Justin Taylor's Blog, page 208

A Love Affair with Books: Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 among other books, died yesterday.

Here he explains his true love:

HT: Chad Smith

America’s Key Founders, Neither Christians nor Deists: An Interview on a Major New Book

Gregg Frazer (PhD, Claremont Graduate University) is professor of history and political studies at The Master’s College and the author of a new major book on The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, Revolution (The University Press of Kansas, 2012). Mark Noll writes that the thesis is “Sophisticated, well-documented, and forcefully argued. Extreme partisans who champion ‘Christian America’ or complete secularism will not like this book, but all other readers should come away much better informed about the past and also much better situated to adjudicate religious-political debates today.”

Professor Frazer was kind enough to answer a few questions about this work.

What are the key “narratives” you are seeking to overturn in this book—either about Christian America or Secular America or the Wall of Separation between the two?

My primary claim is that the key founders (those most responsible for the founding documents and putting the new government into effect) were neither Christians nor deists, but “theistic rationalists” (a term of my construction).

I argue that both the Right and the Left are wrong about the founding.

The key founders did not create—or intend to create—a Christian nation.

But they did not create—or intend to create—a strictly secular nation with a “wall of separation” between church and state, either.

They believed that morality was indispensable for a free society and that religion was the best source for morality.

Contrary to the claims of secularists, they did not want to divorce or separate religion from public life; rather, they believed that religion was a necessary support.

Contrary to the claims of Christian America advocates, they did not believe that the religion needed for this purpose must be Christianity—and they were not Christians themselves.

The key founders were theistic rationalists.

What exactly is “theistic rationalism?”

“Theistic rationalism” was a hybrid belief system mixing elements of natural religion, Christianity, and rationalism, with rationalism as the predominant element.  Adherents believed that these three elements would generally complement one another, but when conflict between them could not be resolved or ignored, reason had to play the decisive role.  Because they borrowed from natural religion and Christianity, if one selects statements conveniently and out of context, one can make them appear to be either Christians or deists.  That is why both the Christian America camp and the secular camp can find snippets to support their claims.

We hear a lot of sweeping claims about what the “founding fathers” believed. But you’re uncomfortable with that kind of language.

General claims about “the founders” or “the founding fathers” where religious or political beliefs are concerned are not legitimate (with very few exceptions).

The founding fathers were a diverse group of individuals who were not all in agreement on virtually anything.  I make claims concerning only the “key founders” (as I call them). The “key founders” are those most responsible for the Declaration of Independence (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin), those most responsible for the Constitution (James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, James Wilson) and those most influential in putting the new government into effect (George Washington, Alexander Hamilton).

One should be very skeptical about general claims that begin with: “the founding fathers believed . . . ” or “the founding fathers thought . . . . “  There were Christians among the founders and there were deists among the founders and there were theistic rationalists among the founders—no legitimate claim can lump them all together.

Apart from the extremists on the Left and the Right, I imagine there is a sizable swath of the American public that simply asks, “Who cares?” Obviously you think this question matters or you wouldn’t have written a 300-page book on it. So in your view, what difference does it make how one answers the question of the founding fathers’ faith?

The question of the religious beliefs of America’s founders is important for a number of reasons in a number of categories.

For Christians, it matters because of the dangers of the “Christian America” view:

a) designating a mixture of Christian and non-Christian influences as “Christian” or “biblical” attaches the authority of the inerrant, infallible Word of God to a non-biblical hybrid of influences;

b) identifying “religious” people as Christians makes the Gospel one of moral behavior and pronouncements rather than the saving work of Christ and personal commitment to Him;

c) Scripture teaches that God hates generic, moralizing religion—promoting “religion” as Christianity exalts what God hates;

d) many confuse their cultural heritage with biblical Christianity and lose the ability to distinguish what is truly biblical from what is merely American tradition;

e) the Bible is reduced to a mere tool in service of a political agenda—proper use/interpretation of Scripture is not important, what is important is counting how many times it is quoted (no matter how incorrectly); and

f) confidence is placed in processes and institutions rather than in the sovereign God—belief that the political system was originally Christian focuses and directs efforts of Christians toward correcting the political system and misdirects the resources of the church.

For citizens, the competing claims of the Left and of the Right are based on their views/assumptions concerning the founding.  Consequently, the false view of the secularists results in the loss of religious liberty under the false “wall of separation” notion promulgated by the courts.  Also, theistic rationalism was the basis for the development of American civil religion, which has had a profound influence on most Americans and American traditions.

For those interested in history or politics, I argue that one cannot properly understand the religious language in the Declaration of Independence without understanding the theistic rationalism of those who wrote it.  Recognition of the theistic rationalism of those who wrote the Constitution and put it into effect is also vital to a proper understanding of religious liberty under the First Amendment and its proper application.  Finally, proper understanding of the role of patriot preachers in promoting the American Revolution is impossible without an understanding of their theistic rationalism.

All of these elements are, of course, explained in detail in my book.  It is impossible to do them justice in this space.

In terms of historical methodology, why do you give priority to private correspondence over public proclamations?

The bulk of the evidence in my book centers on the private correspondence, diary entries, and personal memoranda of the key founders—rather than on public pronouncements.  My focus is on what the key founders themselves said that they believed—rather than denominational affiliations or church attendance.  My assumption is that individuals are most open and honest concerning their true beliefs when speaking privately in writings that they do not think will be seen by the public.  Public figures know how to appeal to the public and say what the public wants to hear.  But there is no need to do that in private writings; there they are free to be candid and transparent.  In a number of cases, the key founders actually asked their correspondents to return the letter to them or to destroy it in order to keep it out of the public eye. Like today, denominational affiliations in 18th-century America were for politicians essentially club memberships and tell us virtually nothing about what an individual really believed.

In his book The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, David Holmes investigates four areas to determine a founder’s faith: (1) religious activity (e.g., church attendance); (2) participation in church sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s supper); (3) comparison of religious inactivity and activity; (4) use of religious language. He concludes that they can be broadly classified as non-Christian deists, deistic Christians/unitarians; and orthodox Christians. How does your methodology and conclusion difference from this?

As the title of my book suggests, my project was to determine the religious beliefs of the key founders, so I was not very concerned with public activities—except in cases in which an activity would have been unpopular or controversial or somehow gives insight into actual belief.  Consequently, my only interest in church attendance is to show some interest in Christianity and to trace the frequency of church attendance when the public is watching compared to when it is not.

As for the sacraments, I find Washington’s steadfast refusal to take communion and Hamilton’s intense desire to do so after his conversion to Christ (but not before) to be very informative.

The significance of religious activity and inactivity entirely depends on the nature of the activity and what it reveals about sincerely held belief and not on mere frequency or public recognition.

I consider their use of religious language to be absolutely crucial. There is no other way to get at what they really believed. What language did they use in public versus private?  What terms for God did they use?  Did they use specifically Christian language or generic “religious” language?

A matter of language that is critically important is to determine what they meant by certain terms.  Too often, for example, Christian America advocates simply cite quotes in which founders refer to “Christianity” or “Christian” and leave the false impression with Christian readers/listeners that those words meant the same thing to the founders as they do to them.  But key founders such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin meant something very different by those words.  They created their own versions of “Christianity” that bore very little resemblance to its actual or common meaning.  Other words such as “bigot” had very different meanings in the 18th century than they do today and proper understanding requires recognition and explanation of that fact.

A centerpiece of my argument is my conviction that the terms “Christian” and “deist” have been so broadly applied to the founders that they’ve become virtually meaningless categories.  This is largely due to the fact that those two categories have been the only generally accepted niches, so individuals have been shoehorned into one of those identifications whether they fit or not. I carefully define both terms to provide boundaries that would have been recognized in 18th-century America in order to produce more accuracy—more truth in labeling.

Holmes’s conclusions seem to me to illustrate my point perfectly.  While we do not deal with exactly the same people, Holmes covers five of the eight persons I class as “key founders.”  In common with virtually everyone (except me), he calls Jefferson and Franklin deists.  Along with many scholars, but not necessarily a majority, he also calls Madison a deist.  But his determinations regarding George Washington and John Adams highlight the “shoehorn” activity mentioned above and particularly point to the need for my work.  He calls Washington a “Deistic Episcopalian” and Adams a “Christian Deist.”  In 18th-century terms, these descriptions are nonsensical—and they do not stand up to the evidence.

What will be some key surprises readers will find in your book?

As for surprises readers will find in my book:

a) John Adams was so opposed to the idea of the Trinity that he said that he would not believe it if God Himself told him it was true;

b) Adams said that he knew of no better theology than that of the Shastra (a Hindu text);

c) Jefferson and Franklin were not, as is universally held, deists;

d) the story of Washington praying in the snow at Valley Forge is not true;

e) a number of the patriot preachers were not, in fact, Christians—including the most influential of them;

f) the Declaration of Independence was written artfully to appeal to persons of any religious persuasion and allow each to read his own beliefs into it;

g) the key framers essentially “established” their own religious beliefs in the Constitution; and

h) far from erecting a wall of separation between church and state, key founders including Jefferson attended worship services in the House chamber of the Capitol building.

Is an Anti-Calvinist Statement by SBC Leaders Actually Semi-Pelagian?

Roger Olson, a historical theologian relentless in his arguments against the logic of Calvinism and the victimization of Arminianism, writes:

For a long time I’ve been stating that most American Christians, including most Baptists, are semi-Pelagian, not Arminian and not merely non-Calvinist. Calvinists and Arminians stand together, with Scripture, against semi-Pelagianism

Looking at a new statement put together, “A Statement of Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation,” Professor Olson is concerned not about what it say but in what it doesn’t say. He thinks it tends toward, or at least opens the door to, a semi-Pelagian reading:

Semi-Pelagians such as Philip Limborch and (at least in some of his writings) Charles Finney affirmed the necessity of the gospel and the Holy Spirit’s enlightening work through it for salvation. What made them semi-Pelagian was their denial or neglect of the divine initiative in salvation (except the gospel message).

The problem with this Southern Baptist statement is its neglect of emphasis on the necessity of the prevenience of supernatural grace for the exercise of a good will toward God (including acceptance of the gospel by faith). If the authors believe in that cardinal biblical truth, they need to spell it out more clearly. And they need to delete the sentence that denies the incapacitation of free will due to Adam’s sin.

Albert Mohler’s response seeks to set the whole discussion in theological and denominational context, but also raises the question of semi-Pelagianism:

I have very serious reservations and concerns about some of its assertions and denials. I fully understand the intention of the drafters to oppose several Calvinist renderings of doctrine, but some of the language employed in the statement goes far beyond this intention. Some portions of the statement actually go beyond Arminianism and appear to affirm semi-Pelagian understandings of sin, human nature, and the human will — understandings that virtually all Southern Baptists have denied. Clearly, some Southern Baptists do not want to identify as either Calvinists, non-Calvinists, or Arminians. That is fine by me, but these theological issues have been debated by evangelicals for centuries now, and those labels stick for a reason.

That leads me to make another qualification. I do not believe that those most problematic statements truly reflect the beliefs of many who signed this document. I know many of these men very well, and I know them to be doctrinally careful and theologically discerning. Some of these very men have served most boldly in the defense of the faith, and they have taught me much. We should be honored by the privilege of a serious theological conversation with one another, and we will all speak more carefully when we are respectfully questioned by those with whom we disagree.

Dr. Mohler’s whole piece is worth reading, even for those who don’t have a denominational dog in this discussion.

Machen’s Warrior Children?

Carl Trueman, reacting to the news of Jason Stellman’s abandonment of sola fide and sola Scriptura:

The problem with some of Machen’s children is not that they are warriors. To accuse them of that would actually be to flatter them somewhat. Rather, it is that they have lost sight of Machen’s (and Paul’s, and, indeed, the Bible’s) deepest concern, which was always the gospel and which concern was crystal clear in his life, his writings and his preaching.

From another part of his post:

When we identify the church with the gospel, it would seem to me that Rome is the natural outcome, since, for Rome, the church is, in effect, the gospel.

Talk of ecclesiology and Two Kingdoms has its place. But if Paul’s emphases are to be respected, both are to be kept strictly subordinate, structurally and emphatically, to the gospel, the good news of what God has accomplished in Jesus Christ. My concern is that, when ecclesiology and 2K are all some people ever seem to talk about, the gospel is eclipsed or – even worse — ecclesiology and 2K ideology become not adjuncts to and inferences of the gospel, but the very gospel itself.

You can read the rest here. It has something to offend just about everybody in Reformed circles, but the main point is something we all need to hear.

Satisfied in You (Psalm 42)

From Brian Eichelberger of Mars Hill Church’s Sing Team:

The song begins by following closely to Psalm 42 singing, “As the deer pants for water so my soul thirsts for you.” The second verse then dives more into my personal response to the Psalm. A lot of times my tendency is to go into a depression looking into myself which only spirals me further down.

The song is meant to preach to myself and call me to remember the times when I experienced the glory and goodness of God which can help bounce me out of that vicious cycle. It’s meant to get my eyes off of me and be satisfied in God alone.

I have lost my appetite

And a flood is welling up behind my eyes

So I eat the tears I cry

And if that were not enough

They know just the words to cut and tear and prod

When they ask me “Whereʼs your God?”

Why are you downcast, oh my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

I can remember when you showed your face to me

As a deer pants for water, so my soul thirsts for you

And when I survey Your splendor, You so faithfully renew

Like a bed of rest for my fainting flesh

When Iʼm looking at the ground

Itʼs an inbred feedback loop that drags me down

So itʼs time to lift my brow

And remember better days

When I loved to worship you and learn your ways

Singing sweetest songs of praise

Let my sighs give way to songs that sing about your faithfulness

Let my pain reveal your glory as my only real rest

Let my losses show me all I truly have is you

So when Iʼm drowning out at sea

And all your breakers and your waves crash down on me

Iʼll recall your safety scheme

Youʼre the one who made the waves

And your Son went out to suffer in my place

And to show me that Iʼm safe

Why am I down?

Why so disturbed?

I am satisfied in you

You can listen to the whole album here for free or download it for $4.

HT: Dane Ortlund

Things Which Ought to Be Better Known about the Resurrection of Jesus

I always find Peter Williams (of Tyndale House in Cambridge, UK) a stimulating lecturer. See, for example, his “New Evidence that the Gospels Were Based on Eyewitness Testimony.”

Here’s a new lecture: “Things Which Ought to Be Better Known about the Resurrection of Jesus”:

Here’s the basic outline:

Non-Christian accounts
Christian accounts of the resurrection appearances and empty tomb
Objections to miracles
The third leg of the stool

And here are some time markers:

0:00:55—1:00:00 Lecture by Dr. Peter Williams

1:00:00—1:23:13 Response by Pastor David Fleming

1:23:14—1:39:48 Q&A

Living in a Hobbyist’s Paradise

Ross Douthat on the Facebook illusion, or why the web is not necessarily the future for making lots of money:

As the George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen wrote in his 2011 e-book, The Great Stagnation, the Internet is a wonder when it comes to generating ”cheap fun.” But because ”so many of its products are free,” and because so much of a typical Web company’s work is ”performed more or less automatically by the software and the servers,” the online world is rather less impressive when it comes to generating job growth.

It’s telling, in this regard, that the companies most often cited as digital-era successes, Apple and Amazon, both have business models that are firmly rooted in the production and delivery of nonvirtual goods. Apple’s core competency is building better and more beautiful appliances; Amazon’s is delivering everything from appliances to DVDs to diapers more swiftly and cheaply to your door.

By contrast, the more purely digital a company’s product, the fewer jobs it tends to create and the fewer dollars it can earn per user — a reality that journalists have become all too familiar with these last 10 years, and that Facebook’s investors collided with last week. There are exceptions to this rule, but not all that many: even pornography, long one of the Internet’s biggest moneymakers, has become steadily less profitable as amateur sites and videos have proliferated and the ”professionals” have lost their monopoly on smut.

The German philosopher Josef Pieper wrote a book in 1952 entitled Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Pieper would no doubt be underwhelmed by the kind of culture that flourishes online, but leisure is clearly the basis of the Internet. From the lowbrow to the highbrow, LOLcats to Wikipedia, vast amounts of Internet content are created by people with no expectation of remuneration. The ”new economy,” in this sense, isn’t always even a commercial economy at all. Instead, as Slate‘s Matthew Yglesias has suggested, it’s a kind of hobbyist’s paradise, one that’s subsidized by surpluses from the old economy it was supposed to gradually replace.

You can read the whole thing here.

Yglesias has a good illustration concurring with Douthat’s piece:

To the best of my knowledge, nobody’s ever gotten rich by inventing a card game. And even though casinos do make money hosting poker tournaments and there are such things as professional bridge players, quantitatively speaking those are marginal activities and the vast majority of games are friendly or low-stakes pursuits undertaken with no expectation of meaningful financial reward.

How Pastor-Counselors Differ from Secular Counselors

David Powlison’s essay “The Pastor as Counselor” (available free online) is far and away the best thing I have ever read on the role of pastor-elders in counseling God’s people. It was originally published in For the Fame of God’s Name and is reprinted in CCEF’s The Journal of Biblical Counseling. At our church we have read through it together as an elder council, and I’d encourage other churches to do the same. I also wish every seminarian could read through this at least once.

Here is one section directed to pastors on their unique role in counseling:

The uniqueness of your message is easy to see. But you already know this. I won’t rehearse the unsearchable riches of Christ, or the 10,000 pertinent implications.

But I do want to note the uniqueness of your message by contrast. Every counselor brings a “message”: an interpretation of problems, a theory that weighs causalities and context, a proposal for cure, a goal that defines thriving humanness. How does your message compare with their messages? Simply consider what our culture’s other counselors do not say.

They never mention the God who has a name: YHWH, Father, Jesus, Spirit, Almighty, Savior, Comforter.
They never mention that God searches every heart, that every human being will bow to give final account for each thought, word, deed, choice, emotion, belief, and attitude.
They never mention sinfulness and sin, that humankind obsessively and compulsively transgress against God.
They never mention that suffering is meaningful within God’s purposes of mercy and judgment.
They never mention Jesus Christ. He is a standing insult to self-esteem and self-confidence, to self-reliance, to self-salvation schemes, to self-righteousness, to believing in myself.
They never mention that God really does forgive sins.
They never mention that the Lord is our refuge, that it is possible to walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil.
They never mention that biological factors and personal history experiences exist within the providence and purposes of the living God, that nature and nurture locate moral responsibility but do not trump responsible intentionality.
They never mention our propensity to return evil for evil, how hardships tempt us to grumbling, anxiety, despair, bitterness, inferiority, and escapism.
They never mention our propensity to return evil for good, how felicities tempt us to self-trust, ingratitude, self-confidence, entitlement, presumption, superiority, and greed.
They never mention that human beings are meant to become conscious worshipers, bowing down in deep sense of personal need, lifting up hands to receive the gifts of the body and blood of Christ, lifting voices in heartfelt song.
They never mention that human beings are meant to live missionally, using God-given gifts to further God’s kingdom and glory.
They never mention that the power to change does not lie within us.

In other words, they always counsel true to their core convictions.

As a pastor, you mention all these things, or you are no pastor. Even more, you are never content merely to mention or list such realities, as if a troubled person simply needed the bare bones of didactic instruction. Like a skilled musician, you develop a trained ear. In every detail of every person’s story, you learn to hear the music of these unmentioned realities. You help others hear what is actually playing. A relevant, honest pastoral conversation teaches another person how to listen, and then how to join the song. Need I say more? No one else is listening to what you hear. No one else is saying what you have to say. No one else is singing what you believe. No one else is giving to others what you have been given that you might freely give. Every person who “needs counseling” actually needs your unique message.

Lectures on the Canon

Michael Kruger, author of Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Crossway, 2012), recently delivered the Kistemaker Lecture Series at RTS-Orlando in March 2012:

“The Definition of ‘Canon’: Exclusive or Multi-Dimensional?“
“The Origins of Canon: Was the Idea of a New Testament a Late Ecclesiastical Development?“
“The Artifacts of Canon:  Manuscripts as a Window into the Development of the New Testament“
“The Messiness of the Canon: Do Disagreements Amongst Early Christians Pose a Threat to Our Belief in the New Testament?“

The Cure for the Boring Sermon

Lectures from Kevin DeYoung at Westminster Theological Seminary (November 2011):

How Can a Biblical Sermon Be So Boring? The Case for Clarity, Specificity, and Authenticity

How Can a Biblical Sermon Be So Boring?: The Case for Ingenuity, Spontaneity, and Authority