Preaching what you don't feel

Helpful thoughts from John Piper:

Can a pastor preach on joy when he is feeling little of it?
Yes. He is preaching what the word says and will say it whether he feels it or not.

Yes. He will be praying that in the very preaching of it, the gift of joy might be given. It does happen.

Yes. He will be honest with his people and over time communicate to them that he has his ups and downs and may have to preach on a text that does not find great fulfillment in his life at the time of preaching.

Yes. But over time the disjunction between text and person will undermine the ministry of the word. Preaching is expository exultation, and when the exultation is missing for extended periods of time, life will contradict content and this will weaken or even kill the ministry of the word.

If I wasn't going to General Assembly...

...this might be a fun course to take: a week-long intensive on Jonathan Edwards at Yale.

For words without substance...

Luther once said, "For words with substance, Melanchthon; for substance without words, Luther; for words without substance, Erasmus; for neither words nor substance, Karlstadt." We can now know, at least, how Erasmus did so well with words...

Crean and Crimson

I'm not super thrilled with Tom Crean's hire as the new IU men's basketball coach. I didn't like him as Marquette's coach and thought he was a bit of a jerk; of course, I didn't like Sampson either and thought he was a jerk (and as it turned out I was right). I don't think Crean can recruit (he was a bit lucky on D-Wade; exactly who has he had since or after with that kind of talent) and I don't think he is much of an Xs and Os guy. His only benefit? He is not John Calipari.

Why Bother with Church History?

[This is from a forthcoming "blog interview, but I like what I wrote, so I thought I'd post it here.]

I tell my students that if I am simply there to give them names, dates, and places, then we are utterly wasting our time—that is not what history is about and that is not what I am there to do. (I always stop and say that because many of them will face ordination exams during which the only thing the examiner knows to test them on are names, dates, and places, I have to make sure they know them as well.) Rather, the reason we have church history in the theological curriculum is to help them understand issues related to Christian identity: indeed, church history is the story about how Christians are.

In order to get at issues of identity, one must investigate beliefs, practices, and stories (and I talk about this in my book, On Being Presbyterian: Our Beliefs, Practices, and Stories [2006]). Most students come into my class convinced that the only period that is truly important for their Christian identity—for the beliefs, practices, and stories which shape them Christianly—is their own moment in time (and maybe, possibly, the generation prior). The Kool-aid I sell them to drink is that their identity is tied to the beliefs and practices of people who lived thousands of years before—what Ignatius or Polycarp or Augustine or Aquinas or Calvin wrote, taught, lived, and practiced shapes their Christian identity today.

The image I use to get this across is the family album. Each of us has family albums with pictures of aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins once removed on my mother’s side. There are stories about these peoples that embed beliefs and practices and that help them make sense. Some of these stories may be suppressed, or painful, or even forgotten, but they still shape us more than we know—they represent deep-seated ways of viewing the world that have impacted us in positive or negative ways. In order to ferret some of this out, we must investigate those pictures, find out those stories, check out those beliefs and practices—and in so doing, we learn a little bit better who we are and what God has for us to do in this moment and in our places today.

However, it is not simply possible to do what our ancestors before us did; to drive the car that Uncle Jim drove or view the world the way Aunt Maybelle did. For one thing, the movement of history doesn’t work that way; it is not possible to jump back upstream to a purer or more golden age, whether the 19th or 17th or 1st century. For another, we are in our own cultural moment or system in which our beliefs, practices, and stories are mixed up with our educational backgrounds, class differences, racial history, gender realities, geography, and much more. It is in our particular systems, in this moment, that the Word is to be enfleshed; and God has called us to do this, even with all the “limiting” factors of our particularity.

Sometimes there will be things that we do that contradict our glorious beliefs (one thinks here of proslavery defenses by orthodox Old School Presbyterian theologians); I call these “cultural blind spots.” Part of the reason we study history is to see these cultural blind spots in others or to have historical figures shine their light on our blind spots—either way, we see ourselves a little more clearly, see our flaws and our possibilities more realistically. And the result of historical thinking—the cash value, if you will, for the student—is wisdom and insight for life and ministry.

Above all, we come to learn that every time and every human being is flawed, broken, sinful—except for one: Jesus is the only hero. As a result, we can look at historical figures sympathetically (because they are sinful humans like us) and critically (because they are sinful humans like us); the good they teach ultimately is a reflection of Christ himself. And we can have some measure of hope—because if Jesus can use messed-up people and churches from the past, then he can certainly use us today. To me, this is a major value for teaching church history to future ministers—to gain wisdom and insight into the present, yes; but above all, to have hope: the same God who has shown himself in mighty deeds through broken clay pots in the past can and will do it again in the present in the future.

Historians in the Prophetic Mode

A few days ago, I got Carl Trueman's new collection of essays, Minority Report, which is (as with most of what he does) engaging, insightful, and frequently brilliant. One note that clearly is sounded throughout the collection, which deserves some comment, is that historians find their place within theological education, the academy, the life of the church, and the larger culture as those who unmask contemporary pretensions of all sorts in a prophetic style or mode.

Perhaps the essays in which this theme came most clearly through were two: one which placed the evangelical theologian Carl Henry in conversation with the postmodern philosopher Edward Said; another which observed that the historians' task was akin to being a ferret breeder on the fictional Watership Down. Especially in the Henry-Said essay, Trueman used Said to provide a critical voice who might help evangelicals look through the pretensions of the contemporary context in order to think much more critically and even prophetically about our times (through many of the essays was a subtext of criticism of the post-conservative theological aspirations of John Franke and his brood).

I couldn't help but smile in recognition from my own time at Westminster and especially from the impact of my own doktorvater there, D. G. Hart. As a student, Hart turned me on to a similarly helpful conversation partner, the early 20th century Baltimore journalist, H. L. Mencken. Urbane, witty, connected, insightful, and often brilliant, Mencken viewed his journalistic task as unmasking the pretensions of politicians and religious leaders, most of whom were mountebanks who would lie, cheat, and steal while smiling and selling the American hoi polli on the latest quack political or religious medicine. Of course, the greatest example of such pretensions were (southern) religious opposition to alcohol and evolution, two issues that Mencken particularly cared much about (and which would inspire [and fuel] some of his best writing, such as "The Sahara of the Bozart").

During my doctoral studies, Mencken provided me at least (and perhaps Hart, although I can't speak for him) an useful model of the historian's task--because, of course, Mencken was an idealist of sorts, passionate about the America he wished would exist. And so, by always issuing the "minority report" (also the title of one of Mencken's books), by always speaking in the prophetic mode, Mencken was actually pushing his readers toward his vision for American culture, politics, and even religion (an interesting example of the last was his obit for J. Gresham Machen, "Doctor Fundamentalis"; in the end, Mencken had more patience for Jefferson's Bible than for Machen's).

But a sad thing happened to Mencken (actually several sad things happened). Toward the end of his career, especially in the salad days of Roosevelt II (as he called FDR), his prophetic voice was no longer heard. His vision for America was no longer appropriate--one that depended upon "first rate" men (like Mencken himself) leading and the rest of the country following, upon seemingly Victorian values in morals, writing, and drama in a modernist age. And then, he suffered a deeply debilitating stroke, which left him unable to write the last seven years of his life. Angry with God, angry with others, his prophetic fuel turned inward; and Fred Hobson, his best biographer, could do nothing else but portray him as an angry, bitter man at his death.

Now, let me be clear here: by bringing Mencken to bear in thinking about Trueman's historical approach, I by no means want to suggest that his trajectory is similar to Mencken's. For one thing, Trueman's writing, while prophetic and hence idealistic, points toward a greater hope that is rooted in the grand realities of the Christian faith--the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus provides hope that all will be put to rights and even the follies of (Christian) human beings cannot prevent this. This was comfort that Mencken never had--a confirmed skeptic, he cut himself off from the one source that could have provided a larger vision and surer hope.

Having said that, I do wonder whether the prophetic mode or stance--whether as a journalist, philosopher, historian, theologian, or minister--is the best, long-term approach. Undoubtedly, there are times when those who exercise public leadership must sympathetically and critically unmask the pretensions of the age (or "rage, rage against the dying of the light" as Trueman, copping Dylan Thomas, put it); historians--because we are in the business of memory--are especially valuable for this. And of course, Calvinist historians bear a double burden, since we so clearly see how the capital T in "TULIP" plays out in the stories we tell. And yet, I wonder how the rest of our theological commitments as Christian historians play out as we tell our historical stories. For example, I wonder how our own eschatological commitments play out in writing historian. After all, it is not simply the secular historians or the dispensationalists or the American exceptionalists who have eschatologies--I have one as well, one that talks about a "blessed hope" that this earth will become the Kingdom of God and his Christ. How does that trajectory infuse hope into my historical writing?

In other words, I wonder whether historians (and ministers, theologians, journalists, and all the rest) need to recognize that we can't simply play "one string" as we tell our stories--if we stay in a prophetic mode, we may very well end up like Mencken, ignored, frustrated, cynical, and ultimately embittered because no one cares to listen to our prophecies any more. Or we could be like someone about whom I've written, Robert Lewis Dabney, who certainly felt this way. Observing to a colleague that his prophetic counsel was being ignored, Dabney felt that he had become “the Cassandra of Yankeedom, predestined to prophesy truth and never to be believed by her country until too late.”

In the end, I worry that if historians (or any of us) were to slip fully and finally into the mode of being Cassandra, whether the ancient prophet or more modern ones, we may end up being "right," but we will end up being the only ones who will know. In order to be heard over a long time, we should use our callings to provide not just correction, but also hope, which will allow us to speak longer, more lovingly, and in the end more truthfully to the Church which we (and Christ) love.

Post 400: Wendell Berry

A Berry poem from the Sabbath cycles:

The dark around us, come,
Let us meet here together,
Members one of another,
Here in our holy room,
Here on our little floor,
Here in the daylit sky,
Rejoicing mind and eye,
Rejoining known and knower,
Light, leaf, foot, hand, and wing,
Such order as we know,
One household, high and low,
And all the earth shall sing.

Was the Doctor right after all?

Observing the crack up of the Anglican Communion and reading news that J. I. Packer is to be suspended from the Anglican Church of Canada, it raises the interesting historical question: was D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones right after all?

Those who read this blog and who are aware of the "Doctor's" life will remember that Lloyd-Jones, Packer, and John Stott had a major falling out in the late 1960s when Lloyd-Jones raised serious concerns about the direction of the Anglican church and suggested (well, it was stronger than that) that Christian ministers should leave the Anglican church because it was no longer a place hospitable to evangelicals. At the time, both Packer and Stott opposed Lloyd-Jones; the fracas led to the dividing of English evangelicalism (all this can be found in short compass in Iain Murray's Evangelicalism Divided or his biography of Lloyd-Jones).

One of the challenging questions for evangelicals in mainstream denominations is whether and when to separate from unbelief--how to discern what is a "first-order" issue; how to leave as a witness and with tears, not trumpets (in Francis Schaeffer's phrase); etc. These are particularly important questions for the Presbyterian tradition, which has seen its fair share of separation through the years (hence, the mocking label, "the split Ps").

Still, when one observes the trajectory of the Anglican Communion and the PC(USA) over the past 30 or 40 years, it seems clear that the agitating issue of today (ordination of non-celibate homosexuals) was a natural outgrowth of theological trajectories set a generation prior. If that is the case, then perhaps the Doctor was right after all--that there are appropriate times to separate from unbelief as a witness to theological truths and that this can be done without becoming warrior children, no matter what others might suggest.

Assist me to proclaim

Even though my area of specialization is the "modern" period, especially modern American religion, I've remained generally ignorant of the growing body of literature on the Methodists. Thanks to John Wigger, Dee Andrews, and David Hempton, we have a growing and solid body of scholarly literature of Methodism. However, there are not many scholarly and accessible biographies of the founders of Methodism, John and Charles Wesley. Especially for the "lesser" known founder, Charles, there is now an excellent book to fit the bill, John R. Tyson's Assist Me to Proclaim: The Life and Hymns of Charles Wesley.

Tyson paints well the attractive piety and winsome character of Charles, the younger brother and sometime junior partner of Wesleyan Methodism in the 18th century. Mining unpublished journals and the over 9,000 (!) hymns and poems, he is able to help readers access Charles' inner life. Often these hymns and poems connect to journaled events, placing both artifacts in context and illuminating the very human interactions that Charles had. He also does a great job describing the some tense partnership that Charles and John maintained for over 50 years of ministry, picturing the strengths and weaknesses that both brought to the developing Methodist movement.

I guess the thing that Tyson did well was to help me like Charles Wesley--I admired his piety (even where I disagreed with him theologically, especially in the chapter "The Poison of Calvin") and loved his hymnody (even when he used it to push his Arminianism); I wanted the Methodists to stay in the Anglican church (with Charles and against John) and disliked the "lay preachers" whom Charles disliked. To create this type of critical sympathy is a challenge for a biographer (as I found writing on Robert Lewis Dabney); Tyson pulls it off with great verve and excellent prose. To read this book was a joy and to be encouraged to love Wesley's God was a blessing.

"New" Gaffin Book

There is a "new" book by Richard Gaffin just out--the quotes around "new" are there because it is actually the reworking of a two-part article originally published in the Westminster Theological Journal in 1981. These articles, now titled God's Word in Servant-Form: Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck on the Doctrine of Scripture, originally targeted the so-called Rogers/McKim thesis on the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. Now, they serve as a historical-theological corrective to other questions being raised on how the human and divine in Scripture relate and how incarnation and inspiration connect. On the back someone noted, "...Gaffin mines these stalwarts of the Reformed tradition for wisdom and insight in the inpsiration and inerrancy of Scripture...a must-read for pastors, students, theologians, and laymen alike!"

Naviget

To find out about the word in the title and what it means in the light of God's calling on our lives, check out this great article by John Ortberg.

Larry Norman (1947-2008)

The godfather of early Christian rock has passed away at the age of 60. This is very sad--the first two Christian albums I owned were both from Solid Rock Records (with their cool logo, a take-off on the Rolling Stones): Larry Norman's "Something New Under the Sun" and Randy Stonehill's "Welcome to Paradise." What I so appreciated about these early "Solid Rock" guys, as well as Keith Green, was their intense piety and their unwillingness to sell out to the music industry machine--often giving their albums away. And some of the songs undoubtedly made an impact during the Jesus People days: "I Wish We Had All Been Ready" and "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?" were the two Larry Norman classics. What was most encouraging was his testimony just prior to his homecoming as contained on his website; it appears that as he crossed the dark river, he was continuing to cling to Jesus and fight the good fight.

New American Religious Biography Book

As JT has scooped me, John Muether's Cornelius Van Til is coming out in March. It really is a wonderful book--intriguingly, it focuses on Van Til as a churchman and views his apologetics through that lens. I'm not aware of anyone else, except for the late Charles Dennison (former historian of the OPC) doing this, either in journal essays or elsewhere.

"How to teach and preach 'Calvinism'"

John Piper gives excellent advice on how to teach and preach the doctrines of grace. Many of these points are sound pastoral practice; but the ones I appreciated the most were: "work the five points out from 'I' rather than 'U'"; "out rejoice your critics"; and "don't be strident, but gentle."

The Primary Work of the Church

It is always striking to me how the issues we face as a church have been faced before. I've been plugging away on a faculty lecture that I'm to give this April at Westminster Seminary California; in doing so, I ran across this quote from Nelson Bell, father-in-law to Billy Graham and associate editor of the Southern Presbyterian Journal (3 June 1953; p. 2):

There is a central emphasis which the Church and individual Christians must constantly keep before them and, because we "wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places," we face the ever present temptation to change that emphasis to something more compatible with human reason and pride.

The all-important emphasis, the very key-stone of the gospel message, is redemption of the individual soul and this redemption means a change of destination, a change of eternal environment, for those who believe.

While it is true that the home, the community and the nation are safer, happier, and better in every when when lived in and influenced by Christians, these happy results are incidental to the Gospel of Christ, for our Lord came into this world for the primary purpose of saving sinners, giving to those who believe in Him eternal life.

Without discounting in the least the social implications of the gospel, we need to constantly remember that there can only be social blessings and changes after men have been saved from sin and live unto righteousness. There is the constant temptation to long for the fruit and forget the absolute importance of the true from which the fruit must come. Social reforms must come through and from redeemed lives. Without such a transformation vital and lasting changes cannot materialize.

I felt led to post this...

...just kidding, sort of: Mark Dever on the bondage of "guidance." [HT: JT]

The Reason for God

Over the weekend, as I had hoped, I finished Tim Keller's new book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. When I bought it, I didn't know what to expect (aside from the title, of course); as I noted the other day, I smiled in recognition of Keller's method, which hailed from Cornelius Van Til, the Dutch Reformed apologist who taught for nearly 40 years at Westminster Theological Seminary.

But the book is more and less than a manual on apologetics. It is more in that it is incredibly winsome, well-written, and well-argued (qualities that many "apologetics" books fail to have). The first part of the book deals with seven "defeater" beliefs that skeptical people bring to their investigation of Christianity: in my language, they include pluralism; the "problem" of evil; western views of liberty and Christianity; the historical flaws of the church; the "justness" of hell; science and faith; and the authority of an inspired Bible.

In dealing with these skeptical positions--which are not new by any means, but rather represent the continued legacy of modernity in a "post-modern" world--Keller walks inside and demonstrates the internal inconsistencies both of the positions and the worldviews that make them appear appropriate. He does this so well that I found myself making stars and comments in the margins so that I can try to remember the arguments as I deal with family, friends, and neighbors.

The second part of the book presents a well-reasoned presentation of the Gospel that is not merely a Gospel tract, but serves as the flip side of the defeater beliefs. Not only do these skeptical positions not make sense of all the data, there is a better explanation of the data--and that would be "mere Christianity," with its emphasis upon creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. That story line--or maybe better, that opera--invites us into a dance in which we become most human because we have the very image of God in us restored.

Not only is this book more than a manual on apologetics, it is less. By that I mean, this strikes me as a book that is meant to be used, given away, and shared over coffee with unbelieving friends. This would be a great book for a small group of friends to begin to investigate Christianity, to give to an unbelieving relative who has asked you for reasons for your faith, to center an approach to evangelism around. The ideas will work their way into sermons. And so, it is less than most books on apologetics, which seem to be geared mostly to believers at a semi-academic level to prepare them in the most abstract way to reason--but not actually with real unbelievers.

This is simply a wonderful book, a useful tool for God's work--but it will only make a true impact for the Kingdom if it is used, given away, and shared with others.

On Reading Karl Barth

Dan Reid, reference editor at IVP, gives some fascinating reflections on reading Karl Barth at the pace of 5 pages a day. As I've already suggested on this blog, I've done the same with John Owen. I wonder what other theologians would be "better" in short doses...some might suggest Calvin, Edwards, Augustine, or Aquinas. I would think anyone whose writing is both dense and dexterous would repay slowing down and reading slowly.

The only thing better than the Crips and the Bloods...

Snicker.

[HT: Z]

Like Van Til. Only Better.

Like some, I rushed to Borders last night to get the new Tim Keller book, The Reason for God. I was able to get through the first chapter last night before I went to bed. As a Westminster grad, I had to smile in recognition to the apologetic methodology--moving on to the unbeliever's turf in order to show the inconsistencies of their own worldview and then demonstrating that only a Christian worldview can make sense of any thing. It was just like Van Til.

...Only without the confusing terminology. And a whole heap more readable. And winsome. And literate. And interesting. And, well, better. I'm looking forward to finishing the book over the weekend.

One funny fact: last night, I was picking up Rick Lints, professor of systematic theology from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, who is doing our first annual David C. Jones Lecture in Theology and Ethics. As we talked on our cell phones in order to identify the other to each other, I said, "I have a brown jacket and green cords on and I'm holding Tim Keller's new book!"

The Reason for God--the ultimate identity marker.

As one who leads...

...you can't delegate hope, John Ortberg wisely notes.

Communion with the Triune God

Readers of this blog will know that I have struggled to read John Owen. One book that helped me read Owen well was Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor's edited version of Owen's Overcoming Sin and Temptation. But another, which came out this past fall, was Communion with the Triune God.

In this book, which is volume two in the standard edition of Owen's works, we have a different Owen--a lyrical mystic, who guided us into what it might mean to be "greedy for delight" in God. Taking each member of the Godhead, Owen unpacked what it might mean to hold communion with the Father, Son, and Spirit distinctly. In particular, we have communion in the love of the Father, the grace of Jesus the Son, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Along the way, Owen pointed particularly to the glory of the Son as the incarnate God. In two lengthy digressions, he expounded the attributes of the person and work of Jesus, highlighting his glory in making the love of the Father known by his self-sacrifice on the cross. Over and again, he showed the glory of the Cross, but even more the glory of the resurrected Jesus who triumphed over death, sin, and hell by the cross.

Kapic's introduction, which draws in part from his book Communion with God, helpfully oriented the reader to the nature of Owen's spirituality. Likewise, the outline provided in the front of the book (which extends for 32 pages [!]) was very helpful when the book's structure became convoluted. Once again, I pursued my method of reading on a small portion of Owen at a time--this time, I averaged about 6 pages a day in my morning worship. It took me the better part of three months to finish the book--but with such a dense, rich book, that amount of time was necessary to absorb and meditate upon the truths Owen presented.

However one pursues this book, it provided me with important insights with which to worship and delight in our glorious, Triune God each morning. I would urge you to do the same.

Church Calendars, Scriptural Authority, and Liberty of Conscience, no. 1a

Whew. I didn't guess that this post would generate such "interest" (in fact, that post had the largest number of comments in the short history of this blog). While I don't have time to respond to all the comments, I wanted to respond to the general themes of some and then write a separate post about Christmas and Easter.

1. This may surprise some of you in the light of what you think I said (as opposed to what I actually said): I think Wayne Larson's approach makes a lot of sense. He wrote:

What if our session chose to do this by way of organizing a good portion of those 52 Sunday's around, say, the major events in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ? We could have a series of Sundays in which our Scripture readings and prayers reflect on his promised coming (from both the vantage points of OT Israel and our present hope in his return). Then perhaps we could have a few Sundays in which our Scripture readings and prayers center on the incarnation of our Lord. We might then even have a few Sundays that reflect on those portions of the Scriptures where we see the Son of God revealing himself to his people and the nations and consider how we might take that message of the gospel to all of the world. Then we could have a few Sundays where our readings and prayers consider why our Lord came for us in the first place - to redeem us from our sin and bondage - even noting that our Messiah was rejected by men, smitten and afflicted. We could then have a few Sundays where we give special attention to his death, resurrection, ascension, and the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit.

However, I would suggest that there is a difference between a church's session structuring its Sunday worship services around major themes and texts like this and a deliberate ordering of the church's life around the historic church calendar. I agree that we need to teach and preach the whole counsel of God and doing so in this fashion would assist our people in inculcating the Gospel. Once that teaching and preaching moves into a full observance of the church calendar with the rites attached to those observances--such as the placing of ashes on the forehead, for example--then it strikes me that we've moved beyond or beside the expressed command of Scripture. And that is my concern.

2. That would then be my answer to the several charges of hypocrisy: "well, you preached at a Reformation Day service; a Valentines Banquet; a pro-life service; a Christmas service; an Easter service, etc." In preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God, it is appropriate to order the ministry of the Word to draw people into the major themes of the Gospel itself. The fact that our culture still views Christmas and Easter as major poles of our calendar makes it convenient to preach and teach on the themes of Jesus' advent(s), death, and resurrection. [I'd also note that the Valentine's Banquet is tonight, Friday; and it is always appropriate to bring God's Word at such settings--but it is not a stated service of the church, either.]

I must admit, however, that I am very uncomfortable with the way some churches I have attended have "candle light" services on Christmas eve or decorate the sanctuary with greenery for Advent or have (what we called) "the creeping cross," which progressed toward the center of the sanctuary in the Sundays leading up to Easter. I wonder about the biblical warrant for these things and worry that people are led to believe that those things are necessary for the worship of God--which is only a few steps removed from formalism, legalism, and superstition, which were concerns of the Reformers themselves.

3. Kyle Wells asked the best question--where is all this talk about the conscience in the NT especially? It strikes me that a key text on this point would be Colossians 2:16-23--Paul clearly urges the Colossians not to allow their consciences to be bound ("let no one pass judgment on you...with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath") by religious observances that were no longer in effect ("the substance belongs to Christ"). These things "may have the appearance of wisdom," but I wonder whether such observances actually led people to trust in the ritual actions rather than in Jesus himself.

4. Finally, Luther. While Jeff Meyers raised the appropriate comment regarding my use of Luther, even he would agree that I was not appealing there to Luther as liturgist, but to Luther as defender of liberty of conscience as bound by God's Word. I thought when I typed that in someone would probably suggest that it was a bit of a non sequitur, but I had just finished doing my Luther lecture in class and used the Diet of Worms clip from the Luther movie--so I thought it was a good place to end.

Church Calendars, Scriptural Authority, and Liberty of Conscience, no. 1

[Wow, sorry for the long title, but there it is.] Since we are sitting here on "Ash Wednesday," it seems a good time to reflect once again on the issue of the church calendar and especially on how Presbyterians should think about using or not using the calendar in the life of their churches. Or maybe--from a different angle and still mulling over my lecture that I just gave on Martin Luther--the question should be: why should those who emphasize the authority of Scripture not incorporate the church calendar into the rhythyms of a Presbyterian church's year?

In order to get at an answer to this question, I think you have to start with the question of authority--who or what determines or orders the life of a church? That is to say, on what basis does the church order its life? For most Protestants and especially for most conservative Presbyterians, we would say that Jesus is the King over his church and he orders his church through his Word and by Spirit. And that, of course, is the right (i.e. biblical) answer (for more on this, see On Being Presbyterian, ch. 4 and 8).

Protestants came to this answer over against what they saw to be an usurption of the church's authority by the pope, an expansion of the church's authority through its canon law, ritual practice, and traditional usage, and a corrupt use of that authroity, typified most clearly in Pope Leo X's decision to sell indulgences in order to fund the completion of St. Peter's Cathedral. The church used authority in order to bind the consciences of God's people in an unbiblical and hence illegitimate manner.

This point on the liberty of conscience is actually quite important--one of the major criticisms of Rome made by the Reformers was that the Roman church through its idoltary and superstitutious practices were illegitimately binding the consciences of people. In order to see what these practices looked like in medieval Europe, all one needs to do is read Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars--a worship pattern that emphasized ritual actions that taught biblical truths was emphasized centered on the Mass. The Reformers looked at this and said that this was not the worship which God required in his Word, was not likely to produce Gospel repentance and faith, and hence bound people in superstition which led them to perdition.

And so, the more biblically-oriented of these Protestants came to articulate a position that came to be known as the "regulative principle of worship." The principle itself is much debated today--especially in terms of the extent and application of it--but it remains a very important biblical point: namely, that the only legitimate manner of worship, declaration of doctrine, or practice of church order is that which is contained in Holy Scripture. The way the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it is valuable: "The acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture" (WCF 21:1).

And this "regulative principle," importantly, comes after the chapter on liberty of conscience. Our confessions rightly say that "God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray to liberty of conscience" (WCF 20:2). The Triune God is King over each individual's conscience; that conscience is bound by the Word of God; and the church may only prescribe (or proscribe) what Scripture does.

All of this brings us to the question of the priority of using church calendar itself. While I am aware that some would make a biblical argument for using the church calendar based on the OT development of sacrifical feast days (an argument that is not convincing to me), I would suggest that what we have for our place in the redemptive, biblical drama is actually a rhythym of 52 feasts days a year--the Lord's Day in which Word, Sacraments, and prayer constitute the heart of the church's "calendar." This, I believe, is what we find prescribed in God's Word, both by apostolic practice and direction. For a Presbyterian church to move beyond this--whether to demand attendance at Wednesday night activities as part of Christian discipleship or to offer Lenten observance as part of the church's discipleship practices, placing ashes on people's foreheads as part of this--binds the conscience in ways that are "beside" the express command of Scripture itself and hence, spiritually illegitimate and potentially dangerous

And as Luther himself said, the only safe place for the conscience is anchored in God's Word: "Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason--for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves--I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one's conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me. Amen." What we want are believers whose consciences are captive not to the church, nor its traditions, nor the good ideas of pastors, sessions, or other leaders. We want their and our consciences captive to God's Word--because that is the only safe and sound place to be.

The Downside (?!) of Literal Translation

Probably most readers of this blog know the inter-nicene debates that have driven Bible translation over the past 125 years or so (since the Revised Version came out in 1881). The defenders of a more "literal equivalence" or "word-for-word" translation have attacked those who have sought a more "dynamic equivalence" in moving from the original Hebrew or Greek to English.

But perhaps you (and certainly I) have never thought about how these debates play out with the classical Greek and Latin texts as represented by the 500 or so texts in the Loeb Classical Library. This article in the New York Times from 2000 explains some of the, a-hem, updating of the translations and this example from the Loeb Classical Library page makes it all the more, ahh, explicit.

Now my real interest here is to get at the larger issues of translation--I would suspect that most evangelicals would be shocked to read the "glories" of Greece and Rome in such bawdy baldness (and especially those who point to the classical period as foundational for young people's education). And yet, what the Loeb is doing seems to me to be the proper application of a more "literal" approach to translation--translating the vulgar slang of one culture into the vulgar slang of another (Robert Fagles does much the same in his translations of Homer).

On the other hand, it is always a bit shocking to read the "f-bomb" in any piece of literature, especially classical ltierature. And it makes you wonder whether there was a good reason why these texts have held interest only for a small number of classics scholars. Perhaps the Victorian paraphraistic approach was okay here--to communicate dynamically may have avoided offense that could come from the homoeroticism of the ancient texts while still communicating what needed to be said.

And so, perhaps the literal equivilence approach is winning the day, both in biblical and classical translation. Yet, I wonder if such "R-rated" translations might tell us more than we needed to know about the ancient times. In the end, maybe the Loeb Classics should have a "parents-advisory" label; if it works for Eminem, maybe it should work for Aristophanes.

Your church's website...

...probably stinks. At least, that is my take after visiting literally hundreds of church websites over the past two years. This article was fascinating in two regards: 1) that someone could actually write a PhD dissertation on church websites; 2) that her main suggestion was that links communicate far more than text on a website.

I think that last point is probably right. However, most church websites don't have much in the way of text or links; and they certainly aren't crafted with a seeker or potential visitor in view. How to communicate the ethos of a church, especially to a millennial/X-er seeker, continues to allude most churches (and other organizations, including seminaries, for that matter).

A couple o' links

One of my former teachers, Sam Logan, is now a faculty member and special counsel to the seminary president at Biblical Seminary.

This was a fascinating article on church discipline in the Wall Street Journal (HT: JT).

Carl Trueman on evangelicalism

Brilliant. Again. The key section:

I refuse the binary opposition which makes me either an evangelical first, last and only; or a denominationalist who sits in his study taking supercilious potshots at those who do their best to share the gospel with those who need to hear it. Bog standard evangelicalism: I love it; I owe almost everything to it; and I am saddened at the way it has slowly but surely been evacuated of all of its basic and beautiful theology by those who are interested in drawing pay checks and power from its institutions, and performing on its stages, while at the same time dripping spittle on its theological heritage, from the doctrine of the Trinity to justification by grace through faith as understood by the Protestant confessional consensus to basic biblical teaching on homosexuality. And, of course, the problem with these charlatans is not simply a lack of theology; it is a lack of integrity.

The Rich Get Richer, no. 2

The Mets apparently land Johann Santana from the Twins in exchange four prospects. This hurts worse than Duke Divinity School getting all that money.

The Rich Get Richer, no. 1

Duke Divinity School gets $14 million for a new program on sustaining leaders.

Tony Dungy's Back

While the Colts fan in me rejoiced that Tony Dungy's coming back for another season as head coach, Bob Kravitz's column in today's Indianapolis Star raises some good questions--is Dungy being hypocritical in trying to commute between Indianapolis and Tampa to make his family's life work? Of course, one could ask the question whether being a head coach of a NFL team--a demanding position that has twice forced Joe Gibbs into retirement and seems to have wrecked havoc in Andy Reid's family--is really conducive to being a good father, period.

Southern Baptist Evangelists on "Calvinism"

I thought this was an interesting article for two reasons: 1) the article claims that LifeWay Research suggests that 29% of recent SBC seminary grads self-identify as Calvinists; 2) the evangelists are bother both by Calvinism and "Willow Creek-style evangelism" (whatever that is).

What I think these brothers should really be concerned about is that their style of "mass evangelism" is going the way of the buggy whip, eight-track cassette, and floppy disk.

When 29% of all Covenant Seminary grads plant churches as the most effective means of evangelism, and when the PCA has 160 mission churches in existence at any one time, what is suggests is that Calvinists (or at least Presbyterian Calvinists) "do evangelism," but they evangelize in connection with the local church and new church development. It would be interesting to see if these figures (and rationales) are similar for these recent SBC seminary grads.

Sad Times

As readers of this blog know, I am an Indianapolis Colts fan and a huge Scott Rolen fan. That's why the past weekend was so sad: first to see the Colts throw and fumble away a chance to play their eternal nemeses, the Pats and Captain Hoody; then to receive the final news that the Cardinals have traded away Rolen to the Toronto Blue Jays for Troy Glaus.

The Colts' loss was inexplicable to me on so many levels--they dominated the game on the offensive side of the ball, but repeatedly failed to punch it into the end zone; they came in with the 3rd best pass defense in the NFL and let Billy Volek beat them on the final drive; they wasted an excellent game from Peyton when their receivers couldn't manage to catch key passes (looking at you, Dallas Clark).

The Rolen trade was more excplicable, but only on the level of the Rolen-LaRussa feud. This is the second time Rolen has been traded because he couldn't get along with the manager (in Philly, it was Larry Bowa). While these managers seem to bear a similar personality type (i.e. hard-charging, no-nonesense, pain in the, um, necks), still Rolen's job is to go out and play. To lose a defensive player of Rolen's ability is going to be larger than my favorite Cards website thinks. Glaus has not exactly been the man of steel throughout his career either (although he has a little help from Mr. Ste' Roid at times); how will the Cards feel about playing Brendan Ryan at 3rd for a good chunk of the season if/when Glaus goes down? Granting the same concerns about Rolen, still the devil you know...

The Pyramid of Success?

This news demonstrates that the NCAA has simply way too much time on their hands. Perhaps they'll investigate me next.

Should be children be taught to pray?

This is an interesting set of reflections from John Piper. They actually strike me as providing a pretty strong case for applying the sign of the covenant (baptism) to a child.

After all, if you are going to 1) admit that you cannot know when a child is regenerate; and 2) treat the child as though they have covenant responsibilities which arise from belonging to a Christian family (or in Piper's language "treat them as a believer"); then 3) applying the sign of entrance into the covenant community (i.e. baptism), a sign that authenticates (or "seals") God's gospel promises for him and invites him to respond by faith, makes a whole lot of biblical sense.

Most influential biographies

Michael Haykin has posted an interesting thought exercise. I thought it was interesting how similar and how different some of our choices would be. Here is my list of nine (in order):

1. D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith (an intellectual biography of J. Gresham Machen)
2. Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography.
3. Andrew Dallimore, George Whitefield, 2 vols.
4. Iain Murray, D. Martryn Lloyd-Jones, 2 vols.
5. J. I. Robertson, Jr., Stonewall Jackson.
6. Michael Hall, The Last American Puritan (a biography of Increase Mather)
7. Rudolph Nelson, The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind (an intellectual biography of E. J. Carnell)
8. H. G. C. Moule, Charles Simeon
9. A. T. Robertson, Life and Letters of John A. Broadus

It is interesting to me that I couldn't, in good conscience, listed a number of academic biographies that I enjoyed, but that didn't impact me (I'm thinking here particularly of Harry Stout's A Divine Dramatist and George Marsden's Jonathan Edwards: A Life). Since I've read all the books I've listed multiple times, I would consider these my most impactful, influential, and important. And I still believe that D. G. Hart's biography on Machen is simply the finest book I have ever read--a model intellectual biography in every sense of the word.

Huh?

What exactly is a "liberal feminist brand of evangelical Anglicanism?"

HT: Carl Trueman

Good news...

...appears on my alma mater's (Westminster Seminary; not the other one) website. My friend, Carl Trueman, has been confirmed (canonized? condemned? We report; you decide) as Vice President for Academic Affairs. As you can tell from his summary statement, we expect his future memoirs will be titled, "Carl Trueman: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man."

Pride and Prejudice

They say confession is good for the soul. Okay, here it goes--this weekend, feeling exhausted by the end of the semester and somewhat blue because of the nasty gray whether, I spent most of Saturday reading (and finishing at 2:30 in the morning) Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I had an excellent annontated version that really helped to explain what was going on (and spoil most of the ending before I got there, so that I didn't feel much agnst--which, as my wife, would say is a good thing). I must say, though, that I was just about ready to strangle Mrs. Bennett (Elizabeth's mother), who had to be the most annoying character on the face of the planet.

Jeffersonians All

As always, Darryl Hart gives a provocative take on Romney's speech--and what it says about religion in a (secular) democracy.

Even with all the freezing rain...

...it is still a good day. Yesterday, for only the fourth time in the last thirteen tries, the Cream and Crimson defeated the Blue forces of darkness and evil.

Prince Caspian

Very cool trailer.

[HT: JT]

Dashboard confessional

For those who care to read this interview that I did with Martin Downes on "the Fight of Faith," you can read part one and part two. There should be a couple of more parts coming.

A final justification by works?

From John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, ed. Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor (Crossway, 2007), 263:

"But the works we do after we received Christ are of another consideration. Indeed, they are acceptable to God; it pleases him that we should walk in them. But as to that end for which we receive Christ, they are of no other account than the former. Even the works we do after believing--those which we are created unto in Christ Jesus, those that God has ordained that believers 'should walk in them'--as to justification and acceptance with God (here called salvation) are excluded. It will one day appear that Christ abhors the janglings of men about the place of their own works and obedience, in the business of their acceptation with God; nor will the saints find any peace in adulterous thoughts of that kind."

The Primary Emphasis of Scripture

One claim being made today is that the primary emphasis in Scripture is not on the individual, but on the corporate nature of the people of God. In that regard, it is interesting to hear James Bannerman, the 19th century professor of divinity at New College, Edinburgh:

"In its primary and most important aspect, indeed, the revelation of God contained in the Bible is a revelation to me individually. its discoveries of sin and announcements of judgment, its intimations of grace and its proclamations of a Savior, its offer of an atoning blood to expiate, and a regenerating Spirit to purge, transgression,--these are addressed to me individually; and if I deal with them at all, I must deal with them as if there was no other in the world except myself and God. Alone with God, I must realize the Bible as if it were a message from Him to my solitary self, singled out and separated from other men, and feeling my own individual responsibility in receiving or rejecting it.

"But the Bible does not stop there: it deals with man, not only as a solitary unit in his relation to God, but also as a member of a spiritual society, gathered together in the name of Jesus. It is not a mere system of doctrines to be believed and precepts to be observed by each individual Christian independently of others and apart from others: it is a system of doctrines and precepts, designed and adapted for a society of Christians...

"There are precepts in the Bible addressed, not to believers separately, but to believers associated together into a corporate society; there are duties that are enjoined upon the body, and not upon the members of which it is composed; there are powers assigned to the community, to which the individuals of the community are strangers; there is a government, an order, a code of laws, a system of ordinances and officers described in Scripture, which can apply to none other than a collective association of Christians. Without the existence of a Church, or of a body of believers, as contradistinguished from believers individually, very much of what is contained in the Bible would be unintelligible, and without practical application" (James Bannerman, The Church of Christ, vol. 1, p. 2).

Biblical Presbyterianism--biblical Christianity generically for that matter--recognizes and holds together the great need for individuals to "close with Christ" and to enjoy "communion with him" while also affirming that the religion of the Bible puts us together with other believers who are united to Jesus in a common body called Church. And yet, the priority, the emphasis, is on individuals' response of faith to the glorious God who has shone in their hearts with the knowledge of his glory in the face of Jesus.

Poor man's James Bond

I don't know. He should have gone to Glamour Shots...

Indelible Grace V

I was completely jazzed to get the new Indelible Grace V: Wake Thy Slumbering Children in the mail today. I think I've gotten the last several albums (as well as the Matthew Smith and Sandra McCracken albums) as soon as they've been released. What I've always appreciated about my friend Kevin Twit and his co-laborers is their on-going endeavor to make the theology and piety of hymnody accessible to this generation.

But I've also appreciated how they have helped me worship. One of the major turning points of my life was at the 2003 General Assembly. Up to that point, I held a perspective on worship that was, well, fairly rigid and starchy. I came by it honestly--through my time with very Reformed Baptists and then hanging with Old School Presbyterian types. And there was a great deal of truth in what this sojourn taught me. The only problem was that I hadn't actually worshipped, truly worshipped with my heart engaged with God, in a long time.

Until the Thursday service at that General Assembly, when Kevin led a small, acoustic IG ensemble and Tim Keller preached. Singing "Arise, my soul, arise" engaged my heart with God in ways that had been long missed. Here was not mere, superficial contemporary music (which Al Mohler once described as "one word, two notes, three hours") and yet it was not funeral dirge hymnody either--rather, the beauty of hymnody was married to accesible and modern tunes in such a way that my mind and heart engaged with God's Truth and God himself.

And really, I'll never be the same--both my view of worship (and the "worship wars") and my view of God's love and grace were changed that day. That is why I am eager for these modern hymns to continue to pervade our church and others as well--so that Christians will learn the grammar of faith and piety for the good of their souls and the glory of the King.

Divine Light, Holy Heat, no. 3

Part one
Part two

The Minister’s Goal
The reason why the preaching of God’s Word was so vital was that the Spirit used the Word to stir the holy affections of God’s people. Reflecting on Luke 24, Edwards observed that when Christ “opened to them the sacred scriptures, he was insisting on the great things that are found written in the word of God”; it was this “delightful discourse to the disciples” that caused a “burning of their hearts within them” which was “a sensation sweet.” This inward burning represented a “spiritual sense of the truth of divine things,” a “spiritual conviction” of God’s excellency and glory. And while private reading of God’s Word could prove to be “a lively word to the saints [that] has light and heat in it to them,” it is particularly the preaching of God’s Word that produces this effect: “God’s people sometimes set under the preaching of the Word with ardent and enflamed hearts; there is sometimes a sweet inward ardency of mind under the hearing of the Word. The soul seems as it were to drink in the words of the minister as they come from his mouth, one sentence after another touches their hearts and things are alive, the heart is kindled, there is an inward warmth, the heart is fixed and the affections are active.”
This stirring of the affections toward heightened delight in and love for God is the minister’s goal. It was not merely a riling of the emotional state of the hearers. Rather, “all affections are raised either by light in the understanding, or by some error and delusion in the understanding.”

As the light of God’s Word appealed to the believer’s understanding through preaching, God’s Spirit used his Word to raise the affections. Light and heat must go together in the believer’s heart: “our people don’t so much need to have their heads stored, as to have their hearts touched; and they stand in the greatest need of that sort of preaching that has the greatest tendency to do this.” Indeed, “holy affections are not heat without light; but evermore arise from some information, some spiritual instruction the mind receives, some light or actual knowledge.” The ministry of the Word conveys to the mind “the subject matter of this saving instruction,” which was vital for genuine affections.

Yet Edwards well knew that ministers themselves could not produce genuine affections in the hearts of their people; this was solely the work of God’s Spirit: “This inward burning of the heart that we speak of is the exercise of grace in the heart and therefore must be that which is of an holy nature; ’tis the breathing and acting of the Spirit of God in the heart and therefore it must needs be holy and pure.” Such should send both minister and people to prayer, asking the Spirit of God to use his Word to produce spiritual fruit: “a people in such a case cry earnestly to that glorious Sun who is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of his person, who is full of light and divine heat, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and is more full of spiritual light and of grace than the sun is of light.”

Just as a congregation needed to pray for the Spirit to warm their hearts, the minister did as well. When a minister sought the Spirit’s assistance in preaching, he did not receive “immediate suggesting of words to the apprehension, which may be with a cold dead heart.” Rather, the Spirit’s assistance came “by warming the heart and filling it with a great sense of those things that are to be spoken of, and with holy affections, that that sense and those affections may suggest words.”

For it was the Spirit who used his Word, preached by a minister whose own affections were moved, to grant a “true sense of the divine excellency of the things revealed in the Word of God, and a conviction of the truth and reality of them, thence arising.” This happened, as Edwards would later put it in Religious Affections, when “the Spirit of God in his spiritual influences on the hearts of his saints, operates by infusing or exercising new, divine and supernatural principles; principles which are indeed a new and spiritual nature.”

This spiritual influence, which was nothing less than a divine communication, produced “a new inward perception or sensation of their minds” that enables women and men to see and savor the divine excellency of Jesus Christ displayed in his Word. This new sense of the heart caused the believer to “see that God is lovely, and that Christ is excellent and glorious”; such a sight captivated his heart and moved him to delight in Christ’s beauty as “chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely.” This delight and joy led in turn to new practices of holiness that fed continued delight in God’s glory and beauty.

Such divine light and holy heat, such delight and love to God in the lives of God’s people, was the ultimate goal of the ministry of the Word, the very reason for which God granted ministers to his church. Ultimately, like Christ, ministers were sent to expend themselves “for the salvation and happiness of the souls of men.” Called as affectionate husbands, burning and shining lights, hard-working servants, those engaged in the ministry of the Word sought to be used by God’s Spirit to preach God’s Word in such a lively and passionate way that their hearers’ minds and hearts would be moved to delight and rejoice in and ardently love Jesus and others. Such was the nature of salvation and happiness—the glorifying and enjoying of God—to which the Triune God called his people for his own glory and infinite happiness.

Divine Light, Holy Heat, no. 2

Part one

The Minister’s Task
As Edwards conceived it, at the heart of the minister’s task was preaching, the ministry of the Word. If the minister was a servant who washed others’ feet, he did so by preaching: “this is done by the preaching of the word, which is their main business.” In the same way that “priests of old were appointed to blow the silver trumpets, so ministers of the gospel are appointed [to preach the word].” God intended for preaching to accomplish a number of ends: whether serving as “the means God has provided for bringing poor sinners to Christ and salvation by him” or offering correction to false notions of Christianity. Whatever the purpose, Edwards held it as axiomatic that “ministers are set on purpose to explain the word of God, and therefore their people ought to hear them when they offer to explain it to them.”

The substance of the minister’s preaching was God’s Word and not the dictates of human reason. As Edwards put it in 1750, ministers “are to make the word of God their only rule: their business as ministers of Christ is to preach the word of God, and to that end to give themselves to reading and studying the scriptures.” Ministers have been sent on a divine errand; “God has not left it to their discretion what their errand shall be. They are to preach the preaching that he bids them. He has put into their hands a Book containing a summary of doctrine and bids them go and preach that Word.” God’s Word was to be interpreted not through the grid of natural reason, but “the revelation is to be the rule of its own interpretation.”

In fact, the Bible contained “a summary of doctrines already discovered and dictated” to ministers; they were bound “to preach the dictates of God’s infinitely superior understanding, humbly submitting your reason as a learner and disciple to that” Word. And yet, the minister must give to each listener the portion or application of God’s Word that met his or her need. Like a conscientious husbandman, “a faithful minister is careful to give every one his portion of meat and to accommodate his instructions and exhortations to all sorts of persons in all circumstances.”

The minister’s manner of preaching was to be fervent. Edwards believed that ministers “should imitate [Christ] in the manner of his preaching; who taught not as the scribes, but with authority, boldly, zealously, fervently; insisting chiefly on the most important things in religion, being much in warning men of the danger of damnation, setting forth the greatness of the future misery of the ungodly; insisting not only on the outward, but also the inward and spiritual duties of religion.”

This fervent approach to preaching was calculated to stir the affections: “I think an exceeding affectionate way of preaching about the great things of religion,” Edwards noted, “has in itself no tendency to beget false apprehensions of them; but on the contrary a much great tendency to beget true apprehensions of them than a moderate, dull, indifferent way of speaking of ’em.” Such a manner of delivery “has so much the greater tendency to beget true ideas or apprehensions in the minds of the hearers, of the subject spoken of, and so to enlighten the understanding: and that for this reason, that such a way or manner of speaking of these things does in fact more truly represent them, than a more cold and indifferent way of speaking of them.” Divine and glorious truths that should move the soul should move the preacher’s manner of presentation.

Divine Light, Holy Heat, no. 1

[Next Friday, I'll be presenting this paper at the Jonathan Edwards study group during the Evangelical Theological Socieety meetings in San Diego. I thought it might be good to share it here first.]

“‘Tis the excellency of a minister of the gospel to be both a burning and a shining light” was the doctrinal statement of Jonathan Edwards’ second published ordination sermon. Preached in August 1744 for Robert Abercrombie at his ordination and installation as the minister of the congregational church in Pelham, Massachusetts, this sermon served as a rich and important resource for understanding how Edwards thought about the ministry of the Word and its relationship to spiritual formation. The first clue to the sermon’s importance was the theme of “excellency,” which had such an important place in Edwards’ thought. For Edwards, excellency suggested proportion, harmony, equality, consent of the parts to the whole. As philosopher Wallace Anderson noted, excellency served as both a moral and an aesthetic evaluation; and the great example of excellency, morally and aesthetically speaking, was Jesus Christ himself, who brought together seemingly opposite characteristics in perfect harmony and beauty. And so, for a minister to be both morally and aesthetically excellent, he must exemplify in perfect harmony both characteristics of light, both a burning and a shining light. Or as Edwards himself put it, “When light and heat are thus united in a minister of the gospel, it shows that each is genuine, and of a right kind, and that both are divine. Divine light is attended with heat; and so, on the other hand, a truly divine and holy heat and ardor is ever accompanied with light.” The task of ministry was to be both divine light and holy heat for the benefit of the souls of humankind.

Such reflection on the ministerial task was far from unusual for Edwards. Worked out most frequently in ordination sermons, which served as opportunities for public reflection on the ministerial task, he spent a great deal of time pondering his life’s work and especially how the ministry of the Word served “the precious and immortal souls of men committed to their care and trust by the Lord Jesus Christ.” As a preacher of God’s Word, it was not surprising that Edwards believed that the most important means that God has granted to ministers for caring for these souls was the preaching ministry of God’s Word.

However, Edwards thought deeply and repeatedly about how the preaching of God’s Word served to reflect the light of Christ into the very hearts of their parishioners: “ministers are set to be lights to the souls of men in this respect, as they are to be the means of imparting divine truth to them, and bringing into their view the most glorious and excellent objects, and of leading them to, and assisting them in the contemplation of those things that angels desire to look into.” In this way, God used the ministry of his Word to impart a divine and supernatural light to the human heart, moving their affections, transforming their actions, and shaping them to be more like Jesus. Simply put, spiritual formation—or for Edwards, the development of truly holy affections—could not occur without a theologically thoughtful, genuinely pious, and biblically-oriented ministry of the Word.

The Minister’s Calling
That Edwards had a high view of the minister’s calling and task is not surprising; it was an inheritance of colonial New England’s continued appreciation for pastoral ministry as a divine office and calling and not merely a profession. In addition, both his father and grandfather held extremely high views of ministerial calling and authority, regularly doing battle with their congregations in order to insist on ministerial prerogatives and order the weekly rhythms of community and congregational life. While these sources contributed to his understanding, Edwards’ conception of the ministry was also shaped by his own exploration of biblical-theological metaphors.

One powerful complex of images to describe ministerial calling were marital. In an ordination sermon delivered for Samuel Buell in 1746, Edwards teased out the imagery of Isaiah 62:4-5 to suggest that the relationship between the minister and his congregation was modeled upon the marriage union that Christ had with his church. When one was ordained to ministry, he was “espoused” to the church in general—he bore a concern for the church of Christ in general, its interests and welfare, more than he did as a private person. But the minister was espoused to a particular congregation, which Edwards likened to “a young man’s marrying a virgin.” In this union between minister and congregation, there was to be “mutual regard and affection”; both minister and congregation were to attribute the highest and purest motives to one another. Such a relationship should bring great joy, mutual sympathy and helpfulness to minister and people alike. As a husband cared for his wife, Edwards suggested, so a minister should care for his particular church.

In this marital imagery, ministers serve a second role—that of proxy in the marriage between Christ and his bride, the church. “Ministers espouse the church entirely as Christ’s ambassadors,” Edwards noted, “as representing him and standing in his stead, being sent forth by him to be married to her in his name, that by this means she may be married to him.” The union between minister and people “is but a shadow” pointing toward the union that the Christian individually and corporately had with Jesus Christ. And so, in caring for his people, the minister offered not his own care, but the care of Jesus: “All that tender care which a faithful minister takes of his people as a kind of spiritual husband, to provide for them, to lead and feed them, and comfort them, is not as looking upon them [as] his own bride, but his master’s.” Everything a minister did for his people was on Christ’s behalf, drew from Christ’s own love for his bride, and pointed people to Christ as their true husband and lover.

Another set of metaphors that Edwards used to unpack the nature of ministerial calling were among his favorite: light. Ministers are granted God’s Spirit in order to communicate “the golden oil or divine grace to God’s people.” This holy grace would enable God’s people to be lights to a generation that desperately needed to know the source of all good. In fact, ministers were both a “shining light” and a “burning light” for God’s people. In helping ministers picture this, Edwards compared them to stars, noting that “the ministers of Christ are as it were the stars that encompass this glorious fountain of light, to receive and reflect his beams, and give light to the souls of men.” He also used optics to picture the way ministers communicated the light of Christ. Ministers “are called burning and shining lights but they have neither light nor heat any further than as they derive it from the sun of righteousness and can communicate no light nor life nor fruitfulness to their hearers any further than they are made use of as glasses to convey and reflect the beams of the light of the world.”

As burning and shining lights, ministers shone in to “clear divine truths and to refute errors, and to reclaim and correct God’s people wherein in any respect they have been mistaken and have been going out of the way of duty.” And yet there was a continuing need to balance the burning and shining aspects of light—a minister that has light but no heat “entertains his auditory with learned discourses, without a savor of the power of godliness or any appearance of fervency of spirit and zeal for God and the good of souls”; as a result, he may “gratify itching ears and fill the heads of people with empty notions; but will not be very likely to reach their hearts, or save their souls.” On the other hand, a minister that has vehement, intemperate, and zealous heat “will be likely to kindle the like unhallowed flame in his people, and to fire their corrupt passions and affections; but will never make them better, nor lead them a step toward heaven.” If ministers would stir up holy affections in the hearts of their people, they must be shining and burning lights.

A third set of images that Edwards used to describe the ministry focused on ministers as “servants.” As Edwards put it in a sermon on John 13:15-16, “The work and business of ministers of the gospel is as it were that of servants, to wash and cleanse the souls of men.” This meant that ministers must be characterized by the “same spirit of humility and lowliness of heart…the same spirit of heavenly-mindedness and contempt of the glory, wealth and pleasures of this world…the same spirit of devotion and fervent love to God” that characterized Jesus himself. Edwards also compared ministers to farmers or “husbandmen,” pointing out that “ministers of the Gospel are the servants of the owner of the field that are sent forth to sow his seed.” To be a servant or a husbandman is strenuous work: “ministers are not called to be idle, but to labor…the business of a faithful minister tis a business of great and continual labor.”

Because the ministry required “hard labor,” “constant care, or continual oversight,” Edwards called for continued personal formation and spiritual discipline. He laid it down as a basic axiom that “the ministers of Christ ought to be eminently gracious and near to Christ.” This meant that ministers “should have their entire and continual dependence on Christ for all fitness for their work and assistance and success in it.” Abiding and resting in Christ by faith, clinging to his promises, studying his word, continuing in “secret converse with him,” depending on him to bear fruit—all were requirements for pastoral leaders because “they have no light of their own but all is derived from Christ, who is the light of the world, and they can be of no use to enlighten the souls of men unless held up by Christ.”

These disciplines were only possible because ministers experienced genuine grace from God in Christ by the Spirit. Faithful ministers had experienced true grace, which had “an exceeding energy in it. And the reason is, that God is in it; it is a divine principle, a participation of the divine nature, and a communication of divine life, of the life of a risen Savior, who exerts himself in the hearts of the saints.” This genuine grace produced genuine piety, which was “nothing remaining only in the head, or consisting in any speculative knowledge or opinions, or outward morality or forms of religion; it reaches the heart, is chiefly seated there, and burns there. There is a holy ardor in everything that belongs to true grace.” Having the Spirit of Christ indwelling, the minister’s heart “burns with love to Christ, and fervent desires of the advancement of his kingdom and glory; and also with ardent love to the souls of men, and desires for their salvation.”

As a faithful minister grasps the basic metaphors of his calling—affectionate husband, shining and burning light, hardworking servant—as well as the need for him to fan the flame of genuine piety through spiritual disciplines, he would understand that his task was to communicate his delight in and love for Christ to others. As Edwards put it, the minister “is a ‘burning light’; which implies that his spiritual heart and holy ardor is not for himself only, but is communicative and for the benefit of others.” As a public person set apart by Christ for a high and holy calling, the pastoral leader engaged in every duty of ministerial function with an eye toward stirring his people’s hearts toward a passionate love for God.

Book review: On Being Presbyterian

Here is a very friendly review of On Being Presbyterian from Brent Ferry in the OPC's magazine, New Horizons.

My dream for the PCA, no. 5

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Part Three
Part Four

Conclusion: Cruciform friends
I have said already that I’ve learned these things from my friends, many of whom are in this room with us today. And that is where we must return: because at the end of the day, we must develop a sense that life in Christ’s church is life with a community of friends.

I first began thinking about the church as a community of friends through reading Stanley Hauerwas, the Duke theological ethicist. In his essay, “A Testament of Friends,” which was written for a Christian Century series on “how my mind has changed,” Hauerwas observed that the only way he could do his theological task was through the friendship of others who remembered and engaged his work, who demonstrated vital practices of character and community, who lived out of the reality of Christ’s life and resurrection; as he put it, “Friends have taught me how wonderful and frightening it is to be called to serve in God’s kingdom. I began seeking to recover the importance of virtue and the virtues and ended up with the church.” The church as a community of friends is vital for living the Christian life in this world.

Yet friendship is not only vitally important because it sustains us for our life together, but also because it helps us to distinguish our true enemies. The reality is that the world represents a polis, a city, controlled by the true enemy; and without enemies, Hauerwas points out, there is no Christianity. Writing in a festschrift for Jurgen Moltmann, he notes that “God may be using this time to remind the church that Christianity is unintelligible without enemies. Indeed, the whole point of Christianity is to produce the right kind of enemies. We have been beguiled by our established status to forget that to be a Christian is to be made part of an army against armies.” Recognizing once again who are our true enemies is absolutely vital for helping us to see who our true friends are as well.

Now here is the payoff: ultimately, my dream for the PCA is that we learn to live together as friends who are united together against a common enemy, the devil himself who wanders about to harm and destroy (1 Peter 5:8). But if we are going to do this, we must learn to live as cruciform, or cross-formed, friends. Because of all the biblical references to the character of friendship, the most vital is this: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). And I believe his point is clear: “Just as I call you friends and love you to the extent that I would lay down my life for you, so you must call each other friends and be shaped by this same cross-oriented, cross-shaped, laying-down-your-life love. And you can only do this because I have loved you first.”

And so, I believe that at this moment in our history God through Christ by his Spirit is calling you and me to be cruciform friends. Now some may object that the imagery of friendship calls to mind the superficial friendship of acquaintances who are barely involved with one another’s lives. Or friendship, for others, may call to mind affinity groups that are self-chosen, which could lead to a church that unwittingly affirms the homogenous unit principle—a “me church” where everyone is just like me. I would suggest that those who think this way about friendship do not really understand friendship from either the biblical, theological, or even classical point of view.

To help these, perhaps my other favorite writer can help us think about our friendship in terms of a membership within a given placed people. In Wendell Berry’s novel, Jayber Crow, the title character envisions such a community one day after others dropped him off at his barber’s shop that doubled as his home. Jayber relates:

What I saw now was the [Port William] community imperfect and irresolute but held together by the frayed and always fraying, incomplete and yet ever-holding bonds of the various sorts of affection. There had maybe never been anybody who had not been loved by somebody, who had been loved by somebody else and so on and on…It was a community always disappointed in itself, disappointing its members, always trying to contain its divisions and gentle its meanness, always failing and yet always preserving a sort of will toward goodwill. I knew that, in the midst of all the ignorance and error, this was a membership; it was a membership of Port William and of no other place on earth. My vision gathered the community as it never has been and never will be gathered in this world of time, for the community must always be marred by members who are indifferent to it or against it, who are nonetheless its members and maybe nonetheless essential to it. And yet I saw them all as somehow perfected, beyond time, by one another’s love, compassion, and forgiveness, as it is said we may be perfected by grace.

In some ways, my friends, Jayber Crow describes our church. As a particular, placed people, we are held together by imperfect, frayed, incomplete and yet ever-holding bonds of affection, struggling with disappointment in itself and each other, and yet a membership of those who have been loved by somebody who had been loved by somebody else. And this membership, this placed people, rooted in a tradition called Presbyterianism, finds that all of its members—those who are angry, disappointed, longing, and hopeful—are necessary and essential to it. More than acquaintances, more than affinity groups, this is a community that is being perfected by its and Jesus’ own self-giving, dying love. Indeed, it is a community of cruciform friends, teaching each other to be faithfully Presbyterian, evangelically catholic, and biblically missional for God’s glory and the world’s good.

My dream for the PCA, no. 4

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Part Three

In America (and World): Biblically missional
Having said all this, we could be faithfully Presbyterian and evangelically catholic and still not fulfill what God is calling us to be and to do in our generation. That is why my dream is that as a denomination, we would become biblically missional, joining with God in his mission in America and the world.

Of course, “missional” is one of those du jour words, right up there with “emergent/emerging.” For all the controversy some missional folks have caused, there is something profoundly right and biblical about which our missional/emerging friends are reminding us—namely, that God is on a divine mission to redeem his world for his glory; that God demonstrated in the death of his one and only son the great lengths that he would go in order to do this; and that God has brought us into his kingdom at this moment to witness to rulers, authorities, and powers that God is, always has been, and always will be Lord and calls all people everywhere to bow the knee to King Jesus.

And so our task is to join God in his mission by incarnating the Gospel in a variety of contexts, numerous cultural systems and cultural moments all over the world. Our missional friends are reminding those of us who are tempted to be ecclesiastically sectarian, inward, and survivalist that either we join in God’s mission or we live utterly against the grain of what God is doing in his world—which is another way of saying, in disobedience to the Spirit of God.

I must say, I am all for this missional vision. But I want to make sure that as we dream, we keep the modifier “biblically” in place. Because if we are not careful, we can hear the missional call to redeem our present culture by incarnating God’s word in this cultural moment and we can translate it in such a way that it loses the biblical emphasis.

Because, at the end of the day, God did not send us into this world simply to set up orphanages, rebuild houses, do wonderful art, or purify politics. Instead, God sent us into the world to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). Ultimately, redeeming the world happens as God through our witness redeems individuals and families in every nation.

To be sure, that does not mean that “deed ministry” is unimportant. Rather, our deeds of justice and mercy flow from the saving mercy that we have received from God and serve his own merciful purposes in the lives of others. And yet, while Jesus went around doing good—healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead—it is important to recognize that his mission, as he defined it, was this: “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose” (Luke 4:43). Any sense of God’s mission that gets away from this biblical imperative of preaching the good news of God’s kingdom ultimately is not God’s mission. My hope and dream for our church is that as we seek to live in the light of God’s mission for the nations, that we would do so through word and deed, preaching and mercy, for God’s glory.

My dream for the PCA, no. 3

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Part Two

Church: Evangelically catholic
Now, the focus on our Presbyterian identity which many of my friends have taught me could lead to a sectarianism that would sanctify our branch of the Christian tradition as the only true church. I say, could, because strictly speaking the Presbyterian tradition has long recognized the unity of Christ’s church even in its different denominational expressions.

Indeed, Presbyterianism has in its own beliefs, practices, and stories, within its own identity, those resources necessary to move away from the “sectarian temptation” and recognize the church catholic. And this is what I and many others long for: that we as a church would be evangelically catholic.

I’ve chosen this quite deliberately because I believe that our catholicity, our ecumenicity, must be motivated and guided by the Gospel itself; not only this, but our catholicity must serve the Gospel, particularly the Gospel has summarized within our own doctrinal standards. In fact, we cannot be catholic or ecumenical unless we take our own identity seriously, unless we speak out of the locality of our own Presbyterian place within the broader Christian tradition. And yet, this catholicity is evangelical and so forces us outside of ourselves into conversation with all those who name Jesus as Lord, who should be our gospel-believing friends (cf. 1 Cor. 12:3).

Still, we have to face this reality: any type of confessional commitment, with doctrinal particularity, could lead to doctrinal isolation and sectarianism. That has led some, particularly in my own generation, to desire to hold our doctrinal commitments more loosely in order to engage in a broader conversation with other Christian traditions and theologians. The thrust of Jesus’ words in John 17:20-21 weighs heavy on my generation; our temptation is to minimize confessional particularity in order to fulfill Jesus’ ecumenical mandate.

I think this is where lessons, both positive and negative, from our own conservative Presbyterian tradition can help us. As we consider that tradition, we learn that it is only when we thoroughly embrace in our own particular religious identity that any form of genuine, meaningful, productive ecumenical dialogue between confessional communities can occur. Hence, our own deep commitment to the Gospel as articulated by our own tradition is necessary if we are going to be able to listen well to other voices, to determine places of convergence and divergence, and to be a true friend who is willing to wound in order to further genuine friendship (Proverbs 27:9). To be together for the Gospel, we must understand for ourselves what the Gospel is and what it demands of us and the world.

And yet this means that we can’t escape Jesus’ words in John 17 too easily. That is why it is my great hope that our denomination would engage in a joining and receiving or organic union process with other Presbyterian denomination in my lifetime. To me, this is another lesson that comes from thinking through what it means to be evangelically catholic: our Presbyterian articulation of the Gospel in our confessional and connectional commitments, as well as the best aspects of our history, demands that we continue to seek structural oneness where there is doctrinal commonality. As we seek to be evangelically catholic, as we seek to live as friends, we will be motivated and guided by the Gospel to seek to further the oneness of the church within our own branch of Christ’s body.

[One of the footnotes in the section had this: This was true even for a jure divino Presbyterian like Thornwell; see, for example, his “Address to all the churches of Christ,” where he writes, “We are not ashamed to confess that we are intensely Presbyterian. We embrace all other denominations in the arms of Christian fellowship and love, but our own scheme of government we humbly believe to according to the pattern shown in the Mount, and, by God’s grace, we propose to put its efficiency to the test” (Ibid., 463). See also his “Church Boards and Presbyterianism,” in Collected Writings, 4:293-4.]