Church Discipline: an opening response

This blog post will be the first in a series in which I interact with the writing of the blogger at By the Light of Latimer's Candle regarding the marks of the church generally and the issue of church discipline in particular. He is addressing these issues as an American Anglican with historically Reformed commitments; I write as a Presbyterian with the same commitments. Both Presbyterians and Anglicans were present and engaged at the assembly which created the Westminster Confession of Faith, so those who adhere to our historic faith commitments have much in common.

He has started the discussion with two posts here and here. In those posts, the blogger outlines a bit about how our discussion came about, points to the significant areas of agreement that we have theologically, and provides detailed information regarding the Anglican understanding of church and worship. I learned a great deal about his Church through those posts, especially the second of the two. All of this will serve as important background as we get into the nuts and bolts issues of church government and discipline.

The origins of our discussion go back nearly two years, when that blogger and I met at a conference devoted to a discussion of a need for another Reformation comparable to the one that occurred in the 16th century. That he and I were both in attendance at the conference is an indication of our shared theological beliefs, and in his first post, he does an excellent job of emphasizing that this is an intramural disagreement among friends. Thus, while we may decide to take off our gloves and spar vigorously, onlookers should recognize this discussion for what it is. We debate and discuss as brothers in Christ with a shared interest in and passion for the glory of God and the Gospel of Christ. The matter that we are discussing is not a difference between apostacy and orthodoxy. That is not to say that it is unimportant, either. Nonetheless, I would expect these conversations to be vigorous, yet respectful. If we don't ultimately find agreement on all things on the other end of our debates (and because we both have spent coniderable time arriving at our present positions, that is the likely outcome), we will have nevertheless, I trust, sharpened our own respective views while also understanding each other's positions more clearly. Understanding Christ's glory as our ultimate end, these are worthwhile goals.

At that conference of nearly two years ago, one of the suggestions that arose regarding the needs of the modern church concerned church discipline, which is rarely practiced and widely misunderstood these days, and on that issue there was disagreement between those coming from a Reformed perspective and those operating from a Lutheran or Anglican understanding. The other blogger and I debated this issue over dinner during those meetings. As he outlines in the first post linked above, our discussion was recently renewed when I posted definitions of legalism and antinomianism on another website. The definitions I posted are as follows:

Definition of legalism: any attempt to use the moral law as a set of requirements by which a person can attain favor with God; or, for a Christian, any attempt to use the moral law as posing a threat to the believer or creating a system of punishment and rewards.

Definition of antinomianism ("no law") -- failure to recognize the moral law as a universally valid measure for human conduct before a holy God, by which measure we all fall short; or, for the Christian who has been delivered from condemnation, the failure to recognize the moral law as a guide for how we can show gratitude to God.

I was attempting to offer definitions related to these two misunderstandings of the nature of the law by importing what is often referred to as Calvin's first and third uses of the law. According to Calvin, the first use of the law, or the so-called pedagogical use, is to make so clear our sinfulness as to drive us to faith in Christ as our only hope. Thus, the first use of the law relates to issues of sin and guilt with condemnation as an end. The third use of the law is that of an encouragement and a guide as to how the justified sinner can show gratitude to God for his amazing power and grace. To mistakenly apply the first use of the law to a believer is to attempt to bring him back into a state of condemnation and to deny him of the joys of peace with God (Rom. 5:1) and freedom from condemnation (Rom 8:1), as well as the assurance that nothing can separate him from God's love (Rom. 8:39). To deny the third use of the law is to abandon the way that the biblical writers use the law as a guide for those who no longer are under the law as an instrument of condemnation (see Galatians 5, for example). This is a common understanding of Reformed Christians, sometimes actually heard in churches, and the other blogger amplifies these points nicely in his first post.

Nonetheless, the other blogger suggested that my definitions, while agreeable, presented the appearance of legalism when churches exercise discipline toward their members. That brought us to this discussion of the marks of the church. As he pointed out, in the Presbyterian understanding, a church is said to exist where the Word of God is preached, the sacraments are rightly administered, and discipline is exercised. That last point is the one that we are going to look at.

Before delving into the issue of discipline a little more deeply, I want to say a bit about the sacraments, as I think that some disagreements on those issues result in downstream differences on church discipline. If I understood the Anglican position correctly -- and I am asking for clarification here -- what is being affirmed is baptismal regeneration. That is, in baptism, the Holy Spirit works to actually regenerate the recipient of the baptism. While that regeneration is not ex opere, meaning a mechanical operation, as in Catholic theology, it is the means by which regeneration is effectuated. If that is correct, this would differ markedly from Presbyterian theology, which would consider that to constitute confusion between the sign and the thing signified. It is true that in Scripture -- and in our confessions, that the sign and thing signfied are often so intertwined that the sign is sometimes referred to as effectuating what it signals, but it is nonetheless important not to confuse the two. If baptism brings about regeneration, one is left with choices which don't seem to be biblical, as it seems to follow that either 1) all of those who receive the sign of the covenant are elect; or 2) some are regenerated but not elect. Without getting into a litany of texts at this point, neither of those options seems biblical to me. Nonetheless, this difference may account for the allegation at the end of the first post that church discipline assumes "an implied ability of a person to fall from grace." I don't agree at all that is the case, but will look forward to further discussion.
The other sacrament that Presbyterians recognize is Communion, and the other blogger rightly understands that we give much attention to what we call "fencing the table," that is, explaining who should participate in it, with I Corinthians 11 providing the primary authority. Presbyterian practice on this and other issues related to the Lord's Supper varies significantly from congregation to congregation. Generally, Presbyterians will say that Communion is open to baptized persons who have made a credible profession of faith in Christ and are members in good standing of an evangelical church. Those who have known sin that they refuse to repent over are urged not to participate. The point of that is not to exclude Christians from Communion, but to urge them to repentance.

The other blogger mention that Anglicans recognize a total of seven sacraments, with five additional ones often relegated to the status of "sacramental rites." I hope that he will pardon me for thinking this to be evidence that the Anglican apple did not fall far enough from its Romish tree. Similarly, Anglicans have an episcopal form of government complete with claims of apostolic succession. Presbyterian government has courts made up of representative elders while affirming the parity of all ordained elders and denying apostolic succession. This last matter may have important implications for the issue of church discipline.

The Nature of Church Discipline

I will close this post shortly in order to give the other blogger an opportunity to respond, but I want to say a bit about our main subject concerning the nature of church discipline. First, while even Presbyterians tend to use the term entirely in the negative sense of sanctions imposed by a church court, in fact the term "discipline" embraces both positive and negative aspects. Thus, the PCA's Book of Church Order (Chapter 27) states the following:

Discipline is the exercise of authority given the Church by the Lord Jesus Christ to instruct and guide its members and to promote its purity and welfare.

The term has two senses:

a. the one referring to the whole government, inspection, training, guardianship and control which the church maintains over its members, its officers and its courts;

b. the other a restricted and technical sense, signifying judicial process.

Because the term "discipline" includes both positive and negative aspects, having as their goals the glory of God, the purity of the church, and the repentance of sinners, it is considered as "a benefit" to which church members are "entitled." Thus, discipline should not be understood in just a negative sense.

With regard to judicial process, our Book of Church Order specifies five types of censures. Two of those are related to the suspension or removal of ordained officers from their positions. The three which are applicable to laymen are:

• Admonition, which is a formal reproof
• Suspension from sacraments, which is temporary exclusion from the ordinances; and
• Excommunication, which is only to be exercised in instances of gross sin or heresy.

I am going to stop at this point. I will look forward to questions, comments, and even snide remarks.

A New Reformation

On October 31, 1517, a monk named Martin Luther, acting on his growing sense that his church had lost its way, posted a list of 95 propositions for public debate. The result was the Protestant Reformation. In the last three weeks, I have visited the three largest and most influential churches in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.  My experience suggests to me that something comparable to what happened in Luther's day needs to happen again.  Christianity, as expressed in American evangelicalism, has lost its way, and it has done so in many of the same areas that Luther addressed.

The Reformation centered around five "sola's" ("alone's").  Justification is 1) by grace alone 2) through faith alone 3) in Christ alone 4) for the glory of God alone.  The only authority that can bind men's consciences is 5) Scripture alone.  These matters strike at the very heart of the Christian religion.  To lose them is to lose the Gospel, the good news that liberates from tyranny.  A church that has lost the Gospel does more harm than good, placing burdens and guilt on its followers without offering freedom in Christ, and rests its teaching on improper authorities.  Luther's concerns were central concerns.  To the extent we have lost these sola's, we are losing Christianity.

This brings me back to the three churches I have visited recently.  Regarding Scripture alone, all of the churches I visited would claim adherence to an authoritative Bible.  Yet, all of the ministers either neglected or badly mishandled biblical texts. One treated the Bible as a sort of Bartlett's Book of Familiar Quotations, taking verses out of context to find words that would go along with his theme for the day. Another limited his text to a few verses that would appear to support the central assertion of his sermon, when reading the wider text clearly shows that his interpretation was unsustainable and irresponsible.  Another treated an event in the life of Moses as a kind of Aesop's Fable for teaching a moral lesson -- which was not the point of the text. None of the ministers grappled with the context of the passages that they used, and none of them dealt with their Scriptures in the context of the history of redemption that serves as Scripture's central theme. Claims of belief in biblical authority ring hollow when ministers give such shoddy attention to the text.

Regarding the sola's related to justification: they were simply ignored by the ministers on these three Sunday's.  The glory of God never arose as an issue in any of the sermons, and only one of three made any mention of the redeeming work of Christ -- the other two made none, not even in passing.  While I was glad of the one sermon that mentioned Christ's work, I nevertheless thought that the point was lost because it was unrelated to the minister's central theme.  One of the pastors I heard managed to talk about being released from bondage without a single mention of any aspect of Christ's redeeming work -- not a single mention. I guess for him Christian liberty is unrelated to the work of Christ.

All of the church services had large, exuberant crowds, and I couldn't help but remember the religion of Huxley's Brave New World, which was emotional, communal, and devoid of content.  The Brave New World religion was cathartic, being designed to provide an outlet from the banality of their lives, but it provided nothing of transcendent significance.  If American Christianity is drawing crowds in this manner, then the churches have certainly lost their way.

Luther's discoveries followed a long period of anguish:  the religion of his youth provided no relief from his sense of guilt over his sins or his fear of divine retribution.  When he discovered that "the just shall live by faith:" that is, when he realized that God saw us in our hopeless state of spiritual death and depravity and determined to justify us through faith in Christ's death and resurrection and based on no merit of our own, he found joyous freedom.  What Luther found in Scripture needs discovering again.  To lose it is to lose the Gospel.  Without it, we have nothing to offer the crowd.

May God see fit to restore these truths as central to our churches.

Happy Reformation Day.

On Truth and Tone

A couple of decades ago, I read two different books regarding the work of the Holy Spirit and the claims of the charismatic movement:  Keep in Step with the Spirit by J.I. Packer, and The Charismatics by John MacArthur. Both books set forth a cessationist position, and they understood various scriptural texts and theological concepts in similar ways; yet, the books were otherwise quite different.  The MacArthur book was combative, and he had a tendency to lump the views of more moderate charismatics with those who were more radical.  Rev. MacArthur has never been known to bend over backwards to give his opponents the benefit of the doubt.  On the other hand, the Packer book, while unapologetic, was irenic in tone, frequently noting positive contributions that charismatics had made to the evangelical cause before digging into shortcomings of the movement.  Because it was more carefully argued and irenic, I found the Packer volume to be much more persuasive.  I should add that as a general matter I like the preaching of John MacArthur.

This past reading was brought to mind by the recent Strange Fire Conference put together by Rev. MacArthur. Both theologically and as a matter of pastoral concern, I side with Mr. MacArthur on these issues, and I think that the matter is serious enough to merit serious concern.  As a pastor, I witnessed a suffering church member castigating herself for not having enough faith to be healed and, watching her anguish, I despised the doctrinal system that added to her hurt.  I have also seen damage done to a church by someone who claimed direct divine revelation ("God told me to....") as a rationale for taking a hurtful action. This type of language is far too common across evangelicalism and has influence well beyond the confines of the charismatic movement. I also mourn the cruelty entailed by the spread of the prosperity gospel from the United States to some of the poorest regions of the world.  I suspect that this unbiblical theology, while popular in places now, will eventually create a backlash among populations that have suffered while being manipulated to enrich a few.

Yet, while I think the substance of the conference was needed, I wish that it had been done by someone other than John MacArthur.  It was of interest to see Mike Riccardi, who serves on staff at MacArthur's Grace Community Church, defend his pastor's arguments (Hat tip:  The Aquila Report), and I agree with most aspects of that defense.  However, I disagree with his suggestion that the tone of the conference should not be relevant.  I disagree wholeheartedly.

Now, anyone who wishes to make arguments about tone has to take into account the occasionally harsh tones of the biblical writers.  In the Old Testament, we have imprecatory Psalms and hard words from prophets.  In the New Testament, to look to an obvious example, Paul pronounces a curse of eternal damnation on those who preach a false gospel and later in the same letter, Galatians, he says that he wishes that those who made so much of circumcision would go further and emasculate themselves.  Three things need to be said here:  1) That strong language is surrounded by carefully stated arguments about the gospel and the errors of Paul's opponents; 2) such language is reserved for situations where the gospel itself or something of similarly fundamental importance is at stake; and 3) Paul did not use intemperate language as a matter of habit.  Harsh denunciations must be considered both in light of what was at stake and the cultural context.  Paul did not argue with Onesimus in the same way he did the Galatian Judaizers.  This last point should be considered carefully by Mr. MacArthur, who has been known to condemn non-dispensationalists with the same fervor with which he takes on charismatics, liberals, and other apostates.  See Kim Riddlebarger's excellent rejoinder to his dispensationalist diatribe here.

There are two considerations that should be kept in mind: one a matter of the biblical command to love our neighbors, and the other a practical matter of effective argument. Regarding the former, a Christian has the duty not to bear false witness about others, and we are guilty of violating that commandment when we attribute to others straw man arguments that they do not actually make.  As a Calvinist, I frequently feel the brunt of these kinds of attacks when I read or am subjected to supposed arguments against things that neither I nor any other Calvinist I know believes.  Mr. MacArthur engages in these same types of arguments when he takes statements by extreme charismatics and attributes them to the entire movement.

In responding to criticisms of the conference, Mr. MacArthur chose to double down on the harshness, criticizing the modern charismatic movement that took hold at Calvary Chapel as coming from "barefoot, drug-induced young people [who] told the church how the church should act. Hymns and suits went out. For the first time in the history of the church, the conduct of the church was conformed to a sub-culture that was born of LSD and marijuana." I would question both the accuracy and the relevance of that statement to the present debate.

In public debate, one must also ask hard questions about effectiveness.  A red meat tone is certainly appealing to those who already agree with you. But, is that the point of the teaching?  Was the conference only designed to reaffirm the beliefs of committed cessationists?  Or, did the organizers wish to get those on the fence to care more about this?  Was there a hope to get those with charismatic leanings to reconsider?  When the rhetoric becomes uncharitable or the arguments get reckless, is that more or less likely to gather a hearing from the squishy middle?  I think the question answers itself.

As far as other arguments against Mr. MacArthur, I think that there is ample biblical precedent for engaging controversial issues passionately and persuasively for the glory of God, but one still needs to recognize that a charitable tone and careful argument count for a great deal. The substance of the conference was mostly right.  The tone needed to be different.

Pastoral Concern Requires Theological Clarity

Suppose that I were to tell you that I knew of a physician who was providing some of his patients with treatment that had no sound basis, and, as a result, some of his patients had either died or suffered permanent harm. Now, those treatments don't have the same result for all patients, nor do all of his patients receive the same treatment program, and some people would swear that he has done the...m great good. Nonetheless, it is clear that he has caused death or severe physical harm for some.

Ah, you say: he is guilty of malpractice. He should be reported to the state medical board, or sued, or something should be done to stop him from harming patients.

All true. But it leads me to a question. If we rightly become concerned about a rogue physician causing harm to people's bodies, should we not be even more concerned with renegade preachers who destroy men's souls?

Oh, someone will say, that preacher helps some people, or you are causing division among Christians. So be it. Pastoral concern should motivate those who care about their sheep to call out theology or doctrine that destroys souls.

Now, of course, not every doctrinal disagreement is about soul destroying theology. In such instances, respectful disagreement is not out of bounds. Indeed, it is a way of sharpening our own thinking, trying to better understand the ways of God, or, in some cases, trying to convince a brother that our view is better. All of these things are valid.

Theology is destructive of human souls when it compels people to look inward rather than outward to Christ, when it drives people to guilt without providing liberating freedom from guilt in the Gospel, when it encourages self-righteousness, when it drains us of energy without offering rest in Christ, and when it causes fixation on this world, rather than a healthy longing for the world that is coming, or when it promises things that God has given us no right to promise.

Some of these things, paradoxically, grow churches while destroying souls, causing people to burn out, to feel manipulated, to question shallow solutions to hard questions, or to decide that it doesn't work.

Perhaps I will get into more specifics at a later time. Differences in doctrine can be minor or of only tangential importance. Sometimes, they destroy souls, and those who care about souls must call them out.

Fellowship Church Grapevine and the Bible

Fellowship Church, based in Grapevine and having satellite congregations in 3 states, has an orthodox evangelical belief in Scripture.  According to the church's website:

"The Bible is God's Word to all men. It was written by human authors under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is the supreme source of truth for Christian beliefs and living. Because it is inspired by God, it is truth without any mixture of error."

Yet, the way that the lead minister of the church handles the Bible is anything but orthodox. Typically, a minister will seek to expound thoughts found in one or more texts, illustrate those thoughts, and apply them to the lives of the listeners.  Illustrations are for clarification with regard to the meaning of the text and its application.  Understanding and applying the text is the main thing.

The minister at Fellowship takes a different approach.  The illustration and application are the main thing.  The Scripture provides window dressing -- or, perhaps it is just considered mandatory in an evangelical church, even one as self-consciously non-traditional as Fellowship.

Thus, in yesterday's sermon, Pastor Ed Young appeared on stage with a blender and some containers of various fruit and vegetables. His subject of the day was going to be blended families, and instead of beginning by reading a text that he planned to use to address that subject (an admittedly difficult task), he instead began by disclosing that he had a hobby:  making smoothies.  The roughly 35 minute sermon was built around his making a smoothie, with various applications as to how God can make blended families "delicious and nutritious," just like the smoothie.

Rev. Young actually spent as much time hawking a book he had written on dating as reading the Bible, but Scripture was referenced.  The Bible played a secondary role, used like Bartlett's Book of Familiar Quotations to provide some quotes that would lend support to his illustration.  A smoothie must have good ingredients, and so a person looking for a mate should seek out someone who shows forth the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).  The ingredients must be washed, and blended families are messy, but I Corinthians 6:11 tells us that we have been washed.  For smoothies to be made and blended families to work, power is required, so Acts 1:8 was read to show that the power of the Holy Spirit is there.

Of course, none of these passages have anything to do with what the minister said. The fruit of the Spirit in Galatians are listed in the context of telling people what the Spirit is producing in those who walk in Him, rather than fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.  I Corinthians 6 provides Paul's response to believers who previously had lived in sinful ways, encouraging them to now live differently in light of Christ's redeeming power and love. Acts 1:8 is the power of the Spirit to use the apostles to spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth, not the power to help blended families be successful.

The failure to teach Scripture in context in a serious one, as it teaches congregants to mishandle Scripture in this way, and it fails to model the proper way to understand Scripture. When I was teaching a Sunday School class recently, a woman in the class correctly noted that the failure to teach the Bible and to instruct confessionally left members, especially children, vulnerable to cults and other bizarre religious teaching.  Encouraging spiritual sentiment without defining it biblically often will lead people off the rails. To change metaphors, this is preaching that leaves sheep having no shepherd.

The way that Pastor Young is doing it is increasingly popular.  Many people don't have patience to actually grapple with a text before looking for the real world applications, and they are more interested in real world applications, narrowly defined, than in everlasting life.  The role of a minister is to resist the trends and preach the Word.  That mandate comes from God, who rules over those having itchy ears for the latest teaching fads -- and over the ministers who commend themselves to them.

Clapping in Church?

Is it ever appropriate to clap in church?  Though I understand it makes me a dinosaur in contemporary Protestant circles, I am inclined to agree with this priest, who argues that the answer is generally, "No."  While he allows for spontaneous applause in response to what might be regarded as a recognition of the activity of the Holy Spirit, he argues that applause is never appropriate in response to a human achievement, such as the performance of music in a worship service.

Why is this?  Well, because worship is supposed to draw attention to the glory of God.  The praise of men is not an appropriate response in worship.

Of course, I am aware of biblical instructions to "clap to the Lord," but Old Testament worship was not held in the context of our modern entertainment culture, and worship services were not conducted in settings with the feel of performance halls. The change in cultural context is not insignificant.  I have heard many a church leader, no doubt attempting to adhere to the Bible's language, urge congregants to "give the Lord a hand," but these types of demands are far too chummy to 21st century ears, and one cannot help but notice that they typically arise at the end of a rousing song performance or perhaps a stirring personal story.  The cry to give God a hand may be nothing more than an act of self-delusion in that context, the real intent being to reward the performer.

I find it hardest not to cheer when children have been the ones doing the performing, and I am sure that my non-clapping provides evidence to those around me that I am a hard-hearted curmudgeon.  Isn't it right to encourage children?  Why, yes, it is.  Children should be encouraged to understand that their acts of worship are not about themselves, and that if they are privileged to lead in some aspect of worship, it is the praise of God that should be in view.  It is right that children be verbally thanked for using any natural gifts as acts of worship, but given that they are immersed in our entertainment culture, it is best not to give them the impression that said culture even gains expression in the church.

I am thankful for those who lead in worship services.  I try to remember to tell them so at appropriate times.  However, I keep my hands still during worship.

Hat Tip:  The Aquila Report

Rest for your souls: why do Christians "burn out?"

In Matthew 11, Jesus promised that those who come to him would find "rest for your souls." That is a wondrous promise that should neither be dismissed (as though it is not possible for my given situation) nor misconstrued (made out to be something other than what is actually promised).  Jesus is not telling people that they will be freed from external resistance, as elsewhere he warns that in the world they would have tribulation, and many of those disciples before him at that time would eventually suffer martyrdom. He also tells us that we continue to be subject to and afflicted by sinful impulses (see Rom. 7)

Yet, he does offer rest, and elsewhere, we find similar promises. Love, joy, and peace are listed as fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5).  Contentment with either riches or poverty are gifts from Christ who strengthens us (the true meaning of Phil. 4:13).  Behind those assurances lies the promise that we have peace with God (Rom. 5), no fear of condemnation, and no separation from the love of God (Rom. 8).

Question:  if those are Christ's promises for believers, why is it so common to hear about Christians who burn out?  While it would be a mistake to suppose that one answer fits all circumstances, I fear that one common reason is that we have been taught not to rest.  Let me explain.

While there are many differences between the traditional fundamentalist churches that I grew up in and the contemporary churches that are popular today, I see at least one common strand between them:  an effort, conscious or unconscious, to drive commitment to the church and to Christ by constantly churning people's emotions.  As one example that many of us can identify with, this can be found in an invitation system that urges people continuously to make emotionally wrenching public renewals of their commitments to Christ.  While this happens with adults in regular services, perhaps the poster event for what I am talking about is the youth retreat.  Year after year, kids experience emotional highs and make commitments that typically last for a few weeks, at most, once they return to the real world.  Given that kids are prone to emotional roller coasters anyway, this is probably not the best way to create assurance of the everlasting verities of the gospel.

Modern churches, which brag that they have shed many of the legalistic tendencies of earlier generations, nonetheless also churn the emotions:  through music that is mostly designed to work up the crowd, through personal experience laden pep talks masquerading as sermons, and from continuous calls to deeper commitment to live in extraordinary, radical, missional ways.

With this constant churning, it is no wonder that even people who crave the excitement eventually experience burnout or begin to doubt whether it "works."  Sadly, many people associate the emotional highs associated with these kinds of events and teachings with the work of the Spirit.  In fact many of us -- even if we know better -- are prone to deny that the Spirit is present if we don't feel certain emotions or even physical sensations -- heart pumping, skin tingling, a feeling of adrenaline or anticipation.  Never mind that none of these are given as proofs of the Spirit's work in the New Testament, where proof of the Spirit's work are described in terms of Jesus being proclaimed as Lord, faith in Christ and the Gospel being created and confirmed, and practical relationships being set on a proper course.

To find rest, faith needs not to look inward, but outward. When Jesus taught His disciples that faith the size of a mustard seed could move a mountain, he was teaching them that the critical matter was not the size of their faith, but the size of their God.  Instead of pursuing emotions or constantly doubting the extent of our inward commitment, we would do better to think more about the Gospel and the mighty redeeming works of Christ.  Looking to him and viewing the greatness of His power and love produces faith that will never be found looking inward and churning our emotions.

Turn to Him, and you will find rest.  And, shepherds, point to Him, that your weary sheep may find rest for their souls.

God's reign over church methods, or, how God is not like a bad basketball coach

Some years ago, a high profile college basketball coach had a reputation for recruiting top caliber, McDonald's All-American type athletes, but his teams were criticized for undisciplined play, and critics contended that game management was not exactly an area of strength for him.  One such wag alleged that when he gathered his players for practice, that he simply tossed a ball out toward the middle of the court and told his team to go play.

Sadly, that seems to be close to the way that people view the Great Commission -- God told us to go do it, so that means we are to take our blank slates and go figure out how to get it done.  A friend of mine, writing provocatively a few weeks ago about his church's mission, declared that they would do "whatever it takes, short of sin" to find and reach people with the message of Christ.  However, that description is a bit question begging.  Presumably, "whatever it takes short of sin" means that they won't consider hiring pole dancers to help draw a crowd to his church (don't laugh:  on two different occasions the pastor of a large church in Grapevine has invited the creator of a website that facilitates infidelity and an advocate for polyamory to join him on the platform at his church as a means of drawing a crowd).  However, the Bible provides more guidance to the church's mission than just forbidding that sort of thing.  When the Bible tells us that our mission is to be fulfilled in certain ways, and we deviate from those ways, such deviation is sin. Any caveat restricting us to that which is "short of sin" must take into consideration such injunctions and instructions.

Please don't get me wrong: I do understand some of what agitates my friend to push the envelope. The church's worship and mission is always conducted within a particular cultural context.  Frequently, American Christians have not understood the distinction between the cultural chaff of local context and the universal truths of Christian mission.  Thus, while there has been much good accomplished by missionaries from churches in the United States spreading the Christian gospel around the world, those missionaries have sometimes been legitimately criticized for attempting to impose the ways of life of western culture on those living in other areas.  It should not be expected that musical styles, manner of dress, and other cultural matters would be the same for a church in Mexico City or central Africa, for example, as they are in a typical community in the U.S., even if the doctrinal convictions of those disparate congregations are the same. Thus, while Presbyterian churches in Dallas and Seoul should share a common theological heritage, and the content of worship should be driven by those considerations in each case, we should not expect the mission and worship of those congregations to look identical.

Now, keeping this within an American context, there are those who might expect that the church's worship and work should always look like it did in America in 1975 or in 1950, or for that matter in Geneva in 1650, but that is not so.  However, while admitting that to be true, we also must be careful not to defer naively to our cultural context as dictating either the message or methodology of the church's mission.  Culture is not morally neutral, and the failure to acknowledge the way that methodologies can alter our message can be deadly to a church's faithfulness to the Gospel.  I would argue that contextualization that defers either to an American marketing mentality or to an entertainment orientation are in fact proving fatal for churches that are going down those paths.

It is not uncommon for well-meaning Christians to misuse passages of Scripture such as I Corinthians 9:19-23 to rationalize deference to culture in dictating the church's methods.  Did not the Apostle write that he has "become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some"?  My friend suggested that this showed Paul's "willingness to adapt his personal communication style to that of his hearer," but that is sloppy exegesis, and he should know better.  Earlier in I Corinthians, Paul has vigorously asserted his unwillingness to alter his communication style to meet cultural expectations -- in I Corinthians 2, he talks about his refusal to make use of "lofty speech" or "plausible words of wisdom" -- methodologies that would have connected him to the normal cultural expectations of Corinth for itinerant speakers.  He eschews those techniques because they would serve to distract attention to himself and away from the message of "Jesus Christ and him crucified."  In I Corinthians 9, Paul is not talking about communication style, but he is talking about his willingness to sacrifice rights and personal prerogatives (he specifically mentions giving up the right to draw a salary, if any megachurch leaders are looking for a clear example of what he is getting at) in order that his message not be impeded.

Christians make a mistake when they begin reading the Great Commission at the words, "Go therefore."  The "therefore" points to that which precedes, and Jesus had started by saying that "all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."  That is to say, that the risen Savior, the one who reigns as head of his church, is risen and at large and, in fact, reigns over all.  It is this risen and ruling Savior who then commissions his church to go and make disciples, baptize, and teach to observe all things he has commanded.  Among things that he has commanded, there is a great deal of information in the Bible regarding both the means and the message of Christian mission.

His message was to be spread by preaching the Gospel, which Paul reminded the Corinthians was foolishness to their neighbors, but which was also the power of God that leads to salvation for everyone who believes.  Paul told the Romans that preaching was necessary, because faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God, and that people would not hear without preachers.  That was God's ordained means of reaching people.  The mission of the church, conducted in submission to God's instructions regarding both message and method, must be understood in that light before any discussion of cultural contextualization can take place.  The culture's questions cannot dictate the message or priorities of the church. Is relevance a consideration?  Of course, but one does not become relevant to a fish by throwing a bucket of water into the river. Relevance means bringing the word of God, with its priorities, concerns, and solutions, persuasively to those who need to hear it, even if they are not predisposed to care about the priorities of that word.

Faithfulness to that mandate defines our success.  One of the problems with adopting a marketing mentality for the church is the suggestion that if we do things right that we will be numerically successful.  The goal of the church becomes putting butts in seats.  Not only is that harmfully anthropocentric -- even Pelagian -- it is also thoroughly unbiblical.  The pages of the Bible are full of stories where faithfulness to the divine commission resulted in rejection, with our Savior's own life and teaching providing a prime example. While we should long for people to be converted and to grow in the faith, and we should rejoice when they do, we should never regard that kind of success as proof positive that we are, or are not, doing God's work.

Cultural capitulation can bring about a certain kind of success, but it is not Gospel success.  The culture may not care about questions of sin, death, redemption, eternal life, and grace, but those reach to the ultimate concerns of our existence, and the church becomes irrelevant when she doesn't seek to drive both members and outsiders to them.

Conviction in Songwriting

Looking through the bulletin as we waited for church to begin last Sunday, my wife noted that we would be singing the contemporary song "In Christ Alone."  Noting the names of the songwriters, Lanette remarked that she didn't know who Keith Getty was, but that she liked all of the songs that she had noticed by him.
Now that I know something more about the songwriters, I like them even more.
The second stanza of the song is as follows:

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

These words convey much important theological truth regarding Christ's incarnation, passion, and vicarious and propiitiatory death -- to say his death was vicarious is to say that he represented others in dying for their sins; to say that it was propitiatory means that he suffered the wrath of God due to others because of their sins.

According to an article that appeared recently in the liberal magazine, "Christian Century," a committee of the heterodox Presbyterian Church (USA) planned to include this song in an updated hymnal; however, they were relying on a version of the song that replaced the words "the wrath of God was satisfied" with an alternative phrase only referencing the love of God. As God's "gift of love" is already mentioned in the stanza, the purpose of the substitution is not to add the concept of love, but to remove the reference to propitiation, which, while being a central concept to historic orthodoxy, offends liberal Christian sensibilities. The hymnal committee contacted Getty Music, which refused to allow the alteration on the basis that it represented too great a departure from the original meaning of the lyrics. In the face of that refusal, the Committee removed the song from the update.

I am sometimes critical of contemporary Christian worship -- and some people assume that means that I am wedded to old styles, but that is not true. Substance, not style, is what matters, and too much of contemporary music is shallow drivel, or worse. We need more writers like Getty and Townend to supplement the songbooks of the historic faith.   Hat Tip:  The Aquila Report

Tim Tebow and the Temple of Doom

Regarding the recent controversy involving Tim Tebow's acceptance and subsequent withdrawal from an invitation to speak at First Baptist Church in Dallas, a few observations:

1)  It must be acknowledged that First Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress sometimes says things in an unfortunately unguarded way.  While it is inevitable that some will be offended when speakers venture to opine on volatile topics, a little rhetorical self-control can help ensure that offense comes more from the substance of the issue than from the way that it is characterized.  Mr. Jeffress needs to learn that the prominence of his position -- and the rapidity of modern communication -- necessitates speaking wisely about divisive topics.

2) The ranting of CBS Sports columnist Gregg Doyel, who did much of the work that resulted in Mr. Tebow finding himself in a difficult public relations position, was so over the top that it would be difficult to describe his writing as anything other than either intolerant hate (thus, demonstrating what he accuses another of) or simple ignorance.  Whatever one thinks of Rev. Jeffress' most incendiary comments, Mr. Doyel's suggestion that he should be compared to the truly loathsome traveling sanitarium known as the Westboro Baptist Church is just ridiculous.  In substance, Rev. Jeffress is criticized for holding that the term "marriage" applies exclusively to a relationship between a man and a woman.  This happens to have been the primary understanding of western civilization for millenia, and it was the stated position of President Barack Obama until less than a year ago. The position is certainly one being debated, but to describe it as extreme is simply not correct.  As far as his pronouncements on Muslims and Mormons, Dr. Jeffress is arguing that the truth claims of those religions are different from those of historic Christianity. If Mr. Doyell thinks that he can prove otherwise, he should explain where he finds that Islam and Mormonism teach that the second person of the Trinity endured death in order to propritiate the sins of His people, then rose again.  One waits with baited breath.

For a more sanguine assessment of Rev. Jeffress by someone who found his views to be utterly disagreeable, see here.  One suspects that no one has ever written like this about the Westboro crowd.

3)  Christians should use this moment to reflect on the wisdom of the negative impact of the culture of celebrity that many among us promote.  In short, one might ask:

What qualification does a Christian who happens to be a professional football player have for leading in public worship in a large church?

Of course, Mr. Tebow is a devout Christian, and for some, that seems to be enough.  Since he is a genuine believer, it is fine to trade on his celebrity in order to draw a crowd.  However, if public worship primarily has to do with meeting God and being fed by His Word, then turning the festivities over to a celebrity without training in sharing that Word might be regarded as more distraction than help.  In the quest to define the meaning of church as involving any means of putting butts in seats, it is easy to forget that Christians also believe that the power of God is found in Word and Spirit. 

Having forgotten that, Dr. Jeffress, no doubt feeling jaded, resorted to his unguarded tongue again, at least implying that Mr. Tebow had wimped out.  While wishing Mr. Tebow and his faith well, we should also value the simple preaching of the Gospel, the proper exposition of law and grace, and trust God to use those means to draw sinners to himself.

Claiming Jesus, Worshipping Self

Because churches often manage to put their worst foot forward, one can easily have sympathy for those that argue for the need for better marketing.  However, the values of Madison Avenue differ greatly from those of the Sermon on the Mount, and those who think that they can harness the former in the service of the latter often underestimate the ways that a marketing mentality can corrupt Christian proclamation.  Preaching the Gospel to every creature is not synonymous with putting butts in seats, and that is a difference that many contemporary American Christians will agree to in theory but violate in practice.

This past weekend, I opened a locker at the fitness center where I regularly attempt to turn back the inevitable, and I found inside a slick, double-sided postcard sized advertisement for the largest megachurch in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.  The headline in large letters across the top asked, "What would Jesus say to..." and then listed six names:  Katy Perry, Lance Armstrong, Ellen DeGeneres, LeBron James, Jerry Jones, and Kim Kardashian.  Pictures are important in marketing, and this piece includes a bastardized close up of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, with the six persons just mentioned replacing the disciples closest to Jesus.  On the back of the card, the pastors of the church ask what Jesus would say to these people in a "one-on-one conversation." Assuring us that Jesus cares about the "famous and fortunate, bold and beautiful, eccentric and outspoken, and the shocking and scandalous," the pastors explain to the readers that by knowing what Jesus might say to those people, we can "hear what Jesus has to say to us."  We are invited to learn about this in a "series of talks" given at "weekend experiences" in the coming weeks, those being the terms that this church uses for what some of us refer to, in Luddite fashion, as sermons and worship services.

Where shall we begin?  In this small advertisement, the church engages in questionable theology, pastoral care, ethics, and psychology in a manner that is cheesy at best and sleazy at worst.  In doing so, the ad encapsulates much of what is worst in American evangelicalism.

Because the doctrinal problems are the most critical, let's start there.  According to the post, the minister is going to attempt to tell us "what Jesus would say" in a "one-on-one conversation" with each of these people. Yet, the truth of the matter is that we don't have any idea what Jesus would say to these people, as he never has spoken to them in a "one-on-one conversation."  In addition, we should note that in the Bible, when Jesus did engage individuals in such conversations, he frequently addressed them in ways that we would not expect (he talks to the woman at the well about living water and then tells her to go get her husband, he tells the rich young ruler to sell everything he owns, and he tells Nicodemus that he has to be born a second time, etc.).  Because the pastor does not know what Jesus would say to these people, what he really will tell us is what he, himself, would say to these people, thus putting himself in the place of Jesus.  While I suppose we are supposed to wink and understand this as a clever way of getting people interested in the sermon (excuse me, I mean "talk"), if taken at all seriously, it is a sort of idolatry, because it puts him and his words in the place of Jesus and His Word, making his own thoughts, words, and ideas out to be the words of God.

In addition, putting these celebrities in the positions of the apostles' at the Last Supper is theologically and historically offensive.  This was a unique event in the Passion of Christ that had unique significance, and it should not be vulgarized in this way.

Second, it should also be noted that the motif is pastorally irresponsible, in that it models pastoral malpractice.  While it is possible that the minister may know these people personally, I am guessing that this is not the case -- especially since he appears to be using some of their lives to model what Jesus would say to the "shocking and scandalous."  Most of us don't go out in public to talk in that way about our friends.  Certainly, he could  not have counselled these people, because in that case the sermons might well be violating pastoral confidences.  If these assumptions are true, then he is postulating what Jesus would say to people based solely on their public personnas, without having any knowledge or understanding of their personal lives and stories, much less their need for the gospel.  In reality, the minister is not dealing with them as real people: they are just props.

There are additional ethical issues here.  The church is appropriating both the names and the images of these people in order to market its product, and I suspect that it is doing so without their permission.  The lines are sometimes blurry here, and I am sure that the church would argue that first amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion would protect its right to produce this material, but one can be sure that if McDonald's or any other large company were using the names and faces of these people in a major marketing effort, that such company would be hearing from their attorneys.  While I am not qualified to state whether there are real legal issues involved, I would note that appropriating these people in a marketing program based on noting their vices -- even if the messaging will end up saying that Jesus will have pleasant things to talk to them about, it is obvious to see that the group has been selected because of public vices, real or perceived -- raises significant ethical concerns.

Finally, I want to talk about the psychological issues that are apparent.  It is interesting to note the narcissistic strain that runs throughout this ad, which can in many ways be understood as an appeal to narcissistic personalities.  By this, I am not referring to clinical narcissism -- narcissism can be seen on a spectrum, and many people have narcissistic tendencies or characteristics without having the clinical diagnosis.  Indeed, authorities such as the late Chrisopher Lasch have argued convincingly that our culture as a whole is moving in a more narcissistic direction.  That being the case, it is not surprising that a marketing strategy would attempt to appeal to and validate these unhealthy tendencies, though it is more than a bit suspect that a church would validate them in this way.

Narcissism is not merely selfishness.  Rather, it is a sort of self-centeredness resulting from an inner emptiness.  Lacking inner resources, the narcissist externally projects uber confidence and then demands constant validation from those around him.  Narcissists care neither about the past or the future -- it is only the present that matters.  Because of doubts about their own significance, narcissists also frequently live their lives through the lenses of important celebrities.  They live for new experiences to validate themselves.

It is not hard to see these tendencies in the ad.  Because history doesn't matter, it means nothing to replace the apostles with the figures of Katy Perry, Jerry Jones, and so forth; nor does it matter if we replace what we know about the sayings of Jesus or the Word of God with the clever present musings of the minister.  In addition, we are assured that what Jesus would say to these famous and infamous people is a way of mediating what he wants to say to us.  All of this can be gathered from a "weekend experience," a phrase that is notably self-centered, as opposed to the notion of worship service, which looks outward and upward.

Because this is one of the five largest churches in the country, it is considered a pacesetter.  However, those who care about the cause of Christ need to resist and oppose these approaches.  Paul, when going to pagan Corinth, determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified.  In our increasingly pagan culture, similar commitments are required.

For anyone that has read this far, the marketing material I have described can also be found online here.

Backwards Preaching

I don't normally listen to Christian radio or radio preachers, but driving around in a rental car this week, I listened for a while to a particular minister -- a Baptist of some reknown -- and I had a sort of eureka experience of recognizing a theme in much of his preaching that I find quite disturbing. When I say a eureka experience, I mean that I recognized this in preaching I had heard from hi...m before, but I had never identified the trend before this week.
In his descriptions of God, he describes One who is essentially passive. Oh, God wants to bless us, he urges, but He is really waiting on us. God is waiting for us to act or do something, and when we do, God will respond by blessing us. When we fail to act, we are missing out on the opportunities that God would have given us. But, God is mostly waiting for us to react to His principles.

On the other hand, when this minister talks about Satan, as he is prone to do, the pastor describes a creature who is actively engaged in opposing God, thwarting His purposes, and defeating Christians. The devil is busy and active.

God is passive and waiting, in this view; Satan is busy. The view of Satan approaches dualism, except that the view of God is closer to deism than to historic orthodox Christianity.

This is really quite extraordinary. Rather than seeing God as active in history and redemption, working out His purposes for the good of His people and for His own glory, God is pictured as more or less hindered by our willingness, or lack thereof, to work in His behalf. On the other hand, Satan is unfettered, working to accomplish his purposes.

This is horrible preaching, both doctrinally and pastorally, as it results in calling upon people to do more and try harder in the face of superior obstacles, without an emphasis on God's divine initiative or the driving motivations of God's active grace in our behalf. In fact, all of Christian doctrine, as has been said, is grace, and all of Christian behavior is gratitude. We don't earn God's favor; we respond in gratefulness to it. And we don't battle a superior being in hopes of accomplishing God's purposes. God's purposes are certain to be accomplished, and we have the privilege to be participants, the means through which He accomplishes His will.

Let pastoral motivation driven by forces other than the grace of God be done away, cast into hell along with God's enemies. We can rest -- and be energized -- by divine sovereignty and grace.

On Hope and Change

In a fallen world, it is no wonder that we tend to associate hope with change. Life is too much filled with death and depravity, disappointment and despair. Naturally, we long for things to be different.

In a temporal sense, it may be appropriate to pursue hope by seeking change, whether that be by personal or political means. However, in an ultimate sense -- theologians would say in an eschatological sense -- hope is found in that which does not change. "For I the Lord do not change," we are told by Malachi.

Malachi follows that statement by saying that as a result of God's changelessness, God's covenant people were not consumed. In other words, the God that does not change will therefore keep His promises, and that can be relied upon even when the world around seems to be falling apart. This also means that the day will come when death and depravity, disappointment and despair, will be swallowed up in victory when He fulfills all of His promises and makes all things new. We see these promises expressed in Romans 8, where, after talking about suffering, the Apostle Paul says that we ultimately "know that all things work together for good" for believers. How can we know that? Well, Paul says, those whom God foreknew, he chose, and justified, and glorified. God already gave His Son for us -- that which was most valuable to Him -- so we can be sure He would not withhold anything else. Therefore, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Whatever the current circumstances, we can be confident that God is keeping His covenant.

I read recently the blog of a professional acquaintance who said that he would be "miserable" if his prediction about the outcome of Tuesday's election turns out to be wrong. Certainly, elections are important, and I will be disappointed on Tuesday if the candidate I vote for does not win, even as I find that much about the country disappoints me regardless of the winner on Tuesday. Even so, it is important to remember that the condition of our souls, and the ultimate hope for our future, and for the future of our children, does not depend on temporal change or on the future or solvency of the country, but on the God who does not change, and who keeps His promises.

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I should add that this confidence should not engender an escapist mindset, with the result that we would sit on our hands and wait for the end. Rather, it should give us boldness to engage our world with confidence that our efforts, in both word and deed, will benefit our neighbors and be for God's glory. Confident assurance is not the opposite of active engagement, but it is the opposite of cynical indifference engendered by a hopeless fatalism. To the contrary, amidst trouble, we have hope in Christ and the opportunity to share the same with those who see only death and depravity, disappointment and despair. Such is the Christian task in this world.

Courage Required

A couple of decades ago, a friend of mine, the pastor of a small rural southern church, was asked by a church leader what he would do if a black man and a white woman approached him and asked him to perform their wedding ceremony.  My friend, suspecting that he would be asked this, had prepared himself for this question.  He smiled slightly, but met his questioner's eyes, and said firmly, "I would probably be fired."

The questioner, caught by surprise, quickly backed off and assured the pastor of the church's support in such a situation.  But the pastor knew that he was facing an issue that he had to meet head on, and he made his point in the only way he could and retain his integrity.

Recent news from Crystal Springs, Mississippi brought this old story back to mind.  The pastor there justifies his request that a black couple hold their ceremony at another location away from his church by saying that he wanted to avoid controversy, and he evidently was threatened with firing if the wedding occurred in his church.  But the call to ministry is not one for cowards, and while it is appropriate to deal with many types of issues in delicate ways, the New Testament teaching that the people of God are composed of every tongue and nation is foundational to the minister's calling.  While a period of repentance may prepare him for future ministry, with regard to the present, he has betrayed his calling and should resign.

Book Review: "Bad Religion: How we Became a Nation of Heretics," by Ross Douthat

While socially conservative voters lament the lack of religion in the public square, and secular liberals decry the excess of the same, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argues that both miss the point.  The problem, Mr. Douthat claims, lies not in the quantity of religion in American life, but in the quality.  Over the last half century American religion has gone bad, and both the religious and irreligious should be concerned about the trend.  In Bad Religion: How we Became a Nation of Heretics, he argues that "both doubters and believers will inevitably suffer from a religious culture that supplies more moral license than moral correction, more self-satisfaction than self-examination, more comfort than chastisement." 

Mr. Douthat looks at the years following the second world war and finds a golden age of religion that encompassed a broad swath of American Christianity.  The neo-orthodoxy championed by theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr swept the mainline Protestant churches in a direction that was more orthodox than the liberal views that preceded this period, and the churches thrived. Meanwhile, theologians such as Carl F.H. Henry (misidentified, perhaps tellingly, as "Carl F.W. Henry" through the book and in the index) and the evangelist Billy Graham led the movement of evangelicalism out of the fundamentalist ghetto into a more biblically reasonable and culturally mainstream direction.  Catholicism, as seen in the popularity of Bishop Fulton Sheen, also thrived and was generally viewed quite favorably in pop culture.  Finally, the author points to the successes of the Rev. Martin Luther King, who, with other black religious leaders, united an essentially conservative theological base with progressive politics to effectuate the successes of the civil rights movement.

While Bad Religion is not a work of scholarship, it is well researched, and Mr. Douthat shows how each of these sectors of the institutional church lost its way beginning, as so many jeremiads do, in the 1960's.  Given the cultural challenges faced at that time, he argues that the church faced the choices of accomodation -- rejecting orthodox theological and moral foundations in order to find agreement with the emerging intellectual and sexual mores -- or resistance -- identifying Christianity with cultural conservatism.  Both of these roads have led to tragic consequences.

Mr. Douthat identifies four streams of heresy that have resulted from either accomodation or resistence, and for the sake of of clarity he outlines each stream in terms of popular writers that have impacted those with religious or spiritual concerns both within and outside the institutional church.  Thus, the forsaking of the biblical texts, based largely on questionable scholarship, in favor of those later works known collectively as "gnostic gospels" has resulted in the sort of orthodoxy rejecting spirituality associated with those who read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Codes as though it is a work of non-fiction (the discussion of Brown's own religious motivations and the result is excellent).  In the chapter entitled "Pray and Grow Rich," the author describes how the sort of "name it and claim it" theology once associated with the fringes has become more mainstream with ministers such as the schmaltzy Joel Osteen.  The third type of heresy is the self-absorbed narcissistic "god within" teaching that is personified in books such as the popular Eat, Pray, Love.  Finally, Mr. Douthat takes on the religious nationalism increasingly associated with radio and tv personality Glenn Beck, showing Mr. Beck to be the truly disturbing figure (for the future of American Christianity) that he really is.

While this is an important book that deserves a wide reading, it is not without its problems.  While the title of the book indicates that he is concerned about orthodoxy and heresy, Mr. Douthat never quite defines these terms, and at times it seems almost as though orthodoxy is more about cultural hegemony and sexual mores than what is found in, say, the Apostle's Creed.  He also fails to offer a clear definition of evangelicalism.  While that term has always been a bit nebulous, it was easier to define at Mr. Douthat's beginning point in the 1950's than it is now.  While the author is correct in associating fundamentalism with dispensationalism and a belief in inerrancy, he doesn't seem to understand fully what differentiated those who self-identified as fundamentalists and those who did so as evangelicals.  His identification of Kenneth Hagin as an evangelical is anachronistic (Pentecostals such as Hagin sometimes are considered in that camp now, but were not during his hey day).  Mr. Douthat's handling of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, in which he expresses surprise at J.I. Packer's nuanced explanations of inerrancy, is clumsy, at best.

The book also suffers from Mr. Douthat's lack of critical evaluation of neo-orthodoxy, which he champions as an ideal.  Certainly, he is correct that neo-orthodoxy is more true to the historic faith than either the liberalism that preceded it or the views that have dominated mainline churches over the last half century, but he glosses over the weaknesses of that theological movement.  Thus, he notes that Mr. Niebuhr could pen hundreds of pages of Christian theology without referencing the resurrection, but he seems to dismiss this as a weakness, rather than seeing it as a fatal flaw to orthodoxy's concerns.  Indeed, while neo-orthodoxy's philosophical return to biblical categories of thinking was welcome in light of what had prevailed in mainline Protestantism prior to World War II, its indifference to the historicity of Christianity's core events virtually assured that it would not stand in the face of its intellectual challengers.

While genuinely concerned about doctrinal orthodoxy, Mr. Douthat largely views these problems through political and sociological lenses, thus somewhat limiting his range of viable solutions.  That being said, this is a book that I would highly recommend as a perceptive take on America's religious landscape.

The Meaning of the Millenium: Four Views, edited by Robert G. Clouse: a Brief Review

The popularity of Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series, a set of fictional accounts of life in "the last days" just before the second coming of Jesus Christ, demonstrates the ongoing interest of many Americans, both Christian and non-Christian, in the subject of Bible prophecy and the end of the world. The view of the end times expressed in those books, which is known to theologians as dispensational premillenialism, has been arguably the most popular one among fundamentalist, evangelical, and Pentecostal Christians over the course of the last century. Indeed, many believers within those camps assume that this approach to eschatology is the only viable option for Bible believing Christians. However, this is not the case. In The Meaning of the Millenium, a volume that was published in the 1970's, four conservative Christian scholars argue differing positions regarding the Bible's teaching on the end of the age. While the work is now over 30 years old, it remains a relevant guide to the various understandings of conservative Christian scholars on the end times.

In the book, each author contributes an article outlining his basic position of the end times. The writers also each respond to the views of each of their colleagues. This format effectively enables the reader to evaluate each position both as advocated and as critiqued by opponents. That all of the authors are able exponents of their particular views makes this a helpful book in sorting out these issues.

The four positions and their advocates are as follows:

• Historic premillennialism: George Eldon Ladd


• Dispensational premillenialism: Herman A. Hoyt


• Postmillenialism: Loraine Boettner


• Amillenialism: Anthony Hoekema

Based on Revelation 20, which speaks of the binding of Satan and the reign of Christ for 1,000 years, both forms of premillennialism argue that Christ will return and set up a literal reign on earth based in Jerusalem that will last for that precise length of time. In contrast, both postmillenialism and amillenialism contend that the kingdom is spiritual in nature and that the millennium takes place during the church age prior to the return of Christ. The primary distinction between these latter two views is that postmillennialism takes an optimistic view of spiritual and material progress as a result of the successful spread of the gospel, whereas amillenialists see a rise of both Christianity and the forces of evil up to the end of the age.

While the only passage that speaks of a 1,000 year reign is found in Revelation 20, all of the writers emphasize that these views hinge on significantly different hermeneutical approaches to the Scripture. In particular, a- and post millenialists interpret prophetic passages and promises from the Old Testament in light of the first coming of Christ and New Testament teaching, while dispensational premillenialists make the Old Testament their beginning point and re-interpret the New Testament in light of the Old. Interestingly, Ladd, representing the historic premillennial view, largely agrees with Hoekema and Boettner with regard to his understanding of the Old Testament and attempts to distance himself from the weaknesses inherent in the dispensational perspective. Ladd's view is almost entirely driven by his understanding of Revelation 20. Nonetheless, the result of these varying approaches to the Old Testament is that Hoekema and Boettner both view the promises of a Davidic kingdom being fulfilled figuratively during the New Covenant age or during our future eternal state. The premillenial dispensationalists expect those promises to be fulfilled literally on earth. The non-dispensational writers effectively argue that their understanding of the Old Testament coheres with the methodology used by Jesus and the New Testament writers in interpreting the Old Testament as it relates to Christ's first advent and the New Covenant that he inaugurated.

Given the popularity of the dispensational view, it is striking to note how weak, not to mention extreme, it appears when viewed alongside the other viewpoints (I write as one who was raised as a dispensationalist, but who long ago rejected that teaching and now would describe himself as an amillennialist). Indeed, one suspects that dispensational premillennialism only prevails as the dominant viewpoint because most laypeople have not had the opportunity to hear other viewpoints argued. A volume such as this would help remedy that problem. At the very least, it should help disabuse dispensationalists of the notion that those holding differing views are guilty of denying the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture.

This volume is highly recommended for anyone interested in these issues.

The Gospel Driven Life, by Michael Horton: a brief review

Michael Horton opens his provocative new book, The Gospel Driven Life, by explaining his intention in writing it: "The goal of this book is to reorient our faith and practice as Christians and churches toward the gospel: that is, the announcement of God's victory over sin and death in his Son, Jesus Christ."

The stated need "to reorient" implies that Dr. Horton believes that the church has gotten off track. However, it would be incorrect to suppose that this is primarily a negative book. He has previously written Christless Christianity, a book that outlines in depressing detail where the church has become wrongly oriented. In this work, he places primary focus on what Christians and churches should be focused on. In so doing, he has written a book that is relentlessly Christ centered and gospel centered. It is a vigorous call for the church to recenter itself around the gospel of Christ. For many churches, both liberal and conservative, this would represent a change of Copernican proportions.

While Dr. Horton's book is more prescriptive than critical, he does helpfully draw some contrasts throughout the book that help the reader understand what he is getting at. For example:

The gospel is not good advice; it is good news.

The gospel is not about God writing himself into our story; it is about Him givins us a new script, writing us into His story.

The gospel is not something that happens within us; it is something that happened outside of us in real space and time.

The gospel is neither personal nor primarily about our transformed lives; it is a public and objective set of events that occurred in real space and time.

The gospel creates a cross cultural community that has no power other than the gospel and the Spirit; the church does not effect change through coercive means.

Even the modern terminology of the church points to its tendency to conceptually move Christ and the gospel to the periphery. Thus, when we speak about having a "worship experience," we place more emphasis on our pursuit of the experience than we do on the God who is supposed to be worshipped. And, such emphasis on experience in the end leads to burnt out believers.

While Dr. Horton argues that the church should "avoid resorting to hostile rhetoric," he criticizes the church for caving into mindless sentimentality. He writes:

Lazy minds breed lazy hearts and hands.... The greatest threat to Christianity is never vigorous intellectual criticism but a creeping senility that transforms truths into feelings, public claims into private experiences, and facts into mere values. Christianity is either true or false, but it is not irrational.... We must recover our distinctively biblical commitment to rigorous, inquisitive, and persuasive thinking before there can be a genuine renewal of Christian conviction, faith, repentance, and discipleship. It is time once again to love God with our minds.

Indeed. The book suffers from some repetitiveness and as a result is not the most brisk of Dr. Horton's writings. However, it is a worthy exposition of a subject of great import. I highly recommend it.

Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord

Up until this point, the Apostle’s Creed has focused on the first person of the Trinity, God the Father. Now, it begins to address belief in God the Son. This portion of the Creed can be divided into two sections: the first provides several names or titles for Christ; the latter portion focuses on a summary of his life and work.

The Creed focuses on four specific names or titles for the second person of the trinity:

Jesus
Christ
His only Son
Our Lord

Each of these names emphasizes some specific aspect of His life or work, and all of them should be a regular part of the vocabulary, especially in prayer, of believers. Christians nowadays tend to use these names indiscriminately, based largely on personal preference, but the New Testament writers did not do so. They used these names intentionally, speaking of Him using nomenclature that was relevant to whatever it was about Him that they were discussing at the time.

Thus, for example, there are many Christians who speak of Him almost exclusively as “Jesus,” with no title appended (i.e., Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus, etc.). I have heard some Christians even speak as though there is something especially spiritual in doing so, though there is no biblical basis for that idea. Interestingly, while the Gospels frequently refer to Him in this way, the rest of the New Testament rarely does. The name “Jesus” by itself in the Bible always looks back to something that Jesus said or did during his earthly ministry.

I might also add that many Christians have misconstrued Jesus’ promise to answer prayers made in Jesus’ name. This is not a promise to answer prayers when those magic words are spoken: it is a promise to answer prayers consistent with the character and will of Him.

The term “Christ” speaks of His saving work. He was the promised Messiah who died and rose again in order to save his people from their sins. As there is much about this in the part of the Creed devoted to describing Christ’s life and work, I will leave further discussion to that time.

The phrase “God’s only Son” focuses on relationships within the Trinity. God the Son is not inferior to the Father, but has submitted to the Father in order to accomplish the Godhead’s eternal purposes. The terms Father and Son reveal the eternal and perfect familial love within the Godhead. That love has only been broken once in all eternity: when the Father punished the Son upon the cross because of the sins for which He died. Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The incredible prophetic passage in Isaiah 53 says that “it pleased the Lord to bruise Him.” It is a remarkable thought that the eternal fellowship between God the Father and God the Son was broken at Calvary as Christ died for our sins.

“Our Lord” refers to the enthronement of Christ, who is the ruler over all Creation. One day, He will be acknowledged by all as the King of kings and Lord of lords.

It may be that those who speak of Him primarily as “Jesus” have focused on His humanity or his closeness to the exclusion of His other attributes, while those who talk only of “the Lord” may have lost sight of His closeness or His saving work. Of course, these are only words, and they may not say anything about the thoughts of one’s heart, but it is certainly worth taking a look inward to see if we are thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ in a way consistent with all of His majesty and glory.

Learning to think and speak His names and titles in this way is a difficult habit to start, and in the beginning it may seem stifling. However, in learning to do so there is great devotional value, as intentional thinking can help to produce intentional worship that focuses more clearly and dearly upon the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s only Son.

Change the Names to Protect the Innocent

A while back, I googled my own name. Because my first name is not a particularly common one in the United States, I was actually surprised at the number of notable people, real and fictional, who share my first and last name. I learned the following people have (or had) the same first and last name that I do:

• The director of the Pacific Garden Rescue Mission in Chicago who was responsible for the conversion of a baseball player named Billy Sunday, who became the Billy Graham of his day.
• The character portrayed by Richard Pryor in the movie Stir Crazy.
• An on air personality who works for Voice of America.

And then there is one more. I am glad that I knew a little bit about it from Google, as it prepared me somewhat for a visit I received last night.

A person who has the same first and last name as I do is a former Catholic priest who has been accused of molesting young boys in Indiana between 1979 and 1984. 11 lawsuits have been filed against him to date.

Last night, around 6:30 p.m., my phone rang. After asking for me, the caller identified himself as a reporter for the Indianapolis Star. He wanted to ask me some questions. I was confused at first as to why he would want to talk to me, but I remembered my Google finding about the same time that he realized that this was going much too easily and that I might be the wrong guy. He apologized for bothering me, and explained that no one was sure where the child molester lived, but that it was commonly believed that he lived somewhere in Nashville. Because he has never been convicted of a crime, he doesn't have to register as a sex offender.

Oh, great. I had previously had some fear about name association when I read about him in another state. Here in the same city as me? I groaned.

The reporter then had a request. He now explained that he was at the entrance of the apartment complex I had just moved into. He had driven all of the way from Indianapolis based on finding my newly listed address and phone number. Would I mind if he just came by to look at me to confirm I am not the perpetrator?

I figured my choices were to meet him or to have someone waiting outside my door to see me, so I said I would do so. I told him that I would be standing outside the apartment when he drove up. He asked what I looked like. I'm in my 40's, have brown hair....

He interrupted, telling me if I had hair I wasn't the guy he was looking for.

The reporter and I talked briefly. He looked close to my age -- a little younger perhaps-- and he actually seemed like a nice guy, though he was obviously disappointed. He was going to be headed back to Indianapolis, but he had one more request:

Would I let him see my driver's license? He needed to make sure I wasn't someone that was sent out to cover for the real one.

I shook my head in disbelief and pulled out my wallet. He looked at my license, half chuckled, and, realizing that his whole day had been a wasted effort, said, "Well, there you have it."

In some ways, the incident was amusing at first, but the more I think about it, the more I am frightened by the whole thing. I was still in high school when that man began abusing boys as a priest, so clearly there is no way that a rational person could confuse me with him. But what about an irrational one? Could the association of name and place impact my professional life if people I am working with from a distance hear a story and draw a wrong conclusion? Will someone else find my address the same way that the reporter did and assume that I am the perpetrator? Is it possible that I will open my door some morning and see a shotgun pointed at my face? Will they take time to look? If I protest, will they believe me?

I don't blame the reporter for raising these concerns. He's doing his job. I suspect that in preparing his series of stories that he has heard heart wrenching stories of the aftermath of abuse. But, this has scared me. It has scared me a lot.

"Maker of Heaven and Earth"

When reading this portion of the Creed, one immediately thinks of the first verse in the Bible, which declares, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." The remainder of chapter one and the first half of chapter two proceed to discuss God's creative acts.

Much discussion of God as Creator nowadays revolves around debates about the age of the earth, whether the concepts of divine creation and Darwinian evolution can be reconciled, and the relationship between science and religion. I have opinions on those issues, about which both many Christians and many scientists sometimes are guilty of making statements that go beyond their areas of expertise, but for this discussion I want to focus on a couple of different questions -- one that should be thought about before discussions of science begin, and the other a consideration of the implications of divine creation.

There are some Christians who both believe that Scripture is divine revelation from God and accurate in all that it teaches who also believe that the Bible is not inconsistent with Darwinian evolution. Again, I am not going to debate that point today. What I will say is that, regardless of the relationship between faith and current scientific viewpoints, philosophical naturalism is not consistent with Christian belief. Naturalism, simply put, is the belief that nature is all there is. Thus, there is no God and no soul. There is only nature.

Of course, nature is the subject matter of science. Nature is what scientists study. However, some scientists are guilty of folding the philosophical definition of naturalism into the meaning of the scientific method and, by extension, the definition of science itself. That confluence should not be allowed to stand without debate. It is one thing to say that nature is what scientists study. It is something quite different to say that what scientists study is all there is. That supposition is both unproven and unprovable empirically, as it outside the realm of what scientists study.

Just as some Christians may be guilty of arrogance in making statements about scientific matters about which they have no knowledge, some scientists may be guilty of an intellectual and philosophical arrogance that claims that nothing is beyond their realm. As to whether God, either by a sudden act of creation or by a guiding hand on what we would otherwise regard as natural processes, created all that there is, the scientist really has no ultimate answers. That is not to say that there are no answers; they just cannot be found conclusively by means of the scientific method.

Christians have faith that God created all that exists, and we find ample evidence in the order, complexity, and beauty of the universe in support of that faith. The question of creation, however, is not merely an intellectual one. Along with the notion that God created comes the thought that God created for a purpose, and that ultimately what God knows about both our lives and his purposes creates accountability for us, as well as the realization that the One who made us best understands how we should live. That accountability and submission to God's wisdom and purposes, which are ultimately sources of joy for those who accept them, are also the ultimate reasons for much -- some would say all -- unbelief. The first sins in the garden were committed in response to a claim that Adam and Eve could be like God, and ever since humanity has desired to have things our own way.

God, as our Creator, has the ultimate say about what our lives should be. To live in the light of his purposes brings freedom and joy. Resisting Him is both temporally and eternally destructive.

This is the latest in my series of posts on the Apostle's Creed. For my previous post, which includes links to all of the others, see here.

God the Father Almighty

Parents frequently teach their children a prayer that begins, "God is great. God is good."

Those words are simple enough for children, but they are also profound. They capture two important aspects of the character of God. He is great -- that is, he is almighty, omniscient, and omnipresent. He is also good -- great in mercy and kindness, a Father and friend to those who are His.

Healthy Christianity maintains thoughts of God's greatness and goodness in a careful balance. Unfortunately, that balance is frequently not maintained, and that lack of balance has at times seriously harmed those who grew up under it. If God is seen as great, but not good, he may be seen as harsh, distant, irrelevant, and an object of unhealthy fear (I say unhealthy, because there is a healthy kind of fear of God).

If God is seen as good, but not great, He is seen as a sort of kindly old man -- good hearted, but not terribly helpful or relevant to life.

Fortunately, the true God is both great and good. God is described in the Bible as a Father, a Friend, and as one who knows how to give good gifts to His children. He is merciful and full of grace. Believers can call upon Him with familial love and approach Him boldly because of what Christ has done in our behalf.

He is also the Creator and Sustainer of all things.

Isaiah Chapter 40, which is addressed to hurting people who have fallen under God's judgment, is one of the most eloquent in all of the Bible describing God's goodness and greatness. Following is a quick laundry list of what we learn about God in this chapter. Read it for yourself, and you may find great joy in meditating on these thoughts about God:

• He speaks through Isaiah words of comfort and tenderness to a people who have gone through a period of judgment because of sin (vv. 1, 2).
• His glory will be revealed to all mankind (v. 5).
• His Word stands forever (v. 8).
• His presence is a reason to proclaim good tidings (v. 9)
• He is the Sovereign Lord who comes with power (v. 10)
• He gathers his flock in His arms and carries them close to His heart (v. 11)
• He has measured the waters and the Heavens with His hand (v. 12).
• His mind is beyond our understanding or counsel (vv. 13, 14).
• Nations are like a drop in the bucket and islands are like fine dust compared to Him (vv. 15-17).
• He is beyond comparison and cannot be worshipped by means of any physical image (v. 18-20).
• His throne is the earth and people are as small as grasshoppers next to Him (v. 22-24).
• He has no equal and has created all things. He is Holy (v. 25-26).
• He is the everlasting God who never gets tired (vv. 28).
• He gives strength to weary and weak people (v. 29).
• To those who hope in Him, He gives renewed strength to soar on wings of eagles, run and not grow weary, and walk and not be faint.

Those who do not know such a God should fear one of such power. Those who know Him should find comfort and confidence in God's goodness and greatness.

This is the fourth in my series of posts on the Apostle's Creed. The others can be found here, here, and here.

A Higher View of Jesus

He calls it a rant and invites readers to ignore it, but the Evangelical Outpost pens a post that would benefit every believer.

The flimsy disagreements of several commenters at that site perhaps reveal the sad state of American evangelicalism.

I Admit It: I Am the AntiChrist

For all of those strange people concerned about this date being 6/6/06, I can alleviate your concerns. I am guilty. I am the anti-Christ. Here's the proof: if you are trying to find me in a company phone directory, and enter into the phone keypad the first three letters of the name "Monroe," you will have entered 6-6-6.

This could hurt my status as a religion blogger.

What about the Emergent Church

Bill Hobbs has an interesting post in which he provides a lengthy excerpt from an article on the "emergent church movement." Although I have been aware of that movement for some time, I have not delved deeply into it due to my sense of ambivalence about it. The excerpt that Mr. Hobbs provides emphasizes both the positives and negatives that contribute to my indifference regarding the significance or value of this movement.

Positively, the movement is being described as one that is Christocentric, focused on worship, and that is seeking to energetically involve disciples in service to their communities. These emphases correct deficiencies that have tended to characterize both the "traditional" churches of the mid and late 20th century and the "contemporary" churches that have tried to supplant them. Such churches have all too frequently turned out to be self-centered in worship and other emphases and overly programmatic in their orientations.

On the other hand, the movement is described as "fueled by postmodern philosophical perspectives," engaged in narrative theology and indifferent to doctrine, and "more at home with blogs than books."

Given postmodernism's indifference regarding truth, it will be interesting to see how attempts to join it with Christian belief play out. Early returns are not encouraging, as all too frequently those who claim to be informing their faith are instead inundating it with those philosophical suppositions. Indifference to doctrine has been a problem, not a characteristic, of modern evangelical Christianity. Indifference to doctrine does not mean that there are no doctrines, and narrative theology is always refracted through the doctrinal lenses of the reader. Everyone believes in doctrines -- Christian or otherwise. The question is not whether we have doctrines, but it is whether we are aware of them and thoughtful about them.

Finally, the reliance of the emergent church on new media is not necessarily a positive. One of the strengths of the movement has been its rediscovery of early Christian forms. Every major movement of the church in American history has suffered from its parochialism and lack of connectedness to Christian traditions. Forsaking deeper reading than what is provided through blogs risks the development of the emergent church becoming atrophied by that narrowness.

In which case, the emergent church will not be a movement: it will be just a fad.

I Believe (Part II)

The Apostle's Creed begins, ""I believe in God, the Father Almighty,the Creator of heaven and earth,and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord...." In this post, I want to focus on the word "believe." Faith is a very important concept for Christians (the most frequent name for Christians in the Bible is "believers"), but it is a very misunderstood one.

In the original language of the New Testament, the words "believe" and "faith" come from the same root word, with "believe" being the verb form of the root and "faith" the noun form. I once heard a preacher on television make much ado about the fact that he was going to do more than just "believe" something: he was going to "faith it." However, there was really no point to that kind of statement, since biblically belief and faith are the same thing. As I am sure this gentleman had not studied Greek, perhaps he should be forgiven this little display of ignorance.

Perhaps.

The word "faith" is also used frequently in popular culture -- sometimes with religious overtones -- in ways that differ markedly from the biblical conception of faith. Probably the most common popular use of the word makes faith to mean something along the lines of positive thinking or stubborn optimism. While those may be good things, they are not Christian faith. In addition, they have less foundation than biblical faith. I am reminded of a Celine Dion song from a few years ago: "Don't give up on your faith. Love comes to those who believe it." That sounds wonderful. Where does that confidence come from. With her voice rising in a joy not justified by the hollow words, she concludes, "That's the way it is."

That was good for Walter Cronkite talking about what had already made news, but its not much of a foundation for faith. Fortunately, Christian faith rests on much more.

When defining faith, the most common verse that Christians turn to is Hebrews 11:1 -- "Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen." That passage goes on to describe Old Testament figures who manifested faith. For example, Noah built an ark based on God's command even though he had never seen anything that warranted such an effort. Abram left his home and set out for a new country he had never seen, because ultimately he looked for a land "whose builder and founder is God."

With those introductory thoughts in mind, here are a few statements concerning the nature of Christian faith:

• Faith is not merely intellectual assent. In that sense, the modern way of using the word "believe" is not always helpful. Faith involves the intellect, the emotions, and the will. It is not merely a matter of deciding that certain things are true, but it is about trusting in those things for our eternal salvation.
• Faith is both a human responsibility (Acts 16:31) and a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8).
• Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive concepts. Christian belief is not based on philosophical rationalism, as Christians ultimately rest their faith in God's self-revelation found generally in creation and conscience and specifically in the words of the Bible and in the living Word, Jesus Christ. However, reason and revelation are not in opposition. Christian belief is both internally coherent and externally consistent. Talk about faith as though it is a leap into darkness involves theological constructs that are not consistent with Christianity.
• Faith in the Bible always has an object: faith in God, God's promises, Christ, the finished work of Christ, and so forth. Thus, faith is not merely positive thinking. It involves trust in who God is or what he does and provides.
• Because faith always has God or His work as its object, faith is not found by looking inward, but by looking up. To have faith is not to find a great internal resource -- it is to find that we have a great God in whom we can confidently rest.
• The Bible teaches that salvation comes by faith alone. As such, the Christian message to outsiders is not to reform their lives: it is to be reconciled to God by repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.
• While salvation is by faith alone, the faith that saves is never alone. When I was younger and didn't know better, I used to say that human works have nothing to do with salvation. It is true that we are in no way justified by our deeds; however, saving faith inevitably produces a changed heart and life (see Ephesians 2:10).
• Faith is not merely the response that initiates a person into the family of God; it characterizes the life of the believer throughout.

As this has become a long post, I think I should stop. I have benefited from writing it, and I hope someone gains something from reading it.