The reasons for thinking so are more than plausible.  But on the upside, this may pull the plug on using “Redeemer” when naming congregations.
Who said Christian America was dead?
Author: D. G. Hart
Christian Liberty Prevails at Liberty U.
Man, is it hard being ideologically pure even with a biblical mandate.
Did They Really Study at Westminster?
Some of us have thought that the problems at WTS went beyond whether or not Pete Enns believed in biblical inerrancy. A series that Daniel Kirk is writing on the structure of the universe shows why those concerns were and still are valid. (Thanks to Art Boulet for the tip about Kirk’s series.)Â Professor Kirk studied at WTS in the 1990s, went on to do a Ph.D. in NT at Duke, and now teaches at Fuller.
In part six of this series, Kirk contends that Westminster Confession theology so emphasizes the law, and the non-biblical covenants of works and grace, that Israel is really a historical fiction that has no place in Reformed theology other than a “place holder” until Christ comes. It’s all about Adam and Christ; Israel is supposedly an afterthought. Continue reading “Did They Really Study at Westminster?”
Too Cool for You? Whither the PCA
Calvary OPC in Glenside, Pennsylvania is a fairly vanilla Orthodox Presbyterian congregation.  Granted, the exterior is aesthetically quirky, and the constraints of parking leave visitors wondering if they’ll be left behind should the rapture occur during a service. But the services are modest, centered on the word read and preached, the hymns are traditional; the Supper is administered once a month. Calvary is by no means high church, nor is it happy-clappy.
So when the PCA decides to plant a congregation only two miles from Calvary OPC, some on both sides might wonder about the need or advisability of a new conservative Presbyterian work in the area. What makes the situation even more anomalous is that the new plant is a daughter church of Tenth Presbyterian, a Center City Philadelphia congregation whose worship differs from Calvary’s only noticeably by virtue of special music – Tenth has an ambitious and tasteful choir, organ, and set of soloists while Calvary gave up on choirs in services about a decade ago. Granted, the new church plant may not be trying to replicate Tenth’s “style”; it might be after a different liturgical market. But since Calvary already provides a service and pulpit ministry that is in the ballpark of Tenth’s, it is not at all clear why the new church is necessary. Continue reading “Too Cool for You? Whither the PCA”
The Great Debate Concluded
(Reprinted from NTJ, April 1997)
From: Glenn Morangie
To: T. Glen Livet
Date: 9/23/96 5:03pm
Subject: Re: Psalmody -Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply
Glen,
I have been so long in responding because they actually want me to do work here. Go figure.
I also couldn’t help but revel in your remark that I was “right on target.” Letting that go on the superhighway for two or so weeks was about as much delight as I have had in a long time. Yes, I do lead a sheltered life.
Finally, you didn’t write anything with which I disagree. I believe we have come to about as good a resolution as possible — which is, I think, 1) that the case for exclusive psalmody is not tight, 2) that the direction of redemptive history indicates that other songs reflecting later acts of God are worthwhile, if not necessary, 3) but that the theological insights which informed the case for psalms are pretty good, and 4) that our tradition was appropriately suspicious of hymns. Continue reading “The Great Debate Concluded”
Taking Every Swiss Alp Captive?
Why isolation may be more in keeping with Calvinism than domination.
Inspiration in Denial
This was the proposed title for the piece (below) responding to Nelson Kloosterman’s series on Christ and culture for Christian Renewal in which he brands a Klinean two-kingdom outlook as “religious secularism.” The essay appeared as a letter to the editor in the May 27th issue of CR on pages 5 and 9. Thanks to the editors for giving so much space for a response.
The Reformed faith is an inspiring one. For this writer, few stories are as noble as that of J. Gresham Machen. Nor are death bed utterances as inspiring as his – “isn’t the Reformed faith grand!” Yet, the Reformed faith is not without its bumps in the road. Machen himself issued those inspiring words while under great pain from the pneumonia that took his life. No amount of inspiration could overcome that lethal disease short of penicillin – which had yet to be discovered. Nor could all the inspiration in the world overcome the repeated difficulties and set backs that Machen endured while trying to maintain and defend the Reformed faith in a liberal Presbyterian church.
Nelson Kloosterman would apparently have the readers of Christian Renewal believe they can have all the Reformed faith’s inspiration without any set backs. In his series, “The Pilgrim’s Pathway,” he has been particularly critical of what he terms “religious secularism” and highlights the views of Misty Irons, Meredith Kline and myself. “Religious secularism” is an unfortunate phrase that appears to be designed to alarm. Speaking for myself, “Reformed confessionalism” or “paleo-Calvinism” work much better for designating those who hold a two-kingdom point of view. Whatever terms are used, Kloosterman leaves readers with the impression that those who tell Christians that Christ’s lordship over their lives will be difficult, and will not achieve uniformity among Christians, let alone in a society consisting of believers and un-believers, is simply betraying the genius and heart of Reformed Christianity. Kloosterman defends an integrated morality, a unified world view, a comprehensive understanding of Christianity, all in attempt to do justice to Christ’s lordship. For him, the Bible has the Christian’s solutions, and Scripture equips believers to go into any arena with a Christian answer. Kloosterman admits that Reformed Christianity can sound triumphalist, but he does little to restrain it. Continue reading “Inspiration in Denial”
Conservatism, Community, and Pilgrimage
I know at least one good Presbyterian pastor on the West Coast who’s jaws tighten at the thought that Reformed confessionalism and conservatism go hand in hand. Part of the problem, of course, is conservatism.  Is it what Rush and Sean, or Roger Scruton, or George Will say it is?Â
Another way to consider the relationship comes from this piece by Caleb Stegall over at Front Porch Republic, which is actually a ping back from ISI’s American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia. This section was particularly germane for linking the sensibility of cross-bearing with conservative critiques of modernity:
Two of the most thoughtful defenses of traditional community as a conservative ordering principle were published within a year of Kirk’s Conservative Mind (1953): Nisbet’s The Quest for Community (1952) and Eric Voegelin’s The New Science of Politics (1953).
Nisbet begins his study on the place of community in American political and social life by examining the failed promises of progress. By the postwar period, America had filled up. A sense of dread and ennui had spread through society, and the dominant tropes of psychospiritual expression were no longer found in terms like optimism, progress, change, and reason, but rather alienation, disintegration, decline, and insecurity. Americans, according to Nisbet, no longer seemed to trust or valorize the selfish Randian hero. The problem, he thought, was not technological tyranny or consumer greed or increasing secularism, but the distribution of political power. Modern man’s nervous preoccupation with finding meaning in community is a manifestation of the profound social dislocation caused by the unique power structure of the Western political state. As Western political power had become increasingly centralized, impersonal, and remote, it had atomized the individual and relegated communal interests and relationships to the realm of private personal preference. Nisbet locates the profound unrest in the American soul not so much in the disappearance of communal relationships but in the utter dissociation of those relationships from the exercise of real political and economic power. Traditional communities and the religious, familial, and local ties that bind them have not so much been lost, in Nisbet’s view, as they have become irrelevant at the deepest levels of meaning. It is here, in the unmediated exposure of the individual will to the impersonal power of the state (and to a lesser extent, the market), that Nisbet finds the root cause of man’s spiritual crisis.
Voegelin’s New Science tracks a similar course, providing conservative thought with a powerful analytical tool for understanding the spiritual dimensions of the phenomena Nisbet so clearly describes. For Voegelin, modernity could be summarized as a heretical commitment to Gnosticism, or in other words, a fundamental dissatisfaction with the uncertainties and limits of existence. Impatience for moral meaning and certainty beyond the humble limits of traditional communities leads the Gnostic thinker to imbue human existence in the here and now with the ultimate meaning reserved by traditional Christianity for the next life. By “immanentizing†the Christian eschaton, Voegelin explains, modern man took on the project of remaking existence according to the dictates of political ideology.
I was struck by Stegall’s characterization (via Voegelin) of gnosticism’s impatience with limits and uncertainty. It reminded me of a quote over at Zrim’s Confessional Outhouse about the nature of “biblical patience.”
Outside of Which No Ordinary Possibility of Salvation
Maybe it’s me, but I don’t understand the point of an organization that is not a church whose purpose is to gather pastors, who are in churches that already promote the gospel, for an undertaking called Gospel Coalition. What were the members of GC doing before when they were merely pastors preaching week-in and week-out, sometimes in independent congregations, sometimes in denominations? Were they Gospel Cobelligerents? Or by not being co-aligned were they not as much for the gospel as when belonging to GC? Is the import of GC that it is a cooperative endeavor or that it is promoting the gospel? But are people who don’t join GC guilty of being uncooperative or of not being sufficiently committed to the gospel?  Maybe both?
These were questions that came to mind when reading D. A. Carson’s attempt to clarify GC for the editors of Christianity Today. For instance, when Carson explained, “In some ways we’re almost a coalition of coalitions. Tim represents a whole network. John Piper represents a whole network. And because we share a common vision of what the gospel is and common aims and so on, it’s not, in some sense, just individual churches. It’s all the networks that are linked with that,” I wondered if the real entree into GC was being a fan of Carson, Keller, or Piper. In which case, should it be called, “Coalition of Readers of Evangelical Popular Authors”?
Then when asked if GC purposefully shared the characteristics of a denomination, Carson responded:
It does, but it purposely disallows others. Sociologically, there is a lot less loyalty to denominations today than 20 years ago. In one sense we’re growing because of that. We are meeting a sense of dislocation. On the other hand, in a denomination there will also be, for example, means of ordering who is ordained and who is not. There are going to be agreed standards on who becomes a member or not. Whereas we’re a center-bounded set. We’re not a boundary-bounded set.
Tim Keller is a deeply committed PCA man. He’s a paedobaptist. My ordination is Baptist. And we’re not going to agree on everything. We’re happy to talk about anything, but we’re not going to make one standard or the other the touchstone for the organization.
That left me wondering if GC is really “Baptists and Presbyterian Coaligned for Parts But Not All of the Great Commission.” That’s a mouthful — BPCPBNAGC —  but the leaders of GC may be up to it since in addition to their day jobs as Baptists and Presbyterians they are leading a super-coalition.
One does wonder if church matters to coalition.
What You Buy in Las Vegas, Stays in Las Vegas
Actually, that was not the point of Jeremy Beer’s post over at Front Porch Republic.  It was instead to encourage a way to support local businesses in local economies made up of local residents.  It is called the 3/50 Project.  And its logic is simple: “Pick 3. Spend 50. Save your local economy.” That is the affirmation. The denial is “Reject Starbucks. Avoid Walmart.”
Old Life 