Author: D. G. Hart

Should a Reformed Christian Receive Treatment at a Roman Catholic Hospital?

Published on by D. G. Hart28 Comments

heart-monitorAfter a visit to my father at his local hospital, I had a worldview moment. What should have alerted me from the outset was the name of the place – St. Mary’s. But then I noticed that the spiritual services wing of the hospital had dropped off for him a brochure about their activities which was included with information about television channels and daily menus – talk about trivializing the eschaton. But the kicker was the crucifix in my dad’s ICU room. Shazzam!!! That’s a whole lot of idolatry for a man who is on a heart monitor.

But is Roman Catholic medicine really any different from Reformed medicine or even – dare I say – secular medicine. If worldviews go all the way down to the very tips of our toes, and if we can’t escape the claims of Christ in any parts of our lives, can I really look the other way in good conscience when entering a hospital room that displays an image of Christ on a cross?

And then there is the concern for quality of health care. If Abraham Kuyper was right that Roman Catholicism “represents and older and lower stage of development in the history of mankind” and if Protestantism occupies a “higher standpoint,” shouldn’t my dad try to find treatment at a Protestant hospital? Kuyper, by the way, wasn’t real complimentary of Roman Catholicism on science either.

It could be that I have once again misunderstood the claims of neo-Calvinism and that some algorithm exists for taking the gold of scientific advances from the dross of defective worldviews. But it could also be that the language of worldviews and the difference they make for every aspect of human existence is overdone, simply a rallying cry for inspiring the faithful, but not anything that would prevent my father from receiving treatment from unbelieving nurses employed by Roman Catholic administrators. Then again, the power of modernity is stunning, making all of those religious claims about connections between spiritual and physical reality look fairly foolish – as if a creed actually produces better medicine.

I mean no disrespect to the neo-Calvinists and their epistemological purity. But if they could help me out on this one, I’d be grateful. Does a Reformed worldview really make a difference for modern medicine and the ordinary decisions a sick believer must make in seeking a physician or hospital – under the oversight, of course, not of the elders but the insurance company.

Postscript: yes, I am preoccupied with neo-Calvinism. Shouldn’t Keller’s fans be happy? Oh, wait a minute.

Do Kuyperians Ever Listen to Kuyper?

Published on by D. G. Hart40 Comments

Hearing Kuyper TodayThe reviewer of Westminster California’s Evangelium has repeatedly in different online exchanges accused the two-kingdoms proponents of denying Article 36 of the Belgic Confession where it teaches that the magistrate has the God-ordained duty to promote the true religion and punish idolaters and blasphemers. It says: “And the government’s task is not limited to caring for and watching over the public domain but extends also to upholding the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist; to promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and to furthering the preaching of the gospel everywhere; to the end that God may be honored and served by everyone, as he requires in his Word.” (Often not mentioned by such appeals to Article 36 are the revisions that Dutch Reformed communions in the United States made to this part of the Confession. See postscript below.)

What is striking for all good Kuyperians is that Abraham Kuyper himself rejected the original language of Article 36 and refused to let anyone claim he was less of a Reformed Protestant for doing so. In the early 1880s Kuyper wrote a pamphlet on the reformation of the church that the editors of the Standard Bearer, the denominational magazine of the Protestant Reformed Church, translated and published over many issues during the 1980s. (Thanks to John Halsey Wood for reminding me of this resource.) Under the heading of “Concerning Reformation and the Magistrate,” Kuyper wrote the following:

We oppose this Confession out of complete conviction, prepared to bear the consequences of our convictions, even when we will be denounced and mocked on that account as unReformed.

We would rather be considered not Reformed and insist that men ought not to kill heretics, than that we are left with the Reformed name as the prize for assisting in the shedding of the blood of heretics.

It is our conviction: 1) that the examples which are found in the Old Testament are of no force for us because the infallible indication of what was or was not heretical which was present at that time is now lacking.

2) That the Lord and the Apostles never called upon the help of the magistrate to kill with the sword the one who deviated from the truth. Even in connection with such horrible heretics as defiled the congregation in Corinth, Paul mentions nothing of this idea. And it cannot be concluded from any particular word in the New Testament, that in the days when particular revelation should cease, that the rooting out of heretics with the sword is the obligation of magistrates.

3) That our fathers have not developed this monstrous proposition out of principle, but have taken it over from Romish practice.

4) That the acceptance and carrying out of this principle almost always has returned upon the heads of non-heretics and not the truth but heresy has been honored by the magistrate.

5) That this proposition opposes the Spirit and the Christian faith.

6) That this proposition supposed that the magistrate is in a position to judge the difference between truth and heresy, an office of grace which, as appears from the history of eighteen centuries, is not granted by the Holy Spirit, but is withheld.

We do not at all hide the fact that we disagree with Calvin, our Confessions, and our Reformed theologians.

Granted, the appeal to Kuyper here may look a tad inconsistent because of regular objections to the idea of transformationalism that Kuyper himself apparently launched. At the same time, this quotation does show that even in the efforts to claim Christ’s lordship over every square inch, Kuyper recognized limits to the logic of that sovereignty, limits that many modern-day Kuyperians seem incapable of making in order to avoid the shoals of theonomy.

Postscript: Latter day Kuyperians also recognized the limits of Christ’s lordship when they attached notations to the Belgic Confession like this one found in both the Christian Reformed Church and the United Reformed Churches of North America (it follows the assertion that the magistrate is not only responsible for the “welfare of the civil state, but also to protect the sacred ministry”:

The Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1910, recognizing the unbiblical teaching, contained in this sentence, concerning the freedom of religion and concerning the duty of the state to suppress false religion, saw fit to add an explanatory footnote. The Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1938, agreeing with the Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1910 as to the unbiblical character of the teaching referred to, but recognizing a conflict between the objectionable clauses in the Article and its footnote, decided to eliminate the footnote and to make the change in the text of the Article which appears above, corresponding to the change adopted in 1905 by the General Synod of the “Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland.” (See Christian Reformed Church Acts of Synod, 1910, pp.9,104-105; also Christian Reformed Church Acts of Synod, 1938, p. 17.). The Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1958 approved the following substitute statement which has been referred to other Reformed Churches accepting the Belgic Confession as their creed for evaluation and reaction: “And being called in this manner to contribute to the advancement of a society that is pleasing to God, the civil rulers have the task, in subjection to the law of God, while completely refraining from every tendency toward exercising absolute authority, and while functioning in the sphere entrusted to them and with the means belonging to them, to remove every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to every aspect of divine worship, in order that the Word of God may have free course, the kingdom of Jesus Christ may make progress, and every anti-christian power may be resisted.”

Hart Endorses Keller

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

Berry's WhatOr, how Tim Keller wants to save your aggie soul.

We were delighted to see a recent post by Keller at his blog in which he recommended rural congregations to aspiring pastors. It helps us get over some of the angst we experienced when reading about church planting in New York City. In this post, “The Country Parson,” Keller writes:

Young pastors or seminarians often ask me for advice on what kind of early ministry experience to seek in order to best grow in skill and wisdom as a pastor. They often are surprised when I tell them to consider being a “country parson” — namely, the solo pastor of a small church, many or most of which are in non-urban settings. Let me quickly emphasize the word “consider.” I would never insist that everyone must follow this path. Nevertheless, it is worth thinking about. It was great for me. . . .

Some will be surprised to hear me say this, since they know my emphasis on ministry in the city. Yes, I believe firmly that the evangelical church has neglected the city. It still is difficult to get Christians and Christian leaders to make the sacrifices necessary to live their lives out in cities. However, the disdain many people have for urban areas is no worse than the condescending attitudes many have toward small towns and small churches.

Young pastors should not turn up their noses at such places, where they may learn the full spectrum of ministry tasks and skills as they will not in a large church. Nor should they go to small communities looking at them merely as stepping stones in a career. Why not? Your early ministry experience will only prepare you for “bigger things,” if you don’t aspire for anything bigger than investment in the lives of the people around you. Wherever you serve, put your roots down, become a member of the community and do your ministry with all your heart and might. If God opens the door to go somewhere else, fine and good. But don’t go to such places looking at them only as training grounds for “real ministry.”

Could Wendell Berry have said it any better? Well, with all due respect to Keller’s powers of communication, probably. So let me round out my endorsement with some of the edge that makes Berry such an important person to consult about rural communities, farmers, the economy, and the work of the church agrarian settings. In “God and Country,” he writes:

The denominational hierarchies, then, evidently, regard country places in exactly the same was as “the economy” does: as sources of economic power to be exploited for the advantage of “better”places. The country people will be used to educate ministers for the benefit of city people (in wealthier churches) who, obviously, are thought more deserving of educated ministers. This, I am well aware, is mainly the fault fo the church organizations; it is not a charge that can be made to stick to any young minister in particular: not all ministers should be country ministers, just as not all people should be country people. And yet it is a fact that in the more than fifty years that I have known my own rural community, many student ministers have been “called” to serve in its churches, but not one has ever been “called” to stay. The message that country people get from their churches, then, is that the same message that they get from “the economy”: that, as country people, they do not matter much and do not deserve much consideration. And this inescapably imposes an economic valuation on spiritual things. According to the modern church, as one of my Christian friends said to me, “the soul of the plowboy ain’t worth as much as the soul of the delivery boy.” [from What Are People For, p. 97]

“Horton is completely wrong in his definition of the Gospel”

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

tetzelThat is Mark Horne’s charitable and cautious verdict of Mike Horton’s remarks about the Manhattan Declaration.

Horton’s offense was to write this: “This declaration continues this tendency to define ‘the gospel’as something other than the specific announcement of the forgiveness of sins and declaration of righteousness solely by Christ’s merits.”

But Horne will have none of it:

When Jesus preached the Gospel he did not preach the precise message that Horton says that he was supposed to. When the Apostles preached the Gospel, Luke does us the favor in Acts of telling us what they preached and it does not conform to Horton’s “specific announcement.” When Paul describes the believing response to the Gospel and the specific mental content it entails, he does not specify the reception of any such specific message.

It is not just that Horton is wrong, it is that the content of the Manhattan Document is exactly right to appeal to the Gospel as the Church’s commission to proclaim the justice of Jesus. Jesus is Lord and he has assumed enforcement and arbitration of every violation of those ethical mandates “grounded in creation.” Every violation will be brought before Jesus whom, according to the one and only Gospel, has been given authority as the raised and ascended Lord to Judge.

Horton’s ideas are not as dangerous as Tetzel’s sales pitch, because what he believes is true. But what he teaches is every bit as Biblically illiterate and twisting of Scripture. And the fact that professed Bible-believers cling to these false and groundless claims is as intellectually superstitious as any monk approaching a vial of Mary’s alleged breast milk on his knees.

The comparison of Horton to Tetzel is a deft touch. (With advocates for the Federal Vision like this, is there any wonder why many find it hard to take those Visionaries seriously?)

Important to notice here is not simply Horne’s rejection of Horton’s understanding of the gospel, as if there were any hope for sinners apart from Christ’s righteousness and the forgiveness that comes through trusting him. Also poignant is Horne’s identification of the sanctity of human life and heterosexual marriage – at least two concerns of the Manhattan Declaration – with the gospel.

Horne’s analysis is further confirmation of the dangers that attend not making justification the logical priority of any sort of good works on the part of the believer. If sanctification is not firmly situated within the context of justification, “works righteousness” is just around the corner such that to declare “‘ethical mandates’ grounded in creation” is to proclaim the gospel.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but how exactly do such mandates constitute “good news” to saints let alone to sinners? Careful how you answer. Those “filthy rags” have a way of needing the white robes of Christ’s imputed righteousness.

TKNY Update

Published on by D. G. Hart14 Comments

chopped liverJustin Taylor gives a helpful tip about the health of Tim Keller’s mojo. Apparently, he hasn’t lost it. The proof is a feature in New York Magazine with the unfortunate title, “Tim Keller Wants to Save Your Yuppie Soul” (which invites the question, “what must I do to be yuppie?”).

Mr. Taylor’s point seems to be that we were wrong to suggest a decline in Keller’s popularity by his appearance on “The 700 Club.” Actually, our point was to call attention to what Keller’s fans notice or don’t notice.

In which case, Taylor’s post only confirms our point. When Keller appears with Pat Robertson, Keller’s advocates yawn. But when Keller generates buzz in NYC, then he is the “it” man. (Just go to Google blog search and look for references to Keller’s appearance with Robertson compared to this feature story in New York Magazine.)

This suggests that for many evangelical Presbyterians who follow Keller, Virginia Beach is chopped liver compared to the Big Apple. The Reformed Chicks Blabbing at Belief.net give voice to this infatuation. “It’s amazing to me that the gospel can be preached in New York and New Yorkers are responding to it. They may not like everything they hear (as the journalist notes) but they at least giving the message a fair hearing. If jaded New Yorkers haven’t rejected the message, then there must be something of value in it.” Not only does this reveal a certain kind of provincialism – “gee, golly, look at all those big buildings in New York City” – but it also expresses a very un-Van Tillian apologetic – “we need to judge the merits of Christianity by whether sophisticated New Yorkers believe it.”

When Chicago Magazine, or Philadelphia Magazine, or Wichita Magazine run features on Keller, then we will know that his mojo is truly national and not simply confined to evangelicals in awe of Manhattan. But like that sophomore philosophy class question about trees falling in the woods, if Keller fans don’t notice the feature story on the most celebrated Presbyterian pastor, did the report really happen?

Why Not Lutheran Baptist?

Published on by D. G. Hart54 Comments

oxymoronOr, why do Baptists want to be Reformed (as opposed to Calvinistic or particular), and why do Reformed Protestants present an object more attractive than Lutherans to Baptists?

These questions continue to bump and push around the mush in my mind, especially when I read folks like James White taking exception to Presbyterians who want to say that Reformed Baptist is something of an oxymoron, and then read the follow-up discussion over at Scott Clark’s blog. I understand how some may take the narrowing of Reformed identity to exclude Baptists as needlessly exclusive. Though I also can’t understand why no reviewer complained about the Dictionary of the Reformed and Presbyterian Tradition in America’s exclusion of Baptists from the scope of entries. (Mark Noll and I didn’t even include those Baptists who do baptize infants – Congregationalists.) I also understand that a Baptist might try to be covenantal in his understanding of redemptive history and still reject infant baptism.

What I don’t comprehend is how few seem to notice or take issue with the traffic for so long running between confessional Reformed and Baptists instead of between confessional Reformed and other confessional Protestants. Mind you, I enjoy the company of Calvinistic Baptists as much as the next Orthodox Presbyterian, and find all sorts of signs of health among those congregations known as Reformed Baptist.

But why are Lutherans chopped liver? Why, in fact, has Lutheran become in some Reformed circles almost as objectionable as the other l-word – “liberal”? One could actually argue that confessional Lutherans share as much in common with confessional Reformed as particular Baptists, and our history is even longer (though it obviously has some rough spots). Could it be the objections to Lutherans run along ethnic lines – dare we say the twentieth-century German problem that forced German-Americans in Pennsylvania to become “Pennsylvania Dutch”? Or is it a problem of liturgy and the triumph of John Owen and Banner of Truth among American Presbyterians as opposed to the liturgical traditions of the Reformed churches on the continent?

If the latter, then as is so often the case, the turning point in American Presbyterian history is 1741 and the anointing of George Whitefield as the Boy George of vital Calvinism. Odd though that no one called that Episcopal priest Reformed.

The Reason to Be Thankful

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apostle paul

. . . what was the difference between the teaching of Paul and the teaching of the Judaizers? What was it that gave rise to the stupendous polemic of the Epistle to the Galatians? To the modern Church the difference would have seemed to be a mere theological subtlety. About many things the Judaizers were in perfect agreement with Paul. The Judaizers believed that Jesus was the Messiah; there is not a shadow of evidence that they objected to Paul’s lofty view of the person of Christ. Without the slightest doubt, they believe that Jesus had really risen from the dead. They believed, moreover, that faith in Christ was necessary for salvation. But the trouble was, they believed that something else was also necessary; they believed that what Christ had done needed to be pieced out by the believer’s own effort to keep the Law. From the modern point of view the difference would have seemed to be very slight. Paul as well as the Judaizers believed that the keeping of the law of God, in its deepest import, is inseparably connected with faith. The difference concerned only the logical – not even, perhaps, the temporal – order of three steps. Paul said that a man (1) first believes on Christ, (2) then is justified before God, (3) then immediately proceeds to keep God’s law. The Judaizers said that a man (1) believes on Christ and (2) keeps the law of God the best he can, and then (3) is justified. The difference would seem to modern “practical” Christians to be a highly subtle and intangible matter, hardly worthy of consideration at all in view of the large measure of agreement in the practical realm. What a splendid cleaning up of the Gentile cities it would have been if the Judaizers had succeeded in extending to those cities the observance of the Mosaic law, even including the unfortunate ceremonial observances! Surely Paul ought to have made common cause with teachers who were so nearly in agreement with him . . .

Paul saw very clearly that the difference between the Judaizers and himself was the difference between two entirely distinct types of religion; it was the difference between a religion of merit and a religion of grace. If Christ provides only part of our salvation, leaving us to provide the rest, then we are still hopeless under the load of sin. . . . Such an attempt to piece out the work of Christ by our own merit, Paul saw clearly, is the very essence of unbelief; Christ will do everything or nothing, and the only hope is to throw ourselves unreservedly on His mercy and trust Him for all.

From J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (1923)

Thanksgiving with the Coens?

Published on by D. G. Hart2 Comments

lone biker of apocThe e-message this week from the nice folks at Christianity Today included a list of the five best movies on thankfulness. According to Annie Young Frisbee (imagine if she had married into the Boomerang clan) the Coen brothers come in at number five with – drum roll – Raising Arizona. She writes:

An ex-con and an ex-cop kidnap one of the Arizona quintuplets in hopes of creating the family they couldn’t have on their own. On the run from the law and a bunch of outlaws, their journey leads them to be grateful for the joys they have always had.

Raising is a great movie but hardly the warm fuzzy that Ms. Frisbee makes it out to be since the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse is an omen of the killer in No Country for Old Men, and the last line, said by H. I. while overlooking a Thanksgiving Day spread, about a fairer future for him and his beloved, mocks Utah. This means that it concludes with a swipe at the support Mormons gave to family values during those years when Reagan – that “sumbich”– was in the Whitehouse. (Frisbee’s take on Raising may confirm Ken Myers’ clever line that “evangelicalism is making the world safe for Mormonism.”)

For that reason, a better Thanksgiving Day pick may be Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters. Yes, it has its dark moments and Woody’s funny but starting to get old complaints about love and death. But it begins and ends with a sumptuous Thanksgiving Day meal, and it is probably Allen’s most uplifting movie – ever.

The choice for the Harts in 2009, though, is Accidental Tourist, a movie based on the novel by Anne Tyler that is set in Baltimore – a plus for all fans of Machen and Mencken – and features an idiosyncratic family and their methods of cooking turkey. Yum, yum.

German Reformation

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Heidelberg 027Sebastian Heck is a church planter in Heidelberg who needs our prayers and support. He has recently sent out news about the launch of a Bible study and a terrific site for worship in the heart of the historic (and beautiful) city. You may read about it here.

(I know, this isn’t funny or smart-alecky. Apparently Tim Keller hasn’t gotten out of bed this week.)

Where All the Girls Are Strong and Some of the Boys Wear A Fez

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

Masons in MakingScott Clark observes an arresting inconsistency in the pages of Christian Renewal, on the order of Captain Renault’s being “shocked, shocked” to find that gambling was going in on Rick’s café (in Casablanca). CR is the Dutch-Canadian publication that gives lots of room to those who attack two-kingdom theology through the cross-hairs of Christians schools. And yet, as Clark shows, CR is seemingly silent on the sins of Masonry, and it has implications for other commandments in the Decalogue.

He writes:

So, just to keep score, according to the CR it’s unforgivable to defend Christian schooling incorrectly but it’s okay to be a Freemason? Which of these issues cuts closer to the heart of the Reformed faith: denying the uniqueness of Christ (by virtue of membership in the Lodge) or defending Christian schooling imperfectly? Why does Elliott get a pass but WSC “gets it in the neck”? Where’s the scathing editorial condemnation of this violation of the law of God?

While we are at it we should wonder about the CR’s stance on the other ground for the formation of the CRC. Where is the CR on hymnody vs psalmody? Is the CR a vocal advocate for the recovery of genuine Reformed worship? I don’t recall the CR beating the drum for ridding our churches of organs and man-made hymns.

For that matter, where are the URCs on this question? Why does our church order not follow the 1619 Church Order of Dort strictly on this? Why did not the founders of the URCs connect CRC’s departure from the regulative principle of worship to her decline? Did they imagine that if we only turned the clock back to 1959 we could make history turn out differently than the CRC did? (See Recovering the Reformed Confession on this).

Is it that we are to be “foursquare” on “Christian schooling” but liberal on the second commandment as confessed and understood by the Reformed churches since the 16th century? If so, what does that say about us? It’s essential to be “orthodox” on views that are not confessed in Heidelberg Catechism, e.g. how we teach math, but it’s acceptable to ignore the clear and consistent teaching of the Reformed faith on how we worship God? For those of us who think that the Reformed confessions, rather than social conservatism, define what it is to be Reformed this is all very confusing.

So it seems that the antithesis really boils down to who sends their children to Christian schools and who doesn’t. But when it comes to Freemansonry, one of the best examples of autonomous, French revolutionary thought – you know the kind that Abraham Kuyper denounced with institutions like the Anti-Revolutionary Party – the antithesis doesn’t look quite so antithetical.