The TBC Blog

E-Note 7/22: The Farewell at Miletus

2010-07-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

One of the most poignant farewells in Church history is found in Acts 20 where the apostle Paul calls for the elders of Ephesus to meet him near the harbor of Miletus. There, close to the docks, Paul gave a farewell speech that Luke and the Spirit reproduce for our edification. In that speech Paul made a critical charge to the elders of the Church that has clear, though indirect, implications for the Church he leaves behind: "Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood" (20:28).

Though the charge is directed to the elders there are obvious implications for the Church in those words - and for Thetford Baptist Church too.

(1) You are the flock of God. You are of the Church that belongs to God. You are his possession by purchase, a purchase made with his own blood. One can not help conclude that Paul speaks the way he does here in order to remind the elders that the Church is a flock they do not own. They are tending the Lord's flock. They are in His service. They are not masters of any sort. They are slaves to Christ. Paul wants to remind Church leaders that the Church is no place for sloth, self-promotion, power-trips or entrepreneurialism. It is God's flock.

But surely this truth is a double-edged sword. Just as the flock is not the possession of her shepherds, neither is the flock the possession of the flock. The Church of God is not a democracy. The Church does not exist or gather because of the consent of the flock. It does not organize or re-organize according to its own inventions. The flock exists and gathers only because of the radical mercy of her sovereign Lord who bought her with his own blood. He alone calls her to worship, to organize diaconal care, to pray, to fast, to listen, to shepherd and to be shepherded by those whom the Holy Spirit has made overseers. The Church is not a town, something to be mutually possessed and mutually administered. The Church belongs to God and receives ministerial care and direction as God has determined. "For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care" (Psalm 95:7).

(2) This leads to the second major implication of Paul's parting words for the Church, the saints of TBC: You are to be shepherded. You are to be under the care of (as the ESV translates it) those overseers appointed by the Holy Spirit. This Sunday I will preach more specifically about what this looks like, but for now we can say this much: A Christian bought by the blood of the incarnate God takes on peculiar relationships in this life that those outside of Christ do not take on. In short, a Christian has elders in his or her life. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit will it to be so, for you are the flock of the thrice holy God's possession. But unlike worldly overseers, the overseers appointed by the Holy Spirit for the Church's eternal blessedness are men who minister the Word of God. The overseer has no authority but that which is derived from Holy Scripture. As one church leadership manual wisely puts it: "All church power is only ministerial and declarative, for the Holy Scriptures are the only infallible rule of faith and practice. No church judicatory may presume to bind the conscience by making laws on the basis of its own authority..." (emphasis mine). This is truly wonderful news for those who are eager to be led and kept in the ways of God. God has provided you, through His Spirit and constrained by His Word, the very kind of leadership soft and humble hearts need to walk in the truth.

With that said, I would now like to comment, in the Spirit of Romans 16, on each of the elders at TBC who shepherd you into the immediate future. I do this so you can give thanks to God for them and take confidence in them and pray for them according to scripture and so be blessed under their care.

First, I commend to you Jim Mauchly. Jim has been worshipping, growing and serving as a member of TBC since 2004. He and Berni have a gift of hospitality and friendship-making that is rare in the Upper Valley. Even now they are boarding Dartmouth student April Daigle and have been a home-away-from-home for International students for a couple years now. As an elder Jim has grown significantly. He has become courageous in dealing with difficult situations and speaking the truth in love. He has a godly sense of what smacks as fake and he resists, for us all, hypocrisy. He has taken the Lord's command, "Let love be sincere" to heart. Pray for Jim as he strives to grow in biblical and theological knowledge (Phil. 1:9). Pray and give thanks for him and he will be an even a greater blessing to you.

I also commend to you Bob Hammond. Bob has been faithfully worshipping, growing and serving at TBC since 1994 when he and Nancy became members. By God's grace Bob has exercised, these many years, his gift of giving - and that with generosity! TBC has flourished in many ways because of this. Bob has also been a faithful man of prayer for TBC and takes great care in preparing when he leads corporate prayer. Bob remains devoted to reading the scriptures and other works of theology that contributes biblical soundness to his leadership. God has graciously used Bob's international experience in missions and business to keep our eyes looking outward. Pray for Bob as he seeks to balance his love for his family and grandchildren with his love for Christ's church (Gal. 6:10). He is much needed by both. Pray and give thanks for him and he will be an even a greater blessing to you.

I also commend to you John Schwartz. John has been worshipping, growing and serving as a member of TBC since 2006. He has served in key positions at both Woodstock Congregational Church and Valley Bible Church. We are so pleased the Lord led him to TBC! John is a peacemaker (blessed are the peacemakers!) John is marked by his humility, gentleness and theological depth. John is what you would expect from a man who has spent decades listening to biblical preaching and participating in small group Bible studies - he is an oak of truth and righteousness. God be praised for his service at TBC. John has also benefited TBC by bringing his 30-plus years at DHMC Finance to TBC. Under Bob and John our financial stewardship has maintained godly integrity. What a joy for us all to see John receive from God the blessing of Caron, his wife-to-be. Pray for John that he would stand firm in the faith as a man of courage and strength (1 Cor. 16:13). Pray and give thanks for him and he will be an even a greater blessing to you.

I also commend to you Doug Gernhard. Doug has been worshipping, growing and serving as a member of TBC since 2002. At TBC Doug has been remarkably productive with his hands. In the midst of his career with the Air Force he has managed to build the east parking lot, the children's play structure ("The Two Towers"), and paint, paint, paint. What a gift from God he and Jennifer are to TBC! They labor in love and joy, motivated by an eagerness to see the gospel of Christ reach the community. Doug has also blessed TBC through his eagerness to learn. Taking theology courses through independent study, Doug has gained a solid footing in the best theology our tradition. He loves the Word. Pray for Doug that he, together with you all, may have power to grasp the majestic dimensions of Christ's love (Eph. 3:18). Pray and give thanks for him and he will be even a greater blessing to you.

Lastly, I commend to you Roger Berger. Roger has been worshipping, growing and serving as a member of TBC since 1987. Roger is a prince of a man. Genial and admirable in all his dealings. How kind the Father is to return Roger to the elder board this next season. Roger too is a peacemaker. He is thoughtful and careful and always moved by the winds of the Word of God. He and Chris have the rare gift of being without guile when they look out upon us all. By God's grace Roger and Chris have been wondrously freed from those love-limiting things that still plague many of us. May their example compel all of us who are, well, a little more suspicious and stingy with our love and concern. Pray for Roger that he would continue to please the Lord in every way and grow in the knowledge of God (Col. 1:10). Pray and give thanks for him and he will be an even a greater blessing to you.

And lastly, "Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel,...pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should." (Eph 6:19).

Yours in Christ, John

E-Note 7/15: VBS News

2010-07-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This week we have been having quite a time sailing across the Mediterranean Sea. The seas have been rough, the skies dark and the rains unrelenting. So far our ship, The Seadog, has held together. But we have it on the word of the prophet that our ship is surely to run aground on some island. The word is that tonight is the night we hit the reefs of Malta and see our good ship broken to pieces. Of course we wonder what will become of us then. Yet - and this is the foolish hope we all cling to - the prisoner, Paul, says his God promises that none of us will perish if we stay on the ship until it runs aground. What foolishness rules us now, a prisoner leads us on the hope of a promise from his God. Will the God of Paul keep his word? Does Paul's God really have all authority over heaven and earth?

Such are the important questions of this year's Vacation Bible School where kids discover that Christ is Captain. Slowly the greatness and goodness of God is sinking into the minds and hearts of 23 children. Pray these seeds find good soil and that God would be glorified as children trust in Him!

Last night the Scripture lesson was one we all need to hear. It was about "Waiting" and "Escaping." After 14 nights hoping for land, the depth soundings began to show a shallowing of the sea - 120 feet then 90 feet. Land was near! This news generated excited fear. For the seas still roiled and the crew feared the good ship could hit a rock at any moment and bring death along with the foretold destruction. Some began making plans to get off the ship by using the lifeboat. Catching wind of their scheme, Paul insisted that no one would be saved if the crew didn't wait on the Lord, trust his Word and stay on the ship. The temptation to escape was strong so the centurion made a bold move. He called for the ropes holding the lifeboat to be cut. The crew watched the boat fall away into the sea.

Here we have a striking picture of the foolishness and the power of the Gospel. God calls us to throw aside every scheme we conjure and cling to on the hope we will make it through life...and death. He calls us to throw everything away until we only hope in Christ. As Paul said about what appeared to many the most productive years of his adult life, his years in Judaism: "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." The kids are learning this very lesson through Acts 27-28. We have been given all we need for life and death in Jesus alone. He alone has authority over heaven and earth so we can trust his Word.

Remember, the crew wasn't called to stay on the ship because it was a good tactic of seamanship. In a mighty storm, being driven hard over submerged rocks, staying aboard is not a good tactic. No, the crew was called to stay on the ship because through the foolishness of God they would be saved by God and God would again glorify his Son, "the God of the prisoner Paul," before these men. As Jim Elliot said, "He is no fool who gives up what he can not keep to gain what he can never lose." Lord, give us ears to hear. Yours in Christ, John

E-Note 7/9: Set Apart Christ

2010-07-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As you know Thetford Baptist Church is on the threshold of transition. In a few weeks I will complete my service among you and you will begin seeking your next pastor in earnest. It is absolutely necessary that we acknowledge that the Lord has woven together the fabric of our lives for 10 years now. The friendships and the hardships and the worship we have shared have fashioned each of us more and more into the image of Christ. This fabric of churchliness and gospelized friendship can not be pulled at without causing some pain and confusion. I could wish it not so - the pain and confusion, that is - but such a wish would be to wish that we had never become more than mere acquaintances. We have become more than that because Christ Jesus is more than each of us and more than all of us together. When Jesus stands at the center of a fellowship, whether it is between two believers or twenty, that fellowship becomes rich with the gravitas of Christ's Kingdom. A sense that we posses everything in Christ and yet nothing of this world settles upon a fellowship where Jesus reigns. Though for Christ and his Kingdom we now lose one another for a short while, you shall not lose Christ nor shall I. He remains Head of his Church and thus with us all.

It is my hope that my departure will be fruitful for TBC in many ways, but I can think of no greater fruit than this: that each of you will have cause to freshly set apart in your hearts Christ as Lord (1 Peter 3:15). A pastoral transition is an opportune time for all of us to examine our hearts by asking, "Why am I in Christ's church?" "What am I after?" "If I could lead my brother to my left and my sister to my right to one thing in Christ's church, what would that be?"

The truth is that too often we set something else apart in our hearts as Lord. Something other than Christ. And that something slowly becomes the answer to the three questions just asked. This is how in all our churchliness we can still become idolaters, worshipers of a god that is not God. Paul Tripp and Tim Lane help us face the truth about church-sanctioned idols. In their book "Helping People Change" they list seven counterfeit gospels. Read through them carefully and "take it by faith" that you have at least two of these counterfeit gospels vying for your affections and allegiance, leading you away from the glory of God in Christ:

Formalism. “I participate in the regular meetings and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control. I’m always in church, but it really has little impact on my heart or on how I live. I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment as I do.”

Legalism. “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create for others. I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet the standards I set for them. There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”

Mysticism. “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God. I live for the moments when I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often, too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”

Activism. “I recognize the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world. But at the end of the day, my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”

Biblicism. “I know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”

Therapism. “I talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt. Yet even without realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior. I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs.”

Social-ism. “The deep fellowship and friendships I find at church have become their own idol. The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”

Do you see how these gospels become counterfeits? They become the only tree in the garden. They become the tree of life to us. They become the one place to which we bring others to feed. And in this we lose Christ and so does our brother.

What then does it mean to set apart in our hearts that Christ is Lord? It means that by faith and through the Holy Spirit we let Jesus have dominion over every quest of the human heart. In Spirit and truth we acknowledge again and again, day after day, that Jesus' covenantal faithfulness through his shed blood is the answer to our heart's every quest. Beneath each of the above "church idols" is your heart on a quest, and you will either find rest in Christ alone or you will peddle on in slavish restlessness looking for a little more control, a little more self-justification, a little larger population of people who really admire you. Praise be to God that Christ still stands in the midst of his church and says to the restless hearts of the redeemed, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Yours in Christ, John

E-Note 7/2: Letter from Cambodia

2010-07-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Here is an important and timely letter from our missionary in Cambodia, Susan Kana. It will deepen your appreciation for the quote of the week.

Greetings from Preah Vihear Province (PV). Temps are not as hot but with the rainy season, it is quite humid. Joel and I continue to serve alone in PV but Jim and Carolyn stay involved through phone and visits. I have stayed busy here but have also made trips to Phnom Penh (PP) - bringing patients to the MMC (Mercy Medical Clinic). You may have heard me refer to it as CSI which was started several years ago by the Southern Baptist Mission to treat the poor.

I would like to tell you a bit about MMC and some of the changes from the original CSI. First of all - they continue to serve the poor of Cambodia. MMC is not a mission. It is a group of missionaries from several mission organizations - CMA (Christian and Missionary Alliance, World Team, Pioneers, OMF (Overseas Missionary Fellowship), Southern Baptist, and MTW (Missions to the World). I am not sure of any others.

I have been involved with CSI for several years while I lived in PP. If you remember our Neak Lueng village ministry - it involved Bible teaching, bringing ways of clean water as well as medical clinics with Dr. Modich from the CSI Clinic. The clinic rented a small place at the military hospital in PP but it was not an ideal situation. With the work of Dr. Tim Benadum (WT) and others they were able to acquire a piece of land from a Christian Khmer General...for free. We serve an awesome God!

Building has begun in a site just outside the city. God has provided through some very generous donations and they hope to be completed by April next year. A few years back a new US Embassy was built in PP. The contractor for that facility is a Christian and his kids went to the International School where Marjie Benadum taught. The families became friends but then moved off to a country in South America to build another US Embassy. Well, time came for MMC to find a builder for our Clinic. Tim called Kurt, the builder and said "Hey, how about . . . " Well, you get it. He and his wife left their well paying jobs to come to Cambodia as missionaries and are building the clinic. There is a reason for my excitement and sharing about this with you....

I would like to share with you a portion of a letter I sent out to all of WT Cambodia as well as Asia Leaders and Directors.

I have been in PV for just over 2 years and I have to say it is nice living in the province. I came to Cambodia just before I turned 49 and still had not lost my heart for adventure but it took 8 years for me to make my way out of the city. Although I lived in PP, I had great opportunities for adventure outside the city - - especially with the Cottle's and Dr. Modich in Neak Lueng. Because that ministry was partly medical, I learned a lot about village ministry with Dr. Modich and how his ministry in PP at CSI (now MMC)is connected with what we are doing with the poor in the provinces.

Back in January I told my team, Jim and Carolyn and Joel, that on my 60th birthday which would be November of 2011, I would be re evaluating where I thought God would want me to continue to serve. During these last couple of months, I feel that God is moving that time up. I have a lot of time for reflection and I have really asked God to show me what it is He would want me to do and when.

I feel that God is leading me back to be involved somehow in medical work. I miss it. Most of my relationships have been made that way. You know I am not a nurse, I am not a doctor - - just a simple lab tech. But with that experience and my involvement in the clinic in Irian, I feel I have something to offer. I have talked with Tim and Marjie Benadum and they feel there could be a place for me with their team, MMC. Phnom Penh is the last place I want to be but I feel a call to the work, not the place. MMC is more that just treating patients. It is Bible study with the staff, discipleship, mentoring . . . But still being involved with the poor from the villages.

Poor timing? No, God's timing is never poor. Jim and Carolyn are planning to move back up to PV early August. Joel has been wonderful in allowing me the freedom to explore options. I am thankful to the 3 of them for giving me the time to go to PP and see what is going on here at the MMC. God's timing was perfect for me to ask questions. I would never even consider making any kind of move now but I wanted to put it out in the open for all of you to know. I am not sure of God's timing on when to make any kind of change. I ask for your prayers and I welcome any input from you. I have enough going on in PV. I have promised the team I would work until I felt God say it is time to move on. "I am willing" to be there until I feel sure He says otherwise.

I got positive feedback from leadership. As I wrote, Jim and Carolyn will be moving up early August so I feel now is not the time to make a move. I will be moving out of Jim and Carolyn's house when they return so needed to rent something else. Joel has promised me he can make the place I found free of rats by early August. The contract is for 6 months.

I do love PV and the missionaries I work with but I really feel it is from God that I make this change. As I sought counsel, I felt confirmation from others as well.

Please be praying for all of us as we seek God for His timing. None of this has brought about any loss of love for the Khmer of PV. But please pray that I will continue to pour out the Love of Christ to them as they draw closer to Him. Pray that I, too will draw closer to Jesus every day.

With love,
Susan
susan.kana [at] worldteam.org

E-note 6/25: A Look at VBS

2010-06-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

As we draw near to the start of Vacation Bible School we would all do well to spend some time meditating on those acts of the apostles that give shape to this year's VBS lessons. The primary scripture texts are Acts 27 and 28. Here you not only see the acts of the apostle Paul but the Lordship of the ascended and enthroned Christ. Jesus said after his resurrection, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go..." (Matthew 28:18-19). In Acts 27 and 28 - from the deck of a fragile merchant's ship cast upon a stormy sea - we witness the sureness and stability of life for those who have the risen Christ as Captain.

As you are reading the narrative of Acts 27 and 28 keep the following five lessons of VBS before you, they will enrich your understanding.

Day 1 (Acts 27:1-12) - Christ gives me prophets. Children will see that the risen Christ gives us prophets to keep us from danger. The children will be challenged to recieve God's prophets by heeding their words in the Bible.
Day 2 (Acts 27:13-26) - Christ commands my destiny. Children will see that the risen Christ controls our life not accidents or nature. The children will be challenged not to be afraid of anything because Jesus rules over everything.
Day 3 (Acts 27:27-38) - Christ encourages me to keep trusting. Children will learn that they can wait on Jesus for he keeps his word. The children will be challenged to not let fear turn them to their own ways.
Day 4 (Acts 27:39-44) - Christ keeps his word to me. Children will learn that the risen Christ fulfills his word. The children will be challenged to love Jesus for his strength and faithfulness.
Day 5 (Acts 28:1-10) - Christ is Lord of lord and Lord of mercy. Children will learn that the risen Christ rules over all the gods of men. The children will be challenged to abandon all false hopes and trust Jesus alone.

How can you help make this summer's VBS a success? (1) Pray for the workers and God's gathering of children to each night; (2) Courageously invite neighbors, friends, grandchildren and other relatives; (3) help us build the ship Sunday after worship on July 11; (4) bring supplies that we need to the church this Sunday and next. The supply list includes:

(1) Wooden crates and barrells that look old and are sturdy (to be props for a merchant ship's deck).
(2) Gunny sacks stuffed with paper or something soft (to be props for a merchant ship's deck).
(3) Anything else that you think might help us promote merchant ship life (please ask me before you bring it in).

A special "thank you" to all who are helping us "navigate" this project of the Lord Jesus Christ's magnification here in Thetford, Summer 2010 - CRAFTS: Lauren Haren, Jean Munn and Elizabeth Morrell; GAMES: Bill Pedi, Sara Wilmot and Annie Hartley; DECORATIONS & COSTUMES: Annie Hartley, Emalie Hartley, Gunilla Kuniholm, Roger & Chris Berger; BIBLE STORY HELPERS: Scott & Christina Amado, Susan Bonina and Sara Wilmot; MUSIC: Christina Amado, Jen Hartley; REGISTRATION: Janet Stowell and Nancy Hammond. SNACKS: Women's Bible Study Group

Yours in Christ, John

E-Note 6/18: The Foolishness of God

2010-06-18T11:07:00.001-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This past week I have been thinking about those penetrating words from 1 Corinthians 1:26-27 that we heard last Lord's Day: "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong." There is, I think, something that keeps us from fully appreciating these words.

Like the apostle Paul we live in an age where those who are wise by human standards, where those who are influential, where those who are of noble birth all seem quite confident that religion is obviously for weak and marginal people. Obviously. The unbelieving scholar, philosopher or intellectual would hear those words from the apostle Paul and say, "Duh! I knew that already. Of course Christianity is for the uneducated and the lowly born. Religion is a crutch for such people because knowing they have failed in this life they imagine succeeding in a life to come. They are fools."

So let me ask the obvious question: Are the strong of this world really and truly shamed by God's choice of those who are weak? Are the wise of this world really and truly shamed by God's choice of those who are ignorant by human standards? No. Not yet. But they will be. That is the key to fully appreciating Paul's stunning point: not yet have they been shamed. Right now they are the wise and the strong. Right now they are glorious before the world and the world vindicates their unbelief with all its attendant systems and philosophies and policies. The shame God is bringing upon the worldly strong and the worldly wise is not yet, it is still to come. It is slow and subtle. It is even something of a conspiracy. But it is coming.

You see the worldly strong and the worldly wise will be divinely shamed only when they discover that it was their pride in not being worldly weak and their pride in not being worldly ignorant that kept them from recognizing the wisdom of God in Christ crucified. In the plausibility system of human pride the necessity of a crucified redeemer is utter foolishness because it debases and discounts all that man would see elevated and rewarded: his own achievements. Christ crucified doesn't eradicate achievement but it does eradicate boasting in it. And this is the great scandal of the cross, that God accepts us only when we boast in the weak, marginalized and ignobly born Jesus of Nazareth, strung up to die between criminals. When we are found at his bloody feet praising God for such mercy, then evidence of the Spirit's work in ushering fools into the wisdom of God is on display. But the proud do not have eyes to see it.

Paul's point to the Church is powerful and shocking: God is preparing the shame of many by choosing for salvation weak and lowly men who boast in a weak and lowly Christ. When the strong and high-minded discover that the way up was down they will be shamed by the deception their own pride led them into. On that day of discovery they will be like guests who show up at a grand ball only to discover that the exorbitantly expensive tickets they are holding are counterfeits. They will gnash their teeth when they see the Master of the house greet by name lepers and freaks and no-names who are welcomed in only on the basis of their great love for the disfigured Master. Those who had no glory in the presence of the world will be radiant in the Master's presence then. The worldly strong will be so disgusted by the scene they won't want to go in even if they could. They will be eternally destitute and still they will not regret their pride.

Of course there is hope even for worldly boasters. Paul says, "Not many of you were wise...." That "not many" clearly suggests that God chooses even a few from the top of the world's summits for Christ. If you have eyes to see them you will. In one important way they are very much like their more lowly born and more worldly ignorant Christian brothers: they are fools for Christ. Paul is a beautiful example of this. In Acts 26 he bears testimony to the resurrection of Jesus before the Judean Governor, Festus, and the Herodian King, Agrippa. Suddenly Festus lashes out at Paul: "'You are out of your mind, Paul!' he shouted. 'Your great learning is driving you insane'" (Acts 26:24). Fools for Christ do not disdain false accusations of this sort nor taking the risks that elicit them.

Be sure of this, however, God's fools do their most important work in Lord's Day worship. To disengage from all the things we share with the citizens of this world and gather to praise the thrice holy God with the lowest of men (if you are high) and with the highest of men (if you are low) is truly God's foolishness and might. As Christ's Church of fools unites weekly to testify to our foolish love for the disfigured Master, God, in that time "destroys the wisdom of the wise" with such power that even our children will be saved.

Yours in Christ, John

E-Note 6/11: Give Thanks

2010-06-11T12:44:00.001-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

The next time you suffer from a malaise of meaninglessness take a close look under the hood and see if you have disconnected your "prayers of thanksgiving" from the "circumstances of life." Nothing quite like thanklessness dulls us into an insipid secularism that breeds apathy, aecidia, and sloth. Thankless lips before God make even the most necessary tasks of life a drudgery. Everything becomes heavier. You begin to feel only half alive before the dishes, the laundry, the yard, the kids, and the wife - not to mention the job, the neighbors and Christ's church. Thanklessness is a peculiar form of death.

Here is the way of life: "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thess. 5:16-18). Did you notice how exhaustive those commands are? Look at them one more time: "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Life in Christ removes all the old reservations. In Christ joy is no longer reserved for special occasions. In Christ prayer is no longer reserved for those times when we are obviously desperate. And in Christ thanksgiving is no longer reserved for select comforts and delights. In Christ all three - joy, prayer and thanksgiving - are invasive, they take over everything, like kudzu vines but better!

Why is it God's will that we give thanks in all circumstances? Because we are now "in Christ Jesus." This is the foundational reality upholding the Christian habit of exhaustive thanksgiving. To be "in Christ" speaks of our union with the Lord Jesus. It is a phrase that addresses our standing before God. We now stand before God "in Christ." Of course, Jesus Christ is God, God the Son, so it would be just as right to say we stand before God in God. But it is particularly "in Christ" that we stand because God the Son was sent to us in the likeness of sinful flesh in order to condemn all our sin in the flesh through his curse-bearing death and so bring our flesh into his Kingdom forevermore.

So when Paul says that exhaustive thanksgiving is God's will for you in Christ Jesus he is not simply saying, "Stop being such a naughty, gloomy Christian." He is saying that God would have you give full attention and take complete advantage of your standing before him as one united to Jesus Christ. It is God's will that you take hold of God always, continually and in all circumstances because by grace you have been taken hold of through Jesus Christ. In Christ God is always being your God. As Calvin said, you are so thoroughly and tenderly embraced by God in Christ that God is always turning to your advantage and welfare everything that befalls you. Thus there is nothing in your life as a Christian - small nor great - that falls beyond the reach of a holy thanks-giving. So give thanks to God for the so-called little stuff, like the laundry. In Christ doing laundry is now a gift, for with charity and faith it is done unto the glory of God. "Thank you God that because of Christ I can now glorify you with dirt and detergent." Give thanks to God for the most painful stuff too, like cancer and chronic pain and difficult spouses and hard days with the kids. These things did not slip past God and into your life while he was blinking. No, in Christ and only in Christ does it become clear that these things are appointed trials to prove your faith genuine that you may be full of praise, glory and honor when Christ returns (1 Peter 1:3-9). Because of his love for you God works out your eternal salvation through these things. Even the worst of them should not silence your thanksgiving because you are reminded that even this great horrible thing can not separate you from God's love that is yours in Christ.

Of course we continue to pray for relief and mercy while we live under such weighty hurts, but when we also give thanks we mortify the grumbling and bitterness of unbelief that would have us look away from our being in Christ. So take hold of the Lord by giving thanks in all circumstances. He has taken hold of you in Christ and he does not let go. And that, beloved, is why we can repent and give thanks to him again. Great is his faithfulness! Yours in Christ, John (for more on this theme read Tim Keller's recent post titled "Long Distance Spirituality" over at http://www.redeemer.com/news_and_events/newsletter/?aid=46).

What do you think?

2010-06-02T05:20:00.000-07:00

A Tribute to a Friend
by Ed Welch

“Nothing has changed.”

I wasn’t so sure. It seemed to me that everything had changed. With four words – “your cancer is malignant” – his parents would lose their oldest son, his wife would become a widow, his four children, way too young to lose a father, would, indeed, lose their father, and what about me? Not that it’s all about me, but I would lose a dear friend in just a little more than a year. The cancer was inoperable and there were no viable treatments. But those were his first words to me. He said them about twenty-five minutes after he was given his diagnosis and prognosis. “Nothing has changed.”

This is what he meant. The hour before he was given his dire and accurate prognosis, he was certain...[more]

E-note 5/27: A God for the Weak

2010-05-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Psalm 13 begins in utter darkness: "How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?" (13:1-2). There is no darkness more dark than when God's shining face is hidden from you. No brilliance of earthly goods can illuminate the darkness that comes when God seems to have turned away from a beloved child.

And so this Psalm begins with some strikingly bad PR for God. God is late. God has forgotten. God is looking the other way. All this leaves the saint in tremendous pain. The pain is there every day, in fact.

From one perspective it is surprising that this Psalm made it into the Psalter. I can think of several corporations and presidents who would rig a cover-up before they would allow such bad press to tarnish such a great name. That's one perspective, the perspective that only strength deserves publicity. It is the perspective that is ashamed of weakness in God's people and a perspective that is ashamed of a God who is for the weak. But, of course, that perspective is not the gospel perspective.

From a gospel perspective this Psalm is an exceedingly reasonable contribution to the ancient Church's hymn book. For here we find the whole Church (remember, this is the Psalter) taking upon its lips the experience of one of its weakest members--the King of Israel no less! This dark, personal experience of David's overflows the banks of an individual story and floods the collective personality of God's people. One man's lament becomes the lament of all. One man's sufferings become the sufferings of all. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ accounts for this, for only because of the gospel are we all allowed to be as weak as the weakest of us. "Mourn with those who mourn" (Romans 12:15). And are they not also Christ's sufferings we share?

There is something else about this Psalm that sticks out only because of the gospel: the lamentation is Godward. The Psalmist does not complain about God to man. He complains about God to God. Nor does the Psalmist wait until he is better to go to God. He exposes his raw wounded heart while it remains raw and wounded. How does he know that God is not ashamed of his weakness? Only because of the gospel, that gospel which God had promised long before the incarnation, "promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures" (Romans 1:2). It is the gospel that explains why Psalm 13 is in the Psalter, for here we again see God coming to us in our weakness, when our circumstances would have us charge God as unfaithful and have us measure him as more distant than our troubles, even in this disorienting state that our trials and weakness and faithlessness have concocted, God comes to us. That is the gospel! He revives and renews our faith. He does it not by lifting us up and out of our circumstances, no, not usually, but rather he comes and sits with us in them, showing us again his wounds. The wounds that make all our sufferings in faith a share in his own sufferings, the wounds that remind us that God has been good to us and will very soon renew the whole creation.

Psalm 13 ends not with a new earth (though it draws nearer every day) but with a new man: "I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me" (13:6). How did it happen? The weak drew near to the God who had graciously revealed himself to be a God who is not ashamed of their weakness. God then graciously drew near to the weak and revived their faith in him, his goodness, his gospel, his Christ.

Grace & peace, John

E-note 5/20: Search Committee

2010-05-22T06:24:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ [don't forget the Potluck],

"It takes the entire church to provide a vague imitation of the glory of God...We need to be a corporate body, smitten with the glory of God, committed to the unity of the church, deluged by His love, and faithful as we walk together in obedience to Him, even in our suffering. We need to need other people less and love other people more." - Ed Welch

At the annual meeting this Sunday the seventy-plus members of TBC will work together to form a Pastoral Search Committee. According to the order set out in our church constitution, a search committee must be formed within three weeks of an announced resignation. The elders automatically have a place on the search committee, though some elders will be more active than others as travel prevents full participation. There is also a need then for two women and two men from the membership to be added to the committee. How those four will be selected is outlined below. By the time you leave the Annual Meeting on Sunday you should know the identity of the whole search committee. The process for Sunday then is as follows:

(1) Every member will be allowed to nominate one other member to the search committee. The nominations will happen from the floor of the meeting. You must be present Sunday to nominate another member who must also be present.

(2) Those individuals nominated may or may not accept the nomination. Every nominee has the right of refusal.

(3) Two columns of nominees will be written on a white board, a column of men and a column of women.

(4) All members present will then be given a ballot to vote for two of the women nominated and two of the men nominated.

(5) The two women with the most votes and the two men with the most votes will join the elders on the search committee. Vote counts will not be announced.

If you are a member of TBC, we certainly hope you will invest in the future of TBC by attending the meeting and nominating someone...or even be nominated yourself! If you are not a member of TBC, we would love to have you at the meeting so you might be encouraged by our unity and good order in pursuing God's will. To make the Annual Meeting a little easier for families, Janet Stowell has graciously stepped forward to provide some childcare and pizza for the children. If it is a sunny day, the playground and pizza should make things much easier. Yours in Christ, the Elders

E-note 5/14: Not to us

2010-05-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

Our call to worship this Sunday begins with these words: "Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness." What is the ancient church of God saying here? Surely they were not presuming God was about to mistakenly attribute glory to them and they had to convince him otherwise. No. On the contrary, their emphatic "not to us" (emphatic by repetition) was a chastening of all remnants of entitlement that dwelled in their own hearts as they approached God. Thus they begin their praise by humbling themselves ("not to us") and exalting God ("but to your name"). To roll their poetic language into prose for a moment, they are saying, "Lord, there is nothing in us that entitles us to your blessing. All the mercy that covers our guilt, all the good we have done, all the well-being we enjoy, all the hope that lightens our suffering, all this is by your grace and your grace alone. It is given to us freely by your grace, not deservedly by our merits. So Lord, we resist here and now in public praise the temptation to take any glory to ourselves for all we have is from you and that only because of your covenant love and faithfulness to us, so to you be all the glory!"

Now that stretches the poetry of the Psalm a bit thin but I hope it clarifies how God's people rightly enter God's presence. We come to worship each Lord's Day not in order to put God in our debt, we come rather because God has come to us: "to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness." Why is God alone worthy of glory? Because of his "love and faithfulness." This phrase is a reference to God's covenantal love. It speaks to how God initiates and maintains and fulfills a covenant of grace for his people. It speaks to how God bound himself (covenanted) to bring unworthy servants to himself in holiness and righteousness forevermore. This covenantal love and faithfulness of God's is not indiscriminately given to all. God's love is not an untended garden hose on a summer day, showering blessings on whoever is smart enough or lucky enough to get in the way. God's covenant love and faithfulness is toward those whom the Father has given to the Son before the creation of the world: "I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours" (John 17:9).

The focus of the Christian in worship then is not his own coming to God on the day of his conversion or his coming on any given Lord's Day. The focus of the Christian in worship is God's gracious coming to him. Without God's love and faithfulness toward us, we would never escape the corruption of the world nor the wrath of God. We would never know God or have God. So remember, as God calls you to worship this Sunday, Jesus has shed the blood of the covenant on your behalf so his eternal Father could now be your Father, his God your God (John 20:17). He alone is worthy of all glory, praise and honor. Yours in Christ, John

E-note 5/6: Potpourri

2010-05-06T12:14:00.000-07:00

Dear friends in Christ,

A potpourri of items for this week's e-note.

First, I am excited to let you know that later this month Kevin Curtis will again lead a medical mission team to Kenya with MTW. They will be serving the people in the slums of Nairobi alongside the Kibera Reformed Presbyterian Church. This year the team will consist of two doctors, two nurses, a pharmacist, a medical student, two nursing students and the wife of the other doctor. The team is looking for donated over the counter medications and/or reading glasses. Any donated supplies can be left at the church (look for the marked box) and Kevin will pick them up on May 14th. A list of specific supplies needed can be e-mailed upon request.

Second, being out of town I almost forgot to tell you about Secretary's Week ("Administrative Professional's Week" if you are up-to-date). So three cheers for Judy Hunter, our indomitable secretary who executes a host of duties with genuine cheerfulness and much class. Cheers beside, let her know how much you appreciate her when you see her next.

Third, did you know that TBC just had an anniversary? Yes, 28 years! Soli Deo Gloria. How kind the Lord Jesus has been to open ears, soften hearts and redeem sinners here along the northern stretch of the Connecticut River Valley. Sunday we will insert in your bulletin our annual anniversary pics from the early days. It will be a veritable Who's Who, and even a little Guess Who, trip down memory lane.

Lastly, a woman in our fellowship needs several household items that you might have in new or gently-used condition. If you think you would be willing to discreetly help out, please e-mail me and I will send you the list and directions on how to help. See you Sunday. Yours in Christ, John

What do you think?

2010-05-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

An Unmessianic Sense of Nondestiny
posted by Carl Trueman at Reformation 21

For many men of a certain age, the mid-life crisis is just that: a mid-life crisis, a time for despairing that youth, good looks and perhaps hair have gone, never to return. For me, however, the experience has been pretty positive so far: not only have I been able to hand on my old banger of car to my oldest son (thus making myself the greatest dad in the world), but I've also broken with my lifelong habit of driving pieces of junk until they disintegrate and purchased an inexpensive but decent sports car. Not quite sure how my wife let me get away with it; but the fact that my previous car leaked when it rained and the present Mrs T had told me that enough was enough and she was no longer prepared to `be dripped on' as we drove along in a storm one day, seemed to open up a great opportunity for sneaking a good car onto the driveway. As she rolled her eyes, she did say to me that a husband with a decent looking car is, from her perspective, better than one with a secret girlfriend and/or a not-so-secret toupee. I had to agree: there are indeed much worse forms of the mid-life crisis out there.

One other aspect of my MLC, and one that I have found extraordinarily helpful, is the death of ambition which, in my experience, it seems to have brought in its wake. The realization that one cannot be the best at everything, or even those things at which one used to be the best, is presumably a factor in quite a few MLCs; and for me this was a welcome liberation. I woke up one day a few years ago at the age of forty, and [read all here]

E-note 4/15: Anchor of Hope

2010-04-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

Dear friends in Christ,

Samuel Hopkins who studied divinity under his brother-in-law Jonathan Edwards spoke these, his last words, in 1803: "My anchor is well cast, and my ship, though weather-beaten, will outride the storm." Let us board Hopkins' ship and pilfer a copy of those words for our dear departed brother, Captain Roland Smith. Roland's actual last words to me earlier that day were "I love you," but as a genuine sea captain and brother to our Lord Jesus Christ, I think I shall also remember him in Hopkins' terms. In the sweetness and necessity of divine Providence, which is never arbitrary nor without benefit to the saints, this Sunday our own Peter Flowers will preach, "The Anchor for Hope" from Hebrews 6. I will miss being with you all as you worship and mourn with one another, but I have every confidence that as the elders lead worship you will be satisfied with the only satisfaction we can give one another, Jesus, crucified and risen and coming again.

A few other housekeeping matters. For those in the InterGenerational Sunday School class, Peter Flowers will be your teacher there also at 9:30am. For the next two Sundays he will get you thinking and interacting over some material from Jonathan Edwards, the 18th century pastor-theologian. Bring your thinking cap and be ready for a robust discussion of good theology. Men, there is a monthly breakfast on Saturday. John Wilmot, deacon of grounds, requests you attend with a rake for a little outdoor clean-up afterward. There is no lesson planned so you might enjoy one another by remembering Roland. As you know Roland's memorial service is Wednesday, April 28 at 2:00pm. Christi-Lynn Brown is organizing things on the food end. If you e-mailed me already about helping (thank you!), she will be responding to you shortly. If you are still wishing to help, please e-mail: Christi-Lynn.B.Martin@Hitchcock.ORG. If you intend to send a card to Tish Smith, her mailing address is 24 Union Street, Lyme, NH 03768.

The Hartleys will be gone from the house by 5:00pm today. I will periodically be checking e-mail and will only respond if necessary. I will be back in the Study on Tuesday morning, 4/27. I hope you all have a great week and two wonderful Sundays together exalting Jesus Christ in worship. Yours in Christ, John

E-note 4/8: Let us pray

2010-04-09T04:37:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Last night at Pioneer Clubs we began the last unit of lessons and skills before the summer break. As usual Craig and Christi-Lynn Martin did a wonderful job leading the kids in singing and crafting. I am so thankful to God for them and their loving care of these kids each week. Please remember Craig and Christi-Lynn in prayer as they go into the summer months expecting their first baby in September and waiting on the Lord. Wonderfully and wisely the last unit of Pioneer Clubs is all about the Church. A topic so close to the heart of Christ and so providentially in the spotlight later this month in the Upper Valley (the "God's Heart for the Church" conference is 4/24). Please pray for the nine children who regularly attend and their families. May God do a work of grace in all, giving more understanding and greater love for Jesus.

This has been a difficult week for our brother Roland. He has been having trouble breathing all week long and yesterday his oncologist had him admitted to DHMC. He was given a CAT scan at 2:00am. He was mighty tired this morning as he waited to hear the results. By noon he heard that all was clear, the cancer has not spread. His lungs, however, are still a problem and something of a mystery to doctors. He will stay under hospital care for another day or two. How do we pray for Roland? The way we pray for all Christian family who are sick. We pray that Roland will have such gospel peace that he will be anxious for nothing, knowing that nothing can separate him from the love of God in Christ. We pray that in this affliction he would not fall into temptation, particularly the temptation to charge God with wrongdoing and the temptation to abandon faith, hope, and love. We pray that he will even rejoice for this "light momentary affliction is preparing for [him] an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." And we pray, that if it pleases the Lord, our brother lives on in the body so he might bear fruit to the praise of God. We pray these things, not just thinking about praying them. We pray these things for our God has ordained that his purposes unfold upon the prayers of the righteous.

There is much to pray about in this life isn't there? We groan inwardly as we await the redemption of our bodies. We have great sorrow and anguish in our hearts over the unbelief all around us. We have much anxiety for the churches here in the Upper Valley and around the world. Let us pray. Yours in Christ, John

What do you think?

2010-04-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

Cremation and a New Kind of Christianity
Originally posted by Dr. Russell D. Moore at http://merecomments.typepad.com

“As hellfire receded, there advanced the literal fires of the crematorium.”

So writes Oxford historian Diarmaid MacCulloch in the concluding chapter of his massive Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. The history ends with a chapter on “culture wars,” the ways Christianity is experiencing change and tumult as it enters the twenty-first century. In the conclusion, MacCulloch traces out many of the controversies one might expect: from the challenges to Orthodoxy in a post-Soviet world to the Anglican sexual debates to the American fights over abortion and secularism and liberalism.

One of the primary changes in Christianity the historian sees, however, would probably surprise most Americans as being a “culture war” issue at all: cremation and burial.

Increasing rates of cremation in the West, MacCulloch writes, are surprising because cremation “is the abandonment of a key aspect of Christian practice since its early days.” MacCulloch demonstrates that a primary feature of the early Christian church was as “burial club.” He shows how “universally archaeologists are able to detect the spread of Christian culture through the ancient and early medieval world by the excavation of corpse burials oriented east-west.”

The historian also shows the roots of contemporary cremation in protest against historic creedal Christianity, including, in its modern form, by Italian liberal nationalists.

MacCulloch, no conservative, establishes that the unanimous voice of the church, in every sector, was for burial over against cremation, and concludes the traditionalist case (that cremation is a pagan practice inconsistent with historic Christianity) is “unanswerable.”

For MacCulloch, there are several implications of the skyrocketing cremation rates. The first is that the theological and doxological claims against it, once held with unanimity, are not even discussed by cremation proponents. Arguments instead focus on public health, cost (and I would add the American evangelical response: “why not?”).

“The removal of a corpse’s final parting from a church, which is a community place of worship, a setting for all aspects of Christian life, to a crematorium, a specialized and often rather depressingly clinical office room for dealing with death” is a liturgical evolution of massive proportions, MacCulloch suggests.

Moreover, he argues, cremation also has profound doctrinal implications.

“Death is not so much distanced as sanitized and domesticated, made part of the spectrum of consumer choice in a consumer society,” he writes. “The Church is robbed of what was once one of its strongest cards, its power to pronounce and give public liturgical shape to loss and bewilderment at the apparent lack of pattern in the brief span of human life.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I’ve written here in Touchstone and here in Christianity Today about why I oppose (with the twenty centuries of the great cloud of witnesses) the practice of cremation, and here (again in Touchstone) about why burial is so essential to Christian witness. I’m not interested (right now) in re-debating that. I just find it interesting that this new history marks out the cremation move as a significant shift. I agree.

Sometimes the “culture wars” that really matter aren’t the ones you’re screaming about with unbelievers in the public square; they’re the ones in which you’ve already surrendered, and never even noticed.

E-Note 4/1: Flesh of my Flesh

2010-04-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

In his fifth century letter to Honoratus, another Bishop of the early Church, Augustine describes why Jesus is crying out from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." In the ninth hour the Lord transfers to himself, Augustine says, "the voice of this infirmity of ours." What is our infirmity? Death. In death the wages of sin are fully paid for those who are slaves to sin. In death body and soul are separated from the presence of God forever. Death is the final forsakenness of God from sinners. This is where Augustine makes a profound observation that exalts the strength and love of Christ before us.

Referring to Jesus becoming forsaken by God in his righteousness (Psalm 22), Augustine says: "The benefits of the old covenant had to be refused [by Christ] in order that we [the Church] might learn to pray and hope for the benefits of the new covenant. Among those goods of the old covenant which belonged to the old Adam there is a special appetite for the prolonging of this temporal life. But this appetite itself is not interminable, for we all know that the day of death will come. Yet all of us, or nearly all, strive to postpone it, even those who believe that their life after death will be a happier one. Such force has the sweet partnership of flesh and soul."

If I am reading Augustine right, he is saying that Jesus refused the benefits of the old covenant, the covenant of works, when he was the only man who could rightly lay claim to them. Remember the old covenant said, "Do this and live." It is a covenant of works that if fully obeyed would result in continued life in the flesh. Jesus' perfect obedience permitted him to lay claim to what no other man could lay claim to: a deathless life. Yet, as Augustine said, Jesus refuses the benefits of the old covenant. Jesus, through the Spirit, offers himself unblemished to God in death (Hebrews 9:14). While still among the living he deliberately presses in to suffer the agonies of death. He presses in to the impending separation of soul from flesh and the separation of both from God. This is why Matthew reports that "being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." Man of sorrows indeed!

We who deserve death spend years and great effort striving to keep the "sweet partnership of flesh and soul," and we only know it as sweet because we live and move and have our being in the nearness of God in creation (Acts 17:28). Yet Jesus, the eternal and true Son, who deserves life, who is Life, spends great effort to take on the very separations we deserve so we might receive the benefits of a new covenant made by his blood: the forgiveness of sins and the forever partnership of soul and flesh in the presence of God.

How does Jesus accomplish this great salvation for us? Through the incarnation he forever united himself to our flesh and humanness. Through the crucifixion he united his flesh to our sin by becoming a curse for us: the curse of the law, the curse of our transgressions - death. And through his resurrection, having now been raised from the grave, he has brought our flesh and humanness for the first time into the Kingdom of God. In his triumph and victory we see the hope and destiny of all flesh who are united to him by faith. Praise God we have such a brother as this! Yours in Christ, John

E-note 4/25: Church Membership

2010-03-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This Sunday we anticipate the reception of five new members into Christ's church: Jennifer Bjurling, April Daigle, Sam & Laurel Fulford, and Christi-Lynn Martin (Zelma Loseke has a schedule conflict and will be received in May at the annual meeting).

What is our responsibility at this point? To give thanks! Let us give thanks to the Lord, for every time a saint is bound on earth by faith, hope, and love to the communion of saints they are also bound in heaven by the Lord of the Church (Matthew 18:15-20). Let us give thanks to the Lord, for every time a saint is bound on earth by church authority to the communion of saints we are witnessing the ascended and enthroned Lord himself building his Church (Matthew 16:18-20). Let us give thanks to the Lord, for every time a saint is bound on earth to the communion of saints we are seeing the Spirit gather more of God's flock away from wolves and false prophets (Acts 20:20-31). Let us give thanks to the Lord, for every time a saint is bound on earth to the communion of saints we are witnessing the Spirit liberating another soul into the freedom of submission (Hebrews 13:17). Let us give thanks, for every time a saint is bound on earth to the communion of saints we are witnessing the Spirit nurturing a heart in the new loves of the everlasting Kingdom (Psalm 26:8-12).

Now maybe all that sounds a bit over the top. Or maybe we are just too far down under. Should the thanksgivings due this occasion sound like a foreign language to you then refresh yourself in the Word of God lest the disenchantment of secularism and sociological institutionalism dull you to the glories being played out on earth by the ascended Lord Jesus. Open the drapes and let in the light of heaven. Christ will shine on you. He will bring light to your path and share his joy with you through his apostles and prophets. A fine start, that you will not regret, is giving 15 minutes to this reading on church membership. May the Lord be so very near as you tend to the increase and strengthening of your faith. Yours in Christ, John

Here is another beautiful testimony to God's love and faithfulness from St. Albans: Click here

What do you think?

2010-03-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

Don’t Be Afraid
by Russell Moore.

Dr. Moore is the Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice-President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as a preaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church, where he ministers weekly at the congregation’s Fegenbush location. Moore is the author of The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective and Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches.

— Posted Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at www.russellmoore.com —

“Now these three abide: anger, outrage, and fear—and the greatest of these is fear.”

That’s not in the Bible.

But sometimes I wonder if I think it is.

The United States House of Representatives just passed a health care reform bill that I and lots of other Christians opposed. Such legislation should concern us. There are some bad consequences for the weakest and most vulnerable among us, principally unborn children. But should it also concern us that so many of us are talking today about how afraid we are?

Is it a problem that some of us who are tranquil as still water about biblical doctrine and ecclesial mission are red-faced about Nancy Pelosi and the talking heads on MSNBC? Is it a problem that some who haven’t shared the gospel with their neighbors in months or years are motivated to vent to strangers on the street about how scary national health care will be?

It’s not that I think Christians should be disengaged from issues of justice (God forbid!). It’s just that I wonder if we wouldn’t represent Christ and his kingdom better if we did it with a certain tranquility of Spirit, a tranquility that signals we’re not afraid of the rise and fall of temporal kingdoms and their policies.

The words “do not fear” and “don’t be afraid” are among the most common phrases on the lips of our Lord—in both Old and New Testaments—and on the lips of his angelic messengers. I wonder why?

Isn’t it because “perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn. 4:18)? Isn’t it because we “did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear” (Rom. 8:15)? Isn’t it because the Spirit prompts us not to “fear anything that is frightening” (1 Pet. 3:6)?

In fact, the Holy Spirit through King David, in a context far more frightening than that of our own, calls us to “fret not yourself because of evildoers” who will soon pass but “trust in the Lord and do good” (Ps. 37:1-3).

Here’s why this matters.

Most of us don’t preach “hellfire and brimstone” sermons anymore, on hell and God’s judgment. But hellfire is exactly what Jesus said we should fear. “And do not fear the ones who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” our Lord tells his disciples. “Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28).

Jesus not only teaches this; he lives it. Jesus doesn’t fear the crowds attempting to stone him. He doesn’t cower before Pilate. He isn’t afraid of the Sanhedrin. He’s confident and tranquil, even when he’s being arrested. But when he faces drinking from the cup of judgment of his Father, he sweats drops of blood.

If we were half as outraged by our own sin and self-deception as we are by the follies of our political opponents, what would be the result? If we rejoiced as much that our names are written in heaven as we do about such trivialities as basketball brackets, what would be the result?

So if what you’re afraid of is a politician or a policy or a culture or the future of Western civilization, don’t give up the conviction but give up the fear. Work for justice. Oppose evil. But do it so that your opponents will see not fear but trust, optimism, and affection.

“So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13).

Fear God and, beyond that, don’t be afraid.

E-note 4/19: A Word from Joel Stewart

2010-03-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

For this week's e-note I am glad to give way to Joel Stewart. You will remember that Joel serves Christ in Cambodia with our own Susan Kana. Joel visited TBC last summer with the whole Cambodian team. Here is Joel's letter from earlier this week:
--------------------------------

Dear Friends, Family and Partners in God’s Living Fields,

The hot wind, blowing over parched ricefields and burnt forests, feels more like a Sirocco in North Africa than a breeze in Southeast Asia. Dust devils ply through the brittle brush, rustling the dry grasses, sounding like a skeleton rattling it’s bones. This is the dry season in Cambodia. It seems to have started earlier than normal this year. In the middle of the day, all that one can do is try to keep from melting. All sorts of challenges arise in this climate. The heat seems to magnify normal problems and accentuate them. We have had a few visitors since the new year began who have refreshed us. Our PV team is working together well, although we have had to wait to get together “on-site”, being that the Gabriels family needs to fulfill recommendations by leadership before heading up to PV to reside. One of our biggest challenges now is to assist and equip the church as they begin to fulfill their role in the Great Commission, reaching their province for Christ. In a culture where the inclination is to let someone else do it, this is not always easy. But as we see lives transform, one by one, we are encouraged that it is God who is in charge of results and convicting hearts, not us. We want to be as strategic and biblical as possible, while displaying the Love of Christ in our team and in our interactions with those whom God has placed us in relationship with.

Last night I watched “Where the Wild Things Are” with a few of the guys at my house. It was interesting to see that Max, the boy in the story, ran away from home because he failed to find proper ways to relate with his family. When he arrived at the place where the wild things were, he saw his dreams of creating harmony and peace in his new family be dashed one-by-one, as the creatures fell back into their old, faulty ways of relating (or not relating) to each other. In the end, it was not his plan to have fun together which changed things, it was simply his love for them. The last scene of reconciliation between Max and his mother needed no words. We knew that they had both learned that love is the only pitch which will help our ships pass safely through the shoals of broken dreams and shattered hopes. The Cambodian people are no exception. They have had thousands of years of brokenness. We know now, that it is only Christ who can heal them and make a difference in their lives. Yet Jesus decides to use us, cracked pots that we are, to do His work.

I hope you enjoy this latest “News from the Living Fields” update, and I pray that it may spur you on to more effective prayer.

Yours in the Hope of the Redeemed,
Joel

What do you think?

2010-03-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

Hearing the Word in the Modern World
excerpted from The Word Is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Preaching in the Electronic Age (Wipf & Stock, 2001) by Gregory E. Reynolds. Posted at Ordained Servant.

As covenantal communication,[1] preaching is always two-way. The hearer is always to be a worshipper. It is never preaching and worship. Preaching is the supreme act of worship.[2] Along with the internal work of God's Spirit, the effectiveness of preaching depends, in part, on the attitude and preparation of the listener. This two-part essay is meant to help those who regularly hear the Word of God preached to take their covenant responsibilities more seriously. It also provides an outline of issues which the preacher should regularly address in his preaching.

Dangers to Avoid

"Take care then how you hear" (Luke 8:18).

Every attentive hearer of God's Word must be on the lookout for idolatrous tendencies in the culture of which he or she is a part. The apostle John was keenly aware of this danger when he issued this pastoral warning at the close of his first letter "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21). The following are examples of some of the worst dangers to avoid.

Avoid Being a Consumer of Entertainment
Among other unbiblical expectations of the minister in our age, the preacher is expected to be an entertainer. Television and all of the visual media have cast much of modern life in the entertainment mode. Neil Postman has described all media as metaphors: "Media-metaphors classify the world for us."[3] We have moved from the "Age of Exposition" to the "Age of Show Business."[4] Thus we are a culture which is regularly engaged by talk show and game show hosts. Entertainers have become the role models and spokesmen for our culture. They lecture at colleges and universities. Their opinions on a variety of "serious" subjects are regularly sought. We have come to expect all of life to be entertaining. This may color the way you look at the preacher, as it does the way the preacher often looks at himself.

I have a book in my library which I received in a box from the library of a retired minister. I keep it with the spine turned toward the wall because it is titled: The Preacher Joke Book: Religious Anecdotes from the Oral Tradition. [5] I comfort myself with the thought that I do not recognize any of the names of the contributors. I recently attended a conference at which the main speaker began with a lengthy joke, obviously meant to loosen up the audience, and assure us that he is, after all, a "regular guy." Just before presidential elections it is common for the two candidates now to do a comedy spot.

Humor is a wonderful gift, but it strikes me that only in the Age of Entertainment would humor be an expected part of the preacher's repertoire. When we think of the tone which ought to be set in the act of preaching, especially in the Age of Entertainment, we must conclude that it should be one of extreme seriousness. As our culture entertains itself to death, we must attach to the preaching of the Word a solemnity which we rarely find in the modern world. The analogy of the ambassador gives us biblical boundaries in this regard.[6] Preachers have been given a very serious message from the King of kings. We are to communicate as his messengers. As we bring the message of reconciliation to sinners, we must speak in the words and way of the King who sovereignly proffers amnesty. As we enter the very presence of our augustly holy God in worship, dealing with issues of life and death, we must labor to be as unlike the "house of mirth" as possible. Every faithful hearer must expect this, and thereby encourage the preacher with that expectation.

As a Christian you must never expect entertainment in worship or from the preacher. The proper mode of worship is the holy presence of our Lord. The committed hearer will look for substantive exposition of the Word of God. Exposition, not entertainment, is the mode of the preacher. That is the point of our favorite verse to prove the inspiration of the Scripture, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17). This is the profit we must seek from preaching in the Age of Entertainment.

Avoid Being a Personality or Managerial Cultist
The pervasive power of celebrity is a uniquely modern problem. As media critic and historian Daniel Boorstin notes, celebrity is manufactured fame. Instead of the hero, who is known for his extraordinary character and deeds, the celebrity is a product of the Graphic Revolution. "The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name."[7] The celebrity is known for being known. He has an impressive persona. This has created a great temptation for the church. If the celebrity has become the role model for the world, the preacher may be expected to be the same, an image of the modern leader—just an image. Thus, the church is at times almost as superficial in its expectations of the pastor as the world is of its celebrities, looking for the "nice" personality.

It has been observed that the two vocational heroes of our time are the manager and the therapist. The ideal of the "professional" has become an idol of modern culture. This is no less true of the ministry. David Wells observes: "technical and managerial competence in the church have plainly come to dominate the definition of pastoral service.... [T]he minister's authority or professional status rides not on his ... character, ability to expound the Word of God, or theological skill in relating that Word to the contemporary world, but on interpersonal skills, administrative talents, and ability to organize the community."[8] This is reflected in one of the premier journals for evangelical clergy, Leadership, launched by Christianity Today in 1980. David Wells observes that 80 percent of its articles from 1980 to 1988 dealt with problems encountered by ministers, and 13 percent were devoted to "techniques for managing the church.... [L]ess than 1 percent of the material made any clear reference to Scripture."[9] If the pastor is truly called to imitate the ministry of his Lord, who is the Great Shepherd of the Sheep (1 Pet. 5:1-4), one need only replace Christ's title with Chief Executive Officer, to get a sense of how out of accord with Scripture the modern conception is.

Your attitude, combined with the expectations of the rest of the congregation, will either tempt the minister to consider himself, and therefore act like, a celebrity or manager, or it will encourage him to be what God has called him to be: a minister of the Word. There can be little doubt that the professionalization of the ministry has led to a decline in preaching passion and skills. The less God-centered the church's view of the ministry and preaching, the more man-centered the sermons will tend to be.[10] What is worse, as the church expects the pulpit to meet its needs, the pulpit becomes simply "a sounding board from which the Church hears itself."[11]

The temptation to esteem the "famous" preacher is one of the greatest threats to preaching today. The preacher who has made a name for himself on the conference circuit, even though that may not have been his motive, makes the everyday preacher look drab and dull. There is no glossy photo in the bulletin, no recognition beyond the local church. This undermines God's basic institution. What God has provided for his people in the local church week after week, through thick and thin, is the greatest blessing of all. How can celebrity recognition be important in light of the message of a Savior who was crucified as a despised and rejected criminal?

Avoid Looking for Therapy
In our age the Devil simply caters to an age-old addiction when he promotes the therapeutic. This same anthropocentrism was evident in Calvin's day. In seeking to bring a biblical concept of the church to expression in Geneva, he noted of his opposition: "They were entangled in so many errors, because they would not follow that form which God had appointed.... The first difference between true worship and idolatry is this: when the godly take in hand nothing but that which is agreeable to the Word of God, but the other think all that lawful which pleaseth themselves, and so they count their own will a law." Instead they "forge to themselves a carnal and worldly god."[12]

How much of our modern attitude toward worship reflects this self-oriented pleasure quest? How many judge the preacher and his sermon in terms of the question: "Is it meeting my needs?" This is usually what the slogan "relevance" refers to. The market-driven church has as its motto: "Find a need, meet it, find a hurt, heal it."[13] The entire "self esteem" philosophy which permeates every cultural institution reverses the biblical concern when it claims that loving our neighbor as ourselves is a call to first love ourselves. This falls hard on the central ethical implication of the cross: self denial. The gospel message, from the modern perspective, is irrelevant by its very nature. It demands repentance from our self preoccupation and brings with it a liberating call to a God-centered life, rooted in the kingdom of heaven. As George MacDonald poignantly observed: "that need which is no need, is a demon sucking at the spring of your life."[14] Expect and pray for preaching which will challenge and root out such demons.

Avoid Being a Passive Listener
One of the great dangers of the entertainment and therapy modes is that they make us used to being passive. We are entertained, or have our problems solved for us. Our participation is simply to enjoy or feel better about ourselves. In the consumer mode we are "programmed" to view everything, every situation or person as a product or service to be consumed. We ask questions like: "What can this church do for me? How can this preacher make me feel better, or solve my problems?" So we tend to sit, waiting to be entertained, waiting for our needs to be met. This is not the mode, position, or attitude of the true worshipper.

The cry for "participation" in worship is one of the most misdirected quests of worshipping communities. It is often motivated by the desire to share the spotlight "on stage," or to feel the excitement of an emotionally charged group experience. Covenantal participation, on the other hand, is first of all an inward reality. Outwardly it means being prayerfully engaged in every element in the order of service. This is especially true of listening to the sermon. "Hearing a sermon correctly is an act of religious worship."[15] Physically you may be passive, but spiritually and intellectually you are called to listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd in the ministry of his Word. This takes an intense effort which challenges the "couch potato" mentality of our day. Listen to Sietsma:

Hearing God's Word is not only an activity of the first order but the only activity befitting humans in relationship to their God. A relation of equality never exists between God and His people; however that fact in no way detracts from the dignity or office of the believer. Therefore, when in the administration of the Word, this relationship between speaking God and listening man shines forth, then the office of believer is most beautifully displayed and exercised.

Thus we are not called to find a liturgy in which preaching is minimized so that the congregation can be given a more obvious role. The congregation's duty is to listen. Rather, we are to practice improving and increasing our ability to listen, so that the congregation may listen to the Word with all its heart and soul and mind. That is not a slight task.[16]

Endnotes

[1] Adapted from Gregory Reynolds, The Word Is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Preaching in the Electronic Age (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001), 345-353 (under the section "Hearts of Flesh: The Committed Hearer").

[2] Hughes Oliphant Old. The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church: Volume 1 - The Biblical Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 7.

[3] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Viking Penguin, 1985), 10.

[4] Ibid., 63.

[5] Loyal Jones, The Preacher Joke Book: Religious Anecdotes from the Oral Tradition (Little Rock, AR: August House, 1989).

[6] I owe the suggestion of this analogy to T. David Gordon.

[7] Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image or Whatever Happened to the American Dream? (New York: Atheneum, 1962), 47, 61.

[8] David F. Wells, No Place for Truth or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 233-34.

[9] Ibid., 113-14.

[10] Ibid., 251.

[11] Ibid., 253.

[12] John Calvin, Commentary on Acts [7:44] (1540-1563. Translation and reprint. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society. 1847. Reprint. vol. 18. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1969), 298, 299, 303.

[13] Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts with Modernity (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), 62-67.

[14] Ibid., 67.

[15] T. David Gordon, "Presuppositions Regarding Preaching," unpublished manuscript, n.d.

[16] K. Sietsma. The Idea of Office. Translated by Henry Vander Goot (Jordan Station, Ontario: Paideia, 1985), 99.

E-note 3/11: Christ's Church

2010-03-12T05:03:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

What happens in your house at dinner time? At our house those who are far off are called to come near. At our house someone is inevitably standing at the bottom of the stairs calling the children upstairs to come down for dinner. And, as you might expect, every one comes tumbling out of their rooms making a fast break for the table only to be re-directed to the sink (ha! a little ritual cleansing first). But what if one didn't come? What if, after repeated calls to come to the table, one just didn't come? I suppose we would send up a messenger to make visual contact, just in case headphones were blocking the best news of the day: "Dinner's ready!" But what if our messenger comes back and says, "She's not coming." I suppose we would then send up a delegation of high-ranking officials. But what if upon arrival we heard this: "No thank you. I can't make it. I have to clean my room, iron my shirts, organize my shoes and do my homework. I'll grab something to eat later." Hmm. What now? Now I suppose we could imagine a corrosive scenario where "grabbing something to eat later" really turned out to be grabbing something unhealthy and inadequate and, worst of all, grabbing something alone. I suppose if this happened again and again our solo-eater would soon lose all taste for communal eating and real food. They would soon find communal eating and healthy food strange and foreign. But I can imagine an even worse scenario. What if meal after meal we hear the same thing and meal after meal this loved one forgets to eat! What will we find then? We will find a clean room, ironed shirts, well-organized shoes and completed homework. But we will also find death. You can not keep yourself from the bread of life and live.

If you have guessed by now that my parable is about the feast Jesus serves us in his Church, particularly in worship, you are right. But is the Church really that important? Is the analogy fairly applied to Lord's Day worship where the word of Christ is served up and the table is set? I think most definitely so. You are right to immediately wonder which scriptures support such a notion. So let me give you a few via John Calvin. Calvin, teacher in Christ's church and bright light of the Protestant Reformation, said this:

"But as it is now our purpose to discourse of the visible Church, let us learn, from her single title of Mother, how useful, nay, how necessary the knowledge of her is, since there is no other means of entering into life unless she conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourish us at her breasts, and, in short, keep us under her charge and government, until, divested of mortal flesh, we become like the angels, (Matth. 22: 30.)....Moreover, beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for, as Isaiah and Joel testify, (Isa. 37:32; Joel 2:32). To their testimony Ezekiel subscribes, when he declares, 'They shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel,' (Ezek. 13: 9;) as, on the other hand, those who turn to the cultivation of true piety are said to inscribe their names among the citizens of Jerusalem. For which reason it is said in the psalm, 'Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance,' (Ps. 106:4, 6). By these words the paternal favour of God and the special evidence of spiritual life are confined to his peculiar people, and hence the abandonment of the Church is always fatal" (Institutes, IV.I.IIII).

If we don't like what Calvin says, to whom can we run? Luther? But Luther said this:

"Therefore he who would find Christ must first find the Church. How should we know where Christ and his faith were, if we did not know where his believers are? And he who would know anything of Christ must not trust himself nor build a bridge to heaven by his own reason; but he must go to the Church, attend and ask her. Now the Church is not wood and stone, but the company of believing people; one must hold to them, and see how they believe, live and teach; they surely have Christ in their midst. For outside of the Christian church there is no truth, no Christ, no salvation" (Sermon, Luke 2:15-20).

If we don't like what Luther says on the matter, to whom can we run? The Roman Catholic Church? They agree with Cyprian of Carthage, the third century bishop who said: "Extra ecclesiam nulla salus" (outside the church there is no salvation).

If we don't like what Cyprian says, to whom can we run? Well, we must run alone then and we must reckon with this frightening truth: we like our own fancies on religion and faith and salvation more than we like what Jesus has taught his apostles and bishops and doctors of theology. This is a fatal affection, the fate of rivals to the King. But if hearing that frightening truth suddenly makes you hungry, famished even, then hear again the call to dinner:

"Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things" (Psalm 107:4-9)

Yours in Christ,
John

What do you think?

2010-03-09T10:03:00.000-08:00

Unreal City

posted 2.25.2010 by Anthony Esolen at http://merecomments.typepad.com/

For the first time in my career as a professor of literature, I think I understand why T. S. Eliot named his famous poem "The Waste Land." Yes, it was an apt name for the spiritual exhaustion of between-the-wars Europe, and it aptly referred to the waste land of Arthurian legend, wherein the seekers after the Grail were to heal the Maimed King and end the terrible enchantments laid upon the land. But I now think there's more. "Oed und leer das Meer," writes Eliot, "waste and void the Sea," alluding to the first verses of Genesis [1:2] -- for we are told that before the creation of light, the earth was waste and void.

The Hebrew for that is tohu v'vohu, and those are words, especially tohu (vohu always appears doubled with tohu, and never on its own [Jer. 4:23]), with profound scriptural resonance. For a city laid waste is tohu, which might seem appropriate enough; but also, and primarily, the idols, the works of human hands, are tohu. They are nothingness, unreality, vacuity, inanity. It is not, in Jeremiah (for a prime example), that the false gods cannot deliver on their promises, so much as that they are null and void, as is, and this too Jeremiah insists upon, the reliance upon human power. In essence, every city that aspires to the condition of Babel sets itself up as an idol, a thing whittled away at or sculpted by human hands, from which we can expect no deliverance but rather slavery to nothingness; a fall into what is tohu v'vohu. To live in the city named Unreal is to be confronted, every day, with man's failure to trust in God, and his attempts, mostly pathetic, to provide for himself a little happiness, as does the woman with the gramophone, and the clerk carbuncular.

If Eliot is right, and I think he is, then secular humanism is a lapse back into Unreal City, that place of dashed human projects and fallen idols. It promises -- what? Lots of food, and warm houses, and few children, and the flickering blue light of a television screen. No holidays, no opening of the heart to something more vast than the heavens; no gazing with wonder upon the God-ordained beauty of a human body or of a human soul. Endless politics, but without a true polis; tools designed to supplant the human act, as a television is a substitute for talk, or play, or prayer; mass management of education, one juvenile unit after another; salvation, secured by poisons, pills, and white balloons, from the irruption of a child into our twilight city; amnesia, lest the nobility of our forefathers embarrass us, or lest we learn from their sins; a kind of aggressive bodily health, as of sleek cows and bulls. I imagine a great map of the earth's airways, with flights marked out from Unreal to Unreal.

Where is the real city to be found? It is as small as a mustard seed. It is like the leaven that a woman kneaded into three measures of flour. It is a pearl, found by a merchant. It is where two or three are gathered in the name of the king. Pilate scoffed at it, but ancient Rome, that unreal place, is gone, and it remains. The Communists scoffed at it, but red Moscow, that unreal place, is gone, and it remains. It is adorned as a bride for the bridegroom. Unreal smirks, or sneers, but the true city sings.

E-note 3/5: Update on Biblical Counseling

2010-03-05T20:17:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

By now you may have heard that the conference, "God's Heart for the Church," has been postponed. Dr. Powlison needed an emergency stint last weekend and will not be able to teach until later this Spring. We are hoping for a late April date for the conference. Should the conference not happen, all 200 registrants will be refunded their fees. Also, if you can not make the new date, your fee will be refunded.

Even though the conference was postponed, yesterday the Upper Valley Reformation Society kept their appointment with two special guests affiliated with the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (the organization providing the conference). Mr. Alasdair Groves and Mrs. Robyn Huck are two CCEF trained and certified biblical counselors. There was joy and excitement among the eight pastors who gathered yesterday because Alasdair and Robyn will be launching a much needed biblical counseling center in the Upper Valley this summer. Many pastors have prayed for years for a professional counseling ministry to be established here that was committed to the biblical vision of human suffering and human redemption in Christ. Such a ministry is now on the verge of becoming a reality. Alasdair, husband to Lauren and father to Emily, is a recent graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary with a counseling degree and CCEF certification. Alasdair knows the Upper Valley well. He graduated from Dartmouth and then spent two years on staff with Navigators at Dartmouth. His father, Al, also pastored for a little while in West Fairlee before migrating to Westminster where he became a Professor. Mrs. Robyn Huck, who is a long time member at First Congregational Church in Woodstock, has just completed the CCEF distance-certification program. She will work under and alongside Alasdair in this new counseling center that will have a professional status but closely associated with the gospel-driven churches of the Upper Valley. We are all anticipating a fruitful ministry where hurting and broken people will be skillfully cared for in counseling and therapy with the interests and the possibilities of the living Christ under girding all things. Rejoice with us over the kindness of God to the Upper Valley! We even anticipate an enormous opportunity here for the gospel to reach out into the lives of non-Christians with broken marriages and broken homes and broken minds.

Now on another matter altogether. As promised, the elders have completed their write up of their recent retreat. Just follow the link below and you can access a PDF document of the report. Hard copies will be available on Sunday. We have leaned heavily toward transparency in this report. We also want you to know we see it as unfinished reflections. It is not policy. Your reflections and communication is needed to bring it further to completion. Yours in Christ, John

E-Note 2/25: Repentance That Sings

2010-02-26T08:28:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

We are coming to the end of our study in the Lord's parable (Luke 15) and Tim Keller's book, The Prodigal God. If you have missed these classes, please consider reading the book. It will help you greatly in getting your thinking right on the most important question of our faith: on what basis is a man accepted by God?

As Christians our head often answers that question differently than our heart. Our head says, "I am accepted by God on the merits of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection." This is our sound, heady doctrinal answer safely stowed away in the heavens for the future. But our heart answer, our functional-life-on-earth-right-now answer is: "I am accepted by God (a little more today than yesterday) because today I didn't over-eat," or "...because today I didn't look at sexually explicit photographs," or "...because today I felt miserable about my sin," or "...because today I gave away more money than I have ever given away before," or "...because today I read more of my Bible than I have ever read before," or "...because today I did something so kind for someone else I surprised even myself."

The good feelings that inevitably come from these righteous adjustments are too often recorded in our souls as upgrades in God's love for us. But in Christ, God loved you as much as he possibly could before you successfully tempered your eating, before you averted your eyes, before you felt miserable over your sin, before you gave your money, before you read your Bible, and before you did something kind. How could God possibly love you before you did or did not do these things? This is the scandal of the Christian gospel. God does not love you without condition, without cost. No, he loves you on the condition and cost of Christ crucified for you. Not the Eternal Son crucified just for others, but crucified for the person who lives at your house with your name, who looks like you. You. He loves you with the same depth and breadth of love that God the Father has for God the Son. Though you are a sinner still, God does not love you with a second-class love. You are not kept by God because you keep up with him. You are kept because you are his son. You are a son because Jesus is your elder brother.

Why then would someone tend to their gluttony, avert their eyes from pornography, feel miserable over their sin, give away their money, read their Bible, and do kind deeds for others if God loves them before they do or don't do all these things? Because they have discovered true repentance. True repentance is a turning away from sin in the light of grace. Such turning away never stops for those who have discovered God's grace because such repentance is fueled by love for God. False repentance, on the other hand, is turning away from sin for gain. And it never lasts. Here again is an excerpt from Keller's book on this striking truth:

Some years ago I met a woman who began coming to Redeemer, the church where I am a minister. She said that she had gone to a church growing up and she had always heard that God accepts us only if we are sufficiently good and ethical. She had never heard the message she was now hearing, that we can be accepted by God by sheer grace through the work of Christ regardless of anything we do or have done. She said, "That is a scary idea! Oh, it's good scary, but still scary." I was intrigued. I asked her what was so scary about unmerited free grace? She replied something like this: "If I was saved by my good works--then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace--at God's infinite cost--then there's nothing he cannot ask of me." She could see immediately that the wonderful-beyond-belief teaching of salvation by sheer grace had two edges two it. On the one hand it cut away slavish fear. God loves us freely, despite our flaws and failures. Yet she also knew that if Jesus really had done this for her--she was not her own. She was bought with a price.

Our last class is this Sunday. We'll cover the several dimensions of salvation that the genre of this parable reveals. Six copies of the book remain at $10 a piece. Yours in Christ, John

What do you think?

2010-02-23T08:45:00.000-08:00

Would couples, friendships and churches rescue themselves from all sorts of discord and bruising if everyone just learned Gary Chapman's, The Five Love Languages? In the short essay below, Justin Taylor interacts with David Powlison's careful critique of Chapman's teaching (originally posted here). If you want to do all the "homework" you will find a link to Powlison's full essay somewhere below.

CONFERENCE NEWS. Dr. Powlison is teaching Saturday, March 6 at Valley Bible Church. It is not too late to register for this 9-4pm Bible conference: http://uvbc.wordpress.com

CONFERENCE NEEDS: Each church is asked to provide two volunteers for greeting, directing traffic, etc. You will not miss any of the teaching. Can you be one? E-mail me asap if so.

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The Lordship of the Five Love Languages

by Justin Taylor (with David Powlison)

I’m not sure how many version of the best-selling The Five Love Languages Gary Chapman has written. I went to CBD, and here is at least a sampling (I think I caught most of them):

The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts
The Five Love Languages, Men’s Edition
The Five Love Languages of Children
The Five Love Languages of Teenagers
The Five Love Languages, Singles Edition
The One-Year Love Language Minute Devotional
Heart of the Five Love Languages
God Speaks Your Love Language: How to Feel and Reflect God’s Love
Love as a Way of Life: The Seven Secrets Behind Every Language of Love

The gist of these books is that we each have a “love language”—affirming words, quality time, gift giving, physical affection, acts of service—and that we must learn to recognize what language or languages our loved ones speak and to act accordingly.

Many people have been quite helped by this concept—in part, I think, because this book and its iterations contain some common-sense observational insights. But it seems to me that the whole worldview it presupposes has been accepted rather uncritically. That’s why I have long appreciated the thoughtful review of the book by David Powlison, entitled, “Love Speaks Many Languages Fluently.”

Powlison begins by acknowledging that the book contains some constructive advice and accurate descriptions of lived life—it “rings bells when it describes how people typically come wired.”

Powlison summarizes Chapman’s “full working philosophy” as follows:

“I’ll find out where you itch, and I’ll scratch your back, so you feel better. Along the way, I’ll let you know my itches in a non-demanding manner. You’ll feel good about me because your itches are being scratched, so eventually you’ll probably scratch my back, too.”

But therein lies the problem: Chapman takes an “is” and turns it into an “ought”:

Unwittingly [Chapman] exalts the observation that “even tax collectors, gentiles, and sinners love those who love them” (Matt. 5:46f; Luke 6:32ff) into his guiding principle for human relationships. This is the dynamo that makes his entire model go. This is the instinct that he appeals to in his readers. If I scratch your back, you’ll tend to scratch mine. If you’re happy to see me, I’ll tend to be happy to see you, too. So, 5LL teaches you how to become aware of what others want, and then tells you to give that to them. This is the principle behind How to Win Friends and Influence People and The 30-second Manager. It’s the dynamic at work in hundreds of other books on “relational skills,” or “attending skills,” or “salesmanship,” or “how to find the love you want.” Identify the felt need and meet it, and, odds are, your relationships will go pretty well.

Powlison is at pains to show that this is not all bad:

Up to a point, 5LL can be informative, correcting ignorance about how people differ from each other, and making you more aware of patterns of expectation that you and others bring to the table.

But as Packer once said, a half truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth. Powlison thinks that Chapman’s advice—the point at which he moves beyond description to prescription—can actually be counterproductive to genuine biblical love:

[S]peaking love languages is surely not the whole story. In fact, it is practical, immoral wisdom—manipulation or pandering or both—when it becomes the whole story. Part of considering the interests of others is to do them tangible good. But then to really love them, you usually need to help them see their itch as idolatrous, and to awaken in them a far more serious itch! That’s basic Christianity. 5LL will never teach you to love at this deeper, more life-and-death level. Chapman’s reasons for giving accurate love to others, his explanation of what speaking another’s love language does, his ultimate goal in marriage, and his evaluation of the significance of love languages are deplorable.

Chapman’s model, Powlison argues, fails the class “Human Nature 101.”

Like all secular interpretations of human psychology (even when lightly Christianized), it makes some good observations and offers some half-decent advice (of the sort that self-effort can sometimes follow). But it doesn’t really understand human psychology. That basic misunderstanding has systematic distorting and misleading effects. Fallenness not only brings ignorance about how best to love others; it brings a perverse unwillingness and inability to love. It ingrains the perception that our lusts are in fact needs, empty places inside where others have disappointed us. The empty emotional tank construct is congenial to our fallen instincts, not transformative. It leaves what we instinctively want as an unquestionable good that must somehow be fulfilled. It not only leaves fundamental self-interest unchallenged, it plays to self-interest. . . .

Powlison goes on to contrast this perspective with the foreign “love language” of Christ:

The love of Christ speaks a “love language”—mercy to hellishly self-centered people—that no person can hear or understand unless God gives ears to hear. It is a language we cannot speak to others unless God makes us fluent in an essentially foreign language. We might say that the itch itself (an ear for God’s language) has to be created, because we live in such a stupor of self-centered itchiness. The love language model does not highlight those exquisite forms of love that do not “speak your language.” You and I need to learn a new language if we are to become fit to live with each other and with God. The greatest love ever shown does not speak the instinctively self-centered language of the recipients of such love. In fundamental ways, the love of Christ speaks contrary to your “love language” and “felt needs.” Does anyone naturally say, “I need You to rule me so I’m no longer ruled by what I want”? Does anyone naturally say, “For Your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my iniquity for it is great” (Psalm 25:11)? Does anyone naturally say, “My greatest need is for mercy, and then for the wisdom to give mercy. I long for redemption. May Your kingdom come. Deliver us from evil”?

God’s grace aims to destroy the lordship of the five love languages, even while teaching us to speak the countless love languages with greater fluency.

Read the whole thing.

Update: A response from Powlison to some of the commenters after the jump:

Fascinating responses. I think that my article acknowledges and promotes the various good things about 5LL that several commenters point out and defend. Love languages, in principle creationally, are ‘natural affections’ for good things. It is helpful for us to learn these things about others and ourselves, to seek to bless others, to recognize what brings genuine blessing to us. The “fumbling and mumbling” can be partially redressed by helping both men and women to pay attention to another’s LL. Paying attention to LLs creates more “win-win” in human relationships, and that is a good thing. The first third of the article commends the positive aspects of 5LL, and encourages readers to take those good things to heart. I mean those commendations and encouragements: “God’s grace teaches us to speak the countless love languages with greater fluency,” as I say towards the end of the article. In the language of the General Thanksgiving from the Book of Common Prayer: “We thank you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life.” To speak another’s LL brings some of those blessings.

But, on balance, was my article too critical?: “both barrels,” “making something out of nothing.” It would be unbalanced toward the negative if the final purpose of my review (and of Christian ministry) were simply to encourage more win-win relationships. But I chose also to trace the implications of 5LL for harder, deeper problems, both relationally and psychologically. As the General Thanksgiving goes on to say: “But above all, we thank you for your inestimable love in the redemption of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.” There are things about us and our relationships that need better medicine. In order to learn to love well, we need Jesus Christ to love, to die, to be raised, to reign, to return, to work in us transforming the dynamic of inner modus operandi. Wise ministry is never less than common grace, but it surely brings something more than common grace.

As the article discusses, Chapman brings a troubling logic to his treatment of adultery, and rebellious teens, and loveless people—and the human condition. He gives no indication that it’s important to understand how natural affections for good things segue into inordinate cravings. As I say, this makes his theory simultaneously overly-sentimental and cruel. The observations and behavioral advice about LLs are fine as far as they go; it’s the theory and the outworking of its implications that become sentimental and cruel. I’m not sure that respondents adequately weighed those issues on the balance sheet. The thoughtful ambivalence of the couple in my opening paragraph set the shape of the article.

The 5LLs really are “the whole story” in Chapman’s book. Whatever Chapman might think in private, we only have his written work before us. Struggling people have only the book, and LLs are the only story the book tells. This is why throughout the book there is no place where Jesus’s love really matters. For that reason, I conclude that his schema for helping people brings light remedies to the deep troubles of life.

E-note 2/18: Avoiding Jesus

2010-02-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

It is my hope that you are being refreshed in the gospel through The Prodigal God class.

The book and lessons have got my imagination working over time. This week I imagined someone coming into the Church, after being many years away, because they grew tired of a self-centered life with all its peculiar versions of self-destruction. Tired of living for self (which is tiring, trust me!) this dear friend comes into the Church with an eagerness to live a life that is aligned with that which is good, true, and beautiful. He makes gains in good deeds, serving others sacrificially. He makes gains in sound doctrine, defending the truth valiantly. He makes gains in Christian ethics, abandoning bad habits courageously. But somewhere along the way he missed Jesus. No, he can recite the Apostle's Creed and explain the necessity of the Incarnation - he didn't miss Jesus doctrinally. He missed Jesus savingly because he found a way to avoid needing Jesus personally and he found this way through the good works, the sound doctrine and the Christian ethics.

In retrospect, this friend discovers a shocking truth: he didn't enter Christ's Church because he wanted Jesus! He entered the Church because he wanted a better self, a self that would be admired by the kind of people he himself admired - good Christian folk. In the process he found an unnoticeable way of avoiding Jesus. Because he did not see himself as a naked and bloody newborn baby, hopelessly discarded in a field of dirt, he could not see Jesus as the great lover of his soul (read Ezekiel 16 for this stunning image). In retrospect, he discovered that Jesus was his Appraiser not his Savior. Jesus was only there to appraise his good works and sound doctrine and Christian ethics as suitable for wide admiration. Jesus was not there to carry this friend in loving arms out of his filth. Now this friend has discovered that he is naked and filthy in his righteousness (see Isaiah 64:6). Naked and filthy still because his righteousness was an excuse to avoid Jesus as the only God Jesus is to us: a saving God for sinners. Surprisingly, Jesus even has grace for the filthy righteous.

Now this friend is trembling at the prospect of what his life will look like without the level of earnestness that was once necessary for his campaign of self-improving self-admiration. What kind of husband will he be without the energizing motive of self-admiration? What kind of student of scripture will he be without the energizing motive of self-admiration? What kind of servant? What kind of neighbor? What kind of Christian? He needs to ask Jesus because he does not know how to be a man who lives by grace. But, by grace, he will learn.

To cap off this imagined scenario here is a penetrating passage from Keller's book, The Prodigal God:

What must we do, then, to be saved? To find God we must repent of the things we have done wrong, but if that is all you do, you may remain just an elder brother [see Luke 15:11-32 for the background]. To truly become a Christian we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right. Pharisees only repent of their sins, but Christians repent for the very roots of their righteousness, too. We must learn how to repent of the sin under all our other sins and under all our righteousness - the sin of seeking to be our own Savior and Lord. We must admit that we've put our ultimate hope and trust in things other than God, and that in both our wrongdoing and right doing we have been seeking to get around God or get control of God in order to get hold of those things. It is only when you see the desire to be your own Savior and Lord - lying beneath both your sins and your moral goodness - that you are on the verge of understanding the gospel and becoming a Christian indeed. When you realize that the antidote to being bad is not being good, you are on the brink. If you follow through, it will change everything: how you relate to God, self, others, the world, your work, your sins, your virtue. It's called the new birth because it's so radical (TPG, p. 77-78).

Praise God that he saves his elect even from within the Church! Yours in Christ, John

What do you think?

2010-02-17T06:11:00.000-08:00

Would you please give an extra day to "building yourself up in your most holy faith?" (Jude 1:20) The Bible conference at Valley Bible Church is on Saturday, March 6. It will certainly be a sacrifice to give your Saturday and Sunday morning that weekend, but I am confident that your love for Christ will compel you to do so. As we heard last Sunday in Romans 12:1, there is no such thing as worship without sacrifice. Register online this week and you will get the lowest rate. Go to www.http://uvbc.wordpress.com. Be sure to pick your lunch choice from Panera.

As preparation for the conference here is another reading:

Wanted: Plotting and Provoking Church Members

by Greg Gilbert

If you’re like most pastors, the last thing you want to hear about is church members who, by all appearances, are continually plotting against unity in the church body. Whatever board they sit on, whatever class they teach, whatever friendships they have, they seem to provoke others to discontentedness, complaining, even bickering.

You might be surprised to learn that the book of Hebrews calls for church members to continually plot and provoke in the church body. It calls them to plot and provoke for good!

At our church in Louisville, Kentucky, the other elders and I often remind our congregation of Hebrews’ instruction. Here’s the sort of thing we say to them.

A LITTLE CONTEXT
Most of the book of Hebrews is an exalted theological treatise about the person and work of Jesus Christ. Through nine chapters, the author of the book takes a long look at the Old Testament sacrificial and priestly system and argues that all of it was fulfilled in Jesus’ life and death. With the tenth chapter, however, the author pointedly brings all this to bear on the lives of his readers. "In light of all these things," he tells them, "you are to live in a certain way."

A LITTLE EXEGESIS
Hebrews 10:19-25 lies at the heart of this exhortation. In those verses, the author calls his readers to do three things: First, they are to draw near to God. Since Jesus has won them access to God’s throne by his death on the cross, they are to worship God not with fear and trembling, but with full and joyful confidence. Second, he calls them to hold fast their confession, not to shrink back and be destroyed but to believe, to have faith, and, by these means, to save their souls. With these two exhortations, the author calls on these Christians to keep a close watch on their hearts, minds, and souls. But there is a third exhortation here as well, in which he calls them to look outside themselves and focus their attention on their brothers and sisters in Christ—on the church.

The author writes in verses 24 and 25, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."

Because of everything Jesus has done, and because of everything that he is, Christians are to stir one another up to love and good works. But how are we to do this? By what means can Christians spur one another to goodness and holiness? The text itself offers two ways—by not neglecting to meet together and by encouraging one another.

Now that phrase—"not neglecting to meet together"—is perhaps the Bible’s clearest statement of a Christian’s obligation to attend a local church. If we are part of Christ’s body, then we ought, indeed, we must, covenant and share our lives together with a local body of believers. The verse could hardly be more pointed. But notice that the command not to neglect meeting does not stand by itself. It is actually a dependent clause hanging onto the verse’s main clause. The command to meet together is presented as a means to another end. We Christians are to meet together for the purpose of stirring one another up to love and good works.

ATTEND
At the very least, therefore, we have to say that, for every Christian, attendance at church gatherings is not optional. The author of Hebrews—and therefore the Holy Spirit himself—commands Christians to be present when the believers to whom he or she belongs gather.

Very practically, this means that we may have to rearrange our schedules to make time for the gathering of the saints. Work schedules may have to shift. Homework may have to be done at some other time. Reports may have to be filed earlier or later. Most churches meet no more than two or three hours a week, which still leaves somewhere in the area of 145 hours for getting these other things done. According to Hebrews, encouraging and stirring up other believers ought to be at the top of every Christian’s priority list, and that means attending the public gatherings of the church.

BUT DON'T JUST ATTEND
But the author of Hebrews is calling for more than mere attendance. Many times, Christians treat church attendance as one more item on their checklist of "Christian to-dos." They attend a church service, sit quietly and anonymously in the back of the building, listen half-heartedly to the sermon, slip out during the final hymn without speaking to anyone, and tick their mental box for the week: "Church attended. Hebrews 10:25 obeyed." But that is not at all what the author of Hebrews has in mind here. He doesn’t simply say, "Attend church." Rather, he sets attending church very deliberately in the context of knowing, loving, and encouraging other believers. He sets it in the context of stirring one another up to love and good deeds.

The public gathering of a local church involves more than individuals gathering to hear God’s Word preached—though it is certainly, and crucially, about that. It is also about sharing life with other believers who have covenanted to support and encourage one another as Christians. It is in the public gatherings of the church that we pray for one another, weep and rejoice with one another, bear each other’s burdens and sorrows, hear the Word of God together, and work to apply it to one another’s lives. In short, the gathering of the church is the most important time believers have for stirring one another up to love and good works.

PLOTTING AND PROVOKING
Notice two more things in this text. First, the author of Hebrews says to "consider how to stir one another up to love and good works." He’s telling us, in other words, to think about it! A Christian ought to plot, plan, conspire, contrive, and design how he might stir his brothers and sisters to good works—something he simply cannot do unless his life is tightly intertwined with theirs. How exactly can a Christian plot and plan for the good of his fellow believers if he does not know them?

Second, notice the word "stir," which the KJV and NRSV translate "provoke." An individual’s presence in the body should have a visible effect on others, a stirring or provocative effect: love and good deeds begin to abound in the lives of the people around them!

In short, pastor, we want to encourage our church members to plot and to provoke—for good!

AN ILLUSTRATION
This past summer, I started a massive project of laying slate tiles on my front porch and sidewalk. Over to one side, under a tree, I kept a blue Igloo cooler full of water, which I used to wash off the dirty tiles after I cut them to the correct size. After a while, I realized that all the mud I was washing off the tiles would sink to the bottom of the cooler, leaving clear water at the top and a thick layer of mud at the bottom. Now, if I wanted to stir that mud up off the bottom of the cooler and make it explode with life throughout that water, how would I do it? Walk up and bump the cooler with my knee? That wouldn’t do it. The water might ripple, but the mud would stay firmly on the bottom. No, if I really wanted to stir that mud up, I would have to reach down into the water with my hands. I would have to get involved with the water, purposefully and directly stirring up the mud.

It’s not a perfect analogy, to be sure, but the church is a little like that. No true church of Jesus Christ should be the kind of place where believers simply come together once a week, bump into one another, and then go on about their business. What a shame it is when Christians, not to mention non-Christians, think that this is what the church’s gathering is all about! I can think of few things that would make a church more lifeless or less worth the effort.

The exhortation "not to neglect the meeting" is not so lifeless and boring as all that. It does not call Christians to sit passively in a pew. To the contrary, it calls them to a life that crackles with energy. It calls them to live together with other Christians—loving them, encouraging them, stirring them up to good works, and, perhaps most importantly, pointing them always to the Day when their Lord will return. "Going to church" won’t cut it. Only by "being the church" can we fulfill what Christ intends for us as his people.

Greg Gilbert serves as an elder at Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, KY. He is also the director of theological research for the president at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a writer for Kairos Journal, an online journal for pastors.

January 2007
©Greg Gilbert 9Marks

E-note 2/11: The Church of the Older Brother

2010-02-11T08:53:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

In last Sunday's class on The Prodigal God, author/pastor Tim Keller made the observation that Jesus gave us the parable of the two lost brothers so we would see the two different ways people rebel against God (Luke 15).

The younger brother, who ended up feeding swine, rebelled by being very bad. The older brother, who never left home, rebelled by being very good. The two brothers represent the two most common ways people try to make their lives and their world right. Using Keller's categories, some people follow the path of self-discovery like the younger brother who threw off his father's authority. Others follow the path of moral conformity like the older brother who learned to skillfully submit to authority. But Jesus teaches that both can be ways of resenting and rejecting God. The older brother believed his father should regard him more favorably because of his years of moral conformity. But the older brother can not see that his moral conformity has done nothing to make him like his father. He does not have the compassion of his father because he does not love his father. He does not even like the way his father is. His moral conformity was for himself all along so he could establish some leverage to get his father's inheritance. As a heartless moral conformist he is different than his younger brother, but no better. He too refuses to be in the father's arms.

The rebellion of moral conformity is the hardest for us to see because we are in the Church. Because we take holiness seriously we are a people who also take ethics seriously. Because we take ethics seriously we are then easily tempted to think our ethical fitness (moral conformity) is why God loves us. But this is a satanic lie of the highest order. God loves us on one condition (yes, that means God's love is not unconditional) and that condition is Christ crucified.

One of the biggest myths in the Church today, believed inside and outside her boundaries, is the myth that Christianity is just another way of becoming and staying good. Some people become good through Islam, some people become good through Buddhism, some people become good through Mormonism, some people become good through Christianity. Where did such a myth come from? The "Church of the Older Brother" has promoted this myth by failing to teach the Gospel rightly. What happens to children who grow up thinking in their heart of hearts that Christianity is a way of becoming and staying good? They find they can be relatively good without Christ and drift into an insipid Christian nominalism. If they succeed in being good, pride rules them. If they fail, despair rules them. And worst of all, in both instances they remain opposed to God and his Gospel.

The rebellion of moral conformity is hard for those in the church to see. But guess what? Those outside the Church have a hard time seeing moral conformity as rebellion too. Those outside the Church think moral conformity is the Christian message. The younger brother in Jesus' parable, the one who rebelled by the path of self-discovery, he came home ready to practice moral conformity as the basis of his repaired relationship with his father. Remember, he had prepared a script that included him being hired as a servant to work off his debt. His father surprised him and showed him that their relationship would have compassion and love as its only cornerstone. "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." More this Sunday at 9:30am in the Fellowship Hall. Yours in Christ, John

What do you think?

2010-02-10T09:00:00.000-08:00

"Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ." - Ephesians 4:15

Do you take Christian service seriously? I don't mean cleaning and shoveling and cooking. Such service is crucial to the vitality of a church and we should always be thankful to God for those who serve with their hands. But the service I am talking about is the service of the head and heart. Are you serious about serving other Christians around you with thoughtful, Christ-honoring communication that turns the soul to God? Not just Bible-talk but a soulish care that listens carefully, a soulish care that probes gently, a soulish care that seeks connection where there is silence, a soulish care that is biblically ordered and thus reveals the presence and power of Christ because, after all, our Christian fellowship with one another exists only because we are each in fellowship with the ever-present Lord Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1-3).

Below you will find a second excerpt from Dr. David Powlison's book, Speaking Truth in Love. Where you see the word "counseling" feel free to insert the word "serving" as in "serving Christ's interests in another person's life." Thirty-one times in the New Testament alone we are commanded to serve "one another" in for Christ's sake.

Reminder: On Saturday, March 6, Dr. Powlison will be teaching day-conference in the Upper Valley for Christian called, "God's Heart for the Church." TBC is one of five churches sponsoring this event (see details and register at http://uvbc.wordpress.com).

The Facts of Life, Pt. 2

The War with Yourself
As you begin counseling any other person, you must be gripped by this vision. Without it, some species of self-deception will ultimately call the shots. Your finest insights and best intentions will short-circuit. None of us naturally approaches our troubles saying, “I must become different. I need help. Make me understand. Teach me simple trust, no matter what I face. Teach me to love other people. Teach me to respond well in every circumstance. Take away my grumbling, my anxiety, my pretense, my avoidance, my self-absorption. Forgive me. Change me by your mercy.”

The Christian life is a lifelong “race of repentance,” but we want to have arrived already. We don’t like having to become different, but repentance is the Bible’s word for “thorough, deep-seated, genuine change.” It means turning from old ways to new. You wake up to find yourself living in God’s universe, no longer sleepwalking through the universe of your desires and fears. A race of repentance calls for the ongoing reversal of our deepest instincts and opinions. You wake up again and again.

J.C. Ryle said that coming to vital Christian faith starts a lifelong quarrel inside a person: “You and sin must quarrel, if you and God are to be friends.” Imagine, I must quarrel with myself if I am to befriend God! To deal firmly with yourself is the hard way, the narrow way . . . and the only good way. Perhaps I should say it more strongly. To enter into yourself is the brutally wonderful, painstakingly delightful way. It sometimes feels like death, but always comes up life. The alternatives sometimes feel like life but always come up death.

Honest war with yourself comes paired with incomprehensible gifts. The peace of God passes all understanding, at the cost of all your fears! The love of God surpasses knowing, at the cost of every false love! Whatever you do, get this wisdom, this kingdom of God, this Christ! Nothing you could possibly desire compares. The cost is high: yourself. The reward is higher: no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.

Two Kinds of People
You counsel two kinds of people in principle. One kind will hear and embrace what Richard Sibbes stated so eloquently. Some hear immediately. Jesus can have his say and his way. Others hear more gradually. They may temporarily bristle at what is true, but sooner or later they listen. Even as they point a bitter finger at others or at God, or nurse narcotic self-pity, they listen to truth’s reproof. Hearts soften and they eventually prove teachable. Sooner or later, this first kind of person is willing to come under subjection to God. He begins changing in the directions Jesus intends. If you are this kind of person you may weave and stumble, but in roughly the right direction!

The other kind of person will not hear what Sibbes says. They are fundamentally closed to what the true God is all about. Perhaps they view God as “the errand boy to satisfy [their] wandering desires.” They might talk God-talk and be religiously active and have spiritual experiences . . . but they want something else out of it all. Or they might simply not care about God’s point of view. Most non-hearers crave thinking well of themselves. They get angry when God insists we glorify him instead of serving our lust for self-esteem. Such people don’t want to need Jesus. They want to be okay on their own. They want to be the hero of their own spiritual journey, not a small part in Jesus’ story. To them, Sibbes’s words are a depressing insult, not a doorway into unexpected joys.

Many cherished desires deafen people to the sanity of what Sibbes says – and so fulfill his prophecy. It’s not easy to face yourself, to think differently about what you hold dear. People crave love, success, money and good health, fame and power, marriage and children, comfort, excitement, food and pleasure, independence and being right – and more. Does it make you angry that Jesus intends to revise your personal goals in order to “break your schemes for earthly joy”? This second kind of person is fundamentally unteachable and will not make the daily U-turn and leads to life.

Probing the Soul’s Resistance
How does anyone muster up the courage to take any soul to task – including his or her own? How dare you assert to anyone that most of our lives are spent in fogs of self-deception? Interestingly, modern secular thought has spent a lot of time probing our resistance to knowing ourselves accurately. Tracing such “resistance” became a staple of serious thought about human nature in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nietzsche, Marx, and the psychodynamic psychologists (Freud, Jung, Adler, existentialists) all agreed that people resist looking in the mirror. They wanted to make honest persons of us all, whatever the blows to our pride and self-satisfaction.

The “masters of suspicious” were brilliant at seeing that we delude ourselves. But they could never agree on what we were avoiding or what the alternative is. They could never answer the crucial questions, What exactly is that we’re all so unwilling to see?

Is it perverse sexual impulses? Murderous hostilities? A cosmic dark side in our souls? A craving for power and superiority? A fear of death? The self-serving rationalization and hypocrisy of “civilized” existence? The inequities of wealth, power, and status? Great but godless thinkers disputed each other’s theories; a Christian sees that each was partly right. All these things squirm within our souls. But all the theorists were ultimately wrong because an even darker cinder smolders inside us: “The hearts of the sons of men are full of evil, and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives” (Eccl.9:3). What is that referring to? We human beings most fiercely resist seeing ourselves as God sees us, because we fiercely resist seeing God as he is. We don’t want someone else to get final say – and we don’t want to admit it. We don’t want to need someone else to rescue us from ourselves. Compulsive unbelief and self-sin (an against-God bias) are more ominous – and more interpersonal – than the psychological kinks of other theories. We compulsively rebel against the Person to whom we owe our lives. Our psychological kinks are wrongs done against the Person we are created to love. We are not first “psychologically” false. We are first interpersonally false, covenantally false, religiously false. We play false to ourselves because we play false to God and don’t want to face up to it.

In another word, we sin. We don’t want to know this. It’s easier to admit sexual perversity, a death wish, power drives, egotism, neediness, or class-consciousness than to admit sinfulness in the sight of God. Bad as they are, those other things are not the devastating blow that unglues us. This does.

You must approach counseling ministry with a keep awareness of this core choice in every human heart. The people who talk in any “counseling” conversation come with many different personal agendas. Few people begin with Sibbes’s observation in mind! So start with yourself. Take your soul to task. You will then be better abler to bring the hard and sweet words that others need, if they, too, are to let conscience have its full work.

E-Note 2/5: Our February Themes

2010-02-05T05:19:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Over the next four weeks we will be emphasizing two major themes in our life together: the gospel of Christ and the church of the living God. To emphasize the first, we begin a new adult and teen Sunday School class this Sunday using Tim Keller's, The Prodigal God. This is a rich study (think fudge, creme brulee, and flourless chocolate cake) through the parable of the two brothers, popularly known as the parable of the prodigal son. My hope is that we will all hear the gospel afresh, not simply again - which is the fruit of repetition - but afresh, resulting in a renewal of love, joy, and peace, the very fruit of the Spirit. There is nothing more worthy in this life of your own "right thinking" (literally, "ortho-doxy") than the gospel of Christ. And there is nothing more widely targeted for perversion than the gospel of Christ. In his opening words to the Galatian church Paul writes: "Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ." Note that this was happening within the church not outside it. Keller will make a strong case that the church must always be re-assessing its functional knowledge of the gospel because the church is often the first place the gospel is perverted and pushed aside. The first session (this Sunday) begins with a 25-minute video, so please try to be in your seat by 9:30am. The three sessions that follow will be 75% discussion and 25% teaching. So that is our first big theme for February.

Our second big theme is the church of the living God. This theme will help us get ready for the wonderful conference being prepared for us with Dr. David Powlison, coming March 6. In his first letter to Pastor Timothy the apostle Paul explains why he is writing: "Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth (3:14-15)" For the apostles our conduct in the Church is a reflection of our conduct with Christ himself. As we can see from Paul's words, none of us intuitively knows how to conduct ourselves in the Church. We must learn how to be the church and this learning is no different really than learning to love Jesus and learning to love what Jesus loves, his bride. Some of the major themes Dr. Powlison will be teaching on are: (1) What is God’s plan and purpose for the church? (2) How does the church function in the life of a member? (3) What does community look and feel like in the church? (4) What is the relationship between a local church and the universal church? (5) How are local churches and their members to relate to one another? These are the very questions that Jesus, the Head of the Church, charged his apostles and prophets to answer in the first century. Powlison will dust off the answers for the saints of the 21st century. To register for the conference or learn more go to the conference website at http://uvbc.wordpress.com.

It should be a warm month after all for the saints of God at TBC! Every blessing, John

What Do You Think?

2010-02-02T05:13:00.000-08:00

Below you will find an excerpt from Dr. David Powlison's book, Speaking Truth in Love. On Saturday, March 6, Dr. Powlison will teach a conference in the Upper Valley for Christians called, "God's Heart for the Church." TBC is one of six churches sponsoring this event (see details and register at http://uvbc.wordpress.com ).

Some of you met David last summer, or the summer before, when he worshipped with us at TBC. David is a graduate of Harvard (A.B.), Westminster Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D.). Since 1977 he has served as a counselor and teacher at the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF). Since 1992, he has been the editor of the Journal of Biblical Counseling. He is also an adjunct lecturer at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. David has done much thinking, speaking and writing on topics like suffering, marital intimacy, death and dying, anger, sexual abuse, heart idolatries and emotional stress...all through the lens of Scripture. His two highly regarded books focus on how believers speak to one another and what they are speaking about: Speaking Truth in Love and Seeing With New Eyes.

To warm you up for the conference, I will give you brief excerpts of Powlison's writing over the next few weeks. In the section below, where you read the word "counseling" you might also read "being the church."

The Facts of Life (Part I)

It were an easy thing to be a Christian,
If religion stood only in a few outward works and duties,
But to take the soul to task,
and deal roundly with our own hearts,
and to let conscience have its full work,
and to bring the soul into spiritual subjection unto God,
This is not so easy a matter,
because the soul out of self-love is loath to enter into itself,
lest it should have other thoughts of itself than it would have.
- Richard Sibbes, Puritan Pastor (1577-1635)

Striking words, aren’t they? This statement—some 400 hundred years old—touches the deepest issues of counseling in any time and place. The soul of every human being is loath to enter into itself because of self-love. None of us wants to acknowledge things about ourselves that we would rather deny. We would really rather not know.

Do you ever talk with people about their problems or about your own? Sibbes’s words are a slipper that fits every foot. Perhaps your role is designated by some title that defines you as a counselor. Or you might be “just” a coworker, neighbor, friend, parent, spouse, sibling, child, or grandparent. How do you help a person you love to think straight, when he or she thinks crooked? How do you learn to see straight and think straight, when something inside you compulsively bends in the wrong direction?

You need a clear-eyed realism about the human tendency towards self-blinding. Only then will you bring a buoyant sense of the centrality of the grace of Jesus Christ in counseling ministry. And only then will you help people make the most essential change of all, learning to know God in real life. Those three issues—accurate honesty, living mercy, and daily intimacy—are the focus of the pages that follow.

Facing the Truth About Yourself
Sibbes gets first things first. Jesus’ almighty kindness comes to sinful people in order to recreate us as children of God’s glory. He remakes us poor in spirit, so we face our dire need for outside help. He remakes us boldly committed and grateful, knowing whom we have believed. He remakes us tender-hearted regarding the interests of others. As you become willing to “have other thoughts” of yourself than those that arise spontaneously, you initiate a torrent of other changes. The overthrow of your self-righteousness produces wonderfully different thoughts about Jesus Christ and other people.

But the soul’s blind self-love resists this sort of change. The one activity that creates the truly human life feels harmful to us instinctively. What keeps us from loving and needing God with all that we are? Something in us doesn’t want to face the Someone who insists on having the first and last say about our lives.

Naturally, that something in us does not want to be seen for what it is. It is allergic to the truth about ourselves because we have an allergic reaction to “spiritual submission to God.” We say No, No, No to life on God’s terms, and we forfeit self-knowledge in the bargain.

“Follow Me”
Yet the words of the personal Word and the power of the personal Spirit go patiently about the business of remaking us. God persistently teaches us to fear him, to trust him, to love him, and so, when we have ears to hear, we begin to serve him. To counsel others well, to seek wise counseling yourself, or to simply be a Christian (in the rich sense of Sibbes) all involves the same thing: a willingness to face up, to find mercy, and to change in this very particular way.

Only if you face up to your sin and your resistance to God can you see clearly and act gently, helping others to face up to themselves as well. The Bible calls this essential change dynamic by many names. Jesus says, “Become my disciple.” In other words, sign on for life learning. A learner is committed to becoming different. Do your opinions, feelings, choices, and habits currently have the status of divine right? Is how you are a given, something you insist on? As soon as I’m willing to say, “Not necessarily,” I step off the death spiral and onto the learning curve.

Jesus says, “Follow Me.” To follow somebody else runs completely opposite to the self-will that characterizes what I do instinctively. Listening to him runs directly opposite to the opinions I obsessively think. This change dynamic will make you radically counter-intuitive. To follow somebody else runs flat opposite to the entitled self-assertiveness that western culture reinforces in us every day. This change dynamic will make you radically counter-cultural, while every alternative to “Follow me” is just another way of going with the flow.

Jesus says, “First take the log out of your own eye.” Lightened of your sin’s blindness, you begin to see yourself and to cling to the mercies of God. You will treat other people’s failings more perceptively and gently. You will treat their troubles more generously. Every counseling model assumes some ideal of human functioning against which diagnoses are made and towards which the counseling process aims. But only one counseling model on Earth proposes this particular ideal: to see yourself the way Jesus sees you, and to know Christ as the person he knows himself to be. Only the Word made flesh sees into our evil this deeply. Only the Lord of life aims us in the direction of what human life is meant to be: honest love for God and neighbor. Do you genuinely love God? Do you heartily consider the interests of others? How can you move in that direction? Those are the final exam questions in the school of life. Counseling that neglects these questions neglects reality.

E-note 1/28: Update from the Manns

2010-01-28T08:42:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I am glad to report that Roland Smith's surgery earlier today was successful. He will be at DHMC for several days as his body adjusts. If you would like to visit, please call first and check with the nurses' station. Now, for the remainder of this week's e-note let me pass on to you a letter from Steve and Laraine Mann. The Manns, who are TBC supported missionaries, work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. They plan to visit TBC again in early August. Here is a timely note from them:
-------------------------------

Dear Friends (January 22, 2010),

Jos, Nigeria has been known as the city of peace, a place where Christians and Muslims live side by side. This all changed on Sept 7, 2001 and our family was an eye witness. We were enjoying an evening at our home with another family, celebrating our daughter Laura’s 18th birthday. Apparently, that afternoon an incident between a Christian and a Muslim near a mosque downtown started a riot. This escalated and it was like a wave that moved up the streets, growing and killing as it went. Unbeknownst to us it passed a short distance from our home. We got a phone call in the evening to inform us that it wasn’t safe to go out of our house that night. So our guest family stayed overnight even though they lived only about a mile from us. The next few days we had the threat of a possible evacuation as we listened to the guns and saw the smoke from our balcony. For ten days we were housebound with no way to communicate much of the time since our phone was unreliable. We were isolated from friends and I found out just how social I am because of the stress without it. When we again began our school and work schedules, a curfew continued for several months which affected our daily routines. We were thankful peace returned.

A similar scenario is happening right now, again, in Jos. It began on Sunday with a church being attacked while the people were worshipping inside. Since then, revenge has been taken on both sides. Any news that you read usually isn’t the true picture of what is happening. We are concerned that it is worse than ever before, but we have received word that our missionary colleagues are safe in their homes. Our Angas translator has written “you can continue to pray for us, since we do not know where all this would lead to. If the situation continues, with the imposition of a 24 hr curfew (which is necessary in view of the security problems), the situation may degenerate into a humanitarian tragedy as the people will be facing other challenges such as lack of food, water, proper medication and other essentials of life.” (Thursday the curfew was lifted from 10am to 5pm so that people could buy food and find water.)

So please be in prayer. There are several Wycliffe families there as well as a few hundred other missionary family members from various missions and the mission/international school in Jos. They'll probably just wait it out, staying at home, until the curfews lift and life returns to a routine. The Muslims never seem to target foreign missionaries. That's probably because these bouts of violence are heavily influenced by tribal rivalries and disputes over access to land or political power. Religion is only a part of it. Unfortunately unemployed "Christian" youths often get caught up in gangs seeking revenge on Muslim homes and families, so the cycle of violence just continues.

On the home front, we are thankful for a wonderful family Christmas with our children all around. Thank you for your prayers for our children as they seek the Lord concerning decisions about their futures. Steve and I are planning some travels this year to visit our partners. A challenge is that we have limited funds to do this. Pray for the Lord to provide and also our need of another car to replace the 'tired' one we have now (a ’94 Ford Escort). Some of you have written us of your personal prayer needs. Steve and I do pray that you are experiencing God's faithfulness in your lives. Laraine and for Steve (www.wysite.org/sites/mannfamily )

E-note 1/14: Winning the Next Generation

2010-01-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Winning the Next Generation is our simple theme for this year's Missions Conference. We come by such a vision in many passages of scripture, but few are as poignant as Psalm 78. "We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done" (v. 4). The people who sing Psalm 78 are a people who have been pressed into service with a sense of urgency. They are a generation pressed by the greatness and goodness of God. They are a generation soon to pass. The next generation comes nearer every day. There is a duty to discharge before it is too late. The next will soon be the now. Thus these are a forward looking people. They have something to say. What will we tell the next generation? What must we tell them? The praiseworthy deeds of the Lord! His power! The wonders he has done! In other words, tell them how big God is and how great is his salvation. Make not the Lord small by just telling them to be nice and earn a living. Make not the Lord small by making all the details of life bigger by your silence. Make not the Lord smaller than they are by telling them their goodness can earn God's favor. Tell the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.

Even the most cursory glance at Psalm 78 reveals how the people of God expect to accomplish this noble task. The Psalm is a song and it marches on in seventy-two verses telling the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord. Do you see what is happening? The people who sang this Psalm "told the next generation" in their corporate worship. Their worship singing re-enacted the great drama of God's victory over Satan and God's redeeming love through his own humiliation. How many parents struggle to find the words to tell the next generation? How many parents feel ill-equipped for this great task? But here we see God's wise and loving administration for all: when the people of God gather to declare his praiseworthy deeds in corporate worship, we find our voice together, we find our courage to tell the truth together, we find our joy to revel in God's wonders together. And our children hear, they see, they take hold of their inheritance. After all, numbered among God's praiseworthy deeds is that he saved a people not just a me. Corporate worship saves us from telling the next generation the myth that God is small and local and all about just one of us.

How will we know when we have won the next generation? For one we will know when they themselves refuse to hide the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord. How can someone be silent about their inheritance? But Psalm 78 gives an answer that goes beyond mere enthusiasm. Right after verse four we hear this: "He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but keep his commands." (vv. 5-7). Read that carefully. It becomes apparent that the next generation has received their inheritance (God!) when the deeds of the Lord have overwhelmed them to obedience to God. But notice that this is no mindless, heartless acquiescence. It is a glad and most reasonable submission because the Lord is so praiseworthy, so inestimably good, so trustworthy! O, how we so easily lose the next generation when we demand their obedience to a God they do not know as great and good. The pursuit of holiness is a morning mist without the resplendent Good News of God's saving nearness to his people; a nearness that comes to its fullness in Immanuel, Jesus Christ, perfect sacrifice for sin, victor over all powers and principalities, firstborn from among the dead. As we look upon Jesus we see now with great clarity that winning the next generation has been at the heart of God's own mission and promise. And he is and will accomplish it because he has loosened the jaws of those he has already won and they are declaring his praise. Grace and peace, John

What do you think?

2010-01-20T08:55:00.000-08:00

The Underlying Tragedy

by David Brooks for the NY TIMES

On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed. This week, a major earthquake, also measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Red Cross estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died.

This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services. On Thursday, President Obama told the people of Haiti: “You will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten.” If he is going to remain faithful to that vow then he is going to have to use this tragedy as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty. He’s going to have to acknowledge a few difficult truths.

The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.

In the recent anthology “What Works in Development?,” a group of economists try to sort out what we’ve learned. The picture is grim. There are no policy levers that consistently correlate to increased growth. There is nearly zero correlation between how a developing economy does one decade and how it does the next. There is no consistently proven way to reduce corruption. Even improving governing institutions doesn’t seem to produce the expected results.

The chastened tone of these essays is captured by the economist Abhijit Banerjee: “It is not clear to us that the best way to get growth is to do growth policy of any form. Perhaps making growth happen is ultimately beyond our control.”

The second hard truth is that micro-aid is vital but insufficient. Given the failures of macrodevelopment, aid organizations often focus on microprojects. More than 10,000 organizations perform missions of this sort in Haiti. By some estimates, Haiti has more nongovernmental organizations per capita than any other place on earth. They are doing the Lord’s work, especially these days, but even a blizzard of these efforts does not seem to add up to comprehensive change.

Third, it is time to put the thorny issue of culture at the center of efforts to tackle global poverty. Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well. Haiti has endured ruthless dictators, corruption and foreign invasions. But so has the Dominican Republic, and the D.R. is in much better shape. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island and the same basic environment, yet the border between the two societies offers one of the starkest contrasts on earth — with trees and progress on one side, and deforestation and poverty and early death on the other.

As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book “The Central Liberal Truth,” Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.

We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.

Fourth, it’s time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.

These programs, like the Harlem Children’s Zone and the No Excuses schools, are led by people who figure they don’t understand all the factors that have contributed to poverty, but they don’t care. They are going to replace parts of the local culture with a highly demanding, highly intensive culture of achievement — involving everything from new child-rearing practices to stricter schools to better job performance.

It’s time to take that approach abroad, too. It’s time to find self-confident local leaders who will create No Excuses countercultures in places like Haiti, surrounding people — maybe just in a neighborhood or a school — with middle-class assumptions, an achievement ethos and tough, measurable demands.

The late political scientist Samuel P. Huntington used to acknowledge that cultural change is hard, but cultures do change after major traumas. This earthquake is certainly a trauma. The only question is whether the outside world continues with the same old, same old.

E-note 1/14: Earthquake

2010-01-14T08:49:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I am sure the earthquake in Haiti is on your mind. It is on mine too. Last night at Pioneer Clubs it was on the mind of nine children. They prayed. Next week they will begin to bring their nickels and dimes and quarters for Haiti.

Haiti is on Jon Kuniholm's mind. He will speak to us this Sunday at 9:30am about his recent dental mission in Haiti and his hope to return in April. Jon tells me his friends there are well and their church is standing. How many will hear just the opposite? God knows. Haiti is on God's mind. In His providence, before the earthquake, I selected a sermon for this Sunday that reveals the depth of the Lord's compassion for those under the curse (Luke 7:11-17). Haiti is on God's mind.

Haiti is on your mind. But may God be too. To help you take your thoughts on this great hurt captive for Christ's sake, let me share some words from Pastor John Piper. In this short essay he was writing about a different earthquake, but the truth is timeless. Thanks to Lance Anderson for directing me to this. Here's Piper:
...................................

"Weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15). When love has wept and worked, it must have some answers. Not all the answers, but some. No earthquakes in the Bible are attributed to Satan. Many are attributed to God. This is because God is Lord of heaven and earth. "He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him" (Luke 8:25). "He sends forth His command to the earth. . . . He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes. He casts forth His ice as fragments; who can stand before His cold? . . . He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow" (Psalm 147:15-18). "He looks at the earth, and it trembles; He touches the mountains, and they smoke" (Psalm 104:32). "[He] shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble" (Job 9:6). And if the devils try to intrude on his control, "He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him" (Mark 1:27).

Earthquakes are ultimately from God. Nature does not have a will of its own. And God owes Satan no freedom. What havoc demons wreak, they wreak with God's permission. That's the point of Job 1-2 and Luke 22:31-32. God does nothing without an infinitely wise and good purpose. "He also is wise and will bring disaster" (Isaiah 31:2). "The LORD is good" (Psalm 100:5). Therefore, God had good and all-wise purposes for the heart-rending tragedy in Turkey that took thousands of lives on August 16, 1999.

Indeed he had hundreds of thousands of purposes, most of which will remain hidden to us until we are able to grasp them at the end of the age. "How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord?" (Romans 11:33-34). "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever" (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Yet there are possible purposes revealed in the Bible that we may pray will come to pass.

The end-time earthquakes in the book of Revelation (see the footnote) are meant as calls to repentance to warn people who deny Jesus Christ that a day is coming when unbelievers will cry to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:16).

The end-time earthquakes in Matthew 24:7-8 are meant to be interpreted as "the beginning of the birth pangs." That is, they are a wake-up call to this oblivious world that God's kingdom will soon be born; so be alert and prepare to meet Jesus Christ.

God's unilateral taking of thousands of lives is a loud declaration that "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away" (Job 1:21). The message for all the world is that life is a loan from God (Luke 12:20) and belongs to him. He creates it and gives it and takes it according to his own will and owes us nothing. He has a right to children (2 Samuel 12:15) and to the aged (Luke 2:29). It is a great gift to learn this truth and dedicate our lives to their true owner rather than defraud him till it is too late.

The power felt in an earthquake reveals the fearful magnificence of God. This is a great gift since "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10). Most of the world does not fear the Lord and therefore lacks saving wisdom.

When the earth shakes under your feet there is a dramatic sense that there is no place to flee. In most disasters the earth is the one thing that stands firm when wind and flood are raging. But where do you turn when the earth itself is unsafe? Answer: God.

May the Lord fulfill two other purposes for this painful catastrophe. (1) That Christians repent of worldliness. "I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3). (2) That Christians, around the world, step forward with extraordinary, sacrificial love to show more clearly the mercy of Christ who laid down his life in the midst of the Father's judgment. Praying, giving, trembling, trusting, John Piper (Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, MN)

What do you think?

2010-01-13T09:44:00.000-08:00

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Have you ever been wonderfully and surprisingly cheered by nostalgia? I was Monday when I found this little piece (below) by Jason Stellman. I am reading a book by Pastor Stellman titled Dual Citizens, which led me to dig around his writing warehouse (aka. blog) where I found this gem. The lyrics he writes out from Rich Mullins' music are songs friends and I used to sing while playing basketball off the side of a barn in the remote prairie land of northwest Wisconsin. In those days Mullins was a sage and one of my distant disciplers. A few years ago Susan Kana gave me a DVD of Mullins in concert. To this day it is one of my most treasured possessions. Mullins died suddenly in a car accident in 1997. He was 42. So sweet to see Mullins compared to Chesterton. The title link will take you to more of Stellman if you so desire. JH

Lonely Mountains, Sleeping Adams, Dancing Angels, and the Color Green
by Jason Stellman

I had a great conversation over cigars and stout with my good pal Armando on Wednesday, and we were discussing the way men like Chesterton, Bono, Rich Mullins, C.S. Lewis, and others wrote about God's involvement in the world (I have been told by my Catholic friends that these men have a "sacramental worldview," which I sort of understand, but not really). Anyway, they bring to the table a kind of richness and appreciation of God's immanence that cannot but stir one's heart, especially when you're just not used to that sort of thing.

I have written here before of Chesterton's view that apple blossoms produce apples not from the mere laws of nature but through magic, and that rivers flow downstream because they're enchanted, so I'll not repeat that stuff again. But consider these words of the late Rich Mullins from "The Color Green":

And the moon is a sliver of silver
Like a shaving that fell on the floor
Of a Carpenter's shop.
And every house must have its Builder;
And I awoke in the house of God.

Where the windows are mornings and evenings,
Stretched from the sun, across the sky,
North to south.
And on my way to early meeting
I heard the rocks crying out,
I heard the rocks crying out:

"Be praised for all your tenderness
By these works of Your hands!
Songs that rise, and rains that fall
To bless and bring to life your land!
Look down upon this winter wheat
And be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky, and the color green
That fills these fields with praise!"

Elsewhere Mullins fuses heavenly imagery with that of earth thusly:

And the work trucks come running
With their bellies full of coal,
And their big wheels humming
Down this road that lies open
Like the soul of the woman
Who hid the spies who were looking
For the land of the milk and the honey.

And this road, she is a woman;
She was made from a rib
Cut from the sides of these mountains,
O these great sleeping Adams who are
Lonely, even here in paradise;
Lonely for somebody to kiss them.

(If by God's grace I ever pen lines even remotely comparable to these, I will die a happy man.)

Sometimes I wonder what a man like Rich Mullins saw when he closed his eyes and meditated upon God, and the beauty and fierceness of his majesty. Whether he's singing about "angels dancing on Jacob's stairs" as "the moon moves past Nebraska, spilling laughter on those cold Dakota hills," or how God "takes by its corners this whole world and shakes us bored, and shakes us free," there was a depth (a simple depth actually, if you'll forgive the oxymoron) to his faith that I, for one, am trying to recover in my own life.

It is my conviction that, whether through a sacramental worldview or, even better, by means of a two-kingdoms theology whereby earth is legitimized, the greater our love is for this world, the greater will be our love for the God who made it.

E-note 1/7: The Manhattan Declaration

2010-01-13T08:59:00.001-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Yesterday afternoon there was a fruitful conversation at the monthly Reformation Society meeting in White River. By that remark I in no way intend to suggest the quality of yesterday's conversation was rare. It was fruitful in the usual sort of way, but worth mentioning here.

We were reviewing the Manhattan Declaration, a seven-page document recently put before you, the dear saints of TBC, in the What Do You Think? series on Dec. 1. The Manhattan Declaration was released on November 20 by a coalition of Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical leaders as something of a "statement of principles upon which the signatories will not compromise." Some of the signatories that you might recognize are Bryan Chappell, Chuck Colson, Tim Keller, Dinesh D'Souza, Wayne Grudem, J.I. Packer, Cornelius Plantinga, and Joe Stowell. The principles upon which these men are now "co-belligerents" are explicitly moral principles and firmly rooted in our Christian faith.

The principles all entail a refusal to comply with any governmental policy that calls Christians to step away from Christian teaching as it concerns the sanctity of life, or the sanctity of marriage, or the justice of religious liberty. The Manhattan Declaration closes with these words: "Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s."

I like the Manhattan Declaration for several reasons. One, it avoids the acidic spirit of the religious right. The religious right was ruled by an impulse that put them at odds with Christian theology, that being the impulse to insist that God wants America to be a safe place for Christians. The religious right renewed the patent on the notion that America is the new Israel of God. A notion that is patently unbiblical (the Church is the new Israel of God). Fortunately, the poor theology of the religious right can not be found in the Manhattan Declaration, nor in scripture for that matter. What is here is a call for Christians to ready themselves for faithfulness as the West prepares to take a plunge into moral chaos.

I also like the timeliness of the Declaration. It addresses a period of moral ignorance that is uniquely Western and recent. Of course neither the fall nor the curse is new, but the particular de-humanizing shape both are taking in this early century require careful exposure. "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them," said the apostle Paul (Eph. 5:11). This seems to me a responsibility laid freshly at the feet (or upon the pen) of each new generation of those who "themselves were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord" (Eph 5:8). The exposing is first and foremost to benefit the Church. The Church, if she is repenting at all, is repenting not in abstract ways of no substance or consequence. No, if she is repenting for Christ's sake she is repenting of the specific ways in which she still clings to godless systems and godless principles and godless standards. Our repentance is not over with our baptism, it is just beginning. So I like how the Declaration holds me as a Christian complicit for the culture of death while simultaneously calling all men everywhere to repent. This reflects a graciousness and seriousness worthy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I like how the Declaration calls the Church and the world to repent in passages like this: "To strengthen families, we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery, and holiness of faithful marital love. We must reform ill-advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce."

And finally, I like the Manhattan Declaration because it broadens and deepens everything. Because I am a sinner, determined to justify myself at every opportunity, I tend to reduce evil. For example, a self-justifying conservative reduces evil to abortion, homosexuality and taxes. A self-justifying liberal reduces evil to intolerance, conservatives, and religion. The Manhattan Declaration does its best to broaden the present darkness to its full dimension as you can see from the passage just quoted above about marriage. Heterosexuals who practice serial monogamy trample the sanctity of marriage too. Pro-lifers who demand more and more cheap goods can trample the sanctity of life too. Such are two lessons for the careful reader of the Declaration.

I do have one beef with the Manhattan Declaration. Though it stands on John the Baptist's shoulders in calling the state to repent for lawlessness (Mark 6), it could have gone further and called the state to receive the forgiveness and light that is available in Christ, the only gift that explains how the signatories themselves have the convictions they have. In short, the Declaration could have used some of the explicit proselytizing we saw early this week from Brit Hume toward Tiger Woods and which we saw from Paul at Athens. Grace & Peace, John

What do you think?

2010-01-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

RESOLUTIONS (by Jonathan Edwards)

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ's sake.

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the forementioned things.

3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.

4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.

5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. [1723].

9. Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.

11. Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances don't hinder.

12. Resolved, if I take delight in it as a gratification of pride, or vanity, or on any such account, immediately to throw it by.

13. Resolved, to be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality.

14. Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge.

15. Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.

16. Resolved, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.

17. Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

18. Resolved, to live so at all times, as I think is best in my devout frames, and when I have clearest notions of things of the gospel, and another world.

19. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour, before I should hear the last trump.

20. Resolved, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

For the rest click here.

E-Note 12/31: You Are Our Joy!

2009-12-31T13:56:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

As 2009 draws to a close Jen and I wish to express our deep love and respect for you, our family in Christ. The apostle Paul wrote the following words to the Christians he loved in the city of Thessalonica: "For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy." You, the saints at TBC, have given us this same hope and joy, and very soon, this same glory.

Your love for all the saints stands out to us like a jewel. You have received grace to order your lives to love one another. Your participation in small groups is so often inconvenient, not only to your schedule but also to your ego, yet you persevere in these close-contact relationships. You have joined Christ Jesus in being burdened by the lives of sinners. You have learned that Christ's love in you can flourish even when his church disappoints you or disillusions you. Every year it is Jen's and my privilege to witness obscure yet extravagant of acts of love between you, the saints of TBC. This year was no different. Jen and I give thanks to God for your abundant love for one another.

Your works of service also cheer us greatly: painting the church, stocking the foodshelf, cleaning toilets, teaching Sunday School, shoveling snow, mowing grass, making meals, stacking wood, driving to DHMC, praying over heartaches both great and small. You are Christians! Your lives show that peculiar freedom of those who know Jesus, a freedom so well described by John Stott: "True freedom is not freedom from responsibility to God and others in order to live for ourselves, but freedom from ourselves in order to live for God and others." Your faithful giving also stands out this year. In a year marked by financial fear upon the earth you arranged your finances as those who have a Father in heaven. You gave close to $1,500 for Bibles to Iran. Through the Faith Promise you are on track to give another $15,000 to Tajikistan, Moldova, and The Fold in Lyndonville, VT. And on top of that we are not far off in meeting our commitments to our permanent missionaries and our local expenses at TBC. Your obedient faith continues to go public in your faithful giving. Jen and I give thanks to God for your generous giving of both self and wealth so Christ's gospel is proclaimed and his church built up.

Like the apostle John, there is no greater joy for us than to see you walking in the truth. So many of you have grown in your commitment and conviction to the gospel this year. You are standing firm in the faith. This has also been the year where some of you have shed the dead weight of errors and lies about God. We give thanks to God that in love he has chosen you, has given you his Holy Spirit, and now you show you are waiting for Christ's return by your holy and pure lives. Jen and I give thanks to God for your growing faith.

Lastly and most personally, we give thanks to God for how you have cared for us. You cheered when Reuben was born and continue to give your hearts to all our children. You have shared your lives with us, welcoming us into your homes. You have shown us patience. You have shared with us wisdom. You have showered us again and again with forgiveness. We love you. May God prosper you in His way this New Year, John & Jen.

What do you think?

2009-12-30T12:22:00.001-08:00

Christmas In New York
by Joseph Bottum

There was a woman screaming on Park Avenue, flecks of saliva spraying from her mouth as she raged into her cell phone, “It’s not my fault.” Over and over, like the high-pitched squeal of a power saw cutting bricks: It’s not my fault and a run of foul names, It’s not my fault and another run of names. It’s not my fault, you (blank)ing (blank). It’s not my fault, you evil (blank). It’s . . . not . . . my . . . fault.

I don’t know, maybe, whatever it was, it really wasn’t her fault. But her cell phone and makeup, her dark purse and blue coat, her warm leather gloves—the accoutrements of sanity around that face of public madness—made her seem guilty, somehow. Guilty of something, down to the bone. The man at the Salvation Army kettle kept his tense back turned against her as he rang his Christmas bell. The crowds of passing strangers fixed their eyes at uncomfortable angles and hurried by. A child stared anxiously till his mother began chattering about breakfast, overbright and overloud as she tugged him around the corner.

I saw the screaming woman for a moment framed by the giant candy canes and white Christmas garlands soaped on the window of the storefront behind her. Then the traffic light changed, and I crossed the street, my shoulders hunched in self-protection. It’s not my fault, you evil (blank). It’s . . . not . . . my . . . fault.

Is twice a warning or only a coincidence? For I heard the phrase again that same day, in the vestibule of the bank after work. New York is still one of the world’s great Christmas towns. Too dirty for too long to clean up well just for the holidays, Manhattan still makes a brave show for the season. The shop-window mannequins sport their Christmas finery, and the railings on the apartment buildings don their strings of lights and tinsel. Maybe movies—from Miracle on 34th Street on down—are what have made New York’s Christmases seem so iconic: the ice skating at Rockefeller Center, the skimpy elf costumes on the strutting Rockettes at Radio City, the sleigh bells on the horse cabs, the piles of toys at FAO Schwarz, the window displays at Lord & Taylor.

But at least, as a result, New York still tries. There in the bank, while I waited in line for an automatic-teller machine, I watched the city’s shoppers hurrying past, their arms full of Christmas packages, and listened to a man talking loudly on his cell phone, one foot up on the window sill.

“It’s not my fault,” he explained in a confident boom. “I’m just the kind of person who has to keep after things.” What is it about self-justification that always makes it seem so false? About that phrase “I’m the kind of person” that always makes it sound like the beginning of a lie? He was well dressed in loafers and slacks, a nice overcoat, and seemingly indifferent to the fact that the people at the ATMs could overhear him. With the effortless patter of a story told many times before—with the sort of smooth charm, in fact, that fails because it announces too openly just how charming it is trying to be—he launched into a long tale about how he didn’t really want to sue, but then he was the kind of person who needed to see that he got his rights, and it wasn’t his fault everything got so messed up.

It’s not my fault—the cry we’ve made every day since Adam took the apple. Down somewhere in the belly, there’s an awareness of just how wrong the world is, how fallen and broken and incomplete. This is the guilty knowledge, the failure of innocence, against which we snarl and rage: That’s just the way things are; there’s nothing I can do; I wasn’t the one who started the fight; it’s not my fault. What would genuine innocence look like, if it ever came into the world? I know the answer my faith calls me to believe: like a child born in a cattle shed. But to understand why that is an answer, to see it clearly, we are also compelled to know our guilt for the world, to feel it all the way to the bottom.

I sometimes wonder to whom all the city’s cell-phone talkers are speaking. People all around them, thousands and thousands: there, that angry balding man slamming past in his stained parka, and there, that coatless woman with the deliberately unfocused stare smokers wear as they stand with their arms crossed outside restaurants, and there, that tired-looking girl in the sweater trying to stop a taxi, and there, and there, and there—an endless stream of presence, and still they shout or murmur on the street, pouring secrets and imprecations into their clenched phones and throat microphones. Talking to the ones who aren’t there. Communing with the absent, like fortune-tellers with a crystal ball. Like mediums calling the dead.

Sometimes New York hints at something different. There is a strange impression the city gives after a snowstorm—a kind of epiphanic feeling, a sense of being taken for a moment out of time. People walk in the middle of the streets. A few pull out their skis and slalom down First Avenue. The taxis all disappear, and for a moment the whitewashed city looks clean and small-townish.

But New York cannot play for long at being the New Jerusalem. The ultimate time-bound place, it cannot step outside the rush and rattle of commerce. The supreme City of Man, it cannot pose as the City of God. With their town bright and almost pretty, New Yorkers act for a few moments as though things have changed—or rather, as though these few moments don’t count, as though the apocalypse of falling snow has lifted them out of time and the storm had left them for an instant clean and unhurried. Last winter, I saw an old-fashioned toboggan—ten or twelve feet long, the wooden slats curling to a two-foot swoosh in front—being drawn along 14th Street, filled with laughing children. Who has room to store a toboggan in Manhattan on the off-chance of snow? Someone, clearly. Someone who has been waiting years for the white apocalypse.

Most Christmases, however, there are only cold drizzles, the icy rain that never seems to wash anything clean. I emptied my pockets on the way home from the bank: another Salvation Army kettle, a drunk man on the sidewalk with a hand-lettered sign I couldn’t read, a woman rattling change in a paper cup. I hate the city, all tarted up in its tawdry Christmas clothes. Mewing us together on its streets, it forces us to see the human stain. It forces us to know. It’s not my fault, I muttered as I blew on my cold hands. May God have mercy on us all. It’s . . . not . . . my . . . fault.

Joseph Bottum is editor of First Things.

What do you think?

2009-12-22T05:47:00.000-08:00

Merry Marketing
Stores give us something to believe in — shopping.

by James Martin, S.J. for The Wall Street Journal, 12.17.2009

I like Christmas as much as the next Christian. And by that I mean the Feast of the Nativity — the one with Jesus being born in a manger. The one Linus talks about every year on "A Charlie Brown Christmas." That Christmas I like.

The Christmas I don't like is the one most people find wearying: the commercial one. And this year what's been irking me are the slogans that companies are deploying in their December ad campaigns that hope to have it both ways: They're using religious themes without actually being religious. Call it faith-based advertising.

Some aren't bad. This year J.C. Penney's ads featured the slogan "The Joy of Giving." (Giving is, needless to say, laudable.) But many advertisers couldn't seem to decide how religious their ads could be. Most are eager to glom onto the highly profitable Christmas angle without being Christian, which would be a challenge even for Don Draper and his "Mad Men" copywriters. The cover of the Land's End catalog — which is bursting with preppy families who apparently divide their time between laughing dementedly, drinking steaming mugs of hot chocolate and petting horses — says: "Make it Merry!" Make what merry? Celebrating the birth of Christ or petting a horse?

Likewise, the Container Store, a packaging company, wanted to remind shoppers to mail in time for Christmas but couldn't quite bring itself to say the word. "Only 15 Days Left!" said one of its ads on December 10. Fifteen days till what? Arbor Day?

"Magic" is another popular word on Madison Avenue: Pier One's catalog says, "Make Christmas Magic!" Sadly, all I can think of is Mary and Joseph standing around Harry Potter in a manger.
And this year the Gap's ads are just plain weird. Their TV commercials feature perky models rapping out the following ditty: "Go Christmas! Go Hannukah! Go Kwanzaa! Go Solstice! You 86 the rules, you do what just feels right. Happy Whatever-you-wannukah, and to all a cheery night!" But the models are clearly wearing sweaters and scarves in bright red, the traditional Christmas color. In other words, the Gap is selective about what gets 86ed. Actual religious beliefs? Those go. Holiday trappings that can move a few sweaters? Those stay.

The winner of this year's worst catch phrase is a tie: between Macy's and Eddie Bauer. Macy's shopping bags say, "A million reasons to believe!" In what? What does Macy's want us to believe in? That Jesus is the Son of God? (Imagine that on a bag.)

Nearly as maddening was the cover of this year's Eddie Bauer catalog, which proclaims "We believe." As with Macy's, I was eager to find out just what Eddie Bauer believed in. The Council of Chalcedon's fifth-century declaration that Jesus was fully human and fully divine? Not exactly. Page three professed the retailer's creed: "We believe in the world's best down."

Of course I know that this is the way marketing works. Retailers use anything to hawk a product. And I'm sorry to be a stickler, but it's strange seeing the Christian faith being used and denied at the same time.

Nonetheless, I try not to get too upset about it, because I don't want to let commercialism distract me from the reason to celebrate Christmas Day. Because I really do have a million reasons to believe.

— Father Martin is a Jesuit priest and author of "My Life With the Saints" (Loyola Press, 2006).

E-note 12/18: Becoming A Little Child

2009-12-18T05:55:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

In Matthew 18:3 we hear these words from the Lord Jesus: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” What a glorious mystery that God himself has done the very thing he says we must do. God has become like a little child to show us the way into his forever kingdom.

What does Jesus mean that we must become like little children? The answer is in the manger. When the Son of God took on our flesh, literally becoming a little child, He put himself in the care of his heavenly Father. He lived his life humbly and lovingly dependent upon the Father. Come what may he did the Father’s will. Come loneliness or friendship, come comfort or cross, a little child does his father’s will. Jesus tells it to us straight: unless you change and become like a little child you will be shut out of the kingdom of the little Son, the Son who gladly did the will of his Father.

"Unless you change." Those words remind us that it will do us no good to say, "I believe," while continuing to do our own will. "Unless you change and become like little children" is a call to receive God as your ever-present Father. Those who do not change, those who refuse the rule of the Father, they are lost. They are not sons. To remain enthroned over our own lives will cost us two kingdoms, our own and Christ's. But to change will cost us only one kingdom, one all men will lose anyway. And this is the good news: the change Jesus requires is the change Jesus gives. He gives it by taking us by the hand and showing us all the goodness of his Father. None can claim this Father to be wicked or unjust or unkind. The Father of the Lord Jesus is the Father of loyal love. He is the Father of every good and perfect gift. He is the Father who never forgets. He is the Father of faithfulness and all compassion. He is the Father of our eternal brother, who through his resurrection is the firstborn from the dead.

No man was ever more at rest in the presence of his Father than Jesus. By showing us this eternal relationship in the flesh, Jesus dares us to change. By revealing in the flesh the love and subordination of the Triune God, Jesus dares all flesh to become his brothers, submissive sons of the same Father. Praise be to God, the perfect submission of the Son is gifted to all who will be changed by it, changed into little children, submissive sons of the Father in heaven. Grace and peace, John

What do you think?

2009-12-15T11:57:00.001-08:00

How Would Jesus Call?
A Column for the Dallas Morning News

By Ken Myers

An article in the April issue of Wired magazine makes some frightening predictions about the dangers of three cutting-edge technologies. Though Wired is better known for treating the latest gadgets and high-tech systems either with irreverent glee or awe-filled reverence, this article, written by Bill Joy, cofounder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems (and thus a high priest among the digerati), sounds more apocalyptic than messianic. Joy warns that future developments in genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology (the development of microscopic machines) may pose a serious threat to human existence. All three technologies aim to create self-replicating mechanisms.

Joy's article makes some very serious points that ought to be of particular concern to theologians and religious ethicists. Even if his most ominous fears prove to be as ill-founded as Y2K hysteria, his concern for attending to the unintended consequences of technology is instructive.

With few exceptions, religious people have not given enough thoughtful attention to the social and cultural consequences of emerging technologies. When technical devices are used for obviously immoral purposes (e.g., pornography on the Internet), Christians express concern. But church leaders and theologians give far too little attention to the subtle ways in which technologies reshape our lives and thereby re-configure our moral understanding of the world.

Technologies are usually developed to make a particular task more convenient, and convenience is valuable. But it is not the only valuable thing, and it is up to individuals and communities to determine when an increased level of convenience is actually a hindrance to other human values.

Cell phones, for example, make it easier for us to have immediate access to others and to remain perpetually accessible. But certainly there are times when cell phones should be turned off or left at home. Some restaurants now require guests to disable their cell phones while dining. This shows respect for the ambience of their dining rooms and honors the desire of other diners not to be forced into the role of eavesdropper.

I'd like to suggest that Christian people in particular give some attention to cell phone etiquette. A thoughtful set of manners regarding cell phones could be a small but significant way of reducing the sum total of dehumanizing behavior in American culture. Such manners could demonstrate the high value Christians place on embodiment, expressed in our doctrines of Creation, Incarnation, and Resurrection.

What could cell phones possibly have to do with the Incarnation? Both involve the significance of physical, embodied presence before others. The presence of another person before us is a kind of moral claim, asking for the recognition appropriate to a fellow human being. Likewise, when we make ourselves present to others, we are showing respect. Thus when we visit someone in the hospital or in prison (a situation Jesus alludes to in Matthew 25) instead of just phoning or sending flowers, we demonstrate by our presence a higher level of regard for their well-being.

The idea of presence is an important one in Biblical religion. In his second letter, the Apostle John writes, "I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face." The Church is called the ekklesia, the assembly, the place where believers are present to one another to encourage one another to love and good works.

By contrast, holding a telephone conversation while walking down the street or up an aisle at the supermarket pointedly ignores the presence of others. The importance of physical presence is thus de-valued. It also poses a kind of challenge to passers-by.

In an earlier, less hectic time, when you wanted to make a phone call, you isolated yourself temporarily in a telephone booth (ask your parents if this is an unfamiliar term). This guaranteed privacy for yourself but also spared strangers the awkwardness of hearing half of your conversation, especially if the conversation involved intimate personal details. The more primitive technology imposed limits on where your body was when you made a call, but certain notions about presence and
boundaries were also encouraged.

Just because we are now able to make calls anywhere anytime doesn't mean that we should. Whether or not we should is a question that, to my knowledge, hasn't even been raised.

To treat the presence of another person with indifference is not just rude. It is dehumanizing. Bill Joy's dire predictions about technologies destroying humanity may not come to pass. But there are already many instances of the thoughtless use of technologies diminishing humanity. The unexpected and untested convenience of cell phones has brought us into territory previously uncharted by convention. The devices come with technical instructions, but no guidance about their well-mannered use. Encouraged by a theology of human dignity, embodiment, and the value of presence, Christians have the resources to make some small but notable difference in this cyborg culture. Resistance is not futile.

E-note 12/10: Advent Traditions

2009-12-10T11:38:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

One of the traditions we keep in our home each year is a careful marking of the days before Christmas. With a scrupulousness that waxes and wanes we try to live the days of Advent with punctures of heavenly light. Sometimes it is the felt Jesse Tree that Jen made ten years ago that guides us to the star over Bethlehem. Each day a felt square is turned after a scripture reading. Each turned square reveals an icon of great significance in the unfolding drama of Christ's redemption. Each day something hidden is revealed. Other years we have marked these days with a simple table-top Advent wreath made with mismatched candles. Sometimes even tea candles will do. A candle is lit each night to prophesy the coming light of the Savior.

But this year all our own traditional devices were preempted in mid-November when a friend's gift from Germany arrived. John and Barb Findley, old friends from Wisconsin (who have lived in Germany and now live in Florida) sent us a "house of sweets" to mark the days of Advent. Every day you are to pull out a little box from the larger house. Each box is numbered with a day of the month and each box is filled with a German cookie of some sort. We have found that German cookies are an acquired taste no matter how much chocolate they have been bathed in. But even so, when you mix the longing to see what is hidden with the sweetness of chocolate it is very difficult for a child to forget about "tonight's box!" Mom and dad, of course, intensify the longing by requiring a reading and prayer before each box is opened.

So I am thankful this year for 25 little boxes of Christmas cookies from Germany. I am thankful because they do what our Advent tradition always aims to do: they mock the idols of efficiency and consumerism that do not slumber in our hearts at Christmas time. I am also thankful for the new thing the cookies from Germany do for our family tradition: they sweeten it, literally. The expectation of something sweet has aided our remembering daily worship this year in ways that readings alone have not. Sweetening our family worship time with chocolate and sugar is not an idea that a bibliophile like me would come to naturally. I tend to be suspicious of gimmicks and tricks and treats encroaching on worship. But because I, in every way, am a flawed son of Adam, I am flawed even in my suspicions. In fact, it is easy for me to become suspicious of childhood itself, a darkness that if left untended can keep me from entering the Kingdom of God (see Mark 10:15). So thanks be to God for gifts not wanted nor expected. Which reminds me, get a child you love Eugene Peterson's book, The Christmas Troll. It sweetens the message of Christmas for children in surprising and satisfying ways. Grace and peace, John

What do you think?

2009-12-09T06:23:00.001-08:00

Timothy of Florida
by Anthony Esolen

Well, I was sorry last night to learn that Tim Tebow, unquestionably the most beloved young man in the state of Florida, will not be leading his Gators to a third national championship game. I am breaking with long family tradition in feeling sorry; we are Penn State fans, and adhere to a certain hierarchy of hate, according to which Florida has long been pretty low down on the list -- or near the top, depending on how you want to look at it.

Nevertheless, I am fascinated by the Tim Tebow phenomenon. It is true that he is a talented quarterback, and anybody who brings two national championships home is going to be treated like a prince. But sports allegiances do not come within a hundred miles of explaining why people love him so much. No doubt there are visitors to this site who can fill in the details, but from what I gather (and sports reporters these days are notoriously unwilling to write about such things, as any number of people like Kurt Warner and Albert Pujols will testify), Tebow is the homeschooled son of Christian missionaries. He won't ever be President of the United States, because he was born in the Philippines, where his father still works, and where he himself has gone many times to assist as a missionary. His mother apparently was advised by Filipino doctors to abort him, because the placenta had gotten detached; they told her that the child would certainly die, and that her own life would be in grave danger. I am not sure of the specifics of the medical situation. Suffice it to say that she turned the doctors down and put her life, and her baby's life, in the hands of God. Timothy Tebow was born, rather long of limb and skinny, but healthy. His body shows no signs of ever having been undernourished: he is six feet five inches, upwards of 250 pounds.

It seems that Tim Tebow heard the call of the missionary early on in life; also heard the call to play football. The two callings were united in his childhood hero, Florida quarterback Danny Wuerffel, who went on to play a while in the NFL, and then who established something called Desire Street Ministries, for the destitute (and the often criminal) in New Orleans. Wuerffel, not coincidentally, is a devout Christian. Tebow possesses that drive to excel that characterizes all great athletes, but what distinguishes him is a strange hunger to love others; as if he could not get enough of making people happy. He leads his teammates, or as many of them as are willing to go, on a run roundabout the stadium before a home game, to greet people, shake their hands, wish God's blessings upon them, or just thank them for being there. Men slap him on the back, boys shout, girls cry, "We love you, Timmy!" -- and for all of that, there seems not to be the trace of arrogance in him; he is a big kid, in love with God, and therefore in love with life and people. The fans apparently have taken to imitating his eyeblack: he always wears a patch under his eyes, with a different scripture verse noted upon it each game (Hebrews 12:12 against arch-rival Florida State). There's a great picture of him in what looks like a leather imitation of ancient armor -- he's got a beaming smile, because he's Goliath in a little church production, and a six-year-old boy is about to bring him down.

He says that his four priorities are God, family, academics, and football, in that order. And because they are in that order, while he may not be the greatest football player graduating from college this year, he has certainly touched more lives than any other player has, by far; and not only touched the lives, but brought perhaps something infinitely more valuable than a national championship in football. He has -- I don't think this is an exaggeration -- been the means whereby they have been reminded of the holy; he has therefore brought them hope.

Now this is exactly what the secular world cannot do. It can, with some considerable inefficiency, bring people food and medicine. It can run families into the ground and destroy communities, replacing them with the wraiths called mass education and mass entertainment. It is very good at that. It cannot bring hope; in fact it is almost the definition of secularism, that there is no hope to bring, other than a modest amelioration in one's physical conditions, before death. It does not plunge into the worst of all slums, the dilapidated heart of a man or woman steeped in evil, to say, "You are of incomparable worth; I love you; we are brothers, because we have one Father." That is what Danny Wuerffel does. It is what Tim Tebow will likely go on to do. And note the power of one good young Christian -- who is the light whereby a stadium filled with strangers becomes, for a few fleeting moments, a society.

Why should it not be so? "I praise you, Father in heaven, and give you glory," said Jesus, "for you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned of the world, and have revealed them unto babes." God reveals Himself to the innocent and the humble, not because He is playing a kind of ironical trick upon the learned -- as I used to think. It is because God by His very nature is, though glorious, also innocent and humble. Abraham Joshua Heschel, in Man Is Not Alone, makes the point again and again. The deities of the Greeks were passionate about their status on Olympus, and which nymph to ravish. The Lord is passionate about widows and orphans. The Lord appears to Moses in a thorn bush -- as if to say, "I am in the smallest things." So he appears to Elijah, in the still small voice. That is the Lord's glory. He is everywhere to be found, says Heschel, except in arrogance. Mainly he is to be found in love, for ubi amor est, ibi est oculus, says the mystic Richard of Saint Victor. Mr. Tebow may or may not read such things; it hardly matters. He knows Jesus.

One last point. Thomas Merton wrote once that the history of the world is led by great saints and great sinners. Let all the young people glancing at this post take heed. I am not young anymore, and it has taken me many years just to acquire sufficient wisdom to appreciate, as from afar, the goodness and the saintly courage of that young quarterback. Imagine, just imagine, if there were a hundred such, or a thousand. Imagine young men and women, with the beauty and the ardor of Christian faith, touching a college, a school, a street, a home. Merton recalled World War II and wondered whether -- and he wasn't being arrogant; his point was that all Christians should have wondered the same thing -- it might have been averted if only he [Merton] had been holier. You Christians who are young, never understimate the power of the goodness that Jesus has planted in you, to bring hope to souls in despair, and light into a dark and silly world.

E-note 12/4: Forgiveness

2009-12-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

In my reading this week I came across this gem of wisdom from Norwegian pastor and Lutheran brother, O. Hallesby (now deceased). His comments spring from Galatians 3:3, the apostle Paul's timeless question for all who profess faith in Christ: After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? (Galatians 3:3). Here is O. Hallesby:

We all need this question. There are many Christians who began promisingly, but who have little by little sunk down into a weak, soft, cowardly, and bungling life, with the result that their Christianity is only a shadow, yes, a caricature of what it at one time was. Permit me to mention one of the most important causes of this degeneration of the Christian life. We sin in our daily affairs. It may be that we have a violent temper or that we are peevish, untruthful, or frivolous. Father, mother, spouse, brothers and sisters, children or servants see it. Here is where many Christians have lost their boldness, both before God and people. They do not give up Christianity. That they cannot do. But they become defeated warriors. Unhappy and unmanly or unwomanly. With the pressure of a bad conscience to contend with continually. The wounds of the soul will not heal. True, they confess their sins to God and try to comfort their restless soul with the grace of God. But peace and joy will not return.

The simple and absolutely unfailing remedy for this cancer of the Christian life is this: Pray for forgiveness! I mean ask the people for forgiveness who have witnessed your failures. Tell them that you did not act like a Christian. Tell them how it hurts you. And you will experience the releasing effect of such confession. The fact that it is exceedingly hard for all of us to ask for forgiveness shows how sin has ravaged our lives. We instinctively seem to think that we lose something essential if we ask for forgiveness. Pray God for courage to do this, and you will see how you will succeed in your whole Christian life.

So ends O. Hallesby's wisdom. So begins my self-preserving resistance to the work of the Spirit. I am amazed by how quickly and easily my mind slips into a state of protracted deliberation after reading Hallesby's counsel. I get tangled in questions of propriety: should I ask for forgiveness for that particular thought, for that particular unnoticed negligence, for that arguably justifiable anger, for that obviously small sarcasm or boorishness? But all such hedging is conceit. All such hedging testifies to my looking away from the cross of Calvary where I was crucified with Christ. All such hedging and hiding exposes me as a man who seeks to establish his righteousness by some other way than the way of Christ crucified. To be led by the Spirit is to be lead to the cross, where my right-ness has been gifted to me by Jesus himself. To be led by the Spirit is to be led into relationships where I don't have to establish my right-ness by hiding and hedging my failures. Right-ness is a gift from Christ crucified.

O Lord, save us from the decay of soul and body, the decay of heart and home, the decay of family and friends, that comes from striving to establish our right-ness before one another. We can not do without one another's forgiveness because we can not do without yours. Thank you loving Lord for giving it so abundantly. Amen.

What do you think?

2009-12-01T10:50:00.000-08:00

MANHATTAN DECLARATION

A Summary
Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are (1) the sanctity of human life, (2) the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and (3) the rights of conscience and religious liberty. Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Human Life
The lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are ever more threatened. While public opinion has moved in a pro-life direction, powerful and determined forces are working to expand abortion, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Although the protection of the weak and vulnerable is the first obligation of government, the power of government is today often enlisted in the cause of promoting what Pope John Paul II called “the culture of death.” We pledge to work unceasingly for the equal protection of every innocent human being at every stage of development and in every condition. We will refuse to permit ourselves or our institutions to be implicated in the taking of human life and we will support in every possible way those who, in conscience, take the same stand.

Marriage
The institution of marriage, already wounded by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is at risk of being redefined and thus subverted. Marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all. Where marriage erodes, social pathologies rise. The impulse to redefine marriage is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil law as well as our religious traditions. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. Marriage is not a “social construction,” but is rather an objective reality—the covenantal union of husband and wife—that it is the duty of the law to recognize, honor, and protect.

Religious Liberty
Freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized. The threat to these fundamental principles of justice is evident in efforts to weaken or eliminate conscience protections for healthcare institutions and professionals, and in antidiscrimination statutes that are used as weapons to force religious institutions, charities, businesses, and service providers either to accept (and even facilitate) activities and relationships they judge to be immoral, or go out of business. Attacks on religious liberty are dire threats not only to individuals, but also to the institutions of civil society including families, charities, and religious communities. The health and well-being of such institutions provide an indispensable buffer against the overweening power of government and is essential to the flourishing of every other institution—including government itself—on which society depends.

Unjust Laws
As Christians, we believe in law and we respect the authority of earthly rulers. We count it as a special privilege to live in a democratic society where the moral claims of the law on us are even stronger in virtue of the rights of all citizens to participate in the political process. Yet even in a democratic regime, laws can be unjust. And from the beginning, our faith has taught that civil disobedience is required in the face of gravely unjust laws or laws that purport to require us to do what is unjust or otherwise immoral. Such laws lack the power to bind in conscience because they can claim no authority beyond that of sheer human will.

Therefore, let it be known that we will not comply with any edict that compels us or the institutions we lead to participate in or facilitate abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or any other act that violates the principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family.

Further, let it be known that we will not bend to any rule forcing us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality, marriage, and the family.

Further, let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves.

We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.

What do you think?

2009-11-24T13:01:00.000-08:00

This seems a fitting "What do you think?" post in light of last Sunday's sermon in 1 Samuel 2. The Lord fights against his own ministers when they defile his worship and harm his people. Here it is almost December of 2009 and the Sovereign Lord is still fighting for his loved ones and his glory by exposing the scoundrels who stand to speak for him, this time through the instrument of secular journalism. Thanks Aaron Warner for the heads-up on this.

Did Christianity Cause the Crash?
by Hanna Rosin from The Atlantic, December 2009

Like the ambitions of many immigrants who attend services there, Casa del Padre’s success can be measured by upgrades in real estate. The mostly Latino church, in Charlottesville, Virginia, has moved from the pastor’s basement, where it was founded in 2001, to a rented warehouse across the street from a small mercado five years later, to a middle-class suburban street last year, where the pastor now rents space from a lovely old Baptist church that can’t otherwise fill its pews. Every Sunday, the parishioners drive slowly into the parking lot, never parking on the sidewalk or grass—“because Americanos don’t do that,” one told me—and file quietly into church. Some drive newly leased SUVs, others old work trucks with paint buckets still in the bed. The pastor, Fernando Garay, arrives last and parks in front, his dark-blue Mercedes Benz always freshly washed, the hubcaps polished enough to reflect his wingtips.

It can be hard to get used to how much Garay talks about money in church, one loyal parishioner, Billy Gonzales, told me one recent Sunday on the steps out front. Back in Mexico, Gonzales’s pastor talked only about “Jesus and heaven and being good.” But Garay talks about jobs and houses and making good money, which eventually came to make sense to Gonzales: money is “really important,” and besides, “we love the money in Jesus Christ’s name! Jesus loved money too!” That Sunday, Garay was preaching a variation on his usual theme, about how prosperity and abundance unerringly find true believers. “It doesn’t matter what country you’re from, what degree you have, or what money you have in the bank,” Garay said. “You don’t have to say, ‘God, bless my business. Bless my bank account.’ The blessings will come! The blessings are looking for you! God will take care of you. God will not let you be without a house!”

The rest of the article is here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/rosin-prosperity-gospel?pid=ynews

Weekly E-note 11/20: The Reason for God

2009-11-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Christmas is not too far off and so thinking about the right gift is even nearer. May I suggest one? Pastor Tim Keller's 2008 New York Times bestseller, The Reason for God, would make a substantial Christmas gift this year.

Keller has a unique gift in giving clear and cogent answers to difficult questions skeptics ask about the Christian faith. He is especially gifted in showing religionists of all stripes, even church-going theologically conservative Christians, the vast difference between religion and the gospel of Jesus. Some chapter titles to whet your appetite: There Can't Be Just One True Religion (Ch. 1); Christianity Is a Straightjacket (Ch. 3); Science Has Disproved Christianity (Ch. 6); Religion and the Gospel (Ch. 11). If you are looking for a meaty gift for another Christian or that beloved committed skeptic, this is it. Here's a snippet from chapter 11:

The primary difference [between Religion and Gospel] is that of motivation. In religion, we try to obey the divine standard out of fear. We believe that if we don't obey we are going to lose God's blessing in this world and the next. In the gospel, the motivation is one of gratitude for the blessing we have already received because of Christ. While the moralist is forced into obedience, motivated by fear of rejection, a Christian rushes into obedience, motivated by a desire to please and resemble the one who gave his life for us.

Another difference has to do with our identity and self-regard. In a religious framework, if you feel you are living up to your chosen religious standards, then you feel superior and disdainful toward those who are not following in the true path. This is true whether your religion is of a more liberal variety (in which case you will feel superior to bigots and narrow-minded people) or of a more conservative variety (in which case you will feel superior to the less moral and devout). If you are not living up to your chosen standards, then you will feel far more guilt than if you had stayed away from God and religion altogether.

When my own personal grasp of the gospel was very weak, my self-view swung wildly between two poles. When I was performing up to my standards--in academic work, professional achievement, or relationships--I felt confident but not humble. I was likely to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. When I was not living up to standards, I felt humble but not confident, a failure. I discovered, however, that the gospel contained the resources to build a unique identity. In Christ I could know I was accepted by grace not only despite my flaws, but because I was willing to admit them. The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued and that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less. I don't need to notice myself--how I'm doing, how I'm being regarded--so often" (The Reason for God, 180-81).

The best price I've found online for the paperback edition of The Reason for God is $9.36 at www.monergism.com. Monergism also has great shipping rates. Follow the bookstore link at the top of the page. Grace & peace, John

What do you think?

2009-11-17T08:29:00.000-08:00

The Reality of Hope
by Amy Julia Becker

After she died, it was as if I had broken my arm. A part of me ached all the time, and something that had been functional was now useless, and everything about my daily routine needed to be navigated differently. It was difficult, for instance, to stand in line at the post office or buy groceries or make dinner. Nothing seemed to matter anymore.

I had spent much of the final six months of her life with her, my mother-in-law, my friend: Penny. And once she was gone, I missed her. I missed the Penny I knew when she was healthy- the woman who had enjoyed kick-boxing, who loved ice cream and didn't like cilantro, who had hand-addressed our wedding invitations. I missed the Penny I came to know in the midst of her battle against cancer, who, after surgery, laughed so hard in response to a get-well card that staples holding her wound together were dislodged, who walked around the block in sneakers and a nightgown just to get outside, who held my hand as she slept, who said, "thank you" even at the very end.

Six years later, I don't feel her absence in a visceral way. But, just as a rainy day can draw out the pain of a broken bone, so too the grief returns. When we celebrate Christmas. Or when we bought a new house. Or when my husband told our three-year-old daughter about her namesake and she said, "Hug?" and he replied, "One day. One day you can hug her." My grief doesn't compare to the wounds of parents who see their children suffer, or to those of a husband who loses his wife, a young girl whose father dies. Their grief is more akin to amputation, a permanent and irrevocable loss. And yet witnessing the death of a woman I loved changed me forever. Experiencing the reality of death helped me discover the reality of hope.

Hope is a campaign slogan these days, and an effective one at that. Perhaps it is such a compelling buzzword because it conjures up vaguely positive thoughts of the future, of a time when all the things that are wrong with the world will be undone. Somehow. Someday. But I would argue that this popular notion of hope could be more accurately defined as optimism. It is easy to confuse optimism with hope, but optimism in the face of death is merely a form of denial. Optimism insists that it will all work out here and now, and yet the reality of everyday life demonstrates that this is not so. It will not all work out, at least not until the time of the new heavens and the new earth. For as long as sin exists in this world, people will suffer and die.

When Penny first received her diagnosis - primary liver cancer - we were optimistic. Perhaps surgery would eradicate the disease. Perhaps she would live to know her grandchildren. Perhaps she would retire and travel to Italy again. We thought it might all work out. But then came the pathology report, the news that the cancer had gotten into her bloodstream. Those optimistic thoughts were no longer readily available. Optimism failed.

But hope is not optimism, and neither is it false piety. Once Penny died, it was tempting to ignore the sadness and focus upon the promise of eternal life. It was tempting to bypass grief. But I cringed when someone offered, "I guess God needed another angel in heaven." In thinking only of the future, of heaven, that statement skips over the real loss in the present. It implies that God is needy, snatching people away to fill some cosmic void. It implies that it is acceptable for a fifty-five-year old woman to die a grueling death. Statements about God's purpose in death can be used as a cudgel, a way to berate believers into pretending that the loss is not profound, devastating. "Pie in the sky by and by" is no consolation. False piety skips past grief altogether, and, like optimism, it ultimately fails.

Penny's illness followed the liturgical calendar. Her surgery took place on Ash Wednesday, and she had recovered enough from the operation to return to church on Easter Sunday. Even then, she knew she didn't have long to live. We sang Alleluia that Easter Day. And we wept. As we took the Body and Blood of Christ into our bodies, I was reminded that God suffers with us, that God entered into human suffering on our behalf.

Jesus did not ignore the reality of pain. Rather, he engaged it, even as he knew it would be overcome. He knew, for instance, that he would raise Lazarus from the dead, and yet he mourned. He knew God would be faithful, and yet he shed tears of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. He cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus had hope in the midst of grief, without denying the reality of suffering and loss. His life permits us to forgo false piety and admit that suffering and separation are an offense to God.

And yet, that Easter morning also reminded me that God has triumphed over death. Christian hope hinges on the fact that God has the power to give life to the dead, starting with Jesus, and one day, extending to us all. Hope is a place of tension, tethered between the Cross and the Resurrection, engaging pain and suffering while simultaneously looking ahead to restoration.

In the midst of Penny's illness, I read that the word hope in Hebrew is similar to the word for spider's silk. I also read that spider's silk is stronger than steel, that researchers are hoping to use spider's silk to make lightweight bulletproof vests. I'm not sure the Hebraic etymological connection was intentional, but it provided me with a helpful image: hope as a strand of spider's silk, stretched tight between the pain of the present moment and the promise of a future reunion. Hope is a place between. It is remembering the pain of the Cross and anticipating the reality of the Resurrection. It is an awareness that this world is not yet what it should be, even as God is already at work. Hope is as strong as steel, and as fragile as a thread.

It is our son's first birthday tomorrow. His grandmother will not celebrate with us. I have so many questions for her. Did her firstborn son, my husband, walk early? Did he eat blueberries hand over fist? What was his first word? When did he first sleep through the night?

I hope one day we will sit down together and she will answer my questions. For now, I am sad she is gone. But I am grateful for what her life, and death, taught me. God is present in grief. And God calls us to have a true and living hope, hope that acknowledges all that is wrong with this world, hope that looks ahead to the glory to come.

Amy Julia Becker, a master-of-divinity candidate at Princeton Theological Seminary, is a writer and mother in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Her first book, Penelope Ayers , is a memoir about the experience detailed in this essay.

E-note 11/13: Missions Conference

2009-11-13T08:24:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

"Across the street and around the world." That simple aphorism has shaped our missions vision and missions giving at TBC. We financially support the Town of Thetford food shelf ("across the street") and we support a church planter in Tajikistan ("around the world"). We support the Navigators campus ministry in New England ("across the street") and we support a sweet missionary in Cambodia named Susan ("around the world"). At Pioneers Club each week we share the Word with our neighbors' children ("across the street") and at Thanksgiving we will collect money to send Bibles to Iran ("around the world"). Our gospel vision is both near and far.

We keep this near and far vision not simply for balance, but rather because we ourselves are in a mission field. We ourselves are situated among the nations where Jesus the Lord of the harvest is gathering a harvest of souls. We are not somehow stationed outside the nations. Mission is here, thus it is always near. It is most near on the Lord's Day when the church of Jesus Christ gathers to worship. Word and sacrament are God's most outward and ordinary means of grace and mission. Thus people are actually being saved by Jesus through the worship service and some won't even know it until months or years later. This is true in Thetford and in Moldova and in Tajikistan and wherever God's people gather and worship rightly in Jesus' name. But mission certainly extends beyond the gathering of the saints. The next most obvious venue for local mission is the home. As fathers and mothers call their families to prayer and obedient faith the work of disciple-making continues and deepens. Children are actually being saved by Jesus through family worship and some won't even know it until months or years later. This is true in homes of the Upper Valley and in homes of Moldova and homes of Tajikistan and wherever Christ is head of house.

So why am I telling you all this? To prepare you for our next TBC missions conference. On January 22-24 our missions committee will be offering you and your children a conference you won't want to miss. The conference is specifically designed for families. There will be seminars specifically for children as well as adults. The theme is "Winning the Next Generation." On Friday night (1/22) a meal and opening session on reaching teens in New England will kick things off. Bob Whittet, professor at Gordon College in Wenham, MA, will be our speaker. Bob has spent years ministering in New England. He will speak directly to the gospel as it intersects youth culture in New England. On Saturday morning (1/23) we will hear from Michayla Best. Michayla is a Children's Mission Specialist with Operation Mobilization. Michayla will direct our attention to international families. She will also lead one of the seminars just for children. Then on Sunday (1/24) Bob Whittet will give the morning sermon as the conference closes. There is more to tell but that gives you the big picture. As you can see we framed the conference around our "across the street and around the world" vision for the gospel. Please save the dates and spread the word. Yours in Christ, John

What do you think?

2009-11-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

Marching To Zion

by Michael S. Horton. Horton is professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California), host of the White Horse Inn, national radio broadcast, and editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation magazine. He is author of many books, including The Gospel-Driven Life, Christless Christianity, People and Place, Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology, and Too Good to be True: Finding Hope in a World of Hype.

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On a cold November day in 1095, Pope Urban II roused the great crowd assembled before him to take up the cause of holy war against Islam. Instead of fighting each other, the people were told to unite against the common enemy and retake the Holy Land. "If you must have blood," he exhorted, "bathe in the blood of infidels." Substituting itself for its ascended Lord, the church assimilated a civilization to that ecclesial body. The church father Eusebius declared that it was from Christ and by Christ that "our divinely favored emperor [Constantine], receiving, as it were, a transcript of the divine sovereignty, directs, in imitation of God himself, the administration of this world's affairs." Included in this, says Eusebius, is that the emperor "subdues and chastens the open adversaries of the truth in accordance with the usages of war."

Though less violent, many Christians in America still demand visible symbols of Christianity in the culture. Ironically, many Christians today who decry the legacy of "Christendom" nevertheless confuse the advance of Christ's kingdom of grace with the common activity of Christians working alongside their neighbors in culture. While we may still tolerate the ordinary means of grace, we grow impatient with this apparently meager visibility of Christ's reign in this present age. Across the political spectrum, many proclaim that Christ's kingdom is advanced not by proclaiming the forgiveness of sins in Christ's name so much as by cultural transformation. We seem to hear less today about Christ's unique person and work than we do about us and our mission of "incarnating," "redeeming," and "reconciling."

Misunderstanding the March: Replacing Jesus
Where did Jesus go after he accomplished our redemption? And how did the church--and allegedly Christian empires--come to think that they could keep his seat warm until he returned in power and glory to reign on the earth? The disciples themselves missed the point of Jesus' journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. They expected Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem to be the victory celebration and that they would sit at his side for the inaugural ball. He had prepared them for his departure in the Upper Room, as he explained how his ascension to the Father meant that the Spirit would descend to dispense the gifts of his victory. Even after the resurrection, when he explained how all the Scriptures pointed to his saving work, they were not ready for his ascension. Just before this momentous event, they still asked, "Lord, now are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6, emphasis added). They were still thinking about a kingdom of earthly power here and now, not a kingdom of grace. They were ready for the ax to fall, for the sheep to be separated from the goats, and for fire to consume the enemies of God. Instead, they were told to go throughout the world preaching the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ until he returns at the end of the age. As they stood gazing at the ascending Lord, the disciples were told by two angels, "'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven'" (vv. 10-11).

Refusing to be located in the time between the times, the church often substitutes itself for its absent Lord. Just compare the pomp and circumstance with which Memorial Day and Independence Day are celebrated in churches across America with the relative obscurity of Ascension Day. Nobody expects The New York Times to celebrate Christ's victory over sin and death each week, but why should the church give the impression that there is something more important and more impressive to focus on than this report?

Obviously, a cure for AIDS would grab the front-page headline for weeks on end. We would all dance in the streets. Right now, there are Christians working alongside non-Christians in labs and on the field to try to achieve that success. In our common callings, we are not ushering in Christ's kingdom of glory and power, but sharing with non-Christians in temporal blessings and woes and loving our neighbors through the gifts we have been given by God's common and saving grace. Only the church, however, is commissioned as Christ's agency to announce each week that the whole kingdom of Satan has been toppled forever; that we are now in the hand-to-hand combat phase of ferreting out guerilla strongholds that have not yet yielded to the truth of their defeat, and awaiting the return of the King for the last battle. The end of all disease, poverty, oppression, violence, disaster, idolatry, and sin is at hand. Which is more powerful: the announcement of God's work or the calls to our work? Once we realize that the gospel is the power of God for salvation, our action becomes a "reasonable service." If our service is front and center, however, the church may easily (wittingly or unwittingly) proclaim itself as the Messiah.

Knowing What Time It Is
We still have trouble knowing what time it is or what kind of kingdom Christ has inaugurated. If we are still thinking in terms of a fully consummated kingdom of glory and power present now in the world, whether as the church or as Christian movements, then the gospel will be considered foolish and the divinely prescribed methods of delivery (preaching and Sacrament) will be judged too weak to really grab the world's attention. The challenge for us, as for the first disciples, is to believe in a kingdom of grace and await the arrival of the kingdom of glory.

When an agnostic creates a cure for a terrible disease, we neither reject this gift of God's common grace nor imagine that he or she is advancing Christ's kingdom. It was not simply to believers but to all human beings that God gave the commission, "Be fruitful and multiply," as his stewards of the earth. God preserved and protected Cain, the idolater and murderer, because he wanted the secular city to continue.

The Great Commission, however, is not the cultural mandate, and the kingdom of Christ cannot be identified with any of the kingdoms of this age. Like the exiles in Babylon, New Testament believers are called to participate in the common life of their captive city, while remaining "exiles" and "sojourners" in their hearts. We share the travails and joys of the secular city, while witnessing to the greater judgment and salvation found in Zion. If we could resolve our top ten crises in the world today, we would still have the devil on our back, sin mastering our heart, and everlasting death as the penalty for our mutiny. Do we really believe that our greatest crisis is the wrath of God and our greatest solution is the death and resurrection of Christ?

As a minister, I am called regularly by God to make a political speech--a deeply partisan political speech. However, it is not to rally the troops in defense of Christendom against the infidels of various sorts. It divides not between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, but between Christ and Antichrist. As heralds and ambassadors of the age to come, we are given the commission to go into all the world with the announcement that Jesus Christ is Lord and King, the only Sovereign who holds the keys of death and hell--who opens and no one can shut, who shuts and no one can open. It is he alone who will rid the world of evil by his wisdom and might, subduing chaos, and leading his own into the place that even now he is preparing for them.

In this covenantal gathering, the cross is raised, not as a cultural symbol but as the proclamation of Christ crucified for sinners. Our role is not to represent Western civilization, democracy, or the free world, nor to oppose these systems, but to announce and to exhibit--however imperfectly--the triumph of Christ's weak kingdom over the powerful kingdoms of this age. For now, we pray for secular rulers, pay our taxes, and fulfill our callings together with our non-Christian neighbors and citizens. As Calvin pointed out, the distinction between the "two kingdoms" does not mean that Christ is not king already, but that for now he rules both kingdoms in different ways. The kingdom of God advances by Word and Spirit, while the kingdoms of this age progress or decline according to the light of God's moral law inscribed on the conscience in creation and the Spirit's work in common grace. The cities of this age rise to the heavens in pride, but the City of God--the New Jerusalem that is coming down out of heaven as a bride prepared for her husband--alone promises and gives true liberty to its sons and daughters beyond the ultimate triumph of death and hell. We witness to the ascended King who will return again to judge the living and the dead and to reign forever.

From Royal March to Enthronement (Psalm 68)
Unlike the first Adam, who led creation on a detour in the thanksgiving parade from its appointed path, this Servant of the Lord finally fulfilled our human destiny. Psalm 68 records a royal march of Israel, foreshadowing the faithful Servant, Jesus Christ. The psalm begins with the battle cry, "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered!" (vv. 1-3). As Jewish scholar Jon Levenson observes, Zion represents the eschatological destination of the people of God, a mountain that rises far above the failures of the human partner in the covenant and exists by God's grace. Psalm 68, then, "records a march of YHWH from Sinai, a military campaign in which the God of Israel and his retinue...set out across the desert."

As important as Sinai is in the march, it lies midway between Egypt and the earthly Zion: Canaan. The focus shifts from Sinai to Zion, for example, in Psalm 97 (cf. Ps. 68:8-9; Deut. 33:2; Ps. 50:2-3).

The transfer of the motif from Sinai to Zion was complete and irreversible, so that YHWH came to be designated no longer as "the One of Sinai," but as "he who dwells on Mount Zion" (Isa. 8:18)....The transfer of the divine home from Sinai to Zion meant that God was no longer seen as dwelling in an extraterritorial no man's land, but within the borders of the Israelite community.

And in the Zion traditions, Levenson comments, "there will emerge something almost unthinkable in the case of Sinai"--an unconditional divine oath that God himself, above all the vicissitudes of human disobedience, will somehow arise and scatter his enemies and save his people. So Zion takes on a cosmic, universal role that Sinai never did. "Not only Jerusalem and the land of Israel, but even the people of Israel can be designated as Zion," as in Isaiah 51:16 and Zechariah 2:11.

Leading captivity captive, ascending, giving gifts to and receiving gifts from even his enemies, crushing the head of the serpent, and dwelling forever in Zion (Ps. 68:19-23), this is the King who "daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation," from whom alone we receive "escape from death." Although Levenson interprets Psalm 68 as a march from Sinai to Zion, echoing the trial of Adam from commission to consummation--and even points out the failure common to both--he concludes that Zion is finally absorbed into Sinai within Judaism. The ascent of Mount Zion, he suggests, is an allegory for "the ethical ascent of man." Levenson even recognizes that this is where Christianity and Judaism part ways: Where the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70 transfers Jewish atonement from the earthly Zion to the inner hearts of the faithful, the New Testament announces that Christ is the true Temple and those who believe in him are his living stones.

From his victory on the mountain of Golgotha to his ascension to the true heavenly Zion and enthronement as the King of kings and Lord of lords, Yahweh leads captivity captive. This is already anticipated at various points in Jesus' ministry. The return of the Seventy in Luke 10 anticipates the victory march. Jesus pronounces the "woes"--the covenant curses--upon the enemies of his kingdom, including Israel's religious leaders, while the Seventy return with joy, breathlessly reporting to their Lord, "Even the demons are subject to us in your name." And Jesus said to them,

I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.

As the Captain of salvation, Jesus Christ in his earthly ministry marched from Sinai to Zion, leading captivity captive. Resisting the way of glory falsely promised by Satan in the temptation, Jesus went the way of the cross, marching all the way to the gates of hell to crush the serpent's head and to throw open the prisoner's doors. Psalm 68 ends with the arrival of the military procession--drawn from Israel and the nations--into the sanctuary of the Great King who has ascended in triumph. In his Upper Room discourse (John 14-16), Jesus prepared the disciples for his departure. He would be crucified, buried, and then rise again on the third day. Then he would ascend, both to send the Spirit from his throne and to prepare a place for us.

In the meantime, on the basis of his victory ("All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me"), he commissions them to "go into all the world," proclaiming, teaching, and baptizing. In his covenant with Abram, God promised that in him and his heir (Jesus Christ) all the nations of the earth will be blessed. This hope was kept alive by the prophets. Even in the process of pressing God's charges against Israel for violating the Sinai covenant, they prophesied the day when God himself would descend and build a highway from Jerusalem to Egypt, Assyria, and all nations. A remnant from all peoples would be gathered into the royal march of the Great King, not to an earthly mountain and temple but to the heavenly reality that the earthly Jerusalem only prefigured.

The Conquering King Ascends
Christ's ascension opened up a fissure in history, locating the church in the precarious collision of the two ages: this age of sin and death, and the age to come. It is easy in the absence of Christ's visible reign in the flesh on the earth to substitute ourselves or the church. What we are doing right now on earth becomes the front-page news. However, we miss the whole point if we fail to see that it is still what Jesus is doing that is the big news. He ascended to heaven in order to rule and subdue history to his gracious and holy designs, to dispatch his Spirit to sweep sinners into his victory parade, and to spread his kingdom of peace to the ends of the earth. This may not capture the world's headlines. In fact, Peter describes these last days as an era in which scoffers mock, "Where is the promise of his coming?" After all, it seems as if "all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation" (2 Pet. 3:4). Nevertheless, as Peter goes on to relate, this era of apparent weakness for God's kingdom is actually due to God's patience. His energetic activity may not be seen in the daily press, but it is reaping a harvest of redeemed sinners from the ends of the earth.

In Ephesians 4, we--the new covenant believers--get swept up into this victory march. Just as the dragon's tail swept a third of the angels from heaven in his fall in Revelation 12, the Savior's ascension sweeps into his wake a remnant from every tribe and tongue on earth. However, this triumphant march is not like the holy wars of the Old Testament. Christ does not call his people today to drive the serpent's emissaries out of a supposedly holy land or to rule over them by the temporal sword. He came to crush the serpent's head himself. In this contest, Jesus must fight alone. No one but Jesus hung on that cross, bearing the weight of the world's sins. Nevertheless, his resurrection draws innumerable captives into his train. He reigns as victor for us in heaven, while we bring news of his victory to the earth. The world does not welcome this news any more after his resurrection than when he first arrived. The announcement of good news provokes the rage of the dragon; and although he knows that he has lost the war with the seed of the woman, he spends his last days in pursuit of his co-heirs.

Ephesians 4:1-6 records a march as believers "walk in unity." As he writes this Epistle, Paul himself is under house arrest in Rome, "the prisoner of the Lord." Even in prison, he is not the captive of Satan or Caesar; he is the Lord's prisoner and under his reign. Despite their intentions, the devil and his ambassadors are actually serving the Lord's reign through Paul's ministry. He calls the Ephesians to "walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (vv. 1-2). This exhortation stands in sharp contrast to the old covenant command to eliminate the serpent and his seed from God's holy land by the sword. Yet it also stands in contrast to the complaining, backbiting, and attempted mutiny against Moses' leadership exhibited by the Israelites on their march through the desert.

Having been raised from spiritual death and seated with Christ (Eph. 2:1-6), saved by grace alone through faith alone (vv. 6-8), believers are predestined to walk in good works together toward their destination (v. 10). With the two hands of Word and Spirit, the King creates a body of which he is the head. That unity is already lodged in God's election, redemption, calling, and sealing elaborated in Ephesians 1. We must be "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4:2). Yet the preservation of this unity depends ultimately on its source. In other words, we cannot drum up this unity by our own resources. It cannot be enforced. The imperative to preserve this unity depends always on the indicative fact that we are united by Christ and his gospel. "There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call--one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Eph. 4:4-6).

Notice what is not included here: one universal pastor or form of church government, one movement, one program, or one experience. Longing for a more visible security than the gospel we hear proclaimed, we are easily misled into thinking that if we could only unite behind a pope or a charismatic leader or a revival or social program, we could really know who is in and who is out. At last there would be true unity. Doctrine only gets in the way. Let's just love Jesus and transform the world.

However, we are directed here to find our unity precisely in the doctrine: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." If you want to find the "one body" and "one Spirit," you must look for the place where Christ is proclaimed in Word and Sacrament. The King not only saves, he preserves the body that he has saved through his current gift-giving reign.

We are one in Christ (Eph. 1-3); therefore, let us walk together according to this high calling. Our Conquering King will not keep the spoils of victory all to himself. As he lived for us, died for us, and rose for us, so he rules for us in heaven until all of his enemies and ours are defeated.

Far from establishing a clericalism that excludes laypeople from Christ's gifts, the ministry of Word and Sacrament that Paul highlights in Ephesians 4 is the means through which Christ distributes them for the completion and maturity of the whole body in the gospel. Ironically, many Christians today as in the past imagine that the Scriptures offer a blueprint for transforming the kingdoms of this age, while claiming that the Bible is relatively silent on the doctrine or at least on the worship and government that Christ has instituted for his church. The reverse, however, is the case in the New Testament. The doctrines and imperatives for godly living are clearly revealed. Through the apostles, Jesus has given clear instructions on the proper ministry of his Word and Sacraments as well as the offices in the church and their qualifications. Yet beyond the call to diligence and loving service in our secular callings, the Scriptures do not offer Christians a blueprint for economic development, civil legislation, social progress, and political stability. As "salt" and "light," Christians make a difference in all sorts of ways in varying degrees, but salt is a preservative not a savior.

"The secular" is not a place, but a time. It is not a period in which Christ is absent, much less a supposedly neutral space to which he is barred access. The term saeculum, apparently coined by Augustine, simply means "of the age." While the Greeks divided reality into "this world" of shadowy appearances (the physical realm) and the "other world" of true reality (the spiritual realm), Jesus and Paul divided reality into "this age" and "the age to come." Biblical eschatology knows nothing of a salvation from the realm of time, space, and matter, but only of the salvation of the whole creation at the end of the age. So the question is not whether Christ is now Lord of the whole earth, in all of its spheres, or whether the creation itself will be renewed. Rather, it is a question of timing. As Paul teaches in Romans 8, we have already been justified--no longer condemned, we have been renewed definitively by the Spirit who indwells us. Yet we wait patiently for Christ's return, when the children of God will be raised immortal and the whole creation will share in the triumph of God's everlasting Sabbath. In between these two advents of Christ, we live not in the shadows but in the tension between this present age, dominated by the powers and principalities of sin and death, and the age to come, ruled by the power, righteousness, peace, justice, and grace of our triune God.

Joining the throng of pilgrims to Zion, away from the thrall of Vanity Fair, we testify to the world that there is something greater, richer, deeper, and fuller than our best life now. Through preaching and Sacrament, the Spirit brings the "solid joys and lasting treasures" of the age to come into this present age that is passing away. By caring sacrificially for brothers and sisters who are overlooked by the regents of this passing age, and belonging to a communion of saints that defies the natural, cultural, or political affinities of the temporal city, we already indwell a new creation that will be consummated when Christ returns. In our common prayer, songs, and service, we point ourselves and our neighbors to another King who makes his subjects co-heirs and fellow children of the Father. And in our common witness, we become God's means of gathering strangers to the Sabbath feast. Then, as we are scattered into the world as "salt" and "light," we pursue our callings as parents, children, volunteers, citizens, Little League coaches, employees and employers with the assurance that our primary citizenship is in Zion.

So now we have Christ's answer to his disciples when they asked at his ascension, "Now are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" Right at the moment they ask this, Jesus leaves. But where does he go? He goes to heaven to claim the prize of his victory--not only for himself but for us. And he sends his Spirit to lead the ground campaign of grace.

In this present phase, we are neither merely waiting for Christ to establish his kingdom nor building his kingdom of power and glory through our own impressive campaigns. Rather, we are recipients and heralds of his victory and his heavenly reign at the Father's right hand. We live now as those who have already been justified and transferred from the tyranny of Satan and sin to the liberating reign of Christ and the age to come. In the ministry of Word and Sacrament, in the fellowship of the saints that transcends earthly divisions and demographics, in the diaconal care for those in need, and in its mission to the world, the church testifies that Christ is already Lord and will consummate his kingdom when he returns. Just as Daniel prophesied, this Kingdom of David's greater son endures from generation to generation and brings the liberated captives into the everlasting rest. There is only one kingdom that cannot be shaken. "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and awe" (Heb. 12:28).

E-note 11/5: The Death of Arrogance

2009-11-05T11:59:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This week as I prepared the first sermon of a new series in 1 Samuel, I became painfully aware of the destructive power of arrogance. The first sounds of arrogance in 1 Samuel come in chapter one from the very fertile Penninah who has many sons and daughters. In her arrogance she verbally harasses Hannah for being infertile. What is arrogance? Arrogance is the wickedly happy belief that you have come to the good place you have come to on your own wits or strength. In whatever way you are special you got that way without God. That is the presumption of arrogance. It is not arrogant to be pregnant. It is arrogant to boast in one's fertility and not God's goodness. It is not arrogant to have morally upright children. It is arrogant to boast in one's morally upright children and not God's mercy. It is not arrogant to know the Bible well. It is arrogant to boast in one's knowledge and not God's illumination. Arrogant people have something and they think they gave it to themselves. You can be geographically arrogant: "I'm from a special place and you are not." You can be intellectually arrogant: "I know stuff and you do not." You can be financially arrogant: "I have earned this much and you have not." Everybody is from somewhere and everybody knows something and everybody has more than somebody but the arrogant only thank themselves for it.

What does God think about arrogance? God hates it. I'm sure that is no surprise. But this might be: God is going to wipe the arrogant from the face of the earth. Later in 1 Samuel the arrogance of King Saul is described as "arrogance like the evil of idolatry." Arrogance makes you a rival with God. Arrogance is the folly of self-deification that leads to self-worship, thus an evil that God can leave no quarter upon the earth.

The arrogant will never stand in the presence of God (Psalm 5:5). This is what makes the coupling of two realities, "gospel and arrogance," so different than the coupling of another two realities, "the world and arrogance." In the coupling of "gospel and arrogance" there is no tolerating arrogance. Every shade of arrogance is expiated in Christ crucified. In the coupling of "the world and arrogance" arrogance still remains under a host of social concessions. Because the world is left to work on arrogance alone, the world never actually succeeds in killing arrogance off. The world knows it is impossible to put an end to arrogance so a host of malleable social compromises are made: it is okay to be a little arrogant as long as you don't hurt someone or as long as you have done something more significant than the rest of us, like writing a book or winning the superbowl or getting an A+ or having your own radio/television program or being a smart aleck who cleverly marginalizes "our" political opponents with words. So the world erects limits and boundaries to tame arrogance. In short, the world uses Law to deal with arrogance. But God uses Gospel. Only the Gospel allows us to expose all arrogance to the light, not just the versions that hurt others, but even the versions that make us laugh (sarcasm) or the versions that we admire (athletic arrogance) or the versions that we covet (financial arrogance). Why does the Gospel allow light to be thrown on all gradients of arrogance? Because in the Gospel we have the only way to condemn all arrogance and still live; even more, still be loved. The world scrimps on arrogance because to hate every last drop of it, like God does, would be self-condemning. But in Christ we can hate it all because in Christ crucified our sin has been justly condemned before God and we have been graciously accepted.

Does that mean it is now okay for a Christian to be arrogant? No. May it never be. The Christian alone has every reason not to be arrogant. Only the Christian knows that arrogance will never see a day in the new creation that has already begun with the resurrection of Jesus. So the Christian can hate all the arrogance he finds in himself without self-condemnation. Those of the world, using the law, can never sufficiently hate all arrogance because of self-condemnation. In the Christian arrogance is put to death (mortified) by faith. Not by faith in the rules and hedges and compromises against arrogance. But by faith in the Son of God who graciously put arrogance to death in his own flesh and blood. The Christian is now allowed to believe the whole truth about arrogance - its diabolical wickedness and its radical remedy in death - and as the Christian practices this believing, this Gospel-receiving, at each showing of arrogance then the Spirit of the Most High God cuts away and creates a new heart. Arrogance is not a mild social nuisance. It is an evil that is only challenged and corrected in Christ crucified, the one and only God. Yours in Christ, John

What do you think?

2009-11-03T13:20:00.000-08:00

Collision: Is Religion Absurd or Good for the World
First published in the Huffington Post, 10/20/2009

Last fall, we went on tour debating the topic “Is Religion Good For The World?” Our arguments were captured on film for a new documentary, Collision. Are our morals dictated to us by a supreme entity or do discoveries made by science and reason, make Atheism a natural conclusion? You decide.

Religion Is Absurd
by Christopher Hitchens
Religion will always retain a certain tattered prestige because it was our first attempt as a species to make sense of the cosmos and of our own nature, and because it continues to ask "why". Its incurable disability, however, lies in its insistence that the answer to that question can be determined with certainty on the basis of revelation and faith.

We do not know, though we may assume, that our pre-homo sapiens ancestors (the erectus, the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals, with whom we have a traceable kinship as we do with other surviving primates) had deities that they sought to propitiate. Alas, no religion of which we are now aware has ever taken their existence into account, or indeed made any allowance for the tens and probably hundreds of thousands of years of the human story. Instead, we are asked to believe that the essential problem was solved about two-to-three thousand years ago, by various serial appearances of divine intervention and guidance in remote and primitive parts of what is now (at least to Westerners) the Middle East.

This absurd belief would not even deserve to be called quixotic if it had not inspired masterpieces of art and music and architecture as well as the most appalling atrocities and depredations. The great cultural question before us is therefore this: can we manage to preserve what is numinous and transcendent and ecstatic without giving any more room to the superstitious and the supernatural. (For example, can one treasure and appreciate the Parthenon, say, while recognizing that the religious cult that gave rise to it is dead, and was in many ways sinister and cruel?) A related question is: can we be moral and ethical in our thoughts and actions without the servile idea that our morals are dictated to us by a supreme entity?

I believe that the answer to both of these questions is in the affirmative. Tremendous and beautiful things have been achieved by science and reason, from the Hubble telescope to the sequencing of the DNA of obscure viruses. All of these attainments have tended to remind us, however, that we are an animal species inhabiting a rather remote and tiny suburb of an unimaginably large universe. However, this sobering finding -- and it is a finding -- is no reason to assume that we do not have duties to one another, to other species, and to the biosphere. It may even be easier to draw these moral conclusions once we are free of the egotistic notion that we are somehow the centre of the process, or objects of a creation or a "design". Dostoevsky said that without belief in god men would be capable of anything: surely we know by now that the belief in a divine order, and in divine orders, is an even greater license to act as if normal restraints were non-existent?

If Moses and Jesus and Mohammed had never existed -- let alone Joseph Smith or Mary Baker Eddy or Kim Jong Il or any of the other man-made prophets or idols -- we would still be faced with precisely the same questions about how to explain ourselves and our lives, how to think about the just city, and how to comport ourselves with our fellow-creatures. The small progress we have made so far, from the basic realization that diseases are not punishments to the noble idea that as humans we may even have "rights", is due to the exercise of skepticism and doubt, and to the objective scrutiny of hard evidence, and not at all to faith or certainty. The real "transcendence", then, is the one that allows us to shake off the notion of a never-dying tyrannical father-figure, with its unconsoling illusion of redemption by human sacrifice, and assume our proper proportion as people condemned to be free, and able to outgrow the fearful tutelage of a supreme supervisor who does not forgive us the errors he has programmed us to make.
***
Atheists Suck at Being Atheists
by Pastor Douglas Wilson
From the perspective of a Christian, the refusal of an atheist to be a Christian is dismaying, but it is at least intelligible. But what is really disconcerting is the failure of atheists to be atheists. That is the thing that cries out for further exploration.

We can understand a cook who sets out to prepare a reduction sauce, having it simmer on the stove for three days. But what we shouldn't get is the announcement afterwards that he has prepared us a soufflé. The atheistic worldview is nothing if not inherently reductionistic, whether this is admitted or not. Everything that happens is a chance-driven rattle-jattle jumble in the great concourse of atoms that we call time. Time and chance acting on matter have brought about, in equally aimless fashion, the 1927 New York Yankees, yesterday's foam on a New Jersey beach, Princess Di, the arrangement of pebbles on the back side of the moon, the music of John Cage, the Fourth Crusade, and the current gaggle representing us all in Congress.

If the universe actually is what the materialistic atheist claims it is, then certain things follow from that presupposition. The argument is simple to follow, and is frequently accepted by the sophomore presidents of atheist/agnostic clubs at a university near you, but it is rare for a well-published atheistic leader to acknowledge the force of the argument. To acknowledge openly the corrosive relativism that atheism necessarily entails would do nothing but get the chimps jumping in the red states. To swallow the reduction would present serious public relations problems, and drive Fox News ratings up even further. Who needs that?

So if the universe is what the atheist maintains it is, then this determines what sort of account we must give for the nature of everything -- and this includes the atheist's thought processes, ethical convictions, and aesthetic appreciations. If you were to shake up two bottles of pop and place them on a table to fizz over, you could not fill up an auditorium with people who came to watch them debate. This is because they are not debating; they are just fizzing. If you were to shake up one bottle of pop, and show it film footage of some genocidal atrocity, the reaction you would get is not moral outrage, but rather more fizzing. And if you were to shake it really hard by means of art school, and place it in front of Michelangelo's David, or the Rose Window of Chartres Cathedral, the results would not really be aesthetic appreciation, but more fizzing still.

If the atheist is right, then I am not a Christian because I have mistaken beliefs, but am rather a Christian because that is what these chemicals would always do in this arrangement and at this temperature. The problem is that this atheistic assumption does the very same thing to the atheist's case for atheism. The atheist gives us an account of all things which makes it impossible for us to believe that any account of all things could possibly be true. But no account of things can be tenable unless it provides us with the preconditions that make it possible for our "accounting" to represent genuine insight. Atheism fails to do this, and the failure is a spectacular one. Nor does atheism allow us to have any fixed ethical standard, or the possibility of beauty.

It does no good to appeal to the discoveries made by science and reason, for one of the things that reason has apparently brought us is atheism. Right? And not content to let sleeping dogs lie, reason also brings us the inexorable consequences of atheism, which includes the unpalatable but necessary conclusion that random neuron firings do not amount to any "truth" that corresponds to anything outside our heads. This, ironically enough, includes atheism, and so we find ourselves falling out of the tree, saw in one hand and branch in the other.

Contrast this with the Christian gospel -- God the Father is the Maker of heaven and earth. He sent His Son to be born one of us; this Son died on gibbet for our sins, as the ultimate and final human sacrifice, and He rose from the dead on the third day following. Having ascended into Heaven and taken His place at the right hand of His Father, He sent His Holy Spirit into the world in order to transform it, a process that is still ongoing. Now obviously, this is a message that can be believed or disbelieved. But the reason for mentioning it here includes the important point that such a set of convictions makes it possible for us to believe that reason can be trusted, that goodness does not change with the evolutionary times, and that beauty is grounded in the very heart of God. Someone who believes these things doesn't believe that we are just fizzing.

You can deny that this God exists, of course, and you can throw the whole cosmos into that pan of reduction sauce. And you can keep the heat on by publishing one atheist missive after another. But what you should not be allowed to do is cook the whole thing bone dry and call the crust on the bottom an example of the numinous or transcendent. Calling it that provides us with no reason to believe it -- and numerous reasons not to.

E-note 10/31: Law & Gospel

2009-10-31T07:08:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Today is a day worthy of great commemoration. On this day, October 31, in the year 1517, a 33 year-old catholic monk named Martin Luther posted 95 theses on the church door at Wittenberg, Germany. Apparently the church door was something of a community bulletin board for church and academic functions. Luther's theses were a call for a "disputation on the power and efficacy of indulgences out of love and zeal for truth and the desire to bring it to light." Luther was a monk, a priest and a professor of biblical theology. He was also a reformer, reforming the Church according to the Word of God, reforming it from within the one holy catholic church.

Among the many things greatly clarified through Luther's arduous work over the ensuing years was the distinction between Law and Gospel. The Law is a message of commands. The Law says, "Do this and live." The Gospel, however, is a message of comfort. The Gospel says, "Christ is crucified. Believe this and live." Both Law and Gospel are essential and necessary to the salvation of man, but when rightly understood the Law is recognized as having no power to change the heart. The Law can not convert the soul. The Law does not make a man love God. The Law exposes man as desperately naked before Almighty God, but it does not cloth him. As Paul put it, "the letter kills" (2 Cor. 3:6). Only the Gospel converts. Only the Gospel creates love for God in the heart of man. Only the Gospel clothes the sinner in the righteousness God requires. As Paul put it, "the Spirit gives life" as one hears and believes the Gospel.

For example, to simply tell the world: "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul and mind" is to preach only the Law. The command to "love God" is not the Gospel. Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to slip into a version of conversation with our neighbors and family that leads them think "Love God" is the full message of Christianity. But it is Law - glorious and holy and good Law - but Law nonetheless and it will not bring anyone into Life. No man can love God rightly and claim salvation for doing so. The Gospel is that God first loves us and demonstrates that love to us in Christ crucified, crucified for us while we were still lawbreakers (Deut. 7:7-8; Rom. 5:8). As Ralph Erksine poetically put it: "The law supposing I have all / Does ever for perfection call / The gospel suits my total want / And all the law can seek does grant.

So what good is the Law. Much. Much more than we can tell in this short space. Though the Law (“do this”) must be kept distinct from Gospel (“it is done”), it must not be kept away from the Christian. The Law, with its sting now removed through Christ, guides us into holiness showing us our continued need to live by faith in Jesus at every point of our weakness. Everywhere the law commands me I am weakened unless I hear the Gospel say, "In Christ you are already accepted." Now I can rise and respond to God's commands in love, not water them down or avoid them -- two classic fear-responses toward the Law. Being responsive to the Law, delighting in it (Psalm 1), is living by faith in the Son of God, it is life in and by the Spirit who moves me into the holy heart of God because I am loved deeply. So the Spirit does not lead us into a version of holiness different from that envisioned by the Law. Thus God’s good Law remains a guide for the Christian who breathes the air of the Gospel. Erksine again: "The law could promise life to me / If my obedience perfect be / But grace does promise life upon / My Lord's obedience alone."

Yours in Christ, John

What do you think?

2009-10-26T08:47:00.000-07:00

The Last Green Thing in the World
by Anthony Esolen

At lunch the other day, a young adjunct in my department, whom I was meeting for the first time, said a few things that showed a remarkable insight into the loneliness of modern life. He reminded me that C. S. Lewis had noted that in the late Middle Ages, after the climate had gone bad, people fantasized about food -- almost, you might say, pornographically. Certainly in a bawdy poem like The Land of Cockaygne there’s more voluptuous fascination expended upon roast geese flying through the air, and things like that, than upon nuns and monks ready to go at it. But it is hard to find, in all of medieval literature, a reference to someone’s being lonely. Life was too full of the proximate bodiliness of other people. Besides, even in bad times, you had your family, your neighbors, your guild, and your church.

My companion said that he thought that the emphasis upon sex in our own time is a function of our alienation, one from another. He didn't know it perhaps, but he was picking up on something that Josef Pieper said about eros in Faith, Hope, Love. Pieper, like Gabriel Marcel and Romano Guardini, decried the regimentation and institutionalization of modern life; its substitution of the weekend and the vacation for the holiday; its hatred both of solitude and of community, giving us instead the loneliness and anonymity of the crowd, the functionality of the workplace, and the false celebration of the debauch. Pieper said that in such a world, man will inevitably look to eros as “the last green thing,” the last hope for truly human contact. Strangely enough, we were then joined by another member of my department, an observant but politically liberal Jew, who got to talking about Aristophanes, and how in The Acharnians the playwright sets up sex -- the pleasure of my own body -- as the last frontier not conquered by state control.

He was wrong, I think, in his interpretation of the play, but that he would draw that conclusion is illuminating. We Christians cannot believe that our bodies are our own, to dispose of as we see fit; that is the recipe not simply for a pagan culture, but for no culture at all. Yet perhaps we underestimate the terrible loneliness of our fellow men and women, and their need -- an aching need, which they do not know how to fulfill -- to have something like a free and genuine human relationship, one that is not ruled by the punch-clock, the alarm, the memorandum, the bell, or the check in the mail. From our opponents’ point of view, whether they express matters this way or not, life has left them nothing of their own but the body; and then when the Christians come to them and say, “Your body is not your own, either,” it sounds like a knell for despair.

What it is instead, or what it ought to be, is an invitation to leave the world of blacktopped souls and concrete hearts, to enter a garden full of green things. For eros, as Lewis pointed out in The Four Loves, cannot bear the weight we heap upon it. It cannot be our god, without becoming our disappointing jailor; and what we lose first, when we elevate it to divinity, is eros itself. We need to say to our fellows, “Come join us at the feast! What you are seeking by those means, you will not find. Here in the garden of obedience you will find the human loves you long for, and you will meet eros in the bargain, whose arrows here are keen, and hit the mark.” For the love of Christ, not eros, is the last green thing in the world, and in Him we find not only what we seek, but the very power to seek anything good at all.

What do you think?

2009-10-22T10:13:00.000-07:00

From The Confessional Outhouse (confessionalouthouse.wordpress.com)

Suckled on the modernist work ethic, some… [Christian] parents may love it when kids talk about rebelling against low expectations and “returning to biblical and historical levels of character and competence” (where’d I put my WWJD bracelet?).

But I daresay Garrison Keillor’s Upper Midwestern upbringing amongst the Lutherans (“where even the Catholics were Lutheran”), which resonates with mine under the tutelage of the Lapsed Episcopalian, has a far superior grasp on the folly of great expectations of youth and their dazzled parents:

In Lake Wobegon, you learned about being All Right. Life is complicated, so you think small. You can’t live life in raging torrents; you have to take it one day at a time. And if you need drama, read Dickens…The urge to be top dog is a bad urge. Inevitable tragedy. A sensible person seeks to be at peace, to read books, know the neighbors, take walks, enjoy his portion, live to be eighty, and wind up fat and happy, although a little wistful when the first coronary walks up and slugs him in the chest. Nobody is meant to be a star. Charisma is pure fiction, and so is brilliance. It’s the dummies who sit on the dais, and it’s the smart people who sit in the dark near the exits. That is the Lake Wobegon view of life (where the women are strong, the men are good-looking and the children are above average). – Garrison Keillor, Life Among the Lutherans, Chapter 1 (It Could Be Worse)

Father, I Know That All My Life
Father, I know that all my life
Is portioned out for me;
The changes that are sure to come,
I do not fear to see:
I ask thee for a present mind,
Intent on pleasing thee.

I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and fro,
Seeking for some great thing to do,
Or secret thing to know;
I would be treated as a child,
And guided where I go.

I ask thee for the daily strength,
To none that ask denied,
A mind to blend with outward life,
While keeping at thy side,
Content to fill a little space,
If thou be glorified.

In service which thy will appoints
There are no bonds for me;
My secret heart is taught the truth
That makes thy children free;
A life of self-renouncing love
Is one of liberty.

The Lutheran Song:
We are a modest people
And we never make a fuss,
And it sure would be a better world
If they were all as modest as us.
We do not go for whooping it up
Or a lot of yikkety-yak.
When we say hello, we avert our eyes.
And we always sit in the back.

We sit in the pew where we always sit,
And we do not shout “Amen!”
And if anyone yells or waves their hands,
They’re not invited again.

I’m a Lutheran, a Lutheran—it is my belief;
I am a Lutheran guy.
We may have merged with another church,
But I’m a Lutheran till I die.

Once in a while we go to shows,
But a Lutheran is not a fan.
We don’t whistle and we don’t laugh;
We smile as loud as we can.
If you come to church, don’t expect to be hugged;
Don’t expect your hand to be shook.
If we need to know who you are,
We can look in the visitors’ book.
I was raised to keep a lid on it,
Guard what you say or do,
A mighty fortress is our God,
So he must be Lutheran too.

E-note 10/22: Please pass the squash!

2009-10-22T07:35:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Please pass the squash! Saturday night we have opportunity to raise our glasses to the good Lord and give thanks for the good earth's bounty. The Harvest Dinner is an opportunity to eat not just to fill our stomachs but to fill out our praise. When we come together to eat we come together to do more than eat, we come together to be a family of needy one's who belong to other needy ones but who all have been fed just in the nick of time by God, maker of heaven and earth. God, maker of sun and sun-soaked corn stalks, stalks grown so high in three months time that they dwarf men who have been growing for 40 years. God, maker of sun and moon - what would the corn look like if the sun never slept? But Christian thinker, Ken Myers, asks a better question: "What might it mean that we are creatures who eat?"

God could have created us as creatures who photosynthesize, who just stand out in the sun for a little while and get all the energy we need and then go back to work, or he could have created us with little nuclear generators that give us all our energy; but for some reason he created us as creatures who eat. What do we learn from this? What's common about creatures that eat? We're not the only creatures who eat - I'm assuming angels don't eat - and there are other ways to create beings apart from that kind of necessity. What kinds of things do we learn from the fact that we eat?"

Myers goes on to make the case that creatures who eat are necessarily curious about the world around them because they do not exist on themselves. Such creatures are neither self-generated or self-sustaining. Creatures that eat are creatures who live - who must live - outside themselves, looking outside themselves for life. How wise the limiting bequests of our glorious Father. The difficulty of eating is from the curse, but the necessity of eating is not, it is the grace of creation. We eat so we might know God, the one who feeds us. The one who sits down to eat with us in peace.

You are, of course invited to this Saturday's Harvest Dinner. It starts at 5:30pm. If you didn't sign up for whatever reason, you still can. Just drop Jennifer Gernhard an e-mail or phone call so she knows how many more are coming. Be prepared to let her know what side dish you can supply. During dessert we will hear a 10-minute talk from Gil & Erin Soucy, Wycliffe Bible Translators. They have another harvest to speak of. Yours in Christ, John

Weekly E-note 10/15: Peacemakers

2009-10-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Have you heard of "The Four G's" or the "Seven A's" or the "Four Promises of Forgiveness"? Up until a few days ago neither had I, but then on Monday I attended a Peacemaker's seminar in Essex Junction. Peacemaker Ministries is an international ministry based in Billings, Montana. Some of you may remember Roger Berger teaching through some of their material two years ago in Sunday School. Well on Monday eleven of us from TBC (see names below) headed off to Essex Junction for a seminar on peacemaking taught by Ken Sande, president of the ministry. In a word it was excellent. With the wisdom that comes from years of biblical saturation and Spirit-sanctified experience, Ken taught the "why" and "hows" of peacemaking. His biblical teaching was tough-minded and his vivid stories of reconciled marriages, reconciled African tribes, and reconciled churches filled the room with hope. Everything was gloriously grounded in the Gospel and the Glory of God.

Peacemaking is strong in the heart of God. It is a gospel ministry into which all God's true sons are enlisted: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9). It is a ministry for new creatures, those putting off the old man and putting on the new: "Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. For, 'Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it" (1 Peter 3:9-11).

Through his blood Jesus has made peace with you. Now, having the Spirit of Christ, you too want to make peace. But do you know how? Is there an offense you can not overlook that keeps stirring up bitterness? Is there an apology you must offer but the words don't come? Have old but near relationships grown colder and colder over the years? Are there miles of burned bridges in your life? I venture every one of us can find ourselves in that maze of questions, but do we know our way out? "The Four G's (of conflict)" and the "Seven A's (of confession)" and the "Four Promises of Forgiveness" are biblical tools that can help. If you want to get started right away, go to Peacemaker's website and dig in to the "Resources" section (www.peacemaker.net). We will also be making more of this teaching available in the near future. Men, this Saturday our own John Schwartz will cover some of the material at the men's breakfast. You might also ask one of the eleven who attended what they learned: Roger & Chris Berger, Kevin & Laura Channell, Peter Flowers, Jim & Berni Mauchly, Sandra Ordway, John Schwartz, and Janet Stowell. Grace & peace, John

What do you think?

2009-10-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

Packing Unforgiveness

Article by Chris Brauns August 2009

I've been thinking recently about something television star Kelsey Grammer said. It's not because I saw a rerun of Cheers. Unfortunately, the context is tragic. Grammer has me thinking about well intentioned people who end up "packing unforgiveness." Where deep wounds are concerned, there are those who try and do what they believe faith requires. Yet, they end up hurting all the more.

Before I write anything more, I want to go on record saying that I have prayed for Kelsey Grammer. I have three lovely sisters and two beautiful daughters, and I simply cannot imagine what he has gone through.

To understand why Grammer is on my mind, you need to know something of the awful tragedies he has endured. When Grammer was only 13 years old, his father was murdered. A shark killed his twin brothers while they were scuba diving. But the most devastating loss for Grammer may have been the murder of his sister, Karen.

In the seventies, Grammer's 18-year-old sister Karen graduated from high school and moved to Colorado. Shortly thereafter, she was abducted as she left her waitressing job. Three men kidnapped, raped, and killed her.

Grammer was devastated. He said that Karen was his best friend and the best person he knew. He has felt guilty ever since because he wasn't there to protect his sister.
Eventually, a man named Freddie Glenn was convicted of Karen's murder, as well as two other murders. He was sentenced to life in prison. At that time, Colorado offered the possibility of parole for those with life sentences. This summer, 34 years later, Freddie Glenn is eligible. (See link here).

Grammer wrote an impassioned letter to the parole board members, asking them not to free his sister's killer. Parole was denied, and I certainly agree. Under no circumstances should this killer ever taste freedom in this life.

Grammer's thoughts about forgiveness in his letter to the parole board continue to be on my mind. Here is an excerpt:

". . . Please consider, when you wrestle with the fate of this man that killed my sister, the degree of suffering he has inflicted on his victims but also on the families of his victims. It has been many years since the murders and he has spent many years in jail. We, whose lives were so altered by his selfishness and brutality, have spent those years in a prison of our own. Yes, time has helped, but we will never be free. Why should his fate be any different? I am a man of faith and my faith teaches me that I must forgive. And so I do. I forgive this man for what he has done. Forgiveness allows me to live my life. It allows me to love my children and my wife and the days I have left with them. But, I can never escape the horror of what happened to my sister. I can never accept the notion that he can pay for that nightmare with anything less than his life. . . " (see letter here).

Notice the part I emphasized with italics. Grammer believes that God requires him to forgive his sister's killer: "I am a man of faith and my faith teaches me that I must forgive."

It's at this point, if I were visiting with Grammer, that I would gently suggest that he has misunderstood what God requires. Grammer believes people of faith should always automatically forgive offenders. As a result, he is trying to do the right thing and forgive his sister's killer. Someone has probably told him that he should forgive for his own sake--that unconditional forgiveness is the route to freedom. In reality, I wonder if Grammer's automatic forgiveness isn't packing bitterness and unforgiveness into the depths of his soul.

Contrary to what many say, in my book, Unpacking Forgiveness: Biblical Answers for Complex Questions and Deep Wounds, I argued that forgiveness is conditional. Christians are not called to automatically forgive every offense. Rather, we should offer forgiveness to all. Said another way, we should maintain an attitude of forgiveness. But biblical forgiveness is more than a feeling. It is something that happens between two parties, and it takes place in the fullest sense only when the offending party repents and the relationship is restored.

While I include more detail in the book, the Biblical argument for conditional forgiveness is straight-forward.
• Christians are called to forgive others as God forgave them (Matthew, 6:12, Ephesians 4:32).
• God forgives conditionally. God only forgives those who repent of their sins and turn in saving faith to Him (1 John 1:9, John 3:36).
• Likewise, we also should offer forgiveness to all.
• We forgive those who repent. Indeed, we are obliged to forgive (Luke 17:3-4), knowing that whatever someone has done to offend us pales in comparison to what we have done to offend God (Matthew 18:32-33). (See what others say on conditional forgiveness here).

If I was talking with Grammer and I suggested that forgiveness is not automatic, he might ask, "Didn't Jesus forgive those who crucified him, even as he was on the Cross (Luke 23:33-34)?" The short answer to that question is, "no, Jesus did not forgive them." By praying, Jesus demonstrated an attitude of forgiveness. He prayed that those who crucified him would be forgiven in the future; he did not thank God that they were already forgiven. If they had already been forgiven, such a prayer would have been superfluous. (See more on this point here).

Usually, however, the objection to conditional forgiveness is for pragmatic reasons rather than biblical ones. People counter, "If we don't forgive everyone, then won't we become bitter?" The answer is, "no, not if we follow the example of Christ." Christians are called to have an attitude of forgiveness toward all. This leaves no room for bitterness.

At the same time, someone in Grammer's situation need not worry that anyone will get away with murder. Vengeance belongs to God. He will repay. Count on it. (Romans 12:17-21). As much as Grammer loved his sister, Almighty God is infinitely angrier about what happened to Karen. I choose my words carefully, but there will be a Hell of a reckoning, one way or another. Either this killer will turn in repentance and faith to Christ, in which case Jesus' work on the Cross is sufficient to atone. Or, this killer will face the unmitigated fury of God forever. Forever. Borrowing Jonathan Edward's language, in Hell, unrepentant sinners will wear out the sun in their agony and be no closer to the end.

Some might counter that considering the judgment of those who have hurt us is wrong or unbiblical. Quite the opposite. Christians in the Bible take comfort knowing that justice belongs to God and that he will repay (Romans 12:19, 2 Timothy 4:14-15, Revelation 6:10). Indeed, it is when we realize what awaits unrepentant sinners in the eschatological future that our hearts will begin to break for them. As Bonhoeffer said about the Nazis, "It is only when God's wrath and vengeance are hanging as grim realities over the heads of one's enemies that something of what it means to love and forgive them can touch our hearts."

I have preached and taught enough on this subject to know that here is where some of you will throw up your hands and say, "Okay, this is just a matter of semantics. You say, 'offer forgiveness'. I say, 'give it'. What's the difference?"

There is a big difference. If we say that everyone is forgiven, then we redefine forgiveness. Instead of it being something that happens between two parties (as it is in when God forgives us), forgiveness becomes something that I decide to do on my own--independent of the one who has hurt me.

Go back to Grammer's words. "I am a man of faith and my faith teaches me that I must forgive. And so I do. I forgive this man for what he has done." It is unclear what he means by saying that he forgives his sister's killer. Obviously, Grammer does not mean that he has a relationship with this man. Nor, does he mean that his feelings have changed either toward the offender or about the pain. He says he can never escape the horror of what was done to Karen. We can only surmise that what Grammer meant when he said that he forgives his sister's killer was something like, "I have to stop thinking about this evil man and go on with my life."

But Grammer's approach hasn't worked. In his words, he is still in a prison built by his sister's killer. He wrote, "We, whose lives were so altered by his selfishness and brutality, have spent those years in a prison of our own. Yes, time has helped, but we will never be free."

Furthermore, forgiving in this privatized, automatic kind of way has become far less than what the Gospel requires. It seems fair to assume that Grammer has no intention of ever offering anything to Freddie Glenn, yet this is exactly what God did. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Indeed, those who put their faith in Christ can say, ". . . He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.(Col 1:13-14, emphasis added)." Christians are called to follow the Savior's example, offering the handshake of forgiveness to those receive it in repentance.

I suppose, if I were talking personally with Grammer, suggesting that he be willing to shake hands with his sister's killer might raise the temperature in the room by 30 or 40 degrees. Yet this is the Gospel. Even though we are by nature objects of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3, Titus 3:3-4), God offers forgiveness. We are to do the same.

Automatic forgiveness packs unforgiveness. It redefines forgiveness as far less than what it means biblically. It hardens hearts with bitterness, isolation, and pessimism. In contrast, conditional forgiveness centers on the Cross. It offers the Gospel to all, recognizes that because of Christ any offender can be forgiven, believes that all relationships can be redeemed, and rests knowing that justice will be served.

Kelsey Grammer said he will never be free of what Freddie Glen did to his family. This need not be so. Those who know Christ can be assured that one day very soon, we will be in his presence on a New Earth where there is no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. It will be a new day. All wounds will be healed completely (Revelation 21:3-5). There, Christ's people will be free indeed (John 8:31-32).

HT: To my daughter Allison for help with the title, and to Dan Phillips for his recent post, "When Justice is Forgotten (Capital Punishment)."

Dr. Chris Brauns is the author of Unpacking Forgiveness: Biblical Answers for Complex Questions and Deep Wounds. He is the pastor of the Congregational Christian Church of Stillman Valley. You can read his blog at http://www.chrisbrauns.com/. He hearned his MBA from the University of Northern Iowa, MDiv from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary and his DMin from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary where his doctoral thesis considered how pastoral search committees evaluate preaching. He has studied and spoken extensively on the topic of forgiveness.

E-note 10/8: Songs of Deliverance

2009-10-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

In 2 Samuel 22:1 we learn much about why the redeemed of the Lord sing. "David sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said: The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge." Then the song goes on as long as a sermon, forty-eight more verses in your English Bible.

Why does King David sing? Because everything that a high rock is to a Philistine king, everything that a high-walled city is to a Jebusite king, everything that a secret cave is to an Amorite king, God is all that and more to King David. A rock, a fortress, a cave may deliver for a day, but God delivers his anointed and his descendants forever (2 Sam. 22:51). And so God's anointed and his descendants sing songs of deliverance (Psalm 32:7). This triumphant choir includes you.

Through the Davidic King - Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus of the heavenly Zion - God has delivered you too. His many battles against the offspring of the serpent culminated in a fatal blow to the serpent's own head when he triumphed at the cross (Col. 2:15). And so you sing to Jesus and with Jesus because in Him and through Him you are delivered from the schemes and violent designs of your enemy. The triumph of God's Anointed is your triumph and so you sing. His triumph over Satan's temptations is your triumph and so you sing. His triumph over death, Satan's goal in temptation, is your triumph and so you sing. His triumph over Satan is sure and so is your triumph sure because your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Why is singing such an irresistible response to the triumph of God through his Anointed? Sure, obedience is still a fitting response, but why does singing so cling to our worship of God? Could it be that singing best represents the whole-life devotion to the God that a gracious and triumphant deliverance would compel? Think about it. Singing involves the giving of your mind to God (the formulation of theocentric thoughts, writing down those thoughts as words and reading them again). Singing involves giving your body (carrying the tune, commanding the vocal chords, using the ear to achieve harmony). Singing involves giving your heart (where else are you so unreserved with your whole being as you are when singing?) Singing is the public ecstasy of the sons of the Most High God. An ecstasy fueled by the knowledge of God's deliverance of you - not just someone from back then or someone living over there, but God's deliverance of you from a real enemy that had every reason to claim you as his own. But now God claims you as his own and he has every reason to because Jesus, his anointed, "shared in [our] humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil (Heb 2:14). Whether we sing songs of joy or songs of lament, we sing to God because God has delivered us unto himself. Such a deliverance has led many to write a song and many more to sing them. In Christ, John

What Do You Think?

2009-10-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

What David Letterman Can Teach Us About the Gospel

by Russell Moore — Sunday, October 4th, 2009 —

If you pay a little attention right now to David Letterman, you could learn something critical about carrying the gospel to your neighbors, and to yourself.

I’m not talking about re-tooling some Christian version of the late night comedian’s “Top Ten Lists” or his “Stupid Pet Tricks.” I’m not talking about his cynical humor, or emotionally detached coolness. I’m talking about why he was so scared of a blackmailer’s extortion.

We’ve all been there.

Last week Letterman started off a segment on his nationally-broadcast program “The Late Show” by telling his viewers a “story.” The studio audience, laughing along, seemed not to be able to tell, at first, if this was a set-up for a joke or a skit, but it became clear this wasn’t a gag. Letterman said that he had gotten into his car at six in the morning one day to find an envelope in his car, an envelope with details and evidence of Letterman’s sexual affairs with women on his staff. The extortionist wanted two million dollars or he’d make it all public in a screenplay or book.

At first glance, this is just another celebrity soap opera, and, frankly speaking, not a particularly shocking one. What interests me, though, is not that Letterman was doing “terrible things.” What else would I expect a man outside of Christ to do? What’s interesting to me is that the blackmail scared Letterman, and the reasons why.

Letterman said the extortion note was disturbing, first of all, because he feared the mysterious correspondent was watching him. Someone who knew this much about his life, would this figure be tapping him on the shoulder from the shadows? Pulling him into the back of the car? Letterman also, though, was upset by the note because it was true. Letterman acknowledged to this viewers that he had, in fact, had sex with women on the “Late Show” staff. He also said that seeing his “terrible things” there in print, with evidence for it all, in front of him, made him feel “creepy.” Even in his deadpan comedic, “aw shucks this ain’t so bad” wink-and-grin performance, we can hear a terror, a terror that is common to humanity.

If the envelope in the car had accused Letterman of being a member of an Islamic terrorist cell, he might have still been worried that the crazed writer was around, but, after getting out of the parking garage, Letterman wouldn’t have been, in his words, “menaced” by the accusations. Why not? It’s because he knows he’s not a member of an Islamic terrorist cell. There could be no evidence to show it, because it’s not a fact. The power the blackmailer had over the comedian was in the truthfulness of his accusations, and in the cold, rational evidence he had for each of his charges.

You and I once felt a deeper, more primal blackmail, and it scared us to the core. In fact, we often still do. Now, for most of us, it’s not the same kind of transgression or the same type of discovery. But we’re blackmailed just as surely, in fact even more so. The Scripture says that Satan’s reign over this present order is by holding us captive through the slavery of the “fear of death” (Heb 2:15). And why are all humans afraid of death? Because, like Letterman’s letter in the back of the car, our conscience is pointing us to judgment, with a “black box” of evidence of our guilt (Rom 2:15-16). That’s why the gospel is such good news for blackmailed creepy people like us.

Jesus says of Satan, in one of the most remarkable passages to me of all of Holy Scripture: “The ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me” (John 14:30). Jesus’ calm is the same as if I were asked to take a DNA test to prove that I’m not the father of one of Michael Jackson’s children. I know there’s just nothing there. Jesus knows that, as the one sinless human since Adam’s catastrophe, Satan has no evidence of guilt in Jesus. He’s been tested, and he’s still standing. Jesus doesn’t fear Satan’s accusations because he has nothing to hide, from the demonic watchers, from his Father, from himself. He is truth, and the truth makes him free indeed. With his tranquil conscience, Jesus marches right to the pole of slaughter, paying the wages of sin for those in the satanic slavery.

That’s why our Lord Jesus shows us, through our brother John, that “the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God” (Rev 12:10). And how do those in Christ triumph over this accusation? It’s “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Rev 12:11). Satan has nothing left to accuse because at the Place of the Skull “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). If you’ve already been exposed, you can’t be re-exposed. If you’ve already been damned, you can’t be re-damned.

David Letterman said the accusations bothered him because he’s a “tower of Midwestern Lutheran guilt.” But there’s nothing particularly Midwestern or Lutheran about it. It’s a signal of a conscience that points to judgment. But it could also point to the One who has borne all the penalty due at judgment, including the public humiliation of being caught. We’ve all been there. Let’s remember the gospel, and learn from Dave Letterman how scary blackmail can be. As the accusations come at us, let’s acknowledge the truth of the satanic claims. Let’s find ourselves in Jesus. And let’s point to a bloody cross and an empty tomb where those accusations were verified and crucified.

Poor David Letterman. This extortion is nothing like the one he, and billions more, are facing from a threatening presence who can’t be indicted by a New York grand jury. Let’s pray for him, and plead with those like him in our neighborhood and in cities and villages all around the world, as we remember what it’s like to be that scared. And let’s remember not to be paralyzed by cosmic blackmail. The satanic powers have the evidence against us; yes, they do. But every accusation comes before an Advocate with a still conscience in his chest, scabbed-over spike-marks in his hands, and a crushed snake skull at his feet. The satanic accusations are usually true. They wouldn’t bring them up if they weren’t. But if Christ Jesus is raised from the dead (and he is) then they can’t paralyze us anymore. In fact, if you think about it, they’re just stupid demon tricks.

What do you think?

2009-09-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Precious Moments in American Religion
Michael S. Horton

On more than one occasion I have concluded that I am inhabiting a Salvador Dali painting: clocks dripping off of trees in surreal landscapes, and all that. Perhaps no occasion more deeply pressed this haunting suspicion than on a trip through America's heartland this past summer. I was making my way to New Haven, Connecticut, from California in my heavy-laden Pathfinder.
Having driven across the country numerous times, I have tried to punctuate the tedious trek with stops at various points of local interest. But this time, on my fourth day of the journey, I stumbled on a dizzying discovery.

As I entered Missouri-the "Show-Me State"-I began to notice billboards advertising something called the "Precious Moments Chapel." I thought nothing of it at first, recalling the "Precious Moment" figurines that seem to have replaced books in Christian book stores. But the billboards popped up again and again along the highway, boasting a remarkable mecca for "Precious" pilgrims. Groggy from driving far too many hours in one stretch, I felt strangely drawn to this chapel. So when a friend and I finally arrived at the turn-off, marked by an official state sign, I wound my way to the secluded venue.

"How big can this thing really be?" I asked myself repeatedly, as I began to approach the grounds. Suddenly, my jaw fell to the floorboard as I entered the expansive theme park that was the Precious Moments Chapel. Actually, it was a sprawling campus with tour buses and fountains, ponds and a visitors' center that combined the ambiance of a mall with the hushed reverence of a sanctuary. The ceiling of the visitors' center glittered with a starry expanse of twinkling lights, and shops bustled with pilgrims who busily snapped up everything from greeting cards and night-lights to the sacred objects d'art themselves, all bearing the image of the Precious Moments trademark angels. (As I learned on the tour, these figurines have now passed Hummel and every other maker of ceramic figurines in sales worldwide.)I made my way through the shoppers' paradise to the long colonnade, lined by life-size (life-size? -perhaps I'm taking this all too seriously) concrete statues of the inordinately chummy hosts, and finally arrived at the shrine itself. It was a large chapel, part Spanish-baroque, part Anaheim-funeral parlor, whose doors opened electronically, only after the tour guide had explained the exquisite appointments and their subtle meaning. Behind the heavy wooden doors was truly a world of wonder: the entire interior was enchanted with fresco-like images of the adoring cherubs. They were everywhere: on the walls, the vaulted ceiling, and enshrined in stained plastic windows. As we exited, a trolley greeted us with sweets. A little piece of heaven in Missouri.

Why do I relate this story? Is it simply an occasion to poke fun at the innocent pastimes of Precious Moments collectors? Hardly. This is big business, not just sentimentalism. But while I was visiting this park, I had my own precious moment, an epiphany, as theories about the American religion and popular culture were suddenly captured in one experience. Like the exaggerated features of the Precious Moment angels-calculated to evoke particular emotions of intimacy and sweetness-popular American religion in general has become increasingly captive to false gods.

Of course, only a hard-hearted Calvinist (perhaps a Lutheran, too) could launch such jeremiads against these delicate creatures. What gall: calling these delightful figures "idols"! I'm not calling them this because I believe that people are actually taking these ceramic trinkets home to a shrine, offering morning and evening supplications to them and lighting votive candles. But there are, after all, perfectly Protestant ways of setting up idols.

Like statues of Mary and the saints, these unique statues are not somehow evil themselves. There is nothing in the ceramic, no insidious conspiracy of a pottery elite, to lure us from the worship of God to the adoration of false deities. But I cannot resist the impression that the "cult of Mary and the Saints" has been replaced in some circles with the "cult of Sentimentality." Instead of the "Sacred Heart of Jesus," we have the "Sacred Heart of the Self." And what could be more sentimental, more inviting, more user-friendly and cozy, than these cute and cuddly creatures?

Nor am I suggesting that this business amounts to the "worship of angels," that the apostles warned against in their letters. Nevertheless, I do wonder if this sudden obsession with angels in pagan America is, like the medieval cult, a distraction from the worship of the true God. Just as Mary and the saints were made into objects of folk art to become something other than they really were-sinless, pure, worthy of devotion and mediation-these Precious Moments "angels" are far from the biblical representation. After all, biblical angels were the servants of Yahweh who stood at the gate of Paradise after the Fall, with flashing sword, barring entrance; ministers of judgment at Sodom and Gomorrah. One would be hard-pressed to have Michael the Archangel in mind when gazing on one of these benign figurines. Are these the angels that executed God's plagues on Egypt? Do we have any reason to identify them even with the glad but epoch-making announcements of mysterious births that were to advance redemptive history? Even when one came with joyful tidings, Mary was filled with terror at the appearance of God's angelic messenger.

Perhaps we like these adorable ceramic angels because they represent more than a likable, non-threatening angel; they offer us a sentimentally attractive deity as well, a religion of the heart that "bind[s] the wounds of [God's] people as though they were not serious, saying, 'Peace,' 'Peace,' when there is no peace."

It is in this vein that I wish to focus our attention briefly on the Second Commandment: "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth" (Ex. 20:4).

Precious Metals
The immediate background to this verse is instructive. The days before, God had commanded Moses to have a fence built around Mount Sinai. It was for the safety of the people, after all, for if God's sinful people were to even touch the foot of God's mountain, they would be killed. "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Go down and warn the people not to press through to see me; otherwise many of them will perish'" (Ex. 19:21). Everyone wants to have an experience with God; we all want to see the spectacle, to take in the sight of his splendor. But God knows best. He is holy, and we are not.

After the giving of the Commandments, we read: "When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, 'You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not have God speak to us, or we will die'" (Ex. 20:18). At Sinai, God's presence in his holiness was not attractive to Israel, but repulsive. Because of their sinfulness, the people felt distant from God and afraid: "Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was" (v.21).

While God was giving his Commandments at the top of the mountain, his people were already breaking them down below. In chapter 32, we read that the Israelites were growing impatient with Moses' absence, so Aaron accommodated to their "felt needs." Instead of a God whose presence inspired fear, they wanted a "user-friendly" deity who imposed no limits and made them feel good about themselves. Like Adam, when he realized he was naked and ashamed after his disobedience, the Israelites fled from God's terrifying presence, but instead of fig leaves they fashioned a golden calf.

At last, here was a god who could be safely approached. It's important for us to see here that Aaron was not violating the first Commandment: "You shall have no other gods...," but the second. In other words, : "Tomorrow," he decrees, "shall be a festival to the LORD" (Ex. 32:5). Notice, it's a festival to the LORD-the capital letters referring to Yahweh, Israel's God. In fact, this idolatrous form of Yahweh was so affable and friendly that the people "rose up early" to worship. They were ready to go immediately, prepared to eagerly meet this chummy deity. They "sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play" (v.6). What a contrast with their experience of the Holy One of Israel! At last, they had created God in their own image: a manageable, agreeable god who would serve their cravings instead of inspiring fear.
When Moses returns from the top of the mountain, he confronts Aaron. Like Adam, who passed the buck to Eve, who passed the buck to the serpent, Aaron replies, "Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, how they are bent on evil. They said to me, 'Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.' So I said to them, 'Whoever has gold, take it off'; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!" (vv. 21-24, italics added).
"Out came this calf," indeed. We can almost, in our day, hear Aaron telling Moses, "Look, you were up there with God all this time and the natives were getting restless. They were impatient, fearful of a God who inspired terror. I kept them in tow and simply changed the form of worship, so that they would stay around. Well, they stayed, didn't they? Don't get hung up on style, Moses!"

Later in his life, Aaron would see his sons grow up into fine ministers of God in the sanctuary. But one day, they too offered an unauthorized offering in the Holy of Holies, and died instantly (Lev. 10:1-3). "Aaron remained silent," we read.

It is a tough lesson, and Israel had to learn it again and again. To worship God-even the true God-according to our own imagination rather than according to his own self-revelation, is to discover "the consuming fire" rather than the welcoming Presence.

But there is good news in the midst of all this. God did not want to destroy his people, and that is why he commanded them to stay at a distance and to carefully observe the ceremonial boundaries. It was not enough to worship the correct God; they had to worship the correct God according to his own revelation, not their own wits. And why? Because one day, the true "icon of the invisible God" would appear, the promised Redeemer (Col. 1:15). God himself would visit his people and save them from his just wrath. He would come not in the form of a golden calf (or a ceramic cherub), but "though he was in the form of God," he would come "taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:6-8). To solve the problem of impatience with an icon of their own making, Israel was substituting the glorious hope of the Incarnation and redemption in Christ with a mute piece of precious metal. They had worshipped themselves instead of God, settling for a cheap imitation who would satisfy their "felt needs" and momentary pleasures.

In the last century, theologian Ludwig Feuerbach declared, "The religious object of adoration is nothing but the objectified nature of him who adores it." Claiming that Feuerbach was a "new Luther" in the history of human development, Karl Marx added, "Man makes religion, it is not religion that makes man; religion is in reality man's own consciousness and feeling which has not yet found itself or has lost itself again." Thus, Marx concluded, religion is "the opiate of the masses," their self-created projections of hopes and longings. Sigmund Freud took this notion into psychoanalysis by arguing that religion was an "illusion" of human consciousness. Religious statements do not refer to objective realities, but to the subjective, inner psychological world that one desires so much that he or she will project it as though it had the reality of a piece of furniture.

But what Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud discovered was the nature of idolatry, not the nature of Christian belief. Though our purposes here are not to pursue the latter, clearly these writers are correct in observing that much of that which we call "religion" is indeed simply the illusory projection of our own felt needs, inner longings, and sinful demands. Israel projected her idolatrous longings for a user-friendly deity like that of her neighbors, and "out came this calf." Likewise, we determine what is most important to us, shaped as we are by consumerism, popular entertainment, shallow conversation, and the torrent of trivial information, and out comes whatever image of God that happens to satisfy our momentary lusts.

In our day, the temptation is to view these stories as remote examples of a rather crude, superstitious antiquity. And yet, ours is among the most image-based and image-worshipping societies in human history. Like the golden calf, our images promise health, wealth, happiness, success, even intimacy, without any price. "Don't worry, be happy," cry our gelded idols from the pages of slick magazines, billboards, TV and computer screens, and radio ads. "Sure it costs more, but I'm worth it!" "You deserve a break today!" "You can have it all!" "Just do it!" "Screw guilt!"

And too often, the evangelical world simply shapes its own calf from the fool's gold of popular culture. "God" is now worshipped as though he were a product, making promises not unlike those mentioned here in connection with other units of sales. Instead of being hidden in thick smoke, his voice shaking the earth as it sends terror into our sinful hearts, the images we market console us in our misery, enslaving us with bonds of addiction, at last leaving us to rot in a cell of consumption, self-deceit, and unfulfilled cravings.

Part of the problem is that we do not even really grasp our captivity; we are still in the phase of adoration, believing in the benevolence of the idols too much to reject them. When we hear stories of persecuted Christians in hostile lands, we cheer them on in their refusal to give in to the enormous pressures of compromise. As for the persecuted believers themselves-especially in Islamic states-they do not have the luxury of enjoying both the comfort of their cultural acceptability and the purity of faith. At some point, they have to choose. After careful consideration, weighing the options, counting the cost, they finally agree courageously to be baptized, realizing that this will alienate them from their whole society. Now, of course, nothing like that confronts us in terms of degree, but we do face the same challenge in kind.
The problem is, we express alarm when it comes to the political and moral crisis of our time, while we often ignore the ways in which our culture is deeply corrosive of Christian faith and practice in deeper and broader ways. I am far more worried about the market-driven, therapeutic, narcissistic and entertainment-oriented culture of modern evangelicalism than I am about the second term of President Clinton.

Furthermore, while we attack high culture (those "culture elites"), we swallow popular culture whole, when in truth there is more that is true, good, and beautiful in high culture than a mass popular culture can ever yield. When the church growth expert or the youth director hitches the ministry to the stars of popular culture (especially youth culture, which is the dominant form of popular culture), one might as well tell a Chinese Christian that her faith is perfectly consistent with Marxism or an Iranian believer that he need not renounce Islam in order to be a Christian. In fact, in terms of the parallel I am making here, one might as well even say that Marxism and Islam actually become practical means of grace, effective tools for evangelism. If this parallel sounds ludicrous, perhaps we have not sufficiently weighed the corrosive effects of a market-driven culture. America's popular culture is every bit as dangerous (perhaps more so because of its pervasiveness) as these more obvious threats. Popular culture, vast in its liturgical forms, is an ideology, perhaps even a religion.

While there is undoubtedly a great deal more freedom and justice in America than in China or Iran, there is almost no discussion within evangelical circles about the enormously detrimental effects of free market capitalism and its mass popular culture on the family, vocation, local culture, language, and faith and practice. In a fallen world, free market capitalism may indeed prove the best system, but to suggest (even by implicit silence) that its effects are either entirely benevolent or neutral is, I think, precisely what makes it impossible for us to see ourselves as exiles. While we are not persecuted, we are seduced. What we need to do at this moment in time is to repent: to say simply, like the Chinese or Iranian convert, "By God's grace, we renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil." William Willimon of Duke University speaks of the need to focus on "preaching to the baptized," but we should also start thinking and acting as the baptized.
But what if people stop coming to our churches? Is that really our business, assuming we are fulfilling our divinely-ordained functions? In Acts 2, we read that the apostles were preaching and God was adding daily to the number of the redeemed. We have to stop taking responsibility for the growth of the church and instead make faithfulness our measuring rod. It may just be that, as the culture unravels at an increasingly rapid pace, large churches that want to be faithful will experience serious numerical loss over a short time. This, it seems, to me, is the price we may have to pay, and it is hardly to be compared to the price paid by our persecuted brothers and sisters. The other option is to be increasingly seduced and to maintain our numbers or even increase the rolls, only to create a successful secularized congregation.

Perhaps pastors and their officers could spend their next retreat laying out such a call to repentance. Of course, there will be those, either on staff or as officers (or both) who will raise obvious practical questions, charts and graphs in hand. Surely wisdom would warn against extreme or sudden measures, but it is worth taking the time to build a team of pastoral and lay support before the typical warning lights start blinking. What are you willing to lose in order to be faithful to God and his gospel? That is the question to put before the group.

If there were only one Word and one Mountain, we might all become existentialists and abandon ourselves to this nihilistic realm of self-destruction, where we consume and amuse ourselves to death. After all, if God is only wrath and power, justice and holiness, we too might as well call for the rocks to fall on us-or fill our days with frolic around the golden calf-rather than face the God who is there. But, as God revealed his goodness to Moses by proclaiming his mercy instead of showing his face, so now, when God at last comes near to us in the flesh of Jesus Christ, we can finally see God and live to tell about it. Instead of his word of judgment, we hear his word of pardon:

"For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross. And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him..." (Col. 1:20-21).

Instead of Mount Sinai, burning with smoke, we have come to Mount Zion (Heb. 12:18-28). In Christ, the Consuming Fire is hidden in the gentleness of the manger, turning water into wine, inviting sinners to his table. Clothed in him, we are protected like Moses in the cleft of the rock, and are able to stand in his Holy of Holies without fear of judgment. And yet, our worship must still be "with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is [still] a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29).

Given this self-revelation of God, what have we to do with the false religious images? A sappy, sentimental, harmless deity is hardly worthy of our awe, and perhaps this is one reason why the popular god elicits only passing excitement and new golden calves must be fashioned when today's intoxication turns into tomorrow's hang-over. As Israel fell under the spell of her neighbors' idols again and again, so too the church in our day seems so eager to shape Yahweh into the various images of popular culture: entertainment, sentimentality, therapy, marketing, anti-intellectualism, and passivity. C. S. Lewis once wrote that our cravings are wrong, not because we want too much, but because we're willing to settle for too little. When God offers us a Mediator greater than Moses, a Living Redeemer instead of a golden calf, and a salvation so much richer and more promising than the trivial gods of our mass culture, how can we fail to turn from idols to the true and living God!

E-note 9/24: Praying for the Gospel

2009-09-28T06:54:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

As I prayed aloud Sunday from my pew, the Lyme Center Baptist Church (ABC) is once again without a regular pastor. What a crucial season for them, what a crucial season for us. For them because they are faced with the daunting task of searching for a minister. For us because we can not but help hope in Christ, and for his name sake, that someone will come to "proclaim the mystery of Christ" in Lyme Center. So we must pray as if the outcome depended on our prayers and the great and gracious God who hears them. We have no reason to believe it doesn't. But just this week our labors of love have doubled. The Topsham Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) has also begun its search for a new minister. As some of you know this is where Brad & Sue Calhoun once worshipped and still have dear friends. So here again, not so far from us, is a church entering a crucial season of searching. If Christ's love binds us, if love for our neighbor binds us and controls us, we must now pray for Topsham Presbyterian as well. The Rev. John Mahler faithfully upheld Christ crucified as the wisdom and power of God to sinners. But let us take nothing for granted. The cords of Christ-centered faith are thin in these places. Rather let us yoke our hopes to those faithful ones who remain and pray for the believers there to find a shepherd who knows the Shepherd and Overseer of souls. Let us not only pray that God would count the saints at TBC worthy of his calling, but also that the saints in Topsham and Lyme Center would be counted worthy. May God grant us a healthy measure of his power to fulfill these acts of faith.

Yours in Christ, John

What do you think?

2009-09-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

Who Remembers?
by Lars Walker, posted at Mere Comments, 9/11/09

I saw it years ago, on the Minnesota State Fair grounds, in the area we call “Machinery Hill.” A bronze plaque on a low concrete base, if I recall correctly. It proudly proclaimed that the first group of Minnesota volunteers had mustered in this spot, on their way to fight in World War I.

“Our sons were here,” the message seemed to be. “They gathered solemnly in this place to put their young, hopeful lives on the line for a cause they believed in. We, their parents, dedicate this plaque so that their courage and sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

But of course it was forgotten, I thought. Who stops to read the plaque today? Who remembers those young men? Especially the ones who died in France and never came home to beget children, who might remember their names for a few generations?

It’s one of the tragedies and mercies of human life that (with rare exceptions) we always say “We will never forget,” but we always do. One of my ancestors fought in the Great Northern War. How many people today—even in Europe—know anything at all about the Great Northern War?

It’s obvious that we’re beginning to forget the 9/11 attacks. We say we don’t. The broadcast networks are making time for commemorations, but we can all tell that, behind the pieties, a lot of people consider it old news. It’s done. It’s over. What’s the use in opening old wounds?

That’s the way it is. That’s the way, in fact, it has to be. Because we’re transient beings. Our lives are too short to spend in constant mourning (and if they are spent that way, it constitutes a compounded tragedy). Our wounds heal, or at least grow over. Eventually we die, and our children can’t understand, and have commemorations of their own to mark. Our species has long-term memory loss.

So when we say “We’ll never forget,” we’re making a vow we can’t keep. We’re writing a check beyond the balance in our account.

But that doesn’t make it wrong.

It’s a matter of faith, really. When we use words like “forever” and “never,” we’re implicitly appealing to God (like it or not). The words have no meaning unless they cry for the attention of some Mind that can know all things, some Mind which doesn’t lose track, which marks the fall of a sparrow.

Christian theology doesn’t answer all questions concerning injustice and suffering, the whole theodicy issue. There are many questions to which our Scriptures simply give no answers.

But Christianity does present “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,” a declaration that Jesus is the full expression of God. It proclaims that if we trust Him (who Himself suffered pain and injustice), we can trust that all things will be made right, somehow in the fullness of time.

Blessed be the memory.

Update: On re-reading this piece, I think I've committed my besetting sin of letting my head rule my heart. Just to avoid confusion, let me say that I don't mean to suggest that it's time to forget, or that there's nothing we can do to remember that's worth the trouble. It's far too soon to forget. That would be a crime both against the victims of 9/11 and against victims of future attacks which would certainly follow from our neglect. My point is merely that we should not despair because we know we can't remember as well as our hearts say we ought to.

E-note 9/17: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

2009-09-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This past month I have been slowly reading Annie Dillard's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. In short this book functions as a path, leading earth dwellers who have been modernized into dullness and boredom back into a life of enchantment and wonder. Creation--its hills, insects, rivers, frogs--provides the raw material for Dillard's astounding gift as a writer and guide. In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek she chronicles a year lived mostly out-of-doors in the hills of Virginia. The result is a timeless telling of creation's wonders, nearby secrets, and glory. Here is a taste from the end of chapter 4:

"I'll walk a step before bed. No hesitation about gloves now; I swath myself in wool and down from head to foot, and step into the night. The air bites my nose like pepper. I walk down the road, leap a ditch, and mount the hill where today I clipped the egg cases, where years ago I watched the female mantis frothing out foam. The rutted clay is frozen tonight in shards; its scarps loom in the slanting light like pressure ridges in ice under aurora. The light from the moon is awesome, full and wan. It's not the luster of noonday it gives, but the luster of elf-light, utterly lambent and utterly dreamed. I crash over clumps of brittle, hand-blown grass--and I stop still. The frozen twigs of the huge poplar next to the hill clack in the cold like tinsnips. I look to the sky. What do I know of deep space with its red giants and white dwarfs? I think of our own solar system, of the five mute moons of Uranus--Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Miranda--spinning in their fixed sleep of thralldom. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits. At last I look to the moon; it hangs fixed and full in the east, enormously scrubbed and simple. Our own hometown ultima moon. It must have been a wonderful sight from there, when the olive continents cracked and spread, and the white ice rolled down and up like a window blind. My eyes feel cold when I blink; this is enough of a walk tonight. I lack the apparatus to feel a warmth that few have felt--but it's there. According to Arthur Koestler, Kepler felt the focused warmth when he was experimenting on something entirely different, using concave mirrors. Kepler wrote, 'I was engaged in other experiments with mirrors, without thinking of the warmth; I involuntarily turned around to see whether somebody was breathing on my hand.' It was warmth from the moon."

What makes Pilgrim at Tinker Creek doubly precious is not only its exposure of God's creative gifts in the creation but God's creative gifts in the creature. God made Annie Dillard and it shows. It shows when she takes up words and creates with them, taking what she sees in creation and combining it with what she knows about life in the world. The Creator God must love creating--recipes, essays, tables, chairs, children, spreadsheets, paper clips--for he has shared his gift with his creatures. Praise be to God! Grace & peace, John

What do you think?

2009-09-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

On My Mind: The Skinny God
By David Wells

Many years ago, J. B. Phillips wrote a book called Your God is Too Small. It was quite popular at the time, in 1952, although it now seems rather quaint. The juvenile understanding of God Phillips was attacking then is, by contemporary standards, rather innocent. This, however, is a book which I believe should be written afresh every decade. For is it not the case that our internal bias (cf. Rom. 1:21-5) constantly tilts us away from God's centrality and toward our own? And does this not lead us to focus more on ourselves and less on him? Even worse, don't we then substitute our importance for his greatness?

This inward bias is now being mightily encouraged by our experience of the modern world, the upshot of which is our fascination with our self. Those who are well fed seldom think about food but for the hungry this becomes a consuming preoccupation. And for modern people, the self has likewise become an obsession. We are the starved. How else can we explain the fact that America has half the world's clinical psychologists and one third of the world's psychiatrists? Over approximately the last thirty years, the number of clinical psychologists has increased 350%, clinical social workers 320%, and family counselors 680%, so that today we have two psychotherapists for every dentist and there are more counselors than librarians. The plagues of the modern self are providing sustenance for an extraordinary number of professionals, as well as driving a burgeoning publishing industry.

At the root of these statistics are two related developments. On the one hand, it is undeniable that life in our contemporary world is extraordinarily difficult, that the toll it extracts is high, and that the wounds it inflicts are deep. We, today, live with more stress, with higher levels of anxiety, than any prior generation. We have more people passing through our lives on a daily basis than ever before because of telephone, fax, e-mail, and even television and yet we are often lonely because so few ever matter to us personally. We often are not rooted in any place but wander around our society like perpetual migrants and we may not even have families to which we are connected in any meaningful way. The constant change, the terrible speed of it, the escalating number of choices we have to make, all extract their cost. And we must also live in a society that is fragmenting in fundamental ways. Between 1960 and 1993, violent crime increased 560%, single parent households 300%, births to unmarried mothers 400%, and teen suicide 200%. So, it is no wonder that we feel alarmed and insecure and that we also become preoccupied with the wounds and pains within.

On the other hand, many (even in the Christian world) have drunk deeply at the trough of popularized psychology and appear to accept its two basic assumptions. First, we believe that we can find release from these pains through the right technique. If we are anxious, guilty, insecure, lost, unmotivated, unappreciated, ineffective, or friendless, we need worry no more about it. There is an answer, though we will have to pay to get it. Second, we have come to believe that our top priority should be that we seek our own authenticity before all else and that others, such as spouses or friends, may have to be treated as a threat to our own growth. Hence, where these assumptions have intruded upon the Church, our spirituality has become extremely privatized, highly individualistic, inimical to commitments, and quite ethically indifferent. Because this is so, we lose our appetite for God, our taste for his Word, and our sense of dependence on Christ. Our God, too, has become too small and is now often lost amidst our inner preoccupations.

There are, of course, those who genuinely need professional psychological care but the overwhelming proportion of those who have cast their faith in psychological terms do not. Their appetite for the therapeutic has come about for other reasons. In part, it reflects their own inner emptiness and the pain which this creates; in part, it rests on our growing cultural sufficiency, that what God's grace, power, and regeneration once did, we can now do for ourselves; in part, it reflects a greatly diminished sense of sin and our refusal, quite often, to bear the pain of any self-reproach at all; and in part, it seems to reflect our lost ability to see any purpose in life outside of the self, an inability that both fuels our self-indulgence and stokes our need for more distraction.

What seems so obvious to anxious, pained, bewildered moderns is what is so wrong. We are having to learn again, even in the Church, that Christ's paradox is always true: "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matt. 10:39). Losing one's life flies in the face of all of the counsel we are receiving today that it is by finding the self, cultivating the self, expanding the self, and actualizing the self, that we will find life. Today, self-restraint and the self-abnegation‹which faith requires‹have become obscenities. And we miss the point entirely if we think that this is simply a quarrel between two competing views of therapy.

No, what is at stake is whether or not we will be able to see the greatness of God, and whether what we see will enter into the innermost fibers of our being, for this is where our true spiritual health resides. The greatness of his power, wisdom, and goodness, and his greatness in creating, sustaining, and ruling over all of life, are not simply doctrines to be talked about but truths to be appropriated. His greatness in giving and judging his Son in our place, as well as his greatness for what he has yet to do one day in putting truth forever on the throne and error forever on the scaffold, should be matters of great weight to us and great joy for us. The psalmist spoke of longing, of fainting for God, of being enraptured with his beauty (Ps. 84:1-2), of having a compelling thirst for him (Ps. 42:1). How out of place this would be in many of our churches today! The truth is that our diminished "god" simply lacks the power to summon up such longing, such hope, such pleasure, in those who have come to worship him. But if our God has become small and skinny, he has been diminished only in our understanding and experience. He has not really been diminished. So why can we not hope that the Church will yet be surprised to discover his greatness afresh? Why can we not hope that those who long for God, who are enraptured by his beauty, who thirst deeply for him, will become the norm rather than the exception? I know of no reason.

This article first appeared in the July/August 1997 issue of Modern Reformation. Dr. David F. Wells is the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

E-Note 9/10: Growing in Grace

2009-09-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Someone once said that the Christian life is like riding a bicycle. Unless you keep moving you fall off! The apostle Peter was thinking along these lines when he said to the church: "Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. (2 Peter 3:17-18)"

Could Peter's words be the explanation we've been looking for? Do these words not explain what happens in every church of Jesus Christ: someone is there for a year or two or more and then, surprisingly and inexplicably, they fade away. The next thing we hear is that they are not worshipping God and have no concern for the doctrine of Christ. What has happened? They have been carried away "by the error of lawless men." For some reason they did not grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

No church can expect that everyone who joins its fellowship will persevere. The apostles didn't even see such glory in their own churches (see 1 John 2:19). But it should be expected of every church that names Jesus as Lord and Savior that ample opportunity is provided for its members to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. Why should it be expected? Because the apostles of Jesus declare it to be a fine remedy to being carried away by the deluge of error that always seeks to washout the truth. Even so, it should be noted that church leaders, who can provide the ample opportunities, can not do your growing for you. You are to grow. The elders can grow, but they can not do your growing. The deacons can grow, but they can not do your growing. Your spouse can grow, but he or she can not do your growing. The point is key: you are not automatically protected from the schemes of lawless men just because the three people in your pew are.

So what are we to be growing in? The grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior. First, the grace of our Lord and Savior. This can be nothing other than the gospel itself. "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19). This is the grace of our Lord and Savior. To grow in this grace is to grow in conviction and commitment to the redemptive heart of God as fully revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Growth in grace always includes an increase in my knowledge of how the Bible unceasingly unveils the redemptive mission of God in Christ. But growth in grace must be more than just biblical metrics, it must also be an transformation of my own life, a rebuilding and enlarging of my own heart to hold more of the gospel of grace. My heart must become a more clear reflection of God's own heart: a heart pouring out mercy, compassion and long-suffering, even unto death. How does this happen? By growing in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior. This happens as I, by faith, approach the scriptures again and again to take a more full measure of Jesus Christ, to grow in my knowledge of who he is as Eternal Son, who he is as Redeemer King, who he is as Prophet, Priest and Coming King.

When I grow in both grace and knowledge I am fortified against two great threats on this earth: (1) my own pride and (2) proud lawless men who prey on my ignorance in order to carry me away from Jesus. But one more thing happens: Jesus is glorified both now and forever! Amen.
This fall and winter season TBC will again provide ample opportunities for you and your children to grow. Come this Sunday and hear how we intend to set our Lord and Savior before you so you might do the growing you so earnestly desire. Yours in Christ, Pastor John

What do you think?

2009-09-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

God Talk
In the opening sentence of the last chapter of his new book, “Reason, Faith and Revolution,” the British critic Terry Eagleton asks, “Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?” His answer, elaborated in prose that is alternately witty, scabrous and angry, is that the other candidates for guidance — science, reason, liberalism, capitalism — just don’t deliver what is ultimately needed. “What other symbolic form,” he queries, “has managed to forge such direct links between the most universal and absolute of truths and the everyday practices of countless millions of men and women?”

Eagleton acknowledges that the links forged are not always benign — many terrible things have been done in religion’s name — but at least religion is trying for something more than local satisfactions, for its “subject is nothing less than the nature and destiny of humanity itself, in relation to what it takes to be its transcendent source of life.” And it is only that great subject, and the aspirations it generates, that can lead, Eagleton insists, to “a radical transformation of what we say and do.”

The other projects, he concedes, provide various comforts and pleasures, but they are finally superficial and tend to the perpetuation of the status quo rather than to meaningful change: “A society of packaged fulfillment, administered desire, managerialized politics and consumerist economics is unlikely to cut to the depth where theological questions can ever be properly raised.”

By theological questions, Eagleton means questions like, “Why is there anything in the first place?”, “Why what we do have is actually intelligible to us?” and “Where do our notions of explanation, regularity and intelligibility come from?”

The fact that science, liberal rationalism and economic calculation can not ask — never mind answer — such questions should not be held against them, for that is not what they do.

And, conversely, the fact that religion and theology cannot provide a technology for explaining how the material world works should not be held against them, either, for that is not what they do. When Christopher Hitchens declares that given the emergence of “the telescope and the microscope” religion “no longer offers an explanation of anything important,” Eagleton replies, “But Christianity was never meant to be an explanation of anything in the first place. It’s rather like saying that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov.”

Eagleton likes this turn of speech, and he has recourse to it often when making the same point: “[B]elieving that religion is a botched attempt to explain the world . . . is like seeing ballet as a botched attempt to run for a bus.” Running for a bus is a focused empirical act and the steps you take are instrumental to its end. The positions one assumes in ballet have no such end; they are after something else, and that something doesn’t yield to the usual forms of measurement. Religion, Eagleton is saying, is like ballet (and Chekhov); it’s after something else.

After what? Eagleton, of course, does not tell us, except in the most general terms: “The coming kingdom of God, a condition of justice, fellowship, and self-fulfillment far beyond anything that might normally be considered possible or even desirable in the more well-heeled quarters of Oxford and Washington.” Such a condition would not be desirable in Oxford and Washington because, according to Eagleton, the inhabitants of those places are complacently in bondage to the false idols of wealth, power and progress. That is, they feel little of the tragedy and pain of the human condition, but instead “adopt some bright-eyed superstition such as the dream of untrammeled human progress” and put their baseless “trust in the efficacy of a spot of social engineering here and a dose of liberal enlightenment there.”

Progress, liberalism and enlightenment — these are the watchwords of those, like Hitchens, who believe that in a modern world, religion has nothing to offer us. Don’t we discover cures for diseases every day? Doesn’t technology continually extend our powers and offer the promise of mastering nature? Who needs an outmoded, left-over medieval superstition?

Eagleton punctures the complacency of these questions when he turns the tables and applies the label of “superstition” to the idea of progress. It is a superstition — an idol or “a belief not logically related to a course of events” (American Heritage Dictionary) — because it is blind to what is now done in its name: “The language of enlightenment has been hijacked in the name of corporate greed, the police state, a politically compromised science, and a permanent war economy,” all in the service, Eagleton contends, of an empty suburbanism that produces ever more things without any care as to whether or not the things produced have true value.

And as for the vaunted triumph of liberalism, what about “the misery wreaked by racism and sexism, the sordid history of colonialism and imperialism, the generation of poverty and famine”? Only by ignoring all this and much more can the claim of human progress at the end of history be maintained: “If ever there was a pious myth and a piece of credulous superstition, it is the liberal-rationalist belief that, a few hiccups apart, we are all steadily en route to a finer world.”

That kind of belief will have little use for a creed that has at its center “one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains.” No wonder “Ditchkins” — Eagleton’s contemptuous amalgam of Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, perhaps with a sidelong glance at Luke 6:39, “Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?” — seems incapable of responding to “the kind of commitment made manifest by a human being at the end of his tether, foundering in darkness, pain, and bewilderment, who nevertheless remains faithful to the promise of a transformative love.”

You won’t be interested in any such promise, you won’t see the point of clinging to it, if you think that “apart from the odd, stubbornly lingering spot of barbarism here and there, history on the whole is still steadily on the up,” if you think that “not only is the salvation of the human species possible but that contrary to all we read in the newspapers, it has in principle already taken place.” How, Eagleton asks, can a civilization “which regards itself as pretty well self-sufficient” see any point in or need of “faith or hope”?

“Self-sufficient” gets to the heart of what Eagleton sees as wrong with the “brittle triumphalism” of liberal rationalism and its ideology of science. From the perspective of a theistic religion, the cardinal error is the claim of the creature to be “self-originating”: “Self-authorship,” Eagleton proclaims, “is the bourgeois fantasy par excellence,” and he could have cited in support the words of that great bourgeois villain, Milton’s Satan, who, upon being reminded that he was created by another, retorts , “[W]ho saw/ When this creation was…?/ We know no time when we were not as now/Know none before us, self-begot, self-raised” (Paradise Lost, V, 856-860).That is, we created ourselves (although how there can be agency before there is being and therefore an agent is not explained), and if we are able to do that, why can’t we just keep on going and pull progress and eventual perfection out of our own entrails?

That is where science and reason come in. Science, says Eagleton, “does not start far back enough”; it can run its operations, but it can’t tell you what they ultimately mean or provide a corrective to its own excesses. Likewise, reason is “too skin deep a creed to tackle what is at stake”; its laws — the laws of entailment and evidence — cannot get going without some substantive proposition from which they proceed but which they cannot contain; reason is a non-starter in the absence of an a prior specification of what is real and important, and where is that going to come from? Only from some kind of faith.

“Ditchkins,” Eagleton observes, cannot ground his belief “in the value of individual freedom” in scientific observation. It is for him an article of faith, and once in place, it generates facts and reasons and judgments of right and wrong. “Faith and knowledge,” Eagleton concludes, are not antithetical but “interwoven.” You can’t have one without the other, despite the Satanic claim that you can go it alone by applying your own independent intellect to an unmediated reality: “All reasoning is conducted within the ambit of some sort of faith, attraction, inclination, orientation, predisposition, or prior commitment.” Meaning, value and truth are not “reducible to the facts themselves, in the sense of being ineluctably motivated by a bare account of them.” Which is to say that there is no such thing as a bare account of them. (Here, as many have noted, is where religion and postmodernism meet.)

If this is so, the basis for what Eagleton calls “the rejection of religion on the cheap” by contrasting its unsupported (except by faith) assertions with the scientifically grounded assertions of atheism collapses; and we are where we always were, confronted with a choice between a flawed but aspiring religious faith or a spectacularly hubristic faith in the power of unaided reason and a progress that has no content but, like the capitalism it reflects and extends, just makes its valueless way into every nook and cranny.

For Eagleton the choice is obvious, although he does not have complete faith in the faith he prefers. “There are no guarantees,” he concedes that a “transfigured future will ever be born.” But we can be sure that it will never be born, he says in his last sentence, “if liberal dogmatists, doctrinaire flag-wavers for Progress, and Islamophobic intellectuals . . . continue to stand in its way.”

One more point. The book starts out witty and then gets angrier and angrier. (There is the possibility, of course, that the later chapters were written first; I’m just talking about the temporal experience of reading it.) I spent some time trying to figure out why the anger was there and I came up with two explanations.

One is given by Eagleton, and it is personal. Christianity may or may not be the faith he holds to (he doesn’t tell us), but he speaks, he says, “partly in defense of my own forbearers, against the charge that the creed to which they dedicated their lives is worthless and void.”

The other source of his anger is implied but never quite made explicit. He is angry, I think, at having to expend so much mental and emotional energy refuting the shallow arguments of school-yard atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins. I know just how he feels.

Snatched from http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/god-talk/

E-Note 9/4: The Communion of Saints

2009-09-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This Sunday at 9:00am in the Fellowship Hall, our beloved sister Susan Kana and members of her Cambodian team will be presenting. Please come out and support Susan and meet her dear friends in the ministry.

Remember near the end of the Apostle's Creed we make this confession: "I believe...in the communion of saints...." Earlier this week I was reading one of my favorite daily devotionals (deceased Lutheran pastor, O. Hallesby) and he has something to say about this 'communion' that is worth repeating. First, his scripture starting point: "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God (1 John 4:7)." Now O. Hallesby:

"It is edifying to see how a person who is born anew is born into the family of God, into the communion of saints. How grateful and happy did we not feel when the children of God received us into their fellowship and met us with love and solicitude! Oh, how we loved them and rejoiced every time we could be together with them privately or at meetings. Do you love the children of God now?
"I am not asking if you like those people to whom you feel yourself attracted. That
the children of the world also do. I am asking you if you love the children of God because they are children of God, whether you feel yourself one in spirit with them or not.
"Many of God's children have fallen asleep. They do not feel at home in the fellowship of believers any longer. In many places believers do not go to prayer meetings or discussion meetings, not even devotional meetings, unless something special is offered them, a 'great preacher', a festive occasion, or some such diversion. Satan is aware of the importance of the communion of saints. And therefore he seeks with all his might to destroy such fellowship. He does this in two ways. Either by sowing factionalism and dissension among the children of God. Or by making them indifferent towards one another and by making them worldly, thus eliminating the warmth and power of true Christian fellowship.
"Dear children of God, pray for the communion of saints, that it may be preserved in fervency, security, and purity. Pray that we may love one another with a love that is full of solicitude for one another, a love that is willing to serve others and to make sacrifices in their behalf."

Thank you O. Hallesby for tending to our faith, hope, and love from the grave. Yours in Christ, John