Americanists All?

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

Sean Michael Winters believes that Pope Francis is a pontiff for the poor who does not fit the neo-conservative Roman Catholic defenders of free markets and political liberalism:

The new pope’s critique of the current world economy has left conservative Catholic commentators in something of a bind. For years, they have denounced “cafeteria Catholics” on the left, those who differ with the Church on issues such as same-sex marriage or abortion rights. Now, it is these conservatives who need to either change their public policy positions or stand in the cafeteria line. “Before, Catholic economic conservatives like George Weigel and Robert Sirico could pretend that Vatican apparatchiks were smuggling traditional anti-capitalist language into papal pronouncements,” says Trinity College’s Mark Silk, who serves on the editorial board of Religion & Politics. “But no one can doubt that this language comes straight from Pope Francis’ heart. That’s what’s freaking the conservatives out.”

Winters thinks that these same conservatives were wrong about Benedict XVI:

To be clear, Weigel, Sirico and other Catholic conservatives have been pretending for some time. When Benedict issued Caritas in Veritate in 2009, Weigel famously suggested reading the text with red and gold pens, excising those parts he attributed to the Vatican bureaucracy and with which he and other Catholic neo-cons objected. And, Father Sirico’s latest book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy, stands in opposition to more than 100 years of papal social teaching in its championing of laissez-faire policies.

Pope Benedict was not shy about voicing his concerns about the world economy. In his last World Day of Peace message, issued on January 1 of this year, Pope Benedict condemned “a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism,” which he lumped together with terrorism and international crime as threats to world peace. Pope Francis is building on what was said by his predecessors going all the way back to Pope Leo XIII in the late nineteenth century. What is different about Francis is not the content of the teaching, but the directness of his style.

And when some conservative Roman Catholics claim that Francis is not an advocate or teacher of liberation theology, Winters says it doesn’t matter:

. . . it is true that Papa Francesco does not subscribe to certain varieties of liberation theology, [but] he is also not likely to be found at a Tea Party rally, reading Ayn Rand, or otherwise evidencing much sympathy for the anti-government, pro-capitalist positions common among Catholic conservatives in the U.S..

In short, while conservative Catholics might have been able to parse traditional Catholic social teaching in ways that suited their defense of modern capitalism and globalization, Pope Francis’ words are so direct, so forceful, so precise, they do not invite parsing. “The tradition has long been suspicious of the kind of economics proposed by the Acton Institute,” Camosy says. “For Catholics who are thinking with the Church, growing wealth always takes a back seat to justice—in particular, justice for the most vulnerable. Period.” That period has become, under Francis, an exclamation mark.

This is one of those exchanges, again, of which Jason and the Callers seem to be remarkably ignorant (or willfully silent). Sure, they may know about Winters and Weigel. But the debates among U.S. Roman Catholics, which line up remarkably along the lines of the major political parties, make no difference for their claims about the papacy and the difference the office makes to Christian witness. As they would have it, without a pope, Protestants are left to private opinion. But Jason and the Callers don’t notice that with a pope, U.S. Roman Catholics are increasingly left to not-so-private interpretations of what the pope really means or intends. It is a struggle to define the papacy. Here, I had thought that the papacy was responsible for its own definition and Weigel and Winters were to submit.

The true state of affairs among at least some U.S. Roman Catholics is not whose side the pope is on but that each side tries to claim the pope for its politics. In effect, the social justice and pro-capitalist Roman Catholics may both be guilty of what used to be known of Americanism, namely, letting society set the agenda for the church (instead of the other way around), a heresy condemned by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae. Russell Shaw, who has a recent book on Americanism among Roman Catholics in the U.S., wrote:

Leo XIII’s critique is more substantial than apologists for Americanism care to admit. Much of it, in fact, is pertinent to conditions in American Catholicism today. . . .

Turning to the origins of Americanism, Leo XIII says it reflects a desire to attract to the Church “those who dissent.” Central to it, he adds, is the idea that the Church — “relaxing its old severity” — must “show indulgence” to new opinions, including even those that downplay “the doctrines in which the deposit of faith is contained.”

Leo XIII’s reply is that how flexible the Church can and should be is not up to individuals but rests with “the judgment of the Church.” Opposing this orthodox view, he notes, is the modern error that everyone could decide for himself, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit today gives individuals “more and richer gifts than in times past” — no less than “a kind of hidden instinct” in religious matters. . . . Better than Leo XIII or anyone else could have known at the time, the opinions condemned in the papal letter have turned out to be widely held among American Catholics today.

That is the case with the notion that each individual member of the Church can decide religious questions for himself or herself and that this remarkable ability comes directly to each one from the Holy Spirit. This opens the door to “cafeteria Catholicism” — a name given to the pick-and-choose selectivity regarding Church teaching on faith and morals now found among many Catholics.

All of which is simply to say it looks very much as if Pope Leo XIII wasn’t wrong to condemn Americanism — he was just ahead of his time.

All Down Hill After John Witherspoon?

Published on by D. G. Hart22 Comments

Anthony Bradley wonders (again) what has happened to Presbyterians and why they lost their momentum. First it was as popular voices among evangelicals, now it’s as dispensers of wisdom about the world:

I am wondering, then, for those who are raising their children in the Presbyterian tradition what resources exists for forming Presbyterian identity in terms of an understanding marriage & family (i.e., the relationship between covenant marriage & covenant baptism in America’s marriage debate), issues related to social & political power & federal political theory (which is derivative of federal theology), divorce and remarriage, war and social conflict, apologetics, and so on? How does a covenantal world-and-life view, and Presbyterian understandings of power structures, unlock the implications for a theology of work & economics when applied to international third world development, and so on?

By extension, I am also wondering what happened to Presbyterians as known and normative leaders of culturally leveraged institutions in American society and culture? Mark Twain and William Faulkner were Presbyterian. More Vice-Presidents of the United States have been Presbyterian more than any other denomination (Presbyterians rank 2nd for the US Presidency). Presbyterians rank 2nd in terms of placement on the Supreme Court in US History. I could go on. . . .

An initial thought is to wonder why Presbyterians need to go to another Presbyterian for instruction on the federal government. Isn’t reading the Federalists and Anti-Federalists (Presbyterian or not?) good enough?

Another wonder is whether Presbyterians have ever been all that influential as Bradley’s post assumes. To meet his criteria — “what Presbyterians are speaking to these issues or leading institutions that are (like think tanks or colleges and universities” — at least three sets of circumstances need to be in play. First, a person needs to be Presbyterian (what kind — Old Side, New Life, Neo-Calvinist — is another question)? Second, such a person needs to be writing on a vast number of public policy type subjects. So far Tim and David Bayly suffice. But then, third, and this is the kicker, the person needs to be sufficiently well known for folks in the pew to consult him or her (sorry, Tim and David). As it stands, lots of Presbyterians have lots of thoughts on all sorts of subjects and publish them (on the interweb). But no one of them stands out with Francis Schaeffer notoriety.

The problem, then, may have less to do with Presbyterian decline than with the diversification of communication technology and the formation of diverse pockets of affinity.

At the same time, Presbyterians need not feel so bad, at least if misery loves company. Bradley’s question applies just as much to Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, and — boy does it ever — to Congregationalists (nee Puritans). Among Western Christians, Rome stands out as distinctly different in this regard since Roman Catholics have an endless supply of public intellectuals who are doing their best imitations of popes, who speak constantly to a host of issues below their pay grade. This may explain much of Rome’s contemporary appeal to converts. If you want a church with all the answers to life’s pressing questions — don’t go to Guy Noir but to the Vatican. But if you believe in the spirituality of the church and the sufficiency of Scripture, you don’t need a Presbyterian pontiff to tell you how to live. You go to church, say your prayers, work dutifully at your callings, and take your lumps.

One last thought about Anthony’s question comes from a period I know relatively well. During the first half of the twentieth century we did have Presbyterians who spoke on any number of issues, were well known and so had pretty large followings. These were William Jennings Bryan, Billy Sunday, J. Gresham Machen, and Carl McIntire. Maybe 1 in 4 isn’t bad. But if that’s going to be the percentage of Presbyterians we should heed when they start to pontificate about all of life, I’ll take my chances with guys who write for American Conservative.

Presbyterian Borderlands

Published on by D. G. Hart109 Comments

Thanks to an our Old Life Tennessee correspondent I came across a recent conversation about evangelicals in the Presbyterian world (including mainline and sideline denominations). First, the post about the state of so-called conservatives in the PCUSA:

I am in the ordination track for the Presbytery of Charlotte. And if that were not enough, I attend a PCUSA seminary, and I work at the seminary. Needless to say, I have an invested interest in the controversies plaguing the Presbyterian Church (USA). It pains me beyond words to see our denomination complete its long trajectory of cultural pandering and shameless accommodation.

A few weeks ago, the session (elders) of our church voted unanimously to be dismissed from the PCUSA. The Sunday after the vote, each elder gave his or her perspective on the decision, resulting in a remarkably diverse enumeration of grievances. I know from talking with the pastoral staff and some of the elders that this was not an easy decision. It was soaked in prayer, especially in the immediate weeks prior to the vote. There was no triumphalism in their statements, yet a confidence that God will continue to be faithful in the journey ahead. The elders were especially intent on making it clear that we are not morally superior to the PCUSA, for we are all equally dependent upon God’s grace. The congregation still needs to vote, but I expect wide support for the elders’ decision. Like most of the recent dismissals, we are planning to enter the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (ECO).

Naturally, I am in the middle of all this as a seminarian. I have told the session that where the church goes, I will go. Thus, I will likely transfer into the ordination process of ECO.

Numbers

In our area, the most significant dismissal to ECO has been First Presbyterian Church, Greenville (SC), which is about 3,100 members. I know that we are supposed to be pious and not focus on numbers, but it is a significant fact that the average ECO congregation is over 500 members, with FPC-Greenville and FPC-Colorado Springs as the largest. As well, there have been significant departures to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), notably First Presbyterian Church in Orlando, which is nearly 4,000 members. By contrast, the average PCUSA congregation is just shy of 100 members. I know, numbers aren’t everything, we shouldn’t focus on numbers, and so on. I understand the sentiment, but when you are looking at a demographic catastrophe in membership loss, numbers are actually pretty damn important. So, what are some of the denominational numbers?

Then an intervention from a PCA reader:

I am a member and officer in a PCA church, and have studied at Reformed Seminary in Charlotte, fwiw.

I would classify the PCA like this: a denomination that requires its officers to strictly subscribe to the Westminster Standards and largely rejects Neo Orthodoxy and most higher critical Biblical hermeneutics. It is largely aspiring to be an Old School Presbyterian denomination. In terms of practice, it is more New School than the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, though virtually identical to the Associate Reformed Presbyterian (ARP).

While someone like Tim Keller, for instance, may seem more moderate, I disagree that he is more Gordon than Westminster Philly, especially since he studied and has taught at Westminster Philly. He still strictly subscribes to the Westminster Confession, for instance. A Keller / Redeemer model is more of a majority of the PCA these days than older, Southern models. In many ways, what comes out of Redeemer New York is doctrinally more conservative than many, older Southern churches.

I’m confused by what you mean by the PCA being more fundamentalist. Do you mean in a Charles Hodge / Gresham Machen way? Or a cultural fundamentalism?

Honestly, I would say that many AMiA guys would be friendly to the PCA, especially since they have some of their students at Reformed Seminary.

Intinction was really a very minor thing. The big doctrinal discussion in PCA circles these days was over Federal Vision.

I remain very saddened over the mess going on in many PC USA circles, and am glad more congregations are leaving that denomination.

Then a couple of comments about Keller:

Keller is respected, indeed, and several of the guys like his model for ministry. At the same time, I’ve heard more than one complaint about his friendliness toward Francis Collins and other theistic evolutionists and his own progressive Creationism views. This is the huge debate, as you are likely aware, within evangelicalism and certainly on the Charlotte campus of RTS. A number of key faculty members were very hostile to any hint of evolutionary science and rather suspicious of progressive Creationism. The favored model on campus, by far, was/is Young Earth with a handful of Old Earth guys. The other complaint about Keller is his views on women deacons, including certain charges against him for being duplicitous in having women functioning in these roles.

Keller represents the prior generation of Reformed evangelicals, like Meredith Kline and Roger Nicole, who both taught at Gordon (and the latter also at RTS-Orlando). Roger Nicole would never even remotely have a shot today at RTS-Charlotte because of his views on women in ministry, and Kline’s framework hypothesis would be that “slippery slope” that everyone fears. These two issues — science and women in ministry — are by far the dominant ones at RTS and the like-minded young guys who follow Al Mohler, John Piper, and the same round of conference speakers. Federal Vision is still discussed, but with far less passion.

In general, the trend at conservative Reformed seminaries — like WTS and RTS, plus SBTS for the Baptists — has been an increasing shift toward the right (i.e., even further right!). When I tell people that the PCA and RTS is more conservative today than in the 70′s and 80′s, they say, “Oh, yeah, definitely.” I’m a pretty conservative guy, and in most settings I’m the most conservative guy in the room. At RTS, I was by far the most liberal guy!

I do hear you that in some PCA circles there is some fear that that some segments have doubled down, just to prove how conservative they are. And I have experienced it personally, and have seen what amounts to party splits over secondary issues, standing in proxy for major ones. For instance, you’ll see guys at places like a Greenville Seminary embrace a real scholasticism.

I think if you could take a poll among TE’s in the PCA, I still think the majority would be more like a Keller or Frame. I think the “we are conservative to prove a point about it” are loud though and probably seem more representative than what their real numbers might suggest.

I’m personally more a Kline / Framework guy, and I understand the history that in the PCA, a ministerial candidate holding something like Kline’s views were quite acceptable a generation ago – and are getting rejected in certain Presbyteries, and end up going to the EPC.

The take away seems to be that evangelical Presbyterians are caught between confessionalists and liberals — they want to be Reformed but moderately so. Because pietist evangelicals share more affinities with liberals (as in, we’re not going to be pains in the arses about doctrine or worship or polity), they wind up thinking more about size and influence (think neo-Calvinism) than about what their Reformed heritage might tell them (not to mention that old-fashioned idea that the Bible teaches Reformed doctrine, Presbyterian polity, and Reformed worship). Hence the appeal of Tim Keller.

That’s not to say that small is beautiful and that the entire mother load lode of Geneva, Amsterdam, or Edinburgh resides in the RPCNA, OPC, or URC. But the discussions in these small communions are different from the ones among conservatives in larger denominations like the PCA, where apparently size does matter, closer to the border of the mainline denomination. Indeed, it seems to me that TR’s in the PCA would never countenance the OPC or RPCNA because these are pea-sized denominations. Again, the appeal of Tim Keller.

Why Is it Godly Patriotism When We Do It, and Jihad When They Do It?

Published on by D. G. Hart52 Comments

Making the world safe for Julia Ward Howe (thanks to our Iowa correspondent):

Holy war can seem like something that happened long ago or that happens far away — the Crusades of medieval Europe, for example, or jihadists fighting secular forces today. But since their country’s founding, Americans have often thought of their wars as sacred, even when the primary objectives have been political.

This began with the American Revolution. When colonists declared their independence on July 4, 1776, religious conviction inspired them. Because they believed that their cause had divine support, many patriots’ ardor was both political and religious. They saw the conflict as a just, secular war, but they fought it with religious resolve, believing that God endorsed the cause. As Connecticut minister Samuel Sherwood preached in 1776: “God Almighty, with all the powers of heaven, are on our side. Great numbers of angels, no doubt, are encamping round our coast, for our defense and protection.”

Several founding fathers were more theologically liberal than the typical evangelical Protestant of their day. Still, few were anti-religious, and the nation’s architects often stated that religion supported virtue, which was essential to patriotism. “A true patriot must be a religious man,” wrote Abigail Adams, wife of America’s second president.

George Washington believed so strongly in the religious case for patriotism that he demanded chaplains for the Continental Army. He appealed to the Continental Congress for higher pay for chaplains, and when one chaplain impressed the general, Washington went to great lengths to retain him.

That chaplain was Abiel Leonard, of Woodstock, Conn. Washington wrote letters to the governor of Connecticut and to Leonard’s church, hoping they would support the pastor’s extended service in the Army. In his letter to the governor, Washington wrote that Leonard had proved to be “a warm and steady friend to his country and taken great pains to animate the soldiers, and impress them with a knowledge of the important rights we are contending for.”

For Washington, chaplains not only supplied moral guidance but appealed for God’s support in battle, which was vital. He believed that the war’s outcome rested in God’s hands, and he ordered his soldiers to attend “divine service, to implore the blessings of heaven upon the means used for our safety and defense.”

We cannot fully understand the revolution without recognizing such appeals for God’s favor on the battlefield. Both the founders and ministers understood these ideas because they knew scripture, one of the major sources of American patriotism.

No problem here, though, because it’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood:

Talk of glorious causes has persisted from the revolution through the war on terror. Some Americans think of the United States as “God’s New Israel,” a nation on a divine mission, its wars blessed by God. Sometimes rhetoric makes this view obvious: Soon after Sept. 11, 2001, for example, the White House apologized after President George W. Bush used the word “crusade” to describe the battle against terrorism.

But references to religion can be subtler, or even obligatory, in political speeches. Consider President Obama’s July 4 speech from last year, in which he praised military sacrifices and ended with: “God bless you. God bless your families. And God bless these United States of America.”

We pass over such niceties as commonplace, almost dutiful, in political speech, but they are religious statements. Their roots go back to the revolution, when colonists — from evangelical preachers to founders such as Washington — asked for God’s blessing. Whatever century it is, our leaders often include some suggestion of the same biblical themes that filled revolutionary-era sermons, including sacrifice, courage for the fight and appeals for God’s providential blessings on America. We are, it seems, one nation under God after all.

Perhaps the reason American Christians permit blasphemy in their worship services is that the idolatry of U.S. civil religion has made them immune to it.

No peace, no justice.

What Do You Do When You Want To Sing Contemporary Songs But They Are Orthodox (mainly)?

Published on by D. G. Hart23 Comments

Well, this is the question that confronted the PCUSA hymnal committee recently:

Even more sustained theological debate occurred after the conclusion of the committee’s three-and-a-half years of quarterly meetings in January 2012. We had voted for a song from the contemporary Christian canon, Keith Getty and Stuart Townend’s “In Christ Alone.” The text agreed upon was one we had found by studying materials in other recently published hymnals. Its second stanza contained the lines, “Till on that cross as Jesus died / the love of God was magnified.” In the process of clearing copyrights for the hymnal we discovered that this version of the text would not be approved by the authors, as it was considered too great a departure from their original words: “as Jesus died / the wrath of God was satisfied.” We were faced, then, with a choice: to include the hymn with the authors’ original language or to remove it from our list.

Because we were no longer meeting as a committee, our discussions had to occur through e-mail; this may explain why the “In Christ Alone” example stands out in my mind—the final arguments for and against its inclusion are preserved in writing. People making a case to retain the text with the authors’ original lines spoke of the fact that the words expressed one view of God’s saving work in Christ that has been prevalent in Christian history: the view of Anselm and Calvin, among others, that God’s honor was violated by human sin and that God’s justice could only be satisfied by the atoning death of a sinless victim. While this might not be our personal view, it was argued, it is nonetheless a view held by some members of our family of faith; the hymnal is not a vehicle for one group’s perspective but rather a collection for use by a diverse body.

Arguments on the other side pointed out that a hymnal does not simply collect diverse views, but also selects to emphasize some over others as part of its mission to form the faith of coming generations; it would do a disservice to this educational mission, the argument ran, to perpetuate by way of a new (second) text the view that the cross is primarily about God’s need to assuage God’s anger. The final vote was six in favor of inclusion and nine against, giving the requisite two-thirds majority (which we required of all our decisions) to the no votes. The song has been removed from our contents list, with deep regret over losing its otherwise poignant and powerful witness.

What is striking about this debate is that apparently no one on the committee could actually argue for the legitimacy and truthfulness of a penal substitution view of the atonement, or that the PCUSA’s own Book of Confessions teaches it and not merely for the sake of diversity:

SATISFACTIONS. We also disapprove of those who think that by their own satisfactions they make amends for sins committed. For we teach that Christ alone by his death or passion is the satisfaction, propitiation or expiation of all sins (Isa., ch. 53; I Cor. 1:30). Yet as we have already said, we do not cease to urge the mortification of the flesh. We add, however, that this mortification is not to be proudly obtruded upon God as a satisfaction for sins, but is to be performed humbly, in keeping with the nature of the children of God, as a new obedience out of gratitude for the deliverance and full satisfaction obtained by the death and satisfaction of the Son of God. (Second Helvetic Confession XV)

Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to his Father’s justice in their behalf. Yet inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for anything in them, their justification is only of free grace; that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners. (Westminster Confession XIII.3)

Even the Confession of 1967 allows it:

God’s reconciling act in Jesus Christ is a mystery which the Scriptures describe in various ways. It is called the sacrifice of a lamb, a shepherd’s life given for his sheep, atonement by a priest; again it is ransom of a slave, payment of debt, vicarious satisfaction of a legal penalty, and victory over the powers of evil. These are expressions of a truth which remains beyond the reach of all theory in the depths of God’s love for man. They reveal the gravity, cost, and sure achievement of God’s reconciling work. (I.A.1)

Maybe it is true that people learn more theology from hymns than from creeds.

A Neo-Calvinist (almost) Gets 2K Religion

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

If you make worship a priority in understanding Christianity and the work of the church, good things often follow. Let me try to make that overly generic and positive maxim stick by pointing to the example of James K. A. Smith. He has for a while advocated the place of worship in the life of a Christian college. The idea seems to be that what brings faculty and students together in a common enterprise as Christians is worship and so the teaching and study that take place at a Christian college should be conducted in the light of this reality. I am not sure if Smith’s proposal (about which I have read only second hand accounts and some of his own posts) can overcome my own reservations about so-called Christian education. But I find it attractive on one level because Smith puts Christ and the worship he makes possible at the center of what it means to be a Christian or a Christian community. Instead of letting w-w define Christianity, Smith appears to be suggesting that worship is key to understanding and articulating the Christian witness.

His worship-centric case for Christian higher education may also explain his recent expression of reservations about neo-Calvinism. Here are some auto-biographical considerations from Smith:

I was converted and nurtured in a largely dualistic stream of North American evangelicalism, complete with a robust dispensational view of the end times and a very narrow understanding of redemption. It was very much a rapture-ready, heaven-centric piety that had little, if anything, to say about how or why a Christian might care about urban planning or chemical engineering or securing clean water sources in developing nations. Why worry about justice or flourishing in a world that is going to burn up?

So when I heard the Kuyperian gospel, so to speak, I was both blown away and a little angry. I was introduced to a richer understanding of the biblical narrative that not only included sin and soul-rescue but also creation, culture-making, and a holistic sense of redemption that included concerns for justice. I realized that God is not only interested in immaterial souls; he is redeeming all things and renewing creation. Christ’s work also accomplishes the redemption of this world. The good news is not the announcement about an escape pod for our souls; it is the inbreaking of shalom.

You might say I finally received an understanding of Christianity that gave me “this world” back. Again, in Kuyperian terms, here was an account of the biblical story that not only emphasized the church as institute (“churchy” church) but also the church as organism (Christians engaged in cultural creation, caretaking, and justice). Because I felt like this more robust, comprehensive understanding of the Gospel had been kept a secret, I harboured a kind of bitterness and resentment toward my fundamentalist formation. Having been given back the world, I was almost angry that my teachers had only and constantly emphasized heaven.

But now he fears that the neo-Calvinist emphasis on this world has removed the finality of heaven from considerations about transformation and redeeming the world:

. . . my Kuyperian conversion to “this-worldly” justice and culture-making began to slide into its own kind of immanence. . . . We become encased and enclosed in our own affirmations of the “goodness of creation,” which, instead of being the theater of God’s glory, ends up being the echo chamber of our own interests. In sum, I became the strangest sort of monster: a Kuyperian secularist. My Reformed affirmation of creation slid toward a functional naturalism. My devotion to shalom became indistinguishable from the political platforms of the “progressive” party. And my valorization of the church as organism turned into a denigration of the church as institute.

Smith goes on to assure himself and his neo-Calvinist readers that this secularized Kuyperianism is not the real Kuyper. Abraham Kuyper, he briefly asserts, maintained a balance between heavenly watch and this worldly endeavor. That may be true for Kuyper himself, though his own spotty record of church attendance in his later years (James Bratt may set the record straight) is not a good sign. What is more, the trajectory of Kuyperianism in Europe, South Africa, and North America is toward a secularized neo-Calvinism. I know this is some kind of logical fallacy. But at some point the Kuyperians need to look at history and wonder if a fly was in the original neo-Calvinist ointment.

My own theory on that fly is that neo-Calvinists don’t actually understand the Reformation’s accomplishments (although the prefix suggests they understand more than they let on). For instance, Smith follows Charles Taylor on the secularizing consequences of the Reformation:

As Taylor so winsomely puts it, one of the world-changing consequences of the Reformation was “the sanctification of ordinary life.” This was a refusal of the two-tiered Christianity in the late medieval ages that extolled priests and monks and treated butchers and bakers and candlestick makers as if there were merely second-class citizens in the kingdom of God. Nein!, shouted the Reformers in reply. If all of life is lived coram Deo, before the face of God, then all vocations are holy. Everything can and should be done to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31) and as an expression of gratitude to God (Col. 3:17). In sum: there will not be a single square inch in all of creation over which Christ does not say, “Mine!” . . .

However, Taylor points out an unintended, “Frankensteinish” turn that was the result: by unleashing a new interest and investment in “this-worldly” justice, the Reformation also unleashed the possibility that we might forget heaven. By rejecting the dualism of two-tiered Christianity, the Reformation opened the door to a naturalism that only cared about “this world.”

This misconstrues the Protestant doctrine of vocation and misses the three-tier Christianity that the Reformation made possible. Luther and Calvin did not “sanctify” this world. Ordinary vocations did not become “holy.” How could anyone familiar with “A Mighty Fortress” (just how much theology to worshipers learn from hymns!?!):

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still
His kingdom is forever.

How exactly you get the sanctification of all of life in this world out of those words is beyond me (though 2k sure does seem to fit that stanza naturally). The Reformers believed that this world was good, not holy. They believed that it was passing or fading away and therefore incapable of sustaining salvation that endures. A new heavens and new earth would require that. And when you put the Reformation in these terms before a neo-Calvinist, you invariably hear as a response, “fundamentalist.” Maybe, but that makes the Reformers fundamentalists (along with the New Testament). Another reason for adding “neo” to Calvinist.

But to Smith’s credit, he does see that the otherworldly character of the gospel is crucial for preventing an identification of human flourishing in this world with Christianity:

The holistic affirmation of the goodness of creation and the importance of “this worldly” justice is not a substitute for heaven, as if the holistic gospel was a sanctified way to learn to be a naturalist. To the contrary, it is the very transcendence of God—in the ascension of the Son who now reigns from heaven, and in the futurity of the coming kingdom for which we pray—that disciplines and disrupts and haunts our tendency to settle for “this world.” It is the call of the Son from heaven, and the vision of the New Jerusalem descending from heaven, that pushes back on our illusions that we could figure this all out, that we could bring this about. Shalom is not biblical language for progressivist social amelioration. Shalom is a Christ-haunted call to long for kingdom come.

Whether that means that Smith has abandoned trying to identify earthly goods with heavenly truths or is simply now going to be careful about too much optimism, it is a start. Finally, we have a neo-Calvinist recognition of the tension between this world and the one to come.

Audacity Lives

Published on by D. G. Hart67 Comments

This just in from the Vatican:

Pope Francis will grant a plenary indulgence – a remission of all temporal punishment due to sin – to World Youth Day Catholic participants, the Vatican announced July 9.

The head of the Church’s Apostolic Penitentiary, Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro, and its secretary, Bishop Krzysztof Nykiel, released a decree on July 9 that says the Pope will grant it during the July 22-29 event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“The young people and the faithful who are adequately prepared will obtain the Plenary Indulgence, once a day and under the usual conditions (sacramental Confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer in accordance with the intentions of the Holy Father), applicable also to the souls of deceased faithful,” states the decree published July 9.

The document adds that people who cannot attend World Youth Day can receive it “under the usual spiritual, sacramental and prayer conditions, in a spirit of filial submission to the Roman Pontiff.”

But this means they must participate “in the sacred functions on the days indicated, following the same rites and spiritual exercises as they occur via television or radio or, with due devotion, via the new means of social communication.”

While Christian Smith tells us to “get over” indulgences, they are still pretty hard to fathom from a biblical paradigm. I still come back to a point that Luther made in a 1516 sermon, as summarized by Roland Bainton:

To assert that the pope can deliver souls from purgatory is audacious. If he can do so, then he is cruel not to release them all. But if he possess this ability, he is in a postition to do more for the dead than for the living. . . . Indulgences can remit only those private satisfactions imposed by the Church, and may easily militate against interior penance, which consists in true contrition, true confession, and true satisfaction in spirit. (Here I Stand, 71)

Succession (not apostolic)

Published on by D. G. Hart73 Comments

I have long been intrigued by the question of who succeeds a personality who has made a particular institution a success — not just a success, but upon whom the institution depends. In the parachurch world, for instance, folks wonder who will replace R. C. Sproul. Can anyone? If not, what will become of Ligonier Ministries? Or what about Mike Horton? He’s not about to retire but could White Horse Media go on without Mike? Then there is the case of our friend Ken Myers and Mars Hill Audio. Will Mars Hill simply stop production whenever Ken decides to tend only to his garden?

This is not simply a question for Christians. Would Fresh Air be what it is without Terry Gross? Or what about Garrison Keillor and Prairie Home Companion? In the former case, Gross has had enough guests fill in for her that the show could conceivably go on. Gross clearly “branded” Fresh Air but it continues to be a worthwhile listen when she is not running the show. She has (or her producers have) done what the late night talk shows did routinely — recruit guest hosts who then establish a connection with audiences that allows a Jay Lenno or David Letterman to emerge as a natural successor to Johnny Carson (or even a rival to Johnny’s replacement). (The later series of The Larry Sanders show are very entertaining but also poignant on the egos and expectations involved in these transitions.) In contrast to Terry Gross, Garrison Keillor does not seem to be interested in grooming anyone to take over the show. Not that I am a regular listener, but I can’t recall anyone filling in for Keillor as host. And yet, I can think of any number of writers or entertainers who might possibly make it work — Ellen Degeneres, Roy Blount, Jr., Tom Bodett, or Mitch Albom. The show would lose the Lake Wobegone connection. But it would go on as one of the more entertaining sites on the radio (a distant second to Phil who is cannot be replaced, unless R. C. Collins has a change of heart about a career).

By the way, another example of successful succession is First Things. Who would have imagined that the magazine could go on without Richard John Neuhaus? But after a rocky interlude, Rusty Reno appears to have righted the ship and edits what continues to be a thoughtful, ecumenical but primarily right-of-center Roman Catholic publication.

What prompted me to express these thoughts publicly was the news (thanks to Anthony Bradley) of the Village Church shuddering its doors. This was a congregation formed 18 years ago in Brooklyn when the brand of TKNY was expanding shelf space in the church planting superstore. But that work has ceased:

The time has now come for the Village Church to conclude. We believe our Lord is allowing the community to come to a graceful end.

As we look back over the past eighteen years, we are grateful for all that we have seen Christ do, working through us, even us, to comfort many in need, to challenge the strong, to walk alongside those who follow Jesus, and to bear witness to His life in Greenwich Village. We are happy to see what has been done in hundreds of important lives.

Now the members of the Village Church are being scattered. Along with the sadness of loss of relationships, we see God’s hand in this, causing us to take what we have learned into other church contexts. We are confident that He has, for each one of us, different work to do, in “preaching the word.”

We celebrated Christ for the final time at Greenwich House on April 7th. It was a time of great rejoicing and appreciation for what God has done.

Bradley wonders if this indicates the shelf-life for a “baby-boomber planted missional church.” My wonder is if this is another signal that Tim Keller’s empire is in decline. Of course, Redeemer NYC faces the same problem that Sproul, Horton, Myers, and Keillor do — how do you replace the guy who defined the institution? Although a common problem in the world of communications, it is one that churches that are defined more by teaching and worship than by personality do not usually face. Most congregations understand that its own pastor is not the best in the world but is the one called by God and the congregation for a specific stage in the life of a church. When that pastor retires or takes another call, the congregation assembles a committee and calls another man who will carry out his functions in the context of this congregation’s characteristics (both good and bad). Out of these circumstances emerges a form of spontaneous order where congregations and pastors have reasonable expectations of each other, ones that include an understanding the pastor does not define the congregation. But does the same dynamic work for celebrity pastors? And if one of the jewels in the Redeemer crown of city churches cannot survive even with Keller still active, what does this portend for the other congregations in NYC?

Can You Imagine a Commentary on Peter's Epistles Written this Way?

Published on by D. G. Hart15 Comments

I am suspicious of folks who draw up lists of things I need to know. Joe Carter does it for Protestants. Now in reporting on the new encyclical, Jimmy Aikin does it for Roman Catholics.

Aside from this annoyance, the striking aspect of Aikin’s post is the notion that an officer, the pope, who is supposed to resolve the confusions of the faithful (and even put an end to private opinions), actually increases speculation and the public expression of private opinion:

4. Does Lumen Fidei acknowledge Pope Benedict’s role in its composition?
Yes. In it, Pope Francis writes:

These considerations on faith — in continuity with all that the Church’s magisterium has pronounced on this theological virtue — are meant to supplement what Benedict XVI had written in his encyclical letters on charity and hope. He himself had almost completed a first draft of an encyclical on faith. For this I am deeply grateful to him, and as his brother in Christ I have taken up his fine work and added a few contributions of my own. [LF 7].

5. Does Lumen Fidei sound like Pope Benedict?
Much of it does. It includes many of the characteristic touches and themes of his writings.

For example, it contains many references to history, including early Christian history, Jewish history, and pagan history. It contains references to the thought of historical figures, including the Church Fathers Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. It also refers to the thought of recent intellectual figures, including the Catholic thinker Romano Guardini, the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, the agnostic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

6. Do particular passages sound like Pope Francis?
This is harder to judge. He is mostly known for his speaking style, and his own voice for a document of this nature may take time to emerge. One touch that is distinctly Pope Francis, though, is the way he signs the encyclical. Normally popes give their name in Latin, followed by “PP” (a Latin abbreviation for “pope”) and followed by their number. Pope Benedict, for example, signed Spe Salvi by writing “Benedictus PP XVI.” Pope Francis, being the first pope to use this name, does not have a number, so you wouldn’t expect that in his signature. He does, however, seem to prefer not to use the title “pope,” preferring “bishop of Rome,” instead. Thus he leaves out the “PP” in his signature and simply signs the encyclical Franciscus.”

Aikens also tries to read the tea leaves of Vatican politics:

14. Does this encyclical tell us much about how Pope Francis will govern the Church?
Not as much as you might think. Unlike Pope John Paul II’s first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, it does not appear to lay out a blueprint for his entire pontificate. This is largely due to the fact that he inherited an almost complete first draft of the encyclical from Pope Benedict. Thus Pope Francis’s second encyclical may actually shed more light on the agenda for his own pontificate. It does, however, contain some intriguing clues, including the emphasis on the role of faith in society, the allusion to marriage as the union of man and woman, and his own personal style, as illustrated by his signature.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a free country and Christian communions since the formation of free countries have had all sorts of trouble reigning in the flock, imposing uniformity, and achieving coherence. Roman Catholics in the U.S. have to try to make sense of their relationship with the Vatican just as Orthodox Presbyterians need to reckon with doings in the PCA and the Free Church Continuing.

But when Jason and the Callers are lauding the papacy as the balm to heal all Protestant wounds, they need to think how this sounds to anyone who is actually following what happens in the Roman Catholic press. (BTW, I wonder if Bryan has been avoiding Oldlife because I gave Jason top billing.)

Postscript: a way to out Jimmy-Aikin Jimmy Aikin is to speculate on Peter’s motives in writing of Paul’s letters that “There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” Was this payback for Paul’s rebuke of Peter? Was it an expression of jealousy for Luke following Paul rather than Peter? Was it a form of writer’s envy? Who asks these questions?

Independence Day After Glow

Published on by D. G. Hart127 Comments

This is the first Independence Day in recent memory that fell on a Thursday, thus giving the week more of a Thanksgiving Day rhythm than the typical federal holiday pattern of a three-day weekend. Which is to say that life appears to be slow on Internet and the street.

So while we Yanks are still in an autonomous mood, here are a few more considerations about Calvinism and the American Revolution. Paul Helm offers a minor correction to the point made here that American colonial Calvinists were likely following John Locke more than John Calvin. His conclusion is sufficiently mild that Christian nationalists and 2kers might both claim Helm’s agreement:

Yet it can be argued that for all his personal conservatism, there were, in Calvin’s view of civil society, enough chinks and fissures through which a case for rebellion against civic injustice could be developed. Calvin himself was certainly not an advocate of rebellion. Far from it. But what of those who came after? That this is the road that some Calvinists trod can be seen from Quentin Skinner’s The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Volume 2: The Age of Reformation.

Whatever Calvin taught, and however later Calvinists justified their politics, some scholars have actually looked at the citations of the American founders to see which authors they were reading and following. Almost thirty years ago, Donald Lutz came up with the following scorecard:

1. Montesquieu
8.3%
2. Blackstone
7.9
3. Locke
2.9
4. Hume
2.7
5. Plutarch
1.5
6. Beccaria
1.5
7. Trenchard & Gordon
1.4
8. Delolme
1.4
9. Pufendorf
1.3
10. Coke
1.3
11. Cicero
1.2
12. Hobbes
1.0

Everyone else on Lutz’s list of 36 “Most Cited Thinkers” comes in at less than one percent. For those curious, Calvin did not make the cut. (I have to admit that some of these names were obscure to me, hence the links. For the record, Delolme and Beccaria find no results at American Creation, while Trenchard & Gordon do. Our smart guy TVD is not responsible for the posts on T&G.)

Lutz also compares the Federalists and Anti-Federalists in their citations of groups of authors. The Federalists (Hamilton, Madison, Washington, Adams) cited Enlightenment figures 34% of the time, Whigs 23%, and Classical 33%. They did not cite the Bible.

In contrast, the Anti-Federalists (who? i.e., Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, Luther Martin) cited the Bible 9% of the time, Enlightenment 38%, Whig 29%, and Classical 9%.

No smoking guns here, but maybe a few matters to ponder while smoking a stogie on the hammock.