Leftist Consumerism #2

Our local Barnes and Noble stores have Starbucks Coffee shops in them, and as a coffee addict, I’ve been known to get a cup of coffee or two while perusing the shelves. It has increasingly been a struggle, however, as I’ve become aware of Starbucks’ involvement in some less than honorable social practices. Starbucks, I've learned, is notoriously sympathetic to the extreme Left. The newspapers they sell are leftist in their ideology. Starbucks has been known to support gay pride parades and other aspects of the homosexual agenda. And chances are slim that, among the CD’s they sell in their stores, you’ll find Handel’s Messiah or contemporary Christian artists like Third Day. Artists known for their anti-Christian lyrics, like Dave Matthews, however, are there in abundance.

But, knowing all of this, I was still surprised to discover the messages they’ve been printing on their cups and the ideas they were promoting through them. How, as a reader, I have never read what’s on the cup of coffee they give you, I don’t know.

My co-worker had stopped by Starbucks on the way to work the other morning, and she had bought latte’s for both of us. And so the day was starting well until I read this:

The Way I See It # 247

Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure.

- Bill Scheel, Starbucks customer from London, Ontario. He describes himself as a “modern day nobody.”

I was surprised. I couldn’t believe that Starbucks would be so brazen in publishing an attack on Christianity like this. And if I were Mr. Scheel, I personally wouldn’t want my ignorance spread throughout the world like this. To assume that faith in God is contrary to being consistently cognitive is to reveal a lack of knowledge of the Scriptures and the entire Christian tradition. Many have come to faith in Christ simply because of the historical evidence and Christianity’s logical coherence. In fact, Christianity is a religion built on the verity of historical claims. And to assume that we have the ability to inside ourselves apart from God to overcome difficulties is to assert quite a bit of over self-confidence, which many a dead humanist could testify against, could they communicate with us.

My co-worker was as shocked as I was, so we were intrigued to find the quote on her cup:

The Way I See It # 250

In reality, hell is not such an intention of God as it is an invention of man. God is love and people are precious. Authentic truth is not so much taught or learned as it is remembered. Somewhere in your pre-incarnate consciousness you were loved absolutely because you were. Loved absolutely, and in reality, you still are! Remember who you are!

- Bishop Carlton Pearson
Author, speaker, spiritual leader and recording artist

I’ve heard of Pearson before, but knew nothing about him. According to his website, he is promoting a “gospel of inclusion”, which is just a modern way of saying that all those passages in the Scripture that teach a literal Hell to which all the unrepentant will be sent when they die are simply untrue. Historically this has been called Universalism, and historic Christianity has, for the most part, rejected it as heresy. In fact, Pearson’s website notes that his viewpoint on Hell has been deemed by his Pentecostal colleagues to be heretical.

Pearson seems to have other errors besides this one, as indicated by this quote from his website:

" Since we came from God, we are made of the same substance as Divinity. "

Yet Scripture says Adam was a created being, made of the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7). And while God gave Adam life, to say that we, who are descended from Adam, are made of the same substance as Divinity, is to claim something contradicted by Scripture. God repeatedly sets himself apart from man throughout Scripture as a unique being and reminds us that we aren’t Him, but are rather created by Him. This statement instead sounds like the sort of statement one finds in Eastern philosophy, the kind that Pearson seems so intent on merging with Christianity, as he understands (or misunderstands) it.

I have a hard time understanding how one can say hell is “an invention of man” when God clearly teaches us this through His word. And if truth isn’t taught, then why does Pearson bother to teach? And what “pre-incarnate consciousness” is he talking about? This is something that is nowhere found in Scripture. There is no “pre-incarnate consciousness”. Eastern philosophy teaches this; Christianity does not.

But this is clever on the part of Starbucks. Find a guy wearing a clerical shirt who calls himself a Bishop and masquerades as a Christian minister and put a quote by him that clearly contradicts Christian teaching on your cups.

So am I suggesting, as Evangelicals often do, that we should boycott Starbucks or Barnes and Noble? No, not exactly. History has proven that boycotts accomplish little. Evangelical Christians from the ‘80’s through today have tried to power corporations into submission through boycotts, and it has proven largely ineffective. I’m not saying that you as an individual might not want to take your business elsewhere. As I said, it’s a struggle for me. I do regard the two companies as different, however. With Barnes and Noble, the increase of purchases of books and magazines that promote a more Biblical worldview might cause B & N to increase the prominence of better books on displays and on shelves. Ron Paul’s book might just make it onto the “In the Media” display, for instance. With Starbucks, however, it’s different. There’s no such thing as Christian coffee. They don’t provide a better choice when it comes to newspapers, and I doubt they’ll be sponsoring majoring Christian events any time soon. And while I like a lot of the music they sell, and wouldn’t have a problem buying it (somewhere else, that is), they are promoting a worldview that is the problem. You the consumer have to make your own decision on these things.

There is a bigger issue here, though. How do we as Christians change society? It isn’t through boycotts. As Paul spoke of the Jews, “For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24). And the same is true today. If those who aren’t God’s people speak ill of God, it is because of a failure on the part of God’s people. If we fail to worship God properly, if we fail to give him the glory and praise He is due, if we fail to show love and mercy as he does, and if we fail to live holy lives, then we will continue to fail to influence society for the better. If, however, we begin to do these things, God will honor our deeds, and blogs like this one won’t need to be written any more.

Leftist Consumerism #1

A friend of mine gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card a couple of weeks back that’s been burning a hole in my pocket, so I got the notion in my head yesterday that I needed to use it to buy Ron Paul’s book, A Foreign Policy of Freedom. I was surprised when looking on the B & N website, however, to find that they didn’t have any in stock. This is a major Republican presidential candidate for the ’08 election who has published a book this year, and they didn’t have it in stock. How strange. “Could it be that they sold all their copies immediately upon Paul’s win in the debate last week?” I thought to myself. There’s no way of knowing, I guess.

So I visited Amazon.com out of curiosity. Not only did they not have any listed in stock, they didn’t even show they could order new copies. And so the story gets weirder.

I was going to be out near one of the local B & N’s, so I thought I’d stop by and see if they had any of them. And sure enough, back in the corner in the “Politics” section they had two copies.

But what surprised me the most met me as I was walking up to the checkout. It was a display table in the middle of the aisle marked “In the Media” (which it was quite literally. But I digress). And what was on that table? Obama? Yes. Hillary? Of course. Ron Paul? Noticeably absent.

Is this how you spell the word “bias”?

If you want to buy the book, you can get it here. They’re actually interested in selling it, and I imagine they won’t have to special order it for you.

Ron Paul, the GOP's black sheep

I was amazed this evening as I was watching Hannity & Colmes at how quickly Sean Hannity dismissed Ron Paul’s decisive win at the GOP debate the other night. Anybody have any ideas why so-called conservatives are so quick to dismiss Paul? Is it because these so-called conservatives are really about big-spending and centralism and Paul isn’t?

For those of you familiar with the Constitution Party, you might find the comments on their website about Paul interesting.

Pick your method of indoctrination

ABC Family, that cable station that barely shows anything suitable for a family to watch, has showed The Sound of Music several times over the past couple of days. Aside from the songs carrying some seriously humanistic messages (“I have confidence in me”, “Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good”) I like the movie. I blame it on repeated watchings through middle and high school chorus classes. Just don’t tell any of my male friends that I like it, okay?

It’s rather interesting timing, coinciding with the beginning of the government school year as it has. Did somebody mention fascism? Oh, right, I did. Good thing we don’t deal with that in the U.S. today. (That’s sarcasm, folks.) In case anyone was wondering, the Von Trapp children were homeschooled. (That’s not sarcasm.)

I had forgotten the repeated line of Herr Zeller, Hitler’s lackey – “Nothing has changed in Austria.” Shades of Animal Farm. Orwell certainly knew what he was talking about.

You know the sad thing about channels like ABC Family? They might show a good movie occasionally like The Sound of Music. But if I had a family, I couldn’t let them watch the channel simply because of the commercials. I don’t feel so good about watching them myself.

“I must have done something good” – or was that, “I must have done some supererogatory works”? You know, the Roman Catholic theme is beginning to become clear…

Scriptural Speculations 3: The Heavenly Boaz

When one comes to a conviction that the Eucharist plays a more central role in the worship of the church than is typically practiced in Evangelicalism, it’s amazing how frequent one finds bread and wine together throughout Scripture. In a singles’ group I’ve been attending on Sunday evenings, we recently finished up a study of the Book of Ruth. But the relationship of the following verse to the Eucharist didn’t occur to me until the other day:

And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. (Ruth 2:14)

In the context, Ruth has gone to glean in Boaz’s field in order to provide for herself and Naomi. After working through the morning, the workers have broken for lunch. Boaz wasn’t required to provide for her lunch too, only to allow her to glean after his field hands. But he not only tells her not to go to any other field to glean (2:8-9), but he also calls her to sit and feast among his servants, in essence treating her better than her status as a poor person of the land would dictate. The similarity with James’s instructions on loving one’s neighbor (James 1:27 – 2:17, as well as other verses in James’s epistle), not to mention Jesus parable of the wedding feast (Luke 14:7-11) should not go unnoticed.

But in addition to this is the appearance of bread and wine in the passage. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, we shouldn’t suppose that he was starting all over with elements that had never been seen in the history of Israel before. God not only foreordained the appearance of these things in the history of Israel, but allowed them to appear in the Hebrew Scriptures for all to see.

The last phrase in the verse also signals us to Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand (Mt. 14:13-21; Mk. 6:30-44; Lk. 9:10-17; Jn. 6:1-13) and the feeding of the four thousand (Mt. 15:32-38; Mk. 8:1-10). The fact that the crowds, like Ruth, are described as being “satisfied”, as well as the comment that in each case there was food left over, suggests not only that the Gospel writers were intending to point out the parallel with Ruth’s situation, but that God Himself intended the similarities.

We might also note the number of baskets of food left in each case. In the feeding of the five thousand, there were twelve baskets left, no doubt pointing to the twelve tribes of Israel. In the feeding of the four thousand, there were seven baskets left, no doubt pointing to the seven day week God had instituted in the creation, and specifically to the Sabbath rest God had given to the world and which he had especially given to Israel. Incidentally (or Providentially), when one adds the one ephah of barley that Ruth gleaned in ch. 2 (vs. 17) with the six “measures” (presumably also ephahs, as the word describing the measurement is absent in the Hebrew) of barley that Boaz gives her in ch. 3 (vs. 15), we find that Ruth gains seven measures of barley from Boaz.

“But there is no wine at the feeding of the five thousand, or at the feeding of the four thousand,” you might be thinking. True enough, and that’s why Jesus’ discourse on being the bread of Heaven (John 6:22-71) is so important. This takes place the day after Jesus fed the five thousand (Jn. 6:22). Jesus criticizes the people for seeking Him only because he fed them and not because He can give them eternal life. But most significant for our discussion is that Jesus, toward the end of his discourse, tells the people that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life (Jn. 6:53-56). In that our Lord referred to the cup as his blood in the institution of the Supper, we can be assured that his words here are meant not only to point back to Old Testament passages like the one we find in Ruth, but also forward to his institution of the Supper.

As Boaz became the bridegroom of Ruth, so Jesus came as the Bridegroom of his New Israel (also in John, 3:29). And just as Boaz called Ruth to feast with him, so our Boaz calls us to feast with Him.

Greek Festival

For those of you who live in the Greensboro, NC area, the Greek Festival at the Dormition of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Church will be Friday September 14th through Sunday September 16th. For specific times, see the church website here. It’s a great time of becoming acquainted with various aspects of Greek culture – food, music, dancing, art, and worship. As one who believes that American culture is fairly vacuous in comparison to older traditional cultures like that of the Greeks, I have often found the beauty of Greek culture to create a measure of jealousy in me, such that I understand why a Protestant might jump ship and head to the Orthodox Church. (Yet the truth of Scripture has kept me from making such a leap.) So check it out, and be sure to take the tour of the church while you’re there.

In honor of the festival, let me share one of my favourite prayers from A Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers. It is entitled “Prayer for the Acceptance of God’s Will”, and is attributed to Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow:

O LORD, I know not what to ask of thee. Thou alone knowest what are my true needs. Thou lovest me more than I myself know how to love. Help me to see my real needs which are concealed from me. I dare not ask either a cross or consolation. I can only wait on thee. My heart is open to thee. Visit and help me, for thy great mercy’s sake. Strike me and heal me, cast me down and raise me up. I worship in silence thy holy will and thine inscrutable ways. I offer myself as a sacrifice to thee. I put all my trust in thee. I have no other desire than to fulfil thy will. Teach me how to pray. Pray thou thyself in me. Amen.

Politically Incorrect Guides

I’ve talked to a handful of people recently who have been reading some of the books from the Politically Incorrect Guide series. While I haven’t looked at any of them myself, the reviews I’ve heard have been more than favourable. So I was quite glad when last night on Book TV on C-Span 2 I discovered presentations from two of the authors from that series. The first was from Elizabeth Kantor, the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature, and the second was from Carrie Lukas, the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism. Both talks were sponsored by The Eagle Forum, a conservative pro-family group I had not heard of before. And both talks were very interesting and informative, not to mention being a nice contrast from the liberal indoctrination and otherwise unintelligent babble found on TV. Ms. Kantor’s talk is free for the viewing on Book TV’s website, so I highly encourage any and all to watch it. It doesn’t appear that Ms. Lukas’s talk is up yet, but it may be added in the future, so keep your eyes open for it. Those of you who take a special interest in women’s issues will find Ms. Kantor’s talk as informative on these matters as Ms. Lukas’s, as Ms. Kantor briefly addressed the view of women in Western thought as it has been historically expressed in Western Literature.

There was also a presentation this evening by Christopher Horner, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism. I haven’t watched that one yet, but here’s the page for those interested.

St. Jerome on Apostolic Succession

While surfing the net a couple of months back I found this interesting quote on the website of New Life Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Midland, Texas. As you’ll see, it is a quote from St. Jerome on the matter of the Apostolic Succession of Bishops. It is quite revealing, as Jerome here argues against the idea that, since the founding of the church, bishops have been ordained by other bishops as set apart from presbyters or priests – in other words, that the bishopric is an entirely separate office from the presbytery, and that the presbytery is derived from the bishopric, rather than the other way around. And this from the guy who translated the Latin Vulgate. It’s a wonder he ever became a saint and a church father.

We read in Isaiah the words, "the fool will speak folly," and I am told that some one has been mad enough to put deacons before presbyters, that is, before bishops. For when the apostle clearly teaches that presbyters are the same as bishops, must not a mere server of tables and of widows be insane to set himself up arrogantly over men through whose prayers the body and blood of Christ are produced? Do you ask for proof of what I say? Listen to this passage: "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons." Do you wish for another instance? In the Acts of the Apostles Paul thus speaks to the priests of a single church: "Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock, in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to feed the church of God which He purchased with His own blood." And lest any should in a spirit of contention argue that there must then have been more bishops than one in a single church, there is the following passage which clearly proves a bishop and a presbyter to be the same. Writing to Titus the apostle says: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain presbyters in every city, as I had appointed thee: if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God." And to Timothy he says: "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." Peter also says in his first epistle: "The presbyters which are among you I exhort, who am your fellow-presbyter and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: feed the flock of Christ' ... taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly, according unto God." In the Greek the meaning is still plainer, for the word used is episkopountes, that is to say, overseeing, and this is the origin of the name overseer or bishop. But perhaps the testimony of these great men seems to you insufficient. If so, then listen to the blast of the gospel trumpet, that son of thunder, the disciple whom Jesus loved and who reclining on the Saviour's breast drank in the waters of sound doctrine. One of his letters begins thus: "The presbyter unto the elect lady and her children whom I love in the truth; " and another thus: "The presbyter unto the well-beloved Gains whom I love in the truth." When subsequently one presbyter was chosen to preside over the rest, this was done to remedy schism and to prevent each individual from rending the church of Christ by drawing it to himself. For even at Alexandria from the time of Mark the Evangelist until the episcopates of Heraclas and Dionysius the presbyters always named as bishop one of their own number chosen by themselves and set in a more exalted position, just as an army elects a general, or as deacons appoint one of themselves whom they know to be diligent and call him archdeacon. For what function excepting ordination, belongs to a bishop that does not also belong to a presbyter? It is not the case that there is one church at Rome and another in all the world beside. Gaul and Britain, Africa and Persia, India and the East worship one Christ and observe one rule of truth. If you ask for authority, the world outweighs its capital. Wherever there is a bishop, whether it be at Rome or at Engubium, whether it be at Constantinople or at Rhegium, whether it be at Alexandria or at Zoan, his dignity is one and his priesthood is one. Neither the command of wealth nor the lowliness of poverty makes him more a bishop or less a bishop. All alike are successors of the apostles.

St. Jerome to Evangelus, Letter 146 - http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001146.htm

A couple of websites, in my absence

I’ve had little time for blogging as of late, so thank you to those of you who continue to visit. Hopefully I’ll be able to do some more writing before too long. For now, here’s a couple of my favourite websites, in case you want to check them out.

Issues Etc. is a radio show that airs on KFUO am in Missouri. It’s hosted by Todd Wilkins, a minister in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. (Some of you might know it’s former host better – Don Matzat, author, LCMS minister, and sometime Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals board member.) Wilkins & co. address theological issues, as well as a host of cultural and political issues from a Lutheran perspective, and they interview a wide variety of guests along the way. They air four times a week live, with the Sunday evening show being syndicated (so it might even air on one of your local Christian stations). And they archive everything they do, so if you miss it, you can go back and listen to it later. I’ve been listening to it when I’ve been eating or just bopping around the house doing various things. It’s quite enjoyable, and it’s one way for me to catch up with the latest national and international news that really is worth hearing about without turning on the idiot box and filtering through all the garbage. Among the recent topics, I think my favourite was Wilkins & co.'s visit to Joel Osteen's church (July 17).

And for something on the humorous end of things, not to mention politically incorrect, check out Engrish.com.

Martyrdom

When Christ calls a man, he bids that man to come and die.

-- World War II martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The latest issue of Christianity Today features a short article (less than a page long) on the martyrdom last April of three Christians in Malatya, Turkey. German missionary Tilmann Geske, local pastor Necati Aydin, and former Muslim Ugur Yuksel were assaulted, tortured, and murdered by a group of Muslims. The article, interspersed with several verses of Scripture about the necessity of a Christian’s suffering for his faith, was well written and inspiring.

Nonetheless, there’s one problem I have with it. It cleaned up the facts of exactly what happened in the death of these men. The article says that they were tied to chairs, “stabbed…slowly and deliberately”, and that then their throats were slit. This is all true, but the most gruesome details were left out. Here they are, for those with the stomach for them:

[Details of the torture–
* Tilman was stabbed 156 times, Necati 99 times and Ugur’s stabs were too numerous to count. They were disemboweled, and their intestines sliced up in front of their eyes. They were emasculated and watched as those body parts were destroyed. Fingers were chopped off, their noses and mouths and anuses were sliced open. Possibly the worst part was watching as their brothers were likewise tortured. Finally, their throats were sliced from ear to ear, heads practically decapitated.]

A fair bit more than what CT presented, isn’t it? The question I’m asking is this – why leave out the details? They would offend some, certainly. And maybe the reason why CT’s writer (whose name is not with the article) would leave out the details is the same reason I would signal my reader in advance that they are about to read something that not all can handle. But why not signal the reader just as I did? It could just be that the writer was attempting to present the facts in a narrative fashion, and including such details would have seemed out of place. I suspect, however, that something else is going on here.

Let’s be frank here. Most American Evangelicals are pansies. We walk into our Christian Junk Stores and the hallucinogenic smell of perfumed satchels with Scripture verses emblazoned on them waft into our nostrils while we fill up our baskets with the latest cheesy Christian t-shirts and plastic inspirational dust catchers. Somehow, we aren’t any holier for all of it, and I can’t help but think that it does more to separate us from the heart of our faith than anything.

On the other hand, we live in an extremely violent culture. I’m more amazed each day at the lengths that TV shows will go to as they push the edges of accepted decency. This is especially true on the 24 hour a day news channels, where they seem to compete constantly over who can create the greatest sense of excitement and thereby deceive you into believing that what they are really presenting to you is “news”. Every time they say, “What we are about to show you may offend some,” they know there ratings are about to go up, which is really what it’s all about for them.

Christians watch these shows, and so violence is nothing new for them. And it’s also true with movies. I’d dare say most Evangelicals have seen Braveheart, and so, while Wallace’s torture and death scene was not very explicit, the rest of the movie was. On top of this, most people probably know something of the historic practice of drawing and quartering. And for those who haven’t seen Braveheart, most certainly have seen Mel Gibson’s more recent film, The Passion of the Christ.

This leads us back to the history of martyrdom in the church. Anyone who’s spent a significant amount of time in the Evangelical church, I would think, would know something about martyrdom. Sadly, the presentations I’ve met with having grown up in the church have often been sanitized. Hearing about those who were martyred generally involves the following: the person is captured and killed, end of story. To mention that they were tortured was an extra step that was usually left out. But, once again, those who are martyred usually suffer much, much more.

And so I see the church’s treatment of martyrdom, and of violence in general, to be somewhat contradictory. We’ll watch it on TV or in the movies, where we’re able to view it from a distance. We can remain uninvolved and unaffected. This way, we can say we’re addressing it without there being any cost to us.

But the heart of the Christian faith is entirely different than what we often treat it as being. N. T. Wright addresses this in his book What Saint Paul Really Said:

It is an obvious truism to say that the cross stands at the heart of Paul’s whole theology… We are in danger of being lulled by this constant refrain [of the importance of the cross] into insensibility to what Paul was actually saying – and, equally importantly, was heard to be saying in the world of his day. Crucifixes regularly appear as jewellery in today’s post- Christian Western world, and the wearers are often blissfully unaware that their pretty ornament depicts the ancient equivalent, all in one, of the hangman’s noose, the electric chair, the thumbscrew, and the rack. Or, to be more precise, something which combined all four but went far beyond them; crucifixion was such an utterly horrible thing that the very word was usually avoided in polite Roman society. Every time Paul spoke of it – especially when he spoke in the same breath of salvation, love, grace and freedom – he and his hearers must have been conscious of the slap in the face thereby administered to their normal expectations and sensibilities. Somehow, we need to remind ourselves of this every time Paul mentions Jesus’ death, especially the mode of that death.

Paul, as did the other writers of Scripture, recognized that there are far more important questions than whether or not our sensibilities are offended. The more I’ve read Scripture over the past couple of years, the more it has occurred to me how often the faithful men and women of Scripture went out of their way to offend people. Certainly, it was never being offensive simply to offend, or as an attempt to control and manipulate others (say, in the way the marketers of Christian merchandise attempt to do). Rather, it was to bring to light the evils of sin and to lead to salvation. Nonetheless, they were offensive, and Scripture presents this as being something worth doing at times in order to accomplish God’s will. As Paul himself tells us in 1 Corinthians, the cross itself is an offense.

In American Christianity, we have a hard time imagining that following Christ could include such commitment or result in so gruesome a death. But for those who through the centuries have sought to obey God’s word, this has often been their end. One of the most violent deaths in the history of the church that I know of is that of the Scottish Covenanter martyr, David Hackston. Hackston stood with the Covenanters and fought against the king’s dragoons during the Killing Times of the 17th century. After a time of resistance, he was captured and carried to Edinburgh, where he received his sentence:

That his body be drawn backward on a hurdle to the Cross of Edinburgh; that there be a high scaffold erected a little above the cross, where in the first place his right hand is to be struck off, and after some time his left hand; that he is to be hanged up and cut down alive, his bowels to be taken out, and his heart to be shown by the hangman to the people; then his heart and his bowels to be burned in a fire prepared for that purpose on the scaffold; that afterward his head be cut off, and his body divided into four quarter, his head to be fixed on the Netherbow, one of his quarters with both his hands to be affixed at St. Andrews, another quarter at Glasgow, a third at Leith, a fourth at Burntisland; that none presume to be in mourning for him, nor any coffin brought; that no person be suffered to be on the scaffold with him save the two ballies, the executioner and his servants; that he be allowed to pray to God almighty, but not to speak to the people; that the heads of [Richard] Cameron and [John] Fowler be affixed on the Netherbow; that Hackston’s and Cameron’s heads be affixed on higher poles than the rest.

Jock Purves, from whose book Fair Sunshine I am taking this account, goes on to describe the execution:

Already dying from his ghastly wounds, he was led away to suffer. While great crowds looked on, there was done upon him by the hangman a gross, painful barbarity not mentioned in his sentence. Then he endured with firmness and patience the cutting off of his hands, but, the hangman having taken such a long time to hack off his right hand, he asked that his left hand might be taken off at the joint, which was done. With a pulley he was then pulled to the top of the gallows, and when choked a little was let down alive. The hangman then with a sharp knife opened his breast, and putting in his hand pulled out his heart. It fell upon the scaffold and moved there. The hangman picked it up on the point of his knife, and, carrying it around the scaffold, he showed it to the people saying, ‘Here is the heart of a traitor.’ Patrick Walker says that it fluttered upon the knife. The rest of the sentence was duly carried out. The free grace of God was glorified in David Hackston, so that whoever thinks of him must think of his Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, too.

The most amazing thing is why the Covenanters died. They opposed the King’s attempts to require certain worship practices and a certain form of government in the church. These died horrible deaths over Sunday worship and church government, and we have a hard time getting out of bed to go to church anywhere on Sunday morning. We are a sad lot.

But are the details in describing a martyrdom really necessary? Certainly, not every detail needs to always be shared. Even in Purves’ account, he speaks of a “barbarity” that he declines to mention more specifically. And one can also either grow numb to the violence through excessive exposure, such as is caused by violent entertainment, or simply grow to delight in it, which is a horrible thing in itself. Nonetheless, to always refuse to speak of the details is to ignore the fact that following Christ is to “participate in his sufferings”. Christ suffered because there is sin in this world, and we will suffer in some small measure in Christ’s name for the same reason. The details remind us that we are still in a sinful world, a world that is yet to reach the fullness of redemption. We can rest assured, however, that this redemption will come, as it was accomplished through the suffering of the God-Man, Jesus Christ our Lord.

George Grant on the Call to Dominion

We are not to stop with simply telling the nations that Jesus died for the sinner’s sins. We are to demonstrate Christ’s lordship in our families, in our churches, in our work, in our communities, and in our cultures. We’re to make disciples who will obey everything that He commanded, not just in the hazy zone of piety, but in the totality of life. This is the thrust of the Great Commission. It is the spiritual, emotional, and cultural mandate to win all things in the name of Jesus. And though we know that only Christ Himself can fulfill that mandate in its entirety at the close of history, our duty is but to trust and obey. We are to occupy until He comes. The tendency of modern Christians to sidestep all of the implications of the Great Commission except soul-saving has, in stark contrast, paved the way for inhuman humanism’s program to afflict the helpless and crush our liberties and despoil our culture. We tend to be very quick to point the finger, and say, “Oh, woe is Washington! Oh, woe is Hollywood!” – when, in fact, it is our unbelief, our refusal to actually believe that God expects, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven” to be answered in the affirmative. We have reduced the Gospel to snatching a few brands from the flickering flames of perdition and, as a result, virtually all Christian influence has been removed from the world. There is little or nothing to restrain the ambitions of evil men and movements. It is no wonder then that whole cultures, whole nation states, set themselves to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. God’s counsel goes unheard and unheeded because we don’t really believe that Jesus is Lord.

- George Grant, from a lecture entitled “Ruling All the Earth”, given at the Highlands Study Center conference, “For the Beauty of the Earth”, April 2, 2004.

Another Catholic convert

A few months ago, I was talking to a friend about some of his studies in church history, particularly in relation to the historic relationship between Islam and the Christian Church. My friend, a Protestant, was lamenting the loss of a unified front against Islam, which was the result of the Protestant Reformation. He also expressed his concern over new, start-up denominations, and his tendency to more naturally trust those Christian groups whose claims to historicity are verifiable. The nature of his statements was such that I questioned him about his Protestant credentials, but he assured me that he still believed in the doctrines that set the Reformation apart from Rome. And so far as I know, he is still standing with the Reformation.

It was less than a week later when I found myself having answer some of the same charges. I was reading a book on the Latin rite of the Roman Church as it was in practice in the U. S. prior to Vatican II. A friend of mine, who is a more staunch Presbyterian than I am, saw that I was reading it, and began questioning me about it. To be fair to him, I think he had been concerned for me for some time, as he observed my interest in liturgy grow, and as he watched me join an Anglo-Catholic church. My reason for reading on the Mass had nothing to do with any inclination to depart from Protestantism. I had actually been leading a book study group through a story by Flannery O'Connor, and decided it would be good to familiarize myself with the form of worship she would have participated in during her life in order to get a better understanding of her writing. Thankfully, my friend is one of the more reasonable sorts of staunch Presbyterians (a rare breed indeed), and so believed me when I explained myself to him.

This anecdotal situation is probably one more and more common these days. There's a paranoia in Reformed circles about Romanism in general. I don't think this is entirely new; I get the impression from the things I've read that since the sixteenth century the Reformation has had too much of a tendency to define itself according to what Rome isn't. And yet this has been amplified in recent years. The past twenty years has seen Protestant after Protestant venturing to Rome to find whatever, that whatever seeming to vary from person to person. Add to this the converts to either Anglo-Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, and the numbers are sufficient to give anyone bearing the moniker "Reformed" a perpetually sustained nervous twitch.

I think there are things that the Reformed need to learn from this trend, though I won't try to enumerate those things now. I gladly bear the moniker "Reformed" myself, and have no intention of casting it off any time soon. But I remain Reformed with the hope that my fellow Reformed brethren will wake up to their own failures that are causing this movement.

I write these things due to another report of a departure for Rome, this time coming from a member of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. The person involved this time isn't a pastor or theologian, but philosophy professor Robert Koons. For those who want to read it in his own words, you will find his report of his conversion here. I won't use my blog to report on every person converting to this or that group, but I found this story particularly interesting. I think that my favorite statement in Koons' piece was this one:

The [Roman Catholic/Lutheran] Joint Declaration and the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church aided me in giving a closer and more charitable reading to the anathemas of the Council of Trent (which I still believe to be have been written in an unprofitably provocative way).

I'm not entirely sure how one gives a "more charitable reading" of anathemas, but apparently it's possible. At any rate, it's important to read stories like this one, if the Reformed church is ever going to be able to answer the charges against it effectively.

You said, "I love you"

You said, “I love you,” and I know it is true.
I love you too, but I responded with silence,
Because mine is a love you would never countenance.
I am a particle of your life, kept conveniently in its place,
Present when you want, and away when you wish.
As we are apart, I am alone wondering
Where you are, and whom you are with,
And in part, I know.
You are riding the wind wherever it may blow,
As a leaf flies in a storm, landing
Where it may or may not wish.
You are wandering as a nomad, from here to there,
Seeking what, you do not know,
But ever convinced that it lies
Beyond the next dune.
I would shield you from the winds, if you would let me,
And make you a home
That you need never again wander.
But though you love me,
You love your winds and wandering more.
And so I will ever respond in silence,
For yours is a love
I could never countenance.

Scriptural Speculations 2: Water from heaven

As I’ve been studying the Book of Revelation recently, the importance of gaining a right understanding of the covenant in Scripture has become more apparent to me. This was also brought to my attention this morning as I read the Old Testament text assigned for the Morning Prayer service in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The text was Deuteronomy 11:10-17, but let’s begin at verse 8:

8 “You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, 9 and that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables. 11 But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, 12 a land that the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

13 “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. 15 And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. 16 Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; 17 then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.

In the first section of verses, Yahweh speaking through Moses draws a contrast between Egypt, which the Israelites had left, and the Promised Land, which Yahweh was giving them. The point of contrast is interesting, being the different ways each of the two lands were watered. In Egypt, the Israelites had to work hard to irrigate the fields so that the crops might be watered. But in the Promised Land, they are told, this work would not need to be done. Water would come from heaven, directly from the hand of Yahweh Himself. God Himself is the Supreme Gardener.

This should have immediately brought two historical matters to mind for the Israelites. First, the Israelites were still at this point receiving the manna from heaven every morning as the means by which God was feeding them. Even as Israel was receiving bread directly from God’s hand, they would soon in the Promised Land receive water directly from God by which they might be sustained.

Secondly, this promise should have brought the Garden of Eden to the mind of the Israelites. Prior to the fall, we are told that “a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden” (Gen. 2:10). Even though God put Adam in the garden to tend it, one work that Adam didn’t have to do was irrigation. God Himself provided for that. He was essentially telling Israel that He was giving to them a new Garden of Eden. Certainly, the effects of the Fall remained. Man would still work “by the sweat of his brow”. But God was redeeming the world through Israel, and his first step in redeeming the world was to put them in a new Eden.

In the last section of verses, Yahweh sets out the possibility of either covenantal blessing or of covenantal cursing. If Israel walks in faithfulness, God will send rain, and Israel’s blessings will overflow. But if they turn away from God, He will shut up the heavens and Israel will perish. This is repeated later in Deuteronomy (28:23-24), and had already been spoken to Israel once when they began their journey in the wilderness (Leviticus 26:19-20). Both passages speak of the earth and the heavens, as well as iron and bronze. (It is interesting that in Leviticus 26:19, the heavens are spoken of as becoming like iron and the earth like bronze, whereas in Deuteronomy 28:23 the two are reversed, the heavens being spoken of as becoming like bronze, and the earth becoming like iron. I have no idea what the reason for the switch might be.) The contrast between these two passages and Deut. 11 is that these two passages only contain the negative sanctions and Deut. 11 contains the positive as well.

Knowing that Yahweh made this declaration is important in making sense out of later portions of Scripture as He entered into judgment upon His people. Solomon invoked this promise of Yahweh when he prayed at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 8):

35 “When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, 36 then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk, and grant rain upon your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.

Here Solomon not only remembers God’s promise of judgment for unfaithfulness, but prays for God’s forgiveness for those who repent, reminding Him of His promise to do this (Deut. 30:1-10). In 2 Chronicles 7 we are told that when God appeared to Solomon in the night after the dedication, God promised that He would indeed do as Solomon asked (vss. 13-14).

In time, however, Israel did follow after other gods, and Yahweh brought this promised curse upon Israel. Yahweh sent His prophets as covenant lawyers to pronounce to Israel that He was entering into judgment with them. The prophecy of Amos recounts a time when Yahweh did withhold rain (Amos 4:7-8). But the most well known case of this is probably the account of drought pronounced by Elijah during the days of Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 17-18).

This is a point where I have found understanding the covenant to be so helpful. I have spent most of my life thinking about the various stories in Scripture in a disconnected way. Whereas I knew that God was, in the days of Elijah, for instance, disciplining Israel for its disobedience through the drought, I had never connected that with His establishing of a covenant with Israel. God, when He chose to discipline Israel this way, didn’t pick drought out at random. The choice of withholding rain was based on His special blessings given to them of a land watered by His own direct working, and was tied into the covenant in a special way. We also see in this that God is not a fickle, unpredictable God. He had warned Israel long before what He would do if they were unfaithful to Him. When He entered into covenant with them, He stated the stipulations of the covenant, and so in shutting up the heavens, He was simply keeping His word.

Jesus recounted Elijah and the drought when He appeared in the synagogue in Nazereth at the beginning of His ministry:

23 And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself.’ What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.” 24 And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.

At first we are told that “all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth” (vs. 22). Yet Jesus, as he was wont to do, opted to pick a fight with those that weren’t looking for one, and so he stated the words above. Why would Jesus’ words have caused the men in the synagogue to be “filled with wrath”? Well, for one thing, he proclaimed himself to be a prophet. Since prophets were lawyers bringing a lawsuit against the nation, a prophet wouldn’t have been good news for people who thought that everything was going just fine. If these people had a problem, it would have been with Rome ruling over them, not with themselves – or so they thought.

But secondly, Jesus was invoking the memory of two occasions in Israel’s history in which Israel suffered for their disobedience and God chose to bless Gentiles instead of Israel. To those who clung to their parentage as if it alone would save them, these would not have been welcome words. Both of these occasions foretell of the day when Gentiles would be welcomed into the Kingdom without becoming Jews. And Jesus came to bring that day in its fullness.

The promise of God to withhold rain as a covenantal judgement continued in the Revelation, as we are told of the destruction of Jerusalem in relation to the two witnesses (Rev. 11:6). The language of drought and plagues has caused commentators to relate the two witnesses as being Moses and Elijah. Adding to this is the statement that the prophets would prophecy 1260 days, and that the holy city would be trampled for forty-two months (Rev. 11:2-3), also drawing the parallel to Elijah’s drought. That Jerusalem is in view here is no question, as the allusion to it in 11:8 is drawn clearly. God had promised certain curses for disobedience, and on the basis of that covenant He acted in the destruction of Jerusalem.

All of this brings us back to Zechariah 14. The covenantal blessings and cursings apply to us today. I do not pretend to know how this plays out practically. Certainly the covenant has been reshaped and transformed by Christ’s work. But as Zechariah testifies regarding the nations, for those who do not worship the LORD, the plague of drought remains a curse (Zech. 14:16-19). For those, however, that would serve the God of the covenant, rivers of living water are promised to them (Zech. 14:8, Rev. 22).

Jerry Falwell deceased

Jerry Falwell was found dead this morning... read about it here.

Scriptural Speculations #1: Zechariah 14

As I mentioned before, I am part of a Bible study group that is currently discussing the Book of the Revelation. Everybody in the group other than myself is premillennial, if not fully Dispensational, by default, as is most everyone in the American Evangelical church scene these days. Nonetheless the group has been welcoming to my different perspective, and our conversations have been quite enjoyable.

I came in late to the group. They had been meeting for a while before I joined, and had already made it to Revelation 16. The book the group is using as a guide is David Jeremiah’s Escape the Coming Night. The book is a standard, popular-level Dispensational treatment of Revelation. And as much as I have benefited from Dr. Jeremiah’s radio program through the years, we differ significantly on many things, of which the Book of the Revelation is one. To put it less politely, I think Dr. Jeremiah misses the point of Revelation entirely. It isn’t about the events beginning with the rapture and continuing through the end of the world. Rather, the book is about the events surrounding the dissolution of the Old Covenant world, connected with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

We just finished ch. 16 of the book, which corresponds with ch. 16 of Revelation. In this chapter Dr. Jeremiah, as other Dispensationalists do, runs through the Old Testament picking out passages about destruction here and there, and links them together to create his schema for the future. One section that figures prominently is the last few chapters of Zechariah. I don’t have the entire Bible figured out (who does?) but I have some thoughts on Zechariah 14 in particular that come from my own preterist perspective. I wrote these up and sent them to our fearless Bible study leader, but he has yet to respond, which I hope is not a sign of just how convoluted my ideas are. I’ve thought for awhile about starting a blog series entitled “Scriptural Speculations” though, and I figured that maybe this wouldn’t be a bad way to start that series. The following is rough, in that it is simply the email as sent with very little editing. I hope it’s possible to follow it anyway. Also, these thoughts are far from conclusive. I haven’t read any commentaries on the passages in question, so I don’t know if any scholars would agree with me. And if you the reader have any thoughts, I welcome them, so please post them in the comments or email them to me.

The questions we’ve been dealing with involve Typology in relation to prophecy. It seems to me that most Dispies like to reserve Typology to the person and work of Christ. In fact, growing up in the Plymouth Brethren, I was taught that Typology in Scripture only functions in relation to Christ. In other words, there are no types that find their antitypes in, for instance, the Church. So I was taught that Israel in the Old Testament couldn’t refer to the Church in the New Testament. But when I became Reformed, I realized that this was wrong.

As a preterist, I would tend to interpret such passages in relation to the first century, as you know. What happens in this approach is that statements that refer to Israel are interpreted as referring to the Church. Also, statements that refer to the nations refer to the enemies of the Church, which enemies would include unbelieving Israel. Of course, this is overly simplistic. Jesus is the True Israel, and the church is Israel only through Him. So Israel could refer to Christ Himself rather than the church.

The thoughts I have refer specifically to Zech. 14. Simply put, it seems to me that the parallel to Zech. 14 (or, at least, one parallel) is found in John 7, and possibly part of John 8. There are two parallels that cause me to believe this. First is the context of John 7. The context is the Feast of Booths (or Tabernacles, as it’s sometimes called). The related passage in Zechariah is Zech. 14:16-19. The second parallel is John 7:37-39:

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

It is interesting to consider what comes right after this as well:

40 When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Christ.”

The parallel to this is Zech. 14:8-9:

8 On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.

9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.

See also Ezekiel 47:1 and following, as well as Genesis 2:10-14. Also to consider here is the river that flowed into (or out of – I don’t recall) O.T. Jerusalem (I couldn’t find a text reference for this one). All of these, I would suggest, are parallel, along with Revelation 22:1, 17. The point to be made here, which is typified in each case, is that wherever God dwells, from there, water of life flows out into the whole world. And the water is connected with the Spirit of God. This is often related to the historic defense of Baptismal Regeneration. The picture here is also one of life flowing out to the rest of the world from the people of God, which in the OT meant Israel, but in the NT means the Church. So today, the fountainhead of salvation is to be found in the Church. There’s a rabbit trail I could follow further here, but I’ll resist the temptation.

If you want to carry the parallels with Zechariah 14 over into John 8, one more parallel is possible, and that’s in John 8:12, right after the controversial beginning of the chapter:

12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The parallel in Zechariah is in 14:6-7:

6 On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. 7 And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.

There is little else to consider in looking at John 7-8, because most of the text deals with Jesus defending Himself as a true prophet from God and the various discussions among the Jews about the genuineness of His profession. Nonetheless, I would consider these parallels significant, and would suggest that Jesus is here at least saying, “The fulfillment of Zechariah 14 is coming in conjunction with my ministry.” Now I think part of that came in His incarnation and establishing of the Church (the establishing of the kingdom, Zech. 14:6-11, and the coming of the nations to Jerusalem, Zech. 14:16-21), and part of it came in the destruction of Jerusalem as a covenantal judgment, which included the rescue of the Church (Zech. 14:1-5, 12-15). Part of this might also be projected into the future coming of Christ, depending on how one reads Revelation 22 (see Rev. 22:1-5; parallel Rev. 22:1 with Zech. 14:8 and parallel Rev. 22:5 with Zech.14:7). I don’t really know how all the details play out, but I haven’t spent the time that figuring all of this out would require.

Two other passages you might want to consider in connection with this is Ezra 3:1-7 and Nehemiah 8:13-18. In each case, the Feast of Booths is specified as something key that the Israelites resumed observing in the process of returning from Exile into the land. For Israel, returning from physical Exile also meant returning from spiritual Exile. Jesus, in calling to “anyone” to come to Him, was calling for a return from spiritual Exile. This was true specifically for Israel, though the call was different from Ezra and Nehemiah’s days, in that the call was also now open in a new way to the nations. Cf. again Zech. 14:16 & following.

Book Review

The Victory of Christ's Kingdom: An Introduction to Postmillennialism by John Jefferson Davis, published by Canon Press, 1996

Postmillennialism is the view of the end times that holds that Jesus Christ will return bodily to the earth after an unprecedented period of righteousness and blessing on the earth, which period of time is commonly called by theologians "the millennium", based on Revelation 20:1-6. While it is still an uncommon view in the church, it has received something of a resurgence in recent years, especially in Reformed and Presbyterian circles. After wrestling with the various positions on the end times for a few years, I came to embrace Postmillennialism as the view taught by Scripture. I recently joined a Bible study group that is studying the Book of the Revelation and, being the only non-premillennialist in the group, I thought I would read Davis's book to brush up on the topic. It was a worthwhile read.

The Victory of Christ's Kingdom is an abbreviated form of a book written by Davis and originally published by Baker Book House in 1986, which was entitled Christ's Victorious Kingdom: Postmillennialism Reconsidered. This version was put back into print last year by Solid Ground Christian Books, and may be purchased here. I have not read the original, and so am unable to comment on it or to compare the two books. At about half the length of the original, one would certainly expect The Victory of Christ's Kingdom to go into less depth than did the original publication. It is, nonetheless, a good overview of the Postmillennial position.

The book is simply divided up into five chapters: 1. Introduction; 2. The Witness of the Old Testament; 3. The Witness of the New Testament; 4. Contrary Texts in the New Testament; and 5. Summary and Conclusions. In the Introduction, Davis gives a brief summary of the doctrine. He then seeks to clear up misunderstandings about the position. I found this to be one of the most helpful parts of the book. I have often heard Fundamentalists and Evangelicals categorize and align Postmillenialism with notions of Evolutionary progress, Liberalism, the "Social Gospel", Universalism, and "Manifest Destiny". But Davis puts all of these false understandings to rest, showing that the Postmillennialism he advocates is fully orthodox. He then traces Postmillennial thinking since the Reformation. It would have been helpful if he had discussed elements of Postmillennialism that existed in the church prior to Calvin, but the period he did cover was helpful nonetheless.

In the next two chapters, Davis does exactly as the titles state. First, he shows how the Kingdom in the O.T. is represented as growing and overwhelming the whole earth. Then he shows how those O.T. texts find their culmination in and through the work of Jesus the King. While the book is too short for Davis to deal with every related text, the outline he sketches demonstrates convincingly the position that the postmillennial scheme most accurately represents the Biblical text.

If there is a fault to the book, one finds that fault in chapter 4, where Davis seeks to address texts that are commonly cited by opponents of Postmillennialism in criticism of the doctrine. Here, Davis shows his own failure to see the basic preteristic structure of the New Testament. When dealing with the Olivet Discourse (Mt. 24, Mk. 13, and Lk. 21), Davis speaks as a preterist, assigning the content of these texts to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 a.d. (pp. 76-78). He does the same when dealing with some texts that suggest that few people "in the end" will be saved (pp. 79-80). And yet he is inconsistent, as he fails to make use of a preteristic reading when dealing with texts that suggest the nearness of Christ's return, as well as other texts. I would suggest that the preterist reading of the texts he deals with are the most natural reading, and that it is possible to read the texts that way without falling into the heresy known as hyper- or full-preterism.

So the book isn't perfect. Working on a five-star grading scale, I would give the book three and a half stars, with a part of me itching to push that up to four stars. I consider the absence of a preteristic understanding pretty significant, eventhough the book overall is fantastic. In fact, I would even recommend the book for those looking for an introduction to Postmillennialism. It's short, and so it's a quick read. But for those seeking a fuller understanding of how to read the Bible, following up this book with a good preterist work is imperative.

For those interested, I am happy to announce the reprinting of two classic preterist works, both by the late David Chilton. The first is entitled Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion. The second, The Days of Vengeance, is Chilton's commentary on the Book of the Revelation. Both have been available for free online at www.freebooks.com for a while now. But for those who find sitting at a computer to read or printing off lots of pages a hassle, bound copies of the books are now available. They may be purchased from www.americanvision.org.

Francis Beckwith

Francis Beckwith, who was until recently the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, has with his wife departed from Protestantism to join the Roman Catholic Church. Read his explanation of it here.

Pluralism and worship

The following is an interesting quote from Peter L. Berger:

Every human society has its own corpus of officially accredited wisdom, the beliefs and values that most people take for granted as self-evidently true. Every human society has institutions and functionaries whose task it is to represent this putative truth, to transmit it to each new generation, to engage in rituals that reaffirm it, and sometimes to deal (at least in words) with those who are benighted or wicked enough to deny it. In most societies in history this has been a relatively easy matter, because there was only one set of beliefs and values, a unified and coherent worldview that everybody knew and that almost everybody took for granted. Modern societies, however, share with the Hellenistic world the complicating factor of pluralism: There are competing beliefs and values, there is more than one worldview. This pluralistic situation usually forces on people a certain degree of tolerance, but it also sharpens the cognitive dissonances and therefore introduces an element of fanaticism into the quarrel. This co-existence of tolerance and fanaticism is an important characteristic of contemporary America…. The point is that the various efforts by Christians to accommodate to the "wisdom of the world" in this situation become a difficult, frantic, and more than a little ridiculous affair: Each time that one has, after an enormous effort, managed to adjust the faith to the prevailing culture, that culture turns around and changes. W. R. Inge, the Anglican theologian, put it thus: "He who would marry the spirit of the age soon finds himself a widower." Recent Christian theology is well populated with bewildered and understandably resentful widowers. (A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity, pp.9-10)

What is more interesting is how the average Christian responds when he or she reads a quote like this. It is our tendency at this point to run this quote, like everything else, through the grid of our minds, and to filter out anything that doesn't make sense. For most of us (that is, those of us that haven't studied Cultural Anthropology), this means that the part about "engaging in rituals" gets filtered out and chucked in the garbage. After all, we don't engage in rituals – or so we think. Rituals are things done by occultists and primitive, indigenous people groups. But this thinking is the remaining result of Rationalistic Modern thinking. Every culture has rituals, whether or not it recognizes it. And every religious group has rituals as well. While we wouldn't tend to refer to them as such (there again, that's the Modern mind at work), all acts of worship involve rituals. Even those groups that try to steer clear of any sort of ordered worship (such as the Plymouth Brethren, the Quakers, and the various Pentecostal and Charismatic groups) end up creating some measure of ritual. To reference Father Alexander Schmemann again, man is a liturgical creature, and this is just another way of saying that he is a creature that tends to create and follow rituals. In this, he is simply following his Creator, Who from the beginning of the world reveals Himself as a Being Who likes rituals.

This brings up a couple of thoughts in light of Berger's quote. For one thing, what we do in worship matters. If rituals themselves (and not just the words we speak during them) communicate truth claims, then what we do in worship should be shaped by the truth – specifically, by Holy Scripture. And therefore any sort of argument that says that what we do in worship is arbitrary is entirely false.

Secondly, the issue of Antithesis is important here. Simply put, there is no such thing as "neutral ground". There are things that are true, thing that are false, and nothing in between. Similarly, there are things that are suitable for worship, things that are not, and nothing in between. This is not to say that there is no place for preference, or cultural considerations. God created a world of variety, and songs that may be fit for one cultural setting might be out of place in another. But the question here isn't whether or not the song is appropriate. The question is whether or not we're able to handle it. One day Christians born and raised in North Carolina will understand and be able to appreciate those songs that are appropriate for worship and are used for worship in Africa. But that day is a long distance ahead. The church as a whole just hasn't matured to that point yet.

And thirdly, it is inappropriate to shape worship according to the transitory fascinations of a culture not shaped by a Christian worldview. Ungodly culture is constantly changing, running back and forth from one extreme to another, a manifestation of the unbeliever's search to find peace anywhere but in Christ. Culture shaped by mature, Christ-worshipping people, is characterized by change as well, but it is typically a slow, thoughtful, and deliberate change. This is not to say that Christians should never make any sharp turns. But sharp turns are out of the ordinary, and should only take place when one is about to drive off a cliff. In other words, drastic changes influenced as such by Christians only come about in a culture when the culture has so departed from the ways of God that drastic changes are the only things that will save it. The key thing to remember here is that we who know Christ are no transitory people, but are the meek who will inherit the earth.

So what does this mean for Christian worship? The main thing to consider here, I think, is the question of worship music. More and more churches are, in the struggle to keep people in the pews, doing away with the old hymns in favor of "Contemporary Worship Music" (CWM). (Of course, they're also doing away with hymnals and pews, but that's another matter that, though related, I'll leave to the side for now.) But CWM, aside from being a great commercial ploy (I see overturned tables in my mind), is shaped on forms of music that are transitory in nature. One need only go back and listen to some Maranatha Praise albums from the 1980's to realize how temporal CWM is. As an illustration of Berger's point, this is a point where the pop culture-intoxicated church is struggling to keep up. And no matter how hard we try, we can't "keep up", because as long as pop culture sets the agenda, it will keep changing, and we'll never catch up to it.

So what is the answer? The answer is that we cease to be the world's slaves. We are Christ's representatives in the world, and He is working through us to establish His kingdom in its fullness. So as his representatives, we, the church, set the agenda. The world won't follow, you say? Some will follow. But for those who don't, that is their loss. We follow Christ. Those who will not will be left to the fate they have chosen.

On a more practical note, we need to seek out more permanent forms of music for the church's worship. The church has a vast history of hymnody to draw from if we will only seek it out. There are lots of really bad hymns, which somehow have been the popular ones over the past hundred or so years. These need to be disposed of and replaced with better hymns. And there is a place for the writing of new music as well. But the new music worth praising God with will be written in a way that shows it was informed and shaped by more historic forms of music.

Many books have been written in recent years on these subjects, and my brief thoughts couldn't possibly solve any problems. I hope, though, that you, the reader, will be inspired to think more carefully about how you approach worship, as well as what kind of church you attend. God is honored when we meet Him where we are. Let us still seek to give Him the best we can. But also, worship shapes us. Let us seek to worship God in the situation that will most make us like Christ.

Meredith Kline, requiem in pacem

Those of you who travel in Reformed and Presbyterian circles will no doubt be familiar with the work of pastor and theologian Meredith Kline. I just received word that he died last night, and so I thought I would pass the word along through this blog. Here is the email I received:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We grieve with the Kline family at the loss of Dr. Meredith Kline last night. Dr. Kline died peacefully after a long illness. Though he is famous for his Old Testament Biblical theology, he is also known by many in the church for his gracious love and gentle spirit, and his love for the gospel of Christ. There will be a service in memory of Dr. Kline on Wednesday April 18 at 11 a.m. at the church. In lieu of flowers, the family (at the request of Dr. Kline) requests that donations be made to Faith Promise care of First Presbyterian Church.

Pray for Mrs. Kline (Grace) and for the whole family at this time of sadness even as we rejoice in the grace shown us in Jesus Christ.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor David

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David O' Leary, Pastor

First Presbyterian Church North Shore

179 County Road, Ipswich, MA 01938

978-356-7690