Category: Shameless Selves Promotion

The Evangelical Presbyterian W-w

Published on by D. G. Hart46 Comments

Okay, remember this is a blog and most of the posts here are merely thinking out loud. And if all of us revealed all of our thoughts, we would likely surprise — even shock — many of those who know us.

So here is today’s conundrum: why is it that John Frame is almost as popular as Tim Keller? I say almost because TKNY obviously rocks. Yes, I concede a degree of envy. Any human, aside from Bryan Cross, would. Keller may not have the looks and charisma of a Billy Graham (neither does Frame nor — all about me — do I), but from his perch in NYC, the cosmopolitan capital of the world (for New Yorkers anyway, I’m not sure that Londoners or Romans or Istanbulus agree), and with his steady stream of books on the front shelves of national book chains and his easy access to religion journalists who don’t want to travel to Wheaton or Waco to report on evangelicalism, Keller is remarkably useful.

But what about John Frame? He has not (nor have I) been on any of the major conference circuits (Ligonier, T4G, TGC, ACE), he is not (nor am I) an exceptionally riveting speaker, and he has not (nor have I) broken through to the secular trade book market. Plus, for the last 30 years or so, he has labored in remarkably out of the way places (so have I) — the d’oh!s of Escondido and Oviedo. And yet, he continues to be the leading systematic theologian among evangelical Presbyterians. World magazine’s recent recognition of Frame’s Systematic Theology offers support for this conclusion.

Could it be that Frame’s appeal stems from his biblical literalism and devotional pietism? According to Paul Helm, these are the chief attributes of Frame’s body of work:

What motivates Frame’s theological work? I’d say, besides what has already been mentioned, a hermeneutic. The Bible, particularly the Bible’s language about God, is to be interpreted literally wherever possible. The genre of literal description is to prevail unless there s a very strong reason to disallow it. As Kevin Vanhoozer might say, the spirit of Carl Henry lives in KJV’s old teacher, John Frame. So wherever possible what God is said to be in Scripture, God literally is.

This hermeneutic is in evidence in Frame’s attitude to change in God, and to his various perspectives in time and in space, as we saw in our earlier piece on Frame’s outlook. ‘When he is present in our world of time, he looks at his creation from within and shares the perspectives of his creatures’. (570 ) ‘God engages in a conversation with man, as an actor in history. The author of history has written himself into the play as the lead character, and he interacts with other characters, doing what they do.’ (571) It would not be surprising if Frame has imbibed some of the modern outlook of the Christian religion as consisting in personal interaction between God and his creatures, despite holding that if one rejects libertarianism then the strongest argument for God being in time vanishes.

As already noted, another strong theme in Frame’s systematic theology is his concern that theology should be readily applied in the life of the believer. This is understood as having an everyday relationship with God as he interacts with his people. Such an interactive God must change, he thinks. It is important for obvious reasons that theology should be user-friendly, though it should not be forgotten that, say, Stephen Charnock’s Existence and Attributes of God contains numerous ‘applications’ in the Puritan style. Charnock’s theology is by no means purely cerebral. And – while we are on the topic – the nature of the worship of God will clearly be affected by the worshippers understanding of God. Worshipping a God who is at our shoulder is likely to be different from worshipping one who is simply ‘Our Father in heaven’. But that’s another topic.

As insightful as the post is, I do disagree with Helm’s opening that Frame “generally does not present his views polemically.” That may be true for his systematic theology, but once a warrior child it’s hard to avoid the combat.

Belfast Replay: DG Opens for PJ

Published on by D. G. Hart14 Comments

Talk about Providence. The weekend I was in Belfast (2 weeks ago) witnessed two book talks by authors from the U.S. The first was me talking about Calvinism (more below), the second was P. J. O’Rourke who was promoting his new memoir, Baby Boom. PJ spoke at the Ulster Museum, an impressive facility in Belfast that covers most aspects of Northern Ireland politics and culture. I chatted at the Evangelical Bookshop, an unusually good bookstore operated by the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. If you ever get to Belfast, you should visit both.

It almost goes without saying that O’Rourke was funnier than I, even though we both used stages of life to frame our subjects.

PJ contends that you cannot understand the boomers as a block since the dates for this demographic cohort run from 1946 to 1964. The experience of people like him who were born just after World War II was different from boomers like me who grew up in with the threat of missiles in space. The older boomers smoked a lot more dope. The youngsters paid attention in school. So O’Rourke divides the boomers into the grades of senior high school, with the seniors (himself) being a whole lot more experimental than the freshman. In the senior group, running from 1946 to 1951, are such disparate figures as Hillary Clinton and Cheech Marin. To the junior class (1951-1955) belong the computer whiz kids, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. O’Rourke didn’t mention any representatives for my sophomore class (1956 to 1961). But the standout from the freshman class is Barack Obama, a group of Americans so swimming in the BS produced by the seniors that Jeremiah Wright’s rants about African-American brains could never have distracted Obama from his smart phone.

I used age to divide Calvinism into its old, middle-aged, and young identities. Old Calvinism (1520 to 1660) includes the institutional churches that arose with the help of the magistrates — why we call it the magisterial Reformation. This Calvinism was established, national, institutional (read churchly), and had its greatest influence among the Swiss, Scots, Dutch, English, and Germans (all of which except for the Swiss became the major exporters of Calvinism to non-European settings).

Middle-aged Calvinism (1660-1800) was on the move. It transferred from Europe to Africa, North America, and Australia through colonialism (English and Dutch) and immigration (Scots and Germans). Calvinism also spread beyond the walls of the institutional churches through the rise of experimental Calvinism (also nadere reformatie) which strove to make all of life reformed especially since the national churches (England and the Netherlands) would not. Middle-aged Calvinism also spread through the auspices of foreign missions, first created by parachurch agencies inspired by experimental Calvinism (and the example of David Brainerd), with the established churches bringing up the rear of support for foreign missions — many were still trying to do home missions (the American West or the Scottish Highlands).

The youngest group of Calvinists, the truly Young Calvinism, were the churches that after 1800 began to extricate themselves from the confining compromises of ecclesiastical establishment by forming either voluntary or secessionist communions. The Dutch kicked off the process in 1834 with the Aufscheiding, which later inspired Abraham Kuyper and the Doliantie which formed the backbone of the GKN (1892). Then came the Free Church of Scotland with the disruption of 1843 led by Thomas Chalmers. In the twentieth century the chief efforts to leave behind Reformed establishmentarianism came from J. Gresham Machen who withdrew from the Protestant mainline through the doctrine of the spirituality of the church, and then from Karl Barth who articulated such a high view of divine transcendence that Christian truth could never be reduced to societal or cultural (or even ecclesiastical) norms.

By this scheme the so-called “New” Calvinists are really middle-aged since Edwards is their home boy, a man who stands smack-dab in the middle of Calvinism’s second stage. This also means that if the New Calvinists want to be truly young, they need to come to terms with Chalmers, Kuyper, Machen, and Barth.

O’Rourke still isn’t laughing even if he is home by now and taking his advance and honorarium to the bank.

The Book for which New Calvinists Have Been Waiting

Published on by D. G. Hart26 Comments

Recovering Mother Kirk was at one time selling for upwards of $200 at some used book outlets, much more a function of economics than of talent (Baker pulled the plug sooner than markets became saturated). Now it is back in print, thanks to the folks at Wipf & Stock. Here is a sample that may attract the young restless sovereigntists:

To hear some proponents of contemporary worship one would think that the church of Jesus Christ had never been able to worship well and properly until the advent of praise songs, Contemporary Christian music, and greater expressiveness in church services. Bill Hybels, for instance, the pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, the flagship congregation for so many of the innovations in late-twentieth-century Christian worship, admitted in a recent interview that he did not understand worship until the mid-1980s while attending a conference at Jack Hayford’s (the author of the now classic praise song, “Majesty”) Church on the Way. There Hybels witnessed a worship leader who was prepared and was able “to take us from where we were, into the presence of God.” After forty-five minutes to an hour of singing when the leader assisted in “adoring,” “confessing before,” and “expressing our absolute trust and devotion” to God, Hybels went back to his hotel room and said “This changes everything!” “Every Christian should regularly experience what I did tonight.”

Key to Hybels’ new conception of worship was the biblical teaching that Christians are to worship their God “in spirit and in truth.” This meant not only that sounding teaching was important for worship, as in a good sermon, but also that believers need to be “emotionally alive and engaged” in the experience of worship. Indeed, what has been crucial to the success and appeal of the newer forms of worship has been a rediscovery of the work and presence of the third person of the Trinity in the gathering of believers to bring praise and honor to God. One Reformed pastor, whose congregation began to incorporate some of the recent worship innovations in his services, says that when his church “discovered a new way to sing praise” the power of the Spirit “washed over us that day.” Previously this congregation had only given “lip service to the Spirit” but now they were uniquely aware of the “gentle presence of the third person of the Trinity.” Likewise, Jack Hayford, writing for Leadership magazine, links the newer forms of worship directly with the Spirit. “Expressive worship cultivates a willingness to be taught by and to submit to the Holy Spirit.” This connection between sponteneity, informality and emotional intensity in contemporary worship explains the popularity of such phrases as “spirit filled,” or “spirit led” in discussions about worship. The presence of the Holy Spirit, along with the signs of his presence, means that worship is not only of God but authentic, sincere and right.

These appeals to the presence and work of the Holy Spirit, however much they spring from sincere devotion, reflect a profound misunderstanding of the third person of the Trinity. Advocates of spirit-filled worship act as if the work of the Holy Spirit has been inextricably bound up with the use of praise songs, electric guitars and overhead projectors. Few of these writers seem to remember exactly when and where Jesus said that his disciples were to worship in “spirit and truth.” As it happened, our Lord said those words almost two-thousand years ago in Samaria and his intention in uttering that phrase was not prophetic, as if he saw a day, two millennia in the future, when his people would finally apprehend the reality of spirit-filled worship. In fact, coming to terms with Christ’s meaning in this widely appealed to phrase, “in spirit and truth,” clarifies what Christian worship is because it explains the work of the Holy Spirit both in the salvation of God’s people and in the period of redemptive history after the ascension of Christ. (from “Spirit Filled Worship,” pp. 91-92)

Golden Oldie (part one)

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

From the archives of Modern Reformation, excerpt from “The Incarnation and Multiculturalism“:

One of the ways, however, where the church has become conformed to the world concerns this very notion of how Christ is like us. One of the assumptions which governs so much of our lives is the idea that it is impossible for an individual of a particular race, gender, or sexual orientation to understand the experience of someone different. Or put differently, that people from one kind of background cannot identify with someone from a different background. This perspective tells us that the conditions of knowledge change according to differences in gender, race, ethnicity and whatever else distinguishes individuals in the census data. This is the outlook behind various political initiatives to affirm the rights and livelihoods of various minorities, advertisements which portray living white European men as little more than unthinking, uncaring louses, and various efforts in the academic and artistic worlds to include the expressions of oppressed outsiders and demonize the expressions of dead white, European men. Conversely, the idea that the experience of a particular human being is somehow universal or representative is increasinly regarded as arguable if not downright foolish.

That followers of Jesus Christ would capitulate to such thinking is well nigh remarkable. Yet, evidence continues to mount which shows that Christians are more and more faithful to the dogma of multiculturalism than to orthodox Christian teaching. Mainline Protestants have been at this game the longest. When those communions embraced the idea that Protestant orthodoxy was the product of a bygone age with little relevance for the knowledge and social arrangements of the modern world, mainstream Protestantism opened the door of the household of faith to arguments which deny that theological truth, religious practice, and ecclesiastical office transcend the time and place. Still, conservative Protestants, even conservative Presbyterians have made up for lost time. At many conservative colleges and seminaries one hears an increasing number of calls for greater racial and gender diversity within the faculty, student body and curriculum. White male professors and the traditional theological curriculum, it is said, are neither representative nor affirming of the peoples to whom the church is called to minister. Along the same lines run some of the arguments for home missions and church growth. If we try to establish churches among either urban minorities or suburban baby boomers, can we really expect the truths of the Westminster Confession of Faith or the piety of seventeenth century Puritans to make any sense? Don’t we need to contextualize the gospel in a way that makes the gospel relevant to the problems which confront African Americans, Hispanics and unchurched Harry and his wife? So many church planting experts devise strategies for establishing churches that will appeal to different age or ethnic groups. Then there is the steady stream of study Bibles which evangelical publishers continue to produce, the woman’s study Bible, the men’s study Bible, the Bible for teens, and the Bible for seniors. So too does worship suffer at the hands of multiculturalism. Advocates of contemporary worship forms insist that older patterns and forms of corporate worship are meaningless and hence oppressive to younger believers who have grown up with television and rock ‘n roll. And to take but one more example, the debates in some Reformed denominations about the ordination of women follows from the logic that human experience is not universal but rather partial or specific to different kinds of people. So many who favor women’s ordination argue that women clergy are much better equipped to address the needs of the church’s largest constituency, other women because they, and only they know what it is like to be a woman. So, if you think that the question of cultural diversity is only one for the politicians in Washington or the professors at our leading universities, think again. More and more God’s people are succumbing to the notion that men and women, African-Americans and whites, young and old, and urbanites and suburbanites are fundamentally different, with little in human experience binding them together or giving them a common frame of reference.

The reason for going on at such length about this is not the problem it poses for public life. To be sure this is a problem. But the church has a different task than to make the United States a harmonious place to live. Rather, the danger of such thinking is that it flies in the face of the gospel. It directly contradicts what our text here teaches, that is, that Jesus is like us.

If we were to capitulate entirely to the habits of our culture about personal identity, that we are merely products of our various physical traits such as skin color, family background, sex, socio-economic status, or career, then we would be people of little hope. For we would not be able to identify with Jesus or he with us. The Christ whom we worship, who calls us into his presence and makes it possible because of his sacrifice for us to enter into the holy of holies surrounded though invisible by the saints and angels, is really very different from according to the contemporary mindset. This Christ, who is supposed to belike us in all things, except for sin, is far removed from us. After all, he was and in some sense still is in his glorified body a single, male, Jew who lived in first-century Palestine and worked throughout most of his life as a carpenter. All that he has in common with Americans living in the late twentieth-century is not much more than a pulse. And this is the real danger of such ways of thinking. Because if Christ is so different from us, then he really could not have identified with us and cannot set us free from our guilt and misery.

The way Americans commonly identify themselves has little to do with what the Bible teaches. The incarnation, the truth that the second person of the trinity took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, teaches that what matters most in human experience is not what physical characteristics divide us but rather it teaches what is universal to the human condition. Our physical traits may matter to the world and so hurt or help our chances of find a job and living a well-adjusted life. But these concerns are insignificant in the light of eternity. What matters most men and women is that they are created in God’s image and for the purpose of having fellowship with him. Of course the possibilities for that fellowship have been ruptured by sin. That is why Christ took human form, why he assumed the image of God given to humanity, that he might restore his beloved to fellowship with God. This is the real significance of the human form that Jesus took, that it was a form given for the purpose of glorifying and enjoying God, not for the purpose of wielding power over others or proving our standing as victims of oppression. Jesus was and is like us in his humanity despite his being a Jewish, male heterosexual bachelor from working class background. And his similarity to us is crucial to our salvation.

When Biblicism Fails

Published on by D. G. Hart10 Comments

Back in the day before Bryan Cross I was debating John Frame on worship. His tack was to say that his brief for contemporary worship was biblical while those who criticized Praise & Worship worship (note redundantly the redundancy) were simply historical or traditional. The innuendo was that Frame’s critics were in the position of Rome’s defenders of tradition while he was the one continuing the reformation of the church.

The trouble was that Frame rarely did exegesis. He could put biblical references in parentheses, but I took enough Greek and Hebrew to know that an open and closed parenthesis does not exegesis make.

Turns out that Mark Jones agrees in his review of Frames ginormous Systematic Theology:

It almost appears as though the “Bible-alone” approach handicaps Frame in places where he needs the Reformed tradition most. John Murray was radically biblical, but he was also vigorously exegetical, and did not simply engage in proof-texting. Frame is radically biblical, but not (in this volume, at least) vigorously exegetical – something he needs to be if he is not going to engage in serious historical-theological analysis where he departs from his own tradition on important doctrines.

That observation makes it hard to understand how Jones could also write this:

No one can ever accuse Frame of not loving his Bible, and making it pre-eminent in his theological discourse. For that I am grateful. No wonder his writings have been hugely beneficial to the Reformed, evangelical world. This work has, as its crown jewel, much of Frame’s thought in one volume.

All About My Hyphenated Self

Published on by D. G. Hart79 Comments

Since we have multiple callings that require us to juggle our various identities — I relate to my wife differently when wearing my hat as elder compared to when wearing my pajamas as husband — I was glad to see that I am also conflicted when it comes to politics. Time has a personality quiz that yielded the following results:

Liberal Qualities

You like cats more than dogs
You prefer documentaries over action movies
You use a modern browser
You prefer the Met to Times Square
You’re not completely proud of your country’s history

Conservative Qualities

You think kids should respect authority
You like a neat desk
You think self-control trumps self-expression
You’re not wild about fusion cuisine
You think the government should treat the lives of its citizens as much more valuable than those of other countries
You don’t think your partner should be looking at porn alone
You think the world benefits from nations and borders

That makes me 79 percent conservative and 21 percent liberal. And to think that some so-called conservative Protestants think 2kers are not only liberal but radical. Whom are you going to believe?

What To Do When IGoogle Closes

Published on by D. G. Hart27 Comments

I believe I have made adequate preparations, but for those wondering what the world of the interweb will be like after today, the conference this weekend in Iowa on Presbyterians and Reformed Protestants in the United States may be a way to go into that gentle night of post-IGoogle browsing. Here are the details on Reformed In America: An Exploration of the History of Reformed & Presbyterian Christianity in the States, featuring Alan Strange and (all about) me: And here is a brief description:

Is there an American form of Christianity? Many believers who live in the United States would be content simply to identify themselves as Christians, others as American Christians, and still others would be inclined to say they are Christians in America. But are believers in any of these groups able to identify distinctive traits of American Christianity? Do you know enough of the history of Christianity in this country to recognize how your own expression of Christian faith and practice has been shaped by America in the modern age, for good or ill?

None of us are simply “biblical Christians” but have a history that has shaped us in one way or another. Reformed Christians have a rich heritage going back to the Protestant Reformation in sixteenth-century Europe, but they also have a peculiar history in the United States. Join us for this free two day conference which will explore some of the major outlines of the history of Reformed & Presbyterian Christianity in the United States.

“Reformed in America” will take place at Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church (3615 University Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa) starting at 7:00pm, Friday,
November 1 and running through the afternoon of Saturday, November 2. This conference is hosted by Providence Reformed Church and Grace Presbyterian Reformed Church, which are both congregations in Des Moines.

Territorial Old Life Week

Published on by D. G. Hart459 Comments

While Francis is in Brazil and points South American for World Youth Day, the directors of the Old Life Theological Society will be conducting editorial meetings and pursuing other fun on the coast of Maine. I hope to finish Allen Guelzo’s history of the Civil War, and read Mary Gordon’s Final Payments, Francis Oakley’s The Conciliarist Tradition, and William Manchester’s biography of H. L. Mencken. Probably won’t, but you can always dream.

God willing, I should be back on the grid later next week. I am sure Stellman can’t wait.

In the meantime, some considerations for cultural warriors of the family friendly variety, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant.

All About Calvinism (and me)

Published on by D. G. Hart27 Comments

Self-promotion alert!

Today Calvinism: A History is available in stores (including on-line sellers). To mark the occasion the good folks at National Review Online (courtesy of John Miller) have posted a podcast interview that John did with me a week or so ago.

And to sustain the Calvinism momentum, the editors of Engaging with Keller have encouraged us contributors to publicize the book’s publication. To that end, an excerpt from my chapter (I don’t have access to the others, really):

. . . Tim Keller would hardly be the first Presbyterian pastor not to follow the conventions or strictures of Presbyterian polity. But his popularity and especially his influence within the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) make his Presbyterian identity worth closer scrutiny. On the one hand, Keller has strong connections to leading figures in the world of young Calvinism through the Gospel Coalition. His presence among this mix of leaders, such as John Piper and D. A. Carson, greatly encourages evangelicals to think of themselves as Reformed even when they do not belong to Reformed churches. On the other hand, Keller’s highly visible parachurch activities and interdenominational cooperation has diminished the influence of Old School Presbyterianism, at least among younger ministers and church planters, within his own denomination, the PCA. In each of these cases Keller’s impoverished ecclesiology, combined with the success of his congregation in New York City, has encouraged many Protestants in the United States to conceive of Reformed Protestantism as something distinct from ecclesiology, an irony to be sure considering that the church government term, Presbyterian, always finds its way into Keller’s biography thanks to the name of his congregation.

No Assembly Required

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

Another batch of back issues from the Nicotine Theological Journal has been posted. The July 1999 issue proves just how cutting edge the NTJ is. Well before Keller or Piper were debating multi-site congregations, other technologically driven pastors were conceiving of an entirely different understanding of gathering with the saints and angels. Here is an excerpt:

“I will tell of thy name to my brethren,” David vows to God in Psalm 22. “In the midst of the assembly I will praise thee. From thee comes my praise in the great assembly; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him.” David understands that redemption has consequences. His praise must not be private or domestic, but it must be public, in the presence of fellow God-fearers. Not until we worship solemnly with the saints do we express adequately our gratitude to God for our deliverance.

Unlike the psalmist, evangelical Christians today seem terribly confused as to why they are to gather for worship. Consider this metaphor, popularized by Chuck Swindoll. Worship is still important, we are assured, and it is as vital for the church today as the huddle is for a football team, for in both cases that is where the players gather together to learn the plays. The flaw in this metaphor is obvious. The huddle is not the action in football. It is the lull in the action, a moment so uneventful that the well-conditioned TV viewer can use it to race to replenish his beer. So to compare worship to a football huddle is to encourage the mistaken notion that the real world is “out there,” and that the church gathered for worship is somehow something less.

As bad as that is, far worse yet is the increasingly popular conviction that Christians can engage the world with a no-huddle offense. As far as assembling together, more and more are encouraged merely to phone it in. This is not entirely new. As early as the 1950s, dial-a-prayer services were as popular as phoning for the time or the weather or for movie announcements. In a 1964 article in Christianity Today, many pastors were extolling the efficiency of this automated ministry. Said one, it was the only way he could talk to 200 people a day. What is more, his church could minister this way to people at two in the morning without waking up the pastor. Beyond efficiency, its popularity owed to parishioners enjoying anonymity without feeling lonely.

AND THEN CAME THE INTERNET. Any surfer knows that religious communities are thriving in cyberspace. We visited one recently, the First Church of Cyberspace (found at “Godweb.com”). Characteristic of an age that cannot distinguish between profession and self-promotion, the website opens not with a description of its beliefs but with positive comments from recent visitors. Guest book kudos come from Baptist, Presbyterian, and Universalist circles, from as far away as Germany and Japan. Much of the enthusiasm is brief and to the point: “Wow!” or “Cool!” Perhaps what impresses visitors most is the non-fundamentalist character of First Church. From the church’s home page, the surfer is but a couple of hyperlinks from what is euphemistically described as “Adult Christianity.”

OF COURSE, A CYBERCHURCH IS admittedly unconventional, and that is its great advantage, boast its afficionados. One church website designer has claimed that “all elements of congregational life can be experienced through the Internet,” including the sacraments (don’t ask). And all the while – and here is the real virtue – it is in the “real world.” By contrast, a church gathered traditionally is mired in the past, with members who are missing the action. We know of one Presbyterian megachurch that recently appointed to its large staff a “Minister of Technology.” This minister is urging his church to make room for technology, lest it become “too painfully obvious that we have become completely irrelevant.” (He omits the other painful reality of ecclesiastical technophobia: that ministers of technology will find themselves unemployed.)

This then is the church in the technological age – no assembly required. We can forgo the gathering, because technology has conquered the restraints of time and space. One megachurch in Central Florida is explicitly making this claim. Recently this church changed its name from a “Community Church” to “a Church Distributed,” because it had discovered a “new form” of the church (which will eventually become the norm, it predicts). . . .