Thanks to the Viking I see that Tim Keller has some posts about polemics (forthcoming) over at the Gospel Coalition and that Justin Taylor has aggregated part of Keller. I do go to TGC’s sites periodically and so would have likely seen these without the Viking’s help. Part of what makes TGC so effective is that it is the network for the largest celebrities in the world of non-charismatic Protestantism (aside from that awkward presence of Sovereign Grace Ministries and the anointing that sometimes drenches Driscoll). Think of how hard it would be to keep up with the respective fiefdoms of Piper, Keller, Driscoll along with the writings and pursuits of Carson, Dever, and DeYoung. It’s like trying to watch Jay, Dave, Conan, and Jimmy every night (sorry for the talk-show reference, but I’m reveling in Larry Sanders these days). You would have to stay up late and also record the different shows since they are all on different channels and times, sort of the way that each of TGC figures has his own website, congregation, and “ministries.” But now thanks to the Internet — voila — I can go to one place and keep up with all major players in the world of Baptists-and-Calvinists-Together.
I do wonder, though, what outsiders would think of TGC’s website and I have recently speculated on this in the case of neo-Calvinism’s political theology. What I have in mind is whether those who disagree with TGC would find much material or discussion that is challenging, that actually produces new or hard thought (as opposed to deep feeling or moral inadequacy). Or is the nature of such an endeavor that relies upon the fame of its evangelical pastors and speakers to offer up inspiration and affirmation, thus raising the question of whether evangelicals or their vehicles are sappy?
But what is curious about Keller’s concession that polemics is necessary as a form of medicine is whether the folks at TGC think that what they are doing through the coalition is offering a well-rounded diet. Keller says, “Polemics is medicine, not food. Without medicine we will surely die—we can’t live without it. This is why polemical theology must be a required part of every theological curriculum. Yet we cannot live on medicine.” I understand this. And it can also be said of candy, except that candy isn’t nearly as beneficial as medicine, nor is it the case that we could not live without it. Still, as I’ve asked before, what does TGC do that churches do not already do? The churches have the recipes and ingredients for a healthy spiritual diet. And sometimes they engage in polemics with those institutions that offer up prepackaged-food as the wholesome article.
So perhaps the folks at TGC need to look in the mirror and ask whether they are doing something that instigates polemics. In which case, it wouldn’t be a personality defect of Calvinists to disagree with and point out the weaknesses of a project such as TGC.
Old Life 
I wonder if what is needed is a curfew set so that less time is spent in the hallway or on the village green and more time spent in our denominational rooms… So much is “shared” for the benefit of Christianity and the result is that the centrality of Christ and the Church becomes Christ and the Christian community… sigh.
LikeLike
Jack – as someone seeking membership in an old-school PCA church, from everything I can gather, most old-school PCA folk would rather keep Keller *away* from the denominational rooms!
LikeLike
Dr Hart – I just now saw the photo you posted with this entry. TGC nice police will not let this stand 😉
LikeLike
Re: “Or is the nature of such an endeavor that relies upon the fame of its evangelical pastors and speakers to offer up inspiration and affirmation, thus raising the question of whether evangelicals or their vehicles are sappy?”
TGC reminds me of the movement of the pentecostal prosperity gurus back in the ’80’s and 90’s. They began dominating the airwaves and their influence slowly started permeating Evangelical Christian culture. A lot of their ideas seem to be pretty much mainstream at this point in time – especially in the independent/non-denominational churches. Anywho, TGC sure looks, smells, and tastes like it absorbed much of what came before with the inspirational, affirmational, perfect emotions/words (aka as: positive confession), and the feel/experience God stuff back then.
Isn’t this pretty much the same menu with altered recipes in the main dishes? It sure looks like the Evangelical/Pentecostal hybrid trying to become a new hybrid of Pentevalecalvinistic (pronounced sorta like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious) to me.
Re: “Yet we cannot live on medicine.” I understand this.”
May I politely disagree? There are numerous medical conditions that require daily dosages of medicine so that the patient does not die. I would propose that the church militant is such a patient living in perilous times until Christ returns. The churches’ health may be experiencing it’s greatest danger in these latter days. She may need much higher doses of medicine along with her food than she ever needed in her past history.
Perhaps, a number of our problems are because the protestant church, too often, acts like church history began with the Reformation and doesn’t teach much about the history of heretics and heresy? It sure seems like a lot of things are modern versions of old heresies/fallacies? I am probably making this too simplistic, but considering the times we live in, and the number of people trying to find their way out of the morass of bad teaching, the need for polemics and apologetics has increased?
LikeLike
“…It sure looks like the Evangelical/Pentecostal hybrid trying to become a new hybrid of Pentevalecalvinistic (pronounced sorta like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious) to me…”
Lily, the term we like to use these days is “methobapticostal.” It pretty much sums it up.
Also, “…Perhaps, a number of our problems are because the protestant church, too often, acts like church history began with the Reformation and doesn’t teach much about the history of heretics and heresy? It sure seems like a lot of things are modern versions of old heresies/fallacies? I am probably making this too simplistic, but considering the times we live in, and the number of people trying to find their way out of the morass of bad teaching, the need for polemics and apologetics has increased?…”
Actually, I don’t think you’re being too simplistic at all, but have hit the nail exactly on the head. Not only are modern versions of old heresies re-emerging nowadays (take kenosis for instance), but I’m convinced that too few “evangelicals” even know anything about the reformation, why it occurred, and its deflection of the papist influence. Hence, we have congregants crying for people like Tom Wright to come and tickle their itching ears.
LikeLike
Seriously, you have to have better things to do with your time…your haterade consumption is off the charts man. It’s a little ridiculous how much you criticize so many people and organizations. Surely the thought has occurred to you that this might be a problem?
LikeLike
Joseph, has it occurred to you that truth is contested?
LikeLike
1. Lily and George, may I suggest the term “Methodobaptacostaholism” as a co-equal variant on your recommended terms?
2. Joseph, my it be suggested that substantive “abuse” has been heaped on Confessional (and liturgical) Churchmen and Churchwomen alot, often, and historically? Sometimes it’s covert dismissal, a smile, sometimes an argument (not frequent) as well as the reigning assumptions in the Baptacostal leadership orbit? I live down here in Baptacostaholic land in the south. The American frontlines are what they are because of that implied and sometimes explicit hostility. To me, it’s the old school/new school discussion revisited. Joseph, you ought not be so hostile when someone says, “Sorry, Joseph, no longer. Are we clear?” Having endured Baptacostalist supremacism and contempt for years and years (very, very patiently, it should be added), don’t be surprised by some who’ve said, “Time for preliminary shots across the bow followed by, without evident change, shots amidships. Ridgely, do you have target acquisition? Steady as she goes.”
LikeLike
George and Viking,
I was looking for a word to describe what happens when a person or group begins with an already hybrid mixture of different Christian theologies and then adds Calvinism to make a new hybrid.
So… I offered “Pentevalecalvinistic (pronounced sorta like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious)”
George offered “Methobapticostal’ but that leaves out the Calvinism in the name.
Viking offered “Methodobaptacostaholism” and again that leaves out the Calvinism.
How about Methobapticostalcalvinistic (still pronounced sorta like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious).
Whatcha thank? Which is best descriptive of what’s going on in TGC? I can’t call it Calvinism since it doesn’t really seem to fit anything I recognize as Calvinism.
LikeLike
Joseph. Dr Hart simply engages in what Mr Keller now advocates. He just does it well. (as an aside, I have not seen “haterade” used in ages…)
Lily, that list of descriptive names hurt my brain.
LikeLike
“Pentecalevangelistic” is not as complete, but it has the advantage of being a word you can actually say. Plus, I think it has the same number of syllables as supercalifragilistic, or however you spell that word from the Sound of Music song. That gives the additional advantage in having a tune you can use to make up a song about the whole thing.
I bet Lilly could write that song for us.
LikeLike
The refrain:
“Pentecalevangelism isn’t it atrocious!”
LikeLike
I mean Mary Poppins. Same voice, anyway.
LikeLike
Work and observing the communion season prevents me making any detailed comments to the last two posts in particular which I have thoroughly enjoyed. I read every OL posting with delight and often a chuckle. Those (like Joseph) who say these posts are about criticism are wide of the mark: the Scriptures and many Reformed men in past ages used irony to make a very valid point and Old life does this brilliantly. The sugary sales man ethos I sense in so much of the celebrity evangelical circus in the USA is incisively dealt with here, and the points made are not hot air or the vapid rants of anonymous bloggers. Rather, many comments and the initial posts help folks like me refine in my thinking and practise what it is to be a Reformed Presbyterian as opposed to the babel of hybrids which are diluting what this rich and strong definition means in it’s true and best descriptive sense. Keep up the good work Dr. Hart – OL is the best by far the best read and help on the web.
LikeLike
UK Paul, good to hear from you. I still haven’t heard the new Yes.
Do you have a guest preacher for communion? Is it only for your parish or for a group of churches? I’d like to participate in a communion season sometime and so am curious.
LikeLike
Paul (UK), as one of the OL dissenters, I agree with your sentiments.
LikeLike
I have to admit that much of the commentary seems on the surface to be caustic and unkind. It takes a great deal of effort for me to fight through my emotional reaction to this and try and understand the rational point that is being made. That’s the problem with irony and sarcasm. Well, it’s my problem anyway.
I am being challenged to think and I’m learning new things.
Gary
(from “Piper’s church”)
LikeLike
Hangeth thou in there, Gary – it can be a steep learning curve at times, but I think you will find your effort well rewarded.
LikeLike
Love your humor, Michael Mann. I think you are much better qualifies to write a song than I. You may even be over-qualified! 😉
LikeLike
I find it perplexing that TG4/hedonimsm/justice and poverty devotees and originators feel victimized and unfairly criticized when they are the very people who set themselves up as standard bearers for the movement and disseminate proselytizing materials to draw not only individuals but other churches into their missiology. You know they’d probably be left alone if they weren’t so adamant on expanding their fiefdom’s and were content just to pastor the actual congregations they’d been given. I thought that it went without saying that when you cross boundaries and seek to expand into other backyards, right wrong or indifferent, you might wanna be man enough to expect and prepare for push back. What gives with all the whining.
LikeLike
Mr. Hart, are we fighting for truth or just being overly critical?
People get used to alarms and just ignore them, we don’t become more sensitive to them. Fight for the truth by all means, but spruce it up a bit, throw in some posts about the care bears or how great the flowers look this morning, or how you saw a unicorn. I’m starting the think the D. in your name stands for Downer.
Much love other wise
LikeLike
Gary,
I can remember being turned off by the sarcasm here, as I was making my own journey to the Reformed church, but underneath it is a sincere desire for the church to be what God has called and constrained her to be. I was also weary of the sacchrine veneer of the evangelical church that slathered niceness over issues that should have been fought for, like the truth, and the churhes role in the world, etc, etc.
Take the sarcasm with a grain of salt, it can even be poingiant or funny even. But there’s a lot to learn here, and some good fun to be had along the way.
LikeLike
Joseph, I don’t know what blog you’re reading. I make plenty of positive assertions about Reformed Protestantism.
At least you didn’t say that D stands for damned.
LikeLike
Doesn’t the communion season do for the Supper what the Lenten season does for the resurrection? So if Easter is every Lord’s Day, I’d rather participate in weekly communion:
http://www.opc.org/OS/html/V6/4l.html
LikeLike
But, Jed, you have to get banned by the Bayly Blog before you get a “I love NYC” tee shirt.
LikeLike
“spruce it up a bit, throw in some posts about the care bears or how great the flowers look this morning, or how you saw a unicorn.”
What, Palin posts don’t count?
Actually, based on how you wrote this, I think you “get it.” Have a little fun while talking about what’s serious. An inability to laugh is correlated with all kinds of bad stuff, like the Bayly blog and heightened security when I walk into places of public accomodation.
LikeLike
Gary H – Was recently where you’re at and wrote similar comments here in the past, lol. Continue to hang around and work past the bite and get to the arguments Hart presents on T4G, YRR, TGC, etc. Its worth it.
LikeLike
Hello, DJ. Good to hear from you. Thanks, the books have been received and are being reviewed.
Still trying to figure out T4G, YRR, and GC. Hansen’s YRR volume is a bit sophmoric?
An odd and intense meltdown with SGM-Mahaney in 2004 and into 2005. Mahaney was–at the leadership level–in a meltdown in this period, unbeknownst to 99% of the SGM hand-wavers. The Det docs are difficult to rebut.
It’s very, very serious meltdown for SGM-Mahaney, but very, very unknown. (Meanwhile, Trueman, DeYoung and Duncan trot out to a Baptacostalist’s defense.)
While the meltdown occurs, we are “graced” with Mahaney’s public offering entitled, “Humility: True Greatness” (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Press, 2005). While the whole top tiersters at SGM are internally agreeing about Mahaney: pride, overlording, hypocrisy, deceit, lying and other things, Mahaney is being regaled at GC and T4G. Is Dr. Dever a qualified psychiatrist and able to diagnose “clinical narcissism” per the DSM-IV, a pervasive pattern across a 9-fold set of criteria? Um, er, ah, well, I don’t think so. At this point, Dever sounds like a Cambridge PhD in Puritans without a sociological or psychological skill at clinical diagnosis. It’s as bad as this.
The inner core is in meltdown while Mahaney writes about “Humility.” (Even the top tiersters recognize the incongruity.) Yet, the smiles continue. Just give it a “Piperistic hooyah and oorah of enthusiasm,” a prerequisite for public speech for T4G and YRR.
An odd connection with the “phoenix rising from the ashes” with T4G in 2006 following the tangible SGM-but-unpublished-meltdown-of-SGM-early-2005. The connections are under review.
Gary, get over it. We are Confessional Churchmen here. Hang in there. Best regards, too.
LikeLike
Yes, Viking… the whole Humility book considered in the truth of reality during those years makes for fire-starter. What’s worse is that all the SGM brass KNEW it. Your comments are well received over at the SGM blog. You’re putting things together like few can. Detwiler should buy you lunch.
LikeLike
Zrim,
But, Jed, you have to get banned by the Bayly Blog before you get a “I love NYC” tee shirt.
That would mean I would have to read the Bros. Bayly’s site. There’s plenty of books on my bookshelf that will get the nod first, including my hermenutics prof. over at Moody’s page turner:
Adam Christology as the Exegetical and Theological Substructure of 2 Corinthians 4:7-5:21 by Marvin C. Pate
Or Zondervan’s New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis vols. 1-5. Shortly followed by her sister series New International Dicionary of New Testament Theology vols. 1-4.
As you can see, I am swamped.
LikeLike
Yes, Jed, but everyone could stand a little comic relief now and again. You know what they say: all work and no play makes Jack go out of his mind, too.
LikeLike
Funny to see the Bayly Blog come up on this thread. That’s the only other blog I skim occasionally where the caustic “gotcha” sniping at Piper, Keller, Taylor, and the rest of the TGC gang approaches the level I read here.
LikeLike
Nice snipe, Dave.
LikeLike
Dave, what you see at the BB is the hard transformers taking bites out of the soft culturalists. What you see here is Reformed confessionalists who enjoy watching Reformed evangelicals fight over the best way to win America for Christ and change the world through orthopathy.
LikeLike
Dave, come on. Give Old Life some credit. Do Piper or Taylor ever come up at Bayly Blog? Or what about Edwards? So many problems, so few posts.
LikeLike
DG, to be fair, I do give Old Life, as I am delighted to see someone mount a coherent intellectual and theological challenge to the segment of American Christianity that sees one brand of “conservative” policies as part and parcel of the Bible. Your blog is a powerful antidote to the “take back America for Jesus” Fourth of July pageants I remember from my youth (no doubt you know the type, the ones that juxtapose hymns and the Star Spangled Banner (give me a good libertarian atheist any day over these moralizing types) ). I’m not sure how you define a “confessionalist,” either (if you’re one, I must not be) but I do appreciate your emphasis on confessions in doctrinal boundaries.
Yes, Piper and Taylor also receive the mild and gracious rebukes from the Bayly brothers, Piper for being a sell out on gender role issues and Taylor for being “weak” and “mealy mouthed” on political issues and on Rob Bell. You didn’t mention Keller, so I presume you know that he may be the only person BB targets even more than you.
There. I’ve gone and ruined a perfectly good snipe by trying to offer a reasonable explanation. That said, I stand by my observation that both you and the BB heap unmitigated scorn on the same group of folks, often over what strike me as at most minor errors. Reading either blog, I’d think TGC and their friends were the biggest threat to Christianity in America. Is that irony utterly lost on you?
LikeLike
Dr. Hart,
Sorry for taking so long to reply to your questions about the communion season which I saw last week here in the UK, as practised in the old Scottish tradition. There was a guest preacher, who presided over the five days; he was quite familiar with many of the folks as he is a minister in the denomination. As is often the case, members from other congregations travelled down from Scotland and were kindly given hospitality for the five days. So, while the focus is indeed on the local church there may well be fellowship with others from the denomination.
You may well know the background of why such a Communion season only occurs twice in this denomination, but the OT practise of the Passover celebration is used as a sort of model, and this was just once a year. I wonder what Knox would make of such infrequent Communion? Regarding the days, Thursday is the day of humiliation with the confession of sin, and is also known also as a ‘Fast Day’. Friday is for self examination, and a holiday in Scotland with shops traditionally being closed. Friday is also known as the ‘day of question’. Saturday is the ‘day of preparation’, focusing on the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is also the day when the tokens are given to intending communicants after the service which they have to present on the Sabbath in order to be admitted to the table. I am told this particular practise of using tokens is known to have been used in French Reformed churches. In Scotland, these tokens can also be used in other churches as well one’s local church.
The Sabbath involves a relevant sermon, and then people come forward to what look like simple benches. A brief exhortation is then given, and the bread and wine is then administered by the elders. In the evening there is a Gospel message, usually given as those outside of the faith have been known to attend then and not the morning communion service. Monday sees the final message of the season, focusing on thanksgiving and the keeping from worldliness.
This was my first time simply observing such a Communion, and it was a time of rich fellowship and teaching on the occasions I was able to witness it. The hospitality back at an elders’ home was sweet in so many ways as we crammed around a table on the Sabbath evening, and such care and fellowship can speak nearly as much about a church as the words and sermons do. I respectfully leave out the denomination and particular church name just in case I have recorded any descriptions which are not as accurate as they might be.
Finally, I note in your last reply you are perhaps keeping the latest Yes album for a future hearing. Steve Howe is outstanding and a joy to hear playing on the track ‘ The man you always wanted me to be’ with Chris Squire still able to sound nearly like the choir boy he once was. But I doubt the album, for all it’s many good points, will stand the test of time as well as the music of Mike Oldfield’s earlier works from over 30 years ago I have been recently rediscovering and which Mike has re – mastered . Hergest Ridge is still a cracker for the way it goes from gloom to bursts of musical sunshine in Oldfield’s guitar work. Are you familiar with his work? He did so much more than the work he is most known for, Tubular Bells.
LikeLike
Dave, but I don’t write from the context of Christianity in America. I write from that of Reformed Protestantism. And the way that TGC (plus the Baylys for that matter) think that they are Reformed calls for some critique, especially when what they are offering is not the genuine article even though experimental Calvinism makes the world safe for their artificial article.
LikeLike
UK Paul, great. Thanks for the detail. I can’t say I approve since I think the Lord’s Supper should be a weekly observance. But I am fascinated by the Communion Season and to hear that it still happens. I also have great respect for the tradition even if I dissent. I don’t suspect the elders were playing Yes back in their homes.
I’m still trying to find a way of hearing the new Yes without buying the CD. I’m cheap.
LikeLike