Efficacy and Embarrassment

It started with a comment from Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of Defense, about the building of the third temple in Jerusalem. Hegseth is a Christian and to some appeared a little too eager to see it happen.

Then Doug Wilson responded with a post about the challenges he believes another temple presents for dispensational theology. Doug generously acknowledges that like other Christians, dispensationalists believe the Christian church replaced the temple service in our present era in God’s plans and purposes. We also take Bible prophecy literally wherever that seems reasonable.

But Doug believes the rebuilding of a temple in Jerusalem is going to be a troublesome issue for dispensationalists.

Subverting or Perpetuating

There is a good reason I try not to do a lot of speculating. Hypothetical situations are like tar babies: touch them, and you will not get free of them easily. It’s the old “What would you do if” question about a situation that, for you and me at least, will almost surely never arise. Whatever answer you come up with will not satisfy, and you’ll never apply it in real life in any case.

Call me crazy, but I suspect scripture was not written to address amusing fictions. Nevertheless, here we are. Journey with me if you will to postmillennial fantasyland once again.

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Cognitive dissonance exists because it’s possible for otherwise-intelligent men and women to hold two points of view at the same time that mutually exclude at their core. ‘X’ and ‘Not-X’. That sort of thing.

I ran into this in a conversation with two women at work many years ago about the Liberal Prime Minister they had just helped elect. As I listed government policy after government policy with which I knew they both had serious issues, they nodded in agreement like twin bobbleheads of the sisters from Full House. These were indeed bad policies, and they were driving our country into the ground. We were all on the same page about that.

“So … why?” I finally asked.

All Heat No Light

Sometimes the difference between making yourself clearly understood and leaving yourself open to wild misinterpretation can be measured in minutes.

Picture this. You’re on social media last week checking out the feeds of a couple of evangelicals you follow, and you come across this exchange:

Do you assume Doug Wilson is urging Americans to go to war with Iran in solidarity with Israel? Maybe.

Millennial Lifespans Redux

Back in February of this year we ran a post on millennial lifespans inspired by a Baptist publication I was reading at the time entitled Why Dispensationalism Matters. The subject came up again this morning in Doug Wilson’s weekly letter column, when a reader inquired about Isaiah 65:20. Specifically, he asked for Doug’s postmillennialist take on this: “Will there be a time prior to Christ’s return where the age spans of people are possibly similar to that of people you read about in the early generations of Genesis?”

Good question, and it occurs to me that the differences between the postmillennial and dispensational answers are more extensive than whether the fulfillment of Isaiah 65 will take place prior to Christ’s return or afterward.

A Fourth Kind of Doubt

Jonathan Noyes at Stand to Reason has an interesting post up this week on the subject of three kinds of doubt Christians may experience.

There is intellectual doubt: questioning the historicity of the Bible, the rationality of Christianity, and so on. There is emotional doubt, where pain, disappointment or unanswered prayers lead believers to question the goodness or existence of God. Then there is moral doubt, fueled by a failing struggle with sin. It can lead us to doubt the ability of God’s grace to transform us, and may result in inertia and despair.

It’s a worthwhile exploration of the subject, but I’d like to add one more kind of doubt to Jonathan’s list: theological doubt.

An Eschatonic on the Menu

Doug Wilson’s weekly letters column is equally a source of regular entertainment and occasional edification. I trek by it dutifully every Tuesday, as I do with several other writers who hold alternative theological views about this and that. My theory is that you can’t meaningfully address an area of perceived error without allowing its adherents to express themselves in their own words. If we don’t understand each other’s positions, we will always end up talking past one another.

Well, that is the theory, as I say. How it plays out is another kettle of fish.

Ruminations on the Original Sin

I have heard the story of the Fall retold many different ways. In a 2014 sermon, Matt Chandler put Adam in the driver’s seat, actually baiting Eve into her act of disobedience to God. It was a broad caricature pandering to the female half of his audience rather than a faithful retelling of the Genesis account. Another sermon I heard two Sundays back minimized Eve’s part in the Fall to such an extent that the speaker never once mentioned her name.

Hey, in our militantly feminized modern church environment, I understand the temptation to soft-pedal a woman’s involvement in plunging her race into centuries of sin.

The Commentariat Speaks (31)

Over at Doug Wilson’s place, Levi inquires, “What is your position on Satan being released at the end of this millennium? If the nations truly come to Christ, how can they be deceived when Satan is loosed?”

Doug responds, “Levi, I don’t believe that the elect will be deceived, but I do believe that there will still be non-elect individuals at that time who would be vulnerable. But then again, the revolt will be very short-lived.”

The postmillennial view of prophetic scripture has its difficulties. To me, Satan’s rebellion is one of its most substantial.

The Language of the Debate (10)

Most of the time, I post a quote at the top of our blog’s homepage because I thoroughly agree with it and its author has said something in a way I only wish I might have. Once in a while, I put up a quote I don’t fully agree with, but which nicely distils some current political or theological issue in a way that may provoke thought and inspire our readers to see if they can come up with a better way of formulating the idea.

So it is with the quote I’ve had up since last week from Doug Wilson. Doug writes, “There are three basic ways for us to organize ourselves — tribalism, globalism, or nationalism. As a Christian, I don’t want tribalism, and I don’t want globalism. What does that leave me with?”

Indeed. What does that leave him with?

Was C.S. Lewis Saved?

“In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

— From Surprised By Joy,
C.S. Lewis, 1955

I loathe theological debates.

To clarify, I do not dislike discoursing about God, and I have no objection to good faith arguments over what the scripture actually teaches to the extent they cleave as closely as possible to the language of scripture itself. The moment they drift off into coined, often pretentious theological terminology, however, we are in a marsh of our own making, and on our way under.

The Commentariat Speaks (29)

Doug Wilson gets the best letters from readers. This week, an anonymous twenty-something man is hunting for sound advice about a prospective girlfriend with baggage from her teen years. He figured Doug was a better choice than Dear Abby, whose daughter Jeanne writes her column these days. (I wondered how she was still going after all these years; I used to read her when I was about ten.) The new Abby’s readers have just as many problems as Doug’s (more and worse, actually), but Abby can’t give you a biblical take on your issues.

In this case, Doug’s answer is more than adequate. I quote: “If you are going to behave that way, then do her a big favor and break up now.” Now THAT’s telling it like it is.

Unhelpful Equivalencies

Self-righteousness and hypocrisy are unappealing qualities, whether in gospel preaching or in discussing the word of God with believers. They provide one’s audience with a convenient excuse to dismiss ideas they might otherwise find persuasive … or worse, convicting.

Nobody wants to look like a Pharisee, right?

As a result, Christians seeking to avoid accusations of fake piety are tempted to self-deprecate.

One Small Amendment

My father used to stress the importance of never looking at our fellow believers without seeing them as Christ has remade them, as new creatures in him. I watched him live this out in his dealings with Christians in churches all over the province over a period of decades, more than a few of whom I would happily have written off.

Dad never would.

My Contingent Ego (or A Matter of Pride)

You can’t discuss a matter effectively unless you really understand what the other side is saying.

Mischaracterizing the other position is extremely common in theological disagreements. I try very hard to avoid it here by quoting people directly, linking to context, and reading and contemplating an argument before I reply to it. I try even harder to avoid speculating about the motives of those with whom I disagree, since these are irrelevant to the truth or error of a person’s viewpoint.

But even these precautions cannot guarantee I have really heard and comprehended what the other side is trying to communicate.

The Commentariat Speaks (21)

A letter to Doug Wilson from an Australian named Ben poses a familiar question:

“Since I, like everyone else (except Adam and Eve), am born into this sinful state, how can God truly be just in judging me for committing sins I was destined to commit?

Our ‘free-will’ is not really free at all. I think our will is like a set of old-fashioned scales, then our scales are definitely not on the level. They are heavily weighed down towards the selfish side, causing most, if not all, of our choices to be made with a selfish heart; a heart I didn’t ask for or have any say in receiving. I was just dumped into this wretched state, into a wretched life, and then at the end destined to be judged by The Most High, for breaking laws I had no chance of keeping.”

Bound to get interesting, wouldn’t you say?

Too Hot to Handle: Unhinged Racism

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Jonathan Merritt contributes to The Atlantic and has been named one of “30 young influencers reshaping Christian leadership” by Outreach Magazine. All good so far, provided you don’t mind your “Christian leadership” flavored with a big honkin’ tablespoon of social justice.

Tom: He also just called Doug Wilson an “unhinged racist”, and Doug has sensibly called foul right here in one of the funniest posts I’ve read in a long time.

IC, these accusations of “racism” are getting so common today as to be almost meaningless.

Immanuel Can: Yes, along with the words, “sexist”, “homophobic” and “Islamophobic”, they comprise today’s “Four Horsemen of the Horse Manure”.

Saving America

Personally, I don’t think America can be saved. As a Canadian, I think we’re toast too. I believe both those venerable entities are bound for history’s wood chipper. We are on borrowed time, enjoying the last dregs of the benefits conferred to us from previous generations. Our own generation’s lazy, haphazard defense of the blessings we have inherited has pretty much guaranteed they will not survive us.

That’s pretty negative. But don’t check out yet.

Straddling the Fence

The blogosphere is forever.

Well, maybe not forever exactly. Writers whose posts I would be happy to share with the world are being deplatformed every day, it seems, to the point where I have taken to archiving anything I really enjoy, fully expecting it to disappear the moment it attracts the attention of our new, self-appointed internet censors. And sometimes it does.

That said, when you post something online you had better be very sure you stand behind it, because there is a better than average chance it will never go away, Exhibit A being this much-maligned effort by Doug Wilson from 2018 counseling a (hypothetical) church elder’s wife about how to leave her husband.

The Right to Costly Speech

Douglas Wilson is hard at work making the case for the right to free speech from a Christian foundation, and I give him full credit for grappling with the abstract with all the enthusiasm of Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

But in explaining his position, Doug is making an undefended assumption — or at very least one he does not attempt to defend in this particular post — which may sound perfectly reasonable to many Christians: that biblical law ought to serve as a foundation or framework for modern society.

The Commentariat Speaks (19)

Moscow, Idaho is home to Christ Church, a conservative reformed evangelical gathering of about 900 people that has produced an unusual number of what Wikipedia calls “institutional projects”, including New Saint Andrews College, the Logos School, a Christian book publisher, a scripture translation group, a three-year ministerial training program and four spin-off churches in Montana, California and Myanmar.

Christ Church congregants form an active community of homeschoolers and Christian businesspeople within Moscow.

If It Happens Again I’m Leaving

Doug Wilson is not the only Christian blogging about the phenomenon of people leaving a church over the issue of compulsory mask-wearing, but he’s probably more quoted on the subject than most. Responding in a recent post to questions from believers frustrated by the stand their own elders have taken over the issue, Doug has (perhaps inadvertently) opened a larger can of worms than the mask issue itself, which is the authority of elders to bind the consciences of those under their care over matters about which scripture is silent.

And the mask issue is certainly that.

Unhobbling Don Quixote’s Horse

In a couple of earlier posts this week I looked at some of the differences between the premillennial and amillennial schools of thought about Bible prophecy. You can find them here and here if you’re interested.

All beliefs about prophecy have practical implications of one sort or another, but the one most likely to ruffle feathers in the here-and-now, I think, is postmillennialism. That makes it worth chewing over a little.

What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (10)

Disagreeing with other Christians online is a bit like pulling off a Band-Aid® stuck to the hairiest part of your arm.

There is what I call the “Big BUT” disagreement. This kind starts slowly, with a spate of complimentary disclaimers — “Now, I love this Bible teacher, he’s a great guy and I admire him immensely” — and always ends with a great big “BUT ...”

Or there’s the exquisitely self-effacing “We’re All Just Learning Here” disagreement, which makes every biblical issue a matter of opinion and gives you a convenient way of escaping with a few shreds of dignity intact if it turns out everyone thinks its your interpretation that’s out to lunch.

One Verse, Two Interpretations

One little verse in Matthew 13 …

It’s not the only kingdom parable in our Bibles told in a single verse, but it manages to pack eight or more possible points of correspondence with an important spiritual reality into thirty-something English words, depending on your translation.

Thus it’s long enough to be interesting, but short enough to mull over in a blog post rather than a book.

A Homily That Isn’t

I was about to refer to what follows as a homily, but I must correct myself in advance: properly speaking a homily is a commentary that follows a scripture reading. In this instance no scripture has been read or even referenced:

“The Church was not established in this way so that we could put all settings on autopilot, and wait for the Second Coming. As we look at the history of the Church, we see that we must constantly learn, generation after generation, what it means to be Israel.”

In this case there’s a perfectly good reason the word of God has not been called upon: I cannot think of a single verse of scripture that legitimately supports such a statement.

The Mark of the What?

Rod Dreher brought it out of the closet with The Benedict Option.

By “it”, I mean the ongoing discussion in evangelical churches about being “in the world” but not “of the world” in a political climate where the Powers That Be are increasingly disinclined to let anyone opt out of their pro-LGBTQWERTY program, and in which technology has given them the tools to make sure you don’t, at least not without hurting you in a big way.

Wait, what? You say there IS no ongoing discussion about these matters in your local church?

Why am I not surprised?

Too Hot to Handle: Unhinged Racism

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Petting a Hissing Cobra

Brad Littlejohn and Doug Wilson are currently in the middle of an interesting back-and-forth on the difficulties that come with trying to deal with visible displays of feminine worldliness in the church: things such as pink hair, ear-stretching plugs, yoga pants, tattoos, body piercings and so on.

Everyone involved already seems to agree on a number of things: first, that it is unhelpful to pretend that the Law of Moses is directly relevant; second, that the New Testament does not address most of these issues in so many words — we have to get there by application from passages about “braided hair” and “costly attire” and such things; third, that despite the fact that we are dealing with principles rather than direct commands like “Don’t get a tattoo” or “Don’t dye your hair”, these principles cannot be handwaved away without us losing something very important; and fourth, not all such displays should be handled in precisely the same way — things like salvation, spiritual maturity, age, level of commitment, baptism, history and present circumstances absolutely come into it.

Everyone also agrees talking about the subject is like petting a hissing cobra.

Did God Invent Slavery?

If the ongoing debate over the appropriate Christian response to the institution of slavery is not the single touchiest subject currently batted around by evangelicals in multicultural societies, it has to be at least Top Five.

Some Christians, perhaps wisely, dodge the issue entirely if at all possible: “Are there slaves today anywhere in the West? Have there been any for over a century? No? Well then, it’s irrelevant what I think about it. Next question!”

Most of us wouldn’t put it that baldly, but we would be just as happy discussing something else.

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I have great appreciation for people who stick to the sola scriptura principle; people who are willing to go to the wall for what they believe the Bible teaches. It shows sincerity and courage, qualities that are most admirable.

But what do you do when, year after year after year, the facts on the ground stubbornly refuse to conform to your theological schema, a system of thought you are convinced is entirely scriptural?

Here, Let Me Fix That For You

The always-delightful Doug Wilson (and I say that without a trace of sarcasm) engages with the work of Russell Moore in this piece about building “collaborative majorities” in the Christian community for the purpose of politically engaging the broader culture, as the U.S. religious right has (often unsuccessfully) attempted to do.

As I have mentioned many times before, Doug, despite being postmillennialist Calvinist Reformed (is any of that redundant?) is one of my favourite Christian bloggers. He’s been on a tear lately about unity in the Body of Christ; a very reasonable concern that is close, I suggest, to the heart of our Saviour.

Not Enough Fingers

When everything is falling apart around me, when things are going south in a big hurry, I find it helpful to ask myself “What is MY role here? Is there something I should be DOING rather than just standing around looking concerned? Should I pray, act, consult others or wait (or some combination thereof)?”

Sometimes that question gets asked very quickly, or skimmed right over: if there’s water shooting out of a leaky pipe and accumulating on the kitchen floor, going away to pray and meditate about my next move is probably not the most useful response. On the other hand, if the issue is the ongoing decline of my local church and its increasing disobedience to its Head, the question of what I should do about it deserves some serious consideration in the presence of God.

Ideally, my stored knowledge of scripture or that of others is what provides the answer to that question when it is needed.

The Race Card

It’s on, ladies and gentlemen. The bell has rung, and the Gospel Coalition smackdown is underway.

In one corner we have respected theologian Wayne Grudem telling American Christians they should vote for Donald Trump. In the other, respected theologian Thabiti Anyabwile insists they should vote for Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, out on the ring apron, respected theologian Douglas Wilson is explaining the rules of engagement to both parties while recommending Americans vote for neither candidate.

He’s also being called a racist on Twitter for the crime of daring to disagree with a black man, but we should be used to that by now.

Wow. This part is almost more fun than the actual election.

Nobody Knows Where to Look

Try this on for size:

“The Russians are accused of trying to influence an American election. And how did they propose to disrupt our normal way of doing things over here? The answer is obvious when you think about it. They determined that they would tell the truth. When something like that erupts in the middle of a presidential campaign, nobody knows where to look.”

— Doug Wilson

Who knows what the Russians are trying to do, or if they actually have anything at all to do with the latest WikiLeaks infodumps? This is the craziest American election to occur in my lifetime, one in which interests are so wildly polarized that even the social and electoral havoc brought about by external meddling sounds like good news to some Americans, at least in the short term.

But more to the point, Wilson is right: truth is a terribly disruptive element.

The Virtue of Pious Disobedience

I think most Christians would agree that, for believers, starting an insurrection would be morally wrong.

After all, the New Testament teaches that we are to obey the governing authorities. Our job in the present age is to live quietly and mind our own affairs as part of our testimony to our Saviour, something some of us do better than others.

But this is not a universal rule.

Recommend-a-blog (19)

Douglas Wilson meets Rachel Held Evans

Douglas Wilson. Ah, Douglas Wilson.

Yes, THAT Douglas Wilson: the one quoted in the notorious Gospel Coalition blog post about men, women, sex and authority, the same post that got Rachel Held Evans mightily agitated and for which its writer, Jared Wilson (no relation, so far as I know), was compelled to eventually apologize (though Jared’s dutiful groveling is now well and truly buried, probably by TGC, and I haven’t got the patience to seek out and link to the inevitable archived version; feel free to concoct your own conspiracy theories).

Doug Wilson remained gleefully unrepentant.