Charles Hodge on the Limbus Patrum

Interesting thoughts from Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology (Volume III) on the Limbus Patrum, from some study I was doing on the subject recently. He tries hard to distance himself from it. But the things which he does allow for were surprising to me:

"The dead in the Old Testament are always spoken of as going to their fathers, as descending into 'Sheol,' i.e., into the invisible state, which the Greeks called Hades. Sheol is represeated as the general receptacle or abode of departed spirits, who were there in a state of consciousness; some in a state of misery, others in a state of happiness. In all these points the pagan idea of Hades corresponds to the Scriptural idea of Sheol. All souls went into Hades, some dwelling in Tartarus, others in Elysium. That the Hebrews regarded the souls of the dead as retaining their consciousness and activity is obvious from the practice of necromancy, and is confirmed by the fact of the appearance of Samuel to Saul, as recorded in 1 Samuel xxviii. The representation given in Isaiah xiv. of the descent of the King of Babylon, when all the dead rose to meet and to reproach him, takes for granted and authenticates the popular belief in the continued conscious existence of departed spirits." (pg. 717)

"Men may doubt and differ as to what Christ did during the three days of his sojourn in the invisible world. They may differ as to who the spirits in prison were to whom he preached, or, rather, made proclamation (ἐκήρυξεν); whether they were the antediluvians; or, the souls of the people of God detained in Sheol; or, the mass of the dead of all antecedent generations and of all nations, which is the favorite hypothesis of modern interpreters. They may differ also as to what the proclamation was which Christ made to those imprisoned spirits; whether it was the gospel; or his own triumph; or deliverance from Sheol; or the coming judgment. However these subordinate questions may be decided, all that remains certain is that Christ, after his death upon the cross, entered the invisible world, and there, in some way, made proclamation of what He had done on earth. All this is very far from teaching the doctrine of a 'Limbus Patrum,' as taught by the Jews, the Fathers, or the Romanists." (pg. 737)

Biblical Songs of Judgment

We see in the Old Testament a number of songs calling for and rejoicing in God's vindication of His people against their enemies - the Song of Moses, the Song of Deborah and Barak, the Psalms.  In these songs, God's people cursed the wicked and called for their judgment.  Many would say, dismissively, "but that's the Old Testament."  And yet when we get to the Book of the Revelation, we find in ch. 18 a song rejoicing in the judgment of Babylon the Great.  We see, in other words, a pattern of what type of worship music God recommends for us, songs of judgment as much as songs of rejoicing in the goodness of God (and the two overlap).  We say we are Biblical Christians.  Why don't we follow Scripture in this?

The Lord's Prayer in the Wilderness

I admire the young man who quoted the Lord's Prayer during his speech as valedictorian at his high school graduation.  We need more people, young and old, with that kind of boldness.  But we see acts like this every few weeks, celebrate them, and then pick up and carry on with our lives, without asking any deeper questions.  How rare is an act like this?  (Very rare.)  Why is it so rare?  We're celebrating it because it's an odd thing in the public schools.  Why is it odd?  It's odd because a pagan worldview runs the school system.  Here's one kid who made it through with his faith intact.  How many more don't?  We then send our kids to state-run colleges, where a pagan worldview governs everything, and even more kids who grow up in church lose their faith.  Why do we keep letting pagans do the educating?  Why do we keep sending kids to government schools?  For proms, sports teams, the "school experience", whatever that entails?  But isn't the purpose of school to educate a person?  And isn't it so often the case that what dictates our decisions in this, as in other areas of life, is our fear of looking weird to others?  "The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe" (Prov. 29:25).  We define our faith by our feelings and experience, rather than by the truth of Scripture - "you ask me how I know he lives - he lives within my heart".  It is no wonder then that what is most important to us otherwise is experience and feelings, not the content of what is taught in the classroom.  If we want to make a change in our communities and in our world, more foundational issues have to be dealt with.  Otherwise, we will keep doing little more than throwing a bucket of water on a raging wildfire, which is what acts like this largely amount to, admirable though they be.

On the Importance of History

It seems that in our mad rush toward progress and prosperity, we have become afflicted with a malignant contemporaneity.  We don't really have time or patience to ponder the lessons of our legacy.  We are too busy with the present to bother much with the past.  As a result of this morbid preoccupation with ourselves, and its resulting historical ambivalence, if not ignorance, we have virtually locked ourselves into a recalcitrant present.

Thus, the English author and lecturer John H. Y. Briggs has poignantly argued that a historical awareness is essential for the health and well-being of any society; it enables us to know who we are, why we are here, and what we should do.  He says "Just as a loss of memory in an individual is a psychiatric defect calling for medical treatment, so too any community which has no social memory is suffering from an illness."

Lord Acton, the great historian from the previous generation, made the same point, saying: "History must be our deliverer not only from the undue influence of other times, but from the undue influence of our own, from the tyranny of the environment and the pressures of the air we breathe."  The venerable aphorism remains as true today as ever: "He who forgets his own history is condemned to repeat it."

The fact is, history is not just the concern of historians and social scientists.  It is not the lonely domain of political prognosticators and ivory tower academics.  It is the very stuff of life. -- George Grant

The Goodness of God Revealed in Food

Bread is the mystery of our existence. That is why Christ teaches us to pray for our daily ration. One cannot imagine a more practical request. Without nourishment in the mystery of our existence, we die.

My reference is visible bread, smellable bread, chewable bread, bread that will become waste. All true mystery is a down-to-earth business. Only as we begin to appreciate our given metaphors for what they are in themselves do we begin to appreciate their corresponding realities. Sometimes we emphasize a theology of spiritual bread to the extent that we de-emphasize a theology of physical bread. We counter the nature of the Incarnation when we do. The worst of the blunder is that we exalt a lopsided Christ. Sad to say, we who believe in the Incarnation can be as tempted by abstractions as anyone else. Unless we return again and again in faith to the tangible edges of everyday mystery, we disrespect the substance of things not seen. -- Gregory Post & Charles Turner, "The Feast: Reflections on the Bread of Life", pp. 3-4

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A doctrine of bodily nourishment is rampant in Holy Scripture. The fact that the Lord feeds his people is demonstrated throughout both Testaments. The theme is easy to overlook because it seems so mundane. Having designed our bodies to require fuel, the Creator provides that necessity. His benevolence here is consistent with the pattern of grace in which the demands of his law are met by the provisions of his gospel. -- Post & Turner, "The Feast", pg. 4

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Nothing says "home" more appealingly than the earthy frankincense of bread fresh from the oven. A peasant comes home from the field and the promise reaches out through the open door. A stockbroker returns in the evening to his high-rise condo and finds it transformed by the same miracle of basic domesticity. The second example is less likely than the first but, thanks be to God, still possible. Mennonites tell us that the surest way to sell a house is to have bread baking in the kitchen when prospective buyers arrive. The aroma of bread triggers a mood of shelter and sanctuary. Perhaps that is why it welcomes so warmly those who are away from home, be they dinner guests from across town or wayfarers from a distant land. -- Post & Turner, "The Feast", pg. 5

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The goodness of God is not abstract when we sit down to eat.  It doesn't have to be Trout Margery at Galatoire's in New Orleans.  It can be a hamburger and fries at the local McDonald's.  It is visible and tangible.  It is tasty.

The Creator routinely meets us on a sensual level.  Food is provided for our pleasure as well as for our nourishment.  Pleasure, along with every gift that comes down from the Father of Lights, is holy - until indulged in outside his holy law, and then it becomes an end in itself and not an avenue for his glory.  There are warnings against gluttony, of course, just as there are warnings against that kindred selfishness called adultery.  But we trip into the ancient heresy of Gnosticism when we think of physical pleasure as having no spiritual substance.  It is precisely because of imbedded spirituality that rules and signals are necessary.  The Christian who thinks of all physical pleasure as "worldly" blunders as profoundly as the hedonist. -- Post & Turner, "The Feast", pp. 32-33

The Need for Les Misérables

Two "shames" with regard to Les Misérables:

1.) It is a shame that the average Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christian won't see it. They'll go see whatever the latest film pushed as a Christian film is, because it is advertised as a Christian film, pushed on Evangelical radio stations and in churches, and having all the trappings of a Christian film. But Les Misérables has a far richer and clearer presentation of the Gospel than the majority of "Christian" films, without the bad acting, heavy-handed moralizing, and shoddy story telling.

2.) It is a shame that the average man won't see it, because it is a musical. It is rare that we see on screen, or anywhere in media, such an example of what it is to be a good man, a godly man. Jean Valjean shows what it is to repent, to forgive, to live one's life as a defender of the weak, to live sacrificially, and to finish life well. These are things men rarely see at all, but which desperately need to be more visible in our time.

Ministers as Gloomy Gusses

Just ran across this interesting quote from Chuck Swindoll:

"My vocation is among the most serious of all professions.  As a minister of the gospel and as the senior pastor of a church, the concerns I deal with are eternal in dimension.  A week doesn't pass without my hearing of or dealing with life in the raw.  Marriages are breaking, homes are splitting, people are hurting, jobs are dissolving, addictions of every description are rampant.  Needs are enormous, endless, and heartrending.

The most natural thing for me to do would be to allow all of that to rob me of my joy and to change me from a person who has always found humor in life - as well as laughed loudly and often - into a stoic, frowning clergyman.  No thanks.

Matter of fact, that was my number-one fear many years ago.  Thinking that I must look somber and be ultraserious twenty-four hours a day resulted in my resisting a call into the ministry for several years.  Most of the men of the cloth I had seen looked like they held down a night job at the local mortuary.  I distinctly remember wrestling with the Lord over all this before He pinned me to the mat and whispered a promise in my ear that forced me to surrender.  'You can faithfully serve Me, but you can still be yourself.  Being My servant doesn't require you to stop laughing.'  That did it.  That one statement won me over.  I finally decided I could be one of God's spokesmen and still enjoy life." -- "Laugh Again", pg 13

Meditation on Psalm 139

I was looking at Psalm 139, and a good portion of it seems to be divisible according to the incommunicable attributes of God:  vss. 1-6, omniscience; vss. 7-12, omnipresence; vss. 13-16, omnipotence.  Vss. 17-18 turn back to God's omniscience, and the last line of vs. 18 God's omnipresence.  The Psalmist's meditation on these things aren't a consideration of God's attributes as if they were an abstraction, or divorced from history.  God is not distant to the psalmist, but His attributes have personal impact on the psalmist's life.  The reality of who God is is a source of comfort and worshipful contemplation for the psalmist.  God is one who acts in history, in the lives of the people He has created, and He acts savingly for those who trust Him.

But then the psalmist turns a direction we tend to be uncomfortable with - he identifies with God against His enemies.  Singing a melody common throughout the Psalms, the antithesis between the wicked and the righteous, he not only identifies with God, but expresses his desire that God might slay His enemies for their opposition to Him.  But it is on the basis of what comes before, the psalmist's whole-hearted identification with God, that he sets himself against the wicked.  Those who truly identify with God, and delight in Him, will hate the wicked, so long as this age continues.  To have the heart of God is to hate evil and those who do it.

Lastly, the psalmist further expresses his trust in God by opening himself to God's examination, and expressing the willingness to change those things in himself that aren't right.  The Christian life is one of life-long, ongoing repentance.  Contrary to those who think that radical grace means one can live his life however he wants, the true believer understands that identifying with God means conformity to the thoughts of God (vs. 17), even to the person of God.  Trust means openness and, not just any sort of change, but specifically change accordingly to the will and character of the one a person is drawing near to, is open toward.  Repentance, and therefore sanctification, is conformity to the character of God, to His communicable attributes.

It is worth noting, as well, that we see here that humility is not contradictory to hating the wicked.  We seem to often have the notion that the humble man will, rather than acknowledging the wickedness of the wicked, turn the attention quickly back to himself instead.  But this Psalm, as the rest of Scripture, shows this to be a false humility.  A righteous man will hate the wicked and their deeds, while at the same time keeping himself in constant check, lest he himself follow in their ways and so depart from the God he loves.

The Unnecessary Beauty of the Holy Eucharist

The joyful character of the eucharistic gathering must be stressed.  For the medieval emphasis on the cross, while not a wrong one, is certainly one-sided.  The liturgy is, before everything else, the joyous gathering of those who are to meet the risen Lord and to enter with him into the bridal chamber.  And it is this joy of expectation and this expectation of joy that are expressed in singing and ritual, in vestments and in censing, in that whole "beauty" of the liturgy which has so often been denounced as unnecessary and even sinful.

Unnecessary it is indeed, for we are beyond the categories of the "necessary."  Beauty is never "necessary," "functional" or "useful."  And when, expecting someone who we love, we put a beautiful tablecloth on the table and decorate it with candles and flowers, we do all this not out of necessity, but out of love.  And the Church is love, expectation and joy.  It is heaven on earth, according to our Orthodox tradition; it is the joy of recovered childhood, that free, unconditioned and disinterested joy which alone is capable of transforming the world.  In our adult, serious piety we ask for definitions and justifications, and they are rooted in fear - fear of corruption, deviation, "pagan influences," whatnot.  But "he that feareth is not made perfect in love" (1 Jn. 4:18).  As long as Christians will love the Kingdom of God, and not only discuss it, they will "represent" it and signify it, in art and beauty.  And the celebrant of the sacrament of joy will appear in a beautiful chasuble, because he is vested in the glory of the Kingdom, because even in the form of man God appears in glory.  In the Eucharist we are standing in the presence of Christ, and like Moses before God, we are to be covered with his glory.  Christ himself wore an unsewn garment which the soldiers at the cross did not divide; it had not been bought in the market, but in all likelihood it had been fashioned by someone's loving hands.  Yes, the beauty of our preparation for the Eucharist has no practical use. ~ Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, pp. 29-30

On the Gospel of John

It just occurred to me recently, in studying the Gospel of John, that Jesus spends the book in either the synagogue or the Temple teaching, then run out of the Temple a few times, and then avoiding the city altogether until the week of his death. It all begins with him running people out of the Temple himself, accompanied by the allusion to himself as the Temple. In the middle of it all stands the man born blind who Jesus heals and who is thrown out of the synagogue. Comparisons and parallels with the Book of the Revelation should then follow. It's major things like that that you miss when you preach and read Scripture in an atomistic and moralistic frame.

"Radical Together", Sort of a Review

I had finished reading David Platt's first book "Radical" a few weeks ago, and was amazed at how little of substance the book had.  And since I had the sequel, "Radical Together", I thought I would go ahead and read it too.  Certainly it would flesh out more of what Platt was trying to say in the first book with more detail, I thought.  Alas, such is not the case.  Every once in awhile Platt says some good things.  But for the most part, this book, like its predecessor, is fairly vapid.  Adoption, which he promotes, is a great thing.  Missions is important.  But there is little actual Scriptural exegesis, and almost no theology to speak of.  He goes on and on about the importance of making disciples.  But I have yet to figure out from him what we are supposed to be teaching those disciples, other than that they are supposed to then go make disciples too.  Almost absent is any of the teaching actually found in Scripture.

I respect the way Platt has devoted himself to missions work, teaching, and preaching.  He has obviously been diligent in his service for God.  And maybe the place to find any substantial teaching would be in his sermons and the classes on Scripture he teaches.  But with the lack of clear thought I see in his books, I'm not too hopeful.  I can't for the life of me understand why some Reformed people have saddled up next to him the way they have.  Maybe there's more that I'm not seeing.  As far as his books go, there's just nothing there.

Doctrine in the Context of Community

It is true that doctrine divides. In a sinful world, that division at times is necessary. But it is also true that doctrine is meant to operate within the context of community, and when it functions outside of community, it creates unnecessary division, sinful division. Community becomes warped apart from doctrine; doctrine becomes warped apart from community. Bad doctrine is a community problem, and bad community is a doctrinal problem. It is worth considering that the lack of community in our day could be the cause, or a cause, of many of our doctrinal issues.

More on David Platt

I am currently reading David Platt's bestselling book "Radical Together", a follow-up to his book "Radical", for which I posted some notes a few weeks ago.  Like "Radical", while the book so far has some admirable qualities, it is lacking in sound theology, or, for that matter, any real theology at all.  A few things in particular stand out.  Platt, being a low church evangelical, seems to have no substantial ecclesiology.  This includes any real understanding of a Biblical doctrine of ordination and the clergy/laity distinction found in Scripture.  Since Platt is an Evangelical and a Baptist, this isn't entirely surprising.  Yet one would expect better from a pastor and former seminary professor.  He also lacks any solid notion of the Biblical doctrine of vocation.  Again, this isn't surprising from an Evangelical.  And the third thing that stands out, in connection with these other things, is his lack of Biblical understanding of the family.  The result of all this in real time is a church situation where all the people are constantly engaged in "ministry", using their jobs for saving souls rather than what they exist for, and neglecting their families for the sake of said "ministry".  It's a disastrous formula, one which has existed in the American church for some time, and which we have been reaping the benefits of, I believe, resulting in the dissolution of the Christian family, the dissolution of the organized Church, and, inevitably, the demoralizing of the State, as all these things are invariably connected.  It would be unfair to say the above doctrines, or lack thereof, have been solely responsible for the circumstances I just mentioned.  I would suggest nonetheless that they have been factors, and significant ones at that, at least in the Evangelical and Protestant community.

But I haven't finished the book, and I don't intend this as a full review.  Yet one small piece jumped out at me as I have been reading the book, which I'll put forward here.

Platt says, "We definitely do not have to construct buildings as houses of worship.  In the words of Stephen before he was martyred by the Sanhedrin, 'The Most High does not live in houses made by men'" (pgs. 62-63).  Platt misses the point that Solomon himself had acknowledged this in his prayer at the dedication of the Temple, to which Stephen was alluding (1 Kings 8:27).  And knowing this, Solomon built God a house anyway.  The point of Stephen's statement wasn't that houses of worship shouldn't be built.  It was that God would no longer be represented by one single house centrally located in Israel, that God would be worshipped from then on among all peoples of the earth, and that the Jewish people had not revered and worshipped the God that the Temple represented, which was bringing judgment upon Israel.

Platt seems to regard only two paradigms for church life - gigantic American megachurches, or emergency living in portions of the world where persecution from the government exists or where church life is simple due to poverty.  The former he rejects as unbiblical, the latter he idealizes.  He can't seem to acknowledge that there are other options, maybe wiser, more biblical options.  It would help if Platt had an idea of the maturity of the Church through history, and the development of Christian culture, evidenced in the spread of the Gospel since the establishing of the Church.  But as this is something that most Evangelicals fail to see in our day, despite regularly partaking of the fruits of Christendom, this isn't too shocking.

Mr. Platt has another book coming out the beginning of the year, one longer than what he's written so far, and hopefully it will be more substantial than what he's published up to this point.  Once again, this isn't to say that he has said nothing important.  But his books are largely so vapid that I have no clue what his foundational theological views are.  Where does he stand eschatologically, for instance?  This has an obvious impact on his conception of missions.  I wonder, though, if he even realizes that .  Perhaps Mr. Platt will begin to reflect more deeply on the various theological topics that have captured the Church over the past two thousand years, and he will use those things to examine his own beliefs and teaching.  This much I can say - from what I've read, these things are incredibly absent from his writings.

The Religiosity of State Education

Progressive education has two parents, Prussia and John Dewey.  The kindergarten was transplanted into the United States from Prussia in the nineteenth century because American reformers were so enamored of the order and patriotic indoctrination young children received outside the home (the better to weed out the un-American traits of immigrants).  One of the core tenets of the early kindergartens was the dogma that "the government is the true parent of the children, the state is sovereign over the family."  The progressive followers of John Dewey expanded this program to make public schools incubators of a national religion.  They discarded the militaristic rigidity of the Prussian model, but retained the aim of indoctrinating children.  The methods were informal, couched in the sincere desire to make learning "fun," "relevant," and "empowering."  The self-esteem obsession that saturates our schools today harks back to the Deweyan reforms from before World War II.  But beneath the individualist rhetoric lies a mission for democratic social justice, a mission Dewey himself defined as a religion.  For other progressives, capturing children in schools was part of the larger effort to break the backbone of the nuclear family, the institution most resistant to political indoctrination. -- Jonah Goldberg, "Liberal Fascism", pp. 326-327

The Nightmare of the Crucifixion

I read a piece of literature yesterday that described the crucifixion of Jesus as "the recurring nightmare of the church".  To reference it further or to quote it in context wouldn't make sense.  But I thought it was a brilliant, evocative image.  The cross is the ultimate nightmare, one that we rehearse over and over again - in our memories, in our deeds, in our words, and in our worship.  Imagine the worst possible thing happening to a person, and that is what stands at the center of our worship.  A man who, unlike us, truly deserves having no ill done to him.  Truly innocent of sin, and positively righteous in all he is and does.  Chased down by monsters and brutally killed, as in a horror story - the Psalms picture this repeatedly.  Like all good horror stories, absolute good exists, and wins in the end.  But this doesn't change the fact that the nightmare really is a nightmare, the horror story really is a horror story.

To worship God is to willingly descend again and again into sleep, knowing the nightmare awaits us.  Serving Christ entails being pursued by monsters.  To live in Christ is to participate in His nightmare, all the while knowing also that one day the nightmare will end for good, when we awake to sleep no more. 

Should We Favor Israel?

"For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God." Romans 2:25-29. As taught here by Paul, as well as elsewhere in the New Testament, God is no longer working with the Jewish people as a people distinct from the Gentiles. Jew and Gentile have been brought together and made one new man - new, in contrast with the old, that is, the Old Covenant (Eph. 2 & 3). To think then that anybody, any politician, or any nation, should favor a country that today calls itself "Israel" (the real Israel having ceased to exist two thousand years ago), over any other nation, Christian or otherwise, is contrary to what is taught in the New Testament. In addition, how any Christian could support the idea of Jewish people returning to the ceremonies of the Old Covenant, in light of the clear teaching of the Book of Hebrews, is baffling to me. As Hebrews makes it clear, any person, of Jewish descent or otherwise, who turns back to those ceremonies, is denying Christ.

We Move Toward What We Love

We say we long to be around those with whom we can be ourselves.  But we all, in fact, adapt ourselves to those we are with.  It may be unconscious, but those who are being sanctified change out of the duty of love, at times moment by moment, as we try to read those we engage with.  Also, to say that we want to be ourselves suggests that we think we are static and unchanging.  But if we are Christians this can't be true.  We grow to love that which we surround ourselves with.  We move towards, grow towards, that which we commune with, that which we love.  To remain the same is not only not loving - to remain the same is death.

The Roman Catholic Church Created Protestantism

Luther's goal was to reform the church, but the church repudiated him and what he was trying to do.  It is often said that Luther split from the Roman Catholic Church.  That is not true.  He was thrown out of the Roman Catholic Church.  There is a huge difference.  Luther was no schismatic.  He did not start some new religion on his own authority.  He did not dream up some new theology.  He was trying to bring the church back to its true nature and its true message, as defined by the Word of God, which the church itself professed to believe.

The Roman Church, in turn, refused to take the concerns seriously, much less give them a genuine hearing.  The pope refused to address even the most flagrant abuses that were obvious to everyone.  Instead of listening to those who questioned its direction, the Roman Church tried to destroy them.  Thus the Roman Catholic Church created Protestantism. -- Gene Edward Veith

The Pastoral Affection of John Calvin

John Calvin displays a Pauline love for the church under his charge, even in exile after having been sent away by the Genevans, in contrast to the harsh tyrant he is often portrayed as having been:  "For though I am for the present relieved of the charge of the Church of Geneva, that circumstance ought not to prevent me from embracing it with paternal affection - God, when He gave it to me in charge, having bound me to be faithful to it for ever.  Now, then, when I see the worst snares laid for that Church whose safety it has pleased the Lord to make my highest care, and grievous peril impending if not obviated, who will advise me to await the issue silent and unconcerned?  How heartless, I ask, would it be to wink in idleness, and, as it were, vacillating at the destruction of one whose life you are bound vigilantly to guard and preserve?" (Calvin's Reply to Sadoleto)

Pros and Cons of "Radical", by David Platt

Pros:

1.) Platt has a deep understanding of human depravity.
2.) His critique of consumeristic Evangelicalism is good and quite needed.
3.) His emphasis on learning and understanding the entire Bible - not just the New Testament - is refreshing and very needed in our time.
4.) He seeks to promote a God-centeredness in the Christian life, in contrast to the self-centeredness so common today, even in the Church.

Cons:

1.) He pushes very heavily the idea that it is the duty of every Christian individual to be personally involved in international missions. And he pushes it to the point that he sees it as disobedience to Scripture and therefore sin not to do so. The problem is that the Bible doesn't say that, no matter how he spins texts to try to make them say it. Up until the past hundred years, with technological advances in travel, such wouldn't have even been possible for the average Christian through most of history. Should the average medieval Christian villager, poor beyond our conception, have spent his life in constant guilt because he couldn't leave his family behind and hop a boat to the next pagan continent? When addressing logical and Biblical arguments against his idea, Platt simply dismisses them, rather than dealing with them. That is because Scripture simply doesn't teach what he says it does.

2.) He tries to address worldwide poverty and American wealth in an overly-simplistic way. With the system he sets up, one is left feeling perpetually guilty for owning anything. But the Bible doesn't support his teaching. He notes the complications involved in politics, economics, and the like. But whereas such realities should make him stop trying to address the issue, he keeps going. In this and other matters, where true solutions only come holistically, he teaches a reductionistic approach that will only result in failure.

3.) Platt lacks a clear and Biblical theology of family. He seems to see attention to family as in competition with missions. As a solution to this, he is in great need of a Biblical understanding of a hierarchy of responsibilities. Parental neglect of the primary duties of family inevitably results in children abandoning the Church and Christianity. And this will be the result of Platt's approach.

4.) In connection with the above, he lacks a Biblical theology of culture. His goal seems to be to see how little you can live with, and give the rest away. As I addressed somewhat above, this results in all sorts of problems. Who would develop culture, leading to the technological advancements which Platt enjoys and takes for granted, and which furthers the missions he seeks to invest himself in? Not only does somebody have to put in the plumbing, there had to be somebody to invent plumbing. Then you need people working on advances in plumbing and other technologies, to further and improve human life. This requires capital. Platt, in all of this, seems, as sometimes happens with Reformed Baptist types, to fall into a sort of cultural Anabaptism. He fails to understand what the New Testament means when it critiques "the World", ending up in a sort of anti-Biblical Gnosticism. He makes a few occasional comments that seem intended to prevent such a conclusion, but he ends up there in practice anyway. To put it another way, he ends up in the same place that is common with Evangelicals - rather than Redemption being a Redemption of all of Creation, Redemption ends up swallowing Creation.

5.) For Platt, everything is extreme. In this regard, he is unknowingly mirroring the culture he tries to reject. He is in constant crisis mode. Everything is "radical" and "urgent". The tyranny of the immediate rules in Platt's theology. Platt would do well to return to the agrarian imagery of Scripture. True change comes like the planting of a seed and the harvesting of a crop. It takes time, often a long time. And to switch the metaphor a bit...there are times to work, no doubt. And there are real needs. But there is also a Biblical theology of Sabbath, which Platt seems to have overlooked. Less Revivalism, more Reformation.

6.) Platt ends the book with pushing the reader to pledge to "The Radical Experiment", a pledge to five points of radical commitment for the coming year. And of course, the point is that you then commit to continue this lifestyle long after the year is up. What struck me is how easily the book conforms to the very monastic vows the Reformation stood against. There is the vow of poverty, the clearest in Platt's book. Then there is the vow of chastity. Platt himself doesn't appeal to that, being a married man himself. And yet it is very clear in his theology that family takes a back seat to missions. It is only logical then that family should be a hindrance, and not something to be pursued at all, if one wants to be a true disciple of Christ. And then there is obedience to a rule, which Platt's book qualifies as. These are the means to being a saint, in medieval Roman speak - or Radical, in Platt's way of speaking. Evangelicals don't like to hear how similar they often are to Rome, in contrast with the Reformation. And yet here we have another example of how true that can be.

7.) Historical ignorance. Platt's basic thesis, bound up with the above, is that the American Dream is unbiblical. Yet the American Dream is a decidedly ambiguous matter to begin with. Platt seems to think it necessarily includes individualism, but I would strongly disagree with that. There is a pagan concept of the American Dream, which Platt is trying to address. But then there is a Christian approach to the American Dream, born out of Western Christendom and founded upon Scripture. Platt, like alot of popular contemporary teachers, doesn't seem to know the difference.

The inevitable end result of Platt's teaching, as history has proven, will be massive burnout and abandoning of the Christian faith. The only question is how massive it will be.

Platt is open that he doesn't know everything, and is learning as he goes. That is admirable, especially from a guy with two master's degrees and a Ph.D. And as much as I appreciate the positives in his book, neither they nor his degrees fix the problems in the book. It's just another example of the fact that, in our time, though bestsellers are what everybody is reading, they are what nobody should be reading.