Justin Taylor's Blog, page 210

An Open Letter to Young, “Post-Partisan” Evangelicals

David French—who writes, “I’m the guy you’re trying not to be — the guy you think is destroying our Christian witness.  Heck, I’m the guy that even I used to hate”—closes his open letter in this way:

I no longer believe the lie that there is a path for Christians through this culture that everyone will love — or even most people will love.  I no longer believe the lie that American Christians are “too political” and if we only spoke less about abortion we’d be more respected (the mainline denominations have taken that path for two generations, and they continue to lose members and cultural influence).

So, “post-partisan” Christians, please ponder this: First, as the price for your new path, are you willing to forego any effective voice at all for unborn children?  Are you willing to keep silent when the secular world demands your silence?  After all, that is the true price of non-partisanship — silence.  Second, if you believe that a more perfect imitation of Christ (more perfect than the elders you scorn) will lead to more love and regard for the Church, consider this: No one was more like Christ than Christ, and he wound up on a cross with only the tiniest handful of followers by his side.

Follow Jesus, yes, but don’t think for a moment that will improve your image, and don’t be surprised if He takes you down much the same path He took the generation before you.

You can read the whole thing here.

Shepherds Always Lead from the Front

Timothy Witmer:

The story is told about a group of tourists in Israel who had been informed by their Israeli tour guide, after observing a flock and their shepherd, that shepherds always lead their flocks from the front. He told his attentive listeners that they never “drive” the sheep from behind.

A short time later they drove past a flock along the road where the shepherd was walking behind them. The tourists quickly called this to their guide’s attention and he stopped the bus to step out and have a word with the “shepherd.”

As he boarded the bus he had a sheepish grin on his face and announced to his eager listeners, “that wasn’t the shepherd, that was the butcher!

—Timothy Z. Witmer, The Shepherd Leader: Achieving Effective Shepherding in Your Church (P&R, 2010), 156.

Dr. Witmer’s next book, The Shepherd Leader at Home: Knowing, Leading, Protecting, and Providing for Your Family, is due out from Crossway in September 2012.

Do You Have an Accountability Partner?

R. C. Sproul Jr. talks about being asked by a deacon at church twenty years ago if he had an “accountability group.” When it was explained that this would be ” a group of men who are active in your life, that care for you enough to challenge you when you fall into sin. They watch out for you, support you, encourage you to grow in grace and wisdom.” He responded that he did have an “accountability group” in that case—”It’s just that I call them my friends.” Twenty years later he is hearing the same questions:

When people find out about the loss of my wife, they suggest that I find myself a group, Though I seek to mask my skepticism, it apparently shows through. “Really,” folks tell me,” you need people that you can talk to, that you can be real with. You need people you can count on to be there for you.” The answer is the same. I understand the need. And it is well met in my life, by my friends.

Now I have nothing against accountability, nor accountability groups. I am positively in favor of grieving, and have nothing against groups built around that theme. What puzzles me on both counts, however, is how we have lost what is natural, and sought to replace it with programs. What does it say about the culture, both inside and outside the church, that callings normally born by friends now are met by something so artificial, so inorganic. These groups strike me as the emotional equivalent of a multivitamin. Sure enough many of us are not getting enough vitamin D or zinc in our diets. But isn’t eating a few more veggies a better way to solve the problem?

He goes on to talk about the importance of authenticity, communication, and intentionality:

Institutional solutions to relational problems at least do this for us—they expose our relational weaknesses. If our lifestyles make healthy meals a challenge, we need to change our lifestyles. If the transience and cyber-ness of our relationships make, well, friendship, a problem we need to change how we relate. We need to love near, and serve near.

And if, on the other hand, we have healthy relationships—real, personal relationships where we encourage one another toward righteousness, where we are free to be ourselves, where we talk with depth, and love with sincerity, we yet have this to do- we need to give thanks. We need not create a gratitude committee at our local church to create a gratitude program. No, we need to give thanks. So here I do. I have friends and family that love and care for me and my children. They check up on me. They look me in the eye when they talk to me. They hug me when they see me. They tell me they love me, and joyfully receive my love in return. They mourn when I mourn, as I rejoice when they rejoice. And I pray that they know that I give thanks to Him for them. I have friends, more and better than I deserve.

This is not a critique of accountability, but raises the question of its institutionalization or systematic implementation. For some I think this is necessary and helpful. But it may not be for those who have engaged and active friends who ask good questions and know how to listen well.

A Panel of and for Ministry Wives

Kristie Anyabwile, Lauren Chandler, Mary Mohler, and Jani Ortlund joined Katie Mohler and Ashley Smith to speak on a ministry wives panel in April 2012 at Southern’s Seminary Wives Institute.

You can stream the audio here: part 1 and part 2.

In the first hour their discussion included expectations, priorities, and transitions. The second hour focused on family issues.

Another Dilemma for Euthyphro

In Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro, Socrates and Euthyphro discuss the nature of piety and morality:

Socrates: And what do you say of piety, Euthyphro? Is not piety, according to your definition, loved by all the gods?

Euthyphro: Certainly.

Socrates: Because it is pious or holy, or for some other reason?

Euthyphro: No, that is the reason.

Socrates: It is loved because it is holy, not holy because it is loved?

This is called the “Euthyphro dilemma.” Socrates seems to have to have trapped Euthyphro into choosing between two unattractive horns: is something good because the gods willed it, or did the gods will it because it is good? Are the gods higher than goodness, making goodness arbitrary and capricious? Or is goodness above the gods, making them submissive to it?

Bertrand Russell famously summarized the problem as applied to contemporary theists, in his “Why I Am Not a Christian“:

If you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, you are then in this situation: Is that difference due to God’s fiat or is it not?

If it is due to God’s fiat, then for God Himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.

If you are going to say . . . that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God’s fiat, because God’s fiats are good and not good independently of the mere fact that he made them.

If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God.

The so-called dilemma has been answered numerous times.

For example, in his response, John Frame writes:

God’s Word and God’s goodness are equally ultimate aspects of his character. . . [C]ontrary to Euthyphro, neither Word nor goodness comes before the other; the two are correlative. There is nothing in God’s nature which His Word does not express; and there is nothing in His Word which lacks truth. So: God’s goodness determines God’s revelation, and God’s revelation determines His goodness.

Greg Koukl puts it like this:

The Christian rejects the first option, that morality is an arbitrary function of God’s power.

And he rejects the second option, that God is responsible to a higher law. There is no Law over God.

The third option is that an objective standard exists (this avoids the first horn of the dilemma). However, the standard is not external to God, but internal (avoiding the second horn). Morality is grounded in the immutable character of God, who is perfectly good. His commands are not whims, but rooted in His holiness.

I agree with these responses. But the Christian apologist shouldn’t stop there. He should also challenge the skeptic’s own account of goodness. (I have a vague recollection of hearing an apologist make this point before, but have been unable to locate a source). For example, we could take Russell’s wording and substitute ourselves in place of God:

If you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, you are then in this situation: Is that difference due to your fiat or is it not?

If it is due to your fiat, then for you yourself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that you are good.

If you are going to say . . . that you are good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of your fiat, because your fiats are good and not good independently of the mere fact that you made them.

If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through you that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to yourself.

Put simply, we can ask the skeptic who doubts the divine command understanding of ethics: is something good because you (or your community) willed it, or did you (or your community) will it because it is good? If the former, then goodness is arbitrary; if the latter, then goodness is objective, independent, external, and something to which we must submit.

What’s Up with Melchizedek?

D. A. Carson at the Gospel Coalition national conference, 2011, on Psalm 110 (the most quoted psalm in the NT):

You can listen to the audio or read some notes on the talk.

Growing Up Wild: Encouraging Kids to Live for God’s Global Glory

Here’s a video series that churches and families might want to consider in mobilizing kids with a global vision. Many of our future missionaries are kids today, and for many their only exposure to missionaries is in reading older biographies or in seeing missionaries come home to visit on furlough. So I’m thankful for the Wild family, who is providing us with a glimpse of what it looks like growing up in the jungle, seeking to reach the unreached.

You can watch some clips below:

Biological Disposition toward Homosexuality—and Other Sins

In the book, Psychology and Christianity: Four Views, ed. Eric L. Johnson (IVP, 2000), one of the contributors to that volume, David Myers (professor of psychology at Hope College), advocates a genetic basis for homosexuality.

In his response essay, CCEF’s David Powlison addresses that issue in particular.

Powlison’s perspective both broadens and nuances the discussion. For example, he discusses biological predisposition to homosexuality in the context of biological predispositions that we all have. He also digs a bit deeper into the motivational patterns for lesbianism.

He also speculates as to what sort of genetic ratio we might see if an “H-gene” is ever discovered behind homosexuality (though the ratio, he has told me in personal correspondence, is probably stronger than anything that will be discovered). But genetic findings won’t be determinative—they will only slide a bell curve one direction or the other.

Powlison often talks about his three children, and that within 10 minutes of their birth he and his wife could see instinctive qualities that showed a continuity with what would prove to be their characteristic gifts and typical tendencies.

The point is that our various “tendencies” are part of a complex picture of the way in which all of us—not just homosexuals—work.

Here’s the relevant section from Powlison’s essay:

[Myers's] case study of homosexuality . . . illustrated how a scientist’s interpretive grid can introduce biases, propelling him to do hard thinking with frail data in order to contradict the mind of Christ. The facts that “prove” the legitimacy of homosexual orientation—chiefly the experience of ongoing struggle and cases of recidivism among those who attempt to change—equally “prove” the legitimacy of the historic Christian view that homosexuality is a typical sin from which God progressively redeems his children.

It is no surprise that people being redeemed out of homosexual lust still battle with temptations—and that some fall back. This is true of every pattern of sexual lust, not only homosexuality: a woman whose romantic-erotic fantasies are energized by reading romance novels and watching Tom Cruise in Top Gun; a man whose eyes rove for a voyeuristic glimpse down a blouse; a woman aroused by sadomasochistic activities and implements; a man obsessed with young girls. In each of these cases, lust has been patterned around a characteristic object; love will learn a different pattern in Christ’s lifelong school for reorienting the disoriented.

But there is no reason that an energetic, ideologically committed researcher could not find some data that might suggest that each of these sexual disorientations might arise from some biological predisposition.

What if future research suggests that a particular personality characteristic, brain structure, hormone level, and perceptual style correlates to adult-to-child homosexuality? To bestiality? To heterosexual promiscuity?

The last mentioned might even prove the strong case for the style of argument Myers makes. Would his argument generalize to these cases? He would have to say Yes, if the statistics seemed to tilt that way. If any of the above persons continue to struggle, or at some point slid back into old patterns, then it might mean that their particular morph of sexuality is innate and valid.

I’m not familiar with the studies of female homosexuality, but let me offer an “unscientific” observation arising from pastoral experience. I’ve known many lesbians driven more by “intimacy lusts” than by the unvarnished eroticism of many heterosexual or homosexual males. In fact, most of them had once been actively heterosexual, unsuccessfully looking for love from a man or men. They eventually found that other women were similarly wired to intimacy and companionship as the context for erotic feelings. An emotional closeness initially developed that was progressively sexualized during the process of redefining oneself as a lesbian. Such a process makes lucid sense on the Faith’s analysis of the outworking and inworking of sin. And I’ve seen the fiercely tender grace of God break in, progressively rewiring some of these women. Statistics might give definition to words such as “most,” “many,” and “some.” But statistics could neither confirm nor disconfirm the point of view whose plausibility is established theologically, anecdotally, and pastorally.

Myers’s biological data on homosexuality was admittedly rather dim light, not something that could drag a researcher along who was not otherwise willing. But let me offer another “unscientific” comment about data that might yet be discovered. When or if the “homosexuality gene” is discovered, I predict that the facts will be of the following kind. Among people without the H-gene, say 1.5% are oriented towards homosexuality, while among people with the H-gene, say 15% are oriented towards homosexuality. That would be a very significant statistical difference.

But what would it prove? Only that characteristic temptations differ, that our bodies are one locus of temptation, that nothing is deterministic either way. It will be analogous to finding any other “gene for sin.” Those with the “worry gene,” the “anger gene,” the “addictive pleasure gene,” or the “kleptomania gene” will be prone to the respective sins. Such findings cause no problem for the Faith. They do trouble a Pelagian view that defines sin only as conscious “choice.” But sin is an unsearchable morass of disposition, drift, willful choice, unwitting impulse, obsession, compulsion, seeming happenstance, the devil’s appetite for souls, the world’s shaping influence, and God’s hardening of hard hearts. Of course biological factors are at work: we are embodied sinners and saints. That some people may be more prone to homosexuality is no more significant that that some may be more prone to worry.

Grace is similarly personalized. Some of God’s children find Philippians 4:4-9 breathes particular comfort amid their besetting temptation to anxiety. Others find the Spirit pacifying their fierce temper and writing James 3:1-4:12 on their hearts. Still others find Proverbs 23:29-35 clobbers them about the madness of their heavy drinking, and that they grow wiser as they quit hanging out with old drinking buddies and spend time with new, wiser companions (Prov. 13:20). Still others experience a keen-edged joy in earning a pay check, paying for things they once stole, and sharing money with people in need (Eph 4:28). Others find that Christ’s comprehensive vision for rearranging everyone’s sexuality—in the whole Bible, not just “a half dozen verses”—reaches into their particular form of disorientation, teaching them to love people, not lust after them. One and all, former neurotics, rageaholics, drunks, thieves, and gays find that truth rings true and rings with hope.

Each of us deals with what Richard Lovelace termed “characteristic flesh” [Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p. 110]. Repeat temptations and instances of recidivism do not change the rules. Strugglers with indwelling sin genuinely grow in grace, but often the generic issue remains on stage in some manner throughout a person’s lifetime. Abiding struggles are no reason to throw over the Christian life which is defined as growth amid struggle unto a future perfection (1 John 3:1-3). Those being redeemed out of homosexualized lust are examples of the rule, not exceptions granted license to give up the fight and rationalize their sin.

Date Your Wife

Justin Buzzard’s new book, Date Your Wife, comes out in June. Amazon is pre-selling it for 51% off, which makes it only $5.43:

Horton on Union with Christ

I just stumbled across this: for a limited time (I assume while supplies last) CBD has Michael Horton’s Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ for 80% off—$7.99 instead of $40.

” In Covenant and Salvation, Michael Horton surveys law and gospel, union with Christ, and justification and theosis, conversing with both classical and contemporary viewpoints.”