Justin Taylor's Blog, page 193

Why Pushing to the Right Theologically Is Harder Than Pushing to the Left

Andrew Wilson writes:

Theologically speaking, pushing right is much harder than pushing left. I do both, depending on the context, and pushing right is definitely more difficult. When I’m trying to nudge people to their left on an issue . . .  I feel radical, creative, daring, exciting, and somewhat impish. But when I’m trying to nudge people to their right about something . . .  I feel conservative, stern, unpopular, staid, and even somewhat apologetic.

He offers three possible factors at play:

The first is to do with the youth-centred spirit of the age, in which freshness is more fashionable than faithfulness, innovating inspires people more than imitating, technology trumps tradition, and novelty is confused with creativity. Many still think that the Dylanesque call to change everything your parents stood for is iconoclastic, without noticing that true iconoclasm is to be found when people challenge the deepest convictions of a culture, and (say) teach that children should obey their parents rather than tell them to move over because they don’t understand the world no more. When you add to that the modernist metanarrative of progress (which is not completely dead yet), and the wider social obsession with the possibilities brought by technology, it is easy to see why the view could creep into the church that changing things was Good and conserving things was Bad.

The second is equally obvious, in some ways, but it is worth saying anyway: contemporary secular culture is well to the left of the Bible on most things it teaches. Non-Christian Britain thinks the Scriptures are backward on all sorts of topics, including judgment, evolution, tradition, war, marriage, slavery, sexual ethics, holiness, gender roles, and the idea of teaching doctrine in the first place. So when we move to the left, we are almost without exception moving closer to what the culture around us thinks, and that makes the process much more comfortable for us. (I’m not saying, of course, that moving to the left is thereby wrong, merely that it is easy – and therefore that, if I know my own heart, the temptation to distort the Bible to get there is likely to be more acute.) Moving to the right, on the other hand, makes us more likely to be ridiculed by The Independent, Stephen Fry, the writers of sitcoms, our social network, and all the other cool-ade people we desperately want to like us. It shouldn’t, but that does make it harder.

The third factor, related to this, is that the victims of excessive rightishness are much easier to identify, and to feel sorry for, the victims of excessive leftishness. An anti-war protest is much easier to recruit for than a pro-war protest. It’s easy to make movies, or posters, about the victims of slavery and domestic abuse; not so much about the victims of abortion, since they don’t live long enough to be given names. When a couple splits up through unfaithfulness, causing massive pain to their children, the individualistic, morally leftish values that made it possible are not personified, and nobody blames the newspapers, TV shows or movies that make short-term romantic fulfilment life’s ultimate purpose. Being ostracised for challenging church dogma makes a great story, but being gradually dulled to the wonders of God because the gospel is not being preached clearly does not. Suffering under authoritarian leadership results in a narrative with clear goodies and baddies, replete with emotive terms like “spiritual abuse” and “cultish leadership”; the thousands who go nowhere under directionless leaders, with churches being endlessly hijacked by oddballs and dominated by the loudest voice there, have far less grotesque villains and do not lend themselves so compellingly to Oprah. In the modern world, if you’re going to make a public argument, you need a victim and a villain. And leftish victims and villains are just that bit more identifiable than rightish ones.

You can read the whole thing here.

HT: Andy Crouch

Practicing the Presence of the Holy Spirit

I hope that a new generation of believers discovers the rich treasure of wisdom found in Richard Lovelace’s The Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (IVP, 1979). I found the following quote instructive, convicting, and encouraging at the same time:

This failure to recognize the Holy Spirit as personally present in our lives is widespread in the churches today. . . . Even where Christians know about the Holy Spirit doctrinally, they have not necessarily made a deliberate point of getting to know him personally. They may have occasional experiences of his reality on a hit-and-run basis, but the fact that the pronoun “it” is so frequently used to refer to him is not accidental. It reflects the fact that he is perceived impersonally as an expression of God’s power and not experienced continually as a personal Guide and Counselor.

A normal relationship with the Holy Spirit should at least approximate the Old Testament experience described in Psalm 139: a profound awareness that we are always face to face with God; that as we move through life the presence of his Spirit is the most real and powerful factor in our daily environment; that underneath the momentary static of events, conflicts, problems and even excursions into sin, he is always there like the continuously sounding note in a basso ostinato.

But Lovelace gives a metaphor for what sadly seems often to be the case:

The typical relationship between believers and the Holy Spirit in today’s church is too often like that between the husband and wife in a bad marriage. They live under the same roof, and the husband makes constant use of the wife’s services, but he fails to communicate with her, recognize her presence and celebrate their relationship with her.

Lovelace asks, “What should be done to reverse this situation?” Here is his answer:

We should make a deliberate effort at the outset of every day to recognize the person of the Holy Spirit, to move into the light concerning his presence in our consciousness and to open our minds and to share all our thoughts and plans as we gaze by faith into the face of God.

We should continue to walk throughout the day in a relationship of communication and communion with the Spirit mediated through our knowledge of the Word, relying upon every office of the Holy Spirit’s role as counselor mentioned in Scripture.

We should acknowledge him as the illuminator of truth and of the glory of Christ.

We should look to him as teacher, guide, sanctifier, giver of assurance concerning our sonship and standing before God, helper in prayer, and as one who directs and empowers our witness.

We should particularly recognize that growth in holiness is not simply a matter of the lonely individual making claims of faith on the basis of Romans 6:1-14. It involves moving about in all areas of our life in dependent fellowship with a person: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16 NASB).

When this practice of the presence of God is maintained over a period of time, our experience of the Holy Spirit becomes less subjective and more clearly identifiable, as gradually we learn to distinguish the strivings of the Spirit from the motions of our flesh. (pp. 130-131)

The Difference between Church as Individual Divers and Church as an Organic Body

Richard Lovelace:

The pattern of congregational life established by the beginning of the Middle Ages, in which the laity become passive observers of the redemptive mystery instead of celebrants and participants mutually edifying one another, has resulted in an individualistic spirituality that the church has never quite abandoned.

In this model of the Christian life the individual believer is connected to the source of grace like a diver who draws his air supply from the surface through a hose.  He is essentially a self-contained system cut off from the other divers working around him. If their air supply is cut off, this does not damage him nor can he share with them the air that he receives.  The situation would be no different if he were working alone a hundred miles away.

Lovelace contrasts this with the body metaphor in the New Testament:

The organic metaphor for the church used by Paul absolutely negates this conception by asserting that grace is conveyed through the body of Christ along horizontal channels as well as through the vertical relationship of each believer to God.  No individual, congregation or denomination of Christians is spiritually independent of the others. . . .  Therefore, ‘the normal Christian life’ is not simply a function of an individual believer’s relationship to God.  If he is isolated from Christians around him who are designed to be part of the system through which he receives grace, or if those Christians are themselves spiritually weak, he cannot be as strong and as filled with the Spirit as he otherwise would be.

—Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1979), pp. 167-168.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” . . . If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1 Corinthians 12:21, 26)

 

The Relationship between “The Gospel of the Kingdom” and “The Gospel of the Cross”

Don Carson an analysis by Greg Gilbert on the different ways the New Testament writers use the word gospel (Gk., εὐαγγέλιον, “good news”):

He argues that some passages where “gospel” is used focus on the message a person must believe to be saved, while others focus on the message that is “the whole good news of Christianity.” (I would prefer to say something like “the whole good news of what God has done in Christ Jesus and in consequence will do.”)

The first list includes, for example, texts like Acts 10:36-43; Romans 1:16-17; 1 Corinthians 1:17-18; 15:1-5—all passages having to do with the forgiveness of sins, how to be saved, how a person is justified, and so forth.

This corresponds to two types of believers who gravitate toward these different foci of the gospel:

In Gilbert’s analysis, one group of believers, whom he designates Group A, rightly argues that “the gospel is the good news that God is reconciling sinners to himself through the substitutionary death of Jesus.”

A second group of believers, whom Gilbert designates Group B, rightly argues that “the gospel is the good news that God is going to renew and remake the whole world through Christ.”

These two groups, he says, tend to talk past one another:

When a Group A believer asks the question What is the gospel? and hears the answer provided by a Group B person, inevitably he or she feels the cross has been lost; when a Group B believer asks the question What is the gospel? and hears the answer provided by a Group A person, inevitably he or she feels the response is too individualistic, too constrained, not driven by the sweep of eschatological expectation and ultimate hope.

Carson insists that these are not two gospels but one gospel in two perspectives:

Gilbert’s point is that although one can discern two foci in “gospel” texts—both having to do with the message of what God has done or is doing, but one more focused on Christ and his cross and how people are saved, the other taking in the broadest sweep of restoration in the new heaven and the new earth—these are not two separate and competing gospels, two distinguishable and complementary gospels. There is but one gospel of Jesus Christ.

The narrower focus draws you to Jesus—his incarnation, his death and resurrection, his session and reign—as that from which all the elements of what God is doing are drawn.

The broader focus sketches in the mighty dimensions of what Christ has secured.

Carson then makes some application:

But this means that if one preaches the gospel in the broader sense without also emphasizing the gospel in the more focused sense of what God has done to bring about such sweeping transformation, one actually sacrifices the gospel.

To preach the gospel as if this were equivalent to preaching, say, the demands of the kingdom or the characteristics and promises of the kingdom, both now in its inauguration and finally in its consummation, without making clear what secures the whole, is not to preach the gospel but only a tired and tiring moralism. Perhaps that is why Paul, talking of what the gospel is, feels free to identify the matters of first importance: Christ crucified and risen again.

This leads to a discussion of the heart of the gospel:

The heart of the gospel is what God has done in Jesus, supremely in his death and resurrection. Period. It is not personal testimony about our repentance; it is not a few words about our faith response; it is not obedience; it is not the cultural mandate or any other mandate. Repentance, faith, and obedience are of course essential, and must be rightly related in the light of Scripture, but they are not the good news.

The gospel is the good news about what God has done. Because of what God has done in Christ Jesus, the gospel necessarily includes the good that has been secured by Christ and his cross work. Thus it has a present and an eschatological dimension. We announce the gospel.

In their book What Is the Mission of the Church? Gilbert and DeYoung say that we could call the broad sense “the gospel of the kingdom”—that is, “the whole complex of promises that God makes to those who are redeemed through Christ. The more narrow sense could be called “the gospel of the cross”—that is, “the message that sinners can be forgiven through repentance and faith in the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Gilbert and DeYoung summarize some applications and clarifications:

First, there is only one gospel, not two.

Second, the gospel of the kingdom necessarily includes the gospel of the cross.

Third, and more specifically, the gospel of the cross is the fountainhead of the gospel of the kingdom.

They also explain why the NT writers can call “the gospel of the cross” the gospel even while retaining the term for the whole complex of good news.

Because the broader blessings of the gospel are attained only by means of forgiveness through the cross, and because those broader blessings are attained infallibly by means of forgiveness through the cross, it’s entirely appropriate and makes perfect sense for the New Testament writers to call forgiveness through the cross—the fountainhead of and gateway to all the rest—”the gospel.”

That’s also why we never see the New Testament calling any other single promise of God to the redeemed “the gospel.” For example, we never see the promise of the new creation called “the gospel.” Nor do we see reconciliation between humans called “the gospel.” But we do see reconciliation between man and God called “the gospel” precisely because it is the one blessing that leads to all the rest.

When Gilbert and DeYoung state the implications of their analysis negatively, here are three of their summaries of what we should avoid:

It is wrong to say that the gospel is the declaration that the kingdom of God has come. The gospel of the kingdom is the declaration of the kingdom of God together with the means of entering it.
It is wrong to say that the declaration of all the blessings of the kingdom is a dilution of the true gospel.
It is wrong to say that the message of forgiveness of sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus is a reduction of the true gospel.

I recommend Carson’s whole as well as the helpful chapter in the DeYoung/Gilbert book.

If You Don’t Know If Abortion Is Wrong, Choose the Pro-Life Position by Default

You may have to watch this a couple of times to follow this argument by Peter Kreeft, but I find it compelling and commend it to you:

Inspect but Don’t Introspect

The same apostle who wrote “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Cor. 13:5) wrote in an earlier letter to the same church “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself” (1 Cor. 4:3).

There is a paradox here. I think John Piper gets the balance right: “Periodic self-examination is needed and wise and biblical. But for the most part mental health is the use of the mind to focus on worthy reality outside ourselves.”

Here are some quotes along these lines:

J. C. Ryle:

Cultivate the habit of fixing your eye more simply on Jesus Christ, and try to know more of the fullness there is laid up in Him for every one of His believing people.

Do not be always poring down over the imperfections of your own heart, and dissecting your own besetting sins.

Look up.

Look more to your risen Head in heaven, and try to realize more than you do that the Lord Jesus not only died for you, but that He also rose again, and that He is ever living at God’s right hand as your Priest, your Advocate, and your Almighty Friend.

When the Apostle Peter “walked upon the waters to go to Jesus,” he got on very well as long as his eye was fixed upon his Almighty Master and Savior. But when he looked away to the winds and waves, and reasoned, and considered his own strength, and the weight of his body, he soon began to sink, and cried, “Lord, save me.” No wonder that our gracious Lord, while grasping his hand and delivering him from a watery grave, said, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” Alas! many of us are very like Peter–we look away from Jesus, and then our hearts faint, and we feel sinking (Mat. 14:28-31).

Robert Murray McCheyne:

Learn much of the Lord Jesus.

For every look at yourself take ten looks at Christ.

He is altogether lovely . . . .

Live much in the smiles of God.

Bask in his beams.

Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love.

And repose in his almighty arms.

In Surprised by Joy C. S. Lewis explains why introspection can be counterproductive in the act itself:

In introspection we try to look “inside ourselves” and see what is going on. But nearly everything that was going on a moment before is stopped by the very act of our turning to look at it. Unfortunately this does not mean that introspection finds nothing. On the contrary, it finds precisely what is left behind by the suspension of all our normal activities; and what is left behind is mainly mental images and physical sensations. The great error is to mistake this mere sediment or track or by product for the activities themselves.

For those who want to explore this issue in more depth, the best contemporary treatment is probably David Powlison’s seminar, “In the Last Analysis: Look Out for Introspection.” Tony Reinke provides some notes.

Finally, the most detailed treatment I know is found in Thomas Chalmers’s introductory essay to William Guthrie’s The Christian’s Great Interest. He is a strong proponent of self-examination, but thinks we know ourselves best by first looking outside ourselves. Here’s a taste:

Now it is not by continuing to pore inwardly that we will shed a greater lustre over the tablet of our own character, any more than we can enlighten the room in which we sit by the straining of our eyes towards the various articles which are therein distributed.

In the one case, we take help from the window, and through it from the sun of nature—and this not to supersede the proposed investigation on our part, but altogether to aid and encourage us in that investigation.

And in the other case, that the eye of the mind may look with advantage upon itself inwardly, should it often look outwardly to those luminaries which are suspended from the canopy of that revelation which is from above—we should throw widely open the portal of faith, and this is the way by which light is admitted into the chambers of experience—in defect of a manifest love, and a manifest loyalty, and a manifest sacredness of heart, which we have been seeking for in vain amongst the ambiguities of the inner man, we should expose the whole of this mysterious territory to the influences of the Sun of righteousness, and this is done by gazing upon him with a believer’s eye.

How Does the Great Commission Fit into God’s Story and Yours?

If you haven’t thought lately about Jesus’ final command to the church—”All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20)—I’d recommend Bruce Ashford’s exposition below. He shows how the Great Commission fits into the storyline of the Bible and shows how the command is both broader, and more focused, than you might have thought:

Receiving and Giving Criticism before the Cross

From an interview with Tom Schreiner asking about how he deals with academic criticism and misunderstanding or misrepresentation of his position:

Receiving criticism is part of the process of discipleship. It is one of the ways God makes us more like Jesus, so that we live for his glory instead of the praise of people. I don’t enjoy being criticized, but I recognize how the Lord has used it to help me become more like Jesus (though I have a long way to go!). Criticism is also helpful in that I see how others understand and respond to what I wrote. In reading criticisms I often see how I could state something better. I want to be open in reading a critique to correction. I could be wrong! So, I read a critique and think about how to respond well to what is said and consider whether what I wrote needs to be adjusted.

For thoughts on how this relates to the gospel, see this good post from Jared Wilson, who argues that “We will commend the gospel when we can give and receive criticism with charity and humility.”

I’d also commend Alfred Poirier’s article “The Cross and Criticism,” which defines criticism broadly as “any judgment made about you by another, which declares that you fall short of a particular standard” and then argues that at the cross we agree with God’s judgment of us and we agree with God’s justification of us—both of which have a radical impact on how we take and give criticism in Christ.

The Best Political Convention Speeches?

With the Republican National Convention underway, it led me to wonder: what are the best convention speeches in the televised age? To qualify, it seems, a speech would have rhetorical art and effectiveness and leave a lasting impression, even if one disagreed with the arguments and strategy employed.

Here are three I would nominate, each 20 years removed: Ronald Reagan (1964), Mario Cuomo (1984), Barack Obama (2004).

Any other strong nominees?

The Rise of New Calvinism, the Internet, and Two Other Factors

For those interested in the discussion about where the “new Calvinists” came from, Tim Challies adds an important factor to the discussion. It’s something so obvious it can be easy to miss.

Challies writes:

There is one factor that neither Dever nor Taylor has listed and one I consider absolutely critical to the growth of the movement: the Internet.

The Internet has allowed people to find community based on common interest—a new kind of community that transcends any geographic boundary. It used to be that people of common interest could only find others who shared their interests within a limited geographic area. The Internet has forever changed this and this is true in any field, whether it pertains to vocation, hobby, sports, religion or anything else. As web sites began to spring up, and then individual blogs and then group blogs and then YouTube channels and Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, people began to discover that there were others like them, people who believed roughly the same things or who had roughly the same interests. Where there may have been only a small number of enthusiasts in a single town or city, the Internet brought together enthusiasts from hundreds and thousands of cities and towns. These people could now congregate online with those who shared their interests.

The New Calvinism is no exception. While the theological seeds had been planted in previous years and decades, the movement was awaiting a catalyst that would allow the isolated individuals to coalesce into a movement. The catalyst in this case was the Internet and social media. . . .

You can read the whole thing here. I agree entirely.

And as long as this discussion continues, let me add two more factors.

1. Not Just Internet, but Free Internet

One commenter on my original post made this observation regarding Piper and Desiring God:

It’s not just that Desiring God and John Piper were trumpeting the Biblical doctrines associated with the rise of the new Calvinism – it’s also the fact that they were aggressively disseminating them for free. To access such a wealth of resources and to not have to even register as a subscriber spoke volumes of the generosity and grace of the God they were proclaiming.

I think this is right. From the beginning (in the mid-90s) Desiring God had a “whatever you can afford” policy. There was also a decision to get everything possible—from sermons to articles to books to videos to audio—online for free. To see some of the theological and ministry rationale behind this, see Jon Bloom and John Piper’s booklet, “Money, Markets, and Ministry: Giving and Selling in the Mission of Desiring God.”

The second phase of this was an article by Matt Perman urging other ministries to “Make It Free.” Key to Perman’s argument was that it’s not enough to be free. Resources must also be easily accessible without registration or subscription. The difficulty of this is that it’s hard to pay one’s overhead and to pay the extensive bills to make this sort of thing happen at a significant level. (On this, see Nathan Bingham’s important reminder.) It means ministries must shift from a revenue model to a donor model. But Perman’s piece became a catalyst for other ministries following suit.

2. Not Just Individuals and Influencers, But Institutions

In the fall of 2006, at a panel for the DG National Conference on “The Supremacy of God in a Postmodern World,” I asked Tim Keller about the then popular trend of Emergent/emerging Christians. Asking him to don his “prophet’s hat” I wondered if this would be merely a footnote in the history of evangelicalism, or would it comprise a chapter. Was it here to stay or would it fade away, replaced by the next fad? Here was part of his answer:

They don’t have institutions, and I do think you need institutions. Evangelicalism developed in the United Kingdom and the United States because of certain institutions: a couple of key seminaries laid the groundwork for the movement, and Crusade, InterVarsity, and Navigators raised up the foot soldiers. Because of this, evangelicalism created something different. But I don’t see that in the emerging church—it’s so anti-institutional, so afraid of authority, that I doubt very much that it can create those institutions and become a cohesive movement. There might be some sort of post-liberal/post-conservative theological party that comes together, and I think it could produce writers and lots of books, but I doubt that they’re going to create churches or any strong communities and institutions. . . . No, I don’t think it’s going to be a strong movement.

Tim concluded his answer by conceding, “Though ten years from now I may be eating my words!” But of course he was exactly right.

The key here, in my view, is that the organizations that are often associated with a revived interest in evangelical Calvinism (from TGC to T4G to DG to 9Marks to the Resurgence to SGM to GTY to Ligonier to Modern Reformation) all exist to serve and strengthen the church. In these circles you never hear lone-ranger Christians ready to give up on the institutional church. These folks are church people who are happy to link arms, in varying ways and to varying degrees, with other Christians who are passionate about the Gospel.