Continusmaticism: lunges and ripostes — the research phase

by Dan Phillips

This is probably too ambitious, and I probably don't have the time.

That rousing beginning uttered: Continusmatics keep recycling the same lame challenges and comebacks and evasions that have already been answered over and over. Though each quip has been killed dead more times than Freddy and Jason combined, they're always pulled out of a hat as if they'd just sprung fresh from Zeus' brow, never heard before, never answered even once (let alone myriad times), and always produced with the invincible air of the Aha.

This happens a lot in Twitter, where I guess I get followers (or non-following drive-bys) who don't know who I am and haven't actually read any of the dozens of articles I've ever written on these subjects. So I've taken simply not to wasting my time on folks who don't "follow" me, because there's no context there, and I've no time to do each lazy challenger's research for him.

So in that all, I've often thought it'd be nice just to be able to give a link, say "Read #47," and be done with it. Create a master post, with as many comebacks and/or links as I can manage, maybe let it grow like the Axioms post, and use it.

That's what this is for: research for a future post. To be written, you know, in my spare time.

HERE ARE THE RULES, AND LO! THEY ARE RULEY-RULES:

1. Anyone (who hasn't been banned) can play. Charismatic, non-, apostolic, third-wave, tenth-degree, 49th parallel, second amendment... whatever. 
2. But the comment must be one sentence long or I will delete it. Comment as many times as warranted, but each comment must be one sentence long, and must be what the next rule says it must be.
3. The comment is and must be only something a Charismatic says either to defend, go on offense for, or dodge the implications of his position.
4. For examples, see below.

Simple, eh? Yeah, I know; "We'll see."

So I'll start it with these examples:

1. God still heals.
2. The Bible says "earnestly desire to prophesy" (1 Cor. 14:39)
3. The Bible says "do not forbid speaking in tongues" (1 Cor. 14:39)
4. The Bible says "do not despise prophecies" (1 Thess. 5:20)
5. The Bible says "do not quench the Spirit" (1 Thess. 5:19)
6. No verse says the gifts have ceased.
7. No verse says the gifts would cease with the closing of the Canon.
8. A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.
9. There were prophecies in the Bible that weren't added to Scripture.
10. We aren't claiming to write Scripture.
11. NT prophecy is different from OT prophecy.
12. Saying that prophecy should be tested and sifted (1 Thess. 5:21) and discerned (1 Cor. 14:29) proves it is different from OT prophecy.
13. Great Man A had a weird experience that's hard to explain, so the gifts are still around.
14. Some Continusmatic wrote an answer to your answer of #___.

There y'go. Sound like fun? Depends on you. So have at it, homies.

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Book review — The Heroic Boldness of Martin Luther, by Steven J. Lawson

by Dan Phillips

The Heroic Boldness of Martin Luther
by Steven J. Lawson

(Sanford: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2013; 145 pages)

My dear wife picked this up at the Strange Fire conference by signing up (for something) with Ligonier, so I read it on my journey home. It isn't that I live in Australia, though the Denver layover was a bit long, it's that this book is that quick and lively of a read.

It is the latest in a series of books edited by Lawson collectively titled "The Long Line of Godly Men profiles." Previous volumes treat of Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon, and Knox. All but the last are by Lawson; Douglas Bond writes about Knox.

This book consists of six brisk, engaging chapters approaching the legacy of Luther as a preacher from various angles. Lawson writes as he speaks, with energy and urgency. The reader is fairly carried along by a delightful marriage of lively prose and thorough, scholarly documentation. Listening to Lawson in the past, I didn't appreciate the extent of his research into his subjects; I do now.

Even the preface is solid, undergirded by nineteen footnotes endnotes. It issues a "Call for a New Reformation," in which Lawson links the power of Luther's (and other Reformers') preaching to the causes of the great reformation of the sixteenth century. He says the Reformation was a revival of preaching (xvii), of biblical preaching (xviii), of controversial preaching (xix), and of preaching on the doctrines of grace (xx). It's a bracing lead-in to the body of the text, whose first chapter covers Luther's life and legacy. It is an overview Luther's life and ministry, traced from birth to death. The center to which Lawson keeps referring, though, is Luther as preacher — factors that played into the centrality of proclamation in Luther's ministry.

This chapter showcases one of the strengths of the volume. Lawson interlaces his narrative with constant quotations from Luther himself. Better still — and unlike the fun-to-read but exasperating Warren Wiersbe — every quotation is documented. One comes away not simply with Luther as seen by Lawson or even Luther scholars (though they're all there, in the footnotes endnotes), but with Luther in his own words.

Chapter two treats of Luther's deep conviction about the Word: "The pulpit is the throne for the Word of God" (26). Luther laments the neglect of the Word, writing in prose that is unpleasantly timely:

God's Word has been silenced, and only reading and singing remain in the churches. This is the worst abuse.... A host of unchristian fables and lies, in legends, hymns, and sermons were introduced that it is horrible to see.... A Christian congregation should never gather together without the preaching of God's Word and prayer, no matter how briefly, as Psalm 102 says, "When the kings and the people assemble to serve the Lord, they shall declare the name and the praise of God." (27)

Lawson traces out five core commitments in Luther's attitude towards the Word: verbal inspiration, divine inerrancy, supreme authority, intrinsic clarity, and complete sufficiency. Citing Sproul, Lawson argues that the central issue of the Reformation was the issue of authority; it was a crisis about the Word (40-41).

Chapter three deals with Luther in his study, again detailing five ways "in which [Luther's] study for his preaching stood out" (45ff.). He stresses the reading of Scripture, and the importance of a mastery of the Bible's original languages. Chapter four deals with Luther's commitment to the text he is about to expound, illustrating how Luther used a brief introduction to dive right into the passage itself. Lawson notes that Luther "believed that the preacher must advance to his text as soon as possible and, once there, remain there" (67).

Chapter five focuses on Luther's passion in preaching, this time elucidating four feathers of his exposition (indomitable spirit, fervent intensity, accessible speech, and colorful expressions). As with every turn, Lawson illustrates from Luther's own sermons. One arresting example is Luther's vivid preaching on the sacrifice of Isaac (95). Chapter six's theme is Luther's fearless declaration of the truth. Here again five aspects come to the fore, including Luther's conviction that we mustn't keep back some Scriptural truths as being unfit for Christian ears (!; 102ff.).

Lawson concludes with a plea for more who show Luther's boldness and Biblical/Gospel/Christ-centered emphasis in preaching. And that is the purpose of the book, a positive intent to plead for more bold preaching. For that reason, I take it, Lawson doesn't deal with Luther's squirreliness about James, or his execrable and universally rejected words about the Jews.

I recommend the book to any pastor; it's a great read.

My only real complaint is that the publisher has served both Lawson and us very poorly by relegating all of Lawson's careful documentation to endnotes. As always, this is a gratuitous pity and an insult both to author and reader. The practice neither honors Lawson's diligent scholarship nor serves his readers' convenient profit. It is a baffling holdover. We are no longer in the day when footnoting drove up costs due to the issues of typesetting. Footnoting inconveniences no one (don't like 'em? don't read 'em), endnotes inconvenience anyone interested in documentation (two bookmarks, back and forth, back and forth).

I hope there will be future volumes in the series, and that the publisher will elect to serve Lawson and us better in terms of layout.

Aside to authors: Love your readers. For their sake, insist that your publisher use footnotes, not endnotes.

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On the Boy Scouts' decision regarding homosexual scouts

by Dan Phillips

If you're looking for a bit of Biblical commentary, and you don't want yours served "dainty" —after all, here you are, looking at Pyromaniacs — check out From 1990: Second-Hand Values or Can Conservatism Save America?, over at my place.

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In the Family Way

by Frank Turk

Yes, all right now:

Bookmark this: buff.ly/YFJOAh the idiots at Newsweek are in for a merciless beating next week.
— Frank Turk (@Frank_Turk) February 20, 2013

Have you read the link?  Good heavens: don't read the criticism without reading the source.  What are you - Baptist?

OK, first of all: "so what?" if Newsweek somehow makes money publishing trash like that link when there is literally a gem every day (that DJP posts) here and we can't even maintain 2 Kindle subscribers who aren't members of the Johnson family.  It may be, to say the least, unjust in the "problem of evil" sense.  It is utterly evil that people will pay Newsweek money to publish paragraphs like this one:

Sitting around a table at a hookah bar in New York’s East Village with three women and a gay man, all of them in their 20s and 30s and all resolved to remain childless, a few things quickly became clear: First, for many younger Americans and especially those in cities, having children is no longer an obvious or inevitable choice. Second, many of those opting for childlessness have legitimate, if perhaps selfish, reasons for their decision.

In a feature piece which also says this (avert your eyes if you cannot abide the world being itself):

Crudely put, the lack of productive *****ing could further be *****ing the *****ed generation.

I mean: sure -- Crossway has paid Mark Driscoll to talk like that, but that was missional style back in the day.  That's what passed for cultural engagement.  You can't blame them for, well, whatever that was in the mid-aughts.

But then Newsweek has the real audacity to let this be said:

While postfamilialism isn’t nearly as far along in the U.S., American marriage is faltering—and the baby is being thrown out with the bath water. Forty-four percent of millennials agree that marriage is becoming “obsolete.” And even among those who support tying the knot (including many of those who say it’s obsolete), just 41 percent say children are important for a marriage—down from 65 percent in 1990. It was the only factor to show a significant decline. ... On the flip side of the coin, the percentage of adults who disagreed with the contention that people without children “lead empty lives” has shot up, to 59 percent in 2002 from 39 percent in 1988.

Now, look: some of you are just so-whatting already, because frankly this is post-christian America, this is in the post-Christian West, and how surprising is it that this is where we are in 2013.  In some sense, I agree with you: this is who we are in the West now, simply glad to be over the idea of families and children even if it means our death as a race or (in less hyperbolic terms) as a society.

But what is excruciatingly-galling about this piece in Newsweek is that one of the major contributors to this cultural achievement is ...  Newsweek!  Seriously: how on Earth did anyone in their offices have anything but a glowing face of red hot humiliation as they either read or composed this:

In his provocative 2012 book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, Eric Klinenberg writes that for the hip urban professionals who make up the so-called creative class, living alone represents a “more desirable state,” even “a sign of success and a mark of distinction, a way to gain freedom and experience the anonymity that can make city life so exhilarating.” Certainly, the number of singletons has skyrocketed: more than half of all adults today are single (a group that includes divorcées and widows and widowers), up from about one in five in 1950.

After they were so proud to offer this back in 2008:

More basic than theology, though, is human need. We want, as Abraham did, to grow old surrounded by friends and family and to be buried at last peacefully among them. We want, as Jesus taught, to love one another for our own good—and, not to be too grandiose about it, for the good of the world. We want our children to grow up in stable homes. What happens in the bedroom, really, has nothing to do with any of this. My friend the priest James Martin says his favorite Scripture relating to the question of homosexuality is Psalm 139, a song that praises the beauty and imperfection in all of us and that glorifies God's knowledge of our most secret selves: "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." And then he adds that in his heart he believes that if Jesus were alive today, he would reach out especially to the gays and lesbians among us, for "Jesus does not want people to be lonely and sad." Let the priest's prayer be our own.

As the counterpoint to this, which is their rendition of what the Bible "really" says about marriage:

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script? 

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.

What a tawdry little lie. What an enormous act of self-deception.  Doesn't it turn out that what "of course" no one really wants is what, for millennia, kept the West in the people business at least -- and in the family business in spite of the project being full of (in Newsweek's view) the morally-callow and those looking for a last resort?

Maybe what bothers me most about this story is the actual humility of it -- the humble omission to represent Newsweek's own role in the situation.  Go ahead and search the Daily Beast (hey look: it's not my fault they asked Jerry Jenkins to name their endeavor) for "birth control" (1333 stories) or "gay marriage" (1607 stories), and you'll find that after molesting and man-handling the child-rearing social unit with both hands for years -- for decades, if you can find the old print Newsweek archives -- suddenly they have discovered that "in the coming decades, success will accrue to those cultures that preserve the family’s place, not as the exclusive social unit but as one that is truly indispensable."

Listen Newsweek: we warned you.  You laughed at us and said Jesus was a pansy and Paul was a prude, and that Abraham and David were philanderers.  You made traditional marriage out to be the sexual sand trap for the great deviants of the ages -- and now you want to call it all a mulligan and hope we can muster up our putting game for the sake of the team so that there will be a team next season?

It's a good thing the rest of us who were already laughing at you behind your backs and praying for you through tears didn't listen to you in the first place.  It's a good thing we raised our kids to love families and love each other.  It's a good thing we didn't take your word for it about Abraham, David, Paul and Jesus -- because otherwise, in your own words, well, we also raised our kids not to speak like that because it demeans something which is utterly holy and utterly indispensable for society.  Let's just say that we forgive you for doing what seemed right in your own eyes -- but we has to remind you: admitting that your math was bad isn't enough.  That wasn't your worst fault by any means.

If you've discovered that what you have actually done is condemned a civilization to death by your cavalier and banal view of what makes people possible, and teaching others to do the same, you should repent.  That is: you should admit that people are made for something other than what you made up in your own minds, and then turn to the One who made them and repent.  Some actual Penance -- in spite of my staunch Protestant theology -- on your part might do you some good.

We'll be here if you have any questions.

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Check your Jesus

by Dan Phillips

It's funny how terrible I always have been at predicting results. Posts that I was certain would create a broad, energetic discussion have fizzled, while posts I virtually knocked off in a few minutes become Best. Post. EVAR in the eyes of some.

Same with Tweets and hashtags. I've started some I thought would really take off (and didn't)... and then yesterday, I came up with an idea. It was pretty much offhand. Here's the first:

If the "Jesus" you worship isn't too jazzed about every bit of God's Word, you might want to #CheckYourJesus
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 5, 2013

One of the most retweeted was:

If the "Jesus" you worship wants everyone to have his "best life now," you'd better #CheckYourJesus
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 6, 2013

A few others (I'm still adding):

If the "Jesus" you worship doesn't love the church, you'd better #CheckYourJesus

— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 5, 2013

If the “Jesus” you worship says "Love" and you think "Statist bureaucracy confiscating & redistributing wealth," you should #CheckYourJesus

— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 6, 2013

If your Jesus wouldn't have cared about the RCC perverting the Gospel and the Word bec they're pro-life, you should #CheckYourJesus

— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 6, 2013

If the “Jesus” you worship teaches you to stay home from churches tht aren't as perfect as you (think you) are, you'd better #CheckYourJesus
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 7, 2013

If your Jesus taught you to call everyone who actually does take His words srsly a "hater" or "self-righteous," you'd better #CheckYourJesus

— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 6, 2013

If the “Jesus” you worship keeps handing you "God told me" cards without Bible verses on them, you'd better #CheckYourJesus
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 6, 2013

I told Pirate Christian Radio's Chris Rosebrough, and he joined in and ran with it, along with a bunch of other really terrific contributions. The hashtag is #CheckYourJesus, and the Biblical background is 2 Cor. 11:4 -- "For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough."

Read them through, there are a lot of great contributions, and it's still growing. Here's a sampler.

If your "Jesus" is OK with you hating his bride, #CheckYourJesus

— Machel (@trogdor42) March 6, 2013

#checkYourJesus if He doesn't forgive your sins, but rather justifies them.
— Frank Turk (@Frank_Turk) March 6, 2013

If you claim Christianity but don't know the gospel #CheckYourJesus
— ❂Captain Morgan ⚓ (@MorganSteelman) March 6, 2013

If your Jesus wants you to pray to his earthly mother, you need to #CheckYourJesus
— Chris Rosebrough (@piratechristian) March 6, 2013

If you think grace can forgive your sin but not mortify it, time to #CheckYourJesus
— Machel (@trogdor42) March 6, 2013

If your "Jesus" has a generous orthodoxy & claims He has followers who are practicing Buddhists, Hindus & Muslims U need to #CheckYourJesus
— Chris Rosebrough (@piratechristian) March 6, 2013

It's really hard to pick, and once I've started it is hard to stop. So just peruse and enjoy.

Some sad souls tried to derail now and again with bitter little squawks, but they only set off new rounds of robust response. All in all, it's been a great ride.

Join in!

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A. W. Pink: glorifying God by disobeying Him?

by Dan Phillips

I realize that A. W. Pink is a hero and beloved saint to many. His books, particularly The Sovereignty of God, have been very helpful for decades.

For my part, I've never been a huge fan. I've tried reading him, and generally been defeated by his verbosity or his fanciful exegesis. I've other books that do a better job of what he tries to do, so they take up my time instead of Pink.

HSAT, I'm reading through a book called Bible Interpreters of the Twentieth Century: A Selection of Evangelical Voices, edited by Elwell and Weaver. The chapter I just finished was devoted to A. W. Pink.

From a whole-Bible, sufficient-Scripture perspective, it's not a particularly happy story after the opening bits. Pink had been a Theosophist, but was soundly converted whilst in the middle of his activities, and instantly preached Christ in a Theosophical meeting at which he was to be a speaker.

But after that, Pink's life goes south in a number of ways. He eschews any kind of apprenticeship or training, too devoted to himself and his own endeavors. This will yield mixed fruit: the intensity of his studies will indeed give Pink some good material to give away. However, this isolation is constantly and roundly warned against in Scripture, which commends instead humble exposure to the reproof and counsel of others (e.g. Prov. 10:17; 12:1; 13:18; 15:5, 10, 31-32; 18:1-2; etc.). As anyone who reads and believes the Bible could have predicted, baleful effects followed foolish choices.

Pink attempts to pastor, but ends up careening from location to location to location. Pink prefers talking to people from a great distance (i.e. writing), and ends up devoted to that activity solely, in complete isolation from any personal contact with Christ's church or the means of grace. Which brings me to set these two passages in contrast.

First:

He labored faithfully for his remaining twelve years of life, writing and producing the periodical while he lived in virtual isolation, not even attending a local church. He justified this behavior by explaining that the admonition not to neglect the assembling of ourselves together does not mean that the sheep of Christ should attend a place where the goats predominate or where their attendance would sanction that which is dishonoring to Christ. On Sundays he spent his time pastoring his flock of faithful readers by writing letters answering their questions concerning the Bible and theology. Would-be visitors who had traveled great distances to Stornoway were discouraged as they were usually turned away, not being allowed to see him. The townspeople knew little about him, except that each day at a certain hour he took a walk through the town. 

[Elwell, W. A., & Weaver, J. D. (1999). Bible interpreters of the twentieth century: A selection of evangelical voices (138). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.]

Second:

Pink also believed in, practiced, and preached holiness of life, including sacrificial living for his Lord. He longed to do the will of God, whatever it might be. He searched and searched, prayed and prayed, waited and waited to learn the will of God, and finally surrendered to do what was unmistakably God’s will—the use of his pen. [Ibid., 140.]

These passages in juxtaposition give us an opportunity to consider what I've hammered on again and again, just about every place I have a chance.

Consider:

The second passage tells us Pink was holy, and committed to "sacrificial living for his Lord," doing the will of God heroically, surrendering to "what was unmistakably God’s will—the use of his pen." But the first passage had told us that Pink had no time for pursuing the second most important thing in the universe according to Jesus: love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:36-40).

Now, like all religious people, Pink worked out what the biographer calls a "justification," which as always is nothing but a rationalization. And the biographer gives Pink a pass, because he was such a splendid writer. So because of Pink's (and the biographer's) writing, Christians are once again urged to the fiction that one can seek and do the "will of God" in direct and continued disobedience to the Word of God.

Because the second passage is utter nonsense, to a Biblical Christian. Disobeying God's direct, unambiguous and insistent commands to be personally in community, under the oversight of elders, is not "holiness of life," and it is not "sacrificial living for the Lord." It is indulgent and arrogant living for oneself. It is someone who didn't seem, in any way, to "get" what it means to live and think like a slave.

In fact, mark the first passage. Not only was Pink too good to associate with imperfect saints (where he is not in charge and running things his way); he would not even accept visitors. Pink must have imagined that he had some mystical exemption from Romans 12:13, Hebrews 13:2, and 1 Peter 4:9 as well as the previously-noted commands. And while he wrote very critically and insistently upon evangelism, and how everyone else was doing it wrong, "The townspeople knew little about him, except that each day at a certain hour he took a walk through the town." So according to this, Pink "practiced holiness" by neither actually obeying the Word of God, nor even through practicing what he literarily preached.

Instead, here once again this ugly specter of a mystical, individual will of God that in fact trumps the written Word of God rears its devastating head. The writer is content that God had a will for Pink that trumped the revealed will He inscripturated for all saints at all times and in all places. God's inerrant and unchanging and living Word is packed with "one-anothers" to be lived in the fellowship of the local church; but to A. W. Pink, we are given to think that He whispered, "Not you, Arthur. I want you to disobey what I told everyone else to do and stay at home, isolated and distant, practicing none of the graces of the Spirit, lecturing others about their responsibility. You just write; and in your writings, urge others to the obedience and holiness from which I am hereby excusing you."

So you see, like many who have tried to ply their wares in our metas, Pink imagined he had a "note from God" excusing him for actually obeying those commands God addressed to lesser beings. And the biographer apparently confirms that note.

You want to say Pink wrote some helpful things? If you say so. You want to tell me he's a model of Christian holiness and sacrificial living and integrity?

Yeah, I don't think so. In walking after Christ I constantly struggle (cf. Gal. 5:17ff.), I too frequently fail, I am at unceasing war with my own inconsistencies and inadequacies. The human knack for rationalization is an ever-present risk and fear.

The last thing I need held up for emulation is a man who found a way to avoid that whole struggle by pious-sounding excuses.

How about you?

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Talent

by Frank Turk



Having listened to all the talks now from the DGNC2010 conference, I think the best news is that there were no surprises. I mean, guess what: Al Mohler is still the smartest guy on the planet. John Piper can make you love God more and hate your pride -- he can help you see pride in places you didn't think you had a place for it. Francis Chan is still the Richie Cunningham of the Conference circuit. R.C. Sproul is still, as far as I'm concerned, the only guy who always gets Paul right from inside out. Rick Warren was commended by his hosts and, of course, criticized by all the right people (including me, before the torches and pitchforks come out).

So, yay team: nice one put to bed again. Jesus was praised one way or another, and we all got to go home edified. Some of us stayed home and were edified.

We all get to have our tidy theology and lives back, and we can go on reading Crossway with the right amount of humility and tranquility (that's not smugness, mind you: "smug" would be reading our Crossway on the subway or at Starbucks where people could see you reading Crossway, even if it's studying your ESVSB) to be edified that we are in the right place under God's sovereignty.



OK, I have to admit it: I did have a moment in listening to these talks and panels when I really, really felt like we had crossed into the surreal. There was one surprise. It was the first panel where Kevin DeYoung, Tullian Tchividlian, Burk Parsons and John Piper were sort of round-tabling with David Mathis soft-balling them with general questions about pastoral ministry.

The surreal part was not where John Piper called Rick Warren "an unbelievable communicator" in a completely-unironic way. It was the part late in that panel where he unironically said this (around 22:00):

Piper: I just think you should faithfully do what you love to do and are called to do, (I'm talking to Pastors now) and if it happens it happens. Now, I suppose Rick Warren would roll over in his, uh, not his grave but his study because that sounds so unpurposeful, but, I just, uh, it's just discouraging and paralyzing to take away specifics. There has to be a certain organic-ness to dreaming. Skill-sets and gifting and what he called SHAPE in his book Purpose-Driven Life are so crucial to the way you go about dreaming, the way you go about seeing what's not there. And you can just kill yourself trying to see what's not there that doesn't fit you at all. It doesn't fit your church, it doesn't fit your situation, and you may not know the dream God has planned for you, and so … you know, everyone speaks about their own trajectory … this is me talkin', not Rick Warren, and I just came to Bethlehem and I tried to preach the Bible faithfully.



And didn't have any other plans. I didn't. (in CEO voice) Oh, there's a 50,000 student University across the street - what's the strategy? (/voice) Well, they can come. If they want. [laughter] And there were a few other things thrown in along the way, but mainly I want to feed the sheep in such a way that the sheep love God, are so thrilled with God, they tell other people about him, and they come and worship and they love God so much, and yeah then you have to train some people and maybe a Tom Steller will join your staff and make something happen. I kinda want pastors to keep their focus clear and do a livable life, keep your wife happy, and your kids in the fold, and preach your heart out, and you really will do remarkable things. [ends at 24:25]

Now: why is that surreal? I mean, that's the reformed (small "r" intended) demographic schtick, right -- I'm just a simple preacher being faithful to God's word. That's how John MacArthur "did it". That's how Al Mohler "did it". That's how R.C. Sproul "did it". That's how Mark Dever "did it". And that, to put a fine point on it to keep our street cred, is exactly what Rick Warren said is unfaithfulness -- to be allegedly-faithful and unconcerned with fruit, to be more concerned with knowing the whole systematic ball but never leaving your study to take it out to the playground or the unreached people group.

Somebody might say that's not surreal -- that's the kind of people we are striving to be, isn't it? But look at the underlined part there. In the midst of detailing the reformed schtick under the cover of "organic" dreaming and avoiding too-hard burdens, of all people on Earth John Piper says, essentially, that intentional evangelism is not his first concern. I mean, this is the guy who wrote Let the Nations Be Glad. This is the guy who penned Don't Waste your Life. In essence, in a very transparent and self-aware way, he admitted that he doesn't have at top of mind lost people.

That is something, I think, no one expected -- because nobody heard it. Or rather: they all laughed! Nobody squared up to it and said, "well, Dr. Piper, is that why you invited Rick Warren in the first place? Isn't that a pretty dangerous diagnosis for you, given that you're in some way a leader and mentor for the so-called 'Young Reformed' movement? It plays right into the stereotype of calvinism -- and not in a good way."

Listen: that's got to be a wake-up call for all of us. That's got to be something that makes us ring hollow on the inside. If John Piper can admit that evangelism is not on the top of his mind when preaching, then I think we are all suddenly caught with the same look on our faces that the Coyote has when he runs off the edge of the cliff.

You know what? Rick Warren has a concern for people who are going to hell. Maybe we're all correct, and he's so riddled with faults and errors and unrepentant pride in his accomplishments that his message is not what we, the well-informed, would preach. But his first instinct is, as he says, "Come and See." Come and See if this is the Messiah. Taste and see the Goodness of the Lord. Look: I see the Heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!

So maybe I don't like Rick Warren. I'm actually not going to defend Rick Warren. But maybe it's not Rick Warren who needs defending, or who needs someone to justify what he does. Maybe it's the rest of us who have a perfect Gospel which we never think about taking to lost people.

I'm sure you have a full day, and this is just a blog post. Shrug it off. But I'm headed out to the yard because there's a single talent I buried out there someplace, and I think I better go dig it up before the Master comes home and asks me what I did with it ...

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Insolence Upbraided

by Phil Johnson



hile looking up something totally unrelated, I came across an intriguing bit of correspondence published in Jill Morgan's biography of her father-in-law, A Man of the Word: Life of G. Campbell Morgan. It's a fine example of how to respond to supercilious criticism.

But I'll let Jill Morgan tell the story:

An incident occurred in connection with meetings held in a town in England, which shows a side of Campbell Morgan few people ever knew, and those who did, it is likely, never forgot. Soon after concluding a series of meetings at which the offering had been particularly generous (which was not always the case!) Dr. Morgan received the following letter:

Dear Sir, Having recently heard of the cheque you were paid by our treasurer, I wish to point out that to receive over thirteen pounds a day for expounding the Scriptures is a great stumbling block to the ordinary Christian, and still more so to 'the man in the street'. One frequently hears that preaching is only a profession like any other, its main object being to get money, and your big fees make me feel that there is a good deal of truth in it. Your reputation as one of the greatest Biblical scholars is in my opinion quite justified, and I thank God you use your great gifts to His honour and glory, but your love of money is positively appalling. If, as I have been told, you have heavy expenses, my reply is, no Christian is justified in living extravagantly, and no one else that I know of asks or expects such huge fees. If I thought that studying the Scriptures produced such fruit as that!—but of course, such a thing is absurd, for its effect should be just the opposite, on a lowly, Christ-like life. It is the inconsistent lives of Christians that produce such harm. . . . Yours sincerely, __________________

To which Dr. Morgan replied:

Sir, I am in receipt of your amazing effusion of Sept.——. It is characterized by impertinence based on ignorance. In the course of it you use the expressions, 'big fees', and 'huge fees'. For your enlightenment I may say that I make absolutely no charge for my work, neither does Mr. Marsh, who has made all my arrangements. The amounts which are paid to me are decided by those whom I serve, and it is of the essence of bad manners for anyone outside the interested party to interfere in such arrangements. When you speak of "living extravagantly" you are once more revealing your crass ignorance, and I have no intention of giving you any information as to my methods of life. The only kindness you can do me is to let me know how much you contributed toward the gift of love which was handed to me at X—, and allow me the pleasure of sending you a cheque for the same. Faithfully yours, G. CAMPBELL MORGAN.

No one can afford to be careless regarding what he puts into writing, and Dr. Morgan's statement of the method he followed in the matter of remuneration he received for his services was always meticulously carried out. What he never put into writing, and what was never known to the rank and file was the extraordinary generosity with which he used the 'huge fees' when they came his way. Less than a week after dictating this letter, he was making arrangements to help a friend which involved a long journey and a new start in life, and for this privilege he was footing the bill, not as a loan but as a gift. This side of his character was, it is needless to say, entirely unknown to his explosive correspondent.

Morgan's reply to a rude and haughty correspondent is the model of both candor and restraint. I wish I could write like that.

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Against Popish Ritual

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "The Axe at the Root—A Testimony Against Puseyite Idolatry," a sermon preached Sunday Morning, 17 June 1866 at the Met Tab in London. I chose this excerpt because it goes with what I'll be preaching tonight at Grace Church.

hy did not God ordain worship by windmills as in Thibet? Why has he not chosen to be worshipped by particular men in purple and fine linen, acting gracefully as in Roman and Anglican churches? Why not?

He gives two reasons which ought to suffice. The first is, he himself seeks spiritual worship. It is his own wish that the worship should be spiritual, And in the second place, he is himself a spirit, and is to be spiritually worshipped.

Whatever kind of worship the great Ruler desires he ought to receive, and it is impertinence on my part if I say to him, "No, not that, but this." It is true I may say, "I am very sincere in all this, very earnest in it. It suits my taste. There is a beauty about it; it excites certain emotions which I think to be devotional."

What is all that but saying, "Great God, thou hast chosen such-and-such a way of being worshipped, but I will not render it to thee?" Is not that in effect saying, "I will not worship thee at all;" for must not worship, to be worship, be such as the person worshipped himself will accept?

To invent our own forms of worship is to insult God; and every mass that is ever offered upon the Romish altar is an insult to heaven, and a blasphemy to God who is a Spirit. Every time any form of worship by procession, celebration, or ceremonial of man's invention is offered to God, it is offered in defiance of this word of Christ, and cannot and will not be received; however earnest people may be they have violated the imperative canon of God's Word; and in fighting for rubrics they have gone against the eternal rubric that God as a Spirit must be worshipped in spirit and in truth.

The second reason given is, that God is a Spirit. If God were material, it might be right to worship him with material substances; if God were like to ourselves, it might be well for us to give a sacrifice congenial to humanity; but being as he is, pure spirit, he must be worshipped in spirit.

I like the remark made by Trapp in his commentary on this passage, when he says that perhaps the Savior is even here bringing down God to our comprehension; "for," saith he, "God is above all notion, all name." Certainly, this we know, that anything which associates him with the grossness of materialism is infinitely removed from the truth.

Said Augustine, "When I am not asked what God is, I think I know, but when I try to answer that question, I find I know nothing."

If the Eternal were such an one as thou art, O man, he might be pleased with thy painted windows. But what a child's toy must coloured glass be to God! I can sit and gaze upon a cathedral with all its magnificence of architecture, and think what a wonderful exhibition of human skill; but what must that be to God, who piles the heavens, who digs the foundation of the deep, who leads Arcturus with his sons? Why, it must be to him the veriest trifle, a mere heap of stones.

I delight to hear the swell of organs, the harmony of sweet voices, the Gregorian chant, but what is this artistic sound to him more than sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal? As a sight, I admire the choristers and priests, and the whole show of a grand ceremonial; but do you believe that God is imposed upon by those frocks and gowns of white, and blue, and scarlet, and fine linen? It seems to me as if such a notion brings down God to the level of a silly woman who is fond of finery.

The infinite God, who spreads out the heavens and scatters stars with both his hands, whom heaven and earth cannot contain, to whom space is but a speck, and time is as nothing, do you think that he dwelleth in temples made with hands, that is to say, of man's building? And is he to be worshipped with your organs, and your roodscreens, and your gaudy millinery? He laugheth at them, he treadeth on them as being less than nothing and vanity. Spiritual worship is what he regardeth, because he is a Spirit.

My brethren, if you could get together a procession of worlds, if you could make the stars walk along the streets of some great new Jerusalem, dressed in their brightest array; if instead of the songs of a few boys or men you could catch the sonnets of eternal ages; if instead of a few men to officiate as priests you could enlist time, eternity, heaven and earth to be the priesthood, yet all this would be to him but as a company of grasshoppers, and he would take up the whole as a very little thing.

But let me tell you that even God himself, great as he is, does not despise the tear that drops from a repentant eye, nor does he neglect the sigh that comes from a sinner's soul. He thinks more of your repentance than of your incense, and more of your prayers than of your priesthoods. He views with pleasure your love and your faith, for these are spiritual things in which he can take delight; but your architecture, your music and your fine arts, though they lavish their treasures at his feet, are less than nothing and vanity.

Ye know not what spirit ye are of. If ye think to worship my God with all these inventions of man, ye dream like fools. I feel glowing within me the old iconoclastic spirit. Would God we had men now like Knox or Luther, who with holy indignation would pull in pieces those wicked mockeries of the Most High, against which our soul feels a hallowed indignation as we think of his loftiness, and of that poor paltry stuff with which men degrade his name.

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Middle of the Road: R.I.P. Kermit

by Phil Johnson



ur friends at BioLogos are feeling the pincers of criticism. On one side are doctrinaire materialistic atheists; and on this side are those of us who actually believe the Bible.

BioLogos has deliberately staked out a middle-road position between these two irreconcilable worldviews. They say they are determined to find and develop common ground between both sides. But this week they've been discovering what any highway engineer will tell you: on a freeway where heavy traffic is moving at high speed in opposing directions, there's no such thing as "common ground."

Furthermore, you won't get very far pretending the yellow line is the common-ground marker. You're liable to get clobbered by traffic from both sides.

So anyway, Dr. Darrell Falk, president of BioLogos, e-mailed me Thursday morning to say he had prepared a response to Monday's Pyro-post. I read it eagerly, hoping he would respond to the substance of my critique. Instead, he spent most of his time pandering to Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, and others on the doctrinaire-materialistic-atheist side.

He was keen to assure them that "BioLogos exists in no small part to marginalize [belief in the historicity of the Genesis account] from the Church." Specifically, the BioLogos team have targeted the notion that Adam was a special creation—fashioned in God's own image rather than evolved from higher primates. "A fundamental part of our mission is to show that [the Genesis account of Adam] is not tenable," Falk solemnly (and somewhat fawningly) assured Dawkins. (Read his post for yourself if you think I am exaggerating about the obsequious tone he takes with Dawkins.)

Dr. Falk's whole response to my post was basically: You have your interpretation of Genesis; we have ours. He seems to be suggesting that because interpretation by definition has an element of subjectivity to it, everyone is free to interpret however he or she prefers, and everyone's interpretation deserves equal respect. That may seem a nice-sounding platitude in our current postmodern context, but it is by no means a biblical value.

And it's no real answer to any of the points I made.

Indeed, Dr. Falk's one complaint about my post focused on the wording of my closing paragraph, where I wrote:

If BioLogos is willing to throw away so much at the very foundations of our faith and at the very beginning of God's revelation, I can't imagine why they would want to keep up the pretense of being Christians at all. Selectively admiring the Bible's moral teachings is not the same thing as actually believing the Bible.

Naturally, Dr. Falk did not like my suggestion that genuine faith can't be as skeptical and selective with God's revealed truth as the BioLogos team wants to be.

He also objected to Travis Allen's post at the GTY.org blog. Travis (quoting from 1 Timothy 6:20) said: "It's time for Christians to return to the self-attesting authority of God's Word and forsake the 'vain babblings and oppositions of science, falsely so called.'" Dr. Falk wasn't happy to have such harsh words (written by the apostle Paul, not by Travis Allen, as Falk seemed to think) applied to his views.

He wrote,

I do wish though, that we would not be put forward as those who, according to the above quotations, live under the "pretense of being Christians," or that we be represented as "vain babblers." At various times, we have written respectfully that we understand why this issue is so important to you. We love and respect you for the sincerity of your position, but please don't call us "vain babblers" any more, and please don't imply that we are only "pretending" to be Christians.

So I'd like to clarify a couple of things: First, despite Dr. Falk's verbal reassurance, most of the contributors at BioLogos clearly have no clue "why this issue is so important." It's painfully obvious that theology is very low on BioLogos's list of priorities. In fact, one of the besetting sins at BioLogos is a blithe lack of concern for some of the most foundational doctrines of Christianity and their implications. I'm thinking especially of the authority and inspiration of Scripture and the doctrine of original sin.

Second, I stand by my statement that the blend of scientific skepticism and moral piety being peddled over at BioLogos isn't authentic Christianity. That's based on the fact that the authority of Scripture and the doctrine of original sin are and always have been deemed Christian essentials by every major branch of the church—and BioLogos does seem very keen to do away with both doctrines.

For example, BioLogos's relentless attack on the historicity of Adam entails an implicit denial of the doctrine of original sin (or in the very best case, a totally different, extrabiblical re-imagination of how humanity fell). Dr. Falk himself rejects the views of those who believe in the historicity of Adam and the Fall. In his reply to Dawkins he seems to be pleading for patience as they seek a way to humor the minority in the BioLogos community who crave the "comfort" of believing all humanity descended from a single pair—not a specially-created Adam and Eve, mind you, but a pair of humanoids who evolved from the higher primates. I thought that part of his post came across as especially condescending and dismissive. You can decide for yourself whether I'm reading too much attitude into it.

In any case, his rejection of the historicity of Adam and the Genesis account of original sin simply isn't consistent with biblical and historic Christianity. The doctrine of original sin is and always has been the starting point of Christian soteriology and the doctrine of atonement. Ecumenical councils, Catholic Church councils, and mainstream Protestants (including Calvinists and evangelical Arminians alike) have always explicitly, emphatically, and repeatedly affirmed original sin as a cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith. Denying original sin is the identifying mark of Pelagians, rank heretics, and quasi-Christian cults.

The authority, inspiration, and inerrancy of Scripture is a matter of similar import, and this too has been the subject of sustained and systematic attack at BioLogos. Remember, in their president's own words, BioLogos "exists in no small part to marginalize this view" (i.e., the view "that Adam and Eve were created with apparent age"). That goal obviously will require a systematic campaign to undermine Christians' confidence in the Genesis account, starting with an open attack on evangelical convictions regarding biblical inerrancy.

Which of course is precisely what the team at BioLogos are currently doing.

BioLogos is by no means the first group in church history to attack the foundations of the Christian faith in the Name of Christ—shamelessly pleading for charity and acceptance as true believers from the very saints whose faith they are determined to dismantle. (Read the saga of Arius and Athanasius if you want a gripping tale of doctrinal intrigue and heresy in the name of Christian brotherhood. It'll cure you of thinking it's uncharitable to take a hard-line stance against heresy.)

In short, I don't apologize for saying that the worldview BioLogos promotes is a challenge to—and by no means an affirmation of—the authentic, biblical, and historic Christian faith.

I'm certain that fact will become more and more obvious the more material BioLogos publishes. But for those still in doubt, here's a simple test: Apply their Genesis hermeneutic consistently to the bodily resurrection of Christ (or the deity of Christ, for that matter), and see what you come up with. Then ask how reasonable it is to accord the BioLogos worldview the right hand of Christian fellowship.

Over at the Grace to You blog Travis Allen has posted a response to yesterday's BioLogos piece. Check it out. Also, Fred Butler has weighed in here, replete with a quotation from Mr. Miagi.

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Humanistic Religion and the Origin of Life

by John MacArthur

The following article is taken from John MacArthur's foreword to Terry Mortenson and Thane H. Ury, eds. Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth. The book is a festschrift in honor of Dr. John Whitcomb.

he apostle Paul closed his first epistle to Timothy by urging the young pastor to guard the deposit of truth that had been entrusted to him, "avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge" (1 Timothy 6:20-21). In the King James Version, the text famously speaks of "science falsely so called."

Over the course of human history, all kinds of speculative ideas have been falsely labeled "science" and mistakenly accepted as true and reliable knowledge by otherwise brilliant people. The now-discredited dogmas of older scientific theories are numerous—and in some cases laughable. They include alchemy (the medieval belief that other base metals could be transmuted into gold); phrenology (the Victorian belief that the shape of one's skull reflects character traits and mental capacity); astrology (the pagan belief that human destiny is determined by the motions of celestial bodies); and abiogenesis (the long-standing belief that living organisms are spontaneously generated by decaying organic substances). All those false beliefs were deemed credible as "science" by the leading minds of their times.

Consider just one of those—abiogenesis. Popularly known as "spontaneous generation," this idea has long been, and continues to be, one of the archetypal expressions of "science falsely so called." It is also one of the most persistent of all demonstrably pseudoscientific fictions. The notion that aphids arise naturally from dew on plant leaves, mold is generated automatically by aging bread, and maggots are spontaneously begotten by rotting meat was more or less deemed self-evident by most of humanity's brightest intellects¹ from the time of Aristotle until 1861, when Louis Pasteur conclusively proved that non-living matter cannot spawn life on its own.

It is one of the great ironies of scientific history that the first edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published exactly two years before Pasteur's famous experiments proved that life cannot arise spontaneously from non-living matter. The publication of Darwin's book marked the apotheosis of evolutionary theory, and it was rooted in the basic presupposition that under the right circumstances, life can spring on its own from non-living matter.

In other words, two years before abiogenesis was scientifically debunked, it was in effect canonized as the central dogma of modern secular belief about the origins of life. The discovery that fleas don't magically form out of decomposing dander on the backs of dirty dogs did not dissuade most in the scientific world from embracing the theory that all life in the universe arose by itself out of nothing. The belief that life spontaneously came from non-life remains to this day the great unexplained (albeit easily disprovable) assumption underlying the dogma of evolution.

The irony of that is utterly lost on many in the scientific community today, where evolution has become an article of faith—unshakable faith, it turns out.

Evolutionists have conveniently "solved" the problem of abiogenesis by repeatedly moving their estimates of the earth's age backward toward infinity. Given enough time, it seems, anything is possible. Trying desperately to keep the biblical concept of eternity at bay, evolutionists have thus devised an alternative kind of infinitude. Every time a challenge to current evolutionary theory arises, geologists and astronomers dutifully tack billions and billions of eons onto their theories about the earth's age, adding however many ancient epochs are deemed necessary for some new impossibility to be explained.

In the introduction to my 2001 book, The Battle for the Beginning, I suggested naturalism had become the dominant religion of contemporary secular society. "Religion is exactly the right word to describe naturalism," I wrote. "The entire philosophy is built on a faith-based premise. Its basic presupposition—a rejection of everything supernatural—requires a giant leap of faith. And nearly all its supporting theories must be taken by faith as well."²

Here, then, is a classic example of what I was talking about: the typical evolutionist's starting point is this notion that life arose spontaneously from inanimate matter sometime in eternity past. That requires not merely the willful suspension of what we know for certain about the origins of life and the impossibility of abiogenesis—but also enough deliberate gullibility to believe that moving-target estimates of the earth's antiquity can sufficiently answer all the problems and contradictions sheer naturalism poses.

Meanwhile, in the popular media, evolutionary doctrine and ever-expanding notions of prehistory are being promoted with all the pious zeal of the latest religious sect. Watch the Internet forums, programs on the Discovery Channel, interviews and articles published in the mass media, school textbooks, and books aimed at lay readers—and what you will usually see is raw assertions, demagoguery, intimidation, and ridicule (especially when the subjects of biblical theism and the Genesis account of creation are raised).

But question the dogma that all life evolved from a single spontaneously-generated cell, point out that the universe is full of evidence for intelligent design, or demand the kind of proof for evolutionary origins that would ordinarily pass scientific muster, and the ardent evolutionist will simply dismiss you as a heretic or a bigot of the worst stripe. What they are tacitly acknowledging is that as far as they are concerned, evolution is a doctrine that must be received with implicit faith, not something that can be scientifically demonstrated. After all, the claims of true science can always be investigated, observed, reproduced, tested, and proved in the laboratory. So to insist that evolution and so-called "deep time" doctrines must be accepted without question is really just a tacit admission that these are not scientific ideas at all.

Consider these quotations from typical evolutionist writers:

• No biologist today would think of submitting a paper entitled "New evidence for evolution;" it simply has not been an issue for a century. (Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2nd ed., Boston: Sinauer Associates, 1986, p. 15)
  
• It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory. . . . All present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts. (R. C. Lewontin, "Evolution/creation debate: A time for truth," Bioscience (1981), 31:559)
  
• Here is what separates real scientists from the pseudoscientists of the school of intelligent design. . . . One thing all real scientists agree upon is the fact of evolution itself. It is a fact that we are cousins of gorillas, kangaroos, starfish, and bacteria. Evolution is as much a fact as the heat of the sun. It is not a theory, and for pity's sake, let's stop confusing the philosophically naive by calling it so. Evolution is a fact. (Richard Dawkins, "The Illusion of Design," Natural History (November 2005), 53)

But as those statements themselves show, evolution is a dogma, not a demonstrable "fact." I stand by the position I took in The Battle for the Beginning: "Belief in evolutionary theory is a matter of sheer faith. [It is] as much a religion as any theistic world-view."³ I'll go even further: science cannot speak with any authority about when the universe began, how it came into being, or how life originated on earth. Science by definition deals with what can be observed, tested, measured, and investigated by empirical means. Scientific data by definition are facts that can be demonstrated by controlled, repeatable experiments that always yield consistent results. The beginning of the universe by its very nature falls outside the realm of scientific investigation. To state the case plainly: there is no scientific way to explain creation. No one but God actually observed creation. It did not happen by any uniform, predictable, observable, repeatable, fixed, or natural laws. It was not a natural event or a series of natural events. The initial creation of matter was an instantaneous, monumental, inexplicable miracle—the exact opposite of a "natural" phenomenon. And the formation of the universe was a brief series of supernatural events that simply cannot be studied or explained by science. There are no natural processes involved in creation; the act of creation cannot be repeated; it cannot be tested; and therefore naturalistic theories purporting to explain the origin and age of the universe are unverifiable. In other words, creation is a theological issue, not a scientific one. Scripture is our only credible source of information about creation, because God Himself was the only eyewitness to the event. We can either believe what He says or reject it. But no Christian should ever imagine that what we believe about the origin of the universe is merely a secondary, nonessential, or incidental matter. It is, after all, the very starting point of God's self-revelation. In fact, in its profound brevity, Genesis 1:1 is a very simple, clear, and unequivocal account of how the universe, the earth, and everything on the earth came to be: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." That is not an ambiguous statement. Until Darwinian evolution undertook a campaign to co-opt the story of creation and bring it into the realm of naturalistic "science"—and especially before modernist skepticism began to seep into the church—no one who claimed to be a Christian was the least bit confused by the Genesis account. Christians should not be intimidated by dogmatic naturalism. We do not need to invent a new interpretation of Genesis every time some geologist or astronomer declares that the universe must be older than he previously thought. Nor should we imagine that legitimate science poses any threat to the truth of Scripture. Above all, we must not seek ways to circumvent the clear meaning of God's Word, compromise our trust in the Creator, or continually yield ground to every new theory of falsely-so-called science. That is precisely what Paul was warning Timothy about. Sadly, it seems evolutionary thinking and qualms about the Genesis account of creation have reached epidemic levels among professing Christians in recent decades. Too many Christian leaders, evangelical schools, and Bible commentators have been willing to set aside the biblical account of a relatively young earth in order to accommodate the ever-changing estimates of naturalistic geologists and astronomers. They have thrown away sound hermeneutical principles—at least in the early chapters of Genesis—to accommodate the latest theories of evolution. When I encounter people who think evolutionary doctrine trumps the biblical account of creation, I like to ask them where their belief in the Bible kicks in. Is it in chapter 3, where the fall of Adam and original sin are accounted for? In chapters 4-5, where early human history is chronicled? In chapters 6-8, with the record of the flood? In chapter 11, with the Tower of Babel? Because if you bring naturalism and its presuppositions to the early chapters of Genesis, it is just a short step to denying all the miracles of Scripture—including the resurrection of Christ. If we want to make science the test of biblical truth rather than vice versa, why would it not make just as much sense to question the biblical record of the resurrection as it does to reject the Genesis account? But "if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! . . . If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable" (1 Corinthians 15:17-19). 1: Alexander Ross, an early seventeenth-century Scottish writer and intellectual, harshly criticized Sir Thomas Browne for questioning the dogma of spontaneous generation. Under the heading "Mice and other vermin bred of putrefaction, even in mens bodies," he wrote: "He doubts whether mice can be procreated of putrefaction. So he may doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated; Or if Betels and wasps in cowes dung; Or if butterflies, locusts, grasshoppers, shel-fish, snails, eeles, and such like, be procreated of putrefied matter, which is apt to receive the form of that creature to which it is by the formative power disposed. To question this, is to question Reason, Sense, and Experience: If he doubts of this, let him go to Egypt, and there he will finde the fields swarming with mice begot of the mud of [the Nile]." Arcana Microcosmi, (London: Newcomb, 1652), book 2, chapter 10, 156. 2. The Battle for the Beginning, Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2001, p. 11. 3. The Battle for the Beginning, p. 12.

Tom Wright, T4G, and "Unity": "Can We All Get Along?"

by Phil Johnson



hristianity Today has posted an opinion piece by Brett McCracken comparing this year's Together for the Gospel (T4G) sessions unfavorably with Wheaton College's recent Theology Conference: "Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright."

The speakers at T4G, of course, firmly believe that "The Gospel" is what binds us "Together." All of them agree that the heart of gospel truth is summed up in the doctrine of justification by faith, and getting that doctrine correct is vital to sound, biblical Christianity. All of them also believe the atonement Christ rendered on the cross was a penal substitution—a propitiatory sacrifice offered to God by His Son on behalf of sinners. There is much more to the atoning work of Christ than that, of course, but the T4G speakers all are convinced that part is essential to a right and full-orbed understanding (and proclamation) of the gospel. In short, all of the T4G speakers hold the historic position on these matters that is spelled out in all the Protestant confessions of faith.

And the theme of the T4G conference this year was "The (Unadjusted) Gospel."



N. T. Wright, on the other hand, is controversial chiefly because he wants to make significant adjustments to the doctrine of justification by faith and our understanding of the atonement. He doesn't like the language of imputation. He's uncomfortable with the idea of penal substitution and the language of propitiation.

For Wright, justification is more about ecclesiology than about soteriology. Indeed, he says, "The doctrine of justification . . . is not merely a doctrine in which Catholic and Protestant might just be able to agree on, as a result of hard ecumenical endeavour. It is itself the ecumenical doctrine, the doctrine that rebukes all our petty and often culture-bound church groupings, and which declares that all who believe in Jesus belong together in the one family. . . . The doctrine of justification is in fact the great ecumenical doctrine" (What St. Paul Really Said [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997], 158).

Between 2002 and '05 I did seminars at a couple of conferences on both sides of the Atlantic critiquing Wright's doctrine of justification (transcripts HERE and HERE). One of the things I keep trying to point out is that despite Wright's professed contempt for reading Reformed and Augustinian concerns back into the Pauline text, high on his own agenda is a determination to bring Paul's doctrine of justification into line with 21st-century standards of political correctness. Wright's whole hermeneutic seems driven by the credo of Rodney King. Wright seems to be looking for a new perspective on the gospel that would allow Catholics, Protestants, and all kinds of wayward Anglicans to set their "differences" aside and have a great group hug in the name of ecumenical unity.

It comes as no surprise, then, that in Wright's mind, "Nothing justifies schism."

Now: let's bear in mind that statement comes from an Anglican bishop who is currently in communion with this bishop, this bishop, this bishop, and a menagerie of other bishops including several agnostics, heretics, and theological miscreants of virtually every stripe.

That fact surely sheds light on what Bishop Wright might be aiming at in his radically ecumenical re-reading of the doctrine of justification. And the mess that we know as "The Anglican communion" also must be carefully borne in mind when we read this solemn assurance in the CT op-ed piece: "Wright, perhaps the world's leading Christian theologian/writer/intellectual, was calling for the church to prioritize unity and emphasize common ground, not at the expense of doctrine and not in a universalist way."

Really?

The shopworn not-at-the-expense-of-doctrine warrantee is of course standard language these days in everyone's ecumenical efforts—ranging from "Catholics and Evangelicals Together" to the early rhetoric of the Emergent fiasco (where, in fact, everything came at the expense of doctrine). Such assurances especially ring hollow when the people making such promises in the very same breath relegate a principle like sola fide to "the details of theological minutia."

"After all," Brett McCracken says, "[Paul] speaks of justification only in a few places (Romans, Galatians, etc.), while unity is a topic that shows up constantly in nearly everything he writes."

Yikes. Seriously?

That's about the worst summary of the Pauline perspective I have ever heard.

McCracken should have listened more closely to the T4G messages. His cynical description of T4G ("like a club patting each other on the back for their mutual buttressing of the 'unadjusted gospel' against threats from various corners") puts his yearning for "unity" in clear focus. If we're not willing to relegate all our differences with everyone who claims to "love Jesus" to the category of "theological minutia," we are the "schismatic" ones—not the Anglicans (and their ilk) who have winked at (and even given their benediction to) virtually every kind of sin and apostasy, as long as their own bishops are involved.

The cost of that kind of cosmetic unity is simply too high. Far from being "a sign to the world" and "a message to the would-be rulers of the world," it dishonors Christ. The artificial peace of compromise and mandatory-cease-fire solidarity isn't authentic unity anyway. It is nothing like the kind of unity Paul called for. It certainly is not the kind of unity Christ prayed for.

Of course some points of doctrine are theological minutiae, and we don't need to argue endlessly about them. Most of us don't. But justification by faith is not one of those peripheral points. Luther and the other Reformers were driven by the unshakable conviction that the doctrine of justification by faith is the primary soteriological essential, the article by which the church stands or falls. Unless we're willing to declare the Reformation a mistake (something Bishop Wright needs to do—and may yet do—in order to be consistent with his own rhetoric), we should resist these incessant pleas from so many quarters to see "church unity" through postmodern eyes. Instead, we need to keep striving for the kind of unity Scripture describes—a unity that is possible only when we are walking in the light (1 John 1:6-7).

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Steve Brown's "Grace in the Church" course at RTS: impressions and analysis

by Dan Phillips

Between this blog and my own, I've reviewed books, movies, software and music. To that, a couple of years ago on my blog, I added a review of a seminary course offered at Reformed Theological Seminary in Florida, taught by Steve Brown. This is an edited consolidation of two posts from there. The course I'm reviewing is available via their virtual campus presence on iTunes. Brown is a Presbyterian (PCA) pastor who's an author, pastor, seminary prof, and radio host. Brown is Professor of Preaching at RTS. I'm no Brown-specialist; this review is of one specific course. I have heard Key Life a few times, and saw a snippet of a cable-type TV show Brown did in which he had friendly arguments with the execrable Tony Campolo (I think this is the series). Now, to the course.

Among a number of courses I listened to from Reformed Theological Seminary was thirty-seven lectures on grace by Steve Brown.

In style, they're winsome, occasionally thought-provoking, and really irritating — not in a good way. Brown dispenses counsel and makes statements that I think are flat-out irresponsible. But because he's PCA, he's teaching at RTS, and he disagrees with Tony Campolo, I listened to the entire series in an effort to get his point.

Here's what I came away with.

First, my Summary Statement: Brown says a number of valuable, useful and true things in a winsome, easy-listening manner — however, he encrusts all that in so much that is irresponsible, reckless, harmful and/or garbage that I could never recommend him without a list of warnings and qualifications so long it would look like what you get with a new prescription ("Here are the ways this medicine could kill or horribly disfigure you for life:....").

Here are my main thoughts and observations:

1. I want to trade my whiny, nasal voice for Brown's basement-deep, resonant voice.
2. Brown comes across as an eminently likable fellow.
3. Brown says a number of thought-provoking things. Though he doesn't develop it Biblically at any length, he says "God isn't mad at you anymore." For the Christian, true (Romans 8:1) — and praise God for it. Brown says God never disciplines Christians because He's mad at them. Brown says "nothing is perfect, nothing is forever, and you aren't home yet." Mostly true. Brown says, When a dog plays checkers, you don't criticize his game; you're just pleased and surprised that he's playing at all. (The point being, I think, that we wouldn't be so shocked at our failures if we didn't have such a high opinion of ourselves.) True. Brown says that when pain exceeds payback, real change becomes possible. Good point. Brown criticizes phony airs Christians feel they have to put on in front of other Christians, our failure to extend anything like grace and compassion towards one another. Too true.
   
4. The man has more stories and illustrations than Methuselah. The whole course is heavy on stories and anecdotes — but offers next to nothing in terms of Scripture. 
5. This is a big weakness. In theory, Brown constantly claims that everything he says is Reformed and Biblical and sound and true. In practice, he doesn't seem to feel the need to root much of it in Scripture. The entire course featured only a relatively few allusions-to/citations-of Scripture, and no extensive exegesis or exposition. He keeps asserting that his students can look it up, or that he's got a ton of Biblical backup, or that he'd normally give Bible but since they're seminary students he won't (?!). Brown rests it all on a case he never makes Biblically.
6. More than anything, Brown comes off like a guy who's latched on to a true and Biblical concept (grace), detached it from the Bible, loaded it with his own ideas and concepts and implications, and made a career of it. (We warned against that danger back in 2006, and again in 2008... and probably several other times.)
7. To his credit, Brown constantly urged his two classes to feel free to challenge him Biblically. To their discredit (in my I-wasn't-there opinion), they never did. Perhaps they started out convinced.
   
8. All of the alarms I have begun to sound and will develop in a moment are borne out in this comment thread. In that thread, one Christian brother attempts to bring the Bible to bear on some of what Brown says and does. Granted, he doesn't do it in the nicest way, but he does it faithfully. By and large, the host of respondents do not even attempt to engage the Bible. They respond in
   
   
   Brownisms. This is a huge red light. Much as Brown denies that he wants to make Brownite disciples, that is exactly what he is doing. Since they can't see it in Scripture, they must depend on Steve Brown's thoughts, his ideas, his cute sayings, his insights, his experiences, his stories. That is a necessary and unavoidable consequence of giving endless podium-time to stories, illustrations, and cute sayings instead of exposition of the text of Scripture, and then development of a system from that text. People come away knowing Brown, not Scripture, and therefore — I fear — not necessarily knowing God.
9. Brown says some things that are absolutely, barkingly, wildly irresponsible; and if his students take any of them seriously, they will ruin their ministries, themselves, and other people. For instance:
   

   (A) Brown says that, when one is preparing a sermon, and he thinks of saying something but his conscience or judgment tells him he shouldn't — he should anyway! Because that's probably God talking to him. (I can imagine the jaws of dozens of readers who are pastors, hitting the floor.) So, in the Brown universe, verses like Proverbs 10:19; 12:18; 15:28; 17:27; 21:23; and 29:20 are not nearly so important as expressing oneself in a personal pursuit of "grace."
   (B) Brown also tells Christians they should disagree with their pastor once a month, period, just because it's healthy for their assertiveness. The spirit of 1 Corinthians 16:15-16; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13; and Hebrews 13:7 and 17, not so much.
   (C) Brown speaks of a Christian leader who fell morally, badly, and says in effect that he's glad he did, because it was good for him. Too bad about the guy's family and church and witness and ministry and all, and God's reputation, I guess.
   (D) Brown urges all of them to cuss. Just to do it. I don't recall an exposition of Ephesians 4:29. I guess he already did all that, somewhere, or it was in his notes.
   (E) Brown keeps talking about dialogues he has with God, and quoting (usually without qualification) things God supposedly says to him, Steve Brown, that are not in Scripture. But it's okay, remember, don't be alarmed — because he says believes in the Reformed position on the inerrancy and sufficiency of the Bible, and he isn't a charismatic, and maybe he's hearing God wrong. (Those are his "covers.") Yet Brown natters on about things God says to him, about God laughing, and a bunch of dribble attributed to God — and Brown isn't talking about the Bible. Which, as you know...yikes. Fingernails on the chalkboard of my soul.

10. Brown says weird things about repentance. I listened twice, and still can't quite explain his position. Brown denies the Biblical teaching that repentance means a change of mind which necessarily issues in adorning fruitful actions... though those elements come back into his teaching at other points. Brown says that he used to teach something like that forgiveness was apologizing for spilling the milk, repentance was cleaning it up. He now regards that as a terrible error and false teaching, for which he apologized everywhere he had preached it. Repentance is not change, Brown insists emphatically. It is understanding who God is and what He did and who I am (?!!). This takes me right back to my pre-Christ days in the cult of Religious Science. It turns the crisp Biblical call to action into a New Agey realization. No longer is repentance a decisive change of mind that issues in a change of behavior, because we can't change (Matthew 3:8; Acts 26:20; Romans 12:1-2 and etc. to the contrary notwithstanding).
    
11. Don't really love the plethora pop-psychology and faddish phrases, like "giving [this and that person — including God] permission" to do or be something.
    
12. Brown says people should burn Dave Hunt's book that criticizes Richard Foster (because Foster is a hero of Brown's); and he told a whole audience to burn John MacArthur's The Gospel According to Jesus — when he hadn't even read it! So Hunt's bad, MacArthur's bad, yet....
    
13. Again and again Brown trots out his creds: I am a Christian, I am orthodox, I am Reformed, I am a five-pointer, I am conservative, I believe in literal 6-day creation, and on and on. But then Brown says...
    

    (A) ...that if this unsaved Jewish rabbi he personally likes doesn't go to Heaven, Brown doesn't want to go, either. Now, what is that supposed to mean? The words mean that the Christ-rejecting rabbi's presence is more important to Brown than Jesus' presence. Surely Brown doesn't mean that. But he said it.
    (B) Brown says that there are no "super-Christians," except maybe (Mary-worshiping proponent of a Gospel-perverting sect) "Mother" Theresa, and (longtime doctrinal compromiser) Billy Graham. In other words, these two may well be above every other living Christian, including John Piper, John MacArthur, Al Mohler, and everyone else.
    

    

    (C) Brown frequently speaks of how much insight he's gotten from this or that Roman Catholic or otherwise heretical writer, on various aspects of Christian living.
    (D) Brown enthuses about what a great and real relationship with God unbelieving, apostate Jews have.
    (E) Brown mentions how he wears a New Age bracelet for some physical ailment, quipping that he "tried Jesus" and it didn't work, so he is trying this ("and I thought I heard the angels laugh," he adds — I didn't).
    (F) Brown frequently says in passing how well this and that apostate heretic "understands grace."
    (G) Brown says in particular that (unrepentant antinomian murderess) Annie Lamott is a wonderful Christian person who he thinks is so great and loves to provide a soapbox on his radio show.
    (H) Brown says that Harry Emerson Fosdick was a Christian, and probably would be "on our side" (or some equivalent) if he were alive today

14. From all that, my impression is that Brown can't think the Biblical Gospel is very important, in spite of what he says about the Biblical positions he formally holds.
15. And that would mean Brown's not very Reformed — since if being Reformed means anything historically, it must mean seeing the Gospel as a decisive, divisive, watershed issue. Which makes me wonder what he's doing, teaching at Reformed Theological Seminary, host to many wonderful classes by men like John Frame and others.

I left the course disappointed. I went in genuinely open-minded. Whatever I gained was so buried under endless stories and bizarre beep-beeps-from-outer-space, and so devoid of Biblical exposition, that I was left un-profited, and very concerned about Brown's disciples.

On "grace": for what I hope is a Scriptural corrective, review Grace: eighteen affirmations and denials.

Take this lesson, at the very least. You can insist that you believe in the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, and that your positions are Biblical, until your blue head caves in — but if you don't specifically and continually ground every major point and application in the Word, you're just preaching yourself. People will walk away quoting you, not the Word. That means they're leaning on you, trusting you, depending on you and your insights. You've become their priest, their Pope, their magisterium.

You're making disciples of yourself, not of Christ.

You think about that. Amen.

UPDATE: since these articles The World-Tilting Gospel was published. If you read it, you will find that it thoroughly responds to Brown's muzziness, and anticipates the current (2014) arguments about sanctification and grace.

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