Author: D. G. Hart

Keller Endorses Clark

Published on by D. G. Hart28 Comments

clark recoveringNot exactly, but the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City did say in his interview with Mike Horton at the White Horse Inn that confessional Christianity is the answer to the problems confronting the contemporary church. Okay, he said, “confessional evangelical” Christianity, which to confessional Protestants is a bit of an oxymoron since evangelical stands closer to pietist than confessional on the spectrum of Protestant Christianity. Even so, there Keller was telling Mike and company that teaching the Heidelberg, and adding more liturgy, is what the ailing Protestant witness needs. Along the way, Keller said that confessional churches were the proper antidote to megachurches, which at least in his experience are too slick, too entertainment oriented, and too consumerist for the sophisticates who reside in Manhattan.

I sure wish Mike had asked Keller more about confessional Protestantism and where Redeemer Church is exactly on the faith and practice of Reformed Christianity. Granted, Keller was on to talk about his book, Reasons for God, which is a work of apologetics, not pastoral ministry. Even so, the discussion was revealing if only because reaching unbelievers is something that has bound Redeemer closer to Willow Creek than Keller let on with his contrast between confessional and megachurch churches.

What Keller did not concede is that he and Bill Hybels have emerged as gurus for an approach to church planting that is “seeker-sensitive.” The seekers may be suburban Chicagoans or cosmopolitan New Yorkers. But in both cases the stress has been more on winning people over than on discipling the won in the whole counsel of God, as in the Great Commission’s “everything I have commanded you.” This is not to say that evangelism is wrong or bad. It is to question whether evangelism is the paradigm for a full-service church in the tradition of Reformed confessionalism. I mean, if you classify your worship services according to musical style as Redeemer does – classical or jazz – you may not exactly have read through Clark’s Recovering the Reformed Confession about the nature and piety of confessional Protestantism.

What makes this point even more plausible is something that Keller wrote about a month before appearing on Horton’s show. At his blog Keller wrote:

The time at Willow led me to reflect on how much criticism this church has taken over the years. On the one hand, my own ‘camp’ — the non-mainline Reformed world — has been critical of its pragmatism, its lack of emphasis on sound doctrine. On the other hand, the emerging and post-modern ministries and leaders have disdained Willow’s individualism, its program-centered, ‘corporate’ ethos. These critiques, I think, are partly right, but when you are actually there you realize many of the most negative evaluations are caricatures.

Keller goes on to say that with the assistance of John Frame he has come to a new appreciation for Hybels and Willow Creek. (Note: Keller and Frame share more than tri-perspectivalism in common; they also understand the nature and character of Reformed worship in ways that contravene the regulative principle as found in both the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity.) According to Keller, applying Frame, Willow Creek manifests a “a ‘kingly’ emphasis on leadership, strategic thinking, and wise administration.” Keller admits that sometimes the Willow Creek model “obscures how organic and spontaneous church life can be.”

But that concession leads Keller once again to give another of his “with-presbyters-like-this-who-needs-evangelicals” stands for the Reformed tradition. He writes that “Reformed churches have a ‘prophetic’ emphasis on preaching, teaching, and doctrine” but the danger is “a naïve and unBiblical view” which assumes “that, if we just expound the Word faithfully, everything else in the church — leader development, community building, stewardship of resources, unified vision — will just happen by themselves.” (To complete Frame’s triangle, Keller credits the emergent church with an emphasis on community, liturgy and sacraments.”)

This perspective on the Reformed ministry does explain why Keller didn’t endorse Clark’s book. It also indicates why Keller and the rest of Redeemer’s staff need to read it. Confessional Protestants do not believe simply, to paraphrase a line from Field of Dreams, “if you preach it, they will come.” I know pastors in the Redeemer NYC diocese who accuse the Reformed tradition of being logocentric. If that means affirming the formal principle (sola scriptura) of the Reformation, then I’ll accept the label.

But church life is much more than preaching and teaching the Bible and our Reformed confessions teach this. They say all sorts of interesting things about word, sacraments, prayer, discipline, worship, the Lord’s Day, communion, ordination, and polity. They all assume that these teachings require the efforts of pastors and elders who attend session and consistory meetings, presbyter and classis, General Assembly and Synod, visit with families in their homes and the sick in hospitals, catechize the youth, practice hospitality, and prepare high-carb casseroles and jello salads for pot-luck suppers.

That kind of hands-on, local ministry is what animates confessional Presbyterianism. As Old Lifers know, it is seeker-sensitive in the best sense of the phrase, namely, serving the God who seeks Christians who worship in spirit and truth.

Deconstructing Evangelicalism

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

BE074639Philip Yancey writes at Christianity Today one of his last columns for a while. He is not entirely encouraged by what evangelicalism has become, though he also finds room for encouragement. As is typical of so much writing about evangelicalism, Yancey notes the ying and yang that at once makes evangelicalism successful and destructive.

On the yang, Yancey writes, “In the past year I have visited the Middle East, India, Africa, Latin America, and Europe as the guest of churches and ministries. In each place, evangelicals exude life and energy. While staid churches change slowly, evangelicals tend to be light on their feet, adapting quickly to cultural trends.”

But for yang Yancey also observes that evangelicals are slaves to innovation (some might call it idolatry but we refuse to use such freighted language — good for us!). “The Jesus movement,” he writes, “the house-church movement, seeker-friendly churches, emergent churches—evangelicals have spawned all of these. In their wake, worship bands have replaced organs and choirs, PowerPoint slides and movie clips now enliven sermons, and espresso bars keep congregants awake. If a technique doesn’t work, find one that does.”

Yancey cautions “that mimicking cultural trends has a downside. At a recent youth workers conference I attended, worship meant a DJ playing techno music at jet-engine volume while a sweaty audience crowded the stage, jumping up and down while shouting spiritual one-liners. At the risk of sounding old-fashioned, I couldn’t help questioning the depth of worship.”

Well, I’m sorry but you can’t have it both ways. Innovation means a certain kind of vigor, one that attracts “new” followers. Innovation also means you disrespect tradition and also that you have no tradition – other than a perpetual quest for innovation. Evangelicalism as conservative Protestantism — are you kidding?

But none of this prevents Yancey from staying the course with evangelicalism, and advising against not abandoning the name, but “living up to it.” In fact, he observes one encouraging trend, namely, the evangelical embrace of the Social Gospel. “The fundamentalist-social gospel divide that marked the church a century ago has long since disappeared. Now evangelical organizations lead the way in such efforts as relief and development, microcredit, HIV/AIDS ministries, and outreach to sex workers.”

What Yancey fails to realize is that the Social Gospel was originally an evangelical enterprise that married word and deed in such a way that evangelicals gave deeds of mercy equal weight with word and sacrament. Over time this evangelical wedding of evangelism and reform led to an inability to see that the eternal things of word and sacrament were truly more important than temporary forms of relief and development. In other words, evangelicalism became the path to liberal Protestantism. Evangelicalism as conservative Protestantism — are you still kidding?

Along with the email that included a link to Yancey’s article came other links to other CT articles on evangelicals. One of those by Kevin Offner in 1995 – almost 15 years ago!! – included yet another depressing assessment of evangelicalism:

Just how does one define “evangelical” today? Until recently it was clearly understood, implicitly if not explicitly, that evangelicals were fully committed to two truths: the authority of Scripture and the necessity of the new birth. And the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who saves us from our sins, was the common object of adoration. One evangelical might disagree with another on secondary matters but they both shared a common, nonnegotiable center.

Today this center has become fuzzy and elusive as American pluralism hits evangelicalism with a vengeance. Lines are being drawn not over whether one does or does not wholeheartedly affirm the gospel but over secondary matters, which in turn are often set up as litmus tests for unity.

All of this invites the question: why is anyone still considering “evangelical” a meaningful Christian identity? I sort of understand why CT does, it being the flagship magazine of “the movement.” But if Yancey and Offer see these problems, what good is keeping the evangelical moniker in use? Even more poignant is why conservative Presbyterians would continue to want to call themselves evangelical.

And You Thought New York City Was Hard to Transform

Published on by D. G. Hart42 Comments

indinaImagine the hurdles that Kuyperians in Indiana who practice law are facing. In fact, look at the vow this allegedly wholesome mid-western state, known for Booth Tarkington and high school basketball – if only they’d invented hot dogs and motherhood – requires of attorneys.

Rule 22. Oath of Attorneys
Upon being admitted to practice law in the state of Indiana, each applicant shall take and subscribe to the following oath or affirmation:

“I do solemnly swear or affirm that: I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Indiana; I will maintain the respect due to courts of justice and judicial officers; I will not counsel or maintain any action, proceeding, or defense which shall appear to me to be unjust, but this obligation shall not prevent me from defending a person charged with crime in any case; I will employ for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to me, such means only as are consistent with truth, and never seek to mislead the court or jury by any artifice or false statement of fact or law; I will maintain the confidence and preserve inviolate the secrets of my client at every peril to myself; I will abstain from offensive personality and advance no fact prejudicial to the honor or reputation of a party or witness, unless required by the justice of the cause with which I am charged; I will not encourage either the commencement or the continuance of any action or proceeding from any motive of passion or interest; I will never reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless, the oppressed or those who cannot afford adequate legal assistance; so help me God.” (From Indiana Rules for Admission to the Bar and the Discipline of Attorneys)

The nerve of the Hoosiers. No acknowledgment of God as the creator and sustainer of all things, of Christ as redeemer of his church, no sense that notions of truth and falsehood, justice or crime come from the holy standard of God’s revealed will. Even worse, no mention of a Reformed world and life view, though I suppose the mention of God helps this go down better and lifts Indiana out of the vicious depths of Gotham.

But you do have to wonder how someone committed to the Lordship of Christ in every square inch could take such a vow. Isn’t Indiana guilty of proposing a common realm in which Christian and non-Christian lawyers must serve? And wouldn’t a Christian lawyer who took such a vow be acknowledging the existence of such a common realm. (Of course, it’s not neutral either; Indiana attorneys must always root for IU to beat Michigan.)

The answer could be the difference between theory and practice. Ideally, every square inch should be ruled by Christ, but of course it doesn’t work out in practice. If this were the explanation, then why mock those who try to find a theological rationale for such a common realm (which is what two-kingdom theology attempts)? After all, a two-kingdom attorney would have no problem taking such a vow. His conscience is clear because he knows the older Protestant teaching on the civil magistrate was afflicted with Constantinianism and that expectations for a Christian state died with the passing of Israel.

But the attorney who regularly chastises two-kingdom proponents for selling out the Reformed faith and then turns around and lives with rules of Indiana’s common realm of rules for attorneys, well, that seems remarkably inconsistent if not a tad perverse. It’s as if he’s a Kuyperian in only parts of his life, like the holy times when dropping the kids off at the Christian day school and attending the school board meeting, and then in the common realm living the rest of his day under the rule of Indiana’s legal institutions. How dualistic!

Home Schoolers Beware! Why Proponents of Christian Schools in Michiana Are Out to Destroy the Family

Published on by D. G. Hart63 Comments

home schoolingOkay, that’s a little over the top, but it may be a fitting response to those who use scare tactics to oppose two-kingdom theology. Our favorite theonomist in the CRC, Rabbi Bret, has posted at his blog a piece that apparently appeared in Christian Renewal, that un-American (okay, it’s Canadian) publication which touts worldviewism from its corner of Dutch-Canadian culture. (The author is an elder in the URC and a supporter of Mid-America Reformed Seminary. I thought the URC and MARS were opposed to developments in the CRC but apparently Christian schooling makes the ordination of women look trivial.)

The article in question is a review of Westminster California’s recent issue of Evangelium where the faculty write about the importance of Christian education. Now we are all for a return to the polemics of nineteenth-century America when Charles Hodge would engage in lengthy debates with the likes of Edwards Amasa Park by simply responding to articles published in another theological quarterly. But a review of a publicity piece that offers a little food for the mind of potential and existing donors? Hello!?!

As if a “review” of promotional material doesn’t prove the lengths to which the editor and author will go to try to demean two-kingdom theology, the author’s introduction seals the deal. He begins by quoting someone who doesn’t even write for Evangelium – that would be me, whom he identifies as a WSC professor. Since the author is a lawyer, you might expect him to pay respect to technicalities, which would mean identifying me at least as an adjunct professor, not a professor. But higher purposes will not get in the way of righteousness, justice, and a Christian school.

To add insult to WSC’s injury, he even quotes a comment I wrote about teaching American history to a string of interactions about worldview at this blog. What this has to do with the issue of Evangelium under review is again one of those technicalities that one would expect a practicing attorney to understand. A quotation from a random comment on a blog would likely not hold up in a court of law, or even an ecclesiastical court. But for the cause of Christian education, all evidence is legitimate, all two-kingdom comments are in contempt.

Such disregard for minor formalities may explain the author’s complete indifference to major questions of jurisdiction. The author seems to agree with the idea that parents are responsible for the education of their children. But then he assumes that parental responsibility is the equivalent of the Christian school. Here are a few illustrative quotations:

So Daniel’s mastery of pagan education while maintaining his godly faith serves as an example for the education of our covenant youth. Translation for our time: as long as your child maintains his spiritual faith, education in a non-Christian school may be a legitimate venue of choice.

Let’s pause here to note that foundational principles of Christian education do not vanish due to someone’s bad experience at a non-Reformed Christian school, or one’s favorable memory of “witnessing” to unbelievers at a public school. Rather, the issue is our principled commitment to a full-orbed, Reformed-shaped, Christian education.

Read again the representative NL2k quotations cited in the introduction to this review and ask whether these be can reconciled to our Reformed worldview. If you find they cannot, then until such errors are rejected, general affirmations coupled with contextualized qualifiers will not stem the concern over the effect NL2k could have in the Reformed churches and in our Christian schools.

Each of these quotes highlights the way that the author only thinks of Christian schools when considering a Christian education. For him, the antithesis is writ large in the subjects children study and that antithesis is manifest formally in the antagonism between Christian schools and state schools.

Pardon my interruption, but did the rapture occur and leave this author behind in the year 1960? Has he never heard of home schools where the Christian teacher is the parent? Do the advocates of Christian schools really mean to exert tyranny over Christian parents so that fathers and mothers who educate their children at home are found guilty of providing a non-Reformed education?

One line is indicative of this slight to Christian parents: “Christian parents can be like a customer deciding between a Cadillac and a Ford. One choice may be better and cost more, but either one will get you to your destination. Such a consumerist ‘common realm’ approach to education certainly strikes a discordant note from our historic Reformed ethic.”

So it comes to this, the sacred responsibility of parents to teach their children becomes for Christian school advocates something as trivial a buying a car made in Detroit. This is a long way from the sphere sovereignty taught by the likes of Abraham Kuyper in which parents do have responsibility for education. Home schooling, in fact, is the purest form of parental responsibility for education. But “reviews” like this one heap spoon fulls of scorn upon those parents who sacrifice time, careers, parts of the house, and even standing within the community to insure that their children receive a Christian education.

And here I worried about the Obama administration destroying the family. Little did I know I had to worry about the Christian school board.

Has Keller Lost His Mojo?

Published on by D. G. Hart20 Comments

solarflareAlmost no one in the blogosphere seems to have noticed that last week Pat Robertson interviewed Tim Keller on “The 700 Club.” The Redeemer pastor was there to promote his new book, Counterfeit Gods.

The reason for calling attention to Keller’s appearance with Robertson is not to raise questions about would-be unholy alliances between conservative Presbyterians and Pentecostals. The appearance was a good way for Keller to promote his book, and talk shows like Robertson’s are good ways to do this. (Anyone who has watched the HBO series, “The Larry Sanders Show,” knows how the talk-show formula is supposed to work.)

Instead, the question that arises from the Keller appearance is one about the trajectory of the New York City pastor’s celebrity. Back when The Reasons for God came out and Keller gave a talk at Google as part of the company’s Authors@Google series, the pastor’s fans lit up the blogosphere with links to and comments on the event.

But with his new book, Keller is apparently settling for CBN and Robertson, and his fans do not seem to notice. (It may actually be a healthy sign that New Life Presbyterians are not watching CBN.) From Google to “The 700 Club,” from the blogs agog to silent bloggers, one wonders if we are witnessing the first phase of contemporary Presbyterianism’s brightest star’s burn out.

The Myth of Worldview Antithesis

Published on by D. G. Hart36 Comments

Kuyper2Our friend and constant critic, Baus, likes to point out the incomplete reading of paleo-Calvinists in the wonders of neo-Calvinist wisdom. He also regularly recommends the work of Roy Clouser as providing a significant criticism of secular thought and the incompleteness of any thought or system that leaves out religion. Neutrality is not only a myth but a no-no.

So I was surprised to find a piece by Clouser in which he argues that faith is the most basic part of human identity, but will actually yield a Rodney King-like world in which people of different faiths will hold hands and sing “We Are the World.” This is antithesis with a heavy dose of synthesis.

On the one hand, Clouser insists that beliefs control all forms of human thinking so that faith affects all theories about the world and the way we live in it. He writes:

If theories differ according to the religious beliefs controlling them, then those of us who believe in God should have distinctive theories from those who do not share our biblical Faith. It is for this reason [my] book concludes with blueprints for constructing or reinterpreting theories so as to bring them under the control of belief in God. These include guidelines for a theory of reality, a theory of society, and a political theory, all of which consciously attempt to make the Judeo-Christian idea of God their controlling presupposition.

On the other hand, Clouser believes that such theoretical and religious differences will not result in antagonism. Instead, these differing blueprints of the world and ourselves will result in relations very much like those in a liberal, democratic social order. He responds to the question of whether such deep and profound differences will divide people and set them at odds:

For it means that theories are the products of spiritual faith communities working out explanations which differ relative to their religious beliefs. Moreover, the position goes beyond simply uncovering that religious control has in fact occurred. It argues that such control is unavoidable because the role of religious belief is embedded in the very nature of theoretical reasoning. In addition, it acknowledges that because theoretical reasoning is always faith-directed there can be no religiously neutral faculty or procedure by which religious beliefs themselves can be adjudicated. So won’t this position result in isolating the “isms” of philosophy and science and encouraging intolerance among them? . . .

The answer to such questions is that nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, pointing out the root causes of theory differences does not itself produce intolerance or lack of communication on the part of those who differ, any more than it produces the differences themselves. Intolerance and unwillingness to communicate with those who disagree are the fruits of the sin that infects human nature, not of uncovering the ultimate cause of disagreements. . .

The second part of our reply is even more important. It is that uncovering the religious roots of theoretical perspectives actually opens the way to more fruitful communication than is otherwise possible. . . . recognizing that all people have religious beliefs which regulate their theorizing can allow thinkers a mutual respect of one another’s large-scale theory differences as expressions of their alternative faiths. They may then be able to appreciate why others, starting from their contrary religious beliefs, developed their opposing theories in just the way they did. On this basis they can then explore any points of contact and agreement they may have, as well as gain greater insight into the nature of their genuinely irreconcilable differences. And this may all be done without the temptation of either side to view the other as sub-rational.

Wow! Who knew that religion was such a source of friendship and mutual good will? Sure, creeds were divisive and resulted in military conflict before the Enlightenment, and sure, the Irish are still conflicted over religion not to mention those delicate matters of Middle Eastern politcs. But apparently worldviews are swell and will give us what creeds couldn’t – a utopian world of peace and harmony.

Clouser leaves me wondering how seriously he takes faith. If it goes all the way down in one’s worldview and yet is not bothered by the false god or idol motivating my fellow interlocutor, citizen, or neighbor, how much does that faith take seriously the first of the Ten Commandments? Could it be the Clouser, like many neo-Calvinists, talks a better game of antithesis than liberal, democratic secular society allows him to practice?

My Vice Is Less Vicious Than Yours

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

OreoOver at the History News Network comes news of Dr. Robert N. Proctor, a historian at Stanford, who is coming out with a book on big tobacco (e. g. R. J. Reynolds/Nabisco) with the even-handed title, Golden Holocaust: A History of Global Tobacco. It seems that RJR/N is tying up Dr. Proctor in court to prevent his book from being published.

Ignorance of the manuscript’s contents and the tobacco company’s tactics prevents comment on the merits of this case. A cigar smoker, I have no obvious dog in this fight, except for the continuing condemnation of smoking as an evil comparable to National Socialism. (Where’s our Walter to claim for smoking that “at least it’s an ethos”?) The moral illogic of smoking bigotry is particularly evident in the following paragraph from HNN’s story:

We now know in retropsect, thanks to industry documents, that the tobacco industry is really two separate industries: one that we see, that makes and sells cigarettes, and the other we don’t see, that has spent generations and an untold fortune trying to convince the world, against our collective better judgment, that smoking is a normal human behavior and should stay that way.

Clearly, the reporter has not been watching HBO’s Madmen, where smoking is as natural to 1960s USA as moms, hot dogs, and apple pie (and where moms usually make apple pies while puffing on multiple cigarettes). Also clear is that the reporter has not considered how unnatural partially hydrogenated oils are despite how well they go down with a glass of milk and, for a time in American history, with a Lucky Strike.

The Regulative Principle and the Transformation of Culture

Published on by D. G. Hart22 Comments

1566_Dutch_Calvinist_IconoclasmOn balance, Reformed Protestants were no more responsible for the glories of the modern world (e.g., science, capitalism, education, liberal democracy) than were other western Christians. That is at least the conclusion of Phillip Benedict in his remarkable social history of Calvinism, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed. But Benedict does detect a level of activism among the Reformed that differentiated it from Lutherans. And the difference has a lot to do with the Reformed’s zeal for church polity and liturgical reform. Benedict writes:

It remains the case that at certain critical moments Lutheran church leaders held back from establishing churches under the cross or from defending such churches by force when the Reformed plunged ahead and did so – most notably in the Low Countries in 1566, where the Lutheran refusal to oppose the duly constituted authorities contributed to the Reformed church’s assumption of leadership in the movement of resistance to Habsbourg rule. . . . Surveying the entire period of 1517-1700, one cannot avoid concluding the Reformed embraced and acted upon such views more than any other confessional group. This is not because of any enduringly distinctive features of Reformed thinking about political obligation. It stems instead from two other foundational stone of Reformed theology: its profound hostility to idolatrous forms of worship and its conviction that certain kinds of church institutions derived from scriptural authority. The former drove Reformed believers to separate themselves from the church of Rome in situations in which other evangelicals were prone to compromise, and thus to find themselves especially often on a footing of threatened minority impelled to fight for its ability to worship as it pleased. The latter [church government] sparked movements of resistance to perceived threats to the purity of the proper church order.

This is a key difference between paleo- and neo-Calvinists (not to mention other Presbyterian transformers of cutlure). In the case of old Calvinism, the aim was to reform the church, which in turn led to various forms of political resistance and activism in order to worship God truly. In the case of new Calvinism, distinct marks of Reformed worship and polity are sacrificed in order to work with other Christians for the sake of a righteous and just society.

So if neo-Calvinists really want to enlist the support of paleos for the sake of transforming society, they’ll need to clean up their liturgy and bone up their ecclesiology. Please no Fosdickian responses of “what incredible folly.”

Whose Ox, Which Gore?

Published on by D. G. Hart50 Comments

A-View-of-World-from-9th-Avenue-Map_mediumthumbTim Keller continues to impress, not only with his wisdom, but also with his productivity. He has a new book, this time on idols, and as the darling Presbyterian pastor of Christianity Today’s editors, he answers questions about Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters. (That’s almost an early modern mouthful of a title.) The interviewer at CT asks Keller, “Do Christians have blind spots when it comes to false idols?”

Keller responds:

An idol is something you rely on instead of God for your salvation. One of the religious idols is your moral record: “God accepts me because I’m living a good life.” I’m a Presbyterian, so I’m all for right doctrine. But you can start to feel very superior to everyone else and think, God is pleased with me because I’m so true to the right doctrine. The right doctrine and one’s moral record are forms of power. Another is ministry success, similar to the idol of achievement. There are religious versions of sex, money, and power, and they are pretty subtle.

This is a curious answer. Keller could have opted for a version of an idol that was close to home or one that was easier to give up. For instance, if I were asked this question, I could respond with something about the idolatry of Christian contemporary music and its outlet in P&W worship. That would be no skin off my back, and I could score a point against my liturgical enemies. But if I offered up the Philadelphia Phillies as a form of idolatry, this one would hurt since I’d hate to abandon for God’s service what may be the best team in Philadelphia sports history. My answer would then go something like this:

I’m a Philadelphian, so I’m all for Ryan Howard. But you can start to feel very superior to everyone else and think, God is pleased with me because I’m so true to the best slugger in contemporary baseball. Home runs and RBI’s are forms of power. Another is winning the N.L. pennant two years in a row, similar to the idol of achievement. There are sports fan versions of sex, money, and power, and they are pretty subtle.

All of which is to say that the illustration one uses to answer a question about idolatrous blind spots may reveal something about the tenacity with which you cling to earthly and even spiritual goods, and which ones may be let go.

So what does it say that Pete Enns quotes Keller favorably at his blog? If Keller had identified either the Yankees or OT studies or Ancient Near Eastern Studies as possible idols, would Enns have been so ready to quote approvingly?

For that reason, Keller’s response would have been more impressively costly had he substituted “city” for “right doctrine”:

I’m a New Yorker, so I’m all for urban ministry. But you can start to feel very superior to everyone else and think, God is pleased with me because I’m so true to the Big Apple. Urban ministry and cultural transformation are forms of power. Another is church planting success, similar to the idol of achievement. There are religious versions of sex, money, and power, and they are pretty subtle.

So here’s a deal: I’ll consider giving up my potential idols of Machen and confessional Presbyterianism, if Keller is willing to put urban ministry on the altar and Enns is willing to sacrifice Ancient Near Eastern studies.

Erdman’s Passive-Aggressive Step-Grandson-in-Law

Published on by D. G. Hart68 Comments

ErdmanJohn Frame faced a choice. He could have reviewed Mike Horton’s book, Christless Christianity, or he could have abstained. He could have critiqued Horton’s indictment of Joel Osteen. He also could have offered his own critique of Osteen. Even if he disagreed vigorously with Horton, he could have let it go out of a sense of living with the eccentricities of a former colleague and a minister in a church with whom his own communion is in fellowship.

But Frame decided to write a lengthy review in which Horton’s assessment comes off as more theologically flawed than those whom Horton critiques.

On the one hand, according to Frame, Horton is wrong about contemporary evangelicalism:

Speaking, perhaps presumptuously, for “the American church,” let me attempt a reply. For what it is worth, my own perception of American evangelicalism is very different from Horton’s. My observation is anecdotal (just like his, in the final analysis), but based on around 55 years of adult observation in many different kinds of churches including the much maligned mega-churches. In most every evangelical church I have visited or heard about, the “focus” is on God in Christ. There has been something of a shift over the years in what Horton would call a “subjective” direction. But that is best described not as unfaithfulness, but as a shift toward more application of Scripture to people’s external situations and inner life. There is a greater interest in sanctification (not just justification), on Christianity as a world view, on believers’ obligations to one another, on love within the body of Christ, and in the implications of Scripture for social justice.

I don’t see this as wrong, or unbiblical. Indeed, I think this general trend is an improvement over the state of affairs fifty years ago. Scripture is certainly concerned about these matters, and we ought to teach and learn what it has to say.

(By the way, Frame thinks that Horton shares this outlook primarily with secular critics of American religion. But Frame does not acknowledge that conservative Protestants like David Wells and Carl Trueman, or moderate to liberal Protestants such as Douglas Webster, William Willimon, and Stanley Hauerwas agree with Horton more than Frame.)

On the other hand, Frame thinks that the basis for Horton’s critique is theologically defective:

Horton’s alarmism is persuasive to many people, and I have been moved to try to show them their persuasion is premature. The problem is that the yardstick Horton uses to measure the American church’s allegiance to Christ is not an accurate yardstick. Or, to drop the metaphor, Horton measures the American church with a defective theology.

He comes on to the reader as a generic Protestant Christian with a passion for the historic doctrines of the atonement and of justification by faith alone. He writes engagingly. Naturally, then, other Protestants tend to resonate to his arguments. But Horton is not just a generic Protestant or even a generic Reformed theologian. He holds certain positions that are not warranted by the Reformed Confessions and which in my mind are not even Scriptural.

Frame is fully within his duties as a theology professor to review critically the book of another theologian, even one who apparently shares his theological tradition. But he is on shaky ground when he has faulted folks like Horton at other times for being Machen’s Warrior Children, that is, for needlessly criticizing those within the Reformed household. According to Frame:

The Machen movement was born in the controversy over liberal theology. I have no doubt that Machen and his colleagues were right to reject this theology and to fight it. But it is arguable that once the Machenites found themselves in a “true Presbyterian church” they were unable to moderate their martial impulses. Being in a church without liberals to fight, they turned on one another.

For some reason, John Frame thinks he is not a pugilist even after writing reviews like his of Horton (not to mention that the Warrior Children piece contained several punches, some below the belt). If he had a better understanding of “the Machen movement, Frame might realize that every controversy has more than two sides. In the 1920s, the alternatives were not simply conservatives like Machen or liberals like Harry Emerson Fosdick. In between were evangelicals like Charles Erdman who needed to decide whether to agree with conservatives and oppose liberals, or find a way to avoid controversy and work for the unity of the church, even to the point of keeping people who were not Calvinistic in the fold. Erdman never thought that his case for unity was controversial or contested. He thought Machen was extreme and temperamentally defective, and Erdman, an acknowledged evangelical, threw Machen under the bus. In so doing, Erdman made room in the Presbyterian Church for Machen’s enemies.

Blame it on the tri-perspectivalism, but Frame does not see that his notion of evangelical unity does not make room for Horton or other confessional Protestants who critique born-again Protestantism. Does Frame mean to embrace Osteen more than Horton? He may not. But if he doesn’t, why not write his own review of Osteen, instead of waiting to rip Horton’s critique?

John Frame is in denial about being a warrior. But at least he is correct about his family ties to Machen.