Dennis Prager nails it — and misses it, at the same time

by Dan Phillips

I am neither a Dennis Prager fan, nor am I a hater. He's a sharp guy, but there are only so many uses of the first-person singular pronoun that can be borne in any 5-10 minutes span, and Prager easily exceeds that limit every time I happen across his show or writings.

Yet Prager isolates and nails something very important in his recent essay, Nothing Sacred. His focus is political, but the point he makes is far broader, as he himself alludes. Prager is diagnosing and describing the mental malady of liberalism. Prager begins by quoting prominent liberals who were alarmed at the reading of the US Constitution in the House of Representatives, and he asks what it was that was so troubling to them.

Prager's response:

The answer is that for leftism — though not necessarily for every individual who considers himself a leftist — there are no sacred texts. The two major examples are the Constitution and the Bible. One cannot understand the Left without understanding this. The demotion of the sacred in general and of sacred texts specifically is at the center of leftist thinking.

Prager brings in the Bible, and we're going to leave politics (except as illustrative) and focus on the mindset of liberalism in its stance towards God's verbal self-revelation.

Prager absolutely correctly observes that "elevating any standard, any religion, any text to the level of the sacred means that it is above any individual," and thus is authoritative to that individual. Whether a politician being told he must rein in his cravings for power under the authority of the Constitution, or a man or woman being told that he is under the external, objective judgment of God's Word, the issue is at root the same.

And so, Prager says that to a leftist, "what is right and wrong is determined by every individual’s feelings, not by anything above the individual." Then Prager says that

This is a major reason why the Left, since Karl Marx, has been so opposed to Judeo-Christian religion. For Judaism and Christianity, God and the Bible are above the self. Indeed, Western civilization was built on the idea that the individual and society are morally accountable to God and to the moral demands of that book. That was the view, incidentally, of every one of the Founders, including deists such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

Moreover,

Morality is then no longer a God-given objective fact; it becomes a human-created subjective opinion. And one no longer needs to consult an external source to know right and wrong, only one’s heart. We are then no longer accountable to God for transgressions, only to ourselves.

We could go on; it actually is a very thoughtful and well-written article. Also, we're blessed with so many sharp readers that I doubt you much need me to make the application you're all already making (and the ironies you're noting) in your own mind.

But hey, if I'm going to put my byline on it, I'd better write something beyond "what he said!", hadn't I? So here it is.

Prager's analysis is delightfully sharp and on-target, yet it falls short in ways that literally make all the difference in the world. Prager is himself an apostate Jew, by which I mean that he — while often and sincerely expressing admiration and affection for Christianity — is still among those who have rejected the Prophet like Moses, who came and spoke Yahweh's words. Prager is still among those whose stance toward Messiah is "We do not want this man to reign over us" (Luke 19:14).

And as I developed at greater length elsewhere, this means that Prager has had to deal loosely with Scripture himself. He could in no way be said to be under the authority of the Torah, as God spoke it; but rather Prager  is in some fashion under the rules and traditions of men (cf. Mark 7:1-13). The objective text of the Torah, in all its edgy and offensive power, is not Prager's philosophical nor moral pou sto.

Here is what the Torah would add to Prager's analysis. All of this started in the Garden, and we as a race are still stuck in exactly the same place. God had presented His worldview. It was comprehensive, exhaustive, and utterly authoritative. Everything Adam and Eve needed to know was included.

Yet Eve found herself in the one place in all the universe where she had no business being, listening to the one entity in all the universe to whom she had no business listening (Genesis 3:1ff.). Satan's fundamental proposition to Eve was a simple one: God's word is not necessarily binding on you; you must decide for yourself what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong. Thus you shall be as gods — or, possible, as God.

And so "God's ape" perverted God's design in a literally hellacious manner. Of course God's design from the start was that mankind be "as God," in a spiritual and moral resemblance knowable only through the holy and whole submission of faith. This was a pervert's likeness, a likeness that attempts (insanely!) to wrestle God's Godhood from Him, and claim it as my own.

And so each of us is at heart a "liberal" or a "leftist," in Prager's sense, in that each of us is born with a hot hatred for any external authority that challenges our own. That is why

God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.

3 They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one. (Psalm 53:2-3).

That is why the thoughts of man's heart are naturally only wicked all day (Genesis 6:5). That is why all of us naturally do what is right in our own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25). That is why we all suppress God's truth (Romans 1:18). That is why we have all gone aside, we do not seek God, we are bereft of that necessary foundation for all knowledge: the fear of God (Romans 3:9-18).

That all just scratches the surface. Sin has vitiated the way each of us looks at the universe. Prager's prescription doesn't go nearly far enough, because his diagnosis doesn't go nearly far enough — and because he leaves himself out. We don't need merely to be more respectful of the Constitution (though I think that would be good), or of the Bible.

What we need is a complete overhaul. We need a complete paradigm shift.

We need what the rejected "Prophet like Moses" tells Dennis Prager and you and me that we all need: we need

• to repent (Matthew 4:17); and
• to be born again (John 3:1ff.)

A teacher in Israel really should know this (John 3:9-10).

It appears Prager doesn't.

Do you?

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Charismatics and Qu'ran-burning/not-burning Terry Jones

by Dan Phillips

Terry Jones, you will recall, is the pastor who had planned to burn Qu'rans/Korans/Qurans/Allah-Driven-Lifes on 9/11.

Why was he going to do it? The reason is under-reported, but reader Jason Woelm brought it to my attention. According to associate pastor Wayne Sapp — yes, evidently a church with around 50 people has an associate pastor; go figure — said that God told them to do it.

"God is leading us right up to the moment. It's no different than Abraham and his son. God didn't tell him, 'Go right up to the point where you might sacrifice him.' He wanted him to be fully committed. We're prepared to do what we're called to do."

Oh boy, here we go. As long as I've been preaching, teaching, writing I have been trying to school anyone who will listen to take such talk seriously, and analyze it right down to the floor. I urged folks to do it with Francis Chan's irresponsible language. Now let's do it with this gent.

So Sapp — I did not make that name up, before you ask — says "God is leading us...no different than Abraham and his son." Does he mean what he said? "No different than Abraham and his son"? Because we read in Genesis 22:1 and following that God spoke to Abraham, in inerrant, morally-binding, direct, verbal revelation. Had Abraham refused, it would have been sin.

Is that what Sapp is claiming? That he and his church are receiving inerrant, morally-binding, direct, verbal revelation from God today? If they didn't obey, it would be sin? Too bad no reporter seems to have asked this question.

But Sapp leaves wiggle room, adding that the church was still in prayer, and could cancel — thus the point of citing Abraham. You see, God told Abraham to kill Isaac, and then told him not to kill Isaac. It could be like that with them, Sapp was saying. God tells them A, then He tells them anti-A.

Wellsir, it turns out those words, at least, were prophetic, because Pastor Jones himself later said "We feel that God is telling us to stop.... Not today, not ever. We're not going to go back and do it. It is totally canceled."

So, that's interesting, isn't it? God told them to do it, then God told them not to do it. But when God told them to do it, they built in the wiggle that God might change His mind. Yet then when God tells them not to do it, there is no wiggle-room: "Not today, not ever. We're not going to go back and do it." Sounds final. Nice that "God" seems to have settled His mind on the issue, finally (I speak as a leaky-Canoneer).

By this time, our single-issue readers are beside themselves. "What does any of that have to do with Charismatics? These guys are nuts!" Not so fast. We've seen it many times. All Charismatics come in right at this point: they come in by giving this man "cover." A Charismatic has to say,

"Well, how do I know whether God told him to do this? He could have. It could have been like Abraham, with God just doing this to expose the Muslims, like Jones says. God never meant Jones to do it, He just meant him to say he was going to do it, so the Muslims who riot and foam  and make threats and throw chairs would be seen by all to be the violent loons that they are. We mustn't quench the Spirit. We can't put God in a box."

---

SIDE NOTE: just too rich to skip. Get this: Pat Robertson criticized Jones — for Jones' arrogance! I am not making this up. This is Pat Robertson, the Charismatic (Southern Baptist!) leader whose massive, tireless mouth and constant claims of semi-revelation have made Christians wince and squirm the world over. "This is so stupid!", foams this particular unpaid bill of Charismaticism (see also here).

But I digress.

---

So, all Charismatics "own" Terry Jones.

Let's be more specific: the Wayne Grudem type of Charismatics — and everyone who gives Grudem cover —  "own" Pastor Jones.

How so? They give Jones cover by their desperate re-defining and Clintoning-down of the Biblical gift of prophecy. What is prophecy, to Grudem? He explains it as the errant reporting of inerrant revelation. It is precisely like the old liberal redefinition of Biblical inspiration: the writers of Scripture received inerrant inspiration from God, but they wrote it down errantly. Grudem simply transfers this to NT prophets, instead of the writers of Scripture: they give errant reporting of spontaneous inerrant revelation. The message they receive is right, but it may be garbled in transmission.

So, on the broad ground laid by Grudem and all his fanboys, who can say whether or not Jones and Sapp were just errantly reporting an inerrant guiding? Not you. Not I. Not them.

Ditto the miserable spiritual trainwreck that is Blackaby-ism: on their premises, who can say whether or not this was God's leading, hinting and nudging Jones to make a fool of himself for Christ?

Am I being unfair? I don't think so. The constant refrain of such folks is that God is whispering and mumbling and nudging, and the only "control" we have is whether or not it is contrary to Scripture. Well, friends and neighbors, that leaves a lot of open ground for fools to graze. So: is it contrary to Scripture in so many words to burn some cult's "holy" book? Nope. So there you go: it might have been God's static-riddled leading — on Charismatic/Grudemic/Blackabbean premises.

I know, we're not supposed to say this, or ask these questions. We all love Charismatics, with all their great music and laughing and big name sane leaders and enthusiasm and joy and warmth and all. True; I love them too.

But I still think we have to ask the hard questions, lay down rulers and draw out where all these lines lead.

So where do we stand — we who confirm Scriptures' sufficiency and the Canon's close without crossing our fingers?

We're left with Scripture, and our responsible application of it.

In response to Jones, we come up with something like this, or this, in short. What we do is we study to find what the inerrantly revealed and inscripturated call of the church, and we pursue that call. Faced with choices to do this or do that, one prayerfully and responsibly and rationally weighs them by Scripture, and then one makes a decision. One then takes responsibility for that decision if it does not grow from a direct statement of Scripture, rather than blaming it on God.

So: should Christians be ashamed by association with Terry Jones... or John Crowder?

Don't look at me.

Take it up with a Charismatic.

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Something more Sleek and Functional

by Frank Turk

So I ask you: how much faith do you need, really, to be saved?

One answer the NT gives us is this: you don't really have to know anything to be saved. That is, you can the faith of a little child, and God will welcome you (cf. Mt 18:1-6, for the proof-texters and OGs everywhere). You can have a simple faith, a milk-drinking faith (cf. 1Cor 3), and be saved.

But there's another piece of the NT which frequently gets soft-soaked, and it's the answer which James gives: while a simple faith saves, it does not save only in the eternal sense. That is: it saves you to maturity:

the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

That is, your simple faith is also a living and breathing faith which grows you through trials to a "complete faith".

Many folks read this – rightly, btw – to mean "a right faith does works", and that's fine. That's a good application. But is it the only application? Is it the only one James intends here?

For example, when James says,

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

isn’t James saying that God's word is there so that we can take action upon it, and learn how to live in faith?

And glancing up this post a second, isn’t it also Paul's point in 1 Cor 3 that the Corinthians ought not to be forever babies in the faith, but that eventually they have to move on to the meat of the word? That is: their faith ought to make more of them, and be more to them than (as Paul implies) baby food.

So in that, there is a second answer to what you ought to know to have a saving faith: it ought to be true, and correct, insofar as you are mature and maturing in your faith.

Here's what I mean by that – by way of example. Let's think about math for a second. My son loves math (thank God – please Jesus make him a man who has a heart for God and people who is an accountant), and we are working the flash cards. He can add, he can subtract, and he's mastering "times". Which is great, if you ask me: he ought to learn how to do "times" as if it was written in his heart.

The other day, he asked me, "Daddy, do you do math at work?" And the answer, of course, is yes – I do a lot of math at work, a lot of it requiring advanced algebra. So I told him, "yes, son: I do a LOT of math at work."

"Can you show it to me?" he asked.

Well, sure I can show it to him – so I opened up my laptop, opened up some spreadsheets, and I showed him the greek-like formulas we have either borrowed or invented at work to discover things like how many dollars we are earning per hour given the rate of production vs. the standard work for a given work center. And then there's the statistical stuff I have to do verify and compare forecasts. And then there's the financial comparisons vs. plan and vs. last year. And so on.

(hey: wake up. The boring part's over)

So he said to me, "but where are the numbers?" See: in his understanding of math, you need two numbers to make an equation, and those two numbers yield a fixed answer – which, factually, is the right view of arithmetic, and ultimately the right view of how a formula yields an answer you can use.

So I tell him, "Son, we fill in the numbers when they come by. This kind of math shows us how to think about certain problems, and when a problem comes up, we change out the letters for numbers to get an answer."

"WHAT?!" he yelled, sort of laughing. "Daddy, you can't add up two letters!? You can't add 'A' plus 'B' and get 'C' – they're LETTERS!"

Well, really: he's right. Even in algebra II, the formula gets solved down to its simplest state, or most useful state, and you don't really get numbers at the end – you get formulas. But understanding that requires a leap from linear, arithmetic thinking to something more conceptual – something which is taking in the big picture of how adding 2 + 2, or making 3 "times" 4, works.

So my son can have a completely -correct- view of arithmetic, and be -unable- to grasp algebra yet. That doesn't make his view of math "false": it makes it incomplete. He's not a heretic to the math community: he's a student. His view is correct insofar as it is advanced, but it doesn’t account for all of math.

Now, if in 10 years my son and I sit down and he says to me, "Dad, open up your laptop for me – I want to see what you're doing at work," I'll be glad to oblige. My fatherly optimism will be that he's just completed Trig and he's about to show me how to simplify some of my 3-legged-dog formulas into something a little more sleek and functional.

But if we open up the laptop and when he looks at the spreadsheets he says to me, "You know what, Sir Dude? [he uses 'sir' out of respect because he was raised right] I still don't buy the algebra thing. I know what you call it – I just don't buy it. It doesn’t work. 2 + 2 = 4; A + B doesn't equal anything. All this stuff you say you've been doing for the last 10 years is just guff. And there's no way for you to prove to me that it does work."

At that point, we have crossed over from incomplete knowledge to something else – a knowledge which refuses to grow, refuses to receive more. It's willful ignorance.

In Biblical terms, it's what Paul called the "shipwreck of faith" – that is, when someone rejects "love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." "Love" is certainly the product, but one of the components of that love is a "good conscience". In my example, my son can’t be said to have a good conscience – because he establishes what cannot be true apart from the facts which are plainly in evidence. In our faith life, we cannot be said to have a good conscience if we are unwilling to receive the facts of faith.

That's a big deal, for example, for Catholics – because the right-minded Catholic view is that Protestants who willfully refuse the teaching of the Church are unrepentant sinners. And if they are right about what kind of final authority the Church as an institution holds, they're right: you can't have a good conscience when you reject the truth.

But for Protestants – not merely evangelicals, but confessional Protestants – what Scripture teaches us is what we must accept as the truth about our faith. And as we advance out of spiritual immaturity to spiritual maturity, the burden upon us to accept and demonstrate the truth in Scripture becomes a greater responsibility. This is why the warning to teachers is such a serious thing; that's why the anathema against a different gospel – and the criteria for knowing what that is – is an anathema and not just a rebuke.

And for good measure, think about this: that's why John called the Pharisees who came to see him a brood of vipers, and why Jesus called the same men whitewashed tombs -- because the Gospel had not changed, but these men, who ought to have known better, did not know it when they saw it.

You don't need a perfect confession to save you, but you do need a faith which is perfecting you, not leading you into more error.

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Mischief and Miscellany

Plus six all-new Po-Motivators® (see below)
by Phil Johnson



     was going to write a substantive post today. Then I decided instead just to link to a smattering of things that have puzzled, amused, intrigued, or appalled me lately. Here you go, in no particular order:

• More moral insanity from Great Britain: "A lap dancer, a lesbian, and a lapsed Christian with a pregnant girlfriend are among the participants on the U.K.'s newest reality show, Make Me a Christian."
  
• James White posts a collection of YouTube souvenirs.
  
• Our own Frank Turk leaves some profound thoughts in another blog's combox regarding the popular notion that there's something unsavory about contending for any mere matter of biblical principle when someone's feelings are involved:
  

  OK—I'm watching this society of christian brothers begin to populate this meta here with "Yes, more love please" affirmations, and I think that's a wholly-biblical, wholly-spiritually-industrious, wholly-useful endeavor: I think that people should think more clearly about the command of Christ to actually do unto actual others as you would have them actually do unto you.     Yes: I agree. In fact, I would take that to the root first before I took it to the blogosphere: you should do unto others in your local church and where you do business every day as you would have them do unto you. Because if that was happening, a few noisy scandal-bloggers would be seen as anomalies and not as a proliferation of the Church lady stereotype of christians. (Small "c" intended.)     The problem—and the issue here is that there is actually a problem and not merely a dysfunctional relational environment—is that the church is sick. Listen: pomos, conservatives, liberals, bloggers, pastors, unbelievers, you add your favorite category of person here—they all agree that the church is sick. The church is not healthy, especially in America.     But what's the cause of the sickness and what's the cure? Is it the rather-nebulous question of "love"? Or is it something less subjective and more actionable—and is there a resource or a proper authority which can spell out for us what the solution is?     This is really funny because I was watching a Steven Colbert clip last week about what was going on at Lambeth, and Colbert—a Catholic—was really beating down on the Anglicans because they couldn't figure out if God thought that gay men should be ordained as priests or bishops. His point, of course, was that there should be some guy they could ask who could sort it out for them.     I agree with Colbert that there ought to be "some guy"—but that guy is God Himself, and the answers lie in His Word, which, btw, is not a collection of Jack-Handiesque comforting maxims. The Bible is full of loving statements, gentle rebukes, and frankly-stark insults against those who are frankly intransigent and wrong.     Love is good. But it's not just one flavor. Expand your palate and taste and see the goodness of the Lord—no matter which flavor you think you like best right now.

• Joel Griffith points me to this article, about author Joe Eszterhas, who says he tried Protestantism and loved the sermon, but felt "empty" because of the lack of liturgy.
  
• Meanwhile, John Schoettler sends me this relevant quote from Spurgeon about the seductive dangers of elaborate liturgy and artificial worship. (Spurgeon also explains his preference for a capella corporate worship here):
  

  There is in human nature a tendency to permit religion itself to become mechanical : priests, temples, sacraments, the performing of services, organs, choirs, all go towards the making up of a machine which may do our worship for us, and leave us all our time to think about bread and cheese and the latest fashions. As cranks, pistons, valves, and cylinders take the place of bone and muscle on board ship, so millinery, bellows and ritual take the place of hearts and spirits in the place of worship. Certain outward appliances may be well enough in their place, but they too easily become substitutes for real heart-work and spiritual devotion, and then they are mischievous to the last degree. The preacher may use notes if he needs them, but his manuscript may steal from him that which is the very essence and soul of preaching, and yet his elaborate paper and his elegant reading may conceal from him the nakedness of the land. Praise may be rendered with musical instruments, if you will ; but the danger is lest the grateful adoration should evaporate, and nothing should remain but the sweet sounds. The organ can do no more than help us in noise-making, and it is a mere idol, if we imagine that it increases the acceptance of our praises before the Lord.

• Anyone who reads church history attentively can hardly help noticing parallels between some of the current soteriological controversies in the Reformed world (I'm thinking especially of the Auburn Avenue/Federal Vision mess; the New Perspective on Paul; and Norman Shepherd's highly nuanced reconstruction of the doctrine of justification by faith) and earlier controversies where some of the same issues and rhetoric were being hacky-sacked around the church chancel (and I'm thinking here about the Oxford Movement/Tractarian controversy, the Mercersburg Theology, and other movements whose leaders have seemed less than comfortable with the principle of sola fide and whose liturgy has tended to elevate the eucharist over the sermon in order of priority). So I've been reading The Parting of Friends: The Wilberforces and Henry Manning by David Newsome and thinking about the parallelisms between then and now. Then I serendipitously came across this rare little number whilst doing an unrelated Google search, and it reminded me that there really is nothing new under the sun. A fascinating read and an eery deja vu experience for those interested in these cyclical controversies.
  
• . . . and finally, I'm sorry, but I just can't help myself:
  

NOTE: if you're still seeing the Escher engraving on the above poster, hit reload. I redid this one, because if you're going to push the limits of fair use on a copyright question, best to use an image belonging to someone who understands the concept of parody. Besides, I like this version better anyway.

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Preaching the Good News? Part Two

by Dan Phillips

Tuesday I posted a snippet of a card left at my doorstep on Saturday, and invited guesses as to its church of origin. Right off the bat, Gareth guessed "Mormons," echoed by Kim, Pastor Brian Culver (twice!), dkyle, Jesucristo rescato a Ernesto, dac, and some bookstore owner.

Other guesses were very creative, including seeker-sensitive, Willow Creekers, purpose driven, "Therapeutic Moralistic Deists," "the local chapter of the Brotherhood of Stammering Christian Worm-Farmers," JW's, Conservative Baptists, and Pentecostals.

It was a fun thread. And now... the rest of the story.

I was in my office last Saturday morning, talking with my wife, when one of the boys came out to us. Breathlessly he told me someone had rung the doorbell. So I lumbered in, opened the door, and found the card wedged into the crack. A couple of young men were walking away towards the sidewalk. I took in their overall clean-cut effect, their white shirts, their ties, and cried —

"Mormons!"

They smiled, a bit surprised, and nodded affirmatively. I came out so that we could talk on my doorstep.

I've not exhaustively studied Mormonism, and have only talked with a few of them about spiritual matters. (This contrasts with many, many JW encounters.) For years, our next-door neighbors were Mormons. The father was an elder. Very fine people, wonderful neighbors. As long as they lived next to us, we got no visits from Mormons. We figured they acted as our shield to doorstep Mormovangelism.

They've since moved, evidently taking with them the Shield.

C. S. Lewis once said that you didn't really understand a heresy until you'd studied it well enough to find it somewhat tempting, or at least to understand the appeal. By that criterion, I don't know Mormonism. The people have been some of the nicest I've known, but the religious tenets have never seemed other than flat-out absurd to me.

So back to these young men. The first gent said they were going door to door telling people "about the wonderful news of the restoration of the Gospel."

"Oh?" I responded. "When was it lost?"

He was absolutely stumped. I mean speechless. The taller gent tried to interject, but I asked (nicely), "Well, is it okay if he answers, since he's the one who said it?" (I figured, perhaps wrongly, that it works like with JW's: one is the trainer, the person who speaks is the trainee.)

He said sure.

I was actually dismayed for the young fellow (—who had been LDS for ten years, I later learned), so I rephrased my question a few times. He said he wasn't great at English, though he seemed to me to speak jut fine. So when I saw I wasn't going to get an answer, I adopted another approach.

"So, what is the gospel?" I asked.

Again, stunned silence. So I rephrased it. "It's what we're telling people," he said. I told him I got that — but what was it they were telling people? What was it about? What made it good news? What news did it tell? I literally asked the question at least six different ways.

This occasioned yet more puzzling, which wasn't really my intent; so I tried another angle. "Is it in the book of Mormon?" I asked. "Is there somewhere in there where it is spelled out?" Neither could point to a passage. I tried again. "Do you have a favorite part of the book of Mormon, part that really says what you believe?" I pretty well felt the answer coming before the taller fellow gave it:

"Oh, I love all of it." (That's the second time I've heard a Mormon respond that way, making it two for two.)

So I said, "Is that a Bible you have there?" Yes. "Do you know where it says what the Gospel is?" No. "May I show you?" Sure.

So I showed them 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, and tried to open it up a bit. Of course, they agreed with it. So I asked if they agreed that believing in Jesus, only, brings salvation. (All this time I'm praying for God's guidance and grace, not really sure which specific path to choose.)

"Well," the taller man told me, "yes, but we have to show that we mean it by what we do. We can't just say we believe, and then do nothing about it." He had been a Lutheran (Missouri Synod) all his life, and they just told him if he went to church once a week, that was all there was to it.

I agreed; no one wants to be a hypocrite. So I asked them to read Romans 4:4-5, and asked what it said, and what it meant. We talked about how Paul was saying grace and works were opposites, that if works had anything to do with our salvation, then it wasn't by grace. And if it was by grace, works could have nothing to do with it.

They said they believed that. Hm.

They said, however, that we needed to do works to show God that we had real faith. "Does He not know whether we have faith or not?" I asked. Well, yes, sure....

So I asked the EE question: "If, God forbid, you were to die, and find yourself before the holy Judge; and if He were to ask you why He should let you into His Heaven what would you say?"

The taller gent's answer was pure works: "I would say that I tried to be good, I treated people with love and respect, I kept your laws...." A whole lot of "I." Sola ego, if I could butcher me some Latin.

So I said it sounded like he was trusting himself, not Jesus. How good you have to be to go to Heaven? Then we talked about the holy Law of God, and how Jesus met the Law's demands in His person on the cross, how He was clothed with our sin, so that we who trust in Him alone might be clothed with His perfect righteousness, and be accepted on that basis. (If you've just dropped by, and that all is news to you, please check this out.)

Smiling assent, no arguments. Then, very nicely, "We were supposed to meet back up five minutes ago." So we parted, me urging them to read Romans all the way through, and that they'd find everything they need to know about Jesus in it, and the other 65 books.

Nice guys, truly. The taller fellow had been a Marine, both were married with kids.

No clue about the Gospel. Pray for them.

Here was their card:


Next time, let's chat some more about how hard it was to identify what kind of church produced that card.

But first, think about their parting-word to me:

"Thanks for talking with us. Most people won't."

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How Vital Is the Truth?

posted by Phil Johnson




et another entry in a week's worth of excerpts from The Truth War. The following excerpt is from pages 32-34:

With increasing frequency nowadays, I hear people say things like, "Come, now, let's not bicker about what we believe. It's only doctrine. Let's focus instead on how we live. The way of Jesus is surely more important than our arguments over the words of Jesus. Let's set aside our disagreements over creeds and dogmas and devote ourselves instead to showing the love of Christ by the way we conduct our lives." Many people these days evidently find that suggestion appealing. On the face of it, it may sound generous, kind-hearted, modest, and altruistic. But the view itself is a serious violation of "the way of Jesus," who taught that salvation hinges on hearing and believing His Word (John 5:24). He said, "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). To those who doubted His truth-claims, He said, "If you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins" (John 8:24). He never left any room for someone to imagine that the propositional content of His teaching is optional as long as we mimic His behavior. In fact, the New Testament consistently stresses otherwise. One vital principle about our redemption from sin destroys the whole argument: Faith, not works, is the sole instrument of justification (Ephesians 2:8-9; Galatians 2:16). In other words, what we believe rather than what we do is what secures us a righteous standing before God—because we lay hold of justifying righteousness by faith alone, and not by our works (Romans 4:5). Paul says in Romans 9:31-32 that "Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law." In other words, regardless of how meticulous they may have been in their external observance of God's law, their unbelief was sufficient to exclude them from the kingdom. "They being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes" (10:3-4). They doubted the truth of Christ, and that proved spiritually fatal, in spite of how well they had perfected an external display of piety. Notice: Paul expressly says they were pursuing righteousness. But they were looking for it in all the wrong places. Because they clung to wrong beliefs about the righteousness God requires and rejected the righteousness Christ would have provided for them, they were eternally condemned. Their failure was first of all an error about a vital article of faith, not merely a flaw in their practice. Their whole belief system (not merely their behavior) was wrong. Unbelief was enough to condemn them, regardless of how they acted. It is not kindness at all, but the worst form of cruelty, to suggest that what people believe doesn't really matter much if they feel spiritual and do good. In fact, on the face of it, that claim is a blatant contradiction of the gospel message. Besides, real righteousness simply cannot exist in isolation from belief in the truth. In order to make the case for any concept of "practical good" that subsists apart from sound doctrine, one quickly has to remove just about everything that is truly righteous from the definition of good. Naturally, it doesn't take very long for that kind of thinking to undermine the foundations of Christianity itself.

Talk amongst yourselves.

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The Chicken or the Egg?

by Phil Johnson

n a January CT article titled "Five Streams of the Emerging Church," Scot Mcknight suggests that emerging Christians tend to be more praxis-oriented than the rest of us. According to McKnight, to most in the Emerging movement, "how a person lives is more important than what he or she believes."

In other words, Emerging Christians tend to think good works generally trump sound doctrine. If our Emerging friends sometimes seem to sweep aside more conservative Christians' concerns about the soundness of their doctrine, this is the main reason. McKnight writes, "Here is an emerging, provocative way of saying it: 'By their fruits [not their theology] you will know them.'"

But that presents a horribly misleading false dichotomy. Biblically, our theology is an important aspect of our fruit. "Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son" (2 John 9).

Moreover, the notion that what people do is ultimately more important than what they believe flies in the face of the very same proof-texts that are normally used to support it. McKnight, for example, quotes James 2:20: "Faith without works is dead" But that verse doesn't suggest that what we do is "more important" than what we believe; James's whole point is that the two things seen properly are perfectly symbiotic. Both are essential.

And in terms of causal priority, faith does take first place over works, because any truly good works we do are the fruit of our faith—and James expressly says so at the start of his argument: "I will show you my faith by my works" (James 2:18).

That's the same cause-effect relationship between faith and works that Scripture consistently stresses. Titus 2 describes good works as adornments for sound doctrine; not vice versa. According to 2 Peter 1:5-8, Christian virtues are the necessary accoutrements of authentic Christian faith.

McKnight anticipates that argument: "Many will immediately claim that we need both or that orthopraxy flows from orthodoxy. Most in the emerging movement agree we need both, but they contest the second claim: Experience does not prove that those who believe the right things live the right way."

In the first place, such an argument from "experience" is fallacious. It's precisely like the argument of the Arminian who insists true Christians can indeed fall away from Christ and be eternally lost "Because I knew a guy who I am certain was saved, and he became an atheist." First John 2:19 explains the "falling away" of such people: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us." Similarly, 2 Peter 1:9 says someone who lacks the virtues that flow from faith "is blind"—not a true believer at all.

Likewise, James 2 is pointing out that someone whose life is devoid of good works is no true Christian. James is not suggesting that "how a person lives is more important than what he or she believes."

In the second place, whether McKnight is correct or not in claiming that "Most in the emerging movement agree we need both [right practice and sound belief]," that idea is hardly one of the driving convictions of the larger movement. In fact, I can certainly see how some readers of Emerging blogs and literature might get a totally different impression. The Emerging penchant for making orthopraxis primary over orthodoxy has produced all kinds of rhetoric and behavior which at times seem to imply that sound doctrine is almost wholly optional.

But that's not even the worst of it. The whole way of thinking is upside down. Take the notion that behavior always trumps belief to its logical conclusion and you will end up making a person's own works the ground of his or her hope for justification.

That's no trifling mistake. It's an absolute lie—a damnable lie; and it is the main falsehood that undergirds all false religion—to suggest that what you believe doesn't ultimately matter very much as long as you are good enough.

The final word on this one: The comment thread attached to this post melted down into an unintelligible cacophony, so I closed it. But just before I closed it, commenter David Rudd asked a question designed to refocus the discussion. Here's my answer to his question, and I'm going to let this be the final word in this thread. I'm adding it to the bottom of the original post, to preserve the sanity of friends who won't want to wade through 80+ comments to get the point. But if anyone does want to slog through those comments, they are still there in all their glory. Enjoy. To David Rudd: Thanks for the valiant attempt to refocus the comments with your last one. I think you're whistling in the wind if you expect the train wreck this thread has become to jump back on track so easily, but you have asked the right questions. I really did invite Scot McKnight to post a detailed clarification here, and I was waiting to post any more comments until he has had that opportunity, but he hasn't answered my e-mail yet. Perhaps he's away for the 4th. I'm going to close this thread anyway now, and perhaps we'll reprise the theme in a future post, without the baggage of so many nasty and totally off-track comments. Anyway, as I said, you have asked the right question: "Is the statement: 'how a person lives is more important than what he or she believes.' necessarily the same as: 'good works generally trump sound doctrine'"? (Note: The former statement is what McKnight actually wrote. He suggested that one major idea that shapes the Emerging movement is the belief that "how a person lives is MORE IMPORTANT THAN what he or she believes." He did not say, "How a person lives is more important than what he or she professes to believe"--which is in essence what his defenders now say he actually meant and what Scot himself seemed to indicate in his short note to me.) My answer to your question is: Yes, I am expressly contending that if what a person does is really "more important than" what he or she actually believes, then good works must trump sound doctrine. Furthermore, that's precisely what is happening on a wide-scale basis. What Scot actually wrote (as opposed to what we're now told he meant) does in fact appear to be a common feature in Emergent/Emerging rhetoric and practice. It should be perfectly obvious that most Emerging literature puts a lot of stress on lifestyle, behavior, attitudes, and whatnot—while minimizing the importance of sound doctrine. That perspective explains why an ostensibly "conservative" Emerging leader can insist on the one hand that he personally believes in sola fide and sola Scriptura (and even claim that he regards these doctrines as "essential" to authentic Christianity) while at the same time maintaining the pretense of Christian fellowship with people who openly and regularly disavow those "essentials," attack the atonement, deny the authority of Scripture, and wink at whatever new heresy is popular in the post-evangelical community this week. As for the question of whether it's legitimate or not to critique the Emerging "conversation" as a movement, I'll reiterate what I wrote in a comment I addressed (to you, as I recall) once before: I'll tell you what: when there are no more national gatherings with the words Emerging or Emergent in their titles and all the usual suspects stop coming together to lecture one another on adapting the biblical message for postmodern ears, then I for one will stop dealing with the whole jumble as a "movement." I do recognize (and have said so many times) that it's a messy, muddy monstrosity, and its participants aren't always "moving" the same direction. But most participants do acknowledge some commonality with one another. That's why they keep giving endorsements to one another's books, and why Zondervan/YS formed a whole special line to publish and publicize those books, and why we all speak of "Emerging" in the first place. And even though we critics sometimes grope for a better way to describe the muddled commonality that exists; and we occasionally fail to load every criticism with the requisite number of disclaimers; and we recognize that the contours of the movement itself are deliberately ambiguous and constantly in flux—well, if postmoderns and post-evangelicals themselves can keep using "Emerging" as a label to represent something they are convinced is positive, they really shouldn't keep complaining about the label per se every time a critic comes forward to object to this or that thing which some Emerging blogger or author says is the whole key to reaching postmoderns.

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Justification by Faith Doesn't Render Holiness Superfluous

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. This week's selection is the introduction to "A Call to Holy Living"—a sermon first preached on Sunday morning, 14 January 1872, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

T is a very great fault in any ministry if the doctrine of justification by faith alone be not most clearly taught. I will go further, and add, that it is not only a great fault, but a fatal one; for souls will never find their way to heaven by a ministry that is indistinct upon the most fundamental of gospel truths.

The merit by which a soul enters heaven is not its own; it is the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I am quite sure that you will all hold me guiltless of ever having spoken about this great doctrine in any other than unmistakable language; if I have erred, it is not in that direction.

At the same time, it is a dangerous state of things if doctrine is made to drive out precept, and faith is held up as making holiness a superfluity. Sanctification must not be forgotten or overlaid by justification. We must teach plainly that the faith which saves the soul is not a dead faith, but a faith which operates with purifying effect upon our entire nature, and produces in us fruits of righteousness to the praise and glory of God.

It is not by personal holiness that a man shall enter heaven, but yet without holiness shall no man see the Lord. It is not by good works that we are justified, but if a man shall continue to live an ungodly life, his "faith" will not justify him; for it is not the faith of God's elect; since that faith is wrought by the Holy Spirit, and conforms men to the image of Christ.

We must learn to place the legal precepts in their right position. They are not the base of the column, but they are the capital of it. Precepts are not given to us as a way to obtain life, but as the way in which to exhibit life.

The commands of Christ are not upon the legal tenor of "this do and live," but upon the gospel system of "live and do this." We are not to be attentive to the precepts in order to be saved, but because we are saved. Our master motive is to be gratitude to him who has saved us with a great salvation.

I am sure that every renewed heart here will feel no opposition to the most holy precepts of our Lord. However severely pure that law may seem to be which we have read just now from this fifth chapter of Matthew, our hearts agree with it, and we ask that we may be so renewed that our lives may be conformed to it. The regenerate never rebel against any precept, saying, "This, is too pure;" on the contrary, our new-born nature is enamoured of its holiness, and we cry, "Thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes."

Even though we find that when we would do good evil is present with us, yet our inmost soul longs after holiness, and pines to be delivered from every evil way. At any rate, Dear friends, if it be not so with you, you may well question whether you are indeed the children of God. My desire, this morning, is to insist upon the precepts which tend to holiness, and I pray the Holy Spirit to excite desires after a high degree of purity in all believing, hearts.

Games Sinners Play

Too many persons judge themselves by others; and if upon the whole they discover that they are no worse than the mass of mankind, they give themselves a mark of special commendation; they strike a sort of average amongst their neighbors, and if they cannot pretend to be the very best, yet, if they are not the very worst, they are pretty comfortable.

There are certain scribes and Pharisees among their acquaintance, who fast thrice in the week, and pay tithes of all they possess, and they look upon those as very superior persons whom they would not attempt to compete with them; but they thank God that they are far above those horrible publicans, and those dreadful sinners, who are put outside the pale of society, and, therefore, they feel quite easy in their minds, and they go to their place of worship as if they were saints, and bear the name of Christian as if it belonged to them; they share in Christian privileges, and sit with God's people, as if they were truly of the family, their marks and evidences being just these, that they do about as much upon the whole as other people, and if they are not first they are not altogether last.

The nests of such people ought to be grievously disturbed when they read Matthew 5, for there the Master insists upon a higher standard than the world's highest, and tells us that except our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. In our text, the great Master asks of those who are professors of his faith, that they should not only do as much as others to prove their title, but that they should do more than others; and he makes this a test question concerning their being really his followers: "What do ye more than others?" (Matthew 5:47).

Just Stop and Think

by Phil Johnson



et me start by saying I'm amazed at the amount of debate, the level of rancor, and the degree of polarization over a 15-minute film that appears to have been around for more than a year.

Actually, some of the questions that have been raised in this discussion are good ones (and important, too). The discussion itself is by no means pointless.

But in my judgment (based mainly on what has been posted right here in the comments section of this blog), the way some of the various arguments are being set forth is an utterly fruitless approach to discussing differences between people who in fact do already agree on all the essential points of gospel truth.

Let me be specific about what troubles me. Some of the labeling we've seen (replete with fatuous references to Finney and Pelagianism) appears to be little more than thinly-disguised name-calling devoid of any cogent argumentation. Moreover, the rapid (and rabid) polarization on both sides is disturbing. Almost as soon as this issue was raised, two opposing squads took their respective sides, with people on both teams exaggerating their differences, overstating the importance of those differences, and hyperbolizing the egregiousness of the other side's "error." Some of the commenters here leapfrogged completely over the civilized exchange of opinions and went straight to DEFCON 1. Rhetoric of that type unwittingly and unnecessarily supports the prejudices of those who imagine that there's a sinister principle in Calvinism that automatically makes Calvinists harsh and cantankerous. (See here for more on that subject.)

Now, remember: I'm not opposed to vigorous disagreement, appropriate labeling, or even ridicule and sarcasm in contexts where such things are clearly warranted. Elijah did not sin by mocking the Baal-priests and their followers, and Paul was perfectly right to employ über-harsh language about the Judaizers (cf. Galatians 1:8-9; 5:12).

But Elijah was dealing with pagan priests and Paul was dealing with wolves in sheep's clothing. Surely we ought to deal differently with evangelical brethren when our chief complaint is that their Calvinism is short by a point or two, or that they neglected to make explicit mention of this or that truth in an evangelistic context—especially when it is clear that they have no obvious agenda to downplay any essential gospel doctrine and have in fact clearly affirmed the "missing" point somewhere else in the immediate context.



There's a lot that I'd like to say about the doctrinal issues under discussion in this conflict. And I'll probably devote a couple of follow-up posts to that. In the process, I hope to make one thing clear: Some of the questions raised in this discussion have no easy, obvious answers, and those who think otherwise usually lose their balance. I see three examples of that in this discussion:

1. We have a few commenters who lean toward Arminian theology (or worse) and insist that God loves everyone just the same and with equal fervor, and whether anyone gets saved or not is ultimately beyond God's power to determine. They think He's done everything He can possibly do to save everyone, and now the choice is left up to each individual. Meanwhile, God is helpless to do anything other than beg sinners to make the right choice.
   
2. Then we have some Calvinists who think it's obvious that God's only attitude toward those whom He did not elect unto salvation is pure and undiluted hatred. These people think anyone who speaks of divine "love" toward the reprobate are only pseudo-Calvinists, and are actually undermining the truth of the gospel itself.
   
3. Then there's a third group: Calvinists of the very softest sort, who think anyone who denies that there's a redemptive intent in God's attitude toward the reprobate are hyper-Calvinists and utter miscreants who have a deliberate agenda to undermine the gospel in a totally different direction. Theirs is a minority opinion, perhaps, but their rhetoric is equally harsh and their position equally narrow.

I side with none of those views, and my position has in fact been either misinterpreted or misrepresented by all three sides at various times and in various ways.

But setting the doctrinal issues aside for the moment, this post will just address some more immediate issues, which are relatively trivial and easy to answer. Let me give my opinions under three headings:

1. Regarding Francis Chan and TMS

I don't know Francis Chan personally. Aside from having watched the video in question, I have had zero personal exposure to him or his preaching. In fact, the first time I saw the video, I didn't even realize whom I was watching. (Nothing on this page or in the video's opening sequence tells you anything about the person who is doing the talking.) I'd heard of Francis Chan, of course, because he pastors in Simi Valley, a short half hour from where I live and work. I have had a few friends involved with his ministry. For some reason, I envisioned him as an older man.

Pastor Chan has a fine reputation as a pastor and communicator. Everything I have ever heard about him from people who have worked with him and attended his church is completely positive. I know nothing about the nuances of his theological persuasion other than what I have gleaned from his website. His doctrinal stance seems to reflect substantial if not complete agreement with the doctrinal statement of the Master's Seminary. Although he is apparently not as rigorous in his Calvinism as I would be, that would be true of lots of men whom I nevertheless respect, including a few men who have been major influences in my life.

See: No matter what you may have heard about me from the dark side of the blogosphere, I have never anathematized anyone merely for being less Calvinistic than I am. In my assessment, the vital litmus test of whether someone is sound in the gospel or not is the question of whether he acknowledges Christ's righteousness as the sole and sufficient ground of justification rather than trying to fudge on the principle of sola fide or making something the sinner himself must do a part of the ground of final justification.

(Incidentally, by that measure, which I believe is biblical, one's view of imputation and penal substitution would be vital; but one's view of the extent of the atonement would be less so. That is precisely my perspective. More on that in a subsequent post, perhaps.)

Last week I was asked privately by an individual who is fairly new to the blog whether there is some kind of "political" pressure on me not to be critical of anyone who has earned a degree from The Master's Seminary. This guy wondered if I was trying to avoid jumping into the fray for that reason. My answer: Absolutely not. Anyone who reads the blog can see that I have never given TMS alums a free pass. If anything, some of my most forthright and vigorous polemical remarks have been aimed at some doctrinally freewheeling TMS graduates—especially a few who seem enthralled with certain currently-stylish flavors of epistemological skepticism.

But notice the disclaimer at the bottom of my original blog. It applies here at the group blog, too. I bear sole responsibility for what I post here. Some of my opinions on peripheral issues may not necessarily reflect the views of my pastor, my employer, my wife, my children, or my friends. Only my beagle, Wrigley, always agrees with me.

I should note that neither John MacArthur, the elders of Grace Church, nor anyone on the faculty at TMS has ever raised a peep of protest about anything I have posted on my blog, though I am certain virtually all of them could find things they would disagree with if they read the blog exhaustively. But even when we disagree, we respect one another's positions, and we grant one another the privilege of speaking candidly.

We do, however, emphatically agree on what is essential to the gospel.

2. Regarding the Video

As I said, when I first watched Francis Chan's video, I did not even realize I was watching Francis Chan. My initial reaction in the first two minutes or so was, Here we go again. This is a Nooma knockoff, and it's going nowhere. So my initial expectations were less than nil.

But when Pastor Chan began talking about God as Creator, the Ten Commandments, sin, the justice of punishment for sin, how Christ's atonement vicariously paid the penalty of others' sin, the holiness and wrath of God—and several other aspects of the gospel that are often denied or deliberately sidestepped nowadays—my perspective changed, and I came away with a much higher opinion of the video. Its production values are (to my eye) superb. Pastor Chan's delivery is engaging. His passion is infectious. And he said some things that did make me "stop and think." That's pretty much what Frank Turk said in his response to the video, so when I read Frank's comments about it, I wasn't the least bit surprised or puzzled. That's why I'm on Frank's side here. I think I understand what he was saying and why—and I do agree with him.

I likewise agreed with Dan Phillips's post-mortem on the original flap the other day. That (plus the fact that I really am busy) is why I haven't posted anything about it until now. I thought my teammates had already said everything that really needed to be said.

That doesn't mean I liked everything about the video. In all candor, there were some things in it that made me cringe. Most of these were essentially the same faults James White highlighted last week on his Webcast. In fact, I would pretty much agree with the objective content of most of the criticisms that have been leveled at the film.

But I'm embarrassed by the shrill tone and dismissive attitudes of some of the critics in our meta. Specifically, I think those who insist that the film's defects amount to a fatal and deliberate compromise of the gospel are pretty far over the top. Histrionics without an actual argument don't ordinarily sway me.

Anyway, while I understand and agree with some of the main points that have been made by both admirers and critics of the video, at the end of the day, if Pastor Chan's video hadn't become a matter of heated controversy in the blogosphere (with several persistent people practically demanding that I declare my opinion) I personally would not have singled the video out either for special praise or special criticism.

If I'd been handed the script to Pastor Chan's video before he filmed it and asked to give editorial input, I would have offered several significant suggestions. But of course, that's what I do all the time. It's the nature of being an editor. Rarely do I see anything I don't feel compelled to tweak just a little—including my own blogposts after I've posted them. (Sorry, Challies.)

So I won't list everything I might have changed about the video, because this post is running long already. But here are a couple of typical examples: I absolutely agree with whoever said the expression "God is crazy about you" is stunningly inappropriate. I also don't like some of the language and imagery the film uses to describe God's well-meant proposals of mercy to sinners. I especially think it bungles and confuses the point of the church as Christ's bride (and the Father's role in choosing and presenting the bride to His Son) by making God the Father sound like a desperate suitor seeking sinners' love for His own sake.

On the other hand, I strongly disagree with those critics who claim it is inappropriate ever to portray God as pleading with sinners for their repentance and reconciliation. (And I hope to follow up on that point in a future post.)

My point here, however, is that none of my complaints about the video would have warranted a major blogpost or a public protest about the film. I seriously think it's a stretch to accuse Francis Chan of denying any essential Christian doctrine or deliberately twisting the gospel.

In fact, I have a much higher opinion of the way Pastor Chan is doing evangelism than I have of the way some of his critics are neglecting it. Chan and his congregation, by all accounts, are actually reaching out to their community. Some of his critics seem to be focusing their ministries more and more to an increasingly narrow and theologically inbred audience—preaching more and more to the choir and saying less and less to a lost and needy world.

Dan Phillips said something to me about all this that I think is absolutely spot on: The sad thing is that whereas a lot of people might be prone to look at the natural and easy way Pastor Chan speaks to unbelievers about Christ—and think, I could do that; the feeding frenzy of overweening critics is likely to make them think the opposite.

3. Regarding the Proper Proclamation of the Gospel

I'm concerned about the increasing number of Calvinists in this generation who seem to bristle and balk whenever they hear someone speak of the love and compassion of God for all humanity. Some of them in effect seem to deny every aspect of God's love other than God's redemptive purpose for the elect alone. I think that's a serious mistake. (See yesterday's Spurgeon excerpt.)

Push that view too far, deny that God's indiscriminate pleas to sinners are well-meant, and you corrupt the gospel message just as badly as those who want to eliminate the wrath or righteousness of God from the message.

This, I think, is the most important question that has been raised in the flap over Francis Chan's video. I want to talk about it in some upcoming blogposts. In the meantime, let me give everyone a reading assignment that I think will be immensely helpful. Erroll Hulse wrote a wonderful book called The Great Invitation: Examining the Use of the Altar Call in Evangelism. In it, he discusses the question of whether it is ever appropriate to tell sinners indiscriminately that God loves them and wants them to repent and be reconciled to Him. It's a marvelously balanced approach to the whole question, from a Calvinist who is defending the doctrines of election, the sovereignty of God, and the inability of sinners to choose Christ unaided by God's grace. I commend it to you.

Audubon Press has the book for $12.99, which is a real bargain. Get it, read it, talk amongst yourselves, and we'll take up this issue in the days to come.

In the meantime, especially until everyone has taken time and given an honest and fair-minded reading of Hulse's book, please exercise some restraint in your comments in the meta here. I'm going to start automatically deleting comments that I think are pugnacious, unbalanced, unnecessarily accusatory, or otherwise out of line.

I realize some may not even agree with me about whether this issue is merely an intramural difference of opinion between brethren or a serious threat to the gospel. But I am the blog-boss here, so now that I have taken time to explain my position, you need to respect my conviction on this and bend over backward to be polite and gracious, or else your comments will be deleted.

Thanks.

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On New Perspectives and Such

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote space at the beginning of each week to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive.

The following excerpt is from "Progressive Theology," an article appearing in the April 1888 issue of The Sword and the Trowel. The article echoes some of the Spurgeon material we have posted before, where Spurgeon seems to speak directly to the postmodern spirit.

In fact, we've pointed out such comments from Spurgeon many times. We think they offer convincing proof that "evangelical postmodernism" is really little more than Victorian-style modernism decked out in tattoos and punk clothing. See especially here and here.

o men really believe that there is a gospel for each century? Or a religion for each fifty years? Will there be in heaven saints saved according to a score sorts of gospel? Will these agree together to sing the same song? And what will the song be? Saved on different footings, and believing different doctrines, will they enjoy eternal concord, or will heaven itself be only a new arena for disputation between varieties of faiths?

We shall, on the supposition of an ever-developing theology, owe a great deal to the wisdom of men. God may provide the marble; but it is man who will carve the statue. It will no longer be true that God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes; but the babes will be lost in hopeless bewilderment, and carnal wisdom will have fine times for glorying.

Scientific men will be the true prophets of our Israel, even though they deny Israel's God; and instead of the Holy Spirit guiding the humble in heart, we shall see the enthronement of "the spirit of the age," whatever that may mean. "The world by wisdom knew not God," so says the apostle of the ages past; but the contrary is to be our experience nowadays.

New editions of the gospel are to be excogitated by the wisdom of men, and we are to follow in the wake of "thoughtful preachers," whose thoughts are not as God's thoughts. Verily this is the deification of man! . . .

It is thought to be mere bigotry to protest against the mad spirit which is now loose among us. Pan-indifferentism is rising like the tide; who can hinder it? We are all to be as one, even though we agree in next to nothing. It is a breach of brotherly love to denounce error.

Hail, holy charity! Black is white; and white is black. The false is true; the true is false; the true and the false are one. Let us join hands, and never again mention those barbarous, old-fashioned doctrines about which we are sure to differ. Let the good and sound men for liberty's sake shield their "advanced brethren"; or, at least, gently blame them in a tone which means approval.

After all, there is no difference, except in the point of view from which we look at things: it is all in the eye, or, as the vulgar say, "it is all my eye"! In order to maintain an open union, let us fight as for dear life against any form of sound words, since it might restrain our liberty to deny the doctrines of the Word of God!

But what if earnest protests accomplish nothing, because of the invincible resolve of the infatuated to abide in fellowship with the inventors of false doctrine?

Well, we shall at least have done our duty. We are not responsible for success. If the plague cannot be stayed, we can at least die in the attempt to remove it.

Every voice that is lifted up against Anythingarianism is at least a little hindrance to its universal prevalence. It may be that in some one instance a true witness is strengthened by our word, or a waverer is kept from falling; and this is no mean reward.

It is true that our testimony may be held up to contempt; and may, indeed, in itself be feeble enough to be open to ridicule; but yet the Lord, by the weak things of the world, has overcome the mighty in former times, and he will do so again.

We cannot despair for the church or for the truth, while the Lord lives and reigns; but, assuredly, the conflict to which the faithful are now summoned is not less arduous than that in which the Reformers were engaged. So much of subtlety is mixed up with the whole business, that the sword seems to fall upon a sack of wool, or to miss its mark. However, plain truth will cut its way in the end, and policy will ring its own death-knell.

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