To the Editor:
Let's make sure somebody at Communio is checking facts, shall we? It was inevitable that one of you would defend Dr. Paul Owen's endorsement of Millet's book, but the least Mr. Johnson should have done was to check some of his details.
Mr, Johnson makes some pretty clear mistakes about the Dever book:
(1) The first is that it is not yet in print -- so that it may or may not raise a future uproar, but the reality is that it's not even available to the public.
(2) The second point is that it does not represent Eerdman's history but its future path. And that path, for better or worse, turns out to be in the same footsteps as the publication of Millet's book.
(3) The last mistake I will indicate in Mr. Johnson's use of Dever's book is that it is hardly a book about orthodoxy but about "folk religion" -- that is, the things some people in Israel practiced or believed, not about the central matter of Mosaic/temple worship of Yahovah.
It is also important to note -- which Mr. Johnson did not -- that the most vocal critics of Eerdman's choice to publish Millet's book have ministered in evangelizing Mormons for decades and "follow the literature" (so to speak) on that subject. Dever's book is a little outside the normal circles of those ministries and of the ministries most vocal in criticizing Eerdman's decision to publish Millet's book. The criticism that they are "ignoring" Dever's book but piling on to Millet's book is a little like criticizing Mr. Johnson for not being abreast of the new flavors of Gatorade coming out on the market when he's clearly not an expert on sports drinks but on coffee.
Frank Turk
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
[@] Dueling diagrams (2)
The reason for the last post, really, is to describe the rationale for my own diagram which I have proposed in this idea of seeing gospel-culture-church:
So what the heck is that all about? In the first place, it takes into account "conservative theology" in terms of the motive force which causes anything to be anything at all.
I hope you notice that the brightest light here is Jesus. Jesus is the cause. Somehow, in all of his exhortation for a “conservative theology”, Driscoll has missed the point that Jesus is the cause: the cause of the Gospel, the cause of the Church, the cause of the church’s ability and willingness to go out to the culture, the cause for anyone in the culture to come out of the culture and into the body of (oops) Christ.
Jesus. Jesus Jesus Jesus!
Can I make myself clear here to say that Driscoll is not advocating – nor does he come close to advocating – some kind of bad new-age philosophy that excludes Jesus? Driscoll is not excluding Jesus from the Gospel – he is simply forgetting that unless we see the Gospel as His work for His glory, we are forgetting everything important about the Gospel.
My blog-friend and fellow #pros op Rusty made the statement here that
See: in the diagram he uses to set up his paradigm, he has the word “GOSPEL” (not in caps), and in that because it’s next to the word “CHURCH” (not in caps), I think he thinks he’s covered the bases. But the problem – which I have covered to some extent here and here, is that when people toss around the word “gospel” it does not necessarily have anything to do with “Jesus”.
So Driscoll comes across by using a faulty paradigm to advocate his point. The church should never be a function of secular society as Driscoll here means it – because its source has not anything to do with the secular culture. The source of the church, from the foundation of the world, is Jesus Christ, who intended to call it out from the moment of creation. In that, in our diagram, we have the bright light of Christ and the “shekinah” (oh boy, is that gonna get some mail) of the Gospel which Christ brings. The Gospel is nothing without Jesus Christ, and it comes from no place but Jesus Christ – who is God equally with the Father and the Spirit, and from whom with the Father the Spirit comes forth.
But that is hardly the end of the story – because the matter is not just about the eternal meaning and nature of Christ: it is also about the incarnation of Christ – and it is in that we find that Christ brings the Gospel to “culture”. When I say “culture”, I mean any culture – but as Paul says, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek or Gentile. That’s what that whole dotted line is in my diagram: it is the palpable place of contact that Christ makes in order to bring the Gospel to culture. And when I say culture, I also say this: any culture that Christ is coming to is inherently sinful, inherently lost, and needs Him a lot more than He needs them.
He’s God. They need Him whether they recognize it or not, and whether, when they finally are touched by the Gospel, they receive it.
It’s been a long day here, and I have more to say as you can imagine. I’ll be back tomorrow to bore you some more about my diagram and complain more about Driscoll’s ideas about church and revelance.
So what the heck is that all about? In the first place, it takes into account "conservative theology" in terms of the motive force which causes anything to be anything at all.
I hope you notice that the brightest light here is Jesus. Jesus is the cause. Somehow, in all of his exhortation for a “conservative theology”, Driscoll has missed the point that Jesus is the cause: the cause of the Gospel, the cause of the Church, the cause of the church’s ability and willingness to go out to the culture, the cause for anyone in the culture to come out of the culture and into the body of (oops) Christ.
Jesus. Jesus Jesus Jesus!
Can I make myself clear here to say that Driscoll is not advocating – nor does he come close to advocating – some kind of bad new-age philosophy that excludes Jesus? Driscoll is not excluding Jesus from the Gospel – he is simply forgetting that unless we see the Gospel as His work for His glory, we are forgetting everything important about the Gospel.
My blog-friend and fellow #pros op Rusty made the statement here that
Furthermore, why is Mark Driscoll, a professing Calvinist, acting like an Arminian? As a Calvinist, why does he believe that our church services need to attract unbelievers for them to be saved? Why are we trying to impress unbelievers with flashy lights, the best sound systems, singing styles, and the list goes on.And I understand what Rusty’s saying here, but I’m going to say it a different way: Driscoll is making a terrible mistake of believing that he can look at what he’s doing as necessarily implying “Jesus”.
See: in the diagram he uses to set up his paradigm, he has the word “GOSPEL” (not in caps), and in that because it’s next to the word “CHURCH” (not in caps), I think he thinks he’s covered the bases. But the problem – which I have covered to some extent here and here, is that when people toss around the word “gospel” it does not necessarily have anything to do with “Jesus”.
So Driscoll comes across by using a faulty paradigm to advocate his point. The church should never be a function of secular society as Driscoll here means it – because its source has not anything to do with the secular culture. The source of the church, from the foundation of the world, is Jesus Christ, who intended to call it out from the moment of creation. In that, in our diagram, we have the bright light of Christ and the “shekinah” (oh boy, is that gonna get some mail) of the Gospel which Christ brings. The Gospel is nothing without Jesus Christ, and it comes from no place but Jesus Christ – who is God equally with the Father and the Spirit, and from whom with the Father the Spirit comes forth.
But that is hardly the end of the story – because the matter is not just about the eternal meaning and nature of Christ: it is also about the incarnation of Christ – and it is in that we find that Christ brings the Gospel to “culture”. When I say “culture”, I mean any culture – but as Paul says, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek or Gentile. That’s what that whole dotted line is in my diagram: it is the palpable place of contact that Christ makes in order to bring the Gospel to culture. And when I say culture, I also say this: any culture that Christ is coming to is inherently sinful, inherently lost, and needs Him a lot more than He needs them.
He’s God. They need Him whether they recognize it or not, and whether, when they finally are touched by the Gospel, they receive it.
It’s been a long day here, and I have more to say as you can imagine. I’ll be back tomorrow to bore you some more about my diagram and complain more about Driscoll’s ideas about church and revelance.
[@] Dueling diagrams (1)
Sunday night I posted a couple of diagrams relating to Mark Driscoll’s use of Lesslie Newbigin’s diagram of the relationship between the Gospel, the church, and culture. Because I provided my own additional diagram, you can imagine that I have some problems with the interactive triangle.
The most obvious problem with that diagram, I think, is the direction of all the arrows – arrows which seem to imply influence or effect. Let’s imagine for a moment that the circle begins at the GOSPEL at the top of the triangle, and the arrow to the left means “influences”, so the left side of the triangle says, “the Gospel influences Culture” or “the Gospel produces Culture”.
Fair enough, yes? Well, no: because the purpose of the diagram is not to come up with the obvious assertion that “the Gospel Culture equals the Church”. “CULTURE” here means the existing (or pre-existing) culture which is not Christ-centered; it represents those who are being evangelized.
Remember -- the corollaries of this diagram are:
Gospel + Culture - Church = Parachurch
Culture + Church - Gospel = Liberalism
Church + Gospel - Culture = Fundamentalism
What Driscoll is saying about Newbigin’s diagram is that there is a continuum between the Gospel, the Culture and the Church which produces some kind of interactive state. The final – and I must admit, I am very surprised it is UNLISTED – corollary is:
GOSPEL + CULTURE + CHURCH = ???
If the previous three corollaries are valid in any way at all, then this final one is necessary to flesh out the ultimate point. What is it that you get when you get the Gospel plus the Culture plus the Church? Let’s be clear that Driscoll doesn’t say exactly what this is. However, I think that Driscoll tries to imply is that what you get is his idea of “reformission” – which is “the tension of being Christians and churches who are culturally liberal yet theologically conservative”.
Now let’s think about something for a minute. Are there any examples in the history of the church where the church was “culturally liberal” (definition please?) and yet “theologically conservative” (again, definition?)?
I can think of one that someone who’s a fan of Driscoll might use: the gentile culture(s) the Jewish evangelists were trying to reach. For example, the “conservative” culture of that time might be considered the Jewish national culture of theocentric worship and strict (and one might rightly say) holy piety. Keeping the dietary law, keeping the Sabbath, keeping away from strange and exotic pagan women as wives, keeping the law of Moses – that’s a pretty “conservative” culture, right? And to be Paul and Peter and Barnabas and James “out there” among the people who would eat Crab and Lobster, who would visit the temple of Diana for a quick “worship session” with the priestess – they’d be faced with a pretty “liberal” culture to somehow proclaim the Gospel.
Now we might here wander off to discover that what was actually “liberal” (which is to say, “Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas”) in the context of 60 AD was this Christian view, which the “conservative” (that is, “Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change”) view found shocking and, perhaps, repressive or offensive. What we would discover is that the Gospel is itself the “liberal” view to both the Jew and the Greek or Roman – and in that it creates a very large problem not for Driscoll’s statement as such but for his conclusions that follow.
Using the definition that says “liberal” means “seeking answers outside of established views”, the Gospel is certainly the ultimate form of “liberalism” in any culture it encounters. That is not to say it is (or ought to be) the advocate of gay marriage or no-fault divorce or condom distribution in High Schools: it is to say that it is offering solutions to the problems that any culture has which frankly fly in the face of what that culture thinks it has to offer.
That would include, btw, the “Christian nation” of the United States of America.
You faithful readers might find yourselves scratching your head right now – especially after yesterday’s letter to communio sanctorum – and thinking, “Cent agrees with Driscoll – he’s gone to the dark side. Somebody send the Calvinist conspiracy over to his house to protect his wife and kids.” Well, hold off calling Protestant 911 for a minute. In case you missed it – and you might have if you didn’t read Driscoll’s book – Driscoll doesn’t mean “seeking answers outside of established views” when he says “culturally liberal”. He means this: a culturally liberal view is one in which culture is a medium for a message. That is to say, it is important to honor a culture in order to evangelize a culture.
Does that sound familiar to anybody?
When Driscoll fronts up the Gospel-Culture-Church triangle, he’s saying that if you release “the Gospel” in “the Culture” you’re going to get “the Church”. And his view is that we can see that “the Church” can bloom in any kind of “Culture” because it does so under the oppression it faces in China, the murder and persecution it faces in Africa, the poverty and lawlessness it faces in South America, etc. None of these Churches look very much alike, and they don’t all sing from the Baptist hymnal, so the reality must be that Church is as much a result of Culture as it is a result of the Gospel.
Right?
Anyone?
… I have to pick my parents up at the airport. More tomorrow or later …
The most obvious problem with that diagram, I think, is the direction of all the arrows – arrows which seem to imply influence or effect. Let’s imagine for a moment that the circle begins at the GOSPEL at the top of the triangle, and the arrow to the left means “influences”, so the left side of the triangle says, “the Gospel influences Culture” or “the Gospel produces Culture”.
Fair enough, yes? Well, no: because the purpose of the diagram is not to come up with the obvious assertion that “the Gospel Culture equals the Church”. “CULTURE” here means the existing (or pre-existing) culture which is not Christ-centered; it represents those who are being evangelized.
Remember -- the corollaries of this diagram are:
Gospel + Culture - Church = Parachurch
Culture + Church - Gospel = Liberalism
Church + Gospel - Culture = Fundamentalism
What Driscoll is saying about Newbigin’s diagram is that there is a continuum between the Gospel, the Culture and the Church which produces some kind of interactive state. The final – and I must admit, I am very surprised it is UNLISTED – corollary is:
GOSPEL + CULTURE + CHURCH = ???
If the previous three corollaries are valid in any way at all, then this final one is necessary to flesh out the ultimate point. What is it that you get when you get the Gospel plus the Culture plus the Church? Let’s be clear that Driscoll doesn’t say exactly what this is. However, I think that Driscoll tries to imply is that what you get is his idea of “reformission” – which is “the tension of being Christians and churches who are culturally liberal yet theologically conservative”.
Now let’s think about something for a minute. Are there any examples in the history of the church where the church was “culturally liberal” (definition please?) and yet “theologically conservative” (again, definition?)?
I can think of one that someone who’s a fan of Driscoll might use: the gentile culture(s) the Jewish evangelists were trying to reach. For example, the “conservative” culture of that time might be considered the Jewish national culture of theocentric worship and strict (and one might rightly say) holy piety. Keeping the dietary law, keeping the Sabbath, keeping away from strange and exotic pagan women as wives, keeping the law of Moses – that’s a pretty “conservative” culture, right? And to be Paul and Peter and Barnabas and James “out there” among the people who would eat Crab and Lobster, who would visit the temple of Diana for a quick “worship session” with the priestess – they’d be faced with a pretty “liberal” culture to somehow proclaim the Gospel.
Now we might here wander off to discover that what was actually “liberal” (which is to say, “Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas”) in the context of 60 AD was this Christian view, which the “conservative” (that is, “Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change”) view found shocking and, perhaps, repressive or offensive. What we would discover is that the Gospel is itself the “liberal” view to both the Jew and the Greek or Roman – and in that it creates a very large problem not for Driscoll’s statement as such but for his conclusions that follow.
Using the definition that says “liberal” means “seeking answers outside of established views”, the Gospel is certainly the ultimate form of “liberalism” in any culture it encounters. That is not to say it is (or ought to be) the advocate of gay marriage or no-fault divorce or condom distribution in High Schools: it is to say that it is offering solutions to the problems that any culture has which frankly fly in the face of what that culture thinks it has to offer.
That would include, btw, the “Christian nation” of the United States of America.
You faithful readers might find yourselves scratching your head right now – especially after yesterday’s letter to communio sanctorum – and thinking, “Cent agrees with Driscoll – he’s gone to the dark side. Somebody send the Calvinist conspiracy over to his house to protect his wife and kids.” Well, hold off calling Protestant 911 for a minute. In case you missed it – and you might have if you didn’t read Driscoll’s book – Driscoll doesn’t mean “seeking answers outside of established views” when he says “culturally liberal”. He means this: a culturally liberal view is one in which culture is a medium for a message. That is to say, it is important to honor a culture in order to evangelize a culture.
Does that sound familiar to anybody?
When Driscoll fronts up the Gospel-Culture-Church triangle, he’s saying that if you release “the Gospel” in “the Culture” you’re going to get “the Church”. And his view is that we can see that “the Church” can bloom in any kind of “Culture” because it does so under the oppression it faces in China, the murder and persecution it faces in Africa, the poverty and lawlessness it faces in South America, etc. None of these Churches look very much alike, and they don’t all sing from the Baptist hymnal, so the reality must be that Church is as much a result of Culture as it is a result of the Gospel.
Right?
Anyone?
… I have to pick my parents up at the airport. More tomorrow or later …
Monday, May 16, 2005
[@] This is actually related to the last post:
This is a new letter to the editor at communiosanctorum.com:
One of the reasons I'm writing this letter to you fellows at communio is that I want to see the limits of the editorial standards you are promulgating. The other is that, as you can imagine, Dr. Owen's comments on the nature of Baptistic sacramentology and ecclesiology seem to invite some kind of comment.
My first is this: thank you for not calling Baptists heretics.
My second is this: there seems to be a rather large gulf between the fact that Baptists, by and large, do not accept infant baptism or perform infant baptism and the fact that Baptists -- especially the ones Dr. Owen listed in his essay (which I would say represent the "best of breed" for us poor anti-sacralists) -- do not qualify or disqualify anyone from being called Christian on the basis of their baptism. Sure: the unbaptized cannot be part of our local church, and the infant-baptized are usually re-baptized because that's "how we are".
But let's consider a hypothetical example that doesn't have a lot of polemical drama. There's a young man in my church (a Baptist church) who has attended the youth Bible study since he was in 8th grade, and at age 15 has a private meeting with the pastor and makes a confession of sinfulness and asks the question (as the jailer did) "What must I do to be saved?" Our pastor, being the Baptist he is, replies "believe and be baptized!"
Now this young fellow, having received Baptist training, says to the pastor, "Tell me about baptism." Surely he's seen one or two (we average about 4 a month in our church). And the pastor gives him the 10-minute version of being identified with Christ and making a public testimony. You know that most kids just say "OK" and in a few weeks they take baptism in obedience.
Well, this young fellow happens to have a Presbyterian friend and a Roman Catholic friend (I know: it's shocking, but he also has a pierced ear). His Presby friend has been telling him about the covenant sign and the promises of God; his Catholic friend says that the water baptism in the Trinitarian formula is the "only way" to be saved, and that his soul cannot be free from original sin without proper baptism.
So this young man says to his pastor, "Pastor, I'm not sure you're right. And until I'm sure why I'm going to be baptized, I want to wait it out." And he explains his concerns. The pastor -- being a little progressive for a Baptist -- tells the young man that the fact is that all of his friends -- the Presby, the RC, and himself -- have shown him that Scripture says (well, who knows with the RC) that Baptism is a mandatory thing to do if one has faith in Christ, and waiting is wrong if he is serious about his confession that he needs Christ as a savior. So the epistemological "why" may not be as important as the ontological "why" -- which is to say, the knowing why for getting baptized really is not because of some systematic theology but because God said so, God has commanded it. How you understand that command is not even relevant.
But in spite of that, the young man tells the pastor he thinks that until he understands what that baptism thing is, he's going to refrain. He continues to attend the bible study, and continues to grow in faith in that he finds himself relying more and more on Christ each day. Philippians 3 makes a great impact on him as he tries to talk to his friends about Christ they ridicule him; Acts 2 makes a great impact on him as he reflects on the obedience and humility of Christ to go to the cross for evil men (and, btw, it also makes him think more about that baptism thing); Romans 9 humbles him as he sees God's absolute sovereignty in saving any, but in saving him in particular; Titus encourages him to see that his faith is walked out not just in theoretical doctrine but in the good work the Gospel commands.
And after 10 years of studying his Bible, and talking about it with others, and seeing the fruits of God in his life, he finds himself engaged to a young woman whom he has led to Christ in good ol' Baptist fashion. But neither of them has been baptized.
At that moment, he considers all that the word of God has taught him and has worked out in his life, and he decides that it doesn't matter what systematic reason he has for doing it, the Bible says, "believe and be baptized". In that, with no systematic reason but only a willingness to do what he knows the Bible says to do, he goes to his pastor (who has not let this young man teach in the church or hold authority in the church because he is not baptized -- even though the pastor has seen him work out the fruits of the spirit) and asks him to be baptized as soon as possible.
I'm not going to insert any drama here -- no sudden deaths or stupid "puddup ya dukes" riddles even the Sphinx cannot solve. The young man is baptized, and that's the end of the story.
The question is this: for the 10 years between when this young man discovered his need for a savior and his discovery that he ought to do what every disciple has done since Christ began his earthly ministry and be baptized, what do we say about him? He was associated with the church; he was doing "church work" in telling others about Jesus even if he was not a teacher or minister. Can we say this young man was, in Dr. Owen's words, "rejecting Catholic Christianity itself"? Over baptism -- because the institutions around him cannot agree on the nature of the symbol, and in seeking to honor the nature of 3 conflicting authorities he simply refrained without rejecting?
Let me admit something: I do not know anybody like this personally. But I know these people exist -- because the Megachurch exists and because the "emergent" church exists, and neither of these church types typically make baptism a big thing because it could possibly put off the seeker. So without turning this into a discussion about these two types of churches, what about the young man who is certainly attending a church like this who is not baptized? Is it right to tell him he is rejecting Catholic Christianity itself because, frankly, we have made such a big thing out of the esoteric meanings of baptism that he doesn't know what to think, and therefore doesn't know what to do?
As I have done elsewhere, let me reiterate that I am 100% convicted and convinced that the believer ought to be baptized -- that anyone who says he is a disciple of Christ ought to be baptized because that's what we are commanded to do. The mandatory nature of baptism is not the question here: the question is the position it occupies between all of us who might otherwise find each other interesting and compelling people from whom we might learn a lot about the life in Christ. It is right to say some group is "rejecting the church" because it refuses to baptize infants? Is it right to say another group is not, by and large, admissible to our local church because they use baptism as a sign that God is faithful rather than as a testimony to the mercy and love of God?
This letter is already much longer than I intended, but listen: if anybody is really interested in "catholicity", wouldn't we be much better positioned to achieved such a thing if we took the mandatory exercises of our faith -- baptism, the lord's supper, church government -- and admitted that while we might have a nice academic apparatus (duly citing Scripture) behind these things, we do them for the most part because there is no doubt that God requires us to do them?
One of the reasons I'm writing this letter to you fellows at communio is that I want to see the limits of the editorial standards you are promulgating. The other is that, as you can imagine, Dr. Owen's comments on the nature of Baptistic sacramentology and ecclesiology seem to invite some kind of comment.
My first is this: thank you for not calling Baptists heretics.
My second is this: there seems to be a rather large gulf between the fact that Baptists, by and large, do not accept infant baptism or perform infant baptism and the fact that Baptists -- especially the ones Dr. Owen listed in his essay (which I would say represent the "best of breed" for us poor anti-sacralists) -- do not qualify or disqualify anyone from being called Christian on the basis of their baptism. Sure: the unbaptized cannot be part of our local church, and the infant-baptized are usually re-baptized because that's "how we are".
But let's consider a hypothetical example that doesn't have a lot of polemical drama. There's a young man in my church (a Baptist church) who has attended the youth Bible study since he was in 8th grade, and at age 15 has a private meeting with the pastor and makes a confession of sinfulness and asks the question (as the jailer did) "What must I do to be saved?" Our pastor, being the Baptist he is, replies "believe and be baptized!"
Now this young fellow, having received Baptist training, says to the pastor, "Tell me about baptism." Surely he's seen one or two (we average about 4 a month in our church). And the pastor gives him the 10-minute version of being identified with Christ and making a public testimony. You know that most kids just say "OK" and in a few weeks they take baptism in obedience.
Well, this young fellow happens to have a Presbyterian friend and a Roman Catholic friend (I know: it's shocking, but he also has a pierced ear). His Presby friend has been telling him about the covenant sign and the promises of God; his Catholic friend says that the water baptism in the Trinitarian formula is the "only way" to be saved, and that his soul cannot be free from original sin without proper baptism.
So this young man says to his pastor, "Pastor, I'm not sure you're right. And until I'm sure why I'm going to be baptized, I want to wait it out." And he explains his concerns. The pastor -- being a little progressive for a Baptist -- tells the young man that the fact is that all of his friends -- the Presby, the RC, and himself -- have shown him that Scripture says (well, who knows with the RC) that Baptism is a mandatory thing to do if one has faith in Christ, and waiting is wrong if he is serious about his confession that he needs Christ as a savior. So the epistemological "why" may not be as important as the ontological "why" -- which is to say, the knowing why for getting baptized really is not because of some systematic theology but because God said so, God has commanded it. How you understand that command is not even relevant.
But in spite of that, the young man tells the pastor he thinks that until he understands what that baptism thing is, he's going to refrain. He continues to attend the bible study, and continues to grow in faith in that he finds himself relying more and more on Christ each day. Philippians 3 makes a great impact on him as he tries to talk to his friends about Christ they ridicule him; Acts 2 makes a great impact on him as he reflects on the obedience and humility of Christ to go to the cross for evil men (and, btw, it also makes him think more about that baptism thing); Romans 9 humbles him as he sees God's absolute sovereignty in saving any, but in saving him in particular; Titus encourages him to see that his faith is walked out not just in theoretical doctrine but in the good work the Gospel commands.
And after 10 years of studying his Bible, and talking about it with others, and seeing the fruits of God in his life, he finds himself engaged to a young woman whom he has led to Christ in good ol' Baptist fashion. But neither of them has been baptized.
At that moment, he considers all that the word of God has taught him and has worked out in his life, and he decides that it doesn't matter what systematic reason he has for doing it, the Bible says, "believe and be baptized". In that, with no systematic reason but only a willingness to do what he knows the Bible says to do, he goes to his pastor (who has not let this young man teach in the church or hold authority in the church because he is not baptized -- even though the pastor has seen him work out the fruits of the spirit) and asks him to be baptized as soon as possible.
I'm not going to insert any drama here -- no sudden deaths or stupid "puddup ya dukes" riddles even the Sphinx cannot solve. The young man is baptized, and that's the end of the story.
The question is this: for the 10 years between when this young man discovered his need for a savior and his discovery that he ought to do what every disciple has done since Christ began his earthly ministry and be baptized, what do we say about him? He was associated with the church; he was doing "church work" in telling others about Jesus even if he was not a teacher or minister. Can we say this young man was, in Dr. Owen's words, "rejecting Catholic Christianity itself"? Over baptism -- because the institutions around him cannot agree on the nature of the symbol, and in seeking to honor the nature of 3 conflicting authorities he simply refrained without rejecting?
Let me admit something: I do not know anybody like this personally. But I know these people exist -- because the Megachurch exists and because the "emergent" church exists, and neither of these church types typically make baptism a big thing because it could possibly put off the seeker. So without turning this into a discussion about these two types of churches, what about the young man who is certainly attending a church like this who is not baptized? Is it right to tell him he is rejecting Catholic Christianity itself because, frankly, we have made such a big thing out of the esoteric meanings of baptism that he doesn't know what to think, and therefore doesn't know what to do?
As I have done elsewhere, let me reiterate that I am 100% convicted and convinced that the believer ought to be baptized -- that anyone who says he is a disciple of Christ ought to be baptized because that's what we are commanded to do. The mandatory nature of baptism is not the question here: the question is the position it occupies between all of us who might otherwise find each other interesting and compelling people from whom we might learn a lot about the life in Christ. It is right to say some group is "rejecting the church" because it refuses to baptize infants? Is it right to say another group is not, by and large, admissible to our local church because they use baptism as a sign that God is faithful rather than as a testimony to the mercy and love of God?
This letter is already much longer than I intended, but listen: if anybody is really interested in "catholicity", wouldn't we be much better positioned to achieved such a thing if we took the mandatory exercises of our faith -- baptism, the lord's supper, church government -- and admitted that while we might have a nice academic apparatus (duly citing Scripture) behind these things, we do them for the most part because there is no doubt that God requires us to do them?
Sunday, May 15, 2005
[@] You prolly have no idea ...
... what these two diagrams mean:
That's from Lesslie Newbigins's contribution to The Church between Gospel and Culture, 1996, Eerdman's -- as it appeared in Mark Driscoll's the Radical Reformission.
This one you will have seen here for the first time.
This week we are dropping all other commitments to monologue on these two diagrams and what they mean. I hope it gives you something to look forward to.
That's from Lesslie Newbigins's contribution to The Church between Gospel and Culture, 1996, Eerdman's -- as it appeared in Mark Driscoll's the Radical Reformission.
This one you will have seen here for the first time.
This week we are dropping all other commitments to monologue on these two diagrams and what they mean. I hope it gives you something to look forward to.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
[?] Like I have time to blog
Apologies to all faithful readers as I haven't posted anything in almost a week. I have a lot of loose ends on the blog to clean up, but I also have a full-time job that just sent me out of town.
And I was stupid enough to join another discussion list.
For those of you who want something to think about for the next week while I try to get my life back in order, try reading "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything", by Steven Levitt (ISBN 006073132X). It's pretty lite reading, but it will make you laugh and make you angry and make you wish you knew more about statistical methodogies so you could prove this guy wrong.
Thanks for checking in. :-)
And I was stupid enough to join another discussion list.
For those of you who want something to think about for the next week while I try to get my life back in order, try reading "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything", by Steven Levitt (ISBN 006073132X). It's pretty lite reading, but it will make you laugh and make you angry and make you wish you knew more about statistical methodogies so you could prove this guy wrong.
Thanks for checking in. :-)
Friday, May 06, 2005
[*] from communiosanctorum.com ...
This note is in reference to the article, authored by Tim Enloe. It was sent to the folks at communio sanctorum as a letter to the editor.
The question, really, is whether “definitive” can mean “reformable” at all. This seems to be a stacked deck to me. In the first case, we have Tim’s assertion (which, broadly speaking, I can agree with) that just because some body makes a “definitive” statement doesn’t mean that statement has no flaws. But the corollary Tim seems to draw is that his adversaries want to assert (as he does later in his essay as a negative example), “The only reality in which a ‘no tradition / no mediation / no publicly binding proclamation’ scenario could even possibly work would be a solipsist (only one person existing) universe, and if solipsism is true…well, let’s just not even go there.” That is to say, there is nothing “definitive” about authority in the church.
There is a “third way” (at least; there may be more than just one more way) which Tim seems to overlook, and that is the matter of clearly distinguishing between the essentials of the faith, the derivative primary attributes of the faith, and the derivative secondary and tertiary attributes of the faith.
Now what does all that mean? Well, in the first place, it means that there is a core set of beliefs that are necessary to be called a “Christian” – I am sure you guys can agree with that since, so far, I haven’t seen you endorsing Millet’s new book from Eerdman’s (oh wait: you just did) or running out to group-hug TD Jakes (…). So what is that core set of beliefs? It has to be “the Gospel”. If it is not “the Gospel” – the good news God has revealed to man through Jesus Christ – then whatever you are talking about has nothing to do with whatever it is I’m talking about.
But what is “the Gospel”? The apostle Paul sums it up in 1Cor 15, qualifying his statement thus: “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.” The Gospel “by which you are saved” is that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures”. The list of appearances Paul tallies after that are the underscoring of the point that Christ rose from the dead – that there is a multitude of witnesses to the fact.
Now we can demand a lot of unpacking from this place – Who and what is “Christ”? What does “died for our sins” mean? Who is the “us” implied in “our”? Why is it relevant that this is “according to the Scriptures”? Why is “raised on the third day” a matter of core doctrine? I think we can agree that these presuppositions are essential to what Paul is saying – and it is in those matters that we disqualify guys like Joseph Smith (well, most of us anyway) and Arius and Pelagius from orthodoxy (or, perhaps in your terms, catholicity).
But we are faced with the matter that some things are derived from this summary of the Gospel which are also essential to the Gospel. For example, Paul himself says that the resurrection of the dead is a necessary derivative belief of the resurrection of Christ: it is a cornerstone of hope for the believer. But look what he says in that same context of 1Cor 15: we can see the hope that some people have in the resurrection because they are baptizing themselves for the sake of the dead in the hope it might do them some good.
Let’s admit that we probably don’t know for sure what Paul means by “baptism for the sake of the dead here”, yes? But wouldn’t you (all of you at Communio Sanctorum) deny that baptism for the benefit of the dead is not an orthodox practice? Another explanation which seems popular in commentary on this passage is that Paul means “baptism for the sake of the testimony of the martyrs”. That seems to fit systematically a little better within the normal bounds of orthodoxy, but its interpretation of what “huper” here implies is rather strained. Whatever the meaning of this statement, here Paul points out that even these people who do such a thing, they are doing it because of a strong confidence in the matter of the resurrection. That is to say, Paul underscores the essential nature of the matter of the general resurrection but indicating how important it is even in the errors it causes some people to make.
So the Gospel itself is the work of Christ; a primary derivative is any result for the believer (sanctification, repentance, resurrection, etc.). But what about secondary and tertiary derivative matters? For example, what about the matter of baptism – which is apparently one of the bases for Tim’s inclusion of all Roman Catholics in the “catholic” (small “c” noted) church? Let me be clear as always when I bring this up that in no way am I saying that Baptism ought to be skipped, or that it is “optional” for Christians. What I am saying is that while Baptism is required of the believer – that no believer should be unbaptized – the matter of “why” is frankly open to discussion between those who have faith in the Gospel. But because it is open to discussion, it cannot be the basis for establishing the catholicity/orthodoxy of any particular sect or denomination.
And my point in detailing this out is that there is a difference between making orthodoxy/catholicity a matter of “either all of the pronouncements of a set of councils or men gave out or nothing but a Gnostic fairy tail”, and making orthodoxy a clear-cut division between what the Apostles taught (which we receive in Scripture) and what attempts to displace that teaching.
It is a grave error to take any of the derivative matters of the faith and, placing the cart before the horse, make them a pass/fail criterion for accepting the Gospel. For example, when a Baptist says that Baptism is for the believer only and is an outward manifestation of an inward truth, but some other person says that this view of Baptism is “Gnostic” and heretical because it denies intrinsic matters of efficacy in the sacrament, there is a pretty clear problem. It may be true that the Baptist has too-narrow or too-simple a view of Baptism which excludes something important about the act (though as a Baptist I think that’s not true), but for the other party to call this view of Baptism “Gnostic” is, in the first place, placing the matter of Baptism inside “the Gospel” as presuppositional truth and not a derivative truth (therefore adding to the Gospel). In the second place it is overlooking that there is no action taken by undisputed councils which ever calls this view of baptism “heretical”. Making the stand that Baptism is for the believer is, in fact, the view espoused by Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon – and I would be glad to make that case with any of you under any circumstances.
Let me say it with clarity: “definitive” acts of councils are themselves not eternal decrees – and while we are certainly obligated to understand them, examine them, and accept them as artifacts of the intermediate authorities that have ruled the church in time, we are not obligated to take any of them as unquestionable, and must subject them to the final arbiter of doctrine, which is God through His word.
But one of the very interesting things Whitaker also wrote was a treatise entitled “THE ROMAN PONTIFF IS THAT ANTICHRIST whose presence scripture prophesied”, 1582. Just in case I have taken his title out of context, Whitaker explained his purpose in that treatise thus:
At any rate, it is interesting that Tim here affirms that all Christians are “Bible-loving”. I am certain that I can find right now examples of people Tim would call Christian – by virtue of their Roman Catholicism and baptism – who demean the value and truth of Scripture. Is it possible that if we use this definition which Tim has supplied we can start to make an in-road into the reason it is problematic to call a Roman Catholics “Christian” in the exact same way that it is problematic to call all “Protestants” and “Evangelicals” “Christians”?
One does not have to be a solipsist to admit that the church does not have the same kind of authority Christ Himself has – but in making that admission, one also has to have a care to say that Christ Himself does call the faithful into communion and into one body for the sake of the Gospel and God’s glory. Even the worst Campingite finds himself in a “church” of sorts, unified under the one droning voice of Harold Camping’s interpretation of prophecy; even the contextless “exegesis” of Dave Hunt finds itself being promulgated through the independent entities that use him as a doctrinal standard which we can only call “churches”. How much more charity can we have, then, for the poor uninformed “evangelical” that thinks the most important thing for him is that he own enough Bibles to get the right translation-plus-notes to hear Jesus’ voice clearly in Scripture, but attends his local assembly and participates in ministry there in one form or another?
I think the people Tim is here exhorting against are not actually in evidence – and the few that we can identify as clearly trying to say what he says here are not at all consistent in their view or practice of such a doctrine.
It is not a matter of radical, solipsistic individualism to say that decisions made by a council which are “definitive” or even “binding” have a final epistemological hurdle to overcome – and that is the hurdle of the individual accepting the verdict not just as “binding” or “authoritative” but as “just” and “relevant”. For better or worse, Doug Wilson says this to a person considering/advocating Roman Catholicism over at his blog, and while I do not agree with all of it (Can I admit I don’t understand all of it?) he makes a great point. Affirming that some authority is “infallible but only in special cases” is far worse than admitting some entity has authority but has the ability to make mistakes. If I understand his point (and I may not), an authority which confesses fallibility possesses the means of correcting its mistakes, while the other leads those in its charge into a far-worse situation where those who are supposed to follow don’t really know when to follow and when not to follow.
That applies to this situation in a specific way: even in Tim’s definition of “societas Christiana” and the application to corrupt rulers, Tim himself admits that the individual has no onus to submit to authority which is itself unjust or immoral or tears down the fabric of the context of the authority.
If that’s true, the Baptist who says, “I have read Chalcedon, I admit it had authority in its historical context to deliver this verdict, but I reject that verdict as irrelevant because it is not ‘wholly in line with Scripture’” is not victimizing himself through a solipsism. He is demonstrating the principle which Tim Enloe says he endorses – which is that there is a standard apart from the authority of human leaders, gathered even in the church, by which these men can and should rightly be judged – but the ones who are called to follow them.
I have said it elsewhere, but I say it here for clarity and emphasis: that doesn’t make every redecorating choice at the church or every word uttered by the teaching pastor subject to 95 theses on the cathedral door. But it does say that human leaders are subject to correction in relationship to the scope of the error.
However, I suspect that he would also answer “no” (in spite of his next question), in which case the matter is whether there are some errors you can make without being called a Gnostic Anabaptist or a pelagian or a docetist or donatist. And undoubtedly the answer there is “yes”, but it goes back to the matter of the scope of the essential Gospel and the distinctions between primary and secondary derivative doctrines.
Excuse me: there is one difference. Tim doesn’t care to address Hunt or Camping but does care to confront Svendsen, White and King – even though the former are representative of the things Tim claims to abhor and the latter cannot be found expressing these faults except through exaggeration.
-----
Note to all: I got sick of looking at the typos. Hope I caught them all.
Tim said: “Sola” Scriptura does not mean that we cannot have Councils and that they cannot lay down definitive rulings on matters of doctrine and practice; it just means that “definitive” cannot itself mean “irreformable”.There is no doubt that this is true – and I’m not sure that anyone who is an advocate of sola Scriptura (even those with whom Tim seems constantly at odds) would disagree with him. There are certainly those who claim to use “the Bible alone” to form their doctrine, but those misinformed evangelicals and post-evangelicals are not the ones Tim is talking to or about here – because many of them would be the ones who agree with him that it’s unfair and frankly unchristian to disqualify the teachings of Rome as Christian in the sense that it is a false gospel.
The question, really, is whether “definitive” can mean “reformable” at all. This seems to be a stacked deck to me. In the first case, we have Tim’s assertion (which, broadly speaking, I can agree with) that just because some body makes a “definitive” statement doesn’t mean that statement has no flaws. But the corollary Tim seems to draw is that his adversaries want to assert (as he does later in his essay as a negative example), “The only reality in which a ‘no tradition / no mediation / no publicly binding proclamation’ scenario could even possibly work would be a solipsist (only one person existing) universe, and if solipsism is true…well, let’s just not even go there.” That is to say, there is nothing “definitive” about authority in the church.
There is a “third way” (at least; there may be more than just one more way) which Tim seems to overlook, and that is the matter of clearly distinguishing between the essentials of the faith, the derivative primary attributes of the faith, and the derivative secondary and tertiary attributes of the faith.
Now what does all that mean? Well, in the first place, it means that there is a core set of beliefs that are necessary to be called a “Christian” – I am sure you guys can agree with that since, so far, I haven’t seen you endorsing Millet’s new book from Eerdman’s (oh wait: you just did) or running out to group-hug TD Jakes (…). So what is that core set of beliefs? It has to be “the Gospel”. If it is not “the Gospel” – the good news God has revealed to man through Jesus Christ – then whatever you are talking about has nothing to do with whatever it is I’m talking about.
But what is “the Gospel”? The apostle Paul sums it up in 1Cor 15, qualifying his statement thus: “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.” The Gospel “by which you are saved” is that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures”. The list of appearances Paul tallies after that are the underscoring of the point that Christ rose from the dead – that there is a multitude of witnesses to the fact.
Now we can demand a lot of unpacking from this place – Who and what is “Christ”? What does “died for our sins” mean? Who is the “us” implied in “our”? Why is it relevant that this is “according to the Scriptures”? Why is “raised on the third day” a matter of core doctrine? I think we can agree that these presuppositions are essential to what Paul is saying – and it is in those matters that we disqualify guys like Joseph Smith (well, most of us anyway) and Arius and Pelagius from orthodoxy (or, perhaps in your terms, catholicity).
But we are faced with the matter that some things are derived from this summary of the Gospel which are also essential to the Gospel. For example, Paul himself says that the resurrection of the dead is a necessary derivative belief of the resurrection of Christ: it is a cornerstone of hope for the believer. But look what he says in that same context of 1Cor 15: we can see the hope that some people have in the resurrection because they are baptizing themselves for the sake of the dead in the hope it might do them some good.
Let’s admit that we probably don’t know for sure what Paul means by “baptism for the sake of the dead here”, yes? But wouldn’t you (all of you at Communio Sanctorum) deny that baptism for the benefit of the dead is not an orthodox practice? Another explanation which seems popular in commentary on this passage is that Paul means “baptism for the sake of the testimony of the martyrs”. That seems to fit systematically a little better within the normal bounds of orthodoxy, but its interpretation of what “huper” here implies is rather strained. Whatever the meaning of this statement, here Paul points out that even these people who do such a thing, they are doing it because of a strong confidence in the matter of the resurrection. That is to say, Paul underscores the essential nature of the matter of the general resurrection but indicating how important it is even in the errors it causes some people to make.
So the Gospel itself is the work of Christ; a primary derivative is any result for the believer (sanctification, repentance, resurrection, etc.). But what about secondary and tertiary derivative matters? For example, what about the matter of baptism – which is apparently one of the bases for Tim’s inclusion of all Roman Catholics in the “catholic” (small “c” noted) church? Let me be clear as always when I bring this up that in no way am I saying that Baptism ought to be skipped, or that it is “optional” for Christians. What I am saying is that while Baptism is required of the believer – that no believer should be unbaptized – the matter of “why” is frankly open to discussion between those who have faith in the Gospel. But because it is open to discussion, it cannot be the basis for establishing the catholicity/orthodoxy of any particular sect or denomination.
And my point in detailing this out is that there is a difference between making orthodoxy/catholicity a matter of “either all of the pronouncements of a set of councils or men gave out or nothing but a Gnostic fairy tail”, and making orthodoxy a clear-cut division between what the Apostles taught (which we receive in Scripture) and what attempts to displace that teaching.
It is a grave error to take any of the derivative matters of the faith and, placing the cart before the horse, make them a pass/fail criterion for accepting the Gospel. For example, when a Baptist says that Baptism is for the believer only and is an outward manifestation of an inward truth, but some other person says that this view of Baptism is “Gnostic” and heretical because it denies intrinsic matters of efficacy in the sacrament, there is a pretty clear problem. It may be true that the Baptist has too-narrow or too-simple a view of Baptism which excludes something important about the act (though as a Baptist I think that’s not true), but for the other party to call this view of Baptism “Gnostic” is, in the first place, placing the matter of Baptism inside “the Gospel” as presuppositional truth and not a derivative truth (therefore adding to the Gospel). In the second place it is overlooking that there is no action taken by undisputed councils which ever calls this view of baptism “heretical”. Making the stand that Baptism is for the believer is, in fact, the view espoused by Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon – and I would be glad to make that case with any of you under any circumstances.
Let me say it with clarity: “definitive” acts of councils are themselves not eternal decrees – and while we are certainly obligated to understand them, examine them, and accept them as artifacts of the intermediate authorities that have ruled the church in time, we are not obligated to take any of them as unquestionable, and must subject them to the final arbiter of doctrine, which is God through His word.
Tim said: I am not sure that any Bible-loving Christian (and is there any other kind of Christian?) could have any sort of problem with Whitaker’s “proviso”, for unless one holds that all of divine revelation is not contained in the Scriptures (whether 66 or 73 books is, at this point, irrelevant), then it follows that the Scriptures must be the final verification of anything in the Christian religion since they are the very voice of God Himself.The first thing to say here is that Tim betrays himself pretty badly here – because it is actually important what constitutes God’s word (66 or 72 books) if we adopt Whitaker’s proviso. Rome itself even thinks this is so in its anathemas against those who would not count the books Jerome would not count.
But one of the very interesting things Whitaker also wrote was a treatise entitled “THE ROMAN PONTIFF IS THAT ANTICHRIST whose presence scripture prophesied”, 1582. Just in case I have taken his title out of context, Whitaker explained his purpose in that treatise thus:
- It is my primary purpose and hope that, after I have presented my case, there will be no room for doubt, but that the distinct officeholder of the Papacy, its Pontiff who boasts so much, is the true and only Antichrist. As such, those who do not wish eternal perdition ought to curse him and flee from his fellowship. Moreover, I shall proceed according to the prescribed rules of debate. In this way, if there are contrary arguments which may appear to dispute my initial arguments, I will not pass over them that I may demonstrate scriptural authority has already satisfactorily answered them, leaving no possibility of a differing interpretation. That being said, I now set forth to prove the matter at hand, refuting the arguments of our adversaries in my response.
At any rate, it is interesting that Tim here affirms that all Christians are “Bible-loving”. I am certain that I can find right now examples of people Tim would call Christian – by virtue of their Roman Catholicism and baptism – who demean the value and truth of Scripture. Is it possible that if we use this definition which Tim has supplied we can start to make an in-road into the reason it is problematic to call a Roman Catholics “Christian” in the exact same way that it is problematic to call all “Protestants” and “Evangelicals” “Christians”?
Tim said: Whatever errors Rome may or may not embody in her praxis on the matter of Scripture and Tradition, it is just as impossible for we Reformed folks to get away from some concept or another of a “Churchly interpreter” as it is for the Roman Catholics. The only reality in which a “no tradition / no mediation / no publicly binding proclamation” scenario could even possibly work would be a solipsist (only one person existing) universe, and if solipsism is true…well, let’s just not even go there.There is no doubt whatsoever that the Protestant accepts the institution of the church – any who do not ought not to be rightly called “Protestants”, because the point of protest, the matter of reformation which they took up and which we take up today, was and is a matter of protesting dubious authority being exercised in the church, and reforming the church itself to a standard of ruling authority which does not usurp God’s position as God.
One does not have to be a solipsist to admit that the church does not have the same kind of authority Christ Himself has – but in making that admission, one also has to have a care to say that Christ Himself does call the faithful into communion and into one body for the sake of the Gospel and God’s glory. Even the worst Campingite finds himself in a “church” of sorts, unified under the one droning voice of Harold Camping’s interpretation of prophecy; even the contextless “exegesis” of Dave Hunt finds itself being promulgated through the independent entities that use him as a doctrinal standard which we can only call “churches”. How much more charity can we have, then, for the poor uninformed “evangelical” that thinks the most important thing for him is that he own enough Bibles to get the right translation-plus-notes to hear Jesus’ voice clearly in Scripture, but attends his local assembly and participates in ministry there in one form or another?
I think the people Tim is here exhorting against are not actually in evidence – and the few that we can identify as clearly trying to say what he says here are not at all consistent in their view or practice of such a doctrine.
Tim asked: What does it mean to say that a doctrine is “wholly” in line with Scripture?It means that a doctrine taught conveys the scope/depth of clarity, meaning and gravity conveyed by Scripture on the given topic. I would go so far as to say that doctrine is often the contemporary translation of moral/theological concept into actionable directives.
Tim asked: Who decides on the historical plane that we all inhabit if a doctrine is “wholly” in line with Scripture, and how is such decided?On the “historic plane”, I think the answer is “no one” – because no person exists on a “historic plane”. That is not to say that some person must decide the point: it means that the decision is moot unless some person is living it out. I have provided an example of this to Tim in the context of the council of Chalcedon, but due to my inability to read all he publishes I have not seen his final response on the matter.
It is not a matter of radical, solipsistic individualism to say that decisions made by a council which are “definitive” or even “binding” have a final epistemological hurdle to overcome – and that is the hurdle of the individual accepting the verdict not just as “binding” or “authoritative” but as “just” and “relevant”. For better or worse, Doug Wilson says this to a person considering/advocating Roman Catholicism over at his blog, and while I do not agree with all of it (Can I admit I don’t understand all of it?) he makes a great point. Affirming that some authority is “infallible but only in special cases” is far worse than admitting some entity has authority but has the ability to make mistakes. If I understand his point (and I may not), an authority which confesses fallibility possesses the means of correcting its mistakes, while the other leads those in its charge into a far-worse situation where those who are supposed to follow don’t really know when to follow and when not to follow.
That applies to this situation in a specific way: even in Tim’s definition of “societas Christiana” and the application to corrupt rulers, Tim himself admits that the individual has no onus to submit to authority which is itself unjust or immoral or tears down the fabric of the context of the authority.
If that’s true, the Baptist who says, “I have read Chalcedon, I admit it had authority in its historical context to deliver this verdict, but I reject that verdict as irrelevant because it is not ‘wholly in line with Scripture’” is not victimizing himself through a solipsism. He is demonstrating the principle which Tim Enloe says he endorses – which is that there is a standard apart from the authority of human leaders, gathered even in the church, by which these men can and should rightly be judged – but the ones who are called to follow them.
I have said it elsewhere, but I say it here for clarity and emphasis: that doesn’t make every redecorating choice at the church or every word uttered by the teaching pastor subject to 95 theses on the cathedral door. But it does say that human leaders are subject to correction in relationship to the scope of the error.
Tim asked: Has anyone in the history of the Christian religion ever held a complete theology that is “wholly” in line with Scripture?The answer is transparently “no” – except for Jesus Christ – and if Tim would answer “yes”, then he should name them here.
However, I suspect that he would also answer “no” (in spite of his next question), in which case the matter is whether there are some errors you can make without being called a Gnostic Anabaptist or a pelagian or a docetist or donatist. And undoubtedly the answer there is “yes”, but it goes back to the matter of the scope of the essential Gospel and the distinctions between primary and secondary derivative doctrines.
Tim said: How should we respond to others who approach our “wholly in line with Scripture” theologizing with rather different conceptions of what “wholly in line with Scripture” entails?I don’t know anybody who thinks their whole theological system is “wholly in line with Scripture,” Tim. I think we are all under the impression that we have harmonized the hard parts the best that we can, but that the hard parts still have not been addressed with no questions to be answered. The real problems – the ones people like me are willing to draw the dividing line over – are when people take relatively-clear (if advanced) passages of Scripture which teach doctrine and simply do not read these the way they would read any other passage. The perfect – unquestionably the best – example of this is John 6, if you want to understand what I am saying.
Tim Said: Mistaking the Reformation of the 16th century for a “starting from scratch and always starting from scratch” phenomenon whose greatest purpose in life is to always point out everybody else’s sins, it deforms Reformed theology and hands the cause of the Reformation to the Roman Catholics on a silver platter.I think that Tim here demonstrates his last mistake, which is lumping people together. See: in Tim’s argument, David King, Harold Camping, James White, Dave Hunt and Eric Svendsen are all alike – all the same kind of ignoramus with different kinds of rhetoric. The problem is that all of these men represent a lot of different things – not the least of which is points on the line between traditional beliefs and idiosyncratic beliefs, and points on a line between studied and educated opinions and randy, institutionalize shilling. There’s no difference to Tim between David King’s research on the substantive definition and history of sola Scriptura and Dave Hunt’s inane murmurings about Hebraic redactions of Acts 1-14; there’s no difference between Eric Svendsen’s accredited thesis on the Lord’s table and Harold Camping’s unjustifiable call to flee the local church because the Holy Spirit has left the world.
Excuse me: there is one difference. Tim doesn’t care to address Hunt or Camping but does care to confront Svendsen, White and King – even though the former are representative of the things Tim claims to abhor and the latter cannot be found expressing these faults except through exaggeration.
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Note to all: I got sick of looking at the typos. Hope I caught them all.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
[#] Who are the Curious?
Main Entry: cu·ri·ous
Pronunciation: 'kyur-E-&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French curios, from Latin curiosus careful, inquisitive, from cura cure
1 a archaic : made carefully b obsolete : ABSTRUSE c archaic : precisely accurate
2 a : marked by desire to investigate and learn b : marked by inquisitive interest in others' concerns : NOSY
3 : exciting attention as strange, novel, or unexpected : ODD
These are the curious -- not the inquisitive, but the ones who are strange, novel, or unexpected.
It's unexplored country, I think. It's a culture not ever touched by the Gospel. It's like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, except that it is also like Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy.
Pronunciation: 'kyur-E-&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French curios, from Latin curiosus careful, inquisitive, from cura cure
1 a archaic : made carefully b obsolete : ABSTRUSE c archaic : precisely accurate
2 a : marked by desire to investigate and learn b : marked by inquisitive interest in others' concerns : NOSY
3 : exciting attention as strange, novel, or unexpected : ODD
These are the curious -- not the inquisitive, but the ones who are strange, novel, or unexpected.
It's unexplored country, I think. It's a culture not ever touched by the Gospel. It's like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, except that it is also like Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
[#] Missionary to the Curious (2)
MaryNotMartha (hereafter “MNM”) gave us her insights a couple of days ago about the state of Christdom (as you may have seen on the last blog post). Here’s my response to MNM. She said:
See: the Pope doesn’t ask anyone to “honor” him (cf. “honor thy father and thy mother”), but to obey him unquestionably – to accept that when he affirms something regarding faith and morals, he is never in error. Yes, yes: I am familiar with the objection that every utterance from his Pontifical mouth is not subject to this interesting kerygma. Let’s keep the discussion as specific as possible.
Here is something the Pope has said which must be taken infallibly:
“Well, shoot, cent,” you say, “1950? That doesn’t have anything to do with John Paul II, and in that I can honor JPII but understand that whatever the Pope said in 1950 was, well, his own trip.”
Yes, that would be fine if we were talking about the Truman doctrine or Soviet Agricultural policy. Unfortunately for us – and our hunger to find allies in anybody who says the name “Jesus” outside of cursing – we are talking about the Pope and his teaching role in Catholicism. Now what is that role exactly? Well, it turns out the John Paul II did a very handy thing in publishing a comprehensive Catechism c. 1993 (sometimes noted as the 1994 catechism). Here’s what he says about the Pope’s teachings inclusively, in paragraph 891:
So I am left wondering what you mean by “I honor the Pope.” You don’t mean what he means by “honoring” him, I am sure. However, I am interested in what you mean.
Next we have:
To be clear, just because one is not Catholic does not make one “Protestant”. Mormons are not Protestant; JWs are not Protestant; Hindus and Jews and Muslims are not Protestants. “Protestant” refers to a position defined in the Reformation by the 5 solas and opposition to the anathemas from Rome at Trent. When someone can’t even name the 5 solas and has no idea what happened at Trent, then it’s pretty hard to call them “Protestants”.
Non-denominational evangelicalism, in my opinion, is far more guilty of dumbing-down doctrines and misusing Christian liberty than actual “Protestantism”, though I’d be willing to allow that some historically-“Protestant” denominations have, in the last 30 or 40 years, completely fumbled the ball and have suffered for it.
I'm a protestant evangelical, and I honor the pope.Well, MNM, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. If we simply concede the word “evangelical”, what do you mean by the words “protestant” (small “P” noted), “honor”, and “pope”?
See: the Pope doesn’t ask anyone to “honor” him (cf. “honor thy father and thy mother”), but to obey him unquestionably – to accept that when he affirms something regarding faith and morals, he is never in error. Yes, yes: I am familiar with the objection that every utterance from his Pontifical mouth is not subject to this interesting kerygma. Let’s keep the discussion as specific as possible.
Here is something the Pope has said which must be taken infallibly:
- we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.
45. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.
…
47. It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
“Well, shoot, cent,” you say, “1950? That doesn’t have anything to do with John Paul II, and in that I can honor JPII but understand that whatever the Pope said in 1950 was, well, his own trip.”
Yes, that would be fine if we were talking about the Truman doctrine or Soviet Agricultural policy. Unfortunately for us – and our hunger to find allies in anybody who says the name “Jesus” outside of cursing – we are talking about the Pope and his teaching role in Catholicism. Now what is that role exactly? Well, it turns out the John Paul II did a very handy thing in publishing a comprehensive Catechism c. 1993 (sometimes noted as the 1994 catechism). Here’s what he says about the Pope’s teachings inclusively, in paragraph 891:
"The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful - who confirms his brethren in the faith he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals.... the infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium"Translation: A Pope is a Pope, and if he says something is doctrine, we all have to believe it. Hence: you either believe that Mary was assumed into heaven as a non-negotiable part of the faith, or you “incur the wrath of Almighty God”.
So I am left wondering what you mean by “I honor the Pope.” You don’t mean what he means by “honoring” him, I am sure. However, I am interested in what you mean.
Next we have:
Many protestant's have perverted the message of justification through faith to mean that they can live as they chose, without the cost of discipleship.’k, I admit that I think this is the kind of teaching you find at various, un-named Megachurches with pastors who have TV shows on TBN, but I do not know of any person I would call a “Protestant” who thinks “justification through faith” means “free ticket to sin”.
To be clear, just because one is not Catholic does not make one “Protestant”. Mormons are not Protestant; JWs are not Protestant; Hindus and Jews and Muslims are not Protestants. “Protestant” refers to a position defined in the Reformation by the 5 solas and opposition to the anathemas from Rome at Trent. When someone can’t even name the 5 solas and has no idea what happened at Trent, then it’s pretty hard to call them “Protestants”.
Non-denominational evangelicalism, in my opinion, is far more guilty of dumbing-down doctrines and misusing Christian liberty than actual “Protestantism”, though I’d be willing to allow that some historically-“Protestant” denominations have, in the last 30 or 40 years, completely fumbled the ball and have suffered for it.
This is not true faith, and will be the downfall of the protestant church.I agree that saying “justification by faith” = “liberty to do anything you please” is a false gospel. The question is if “You must accept the assumption of Mary or face God’s wrath” is a false gospel or not.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
[#] Missionary to the Curious (1)
Well. So I make the offer to start evangelism to the curious, and someone we can call "MaryNotMartha" posts a couple of kind remarks and finds my post on John Paul II. For those of you who didn't catch her comments posted on Saturday, she said:
I'm a protestant evangelical, and I honor the pope.MaryNotMarha: I am sure the other readers of this blog would love to say a few things about your statement, and I ask them to try and keep their comments to 150 words or less, channel rules apply. If you don't know what "channel rules" are, stick to non-profane language and a civil tone, vis. 1Pet 3:15-16. I'll log in some time on Tuesday to post my reply to your statement.
Many protestant's have perverted the message of justification through faith to mean that they can live as they chose, without the cost of discipleship.
This is not true faith, and will be the downfall of the protestant church.
As you undoubtedly noticed, I like comics. I wouldn't call myself a "fan boy" because I don't give a flying FOOM what they are worth. That said, almost all the images on my blog are scanned from comics I own -- so they are scanned from comics I own and are used under what I assume is 
