Considering the Lenses I Wear

How we view events is shaped, or colored, by the lenses we wear. Those lenses can help us to see more clearly, or distort what we see.

When I lived in NH I found a pair of amber sunglasses in a store. This was before they were “tech glasses” and part of the “only sold of TV” brands that are now also sold in Wal-Mart. But I digress. I loved them because I could wear them at night due to the glare of headlights. But everything looked yellow. They helped me to see more, but also colored how I saw things.

Most of us lack self-awareness. We don’t realize the lenses we wear when we examine events. But like those amber lenses, they filter and sometimes distort. These lenses are part of our worldview, but not simply our worldview. They can reflect our experiences, and our idols. They are not simply ideological but can include that.

From the Relational Wisdom360 curriculum

I’ve written how the Covid-19 Controversy/Crisis reveals our idols. The crisis has produced controversy on a number of fronts connected to how to understand the disease, treat the disease and respond to the disease. Some people are aware of their lenses, and others …. not so much.

If we respond “You want people to die” (the new ‘you’re  Hitler’) it’s probably a good indication that we lack both self-awareness and other-awareness. We haven’t stopped to think what drives us, what is driving them, and particularly what God thinks about both.

I thought I’d lay my cards on the table. Here are the lenses I am looking through to understand this controversy/crisis.

Pastor:

I am vocationally a pastor which means I am theologically trained. I am also trained as a counselor meaning, in both cases, I see theology as something to applied to personal lives. This has a number of doctrines in view but I’ll focus on the providence of God and our creation in the image of God.

This crisis is not accidental, and not arbitrary. It happens within God’s plan and purpose for both humanity and individuals. While the prospect of death and the loss of others I love is not pleasant, I’m not scared. The fact that I can’t control it doesn’t mean it is out of control. Or that the virus is in control. It doesn’t “speak” to us, though we gain information through data compilation and analysis.

If we were to ask why God would ordain a pandemic we’d have to add the doctrine of sin into the mix. I’m not talking about personal sin but Adam’s sin and our condition as sinners in a fallen world. Adam’s disobedience as our covenant head (representative before God) brought all of us into the consequences of sin: what we call the curse while on earth, and death. Adam sinned and everybody dies.

So, I’m NOT saying the people who die are bigger sinners than those who do. We are all in the same boat. We just die differently. Therefore I see death as ordinary, though often unexpected and untimely. The process of death can be quite unpleasant.

As a pastor I’ve been with people who knew they  were dying (usually cancer), as well as with people as they die. I’ve heard death rattles, that final breath as people shed the mortal coil. I’ve had to face death up close and personal and therefore don’t live in a fairy tale land where people don’t die. They die every single day and nothing we do will stop that.

The providence of God doesn’t rule out what we call secondary means. We have responsibility to take reasonable means in the case of a pandemic. So, don’t interpret what I’m saying as “do nothing, God will take care of it.” However, someone who takes even the greatest of measures for protection can get sick.

We were made in the image of God. There are a number of aspects to this. Here are a few: we were made to live in community and we were made to both work and rest.

How do I get there? Well, in 1 John we read “God is love.” Augustine is one of the more famous theologians to use this profound statement as proof of the Trinity. The lover must have a beloved. The eternal love  must have an eternal subject and object. God has subsisted eternally as Trinity, a community of love and fellowship between Father, Son and Spirit.

Made in the likeness of this God, we were made to live in loving fellowship with God and other human beings- witnessed in the creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, as well as God’s provision of marriage as a one flesh union. Made to love, I see our prolonged stay at home orders (like solitary confinement) to be contrary to our nature, devolving the image of God and therefore destructive to our mental health. As people with bodies as well as souls love includes both body and soul, and therefore this new norm of Zoom meetings is a sad, insufficient substitute. We criticize the younger generations as the text generation, but now we are becoming people who have to rely on it. We were made to hug, hold hands, shake hands etc., not withhold ourselves from each other assuming they have a deadly plague.

In Genesis 1-2 we see God working 6 days and resting on the 7th. God works, setting a pattern for us. That this is part of the image is clarified in the 10 Commandments (Ex. 20 & Deut. 5). We are to work 6 days (we forget this part) and rest one (many seem to resent this one). There can be reasons in God’s providence we don’t work (disability or unemployment). But for an otherwise healthy person to not work is difficult psychologically because we are made in God’s image.

I’ve been through periods of unemployment and the problem is far beyond the bank account. Men, in particular, struggle emotionally with not working outside the home. A man who does not work is more prone to drug abuse, depression and suicide. Families forced to stay at home, especially if one can’t work, is dangerous. We are already seeing increases in domestic violence, child abuse (sexual, physical and emotional) and suicides.

Sorry, Governor Cuomo, some of these are death, and some of these haunt people their whole lives. Look in the eyes of sexual abuse victim, Governor, and tell them if was for the greater good.(Yes, he ticks me off)

“You just want people to die!” minimizes the real suffering we are causing by our actions. Death is inevitable, sexual abuse, suicide, drug addiction & overdose are not.

Economist:

My undergraduate degree is in Economics. I went to Boston University long before AOC went there for her PhD in Economics. When I was there in the 80’s the professors frowned upon Keynesian economics (dependence upon government intervention instead of the self-correcting market). Von Mises and Hayak were never mentioned, but they pretty much could have been. Government intervention was seen as essentially “flattening the curve”: while making the correction less intense, it also prolonged the inevitable correction. Depressions and recessions became longer, not shorter. You don’t spend your way out, in part, because you create new problems.

Right now government expenditures are going through the roof and revenues are plummeting since many people are prohibited from working. This is unsustainable as some states are teetering on bankruptcy (due to decades of financial mismanagement brought to crisis point earlier than anticipated by the crisis) and looking to a federal government deeply in debt to bail them out. Other nations are in the same boat too! But money doesn’t grow on trees, it is earned. We are creating an unsupportable debt for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren so we can not work now.

Oh, you may say, we can just print more money. Well, that makes the money worth less and eventually worthless. During Carter’s presidency we had “stagflation”, high unemployment and high inflation. People weren’t working to make money and the value of what they made (or given to them by government) was diminishing so you could buy less and less with what little you had. Eventually you hit hyperinflation. Look at Venezuela, people!

Do we really want to do that to ourselves? To our children? Grandchildren? How many livelihoods is a life worth? In other words, how many lives do we have to trash to save a life? As a pastor, I care about and for those people. They aren’t just a statistic to me.

Am I heartless? No. I am a realist. People die, every day. We assume risk every day because we can’t afford to eliminate risk. People die in car accidents every day because we can’t afford to eliminate that possibility. This is but one example. But look at the other diseases people die from daily. We could potentially eliminate them but we can’t afford to. Even when we poor tons of money into research, decades don’t always produce the cure we want (cancer, Aids, Alzheimer’s etc.). We have to think of polio as the exception, not the rule. But plenty of people still die of leprosy, malaria and measles each year despite there being vaccines and treatments.

A Parent:

I love my kids. I want to be here for my kids, but I know that is not guaranteed. I learned that as a child. On one side of my house lived the Baileys. They had 2 kids younger than me. He died of cancer when they were about 7 and 5. On the other side was my friend Jason whose father died of a heart attack when we were about 8. I can’t control whether or not I’m around to see them graduate and get married. I want to be, and don’t take unnecessary risks.

I care about how my kids will live as adults. I don’t want them living on the dole. They are healthy and productive. They should be able to provide for themselves. But the choices we make as a nation now may rob them of that. Those choice may limit educational opportunities, vocational choices and their social/emotional health.

A Son (and Grandson):

I lost both of my grandfathers when I was 5. I’m thankful that my kids know their grandfathers. They have a gift I didn’t have. Not everyone gets that gift, and we’re not in control of that.

Earlier this year my mom died. She had Alzheimer’s. Her memory faded quickly, but her body didn’t. The insurance was going to run out this year. I hated what it was doing to my father, and could do to him financially. When she died from a stroke in January we grieved, and were relieved. Those things were not mutually exclusive. I know the sorrow of death, but I also know it is inevitable. And unpredictable. I don’t want people to die, but I accept that people do die.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with my take on the controversy. I don’t want everyone to die, but I acknowledge they will. There is nothing we can do about that. We may postpone it in some cases, but even that is under the providence of God. Our (American) God-wish is a fantasy. We do need to think about the living and what this does to them, not simply the sorrow but the life we are creating for them a few years down the road. We are left with difficult choices, and those require some compromises.

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Considering Boundaries for Leaders

I used to read a fair amount of Henry Cloud. Tapes of his were common in my car for a few years while I was going through an MA program in Counseling. I ran a Boundaries group with a classmate of mine as well.

At some point Cloud seems to have shifted from counseling to consulting. He applies the same psychological concepts and adding some results of research in neuroscience to the business world.

As I was looking for a book on effective leadership, Boundaries for Leaders caught my eye. Most books on leadership I’ve read have been about being a godly person as well as some of the struggles of leadership. I was looking for something that focused more on leading a group and building a culture. This book looked like it may be helpful.

“.. the leader sets the boundaries that will determine whether the vision and the people thrive or fail.”

Cloud begins with the reality that people matter. He doesn’t approach this from a theological view (imago dei) but rather the practical reality that bringing a vision to reality requires people. Healthy people have healthy boundaries, and so do healthy leadership groups. He identifies seven boundaries necessary for people’s brains to work efficiently.

Leaders are “always building teams and culture.” When an unhealthy team and culture are built, the team becomes dysfunctional and filled with blame games, pettiness, mediocrity and downward morale.

Culture is established by what you build or by what you allow. You can actively build a healthy culture or you can passively allow an unhealthy culture to form. The role of the leader is to actively build a culture. Boundaries can help us “cut through the noise” so we can make better decisions. The leader chooses what information to let in and what to keep out (not because it is ‘negative’ but unnecessary and distracting).

Cloud talks about leading so brains can work. He talks about the brain’s executive functions: attention, inhibition and working memory. Leaders set boundaries so this happens. You want to get rid of the “organizational ADD” and rabbit trails that keep you from getting work done. You also inhibit bad behavior. Getting the work done includes where you are going, how you are going to get there, persisting in getting there, the time frame to get there and solving problems in the way of getting there.

He shifts into the emotional climate that helps us perform. He talks about hijacking and flooding. Discussion devolves into yelling, accusations and the fight or flight response. The emotional tone of meetings is important, and boundaries can greatly affect that emotional tone. A healthy boundary keeps unhealthy attitudes and behavior out. People agree such actions or language are not permitted and self-police rather than watching a co-worker be attacked.

A healthy boundary allows critique, asking how can. we do this better?. It also prohibits criticism which focuses on what someone did wrong and feel much more like a personal attack.

He discusses both fear as a positive motivator and a destructive force. Fear of not having a job can motivate behavior. It is the fear of circumstances produced by bad behavior. When you are afraid of a person instead of concerned with an issue, it is destructive. You don’t act or speak as necessary because you are afraid of how someone will respond. He also brings in the notion of reward. He doesn’t formulate this in terms of covenant with blessings and sanctions, but that is essentially what Cloud is talking about.

He shifts to the importance of relationship in a leadership team. Healthy relationships reduce stress in the team. Just as failure to thrive as a child is a result of parental neglect, a failure to thrive professionally can be a result of neglect by leadership. Leadership fosters “connection and unity.” Where there is no positive connection suspicion, paranoia and conflict will thrive. That isn’t what you want to thrive. You need to invest in the team and its relationships. That includes conflict resolution, emotional repair and listening.

Good leadership provides a gate on thinking. Boundaries let in positive discussion but keeps out negativity. Negativity is called the “Can’t be Done” virus. Healthy thinking admits obstacles but doesn’t obsess on obstacles as unsolvable. Unhealthy thinking is also paralysis by analysis. When you try to keep that out, bad things can happen so be forewarned.

“Focus your people on what they have control of that directly affects the desired outcome of the organization.”

One tool of leadership is the relationship between control and results. You can’t necessarily control results, but you can control things that affect outcomes. You want to cultivate personal responsibility. Instead of trying to control everything, let “others be in control of what they should be in control of that drives results.” Make war on learned helplessness and address error repeaters. The way to change outcomes is to change the behaviors that affect outcomes.

“… what drives strong performance is a commitment to a shared vision and shared goals with behaviors and relationships aligned with reaching those goals.”

Cloud then shifts to trust. He talks about the things that build trust. If we don’t feel trust, we won’t invest ourselves in a project. Leaders are asking people to invest their hearts, minds and souls in them.

He then talks about boundaries for yourself. You don’t want your weaknesses to sink your ship, so establish boundaries so they don’t. He advocates for being an open system, receiving output from others. He addresses fear again. The bottom line is that “the first person you have to lead is yourself.”

“Remember, you never need new ways to fail. The old ones are working just fine. And until they are addressed, they will continue to work.”

He wraps up with three kinds of leaders: those aware of the issues in the book and inclined to apply them; those for whom this is new but are open to them; and those who will resist the notion that people are the plan and continue to just work the plan as if relationships were irrelevant in an organization.

This book is geared for the business world, which is different in some significant ways from the world of church leadership. Sometimes there are church staff for which this book applies most directly. When dealing with lay leadership it is more challenging. Enforcing boundaries can be trickier since there isn’t the motivation of a paycheck.

But this book gave me plenty to think about and apply as I try to shift the culture of our leadership and congregation. I think it was worth my time, and will be worth your time. At times it can be a little “rah, rah” but mostly this is helpful. I’ve begun to implement some of it already and will continue to discuss this among our leaders.

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Considering Uprooting Anger

I decided to read Uprooting Anger: Biblical Help for a Common Problem by Robert Jones on my study leave. The battle with unrighteous anger or anger expressed unrighteously is never over. I was looking for more help in the struggle. I had high hopes for this book based on the blurbs by Jerry Bridges, Ken Sande, and Paul David Tripp among others.

Do you suspect where I’m going here?

While parts of the book were helpful, I was generally frustrated (angry) and disappointed with the book.

Why would I be angry with a book on anger? I’m hoping that’s not just how I roll.

I think Jones and I have different starting points, presuppositions, regarding anger that led me to find the book less helpful than I had hoped. Perhaps I’ve made my personal struggle into an idol that Jones failed to appease. I don’t know.

But it starts early in what I take as a series of inconsistencies rather than distinctions. On page 18 he notes that most references to anger are about God. This leads him to say “In one sense, God is both the most loving and the most angry person on our planet.” That I agree with precisely because God is love. Unlike Tim Keller (in his sermon The Healing of Anger), Jones does not connect the two. Anger is a response, says Keller, to what we love being threatened.

Jones’ definition is that anger is our “whole-personed active response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil” (pp. 15). On page 19 he applies that to God, leaving in “perceived”. God rightly knows good and evil, there is no perception at play in God’s anger. He follows up slightly to say that “God’s anger is his perfect, pure, settled opposition to evil.” But that he’d pedagogically begin with “perceived” bothers me. Perhaps I’m too concerned with guarding the character of God. I’m not sure. But this sort of theme will pop up from time to time.

He does say that “righteous human anger imitates God’s anger.” But then says little/none of our anger is righteous. His focus is on “sinful human anger”. Perhaps I’d have been less frustrated if I inserted that phrase into any subsequent mentioning of anger. For instance, when he says “Anger is unlike God.” on page 163. This unqualified statement (in its context) makes anger ungodly. I don’t believe that (and neither does he, I suspect).

Additionally, he doesn’t really work out the reality of the imago dei. God revealed Himself to Moses as “slow to anger” (Ex. 34:6) on Sinai in what is a frequently quoted/referenced self-revelation of God. God is not quick triggered or short-fused. He’s not no anger, but slow anger (a phrase Keller uses in the aforementioned sermon). But He does get angry.

“That’s my secret, Captain, I’m always angry.”

God is not ruled by His anger. Unlike us He doesn’t lose it and go into a Hulk-like rage (even though Hulk may be defending something he loves). His is a wise, good, righteous, balanced opposition to the evil at work. It’s not “shock and awe” for the sake of “feeling better”.

James reflects this reality in saying we are to be “slow to anger” in James 1:19. Because I’m made in the image of God, I am to be similarly slow to anger, not to have no anger. I’m not supposed to be like David Banner in the mountains practicing Zen meditation so I’m not angry. Anger serves a purpose, one that I as a sinner am prone to corrupt. This James notes in the next verse. My fallen anger doesn’t help me live righteously.

Here is the crux of my struggle with this book. I get the putting unrighteous anger to death. That really isn’t where I am (or at least think I am). I want help in being “slow to anger” and in applying the Psalmist’s and Paul’s instruction to “Be angry and do not sin”. (Jones does have an appendix on this passage which deals with this text briefly. I’ll say that the imperative being concessive doesn’t remove the point- anger is not inherently sinful but how we do it often is. He seems quite afraid of anger like some people are afraid of alcohol instead of drunkenness.)

Additionally, he seems to make a mistake some, like Jay Adams have made. In the attempt to push back against psychobabble and the ungodly attempt to avoid responsibility he appears to go too far. “We must not blame our family members, our societies, our genes, our parents, our church leaders, society, our hormones, or the devil for our anger.” (pp. 71) Instead we should own that anger as ours. Okay, we do need to own it. But this severely lacks nuance. We shouldn’t blame those people, but as we work through sin we recognize that the curse affects us spiritually, physically, emotionally, socially etc. These can be contributing factors and may be a reason for compassion in light of such sins that may have been perpetrated against us.

Later, he talks about one motive for putting our sinful anger to death: the model we present others. We don’t want to be a bad example to our kids or others. He notes the impact of having an angry friend, being an angry friend. But refuses to put any of this into the equation of counseling wisely to understand how sin operates in your life. I struggle with the part of the biblical counseling movement that follows Jay Adams in doing this. Sometimes the angry person is also the bruised reed and smoldering wick. Life is not frequently clear cut.

I can’t recall where in the early portions of the book, but he says that righteous anger is only that which is God-ward in focus. This means only when I’m viewing the evil as against God. With this I struggle as well. I should be angry when my kids disrespect my wife. They are sinning against her (and God). I don’t think I have to differentiate this in my mind each time I response. But I do have to make sure I’m not sinning in my anger towards them.

This book left me frustrated because I got the impression that ALL my anger was sinful. While he occasionally mentioned the gospel, I was left feeling hopeless in my struggle until Jesus returns. This is part of why I think this wasn’t the book I needed to read, it was not the right medicine for me. Now, I could be completely wrong and just need to repent like he kept telling me. But help me to know, in more than a paragraph, when my anger is a good thing even though I have to be careful regarding how I express it. In this regard, Good & Angry by David Powlison was a much better book.

The book does have good points to it. He does a good job in applying James 4 to our anger. Much of it is about our idols. In this regard he’s tracking with Powlison and Keller. He gets, as do Tripp and Powilson, into the distinction between God’s kingdom and ours and how that drives our anger. Righteous anger tends to be about God’s kingdom (more helpful than his earlier statements) and unrighteous anger tends to be about my kingdom being blocked. We do need to be asking these questions of ourselves regarding our anger. He makes good distinctions in dealing with revealed and concealed anger. But even here the table of contents (perhaps the work of the editor) has “sinful revealing” and “sinful concealing”. Not much is about how to righteously reveal or conceal anger.

One of my existential struggles is discerning in a particular instance whether my anger is about what I think is blocking God’s kingdom, or blocking my kingdom. The heart is deceitful. The lines are not always clear. Perhaps I was demanding he help me resolve this pertinent issue for me, and he didn’t.

He also addresses anger against God and ourselves well.

So, the book has merit. If you are looking for a book focused on identifying and putting your sinful anger to death, then this will be a good book. If you are looking for a book that will also help you express proper anger in helpful ways, then Powlison will be a better choice for you.

 

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Considering Calvin and the Knowledge of Man and Free Will

In Calvin’s Institutes, the Essentials Edition, we’ve seen how the knowledge of God gives us a truer knowledge of ourselves. While made in His image, we have fallen into sin and unrighteousness. Instead of glorifying Him, we seek to glorify ourselves (make a name for ourselves) which typically means taking advantage of others and bringing shame to ourselves.

Knowledge of ourselves should humble us. We are not what we were intended to be, but a rather tawdry sham instead. We over-estimate our abilities and good deeds, while we minimize our faults, weakness and wrong-doing.

“However, the person who carefully measures himself by God’s standard finds nothing to give him inner confidence, and the more closely he studies himself, the more dejected he becomes until, bereft of hope, he has nothing to help him lead a well-ordered life.”

We have fallen so far from our created glory as the imago dei. The great endowments of Adam and Eve testified to the “Creator’s extraordinary generosity.” They had done nothing to receive these great gifts from His hand. Their disobedience stripped them of much this glory. “The heavenly image he bore was therefore erased; being estranged from God by sin he was likewise deprived of his share in the blessings which can only be had in him.”

This brings us to total, or radical, depravity. From the womb we are prone to sin. We are not born innocent and then personally fall when we sin for the first time. Calvin argues against Pelagianism briefly. We are not “basically good” and only in need of a good example but better ourselves. Calvin affirms original sin, “a hereditary corruption and perversion of our nature which in the first place renders us guilty of God’s wrath, and in the second produces in us those works which Scripture calls ‘works of the flesh’.”

I wish Calvin added “covenantal” to the hereditary. Adam was not just our father, but our covenant head. In this sense, we are also held accountable for his disobedience.

From here, Calvin moves into his discussion of the freedom of the will. Definitions matter greatly in this discussion, and often they are not laid out appropriately. Calvin notes two dangers: indifference and excessive boldness. When we stress our depravity, people can lapse into indifference or fatalism. They see themselves as unrecoverable, even by the God of grace. When we stress the imago dei, people can have a view of themselves that is unreasonably high, a sense of entitlement.

“To avoid both of these pitfalls, we will follow a middle course. Man must learn that there is no good in him, and that misery and want are all around him. But he must also understand how he may aim at the goodness he lacks and at the freedom which is denied him.”

He then moves to some philosophic theories of the mind and will. “The role of the will is to choose and follow whatever our mind judges to be good, and conversely to reject and shun what it reproves.” So, the will works with the mind, not independently of the mind. “All we need to know, without entangling ourselves in superfluous issues, is that the mind is like the helmsman and captain of the soul, and that the will depends on its good pleasure…”

In fallen man, the mind is not fully functioning and flooded with divine light. Romans 1 shows us that the mind is darkened and futile because it has exchanged the truth for the lie. It is no longer able to distinguish between good and evil, the very thing Eve wanted when she disobeyed.

Calvin notes that the Church Fathers are uncertain guides in this matter. He saw them as capitulating to philosophy on this matter at times. Chrysostom, for instance, notes,”The wicked man can become good, if he chooses, and the good man may change into a wicked one.” Calvin sums up, “We see from these statement that the Fathers credited man with greater power than was proper…”

He interacts with the 3 A’s: Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas. He finds Aquinas’ definition sound: “Free will is an elective power which, intermediate intellect and will, inclines, however more toward will.” So, how free is the will?

Calvin wants to generally avoid the term “free will”. The Schoolmen note that “man cannot be said to have free will because he is free to choose both good and evil, but because he does what he does voluntarily and not out of compulsion.” He argues that this term has been wrenched from this definition as a “justification for self-pride.” In other words, people use it not for the voluntariness of our our decisions, but to freely choose between good and evil.

Augustine is presented as a trustworthy guide. He affirmed the enslavement of the will. It is grace, and grace alone, that frees it from bondage to our appetites. Augustine moves us toward humility by seeing our natural powers as “impaired, demolished, scattered, destroyed.”

“For the human mind, because of its ignorance, cannot follow a sure path in its search for truth, but blunders into various errors. Just as a blind man stumbles about in the darkness until he quite loses his way; so the mind, pursuing the truth, shows how ill-suited and ill-equipped it is to seek and find it…”

Calvin then differentiates between stuff of earth and stuff of heaven. The bondage of the will, the depravity of the mind does not mean we are stupid intellectually, but stupid morally. We are able to structure societies reasonably well (though the current state of American politics may indicate otherwise), and most citizens are reasonably law-abiding. People are able to master mechanical and liberal arts. We do have a capacity for rational perception. This would be an example of common grace. God gives us the ability to improve our earthly state. This is undeserved, and therefore gracious.

Calvin notes that these natural endowments are gifts of the Spirit, “who distributes them as he pleases, for the common good of humankind.” Our corrupt minds are not as corrupt as they possibly could be. Although the Spirit only dwells in Christians, He is infinite and “does not fail to fill, move and quicken by the power of that same Spirit all creatures, according to the nature with which he endowed each of them at creation.”

Heavenly things (knowing God, his will and living accordingly) are a different story. We are spiritually blind apart from grace. Part of people’s blindness is their inability or unwillingness to accept this. People fall for all kinds of superstitions and foolishness (including deviations from Christianity). This blindness is taught in Jeremiah 24, John, Ephesians, 1 Cor. 2 and Colossians as well as Romans 1.

Calvin affirms the reality of natural law, arguing that its purpose is to make us without excuse. He points us to Romans 2 for this purpose. He defines natural law as: “an operation of conscience by which it is able to tell good from bad, with sufficient clarity that man cannot plead ignorance as an excuse, being rebuked by his own testimony.” For instance, as a teenager I had the capacity to recognize certain things as wrong. But I did them anyway.

Our moral reasoning and judgments are often (always?) clouded by our self-interest and passions/desires. We can talk ourselves into almost anything. We fail to grasp how evil our appetites often are.

After about 30 pages (and there are 40 more) he gets to Paul, who is obviously more authoritative than the schoolmen. It is also very different. We see the inner conflict of Christians in Romans 7 and Galatians 5. We have the Spirit by regeneration, how much worse the condition of those outside of Christ. Believers do strive after good, but don’t do it as often as desired due to this inner struggle. It is the Spirit that leads us toward righteousness. Apart from the Spirit, apart from Christ, people do not seek good (Rom. 3). They do not experience such inner conflict (though there is often the outer conflict of consequences- fear of man).

“Now we are all sinners by nature, so it follows that we are under sin’s yoke. Furthermore, if everyone is held fast by slavery to sin, the will, which is the chief agency of sin, must be tightly restrained and shackled by sin’s bonds.”

As we see in Romans 8, the unregenerate mind is hostile to God and His law. This indicates the bondage of the will to sin. It is in bondage to its inclinations. What people want to do is wrong, but that is what they do.

Thankfully, God, in His grace, limits our capacity for evil. He restrains our sin. While our corruption is changed, and ultimately cured, in the elect, it is merely curbed in the non-elect and non-converted. People are not as bad as they could be. But people sin because they want to, not because God makes them sin. They live within the bondage to sin, so there is an element of necessity. But it is also a joyful necessity. The sinner has not been “stripped of his will but of the soundness of will.” Calvin also brings us back to the character of God, to understand freedom and necessity.

“So if nothing stops God’s will from being free when he does good, even though he does good of necessity, and if the devil always sins voluntarily, even though evil is all he can do, who will argue that man does not sin voluntarily simply because he is subject to the necessity of sinning?”

Here is how Calvin sums it up: “This, then, is the distinction we must observe: man, corrupted by his fall, sins willingly, not despite himself or by compulsion. He sins, I say again, through inclination and not because he is forcibly constrained; he sins because he is prompted by his own appetites, not by external force.”

I’ll resume Calvin’s discussion of this matter in the near future.

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Considering Democracy in Black

I decided to read Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul for a reason. We are still in a bad place with race relations in this country. As the white middle class father of two African-American children, I wanted to listen to how some African-Americans view the problem.

Like many people, I find discussions about race difficult. It is hard to build up the trust to speak honestly without judgment. It is awkward and difficult. So when I saw this book available for review I thought I’d get a copy, as if Eddie Glaude Jr. and I were sitting across the table from one another in a beer-less summit of sorts.

He is a professor of African-American studies at Princeton. He also teaches in the religion department.

There are many good things about this book. He tells it like he honestly sees it (which means it can be some unpleasant, painful truth). Politically, he doesn’t portray Democrats as perfect, or even President Obama, not Republicans as all evil (though he disagrees strongly with many policies). We will get to that later.

The strength of the book, for me, was chapters 2-4. He attempts to get to the heart of the long-term, on-going race issues in this nation. This has to do with the value gap, racial habits and white fear. From the beginning this nation has valued blacks less than whites. The end of slavery hasn’t ended it. The end of Jim Crow laws hasn’t ended it. It is a matter of the heart that is worked out in society. I think some of his examples are flawed. For instance, on page 31 he addresses the diseases that kill blacks at a higher rate than whites. But heart disease, cancer and AIDS get plenty of press and research money. It isn’t like these diseases are ignored because they kill blacks. Unfortunately he doesn’t bring up abortion which kills a disproportionate number of black babies, but is consistently protected by the white liberal establishment. But I agree with him that there is a value gap. Generally speaking, black lives don’t seem to matter as much in our society. The rates of incarcerated blacks is not just about poverty and crime, but also a flawed criminal justice system.

His discussion of disremembering is particularly helpful. This is the collective memory of a society which leaves out some of the ugly realities of our history or particular events. We do this, as a culture, to think the best about ourselves. He doesn’t get to its root in pride, but this is something not often discussed.

“When we disremember an event, an egregious moment in the past, we shape how we live in the present. … Disremembering is active forgetting. … What we put in and leave out of our stories tells us something about who we are.”

As a part of this, even when a challenging aspect of our past is brought us, we tend to objectify it. Those people are bad, but we rarely, if ever, think “I could do that too. If I were there I may very well have been one of the perpetrators.”

“Rather, inequality comes from the habits we exercise daily- habits that aren’t revealed in racial slurs and blatant acts of discrimination, but in the choices we make and the lives we live, even when those choices and lives seem to have little to do with race”

The little white boy across the street from him learned on day one that he was not supposed to play with “niggers” (his word, not mine). We all pick up unspoken ideas about race. “Racial habits are formed by the outcomes we see in the world rather than by the complex processes that produced those outcomes.” With so much poverty in the African-American community, many assume that they are lazy. He talks about “opportunity hoarding” in which a majority culture tends to keep the good stuff. We are often blind to the “way social networks reproduce inequality: white individuals benefit from being part of white social groups.” He talks about how we often get jobs through social networks, but think we “earn it.” Of the 14 jobs I’ve had over the years (at times working more than one) all but 2 were the result of knowing someone. When we consider it, that is astounding. This points to the need for internships for minorities so they can develop a social network AND the skills to get better jobs (think the NFL which has the Rooney Rule for minorities and women but doesn’t actively recruit them for lower tier positions so they can gain skills and connections).

One of those habits we pick up is that of masking, particularly how we feel about racial matters. We don’t want to talk honestly about race at Starbucks, or anywhere else. Blacks are afraid of being labeled the angry black man, and whites are afraid of being labeled a clueless racist. Additionally, we participate in the racial theater led by prominent civil rights leaders, and even our President. A theater that doesn’t actually resolve anything, but seems to just keep picking at the wounds.

“White fear is the general frame of mind that black people are dangerous, not only to white individuals because they are prone to criminal behavior, but to the overall well-being of our society.”

White fear is a political fear, and an economic fear. I recall as a young person being afraid of losing out due to affirmative action and minority scholarships (which I hope and pray my kids get!). It is largely about self-interest. Those in the lower economic or social ladders tend to fear those above, and those in the middle and higher tend to fear those below supplanting them. This has been common in our culture with new immigrants (Italians, Polish etc), but African-Americans have persistently been part of that perceived threat while other groups have moved up the ladder and began to share in white fear. Political fear “takes fears based in narrow concerns and gives them a more generalized fear.”

In addition to the Great Black Depression (the recession hit black communities far harder than white ones), we’ve seen the dissolution of the black social structures that have enabled black people to think and grow in relative safety (black churches, colleges, press etc.). In some ways they are losing their voice.

His chapter on President Obama and the Black Liberals is a good history of black political thought and groups in America. He discusses the shifts, and failures. Ultimately they have capitulated to white supremacy and the lie of “color-blindness”. It is the idea that if we just get the right person in power the plight of the African-American community will end. The liberal politician becomes a messiah figure. Don’t worry, white conservatives (and liberals) do this too. He notes the failure to hold politicians accountable as part of the problem (this goes far beyond black democratic life).

“The whole business of black politics becomes the political project of black liberals, with their latent desire for the disappearance of black America. Looks like we have been accomplices in our own demise after all.”

While this book was very helpful for me, I saw some fundamental problems as well. In his book Bloodlines, John Piper notes that for a minority culture everything is seen as a race issue, while for a majority culture nothing is seen as a race issue. The truth, obviously, is somewhere in the middle. There are things that Glaude sees as race issues, or solely as race issues, which may not be. His thinking is reductionistic at times. One example is voter ID laws. He sees this as an attempt to suppress the black vote. My own approval of voter ID laws has to do with addressing voter fraud (but I’d be what he calls a right wing extremist). I see room for compromise in how the laws are written so that the black vote is not suppressed (free gov’t IDs for people on welfare for instance). I don’t want to exclude any citizens from voting (black, Asian, Hispanic, Democrat, Independent etc.). I do want to prevent people from voting more than once, and from non-citizens from exercising the rights of citizens.

His solutions don’t seem compelling to me, though at times I am also tempted to vote “none of the above” too. As someone who teaches religion, I’d hope he would bring some theology into play. No, I’m not talking simply about forgiveness. For instance, the answer to the value gap is the imago dei. He seems to have no objective reason for our equality, a problem expressed in the existential ethics of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and other places. It is not simply a white/black thing but one that plagues every culture.

I do agree we need to have some difficult, honest conversations. We have to stop masking, but this can only happen in an atmosphere of overall acceptance. The value gap stands in the way of that, as does white fear. I see little hope of actually moving forward without the gospel which affirms the dignity (imago dei) and depravity (we all sin) of each person, while providing acceptance thru justification by faith, and power to put to death the misdeeds of the old man in Adam (like racism) through the power of the Spirit because our minds are being renewed ( we see where our sin is, and what righteousness is).

All this does mean we have to build relationships with people different from ourselves: ethnically, economically, religiously. As we experience them as real people with real feelings, strengths and weaknesses we can move forward. But if we remain in our peer groups, behind the walls of fear, and differing values, nothing will change. Nothing will change if white people think they have to fix is all and “save” African-Americans. They needed to be invested with power, not simply allowed to share the same space.

This was a very helpful and insightful book despite its flaws. It is a book I’d recommend to others to help better understand the history of race relations and politics in this country. While I’ll disagree with him on a number of points, I’m better for reading it. It would be nice to sit across from a table from him, over beer, even if we raise our voices at times.

(I received a copy of this book from the publisher for the purposes of review.)

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Considering a Particularly Pernicious Sin

If you love Christ you have most likely discouraged by the recent spat of news regarding Christian leaders, and laypeople, and sexual sin. It is disheartening to hear of yet another person who has fallen to this type of sin. I’ve lost track of the number of guys I knew in seminary that were disqualified from ministry due to sexual sin.

I’ve read something just as disheartening from the “pen” of a prominent blogger’s wife. I appreciate his ministry. I guess I just don’t get his wife’s perspective. It sounds to me like the old Bob Newhart skit.

What strikes me is how naive it sounds. It seems to minimize the power of indwelling sin and the wiles of our Enemy who wants to destroy the Church, marriage and family. I don’t say this to minimize the power of the Spirit nor the sufficiency of Christ’s work. I often push back against the worm theology that thinks we can never obey. We can grow in obedience, which means we can obey as we mature. The grace of God did appear to teach us to “no” to unrighteousness in this present age (Titus 2).

This does not mean it is easy, as we see in Romans 7 as Paul, who was a more mature Christian than me, cried out to be delivered from “this body of sin.” He shifted immediately into the gospel balm of there being “no condemnation for those who are Christ Jesus” which is so important because we continue to sin. He builds on this later in Romans 8.

Paul, in Romans 7 and Galatians 5, talked about sin and the sinful nature: indwelling sin. We talk too little about this fact. Indwelling sin means that we are still attracted to sin in various forms. If this woman was honest with us, she’d admit that there are sins she has seemingly made little to no progress in fighting. Her’s may be far less destructive to marriage and ministry than sexual sin, but that doesn’t mean she faces her own helplessness against sin. Were it not for indwelling sin, there would be nothing in me for temptation to hook.

Indwelling sin also hinders movement toward obedience. It is like trying to swim while wearing a few layers of clothing. At every turn, my flesh comes up with reasons not to obey. I need to talk to myself in gospel terms to goad myself on toward greater faithfulness to Him who died for me.

This is only the third of the great enemies of holiness. The others, of course, being the world and the devil. The former is under the control of the latter to some degree. The world promotes sexual sin, as we see with the existence of the Ashley Madison website, Tinder and pornography in more forms than you can shake a stick at. But lest we think sin is only “out there”, I remind you of indwelling sin which produced the visions of naked women experienced by Jerome as he hid from the world in a cave.

There is also that prowling lion looking to see whom he may devour who tempts us and places crazy and sinful thoughts in us. Satan hates God, but he can’t destroy God. He is aiming at the next best thing: God’s image. Sexual sin is one that strikes at the core of who we are since we were made male and female. Additionally, God gave us the creation mandate which includes “be fruitful and multiply”. Sex within marriage is essential for procreation that we might fill the world with God’s image. Satan does not want the world filled with God’s image, but he’ll settle for that tarnished image resulting from the fall. He wants to destroy the marriages of God’s people precisely because they are seeking to raise up godly seed. Satan wants to destroy the marriages of Christians, and one really good way to do that is sexual sin.

He also hates the Church and the Great Commission (an application of the Creation Mandate to the fallen world). He seeks to stop its growth and progress. One of the many schemes he has is sexual sin. He can destroy marriages, ministries and churches at the same time.

Think of how Balaam got God to curse the Israelites. If they sinned, turning away from God. So he told Balak to send in the Moabite “hoochie mamas” to seduce the sons of Israel with fornication leading to worshiping their Gods (Numbers 22-25). In discussing this in 1 Corinthians 10 Paul says their temptation was common to all.

This means that sexual sin is, in many ways, not like any other sin. While a particular person may not feel temptation to sexual sin, most Christians will. This also means that most pastors will too.

I don’t say this to excuse any sin, or anyone’s sin. I say to this to remind us of the danger there is to people. If you know you are particularly tempted, you need to take steps to be vigilant in fighting temptation. Spouses need to pray for one another (women commit these sins too!). People need to pray for their church leaders. Assume they at least occasionally face such temptation. The recent revelations should move us to pray for people to live upright lives in this present age. They should remind us that the Nancy Reagan “Just Say ‘No’!” approach is not as easy as it sounds when dealing with a sin that promises so much (that it cannot deliver).

“So far as moral failings are concerned, we need to show much more patience. It is easy to trip up here, and the devil is amazingly ingenious in leading us astray.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1541)

2. This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part; whence arises a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.

3. In which war, although the remaining corruption, for a time, may much prevail; yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome; and so, the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. WCF, XIII

114. Q. But can those converted to God keep these commandments perfectly?

A. No. In this life even the holiest have only a small beginning of this obedience. Nevertheless, with earnest purpose they do begin to live not only according to some but to all the commandments of God. Heidelberg Catechism

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Considering The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism

Back in 2009 I was a spectator in a Presbytery debate about a pastor wanting to transfer into said Presbytery. The concerning symptoms were doubting the historicity of Job and Jonah as well as uncertainty about the number of authors for his favorite book of the Bible, Isaiah. There were some men from Westminster who were very concerned about the influence of Peter Enns on this young man though he didn’t go to Westminster. They were trying to get to the root cause of these symptoms, the erosion of inerrancy. Peter Enns, thanks to his books, has become something of a poster child for the erosion of inerrancy. If there was a wanted poster in a conservative church office, his face would be on it.

G.K. Beale’s The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism (ebook) does not exist apart from Peter Enns. The first four chapters, over 120 pages and over half the books, are taken up in “dialogue” with Peter Enns’ Inspiration and Incarnation.

I have not read Enns’ books though I probably will at some point thanks to the lessons I learned from Dr. Roger Nicole. I know people who love Peter Enns as they react to perceived “fundamentalism” or rigidity with respect to perceived problems with regard to the Old Testament and inerrancy. Beale quotes extensively from Enns, usually giving the context, not just a sentence that can be taken out of context to put him in an unnecessarily bad light. Beale’s argument is that there are better ways to understand those passages that do not compromise the historicity of the text and therefore the inerrancy of the Scriptures. The point being that once you are able to discredit the historicity of the Scriptures you begin to lose the foundation for the theology of the Scriptures. Enns, and others, seem to think the theology remains even if the historicity is suspect our flat out absent (note the recent debates about the historicity of Adam). At some point I may come back and blog in a deeper fashion about these chapters. It was my intention to do so but life only allows so much time and energy.

I suspect that the other half of the book also has Enns in view, but no direct appeal is given to him. The questions addressed there are the authorship of Isaiah and the phenomenological language used with regard to creation (this is basically a summary of Beale’s Temple and the Church’s Mission). He provides more than sufficient arguments, to my mind, for believing there was only one author behind Isaiah (this does allow for an editor to arrange material or add a historical statement like we see in Deuteronomy about Moses’ death). He also provides a compelling, to me, case for seeing much of the phenomenological language in light of creation as a cosmic temple. While there may be overlap with other ANE traditions (due to the remnant of the imago dei and therefore knowledge of God) there are marked differences that show Israel was not just copying them.

This is not easy reading and comes across as far more “academic” than Enns’ more popular style (which he seems to use to excuse failing to provide other legitimate understandings of passages or genres that preserve inerrancy). I do think this is important reading for pastors and others involved in church leadership (oversight of the ordination process in particular). If one likes Enns this will provide food for thought, the other side of the argument so to speak that Enns doesn’t normally offer. If you aren’t a fan of Enns this should validate your concerns that he gives too much away. In fact his more recent book seems to go farther down the road than the one Beale discusses here.

Chronologically, this was written before Enns was removed from Westminster Theological Seminary and therefore before Beale ended up replacing him. On the basis of this book, and his commentary on Revelation, I’d say that was a good choice to bring academic rigor and a high view of inerrancy to the post.

This book is well worth the investment of time and mental energy. This is an important topic and one that won’t go away. It is best to be prepared for those moments when that nice guy being examined begins to say things that ultimately undermine the faith of the sheep, even if they won’t recognize it.

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Considering the Motive for Justice

In the 5th chapter of his book Generous Justice, Keller takes up the topic of motivations for justice.  As those who seek to encourage others to act justly, we have to recognize that some attempts to motivate others just don’t work (I know that sounds pragmatic, but it is not the intention).  They are not satisfying and truly motivating.

Ignorance regarding our responsibility to pursue justice can happen (though I would argue that like the knowledge of God we tend to suppress it in our unrighteousness).  But people need more than information.  Motivation, like for the actor, is all-important.  He notes that appeals to reason, love and mercy just don’t provide the necessary motivation to change behavior.  Keller draws on the work of people like Authur Leff.  Sad, sentimental stories don’t really change anything.  They don’t move people to act beyond perhaps an impulsive decision to call in a donation.  It didn’t break the back of any injustice.

The Bible gives believers two basic motivations- joyful awe before the goodness of God’s creation, and the experience of God’s grace in redemption.

Some might say, “Wait a minute!  John talked about love as the motivation in his first letter.”  Yeah, but as you examine the context you also see that it is connected to God’s redemptive love for us which provided propitiation for our sins.  But back to Keller’s argument.

Apart from a belief in creation, there really is no good reason to treat anyone or anything as having dignity or purpose.  This is one of the problems of atheism and agnosticism.  They act like they have logical beliefs, but confess a world that is purely accidental and without purpose.  All meaning is therefore created meaning- created by us and therefore relativized.

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Considering Creation and Providence

Here are my study notes on these topics.  The same caveats apply (see Considering the Scriptures).

Chapter IV: Of Creation

50. What is God’s work of creation? God’s work of making all that exists outside of Himself in the span of 6 days ex nihilo.

51. What is meant by the creation of man in God’s image?  We were made to reflect his glory as his representatives.  We shared in his communicable attributes.

52. What was man like in his original state?  Dependent upon God, they were righteous and holy but mutable.

53. Are any of the various theories of evolution compatible with the Biblical doctrine of creation?  Small scale evolution- which occurs within a species- is compatible with the Biblical doctrine of creation.  Large scale evolution – which occurs between species- is incompatible with the Biblical doctrine of creation.

54. Do you believe in creation Ex Nihilo? Yes.

55. Do you believe in special creation of Adam & Eve?  Yes.

56. Do you believe in a historical fall?  Yes.  Paul treated it as a historical fall in Romans 5.

57. What is the purpose of God in creation? To display His glory.

58. What is your view on the nature of the six days of Genesis 1?  24-hour days.

59. Do you believe the Confession teaches a literal six 24-hour day view of creation?  Yes, it clearly does.  As a doctrinal statement it does not use figurative or metaphorical language.

60. In light of God’s wisdom, power and goodness in the original creation, how do you account for the fall?  He also wanted to reveal the glory of His mercy, compassion, justice and wisdom.

 

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