Echo Chamber?

Published on by D. G. Hart41 Comments

Thanks to the Viking I see that Tim Keller has some posts about polemics (forthcoming) over at the Gospel Coalition and that Justin Taylor has aggregated part of Keller. I do go to TGC’s sites periodically and so would have likely seen these without the Viking’s help. Part of what makes TGC so effective is that it is the network for the largest celebrities in the world of non-charismatic Protestantism (aside from that awkward presence of Sovereign Grace Ministries and the anointing that sometimes drenches Driscoll). Think of how hard it would be to keep up with the respective fiefdoms of Piper, Keller, Driscoll along with the writings and pursuits of Carson, Dever, and DeYoung. It’s like trying to watch Jay, Dave, Conan, and Jimmy every night (sorry for the talk-show reference, but I’m reveling in Larry Sanders these days). You would have to stay up late and also record the different shows since they are all on different channels and times, sort of the way that each of TGC figures has his own website, congregation, and “ministries.” But now thanks to the Internet — voila — I can go to one place and keep up with all major players in the world of Baptists-and-Calvinists-Together.

I do wonder, though, what outsiders would think of TGC’s website and I have recently speculated on this in the case of neo-Calvinism’s political theology. What I have in mind is whether those who disagree with TGC would find much material or discussion that is challenging, that actually produces new or hard thought (as opposed to deep feeling or moral inadequacy). Or is the nature of such an endeavor that relies upon the fame of its evangelical pastors and speakers to offer up inspiration and affirmation, thus raising the question of whether evangelicals or their vehicles are sappy?

But what is curious about Keller’s concession that polemics is necessary as a form of medicine is whether the folks at TGC think that what they are doing through the coalition is offering a well-rounded diet. Keller says, “Polemics is medicine, not food. Without medicine we will surely die—we can’t live without it. This is why polemical theology must be a required part of every theological curriculum. Yet we cannot live on medicine.” I understand this. And it can also be said of candy, except that candy isn’t nearly as beneficial as medicine, nor is it the case that we could not live without it. Still, as I’ve asked before, what does TGC do that churches do not already do? The churches have the recipes and ingredients for a healthy spiritual diet. And sometimes they engage in polemics with those institutions that offer up prepackaged-food as the wholesome article.

So perhaps the folks at TGC need to look in the mirror and ask whether they are doing something that instigates polemics. In which case, it wouldn’t be a personality defect of Calvinists to disagree with and point out the weaknesses of a project such as TGC.

The Problem of Sappy Evangelicals

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One of the arresting aspects of marriage is that if a husband tells his wife she should watch her weight the wife gets angry. And then if hubbie tells wifey that she is angry — as if that’s a bad thing — for some reason the wife does not calm down but gets angrier. The reason for such humdrum recounting of marital relations is yet another post over at the Gospel Coalition about angry Calvinists. Justin Taylor, with lots of help from John Piper, speculates on the traits that cause Calvinists to be an angry lot (and not to be missed, make the young Calvinists at TGC look so incredibly nice).

According to Taylor:

Angry Calvinists are not like unicorns, dreamed up in some fantasy. They really do exist. And the stereotype exists for a reason. I remember (with shame) answering a question during college from a girl who was crying about the doctrine of election and what it might mean for a relative and my response was to ask everyone in the room turn to Romans 9. Right text, but it was the wrong time.

This is an odd observation because Taylor never identifies a single angry Calvinist. He has engaged in a form of stereotype that would be politically incorrect if applied on the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. You’d think that the nice Calvinists at TGC would be more sensitive about theological profiling.

You’d also think that if Taylor believes Calvinists are prone to anger then a pastoral response might be to avoid winding them up — as in not mentioning the problem. Does he refer to alcoholic Christians as those “dipsomaniac Protestants”? Does he make a habit of calling attention to questionable character traits in his readers?

As for the diagnosis, he cites Piper who writes (in part):

So the intellectual appeal of the system of Calvinism draws a certain kind of intellectual person, and that type of person doesn’t tend to be the most warm, fuzzy, and tender. Therefore this type of person has a greater danger of being hostile, gruff, abrupt, insensitive, or intellectualistic.

Piper doesn’t seem to consider the type of person that can’t handle people who are insensitive, or the kind that has to publicly broadcast that a certain slice of Christians are insensitive. Profiling works both ways. Hence sappy evangelicals.

Which is why it is possible that the problem afflicting the evangelicals at the Gospel Coalition is one of sentimentality. That is, they value feelings more than doctrine. This is what Ken Myers called orthopathy instead of orthodoxy. This does not mean that the folks at TGC ignore doctrine. Obviously, they promote it. But they never let it function in a way that might make leaders, readers, or bloggers uncomfortable — that is, doctrine will never be offensive, especially to the co-allies. But they seem to have no problem patrolling the Christian world for incorrect emotions.

This would apparently explain why the bloggers at TGC have yet to mention the two six hundred pound gorillas in the TGC parlor — C. J. Mahaney and Mark Driscoll. The former has at the very least created a ruckus about the kind of pastoral leadership within SGM circles, which would seem to undermine TGC’s commitment to promoting gospel-centered churches. And then there is Dricoll’s clairvoyance which in sixteenth-century Geneva would have gotten him drowned. I understand that these situations are delicate and that friends want to stand by friends. But to call Calvinists — yet again — angry when TGC has its own image problems is well nigh remarkable unless, that is, you remember the importance of feelings, affections, passions, and hedonism. A co-ally may not be able to spot Mahaney’s or Driscoll’s errors but can FEEL their pain.

Maybe the problem is one of discipline. When I was a boy and got in trouble my dad would take out the belt and give me a wallop or two across my behind. I thought he was angry. I also thought he was mean. Never mind that he always shed a few tears while executing his duties. His tears could not compare to mine since I was the one who really felt pain and he was the one inflicting it.

Could it be that Calvinists look mean to Gospel Co-Allies in the same way that disciplining dads do to wayward children? Maybe. But if you want direction and counsel that prevents you from wandering off the right path, would you rather go to a Presbyterian pastor or leave a message with one of the Gospel Coalition’s celebrities and wait for one of his assistants to respond?

Postscript: Ross Douthat has a post about the reign of niceness among Harvard University undergraduates. He writes: “The pursuite of niceness and the worship of success can complement one another as easily as they can contradict. But the kind of culture that’s created when they combine — friendly and deferential on the surface, boiling with resume-driven competitiveness underneath — isn’t one that a great university should aspire to cultivate.” I wonder if a similar combination could be responsible for the culture of niceness over at TGC.

Evangelicals Aren't Christian

Published on by D. G. Hart34 Comments

Publicity for From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin continues and it has made me aware of the variety of radio shows in the United States once you get beyond Rush, Sean, and Glenn. I am also much more attentive than I was to the need for talk show hosts to keep a copy of the author’s book handy. Today I was on a show — name withheld to protect the guilty — where the host several times announced that the title of my book was Why Evangelicals Aren’t Conservative. But that was not as bad as the one time when he actually segued into a commercial break by referring to the book as Why Evangelicals Aren’t Christian. As provocative as I try to be, that one never dawned on me, not even now that I no longer have to worry about embarrassing my mother.

For this reason, I returned to steady spirits (as opposed to distilled ones) when I found a review of FBG2SP in yesterday’s Washington Times by William Murchison. It was even positive as the following excerpt attests:

[Hart]e does so much more, which is really the point here. He probes deep below the surface of evangelicalism to identify, with intelligence and grace, elements that conservatives might have examined with more detail back when Mr. Falwell and others came to shopping around for allies to fight the “secular humanism” they viewed with alarm. Conservatives, for one thing, might have thought more about how voters in general would view the evangelical quest, sublimated at first as Republican politics, for increasing Christianity’s political profile.

That would have started arguments about whether America was or wasn’t a Christian nation, as the evangelicals of the day sometimes alleged. Besides, their votes were wanted. Yet when Barry Goldwater, the grandest political conservative of them all back in his day, offered to kick Jerry Falwell in the place where he sat down, conservatives should have figured out that there might be some problems coming down the road. They didn’t, and now the piper demands his pay.

Mencken Week 2011

Published on by D. G. Hart2 Comments

Unfortunately, old Henry’s birthday anniversary got lost in the shuffle of thoughts generated by 9/11. Since he was born on 9/12 Mencken will forever have to compete in the memories of Americans for attention. Even so, he has been much on my mind since I am offering a seminar on him for Hillsdale students. And thankfully he has not disappointed.

The following is from “A Loss to Romance” and indicates ways that Americans might support public decency and oppose sex education in public schools without having to appeal to biblical morality.

Perhaps the worst thing that this sex hygiene nonsense has accomplished is the thing mourned by Agnes Repplier in “The Repeal of Reticence.” In America, at least, innocence has been killed, and romance has been sadly wounded by the same discharge of smutty artillery. The flapper is no longer naive and charming; she goes to the altar of God with a learned and even cynical glitter in her eye. The veriest school-girl of to-day . . . knows as much as the midwife of 1885, and spends a good deal more time discharging and disseminating her information. All this, of course, is highly embarrassing to the more romantic and ingenuous sort of men, of whom I have the honor to be one. We are constantly in the position of General Mitchener in Shaw’s one-acter, “Press Cuttings,” when he begs Mrs. Farrell, the talkative charwoman, to reserve her confidences for her medical adviser. One often wonders, indeed, what women now talk of to doctors. . . .

Please do not misunderstand me here. I do not object to this New Freedom on moral grounds, but on aesthetic grounds. In the relations between the sexes
all beauty is founded upon romance, all romance is founded upon mystery, and all mystery is founded upon ignorance, or, failing that, upon the deliberate denial of the known truth. To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anaesthesia—to mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god or an ordinary young woman for a goddess. But how can this condition of mind survive the deadly matter-offactness which sex hygiene and the new science of eugenics impose? How can a woman continue to believe in the honor, courage and loving tenderness of a man after she has learned, perhaps by affidavit, that his hæmoglobin count is 117%, that he is free from sugar and albumen, that his blood pressure is 112/79 and that his Wassermann reaction is negative? . . . Moreover, all this new-fangled “frankness” tends to dam up, at least for civilized adults, one of the principal well-springs of art, to wit, impropriety. What is neither hidden nor forbidden is seldom very charming. If women, continuing their present tendency to its logical goal, end by going stark naked, there will be no more poets and painters, but only dermatologists and photographers. . .

Old Life Yeast

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

As I mentioned, the current issue of Ordained Servant features the talks that John Muether and I gave at the pre-General Assembly conference that was part of the 75th anniversary festivities for the OPC. Here’s an excerpt from my presentation, “Is the OPC the Church that Calvinists Have Been Waiting For?”:

This all too brief tour of the first seventy-five years of other Reformed communions is a good reminder of the dangers that lurk in church history. If Machen thought the history of western Europe circa 1933 was depressing, one reason was his own struggles in the ecclesiastical part of the West’s history. The OPC’s own history is further evidence of the difficulties that Reformed churches have experienced since the Reformation. The question is whether these difficulties are part and parcel of Reformed history or an aberration. If part of being the church militant means always experiencing contention, disloyalty, and departure, then the OPC’s own struggles are no worse than those that Reformed Protestants have experienced before.

Still, making the case that the OPC is a worthy successor to Reformed history requires being clear about the nature of Calvinism and the Reformation’s significance. For the better part of two hundred years the Corinthian temptation has been to regard Reformed Protestantism’s importance in cultural and political terms. This was a perspective held not only by Reformed believers. Think of Max Weber and his theory about Calvinism and capitalism, or of Alexis de Tocqueville and Calvinism’s contribution to democracy, or of Robert Merton on Calvinism and the rise of modern science. These older arguments do not have the force they once did, but even a couple of years ago at the academic conference in Geneva that marked the five hundredth anniversary of Calvin’s birth, most of the scholarly presentations explored not the sorts of ecclesiastical reforms that characterized Reformed Protestantism but the way that Calvinism shaped the modern world. Such assessments have prompted Reformed believers to think of Calvinism less as a churchly movement than as a religiously-based source for social transformation. Of course, the rise of neo-Calvinism and the inspiring words of Abraham Kuyper have contributed mightily to this estimate of Reformed Protestantism.

But even before Kuyper, the temptation to regard Reformed Protestantism for its political and cultural significance was constant for Presbyterians. How could it not be since the rise of Reformed Protestantism was bound up with European politics. Indeed, the division of Western Christianity that split the Reformed, Lutheran, and Anglican communions from the Roman Catholic Church was also part of the confessionalization of western Europe. After 1600 individual nations could be identified by the kind of church and confession they sponsored. This process helped to secure the creation of the nation-state, a form of government that greatly centralized the economic, legal, educational, administrative, and even linguistic features of territories that had previously been decentralized and diverse. However we estimate the size, scope, and power of the modern nation-state, the reality is that Reformed Protestantism was on the ground floor of the construction of modern Europe and its colonial proliferation, a period that ran from 1600 at least to World War II. No wonder, then, that conservative Reformed believers pine for the days when their faith mattered to the mission of a particular nation. Scottish Presbyterians still long for the days of the National Covenant. Abraham Kuyper endeared himself to Reformed believers by evoking a golden age of Dutch history. Meanwhile, American Presbyterians have their own version of this nostalgia and attempt to construct a Christian founding of the United States even though the very point of the new nation was to bring an end to the pattern of confessionalization that had torn apart Europe (and especially England) during the seventeenth century.

Yet, the question remains whether Reformed Protestants were hoping to remake Europe or reform the church. Thanks to a host of Holy Roman Emperors, from Constantine and Charlemagne to Charles V, thinking about Europe apart from the church was impossible. Even so, the reforms that the original Protestants initiated were overwhelmingly ecclesial and bore directly on doctrine, liturgy, and church polity. Only because the church was part of the established political order did church reform translate into broader social and political developments. The Reformation was first and foremost a religious effort and only secondarily did it affect politics and culture.

If Reformed Protestantism was chiefly an instance of ecclesiastical reform and renewal, then against that measure the OPC may be a worthy heir to the mantle of Reformed Protestantism, even meriting a celebratory toast. To be sure, the history of the OPC is strewn with believers who still want the church to be more than the church, to be at the forefront of maintaining and promoting social righteousness. But just as important to the OPC’s history has been a growing contentment with the church as simply the church. The word “simply,” of course, understates this sense because the church’s mission is hardly simple or ordinary. But to recognize that the church has a responsibility that no other institution does, and that God has instituted the church uniquely for his redemptive purposes, is the start of a broader sense of restraint and resolve that the OPC, while lacking many of the attributes and features that impress the Corinthian minded, is doing a good and important work no matter how quiet or routine.

Where's Waldo Wednesday: Precision Puh-leeze

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So why is it that justification prioritists (JPs) regularly receive the charge of making justification the CAUSE of sanctification when in fact they don’t? But to the unionists’ ear, to assert the logical priority of justification to sanctification (and no cheating by sneaking in definitive sanctification) is to say that justification CAUSES sanctification (often, anyway). (In fact, the powers of unionists to read meanings into words and statements are well-nigh remarkable.)

But why is it that when unionists use the explicit language of “CAUSE,” they are merely asserting the TRUTH? Here I point to Rick Phillips’ recent post at Ref 21:

5. Justification does not cause Sanctification. Sanctification, like Justification, is caused by union with Christ through faith (Rom. 6:1-14). Just as Christ justifies, Christ also sanctifies his people (1 Cor. 1:30; Col. 3:12-17). For this reason, the idea that we need only preach justification in order to gain sanctification is contrary to the biblical pattern. Paul, for instance, does not preach justification so that sanctification will occur, but rather he preaches sanctification itself (Rom. 6:12-14; 12:1-2, etc.). Peter also declares “Be holy” (1 Pet. 1:15). This being the case, gospel preaching does not consist merely of preaching Christ for justification, but also consists of preaching Christ for sanctification.

Again, the quick identification of union with almost everything good is striking — Union and Christ become synonyms in this argument. But is that what people think when they hear the word union? They think Christ? Well, why is it that unionists don’t think Christ when they hear the word justification?

Notice too the lack of precision in this post regarding the kind of union Phillips is describing. Is it federal, decretal, or mystical? I assume it’s mystical, but given the lack of a technical lexicon regarding union, those who refer to it so often and so positively may actually help by greater precision?

And finally, what kind of CAUSE are we talking about here? Aristotle held to a variety of causes, Suarez to even more. So if we are going to use causal language, might not some of those scholastic distinctions made by Reformed Orthodoxy be helpful? Or is this another example of how biblical theology sometimes disregards the precision of systematic theology?

Old Life Leaven

Published on by D. G. Hart5 Comments

The new issue of Ordained Servant features the addresses that John Muether and I gave at the pre-General Assembly this past June. Here is the conclusion from Muether’s talk about the different interpreters — from Marsden and Noll to Woolley and Dennison — of Orthodox Presbyterian history:

THE OPC AS BIG AND SMALL

The OPC is a doctrinal church in an anti-doctrinal age, according to Woolley, a culture of dissent in an establishmentarian age, per Dennison, and a spiritual body in a politically-saturated and culture-obsessed age, writes Hart. If this is a countervailing narrative to the broader and more popular telling, it is not a new story that is being narrated. Rather, this is an echo from our Presbyterian past.

Let us return one more time to 1986 and the failed union vote. As we noted, the vote was perceived as looking backward not forward, inward instead of outward, exclusive rather than inclusive. What is striking about the rhetoric surrounding the union that didn’t happen was its similarity to arguments that accompanied a union that did happen, a century earlier in American Presbyterian history: the 1869 reunion between the Old School Presbyterian Church and the New School Presbyterian Church that healed the breech that took place in 1837. That reunion was also accompanied by a pervasive sense that Presbyterians were confronting a forward-looking ecumenical moment that had to be seized. The Civil War had just ended and the fractured Union needed a united Presbyterian witness. Both camps, New School and Old School, generally expressed hopefulness over this opportunity.

Amid the enthusiasm Charles Hodge sounded his dissent, fearing that Old School Presbyterian identity would be lost for the sake of national expedience. Hodge’s fears proved accurate. In Lefferts Loetscher’s words, the reunion of 1869 produced the largely unintentional consequence of a “broadening church.” Within twenty-five years of the reunion, northern Presbyterians began serious efforts at creedal revision, setting the stage for the Presbyterian controversy of the 1930s.

This is not to suggest that a similarly catastrophic future would have confronted the OPC had it merged with the PCA. But what is noteworthy in this comparison is that Hodge refused to concede that opposition to union relegated him to a position of sectarian isolationism. Hodge believed that the Old School Presbyterian Church had a unique role to fulfill. His plea was not a call for an inward, backward, and exclusive church. On the contrary, he believed that Presbyterians could best serve other denominations first by being faithful as confessional Presbyterians.

As reframed, the OPC’s “alien” identity, for all its reputation for being isolated and uncooperative, may point in the direction of genuine ecumenicity. The OPC serves the universal church when it is steadfastly and self-consciously Reformed. When we narrate the OPC in this way, we can appreciate better the Reformed catholicity of our small church. The OPC continues to serve as a leader in shaping Reformed faith and witness for several emerging Reformed churches throughout the world. It is possible for us to imagine, along with Hodge, Machen, and Van Til, a vital ecumenical role for a confessionally precise church.

So who narrates the OPC? This is not a call to silence any voices either within or beyond the church. It is an appeal to listen carefully to all speakers, taking note of the assumptions of the narrators. And it suggests an answer to the protest of twenty-five years ago: the OPC did not lose its story. American pilgrims continue to discover the OPC in their wanderings through the wasteland of Evangelical or mainline Protestantism. Contemporary discussions in the denomination reveal its ongoing commitment to the whole counsel of God. Issues before our recent General Assembly—the character of Reformed worship, the principles of biblical stewardship, and the relationship between justification and good works—these reveal a church making the progress that Paul Woolley was actively promoting.

At seventy-five, the OPC still displays a willingness to proclaim to other churches and to a watching world the Reformed faith in all its fullness. To invoke the words of R. B. Kuiper, the OPC on its seventy-fifth anniversary is still very small. But it continues to stand for something very big.

Has Anything Changed Since Everything Changed?

Published on by D. G. Hart27 Comments

All of the fanfare surrounding the tenth anniversary of 9/11 left the Calvinistic, dour side of me cold and a bit cynical. Part of the problem was the fixation westerners have, with our base-10 system of math, to give more weight to anniversaries that fall on the five’s and ten’s than, say, to the perfect number, seven. (Is ten years really more significant than eleven?) Another factor is the excess to which American cultural expressions are prone – think the Super Bowl here. When Americans observe anniversaries, birthdays, victories, or even death, they rarely do so with moderation and self-control. Do not discount either the effects of this scribe hearing Christian radio yesterday devoted to 9/11 and how the world changed – FOREVER. It was supposed to be the Lord’s day and devoted to hearing and learning from the word of God. But program managers couldn’t resist devoting the day to the U.S.A.

I certainly understand (or think I can) how the lives of those who lost loved ones changed ten years ago. It also makes sense for New Yorkers to consider how vulnerable their seemingly invincible city was (and still is) to one of the most stupendous attacks in human history.

But what I don’t understand is why we needed to be barraged with a litany of public figures who told us where they were on September 11, 2001, and what they thought in the light of those unbelievable attacks. Even NASCAR drivers got into the act. Over at Yahoo’s sports page some race car driver was featured in a video about his experience ten years ago.

What I find particularly troubling is that these kind of memories set into stone a particular moment without considering what has actually changed over the last decade. By conjuring up all of those feelings from a decade ago, Americans are in danger of continuing to think – which was quite plausible at the time – that they were innocent victims of an irrational and ruthless attack by religious fanatics. And that kind of consideration can lead to the kind of innocence that is so typical of American idealism at its worst. America, so the logic goes, is a friendly and benign presence in the world, and anyone who opposes the United States must be demonic. But if 9/11 showed the world that evil does exist, could it be that the lesson Americans take away from the day is that evil also exists within the souls of Americans? Or is 9/11 simply further proof of our innocence and righteousness?

A better response to the tenth anniversary – better still to conduct it fourteen years out (two times the perfect number) – would be to ask how our minds have changed. In my own case, I have changed my mind about the following:

– the desire for retribution that led to U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was unbecoming and even sinful;

– the United States’ foreign policy establishment may have been wiser to keep an eye on China than Al Qaeda;

– paying $2.29 for a gallon of gas is cheap.

Again, I don’t mean to minimize the loss that relatives and friends experienced from the attacks on 9/11, or the national sense of vulnerability. The good Mrs. Hart reminds me that I said on that morning of September 11, 2001 from our kitchen in Southern California, with tears in my eyes, “I would never say another bad word about New York City.” (I believe I broke that promise the year the Yankees beat the Phillies in the World Series.) The attacks shook me, indeed. But ten years should produce more reflection and prudence than trembling.

Where's Waldo Wednesday: The Power to Confuse

Published on by D. G. Hart510 Comments

Nick Batzig has a useful post on union with Christ that I believe illustrates what some people find confusing about the doctrine — at least I do. I interact with this post not to single out or pick on Nick, who is a friend and whose ministry I respect, but because it is an example of the assertions that follow from union with Christ — assertions that do not necessarily follow as a form of argument but may work more as a kind of inspiration. If readers can help me understand better, or fill in the holes of a necessarily short essay, I’d be grateful. Unionists may plausibly consider me a hostile reader. But since I am also some kind of Vossian and generally agree with the unionists on a variety of other matters, such as worship and polity, they may actually consider the questions raised here as a useful prod to the kind of clarity and explanation that would greatly advance their cause and aid the churches they admirably wish to serve.

I’ll paste below the full text of Nick’s post — to let him have his due — and supply a running commentary at the bottom.

One of the most beneficial things I learned from my professors during my seminary days was that ministers must continually preach the message of the cross to the people of God for their growth in grace. One professor in particular constantly exhorted us to preach Christ “for pardon and power.” The longer I have been a Christian, the more I see the wisdom of this counsel. The message of the cross meets our deepest need for pardon, but it also meets our need for power as we seek to overcome indwelling sin.

Few things trouble the soul of the child of God so much as the presence of indwelling sin, and the sober realization of the inability of the flesh to overcome it. True believers often come to an end of themselves and cry out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death” (Rom. 7:24)? Christians grieve over sin and spiritual weakness. They long for victory over it. The Scriptures command us to be diligent in examining ourselves (1 Cor. 11:28; 2 Cor. 13:5), taking heed to ourselves (1 Cor. 10:12), and asking the Lord to “search us…and see if there be any grievous way in us” (Psalm 139:23-24); but they do not stop there. God’s word reveals that the work of Christ is the source of pardon for sin—as well as the source of power to overcome it. Believers possess this power by virtue of their union with Christ in His death and resurrection. In order to grow in Christ-likeness, the believer must remember that sin’s dominion was broken when Christ died in their place and rose again. This is the apostle’s chief concern in Romans 6:1-14—a passage to which we must regularly return.

All of this seems so clear that I marvel at how quickly we forget it, and how seldom it is mentioned in pulpits and Christian literature (a grand exception being Walter Marshall’s Gospel Mystery of Sanctification!). The deficiency is apparent in many seeker-sensitive churches where pragmatism abounds; but sadly, it is also prevalent in many of our more traditional Protestant churches. I often fear that those who are most skillful at diagnosing the complexity and atrocity of sin in themselves—and in pointing it out in others—are the least skillful in pointing themselves and others to the Savior. It is far easier to fixate on the problem than to focus on the solution. It is actually quite easy to focus on sin and quite difficult to keep our eyes steadfastly fixed on Jesus (Heb. 12:1-2). Consequently, it often seems expedient to offer pragmatic—dare I say it, even biblical—advice that does not actually give the power to overcome sin (Col. 2:20-23). In order to progress in Christian living, we must remember that sin’s dominion was broken when Christ died for us at the cross.

Paul began to address the issue of sanctification in Romans (Rom. 6:1-14), by reminding believers of the freedom they have from sin’s dominion by virtue of their union with Christ: “We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom. 6:6). Sin’s power was broken in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Christ came not only to cancel sin’s debt; He came to break its power. Therefore, the apostle exhorted: “You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom.6:11). When we forget that sin’s power over us was broken in the death of Christ, we will inevitably fail to walk in the newness of life that we have in union with Him. If we neglect this crucial aspect of Christ’s work we will inevitably end up living in bondage, discouragement, fear, doubt, and anxiety—or else we will become self-righteous, judgmental and proud.

Union with Christ truly is one of the most precious doctrines for Christian living. It is mentioned nearly 150 times in the New Testament by use of the phrase “in Christ,” “in Him,” “in Jesus,” or “in Jesus Christ.” The apostles relentlessly remind believers of their position in Christ. By faith, we are united to Him, in whom we receive all the spiritual blessings of God (1 Cor. 1:31).

We do not come to Christ by faith for justification and then depart from Him for sanctification. In Christ our sins are pardoned, and in Him the reign of sin is overthrown. The same Christ who justified us, also sanctifies us; therefore, the same faith that justifies us also sanctifies us (cf. John 15:1-5). John Owen captured this truth magnificently when he wrote: “While by faith we contemplate the glory of Christ as revealed in the Gospel, all grace will thrive and flourish in us towards a perfect conformity unto Him.” By union with Christ, believers have power to put indwelling sin to death (Col. 2:20-3:17). With the apostle we answer the question, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?,” with the joyful exclamation, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

So, we begin with the message of the cross and the power of the cross in addressing the sinner’s need for pardon and power to overcome sin. So far, no union. It’s the cross. Lots of hymns support that theme.

In the second graph we have more on the problem of indwelling sin and the power of the cross to overcome this dominion. So far, still no union. It’s the cross. But at the end of the graph we have mention of the resurrection. And for most union advocates, following Richard Gaffin, it is the resurrection that brings the power to overcome sin’s dominion (did someone say “dominionism”?). For that reason, I was a little confused by Nick’s start with the cross. Now that he turns to the resurrection I’m feeling on more familiar ground.

Then in the fourth graph we arrive at union with Christ, having moved from the power of the cross first and then the power of the resurrection. But this is an odd argument at this point because we have freedom from the power of sin by virtue of union, but then we can fail somehow to possess the power, possibly by a failure of memory. Granted, believers who forget the doctrine of union fail to find comfort from it. But the problem that Nick addresses from the outset is a person who has sinned. The sinner hasn’t merely forgotten union but is actually struggling with the betweenness of belonging to Christ and doing something that looks like he belongs to the devil. Obviously, remembering union won’t solve the problem of having just sinned and trying to account for its presence in the believer’s life.

This is why I find talk about the wonders of the doctrine of union frustrating. It is apparently the cure for what ails the saint battling sin. But union is apparently a reality even when a saint sins, just as justification is. A saint united to Christ has power over indwelling sin even while he has sins in his life which testify to the power of indwelling sin. Which would suggest that the doctrine of union faces the same dilemma as justification — just as the saint is simultaneously justified and a sinner, so the one united to Christ is both united and a sinner. Either way, sin is still there and the believer is wondering, with Paul, how will I escape this body of death? I don’t see how union is so much more comforting than justification.

Then in the last two graphs we see fulsome praise for the doctrine of union, how it combines both justification and sanctification. Nick writes, “By union with Christ, believers have power to put indwelling sin to death.” But again, didn’t this post begin with the presence of sin in the Christian life, and evidence that indwelling sin has not died? Wasn’t the believer who sinned united to Christ? So how does union fix this problem?

To summarize: again, I am not picking on Nick. His piece is a perfect example of the kind of pro-union statements I regularly see and hear. And despite how often I hear the doctrine, I am still left confused by its explanation and power of inspiration. For one thing, its articulation seems often to merge thoughts about the power of Christ’s death and his resurrection, running all too quickly between the two. I guess this is an objection about the lack of precision. The other source of confusion is the alleged solution that union seems to provide to believers who struggle with sin and doubt. Union is supposed to point to the power over indwelling sin that believers possess by virtue of union at precisely the time in their life when they are most aware of indwelling sin’s ongoing power. Since I sin, I have tested the capacity of union to ease my burdened soul. But I find much more comfort in the face of guilt to know that I no longer face condemnation.

Postscript: And while I’m at it — I know a certain lay person (not all about me) who wonders how union with Christ is different from union with God. Since Christ is God, an ordinary believer may think that all of the talk about union with Christ leads to a view of being united with God that is at odds with what Christians also believe about the categorical distinction between the creator and the creature. If anyone who wants to help me out with this lay person’s confusion, I’d be grateful.

Confessional Intuition

Published on by D. G. Hart13 Comments

Worldviews are overrated. Intuition matters. At least, that’s the impression readers may take away from a thoughtful review of a new book on philanthropy by Jeff Cain, a former colleague and now the co-founder of American Philanthropic. The book in question is Do More Than Give: The Six Practices of Donors Who Change the World, and the title gives away the naivete that so often informs the transformationalist outlook, whether cultural or ecclesiastical. For the world of philanthropy the contrast runs as follows:

Maybe you are the kind of donor who supports nonprofits in your community. Like many Americans, you give or tithe through your church or temple. You support local human-service organizations that provide direct aid to the needy, infirm, and down-and-out. You contribute to your alma mater, local theatre company, community hospital, or library-building campaign.

Perhaps, too, your giving is influenced by your family members, colleagues, and close friends in your church, business, or neighborhood. You give out of a genuine sense of caring and gratitude for those people, places, and institutions to which you are geographically, psychologically, or spiritually connected.

If these sensible and natural forms of charitable giving describe your philanthropy, then Do More Than Give: The Six Practices of Donors Who Change the World is not for you. This fast-paced encomium to good intentions grounded in strategy and directed by experts is aimed at a special breed of philanthropist—a breed so special that it is honored with its own moniker: catalytic philanthropists, intent on changing the world.

The same kind of difference applies to the religious world and separates the churchly Protestant from the born-again believer who flocks to the parachurch organizations and their conferences in search of that fix that the local, mom-and-pop – okay, dominie only – church provides. If the idea of philanthropy is not to change the world, so the idea of confessionalism is about perseverance, pilgrimage, and waiting for the only transformer who is capable of changing the world.

The review is short and well worth a read. Aside from the point it makes about philanthropy, it also illustrates the difference between a worldview that holds to abstract truths as opposed to a profession of faith with concrete loyalties. Viewers of the world – perhaps because they don’t live in it – invariably want to change the world and think they have ideas capable of doing so. Confessionalists know that ideas don’t change the world (God does) and understand that those who attribute such power to ideas border on folly, never considering ironically the impotence of human reason. Chances are, though, that the people who are supposed to be the smartest in the room – the ones with all the philosophy and epistemology and theory – won’t ever intuit this dilemma because the people who object to worldview in favor of intuition can’t theorize their instincts. And without a theory, as all worldviewers know, knowledge is inconsequential.