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| Matthew 3:9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. -John the Baptizer |
For Halloween, my mom always had two baskets on the table. One was filled with the good stuff—Milky Way, Twix, Snickers, you name it. That was for the kids in costumes. But there was a second bowl. That one was filled with breath mints, and that was the one she pulled out when she saw teenagers coming up the drive.
If you think you’re smarter than my mom, you are wrong.
Matthew: I am surprised that kid lived to see his video on on AFV. That pastor really, really wanted to thump him.
Our older daughter is not yet 2 so we just stayed home tonight. She loved the kids coming to the door and their costumes (except those teenagers in regular clothes who didn’t say “trick or treat” or anything and just held out a bag). We had several kids stop by for trick or treat. I gave them all bluegrass CD’s and told them halloween is the devil’s birthday.
I can’t believe I’m sitting in a “Disability in Schools” class on Halloween night.
I’d just like to say that I knew what the word “mimesis” meant without having to look it up.
Thank you.
No one had bloodless hands in the Reformation, including the anabaptists. The Peasants’ Revolt did not exactly start peacefully. But anabaptists and Reformed Baptists are completely different. One is a fringe group that was largely stamped out through military action. The other is the true embodiment of everything we know of as the “Reformation.
I’m probably kind of dumb when it comes to reformation history, but wasn’t it like the Catholics killed Reformers and Reformers killed the Baptists? I mostly look at history as who killed who.
I think on Reformation Day, everyone gets to be an honorary Reformed Baptist. I genuinely don’t think the Reformation could have gotten along without them.
>As for what to do on Sundays, it may be “best” to have no music for awhile until some basic literature is ready-to-hand.
Excuse my tendency to boil things down, but am I hearing this correctly: that until we get our aesthetics right, it would be better to have no music at all?
We have a guy here who is a mountain poet singer. Twanger nasal solo voice, but writes a gorgeous, God-centered lyric. Quite a treasure. But put him in most churches and eyes would roll. When he comes to soli, he always sings for us. I book him in advance for Christmas Eve. And I do the same with gospel rappers in the student body, and the soloists with their k-lovesque CDs.
At the same time, I work hard with my musicians and worship leaders to get the best of old and new that we are capable of doing within our talent, time, instruments and so forth.
One of the many, many problems I’ve having is that while I loathe most of the product of the market, I tend to be a musical populist before I’m a musical elitist. (I have plenty of elitist tendencies in education, and it’s not a problem for me that elitists have influence. I’m not wanting to hang anyone advocating good church music.) Again, same argument with poetry and with preaching. I’m willing to live with cheesy verse as an expression of populism. I agree with you that the recovery of an aesthetic is a multi-generational, community project, but I’m a lot more worried about a church that has to have a vote of the elders to have a bad rapper do a concert than I am a church that has bad rap as a regular feature because there are bad rappers in the congregation. I suppose congregationalism over Presbyterianism and regulated worship is the source of my problem. Presbyterianism is an elitist movement, and I am saying that in the nicest possible way :) while Baptists and the dregs of the cultural earth are at the mercy of the populist forces of the market. It’s a mess either way. I just don’t like the solution I quoted above. It sounds like something the reformed Baptists would do.
Speaking of….the Luther Celebration going on at certain reformed Baptist blogs really needs to be applauded. First Augustine is a reformed Baptist. Now a man who would have condemned every writer at [insert name] as a heretic the swarming peasant mob, etc- and eliminated them from the face of the earth by the sword has been voted an honorary reformed Baptist.
One thing Josh has done for me: I now appreciate that Luther’s view of the sacraments should make his views on salvation obnoxious to every reformed Baptist. It really astounds me that I am a heretic to these people, but a guy who believes water creates faith and that baptism saves is an honorary member of every Calvinistic blog on the block.
I can’t wait to see who’s adopted next. Mr. Osteen, your phone is ringing.
The folks who brought us Reformed Gangstas now bring us the Reformation Polka.
Michael: I have no right to evaluate that piece of rap (please read carefully!) as I can’t stand the genre. I’ll say this though, I could understand the words and that’s more than I can say for 90% of rap! And I never thought I’d see Dr. Piper introduce a rapper and pray fervently after the rapper was done.
If I brought you to Clay Co to teach a class on “What is good music?,” your answer would basically be that there are objective standards of beauty that dictate what is good music.
What a terrifying thought…for Clay Co. I don’t think a didactic approach is any good. A catechetical or dialectical approach has more promise. Q1: “What is right thinking?” Q2: “What is right action?” Q3: “What ought I to do?” Q4: “What do I love?” Q5: “What is art?” Q6: “What does art do?” …
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I would avoid a ‘beauty’ aesthetic (this is where Payton and I would diverge in our thinking) because every Westerner is Kantian or Hegelian on those terms (yes, even people who’ve never heard of Kant or Hegel). I would stress that objective aesthetic standards are also culturally relative, but I maintain that if God created aesthetically, then every atom that resonates and every sound that undulates belongs to its Creator. And all of them will challenge, subvert or affirm liturgy. To determine the objective aesthetic standards for worship we have to know the people who desire to gather for liturgy. But that does not mean we come with pure content devoid of form. We come with a witness: here is how the church has arranged and presented the good news musically. Sacred music is a literature, not a canon; it testifies to the revelation, it is not itself divine revelation.
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I repeat: experimentation and improvisation are part and parcel of that literature. When the gospel goes to a new culture with distinctive musical forms, those forms should not substitute and displace sacred literature; the sacred literature expands, augments, revises and improvises the new sounds into what has already been going on. In our day, on the other hand, it is all about choice and markets, about the plurality of world forms insinuating their alternative competitive place to “tradition.” I want the industrial noise worship alternative. No: sacred literature doesn’t pretend that industrial noise isn’t there; it overcomes it by letting the life-denying, violence-loving, dehumanizing theme truthfully sound and then turning it—metanoia—to the eucatastrophe of the gospel that has been proclaimed musically always and already. (Ted told this story about the organist Alexandre Guilmant taking a cypher (see #3) and improvising a concerto around it.) What unifies our diverse communities is not just an idea; it is historical and material. This, by the way, is why psalter-only liturgy, which has the regulative aspect in spades, is, in its own way, also turning its back on its own testimony and incapable of dealing with cultural plurality except by a colonizing, reductionistic aesthetic.
(BTW, having just dissed a segment of my own Reformed heritage, I might add that some selections from the Genevan psalter are both wonderful marriages of sound and text requiring no other instrument than the human voice, as well as excellent teaching tools. See this elitist for great suggestions. :-)
More »OK.
I thought “The Voice” was pretty bad. As original rap, that’s C-. As lyric, it’s just another derivative. It echoes a thousand other gospel rappers. If I wanted to rap for white Calvinists who don’t get rap, it would be a nice little exhibit, and that’s pretty much what it appeared to be. I have 10 kids in high school who could write, mix and rap circles around what I heard.
Frankly, the overt nods to Calvinism were lame. Are we going to get Arminian rap? Wesleyan rap? Osteen rap? James White rap? Lutheran rap?
I’ve tried hard the last two years to examine my visceral reaction to rap and re-examine it in the light of the encouragement I give my poetry students. I’ve decided that that there is a lot going on in rap that intersects with performance poetry, and I want to be more aware.
I’m really glad that the TRs have discovered some of the sound of African-American Christianity. I just wonder if they are really listening, or if you have to get their attention by rapping about “the doctrines?”
Is that class in the realm of journalism and mass communications, by chance? There are a great many people who aspire to a career in TV or Radio who intentionally develop the generic American non-accent. I even recall my culinary hero Alton Brown making it a part of one of the fluff bits of a Good Eats episode, saying he had to get rid of his Georgia accent for TV.
It’s still sick and wrong, but that may explain it. Now if it’s a class just to escape one’s heritage, then that’s just beyond wrong.
On an unrelated issue, Michael said: “I didnt know what the word meant, and I didnt look it up. You are a better English teacher than I.”
I doubt that. I did very well in English back in the day, but all I am is good at hunting my reference web sites. It make me rite gooder. 8-D
MOD: Yep. Theater and Comm.
Pastor Kent (nice name eh?) Carlson on Pastoral Ambition at Out of Ur.
Richard: Thanks for sharing the video of the rapper at Piper’s church. I bet he didn’t know that would hit the blogsphere! The poor guy is under a bit of a microscope, but I don’t get the impression he’s too worried about it. Ecclesiastically speaking, Piper’s got balls.
IOWs, I’m so sorry none of you know how to talk or sing right.
Michael always speaks the truth.
I’m just not sure what right is anymore. My accent from north Louisiana was corrupted a bit by the south Louisiana cajun French stuff. My husband’s northeast Alabama dialect was thick as mud but our little chicklets grew up in the academic and political metropolis of Elleshoe Town. When we moved out here to northeast Ga they were actually called the ‘y’ word. Turns out they were just using standard English—whew!
Joel: Perhaps you should hire Kent to translate :-) I agree with his translation. I think we would work out the details differently, but I agree that in our worship today, whatever the style, we should try to be aware of what came before. I see no reason that modern styles and instrumentation would be in opposition to that.
I was practically invited to make derogatory bluegrass comments. I did the best I could.
Michael, Losing the Appalachian Accent as a college course?!? Oh boy. I have fought this through years of education and in professional settings. People deduct 30 IQ when I open my mouth. Not that I am starting with a high number to begin with :) I grew up with horrible grammar. Horrible. I had to work and read, read, read to try to correct that when I was in college. Yes, I said college. But the idea of trying to change my accent has always gotten under my skin. I should stop now. I am on the second cup of coffee, so I might get out of control.
Oh, for anyone who might care, I am from central KY and wouldn’t have a real, true Appalachian accent and I am pretty sure Michael talks funnier than I do. Joel?
Richard: Bill’s calling our event “Tract or Treat.” After I suggested last year that being neighborly != demanding candy of the neighbors, we’re going door-to-door tonight to demand candy and offer popcorn and goodies in return. More neighborly, I guess.
Love the pro-Halloween tract, by the way.
I have to admit that Bill’s comments frustrate me a bit, because I am aware of the variation in bluegrass vocals from Del McCoury to Ricky Skaggs to Third Tyme Out to Allison Krause to Nickel Creek and so on. Bill’s description is of a kind of vocal that is derived from the way people talk where I live. The vocal style and the verbal style are related, and the vocal style is deeply rooted in mountain culture. I have to admit that reading what he’s saying is a bit like having someone make fun of the accent of someone who is ESL. But when you live here, you get used to this. There is a college in Pikeville, Ky that offered a course last year in “Losing The Appalachian Accent.” I consider such a course to be immoral and perversely insensitive to context, but I understand the deep-seated reaction to the accents of Mountain people and Southerners in general.
IOWs, I’m so sorry none of you know how to talk or sing right.
Jason: I didn’t know what the word meant, and I didn’t look it up. You are a better English teacher than I.
One of my concerns is the same concern I mention in my post on William Carlos Williams’ Red Wheelbarrow at IM. To what extent is the determination of beauty or “classic” stature the function of a literati class that must justify their dedication to a body of knowledge? The existence of standards in every world is a difficult thing to manage unless we bring God into the discussion on our side. Ultimately, it seems to me that the argument between various kinds of liturgy or art will come down to an argument about God and whether he endorses ________ liturgy. And then, I think we have a host of other problems, because if there isn’t bluegrass in heaven, why would anyone from Ky want to go?
In choosing music, I don’t have time to dedicate myself to the exploration or education of what is objectively “great” by someone’s standards. I’m surrounded by resources, and I sort through them based on a limited amount of criteria that I can fit into my planning time. I have to plan 8 worship services a week. That’s eight, the number after seven. I devote the majority of that time to two of them, and I delegate the rest gladly, with the usual mixed results. I am not trying to draw a crowd in any of those services as much as I am trying to keep the focus on Christ, the Gospel and the Christian story. I’m a minimalist when it comes to music in many ways. 2-3 songs. 2 short responses. Simple instruments. It’s a “tail wagging the dog” situation if you aren’t careful, especially with all the wannabe divas and American Idols out there disguised as “worship leaders.”
RE God men: I didn’t read the whole way through the article. I got this far and stopped.
Four large video screens showed clips of karate fights, car chases and Jackass-style stunts. Then the music lowered and Christian comedian Brad Stine appeared. With his rat-a-tat delivery and aggressive style, Stine quickly whipped the crowd into a chorus of “Amens!”
If you are ever in Frankfort, KY, I really recommend stopping in Poor Richard’s Book Store downtown. Old books. Many, many books about KY and by Kentuckians that are hard to find. The adjoining Coffeetree Cafe is nice too. I came across this quote about “Easy Virtue” during my perusal:
Some men are only virtuous enough to forget that they are sinners and not wretched enough to remember how much they need the mercy of God.-Thomas Merton
Godmen—what a train wreck. The sad part is that it is true that men need to be men and all that. But if you’re going to define being a man by some Hollywood caricature then you’re wasting a lot of time. If you’re going to do that and label it Christian, you’re being ridiculous.
Bill, I have mentally categorized you as a part of the axis of evil
Here I am, just sitting here minding my business, flossing my tooth, and I read about God Men. I about choked on my buttermilk and cornbread.
Many thanks to Joel for saying it like it is.
And, everybody have fun with the little potter critters tonight.
Here’s a different kind of Halloween tract: Hallowe’en: Why We Celebrate It
Jollyblogger highlights this and many other Pro-Halloween stuff today.
Michael: I read your request last week for a report on our Halloween party: let’s just say it was smashing success, thanks in large part to your son. I will post pictures and a more detailed account as soon as we get the pics developed.
For now I’ll say this: Yea for living around normal people who don’t go all Peter Popoff on you when you celebrate Halloween!!
Whoa…Sharon just took off the gloves.
Ahem...that’s ‘damn victorious Yankee’ to you!
Ha!
Bill, your agression toward Bluegrass music is indefensible, but ‘I’ve got your back’ when it comes to Mason-Dixon line concerns, especially considering just how far north we both happen to be.
As a friend of mine once said, bluegrass is the only music that one would be hard-pressed to frown while playing.
That makes it worse. When the performers are sporting mouthfuls of missing and rotting teeth, grinning is not the effect one desires. JN.
John Piper introduces a rapper at Bethlehem and prays following the performance,
HT: Justin Taylor
As a friend of mine once said, bluegrass is the only music that one would be hard-pressed to frown while playing.
Perhaps true, but what of those listening? One would be hard pressed not to frown when they are slamming their heads repeatedly against a tree and gnawing their own foot off to take their mind off of what their ears are being subjected to.
Bill: As one who was born and dwells in the heart of bluegrass country, I can only feel sympathy for a man who cannot appreciate the simple pleasures of bluegrass music. Poor Yankee. As a friend of mine once said, bluegrass is the only music that one would be hard-pressed to frown while playing.
Joel, this is what I think you’re saying, please correct if wacked:
The Church has nearly two thousand years of experience creating beautiful music for worship. Why do we addict ourselves to the ‘culture of the current’ and in doing so deny ourselves 99.999% of our historic riches, pimping ourselves out to the ‘latest and greatest’?
Instead, why don’t we allow ourselves to be enriched and informed by our own history, by the vast cultural depth of our spiritual ancestors, those who have walked before us on the path of Jesus?
Bill, the true joy of bluegrass is not found in the listening; it’s in the community of creating it.
Living in St. Louis and all that, I am a Cards fan. However, did they really have to show the victory parade on EVERY channel Sunday? Why did they have to preempt football? I really have no interest in watching a bunch of team execs give speeches. “Thanks, taxpayers, for buying us a new stadium with fewer seats and higher ticket prices than the old one.”
I was going to post on music, as I read Joel’s post from last night and understood it, but this morning the discussion has me all confused again.
now I present: GodMen.
Bluegrass. Listening to bluegrass is like listening to the screams of the damned in the lowest level of Dante’s Inferno, with fiddle accompanyment. It’s like 6 rednecks beating you with leftover, rock hard cornbread, because it feels so good when it stops. It’s like having the Game Show Network on and not being able to find the remote.
At this point I’ll listen in quiet fascination to Michael and Joel as they exchange views on music. However, I’ll add that it’s too early in the morning to have to learn new words:
Joel said: “Sacred music has never been achieved through mere mimesis of a particular form.”
mimesisDictionary.com – 1. Rhetoric. imitation or reproduction of the supposed words of another, as in order to represent his or her character.
American Heritage Dictionary – 1. The imitation or representation of aspects of the sensible world, especially human actions, in liturature and art.
Back to checking log files on the company network…
To add to what Joel said, this certainly is not about “high” vs “low” art. The Catholic author of that piece that started this whole discussion is coming from a very different viewpoint. One must remember that Tridentine liturgy comes from the medieval view of the Mass as the performance of the clergy. This is why in the popular terminology of the era, Catholics referred to going to church as “going to hear Mass;” the whole event was passive. Catholic Mass was therefore always much more saturated with performance arts than the Protestant Masses in Anglican and Lutheran communions. You’ve also got Romanism (i.e. the attempt to impose Roman church culture on the rest of the Christian world) undergirding the whole thing; the sense of the absolute superiority of Roman chant and hymnody goes way back, and Trent is the capstone on a thousand-year struggle of the bishop of Rome to achieve Roman cultural hegemony.
As I see it, Christian liturgy and performance art are mutually opposed. Even a choir, for example, is not intrinsically “good” where a guy with a guitar is “bad.” The anthem choirs of Protestantism are, for the most part, very much out of the “liturgical function” realm and into the “performance” realm. So again, we come back to “What is this for?” “What is it doing?” “Why are we doing it?” If the answer is some variant of “Rock people’s faces FOR JESUS,” you’re doing something wrong, whether it’s with an organ or a praise band.
Ninja edit: Here is a pretty good article surveying the history of Lutheran liturgical reforms (pdf). I think this might be helpful.
Joel: I’m really struggling to understand you here, so be patient.
If I brought you to Clay Co to teach a class on “What is good music?,” your answer would basically be that there are objective standards of beauty that dictate what is good music. I assume that, if pressed, you would say that while all human beings can understand those standards, imperfectly, you would also say that musical elites are in a position to tell us what is good music, and that we should reject consumer forces and listen to what they have to say.
I’m not being snarky. I’d make the same argument- more or less- with two things I love: poetry and preaching. But there is a reason I preached better sermons than other preachers in Clay Co, but preached them to an empty church. And there is a reason that tonight at soli deo, I won’t be using the “best” music by that definition.
Let’s take the soli deo thing. Why will I not be teaching some great hymn, but doing a worship chorus instead? Will it be because of consumerism? Perhaps, but as a reflection of our freedom to choose, the adaption to the instruments and space we have available, the particular needs of our liturgy, the time I have to teach, the ability of my group to relate to language, prior attitudes about hymns and so on.
Our group is educated and capable of appreciating the best music, but psychology, history, anthropology, history, prejudice, a history of association, pragmatism….all will go into our decision. And I’m pretty sure that the decision about what we sing will, in the end, be right for us, because the aesthetic standard shouldn’t be the primary thing dictating what we do musically.
Addendum. Michael said:
(...) both classical and bluegrass gospel can beautifully express what Luther is commending.
I just don’t hear Luther saying that my mission in Clay County should be the wholesale use of classical music and the wholesale rejection of the folk tradition here.
Michael: Actually, Rob Bell is featured in Robert Webber’s book The Younger Evangelicals in the section on the younger evangelical practioners. Also, in a 2004 CT article entitled The Emerging Mystique Bell was featured and interviewed. Here is an excerpt from the interview:
“Weak is the new strong,” it turns out, is not just Rob Bell’s knowing reference to the world of fashion, nor just his clever reframing of Paul’s message of Christlike life. It’s a roadmap for a new way of doing church, even a big church.And how did the Bells find their way out of the black-and-white world where they had been so successful and so dissatisfied? “Our lifeboat,” Kristen [Bell’s wife] says, “was A New Kind of Christian.”
Adam: I’m curious to know what is the obvious difference you see in Bell’s view of being missional compared to Driscoll’s?
Speaking of making fun of bluegrass music, where is Bill Mackinnon?With a week left until the elections, I bet he’s stumping for Hillary Clinton.
I don’t really follow MLB but someone sent me a link to the homepage of the Pujols Family Foundation, headed up by Albert Pujols and family. Interesting.
Well, I thought for a moment that someone was going to make fun of bluegrass music. I am really glad that did not come to pass.
Joel’s comments about an inward focus are much appreciated by me. That really clears up a lot and I can see how that line of thinking is legitimate and different from some others.
I’m almost done with my paper on John Frame. I’m going to have to give him a D- on pretty much…everything. My prof has been reading his Doctrine of God. Said it’s some ~600 pages on the attributes of God with about 30 pages on the Trinity. I’m sure his Doctrine of the Christian Life and Doctrine of the Word of God, which will complete his “Theology of Lordship” series, will be just as compelling.
A Reformed friend of mine told me that he really dislikes Frame’s tendency to subjugate all things, including the Cross, to a fairly legal concept of “lordship,” so it’s not my general Lutheran schismatic tendencies going on here. That’s consoling. I would say that once someone has laid it out for you that the Cross is at the center of Christian theology, no matter who it is (anyone from Capon to Luther), you really can’t go back to this kind of stuff and find any value in it. I don’t know if Doctrine of the Knowledge of God is on the BHT Reading List or not, but it’s certainly on the Pirate Burnination List.
Michael, I tried to hook you up with some old-timey music. Did it work?
Mod: Nope
Let’s keep our wires crossed. I suspect our differences are ones in direction, rather than value. My missional focus is inward, “inreach” to the church (to quote Willard), as the task of developing and maturing disciples who can shine brighter and bring savoriness to the world wherever they are. I think we have an enormous cache of historical-cultural resources, an embarrassment of riches, to draw on for this task of making and cultivating Jesus apprentices. I hate to see their labors brushed aside and their products relegated to mausoleums in the same way I hate to see patristic theology ignored as irrelevant or with nothing to contribute beyond its historical and cultural boundaries.
The irony in the Luther quote is that Luther was a theologian, as was Augustine. Both preached caution with respect to sacred music. But if music is only in service to mission, then caution is no virtue; it is a vice. When music was something other than a means to an end, church musicians were required to be theologians (in keeping with the tradition of Levitical priests set aside to compose, lead and teach music to the people).
I love mountain music. We have a couple CDs of dulcimer. Our kids regularly request old timey music. The New Lost City Ramblers are a favorite band in the Hunter household.
I’m trying to get into the habit of being more honest and transparent so here it goes: More »
Joel: I don’t know where between the Luther quote and the soli deo organ fund we are getting our wires crossed. I agree with Luther about music and all art. Enthusiatically. I just don’t hear Luther saying that my mission in Clay County should be the wholesale use of classical music and the wholesale rejection of the folk tradition here. I’ve heard you say before that you aren’t familiar with a lot of “popular” music (excuse me if I misheard) so maybe we would be on more common ground if you could see why I believe both classical and bluegrass gospel can beautifully express what Luther is commending.
For me, I have to find a way to hear what you are saying without hearing you say that only particularly kinds of music and instrumentation are fulfilling of Luther’s words.
And thanks for the organ tour for Clay. You’re a sly one, Mr. Hunter :-) I’m sending dulcimers and Bluegrass cds to your kids.
...except to shout “Irony!” (the Luther quote in Kinnon’s post).
Jamie Smith blogs on the lonely commute. I wonder how community-building is affected by cyber-commuting and time spent with our technologies with which we get/stay “connected.”
Glenn Lucke has posted this page from the up and coming Biblical theologian, Bill Wilder. Wilder has great lectures on N.T. Wright (mandatory if you want a mature perspective but won’t be reading all the books,) and Wilder’s current series on Intro to the Bible, which is outstanding stuff for adults. Get these good things.
I’ve never read or listened to a word by Bell.Lucky you. Velvet Elvis was decent, but my impression of it plummeted after the Pirate shared that story about the professor who E-mailed Bell about the whole “dust of the rabbi” thing. The Nooma videos aren’t too bad, just incredibly hip. Oh, and I found it slightly funny that in a video where he talks about how he taught his son that stuff isn’t important and we shouldn’t get too wrapped up in stuff, he loads up the family into their Range Rover.
Bill Kinnon has a strong post on The Power of Music in Church. Take a moment, read the post and the comments.
Adam: I’ve never heard Rob Bell associated with the emerging church except by its critics. I find conservative evangelicals who relate to the emerging conversation to be remarkably consistent in their understanding of being missional. I’ve never read or listened to a word by Bell.
I’ve also never heard an emerging pastor or writer critiquing schools, but there’s a lot I haven’t heard.
Michael, thanks for the links. I know it may be hard to believe, but I do follow the emerging conversation pretty closely, and I think some words are designed to be elastic. For example, a lot of the arguments WITHIN the emerging church (forget the TRs) are over the terms “missional,” incarnational,” “modern” and “postmodern.” When I talk to people who are excited about what the emerging church is doing and offer criticism of my church, my job, or where I go to school I have learned that it is very important to have them define their terms.
Just the other week a guy told me my school (Northwestern College/St. Paul) was mired in “modern” ways of thinking. What does that mean? Turns out it had to do with being conservative in theology. Another guy I talked to uses the term to identify biblical interpretation that seeks authorial intent. (that tells you a little bit about “postmodernism” if you ask me.)
More »Adam: You’ve missed a lot of a vast discussion. I don’t know where to point you. TSK has links for emerging books in that post and in the one previous to it. TSK recently did a series on the history of the emerging church that demonstrated that its vocabulary and concerns go back into the early 70’s church renewal movement, with Keith Miller and others writing about the “emerging” church long before there was anyone around to equate such with the end of western civilization.
Missional is a word that I’ve worked with in the IM post “Missional isn’t a bad word.” I recommend it, and the possibility that training Christians to think and act as missionaries is a Biblical and evangelical distinctive, not an innovation.
And your mention of ” imbibing postmodernism” will cause most of us to run for the hills because of volumes of past discussions. If you mean the TR definition, i.e. postmoderns are truth denying relativists, then the answer, I hope is, No. Or maybe I should ask what “imbibe” means? Again, the TR version is that all contextualization is bad, and we need to pretend there is no context in which the Gospel is heard, there is only the sentences and the verses. If a missional Christian, however, believes we live in a significant shift that can be described as postmodern, then reaching postmoderns with a postmodern context isn’t wrong; it’s mandatory.
I read some of the WST live blogs and I have to say it was very comprehensive. I guess the big question I have is about being “missional.” It seems like that concept has never been done before if you ask emerging church people what its all about. I’m not so sure that’s true. Furthermore, does being “missional” to postmodern culture mean that you imbibe postmodernism? Again, this isn’t at all clear.
TSK does a full review and reaction to the emerging church forum at WTS. This forum let the EC speak in its own voice, rather than laying down layers of outrage, then get one Rob Bell talk on record to prove you’re right.
I’m about to post a review of Frank McCourt’s Teacher Man. A fine book that ought to encourage every writer.
We’ve apparently just admitted the best basketball player any of our coaches have ever seen. I’m waiting to find out what’s wrong with him. We never get this lucky…or I’m just a huge cynic when it comes to sports. Credits. Eligibility. Sex Change. Something has to be wrong.
Travis links James Jordan’s Christian take on Halloween.
And on other channels…it’s all Spurgeon, all the time.
Is today some holiday that I don’t know about :-)
Yesterday our church celebrated All Saint’s Day in our worship services. It was a great day in which we remembered those from our family who died since All Saint’s Day last year. This year we only read aloud eleven names which was considerably less than the last three years. I was the preacher of the day and was happy to talk about death and resurrection. Many of the family members of those who died were there and I felt like I had an opportunity to talk to them about hope in a way that might not have resonated with them during the funeral itself.
It’s funny how after three and a half years I’m a lot less nervous to be pointed and direct with these people who may or may not disagree with Scripture. I was very frank about the reality of Christ’s resurrection and offered that as our hope for a future without death, pain, suffering, or tears (the text was Rev. 21:1-6a). I was also able to take a minute to explain that Revelation is not scary and that it isn’t all that Lahaye has made it out to be.
All Saints Day is Wednesday. Let’s remember and be thankful for the witness of those saints.
Scot McKnight paper presented at Westminster Seminary is online.
HT:Justin Taylor
[With all due respect to our own Chicky Translator extraordinaire, Scott W.]
The always insightful BWIII thinks that the Catholic approach to priestly celibacy is fundamentally and fatally flawed. He’s right, of course!
Jollyblogger quotes Jerry Bridges, who always gets the gospel right.
“In all the aggro that seems to gather around Driscoll, I have yet to see a single referenced example of him actually cussing in the pulpit. I have heard quite a few Driscoll talks and never heard any swearing or anything for that matter that would be significantly offensive to most, as far as I can tell.” -Adrian Warnock
#1 son and I were in Spokane (Washington) for the weekend.
We typically attend Anglican churches when we travel.
This morning we attended Spokane’s famous St. John’s Cathedral for their Rite 1 service.
If you have never been inside St. John’s, you are missing out. It’s one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the USA.
What struck me this morning, however, was that there were less than 40 people in attendance.
And of those that were there, well over half were over 70 years old.
If the Episcopal Church doesn’t do something soon, they will be going the way of the Dodo bird. And their churches will be just like those in Europe — museums to a religion no longer believed.
Maybe a hasty comment on my part, but the IMB trustee controversy has made me reluctant to hand over resources to an organization that has such a bull-headedly wrong view of other Christians. I certainly don’t want to duplicate anywhere the kind of fundamentalism isolationism, anti-charismatic prejudice and Landmarkist view of Baptism that has prevailed among IMB trustees this year. That said, those working for IMB itself appear to be priceless servants.
This is a hard question because I want all large cash gifts directed to OBI where they belong :-)
Michael, you certainly know a lot more about IMB than me. But that sort of specific designation/direction of giving is possible, right?
Also, I’m guessing Spurgeon was 20 at the time of that quote.
Here is a little Spurgeon quote that I have appreciated:
Lay aside your prejudices; listen calmly, listen objectively: hear what Scripture says; and when you receive the truth, if God would be pleased to reveal and manifest it to your souls, do not be ashamed to confess it. To confess you were wrong yesterday, is only to acknowledge that you are a little wiser today; and instead of being a reflection on yourself, it is an honor to your judgment, and shows that you are improving in the knowledge of the truth. Do not be ashamed to learn, and to throw aside your old doctrines and views, but take up that which you more plainly see to be in the Word of God.But if you do not see it to be here in the Bible, whatever I may say, or whatever authorities I may plead, I beg you as you love your souls, reject it; and if from this pulpit you ever hear things contrary to this sacred word, remember that the Bible must be the first, and God’s minister must be subject to it. We must not stand on the Bible to preach, but we must preach with the Bible above our heads.
I am SBC, and I could not in good conscience give much undesignated to the IMB right now. They need to get their house in order. Give to them, but direct it to church planting, human need, seminaries, etc.
Sorry Joel. I suppose I can’t, in good conscience, say that I would finance a young professor who will teach in Asia ;) but I’ll throw out an answer:
1) I would say that if it is an SBC church a big chunk should go to IMB (either general or specific funds). I think a local church should be behind their denominational efforts, if they aren’t then what’s the use? 25% to IMB.
2) Pay off any and all outstanding debt
3) If the church has a good regular core group of attenders, I would put 15% in the bank with the vision that it be possible to use that money within the next 5 years or so to plant a new church. With the condition that at the end of that time, if it seems planting a church isn’t going to happen, you revisit what to do with the money.
4) Look for non-IMB foreign missions causes that the church wants to partner with. I would lean toward those that work through and with the local church. World Relief stands out in my mind. 20% to this cause (for WR, this kind of money would basically sponsor penetration into 3 new countries). The reason I point to this type of ministry is that church members actually partner with natinal churches overseas. Some of the money would finance pastors and lay people to go visit these churches.
5) Local missions (like Michael said) that focus on the poor. Jail or prison ministry. 25%
6) Put what is left in the bank. I am not big on church savings accounts, so I hope it wouldn’t sit.
UPDATE: This is sort of hard without being in the church. I am not a huge fan “building” but if they happen to be in subpar building with problems, etc. I see using part of this (#6) to finance repairs or building as legitimate.
Who cares where I found it. It’s a point well made:
Spurgeon is not, however, the final arbiter between orthodoxy and what some imagine to be “heresy.” Neither he, nor his preaching, is infallible. Preachers are the servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God – not the mysteries of Spurgeon….Your appeal to the authority of Spurgeon in the endless indictments you hand down upon servants of the same Lord Spurgeon served is misplaced, to say the least. If you believe Spurgeon is above criticism by other men, or that Spurgeon’s preaching is not liable to criticism or error, then your self-styled crusade against all those who don’t measure up to him makes perfect, if not regretful, sense…For my part, I will continue to thank God for men like Spurgeon, all the while remembering Paul’s words, “Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar.” There is only one final court of appeal in the judging of men, and it is not Spurgeon’s. There is only One who deserves the place you seem to give Spurgeon, and that One is no man.
Is there some version of the WCF where assurance is found in Chapter XX instead of Chapter XVIII?
On February 7th, 2002, a diverse group of Christians started a wide-ranging weblog conversation. Today, that conversation continues and you're invited to pull up a chair. Welcome to the Boar's Head Tavern.
“It is better to think of church in the ale-house than to think of the ale-house in church.” - Martin Luther
