Kevin DeYoung's Blog, page 111

Monday Morning Humor

Some commercials get better with age.

And then there are those that must have seemed dated the first time they aired.

 

It Was Enough

But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the death Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Romans 4:23-25

Imagine you are one of six boys in your family. One day, five of you sneak out of your rooms, ride your bikes to the grocery store, steal fireworks and lighters, come home and start blowing stuff up in your driveway. Being naughty and not very bright young boys, you light the firecrackers with Mom and Dad just inside the house. Soon the parental units are both outside and the five of you are in big trouble. But just then, your older brother, who has been learning about sine and cosine in his room, comes to your defense and offers to be punished in your place, even though he had no part of your crime. So Mom and Dad send him to his room and make clear that though the five of you are guilty and your older brother is innocent, he will pay for your sin and merit your forgiveness by going to his room.

Now as long a big brother is in his room, you feel as though you are not yet cleared for your crime. Until the door opens and your big brother emerges, you sense that the punishment is still being meted out. You don’t know if this little switcheroo is actually going to work. But once big brother is set free, you rejoice, because now you know your penalty has been paid and Mom and Dad have nothing against you. They empty room indicates the satisfaction of parental justice.

The resurrection means the death of Jesus was enough—enough to atone for sin, enough to reconcile us to God, enough to present us holy in God’s presence. Christ won; sin, death, and the Devil lost—that’s the good news of the empty tomb.

His death was enough, and so he lives.

And so do we.

The Silence of God

What You Can’t Sing Without Penal Substitution

The notion that Christ died as our sin-bearing substitute who bore the curse for our sakes is considered, by some, too primitive, too violent, and too narrow. Penal substitution is only a theory of the atonement, just one idea among many, maybe not even a good theory, at the very least not the best or the most important once. I would argue that texts like Isaiah 53, Mark 10, Romans 3, 2 Corinthians 5, Galatians 3, and Philippians 3 demonstrate that Christ is not only our wrath-sustaining Savior, he is also the Lord our Righteousness. The Son’s propiatory sacrifice for sinners is the best news of the good news, the biblical truth that holds the gospel together.

But besides the testimony of Scripture in support for penal substitution, I would point to the history of our hymnody.

Man of Sorrows! What a Name

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

In my place condemned he stood,

Sealed my pardon with his blood:

Hallelujah! what a Savior!

O Sacred Head, Now Wounded

What thou, my Lord, hast suffered was all for sinner’s gain:

Mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain.

Lo, here I fall, my Savior! Tis I deserve thy place;

Look on me with they favor, vouchsafe to me thy grace.

Ah, Holy Jesus, How Hast Thou Offended

Who was the guilty who brought this upon thee?

Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee.

‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee:

I crucified thee.

Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed

Was it for crimes that I had done he groaned upon the tree!

Amazing pity! Grace unknown! And love beyond degree!

Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted

Tell me, ye who hear him groaning, was there every grief like his?

Friends thro’ fear his cause disowning, foes insulting his distres;

Many hands were raised to wound him, none would interpose to save;

But the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that Justice gave.

Ye who think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil great

Here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.

Mark the sacrifice appointed, see who bears the awful load;

’tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed, Son of Man and Son of God.

What Wondrous Love is This

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul,

What wondrous love is this, O my soul!

What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss

To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,

To bear the dreadful curse for my soul!

A Debtor to Mercy Alone

A debtor to mercy alone, of covenant mercy I sing;

Nor fear, with your righteousness on, my person and off’ring to bring.

The terrors of law and of God with me can have nothing to do;

My Savior’s obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from view.

And Can it Be That I Should Gain

And can it be, that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood?

Died he for me, who caused his pain?

For me, who him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me!

Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me!

Without penal substitution there is no salvation. And there isn’t nearly as much to sing about.

Becoming a Curse for Us

Maundy Thursday

[image error]Like millions of Christians around the world, we will have a Maundy Thursday service tonight. If you’ve never heard the term, it’s not Monday-Thursday (which always confused me as a kid), but Maundy Thursday, as in Mandatum Thursday. Mandatum is the Latin word for “command” or “mandate”, and the day is called Maundy Thursday because on the night before his death Jesus gave his disciples a new command. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).

At first it seems strange that Christ would call this a new command. After all, the Old Testament instructed God’s people to love their neighbors and Christ himself summarized the law as love for God and love for others. So what’s new about love? What makes the command new is that because of Jesus’ passion there is a new standard, a new example of love.

There was never any love like the dying love of Jesus. It is tender and sweet (13:33). It serves (13:2-17). It loves even unto death (13:1). Jesus had nothing to gain from us by loving us. There was nothing in us to draw us to him. But he loved us still, while we were yet sinners. At the Last Supper, in the garden, at his betrayal, facing the Jewish leaders, before Pontius Pilate, being scourged, carrying his cross, being nailed to the wood, breathing his dying breath, forsaken by God-he loved us.

To the end.

To death.

Love shone best and brightest at Calvary.

Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy, cast off that I might be brought in, trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend, surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain heaven’s best, stripped that I might be clothed, wounded that I might be healed, athirst that I might drink, tormented that I might be comforted, made a shame that I might inherit glory, entered darkness that I might have eternal life.My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes, groaned that I might have endless song, endured all pain that I might have unfading health, bore a thorned crown that I might have a glory-diadem, bowed his head that I might uplift mine, experienced reproach that I might receive welcome, closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness, expired that I might for ever live. (The Valley of Vision, “Love Lustres at Calvary”)

Why the Arguments for Gay Marriage Are Persuasive

With two landmark gay marriage cases before the Supreme Court we are already seeing a flurry of articles, posts, tweets, and status updates about the triumph it will be when America finally embraces equality for all and allows homosexuals to love each other. These tweets and posts and articles perfectly capture the reason why the arguments for gay marriage have become so persuasive so fast. Given the assumptions and patterns of thinking our culture has embraced in the last fifty years, the case for gay marriage is relatively easy to make and the case against it makes increasingly little sense.

I don’t think the arguments or gay marriage are biblically faithfully, logically persuasive, or good for human flourishing in the long run, but they are almost impossible to overcome with most Americans, especially in younger generations. By and large, people don’t support gay marriage because they’ve done a lot of reading and soul searching, just like people didn’t oppose it on high flying intellectual grounds either. For a long time, homosexuality seemed weird or gross. Now it seems normal. More than that, it fits in perfectly with the dominant themes and narratives shared in our culture. Gay marriage is the logical conclusion to a long argument, which means convincing people it’s a bad idea requires overturning some of our most cherished values and most powerful ideologies.

Think of all the ways gay marriage fits in with our cultural mood and assumptions.

1. It’s about progress. Linking the pro-gay agenda with civil rights and women’s rights was very intentional, and it was a masterstroke. To be against gay marriage, therefore, is to be against enlightenment and progress. It puts you on the “wrong side of history.” Of course, most people forget that lots of discarded ideas were once hailed as the inevitable march of progress. Just look at Communism or eugenics or phrenology or the Volt. But people aren’t interested in the complexities of history. We only know we don’t want to be like the nincompoops who thought the sun revolved around the earth and that slavery was okay.

2. It’s about love. When gay marriage is presented as nothing but the open embrace of human love, it’s hard to mount a defense. Who could possibly be against love? But hidden in this simple reasoning is the cultural assumption that sexual intercourse is necessarily the highest, and perhaps the only truly fulfilling, expression of love. It’s assumed that love is always self-affirming and never self-denying. It’s assumed that our loves never require redirection. Most damagingly, our culture (largely because of heterosexual sins) has come to understand marriage as nothing but the state sanctioning of romantic love. The propagation and rearing of children do not come into play. The role in incentivizing socially beneficial behavior is not in the public eye. People think of marriage as nothing more than the commitment (of whatever duration) which romantic couples make to each other.

3. It’s about rights. It’s not by accident the movement is called the gay rights movement. And I don’t deny that many gays and lesbians feel their fundamental human rights are at stake in the controversy over marriage. But the lofty talk of rights blurs an important distinction. Do consenting adults have the right to enter a contract of their choosing? It depends. Businesses don’t have a right to contract for collusion. Adults don’t have a right to enter into a contract that harms the public good. And even if you think these examples are beside the point, the fact remains that no law prohibits homosexuals (or any two adults) from making promises to each other, from holding a ceremony, from entering into a covenant with each other. The question is whether the government should bestow upon that contract the name of marriage with all the rights and privileges thereto.

4. It’s about equality. Recently, I saw a prominent Christian blogger tweet that she was for gay marriage because part of loving our neighbor is desiring they get equal justice under the law. Few words in the American lexicon elicit such broad support as “equality.” No one wants to be for unequal treatment under the law. But the issue before the Supreme Court is not equality, but whether two laws–one voted in by the people of California and the other approved by our democratically elected officials–should be struck down. Equal treatment under the law means the law is applied the same to everyone. Gay marriage proponents desire to change the law so that marriage becomes something entirely different. Surveys often pose the question “Should it be legal or illegal for gay and lesbian couples to marry?” That makes it sound like we are criminalizing people for commitments they make. The real issue, however, is whether the state has a vested interest in sanctioning, promoting, and privileging certain relational arrangements. Is it unjust for the state not to recognize as marriage your group of four friends, close cousins, or an office suite just because they want their commitments to be called marriage?

5. It’s about tolerance. Increasingly, those who oppose gay marriage are not just considered wrong or mistaken or even benighted. They are anti-gay haters. As one minister put it, gay marriage will eventually triumph because love is stronger than hate. Another headline rang out that “discrimination is on trial” as the Supreme Court hears arguments on Proposition 8 and DOMA. The stark contrast is clear: either you support gay marriage or you are a bigot and a hater. It’s not wonder young people are tacking hard to left on this issue. They don’t want to be insensitive, close-minded, or intolerant. The notion that thoughtful, sincere, well-meaning, compassionate people might oppose gay marriage is a fleeting thought.

So what can be done? The momentum, the media, the slogans, the meta-stories all seem to be on the other side. Now what?

For starters, churches and pastors and Christian parents can prepare their families both intellectually and psychologically for the opposition that is sure to come. Conservative Christians have more kids; make sure they know what the Bible says and know how to think.

We should also remember that the church’s mission in life is not to defeat gay marriage. While too many Christians have already retreated, there may be others who reckon that everything hangs in the balance on this one issue. Let’s keep preaching, persevering, pursuing joy, and praying for conversions. Christians should care about the issue, and then carry on.

And if we are interested in being persuasive outside of our own churches, we’ll have to do several things better.

1) We need to go back several steps in each argument. We’ll never get a hearing on this issue, or a dozen others issues, unless we trace out the assumptions behind the assumptions behind the arguments behind the conclusions.

2) We need more courage. The days of social acceptability for evangelicals, let alone privilege, are fading fast in many parts of the country. If we aren’t prepared to be counter-cultural we aren’t ready to be Christians. And we need courage not to just say what the Bible says, but to dare say what almost no one will say–that gay sex is unnatural and harmful to the body, that abandoning gender distinctions will be catastrophic for our society and for children, and that monogamy and exclusivity is often understood differently in the gay community.

3) We need more creativity. Statements and petitions and manifestos have their place, but what we really need is more than words and documents. We need artists and journalists and movie makers and story tellers and spoken word artists and comedians and actors and rappers and musicians who are galvanized by the truth to sing and speak and share in such a way that makes sin look strange and righteousness look normal.

4) We need a both-and approach. In the months ahead I imagine we’ll see Christians wrestle with whether the best way forward is to form new arguments that appeal to people where they’re at, or whether we simply need to keep preaching the truth and trust God to give some people the ears to hear. I’m convinced we need to do both. Let’s keep preaching, teaching, and laboring for faithful churches. Let’s be fruitful and multiply. Let’s train our kids in the way they should go. Let’s keep sharing the good news and praying for revival. And let’s also find ways to make the truth plausible in a lost world. Not only the truth about marriage, but the truth about life and sex and creation and beauty and family and freedom and a hundred other things humans tend to forget on this side of Adam. The cultural assumptions in our day are not on our side, but if the last 50 years has shown us anything, it’s that those assumptions can change more quickly than we think.

Book Bits (Honor: A History)

For several years I’ve posted a book log or book briefs to highlight some of the books I’ve been reading. It’s been a good way to say, “Take a look at this book. Here’s a couple sentences about it and whether I liked it or not.” I love to read and to write about books, so hopefully book briefs have been helpful.

Today I want to introduce a variation on that theme.

From time to time I’ll read books that are particularly fascinating, new, fresh, challenging, or informative. When I read these books, whether I agree with everything in them or not, I’m eager to share more than a few sentences (i.e., book briefs), but I’d rather not do a full length book review (with a summary, evaluation, and conclusion). This tertium quid is what I’m calling “Book Bits.” In this format, I’ll share ten bits from the book-ideas, quotes, or arguments-that I found especially interesting. My hope is that by condensing the book into several bite-size bits I will retain more of what I’ve read and you’ll be able to quickly glean some new ideas or provocative thoughts.

Today’s book is Honor: A History (Encounter Books, 2006) by James Bowman, a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center a contributor to several publications, including The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and The New Criterion. While I think Bowman misunderstands the legacy of Christianity in relationship to honor, I think the overall thrust of the book-which moves nimbly from history to literature to current events-is powerfully, and necessarily counter-cultural.

1. Bowman’s interest in honor “comes from a long working-out of a conflict withing myself about the Vietnam War” (7). Like many other young people at the time, he considered the war immoral and unjust. But when he took his physical for the draft, he never had to make the choice of whether to serve or not because he was rejected for medical reasons. Bowman was surprised by the physical report, but more surprised that the doctors who informed him gave him the news in such a way to make clear that they thought he would be disappointed by the rejection. This event has haunted Bowman ever sense, and has prompted his concern that the 20th century has seen “the continuing project of discrediting and disgracing cultural honor” (7).

2. Bowman argues that the West does not understand radical Islam. “If you look very closely into what the jihadists, or the various radical groups who support them, have to say about what they do, you will rarely see any reference to poverty. Even religion as such seems of less interest to them than the idea of Arab or Islamic “honor” and “manhood,” with which honor is intimately related” (23). We have tried to suppress older notions of honor, and do not understand those society’s that still live and die, and kill and get killed, in the name of honor.

3. But honor is not so easily erased from our memory. “The basic honor of the savage-bravery for men, chastity for women-is still recognizable beneath the surface of the popular culture that has done so much to efface it. If you doubt it, try calling a man a wimp or a woman a slut” (5).

4. Despite this cultural memory of an older kind of honor, most of the book is Bowman’s attempt to chronicle how a new honor code has supplanted the old one. We saw this transition happen at breakneck speed in the 1960s, where a youth culture developed to rival the dominant culture and what was once honorable became dishonorable, and what was once dishonorable was now honored (132). The new hero is the anti-hero, “one whose heroism consists less in doing than in suffering and having suffered” (136). We no longer honor those who do their duty, keep their word, and bravely face the enemy. Instead we bestow honor on those who can reveal personal authenticity (138). It’s the Shrek-ification of heroism (a phrase I just made up). Nobility is less in overcoming your weaknesses and more in learning to be yourself. The older courage was about allegiance to external imperatives and expectations. The new courage is about being true to your own physic reality and inner self (206).

5. “If honor was the dirty secret of the warriors, intellectual vanity was that of the anti-warriors. There is much about honor that is absurd, but that matters more to the intellectual prides himself on the ability to spot absurdity beneath a plausible surface that it does to those who value honor about intellect” (223). Is it any wonder most young people get their “news” from Jon Stewart?

6. The new honor code: “we often find it easier to feel outrage at insensitivity than unchastity.” What’s worse in the world’s eyes: living a life of free, promiscuous sex or calling the person who does so a slut? It’s not even close which is more culturally outrageous. And for the record, I’m not in favor of either the word or the activity.

7. Bowman’s foreign policy analysis: “A great many grown-up and intelligent people believe, or pretend to believe, that by behaving in a friendly and accommodating way to our attackers, we will show them that they have nothing to fear from us and so defuse their wrath. The idea that such behavior would be taken by a ruthless and implacable enemy only as a sign of weakness is as foreign to them as the idea of honor itself” (306).

8. Bowman suggests that to regain honor in our culture, we have to do four impossible things. 1) We have to defeat the idea that there is nothing worse than war. 2) We have to make inequalities socially acceptable again. Here Bowman’s thinking not of money but of the inequalities of virtue, respect, esteem, and achievement. 3) We have to create a new sub-culture that looks at celebrity culture with amused contempt. 4) We have to embrace the inherent differences between men and women, “in particular making the traditional role of women as wives, mothers and nurturers not only respectable again but the most honorable of female aspirations” (306).

9. This means heaping “scorn and ignominy upon the ‘self-esteem’ movement to the point at which it may never recover” (312). Honor, he argues, is incompatible with an egalitarianism that does not allow for differing levels of accomplishment and gifting.

10. The only sentiment left with universal cultural currency is pity. The moral high ground is not found in being more pious, but in being more put upon. “Pity is not a contemptible sentiment,” Bowman makes clear, “but it is by itself an inadequate foundation for public expressions of emotion as assertions of the community’s values fit to be considered worthy of respect” (313).

I told you it was a provocative book. I don’t agree with every point of Bowman’s analysis. His work would have been stronger with more careful Christian reflection on the nature of suffering, virtue, and honor. But as a noble effort at spitting into the wind, I commend Bowman’s book to you as a reasoned argument that explains what has changed in our world and what we’ve lost.

Monday Morning Madness

Say Something Right Now, or Else!

As someone with a public platform I’ve been called upon numerous times to speak out on any number of specific issues or controversies. I don’t mind at all the friendly inquires “What do you think?” or the private requests “I really think you should weigh in.” I recognize that some people are crying out for their voice to be heard. I sympathize with people who feel isolated, alone, hurt, or confused. I understand that emotions behind a “Say something right now, or else!” appeal. What’s frustrating is when the “or else” really means “or we’ll know you don’t care,” “or we’ll know you disagree with us,” “or we’ll know you agree with them,” “or we’ll know you are indifferent to some horrible thing.”

I see it often in politics and in the blogosphere: Person A calls on Person B (or Persons C, D, and E) to make a public comment about issue X, and if they refuse to say something right now, Person A will assume that Person B (and likely Persons C, D, and E as well) don’t care about X and believe something as heinous at Y and Z. You follow me?

Obviously, there are times when we must speak out on an issue publicly. We may have particular expertise on a matter, or it may affect people we are responsible for, or our conscience may be provoked in a powerful way. I’m not suggesting public response is wrong. Not at all. Silence is not always golden. But the “say something, or else!” form of public shaming is frequently manipulative and the cries are sometimes best ignored.

There are many reasons why Person B may not make the public statement you want him (or them) to make.

1. He (or they) may not know what you are talking about. Before you get upset with someone for not commenting on the latest blog blowup, consider the possibility that the person you want to speak out may not follow your favorite blog or track with every controversy. Just because someone is a public person and uses social media doesn’t mean he has a responsibility to keep up on all the latest dish.

2. He may not be knowledgeable on the subject you want to be addressed. You may be convinced it’s cowardice or indifference that keeps someone silent, but maybe it’s wisdom. What if someone writes a post about, say, Martin Luther’s anti-semitism. It doesn’t matter for this example whether the post is saying Luther wasn’t that bad or that he was worse than we think. The point is people are in an uproar about this post and the online pressure is to say something lest you show yourself to be a hater of Luther or a hater of the Jews or whatever. You may weigh in, especially if you have some expertise in Luther. But maybe you are smart enough to know you aren’t smart enough to figure out this historical controversy in your spare time. Maybe it is academic humility that keeps you on the sidelines, not indifference or cowardice.

3. The person or persons you want to speak up may be doing their part behind the scenes. Or they may know more about a situation than is presented in public reports. Or maybe they figure there isn’t anything new, edifying, or clarifying that can be said. I’m a blogger, a preacher, a writer, and someone with lots of opinions, convictions, and ideas. I don’t find it hard to jump in with a thought on most issues. But I’ve learned over the years my first instinct to say something is not always best. And I’ve learned that making assumptions about those who stay on the sidelines is not good either. There are too many things I don’t know to speak on everything, and too many things I don’t know to assume the worst about those who don’t chime in on everything that’s important to me. Let’s be careful not to shame people for not saying what we want them to say precisely when we want them to say it.