Tag: John Frame

Send This to Members of Praise Bands Before It is Too Late!!!

Published on by D. G. Hart25 Comments

If only James K. A. Smith had been the editor with whom John Frame worked on his worship books, the world of conservative Presbyterianism might be a lot more liturgically coherent than it is. I (all about me) don’t usually agree entirely with Smith, though I admire his provocations within the world of neo-Calvinism. But his recent letter to praise bands was largely on target — a bull’s eye would have been doing away with bands altogether.

1. If we, the congregation, can’t hear ourselves, it’s not worship. Christian worship is not a concert. In a concert (a particular “form of performance”), we often expect to be overwhelmed by sound, particularly in certain styles of music. In a concert, we come to expect that weird sort of sensory deprivation that happens from sensory overload, when the pounding of the bass on our chest and the wash of music over the crowd leaves us with the rush of a certain aural vertigo. And there’s nothing wrong with concerts! It’s just that Christian worship is not a concert. Christian worship is a collective, communal, congregational practice–and the gathered sound and harmony of a congregation singing as one is integral to the practice of worship. It is a way of “performing” the reality that, in Christ, we are one body. But that requires that we actually be able to hear ourselves, and hear our sisters and brothers singing alongside us. When the amped sound of the praise band overwhelms congregational voices, we can’t hear ourselves sing–so we lose that communal aspect of the congregation and are encouraged to effectively become “private,” passive worshipers.

2. If we, the congregation, can’t sing along, it’s not worship. In other forms of musical performance, musicians and bands will want to improvise and “be creative,” offering new renditions and exhibiting their virtuosity with all sorts of different trills and pauses and improvisations on the received tune. Again, that can be a delightful aspect of a concert, but in Christian worship it just means that we, the congregation, can’t sing along. And so your virtuosity gives rise to our passivity; your creativity simply encourages our silence. And while you may be worshiping with your creativity, the same creativity actually shuts down congregational song.

3. If you, the praise band, are the center of attention, it’s not worship. I know it’s generally not your fault that we’ve put you at the front of the church. And I know you want to model worship for us to imitate. But because we’ve encouraged you to basically import forms of performance from the concert venue into the sanctuary, we might not realize that we’ve also unwittingly encouraged a sense that you are the center of attention. And when your performance becomes a display of your virtuosity–even with the best of intentions–it’s difficult to counter the temptation to make the praise band the focus of our attention. When the praise band goes into long riffs that you might intend as “offerings to God,” we the congregation become utterly passive, and because we’ve adopted habits of relating to music from the Grammys and the concert venue, we unwittingly make you the center of attention. I wonder if there might be some intentional reflection on placement (to the side? leading from behind?) and performance that might help us counter these habits we bring with us to worship.

Chances are that readers of Old Life don’t worship in churches where they have trouble hearing themselves while singing. But in case Old Lifers have friends or family members who are either in a band or are having the ear drums blown out by a band, this letter may be useful. After all, our motto here is servants serving servers.

Frame, Escondido, and Worship

Published on by D. G. Hart26 Comments

One of Frame’s objections to “Escondido Theology” pertains to worship. Here are the bullet points from his book:

WORSHIP/PIETY
• It is wrong to try to make the gospel relevant to its hearers.
• Worship should be very traditional, without any influence of contemporary culture.
• The Sabbath pertains only to worship, not to daily work. So worship should occur on the Lord’s Day, but work need not cease.
• There is no immediate experience of God available to the believer.
• The only experience of God available to the believer is in public worship.
• Meetings of the church should be limited to the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments.
• In worship, we “receive” from God, but should not seek to “work” for God.
• We should take no interest in our inner feelings or subjective life.
• Preaching should narrate the history of redemption, but should never appeal to Bible characters as moral or spiritual examples.
• Preaching “how tos” and principles of practical living is man-centered.
• Those who try to show the application of Scripture to the daily problems of believers are headed toward a Christless Christianity.

I know Frame would likely object to what follows, but it is hard to read his books and other writings on worship, look at his objections to “conservatives” on worship, and not conclude that he is oriented — in his terms — to the horizontal rather than the vertical. How a Reformed theologian would gravitate toward the human aspects and relations of worship as opposed to the implications of worship for God is beyond me. In fact, the difference between a seeker-sensitive and a God-sensitve worship service was at the heart of the debate in which Frame and I engaged almost fifteen years ago.

What follows is a lengthy excerpt from my closing statement in that on-line debate:

I hope it is not a contested assertion to say that worship reflects theology. Our understanding of the God in whose presence we assemble will color what we do in that sacred assembly. Here I believe that Reformed worship best embodies the kind of encounter between God and man that we find at the end of the book of Job. In its stress upon divine sovereignty and man’s utter dependence upon God, the Reformed tradition has captured best what God says to Job, “who then is he that can stand before me? Who has given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine” (41:10-11) and in return Job’s proper response to this great and mighty sovereign, “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5-6). Reformed theology is premised upon this radical gulf between a holy and transcendent God and man who stands at the apex of God’s good creation.

When Reformed believers have worshiped, then, they have been guided historically by the relationship between God and man such as that expressed in this encounter between God and Job. There is an enormous gulf between God and his creatures, not simply because of sin, but because God is, in the language of the Shorter Catechism, a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. Man is not on equal footing with God. He comes before God as an inferior, wholly dependent, and utterly impotent. The fitting way to approach God is in humility and godly fear.

The RPW, as defined by the Westminster Divines, is a good and necessary consequence of the Reformed tradition’s understanding of God and man, not to mention a Reformed hermeneutic. Man cannot please God on his own. He must go to the Bible to see how God desires to be worshiped. And that this means is that there are certain elements that are regular parts of corporate worship and these elements must be conducted in a way that recognizes the gulf between God and man and what God has done to make it possible for man to enter God’s presence. The RPW and Reformed theology are like the proverbial hand and glove. If you give up one, you relinquish the other. A different understanding of divine-human relations yields a different understanding of worship, while a different conception of worship means adopting a different conception of the relationship between God and man.

I believe that true worship, that is, Presbyterian worship (sorry to sound sectarian), is under attack in conservative Presbyterian circles on two fronts. The first comes from church planting and home missions efforts that make worship serve as a form of outreach. Once worship becomes (even slightly) a means by which we self-consciously recruit new members our understanding has shifted dramatically from that of Job in chapter 42. This statement in no way denies that the preaching of the word becomes an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners. But all of the literature on contemporary worship that I keep tabs on emphasizes music, a casual atmosphere, and such other diversions as drama, dance and rave masses as means to attract the unchurched. The stress overwhelmingly is on intelligibility. But there may be a biblical form of intelligibility that is unpleasant to unbelievers, that makes them feel uncomfortable, such as Jesus’ interaction with his disciples in John 6. Our Lord in this passage was intelligible the disciples could understand his words, but the meaning and binding address of those words made them unacceptable.

The second form of attack comes from the common distinction in Presbyterian circles between form and content. We have been so good (relatively) at keeping our theology pure and our Bibles inerrant that we have forgotten about the practice of the faith, especially the one sacred practice that orders our week, namely, corporate worship. As I have tried to argue at several points in this debate, forms are not indifferent. For instance, we cannot package the dramatic encounter between God and Job in a sit-com. Nor can soft rock music appropriately carry the weight of the burning bush. As the writer to the Hebrews says, our God is still a consuming fire, even in the wake of Jesus’ better covenant. This means that our posture in worship should not be like Yule Brenner’s in The King and I, bare breasted, hands on hips, and feet apart in effect, saying “look at me.” Nor should it be the casual pose of sitting in the barcalounger with feet up and Styrofoam cup of coffee in hand in effect saying “dude!” Instead, our posture should be like that of the angels and elders in Revelation 7 who “fell on their faces before the throne of God” (v. 11). This doesn’t mean that we may not enter confidently into the holy of holies. Because of Christ we are able to go boldly where only Israel’s high priests went before. But when we get there, we must know that our response will be one of self-abasement. And again, I believe the RPW best preserves this reverential character of worship while also guarding and defending the proper elements of worship. In other words, it preserves (but does not guarantee) worship that is acceptable to God.

A word also needs to be said about joy. Prof. Frame emphasizes it, and I stress reverence, as if the two are mutually exclusive. But I would argue that Prof. Frame’s emphasis is one-sided, and that even though he talks about reverence he hasn’t explained how the “rejoice” texts of the Bible he cites square with all of those biblical texts, like Psalm 2:11 that say we should rejoice with trembling. In other words, there are reverent ways to express joy. But by making joy and reverence two different things we might be tempted to think that the elders who fall face down before God in glory are unhappy, that is, not rejoicing. I would argue instead that those elders are joyful and part of the way they are expressing their joy is through their utter self-abasement. So saying that we need to rejoice in worship doesn’t solve the matter of what form our joy takes.

Prof. Frame is by no means guilty of all the excesses that goes under the name, “contemporary worship.” But his books do open the door, in my opinion. As he explains in the introduction to WST, he writes for those Presbyterians who worship with guilty consciences, who recognize that they are not worshiping as the Puritans worshiped but who still adhere to Puritan theology. I don’t know how this separation is possible. I have tried to argue that it is theologically, intellectually and historically impossible. By saying that dance, drama and humor MAY be used in worship, Frame technically violates the heart of the RPW. Either the Bible commands a specific element or practice, or it doesn’t. According to the RPW, if it doesn’t we may not do it. But aside from this technical reading of the RPW’s intent, even worse is the idea that I find implicit in Frame’s books, namely, that God will accept most of what we do as long as we are doing it with the right motives. To me this nurtures the idea that God is not zealous for his worship and that we may be more casual in our observance. God’s jealousy for his worship, I believe, is what the RPW protected so well.

In other words, I believe Frame wants it both ways. He wants to worship like a charismatic . . . but wants the blessing of being a good Presbyterian. Would he allow the same inconsistency in apologetics? If R.C. Sproul practiced evidential apologetics but claimed to be a presuppositionalist would Frame let that claim go? Yet, this analogy reveals a dynamic that has been lurking around our debate about worship. On the one hand, it suggests that there is a wrong (of false, as I learned it at WTS) way of doing apologetics, one that conflicts with our theology, with our confession of God’s sovereignty and human depravity. On the other hand, the parallel I am making with apologetics also teaches that forms matter. What Sproul is doing is apologetics; he is defending the faith. But he is using the wrong form of argument, according to presuppositionalism, one that contradicts his Reformed profession. This analogy, applied to worship, means that there can be false worship even when done by people with good theology. It also suggests that if there are Reformed forms for apologetics (i.e. presuppositionalism) why not Reformed forms for worship? In the same way that we need to recognize that what Sproul is doing is a form of Christian apologetics, we also need to recognize that the Roman Catholic mass, the charismatic P&W service and Reformed liturgy are all forms of Christian worship. They all use the same elements (i.e. the word, sacraments, prayer, and song). But just because
someone uses a Christian form of worship doesn’t mean it is true worship, anymore than someone who uses a Christian form of apologetics (one practiced by Christians throughout the ages) is necessarily using the true argument.

But why, someone might ask, is historic Reformed worship so difficult and so unappealing? If one is starting a church plant Reformed liturgy as practiced by Calvin and the Puritans is hardly something to bring in the crowds. At the same time, believers who know little of Reformed theology may find little in Reformed worship that is immediately edifying. Here we might want to learn a few things from the social and cultural critics. Rather than regarding contemporary worship music (CWM) or the movements that produced them as the work of the Holy Spirit, that is, as revivals as Frame does (WST, 115ff; CWM 5ff) we might plausibly interpret them as the work of the spirit of the age. The English sociologist, David Martin, argues in a book on contemporary Pentecostalism (TONGUES OF FIRE) that Wesleyan Arminianism has defined the cultural ethos of the United States since 1800. One way of seeing this is to observe how Americans insist on “sincerity and openness rather than on form and privacy.” For this reason, he says that the “whole American style was, and is, Methodist’ in its emphases, whereas in England the culturally prestigious style remained Anglican.” Of course, Martin is only a sociologist, not an inspired author of Holy Writ. But if he is right might not our expectations be for forms of worship that stress sincerity and openness to be more appealing to all Americans (Reformed or not) rather than the formal and reverent kind of Calvin’s Geneva? In other words, David Wells, whom Frame too quickly dismisses, may be right to argue that contemporary evangelicalism reveals much more about modernity than it does about biblical religion. Charismatic worship may be more appealing because it fits the cultural ethos more than because it demonstrates the power of the Holy Spirit. Which is why the work of historians, sociologists and cultural critics, the folks whom Wells reads and cites, is so valuable for the church in her work of testing the spirits. Which is also why Frame’s defense of biblicism can produce a lack of discernment both about the culture and about how it shapes religious expression. (Another argument on behalf of the impossibility of separating form and content, by the way.)

. . . Prof. Frame and the “audience” may think I have been judgmental. I would only say in response that judgment is integral to the existence of moral communities. Moral communities, like churches or theological traditions always have to decide what is and what is not acceptable. To neglect this task is to give up the possibility of saying defining anything. Our Lord warned that we should not judge lest we be judged. But I don’t think I am guilty of judging in this sense. I want to be judged by the same standards by which I am judging Prof. Frame, that is, on the basis of a theological tradition that has stood the test of time and, more importantly, that has better than any other Christian tradition given all glory and honor to God. I do so not simply because I want to be right, but also so that this generation and generations to come can say, as Dr. Machen did, “isn’t the Reformed Faith grand!” . . .

Faint Resemblance

Published on by D. G. Hart53 Comments

One of the truisms of intellectual exchange is the need to represent other persons’ views correctly so that they recognize their position or argument. Even when you disagree — or especially when you do — for debate to clarify more than antagonize you need to present your opponent’s views in such a way that he would recognize and even affirm them.

With that tepid truth out of the way, I find John Frame’s list of Escondido Theology affirmations, which he produces in the preface to his book, to be the intellectual equivalent of a Picasso portrait in one of his abstract phases. You can make out the eye, the ear, another eye, a neck, but the features are out of place and aside from the color the overall effect borders on grotesque.

Frame’s portrait of the Escondido theology is similarly abstract but lacks the pretty colors. When I look through the list (below), I recognize a faint resemblance — a whiff of teaching about preaching, a few strands of thought about Scripture, a dab of color about the duties of magistrates. But his painting is a distortion (whether intentional or not) and an abstraction.

Before responding to Frame’s points, I’d like to ask the help of Old Life readers. I am pasting below first Frame’s list of Escondido affirmations. Then I have rearranged these “theses” under various themes. What I would like help on is whether this effort to order Frame’s cubist rendering makes sense. If so, I plan in future posts to rephrase Frame’s distillations to help both critics and affirmers of 2k alike.

Here’s Frame’s list:

• It is wrong to try to make the gospel relevant to its hearers.
• Scripture teaches about Christ, his atonement, and our redemption from sin, but not about how to apply that salvation to our current problems.
• Those who try to show the application of Scripture to the daily problems of believers are headed toward a Christless Christianity.
• Anything we say about God is at best only an analogy of the truth and is therefore at least partly false.
• There is no immediate experience of God available to the believer.
• The only experience of God available to the believer is in public worship.
• Meetings of the church should be limited to the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments.
• In worship, we “receive” from God, but should not seek to “work” for God.
• The “cultural mandate” of Gen. 1:28 and 9:7 is no longer in effect.
• The Christian has no biblical mandate to seek changes in the social, cultural, or political order.
• Divine sovereignty typically eliminates the need for human responsibility.
• The gospel is entirely objective and not at all subjective.
• We should take no interest in our inner feelings or subjective life.
• Preaching should narrate the history of redemption, but should never appeal to Bible characters as moral or spiritual examples.
• Preaching “how tos” and principles of practical living is man-centered.
• To speak of a biblical worldview, or biblical principles for living, is to misuse the Bible.
• Nobody should be considered Reformed unless they agree with everything in the Reformed confessions and theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries.
• We should not agree to discuss any theological topics except the ones discussed by Reformed thinkers in the 16th and 17th centuries.
• Jonathan Edwards and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones were not Reformed.
• Theology is not the application of Scripture, but a historical investigation into Reformed traditions.
• There is no difference between being biblical and being Reformed.
• To study the Bible is to study it as the Reformed tradition has studied it.
• God’s principles for governing society are found, not in Scripture, but in natural law.
• Natural law is to be determined, not by Scripture, but by human reason and conscience.
• Scripture promises the believer no temporal blessings until the final judgment.
• We can do nothing to “advance” the Kingdom of God. The coming of the Kingdom, since the ascension of Christ, is wholly future.
• The Sabbath pertains only to worship, not to daily work. So worship should occur on the Lord’s Day, but work need not cease.
• Only those who accept these principles can consistently believe in justification by faith alone.
• Reformed believers must maintain an adversary relationship with American evangelicals.
• Worship should be very traditional, without any influence of contemporary culture.
• Only those who accept these principles can be considered truly Reformed.
• These principles, however, represent only desirable “emphases.” There are exceptions.

And here is my first attempt to make these points coherent:

WORSHIP/PIETY
• It is wrong to try to make the gospel relevant to its hearers.
• Worship should be very traditional, without any influence of contemporary culture.
• The Sabbath pertains only to worship, not to daily work. So worship should occur on the Lord’s Day, but work need not cease.
• There is no immediate experience of God available to the believer.
• The only experience of God available to the believer is in public worship.
• Meetings of the church should be limited to the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments.
• In worship, we “receive” from God, but should not seek to “work” for God.
• We should take no interest in our inner feelings or subjective life.
• Preaching should narrate the history of redemption, but should never appeal to Bible characters as moral or spiritual examples.
• Preaching “how tos” and principles of practical living is man-centered.
• Those who try to show the application of Scripture to the daily problems of believers are headed toward a Christless Christianity.

THEOLOGY/METHOD
• Divine sovereignty typically eliminates the need for human responsibility.
• The gospel is entirely objective and not at all subjective.
• Anything we say about God is at best only an analogy of the truth and is therefore at least partly false.
• The “cultural mandate” of Gen. 1:28 and 9:7 is no longer in effect.
• Theology is not the application of Scripture, but a historical investigation into Reformed traditions.

HISTORY
• There is no difference between being biblical and being Reformed.
• To study the Bible is to study it as the Reformed tradition has studied it.
• Only those who accept these principles can be considered truly Reformed.
• Nobody should be considered Reformed unless they agree with everything in the Reformed confessions and theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries.
• We should not agree to discuss any theological topics except the ones discussed by Reformed thinkers in the 16th and 17th centuries.
• Jonathan Edwards and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones were not Reformed.

POLITICS/ETHICS
• God’s principles for governing society are found, not in Scripture, but in natural law.
• Natural law is to be determined, not by Scripture, but by human reason and conscience.
• Only those who accept these principles can consistently believe in justification by faith alone.
• The Christian has no biblical mandate to seek changes in the social, cultural, or political order.
• To speak of a biblical worldview, or biblical principles for living, is to misuse the Bible.
• Scripture teaches about Christ, his atonement, and our redemption from sin, but not about how to apply that salvation to our current problems.

BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
• We can do nothing to “advance” the Kingdom of God. The coming of the Kingdom, since the ascension of Christ, is wholly future.
• Scripture promises the believer no temporal blessings until the final judgment.

WISDOM
• These principles, however, represent only desirable “emphases.” There are exceptions.
• Reformed believers must maintain an adversary relationship with American evangelicals.

If this is a fair arrangement, I’ll be examining each of these topics in subsequent posts.

One initial observation: for all of the hullabaloo about 2ker’s views about politics, transformationalism, and the Lordship of Christ outside the church, what appears to animate Frame most is worship. And on worship he is the most on thin Reformed ice. He may prefer Calvin’s Geneva for politics. But that preference would likely end once he realized that he could not play the organ during worship, not to mention that the consistory would want to have a frank chat with him about his arguments for praise bands. I suspect that the Geneva authorities might have put Frame under house arrest for his views.

Contemporary Cosmic Christology and Contemporary Christian Music

Published on by D. G. Hart14 Comments

In his endless and zealous quest to see Abraham Kuyper prevail as the vice-regent of all things, Dr. K. (Nelson Kloosterman) keeps translating and quoting Kuyper as if such invocations will settle debates over 2k. Somehow, Kloosterman believes that 2kers deny Christ’s kingship over all things. When I respond that Jesus was Lord even over Saddam Hussein, just not as king in the sense of being Saddam’s redeemer, I receive responses like the following (which is generally a restatement that 2kers deny Christ’s Lordship over all things):

Agreement: Jesus Christ is King of the church

Agreement: Jesus Christ will one day rule all the world

Difference: Jesus Christ is King of the cosmos. Not simply the Second Person of the Trinity, not simply the “Logos Asarkos,” not simply the Son of God. No—Jesus Christ, prophet and priest, is also King of the universe.

Difference: Jesus Christ is King of the cosmos today. Here and now. In this world, and in today’s history.

These are not quibbles. For now we are being introduced to a new terminological distinction (here) regarding Jesus’ essential reign as King and Jesus’ mediatorial reign as King. Note: not the essential reign of Jesus Christ, but merely the essential reign of Jesus as the Second Person of the Godhead.

The distinction between Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ as the second person of the Trinity is lost on me. But I suppose it gets Dr. K. through these difficult mid-western winters.

And then, as is his habit, Dr. K. finishes off debate with a long flourish from the original Dr. K. (i.e. Kuyper):

Coupled with this was a change in another arena of living. As the ecclesiastical conflict was being waged, Reformed people were throwing themselves into public social life. For them there existed two kinds of living, one kind within the Church and another kind outside the Church, and justice was no longer being done to the unity of both. That rupture could have been prevented only if the confession of the Kingship of Christ, proceeding from the church, had been recognized within popular consciousness as the governing power for all of life. But this is precisely what did not happen. Instead the Kingship of Christ was pushed further into the background, and at that point naturally this caused the contrast between ecclesiastical life and public life to penetrate the consciousness of Reformed people in a most perilous way. Ultimately it was as though people dealt with Christ only in the church, and as though outside the church they did not have to take into account the exaltation of Christ. That opposition has functioned until late in the previous [nineteenth] century, at which point room was made for the first time for better harmony in Christian living. This is how we acquired our Christian press, our Christian science, our Christian art, our Christian literature, our Christian philanthropy, our Christian politics, our Christian labor organizations, etc. In short, the understanding that Christ laid claim also to life outside the church gradually became commonplace. At present we are already to the point that nobody among us wants it any differently anymore. The problem, however, is that people still seek [to locate] the Christian character of these various expressions of life too exclusively in Christian principles, and the understanding has not yet sufficiently permeated our thinking that Christ himself is the One who as our King must imprint this Christian stamp on our expressions of life. This explains the need for awakening and fortifying this understanding once again. It is this need that Pro Rege is attempting to satisfy.

According to the contemporary Dr. K., this is the heart of the issue, whether there are two ways, or two spheres of Christian endeavor, one inside and the other outside the church. For neo-Calvinists distinctions between creational and redemptive spheres when considering aesthetics is a form of dualism and a sign of infidelity because it denies Christ’s lordship over all things.

The frustrating aspect of those who are so eager to blur distinctions between the religious and the secular, between the eternal and the temporal, is that they are long on inspiration and short on qualification. What I mean is that someone could plausibly read Kuyper on the effort to integrate the church and all other walks of life as an endorsement of contemporary Christian music. (Since John Frame, who follows Kuyper also, makes this move in reflecting on worship, this idea is not far fetched). When folks like Larry Norman, the first Christian rocker, asked “why should the devil have all the good music?” he was apparently rephrasing the Kuyperian desire to tear down the distinctions between Christian and secular areas of life. He wanted to bring the expressions of secular culture into the halls of the sacred assembly.

Which makes me wonder if Kuyper and neo-Calvinism is proximately responsible for the triumph of bad taste and poor music in Reformed churches. Without making the distinctions that 2kers are wont to require, I don’t see how a Kuyperian would really object to the contemporary Christian music project on the grounds of contemporary cosmic Christology.

Authors, Editors, and Readers

Published on by D. G. Hart55 Comments

One of John Frame’s implicit complaints about two-kingdom theology is that its proponents are not as forthright as they should be about the Lordship of Christ or even about their own Christian profession. In his new book, he writes:

Too often, in ethical debate, Christians sound too much like unbelievers. They reason as if they and their opponents are both operating on the same principle: human rational autonomy. I believe they almost inevitably give this false impression when they are reasoning according to natural law alone. Only when the Christian goes beyond natural law and begins to talk about Jesus as the resurrected king of kings does his witness become distinctively Christian. At that point, of course, he is reasoning from Scripture, not from natural revelation alone.

A recent post by Peter Leithart for First Things‘ “On the Square” reminded me of Frame’s lament. Leithart was writing about empires in a positive light, hence his title “Toward a Sensible Discussion of Empire.” For the politically challenged, a sensible discussion of empire may be necessary since folks on the Left and the Right are not fans of the tyranny and overreach that usually comes with imperial administrations. Paleo-conservatives particularly lament the loss of the United States’ salad days as a republic and its emergence as the helicopter-mom nation-state. Among Leithart’s “sensible” thoughts are these:

6) American hegemony is not an undiluted evil. In some respects, it is a good, and preferable to many of the conceivable alternatives. America is the linchpin of a global economic system that has improved the lives of millions. We are still a beacon of liberty, our military has effectively defeated evil regimes and delivered the weak, and we continue to be an asylum for the oppressed. The world reaps more favors from American hegemony than it wants to admit. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and the neoconservatives are right. . . .

8) America has often acted very badly. Noam Chomsky is right too. Native Americans have many legitimate complaints against the U.S., as do Latin American countries.While we Americans congratulated ourselves for our Christian charity in civilizing the Philippines, other Americans were killing Filipinos or herding them into concentration camps. For decades, we have deliberately dropped bombs on civilians and slaughtered hundreds of thousands. Sometimes we are merely foolish or short-sighted, as when we propped up Saddam Hussein or spread Islamicist propaganda to inspire the mujahedeen to fight the Soviets. And culture warriors should worry more about our export of domestic pathologies: If violent and sexually explicit entertainment, abortion, and an aggressive homosexual lobby threaten our culture, they aren’t good for the rest of the world either.

9) The benefits from empires do not excuse the behavior of empires. We cannot give ourselves a pass on international folly and injustice by congratulating ourselves on the good things we do.

As much as I may debate Leithart’s thoughts about empire — they are not surprising, after all, from a fellow who wrote a positive biography of a Roman emperor — the point here is whether the Federal Visionist (which means some kind sympathy for the Christ-is-Lord form of public argument) is as forthrightly Christian as John Frame thinks believers need to be. Notice that Leithart says nothing about Christ as king of kings. Notice also that his criteria for judging the American empire all come from non-biblical criteria.

Now, the additional point is not that Leithart is a hypocrite or that Frame is selective in the writers whom he throws under the Lordship of Christ bus. It is instead that authors write for editors and audiences and need to couch their language and arguments in terms acceptable to the editors and plausible to the readers. This isn’t a matter of the right apologetic method or a consistent epistemology. It is a case of either getting published or not, of being understood or not. If Leithart had come to the editors of First Things with arguments in a distinctively neo-Calvinist idiom, they would likely not have published him.

Perhaps that means that Christians should not write for religiously, epistemologically, or the-politically mixed publications. Indeed, it does seem that Frame’s arguments run directly in the fundamentalist direction of not having anything to do with associations where a believer might have to hide his faith under a bushel (NO!). But if Christian authors, even neo-Calvinist inclined ones, are going to write for publications not edited by Andrew Sandel or Ken Gentry or the faculty of Dort College, they may need to use rhetoric and arguments that are not pedal-to-the-metal Christian.

For this reason, I am surprised that John Frame can’t appreciate why 2k writers sound the way they do, or appeal to natural law arguments the way they do. He himself lauds the book reviews of secular publications as a model for his own engagement with the so-called Escondido theology:

To me, a review was, when possible, an occasion for careful analysis of an author’s thought and an exchange of views between the author and myself. My models here came from publications like the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and National Review. The Christian magazine Books and Culture is another source of reviews that thoughtfully interact with a writer’s ideas.

If Frame is used to reading non-Christian sources, and even finds in them a model of intellectual engagement, then I am surprised that he can sound so condemning of 2k writers for apparently betraying Christ’s claims upon all of life. Then again, I am surprised that a man who uses the New Yorker or Atlantic as models for book reviewing numbers the paragraphs in his own reviews.

Love that Bob

Published on by D. G. Hart38 Comments

In his new book on the so-called Escondido theology, John Frame tries to establish a link between the two-kingdom views of certain authors and Meredith Kline, who taught at Westminster California for almost two decades. This analysis fails in two respects. The first is that I, whom Frame includes as an Escondido “theologian,” never studied with Kline. If truth be told, I’m still only about one-fifth of the way through Kingdom Prologue (did someone say “fifth”?).

The other reason why Frame’s analysis fails is that he neglects the real source of Westminster California’s alleged uniqueness, namely, its president, W. Robert Godfrey. Bob Godfrey was Old School before any of us knew what Old School was and even before Bob himself began to lecture on the American church. He introduced his students to strands of Reformed Protestantism that were older than J. Gresham Machen and Abraham Kuyper. Students who heard his lectures on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries became aware of a world of topics and battles that had been vital to the Reformed churches. And some of those students, the Escondido “theologians” especially, learned from those lectures and tried to reappropriate for the contemporary church the faith and practice of the historic Reformed and Presbyterian churches. Most students were aware that some adjustments would have to be made. We cannot go directly to 1560 Geneva (we can’t have the state execute idolaters). But we also knew that Machen and Kuyper were not the last word on what it meant to be Reformed.

This is an important perspective to keep in mind — and which Frame entirely ignores — because so many of the hits upon Westminster California have come from people who are shocked, just shocked, to learn that some might call themselves Reformed who do not follow lock step with recent understandings of Reformed Protestantism. So if someone sounds different from Gaffin or Murray on union — horrors! — even if they can find historic Reformed sources that don’t say it the same way as Westminster Seminary theologians, they aren’t Reformed. Or if someone discovers that the doctrine of republication was taught and developed among older Reformed theologians, they will need to suffer for departing from Murray. If someone notes that Reformed churches did not believe in “every member ministry” but had a high view of pastoral office and the duties of ministers, they must be faulted for not following the advances of Jack Miller and Tim Keller. If someone brings up the fact that Reformed Protestants only sang psalms and did not tolerate special music, well they must be trouble makers because all of our churches today now sing hymns and sometimes have choirs. If someone finds that justification was more important than union in the development of Reformed soteriology during the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries, well they must be “Lutheran” because they are not following the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary. Or if someone learns that Calvin and Rutherford did not construe the nature of the church, the state, and Christ’s kingdom the way Kuyper did, then they must be in error because Kuyper set the standard for all Reformed political reflection.

In other words, Bob Godfrey taught his students to read the past not by looking at the present and then cherry picking historical precedents, but by judging the present in the light of the past. He unlocked a door that allowed students to see arguments and practices that sometimes nineteenth- and twentieth-century conservative Reformed churchmen had themselves neglected or forgotten. This is not to say that Bob Godfrey is to blame for the Escondido Theology. It is to say that he deserves credit for rediscovering an older part of the Reformed heritage that his students have tried to recover for the contemporary church. And it is important to see that the opposition to Godfrey’s students comes most often from people who regard the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as THE AGE of Reformed orthodoxy.

Escondido Theology Before Escondido

Published on by D. G. Hart213 Comments

In his new book, John Frame argues that two-kingdom theologians represent a novel development in the history of Reformed theology. In his introduction, he goes out of his way to explain that Escondido theologians reject Christendom. But this rejection creates a problem for 2k because the theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries taught that the magistrate had a duty to enforce the entire Decalague. “The two kingdoms view,” Frame writes, “goes beyond the Reformation theology in important ways. Indeed, except for the law/gospel dichotomy, its distinctive positions are American, not European.” (Frame also acknowledges that the roots of two kingdom theology are in Augustine’s City of God and Luther’s On Civil Authority. Go figure.) In fact, Frame goes out of his way to locate Meredith Kline as the source of these views.

What is odd about Frame’s analysis is that the so-called Escondido Theology was a position that Edmund P. Clowney espoused. Clowney was not only Frame’s professor at Westminster during the 1960s, but he was also the president of the seminary when Frame received a teaching appointment. Apparently, Frame did not pay attention to Clowney’s teaching or memos. But Clowney clearly taught the main lines of the so-called Escondido Theology in an essay, “The Politics of the Kingdom,” published in the Westminster Theological Journal in the Spring, 1979 issue (helpfully made available by Ken Myers at Mars Hill Audio, a time when the property for Westminster Seminary California was only a twinkle in Clowney’s eye.

First, notice Clowney’s understanding of the cultural mandate and Christ’s fulfillment of it:

Christ the second Adam fulfills the calling of the first. Adam was charged to fill the earth and subdue it. Man’s dominion, lyrically described in Psalm 8, is realized in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, as the author of Hebrews declares (Heb. 2:5-8). Further, in his resurrection glory at the Father’s right hand Christ fills all things. Paul describes Christ’s filling both in reference to the church (his fullness as his body) and in reference to the world, which he fills with the sovereignty of his rule (Eph. 4:10; Jer. 23:23). In Jesus Christ man’s vocation of sonship as God’s imagebearer is completely realized. The final depth of the covenant relation is not “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people,” but “Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee” (Ps. 2:7; Heb. 1:5).

Notice next that for the church to engage in political and social activities is to secularize the church and therefore a betrayal of the church’s duty:

Because there is one true people of God on earth, there remains a “theopolitical” structure and calling for the church. It is not the structure of the kingdoms of the world. To apply to the world the form of the church is a sacralizing process that is just as illegitimate as the secularizing process that would apply to the church the forms of the world. Yet the fact that the church does not possess a worldly political structure does not mean that it possesses no political structure whatever. The “politics” of the kingdom are the pattern, purpose, and dynamic by which God orders the life of the heavenly polis in this world. Only as it conforms to this heavenly pattern is the church a city set on a hill, given as salt to preserve the world from corruption and a light to point the way to salvation.

Look also at the way that Clowney deals with so-called mercy ministries in the church (or how the spiritual aspects of Christian existence transcend the temporal):

As a heavenly community the church must deal with the temporal concerns of its members, yet its discipline remains spiritual, not temporal. For example, the church could require a Christian storekeeper to refund purchases that had been gained by misleading advertising, but if the member refused, the church’s final earthly sanction would be excommunication, not economic boycott.

The heavenly community of Christ is called to an earthly pilgrimage. The people of God may not abandon the program of his kingdom—”if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him” (Rom 8:18). Paul rebukes the triumphalists at Corinth: “ye have come to reign without us: yea, and I would
that ye did reign, that we might also reign with you” (I Cor. 4:8). We may not wish to condemn Christians who in persecution that seemed beyond endurance turned upon their persecutors, but Christ does not call his church to Camisard rebellion. Rather, he gives that grace that enabled the Huguenot galley-slave to call his chains the chains of Christ’s love.

Finally, look at the way that church and state authority are distinct because of the differences between Christ’s rule as creator and redeemer:

The distinction between the state as the form of the city of this world and the church as the form of the heavenly city remains essential. Christ’s heavenly authority controls the nations but they are not thereby made his disciples. His headship over all things is distinguished from his headship over the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all (Eph. 1:21-23). To be sure, the life of the worldly kingdoms is influenced by the life of the church in their midst; the people of God are like salt to preserve the world from its corruption; the kingdom works as a leaven, penetrating the world with the influence of Christian faith, hope, and love. . . .

To suppose that the body of Christ finds institutional expression in both the church and the state as religious and political spheres is to substitute a sociological conception of the church for the teaching of the New Testament. Christ does not give the keys of the kingdom to Caesar, nor the sword to Peter before the parousia. The church is the new nation (I Pet. 2:9), the new family of God (Eph. 3:15). The covenantal family of the patriarchal period and the covenantal nation after Moses demonstrate that
the people of God are formed in a way that respects the structures of life in the world, but they also demonstrate that the electing grace of God’s kingdom cannot be fulfilled within these structures.

Maybe Clowney’s problem is that he was not European but American. But the last I checked, Frame was not importing his suits from Switzerland.

The Grandaddy of Reformed Anti-Lutheranism

Published on by D. G. Hart62 Comments

Not that reviews of books at Amazon.com are ever adequate or trustworthy, the one for Ian Hewitson’s book on the Shepherd Controversy is revealing and adds context to the current polemics among militant critiques of Lutheranism from biblical theologians. The initial hostility in Presbyterian circles to Lutheran notions of justification came from Norman Shepherd. The reviewer is correct to note:

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the doctrine of justification by “faith alone” came under scrutiny at Westminster Theological Seminary. One of the reasons that precipitated a long, drawn-out, and painful controversy there is because the Rev. Norman Shepherd sought to do faithful exegesis of the text of Scripture in comparing the so-called contradictory pronouncements on justification between Paul and James. He did so while staying faithful to his Reformed tradition as expressed in the Westminster Standards (Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms). While Shepherd came to question Luther’s statement of “justification by faith alone,” he wondered why exegetical theology could not express itself in terms of the simpler, and more biblical, “justification by faith.” It was, after all, Martin Luther who added the gloss “alone” (glauben allein) into the text of Romans 3:28, which is not in the Greek text.

Ian Hewitson, Ph.D. University of Aberdeen, reveals in his clear, erudite dissertation, that at the crux of the debate over Shepherd’s teachings was the Lutheran-Calvinist distinction in what constitutes justifying faith. For Luther, the faith that justifies is “alone.” That is, faith is an entity that exists all by itself, is “alone,” and is devoid of any and all good works. In this sense “justification by faith alone” uses “alone” as an adjective. What kind of faith is it that justifies? It is an “alone” faith. It is faith in abstraction from all else. That is the adjectival use of the word “alone” in “justification by faith alone.”

Before Shepherd, theologians like John Murray or Louis Berkhof would not have objected to the Lutheran doctrine of justification. But Shepherd did.

Before sympathetic readers here jump on the anti-Shepherd bandwagon, they need to remember that at the time Reformed rigor was on the decline and evangelical breadth was on the rise among conservative Presbyterians in the OPC, PCA, and Westminster Seminary. John Frame’s book, Evangelical Reunion (for starters) would be ironically one example of that New School turn among conservative Presbyterians away from Old School practices and convictions. Shepherd’s desire for a consistently Reformed doctrine of salvation was part of an Old School instinct to preserve a distinctly Reformed voice.

What needs to be noted is that Shepherd was correct to resist the decline of Reformed militancy and singularity at his seminary and within his communion. I wonder if John Frame’s endorsement of Shepherd actually includes some recognition of the distance between him and Shepherd on the Reformed identity and militant character of the OPC, with Shepherd embodying one strand of Machen’s warrior children and Frame exhibiting boredom with fighting period. (Fight liberalism, sure. But that was so yesterday.)

The question is whether Shepherd needed to find a really, really, really Reformed doctrine of justification in order to right the ship. My answer, for what it’s worth, is negative.

When Sappy Evangelicals Turn Tart

Published on by D. G. Hart80 Comments

I thought the Gospel Co-Allies were supposed to be nice. The only “mean” people in the American Protestant world are the seriously Reformed, supposedly. But a recent drive-by post by Justin Taylor about Ron Paul and racism demonstrates how appearances deceive.

If the sin of racism is indeed a gospel issue, and if Ron Paul is an evangelical, and if evangelicals were rightly bothered by the racist remarks of President Obama’s pastor—then wouldn’t it be a good idea for evangelicals, at the very least, to ask some questions about Ron Paul’s defense of his racist friends and racist newsletter that went out under his name?

That’s all the post includes. Justin is just wondering out loud, not taking a stand, just raising questions about Ron Paul and the implications of the Republican’s newsletters.

A couple of aspects are worthy of mention here:

First, Justin is not being very Matthew-eighteen-like. Are the followers of the Bible and nothing but the Bible supposed to raise suspicions about another believer’s reputation — even if only in the form of questions — so publicly?

Second, aside from the mean-spirited implications of this post, what indeed is up with sins rising to the level of “gospel issue”? I see that Taylor links to Piper’s book on race, once again hiding behind the earnestness of Minnesota’s Baptist alternative to Garrison Keillor’s Lutherans. But what does “gospel issue” mean? Is a sin that qualifies as a “gospel issue” so serious that sinners may not find comfort in the gospel? Is racism one of those sins? How about pederasty? How about other violations of the Decalogue? I was under the impression that one sin was just as bad in God’s sight as any other. So where do we find support for a special list of really, really — I mean really — bad sins? Is this what Taylor learned while studying with John Frame on the Christian life?

Or is this what happens when the gospel expands to include all of life? When it does so, does the gospel merely become law?

Just wondering out loud in response to Justin’s wondering. (Update: ironically Taylor’s next post was from Spurgeon on the sin of even listening to gossip.)

In A Framean State of Mind (which does not involve a w— v—)

Published on by D. G. Hart11 Comments

‘Tis the season of staying in by the fire and watching movies to recover from piles of blue books. And since John Frame has written a steady stream of movie reviews (which I found recently while gearing up for some e-sparring), I figure I might as well weigh in with my own (all about me) holiday recommendations. I should add that Frame’s application of w— v— to movies hardly does justice to the creativity of character development, narrative, cinematography, and editing. Chalk up another demerit to neo-Calvinism.

The better half and I recently saw two contemporary films, with lots of British ingenuity, that are remarkably pro-family even without ever bringing up God. One is the Hart family yuletide favorite, “About A Boy,” starring Hugh Grant at his comedic best, in the role of a single wealthy man in London who discovers that love and marriage is more fitting to human existence than living alone and being self-absorbed.

The other film, a surprisingly funny and poignant treat in a very understated manner, is “The Trip.” It follows two British actors — Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, as they drive, flirt, and eat their way through the beautiful Lake District. A bonus is the actors’ rival impersonations of Sean Connery, Michael Cain, and even Woody Allen, over dinner. Again, the implicit message is that single life (Steve Coogan) has few of the benefits of marriage and family (Rob Brydon). The film’s finale is even moving.

Neither movie is going to win any skirmishes in the culture wars — in fact, I bet Focus on the Family would mark these films down for lots of sexual themes, foul language, and familial dysfunction. Still, if you want some reassurance that sanity still speaks in the wider culture of celebrity and mass entertainment, you could do worse than to rent “About A Boy” and “The Trip.”