John Piper is BAD!  (HT to Team Redd)

I watched the video linked in Alastair’s post, the one for Jesus Camp. I shouldn’t have.

This was my childhood. It gave me chills and flashbacks. Lord, have mercy.

Greg:  Sorry…

wrong conference.  The conference this weekend features Henry Wright.

Bob Jones was there in August...

I’ve been saying for nearly a year that this church is “just a little” off the rails…

Tim Challies has posted his summary of Mark Driscoll’s talk at the DG National Conference. I’m glad to hear Driscoll point to missionary theology as the fork in the road that some Calvinists are unwilling to take. The difference between emergent liberals and missional emerging churches doing real evangelism is missionary methodology. Missionaries contextualize rather than compromise.

I am interested in how Driscoll identifies the incarnation as somehow a danger zone for demoting Christ from his place of supremeacy by way of too much emphasis on his humanity. The incarnation has always been the heart of understanding God. The truth about God is available to us only because of the incarnation. The wonder of the greatness of God is incomprehensible to me without the incarnation. There is no room in the Bible’s description of the incarnation, or in the creeds, for a human, liberal, compromised Christ.

I have seen a number of reformed bloggers speak almost negativvely of Christians who emphasize the incarnation. Please, let’s not go in that direction.

Not Bob Jones (senior, junior, III or more) of Bob Jones University.

THIS Bob Jones

Ellen: That is the oddest thing I’ve heard today. That Bob Jones I would never connect with the Christian Reformed Church or being “in health” – though I admit I haven’t kept up with any of those guys for many years. Still, that’s kinda funny. Can you elaborate?

Brian:  My first thought was “he’s painting with too broad of a brush”

My second was:  “Even as we speak, the Christian Reformed Church I used to attend is having a conference; the main speaker is Bob Jones (Kansas City prophet).  The topic is  “Be In Health”

I think that there are a lot of healthy evangelical churches out there; only the weird ones get the press.

Charles Colson and Co. have a new blog called “The Point.”

So, I get the feeling that Alastair might have some problems with evangelicalism.  Maybe.  Does anyone else read it this way?

BHT Chair of Theology Alastair lets it fly.

Is there any section of the Church that is more messed up than what passes under the name of Evangelicalism? Like it or not, most people who call themselves evangelicals in the US and the UK today are holding a form of religion that only bears a tenuous relationship to the historic Christian faith. Whilst we would like to quibble about the historic meaning of the term and complain that it has been hijacked by fruitcakes, there comes a time when we simply have to accept the fact that the term ‘evangelical’ now carries a radically different meaning to anything that it ever held in the past. The weird, the heretical, the fad-driven, the fruity, the fanatical, the culturally and intellectually bankrupt has become the mainstream.

People, evangelicalism is a greater threat to Western civilization than Islam is. Islam may oppose the Christian faith, but modern evangelicalism trivializes, parodies and cheapens it to the extent that it is no longer deemed worthy of opposition and cannot be taken seriously. With all of its handwaving emotionalism, kitschy culture, intellectual vacuity, collective narcissism and blinkered politics, modern evangelicalism demands all the respect of a shabby circus freak.

IM Radio Podcast 24 is an interview with Noel Heikkinen and Dan Price.

About movies…Vanna UMC is just below Royston, Ga, the home of Ty Cobb. Many of my parishoners were extras in the movie Cobb. The church itself was featured complete with choir and musicians. They sang “There Is a Fountain.” that movie was pretty raw, though. It was kind of a scandal that the Methodists would be in such a worldly endeavor.

Warning: Way Off Topic:

Light colored carpet in the parsonage is a deal breaker for my next appointment. Don’t get me wrong. There are parsonage horror stories out there and I’ve been able to tell one or two. This is a nice home and I’m glad to have it but constantly steam cleaning this carpet is wearing me out.

Wyman:  I did see that the church was in GA and wondered if you were near it.  It also seems that they are really taking this “film ministry” thing seriously and have some decent reasons for doing it, IMO.  I am just amazed that they could make a movie with that much money and almost all local talent that is not terrible and corny.  It will be interesting to see how it is received.

Listening to Matt Chandler’s sermons on Ecclesiastes. He’s quickly become one of my favorite young preachers, despite some emerging church quirkiness. Throughout this series, he pictures Solomon as a grandfather having a conversation with his college-age congregation. I especially like the way he contrasts the use of illustration and humor with deadly serious application. It’s also refreshing to hear strong invitations to Christ that aren’t Baptist altar calls. Instead, Chandler typically will direct people to things like recovery groups, Biblcial counseling, grief/abortion/miscarriage/infertility recovery and other ministries of the church.

New Belkin router at work on the system this morning.

Lots of travel coming up this week. I have two school trips Mon and Tues, winding us up in Murray Ky, where Denise and I lived our first year of marriage. Denise graduated from MSU with her BS in Nursing in 1979. Then Thursday through Saturday, we’re doing a first: travelling to stay with our daughter and son-in-law for a couple of days in central Ohio.

Reading the blog summaries of folks attending the Desiring God National Conference, it seems to be the concensus that the emerging church is the problem because it’s not proclaiming the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Of course there are examples of that error, and it’s to be deplored, but is that really the crisis? On the other hand, it’s conservative evangelicalism that has displaced Christ with politics and the culture war. Why is a compromised Brian Mclaren more of a threat than a Christless, culture warrior agenda? Is it because the culture warriors flatter evangelicals, particularly on the issues of homosexuality and abortion?

What Capon quotes are you reading? :-) These seem to be about how the church handles the grace of God given in the Gospel.

The Republicans in congress are getting so awful it’s surreal. Now a member of the Missing and Exploited Children’s SubCommittee is trying to pick up pages.

Just returned from a high school football game. Very cold. Very bad.

The Capon quotes are a devastating rejoinder to all who affirm salvation and God’s acceptance by works of righteousness.  Everyone who affirms that raise your hand.

I am way behind on all things popular but this week is the first I heard about the movie Facing the Giants.  From what I understand a church raised $100K, staffed the production, hired some limited expert help, and made this movie.  Now it is being released as a major motion picture and many people say it looks like a real movie.  If anyone sees this weekend, I would be interested to hear what you think. 

Our Daily Capon...

“You’re worried about permissiveness—about the way the preaching of grace seems to say it’s okay to do all kinds of terrible things as long as you just walk in afterward and take the free gift of God’s forgiveness… While you and I may be worried about seeming to give permission, Jesus apparently wasn’t. He wasn’t afraid of giving the prodigal son a kiss instead of a lecture, a party instead of probation; and he proved that by bringing in the elder brother at the end of the story and having him raise pretty much the same objections you do. He’s angry about the party. He complains that his father is lowering standards and ignoring virtue—that music, dancing, and a fattened calf are, in effect, just so many permissions to break the law. And to that, Jesus has the father say only one thing: “Cut that out! We’re not playing good boys and bad boys anymore. Your brother was dead and he’s alive again. The name of the game from now on is resurrection, not bookkeeping.” – Robert Capon, Between Noon and Three

“For the essence of heresy isn’t a fondness for wrong ideas. It’s a preference (“heresy” is from ahirein, “to take,” “to select”) for one aspect of a truth over the paradoxical wholeness of that truth.”

“Too often the church preaches resurrection but effectively denies the death out of which alone the grace of resurrection proceeds. Its cure of choice, for its own hills or for the world’s, is not death but simply more doomed living. The church, for example will keep sinners (the morally dead) in its midst only as long as they do not presume to look dead—only as long as they can manage to make themselves seem morally alive. Moreover, ecclesiastical institutions are no more capable of accepting death for themselves than they are of tolerating it in their members. Like all other institutions , they cannot even conceive of going out of business for the sake of grace: given a choice of laying down their corporate lives for a friend or cutting off the friend at the knees, they almost invariably spare themselves the axe. Worst of all, when the church speaks to the world, it perpetuates the same false system of salvation. It is clearly heard as saying that the world can be saved only by getting its act together. But besides being false, that is an utterly unrealistic apologetic. For everyone knows perfectly well that the world has never gotten its act together and never will—that distaste has been the hallmark of its history—and if there is no one who can save it in its disasters, there is on one who can save it.” – Robert Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment

Michael:  thanks for the passage, another example:

Col 1:29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

NOTE:  In the interest of context… the “this” in the above is not anything to do with salvation but refers to teaching and ministering the truth of Christ.

Well, I think Calvin and Melancthon did get along.  But there were other cases where Calvin did not treat his brothers and sisters in Christ in such a gracious manner.  I.e. – Anabaptists.  Of course, I’m sure he saw them as lost and usurpers and enemies to the peace of the land et al. 

Michael: I, too, am not the biggest fan of the Reformation. I find myself willing to follow Lewis just about anywhere.

Concerning Melancthon and Calvin’s relationship, I can’t comment – because I have no idea who the heck Melancthon is.

And now, I willingly give way to the next topic.

Next topic. Please. This makes four major outings on this topic since the BHT began. Yeeehaw.

My friend Noel Heikkinen has a frequently updated podcast at www.dailyjeezit.com. He answers questions. Today’s on an authoritarian church is very good.

I’ve always liked the New Living Translation, and Noel used the second edition for preaching. I was really impressed and I’ve purchased one. Anyone else like NLT2?

I’m reading Garrison Keillor’s Homegrown Democrat. Keillor is a writer who just has it. Whatever it is, he has it. Great stuff on public schools, a sense of shared community, the boneheaded mistakes of conservative Christians, etc.

I’m somewhere near a major venting event regarding legalism on our campus. I’m going to be specific and I’m going to put it up where everyone can read it. I’m really sorry that so many folks who sincerely want to help kids have legalist ideas that they believe have to be swallowed whole and entire, but I’ve been silent to long. Some of these ideas are not just wrong; they are warped.

Example: Fermented wine symbolized God’s wrath in the Bible, and therefore Jesus never drank it or used it. crickets Or something like that.

For the love of pete, people.

I fully affirm what Calvin would have believed about baptism if he had lived long enough to realize he was wrong.

Brian:

1Co 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Capon is to “blame” to the extent that he has no problems offending his readers in order to allow the truth of the Gospel to utterly transform you.

What I am articulating here is pure, 100% Luther (before the Calvinists got to him.)

Didn’t Melancthon and Calvin get along?

Michael: I apologize for the “yes or no” query. It was unnecessarily provocative. Sorry.

Michael, I don’t see you as a threat. I see you as a wonderful brother, a gift to the church in many capacities, and probably a better Christian than I (I know, I know, what constitutes a “better Christian”?). I view a discussion like ours as iron sharpening iron. If I knock a rough edge off of you and you do the same for me, then we’re both the better for it. My response to you in this conversation is more like “hey, I think you might be getting too close to the edge there, buddy. look out. be careful. I’ve known guys who have fallen off that edge before never to return”.

My uninformed guess is that the influence of Capon is to blame. I could be totally off on this. I’ll admit I’ve not yet read him, but it concerns me whenever anyone I know begins to have what seems to be an over-reliance on a guy who at the least is perceived as “edgy” or radical in his approach. Honestly, it seems to me that Capon should be the patron saint of the BHT rather than Lewis. I’m pretty sure that Capon is the guy you most often quote, while Lewis gets very little press.

It was Lewis who said “I am, indeed, far from agreeing with those who think religious fear barbarous and degrading, and demand that it should be banished from the spiritual life. Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several other things – ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity. It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that stage, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast out fear.”

This quote from Lewis reminds me of JS’s statement that he espouses a robust view of sanctification because he occasionally needs a kick in the ass. Along those lines, I would say that perfect love is the goal, but fear of God keeps me in line when the love grows cold. Yes, I fear reaping what I have sown, and plead for God’s mercy. I fear shrinking back and being destroyed, and ask for courage. I fear being deceived, and ask God for the spirit of wisdom and revelation. I fear my heart getting hard, and ask God to pour out His love on me and keep my heart soft.

I agree with you, Michael, that obedience is essentially evidential. However, I think one could easily make the case that obedience also has a sustaining role in our faith. When I choose to clean the house to make my wife happy, that is evidence of my love for her, but in the doing of it, I believe my love is sustained and even grows. As the Apostle John said, “if anyone obeys His word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.” I think evaluating anyone’s motives – including our own – is very unhelpful. We should leave that part up to God. Ours is simply to trust and obey.

Wow, my internet was down for a day, who knew what I was missing?  I would say that scattered through all the posts here on sanctification or the lack thereof, there have been some great thoughts.

Dallas Willard has a quote in one of his aricles (“Jesus the Logician”, I think).  He says:

Grace is not opposed to effort but to earning.

Paul Owen is posting again over at Communio Sanctorum.  I’m glad.  I was getting lonely.  Anyway, he’s back in all of his controversial best.  For instance:

7. Calvinism, when separated from a healthy Catholic ecumenism, is neither true to Calvin, nor a help to the Church. Total depravity affirms the necessity of the priority of grace in conversion. Unconditional election preserves the gratuity and mystery of predestination to glory. Limited atonement affirms the certain efficacy of Christ’s death viewed in its subsequent relation to the mystery of election. Irresistible grace affirms the fact that faith is to be seen monergistically as a gift from God, outside our natural capacity, and ultimately dependent upon the mystery of his will. Perseverance of the saints means that all those secretly predestined to glory will surely attain to that end because of God’s decree. When Calvinistic doctrines are misunderstood, and used primarily as a tool for attacking the shortcomings of Roman Catholic and Arminian Christians, then they lose their proper place within the role of Christian theology. Calvinism is best understood simply as a more consistent affirmation of the basic Christian truths which all believers intend to affirm. Calvin’s love, respect, and cordial unity in Christ with believers like Melanchthon should provide a pattern for how Calvinists relate to believers of other theological viewpoints.

Greg: I’ll thank you in advance for not dictating to others how to answer your questions. I’m not on trial here, believe it or not.

What I’m hearing, Greg, is that you are suggesting that obedience is either a) causative or b) sustaining or c) both. You are either saying that or saying that faith equals works, a la Macarthur. I’m happy to be corrected on that if I am mistaken.

Obedience is the evidence of faith. The evidence of; and the relation, while a living one, is neither causative, nor sustaining. To believe otherwise is to open up the subject of sola fide and justification by faith alone by grace alone by Christ alone. Are we really going to expound this issue from James?

Listen. I have friends all over the world who say, “I just don’t believe anyone could be a Christian and…..” Fill in the blank. Pastors say it about churches. GOPers about Democrats. Weaker brothers about stronger brothers. Me about Yankee fans.

It’s not my problem to demonstrate that law and Gospel are two different things. And if you want to say that I am a gnostic antinomian endangering churches everywhere, then find a blog and do it. I know some that would love to host that post. But don’t act like I’m out in left field. I’m not. I’m not one to quote the names and addresses, but it’s pretty much the whole Reformation from Luther up till Finney, minus some enthusiasts and oddball Puritans.

Michael: I knew that sentence would be too loaded for you to resist. Its like throwing a bone to a dog. So, are you saying obedience is optional for the Christian? A simple yes or no will do.

Phillip, I think you and I are on the same page in that both/and isn’t part of the gospel. The good news is what it is. (now there’s an argument starter) Still, I think if we let the both/and have a little more importance on those seemingly opposite ideas in the Bible that deal with God’s people, then many of our (the blogosphere’s, that is) arguments become impotent.

I’m pretty sure our assurance should be based upon how much chili we eat, so I’m doing fine. (skyline chili doesn’t count for although superbly delicious, it isn’t really chili)

>Obedience is not optional for the Christian, and any teaching that implies such is dangerous.

OK. Since my obedience will never be complete or motivated by pure love, where are we? The Gospel says the obedience of Christ is 100% of my righteousness.

So now what is my obedience? In what sense, other than evidential of a vital relation, does that obedience exist? If it’s not optional, then is it necessary? In what sense is it necessary? Sola fide + obedience? Percentage breakdown of that, please, and where do I look to see it.

I’m all for obedience. I’m all for Christ’s obedience, and I’m all for the proper context of my own. i.e. contributing nothing to my salvation.

Manning may be murky and convuluted at times, but he gets the Gospel right, and Philip Yancey is totally on target as far as I’ve read him, for what it’s worth.

UPDATE: Let me use an illustration here. Two sentences, both using Greg’s chosen words. You can see what I’m getting at I’m sure.

“Breathing is not optional.”
“Faithfulness to this marriage vow is not optional.”

Sanctified people close their tags.

Heathen.

Bill: Is someone advocating our level of righteousness as a metric for assurance?

Let’s see: “I can look back over my life, and see how I�ve grown in Christ. I take some assurance in that. Imperfect growth, imperfect assurance to be sure. Just the fact that I want to conform my life to Christs (sometimes) and try to conform my life to Christs (even less sometimes) gives me some assurance.”

So yes, a little bit. Not solely by any stretch, but enough that a major life meltdown would hopefully prompt a minor reevaluation of those sentences. Heck, even reading the sentence give further context in the bar might prompt that! Maybe “assurance” was meant in a different way, for example, but certainly those statements could prompt one to wonder.

How do you know they are not the focus? I meant ”... of the Christian life.” Any given conversation can, of course, focus on anything, up to and including the price of tea in China. But it didn’t seem to be the primary focus of the New Testament. Important, not void, but not the Gospel. A natural result of the gospel, even, but not the Gospel.

Jason: I tend to be quite fond of the both/and, and certainly my first post on the subject went there, but I’m especially leery of applying both/and to the Gospel. Faith-plus is both/and, but wrong.

But yes, overall, an environment which tends to the libertine needs to read, well, all of the epistles at least, while an environment which tends to legalism needs to be reminded that it is by God’s grace alone we’re saved and live and are sanctified. Both are true.

In most parts of America and the web, the legalists are more prevalent, it seems to me.