Author: D. G. Hart

Speaking of Celebrity Pastors

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I don’t know how many times I’ve read Roman Catholic authors complain about Pope Francis’ treatment in the press. Here‘s one of the latest:

Following Jesus without deviating will get you smeared every time.

I think it’s a rule of some sort, written by Satan a couple of thousand years ago.

It even happened to Jesus Himself when He walked this earth.

So … if somebody calls you names for following Him, say thank you. It’s always nice when someone notices your fidelity to Christ and pays it the ultimate compliment.

Pope Francis, who has been following right down the line on this Jesus thing, has drawn the usual verbal lightning down his own head by doing it. Just this morning, I read an article calling him, once again, a Communist for speaking out on behalf of the poor.

I believe this particular article accused him of “following Lenin” in response to the Holy Father’s linkage of economics and war. Because, you know, war has nothing to do with economics. By this logic President Dwight Eisenhower followed Lenin, too. . . .

At the other end of the wing nut comedian scale, we have a writer over at Salon who wastes a lot of band-width on her angst at learning that Pope Francis is Catholic. You know: pro life, pro traditional marriage and family; that kind of Catholic.

This author goes, alongside her right-wing-nut buddies, right past common sense and lands splat in a big barrel of mud. Instead of saying that the Vicar of Christ is in cahoots with Lenin, she informs us — with rageful venom that almost leaps through the screen and scorches the reader — that the pope is … ummmm … you know … a bigot, sexist, oppressor who supports pedophilia.

Nice shot, that last. And one that’s beginning to weary. I’ve been and will continue to be as outspoken as anybody about the failure of bishops to protect children from predatory priests. But there are pedophile protectors in just about every nook and cranny of this world of ours. We actually help victimize kids more by using this issue as a club to beat the Church with and ignoring everyone else.

In fact, I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that at least some of this outrage is just Catholic hating. The reason? I’ll give you two: Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. You need another reason? Go read Coreyography. Try the defense in trendy circles of egg harvesters who prey on young girls barely out of their teens. Or, consider the easy way the media pushed the baby-bodies-in-the-septic tank hoax. I could go on, but the examples rapidly get so ugly that I don’t want to talk about them.

If you want a pastor with universal jurisdiction to speak on all the problems in the world, do you really also think that he’ll get universal adoration? Not even “loyal” Roman Catholics give that kind of devotion to the pope. If Francis did not speak up so much or make himself so accessible to the press, he could avoid the cheap shots. But he would then be suspect for being too parochial or too spiritual.

Every celebrity is subject to scrutiny by the press. Look at Joe Paterno. You don’t like the limelight, get out off the stage.

Then again, in the world of Protestant celebrity pastors, the press doesn’t care and no one is asking hard questions. Rebecca Hamilton should be grateful that the pope is getting some scrutiny. Celebrity Protestant pastors hardly get any.

Celebrity Wives of Pastors

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More ruminations of celebrity pastors by Tom Chantry has Carl Trueman commenting on the danger of ministers becoming too big to fail. He even thinks it plausible for a pastor in a celebrity context to do things that are otherwise unjustifiable:

It is always interesting to speculate as to why otherwise good, intelligent and thoughtful people end up doing crazy things, even breaking the law or justifying wickedness. Often it can occur in a corporate context when the needs of the whole organization are seen to outweigh and even negate the needs of the individual. Churches with powerful brand names at the helm, or churches which are simply powerful brand names (if not in the wider Christian world then at least within the chosen constituency) can prove remarkably vulnerable to such because there you do not simply have the power of corporate branding reinforced by community, you also have the rhetoric of piety and forgiveness to cover a multitude of sins.

What I continue to find remarkable about the phenomenon of celebrity pastors and the teflon they enjoy is that most of these fellows are married. And if married, where are their wives? I mean, more wives have done more good to domesticate and train husbands than any mother has. (Which reminds me of the Stan Evans’ joke: “behind every successful man is a surprised mother-in-law.”) In other words, wives generally don’t let their husbands get away with much. I know conservative Protestants believe in wifely submission and all that. But the b-s detector in most homes is the wife.

So if celebrity makes pastors unaccountable to regular ecclesiastical oversight, what happened to the accountability that should be happening at home? Could it be that celebrity is an elixir that also damages celebrity pastors’ wives? Kathy Keller’s interview with the co-allies makes me think it does:

As Redeemer has transitioned from being a church plant to being an established church, how has your role and work as co-founder changed?

At first, Tim preached, and I was the staff. I typed and made sure the bulletin was printed, bought the hospitality groceries, kept the nursery, hired the musicians, and more. As we grew and added staff, though, I gratefully let go of piece after piece, until there were no pieces left. I then had to ask, What do I want to do? What do I feel called to do? The typical (if there is such a thing) pastor’s wife role did not apply, as most people had no idea who I was. (This was a plus, especially for our kids.) Words are my best thing, so I chose to oversee Redeemer’s communications and media. When that became more digitized, though, I found myself out of my depth. So I hired a director to take my position and became the assistant director of communications and media. Unofficially, I am the Keeper of the Memory and the Quality Control Officer.

Here’s the problem. It looks like celebrity pastors’ wives become part of the ministry and therefore part of the brand. And once this happens, wives lose their capacity to detect b-s. I mean, if the missus were an editor of Old Life, a research assistant on my book on Mencken, graded papers for the courses I teach, my success and stature would be a big part of what defines Mrs. Hart’s success and stature. As it is, though, she has a life and can look on at the blog, writing, speaking, and teaching as so much background noise for trying to pay the bills, be active in the local church, feed the cat, and get her own work done. Sometimes what I do is clever or notable to the missus. But she’s hardly hanging on to every square inch of every word.

Postscript: having a person who works in the Redeemer Church network of agencies interview TKNY’s wife is not exactly Katie Couric putting Sarah Palin on the spot. Some might call it puffery, at best it belongs in the feature section of the newspaper. But it is hardly all the news that’s fit to print. Do the co-allies never see how much their alliance resembles the Chamber of Commerce? Talk about accountability.

What Changed?

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In 1965, Calvin, David Hume, Thomas Hobbes, and Montaigne were all on the list of books banned by Rome’s Sacred Congregation of the Index (until 1917 when it became the Holy Office). Then in 1966 that list went away. Calvin was no more a problem for Roman Catholic souls than Hobbes. What happened?

Did Calvin change his views? Did Hobbes? Stupid questions. Both being dead, they could have hardly changed their texts. So that leaves the agent of change to be the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. If the church changed so that Calvin was once banned and went to being acceptable, does that mean that the magisterium erred in banning Calvin, Hobbes, Hume and Montaigne (for starters)? But of course, Rome cannot err.

So what is an inquiring mind to do? Don’t read Jason and the Callers (who have lots of ‘splainin’ to do even if it is above their pay grade), but do check out this piece for some background:

The idea of censoring heretical writings dates back to the early centuries of the church but was not formalized as a papal power until Pope Leo X did so in 1515, during the Fifth Lateran Council. Two years later, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. Within weeks, they were printed in Leipzig, Nuremberg and Basel and distributed widely.

The first Index, as one might expect, published in 1559, banned all books by Luther, Calvin and other Protestant reformers. Since translating the Bible into vernacular tongues was a Protestant specialty, all Bibles but the Latin Vulgate were banned. The Talmud and the Koran were also taboo. But the Index didn’t stop there. It also drew up lists of books that should be purged of passages that conflicted with church teaching. Classical writersincluding Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, Homer, Euclid, Hippocrates, Thucydides and otherswere put on the expurgatio list because they reflected pagan beliefs. Books translated by Protestants had to be filtered for offending passages. In some cases, a book only had to be printed in a Protestant city to earn a place on the list of objectionable works. The Index originally planned to produce purged editions of about 300 books. They only managed to do about 50, Wolf said.

After this confusing start, the Vatican decided to aim just at books denounced to it as dangerous. The Index Congregation met three or four times a year in Rome. Two consultors were named for each book being surveyed, and their findings were discussed at a meeting of the cardinals in the congregation. The congregation’s decision was then brought to the pope for approval. This produced a vast accumulation of files, written in Latin or Italian and divided into the Diarii, which recorded the congregation’s sessions, and the Protocolli, with all sorts of other papers. The Inquisition congregation met weekly but handled only 2 or 3 percent of the censorship cases, usually theology books.

Over the centuries, the Index managed to condemn a large number of writings that eventually became classics of European culture. Banned philosophy books included works by Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Voltaire, Pascal, Kant and Mill. Among the novelists listed were Balzac, Flaubert, Hugo, Zola, D’Annunzio and Moravia. Books by Defoe and Swift were blacklisted, as were Casanova’s memoirs. The censors’ zeal varied over the years and lost steam as the 20th century wore on. One of their last targets was Sartre, whose complete works were banned as early as 1948.

Wolf and his researchers are also writing up short biographies of the consultors to reveal the intellectual influences at play. They were all priests; and in many cases their education, travel and language skills have been recorded. The Jesuits and Dominicans dominated their ranks, and each order tried to make sure it was not outnumbered by the other. Certain patterns emerge, Wolf said: The Dominicans tended to take their men from a certain province in Italy. The Jesuits have their world-wide system, and they tended to move people around.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the archives is the large number of books that secretly passed muster. Authors were not informed that their works were being reviewed or invited to defend them. Until now, we only knew which books were banned, Wolf told me. Nobody knew about the books that passed the review.

The treatment of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) revealed the censors’ narrow cultural focus. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not reviewed as long as it was only available in English. You see, English was a barbarian language; only Protestants spoke it and they were lost for the faith anyway, Wolf recounted with a laugh. But as soon as it appeared in a proper Catholic’ language Italian, French or Spanish it became dangerous. An Italian translation turned up in the Papal States and was denounced to the Index because Stowe was a Quaker and thus presumably spreading the Protestant poison, as the denunciatory letter put it.

Ho Hum

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According to David Hall, not much of significance occurred at the PCA General Assembly:

It was a par-for-the-course General Assembly, which pronounces another resounding “Meh,” to the idealist reformers. As is becoming customary, most of the interesting things took place off the floor as this court of the church has become largely irrelevant for the year-round functioning of the church. Perhaps it is a sign of growth and stability that churches no longer depend much on annual four-day meetings[1] and are doing the work of ministry themselves without reliance on either a Plantation or a Corporatist model.

I’ll let the Presbyterian Church of Americans weigh in on this, but I do need to correct Pastor Hall about the origins of “Obedience boys.” All hail Bill Smith.

If Christ Is Preparing a Place, What Are Transformationalists Doing?

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It is an odd thought if you partake of the neo-Calvinist w-w, the thought being that Christ has ascended and is now preparing a place for his people (John 14:2-3). Neo-Calvinists are trying to take every square inch captive here while their Lord, the one who says, “mine!” is preparing a place there where all Christians will dwell. Doesn’t the idea of transforming this world conflict with the place that Christ is preparing for his children?

Does Calvin help?

By these words Christ intimates that the design of his departure is, to prepare a place for his disciples. In a word, Christ did not ascend to heaven in a private capacity, to dwell there alone, but rather that it might be the common inheritance of all the godly, and that in this way the Head might be united to his members.

But a question arises, What was the condition of the fathers after death, before Christ ascended to heaven? For the conclusion usually drawn is, that believing souls were shut up in an intermediate state or prison, because Christ says that, by his ascension into heaven, the place will be prepared. But the answer is easy. This place is said to be prepared for the day of the resurrection; for by nature mankind are banished from the kingdom of God, but the Son, who is the only heir of heaven, took possession of it in their name, that through him we may be permitted to enter; for in his person we already possess heaven by hope, as Paul informs us, (Ephesians 1:3.) Still we will not enjoy this great blessing, until he come from heaven the second time. The condition of the fathers after death, therefore, is not here distinguished from ours; because Christ has prepared both for them and for us a place, into which he will receive us all at the last day. Before reconciliation had been made, believing souls were, as it were, placed on a watch-tower, looking for the promised redemption, and now they enjoy a blessed rest, until the redemption be finished.

Wouldn’t the truth that Christ is going to receive us at the place he is preparing also encourage us not to be too deeply attached to this world, no matter how much the transformers transform it?

Postscript: And for those inclined to regard the relation between this world and the world to come as one of continuity (read postmillennialism), does the sort of preparation in which Christ is now engaged resemble at all the kind of carpentry he practiced here on planet earth?

Where Would Christian Europe be without the Emperor?

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That’s what Peter Heather makes readers ask in The Restoration of Rome:

Thanks to Charlemagne’s attentions, the papacy was enriched, visited, courted and paid enormous respect, but all these gains came with a price tag. The emperor’s respect for the papacy was genuine, but he was equally convinced. . . that he had his own hotline to the Almighty. No mere vassal of St. Peter, he had no hesitation in making use of the papacy for his own purposes . . . for this too was God’s will. Nor was Charlemagne afraid actually to disagree with the Pope — even on matters of doctrine. The example par excellence is the Council of Frankfurt. There and to the Pope’s face (at least, to those of his legates) Charlemagne had his churchmen declare that Pope Hadrian’s acceptance of Constantinople’s new teaching on icons was in fact mistaken. A second, less charged example is provided by the famous filioque clause. . . .

As such, we can place [Charlemagne] firmly in a tradition which stretched back for the best part of half a millennium. From the time of Constantine onwards, overarching responsibility even for the identification of correct doctrine had been part of the Christian ruler’s job description, and Charlemagne’s attitude to Rome was nothing more than its direct continuation. Indeed, it would be extremely easy at this point to go through the same checklist we have used before, and come to the inescapable conclusion that Charlemagne was undoubtedly the head of the Church within his domains. He appointed all the leading churchmen, he called all the major councils and authorized most of the rest, and great tranches of legal directions on the practicalities of both clerical and lay piety were drawn up in his name. (332-33)

So much for that audacious papacy. Turns out the Pope would not have been the official he turned out to be without the audacity of the emperor. In fact, transformers of culture, Roman Catholic or Protestant, will never see their hopes for a Christian society realized until the ruler embraces the faith and enforces it. Not even Boniface VIII in all his pomp and show could make Europe Christian. It took emperors, kings, princes, and magistrates.

Luther-like?

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Somewhere during the past few weeks I recall reading something about the origins of the episcopate and Ambrose’s contention that obedience to the bishop was of the essence of episcopacy. (That may generate titters from those in the Episcopal Church or the Reformed Episcopal Church, but it still goes with the territory of a universal bishop who has access to the relics of Peter.) Here is one account of the obedience that bishops require (though it might carry more weight actually coming from a bishop):

. . . most of us encounter bishops not only by instruction in the faith, but in practical judgments that have no assurance of divine guidance: appointment or removal of a priest, refusal of a legitimate request, closing of a church or school. Here obedience – along with charity and patience – is truly tested. This instance requires two further clarifications.

On the one hand, according the will of Christ the apostles and their successors the bishops have legitimate authority in all ecclesial matters down to the most mundane dealings. By virtue of the duties incurred by the great gift of our baptisms, we must obey the juridical decisions of bishops, even if we disagree.

On the other hand, our duty of obedience does not mean we cannot communicate our opinions, ideas, and reservations to our bishops, in private or public. But because of bishops’ ecclesial dignity, we must do so charitably and with deference. We can seek recourse to the Apostolic See if we believe a bishop has decided contrary to canon law, but we must never seek to embarrass or insult him in the process – doing so only further disturbs the whole flock.

“A bishop is bound to belong to all, to bear the burden of all,” writes Chrysostom. As members of the same Body of Christ, we must help our bishops bear the burden of souls by bearing our burden of obedience to them. Obedience never has been easy, and it never will be. But like all things truly Catholic, obedience is worth the sacrifice.

So far, so good (if you’re not a presbyterian or congregationalist).

Then along comes this diatribe that might have given Luther pause:

America’s bishops are confusing Catholics by using doublespeak, being indecisive, and being politically correct. Their posturing has, and is, causing great harm to the Church in America.

A case in point: In June 2012, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) unanimously stated that the contraception-sterilization-abortifacients regulation of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act was an “unjust and illegal mandate and a violation of personal civil rights.” Following the National Prayer Breakfast in May, Sean Cardinal O’Malley, OFM Cap., the archbishop of Boston and chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, was asked if this regulation violates God’s law. He responded, “The regulation that imposes abortion and sterilization, this is a violation of God’s law.”

So far, so good; here is the rest of the story. In a letter to Congress, the American bishops wrote, “Those who help provide health care, and those who need such care for themselves and their families, should not be forced to choose between preserving their religious and moral integrity and participating in our health-care system.”

However, when Cardinal O’Malley was asked whether American Catholics should obey laws that violate God’s law, he responded, “The question is complicated.” He went on to further confuse the issue: “This is a very complicated issue, and it’s something the Church is struggling with right now, and trying to come up with a moral analysis in order to be able to allow people to form their consciences and to go forward.”

As I Catholic, I do not wish to engage in calumny, particularly involving a cardinal or bishop of the Church I love. I do not believe my comments are such. I believe that the Catholic hierarchy is obligated to be clear and concise when it comes to defining God’s law. I believe that the hierarchy has a duty, as difficult as it may be, to “uncomplicate” the issues that Catholics face when it comes to their faith and how we should live as Catholics in our secular society. Cardinal O’Malley has failed to meet this obligation.

This is the sort of blast that might have actually led to excommunication and the start of a new church if bishops still expected obedience — enforcing it might be another matter. But episcopacy is not what it used to be and I don’t think Jason and the Callers have noticed.

Pagan Virtue or Angel Unawares?

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I wonder if the w-wists out there have considered how much travelers to foreign countries need to trust people with the wrong w-w (only two exist, right?). Of course, back in the States we depend on pagans to drive on the right (spatially and legally) side of the road, give us correct change (not for buying a lottery ticket, of course), and remove the plaque from between our teeth. But when you don’t really know the currency or the language, your levels of trust go way up. The airline pilot is a biggie. Baggage handlers sure do make life easier if they make the correct transfers and place the bags on the designated carousel. And taxi drivers, who speak maybe 4 words of English, are particularly helpful when they deliver you to an apartment on an out of the way alley that you know even the best of cabbies in New York City would never know. (Plus, the name of the alley is longer than the alley itself, so long that you can’t even put it in the address field when reserving a taxi.)

And then comes the unexpected graciousness of temporary Italian neighbors. The other night as Mrs. Hart and I went out for dinner (her first night in Rome), I left without my key. Doors in Rome seem to come with latches that automatically lock. So we were locked out of our flat and had no phone. Our computers were inside and so email was out. Plus, the owner of the flat was away in Paris. I had no idea what to do other than break in the door or break down in sobs.

A neighbor, however, came to the rescue. It took about two minutes of hand gestures and pantomime to explain that that we were locked out of an apartment that we were renting for the short term. She called someone who knew our owner, who in turn called our owner, who in turn called a friend who had a spare key, who in turn drove ten minutes to let us use the key. In the meantime, our neighbor had gone out to buy a bottle of water for us while we waited for the key to arrive. Within 15 minutes we were back in business and headed out for dinner. And I was thanking the dear Lord that we did not have to try to use security guards from the institution where I am studying to make arrangements for a lock smith and for alternate housing for the night.

I still can’t believe what a kind providence this woman’s intervention was.

So, given my views of the fall, how do I account for this exceptionally gracious assistance? Common grace seems to be niggardly, as if this person only does something nice because God made her do it. An angel unaware might work and that would allow me to retain a view that pagans really are incapable of doing good.

Or maybe all people have a residue of goodness in them that is the after effect of being created in the image of God. Of course, they cannot do anything sufficiently good to merit God’s favor. But they can recognize right from wrong, the kindness of helping a stranger from the hurtful nature of ignoring someone’s distress.

Then again, I’m sure the obedience boys will tell us how this woman is not sanctified. In which case, I’m glad she can’t read English.

Putting the Ecclesia in The Ecclesial Calvinist

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Bill Evans comments on the ongoing fall out surrounding Pete Enns and Westminster Seminary. He sees it as an impasse between two ways of interpreting the Bible — the Christotelic (Enns) and the grammatico-historical (anti-Enns):

What are the characteristics of christotelic interpretation? First, there is a rejection of grammatical-historical interpretation as the only legitimate hermeneutical approach to Scripture. Yes, they say, it is important to understand the biblical text in its original linguistic and historical context, but we can’t stop there. Grammatical-historical interpretation is a creature of modernity, and earlier Christian interpreters were not tied to it—the NT writers sometimes interpret OT texts in ways that likely would not have occurred to Isaiah or Hosea. Also, grammatical-historical interpretation asks what the text would have meant to the original human author, but the Bible is also divinely inspired and our interpretation must take this divine origin and perspective into account as well.

Second, the larger meaning of the text resides in the text as it is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and this meaning is then progressively grasped by the human audience over the course of redemptive history. Here there is particular focus on the Scriptural canon as a whole as the context within which christotelic interpretation takes place.

Finally, all this leads to a programmatic distinction between “first reading” and “second reading.” In the first reading we encounter the text without reference to the conclusion of the story, while in the second reading we see levels of meaning we did not see before precisely because we know how the story ends and how things fit together.

It is not entirely surprising that this approach would be controversial. Proponents of christotelic interpretation have sometimes overstated their case, suggesting that the Old Testament, when interpreted simply according to grammatical-historical method, is not a Christian book. One can understand why some would view this as a denial of the “organic connection” between the OT and the NT and as an example of creeping naturalism. In addition, evangelical Protestants have generally had a rather static view of the text and its meaning as inhering in the intent of the original human author, and grammatical-historical interpretation is often regarded as the normative method of interpretation. Finally, this approach also seems to engage questions of Protestant identity in that grammatical-historical interpretation is often regarded as a hallmark of Protestantism over against Catholic allegorical and sensus plenior approaches.

How, then, shall we characterize the opposing position? First, there is the affirmation of grammatical-historical interpretation as the normative method of biblical interpretation. Thus the meaning of the text resides in the author’s intention.

Second, the grammatical-historical method is redefined so as to remove the Enlightenment emphasis on human autonomy and the resulting exclusion of God from consideration. Thus it is expanded to include divine influence on the human authors’ psychology as legitimate considerations for interpretation. Along this line, grammatical-historical method is also recast to include biblical typology, which is seen as arising intrinsically out of the grammatical-historical meaning of the text.

The odd aspect of this analysis is the idea that Enns and others are somehow adopting an older, premodern understanding of the Bible compared to Enns’ critics who have embraced the Enlightenment. In point of fact, it was largely the theologians and historical theologians who opposed Enns’ views, while Enns and some of his supporters were academically trained at elite universities and thoroughly at home in the very modern and enlightened world of the Society of Biblical Literature.

So if the contrast between old and new academic methods doesn’t explain the controversy, what about the church? Here I’d argue that Enns was not thinking with the church about interpreting the Bible or how to conceive of Scripture while his critics were representing the confessional standards of Reformed churches. Furthermore, if Enns had been thinking with the OPC or the PCA, he likely wouldn’t have written his controversial book. Does that mean that Reformed churches put limits (in a very pre-modern way) on academic freedom? Heck yeah. Which also means that the Enlightenment/pre-modern assessment by Evans doesn’t go very far.

Evans concludes somewhat nostalgically about what this means for WTS:

The institution that I attended in the 1980s was one in which Ray Dillard and Dick Gaffin and Sinclair Ferguson and Harvie Conn and Tremper Longman and Vern Poythress and Philip Edgcumbe Hughes and Clair Davis and Robert Knudsen and Tim Keller and Moises Silva and Roger Greenway and Manny Ortiz and Rick Gamble could get along and work together despite their sometimes considerable differences. That institution is now apparently gone. Of course, nothing stays the same, and perhaps a new context and new challenges demand that lines be drawn more narrowly. It remains to be seen, however, whether a narrower institution can thrive in the current challenging seminary market environment. Furthermore, will it produce scholarship that is meaningful and useful to the broader Christian world rather than catering to the boundary preoccupations of the conservative Reformed subculture?

But Evans doesn’t consider that WTS 2.0 was not WTS 1.0 — the school of Van Til, Murray, Stonehouse, Young, and Kuiper, the school that was decidedly ecclesial in serving the OPC but also achieving an international reputation (at least among Protestants). I don’t think Harvard or Yale were paying much attention to WTS 1.0. But I’m not sure they did to 2.0 either.

Do the Obedience Boys Know Their Catechism?

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Amid the flurry of posts about justification, sanctification, and antinomianism, attention to the Shorter Catechism has been missing. When you look there, you receive a very different impression of the law and good works than the obedience boys, Mark Jones and Rick Phillips, give.

At the birds-eye-view level, the Catechism teaches twice that God requires something from us. The first comes with the introduction to the Decalogue:

Q. 39. What is the duty which God requireth of man?
A. The duty which God requireth of man is obedience to his revealed will.

For neo-nomians or the antinomianphobes, this looks encouraging. (It also seems to make the theonomists and neo-Calvinists’ hearts swell since it would seem to encourage efforts to implement God’s revealed will in all walks of every square inch.) See, God requires obedience from us and teaching the import of law and good works is only going along with what God requires.

But then comes the kicker. After discussing the requirements and prohibitions of each and every commandment — this is the catechetical speed bump that poses a barrier to covenant children ever learning the sacraments — the catechism soberly reminds where these requirements end: the wrath and curse of God.

Q. 82. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?
A. No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word and deed.

Q. 83. Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous?
A. Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.

Q. 84. What doth every sin deserve?
A. Every sin deserveth God’s wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come.

This depressing experience with the law is why some of us lean on the grace side of things. Sure, the law is good and important and it reveals God’s holiness and our own standard for holiness. But any attempt to keep it post-fall will result in God’s wrath and curse (which is also kind of a downer for thinking about implementing God’s revealed will in politics, the cinema, or plumbing).

But then the catechism goes on to talk about the remedy to our misery:

Q. 85. What doth God require of us that we may escape his wrath and curse due to us for sin?
A. To escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin, God requireth of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption.

I have always found it remarkable that these Puritans did not include the law or good works in this answer. This doesn’t mean that they did not affirm the third use of the law. Nor does this answer say that “faith and repentance are necessary for salvation” (even though that’s basically what Paul told a certain jailer). But for the basic problem of sin and its consequences, the remedy for the human predicament (we are talking salvation, here) is faith, repentance, and attending the means of grace. In other words, to escape God’s wrath and curse, our obedience — in terms of obeying the law — is not going to count for much anything. Instead, what we need to do is trust in Christ, grieve over and turn from our sins, and continue to sit under the Christian ministry to have our faith strengthened and to prevent self-righteousness.