Thirty-five years ago today, Saigon fell to the communists.
I just finished reading Goodnight, Saigon, by Charles Henderson. It is the story of the last months of the Republic of South Vietnam, and specifically of the last American troops there, including the last 11 Marines who were flown out under fire as the NVA and VC swarmed the city. While the book tended to wander at times, it managed to convey the sense of betrayal that all Americans should feel at our abandoning our loyal supporters to the hands of the communists. Many died; others spent years in 're-education' camps; families were separated, women and children were abused and tortured, and most had to fend for themselves as homeless on the streets of the newly-named Ho Chi Mihn City.
What have we learned from this? Will it speak to our current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or will we again call the blood of (then 58,000, now close to 4,000) American troops wasted by walking away when we can't have what we want right now?
I pray we learn from our history rather than choose to repeat it, and may God bless those men and women who were left to fend for themselves when we lost our moral resolve to stay the course. And thank God for the Marines who didn't lose their moral resolve to fight the fight!
30 April 2010
28 April 2010
Saving the Local Church
My local church leadership is in a bit of a quandry right now- they are aware of the changes in demographics in the community and aware of the drop in numbers over the last few years at the church. The question then is, "What do we do about it?"
Even asking the question is full of pitfalls. When we talk about the culture and the church, and how they do/should intermingle, we bring multiple perspectives into play, and many time folks end up arguing points without having any agreement on what terms mean or where the focus should be in making changes.
Our church does not seem to have any agreement on some basic building blocks from which to create a plan for dealing with the negative changes. For example, do we believe in a regenerate worship, or an evangelical worship? It seems that we need to establish that fact before we start talking about how to engage our local community. And, where do we believe the emphasis comes from in moving the lost toward the cross...is it from common grace that God gives all to be able to come to Christ, or is it from saving grace God gives to the elect that brings them to Christ? I don't see how we can come up with a plan to evangelize our city until we agree (at least in principle) on that belief.
These are hard questions. There are sincere believers on both sides of the above arguments, and getting all these to an accord on these important questions is daunting. I was speaking to the pastor this past Sunday about one parallel issue, age-segregation. It seems, based on comments in the meetings we've had, that one of the few things almost everybody agrees on is that we want age-segregation to stop in our church. Yet, the solution to that is seemingly unobtainable. We have two vastly different worship styles in our two main services (contemporary and traditional), and the median ages in the two services are probably close to 40 years (an entire generation) apart. We have age-graded Sunday School, separate worship services for our children and college students, separate ministers dedicated to age-delimited groups (youth, college, senior adults), and so on. In other words, the entire church is built around age-segregation. It would appear we need to dismantle most of the church's structure to get away from age-segregation. That's not an easy task.
My point of emphasis that I've tried to say in multiple ways through this process is, we need to change the methods to reach our culture, but we cannot change the message of the gospel. The gospel itself is our true relevance to the culture around us, not our ability to look like the culture around us, or relate to its participants. This is one facet that I hope we have enough wisdom to cement into place as we look for ways to reach our culture for Christ.
Even asking the question is full of pitfalls. When we talk about the culture and the church, and how they do/should intermingle, we bring multiple perspectives into play, and many time folks end up arguing points without having any agreement on what terms mean or where the focus should be in making changes.
Our church does not seem to have any agreement on some basic building blocks from which to create a plan for dealing with the negative changes. For example, do we believe in a regenerate worship, or an evangelical worship? It seems that we need to establish that fact before we start talking about how to engage our local community. And, where do we believe the emphasis comes from in moving the lost toward the cross...is it from common grace that God gives all to be able to come to Christ, or is it from saving grace God gives to the elect that brings them to Christ? I don't see how we can come up with a plan to evangelize our city until we agree (at least in principle) on that belief.
These are hard questions. There are sincere believers on both sides of the above arguments, and getting all these to an accord on these important questions is daunting. I was speaking to the pastor this past Sunday about one parallel issue, age-segregation. It seems, based on comments in the meetings we've had, that one of the few things almost everybody agrees on is that we want age-segregation to stop in our church. Yet, the solution to that is seemingly unobtainable. We have two vastly different worship styles in our two main services (contemporary and traditional), and the median ages in the two services are probably close to 40 years (an entire generation) apart. We have age-graded Sunday School, separate worship services for our children and college students, separate ministers dedicated to age-delimited groups (youth, college, senior adults), and so on. In other words, the entire church is built around age-segregation. It would appear we need to dismantle most of the church's structure to get away from age-segregation. That's not an easy task.
My point of emphasis that I've tried to say in multiple ways through this process is, we need to change the methods to reach our culture, but we cannot change the message of the gospel. The gospel itself is our true relevance to the culture around us, not our ability to look like the culture around us, or relate to its participants. This is one facet that I hope we have enough wisdom to cement into place as we look for ways to reach our culture for Christ.
22 April 2010
Splintering in Neo-Calvinism
I've been taken aback recently by several comments I've read on blogs, and maybe more so by a particular blog and the direction it has taken. The comments that have bothered me have had to do with those in reformed churches calling many folks in the, "young, restless, and reformed" (YRR) movement illegitimate with respect to being reformed. There are two important considerations that are not being taken into account by these people- (1) their definition of 'reformed' isn't shared or known by those new to the doctrines of grace, and (2) they don't understand how much damage their attitudes can do in those who are new to the doctrines of grace.
First, look at the flap over John Piper's invitation to Rick Warren to speak at Bethlehem's national conference. No, Rick Warren isn't reformed, nor even a proponent of the doctrines of grace, but the way Piper has been treated by some in the blog world has been truly mind-boggling. They are attacking him as if he'd denied the faith itself.
Second, look at the popular Internet Monk blog. The founder of the blog, Michael Spencer, recently died of cancer. The person (or people) who took over the blog have turned it into a cheerleading platform for evolution. It is supposed to be a reformed blog, but it is rivaled only by Hitchens and Dawkins in its fervor for evolutionary origins of humanity.
Michael Horton posted on the White Horse Inn page, just today, a blog which helps to clear up some of this confusion. At least, it will if enough people read it. Now, Horton has made some comments in the past that (in my mind) put him in the group calling YRR folks illegitimate. His work, particularly Christless Christianity and Gospel-Driven Life have been very influential on me, so I was certainly bothered by his apparent attitude. The new blog today has cleared up some of my concerns by clarifying some of what he has said. Getting the 'big picture' is always a good idea, and Horton has helped with that by his latest post.
I hope the YRR movement can come together better on some of these issues before too many 'seekers' of the doctrines of grace are driven away by the in-fighting. There are huge differences between reformed ecclesiology and Calvinistic soteriology/christology. Some in the reformed churches seem ready to cast out all those who believe in the doctrines of grace and support the solas of the reformation unless they also adopt covenant theology in its entirety. I don't think that's a wise choice. Horton has advocated calling the movement of non-reformed adherents to the doctrines of grace, "Calvinistic evangelicalism". I don't know if that's the best choice, since 'Calvinism' has been given an unfortunate baggage of derision by the Arminian movement, but if it keeps the splintering to a minimum, I'll take it.
First, look at the flap over John Piper's invitation to Rick Warren to speak at Bethlehem's national conference. No, Rick Warren isn't reformed, nor even a proponent of the doctrines of grace, but the way Piper has been treated by some in the blog world has been truly mind-boggling. They are attacking him as if he'd denied the faith itself.
Second, look at the popular Internet Monk blog. The founder of the blog, Michael Spencer, recently died of cancer. The person (or people) who took over the blog have turned it into a cheerleading platform for evolution. It is supposed to be a reformed blog, but it is rivaled only by Hitchens and Dawkins in its fervor for evolutionary origins of humanity.
Michael Horton posted on the White Horse Inn page, just today, a blog which helps to clear up some of this confusion. At least, it will if enough people read it. Now, Horton has made some comments in the past that (in my mind) put him in the group calling YRR folks illegitimate. His work, particularly Christless Christianity and Gospel-Driven Life have been very influential on me, so I was certainly bothered by his apparent attitude. The new blog today has cleared up some of my concerns by clarifying some of what he has said. Getting the 'big picture' is always a good idea, and Horton has helped with that by his latest post.
I hope the YRR movement can come together better on some of these issues before too many 'seekers' of the doctrines of grace are driven away by the in-fighting. There are huge differences between reformed ecclesiology and Calvinistic soteriology/christology. Some in the reformed churches seem ready to cast out all those who believe in the doctrines of grace and support the solas of the reformation unless they also adopt covenant theology in its entirety. I don't think that's a wise choice. Horton has advocated calling the movement of non-reformed adherents to the doctrines of grace, "Calvinistic evangelicalism". I don't know if that's the best choice, since 'Calvinism' has been given an unfortunate baggage of derision by the Arminian movement, but if it keeps the splintering to a minimum, I'll take it.
26 March 2010
Spring Baseball in West Texas
I have the luxury (misery?) of attending a couple of baseball practices and one game this weekend. Forecast- 50 mph winds with a high of around 45 degrees. I'm not sure God had West Texas in mind when He invented the idea of outdoor sports. At least not from the first of March to the end of April.
It could be worse...we could have a ping pong tournament or a game of badminton scheduled...
It could be worse...we could have a ping pong tournament or a game of badminton scheduled...
10 March 2010
Why Is the Gospel So Incoherent?
I'm reading Michael Horton's The Gospel-Driven Life right now, and I ran across this paragraph that says a lot more than the number of words in it indicate-
“The gospel is unintelligible to most people today, especially in the West, because their own particular stories are remote from the story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation that is narrated in the Bible. Our focus is introspective and narrow, confided to our own immediate knowledge, experience, and intuition. Trying desperately to get others, including God, to make us happy, we cannot seem to catch a glimpse of the real story that gives us a meaningful role.” (p. 71)
I think Horton is right...when we try to fit God and His story into our life narrative, it doesn't work. We have to fit our life narrative into His story (metanarrative?) for things to work right.
“The gospel is unintelligible to most people today, especially in the West, because their own particular stories are remote from the story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation that is narrated in the Bible. Our focus is introspective and narrow, confided to our own immediate knowledge, experience, and intuition. Trying desperately to get others, including God, to make us happy, we cannot seem to catch a glimpse of the real story that gives us a meaningful role.” (p. 71)
I think Horton is right...when we try to fit God and His story into our life narrative, it doesn't work. We have to fit our life narrative into His story (metanarrative?) for things to work right.
01 March 2010
If Jonathan Edwards Were To Preach Today...
- …his sermon would have to be titled, “Somewhat dysfunctional (but well meaning) victims in the hands of an empowering God.” At least, that’s what our culture would demand he preach. That’s NOT the gospel. And the demons laughs as this impotent substitute is presented to thousands of people marching toward hell, but with a high self-esteem. “If people today find the preaching and teaching of sin and the cross irrelevant, it is only because we, like Israel, have dulled their sense of God’s holiness and righteousness.” (M. Horton, Gospel-Driven Life, p. 51) If we claim a God with no wrath, then we offer the cross as a solution with no problem. Edwards was right in 1741, and he’s still right today, in spite of what is popular in evangelical Christianity. We are sinners, and sin makes God angry. We need to be saved, alright…not from our low self-esteem, but from God’s wrath. And He has provided the means (the cross) and the sacrifice (His son) to propitiate that wrath. THAT’S the gospel.
18 February 2010
Outstanding Review of McLaren's New Book, "A New Kind of Christianity"
Can be found here-
http://fwd4.me/GBC
This review, by Kevin DeYoung, is excellent. It may be a bit longer than you want, but to cover all the nonsense proposed by McLaren, it needs to be. I urge you to read the review INSTEAD of the book.
http://fwd4.me/GBC
This review, by Kevin DeYoung, is excellent. It may be a bit longer than you want, but to cover all the nonsense proposed by McLaren, it needs to be. I urge you to read the review INSTEAD of the book.
06 January 2010
The Battle for Scripture- The Right Flank
It appears to me the battle for scripture has shifted in concentration from the left flank (liberalism) to the right flank (sufficiency of scripture). Consider this quotation from David F. Wells,
"The Church is, therefore, awash in strategies borrowed from psychology and business that, it is hoped, will make up for the apparent insufficiency of the Word and ensure more success in this postmodern culture. Today, the issue is not so much the inerrancy of Scripture but its sufficiency and this at the very moment when a robust confidence in its sufficiency is precisely what the Church needs to have if it is to live out its life in proclamation and service effectively." (Wells, D., http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/rejection.html)
The battle for the left flank was critical. Without the inerrancy of scripture, the Christian faith has little objective meaning and no power (Rom. 1:16). While we still need to guard the left flank from attack (most of the attacks come from within the ranks, by the way), the bigger attack from the culture is on the sufficiency of scripture. Is the gospel, as given in the Word of God, sufficient to meet the needs of our present-day postmodern culture, or not?
I say it is, but it won't unless we teach it and preach it effectively, shying away from our fears about offending others with God's message. Too many people don't know what a believer needs to believe to live the Christian life, so they don't do a very good job living a Christian life. We've had too many years of fluffy Sunday School literature with little or no doctrinal meat in the weekly lessons, and as a result we are Mark Noll's worst fear- a scandalized evangelical church. And instead of a reactionary return to doctrine, we see a lurch in the opposite direction, toward experientialism, in the so-called Emergent Church. Unfortunately, our response to pressures from this emergent movement (no more than a postmodern form of liberalism) is to make our worship a bit more postmodern and "culturally relevant" rather than a return to a strong emphasis on doctrine. People are desperate for something to believe, and we give them more pietism. It won't work.
J. I. Packer, in a recent Modern Reformation article, says it thusly- “It has often been said that Christianity in North America is 3,000 miles wide and half an inch deep. Something similar is true, by all accounts, in Africa and Asia, and (I can testify to this) in Britain also. Worshipers in evangelical churches, from the very young to the very old, and particularly the youth and the twenty- and thirty-somethings, know far less about the Bible and the faith than one would hope and than they themselves need to know for holy living. This is because the teaching mode of Christian communication is out of fashion, and all the emphasis in sermons and small groups is laid on experience in its various aspects. The result is a pietist form of piety, ardent and emotional, in which realizing the reality of fellowship with the Father and the Son is central while living one’s life with Spirit-given wisdom and discernment is neglected both as a topic and as a task. In the Western world in particular, where Christianity is marginalized and secular culture dismisses it as an ideological has-been, where daily we rub shoulders with persons of other faiths and of no faith, and where within the older Protestant churches tolerating the intolerable is advocated as a requirement of justice, versions of Christianity that care more for experiences of life than for principles of truth will neither strengthen churches nor glorify God.”
What is Packer's answer to this? Teaching of the truth of the gospel, of course! He says, “The well-being of Christianity worldwide for this twenty-first century directly depends, I am convinced, on the recovery of what has historically been called catechesis—that is, the ministry of systematically teaching people in and coming into our churches the sinew-truths that Christians live by, and the faithful, practical, consistent way for Christians to live by them. During the past three centuries, catechesis as defined has shrunk, even in evangelical churches, from an all-age project to instruction for children and in some cases has vanished altogether. As one who for half a century has been attempting an essentially catechetical ministry by voice and pen, I long for the day when in all our churches systematic catechesis will come back into its own.”
I agree.
"The Church is, therefore, awash in strategies borrowed from psychology and business that, it is hoped, will make up for the apparent insufficiency of the Word and ensure more success in this postmodern culture. Today, the issue is not so much the inerrancy of Scripture but its sufficiency and this at the very moment when a robust confidence in its sufficiency is precisely what the Church needs to have if it is to live out its life in proclamation and service effectively." (Wells, D., http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/rejection.html)
The battle for the left flank was critical. Without the inerrancy of scripture, the Christian faith has little objective meaning and no power (Rom. 1:16). While we still need to guard the left flank from attack (most of the attacks come from within the ranks, by the way), the bigger attack from the culture is on the sufficiency of scripture. Is the gospel, as given in the Word of God, sufficient to meet the needs of our present-day postmodern culture, or not?
I say it is, but it won't unless we teach it and preach it effectively, shying away from our fears about offending others with God's message. Too many people don't know what a believer needs to believe to live the Christian life, so they don't do a very good job living a Christian life. We've had too many years of fluffy Sunday School literature with little or no doctrinal meat in the weekly lessons, and as a result we are Mark Noll's worst fear- a scandalized evangelical church. And instead of a reactionary return to doctrine, we see a lurch in the opposite direction, toward experientialism, in the so-called Emergent Church. Unfortunately, our response to pressures from this emergent movement (no more than a postmodern form of liberalism) is to make our worship a bit more postmodern and "culturally relevant" rather than a return to a strong emphasis on doctrine. People are desperate for something to believe, and we give them more pietism. It won't work.
J. I. Packer, in a recent Modern Reformation article, says it thusly- “It has often been said that Christianity in North America is 3,000 miles wide and half an inch deep. Something similar is true, by all accounts, in Africa and Asia, and (I can testify to this) in Britain also. Worshipers in evangelical churches, from the very young to the very old, and particularly the youth and the twenty- and thirty-somethings, know far less about the Bible and the faith than one would hope and than they themselves need to know for holy living. This is because the teaching mode of Christian communication is out of fashion, and all the emphasis in sermons and small groups is laid on experience in its various aspects. The result is a pietist form of piety, ardent and emotional, in which realizing the reality of fellowship with the Father and the Son is central while living one’s life with Spirit-given wisdom and discernment is neglected both as a topic and as a task. In the Western world in particular, where Christianity is marginalized and secular culture dismisses it as an ideological has-been, where daily we rub shoulders with persons of other faiths and of no faith, and where within the older Protestant churches tolerating the intolerable is advocated as a requirement of justice, versions of Christianity that care more for experiences of life than for principles of truth will neither strengthen churches nor glorify God.”
What is Packer's answer to this? Teaching of the truth of the gospel, of course! He says, “The well-being of Christianity worldwide for this twenty-first century directly depends, I am convinced, on the recovery of what has historically been called catechesis—that is, the ministry of systematically teaching people in and coming into our churches the sinew-truths that Christians live by, and the faithful, practical, consistent way for Christians to live by them. During the past three centuries, catechesis as defined has shrunk, even in evangelical churches, from an all-age project to instruction for children and in some cases has vanished altogether. As one who for half a century has been attempting an essentially catechetical ministry by voice and pen, I long for the day when in all our churches systematic catechesis will come back into its own.”
I agree.
04 January 2010
My Own Top Ten List for 2009
Since everybody is creating a top ten list for the past year and/or decade, mostly in order to generate readership/viewership/ad revenue, I thought I'd create my own. Now, the purpose of these lists isn't to inform, rank, taxonify, or any other big word that means rank, but to generate controversy in order in increase readership (or whatever). So my list will be as controversial as possible. So, my list will be the top 10 most narcissistic personalities of 2009. Here goes.
1. Barack Obama
Hmm. I couldn't think of any others to top that one. Oh well.
:-)
.
1. Barack Obama
Hmm. I couldn't think of any others to top that one. Oh well.
:-)
.
03 December 2009
Just Added Reftagger
I just added a new tool provided free by Logos (www.logos.com) which allows one to see the text of a bible verse whenever the reference is "moused over".
Try it here (hold your mouse cursor over the bible verses below and see it work)-
Rom. 1:16
Heb. 11:1-3
2 Chron. 7:14
Pretty neat, eh?
This is in addition to the search tool you see to the left of this column. Logos is a great company that is fantastic about providing tools like these to their customers. I own the Gold version of their Logos 4 software, and I highly recommend it. (No, they didn't pay me anything or give me anything to say this, Mr. FCC snoop!).
Try it here (hold your mouse cursor over the bible verses below and see it work)-
Rom. 1:16
Heb. 11:1-3
2 Chron. 7:14
Pretty neat, eh?
This is in addition to the search tool you see to the left of this column. Logos is a great company that is fantastic about providing tools like these to their customers. I own the Gold version of their Logos 4 software, and I highly recommend it. (No, they didn't pay me anything or give me anything to say this, Mr. FCC snoop!).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)