When Conservative Churches Preach Law, Not Gospel

What drives a Christ-less Christianity? Michael Horton's answer:

In more conservative contexts, you hear it as exhortation: "These are God's commandments. The culture is slipping away from us. We have to recover it, and you play a role.

And later . . .

I don't even know when I walk into a church that says it's Bible-believing that I'm actually going to hear an exposition of Scripture with Christ at the center, or whether I'm going to hear about how I should "dare to be a Daniel."

So what's the problem with "be like Daniel" preaching?

The question is whether this is the Good News. There is nothing wrong with law, but law isn't gospel. The gospel isn't "Follow Jesus' example" or "Transform your life" or "How to raise good children." The gospel is: Jesus Christ came to save sinners—even bad parents, even lousy followers of Jesus, which we all are on our best days. All of the emphasis falls on "What would Jesus do?" rather than "What has Jesus done?"

So what kind of preaching do you hear? Things for you to do, or exultation in what Christ has done? Do you hear first an emphasis on objective accomplishments of the death of Christ (as the NT epistles so consistently prioritize), or a relentless drive to impose imperatives on the congregation? Do you hear a repudiation of the gospel as the foundation of sanctification, or a reaffirmation that the gospel is the believer's only hope for Christ-likeness?

Diagnosing Our Idols

Interesting interview in CT with Tim Keller on his new book, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters. Here's the question and answer that's going to be rattling around in my own head:

How does someone identify their idols?

Look at your daydreams. When you don't have to think about something, like when you are waiting for the bus, where does your mind love to rest? Or, look at where you spend your money most effortlessly. Also, if you take your most uncontrolled emotions or the guilt that you can't get rid of, you'll find your idols at the bottom. Whenever I hear someone say, "I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself," it means that person has something that is more important than God, because God forgives them. If you look at your greatest nightmare—if something were to happen that would make you feel you had no reason to live—that's a god.

Today's Conservative Evangelicals on the Failures of the New Evangelical Strategies

I suppose there are folks who still think that all non-Fundamentalists embrace the atrocious mid-20th century Evangelical strategy—infiltrating apostate denominations to advance evangelism and gain a hearing for orthodox faith. I'm not sure how that's possible. Men like MacArthur, Mohler, Dever, Piper, Sproul, and others have been crystal clear in their criticism of those strategies for years now.

The latest contribution to this stream comes from Carl Trueman of Westminster Seminary, who appropriately acknowledges J.I. Packer's positive contributions to evangelicalism, but also addresses his failures quite directly in this video:

The Berlin Wall in Photos

If you're about my age, the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago is not only one of the most significant events of your lifetime; it also hit during that "coming of age" phase, before the years of your life all run together. Here's a beautiful history of the Wall in pictures. Be sure to check out the photos that click to fade to photos of the same scene before the Wall came down.

Simply spellbinding.

Rap Music and the "Christian" Background of Western Culture

I enjoyed reading Scott Aniol's "Can Rap Be Christian" series of articles. He's provided a useful assessment of the issues and presuppositions, and he's asked some reasonable questions, which proponents of "Christian rap" (and, by extension, other "Christian" musical forms) need to answer.

Scott also, quite honestly, exposed a potential flaw in the conservative argument. If this flaw can be demonstrated to be genuine, it's a fatal flaw. And if it's a fatal flaw, conservatives will need to radically reexamine their presuppositions and conclusions.

Here's what I'm talking about: Many conservatives argue that Western culture has been more profoundly shaped by Christianity than any other culture. Here's how Scott frames that argument:

I think it is undeniable that Western culture by and large has been influenced by Christian values more than perhaps any other in the world. That is not to say at all that there haven’t been anti-biblical influences as well; there certainly have been. But by God’s common grace we haven’t been influenced by Satanism or Eastern mysticism to the same extent as other societies. That has influenced the development of culture.

Notice how Scott hedges several times in that paragraph: "by and large," "perhaps," the acknowledgment of anti-biblical influences, and the relatively narrow focus on the minimal influence of Satanism and Eastern mysticism. Later in the same article, he admits that the Christian influence behind Western high art was Roman Catholicism. His conclusion to that article qualifies his statements even more:

On the other hand, there are aspects of Western culture that are deplorable, especially with the influences of secularism and commercialism. There might be some aspects of tribal African culture that has [sic] escaped those influences and are therefore superior. At the end of the day, I believe that the inner culture of the Church will never sound exactly like the culture around it. Christians always have to pick and choose (and sometimes invent) the best forms for the expression of Christian sentiment. It’s just the case that in some culture [sic] that have been influenced for centuries by Christian values, there may be more from which to choose.

So at the end of the day, I think Scott is more honest than other conservatives who simply stipulate the superiority of Western culture. I'll say it a bit more forcefully: As much as I love baroque music, I think it's quite possible that the musical forms of the 17th century were detrimentally shaped by medieval Roman Catholicism—a religious system that was not Christian at all. Monotheistic? Yes. Well, maybe. Or maybe not so much.

That doesn't preclude the possibility of critiquing how the medium of rap music shapes the message of Christian rap. But it ought to give the conservative anti-rap crowd something to chew on before they assume the superiority of their preferred forms as a vehicle for the Christian message—whether baroque or SoundForth-esque.

So can rap music be Christian? Hmmm . . . well, in my first 5 minutes of exposure to Christian rap a few years ago (I think it was Curtis Allen "The Voice"), I heard a more detailed explanation of substitutionary atonement and election than in any sermon I can remember before I turned 30 years old. Maybe that doesn't make it Christian. But if it's not Christian, then let's be honest: neither are your kids Patch the Pirate tapes and quite a few of the hymns in your Majesty Hymnal.

At the very least, I think we have to say that music—whether a rap or a hymn—must articulate a Christian message in order to be Christian. Only music that articulates a distinctly Christian message makes it inside the door where the argument about musical form begins. Music with a message of moralism (clean your room, don't grumble) or some yammering about an old guitar doesn't make the first cut.

When Network News Asks Good Questions

Terry Moran of Nightline asks Mark Driscoll about idolatry. Read the story and watch the video here. Moran and Driscoll play off each other in the concluding line:

So in the end, the commandment that to many people may look like it doesn't have a lot of relevance to us . . . may be the most relevant commandment of all.

On Cessationists and Their Ironic Mysticism (Bonus)

One more reason to STOP using this language:

"God chose me for that moment" and "I know that God had called me for such a time as this."





And is it just me, or is there a remarkable hollowness in a "values" movement that looks for inspiration to someone who likes to be judged for how she looks in a bikini?

99 Baroque Masterpieces: $2

From the people who brought you 99 Bach Masterpieces for $3, you can now get the baroque collection for $1.99. The Bach set is $8 now, so the deal won't last forever.

On Cessationists and Their Ironic Mysticism (Part 3)

Some resources:

First of all, the hands-down best public teaching I ever heard on guidance and God's will prior to my present church was a series of seminars taught by Greg Mazak of Bob Jones University. As best I can tell from his comments in the audio it was a singles retreat at the Wilds, probably in the mid-90s. A colleague gave me audio tapes and I'm pretty sure I wore them out. Mazak argued 3 points: 1) Obey the commands of Scripture. 2) Apply the principles of Scripture. 3) Do what you want to do. (If you're obeying the commands and applying the principles, your desires will be shaped to reflect God's priorities and desires.)

Second, the hands-down best public teaching I ever heard on the "call to ministry" I ever heard prior to landing in my present church was an Entrust conference at Covenant Life Church in February, 2009. I blogged on it and made some new friends in the process. Ironically, this teaching from continuationists was less subjective than any I'd ever heard.

Decision Making and the Will of God was by far the most influential book on the topic in my development. This link is to the second edition, which I'm told is condensed, augmented, and more cautiously worded than the first edition. It's essentially the same stuff Mazak taught.

What I like about Bruce Waltke's Finding the Will of God: A Pagan Notion?is that it, well, exposes how the mysticism I've discussed in this series is more pagan than Christian.

I haven't read Guidance and the Voice of Godbut it's the cornerstone text for the Core Seminar at my church, which I've attended and benefited from. By the way, those lessons are available free here.

I haven't read Kevin DeYoung's Just Do Somethingeither, but here's a link to Mike McKinley's review on the 9Marks blog. Follow the Amazon link on this one to see the best book subtitle since Jonathan Edwards.

Should Premillennialists Accuse Non-Premillennialists of Rejecting Literal Interpretation?

In recent weeks I've heard a few assertions that non-premillennialists reject a literal hermeneutic. Here's just one example from a well-known pastor:

Amil has to discount the literal hermeneutical approach to the entire definition of the [Kingdom of God] in the major and minor prophets.

B.B. Warfield, in The Westminster Assembly and Its Work, expounded and defended the biblical basis for the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646). But he also attempted to demonstrate how the Confession merely summarized the theology of the Continental Reformers. Though, as a Baptist, I don't agree with every point of the Confession or Warfield's defense, a paragraph from his discussion of Chapter 1, "Of the Holy Scripture" caught my eye.

In this chapter, Warfield quotes extensively and in broad affirmation of Heinrich Heppe's summary of the theology of the Continental Reformers, Dogmatics of the Evangelical Reformed Church (1861). Heppe argues (see the long quote below) that the literal meaning of Scripture is the one meaning the author intended. Though the author may or may not employ figurative language, the literal meaning is how the author intended that language (whether figurative or normal/non-figurative) to be understood.

In other words, both Premillennialists and non-Premillennialists* may employ a literal hermeneutic. (Individuals in either group may or may not, or at least not consistently.) Though they disagree on the interpretation of numerous texts, their disagreement is not over whether the normal ("literal") sense ought to be our default position. Rather, the disagreement is over certain texts—whether they were intended by the author/Author to be interpreted normally or figuratively.

And that's where the debate ought to take place. Premillennialists ought to argue with non-Premillennialists on how prophetic texts should be interpreted. Premillennialists ought to make the point that when we can point to biblical prophecies that we know have been fulfilled, they've been fulfilled in a "literal"/normal sense. But once and for all we ought to stop suggesting that non-Premillennialists reject a literal hermeneutic. By the standards of Premillennialists, Premillennialists often reject a literal hermeneutic too. By the definition Warfield advances via Heppe, both groups can be literalists. We can and should wrestle exegetically over the debated texts, but we need to avoid the strawmen and the canards.

Here's that long passage in which Warfield quotes Heppe:

The true sense of Scripture, which interpretation has established, can always be only single, and, in general, only the real, literal sense, the sensus literalis, which is either sensus literalis simplex or sensus literalis compositus. The former is to be firmly held as a rule; the latter, on the other hand, is to be recognized wherever Scripture presents anything typically; and only when the sensus literalis would contradict the articuli fidei or the praeceptis caritatis, where therefore Scripture itself demands another interpretation of its words, is the figurative meaning of them, the sensus figuratus, to be sought. Besides this, the allegorical interpretation has its right in the application of the language of Scripture to the manifold relations of life in the accommod. ad usum. (p. 168)

*Warfield was a Postmillennialist, a position now largely out of favor that was different in its interpretations from Amillennialism, but possessing some of the same tendencies to differ with the Premillennial "literal" interpretations.