Author: D. G. Hart

The Etiquette and Manners of Worship

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Bill Evans, one of the new bloggers on the block at Baptists and Presbyterians Together (also known as the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals), seems to have an issue with a point I made some time ago when I contrasted the arguments of John Frame and Hughes Oliphant Old on worship. Here is how Evans describes my point:

Hart in essence asked the question of why some Reformed theological “conservatives” can be so “liberal” on worship while those further to the left theologically are often so “conservative” on matters liturgical. His test case is a comparison of PCA teaching elder John Frame’s Worship in Spirit and Truth (P&R, 1996) and PCUSA worship scholar Hughes Oliphant Old’s Worship That Is Reformed according to Scripture (John Knox, 1984). As Hart puts it, “In the ‘liberal’ PCUSA, if Old’s book is any indication, the traditional elements and rites of historic Reformed liturgy are firmly in place. But in the ‘conservative’ PCA, using Frame as a guide, the conventional pieces of Reformed worship are in flux.” A bit later, Hart contends, “If sideline Presbyterian denominations such as the PCA and the OPC were as conservative about the Reformed tradition as they regard themselves, then we would expect Old’s book to have come from a PCA or an OPC minister and to have been published by a conservative Presbyterian press. Moreover, if the mainline Presbyterian denomination was as liberal as its conservative detractors insist, then it would make more sense for Frame’s book to have come from a PCUSA officer and publishing house. Yet the opposite is the case. The conservatives have turned modernist, if by modernism we mean the self-conscious adaptation of the faith to modern times. Just as unlikely, the modernists have become the chief defenders of the historic Reformed faith, at least in its liturgical aspects, against efforts to preserve the kernel while refashioning a modern husk.”

Evans explanation for the difference between the “conservative” Frame and the “liberal” Old differs from mine. I had written that evangelical Presbyterians like Frame, motivated by evangelism and biblicism, could turn a blind eye to formal considerations in worship, such as the fitting modes of expressing praise, gratitude, Christian truth, etc. Evans counters that a better account may be aesthetics – in mainline churches where upper-class Protestants worship, choirs and organs are more acceptable than in evangelical churches. But because evangelicals hold on to the importance of evangelism and the authority of Scripture, Evans is willing to put up with the tackiness that sometimes comes with evangelical worship.

In short, is the real problem for some conservative Reformed champions of “traditional worship” that a lot of evangelical worship is, by upper-middle-class standards, a bit tacky? Given an unhappy choice between holding on to the gospel and the authority of Scripture on the one hand and aesthetically pleasing traditional Reformed worship on the other, the issue for me is clear. Why strain a liturgical gnat and swallow a theological camel? Fortunately, that is a false dichotomy, a choice that need not be made.

I don’t know if Evans thinks I favor traditional worship because it is not tacky. Since he uses me to make his point he may think so. So let me be clear. Organs are no more acceptable in worship than guitars. Worship should not follow the ethos of the concert hall any more than it should conform to the feel of a rock concert or television show. In fact, Reformed worship of the Genevan and Scottish kind, when the only music was unaccompanied psalm-singing, avoided the elite idiom of chamber music and would have no trouble rejecting the I-love-Jesus ballads of P&W. Reformed worship actually attempted a cultural idiom that was unique to the task of worshiping God. It was a form of expression set apart for the people of God. This worship could still be beautiful even if austerely simple. According to Evelyn Underhill, for Calvin the abiding reality of worship was “God’s unspeakable Majesty and Otherness, and the nothingness and simplicity of man.” For this reason, “No ceremonial acts or gestures were permitted. No hymns were sung but those derived from a Biblical source. The bleak stripped interior of the real Calvinist church is itself sacramental; a witness to the inadequacy of the human over against the divine.”

The theological rationale for this simplicity came at least with the reasoning of the Westminster Divines when they wrote:

Under the gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper: which, though fewer in number, and administered with more simplicity, and less outward glory, yet, in them, it is held forth in more fullness, evidence and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles; and is called the new testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations. (7.6)

In which case, pipe organs are no more beautiful than guitars, and upper-, middle-, and lower-class aesthetics have no standing in “traditional” Reformed worship. The reason has everything to do with the theology of the Lord’s Day, when Christians assemble with all the angels and heavenly hosts at Mount Zion in the presence of Christ and offer up their petitions and praise and hear their Lord speak in the word read and preached. Worship is not about earthly but heavenly aesthetics.

And that has a lot to do with why Oliphant is a better guide to Reformed worship than Frame. If worship is a meeting between the king of the universe and his subjects, then would that encounter be reverent and serious or would it be casual and folksy – even humorous? That seems like a perfectly obvious question. But because the Bible does not apparently address questions of style, but is only concerned about the content of worship, for evangelicals as long as a service has correct doctrine its tone can assume a variety of cultural idioms, hip-hop, exclusive psalmody, 1950s, or P&W – they are all the same. (Which is a pretty remarkable argument coming from some who think the Bible teaches how we are going to transform the secular culture. We can be certain of cultural standards for pagans and Christians in New York City but be cultural relativists for Presbyterians and Baptists in worship? Oy vey!)

Forms matter. Forms should, as Paul taught in Titus 2, fit sound doctrine. How informality, breeziness, or vulgarity befit sound doctrine, I’ll never know. But if someone has a clue about civility and manners, and why talking on a cell phone loudly in a public place is inappropriate (but maybe not a sin), he or she may have a pretty good sense why worship that does not reinforce the holiness and transcendence and authority of the God they serve is not becoming to Reformed Protestantism.

Old Life on Facebook

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In conjunction with Dr. Hart’s recent return to Twitter, the Old Life Theological Society has created a Facebook page. It is true, some old schoolers do in fact have Facebook accounts. Like the page and find out who those seven people are.

Hello, Rob Bell

Published on by D. G. Hart91 Comments

According to one news story I read, Rob Bell’s embrace of God’s love has landed the Grand Rapid’s religious entrepreneur in Desiring God Ministries hell. The ultimate kiss off in the evangelical world is for John Piper to tweet, “Farewell Rob Bell.”

But I am wondering why all the hoopla over Bell. If you do some searches over at the Gospel Coalition blogs, where the exposure of Bell’s errors have been fast and furious, the gospel co-allies didn’t seem to pay much attention to Bell prior to his recent book. I found one review of Bell’s videos, a link from 9-Marks that is now dead. But Bell was a basic no-show prior to March 2011.

The best explanation of why someone might care comes from Kevin DeYoung who has a personal account (and one that appeals to me now that I am a Michigander). He wrote:

This issue is especially pertinent to me because I grew up where Rob Bell lives (Grand Rapids) and live where Rob Bell grew up (Lansing). I know the church he grew up at (it’s a normal evangelical church with some fine people there). And I remember buying baseball cards at the mall where Mars Hill now meets. I have people at my church that used to go to his church, and people from my home church that now go to his. Small world. Over the years, I’ve known many people that have attended Mars Hill at one time or another. Rob Bell’s influence stretches across Michigan. It seems that most people I talk to have some family member or friend or second cousin that’s gone to Mars Hill or loves Rob Bell’s books. Although few, if any, in my congregation would say they are Rob Bell fans, many interact frequently with those who are. Clarity on the important issues he raises (and misunderstands) is absolutely necessary. Especially in the Mitten.

So if you’re from or live in Michigan, concerns about Bell may make sense (though how does anything hip come from Michigan?). But what kind of threat is Bell to the Gospel Coalition or my friends in the Southern Baptist Convention? I mean, American Protestantism does not lack for low hanging fruit in the orchard of bad theology and inappropriate ministry. Just turn on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and go to one of the pastor’s websites if you’re in the mood to expose pernicious teaching.

So again, why all the fuss over Bell? And why especially all the Gospel Coalition resolve to pounce on Bell? I may need to get out more and meet people who read Rob’s books and watch his movies (though I did sit through an uncomfortably fawning interview with Bell at the Calvin College Writer’s conference a few years ago). I understand he is a celebrity. And I understand he is supposed to be cool. But do the believers who go to Gospel Coalition churches really need counsel on the dangers of Rob Bell? If they are reading Piper or Keller or Carson, shouldn’t they be able to spot good theology from bad?

Or could it be the case that we are always hardest on those who are closest to us, such that to show that our position is correct we need to expose the errors of someone close to our position? But is Bell really close to the Gospel Coalition? I wouldn’t have thought so, except that the Gospel Coalition seems to be open to emerging churches (hello, Mark Driscoll). The other exception is that Bell has the kind of religious celebrity that cements the Gospel Coalition’s celebrities. But doesn’t all this exposure increase Bell’s celebrity?

As I say, hello, Rob Bell, I hadn’t thought about you much before the allies said farewell.

Two Kingdom Tuesday: When the Light of Nature Brightens

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For the critics of natural law and two kingdoms who think the light of nature needs the lift of special revelation to be discernible, comes a sensible essay by one of my favorite writers, Joseph Epstein. The occasion for the piece published in the Weekly Standard was the presentation by a professor at Northwestern University that involved a sex act, performed in front of undergraduate students. Epstein himself taught for many years at Northwestern while editing the American Scholar and has first-hand knowledge of the demise of academic standards and even common sense within Northwestern and higher education more generally.

Not only is Epstein’s article worth reading for its diagnosis of the problems that afflict universities and colleges, but it also demonstrates that people who are not regenerate have the capacity for moral discernment.

Consider the following:

When I began teaching at Northwestern in 1973, the smoke had not yet cleared from the student revolution. I recall at the time hearing gossip about a teacher who was sleeping with one of his students, and when I checked with a friend on the faculty, he confirmed that it was likely true. “Do many younger professors sleep with their undergraduate students?” I asked this same friend. “I don’t know many who don’t” was his rather casual reply.

Does sleeping with one’s undergraduate students come under the shield of academic freedom, or was it instead an academic perk, or ought it, again, to be admonished, if not punished by dismissal? Although a youngish bachelor at the time, I eschewed the practice myself, chiefly because I thought sleeping with one’s students was poor sportsmanship—fish in a barrel and all that—and my own taste happened to run to grown-up women; I also thought it was, not to put too fine or stuffy a point on it, flat-out wrong. I wondered, too, if in its taking unfair advantage—a teacher after all has the power of awarding grades to students—it wasn’t an obvious violation of academic freedom, and not merely crummy.

Why would Reformed Protestants not want to encourage such wisdom and conviction by insisting that Epstein first take out his copy of the Hebrew Scriptures before commenting on conditions at his old campus?

Can Redeemer Presbyterian Church Be Redeemed?

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The bloggers over at Mere Orthodoxy linked to an article by Tim Keller on the size and culture of congregations which still has me scratching my head. Originally published in 2006 in The Movement, and then again by one of the Vineyard Church’s publications, now it reappears in Redeemer’s City to City on-line magazine.

The head scratching part may also reveal my Bible-thumping past. But when a minister of the Word talks about the church wouldn’t you expect more references to Scripture than sociological hunches? Take, for instance, Keller’s nonchalant observation that size is a given and cannot be changed:

Every church has a culture that goes with its size and which must be accepted. Most people tend to prefer a certain size culture, and unfortunately, many give their favorite size culture a moral status and treat other size categories as spiritually and morally inferior. They may insist that the only biblical way to do church is to practice a certain size culture despite the fact that the congregation they attend is much too big or too small to fit that culture.

Now I am loathe to grant an inch to biblicism, but why wouldn’t the teaching of Scripture at least provide a greater check on congregational culture than the fixedness of size? For instance, if a pastor is called to perform the tasks that Paul gives to Timothy – you know, the pastoral epistles? – then if a congregation becomes too big or too small for a man to carry out those divinely appointed tasks, then perhaps the pastor and session need to reconfigure the congregation so the pastor can do what God has called him to do.

But when Keller describes the senior pastor of a large (400-800)-to-very-large congregation (above 800), the biblicist impulse is hard to suppress. He writes:

The larger the church, the more important the minister’s leadership abilities are. Preaching and pastoring are sufficient skills for pastors in smaller churches, but as a church grows other leadership skills become critical. In a large church not only administrative skills but also vision casting and strategy design are crucial gifts in the pastoral team.

The larger the church, the more the ministry staff members must move from being generalists to being specialists. Everyone from the senior pastor on down must focus on certain ministry areas and concentrate on two or three main tasks. The larger the church, the more the senior pastor must specialize in preaching, vision keeping and vision casting, and identifying problems before they become disasters.

This may be a digression, but does the bit about large churches nurturing specialists say anything about ministers of the Word — what Machen called, specialists in the Bible — sticking to Scripture rather than dabbling in sociology, even ecclesiastical sociology?

At the same time, where in the Word does it say anything about pastors as vision keepers? Or leadership for that matter? Pastoral authority held by an undershepherd is one thing, leadership is twentieth-century management-speak. So what exactly is biblical or true about these ruminations on size dynamics within a congregation? Again, I’m all for the light of nature and godly (even unregenerate) wisdom. But without some kind of biblical reflection on pastoral ministry, these ideas are even less compelling than pious advice.

The part of Keller’s article that has me scratching the other side of my scalp is his bold admission of the problems that attend very large congregations.

Of course the very large church has disadvantages as well:

Commuting longer distances can undermine mission. Very large churches can become famous and attract Christians from longer and longer distances, who cannot bring non-Christians from their neighborhoods. Soon the congregation doesn’t look like the neighborhood and can’t reach its own geographic community. However, this is somewhat offset by the mission advantages and can be further offset by (a) church planting and (b) staying relentlessly oriented toward evangelism and outreach.

Commuting longer distances undermines community/fellowship and discipleship. Christians coming from longer distances are less likely to be discipled and plugged in to real Christian community. The person you meet in a Sunday service is less and less likely to be someone who lives near you, so natural connections and friendships do not develop. This can be somewhat offset by an effective small-group system that unites people by interest or region.

Diminished communication and involvement. “A common pattern is for a large church to outgrow its internal communication system and plateau . . . as many people feel a loss of the sense of belonging, and eventually [it declines] numerically.” People are no longer sure whom to talk to about things: in a smaller church, the staff and elders know everything, but in a very large church, a given staff member may know nothing at all about what is going on outside his or her ministry. The long list of staff and ministries is overwhelming. No one feels they can get information quickly; no one feels they know how to begin to get involved. This can be offset by continually upgrading your communication system. This becomes extraordinarily important
in a very large congregation.

Displacement. People who joined when the church was smaller may feel a great sense of loss and may have trouble adjusting to the new size culture. Many of them will mourn the loss of feeling personally connected to events, decision making, and the head pastor. Some of these “old-timers” will sadly leave, and their leaving will sadden those who remain in the church. This can be offset by giving old-timers extra deference and consideration, understanding the changes they’ve been through, and not making them feel guilty for wanting a different or smaller church. Fortunately, this problem eventually lessens! People who joined a church when it had 1,500 members will find that not much has changed when it reaches 4,000.

Complexity, change, and formality. Largeness brings (a) complexity instead of simplicity, (b) change instead of predictability, and (c) the need for formal rather than informal communication and decision making. However, many long-time Christians and families value simplicity, predictability, and informality, and even see them as more valuable from a spiritual standpoint. The larger the church, the more the former three factors grow, and many people simply won’t stand for them.

Succession. The bigger a church, the more the church is identified with the senior pastor. Why? (a) He becomes the only identifiable leader among a large number of staff and leaders of whom the average member cannot keep track. (b) Churches don’t grow large without a leader who is unusually good in articulating vision. This articulation then becomes the key to the whole church. That kind of giftedness is distinctive and is much less replaceable even than good preaching. This leads to the Achilles’ heel of the church—continuity and succession. How does the pastor retire without people feeling the church has died? One plan is to divide the church with each new site having its own senior pastor. Lyle Schaller believes, however, that the successors need to be people who have been on staff for a good while, not outsiders.

This is a perplexing passage since, first, it seems to reflect the dynamics at Redeemer NYC (especially the part about the problems of succession — who will fill Keller’s shoes, Marc Driscoll?). In other words, Keller would know these problems first hand. Second, of all the other church cultures he describes, from the house congregation to the very large one, he does not devote a separate space to the problems inherent in these other sized churches. Keller does, to be sure, comment on ways that the other churches need to change if they are to become very large, in which case, being smaller is implicitly a disadvantage. (But if you’re in a place like Hillsdale, Michigan, with a population of 8,000, how could you ever become very large without putting all the other congregations out of business?)

Furthermore, Keller does mention the advantages of very large congregations. One of these is the following:

“Research and development” for the broader church. Again, the larger church is usually a good place for new curriculum, ministry structures, and the like to be formulated and tested. These can all be done more effectively by a large church than by denominations, smaller churches, or parachurch ministries.

But I thought that was the point of belonging to a denomination. After all, Great Commission Publication, the joint-effort of the OPC and the PCA, does precisely what Keller here suggests of the very large church. And what is more, they do so under the oversight of the General Assembly, which is, if you read your Bible aright, the God-appointed way to try new curricula. The assemblies of the church are, in fact, “ministry structures” in their own right.

So with all of the defects of the very large church, why is its size a given? And if Redeemer is experiencing the difficulties Keller describes, why do so many congregations want to be Redeemer-like. Maybe small is not just beautiful but – dare I say – biblical.

Did Warfield Make the World Safe for Piper?

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Are Lutherans different from Reformed Protestants? Duh! The odd aspect of the arguments that distinguish Lutheranism from Reformed Protestantism is that the arguers don’t seem to be so conscientious when it comes to Baptists. Are Baptists Calvinistic? Some are. Lots aren’t. So when it comes to drawing distinctions among Protestants why the urge to draw lines between Reformed and Lutherans and not between Reformed and the uncles of Baptists, the Puritans?

Of course, contemporary discomfort with Lutherans among Reformed Protestants and Calvinistic Baptists is not new. Benjamin Warfield, who rarely strayed in his judgments, was also inclined to draw a distinction between Lutheranism and Reformed Protestantism. He did so by observing the tendency of Lutherans to stress justification by faith in contrast to the Reformed impulse to push beyond faith and its benefits to the underlying circumstances of justification. Here is how Warfield put it (thanks to Scott Clark via Timothy):

Just as little can the doctrine of justification by faith be represented as specifically Lutheran. It is as central to the Reformed as to the Lutheran system. Nay, it is only in the Reformed system that it retains the purity of its conception and resists the tendency to make it a doctrine of justification on account of; instead of by, faith. It is true that Lutheranism is prone to rest in faith as a kind of ultimate fact, while Calvinism penetrates to its causes, and places faith in its due relation to the other products of God’s activity looking to the salvation of man. And this difference may, on due consideration, conduct us back to the formative principle of each type of thought. But it, too, is rather an outgrowth of the divergent formative principles than the embodiment of them. Lutheranism, sprung from the throes of a guilt-burdened soul seeking peace with God, finds peace in faith, and stops right there. It is so absorbed in rejoicing in the blessings which flow from faith that it refuses or neglects to inquire whence faith itself flows. It thus loses itself in a sort of divine euthumia, and knows, and will know nothing beyond the peace of the justified soul. Calvinism asks with the same eagerness as Lutheranism the great question, “What shall I do to be saved?” and answers it precisely as Lutheranism answers it. But it cannot stop there. The deeper question presses upon it, “Whence this faith by which I am justified?” And the deeper response suffuses all the chambers of the soul with praise, “From the free gift of God alone, to the praise of the glory of His grace.” Thus Calvinism withdraws the eye from the soul and its destiny and fixes it on God and His glory. It has zeal, no doubt, for salvation but its highest zeal is for the honour of God, and it is this that quickens its emotions and vitalizes its efforts. It begins, it centres and it ends with the vision of God in His glory and it sets itself; before all things, to render to God His rights in every sphere of life-activity.

Several items are worth noting in this quotation. First is Warfield’s notion that Reformed Protestantism is not content with faith alone but embarks upon a deeper quest to find the origins of this faith. He does not explain here what this quest looks like, but his could be an argument in favor of the kind of introspection that experimental Calvinists like Edwards and Piper favor.

A second curious feature of Warfield’s contrast is the idea that Lutheranism emphasizes justification while Reformed Protestantism stresses the glory of God. This suggests common view in some union with Christ circles that Lutheranism manifests an anthropocentric view of Christianity (e.g., man’s salvation) that contrasts with Reformed Protestantism’s theocentric outlook (e.g., God’s glory). After all, an oft-made contrast between Heidelberg (which is considered a catechism that made concessions to Lutheranism) and Westminster is that the former catechism begins with man’s “only comfort” while the Shorter Catechism begins with “God’s glory” as man’s chief end.

The danger in this contrast so far – man’s salvation vs. God’s glory – is that Lutherans had good reasons for not becoming absorbed with God’s glory. Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation was a forceful warning to theologians who were tempted to identify God’s glory with outward and external signs or forms. In other words, writ large in Luther’s theology is the idea that God’s ways are not man’s, and so God may not actually glorify himself the way that man expects. The cross is folly. Preaching is weak. Christians are poor and humble. In which case, God saves an unlikely people through surprising means. And that may also mean that God’s glory is not always as glorious as human beings expect it.

If God’s glory can be a complicated affair, then perhaps Warfield is wrong to draw the contrast between Lutheranism and Reformed Protestantism the way he does. If Lutherans actually believe in God’s glory but are also aware that it comes in surprising ways, then maybe Reformed Protestants need to learn a thing or two about how to be truly theocentric. The Lutheran theology of the cross could teach Reformed Protestants a measure of humility in their self-ascribed ability to locate God’s glory in every nook and cranny of the created order. Reformed might also consider that Lutherans understand better than Reformed triumphalists and experimental Calvinists that God’s glory is nowhere more on display, at least in this world, in the justification of sinners. After all, if man is the crown jewel of the created order and if Christ took on human form to save fallen sinners, then contra Warfield, we may not need to go much beyond justification and man’s salvation in seeing the glory of God.

If this is so, then Reformed Protestants may need to be content with the glory that is revealed in the cross and the salvation it yields instead of yielding to the temptation to find God’s glory in human powers of discernment. If Reformed Protestants followed the lead of Lutherans more, we might be spared many of those neo-Calvinist efforts to show the “Christian” meaning of calculus, Shakespeare, or Dutch history.

So while the game of saying that Reformed highlight God’s glory and Lutherans stop with justification sounds theocentric, it may turn out to be an unintended example of anthropocentricity in which believers try to prove their own godliness by discovering God’s glory through forced interpretations of general and special revelation. Perhaps Lutherans are the truly biblical ones who rest content with the glory that God has revealed in the salvation accomplished by Christ for weak and poor sinners. What could be more glorious than that!

The Church Is Revival

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Why are the people who long for and advocate revivals so negative? What I mean is that the desire for revival appears to breed a fair amount of discontentment. Church members aren’t godly or zealous enough, the pastor isn’t evangelistic enough, the church is too small – these are the sorts of criticisms that are just beneath the surface of calls for an outpouring of God’s Spirit upon his too cold and casual people.

To be sure, Christians can be cold and casual about matters of faith. After all, saints are still sinners and so prone to various spiritual afflictions that impede sanctification. But why do churches have to engage in extraordinary ways of displaying their commitment to Christ? Why do evangelistic rallies, intense meetings of small groups, suffusing water cooler banter with God-talk, numerous conversions, or visible displays of piety (such as listening to inferior Christian music) constitute a work of God? Why doesn’t the weekly worship by word and sacrament, or a regular meeting of session, presbytery, or General Assembly count as a work of God’s Spirit? Why can’t genuine Christian piety be ordinary?

In the case of the church, what is ordinary is actually extraordinary. If you start with the supposition that people are sinners and in rebellion against God, and then find a gathering of believers for a worship service, you may actually think that something remarkable has happened in the lives of these people. And if you consider that most Americans don’t know how to sing independently of singing along with the radio or Ipod, and then you see people on Sunday holding hymnals singing praise to God, you may actually be struck by how extraordinary congregational song is. And if you think about the history of the Christian church and recognize how prone she is to error and unfaithfulness, and then you find a communion that is orthodox in its teaching and sane in its worship, you may be tempted to think that you have experienced a taste of heaven.

And yet, revivalists and the believers who support them are never so impressed by the church in her ordinary ways. Such discontent may actually breed churches filled with malcontents. And yet, in one of the bigger ironies of church history, the revivalists are the ones considered to be the most devout and the most loving when in fact it is the opponents of revival who are actually marked by charity and patience, fruit of the Spirit last I checked, in their dealings with this entity we know as the church militant.

Desiring God or Faith in Christ?

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I am falling behind on responses to the last post — the hazards of moving and orchestrating a relocation. TMI alert! But — dare I say — I am still leading family worship, pious Reformed Protestant that I try to be (TMI warning!), and this morning encountered the following from Martin Luther. It strikes me that this understanding of faith, and its different measures among the saints, is way more reassuring than the ecstasy that may accompany desiring God. Not to be missed is that Luther rightly favors the object of faith over the act of faith. The same, I would argue, could be said about charity or any of the other fruits of the Spirit.

In this Christian brotherhood no man possesses more than another. St. Peter and St. Paul have no more than Mary Magdalene or you or I. To sum up: Taking them all together, they are brothers, and there is no difference between the persons. Mary, the Mother of the Lord, and John the Baptist, and the thief on the cross, they all possess the selfsame good which you and I possess, and all who are baptised and do the Father’s Will. And what have all the saints? They have comfort and help promised them through Christ in every kind of need, against sin, death, and the devil. And I have the same, and you, and all believers have.

But this also is true, that you and I do not believe it so firmly as John the Baptist and St. Paul; and yet it is the one and only treasure. It is the same as when two men hold a glass of wine, one with a trembling, the other with a steady hand. Or when two men hold a bag of money, one in a weak, the other in a strong hand. Whether the hand be strong, or weak, as God wills, it neither adds to the contents of the bag, nor takes away. In the same way there is no other difference here between the Apostles and me, than that they hold the treasure firmer. Nevertheless, I should and must know that I possess the same treasure as all holy Prophets, Apostles, and all saints have possessed.

Desiring God Enough?

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I have nothing personal against John Piper. I believe him to be basically sound theologically, though I wish he were a confessional Reformed Protestant. And his earnestness is truly impressive. I do not sense that he is faking what he says or preaches.

Maybe that is why, a Nathaniel Kahn’s aunt says in My Architect, “I don’t get his numbah.” Piper is well known for admiring Jonathan Edwards, and for nurturing a Calvinist constituency among young evangelicals who sing praise songs. That could be a welcome development, except when you read the fine print.

I am currently working on a chapter for a volume on Edwards and have the assignment of covering the recent recovery of Edwardsian theology and piety. In the chapter are sections on John Gerstner, Richard Lovelace, Iain Murray, and — of course — Piper. I need to admit that Edwards leaves me a little cold, which is obviously the opposite of the desired effect. The introspection that reading works like Religious Affections cultivates is not one that lets this sinner feel very good about his progress in mortification of the self.

But for some reason, Edwards’ odd combination of theocentric vision and preoccupation with the inner recesses of the heart resonates– strike that, enthralls — Piper. Still, even the Minneapolis pastor’s best efforts to appropriate Edwards for contemporary believers misses the mark of my weary soul. Here’s is an example from Piper’s reprint of Edwards’ The End for Which God Created the World:

The essence of authentic, corporate worship is the collective experience of heartfelt satisfaction in the glory of God, or a trembling that we do not have it and a great longing for it. Worship is for the sake of magnifying God, not ourselves, and God is magni?ed in us when we are satis?ed in him. Therefore, the unchanging essence of worship (not the outward forms which do change) is heartfelt satisfaction in the glory of God, the trembling when we do not have it and the longing for it.

The basic movement of worship on Sunday morning is not to come with our hands full to give to God, as though he needed anything (Acts 7:25), but to come with our hands empty, to receive from God. And what we receive in worship is the fullness of God, not the feelings of entertainment. We ought to come hungry for God. We should come saying, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Ps. 42:1-2). God is mightily honored when a people know that they will die of hunger and thirst unless they have God. (God’s Passion for His Glory, pp. 40-41)

As I have indicated, I find this hard to understand since it sounds like worship is about God but then I read this and start to wonder if I am experiencing God’s glory. And if I am not, then I am in trouble because I am not sufficiently interested in God’s glory. But how can I be sufficiently interested if I need to check how deeply God’s glory goes into the depths of my soul?

I am not writing this sarcastically. I am seriously curious why this kind of piety is attractive to so many evangelicals. And if someone can give me e-counsel about my spiritual torpor, then we should all give a big thanks to God’s providential care in raising up Bill Gates.

Man Crush

Published on by D. G. Hart17 Comments

No man should be belittled for having special affection for another man. Whether David and Jonathan’s friendship (in the Bible, not “Friends”) qualifies as a man crush is debatable, and so is whether their relationship might baptize the kind of attraction that a man has for another man, not sexual but bordering on smitten.

I myself have had any number of man crushes on both colleagues and celebrities. In the latter category I would now have to place Gabriel Byrne who stars in the HBO series, “In Treatment,” and is one of the few actors who can sustain interest on screen even when not doing anything, or in the case of his character as a psychotherapist, simply listening to patients. He first enthralled me as Tom Reagan in the Coen Brothers homage to “The Godfather,” “Miller’s Crossing,” a rare gangster hero who prevails not by overcoming his adversaries but by enduring the most beatings.

If I had written this two weeks ago, my nomination for man crush then would have been Garry Shandling, the comedian who created, wrote, and starred in one of the most underappreciated television series, “The Larry Sanders Show.” This was HBO’s first television series and it was both a tribute to Johnny Carson and the format of the late-night talk show and a humorous and poignant expose of the egos and antics that go into producing these shows. For anyone interested in the phenomenon of celebrity, “Larry Sanders” is a must.

My most abiding man crush is for Phil Hendrie, the best (and only) real talent on radio, who takes the political talk show and turns it on its head by functioning as both host and guest (with made up voices). The joke is not merely the callers who think the interview is real, but also the situations and characters that Phil creates — such as Ted Bell, owner of Ted’s of Beverly Hills steakhouse, who thinks he can flip off a van driver sporting a Jesus fish because Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek. It is radio theater at its best, and with three hours a day, available on-line, it is far more impressive how much comedic material one man can produce compared to an entire television series that employs hundreds to produce as much material for one season (13 hours) as Phil does in one week of broadcasts.

All of this is to say that I understand man crushes and see no reason for embarrassment in admitting to them. But sometimes man crushes are embarrassing. The latest case comes with the announcement from the editor of Kerux that the journal of biblical theology, where they put the Vos in Vossian, will no longer be printed but will be published on-line. In his introduction to the last print issue of Kerux, James Dennison goes on about Geerhardus Vos in ways that appear to take a man crush from a special fondness to an odd obsession. He writes:

. . . these pages have wonderfully developed the legacy of Vos in ways which would have both pleased and surprised him. Surprised him in the wealth of original contributions ranging through the history of doctrine – patristic, medieval, Reformation and modern: all these remarkable contributions endorsing, advancing, encouraging historic Christian orthodoxy – catholic, evangelical and Reformed. Pleased him in that new methods of penetrating the inspired Word of God have been applied in these pages. However haltingly or inadequately, nevertheless the advances God in his providence has granted to his church in our time have been plundered )aka robbing the Egyptians) in the interest of unpacking treasures of old and new which are locked in the mind, heart and Word of God.

I am not sure that a journal should be edited according a desire to please and surprise a deceased – even if highly regarded – theologian. I am even less sure that an editor should be so impressed by his own accomplishments in bringing such brilliance into print.

The kicker is the paragraph preceding Dennison’s adulation of Vos and Vos’ adulators. In a surprisingly candid admission of dangerous ideas and articles published in Kerux under his watch, Dennison unwittingly calls into question his own abilities as an editor:

Most of the contributions to this journal over twenty-five years have been insightful. . . . A few, however, deceived us, using the pages of this journal for their own ends and agenda. Their heterodoxy, even edgy ‘heresy’, has subsequently been revealed as, like Demas, they departed from us, even with contempt. It is increasingly clear that many who have sworn by the name of Geerhardus Vos haven’t the faintest notion of what he stood for. These charlatans, who have padded their bibliographies and footnotes with references to his works, have demonstrated over and over again that they are incapble of reading primary documents without skewing those documents to their own bogus schemes. They are users and users are losers. Their character is as insufferably self-centered as any classic egoist: ‘empty vines, they bring forth fruit unto themselves.’ Vos has no real place in their thinking because they constantly seek to re-image him in themselves. But when what they preach and what they write and how they act is placed against the portrait of this unassuming giant, they show themselves to be dishonest, arrogant and vicious. They are the acid which corrodes Reformed Biblical Theology, for the game is all about them and not at all ultimately about Christ.

Good to see that ultimately Kerux is about Christ and the gospel, but readers of this editorial have to be thinking, editor edit thyself. For if users are losers, what are editors who publish losers? Posers? Apparently, veneration of Vos is not a reliable guide to matters biblical theological. Not recognizing this may be the best indication when a man crush has crossed that fine line separating affection from obsession.