Considering The Gospel & Sexual Orientation

Released in 2012, the report by the Reformed Presbyterian Church, North America (RPCNA) has been the gold standard among Reformed and Presbyterian churches for statements on sexual orientation. I’ve been meaning to read The Gospel & Sexual Orientation, edited by Michael Lefebvre for some time.

Controversies have arisen since then that touch on the issues covered, but aren’t addressed directly by this report. I wish I had read it when the Revoice controversy hit. It would have been helpful to show how the RPCNA report actually supported much of what I was trying to tell some of my brothers who hold this in report in high esteem.

Now that the PCA ad interim committee report has come out, I decided to read The Gospel & Sexual Orientation (GSO) for comparison. I won’t be comparing them here, but as I continue my series on the PCA report, I will be able to more meaningfully refer back to the GSO.

The Forward is quite helpful. It reminds us that much of the New Testament was written in response to controversies. We dread controversies. They are an opportunity to refine our thinking and re-think pastoral strategies and responses. Yes, some will fall victim to the spirit of compromise. But not all who want to talk these things through are compromisers, but can be people of good conscience who want to think more clearly and pastorally on these issues.

This was my goal as more people in the church were being honest about their struggles with same sex attraction. I wanted additional guidance on how to effectively care for them and minister to them. I think I have a firm grasp on the Scriptural teaching (some have claimed I don’t) but wanted additional wisdom.

“Contemporary questions about sexual orientation are not simple, and they must not be treated simplistically. There are sophisticated medical, scientific, theological, and exegetical arguments at issue in the present controversy.”

According to this report, that is not a bad thing at all. It is, in fact, a necessary thing. Similarly, I don’t see the PCA report as a sign of compromise but to help us see how to apply the Scripture and Standards more thoroughly to the issue at hand in our day. I would be concerned if my fellow pastors in the PCA were jettisoning Scripture and the Standards but they are not. Yes, I get defensive with people claim they are. Thus, I do not see us taking the path of the denominations that cast off the Scriptures and ended up conforming to the world.

The first chapter is Introduction and Terminology. The focus of the chapter seems to be the word “homosexuality”. In that regard it is quite helpful. There are other terms in this discussion that I wish were laid out in similar fashion. In the more recent controversy people have been using various definitions without actually defining them and so there was a fair amount of talking past one another by assuming definitions. These additional terms would include sin and temptation.

The term, homosexuality, originated in 1869 by the social reformer Karl-Maria Kertbeny. It was in a pamphlet written in opposition to new anti-sodomy laws being proposed. Slowly use of the new term spread, and the older terminology focused on behavior fell aside. Terms for sexual orientation are relatively new, and were used to justify ending laws against same sex practice. The discussion shifted from behavior to psychology, and now that it is not considered a psychological disorder there is the search for genetic origins. In a materialistic world, there must be some material cause for such desires (is the argument).

“The term homosexual (along with its counterpart, heterosexual) was coined to convey the new idea that some people are same-sex oriented by nature and ought not be prejudiced against simply because it is a minority orientation.”

This is why I try not to use the term. It comes with baggage and is a late-comer to the discussion. This is met with a mixed response. But in light of this big shift in terminology and resulting shift in thinking the GSO proposes:

“Either the church’s traditional understanding of genders and sexual identity needs to be corrected to accommodate the new perspectives on homosexuality, or the church’s traditional positions on these matters need to be re-articulated in ways that show their relevance to the modern claims.”

We need to do exegetical work to answer the claims of those who want the Church to change its views. We also need to do pastoral work to lovingly care for those in our midst who love Jesus but still experience same sex desires. These things are not opposed.

GSO moves on to Biology, Gender, and the Biblical Doctrine of Man. The new terminology shifts thinking about same sex attraction away from morality to sociology, psychology and biology. The quest has been on for a few decades to find the material cause of homosexuality. They note that a degree of skepticism about research can be maintained for two reasons: the faulty presupposition of physiological causes in a materialistic worldview, and the reality of personal and political bias that can affect studies and conclusions. There is a great deal of pressure to validate same-sex desires. We discover similar issues in global warming, the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and a host of other issues. There is money at stake, peer pressure (not simply peer review) as well as personal agendas at play.

“… even scientific consensus is not formed in a vacuum, and the immense political pressure in this field introduces an unavoidable degree of wariness. Many of those involved in the quest, as the proponents themselves admit, have a personal interest in proving its existence.”

This is not intended to be a denial of science, nor the scientific method. Nor is it intended to rule out the possibility of an innate cause. There are physiological causes for a number of problems, including alcoholism in some cases. Finding a cause shifts our pastoral response, but not our theology. They believe that finding a cause would result in greater compassion in the church’s ministry to many of those who struggle.

“If science shows us that sexual disorders are more deeply enmeshed in human biology than the church has traditionally understood, this ought to stir our concern for even greater understanding and compassion for those who experience these desires; however, it does not change the fact that such inclinations are contrary to human nature as God designed it- and as he is redeeming it.”

Adam’s sin has broken us all. We are disordered and corrupt. The Fall has affected us spiritually, morally and physically. While the Scriptures do not speak of a sexual orientation, they do speak of “dishonorable passions” which include but are not limited to same-sex desires. We all bear brokenness, though in differing degrees and in different ways. Our lives are profoundly affected by Adam’s sin, our own sin and the sins that others commit against us. Why a particular person experiences same sex desires may be quite complex.

Romans 1 is not about an individual’s decline but a culture’s decline as it turns away from God. We are watching it unfold in America these days. There is a profound descent into spiritual and moral folly, degrading passions and cultural decline.

They also note that Jonathan Edwards wrote of a person’s ‘natural constitution’ being the root of many sins. People have different weaknesses, or sins to which they are more prone. He therefore calls for allowances to be made. Not excusing it, but recognizing the weakness. This is part of our total, or radical, depravity.

“The bondage and afflictions of the curse really do run that deep; but it is against the backdrop of such struggles that the profound power and immeasurable greatness of God’s grace shines forth with splendor and stirs our hearts with a yearning for sanctification and hope in heaven.”

They rightfully remind us that “EVERY person will face profound struggles sexually.” When we are honest about our own sexual struggles we should have more compassion on those who struggle differently. Note, compassion not compromise.

Personality Traits and the Multiplication of Gender Categories brings us back to 19th century Germany. This time it is Karl Heinrich Ulrichs who proposed new terminology. He spoke of himself as “a female soul confined by a male body”. He saw himself exhibiting some typically female traits. He thought his feminine qualities indicated that he was differently oriented. His views developed into the common saying that “sex is between the legs and gender is between the ear.” Gender became separated from physiology, which is odd in a materialistic worldview. But sin (as a power) does this kind of thing.

Our world tends to think of masculine and feminine as generalizations. When someone doesn’t fit the stereotype, they are considered to be the other gender. Instead of a strong woman simply being a strong woman, she’s considered manly and therefore masculine. Christians have fallen into this kind of cultural thinking. We really confuse people who don’t fit our strict categories. Rather than simply being an outlier, we treat them as if they are actually the other gender.

Into this they interact with the profound differences between Esau and Isaac. Esau was a “man’s man” who loved to hunt and explore. Jacob preferred life among the tents. While more “sensitive” Jacob was not a homosexual as some might supposed based on his more feminine (supposedly) qualities. While these two men had very different traits, they were both men.

This brings us to Hermeneutical Issues of the Homosexuality Debate. In this section they deal with the main arguments to adjust our theology and refute them. These arguments are:

1. Since same-sex orientation is a recent discovery, the biblical texts  addressing same-sex activity don’t apply to orientation. Yet, the Sermon on the Mount expresses Jesus’ teaching that activity flows out of the heart and reflects a Godward or selfward orientation. Paul and other NT authors speak of passions, not simply actions. They weren’t ignorant of internal dispositions but refused to allow them as an excuse to transgress the law of God. Robert Gagnon also points to similar concepts in Plato and Aristotle (inner orientation and by nature).
2. Many interpretations are based on a view of Scripture as an evolving religious understanding. This is the trajectory hermeneutic made popular by Rob Bell. It asks the question, “what would Paul think today” as if Paul was actually writing under the inspiration of the Spirit but rather the spirit of his age. But they use this concept to negate what the Scriptures say. This is obviously to be rejected as well.
3. Some use Barth’s “christocentric” interpretation in a way Barth likely never imagined. Christ is separated from the written word, and the word must be interpreted “through the lens of Jesus’ redemptive life and ministry.” As a result it re-interprets Scripture to minimize differences between people- social reconciliation. Jesus essentially, in this view, redeems homosexuality rather than redeeming saints from the sin (in both a want of conformity and transgression) of homosexuality.

“We would urge ministers and laymen to be alert for these kinds of hermeneutical errors when encountering those who quote Scripture to contradict the historic stance of the church on same-sex issues.”

Addressing the hermeneutical issues, they shift to Exegesis and Confessional Statements. Here I think they inadvertently make a huge error.

“While the exegesis of biblical texts is our only authority, confessional statements offer us the fruits of the church’s exegesis in ages past.”

I get that they are distinguishing between the role of the Scriptures from that of the Confession. But it is not our exegesis of the Scripture that is authoritative but the Scripture itself. Our exegesis can be either accurate or faulty. We are disagreeing with the exegesis of our opponents, in part, based upon their faulty presuppositions. I’m quite surprised this wasn’t cleaned up, or I am really missing something.

The rest of the chapter is quite good. They are not trying to be comprehensive in the chapter, or it would be far too long for a report. They do take us to the creation of man in  Genesis 1 & 2 to see that there are two genders. They are “two distinct categories of humanity (not poles on a continuum).” Much of what we might call gender differences are more likely differences of personality having little to nothing to do with gender. Along with gender we see the institution of marriage, including sexual union, to be heterosexual. This is social orientation determined by anatomical gender. They speak of it in terms of “head and helper” which is true as far as it goes, but remember that God is our helper too. This passage is not simply descriptive but also prescriptive regarding marriage.

They spend a fair amount of time on Sodom and Gomorrah. In the Genesis account focuses on their intention to rape the “men” who sought refuge in Lot’s home. Many claim they were judged for other sins, and discount the role of homosexuality. They root this in Ezekiel. Yes, Ezekiel addresses other sins that characterized Sodom and Gomorrah. He focused on the sins of which Judah was also guilty, and for which judgment came upon them. Similar to this is the Levite’s Concubine in Judges 19. This is handled more briefly, stressing the fact that Israel had so quickly become like the Canaanites.

Another good amount of space is devoted to Leviticus 18 and 20. They draw attention to the fact that both parties were to be put to death. It was against God’s law to play either role in a same-sex encounter. Admitting that “abomination” can refer to ceremonial uncleanness, they provide 7 reasons that these are moral injunctions and not simply “temple prostitution.” For instance, the general word for “male” is used, not the word for a “male prostitute”. The contrast is not simply about worship but with normal sexual relations with a person of the opposite sex. We also see Deuteronomy 23:17-18 addressing cultic prostitution.

GSO moves on to 1 Corinthians 6 and Paul’s vice list. They spend time explaining malakoi which can refer to the “effeminate” but was also used for the penetrated, often younger, partner. Used in conjunction with arsenokoitai we see the sexual nature of these terms and that Paul is considering both roles are not conforming to the law of God. Lev. 20 also makes the same point, and Paul is likely just drawing upon it.

In 1 Timothy 1 Paul uses arsenokoitais in his discussion of the ten commandments. He sees same-sex sex as a violation of the moral law. They spend far more time on Jude 5-7 and the “different/strange flesh”. Some get around homosexuality in saying the men of Sodom sought angel flesh, but they didn’t know the men were actually angels. The surrounding towns were also guilty of this sin, and there is no record of them seeking to assault angels looking like men. Jude wasn’t concerned about his audience seeking to have sex with angels, but lapsing back into the same-sex activity common in the Greek and Roman world.

Then GSO addresses Romans 1 again. There is much there that hearkens back to creation. This is about perversion of the created order. It is not simply about actions, but we see a focus on passions or desires which are corrupt. It is then back to Genesis and Ham’s sin against Noah. Ham is the father of the Canaanites, and their sexual perversion. We aren’t exactly sure how, but that much is clear.

They shift to the Standards, particularly WLC 139 which addresses not just homosexuality but lust, fantasies, adultery, pre-maritial sex, pornography and more. Their mention of lusts or desires reflect the fact that we are to put them to death, not just behaviors.

GSO concludes with Pastoral Implications. They want us to remember “homosexuality is not just an issue to try to understand, it is a struggle experienced by real people.” Some of those real people are in our pews and need our help. There are two things that GSO does that are reasons why I wish I’d read it prior to the Revoice controversy.

1. Don’t treat homosexuality as a special sin.  They say “they are not all that different from other temptations common to human experience. … Christians must avoid the stereotype of homosexuality as a sin greater than all others… Like many other temptations, same-sex desires often arise without warning and feel hopelessly overpowering. But all human brokenness is within reach of the Gospel’s power.”  Later, “Christians must avoid the stereotype of homosexuality as worse than all other sins and beyond the reach of God’s grace.”
2. There are no quick solutions. “Deep-seated desires are never resolved easily. They are certainly not resolved by mere will-power or ‘steps of treatment’. We dare not promise quick solutions; but neither should we shy away from the full hope of the Gospel for total redemption by the working of God’s Spirit.” They have good balance in this matter. “The Spirit of Christ may work patiently or he may work quickly.” In fact, one of the primary reasons for “failures” is unrealistic expectations. I suspect that is the reason for most people I know of that left the faith in order to live according to their sinful desires.

In the great Revoice debates it would have been great to say “I’m saying nothing different than what is expressed in the GSO.” I’m not trying to minimize sin, under-sell the Gospel, and I’m not self-deceived. I’m simply recognizing what the Westminster Standards say about sanctification. Repentance doesn’t mean we are free from temptation from within, or even that we never act on our temptations. It is an endeavor for new obedience, but our reach often exceeds our grasp in the area of sanctification. We want to be more fully sanctified.

The authors when us to remember that sanctification is about more than same-sex attraction. It is but one aspect of discipleship, not the whole enchilada. They also briefly mention that the guidelines they layout do not replace evangelism, but are generally to be understand in the context of discipleship. Generally you want to develop trust because discussing such a personal struggle is often quite difficult. Most people in the church are not proud of their struggle. They often feel legitimate shame. I’m not going to go through all their guidelines (it is short, and I want you to read this). One great need is generally healthy same-sex relationships. Non-sexual relationships. It is not about doing “manly” or “girly” things, but about building edifying relationships. It becomes about spending time together, sharing life together.

As far as GSO goes, it is excellent. Being a human document it couldn’t anticipate all of the controversies which would arise since then. It is a product of its time, and its controversy. It provides good guidance in other controversies that touch on the same issues. It provides plenty of pastoral wisdom. It should become a helpful addition to a pastor’s and church library.

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Considering The Imperfect Disciple

I’ve been reading Jared Wilson’s blog on and off since his days in TN. I’ve read some of his books and found them profitable. So when the opportunity arose to read & review his latest, The Imperfect Disciple, I took advantage.

Chapter 1 begins with a quote from John Newton which sets the tone for what is to come: “In short, I am a riddle to myself, a heap of inconsistence.” This book is a neo-Calvinist version of Yaconelli’s Messy Spirituality. As Wilson notes in his introduction, this is for the average Christian who just plain struggles and feels like a total loser when reading books on discipleship, if they ever dare to. The focus here is certainly not “try harder and get your act together”. The emphasis is that God works immeasurably beyond what you manage to do because He’s rich in grace and you are united to Christ. How’s that for a nutshell?

“A message of grace will attract people but a culture of grace will keep them.” This is at least the 2nd book he’s used this in. But it is a great quote.

Jared Wilson’s style is decidedly in the popular vein. It is conversational, and not concerned with sentence and all that jazz. Each chapter begins with “My gospel is…” followed by a story that generally doesn’t portray him in a positive light. He’s not looking down at you (us). He is not the Tony Robbins of discipleship (or the David Platt/Paul Washer intent on making you feel guilty for being an ordinary person).

He addresses many of the ordinary disciplines or means of grace from a different point of view than usual. He uses some unusual terminology at times. One of the strengths is that he focuses on the reality simul justus et peccator, at the same time we are just and sinners. We do not, and cannot get our act together this side of death or Jesus’ return. We will continue to struggle with sin (including sloth), temptation and spiritual drift. In talking about this in chapter 1, he addresses some people’s tendency to blame their spiritual problems on their church upbringing. This is particularly common among progressives who grew up in more fundamentalist or even evangelical churches. While our family and church backgrounds may have been messed up and wounded us, we were all born in Adam and are sinners. We are all messed up even with others messing us up more. We never escape Romans 7, yet we always have the hope expressed in Romans 8.

“So while the storm of Romans 7 rages inside of us, the truth of Romans 8 has us safe and sound. Within the spiritual ecosystem of God’s saving sovereignty, in fact, our struggle is like the little squall stirred up in a snow globe.”

In the second chapter he calls discipleship followship. We follow Jesus and help others follow Jesus. This is true, but we also learn and teach others and are therefore … disciples. Often we can make it difficult, he says, for others to follow Jesus by confusing wounds and sins. Both persist, but the gospel addresses them in different ways. We forgive those who wound us, and God heals us with the balm of the gospel. Sins, which sometimes flow from wounds, are forgiven and God calls us to repentance and self-denial at times.

The third chapter focuses on beholding Jesus glory as opposed to seeing Him as a life coach or self-help advisor. Jesus changes us as we behold His glory (though this is not the only way He changes us). We are on a quest to discover glory, often in the wrong places like porn, wealth accumulation etc. I look for glory in sports. Not my glory but the athletes’. So he encourages us to look to Jesus and His unchanging glory.

He then addresses time in the Scripture to hear the rhythm of the gospel. We are immersed in the rhythm of our culture and need to be renewed by the rhythm of the gospel in Scripture. It isn’t just the details, but beginning to grasp the big picture of Scripture. It took him some time to get to the point of the chapter, listening to the rhythm. This another way God transforms us as He renews our minds.

There is another rhythm he mentions next, that of spilling your guts: prayer. We live in a busy culture and often suffer from hurry sickness. We don’t have time to pray (or read, or …). Prayer is how we process His words to us, and our circumstances (hopefully in light of His Word). Even better, Jesus lives forever to intercede for us in order to save us to the uttermost (Heb. 7:25).

Then Wilson discusses a much-neglected aspect of discipleship in our culture: community. While we are personally saved, we are joined to Jesus into a community, the Body of Christ. We need one another to grow into maturity. Sanctification is not a self-help, or do-it-yourself, project. Community is also where self-denial, humility, considering the needs of others becomes necessary as we follow Jesus.

“The Christian life must be walked within the encouragement, edification, and accountability of Christian community. … To abide in Christ necessitates embracing the body of Christ as God’s plan for the Christian life.”

In a strange turn of events, he puts forth “Nine Irrefutable Laws of Followship”. He throws out some biblical imperatives that are part of healthy Christian living: be loving, be joyful, be peaceful, be patient, be kind, be good, be faithful, be gentle, and be self-controlled. This is a description of what Jesus is making you because it is a pretty good description of Jesus. These are also the fruit of the Spirit.

He then moves into our union with Christ. We are not who we will be, and still struggle with something of an identity crisis. There is much we don’t like about ourselves. Thankfully, our life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). In the midst of this he talks about idolatry via Genesis 22. We lay down all our idols to pick up Jesus. Our idols can’t make us what we want to be, only Jesus can. Our idols can’t give us life (they steal it), only Jesus can.

“You may see yourself as worthless and faithless, but God never has to look for your righteousness, because since you have been raised with Christ and since Christ is seated at God’s right hand, your holiness is also seated at his right hand.”

He then moves into a discussion of suffering. We often feel forgotten or abandoned by God when we suffer. Jared is honest about a deep, suicidal depression he experienced. There is no pit too deep for Him to reach us, but He also lifts us higher than any idol can or than we can imagine going. There is grace in the pit, and grace lifts us to God’s presence in heaven.

“It’s true that sometimes God doesn’t become our holy hope until God becomes our only hope.”

The final chapter, Lurv Wins, is rooted in a scene from Annie Hall and reminds me of Rob Bell’s book. He never mentions Bell’s book, and the content isn’t the same as Rob’s book. He’s not advocating “Christian Universalism” but talking about heaven. The point of heaven is Jesus. He’s not an add-on, a bonus or merely a means to the end. What we experience there will be more than words can express. In Scripture, when people go to heaven they are overwhelmed, struck down as if dead and filled with dread. Our hope is not an earthly hope, but one that can only be satisfied in the unmediated presence of God. Earthly hopes keep unraveling, but that one will be greater than we can imagine.

“Grace is all-sufficient for glory. Grace doesn’t just go all the way down to our weakness and suffering; it goes all the way up to our deliverance, all the way up to the throne of God, where our Savior is seated at the right hand of the Father and where, because we have been raised with him, and seated with him in the heavenly places, we also have a place.”

While this, and the book, is generally good, at some points this casual or conversational style makes for some “sloppy” theology. One is something I noticed in Unparalleled as well regarding justification. “It’s not just that God wipes our sinful state clean (justification); he also writes onto the slate of our heart the perfect righteousness of Christ (imputation). (pp. 166)” Actually the first is “pardon” and justification includes both pardon and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

He also hit one of my pet peeves: “He predestined this very circumstance. If I believe that, I can be patient.” (pp. 160) The word he wants is ordained. Predestination refers to salvation/damnation, not ordinary providence. Just one of those things that bugs me since technical terms exist for a reason and sloppy usage ends up changing the meaning and makes theological discourse more difficult (as Sproul notes in a book I am currently reading to review). While not an academic book, I’d hope he could communicate the proper use of technical terms.

He also makes a false distinction between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant on page 122. “The old covenant was made with God’s chosen people, and the new covenant is made with God’s called-out people.” Was not Abraham called out in Genesis 12? Was not Israel called out of Egypt? Was not Israel called out from the nations to be a people of God’s own possession? Are not we chosen (Eph. 1, 1 Peter 1 for starters)? The word ecclesia, which he might be basing this on, is used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT, to refer to the assembly of the Israel. Israel was …. the church! The OT was largely written to the community of faith called Israel, which so often struggled to believe. The NT was largely written to the community of faith called the church which was grafted onto the vine of the True Israel- Jesus.

Another head scratcher was on page 40: “We are idiots when it comes to the Sermon on the Mount.” I won’t get into the nature of the beatitudes and the 3 uses of the law at this point (he could use some brushing up there too), but just the use of idiots to refer to us. It strikes me as contrary to another part of the Sermon on the Mount.

Being a Baptist, he also leaves out the sacraments as a part of the rhythm of grace God has given to us. Baptism begins our discipleship (based on the grammar of the Great Commission). But we are imperfect disciples, and that includes Jared. His book isn’t perfect but it is a very good and helpful book. It is worth reading and is accessible to those who are struggling with the fact they are quite imperfect.

[I received a copy of this book from the publisher for the purposes of review.]

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Considering Jesus, Justice and Gender Roles

At this year’s General Assembly they decided to have a study committee on women in the church. This was met with mixed reviews. Some were glad. I was glad, but I will not impute the reason for my joy to others. I want to better understand the Scriptures, in particular one text of Scripture, and for our church life to be more fully conformed to those Scriptures. In other words, I believe that notion of Reformed and reforming.

Some were upset seeing this as a move toward liberalism. They believe they fully understand the Scriptures and haven’t imported any erroneous cultural notions into our understanding of the Scriptures.

I don’t see this as the on ramp to women elders. This is especially true when I look at the people on the study committee. We’re talking Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt for Pete’s sake.

Our Session decided we wanted to study this subject for ourselves so we can better evaluate any majority and minority reports. In fact, our men’s ministry has decided to look at this too. So I’ve done some shopping to add to the books I own and have read on this subject. One of the books I added was Jesus, Justice, & Gender Roles by Kathy Keller. Kathy is also on this study committee and this was a book I wanted to read anyway.

In addition to being the wife of Tim Keller, Kathy has an MA in Theological Studies from Gordon-Conwell and spent some time as an editor for Great Commission Publications.

To call this a book is generous. It is more like a booklet, being 39 pages (plus a few pages of end notes). This increases the likelihood of it being read by my very busy elders. It also means that it won’t cover everything I might want it to cover or as in depth as I might want it covered.

Let’s lay the card on the table first. She is a complementarian. This is a broad term, and there are a few differences of opinion within this movement. Many want to claim their version as the only version. This, in fact, is one of the reasons for this book. She tries to nail down the essential point of complementarianism.

She divides the book into two chapters. The first focuses on hermeneutical issues and two key texts. The second focuses on how this plays out as she feels pressure from both egalitarians and more “conservative” complementarians (or those who may actually hold to a view of patriarchy).

She begins by describing how she arrived at these conclusions (and to hold to the inspiration, infallibility and authority of the Scriptures) though she didn’t grow up believing them and they threatened her career ambitions. Hermeneutically she affirms  the analogy of Scripture (clear texts interpret unclear texts) and that each text has a context (historical, cultural, social, and I might add theological) that affects its meaning. The two texts she focuses on are 1 Corinthians 14:33b-38 and 1 Timothy 2:11-12. In some ways she views the first as less clear and the second as more clear such that 1 Timothy helps us understand 1 Corinthians.

We cannot isolate 1 Corinthians 14 from the rest of 1 Corinthians. This means that we cannot use it to mean that women must be absolutely silent in a worship service. For instance, 1 Corinthians 11:5 mentions women praying and prophesying in the public worship service. While we might claim the prayer is silent, clearly the prophesying is not. As a result she notes “Paul in 1 Corinthians is not condemning the public ministry of women, but regulating it.” In other words, public exercise of spiritual gifts is to retain “divinely ordained gender roles.”

She does mention Miriam, Deborah and Huldah as women leaders. She, unfortunately, just mentions this in passing. Since these women are used by egalitarians like Sarah Sumner to justify their views, I think this bore more attention. Miriam, for instance, while publicly leading, was publicly leading women in the chorus of the song.

In its context, she understands (quite reasonably) this text to be about the elders evaluating and judging the content of prophecy in the worship service. They were discussing it and speaking authoritatively upon it. Women were not to be interjecting and disrupting this process which involved only the elders. This happened prior to the completion of the canon and the elders were to guard the deposit of truth they had (and were still receiving). We do this less formally now that the canon is complete by holding pastors to confessional standards. If I begin to preach deviant views, the elders are charged with admonishing me, and presbytery will be involved if I persist.

This view is supported by what we find in 1 Timothy 2. Debate has raged over whether “teach or have authority” (NIV), “teach or exercise authority” (ESV),  refers to two separate functions or one function (teaching in a position of authority). She, following James Hurley (who used to teach at RTS Jackson), Craig Blomberg and Philip Payne believes this is a hendiadys in which the conjunction connects the two verbs so they are mutually defining.

“So what is being forbidden to women in 1 Timothy 2 (and by extension in 1 Corinthians 14) is authoritative teaching- some kind of teaching that carried with it an authority not found in other, allowable forms of oral discourse.”

In her understanding there are times when a teacher doesn’t have authority. You can disagree with a SS teacher or small group leader but it isn’t a problem. The problem is if we disagree with the elders on an important issue (it may be prompted by the disagreement with the SS teacher). The SS teacher can’t excommunicate you, but the Session can!

The main tenant of complementarianism is male headship in the church (and home). In the church it is male elders (there is disagreement on the question of deacons which means we have disagreements on the nature of a deacon or “ordination” behind the scenes).

Keller then briefly mentions the common reasons why people think we don’t have to obey these instructions by Paul: misogyny by Paul, only binding on the church then, and outdated commands. She notes how unconventional Paul was in his relationships with women and how the charge of misogyny really doesn’t have any legs. The second charge is based on a fallacy since every part of Scripture is written to a specific group at a specific time for a specific reason. We do distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive passages however. Scripture describes polygamous marriages, for instance, but never prescribes or affirms them. This second excuse also denies Paul’s instruction about Scripture in 2 Timothy 3. The third excuse essentially is that we have more light now. Another version of this would be the trajectory hermeneutic of some progressives like Rob Bell where we try to project what Paul might think & say today.

“Consider the enormous hubris in appointing our present cultural moment as the yardstick against which God’s Word must be measured.”

We should not give into the impulse to fall back onto “love” since the issue is so “complicated and confusing.” She reminds us that the great creeds and confessions of the church were the products of (often) vigorous debate. It is better to dig deeper into the Scriptures and submit ourselves to what they say. This is not simply a personal project but a community project (regarding both time and space).

“I have found it fruitless, leading only to self-pity and anger in my own life, to question God’s disposition of things when I do not understand. Confidence in his goodness has been a better choice.”

The second section is really about trying to address those who disagree with her, both the women who are egalitarian and the men who are more patriarchical (my term) or those who have a more restrictive view of women in the church. She distinguishes between gifts and roles. We tend to conflate them. A woman can have a shepherding gift and she can exercise it, but not in the role of pastor. She brings up her now deceased professor Elizabeth Elliot in discussing this. We should want women to fully exercise their gifts even as we recognize that there is a role (or two?) they cannot fulfill. She puts forward a common formulation that a woman can do anything an unordained man do.

This is a SHORT book, as I mentioned. As a result there are a number of things I thought went unaddressed. I would have preferred some discussion about deacons. That was beyond her scope and is really not an egalitarian vs. complementarian question.

She does affirm the voluntary submission of the Son as Mediator in the economic Trinity. In the footnote in that paragraph she clearly denies Eternal Submission of the Son, which is proposed by some complementarians or at least seems to be. She rightly calls this, in my opinion, a heresy. Some people, like Wayne Grudem, keep doubling down on their ESS views (which are also found in the ESV Study Bible). Frame’s comments are quite tentative on this issue.

Anyway, this was a helpful booklet to read even though its scope was limited. Reading this I see no reason for my more “conservative” brothers (I am a conservative, by the way) to fear the PCA sliding into liberalism with Kathy’s inclusion on the study committee.

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Considering Reeves’ Delighting in the Trinity

In this barren wasteland of books on the Trinity there are only a few oases out there. If you believe Michael Reeves, and I suspect you should, this is thanks to Schleiermacher who basically treated the Trinity as extraneous to Christianity. In Michael Reeves’ Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith he treats the Trinity as the hub upon which all of Christianity turns. That is part of what makes this particular volume on the Trinity unique. He explicitly states and develops this as a steady drumbeat in the book.

“For God is triune, and it is as triune that he is so good and desireable.”

In part, the book is an apologetic for Christianity in general and the Trinity in particular. He spends some time examining what happens if you don’t have a Trinity, what does that mean about God. To put it simply, God is not love. He is wanting a creation, if he wants a creation that serves him. But if God is love, and there are more than 3 persons in this eternal community of love we understand creation (and redemption) as an overflow of the love they have for one another. This sets Christianity into a different light, a greater light.

“Before he ever created, before he ever ruled the world, before anything else, this God was a Father loving his Son.”

For instance, love is the motive for the mission of God. I am currently reading a book on that subject and the author of this otherwise good book seems to neglect this as the reason. He’s not seeing the mission as the Father sending the Son to adopt more children, but more a Creator wanting to be obeyed. This focus on God as loving community helps to clear the air of many misconceptions and present a more winsome Christianity.

“He creates as a Father and he rules as a Father; and that means the way he rules over creation is most unlike the way any other God would rule over creation.”

For instance, in the last chapter he explores how this focus influences how we view various attributes of God. God’s holiness, for instance, is that he is separate from us in that he loves. In Leviticus 19, he reminds us, that the call to be holy, or perfect, as he is is surrounded by the command to love your neighbor as yourself and explanations of what that looks like (caring for the poor, for instance). So our holiness is not to be mere obedience. Our holiness is to be a love that reaches out to others as God has reached out to us in order to meet the needs of others. Oh, there is obedience but as Jesus said in John’s Gospel this is because love Him who first loved us.

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Considering Theological Pharisaism

There is a disturbing trend that I have noticed the last few years. I almost fell into myself while reading a book recently.

Karl Barth

The author favorably quoted from Karl Barth. I had to catch myself. Karl Barth had some very unbiblical notions, but as one of the most prominent theologians of the 20th century he had to have a few good ideas.

The theological Pharisee will not permit anyone to quote from those deemed unworthy. We are expected to treat these men like pariahs or we will be treated like them after a good internet lashing.

I’ve seen people like Jonathan Edwards attacked for having slaves. He never wrote about it and defended it (like some others). Yes, he was part of the cultural sins of his day in this respect. But should that invalidate everything he wrote? No.

Others, dead and alive, have defended slavery which is crazy in my book. I’ve never gotten into the “southern Presbyterians” though I am technically in a southern Presbyterian denomination. I prefer the Princeton theologians, overall. But I don’t cringe when someone quotes Dabney. I see what is said and evaluate it.

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Considering the Gospel on the Ground

I really like Matt Chandler’s preaching. He’s a little edgy, and has that Baptist almost screaming thing at times. But I benefit from much of what he says. He also experiences similar reactions to the gospel as I did in small city Florida. He just experiences it on a much larger scale in the Big D. His frustrations with people being inoculated to the gospel ring true in my time in Florida.

I’ve read Jared Wilson’s blog for some time now. I like how he tries to keep the gospel central. You have to like a guy who moves to Vermont to pastor a church, especially when he adopts the local sports teams. That’s good missional thinking, right?

Well, they wrote a book together. Matt was the primary author, and Jared helped him out. The book is The Explicit Gospel, and it has blurbs filled with praise from the likes of Rick Warren, D.A. Carson, Mark Driscoll, David Platt, Ed Stetzer and more. A literal hodge-podge of famous (and some might say infamous) pastors. Incidentally, CavCorollary #167 is don’t believe the blurbs.

I am half way through the book, and thought this would be a good time to process it. The first half focuses on “the gospel on the ground.” The second focuses on the “gospel in the air”.  Think trees versus forest. It is the same gospel, but from different perspectives, or angles. On the ground you see the trees, but from the air you see the forest.

“If the gospel on the ground is the gospel at the micro level, the gospel in the air is the story at the macro level. … One crucial thing that viewing the gospel on the ground helps us do is distinguish between the gospel’s content and the gospel’s implications. … On the ground, the gospel comes to us as individuals.”

The gospel on the ground, according to Chandler, distinguishes between the gospel and its implications. It focuses on the personal aspects of the gospel instead of the cosmic aspects of the gospel. We need both. But we need to distinguish them or we get all messed up. This is one of the problems that he mentions in some “gospel” preaching- they talk as if the implications of the gospel (social justice, good works, community etc.) were the gospel itself. So they distort and obscure the gospel as a result.

But let’s get back to the beginning.

Chandler’s main point is that many churches are not explicit about the gospel. They mention Jesus a lot, but they are not clear about the content of the gospel. People aren’t hearing about God’s glory, their sin and Christ’s redemptive and reconciling work. His premise is that churches need to explicitly preach the gospel, to consistently show these things from the Scriptures lest we lapse into the common moralistic therapeutic deism that fills so many churches today. They are to make it explicit instead of assumed.

“We carry an insidious prosperity gospel around in our dark, little, entitled hearts.”

So, he starts with God’s glory and sovereignty so we know who we are dealing with in the gospel. There is a focus on God’s incomprehensibility, as well as His revelation of Himself to us in the Scriptures. In terms of His omniscience, he hits both the macro (God’s transcendent knowledge) and the micro (God’s immanent knowledge). He explains the folly of us trying to play God’s counselor with a story of his 4 year-old daughter claiming they are lost on a trip to San Antonio. We easily, and arrogantly, forget that God’s knowledge far exceeds ours and that He could benefit from our help. The gospel is God’s plan for our salvation. We don’t and can’t improve it. His work in our lives is the result of His wisdom- it is the absolute best way for Him to accomplish His purposes in our lives.

In this context, he alludes to what John Gerstner called the problem of good. We question all the time about the difficulties and afflictions we experience as though the Judge of all the earth has failed to do right. We don’t question why good things happen to such pathetic sinners as ourselves. We are not amazed at both common and saving grace. Spiritually, we are part of the moocher class. We’ve become the Occupy Heaven group. We want it be to all about us, not God. But God is passionately committed to His glory. Unlike us, God is no idolator!

Yet, here I found some factual errors. Are there not editors who are supposed to catch these things. I challenge anyone to find “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever” in the Westminster Confession of Faith. Show me! It is in the Westminster Standards, but it’s the first answer of the Shorter Catechism (slightly different from the first answer of the Larger Catechism). I don’t know why this stuff irritates me so. But this is a simple fact to check, but some guy new to the Confession will look in vain and conclude that either Chandler is lying or the reader himself is an idiot. Things like this undermine one’s credibility. Been there when I haven’t done enough fact checking for a sermon illustration.

Which leads us to our sinfulness. Chandler is a bit too reductionistic here. It calls all of it idolatry, the quest to worship something other than God. Oh, we are idolators! All idolatry is sin, but all sin is not necessarily idolatry. A minor point.

He balances the kindness and severity of God. Our tendency is to default to one or the other. Liberals the former and fundamentalists the latter. He doesn’t mention Rob Bell here (he alludes to Bell’s first book later), but that is part of the background. God is ruthlessly severe toward sin. The Bible contains both promises and warnings, or in covenantal terms- blessings and curses. While he continually affirms the horrible reality of hell, there are times when he is less than clear. The particular issue that is unclear is whether or not God is present in hell. His presence (if He’s not, He’s not omnipresent) is what makes it hell. He is present to execute justice, the curses of the covenant. Hell is intensely personal, not just some impersonal and bland place apart from God.  Perhaps I’m being overly charitable. “There is a chasm between us and presence of God that manifests the withdrawal of God’s presence and goodness from the reality of hell.” Such a concept is a theological impossibility, like the pseudo-tasks people ponder. Can God create a place where He isn’t present? Nope.

“Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” Thomas Watson

The gospel makes no sense apart from the reality of sin’s punishment. God’s love, rightly understood, does not rule out God’s wrath. He protects His glory, and those He loves, from all that seek to destroy them. That is what love does- it hates evil and loves good.

He then moves into the redeeming, reconciling work of Christ which is the answer to God’s goodness meeting our sinfulness. He rightly wants to keep the cross central to Christianity. He focuses on the one controversial area- the penal satisfaction. Here he alludes to Chalke and McLaren’s claim of it as child abuse. I applaud him for this.

But there are passages in the chapter whose meaning is uncertain. For instance, what law did the high priest write (pp. 56)? He seems to deny that the Father forsook the Son by referring to Psalm 22 which starts with, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He says “God does not turn his back on Jesus, ever.” Odd to me. He seems to confuse the ontological Trinity with Christ as our Redeemer who became sin for us (2 Cor. 5).

There are more unclear statements, like ” the plan known about within the Godhead since the beginning.” This plan was not merely known by God, but made by God. Yet later he affirms that the Cross was God’s idea. The editors should be noticing these things. In one place there is a sentence that makes no sense.

“The other goat, the scapegoat, is vanquished into the wilderness, carrying away the sins of Israel.”

Vanquished makes no sense. It means “to conquer or subdue by force; to defeat; to overcome.” Banished is the word they are looking for in this context.

“No, the invitation is bound up in the gospel message itself. The explicit gospel, by virtue of its own gravity, invites belief by demanding it.”

He ends with the response for which the gospel calls. He has a very good section here that talks about our focus on faithfulness instead of fruitfulness. The problem is that we look for fruitfulness. But Isaiah 6 and the Parable of the Sower indicate that fruitfulness are not guaranteed. Often the gospel hardens people. That God’s word does not return void does not mean everyone (or anyone) will convert. Mentioning this in a small group 21 years ago got me in lots of trouble with a pastor who didn’t want to start the Calvinism conversation yet. Faithful preaching is the goal, and there is no guarantee of the results. All pastors struggle with this. I see relative fruitlessness at times and wonder if I’m being faithful. Not a bad question to ask- am I being faithful. But faithfulness is not determined by the presence or lack of fruitfulness. The Spirit works according to the purposes of God, not according to ours.

“One of the things we don’t preach well is that ministry that looks fruitless is constantly happening in the Scriptures. … The power in the gospel is not the dynamic presentation of the preacher or the winsomeness of the witness, although the Spirit does empower and use those things too.”

Chandler, with Wilson, make some much needed corrections for the church in the first section of The Explicit Gospel. In that sense, this is a book that should be read. But it is not a perfect book. So far there are errors of fact, theological faux pas and some very fuzzy thoughts. These don’t undo the positives of the book, but they do make it harder to read. And that is unfortunate.

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Considering Baptism: the Third View

This post will look at the third and last position discussed in Baptism: Three Views.  First, Dr. Bruce Ware used a (truncated) systematic theological approach to defend believers’ baptism.  Then Dr. Sinclair Ferguson used a biblical theological approach to defend infant baptism.  Now Dr. Anthony Lane will use a historical theology approach to defend what he called the dual practice approach.

Here is not what he means- most Reformed paedobaptist churches do not bind the consciences of credobaptist members.  They do not exercise church discipline for not practicing the doctrine of the church.  Most often such members are not eligible for office, however.  Some baptist churches also recognize the infant baptism of members, refusing to bind their consciences.  Those members often are not permitted to hold office due to their divergent views.  This is not “dual practice” per se, but extending grace to those who differ on a non-essential.

Dual Practice occurs in denominations, or congregations, that have no official practice but allow freedom to parents on the issue of whether or not to baptize or dedicate their children.  When I was between pastoral calls, I was open to considering the Evangelical Free Church since they were considering removing pre-milennialism from their statement of faith.  But they eventually decided to keep that, ruling me out.  Congregations there are free to practice each according to the theology of the pastor & lay leaders.  In the Evangelical Covenant, mentioned by Ware, they officially practice both based on the desire/convictions of the parents.  Ware was opposed to this, seeing it as binding his conscience.  As a good Southern Baptist, he has no problem binding the conscience of others forcing them to be baptized if they want to become members.  My mother-in-law was forced to do this to join an independent Baptist church. So his comments come across to me as hypocritical.

Back to Lane’s views.  He states that Marcel’s defense of infant baptism (which was very helpful to me) led him into believers’ baptism.  And then Beasley-Murray’s book led him into dual practice despite the author’s intention.  He sounds to me to be a contrarian.  The NT texts, he says, teach a converts’ baptism.  Baptism, in his view, is part of the conversion process and that there is not true conversion without it.  He believes the NT is silent on the issue of infants, and believes that this could be part of a biblical practice of converts’ baptism.  He thinks that some household baptisms involved infants, but this is not conclusive.

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Considering the Great Work of the Gospel

A few years ago I came across The Great Work of the Gospel: How We Experience God’s Grace by John Ensor.  It intrigued me.  John works in establishing pregnancy centers worldwide.  He lives in Boston as well.  So for years I’ve been meaning to buy and read this book.  Something always seemed to be more important at the time.  Until recently.  I picked up a copy about 2 months ago and decided to read it since I was beginning a series on the atonement for Lent.

I’m sorry I waited, but the book was timely in light of the whole Rob Bell thing.  The Christian should treat grace like a scientist treats gravity: not merely accepting its reality, but want to understand its totality.  As recipients of grace, we explore grace that our hearts might be more captured by it and more grateful for it.  To adapt an old saying, unexamined grace isn’t worth having.  This is because to understand grace is to understand Christianity.  How can you be a Christian without wanting to understand it?

“The grace of God that forgives us changes us. … The grace of God wounds our pride but then increases our confidence.  When God forgives, he exposes the most shameful things only to then cleanse them all from our conscience.”

Let’s stop for a moment.  Some personal context to lay my cards on the table.  I grew up Catholic.  I have a Ph.D. in guilt: true and false.  I am a recovering Pharisee who couldn’t keep his own high standards, much less God’s.  There are MANY things I don’t want you to know about me.  There are things only a privileged (and I use that term loosely) know about me.

But I have no interest in cheap grace, or cheap forgiveness.  I’m not trying to ignore God’s standards.  Neither is Ensor following the fashion of the day.  He structures the book on the topic of the Great Work.  When we own up to our guilt, we desire forgiveness and grace.  But if we never own up to guilt, then grace seems pretty much irrelevant.  In all of the chapters, Ensor examines a variety of biblical texts and addresses numerous misconceptions.  In the chapter on desiring grace, for instance, he tackles self-esteem and the reality of the conscience.

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Considering Judgment and Mercy

I am currently reading (among other books) The Great Work of the Gospel by John Ensor.  In proclaiming the greatness of God’s work for our salvation, John takes a very different approach than Rob Bell.  Bell, during his Sex God tour, talked about how God was not angry with sinners, but sinners only seemed to think he was.  Bell’s upcoming book seems to allude that God is not an angry God.

Ensor, on the other hand, spends a chapter on the great need for the great work of the gospel.  He focuses there on the justice of God’s judgment, or the reality of God’s wrath.

¹¹ God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day.  Psalm 7

In one of his sermons on Colossians 3, Matt Chandler distinguishes between God’s active and passive wrath.  His active wrath is clearly seen in judgment upon nations and people.  Think the flood, or Sodom and Gemorrah.  His passive wrath, as noted in Romans 1, is to give us over to our own dark desires.  He gives us over to the sin we love that it might ruin us.  Then, some of us cry out for mercy.

Ensor notes that the frequency with which the Bible speaks of God’s wrath should lead us to some startling conclusions.

“Either our sin and guilt is far, far greater than we ever knew, or God’s punishment far, far exceeds the crime.”

If God is just (and He is), then the latter proposition is not the case.  In other words, our sin and guilt are far greater than we ever imagined.  As Anselm noted to Boso, “You have not yet considered how great the weight of sin is.”  We need only look to the cross to discover the greatness of sin and guilt.  Our perception is off, by a large margin.  Instead of seeking mercy, we tend to excuse, overlook and ignore our sin and guilt.

Ensor, like Chandler, brings Romans 1 into the picture.  Our sin suppresses the clearly seen truth about God and his invisible attributes revealed in creation.  We exchanged the real God for any number of fake gods in creation: the Creator for the created.  We have turned our backs on God, and sought life in a wide variety of created goods- sex, money, family, music, food…

Hulk Smash!

Ensor reveals the compatibility of love and anger.  The sermon by Chandler, and one by Tim Keller, takes the same approach.  We tend to think of love and anger opposed to one another.  But anger is the proper response to a threat against that which is loved.  God hates sin because sin threatens to destroy creation, and people.  In the most recent version of The Hulk, the Hulk’s rage is greatest when the woman he loves is in danger.  Wrath seeks to eliminate the threat.  Sinful anger is sinful, in part, because it takes out more than the threat.  It adopts a scorched earth policy.  But love must get angry when the object of love is threatened.  If you don’t get angry when your spouse (or child) is physically or sexually assaulted, you don’t love them.

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Considering Crazy Love

Whenever you read an insanely popular book, there are some traps and snares along the way.  The first of which is the insane popularity of the book.  That can create enormous expectations of the book.  As a result, your expectations are unrealistic.  The other side of that coin is really annoying those who love the book.  It could be as simple as not buying into the hype, or as serious as recognizing huge theological problems (like in Velvet Elvis or The Shack).  Either way, those who have been (rightly or wrongly) impacted by the book will be mad at you.

Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God is one of those insanely popular books.  Francis Chan became a well-known pastor as a result of this book.  As a result, I had very high expectations for this book.  It didn’t meet those expectations (that does not mean it is a bad book).  On the positive side, it was not dripping with heresy like either Velvet Elvis or The Shack.

Books of this sort are to be both practical and theological.  John Frame rightly, I think, notes that you haven’t really understood a doctrine until you apply it (or at least begin to).  Each book has its own blend of them.  Some are heavy on the practical, and some are heavy on the theological.  Sadly, some are so far skewed as to be no good to the soul.

Chan’s book, which I suspect is adapted from a sermon series, is skewed toward the practical.  There is theology in the book, but it leans toward the practical.  This is part of its appeal to many.  But I prefer to have my heart warmed and stirred by theological truth so I am pursuing a sound lifestyle (see 1 Timothy 1).  I felt more manipulated than instructed.  I don’t mean it to sound that terrible, really.  Francis is very passionate about his topic, and says many things we American Christians need to hear.  My issue was more with the presentation, if that makes sense.

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Considering the Virginal Conception

aka, the Virgin Birth.

It is listed as one of the 5 fundamental beliefs during the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early 20th century.  Is it a fundamental belief?  It is necessary for Jesus to be conceived in this way if he is to be fully divine?

There are a surprising number of people who are saying it isn’t necessary.

Emergent (revisionist) pastor Rob Bell, in his book Velvet Elvis, stated that while he personally affirmed the virgin birth, it was not a necessary belief.  You don’t need the ‘spring’ of the virgin birth to ‘jump’ (cue the Van Halen please), so he says.  He includes some shoddy exegesis and historical context to make his point about why you might think Matthew doesn’t mean what we thought he meant.  Got that?

Easy for me to disregard Rob Bell; he doesn’t have conservative street cred.  But Michael Green, another story.  He wrote the commentary on Matthew in the Bible Speaks Today series edited by John Stott.  I’m reading this for my sermon series from Matthew this Advent.

Green covers the standard arguments against the virginal conception, and counters them pretty well.  Like Bell, he personally holds to the virginal conception.  But he didn’t stop there, and I was a bit shocked.

“However, it is only proper to say that there is nothing necessary about the virgin birth.  The deity of Christ is not inextricably tied to it.  God might well have entered  this world in the normal manner, or chosen some unprecedented way of becoming one of us.  He need not have come through a virginal conception.  The documents, however, assert that he did.”

This precisely where a good biblical and systematic theology save you from a mass of heresy.  Adoptionism (the view that God adopted the human Jesus to be his divine son) would be a denial of the Trinity.  Any other method would presumably include Joseph or other male.  If an ordinary man is involved, Jesus is born “in Adam”.  All who born of 2 human parents are born under the covenant with Adam (Romans 5) and are therefore subject to sin and death.  Jesus, in order to save other, must be free from sin and death.  He must not be “in Adam” as his covenant head.  He becomes the 2nd Adam, the head of a new covenant so that all who are in him by faith are delivered from sin on account of his obedience, death for sin and resurrection on our behalf.

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Considering Differences Among Us

In The Letters of John Newton, the last letter to Rev. Symonds concerns the differences that exist among Christians.  Some of those are differences in belief, and some are differences in practice.  Newton’s comments lead us toward charity on the non-essentials.

He had recently moved from Olney to London.  There in London his sphere of influence was greatly enlarged.  This mean that a wide range of people were coming to hear him preach.  He mentions “Churchmen and Dissenters, Calvinists and Arminians, Moravians and Methodists, now and then I believe Papists and Quakers sit quietly to hear me.”

I know that in the churches I’ve served, this can often be true.  There have been a hodge-podge of backgrounds and present views.  And you just never know where that visitor is coming from.

What he says in the rest of the letter concerns our brothers with whom we disagree.  Don’t take them as applying to denominational standards.  The greater the bond the greater the agreement must be.  Denominations do well to have statements of faith that are binding (even if I disagree with many a denomination’s’ particulars).

“Whoever wants to confine me to follow his sentiments, whether as to doctrine or order, is so far a papist.  Whoever encourages me to read the Scriptures, and to pray for the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and then will let me follow the life the Lord Jesus gives me, without being angry with me because I cannot and will not see with his eyes, nor wear his shoes, is a consistent Protestant.”

He accuses those who demand that others believe as they do, and do as they do of acting like a Pope.  Such people, though often claiming to be Protestants, condemn all who disagree with them.  For instance, this is the issue the Ray Ortlund, Jr. has with the “Truly Reformed“.  In their zeal for truth, particularly Reformed Theology, they condemn all who do not believe (and do) as they believe (and do).  They have lapsed into functional papacy.

This does not mean we should not expect others to hold to essentials of the faith (unless we start thinking everything is essential, which is what these folks do).  He continues:

“The depravity of human nature; the deity of the Savior; the influences of the Holy Spirit; a separation from the world, and a devotedness to God- these are principles which I deem fundamental; and though I would love and serve all mankind, I can have no religious union or communion with those who deny them.”

There are certain minimal beliefs that make one an orthodox Christian.  Newton does not deny this.  But he does not want to hold people to the maximum standard before admitting them as brothers.

“Though a man does not accord with my views of election; yet if he gives me good evidence that he is effectually called of God, he is my brother.  Though he seems afraid of the doctrine of final perseverance; yet if grace enable him to persevere, he is my brother still.  If he love Jesus, I will love him; whatever hard name he may be called by, and whatever incidental mistakes I may think he holds.  His different from me will not always prove him to be wrong, except I am infallible myself.”

Newton looks for evidences of the grace of God in them, not theological consistency.  The key word is “incidental” mistakes.  For instance, Rob Bell’s increasing syncretism is not an “incidental mistake”.  Rob needs the real gospel.  But Protestants can disagree on issues regarding baptism, the Table, election, the covenants, the millennium etc.  I did say Protestants since the Roman views of baptism and the Table depart too far from Scripture as to be heretical.

Newton gets to the main point at the very end.  We cannot expect everyone to agree with us, submitting to our view of things unless we somehow mistakenly think we are infallible- that we are the Pope speaking ex cathedra (from his chair on matters of faith and morals).  No mere man is infallible, but we all err.  And this ought to humble us as we interact with brothers on matters of dispute.  Treat them as brothers, not enemies.  Grant one another grace and continued love.

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Considering Velvet Elvis and the Church

This the end of Velvet Elvis.  The final chapter is called Good.  And the point is the church should be doing good in society.  Rob Bell wants nothing to do with Christians who retreat from society, focusing on getting to heaven and “saving souls.”  In some ways, Rob provides a good critique of much dispensational thinking.  As usual, Rob seems to provide an over-correction.

Rob does a great job of laying the groundwork for the fact that Jesus will be restoring creation (Romans 8).  Our personal salvation is a part of this cosmic renewal Jesus has begun, which will be completed when He returns.

What Rob neglects is that while we await His return, those who die in Christ are in heaven with Him.  And they shall return with Him to renew the heavens and earth, which shall be our dwelling place with God forever (Revelation 21-22).  He lays this out as the expectation of the prophets in the Old Testament.  Paul’s eschatology is not a departure from OT eschatology (2 peoples => 2 destinies).  Rather, we join true Israel (not replace) in receiving the promises.

There are some “interesting” statements made.  Things that would make the Scriptures unclear to most Christians, and lead some in unhealthy directions.

“Jewish writers like John did things like this all the time in their writings.  They record what seem to be random details, yet in these details we find all sorts of multiple layers of meaning.  There are even methods to help decipher all the hidden meanings in a text.”

Hidden meanings…. dangerous stuff in my mind.  His footnote brings us to Matthew’s genealogy.  There he develops this numerology deal with David’s name in Hebrew (the numbers add to 14, which is how many people make up each section of the genealogy which is supposed to shout “King, King, King” to us.  Most people will go “Cool, I didn’t see that.”

It is not hidden.  Matthew’s Gospel starts with saying Jesus is the son of Abraham and the son of David.  He is the fulfilment of the promises given to these 2 great men of faith.  He is the long awaited Seed who will be for the blessing of the nations, and the King to sit on David’s throne.  It is right there in plain sight, for all to see.  And those themes (expansion to the Gentiles and Jesus as King) run all the way through Matthew’s Gospel.  No secret knowledge necessary to understand some hidden meaning.

It is this promise to Abraham that is important in understanding some of the implications of election.  Problem is, Rob ignores the issue of election for salvation (which is the context of most of the statements concerning our election).  He majors on the minor theme of how we are to be for the blessing of the nations.  Christians need to hear that message too, so we don’t run and hide from society.  We seem to forget that the early church entered a very corrupt society and transformed it with the gospel.  The early Christians took care of the poor and abandoned (as Julian the Apostate noted and applauded).  They saw this as a function and picture of the Gospel.  They did not separate this from the Gospel of salvation.

Sadly, Rob would appear to do this (as the Social Gospel did years ago taking Sheldon’s In His Steps too far).

“And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join.  It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display.  To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever.  … To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone.”

We are to love all- even our enemies.  But family ties being greater responsibilities.  We see this in Paul.  A person who calls themselves a Christian must provide for their family (1 Timothy 5:4-8).  We are to do good, especially to those in the family of believers (Galatians 6:10).  This is a function of our adoption into God’s family.  We should treat all people well, and our family in Christ better.  All people are made in the image of God, but some participate with us in the blessings of salvation.  This is the kind of neglect of God’s whole counsel that irritates me.  By flattening it out, Rob can mislead people just as much as those he is reacting against.  This is what I mean by over-correction.  If your plane is off course, you correct it so it arrives at the proper destination.  You don’t just yank the steering column hard in the other direction and pray for the best.  That is dangerous, not just for you but all those following you.

So ends a book that says some great things, and some really bad things.  Discerning people can identify both and benefit from the good things.  But Rob’s intended audience would appear to be people who don’t have the ability to discern those things.  And they will suffer for it.  And that is sad.

Repainting Mission from the Great Commission => Creation Mandate (reversing the progression of revelation)

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Considering Velvet Elvis and Salvation

I read Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith’s sixth chapter, New, last night.  I nearly choked.  Rob Bell seems to have painted himself into a corner.  Any issues that popped up before are miniscule compared to what I read last night.  Any thoughts I might have that maybe I was being tough on Rob, well….. vanished.

It starts out okay.  He was weary of counseling a guy who got total depravity real well, but didn’t get the sanctifying grace part at all.  You know… worm theology- a corruption of Calvinism.

But Rob, like Robert Schuller, seems very concerned about what people think about themselves.  So he makes an over-correction to ‘worm theology’.

“Have you ever heard a Christian say, ‘I’m just a sinner’?  I can’t find one place in the teachings of Jesus, or the Bible for that matter, where we are to identify ourselves first and foremost as sinners.  Now this doesn’t mean we don’t sin; that’s obvious.”

A Christian, by definition, is not ‘just a sinner’ because of what Rob talks about next- we have been regenerated and given a new identity.  But, Paul still called himself a sinner, the foremost sinner, in 1 Timothy 1:15.  He did it in a way that he expected all of us to affirm that we are the biggest sinners we know.  BUT, that Jesus came to save sinners like us.  James 4 address Christians as sinners too.  So, while we needn’t beat ourselves up for our sin, since it accomplishes nothing, we shouldn’t avoid the fact we are sinners- not just that we sin.

“Beating others up about who they are and what they are doing is going in the wrong direction.  It is working against the purposes of God.  God is not interested in shaming people; God wants people to see who they really are.”

Now Rob starts to go down the wrong road.  He thinks that ministry is primarily telling people who they are now, not telling them to stop being who they were.  I have a hard time with this sentiment of his since much of the New Testament is filled with rebuke and admonishment.  Thankfully, the power to change comes to us from the crucified, resurrected and ascended Jesus through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  We have power to live differently, and a new identity as God’s adopted children.  These go together, always together.  But sometimes we need to be rebuked so we’ll repent.  God certainly shamed Israel to try and produce repentance (read those prophets like Ezekiel, Hosea and Jeremiah- that’s some serious shaming going on).

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Considering Velvet Elvis and Faith

The next chapter in Velvet Elvis is entitled Dust.  It refers to the dust stirred up by the rabbi as he walks with his disciples.  Rob Bell provides a great deal of background information on the religious instruction of Israel’s youth in Jesus’ day.  He talks about how someone becomes a rabbi, and a disciple.  It is the conclusions that he draws that shocked me.

Before we get there, there was one other surprising statement.  I bring this up because he did not rightly divide the Word in this instance by neglecting some important information.  This has to do with Matthew 16, and Jesus’ discussion with his disciples in Caesarea Philippi.  He talks about their worship of Pan- the goat god-, and the natural rock formation called the Gates of Hell.

“He tells them at Caesarea Philippi that upon this rock he is going to build his new witnessing community, and the Gates of Hell won’t be able to stop it.  He is essentially saying that those kinds of people- the ones with the goats- are going to join the Jesus movement and it will be unstoppable.  How would you as a disciple even begin to process this statement?”

Rob never stops to lay out what Jesus means by rock.  The rock, in historical Protestantism, is the confession that “Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”  Earlier, Rob treats the divinity of Jesus as something that gained steam after Jesus’ death.  Peter seemed to think He was the Son of God (which God, not flesh and blood, revealed to him).  This is the rock upon which Jesus will build His church.  Obviously many worshippers of false gods will turn from their idols to embrace the Jesus who is Messiah, the Son of the Living God.  I guess I just can’t believe he wouldn’t make a point of this pivotal statement, Peter’s confession, in his discussion of this event.

That is not a serious error, but on the next page I find a bigger problem.  Again, Peter is interacting with Jesus.  This time, he is walking on the water to join Jesus.  He becomes afraid due to the storm and begins to sink.  Jesus says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt? (Matthew 14)”  Now, they all worshipped Jesus saying “Truly you are the Son of God (vs. 33).”

Rob doesn’t mention that- Jesus as the object of their faith and worship.  Here’s where he goes:

“Who does Peter lose faith in?  Not Jesus; Jesus is doing fine.  Peter loses faith in himself.  Peter loses faith that he can do what his rabbi is doing.”

That’s a big leap, not substantiated by the text.  Peter doubted that Jesus would enable him to walk on the water in the midst of the storm.  He did not go out there on his own initiative.  Jesus is to be the object of our faith, not ourselves.  But there is more.

“God has an incredibly high view of people.  God believes that people are capable of amazing things.  I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus.  Which is a good thing.  But what I am learning is that Jesus believes in me.  I have been told that I need to have faith in God.  Which is a good thing.  But what I am learning is that God has faith in me.”

Jesus was often exasperated by His disciples, and the evil and perverse generation around him.  Jesus knows we are sinners- He died because there was no other way to save us.  The whole theme of Scripture is not how great we are, but how great God is.  It is the work of His Spirit that accomplishes great things in and through us.  We see this in the Book of Acts and the numerous letters to the churches (in particular see Ephesians and Philippians).

Rob’s statements appeal to the flesh, and the American notion that all people are basically good.  But it is contrary to the gospel, and the overwhelming message of Scripture.  Jesus did not entrust Himself to the people because He knew what was in their hearts (John 2:24).

Rob repaints the object of faith from Jesus => Jesus and yourself.  And I can’t go there with him.

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Considering Velvet Elvis and Wholeness

The fourth chapter of Velvet Elvis is called Tassels.  Rob is referring to the tassels on a prayer shawl.  He connects this with the passage in Malachi about Messiah coming with healing in his wings (referring to the shawl).

Rob tells the story about the beginning of Mars Hill and how success almost killed him.  He had to come face-to-face with who he was and the things that were really driving him.

As an aside- it was great to hear that they had no vision, no marketing, he’d read no books on church planting, no 5-year plan, no demographic.

Where Rob Bell goes with this is to actually recapture a more biblical understanding of salvation.  The doctrine of salvation has been reduced in many circles to encompass forgiveness, and a ticket to heaven.  Christianity then becomes about following some rules.

He puts it this way: “When we understand salvation from a legal-transaction perspective, then the point of the cross becomes what it has done for us.”  I don’t think this is a necessary conclusion.  Many who embrace the substitutionary atonement as (in part) a legal-transaction (as Paul does in Romans) recognize that the point is the glory of God in the salvation of sinners.  But, yes, many Christians have been influenced by individualism and sinfully make themselves the center of the universe even in salvation.

Our salvation is not less than justification (the pardon of our sins, and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness so we are accepted by God).  But we must include sanctification (the transformation of the character so that we are like Jesus).  This is more than following a ethical code.  It is the transformation of the heart- meaning we begin to dig up our idols.

Rob reminds that our individual salvation is part of the renewal of the entire cosmos that will occur when Jesus returns.  It is important to remember this when individualism runs rampant in our culture and churches.  It does not deny the salvation of individuals, but recognizes that they are brought into the holy community, the Body of Christ, and receive the renewed heaven and earth.

Where Rob loses me is the end, or rather his process- “go to a counselor”.  Okay, I’ve got a degree in counseling, so I don’t think that biblical counselors are wrong.  But he seems to view sanctification as therapy.  He does also say “Go on a retreat.  Spend a couple of days in silence.  Do whatever it takes.”  He advises things that remove you from community to find healing or restoration.  He does not point you back to the community of faith, say like James 5 does.  Or Ephesians 4-6.  Odd for a guy who beats the drum of community.  Sanctification is a community project, not an individual affair.  It is more than therapy, but a putting to death of the sin that seeks to take my captive.

Repainting sanctification from total transformation via the means of grace => transformation via therapy.  Man, he got so close in this chapter.

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Considering Velvet Elvis and Truth

The 3rd chapter of Velvet Elvis is called True, and I think I know what Rob Bell is trying to say, and I estimate I agree with about 90-95% of it.  I only say I think I know because Rob is not writing to me, someone who prefers precision, but for a group of “spiritual” people who want to find a non-dogmatic religion.

What is Rob “trying” to say?  That there is such a thing as General Revelation, and that all truth (not just what you might think is true) has the triune God as its source.  It is his world, and not all truth is found in Scripture (though all Scripture is true).  So, other religions have fragments of truth.  His example is Muslims being debt adverse.  I’d tell Rob that this is actually a biblical idea they happen to share with us.  So, other religions have areas of overlap with Christianity.

But he doesn’t put it that way, which opens the door for pluralism (even if he didn’t intend it).  This is where Rob’s non-linear style, focused on tangentially related stories does him a disservice.

Rob makes a good point that many kids who grow up in fundamentalist homes think that the church as a market on truth.  So they go to college and some prof blows their mind and they leave their faith behind.  Yep, happens.  The problem is not Christianity but parents who don’t live in the real world, nor prepare their kids for the real world.

Where Rob really loses me is in talking about missionaries “transporting God” to other cultures.  He sees this as a basic misunderstanding some have about missionaries.  God is everywhere.  Yep- with you.  But I’ve never heard of any misguided person talk about “bringing God” to other people.  Bringing the gospel, yes.

And I guess this is what saddens me about sections of this book.  He does what John McArthur often does- take an extreme, often foolish example as though it were the norm for a particular group of people he doesn’t really like or agree with.  So, Rob pokes fun at Fundamentalists and how goofy they are (and they really can be).  But he never really says that is who they are- so your average conservative Christian whose not as hip as some, gets painted as guilty by association.  Don’t want to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints or you are a “wall builder”, and that is bad.  Don’t want to say “Scripture alone” because some dolt in Idaho uses that to defend his strange views.  Sola Scriptura becomes bad.

I guess I’d like it if Rob just said something like, “I grew up Fundamentalist” (I don’t know if that’s true), “and had a bad reaction.”  I prefer if he expressed his prejudices so people would know upfront instead of us having to read between the lines.  He’s not objective- but neither is he upfront about his true convictions.

(I am a Christian who finds his heritage in the conservative, evangelical, Reformed, Prebyterian, missional branch of the church.  I grew up Catholic, converted in college was a Conservative Baptist => Reformed Baptist => PCA/ARP.  Just to be fair, you know.)

Add-on:  I slept on the chapter and had some additional thoughts.  Rob is not really repainting the Christian view of faith here, just disagreeing with a fringe element.  But what is disappointing, is that Rob provides no real framework for people to separate the true from the fascinating.  His example of kids going to to college is important.  At college, some of what they hear will be true, but lots of it will be fascinating half-truths, false interpretations etc.  I don’t think that has changed much from when I went to college.  You have many different theories of economics, psychology, politics etc.  Many of these can seem fascinating, for they “ring true” to someone’s experience.  But interesting/fascinating does not truth make.  Non-Christians know lots of true things.  But, due to the noetic effect of the Fall, they have a tendency to mis-interpret reality by denying the Creator.  Becoming a Christian does not utterly remove that tendency.  But Rob opens the floodgates without providing any sort of way for a young person to discern what is true and what is false.  I guess he’s assuming someone else, an agenda-driven prof perhaps, will provide that.

Repainting truth from the reality of General Revelation => (what sounds like) Pluralism.

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Considering Velvet Elvis #2

In the second chapter of Velvet Elvis called Yoke, Rob Bell tackles the issues of authority and interpretation.  He provides some interesting background information, showing that he is well-read.  He continues the practice of asking questions instead of answering questions.  In the process, as in the previous chapter, he unwittingly (?) seems to set people up to question themselves right out of orthodox Christianity.  Here are some examples.

 

“Notice this verse from 1 Corinthians: ‘To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord)…’  Here we have Paul writing to a group of Christians, and he wants to make it clear that the next thing he is going to say comes from him, ‘not the Lord’.”

Rob does not discuss the context of this passage from 1 Corinthians 7.  Paul differentiates his counsel which is coming from the Old Testament, and that which is not found there.  Are we to take Paul to mean that we don’t need to heed this instruction because it’s from him and not God?  I don’t think so.  I’m not going to start chopping my Bible up into what God says and what the human author says.  But Rob’s statements undermine the authority of Paul’s instruction (unless I’m really missing something here).

 

In keeping with his anti-fundamentalist bent, he turns his gaze to the Southern Baptist Convention (without naming names).

“The reason their annual gathering was in the news was that they had voted to reaffirm their view of the importance of the verse that says a wife’s role is submit to her husband.  This is a big deal to them.  This is what made the news.  This is what they are known for.”

 

Last I checked the SBC didn’t control the news outlets.  I have some bones to pick with them too, but this is not one of them.  It made news because it is so counter-cultural.  I applaud them for not giving in to cultural pressure to somehow water down Scripture.

But Rob has a question or two.  First, “What about the verse before that verse?  “What about the verse after it?” The prior verse is a summary statement that we should submit to one another (a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit).  Paul then lays out some examples- wives to husbands, children to parents, employees to employers (yes, I made an epochal shift there out of slavery).  No one says that parents should submit to their children, or that employers should submit to their employees.  But somehow Paul is not to be taken to mean that wives should submit to their husbands.  He wants you to doubt that it really means this, and the SBC is foolish for believing it (Neanderthals!).  I guess Christ should submit to us.

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Considering Velvet Elvis #1

“We have to test everything.”  That’s what it says on the back of Rob Bell’s book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith.  That is completely consistent with 1 John (Test the spirits), and Isaiah (Unless they speak according to the Law and the Testimony they have not the light of day.).  I’ve heard a few Rob Bell sermons, and they were good.  I’ve enjoyed some of the Nooma videos.  Rob is great at asking questions.  My question is, what are his answers, if any?

Rob in fairly controversial, which in itself is not a problem.  Afterall, Jesus was controversial.  But is he controversial in the same way Jesus was?  Or is he departing from orthodox Christianity?  Or is he orthodox but leading others to ask questions without giving them biblical answers so they depart from orthodox Christianity?

Mark Driscoll pointed out some troubling statements in this book in his message at the Desiring God Conference (awesome message, which I listened to again yesterday during a walk).  My sister-in-law wasn’t too wild about some of Rob’s statements, so she gave me her copy.  Any quotes & notes will be from the paperback edition.

“As a part of this tradition (the Protestant Reformation), I embrace the need to keep painting, to keep reforming.  By this I don’t mean cosmetic, superficial changes… I mean theology… We must keep reforming the way the Christian faith is defined, lived and explained.”

Depends on what you mean by that.  If we are gaining a better understanding of biblical truth & contextualizing timeless truth, I can go there.  But to re-theologize, to invent a novelty (which Luther, Calvin et al did not do)… I cannot go there.

He sort of qualifies it on the next page (13): “It’s just that every generation has to ask the difficult questions of what it means to be a Christian here and now, in this place, at this time.”  Sounds like contexualizing, but he seems to bring us elsewhere at times.

On page 22 he talks about theology as the springs of a trampoline (hence the jumping man on the cover).  He talks about the trinity as a spring added later, that the church had existed for hundreds of years without.  Well, this would be a great time to talk about progressive revelation and how the church grew in its understanding of truth.  That is not the same as “adding it later”.  This makes it sound as if it was something men made up, rather than summarizing what the Bible says about God.  God is bigger than our words, but God uses words to tell us who He is.  As Calvin says, God lisps to us.  Language exists precisely so we can know God and how He saves people.

On page 26 he begins his section that drew Driscoll’s attention.  He relays a message he heard from a pastor who compared doctrines as bricks.  Perhaps this guy, not Bell, went with the metaphor of a wall.  I’m not wild about that metaphor, regardless.  Scripture uses the metaphor of a foundation.  If you start pulling bricks out of the foundation of your home, I’m thinking you’d be a little concerned.  Some bricks are more important than others.  Some bricks are essential to orthodox Christianity (God, Christology, doctrine of salvation etc.).  Some bricks are not essential (who should be baptized, or mode of baptism).  The brick he mentions is the virgin birth.  He affirms the virgin birth, but thinks that if we reexamine or redefine one brink/spring (page 27) it is not that big a deal.  Depends on the spring or brick.  If Jesus was not born of a virgin, we lose the God-man who was able to bear our sins on the cross.  Jesus becomes a great example, and that is it.  The virgin birth is very important!

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