Silence is Criminal

Conrad Mbewe, in a recent blog post entitled "Our Criminal Evangelical Silence", complains about the disgraceful state of many of the so-called evangelical churches in Zambia. He says:

"The disaster is the silence about all this from those who are supposed to provide spiritual guidance to the masses. In Zambia, and in Africa at large, evangelical leaders who have worked their way up the ecclesiastical ladder are holding hands with religious fraudsters and thus they cannot speak about this engulfing evil. They would rather throw stones at political leaders out there than address the Trojan horse within evangelicalism. They would rather tell the world to stop being worldly than tell those who are raping the church from within to stop it. And yet in the light of this spiritual tsunami, the silence is criminal."

Read the whole article here.

New City Catechism

The Gospel Coalition and Redeemer Presbyterian Church have developed the New City Catechism. You can read about it on The Gospel Coalition Blog.

The whole catechism is available here as a PDF file.

Is Theology Optional?

Brian Lee, writing in Modern Reformation:

"At lunch with a prospective church member, I described the process of joining our church: a six to ten-week membership class that introduces our church's teaching in its confessions, its worship and life together, and an extensive interview to examine a candidate's profession of faith and knowledge of the catechism. He shook his head and said, 'Man, this is a lot of stuff. Do you ever worry that the Reformed church is just for smart people?'"

Aimee Byrd, commenting on Lee's article:

"...our faith involves a confession - it has content. When someone tells me that they 'don't need to get into all that theological stuff' because they have faith, I ask them who their faith is in. Of course, they tell me Jesus Christ. Well, who is Jesus Christ? These are theological questions. We are all theologians, as John Gerstner put it in his book Theology for Every Man, the question is whether we are good ones or bad ones."

Words of Wisdom

James Houston, in The Transforming Friendship: A Guide to Prayer:

"The Desert Fathers (a protest movement in the early church) spoke of busyness as 'moral laziness'... Busyness acts to repress our inner fears and perpetual anxieties, as we scramble to achieve an enviable image to display to others. We become 'outward' people, obsessed with how we appear, rather than 'inward' people, reflecting on the meaning of our lives."

This reminds me of a comment made by Michael D. O'Brien:

"There are burdens, even heavy burdens, that ease the weight of a man's life. And there are burdens that, when they are lifted from a man's life, will crush him."

Wise words indeed.

Lewis on Reading

C.S. Lewis, in An Experiment in Criticism (1961):

"The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough...

Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality... in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself then when I do."

Semi-Pelagians and Visionaries

Chris Rosebrough is a funny fellow. Here are two recent posts from his "Letter of Marque" blog:

The Semi-Pelagian Narrower Catechism

Is Vision Casting Biblical?

Believing in the Real Presence?

Here is a post (dated 9 August) from Lydia McGrew's blog "Extra Thoughts".

The topic of the post is: "Why a Protestant believes in the Real Presence".

The third sentence of Lydia's post says: "...the question has arisen as to whether there is good Scriptural reason to believe in something more than memorialism as a view of the Lord's Supper".

I need to read Lydia's post with an honest and open mind, for two reasons: (1) I respect the work that Lydia has done in the area of analytic philosophy, and (2) Regarding the Lord's Supper, I have always been an intuitive, automatic, and dyed-in-the-wool supporter of memorialism, without taking the trouble to study the whole issue properly.

Defining Secular Humanism

Here is an excellent extended definition of secular humanism by Stephen Law, who lectures in philosophy at the University of London. It is all too easy to caricature secular humanism by defining it too broadly or too narrowly, but I think Law's account is spot on.

1908 London Olympics

Here is a picture from the 1908 London Olympics. The athlete in the picture is a Christian, and he is carrying a Bible. (No, this athlete is not the famous Eric Liddell from the "Chariots of Fire" movie; the Olympics at which Liddell won his medal took place in Paris sixteen years later.)

Living With Stress

Peter Enns:

"I've had far too many conversations over the last few years with trained, experienced, and practicing biblical scholars, young, middle aged, and near retirement, working in Evangelical institutions, trying to follow Jesus and use their brains and training to help students navigate the challenging world of biblical interpretation. And they are dying inside.

Just two weeks ago I had the latest in my list of long conversations with a well-known, published, respected biblical scholar, who is under inhuman stress trying to negotiate the line between institutional expectations and academic integrity. His gifts are being squandered. He is questioning his vocation. His family is suffering. He does not know where to turn. I wish this were an isolated incident, but it's not."

In the eyes of many evangelicals, Peter Enns is something of a bogeyman. But here, where Enns is not talking about controversial things like evolution or Genesis or ancient near eastern myth or the diversity of the Old Testament or Second Temple Judaism or whatever, there can be little doubt that he is highlighting a real problem.

Any thoughts on this issue?

Calvin the Higher Critic

David Williams (on his blog "Brick by Brick") posted two articles on John Calvin during April and May:

The first article is about Calvin and Genesis chapter one.

The second is about Calvin and the authorship of Second Peter.

Williams' point is that some of Calvin's views on these issues make him sound like the sort of Christian who is regularly attacked by the strict evangelicals for interpreting the Bible in a suspect and problematic way...

Women Against Women Bishops

The Anglican Mainstream website and the BBC News website report that 2200 female members of the Church of England have signed a petition opposing the ordination of women bishops. The petition will be presented to the House of Bishops at the start of their meeting in York.

Many trendy churchmen will be skeptical; they will say that these women have been bullied and dominated by male church members, and coerced to sign the petition with some reluctance. Perhaps the trendies have a point; you only have to glance at the picture above to see the fear and resentment staring out of the women's faces...

Williams on Christian Belief

David Williams at the "Brick by Brick" blog:

"...one of the profoundest paradoxes of contemporary Church life: that week by week we drowsily summon the God who shouted Job down out of the tempest, and blithely invoke Him who toppled Pharaoh's empire with wave after wave of catastrophe. We glibly propose to encounter the King of kings who could wither a tree with a glance and who cracked Death itself in two as though we were taking a trip to the post office. The contradiction between the extraordinary claims we make about the God we worship and the lackadaisical, flip, or trite ways in which we engage in our worship of Him betrays a fact about us that is both too obvious to need saying and to difficult to bear saying: Hardly any of us believes a word of Christianity anymore. What ever can I mean? Do we not say the Creed? Have I not accepted Jesus Christ as my very own personal Lord and Savior? Can I not check all of the necessary doctrinal boxes? Yes, yes, yes. That's all very well. But in our bones we believe something else entirely."

Statements on Scripture

Brian LePort has collected various statements on the doctrine of Scripture from evangelical institutions.

Wright For Archbishop?

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has resigned his post. A fair number of evangelical Anglicans are noticeably happy about this, and some are suggesting that the New Testament scholar (and ex-bishop) Tom Wright would make a much better AoC than Williams managed to be.

Recently, Wright referred to international Anglicanism as "a slow-moving train crash", so perhaps he will be the fellow to put it together again. However, Wright is a key proponent of the controversial "New Perspective on Paul", so the support of all evangelical Anglicans is certainly not guaranteed...

Schori's Easter Message

This is the Easter 2012 Message from the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Apart from Schori's worthwhile desire to improve the lives of poor people, this piece should win a Guinness Book of Records award for the bishop who uttered the most wishy-washy, pseudo-pagan, sub-christological drivel:

"One of my favorite Easter hymns is about greenness. 'Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain'. It goes on to talk about love coming again. It's a reminder to me of how centered our Easter images are in the Northern hemisphere. We talk about greenness and new life and life springing forth from the earth when we talk about resurrection. I often wonder what Easter images come in the Southern hemisphere, and I think that church in the south has something to teach us about that.

I was in Japan a month or so ago, and visiting the area of Japan that was so affected by the tsunami and the aftermath of the earthquake. The earth there is – was at that point – largely colorless, brown, in the middle of winter. No greenness. But at the same time the work of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai, the Japanese church in that part of Japan, has brought a great deal of new life, life abundant for people who have been devastated and displaced, who are still mourning their loss of loved ones, the loss of their homes and employment.

New life comes in many forms, even in seasons that seem fairly wintry.

As we began Lent, I asked you to think about the Millennium Development Goals and our work in Lent as a re-focusing of our lives. I’m delighted to be able to tell you that the UN report this last year has shown some significant accomplishment in a couple of those goals, particularly in terms of lowering the rates of the worst poverty, and in achieving better access to drinking water and better access to primary education. We actually might reach those goals by 2015. That leaves a number of other goals as well as what moves beyond the goals to full access for all people to abundant life.

In this Easter season I would encourage you to look at where you are finding new life and resurrection, where life abundant and love incarnate is springing up in your lives and the lives of your communities. There is indeed greenness, whatever the season. Give thanks for Easter. Give thanks for Resurrection. Give thanks for the presence of God incarnate in our midst."

Out of the Tomb

The New Testament scholar (and ex-bishop) Tom Wright, who was interviewed on 30 March at the Christian.co.uk website, said:

"Anyone who is in any sense a Christian cannot with any consistency believe that Jesus stayed dead. I have friends and colleagues who I know to be praying Christians who worship regularly and lead lives of practical Christian love and service but who really struggle with the bodily resurrection. I would say that looks like a muddled Christian who needs to be put straight. Of course some of them would say exactly that about me!"

"But if you say Jesus died and nothing happened but the disciples had some interesting ideas, then you have cut off the branch on which all classic Christianity is sitting. This generation needs to wake up, smell the coffee and realise serious Christianity begins when Jesus comes out of the tomb on Easter morning. This is not a nice optional extra for those who like believing in funny things."

Skeptics and atheists deny the bodily resurrection of Christ yet a fair number of them insist that such a resurrection is crucial to the viability of Christianity. So Christopher Hitchens: "I would say that if you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, that he rose again from the dead, and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven you're really not in any meaningful sense a Christian".

It is the ever-so-trendy clergymen who often believe that spiritualising or denying Christ's resurrection does not affect their Christianity in any significant way...

A Challenge To Calvinists

A blog post by Andrew Dionne, entitled "Taking a Stick to Reformed Intellectualism".

Does Calvinism Make People Jerks?

Kevin DeYoung tries to answer this perennial question.

Anglicanism Without God

Peter Jensen, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney:

"If I were to preach on Sunday that the bodily resurrection of Jesus was 'a conjuring trick with bones', and unbelievable, it would cause a ripple, but I would not be drummed out of the Anglican church. But if I refuse on principle to baptise infants, I would not be able to stay, although there is a perfectly respectable and non-heretical Christian denomination which takes the same position."

Jensen thinks that there is something strange about this, and so do I. Anglicanism (by which in this context I mean non-evangelical, mainstream Anglicanism) has always been a significant mystery to me. I can fathom (and to some extent empathise with) a host of religious and philosophical views (Mahayana Buddhism, Neo-platonism, Chinese Taoism, modern neo-paganism, Christian socialism, whatever), but I find modern Anglicanism to be at best frustrating and at worst baffling.

When I was a student, one of my lecturers told us the story of a famous Anglican (I think it was Alec Vidler) who had given a public talk about his religion; words and phrases like wishy-washy, vague, diffuse, unfinished, equivocal (and so on) were used. After the talk, some people complimented Vidler for his courage and honesty and his ability to be critical of the Church to which he had devoted his life. Vidler looked puzzled. "I wasn't criticising Anglicanism", he said, "I was praising it". (Even if the story is apocryphal, it is still worth recording!)

If you think I am being unjust to Anglicanism, let me close with a snippet of local news. I live in South Africa, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Less than fifty miles from my home is a stately old Anglican church. The priest/minister of that church is a woman whose title is "Reverend Canon". For a while, this priest served on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council, one of the most powerful bodies in the Anglican Communion (if anything at all in Anglicanism can be said to be powerful).

The point of this anecdote is that this Anglican priest (priestess?) has long been a member of the Sea of Faith Network (its main website can be found here). This organisation, which was founded in the mid-1980s by a liberal Anglican priest by the name of Don Cupitt, believes that God has no real objective existence; what we call "God" is merely a human construct, a metaphor, a symbol, a focus for human values and aspirations.

Although the Sea of Faith was founded by an Anglican, its members are a mixed bag - some see themselves as Christians, others identify with other religious traditions in some way (e.g. Buddhism), while still others are humanistic, agnostic, or atheistic.

Anyway, the priestess I have been talking about, whose name is Janet Trisk, identifies with the program of the Sea of Faith. In early 2003, she wrote a review of Lloyd Geering's book, Christianity Without God. The review is available here.

So there you have it - the strange phenomenon called Anglicanism embraces the full spectrum from ardent evangelical Anglicans to people who no longer believe in the existence of God. Not only that, but it is willing to allow priests who do not believe in the existence of God to remain on their payroll, speak in their name, and preach in their churches.

Go figure.

McDurmon on Horton and Godfrey

Joel McDurmon arguing that the responses by Michael Horton and Robert Godfrey to John Frame's book The Escondido Theology have been disappointingly weak.

Theological Perfectionism

Lee Irons on the problems of theological perfectionism.

The Mistakes of Phillip Jensen

Here is a down-to-earth interview in which the evangelical Anglican Phillip Jensen recalls the various mistakes he has made over the years.

Phillip Jensen is the Dean of St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney, Australia (he is the brother of Peter Jensen, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney).

Phillip Jensen has a website here.

Secularity and Secularism

Michael Horton, quoted by Lane Keister at the Green Baggins blog on 16 March, said at the Ligonier Conference 2012:

"Secularism is different from secularity. Everyday callings do not fall under the rubric of the church. But secularism is different. It is an ideology that pushes God out of the universe."

At last; somebody who appreciates the difference between secularity and secularism. All Christians oppose secularism, which is a skeptical worldview that rejects God and the supernatural, whereas evangelical Christians disagree among themselves about the merits/demerits of secularity.

Many years ago an English blogger whose name escapes me gave a concise definition of secularity: "Secularity means making religion unable to control public life, not driving religion out of civil society".

The most obvious Christian foes of secularity are (presumably?) the neo-charismatic dominionists (e.g. Cindy Jacobs, Lance Wallnau, Lou Engle, David Barton, and others). These people preach that Christians have a God-endorsed duty to take over and christianise the so-called seven spheres of culture (also called the seven mountains); this takeover is often portrayed in explicit and militaristic terms.

Cindy Jacobs is famous not just as a neo-charismatic dominionist but as the recipient of prophetic "revelations" from God. If you have lots of time on your hands and you want to punish yourself for some reason, listen to the many videos on the Web in which Cindy blusters, whines and hectors in her own inimitable (and splendidly incoherent) way.