Category: Because Someone Has to Provide Oversight

An Easy Way to tell a New Calvinist from an Old Calvinist — Say Lutheranism!

Published on by D. G. Hart126 Comments

This is inspired by R. Phillips’ post on why Old Calvinists should be encouraged by, even rejoice over, New Calvinism. The word inspired is key because inspiration does not come easily to Old Calvinists unless we are talking the doctrine of Scripture. Temperamentally, we tend to be phlegmatic souls who see almost nothing new under the sun (see below). But New Calvinists see inspiration and enthusiasm as part and parcel of genuine faith. Such inspiration also cuts down on cognitive powers — think Gilbert Tennent.

The lone exception to the New Calvinist w-w is Lutheranism. That is where New Calvinists find their critical skills and discern differences. Does cessationism matter? Not so much. But talk too much about the Lord’s Supper or baptism and you feel the wind going out of New Calvinist hedonism.

I wonder if one reason for such skepticism about Lutheranism is that confessional Lutherans put the stiff upper lip in the theology of suffering. Lutherans know the hype and pizzazz of the theology of glory and stay away from it. New Calvinists, in contrast, seem to be suckers for energy, the triumphalism, the earnestness of the religious conference and the celebrity speaker.

For that reason, I propose a thought experiment. What if we took Phillips’ words regarding New Calvinists and applied them to Lutherans? Would the world-wide interweb go kablooie?

1. Old Calvinism should avoid being overly critical but should rejoice in the New Lutheranism.

2. Old Calvinism should not be threatened by or feel pressure to conform to the New Lutheranism.

3. Old Calvinism should humbly listen to the New Lutheranism, benefiting from its insights and critiques.

4. Old Calvinism should zealously seek to serve rather than to undermine the New Lutheranism.

If Phillips could write about Lutheranism the way he does about New Calvinism, I might be persuaded. Otherwise, I suspect that Phillips was a New Calvinist before New Calvinists starting selling t-shirts.

Postscript: I have taken this personality test that has been going around on the Internet and I further wonder if New Calvinists would score differently from an Old Calvinist, if maybe the differences are primarily temperamental. Here are (all about) my results:

MIDDLING

Your habits and perspectives most resemble those of middle-class Americans. Members of this group tend to be gentle and engaging parents, and if they’re native English speakers they probably use some regional idioms and inflections. Your people are mostly college-educated, and you’re about equally likely to beg children not to shout “so loudly” as you are to ask them to “read slow” during story time. You’re probably a decent judge of others’ emotions, and either a non-evangelical Christian, an atheist, or an agnostic. A typical member of this group breastfeeds for three months or less, drinks diet soda, and visits the dentist regularly. If you’re a member of this group, there’s a good chance that you roll with the flow of technological progress and hate heavy metal music.

What's Wrong with Calvinism?

Published on by D. G. Hart64 Comments

If you can attribute American patriotism or the Tea Party to Calvinism, you have a term that is almost as much of a wax nose as evangelicalism. This is why the phrase Reformed Protestant is better than Calvinism. Reformed Protestant has a definite meaning that Calvinism doesn’t.

And this is why the so-called New Calvinism thrives (at least in its own promoters’ minds). Take for instance the question of diversity, a factor that lets New Calvinists think they are the mainstream. Here is Matthew Barrett on John Piper:

Some today are surprised by the wide diversity within New Calvinism, including everyone from Lecrae to the Gettys, or R. C. Sproul to Francis Chan. Piper points out that this diversity among Reformed-minded folks has always been present. All one has to do is look back at the long list of Calvinists in church history. Piper suggests comparing Augustine and Adoniram Judson, Francis Turretin and John Bunyan, John Calvin and Chapiper-writingrles Spurgeon, John Knox and J. I. Packer, Cotton Mather and R. C. Sproul, Abraham Kuyper and William Carey, Haynes and Dabney, Theodore Beza and James Boice, Isaac Backus and Martin Lloyd-Jones, etc. “If there is such a diversity in the Old,” Piper argues, “then we really cannot find dividing lines between the Old and the New.”

He goes on to say, “The Old is too diverse and the connections between Old and New too organic to claim things that are new in the New that were not present in any aspects in the Old.” The New is too assorted to claim any “downgrade” or “upgrade” from the Old. History is too complex for “broad brush commendations of one over the other or condemnations of one under the other.” Hence, any “given issue that you try to address you can find periods and persons and movements among the Old that would outshine the New.” Piper concludes, “There is no claim, therefore, in my assessment that the New is better.” From here Piper goes on to give 12 features that define the New Calvinism.

I wonder what Piper or Barrett would say about New Calvinism’s diversity being the product (as Nate commented) of waffling, for instance, on baptism and charismatic gifts, the way that Old Calvinism doesn’t. In other words, diversity is a sign of failure, not an indication of strength.

Plus, if you define Calvinism by the creeds and confessions of the Reformed churches, which is how Calvinism started, you find remarkable coherence. Spurgeon, Judson, and Piper are out. Knox, Kuyper, and Dabney are in.

And this is what Old Calvinists find so alarming about the New Calvinists. They can understand themselves entirely as a categorical abstraction (Piper’s 12 points) without relationship to word, sacrament, or discipline — the marks of the church (as in, Reformed according to the word). In fact, aside from the implicit hubris in the New Calvinists’ understanding of the past, do these guys, as Tim Challies apparently believes, think they are in the mainstream? Can you really be in the mainstream when instead of church you chart your existence by conferences and organizations like Gospel Coalition, Acts 29, and Sovereign Grace? Have I got a book for Tim.

My understanding of earth sciences is spotty, but new bodies of water generally do not become the mainstream within three decades unless you do some serious dirt moving (and that didn’t even spare New Orleans). But cheerleaders always think their team is number one, even when they are losing.

What If We Are In Communion with Celebrity Pastors?

Published on by D. G. Hart61 Comments

Carl Trueman takes stock of the celebrity pastor phenomenon and calls on the revived Presbyterians to spend some of their leadership capital (is Tim Keller paying attention?):

But here is the rub: If there are people out there who still believe that there is such a thing as reformed evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement, if they believe that this movement will play a key role in the future of the church, and if they believe that they are important leaders in this movement, then they need to speak directly, clearly, and firmly to precisely these issues. You cannot be a leader without leading publicly on the major issues and major personalities of the day who impact your movement and your chosen constituency. It is not enough to say ‘That person is no longer one of us’ when you helped to create a culture in which accountability is not transparent and where your public silence encouraged the big names to think they could do what they wanted and not be held publicly to account. That is where today’s problems started.

That accountability question has always been the Achilles’ Heel of the evangelical parachurch movement. Now that there are huge sums of money involved, that question is far more pressing and yet far more complicated than ever before. We who are associated with the so-called reformed evangelical movement, whether because we want to be or because others just make the connection, now look as corrupt and worldly as the despicable televangelists of a previous generation.

I’ll see Carl’s rub and raise him one. The problem is not one simply for the heavy artillery in the Gospel Coalition. This is also a Presbyterian and Reformed problem. The reason is that some Presbyterian ministers are celebrity pastors and these celebrities are accountable (supposedly) to the assemblies of their communions. So what are officers in the PCA, for instance, to do with someone like Tim Keller who needs, as Trueman argues, to speak directly and precisely to the issues involved in the recent controversies surrounding Mark Driscoll and others? But this is not merely a PCA problem. It is also one for folks like Carl and me, who are in the OPC and are in fellowship with Keller and the PCA, or for men like Scott Clark and Mike Horton, who are in the URC and in fellowship with Keller and the PCA.

I don’t know what the answer is, even though I have tried to point out the dilemmas posed by a prominent PCA pastor’s poor ecclesiology. But if connectionalism is one of the aspects of Presbyterian church government, then all of us, celebrity or not, are connected to the problem of celebrity pastors.

If Only He Had Read the Book All the Way Through

Published on by D. G. Hart16 Comments

Pete Enns introduces his forthcoming book:

If we come to the Bible expecting (as so many do) something like a spiritual owner’s manual complete with handy index, a step-by-step field guide to the life of faith, an absolutely sure answer-book to unlock the mystery of God and the meaning of life, we are setting up an expectation the Bible simply is not designed to handle.

The end product is a fragile, nervous faith. Faith like that produces stress, because it has to be tended and defended with 24/7 vigilance in order to survive—like a sickly baby robin in a shoebox. And even with constant tending, it still may not survive.

Is a life of faith in God truly supposed to be this stressful? Is this what God wants for us? I don’t think so. So let’s stop making it that way by setting the Bible up to be something it’s not prepared to be and then anxiously smoothing over the rough parts to make it fit false expectations. The cost is too high.

I’m all for avoiding the Bible as a how-to manual. Show me Jesus. But that makes the debates about inerrancy all the more poignant.

Enns still hasn’t figured out the stakes of inerrancy. If the Bible is wrong about somethings, it could be wrong about Christ? And if wrong about Christ, my faith is not merely nervous but as Paul says “vain.”

And Pete still hasn’t figured out the Reformed game face; he spent too many years thinking evangelicalism and Reformed Protestantism are the same. Reformed Presbyterians don’t believe in victorious Christian living because we are theo-political refugees during the last stages of a cosmic war.

[10] Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. [11] Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. [12] For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. [13] Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. [14] Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, [15] and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. [16] In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; [17] and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, [18] praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. (Ephesians 6:10-18 ESV)

Six days of work and waiting, one of rest in when we enjoy a foretaste of the rest to come.

TKNY Does His Impersonation of Dr. Phil

Published on by D. G. Hart61 Comments

From our Southern correspondent:

RELIGION: My self-view swings between two poles: If and when I am living up to my standards, I feel confident, but then I am prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. If and when I am not living up to standards, I feel insecure, inadequate, and not confident. I feel like a failure. THE GOSPEL: My self-view is not based on a view of myself as a moral achiever. In Christ I am “simul iustus et peccator”—simultaneously sinful and yet accepted in Christ. I am so bad he had to die for me and I am so loved he was glad to die for me. This leads me to deeper and deeper humility and confidence at the same time, neither swaggering nor sniveling.

Imagine how good a Christian feels on Paxil.

How "Outsiders" See It

Published on by D. G. Hart107 Comments

For evangelicals it seems, debates about Arizona bill SB 1062 are simply about religious freedom. But non-evangelicals often see more clearly because they have less at stake. Consider Noah Millman (once again):

So, for example, if the issue is being coerced to provide services for marriage ceremonies that violate one’s religious beliefs, why not write a law specifying that notwithstanding any anti-discrimination statutes, nobody can be required to provide services for a wedding ceremony which violates their religious beliefs? Would that allow florists to discriminate against gay weddings? Yes. It would also allow florists to refuse to provide flowers for a Catholic who was getting re-married after a divorce, or for a Jew marrying a non-Jew, or for an Indian wedding that involved pagan idolatry, or for a polyamorous ceremony taking place on a cruise ship. If providing flowers for a wedding amounts to endorsement, then I can see very good reasons for religious believers of various stripes to object to one or more of the weddings described. (Or maybe not – maybe there is only one group anyone cares about actually discriminating against; notwithstanding what may or may not happen, the law at least would be neutral.) If the issue is protecting florists from feeling they are endorsing weddings that they believe are wrong, then the statute should address that issue generally, and need make no specific reference to gay couples.

Some of these laws are being written even more broadly, in that they cover not just services for a wedding ceremony but any services to gay couples. So, a hotel owner might, under such statutes, be able to refuse a room to two men who are married, even though he would not refuse a room to a man and a woman who are married, or (possibly) even a man and woman who were unmarried. Ditto for restauranteurs, etc. Here, again, it’s unclear why gay couples should be singled out uniquely for being the object of discrimination.

If the issue is that the guest professes something that is religiously objectionable to the proprietor, and promotes it publicly by participating in a ceremony such as marriage (or simply by letting people know he is gay), then presumably there are other such professions that might be made that are equally deserving of protection. For example, I know many people who find proselytism religiously objectionable. Why shouldn’t a proprietor be allow to discriminate against individuals who engage in such activity? What is the difference between endorsing the legitimacy of a gay union and endorsing the legitimacy of Islam, or Mormonism, or even mainstream Christianity? If merely providing a room to a married gay couple counts as endorsing their marriage, then surely providing rooms to a Mormon mission counts as endorsing that mission. Right? A properly worded statute not invidiously aimed at stigmatizing gay couples by singling them out would need to allow for general discrimination against any individual whose declared conduct or identity poses a religious objection to the proprietor or service-provider.

This is roughly what Arizona did. Actually, Arizona went considerably further, making an asserted “substantive burden” on an individual’s religious freedom a legitimate defense against individual violations of any state law, regardless of whether it is generally and neutrally applicable. If I understand the law correctly, not only would it legalize a wide variety of types of private discrimination, not limited to my examples above, but would do much more. It would legalize polygamy and marriage with underage girls (both sanctioned by so-called fundamentalist Mormon groups). It would permit public school teachers to explicitly proselytize to their students (I’m quite certain you could find fringe Protestant groups or individuals who hold that such witnessing is mandatory at all times). I’m not sure, but I think if you founded a Church of Nude Defecation, and declared that God told you the Arizona state legislature was your temple, the state of Arizona could not expel you for practicing your faith in the place that God had designated.

Even if the law isn’t quite as nuts as that, it’s pretty nuts. Most people don’t actually want to repeal the process of balancing different interests by making one principle an absolute trump card. They just want to adjust the balance slightly when they don’t like a particular result. Which is completely fine – continual readjustment is exactly what that balancing act requires.

And this is a balancing act. The principle of non-discrimination is plainly in conflict with the principle that people should be free to deal with whomever they damn well please, and not with anybody else. Both principles are weighty and valuable. If the law required you to provide flowers for your ex-wife’s wedding to the guy who used to be your best friend, you would obviously suffer an injury. Well, somebody morally appalled by gay marriage who is coerced, by the law, into providing flowers for a gay wedding (or else exit the florist business) has also suffered a real injury. But so has somebody who is disgusted by black people eating alongside white people when he is prohibited by law from running his restaurant according to the rules of racial purity to which he ascribes. The question is whether there is any remedy for that injury that doesn’t cause a much greater injury to others.

This could mean, contrary to OL logic, that w-w really does make a difference. But I’m not sure this is where w-wists want to go since it would suggest that a Christian w-w is prone to bias if not error.

This is So Un-American

Published on by D. G. Hart58 Comments

While Rome burns with Pentecostal fire, Jason and the Callers continue to play mind games.

The latest Protestant to try to ascend Bryan’s holy cap is Mark Hausam, who is, according to his blog, “a member at Christ Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City, UT, a catechumen with the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, an instructor in Philosophy at Utah Valley University in Orem, UT, and an instructor at the New Geneva Christian Leadership Academy. I am a husband and a father of seven. I am an officer in the Reformation Party.” (I had not heard of the Reformation Party. It does not look like it is “a par-tay.”)

Mr. Hausam tried to show — it was a fairly long-winded piece — that Rome did an about-face on the matter of religious liberty of freedom of conscience. I don’t know why this is such a hard point to grasp. Protestants also did an about-face. Consider justifications for executing Servetus (or heretics in general) versus Witherspoon’s support for a Constitution that tolerated heretics (as Presbyterians understood them). What many fail to grasp — maybe even Mr. Hausam but certainly Bryan Cross — is that modern notions of freedom of conscience are strikingly different from pre-modern ones. For the Puritans, for instance, someone’s conscience was free if his conscience was rightly formed. If someone’s conscience was in error, then it was no infringement of liberty to coerce a poorly formed conscience. In other words, your conscience was free if it knew and followed the truth. If it didn’t, it needed to be bound. Today, in civil society we make no judgment about the right or wrong of someone’s opinions. We simply protect them under the umbrella of freedom of conscience.

Whether this is an improvement depends on your conscience, I guess. But I do think I’d rather have the modern version if or when a ruler who comes to power does not approve of my opinions.

Be that as it may, Mr. Hausam tried to interact with Bryan on the changes that have taken place in Roman Catholic teaching, especially at Vatican II. And what did Mr. Hausam receive? The classic Nun-like wrap across the knuckles with the ruler of logic. It even came to this riposte from one of the Callers:

The problem with Mark’s article is that his explicit purpose is to establish a formal contradiction within irreformable Catholic teaching. Establishing a formal contradiction requires great precision in the use of terms and in the construction of argument. Long paragraphs laden with assertions make it difficult, if not impossible, for the reader to pick out the actual premises which are supposed to establish the formal contradiction. I simply do not understand why you or Mark, in the context of an article whose express purpose is to establish an exact logical fault, namely a formal contradiction; would continue to resist calls to package the verbiage of the article into a logical form where the formal validity of the argument as such can be easily established, so that interlocutors may then proceed to fruitfully explore the truth of the various premises.

Well, if this is the problem, then logic is an impertinent bystander to the issue at hand. If Roman Catholic teaching is irreformable, then no amount of syllogisms or premises could possibly show a contradiction. It is impossible, which is sort of the situation when trying to have a conversation with the Callers.

Word to the wise: Vatican II happened. It embraced modernity, complete with the sort of debates and diversity that modern societies have negotiated. If Jason and the Callers want to return to a time when debates were simply an indication of infidelity, they may want all they want. It is a free country. But they should also realize that this was the debating posture that made many Americans wonder if Roman Catholics — the ones really really loyal to the pre-Vatican II papacy — were capable of living in a free republic.

I Wonder What He thinks of Earnestness

Published on by D. G. Hart13 Comments

From the fellow who thought the comparison of Scripture reading to oatmeal needed an injection of sanity:

I had never heard the phrase “God’s ordinary means of grace” until I was introduced to the reformed faith. As a result I had no doctrinal or experiential category for the true significance of those ordinary elements that make up the corporate life of a biblically informed church. If you are unfamiliar with the term “ordinary means of grace” it refers to those elements of our gathered worship to which the Lord has attached his blessing: the preaching and reading of God’s Word, the sacraments (Lord’s Supper and Baptism), prayer, praise, and fellowship.

These ordinary means of grace are the things that the Lord has given his church. They are not the inventions of man. We call them means of grace because the Lord has appointed them as means by which he blesses and builds his church. We call them ordinary because there is nothing about them that is spectacular. They are not rare like miracles. They are ordinary. They are to be practiced regularly in our Lord’s Day gatherings precisely because we regularly need what God offers us through them. But these are gifts not given to movements. God has given these means of grace to his church.

Sounds rather oatmealish manna-like to me.

The Phebe Bartlet Syndrome

Published on by D. G. Hart26 Comments

Leon Brown wonders:

Asked differently, should we put a smile on our faces for a hour and a half on Sunday mornings when things are truly chaotic in the home? No sooner than we depart the church building, we are met by disobedient children and dueling spouses. Our pornography addiction resurfaces; our anger meets us again; we are back in reality.

I wonder if in some of our churches there is no place for grieving, mourning, lamenting, suffering, and acknowledging sin in more places than the corporate confession? While I have not conducted an analysis of every Reformed and Presbyterian Church in the US, I know this to be true from my personal experience and in my conversations with other pastors. Sunday mornings are the time to be on your best behavior. You cannot show weakness; you cannot fail. Lest the corporate confession of sin, there is no place for brokenness. There is an imaginary sign above the entrance of the church that says, “This is the place for those in perfect health.”

Could the reason be a piety in which earnestness only counts as genuine faith?