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Life and Books and Everything: Division, Whataboutism, & Christian Nationalism

Why is it so hard to acknowledge when our opponents get something right? Or to admit when we are wrong? Why do so few people see that BOTH this issue AND that issue can be right or wrong? In this episode, Collin, Justin, and I discuss the divisions we experience and more.

Books and More Books:

The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture, by Scott Klusendorf

Defending Life, by Francis J. Beckwith

Beyond Racial Gridlock: Embracing Mutual Responsibility, by George Yancey

Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times, by David S. Reynolds

The Attributes of God: An Introduction, by Gerald Bray

Forty Questions About the End Times, by Eckhard Schnabel

The Bible and the Future, by Anthony A. Hoekema

Not Tragically Colored: Freedom, Personhood, and the Renewal of Black America, by Ismael Hernandez

America in the King Years, by Taylor Branch

Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade, by Clarke D. Forsythe

Concise Guide to Conservatism, by Russell Kirk

The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won, by Edward H. Bonekemper, III

Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian, Confessional Presbyterian, by Danny E. Olinger

Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day, by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky

Heralds of the King: Christ-Centered Sermons in the Tradition of Edmund P. Clowney, edited by Dennis E. Johnson

For Christ and the University: The Story of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship of the USA – 1940-1990, by Keith Hunt, Gladys Hunt

C. Stacey Woods and the Evangelical Rediscovery of the University, by A. Donald MacLeod

Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture, by Christian Smith

Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice, by Thaddeus J. Williams

Minds Wide Shut: How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us, by Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro

R. C. Sproul: A Life, by Stephen J. Nichols

Come, Let Us Reason Together

The church is divided as never before.

Okay, that may be an overstatement. But I think most Christians would agree that, from personal conversations and from social media scrolling, it certainly feels like the divisions are as bad as ever, and only getting worse. The church has been divided over doctrine before—sometimes for bad reasons, often for good reasons. That is to be expected. What seems new in our day is how Bible-believing Christians who share almost all the same doctrine on paper are massively and increasingly divided over non-doctrinal matters, torn apart by issues the Bible does not directly address.

Think of the three most contentious issues in the church over the past year: racial tensions, Covid restrictions, and the presidential election. On each of these matters, Christians have disagreed not just on interpretation or strategy or where the slopes are most slippery. We have fundamentally disagreed on the facts themselves, and because we disagree on the facts we disagree even more profoundly on the appropriate response.

Is America deeply and pervasively racist? Are people of color routinely and disproportionately in danger of being killed by police officers? Is virtually every aspect of our society hostile to the presence of black and brown bodies? If you answer yes to all these questions—that is, if you believe the facts warrant all these conclusions—then how can you not be engaged in (peaceful) protest? For the church to ignore injustice on this level is to be guilty of indifference at best and moral turpitude at worst. But if our society and our policing is not fundamentally racist, then much of the social justice movement is motivated by false premises.

What about Covid? If the facts tell us that this is a once-in-a-century pandemic, that we are facing 300,000 excess deaths, and that masks are a simple and effective way to limit the spread of the virus, then extreme care and caution are important ways we can love our neighbors as ourselves. If, on the other hand, coronavirus is hardly more dangerous than the seasonal flu, then the worldwide restrictions look rather onerous, if not outright nefarious.

And what about the election? Setting aside the question of whom to vote for, we are now divided over who people actually did vote for. If the election was stolen, perversely overriding the will of most Americans in an act of unconscionable thievery, then we should be marching (peacefully) until we are blue in the face. But if the facts do not support that conclusion, then we help no one by pretending that the loser of the election actually won.

In each set of issues, you can see why the stakes are so high and why the emotions run even higher. If things are as dire as some purport (on race, with Covid, and with a disputed election), then to do nothing displays a cowardly and colossal failure of nerve. But if, in each situation, things are much less dangerous and less insidious than the doomsdayers say, then taking a full-body chill pill would be the better part of valor.

So what are Christians to do?

First, let us be humble, understanding that few of us are experts on these issues. A little epistemic humility—in our hearts and toward others—can go a long way.

Second, let us be measured. This doesn’t mean our default has to be the status quo, but it does mean we should keep our passions in proportion. We should be religiously dogmatic about our religious dogma and not much else.

Third, let us reason together. It is the profound irony of our age: never has there been more information at our fingertips, and never has it been harder to know what information to trust. In most things, whether we realize it or not, we have no choice but to rely upon the expertise of others. We simply don’t have the time or ability to properly investigate every disputed claim. That means it is more important than ever before that we are discerning about the voices we listen to.

And how can we be discerning? 

Read widely—not just from different voices online but from different voices across the centuries. Reading Calvin or Augustine won’t tell you what to think about Covid, but they will help you think better.

Listen to those who know you best and love you most. Of course, parents and pastors and friends can be wrong too, but there is something unhealthy about putting ourselves under the influence of distant personalities while neglecting those who will have to give an account for their care over us.

Where possible, look at the fruit of someone’s life. To be sure, bad people can make good arguments. But in general, if you are honest with other people, honest with yourself, and honest with God, you tend to be honest with facts and ideas. The opposite is also true.

Run through a series of diagnostic questions in your mind. Questions like:

Does the argument I’m reading deal in trade-offs or only in the categories of all-good/all-evil?Are the terms and definitions clearly defined?Can the person fairly state the argument he is arguing against? Is he willing to acknowledge any fair points on the other side? Does the person I’m listening to seem unhinged and unstable?Is the argument full of emotive reasoning and ad hominem attack?Does the force of the argument rely on hard words and high passions or on rational arguments and sound evidence?Does this person have a track record of being fair, accurate, and well-researched?Does this person have any credentials or experience that would make him worth listening to?Does the argument make sweeping claims based on personal anecdotes?Does the argument require me to believe what is non-falsifiable?Does the argument require a level of highly elaborate clandestine scheming such that only the most disciplined, organized, and intelligent people in the world could pull it off?Does the argument confuse correlation with causation?Is the person a jerk on Twitter, constantly self-congratulatory on Twitter, seeking victim status on Twitter, or otherwise living online in a way that seems imbalanced?

Are these questions a magic elixir that will solve all our disagreements? Of course not. But perhaps they can nudge us in the right direction. I’m sure I’m getting things wrong. In fact, I hope on these non-biblical matters in particular that I’m always open to being corrected and learning something new.

For my part, while I believe there are many ways that the relationship between African Americans and police officers can improve, I don’t think the evidence suggests that racist cops are disproportionately killing unarmed black people. I don’t think Covid is deadly for the vast majority of people but it is very dangerous for some. And while I am sure there were irregularities in November’s election, I don’t think there is evidence of voter fraud so widespread that it could have changed the presidential outcome.

I hesitate to share these convictions because that’s not what I want this post to be about, but neither do I want to pretend that any of us can so rise above the fray that we don’t have to reach any of our own conclusions. My larger and more important point, however, is to urge us as Christians to lead the way in thinking carefully, and in carefully engaging those who think differently–especially on these disputed factual matters that can’t be answered (as I would prefer) by reading our Bibles alone or by quoting from Turretin.

Life and Books and Everything: John Piper Talks Books

New year, new episode!

John Piper and I talk about the books that made him who he is. We explore the topics of purpose, retirement, leadership, ministry, and writing, and we dive into his forthcoming magnum opus on Providence.

Books and More Books:

New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional, by Paul David Tripp (get 30% off)

Thinking God’s Thoughts: The Hermeneutics of Humility, by Daniel P. Fuller

The Unity of the Bible: Unfolding God’s Plan for Humanity, by Daniel P.

Fuller

Freedom of the Will, by Jonathan Edwards

The End for Which God Created the World, by Jonathan Edwards

The Religious Affections, by Jonathan Edwards

Validity in Interpretation, by E.D. Hirsch

Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer, by C.S. Lewis

A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C.S. Lewis

The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen, introduction by J.I.

Packer

Communion with the Triune God, by John Owen

The Glory of Christ, by John Owen

How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler

Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, by John Piper

The Religious Life of Theological Students, by Benjamin B. Warfield

The Christian Ministry, by Charles Bridges

The True Excellency of a Minister of the Gospel, by Jonathan Edwards

Lectures to My Students, by Charles Spurgeon, especially “The Minister’s

Fainting Fits” and “The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear”

Preaching and Preachers by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Walking with the Giants, by Warren Wiersbe

Listening to the Giants, by Warren Wiersbe

Giant Steps, by Warren Wiersbe

Tony Reinke on modern technology

Reformed Dogmatics by Hermann Bavinck

Systematic Theology, by Wayne Grudem

21 Servants of Sovereign Joy: Faithful, Flawed, and Fruitful, by John

Piper

Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, by Peter Brown

William Tyndale: A Biography, by David Danielle

Jonathan Edwards: A Life, George Marsden

Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography, by Iain Murray

To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson, by Courtney Anderson

Portrait of Calvin, by T.H.L. Parker

Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, Roland Bainton

A Sacrifice of Praise: An Anthology of Christian Poetry in English from Caedmon

to the Mid-Twentieth Century

The poetry of George Herbert

What Jesus Demands from the World, by John Piper

Desiring God, by John Piper

Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ, by John Piper

Providence, by John Piper (Pre-Order at Westminster Books)

We Must Find a Better Way to Talk About Race

Last year was not a good year for race relations in the United States. Whether you think the main culprit is the police, politics, or protesters, I think most of us—Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, or whatever—look at the racial tensions in this country and, at least on our worst days, feel a dangerous mix of confusion, discouragement, frustration, and hopelessness.

And if things are bad in the country at large, it’s hard to see how they are better in the church. While I’m sure many Christians are still laboring behind the scenes to love their neighbors and to give people of a different skin color (or people with a different approach to skin color) the benefit of the doubt, the public face of Christianity—the way we talk to each other and talk about each other—is not impressive. Our witness to the world does not scream Isaiah 1:18 (“Come now, let us reason together”) or John 13:35 (“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”). On the whole, when it comes to talking about this country’s most painful and most vexing problem, we are often getting Spurgeon’s dictum exactly backward: we are making soft arguments and using very hard words.

I can imagine what the rejoinders might be to that last paragraph. From the left, some will say, “Of course you want us all to settle down. That’s your privilege talking.” And from the right, some will say, “Just what I expected. More tone police when the church is being overrun by heresy.” If you think perpetual outrage and recrimination is the way forward, I suppose you are entitled to your opinion. But that doesn’t mean everyone else is obliged to share your opinion. For my part, I refuse to believe that talking about racial matters in a way that is reasonable, thoughtful, careful, and charitable makes one beholden to Whiteness or makes one a compromised squish.

The simple, honest truth is that Bible-believing orthodox Christians are not setting a Spirit-infused example in how to talk about racial matters. That’s the bad news. The good news is no one else is setting a great example either, which means it’s not too late for grace-filled, truth-loving followers of Jesus to show to the world a still more excellent way (1 Cor. 12:31).

What might it look like for Christians to talk about race in a more constructive and more helpful manner? Here are three suggestions.

1. Focus on ideas, not labels.

I’ll be blunt: I am no fan of Critical Race Theory. Judging by this introductory volume, I disagree with CRT’s aggressive color-consciousness (17), its jaundiced view of American history (48), its rejection of legal neutrality (3), its emphasis on economic redistribution and equality of results (29, 115), its interpretative principle that divides the world into rigid categories of oppressors and the oppressed (58, 78, 81), and its insistence that racism is pervasive and at the center of everything (8, 91). If that’s CRT, I see little to be gained by using it as a hermeneutical lens, let alone as an all-encompassing worldview.

And yet, I will be the first to confess I am no expert in CRT. While I think every point in the paragraph above comes directly from the book in question—and, consequently, from two leading proponents of CRT—I’m more interested in debating those ideas than I am in debating Critical Race Theory per se. To be sure, there are some experts among us who have deeply studied the major CRT texts. I’m happy for these Christian thinkers to discuss CRT at length. But for the vast majority of us (myself included), CRT is something we’ve heard a lot about and have studied very little. Consequently, one person hears “Critical Race Theory” and thinks: Marxist, leftist, postmodern, anti-Christian ideology. Another person hears “Critical Race Theory” and thinks: helpful tool for demonstrating that racism is more central to our history and has more explanatory power for our present situation than we thought.

My concern is that CRT has become an issue of symbolism before substance, a flag to be waved (for or against) in order to prove that we are sufficiently orthodox or sufficiently sensitive. The result is that Christians end up one step removed from discussing the issues we really need to be discussing. Too often, we think we are fighting about the gospel or fighting about whether we should love and listen to minority brothers and sisters, but really we are fighting about how to define Critical Race Theory. As a pastor, that’s way down on the list of fights I want to have.

When I served on the PCA’s sexuality study committee, we made the decision early on not to mention Revoice, even though everyone could see that was a major reason the committee was formed. But we knew that if we made the report about Revoice, there would be endless arguments about what Revoice is, and who is a part of it, and what so-and-so really meant. We thought it much better to focus on the theology we wanted to promote, the ideas we wanted to warn against, and the pastoral approach we wanted to encourage. In the same way, I think our discussion about race would be greatly helped by saying a lot less about Critical Race Theory and a lot more about the specific ideas that we find promising or problematic.

2. Approach the conversation with intellectual integrity and personal maturity.

What does this mean? Several things in my mind.

Don’t take everything personally. Don’t turn up every disagreement to 11. Recognize when people change their minds or nuance their views. Don’t define someone by their worst statement, and don’t then define every institution they’ve ever been a part of or any friend they’ve ever had by that statement.

Whenever possible, isolate the issue you mean to talk about. Don’t make the issue about gospel fidelity, if the argument is actually about interpreting American history. And don’t make the issue about whether you agree with the prophet Amos, if the argument is about how to interpret policing data.

Let’s show ourselves as Christians to be more logically rigorous and definitionally precise than the world. Don’t confuse correlation with causation. Don’t look for the worst examples on the other side to prove the rightness or righteousness of your side. Don’t assume that the person not entirely with you on every point is, therefore, an enemy not to be trusted on any point. Don’t think that courage means you can’t be careful with your words, or that compassion means you can’t ask uncomfortable questions.

3. Be willing to work with a few common sense both/and propositions.

If there is one kind of argument I generally loathe, it’s the lazy third way approach to solving all of life’s problems. I’m not against finding middle ground (see below). I’m not against seeing how Christianity sometimes transcends our labels and differences. What I am against is intellectual laziness masquerading as above-the-fray, third wayism: “I’m not liberal; I’m not conservative; I’m just Christian!”

Having said that, it seems to me there are a few basic both/and propositions that could turn down the temperature of our rhetoric, while also pushing the racial conversation toward greater clarity and usefulness.

For example, might we be able to acknowledge that systemic injustice can exist while also asking for evidence that, in whatever particular situation we are studying, it does exist? That seems like a reasonable starting place for further conversation. “I acknowledge that structural racism could play a part, but let’s take a closer look at the evidence for that claim.”

Similarly, might we be able to acknowledge personal choices and cultural factors almost always play a role in shaping who we are, the mistakes we make, and the opportunities we find? I’m sure we will still disagree about the relative importance of each factor but recognizing that we are all complex people—not merely the product of environment and circumstance, nor simply the accumulation of our individual decisions—is surely a better way to talk about racial matters than assuming that every disparity is the result of discrimination or that personal responsibility alone can right every social wrong.

Likewise, isn’t it possible that American history is both worse than most white people think, when it comes to race, and still a story with much to celebrate and be thankful for?

Isn’t it reasonable to think that minorities have different experiences than members of the majority and that members of the majority may be blind to those experiences, while nevertheless rejecting the kind of standpoint epistemology that circumscribes the right to speak, and even defines the measure of truth itself, by the standard of one’s lived experience?

These both/and propositions won’t remove all our different emphases and suspicions, but they might help us inch toward one another in finding common ground. That is, if we want to find common ground. The incentives in church discourse are unfortunately the same as in political discourse. There is more to be gained (humanly speaking) by dealing with racial issues in Manichaean categories of absolute light and darkness. Nuance and precision don’t get you much, except the expectation of being shot at from all sides.

There is no way to make an honest conversation about race an easy conversation. There is too much in our history for that. There is also too much in the human heart that is self-justifying, other-accusing, and innocence-seeking to make race and racism a simple intellectual discussion. But with the power of the Spirit and the hope of the gospel, we need not despair. God can yet give us the humility, the rationality, and the charity we need.

Bavinck: A Critical Biography

Reformed Faith & Practice is the online journal of Reformed Theological Seminary. You can browse five years of of the journal online or download each individual issue as a PDF.

In the latest issue you will find a reflection on Eugene Peterson’s pastoral theology, a sermon on Numbers 6:22-27, an argument for restricting the ordained office of deacon to qualified men, several other articles, and a number of book reviews.

Included among the latter is my review of James Eglinton’s new biography of Herman Bavinck. With permission, I’ve pasted that review below.

*****

James Eglinton, Bavinck: A Critical Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020). Cloth. $44.99. xxii, 450pp.

Over the past decade, there has been a growing tide of English language Bavinck dissertations and Bavinck-inspired theologizing, but there has not been a corresponding scholarly account of Bavinck’s life—until now. Making impressive use of Dutch language newspapers of the period, as well as Bavinck’s own journals (dagboeken), James Eglinton, the Meldrum Senior Lecturer in Reformed Theology at the University of Edinburgh, has managed to write an academic biography that is at learned and nuanced as well as fresh and insightful.

Central to Eglinton’s thesis is his argument against the old historiography that saw “two Bavincks”—the conservative Calvinist and the apparent modernist—forming opposite poles in one man. Building on his earlier work, Trinity and Organism (T&T Clark, 2012), Eglinton insists that far from being a schizophrenic theologian holding contrary opinions, Bavinck was a creative thinker who sought to articulate the historic Christian faith in a newly modern world. “My biography has a particular aim,” Eglinton writes, “to tell the story of a man whose theologically laced personal narrative explored the possibility of an orthodox life in a changing world” (xx).

Eglinton’s biography has been widely praised since its release in September, and with good reason. The book is meaty—with well over a hundred pages of end notes and bibliography—but the narrative itself wastes no words and is only 300 pages. Eglinton’s approach is critical (in the academic sense), but never unsympathetic to Bavinck as a man and as a Christian. There are enough personal vignettes to keep the casual reader interested (e.g., Bavinck’s unrequited romantic affections over many years for Amelia den Dekker), but the text never plods along as a mere chronicle of daily life.

I especially appreciated the Appendix, “My Journey to America,” where Bavinck applauded the youth and energy of late nineteenth-century America but also critiqued its superficial religious life. Among his other observations, Bavinck noted that “there are few handsome men, but more and more beautiful women” (308), that Orange City surpassed Pella and Holland as an enclave of religious piety (303), and that the pillows were bad (307). In a surprising final remark, Bavinck predicted that there was little future for Calvinism in America, but allowed that Calvinism was not the only truth and that American Christianity should chart its own path (314).

Several features of the book’s design are noteworthy. I was helped by the “Chronology” page at the front of the book and by the section highlighting “Key Figures, Churches, Educational Institutions, and Newspapers” in the back. The 39 plates of photographs in the middle of the book were tremendous, and the original artwork by theologian Oliver Crisp makes for an attractive cover. It’s hard to find much to complain about in the book, but I would have benefited from a Bavinck family tree, and some readers may come to the book expecting more intellectual history (though, personally, I was glad Eglinton stuck to biography more than the theological exploration).

Of all the important lessons in this outstanding biography, the most important may be the most obvious: Herman Bavinck was a real person. Writing to his friend Snouck Hurgonje who asked whether Bavinck had been able to keep up with his scholarly pursuits, the 26 year-old new pastor remarked, “If you think for a moment that I must preach twice on Sunday, teach the catechism four times through the week, must also devote much time to visiting homes and the sick, and then sometimes have to lead a Frisian funeral, you won’t have to ask further whether any time or opportunity remains for my own study” (121).

Bavinck was not only swamped with ministerial duties at the outset of his short pastorate in Franecker (1881-82), he was also single, lonely, and spiritually depleted. “The most difficult part of my work,” Bavinck wrote in the same letter to Hurgonje, “is always to lift myself up to, and to stay at, the ideal level in my faith and confession.” Bavinck worried that a shallow, insincere heart might take shape beneath the guise of spiritual depth. He felt pressure to always be the minister, and without a wife he struggled to find “anyone here with whom I can (or might dare to) enjoy” the “familiarity” of friendship (121). Here is a man honest about ministry and honest about himself.

Since the English translation of his four-volume Reformed Dogmatics appeared in 2008, Bavinck has become a treasured companion and authoritative guide for Calvinist theologians, students, and pastors throughout the English-speaking world. And yet, for many, I imagine Bavinck the person has been virtually invisible, swallowed up by the heft of Bavinck’s brain sitting on our shelves. Almost every Reformed pastor knows something about Luther’s courage at Worms or Calvin’s reforms at Geneva or Whitefield’s role in the Great Awakening. But without any commensurate knowledge in Dutch history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bavinck can be too quickly reduced to disembodied ideas on a page. This would be a shame, for the story of Bavinck’s life is interesting and instructive in its own right. Herman Bavinck lived a remarkable life as a dogmatician, an ethicist, an educational reformer, a politician, a journalist, a Bible translator, a champion for women’s education, and eventually the father, father-in-law, and grandfather of heroes and martyrs in the anti-Nazi resistance movement (291). This is the story Eglinton tells, and he tells it very well.

Why Does It Matter that Jesus Was Born of a Virgin?

The accounts of Jesus’s birth in Matthew (chapter 1) and Luke (chapters 1-2) are clear and unequivocal: Jesus’s birth was not ordinary. He was not an ordinary child, and his conception did not come about in the ordinary way. His mother, Mary, was a virgin, having had no intercourse prior to conception and birth. By the Holy Spirit, Mary’s womb became the cradle of the Son’s incarnation (Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:35).

Of course, the doctrine of the virgin birth (or more precisely, the virginal conception) has been ridiculed by many outside the church, and, in modern times, by not a few voices inside the church. Two arguments are usually mentioned.

First, the prophecy about a virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14, it is argued, actually speaks of a young woman and not a virgin. (To be fair, some scholars make this argument about Isaiah’s prophecy and still believe in the virgin birth). Many have pointed out that the Hebrew word in Isaiah is almah and not the technical term for virgin, bethula. It is true that almah has a wider semantic range than bethula, but there are no clear references in the Old Testament where almah does not mean virgin. The word almah occurs nine times in the Old Testament, and wherever the context makes its meaning clear, the word refers to a virgin. More importantly, the Septuagint translates almah with the Greek word parthenos (the same word used in Matthew 1:23 where Isaiah 7:14 is quoted), and everyone agrees that parthenos means “virgin.” The Jewish translators of the Septuagint would not have used a clear Greek word for virgin if they understood Isaiah 7:14 to refer to nothing more than a young woman.

Second, many have objected to the virgin birth because they see it as a typical bit of pagan mythologizing. “Mithraism had a virgin birth. Christianity had a virgin birth. They are all just fables. Even Star Wars has a virgin birth.” This popular argument sounds plausible at first glance, but there are a number of problems with it.

(1) The assumption that there was a prototypical God-Man who had certain titles, did certain miracles, was born of a virgin, saved his people, and then got resurrected is not well-founded. In fact, no such prototypical “hero” existed before the rise of Christianity.

(2) It would have been unthinkable for a Jewish sect (which is what Christianity was initially) to try to win new converts by adding pagan elements to their gospel story. I suppose a good Jew might make up a story to fit the Old Testament, but to mix in bits of paganism would have been anathema to most Jews.

(3) The supposed virgin birth parallels are not convincing. Consider some of the usual suspects.

Alexander the Great: his most reliable ancient biographer (several centuries after his death) makes no mention of a virgin birth. Besides, the story that began to circulate (after the rise of Christianity) is about an unusual conception, but not a virgin birth. Alexander’s parents were already married when he was born.

Dionysus: like so many of the pagan “parallels,” he was born when a god (in this case Zeus) disguised himself as a human and impregnated a human princess. This is not a virgin birth and not like the Holy Spirit’s role we read about in the Gospels.

Mithra: he’s a popular parallel. But he was born of a rock, not a virgin. Moreover, the cult of Mithra in the Roman Empire dates to after the time of Christ, so any dependence is Mithraism on Christianity and not the other way around.

Buddha: his mother dreamed that Buddha entered her in the form of a white elephant. But this story doesn’t appear until five centuries after his death, and she was already married.

In short, the so-called parallels always occur well after the life in question, well into the Christian era, and are not really stories of virginal conceptions.

What’s the Big Deal?

Even if professing Christians accept the virgin birth, many would have a hard time articulating why the doctrine really matters. Several years ago, Rob Bell (in)famously argued that it wouldn’t be a big deal if we discovered “Jesus had an earthly father named Larry.” What if the virgin birth was thrown in to appeal to the followers of Mithra and Dionysian religious cults? What if the word for virgin referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? Bell suggested that none of this would be catastrophic to the Christian faith because Jesus would still be the best possible way to live.

So what is the big deal about the virgin birth? Why does it matter?

For starters, the virgin birth is essential to Christianity because it has been essential to Christianity. That may sound like weak reasoning, but only if we care nothing about the history and catholicity of the church. Granted, the church can get things wrong, sometimes even for a long time. But if Christians, of all stripes in all places, have professed belief in the virgin birth for two millennia, maybe we should be slow to discount it as inconsequential. In his impressive study of the virgin birth, J. Gresham Machen concluded that “there can be no doubt that at the close of the second century the virgin birth of Christ was regarded as an absolutely essential part of the Christian belief by the Christian church in all parts of the known world.” It takes a lot of hubris to think that an essential article of faith for almost 2,000 years of the Christian church can be set aside without doing damage to the faith.

Second, the gospel writers clearly believed that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived. We don’t know precisely how the Christ-child came to be in Mary’s womb, except that the conception was “from the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20). But we do know that Mary understood the miraculous nature of this conception, having asked the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34). The Gospels do not present the virgin birth as some prehistoric myth or pagan copy-cat, but as “an orderly account” of actual history from eyewitnesses (Luke 1:1-4). If the virgin birth is false, the historical reliability of the gospels is seriously undermined.

Third, the virgin birth demonstrates that Jesus is truly human and truly divine. This is the point the Heidelberg Catechism makes when it asks in Question 35, “How does the holy conception and birth of Christ benefit you?” The answer: “He is our mediator, and with his innocence and perfect holiness he removes from God’s sight my sin—mine since I was conceived.” If Jesus had not been born of a human, we could not believe in his full humanity. At the same time, if his birth were like any other human birth—through the union of a human father and mother—we would question his full divinity. The virgin birth is necessary to secure both a real human nature and a completely divine nature.

Finally, the virgin birth is essential because it means Jesus did not inherit the curse of depravity that clings to Adam’s race. Jesus was made like us in every way except for sin (Heb. 4:15; 7:26-27). Every human father begets a son or daughter with his sin nature. This is the way of the world after the fall. Sinners beget sinners (Ps. 51:5). Always. If Joseph was the real father of Jesus, or Mary had been sleeping around with Larry, Jesus is not spotless, not innocent, and not perfectly holy. And as result, we have no mediator and no salvation.

The virgin birth is part of what Christians have believed in all times and in all places, and it is a key element in what it means for the incarnation to be “for us and for salvation.” We ignore the doctrine at our peril; we celebrate it to our benefit and to God’s glory.

Is Christmas a Pagan Rip-off?

We’ve heard it so many times that it’s practically part of the Christmas story itself.

The Romans celebrated their seven-day winter festival, Saturnalia, starting on December 17. It was a thoroughly pagan affair full of debauchery and the worship of the god Saturn. To mark the end of the winter solstice, the Roman emperor established December 25 as a feast to Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun). Wanting to make Christianity more palatable to the Romans and more popular with the people, the church co-opted these pagan festivals and put the celebration of the birth of their Savior on December 25. For whatever the Christmas holiday has become today, it started as a copycat of well-established pagan holidays. If you like Christmas, you have Saturnalia and Sol Invictus to thank.

That’s the story, and everyone from liberal Christians to conservative Christians to non-Christians seem to agree that it’s true.

Except that it isn’t.

For starters, we should distinguish between roots that suggest a rip-off and roots that suggest a rebuke. The presence of some connection between a Christian celebration and a pagan celebration could imply a synchronistic copy-cat (“Hey, let’s Christianize this popular pagan holiday so as to make our celebration more palatable”), or it could mean a deliberate rejection (“Hey, this pagan holiday is horrible, so let’s put something distinctively Christian in its place”). After the conversion of Constantine in the fourth century, Christians did sometimes adapt and Christianize pagan festivals. Whether they did so wisely and effectively is open to historical debate, but the motivation was to transform the paganism of the Roman world rather than raze it to the ground. Even if Christmas was plopped down on December 25 because of Saturnalia and Sol Invictus, that by itself does not entail that the Christian celebration of Christ’s birth really began as a pagan festival.

But in the case of Christmas, there is good evidence that December 25 was not chosen because of any pagan winter holidays. This is the argument Andrew McGowan, of Yale Divinity School, makes in his article “How December 25 Became Christmas” (first published in Bible Review in 2002). Let me try to distill McGowan’s fine historical work by addressing three questions.

When did Christians first start celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25?

Unlike Easter, which developed as a Christian holiday much earlier, there is no mention of birth celebrations from the earliest church fathers. Christian writers like Irenaeus (130-200) and Tertullian (160-225) say nothing about a festival in honor of Christ’s birth, and Origen (165-264) even mocks Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries as pagan practices. This is a pretty good indication that Christmas was not yet on the ecclesiastical calendar (or at least not widespread), and that if it were, it would not have been tied to a similar Roman holiday.

This does not mean, however, that no one was interested in the date of Christ’s birth. By the late second century, there was considerable interest in dating the birth of Jesus, with Clement of Alexandria (150-215) noting several different proposals, none of which was December 25. The first mention of December 25 as Jesus’s birthday comes from a mid-fourth-century almanac called the Philocalian Calendar. A few decades later, around AD 400, Augustine would indicate that the Donatists kept Christmas festivals on December 25 but refused to celebrate Epiphany on January 6 because they thought the latter date was a recent invention. Since the Donatists, who arose during the persecution under Diocletian in 312, were stubbornly opposed to any compromise with their Roman oppressors, we can be quite certain they did not consider the celebration of Christmas, or the date of December 25, to be pagan in origin. McGowan concludes that there must have been an older North African tradition that the Donatists were steeped in and, therefore, the earliest celebrations of Christmas (we know about) can be dated to the second half of the third century. This is well before Constantine and during a time period when Christians were trying to steadfastly avoid any connections to pagan religion.

When was it first suggested that Christmas grew out of pagan origins?

None of the church fathers in the first centuries of the church makes any reference to a supposed connection between Christmas and Saturnalia or Sol Invictus. You might think, Well of course they didn’t. That would have been embarrassing. But if the whole point of basing your Christian birth holiday on an existing pagan birth holiday is to make your religion more popular or more understandable, surely someone would say something. Besides, as McGowan points out, it’s not like future Christian leaders shied away from making these connections. Gregory the Great, writing in 601, urged Christian missionaries to turn pagan temples into churches and to repurpose pagan festivals into feast days for Christian martyrs.

There is no suggestion that the birth of Jesus was set at the time of pagan holidays until the 12th century, when Dionysius bar-Salibi stated that Christmas was moved from January 6 to December 25 to correspond with Sol Invictus. Centuries later, post-Enlightenment scholars of comparative religions began popularizing the idea that the early Christians retrofitted winter solstice festivals for their own purposes. For the first millennium of the church’s history, no one made that connection.

Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25?

The first answer to the question is that some Christians don’t. In the Eastern branch of the church, Christmas is celebrated on January 6, probably for the same reasons—according to a different calculation—that Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25 in the West. Although we can’t be positive, there is good reason to think that December 25 became the date for Christmas because of its connection to the (presumed) date of Jesus’s death and to the date of Jesus’s conception.

There are three dates at play in this calculation. Let’s start with the date of Jesus’s death.

Around AD 200, Tertullian of Carthage noted that Jesus died on the 14th day of Nisan, which was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman solar calendar. In the East, they made their calculation using the 14th day of the first spring month in their local Greek calendar. In the Roman calendar, this was April 6. So depending on who you asked, Jesus died on either March 25 or April 6.

In both the West and the East, there developed the same tradition that Jesus died on the same date he was conceived. An anonymous Christian treatise from fourth-century North Africa stated that March 25 was “the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.” Augustine in On the Trinity mentioned that same calculation. Similarly, in the East, the fourth-century bishop Epiphanius of Salamis maintained that on April 6 Christ took away the sins of the world and on the same date was “shut up in the spotless womb of the holy virgin.” The fact that this curious tradition existed in two different parts of the world suggests it may have been rooted in more than mere speculation. If nothing else, as McGowan observes, these early Christians were borrowing from an ancient Jewish tradition that said that the most important events of creation and redemption occurred at the same time of the year.

From the date of Christ’s death, to the (same) date of his conception, we can easily see where the date of Christmas could have come from. If Jesus was conceived on March 25, then the best date to celebrate his birth must be nine months later on December 25 (or, in the East, January 6). While we can’t know for certain that this is where December 25 came from—and we certainly can’t be dogmatic about the historicity of the date—there is much better ancient evidence to suggest that our date for Christmas is tied to Christ’s death and conception than tied to the pagan celebrations of Saturnalia and Sol Invictus.

Top 10 Books of 2020

First off, my usual disclaimer and explanation.

This list is not meant to assess the thousands of good books published in 2020. There are plenty of worthy titles that I am not able to read (and lots I never hear of). This is simply a list of the books (Christian and non-Christian, but all non-fiction) that I thought were the best in the past year. “Best” doesn’t mean I agreed with everything in them; it means I found these books—all published in 2020 (or the very end of 2019)—a strong combination of thoughtful, useful, interesting, helpful, insightful, and challenging. For more discussion on some of these books, check out my podcast Life and Books and Everything with Collin Hansen and Justin Taylor.

Instead of trying to rank the books 1-10 (always a somewhat arbitrary task), I’ll simply list them in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.

Andrew J. Bacevich, ed., American Conservatism: Reclaiming an Intellectual Tradition (Library of America)

For many people “conservative” is whatever Fox News says or the Republican Party does. For others “conservative” is the easy reason another person’s views can be quickly dismissed. Across the spectrum—whether you are for it or against it—Americans would do well (and American Christians in particular) to understand that conservatism is its own political tradition. As is always the case in a book like this, some chapters are better than others (the first chapter from Russell Kirk is very good), some chapters don’t agree with each other (e.g., the hawkish and the non-interventionists strands of conservative thought), and some probably don’t belong in this volume (like the one from Teddy Roosevelt, who was not a conservative). But taken as a whole, this collection of essays, drawn from the past hundred years, is a good place to start in understanding the conservative intellectual tradition.

 

Ronald Bailey and Marian L. Tupy, Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting (Cato Institute)

A fascinating look at the state of the world and why things are much, much better than you think. Want to know about trends in work, in population, in violence, in farming, in technology, in health, and in natural resources? This book has the graphs you need. The big knock on the book, however, is that it is not nearly big enough. The trim size and font should have been twice as big to make a proper coffee table read.

 

James Eglinton, Bavinck: A Critical Biography (Baker Academic)

A lecturer in Reformed theology at the University of Edinburgh, Eglinton proves with this book that he is an excellent historian as well as a superb systematician. Eglinton demonstrates a mastery of Dutch sources and Bavinck’s Dutch context. The result is an astute and readable biography of a man who not only excelled as a theologian but also made his name as an ethicist, an educational reformer, a politician, a journalist, a Bible translator, a campaigner for women’s education, and the progenitor of heroes and martyrs in the anti-Nazi resistance movement.

 

Zena Hitz, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life (Princeton University Press)

With admirable self-awareness and an obvious love for literature and learning, Hitz has written a book that celebrates the intellectual life without coming across as snobbish or elitist. Quite the opposite, Hitz argues that the joy of being “lost in thought” is a pleasure available not for the few but for the many.

Philip Jenkins, Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions (Baylor University Press)

The most important things happening in the world are not always the things that make for breaking news. Case in point: the falling fertility rates across the globe. “For the foreseeable future—for several decades at least—most of the non-African world does face the prospect of a contracting and steeply aging population” (185). Surely, this is big news, and Jenkins writes about the phenomenon with scholarly precision and clarity.

 

Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody (Pitchstone Publishing)

This is not a Christian book, which means there are elements of the analysis that cannot be accepted (e.g., the approval of homosexuality). On the other hand, it also means that the critique of postmodernism and its many attendant theories comes from insiders (academics, classic liberals) rather than from outsiders. If you want to know where Queer Theory, Gender Studies, Critical Race Theory, and intersectionality come from—and why they are massively problematic—this a book to answer many of your questions.

 

Mark Regnerus, The Future of Christian Marriage (Oxford University Press)

“This is a book about how modern Christians around the world look for a mate within a religious faith that esteems marriage but a world that increasingly yawns at it” (2). Regnerus argues that marriage is a public matter affecting all of society and that for Christianity the importance of faith and family usually rise and fall together. His suggestions for revitalizing Christian marriage provide good advice for parents, pastors, and Christian leaders.

 

Amity Schlaes, Great Society: A New History (Harper)

Part politics, part economics, and part cultural history—Shlaes covers the key ideas and personalities behind the programs meant to alleviate poverty in America. The book ends in 1976 with the destruction of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis, a metaphor for Shlaes’s largely negative assessment of what the Great Society accomplished.

 

Scott Swain, The Trinity: An Introduction (Crossway)

There may be doctrines as important as the doctrine of Trinity for the existence and wellbeing of the Christian faith, but surely there are none more important. In less than 140 pages, Swain introduces (or reminds) us of the grammar of Trinitarian theology: relations of origin, personal properties, divine simplicity, person, essence, paternity, filiation, and spiration. This book is a great read for the Christian who knows that God is three-in-one and is eager to learn how systematic theology defends and explains this precious truth.

Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Crossway)

First, the self was psychologized, then psychology was sexualized, and finally, sex was politicized. This is the history Trueman tells with great verve and sophistication. Tracing the rise of the modern self from Rousseau to the romantic poets, to Marx and Darwin, to Freud and Nietzsche, to the triumph of the erotic and the therapeutic in our own day, Trueman has produced a dense (400 pages), but well-written and remarkably insightful, book that helps us understand why “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” came to be seen as coherent and meaningful.

 

Honorable Mentions:

Conrad Mbewe, God’s Design for the Church: A Guide for African Pastors and Ministry Leaders (Crossway).

Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Biblical Impurity within First Century Judaism (Baker Academic).

Paul Tripp, Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church (Crossway).

Paul W. Wood, 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project (Encounter Books).

Theological Primer: Perichoresis

From time to time I make new entries in this continuing series called “Theological Primer.” The idea is to present big theological concepts in around 500 words. Today we look at the doctrine of perichoresis.

It is a recurring theme from the lips of Jesus that the Father dwells in the Son, that “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:10-11). All that Jesus asks in the High Priestly Prayer is rooted in the reality that the Son is in the Father, and the Father is in the Son. The Apostle Paul, likewise, testifies that in the incarnate Son “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col. 1:19).

We usually understand these verses to be about Christ’s deity. And rightly so. But they also speak to the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons—distinguished, respectively, by paternity, filiation, and spiration. And yet, we must not think of the three persons as three faces in a yearbook. The Father indwells the Son; the Son indwells the Spirit; the Spirit indwells the Father (and you could reverse the order in each pair).

The Greek term used to describe the eternal mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity is perichoresis (in Latin, circumincession). The word circulatio is also sometimes used as a way of metaphorically describing the unceasing circulation of the divine essence, such that each person is in the other two, while the others are in each one. At the risk of putting things in physical terms, perichoresis means that “all three persons occupy the same divine ‘space.'” In other words, we cannot see God without seeing all three persons at the same time.

The mutual indwelling of perichoresis means two things. First, the three persons of the Trinity are all fully in one another. And second, each person of the Trinity is in full possession of the divine essence. To be sure, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. Perichoresis does not deny any of this. What perichoresis maintains is that you cannot have one person of the Trinity without having the other two, and you cannot have any person of the Trinity without having the fullness of God. The inter-communion of the persons is reciprocal, and their operations are inseparable. As Augustine put it: “Each are in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all are one.”

Like many aspects of Trinitarian theology, this one can be hard to grasp; we have to rely on careful verbal definitions rather than concrete analogies. We must not think of perichoresis—as some have suggested from the etymology of the word—as a kind of Trinitarian dance. Such an analogy, and its social Trinitarian implications, undermines the truth that perichoresis means to protect. Here’s the problem: How can three persons simultaneously share the same undivided essence? The answer is not that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit waltz in step with each other, but that they coinhere in such a way that the persons are always and forever with and in one another, yet without merging, blending, or confusion. Only by affirming the mutual indwelling of each in each other, can we worship our Triune God as truly three and truly one.

Gerald Bray, Doctrine of God, 158.

Augustine, On the Trinity, 6.10.

When You Say Nothing at All

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to think about something other than politics, read something other than politics, breathe something other than politics.

Before I go any further, it bears repeating: politics matters. As a pastor, I am eager for Christians to be informed and engaged in politics. In fact, after theology and church history, I probably read more on politics, political history, and political philosophy than anything else. I am not against reading, writing, thinking, and speaking on politics.

And yet, I can’t help but question the wisdom of so many Christians—in particular, Christian leaders whose ministries are ostensibly not about politics—voicing specific opinions, sometimes passionately and sometimes frequently, about every political person, place, and thing. I understand that some Christians do punditry, advocacy, and opinion journalism for a living. I’m not surprised when they comment on political matters or weigh in on the events of the day. That’s what they do, and some of them do it really well, helping Christians think Christianly about what they are hearing and reading in the news.

So, again, I’m not against Christians offering cultural and political analysis. I’m not against discipling Christians to see all of life through the lens of Scripture.

What I am against is the instinct shared by too many Christians, including pastors and leaders, that assumes, “If everyone is talking about it, I should probably say something too.”

I worry that people will not first think of gospel convictions or theological commitments when they hear of our churches and ministries, but they will first think of whether we were for or against a certain candidate.

I am nervous that our lines of Christian fellowship will be drawn not according to Reformational principles of ecclesiology, worship, and theology, but according to current expressions of cultural antipathy and identity politics.

I am concerned that weighing in with strong public comments—from both the left and the right—about everything from voter fraud to judicial philosophy to energy policy to why we should all celebrate (when my candidate wins!) and come together in unity (when your candidate loses!)—does nothing to persuade our foes, but much to alienate our friends.

More than anything else, I fear we are letting the world’s priorities dictate what the church is most passionate about.

This isn’t a blanket denunciation of ever saying anything about political issues or political candidates. I have before and probably will again. But perhaps there are questions we should ask next time before joining the online cacophony.

Am I making it harder for all sorts of people to hear what I have to say about more important matters? Think about it: most of us are annoyed when athletes and movie stars feel the need to enlighten us with their political opinions. At best, we roll our eyes and still watch their movies or their games anyway. At worst, we turn them off for good. People will do the same to us. It’s good to think twice before we cash in our goodwill chips, doubling down for or against a particular candidate.

Is my online persona making it harder for my in-person friends to want to be around me? You may feel like, “I only post a few things each day on social media. There is so much more to my life.” True, but what you post on social media is the only part of your life that most of the world knows and sees. People don’t see your fully formed, full-orbed personality and personal life. They see the fifteen things you posted last week, ten of which had to do with politics, seven of which drove half of your friends absolutely bonkers. At the very least, we should consider if adding this stress to family and friends is really worth it.

Am I speaking on matters upon which I do not have special knowledge and for which no one needs my opinion? If my knowledge about something is limited to the three minutes I’ve been angry, or even the 30 minutes I’ve been surfing online, I probably don’t need to download those thoughts to the world.

Am I animated more by what I am reading in Scripture or by what I am seeing on the news and in social media? I’m convinced one of the biggest ways the world is currently shaping the church is by simply setting the agenda for the church’s concerns. We may think we are transforming the world by offering around-the-clock political commentary, but if all we talk about is what media outlets are already talking about, who is influencing whom?

You may argue in reply, I hear you, but the issues are too important. Christians can’t sit on the sidelines as the world argues about the important issues of our day. Fair enough. But consider: is posting your quick thoughts on the daily news cycle really the best way to make a long-term difference? Why not slow down and read some books and comment on those? Or write something online that goes back to first principles? Or write a book if you have opportunity? Or invest in liberal arts education that draws from the best of our Western tradition? Or simply and gloriously disciple young believers to know their Bibles, bear the fruit of the Spirit, and be committed to their local church?

American culture is incredibly diverse. We don’t all watch the same movies or television shows. We don’t all go to church. We don’t all read the same thing or listen to the same music. The one thing that we can all get into is politics, and that’s not healthy. Politics has become the national pastime that brings us all together, only so it can drive us all apart. The task of the church, in this polarized environment, is to slow down, set our minds on things above, and stick to our own script. To be sure, we should not always be silent. But neither should we be the noisiest people in the room, especially when the room tries to tell us what we should be talking about.

Brothers and sisters, it’s OK to have an unarticulated thought. It’s OK to go about our lives in quiet worship and obedience. It’s OK to do your homework, read your Bible, raise your kids, and make your private thoughts prayers instead of posts. Alison Krauss was right: sometimes you say it best when you say nothing at all.