Thanks to one of our Iowa correspondents for bringing to our attention Ross Douthat’s column yesterday on Pope Francis. Douthat believes that the pope is trying to find a middle route between the mainstream culture and the church:
You can hew to a traditional faith in late modernity, it has seemed, only to the extent that you separate yourself from the American and Western mainstream. There is no middle ground, no center that holds for long, and the attempt to find one quickly leads to accommodation, drift and dissolution.
And this is where Pope Francis comes in, because so much of the excitement around his pontificate is a response to his obvious desire to reject these alternatives — self-segregation or surrender — in favor of an almost-frantic engagement with the lapsed-Catholic, post-Catholic and non-Catholic world.
The idea of such engagement — of a “new evangelization,” a “new springtime” for Christianity — is hardly a novel one for the Vatican. But Francis’s style and substance are pitched much more aggressively to a world that often tuned out his predecessors. His deliberate demystification of the papacy, his digressive interviews with outlets secular and religious, his calls for experimentation within the church and his softer tone on the issues — abortion, gay marriage — where traditional religion and the culture are in sharpest conflict: these are not doctrinal changes, but they are clear strategic shifts.
John Allen Jr., one of the keenest observers of the Vatican, has called Francis a “pope for the Catholic middle,” positioned somewhere between the church’s rigorists and the progressives who pine to Episcopalianize the faith.
But the significance of this positioning goes beyond Catholicism. In words and gestures, Francis seems to be determined to recreate, or regain, the kind of center that has failed to hold in every major Western faith.
So far, he has at least gained the world’s attention. The question is whether that attention will translate into real interest in the pope’s underlying religious message or whether the culture will simply claim him for its own — finally, a pope who doesn’t harsh our buzz! — without being inspired to actually consider Christianity anew.
I wonder if Pope Francis suffers from a version of Roman Catholic exceptionalism since mainline Protestants tried this about a century ago and their communions have not recovered (despite the efforts of David Hollinger to improve our understanding of the liberal Protestantism’s consequences).
But I also wonder why Douthat doesn’t think that John Paul already accomplished what Francis may be attempting. After all, John Paul II was at the center of resistance to Communism and right there with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher inside the ranks of world changers. Today’s mainstream media may not find such a group of “conservatives” very appealing, but is hard to think of a pope more mainstream in world developments than John Paul II, a man who took a very different posture regarding drift within the church from Francis.
Could it be that Douthat’s column is an indication that John Paul II’s shelf life has expired? If so it would be ironic that just at the moment when he is about to be canonized, John Paul II no longer functions as the model for a successful papacy.
But we residents of planet earth are a forgetful lot. Billy Graham has also faded from memory at the very moment when historians are assessing his legacy. Ken Garfield wondered how many young people, “younger than 60” are listening to the historians:
As Duke Divinity School’s Grant Wacker told the Wheaton College gathering dominated by graying heads, during a recent lecture at Trinity College just one student knew the name Billy Graham. And that student thought Billy Graham was a professional wrestler.
“His story,” Wacker said, speaking of modern Christendom’s most famous figure, “is rapidly receding into the mists of history.”
Old Life 
It seems that Jacobs thinks Niebuhr to be less “muddle-headed” than Hollinger does. But what is Jacobs’ argument to the contrary? The influence of Niebuhr. But as his influence ends, the lack of reality to his “realism” will become more clear.
“Hollinger bubbles over with frustration: at the outsized influence of Reinhold Niebuhr and “his countless, and often uncritical admirers,” at scholars so enchanted by the “epistemic humility” of “The Will to Believe” that they overlook William James’ slipshod argumentation, at academic “neo-harmonists” who refuse to acknowledge a genuine cultural conflict between Christianity and science”
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Someone explain to me whether Francis is the Catholic Tim Keller or Tim Keller is the Gospel Coalitionist Pope Francis.
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Along the lines of the Unanswerable Question: “Is Kenny Rogers the white Lionel Ritchie or is Lionel Ritchie the black Kenny Rogers?”
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Duke!
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And in this corner, sporting his Bible and ready to challenge his opponent to ask Jesus into his heart, Billy G, the evagelator!
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Oops! Evangelator, I meant.
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Talk about evagelators belongs on a different kind of website!
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CW: ” … Francis … Tim Keller …”
I have a hard time believing that Confessional Protestants would put ANY Protestant on par with any pope. The evil that goes along with the papacy (historically — anyone, please check me if I’m wrong) is orders of magnitude above anything that any 20th or 21st century Protestant is capable of achieving.
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Let the record show that someone on old life actually defended Tim Keller. Will wonders never cease?
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“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth (popes come, celebrity ministers go, Diana’s temple falls to ruins in Ephesus) but the word of the LORD endureth forever!”
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@stuart
You’re not a Dookie are you? I sure hope not.
James Buchanan Duke was the Donald Trump of his day. So, perhaps it’s time for Trinity College to change its name again…to Trump University. IMO, the name would be fitting.
I love Wendell Berry’s NEH Jefferson lecture eviscerating Duke and his legacy.
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Come on, John. Don’t take the Chort so literally. I was talking style, squishiness, and their shared wont to find wiggle room in the traditions or standards. But there are some points of intersection. Did you know that it’s increasingly popular with the redeemerites across the country to go to abbeys or monasteries for retreats? I’m sure if I were an alarmist given to exaggeration and hyperbole I could find more to say.
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Every time a Duke-hater makes a sound
A new Blue Devil is sure to be found
Keep on hating, guys! One day, we Dukies, not the Transformationalists, will rule the world! (Insert manical laughter here)
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Stuart — here’s a defense of Tim Keller from a co-blogger who attended Keller’s church for a while:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/05/ministering-in-gotham.html
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Hi CW, I do understand what you are saying about “style” etc., and I understand why that might be an occasion for one to feel uncomfortable. In Keller’s case, he’s “finding wiggle room” in what we might call “very good traditions”. In the Pope’s case, Machen called Roman Catholicism “a perversion of the Christian religion”, and the pope is wiggling in a bad way off of even those malformed “Traditions”.
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Chortles, I might have continued that last thought and said “the pope is wiggling in a bad way off of even those malformed “Traditions”, which themselves are dogmatically mandated to be on par with Scripture.”
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Keller is defended on old life twice in the space of about 12 hours!?!
What will happen next? Will Frame get some attaboys? Will DG Hart admit Machen may have had a little transformationalist blood? Will someone say something good about Duke? Stay tuned for the next unfolding chapter of “Old Life Whipping Boys.”
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Stuart: Keller is defended on old life twice in the space of about 12 hours!?!
Well, it was me both times, and in the space of the same conversation. Don’t you hold out some hope that it may just be different parts of just “one” defense?
Stay tuned for the next unfolding chapter of “Old Life Whipping Boys.”
For the record, I like Frame, too, and DGH’s work, and Scott Clark, and Turretinfan, and Steve Hays … I think that some of the conflicts are genuine and require genuine resolution, but we are all on the same team, all things considered. I can see “you’re not doing it right”, and I can even see “this doctrine is harmful”. (I reject “ye must, because I say…”). But we’re all, most of us, planning the same one-way trip to the same destination, where we’ll all have a rollicking good time together.
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Stuart, I will right things. Duke sucks, Keller is a brand, Hart gets the last word on Machen, and Frame is the scourge of Reformed worship.
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Sean, four for four.
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“Stuart, I will right things. Duke sucks, Keller is a brand, Hart gets the last word on Machen, and Frame is the scourge of Reformed worship.”
Ahhhhhhh. The comforting words of condemnation. Hartdom remains. Thank you. I can rest again knowing this blog is as it should be.
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John,
I hear you, bro. I can dig the best of my betters even if I disagree with some of what comes out of their mouths (or into a com box). And I’m all for that “same team” pep-talk and all. It’s just I don’t know what to do when Reformed folk shy away from being persnickety with each other. I think it’s in our DNA, yo.
But don’t take me too seriously. I’m vying for court jester here, and I have some stiff competition (stiff because we’re P&R’s, and we wouldn’t want it any other way).
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Stuart, I’ve no problem admitting that Machen was postmill (though he didn’t call himself that) prior to WWI. Warfield, I believe, remained postmill his whole life. It was the default for mainstream American Protestants. The world was improving. And then the Great War hit. It sobered Machen. And the last sixteen years of his life suggest a reassessment of that older progressive vision. (BTW, I am more and more convinced that neo-Cals are progressives. James Bratt said Kuyper was one. Again it had plausibility before WWI. What the neo-Cals are drinking to think that they can “improve” things is beyond me.)
Even Machen’s “transformational” words to the Dutch-American school teachers was a break with postmill. Why else would he put the hopes of Christianity on a small, marginal group of hyphenated Americans in the heartland? He didn’t say those words at Harvard or Princeton. To think that Dutch-American school teachers would change the world is laughable. For Machen, the margins were where the hope was (not in NYC a la TKNY). And the margins were also the most American. It was private schools that proved that for which the U.S. stood. They were not on the front lines of spiritual warfare.
You’re not going to find that kind of reflection from the Machen quoters who also sometimes make up the quotes.
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Sean, let’s try to wrap your foursome up in one dream image: Hart in an Old Princeton jersey dunks on TKNY (who’s wearing a Duke jersey) while coach Frame kicks chairs and slaps freshmen on the bench.
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DG,
In all seriousness, thanks for that. I appreciate your labors to understand a man who could easily be misunderstood by most of us who have only read a bit of Machen, and that without knowing the full historical context of his life and work.
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C-Dubs, we can expand it by having TKNY pound the floor like he really means it this time while Hart sets him up for another crossover, but the Frame depiction is too old school. Frame has to be the two headed monstrosity of Tarkanian and Westhead ignoring the rules(RPW) and promoting their own style, damned be tradition. The pope can be dressed up and painted like a Cameron crazy(one of Miley’s molly heads-recent youth gathering in Brazil reference for those keeping score) and I don’t know what to do with the dutch, maybe pulling a Midwestern Kansas elitist move and taking credit for the game itself?
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Stuart, I like a little contention as much as anybody — being a kind of newbie Presbyterian, I was a little startled by the level of activity in the Reformed world, though, with as much emphasis as everyone places on being precise, I can understand where it comes from.
RCism is quite the opposite — no longer any thought at all to precision. As long as someone faces Rome and bows every once in a while, that counts as Good Practicing Catholic.
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John, we have a similar form of folk religion in the South: As long as you don’t drink (as far as anyone knows), don’t get divorced too often, don’t vote Democrat in national elections, walk an aisle or three, and occasionally attend the local babdist church you’re OK. And those local churches are usually run by one man and increasingly have embraced images and superstition. Hence, my contention that most American Xians are practical RCs,
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John,
It’ll soon be 20 years that I’ve been living in Reformedville (having been predestined to leave my baptisty ways in my early twenties), and I’m no longer startled by the snipiness of P&Rs. I embraced the contentiousness for a while (thinking, “this is what it looks like to be Reformed”), fought it for a time (unsuccessfully, I might add), and then grew to poke fun at it most every chance I get (which usually raises the ire of some who take themselves and our P&R traditions a little too seriously). Cue backlash . . . now.
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Chortles: my contention that most American Xians are practical RCs,
Well, everyone gets lazy, RCs and Babdists alike. And “images and superstition” from the leadership is bad. The difference is, there’s no centralized Babdist gub’ment raining down (or having rained down) commands to reverence images and superstition under pain of hell.
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The Billy Graham tent is big enough to hold old-lifers
“The first question was from Dad. He said, ‘Billy, some people say you have to have a born-again experience to go to heaven. Mother [my grandmother] here is the most religious, kind person I know, yet she has no born-again experience. Will she go to heaven?’ Wow, pretty profound question from the old man. We all looked at Billy. In his quiet, strong voice, he replied, ‘George, some of us require a born-again experience to understand God, and some of us are born Christians. It sounds as if your mom was just born a Christian” (Decision Points, George W. Bush, p. 31).
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but the tent is not big enough to hold anyone who would de-fund financial aid to zionism.
Billy: “The legacy we leave behind for our children, grandchildren, and this great nation is crucial. As I approach my 94th birthday, I realize this election could be my last. I believe it is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel. I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me that America will remain one nation under God.”
that rhetorical ship has not yet sailed…
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But, John, I still say Calvinist sensibilities that render us religious iconoclasts would serve lifers well when it comes to those ghastly images designed to foster moral indignation.
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Zrim: Calvinist sensibilities that render us religious iconoclasts would serve lifers well when it comes to those ghastly images designed to foster moral indignation.
Those aren’t even intended to “foster moral indignation” but to show what’s really happening. To say “this is the ‘choice’ some people are defending”. It’s a form of public education.
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@stuart
I’m not really a hater. Mocker is more like it.
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“The Billy Graham tent is big enough to hold old-lifers.” McMark
I’d rather not enter that tent. A friend’s father grew up in a conservative Reformed church in Ontario. He once told the story of a family in the church that was excommunicated for having attending a Billy Graham meeting. He said that the consistory asked the family to repent and to confess that Billy Graham is an anti-Christ. They refused, and were cast out.
It saddens me to see that our Reformed churches no longer have a similar zeal to protect people from the gross evils of revivalism.
I generally won’t join a church that asks me about some kind of conversion experience. According to our Confessions, the ordinary means of coming into the church is as a covenant infant. Entry via a conversion experience ought to be rare.
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Glenda Mathes on the OPC General Assembly:
http://ascribelog.wordpress.com/2013/10/08/opc-80th-general-assembly-california-dream/
Presumably Hart is the guy in the group photo holding the cat.
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DGH is in the back row almost straight behind the wheelchair.
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“According to our Confessions, the ordinary means of coming into the church is as a covenant infant. Entry via a conversion experience ought to be rare.”
Sounds like making disciples of all nations is going to be a little more difficult than we thought. To have people from every tribe, language, and nation in the kingdom will take a whole lot of interracial marriages.
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I sat near the guy in the wheelchair during the assembly. Naturally, I mocked his condition in various ways on various days. But Pastor Jerrell is a good sport so he wasn’t noticeably irritated.
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Bobby,
“According to our Confessions, the ordinary means of coming into the church is as a covenant infant. Entry via a conversion experience ought to be rare.”
For children of Christian parents that may be true, but you can’t make a blanket statement like that. What’s the point of world missions?
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John and Zrim,
Good point John. My question for Zrim is why is moral indignation a bad thing? Should we not be outraged that babies are being dismembered in their mother’s wounds?
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It appears the OPC GA was refreshingly thin on polo shirts, Hawaiian shirts, and bowties.
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John, et al: I would contend (as someone who worked in visual communications for decades) that the 2nd commandment should make us suspicious of images in almost all contexts. They are subject to misuse, misunderstanding, and manipulation (and are powerfully manipulative) more than any other media. There are many type of pornography and propaganda — pro- or anti- groups can be guilty of indulging in either.
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Robert, I was mainly elbowing John from an exchange at another forum over gorey images. But moral indignation should be reserved, not stoked. It seems to me that whatever else iconoclast Calvinism is about, it’s also about putting more restraint on stoking religious affect. Calvinists who are also lifers should take a lesson from that and exercise more skepticism about the liberal use of gorey images that do more inciting of fear and loathing than informing and persuading. It’s a revivalist tactic.
Speaking of which, I don’t think Bobby’s point is that missions and evangelism would suffer in a more robust confessionalism as much as conversionism and decisionism rightly would.
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“It appears the OPC GA was refreshingly thin on polo shirts, Hawaiian shirts, and bowties.”
Yeah, but all those guys look OLD! Where are the hipsters to bring in the young folk? You can’t expect the OPC to continue to be relevant without at least one guy with tats, piercings, and skinny jeans!
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CW,
So you’re saying my Jesus doll isn’t a good thing?
http://www.catholiccompany.com/messengers-faith-doll-talking-jesus-p2024843/
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In his Short Systematic Theology Zahl reviews the traditional answers.
First, the sacramental theory: “Christ is present objectively in the ‘elements’ of the eucharist, that is, in the bread and wine, and in the water of baptism” (p. 25). The bread and wine of the Eucharist “become in some real actuality the place or ‘temple’ of Christ’s presence with us now.” An objective change is effected in their reality. They become the “present location of Christ’s body and blood.” The sacramental theory is denoted by several terms—transubstantiation, consubstantiation, real presence.
Zahl also speaks of an objective change of the water in Holy Baptism. “The water is changed objectively,” Zahl writes, “through the divine power of the Spirit of the resurrected Jesus, activated by precisely correct words and intentions, into the effective channel for the communication of God’s grace on earth. Thus baptized children are regenerated or born again” (pp. 25-26).
Jordan Zimmerman: I know that sometimes one can find the of language of change of the baptismal waters in the Church Fathers and in baptismal liturgies, ancient and modern; but the Church catholic is clear that the transformation of the bread and wine in the Eucharist is completely different from the the sanctification of the water at Holy Baptism. Catholic Christians worship and adore Christ present under the forms of bread and wine. They do not worship and adore the water in the font. In any case, according to Zahl, this is the product of “objectification in religion,” the yearning to put the “inexpressible into expressible form” (p. 26). He likens objectification to magical thinking.
Zahl writes: “The presence of the Holy Spirit in connection with an object can neither be proven empirically nor disproven empirically.” It’s all a matter of subjective experience. The Holy Spirit blows where it wills. It cannot be pinned down or contained or captured.
“Christ is represented concretely in the visual, and in particular through the icon” (p. 31). Zahl recognizes that Orthodoxy, for whom the icon is constitutive, is quick to clarify that it is not the wood and paint of the icon that presents the risen Christ; rather, it is the Holy Spirit that carries the divine presence “through the inspired image to the believer who views it in faith” (p. 31).
But the image, Zahl tells us, cannot sustain the conviction of Christ’s iconic presence. The Holy Spirit cannot be controlled, will not be controlled. For good reasons God prohibited the worship of images. God will not be subjected “to the human word of command” (p. 32).
Zahl: Pentecostalism is another distinct form of the hunger we have seen all along the spectrum of Christian traditions to locate the presence of the risen Christ within space and time. This is !impossible if we take seriously Jesus’ words about worshiping God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24), not to mention the prescript that God is uniquely present only where love exists (1 John 4:7-12). Both the Spirit as the unseen Christ and love as the unseen motive of human experience make it impossible. Objectification is out!
If objectification in all forms is out, then how are we to understand the presence of the risen Christ in our lives? Dr. Zahl’s answer: Christ is present in his absence! All objectifications of the Lord are illusory, idolatrous attempts “to possess God in human terms.” A mature, adult faith acknowledges the experienced absence of the ascended Christ.
deconstructing the difference between “experience” and “sacrament”….
http://pontifications.wordpress.com/paul-zahl/
mcmark reporting
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Mcmark, business and life demands that I be in the business of drive by commboxing and perusal for right now, and though I occasionally go both barrels myself, I have need of condensed, succinct and pithy these days. Please adjust to my needs and wants.
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Carlos Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin.( Cambridge University Press, 1986)
In 1509, when John Calvin was born, Western Christendom still shared a common religion of immanence. The sacred was diffused in the profane, the spiritual in the material. Divine power, embodied in the Church and its sacraments, reached down through innumerable points of contact to make itself felt: to forgive and to punish, to protect against the ravages of nature, to heal, to soothe, and to work all sorts of wonders. Priests could absolve adulterers and murderers, or bless fields and cattle.
‘Saints’ could prevent lightning from striking, restore sight to the blind, or preach to birds and fish. Unencumbered by the limitations of time and space, they could do even more through their images and relics after death. A pious glance at a statue of St. Christopher in the morning ensured protection from illness and death throughout the day. Burial in the habit of St. Francis improved the prospects for the afterlife. Pilgrimage to Santiago, where the body of the apostle James had been deposited by angels, or to Canterbury, where St. Thomas à Becket had had his skull split open by knights of King Henry II, could make a lame man walk, or hasten a soul’s release from purgatory.
The map of Europe bristled with holy places; life pulsated with the expectation of the miraculous. In the popular mind and in much of the official teaching of the Church, almost anything was possible. One could even eat the flesh of the risen Christ in a consecrated wafer. The adoption of pagan religious practices by the Roman Church-State is the principal reason for the survival of belief in the miraculous in so-called Christian countries in the twenty-first century.
Because the Roman Church-State has repackaged these pagan wonders as Christian, those who believe that contemporary miracles are divine think that those who do not believe are not Christian. The Roman-Church State required its subjects to believe that its priests perform miracles. It encourages its subjects to believe that the relics of the saints and apparitions perform miracles. Millions of Catholics, Protestants, and others flock to so-called holy places where paintings cry, statues bleed, and apparitions appear.
Televangelists, whose doctrine of salvation is essentially Roman Catholic, perform miracles according to their broadcast schedules, and local church charlatans throughout the world try to imitate them. Like medieval Europe, the modern world is suffused with superstition and the miraculous, and it is worsening….
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The Eire book is very good, used it to prep for a Sunday school class on worship for adults, then for youth. And, yeah, I used images of images.
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I also like Ellul’s The Humiliation of the Word.
Zahl is a funny guy–Anglican who is very good (Lutheran) on the law-gospel distinction, but also very open to universalism and not careful about exegesis and exposition of Bible. Slides into antinomianism…but I would deny that this is a result of his anti-sacramentalism.
https://oldlife.org/2013/08/logocentrism-is-good/
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keller against puritan iconoclasm
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/01/images-of-jesus/
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Peter Barnes, Banner of Truth
http://thechristianpundit.org/2011/12/20/pictures-of-jesus/
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McMark, thank the Lord for Protestantism (though convincing neo-Calvinists that the sacred is not diffused in the profane is our ongoing struggle; in Doug’s words, we keep pressing on).
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McMark, Captain Renault and I are shocked that TKNY is image-friendly. Not the only PCA “flagship” church with an image problem:
http://media.firstpresaugusta.org/2010/08/chancel-window/
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You’re a peach McMark.
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C-Dubs, that’s the lead dog in the ‘Partnership’ correct? It’s fascinating to watch the intolerance of Keller’s big tent model. The Kellerites are all about magnanimity as long as they’re the ones deciding when and to whom to be generous. They aren’t interested in a breadth of diversity they don’t prescribe. It’s Rick Warren but southern and monied and backhanded.
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Sean, yep it’s His Georgeness.
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Sean, you pigeonhole Robertson as a Kellerite? I thought he was on Chappel’s team (which of course is friendly to TKNY).
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Celebrity and “good music and art” are supposed to be able to “woo” the totally depraved to “come to church”. But talking about the doctrine of us/them in terms of election is a big “turn off”. That kind of preaching might keep some of God’s elect from every believing the gospel.
The ultimate way we can tell people that the gospel is “outside of you” is to tell them that the gospel they MUST believe excludes even this believing as the condition of salvation. No debated language about the objectivity of “covenants” or “sacraments” should be allowed to obscure this gospel truth. Unless you preach that Christ died only for the elect, no matter how confessional you are, you will end up encouraging people to make their faith into that little something that makes the difference between life and death!
But many are still looking for something ambiguous enough to “have some influence” with unbelievers. Do these people still believe (or ever believe) that the glory of God in the gospel means that all for whom Christ died will certainly be saved? Or has this doctrine become too “rationalistic and fatalistic” for them, and too offensive for the wooing of unbelievers?
Would that doctrine perhaps take the grace of God out of the hands of church planters and apologists and locate grace with the Father who has chosen a people and given them to Christ? (Romans 11:4-6) Would the doctrine of effective atonement take the starch out of those who thank God for how much their hearts have changed?
Election is God’s love. When the Bible talks about God’s love, it talks about propitiation. I John 4:10, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” If all we only stipulate that the appeasement of wrath will not work without our faith, then it’s not enough to add on that God sent His Son to purchase our faith.
If a church is for those who profess to belong to the new covenant, why not talk in church about Christ not dying for the non-elect? The glory of God does not depend on human decisions, and a church should not be re-imaged as a center for Arminian evangelism.
Lee Irons on Tim Keller
Click to access evangelistic-worship.pdf
.
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Darryl, at the very least they are kissing cousins. A number of the guys coming out of CTS have used the Redeemer playbook as template for their church plant/church remake. It’s all winsome, wide funnel, Rick Warreny/Keller social justice/concern/white guilt yuppie emergent vibe with a number of them bringing the RUF focus and music in with them because God forbid they should have had to serve under a seasoned pastor for a few years and delay/spoil their ‘New’ thing that they were bringing; Redeemer for the city church handbook-$29.95.
If you’re confessional, you’re part of the problem.
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Here’s a problem I see: There are some semi-celebrity, mild old school presbys (PCA of course) who dare not spend a dime of their not inconsiderable capital to get rid of or cover up the images in their nice old downtown churches. I know of small timers who have gotten rid of crosses (gold or otherwise), advent wreaths, images, and other quasi-Anglican elements, but the case of a more prominent minister doing so is rare, I think. Celebrity is a two way thing and most dare not piss off the money, power, or adoring fan bases.
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Sean, thankfully, the flower fades, not the word of the Lord. In the meantime, too bad for the folks having to smell the flowers.
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CW, I’m not sure it’s celebrity, though it is relevant. These are churches after all that put up the stained glass and crosses and find them meaningful. They are also people who want a well-turned out pastor. The problem is the pastor who takes that call and overlooks those contrary messages, or who doesn’t see the battle he is facing.
So maybe the point is that these are precisely the churches that create the environment that produces celebrity pastors. You can’t have celebrity without celebrants.
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Sean – C-Dubs, that’s the lead dog in the ‘Partnership’ correct? It’s fascinating to watch the intolerance of Keller’s big tent model. The Kellerites are all about magnanimity as long as they’re the ones deciding when and to whom to be generous. They aren’t interested in a breadth of diversity they don’t prescribe. It’s Rick Warren but southern and monied and backhanded.
Erik – Instead of wearing Hawaiian shirts do they dress like Col. Sanders?
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Those who exclude must be excluded. We must set correct boundaries against those with incorrect boundaries.
identity politics—- i have a new york times bestseller, you do not.
i am mainstream reformed, you are hyper and marginal
How can people with strange narrow boundaries be put in the center without being co-opted?
sectarians—maybe god did not pick you, because you are not common and without influence, like i am
i am exceptional that way
identity politics is the ideology of resenting tim keller?
what’s the difference between?
i would not be in his place even if i could
and
you couldn’t?
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Erik, it depends. Some of them are awschucks. Large swaths of them are just fratboys. Like a lot of trust fund babies who didn’t go completely off the rails, you need to genuflect and be grateful because they could be doing something else and you should feel fortunate to have them.
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Erik, I should note, since they’ve deemed to bless you with their service, you’re not allowed to push back, offer contrary counsel, or even sit in such a way as to give offense or be interpreted as anything less than a cheerleader for the prince’s plan. It’s a smile with sharp teeth.
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I believe I’ve told this story before, but I once saw a frat boy redeemerite at presbytery and he was dressed just like Judge Smails from Caddyshack. I still don’t know if it was hipster irony or if he was on the way to the golf course and his taste was just that bad.
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I hate to resurrect an old blog thread, but the title is apt. At a meeting last evening I heard the names of two or three “celebrity” authors/pastors/whatever-you-want-to-call-them dropped by a young, recent seminary graduate along with quotations that he seemed to think were golden, never minding the dark side for which at least one of these famous types is well known. Are these the kinds of things with which young, easily convinced young minds are being shaped and molded in the evangelical seminaries these days? Where and when is it all going to end?
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