| current | >< | archive » | >< | Site Feed | HSC Home Page |
|
Saturday, February 26, 2005 posted by R.C. 11:04 AM link |
White Washed Tombs They say it is boorish to speak of politics or religion in polite company. Which may make pastors the rudest of all men. Of course the phenomenon isn’t properly clerical. Instead, it is the province of all the Reformed. Priesthood of the believer and all that. Granted, I may have a bit of a skewed view on this thing, given my own calling. But it seems everyone wants to talk about theology. Just a month ago I sat down to lunch with several pastors, in another hemisphere. We met for lunch atop this space needle thing in Aukland, New Zealand. The restaurant spun in circles, giving us a panoramic view of the city below. We sat, studied our menus, ordered our meals, sipped our drinks, took a collective deep breath before one of the gentlemen asked me, “So, what can you tell us about Auburn Avenue?” They could have told me about their country, how God had been working there, and the struggles of the local church. Thankfully, they later did. But first it was a nice little theological cud-chewing. We checked each other out, flexed our muscles, and in the quiet of our minds, doled out grades for one another. My theory is this. Perhaps we are so comfortable speaking about theology in the abstract because doing so makes manifest a kind of spiritual barometer that at the same time disguises the heart. We can show forth our piety as measured by scholarship, erudition, righteous indignation and verbal acuity. (See how pious I am? I just used acuity in a sentence about theology.) The difference between us and the Pharisees is that when they opened up their windbags, they at least were praying. We, on the other hand, merely pontificate (no offense there to my papalist readers). They talked to God for show. We merely talk about Him. There is, of course, a time and a place for doing theology. Sound doctrine is wonderful, and teaching it a joyful privilege. But even giving to the work of the kingdom can become a snare and a stumbling block. To borrow a phrase, these things we should have done. But then we neglect the weightier matters of the law, like forgetting the weightier matters of the grace. Let us, when we talk of God, talk of this—that He is utterly unimpressed with our scholarship, and that He invented acuity. Let us remember this—He commands us to love Him, and He loves us. Now that is worth talking about. [comments] |
|
Saturday, February 19, 2005 posted by R.C. 12:48 PM link |
Old Men Dancing It was once my habit in this space to devote some prose to the glories of nostalgia. That habit happily evolved into the Ligonier Tales, a venue I pray I’ll soon get back to. A recent trip back to Ligonier has reignited that fire, but alas, it’s not time yet to go back with my keyboard. But nostalgia is still now in my sights. I have in the past bemoaned both the tacky 70’s, and in turn that for a brief time in the eighties that classic non-style that is my style, ivy league, became stylish. There is in nostalgia I believe a proper yearning. We want to return to wonder, to the innocent awe at reality. We are tapping into a homesickness for when we truly were young, for Eden. But there is likewise in nostalgia a temptation. There is, lurking at the door, the opportunity to grumble over paradise lost, to be dissatisfied with where we are. We live in a sick culture that worships health, and youth. When we step back into yesteryear, the years, at least in the illusion, fall off of us. Longing for innocence and revolting against maturity look much the same in a police line-up. When I last crossed a decade barrier in my own aging process, God was good enough to grant me this small bit of wisdom—the Bible honors age, not youth. I came to understand that the disappearance of my youth was something God thought a good thing, and if I were wise, I would agree. Now a decade later and I have been given this bit of wisdom—easier said than done. My calling, as I grow older and my responsibilities grow, isn’t to take a mental vacation to that time when my responsibilities were few. Nor is it to grow grey hairs (or in my case, lose hairs) worrying about those responsibilities. Rather what I ought to do is long for, or better still pray for the maturity that rests in Christ in the midst of responsibilities. I need to not wish I were younger, but to pray I’d grow wiser. [comments] |
|
Tuesday, February 15, 2005 posted by R.C. 3:47 PM link |
Coming Up Eyeore We’re so bad, we think things are worse than they are. I, for instance, while being evangelical in the historical sense, fall into that subcategory called Reformed. That means, in part, that I am a firm believer in the total depravity of man. No evil should surprise me. But within that subcategory known as Reformed, I am in another small subcategory. I am a postmillennialist. I believe the world will become a better place over time. How can I be down on man, and up on the future? Simple enough, I’m up on Jesus. He is bringing all things into subjection, and not even six billion totally depraved people can stop Him. Among that sub-sub-category of Reformed postmillennialists, I aspire to join the tiniest sub-sub-sub category, those who aren’t known the world over for constantly grumbling and complaining. If total depravity is true, and man is homo wicked-heart-us, then in like manner a Reformed postmillennialist is homo just-ate-a-persimmon-us. We who look longingly toward the future, though we have to wear shades, nevertheless look at the present through black rose colored glasses. Were Reformed postmillennialists to traipse on down to Quizilla and take the “Who are you in the Hundred Acre Wood?” quiz, we’d all come up Eyeore. We don’t like it that in some of our churches pastors dress up in baseball uniforms while deacons, handing out orders of “worship” cry out, “Programs, get your programs here.” We don’t like it that the evangelical bestseller lists consist of Hal Lindsey comics and magic books. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder, though, if we are up in arms because we don’t have a thousand members waiting anxiously to hear part 17 of our sermon series, Turretin and You—Toward an Elenctic Cosmogony, because our learned articles on the 2nd Temple Rabbinic Tradition of Pre-exilic Rabbinic Tradition don’t reach the audience we hoped. The world must be going downhill, because our genius has too long gone unnoticed. Which is rather a foolish reason for pessimism. Doesn’t anybody remember when everyone attended mainline churches, when we were grateful for a pastor that believed in a real resurrection? Doesn’t anybody remember when the most famous evangelical author was Mirabel Morgan? Doesn’t anybody remember when dispensational churches were to Reformed churches what haystacks are to needles? Doesn’t anybody remember when Gordon-Conwell and Fuller were considered hard-right seminaries? Doesn’t anybody remember when most evangelicals, Reformed and otherwise, were embarrassed by Genesis 1 and 2? I remember these things, and I’m still a young man, or at least not yet an old man. While the problem with the rest of the evangelical church may be frog-in-the-fry-pan complacency, our problem may instead be even worse. We are ungrateful. As we put on our prophetic mantles, may we remember to give thanks for every knee that hasn’t bowed to Baal, and honor the weeping prophet who told us, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” [comments] |
|
Thursday, February 03, 2005 posted by R.C. 8:51 PM link |
Political Pimps, and the Women Who Love Them There you are, a woman on the streets. How you got there isn’t really the issue. You may have run off in search of adventure. Or you may have been abandoned. The hard, sad truth is, you are right now on your own. You have any number of choices before you. You, if you have run off, can repent of your sin, return to your father, and pray that he would take you in. Or, if you have been abandoned, if your family will not welcome you, you can always turn to your heavenly Father, and to His body the church. As you are trying to determine which way to go, however, a fancy new Mercedes Benz pulls alongside you. A man steps out and introduces himself, “I’m Jerry Gummint, and I’m here to help. You seem like a lady in distress.” Jerry offers to take you in, and to take care of all your needs. He expresses his deep concern for your welfare. He feeds you; he clothes you; and he shelters you. At least for a time. Eventually, however, as you knew he would, he turns you out. It’s payback time, and so he sells your services to other men. You have no choice but to comply. After all, he has taken care of you, and he has the wherewithal to force obedience. You had but one chance to escape his clutches, when he first pulled up. Once you got in his car, your body belonged to him. The Christian right has been all abuzz of late, lamenting the sad state of affairs in officially secular Germany. A young lady there went to the government seeking unemployment support. She wasn’t working, but asked the state to meet her needs. They in turn, require that she look for work. When an opening appeared in a business that sells sex, which is legal in Germany, the state argued that she had to apply for the job. And so we broke out the outrage machine. Sadder than all this was the object of our outrage. We didn’t object to the folly of the woman. We didn’t even object to the nature of the relationship. Instead, we argued that the pimp should behave like more of a gentleman. A nicer pimp would have sold her into some more dignified line of work. The real problem isn’t legalized prostitution, the selling of bodies, but the welfare state, and the selling of souls. [comments] |
|
Tuesday, February 01, 2005 posted by R.C. 8:46 PM link |
Nothing New We are not a very discerning bunch. Because our sympathies lie more with that which presents itself as clean and successful than with an itinerate Rabbi with dirty feet, we are easily taken in. Whether it is a slick Texas politician, or the latest bestselling book/movie/conference series, if it’s clean and popular, evangelicals eat it up. There are two groups that miss the phenomena, however. First, we who are Reformed, refuse to believe that anything popular could be any good, and so we resist whatever evangelical juggernaut is breathing down our neck. We’re far too cool for that kind of thing. The second group likewise is far too cool. These are the neo-evangelicals, the effete ones that won’t jump on bandwagons simply because it just isn’t done. This second crowd only enters the fray long enough to yell at the Reformed for being judgmental, then goes back to its asiago cheese, pinot noir and Re:Generation Quarterly, hoping to be seen by those who read the New York Times Review of Books. While I like to believe myself firmly in the first group as a general rule, that is, I am thoroughly Reformed, and not at all given to asiago cheese, nevertheless, I’d like to see these two groups meet somewhere in the middle. Being blasé about error and tomfoolery is erroneous and tomfoolish. But playing the part of Chicken Little probably isn’t the solution either. Indeed, believing that the latest bushwa to come down the track will derail the Jesus train has more in common with believing the latest bushwa will inaugurate a golden age. We Reformed folk could use a little perspective, a little indifference, a little faith. Today on the Today show I caught a minute or two of an interview with Joel Osteen, pastor of Somesuch Cost? What Cost? Mega-Happy-Center in Houston. His “church” is said to be bigger than those “churches” shepherded by Apollyion and Beelzebub, or rather Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. As such we can expect to see him figure prominently in the Reformed Wrestling Smack Down, vying for the coveted crown of “Most likely to destroy the church.” Joel, whether he is a hapless geek who made it big by being nice, or a diabolical manipulator, doesn’t actually preach anything. Well, he does say that if we think happy thoughts Tinkerbell will survive. And so my camp begins wringing its hands. It seems, as luck would have it, that we have a confluence of popular heretic with big ole honking full sanctuary with media coverage. We’re doomed. These are the same folks who keep the volume turned down every time John MacArthur appears on Larry King, lest they miss the trumpet call. Don’t get me wrong. I’m still Reformed. It’s a good thing to denounce error, to warn the flock. Joel is one bad guy, and the people that listen to him are badly duped. But please, can’t we be Reformed enough to know that this confluence didn’t happen by luck? Can’t we believe enough in the sovereignty of God to stop seeing face time on TV as the measure of how we are doing? The Kingdom of God has survived Billy Sunday, Billy Graham, Billy Carter, Billy Hybels and Billy Clinton. It has survived Promise Keepers, WWJD, Jabez’ prayer and every other Big Idea to come down the pike. It will do more than survive this latest drivel. May we learn to roundly denounce error, and may we learn to do it without spilling our wine all over the carpet. [comments] |