Tag: Carl Trueman

Transforming History

Published on by D. G. Hart67 Comments

Bill Evans thinks that a few pokes at the cultural transformers means the neo-Calvinists are taking it on the chin these days. It is in fact odd to see folks express surprise when others don’t agree with them, as if neo-Calvinism were the settled position of Reformed Protestantism since the days of Ulrich Zwingli and Zacharias Ursinus. One way a tradition becomes fossilized is to imagine that everyone is agreed; arguments keep you sharp, unless you are a follower of Abraham Kuyper whose authority cannot be questioned. I doubt Kuyper himself would be pleased with that group think.

Evans is a little worked up about a post by Carl Trueman that wonders whether the transformationalists have accomplished enough to make news:

The secular and religious media are awash with reports of how the millennial generation of evangelicals is burned out on the political activism of the religious right, and the Two-Kingdoms theology (2K) currently being trumpeted by some faculty members at Westminster Seminary in California (WSC) certainly provides a theological fig-leaf for such culture-war fatigue. In short, H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, with his favored model of “Christ transforming culture,” and the great Dutch Neo-Calvinist theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper are not exactly the flavor of the month.

Nevertheless, I was a bit surprised, though certainly not shocked, to see Carl Trueman jumping decisively on the anti-transformational bandwagon (here on Ref21 and here on TheAquilaReport). Dr. Trueman, as most of us know, teaches church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia (WTS), and is the former Provost and academic dean there. But despite Trueman’s very public aversion to all things trendy, he seems to be right in step with the Zeitgeist on this one. He also seems to be somewhat out of step with his institution’s history.

Evans goes on to assert that Trueman is out of step with the history of Westminster Seminary. Trueman himself is fully capable of defending himself and I won’t speak for him. But I will observe that Evans is remarkably ill informed about the history of Westminster.

For one, he does not seem to recall that WTS’ chief founder was J. Gresham Machen, a man whom neo-Calvinists will contort into a transformationalist but who better than anyone else in the first half of the twentieth century articulated the spirituality of the church over against the transformationalism that dominated the PCUSA:

In the first place, a true Christian church, now as always, will be radically doctrinal. It will never use the shibboleths of a pragmatist skepticism. It will never say that doctrine is the expression of experience; it will never confuse the useful with the true, but will place truth at the basis of all its striving and all its life. Into the welter of changing human opinion, into the modern despair with regard to any knowledge of the meaning of life, it will come with a clear and imperious message. That message it will find in the Bible, which it will hold to contain not a record of man’s religious experience but a record of a revelation from God.

In the second place, a true Christian church will be radically intolerant. At that point, however, a word of explanation is in place. The intolerance of the church, in the sense in which I am speaking of it, does not involve any interference with liberty; on the contrary, it means the preservation of liberty. One of the most important elements in civil and religious liberty is the right of voluntary association – the right of citizens to band themselves together for any lawful purpose whatever, whether that purpose does or does not commend itself to the generality of their fellow men. Now, a church is a voluntary association. No one is compelled to be a member of it; no one is compelled to be one of its accredited representatives. It is, therefore, no interference with liberty of a church to insist that those who do choose to be its accredited representatives shall not use the vantage ground of such a position to attack that for which the church exists. . .

But when I say that a true Christian church is radically intolerant, I mean simply that the church must maintain the high exclusiveness and universality of its message. It presents the gospel of Jesus Christ not merely as one way of salvation, but as the only way. It cannot make common cause with other faiths. It cannot agree not to proselytize. Its appeal is universal, and admits of no exceptions. All are lost in sin; none may be saved except by the way set forth in the gospel. Therein lies the offense of the Christian religion, but therein lies also it glory and its power. A Christianity tolerant of other religions is just no Christianity at all. . . .

There are certain things which you cannot expect from such a true Christian church. In the first place, you cannot expect from it any cooperation with non-Christian religion or with a non-Christian program of ethical culture. There are those who tell us that the Bible ought to be put into the public schools, and that the public schools should seek to build character by showing the children that honesty is the best policy and that good Americans do not lie nor steal. With such programs a true Christian church will have nothing to do. . . .

In the second place, you cannot expect from a true Christian church any official pronouncements upon the political or social questions of the day, and you cannot expect cooperation with the state in anything involving the use of force. Important are the functions of the police, and members of the church, either individually or in such special associations as they may choose to form, should aid the police in every lawful way in the exercise of those functions. But the function of the church in its corporate capacity is of an entirely different kind. Its weapons against evil are spiritual, not carnal; and by becoming a political lobby, through the advocacy of political measures whether good or bad, the church is turning aside from its proper mission. . . .

The responsibility of the church in the new age is the same as its responsibility in every age. It is to testify that this world is lost in sin; that the span of human life — nay, all the length of human history — is an infinitesimal island in the awful depths of eternity; that there a mysterious, holy, living God, Creator of all, Upholder of all, infinitely beyond all; that He has revealed Himself to us in His Word and offered us communion with Himself through Jesus Christ the Lord; that there is no other salvation, for individuals or for nations, save this, but that this salvation is full and free, and that whosever possesses it has for himself and for all others to whom he may be the instrument of bringing it a treasure compared with which all the kingdoms of the earth — nay, all the wonders of the starry heavens — are as the dust of the street. ( “The Responsibility of the Church in the New Age,” 1933)

Lest Evans think that Machen was Westminster’s conciliar tradition swamped by the high papalism of neo-Calvinism, he should also remember that after Machen’s death, the Westminster faculty (including R.B. Kuiper, Cornelius Van Til, and Ned Stonehouse, all sons of neo-Calvinism) opposed the transformationalists who formed with Carl McIntire the Bible Presbyterian Synod. The Bible Presbyterians wanted to retain the transformationalism of American Presbyterianism as the genuine Presbyterian tradition in the United States, hence the overture that split the OPC — one in favor of prohibition, the very crusade that had cost Machen a promotion at Princeton Seminary.

So Evans can argue for neo-Calvinism and its superiority all he wants. But he can’t read his preference back into the history of American Presbyterianism. And he should not let his preference prevent him from considering the real tension that comes from trying to harmonize Abraham Kuyper and J. Gresham Machen.

Why Does Complementarian Rhyme with Egalitarian?

Published on by D. G. Hart42 Comments

A little while back Carl Trueman pushed back on the empasis by some gospel co-allies on complementarianism. Carl concluded this way:

This is not the only awkward question one might ask: for example, which is more unacceptable to a Baptist – a woman preaching credobaptism or a man preaching paedobaptism? But that is for another day. In the meantime, do not misunderstand me: I do write as a convinced complementarian and a member of a church where no elders or deacons are – or can be — women, though none of them are – or can be – Lutherans, Baptists or Dispensationalists either. It is thus not complementarianism in itself to which I object; I am simply not sure why it is such a big issue in organisations whose stated purpose is basic co-operation for the propagation of the gospel and where other matters of more historic, theological and ecclesiastical moment are routinely set aside. If you want simply to unite around the gospel, then why not simply unite around the gospel? Because as soon as you decide that issues such as baptism are not part of your centre-bounded set but complementarianism is, you will find yourself vulnerable to criticism — from both right and left — that you are allowing a little bit of the culture war or your own pet concerns and tastes to intrude into what you deem to be the most basic biblical priorities.

This seemed smart then and still seems so. My only quibble is with the word “complementarian” itself. Some say it is like the Trinity, a concept derived from Scripture but not actually used. Well, the same goes for “hierarchical” or “patriarchal.” Those are words that are much more likely to be derived from biblical teaching about society but are apparently offensive to gospel co-allies who don’t want to look odd to the watching world. The hierarchies assumed in Scripture, wives submit to husbands, slaves to masters, and believers to emperors, are hardly the social arrangements we take for granted in the United States after the democratic revolution inaugurated by Andrew Jackson. But they do resemble the ones that the Reformers, Puritans, and early Presbyterians took for granted. Just think of the language of “superiors, inferiors, and equals” from the Shorter Catechism’s discussion of the fifth commandment.

The logic of hierarchy and patriarchy is not something that I am going to defend, myself. The little missus and I have reached a level of concord that most observers would call an egalitarian arrangement. I have no stones to through from the windows of my glass house. I do have the shield of two-kingdom theology, though, which allows me to have my cake (egalitarianism of a kind at home) and eat it too (hierarchicalism and patriarchy of a kind in the church).

Still, I do think the Gospel Coalition’s rallying behind complementarianism is troubling. It resembles the version of Calvinism that traffics among the young and restless — lots of talk of divine sovereignty, not so much about limited atonement. After all, that biblical teaching and those Reformed creeds can sound reactionary to modern ears and we don’t ever want to sound extreme — as if believing in a God-man who died and rose again and will come again is moderate.

What is particularly troubling about the Complementarian w-w is what it seems to do to the church. For instance, in Mary Kassian’s “Complementarianism for Dummies,” she writes that complementarians don’t want to be traditional (which is surprisingly close to not wanting to be conservative):

In our name-the-concept meeting, someone mentioned the word “traditionalism,” since our position is what Christians have traditionally believed. But that was quickly nixed. The word “traditionalism” smacks of “tradition.” Complementarians believe that the Bible’s principles supersede tradition. They can be applied in every time and culture. June Cleaver is a traditional, American, TV stereotype. She is not the complementarian ideal. Period. (And exclamation mark!) Culture has changed. What complementarity looks like now is different than what it looked like 60 or 70 years ago. So throw out the cookie-cutter stereotype. It does not apply.

Well, if the culture has changed, shouldn’t the church? And if the culture now puts women into roles of authority, why shouldn’t the church also do so? In fact, the Gospel Coalition recently asked two women to exegete and interpret Scripture for its general (including male) audience. I am personally a great affirmer of the idea that non-ordained women can do whatever non-ordained men can do. But for an organization with ecclesial ambitions, allowing women to teach the Bible seems to put TGC on the road to women’s ordination (which is where some think their star allies are walking).

To come back to Carl’s point, if complementarianism lacks the deal breaker significance of the gospel, so too does women’s ordination. At the same time, the lesson of communions like the Christian Reformed Church is that distinguishing peripheral matters from central ones is not so easy. The ordination of women was not the line in the sand for all conservatives in the CRC. But it was indicative of a general unease in the denomination regarding teachings and practices that had been part and parcel of the church’s Reformed identity but now looked burdensome after a move out of immigrant quarters into suburbia. It is one thing to be prophetic about the environment. It’s another altogether to be so about relations between men and women.

So while complementarianism is not as big a deal as the gospel, the way you treat complementarianism may be indicative of how big the deals you are willing to make.

P.S. I wonder if Keller and Piper really do agree on complementarlianism, especially when it applies to the church and to marriage. This video has a certain poignancy to it that makes me wonder if the folks at Redeemer Church would invite Piper to lead a seminar on women’s role in the church.

What's the Big Deal?

Published on by D. G. Hart63 Comments

Carl Trueman is rightly confused about the allies of the gospel making such a big deal of complimentarianism. I’ll see him a confusion and raise him a bewilderment — why are professional historians so worked up about David Barton? For weeks, nay, months academics hounded the God-and-country amateur historian, who sees faith writ large everywhere in the American founding (like some seminary presidents we know). For a summary of some of the objections, go here and here. And when word came that Thomas Nelson was recalling Barton’s book on Jefferson, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, one might have thought that Lyndon Baines Johnson had just signed the Civil Rights Act. So seemingly controversial had Barton become that Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of World magazine, believed he needed to create distance between his own understanding of the United States and Barton’s:

We report in our current issue—and plan to report again in our next—about a controversy between two groups of Christian conservatives (also see “Lost confidence,” by Thomas Kidd, Aug. 9). On one side are David Barton and his many readers. Barton has provided a useful service for many years in fighting the left’s interpretations of history. On the other side are other Christian conservatives who point out what they believe are inaccuracies in Barton’s work. Left-wing historians for years have criticized Barton. We haven’t spotlighted those criticisms because we know the biases behind them. It’s different when Christian conservatives point out inaccuracies. The Bible tells us that “iron sharpens iron,” and that’s our goal in reporting this controversy. As the great Puritan poet John Milton wrote concerning Truth, “Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”

Olasky goes on to observe that historians have not been so obsessed with another popular and flawed account of U.S. history, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Olasky has a point but it is not entirely accurate. This summer the History News Network ran a poll among its readers on the “Least Credible History Book in Print.” For most of the time that people responded, Zinn led the pack. But when editors made the final tally, Barton surpassed Zinn by nine votes (650 to 641). In which case, if this poll is representative, academics can spot a bad book on the left and on the Christian fringe (to call Barton the right is an injustice to conservatism). Do Christians have as good a track record of acknowledging bias among their favorite writers on politics, history, and economics?

And yet, the question remains whether professional historians have sought to have Zinn’s book recalled? I am actually not sure whether historians wanted to see Barton’s book removed from the marketplace. Thomas Nelson likely made its decision to pull The Jefferson Lies for economic as much as scholarly reasons. Even so, considering all the bad books that publishers print, I am still befuddled by the large and concerted critique of Barton. I get it. He’s on Glenn Beck. But how many academics listen to or watch Beck? Thomas Nelson is a big and profitable trade press. But how many academics receive the company’s catalog? Barton’s ideas are silly and irresponsible. So are Zinn’s, right?

So I guess I really don’t get it. It seems to me the free market makes a lot of bad products available including books. What’s one more?

The Hits Keep Coming

Published on by D. G. Hart31 Comments

Just when I was recovering from the sobering news of Jason Stellman’s decision to leave the PCA along comes Carl Trueman’s double-whammy of heaping scorn upon those “for whom the doctrine of the church and 2K are all they ever seem to talk about.” (For Stellman’s response, go here.) Trueman’s is a remarkable performance since Trueman admits his own 2k inclinations and reports on those in Sovereign Grace circles who also concede a better doctrine of the church would have saved them some grief. He also acknowledges that 2k avoids “the excesses of Christian America, Theonomy, and the various social gospels — left and right.” So Trueman is in the 2k camp, as his own book on religion and politics in the United States attests, along with his own high regard for Luther. But he is apparently not extreme about it, thus protecting his standing seemingly among the gospel’s co-allies. His is supposedly a moderate 2k despite his invocations of Marx, Nietzsche, and Led Zeppelin. This is where his decision to echo John Frame’s swipe at Machen’s warrior children comes in handy even if it is a blow that conflicts with Trueman’s own combative posture, as the Peter Lillback ‘s foreword to Republocrat confirms. (Trueman is a fan of boxing, after all.)

As unnecessary and contradictory as Trueman’s jab at 2k was, I don’t readily associate him with Rabbi Bret who also used Stellman’s announcement as yet another proof of 2k’s errors and harm. Never mind that the Rabbi’s interpretation of 2k’s dualism as the path into Roman Catholicism’s nature/grace divide would seemingly indict Trueman’s own positive accounts of Thomas Aquinas. The attacks on 2k never need to be consistent in order to be consistently negative. As Bill Smith remarked to me by email:

I believe that soon high churchism and 2K theology will be blamed for global warming, the lagging economy, the high price of gas, the decline of western civilization, the composition of RUF tunes and their twangy singing by females, the election of Barak Obama, praise bands and worship leaders, and the banning of biggie sized soft drinks. And, I am not surprised. I could see it coming.

Still, it’s a curious way to respond to Stellman since not even the Baylys used the occasion to pounce on 2k. Instead, they took Stellman’s decision as an occasion to go after Peter Leithart’s weak affirmation of Protestantism. Instead of affirming justification, Leithart rejects the exclusivity of Rome’s sacramental theology. Going to Rome will leave Protestants outside the sacramental fold. For the Baylys the division between Rome and Protestants is all about the doctrine of justification.

That was encouraging to read even if their critique of Leithart and defense of justification came a little close to stepping on the toes of their hero in the culture wars, Doug Wilson, who is in some way Leithart’s boss and fellow minister at one of Moscow’s CREC congregations. Wilson also could not help but reflect on the disputes between Leithart and Stellman in the Presbytery of the Northwest. He also welcomed Stellman’s coming around to the “biblical” understanding of justification:

With regard to sola fide, he is quite right to see the very narrow position he was nurtured in as contrary to the teaching of the New Testament. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to sinners, and the instrument of a God-given faith is what receives that gracious gift. But the gift received is that of living faith, breathing faith, loving faith, the only kind of faith the living God bestows. It is sola fide, not nuda fide. Stellman was wrong to identify his previous narrow view of sola fide as the doctrine of sola fide itself.

Where that puts Wilson and other Federal Visionaries on the matter of the Reformed churches’ confessions and Roman Catholic teaching is a mystery since Stellman led the prosecution of Leithart precisely on the conviction that the latter’s teaching was contrary to the Westminster Standards. Now that Stellman no longer finds the confession’s teaching agreeable, he has done what he thinks Leithart should have done — leave the PCA (going to Rome may be another matter). Meanwhile — keep your eye on the bouncing ball, Wilson agrees with Stellman on justification but doesn’t think he should leave the Protestant fold.

That confusion over justification — whether Federal Visionaries actually adhere to the Reformation’s teaching or whether their views are beyond the pale and more compatible with what the Reformers opposed — is the best place to situate Stellman’s regrettable decision. The source of this confusion was not 2k or ecclesiology. It grew prominent in the teaching of Norman Shepherd which gained a hearing among the proponents of Federal Vision and received defense from John Frame, the man who first ridiculed those who identify with Machen.

Scoring points against 2k of course has its appeal and plays well in certain circles. But 2k and ecclesiology have virtually nothing to do with this. If you want to look for the clearest defense of Reformed Protestantism and its teaching on salvation, the church, and worship — convictions and practices that were pretty central to the sixteenth century — you’d be clueless to ignore those who promote 2k.

How Extreme is 2K If. . .

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

Even Peter Leithart realizes that the Bible doesn’t give the kind of moral specificity that so many practically minded believers desire?

The Bible rarely lives up to our ordinary standards of practicality. Page after page is given over to genealogical lists of obscure people whose only role is to be a human bridge between famous ancestors and notorious descendants. A third of Exodus is nothing but verbal blueprints for building the tabernacle and the first quarter of Leviticus contains detailed regulations concerning sacrifice. Two lengthy chapters of Leviticus diagnose the varieties of skin disease that cause impurity. It seems so tedious, and even when the Bible holds our interest, it doesnt seem very useful. Stories of plagues, exodus, and wars of utter destruction make for juicy reading, but how do they help one become virtuous? Why cant the Bible be more relevant?

While one can mine nuggets of moral instruction from the depths of the text, the Bibles apparent lessons are difficult, and not infrequently troubling. Abraham goes to Egypt, deceives Pharaoh about his relationship to Sarah, and leaves Egypt richer than ever. Whats the lesson-that lying pays? What moral do we draw from Moses killing of the Egyptian, or Joshuas slaughter of everything that breathed at Jericho? The more we read the Bible, the clearer it becomes that the book isnt a Hebraic Aesops fables.

Treating Scripture as a directory of moral lessons or compendium of moral rules assumes a constricted view of moral practice and reasoning. We dont pursue virtue simply by applying general principles to particular situations, and true morality is never simply obedience to commandments. Practical morality requires the ability to assess situations accurately, memory of our own past patterns of action and of others inspiring examples, and enough moral imagination to see how a potential tragedy might become the birthplace of unforeseen comedy.

Scripture is ethical paedeia, not an ethics manual.

Or Carl Trueman acknowledges that expansive claims for kingdom work and redeeming culture run rough shod over the marks of the church?

So what happens to church discipline when the means of grace start to be expanded beyond word and sacrament? When we include art, or music or even sports? I have no sympathy whatsoever with such an expansion; but, given the emphasis on these emerging in certain quarters and, indeed, the arrival of arts and sports pastors on the scene, I wonder if those who do in practice seem to see these things as means of grace have really thought through the practical consequences for church discipline. Perhaps we have to stop people looking at pictures (unless it is something by Thomas Kinkade?), listening to anything but 70s disco music, and playing anything but American football? Answers on a postcard.

The Problem with Seminaries

Published on by D. G. Hart21 Comments

Doug Sweeney started a warm discussion about the current seminary model with a piece for the Co-Allies that echoes points John Frame made about the limitations of the seminary model. Sweeney’s larger point concerns the growing distance between the academy and church, and the way the seminary may be tilting toward academics away from pastoral ministry:

American Protestants have only had such schools for a couple hundred years. They are relatively new. And, in the main, the theological life of our churches has declined during the years they’ve been around. I suggest we move toward a seminary model in which thoughtful, seasoned pastors play a greater role on campus (not just in preaching and polity classes) and, correlatively, that seminary professors play a greater role in the educational ministries of their region’s congregations.

Bill Evans jumped on board and praised Sweeney for questioning the seminary model:

. . . the theological seminary has been perhaps the most important engine in the “professionalization” of the clergy–the notion that the Christian ministry is another of the “helping professions” in which ministers are to conform to humanly generated standards of professional “best practices” as established by guardians of the guild (such as the Association of Theological Schools).

Finally, Carl Trueman responds responded with a good point:

Here is my question: could it be that the indifference to and ignorance of the basic elements of the Christian faith are themselves functions of a widespread belief that these things are not important? And if they are not deemed important by Christians, then we must ask ourselves why they are not deemed important. Could it be because the church and her preachers and teachers are not stressing the reasons why these things, these basic elements of faith are important — that human beings are dead in sin, possess no righteousness in themselves and live in imminent danger of falling into the hands of a God who is a consuming fire?

It has always struck me as fascinating that we today lament the biblical ignorance of people in the pews while at the same time we behave in ways likely to exacerbate rather than ameliorate the problem. We reduce the number of Sunday services from two to one, thus halving the amount of preaching people hear; we look to stand-up comics as providing the key to successful communication of a serious message; we warble on endlessly about cultural transformation and about what the world will and will not find plausible in our confession; and, most crucial of all, we soft-pedal on preaching for conviction of sin.

Conciliator that I am known to be, I wonder if all of the pieces are making the same point — namely, that seminaries need to be closer to the church, professors need to be pastors who are called to the work of ministry, and the institutions themselves need to stress the skills necessary for working in congregations and discipling God’s people.

In which case, the culprit here may not be accreditors or the universities that credential seminary faculty but the seminary administrators themselves. In the 1970s conservative Protestant seminaries received a massive infusion of students who were not planning on going into the ministry (I was one of them). Masters degrees other than the M.Div. proliferated, seminary budgets expanded, and academic deans conducted searches for faculty to keep up with all the new students. All of a sudden, the seminary became the place other than the local pastor to receive instruction in the basics of the Christian faith and then go with a Christian W-W into a number of other different occupations — most often graduate school for a Ph.D. in a subject that would position someone to teach at a seminary. In turn, seminaries became used to the revenue stream and now have trouble going back simply to programs designed for prospective ministers.

The seminaries’ production of Christian or biblical counselors only underscores this shift. Rather than looking for counsel from a pastor and a set of elders (not to mention parents and grandparents), believers now look for seminaries to send out a set of credentialed and licenses “professionals” who are redundant to the work of pastors. These counselors (as far as I know) even charge their clients for their services. Can you imagine your pastor or elders passing along a bill to you after a family visit?

In which case, the real problem with seminaries is the crisis of special office more generally. Do Protestants believe that pastors do anything holy or sacred when every Tom, Dick, or Sally has his or her own “kingdom work” or when I, for instance, have a writing “ministry”? Instead of defending the unique work of pastors and the holy ordinances they administer, seminaries welcomed all the hoi polloi (myself included), expanded their programs, and watered down the specialty of special office. One way to restore the seminary’s wits is to go back to training pastors exclusively. But which school will survive in that great day?

Is Carl Losing His Edge?

Published on by D. G. Hart191 Comments

We had counted on Carl Trueman, the left-leaning emoticonoclastic Orthodox Presbyterian pastor, to continue to see through the hype and gauze of America’s celebrity culture and warn about its danger for the church (not to mention society). But a recent trip to the Together for the Gospel Conference has changed his tune (or at least prompted him not to sing so loud):

Yes, the men at the plenary sessions are ‘celebrities’ in our small world; but they were not on the platform simply because of that fact. There was no swagger in evidence; all, in their different ways, spoke powerfully about the gospel; nobody indulged in magnifying their own name; and my guess is that none of these men will do anything which embarrasses T4G in the next twelve months. Yes, T4G needs names to fill the venue; but just being a name with 500 000 twitter followers and a knowledge of Calvinist patois is not going to get you the chance to speak. The swaggerati were nowhere to be seen.

My general conclusion on this point is that celebrity is clearly here to stay; the key point is that those who have such celebrity cachet acknowledge it and leverage it for good. By ‘good’, I mean direct people back to their own churches and set examples themselves as those who are committed first and foremost to their own people, congregations and denominations. T4G was quite a contrast to the recent reports of an extra-ecclesiastical high-profile meeting of Christian evolutionists, where celebrity appears to be being leveraged to set the agenda and impact the doctrinal testimony of churches. Nothing I heard at T4G indicated that anyone here had that kind of ecclesiastically subversive ambition.

I am not persuaded. I do think Trueman is right to remind us that celebrities are human beings too. But I am not sure that recognizing the good intentions or basic humanity of people who use a platform capable of abuse prevents that platform from being as abusive as it really is.

The problem is that people whose appetites have been whetted by celebrity pastors will have great difficulty recognizing the worth of their pastor’s pale imitation of Lig, C.J., Al, or Mark. It would be like telling Carl, back in the 70s, to go to the local pub more and listen to Gary, Mike, and Joe croon and play instead of going to the Led Zeppelin concert and buying the band’s albums. How are the Swindon Boys ever going to compete with the Rolling Stones or the Who? The answer is, they can’t.

But the stakes of believers and their undershepherds is far weightier than any rivalry between celebrity musicians and local indie bands. Will Lig, C.J. or Mark come to the hospital to visit with Joe-wine-box who lives in Fremont, Nebraska? Will they come to Defiance, Ohio to counsel a husband and wife who need a referee for their Christian marriage?

Can conferences and speaking engagements be valuable? Sure they can. It is part and parcel of professional life. Attorneys go to conferences. So do nurses. But when so many downloads are available and so many broadcasts are a turn-of-the-dial away, using celebrity to nurture a taste for average pastors is little bit like going to Citizens Bank Park to groom fans for the Doylestown, Pennsylvania’s American Legion team.

Wishing Evangelicals Would Leave Politics Alone

Published on by D. G. Hart48 Comments

Before all of the anti-dualists and despisers of otherworldliness get riled up, the point of this post is not for evangelicals or any kind of Christian to abdicate their duties as citizens. Instead, it is that injecting religion into politics has neither helped politics nor aided religion.

Two recent confirmations of this come from Mikelmann’s post on Rick Santorum’s appeal to evangelicals. He notes that Santorum, some kind of conservative Roman Catholic, has had more appeal to Protestants than those in his own communion. (Lyman Beecher and Josiah Strong are rolling in their graves.)

So, whereas John F. Kennedy seemed to put to rest the idea that a Catholic President would be subservient to the Pope, Santorum has made it an issue all over again. So he must be the choice of Catholics, right? Not according to the New York Times:

Many Catholics take issue with Mr. Santorum’s approach to their faith. Mr. Santorum, polls show, has lost the Catholic vote in every primary contest so far, some by wide margins.

Putting this all together, the Catholics don’t support a Catholic who won’t separate his church from the state, but the Politico-Evangelicals do. And that, my friends, is one more reason why politics is such a great spectator sport.

The second comes from an interview with Carl Trueman and Derek Thomas in which they were asked about the challenges of living in the United States as British citizens. Trueman replied in a way that should embarrass American Christians:

The challenge is often knowing who are the genuine Christians and who are the mere cultural ones. It is not so much the case in Philadelphia but in many parts of the South, church is still the place to go to be seen and to set up business deals after the service.

My wife recently remarked to me that, in the UK, we rarely knew how friends at church voted. Politics simply was not part of the conversation and nobody presumed to assume that you voted one way or the other. There is still a certain overlap here between politics and theology, some aggressive manifestations of which can make life uncomfortable for a foreigner. The ‘culture war’ aspect of the church is one of the strangest aspects of the church here from a foreigner’s perspective.

Again, none of this means that evangelicals should retreat from the public square, though it does suggest entering the public square as citizens rather than as believers would be a help. But it does mean that until we clear up confusions like evangelicals supporting Roman Catholic candidates on Christian grounds and non-American evangelicals feeling estranged from evangelicalism’s politicized atmosphere, the folks who insist on the value of religion for public life have some work to do.

Reservations about Evangelical Coalitions Are Not Reserved to Old Life

Published on by D. G. Hart13 Comments

Carl Trueman has a very good essay about the ways in which megachurch and multi-site pastors, along with large-scale parachurch organizations are undermining small congregations and denominations. Here is an excerpt:

I noticed recently one individual marketing himself as someone who had planted numerous churches. This was clearly being presented as an unconditionally good thing. As the chap was a similar age to myself (middle aged but not enough years on the clock to have done too many things of any great importance), I was left wondering what exactly had happened to these churches, that he had apparently had to plant so many of them in such a comparatively short time. Did they fold within weeks? Or was his church planting ministry a form of ecclesiastical hit-and-run, whereby he had the fun of getting the work started and then swiftly headed out of Dodge before the bullets started flying? Either way, the claim to have successfully planted many churches, like the claim to have successfully dated many beautiful women, seems to me far too ambiguous on its own to enjoy automatic unequivocal admiration. It may be praiseworthy but then again….

Alongside this shift to the big box church is the emergence of big tent alliance movements whose stated objective is to transcend the fragmentation of denominations by providing a common front along mere gospel lines. Such parachurch groups have existed for many years and they often work well as minor adjuncts to the work of the church proper. The events of last year, however, have demonstrated that big tents with big ambitions bring with them big problems: there is an awful lot upon which one has to agree to differ in order to hold together an alliance movement which can fill a stadium to capacity; and history seems to indicate that reformations have not usually been built, and orthodoxy has rarely been preserved, by agreeing to differ on almost everything beyond the merest elements of the gospel, and that outside of a proper ecclesiastical context.

One possible objection to Trueman’s article is that he himself is writing for a parachurch organization. He appears to avoid this charge by distinguishing between parachurch alliances with big as opposed to small ambitions. I do think that the Trueman’s Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is different in scope and feel from, say, the Gospel Coalition — though quantifying or defining the difference may be in the eye of the beholder. At the same time, I wonder if Trueman would acknowledge that ACE may have unwittingly inspired the latter phenomena of the Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel. The Alliance was first a 1996 merger between the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology (Jim Boice) and Christians United For Reformation (Mike Horton). Eventually the Lutheran presence in CURE became too hot for ACE to handle, thus prefiguring the alliances between Baptists and Presbyterians at ACE and other agencies.

I am not trying to pick a fight with Trueman. I’d surely lose. But the historical background may be of interest to him and other allies.

Can A Rich W—-V—- Make Up For Poor Learning?

Published on by D. G. Hart33 Comments

One of the striking aspects of Carl Trueman’s book, Republocrat, is how many times he tells conservative Protestants that they need to be smarter about the way they understand politics and society. Here’s one example:

My point is not that Christian should abandon one biased news channel for another; rather,it is that Christians above all people should take seriously their responsibilities as citizens and make every effort to find out as much as they can about issues that matter. Watch Beck, listen to Limbaugh, or watch Olbermann if you must; but do not mistake these men for serious and thoughtful commentators on the world; rather,they are satirical comedy turns — a bit of fun and nonsense. Watch serious news programs, too, from a variety of channels to make as sure as humanly possible that you are seeing the issues in all their complexity. Better still, buy a decent, thoughtful magazine or newspaper that has the potential of dealing with issues in more than thirty-second sound bites and video clips. Society needs Christians who are better informed and more articulate than the likes of Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, or Bill O’Reilly. Let us be Greek apologists once more, and show the civil powers that we can be the best and most informed and thoughtful citizens there are, not those whose stock-in-trade are cliches, slander, and lunatic conspiracy theories.

And here’s a hunch on why many conservative Protestants need this counsel, actually two hunches. The first is what biblicism does to knowledge that we may acquire from sources other than the Bible. If we believe that the Bible is the sole source of truth about the whole world, ironically, we may be even more susceptible to receive as gospel the views of Sean and Fox. Why? Because we haven’t developed habits of evaluating knowledge derived from non-biblical sources.

The second hunch is that w—- v—-s point conservative Protestants in the direction of theory and abstraction and such philosophical reflection is ill equipped to make sense of the messiness that afflicts everyday life. In other words, a philosophical outlook may allow you to dissect the ideals behind a policy proposal. But it prevents you from seeing the mechanics of give-and-take that are necessary to balance competing interests, political stability, social order, and personal freedom. W—- v— also has a long history of nurturing conspiracy theories, such as that all wrong endeavors are the work of Satan and his forces. In a sense that is true. In another sense, it makes no sense of the everyday and momentous decisions people must make in the earthly city.