In my few interactions with David Robertson, I have noticed that he does not suffer fools patiently. He also seems to have a patronizing attitude toward Christianity in the United States. Nothing wrong with either of these outlooks, but I do wonder if he sometimes hears himself.
For instance, he has been a defender of Tim Keller and appears at times to be inspired by the NYC pastor. But could anyone imagine TKNY writing this:
the kind of ‘reconciliation’ being posited is papering over the real cracks in society. This is more about politicians’ games and media manipulation than any attempt to deal with the real problems in our society. It enabled politicians to say look we are ‘better together’ and it allowed the Church to feel significant.
I found it all more than a little patronising and fake. And I’m not sure I do want to be reconciled to the poverty, injustice, sexual abuse and the growing gaps between the rich and powerful and the poor and powerless. I want to scream at the darkness, not pretend everything is sweetness and light. But even though there is a deeper reconciliation in society needed, there is something even more basic than that. . . .
God’s new community is salt and light in a dark and tasteless world. We are not those who speak of the shared values of the powerful elites, who say ‘peace, peace when there is no peace’. We are those who point to Christ, the light of the world and who ourselves live by that light. Reconciliation will only come through reformation, renewal and revival!
It would be hard to imagine Keller writing about Mayors Guiliani or Bloomberg the way that Robertson writes about Prime Minister Cameron and other UK officials (though if Keller channeled Robertson he would be a lot more interesting to read).
It would also be hard not to see a bit of Robertson’s views about religion and politics in the way that American Christians conduct themselves (except for Keller):
In 1979 I had just become a Christian – I saw in the Gospel a far deeper hope and more radical solution that even Mrs Thatcher was offering and, as I wept, I dedicated myself to proclaiming the cause of Christ, where-ever He called me. Today I weep again for my country and I rededicate myself to that same cause. I don’t want to spend my time trying to steady the sinking ship. I want to man the lifeboats and rescue the drowning. I want to turn the world upside down. Is that so wrong?!
So you say you want a revolution? A Christian one? Say hello to the U.S. of A.
Old Life 
Erik,
Being a professional worrier eliminates the need for no-doz.
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CD: See, I didn’t say that the divines and other reformers had nothing to offer. I am just eliminating the pedestals on which we put each group. That those who advocate a social gospel can learn from the divines, Calvin, and Luther while the latter group could have learned from those who advocate some sort of social gospel. And all I am saying is that we need to review the Westminster standards and add to them. I am not saying that we should eliminate them. And it is that point which you seem reluctant to listen to.
I’m sorry to need to be very forceful here, but what you think you are doing is different from what you are actually doing.
See, I pointed you to the Westminster Standards, which talk (among other things) about the need for individuals to preserve the lives of others, including preserving them from unjust oppression. They talk about the need to preserve the property of others.
And they cite, in prooftexts, the very books — James, Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah — that you say we should be looking at!
Except that you didn’t know that, because you didn’t bother to slow down and do your homework.
The point of being Confessional, as opposed to being Modernist, is that we do our homework so that we don’t reinvent the wheel. That way, you can intelligently represent other people’s positions instead of imputing horrific motives to them (“keep their noses clean”).
Get the speck out, do your homework, and come back when you’re done.
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Ummm, can someone help me out with this one:
I’m not super learned in these things, and it may be too complex an issue for a blog comment section, but I was under the impression that you could only declare some portion of scripture contextually irrelevant to our current situation if scripture itself points out a unique context such as a conditional covenant, a unique role in society or the church, a local fracas or some such thing. Otherwise, we’re supposed to take it as a timeless and just going off on your own and deciding the context has changed and making up something else to do instead is right out.
I mean, I could point out that all of scripture was written to pre-industrialized societies that didn’t have the technology to institute globalized capitalism; ergo we should realize that the context has changed and the Bible’s teachings about our duties to the poor aren’t really relevant to this age.
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Simple
Either you believe in the power of Scripture and subscribe to a confession and take the means of grace when offered or you don’t
And those who don’t seem to like to burn away hours a week on here and not move us even 1%.
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Curt, you wouldn’t happen to be a Westerner telling us what’s the right way to live in the world, would you? Marx, was he Asian?
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Curt, no pedestals for King of Bonhoffer, who were not theologically trustworthy (sort of like you)?
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And this is a guy who will go 500 comments with people who appear to be on hallucinogenic drugs…
I haven’t been accused of appearing to be on hallucinogenic drugs since way back in college, when (just a time or two) I actually was on hallucinogenic drugs.
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And this is a guy who will go 500 comments with people who appear to be on hallucinogenic drugs…
John Y: That’s Erik the logician emoting. Don’t expect a tear from his eye though. I heard some guy say this once: “The glutton is not the only person who worships his belly. The preacher who will not preach the gospel and expose the false gospel in order to “keep his ministry and still have influence” is also serving his belly. His flesh may not look like the flesh of the preacher who openly teaches freewill and losing your salvation. But it’s still flesh.
There is a distinction between doctrine and life, between gospel and walk. But people who have gospel doctrine in their hearts will talk and walk by that gospel. This does not mean that they are less sinful than those who teach universal atonement and salvation conditioned on the sinner. But it does mean that they will love those who love the gospel.
Phil 3:16 Let us walk by the same rule. Let’s not practice the ungodly practice of judging only by outward appearance or by our own standard of saved and lost. Without the imputed righteousness revealed in the gospel, the person who commits less sin is no better off than the person who commits more sin.”
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David R, now you tell us! Kerux and the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
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Jeff,
remember that we just don’t live as individuals, we live in groups. And our lives as individuals just might make us unaware of the sins we commit by our participation in groups. And that is the point here.
BTW, I know where the proof texts are from. But do you know how your government supports racism and assists other governments in oppressing others? Do you know how your economic system supports the exploitation of labor? Are you aware of how the American way of life can harm the environment? See, focusing on individual sins does not always make us aware of the sins which the groups we belong to commit.
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D.G.,
And I suppose that those theologically correct Reformed Christians who supported slavery, Jim Crow, the ethnic cleansing of Indians from the land, and American Exceptionalism were/are theologically trustworthy.
The point here isn’t that King and Bonhoeffer had nothing to learn from the Reformed tradition. That would be incorrect. The point is that those in the Reformed Tradition, both past and present have much to learn from King and Bonhoeffer.
Btw, where am I theologically not trustworthy? And please be specific.
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Curt, you don’t mean to say that man’s governments and systems are fallen, broken? But if the cause is that man himself is inherently sinful and fallen and is the well-spring of this evil set loose in the world then what could possibly be the solution? Hint: It’s not rearranging the deck chairs – the world’s ruined…
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Sean, don’t worry, it wasn’t anywhere near enough for flashbacks.
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Curt is an attention whore, horrible by even the standards past jokers have shown…..
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, concerning your egregious use of belittling tribal epithets, Kent.
Either that or this is just symptomatic of the onset of a collectivist fever. (Ebola much?)
Which means Curt can ignore it, just like he ignores any questions regarding the substance of his sacred paradigm.
But since Francis has leftist leanings, maybe Bryan Cross will have a new recruit to replace Mr. PoorSport aka Cry Me A River (Tiber) Stellman, who ain’t the happiest camper lately because he’s being . . .exploited?
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Bob S, hear me now and believe me later.
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Bob,
So now it comes down to personal accusations based on subjective judgments?
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Jack,
I never denied the individual component. I just said that it cannot be reduced to that. Because when we reduce sin to just personal sins, we unsuspectingly get sucked into the sins our groups commit.
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Curt, 2k is all about Christians learning from non-Christians. But not about sin. Calvinists own the book and publish it. It has no chapter on corporate sin (except for the Mosaic Covenant). You need to learn from Christians.
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John,
That was a wonderful haiku, although I think you exceeded the allowable word limit.
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Erik,
Huh? I thought a haiku was some sort of Japanese poetry about the seasons. I don’t get the connection! Regardless, a good quote from Michael Horton: “While MacArthur may not intend for readers to come away from his remarks prepared to conclude that they are not Christians because they find themselves committing the same sins repeatedly, I do not think this is an unwarranted conclusion based on his comments. MacArthur not only takes the focus for our assurance off of the finished work of Christ, but even raises questions about the focus for faith itself. Is faith resting in Christ’s life and death or in ours? We must be careful not to react to the antinomian threat by driving the sheep back to themselves, away from Christ”
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Maybe you were just accusing me of being overly sentimental and not the realist like yourself. I’ll be more realist when those who blame poverty on laziness, the inability to get their acts together and the welfare state begin to start looking at the ways the rich buck the system to their advantage. They do a lot more damage than the poverty stricken do. And no one keeps score in that regard.
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D.G.,
What I appreciate about 2k is that they don’t seek Christian privilege in society. That part is good and I have said that multiple times. BTW, didn’t one Daniel’s prayers include admission to corporate sin (Daniel 9:16)? In addition, doesn’t historical observation tell us about corporate sin? Of course one could go to one of the worst examples such as with Nazi Germany. Those Christians who said and did nothing but merely kept their own nose clean in order to escape punishment were involved with corporate sin. Or those, in the South during slavery and Jim Crow, who said or did nothing to protect the oppressed were guilty of corporate sin through their complicity. After all, what would you say to the Christian who never said anything to any of his friends who were living in sin in order to remain friends? Would you say to such a Christian that he is not responsible to say anything to any friends who are sinning?
We live as individuals and we live in groups. And just as individuals sin, so do groups. Those who sought the messengers who visited Lot were wanting to sin as a group as well as individuals. And because you can’t find a particular example doesn’t mean that the concept does not exist.
Or perhaps the real question is this: What is our duty to the oppressed? Isaiah gives us a partial answer in Isaiah 58:5-12. Note there, Isaiah gives us two options for what is an appropriate fast before the Lord. Or we can take our cue from Jeremiah 22 when the prophet describes how Josiah:
He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the Lord.
Note the similar theme expressed by both prophets. That part of being involved with God is helping and defending the vulnerable. It seems that to many Conservative Christians think helping those who are suffering because they are being oppressed consists of teaching those people how to be spiritual spartans. And by doing so, some feel that they have taught people “how to fish” so they can sustain themselves during hard times. But that is not what is being by the prophets and James challenges to the rich in James 5 shows that he is doing what he could do to help those whose wages were being taken from them by the rich.
In either case, whether we are talking about corporate sin where there are a few scriptures pointing to that as well as observation that makes it inescapable or the scriptures commanding us to take up the cause of not just those in need, but those who are oppressed seems to say that 2kers have something to learn from Occupy activists just as they have something to learn from 2kers.
Finally, your insistence on literal examples brings up a point I raised myself. It seems that to insist we are restricted to only following biblical examples with regard to reacting to corporate sin and how to respond is to expand the regulative principle beyond worship to all of life. Such an approach does not follow the spirit of what is taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan.
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Curt, as I’ve said many times, corporate sin may make sense if you are Israel. But following your instruction about different contexts, we’re not in Israel any more. Christ changed that. And now we live in the same period of redemptive history as Paul and Christ. They didn’t talk about corporate sin. Why do you? You’re an anachronism.
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Revelation 6:15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains,
1 Timothy 6:17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
James 2:6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?
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One more comment that keeps bothering me about those who separate the haves and haves not in regards to what the haves HAVE DONE compared to what the have nots HAVE NOT DONE. When Jesus went out amongst the poor, whom the Jewish religious establishment wanted nothing to do with, did He ask them why or how they got there, or, after ministering the Gospel to them did he say, after a certain amount of time I might trust you but you got to gain my trust again?
When you talk about covenant more than election that seems to be the natural response.
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John,
The government (in the name of helping the poor) can make everyone do lots of things they really don’t want to do (because they have lots of guns and can lock you up).
Rich people really can’t make anyone do anything.
Yet people continue fall for bigger government in the name of fighting the rich.
Good luck with that.
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John,
Are you suggesting that when people do bad things they should expect good results and when people do good things they should expect bad results?
Is that how the world works?
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John,
You might want to follow the advice that Jason Stellman should have followed after his conversion. Lay low for for a few years and see how things work out.
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Erik,
Rich people can’t make anyone do anything? Really? Rich people who own companies can make their employees do a lot or their employees face could lose their jobs. Rich people can create monopolies and by eliminating choices, can make consumers buy things. Then Rich people can own companies that drive social standards and thus greatly influence what is in style. Rich people who own media companies can control what people see and hear.
Do rich people always have absolute control over people? No. But they can make people do things because they can control the alternatives.
And see, that is the problem with the consolidation of wealth. Because power follows wealth. And once we acknowledge that, we begin to see that power is not limited to government, it can as easily be wielded by the private sector. After all, when government makes laws that serve the rich, realize that the power isn’t in the government, it is being used by the rich to serve themselves and often at the expense of everyone else.
So perhaps you might want to understand that while Capitalism, especially the Capitalism du jour, consolidates wealth and thus power, democracy redistributes power. The more democratic society is both in the public and private sectors, the more power is distributed. Of course the cost of a stronger democracy is efficiency. And that is our choice. Democracy or efficiency and its following consolidation of wealth and power.
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D.G.,
Corporate makes sense whenever you belong to a group. And, in fact, the more privileged society is, the greater the corporate responsibility for those in that society.
The challenge for us is to realize that though the Scriptures are sufficient for guiding us, there are issues and objects that they never directly addressed. I fear that for some, believing that the Scriptures are sufficient means that nothing exists today that did not exist back in Old and New Testament times. And thus for the Scriptures to be their guide, they can only refer to concrete commands and examples to imitate. And with the latter is the implication that there are no significant differences between then and now. Thus the more such Christians will fail to observe what the rest of the world has known for a while.
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Eric says:
John,
“Are you suggesting that when people do bad things they should expect good results and when people do good things they should expect bad results?
Is that how the world works?”
John Y: The world works as you say- it keeps all of humanity in bondage to the Law. In the Kingdom of God the Law has been fulfilled and Christ constrains those who are His by His New Covenant. Christ is the the new lawgiver and his yoke is easy and his burden is light. We are still talking past each other. I’ll lay low when you start laying low Erik. You always have to play the one upman’s game with me. Don’t try to pull rank. You have no authority over my life. I’ll continue to listen to those who proclaim and teach the Gospel accurately. They do have authority over my life.
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Curt, “the more privileged society is. . .”
What the heck does that mean? I haven’t seen sociologists or historians who break down societies according to privilege or non-privilege. Was not the Stuart UK privileged. Was not Israel under David privileged? What are you talking about? And where do you get the idea of “privilege” from Scripture? You can’t burden my conscience unless you give me a divine warrant.
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Erik,
There is no good news in the advice you give. I guess you think you’re doing the Law enough to warrant God’s favor in your life. I think that is a dangerous place to be.
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Curt,
Name a rich person who can lock you up and throw away the key. Or administer a lethal injection in your arm. Or fine you and put you in prison if you don’t pay.
The people who can do these things are the ones you want to empower.
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John,
If what you’ve been doing has been working for you, by all means keep doing it.
May The Schwartz be with you.
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Read this in The University of Chicago Alumni Magazine last night. Sounds like Curt:
Less left
Pamela Cook, AM’05, relates that on the day after President Bush was reelected, an “obviously angry professor” devoted a whole class period to “ranting about the evils of the Republican Party” (Letters, July–Aug/14). When Ms. Cook objected to the partisan lecture she was insulted by fellow students with the professor’s tacit approval.
In defense of the University, it can be noted that these and other alleged incidents occurred in the School of Social Service Administration. Social work classes are not typical of graduate programs. The field has always had a left-liberal outlook but seems to have taken a further turn toward political activism after President Clinton’s “end of welfare as we know it.” The National Association of Social Workers has demanded since 1996 that social workers promote social justice “from local to global levels,” and their idea of social justice would of course differ from Milton Friedman’s (AM’33). If one Googles “The Scandal of Social Work Education,” one will find accounts of courses devoted to “the global interconnections of oppression,” “strategies of empowerment practice,” “oppressive structures,” and “political advocacy as a form of mobilization.”
But the current course descriptions on SSA’s website are about helping individual clients, with no postmodernist jargon. The only exception is a course on the impact of torture on people “marginalized by the larger (privileged) society because of their gender, race and age.” Ms. Cook would probably have had a worse experience in most other social work programs.
Full disclosure: my late mother was a social work student at the U of C before I was born. She fondly remembered a formidable dean whose first name was Sophonisba.
Malcolm Sherman, SB’60, SM’60
Albany, New York
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D.G.,
Do you mean that the American society with its personal freedoms and wealth is not more privileged than third world societies run by tyrants?
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Curt, I mean you are using categories that have the West written all over them. I mean you have yet to think biblically about your vaunted leftist categories. I mean you have not yet considered that more privilege exists in Europe where the residue of hierarchy still exists (think monarchy whether spiritual or temporal). I mean you’re all wet.
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D.G.,
Is there nothing that we can observe that was not written in either the OT or the NT? Those who answer ‘no’ will be stuck with overly concrete approaches and looking to imitate rather than generalize. But worse than that, they will not see what is clearly observable to others.
Again, as a society, aren’t we more privileged, or to put it another way, don’t we have more privileges than people do who live in 3rd world countries that are run by tyrants? It is a simple question to answer. And the wrong answer can unnecessarily destroy your credibility to evangelize.
BTW, there is nothing wrong or unbiblical with observing categories. They are simply groupings of like objects. Of course, if you don’t believe that there can no longer be any new categories after Biblical times, then I see the problem. But I don’t see the Scriptures supporting that view.
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Curt, if you talk about sin, you’re doing theology. And doing theology apart from Scripture is a no-no.
So the West is better than the rest? How pro-Western of you.
I think you need to go back to the categories drawing board.
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D.G.,
So what is theology apart from the Scriptures? Is it that which is not concretely related or where we aren’t imitating someone? Or is it when we aren’t following the general principles of the Scriptures? Remember that we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. And our neighbor is the one in need who crosses our path. And, in today’s technological world, we have far more neighbors than those in the past did.
So is it loving one’s neighbor to not speak up for those oppressed by society and its systems? And is loving one’s neighbor to not tell a sinful system that it is wrong must change?
Again, let’s go back to the German Christians during the Nazi error. Did those in resistance groups like the White Rose sin by breaking the law to tell the people the truth? Would they have sinned if they remained silent having known what was going on?
And what about us? When gov’t interventions overthrow democratic and nondemocratic governments to put in the tyrants of their choice, don’t we have a responsibility to speak out? When our economic system benefits us by employing sweatshop and trafficked labor, don’t we have a responsibility to speak out? Or is sin committed by government sanctioned groups no longer sin?
Finally, all I wrote about the West is to say since we have more privileges, do we have more responsibilities than those who live under tyrants? What, you don’t think that we in the West have more privileges than those who live under tyrants?
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Curt, don’t look now but you’re sounding like my neo-Cals who are flummoxed by the very idea that our time and place really isn’t as superior and privileged as they assume (pointing to evidence like democracy, toilet paper, and paved roads). Have you considered that ours has just as many down sides, or is that just pushed aside to prop up the agenda? I can understand preferring our time and place because it’s ours, but the premise that it’s superior isn’t a working premise around here. The irony is in how your premise of superiority fuels the very thing you’re so worked up about–how will equality come if we’re so superior?
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Curt, what you describe is morality. Love of neighbor is a commandment. How do you get someone to obey it? Really obey it. Revolution? Holy Spirit? Try some theology now.
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