The Christian Citizen

This World and the One to Come

2011-09-11T22:24:00.000-04:00

On 09-11-2011, I delivered a sermon on 1 John 2:15-17 entitled "This World and the One to Come" at Grace Church of Philly in University City, Philadelphia. Please see this link to go to my other blog, Twenty-First Century Bondservant, for the text of this sermon.

F. F. Bruce on "Worldliness"

2011-09-02T10:21:00.002-04:00

1 John 2:15-17 (ESV) Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions - is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

F. F. Bruce, on 1 John 2:15-17 (The Epistles of John: Introduction, Exposition and Notes [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 60-62):

Worldliness, it must beemphasized in the face of much superficial thought and language on the subject,does not lie in things we do or in places we frequent; it lies in the humanheart, in the set of human affections and attitudes. It may manifest itself inpetty but soul-stunting ambitions like ‘keeping up with the Joneses’; it maymanifest itself in unthinking acquiescence in current policies of monstrousmalignity, as when too many Christians in Nazi Germany found it possible to goalong with (or close their eyes to) their government’s genocidal treatment ofthe Jews. Worldliness of the latter sort is not that which has usually beendenounced by popular pietism; our Saviour’s remark about the gnat and the camelmay come to mind in this connection. If, in a world where the richer nationstend to become richer and the poorer to become poorer, the administration of aricher nation makes further increases in economic prosperity a major plank inits platform, the Christian – especially, perhaps, the Christian who prefers toremain as detached as possible from political responsibility – must beconstantly vigilant lest his own life reflect the unadmitted assumptionsunderlying such a policy. To share political, social or economicpresuppositions which are inconsistent with the Father’s love is one form ofworldliness....

Another form of worldliness, highly relevant to the situation in which John wrote, is the adaptation of the gospel to some contemporary tendency or philosophy or spirit of the age. It used to be said by acute foreign observers that Christians in this country had difficulty in distinguishing the interests of the kingdom of God from those of the British Empire; nowadays this tendency to confuse the gospel with national or imperial ideals may be more clearly manifested in equal and opposite degree in other parts of the world.

Review of On the Road to Armageddon

2010-11-09T14:08:00.003-05:00

I just finished reading Timothy P. Weber's On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel's Best Friend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005).

I found it to be a fantastic historical work on the history of Darby-ism (popularly known as dispensationalism). Weber adroitly covers the contorted logic that lies behind the decision of Darby-ites to wed themselves to the cause of the modern secular Israeli state, even to the point of siding with Christ-rejecting Jewish unbelievers over the cries of Palestinian Christians who have suffered persecution in that land.

A great overview of a little understood subject.I highly recommend it.

An Election Day Question

2010-11-02T12:32:00.010-04:00

This morning, I posted the following on my Facebook page as my status update:

On this day my prayer is that American evangelicals stop confusing the Republican agenda with biblical Christianity and stop conflating two very different kingdoms.

A question was then posed by someone in response to my update:

So are you suggesting that evangelicals should not vote?

The following was my brief response:

As a pastor, I'd really like to see Christians get as excited about serving Christ and serving people as they get over their favorite partisan political candidate. The work of the gospel and the work of the kingdom of God is what we should be focusing upon, not the work of one of the kingdoms of this fallen world. Our kingdom is not of this world. We are resident aliens here, citizens of heaven. The flags of this world blind our eyes to this reality. Whether the people in my congregation vote is not my concern. What *is* my concern is that their love of Christ, His gospel, and others occupies a central place in their life, that they not be unduly distracted by making the world a better place for unsaved people to go to hell from through politics. Such is the concern of today's conservative social gospel movement, i.e., The Christian Coalition, Religious Right, etc. The church must be on guard against Ameriolatry.

Certainly, more understanding and teaching is needed within the American evangelical church regarding the two kingdoms and the relation of the Christian to both.

Review of Sider's I Am Not a Social Activist

2010-10-10T01:43:00.008-04:00

Following is a brief review of Ronald J. Sider's I Am Not a Social Activist: Making Jesus the Agenda:

As a corrective to the neglect of mercy ministry within mainstream evangelicalism, I love this book.

As a corrective to the uncritical, slavish loyalty to anything and everything Republican within mainstream evangelicalism, I love this book.

As a corrective to the blind hyper-patriotism/nationalism within mainstream evangelicalism, I love this book.

As a corrective to the knee-jerk acceptance of warfare and violence within mainstream evangelicalism, I love this book.

However, I believe Sider goes too far in advocating as strongly as he does for Christian political action. In this, perhaps he inadvertently confuses the fallen kingdoms of this sin-cursed world with the kingdom of God, which today is embodied in the church. While I don't believe that political action is bad, I have observed, both in my own life and in the lives of other well-intentioned Christians, that this "good" can become the functional enemy of the "great."

By the "great," I am referring to evangelism/discipleship that brings about spiritual transformation. This transformation, in turn, has the power to reflect the light of the kingdom of God into this dark world.

To expect to bring about lasting structural change in fallen political systems may merely be making the world a nicer place for people to go to hell from. All time devoted to the "good" of reforming political systems (both on the Religious Right as well as on the Religious Left) is time spent away from the "great" of direct evangelism and discipleship. In this, both liberal and conservative evangelicals err.

The church desperately needs to focus its disparate energies and messages on our prime mandate, which has been the same since Acts 1:8 and will continue to remain the same until Jesus returns: making disciples of all people in all nations.

Gospel-centeredness demands that we not lose our way in the maze of modern political activism. This is the great danger that deep political involvement brings with it. Sider appears to recognize this when speaking about the "dangers and limits of political engagement" (211).

Sider rejects the idea of an "either/or" with respect to the propagation of the gospel and political involvement. He states that gospel-centered people who don't agree with him on the issue of expending hearty doses of time and energy on political engagement are merely "offering either/ors where they should promote both/ands."

Sider goes on to state that such a mentality "does not help evangelical Christians grow toward mature citizenship" (210). And this is exactly the spot at which I believe our views diverge.

I don't find any biblical warrant that compels Christ-followers to "grow toward mature citizenship" in the way which Sider speaks. I do, however, find that the Holy Spirit encourages us not to set our minds on "earthly things" and reminds us that "our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3:19-20).

Further, I reject the way in which Sider places evangelical Christianity alongside of Roman Catholicism as if they are somehow congruous. He maximizes some beliefs held in common between the two (such as belief in the Trinity) at the fantastic expense of the yawning gulf of theology and practice that separates these two systems. As a Christian pastor, and as someone who spent eighteen long years inside the darkness of Romanism, this I cannot endorse. There can be little, if any, agreement between idolatry/false religion and biblical faith.

All that being stated, I still recommend this book to evangelical Christians so that they may stretch themselves out a bit in their thinking and worldview.

Reflections on Ameriolatry and Evangelicalism

2010-07-18T11:25:00.039-04:00

One of the strongest and most persistent dogmas within conservative American evangelicalism is the belief that America is, or was at its genesis, a "Christian nation." Much of the evangelical church's limited effort and energy is thus expended toward the goal of defending or restoring this so-called state of affairs.

On Gospel-Centeredness

However, even if it could be proven that the intention of America's founders was to create a specifically Christian nation, this still would not provide Bible-believing evangelicals with a prime mandate to ensure either its continuation or its restoration. As Christians empowered by the Spirit of God to carry out the Great Commission of preaching the gospel to all people in all nations, our mandate lies elsewhere. Our vision is not to be riveted upon one of the fallen kingdoms of this world, but rather toward an eternal kingdom that is not of this world (John 18:36).

As a gospel-centered people, our ultimate allegiance and intentionality is to be toward the propagation of the life-transforming gospel that provides citizenship in an eternal kingdom and community of saints, not toward the propagation of a political kingdom that promulgates a philosophy of rugged individualism.

The gospel itself eliminates worldly and earthly divisions (such as nationality or ethnicity) that separates groups of sinners from one another (cf. Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11). Nationalistic pride is a source of strife that has caused tremendous destruction and widespread death throughout the bloody history of mankind, and yet such pride is the very thing that is frequently promoted and fostered by evangelical Christian leaders and pastors around the nation. [1]

The good can easily become the enemy of the great.

When Christians focus on the finite and limited "good" of utilizing political power for a certain end (such as the re-establishment of a "Christian nation" or the enactment of so-called "Christian laws"), the eternal "great" of gospel propagation inevitably must suffer.

When Christians take their eyes off of the cross and place them squarely on the flag, such patriotic sentiments and emotional investment necessarily distracts us from the glory of the gospel.

When Christians invest themselves in the promotion and/or restoration of America as a "Christian nation," our eyes fall from the power of the cross to the weak and beggardly elements of a bland historic sentimentalism that has neither the power to redeem nor transform the individual people of our nation.

No matter how many so-called "Christian leaders" we elect, no matter how many so-called "Christian laws" we pass, the fact remains that the souls of unsaved men and women are, from an eternal perspective no better off. All we are doing, perhaps, by the exercise of political power, is making the world a better place for many millions to go to hell from.

And thus it is that we end up with nothing more than a conservative mirror of the social gospel movement that was inaugurated by Walter Rauschenbusch. It is nothing less than a functional denial of the gospel to lay aside the mandate of the preaching of the cross in the pursuit of political power. Further, it is a denial of the primary citizenship of the Christian:

Phil. 3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Are conservative evangelicals so drenched with gospel success in their conversion and discipleship efforts that they are now free to move on to expending their precious time and energy in the political arena?

Are there no outsiders left to evangelize and disciple?

Is there no sense of gospel urgency?

Are conservative evangelicals so proficient in the things of the kingdom of God that they are now free to take over the kingdoms of this world?

Submission to Governing Authorities or Rebellion Against Governing Authorities?

How is it that a people whose holy scriptures teach near-total submission to governing authorities (with perhaps the only exception for disobedience tied directly to the prevention of gospel proclamation in Acts 5:29) embrace as "Christian" a nation that was founded in violent rebellion against its governing authorities?

Rom. 13:1 (ESV) Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.... 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

The apostle Paul clearly teaches that those who resist governing authorities resist the sovereign God who has established that authority. It is self-evident that there is no exception given in this text for bloody, violent rebellion against rulers who rule harshly or in an unjust manner, as in the American Revolution.

It is important to keep in mind the social-political setting of Paul's epistolary appeal to the Roman Christians in the first century. Romans scholar Douglas Moo lists three specific historical movements that may have contributed to "anti-government" thinking in that church:

1. The Jewish Christians in Rome had experienced a severe disruption in their lives when Emperor Claudius expelled all Jews (including Jewish Christians) from the city in A.D. 49. This event may well have led to resentment against the government in Rome.

2. The decade of the 50s saw a spectacular increase in Jewish Zealot activity and popularity. The Zealots ... preached insurrection against the Roman government.... The Zealots eventually won enough people to their side to incite a violent four-year insurrection against Rome.

3. The Roman historian Tacitus mentions resistance against the payment of indirect taxes in the middle 50s in Rome. The resistance culminated in a tax revolt against the government in A.D. 58, a year or two after Paul wrote Romans. [2]

The parallels between these ancient Roman historical movements that may have occasioned Paul's teaching of submission in Romans 13 and pre-revolutionary life in the American colonies is so self-evident that I feel no need to further comment in this area.

Under the inspiration of God, the apostle Paul urges not revolt against governing authorities, but instead, "supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings ... for kings and all who are in high positions" (1 Tim. 2:1-2).

The Holy Spirit, through the apostle Peter, commands believers to "honor the emperor" (1 Pet. 2:17). This reference becomes more significant when one considers the fact that Peter wrote this epistle as an exhortation to Christians on how to patiently endure in the midst of the suffering produced by persecution at the hands of others. There is not even the slightest hint that, rather than adopting a humble posture of submission in the face of persecution, Christians should take up arms and kill others in order to defend their "God-given" rights. Peter calls the persecuted to look toward another kingdom:

1 Pet. 5:10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

The Founders in Their Own Writings

Even if we disregard the self-evident sinful nature of the American rebellion, is it still possible to view America as a "Christian nation"? I don't believe that a nation founded in an anti-New Testament ethic of rebellion (rather than submission) to governing authorities (and largely on the back of slave labor) can in any way be considered "Christian." However, even if we dismiss the texts cited above (and others that I haven't listed here for the sake of space and time considerations), do the beliefs of America's founders bear any weight in our discussion? Knowing that many "Christian-nation-ers" frequently refer to "the faith of our Christian founders," perhaps a brief overview of some of their own writings and behavior is proper.

The following is a direct quotation from the writings of one of America's founding fathers, John Adams:

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature.... Although the detail of the formation of the American government is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service [i.e., the formation of the American government] had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or labouring in merchandise or agriculture: it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely under the use of reason and the senses....

Thirteen governments [i.e., the states] thus [were] founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery... (emphasis added). [3]

In as direct and perspicuous a manner as could be considered possible, Adams states that the founding of America is not God-ordained any more than the building of a ship or a house or the tending of crops. He states that the American experiment is not invested with God's authority, but with the "natural authority of the people alone."

In this same writing, Adams goes on to state that the American experiment was founded upon a thoughtful "reading" of the prominent philosophers of history (of whom he specifically notes Virtuvius, an ancient Roman military engineer, and Palladio, an Italian architect of the Renaissance period), and upon careful "reasoning." [4] Thus, he posits that our nation was constructed not upon the wisdom of revelation that comes down from above, but upon the fallen wisdom of humanity as viewed through the lens of Enlightenment Rationalism.

Dr. William Martin, Professor of Religion and Public Policy at Rice University, states

John Adams saw himself as a rational Christian, a term Unitarians often used to describe themselves, and proudly identified his ministers as Unitarians. He decried "Athanasianism," referring to orthodox Christian Trinitarianism, which asserts the incarnation and deity of Christ, and he urged Thomas Jefferson not to hire European professors at the University of Virginia because, "They are all infected with Episcopal and Presbyterian creeds [the overwhelmingly predominant Christian denominations in America at that time], and confessions of faith.... And until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there will never be any liberal science in the world (emphasis added). [5]

Like his Unitarian friend Thomas Jefferson, Adams the "rational Christian" did not believe in miracles, prophecies, or eternal punishment for sin.

And so it is that we gain a clearer understanding of John Adams as a religious man, but not a Christian in any biblical, historical, or orthodox sense. Anyone denouncing the Trinity and referring to orthodox Christian beliefs and creeds as "awful blasphemies" cannot in any way be considered "Christian."

Regarding Adams' Unitarian friend Mr. Jefferson, following is a quotation from a private letter he sent to John Davis in 1824. It displays quite vividly his total opposition to basic Christian Trinitarianism:

I thank you, Sir, for the copy you were so kind as to send me of the revd. Mr. Bancroft's Unitarian sermons. I have read them with great satisfaction, and always rejoice in efforts to restore us to primitive Christianity.... Had it never been sophisticated by the subtleties of Commentators, nor paraphrased into meanings totally foreign to its character, it would at this day have been the religion of the whole civilized world. But the metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius [i.e., his defense of orthodox Trinitarianism], and the maniac ravings of [John] Calvin ... have so loaded it with absurdities and incomprehensibilities.... I trust however that the same free exercise of private judgment which gave us our political reformation will extend its effects to that of religion (emphasis added). [6]

Here we see Jefferson as a champion of Unitarian, rather than Christian, belief. He even goes so far as to hope that the "free exercise of private judgment" would "reform" the church in a direction away from the historic Trinitarian faith.

In a letter to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse in 1822, Jefferson again attacks, distorts, and belittles the historical Christian belief in the Trinity. Specifically, he goes after Athanasius and Calvin, calling them "impious dogmatists" and "false shepherds" and "usurpers of the Christian name" that teach a blasphemous "counter-religion made up of the deliria of crazy imaginations." Jefferson incorrectly states that Trinitarians believe in "three Gods." Jefferson goes on to overturn the gospel of Jesus Christ by stating (in negative fashion against the "demoralizing dogmas of Calvin") that one can be saved through "virtue" and "good works." On the ultimate triumph of Unitarianism over the historic Christian faith, he states, "I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian." [7]

Having rejected the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, Thomas Jefferson went on to produce his own edited version of the Gospel accounts, called The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. In this cut-and-paste version of the Gospels, Jefferson carefully excised all references to the resurrection, miracles, and the virgin birth of Christ.

On the faith of George Washington, it is well documented that although he was officially an Episcopalian, he was hardly devout. In response to the dogged questioning of "many" on this issue, the bishop of the church in Philadelphia that Washington frequented for over twenty-five years stated that Washington "never" received communion "in the churches of which I am parochial minister." [8]

Episcopalian minister James Renwick Wilson once preached the following on Washington:

There is no satisfactory evidence that Washington was ever a professor of the Christian religion.... In no state paper, in no private letter, in no conversation, is he known to have declared himself a believer in the Holy Scriptures, as the word of God.... Is it probable that he was a true believer in Jesus Christ and his Bible, when in times so trying ... he wrote thousands of letters, and yet never uttered a word from which it can be fairly inferred that he was a believer? [9]

Dr. Martin goes on to state that "several other clergymen agreed with" Rev. Wilson that although Washington "was esteemed by the whole world as a great and good man ... he was not a professing Christian." [10]

Of Washington's beliefs, none of his time seemed to be very sure. On this topic, Jefferson stated the following in his diary:

When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the Government, it was observed in their consultation, that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address, as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However ... the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observed, he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers, except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the States.... I know that Gouverneur Morris ... has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system [i.e., Christianity] than he himself did. [11]

Summary

In summary, I have attempted to make that case that in light of a gospel-centered worldview, efforts expended toward the promulgation of America as a "Christian nation" should not be continued, at least at their current rate and intensity. Rather, our limited time, treasure, and energy should be fully devoted to our prime mandate as witnesses of the transformative, life-saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

I have further attempted to make the case that, from a New Testament perspective, the revolution which immediately preceded the formation of our nation was, in its essence, sinful in that it embraced an ethic of violent rebellion against, rather than submission to, governing authorities.

I have also attempted to lay out some brief quotations from and testimonies of the three most prominent of our "founding fathers" in order to demonstrate either utter heterodoxy (in the case of Adams and Jefferson) or the lack of any type of visible Christian testimony as fruit of a regenerated spiritual life (in Washington's case).

This treatment was not intended to be exhaustive in scope, as I'm sure I will be writing on this topic as I have the time and ability to in the future, Lord willing.

Soli Deo Gloria

Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

---------------

1. I attended a morning worship service at a conservative evangelical church on this past Memorial Day and found that I had, indeed, entered into a worship service. However, I was unaware that it was a worship service which had the nation of America as its object, and not the Lord Jesus Christ. I had come to church to worship the Lord Christ, and instead found myself strongly exhorted to worship one of the kingdoms of this fallen world. I remained silent during this time and nearly walked out of the church in grief and anger and disgust. If it were not for the pacifying presence of my wife next to me during this time, I believe that I would have departed almost immediately.

2. Douglas J. Moo, "Romans," in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary Volume 3 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 77.

3. John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (22 March 1778), xiii-xv.

4. Adams, xiii-xv.

5. William Martin, "But Wait, There's More!," http://www.opposingviews.com/counters/but-wait-there-s-more (Accessed 18 July 2010).

6. Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. XII (in 12 volumes): Correspondence and Papers 1816-1826 (New York: Cosimo, 2009), 331-32.

7. Jefferson, 241-43.

8. Martin, "But Wait, There's More!"

9. Martin.

10. Martin.

11. Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1, ed. by Albert Ellery Bergh (Washington D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1905) 433-34.

Recommended reading:

Greg Gilbert, What is the Gospel? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010).

Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005).

Erwin W. Lutzer, Is God on America's Side? (Chicago: Moody Press, 2008).

Churches Need to Heed Forecasts of Economic Depression

2010-02-25T19:42:00.009-05:00

In a 3-part series I wrote in 2004 forecasting a "Next Great Depression," I pointed to data that appeared to indicate a major economic downturn beginning somewhere around the end of the first decade of the 2000s and lasting until somewhere in the 2020s. I have consistently attempted to point out that the "green shoots" rhetoric in the media over the last year is nothing but wind and destructive hype.

Now former Forbes Washington bureau chief James Srodes has a piece out predicting a "great recession" beginning in 2011 and lasting into 2012. Srodes believes that this recession will be part of a larger overall depression that began back in 2007 and that will last well into the 2020s. In this fantastic article, Srodes makes some keen observations that appear to have great merit and evidential support.

Unfortunately, many Americans and Christians have been sucked (or, better, "suckered") into believing that the worst is behind us and it is safe to frivolously borrow and spend once more. Unfortunately, the weak and the poor will continue to be hit hardest in the next wave of this long-term downturn. Unfortunately, American evangelicalism (on the whole) continues to neglect mercy ministry to the downtrodden and disempowered.

At a time when the church should be ramping up such ministries to meet the exploding spiritual and material needs of those who find themselves on the street, it finds itself economically crippled and overwhelmed, caught up in the same financial inferno that has engulfed the rest of society. I personally know of very few ministries that are willing and prepared to meet these needs for the sake of Christ and His gospel.

As I warned back in 2004, I now warn again: Christians need to prepare and get their houses in order to come together to preserve the integrity of their ministries for the furtherance of the life-saving and -sustaining gospel. While the gospel can, and frequently has, survived (and even thrived) outside of traditional, institutional church structures, evangelical institutions have proven to be very powerful and effective engines for the propagation of the gospel. The integrity and solvency of many of these institutions (and their educational counterparts) are now threatened in a very grave manner.

Following are some pertinent excerpts of my exhortations from 2004: "The Challenge Facing the Church":

Christians in America are about to face the greatest economic and political crisis since the Great Depression from 1930 to 1942. There are indisputable trends that portend terribly for our economy and possibly for our personal financial future. As responsible stewards, Christians need to be aware of putting ourselves in financially ruinous situations that would threaten the earthly security and welfare of our family. Some Christians have already been engulfed in the recent real estate crisis, having borrowed beyond their means during a time of easy lending practices. We need to tread very carefully in the days ahead, living within our means as we enter a very lean period of time.

In the next Great Depression, the church will need to be strong and ready for what I believe will be a massive influx of people who are in a desperate emotional and spiritual condition. A church incapacitated by economic ruin will be largely unable to minister to a mass of desperate seekers....

Christians and churches in America have a great responsibility to plan for the downturn ahead, that we may be in a secure position from which we can continue to effectively preach salvation to the lost. Financial wreckage and ruin may severely hinder the church’s ability to operate in this wicked world in the way that it does today. It is my sincere hope and prayer that Christians will not turn a deaf ear to these warnings, and allow economic collapse to become a stumbling block to the furtherance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we can, by God's grace, gain a secure position for the coming economic super-storm, we will be in a position to stand strong for those who will be looking for a foundation upon which to rest their weary souls. At that time, we will be ready and able to point the seekers to that which will always be secure: the chief cornerstone and our blessed Savior, Jesus Christ. (Note: this 3-part piece was originally authored in 2004 and updated in July 2008.)

Review of Horton's "The Gospel Driven Life"

2010-01-28T10:24:00.003-05:00

Following is a brief review of Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009):

This book is a fantastic treatment on the gospel and its practical outworking in today's church and world.

Especially helpful was chapter four ("Getting the Story Straight") where Horton addresses some of the ways that well-intentioned conservative evangelical believers and leaders have turned the gospel into a neatly packaged formula that tends to distort and subjectivize the objective and outward facts of Christ and His salvation:

Here are a few examples of how the gospel is often defined in our circles today:
1. "A personal relationship with God"
Nowhere do we find the apostles proclaiming the gospel as an invitation to have a personal relationship with God. After all, they presupposed thateveryone has a personal relationship with God already. In fact, our major problem is that we do have a relationship with God: the relationship of a guilty defendant before a just judge.... All people know God, but suppress the truth in unrighteousness.... So the gospel does not offer the possibilityof a personal relationship with God, but announces a different relationship with God based on Christ!
2. "Asking Jesus into your heart"
God has used the truth contained in such formulas, however, to equate salvation with Jesus' taking up residence in one's heart is, at best, a half-truth.... "Asking Jesus into your heart" simply does not answer the problem identified in the Scriptures. My main crisis is not that Jesus is not in my heart, but that I am - with the rest of humanity - "in Adam," and the gospel is that through faith in the gospel I am - with my coheirs - now "in Christ...." When people are given the impression that they are saved by praying a prayer, we can easily forget that it is the Spirit who gives us the faith to desire, much less pray for, God's mercy. The focus shifts from the gospel itself, through the Spirit gives us faith, to the act of faith itself....
The most important criticism of this definition of the gospel is that it is not found in Scripture. No one is called in the New Testament to pray "the sinner's prayer," asking Jesus to come into his or her heart. Especially in Acts, this is the pattern: God's judgment is announced on all people; the gospel is proclaimed as Christ's fulfillment of the Scriptures, and many, convicted of their sins and the Good News of salvation in Christ, believe, are baptized, and are thereby added to the church.
3. "Making Jesus your personal Lord and Savior"
This is another expression that is not found in Scripture. In fact, the Good News is so good precisely because it is simply an announcement of what is already in fact the case.... We all want to be and do something rather than to be made and to receive our identity from above. It is a blow to our spiritual ego to be told that everything has already been done. Yet that is the glory of the gospel!... Faith receives; it does not make (91-93).

Also very helpful was Horton's "4D" (my term) model for understanding the life of the Christian and the church. Many churches do not regularly teach on the basic plot of Scripture, and therefore, Christians life out their lives in a disjointed and compartmentalized fashion.

Finding our place in God's story ["drama"], renewed in our thinking by his instruction ["doctrine"], and led by his Word to respond in grateful thanksgiving ["doxology"], we now have the proper content, motivation, shape, and direction for our discipleship [the fourth "D"] in the world (98).

I especially appreciated Horton's emphasis on "two kingdoms," a teaching that appears to be non-existent in both conservative and liberal churches. Both of these wings focus much attention and effort on wresting control of the levers of the American empire from the other group in order to exercise power and influence on the rest of society, presumably "for Jesus' sake." Horton helpfully separates activity in the kingdoms of this world with activity for the Kingdom of God:

Christians may be distinguishing themselves in the common realm of secular culture, but they are not doing this as part of the church's activity. They are not even doing "kingdom work." The church is not yet the realized kingdom of Christ on earth, but it is the only place where that kingdom becomes partially visible through the ministry of Word and sacrament. Even the work of Christians remains part of secular culture, where God sends sunshine and rain upon the just and the unjust alike. Their cultural endeavors are no more redemptive than those of their non-Christian neighbors, and yet the Spirit blesses all city building with his excellent gifts of common grace.... Christ's kingdom is its own culture: holy rather than common. That does not mean that it is an alternative subculture. In other words, there is no such thing as Christian sports, entertainment, politics, architecture, or science. In these common fields, Christians and non-Christians are indistinguishable except by their ultimate goals and motivations (248-49).

Horton goes on to speak of the church and power:

The Christian churches do not have any power - at least the kind of power that the world considers powerful. At least it shouldn't. Aside from the doubtful thesis that there ever was a truly Christian civilization, the idea is a bad one. The only weapon that the church really has is the gospel (260).

My only criticism would be Horton's heavy emphasis on the sacraments (the Lord's Supper and baptism) as a "means" of grace. He states that the ordinances (he uses the term "sacraments") "ratify" and "certify" the gospel message (p. 196, 200). I would argue that "means" speaks of a delivery vehicle, not of a method of "ratification" and "certification." "Means" don't "ratify" and "certify," but deliver. I would state that the Word delivers the gospel of grace and the ordinances testify to and affirm its reality and certitude. (Holding to believer's baptism by immersion, I obviously don't agree with Horton's infant baptism, although I greatly appreciate my pedo-baptistic brothers and sisters in Christ.) I would also take a slightly more positive view of "contextualization" than Horton (p. 257).

Overall, I loved this book and agreed with Horton in just about every area other than those listed above in the previous paragraph. A fantastic and much-needed work.

Ameriolatry: Witnessing for the Wrong Kingdom

2010-01-23T08:21:00.015-05:00

In these days that follow the election of Republican Scott Brown to the vacant Massachusetts Senate seat, many Christians are busily puffing out their chests, strutting around and triumphally chirping about "us" and "them" in a worldly and divisive fashion.

Expending their limited time and energy defending and promoting one version of the kingdoms of this fallen world rather than the Kingdom of God, some conservative evangelical Christians again appear to be primarily concerned with locking arms with atheists, agnostics, Mormons, Roman Catholics, Libertarians, and Republicans to carry out the self-imposed "Great Cultural Mandate," having apparently forgotten about the Christ-imposed Great Commission. Such misplaced activism misrepresents and reduces the church to a moralistic special interest group trying to attain power over others so that it can impose on them the "correct" form of government. How utterly sad.

Ameriolatry is not uncommon within American evangelicalism. The primacy of the flag over the gospel in our speech and actions is evident and shameful in that it diminishes the centrality of the cross in our testimony. As confessing Christ-followers, we're not even good at being the church (which we're called by God to be), let alone good at being one of the kingdoms of this world (which we're not called by God to be). To a large extent, our individual and corporate evangelistic efforts are nearly non-existent; our great neglect of the poor is evident; we shut up widows in retirement homes and hand orphans over to the care of the ungodly state; we neglect the Scriptures while doggedly pursuing the "American dream"; we do church on Sundays and forget to bethe church the rest of the week; we live lives that are substantively no different from the unsaved people around us. To the extent that our lives look like this, we fail in our calling to be His holy people and a kingdom of priests to a needy world.

In the past, I've been guilty of confusing the two kingdoms and guilty of using much of my energy to fight for what I believed to be worthy political causes. In the past, I've been guilty of pledging allegiance to kingdoms and causes other than that the Kingdom of God and the cause of Christ Jesus. I speak this to my shame. It grieves me to see others committing the same sin that I am so adept at.

It is times like this that tend to firm up my belief that the "Constantinian Turn" of the fourth century is the most significant post-apostolic event/process in the history of the church. Constantinianism is one of the most subtle, destructive, and dangerous sins ever devised by Satan and his legions. It has destroyed, and continues to destroy, the church's credibility and gospel witness in this world.

Following are excerpts from Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009), 163-65:

American Protestantism has excelled at confusing the gospel with the American way. I was reminded of this recently when a pastor told me that he had tried to remove the American flag from the front of the church. Removing the pulpit, table, and font to make room for the praise team's stage was relatively light work, but the flag was apparently immovable. Just compare the pomp and circumstance with which Memorial Day and Independence Day are celebrated in churches across America with the relative obscurity of Ascension Day. Nobody expects the New York Times to celebrate Christ's victory over sin and death each week, but why should the church give the impression that there is something more important and more impressive to focus on than this report?...

We still have trouble knowing what time it is or what kind of kingdom Christ has inaugurated. If we are still thinking in terms of a fully-consummated kingdom of glory and power present now in the world in and as the church or in Christian movements, then the gospel will be considered foolish.... The challenge for us, as for the first disciples [in Acts 1:6, who desired a "power over" kingdom] is to believe in a kingdom that we hear, but do not see. Preaching the gospel, baptizing, teaching, administering the Supper, visiting the sick, caring for orphans and widows: Of course, we do these things. The "of course," however, betrays the fact that we often give lip service to these divinely mandated methods of the Great Commission, but our real interest lies elsewhere, in methods and programs that will really accomplish something important.

It is natural to think that the demagogues who roam the earth in search of victims are the ultimate enemies, but the biblical drama indicates that these are puppets of the powers and principalities of darkness in heavenly places....

However, the Great Commission is not the Great Cultural Mandate, and the kingdom of Christ cannot be identified with any of the kingdoms of this age [including America]. The troubles of the secular city, in which the church shares and to which it sometimes contributes, are important matters to be addressed by believer and unbeliever alike, but they are symptoms of a more serious crisis: the reign of death and hell. If we could resolve our top ten crises in the world today, we would still have the devil on our back, sin mastering our heart, and everlasting death as the penalty for our mutiny.

As a minister, I am called regularly by God to make a political speech. A deeply partisan political speech. However, it is not to rally the troops in defense of Christendom against the infidels of various sorts. It divides not between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, but between Christ and Antichrist. As heralds and ambassadors of the age to come, we are given the commission to go into all the world with the announcement that Jesus Christ is Lord and King, the only Sovereign who holds the keys of death and hell; who opens and no one can shut, who shuts and no one can open. It is he alone who will rid the world of evil by his wisdom and might, subduing chaos and leading his own into the place that even now he is preparing for them.

In this covenantal gathering, the cross is raised, not as a cultural symbol but as the proclamation of Christ crucified for sinners. Our role is not to represent Western civilization, democracy, or the free world, but the city of God, the New Jerusalem that is coming down out of heaven, as a bride prepared for her husband. It is this city alone that promises - and gives - true liberty to its sons and daughters beyond the ultimate triumph of death and hell. We witness to the ascended King who will return again to judge the living and the death and reign forever.

(See also "More on Unhelpful 'Us Versus Them' Rhetoric.")

A Review of "Resident Aliens"

2010-01-06T12:43:00.002-05:00

Following is a review of Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1989):

The strength of this work lies in its radical call to the American church to be the church in community, laying aside its propensity to think and act mainly in terms of narrow, unbiblical, Western individualism. Hauerwas and Willimon call the church away from both liberal and conservative strains of Constantinian thought and activism to a communal, social ethic that embraces the Sermon on the Mount as the mountaintop of all Christian life and behavior in this hostile world.

The authors appear prophetic in their accurate assessment of America as a post-Christendom nation, as this book was published over twenty years ago. I also agree with them that this is a good thing for the church of Jesus Christ in that it may tend to free up the church to be the church again. Too often, the church appears all too interested in the rise and fall of nations and principalities and powers of this fleeting world, employing and expending much of its time and energy promoting causes and political parties that pale in importance of the mandate of the church to proclaim and live out the gospel on a daily basis. The "good" of Christian social activism thus eclipses the "great" mandate of the Great Commission. Rather than seeking to institute our pet versions of either liberal or conservative political utopias, the church is called to live out the gospel within the biblical bounds of its status as "resident aliens." At times, our efforts to "make the world a better place" simply gets in the way of the progress of the gospel. Rather than being viewed by the world as agents of Christ Jesus, the various elements within the church are often viewed as willing and obedient pawns of the Republican or Democratic parties. Surely, our identity as slaves of Christ calls us to something more and better than this, and I believe that the authors have correctly diagnosed these sinful, Constantinian tendencies within the church.

I also greatly appreciate the authors' insistence on corporate nonviolence within the church. All too often, evangelical believers limit the Sermon on the Mount as being applicable to individual Christians only, severing it from binding the church to its commands in a corporate sense. In this way, personal nonretaliation against one's enemies is shunned while corporate (and much more devastating) forms of retaliation (such as active soldiering for the various causes of this satanically-controlled and -influenced world) are embraced and even lauded in our assemblies. (Surely here, as in other areas, the church is far more American, factious, and nationalistic than it is ever called to be as people who are to live by the gospel and the gospel alone.)

The authors trace much modern thought on this to Reinhold Niebuhr's book Moral Men and Immoral Society (1960). Niebuhr's argument was that Jesus' Sermon on the Mount ethics applied only in the personal, not corporate, spheres. The authors retort, "Such reasoning is yet another example of the sort of theological rationalization so typical of the post-Constantinian church.... The Sermon is not primarily addressed to individuals because it is precisely as individuals that we are most apt to fail as Christians. Only through membership in a nonviolent community can violent individuals do better. The Sermon on the Mount does not encourage heroic individualism..." (76-7, emphasis added).

The weakness of this work is the authors' apparent belief in infant baptismal regeneration (and infant baptism in general), the sacramentalism from which this belief originates, their views on women in pastoral ministry, and their accommodating and legitimizing stance toward the institution of Roman Catholicism.

With that being said, I would still highly recommend this work to pastors, ministerial students, and lay leaders within the church. All too often, the evangelical community limits itself in its reading and research and thus cuts itself off from the fabulous insight and light that authors like Hauerwas and Willimon can cast into the blind spots of our theology and ethics. We tend to paint authors (and people) with the broad brush of disdain if we disagree with them on a point or two of their thinking. In doing so, we cut off parts of our own body, believing that we are doing ourselves (and God) some great service in the process.

Second Wave of Mortgage Defaults on Horizon

2009-12-21T15:26:00.007-05:00

Below are excerpts from an article that gives yet another reason why, contrary to the deceptive rhetoric of our rulers and their media outlets, we aren't even close to being out of the economic woods just yet. (Click here and here and here for other resources that refute the "recovery" mantra of our leaders.)

Be a good steward. Prepare yourself for what appears to lie over the horizon so that you can be in a position not only to assist those closest to you, but those who will need it the most. Remember, you cannot reach out to help anyone else if you also are drowning and cannot swim.

Here is a link to a 3-part essay I wrote in 2004 describing the forces contributing to what I believed was a coming depression in the latter part of this decade. The underlying factors outlined in this essay remain unaddressed as of this writing. These unrestrained forces should further contribute to the ongoing and inherently immoral economic destruction of our nation by our leaders.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Following are excerpts from "The Second Wave of Mortgage Defaults" by Jim Nelson of The Daily Reckoning:

Our economy is about to relapse into the disease that sent us into the Great Depression: Part Deux. Subprime loans caused the initial illness. Option-ARMs will cause the relapse.

In the first half of the past decade, subprime loans were king. They were cheap and easy to get approved. Along with the subprime boom came subprime adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), which were equally easy to afford...for a while.

Of course, the "A" and the "R" in ARM meant that the interest rate borrowers pay changes, or resets. The majority of these resets occurred between the summer of 2007 and the summer of 2008.

This period saw a massive amount of mortgage interest rate hikes, which caused millions of foreclosures. Things spiraled down from there, eventually freezing nearly all credit and causing the panic of 2008.

Of course, that's the 50-cent version of recent history. There were plenty of other financial calamities that went along with this, including the bundling of mortgage-backed securities and risky derivative products.

If you believe the Obama White House and the glass-half-full press corps, you'd think this mess is now behind us. We are, after all, in a recovery...right?

Unfortunately, no one is talking about the second wave of ARM resets and foreclosures...

You see, this second wave will come crashing even harder than the first. It's made up of a type of mortgage called "Option ARMs...."

...About 80% of option ARMs are negatively amortizing. Meaning these so-called top-tier borrowers are heading further into the hole. Once their rates reset, they could be in serious trouble. And that could be happening very soon.

The chart above shows the two peaks in the mortgage-reset wave. The first peak is comprised of subprime ARM resets. And the second is mostly constructed of option ARM resets. We appear to be in the eye of the storm.

That fact alone shook our nerves when we first discovered it. But it was a different chart in Tilson and Tongue's most recent presentation that really got us startled... It's also the reason I'm predicting the dollar spike in 2010.

Instead of resetting as expected after the first five years, many option ARMs are so negatively amortized that they are hitting their automatic reset cap.

That means they are resetting early...like right now.

As you can see from the second chart, the expected reset peak was to occur in 2011. But the real peak is happening now. You can also see that the amount of mortgages resetting is spread over a longer period of time than originally thought, but is peaking much earlier. Unfortunately, it's not the peaks that matter.

You see, those are just resets. But with unemployment reaching quarter- century highs every month, and the massive number of homeowners about to receive mortgage bills for two to three times what they are used to paying, we find ourselves in an even scarier environment than this time last year.

It takes anywhere between 3-12 months for most homeowners to actually go into foreclosure. Therefore, the wave of Option-ARMs that are now resetting could cause a major wave of foreclosures over the next 6 to 18 months.

It's tough to say exactly when the storm will come. But my guess is the second half of 2010....

On Gospel Opportunity in Post-Christendom America and the Abandonment of a Constantinian Worldview

2009-12-20T10:32:00.003-05:00

The following is an excerpt from chapter one of Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1989):

Sometime between 1960 and 1980, an old, inadequately conceived world ended, and a fresh, new world began.... When and how did we change? One of us is tempted to date the shift sometime on a Sunday evening in 1963. Then, in Greenville, South Carolina, in defiance of the state's time-honored blue laws, the Fox Theater opened on Sunday....

That evening has come to represent a watershed in the history of Christendom, South Carolina style. On that night, Greenville, South Carolina - the last pocket of resistance to secularity in the Western world - served notice that it would no longer be a prop for the church.... The Fox Theater went head to head with the church over who would provide the world view for the young. That night in 1963, the Fox Theater won the opening skirmish.

You see, our parents had never worried about whether we would grow up Christian. The church was the only show in town. On Sundays, the town closed down. One could not even buy a gallon of gas. There was a traffic jam on Sunday mornings at 9:45, when all went to their respective Sunday schools. By overlooking much that was wrong in the world - it was a racially segregated world, remember - people saw a world that looked good and right.... Church, home, and state formed a national consortium that worked together to instill "Christian values...."

A few years ago, the two of us awoke and realized that, whether or not our parents were justified in believing this about the world and the Christian faith, nobodybelieved it today. At least, almost nobody.... A few may still believe that by electing a few "Christian" senators, passing a few new laws, and tinkering with the federal budget we can form a "Christian" culture.... But most people know this view to be touchingly anachronistic. All sorts of Christians are waking up and realizing that it is no longer "our world" - if it ever was....

We [the authors] believe the world has been changed but that change did not begin when the Fox Theater opened on Sunday. The world was fundamentally changed in Jesus Christ, and we have been trying, but failing, to grasp the implications of that change ever since. Before the Fox Theater opened on Sunday, we could convince ourselves that, with an adapted and domesticated gospel, we could fit American values into a loosely Christian framework, and we could thereby be culturally significant. This approach to the world began in 313 (Constantine's Edict of Milan) and, by our reckoning, ended in 1963....

The demise of the Constantinian world view, the gradual decline of the notion that the church needs some sort of surrounding "Christian" culture to prop it up and mold its young, is not a death to lament. It is an opportunity to celebrate. The decline of the old, Constantinian synthesis between the church and the world means that we American Christians are at last free to be faithful in a way that makes being Christian today an exciting adventure [emphasis added]....

And we believe that recognition signals a seismic shift in the world view of our church, which makes all the difference in the world for how we go about the business of being the church. Now our churches are free to embrace our roots, to resemble more closely...a faith community that does not ask the world to do what it can only do for itself. What we once knew theologically, we now know experientially: Tertullian was right - Christians are not naturally born in places like Greenville or anywhere else. Christians are intentionally made by an adventuresome church....

The project of theology since the Enlightenment...has been, How do we make the gospel credible to the modern world?... Schleiermacher's project of making the faith credible to Christianity's "cultured despisers" was adopted by everyone.... Modern interpreters of the faith have tended to let the "modern world" determine the questions and therefore limit the answers.... We have come to see that this project, though well intentioned, is misguided.... By the very act of our modern theological attempts at [cultural] translation [and, therefore, integration], we have unconsciously distorted the gospel and transformed it into something it never claimed to be - ideas abstracted from Jesus, rather than Jesus with his people.

The belief, on which much apologetics tends to be based, is that everyone must believe in something. This is the Constantinian assertion that religious belief is unavoidable. Constantine knew that, in order to keep the Empire afloat, if people were no longer classically pagan, they would have to be made imperially Christian.... Our best minds were enlisted in the Constantinian enterprise of making the faith credible to the powers-that-be so that Christians might now have a share in those powers. Apologetics is based on the political assumption that Christians somehow have a stake in transforming our ecclesial claims into intellectual assumptions that will enable us to be faithful to Christ while still participating in the political structures of a world that does not yet know Christ. Transform the gospel rather than ourselves....

We believe that Christianity has no stake in the utilitarian defense of belief as belief. The theological assumption that Christianity is a system of belief must be questioned. It is the content of belief that concerns Scripture, not eradicating unbelief by means of a believable theological system. The Bible finds uninteresting many of our modern preoccupations with whether or not it is still possible for modern people to believe. The Bible's concern is whether or not we shall be faithful to the gospel, the truth about the way things are now that God is with us through the life, cross, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.... The theologian's job is not to make the gospel credible to the modern world, but to make the world credible to the gospel....

Christianity is more than a matter of a new understanding. Christianity is an invitation to be part of an alien people who make a difference because they see something that cannot otherwise be seen without Christ. Right living is more the challenge than right thinking....

The ethical results of our inadequate theology had global implications. On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on a Japanese city. Turning to a group of sailors with him on the battle cruiser Augusta, President Truman said, "This is the greatest thing in history." Truman, once described as "an outstanding Baptist layman," was supported by the majority of American Christians, who expressed few misgivings about the bomb. The bomb, however, was the sign or our moral incapacitation, an open admission that we had lost the will and the resources to resist vast evil.

The American church had come a long way to stand beside Harry Truman in 1945. Just a few years earlier, in 1937, when Franco's forces bombed the Spanish town of Guernica, killing many civilians, the civilized world was shocked.... President Roosevelt issued an urgent appeal to all governments, at the beginning of World War II, saying, "The bombing of helpless and unprotected civilians is a strategy which has aroused the horror of all mankind...."

What had begun as the acts of ruthless Fascist dictators had become the accepted practice of democratic nations. Few Christians probably even remember that there was a time when the church was the voice of condemnation for such wantonly immoral acts....

Obliteration bombing of civilian populations had come to be seen as a military necessity. A terrible evil had been defended as a way to a greater good [which is not an example of a Christian, but rather a secular, utilitarian ethic]. After the bomb, all sorts of moral compromises were easier - nearly two million abortions a year seemed a mere matter of freedom of choice, and the plight of the poor in the world's richest nation was a matter of economic necessity.

The project, begun at the time of Constantine, to enable Christians to share power without being a problem for the powerful, had reached its most impressive fruition. If Caesar can get Christians there [in pre-WWII Germany] to swallow the "Ultimate Solution," and Christians here to embrace the bomb, there is no limit to what we will not do for the modern world. Alas, in leaning over to speak to the modern world, we had fallen in. We had lost the theological resources to resist, lost the resources even to see that there was something worth resisting....

That which makes the church "radical" and forever "new" is not that the church tends to lean toward the left [or right] on most social issues, but rather that the church knows Jesus whereas the world does not. In the church's view, the political left is not noticeably more interesting than the political right; both sides tend toward solutions that act as if the world has not ended and begun in Jesus....

Each age must come, fresh and new, to the realization that God, not nations, rules the world. This we can know, not through accommodation, but through conversion. As Barth noted, sanctification and justification go hand in hand. We cannot understand the world until we are transformed into persons who can use the language of faith to describe the world right....

The reason we Christians must forever be letting go of our Constantinian assertions is that we are forever forgetting how decisive, how eschatological, is the event of Christ....

[In 1963], a world, constructed and kept secure since Constantine, collapsed. Everything needed to be reexamined, and the failure of the old answers, seen now more clearly by the glow of furnaces at Dachau and the fires of Hiroshima, demanded new questions. The world had shifted....

Our aim is to challenge those assumptions and to show what a marvelous opportunity awaits those pastors and laity who sense what an adventure it is to be the church, people who reside here and now, but who live here as aliens, people who know that, while we live here, "our commonwealth is in heaven."

The Christian and Warfare: A Discourse on the Relationship Between the Cross and the Sword

2009-12-15T10:43:00.001-05:00

The following is part of a much larger body of work that I'm currently working on.

Forty years after having served as a chaplain with the U.S. Air Force and given his blessing on the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, George Zabelka made these statements:

For the last 1700 years the Church has not only been making war respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have been brainwashed. This is a lie…. As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang "Praise the Lord" and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar…. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.[1]

Is Zabelka’s analysis and reflection on war and the Christian faith biblically informed? Or has he merely “gone soft,” as is often the charge regarding Christians who become pacifistic in their beliefs and outlook? On the urgency of answering these questions, I agree with C. John Cadoux, who, in 1919, stated:

Among the many problems of Christian ethics, the most urgent and challenging at the present day is undoubtedly that of the Christian attitude to war. Christian thought in the past has frequently occupied itself with this problem; but there has never been a time when the weight of it pressed more heavily upon the minds of Christian people than it does today.[2]

This brief essay will examine the relationship between the Christian and the institutionalized violence of warfare in an attempt to discover whether or not today’s commonly held and socially legitimized evangelical view of the “Christian soldier” can be supported by a biblical new covenant ethic.

In order to determine our stance toward war, we must first examine what it is to be a Christian. As followers of Christ, our identity and allegiance is to be rooted firmly in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. Our prime mandate in this age of grace is to spread His gospel far and wide, making disciples of all people, and teaching them to observe everything that Christ has commanded (Matt. 28:19-20). We live and breathe with this end foremost in our minds and hearts, to the glory of God the Father. The life and teachings of Christ have come down to us through the God-breathed Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16). Although theological and philosophical systems can and do provide the Christian community direction on certain ethical issues, it is primarily from the inspired writings of the apostles and prophets that the Christian community is to derive its ultimate standards of God-blessed ethical living (2 Tim. 3:17). It is in these Scriptures that we find our Savior making clear and irrefutable statements regarding His position on violence and a normative Christian ethic of nonretaliation in the face of hostility.

In the history of the Christian church, beginning with Augustine in the fourth and fifth century A.D., well-intentioned theologians have attempted to delineate a theory of “just war.” Prior to the “Constantinian turn” in 313 A.D.,[3] the early church was uniformly pacifistic in its ethical commitments,[4] with many congregations forbidding employment in any office that may have required the use of violence against others, such as soldier, gladiator, or civil magistrate.[5] With the rise of Constantine, the church took power, and Christians began looking for ways to live out their faith with respect to their new environment. Theo-philosophical systems were constructed that rapidly supplanted the nonviolent New Testament teachings of Christ and His apostles. These accomodationist systems, built less on Scripture than on the philosophies of religious men, became (and continue to be) the predominant strain of thought regarding the Christian and state-sanctioned violence.[6] As a result of these philosophies combining with various and localized political considerations throughout the ages, the role of the state and the role of the church have become somewhat conflated. Unfortunately, much damage has been brought upon the cause of the gospel, both within the church and the world as a whole.

When we consider Romans 13:1-7,[7] it is important to hold in mind the audience and intent of Paul when he authored it. Too often, this passage is ripped right from its context and held up by Christian scholars as justification for warfare. As Hobbs and Hobbs point out, “The passage is not…a discourse on penology for the guidance of society at large.”[8] Rather, having just reminded the Roman believers of their duty to live nonviolent, vengeance-free, peaceable lives (Rom. 12:14-21), Paul transitions to exhortation regarding the Christian attitude toward governing authorities. When Paul asks, “Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?”, the “you” refers to the Roman believers he is addressing in his epistle, not the pagan public in general.[9]

Again, Paul’s purpose here is to exhort the Christian community at Rome to obey their rulers, not to lay an apologetic for the use of force by civil government. The fact that the entire passage is situated in the middle of a lengthy exhortation to Christian living testifies to this.[10] To miss this fact is to miss the entire point and intention of the inspired apostle in his exhortation, and open the door to the acceptance and approval of bloodshed and vengeance in the Christian community. The agency of vengeance is the state, not the church of Jesus Christ.

To the state has been given the power to wield the sword and “punish those who do evil” (1 Pet. 2:14; cf. Rom. 13:1-7). Nowhere is the church given the mandate to govern over others, wielding the sword and punishing evildoers. Rather, we are to “repay no one evil for evil” and “live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:18, emphasis added). Christians are not to avenge wrongdoing: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:19). The word translated “avenge” in Rom. 12:18 is a form of εκδικεω, which means “to vindicate, retaliate, punish: a(re-)venge.”[11] I believe it not without great significance that this word is found in its adjectival form just a few short verses later in Rom. 13:4. Here, it describes government as “an avenger [εκδικος] who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (emphasis added). The vengeance that is exercised by government is the very same vengeance that Christians are told not to exercise.[12]Rather than acting as an agent of wrath, the Christian is told, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Rom. 12:20).

In Rom. 13:1, 5 we are told to be in subjection to “the governing authorities” that have “been instituted by God.” Contrary to the rhetoric of some, I find no biblical evidence that submission to governing authorities means or remotely implies active, violent military service.[13] Rather, our submission is spelled out rather clearly and precisely in Romans 13 as paying taxes, paying revenue or tribute (probably export and import taxes),[14] and displaying a healthy, fearful respect and honor to governing authorities (vv. 6, 7). Nowhere in this summary of Christian orientation toward government do we find a mandate for Christians to pick up the sword on behalf of the ruling authorities. Neither do we find a mandate for Christian support of the state’s military ventures.[15]Actually, I find no support at all for the position that this text advocates warfare. This focus of this unit is Christian submission to the government’s role as an avenger who carries out God’s wrath upon those under their rule who “resist” their authority. This speaks of governments’ authority to mete out punishment to those within their borders, for the specific purpose of the maintenance of law and order by the forcible restraint of evil. Nothing in the text advocates for one government going out to war against another government. External warfare is not the focus of the government’s role here; internal punishment of a government’s subjects is what is being taught.

If the concept of the “Christian warrior” is something that runs contrary to the inspired New Testament doctrine, what services, then, are Christians commanded to do on behalf of their rulers? Paul urges “that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Tim. 2:1). Rather than the marching in formation, bearing the sword in active military service to our government, Christians are urged to an active ministry of intercessory prayer. We are not to bear the sword for our government, but we are to bear the spiritual burden of diligent intercession on behalf of their rulers, for our kingdom and our weapons are not of this world.[16] Paul states that this is to be done so “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life” (v. 2, emphasis added). This “peaceful and quiet life” of prayerful intercession for governing authorities is “good” and “pleasing in the sight of God our Savior” (v. 3). Peter calls us to “fear God” and “honor the emperor” (1 Pet. 2:17). Believers are to honor their earthly rulers insofar as it does not conflict with the higher calling of God as citizens of His kingdom (Acts 5:29). This is the lifestyle and mindset of a gospel-centered saint who, along with our Lord, “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (v. 4). The higher calling of the Christian is to bear the gospel of the kingdom of God, not the sword of the kingdoms of this world. The primacy of the gospel must outweigh and override one’s loyalty to the ruling authorities in all areas of life.

Whether willingly or under compulsion, to pick up the sword and fight for one nation against another is to build again the dividing walls of sectarianism and nationalism that Christ abolished in the cross, having made in Himself one people by His grace (cf. Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:14-22). To pick up the sword and fight for the ruling authorities is to fight in their name, under their authority as their servants against the people of other nations, some of whom (perhaps many of whom) may be Christian brothers or sisters. Scripture tells us that it is in the Father’s name by “whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. 3:14-15) and it is “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” that we are commanded to indiscriminately love and serve the world by making “disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19) through the propagation of the gospel. As followers of Christ, this is our mandate and primary allegiance. “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). The duty of an ambassador is to represent someone or something. “Everything he does and says must intentionally represent a leader who is not physically present.”[17] How is it that we “represent” our Lord, who taught an ethic of love and nonretaliation toward our enemies, in taking up the sword? How is it that we perform our role as ambassadors for Christ and fulfill “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18)[18] while pointing our weapons at others in the name of our country and in its interests? The simple and evident answer is that we cannot. Any attempt to do so necessarily confuses the church with the state, and the “power over” tactics of the kingdoms of the world with the “power under” mandate of the kingdom of God in Christ.[19]

We come now in this matter to the words of our Savior, who declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9). Our Lord expounds on what peacemaking looks like in Matt. 5:38-39: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist[20] the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” In the following verses, our Lord commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (5:44).[21] When faced with one of His disciples who wielded the sword to defend His innocence and His life, Jesus issued the stern rebuke, “No more of this!” (Luke 22:51). He then commanded Peter, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52),[22] and miraculously reversed the effects of Peter’s violent outburst by healing the servant’s ear (Luke 22:51). “Through his actions, Jesus showed that the Kingdom of God relies not on the power of the sword, but the power of love that seeks to serve and heal enemies.”[23]

The mandate of the Christian is to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). How is it that a Christian engaged in fighting against other nations is making disciples of these people groups? By all appearances, it would seem as if he or she was not engaging in gospel-centered discipleship, but rather attempting to end lives through violent assault. For the unsaved who are killed in battle, there remains no opportunity for them to be reconciled to God, no way of remedying the breach, no way for them to secure eternal forgiveness for sins.[24] Further, our Lord describes a gospel-centered life in this way: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). It is nearly impossible to imagine that the intentional killing of your neighbor in warfare would not be a transgression of this command.

Over the centuries, evangelical believers have abandoned the New Testament teachings on nonretaliation in favor of a pseudo-Christian ethic that has mixed together worldly elements of secular and philosophical ethics. Those who belong to a peaceable kingdom “not of this world” (John 18:36) have regrettably and unknowingly forged an alliance with the violent kingdoms of this world. Those commanded to put down their swords (Matt. 26:52) and take up their crosses (Mark 8:34) for the cause of the gospel are, unfortunately, all too comfortable in bearing the sword for the manifold causes of their worldly rulers. Those called upon by their Savior to love, pray for, and evangelize their enemies (Matt. 5:43-45; 28:18-20), are frequently found ignoring these commands and have busied themselves instead with taking the lives of their enemies. The kingdom of the cross has become conflated with the kingdom of the sword. God help us.

[1] Zabelka, George. “Blessing the Bombs.” 17 August 2005. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/zabelka1.html (25 November 2009).

[2] C. John Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude to War: A Contribution to the History of Christian Ethics, foreword by W.E. Orchard (London: Headly Bros., 1919), http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=648 (25 November 2009).

[3] Michael Horton, in The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009), describes the turn in this manner: “With its growth…the [early] church began to make itself the big story. Success had its own set of problems. As the church received toleration and then was even made the official religion of the empire under Constantine, many of its leaders became worldly rulers, mirroring the mighty lords of the secular kingdom. Christ’s conquest over sin, death, hell, Satan, and the principalities and powers of this age was not the news itself as much as it was the basis for the church’s conquest over the kingdoms of this age through its alliance with secular political power. The church became a culture – a civilization – rather than ‘a kingdom of priests’ announcing a new regime with a heavenly King…” (126). The rise of this compromised, earthly, Christo-secular kingdom sounded the death knell for further adherence to Jesus’ ethic of submissive nonretaliation.

[4] Cadoux, in The Early Christian Attitude to War, cautions, “The example of our Christian forefathers indeed can never be of itself a sufficient basis for the settlement of our own conduct today…. At the same time the solution to our own ethical problems will involve a study of the mind of Christendom on the same or similar questions during bygone generations: and, for this purpose, perhaps no period of Christian history is so important as that of the first three centuries” (2).

[5] Ivor J. Davidson, The Birth of the Church: From Jesus to Constantine, A.D. 30-312, ed. by John D. Woodbridge, David F. Wright, and Tim Dowley, Vol. 1 in The Baker History of the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 273. See also Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: Complete in One Volume: The Early Church to the Present Day (Peabody, MA: Prince Press, 2005), 53 and Kenneth Scott Latourette, The First Five Centuries, Vol. 1 in A History of the Expansion of Christianity, 5^th ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1937), 268-69. If the “just war” thinking that developed centuries and millennia after Christ was consistent with the ethic He and His disciples taught and modeled, I find it very hard to believe that the first Christian generations missed this mark in such spectacular fashion. The uniform pacifism of the first generations of the disciples of Jesus and His apostles speaks convincingly against later, opposing philosophical developments in the church.

[6] In this paper and elsewhere, I use the terms “state,” “government,” “rulers,” and “authorities” synonymously.

[7] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references will be from the ESV.

[8] Eric E. Hobbs and Walter C. Hobbs, “Contemporary Capital Punishment: Biblical Difficulties With the Biblically Permissible,” in Readings in Christian Ethics: Volume 2: Issues and Applications, ed. by David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 468.

[9] However, the principle of obedience to governmental authority surely applies to the wider audience of the entire society under such rule.

[10] Romans 12:1 to 15:13 is a textual unit that describes what the righteousness of God should look like as it is practiced and lived out in the immediate faith community and in the wider world in general.

[11] Key Dictionary of the Greek New Testament, based on Greek Strong’s Dictionary, ed. by Rick Bennett, Version 1.2, Accordance Bible Software 8.4, Oak Tree Software, Inc., 2009.

[12] Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 169.

[13] I imagine that it is possible that one can serve in the military as a nurse or a medic or a chaplain, rather than by fighting on the front lines or in an active support role. Although, along with Laurence Vance in Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State, 2^nd ed. (Pensacola, FL: Vance Publications, 2008), I must admit my reservations about a minister who is “paid by, and answerable to, the state…. Taxpayer supported chaplains have to serve two masters: God and the state. Compromise is inevitable. He that pays the piper calls the tune” (286). Vance goes on to say that the Southern Baptists recognized this fact in 1918 and passed a resolution calling for the abolishment of government-paid ministers. A further reservation about the compromised role of the military chaplain can be found in “The Covenant and Code of Ethics for Chaplains of the Armed Forces” of the United States: “I understand, as a chaplain in the Armed Forces, that I must function in a pluralistic environment with chaplains of other religious bodies…. I will not proselytize from other religious bodies….” The entire text of this chaplaincy code can be found in Joe E. Trull and James E. Carter, Ministerial Ethics: Moral Formation for Church Leaders, 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 256-67. How is it that a Christian minister who is commanded by Christ to make disciples of all peoples can, before God, take a vow notto evangelize dying souls enslaved by the demonic deceptions of the false religions of this world? Lastly, I wonder about the moral legitimacy of one who would preach Jesus’ ethic of nonretaliation and loving one’s enemies in a context where people are commanded to retaliate against their enemies by shooting or dismembering them with ordnance of various types (cf. Matt. 5:9, 38-39, 44; 26:52; Luke 22:51).

[14] Charles C. Ryrie, “The Christian and Civil Disobedience,” in Readings in Christian Ethics: Volume 2: Issues and Applications, ed. by David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 435.

[15] Contra George W. Knight III: “So we see that God [in Rom. 13:1-7] gives to the state the power of the sword, the right to wage war against evil, and calls on Christians to honor and support this authority and activity. This much is clear” (emphasis added). See Knight’s “Can a Christian Go to War?” in Readings in Christian Ethics: Volume 2: Issues and Applications, ed. by David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 498.

[16] John 18:36: Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Ronald J. Sider and Richard K. Taylor, in “Jesus and Violence: Some Critical Objections” note that “Jesus informed Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world in one specific way – namely, that his followers do not use violence,” in Readings in Christian Ethics: Volume 2: Issues and Applications, ed. by David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 506. See also 2 Cor.10:3-5.

[17] Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002), 104. Tripp goes on to state, “The work of an ambassador is incarnational. His actions, character, and words embody the king who is not present” (104). The ambassador’s mission is to build “relationships of love, grace, and trust with others” (122). If this is true, and relational, incarnational ministry to the surrounding world is the duty and calling of the Christian (and I suspect it is), then Christians have great impetus to lay down their carnal weapons of warfare. Tripp summarizes the work of an ambassador under three categories: “As an ambassador, I will represent: (1) the message of the King…(2) the methods of the King…[and] (3) the character of the King” (107, emphasis in original). The message of our King is one of peace and forgiveness. The methods of our King was one of nonretaliation toward those who did Him harm. The character of our King is gracious and merciful. I would posit that the “Christian soldier” cannot faithfully and honestly represent King Jesus in any of these three categories of ambassadorship.

[18] The passage where this text is found (2 Cor. 5:11-6:2) is so critical to an understanding of the Christian life, that R. P. C. Hanson (in 2 Corinthians [London: SCM, 1954], 51) refers to it as “one of the charters of the Christian ministry in the New Testament” (quoted in David L. Turner, “Paul and the Ministry of Reconciliation in 2 Cor. 5:11-6:2,” in Criswell Theological Review 4/1 [1989]: 77). Turner states that the results of reconciliation between men are “harmonious relationship[s] of reciprocal personal love” (92). These relationships are characterized by a “peace [that] permeates the whole of one’s life” (93, emphasis added). It remains to be proven by warfare advocates how these Christian relationships of reconciliation can be established through destructive and violent military actions.

[19] For an explication of this extremely helpful “power over” versus “power under” model of the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God, see Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation.

[20] Jesus does not here forbid all forms of resistance, but merely the use of physical force in retaliation. Jesus Himself practiced governmental resistance, but in a nonviolent manner (Matt. 21:12-13; 23:13-33; John 18:19-24). The word translated “resist” in Matt. 5:39 is ανθιστημι, which “doesn’t necessarily suggest passivity. Rather, it connotes responding to a violent action with a similar violent action” (Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009], 96).

[21] Sider and Taylor, in “Jesus and Violence,” note: “To a people so oppressed by foreign conquerors that over the previous two centuries they had repeatedly resorted to violent rebellion, Jesus gave the unprecedented command: ‘Love your enemies’” (507).

[22] It is interesting that in the Lukan account, just prior to the incident in the Garden with Peter, Jesus says to His disciples, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one” (22:36). When the disciples say, “Look, Lord, here are two swords,” Jesus replies, “It is enough.” The reference to knapsacks and moneybags along with the sword indicates that our Lord was readying and preparing His followers for His departure (cf. 22:37). Part of this preparation included a sword for self-protection. Note that Jesus didn’t tell Peter to completely discard his sword, but to put it back “into its place [τοπος].” It seems that our Lord recognized the sword as an item that was to be used only in cases of unavoidable self-defense. Even then, He never authorizes it to be used against others. It is possible to use a sword (and other weapons) as a defensive display to discourage attackers or robbers without utilizing it to actively shed blood. (In our time, the equivalent would be to fire a “warning shot” into the air.) It is also possible to use it solely in a protective and defensive way to ward off blows from another.

[23] Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Religion, 94.

[24] The language here is adapted from John Murray, “The Sanctity of Life,” inReadings in Christian Ethics: Volume 2: Issues and Applications, ed. by David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 460.

Christian Living in This World

2009-10-23T13:40:00.006-04:00

The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer by Jean-Leon Gerome

Following is an excerpt from Jochem Douma's Responsible Conduct: Principles of Christian Ethics (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2003), 120-21:

Christian living has a character all its own. From the earliest times, the church has realized this. This is put into words quite well in the Epistle to Diognetus (about A.D. 150). Christians differ from other people, we read there, by neither country nor language nor customs. Nowhere do they live in their own cities, nor do they employ a strange language of any kind, nor do they lead a strange life. But, while they live in Greek and non-Greek cities, and while they follow the customs of the land with regard to clothing and food and other matters of daily living, they nonetheless display a wonderful, universally acknowledged, and unique lifestyle.

An excerpt from this letter continues:

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.
And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.
They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

American-style Democracy and Congregational Church Government

2009-10-16T16:46:00.006-04:00

The following is an excerpt from an article written by Dr. Kevin Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary:

...I have chosen to digress from the main topic [of a series of essays] in order to respond to some misperceptions.
One of those misperceptions is that a rejection of populism entails a rejection of congregational church order in favor of some form of elitism. This misperception stems largely from a misunderstanding of congregationalism itself. Some Christians, many of them Americans, have understood congregational polity as if it were pure democracy, driven by town-hall-style debates, caucuses, and votes. The result is that some have embraced the most populist forms of congregationalism, while others have rejected congregationalism in favor of some polity that they perceive as less rough-and-tumble. Both extremes are mistaken, and both can be corrected by noting what is and is not implied by New Testament congregationalism.
In the New Testament, every believer is the recipient of spiritual wisdom (1 Cor. 1:30). This wisdom qualifies every believer as a competent judge of spiritual matters. The Christian’s wisdom is enhanced by the Holy Spirit as He teaches believers the moral implications of the Word of God (1 Cor. 2:12-13). Indeed, the wisdom of the ordinary believer surpasses the insight of the wisest unbeliever (1 Cor. 6:1-5). The mark of a spiritual person is discernment (1 Cor. 2:13-14).¹ Mature saints are capable of discerning good and bad (Heb. 5:14).
The question is whether every believer has received enough wisdom to participate in every aspect of the decision-making process of the church. This question is certainly answered by the pattern of the apostolic churches. An examination of the New Testament shows that these congregations made two major types of decisions for themselves. First, they selected their own servant-leaders and held them accountable (Acts 6:1-6; 11:2, 18, 22; 13:1-3; 14:25-27; 2 Cor. 8:16-21). Second, they admitted, disciplined, and readmitted members to the congregation (Rom. 14:1; 15:7-14; 1 Cor. 5:1-13; 2 Cor. 2:4-11).²
The decisions to select leaders and to discipline members are the two most important decisions that the local church can make. If a congregation is competent to make these decisions, then it is competent to make whatever choices might present themselves. Since the New Testament shows the entire congregation participating in the most important decisions, there is no area of decision-making that needs to be withheld from the church’s membership.
Some may object that the New Testament also depicts these decisions being made for rather than by congregations. It is noted that Paul, Barnabas, and Titus ordained elders, and it is argued that this counts against congregationalism. Moreover, the “Jerusalem Council” is supposed to have delivered decrees that were binding upon Antioch and the gentile churches.
The ordination of elders by Paul, Barnabas, and Titus, however, does not contradict congregational polity. In Titus 1:5, the verb is kathistemi, and this verb elsewhere denotes installation after congregational selection (Acts 6:3). In Acts 14:23, the verb ischeirotoneo, which has the idea of raising the hand. Lange (a Lutheran), Barnes (a Presbyterian), and Alford (an Anglican) all understand this to mean either that Paul and Barnabas presided in the assemblies while the choice was made or that they ratified the choice of the congregations. Nowhere does the New Testament indicate that any individual has the right to claim the title of pastor, bishop, and elder except by an act of the congregation.³
What about the Jerusalem Council? Congregationalists have insisted that is not a council at all, but a meeting of the local church at Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem because teachers from that church were spreading false doctrine. Therefore, it was important that Jerusalem accomplish two things: first, that it clarify its own positions, and second, that it call its own members into account. Both of these things happened. The so-called “decrees” from Jerusalem are simply a report of the church’s proceedings combined with the good counsel of one congregation to others.
Admittedly, the Bible does not reveal church order with the same clarity as it shows the way of salvation, and I concede that the above considerations do not constitute a full defense of congregational polity. My purpose has been simply to indicate the main reasons for preferring it as a pattern of church order. I believe that the New Testament displays a pattern of congregationally-governed churches.
If that is so, then why hesitate to speak of democratic churches? The answer is that democracy is, at the end of the day, a polity of force. In a true democracy, fifty percent of the people plus one can impose their will upon fifty percent minus one. That being the case, the spirit of democracy is for each party to seek sufficient numbers to enforce its will upon the minority. Democracy lends itself to partisan politics, fostering the worst sort of manipulation, demagoguery, and even character assassination. If one person can manage to stampede fifty one percent, then he has a majority and he can rule—even at the expense of trampling the minority.
Nothing could be more foreign to the spirit of the New Testament. Democracies count votes, but a church that determines its policies by bare majorities is in sad shape indeed. We can go through the New Testament with a microscope and never discover a church that is governed by the naked voting strength of a majority of its members.
The best glimpse that we get into the decision-making process of the New Testament churches is the meeting at Jerusalem in Acts 15. Clearly this was an important meeting with much at stake. What happened in the meeting? First, every concerned party—even the Pharisees—received an opportunity to air its concerns. Second, there was a clear order of precedence among those who spoke: not everyone gets the same hearing. Third, biblical teaching was offered through the office of elder. Fourth, the consent or consensus of the congregation was sought, but the solution was proposed by the church’s leadership.
How does New Testament decision-making differ from bare democracy? Democracy is about counting votes, but New Testament decision-making is about weighing judgments. In New Testament decision-making, not all judgments weigh the same. Some people’s judgments are given greater weight than others. The judgment of Paul and Barnabas was given weight because of their experience and their service for the Lord. The judgment of Peter was given weight, not only because of his apostolic office, but also because of his crucial role in opening the gospel to gentiles. The judgment of James was given weight because of his skill in handling the Scripture, because of his station as an elder, and (if extrabiblical tradition gives us any clue) because of his reputation for deep piety.
The challenge for any local congregation is to avoid the opposite perils of brouhaha majoritarianism and supercilious elitism. Democracy can be driven by the appetites of the incompetent. Elitism allows for domination by the abstractions of theorists. The answer to both is the same: to recognize the value of those factors that lend greater weight to judgments. Those factors are three in number: biblical skill, deep piety, and office. These three ought to coalesce in local church elders, making them the natural leaders of their congregations.
Congregationalism and pastoral leadership are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, congregationalism can only work if pastoral leadership is effective. Pastors have the responsibility of equipping and maturing the saints so that they can make the wisest possible decisions. Pastors have the duty to make sure that all biblical considerations have been entertained before any decision is made. Just as importantly, pastors have the responsibility to guard the flock against the internal disorder that inevitably results when democracy runs rampant. They do this by ensuring that everyone has access to all relevant information, that every perspective gets an orderly hearing, and that the unruly are rebuked and restrained.
Ultimately, the congregation will still have to make its own decisions. A vote may still be taken, though a church-wide vote is certainly not the only mechanism for implementing congregational polity. Such a vote, however, is not the mechanism for making the decision. It is merely the reflection of a decision that has already been made through careful instruction and consideration.
Before I became a professor, I spent a decade and a half in pastoral ministry. One thing I learned was that I never needed to be afraid of the decisions of the congregation. I taught and believed that there was greater wisdom in the entire body than in any one member, including me. Experience proved this to be true. When the Lord’s people understand biblical principles, they are together capable of making wise choices on any matter that affects the assembly. To make wise decisions, however, the assembly needs biblical instruction, a godly example, full information, liberty and humility to hear all perspectives, and protection from demagogues and special interest groups.
¹One of the classic disagreements among interpreters is whether the spiritual person of 1 Corinthians 2 is simply a believer (in contrast to the natural man), or either a yielded believer or a mature believer (in contrast to the carnal person in 1 Corinthians 3). While I take the view that the spiritual person is a mature person, the answer to this question does not greatly affect the present discussion. My overall argument is that all believers are qualified to make spiritual decisions, but that some believers are better qualified than others.
²1 Corinthians 5 is especially relevant to this conversation. Clearly, the apostle Paul regarded disciplinary authority under Christ to be ultimately invested in the congregation. The decision to disfellowship a church member can be made only by the assembled church. No biblical warrant exists for a bishop or some board expelling a member from the congregation on its own initiative. The only individual to have done so in the New Testament is Diotrephes, concerning whom the apostle has nothing good to say (3 John 9-10).
³Even some Baptist churches choose only a senior pastor, who then chooses other pastoral staff members. This polity is an intrusion upon the evidence of the New Testament. To be sure, a senior pastor may and ought to take the lead in selecting other pastoral staff members. Unless those individuals are chosen by the congregation, however, they should not be recognized as pastors.

Hungry Planet Bible Project

2009-09-17T12:05:00.003-04:00

The promotional video for "No Room at the Inn."

Gregory Boyd on "Myth of a Christian Nation"

2009-09-15T20:57:00.006-04:00

Why Do I Speak Out on Economic Issues?

2009-08-12T12:27:00.005-04:00

The Federal Reserve building in Washington D.C. - Built in 1937

I frequently write on economic issues. At times, other Christians voice their concerns over some of the things that I write. Usually the connection between economics and the Christian faith is not readily seen, and here is where the concern lies. My purpose here is to briefly lay out a biblical case for why Christians have a moral imperative to take action in the political-economic realm.[1]

If it can be proven that people are being stolen from or oppressed by a particular political-economic system, I don’t believe that it can be legitimately argued that a Christian should remain silent or refuse to act boldly on this issue. Certainly, it cannot be argued that the Eighth Commandment prohibiting theft is no longer in force and that the Lord God is pleased when people’s hard-earned wealth is taken from them through force, deception, or other means. If God is against it, than how can Christians be for it?

Our current political-economic system depends heavily (almost entirely) upon the ignorance of the masses regarding monetary policy and banking. The average citizen knows next to nothing about the Federal Reserve and its inherently immoral and economically destructive activities.[2] I can say with confidence and a clear conscience that, since its creation in 1913, the Federal Reserve, through its policies of purposeful monetary expansion (inflation), has initiated and presided over the greatest transfer of wealth (i.e., mass theft) in the history of humankind. Since the Fed’s inception, the dollar has lost approximately 96% of its purchasing power. The Fed is a tool that was specifically created by the elite that run our nation in order to promote the expansion of government power and the accumulation of wealth by politically connected businesses and individuals at the direct expense of the citizenry.

The Federal Reserve, acting in collusion with some of the power elite in Washington, is able to manipulate our economic system through the extension of credit and the expansion of the monetary supply. It is through this creation of “money” that the Fed is, in essence, stealing purchasing power from every single holder of U.S. currency. Whenever they increase the amount of dollars in existence, there is a subsequent devaluation of all dollars. It is substantively no different than counterfeiting.

This is a way of taxing people indirectly, without their knowledge. This process of monetary inflation has been aptly titled the “stealth tax.” It is a masterstroke of deceit and sleight-of-hand that it has gone on for so long with so little awareness by the general public.

The Federal Reserve’s manipulative and immoral activities differ none from ancient merchants and governments that took advantage of their people by employing unjust systems of weights and measures. Without any ties to a gold standard of any sort, the Fed is free to tamper with our monetary and economic system in any way that they see fit. As a result, there is no fixed standard of weights and measures with respect to our currency.

Proverbs 11:1 (ESV) states, “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.” According to the Bible Knowledge Commentary, “The reference to ‘the Lord’ puts commercial matters in the spiritual realm.”[3] The Fed has falsified the dollar with its “scales” of deceit (cf. Amos 8:4-5). In Micah 6:11 arises the rhetorical question, “Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights?”

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament states:

Commerce in a society without coined money [as in America today] is dependent on standard weights and measures…. The merchant who used a heavier weight to buy than to sell defrauded his suppliers and customers (see Prov 11:1; 20:23; Amos 8:5). Although this was condemned as an abhorrent practice, it was common enough in the ancient world. A good example is in the Egyptian Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, which accuses government officials and grain distributors of “shorting” the people.[4]

As anyone with even the slightest skills of observation can attest, prices of all material goods and commodities have risen steadily for decades and decades on end. This is due to the false “scales” that the money monopolists in Washington have employed. The dollar is worth whatever the Fed determines its worth to be. It has no fixed value whatsoever.

Further, the Federal Reserve has created an incredibly unstable political-economic environment, precipitating multiple recessions and depressions through their policies of monetary expansion.[5] These repeated wild socio-political swings have wreaked havoc and economic destruction in the personal lives of millions of families in this nation ever since the Great Depression. The average citizen is simply unable to escape these massive forces of governmental intervention and oppression. Many, unable to understand the events that occur around them (due in major part to the lack of education on such issues available in government schools) simply end up succumbing to despair and apathy as their life savings vanish before their eyes and their families suffer.

Ancient Israel was commanded by the Lord to “seek justice [and] correct oppression” (Is 1:17). He is always concerned when governments use their power in a way that brings “terror to good conduct” (Rom. 13:3). The Lord has ordained government as His “servant for [humanity’s] good” (Rom 13:4), not for the purpose of wide scale theft.

I certainly have no objection to paying to government “what is owed them: taxes to whom taxes are owed….” However, I feel constrained to bring strong objection when the government, violating several biblical principles and commands, imposes itself upon an unsuspecting and (basically) trusting populace through means of deceit and stealth resulting in economic chaos and individual harm. It is at exactly this point that the government ceases to be a God-ordained authority that is acting on behalf of the good of its people and becomes an abusive tyrant, bearing the sword for the sake of injustice and for the aggrandizement of wealth and power to an elite class of rulers and businessmen.

Final note: At times, I write about specific investments and investing strategies. I do this in an attempt to help people protect their assets from being swallowed up in the economic tsunamis caused by our government and their bankers. I do not find it sufficient merely to sound the alarm without also pointing the way to a potential safe route of passage out of harm's way. I do not give advice to make people rich. A quick perusal of the tag "materialism" on my other blog will reveal my belief that covetousness is one of the major sins that has utterly crippled the Christian church in America. Good stewardship of one's God-given possessions is prudent and can be biblically defended.

[1] There is such an incredible amount of government involvement, interference, and intervention in America’s economic system that I cannot simply call our system an “economic system.” I find it far more accurate to refer to it as a “political-economic system” instead. The notion that America currently operates under free market principles is a fallacy that cannot honestly be defended. We live and work under a fascist alliance between government and big business.

[2] Two great primers to learn about the Federal Reserve and banking are Murray N. Rothbard’s, The Case Against the Fed (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1994), http://mises.org/books/fed.pdf; and The Mystery of Banking, second edition(Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2008), http://mises.org/Books/mysteryofbanking.pdf . Both are available for free download at the listed URLs.

[3] John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, Bible Knowledge Commentary, Version 1.1, 1989 (Accordance Bible Software, Version 8.2.3, 2009).

[4] IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, ed. by John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, Version 1.1, 2000 ((Accordance Bible Software, Version 8.2.3, 2009).

[5] For a great explanation of this phenomenon in recent times, see Thomas E. Woods, Jr. Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse (Washington D.C.: Regnery, 2009).

Why the "Economic Recovery" is a Trap

2009-08-10T11:58:00.004-04:00

Click here for a great article by Jeff Cooper entitled "Why the 'Economic Recovery' is a Trap." Following is an excerpt from this piece:

Market observer Tyler Durden did the math, and figures that the recent 50% explosion in the S&P had nothing to do with economic "recovery," but was just the result of the Fed's shenanigans. Durden noticed that the money that’s been streaming into stocks hasn’t correspondingly depleted the money markets, and states:

“Most interesting is the correlation between money market totals and the listed stock value since the March lows: A $2.7 trillion move in equities was accompanied by a less than $400 billion reduction in money market accounts! Where, may we ask, did the balance of $2.3 trillion in purchasing power come from? Why, the Federal Reserve, of course, which directly and indirectly subsidized US banks (and foreign ones via liquidity swaps) for roughly that amount.

"Apparently, these banks promptly went on a buying spree to raise the all-important equity market, so that the US consumer (whose net equity was almost negative on March 31) could have some semblance of confidence back and would go ahead and max out his credit cards. Alas, as one can see in the money multiplier and velocity of money metrics, US consumers couldn’t care less about leveraging themselves any more.”

Not this time. Been there, done that -- in 2003. Ben Bernanke refuses to be the Fed chief presiding over the next Great Depression, and instead mainlines green shoots into the market -- while the consumer has either gone cold turkey or has collapsed veins.

Conclusion: Along with the jaws of declining volume versus sharply rising prices, CBOE put/call shows the highest level of bullishness on a down day in 2 and a half years. Sentiment readings reflect the highest level of bulls since the October 2007 peak.

Christian Political Involvement as an Extension of Faith

2009-08-09T16:19:00.006-04:00

"To stand apart from the complex and often morally corrupt world of political involvement and responsibility in the name of Jesus Christ is to dishonour that name - the name of one who was hauled before the authorities precisely because his 'saving work' was perceived to be (and really was) political." - Douglas John Hall in Confessing the Faith: Christian Theology in a North American Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 378; quoted in Craig J. Slane, Bonhoeffer as Martyr: Social Responsibility and Modern Christian Commitment (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), 73.

"Anyone who comes to terms with the social nature of the body of Christ can avoid the sufferings of others only at the peril of his own soul." - Craig J. Slane, Bonhoeffer as Martyr, 74.

Note: As a Christian pacifist, I do not subscribe to Slane's thesis that Bonhoeffer should be considered a Christian martyr. However, I did enjoy the book nonetheless.

Living the Kingdom Through the Power of the Gospel

2009-07-14T23:39:00.006-04:00

An excerpt from Tim Keller and J. Allen Thompson's Church Planter Manual (New York: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2002), 220:

To spread the kingdom of God is more than simply winning men to Christ. It is also working for healing of persons, families, relationships; it is doing deeds of mercy and seeking justice. It is ordering lives and relationships and institutions according to God's authority to bring in the blessedness of the kingdom.

Newbigin again [from The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society]: What are we talking about when we speak of confronting the institutions of state and market economy and culture with the gospel? We are not fighting with the individuals who perform roles in these institutions. We know well that when we get a chance to talk intimately with them, they feel themselves powerless. To the outsider they appear to wield great power, but they know that they are under the control of forces greater than their own and that their freedom to change things is very narrowly limited. Those who call for a Christian assault on the world's politics and economics make it clear that the aim of the attack is to seize the levers of power and take control. We have seen many such successful revolutions, and we know that in most cases what has happened is simply that the oppressor and the oppressed have exchanged roles. The throne is unshaken only there is a different person on the throne.

How is the throne itself to be shaken? Only by the power of the gospel itself - announced in word, embodied in deed.... The victory of the Church over the demonic Power of the Roman imperial system did not begin when Christians seized the levers of power: it was won when the victims knelt down in the Coliseum and prayed in the name of Jesus for the Emperor. The martyrs did not displace the emperor with swords, but rather through them the entire mystique of the Empire, its spiritual power, was unmasked, disarmed, made powerless.

I think Newbigin is saying that only when Christians can embody in their community an alternate way to use power, based on the freedom we have in the gospel, then the powers can be disarmed. Only when the world sees a true spirit of service, and not just another power grab for our Christian party and power-bloc, will it begin to look at itself in repentance. Only when the world sees people who have an utterly different attitude toward wealth and status will it begin to look at itself in repentance. Only when relativists see Christians embrace them in a way that they cannot embrace Christians will the world begin to look at itself in repentance (emphasis added in bold).

Grace Church of Philly - An Intro and Invitation

2009-07-12T01:22:00.002-04:00

Book Clubs for the Homeless: On the Relational Nature of God's Justice

2009-07-09T09:39:00.004-04:00

The following is excerpted from an article by David Fitch. You can read the entire piece here.

For years, ever since The Great Giveaway, I have argued for a cautious stance towards National politics as the means for accomplishing justice. Such a focus distracts/seduces us away from the church’s task of embodying the justice of Christ (the Kingdom of God) in the world. For my arguments, you can read here and here for instance. I argue that local relationships, both as a church community together under His reign and in our relationships (political and otherwise) in the neighborhood community, are the means that God uses to bring justice into the world. Then, from this stance, we can engage/come alongside national efforts. All of this explains why I find this idea about “book clubs with the homeless” so compelling. It is an example of where I think the church should put its efforts.
So let me articulate my position one more time, and then illustrate it via these book clubs.
1.) GOD’S JUSTICE IS RELATIONAL: There is something intensely relational about the justice of God inaugurated in the Kingdom of God that has come into the world through Jesus Christ. James Dunn in his book The Justice of God puts it this way, “In Hebrew thought righteousness is a concept of relation. In Hebrew thought righteousness is something one has precisely in one’s relationships as a social being. That is to say, righteousness is not something which an individual has on his or her own, independent of anyone else - as could be the case with the Greco-Roman concept.” (p.33) Dunn draws on the prophets (Ezekiel 18:5-9; Isaiah 58:3-7; Amos 5:21-24; Micah 3) to describe how being in a right relationship with God vertically was inseparable from being in right relationship with one another in the Hebrew OT context (p.38-39). Such a justice then cannot easily be bureaucratized. It is deeply relational. The fact that these book clubs enable such relationships that go beyond the giving and distributing of funds/food etc. is powerful. It puts those who participate into a unique relationship with each other that is not defined by those who are giving to those who have not.

2.) RECONCILIATION IS AT THE HEART OF GOSPEL JUSTICE: Reconciliation is at the heart of the gospel (2 Cor 5: 17-19). This kind of justice is the outworking of the forgiveness that we receive in Christ. In being forgiven we forgive. Reconciliation, the restoration of social wholeness, transforms everything. I have seen this in my limited ministry with the poor. In every victimized person, in every person who is now ostracized in society - there is (in my experience always) a long string of broken relationships that have unwound into a tragic mess. They need help, they need mercy, and they need physical deliverance. But the chains must be broken and this comes through blessing them with the forgiveness and love made possible in Christ Jesus (John 20:23). In order to get to this place with the poor or anyone for that matter, there must first be a relationship of love and hospitality, of knowing the other. Forgiveness, reconciliation touches every area of our lives. Reading books together of any kind can lead to relationships that share experiences of/or in need of the power of reconciliation in Christ. This is another reason why I like the book club with the homeless.

3.) THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT DO THIS JUSTICE: The government by its nature is bureaucratic. The government by definition (separation of church and state) is excluded from being the carrier of the forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ. This does not mean government is bad. It is a preservatory institution incapable of redemptive justice. But we can strategically come alongside government programs and provide the reconciliatory powers of the cross when we are allowed and when it makes sense. We should nonetheless be wary of being distracted to thinking the powers of government can bring justice. We can massively distribute physical relief but we cannot bring relational justice. This takes the church, the local church being engaged with just a few persons. This is why I again like the book clubs. They are small - 5 people according to the article. They are intensely relational.
I can see this kind of place - a book club with the homeless - as a wonderful missional way to engage the poor.

Grace Church of Philly - Logo

2009-06-29T12:25:00.002-04:00

Above is a logo design for the church plant in Philadelphia. Please pray for the leadership team as we continue to prepare to bring the light of the Gospel to University City.

Lead pastor of GCP Dr. John Davis: "In the long run, the logo is nothing more than an identifying mark. It won't make or break what we do. Our faithfulness to the gospel and God's blessings will determine that."

The Church and Social Issues

2009-06-26T10:17:00.002-04:00

The following is an excerpt from Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck’s Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) (Chicago: Moody, 2008):

Shouldn’t we care for the poor and the unborn? Shouldn’t we care about justice and righteousness? After all, “religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27, emphasis added).

More generally, Christians on the right and left must remember that while Jesus’ message certainly had political implications (most notably, He was Lord and Caesar was not), Jesus never started a political party, nor do we have any record of Him crusading against social and political ills. It’s true that the gospel has social implications. But the social gospel is something else entirely. Rauschenbusch and his followers often equated social action with the gospel so that the kingdom of God was no longer concerned with individual salvation and future life, but with the elimination of intolerance, corruption, injustice, and militarism. This message is hardly a secret or lost one since the mainline Protestant establishment has been saying it for a hundred years. The problem is not in working toward the elimination of injustice, though the specific activities lumped under “justice” are often debatable. The problem is in thinking that this is the main business of the church as church. But when the church’s business is mainly political and its unifying creeds are political instead of doctrinal, the church and state overlap until the church becomes redundant. Which is why the Religious Right has been getting such a beating of late, and why people are leaving the politically liberal mainline churches in droves, and why the emerging church will become little more than a venue for left-leaning politics if they continue to view historic Christian doctrine and faith as ancillary to the gospel.

The emergent church, like Protestant liberalism before it, is quite certain about God’s politics yet equally uncertain about God’s theology. I’m just the opposite. I don’t claim to have the divine word on minimum wage increases, activist judges, or global warming. Don’t get me wrong – I have opinions on these subjects and hope these opinions are well informed and perhaps even right. But I am much more certain about God’s view on the atonement than I am about His view on CEO salaries. On the right and the left, we would all do well to heed Hart’s advice as he summarizes the 1969 guidelines from the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod (LCMS):

On rare occasions the church’s influence may be “direct and intentional” when some social issues present themselves “about which the Scriptures speak so explicitly and clearly” that the institutional church is bound to speak. But because this kind of influence “always carries the risk of politicizing the church,” it should be done infrequently and “only on the basis of clear and unambiguous teaching of Scripture, where the church’s most fundamental concerns are at stake…. It asserted that the LCMS should “remain alert to the hazard of issuing superficial moral judgments or urging particular forms of action in complex secular matters for which there is no clear Word of God.”

This makes refreshingly good sense to me. Too often well-meaning Republicans and Democrats have been quick to politicize the gospel, unnecessarily alienating their brothers and sisters, and quick to pronounce divinely sanctioned judgments on things they don’t understand. I guess as a gospel minister I tend to focus on, well, the gospel – the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. I am dogmatic, yet humble (I hope), about orthodoxy, while I am open-minded, yet opinionated, about politics. That is to say, the difference between emerging churches and what I am aiming for in my church is the difference between unity based on social issues and unity based on theological issues. Orthodoxy means right doctrine that overflows in right living, which can be variously applied in the political sphere. For emerging churches, however, it seems that orthodoxy means right living immediately applied in the political sphere without attention to doctrine (190-92).

Suburbolationism and American Christianity

2009-06-22T19:17:00.004-04:00

Click here for a piece I wrote on the anti-urban bias of today's Christian Church entitled "Suburbolationism and American Christianity: Turning the Page on the Anti-Urban Bias of the Church in America."

Political and economic solutions can never totally reverse the devastation caused by the sin of mankind. The only hope for regeneration and renewal in our society is the transforming power of the Holy Spirit that accompanies and empowers the gospel message.

Here's a short excerpt:

There exists today an epic crisis in America’s urban areas. This crisis of crime, impoverishment, and anomie has been exacerbated and facilitated over the last several decades by the mass exodus of middle-class Christians from the city to the suburbs. This exodus has left a vacuum of resources both economic and spiritual. While they may exhibit some short-term external benefits, social and political solutions to this crisis can never suffice to bring about a full resolution of the structural problems within our cities. It is only the mighty power of the everlasting Gospel that can transform the heart and life of those within the city. The American Church must turn its eyes back to the city as a place teeming with the very people that Jesus has called us to love and serve: the poor and the outcast.

Christian Hatred, Don Miller, and Missing Limbs

2009-06-10T09:18:00.012-04:00

I'm going somewhere. When I look at what's ahead, I am constantly mindful of what has come before. My religious journey has been quite twisted and strange. I have been a Catholic, a liberal Protestant, an atheist, a Buddhist, an agnostic, and finally, a Christian. I was born again in 2003 and was ushered into the strange, wide world of conservative Christianity. I thought I had arrived at my final spiritual destination.

As usual, I was wrong.

I have been fleeing from religion all of my life. I have been pursuing God all of my life. I wish religion would stop getting in the way of this pursuit. This short thought-blurb is a tiny glimpse into what was up in my life, what is up now, and what will be up (maybe).

In my post-born-again travels I met Christians who hate. Now, I'm not talking about Psalm 101:3-type hatred of evil deeds. I'm talking about Christians who hate other people as people. Usually, these kinds of Christians tend to be pretty angry people in general. So, I imagine it's not too much of a stretch to funnel their inner rage toward other sinners.

Their hate-language is normally couched in careful and crafty ways. Pompous-sounding declarations of hatred for sin and a so-called desire for holiness usually precede the inevitable targeting of individual people, or groups of people. This painting red of the doorposts is done in order to provide a holy cover for the verbal assassination that will inevitably follow.

I remember the first time that I heard a mature Christian teacher tell me that he absolutely, positively hated and loathed some politician he had never even met. I was pretty taken aback. Now, I wasn't taken aback by the presence of evil thoughts in a person (for I take this for granted), but I was struck by the boldness to even proclaim something like this out loud to another Christian brother. Surely such shameful and wicked things, even if genuine, should not even be spoken of out loud among the saints (Eph. 5:1-4).

To this day, I confess I still have a hard time thinking about this man without thinking about the hatred that he nurtures in his heart. To this day, I have a very hard time trying to reconcile the image of a man who regularly proclaims the unconditional love of God to others while fostering hatred and utter contempt in his heart.

Regrettably, it appears as if hatred has comfortably settled in and found a resting place in the hearts of many Christians and Christian congregations. It's okay to actively hate those whose political beliefs may differ from the "approved" set of beliefs. It's okay to actively hate other Christians who do not dot their "i's" and cross their "t's" exactly the way that we do. It's okay to passively hate the poor by virtually ignoring them. It's okay to actively hate homosexuals. It's even okay (in a manly, holy, Christian conservative kinda way) to publicly proclaim a willingness to go to prison if this unChristian Christian hatred is challenged by the state. If only Christians had such a passion for the person, teaching, and example of Jesus Christ as they did for their pet hatreds.

Recently, I began reading a book that I picked up a few years ago and have been meaning to get around to for quite some time: Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller. Reading Miller's book has been scary. I have repeatedly felt like this dude is in my head thinking my thoughts. (This fear was alleviated somewhat when I looked and saw that the copyright for this book was the same year as my Christian conversion experience: 2003.)

Following are some excerpts that have really resonated with my experiences:

In the churches I used to go to, I felt like I didn't fit in. I always felt like the adopted kid, as if there was "room at the table for me." Do you know what I mean? I was accepted but not understood. There was room at the table for me, but I wasn't in the family (130).

I became a Christian at the ripe old age of twenty-nine. I recently had a conversation with a wise church-planting Christian brother who had also been saved later on in his life. I was telling him about some of these schismatic feelings I was having, about not fitting in at church and not understanding why, and how much it bothered me. His brief response was, "Brother, it's because you're not from 'Planet Christian.' That's why you don't fit in or understand. And that's okay."

I can't tell you the enormity of the impact that this truth had in my life. I felt as if a huge burden had been lifted off of my back. I no longer felt like a second-class Christian because I didn't fit into the man-made religious mold I was being shoved into. I wasn't like other Christians and they weren't like me. And that was okay.

It was liberating and empowering. It created in me a fervent desire to construct a Christian community where it is okay, and even desired, to have many brothers and sisters together who have differing socioeconomic and political backgrounds and beliefs. Back to Miller:

The churches I went to [all] seemed to be parrots for the Republican Party. Do we have to tow the line on every single issue? Are the Republicans that perfect? I just felt like, in order to be a part of the family, I had to think George W. Bush was Jesus. And I didn't. I didn't think that Jesus really agreed with a lot of the policies of the Republican Party or for that matter the Democratic Party. I felt like Jesus was a religious figure, not a political figure. I heard my pastor say once, when there were only a few of us standing around, that he hated Bill Clinton. I can understand not liking Clinton's policies, but I want my spirituality to rid me of hate, not give me reason for it. I couldn't deal with that. That is one of the main reasons I walked away. I felt like, by going to this particular church, I was a pawn for the Republicans. Meanwhile, the Republicans did not give a crap about the causes of Christ (131-32).

The hate-filled Christian leader I mentioned earlier had told me that he abhorred Barack Obama, rather than Bill Clinton. But, I'm sure if our conversation had taken place about a decade earlier, I would have heard the same venom toward Clinton that I heard for Obama. More from Miller:

One more thing that bugged me, then I will shut up about it. War metaphor. The churches I attended would embrace war metaphor. They would talk about how we are in a battle, and I agreed with them, only they wouldn't clarify that we were battling poverty and hate and injustice and pride and the powers of darkness. They left us thinking that our war was against liberals and homosexuals. Their teaching would have me believe I was the good person in the world and the liberals were the bad people in the world. Jesus taught that we are all bad and He is good, and He wants to rescue us because there is a war going on and we are hostages in that war. The truth is we are supposed to love the hippies, the liberals, and even the Democrats, and that God wants us to think of them as more important than ourselves. Anything short of this is not true to the teachings of Jesus (131-32).

For a period of time earlier in my pre-Christian life I found myself in a liberal mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). In the years I spent there, I observed many genuine acts of selflessness and a consistent desire for social justice and compassion. However, I never once heard the life-saving biblical gospel preached.

Later, in 2003, I was born again and entered into the Christian community as a regenerate man for the first time. After a while, I began teaching. I entered seminary in 2005. I had the wonderful opportunity of interacting with many different conservative evangelical and fundamental Christian communities. However, it gradually began to dawn on me that there was something core that was missing from this localized, twenty-first century American iteration of Christianity.

The longer I stayed in the more I thought to myself, "This can't be all there is to the Christian faith. It's got to go deeper than this!" I felt like someone who dove into a pool expecting it to be very deep, but who reached bottom very quickly and began to scratch away furiously at the pool liner, trying in vain to go deeper. The something that was missing was social engagement and compassion.

This version of Christianity reminds me of a person who cut off both of his arms and who was struck with anmesia all at the same time. He is up and walking around, but doesn't even know that he should have arms. And he doesn't know that he should have arms because he won't allow himself to interact with anyone else around him. He is completely alone and purposefully isolated from the rest of the world.

So on the one hand, in liberal Christianity I had experienced a version of the Christian faith that had the right methodology and social consciousness, but the wrong (or no) message. On the other hand, I had spent time in conservative Christianity, which had the right message (the gospel, minus the hatred) but zero social consciousness.

Right now, what I'm trying to find and nurture and love and move and create is a full-bodied, nonreligious, authentic, gospel-faithful, socially conscious, all-of-life Christian faith that can show a postmodern, post-Christian, Christian-drained, Christian-skeptical world what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus the Christ.

Anyone want to come along for the ride?

America Collapsing in Upon Itself

2009-06-09T11:25:00.009-04:00

In an article that I originally authored in 2004 (with some small revisions in July 2008), I outlined my belief that our nation was going to be dismantled from within:

Feeding the Beast - Socialism Explodes Across America
All of this [the implosion of our economy resulting from a massive crash in the stock market] will be happening following a period of time wherein the size of the federal government will have grown at dramatic and unprecedented levels, thanks in part to the socialist agenda of our "conservative" President George W. Bush. The massive Beast in Washington will, more than ever before, need funds for all of the many social programs that are forced upon us by our "compassionate" government. The new Medicare "reform" alone will eat up tax dollars like a ravenous shark. Billions more will be demanded from the taxpayer to feed the numerous other unconstitutional entitlement programs that our politicians hand out like candy at Halloween to a lethargic and greedy citizenry. Further, the government will need tax revenues coming in by the bushel to pay for its worldwide “war on terror.”

At this critical time, just when our elected officials need to be reducing spending and cutting unnecessary programs, spending is skyrocketing, and the federal government is growing increasingly burdensome and intrusive. When revenues begin to dry up due to a great drop-off in spending and employment from 2011 to 2013, Bush's approach of lowering tax rates while increasing spending will ultimately fail. Higher income tax rates will become a political necessity as the federal deficit explodes beyond comprehension. As of 2008, the federal deficit reached a record $9.5 trillion. When Bush took office in 2001, the deficit was nearly half this incomprehensible number.

Government programs will solidify and funding will increase as the massive baby boom generation enters into their twilight years of life. The corrupt politicians of our sell-out two-party system will attempt to out-pander each other as they vie for the votes of the immense baby boom generation. Politicians who will be under increasing strain due to the economic collapse will make promise after promise and give handout after handout to the largest segment of our population....

At that time, I didn't foresee that an even more socialist ideologue would follow Bush, compounding his mistakes tenfold and bringing further ruin upon the people of this country. I did, however, envision much higher tax rates due to a drop-off in "spending and employment." Now, more and more people are talking about the introduction of a VAT (value-added-tax) to "save" us from the financial apocalypse that our rulers have visited upon us. (I predicted here that the financial crisis would begin in 2009-2010, when the stock market was at "full investment" and could go no higher due to a shortage of purchasing power. The most recent crash began in September-October 2008.)

Further, I wrote:

As people become more and more dependent on the government to take care of them, I believe we will see a great expansion of the current socialist state. The federal government, in the coming Great Depression, will be seen as the solution to the perils of life, and not the problem. It will be seen as the Savior, not the Intruder. Politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, will use this great crisis as an opportunity to expand the size and scope of federal government in a way that will far exceed the socialist inroads made by FDR in the 1930's.

Just such an "expansion of the current socialist state" is occurring under the Obama administration right now. He, and his government, are indeed seen by many as our "saviors" from the current financial catastrophe and are attempting to implement programs that will destroy the financial stability of entire generations of Americans.

I said that the State would use "this great crisis as an opportunity to expand the size and scope of the federal government in a way that will far exceed the socialist inroads made by FDR in the 1930's." Even before his inauguration, leftist publications like Time were running cover stories calling for Obama to enact a "New New Deal" that would expand upon FDRs "Old New Deal." Time even ran an altered photo of FDR in a convertible with Obama's face photoshopped in. Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel went so far as to state that the current financial crisis presented an opportunity for the administration to promote its socialist agenda. In all this, it appears, and unfortunately so, that many of my predictions have come to pass.

Since our nation appears to be committed to electing socialists that will destroy our ability to be a prosperous people, what recourse does the average, libertarian-minded person have? I would recommend continued avoidance of the stock market. I do not believe the conventional wisdom that we have put in a bottom. For the time being, I recommend holding physical silver and gold (75% silver to 25% gold), investment in commodity ETFs, investment in oil through ETFs, and investment in foreign markets (like China) through ETFs. Wait until this current macroeconomic cycle plays itself out before moving back into stocks and real estate.

Following is an excerpt from an article in Fortune titled "The next great crisis: America's debt." The author Shawn Tully argues that chronic deficits have us headed for fiscal collapse and likens Obama's fiscal policies to Bush's on "steroids."

...To understand why a massive tax increase, probably a VAT, is the mostly likely outcome, it's crucial to look at what's driving the long-term, widening gap between revenues and spending. Put simply, spending is following a steep upward curve, while revenues are basically fixed as a portion of GDP. Why? Because future spending is driven mostly by entitlements, which are programmed to rise far faster than national income, while revenues depend heavily on the personal income tax, which yields receipts that typically rise or fall with GDP. Under George W. Bush, the U.S. experienced a prelude to the crisis before us: Spending rose rapidly, while revenues remained reasonably flat. Bush created an expensive new entitlement, the Medicare drug benefit (cost this year: $63 billion), and let spending on domestic programs from education to veterans' benefits run wild. Over seven years the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq added a total of some $900 billion to the budget. All told, Bush raised spending from 18.5% to 21% of GDP, setting in motion a chronic budget gap by piling on new spending without paying for it.
Under Obama the Bush trend keeps going, but this time on steroids. It's important to see the Obama budget projections as two phases, the crisis period of astronomical spending in 2009 and 2010, and the normal phase, from 2011 to 2019. Most of his stimulus and other big programs are designed to give the economy a jolt in 2009 and 2010 and then largely disappear or be offset by tax increases - at least that's the plan. Then the surge in outlays comes from two forces that would wreak budget havoc for any President: the relentless rise in entitlements and the surge in debt interest.

On "Justice" in America

2009-06-05T12:52:00.008-04:00

Over the last decade, my sleepy eyes have been pried wide open. Through brutal real-life events, much study, and contemplation, I no longer possess the naivete I once had with respect to American law and justice.

Much of what the average, pie-eating, flag-waving American is trained to think about our government and the systems that it enforces is horrifically skewed and has been distorted into fantastical shapes.

These corruptions of reality are rendered palatable and believable by court historians, taught to our little ones by well-meaning school-teachers who were themselves previously indoctrinated in the same manner, reinforced by the vast majority of our socio-religious subcultures, and repeated to differing degrees by nearly every major media outlet (including those who claim to be outside of the so-called "mainstream media").

It is my contention that while America claims to be a nation that believes in "justice for all," in reality, since the founding of our nation, this has never been nor is now the case.

An excerpt from James M. Henslin's Social Problems (Boston: Pearson and Allyn-Bacon, 2007), 176-77:

Two leading U.S. aerospace companies, Hughes Electronics and Boeing Satellite Systems, were accused of illegally exporting missile technology to China. The technology allowed China to improve its delivery system for nuclear weapons, placing the United States at risk. The two companies pleaded guilty and paid fines. No executives went to jail (Gerth 2003).

Have you ever wondered about such cases? The top executives of Boeing and Hughes have put us all at risk. Were these executives executed for treason? Were they put in prison for the rest of their lives? Not at all. They didn't spend even a single day in jail. The companies paid a fine out of their vast profits - and continued to chauffeur the executives who committed this crime between their exclusive offices and luxurious homes. Yet we read other news reports of young men or women from the lower class who are sent to prison for stealing a $5,000 automobile.

How can we have such inequity in a legal system that is supposed to provide "law, liberty, and justice for all"?

Conflict theorists emphasize that the law is not like the ideology taught in grade school - an impartial social institution that administers a code of justice shared by all. Rather, the law is controlled by the ruling class [i.e., those in positions of power over others in the society], which uses it to oppress the marginal working class and maintain their own privileges of power and[/or] wealth.... The law comes down hard on violators from the marginal working class. Violations by owners - the ruling class that controls society - cannot be totally ignored. If their crimes were to become too flagrant, they could provoke and outcry among the working class, and, ultimately, foment revolution. To prevent this, an occasional violation by the powerful is prosecuted [i.e., Bernie Madoff, Martha Stewart, etc.]. This demonstration that the criminal justice system applies to all helps to stabilize society.

Except for the rare prosecutions of the [powerful and] wealthy, such as Martha Stewart, which are held out to the public as proof of the fairness of the judicial system, few criminals from the wealthy [or powerful] classes appear in court....

Law enforcement is not a system of justice, but a device used by the powerful to carry out their policies and to keep themselves in power. They use the legal system to control workers [i.e., those who have no power base], mask injustice, and stabilize society [for their own benefit].

As someone who spent over a decade in the criminal justice profession, I found the above statements to be the best testimony of my personal observations and experiences therein.

Another stirring testimony describing the absence of justice in America can be found in the Metallica classic "...And Justice For All:"

Halls of Justice Painted Green
Money Talking
Power Wolves Beset Your Door
Hear Them Stalking
Soon You'll Please Their Appetite
They Devour
Hammer of Justice Crushes You
Overpower

The Ultimate in Vanity
Exploiting Their Supremacy
I Can't Believe the Things You Say
I Can't Believe
I Can't Believe the Price You Pay
Nothing Can Save You

Justice Is Lost
Justice Is Raped
Justice Is Gone
Pulling Your Strings
Justice Is Done
Seeking No Truth
Winning Is All
Find it So Grim
So True
So Real

Apathy Their Stepping Stone
So Unfeeling
Hidden Deep Animosity
So Deceiving
Through Your Eyes Their Light Burns
Hoping to Find
Inquisition Sinking You
With Prying Minds

The Ultimate in Vanity
Exploiting Their Supremacy
I Can't Believe the Things You Say
I Can't Believe
I Can't Believe the Price You Pay
Nothing Can Save You

Lady Justice Has Been Raped
Truth Assassin
Rolls of Red Tape Seal Your Lips
Now You're Done in
Their Money Tips Her Scales Again
Make Your Deal
Just What Is Truth? I Cannot Tell
Cannot Feel

Our only refuge is in the fountainhead of all truth and justice, the God-man Jesus Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria.

U.S. Debt Clock

2009-05-29T12:26:00.004-04:00

U.S. Debt Clock.org.

This is the greatest argument that displays the abject failure of the establishment Demopublican and Republicrat parties. A betrayal of the public trust on the grandest scale.

Barack Obama and "Reality Distortion Fields"

2009-05-19T12:19:00.004-04:00

Barack Obama's persuasive character and demeanor exudes some type of magnetic pull on just about anyone and everyone. This is readily admitted by all, or at least those not blinded by partisanship, prejudice, or partiality.

Researchers in the field of organizational behavior have labeled the aura that such charismatic and charming people create around them a "reality distortion field."

Below is an excerpt from McShane and Von Glinow's Organizational Behavior on this subject:

Wearing his trademark black turtleneck and faded blue jeans, Apple Computer cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs is famous for stirring up crowds with evangelical fervor as he draws them into his “reality distortion field.” A reality distortion field occurs when people are caught in Steve Jobs's visionary headlights. Apple Computer manager Bud Tribble borrowed the phrase from the TV series Star Trek to describe Jobs's overwhelming persuasiveness. “In his presence, reality is malleable,” Tribble explained to newly hired Andy Hertzfeld in 1981. “He [Steve Jobs] can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules.” As one journalist wrote, “Drift too close to Jobs in the grip of one of his manias and you can get sucked in, like a wayward asteroid straying into Jupiter's gravitational zone" (p. 354).

Reference

McShane, S. L. & Von Glinow, M. A. (2008). Organizational Behavior: Emerging Realities for the Workplace Revolution. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Racism and Christianity Incompatible

2009-05-19T12:02:00.004-04:00

A few of my favorite verses that speak of the unity of all in the body of Christ:

Gal. 3:28 (ESV) - There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Col. 3:11 - Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

As we can see in these verses, there remains no room for prejudice, which is born out of ignorance and stereotyping, or “assigning traits to people based on their membership in a social category” (McShane and Von Glinow, 2008, p. 73). When people become unfairly stereotyped, it is relatively easy for the one doing the categorization to become prejudiced toward members of this or that particular group.

Through His Scripture, the Lord teaches us that “here” (Col. 3:11) in Christ, is where our true identity is to be found. All of those who remain outside of Christ (the last Adam) are to be considered part of the race of the first Adam (1 Cor. 15:22, 45). There can be no further qualifications or distinctions made other than this. To attempt to create further divisions within humanity is to travel into territory that is foreign to God’s teaching in the New Testament.

The presence of racism in the body of Christ is one of the most abhorrent, destructive, and satanic ways of thinking imaginable, for in Christ there cannot exist any spirit of alienation or schism.

1Cor. 15:22, 45 - For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive…. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

A sermon on the truth of Colossians 3:11 entitled “Christ is All” delivered by C.H. Spurgeon on August 20, 1871 can be found here. A small excerpt:

According to the connection, Christ is all by way of national distinction, subject for glorying, and ground for custom. Observe, "there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor tree," in the new creation, but "Christ is all, and in all." In the new world there is no difference between Jew and Gentile; barbarian simplicity and Greek cultivation are as nothing. I suppose as long as we are in the flesh we shall set some store by our nationality, and like Paul shall somewhat glory that we were free born: but surely the less of this the better. Within the gates of the Christian church we are cosmopolitan, or rather we are citizens of the New Jerusalem only. As a man, I rejoice that I am an Englishman, but not with the same holy joy which fills me when I remember that I am a Christian. When I meet another man who fears God, I do not want him to think me an Englishman, nor do I desire to regard him as an American, a Frenchman, or a Dutchman; for we are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow-citizens. If any man be a Christian and a foreigner after the flesh, he is yet in spirit ten thousand times more allied to me than if he were an Englishman and an unbeliever. Greatly is it to be deplored whenever the convulsions of nations drag Christian men into opposition to one another on the ground of politics. One part of the body of Christ cannot be at war with another. It is a shameful thing whenever we suffer our earthly nationality to dominate over our heavenly citizenship. Queen Victoria and President Grant are well enough in their places, but King Jesus is Lord of all; we are above all things subjects of his Imperial Highness the Prince of Peace. Nobody comes into the church as a Jew or a Gentile, nor does he remain there as a Greek or a Scythian, whatever he may have been before; when he becomes a Christian, Christ is all. Earthly distinctions of rank, if they still exist, as they must while we are in this world, are brought to a minimum within the church, they are almost obliterated, and what remains is sanctified to sacred ends.

Reference:

McShane, S. L. & Von Glinow, M. A. (2008). Organizational Behavior: Emerging Realities for the Workplace Revolution. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Crisis and "Opportunity"

2009-05-19T08:45:00.013-04:00

When Barack Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel recently stated that one of the chief goals of this presidential administration was to "never let a serious crisis go to waste," elephants all across our nation claimed outrage. (Those who weren't immediately inflamed with outraged were quickly fanned into code-red "frothing at the mouth" status by the agitprop specialists within the Republicrat machine spearheaded by Sean Hannity and his ilk.)

You would think that, to the Republicrat mind, such openly exploitative behavior by those in power was a crime on the same level as nailing Jesus Christ to the cross of Calvary. Never! no never! would an elephant use a crisis to expand governmental power and size in the way that the Demopublicans were! Banish the thought!

Really? Let's listen in to a meeting of the National Security Council days after the 09/11 attacks. A little history can serve to dispel both myth and wishful thinking, if one is honest with oneself.

Within days [of 09/11], Condoleeza Rice called together members of the National Security Council and asked them "to think about 'how do you capitalize on these opportunities' to fundamentally change American doctrine, and the shape of the world, in the wake of September 11th." [1]

Kinda sounds like the same kind of power-grabbing, big government, Fed-zilla-type strategy, now doesn't it?

Suggested reading: Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government.

1. Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2003), 229.

Invasion of Iraq Planned a Decade Beforehand

2009-05-15T10:40:00.010-04:00

The following is excerpted from Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic:

In the late 1990s, during the second Clinton administration, the Pentagon began seriously to prepare for a renewed war with Iraq. The Joint Chiefs of Staff's Strategic Assessment 1999 specifically said that an "oil war" in the Persian Gulf was a serious contingency and that "U.S. forces might be used to ensure adequate supplies." It was reasoned that a new war would eliminate once and for all the influence of Saddam Hussein, gain control of his oil, and extend our influence into the vacuum created in the oil-rich lands of southern Eurasia by the demise of the Soviet Union.

As we have already seen, this renewed interest in Central, South, and Southwest Asia included the opening of military-to-military ties with the independent Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and support for a Taliban government in Afghanistan as a way to obtain gas and oil pipeline rights for an American-led consortium. But the jewel in the crown of this grand strategy was a plan to replace the Ba'ath regime in Iraq with a pro-American puppet government and build permanent military bases there.... The terrorist attacks of 09/11, the war against the Taliban, and Bush's "war on terror" merely provided further impetus for a plan that had been in the works for at least a decade. (emphasis added)

In the hours following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked for an immediate assault on Iraq. The following day, in a cabinet meeting at the White House, Rumsfeld again insisted that Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round in the war against terrorism." The president reportedly was advised that "public opinion has to be prepared before a move against Iraq is possible" and instead chose Afghanistan as a much softer target.

These statements and their timing are noteworthy because at that point the United States had not even determined that the suicide bombers came from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and, though the president would later damn Saddam Hussein as an "ally" of al-Qaeda, the Bush administration never provided any evidence substantiating that connection. In fact, the 2001 edition of the Department of State's annual Patterns of Global Terrorism listed no acts of global terrorism linked to the government of Iraq.... Rumsfeld's early targeting of Iraq therefore suggests that the Bush administration and the Pentagon had long had a hidden agenda involving "regime change" there (pp. 226-227).

Reference

1. Chalmers Johnson. The Sorrows of Empire. New York: Metropolitan, 2003.

The Roe Reality Check

2009-05-14T12:59:00.004-04:00

Facts always destroy myths. And so it is with the commonly-held myths of the abortion-on-demand crowd. Click here for the powerful booklet The Roe Reality Check. Below are some of my comments regarding the information contained therein:

Myth #1 in the booklet addresses the issue of the “health” of the mother that is so often and hotly debated in discussions of this issue. Many people in the general public simply do not understand that when a politician is touting the “health of the mother” as a reason to continue to allow abortion-on-demand, this “health” carries an extensive definitional range, grounded in Doe v. Bolton, that includes “all factors – physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age – relevant to the well-being of the patient.” With such sweeping and inclusive language, one wonders if this even qualifies as a legitimate definition, for it defines virtually nothing at all.

Myth #2 is another powerful apologetic against the commonly-held belief that most abortions are performed due to issues of rape, incest, or legitimate and critical health issues for either the mother or the unborn infant. The startling fact is that 93% of all abortions have nothing to do with these reasons.

Myth #6 addresses the misconception that the abortion rate is relatively low. In fact, there are approximately 1,300,000 abortions every year in the U.S. alone. That equals about 3,500 infants terminated per day. While these figures are meaningless to the minds many people due to the sheer enormity of the numbers involved, perhaps it would be more beneficial if people were encouraged to try to envision a pile of 3,500 lifeless infants piled up in front of them. Paraphrasing a quotation attributed to Joseph Stalin, “The murder of a single person is a tragedy; the murder of a million people is a statistic.”

Regarding myth #8 which touts that “most abortions are done before fetal organs are functioning,” it is important to observe that the heart is formed and begins to beat around 21 days after conception. According to the American Pregnancy Association, elevated levels of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin that may indicate the success of fertilization is not generally detected by urine tests (such as in commonly used over-the-counter tests) until about “12-14 days after conception” (“hCG Levels,” 2007). By the time most women indicate a positive on such urine tests, make an appointment to see a doctor about the possibility of the pregnancy, and then schedule the abortion procedure, the babies that they are carrying have had a functional heart for several days, weeks, or months. In fact, the booklet (in footnote 32) indicates that only 23% of abortions are done “before or during the…4^th week of development.” This leaves 1,001,000 abortions per year (on average) after the heart has begun to beat.

Reference

“hCG Levels.” American Pregnancy Association. July 2007. http://www.americanpregnancy.org/duringpregnancy/hcglevels.html

Followership

2009-05-14T11:55:00.005-04:00

The following is excerpted from an article entitled, "The Minister as a Lifelong Follower-Leader" by Gary R. Allen:

Jesus intended that His disciples follow and lead. He asked the disciples to follow Him, and He would cause them to become fishers of men (leaders). Following is a willful act of obedience and submission. Leading is the intentional influencing of others to help accomplish a purpose. Jesus was first concerned about the attitude and motive of His disciples. Once they became followers, He could teach them the skills to lead others.
Jesus was the ultimate example of a follower-leader. He clearly understood that His mission was to obey the will of His Father who sent Him and to train His disciples to make other disciples. From this understanding emerges the servant-leadership model. Jesus’ symbol of leadership was the towel. Servanthood is about attitude and motive; leadership is about abilities and skills.
As a pastor, I observed that those who came into the local church with great leadership skills, but did not have a servant’s heart, could do more harm than good to the congregation. However, those who came with a servant’s heart could usually be trained in the abilities and skills necessary for effective ministry and leadership.
Some followers know what to do without being told. In fact, one study indicates that 80 percent of the success of any project is due to the followers and only 20 percent to the contribution of leaders. Followers are not usually as obvious as leaders. Yet, without faithful, supportive followers, leaders would not be leaders.

Below are some of my own observations on leadership, followership, and the merging of the two as an imperative for success in any organization:

Miller points out in her article, “In reality, we are all both leaders and followers, assuming different roles…as the circumstances dictate” (“Followership,” 2007). However, it seems that our society is consistently engulfed in various forms of leader-worship. Followers rarely receive any attention, for the most part eking out their existence in the shadows and corners of our organizations, both public and private. I believe that many of us are guilty of hero-worship to varying degrees, but this type of mentality must be balanced with an understanding that leaders are only able to exist and perform their functions if they are undergirded by groupings of dedicated followers.

As a society, we need to view effective followers in a different way than we have to this date. Instead of seeing followers as sheep whose only duty is to unquestioningly and blindly obey management’s every whim and command, followers should be understood and treated as indispensable “partners, participants, co-leaders,” colleagues, and collaborators (Westbrook and Dixon, 2003, p. 20). Followers need to become more involved and more empowered within the organization.

The social dynamic of our country has been one of empowerment for many decades now, with little of this stimulative change appearing to show up in bureaucracies and organizations. Many times, “empowerment” is just a catch phrase that is thrown about while followers remain disenfranchised and disconnected from the main power structures of the organization of which they are a part.

Instead of truly empowering followers to make effective contributions to the group, leaders over the last several decades have resorted to addressing issues of job-malaise with schemes like profit sharing and the like, which appears more like manipulation than actual engagement and empowerment. As Westbrook and Dixon point out, “Employees are discipline-loyal, not employer-loyal” (“Followership”). Profit sharing schemes merely play to the followers’ “employer-loyalty,” not his or her “discipline-loyalty.”

In order for followers to be effective, rather than alienated, disgruntled, passive, and dependent, they need to be given the latitude to openly critique the existing organizational structure. Leaders need to encourage followers who desire transparency over opacity. The younger generations are ever suspicious of organizations that hold things “close to the vest” and tightly control information and knowledge flow. If the leader fights against this tide, it will result in a less efficient and effective organization, to the detriment of all involved.

As U.S. Representative Sam Rayburn has pointed out, true leadership cannot exist among those who do not understand what it means to be an effective follower: “You cannot be a leader and ask other people to follow you unless you know how to follow, too” (quoted in Westbrook and Dixon, p 20). If one has a poor concept of followership, it will result in poor a poor leadership style.

Others, like Townsend and Gebhardt, recognize that leadership is not so much a position as it is a behavior: “Leadership is, in the final analysis, a behavior rather than a position” (2003, p. 21). They believe, as do I, that leadership is but one aspect on the “leadership-teamship-followership continuum” and that the “old dichotomy between leaders and followers has been blurred as leaders have been asked to exercise critical judgment about their role in organizations” (2003, p. 18). There is so much overlap of behavior and attitude between categories of leadership and followership that nearly everyone today recognizes the categorical mistake of dividing everyone up into “leaders and followers, with everyone foreordained to one or the other single, specific role” (Townsend and Gebhardt, 2003, p. 18).

Finally, in order to cultivate effective followers (who will eventually and naturally move into positions of leadership), one must pour out genuine care and love into their lives. People can see right through activities and attitudes of disingenuousness and will reject it outright. This can result in the alienation of the follower. When the leader sacrificially gives of his time, effort, and resources in order to benefit the life or well being of the follower, many positive outcomes naturally follow in his or her wake.

References:

Dixon, G. & Westbrook J. (2003). Followers Revealed. Engineering Management Journal, 15, pp. 19-25. Retrieved May 13, 2009, from EBSCOhost via Liberty University: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=10957819&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Miller, L. (2007). Followership. Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing, 21, pp. 76-77.Retrieved May 13, 2009, from EBSCOhost via Liberty University: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=24399581&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Townsend, P. L. & Gebhardt, J. E. (2003). The Leadership-Teamship-Followership Continuum. Leader to Leader, 29, pp. 18-21. Retrieved May 13, 2009, from EBSCOhost via Liberty University: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=17094492&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Is Present-Day Israel God's People? A Dispensational Dilemma

2009-05-14T11:53:00.003-04:00

Following is an article by Dr. Steve Davis entitled "Is Present-Day Israel God's People? A Dispensational Dilemma":

Hanna Massad, pastor of Gaza Baptist Church, recently expressed his dismay at the bombing of his church building during the three-week war between Israel and Hamas (CT Direct, February 10, 2009, “God in Gaza”). The Palestinian Bible Society also suffered damage from Israeli bombs. In light of these events some questions come to mind. Is present-day national Israel God’s people? Do we in this case have God’s ancient and now restored-covenant people bombing God’s new covenant people, Palestinian Christians in Gaza? Or asked in another way, do we have two peoples of God? Can we be sure that the 1948 United Nations declaration that created modern-day Israel was in fact a fulfillment of biblical prophecy? If so, is there a guarantee that Israel in her present state cannot be destroyed and her people dispersed?

One of the ramifications of classic dispensationalism is the often-unqualified identification of the modern nation of Israel as the people of God. This view intensified in the twentieth century with the Holocaust and the founding of the modern state of Israel. Many view through a prophetic lens the United Nations declaration of 1948, which brought national Israel into existence as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. For many this perspective requires almost unquestioning support of a seemingly invincible Israel, which has been rightfully returned to the land and will never be defeated. The myth and aura of Israeli invincibility was burnished over the years by the heroic and courageous spirit of the Israeli people in wars beginning with her independence in 1948. These wars include the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Although more recent apparent defeats or setbacks have tarnished Israel’s image (for example, the July 2006 war with Hezbollah), Israel continues to enjoy popular support in dispensational circles as the people of God.

Few Christians would deny Israel’s right as a nation to exist and defend herself. While some may desire a more proportionate response to the homemade bombs lobbed haphazardly from the Gaza Strip, no one should question the right of Israel to exist. Whether we consider the July 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War or the more recent Israeli-Hamas War, what is unquestionable is that more innocent civilians are always killed and maimed by Israel than by their adversaries. Obviously we can attribute this fact to the sheer supremacy of Israel’s American-made and supplied armaments. We may also rightfully assert that Israel’s opponents often hide among the civilian population and fire missiles from apartment buildings and mosques in densely populated urban areas.

As an American I affirm Israel’s right to exist and protect herself from enemies who refuse to recognize her status as a legitimate national entity. I shudder when I think of Israel’s history and the diabolical attempts to wipe the nation off the face of the earth. Furthermore, I admire a people who live on an island of democracy in a sea of tyranny. I hold them in high esteem for their resolve to resist terrorism and to sacrifice for future generations. Yet as a Christian I hesitate to apply Old Testament prophecies concerning the re-establishment of national Israel to the political entity called Israel today. Some might argue that the nation of Israel can be identified with the valley of dry bones prophecy in Ezekiel 37. Even if that were the case, it is difficult to conceive of them in their present condition as the people of God.

The history and experiences of modern Israel are not determinative in the identification of modern-day Israel as the people of God. Ultimately, there are theological questions only the Word of God can answer. Theological systems with different hermeneutical assumptions provide diverse responses to the question of the nature and identify of the people of God.

Dispensational theology sees more discontinuity between Israel and the church and in some way recognizes two peoples of God—Israel, the ancient, original, and prophetic people of God now partially restored; and the church, the second people of God, dispensationally prominent and presently participating in the promises made to the original covenantal people. Ryrie avers “that the Church is not the continuation of Israel and her purpose in being called out from among the nations” (Ryrie 1965, 143). He favorably quotes Daniel Fuller’s observation that “the basic premise of Dispensationalism is two purposes of God expressed in the formation of two peoples who maintain their distinction throughout eternity” (45). Further developments in dispensationalism have nuanced the idea of two peoples in that “Israel and the church are in one sense a united people of God (they participate in the same covenant), while in another sense they remain separate in their identity and so comprise differing peoples of God” (Ware 1992, 96; italics his). Dispensationalism is not monolithic, and these quotes are not meant to give the impression that all dispensationalists articulate the two-people view in the same way. Saucy, for example, rejects the “earlier dispensational teaching that divided the people of God into an earthly and heavenly people (i.e., the church and Israel), with fundamentally no continuity in the plan of God on the historical plane” (Saucy 1988, 239-40). The issue is the relationship of Israel and the church and how that is perceived in relation to the nation of Israel in our day.

Covenant theology, which views the church as the new Israel, may not wrestle with the identification of national Israel, as least not in the same way. In speaking of Adam and Eve, Kuiper held that “it may be asserted that they constituted the first Christian church” (Kuiper 1996, 22). Hodge maintained that “the Church under the New Dispensation is identical with that under the old” (Hodge 1968, 3:549). If the church as true Israel replaces or continues Old Testament ethnic Israel and inherits the promises made in the covenants, then present-day Israel is a nation among other nations—no more, no less. Individuals whose ethnic identity or history connects them with the ancient people of God hold no place of privilege and must enter the true people of God, the new Israel, through the new birth.

These competing systems have a long history of debate. They are deeply entrenched as valid, competing viewpoints and hold Scripture in the highest regard, but they differ on interpretive matters regarding temporal and future Israel. The issue of the identity of present-day Israel, however, is less problematic for covenantalists.

Where does this lead us? Is there a way for dispensationalists to view present-day Israel in a way that remains faithful to Scripture, does not distort or inflate the place of contemporary national and natural Israel, and does not give the slightest hint of promoting anti-Semitism? A straightforward reading of the Old Testament lends support to the idea of a future restoration of Israel that has received irrevocable promises (Jer. 31:31-37).The question is how those promises will be fulfilled. One’s hermeneutic will determine if these promises relate to fulfillment in the future of a national Israel, promises in which the church participates, or if the promises are presently fulfilled in ethnic Israelites, a present remnant who become part of the new covenant people, the church, through the new birth.

The New Testament reaffirms Old Testament promises that “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew” (Rom. 11:2 ESV). The apostle Paul boldly declares “in this way all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:26). According to Leon Morris, “this expression has caused unending disputation among expositors” (Morris 1988, 420). Many older commentators took this statement as a reference to “spiritual Israel composed of elect Jews and Gentiles together” (Shedd 1979, 348). In the book Continuity and Discontinuity,Wouldstra argues that Jews grafted into “the one olive tree . . . will not form a separate program or a separate entity next to the church” (Woudstra 1988, 237), while Saucy holds that the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies “is best understood in relation to Israel as a national entity among the nations and not through the church” (Saucy 1988, 256).

Covenantal and dispensational scholars have debated texts and interpretation for decades without reaching consensus, and none will be reached in this article. I understand the different views on this, the similar texts, and the processes that lead to different interpretations. I am not overly concerned about how God will accomplish the details of His purposes. I fully expect all our eschatological schemes to be corrected. My struggle is how to relate these texts to the nation Israel in its present state. Can unconverted ethnic Jews in the land of Israel be considered the people of God? If so, in what sense? Do we then have two peoples of God, the regenerate church and unregenerate Israel?

Let’s come back to the bombing inflicted on the church building in Gaza. Do we have God’s chosen but unregenerate people in Israel bombing God’s chosen and regenerate people in Gaza? It seems that much of American evangelicalism and fundamentalism, especially the dispensational varieties, have sometimes married theological views to a conservative, political agenda. This agenda not only correctly supports the right of Israel to exist but often excuses her excesses and hesitates to criticize injustices the nation committed. There is the notion that criticizing Israel would make critics enemies of “God’s people” and bring them under the curses related to the Abrahamic covenant. Regardless of how we view the place of Israel in prophecy, we might at the very least be more guarded in identifying present-day Israel as the people of God and refrain from mixing our theology and politics into an inflexible theological position. God loves ethnic Israelites. They need to hear the gospel, and God has called them to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, Like all peoples, they need to be confronted with the truth claims of the Word of God. When they respond in faith, they can then be called “the people of God.”

References:

Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1968.

Kuiper, R. B. The Glorious Body of Christ. Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1966.

Morris, Leon. The Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1988.

Ryrie, Charles C. Dispensationalism Today. Chicago: Moody Press, 1965.

Saucy, Rober L. “Israel and the Church: A Case for Discontinuity.” Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and the New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1988.

Shedd, William G. T. A Critical and Doctrinal Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1879. Reprint, Minneapolis: Klock & Klock, 1978.

Woudstra, Marten H. “Israel and the Church: A Case for Continuity.” Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and the New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1988.

'Green Shoots' or False Signals?

2009-05-11T11:26:00.006-04:00

Two recent pieces combating the media/establishment lies reporting that the recession/depression is behind us:

From John Mauldin's "Economic Recovery: Green Shoots, or Danelion Weeds?":

So, are things back on track? Is the recession just about over? Is that a green shoot? I don't think so....It's likely that we'll see at least another 1.0 to 1.5 million lost jobs over the rest of the year....A recent study showed that recessions that come as a result of, or in conjunction with a financial crisis take a lot longer to recover from....Recessions that are either associated with financial crises, or that are highly synchronized worldwide have historically been longer and deeper, and featured weak recoveries....[Quoting from the April 2009 World Economic Outlook of the International Monetary Fund:] A perfect storm? Recessions that are associated with both financial crises and global downturns have been unusually severe and long lasting....Many bullish analysts talk about the second derivative of growth, by which they mean that we're slowing our descent into recession. But it's not the second derivative that's important. What's important is that the first derivative - actual growth - return. Until that time, unemployment will continue to rise....As the realization that the economy isn't due for a robust recovery sinks in, I think the chances for another serious bear-market test of the stock market lows will become increasingly high....Do you want to gamble on a renewed bull run in the face of a continually shrinking economy?

Gerald Celente's "Green Shoots or Greatest Depression?"

"Green shoots" may sprout but they will not flower. The economy cannot be coerced back into growth with tons of money manure....It is inconceivable that the "green shoots" are signs of sustained economic recovery.....Pumping gigantic sums of money into too-big-to-fail financial institutions to jump-start the lending/borrowing cycle is to perpetuate a failed economic model...."The Greatest Depression" that we forecast would begin to set in by the end of this year may have been postponed, but it has not been averted. When it does set in, it will do so with enhanced intensity and at a pace accelerated by complex financial finagling...all under the guise of nation-saving action. Rather than let the failing industries fail and the failed banks go bankrupt, the government is deliberately bankrupting the nation....The "green shoots" will wither and deteriorate. Those who are prepared for the worst will not have been taken by surprise.

The Story of Stuff

2009-05-11T09:43:00.004-04:00