For What Do We Pray?

Published on by D. G. Hart3 Comments

JETS V ARIZONA CARDINALSReformed Protestants are generally dismissive (or worse) of prosperity gospels. They know, at least intuitively, that suffering is part of the Christian life and that calculating God’s favor on the basis of material well being is not good theology. Max Weber, the sociologist who interpreted capitalism as the republication of the covenant of works, never read the psalmist who wrote,

Be not afraid when one becomes rich,
when the glory of this house increases.
For when he dies he will carry nothing away;
his glory will not go down after him.
Though, while he lives, he counts himself happy,
and though a man gets praise when he does well for himself,
he will go to the generation of his fathers,
who will never more see the light.
Man cannot abide in his pomp,
he is like the beasts that perish. (Ps. 49: 16-20)

And yet, when Reformed Protestants pray, or at least when they make prayer requests, our desires generally run along the lines of Joel Osteen. Which sort of upends Benjamin Warfield’s remark that every Christian on his knees is a good Calvinist. His point that when praying every believer is acknowledging the sovereignty of God. But he didn’t ask what believers were praying for and whether it conformed to God’s revealed will. We pray for surgeries, broken ankles, test results, catastrophe survivors, and the unemployed. None of these concerns are of themselves illegitimate. Jesus does tell his disciples not to worry about their physical needs, not because they are unimportant but because if God provides for the lilies of the field then he’s likely to care even more for his children. And yet, that passage in Matthew 6 concludes with the importance of seeking first the kingdom of God and then all these other things will be added.

Not to be missed is what the Lord’s Prayer says and teaches. Whether Reformed Protestants actually use it to the degree that Lutherans and Anglicans do, our catechisms do go into some depth in explaining the Lord’s Prayer and usually begin the instruction with words to the effect that this prayer is a model or example for how to pray.

If that is the case, then by my count only one of the six petitions has to do with material needs – “give us this day our daily bread.” The others concern God (his glory, church, and will) and man’s sin (forgiveness, and temptation). By my math that works out to roughly 17 percent of our prayers being devoted to physical needs.

And yet, when we listen or read the requests for prayer in most congregations, the percentage tilts almost in the exact opposite direction, with God and sin receiving about 17 percent of our requests. Now, some of the problem here is that requesting prayer for Aunt Bessie’s gallbladder surgery is a lot less embarrassing than asking for prayer for my struggles with lust. Also, not to be missed is that some physical afflictions actually threaten life, and prayers for the living as they approach death is surely appropriate.

Even here, though, I wonder if our prayers are filled more with petitions for healing and prolonged life rather than God’s will. Indeed, most of our prayers for the physical well being of believers, at least publicly, are on the order of asking God for what we want – lives without suffering, pain, and death. We would need to be locked up if we prayed for more suffering, pain, and death, or more hunger, poverty, and unemployment. But again the point is for what do we pray and what does it say about our understanding of the gospel’s consequences for the lives of Christians. When we pray are we endanger of endorsing implicitly a prosperity gospel? Is prayer effective when it brings the results we want? Or is prayer accomplishing its purpose when through it our appetites conform to God’s will?

This and That

Published on by D. G. Hart100 Comments

kitchen sinkDavid Strain makes a very good point about the doctrine of the two thingies:

If the Kingdom is not advanced by ‘the sword’, that is, by means of physical coercion, but the God ordained role of the civil magistrate is to use the sword to enforce the rule of law, how can the Christian’s work as a civil magistrate be the work of the Kingdom?

As part of my duty to follow Scott Clark’s marching orders on covenant theology, I’ll mention his post on parallels between the controversy over Federal Vision today and Machen’s contest with liberalism some eight decades ago:

Like the liberals and latitudinarians on the early 20th century the Federal Visionists of our times use similar tactics against the confessionalists. They have tried to silence the confessionalist critics through shame or through implied or express suggestions of ecclesiastical or professional pressure. When that doesn’t work, the other tactic is to suggest that the confessionalist critics are immoral or somehow disreputable. Just as in the case of Machen, the liberals and latitudinarians would rather have the churches focus on the ostensible bad behavior (or incorrect social views) of the confessionalists rather than upon the deviant doctrine or ecclesiastical practice of the theological revisionists.

When J. Gresham Machen was driven out of the PCUSA, the liberals and their latitudinarian accomplices did not “get him” on a doctrinal charge but on a charge of not playing nice with others. He refused to abandon his support for the Independent Board of Foreign Missions (confessionalists do care about the lost AND getting our theology right) so they charged and convicted him in a sham ecclesiastical trial of being disobedient to the church. In light of the developments, in the PCUSA, in the decades that followed the idea of trying and disciplining a minister for supporting an independent (non-denominational) missions agency is amusing but they were able to get away with it then because they had control of the levers of power and because they had the cooperation of the latitudinarians.

On further reflection about the idea of republication, how could the Westminster Divines have been by implication any clearer than when they wrote the Shorter Catechism? It goes like this:

Q. 39. What is the duty that God required of man?

A. The duty which God required of man was obedience to his revealed will.

Q. 40. What did God at first reveal to man for the rule of his obedience?

A. The rule which God at first revealed to man was the moral law.

Q. 41. Where in is the moral law summarily comprehended?

A. The moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments.

The Philonomian Temptation

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

mezuzahSince some readers consider me clueless about the law to the point of being antinomian, the following essay, originally printed in the October 2002 issue of the NTJ, may be useful for clarifying the concerns of Oldlife.

Ever since the sixteenth century Protestants have had to bear the accusation of being antinomian. The logic was, and still is, simple. If you believe that salvation is based strictly on faith, not on works, you send the message that the way a believer lives does not really affect his or her standing before God. Despite (or perhaps) owing to this complaint, Protestants since the Reformation have done their darnedest to prove the accusation wrong. So successful have the descendants of Luther and Calvin been in correcting the impression that good works don’t matter in obtaining God’s favor, that Roman Catholics and Protestants have swapped roles, with the former being the church for an antinomian piety, and the latter’s denominations insisting upon good behavior for continued fellowship.

This is not a cheap shot at Roman Catholics (at least it is not the intent). The difference between Rome and Protestantism these days on good works actually works toward Roman Catholicism’s favor. The church that once accused Luther’s teaching of antinomianism has consistently made room for repeat offenders, the kind of sinners whom Protestants are quick to remove from church rolls. Roman Catholic history is filled with examples of believers who fall off the wagon, repent, confess their sin and find forgiveness in the church’s ministry. From whiskey priests to mafia dons, the Roman Catholic church has been a communion, despite its teaching on the relationship of faith and works, where the believer’s ongoing battle with sin is frankly acknowledged and accommodated. This makes it one of the great ironies in Western Christianity that the ones who originally accused Luther of sanctioning immorality have been the communion to provide what appears a roomier basis for fellowship than Protestants can muster.

The recent scandal surrounding Roman Catholic priests and pedophilia suggests that this may be changing, that, in fact, becoming an American church has involved becoming infected with Protestant philonomianism. This is certainly the impression that Richard John Neuhaus gives in his comments on the meeting of the United States bishops in Dallas to address the sexual misconduct of priests. The editor of First Things quoted one reporter who claimed that the American bishops “behaved more like Senators or CEO’s engaged in damage control than as moral teachers engaged in the gospel.” Neuhaus fears that the adopted policy of “one strike” and “zero tolerance” will prevent repentant priests from coming forward and seeking help and forgiveness. Even worse, he writes, is what the policy of retribution does to the church’s witness. “The bishops have succeeded in scandalizing the faithful anew by adopting a thoroughly unbiblical, untraditional, and un-Catholic approach to sin and grace.” They wound up with “a policy that is sans repentance, sans conversion, sans forbearance, sans prudential judgment, sans forgiveness, sans almost everything one might have hoped for from bishops of the Church of Jesus Christ.” Of course, Reformed Christians have a different understanding of the basis for a sinner’s forgiveness. But Neuhaus’ complaint, the bishops’ policies notwithstanding, implies that the language of mercy may be more the possession of Catholics than Protestants.

In Protestantism’s case, the adoption of an ecclesial posture free from charges of antinomianism is not only ironic but ridiculous. Yet evidence accumulates that demonstrates just how uncomfortable Protestants are with receiving and resting on Christ alone for all the benefits of salvation.

One such example comes again from Neuhaus’ journal, First Things. In the April 2002 issue Jerry L. Walls, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary wrote in defense of purgatory, thus proving to some in the NTJ’s offices that the line separating Wesleyans and Roman Catholics on sanctification is a thin one thanks to John Wesley’s curious doctrine of perfection. Walls begins on a weak note, one sure to get him and us in trouble. He asserts that Wesleyans “reject the notion that salvation is only, or even primarily, a forensic matter of having the righteousness of Christ imputed or attributed to believers.” God not only forgives, Walls adds, but “also changes us and actually makes us righteous.” The problem is that life is not long enough for the sanctification of believers. So much sin, so little time. In addition, Walls finds the Protestant notion of perfection in death to be unconvincing. Purgatory is the solution. For it is a teaching that emphasizes “the notion that no one can be exempted from the requirement of achieving perfect sanctity in cooperation with God’s grace and initiative.”

Walls admits that the idea of a time after death where the road to sanctity is allowed to wind on in proportion to a sinner’s wickedness appears to deny justification by faith alone. That is so if salvation is conceived in solely forensic terms. But Protestants were novel to separate justification and sanctification. And since “justification so understood does not make us actually righteous, it is simply irrelevant as an objection to purgatory.” What is especially interesting to note here is Walls’ conclusion since it bears on this matter of forgiveness and how sinners become righteous. “Appealing to God’s forgiveness does nothing to address the fact that many Christians are imperfect lovers of God . . . at the time of their death.” As such forgiveness “alone” cannot eliminate the unpleasant aspects of sin. “Other remedies are necessary, and . . . they may involve pain.” One wonders if Walls may have been present behind the scenes when the Roman Catholic bishops gathered in Dallas. His understanding of pain-added forgiveness would certainly square better with the policy of “zero tolerance” than Neuhaus’ idea of divine mercy’s recuperative powers.

Of course, Walls may be dismissed as a Wesleyan who, following the lead of the urWesleyan, collapsed justification and sanctification in such a disquieting way. Yet, Reformed Christians have of late been giving Methodists and Roman Catholics a run for obscuring the sufficiency of Christ’s righteousness. In fact, many within the ranks of conservative American Presbyterianism show how willing they are to blink when the charge of antinomianism comes their way. In which case, Reformed Christians, like Walls, blur justification and sanctification in the hopes of making their theological tradition as good as they want Reformed Christians to be moral.

One indication of the confusion comes from an earnest Presbyterian elder who has written an unfortunate explanation of his views in response to some who suspect him of denying the Protestant doctrine of justification. A read through this paper suggests that his accusers have a point. (He will remain anonymous because of presbytery proceedings that have taken up this matter.) At one point, under the heading of “God’s Purpose and Plan,” he writes: “Neither the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, which all Christians receive at justification, nor the infusion of the righteousness of Christ (a false and non-existent concept taught by the Roman Catholic Church) can suffice for that purpose [i.e. being conformed to the image of Christ in true and personal righteousness and holiness]. Christ does not have an imputed righteousness; His righteousness is real and personal. If we are to be conformed to his image, we too must have a real and personal righteousness.” What is interesting about this quotation is that it is as hard on Protestantism as it is on Roman Catholicism. But because he denies Rome’s error the implication is that he is error free. What remains, in fact, is an error of Pelagian proportions.

Of course, this example could simply be an aberration. But the trouble is that theologians and pastors in Presbyterian circles have encouraged these ideas by what one might call a hyper-covenantalism. Because they believe that the Bible makes the covenant central to God’s relationship with man, all doctrines have the potential to be covenantalized. So, for instance, Peter Leithart on his website offers a paper in which he articulates a “biblical” perspective on justification. There he comments: “while Protestant theology rightly understands ‘justification’ as ‘courtroom’ or ‘forensic’ language, it does not take sufficient account of the full biblical scope of the ‘forensic.’ Following a number of recent studies, I take ‘righteous’ to be essentially a covenantal and relational term.” As such the main idea behind biblical righteousness is not “conformity to a code of laws,” but instead refers to “fulfilling obligations in a relationship.” On it goes.

It needs to be stated that Leithart does not go where the unnamed elder dared to go — Leithart does not deny the doctrine of imputed righteousness. But he does reflect where the equivocation of justification along covenantal lines, begun by Norman Shepherd twenty-five years ago and published recently as The Call of Grace (2000), has led. The impression persists that the traditional formulation of justification is passe and doesn’t reflect the recent scholarship. Just as bad, it’s not biblical but a theological imposition upon the text. Even worse, it’s responsible for keeping Roman Catholics and Protestants apart. As Shepherd stated in a Reformation Day sermon five years ago, “If we could get our Roman Catholic neighbors to see that the Bible talks about covenantal love and loyalty, and not about the merit of good works, and if we could get our evangelical Protestant neighbors to see that the Bible talks about covenantal love and loyalty, and not about cheap grace, then at least one major obstacle would be removed preventing us from seeing that the true church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. We would have a catholic church that is reformed according to the word of God. This is the church that Jesus is building today.”

In this sermon Shepherd interestingly uses the word “comfort.” A covenantal understanding of justification does not offer comfort to the antinomians because the gospel’s promises are not “unconditional.” Nor does it provide succor to the legalists because the good works it requires are not meritorious. The problem is that the covenantal understanding of justification does not offer much comfort — period. For it still saddles sinful men and women with obligations that they cannot keep perfectly. Which leaves them in a bit of a pickle.

Here it might be worth considering why people are not comforted by the Protestant doctrine of justification. Even if we were to concede that the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone, which looks to Christ’s righteousness alone for justification today and on judgment day, even if this doctrine were not true, why wouldn’t Protestants want it to be? The psychological problems are easier to spot for Roman Catholics who anathematized Protestants in the sixteenth century and so are on record against justification by faith alone. A defense of truth (as Catholics understand it) along with a defense of the tradition drives Roman Catholics to deny the Protestant doctrine. The only possible explanation for Protestants abandoning the doctrine is that the truth of the Bible is at stake. But even here, if the Bible taught that our salvation depended in some small way upon our own righteousness or our ability to cooperate with Christ’s, why would any Protestant believe it? “Thus saith the Lord” has a certain force to it. But if the Lord says “you must be good in order to be saved” then the consequences of disobedience are just as great as those involved in obedience. For if men and women are honest with themselves, the thought of producing works good enough for God’s favor is downright scary.

But if Protestants who cozy up to the notion of obedience fail to notice the relief that Christ’s righteousness provides, these reformers of justification don’t seem to fathom how incomplete human righteousness is. As such, if classic Protestantism is susceptible to the charge of “cheap grace,” neo-Protestants are in danger of promoting “cheap works.” The point here is one well made by the Westminster Divines in chapter sixteen of their Confession of Faith. This is a section of the Westminster Standards that few of Luther’s Reformed critics ponder.

It is, of course, one thing to say that nothing the unregenerate man may do will please God, thus at least requiring Christ’s work to wipe the slate clean. But once regenerate, some are teaching, Christians may actually perform deeds that are acceptable. Not so, according to the Westminster Confession. “We cannot, by our best works, merit pardon for sin, or eternal life, at the hand of God, because of the great disproportion that is between them and the glory to come, and the infinite distance that is between us and God, . . .” So much for the possibility of being re-justified on Judgement Day on the basis of our good works. And the reason is that our good works proceed both from the Spirit who makes them “good” and from us who make them “defiled and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection that they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment” (16.v). In other words, our good works, the allegedly conditional part of the covenantal arrangement, are not very good. In fact, they come up short of God’s holy standard, thus making Christ’s righteousness the only sufficient basis for our standing before God. Sin goes so deep that perfection for the Christian awaits death or the consummation.

Yet the justification-revision school continues to be worried about antinomianism. They appear to fear that grace and mercy will lead to moral laxity. And so they contrive various biblical themes to water forgiveness down with obedience. In the process, they lose sight of how helpless sinful men and women are, both before and after regeneration. They make it seem as if believers may really keep the law because the promises are conditional, though not meritorious. The net effect is to ignore the depths of human depravity, as well as the burden that comes with always asking whether you are really good.

The Reformers were aware of this problem. The Belgic Confession in Article 24 (Man’s Sanctification and Good Works) concludes on this somber note: if we do not keep in mind that our good works in no way merit God’s favor, “then, we would always be in doubt, tossed to and fro without any certainty, and our poor consciences would be continually vexed . . .”

Does this mean that we should keep on sinning so that forgiveness may abound? The apostle Paul stared that one in the face and said, of course not. Smoking two packs a day because you know you’re going to die anyway is not the best response to the blessings of this life (one pack should be sufficient). Neither is abandoning your wife a legitimate response to the idea that marriage is provisional and not part of the glorified state. The Reformed response, along with the Lutheran one, has been the third use of the law, even though the latter tradition has not always spoken in these terms. The basis for good works is gratitude, not fear. In fact, the release that comes from knowing that God’s demands have been satisfied by Christ frees the Christian to perform good works, though still polluted, from the correct motive — to glorify God, not to save one’s hide. The Augsburg Confession, Article 20 could not state it any better than when it declares: “It is also taught among us that good works should and must be done, not that we are to rely on them to earn grace but that we may do God’s will and glorify him. It is always faith alone that apprehends grace and forgiveness of sin. When through faith the Holy Spirit is given, the heart is moved to do good works.”

Forgetting forgiveness and loving the law has had many unfortunate consequences. But the greatest may be that Reformed Christianity no longer can be accused of being antinomian. Of course, antinomianism is bad, and that’s why the Reformed creeds assert the importance of good works. But at the same time, proclaiming the gospel in such a way that it sounds antinomian is very good, even biblical. Martin Lloyd-Jones had it right, when he wrote, following the lead of the apostle Paul:

The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. . . .I would say to all preachers: If your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you really are preaching the salvation that is offered in the New Testament to the ungodly, to the sinner, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, to those who are enemies of God.

After almost five hundred years of hearing the charge of antinominan, one would think Reformed Christians could resist the philonomian temptation to turn Christ’s sufficiency into a blueprint for ethical enrichment.

Townsend P. Levitt

Right Chronology, Wrong Westminster Professor

Published on by D. G. Hart207 Comments

Plain as nose
The controversial Kerux review of The Law Is Not of Faith is now available on line. I cannot get past the first sentence: “For the past thirty years, a shift in Reformed covenant theology has been percolating under the hot Southern California sun in Escondido.”

This is an amazing opening because for thirty years the sideline Reformed world has experienced a controversy over the refashioning of covenant theology and the doctrines that flow from it. But Westminster California was not the place where the controverted doctrines came from. Did the reviewers for Kerux notice anything about Federal Vision, or Evangelicals and Catholics Together, or Norman Shepherd? Of course, not. These are real controversies conveniently ignored to go after the alleged real culprit: WSC and its part-time professor, Meredith G. Kline.

Atop the bluff of a former orange grove, a quiet redefinition of the Sinaitic covenant administration as a typological covenant of works, complete with meritorious obedience and meritorious reward has been ripening. The architect of this paradigm shift was the late Meredith G. Kline.

Again, this is truly dumbfounding. The doctrine of justification has been up for grabs in the heart of conservative Reformed and Presbyterian communions such as the OPC, PCA, and URC. The doctrine has received further questions and revisions in the broader Protestant world thanks to the already mentioned Evangelicals and Catholics Together, the Federal Vision, and the New Perspective on Paul. And yet, Kerux decides to lower the boom on Kline and WSC.

It should be noted that Kline, as a professor at Gordon-Conwell, was one of those who thirty years ago supported the Westminster faculty who were opposed to Shepherd’s teaching – among them, W. Robert Godfrey, Palmer Robertson, Robert Knudsen, and Arthur Kuschke. And since then it has been Klineans who have been clearest on justification, its centrality to the Reformed doctrine of salvation, and its priority to sanctification. At the same time, it has been those who have either defended or been silent about Shepherd who have been some of the biggest critics of Westminster California.

Consequently, it is an odd historical judgment that Kerux offers, and one that draws attention away from the real source of controversy in Reformed circles.

But the problems of historical analysis only get worse for the authors of the review. Not only was Kline an important critic of Shepherd but his students have been at least partly responsible for bringing a measure of calm to that controversy within the OPC thanks to the leadership of WSC faculty on the study committee on justification. That report was clear regarding the defects of Shepherd’s views and their ties and affinities to the Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul.

And in case anyone actually thought WSC was ambiguous about justification, the seminary has issued a statement on the doctrine, “Our Testimony on Justification,” which counters the Shepherdian claim that justification needs to be set free from its Lutheran bondage. It declares:

. . . some who claim to be Reformed suggest that too many Reformed people have a Lutheran view of justification and need to develop a distinctively Reformed view of justification. These critics usually claim that they accept the Reformed confessions, yet at the same time claim that Reformed theology needs to be changed and clarified to be distinctive. Such critics, called neonomians in the seventeenth century, today are perhaps better labeled covenant moralists.

Our testimony is directed primarily to this third group who claim to be genuinely Reformed. These covenant moralists teach, contrary to the Reformed confessions and/or historic Reformed conviction, some or all of the following:

that the Reformation doctrine of justification is not fully biblical;

that the Lutherans and Calvinists have different doctrines of justification;

that the Reformation misunderstood Paul on justification;

that justification is not by faith alone, but by faithfulness, i.e. trust in Christ and obedience;

that the idea of merit as a way of explaining the work of Christ for us is unbiblical;

that Christ died for our sins but he did not keep the law perfectly in our place (his active obedience);

that Christ does not impute his active obedience to us;

that obedience or good works is not only the fruit or evidence of faith, but is also part of the ground or instrument of justification;

that our justification is in some way dependent on the final judgment of our works.

As the faculty of Westminster Seminary California we believe that we must issue this testimony especially in relation to those who claim to be Reformed in their attack on the Reformation doctrine of justification and who claim to uphold the teaching of the Reformed confessions.

So for the last thirty years, Westminster California has through its faculty, both in the courts of the church and individual authors, during debates about Shepherd, ECT, Federal Vision, and the New Perspective, been on the right side of the doctrines of grace. Now along comes Kerux to re-write history and say that not Shepherd, Richard John Neuhaus, Chuck Colson, nor N. T. Wright was the problem but Meredith G. Kline and his students. To borrow a line from Harry Emerson Fosdick, “what incredible folly!”

The Spirit of Machen Lives at Westminster California

Published on by D. G. Hart20 Comments

witherspoon bldgTo honor and mark the thirtieth anniversary of the seminary where police do enforce jaywalking laws, to offer some encouragement to the faculty and staff who labor and the students who study there, and to remind readers about the point of Westminster Seminary come the following paragraphs from the institution’s first convocation. Of course, J. Gresham Machen was the author and speaker, the date was September 25, 1929, and the place was downtown Philadelphia (woot!). The ceremonies took place at the Witherspoon Building on Walnut Street, which was the home of the Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work (one of downtown Philadelphia’s more ornate facades). The school itself was located at 1528 Pine Street.

Westminster Theological Seminary, which opens its doors today, will hardly be attended by those who seek the plaudits of the world or the plaudits of a worldly church. It can offer for the present no magnificent buildings, no long-established standing in the ecclesiastical or academic world. Why, then, does it open its doors; why does it appeal to the support of Christian men?

The answer is plain. Our new institution is devoted to an unpopular cause; it is devoted to the service of one who is despised and rejected by the world and increasingly belittled by the visible church, the majestic Lord and Savior who is presented to us in the Word of God. From him men are turning away one by one. His sayings are too hard, his deeds of power too strange, his atoning death too great an offense to human pride. But to him, despite all, we hold. No Christ of our own imaginings can ever take his place for us, no mystic Christ whom we seek merely in the hidden depths of our own souls. From all such we turn away ever anew to the blessed written Word and say to the Christ there set forth, the Christ with whom then we have living communion: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life”. . . .

[The] pathway of sacrifice is the pathway which students and supporters of Westminster Seminary are called upon to tread. For that we can thank God. Because of the sacrifices involved, no doubt many have been deterred from coming to us; they have feared the opposition of the machinery of the church; some of them may have feared, perhaps, to bear fully the reproach of Christ. We do not judge them. But whatever may be said about the students who have come to us, one thing can certainly be said about those who have come – they are real men.

No, my friends, though Princeton Seminary is dead, the noble tradition of Princeton Seminary is alive. Westminster Seminary will endeavor by God’s grace to continue that tradition unimpaired; it will endeavor, not on a foundation of equivocation and compromise, but on an honest foundation of devotion to God’s Word, to maintain the same principles that the old Princeton maintained. We believe, first, that the Christian religion, as it is set forth in the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian church, is true; we believe, second, that the Christian religion welcomes and is capable of scholarly defense; and we believe, third, that the Christian religion should be proclaimed without fear or favor, and in clear opposition to whatever opposes it, whether within or without the church, as the only way of salvation for lost mankind. On that platform, brethren, we stand. Pray that we may be enabled by God’s Spirit to stand firm. Pray that the students who go forth from Westminster Seminary may know Christ as their own Savior and may proclaim to others the gospel of his love.

Brit Hume, Pat Robertson, and the Grandstanding Faithful

Published on by D. G. Hart14 Comments

bandwagonOkay, another post from the netherworld of oldlife contrarianism. But could there be an easier target than Pat Robertson and his comments about the earthquake in Haiti? The gist of Robertson’s gaffe seems to be that the recent catastrophe is God’s payback for the country’s “pact with the devil” during the revolution in 1791 against France.

The blogosphere is alive with various posts condemning Robertson. I won’t link to them because some are friends and don’t want to appear to be singling them out. But if you go to Google search under blogs you can find any number of negative reactions, many even self-righteous.

Some of these bloggers make useful points about the difficulty of reading providence, and criticize Robertson for overreaching in his interpretation of the earthquake. Some also make the quite sensible observation that what the television show host was in bad taste.

So what’s the problem? Well, if we cannot know providence – as I myself believe – if we cannot read history and tally up the good guys and the bad, the blessed and the cursed, then how do we know Robertson was wrong? If providence is mysterious, Robertson could have been right. No one would actually be able to tell. So why not react to Robertson with a measure of the reserve that he should have shown to providence?

KeillorLest some interpret this as a way to stay on Robertson’s good side and perhaps land a job at Regent University, consider that IVP published a book a few years ago, God’s Judgments: Interpreting History and the Christian Faith, by the lesser known Keillor brother, Steven, who argued that 9/11 was a divine judgment upon the United States. Keillor qualified this argument in a host of intelligent and theologically adept ways. Although I was not persuaded, his case for trying to interpret providence was not nutty.

Which is to say that Robertson may not have been bonkers either to enter the land of discerning God’s will in the circumstances of life in this world.

But the real reason for suggesting a less hostile perspective on Robertson’s comments, especially after seeing some of the reactions to comments here about Brit Hume, is to question the way that Christians pile on when their faith goes public. When Brit said good things, then let’s pat him on the back and bask in some good pr for the gospel. And when Pat says bad things, then let’s quickly point out how wrongheaded he is at least so that others will know we are not part of the simian faithful.

In other words, do Christian bloggers have to be that predictable? Isn’t the mojo of the kingdom for which we pray in the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer above, beyond, and more resilient than what appears on Fox News or CNN? In case anyone’s wondering, the answer here is decidedly yes.

How Radical was Margaret Thatcher?

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

Hillsdale_Thatcher_1280Actually, according to some British academics I know, very, but that’s another story. Thanks to Scott Clark via Martin Downes via Cranmer comes the text of the Iron Lady’s speech before the 1988 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Here are some of the highlights:

Perhaps it would be best, Moderator, if I began by speaking personally as a Christian, as well as a politician, about the way I see things. Reading recently, I came across the starkly simple phrase:

“Christianity is about spiritual redemption, not social reform”.

Sometimes the debate on these matters has become too polarised and given the impression that the two are quite separate. But most Christians would regard it as their personal Christian duty to help their fellow men and women. They would regard the lives of children as a precious trust. These duties come not from any secular legislation passed by Parliament, but from being a Christian.

But there are a number of people who are not Christians who would also accept those responsibilities. What then are the distinctive marks of Christianity?

They stem not from the social but from the spiritual side of our lives, and personally, I would identify three beliefs in particular:

First, that from the beginning man has been endowed by God with the fundamental right to choose between good and evil. And second, that we were made in God’s own image and, therefore, we are expected to use all our own power of thought and judgement in exercising that choice; and further, that if we open our hearts to God, He has promised to work within us. And third, that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, when faced with His terrible choice and lonely vigil chose to lay down His life that our sins may be forgiven. I remember very well a sermon on an Armistice Sunday when our Preacher said, “No one took away the life of Jesus , He chose to lay it down”.

That may not be the best theology upon which to construct a two-kingdoms position, but it sure beats most of the doctrine to come from the speech writers for Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

She went on:

The Old Testament lays down in Exodus the Ten Commandments as given to Moses , the injunction in Leviticus to love our neighbour as ourselves and generally the importance of observing a strict code of law. The New Testament is a record of the Incarnation, the teachings of Christ and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Again we have the emphasis on loving our neighbour as ourselves and to “Do-as-you-would-be-done-by”.

I believe that by taking together these key elements from the Old and New Testaments, we gain: a view of the universe, a proper attitude to work, and principles to shape economic and social life. . . .

None of this, of course, tells us exactly what kind of political and social institutions we should have. On this point, Christians will very often genuinely disagree, though it is a mark of Christian manners that they will do so with courtesy and mutual respect. What is certain, however, is that any set of social and economic arrangements which is not founded on the acceptance of individual responsibility will do nothing but harm.

Again, Mrs. Thatcher might have benefitted from courses at Westminster California, but her larger point about the lack of specifics in the New Testament about the social and political order is one that two-kingdom proponents second. So also her call for courtesy and respect when disagreeing – is name calling really necessary?

The Prime Ministerette’s knees went a little wobbly, as so many politicians do, when the thought of Abraham – not the father of God’s chosen people but Lincoln, the father of the U.S.’s second republic – came up:

To assert absolute moral values is not to claim perfection for ourselves. No true Christian could do that. What is more, one of the great principles of our Judaic-Christian inheritance is tolerance. People with other faiths and cultures have always been welcomed in our land, assured of equality under the law, of proper respect and of open friendship. There’s absolutely nothing incompatible between this and our desire to maintain the essence of our own identity. There is no place for racial or religious intolerance in our creed.

When Abraham Lincoln spoke in his famous Gettysburg speech of 1863 of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”, he gave the world a neat definition of democracy which has since been widely and enthusiastically adopted. But what he enunciated as a form of government was not in itself especially Christian, for nowhere in the Bible is the word democracy mentioned. Ideally, when Christians meet, as Christians, to take counsel together their purpose is not (or should not be) to ascertain what is the mind of the majority but what is the mind of the Holy Spirit — something which may be quite different.

But she recovered well enough to finish on a strong note (even if it meant quoting a hymn rather than a psalm):

We Parliamentarians can legislate for the rule of law. You, the Church, can teach the life of faith.

But when all is said and done, the politician’s role is a humble one. I always think that the whole debate about the Church and the State has never yielded anything comparable in insight to that beautiful hymn “I Vow to Thee my Country”. It begins with a triumphant assertion of what might be described as secular patriotism, a noble thing indeed in a country like ours:

“I vow to thee my country all earthly things above; entire, whole and perfect the service of my love”.

It goes on to speak of “another country I heard of long ago” whose King can’t be seen and whose armies can’t be counted, but “soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase”. Not group by group, or party by party, or even church by church — but soul by soul — and each one counts.

If only American civil religion – both evangelical and theonomic – were as capable of such nuance.

Brit Hume Reconsidered

Published on by D. G. Hart51 Comments

washingtonredskinsPut this in the category of ornery, as in there is no pleasing some people, as in paleo-Calvinists are a demanding lot. But the details on Brit Hume, his remarks about Tiger Woods, and Hume’s own Christian convictions are not as encouraging as they seemed at first.

Many have commented on Hume’s remarks and subsequent defense of saying publicly that Tiger Woods should turn to Christianity, the only source of forgiveness and redemption. Some have used negative reactions to Hume to show the true state of the cultural wars in the U.S. Some have simply noted how welcome the positive mention of Christian in the mainstream media. Others have explored the topics of Christianity’s exclusiveness and the dangers of celebrity Christianity.

Few have gone a step farther to see about Hume’s own faith. Christianity Today conducted an interview with Hume in which the following questions and answers appeared:

Do you attend a church in D.C.?

A lot of the worship I do is in home church and Bible study. There’s a regular journalists’ group that meets. There’s also a group we’re meeting this weekend at our place in Virginia, a group of families that meet for home church. There’s a minister and his wife who lead it, and we like it.

Do you have a pastor or mentor?

I do. Jerry Leachman. He leads men’s Bible study groups all over the Washington area.

I understand that when you moved into part-time work last year, you took time off to focus more on your faith.

That’s true. I said I had the three G’s I wanted to devote myself to: God, granddaughters, and golf. I’m trying. I’m trying. I’m able to see my granddaughters more, I’m spending more time focused on my faith, and when I can, I’m playing golf. All three of those things are still part of the scheme here.

It turns out that Jerry Leachman is the chaplain to the Washington Redskins. It also turns out that Leachman’s wife leads a Bible study for women that Hilary Clinton either attends or used to attend for many years.

Rooting interests and political party loyalty aside, the troubling part of Hume’s faith is its autonomy from the church. If he wanted to devote himself more to God, why not belong to the body of his savior? The answer is likely that such formalities, like not playing football for pay on Sunday, are unimportant to Christianity. What is important is a personal relationship with Jesus and ongoing study of Scripture.

Of course, a personal relationship with Jesus – if that means saving faith – is necessary, and studying the Bible on your own – assuming literacy – is a valuable part of the Christian life. But whatever happened to the church? Is church membership necessary to Christian faith? According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, yes (ordinarily).

The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. (25.2)

The Two-Kingdom Case for Blue Laws

Published on by D. G. Hart39 Comments

Rendell and Eagles
(Not to be confused with the “Blue Letter.”)

In 1933, the years the Philadelphia Eagles football club started (thank you Dan Borvan), the state of Pennsylvania considered reforming its laws prohibiting commercial activity on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, so that football players and coaches could play in the afternoon. (How would the NFL make it without violating the fourth and eighth commandments?) J. Gresham Machen, then a resident of Philadelphia, wrote a letter to Gifford Pinchot, the governor of Pennsylvania and requested the retention of the Blue Laws as they were then written.

Machen’s reasoning in this letter is instructive for what it says about a recognition and acceptance of religious diversity, a commitment to religious freedom, and the tensions within a democracy between majority rule and minority protection. Perhaps most important for two-kingdom purposes is the place of an appeal to Scripture in public debate. In this case, Machen argues not for the magistrate to enforce divine law, but for the advantages that come to everyone when the law protects the practices of some citizens.

Not to be missed is what this letter says about the fourth commandment, and that keeping the whole day holy with two services is an occasion of Christian liberty. If only the Bible speaks to all of life crowd would take up the cause of the sanctity of the Lord’s Day. (Do we see a pattern here? Two kingdoms, two services?)

April 20, 1933

The Honorable Gifford Pinchot
Governor of Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, Pa.

Dear Sir:

Will you permit me to express, very respectfully, my opposition to the Bill designated “House Bill No. 1″ regarding permission of commercialized sport between the hours of two and six on Sunday afternoons?

It is clear that in this matter of Sunday legislation the liberty of part of the people will have to be curtailed. It is impossible that people who desire a quiet Sunday should have a quiet Sunday, while at the same time people who desire commercialized sport on Sunday should have commercialized sport. The permission of commercialized sport will necessarily change the character of the day for all of the people and not merely for part of the people.

The only question, therefore, is whose liberty is to be curtailed. I am convinced that in this case it ought, for the welfare of the whole people, to be the liberty of those who desire commercialized sport.

The curtailment of their liberty, through the existing law, does not, I am convinced, go beyond reasonable bounds. There is, it seems to me, a sharp distinction of principle between complete prohibition of some form of activity or enjoyment and reasonable regulation of it in the interest of other people. To ask that commercialized sport should dispense with one day out of seven for the benefit of that large part of our population that desires a quiet Sunday and believes that it is necessary to the welfare of the State does not seem to me to be unreasonable.

Of course it is perfectly clear that in a democracy the majority should rule in this matter as in other matters. I should be the last to advocate any attempt to make people religious or even to make people ordinarily moral or decent against their will by mere legislative enactment. I should also be the last to advocate any tyrannical imposition of the convictions of a minority upon the majority. But how shall the majority will be exercised? I think that it ought to be exercised through the ordinary processes of representative government. To allow commercialized sport on Sunday in Pennsylvania will be a radical change in the whole life of our people. It is a wise provision of representative government that such radical changes should not be hastily accomplished, as might be the case by the referendum vote, but that they should be accomplished only when it is quite clear that the majority of the people really and seriously and permanently desires the change. . . .

As to the merits of the question, I could hardly find words strong enough to express what my feeling is. It does seem to me that the profoundest dangers to our entire civilization are found in the constant rush of noise and jazz and feverish activity which is one of the great faults of the American people and which is a great barrier to true efficiency as well as to the cultivation of the deeper things.

Of course, my own cultivation of a quiet Sunday is based on considerations much more fundamental than these. I am a Christian, and it is quite clear that a commercialized Sunday is inimical to the Christian religion. There are many other Christians in Pennsylvania, and because they are Christians they do not cease to be citizens. They have a right to be considered by their fellow-citizens and by the civil authorities. But the reason why they can with a good conscience be enthusiastic advocates of the Christian practice in the matter of Sunday is that they regard it as right, and as for the highest well-being of the entire State.

Very truly yours,

J. Gresham Machen, Professor of New Testament in Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

Postscript: over at David Strain’s blog come a couple of helpful posts about sabbath observance. As a native Scot, Strain knows first-hand about patterns of sabbatarianism among Old World Presbyterians, both mainline and sideline. In fact, during a Hart expedition to Scotland a decade ago, Mrs. Hart and her husband were delighted to see that even the Church of Scotland congregations conducted morning and evening service. This contrasts with the practice of one service among conservative Reformed and Presbyterians in the United States where supposedly Reformed Christianity is doing better.

Strain also mentions one of the common complaints about sabbatarianism – that is it legalistic. Well here is one radical two-kingdom virus carrier who also fully supports the supposed legalism of sabbath observance. In fact, the critics of 2k ought to consider where the leading 2k voices are on matters like the fourth commandment and the regulative principle of worship (as in the second commandment). Antinomian? Reconsider.

Ken Myers on the Bible

Published on by D. G. Hart111 Comments

BibleMany years ago – too many for those of his vintage – Ken Myers, the talking voice behind Mars Hill Audio, wrote a piece that should be more widely known and read, “Christianity, Culture, and Common Grace.” It is available in pdf at the Mars Hill website. Ken is one of the best students of culture, as attested by his book, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, a work in which he draws explicitly upon the arguments of Meredith Kline about cult and culture. (Kerux readers beware). Those same insights inform Ken’s essay on common grace and lead him to write the following about the sufficiency of Scripture:

We don’t hear much about the “insufficiency of Scripture.” But it is an important point to keep in mind when thinking about Christianity and culture. Scripture does not present itself as the only source of truth about all matters. It does not even present itself as a source of some truth about everything. It presents itself as the only authoritative source of truth about some things, and they are the most important things. But the Bible does not claim to teach us the fundamentals of arithmetic, of biology, of engineering, or of music. About most of the matters of culture, the Bible has little explicit to say. Many people insist on taking implicit statements from Scripture (or allegedly implicit statements) and deducing from them an entire theory. This is often done in the name of a high view of Scripture, but it is rather to treat Scripture as a magic book. It is a superstitious view of Scripture, not the view God has himself presented. The belief that all the blueprints for all of life are in Scripture is in part derived from the notion that reason and general revelation are not to be trusted.

Makes sense to me.