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Conversations on Jonathan Edwards

Here is a stimulating discussion between Joe Rigney and Doug Wilson on the piety and theology of Jonathan Edwards. They cover the following topics over the course of an hour and a half:

1. Introduction

2. Personal Piety

3. God’s End in Creation

4. The Church

5. The Trinity

6. Typology

7. Edwards and Lewis

Scot McKnight commented yesterday that “more people criticize Edwards, sometimes ruthlessly, than have read him.”

If you want to begin reading him broadly and with the best editions, I recommend beginning with The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader and A Jonathan Edwards Reader.

Flannery O’Connor Reads “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”

On April 22, 1959, the 34-year-old southern novelist and short-story writer Flannery O’Connor visited Vanderbilt University and read her best-known story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” first published in 1955:

When she gave a reading of this story at Hollins College in Virginia on October 14, 1963—just 9 months before she died from complications of lupas—she prefaced it with some remarks.

Among other things, she addressed “what makes a story work, and what makes it hold up as a story.” She answered:

I have decided that it is probably some action, some gesture of a character that is unlike any other in the story, one which indicates where the real heart of the story lies.  This would have to be an action or a gesture which was both totally right and totally unexpected; it would have to be one that was both in character and beyond character; it would have to suggest both the world and eternity.  The action or gesture I’m talking about would have to be on the anagogical level, that is, the level which has to do with the Divine life and our participation in it.  It would be a gesture that transcended any neat allegory that might have been intended or any pat moral categories a reader could make.  It would be a gesture which somehow made contact with mystery.

She identifies the place of such a “gesture” in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”:

The Grandmother is at last alone, facing the Misfit. Her head clears for an instant and she realizes, even in her limited way, that she is responsible for the man before her and joined to him by ties of kinship which have their roots deep in the mystery she has been merely prattling about so far. And at this point, she does the right thing, she makes the right gesture.

I find that students are often puzzled by what she says and does here, but I think myself that if I took out this gesture and what she says with it, I would have no story. What was left would not be worth your attention. Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violence which precede and follow them.  The devil’s greatest wile, Baudelaire has said, is to convince us that he does not exist.

On the violence in her stories, O’Connor comments:

In my own stories I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace. Their heads are so hard that almost nothing else will do the work. This idea, that reality is something to which we must be returned at considerable cost, is one which is seldom understood by the casual reader, but it is one which is implicit in the Christian view of the world.

O O’Connor knows that some people label this story “grotesque,” but she prefers to call it “literal.”

A good story is literal in the same sense that a child’s drawing is literal. When a child draws, he doesn’t intend to distort but to set down exactly what he sees, and as his gaze is direct, he sees the lines that create motion. Now the lines of motion that interest the writer are usually invisible. They are lines of spiritual motion. And in this story you should be on the lookout for such things as the action of grace in the Grandmother’s soul, and not for the dead bodies.

O’Conner elsewhere expanded on the comparison of stories and drawings:

When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock-to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.

Quotes from: Flannery O’Connor, “On Her Own Work,” in her Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, ed. Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969), pp. 107-118. The “stick figures” quote is from “The Fiction Writer and His Country,” Mystery and Manners, p. 34.

For her short stories, see Flannery O’Connor, The Complete Stories.

For a guide to her short stories, see Jill Peláez Baumgaerter, Flannery O’Connor: A Proper Scaring.

For biographies, see Brad Gooch, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor and Jonathan Rogers, The Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography.

For an analysis of her literature and thought in relation to the culture of South, see Ralph Wood, Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South.

Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: An Interview with Steve Nichols

Eric Metaxas writes, “How I rejoice to see thinkers of Stephen Nichols’s caliber applying their fine minds to the life and thought of the inimitable Dietrich Bonhoeffer. There’s so much yet to be written about this great man. A hungry readership awaits!”

Russell Moore says, “This book will quicken your pulse as you are drawn into the story and the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Stephen Nichols brings a long and complex life to a point of ongoing personal application. This book prompted me to pray for the kind of courage that comes only after intense communion with the living God. Read and be strengthened.”

The book is Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World, the latest entry in the Theologians on the Christian Life series (more on this below).

I recently talked to Dr. Nichols about the book and the man behind it. We talked about things like: How do you pronounce his name? Why do we need another book on Bonhoeffer after Metaxas’s big bestselling biography? Was he an evangelical? And other questions.

Here are the other books in the Theologians on the Christian Life series:

2012

Fred Zaspel, Warfield on the Christian Life 

2013

William Edgar, Schaeffer on the Christian Life

Stephen Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life

Fred Sanders, Wesley on the Christian Life (August)

2014

Michael Horton, Calvin on the Christian Life (March)

Michael Haykin and Michael Barrett, Owen on the Christian Life

2015

Dane Ortlund, Edwards on the Christian Life

Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life

Derek Thomas, Bunyan on the Christian Life

Carl Trueman, Luther on the Christian Life

John Bolt, Bavinck on the Christian Life

Sam Storms, Packer on the Christian Life 

Michael Reeves, Spurgeon on the Christian Life

Why I Find Your Pride So Annoying

C.S. Lewis:

There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.

And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

The vice I am talking of is Pride. . . .

. . . In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, “How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?”

The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride.

It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise.

—C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), chapter 8.

Being the “Dung Gate” Guy

My pastor, David Sunday, wrote to our elders this morning about the talk below:

I’ve heard it three times now—it was so good, I asked my whole family to watch it together last night, and it had a positive impact on my kids. Then we watched it together as a pastoral staff this morning.

If you are inclined to see it and have forty minutes to spare, I think you will be very encouraged personally that you don’t have to be an extraordinary man to have a meaningful role in the Kingdom; and also, it’ll help refresh your vision for the dignity of each member of the Body of Christ.

Here is Andrew Wilson’s talk from Mobilise 2013:

Five Lessons on Friendship from Esther Edwards Burr

To students of church history, Esther Edwards Burr (1732-1758) is known today as one of eleven children born to Sarah and Jonathan Edwards, America’s greatest theologian.

To students of American history, she is known as the mother of Aaron Burr Jr., Thomas Jefferson’s vice president who mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton in an illegal duel in 1804. When Aaron was all of 19 months old, she recorded in a letter that he was “a little dirty Noisy Boy . . . very sly and mischievous . . . not so good tempered. He is very resolute and requires a good Governor to bring him to terms.” Aaron would tragically go on to abandon the faith of his family. But we can certainly feel empathy for his difficult start in life, given that at the age of two years old he lost both his mother and his father, as well his grandfather and grandmother.

Esther Edwards Burr died at the age of 26. She began a journal when she was 9 years old, which you can read online. In 1986 Yale University Press published a critical edition of three years worth of letters she wrote as an adult to her friend Sarah Prince (1728-1771), offering a rare look at female colonial American piety and a young life devoted to “sincere religion” and committed to “faithful friendship” (to use the description of Roger Lundin and Mark Noll).

In the letters Esther’s sharp wit and formidable intellect shine through. For example, she recounts one occasion when a tutor at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University)—where her husband served as president—confidently asserted that women did not know “what Friendship was,” as “they were hardly capable of anything so cool and rational as friendship” (Letter No. 3, April 12, 1757).

Esther tells Sarah, “I retorted several severe things upon him before he had time to speak again. He blushed and seemed confused. . . . We carried on the dispute for an hour—I talked him quite silent.”

The tutor was out of his league, mocking a subject near and dear to Esther’s heart. She wrote about it both passionately and frequently to Sarah Prince. In reading through her extant letters, several themes emerge for her working theology and practice of friendship.

1. Christian friendship is a gift from God that is preserved by God.

After Esther’s death, Sarah wrote that Esther “was dear to me as the Apple of my Eye—she knew and felt all my Griefs. She laid out herself for my good and was every assiduously studying it. The God of Nature had furnished her with all that I desir’d in a Friend.” Sarah here focuses upon Esther’s exemplary acts of true friendship, involving empathy, sacrifice, and knowledge—all seen as a kindness from God in fulfilling the desire of Sarah’s heart.

As for Esther, she recognized the same, writing: “Once more I am allowed to call you friend, which I hope I am thankfull for. Tis God that gives us friends, and he that preserves the friendship he has graciously begun.” To be sure, Christian friendship is not something that she took for granted: “‘Tis . . . a great mercy that we have any friends—What would this world be without ‘em—A person who looks upon himself to be friendless must of all Cretures be missarable in this Life—Tis the Life of Life” (January 23, 1756).

2. Christian friendship is rare and fragile but ultimately eternal.

After one of her best friends in town nearly dies, Esther writes to Sarah that “It realy seems as if the time was come when friendship is going out of the World by one means or other, those that are formed for it taken away by death or threatned” (October 12, 1754; November 12, 1754). Esther recognizes that circumstances often conspire to threaten the preciousness of friendship. This was especially true on the early American frontier, where average life expectancy did not go beyond the thirties.

But the ultimate origin of Christian friendship, Esther reasons, indicates its true duration: “True friendship is inkindled by a spark from Heaven, and heaven will never suffer it to go out, but it will burn to all Eternity” (February 15, 1755).

3. Christian friendship expresses the language of affection.

Over and over again in her letters, Esther addresses Sarah with tender terms of endearment and appreciation. She frequently signs off, “I am, my dear friend, your most affectionate Friend and Sister” (March 6, 1756; November 21, 1754; June 14, 1755; April 17, 1756). She nicknames Sarah her “dear affectionate Fidelia” (October 17, 1756), that is, faithful or loyal one. Sarah, she says, is “my best self” (May 8, 1756), “the Sister of my heart” (October 11, 1754), “my ever dear friend” (December 25, 1754), “my beloved friend” (April 19, 1755). Signing one letter, “your unfeighned and very Affectionate Friend” (February 9, 1755), it is clear there were no restraints on their affection.

4. Christian friendship is a form of love.

This point is related to the previous one, but somewhat distinct. Modern readers are sometimes taken aback by the way in which same-sex friendships were described with passionate expression usually reserved for lovers. Our fear of homoerotic overtones has almost entirely muted this sort of language today. But it was common in Puritan New England and continued at least into the late nineteenth century, applying not only to friendships between women but also friendships between men.

For example, Esther describes how excited she would become at the arrival of a new letter from her friend: “I could not help weeping for joy to hear once more from my dear, very dear Fidelia. . . . I broke it open with [as] much eagerness as ever a fond lover imbraced the dearest joy and dlight of his soul” (March 7, 1755).

She felt similarly after having read the letter itself: “Every Letter I have from you raises my esteem of you and increases my love to you—their is the very soul of a friend in all you write—You cant think how those private papers make me long to see you” (Letter No. 21, April 16, 1756).

Esther even wonders at times if her love for Sarah is bordering on idolatry, becoming too attached to things of this earth: “As you say, I believe tis true that I love you too much, that is I am too fond of you, but I cant esteem and value too greatly, that is sertain—Consider my friend how rare a thing tis to meet with such a friend as I have in my Fidelia—Who would not value and prize such a friendship above gold, or honour, or any thing that the World can afford? . . . I am trying to be weaned from you my dear, and all other dear friends, but for the present it seems vain—I seem more attached to ‘em than ever— . . .” (June 4, 1755). She sees friendship as one of life’s greatest earthly goods, though less than God.

5. Christian friendship can strengthen our relationship with God.

One of the things Esther most valued in her friendship was the sense of honesty and free transparency before a fellow pilgrim: “I think it is one of the great essentials of friendship [that] the parties tell one another their faults, and when they will [say] it and take it kindly it is one of the best evidences of true friendship, [I] think” (November 1, 1754).

A true friend is a confidant, a sounding board, one who can hear our true hearts and still love us: “I should highly value (as you my dear do) such charming friends as you have about you—friends that one might unbosom their whole soul too” (April 20, 1755).

Earlier we noted her fear of idolatry with friendship. But she also sees Christian friendship as a genuine godly pleasure: “Nothing is more refreshing to the soul (except communication with God himself), than the company and society of a friend.” In fact, she writes, “I esteem relegious Conversation one of the best helps to keep up relegion in the soul, excepting secret devotion, I dont know but the very best—Then what a lamentable thing that tis so neglected by Gods own children” (April 20, 1755).

Esther Edwards Burr lived a short life, but she left with us a remarkable example of godly Christian friendship and thoughtful theological reflection on this gift of grace.

We Are All Compatibilists at the Cross

What is compatibilism?

D. A. Carson provides a good introduction when he argues that the following two propositions are both taught and exemplified in the Bible:

God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never functions in Scripture to reduce human responsibility.
Human beings are responsible creatures—that is, they choose, they believe, they disobey, they respond, and there is moral significance in their choices; but human responsibility never functions in Scripture to diminish God’s sovereignty or to make God absolutely contingent.

Carson rightly argues that “We tend to use one to diminish the other; we tend to emphasize one at the expense of the other. But responsible reading of the Scripture prohibits such reductionism.”

“Hundreds of passages,” he suggests, “could be explored to demonstrate that the Bible assumes both that God is sovereign and that people are responsible for their actions. As hard as it is for many people in the Western world to come to terms with both truths at the same time, it takes a great deal of interpretative ingenuity to argue that the Bible does not support them.”

Carson briefly works through a number of representative passages: Genesis 50:19-20; Leviticus 20:7-8; 1 Kings 11:11-13, 29-39; 12:1-15 (cf. 2 Kings 10:15; 11:4) 2 Samuel 24; Isaiah 10:5-19; John 6:37-40; Philippians 2:12-13; Acts 18:9-10; and Acts 4:23-30. I’d encourage readers to study each passage in context and see if they comport with Carson’s two statements above.

After looking at Acts 4:23-30, Carson makes this telling comment:

Christians who may deny compatibilism on front after front become compatibilists (knowing or otherwise) when they think about the cross. There is no alternative, except to deny the faith. And if we are prepared to be compatibilists when we think about the cross—that is, to accept both of the propositions I set out at the head of this chapter as true, as they are applied to the cross—it is only a very small step to understanding that compatibilism is taught or presupposed everywhere in the Bible.

Elsewhere he writes, “At Calvary, all Christians have to concede the truth of these two statements [above], or they give up their claim to be Christians.”

I especially appreciate Carson’s conclusion as he locates the deepest foundation of compatibilism:

So I am driven to see not only that compatibilism is itself taught in the Bible, but that it is tied to the very nature of God; and on the other hand, I am driven to see that my ignorance about many aspects of God’s nature is precisely that same ignorance that instructs me not to follow the whims of many contemporary philosophers and deny that compatibilism is possible. The mystery of providence is in the first instance not located in debates about decrees, free will, the place of Satan, and the like. It is located in the doctrine of God.

Carson’s popular-level writings on compatibilism can be found in chapter 9 (“A Sovereign and Personal God”) of A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 145-66; and chapter 11 “(The Mystery of Providence”) of How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 199-228. For a more technical treatment (based on his doctoral dissertation), see Carson’s Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspective in Tension.

For more technical discussions on the philosophical nature of freedom and responsibility, see the chapters in John Feinberg’s No One Like Him. Among the best things I’ve read—accessible but philosophically informed—are the relevant chapters in John Frame’s The Doctrine of God.

For a brief overview of passages on God’s absolute sovereignty, see this post.

God Sent What We Needed

D. A. Carson:

If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, He would have sent an economist.

If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist.

If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician.

If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor.

But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death, and he sent us a Savior.

—D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 109.

PBS Profile of Russell Moore

PBS’ Religion & Ethics Newsweekly profiles the new president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission:

“Of the Seven Deadly Sins, Anger Is Possibly the Most Fun”

Frederick Buechner:

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back–in many ways it is a feast fit for a king.

The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself.

The skeleton at the feast is you.

―Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 2.