Category: Adventures in Church History

Reformation Day Sobriety Test

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

Travels and responsibilities from a former life have taken me to Wheaton College this weekend for the closing public events of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. I directed the place from 1989 to 1993 and learned much from the Institute’s senior directors and many programs. In reflecting on my time at the Institute the past few weeks, I recognized that much of the literature on evangelicalism has accentuated the positive, from the upbeat corralling a disparate group of Protestants under the seemingly tidy umbrella of evangelical to telling stories of evangelical figures or institutions that have been filled at times more with wonder than woe. This positive disposition certainly goes with evangelicalism more than with Calvinism. Having Jesus in your heart is a different mindset from remembering your sinfulness and the need for a savior. But this sunny side of evangelical history may also explain the need I felt to hit back with Deconstructing Evangelicalism.

Enough about me.

During my perusal of Wheaton’s campus I came across a display by the French department on — of all things — the Reformation, Reformation Day and all that. Among the factoids on the brochure that audience members of the booth could take away was this one about Protestantism in France (would we call it “evangelical”?):

Today, the nation of France practices religious tolerance. However, the majority of French citizens consider religion to be a private affair. In spite of this, the number of Protestant churches in France has been rapidly growing since the 1800s; there are approximately 600,000 practicing Protestants in France today.

To evangelicals used to reading of up to 35 percent of Americans identifying as evangelical (roughly 120 million), that seems like a paltry figure. From the perspective of the little old OPC which continues to hover around 30,000 members, the France figures seem like a hades of a lot. But to keep it all in perspective, the figures from sixteenth-century France may be the most relevant. Considering that Reformed Protestants had captured 10 percent of the kingdom’s population, which numbered roughly 15 million Huguenots, 600k looks pretty feeble.

So to all those celebrating the Reformation today, drink to console your sorrows.

Evangelicals and Catholics Sixteenth-Century Style

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

Brad Littlejohn reflects on the contribution of Peter Martyr Vermigli and the consequences of the Colloquy of Poissy (among others):

One more tantalizing opportunity was to present itself in 1561, however, and Vermigli once again was involved, after an illustrious career through the Protestant centers of northern Europe. In France, a nation that, while devout, had always harbored something of an independent streak vis-à-vis the Papacy, the Queen Mother Catherine de’ Medici, de facto ruler as regent of her ten-year-old son, was seeking to steer a middle course between the Huguenot and Catholic nobility vying for influence. Ignoring the decrees of Trent and the remonstrances of the papacy, Catherine determined to call a national church council, the Colloquy of Poissy, in 1561. Theodore Beza headed the Protestant delegation and was joined by Vermigli, whose Florentine background, it was hoped, would help influence the Queen.

After inconclusive opening sessions, leading members of both Catholic and Protestant delegations convened a private conference before the Queen, where, after a couple weeks of arguments they were able to produce a statement on the divisive issue of the Eucharist that while completely satisfying no one, was cautiously accepted by all. Unfortunately, as at Regensburg, once the formula was shared with the other Catholic prelates, it was angrily rejected and the Catholic negotiators disgraced. The Colloquy broke up without resolution, and not long afterward, France spiralled into religious civil war.

What can we learn from these episodes (besides the realization that the Reformation was a much more complex and unpredictable affair than we might have previously imagined)? Perhaps the clearest lesson of Regensburg, Poissy, and the failure of evangelical reform to capture the heart of the Roman church, is that while certainly embracing all opportunities for meaningful fraternal dialogue, we need to maintain a healthy skepticism about the apparent contemporary rapprochement between Protestantism and Rome. We have seen our own version of Regensburg in the Joint Declaration on Justification–aside from the ambiguities of the formula, which would no doubt have vexed Luther, the fact remains that reconciliation remains contingent on the good pleasure of the magisterium, which reserves full right to determine the boundaries of doctrine. Progress on the material principle of the Reformation is all well and good, but remains fragile indeed so long as the formal principle, sola Scriptura, is rejected.

Likewise, recent Protestant recovery of a robust sacramentology has held out the hope of at last transcending the great divide on transubstantiation. George Hunsinger’s acclaimed exposition of Calvinist eucharistic theology toward this end, Eucharist and Ecumenism, might be considered the modern equivalent of the Reformed formula at Poissy. But whatever individual Catholic sympathizers Hunsinger may have found, the Catholic Church as a whole is not about to rewrite their catechism on the issue. Protestants, especially in America, have been cheered by the appearance of modern-day Contarinis, Catholic leaders keen to dialogue with and learn from Protestants. We should welcome such opportunities, but with a sunny cynicism. We may find that if we keep on talking and studying Scripture and tradition, we will find common ground with some on justification, the sacraments, and more. But as long as the magisterium claims (as it certainly still does!) final authority to determine the shape of that common ground, the ecumenical bridge remains suspended over a chasm little narrower than the chasm that swallowed Contarini nearly five hundred years ago. In the end, our model must be a man like Vermigli–eager to seek reform from within a corrupt institution as long as he had reasonable opportunity to do so, but not hesitant to shake the dust from his feet and preach the pure gospel when faced with the choice of submission to man or to God.

Infallibility is as audacious as it makes reform impossible. As if we need more reasons to protest — still.

From DGH on Reformed Theological Diversity Submitted on 2014/10/27 at 3:45 am

Published on by D. G. Hart24 Comments

Mark,

Why do you continue to insist on theological diversity on some things but not on others? Isn’t it strange that you can find a variety of Reformed voices on baptism, justification, ecclesiology, and the Mosaic Covenant, for instance, but then you go straight to a “thus sayeth the Lord” — you know, pound the Bible — when it comes to the imitation of Christ? I think it is. And surely you must be aware that when you recommend the reading of Scripture you are promoting a book that has a variety of theologies and any number of interpretations. Is the study of the Bible as diverse as your voices from the Reformed past?

But you may find you are in good company when it comes to Reformed diversity. Perhaps you’ve heard of Oliver Crisp’s new book, Deviant Calvinism. In his interview with Christianity Today he sounded like you:

One is the question of free will and salvation. Reformed theology is often identified with determinism—the idea that God determines everything, and we don’t really have free choice. From my eating Corn Flakes for breakfast to my having faith in Christ, all of these decisions are determined by God, and if we’re not automatons or robots at least, my decisions are only free in some very minimal sense. Well, historical material suggests there is a broader way of thinking about this within Reformed theology.

Two 19th-century Reformed theologians come to mind. The first is William Cunningham, who was a professor at the University of Edinburgh and one of the founding fathers of the Free Church of Scotland. He wrote an important essay on this topic, arguing that the Westminster Confession neither requires nor denies “philosophical determinism,” as he called it. He believed the Confession is conceptually porous on the matter and doesn’t commit its adherents to determinism, though it doesn’t exclude it either.

And the Southern Presbyterian John Girardeau argued at length against the influence of Jonathan Edwards on the topic of determinism. Whereas Edwards was a determinist all the way down, so to speak, Girardeau argued that the first human pair had a real undetermined freedom to choose between alternatives in original sin, and that fallen humans still have such freedom with respect to mundane choices like which political party to vote for, or whether to slap grandma rather than kiss her. But we don’t have this freedom in regard to salvation, he argued. That is beyond our reach and must be a work of God. Girardeau appealed to John Calvin over Edwards in defense of his views. He also appealed to the Reformed confessions, including the Westminster Confession, which certainly allows, in my opinion, that Adam and Eve had this freedom in their original estate.

But I wonder if your motive for emphasizing diversity is the same as Crisp’s? Are you as interested in the breadth of contemporary communions as Crisp is who is a member of the PCUSA (not exactly a unified church)? For instance, Crisp says:

My Reformed heritage is important to me, and I am an evangelical. I would characterize my approach to theology as about building bridges to those of other persuasions, and seeking to be a patient listener and charitable interpreter, while taking a clear line on particular issues in keeping with the tradition of which I am a part. There is a long history in Reformed thinking of doing just this, so I do not see any tension between a centrist theological view and confessional Reformed thought.

Whatever you own motivation for doing this, I sure hope you agree that when it comes time to vote on the floor of presbytery or General Assembly, you don’t abstain because you are aware of all the diversity in the room. If that were the case, then perhaps you would not be in the PCA but would still be in the PCUS which as you know became the PCUSA.

Can We Reach Them (and Can We Afford To)?

Published on by D. G. Hart33 Comments

Are sounds of doubt and uncertainty beginning to echo out of the Big Apple?

First, Tim Keller writes a book notice on Matthew Bowman’s The Urban Pulpit: New York City and the Fate of Liberal Evangelicalism. Although he sounds confident that New York City now has churches who teach “historic orthodox doctrine” and are “also intellectually robust and socially engaged,” he also seems worried.

There are at least 100 churches that we can discern that have been begun over the last 20 years in center city New York (and some older churches renewed) that are closer to the older kind of Christianity that used to flourish here. However, we too face the issue of a culture that is not interested in what we have to say. How do we reach them?

Add to that the recent reflections of an Englishman, Andrew Wilson, about Christianity and the churches in New York and you begin to wonder if all the money spent on Redeemer PCA is going to amount to much (aside from pastoral celebrity):

One of the pastors at Redeemer Presbyterian Church was interviewed on his/their ways of doing youth ministry. His first comment was that, because it is hard to believe in New York City – only around 3% of Manhattan is made up of evangelical Christians, although it is closer to 8-9% in the other boroughs – they affirm doubt. They acknowledge the force of objections to Christianity, and encourage people simply for being in the city and remaining Christian, because they recognise how hard it is. . . .

although the Christian world has mostly heard of Tim Keller and Redeemer, they are tiny in the city. (One of their assistant pastors said that Dimas Salaberrios, an Ethiopian pastor from the Bronx who spoke at the conference, is more well known in the city itself than Keller, even though most Christians outside the city have never heard of him.) A church of six thousand in eight million is a drop in the ocean. But another pastor mentioned the disproportionate influence they have had, simply by demystifying and detoxifying the city for evangelicals. “If they weren’t there, we could never do what we’re doing,” he said. . . .

New York seems both incredibly exciting and incredibly difficult as a place to live, and to plant and lead churches. The energy, creativity and diversity of the city are unparalleled, but the city is less Christian than the rest of the nation (in contrast to London, which is more Christian than the rest of the UK), and the pressures on price and space are even more intense in Manhattan than they are in other global cities. The fact that Manhattan is a separate island makes a big difference here: in London, you can lead a church in the West End, live in Brixton and have your offices in Fulham – and some previous contributors to this blog do – but in New York the equivalent is virtually impossible, because it would mean living, working and leading on three different islands. I’ve just mentioned the six-person family in a two-bedroom flat, and church premises are just as extortionate: many churches share their buildings with (at least) one other congregation, and the one recent building purchase I heard about cost $50 million. (By way of comparison, Kings Church London just opened their newly refurbished building in Lee, which used to be a school, and it cost them around £6 million.) All of which makes church planting here spiritually demanding, financially challenging and emotionally draining, but also exhilarating and rewarding.

If these comments reflect a trend, then they may signal that if you can affirm doubts about Christianity to show you are not a Stepford Christian, you are also allowed to have second thoughts about TKNY and Redeemer PCA.

How Are You Going to Get them to Read John Mbiti once They've Read Ben Carson?

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

Ever since Philip Jenkins’ (at least) The Next Christendom, people have found it fashionable to assert that the churches in the Southern Hemisphere are leaving the Christian West in the dust (of death?). The odd thing about this logic is that it missed how much Southern or Global Christianity had learned (for good or ill) from the Christian West, first through colonial churches and then through pietistically inspired non-denominational missionaries. Indeed, the West has been dominating the world for almost 500 years. Not saying that’s a great thing or a wretched development. It simply is what it is.

And now comes some evidence of the West’s dominance even in Global Christianity:

Now, a new study, polling more than 8,000 Christians in four languages across three countries, has found that African Christians aren’t reading African Christians, either.

In the Africa Leadership Study, a quarter of Central Africans, a third of Angolans, and half of Kenyans named a preacher or pastor as their favorite author. Majorities in Angola and Kenya named authors whose writings were explicitly Christian. High percentages also named African writers.

However, “overlap between the two was low, with relatively few respondents identifying favorite authors [who] were both African and Christian,” said Robert Priest, a professor of international studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, who presented the findings to the American Society of Missiology.

The lack of prominent indigenous authors was also evidenced by the library holdings of five major Christian higher education institutions in Kenya, where only one African Christian (John Mbiti) ranked among the top 15 authors with the largest presence on the shelves. Kenyan Christian bookstores had a significantly different top 15, but only one African author (Dag Heward-Mills) cracked their lists. Other commercial booksellers and street vendors didn’t have any African Christian authors among their top 15.

Turns out that once you link the world politically and economically (not to mention linguistically and educationally), the Christian voices with the loudest mouths tend to dominate. (Odd though how the bishops with global jurisdiction aren’t on those lists.)

Woman Up

Published on by D. G. Hart30 Comments

While love was hoping all things, the BBs have piled on the situation in Houston in a way that raises a number of interesting questions about persecution. Tim Bayly himself insists that the difficulties contemporary Christians confront increasingly resembles what Chicken Little faced:

. . . the persecution suffered by Christians in this country is powerful, silencing the witness and confession of the Gospel everywhere and constantly. To act as if we don’t see or care about this low-grade persecution because it hasn’t yet come for us and our job and children, or because it hasn’t yet come to our city or school system, or because our mayor is not a lesbian who is subpoenaing the sermons of the churches in our city, is to refuse to read our times as closely and well as we read the clouds. It is to sleep when we should be preparing our children to stand against social pressures, stigmas, and loss of income so in the not-very-distant future they will be able to stand against imprisonment and execution.

Sure, it sounds histrionic to speak of the iron fist of diversity, inclusivity, and pluralism as a real threat to the civil liberties of Christians today. Unless, of course, one has studied the growth of the persecution and martyrdom suffered by our brothers and sisters in Christ under the iron fist of that same diversity, inclusivity, and pluralism enforced across the ancient Roman Empire.

As an American who still thinks that the point of the United States had to do with opposition to centralized and consolidated government, I can sympathize with small-government types who object to the politics of Houston. But as a Christian, I have trouble thinking that this qualifies as persecution or that we should oppose it. After all, the New Testament is replete with calls to Christians to bear their cross:

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. (1 Pet 4:1-3 ESV)

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Cor 4:7-12 ESV)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matt 5:3-12 ESV)

This doesn’t mean that Christians should be masochists who look for ways to experience pain or that we should somehow lose a capacity to distinguish quiet and peaceful lives from one characterized by affliction. But it does suggest that persecution is not something about which we should bitch. It goes with the turf and may actually be evidence (pay attention Obedience Boys) of a lively faith.

At the same time, does a subpoena rise to the level of persecution? Consider a piece by Ross Douthat some time back:

If the federal government suddenly closed all religious schools in the United States, banned homeschooling, and instituted an anti-religious curriculum in public schools, I would absolutely call it persecution. But a step like denying religious colleges access to public dollars would not rise to the same level. It would certainly create hardship and disruption, and weaken institutional religion in significant ways. But it would leave the basic liberty to educate one’s children in one’s own faith intact, and I cannot see the warrant for claiming that a given faith is “persecuted” by the government’s decision to withhold a subsidy. Again: Disadvantaged, yes; persecuted, no.

Likewise, if the government suddenly required businesses to fire Christians, or instituted a policy of discrimination that prevented them from being hired, that would clearly be a form of persecution. But having the rules of a few professions suddenly pose new ethical dilemmas for religious believers is the kind of thing that can happen in any time and place. It’s a challenge, a hardship, a form of pressure … but it’s not really persecution as I think most people understand the term.

And to Dreher’s point that this definition would imply that there haven’t been that many cases of sustained persecution in the United States — well, I suppose I think that’s right. I wouldn’t use “persecution” to describe the rules that kept Jews out of Ivy League schools and country clubs, for instance, or the experience of atheist parents before the Supreme Court rolled back school prayer, or the hostility and scrutiny that Muslims sometimes face in the post-9/11 U.S.A. Or to use my own faith to bring the distinction to a finer point: In the 19th century, the Ursuline convent riots were a case of actual anti-Catholic persecution; the climate of anti-Catholicism that produced the Blaine amendments was not. This isn’t to minimize the anti-Catholicism of the 1870s and 1880s; it’s just to say that not every form of hostility deserves the same label as the work of a Diocletian or a Nero.

And using the “persecution” label too promiscuously, I think, carries three risks beyond intellectual inaccuracy. First, as Dreher sort of concedes, it doesn’t do enough to acknowledge the vast gulf separating the situation of Western Christians and the incredible heroism of our co-believers overseas, who face eliminative violence on an increasingly-dramatic scale. Second, as I tried to suggest in the column, it doesn’t do enough to acknowledge the gulf separating the situation of Western Christians and the situation of gays and lesbians, past and present, facing persecution at the hands of religiously-motivated actors. And finally, it doesn’t actually prepare conservative believers for a future as a (hopefully creative) religious minority, because it conditions them/us to constantly expect some kind of grand tribulation that probably won’t actually emerge.

Could it be then that by invoking the language of persecution Christians are simply showing their desire to get in the line of victims? After all, this is the recent and easy way to achieve status in the United States, namely, to show that you are the object of oppression (even to the point of having your feelings hurt). But that was hardly the attitude that characterized the early Christian martyrs who knew a thing or two about persecution. Here the BBs may want to take a page — of all things — from a woman named Perpetua:

But the mob asked that their bodies be brought out into the open that their eyes might be the guilty witnesses of the sword that pierced their flesh. And so the martyrs got up and went to the spot of their own accord as the people wanted them to, and kissing one another they sealed their martyrdom with the ritual kiss of peace. The others took the sword in silence and without moving, especially Saturus, who being the first to climb the stairway was the first to die. For once again he was waiting for Perpetual Perpetua, however, had yet to taste more pain. She screamed as she was struck on the bone; then she took the trembling hand of the young gladiator and guided it to her throat. It was as though so great a woman, feared as she was by the unclean spirit, could not be dispatched unless she herself were willing.

Ah, most valiant and blessed martyrs! Truly are you called and chosen for the glory of Christ Jesus our Lord! And any man who exalts, honours, and worships his glory should read for the consolation of the Church these new deeds of heroism which are no less significant than the tales of old. For these new manifestations of virtue will bear witness to one and the same Spirit who still operates, and to God the Father almighty, to his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom is splendour and immeasurable power for all the ages. Amen.

There is persecution and then there is persecution (thanks to our mid-West correspondent).

The Protestant Dilemma Writ Catholic

Published on by D. G. Hart89 Comments

Devin Rose thinks he found all the dilemmas that haunt Protestants (and that led him to Rome). But has he along with Jason and the Callers really escaped the thicket of difficulties.

On the one hand, having a written basis for determining church teaching really comes in handy (as opposed to the slippery way that oral tradition or papal whim might operate. According to Gerhard Cardinal Mueller:

Not even an ecumenical council can change the doctrine of the Church, because her Founder, Jesus Christ, entrusted the faithful preservation of his teachings and doctrine to the apostles and their successors. The Gospel of Matthew says: “Go and teach all people everything that I commanded you” (cf. Mt 28:19–20), which is nothing if not a definition of the “deposit of the faith” (depositum fidei) that the Church has received and cannot change. Therefore the doctrine of the Church will never be the sum total of a few theories worked out by a handful of theologians, however ingenious they may be, but rather the profession of our faith in revelation, nothing more and nothing less than the Word of God entrusted to the heart—the interiority—and the lips—the proclamation—of his Church.

We have an elaborate, structured doctrine about marriage, all of it based on the words of Jesus himself, which must be presented in its entirety. We encounter it in the Gospels and in other places in the New Testament, especially in the words of Saint Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians and in Romans.

On the other hand, the dilemma for all Christians is whether they will submit to religious authority. This includes Roman Catholics and Protestants:

The hallmark Protestant idea of priesthood of all believers allows the individual — whose relationship with God is unmediated — to determine his or her fitness to receive the sacrament. The Catholic Church, meanwhile, retains a few layers of priestly and catechetical scrutiny.

Last week at the synod, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris worried that couples “do not believe that the use of contraceptive methods is a sin and therefore they tend not to speak of them in confession and so they receive Communion untroubled.” Perhaps because married women might think it inappropriate to be questioned about contraception by a cadre of celibate men.

Either way, confessors tend not to press the issue, and no one pulls married couples out of the Communion line. Few believe a solid majority of Catholic women or their husbands will burn in hell for using artificial contraceptives.

In the case of cohabitating couples, there is little the Church can do. Marriage preparation classes acknowledge its sinfulness, but priests and bishops cannot afford to turn away half of what is already a declining number of couples seeking marriage in the Church. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops advises that priests can point couples toward a holier union by “supporting the couple’s plans for the future rather than chastising them for the past.”

Yet even for Catholics whose relationships put them in a perpetual state of mortal sin, individual conscience and church authority are often in fierce tension. In practice, LGBT Catholics often rely on their own consciences in determining whether they will go forward for Communion. In some locales, it is common enough for partnered gays and lesbians to receive Communion that it only makes news when they are turned away.

Meanwhile, Bryan Cross and company have yet to recognize a dilemma that cost a night’s sleep.

But I Have Stopped Beating My Wife, Really!

Published on by D. G. Hart57 Comments

I don’t know which is more annoying, Yankee fans or Christians arguing that their religion is the basis for all good things. Here are a couple recent iterations on Christianity and the West from opposite sides of the Tiber. First, the pastor who would turn the world upside down (even though like it when beverages remain in their containers — odd, that), David Robertson:

The worst place to be an atheist is in an atheist country. Conversely the best place is a country where a Christian tolerance and view of humanity is deeply rooted within the structures, institutions and psyche of the nation. The vision of a ‘benign secularism’ is at best a fantastical dream. The choice is not between a theocratic Presbyterian Taliban state run by evangelical rednecks, waffling wooly liberal clergy and authoritarian paedophile priests, or an absolutist state where religion is reduced to the status of a knitting club. Why can we not reinvent the traditional Scottish model of an open tolerant State founded upon and with the ethos of, a biblical Christianity which recognizes that neither the State nor the Church is Absolute? Our societies metro-elites want the fruits of Christianity, without the roots. That’s not how the universe works. If post –referendum Scotland is to flourish then we need to heed the mottos of our two greatest cities and make them the anthems for the renewed nation. “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain”. “Let Scotland flourish by the preaching of the Word.”

Second, from Roman Catholic professor, Donald DeMarco:

Christianity has supplied culture with invaluable benefits, including the notion that man has an inalienable dignity, that marriage is a sacred institution, and that justice and mercy should prevail. Without these benefits man is denied his proper functioning and risks being enslaved by the state. Christianity should not be reduced to something private since, in its proper mode, it confers immense benefits to culture.

More recently, two major American prelates have written thoughtful books on why Catholicism should not be private. Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap., in Render Unto Caesar (2008) states that no other community than the Catholic Church understands better “why the health of our public life requires men and women of strong moral character in political service.” The Church, not the state, teaches and proclaims the importance of virtue and good character. He laments that America is now exporting “violence, greed, vulgarity, abortion, a rejection of children.”

I have no reluctance in worrying along with Pastor Robertson about the excesses of social activists, nor is it implausible that, as professor DeMarco points out, Christianity advanced certain virtues that were advantageous in ways the the pagan world’s ethics weren’t. But cheerleaders for Christianity and cherry pickers of the past will never persuade their adversaries when they ignore the bad things that Christians did, or forget about the lack of freedom and equality that accompanied established Christianity. A Christian social activist is just as scary as a secular one. Thinking that Christians running things is better than non-Christians running those same things is frankly dishonest. And here I would have thought that Christians would excel in honesty. Antinomianism anyone?

Love Hopes All Things

Published on by D. G. Hart153 Comments

So I hope the BBs won’t accuse Brian Lee of being a sissy preacher for the way he reacts to the recent news of Houston’s civil magistrates wanting to inspect pastors sermons (don’t you think they are simply doing what Geneva’s city council did to Calvin and the Company of Pastors?):

“The city of Houston demands pastors turn over sermons.” This headline, within hours of being posted on Foxnews.com, was forwarded multiple times to my inbox, with comments such as “unbelievable.”

My response? So what? Sermons are public proclamation, aren’t they?

If a government entity comes to me and demands that I turn over my sermon manuscripts, well… I think I’d be inclined to send them along. And I’d be sure to send each one with a carefully written cover letter explaining exactly how the blood of Christ redeems sinners from death and the grave. (Although good luck deciphering my rough outline, and reading my marginal handwriting. I can send you a link to the audio.)

Sermons aren’t exactly what the legal profession would call “privileged information.” (News reports suggest, however, that other “pastoral communications” might be a part of the subpoena, and insofar as those are private communications of pastors, I would fight their release.)

I grant that there are complex legal issues involved. And, seeing how it has just been a few hours since this story started to bubble up on the Fox News outrage-of-the-week radar, I make no claim to understanding the merits of the legal case.

All I can tell so far is that the city passed a controversial non-discrimination ordinance, which among other things, would allow biological males to use the ladies room, and vice versa. A petition in opposition garnered 50,000 signatures, then was thrown out on a technicality. Next, a lawsuit against the ordinance was filed, to which the city responded with a subpoena for sermons from pastors associated with churches opposed to the ordinance.

And why, I ask, should pastors be unwilling to send their sermons to whoever should request a copy?

Remember, though, that in the world of 2k, we don’t all agree on the secular stuff.

If You Invoke Israel, Can You Deny Exile?

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

Over at Unam Sanctam, Boniface faces up to the difficulties that now confront the bishops in Rome. Will God let the true church go? He says, of course not and invokes the parable of Isaiah 5:1-7:

This is what God means when He says that He gave the vineyard over to grazing. A landowner cannot ever “destroy” his property, in the sense that land as such is indestructible – but he can certainly alter its use, sometimes in radical ways. When the vines did not yield grapes, God plucked them up, had the walls trampled down, and gave the vineyard over to the wild animals (the nations) for grazing. And because of the reckless, presumptuous overconfidence of the Israelites – whom the prophet Jeremiah says were led astray by false prophets who only spoke what the people wanted to hear – they were caught unaware and led to destruction.

My friends, just because God has promised that this vineyard – the Church – will always endure and that He will always look after it does not mean that the situation of the Church in this world could not be radically altered. In the case of the vineyard, God is still “maintaining” the land when He breaks down the wall and gives it over to grazing. He is maintaining the way any husbandman does: by putting the land to its highest and best use. If the vineyard consistently refuses to bear fruit for the Master, there is no reason to think He will not break down our walls and give us over to grazing. This has already happened to a large extent over the past fifty years.

Boniface concludes that God will not abandon his church:

Will God ever abandon this little piece of property which He has claimed for Himself and bought with His blood? Of course not. Such a thing cannot be. Could He choose to give it over to grazing? Could He break down its walls? – that is, many of the visible structures that have provided security in the past? Could He command His clouds not to rain on it? – that is, withhold many of the gifts that He had showered upon the Church in ages past? Could He pluck up much of the vines by the roots and cast them away to be burned, and could He give over the land to the grazing of animals, who will trample it down with their hooves, grind the vegetation between their teeth and foul the earth with their dung? Of course He could do all this. In fact, unless we bear fruits befitting repentance, He will most certainly do all things.

Perhaps then – and only then – will our little, beloved piece of ground be disposed to again produce good fruit. But until then, let it be given over to grazing.

Is that what happened to Israel or Judah? Is this not an ominous precedent? God did make promises to Abraham but then sent Abraham’s descendants into exile. Was that an example of the gates of hell prevailing against the OT church? Or was it part of a plan to bring all the nations into a spiritual Israel, the church? So if you think of Israel as a type, the Mosaic Covenant as a kind of republication of the Covenant of Works, and of the Israelites as a kind of second Adam (who makes obvious the need for the final Adam), you might also view the Holy See as a type, Protestantism being a better rendering God of the church’s place in redemptive history. But if you think of Israel as the substance and you’re drawing parallels with the church, you might need a few nips to get to sleep at night.