The Big Apple Versus The Growers of Big Apples

Always the provocateur, Darryl Hart has written an interesting piece for Front Porch Republic titled "If Cooking Slowly and Growing Organically are In, Why Is Rural Ministry Out?" In it, Hart highlights the irony that amid all our praise of Slow Food and organic food production, our attitude toward ministry is one area in which we are still unabashed city folk.

Signs are not encour-aging ... that the growing concern among evangelical Protestants about the environment is having any effect on their church’s estimation of the people who work on farms and live near them. A recent story in Christianity Today on Tim Keller, a popular Presbyterian pastor in New York City, suggests that for all the desires that evangelicals have to be cutting edge and socially aware, a ministry accessible to the rhythms of farming and local communities does not qualify as hip. The story fawns over Keller for his ability to carve out a multiple-congregation structure in the Big Apple, for a theology of the city that says cites are where redemption happens, and for the model of ministry he exhibits to a crop of younger pastors who aspire to make an impact.

According to the news story, “New York attracts the best and the most ambitious.” Keller senses this and ministers accordingly. He told the reporter, “Suppose you are the best violist in Tupelo, Mississippi. You go to Manhattan, and when you get out of the subway, you hear a beggar playing, and he’s better than you are.” One of Keller’s former colleagues puts Keller’s understanding of ministering in the city this way: “Paul had this sense of, I really should go talk to Caesar. He’s not above caring for Onesimus the slave, but somebody should go to talk to Caesar. When you go to New York, that’s what you’re doing. Somebody should talk to the editorial committee of The New York Times; somebody should talk to Barnard, to Columbia. Somebody should talk to Wall Street.”

(No offense intended to the violinists of Tupelo, I'm sure. I mean, you're from Mississippi, for crying out loud! Surely you didn't expect to best the Big Apple's beggars, didja? Know your place, is what I'm saying.)

Perhaps lurking behind this infatuation with The City (yes, I capitalized it on purpose), Hart suggests, is the desire to "elevate one's status by hobnobbing with the influential" coupled with a "born-again infatuation with celebrity." Then, when you factor in evangelicalism's absolute fear of the ordinary, you've got a perfect recipe (ahem) for the kind of elitism that sees the inexperience of young ministers as disqualifying them for urban church planting while not standing in the way of their ministering to simple farm folk (at least until they graduate from fly-over country to the corridors of power).

Evangelicals are disposed to understand grace and faith in extraordinary categories and so overlook stories of ordinary believers, routine piety, and even rural congregations as insignficant. Discontent with the average and routine aspects of natural life and of grace appears to breed a similar dissatisfaction with humble ministries in places of little interest to the editors of the Times.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The appreciation for the ordinary that amillennialism produces is as difficult to reconcile with postmillennial transformationism as faith is with sight, and as the cross is with glory.

From Bones to Bach, Savagery to Shakespeare

I have always been a bit bemused when I hear proponents of the idea that Christianity has an inevitable transformative effect on a culture say things like, "Look at a society after the Christian religion has penetrated it, and you'll see how much progress it always makes." The question that arises in my mind is, "Progress towards what?"

Well, towards American values, of course....

You see, the notion of progress or improvement is meaningless without some standard toward which said progress or improvement is made. And in the case we're discussing, the standard is always us. To put it bluntly, to whatever degree some African nation begins to resemble a western one after embracing Christianity, it can therefore be said that the nation in question has improved or made progress.

(And coupled with such cheers over improvement, of course, are jeers over the hopelessly backward and primitive ways the newly-Christianized culture has thankfully left behind.)

For my own part, this all seems quite ethnocentric and racist, not to mention extremely selective when it comes to evaluating Christianity's influence. For example, to gush over the fact that even black people can be trained to listen to Bach instead of savagely killing one another is to assume that Bach's music (along with that of other white European composers) is objectively good. And moreover, such criteria also forgets that Christians themselves are often rather bloodthirsty and prone to beat the drums for war.

Come to think of it, wasn't our religion used as justification for killing and enslaving the very people whom we claim our religion is supposed to civilize? "Isn't it ironic, don'tcha think?"

On that note, how are we to deal with the fact that America, upon which Christianity has enjoyed near-exclusive rights of influence for 400 years, is still in the business of exploiting Asia's and Africa's poor? Now I suspect the retort will be something along the lines of "Well, that's not Christianity's fault, it's the fault of other political and economic factors." OK, so let me get this straight: If there's something good about America then Christianity gets the credit, but if there's something bad, Christianity avoids the blame? Sounds like the game has been rigged from the get-go.

I think it would be prudent at this point to remind us all of what Christianity actually is. Christianity is a religion (not a world-and-life view) whose central tenet is that God assumed a human nature in order to live, die, and rise again to save sinners. If that's a fair summary, then I must admit that it completely escapes me how such a faith can be expected to instill in its adherents an appreciation for fine cuisine or, for that matter, an appreciation for silverware with which to eat it.

If we're being honest in our transformationism, we should lay at the foot of the church both the credit for our society's virtues as well as the blame for its vices. But even better, in my opinion, would be to let the earthly kingdom worry about earth, and let the church provide water, word, and wine to those whose thirst can be quenched by nothing else.

Calvin's Kingdom Theology

At Westminster Seminary's recent conference on Calvin I picked a copy of David VanDrunen's essay titled The Two Kingdoms Doctrine and the Relationship of Church and State in the Early Reformed Tradition (a very catchy title, I know. Just rolls off the tongue). I hope to do a couple posts on it, but for now, here's a snippet:

Though many advocates of the transform-ationist view suggest they are following the lead of John Calvin and the Reformation, Calvin in fact offered a different theolgical foundation for thinking about social and cultural issues through his doctrine of the two kingdoms. By means of this doctrine, Calvin distinguished clearly between Christ's redemptive rule in the spiritual kingdom, experienced now in the church, and God's providential rule in the civil kingdom, comprising the state and various areas of life outside the church.

Contemporary Reformed transformationists recognize the importance of a theology of the kingdom of God for their vision, but affirming one (redemptive) kingdom that extends to all human activities and institutions presents a decidedly different vision from Calvin's kingdom theology.

As we jump into this essay I will be curious to hear from my Catholic readers how they understand the relationship between the two kingdoms, or "cities" as Augustine called them. And though this post is only a bare introduction, feel free to begin dialoguing now....

And on the Eighth Day the Market Said, "Let There Be Youth," and There Was Youth. And the Market Saw That It Was Good.

Continuing his diatribe against what he calls “ecclesial apartheid,” Michael Horton sets his sights on the holy grail of evangelical ecclesiology: youth ministry. In the same way that Madison Avenue created the youth demographic in order to sell stuff to them while they’re still naïve enough to believe the things Madison Avenue tell them, so the “catholicity of the market” pursued by many churches seeks to pander to this demographic in order to lure parents to the churches their kids like the best (advertisers refer to this as the “nag factor”).

The same market forces that drive us to disposable identities and perpetual novelty (planned adolescence) are tearing apart the fabric of genuine covenant community.... Generational narcissism has become a publicly accepted form of self-preoccupation since the 1970s, and each generation is profiled in such literature in the most hyperbolic terms. When marketing and sociology developed the demographic known as “youth,” the church created the “youth group.”

Horton then draws attention to the statistic that half of erstwhile churchgoing college freshmen are unchurched by their sophomore year. He argues that, given the perpetuation of “children’s church” and youth services, “instead of regarding them as having abandoned church, we might perhaps wonder if they were ever fully a part of one.”

We have learned to think as never before in terms of the uniqueness of over-stereotyped generations. Where church divisions used to be lamented as differences over doctrine, they are now celebrated as “megachurch” and “emergent,” as if each generation were an ex nihilo creation.

This gives rise to a couple interesting points. First, what is celebrated as “incarnational ministry” seems to be a prime suspect in perpetuating such market-driven catholicity, and second, this type of approach tends to de-emphasize doctrinal differences (cult) and over-emphasize demographic ones (culture). Hence Christian unity focused on a common confession of the gospel is marginalized in favor of a hegemonic uniformity driven by market forces.

We must reject the divide-and-conquer approach of rival catholicities, taking Paul’s question to the Corinthians—“Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in?”—and apply it to the churches of our own day: “Don’t you have your own social networking contexts like work, school, or Facebook to pursue your unique tastes in music, sports, or hobbies?” After all, the in-breaking of the age to come that happens in worship every Lord’s Day relativizes all times and places and jeopardizes our own cherished uniqueness in this passing age.

In a word, the phrase “the church in Corinth” should be read with the accent on the first two words, not just the last two.

On False Gods, False Devils, and the Fear of Two-Timing Jesus

No one appreciates a two-timer, least of all God. I mean, if all those passages about idolatry and spiritual harlotry are any indication, Yahweh does not appreciate being cheated on.

Now when it comes to the Christian’s relationship to culture, it would seem that many feel the typical guilt occasioned by a love triangle of sorts in which God is sometimes snubbed so we can read War and Peace, see a rock show, or engage in political debate. In a word, cultural material is often looked upon by the believer as the kind of stuff you hide under your mattress and pray no one finds.

Enter two-kingdoms theology. One of the greatest strengths of this model is that it protects earth from being either demonized by the fundamentalist or divinized by the liberal. The civil kingdom can be seen by two-kingdoms proponents as a perfectly legitimate occasion for rejoicing, frustration, prayer, marching, or protest, all the while refusing to force earth to bear the burden of becoming anything other than it is.

If man’s fall taught us anything, it is that the cultural work of the sons of Adam, while still worthwhile, can never issue forth in eternal, heavenly blessing. That gig is up, and we lost. Now, the best we can expect of our carnal weaponry such as wrenches, violins, and tennis rackets is that they help build a more just and pleasurable society for us to enjoy.

But at the end of the earthly day will come the great and terrible Day of the Lord, on which “the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.” When “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,” there will be no rebuke for the church over the fact that Babylon is still there and hasn’t been transformed into Jerusalem. Rather, the civil kingdom will simply have served its purpose and will be destroyed as God’s people “come out from among her,” rejoicing over her destruction while the earthlings throw dust in the air and lament Babylon's fall.

So by all means, enjoy earth, lament earth, love earth, and hate it. But what we must not do is turn the civil kingdom into a false god on the one hand, or into a false devil on the other.

Does the Church Have a Messianic Complex?

In his article entitled "Transforming Culture with a Messiah Complex," Michael Horton argues that an overemphasis on Christ's incarnation, coupled with an underemphasis on his ascension, causes the church much confusion with respect to her mission in this world. Because the ascension resulted in what Horton calls "the real absence of Christ," many in our day have attempted to fill that void by an "incarnational" approach to ministry that forgets, apparently, that the incarnation already happened.

In fact, "incarnational" is becoming a dominant adjective in evangelical circles, often depriving Christ’s person and work of its specificity and uniqueness. Christ’s person and work easily becomes a "model" or "vision" for ecclesial action (imitatio Christi), rather than a completed event to which the church offers its witness. We increasingly hear about "incarn-ational ministry," as if Christ's unique personal history could be repeated or imitated. The church, whether conceived in "high church" or "low church" terms, rushes in to fill the void, as the substitute for its ascended Lord.

Perhaps it's because we're fidgety or antsy, but it certainly seems to be the case that the American church is way more confortable when it is busy doing stuff. In the same way that the attention span of a high-schooler is such that she cannot sit still for three minutes without whipping out her cell to text a friend, so the church cringes when made to "stay put" (to use Horton's phrase) and think upon Christ's present ansence and future return.

It is this recurring temptation to look away from Christ’s absence—toward a false presence, often substituting itself as an extension of Christ’s incarnation and reconciling work—that distracts it from directing the world’s attention to Christ’s parousia in the future. Yet a church that does not acknowledge Christ’s absence is no longer focused on Christ; instead, it’s tempted to idolatrous substitutions in the attempt to seize Canaan prematurely.

As Horton points out, this is all just deja vu all over again:

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make gods for us, 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" (Ex 32:1).

Could it be that ignoring the ascension results in our also ignoring that which the ascension made possible, namely Pentecost? Does our clinging to the flesh of Christ betray a kind of Magdalenean discomfort with Jesus' presence through his Spirit in Word and sacrament?

In short, is our preference of the second Person of the Godhead over the third a bizarre kind of eschatology that is over- and under-realized at the same time?

Speaking Prophetically to the Church

As much as I hate to disagree with my brother Lane Keister, I just can't help myself on this one.

In his recent post entitled How to Avoid a Recession, Lane argues that the way the government must respond to our current economic downturn is by cutting spending and cutting taxes. Now, when libertarian-type arguments begin to take this form, what is almost always meant by "cutting spending" is "cutting spending on programs that the poor benefit from." Characteristically Lane, like many Reformed limited-government advocates, lists such programs as public schooling, Social Security, and welfare as among those areas in which Big Brother has no business sticking his nose.

Maybe Lane's right (but I, for one, don't think this question is solved by an appeal to Romans 13). Still, if he were consistent he would have to include the military-industrial complex as an example of massive government spending of U.S. taxpayer dollars (around $626,000,000,000 in 2007).

But that aside, what irked me about Lane's post and subsequent comments was the idea that the church is to "speak prophetically" to the culture about its sin:

"It is very disappointing to me to see that the church is not seeking to be prophetic in its critique of the government. Should the church ignore sin when the church sees sin? I think not."

Now, what I almost never hear in these kinds of calls to speak prophetically to the state is any defense of what exactly the church, speaking as such, has the authority to tell the government to do or stop doing.

If we're to tell the state to stop overspending, does that include the hundreds of billions spent on the war? If we're to tell the state to enforce the Decalogue's moral demands, does that include covetousness and greed? If we're to tell the state to be tough on crime, does that include the kinds of crime wealthy white people commit?

Rather than speaking prophetically to the culture on earthly matters as a minister of the Word (a task I hardly feel competent to do), I would rather just do what my presbytery actually ordained me to do: to speak prophetically to my church, giving them the law, the gospel, the bread, and the wine.

You know what they say about the Jack of All Trades....

What Hath Cairo To Do With Beaverton?

As I mentioned in my last post, D.A. Carson's main criticism of the "pessimism" of D.G. Hart's and Frederica Matthewes-Green's respective positions on the role of the church in culture is that they "fail to see the temporally good things we can do to improve and even transform social structures." Carson then cites abolishing slavery, curing disease, and reducing sex traffic as concrete ways (among "countless others") that "God's redeemed people" can fulfill our "responsibility to do good to the city."

Judging by the number of comments in the last thread, I'd say this has hit a nerve. Let's delve deeper and in greater detail, shall we?

For now, let's start with Carson's first example of how Christians can impact society: abolishing slavery. As has been pointed out already, "slavery" is hardly a univocal concept. The Egyptian subjugation of the Hebrews was evidently bad (though it got the divine thumbs-up later on when the Hebrews were the ones holding the whips). The Roman Empire's version of slavery, however, was apparently not evil enough to elicit a condemnation from Jesus, Peter, or Paul. American slavery was clearly an abomination, not only in this writer's opinion but in that of most people outside the bearded of Moscow, Idaho.

Whether or not the "wage slavery" that many have attributed to capitalism, or the sweatshop labor that the "free market" works so hard to perpetuate, qualifies as the kind of slavery that Carson thinks the church should abolish is unclear (I kind of doubt it, since it's always easier to tsk-tsk the crimes that Americans no longer commit than those that we presently associate with God's Own Politics [GOP for short]).

Either way, though, I'm not sure which book of the Bible provides the best tactical approach for putting Nike out of business (maybe Romans or Galatians, since they clearly repudiate the Mosaic works principle of "Just Do It").

But then, if Paul fails to suffice there's always Naomi Klein....

Gimme an "S"! Gimme an "L"! Gimme an "A-V-E-R-Y!"

In his discussion of the options vying for favor in the contemporary Christ/culture conversation, D.A. Carson interacts with those whose expectations he deems “minimalist” (such as Darryl Hart and Frederica Mathewes-Green).

Citing Hart’s insistence that Kuyperian attempts to integrate faith and scholarship are misguided, and Mathewes-Green’s likening of culture to the weather (we live in it and can even predict it with some accuracy, but changing it is not really an option), Carson argues that if all these authors were doing were offering a warning against utopianism, then all would be well. But such pessimism “fail[s] to see the temporally good things we can do to improve and even transform social structures” (p. 217-18, emphasis original).

Listing examples such as abolishing slavery, curing disease, and reducing sex traffic, Carson maintains that “in these and countless other ways cultural change is possible. More importantly, doing good to the city... is part of our responsibility as God’s redeemed people in this time of tension between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet.’”

Hmmm....

If “God's redeemed people” are the ones uniquely fit to end slavery and cure cancer, then it must follow that all people who dislike cancer are God's redeemed people, and all who are God's redeemed people dislike slavery. Unfortunately for us all, many anti-abolitionists were southern Presbyterians, but fortunately for us all, many pagans are not huge fans of cancer.

And for my own part, I am not a big slavery- or cancer aficionado. But as I recall, I wasn't much of a fan in my BC days either.

Maybe there is common ground between the old and new me after all.

The Clarion Call to Live Quietly

The last of Niebuhr's five options for discerning the relationship between Christ and culture is dubbed "Christ the Transformer of Culture" which, according to Carson's reading of Niebuhr, is not concerned so much with individual conversions, but the conversion of culture itself.

Niebuhr argues that for the proponent of this transformationist motif, eschatology is more "realized" than it is for most other Christians of differing persuasions.

"[The conversionist] lives somewhat less 'between the times' and somewhat more in the divine 'Now' than do his brother Christians. The eschatological future has become for him an eschatological present."

Interestingly, Niebuhr places both John Calvin and John Wesley within this trajectory. According to Carson, Wesley actually strengthens his conversionist heritage by espousing the doctrine of sinless perfection.

I hope to deal with the methodological problems with Niebuhr's approach in a subsequent post, but I do trust that the careful reader will at least scratch his head in confusion over the placing of John Calvin and John Wesley on the same team, regardless of the game.

There are others who could deal with the questionable historical-theological claim that Calvin was a transformationist better than I (Hart? Wenger? Clark? acd?), but I will say that the idea that Calvin was all about transforming Geneva is somewhat suspect, not in the least because, as a French refugee in the city, he had no real power in the first place.

Biblically-theologically, though, I am certainly more than competent enough to challenge the idea that Niebuhr, by his lack of negative criticism, tacitly endorses, i.e., that Jesus wants to change the culture from common to holy. Despite the fact that Jesus, Paul, and Peter all spoke of the role of the believer in society, none of them waxed more inspiring than simply calling their hearers to live quietly and mind their own business.

No, such a message won't sell many best-selling books, but if the goal is to call out from this present earthly kingdom a holy city for the glory of God, then it sounds just about right.

Good Mourning

As with the first beatitude, the second focuses more on the outward circumstances, rather than the inner disposition, of its subjects. Just as “blessed are the poor in spirit” describes a willingness to suffer material loss for the sake of the kingdom rather than a sense of inner, spiritual bankruptcy, so “blessed are those who mourn” has more to do with lamenting the seeming suspension of God’s justice in this world than it does with feeling sad in our hearts.

Comparing Matt. 6:4 with the corresponding beatitude in Luke’s gospel is helpful here. He doesn’t say “blessed are you who weep in your hearts,” but “blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh” (6:21). The contrast, then, is not between the inward and the outward, but between the present and the future.

I mean, anyone can mourn—it’s as easy as reading the morning paper, getting irritated, and resolving to do something about the direction this world is heading. The hard part of the beatitude is the second half (the part that postpones our comfort to a future time). In a word, what we do with our mourning reveals where our heart’s treasure lies. And if this is true, we may justly shudder as we consider the this-worldly nature of the hope that characterizes much the evangelical and Reformed church.

What makes this beatitude especially astonishing is how different its ethos is from that which was espoused in the Old Covenant law. Even a cursory reading of the second half of Deuteronomy 28 will amply demonstrate that, according to Moses, “Cursed are those who mourn.” Israel, as an earthly type of heavenly glory, was expected to exhibit military might and material abundance as tokens of God's favor, and any failure to prosper was indicative of Yahweh’s displeasure. Jesus, it seems, overturns that principle altogether, and Paul, echoing him, actually appeals to his own experience of what used to be considered covenant curses in order to validate his own apostleship.

From a human perspective, it’s no wonder these men were killed.

Art: Take It, Leave It, But Don't Redeem It

Continuing our look at the relationship of the Christian to popular culture and media, I now turn to those who insist that the "missional" believer (or church) must embrace the genres of film, television, and music in order to "speak the language of the culture."

Appeal for this position is often made to I Cor. 9:19-23 where Paul claims to "become all things to all men in order to save some." Unfortunately for the "contextualists," Paul's demographic sensitivity is rather wanting, as seen in his placing all of humanity in one of two broad categories (Jew or Greek). It's kind of the equivalent of a missions conference holding a seminar called "Ministry to Non-Whites."

More damaging to the "incarnational" approach is the incarnation (the one of Christ I mean). One would think that something like, say, God becoming a human would be sufficiently accomodating without my quoting Panic! At the Disco in my sermons in order to "connect with the kids."

To our point, then, I would argue that it is a tad ironic that those who laud "authenticity" would advocate the believer's consuming pop media simply in order to build a bridge to people that wouldn't otherwise exist (anyone remember Mr. Rosso?). Just admit it: if you thought your dad was lame for saying "like, totally" to you when you were a kid, then it's a pretty safe bet that when we say "mos' def'" to ours the response is a similar rolling of the eyes. What... ever.

And finally, I often wonder why it's just white culture whose art is co-opted for missional purposes (either in its bourgeoisie, high-brow, wine-and-cheese expressions, or in its bohemian, arthouse, po-mo variety). I could be wrong, but if there are hip hop- or flamenco-inspired worship services in the PCA, I've never run across them.

Maybe Oscar Wilde was right, and "all art is useless." If art could talk, perhaps it would say, "Take me or leave me, but please don't redeem me."

Review of Kingdom Coming

This review of Michelle Goldberg’s Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism was published in the most recent issue of Modern Reformation. Sorry for the length....

***

A self-described secular Jew and ardent urbanite, Michelle Goldberg takes her readers behind the scenes of a movement she has dubbed Christian Nationalism, a “totalistic political ideology” that begins with the idea that “the Bible is absolutely and literally true” and extrapolates from this “a total political program... a conflation of scripture and politics that sees America’s triumphs as confirmation of the truth of the Christian religion, and America’s struggles as part of a cosmic contest between God and the devil.” Christian Nationalism, Goldberg argues, “claims supernatural sanction for its campaign of national renewal and speaks rapturously about vanquishing the millions of Americans who would stand in its way.” The “ultimate goal” of this movement is not fairness but dominion: “The movement is built on a theology that asserts the Christian right to rule. That doesn’t mean that nonbelievers will be forced to convert. They’ll just have to learn their place.”

Although this reviewer’s usual reaction to reading the theologizing of atheists is similar to that of watching the blind juggle (i.e., amusement mixed with horror), I was both surprised and disturbed at the accuracy of Goldberg’s portrayal of Christian Nationalist leaders and the theology that compels them (surprised, because it’s not every day that I come across a Jew who can navigate the labyrinthine relationship between Tim LaHaye’s Dispensationalism, D. James Kennedy’s postmillennialism, and R.J. Rushdoony’s Reconstructionism; and disturbed, because she understands the relationship of eschatology to cultural vision more clearly than most Christians I know. More on this later…).

Among the topics Goldberg examines are Christian homeschooling and its importance for raising up the next generation of faithful conservative politicians and lobbyists, the revisionist history necessary to instill in us the myth of the evangelical piety of our nation’s Founding Fathers, the politics of homophobia, Intelligent Design, the elitism of faith-based initiatives for the poor, and the politics behind abstinence-only education. Goldberg points out the incredible irony of the fact that Christian Nationalism’s closest allies in these cultural battles are none other than Islamic fundamentalists. According to a story from The Washington Post (the headline of which read: “Islamic Bloc, Christian Right Team Up to Lobby U.N.”), “American evangelicals have made common cause with Islamists at the United Nations” to plot strategy on social issues. The lines defining good and evil, it seems, have been redrawn according to cultural, rather than religious, ideals. This is nothing new, of course. If many Protestant denominational distinctives have been sacrificed for the sake of waging a common cultural war, why stop there? Muslims, if anything, are certainly good in a fight.

Though the Jesus of Calvinism has been dubbed “The Transformer of Culture” by H. Richard Niebuhr in his seminal work Christ and Culture, the degree to which the Geneva reformer (or for that matter, the second Person of the Trinity) advocated social transformation as belonging to the church’s mandate is still an open question. What is not open to debate, however, is the Christian Nationalists’ interpretation of Jesus’ Great Commission to his disciples prior to his ascension to the Father’s right hand. Also closed is any discussion about the cultural content of that Commission, let alone the deeper issue of whether it contains such cultural content in the first place.

The Christian Nationalist political agenda, Goldberg points out, is essentially a baptized version of the talking points of the Grand Old Party. Though a robust critique of the movement’s underlying eschatology falls outside Goldberg’s purview or expertise—but she has plenty to say about its politics—it seems, to this reviewer anyway, that the differences between the politicized versions of pre- and postmillennialism pale in comparison to their glaring similarities. Both are consumed with power and the flexing of political muscle, and both are fearful of losing their influence and fading into cultural obscurity.

Throughout Kingdom Coming Goldberg both advocates a return to the rationalistic epistemology of the Enlightenment and assumes, somewhat naïvely, that such “objective” thinking will forever cure religious mankind of the need to force our cunningly devised fables upon our neighbors. The notion, for instance, that an evangelical scientist can have anything meaningful to say about cosmic origins is absurd in Goldberg’s estimation. An atheist biologist, on the other hand, has no ideological axe to grind, and therefore may speak authoritatively without having to recuse herself due to a conflict of interest.

Aside from the biased nature of Goldberg’s pretended lack of bias, her overall point is certainly well-taken: Christianity has been co-opted and its true aims commandeered for political ends, and narrow ones at that. Conspicuous by its absence from Christian Nationalist rhetoric is any actual defense of their understanding of what a Christianized society would look like. Instead, with a “wink wink” here and a “nudge nudge” there, we are exhorted to elect officials who will restore godliness and Christian virtue to our once-glorious land. “Godliness,” of course, really means unbridled capitalism, and “Christian virtue” is code for maintaining U.S. foreign policy and the War on Terror. But what about those Christians who don’t believe that America is under a national, conditional covenant with God like Israel was in time past? What about the thousands of sincere saints who don’t think the U.S. Constitution belongs in the ark of the covenant along with the tables of the Decalogue and Aaron’s rod that budded? And what about those believers whose eschatology precludes them from identifying the eternal concerns of the kingdom of Christ with the earthly affairs of the kingdom of man?

It is human nature to desire to unite with others of a like mind. What is often lacking is some banner or common cause to measure our like-mindedness and give us a reason to come together. While it is perfectly legitimate for fellow-citizens of the civil sphere to rally together for a social cause, or for brothers and sisters in Christ to celebrate their unity in the gospel, what is altogether illegitimate is to collapse these two kingdoms into one (a mistake Calvin called a “Jewish folly”). When we label our unity “Christian” while defining it by the bullet points of a political party (on either side of the aisle), we sacralize the secular, trivialize the sacred, and misconstrue the nature of Christianity as a civil religion whose first great commandment can be swallowed by the second.

By Jason J. Stellman

Babylon By Mirror

I remember listening a sermon by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in which he referred to the hymn "The Kingdom Come, O God" which contained this line:

O’er heathen lands afar
Thick darkness broodeth yet:
Arise, O Morning Star,
Arise, and never set!

He basically laughed, and lamented, at the idea that Great Britain was still thought of in his day as a place that needed to look "afar" to find "heathen lands." Look no farther than in the collective mirror, the Doctor argued, for there you'll find all the heathensim you'll ever want to see.

I wonder if transformationism in the spiritual kingdom is the mirror-image of its counterpart in the civil one?

Just as postmillennial transformationists feel compelled to "redeem the city," so many Americans (believing or not) feel the responsibility to "make the world safe for democracy." The latter has been called "the white man's burden," and perhaps the former should be considered the Christian version of Manifest Destiny.

If what is good for the pious goose is good for the pagan gander, then the secular version of judgment begining at the house of God may be the willingness to admit that we Americans don't need to get to "Babylon By Bus," we can just walk out our front door.

Who, us Babylon? I dunno, but Revelation 18 hits eerily close to home.

The Scandal of the Gospel

I just began a series of sermons called More Than Conquerors in which I plan to look at Romans 6-8 and focus on the topic of Christian living under the shadow of the cross, and in the power of the Spirit.

This morning I preached from Romans 6:1 and quoted Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who insisted that all faithful preaching must be mistaken for antinomianism, saying, "There is a kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation."

You see, those who see the gospel primarily as a tool for individual or cultural transformation will inevitably be hesitant to give too much attention to something like grace. After all, if not even the law could cure our constant sinning, and then God just accepts us anyway, the conclusion that grace will curb our lusts sounds pretty absurd if you think about it.

"Give 'em an inch," as the fella said.

With all due acknowledgement of the dangers of the etymological fallacy, it is still interesting that the word from which we translate the "offense" that the scribes and Pharisees felt at Jesus' person and message is the Greek verb scandalizomai, from which we derive our English word "scandal."

I don't know about you, but if a person's understanding of the gospel isn't scandalous to my natural way of thinking, if it doesn't call into question everything I think I know, if it doesn't subvert the wisdom of this age, then when you preach it I can barely muster the energy to yawn.

Which is why my response to the idea that the gospel is simply the latest in a long line of self-help methods, or that New Urbanism is "kingdom work," is to wonder why Jesus had to be so attention-seeking as to die to accomplish such tasks.

If the gospel is as "earthy" as many claim, then I will echo the scandal of the scribes and protest alongside them the seeming overkill of the cross and resurrection.

Take My Advice and Do Better....

I often like to joke about how I would be a great coach for just about any sports team. For example, if I were a batting coach on a baseball team, I would patiently instruct the hitter not to swing at balls, only at strikes. And while we're on the subject, if you do swing, be sure to actually hit the ball (what's the point of swinging and missing?). Oh, and another thing: if you do hit it, be sure to hit it somewhere where there's not a fielder standing there (he might throw you out). Aim better, is what I'm saying.

As amusing as I think I am when I bark such instructions at the TV screen while a bunch of people are gathered to watch a game, the fact is that many church leaders do the same thing when instructing their congregations, or the church at large.

Apparently, the church is supposed to "have an impact." Plus, it should definitely "bring in the kingdom," all the while not forgetting to "redeem the culture."

Is it me, or is this instruction about as helpful as "hit better," "throw harder," and "run faster"?

Thankfully, the Reformed confessions make the church's marching orders much more clear: the job of the local church is to make disciples by preaching the Word, administering the sacraments, and exercising discipline in the lives of its members.

Whatever impact or success that the church may hope for (things that are in God's hands), it will only come as the result of doing the things we are actually responsible for. Moreover, if the church refuses to give due attention to the preaching of the apostles' doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers, she has no business expecting God's blessing on her extra-curricular activities.

When properly understood, then, the advice the church needs to heed is both simple and specific:

Be the Church.

Amillennialism's Pitfalls?

This evening we took a break from our study of Revelation and I gave the first of two lectures on "Amillennialism and the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms." One of the questions that was asked took me a bit off guard, and I'd like to out it out there for your consideration and input.

If pre- and postmillennial theology have their own problems, what about amillennialism? What are its possible pitfalls?

My answer was that a strong amillennial view of life in this age as consisting of suffering now and glory later (which I regard as the amill position in a nutshell) can potentially lead to individual apathy if it is not coupled with a healthy and robust appreciation of the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the New Covenant saint.

The problem with transformationism, as I see it, is its insistance that the individual, redemptive transformation experienced by the believer by virtue of the indwelling Spirit of the age to come must be replicated outside the believer, in the culture. I would argue, on the other hand, that while the believer presently experiences elements of both already and not yet, the cosmos still must wait patiently for the full manifestation of the children of God and the redemption that will follow.

In short, when we allow the un-realized nature of cosmic eschatology to swallow the semi-realized nature of personal eschatology, we inevitably end up with an under-realized and anemic doctrine of sanctification.

Thoughts?

The Questionable Job Well-Done

As I pointed out in my last post, all legitimate vocations are potentially God-honoring, and further, there is no need to "redeem" or "transform" the work in order for God to be glorified by it. Accounting is accounting, whether it is done for human or divine glory.

Some vocations, however, are by their very nature God-dishonoring. Occupations such as prostitution, drug trafficking, and bank robbery are both illegal and immoral, and no matter how much one may try to convince himself otherwise, God cannot but be grieved with those who practice such things.

But here's where the issue becomes interesting....

Are there jobs that are not only legal but respectable, but which are by their very nature morally questionable? I say "by their very nature" because I am not speaking of the dirty cop on the take, or the embezzling CFO, or the juiced-up designated hitter. These are legitimate jobs done dishonestly. I am speaking of professions that, even though legal and even when performed well, are inherently bad.

I hesitate to provide examples for obvious reasons. So I will let you, the faithful reader, wrestle with this question and come up with examples, if there indeed are any.

Fire away....

Egypt's Unworthiness, Part IV

The Pointlessness of Philanthropy

If serving oneself is vain and fruitless, what about serving others? Surely it is in philanthropy—love toward our fellow man—that ultimate meaning and purpose are to be found. But Solomon tried this as well, turning from self-gratification through the pursuit of wisdom, pleasure, and power to the benefiting of others.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)

But this, too, was to no avail. The reason is simple enough: if the pursuit of pleasure yielded vanity and void, what good is there in sharing these findings with others? A man may sincerely desire to bless his blind neighbor by offering to lead him by the hand, but if he himself is also blind, his efforts will yield no fruit (Luke 6:39). Kreeft writes, “How can the gift of vanity be any more than vain? … Once I find the summum bonum, it must be shared, yes, but I cannot share it before I find it.” Multiply zero by any other number, no matter how high, and the result will still be the same.

Another reason why altruism is pointless in the world of Ecclesiastes is that it is not only the one who seeks the good of others who is ignorant of the meaning of life, but so are those whom he seeks to help. “What good is it to hand down the mite of wisdom that I have attained if posterity is as foolish as I am?”

Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19).

The good works we perform for our fellow man, therefore, are not only filthy rags in God’s sight because of his surpassing holiness (Isa. 64:6; Tit. 3:5), but considered on their own merits, they are not even helpful or worthwhile in any ultimately meaningful sense.

Is God Libertarian, Green, or Somewhere In Between?

In my post entitled "Eschatology Precedes... Pretty Much Everything" I raised the question of whether political activism would be more prominent in a transformational church, or in a church holding to a two kingdoms paradigm.

My guess is that most readers assume that my own position is that transformationists are more likely to be politically involved than 2K folks. I'm not so sure, though....

When the universal Lordship of Chirst over "every square inch" of the universe is (mis)used as an excuse to collapse the various spheres of his sovereignty (effectively forcing upon the Church the responsibility to transform every facet of culture from the arts to plumbing), politics becomes a lot more daunting than it would be if those spheres were properly recognized.

Think about it: If we jettison common grace (and common sense along with it) and convince ourselves that the Bible is our only source of economic and politcal wisdom, then any view that we adopt about anything, if it is to be considered a valid option for Christians to hold, must necessarily be the divinely-sanctioned position. Every political debate, then, will be over whether the Bible's vision is Libertarian, Green, or somewhere in between.

But if we are content to let the Bible be determinative only for those issues that it actually addresses in detail (like, say, the gospel), then the believer will be free to allow his conscience, study, and overall experience of the world to play a role in the forming of his own political opinions and involvement (or lack thereof).

Ironically, then, it is when the church refuses the burden of fixing the world that her members can be freed to play a role in improving it. But beware, their cars may not all display identical bumper stickers in the months leading up to November '08.

But then, what does that have to do with Christian unity anyway?