Author: D. G. Hart

Pray that Americans Will Listen to Wendell Berry

Published on by D. G. Hart16 Comments

For day three of the Old Life Prayer Vigil, a few excerpts from Wendell Berry’s Jefferson Lecture, given this past Monday night in Washington, D.C.

First, a cautionary word by implication to the W-Wists:

In my reading of the historian John Lukacs, I have been most instructed by his understanding that there is no knowledge but human knowledge, that we are therefore inescapably central to our own consciousness, and that this is “a statement not of arrogance but of humility. It is yet another recognition of the inevitable limitations of mankind.”6 We are thus isolated within our uniquely human boundaries, which we certainly cannot transcend or escape by means of technological devices. . . .

We cannot know the whole truth, which belongs to God alone, but our task nevertheless is to seek to know what is true. And if we offend gravely enough against what we know to be true, as by failing badly enough to deal affectionately and responsibly with our land and our neighbors, truth will retaliate with ugliness, poverty, and disease. The crisis of this line of thought is the realization that we are at once limited and unendingly responsible for what we know and do.

And then a word on behalf of economy, that is the household and the families that comprise them:

No doubt there always will be some people willing to do anything at all that is economically or technologically possible, who look upon the world and its creatures without affection and therefore as exploitable without limit. Against that limitlessness, in which we foresee assuredly our ruin, we have only our ancient effort to define ourselves as human and humane. But this ages-long, imperfect, unendable attempt, with its magnificent record, we have virtually disowned by assigning it to the ever more subordinate set of school subjects we call “arts and humanities” or, for short, “culture.” Culture, so isolated, is seen either as a dead-end academic profession or as a mainly useless acquisition to be displayed and appreciated “for its own sake.” This definition of culture as “high culture” actually debases it, as it debases also the presumably low culture that is excluded: the arts, for example, of land use, life support, healing, housekeeping, homemaking.

I don’t like to deal in categorical approvals, and certainly not of the arts. Even so, I do not concede that the “fine arts,” in general, are useless or unnecessary or even impractical. I can testify that some works of art, by the usual classification fine, have instructed, sustained, and comforted me for many years in my opposition to industrial pillage.

But I would insist that the economic arts are just as honorably and authentically refinable as the fine arts. And so I am nominating economy for an equal standing among the arts and humanities. I mean, not economics, but economy, the making of the human household upon the earth: the arts of adapting kindly the many human households to the earth’s many ecosystems and human neighborhoods. This is the economy that the most public and influential economists never talk about, the economy that is the primary vocation and responsibility of every one of us.

Old Life's 40-Day Prayer Vigil

Published on by D. G. Hart20 Comments

I read over at the Co-Allies site how the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and the North American Mission Board (NAMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention are partnering to encourage Christians to pray for 40 days leading up to the U.S. presidential election this coming Fall (September 26th to November 4th). For some reason the link at TGC is dead even though the 40/40 Prayer Vigil link is not. Here is the rationale behind this initiative:

Dear Friend in Christ, we are delighted that you will join us in prayer for spiritual revival and national renewal. Our nation is in need of both. Jesus declared that His followers are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16). We must become engaged in this battle for our nation’s soul. However, until as Christians we experience revival in our own lives, it will be extremely difficult to restore our nation’s moral foundations.

The battle for our nation’s soul is not just about voting booths. This is first and foremost a spiritual contest. A spiritual battle is being waged
across our nation, and it must be met first of all with spiritual weapons. God’s people must pray for a great outpouring of God’s Spirit on them,
the churches, and the nation. Then, when God has responded with His outpouring, His people will be empowered and motivated to do the hard work of restoring our nation’s moral foundation.

This Prayer Guide will help you join with thousands of other fellow believers to bring these great needs before God. The Guide provides a page for each
day and hour of the 40/40 Prayer Vigil. Each page has everything you need to invest in a time of personal spiritual reflection and petition for yourself, the church, and the nation. Please keep in mind though, that the Guide is just that — a guide. It is designed to give you a starting place for your time of prayer. Here are some suggestions for making your prayer vigil a powerful, personal spiritual time.

I was glad to see that the guide includes more than simply praying for the next president of the United States of America. It does mention that prayers are needed for communities, families, and churches.

But I am still perturbed at the way that evangelicals focus on presidential politics — letting the national election cycle of the one officer voted into office by the general populace set the agenda for American society. The key to turning things around in the U.S. has little to do with the next president or the bloated federal bureaus he or she (apologies to the Baylys) oversees. It even has less to do with ideas (or W-W) and the consequences they have.

In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the family in the United States is not doing to well. Marriage rates are down, divorces are up, and there is this pesky little matter of homosexual marriage. Not to be missed is the way that parents are apparently dropping the ball in child rearing. Has anyone heard of bullying? And has anyone considered that the best way to stop bullying is for parents to lay down a little discipline in the home? Meanwhile, state and city governments continue to dump boatloads of money on urban school districts (and their various meal plans) without ever seeming to consider that student learning begins at home. And if the homes of urban youth are not in good shape, how exactly are a couple of square meals and a No-Child-Left-Behind formula going to fix the marriages necessary for children not to flourish but simply get by?

For that reason, Old Life is proposing a forty-day vigil for families. It begins today and goes to June 1, the forty days before the month most associated with marriage. And the first petition for April 23 is to pray that evangelicals and Southern Baptists will wake up about what’s really important in American society. It’s the family, less than intelligent one!

Now We're Talking Christian Education

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

This comes from a recent review in The American Conservative of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party from Eisenhower to the Tea Party (by Geoffrey Kabaservice). The author of the review is Jeff Taylor, who teaches political science at Dort College.

Counterintuitive though it may be, the past three decades have actually brought about the triumph of liberalism in the United States, liberalism of the big-government, policing-of-the-world, secular-values variety. The vision of Nelson Rockefeller, not Ronald Reagan, has attained supremacy within the GOP. Rockefeller and his Democratic counterpart, Hubert Humphrey, symbolized a bipartisan consensus in the 1960s and 1970s for monopoly capitalism tempered by a welfare state at home and a well-armed empire abroad. In the 2000s, the George W. Bush administration solidified a coalition between pragmatic heirs of Rockefeller such as Dick Cheney and neoconservative successors of Humphrey such as Paul Wolfowitz. Rhetorical crumbs notwithstanding, traditional conservatives and libertarians lack a seat at the table. Their support is desired—and needed—by party leaders, but they are excluded from power.

The standard of ideological measurement within the GOP has changed dramatically during the past half-century. By the criteria of the 1960s, the national leaders of the Republican Party today are all liberals. A generation of wolves (liberals) did not give birth to a generation of sheep (conservatives). Instead, partly out of personal convenience and partly for historical reasons, the Republican establishment donned fleece in the 1980s. Liberals in conservative clothing. Kabaservice doesn’t recognize a friend when he sees one. He continues to mourn the loss of moderates and progressives in the party, though they continue to thrive under a different guise.

If this is a Christian W-W, I’m in.

Vossians and Neo-Calvinists Together?

Published on by D. G. Hart50 Comments

I have puzzled often about the lack of support in Vossian circles for two-kingdom theology. Many Vossians I know — and I consider myself to be one — find the spirituality of the church agreeable but balk at 2k. Why 2k is distinguished from the spirituality of the church is anyone’s guess, or why Geerhardus Vos’ distinction between this age and the age to come do not put a kabosh on tranformationalism is another of those brain-teasers you see in the back pages of World magazine (NOT!).

With this perplexity in mind, Jim Cassidy’s post about Vos, Van Til, and Kline and their implicit rejection of 2k’s dualism is instructive.

On the one hand:

I want to once again reiterate my deep appreciation for the work done by 2K theologians. I believe their insights are important and essential for the church to hear today. In particular, in so far as they desire to highlight the spiritual nature of the church’s ministry, I am all on board. Furthermore, I am in general agreement and in sympathy with their critique of social transformationalism. I am also deeply indebted to their redemptive-historical hermeneutic for understanding the difference between what parts of God’s Word are applicable to the church or state today, and which are not.

On the other hand:

. . . where I disagree is on a fundamental, deep-structural level with regard to their covenant theology. And I disagree with them because of Geerhardus Vos, Cornelius Van Til, and above all M.G. Kline. . . .

That brings us to Kline. Kline dedicated his great work The Structure of Biblical Authority to his professor, Cornelius Van Til. That was appropriate as the work was thoroughly Vosian and Van Tilian. But while he hints at how God’s Word and creation relate in that book (thinking here of chapter 2), the full development of his thought would have to await his Kingdom Prologue. In that book, very early on (i.e., pp. 14-41 of the W&S edition), Kline introduces the concept of God’s “covenantal fiat” in the act of creation. This means, in short, that God’s act of creation IS covenantal. . . . this means that there is no place for Thomas’s nature/grace dualism, nor is there any place for German idealism’s dualisms as well. The very Word which God spoke at creation, testifies to God who spoke it through the things that have been made. At no place and at no time is creation silent. It always and everywhere speaks. This eliminates any and all notions of natural theology as understood by the Thomistic tradition, or as modernized by German idealism. Creation does not need to be perfected by grace. It is quite adequate for the knowledge of God, thank you very much.

Whether Jim believes 2kers disagree with this point is not entirely clear. But he should be aware of how important covenant theology is to both David VanDrunen (see his piece in the Strimple festschrift) and Mike Horton (see his dogmatics) at least in part because they studied with Kline. In other words, 2k is not opposed to Jim’s point about the covenantal context of creation. I suspect that most 2kers affirm it, especially of those who studied with Kline.

Where 2kers get off the Vos-Van Til-Kline-Cassidy bus is with Jim’s application:

. . . our call as Christians is to point the unbeliever to that reality and call him to repentance. Indeed, God’s common grace allows the unbeliever to function and even thrive in cultural endeavors, and we praise God for that fact. But such grace is only a restrainer. It is never to be confused with common ground. There is no safe territory upon which the unbeliever can stand and do right by one kingdom, but not right by another. In every kingdom he is wrong. Even his own cultural endeavors testify against him. And if we, as Christians, do not (lovingly!) point that out to him, who will? I am afraid that the 2KT may in fact cause Christians to lose their greatest apologetic and witnessing opportunities.

First, where does the Bible require believers when interacting in the public square to engage in apologetics? When Joseph, Daniel, Jesus, and Paul engaged pagan rulers, did they first explain the covenantal context of creation before carrying out orders or answering questions?

Second, the public square may presume a covenantal context, but do we need to go to first principles for everything we do with unbelievers in our neighborhoods and communities? Do we need to explain the covenant or creation before we explain to city council the need for a new stop light at a busy intersection? Do we need to appeal to the creator of the universe before opposing a pay raise for public school teachers? Do we even need to give a covenantal account of the universe before declaring war on Iraq?

I don’t mean to make light of Jim’s point. But I do sometimes wonder how folks who live and breathe the antithesis live side by side in this age with unbelievers upon whom Reformed Protestants depend to stay in their lane, keep up their yards, and cheer for the home team.

Why Isn't Otherworldliness a Christian W-W?

Published on by D. G. Hart69 Comments

In a moment of piety this morning (don’t worry, didn’t last long), I read this from Martin Luther in a 1535 sermon on Romans 8:17:

And now he (St. Paul) begins to comfort Christians in such sufferings, and he speaks as a man who has been tried and has become quite certain. And he speaks as though he can see this life only dimly, or through coloured glass, while he sees the other life with clear eyes.

Notice how he turns his back to the world and his eyes toward the revelation which is to come, as though he could perceive no sorrow or affliction anywhere on earth, but only joy. Indeed, he says, when we do have to suffer evil, what is our suffering in comparison with the unspeakable joy and glory which shall be made manifest in us? It is not worthy to be compared with such joy nor even to be called suffering. The only difficulty is that we cannot see with our eyes and touch with our hands that great and exquisite glory for which we must wait, namely, that we shall not die for evermore neither shall we hunger nor thirst, and over and above shall be given a body which cannot ever suffer or sicken, etc. Whoever could grasp the meaning of this in his heart, would be compelled to say: even if I should be burnt or drowned ten times (if that were possible), that would be nothing in comparison with the glory of the life hereafter. For what is this temporal life, however long it may last, in comparison with the life eternal? It is not worthy to be called suffering or though of as a merit.

This is a perspective on this world and the world to come that seldom surfaces among the transformationalists (from Kuyper to Keller). It is supposedly too pessimistic about this world, and overestimates the differences between temporal and eternal existence. But at the same time, it is hard to deny that Luther has missed a large streak of Pauline teaching and outlook. So even if the transformers can dismiss such otherworldliness as Lutheran (as opposed to Calvinism as perpetual change machine), how do they get around Paul? And if they try to get around Paul, how is their effort different from the way that liberal Protestants tried to separate the kernel from the husk of Scripture?

As troubling as these questions may be, I do understand how Luther’s outlook on the temporal world and a Christian’s experience of it would force the revision of countless Christian school mission statements and tempt believers not to look to New York City as the new Jerusalem.

Is Carl Losing His Edge?

Published on by D. G. Hart191 Comments

We had counted on Carl Trueman, the left-leaning emoticonoclastic Orthodox Presbyterian pastor, to continue to see through the hype and gauze of America’s celebrity culture and warn about its danger for the church (not to mention society). But a recent trip to the Together for the Gospel Conference has changed his tune (or at least prompted him not to sing so loud):

Yes, the men at the plenary sessions are ‘celebrities’ in our small world; but they were not on the platform simply because of that fact. There was no swagger in evidence; all, in their different ways, spoke powerfully about the gospel; nobody indulged in magnifying their own name; and my guess is that none of these men will do anything which embarrasses T4G in the next twelve months. Yes, T4G needs names to fill the venue; but just being a name with 500 000 twitter followers and a knowledge of Calvinist patois is not going to get you the chance to speak. The swaggerati were nowhere to be seen.

My general conclusion on this point is that celebrity is clearly here to stay; the key point is that those who have such celebrity cachet acknowledge it and leverage it for good. By ‘good’, I mean direct people back to their own churches and set examples themselves as those who are committed first and foremost to their own people, congregations and denominations. T4G was quite a contrast to the recent reports of an extra-ecclesiastical high-profile meeting of Christian evolutionists, where celebrity appears to be being leveraged to set the agenda and impact the doctrinal testimony of churches. Nothing I heard at T4G indicated that anyone here had that kind of ecclesiastically subversive ambition.

I am not persuaded. I do think Trueman is right to remind us that celebrities are human beings too. But I am not sure that recognizing the good intentions or basic humanity of people who use a platform capable of abuse prevents that platform from being as abusive as it really is.

The problem is that people whose appetites have been whetted by celebrity pastors will have great difficulty recognizing the worth of their pastor’s pale imitation of Lig, C.J., Al, or Mark. It would be like telling Carl, back in the 70s, to go to the local pub more and listen to Gary, Mike, and Joe croon and play instead of going to the Led Zeppelin concert and buying the band’s albums. How are the Swindon Boys ever going to compete with the Rolling Stones or the Who? The answer is, they can’t.

But the stakes of believers and their undershepherds is far weightier than any rivalry between celebrity musicians and local indie bands. Will Lig, C.J. or Mark come to the hospital to visit with Joe-wine-box who lives in Fremont, Nebraska? Will they come to Defiance, Ohio to counsel a husband and wife who need a referee for their Christian marriage?

Can conferences and speaking engagements be valuable? Sure they can. It is part and parcel of professional life. Attorneys go to conferences. So do nurses. But when so many downloads are available and so many broadcasts are a turn-of-the-dial away, using celebrity to nurture a taste for average pastors is little bit like going to Citizens Bank Park to groom fans for the Doylestown, Pennsylvania’s American Legion team.

Turning Your Whole Life (and part of your body) into Lent

Published on by D. G. Hart20 Comments

We need the Lenten police. If we had them, then Reformed Protestants may not have so much material to confirm our prejudices against the church calendar. But until we do, we are stuck with evangelicals schlocking up the liturgical year and proving once again the need for reformation.

In this particular case, a story at Her.meneutics (get it?), an estrogen-friendly site sponsored by Christianity Today, informs about a church in Texas where the artist-in-residence designed a series of tattoos based on the stations of the cross for congregants to affix to their bodies and thereby observe Lent.

The phrase came to me again last month when my friend, artist Scott Erickson, told me about his Lenten-theme project for the congregation we serve, Ecclesia Church in Houston. He had designed a series of 10 tattoos representing the 14 traditional Stations of the Cross, and was asking volunteers to tattoo them to their bodies, as a way of observing the 40 days leading up to Good Friday.

Ecclesia is not a typical church: Not only do we have an “artist-in-residence,” the aforementioned Scott Erickson, but about half the congregation is already tattooed, says pastor Chris Seay. This year, instead of the annual Lenten art show, the inked congregants would become the Stations of the Cross, and stand in the gallery spaces where paintings or photographs would normally appear.

Mind you, these were not the kind of tattoos you can wash off after forty days. These would last the rest of your days. And to underscore evangelicals’ difficulty with numbers, ten stations would have to suffice for the normal fourteen. But never mind the inconsistencies, tattoos for Christians could perform a similar function as the numbers tattooed on Jews by the Nazis (I kid you not):

I remember the first time I saw my friend Sloan’s grandmother’s Auschwitz identification number on her forearm. It was Sloan’s 12th birthday party, a pool party, and her grandmother sat under an umbrella at a picnic table. Her short- sleeved blouse revealed five numbers stamped on her flesh in faded blue ink. At the time I was reading on repeat The Diary of Anne Frank, becoming obsessed with the Holocaust and my own questionable Judaism. But nothing, not then or now, has ever made the horrors of the Holocaust more real to me than seeing those five numbers. Something inside me wanted to shout—to call a halt to the game of Marco Polo, to the grilling of hot dogs, to fingers wrinkling too long in the water, and demand we recognize, at this backyard barbeque in suburban New Jersey, that the numbers on Sloan’s grandmother’s arm were telling a story. I can’t count how many times over the past 25 years I’ve dreamt about those numbers.

Our bodies tell our stories, whether we like it or not; as mothers and daughters, as wives and sisters and friends. As followers of Christ, our bodies should also tell his story.

As I say, we need Lenten police. If Roman Catholics and Lutherans would step up to the plate, I can devote my energies to W-W and its 24/7 piety.

Telling the Difference between A Christian W-W and a Really Christian W-W

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

In looking around for a Christian outlook on Shakespeare, and whether a literature professor at a Christian college might teach Shakespeare differently from a non-Christian, I came across this: “Why Shakespeare for Christian Students?” The author, Ralph Allan Smith says:

Well, first of all, and contrary to the opinion of some scholars, Shakespeare is profoundly moral. His plays, especially the tragedies, deal with the deepest moral themes and issues. Serious consideration of any of his plays forces one to think in ethical terms.

This does not mean that Shakespeare teaches morality in simple black and white. The literary critic Harold Bloom points to an important truth when he in error writes:

Shakespeare is to the world’s literature what Hamlet is to the imaginary domain of literary character: a spirit that permeates everywhere, that cannot be confined. A freedom from doctrine and simplistic morality is certainly one element in that spirit’s ease of transference, though the freedom made Dr. Johnson nervous and Tolstoy indignant. Shakespeare has the largeness of nature itself, and through that largeness he senses nature’s indifference. [2]

That Shakespeare is not a simplistic moralizer is true. His plays are not mere propaganda for do-gooders. But if we take the notion of “largeness of nature” and “freedom” in Shakespeare to imply that there is no doctrine and no moral structure in Shakespeare’s universe, we are missing the mark widely.

Imagine, for example, a version of Othello in which Iago altogether prevails, the play ending as Iago gloats over the dead bodies of Othello and Desdemona. Or a version of Hamlet in which the prince, driven to unholy revenge by the appearance of a demon impersonating his father, is able not only to destroy his enemies but rule Denmark “happily ever after.” Imagine King Lear’s evil daughters being able to love one another and cooperate successfully to steal the throne and rule the land. In real life, there may be men — there have been men — who attain their position in the world through the most nefarious Macbeth-like betrayal, if not murder, who nevertheless are able to keep their “thrones” without being tortured by guilt. In Shakespeare, however, this not only does not happen, it cannot happen.

What Bloom incorrectly labels is in fact the moral depth and the complexity that one finds in Shakespeare. No doubt this makes Shakespeare appear to some to be unconcerned with matters of morality, since these people assume that moral ambiguity in history contradicts moral clarity in religion. Ironically, this same moral complexity is one of the reasons that one “instinctively” associates Shakespeare and the Bible, for what other book combines ethical clarity in doctrine with historical narrative so brutally factual in its “deconstruction” of the heros? To this very day, approximately three thousand years after David reigned, the facts of his great faith and sincere love to God and his gross sins of murder and adultery confront the modern reader of the Bible with the unpleasant reality of the deep sinfulness of the very best men. The story also provides a weapon for the enemies of the faith, who ridicule Christians that regard an adulterous murderer as a wonderful Christian.

Smith goes on to make three more points. I am not particularly concerned about Smith’s reasons. His first point seems reasonable, even if his quotation of Harold Bloom is a bit dicey for a guy who thinks that Van Til and Kuyper shot the moon when it comes to epistemology:

I have to confess that for me it is exciting to see how Van Til shows not only that the Bible itself must be the presupposition for all thought, but more specifically how the Triune God is the focus and center of Christian epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. More than anyone I had encountered before him, I came to understand that Van Til depicts man as created to trust, worship and serve the one and only Triune God. Jordan shows hows this works out in Biblical theology, illumining every aspect of the history of the covenant in the light of the Trinitarian covenant. Jeffrey Meyers’ work on worship unites the doctrine of weekly worship with the doctrines of the Trinity and the covenant — or I should say with the reality of our covenant with the Triune God — when he expounds the Biblical idea of worship as covenant renewal. Peter Leithart, elaborating on themes in Jordan, ties in the doctrine of the sacraments with the doctrine of the Trinity. In addition, he takes his Van Tillian presuppositions with him into the world of literature, both ancient and modern, Christian and pagan.

In addition, it is a little curious to see such sweeping claims about the Trinitarian origins of knowledge being applied to a form of art that in 1924 the Christian Reformed Church, under the explicit influence of Kuyper, rejected, along with cards and dancing, as illegitimate for believers. (Where the followers of the nader reformatie made room for Shakespeare in the Free University is not a question I can readily answer.) And while I’m making asides, I’ll make one more — this fellow Smith has some fairly strong intellectual ties to the Federal Visionaries and has a string of essays critical of sundry critics of the Federal Vision.

Maybe that makes me guilty of committing the genetic fallacy, but I am going back on point to ask if Smith’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s value is THE Christian outlook? In other worlds, is there an orthodox W-W or is it simply a matter of someone trying to apply Christianity to literature and biology even if they come out wrong about the Trinitarian meaning of Othello or photosynthesis? And even more germane, do we have a body of Christian W-W officials who will determine which interpretations are orthodox and which aren’t? You might be tempted to answer that the assemblies of the church could decide this, but does anyone seriously want to let the Presbyterian Church of America determine the Christian W-W of George Washington?

Maybe too much sarcasm? But maybe the Christian educators have to take off the cheer leading uniforms and go back to the drawing board, which would include some basic distinctions about the differences between general and special revelation, church power, and even sphere sovereignty.

Celebrating Celebrity Law-Breakers

Published on by D. G. Hart57 Comments

It may seem like an easy shot, but for a group of Christians who think of themselves as and talk about being Reformed, the blatant disregard of one of the most characteristic marks of Reformed devotion is breathtaking. The Co-Allies have done it again and failed to understand the importance of sanctifying the Lord’s Day.

Joe Carter posted about Bubba Watson’s victory at the Masters Tournament. What matters to Carter is Bubba’s witness, not whether the golfer conforms to God’s revealed will (though to the credit of some readers, a discussion of the Fourth Commandment did ensue):

Last month Watson’s Tweeted before his third round: The most important thing in my life? Answer after I golf 18 holes with @JustinRose99. #Godisgood

Later that day he posted on his account, “Most important things in my life- 1. God 2. Wife 3. Family 4. Helping others 5. Golf”

“Lecrae said it the best,” Watson said of the Christian rapper he listens to on his iPod. “He doesn’t want to be a celebrity. He doesn’t want to be a superstar. He just wants to be the middle man for you to see God through him.”

Of course, the Co-Allies do not neglect of the Sabbath or exhibit inconsistency alone. Evangelicalism is awash with Protestants who want public officials and school board superintendents to post the Decalogue in court and schools rooms, all the while failing to pay attention to the first table of the law and what it says about Sundays and worship.

But is it too much to ask followers of Jesus Christ to keep his day holy? Maybe it is thanks to the instruction from neo-Calvinists that all the days belong to Christ equally. I mean, if all the days now need to show Christ’s Lordship, then maybe I need a break from that week-long holiness on the day that previous generations of saints believed was reserved for holy duties. How do you keep the Lord’s Day holy when everything I do 24/7 is holy?

Still, some Christian athletes did try to honor the day. Eric Liddell, the Olympic caliber runner featured in Chariots of Fire, is one that comes to mind. Just the other night at Hillsdale we saw Chuck Chalberg (who does a pretty good Mencken, by the way) perform his one man show on Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Jackie Robinson. Turns out that Rickey was reared a holiness-seeking Methodist who promised his mother that he would never play baseball on the Lord’s Day. And speaking of Dodgers, what about Sandy Koufax who would not pitch on the first day of Passover? Precedents do exist for devotion-based sacrifices.

Of course, the problem for athletes of the professional variety is that they would never become celebrities if they did not play sports on the Lord’s Day. Jeremy Lin, Tim Tebow, and Bubba Watson, would not have careers if they reserved Sunday for rest and worship. And without celebrity, Lin, Tebow, and Watson would be useless to those inspiration-deprived believers who need their pastors and mentors to be popular and famous if they are going to believe that God is really in control and carrying out his plan of salvation.

As a cure for this affliction, I recommend Bible reading. It is hard to see in stories of Israel or the early church any kind of fame or power or celebrity. Celebrity is not something that characterizes exiles and pilgrims.

If You Need Some Ecclesiology to Go with Your W-W

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

The OPC is seeking applications from college students and seminarians for its Summer Institute. This year’s sessions will be conducted again at Shiloh Lodge from June 19 to 21 in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Successful applicants will have their travel and lodging expenses covered.

The Summer Institute offers a glimpse of Reformed ministry as understood and practiced in the OPC. Instructors include John Muether, Greg Reynolds, and (all about me) D. G. Hart. Students will spend several days considering the following topics:

The OPC’s distinguishing characteristics and continuity with the Reformed tradition.

The centrality, nature and benefits of being a confessional church.

The importance of the means of grace in the church’s mission.

The church’s calling as a pilgrim people.

The work of a minister of the Word in an organized church and a mission work.

For more information, go here. The application deadline is April 16 but extensions may be granted.