Category: Evangelicalism

What Does Reformed Modify?

Published on by D. G. Hart76 Comments

Hint: the body of Christ we call church.

Kevin DeYoung defends a wide berth for Reformed Protestantism and quotes Herman Bavinck for support:

In particular, Bavinck claims, “From the outset Reformed theology in North America displayed a variety of diverse forms.” He then goes on to mention the arrivals of the Episcopal Church (1607), the Dutch Reformed (1609), the Congregationalists (1620), the Quakers (1680), the Baptists (1639), the Methodists (1735 with Wesley and 1738 with Whitefield), and finally the German churches. “Almost all of these churches and currents in these churches,” Bavinck observes, “were of Calvinistic origin. Of all religious movements in America, Calvinism has been the most vigorous. It is not limited to one church or other, but—in a variety of modifications—constitutes the animating element in Congregational, Baptist, Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, and German Reformed churches, and so forth” (1.201). In other words, not only is Bavinck comfortable using Calvinism has a synonym for Reformed theology (in this instance at least), he also has no problem affirming that Calvinism was not limited to one tradition alone but constituted the “animating element” in a variety of churches. Calvinism, as opposed to Lutheranism, flourished in colonial America as the typical orthodox, Reformational, sola scriptura-sola fide alternative to the various forms of comprised Arminianism and heterodox Socinianism.

The problem with this historically speaking, for starters, is that Lutheranism did precede Calvinism and so you could conceivably attribute all the variety of Calvinism to Lutheranism as the original Protestantism. Granted, the lines of continuity between Reformed Protestantism and the North American colonial churches were stronger than with Lutheranism. But that is much more a function of British Protestantism and what happened to Calvinism (or what didn’t) within the Church of England, the Union of England and Scotland, and the Puritans. British Protestantism turned Calvinism into a proverbial hot house of Calvinisms. This was not the case among the Dutch Calvinists who planted Reformed churches in North America. The colony of New Netherlands actually excluded Quakers and Lutherans, and enjoyed much greater uniformity than the Old World Dutch were capable of enforcing. Remember, the Netherlands, despite Dort, welcomed Descartes, Spinoza, and Anabaptists.

But aside from the history, the question is one of arbitrariness. If John MacArthur can exclude charismatics from being Reformed even though he doesn’t belong to a Reformed church, or if The Gospel Coalition can set up a tent broad enough to include disciplined Southern Baptists and wobbly PCA ministers, Calvinism, like evangelicalism, becomes simply what pleases the excluder/includer. Add to that the reality that conservative Presbyterian and Reformed communions invested great energy and resources to distinguishing themselves from communions, like DeYoung’s, those that are Reformed primarily in name rather than substance, and you begin to see why some Reformed Protestants are eager to give coherence to their wing of Western Christianity. I don’t mean that as a cheap shot. But so far, folks like MacArthur and the Gospel Allies have yet to acknowledge the hard work done by Reformed Christians to defend and maintain the ministry of word and sacrament within disciplined (read Reformed) churches. We had thought the task of reforming the church was arduous and long, but now you hold a conference or set up a blog and — voila — it’s Calvinism.

Dictionaries revise definitions all the time. But users of words and grammarians don’t approve of the revisions. The question comes down to whose pay grade it is to establish Calvinism’s meaning. Celebrity pastors? Parachurch agencies? Or church councils? I’m pretty sure I know how Calvin, Bucer, Knox, and Ursinus would vote. Do they carry as much clout as John Piper? As Bud Dickman is wont to say, “well. . .”

What Do Pope Francis and Russell Moore Have in Common?

Published on by D. G. Hart60 Comments

With all the discussion of the piece on Russell Moore, few have seemed to notice the parallels between Moore, the newly installed director of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and Pope Francis, compared to Richard Land, his predecessor at the Commission, and Benedict XVI. Moore and Francis, at least as journalists portray them, are backing away from the strictness and scolding of their predecessors, Land and Benedict. Granted, as Keith Miller observes, the problem could simply be with the journalists. They have a narrative and they are sticking to it — the old guy was mean, the new guy is nice.

Even so, journalists are not stupid and the parallels are striking. Consider the following with Francis and Benedict in mind:

“When Richard Land spoke to most issues, he was certain that Southern Baptists were behind him and he was their mouthpiece,” Mr. Mohler says. “Russ will need a deft touch to make sure that Southern Baptists stay behind him.” [me – okay, U.S. Roman Catholics have never lined up behind the Vatican, but please keep reading]

Mr. Moore is in no way a liberal. He equates abortion with the evils of slavery, considers homosexuality a sin, and insists the Southern Baptist Convention will never support gay marriage. At the same time, he emphasizes reconciliation and draws a traditional doctrinal distinction between the sinner and the sin. . . .

Mr. Moore would like the Southern Baptists to be able to hold on to people such as Sarah Parr. The 31-year-old social worker grew up in a conservative Southern Baptist family in southern Virginia. She graduated from Liberty University, founded in 1971 by the Falwell family. But she says she found herself increasingly less at home in the church, and left it altogether in her 20s.

She now attends a nondenominational church that meets in an old theater on Washington’s Capitol Hill. Politically, she describes herself “as a moderate at best, if I’m anything. But I don’t find myself in either party.”

When Mr. Moore took over in June as the Southern Baptists’ top public-policy advocate, he startled some in the church by declaring as dead and gone the entire concept of the Bible Belt as a potent mix of Jesus and American boosterism. “Good riddance,” he told thousands of the faithful at the group’s annual convention in Houston in June. “Let’s not seek to resuscitate it.”

In an essay for the conservative Christian magazine “First Things,” titled “Why Evangelicals Retreat,” he dinged the movement for “triumphalism and hucksterism” and lampooned a time when its leaders dispatched voter guides for the Christian position on “a line-item veto, the Balanced Budget Amendment, and the proper funding levels for the Department of Education.”

Mr. Moore says there is no doctrinal daylight between him and his church, and he insists he isn’t seeking to return the Southern Baptists to a past in which it shunned politics entirely.

He travels almost weekly from his home in Nashville to Washington to meet with members of the Obama administration and with congressional leaders. He has allied with the Roman Catholic Church and other religious groups to make the case that overhauling the U.S. immigration system is a Christian goal. He is pushing the Pentagon to give religious chaplains in the military freer rein to preach, and has helped build a new coalition to fight a federal requirement that insurers provide contraception coverage.

His approach, however, is strikingly different from that of his predecessor Mr. Land, who for a quarter century served as the leading voice of the Southern Baptists. Like many evangelical leaders of his generation, Mr. Land, a Princeton-educated Texan, openly aligned himself with the Republican Party and popped up frequently in the Oval Office during the George W. Bush years.

Long before their divergent approaches on the gay-marriage issue, Messrs. Moore and Land split over the huge rally held by conservative talk-radio host Glenn Beck in front of the Lincoln Memorial in August 2010. Mr. Land attended the rally as Mr. Beck’s guest, and later compared Mr. Beck to Billy Graham, calling him “a person in spiritual motion.”

Mr. Moore, in an essay posted after the rally, said the event illustrated how far astray many conservative Christians had wandered in pursuit of “populist God-and-country sloganeering and outrage-generating talking heads.”

In an interview, Mr. Land said the Southern Baptist leadership is divided into those who think the culture war is lost; those who are weary and want it over; and those who think they are losing the war but feel victory is still possible. He declined to say where he puts Mr. Moore, but said he counts himself among the latter. “We are like where Britain was in 1940, under heavy attack but still not defeated,” he said.

Asked to respond, Mr. Beck in a written statement applauded Mr. Land and said, “In times like these, we need to find common ground.”

At the very least, readers might reasonably conclude that Francis and Moore are saying they each need to reconsider their predecessor’s approach to the culture wars.

But one important difference does exist. While Francis, whose pay grade is to interpret the church’s teaching, relies on a bevy of interpreters to make sense of his quips to the press, Russell Moore does actually interpret what he means.

The recent profile in the Wall Street Journal highlighted a generational change in terms of the way evangelicals approach cultural and political engagement: toward a gospel-centered approach that doesn’t back down on issues of importance, but sees our ultimate mission as one that applies the blood of Christ to the questions of the day.

The headline, as is often the case with headlines, is awfully misleading. I am not calling, at all, for a “pullback” from politics or engagement.

If anything, I’m calling for more engagement in the worlds of politics, culture, art, labor and so on. It’s just that this is a different sort of engagement. It’s not a matter of pullback, but of priority.

What I’m calling for in our approach to political engagement is what we’re already doing in one area: the pro-life movement. Evangelicals in the abortion debate have demonstrated convictional kindness in a holistic ethic of caring both for vulnerable unborn children and for the women who are damaged by abortion. The pro-life movement has engaged in a multi-pronged strategy that addresses, simultaneously, the need for laws to outlaw abortion, care for women in crisis pregnancies, adoption and foster care for children who need families, ministry to women (and men) who’ve been scarred by abortion, cultivating a culture that persuades others about why we ought to value human life, and the proclamation of the gospel to those whose consciences bear the guilt of abortion. . . .

We teach our people that their vote for President of the United States is crucially important. They’ll be held accountable at Judgment for whomever they hand the Romans 13 sword to. But we teach them that their vote on the membership of their churches is even more important. A church that loses the gospel is a losing church, no matter how many political victories it wins. A church that is right on public convictions but wrong on the gospel is a powerless church, no matter how powerful it seems.

That does sound like the old Christian Right, an elevation of matters temporal to the level of things eternal — voting having redemptive consequences. Even so, whether Moore did this simply to silence critics, or to avoid showing disrespect to Richard Land, at least he did respond. Francis still hasn’t. (Didn’t see that one coming, did you.)

But Aren't Piper and Grudem Making the World Safe for "Bad" Charismatics?

Published on by D. G. Hart75 Comments

Tim Challies writes:

There is a challenge here for myself as a Reformed, North American believer: I have a very narrow view of the Christian world—a too-narrow view. MacArthur made it clear that he did not host this conference in order to critique the Wayne Grudems and John Pipers of the world; if these men were representative charismatics, Strange Fire would have been a non-event or, at the least, a very different event. He hosted the event because there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who make the fraudulent practice of fraudulent gifts the heart of their expression of the Christian faith.

[He didn’t write, thanks Nate] But even if you don’t make “the fraudulent practice of fraudulent gifts” the heart of your Christian faith, even if “the fraudulent practice of fraudulent gifts” is only a side dish in your Christian walk, do you ever want “the fraudulent practice of fraudulent gifts” to be part of your Christian practice? Or do you want to let Christian leaders who do not reject “the fraudulent practice of fraudulent gifts” to go uncriticized?

Since Challies appears to be a friend of Grudem and Piper (hence along with MacArthur his granting them an exemption), perhaps he can spend some of his personal capital and straighten them out of the work of the Holy Spirit.

From Sunday School to Reality TV

Published on by D. G. Hart14 Comments

I have not been following the story, but Matt Pitt, a youth pastor in Alabama, who started a church called Basement, is in jail for resisting arrest (and before that, impersonating a police officer — anyone willing to jail him for impersonating a minister?) and he has generated a large following from Alabama’s young faithful. You can read about this here.

But what I found striking was this commentary:

When Willow Creek introduced the seeker-sensitive model in the 1970s, the Basement could not have been what it had in mind. The Basement is the ultimate example of seeker-driven services targeted at a very particular audience with an emphasis on the commercialization and commodification of religious practices. As a youth ministry run by a younger preacher, the Basement may signal the next step in the megachurch, seeker-sensitive movement. Combined with new reality TV programs and internet ministries . . ., popular religion is adopting more secular tools to reach larger audiences—and it’s working. Perhaps a better signifier would be plastic religion (rather than seeker-sensitive) for what’s going on at the Basement. In Chidester’s Authentic Fakes, he describes plastic religion as a commodified and flexible, a way to think about popular culture that is “biodegradable” and “shape shifting.” The Basement is unabashedly plastic while also claiming authenticity, which is a cunning way to reconcile the conflict inherent in its MTV/tent revival meetings. Drawing on the televangelist trends described by Bowler in Blessed, with emotional pleas that “ebb and flow” throughout the meeting, Pitt’s ministry takes the appeal one step further and amps up the revival atmosphere with smoke, lights, loud music, hip videos, and a liturgical call and answer that sounds more like a club chant.

If Bill Hybels, who started out as a youth pastor himself and forged a megachurch that would cater to those youth once they became suburbanites, could not have envisioned the Basement, it was only because he was limited to the programming of the three networks and various UHF channels available to U.S. television viewers in the 1960s. But youth culture has always forged a separate religious Christian identity, going all the way back to Jonathan Edwards and Gilbert Tennent, whose revivals drew followers precisely from the adolescent demographic. Sunday School was just another endeavor that isolated a group of Christians (or not) defined by age and tried to cultivate a Christian identity distinct from existing congregations and communions.

This is one case where I am no splitter. Lumping Tennent, Sunday school, Bill Hybels, and Matt Pitt makes perfect sense.

It's Not Always Sunny

Published on by D. G. Hart31 Comments

What makes Christians gullible? Is it that gullibility a fruit of the Holy Spirit and I am insufficiently sanctified? Many Christians seem to think that criticism is unbecoming of believers. But what Bible are those Christians reading? Take the prophets, who go on, and on, and on, sometimes in inscrutable Hebrew poetry, about the woes of God’s people. And what about Jesus who could be as critical of his disciples as he was of the Pharisees? And then there are all those epistles that warn the early Christians about all sorts of false teachers. To be biblical, apparently, is to be critical. And yet, many Christians seem to want to think the best of others, as if the doctrine of original sin were not true.

The gullibility of Jason and the Callers has been the object of many posts of late, but the recent piece by Owen Strachan on King’s College’s new president, Greg Thornbury, fits neatly the journalistic genre of puff piece. Truth be told, I am no fan of Dr. Thornbury’s hairdo or his sartorial choices — hipster does not connote seriousness. And when it draws attention to itself — in Thornbury’s many glam shots — it draws even more attention to the idea that the one photographed is trying to cultivate an image. And image creation is not exactly a quality we look for in a serious academic and grounded theologian.

What makes Strachan’s piece sound so much like the ending to a Leave It To Beaver episode is the hopefulness he expresses in the face of what has been a rocky ride for a college that went defunct (the one Percy Crawford founded), only to be resurrected by Campus Crusade for Christ, which then changed its name to something resembling a wine varietal — Cru, which then proceeded to hire Dinesh D’Souza, only to have that appointment blow up and lose to King’s the services of Marvin Olasky. This is not an institution upon which donors would necessarily want to bestow lots of gifts (which need to be big ones if the school is going to make it in Manhattan — not Kansas, the other one). And yet, Strachan (who comes close but does not disclose fully his own ties to Thornbury) tries to string together the good things of New York City’s evangelicalism — Keller and Metaxas — along with the significance of institutions via Michael Lindsay and James Davison Hunter, to argue that Thornbury’s appointment could, may, possibly might, result in harnessing evangelicalism’s intellectual renaissance (an awakening that is not only not Great, but not even Pretty Good).

But it may be that the school will negotiate its challenges. It is possible that the school may not only survive but thrive in New York. Thornbury, after all, stands to benefit from the Manhattan evangelical network, loose as it is. The cultural prospects of evangelicalism and conservatism hang in the balance today, yet perhaps this time of tension will produce just the kind of ambition and restless energy that are needed for great projects like the one in question. To study the history of successful movements like the opposing poles of the Reformation or the Enlightenment, for example, is to see that great works rarely begin in periods of equipoise, but times of great uncertainty.

King’s cannot, in any matter, singlehandedly rehabilitate the evangelical mind. That project has already begun, and it proceeds with fits and starts, not least because to be successful, it must be confessional. Christian scholarship is, after all, at once unfettered, taking dominion of all things, and bounded, normed by divine revelation. There is hope of greater things, though. In one of the world’s truly global cities, a small college is calibrating itself for evangelical thought-leadership and cultural engagement.

It may just be that the hipster president, aided by a greater network of persons than this world can claim, will pull it off.

No one is going to refer back in future years to Strachan’s piece and hold him or The American Spectator to this positive spin. That’s the way that journalistic features work. But I (all about me) am a glass-three-quarter-empty guy. It probably has something to do with breast feeding or potty training. But I’d like to think it stems from observing life in a fallen world where the bad guys prosper, life is a struggle, and neither justice nor peace embrace. This doesn’t mean I wish Thornbury to fail or that I think Strachan should not have written about King’s. It is rather a point about how fluffy pieces like this are, with an evangelical unction mixed in for added uplift. In fact, these stories cover up realities that institutions like King’s face — both internal and external. I’ve seen spins like this before at Christian institutions of higher education. They fool trustees, donors, and those on the outside. But folks on the inside generally know a very different reality. Don’t let the hair or lapels distract you.

(all about) My Movie Idea

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

While Alan Jacobs is speculating on a script about rival realtors in Waco, Texas, the Baylys have me thinking about a movie about a letter to Congress. Having recently re-watched Broken Flowers (can’t get enough Billy Murray these days) and remembering the fairly vivid shots of a pink envelope winding its way through the USPS’ automated sorting system that open the movie, I wonder if someone could make a similar short about this letter from evangelical scientists to Congress. Here is the opening of the letter:

Dear Speaker Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Reid, and Members of the United States Congress:

As evangelical scientists and academics, we understand climate change is real and action is urgently needed. All of God’s Creation – humans and our environment – is groaning under the weight of our uncontrolled use of fossil fuels, bringing on a warming planet, melting ice, and rising seas. The negative consequences and burdens of a changing climate will fall disproportionately on those whom Jesus called “the least of these”: the poor, vulnerable, and oppressed. Our nation has entrusted you with political power; we plead with you to lead on this issue and enact policies this year that will protect our climate and help us all to be better stewards of Creation.

It goes on for a couple more paragraphs before seven (yes, 7!) pages of signatures.

This movie, after showing the letter’s advance through USPS hands (and machines) would then follow its advance to an assistant’s desk in the Capital Building, his or her disposition of the letter, and then what? Does it go to a staffer? Does it ever make it on Boehner’s desk? Who writes a response? Does anyone? And should the movie include tense scenes of evangelical scientists fervently awaiting a mere acknowledgement of the letter’s contents?

Then again, maybe no one ever sent the letter to Congress, in which case a letter is less a communication calling for action than a political gesture. Who knows? Screenplay writer’s call.

American Pretty Goodness

Published on by D. G. Hart68 Comments

I suppose Joe Carter thinks this finding is a positive attribute about American evangelicalism, but a 2ker can always spot the forest. USA Today indicates that white evangelicals are the most patriotic (since this excludes African-American evangelicals, correlating evangelicalism and U.S. nationalism is a question in search of an answer):

When it comes to God and country, white evangelicals report the most intense patriotic feelings in a new poll, with more than two-thirds (68 percent) saying they are extremely proud to be an American.

That figure was markedly higher than for white mainline Protestants (56 percent), minority Christians (49 percent), Catholics (48 percent) and religiously unaffiliated Americans (39 percent), according to the study, conducted by the Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service.

White evangelicals are also more likely than any other religious group surveyed to believe that God has granted the U.S. a special role in history (84 percent) and to say they will likely attend a public July 4th celebration (62 percent).

On the other end of the spectrum, relatively few religiously unaffiliated Americans believe in a God-given American exceptionalism, (40 percent) or plan to attend a public Independence Day celebration (48 percent).

Eric Metaxas, the popular Christian author and speaker, said evangelicals “are not patriotic and pro-American in a tribalistic, nationalistic, or jingoistic sense.

“But they do tend to be pro-America because they believe that the ideas of the Founders — religious liberty at the head of them — have been a huge blessing to those on our shores — and to those beyond them.”

I have often wondered why the evangelical laity and evangelical academics are so keen to insist on a Christian basis for the United States. One theory is that evangelicals, without the help of confessional Protestantism and its teaching about general revelation (something the neo-Cals have not helped with in their insistence that special revelation must interpret general revelation), have no middle category. Something is either good or it is bad. Evangelicals lack the category of common. Better, they lack the notion of good in contrast to holy and profane. As I have said before, the logic of the Lord’s Day is that common activities, like plumbing, are profane if performed on the Sabbath (without the warrant of an emergency). So plumbing is neither sacred, nor profane. It is simply good (because of the goodness of creation).

Another way of trying to account for evangelical beliefs about American greatness is the analogy of marriage. Christians are not supposed to marry unbelievers. Fine. But what happens with love for a country that is unbelieving? Evangelicals can’t love it. That would be a mixed patriotism. So evangelicals need to have a Christian United States in order to justify their love of country.(This may also be related to the language of “Great” as opposed to “Pretty Good” Awakenings.)

I am still learning about romantic nationalism from learned colleagues and fellow elders, but American greatness seems to hang on the notion that the United States is greatest nation on God’s green earth — sort of like the blond-bomb shell who wins Miss America, has a Masters in financial planning, and cooks a mean meatloaf. The perfect wife and the great nation can have no flaws. Any wife knows better than this (both about wives and husbands).

So why can’t evangelicals follow the heeding of Scripture, put no hope in princes (or republics), and simply love their country the way they love the old drunk uncle who shows up uncomfortably at July 4th picnics and makes the youngsters have to whisper questions to their parents?

Why Not Simply Cite God's Law?

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

Our Virginia correspondent sent word of a reminder from the deities of the NFL to churches about legal and illegal Super Bowl festivities:

(1) Churches may only show the game on equipment that they regularly use for worship. They may not bring in additional rented audio-visual equipment.
(2) Churches may not charge admission. They are, however, allowed to take donations to defray party expenses.
(3) Churches may not record or further retransmit the broadcast of the game.

Apparently the separation of church and state does not extend to football and church.

If the NFL had simply reminded Christians of the need to keep the Lord’s Day holy, they could have cut through the fine print. But this way, the footballers get the best of both kingdoms (which is not a good thing if you are certain church in Laodicia).

Does Great Commission Publications Need More Books about Sex?

Published on by D. G. Hart33 Comments

Christianity Today carries a story that Life Way Christian Bookstores (a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Convention) is not carrying Rachel Held Evans new book (who is she anyway and does she read Tim Keller?) A Year of Biblical Womanhood (biblicism alert). Evans contends that the reason is her use of the word “vagina.” The report goes on to list books that Life Way does sell and how many times these authors use the v-word:

A Celebration of Sex: A Guide to Enjoying God’s Gift of Sexual Intimacy by Douglas E. Rosenau
86 (plus images)
The Gift of Sex: A Guide to Sexual Fulfillment by Clifford & Joyce Penner
73 (plus images)
The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love by Tim and Beverley LaHaye
62
How to Talk Confidently with Your Child about Sex by Lenore Buth
42
The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex (And You Thought Bad Girls Have All the Fun) by Sheila Wray Gregoire
19
The Body Book by Nancy Rue
6 (at least in the 2000 edition; LifeWay’s is the 2012 edition and was not available for review)
Straight Talk with Your Kids About Sex by Josh and Dottie McDowell
6
Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together by Mark and Grace Driscoll
5
Every Young Woman’s Battle: Guarding Your Mind, Heart, and Body in a Sex-Saturated World by Shannon Ethridge and Stephen Arterburn
4
Crazy Good Sex: Putting to Bed the Myths Men Have about Sex by Les Parrott
4
The Language of Sex: Experiencing the Beauty of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage by Gary Smalley and Ted Cunningham
3
Sex Begins in the Kitchen: Creating Intimacy to Make Your Marriage Sizzle by Kevin Leman
3
Nobody Told Me: What You Need to Know about the Physical and Emotional Consequences of Sex Outside of Marriage by Pam Stenzel and Melissa Nesdahl
3
The Healthy Marriage Handbook by Louise Ferrebee
3
Undefiled: Redemption from Sexual Sin, Restoration for Broken Relationships by Harry Schaumburg
2
The 5 Sex Needs of Men and Women by Gary and Barbara Rosberg
2
And the Bride Wore White by Danna Gresh
1
Reclaiming Intimacy: Overcoming the Consequences of Premarital Relationships by Heather Jamison
1
Capture His Heart: Becoming the Godly Wife Your Husband Desires by Lysa TerKerust
1
The Bare Facts: 39 Answers to Questions Your Parents Hope You Never Ask about Sex by Josh McDowell with Erin Davis
1
God on Sex: The Creator’s Ideas about Love, Intimacy, and MarriagebyDaniel Akin
1

The notable aspect of this story is not so much Christians talking publicly about a word used to describe female genitalia as it is the volume of books that Christians write about intercourse. This is all the more glaring since Life Way states describes its first “core value” as:

1. The Bible
We believe the Bible is the eternal, infallible, inerrant Word of God and is the plumb line for everything we say and do.

So while it is controversial in the Convention to use the c-word (Calvinism), female private parts are relatively common depending on who is discussing them.

Why Does Complementarian Rhyme with Egalitarian?

Published on by D. G. Hart42 Comments

A little while back Carl Trueman pushed back on the empasis by some gospel co-allies on complementarianism. Carl concluded this way:

This is not the only awkward question one might ask: for example, which is more unacceptable to a Baptist – a woman preaching credobaptism or a man preaching paedobaptism? But that is for another day. In the meantime, do not misunderstand me: I do write as a convinced complementarian and a member of a church where no elders or deacons are – or can be — women, though none of them are – or can be – Lutherans, Baptists or Dispensationalists either. It is thus not complementarianism in itself to which I object; I am simply not sure why it is such a big issue in organisations whose stated purpose is basic co-operation for the propagation of the gospel and where other matters of more historic, theological and ecclesiastical moment are routinely set aside. If you want simply to unite around the gospel, then why not simply unite around the gospel? Because as soon as you decide that issues such as baptism are not part of your centre-bounded set but complementarianism is, you will find yourself vulnerable to criticism — from both right and left — that you are allowing a little bit of the culture war or your own pet concerns and tastes to intrude into what you deem to be the most basic biblical priorities.

This seemed smart then and still seems so. My only quibble is with the word “complementarian” itself. Some say it is like the Trinity, a concept derived from Scripture but not actually used. Well, the same goes for “hierarchical” or “patriarchal.” Those are words that are much more likely to be derived from biblical teaching about society but are apparently offensive to gospel co-allies who don’t want to look odd to the watching world. The hierarchies assumed in Scripture, wives submit to husbands, slaves to masters, and believers to emperors, are hardly the social arrangements we take for granted in the United States after the democratic revolution inaugurated by Andrew Jackson. But they do resemble the ones that the Reformers, Puritans, and early Presbyterians took for granted. Just think of the language of “superiors, inferiors, and equals” from the Shorter Catechism’s discussion of the fifth commandment.

The logic of hierarchy and patriarchy is not something that I am going to defend, myself. The little missus and I have reached a level of concord that most observers would call an egalitarian arrangement. I have no stones to through from the windows of my glass house. I do have the shield of two-kingdom theology, though, which allows me to have my cake (egalitarianism of a kind at home) and eat it too (hierarchicalism and patriarchy of a kind in the church).

Still, I do think the Gospel Coalition’s rallying behind complementarianism is troubling. It resembles the version of Calvinism that traffics among the young and restless — lots of talk of divine sovereignty, not so much about limited atonement. After all, that biblical teaching and those Reformed creeds can sound reactionary to modern ears and we don’t ever want to sound extreme — as if believing in a God-man who died and rose again and will come again is moderate.

What is particularly troubling about the Complementarian w-w is what it seems to do to the church. For instance, in Mary Kassian’s “Complementarianism for Dummies,” she writes that complementarians don’t want to be traditional (which is surprisingly close to not wanting to be conservative):

In our name-the-concept meeting, someone mentioned the word “traditionalism,” since our position is what Christians have traditionally believed. But that was quickly nixed. The word “traditionalism” smacks of “tradition.” Complementarians believe that the Bible’s principles supersede tradition. They can be applied in every time and culture. June Cleaver is a traditional, American, TV stereotype. She is not the complementarian ideal. Period. (And exclamation mark!) Culture has changed. What complementarity looks like now is different than what it looked like 60 or 70 years ago. So throw out the cookie-cutter stereotype. It does not apply.

Well, if the culture has changed, shouldn’t the church? And if the culture now puts women into roles of authority, why shouldn’t the church also do so? In fact, the Gospel Coalition recently asked two women to exegete and interpret Scripture for its general (including male) audience. I am personally a great affirmer of the idea that non-ordained women can do whatever non-ordained men can do. But for an organization with ecclesial ambitions, allowing women to teach the Bible seems to put TGC on the road to women’s ordination (which is where some think their star allies are walking).

To come back to Carl’s point, if complementarianism lacks the deal breaker significance of the gospel, so too does women’s ordination. At the same time, the lesson of communions like the Christian Reformed Church is that distinguishing peripheral matters from central ones is not so easy. The ordination of women was not the line in the sand for all conservatives in the CRC. But it was indicative of a general unease in the denomination regarding teachings and practices that had been part and parcel of the church’s Reformed identity but now looked burdensome after a move out of immigrant quarters into suburbia. It is one thing to be prophetic about the environment. It’s another altogether to be so about relations between men and women.

So while complementarianism is not as big a deal as the gospel, the way you treat complementarianism may be indicative of how big the deals you are willing to make.

P.S. I wonder if Keller and Piper really do agree on complementarlianism, especially when it applies to the church and to marriage. This video has a certain poignancy to it that makes me wonder if the folks at Redeemer Church would invite Piper to lead a seminar on women’s role in the church.