Author: D. G. Hart

No Rest, No Worship

Published on by D. G. Hart198 Comments

I wish Bethany Jenkins would try to find the work for which she trained in law school. To graduate from Columbia, she must be bright. But I’m not sure she has captured the high points of Reformed theology and worship. I think that means that I also wish the Gospel Allies would not give spiritual cheerleaders a platform. (Unlike Las Vegas, what the Kellers enable doesn’t stay in but spreads all over.)

The post that has my jaws clenched today (thanks to our southern correspondent) is one in which Bethany calls for worship that reflects all the ways that God is glorified, especially the work Christians do outside the worship service:

For churches, the question is not just, What is worship?, but also, What kinds of worship should we experience and model when we gather together? Shying away from offering any particular rules, Carson casts a high vision for corporate worship: “Work for a massive display of the glory of God and character and attributes of God.”

That display is not massive, but miniscule, when we limit it to include only work that contributes to our worship services. If we only have church activities in mind when we sing, “Come and see what God has done” (Ps. 66:5), then we miss out on that “massive display” of God’s glory, character, and attributes.

If Ms. Jenkins ever watched The Wire or a Coen Brothers movie she might have a clue about how self-serving this talk of massive displays of God’s glory seems. She is close to saying, even though I’m sure she doesn’t intend it, that worship should be about what WE do during the week. If worship doesn’t expand to include our work and how we think about it, we will miss God’s glory. If we only hear about and meditate on — oh, say — the creation of the world, the call of Abraham, the exodus, the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension, our worship doesn’t capture the big picture of God’s glory. Sure enough, I love it when people compliment me for the books (all about me) I’ve written. I even like it when they talk about the ways (some about me) my writing has helped them understand the gospel or the work of the church. But I thought the point of worship was not all about me. My understanding of Reformed worship was that it was theocentric.

The self-servingness of Jenkins and company’s understanding of work is especially evident when she quotes the formal words of commission that folks at Redeemer NYC give to people who work in professions:

In a world filled with brokenness, confusion, darkness, mourning and loneliness, God has called his people to bring the healing light of the gospel into every sector of our city through every profession, institution, and calling. There is no inch of this city where his gospel cannot redeem.

If you work in mid-town Manhattan, drink a lot of expensive coffee, and roam from wi-fi hotspot to hotpsot, these words may give you the gumption to go out and get things done. But if you’re a pig farmer, or regularly milk cows, or clean toilets, or collect subway tokens, the inspiration that works on mid-town Manhattanites may not be your cup of chai.

Entirely missing from this bloated view of work is the Sabbath setting for worship. The Lord’s Day is one reserved for rest and worship and as the Heidelberg Catechism explains, that rest has soteriological significance:

Question 103. What does God require in the fourth commandment?

Answer: First, that the ministry of the gospel and the schools be maintained; and that I, especially on the sabbath, that is, on the day of rest, diligently frequent the church of God, to hear his word, to use the sacraments, publicly to call upon the Lord, and contribute to the relief of the poor. Secondly, that all the days of my life I cease from my evil works, and yield myself to the Lord, to work by his Holy Spirit in me: and thus begin in this life the eternal sabbath.

One of the arresting points of redemptive history I am learning from a Sunday school series on the Sabbath taught ably by our pastor is that the Sabbath was almost nowhere to be seen between the creation week and the giving of the law at Sinai. The patriarchs knew no real Sabbath and Israel did not enter into meaningful rest until the saints entered the promised land where they could worship in the holy of holies.

If Ms. Jenkins paid more attention to the Bible and its teaching about worship, rest, and the Lord’s Day, she might reconsider her views about massive displays of God’s glory. A loan, a contract, a consultation, a piece of legislation, a foundation grant, an interview with a reporter might look important if you don’t rest from your labors but carry thoughts of them into worship. But if you take a break and contemplate the remarkable work of God in redeeming a sinful world, you may be able to discern the difference between temporal and eternal things.

It's Secular But It's Our Secular

Published on by D. G. Hart22 Comments

Worries about the Islamization of the West are curious when the Christians worrying so frequently lament the decadence of the societies that Europeans now inhabit (both in Europe and the Americas). William Kilpatrick, for instance, believes the West confronts a situation comparable to what Europe faced in Hitler:

It’s estimated that in Brussels, the self-styled “Capital of Europe,” Muslims will comprise the majority of the population within 15 years. If Muslims were assimilating to Western ways and values it might be a different story, but many European Muslims seem to have taken to heart Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s belief that “assimilation is a crime against humanity.” In France alone, there are 751 Muslim controlled “no-go-zones;” in England, Muslims have their own sharia courts; in Scotland, the country’s largest-ever child immunization program was halted following Muslim complaints; in many countries schools have dropped the Holocaust and the Crusades from their curriculums at the behest of Muslims and have complied with Muslim demands for all-halal menus. Moreover, in deference to Islamic blasphemy laws, critics of Islam have been hauled before inquisitorial courts, and across Northern Europe numerous counter-jihad rallies have been cancelled out of fear of the “Antifas”—gangs of street thugs whose mission is to silence those critics of Islam who escape the court system. Meanwhile, churches are burned, Jews are beaten in the streets, and violent crime has skyrocketed.

As in 1939, the European elites have reacted to this cultural putsch with cringing appeasement.

But wouldn’t the dominance of Islam mean that the days of pornography, sexual licence and confusion, abortion, divorce, and open disregard for God are numbered?

Or could it be that serious Christians in the West (Protestant and Roman Catholic) prefer secular society to the wrong religious guys ruling us? In which case, secular society is the welcome outcome of antagonistic believers having to live together and figure out a common way of life that minimizes faith? Charles Featerstone (via Rod Dreher) explains well how Christians came to terms with a different way of relating Christianity to social order:

The state in the Christian West swallowed the church whole, domesticated it, placed it in service to the state, and then slowly released its grip once it knew bishops and pastors and congregations would readily come to heel (and those who didn’t weren’t strong enough or numerous enough to matter). This took several centuries, and is mostly done, though somewhat rough on the edges.

But secularization came much more painfully for Muslims:

It happened much more quickly (and roughly) in the Islamic world, was imposed on Muslims largely from the outside, and we forget how thoroughly secular the nation-states of the Arab Middle East were up until about 30 years ago. And they were even more secular in the 50s and 60s. (Which is why Qutub wrote a book in the first place, and got himself hung by Nasser.) Those secular states and the ideologies that gave them energy are largely gone, being undone by military defeat and economic failure. They are the past. They are not the future.

So if Christians in the West don’t like secularization, why can’t they empathize with Muslims who also find it objectionable? Or could it be that Christians need to do a better job of appreciating the secular governments that domesticated us and so saved us from our inner extremist (read Constantinian) selves?

Woe To You Sad and Uninspired

Published on by D. G. Hart91 Comments

Be happy:

The church has not always been successful in communicating the Bible’s uplifting and inspiring message. Overinfluenced by our culture, we have drifted into such a default normality of negativity that anyone calling for a more biblical balance is often viewed with grave suspicion.

Except when reading the Bible:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
(Matthew 23 ESV)

Sola Scriptura?

Published on by D. G. Hart19 Comments

Don’t listen to the polls but only to Jesus except when he teaches about what will become of Jerusalem:

Q. Recent polls indicate that some 70 percent of Catholics in the United States (and 66 percent in Ireland) do not believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, but rather a symbolic presence.

I happen to be one of them. I am Jesuit-educated, and I have written to my pastor with my question but have been greeted with stone silence. If these polls are even halfway true, why is this elephant in the room never addressed or even mentioned in church? Are we all condemned to hell for this belief? (Duxbury, Massachusetts)

A. The beliefs of the Catholic Church are not determined by plebiscite. That is to say, what is fundamental in determining the core content of the Catholic faith is not how people feel, but what Jesus said. And for that, we go to the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel.

Jesus has just multiplied the loaves and the fish to feed 5,000 people, and the crowds are in awe. The very next day, Jesus says something that turns out to be very controversial (Jn 6:35, 51): “I am the bread of life … the living bread that came down from heaven … and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” People are shocked and ask: “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?” (Jn 6:52).

Even his followers are horrified. Christ has every opportunity to pull back and explain. “Wait,” he might have said, “I was only speaking figuratively.”

Instead, he presses the point, watching as people start to drift away: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him” (Jn 6:54-56).

Later, at the Last Supper, Jesus reaffirms this teaching in language that is virtually identical.

Polling data varies widely regarding this teaching. The National Catholic Reporter, for example, found in a 2011 survey that 63 percent of adult Catholics believe that “at the consecration during a Catholic Mass, the bread and wine really become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.”

But as I said at the start, polling data is largely irrelevant, except to this extent (as your question suggests): If a fair number of Catholics do not subscribe to a long-held and central article of faith, the Church should doubtless do more to proclaim and explain that teaching.

As to your last line, about the consequences of not believing, one thing is certain: No one is going to hell who sincerely follows the dictates of his own properly formed conscience. So why worry about that? Why not focus instead on determining what Jesus taught?

So bishops should teach what the Bible teaches or church members should follow their consciences? No wonder the polls’ results and authority.

The Old Life Interlocutor Who Has Listened to the Most TKNY . . .

Published on by D. G. Hart132 Comments

The ten-most frequently mentioned authors in TKNY’s sermons are:

1. C. S. Lewis

2. Jonathan Edwards

3. Martin Luther

4. John Newton

5. Martin Lloyd-Jones

6. Augustine

7. Charles Spurgeon

8. J. R. R. Tolkien

9. John Stott

10. J. I. Packer

The contestants who guessed the most names are:

Martin Downs 8
Pete 5
Scott Sealy 5

A whole lot of guessers coming in with 3 (Nate deserves special mention for batting 1.000 with his three guesses.)

So can anyone guess why TKNY doesn’t mention Reformed Protestant sources? Not even Harvie Conn? And when you think that Redeemer NYC is basically New Life Presbyterianism on steroids, what about Jack Miller?

No peace, no justice.

(Image thanks to Cw El Unificatoro.)

Disappointed

Published on by D. G. Hart147 Comments

Obviously, Ross Douthat isn’t following 2k debates nor has he read A Secular Faith:

What’s more, the alternative perspective here — that a politician’s religious commitments are so personal and private that no one else can reasonably be asked to comment on them, or even to identify them at all — usually belongs to a particular slice of the secular left: The slice that doesn’t think that religion should have any public role in politics, the slice that was so anxious about “theocracy” in the Bush era, the slice that finds Walker’s own public expressions of faith eminently mockable today. That’s where you’ll find a principled argument for regarding Obama’s religious profession as irrelevant to our political conversations. But that argument points toward a full privatization of religion, toward a system much more like French laïcité than the American tradition of religiously-informed politics — and as such it’s a very strange argument for American conservatives to embrace.

Heck, he hasn’t even read J. Gresham Machen:

you cannot expect from a true Christian Church any official pronouncements upon the political or social questions of the day, and you cannot expect cooperation with the state in anything involving the use of force. Important are the functions of the police, and members of the Church, either individually or in such special associations as they may choose to form, should aid the police in every lawful way in the exercise of those functions. But the function of the Church in its corporate capacity is of an entirely different kind. Its weapons against evil are spiritual, not carnal; and by becoming a political lobby, through the advocacy of political measures whether good or bad, the Church is turning aside from its proper mission, which is to bring to bear upon human hearts the solemn and imperious, yet also sweet and gracious, appeal of the gospel of Christ.

Church Reformed

Published on by D. G. Hart91 Comments

The archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone (gotta love that name), is kicking up a lot of dust in Roman Catholic and California circles for the policies he has initiated within his parochial schools. Here‘s an example of what Cordileone has in mind:

We, the Archdiocesan High Schools, Acknowledge that some of our administrators, faculty or staff may not be Catholics and some may be Catholics who are struggling to achieve fidelity to some of the teachings of the Church, but we are all nevertheless called and required to stand as effective and visible professional participants and proponents of truly Catholic Education. As effective professionals in a Catholic School setting, we all – administrators, faculty and staff – are required and expected to avoid fostering confusion among the faithful and any dilution of the schools’ primary Catholic mission. Therefore, administrators, faculty and staff of any faith or of no faith, are expected to arrange and conduct their lives so as not to visibly contradict, undermine or deny these truths. To that end, further, we all must refrain from public support of any cause or issue that is explicitly or implicitly contrary to that which the Catholic Church holds to be true, both those truths known from revelation and those from the natural law. Those of us who consider themselves to be Catholics but who are not in a state of full assent to the teachings of the Church, moreover, must refrain from participation in organizations that call themselves “Catholic” but support or advocate issues or causes contrary to the teachings of the Church.

Some Roman Catholics wonder if Cordileone is in line with Pope France:

Cordileone suggests that he is in line with Pope Francis. In one way, he may be correct: It doesn’t appear that Francis is going to be changing any doctrine in the near future. But the whole world knows we have a pope who is focusing on Jesus’ message of love and inclusiveness and who has told Cordileone and his fellow culture warrior bishops to quit being obsessed with the sexuality issues. Our archbishop doesn’t even appear to be listening to his boss.

And if Pope Francis wants the church to come along side people who struggle with Roman Catholic teaching on marriage and sex, how is Cordileone helping the cause:

Cordileone stated that Catholics who endorse contrary views “create toxic confusion about our fundamental values.” But if Catholic couples, in the spirit of the pope’s recent comments, limit the number of children they have, is that toxic? If you are a little girl who is only here because science helped her mom and dad conceive her, is that toxic? If you are a 10 year old abused child and the only adoptive parents who want you are a loving, qualified gay couple, is that toxic? If you think that the civil rights of gays and lesbians should be protected, is that toxic?

Meanwhile, eight California legislators, mainly Democrat, are challenging the archbishop’s policies even as they raise questions about separation of church and state. In response, Cordileone wonders if the politicians would hire as campaign managers people who side with their political adversary in an election.

What may be the most provocative aspect of this controversy is what the archbishop’s reforms mean for the capacity of the Roman Catholic Church to achieve discipline. Isn’t this a case of an archbishop actually laying out policy in line with church teaching? If he can do it, why can’t others? And if others don’t follow Cordileone’s lead, why don’t Jason and the Callers reflect more on what this says about their communion where truth with a capital-T prevails (at least in theory)?

A Shot in the Arm for (some) Conservatives

Published on by D. G. Hart15 Comments

Pope Francis may have aggravated those of his Mexican flock, but for Americans in the Southwest who are not wild about immigration, he may have given them leverage:

On Monday Mexico’s foreign minister, Jose Antonio Meade Kuribreña, complained–“with sadness and concern”–that comments recently made by Pope Francis had stigmatzed the Mexican people. The Holy See spokesman was forced to issue a “clarification” of those remarks this morning. So what did Francis say that so wounded the Mexican government?

“Hopefully, we’re in time to avoid ‘Mexicanization,'” the pontiff wrote to an Argentine lawmaker last Saturday. “I’ve been talking with some Mexican bishops, and the situation is terrifying.” Francis was referring to Argentina’s drug problem. According to the UN, Argentina is the third largest exporter of cocaine, after Colombia–and Mexico. The Mexican government was so upset that it hauled in the papal ambassafor to air its grief over Francis’s remarks. It must have come as quite a shock when the papal ambassador informed the foreign minister that Mexico has a calamitous drug-trafficking problem.

Of course, the use of a private message from Pope Francis is inappropriate. But if Pope Francis sees south of the border what American opponents of immigration do, why can’t the popes bishops or the United States immigration agencies?

Guessing TKNY's Inspiration

Published on by D. G. Hart89 Comments

From our co-editor comes word of a book that analyzes all of the sermon’s that Tim Keller preached between 1989 and 2004. The author then lists the ten-most frequently cited figures in those 985 sermons.

Today’s competition, running until Saturday (February 28), is for OL readers to guess those top-ten names. The person who gets the most right will win a copy of an OL inspired book. (Those who played this game by email are ineligible.)

From DGH on The Divine Acceptilatio Submitted on 2015 02 25 at 10:43 am

Published on by D. G. Hart55 Comments

Mark,

During this season (for some) of Lent and (for others) Fifty Shades of Gray, I wonder about the title of your post. Acceptilatio doesn’t sound Latin or learned. It sounds dirty.

But that’s a mere quibble. I am glad to know that you acknowledge that our sins (doh!) works are flawed and God accepts them despite how much they fall short of his righteous standard. But why is it so hard for you to say the j-word?

Because God accepts less – often, a lot less (i.e., “small beginnings”) – than perfection from us because of his Son and for the sake of his Son, who is glorified in us.

Is this fair? Doesn’t God accept us because of Christ’s righteousness? I mean, if being glorified in us is the standard, then what about my cats? God is glorified somehow in them. What about Saddam Hussein? Wasn’t God glorified in him sort of like the way God was glorified by Joseph being sold by his brothers into slavery?

So why do you have such a hard time saying “justification.” You seem almost as reluctant to say it as George Washington was to utter “God” (he liked divine providence, Great Parent, Supreme Benefactor but seemed to gag on God).

Again, the Belgic Confession which you also seem reluctant to quote puts the relationship between justification and sanctification so well:

These works, proceeding from the good root of faith, are good and acceptable to God, since they are all sanctified by his grace. Yet they do not count toward our justification– for by faith in Christ we are justified, even before we do good works. Otherwise they could not be good, any more than the fruit of a tree could be good if the tree is not good in the first place.

So then, we do good works, but nor for merit– for what would we merit? Rather, we are indebted to God for the good works we do, and not he to us, since it is he who “works in us both to will and do according to his good pleasure” — thus keeping in mind what is written: “When you have done all that is commanded you, then you shall say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have done what it was our duty to do.’ ”

Yet we do not wish to deny that God rewards good works– but it is by his grace that he crowns his gifts.

Moreover, although we do good works we do not base our salvation on them; for we cannot do any work that is not defiled by our flesh and also worthy of punishment. And even if we could point to one, memory of a single sin is enough for God to reject that work.

So we would always be in doubt, tossed back and forth without any certainty, and our poor consciences would be tormented constantly if they did not rest on the merit of the suffering and death of our Savior. (Art. 25)

A piece of advice here — your posts on the law, obedience and sanctification toss some of your readers back and forth and undermine assurance. Do you really want to do that?

One other point. You write that God is always please with us, a point that seems to conflict with other posts you’ve written about the punishments believers receive in this life for disobedience:

God accepts imperfection because he is a gracious Father, who has a perfect Son, who sends his Spirit into our hearts (Gal. 4:6). Why are we called righteous and good? Why are our imperfect works acceptable and pleasing to God? The answer: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So does this mean that we now don’t have to worry about the sort of retribution that God’s people faced according to the Psalmist?

Yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God
and did not keep his testimonies,
but turned away and acted treacherously like their fathers;
they twisted like a deceitful bow.
For they provoked him to anger with their high places;
they moved him to jealousy with their idols.
When God heard, he was full of wrath,
and he utterly rejected Israel.
He forsook his dwelling at Shiloh,
the tent where he dwelt among mankind,
and delivered his power to captivity,
his glory to the hand of the foe.
He gave his people over to the sword
and vented his wrath on his heritage.
Fire devoured their young men,
and their young women had no marriage song.
Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows made no lamentation.
Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
like a strong man shouting because of wine.
And he put his adversaries to rout;
he put them to everlasting shame.

He rejected the tent of Joseph;
he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
but he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loves. (Psalm 78:56-68 ESV)

If you now think that saints in Christ no longer face this kind of treatment because of their sins, I’m happy to know that. But again a word to the wise, this post doesn’t seem to cohere with your recent advocacy and rationales for obedient faith.