gold of scientific advances from the dross of defective worldviews. But it could also be that the language of worldviews and the difference they make for every aspect of human existence is overdone, simply a rallying cry for inspiring the faithful, but not anything that would prevent my father from receiving treatment from unbelieving nurses employed by Roman Catholic administrators. Then again, the power of modernity is stunning, making all of those religious claims about connections between spiritual and physical reality look fairly foolish – as if a creed actually produces better medicine.

I mean no disrespect to the neo-Calvinists and their epistemological purity. But if they could help me out on this one, I’d be grateful. Does a Reformed worldview really make a difference for modern medicine and the ordinary decisions a sick believer must make in seeking a physician or hospital – under the oversight, of course, not of the elders but the insurance company.

Postscript: yes, I am preoccupied with neo-Calvinism. Shouldn’t Keller’s fans be happy? Oh, wait a minute.

Do Kuyperians Ever Listen to Kuyper?

Published on by D. G. Hart40 Comments

Hearing Kuyper TodayThe reviewer of Westminster California’s Evangelium has repeatedly in different online exchanges accused the two-kingdoms proponents of denying Article 36 of the Belgic Confession where it teaches that the magistrate has the God-ordained duty to promote the true religion and punish idolaters and blasphemers. It says: “And the government’s task is not limited to caring for and watching over the public domain but extends also to upholding the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist; to promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and to furthering the preaching of the gospel everywhere; to the end that God may be honored and served by everyone, as he requires in his Word.” (Often not mentioned by such appeals to Article 36 are the revisions that Dutch Reformed communions in the United States made to this part of the Confession. See postscript below.)

What is striking for all good Kuyperians is that Abraham Kuyper himself rejected the original language of Article 36 and refused to let anyone claim he was less of a Reformed Protestant for doing so. In the early 1880s Kuyper wrote a pamphlet on the reformation of the church that the editors of the Standard Bearer, the denominational magazine of the Protestant Reformed Church, translated and published over many issues during the 1980s. (Thanks to John Halsey Wood for reminding me of this resource.) Under the heading of “Concerning Reformation and the Magistrate,” Kuyper wrote the following:

We oppose this Confession out of complete conviction, prepared to bear the consequences of our convictions, even when we will be denounced and mocked on that account as unReformed.

We would rather be considered not Reformed and insist that men ought not to kill heretics, than that we are left with the Reformed name as the prize for assisting in the shedding of the blood of heretics.

It is our conviction: 1) that the examples which are found in the Old Testament are of no force for us because the infallible indication of what was or was not heretical which was present at that time is now lacking.

2) That the Lord and the Apostles never called upon the help of the magistrate to kill with the sword the one who deviated from the truth. Even in connection with such horrible heretics as defiled the congregation in Corinth, Paul mentions nothing of this idea. And it cannot be concluded from any particular word in the New Testament, that in the days when particular revelation should cease, that the rooting out of heretics with the sword is the obligation of magistrates.

3) That our fathers have not developed this monstrous proposition out of principle, but have taken it over from Romish practice.

4) That the acceptance and carrying out of this principle almost always has returned upon the heads of non-heretics and not the truth but heresy has been honored by the magistrate.

5) That this proposition opposes the Spirit and the Christian faith.

6) That this proposition supposed that the magistrate is in a position to judge the difference between truth and heresy, an office of grace which, as appears from the history of eighteen centuries, is not granted by the Holy Spirit, but is withheld.

We do not at all hide the fact that we disagree with Calvin, our Confessions, and our Reformed theologians.

Granted, the appeal to Kuyper here may look a tad inconsistent because of regular objections to the idea of transformationalism that Kuyper himself apparently launched. At the same time, this quotation does show that even in the efforts to claim Christ’s lordship over every square inch, Kuyper recognized limits to the logic of that sovereignty, limits that many modern-day Kuyperians seem incapable of making in order to avoid the shoals of theonomy.

Postscript: Latter day Kuyperians also recognized the limits of Christ’s lordship when they attached notations to the Belgic Confession like this one found in both the Christian Reformed Church and the United Reformed Churches of North America (it follows the assertion that the magistrate is not only responsible for the “welfare of the civil state, but also to protect the sacred ministry”:

The Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1910, recognizing the unbiblical teaching, contained in this sentence, concerning the freedom of religion and concerning the duty of the state to suppress false religion, saw fit to add an explanatory footnote. The Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1938, agreeing with the Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1910 as to the unbiblical character of the teaching referred to, but recognizing a conflict between the objectionable clauses in the Article and its footnote, decided to eliminate the footnote and to make the change in the text of the Article which appears above, corresponding to the change adopted in 1905 by the General Synod of the “Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland.” (See Christian Reformed Church Acts of Synod, 1910, pp.9,104-105; also Christian Reformed Church Acts of Synod, 1938, p. 17.). The Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1958 approved the following substitute statement which has been referred to other Reformed Churches accepting the Belgic Confession as their creed for evaluation and reaction: “And being called in this manner to contribute to the advancement of a society that is pleasing to God, the civil rulers have the task, in subjection to the law of God, while completely refraining from every tendency toward exercising absolute authority, and while functioning in the sphere entrusted to them and with the means belonging to them, to remove every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to every aspect of divine worship, in order that the Word of God may have free course, the kingdom of Jesus Christ may make progress, and every anti-christian power may be resisted.”

Hart Endorses Keller

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

Berry's WhatOr, how Tim Keller wants to save your aggie soul.

We were delighted to see a recent post by Keller at his blog in which he recommended rural congregations to aspiring pastors. It helps us get over some of the angst we experienced when reading about church planting in New York City. In this post, “The Country Parson,” Keller writes:

Young pastors or seminarians often ask me for advice on what kind of early ministry experience to seek in order to best grow in skill and wisdom as a pastor. They often are surprised when I tell them to consider being a “country parson” — namely, the solo pastor of a small church, many or most of which are in non-urban settings. Let me quickly emphasize the word “consider.” I would never insist that everyone must follow this path. Nevertheless, it is worth thinking about. It was great for me. . . .

Some will be surprised to hear me say this, since they know my emphasis on ministry in the city. Yes, I believe firmly that the evangelical church has neglected the city. It still is difficult to get Christians and Christian leaders to make the sacrifices necessary to live their lives out in cities. However, the disdain many people have for urban areas is no worse than the condescending attitudes many have toward small towns and small churches.

Young pastors should not turn up their noses at such places, where they may learn the full spectrum of ministry tasks and skills as they will not in a large church. Nor should they go to small communities looking at them merely as stepping stones in a career. Why not? Your early ministry experience will only prepare you for “bigger things,” if you don’t aspire for anything bigger than investment in the lives of the people around you. Wherever you serve, put your roots down, become a member of the community and do your ministry with all your heart and might. If God opens the door to go somewhere else, fine and good. But don’t go to such places looking at them only as training grounds for “real ministry.”

Could Wendell Berry have said it any better? Well, with all due respect to Keller’s powers of communication, probably. So let me round out my endorsement with some of the edge that makes Berry such an important person to consult about rural communities, farmers, the economy, and the work of the church agrarian settings. In “God and Country,” he writes:

The denominational hierarchies, then, evidently, regard country places in exactly the same was as “the economy” does: as sources of economic power to be exploited for the advantage of “better”places. The country people will be used to educate ministers for the benefit of city people (in wealthier churches) who, obviously, are thought more deserving of educated ministers. This, I am well aware, is mainly the fault fo the church organizations; it is not a charge that can be made to stick to any young minister in particular: not all ministers should be country ministers, just as not all people should be country people. And yet it is a fact that in the more than fifty years that I have known my own rural community, many student ministers have been “called” to serve in its churches, but not one has ever been “called” to stay. The message that country people get from their churches, then, is that the same message that they get from “the economy”: that, as country people, they do not matter much and do not deserve much consideration. And this inescapably imposes an economic valuation on spiritual things. According to the modern church, as one of my Christian friends said to me, “the soul of the plowboy ain’t worth as much as the soul of the delivery boy.” [from What Are People For, p. 97]

“Horton is completely wrong in his definition of the Gospel”

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

tetzelThat is Mark Horne’s charitable and cautious verdict of Mike Horton’s remarks about the Manhattan Declaration.

Horton’s offense was to write this: “This declaration continues this tendency to define ‘the gospel’as something other than the specific announcement of the forgiveness of sins and declaration of righteousness solely by Christ’s merits.”

But Horne will have none of it:

When Jesus preached the Gospel he did not preach the precise message that Horton says that he was supposed to. When the Apostles preached the Gospel, Luke does us the favor in Acts of telling us what they preached and it does not conform to Horton’s “specific announcement.” When Paul describes the believing response to the Gospel and the specific mental content it entails, he does not specify the reception of any such specific message.

It is not just that Horton is wrong, it is that the content of the Manhattan Document is exactly right to appeal to the Gospel as the Church’s commission to proclaim the justice of Jesus. Jesus is Lord and he has assumed enforcement and arbitration of every violation of those ethical mandates “grounded in creation.” Every violation will be brought before Jesus whom, according to the one and only Gospel, has been given authority as the raised and ascended Lord to Judge.

Horton’s ideas are not as dangerous as Tetzel’s sales pitch, because what he believes is true. But what he teaches is every bit as Biblically illiterate and twisting of Scripture. And the fact that professed Bible-believers cling to these false and groundless claims is as intellectually superstitious as any monk approaching a vial of Mary’s alleged breast milk on his knees.

The comparison of Horton to Tetzel is a deft touch. (With advocates for the Federal Vision like this, is there any wonder why many find it hard to take those Visionaries seriously?)

Important to notice here is not simply Horne’s rejection of Horton’s understanding of the gospel, as if there were any hope for sinners apart from Christ’s righteousness and the forgiveness that comes through trusting him. Also poignant is Horne’s identification of the sanctity of human life and heterosexual marriage – at least two concerns of the Manhattan Declaration – with the gospel.

Horne’s analysis is further confirmation of the dangers that attend not making justification the logical priority of any sort of good works on the part of the believer. If sanctification is not firmly situated within the context of justification, “works righteousness” is just around the corner such that to declare “‘ethical mandates’ grounded in creation” is to proclaim the gospel.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but how exactly do such mandates constitute “good news” to saints let alone to sinners? Careful how you answer. Those “filthy rags” have a way of needing the white robes of Christ’s imputed righteousness.

TKNY Update

Published on by D. G. Hart14 Comments

chopped liverJustin Taylor gives a helpful tip about the health of Tim Keller’s mojo. Apparently, he hasn’t lost it. The proof is a feature in New York Magazine with the unfortunate title, “Tim Keller Wants to Save Your Yuppie Soul” (which invites the question, “what must I do to be yuppie?”).

Mr. Taylor’s point seems to be that we were wrong to suggest a decline in Keller’s popularity by his appearance on “The 700 Club.” Actually, our point was to call attention to what Keller’s fans notice or don’t notice.

In which case, Taylor’s post only confirms our point. When Keller appears with Pat Robertson, Keller’s advocates yawn. But when Keller generates buzz in NYC, then he is the “it” man. (Just go to Google blog search and look for references to Keller’s appearance with Robertson compared to this feature story in New York Magazine.)

This suggests that for many evangelical Presbyterians who follow Keller, Virginia Beach is chopped liver compared to the Big Apple. The Reformed Chicks Blabbing at Belief.net give voice to this infatuation. “It’s amazing to me that the gospel can be preached in New York and New Yorkers are responding to it. They may not like everything they hear (as the journalist notes) but they at least giving the message a fair hearing. If jaded New Yorkers haven’t rejected the message, then there must be something of value in it.” Not only does this reveal a certain kind of provincialism – “gee, golly, look at all those big buildings in New York City” – but it also expresses a very un-Van Tillian apologetic – “we need to judge the merits of Christianity by whether sophisticated New Yorkers believe it.”

When Chicago Magazine, or Philadelphia Magazine, or Wichita Magazine run features on Keller, then we will know that his mojo is truly national and not simply confined to evangelicals in awe of Manhattan. But like that sophomore philosophy class question about trees falling in the woods, if Keller fans don’t notice the feature story on the most celebrated Presbyterian pastor, did the report really happen?

Why Not Lutheran Baptist?

Published on by D. G. Hart54 Comments

oxymoronOr, why do Baptists want to be Reformed (as opposed to Calvinistic or particular), and why do Reformed Protestants present an object more attractive than Lutherans to Baptists?

These questions continue to bump and push around the mush in my mind, especially when I read folks like James White taking exception to Presbyterians who want to say that Reformed Baptist is something of an oxymoron, and then read the follow-up discussion over at Scott Clark’s blog. I understand how some may take the narrowing of Reformed identity to exclude Baptists as needlessly exclusive. Though I also can’t understand why no reviewer complained about the Dictionary of the Reformed and Presbyterian Tradition in America’s exclusion of Baptists from the scope of entries. (Mark Noll and I didn’t even include those Baptists who do baptize infants – Congregationalists.) I also understand that a Baptist might try to be covenantal in his understanding of redemptive history and still reject infant baptism.

What I don’t comprehend is how few seem to notice or take issue with the traffic for so long running between confessional Reformed and Baptists instead of between confessional Reformed and other confessional Protestants. Mind you, I enjoy the company of Calvinistic Baptists as much as the next Orthodox Presbyterian, and find all sorts of signs of health among those congregations known as Reformed Baptist.

But why are Lutherans chopped liver? Why, in fact, has Lutheran become in some Reformed circles almost as objectionable as the other l-word – “liberal”? One could actually argue that confessional Lutherans share as much in common with confessional Reformed as particular Baptists, and our history is even longer (though it obviously has some rough spots). Could it be the objections to Lutherans run along ethnic lines – dare we say the twentieth-century German problem that forced German-Americans in Pennsylvania to become “Pennsylvania Dutch”? Or is it a problem of liturgy and the triumph of John Owen and Banner of Truth among American Presbyterians as opposed to the liturgical traditions of the Reformed churches on the continent?

If the latter, then as is so often the case, the turning point in American Presbyterian history is 1741 and the anointing of George Whitefield as the Boy George of vital Calvinism. Odd though that no one called that Episcopal priest Reformed.