Dear Preacher: On Calvinism and Pride

Dear Preacher Bob:

[Originally presented March 26, 2014]

This isn’t a complaint, just a reflection. My point is not to object, but rather to expand the range of possible answers to a question you raised a couple of weeks back. Would you bear with me while I do that?

You gave a message on the subject “The Sovereignty of God”. I agree that this is an essential topic and for the most part, I found myself rejoicing in your take on it.

Yet I must confess that there was a moment or two in which I found myself hesitant — moments when the language you chose seemed to take the teaching about God’s sovereignty in the direction of what is called in theology “Neo-Calvinism”, and which philosophers call “Hard Determinism” — namely, the view that human freedom is an illusion, and all events are preset by God before they happen. And thus having merged “sovereignty” more-or-less with the interpretation of Neo-Calvinism, you then concluded with the following …

You said, “As far as I can see, the only reason for not believing in it is pride”.

The purpose of this letter is simply to suggest some different ways of seeing things.

The End of Evangelism

[Originally presented March 10, 2015]

There is general fear being widely expressed among evangelicals today that we are not reaching people the way we used to. Certainly the numbers of people in the modern West who are becoming Christians seems to be slumping, and a lot of us are a bit nervous about the trend.

Is the Age of Evangelism Ending?

According to Bible.org, one problem is that the professional clergy people and leaders are not stepping up, and that church ministries and programs are not going out to reach people. Meanwhile, The Evangelism Institute has found that while 85% of evangelical churches have a pro-evangelism statement in their constitution, less than 5% of the people are actually involved in doing something with it. All these worriers are agreed that Christians do still have a message worth getting out to the world, but for some reason we’re just not getting it out. So while this may not yet be the end of the church, it’s starting to look like it’s the end times for outreach, for evangelism, for the gospel.

Repent or Perish

[Originally presented July 12, 2014]

Most people understand (or intuit) as they read a Bible that its chapter and verse divisions are choices made by translators or copyists. They may be good choices or bad ones, but they are not part of the revelation of God. They are not ‘inspired’ in the sense the Word itself is.

Usually they are pretty decent. However, I probably would’ve broken up the Lord’s speech in Luke 12 and 13 a little differently.

Just saying.

Scientific Materialism and the Good Wife

[Originally presented April 15, 2014]

Popular culture is an ocean of leftist muck, propaganda and uncritical thinking.

Still, there are rare occasions when you run across something so thought-provoking and strikingly out of place in its lucidity that you just can’t believe it’s actually on TV.

It is sadly common these days to leave entirely unexamined the real life implications of one’s philosophical and religious beliefs, or the lack thereof.

There are about 100 comments that come to mind about the following scene, but maybe I’ll just let it speak for itself.

Courtroom drama from The Good Wife:

Alicia: When we left off, Professor, you said you believed in right and wrong, and that it was wrong to hurt people. Professor?

Promiscuous Freedom and Enslavement

“… promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption …”

[Originally presented April 11, 2014]

Imagine yourself sitting in the center row of a darkened theatre, in an evening performance of a show entitled Cabaret. Tonight’s offering is a musical, and yet it is a musical unlike most others. It’s almost entirely devoid of the kind of cheerfulness that is usually associated with that particular genre, focusing as it does on the excesses of the Weimar Republic in the days just before the outbreak of World War II. Such humor as the play has is heavily ironic, filled with innuendo, and ultimately black.

As you may recall, the government of the Weimar Republic was a notorious failure. Beset by massively complex political challenges, splintered by factions, weighed down with incompetence and undermined by corruption, the Weimar administration dragged Germany through a period of widespread economic, social and political debasement. This debasement was felt on many levels, from the heads of state all the way down to the social conditions and private lives of the citizens. Cabaret revels in some of the more unsavoury aspects of this society, which became truly sick with sin. Using the metaphor of the infamous cabaret shows of the ’30s, the play follows one society’s decline into unrestrained individualism, indulgence and debauchery.

In the two hours in which you have been in the theatre you have been dragged through the bowels of German interbellum night-life.

Inbox: Dawkins and Calvin Go to Hell

Or not. Tertius writes:

“Our Lord spoke three parables in Luke 15. They form His three-pronged answer to the criticism, ‘this man receiveth sinners and eats with them’ found at the end of the previous chapter. Jesus protests that anything lost (a sheep, a coin, or a son) evokes grief but the finding of them calls for celebration. I have heard subpoints of teaching made from the illustration of the two sons which miss that emphasis and I remember a discussion as to whether the prodigal was a lost sinner or a backslidden Christian!”

Tom Takes a Breather

You’re currently reading our 568th consecutive daily blog post since December 2013.

Whew! That’s a lot of writing. Too much, some might say. We’ve done a little recycling of older material now and again when surprised by life, but by my count that only represents a little over 3% of our output.

I’m going to take a couple of weeks to recharge the batteries and work on a few pieces without an immediate deadline looming. We’ll hope to have new posts for you next Saturday and Sunday (the regular Too Hot to Handle exchange between me and Immanuel Can moves to Saturday instead of Friday for two weeks only).

That’s so we can use our next ten weekdays to count down ...

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Fatal Friends: Dawkins and Calvin

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: Snakes, Mistakes and Better Takes

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Quote of the Day (5)

Last week, Tertius and I discussed the first chapter of Romans, comparing its language to statements about faith in Hebrews. Specifically, we were interested in how much about God may be known from nature, and how that knowledge is different from what may be known by faith.

Paul says in Romans, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”

Tertius and I agree that “eternal power and divine nature” takes in quite a bit.

Between Boredom and Bedlam

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Power of Two

How do we make decisions in the church? What is the teaching of the New Testament?

In his book Reimagining Church, Frank Viola contends that the normal method of making major decisions in the church is by consensus, not just of leadership but of every believer in a local church. (You can find my review here.)

He uses the council at Jerusalem in Acts 15 as his sole scriptural evidence.

Reimagining Decision-Making

How does your church go about making decisions?

Perhaps you don’t actually know. In very large churches, the process of deciding what is going to be done may be quite opaque to those who meet there. Where there is a very distinct hierarchy in place, perhaps decisions are made unilaterally, or maybe they are initiated by a ‘head pastor’ or equivalent and signed off on by a board or council of elders. Then again, maybe they are arrived at by discussion among elders and presented fait accompli to the congregation. Or perhaps opinions are solicited and discussed, and a decision is later made with the promise that “all voices have been heard and all opinions considered”.

Maybe there are lots of ugly politics involved that nobody really wants to talk about. I don’t know your church, so I won’t presume.

Reimagining Church

I wouldn’t normally be the type to start writing a positive review before completely finishing a book, but I’ve been enjoying Frank Viola’s Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity immensely.

Viola is not merely a theorist. In 1988, he left what he calls “institutional Christianity” and began meeting in “organic churches”.

Organic churches are not the latest vegan trend. They are local gatherings mapped to what we read in the New Testament. They seek to practice Christianity as it was practiced in the first century, minus any details that were merely a product of the culture(s) in which the early church grew and thrived. The result is a church that, at least on paper, seems both relevant and authentically “New Testament” in ways I’ve never seen before.

What Sort of Heart?

This quote has stuck with me over the past couple of weeks, maybe because it is not just those who would like the Bible to teach universal salvation that see this type of thinking as the ultimate expression of moral goodness:

“What sort of a heart could approve of eternal death for some? The doctrine of Universal Salvation teaches that all will have eternal life, including Satan and the demons. And that one day, all will have the same nature as God. What sort of a heart could not approve of Universal Salvation, eternal life for all?”

It boils down to this: anyone who wouldn’t grant eternal bliss, joy, happiness and God-likeness to Satan, Hitler, Stalin and every liar and murderer in human history that hates and rejects the Son of God is, well ... insufficiently morally developed.

Too Hot to Handle: Hmm … What Should I Wear to Church Today?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Keeping It Relevant

Is this old enough for you?

In a previous post, I set out the evidence from scripture that elders ought to be, well ... older.

Bit of a disappointment, I know. It is the nature of our society to obsess over youth: to make a big deal of energy, enthusiasm and an absence of wrinkles.

That’s actually a pretty modern quirk. Societies all over the world used to have great respect for the wisdom that comes with age, even though such sagacity was rarely accompanied by a six-pack or a pretty face.

No more. We’re so happy to see young people contribute in our churches that even if what they offer is mediocre and half-hearted, we’re pole-vaulting over each other with joy and pronouncing them the next big thing.

Almost always to their detriment, and ours.

Get the Message

“I am the Lord.”

That’s Ezekiel summed up in four words.

God has a point he wishes to make, and we are wise to hear it in a day when most recognize no final authority beyond their own opinions, prejudices and desires.

The phrase “they will know” (or “you will know”) that “I am the Lord” occurs 72 times in Ezekiel. Only 11 of its first 39 chapters don’t have it. It’s the bottom line to every declaration God makes to his people through the prophet. It’s a message we need to internalize at the very core of our beings. Until that happens, we do not really understand our place in the universe.

Without it, our assessment of reality is warped and disproportionate. We think it’s all about us.

The Sound of Salesmen

The above line comes from a couplet in a Rush song called “Spirit of Radio”, one of the few classic rock tunes I could stomach during my post-punk phase. Neil Peart’s lyric goes like this:

“For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall;

Concert hall echoes with the sound of salesmen.”

It’s actually a rather ironic subversion of Paul Simon’s words in “Sound of Silence”, but that is neither here nor there. Peart once said, “The Spirit of Radio was actually written as a tribute to all that was good about radio, celebrating my appreciation of magical moments I’d had since childhood, of hearing ‘the right song at the right time.’ ” What Peart didn’t say is that it’s a wistful tribute: it ends in his disappointment with the ubiquity of commercialism.

I had a “Spirit of Radio” moment in church the other night.

Blink and You’ll Miss It

The “Rapture”, I mean.

Or maybe the Judgment of the Sheep and Goats. Or both.

Has the Church failed to notice the return of Christ to earth to judge the nations?

Or more specifically, did his prophesied return actually take place in AD 70 when, under Titus, the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, eventually conquering the city and sacking the temple, thereby fulfilling the word of the Lord about it that “not one stone will be left upon another”?

Some Christians certainly think so.