Tag: transformationalism

Making Special Ordinary

Published on by D. G. Hart10 Comments

If the Corinthian Christians got in trouble for turning the Lord’s Supper into a feast, what happens when you turn the sacrament into a cultural mandate? Peter Leithart may be working too hard to justify transformationalism:

Not only on the Lord’s day, but every day: We offer our works to God in worship, specifically with an act of thanksgiving. When we bring bread and wine – and, by implication, everything we make and do – before the Lord, we do it with thanksgiving. This is remarkable: After all, we made the bread and wine. And yet we thank God for them. We thank Him for the products of our hands, because even the things we make – even our works – are His gifts to us. Paul says that thanksgiving is an act of consecration: Every created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; because it is consecrated by the Word of God and prayer. When we give thanks for what we have made, we are consecrating the works of our hands to God. And having given thanks at the table, we are trained to live lives of continuous Eucharist, continual thanksgiving, giving thanks, as Paul says, for all things at all times.

A lesson learned from John Frame: everyday is holy. All activities are worship.

We bring what we have made to God. But He doesn’t take it from us. We bring what we have to God, and He shares it with us. And so the things we make become means of communion with God.

Isn’t this a recipe for idolatry? Math, auto repair, fishing are “means of communion”? So we don’t have to gather with the saints on the Lord’s Day for worship?

The Eucharist is the way the world ought to be: Raw creation cultivated to grain and grapes. Cultivated creation brought to its fulfillment by cooking. Cooked creation enjoyed in the presence of God. Cooked created enjoyed together, by a community of worshipers. Cooked creation given in praise and received with thanksgiving. The final end of all things is the marriage supper of the lamb, and in the Lord’s Supper we anticipate that final feast, the feast that is the culmination of all creation. History is heading toward a wedding and eternal wedding reception, and our lives are to be spent readying the world for the wedding feast, a wedding feast that we are already enjoying now.

Wouldn’t it be better to say the wedding supper of the lamb is the culmination of redemption? After all, not everyone invited to the wedding accepts. All creatures won’t be at the wedding reception.

In the Eucharist, we bring creation to its fulfillment. We transform the creation into things useful and enjoyable for us, and we give thanks.

And so the Supper Supper reveals us to ourselves. This is what we are created to do: To be priests and kings, ruling the earth, transforming it from glory to glory, and joining it all in one great Eucharistic banquet.

At the Lord’s Supper, where we remember Christ’s death for our sins, we are impressed by how powerful and creative we are?

Yikes.

Dr. Leithart has his problems, but in this case he needs Christian editors who can tell the difference between cult and culture.

From Cult to Culture

Published on by D. G. Hart54 Comments

How to get around the Bible:

The priesthood in the Old Testament was a bloody business. On the eve of the Exodus, God commands the Israelites to slaughter lambs and paint the doorposts with blood in preparation for the Angel-of-Death Passover. The sacrificial rituals by Old Testament priests included the butchering of lambs and goats.

In the Book of Leviticus we see the priests slaughtering a goat for purposes of atonement and, after the laying of hands, the release or escape of a companion goat into the desert, carrying with him the sins of the people. This is where the word “scapegoat” came from. (In response to the Protestant denial of the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the Church inserted the “laying on of hands” gesture over the bread and wine before the Consecration to remind us that Christ is the sacrificial “scapegoat” of our sins.)

A significant teaching of the Book of Hebrews is that, in Christ, the old priesthood has come to an end. It is no longer necessary for priests to enter into the Temple again and again to offer their bloody sacrifices in atonement for the sins of the people. Why? Because Christ – the Lamb of God – suffered and died, once and for all, for our redemption and salvation. Thus there is no need for repetition of the bloody sacrifices of old.

But why then do we offer the Sacrifice of the Mass every day, throughout the world and throughout history? At first glance, it seems to be a violation of the teachings of the Book of Hebrews. But remember, the Mass is an unbloody sacrifice. Through the Mass we participate here and now in that single bloody sacrifice of Christ – and we also mystically participate in His glorious Resurrection. The key word is “participation” not “repetition.” We do not repeat the Sacrifice. We enter into the one Sacrifice during Mass. It is as if we reach into the heavens (Pope Benedict uses the term “celestial liturgy”) and find ourselves at the foot of the Cross in history – then, finally, encountering the risen Christ.

Why can’t the regeneration of the Holy Spirit do the same thing? And if believers are temples of the Holy Spirit, they have the transforming power of God all the time, even when they cross the street.

But what about transforming culture? The Mass does that too.

This is why the Mass as a ritual cult is so essential. We truly, mysteriously and mystically enter into the sacred events of our salvation. In Communion with Christ, we are transformed and sent forth into the world. And through us our culture is transformed because of our participation in the cult of the Mass.

Imagine simply following the apostles. No more sacramental meat. Assimilation to the Empire.

Is Universal Suffrage One of the Benefits that Accompany or Flow from Justification, Adoption, and Sanctification?

Published on by D. G. Hart41 Comments

Matt Tuininga is back to remind us of how far short the contemporary advocates of the spirituality of the church (SpofCh) fall. In this case, the proponents of 2k and SpofCh are in solidarity with the southern Presbyterian opponents of integration who formed the PCA. That’s sort of like the students at Princeton who liken the university’s faculty to the KKK on the spectrum of institutional racism. Here’s the key Tuininga challeng:

Until advocates of the doctrine of the spirituality of the church (not to mention advocates of two kingdoms theology) come to grips with the social implications of the spiritual gospel they will not be able to make the necessary distinction between inappropriate meddling in civil and political affairs (which they rightly criticize) and the church’s responsibility to proclaim the full scope of the gospel, with all of its social implications (which duty they avoid). Until we understand how the spirituality doctrine not only permits the use of church discipline and the diaconate to promote the justice and righteousness of the kingdom, but requires it, we have not grasped just what it is that spirituality means. To politicize the church is surely a horribly misguided attempt to manipulate the Spirit for our own purposes, but to muzzle the Spirit or partition the social dimension of human life from the gospel is hardly less a display of rebellion.

So the question for Tuininga is whether social advances like the civil rights movement or integration are parts of the coming of the kingdom of Christ. For instance, one of the great achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights advocates was the Voters Rights Act which prohibited local and state policies that prevented African-Americans from exercising their right to vote.

That was not the only time that suffrage included more Americans. The Puritans restricted suffrage to members of congregations, and only when Massachusetts Bay became more secular (less controlled by Christian norms) did the franchise extend to residents who were not church members. Even then, property holdings were necessary to qualify for the vote.

More recently, the nineteenth Amendment prohibited restrictions on voting based on sex.

The question for Tuininga is whether the churches should have endorsed these enlargements of the franchise? If so, why does he not complain about the Puritans who were comfortable with restricting suffrage, or the mainline churches who for so long said nary a word about women not having the right to vote?

Or could it be that most policies and laws are not benefits of the gospel the way that assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace and perseverance of the saints accompany and flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification? Is it also the case that if you can tell the difference between voting in a democracy and peace of conscience, you actually know what the spirituality of the church is?

So I throw the challenge back to Tuininga: until he can show that certain social reforms are evidence of the gospel, he needs to come down from his high horse about the deficiencies of the spirituality of the church and its proponents. I, for one, would love to believe that prison reform and abandonment of the War on Drugs as federal policy are part of “the transforming impact of the gospel.” But I have a hard time understanding how policies reformed and prisoners freed are signs of the coming of the kingdom when the people reforming the policies and the ex-cons don’t confess Jesus Christ as Lord.

How To Transformationalize the Secular

Published on by D. G. Hart25 Comments

Have worship services not on Sunday but throughout the week. After all, if holding Mass desacralizes Sunday, having worship services during the week could sacralize Monday or Thursday or Tuesday or Saturday.

Father Z got me thinking:

Communion in the hand…
Blessings instead of Communion even by lay ministers…
Pianos…
Mass “facing the people”…

Saturday evening Masses as quasi-vigil Masses for Sunday is one of those poorly thought out decisions that, once implemented, has by now become so fixed in the Catholic psyche that they are as easy to roll back as the tide.

Granted: Saturday vigil Masses make attendance at Masses for Sunday Obligation possible for that small segment of society who are truly unable to attend Mass on Sunday morning. The question is, however, begged: why weren’t Sunday afternoon or evening Masses considered?

Sadly, the prevalence of Saturday evening Masses have had the effect, in many parishes, of eliminating the Saturday morning Mass, depriving the faithful of the celebration of numerous feasts, not too mention the regular commemoration of the Blessed Virgin on those Saturdays in Ordinary Time when the day is otherwise unencumbered.

There are now Catholics who, for no other reason than convenience, have not been to Holy Mass on Sunday morning for years.

This plays into our culture’s desacralization of Sunday, which is no longer the Lord’s Day, but merely a “day off.”

Not All, Just Some of the Bible

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

So 8 out of 10 Americans believe that “following the Bible’s teachings would be good for American society.”

And Daniel Darling and Andrew Walker argue that Americans should follow the same divine law that Christians do:

Imagine we took the same approach with a different issue—say, crime—that some do with marriage and family policy. What if our approach toward murder or theft was as laissez-faire? Why should we expect our neighbors not to murder? Why should we think non-Christians will act like believers and obey the sixth commandment? But if the home of one of these advocates were broken into by an unbelieving neighbor, they would call upon the local, God-ordained authorities, and accusing the thief of violating a fundamental principle of justice that all of our consciences know to be true: It is unjust to steal. Stealing is a violation not only of God’s revealed law, but also of the basic concept of justice that is written on the heart of every person. If our unbelieving neighbor steals from us, we don’t excuse their behavior because they don’t follow a Christian code of ethics. We simply expect them not to steal.

All Christians, if they are honest, hope non-Christians think and act like Christians—whether in maintaining a just and well-ordered society or when approaching issues like human trafficking, abortion, racial justice, child poverty, and other pressing issues. We fight for laws that reflect what we believe to be true about human dignity and human flourishing. Why? Because principles of morality are not limited to or binding on only Christians.

Of course, the authors skirt the first table of the Decalogue and what those commandments might mean for Muslims, Roman Catholics, and Jews, not to mention agnostics and atheists.

My complaint is that the advocates of the-Bible-is-good-for-what-ails-the-United-States is that they are overwhelmingly selective. What if all Americans followed Peter’s teaching at the end of his second encyclical epistle:

8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

On the one hand, that solves the problem of Christian busy bodies and transformationalists. Chill.

On the other hand, Peter seems to have a remedy for climate change. Burn, baby, burn.

Or maybe we just let the Bible do what it was supposed to do.

When All Means Some

Published on by D. G. Hart78 Comments

One of the favorite arguments of Neo-Calvinists is to go to Col 1 to support every-square inch Christianity:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:15-20 ESV)

But Rick Phillips puts limits on “all”:

What are some of the things that I have through the gospel of Jesus Christ? The answer is the cornucopia of salvation theology! I have justification so as to be accepted before God’s justice. I have adoption so as to be embraced into God’s fatherly love as a beloved child. I have sanctification as the Holy Spirit graciously works within me. And I have glorification, as the return of Christ is destined to admit him into his eternal presence. Through the gospel, I have the past, where Jesus lived and died on my behalf; I have the present, in which I am kept for eternal life by God’s grace; and I have the future, which holds no fear for those who are treasured in the hand of the Almighty. Through the gospel I have heaven, where my name is enrolled forever, and I have earth, over which my Savior exercises all power and authority. I have Christian fellowship through communion with the saints and I have participation in the church with its ordinances of nurture and care. Through the gospel I have perfect liberty to live above the world and sin and I have beloved bondage as a willing slave to Jesus Christ. Through the gospel, I have a new nature that partakes of the character of God, and I have the blessing of the law of God to guide me in the way of life. I have the Word of God shining within. I have prayer, which grants access to the very throne of grace. I have the sacraments, bearing the sign and seal of the covenant of grace. I have worship, service, sacrifice, and solace. Most of all, best of all, I have Jesus Christ – the whole Jesus Christ: Lord and Savior; Prophet, Priest, and King; Master, Helper, and Friend. And in union with Jesus Christ, together with communion in the gifts and graces of his blessed kingdom, through the gospel, I truly have all things!

That sounds like the Confession of Faith on Christian liberty:

The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law. But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected; and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of. (20.1)

In other words, that sounds like an otherworldly faith, not one that redeems cities, plumbing, and foreign policy.

I’m okay with that.

Imagine if Tim Read Tim

Published on by D. G. Hart75 Comments

Would Tim Challies tweak this post on how to lose your zeal for Christ for Tim Keller’s discomfort?

Love the world. “How can we be zealous for heaven when our hearts are wrapped up in earthly civic things? How can we lift our spirits heavenward when our minds are weighed down with the cares of this life the city? How can we be zealous for God when our love is divided between Him and this world global urbanization? Worldly mindedness will starve our zeal.” Jesus promised us that we can serve only one master; our zeal will diminish when our loyalties are torn between God and mammon the metropolis, God and this worldThe Big Apple.

Perhaps the Christian ministry in Toronto or Chattanooga is sufficiently otherworldly to escape Challies’ concern.

When Dutch Calvinism was 2k — even Republican

Published on by D. G. Hart162 Comments

Bruce Fronen explains why Reformed Protestants oppose absolute monarchy both in the state and the church:

Calvinism generally is identified with the Swiss city state of Geneva. But that city existed, politically, as a kind of hothouse flower, protected for years by the presence of Calvin himself (though that did not prevent significant problems) and, more important, the strength and isolation of the Swiss confederation. The Netherlands, on the other hand, was a nation born in the crucible of sustained conflict. The Dutch people over generations developed a pluralist society and a kind of federal government sufficient to win independence from the Spanish monarch while retaining local freedoms and significantly divergent, traditional ways of life.

The Dutch republic had only a relatively short time as a major power and example of good government, before descending for some time into a rather petty empire seemingly motivated only by greed. But beginning in the 16th and going into the early 18th century, the Netherlands provided examples of ordered liberty, as well as practically-grounded theories underlying good government. Here a people numerous and organized enough to constitute a nation gave perhaps the first viable alternative to the centralizing monarchies then solidifying power throughout Europe. Here an early modern people came to grips with the intrinsically plural structure of society in such a way as to win their independence as a nation without losing their religious identities or local rights of self-government.

The great theorist of this time and place was Johannes Althusius. Born in what is now Germany, Althusius identified closely with his fellow Calvinists in the Netherlands. He understood, in part from simple observation of lived examples all around him that people do not exist as individuals. We all are, in our essence, members of various communities. Where in most early modern states monarchs had set about destroying most of the communities in which people become fully human and live out their lives, the Dutch never fully succumbed to the power of any single monarch. Their “petty” republics and principalities hung on tenaciously to their particular liberties and ways of life. Split by religious differences, the Dutch developed somewhat (note the lack of emphasis, here) more toleration of religious dissent than most other countries. But where they truly showed their strength was in their recognition and practice of what Calvinists in the New World would term “federal liberty.”

This piece of Dutch Calvinist history often goes overlooked by transformers of every square inch, even though Abraham Kuyper himself capitalized on Dutch pluralism to recognize a variety of groups in Dutch life in ways that would drive American Protestants of Anglo backgrounds batty. The odd thing about Dutch Calvinism is that it was far more tolerant than those whom today it inspires. I can’t help but blame w-w, which drives a wedge between believers and unbelievers in totalizing ways and animates the bejeebies about secularization.

What Do P. J. O'Rourke and the Bible Have In Common?

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

Ecclesiastes. All is vanity. Thanks to Carl Trueman, I read a funny and effective take down of the secular fundamentalists who think tobacco smoke is more dangerous that carbon emissions. (No doubt, ironies of this sort attend most projects of transformation.)

The first folly, the logic that says scary pictures will scare adolescents from smoking:

Nonetheless this is a brilliant marketing campaign by the Australian authorities, doubtless designed to increase tax revenue from cigarette sales to junior high school boys. If I were in junior high I’d promptly find a way to buy (bribing an older brother or cousin, if need be) this incredibly disgusting flip-top box. And then I would be beside myself with eagerness to get to school the next day and usher my pals into the boys’ room to show off my gruesome, shoeless, sockless purchase.

In the World Gross-Out Champ-ionship, which is the preeminent event and main purpose of seventh grade, I’d retire the cup. At recess we’d show the pack to the girls, eliciting the highly coveted “ICK!” shriek. After school a certain kind of girl, the kind who made our hearts flutter (which Australia warns that cigarettes also do), would ask, “Can I try one?”

Of course we’d smoke the things. Who could resist? I can’t resist myself. As a confirmed cigar-smoker, I don’t care much for cigarettes. But the 13-year-old abides in us all. And it’s an affair of honor. I am devoted to Lady Nicotine. She has been insulted.

Folly no. 2, taxing sin depletes tax revenues:

Sales of legally packaged and lawfully retailed Australian cigarettes are down. No surprise given that most smoking is not done in seventh-grade boys’ rooms and that a pack of cigarettes in Australia costs nearly $16. (The Australian dollar is worth approximately the same as the U.S. dollar except it has a kangaroo on it instead of George Washington.)

But this decline in sales has been offset by a 154 percent increase in sales of contraband and counterfeit cigarettes coming from overseas. These cost half as much and arrive in the pleasant traditional wrappings of their brand. (Though, in the case of counterfeit cigarettes, with some risk of misspelling​—​Malrbolo.)

In calculating the 154 percent figure KPMG seems to have done its homework​—​surveying thousands of adult Australian smokers, analyzing Australian Customs tobacco seizure data, and sending out teams to pick up the litter of 12,000 empty cigarette packs in 16 Australian cities and towns.

Not to rei-mpute base motives to the Australian government, but plain packaging has been a revenue disappointment as well. KPMG estimates that, as of mid-2013, contraband and counterfeit cigarettes have cost Australia a billion dollars in lost taxes.

Do you suppose there’s organized criminal activity involved? Consider that a pack of smokes costs a buck and a quarter in Vietnam. This makes the mark-up for smuggled heroin look like the profit margin on a Walmart Black Friday loss leader.

The third folly, where will it all end?

Beer is certainly next, with pictures of drunken fistfights, snoring bums, and huge, gin-blossomed noses on every can. Airplane crashes kill a lot of people. No plane should be allowed to land in Australia unless it’s painted drab dark brown and bears an image of fiery carnage along its fuselage. Cars kill even more. Perhaps a banner showing lethal wrecks could be pasted across the inside of every car’s windshield. And there’s food. Make all food drab dark brown (something of a historical tradition in Australian cooking anyway) and deck the labels with naked fat men.

Fortunately there are those who are still willing to fight for property rights and freedom of choice. Raúl Castro, for one. Cuba has gone to the World Trade Organization to challenge Australia’s Tobacco Plain Packaging Act. Cuba argues that the act violates the internationally recognized rights of trademark owners and does not comply with the WTO’s agreements banning technical barriers to trade and protecting intellectual property.

When Raúl Castro is your Milton Friedman, you’re ready for the intellectual firing squad. The thought process of Australia’s legislators should be stood up against the wall of common sense. Care for a last cigarette?

If Christ Is Preparing a Place, What Are Transformationalists Doing?

Published on by D. G. Hart28 Comments

It is an odd thought if you partake of the neo-Calvinist w-w, the thought being that Christ has ascended and is now preparing a place for his people (John 14:2-3). Neo-Calvinists are trying to take every square inch captive here while their Lord, the one who says, “mine!” is preparing a place there where all Christians will dwell. Doesn’t the idea of transforming this world conflict with the place that Christ is preparing for his children?

Does Calvin help?

By these words Christ intimates that the design of his departure is, to prepare a place for his disciples. In a word, Christ did not ascend to heaven in a private capacity, to dwell there alone, but rather that it might be the common inheritance of all the godly, and that in this way the Head might be united to his members.

But a question arises, What was the condition of the fathers after death, before Christ ascended to heaven? For the conclusion usually drawn is, that believing souls were shut up in an intermediate state or prison, because Christ says that, by his ascension into heaven, the place will be prepared. But the answer is easy. This place is said to be prepared for the day of the resurrection; for by nature mankind are banished from the kingdom of God, but the Son, who is the only heir of heaven, took possession of it in their name, that through him we may be permitted to enter; for in his person we already possess heaven by hope, as Paul informs us, (Ephesians 1:3.) Still we will not enjoy this great blessing, until he come from heaven the second time. The condition of the fathers after death, therefore, is not here distinguished from ours; because Christ has prepared both for them and for us a place, into which he will receive us all at the last day. Before reconciliation had been made, believing souls were, as it were, placed on a watch-tower, looking for the promised redemption, and now they enjoy a blessed rest, until the redemption be finished.

Wouldn’t the truth that Christ is going to receive us at the place he is preparing also encourage us not to be too deeply attached to this world, no matter how much the transformers transform it?

Postscript: And for those inclined to regard the relation between this world and the world to come as one of continuity (read postmillennialism), does the sort of preparation in which Christ is now engaged resemble at all the kind of carpentry he practiced here on planet earth?