I am getting way behind on my reading. I am still trying to finish Dave Black's The Jesus Paradigm and hope to finish it tonight. I have a copy of House Church coming by mail and also expect Kevin Deyoung's book Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion to ship tomorrow.
Of course I also notice that I am at 51 blog posts in June, so maybe a little less blogging and a little more reading might be in order...
A post at The Assembling of the Church, Sermon Central, got me thinking about sermons, sermon preparation and participation.
In recent years, I have made something of an idol of the sermon. The longer, the better. The more prep time, the better. Of course the more Reformed, the better. A twenty minute sermon was mailing it in, 45 minutes was adequate and an hour was better. I often stated quite confidently that the entire gathering should be prepping for the sermon. The most qualified man should give the sermon and everyone else should listen. I have long been a fan of expositional preaching. Open the Bible and preach the Bible from the Bible. I still think this is a great way to get into the Word. What I am wondering though is two-fold: should that be the focal point of the local assembly? Should that be something that is a passive monologue, one man preaches every week and the rest sit silently?
This is a hard one for me. I know both from experience and from reading the New Testament that there is not much justification for a “one man show” style of teaching in the Bible. I always look for command and example, is there a command for something or is there an example of something? I don’t see either when it comes to monologue preaching to believers. To unbelievers, sure. But not to the church. Still, I like the predictability of it. You show up and you get a 40 minute sermon like clockwork every week. Nice and tidy. I absolutely am convinced that we need to get into the Bible a lot more than we do currently. At least with lengthy expository sermons people are getting the Word. I am less convinced that it is healthy and Biblical in spite of my own personal bias in favor of lengthy, in-depth expository monologue sermons. I have to wonder if it is healthy, healthy for one man to do all of the preaching and for the rest of the people to be passive observers. It is little wonder that so many Christians have become spiritually atrophied and so many pastors are burned out.
The other thing that I started thinking about was not just that the sermon is the focal part of the weekly service, but how much time and effort is invested into that sermon in the week leading up to the Sunday service. One of the most unquestionable features of the contemporary church is the professional, vocational paid pastor who spends a sizable chunk of their week in sermon preparation.
Ligon Duncan, in an article for 9 Marks, came to the number of eight hours per sermon in prep time being appropriate. If a “full-time” pastor preaches two unique sermons on Sunday, that would mean that adequate prep time is 16 hours per week. In the spirit of full disclosure, I was not and am not an eight hours of preparation per sermon kind of guy. I normally would read over the text several times during the week, jot down notes as they came to me and assemble the final product on Saturday night. I spent even less prep time on Sunday evening sermons, usually just a rough outline of the text. Oddly (or perhaps not) I think that the Sunday evening sermons were “better” than the Sunday morning sermons I spent more prep time on. I was working a full-time job when I was also a bi-vocational pastor, so I often jotted notes during the day and worked on ideas on my laptop at lunch. I often thought it would be wonderful to be like my “full-time” brothers who had so much more time available to prepare a sermon each week.
Again, at the risk of further alienating my fellow Reformed believers, is it the most appropriate use of funds to pay a pastor to spend 2 or more days a week sequestered in their office preparing for a 45 minute monologue sermon on Sunday morning? To be a pastor in many churches means having a seminary degree with classes on preaching, owning lots of commentaries, reading books on preaching, attending seminars on preaching. There is a ton of focus on sermons because sermons are the focus of the gathering of the church. It sounds great to the ears, a firm commitment to verse by verse expository preaching by a man with seminary training. I don’t think it is as faithful to the Scriptures unfortunately.
So what is the alternative? I fancy myself to be a pretty good teacher and one of the things I really strive to do is draw people into conversation when I teach. Make them think, encourage them to participate. The best Sunday school classes I have taught were the ones where I spoke the least, where my role was to draw people into the conversation. The least effective were the lectures where I did all of the talking. I liked the lessons where I spoke the most because the focus was on me, but I also know that people learned more when they participated more. In spite of that, I then turned around and gave a monologue sermon because that was just what I was supposed to do. Why? Just because that is what pastors do, they preach in the second half of the service. I daresay I am far more effective in teaching when I am leading a group that is all participating than standing up front and talking for 45 minutes.
Last Sunday, as we gathered for the Lord's Supper, we met in the room around the table of bread and wine as we do every week. No one has a liturgy or even a program. No one is leading. Every man in the room is welcome to share as he is led, whether in prayer, or requesting a hymn or opening up the Word. It is unscripted and open, just a room of redeemed sheep edifying, praying, uplifting one another. Sometimes there is silence for several minutes, quiet reflection and prayer. Gasp! It is uncomfortable for me, I want something to fill in the silence. I crave that order and predictability. Participatory meetings are not orderly in the sense we think of in the contemporary church structure. They are not disorderly per se, but when we think of “orderly” we are thinking programmed, scheduled, regimented, regulative, liturgical, “order of worship”. I think Paul’s concern was less that we had a bulletin to follow and more that meetings not be chaotic.
This is not to demean preaching. I love preaching, I love to listen to preaching and I love to preach! Preaching is eminently Biblical. Teaching is eminently Biblical. A monologue sermon preceded by days of preparation? Not so much. What is becoming clear to me is that often the brother who works a regular job, has no theological training and is just praying or opening the Word has far more meaningful things to say than the famous preacher who spends his week preparing for a sermon. Singing a song extemporaneously is more meaningful than singing a battery of songs selected beforehand or watching a choir performing on stage. Prayer from different men as they are led is often more meaningful than one guy praying on behalf of the rest of the room. We need to examine our church practices from Scripture and ask ourselves if they are truly fulfilling the spirit and letter of what we see in the Word or if they are merely manmade inventions designed to replace what Scripture commands and describes. As I try to do that, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of realizing that I have been wrong about the gathering of God’s people for a very long time.
Bob Gonzalez is starting an interesting series on recovering family worship at the RBS Tabletalk blog. Looks like an interesting series. Check it out!
Top Five Reasons Not to Send Your Kids Back to Govt. School
Just a great post, I encourage you to read it. Here is a sample that I just loved:
Jesus made it quite clear when he said, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Matthew 12:30 ESV) I am amazed at how many Christians refuse to acknowledge this fact as it relates to the government school system. Our education is either based on biblical truth, or some other truth. There is no such thing as neutrality in this regard. All education is religious in nature. Since it is illegal for students in our government schools to be taught from a Christian perspective, then it follows that they must be taught from a non (or anti) Christian perspective.
As Hodge pointed out, the result of non-Christian education is anti-Christian education. Government schools must be anti-Christian. They can be nothing else. Therefore, to send a child to a government school is to have them trained in an anti-Christian environment for 14,000 instructional hours. To get that much instruction from church a child would have to attend two hours a week for one hundred and forty years!
Voddie is da man!
I read a very thought provoking editorial in the Wall Street Journal today. The editorial Why Sunday School are closing looks at the decline of Sunday schools in local churches and ponders why this is happening. I think the writer, Charlotte Hays, makes some interesting points but ultimately the decline in Sunday school is not because of high rates of divorce or kids raised on video games. I do think she hit on some of the issues without even realizing it. For example, I think this is very telling :
Dubbed in Protestant circles "the greatest lay movement since Pentecost," Sunday school traveled across the pond in the 1790s, eventually becoming the Protestant norm here. By my own childhood, Sunday school was taken for granted. Catholics relied on parochial schools and special weekday classes to teach the faith, but Protestants had Sunday school.
The key is right there. Sunday school was taken for granted with nary a thought as to why or even if we should have it and parents became reliant on Sunday school to pass the faith on to their kids. Any wonder we lose most kids after high school? An hour or two at church is not going to offset years of parental neglect and secular humanism coming from the school system.
That is all too true as I have railed about before. The problem is multifold, but I think at its core it is an issue of mission creep. What is the point of Sunday school and other church programs directed at youth ( I am lumping them all together here)? Is it and should it be the place of the Sunday School to teach children the faith? We have become reliant on the local church body to do what we should be doing as parents, raising our kids in the faith. That is not the job of a local church organization, it is the responsibility of the parent. The local church can help but it cannot replace, but by and large that is what has happened.
These issue go way beyond just Sunday school. The problem is rampant in virtually all of the programs for kids (not least of which because the Gospel is not a program). Sunday school and VBS and youth groups try to do two things simultaneously, evangelize unbelieving children and disciple believing kids. In trying to do two things at once, they have failed at both because they don’t do either one very well.
VBS/Sunday School/Youth (hereafter SS/VBS/YG) has degenerated into fun and games with a very watered down “Gospel” presentation and a bunch of thinly veiled moralizing (this is not the case universally but it is the case in the vast majority of Protestantism). The more kids show up, the more “decisions” from kids who will never come to church, the more frivolous and silly the events, the better. Read the New Testament and show me an example of the Gospel message being presented in a frivolous, silly way to make it more fun for kids? Veggietales are OK for teaching kids to be nice to one another but not to hear the Gospel. Where do we get off, how dare we trivialize the Gospel that has the power to save souls from hell by turning it into a lowest common denominator summer time activity? Believing kids are not being discipled in SS/VBS/YG, they are being entertained. Entertainment is fine, but not when it is supposed to be discipleship. Youth activities are perhaps the worst offenders with stuff going on that would be inappropriate in a secular setting much less when led by adults who should know better or who have abdicated authority to the children. Even Sunday school aimed at teaching believing kids is often trite and moralistic instead of Gospel driven and Scripture saturated.
On the other hand, kids who are not believers are given a message that doesn’t challenge them in their sins. The local church provides free babysitting for a couple of days or one night a week and the parents are unlikely to ever bring them back. Even kids who “make a decision”, which Eric Carpenter pointed out is one of the main benchmarks for success, are unlikely to come again. Wonder why you get 100 kids at VBS and not one shows up later? We aren't losing the kids who "got saved" at VBS because they never were saved in the first place. They made a "decision" as an emotional response but their hearts were not changed. The Gospel is tough, it has some sharp edges but filing those edges down to make it easier to swallow isn't doing anyone a favor. It is preaching "another Gospel" and is anathema. It is also all to often business as usual in local evangelical churches.
Something else I found interesting about this editorial was this comment:
The decline in Sunday schools appears to be gradual but steady… And the future does not look bright: Only 15% of ministers regarded Sunday school as a leading concern. The younger the pastor, the study showed, the less emphasis he placed on Sunday school.
Think that perhaps has something to do with younger pastors having a fresher memory of their own experiences in SS/VBS/YG? If you are a young pastor with vivid memories of how little you got out of Sunday school, why would you want to encourage it?
If we want to evangelize kids, then lets evangelize them. Not by a backdoor, slip them the Gospel when they aren’t looking approach but by lovingly and boldly preaching Christ and Him crucified. We aren't being faithful to the Great Commission by getting kids to sign cards only to have them never show any signs of regeneration.
If we want to disciple our kids, let’s call on parents to do just that. It is my job to raise my kids in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Not Carriage Hill Bible Chapel where we go every Sunday. Not the Lutheran church down the road holding VBS next week. It is my job and I will not be able to blame someone else if I fail in that responsibility. The local church should equip parents and help them and encourage them, absolutely yes. Replace them with Sunday school and youth groups, no. Sunday school and VBS and youth groups can have a place but they cannot be all things to all people crammed into one hour a week. They cannot effectively evangelize without the Evangel. They can supplement but never replace Christian education in the home. It is not the job of the church to raise our kids and teach them. That is the job of Christian parents, no matter what our church traditions say. That is never the stated intent of SS/YG/VBS, but in reality that is what has happened. This is one of those cases where the church needs to step aside and call people out instead of trying to fill in the gap. In trying to help, for the best of motivations, the church has actually done great harm.
One of them is the tendency of some of the old guard in the Southern Baptist convention to use the spotlight to advance their vendetta against Calvinism. This year had the spectacle of Morris H. Chapman, from the SBC Executive Committee making the following comment:
The Southern Baptist Convention is experiencing a resurgence in the belief that divine sovereignty alone is at work in salvation without a faith response on the part of man.
Some are given to explain away the “whosoever will” of John 3:16. How can a Christian come to such a place when Ephesians says, “For by grace are you saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8)? I do not rise to become argumentative, or to change minds already convinced of one perspective or the other. But I do rise to state the obvious. Man is often tempted to design a theological theory in light of a biblical antinomy in order to clarify what God is trying to say.
Man’s system will be inferior to God’s system now and forever. Why is it so difficult to accept from God what we cannot fully explain? After all, He didn’t begin to tell us everything He knows, but what we need to know to be redeemed and live righteously. The belief that sovereignty alone is at work in salvation is not what has emboldened our witness and elevated our concern for evangelism and missions through the ages. This is not the doctrine that Southern Baptists have embraced in their desire to reach the world for Christ.
If there is any doctrine of grace that drives men to argue and debate more than it drives them to pursue lost souls and persuade ALL MEN to be reconciled to God – then it is no doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man both are taught in the Bible. Both are necessary elements in the salvation experience. A healthy tension (an antinomy) exists in the Bible with regard to these two important biblical truths. Both are present in the salvation experience.
Egad! I haven't heard such ridiculous rhetoric and blatant caricatures since the last time Ergun Caner embarrassed himself by attacking the sovereignty of God in salvation. I love that Mr. Chapman quotes the first half of Ephesians 2:8 and not the second half. Pretty convenient, check out the whole verse with the second half in bold:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, (Eph 2:8)
I always get a kick out of people using verses to attack Calvinism that in reality support one or more of the five points. Even the faith you have is not found in yourself, or your righteousness, or your piety or your "decision to ask Jesus into your heart". The faith that any Christian possesses is a gift from God, sovereignly enacted through the regeneration of our stony hearts, making those who were dead in our sins (Eph 2:1) and enemies of God (Eph 2:3) reconciled to His Son. It is fun to see what happens when you actually read a verse in it's entirety and in it's context instead of plucking it out to make a point.
I like the plain spoken way Tom Ascol referred to these remarks:
It may be that the anti-Calvinist messenger was emboldened in his opposition by the foolish remarks of the president and chief executive officer of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee, Morris H. Chapman which were made earlier in the day during his report.
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Dr. Chapman's comments were out of place and sounded more like the incendiary rhetoric of years past than the more respectful kinds of exchanges that have tended to characterize the Calvinist debates since the Building Bridges Conference in 2007.
Amen Tom! Foolishness should be called what it is.
Is it obsessive-compulsive of me to notice that I am at the bottom of Alan's blog roll because I haven't posted in a day and I feel compelled to post something so I move back near the top?
I think I need professional help...
In a follow-up to the issue of egalitarianism below in the post, An Issue of Gender, I came across a great blog post from the Council On Biblical Manhood and Womanhood titled: Spirit-Gifting and Ministry in the Church.
The author of the post I was originally referring to made a statement to the effect that the ability of women to teach, perhaps better than men, is evidence that God intended for them to teach. Why would God give them this ability and then deny them? The CBMW post I reference above makes a great point:
In her recent book Gifted to Lead, Nancy Beach makes the following statement:No mistake was made in heaven when God gave you the gift of leadership or teaching. Every gift you have came from the hand of a loving Father who crafted you.
When taken apart from her egalitarian beliefs, this statement elicits complete agreement. I also believe that God does not make mistakes when he gives gifts to believers. I further agree that God intends believers to exercise those gifts, to his glory and for the good of the church.
But I would also add this statement to Beach's:No mistake was made in heaven when God authored the qualifications in Scripture concerning the exercising of spiritual gifts. Every gift you have been given should be exercised according to the qualifications laid down by your wise and loving Father.
What I tried to capture with that statement is the fact that the Bible places limits on how and when spiritual gifts can be exercised. Beach and other egalitarians seem to miss this point. Christians certainly receive spiritual gifts from the Father, but that fact does not mean that Christians can exercise those gifts however they please. In a variety of contexts, the Bible places qualifications on the exercising of spiritual gifts.
God indeed doesn't make mistakes in gifting. God also does not make mistakes when He laid down qualifications for excercising gifts in the Body.
In the news today…
Sarkozy Says Burqas 'Not Welcome' in France
PARIS -- President Nicolas Sarkozy lashed out Monday at the practice of wearing the Muslim burqa, insisting the full-body religious gown is a sign of the "debasement" of women and that it won't be welcome in France.
The French leader expressed support for a recent call by dozens of legislators to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment in France.
In the first presidential address in 136 years to a joint session of France's two houses of Parliament, Mr. Sarkozy laid out his support for a ban even before the panel has been approved -- braving critics who fear the issue is a marginal one and could stigmatize Muslims in France.
"In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," Mr. Sarkozy said to extended applause in a speech at the Chateau of Versailles, southwest of Paris.
"The burqa is not a religious sign, it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement -- I want to say it solemnly," he said. "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."
This is flat out dangerous. France is a modern nation, in existence for hundreds of years. This seems so out of place in a free democracy. It also makes me think of my wife. She covers her head in public. Will that be outlawed? Will headcoverings have to go underground? It seems a bit of a leap but that is how this sort of thing starts. Grab the easiest mark and then incrementally make changes. I am sure many people (including many in the church) look at the practice of Christian women covering their heads and see it as oppressive even though headcovering is expressly commanded in the Bible and was the practice among Christians for centuries. Even though my wife covers her head voluntarily, I can imagine the argument that would say she is conditioned to do so or secretly forced by the oppressive patriarchy of Christianity and that banning headcoverings is for her own good even if she doesn’t realize it.
I don’t care for the wearing of burqas. On the other hand, it makes me more than a bit uneasy that a Western democracy is contemplating legislation to ban the wearing of a garment, especially one singled out because of religious implications. They have already banned some attire in France…
France enacted a law in 2004 banning the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, sparking fierce debate at home and abroad.
Granted France is not America (in that we don’t generally allow the Germans to invade our country periodically) but there are many Americans who look across the pond to Europe and see what they wish America would become. Are we headed for a future where there is rampant, state approved immorality but where outward expressions of religious belief are banned? That seems alarmist but look at the pace of societal collapse we are experiencing now. There are plenty of busybodies who would applaud France for banning burqas and would like to see the same thing here.
In a ridiculous and meaningless gesture, the elected representatives of this country apologized on my behalf as an American for slavery. The impotency of this gesture is highlighted by the Oval Office being occupied by a black man. What makes this even more interesting was a quote in the Washington Post’s report on this event.
Even among proponents of a congressional apology, reaction to yesterday's vote was mixed. Carol M. Swain, a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University who had pushed for the Bush administration to issue an apology, called the Democratic-controlled Senate's resolution "meaningless" since the party and federal government are led by a black president and black voters are closely aligned with the Democratic party.
"The Republican Party needed to do it," Swain said. "It would have shed that racist scab on the party."
So in other words, she is not calling for America to apologize for slavery, she is calling for Republicans to apologize for slavery. Apparently America is only “racist” when Republicans are in power.
As James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal pointed out in his “Best of the Web” column, not only is this gesture meaningless but Professor Swain conveniently ignores historical facts when making her assertion.
The Republican Party came into existence in the 1850s as an antislavery party. It was the first GOP president, Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, ordering slaves in Confederate states freed. Republican Congresses proposed the 13th Amendment, along with the 14th (granting former slaves citizenship and equal protection under the law) and the 15th (giving them the right to vote). Republicans pushed for Reconstruction only to be thwarted by Democrats.
Segregationists remained a core component of the Democratic coalition well into the 20th century. No Democratic president before Harry S. Truman made any significant moves to expand civil rights for blacks; and although President Lyndon B. Johnson was instrumental in pushing the Civil Rights Act through Congress, a greater proportion of Republicans than Democrats supported it.
Although the South is now solidly Republican, back in the days of Jim Crow laws and the horrors of lynching and disenfranchisement it overwhelmingly elected Democrats. My point here is not political but rather a question of “education” in America. You would think Carol Swain, a law professor at prestigious Vanderbilt (which by the way is in the South), would know better. I am sure she is not merely misrepresenting historical facts to push her own political agenda, I mean she is an academic after all! Perhaps Professor Swain should walk down the hall and borrow a couple of books from the History department. On second thought, given the kind of books you get along with a history degree, that might not help.
I took the liberty of looking up the cost of getting an “education” from people like Professor Swain. If you send your kid to Vanderbilt next year to get a world-class education from people who are unfamiliar with the history of the region they live in as well as the United States, it will set you back (just for tuition) $37,632. Add in all the various fees not covered by tuition, plus room and board, and Vanderbilt says you can expect to pay $54,718 ( in addition there is something called the “First Year Experience Fee” of $620. No idea what that is. My “First Year Experience” in college consisted of $4 pizzas from Gumbies Pizza in Columbus). So for a four year degree from Vanderbilt, assuming your kid lives on campus all four years, you are looking at $218,000. Almost a quarter of a million dollars for an undergraduate degree.
We hear the drumbeat constantly that we need to spend more on education, in spite of the evidence that shows that states that spend the most on education like California actually have some of the worst results. Vanderbilt University and professors like Ms. Swain are proof that spending more on “education” not only doesn’t guarantee students come out of school more “educated” but in fact they might just be hampered educationally. Secular colleges are not about education, they are about indoctrination and hammering a particular worldview into the heads of college students. I wonder if anyone offers a one year “deprogramming” to help college graduates undo all of the nonsense they have been fed for four years, kind of like a cult deprogramming.
As Christian parents, we need to ask some hard questions when it comes to college. Is it really good stewardship to either spend over $200,000 or go into an enormous amount of debt for our kids to get an “education” somewhere where they will be told the Bible is a lie, that God doesn’t exist and that man is descended from apes not to mention the generally shoddy scholarship that professors have produced for decades? Part of the “American dream” is that we are able to send our kids to college, but as Christians we need to be sure that we are sending our kids to a) the right college and b) for the right reasons. College is not like summer camp, it is far too expensive a proposition in money and time for us to cavalierly send our kids out to a school where they will get an expensive and poor education just for the sake of meeting societal norms. I am not saying Christian kids shouldn’t go to college, but I am saying that we should give it prayer and thought before we do and I certainly would question the appropriateness of a four year degree from a secular school regardless of the cost.
DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: Dear Tristan
Kevin DeYoung posted another excerpt from his upcoming book "Why We Love The Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion". This section comes in the form of a poignant note from co-author Ted Kluck to his son Tristan. It is a wonderful note from a loving father about things he hopes his child will experience. I encourage you to read this. Then I would ask you to ask the question: is the institutional church required for his son to experience these things? will he find these dreams from his father in organized religion? indeed, is it not possible that institutionalized church will inhibit rather than encourage the experiences Ted Kluck desires for his son?
Lots of quotes from the book so far, many full of truth but none of them explaining why the institutional church is necessary or the best way to achieve what the authors are calling for. I preordered a copy a while ago and I am eagerly awaiting it. I hope they show us why the institutional church is needed specifically. If they don't, that may answer a few questions in my own mind...
I came across a really interesting webpage yesterday. It was kind of random; I found the link from a footnote in David Black’s book The Jesus Paradigm. The link was for the webpage of a group called the New Testament Reformation Fellowship, a loose knit group of people seeking to return the church to her New Testament practices. What was especially of interest to me was that this group, at least at first blush, seems to really grasp the need for restoration in our church practices, not restoration back to 16th century Geneva but instead to the first century. A lot of people are at least on a superficial level making a call for that, but this group seems to really take doctrine and theology seriously as well as fellowship. Far from a vague set of beliefs, they specifically reference some solid doctrinal stances including the doctrines of Grace, solid complementarianism, Biblical inerrancy and they even link to First London Baptist Confession of 1644. From what I have read so far there seems to be an excellent balance between practice and doctrine, a balance that is unfortunately skewed one way or the other in an awful lot of groups and churches. Can you have a Christ honoring gathering when you have rock solid theology and yet your fellowship is Spirit-less and ritualistic? Can you have a Christ honoring gathering with warm and genuine fellowship but where the great truths of the Gospel are absent or watered down? The answer to both questions should be obvious, no! God seeks those who worship Him in spirit and in truth.
I was really heartened by what I have read so far. We absolutely need to return to the simple worship, fellowship and daily life of the New Testament church. But if we do so at the expense of doctrine, watering it down to the lowest common denominator, it will become a Pyrrhic victory. We should not be puffed up by pride in our doctrinal knowledge, but nor should we willfully and intentionally be ignorant of the teachings of the Scriptures.
For example, I have been reading an excellent article on their webpage this morning by Rusty Entrekin, Beware Elitism!. The topic is the danger of elitism among those seeking a return to New Testament church practice. Elitism is certainly a problem all over the place, but it is just as much a potential problem in house churches and other “organic” church gatherings as it is in a hoity-toity Presbyterian church with a huge building and a dozen paid staff. I have seen it from a distance where the fact that an individual eschews the “institutional church” becomes a pride issue. Or where an individual with a domineering personality forms a small group that looks at all others as being virtual heretics and even starts to take on cultic characteristics. You can just as easily take pride in what you aren’t doing as you can in what you are doing. Believe me, I have fallen into this on many, many occasions!
Looking forward to reading more from these men, I think I can learn a lot from what they have written.
This news story from Oregon is just absolutely nauseating...
In the months before their daughter was born in 2007, Deborah and Ariel Levy worried the baby might have Down syndrome.
They say a doctor at the Legacy Center for Maternal-Fetal Medicine assured them that a sample of tissue taken from the placenta early in the pregnancy ruled out the developmental disability, despite the results of later testing that showed the fetus might have it.
But within days of the birth of their daughter, the Southwest Portland couple learned the baby did have Down syndrome. Had they known, they say, they would have terminated the pregnancy. Now they're suing in Multnomah County Circuit Court, seeking more than $14 million to cover the costs of raising her and providing education, medical care, and speech and physical therapy for their daughter, who turned 2 this month. The suit also seeks money to cover her life-long living expenses.
The Levys declined to be interviewed. Their attorney, David K. Miller, said the toddler is as dear to them as their two older children but they fear being perceived as "heartless."
Gee, why would someone think that they were heartless? This child is dear to us but we wish she had never been born and want someone to give us money for our troubles? Well that hardly sounds heartless at all!
I certainly understand that raising children is difficult and exponentially so when the child is disabled. But to sue for damages because you feel wronged by having a child to care for is so inhuman, so callous as to be unimaginable.
Check out Joe VonDoloski's new daughter Karis. She is beautiful, clearly taking after her mother!
DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: Paul Adoniram DeYoung
Check out Kevin DeYoung's new son, Paul Adoniram DeYoung. A baby with the name of a Reformed minister in East Lansing, the great apostle Paul and a Baptist missionary.
(Note in the second picture he has his hand lifted up to deflect being dribbled with water until he can make a profession of faith in Christ!)
Our older three kids are hearing from Eric Metaxas, author of the book Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, tonight. They watched the movie Amazing Grace last Saturday and now get to listen to more about it from the author of a best selling book on William Wilberforce. Not sure how we managed to get Mr. Metaxas to come to a youth group of 20 kids but hey we’ll take it!
Major announcement coming out today under the radar that will find taxpayers paying for benefits for the homosexual partners of Federal employees. Benefits paid for by your tax dollars. Stay tuned...
Pyromaniacs: Sister... show mercy! Annual repost #2)
One of the best posts every to show up on Pyromaniacs is the Sister...show mercy! post on modest dress and they have been reprinting it the last couple of years. It is well worth the time to read, not just for what it says but for much of the furor it causes. Just like with drinking, this topic causes some people to froth at the mouth about "legalism" but it is pretty hard to refute anything they are saying. I like the addendum this year regarding husbands and their responsibility in this matter. Give it a read!
Dr. Mohler posted some very helpful thoughts on the USA Today editorial I referenced yesterday. As always he has some excellent points and in addition he has also read Mr. Newberg's book.
I especially liked his closing paragraph that references the very odd recollection of Mr. Newberg's date (which appears in the book as well, must have been a pretty wrenching experience for him)...
And that takes us back to Andrew Newberg's experience with the family of "born again" Christians, who believed that those who do not turn to Jesus are going to hell. So far as he is concerned, this represents nothing more than a regrettable neurological process that erupts as a negative religious attitude. Of course, the question he does not want to answer -- and his scientific model allows him not to answer -- is this: What if they were right?
That really is the question isn't it? It isn't about how God makes you feel about yourself, it is who God is.
I read just a horrible editorial in USA Today this morning, an editorial that takes up a half page in the opinion pages of a paper with a circulation in the millions. The editorial is by Andrew Newberg, an “associate professor of radiology and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania”. Turns out that his course work in radiology and psychiatry makes him an expert in theology as well. Who knew? His editorial with the cutesy title This is your brain on religion starts off with a story designed to tug on the heartstrings as we read about young Andrew being made to feel poorly about his atheism and himself by the mean fundie parents of a high school girl friend who believed that he was hell bound. My first reaction was to wonder why these supposedly frothing-at-the-mouth fundamentalists were letting their daughter date in high school, especially dating an atheist. The second thought was “Well played” because by giving an unverifiable account of how these fundies made him feel badly about himself, anyone with strongly held Biblical beliefs is immediate cast into a poor light. The whole account sounds fishy but we can’t prove it didn’t happen, which is what makes it so clever.
Mr. Newberg then launches into a diatribe about the positive physiological impact of warm and fuzzy beliefs and the negative health effects of believing in a meanie God. Having positive beliefs (including meditation and yoga) is lumped together in a vague soup and belief in a God that dares judge His own creatures is as bad for your health as eating six cheeseburgers while smoking a cigarette driving over the speed limit without a seat belt while talking on a cell phone.
There seems to be little question that when people view God as loving, forgiving, compassionate and supportive, this more likely results in a very positive view of themselves, and of the world around them. But when God is viewed as dispassionate, vengeful and unforgiving, this can have deleterious effects on one's physical and mental health. Again, the research is clear: If you ruminate on negative emotions, they activate the areas of the brain that are involved in anger, fear and stress. This can ultimately damage important parts of the brain and the body. What's worse, negative emotions can spill over into outward behaviors that generate fear, distrust, hatred, animosity and violence toward people who hold different or opposing beliefs. Thus, it becomes more easy to believe that "I, and my religion, is right and you, and your religion, are wrong." It is this destructive religious rhetoric that atheists are quick to point their fingers at when focusing on the negative qualities of faith. In fact, reading some of the following quotes could be bad for your brain if it evokes a fearful, anxious or hateful response:
If I may paraphrase…in other words, if you believe in a lovey-dovey God who just wants to be friends, you will feel better about yourself. If you believe that God is vengeful it will have a negative impact on your self-esteem and your general health. That is really what God is concerned with, making sure you have a positive self-image. Any whiff of sin or judgment is hazardous to your health. Perhaps the Surgeon General should mandate a warning on the cover of Bibles: “The Surgeon General has determined that reading this book may be hazardous to your health”. What the above paragraph demonstrates is that Mr. Newberg hasn’t a clue about what Christianity teaches (and you know he is speaking about Christianity because the top of the editorial has a stylized picture of a brain with a cross built into it in gray matter) which merely makes him ignorant or he is aware of what Christianity teaches and is misrepresenting it anyway which makes him a liar. The point of Christianity is that in spite of our sin and failing, God provided a way for sinners to be saved and forgiven. Belief in hell and judgment is not mutually exclusive with a belief in a God who is loving and forgiving.
Then there was this gem:
"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good. … Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country." — Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, one of the more extreme anti-abortion groups, 1993.
"You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions, but I don't have to be nice to them." — Televangelist Pat Robertson, 1991.
Fortunately, surveys suggest that only a small percentage of Americans hold such hostile beliefs. Unfortunately, this minority often attracts the greatest amount of camera time and ink, too. But what is truly frightening is the fact that 1% translates into 3 million potentially violent citizens in our country alone. And this certainly plays out on the global stage, as beliefs conflict and terrorism fosters fear, hatred and ultimately violence.
Here we see the unmistakable tactic of linking all devout believers with Islamic terrorists, the preferred tactic of contemporary opponents of Christianity that has been exploited into lucrative book deals by capitalist-atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Mr. Newberg plucks a couple of decades old quotes out of context from inflammatory speeches and then uses that to paint a broad brush of extremism. The implication is clumsy but clear: people who are strongly anti-abortion or believe that a particular faith is right and others are wrong become potential violent extremists. This tactic is designed to drive a wedge, “you don’t believe THAT do you?” and therefore because you don’t align yourself with such extremist groups you are left with a watered down belief system. Mr. Newberg cleverly dictates the terms by which you may believe: you either are aligned with the forces of “intolerance” and by implication are a potential domestic terrorists or you aligning yourself with some vague, fuzzy spirituality indistinguishable from meditation and yoga. It seems incomprehensible to Mr. Newberg that someone can simultaneously believe in Biblical Christianity, take it seriously and yet not be making pipe bombs in their basement.
But wait, there’s more!
There is another potential dark side to religion (my note: I think he may be confusing Christianity with the Force. Common mistake.). As I have witnessed at the hospital in which I work, when people feel that they contracted a disease because God is punishing them, such individuals may not follow doctor's orders, keep appointments or take medications as directed. After all, why try to get better when God is trying to punish you? Research confirms that people who hold a punitive image of God can compromise their immune system and psychological health, thus prolonging their suffering and illness. Currently I, along with researchers at other universities, am developing simple strategies to show people how they can turn negative religious attitudes into a more positive framework that will help them deal more effectively with their health problems, and thus improve their quality of life.
So how can a person of faith guard against the negative side of religiosity and spirituality? Our research findings suggest that all one needs to do is to stay intensely focused on positive and loving concepts — of ourselves, others and our deepest values and beliefs. Obsessively focusing on any form of negativity — be it religious, political, or interpersonal — damages social empathy and cooperation.
That is such a ridiculous argument that it should be apparent to any rational person reading it. I have a hard time believing that there is a noticeable population of people who refuse medical care because they think God is punishing them. So that struck me as a bit disingenuous. More ominously though is that this guy has developed a proselytizing system to modify the religious beliefs of others, a missionary of sorts who is able to preach his gospel of a God who is infinitely tolerant and impotent to punish sin. How is that not a religious system? I wonder if he or the university that supports his research receives Federal funding? If so, I wonder what people would say if a university that received Federal funding were engaged in proselytizing terminal patients by preaching the Gospel of Christ? What Mr. Newberg and his associates are doing is using their position as “academics” and the access those credentials give them to preach to people and try to distort their belief systems. These people who are dying may have aberrant beliefs but where does Mr. Newberg get off chastising devout believers for their beliefs while at the same time preaching his own gospel to people? Mr. Newberg is every bit as much a religious fundamentalist as the people he rails against, except that his religion is given legitimacy by the imprimatur of “science” and “reason”.
Mr. Newberg reduces faith to a chemical reaction, one that makes people feel good if they focus on the positive and feel bad if they focus on the negative but ultimately it is no different than meditation or yoga. The gospel that Mr. Newberg preaches of a God without judgment and of people without sin may make a person feel better about themselves in their dying days but it will serve them poorly when standing before the Judge.
Area church blesses pets
EAST LANSING - Community members and their pets gathered outside East Lansing's University United Methodist Church Sunday afternoon for a Blessing of the Animals ceremony.
This is the first time the church has held such a ceremony, which included prayer, song and a moment of remembrance for pets that have died, said Pastor John Ross Thompson.
About 40 people attended, bringing with them around 25 animals - mostly dogs, some cats and a few more exotic animals from the Potter Park Zoo.
"They're part of our family," Thompson said of the animals. "They are God's creation, and we pray for all of God's creatures."
As part of the ceremony, animals received individual blessings, and their owners received small St. Francis of Assisi medallions.
Reminds me of the church in Northern Michigan that does a "Blessing of the Sleds" where they prayed over snowmobiles. I am not sure which is sillier.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Mat 23:27-28)
Is there anything ritualistic about the Christian faith?
The reason I ask that question has to do with a comment made on a blog discussion about mormonism. The blog post was called Genuine Christian Discipleship in the I-15 Corridor? . I made the comment that I often turn to Acts 2:42 when looking at the issue of what Christians life and fellowship looks like. A response stated quite strongly that the Lord's Supper has always been a ritual and that is not only OK but people need rituals because they are built to desire ritual. My response was that nowhere in the New Testament do we see the Supper as a ritual, not even at the Last Supper. Jesus didn't have His disciples bring bread and wine because they would need something topass around. They were having a meal and Jesus used the typical elements of that meal to make a much greater point. It is commemorative as well as communal but nowhere was it ritualistic. It is not about the bread and wine, it is about Christ.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt that the individual in question was partially correct. Humans do crave ritual. We love it but not because we are commanded to engage in ritual or see examples of it in the New Testament or even pragmatically speaking because it is spiritually healthy. We love ritual because it makes us feel a certain way. We feel like we are doing something whether or not we really are. Ritual coupled with tradition leads to religion and then we end up with scenes like the one in the picture above of a number of men prostrate on the floor, bowing to an altar. I am trying to break that sense of ritual in my own life. For example, I wore a short and tie today to fellowship but not a suit coat. That was probably the first time in at least 4-5 years that I showed up for church without a suit coat. Baby steps.
The focus is on the "what" we do and the "how" we do it instead of "why" and I think it has been that way even way before the cross. The meaning of the Lord's Supper and the impact on the fellowship of the Body is lost and instead we argue about who can partake, or what the elements should consist of or what the proper schedule is. What is wrong with simply saying that we should break bread, soberly and joyfully, whenever we gather as an integral part of worship and fellowship? It is not something that is reserved just for Roman Catholics although it is certainly most pronounced in their liturgy. I can tell you that even minor changes to the "worship service" in Protestant churches has the same impact. I remember one Sunday when I asked the congregation to come up and get the cups of grape juice and the crackers instead of passing them out in the pews. Many people were very uncomfortable. Keep in mind that the basic service was the same, we still used the little cups in the same holder, still took crackers from the same platter, I still intoned the same words from 1 Corinthians 11. Just one minor change. People crave ritual because it makes them comfortable. The problem is that comfortable becomes complacent quite easily. That is one of the huge issues with the Jewish religious leaders and Christ. They argued that they were right with God because they performed the rituals but they had long ago forgotten why they performed them. Christ exposed their hypocritical hearts, performing rituals for the sake of rituals.
As humans we crave many things that are unhealthy, and that is as true in the church as anywhere else, perhaps more so. We love tradition, ritual, repetition. We love anonymity, passivity, uniformity. But we are called to something very different. We are not strangers who gather for an hour, go through motions, watch a performance and then go our separate ways until next Sunday. We are called to community with one another. We cannot not, nor should we seek to, replace that sweet fellowship with artificial sweetener. Our craving for ritual stems from a sinful desire to exalt ourselves, to feel that we are right with God because of our actions and that is something that we should not give in to, no matter how much our hearts may crave it.
DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: Thoughts on Evangelical Superstardom
Interesting thoughts from Kevin DeYoung on our tendency toward hero worship/hero rejection in the Body of Christ. Especially interesting because Kevin is a budding "Reformed Rock Star" so I am glad he is giving this some thought.
I have intentionally never commented on the Jon & Kate plus Eight circus. At the urging of a friend, I watched once and was so nauseated from listening to the parents whining about how hard their lives were, I never watched again. Raising eight kids takes a lot of effort? Who knew? Well, I knew and no one follows me around with a camera to capture the complaining because we don't. We know and we knew how challenging having eight kids is and we feel blessed to have a big family and not because we get a TV contract for exploiting them.
But you can't miss the constant news coverage ranging from marital problems to general unpleasantness to allegations of child labor law violations. Turns out though that all of that is not the biggest problem. Their biggest problem is that they are not a "green" enough family. Despite their efforts to recycle and such, they find themselves on the receiving end of the ire of environmentalists for having a large family:
Yet while there was much fanfare about the eco-move in the media, some environmental experts see big families and going green as mutually exclusive.
"A family with eight children could be green in the short term, if they lived at such a low standard of living that they didn't consume more than a family with two children, or if they existed in extreme poverty — which isn't an acceptable way of going green," says Rosamund McDougall, policy director of the U.K.-based Optimum Population Organization (www.optimumpopulation.org).
"In the long term, though, it is almost impossible for large families not to increase overall environmental impacts."
One of the reasons for the lack of green-ness is the emission of carbon dioxide.
If the eight children depicted in the show lived in Britain, they would each emit about 750 tons of carbon dioxide over a lifetime, McDougall explains. (American carbon-dioxide emissions per capita are about double that of Britain's.)
"What's more, if the eight children each had eight children, not taking into account the fact that eight husbands or wives would be absorbed from other families, there would be 64 grandchildren, each emitting 750 [metric tons] over a lifetime," says McDougall.
"Compare this with the total emissions of the two children who go on to have two children each, and you see only too clearly how the impact multiplies over time.
The different worldviews are starkly on display there. Christians see (or should see) children as "a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward" (Psalm 127). Eco-types see kids as carbon dioxide generators, merely consumers of resources and producers of pollution. What a sick worldview that sees the blessing of children as nothing more than spewers of carbon dioxide and large families as mini- Exxon Valdez wrecks.
Media coverage in the entertainment world has been looking at two people famous for coming in second place.
On the one hand, we have the unpleasant and agonizing Carrie Prejean saga finally coming to an end as she was abruptly dismissed from her role as Ms. California. It was inevitable that this would happen. She was marked for removal from the moment she answered that question on stage. No way that in a hyper-PC environment like a beauty pageant and especially representing California in the midst of Proposition 8 controversy was that going to be allowed. Ironically what did her in had nothing to do with the multitude of inappropriate photos that have surfaced. She was done in by a brief comment expressing her opinion in response to a question soliciting her opinion. The pageant officials waited until the furor died down and the American public sought new and more exciting distractions, but the end was foreordained that night during the pageant. I am sure she will be OK, in fact with all of the uproar over this I expect Ms. Prejean to be far more famous for a far longer time than she would have been by winning the pageant. I would imagine that she will be a sought after speaker at conferences for a few years and a book is probably in the offing.
On the other hand, we have the media fawning over Adam Lambert, the runner-up from the latest American Idol. The guy who won (whose name escapes me) seems like a regular, normal guy so he is pretty much persona non grata for the media. Who cares about a normal person? Oh no, in this case we want the guy who should have won, “should have” determined as much by his, ahem, flamboyant demeanor as his singing voice. This week he came out as being a homosexual and the media was all a-twitter with excitement and feigned surprise. Adam Lambert “coming out” as being gay is like me “coming out” as being short. You can sort of tell just by looking at us. The number of people surprised by that announcement could comfortably sit in my living room and have tea. Nor was I terribly surprised to read that he has a fondness for illicit drugs. So the ‘shroom eating, pot smoking, make-up wearing homosexual certainly is going to get more attention than the clean-cut, married guy regardless of who won or who is more talented.
This should serve as a lesson for Christians who want the world’s acceptance while still maintaining their core beliefs. Carrie Prejean’s crime in this whole situation was a clumsy defense of marriage as it has existed for millennia. It was hardly a strongly worded statement or “hateful” or anything like that. She didn’t use words like “sin”, “perversion” or “deviancy”, she just made a simple, honest statement of her beliefs which mirror the majority of Americans. For that she was hung out to dry. You have to appreciate the irony of liberals being so closed-minded and hateful about someone speaking their mind and expressing themselves honestly.
The world doesn’t want a person who speaks their mind, even a person who has made some really poor choices. What the world wants is Adam Lambert, sprawled out on the cover of Rolling Stone like a twisted pin-up girl. The world doesn’t want people who hold fast to their convictions, even people who might be willing to abandon some convictions to get the world’s acclaim. It is all or nothing and our response needs to be “nothing”.
The issue of alcohol consumption by Christians is one of those hot button issues that get people all riled up and I haven’t been intentionally inflammatory in a while (although I am about to end my self-imposed moratorium on posting about infant baptism…) so why not throw this post out there? (In the spirit of full disclosure, I completely abstain from alcohol. Haven’t had a drink in well over a decade and don’t miss it at all. It just doesn’t appeal to me and honestly I find the social ills associated with drinking so severe that I can’t justify having a beer even though I have never had a problem with alcohol abuse personally) . So let’s take a look at alcoholic beverages and Christians…
Can a Christian drink alcohol? Is it lawful, is it permissible?
Certainly. I don’t think you can honestly make a Biblical case requiring a total abstention from alcohol. There are too many references to drinking wine without a corresponding admonition against drinking in the Bible to assert dogmatically that Christians are forbidden from drinking alcoholic beverages at all. For me, the question is not really about whether drinking is lawful. It is a deeper question.
Should a Christian drink? Now that is a whole different question. I will certainly grant that the Bible affirms that drinking wine is OK as long as you grant that drunkenness is not OK. So how much is too much? What qualifies as “drunkenness”? Do you have to be falling down, puking your guts out, lampshade on the head to be drunk or just impaired? We don’t get a blood alcohol guideline in the Bible, so a breathalyzer doesn’t help. Is a half a glass of red wine OK, but two beers is not? There certainly is mention of drinking wine in the Bible but there are also a number of warnings against drinking to the point of intoxication. It seems like drinking is just toeing the line, how close can I get to drunkenness without actually being “drunk”? If you choose to drink, you have to draw a line somewhere and that line can be a tricky one to draw.
That isn’t even the most important question in my mind. The question for me is not one of lawfulness, but of motivation. Sure you can drink, but what is your motivation for drinking?
I guess the question becomes not can you drink, but rather why do you want to? Given the baggage that comes along with alcohol, the societal costs, etc. why even bother to drink in the first place? Is it not the case that the negatives of alcohol far outweigh whatever perceived benefit you gain? There must be something that drives people to drink (pun intended!). So what is it?
Is your motivation that you are enamored with the taste of alcoholic beverages? Maybe a nice glass of wine with dinner but beer and hard liquor serve the purpose of getting you buzzed. I have never enjoyed the taste of wine, so I don’t get that but I certainly don’t buy the “I like the taste of beer” argument. If that were the case, why not non-alcoholic beers so you get the advantage of the yummy taste without the danger of drunkenness?
Is your motivation to show that you have thrown off the shackles of legalism? I fear that some people see Christian liberty as a reason to charge headlong at the line to see how close they can come to it without crossing the line. You may be able to drink a couple of glasses of wine without being “drunk” but I guarantee that if you don’t drink at all, drunkenness is not a problem. Thumbing your nose at “the Man” for telling you not to drink is not the best rationale. I understand the visceral reaction to legalism, but just because fundies say don’t drink, wear ankle length skirts only and no card playing doesn’t mean you should start wearing mini-skirts and chugging bear while playing Texas Hold ‘Em. Drinking just to show you can is hardly a noble thing.
Is your motivation to be more like the world, tipping back an ice cold Budweiser just like in commercials and like your non-Christian buddies do so you can fit in? I think there is a real danger that “social drinking” comes awfully close to being worldly for the sake of fitting in. I will be honest, I can hang out with friends and watch a football game without drinking a beer. Somehow the game is just as enjoyable. A cup of coffee and a slice of pie is just as social as beer and nachos.
Does drinking wine automatically give us a pass on beer? How about hard liquor? Are some alcoholic beverages OK and other are not, and how do you make that distinction? Given all of the issues that crop up, why not just abstain?
I personally think that the Christian should choose to abstain, not because it is unlawful but because it is unhelpful. I think turning to 1 Corinthians 10 and Romans 14 will give you even more to ponder…
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. For “the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.” If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience— I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. (1 Cor 10: 23-33)
Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. (Romans 14: 20-21)
It is not a salvation issue. It is not even a fellowship issue. It is an issue that requires sober thought and study (pun intended again!). If you don’t drink because you think it is prohibited by Scripture, I would encourage you to really reexamine the text to see if that is the case. I don't think that it is. But if you do drink, I would ask you to look at your motivation for doing so and see if it is really to bring glory to God or if it is perhaps something else.
It strikes me that the best position is to recognize that you are permitted to drink (or to put it another way not prohibited from drinking) but choosing not to anyway. Maybe I am way off base here. If I am, please show me where. My stance on this and many other issues of Christian liberty boils down to this:
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Andrew S. posted a very interesting comment on a blog post I published for the Fo-Mo Chronicles about cultural mormonism. The gist of the original post is that a lot of people stay in mormonism long after they stop believing the tenets of mormonism because they have a strong cultural attachment to the organization and the surrounding culture. I also drew some parallels with Roman Catholicism. Andrew’s point was that having a culture or community is important but that it must be coupled with sound doctrine. I say amen to that! But it raised another question…
Are culture and community the same thing? I don’t think that they are. Let me expand on that thought.
Highly hierarchical faiths like Roman Catholicism and mormonism tend to form a culture. More loosely organized faiths tend not to.
Here is my take on this. A religious culture fosters dependency, dependency on the organization or culture or institution. A community fosters interdependency where the people become reliant on each other. This difference is in the focal point. Where is the focal point, is it on the people in community with one another with the structures supporting and encouraging that community or is it on the organization with the people being little more than a means to support it? Whether it is the insistence on Rome as being the home of the “true” church and the pope being able to draw some alleged line between himself and Peter or in mormonism with the argument that they are the “true” and “restored” church and that their “prophet” holds all human ecclesiastical authority on this earth, the organization is king and the culture is focused on belonging to that group. People in a religious culture are linked by their common cultural heritage, which should not be confused with community. That is why it is so difficult to witness to people in deeply embedded religious cultures, whether that culture is mormonism, Roman Catholicism, Islam, Judaism etc. The culture has a hold on people that cannot be easily broken even in the face of compelling reasons. For example, it is not that difficult to knock the underpinnings out of mormonism but even showing it to be a false belief system is not sufficient to cause people to abandon it. A lot of people drift along, nominally related to their culture while really ignoring the major tenets. This is really pronounced in Roman Catholicism, which explains the vast numbers of people who go to Mass on Easter and Christmas (“Chreaster Catholics”), identify themselves as Catholic and probably were married in a Roman church but ignore at will all of the teachings of Rome.
Having said that, there are an awful lot of evangelicals who have a form of dependency on the religious aspects of their faith above and beyond the faith itself. What draws nominal believers to a local church? Probably not the community, you are not really in a community if you sneak in two minutes before the “worship service” starts and then bolt out to your car afterward. It is a cultural thing. It is Sunday and maybe you feel guilty so you “go to church”. I have punched the church clock on a number of Sundays, attending because I was supposed to and it made me feel better to have met my religious obligation for that week. What I have found is that “punching the clock” can sustain you for a short time but eventually the lack of connection and community overrides the satisfaction of an obligation. Eventually gathering for a couple of hours with a room full of relative strangers stops being worthwhile. Just like “Chreaster Catholics”, there is a sizable number of attendees and “members” in Protestant churches who are attracted by the culture and are not put off by the lack of community because quite frankly they are not interested in genuine community in the first place.
We have strayed pretty far from the New Testament, not just in organizations with erroneous or heretical teachings, but even in denominations and local churches that claim strict fealty to the Word of God. We are hardly interdependent, you can go to a church for years and never get to know a soul. The only interdependency is on everyone paying their fair share to keep the institution afloat.
You may gather on Sunday morning because it is culturally what you are supposed to do but when you gather in community it is because that is what you desire to do. Big difference
Deliver Detroit: D. Martyn Lloyd Jones on Clergy and Laity
My friend James posted a great quote from Lloyd-Jones on the utilization of the gifts by the laity. Good stuff, check it out!
Seems like a simple question, but one that often leads to sound bytes. Let's review the actual text of the Great Commission:
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and 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. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Mat 28:16-20)
Jesus is addressing the eleven remaining apostles. He didn't even mention local churches, much less denominations or parachurch groups or professional missionaries or pastors. He doesn't charge the disciples with forming local groups, incorporating them, hiring a professional staff and then evangelizing the lost. So I think it is fair to say that the Great Commission is directed as an individual responsibility.
The reason I bring this up is a blog post from Timmy Brister at Provocations and Pantings, Denominations Don’t Fulfill the Great Commission – The Christian Index Confesses. Timmy was making the point that an awful lot of money in the Southern Baptist Convention goes into the Cooperative Program, which makes little sense since denominations are neither charged nor capable of carrying out the Great Commission (nor are denominations Biblical for that matter). From his post:
So here’s the $64,000 question? Why are our Great Commission dollars (i.e., the Cooperative Program) stuck in a system that is inherently incapable of fulfilling the Great Commission? If state conventions cannot do it, why are they hoarding on average more than 60% of our money while IMB missionaries are being held back because of lack of funding? In the year 2008, over $329,000,000 was kept in state conventions from Cooperative Program money. Just think of that. All of it sunk into a denominational bureaucracy boldly admitting its inability to do what those dollars are being sent to do.
OK, I am with him on that. It is a sin that so much money is buried in administration and bureaucracy, money intended by the donors to go to mission work, when there are missionaries ready to go out who cannot because of a lack of money. My concern comes from Timmy's closing statement:
Denominations don’t fulfill the Great Commission, churches do.
That is a pretty common belief. But is that true and is that Biblical? I think that is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, we don't see that idea in the Great Commission and I don't think we see an example or command in the New Testament to form churches for the purpose of evangelism. The local assembly is focused on Christians in fellowship and disciplining, lifting up one another in prayer. Second is the concern that many individual Christians don't see evangelism as their responsibility, an attitude that is encouraged by some in ministry. Evangelism means inviting someone to church so that a paid professional can preach the Gospel to them in a 40 minute sermon (for more on this idea see a prior post Stand Back, We're Professionals).
The local church is the result of evangelism, not the primary driver of evangelism.
Denominations don't carry out the Great Commission. Nor do local churches. The Great Commission is fulfilled by individual Christians. Organizations can help (although they more often hinder) but ultimately the Great Commission is fulfilled by individual Christians proclaiming Christ. If we truly believe God is sovereign and that the work of regeneration is a monergistic work of the Holy Spirit, we should not be afraid of having just regular Christians witnessing to the lost.
In a blog post on the USA Today, Obama's faith fits our times, Stephen Mansfield writes a glowing review of what an enlightened religious man President Obama is, not because of his firm beliefs but because of his lack thereof. Mansfield describes Obama's faith in the ideal America in 2009 way:
Perhaps most important of all, he believes in a "living word of God," one that ever reveals and expands, that comes from unexpected sources. "When I read the Bible," he has written, "I do so with the belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must be continually open to new revelations whether they come from a lesbian friend or a doctor opposed to abortion."
These "new revelations" might come from a non-Christian religion as well, for Obama does not believe his Christianity is the final word. "I am rooted in the Christian tradition," he has said. But "I believe there are many paths to the same place and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people."
So he is "rooted in the Christian tradition", but is keeping his options open.
I would say the writer is right on the mark. Not because President Obama is some sort of prophet or New Age holy man, but because our President embodies the spirit of this age: vague spirituality, ala carte theology, salvation without strings attached, we want to know Jesus but only our terms instead of His. His faith seems eminently practical and ultimately devoid of meaning, a hodge podge of beliefs that meet his needs rather than reveal God's truth. He exhibits just enough religiousity to pacify those who are looking for that in a President while not being so religious as to risk offending anyone. This is not to single out the President or beat him up (I have a whole other blog devoted to that!) because he really is merely the most visible embodiment of the reality of faith in a world where tolerance is the great commandment.
When you stand for everything, you end up not standing for anything.
The Adventures of Maël & Cindy: The Senior Pastor - Introduction
I have been checking out a series of posts on The Adventures of Maël & Cindy regarding the "senior pastor", a position that is taken for granted in much of the church. I first got wind of it through Alan Knox and have found it to be a very interesting series that really digs into the evidence before making a decision. I would encourage you to check it out and follow the conversation!
I have kind of been beating the same drum over and over here, but this whole tragic event surrounding George Tiller has served for me as a stark reminder of what is going on all around us. I opened up the Lansing phone book this morning and glanced at the glossy color ads for abortion providers touting their services, no doubt kept busy by the college students in the area. There is a Planned Parenthood clinic right on the main drag on the north side of the campus of Michigan State, right amidst the coffee shops and bookstores. I have eaten at Buffalo Wild Wings just a block or so away from an innocuous looking door, behind which young women in the earlier 20’s are make life-altering decisions to kill their own children. It can be easy to get caught up in everything else and really to start feeling hopeless about abortion, but the need is as great today as it has ever been for us to fight. We may not be in a position to overturn Roe v. Wade, but abortion is a war we can fight one woman, one unborn child at a time. We might not be able to save them all but we can spare no effort to see one child live that otherwise would have died.
The latest impetus for a rant was just a horribly disturbing article in the Wall Street Journal this morning, Common Ground on Late-Term Abortion: Anguish. What was so distressing about it was the sheer hypocrisy it exposes among abortion on demand advocates.
I have already made the statement, which I will reiterate now, that there is no place for “common ground” when it comes to abortion. Abortion is not a political issue. It is a fundamental issue of humanity, how do we view children in our society even the smallest and most defenseless ones? The idea that we can find areas for agreement on abortion is ridiculous on its face. People who oppose abortion typically oppose abortion because we consider it the murder of a defenseless human child. When you start from that position, your room for “common ground” evaporates. The entire conversation with pro-abortion folks is so full of misrepresentation and outright dishonesty as to make discussion, much less “common ground”, unfathomable. For example, when you look at the shenanigans that abortionists and their profiteering lawyers engage in to get around the laws, it ought to make you nauseous.
Thirty-seven states, including Kansas, prohibit late-term abortions. But under Supreme Court precedents set in 1973 in Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, state restrictions on abortion must generally include exceptions for the woman's life and health, which includes mental and emotional health.
Medical records subpoenaed by prosecutors in Kansas indicate Dr. Tiller approved some late-term abortions on the grounds that the women suffered from anxiety or depression. To opponents, those are shockingly flimsy excuses. But several attempts to prosecute Dr. Tiller for violating the law failed.
So the law is framed in such a way that a woman can pay someone to kill her unborn child late in her pregnancy because she is “anxious”? How many women are NOT anxious during pregnancy especially in the later stages?
What was really unfathomable is that one person cited in the article has decided on a career in killing because of the slaying of George Tiller.
Dr. Tiller's killing has pushed some young doctors to commit to a career in abortion. Lisa Hofler, a medical student at Emory University, had been mulling over the idea for some time despite her husband's concern for her safety. Now, she said, she's determined to offer abortions as part of her practice.
Still, she expects to limit her practice to first-trimester abortions. She doesn't feel comfortable, she said, pushing the boundaries.
I really have a hard time believing that a substantial number of med students are going to be inspired to abandon healing and take up being an abortionist based on this event. The report cites just this one person and in reading her comments I could only think: What a twisted worldview. Abortion is so important that she wants to take her intellect, a pile of student loan debt and probably nearly a decade of college, med school and internships and put that education to use ending pregnancies. But just in the first trimester, anything later and she might start to feel guilty about it. Why is it OK on one day but not the next?
Even many ardent supporters of abortion look at late second trimester or third trimester abortions, up to and including partial birth abortions, and get squeamish. Being “pro-choice” makes for a swell political slogan, looks great on t-shirts and bumper stickers but when the reality of what is going on hits you in the face, it sort of muddies the waters. If it is just a medical procedure, why not publicize it? A picture of a spleen being removed might be icky but it is not morally offensive. Show someone a picture with the results of making a “choice” and the image of a dismembered baby will shake you, not because of the medical ickiness but because the picture of a tiny child dismembered stirs something fundamental in what it means to be a human. It just screams out that it is wrong. I know we don’t like using a word that is so inflexible like “wrong” today, but some things just are “wrong” and we cannot be afraid to say so.
What is the difference between a first trimester and a third trimester unborn child? Viability is a bogus argument. Can a first trimester baby live outside the womb. Of course not. Could a third trimester? Not without the nearly constant attention of her mother. In fact, a baby after birth requires a lot more time and attention to survive than a baby in the womb. My one and a half year old is smart as a whip and mischievous as the day is long, but even 18 months after she was born she is not “viable” without the care and attention of her mom and siblings to keep her fed, changed, rested and (more or less) clean. So it must be something else, something else that causes people to draw an imaginary line in the sand where a child goes from a mere blob of flesh to something we feel uncomfortable killing.
I am glad for one thing. Even today, thirty years after the gross injustice of Roe v. Wade and the ensuing bloody decades of “choice”, even after the deaths of millions of babies, even after a whole generation has been conditioned to see abortion as a fact of life hidden behind vague terminology and slogans to hide the horror, even after all of that people still feel a sense of revulsion when they think about a child mere weeks or days from being delivered having a doctor end their life. That isn’t much to be glad about but it is something.
There were a number of tragedies that became starkly apparent on Sunday, June 7th when abortionist George Tiller was murdered. It is a tragedy that someone unjustifiably took the law into his own hands and shot George Tiller. It is a tragedy that this man sat in attendance among people who claim the name of Christ and apparently was never called to account (perhaps he was but the fact that he served as an usher suggests otherwise). It is a tragedy that because of the random, unlawful actions of one man that the cause of those who are seeking to outlaw abortion is made harder and perhaps inadvertently more innocent children will lose their lives instead of being saved.
Another tragedy is predictably unfolding as those who adhere to the cult of “choice” are rushing to use this tragedy as an excuse to slander those who oppose murder by linking everyone on the pro-life side with extremists like Scott Roeder or the Taliban. Clearly to any rational person there is no linkage between people seeking peaceful change via changed hearts and the ballot versus those who endorse public beatings and beheadings. That obvious fact has not impeded certain segments of the population from making that very linkage.
There are an increasing number of people in this country and around the world who equate fervent religious belief of any sort as one grouping. It doesn’t matter if they are looking at Muslim jihadists in Tehran or IRA assassins in Northern Ireland, or if they are looking at devout Jews in New York or Christian visitors to the Creation Museum. Anyone who takes religion seriously is suspect and painted with the same broad brush. Some, perhaps many, of these people are merely political opportunists who are using this tragedy to callously advance their agenda. More frightening are those who really have such closed minds that they are unable to make basic distinctions between peaceful, prayerful pro-life advocates and terrorists like the Taliban.
A callous disregard for human life and a basic inability to think rationally is a dangerous combination.
(For an interesting take on this from someone who is NOT on the "religious right", check out this editorial The Religious Right Didn't Kill George Tiller)In the 500th anniversary year of John Calvin’s birth, Calvin is getting lots of attention. Expect that to approach a real frenzy in a few weeks on his birthday, July 10th when I would expect to hear all manner of reports and stories about John Calvin as one of the great influences, not just in Reformed theology but in Christianity and indeed Western Civilization as a whole. Around the world there are a substantial number of celebrations going on, from Geneva to East Lansing. I have been to one conference exclusively on Calvin this year and I am going to another one in August. So 2009, at least in the Reformed ‘hood, is “All Calvin, all the time” even more so than usual.
Inevitably, whenever Calvin comes up so does Michael Servetus. The Michael Servetus thing frankly drives me batty in two respects. First, the way that people who either misunderstand or misrepresent Calvinism throw Servetus out as an argument against Calvinism. People, Calvinism stands or falls on it’s faithfulness to the teachings of the Bible, not on the character or actions of John Calvin. Calvinism would be true even if John Calvin had never been born. Second is the way that some who cherish the teachings of the Geneva Reformer try to defend the execution of Servetus.
Some of the details are sketchy. What we know is this. Servetus was an open and unapologetic heretic who denied the Trinity. That seems like a minor thing today when “pastors” who deny the Trinity have bestselling books in “Christian” bookstores and show up routinely on lists of the most influential Christians. But in the 1500’s, denying the Trinity along with a list of other heresies was punishable by death. Calvin also wrote a book defending the legitimacy of executing heretics (I have not read the book) after the death of Servetus, so he was fully aware of the consequences of a man put on trial for the supposed crime of heresy. Regardless, in 1553 Michael Servetus showed up in Geneva and was arrested, tried and burned at the stake as a heretic.
Whether Calvin enthusiastically encouraged the execution of Servetus as some suggest or he merely stood by mutely while it happened as others imply, it was the wrong thing to do. It is my understanding that Calvin had Servetus arrested which led to his trial and his execution, an outcome that Calvin had to know was likely. Calvin also reportedly pled for Servetus to be beheaded instead of burned, a quicker and more humane death than being burned alive at the stake but asking for a nicer way of execution is hardly the same as a plea for mercy. All of that is irrelevant to the value of Calvin for the church. It is not a news flash that Calvin was a sinner! Christians from Paul to Augustine to Calvin to John Piper have all recognized their own sins and flaws. I would hope that people who examine my beliefs base their judgment on the truth of what I say and how it conforms to the Word of God, not on my personal flaws and foibles which are myriad.
Let’s enjoy the 500th anniversary of John Calvin without the small minded attempts to paint him as a murderer nor the knee jerk reflexive defenses of him that are unnecessary. His work and his thoughts stand on their own. Let’s celebrate the life and legacy of a man who is arguably the greatest theologian the church has known in all of his brilliance and in all of his flaws.
I am not normally at a loss for words, but when I read these testimonials in the Washington Times from individuals who claim to be believers in God praising a man who murdered children for profit, I was simply stunned. I expect all manner of excuses for perversity from people like this, I expect to hear all manner of man-made heresies peddled as the Gospel, I even expected to hear some politically charged denunciations but to defend a man who murders innocents as a “saint” and a champion of human rights? Read these quotes and weep for the people who can say these sorts of things…
"This is about the loss of a man who was a saint and a martyr," she said in an interview before the service. "He was a prayerful man who put his life at risk to protect others and died for it. People are in shock, outrage and mourning. They need a place to go."
the Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, president of Episcopal Divinity School
Reconstructionist Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Philadelphia-based Shalom Center said Dr. Tiller "joins the list of martyrs for ethical decency and human rights, killed for healing with compassion."
The rabbi said Dr. Tiller was "a religious martyr in the fullest classical sense, killed in his own church as he arrived to worship, killed for acting in accord with his religious commitments and his moral and ethical choices."
Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center
"He was a hero to many abortion clinic workers, who were aware of his incredible courage and bravery," Ms. Turner said. "I knew him personally, so this will be a service of mourning for his wonderful life. He is the first abortion provider to put a chapel inside his clinic, and he had a chaplain on duty to work with all of his patients."
Rev. Rebecca Turner, a Disciples of Christ minister
I will agree with Mr. Waskow when he described George Tiller as a religious martyr. Not a martyr for being a healer, or acting for ethical decency, but a martyr for a religion where children are not a blessing to embrace, but a curse to be discarded like a paper plate.
If only these people could shed one tear, if only they could utter one word of sympathy, light one candle, have one vigil, offer one prayer for the millions of babies slain on the bloody altar of choice.
This brings to mind a very apt Scripture, one that is reflected ever more in our modern culture as it slips in moral ruin and depravity.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
(Romans 1: 28-32, emp. add.)
"In this connection, the modern clergy system is a religious artifact that has no biblical basis. This system has allowed the body of Christ to lapse into an audience due to it's heavy reliance on a single leader. It has turned church into the place where Christians watch professionals perform. It has transformed the holy assembly into a center for professional pulpiteerism supported by lay-spectators
Perhaps the most daunting feauture of the clergy system is that it keeps the people it claims to serve in spiritual infancy. Because the clergy system usurps the Christian's right to minister in a spiritual way during corporate gatherings, it ends up debilitating God's people. It keeps them weak and insecure.
Without question, many - if not most - of the people who are part of the clergy profession love God's people and desire to serve them. Many of them sincerely want to see their fellow brethren take spiritual responsibility (Numerous clergy have expressed their frustration with not seeing their congregations take more responsibility. But few of them have traced the problem to their own profession)
Yet the clergy profession ends up disempowering and pacifying the believing preisthood. This is the case regardless of how uncontrolling the person who fills the clergy position may be.
Here's how it works. Since clergy carries the spiritual workload, the majority of the church becomes passive, lazy, self-seeking ("feed me"), and arrested in the spiritual development.
Just as serious, the clergy system warps many who occupy clerical positions. The reason? God never calls anyone to beear the heavy burden of ministering to the needs of the church by himself. Yet regardless of the spiritual tragedies the clergy profession engenders, the masses continue to rely on, defend, and insist upon it. For this reason the so-called laity is just as responsible for the problem of clericalism as is the clergy.
If the truth be told, many Christians prefer the convenience of paying someone to shoulder the responsibilty for ministering and shepherding. In their minds, it's better to hire a religious specialist to tend to the needs of God's people than to bother themselves with the self-emptying demands of servanthood and pastoral care"
Frank Viola, Reimaging Church, pp. 160-161 (emphasis added)
That was a powerful statement, perhaps the best I have come across yet in his book. Like so much of the institutional church the clergy system, while well-meaning and intended to be helpful in most cases, has actually hurt the people it is supposed to help. So why is the title of this post a linkage between the clergy system and the welfare system? Because clericalism, like the welfare system, has led to dependence and weakness.
I think Frank Viola really hits a proper qualifier in pointing out that this is not because people in vocational ministry are power hungry and greedy, but in many ways it is a result of "laity" who are dependent and spiritually lazy. I am concerned that people look at statements like this and see it as an attack on people in vocational ministry. That is not at all my intent nor is it in my opinion the intent of this book. There are a few megalomaniacs in pastoral ministry, I have met a couple, but for the most part the men who labor as pastors make less money and take more grief than they could in a number of other professions, and they do it out of love and in service to Christ. What other profession requires an expensive Masters degree that will lead to you making less money than you would with just a Bachelors degree?
Ultimately, the system is unhealthy for the “laity” and unhealthy for the clergy and their families. In thumbing through Frank Viola’s other book I just got from the library, Pagan Christianity, he cites a poll with some pretty unpleasant numbers from pastors who are overworked, stressed and seeing an enormous strain on their families. I agree with Frank Viola and George Barna when they assert that it was never God’s intention to lay all of the responsibility for a local assembly on the shoulders of one man, but in almost every church we have attended or visited that is the reality. Lots of people have noted this “burn-out” among pastors and how many men leave the ministry every year, but no one seems to connect the dots and realize that the problem is in the system itself.
As I thought about what Frank Viola wrote, I saw an analogy between the clerical system and the modern welfare system. Why is the welfare system dehumanizing and an utter failure? Because it provides for people while asking very little from them in return and actually discourages them from seeking to support themselves. The very people who are supposed to be helped by the welfare system are actually hurt by it and the dependence it causes becomes generational. Passivity begets passivity.
The clergy-laity distinction does the same thing. How else can you explain the vast numbers of people who have been in church all of their lives, people in their later years with decades in the pew, who are sincere, prayerful Christians and yet are spiritually immature and doctrinally deficient? The solution for this problem among my Reformed brethren is more and longer preaching. The problem is that more and more preaching adds to the already heavy burden of ministry because one guy has to do it all and I am increasingly unconvinced that passively listening to a sermon week after week, no matter how good the sermon, is really the key to bringing people to spiritual maturity. Trying to replicate a Together for the Gospel talk every week from the pulpit is doomed to failure. Most men don’t have the same oratory skills as a John Piper or C.J. Mahaney and most church congregations are not as motivated as the T4G audience. The result is frustrated pastors and laity with glazed over eyes. That is not a knock on preaching, it is a knock on passivity.
Let me say again that my goal is not to see how we can tear down the clerical system and throw pastors out on the street. It is to discover how we can get the Body of Christ to all work together for the glory of God, to edify and instruct one another, to love and support one another rather than the unhealthy system of subcontracting out the “one anothers” to “just one”. How can we get men who are motivated and skilled in teaching to help others to grow, not merely spoon feed them while they passively sit in the pew? The Body of Christ is not healthy when we have a small cadre of highly motivated and heavily burdened men doing the work of ministry for a majority who are spectators. The church is a community, not an event, but we treat like a theatrical presentation instead of a living, loving gathering of the redeemed sheep of the Great Shepherd.
Ronald Reagan famously stood in West Berlin in 1987 and said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” It was one of the seminal moments in the Cold War and came shortly before that wall was torn down. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, the Berlin Wall and the Cold War were just facts of life. They were on their side and we were on our side and that is just how it was. What we found out was that the Berlin Wall was not a permanent fixture. It was just a barrier thrown up by some people and once it started to crumble, the whole thing fell. It was not without trouble and some chaos, but real reformation is rarely neat and tidy.
Let’s get people up out of the pews and pastors down from the pulpit. Let’s love the elders not by paying them to do it all for us but by supporting them and shouldering our share of the load. Let’s have real Biblical leadership, with men serving from within the Body as elders instead of directing from above the Body as CEO’s. Let’s get back to “one another” instead of “one and all the others”.
The fact that this incident is so unsurprising...
Michigan State Troopers Lose Jobs for Hunting While on Duty
CHEBOYGAN, Mich. — Two state troopers from the Cheboygan post have lost their jobs for poaching deer while on duty.
Earlier, Jeff Hadley was sentenced to four days in jail for shooting a buck with his hunting rifle Nov. 12 while on patrol in Cheboygan County's Benton Township. Don Bolen received a two-day jail sentence.
Both apologized during their sentencings.
The Cheboygan Daily Tribune now reports the troopers the two have lost their jobs while awaiting arbitration.
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