Weary of One-Way "Conversation"

by Phil Johnson

NOTE: From time to time we pull classic comments from an old thread's combox (or fish them up out of some other blog's meta). The text in the shaded box below is one of those. It's an amalgamation of two comments I wrote on the same day. Aside from splicing the two comments together, I've left the basic substance of my original remarks unchanged from the original.

he main substance of today's entry is something I originally wrote in 2006 in the comments section of another blog. A writer on that blog had complained that my criticism of the "Emerging Conversation" was insufficiently nuanced and unnecessarily nitpicky. He seemed to be suggesting that there are more good influences than harmful ones in the broad world of Emerging religion.

My reply deals with a topic I've thought about a lot recently, especially given the almost total lack of serious engagement we get from the Emerging fringe of the evangelical community. For the most part, Emergents and post-evangelicals don't really seem to care what our perspective is (unless we're doing parody at their expense). Nothing in my two-and-a-half -year experience in the blogosphere has given me any reason to think any of those who talk the most about "conversation" are really interested in having a serious one with anyone who is more certain about eternal truths than they are.

I've said before that the rules of postmodern engagement are fixed to make genuinely serious conversation about truly vital matters well-nigh impossible. People with solid convictions on any of several really weighty biblical truths are simply not welcome at the table.

Here's my perspective on the "conversation," including a brief summary of why I think it's a bad idea in the first place to think serious heresy should ever be answered by collegial dialogue. My view hasn't changed significantly since I wrote this comment more than a year ago:

You wrote: "My main point here is that it’s not helpful to point at heretics in the conversation and therefore stop engaging in it." I'll be candid. That's where I think we don't quite see eye to eye. The problem with the Emerging conversation is not that a handful of heretics are trying to horn in on an otherwise fruitful and beneficial conversation, but that people with unorthodox doctrinal agendas commandeered the "conversation" almost from the get-go. It's not realistic to imagine that any amount of "friendly persuasion" is going to make a change in the direction of the larger movement. There's a reason hospitals don't try to cure infectious diseases by unleashing healthy people among those who are already sick. Heresy, like infection, always works the other way around. (I don't know of an unorthodox movement in the history of Christianity that has ever gradually come around to orthodoxy through friendly dialogue with—or subtle infiltration by—sounder minds.) I see absolutely no warrant and no apostolic example for engaging in friendly conversation with heretical teachers. Second Timothy 2:23-26 tells shepherds how to deal with wayward sheep. That is not a recipe for how to handle wolves in sheep's clothing. On the contrary, it seems to me that there are lots of explicit commands forbidding us to cultivate partnerships, friendly relationships, or even academic comradeships with the purveyors of rank heresy. "Receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds" (2 John 10-11). A friendly dialogue with Kimball or Driscoll on an individual basis is one thing. The idea of joining the whole wide-ranging "Emergent Conversation" is quite another. Such a strategy strikes me as abominable. As a matter of fact, my first bit of advice to Driscoll in any private dialogue would likely be a direct quotation from 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 and a passionate plea for him to take the command in verse 17 very seriously. That would likewise be the heart of any message I think might truly and constructively "encourage the masses [in the Emerging mainstream] toward historical-orthodox Christianity." Do I sound like a hard-core fundie? Well, here's my assessment of that: dialogue with some of the more thoughtful old-line fundamentalists would probably be a thousand times more fruitful for mainstream evangelicals than playing footsie with postmodern fads. For every positive thing we "can learn from" the Emerging subculture, evangelical give-and-take with postmodernized religion would expose us to a thousand deadly pitfalls. On the other hand, I think there are still a few sensible fundamentalists out there who remember some important biblical truths evangelicalism as a movement has stupidly discarded—beginning with the biblical mandates for holiness and separation from evil influences. As far as the Emerging/Emergent mess is concerned, I'd rather be a voice from outside the movement itself. It seems to me church history shows a pretty consistent pattern on this: people who try to remain in an aberrant movement or a mixed multitude in order to be an "influence" ultimately have less influence than those who stand outside and try to minister appropriately to those still on the inside—distinguishing as carefully as possible between the convinced and the merely confused. See Jude 21-23.

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How Can I Be Sure?

In a World That's Constantly Changing...
by Phil Johnson



ere's an exercise for you: Next time you meet a young post-evangelical who is zealous about contextualizing Christianity for these postmodern times, tell him you're completely certain about something spiritually important—preferably a doctrinal proposition he has already expressed uncertainty about. (If he is the type of postmodernist who prefers to express no opinions whatsoever on doctrinal topics, try substitutionary atonement, inerrancy, sola fide, or something of similar import.)

If you can get him to discuss the issue for longer than a sound bite, I predict within ten minutes he'll tell you you're too much of a "modernist."

So give him a look like, "Huh?" and remind him that the position you are defending has historically been associated with a point of view that is known for its militant opposition to modernism. Then ask if he understands what "modernism" is.

He'll most likely respond with a condescending look and tell you in an exasperated tone that—while this all is probably far too complicated for you to understand—you have naively bought into foundationalist epistemology; your worldview has recently been totally discredited; and you need to acquire some epistemic humility.

See, he's familiar with the reductionistic argument that lies at the heart of Beyond Foundationalism, by Stan Grenz and John Franke. Perhaps he has even read the book (or a review of it). At the very least least he'll have seen some of the many Emerging/Emergent/Post-evangelical books or blogs that parrot Grenz's and Franke's all-you-need-to-know-about-epistemology script—namely, that any point of view which is not postmodern (and squeamish about certitude) is nothing more than an outmoded relic of modernity and rooted in foundationalist epistemology.

Earlier this week, a question came up in one of our comment-threads about foundationalism, modernity, and the dripping-faucet accusation that if it weren't for a set of modernist presuppositions you probably don't even realize you have imbibed, you could not possibly justify holding specific theological opinions with any kind of settled conviction. I gave a thumbnail reply to that comment and said I'd try to write a somewhat longer post about it later in the week.

I really don't have time to write a fresh, detailed post on the subject, so here's an excerpt from an e-mail exchange I recently had on the subject. My correspondent had expressed discomfort with the postmodern drift at a certain Christian college, and a professor there gave him the standard Grenz-Franke post-evangelical dodge. After reading something here at PyroManiacs where we expressed concern about the decline of confidence in what the Bible says, he wrote to ask for help:

Phil, the Christian college my church supports seems to be leaning Emergent, and when I talked with some of the professors I was accused of being a "Classic Foundationalist" and that "no one believes that kind of framework anymore"... If you have time for an answer, just a one sentence answer is really all I am looking for... I would like to ask, do you have a dominant epistemological view? If so what is it? (would it be “Classic Foundationalism”?) No. "Classic foundationalism" is inherently rationalistic. Descartes, of course, believed it was possible to lay a foundation for all knowledge with a handful of "self-evident" truths—starting with our own existence ("I think, therefore I am")—and then build a rational system on that foundation. But I reject every worldview and/or epistemology that begins with man as a starting point. It's very popular these days (especially in circles where people are enthralled with postmodernism) to pretend that if someone doesn't accept postmodern skepticism, that person must be a Cartesian foundationalist. But that's a ridiculously reductionistic view and demonstrably false. Ask your professor this: Where did pre-enlightenment and early-Reformation minds think their knowledge came from? Specifically, how did the Reformers explain their knowledge? Calvin answered that question in detail at the very start of his Institutes some 70 years before Rene Descartes was even conceived, and Calvin's answer was neither rationalistic nor man-centered. So it's both a lie and a total anachronism to label the historic Calvinist understanding of human knowledge "foundationalism"—even though that's become an extremely popular pastime in certain Emerging circles. Contemporary epistemology per se is a hobby of philosophers and rationalists who have already rejected the only sound starting point for knowing truth, i. e. that God has revealed Himself, and the fear of Him is therefore the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7). Remember, some knowledge of God and His truth is innate in every human soul because God placed it there (Romans 1:19-21). He has amplified that knowledge with the more explicit revelation of His Word (the Bible), which He Himself assures us is true, and absolutely certain. In other words, the postmodern notion that no one can really know anything for sure is the fruit of suppressing one's own innate understanding and conscience while denying what God Himself says. (And ironically, the fact that people do this so stubbornly is a fulfillment of what God says in Romans 1). Anyway, that's why the pervasive uncertainty of the postmodern worldview is dangerous. When that point of view is used as a lens through which to read Scripture, it becomes a positively sinful way of thinking and is utterly irreconcilable with biblical Christianity. I don't think there's a fancy name for the view of knowledge the Reformers and other biblically-oriented Protestants held, other than "basic Christianity." Call it "Calvinism" if you like. Or you can label it "the Proverbs 1:7 view" to be even more accurate. Phil Johnson http://www.romans45.org/

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Wake-Up Calls, Apologies, and Wrong Turns

by Phil Johnson



    few weeks ago, I made a post about the failure of the Willow Creek strategy, in which I pointed out some of the ironies surrounding this videotaped admission from Bill Hybels.

Consider, for example, that various critics of the Willow-Creek model have been saying these things for two decades:

1. Polling people to find out what they want and then giving it to them is an unbiblical approach to church growth (2 Timothy 4:2-4).
   
2. The so-called seeker-sensitive strategy actually stints discipleship.
   
3. It engenders worldliness and false conversions.
   
4. In fact, it's filling the church with people who think they are Christians but have no basis for that confidence because they have little or no true understanding of basic gospel truth—and no appetite for studying God's Word on their own.

The critics have given numerous biblical reasons for those concerns. But the Willow Creek staff refused to hear any of it until data from an opinion poll proved the critics right—and then Hybels had the audacity in this video to pretend the data were telling him something he could never in his wildest imagination have anticipated.

That's the main irony I'm talking about.

Here's another one: Willow Creek's reflexive response was to do some more research by polling, and let that determine how they would respond to the collective failure of their many programs. The result is a slick new website, book, and yet another multi-phased program, which Willow Creek is now exporting to the same churches that followed the original—now failed—strategy. And, of course, it all starts with a shiny set of new tools to make it easy for those churches to conduct their own opinion polls.

Anyway, I recommend you listen to Todd Friel's first-hour broadcast on Way of the Master Radio from 1 November. He did a much more thorough job than I did analyzing the Hybels's mea culpa video, and Todd had some excellent exhortations for all of us, as always.

Now (in matters only tangentially related to that) last week, right here at PyroManiacs, Mark "Marko" Oestreicher, president of Youth Specialties, paid a visit to our meta to lodge a (very polite and fairly mild) complaint about my insinuation that his company had a major role in derailing youth ministry, starting some three decades ago or so. Many of you will recall that my chief complaint was about the fun 'n' games approach to youth "ministry," where activities just-for-fun replace biblical teaching as The Main Thing. I referred to this as "the 'Youth Specialties' approach to student ministry."

Marko demurred:

funny -- i was reading the post and agreeing with so much of it. then i got to the last bit and found it ironic that the this "fun and games" approach to youth ministry was being called the "youth specialties approach"! wow, i can only be left with one of two conclusions: 1. either there's a different youth specialties than the one i'm president of, the one that has publicly apologized for our role (decades ago) in promoting a program-approach to youth ministry, and regularly rails against this approach today. 2. or, your only contact with youth specialties was decades ago. the commenter who flagged tony jones' book with the claim that it is gnostic and neo-hindu (ha, tell that to the early church fathers!) might have a less misplaced "accusation". but to say YS is about fun and games youth ministry is certainly not reflecting who we are, what we say, or what we publish these days.

(What is it with these Emergent guys and their shift keys, anyway? Do they think capital letters contribute to global warming, or what?)

You can read that comment-thread to see my reply to Marko. Just do a search on that page for his name.

But I've been looking for the apology Marko referred to. He might have been speaking of a famous article written by the late Mike Yaconelli: "The Failure of Youth Ministry" (which was later toned down with this apology). I don't think he was speaking of the infamous skit fiasco from earlier this year, in which both Marko and the Skit Guys admitted that one particular bit of fun 'n' games went too far.

Then I found this page of articles about youth ministry, mostly rants by Yaconelli. He had a few good things to say and a lot of really bad ideas. His discomfort with the direction of modern student ministry was evident in several articles. But I couldn't find the place where he specifically acknowledged and repented of the enormous role he and YS had played in bringing the problem about in the first place.

In fact, here's what disturbs me most about both Willow Creek's recent admission and Marko's tacit acknowledgement that YS did indeed have something to repent of: In neither case do we see any of the fruits of real repentance.

Instead of reemphasizing the centrality of Scripture in what we teach our young people, Youth Specialties took a hard turn toward the leftward extreme of the Emergent spectrum. They now publish Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Chris Seay, Spencer Burke, and several other similarly unorthodox authors you probably haven't even heard of yet. And that has been in addition to (not instead of) the fun 'n' games manuals they originally built the company on. Oh, and don't forget their brand-new study guide and "devotional" based on the hit movie, Evan Almighty.

All Willow Creek's rhetoric about their so-called "Wake-up Call" likewise seems only to signal a deliberate, headlong Shift in a self-consciously postmodern direction. It is clearly not going to mean a turn toward a more biblical philosophy of ministry.

I do think Bill Hybels's admission that his strategy has failed needs to be taken at face value. I believe it signals the beginning of the end for the seeker-sensitive approach that has dominated the evangelical movement for more than twenty years. But I'm also convinced that what's coming next will be even worse.

In fact, if you miss nothing else in all the current popular re-imaginings of various ministry styles, please don't fail to notice the absence of any stress on biblical principles of ministry. Coming in the midst of all these confessions of seeker-sensitivity's heedless, reckless failure, that dark silence is noteworthy. It belies the pretense of candor in all these mea culpas. I think it is a harbinger of some truly evil things on the horizon.

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Please Please Me

by Phil Johnson

From time to time we pull classic comments up out of an old thread's combox. This is one of those. It's a fitting footnote to Monday's post, and in a field of hundreds of e-mails and comments filled with unsolicited advice about what style of blog we ought to be operating, the comment that prompted this reply was the best so far:

L__________: "It seems to me that TeamPyro could learn a thing or two from the L'abri model." Tell you what: You donate a retreat center in the Alps (or better yet, the Sierras) where we can dialogue around tables with coffee and hot chocolate, and we'll give "the L'Abri model" a try. K? But this isn't L'Abri; it's a blog. We've never advertised our blog as the place for people to come for help and handholding while they work through their personal doubts. (We're happy to offer that kind of counsel when we legitimately can, but let's be honest: the ratio of sincere answer-seekers to people with already-fixed but contrary opinions is really pretty low around here. We do, however, work hard to make the distinction.) If you seriously are contending that we are never patient or thorough with people who raise legitimate questions, you prolly haven't read the blog very long. Still, we're not here to offer expertise on anything and everything in the realm of philosophical apologetics. (See Triablogue for that, but be forewarned: they aren't always avuncular, either.) We're mainly posting commentary about selected biblical, doctrinal, and church-related issues that we have studied and feel strongly about, along with an occasional note of humor or satire. And then we're providing a forum for the candid discussion of those things. We do still happen to hold the (ancient, not "modern") conviction that not all points of view are equally valid. In fact, it's our conviction (along with the best of the primitive saints) that the most valid points of view are those that most closely reflect what the Bible says. And we definitely are trying to get closer to that mark. We're not going to deliberately blur whatever seems clear to us just so postmodernized people will think we're "nice." Remember, people who came to L'Abri in Schaeffer's time usually weren't drive-by contrarians writing graffiti on the walls there, and they weren't people who handed out public scoldings while decrying public scoldings, or pleading for open-mindedness while ending their diatribes with remarks like "That's my opinion. I'm sticking to it." In fact, visitors to Schaeffer's home at L'Abri didn't generally come to argue at all. Most of them were really, sincerely raising legitimate questions and looking for answers or help to overcome their doubts. When they asked questions, they received thoughtful replies—and they were expected to give thoughtful consideration to those replies. They didn't swarm the place with vitriol and snark whenever they didn't like the answers they received. That said, if someone has serious questions or doubts and wants to be gently stepped through a series of answers, email me. You'll find that when someone is sincerely seeking help, there are few more patient counselors than I am. But if you're someone already devoted to a lie who just wants to play to the gallery here, you're not going to be mollycoddled. As I said, we work hard to make that distinction. Fair enough?

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Orthodoxy/Orthopraxy Again

by Phil Johnson

From time to time we pull classic comments up out of an old thread's combox. This is one of those:

I had written, "Sound doctrine is not just "one important way to end the scandal of contemporary Christian behavior." It is the answer to the whole problem. "Orthodox theological belief" is the key to a proper Christian worldview. And a truly biblical worldview is the only possible foundation for right praxis. That is what we must stress if the evangelical movement is ever to be salvaged from its current scandalous state." A commenter demurred, saying, "I wish orthodoxy always resorted in orthopraxy, but it 'ain't necessarily so'. I've seen too many examples to pretend otherwise." My reply follows: If you are speaking of orthodoxy in the literal sense of "sound teaching," I agree: orthodoxy doesn't always result in orthopraxy. But if you're speaking of "right belief," then I would differ with you. Sinful behavior is always a fruit of wrong beliefs. You can be certain that if your behavior is bad, you have a belief somewhere that needs correcting. For example, even if you can recite the catechism perfectly on the divine attributes, if you persist in deliberate sin, you do not fear God the way you should, and that is a belief (or lack thereof) that needs to be corrected with more orthodox thinking. To put it another way, sound teaching (orthodoxy) is ultimately a necessary remedy for all evil praxis. By the way, that's why Jesus spoke of the Word as the instrument of sanctification. And that's why orthodoxy itself should never be derided just because some who seem to be superficially "orthodox" might behave badly. It's also why sanctification doesn't automatically occur by purely sacramental means. On the one hand, it's certainly true that "doing is more important than words." No one here has argued otherwise. However (and this is the point I have labored to make), "orthodoxy" is not about words. It's about truth, real belief, and the Word of God. If it doesn't result in "doing," it isn't true orthodoxy; it's dead faith. That's James's point in chapter 2. On the other hand, genuine goodness is not the fruit of pietistic doing. It's the fruit of faith—and genuine faith is rooted in orthodox beliefs, not unorthodox ones.

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For those who asked...

by Phil Johnson



Coming April 2008

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L'Abri or not L'Abri

by Frank Turk

I have a really, really long post which is from something that happened last week, and I'm scrubbing it hard because it's a topic which deserves a hard scrub. And I have another which is part of an inside joke here at TeamPyro which I am in the process of writing. And Phil has a great post linking to a person who's obviously got his head and humor tied on right, so a bumpin' we will go.

But Luke (of "Luke and Rachael" fame in the meta) has said something which I think deserves special attention.

It seems to me that TeamPyro could learn a thing or two from the L'abri model.

Here's my initial reaction to that statement, and I urge you to think about it and then add something constructive to the topic in the comments.

Apparently L'Abri is participating in something like ministry, and this blog in particular is not -- and that's an interesting view from a guy who may or may not be a friend of Emergent but who is taking up for the cause of so-called "missional" church work.

I was going to comment that it's a little weird that pastors who cuss from the pulpit, borrowing music from the least morally-concerned part of secular culture, accepting ritual scarring and piercing, and giving a pass to public drunkenness are all seen as "acceptable", but blogging -- that is, blogging in a way which people will read and take notice of -- is seen as a violation of mission. However, I'm going to ask a question instead.

L'Abri doesn't feed the hungry or clothe the naked in any kind of consistent way. Should they abandon their work to do that work because the latter form of work is apparently more like what Jesus would do?

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Answer the Question

by Phil Johnson

From time to time we pull classic comments up out of an old thread's combox. This is one of those.

his comes from the discussion attached to one of yesterday's posts. We've all seen the vigor, passion, and persistence with which angry friends of Emergent have been willing to argue and complain about the propriety of the Po-Motivators. I had wondered aloud if there has ever been an equivalent outpouring of passion from so many people inside the broad boundaries of the Emerging Church against the more heinous doctrinal problems that constantly percolate in that movement's left wing.


So far, no one has really answered that question. One poster (whose behavior here has been so obnoxious that he actually got himself banned awhile back) posted some links showing that he and others had at various times expressed polite disagreement with certain abberant doctrinal ideas in the ECM.

That was no answer to my question, I pointed out. Where was the passion and outrage equal to the outpouring of indignation we've received for our critiques?

After yesterday's long and rambling comment threads drew to a close, we are still waiting for an answer to that question. I don't want our regular readers to miss that fact:

Go back and notice the actual question I asked: "Where, precisely, are [the so-called "conservative" Emerging Christians] investing that kind of energy in order to straighten out Jones, Burke, Bell, et al.?" I'm not asking whether Emerging insiders ever voice disagreement with one another. Of course they do. But I'm asking to be shown where they have employed the same level of energy and force of polemic they have used against the "watchblogs" in their disagreements with fellow Emergers who have gone off the reservation doctrinally? Scot Mcknight's telling Spencer Burke he needs to go back to church is hardly in the same class with the curses and demands for repentance that have been posted right here in our comment-threads by Emerging Christians and their sympathizers. As a matter of fact, some of the same commenters who regularly breach our commenting guidelines here have established entire blogs where they mock and attack Ken Silva and Ingrid S. and others who critique Emerging trends from the outside. Where, precisely, are Emerging insiders dealing that earnestly with the more serious doctrinal meltdown inside their own movement?

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What are "conservatives" doing in the Emerging Church?

by Phil Johnson

From time to time we pull classic comments up out of an old thread's combox. This is one of those.

ere a commenter tries to argue that outsiders' criticism of the Emerging Church Movement is inherently unfair and unwise, because the movement is so broad that no criticism can possibly apply to the whole mess. Furthermore, this person suggests, an ultra-broad movement like this would be self-correcting if we would just allow that process to happen. The conservatives in the movement are trying to straighten out their wayward brethren, and that's why non-emergent critics should simply leave them alone:

B__________: "Let's recognize that ECM has BOTH liberal and conservative elements, and the conservative element is striving to correct the liberal one." Really? Where? Take Driscoll's contribution to Listening to the Beliefs of the Emerging Churches out of the equation, and I don't see a whole lot of evidence that what you suggest "the conservative element" is trying to do is really happening on any significant scale. As a matter of fact, when I recently complained that a certain other ostensibly conservative contributor to that volume had made such a weak and reductionist case for "orthodoxy" that he was really adding to the problem rather than helping solve it, angry hordes of Emerging "conservatives" came over here to try to set me straight. Where, precisely, are they investing that kind of energy in order to straighten out Jones, Burke, Bell, et al.? Can you give me some URLs? And, by the way, if they are trying to "correct" the wing-nuts secretly and behind the scenes while continuing to extend the pretense of Christian fellowship to them publicly, that strategy isn't working. The wacked-out left end of Emergent is getting larger and crazier. Meanwhile, among the churches within the movement that profess adherence to a solid doctrinal position, some of the most prominent ones seem to be working hard to make their actual position seem as broad and fuzzy as possible. Furthermore, I don't see any evidence that conservatives are having any significant positive impact on the overall direction of the larger movement. What they are doing is (precisely what you are doing here:) managing to convince naive non-emergents that postmodern perspectives on truth and certainty really don't pose a serious threat to the Christian worldview after all. That is a huge mistake, and it might actually pose a greater danger than the rather extreme and obvious heresies of someone like Spencer Burke. Selah.

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Oil and Water

by Phil Johnson

From time to time we pull classic comments up out of an old thread's combox. What follows is one of those.

ere's part of a discussion I had with a quasi-regular commenter who asked some questions about my stance against blending ministry with politics. I've edited it slightly to correct a couple of misspellings, to keep my interlocutor anonymous, to abbreviate some redundancies, to stress a point or two, and to add the quotation that I initially referred to and couldn't produce off the top of my head:

Here are my two top reasons for believing the church (n.b.: not necessarily individual Christians, but the church) should keep her hands off the machinery of secular politics: There's no positive example of political lobbying or organizing from either Jesus or the apostles. Every movement in the entire history of the church that has regarded political activism as a legitimate facet of gospel ministry has allowed political ideology to eclipse the gospel. That's true from Constantine to Cromwell to the Liberation theologians. Note: I haven't suggested that the church should "be silent" about social (or even governmental) evils; merely that we have a more vital way to remedy those evils than by lobbying for legislation. Also: It's not that I oppose legislation that would eliminate certain expressions of the evil that rules men's hearts. If our legislators outlawed abortion, homosexuality, bestiality, gambling, drunken theologizing, and other similarly gross evils, I would celebrate. If a statute promoting righteousness or outlawing unrighteousness is on the ballot, I'll vote for it. But our collective calling as a church is to announce the remedy for the evil itself. Lets not get sidetracked in the electoral process. Let the dead bury the dead. That's what I'm saying. R____: "Part of what makes it hard to figure out what's appropriate for the church to be involved in is the fact that policy making was so far from participatory in the NT era. There was no lobbying for Jesus and the apostles to be involved in!" Perhaps, but so what? Jesus is rightful Lord of all. If straightening out earthly political institutions had been any part of His work, why not mount a revolution? That's what the Zealots were trying to do. That's what the disciples originally expected Jesus to do. That's what politically-zealous Christians under non-democratic governments have often tried to do. It's something Jesus had every right to do, because He alone has a legitimate claim to the title "Lord of all." It's significant that Jesus didn't mount a revolution. And (the beliefs of some of my postmill friends notwithstanding) He didn't command the church to commandeer the machinery of earthly politics on His behalf, either. It is a fact of history that every time the church has dabbled in politics—including in the very best cases, such as Calvin's Geneva—the experiments have ultimately failed. Usually in disastrous ways. Will Durant had an insightful quote about the impossibility of harnessing human governments to help accomplish the true Christian mission. You'll find it where he deals with Cromwell's failure. But I remember reading it and thinking he captured my thoughts exactly. I'll try to locate that quote and perhaps include it in a future blogpost. [Found it. Durant wrote: In public [Cromwell] maintained an unostentatious dignity; privately he indulged in amusements and jesting, even in practical jokes and occasional buffoonery. He loved music, and played the organ well. His religious piety was apparently sincere, but he took the name of the Lord (not in vain) so often in support for his purposes that many accused him of hypocrisy. Probably there was some hypocrisy in his public piety, little in the private piety that all who knew him attested. His letters and speeches are half sermons; and there is no question that he assumed too readily that God was his right hand. His private morals were impeccable, his public morals were no better than those of other rulers; he used deception or force when he thought them necessary to his major purposes. No one has yet reconciled Christianity with government. Will and Ariel Durant, The Age of Louis XIV (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963), 192.] But Jesus said it best of all: "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you. . ." (Matthew 20:25-26). See the context for even more insight into what Jesus meant.

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New BlogFeature

by Phil Johnson

'll occasionally notice a particularly nice comment in the combox of an old thread here at PyroManiacs, or somewhere in the bowels of my former blog, and I'll think to myself, Hey, that would have been a pretty decent post in its own right. Too bad it was buried in some ridiculous thread somewhere.

So I'm going to start resurrecting some of those dead-and-buried comments from time to time. It'll save me time blogging, and it could prove fun. In fact, let's start with an amusing one from my original blog. This comment's nearly two years old, but just as timely as ever:

Hey! By now, you should know better than to use humor on my blog. There are people watching on the periphery of this place who can quite easily get seriously injured if you're the least bit wry, mischievous, sarcastic, ironic, sardonic, or (heaven forbid) derisive. Let me try to draw a timely parallel for you: Intellectually, PyroManiac[s] is what you might call "a low-lying community." (I'd like to deny that, but let's be completely honest.) Posting a sarcastic remark or a caricature of any kind is the psychological equivalent to breaching the levy that holds the waters of post-modernism at bay. I BEG you: don't do it again. --Phil Johnson

PS for Dan and Frank: these are even more bumpable than my typical posts.

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