What If?

Published on by D. G. Hart415 Comments

What if same-sex marriage is not that big a deal?

What if same-sex marriage winds Christians up so that they play to the stereotype of cultural warriors and further their reputation for the last 30 years of playing lock step in culture-war partisan politics?

What if no gay couples will seek to be married in conservative Presbyterian churches because our facilities (at least in the OPC) are so unattractive that only church members hold weddings there?

What if same-sex marriage is a fad that will pass when people remember that in the Spring of 2015 Lebron James was doing something more important than a retired Decathlete?

What if Christians are showing the same level of discernment that they did about the sale and distribution of alcohol?

What if Americans realize that homosexuals are at most 3% of the population who gain more leverage when Christians antagonize homosexual advocates?

What if gays are like Shakers and cannot reproduce?

What if a pastor refuses to conduct a gay marriage and eventually goes to jail?

What if another pastor also winds up in jail?

What if another one does?

What about another?

What if Americans become agitated — as they are wont to do — about a kind of government that locks people up for holding the wrong ideas (the kind of government that some Christians sometimes want)?

What if Christians are not discerning about times?

And what if this is a much bigger story than same-sex marriage, that is, that young straight people in record numbers are not entering marriage?

The data, released by Gallup this week, show that the percentage of people between the ages of 18 and 29 who are married is definitely declining. In 2014, the most recent year available, just 16% were married, and 14% of young people were living with a partner. Meanwhile, a whopping 64% of respondents were single in 2014 and had never married. That number was even higher for men (68%) than for women (60%). “This means that not only are fewer young adults married, but also that fewer are in committed relationships,” the report concludes.

Furthermore, the number of singles has been steadily rising for the past decade: In 2005, it was at just 49% while 32% of people in that age group were married. Marriage rates for people in their 30s have also started a slow decline — just 56% of thirtysomethings were married in 2014. More are cohabitating than their twentysomething counterparts, though.

While these statistics can’t hope to reflect every relationship setup out there, they do fall in line with other recent findings: The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that over half of the U.S. is currently not married. (Incidentally, that’s about the ratio of people on Tinder who are actually single). A recent Pew report showed that the number of Americans over the age of 25 who have never been married is currently at its highest, as well. So, if you’re single right now, you’re definitely not alone.

What if gay people wanted credit for upholding an institution that heterosexual people are abandoning?

What would Christians say then?

What if I am not just asking?

Rev. Kev, Bring 'Em Home

Published on by D. G. Hart103 Comments

Kevin DeYoung, on the threshold of becoming Presbyterian, lists 10 reasons he is thankful for the PCA. The last one goes like this:

10. Opportunity. The PCA is a young denomination. I’ve moved from the oldest Protestant denomination in the country to one of the newest. There are always challenges that come with youth (who am I? what will I be when I grown up? how do I relate to those who have gone before me?). But there are also great opportunities too.

Like pursuing a gospel-driven diversity that listens and learns without patronizing and pigeon-holing.

Like engaging a wayward world with more theology, more conviction, more worship, and more of God.

Like showing the world that real unity can only be found in truth, that the richest doctrine leads to the fullest doxology, that the highest Christology produces the best missiology, and that staunchest Calvinists can be the most loving people you’ve ever met.

So, why doesn’t the Gospel Coalition join the PCA? Why don’t the allies follow Kevin and realign with a Reformed church? I understand that would mean the end of the Gospel Coalition. But if we have churches like the PCA, why do we need the Gospel Coalition

Trending: Counter-Cultural, TKNY

Published on by D. G. Hart45 Comments

If the Gospel Allies have this much trouble interpreting their council members, how reliable are they on matters more important?

Dan Olson (thanks to our southern correspondent) tries to raise funds for The Gospel Coalition by trying to portray Tim Keller and Redeemer NYC as one of the better examples of the Benedict Option:

The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has called Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, where Tim Keller serves as senior pastor, an effective example of the Benedict Option for our twenty-first century, post-Christian context. Like other TGC-inspired communities, Redeemer aims to blend countercultural biblical faithfulness with a Christ-exalting, city-embracing vision.

See what he did there? He took one trending subject, the Benedict Option, and added another trending subject to it.

But this doesn’t sound very counter-cultural:

“I think one of our biggest problems as a denomination or as Reformed people and evangelicals is that we don’t really know how to talk to late modern culture. When I hear the average PCA pastor, it is very clear to me that they are preaching to the person who feels like they ought to be in church somewhere. Most of us have been conditioned to speak to people who don’t have one foot out the door. … You’re not used to preaching to people who do have one foot out the door, and when they do leave, they’ll never come back to any kind of church at all. … The relativism, the individualism, the pragmatism which is late modern culture — most pastors don’t have that in mind.”

That’s why we need to grow and strengthen groups such as Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), he explained.

According to Keller, if you’re on a college campus, you’re on the culture’s cutting edge. It is, he says, our best leadership development pipeline. By exposing people to the cutting edge of culture where they have to deal with the modern mindset, where they have to deal with non-Christians — that, in Keller’s opinion, is the best way to develop pastors and lay leaders.

Similarly, Keller pointed out that we as a denomination can grow in helping people better integrate their private life and their public work.

“We have to make sure people aren’t sealing off their faith from their work, only being Christians inside the church. Reformed people have more resources for that than any other group,” he says. “But the ways to support people out there right now are pretty weak. We need to be better about supporting nonclergy in their work. We need to be commissioning them and praying over them, and not just over pastors and missionaries.”

Lastly, if the PCA really wants to have a cultural impact, we can’t ignore the good work of other Gospel-spreading movements, Keller added.

“As Reformed people, we tend to be dismissive of the charismatic movement,” Keller said. He pointed out that there’s a lot of “unfortunate and bad theology there,” including the “prosperity gospel,” which is often integrated into charismatic teaching. But Keller points out that Pentecostalism is the most vital, fastest growing, and most multiracial, multiethnic movement in the world.

If TGC wanted an example of counter-cultural Christianity, they might have chosen the pastor of the RPCNA congregation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Or you could keep your culturally engaged celebrity pastor and simply ignore the Benedict Option or point out where it’s flawed.

But when you live in the world of cultural trends and celebrity, you sometimes lose your way.

P.S. I hope Rod is paying attention. A sure way to discredit the substance of the Benedict Option is to turn it into a fad.

P.P.S. Here is how truly counter-cultural Protestants worry about relevance and isolation:

Today, “missional,” liberal and evangelical Mennonites all seek it. A Mennonite Church USA Executive Board resolution encourages delegates to this summer’s convention to get over the “matters that divide us and to focus attention on the missional vision that unites us.” The busier we get, the better we will fix the world and the less we will worry about our own brokenness, boundaries and baggage.

Today’s Mennonite north stars are just as privileged as Leaman’s white Protestantism but more numerous. There is the fiction of an Anabaptist essence without the tribal baggage. There is church-management literature and the amorphous “missional” vernacular. There is the restless cycle of new causes for justice, celebrity activism or evangelical “revival.”

We think of these impulses as playing on a progressive-versus- evangelical divide, but their posture is fundamentally the same: the pressure to use religious and cultural privilege to lecture the world, along with the wish to never be tribal and broken again.

Many find it virtually impossible to imagine a life-giving Anabaptist spirituality without stressing activism and unity. Mainstream Mennonites now mostly function like the culturally white Protestants Leaman once admired — neither tribal nor marginal. Other Christians, we hope, will see us as active, opinionated — and pretty impressive.

What Blogs Do

Published on by D. G. Hart23 Comments

They resemble what Paul did in Jerusalem.

Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks. (Acts 23:6-10 ESV)

They wind people up.

When Is Orthodoxy Dead?

Published on by D. G. Hart95 Comments

If someone believes in the virgin birth of Christ, what’s the chance she (see what I did there?) will promote same-sex marriage? Or if someone insists on singing psalms only in worship, will he support women’s ordination? Or what if a pastor believes the Bible to be the infallible word of God, do you think he would be inclined to overlook divorce as a disqualification for holding church office?

The reason for asking isn’t to argue that orthodox doctrine produces good morals or holiness. But it is to suggest that certain doctrinal convictions become self-selecting mechanisms for affirming and defending Christian morality. For instance, it would be hard to imagine that as the PCUSA legalized women’s ordination, waffled on adultery among clergy, or ordained homosexual persons, presbyters were also examining ministerial candidates about the virgin birth of Christ, the vicarious atonement, or biblical inerrancy and rejecting candidates who would not affirm those beliefs.

So why is it that some are worried about the next archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels on the following grounds?

Since Belgium gained its independence (1830), the Archbishopric of Mechelen-Brussels has alternated between Francophone and Flemish holders. This has placed the spotlight on Belgium’s four Flemish Ordinaries: Bishops Jozef De Kesel of Brugge / Bruges (68 years old this June), Lucas Van Looy SDB of Ghent (74 years old in September), Patrick Hoogmartens of Hasselt (63 years old), and the man now said to be the front-runner for the Primatial See of Belgium: Johan Jozef Bonny of Antwerp (60 years old in July). Van Looy is too old, so this narrows down the “choice” to three: De Kesel, Hoogmartens and Bonny. Unfortunately, all three are unambiguously liberal. All three have publicly come out in favor of abolishing mandatory celibacy for priests of the Latin Rite, De Kesel is known to be open to women’s ordination, and Bonny, most infamously, advocates that the Church bless “gay relationships” and “gay couples” among other radical reforms that he would like to see.

Some might claim that all the bishops are orthodox. Nothing changes. The magisterium defends the truth. Everything is still intact. The bishops, accordingly, believe all the doctrines taught by the church. But if they do believe in the bodily assumption of Mary, justification by baptism, the condemnation that attends mortal sin, papal infallibility, or transubstantiation, would these bishops have trouble maintaining church teaching about marriage, homosexuality, and divorce? You would think they would affirm Roman Catholic morality if they also maintained and defended Roman Catholic theology.

So why don’t Roman Catholic conservatives ask questions about the theological views of bishops, or use doctrine to evaluate the health of the church? You would think that Protestants who used to be in doctrinally conservative churches would use theology to urge for the appointment of orthodox Roman Catholic bishops.

More Doctrinal Evolution

Published on by D. G. Hart195 Comments

If it’s wrong for Protestants to think that Calvin and Luther were simply reiterating what Paul and Peter taught, isn’t it also wrong for Roman Catholics to think that Trent was a doctrinal glimmer in the eye of the early church fathers? Merely waving the wand of doctrinal development won’t help you think historically, or understand that history is always moving, never static. And if history is fluid — which it is, as I, a licensed historian, can assure you — then what happened in the sixteenth century was not inevitable.

The way to look at it is that Luther and Calvin were in the mix of theological reflection that was going on for well over five hundred years and the Council of Trent decided to go one way and not the other. And if that is true, then Roman Catholicism as we know it (minus — ahem — Vatican I and Vatican II) started in the 1540s as much as Lutheranism started in the 1530s and Reformed Protestantism in the 1540s.

For support I appeal to Richard Muller:

The understanding of “catholic” and “schismatic” thought in the sixteenth century must be revised away from the modern denominational approach that, on the side of historians of the Roman Church, has all too willingly denied patristic and medieval roots to the Reformation and that, on the other side of older generations of Protestant historians, has tended to view the Middle Ages as harboring but few forerunners of the Reformation. The Reformers did not view themselves as schismatic; rather, they understood themselves as representative thinkers of the Catholic church. Nor can they be seen as radicals who allowed only the Bible as their foundation to the exclusion of tradition: their approach, as easily documented from their citations, was to use scripture as their ultimate norm and tradition as a subordinate, albeit fallible, support. This approach to the relation of scripture and tradition is, of course, contrary to the views of the Council of Trent, but it is surprisingly like the position of Thomas Aquinas and a great number of other major medieval thinkers. The Protestant use of patristic and medieval sources, moreover, became more explicit in the later generations of the Reformation; the nature of that reception should be a significant element of a revised historiography. (from Seeing Things Their Way)

Historians may not save us, but they can help.

White Smoke over Synod of Dordt

Published on by D. G. Hart1,260 Comments

Commissioners to the 82nd General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church have unanimously elected Archibald Alison as its moderator. We did not even vote. Only one nomination and then silence.

For information on Archie, go here.

In point of fact, Presbyterians, who do things decently and orderly, don’t blow smoke when we elect a moderator. And being moderator is not a matter of privilege. You are virtually on your feet for 10 hours a day and have to keep score of motions, seconds, substitute motions, Robert’s Rules, and privileges of the floor.

Gray smoke will be evident once commissioners retire for the evening.

Reality Wins

Published on by D. G. Hart58 Comments

Is it merely coincidental that the day that Nancy Pelosi tries to gain the upper Roman Catholic hand on Marco Rubio is also the day that Jason Stellman (of Bryan and the Jasons) announces he is throwing in the towel?

Here‘s Nancy on the Roman Catholic mainstream:

I thoroughly disagree (with Rubio’s opposition to gay marriage), being raised in a Catholic family, raising a Catholic family, mainstream Catholic – well, the Baltimore catechism, to get back to our hometown of Baltimore, was what we were raised on. And I think that this statement by Senator Rubio is most unfortunate. It’s a polarizing statement. The fact is, is that what we’re taught was to respect people in our faith and to say that this endangers mainstream Christian thinking is so completely wrong.

Does Jason sound here like he understands he’s in the Roman Catholic fringe?

While my days as an official apologist for the faith are over, my faith is still very much alive (albeit expressed differently nowadays).

It’s been a wild ride, and I’d like to say I will miss blogging at Creed Code Cult, but my feelings are mixed. I took a lot of abuse here, but I also handed out my share of it. In many ways the interaction I have had in these pages reflects the very best and very worst of me. To those I have offended, been impatient with, or smug toward, please accept my sincere apology. Grace should be received with grace, and I have received freely, and so desire to freely give.

Postscript: when Jason writes, “When ideas eclipse people, and when being right obscures being loving, everyone loses. Love God and love your neighbor. This is the Law and the Prophets,” wouldn’t that have been a reason to remain Presbyterian?

Ben Carson vs. Martin O'Malley — Please

Published on by D. G. Hart39 Comments

This story about the faith of presidential candidates leads me to propose an alternative. First, a glimpse of the article:

This season’s crop of presidential candidates reflects this country’s many contradictions in faith. A minority of them have stuck with their first church. Hillary Clinton has always been a devout Methodist—her only conversion was from Goldwater Girl to ’60s liberal under the tutelage of her suburban Chicago pastor, Don Jones, who took his youth group to hear Martin Luther King Jr. speak. Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and minister, has never strayed from his Baptist roots—his latest book is called God, Guns, Grits and Gravy. Santorum has always been Catholic; he tells Newsweek his faith was invigorated while he was in the Senate, owing to factors like his parish priest in Northern Virginia, his experiences of fellowship in the Bible Study Group in the Senate and his wife’s deep faith.

Ben Carson, the renowned neurosurgeon, hews closely to Seventh-day Adventist teachings, which include observing the Sabbath on Saturday and a literal belief in creationism. (He allows that Earth may have been formed over six “periods,” but insists that however long it took, it was God and not a Darwinian struggle that made us who we are.) Carson says his faith strengthened when he had an epiphany as a teenager that took him off a path he believed was headed to prison and onto one that made him the pride of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. (He’s famous for pioneering an operation to separate twins joined at the back of the head.)

The alternative is an all The-Wire 2016 presidential contest. Many know that Martin O’Malley, the basis for Tommy Carcetti, the white mayor elected in the fourth season, announced his entrance into the Democratic primaries. If only because I hope O’Malley’s presidency might inspire David Simon to do a The-Wire version of West Wing, I am going to vote for O’Malley should he gain the nomination. But I also will be pulling for Ben Carson. The reason is that the African-American public school students featured in season four — which my wife and I just finished for the ?? time — mention Carson at least twice as the person they want to be when they grow up. And that was a decade ago.

Plus, could the timing be any better for the release of a religious biography of Baltimore’s greatest writer?

Troubling

Published on by D. G. Hart96 Comments

Rod Dreher continues to acquire material for his next book — the one on the Benedict Option. (Make that Benedictine Option and I’m there — like yesterday.) And he posts this from a Protestant pastor who supports the notion of some kind of cultural resistance:

I just wanted to let you know that your writings about the Benedict Option have moved me deeply. Your thoughts, plus the guidance of the Spirit, led me to propose a youth discipleship class for the teenagers in our church to our Pastor — a proposal that he quickly endorsed.

A line that you had in a recent blog post “If they’ve heard anything from the Church, it’s something like, ‘Don’t do this because the Bible says not to’ — which is not enough in this time and place.” is exactly what we are trying to combat. It is almost word for word what a youngish (~25) member of our church told me a few weeks ago. She said that when she was growing up and would ask if she could do something that was verboten, her parents would tell her, “No, you can’t do that.” “Why?” “It’s against our religion.” No further explanation was given.

So we are putting together this class and starting it with hard questions. Why do you go to church? Would you go to church if your parents didn’t make you? Is God important to you? Why?

From there, it will lead into discussions about our doctrines, the importance of prayer, how to pray, how to read/study/meditate on the Bible, holiness, how to handle failures, etc. When we start discussing the things that the Lord hates, we aren’t just going to point at the Bible and say, “God says no, so don’t.” One of the questions we will keep bringing up is, “God said don’t do X or that he hates X. Why would God say that?” We want them to be able to put those admonitions into a larger framework.

Why did God say that? Wasn’t that the Serpent’s question to Eve (of course, in a figurative way, vd,t)? Why isn’t a thus saith the Lord sufficient for not doing something? Does this pastor really think he can go behind the curtain of God’s prescriptive will and come back alive?

Speaking from my own experience, parental instruction not to do something, backed up by serious consequences for the backside at younger stages and coping with parental disapproval at later ones, was an effective moral code. Did I observe it? Of course, not. Now that the parents are in the grave (and not eavesdropping on everything I say or think), I can admit that the first movie I saw in a theater was Straw Dogs. How did a 14-year old get pass the ticket taker? I looked old for my age. What did I tell my parents, who specified that their boys were not allowed to go to movies? I told them I went to the Mall, which was sort of true. But on the whole I broke at least 2 commandments that night — the fifth and the ninth — and if you’re keeping score at home with Greg the Terrible, watching this movie likely broke the seventh as well.

But the lesson here is not how to fool fundamentalist parents. It is that a firm set of moral guidelines, even without elaborate moral reasoning apart from the appeal to authority, was as remarkably good way to grow up. I obtained a clear sense of living inside or outside that moral code and I couldn’t blame anyone but myself if I got caught and had to face the music.

It seems to me in a just sayin’ way that if you want a real Benedict option, it is not to turn adolescents into people who can compete with Benedict XVI or Alasdair MacIntyre on virtue ethics. It is rather to create a moral universe akin to Benedict’s monastery where those who belong to the community have a clear sense of what’s right and wrong on the inside and how that differs from the world outside. In other words, respecting authority is more important than explaining why authority is important.

Postscript: this was NOT my experience:

Sadly, in spite of my Christian upbringing, no one ever told me what was wrong with the hook up culture. In fact, sex before marriage was encouraged by much of my Christian family and by the unanimous agreement of my Christian friends, who both mentioned preventing unwanted pregnancies, but never voiced the option of abstinence. What is worse, I never heard about the topic of sex in church. It was not until my involvement with a Christian campus ministry that I heard someone speak against premarital sex using biblical teaching.

This being my experience, I urge the Church, particularly parents raising children in the Church, to speak out on this issue and embrace the God’s intention for sex. Parents, do not make your child wait until he is a legal adult to hear about it from someone else. Talking about it may be awkward, but it could save your child from making a huge mistake and dealing with a lifetime of baggage for it.

Jay and Ellen Hart didn’t talk about the mechanics but Don and Darryl knew full well that sex outside marriage was verboten (inside marriage, well, okay, if you must).