Tag: John Starke

Being Reformed and Avoiding Landmines

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

I don’t want to discourage the young and restless from growing in their understanding of Reformed Protestantism but sometimes even the best of intentions cannot prevent stepping in it. Over at the allies blog John Starke encourages readers to spend more time with Cornelius Van Til — The Most Important Boring Thinker You Should Read (whose birthday happens to be today tomorrow). Starke goes on to ask three leading apologists to recommend sources for readers who know not presuppositionalism — Mike Horton, Scott Oliphint, and John Frame, in that order.

Is it impolite to notice that hard core Van Tillians would likely take umbrage at this order since I’ve often heard comments that Horton is light in his presuppositional loafers? And what would John Frame think to read that he comes in third behind Horton and Oliphint? Maybe Horton’s recommendation of Frame’s Apologetics to the Glory of God as “a readable apologetic from Van Til’s perspective” will take some of the sting away. Also, since the critics of 2k often invoke Van Til against the likes of VanDrunen and Horton, and since VanDrunen and Horton appear to have more of a following among the young and restless than the hard core Van Tillians (despite the congenital defect of transformationalism that afflicts the Gospel Coalition), Starke may have unwittingly aggravated those who invoke the antithesis to divide the world between 2k and R2k.

Sometimes you need a score card to keep track of all the players.

Update: and sometimes you need a clue and can’t take TGC’s word on dates. My comrade in arms informs me that Cornelius Van Til’s birthday is tomorrow. That gives me time to stock up.

More Machen, Less Mencken

Published on by D. G. Hart30 Comments

Our Philadelphia correspondent alerted me to an arresting invocation of J. Gresham Machen and H. L. Mencken — Baltimore’s two bad boys (one on religious, the other on cultural grounds) — at the G-rated Gospel Coalition of all places. The post surprised me not for the appeal of Machen to those who channel Edwards via Piper. After all, the Minneapolis pastor has written quite positively about Machen. The reference to Mencken especially caught my eye. Lest Old Lifers think that the Co-Allies have all of a sudden acquired an edge, not to worry. Turns out that Machen and Mencken are, along with Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, not the best models for Christians who would be bloggers. According to John Starke:

Of course, the best of Christian public intellectuals carried this same shrewd sarcasm. C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton are excellent examples, and we often follow in their lead, showing others just how exasperating their logic can be. That’s been our self-appointed task, too, ever since we registered for [insert name here].blogspot.com.

The problem is that we tend not to follow Lewis and Chesterton all the way. In other words, we adopt their sarcasm and wit but not the spirituality of their aims. They guided readers toward the place where wisdom could be found, introducing them to a kingdom that stands on firmer ground. We thrive on exposing the fool. We hold the doctrine of J. Gresham Machen but carry the tone of H. L. Mencken.

The better way is to do what Jesus would do and blog Christly:

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that our opponents don’t see us in the same light as Lewis and Chesterton, or associate us with Jesus for that matter. If we aim to follow Christ, as Paul exhorts us in Philippians 2, then we must imitate not only his wit and wisdom before opponents but also his silence before enemies and mockers at the cross.

I actually think the jury is out on what tone Jesus might adopt when blogging. He did not suffer Pharisees or disciples lightly. I even once suggested to friends that Jesus loved people but he didn’t particularly like them. It all depends on how we define like, I guess. Even so, the greatest indications of warmth from Jesus, beyond his overall humiliation — from birth to descent into hell, is when he weeps over Lazarus and when John reports on his friendship with his Lord. For my part, Jesus doesn’t need to be warm and fuzzy. His accomplished redemption is sufficient.

Be that as it may, with Jesus as a debatable standard, I’ll appeal to Machen and suggest that the Gospel Coalition would be a lot more interesting and useful if it and its members could actually mix a little condemnation along with all of their back-patting. I get it, they stand for the Gospel. Who in the Christian world does not? But what about the infidelities in their midst? What happens with a James McDonald or a Mark Driscoll? Does anyone suggest their teachings and associations are wrong? Or do the Co-Allies adopt the playbook of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. when they regretfully accepted the resignation of Pearl S. Buck? Or what about the disagreements among the Co-Allies Council over what the Bible teaches? Why do their bloggers give the impression that everyone is on the same page and that rocking the boat is impious?

So to help the Co-Allies find their inner Gilbert Tennent, little sampling of no-nonsense, with a pinch of sarcasm from Machen, who wrote the following before the meeting of the General Assembly that would uphold his deposition from the ministry:

The whole program of the General Assembly is carefully planned in such a way as to conceal the real issues and give a false impression of faithfulness to the Word of God. I do not mean that the deceit is necessarily intentional. The men conducting the ecclesiastical machine are no doubt in many instances living in a region of thought and feeling so utterly remote from the great verities of the Christian Faith that they have no notion how completely they are diverting attention from those verities in their conduct of the Assembly. But the fact remains that the whole program, from whatever motives, is so constructed as to conceal the real condition of the Church.

1. Conference on Evangelism
One instrument of concealment is the program of the pre-Assembly Conference on Evangelism. That program is carefully planned. Its very name suggests to unwary persons that the Church is perfectly orthodox. “Evangelism” certainly has a reassuring sound. The contents of the program also often provides sops for the evangelical minority in the Church. There is nothing that Modernist ecclesiastics love quite so much as evangelical sermons that serve as the prelude to anti-evangelical action. They are such effective instruments in lulling Christian people to sleep. . . .

7. False Use of Sentiment
A seventh instrument of concealment is the false use of perfectly worthy sentiment for partisan ends. In 1933, there was a contest regarding the Board of Foreign Missions. The Assembly’s Committee on Foreign Missions brought in a majority report favoring the policy of the Board and a minority report opposing that policy. Now every year it is the custom to read the names of the missionaries who have died during the year. The Assembly rises in respect to the honored dead, and is led in prayer. It is a solemn moment.

Where do you suppose that solemn service was put in? Well, it was tagged on to the majority report from the Committee! Then, after the solemn hush of that scene, the minority report was heard! Could anything have been more utterly unfair? The impression was inevitably made that the minority report was in some sort hostile to that honoring of the pious dead. The sacred memory of those missionaries was used to “put across” a highly partisan report whitewashing a Modernist program which some of them might have thoroughly condemned. Unfortunately they were not there to defend themselves against that outrageous misuse of their names. There is urgent need of a reform of the Assembly’s program at that point. The honor paid to departed missionaries should be completely divorced from the report of the Assembly’s committee on the Boards.

That is only one instance of the way in which at the Assembly legitimate sympathy is used to accomplish partisan ends. Very cruel and heartless measures are sometimes pushed through under cover of sympathetic tears.