Author: D. G. Hart

Brit Hume Reconsidered

Published on by D. G. Hart51 Comments

washingtonredskinsPut this in the category of ornery, as in there is no pleasing some people, as in paleo-Calvinists are a demanding lot. But the details on Brit Hume, his remarks about Tiger Woods, and Hume’s own Christian convictions are not as encouraging as they seemed at first.

Many have commented on Hume’s remarks and subsequent defense of saying publicly that Tiger Woods should turn to Christianity, the only source of forgiveness and redemption. Some have used negative reactions to Hume to show the true state of the cultural wars in the U.S. Some have simply noted how welcome the positive mention of Christian in the mainstream media. Others have explored the topics of Christianity’s exclusiveness and the dangers of celebrity Christianity.

Few have gone a step farther to see about Hume’s own faith. Christianity Today conducted an interview with Hume in which the following questions and answers appeared:

Do you attend a church in D.C.?

A lot of the worship I do is in home church and Bible study. There’s a regular journalists’ group that meets. There’s also a group we’re meeting this weekend at our place in Virginia, a group of families that meet for home church. There’s a minister and his wife who lead it, and we like it.

Do you have a pastor or mentor?

I do. Jerry Leachman. He leads men’s Bible study groups all over the Washington area.

I understand that when you moved into part-time work last year, you took time off to focus more on your faith.

That’s true. I said I had the three G’s I wanted to devote myself to: God, granddaughters, and golf. I’m trying. I’m trying. I’m able to see my granddaughters more, I’m spending more time focused on my faith, and when I can, I’m playing golf. All three of those things are still part of the scheme here.

It turns out that Jerry Leachman is the chaplain to the Washington Redskins. It also turns out that Leachman’s wife leads a Bible study for women that Hilary Clinton either attends or used to attend for many years.

Rooting interests and political party loyalty aside, the troubling part of Hume’s faith is its autonomy from the church. If he wanted to devote himself more to God, why not belong to the body of his savior? The answer is likely that such formalities, like not playing football for pay on Sunday, are unimportant to Christianity. What is important is a personal relationship with Jesus and ongoing study of Scripture.

Of course, a personal relationship with Jesus – if that means saving faith – is necessary, and studying the Bible on your own – assuming literacy – is a valuable part of the Christian life. But whatever happened to the church? Is church membership necessary to Christian faith? According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, yes (ordinarily).

The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. (25.2)

The Two-Kingdom Case for Blue Laws

Published on by D. G. Hart39 Comments

Rendell and Eagles
(Not to be confused with the “Blue Letter.”)

In 1933, the years the Philadelphia Eagles football club started (thank you Dan Borvan), the state of Pennsylvania considered reforming its laws prohibiting commercial activity on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, so that football players and coaches could play in the afternoon. (How would the NFL make it without violating the fourth and eighth commandments?) J. Gresham Machen, then a resident of Philadelphia, wrote a letter to Gifford Pinchot, the governor of Pennsylvania and requested the retention of the Blue Laws as they were then written.

Machen’s reasoning in this letter is instructive for what it says about a recognition and acceptance of religious diversity, a commitment to religious freedom, and the tensions within a democracy between majority rule and minority protection. Perhaps most important for two-kingdom purposes is the place of an appeal to Scripture in public debate. In this case, Machen argues not for the magistrate to enforce divine law, but for the advantages that come to everyone when the law protects the practices of some citizens.

Not to be missed is what this letter says about the fourth commandment, and that keeping the whole day holy with two services is an occasion of Christian liberty. If only the Bible speaks to all of life crowd would take up the cause of the sanctity of the Lord’s Day. (Do we see a pattern here? Two kingdoms, two services?)

April 20, 1933

The Honorable Gifford Pinchot
Governor of Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, Pa.

Dear Sir:

Will you permit me to express, very respectfully, my opposition to the Bill designated “House Bill No. 1″ regarding permission of commercialized sport between the hours of two and six on Sunday afternoons?

It is clear that in this matter of Sunday legislation the liberty of part of the people will have to be curtailed. It is impossible that people who desire a quiet Sunday should have a quiet Sunday, while at the same time people who desire commercialized sport on Sunday should have commercialized sport. The permission of commercialized sport will necessarily change the character of the day for all of the people and not merely for part of the people.

The only question, therefore, is whose liberty is to be curtailed. I am convinced that in this case it ought, for the welfare of the whole people, to be the liberty of those who desire commercialized sport.

The curtailment of their liberty, through the existing law, does not, I am convinced, go beyond reasonable bounds. There is, it seems to me, a sharp distinction of principle between complete prohibition of some form of activity or enjoyment and reasonable regulation of it in the interest of other people. To ask that commercialized sport should dispense with one day out of seven for the benefit of that large part of our population that desires a quiet Sunday and believes that it is necessary to the welfare of the State does not seem to me to be unreasonable.

Of course it is perfectly clear that in a democracy the majority should rule in this matter as in other matters. I should be the last to advocate any attempt to make people religious or even to make people ordinarily moral or decent against their will by mere legislative enactment. I should also be the last to advocate any tyrannical imposition of the convictions of a minority upon the majority. But how shall the majority will be exercised? I think that it ought to be exercised through the ordinary processes of representative government. To allow commercialized sport on Sunday in Pennsylvania will be a radical change in the whole life of our people. It is a wise provision of representative government that such radical changes should not be hastily accomplished, as might be the case by the referendum vote, but that they should be accomplished only when it is quite clear that the majority of the people really and seriously and permanently desires the change. . . .

As to the merits of the question, I could hardly find words strong enough to express what my feeling is. It does seem to me that the profoundest dangers to our entire civilization are found in the constant rush of noise and jazz and feverish activity which is one of the great faults of the American people and which is a great barrier to true efficiency as well as to the cultivation of the deeper things.

Of course, my own cultivation of a quiet Sunday is based on considerations much more fundamental than these. I am a Christian, and it is quite clear that a commercialized Sunday is inimical to the Christian religion. There are many other Christians in Pennsylvania, and because they are Christians they do not cease to be citizens. They have a right to be considered by their fellow-citizens and by the civil authorities. But the reason why they can with a good conscience be enthusiastic advocates of the Christian practice in the matter of Sunday is that they regard it as right, and as for the highest well-being of the entire State.

Very truly yours,

J. Gresham Machen, Professor of New Testament in Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

Postscript: over at David Strain’s blog come a couple of helpful posts about sabbath observance. As a native Scot, Strain knows first-hand about patterns of sabbatarianism among Old World Presbyterians, both mainline and sideline. In fact, during a Hart expedition to Scotland a decade ago, Mrs. Hart and her husband were delighted to see that even the Church of Scotland congregations conducted morning and evening service. This contrasts with the practice of one service among conservative Reformed and Presbyterians in the United States where supposedly Reformed Christianity is doing better.

Strain also mentions one of the common complaints about sabbatarianism – that is it legalistic. Well here is one radical two-kingdom virus carrier who also fully supports the supposed legalism of sabbath observance. In fact, the critics of 2k ought to consider where the leading 2k voices are on matters like the fourth commandment and the regulative principle of worship (as in the second commandment). Antinomian? Reconsider.

Ken Myers on the Bible

Published on by D. G. Hart111 Comments

BibleMany years ago – too many for those of his vintage – Ken Myers, the talking voice behind Mars Hill Audio, wrote a piece that should be more widely known and read, “Christianity, Culture, and Common Grace.” It is available in pdf at the Mars Hill website. Ken is one of the best students of culture, as attested by his book, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, a work in which he draws explicitly upon the arguments of Meredith Kline about cult and culture. (Kerux readers beware). Those same insights inform Ken’s essay on common grace and lead him to write the following about the sufficiency of Scripture:

We don’t hear much about the “insufficiency of Scripture.” But it is an important point to keep in mind when thinking about Christianity and culture. Scripture does not present itself as the only source of truth about all matters. It does not even present itself as a source of some truth about everything. It presents itself as the only authoritative source of truth about some things, and they are the most important things. But the Bible does not claim to teach us the fundamentals of arithmetic, of biology, of engineering, or of music. About most of the matters of culture, the Bible has little explicit to say. Many people insist on taking implicit statements from Scripture (or allegedly implicit statements) and deducing from them an entire theory. This is often done in the name of a high view of Scripture, but it is rather to treat Scripture as a magic book. It is a superstitious view of Scripture, not the view God has himself presented. The belief that all the blueprints for all of life are in Scripture is in part derived from the notion that reason and general revelation are not to be trusted.

Makes sense to me.

What I'm Saying

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

guinness-draft1Over at Evangel, one of First Things ‘ blogs, readers and contributors have been busy attempting to define that 600-pound object in the room that goes by the name evangelical but defies descriptions as either an elephant or gorilla. Paul McCain, the author of the post, is responding to an interview at Evangel with Os Guinness (yes, that Guinness – brilliant!). In the interview, Guinness makes the following distinction between evangelicalism and orthodoxy:

Interviewer: Evangelicalism is more of the foundation and Orthodoxy is built on top of that.

Guinness: Exactly, and that is why whenever there is corruption, deadness, formality, heresy, whatever in the church, there will always be the impulse to go back to Jesus which is the Evangelical impulse. That’s why I would insist that, understood historically, theologically, spiritually; it is deeper than the other impulses. So Evangelicals are embarrassed by the culture of Evangelicalism or the politics of Evangelicalism, but that’s just a call to reformation.

This indeed a curious riff on the form-content distinction that generally lets evangelicals do whatever in worship and evangelism for the sake of the content of saving souls or being led by the Spirit (as Luther would say, feathers and all). Guinness implies that evangelicalism is formless; it is almost a gnostic or docetic understanding of Christianity in which the relationship or loyalty or feeling about Jesus transcends any kind of embodiment, whether in thought, word, or practice. It also has the advantage of bestowing upon the lexicographer – in this case, Guinness – the privileged position of determining whatever belongs or doesn’t to evangelicalism.

But then comes an interesting exchange between McCain at his post with someone who chimes in that German pietism is the continental equivalent of the revivalism that Whitefield and Wesley spawned. Good Lutheran confessionalist that he is, McCain wants to clarify the relationship between German evangelicalism and historic Lutheranism:

“The Pietist streak runs deep within Lutheranism” needs some very serious qualification. In fact, Lutheran Pietism is responsible for nearly single-handedly destroying authentic confessing Lutheranism, since it eschewed dogmatics, doctrine, the means of grace, the office of the ministry, and so forth. It would be a very serious misinterpretation of Martin Luther to think that he was a Pietist.

To which the commenter responded:

my real point was to say that there is still an emphasis on experiential piety within Lutheranism. The Lutheran charismatics that I know draw on this stream and will even talk about the synergism of a Melanchthon. Most Lutherans will simply talk about the sacraments as encounters with God because of real presence.

All of this sort of reinforces the point that it’s easier to talk about Lutheran, Reformed, Pentecostal, than it is to talk about Evangelical, which is why I said it’s a spirituality.
(Lutheran charismatics – that’s a scary proposition!)

And McCain gives it back:

there is no “Lutheranism,” as it is properly understood and defined, apart from the confessions of the Lutheran Church, as contained in the Book of Concord. “Lutheran charismatics” is an oxymoron. It’s just a bunch of bored Lutherans dabbling with 20th century American Pentecostalism. The Lutheran Church firmly rejected Melanchthon’s errors on several key points.

Oh, for ten ounces of that confessional moxie among conservative Presbyterians.

And then along for the ride comes Francis Beckwith who proposes yet another reason for his belonging to the Evangelical Theological Society even after he went back into the Roman Catholic Church.

If the term “Evangelical” is broad enough to include high-church Anglicans, low-church anti-creedal Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, the Evangelical Free Church, Arminians, Calvinists, Disciples of Christ, Pentecostals, Seventh-Day Adventists, open theists, atemporal theists, social Trinitarians, substantial Trinitarians, nominalists, realists, eternal security supporters and opponents, temporal theists, dispensationalists, theonomists, church-state separationists, church-state accomodationists, cessationists, non-cessationists, kenotic theorists, covenant theologians, paedo-Baptists, and Dooweyerdians, there should be room for an Evangelical Catholic.

Why doesn’t occur to Beckwith that if evangelicalism is that broad, and if a besetting sin of Protestant liberalism was breadth (as in Lefferts Loetscher’s Broadening Church), then why is evangelical width a good thing? Why isn’t it actually a sign of incoherence and vacuity? Granted, born-again Protestantism could be Guinness’ warm feeling in my heart. But how do I tell the difference between the evangelical feeling and the one I receive after drinking several pints of Guinness?

What's the Difference between the OPC and PCA?

Published on by D. G. Hart21 Comments

presbyterian
In 1986 the OPC almost became part of the PCA. In the General Assembly report that laid out the rationale for Joining & Receiving, the OPC’s committee on ecumencity noted the following characteristics of the two communions. (Keep in mind that one of those denominations was 50 years old, the other only 14.)

Strengths
PCA
•Visibility
•Attractive name (though indistinguishable for the general public from the PCUSA)
•Vigorous evangelism
•Aggressive church extension and foreign mission programs
•Expressed commitment to Scripture and the Westminster Standards
•Expressed determination to instruct members in the Reformed faith

OPC
•Commitment to the Reformed faith as the teaching of Scripture
•Theological and ecclesiastical stability that has had world-wide influence for the Reformed
•Practicing Presbyterianism vs. hierarchical and congregational practice
•Church-oriented mission
•Willingness to expend prolonged time and effort to establish soundly-biblical bases for programs and actions
•Revised Form of Government
•Enrichment of the church by willingness to use the insights of other Reformed churches at home and abroad
•International Reformed ecumenical participation

Weaknesses
PCA
•Delegation of judicatories’ functions to commission
•Selective discipline
•Uneven indoctrination of new churches
•Problematical elements in the Form of Government
•Danger of loose subscription by officers
•Inadequate discussion at general assembly, a hindrance to mature biblically-based decisions
•Tendency toward domination of policy by staffs
•Competition among agencies for funds
•Methods of evangelism
•Opposing tendencies: bureaucracy/ congregationalism
•Involvement with non-Reformed foreign mission agencies
•Loyalty to regional (southern. presbyterian) distinctives

OPC
•No means of assuring Reformed training of candidates for the ministry
•No publication for exchange of opinion
•Weakness in local evangelism
•Growing ignorance of Church’s reason for existence
•Growing ignorance of the doctrine of the church
•Frequent inadequate preparation of covenant children and adult candidates for communicant membership

Aside from what these lists reveal about both communions, another consideration worth raising is how much has changed in 23 years in both churches. From the squint of oldlife, these differences appear even more glaring in 2010 than they did in 1986. But the biggest question may be why with these differences in front of them a majority of OPC commissioners voted in favor of J&R (not a sufficient majority, though, to send the matter to the presbyteries for ratification.

Some Happy New Year

Published on by D. G. Hart14 Comments

greenmountSeventy-two years ago on January 1, J. Gresham Machen died. He was fifty-five. It was a great loss to the church and the Reformed tradition. It is a sober way to wake up after a night of revelry. (If you care to drink a toast, you have time to recover. Machen did not die until approximately 7:30 Central Standard Time.)

To honor the day and the man, here is arguably the most poignant and profound passage from Machen’s writings:

. . . whatever the solution there may be, one thing is clear. There must be somewhere groups of redeemed men and women who can gather together humbly in the name of Christ, to give thanks to Him for his unspeakable gift and to worship the Father through Him. Such groups alone can satisfy the needs of the soul. At the present time, there is one longing of the human heart which is often forgotten — it is the deep, pathetic longing of the Chrsitian for fellowship with his brethren. One hears much, it is true, about Christian union and harmony and co-operation. But the union that is meant is often a union with the world against the Lord, or at best a forced union of machinery and tyrannical committees. How different is the true unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace! Sometimes, it is true, the longing for Christian fellowship is satisfied. There are congregations, even in the present age of conflict, that are really gathered around the table of the crucified Lord; there are pastors that are pastors indeed. But such congregations, in many cities, are difficult to find. Weary with the conflicts of the world, one goes into the Church to seek refreshment for the soul. And what does one find? Alas, too often, one finds only the turmoil of the world. The preacher comes forward, not out of a secret place of meditation and power, not with the authority of God’s Word permeating his message, not with human wisdom pushed far into the background by the glory of the Cross, but with human opinions about the social problems of the hour or easy solutions of the vast problem of sin. Such is the sermon. And then perhaps the service is closed by one of those hymns breathing out the angry passions of 1861, which are to be found in the back part of the hymnals. Thus the warfare of the world has entered even into the house of God. And sad indeed is the heart of the man who has come seeking peace.

Is there no refuge from strife? Is there no place of refreshing where a man can prepare for the battle of life? Is there no place where two or three can gather in Jesus’ name, to forget for the moment all those things that divide nation from nation and race from race, to forget human pride, to forget the passions of war, to forget the puzzling problems of industrial strife, and to unite in overflowing gratitude at the foot of the Cross? If there be such a place, then that is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive the weary world. (Christianity and Liberalism [1923], 180-81)

The Virus is Spreading – Spooky

Published on by D. G. Hart175 Comments

virusApparently the Westminster California hermeneutic has now infected the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Ligon Duncan recently issued a statement that clarified difference among ACE members on whether or not to sign the Manhattan Declaration. (For some of the diversity among evangelicals or conservative Protestants, go here.)

Duncan wrote:

The Alliance has not historically weighed in on social ethical issues, not because they are unimportant, nor because it is inappropriate for Christians to do so, but because of the mission of the Alliance which is “to call the twenty-first century church to reformation, according to Scripture, so that it recovers clarity and conviction about the great evangelical truths of the gospel and thus proclaims these truths powerfully in our contemporary context.” Specifically, we are an alliance of confessional Protestants (and heirs of the historic Reformed Confessions) who work together to “promote the reform of the church according to Scripture, and to call the church to be faithful to the Scriptures, by embracing and practicing the teaching of Scripture concerning doctrine, life and worship.”

So if the Bible speaks to all of life, including marriage, and the sanctity of human life, and ACE is committed to reforming the church according to Scripture, then why wouldn’t the Alliance advocate the Manhattan Declaration for the church in ministering the word of God? Could it be that even when the Bible does speak to some moral matters, it does not do so in a way suitable for the larger society?

In other words, could it be that the kind of distinction between kingdoms for which Westminster California is notorious is not so radical but even appeals to the good confessing evangelicals that constitute ACE? Hmmmm.

The Westminster Hermeneutic Apparently Infects Kerux

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

syringe

And apparently, readers of the current review haven’t read very deeply in the journal. But a handy gadget at Kerux’s website reveals some items of note.

First this article by Scott Clark on John 2:13-22, on Christ’s cleansing of the Temple.

One lesson taught is the end of the theocratic arrangement in Israel:

It is ironic that those who were to care for God’s resting place, the place symbolic of God’s covenantal communion with his people, should be so insensitive to Jesus’ actions and words. What the priestly aristocracy does not realize is that by opposing Jesus, the temple guardians are opposing the temple itself! As in the garden and in the theocracy, God’s people have again desecrated God’s temple. Not only have they polluted piety for profit, but they fail to recognize the very purpose for which the temple stands–it is a house for God. We know this because they failed to recognize God when he came to the temple!

Because they lacked the Spirit, the Jews completely misunderstood Jesus to be speaking about the temple in which they were standing. Jesus is saying that his body is the temple. He is the “true” or the “real” temple (Jn. 6:32,33). Jesus’ temple supersedes the Herodian temple. Jesus’ and John’s words explain his act of cleansing the temple. Jesus is prophetically foreshadowing the final destruction of the temple. . . .

[T]he Jerusalem temple is an unsatisfactory habitation for our God. Like everything else connected with the old covenant, the temple is an incomplete expression of God’s grace. To redeem us, God must tabernacle in our flesh (Jn. 1:14). In this way the destiny of the temple is bound to the destiny of the Christ.

We also learn from Clark about the importance of holiness after in the new covenant:

God’s requirements for the holiness of his dwelling place have not been watered down in the new covenant. In fact they are greater. Coexisting with the other “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:5) joined together to become a “dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph. 2:21) means even greater holiness than that of the old covenant. We no longer have to watch Moses go to the tent to meet with God; he has come to us in his Son and now in his Spirit.

Clark even affirms the importance of union with Christ:

Not only are we God’s temple, but we still have a religious life in the temple. For the evangelist, to truly be in the temple is to be in Christ because he is the true temple. John wrote his gospel to the end that we might find ourselves standing in the temple (Jn. 20:31; Col. 3:3). To be in the temple is to be in communion with God. It is to have intimate, personal fellowship with God. Whoever is united by the Spirit to the ascended Lord is now in the true, heavenly, Spirit-filled, temple and worships truly.

Perhaps even more arresting than Clark’s meditation was David VanDrunen’s essay in Kerux on the culture wars. Since WSC continues to receive demerits for not being hard on crime, and apparently the Kerux review hints at this (only a few have actually seen the review because the print run is so small, and those who have read it have yet to finish it), VanDrunen’s piece, “Biblical Theology and the Culture War,” is particularly worthy of notice.

Here is one point that VanDrunen makes during his reflections on Jeremiah 29:

This brief look at biblical theology should teach us a number of things about this battle. Most important of all, it teaches us that the culture war rages in Babylon, not in the Promised Land. A number of other important considerations arise from this. For one thing, it reminds us that in any of our cultural struggles we are not to set as a goal the annihilation or even the radical transformation of society. The existence of Babylon is completely legitimate. This is a particularly relevant message for Americans especially to heed. America is portrayed as the Promised Land so often—it is the hope of the world, the shining city on the hill, with liberty and justice for all. It is the refuge for the teeming masses of distant shores yearning to be free. It is a land of never before attained prosperity and military strength. America certainly is a great land, and patriotic affections are good and healthy. But it is not paradise, and never was. And neither is any other place on earth. To view any earthly land as the Promised Land is to set our sights both too high and too low at the same time: too high for our nation’s prospects and too low for what the Promised Land really is. People wage culture wars in Babylon, and to whatever extent they win or lose, Babylon continues to be just that—Babylon! It will not be annihilated, and it will not be transformed into something else.

To understand this is to put things into perspective. If the America of 50 or 100 or 200 years ago was Babylon, and if the America of the next generation, apart from the outcome of this culture war, will still be Babylon, should we not conclude that culture wars really are not won or lost, at least not absolutely? Living in Babylon by definition implies living outside of Paradise in a land which does not in any special way belong to the church, and as such is more or less filled with injustice, immorality, and any number of other depravities which motivate the culture warriors. As long as the church has lived in Babylon, it has been involved in cultures with marks of degeneracy. And as long as it continues to live here, it will face the same thing. It is only at Christ’s return that wicked culture and its supporters will be abolished completely: “God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels” (2 Thess. 1:6-7). The culture war has been raging for ages and it will not end until Christ returns. Why do we so often act as if the 1960’s, with the corresponding rise of the drug culture and sexual promiscuity, marked the beginning of this war? Perhaps the battle rages more fiercely and more visibly now, but even Christians living in Norman Rockwell America should have realized the existence of the culture war—the same culture war which rages around us now. As a wise man long ago observed, there is nothing new under the sun.

Does this mean that fighting the culture wars is wrong? VanDrunen says, “of course not.” But if Christians do fight in those battles they need to do so with a proper understanding of the stakes involved:

God commanded the people in Jeremiah 29 to seek the peace and prosperity of the city in which they lived, and this applies to us as well. We know that a nation with increasing numbers of cocaine-addicts, abortions, thefts, child-abuse cases, illiterates, etc., etc., will not retain desirable levels of peace and prosperity for long. Therefore we do have an obligation to do things which will, if not eliminate such things, at least substantially reduce their rate of occurrence. The peace and prosperity of our society, not to mention our personal peace and prosperity, depend on it. And the political sphere certainly is one of the institutions of culture which will make its indelible stamp on the peace and prosperity of the society. Christians therefore should have an interest in the political process when their form of government allows it, as ours does. To turn our backs on politics would mean to turn our backs in part to the command of God to seek the peace and prosperity of our nation. We may debate amongst ourselves which political positions to promote and how much emphasis should be given to the political process, but the interest and involvement in politics which we see among the “religious right” is in itself a good thing. But, it must always be accompanied by the realization that we are participating in the politics of Babylon. What should we hope to gain by our cultural, including political, activity? Only a relatively better life for society, ourselves, and our children in the years to come than what we would otherwise face. We seek not the destruction of our enemies, but simply a modestly better society which in the future will face exactly the same kinds of threats and require the same sort of opposition. Perhaps we can turn America back to the culture of the 1950’s. But the 1960’s will always follow.

Our first hope naturally is for the peace and prosperity of our nation. But perhaps we should be secretly pleased when these turn into disorder and depression. We have noted how many Christians today yearn for the days of public virtue present years ago in our nation’s history. It seems that there is little doubt that as far as public virtue goes America has seen better days. But when we see how such memories distort the biblical understanding that we live in Babylon, when we see how they cause our hopes to seek fulfillment not in the next world, but in this, when we see how they paint a falsely idyllic picture in our minds which we ignorantly project into the future, does it not make us at least wonder how much good such relatively peaceful and prosperous days really do. If God answered our prayers and blessed our cultural efforts by bringing us days of unparalleled peace and prosperity, would that not in itself be a tremendous temptation to set our sights no higher than Babylon? Are not days such as ours good reminders of what Babylon really is—a pagan, depraved, and hopeless place over which an angel from heaven will one day shout: “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great” (Rev. 18:2)? The Israelites were apparently satisfied with the peace and prosperity of Babylon— only a tiny fraction of them returned to the Promised Land when the opportunity came. Will we as a church do any better?

Yes, let us pray for the peace and prosperity of our land for the sake of the physical well-being of ourselves and our children. But let us also be thankful for God’s often disappointing answers for the sake of the spiritual well-being of his church.

Articles such as these make Kerux worthwhile reading, especially for those inclined to read it along with the Talmud.

(By the way, the Nicotine Theological Journal‘s policy is never to turn on its contributors.)

Fire Season May be Over, But Not Open Season on Westminster California

Published on by D. G. Hart26 Comments

fire signWSC appears to be the pimply, skinny, dorky kid at the beach on whom the buff guys kick sand in order to impress the babes. Remarkable indeed is the constant stream of criticism that seems to throw cautions about charity and slander to the wind. WSC is apparently so obviously egregious that committed (or maybe should be committed) Reformed Christians can ignore what goes on at the other Reformed seminaries.

So in addition to the recent assertion that Horton denies the gospel, the ongoing critique and misrepresentation of the two kingdoms, and a petty review of a publicity piece by WSC on Christian education, now comes a lengthy negative review in Kerux of a book edited by WSC faculty on the Mosaic covenant that has our good CRC pastor, Rabbi Bret, gleeful over the opportunity to kick a little more sand at his favorite target. (Whether Bret is obsessive is open to debate, but of all the items in his index, the Radical 2k Virus has 202 entries — and some think I’m obsessed with Keller. The next most frequent subject is government. Warning: pastor Bret is a Theonomist who ran for office on the Constitution Party ticket – does the Constitution actually mention the Lord?)

(By the time of this posting, WSC seems to have attracted more attention from Pastor Bret than the birth of our Lord:

Kerux Throws The Gauntlet Down By Challenging The “Escondido Hermeneutic” 12/21

Kerux Sounds Five Bell Fire Alarm Against Raging Fire That Is “Escondido Hermeneutic” 12/22

Dr. R. Scott Clark … Your Snide Reply To Kerux Has Been More Then Amply Answered 12/25

Kerux & Its Five Alarm Fire — Drivers Beware “The Escondido Hermeneutic” is a Falling Contradiction Zone 12/26

Escondido Hermeneutic and Natural Law Theory 12/27)

The tension between the U.S. Constitution and the idea of a theonomic state is only the beginning of the inconsistencies that afflict our good CRC pastor, and his posts about the latest “dirt” on WSC are no exception to the rule of “look for no coherence in my views.” Bret writes:

The Reformed Church is living in hazardous times. We are betwixt the hammer of Federal Vision and the anvil of the R2K Escondido hermeneutic. And if that weren’t enough we are being crushed from the left and the right with postmodern theologies and the continued chickification of the Church. D. Martyn Lloyd Jones (The Doctor) used to say that truth was a knife’s edge and that one could easily fall off either side. God grant us wisdom and perseverance to pass on the faith once and delivered to the saints to the generation that comes behind us. God grant us grace to defeat all heterodox theologies.

But then Pastor Bret backs up and begins to hedge:

the hour may well be to late to roll back this theology. Already acolytes of Escondido are pushing their agenda in Church courts in a jihad against Federal Vision. Ironically, I agree that Federal Vision, in its more feral forms, needs to be removed from Reformed Churches. What I am concerned about though is that many of those who are leading the way in eliminating this Federal Vision disease have a equally potent disease that should it become the majority report will enervate Reformed Theology, the Reformed Church, and individual Christian lives every bit as much as if Federal Vision were to become triumphant.

So let’s get this straight. WSC is opposed to Federal Vision Theology, and so is pastor Bret. But then, let’s sure hope that WSC doesn’t prevail against FV because WSC is as bad as FV. But if WSC is opposed to FV, why is it as bad as FV? Dunno.

Pastor Bret apparently has not considered that WSC’s teaching on justification is closely bound up with two-kingdom theology, as David VanDrunen recently argued in his inaugural lecture. In fact, in Bret’s own reaction to the Manhattan Declaration you see a laudable concern to protect the gospel from social activism. On the occasion of that statement, Bret wrote:

I believe the MD does a good job of articulating Christian ethics. However, I also believe that Colson and others are fuzzing theological identity for the sake of pursuing a Christian moralism that will not survive if it is not built upon the foundation of a Theological identity that clearly advocates faith alone.

As I have said before I believe in co-belligerence, but I believe in it only when it is of a nature where all parties realize going in that we are only agreed on the very thin slice of whatever it is we are standing together on and that our agreement ends at the water’s edge of Biblical definitions of the essence of the Christian faith.

So did Mike Horton, one of Bret’s favorite targets, get any credit for taking a similar position on the Manhattan Declaration? No. Is pastor Bret capable of recognizing that a strong affirmation of the centrality of justification is the basis for opposing all forms of “works righteousness,” even the ones performed by members of the Constitution party? Not apparently.

One other possible point of convergence between pastor Bret and WSC is the ticklish matter of women’s ordination in the CRC. Now, I suppose – charitable guy that I am – that Bret is opposed to women in office even though he ministers in a communion that ordains women to the office of elder and pastor. Bret is opposed to feminism in most forms (and used to show up at the Bayly Brothers blog to second their targeting of most forms of female insubordination). Well, wasn’t WSC the institutional face of opposition to women’s ordination in the CRC? But will pastor Bret give WSC any credit for its positive positions?

So let’s tally up the WSC’s scorecard.

They get an A from pastor Bret on FV.

They get an A from him on statements like the Manhattan Declaration when those affirmations apparently compromise the gospel.

They get an A for opposing women’s ordination.

That averages out to a final grade of – you guessed it – F. Boy, theonomists are a demanding lot.

Meanwhile, the inconsistencies are not pastor Bret’s alone. Kerux’s review is particularly opposed to the teaching of Meredith Kline even though Kline wrote for Kerux when he was alive and may have been responsible for giving the journal early on some much needed credibility. In addition, the flack heading toward WSC from N. Indiana fails to recognize the substantial common ground upon which both sides stand regarding the need to defend the centrality of justification in current theological discussions as opposed to the non-existent or weak responses from elsewhere. That leaves FV as the only consistent critic of WSC. Sometimes it is good to be known by your enemies.

But the jaw-dropping dimensions of pastor Bret’s anomalous shout out to Kerux needs to be appreciated. As mentioned above, pastor Bret is a theonomist, which is why some of us refer to him as the CRC Rabbi. Kerux is decidedly committed to the biblical theology of Vos and Ridderbos. Kerux readers contemplate the heavenlies; they don’t look for Constitution Party candidates to codify divine law into American policy and legislation. Indeed, Kerux follows an approach to theonomy similar to Meredith Kline’s, which means that Kerux, not only having gotten its start at WSC, shares with WSC a commitment to biblical theology and opposing the confusion of kingdoms that accompanies flawed eschatology. Where Kerux stands on the controversy over justification post-Shepherd is another matter, and that may be the source of Kerux’s opposition to WSC (despite the good work of WSC faculty on the OPC report on justification.) And that would put pastor Bret in the very awkward position of looking for support against R2kV from folks who disagree with him on theonomy and on justification.

The mind melts, not from fires at WSC, but from the hot air that bellows forth to assail that spindly kid on the beach in southern California.

When Will Justin Taylor Notice?

Published on by D. G. Hart24 Comments

pie chartActually, even if Taylor doesn’t, for the Gospel Coalition Michael Pohlman does notice, and holds open the possibility that multi-site churches may be a fulfilment of the Great Commission. Still, the blog watch on Tim Keller has been remarkably silent about the feature story in USA Today about multi-site churches in which Redeemer NYC figured prominently (especially compared to the reaction from his lecture at Google and the recent story in New York Magazine). In one of the bigger surprises after the USA Today story, Keller’s fiercest on-line critics, the Bayly Brothers, praised the NYC pastor their “hero.”

This could be, as observed previously, an indication of the kind of media outlets that count among those who follow Keller. USA Today and the “700 Club” don’t achieve the same degree of cool as do Google and New York Magazine.

But the silence could also stem from some less than appealing associations that Keller owns thanks to the story — ties that Keller’s proponents would rather not notice. According to USA Today, multi-site churches make sense from the perspective of efficiency and maximizing resources:

It’s a growth strategy that works for churches of any size because it doesn’t require new buildings or fighting for zoning or parking space, says Scott Thumma, professor of sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary, where the institute is based.

“They just rent a couple of extra theaters and high schools and put together a church in a box. Most pastors wouldn’t give this as the primary reason, but clearly it’s a distinct advantage,” says Thumma, co-author of a 2008 study examining eight years of growth and change in megachurches.

Of the USA’s 100 largest churches, 67% now have two or more sites and 60% of the 100 fastest-growing churches also have multiple sites, according to the annual listings of the USA’s largest churches in Outreach magazine’s October issue.

Then there is the pastor from Oklahoma, a multi-site proponent like Keller, who is apparently following the business model of Filene’s Basement. Craig Groeschel’s LifeChurch.tv is “the second-largest church in the USA. By video some 26,776 see his sermons at at 13 meeting sites or campuses from Phoenix to Albany, N.Y.

The report adds, “Groeschel sees the multi-site route as a way to offer a classic evangelical message — “the Bible is true and salvation is only by grace’ — at bargain volume rates. His website boasts that LifeChurch.tv reached 1 million people in July, at a cost of 7 cents each. ‘For us, multisite is only a tool, nothing more,’ he says.”

Of course, Keller is not using video and the story concludes with a contrast between Keller and Driscoll. Keller prefers taxis and public transportation to Driscoll’s use of video to deliver his sermons.

Not to be missed are differences among Gospel Coalition leaders over multi-site church mechanisms of delivery. While Keller has disavowed video, John Piper’s Bethlehem Baptist uses it for its three-campuses-as-one-congregation model.

Whatever the reason, it is odd that when an evangelical pastor receives favorable coverage in a national newspaper, the pastor’s supporting cast of bloggers do not mention the article. It could be a valuable discomfort with multi-site churches, or that the story did not include a pie chart.