Justin Taylor's Blog, page 53

Why N.D. Wilson Wants to Scare Your Children

Bestselling children’s author N.D. Wilson has a new book out: Outlaws of Time: The Legend of Sam Miracle, the first in a new series. Written for ages 8-12 (grades 3-7), the 336-page hardcover is on sale from Amazon for under $10.

In a new piece for The Atlantic, Wilson writes:

I write violent stories. I write dark stories. I write them for my own children, and I write them for yours. And when the topic comes up with a radio host or a mom or a teacher in a hallway, the explanation is simple. Every kid in every classroom, every kid in a bunk bed frantically reading by flashlight, every latchkey kid and every helicoptered kid, every single mortal child is growing into a life story in a world full of dangers and beauties. Every one will have struggles and ultimately, every one will face death and loss.

The goal isn’t to steer kids into stories of darkness because those are the stories that grip readers. The goal is to put the darkness in its place.

There is absolutely a time and a place for The Pokey Little Puppy and Barnyard Dance, just like there’s a time and a place for footie pajamas. But as children grow, fear and danger and terror grow with them, courtesy of the world in which we live and the very real existence of shadows. The stories on which their imaginations feed should empower a courage and bravery stronger than whatever they are facing. And if what they are facing is truly and horribly awful (as is the case for too many kids), then fearless sacrificial friends walking their own fantastical (or realistic) dark roads to victory can be a very real inspiration and help.

With five children of my own (currently aged between 6 and 14), I live within a perfect focus group. Like many parents and teachers and librarians, I often look into a pair of eyes and hear the question, “What should I read next?” At any given moment, a dozen books are being consumed in our home: My kids are off wandering in Narnia or Middle Earth, making friends with Anne of Green Gables and The Penderwicks, exploring “The Wingfeather Saga” or the vivid pages and volumes of Amulet. Stories are being shared, told, and revisited all the time in our house, and when I venture out on tour or into schools, I meet thousands of kids who are off on the same fictional journeys as my own.

Overwhelmingly, in my own family and far beyond, the stories that land with the greatest impact are those where darkness, loss, and danger (emotional or physical) is a reality. But the goal isn’t to steer kids into stories of darkness and violence because those are the stories that grip readers. The goal is to put the darkness in its place.

Later in the piece:

I’m not interested in stories that sear terrifying images or monsters or villains into young minds—enough of those exist in the real world, and plenty of others will grow in children’s imaginations without any help. I am interested in telling stories that help prepare living characters for tearing those monsters down.

I don’t write horror. But I do write stories about terrified sheltered kids and fatherless kids and kids with the ghosts of abuse in their pasts. Those kids encounter horrors—witches and swamp monsters, black magical doors and undying villains, mad scientists and giant cheese-loving snapping turtles. Those kids feel real pain, described in real ways. They feel real loss. They learn that the truest victory comes from standing in the right place and doing the right thing against all odds, even if doing the right thing means losing everything. Even if doing the right thing means death. My characters live in worlds that are fundamentally beautiful and magical, just like ours, in worlds that are broken and brutal, just like ours. And, when characters live courageously and sacrificially, good will ultimately triumph over evil.

As children grow, fear and danger and terror grow with them, courtesy of the world in which we live and the very real existence of shadows.

I’m not trying to con kids into optimism or false confidence. I really believe this stuff. My view of violence and victory in children’s stories hinges entirely on my faith. Samson lost his eyes and died . . . but he has new eyes in the resurrection. Israel was enslaved in Egypt, but God sent a wizard far more powerful than Gandalf to save His people. Christ took the world’s darkness on his shoulders and died in agony. But then . . . Easter.

In the end, good wins. Always.

You can read the whole thing here.

For some more quotes along this line, see the following:

It is through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers, lost children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their own way in the world and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on riotous living and go into exile to live with the swine that children learn or mislearn both what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of characters may be in the drama into which they have been born and what the ways of the world are. Deprive children of stories and you leave them unscripted, anxious stutterers in their actions as in their words.

—Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3d ed. (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 216.

Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

—G. K. Chesteron, “The Red Angel” (1909)

The fantasies did not deceive me: the school stories did. All stories in which children have adventures and successes which are possible, in the sense that they do not break the laws of nature, but almost infinitely improbable, are in more danger than the fairy tales of raising false expectations.

. . . Do fairy tales teach children to retreat into a world of wish-fulfillment—‘fantasy’ in the technical psychological sense of the word—instead of facing the problems of the real world? Now it is here that the problem becomes subtle. Let us again lay the fairy tale side by side with the school story or any other story which is labeled a ‘Boy’s Book’ or a ‘Girl’s Book’, as distinct from a ‘Children’s Book’. There is no doubt that both arouse, and imaginatively satisfy, wishes. We long to go through the looking glass, to reach fairy land. We also long to be the immensely popular and successful schoolboy or schoolgirl, or the lucky boy or girl who discovers the spy’s plot or rides the horse that none of the cowboys can manage.

But the two longings are very different.

The second, especially when directed on something so close as school life, is ravenous and deadly serious. Its fulfillment on the level of imagination is in very truth compensatory: we run to it from the disappointments and humiliations of the real world: it sends us back to the real world undividedly discontented. For it is all flattery to the ego. The pleasure consists in picturing oneself the object of admiration.

The other longing, that for fairy land, is very different. In a sense a child does not long for fairy land as a boy longs to be the hero of the first eleven. Does anyone suppose that he really and prosaically longs for all the dangers and discomforts of a fairy tale?—really wants dragons in contemporary England? It is not so. It would be much truer to say that fairy land arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new ‘dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. This is a special kind of longing. The boy reading the school story of the type I have in mind desires success and is unhappy (once the book is over) because he can’t get it: the boy reading the fairy tale desires and is happy in the very fact of desiring. For his mind has not been concentrated on himself, as it often is in the more realistic story.

—C. S. Lewis, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1946)

So this is a story about light and goodness and Truth with a capital T. It’s about beauty, and resurrection, and redemption. But for those things to ring true in a child’s heart, the storyteller has to be honest. He has to acknowledge that sometimes when the hall light goes out and the bedroom goes dark, the world is a scary place. He has to nod his head to the presence of all the sadness in the world; children know it’s there from a very young age, and I wonder sometimes if that’s why babies cry. He has to admit that sometimes characters make bad choices, because every child has seen their parent angry or irritable or deceitful-even the best people in our lives are capable of evil.

But of course the storyteller can’t stop there. He has to show in the end there is a Great Good in the world (and beyond it). Sometimes it is necessary to paint the sky black in order to show how beautiful is the prick of light. Gather all the wickedness in the universe into its loudest shriek and God hears it as a squeak at best. And that is a comforting thought. When a child reads the last sentence of my stories, I hope he or she drifts to sleep with a glow in their hearts and a warmth in their bones, believing that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

—Andrew Peterson, Note to Parents about the Wingfeather Saga series

Kids know—they instinctively know—that they’re living in a universe in which something’s gone awry. It’s not our job—as parents, or as Sunday school teachers—to disengage that. It’s our job to come in an to provide an answer to that. Yeah, you’re living in an enchanted world. Yeah, you’re living in a haunted world. You’re living in a world haunted by demonic powers. That’s exactly right—what you deeply fear is indeed the case. . . . Your worrying about the monster under the bed isn’t unreasonable; there’s a monster under the fabric of the cosmos. Instead, we give them a story that provides the only comfort that really is lasting comfort; it’s a comfort that the enemies have been defeated.

—Russell Moore

On children’s literature and moral imagination in general, see:


David Mills, “Enchanting Children: Training Up a Child Requires a Well-Formed Imagination” (Touchstone December 2006)
Vigen Guroian, Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination (1998)

You Are Unbiblical If You Don’t Want Others to Imitate Your Faith

D.A. Carson, in his little book From the Resurrection to His Return: Living Faithfully in the Last Days (Christian Focus), asks:

Do you ever say to a young Christian,

“Do you want to know what Christianity is like? Watch me!”

If you never do, you are unbiblical.

The Apostle Paul hit this theme a number of times in his letters. For example:

1 Cor. 4:15-17: “For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.”

Phil 4:9: “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

2 Thess. 3:7-9: “For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you,nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.

2 Tim. 3:10-11: “You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra. . . .”

John Piper comments on two additional verses:

1 Cor. 11:1: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

Phil. 3:17: “Brothers, join in imitating me, and fix your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.”

Piper writes:

Notice the sequence:

Jesus lives the perfect life for imitation.
Paul imitates Jesus.
Others “walk according to the example they have in us.”
Finally, we fix our eyes on those who follow Paul’s example.

What makes this so remarkable is that Paul says it is spiritually wise to consider not just Jesus’ life, and not just the lives of those who follow him, but also the lives of those who follow those who follow him.

This seems to imply that the line of inspiration and imitation goes on and on.

Indeed it does. And the centuries are laden with the lives of saved sinners whose failures and triumphs of grace are meant to inspire and strengthen and guide the rest of us.

So among all the other things you do to grow in the knowledge and grace of Christ (2 Peter 3:18), follow Paul’s summons to “fix your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.”

In Paul’s discipleship of fellow pastors he likewise exhorts them to serve as examples for other believers to emulate and imitate:

1 Tim. 4:12: “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”

Titus 2:7-8: “Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. . . .”

In the book referenced above, Dr. Carson recounts a story from his student years related to this issue:

As a chemistry undergraduate at McGill University, with another chap I started a Bible study for unbelievers. That fellow was godly but very quiet and a bit withdrawn.

I had the mouth, I fear, so by default it fell on me to lead the study. The two of us did not want to be outnumbered, so initially we invited only three people, hoping that not more than two would come. Unfortunately, the first night all three showed up, so we were outnumbered from the beginning.

By week five we had sixteen people attending, and still only the initial two of us were Christians. I soon found myself out of my depth in trying to work through John’s Gospel with this nest of students. On many occasions the participants asked questions I had no idea how to answer.

But in the grace of God there was a graduate student on campus called Dave Ward. He had been converted quite spectacularly as a young man. He was, I suppose, what you might call a rough jewel. He was slapdash, in your face, with no tact and little polish, but he was aggressively evangelistic, powerful in his apologetics, and winningly bold. He allowed people like me to bring people to him every once in a while so that he could answer their questions. Get them there and Dave would sort them out!

So it was that one night I brought two from my Bible study down to Dave. He bulldozed his way around the room, as he always did. He gave us instant coffee then, turning to the first student, asked, ‘Why have you come?’ The student replied, ‘Well, you know, I think that university is a great time for finding out about different points of view, including different religions. So I’ve been reading some material on Buddhism, I’ve got a Hindu friend I want to question, and I should also study some Islam. When this Bible study started I thought I’d get to know a little more about Christianity—that’s why I’ve come.’

Dave looked at him for a few moments and then said, ‘Sorry, but I don’t have time for you.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said the student.

‘Look,’ Dave replied, ‘I’ll loan you some books on world religions; I can show you how I understand Christianity to fit into all this, and why I think biblical Christianity is true—but you’re just playing around. You’re a dilettante. You don’t really care about these things; you’re just goofing off. I’m a graduate student myself, and I don’t have time—I do not have the hours at my disposal to engage in endless discussions with people who are just playing around.’

He turned to the second student: ‘Why did you come?’

‘I come from a home that you people call liberal,’ he said. ‘We go to the United Church and we don’t believe in things like the literal resurrection of Jesus—I mean, give me a break. The deity of Christ, that’s a bit much. But my home is a good home. My parents love my sister and me, we are a really close family, we worship God, we do good in the community. What do you think you’ve got that we don’t have?’

For what seemed like two or three minutes, Dave looked at him.

Then he said, ‘Watch me.’

As it happened, this student’s name was also Dave. This Dave said, ‘I beg your pardon?’

Dave Ward repeated what he had just said, and then expanded: ‘Watch me. I’ve got an extra bed; move in with me, be my guest—I’ll pay for the food. You go to your classes, do whatever you have to do, but watch me. You watch me when I get up, when I interact with people, what I say, what moves me, what I live for, what I want in life. You watch me for the rest of the semester, and then you tell me at the end of it whether or not there’s a difference.’

This Dave did not take up Dave Ward on the offer literally. But he did begin to watch him and to meet with him, and the Lord drew him. Today he is serving as a medical missionary.

Carson writes:

You who are older should be looking out for younger people and saying in effect, ‘Watch me.’

Come—I’ll show you how to have family devotions.

Come—I’ll show you how to do Bible study.

Come on—let me take you through some of the fundamentals of the faith.

Come—I’ll show you how to pray.

Let me show you how to be a Christian husband and father, or wife and mother.

At a certain point in life, that older mentor should be saying other things, such as: Let me show you how to die. Watch me.

Pastors and elders: to hear an outstanding meditation and exhortation on these themes, I’d encourage you to listen to this installation address from Mike Bullmore, delivered at New Covenant Bible Church in May 2010:

Mike Reeves Interviews John Piper on “A Peculiar Glory”

Michael Reeves, president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology in Oxford, writes about John Piper’s new book, A Peculiar Glory: How the Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness (Crossway, 2016):

I don’t think since John Owen wrote his works (in the 1670s), any other serious, book-length theologically robust treatment of the self-evidencing nature of Scripture has been written. We have gone through all the period of Enlightenment and there has been very little to help struggling rationalistic believers on this issue. So to have experienced this doubt for myself — Is Scripture reliable and true? — and now to see A Peculiar Glory . . . in print, I am utterly thrilled.

This book might be the door out of the darkness for others, like John Owen was for me. Not so that people put their trust in John Piper, or in his book, but that people see what is already in Scripture itself, for themselves — and find a door that leads into new confidence in the Bible and new joys in Christ. . . .

A Peculiar Glory should be quickly established as a modern classic on the Bible.

Earlier this year, Reeves and Piper sat down for an hour-long conversation to talk in-depth about the issues covered in and arising from this powerful and provocative new book:

Among the questions they cover:

What is the ‘peculiar’ glory?
Why did you write this book?
What difference does ‘peculiar glory’ make for teaching?

Reeves also asks Piper to address several objections:

What about other holy books?
Does this make our certainty too subjective?
Is certainty in the Bible the same as salvation?
Is there glory in the Bible’s darkest texts?
How is glory displayed in the Bible’s many genres?

You can watch individual clips of Piper’s answers here.

You can download an excerpt of the book online.

Here is what some others are saying about the book:

“A Peculiar Glory is not just another book defending the reliability of the Scriptures, although it does do that. It is a reminder that without the internal witness of the Spirit, no amount of evidences will ever lead to faith. And that witness works most directly as we read and understand Scripture itself—as it attests itself to us—particularly as we focus on Jesus and the gospel message. Part apologetics, part church history, part almost lyrical poetry, Piper’s book should inspire every reader back to the Bible, to its core and to the Jesus whom it reveals, who loves us beyond measure despite all that we are and do—more than enough reason for being his disciples.”

—Craig L. Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary

“The classic doctrine of Scripture’s self-attestation suffers when it is used as a short-cut method of scoring evidential points or winning an argument without doing any work. But it unfolds its wings and soars to the heavens when handled by somebody who shows that when we read the Bible, we are dealing with God himself in his own holy words. In this book, John Piper throws everything he’s got at the message of how God illuminates the mind and gives firm conviction to the heart through the Bible.”

—Fred Sanders, Professor of Theology, Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University

“There are few questions more important than ‘How do I know the Bible is God’s Word?’ And there are few people who could address it as well as John Piper. Drawing from the deep theological well of Jonathan Edwards and with a practical eye for the average believer in the pew, Piper helps us recover the foundational importance of a self-authenticating Bible. This book will revolutionize the way you think about God’s Word.”

—Michael J. Kruger, President and Professor of New Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte; author, Canon Revisited

“In this spirited and tightly argued book, pastor-theologian John Piper seeks to ground our confidence in the Bible’s status as the Word of God by directing our attention to the ‘peculiar glory’ that is manifest through its message and across its pages: the glory of the ‘Lion-like majesty’ and the ‘Lamb-like meekness’ that radiates in the face of Jesus Christ. Here is a book on the authority and trustworthiness of Scripture that promises to strengthen our faith in the word of God and to expand our capacity for wonder before the glory of God.”

—Scott R. Swain, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Academic Dean, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida

“With passion, clarity, a believing respect for Scripture, and a burning desire for God’s glory, John Piper has written a robust defense of the complete trustworthiness of Scripture, with debts to Jonathan Edwards and the Westminster Larger Catechism. The language of the book is simple and accessible, but the ideas are deep and its coverage extensive. Scholarship is worn lightly, and the pastoral concern informing the work is pervasively evident. Whether the reader is educationally sophisticated or unsophisticated, the argument is that the peculiar glory of God is on view for all to see, if God gives the grace to do so. I hope this work finds a wide readership.”

—Graham A. Cole, Dean and Vice President of Education and Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Livestream the 2016 T4G Conference for Free

This afternoon 10,000 pastors will gather in Louisville to hear several speakers unpack biblical and theological Reformational themes. Since you can no longer access the website without signing up for the livestream first, I thought it might be helpful to reproduce the main schedule below in case you want to tune in to the sessions. (All times are Eastern Time [ET].)

Tuesday, April 12

1:00-3:00 pm General Session 1

3:15-4:00 pm Panel 1

4:15-5:15 pm General Session 2

7:15-8:45 pm General Session 3

9:00-9:45 pm Panel 2

Wednesday, April 13

9:00-10:30 am General Session 4

10:45-11:45 am General Session 5

7:45-9:15 pm General Session 6

9:30-10:00 pm Panel 3

Thursday, April 14

9:00-10:15 am General Session 7

10:30-11:00 am Panel 4

11:15-12:00 pm General Session 8

2:00-3:15 pm General Session 9

3:30-4:00 pm Panel 5

4:15-5:30 pm General Session 10

The Christian Witness of John Dickerson, Host of “Face the Nation” and Political Director of CBS News

John Dickerson—host of the political affairs program Face the Nation, the political director of CBS News, and a political correspondent for Slate magazine—gave an eloquent expression of Christian faith during an interview last year with Marvin Olasky:

I believe in Jesus Christ.

I believe that Jesus Christ existed, and that He died for my sins.

And I believe that what He said in the Gospels is a model for the way I should try to lead my life, and that I will always fall short of that, and therefore need Him to redeem me.

You can watch the whole thing here:

An edited print version of their interview is behind World‘s paywall here.

In a profile for the Daily Beast, Dickerson provided the following reflections in his interview with them:

The most important connection I can see between my faith and my work is that in the progress of my day I try to be restrained and mindful of every person’s humanity and of the overwhelming challenge of pride.

That applies to work life and outside of work life. The other way in which faith helps is in reminding me that momentary disappointments and failures should be seen in the light of a far longer stretch of time.

In an age where ratings seem to trump both civility and fairness, it is refreshing to hear Mr. Dickerson’s perspective on journalism:

My hope is to stick to the news, help people understand it, ask the questions they want answered and press lawmakers enough that they will answer those questions in a way that informs people—which should also make news.”

You can read that whole piece here.

What Do I Love When I Love My God? Augustine’s Answer

In his Confessions, written between AD 397 and 398, Augustine writes:

But what do I love when I love my God? . . .

Not material beauty or beauty of a temporal order.

not the brilliance of earthly light;

not the sweet melody of harmony and song;

not the fragrance of flowers, perfumes, and spices;

not manna or honey;

not limbs such as the body delights to embrace.

It is not these that I love when I love my God.

And yet, when I love him, it is true that I love a light of a certain kind, a voice, a perfume, a food, an embrace;

but they are of the kind that I love in my inner self,

when my soul is bathed in light that is not bound by space;

when it listens to sound that never dies away;

when it breathes fragrance that is not borne away on the wind;

when it tastes food that is never consumed by the eating;

when it clings to an embrace from which it is not severed by fulfillment of desire.

This is what I love when I love my God.

—Augustine, Confessions, trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin, X.6.

Here is Sheed’s translation of the same passage:

But what is it that I love when I love You? Not the beauty of any bodily thing, nor the order of seasons, not the brightness of light that rejoices the eye, nor the sweet melodies of all songs, nor the sweet fragrance of flowers and ointments and spices: not manna nor honey, not the limbs that carnal love embraces. None of these things do I love in loving my God.

Yet in a sense I do love light and melody and fragrance and food and embrace when I love my God–the light and the voice and the fragrance and the food and embrace in the soul, when that light shines upon my soul which no place can contain, that voice sounds which no time can take from me, I breathe that fragrance which no wind scatters, I eat the food which is not lessened by eating, and I lie in the embrace which satiety never comes to sunder. This it is that I love, when I love my God.

—Augustine, trans. F.J. Sheed, Confessions (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006), 193.

HT: Brandon Vogt

You Are What You Love: A Conversation with James K. A. Smith

James K. A. Smith (PhD, Villanova University [congratulations!]) is professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he also holds the Gary and Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology and Worldview. He is also the editor of Comment magazine.

His latest book, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Brazos, 2016), releases today.

Here is Tim Keller’s summary and commendation:

James K. A. Smith’s You Are What You Love provides a user-friendly introduction to the sweeping Augustinian insight that we are shaped most by what we love most, more so than by what we think or do. If sin and virtue are disordered and rightly ordered love, respectively, and if the only way to change is to change what we worship, then this will lead us to rethink how we conduct Christian work and ministry. Jamie gives some foundational ideas on how this affects our corporate worship, our Christian education and formation, and our vocations in the world. An important, provocative volume!”

Dr. Smith was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about the book and to respond to a few objections.

What is the relationship between your earlier work on Desiring the Kingdom and this new book arguing that You Are What You Love?

When I wrote Desiring the Kingdom, I thought it was a “popular”-level book. Turns out an academic philosopher is a terrible judge of what counts as “popular!” I guess the hundred footnotes per chapter with references to German philosophy and neuroscience was considered a bit of a hurdle for most readers. Go figure.

Yet the argument of the book got attention from a wide range of places and I was invited to talk about it with a remarkable variety of audiences. It’s been a stretching experience, and I’ve learned a lot. In those talks I really tried to translate the ideas for non-specialists, and I could see the lights go on for people. We finally received so much encouragement—and so many requests—to create a book for “normal” people that I felt like it was a call I needed to answer, even though it was a bit daunting.

So You Are What You Love is really a new book, from a blank slate, written from the ground up, but revisiting the core argument of my “Cultural Liturgies” project. I tried to take the notes from my “popular”-level talks and reframe the argument with new metaphors, new images, new illustrations. And then I extended the argument into three key areas of application that didn’t receive attention in Desiring the Kingdom: so now there’s a chapter on family and household, a chapter on children and youth, and closing chapter on faith and work.

Are there any ways in which your thinking on spirituality has changed since DTK was first written?

What has changed is what I feel like I need to emphasize and make explicit, I suppose. For example, when I first began working on worship and liturgy, I had sort of assumed that people would realize that I obviously take the Holy Spirit seriously since I wrote a book called Thinking in Tongues (on a “Pentecostal” philosophy) and am on record as a “charismatic” Reformed Christian. But then I kept getting people who asked, “Don’t you think there’s any role for the Holy Spirit?” So I’ve tried to be more explicit about the pneumatology behind this in You Are What You Love.

I think I’ve also tried to make the Scriptural foundation more explicit, and even the role of Scripture in worship more explicit—even though this is something I’ve always taken for granted since it is so woven into the Reformed liturgical heritage of which I am a part.

So on first glance, some readers could be thrown by the title. I can hear someone asking, “If someone loves God, is he or she then God? If someone loves sin, is he or she then sin?” Tell us what you mean by the Augustinian idea that “we are what we love.”

Wow, literalism is alive and well, I guess! Obviously the phrase functions more like, “You are what you eat.” That doesn’t mean you become broccoli, of course. But a person who craves broccoli is usually a different sort of person than the one who craves deep-fried twinkies. Our wants tell us a lot about who we are.

The Augustinian point is that you are defined by what you love. It’s your loves that govern your action and pursuits. Indeed, you are more defined by what you love than what you think or know or believe. That’s the Augustinian edge to the argument that pushes back on some of our more rationalist assumptions.

You have been critical of an intellectualist approach to Christianity that overemphasizes worldview transmission over moral and spiritual formation and wisdom. Can you explain the drawbacks, or at least the insufficiency, of the former?

It’s very important to first correctly understand my criticism. A lot of people have mistakenly restated this as if I am criticizing “worldview” per se, or that I’m critical of knowing and thinking. But of course that would be an odd position for a philosopher to take—which is precisely why this is a misunderstanding of my point.

It’s not that we need less than worldview; we need more than worldview. It’s not that knowledge is unimportant. It’s just that it’s not enough. You can’t think your way to holiness. If you could, then a PhD would be a route to sainthood. Trust me: it’s not.

A key demographic for your book seems to be younger Christians who hope to be a change agent for good, seeking to usher in greater human flourishing in the world through faithful service and the pursuit of justice. What encourages you and what concerns you about these aspirational culture makers?

I’m deeply encouraged by developments in evangelicalism over the past generation that have recovered a “holistic” sense of the Gospel and have realized that God is in more than just the soul-rescue business. In a sense this is something that my friend Rich Mouw was working for almost fifty years ago. He and his Kuyperian friends had an impact on the young Chuck Colson, whose influence reached another generation, and then caught the imagination of folks like Andy Crouch and Gabe Lyons and others. At the same time, lots of young evangelicals have come to a new appreciation for the Bible’s emphasis on justice; they’ve become reacquainted with God’s persistent concern for widows, orphans, strangers. In short, there are now all kinds of evangelical Christians who are invested in engaging, influencing, and “transforming” culture.

What concerns me is kind of the shadow side of this encouraging reality. Too often, in the name of “transforming” culture we end up becoming assimilated to the culture. Or in the name of “relevance,” we just end up mimicking the dominant culture.

I suggest that this happens, in part, because while we enthusiastically “engage” culture equipped with a “worldview” and a message, we have completely underestimated the power of habit and the (de)formative power of cultural practices. That’s why I call these cultural practices cultural liturgies—because they are heart-shaping rituals that actually shape what we love. So what I’m trying to do is to help people see that these cultural liturgies aren’t just something that you do; they do something to you.

But that’s also why the counter-formative, re-ordering power of the Spirit is necessary. And that re-form-ation of the Spirit happens in the gifts of worship he gives us in the body of Christ. Regeneration by the Spirit is what makes any of this possible. But it is the ongoing rehabituation of the Spirit in worship that recenters us in Christ so that we can be sent into the world in ways that we can be “faithfully present,” as James Davison Hunter puts it. If we’re only sent with a worldview, we might be “present” in culture, but our faith is going to be eroded by its deformative rituals.

The real burden of my argument is to help evangelical Protestants get over their allergy to ritual and liturgy because that, in fact, is the river where the Spirit’s renewing power flows. In other words, our cultural work and devotion to justice depends on our immersion in the body of Christ. It’s not worship or justice; it’s worship for justice.

Throughout the book you emphasize “the spiritual power of habit” (to quote the subtitle). How does your spirituality avoid the dangers of habits or liturgies that become merely formulaic without heart engagement (e.g., saying “Lord, Lord” and not being known by the Lord [Matt. 7:21-23], or worshipping the Lord with our lips and not with our heart [Matt. 15:8])? Perhaps another way to ask the question: is it possible to form and even grow in spiritual habits without the Spirit?

Well, I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “heart engagement” here. Of course You Are What You Love argues that the heart is the very epicenter of the human person. Indeed, in some ways I’m just trying to work out a key counsel of Scripture: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Prov. 4:23).

But I’m also curious by your own glosses on these passages. For example, the caution from Matthew 7 doesn’t associate “Lord, Lord”-ism with mere ritualism. And the contrast isn’t with something like “heart engagement.” At least Jesus certainly doesn’t contrast this with some kind of knowledge or belief. Indeed, I don’t see any suggestion that those who call “Lord, Lord” are guilty of empty ritualism. In any case, they are contrasted with those who “do the will of my Father.”

In some ways, sorting out the wheat from the tares is the Lord’s business, right? I’m not at all confident that some expressed “sincerity” is an adequate criterion in this respect. One of the great ironies of sinful human nature is our ability to fake sincerity.

That doesn’t mean I’m advocating mere ritualism. To the contrary. My point is that we are creatures of habit, that God knows this (since he created us), and thus our gracious, redeeming God meets us where we are by giving us Spirt-empowered, heart-calibrating, habit-forming practices to retrain our loves. This is the means of the Spirit’s transformation, not an alternative to Spirit-shaped sanctification. If we don’t take this seriously, we will, in effect, be giving ourselves over to all of the rival habit-forming practices of our culture.

As I read the book, I kept wondering how a Jew or as Muslim or a Mormon would process your proposal. At the end of the day, wouldn’t your proposal still “work” for them? And if so, isn’t that a problem? Is the Son incarnate, crucified, and risen a necessary condition for true spirituality to obtain?

It’s a good question. I would say two things: First, my argument is that every human being has been created by God as a “liturgical” animal. In other words, to be human is to be a lover, and to be a lover is to be the unique sorts of creatures whose heart-habits are shaped by rituals and practices. So in that sense, I’m making a biblical claim about human nature as such. And in that sense, yes: Jews or Muslims or Mormons could affirm some of what I’m saying since I’m arguing that Scripture gives us insight into human nature.

On the other hand, I’m arguing that what makes Christian worship the engine of specifically Christian formation is not just generic rituals or liturgies but the very specific forms of Christian worship, informed by the Scriptures, that rehearse the very specific story of God in Christ reconciling the world to himself. This is actually why I emphasize, over and over again, that the form of worship matters—not because of a concern with “style,” but precisely because the form of historic, Christian worship is cruciform: it is worship that rehearses the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel. It is in Jesus alone that we learn to be human. So I’m unapologetic that the specifics of Christian worship are the “norm,” you might say, of true worship. This is why the Lord’s Supper has, since the early church, been the culminating practice of worship every Sunday. Communion is tangible Christology.

Indeed, this is why I think historic Christian worship is actually more robustly biblical and Christological than lots of non-denominational congregations that function largely as lecture halls that focus on a very narrow slice of the biblical witness.

A lot of Christian writings neglect the role of the home in spiritual formation. What role does the home play in your spirituality?

This is one of the themes I really wanted to address in You Are What You Love. It was a glaring omission from Desiring the Kingdom, and yet obviously, in the order of providence, homes and families are a crucial incubator of love for God. So chapter 5 considers the “liturgies of home.” Now, on the one hand, I emphasize that all of our homes and households need to situate themselves in relation to the household of God, the “first family” that is the church. Sometimes our focus on the family can also make the body of Christ extrinsic to our homes, whereas in fact our homes should be spokes that spin out from the hub of the church. So one of the most important decisions any family makes is where to worship, and that, in many ways, is a baseline commitment to spiritual formation for our homes.

On the other hand, families and households are a space to extend and extrapolate from the worship practices of the church in daily rhythms that not only equip us with Scriptural knowledge but also recruit the imagination. Those don’t all or always have to look like “church.” One of my favorite parts of writing this book was talking about the ways my wife, Deanna, has created family rituals around garden and kitchen that have taught our children Gospel values of hospitality and welcome.

You count yourself as one happy to follow in the footsteps of the great Augustine. What gave his writings and theology and spirituality such incredible staying power? For those who want to go deeper into Augustinian spirituality, where are some places a reader should start in his overwhelming corpus?

I think one of the most important things Christians can do in the 21st century is to cultivate ancient friendships. When we mine the treasures of the Christian intellectual tradition, we avail ourselves of wisdom and treasures for living out the faith in our secular age. The “friend” I’ve come to know the best is Saint Augustine, who I think is incredibly contemporary. (In fact, I’m already working on my next book for Brazos, On the Road with Augustine, in which I’ll argue that Augustine is, in many ways, the patron saint of our postmodern age.)

A big part of Augustine’s staying power is his prescient, incisive psychological insight. In his Confessions, he captures what it feels like to be a sinner in ways that are honest and penetrating. He also captures what if feels like to hunger for God, to wrestle with God, to feel hounded by the Spirit. I think this is also why Augustine has been an ongoing conversation partner for philosophers for almost two millennia. Indeed, Augustine has staying power for us in no small part because some of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century—Heidegger, Arendt, Wittgenstein, Camus, Derrida, Foucault, and many others—all wrestled with Augustine firsthand. Augustine left his mark on our secular age through these thinkers.

Where to start? Well, the Confessions is still one of the great treasures of Western Christian spiritual literature (I recommend Chadwick’s translation from Oxford University Press).

But one of the things I’m grateful for in my doctoral work at Villanova is that the Augustinians there taught me to read the “whole” Augustine—not just the philosophical treatises but also the letters and sermons. For pastors in particular, I would recommend buying a few volumes of Augustine’s letters or sermons (now published in new translations from New City Press) and start to incorporate Augustine into your sermon preparation. All of these volumes have Scripture indices that could help you find Augustine’s commentary on texts. You’ll meet Augustine the pastor and preacher and mentor. He still speaks today.

Free Audiobook Download: Kevin DeYoung’s “Taking God at His Word”

Yours for the taking for the month of April from Christian Audio and Crossway:

“My trust in God’s Word is greater, my submission to God’s Word is deeper, and my love for God’s Word is sweeter as a result of reading this book. For these reasons, I cannot recommend it highly enough.”

David Platt, President, International Mission Board; author, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

“This little book is a highly readable introduction to Scripture’s teaching about Scripture that preserves the contours of a responsible and informed doctrine of Scripture, without getting bogged down in arcane details.  Bad doctrine springs in part from ignorance. Blessed are those teachers and preachers in the church who, like the author of this book, combat ignorance by getting across mature theology in a lucid style that avoids generating theological indigestion.”

D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; Cofounder, The Gospel Coalition

“One of my prayers for the next twenty years of ministry, if the Lord sees fit to grant me that, is that we might see the level of biblical literacy exponentially grow. For that to happen we must learn what the Scriptures are and how heavily we can lean on them. Kevin DeYoung serves this end well in Taking God At His Word. May the God of the Word be known and cherished all the more because of this little book.”

Matt Chandler, Lead Pastor, The Village Church, Dallas, Texas; President, Acts 29 Church Planting Network; author, The Mingling of Souls

“This is a brilliant, succinct, yet thorough study of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, based on what Scripture says about itself. Clarity and passion are the distinguishing marks of Kevin DeYoung’s writing, and this may be his finest, most important work yet.”

John MacArthur, Pastor, Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, California; President, The Master’s College and Seminary

“If you’re looking for a clearly and simply stated doctrine of Scripture, here it is. Kevin DeYoung has accomplished his aim of communicating what the Bible says about the Bible. He’s done it with the qualities we have come to anticipate from him: efficiency, pastoral care, wit, and rigor. Most of all, he has let the Word speak for itself.”

Kathleen B. Nielson, Director of Women’s Initiatives, The Gospel Coalition

“In eight brief, easy-to-read chapters, DeYoung lays out beautifully the classic evangelical understanding of the nature and importance of the Bible in the life of the believer. Particularly helpful are the chapters on the sufficiency and clarity of Scripture, showing us why the Bible is enough and how its basic teaching can be understood by every reader. These are two key points. If we do not believe the Bible to be enough and that its teaching is clear, then we will be carried here and there by every wind of doctrine. I urge you to buy your own copy and read it. There is important teaching here.”

Carl R. Trueman, Paul Woolley Professor of Church History, Westminster Theological Seminary; author, The Creedal Imperative and Luther on the Christian Life

“Attacks on the nature and authority of the Word of God have continued, unabated, since the serpent spoke to Eve. DeYoung’s book is the best place to start for anyone who wants to understand how properly to think about Scripture, and why it must be affirmed as God’s self-attesting authority.”

K. Scott Oliphint, Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary; author, Covenantal Apologetics

“This is the book I will be handing out to those searching for true spirituality, to those who want to hear a special word from God, and to those who want an improved knowledge of God. Kevin DeYoung convincingly teaches that God has adequately spoken to his people. Taking God At His Word is an accessible defense of the doctrine of Scripture, from Scripture, aiming to renew our trust and delight in God’s Word.”

Aimee Byrd, author, Housewife Theologian and Theological Fitness

“The longer I do ministry, the more I appreciate a truly simple book—a book that rightly orients me to reality; a book that says important things in accessible words; a book worth taking to heart; a book written to care for the reader’s soul; a book that helps to change how you live. Taking God At His Word is simple. It will help you know what you believe and why. It clarifies the foundation for all practical ministry. Because the Bible is God’s own saving Word, you have something helpful to share with others who hurt, who struggle, who stray, who find life confusing.”

David Powlison, Executive Director, Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation

 

If you prefer to get the print book, it’s available in hardcover (for a limited time) and paperback.

 

An Interview with Don Whitney on Family Worship

Don Whitney’s little book Family Worship won’t cost you much (it’s around $7), but it could pay great dividends for the spiritual life of your family.

Russell Moore writes:

If I could choose anyone to write a book on family worship, it would be Don Whitney. He has years of experience and wisdom on spiritual formation. But, even more than that, he is a father who has led well and consistently in his own home. This book will equip you to lead your family in worship, without fear or awkwardness or intimidation. This book could change your home, and you will be glad for the change.

You can get a sample of the material here. You can also sign up for a free 5-day email course on family worship at crossway.org/FamilyWorship101.

I recently sat down with Dr. Whitney to ask him a few questions about the book.

You can watch the video below, and see below that an outline of the questions I asked with timestamps, followed by what others folks are saying about this book.

00:00 – What is your own personal history when it comes to family worship?
1:45 – Was family worship a regular part of your childhood?
2:56 – What have you found historically and biblically that has encouraged you to think that family worship is significant?
5:09 – What exactly is family worship?
6:49 – What is the most difficult element of family worship?
7:47 – What would you say to people who are discouraged by seeming failure in family worship?
10:30 – Is the only audience you have in mind for this book parents with kids?
12:29 – What are you praying the Lord will do through your book in the lives of those who read it?

“Family Worship by Don Whitney is priceless. Starting with the Bible, Whitney makes a compelling case for family worship and illustrates it richly with historical examples. He even answers the frequently asked questions and responds to common objections. This book is persuasive, practical, and most of all, doable.”

—Tedd Tripp, Pastor; international conference speaker; author, Shepherding a Child’s Heart

“I love this little book. It is clear, biblical, and practical. It gives hope and direction for anyone to read, pray, and sing. The ‘what if’ chapter is worth the price of the book. I highly recommend it!”

—Martha Peace, Biblical Counselor; author, The Excellent Wife

“Don Whitney has written a book we truly need. This book belongs in every Christian home and in the hands of every Christian parent.”

—R. Albert Mohler Jr., President and Joseph Emerson Brown Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Family Worship is a great introduction to a topic of great importance. I recommend it for any and all Christian families.”

—Tim Challies, author, The Next Story; blogger, Challies.com

“As the father of five young children, family worship is a regular and indispensable component of our family time. For many years now, my family has benefited from Don Whitney’s book Family Worship as a helpful guide to family devotions and the spiritual formation of our children. I heartily recommend it for every family, both those new to family worship and those who have practiced family devotions for many years.”

—Jason K. Allen, President, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and College

“Once again I am excited about a book by Don Whitney. This time he provides us with a biblical and historical foundation for family worship. In addition he gives us a practical guide to know what and how to lead your family during this time. What a unique book. Whitney knows the benefits of every spiritual discipline.”

—Miguel Núñez, Senior Pastor, International Baptist Church, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; President, Wisdom & Integrity Ministries

“We have removed the worship of almighty God from the home and we are reaping the whirlwind. Family Worship is a biblical, accessible, and indispensable call to arms. It is perfect for the scores of Christian parents who want to impact their families, but have no idea where to start. Praise God for men like Don Whitney who love the Lord and the church enough to speak such truth without apology.”

—Voddie Baucham Jr., Dean, African Christian University Seminary; author, Family Driven Faith

Are the Posts by Owen Strachan and Jen Wilkin Compatible and Complementary?

Owen Strachan recently wrote a post entitled “Pursue Complementarity, Not Compatibility.”

Here is how he began:

Compatibility.

Has any concept done more to hinder the development of love? We hear that once we discover our perfect physical and emotional match, we’ll taste ceaseless fulfillment, experience sizzling romance, and meet one another’s deepest needs. A world of bliss.

Compatibility.

Actually, this approach is fraught with pressure and flawed from the start. Tim and Kathy Keller said it well in The Meaning of Marriage [review]: “Physical attractiveness will wane, no matter how hard you work to delay its departure. And socioeconomic status unfortunately can change almost overnight.” In such relationships, cracks will show, and soon the “compatibility foundation” falls apart. So people rip up their marriages and start over again, believing they married a person they weren’t compatible with.

How tragic! The real issue before every couple is this: none of us is compatible. We’re sinners. That’s why we need something much better and sturdier as the ground of our marriages.

We need complementarity, not compatibility.

Jen Wilkin responded with a post entitled, “Are Compatibility and Complementary at Odds?”

She writes:

Owen Strachan has penned an interesting piece in which he states that perhaps nothing has been more damaging to male-female relationships than the notion of compatibility. He opens with this thought: “Compatibility. Has any concept done more to hinder the development of love?” Such a statement must surely have in mind a narrow working definition of compatibility, something along the lines of a Match.com profile and the self-serving search for the perfect soulmate. And I get how that’s not healthy. But in complementarian marriage, is the desire for compatibility out of place? In the minds of most, the two terms Strachan juxtaposes would be defined briefly like this:

Compatibility: what is shared between a man and a woman

Complementarity: what is different between a man and a woman

So, do these two ideas live in opposition to one another? We find a carefully constructed story in Genesis 2 that I believe addresses this question directly. . . .

No one goes on a first date and remarks, “Wow, we had nothing in common. I can’t wait to go out again.” Same-of-my-same is what keeps man and woman in relationship when differences make them want to run for the exit. Same-of-my-same is what transforms gender differences from inexplicable oddities to indispensable gifts. Because my husband is fundamentally like-me in his humanness, the ways he is not-like-me in his maleness elicit my admiration or my forbearance, instead of my disdain or my frustration.

Compatibility. Has any concept done more to nurture the development of love?

I suspect the differences here are partly owing to talking past each other (using similar terminology to refer to distinct concepts) and partly owing to genuine differences of emphasis.

So, for example, Jen’s point seems to trade on an equivocation when it comes to her use of the word compatibility, defined as “what is shared between a man and a woman.” She is stressing the common bond of created-in-the-image-of-God humanity, where Owen is stressing non-ontological differences of preference and personality. Owen is concerned about married couples who want to throw in the towel because they see and process and prefer things in such different (and the world might say, “incompatible”) ways, whereas Jen is concerned about a form of complementarianism that so stresses how we are different that it neglects to start with the foundational issue of how men and women share something more foundational and fundamental in common, which is what allows our God-given differences to flourish.

I think Owen could have been clearer, and his binary language (“We need complementarity, not compatibility”) set him up for this critique. A single blog post can’t say everything, but it is a deficiency to cite the recognition of our common sinfulness without going deeper to the foundation of our common humanity.

And yet Jen perhaps could have been more generous in her reading of Owen, understanding that his focus was more on personality and practice than ontology, and that he seems to be referring to a problem of those who want to end their marriages because husband and wife feel so incompatible with each other.

At the end of the day, it seems to me that both posts are compatible, and in fact complement each other.

I want to end by quoting a bit more of Jen’s reflection, because I think she articulates her point so well and that it is something complementarians, in their eagerness to push back on the leveling of sex difference, often fail to emphasize. She quotes Genesis 2:23, where Adam waxes poetically after naming the animals and discovering incompatibility and then receiving the gift of a wife:

“Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called ishah [woman] because she came from ish [man].”

Jen comments:

Don’t miss what Adam is saying. After the animal parade of one not-like-him after another, at last he sees Eve and rejoices that she is wonderfully, uniquely like-him.

“Same of my same, same of my same. She shall be called like me because she came from me.”

The Bible’s first word on man and woman is not what separates them, but what unites them. It is a celebration of compatibility, of shared humanness. Ours is not a faith that teaches “men are from Mars and women are from Venus.” Rather, it teaches that both man and woman are from the same garden, created by and in the image of the same God, sharing a physical, mental and spiritual sameness that unites the two of them in a way they cannot be united to anything else in creation. Before the Bible celebrates the complementarity of the sexes, it celebrates their compatibility. And so should we.

And here is her conclusion:

So, no, complementarity and compatibility are not at odds. And it is precarious to pit them against one another. Compatibility is the medium in which complementarity takes root and grows to full blossom. Until we acknowledge our glorious, God-ordained sameness, we cannot begin to celebrate or even properly understand our God-given differences as men and women. This is the clear message of Genesis 2, so often rushed past in our desire to shore up our understanding of what it means to be created distinctly male and female. But we cannot rush past it, any more than Adam could rush past the parade of animals that were not-like-him. As Genesis 2 carefully reflects, a world which lacks the beauty of shared human sameness between the sexes is a world that is distinctly “not good.” But a world in which compatibility undergirds complementarity is very good indeed.

Amen.