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On August 3, 2017 By In Theology

Ballet and Biblical Interpretation

Guest Post by Jacob Gucker

My wife and I attended the Houston Ballet’s performance of Aladdin a few years ago. It was my first ballet and a great experience. I found the costume design enchanting, the music salubrious, and the choreography mesmerizing. Even though we were way up in the first balcony, we enjoyed a true feast for the senses. Aladdin is a classic tale, but many people are more familiar with the Disney version than the original story from The Arabian Nights. In the ballet, Aladdin marries the princess at the end of Act II and they share a wedding dance that ends with the two dancers in a pose that tastefully resembles a coital embrace. In act III the evil magician deceives the princess and spirits her away to become a slave in his harem. When the man, the Adam, pursues his wife to the uttermost, infiltrating the magician’s palace, they share the same dance, ending with the same pose before going on to face the deceiver together. It was sublime!

My favorite scene occurs in the first act when Aladdin first arrives in the cave of wonders. The audience sees that the floor is covered in gold coins by way of the set design and lighting, but Aladdin’s survey of the cave is not complete until he beholds the precious gemstones which fill the cave. Dancers represent the gemstones.

A parade of precious stones dazzles Aladdin, who simply sits to watch. Time slows down as first a group of onyx and pearl dances, giving way to a routine by the silver and the gold, leading into a sapphire solo, moving into a passionate couple’s dance for a hot pair of rubies, after which the emeralds have their go, and finally, the diamonds. My favorite was the dance of the diamonds. They were dressed in silver, white, and black. They wore tutus, and I now understand why ballerinas wear them. The effect of their shiny tutus waggling as they pranced about en pointe was wonderful to behold and, furthermore, totally convincing. I was really, truly, seeing diamonds.

But what if I refused to accept this way of conveying a cave full of gems? What if I rejected the art form? What if I rejected ballet as the best way to tell the story unfolding before me? What if, after the show, I walked up to the director and said, “I think that your dancers represented the gemstones poorly; you should have used props?” Or, what if someone asked me what the scene in the cave was about and I said, “It was about people dancing in colorful costumes?” What if I stood before an assembled body of ballet aficionados and complained that the passage of time in the cave seemed unrealistic. “There’s no way it would take Aladdin that long to survey the gemstones. Each set of dancers danced for seven whole minutes!” That would be utter foolishness. They would laugh at me and shake their heads for seeing it so woodenly and I would walk away, disappointed in the artist.

Some people read the Bible this way, especially Genesis and Revelation. Genesis and Revelation are history, but not as modern people would tell it. Scripture is literature; scripture is the finest art. I heard a preacher once who proclaimed that there is a physical city of gold and jewels, the exact dimensions of the one mentioned in Revelation 21, presently traveling through outer space. This city will descend upon the earth at the end of time. I laughed inside. His view is what many people would call a “literal view of scripture.” Not so. A literal view of scripture is one that considers its genre and historical context and pattern of symbolism.

Scripture tells us early on that gemstones symbolize God’s people. The gemstones on the breastplate of the high priest of Israel symbolize the tribes of Israel. Paul applies this symbolism to the church in 1 Corinthians 3, saying that the church is God’s temple. The gold and precious stones of that temple are people. Ballet uses people to symbolize gemstones, but the Bible uses gemstones to symbolize people. The city that comes down like a bride prepared for her husband is tribes and peoples and nations. This may be a disappointment with the Artist to those who were looking forward to actual streets of gold, but this is God’s art and He wouldn’t have it any other way.

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On July 28, 2017 By In Theology

The Seed and the Serpent: Genesis 3:15 fulfilled in Exodus, Part 2

Guest Post by Jacob Gucker

According to Genesis 3:15 the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. This post argues for a near fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth of Israel as a nation and the crushing of Pharaoh in the Red Sea. Part one dealt with the “seed of the woman” facet of the prophecy. This part deals with “crushing the serpent’s head.”

Pictures of King Tut’s sarcophagus offer a visual clue that Pharaoh might indeed be an embodiment of the Serpent, his royal headdress clearly resembling the hood of a cobra rising up to strike. The new Pharaoh who did not knowJosephh “rose up” to strike Israel by drowning Hebrew boys in the Nile. It might have been an aggressive or violent rising with a change of regime; the language may reach back to Genesis 4 where Cain “rose up” to kill his brother.[1]

Passages in the writings of the prophets offer the strongest evidence that Pharaoh is the embodiment of the serpent of old. They call Pharaoh the dragon of the Nile (Ezekiel 29:3), the dragon of Rahab (Isaiah 51:9). The word translated “dragon” is not the same as the word for serpent in Genesis 3, nahash, but it is the same word, tannin, used in Exodus 7:9 and 12 when God instructs Moses to throw Aaron’s staff on the ground for it to become a serpent. This differs from the word used in Exodus 4 when God instructs Moses to throw his staff on the ground for the first time where it turns into a nahash. One finds that a serpent and a dragon are in the same family of animals in the Bible. The tannins might be seen as “super serpents.” They are the often serpentine chaos monsters of the Bible and the Bible refers to nations and rulers as embodiments of these beasts. Furthermore, Isaiah 27:1 places tannin and nahash in parallel with one another. Pharaoh and Egypt are thus the embodiment of the same enemy that tempted Adam and Eve, only escalated.

In Isaiah 51:9-10 the speaker urges the “Arm of the LORD” to wake up and put on strength.  At one time, according to this passage, the Arm of the LORD “cut Rahab to pieces and pierced the dragon.” In the same instance He “dried up the sea,” making the depths of the sea “a way for the redeemed to pass over.” In the crossing of the Red Sea God made a way for His people to cross over, but He also drew Rahab the dragon, embodied by Pharaoh and his army, into the depths to leave him there, crushed by the flood of water.

There is yet another clue in Exodus 3 when God commands Moses to throw his staff on the ground that it might become a serpent. Humorously, Moses flees from the serpent when he sees what has become of his staff. This seemingly insignificant detail has great literary import. Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh when his Hebrew brothers rightfully accused him of murdering an Egyptian slave-driver. Now, Moses is fleeing from the serpent. But God tells him to reach out his hand and grab it by the tail. Soon, Pharaoh will be the fleeing serpent. God hardens his heart when he hears that Israel has fled from Egypt. This incites him to give chase. God commands Israel to encamp by the Red Sea. Yahweh is laying a trap for the serpent so that the salvation of Israel and the destruction of the serpent occur in the same act of redemption and judgement. The serpent pursues, but when it becomes apparent that Yahweh is fighting for Israel, the Egyptians flee, only to be swept into the sea and destroyed.

As Israel emerges from the water alive, Miriam is there once again. She was like a midwife for her brother’s new birth from the waters of death and now she is a midwife who has helped birth the nation. She takes a tambourine in her hand and leads forth all the women of Israel who have seen Yahweh’s victory over Pharaoh. Yahweh has vindicated their courage and faith.

As Isaiah said, it was the “Arm of the LORD” who ultimately did this and readers of Isaiah 53 find that the “Arm of the LORD” is a suffering servant who “was pierced for our transgressions,” and  “crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.” This is Jesus and His crucifixion was a baptism in the wrath of the gentiles. As with the Exodus, the Serpent was drawn out to pursue Him into death. The Kings of the earth assembled and took counsel together, but it was a trap! God condemned Sin in His body on the tree.  Jesus is Israel and the ultimate seed of the woman who would crush the Serpent’s head.  All the faithful who are united to Him by baptism have gone with Him through death and are thus born again.

[1] Bodner, Keith. “Old Promise, New King.” In An Ark on the Nile: Beginning of the Book of Exodus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198784074.003.0003.

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On July 27, 2017 By In Theology

The Seed and the Serpent: Genesis 3:15 fulfilled in Exodus, Part 1

Guest Post by Jacob Gucker

If Moses wrote the Pentateuch and it is one continuous story, readers might expect the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 concerning the seed of the woman bruising the serpent’s head to be fulfilled some time before the end. This post argues for a near fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth of Israel as a nation and the crushing of Pharaoh in the Red Sea. Part one will deal with the “seed of the woman” facet of the prophecy and part two will deal with “crushing the Serpent’s head.”

Exodus is primarily about the birth of God’s son. Israel is the national son of God born out of slavery in Egypt at Passover and into the house of Yahweh. Passover was an exchange of “sons of the herd” for firstborn sons, and Israel is the firstborn of a planned new creation. Whereas Genesis has a theme of birth despite barrenness, Exodus begins with outright fruitfulness, though it is overshadowed by the dragon who waits to devour.

Keith Bodner’s An Ark on the Nile shows from Exodus 1-2 that Moses’ rescue from the Nile is a recapitulation of Noah’s Ark. It looks back to Noah’s rescue from the primordial waters of the flood even as it foreshadows Israel’s rescue from the waters of the Red Sea. Noah’s Ark was not built for seaworthiness but as a floating temple that anticipates the Mosaic Tabernacle that will go with Israel through the wilderness.[1]

Bodner highlights the important role of women who are the only protagonists in the beginning to go up against Pharaoh. Moses’ father is silent and the elders of Israel take no action. There are the vigorous Hebrew women who give birth quickly, the midwives who resist Pharaoh’s decree to throw every Boy into the Nile, Moses’ mother who hid her good son for three months, Moses’ sister who stationed herself to watch what would become of her brother, Pharaoh’s daughter who seems to be willing to defy her father, and the maidservants who go with her to bathe. They share in drawing Moses from the waters of the Nile in his little Ark. They are a corporate woman bringing forth a singular “seed” to be the covenantal head of the nation that will be born. In bringing Moses forth from the waters they participate in bringing the nation forth from bondage.

Bodner argues that Miriam and Pharaoh’s daughter play more significant roles than modern readers might think. He posits that Miriam is a shrewd mediator who speaks so as to suggest to Pharaoh’s daughter that an adoption is in order. He notes that Miriam is referred to here as an Almah, indicating that she too is capable of bearing children. He suggests that she is a “rhetorical midwife” in Moses’ new birth[2]. Taking the initiative here, Miriam seems to guide Pharaoh’s daughter and will have a similar role with the women of Israel at the Red Sea.

The naming of Moses brings the Egyptian princess into the tradition of phonetic naming that began with Eve naming Cain. She names him Moses because it sounds like the Hebrew word for “to draw out.” But there is more to his name because it is etymologically Egyptian, based upon the verbal stem msy which means “to be born” and the noun ms means “son.”[3]  Pharaoh’s daughter is participating in bringing forth the seed of the woman. This anticipates God including gentile women at numerous points in the long story of bringing forth the Messiah. Although Mary is the special maidservant chosen to bear the Son of God, all of the women in the Messianic genealogy are participants.

The serpent crippled Israel by hard labor and by Pharaoh’s heinous decree, but this seed will crush the serpent’s head. Part two will show how Pharaoh, the head of Egpyt, is the embodiment of the serpent in the book of Exodus.

Jacob Gucker is a librarian at BMA Theological Seminary in Jacksonville, Texas. He lives with his wife and baby daughter at Preacher’s End Farm where she raises vegetables and pastures chickens and he looks up from his books to help out.

[1] Keith Bodner, An Ark on the Nile: Beginning of the Book of Exodus (Oxford University Press, 2016).

[2]Bodner, Keith. “The Waters of Chaos.” In An Ark on the Nile: Beginning of the Book of Exodus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198784074.003.0005.

[3]Ibid.

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On July 7, 2017 By In Politics

Protestantism’s Lost Soul

Guest Post by Peter Leithart

D. G. Hart’s The Lost Soul of American Protestantism vividly clarifies the differences between evangelical and Confessional Protestantism. In part, the book is a manifesto for historians of American religion. Hart argues that historians of American Protestantism have operated with a simplistic binary contrast of evangelical/conservative v. liberal/progressive. At best, historians refine this binary scheme by distinguishing between fundamentalism, that literalistic, vulgar, and anti-intellectual brand of Christianity, and evangelicalism, which gave fundamentalism a decent haircut, a suit and tie, and a diploma from a prestigious university, and thus made fundamentalism tolerable, if not quite welcome, in polite society.

This model is flawed, first, because it obscures the inner continuity between evangelical and liberal. To Hart, the key problem is the American Protestant obsession with relevance. He states his argument provocatively in the opening pages: “the Protestant-inspired notion that faith produces compassion, virtue, and harmony . . . is what is wrong with American Protestantism” (p. xvii). This is a “fundamentally utilitarian view of belief,” and he claims that the pragmatic effort to make Christianity a means for improvement of private and public morals has led American churches to abandon “large pieces of their Christian heritage” (xviii). Hart suggests that both evangelical pietism and liberalism are guilty of this utilitarian abandonment of the faith. Seeking to gain the world or at least America, both liberals and evangelicals lose their souls.

A binary of liberal/evangelical is flawed, secondly, because it ignores an important swath of the fabric of American religious life, that is, orthodox Protestant traditions that have resisted both the evangelicalism and liberalism. Hart labels this a “Confessional” tradition in American Protestantism and describes these as “churchly or liturgical Protestant traditions” that include “Lutheranism, the Reformed churches, Presbyterianism, and Anglicanism” (p. xxiii).

With the introduction of “Confessionalism” as a third church type, Hart’s book moves from description to prescription. The Confessional tradition is the lost soul of American Protestantism, lost not only to historians who bundle it together with evangelicalism under the heading of “conservative Christianity,” but lost as well to American Christianity, which has abandoned the wisdom embodied in these Confessional churches. If liberals and evangelicals have lost their soul by pursuing relevance, they can regain their soul by embracing the studied irrelevance of Confessional Protestantism.

For Hart, Confessionalism’s strength lies partly in its recognition of a strict separation of holy and profane.  The church’s business is the salvation of souls, not the improvement of human life in time or the shaping of the public square, and the church attends to this business by pastoral care through word and sacrament. As this sacred/secular divide focus the church’s attention on its spiritual ministry, it simultaneously frees Christians to participate fully in a pluralistic public world. In Hart’s view, J. Gresham Machen’s view that the church is spiritual rather than political or temporal gives the church freedom to maintain its intolerant insistence that it has the truth, while at the same time avoiding the despotism of public intolerance. When Machen intervened in public debate, as he did in opposition to public schools as well as to prayer and Bible reading in public schools, he did so not for religious but for political reasons (p. 93). A Confessionalist like Machen had no interest in making faith relevant to public life, and as a result, he could engage in public debate without trivializing or defiling the holy faith.

In addition to its clarity and the pungent, the sometimes pugnacious vigor of Hart’s prose, his book has a number of substantive merits. He is surely correct that Confessional Protestantism forms a distinct thread of American Christianity, and also correct that this third party has been as invisible to American church historians as the Constitution Party has been in American politics. He is also quite right, in my judgment, to admire a number of the features of Confessional Protestantism, right to admire especially those features that run against the grain of American culture. Confessional Protestantism insists, for example, on the irreducible necessity and value of ecclesial forms – governmental, liturgical, and confessional forms as well as patterns of pastoral care and community life. For pietist evangelicalism, forms matter much less, if at all (p. 37). As a result, evangelical Christians often speak of their relationship with God as if it were an instance of what British sociologist Anthony Giddens has called a “pure relationship.”

Along similar lines, Hart endorses Machen’s arguments in favor of intolerant creeds (pp. 88-98), and he sings the praises of Reformed sectarianism (ch. 5). I would qualify my support for both of these, but Hart is correct to argue that Confessional Protestantism has weapons of resistance that non-confessional evangelicalism lacks. A church whose ministers adhere to the Westminster Confession has a ballast that prevents it being blown by winds of doctrine that is lacking in a Bible Church with no creed but Christ. A church with liturgical forms rooted in Scripture and sanctified by tradition can fight off pressure to conform to the liturgies of popular culture – the liturgical forms embodied in pop music, PowerPoint, the demand for casualness and informality. Insofar as sectarianism means standing against worldliness, the church cannot do without sectarianism.

Despite these strengths, the book has significant weaknesses, some of which are historical. For a church historian, Hart displays a surprisingly ahistorical view of the Confessional tradition of Presbyterianism and the Reformed churches. He admits obliquely that “the downside of confessions is that they may be wrong” (p. 107), and recognizes that the Confessional churches offer constitutional avenues for reforming their confession. But neither he nor the Confessionalists whose views he summarizes recognize the import of the fact that the Westminster Confession, for instance, is a historically particular document, forged in specific historical and cultural circumstances, shaped by the intellectual categories dominant in that day. Machen argued, in Hart’s summary, that “if a church allowed a variety of interpretations of the doctrines contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith . . . it would be in exactly the same position ‘as to have no confession at all’” (p. 105).

The Westminster Confession came from an Assembly whose members differed on various doctrines, an Assembly that strove at various points to produce formulas flexible enough to embrace those differences while fixed enough to be meaningful. Further, the fact that Westminster comes at the end of a century and more of Calvinist Confession writing raises questions about any univocal reading of the Confession. When Westminster formulates Reformed doctrine with different emphases and nuances than earlier Confessions, does that indicate a repudiation of earlier confessions or is it a contextually specific response to debates within the English church? More generally, non-Confessional evangelicals suspect, with some justice, that the Reformation’s “sola Scriptura” gets swallowed up by traditionalism in Confessional churches.

My more important disagreements with Hart are theological, though these too are partly historical. Hart’s addition of “Confessionalism” to the spectrum of American Protestantism enriches the historian’s palate but does not capture the full range of options. This is most obvious in Hart’s inclusion of orthodox Anglicanism among the “Confessional” traditions. Few Anglicans think themselves “Confessionalists,” but neither can we classify Anglicanism as a form of evangelicalism. (more…)

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On July 3, 2017 By In Scribblings

Chesterton’s 4th of July Exhortation

G.K. Chesterton spoke pertinently to many national issues. As we approach the 4th of July, I would like to offer a couple of thoughts from Chesterton’s great hymn, O God of Earth and Altar. His words are rather applicable to our country.

Chesterton writes after appealing to God for help:  “O God… our earthly rulers falter.” Indeed they do falter which is why God warns us not to trust in horses and chariots; that is, don’t trust in political powers to solve our spiritual needs. God throughout history is constantly changing the political class a way of showing his everlasting rule and man’s temporary reign. When kings and rulers falter for too long, He replaces them. In God’s political cycle, there is always change and newness of life because man’s political cycle always falters.

In verse 2, Mr. Chesterton writes: “From lies of tongue and pen, from all the easy speeches that comfort cruel men…” Have we not become so easily seduced by political rhetoric? We are as a nation more prone to being drawn by political speeches than biblical language. The Gospel calls us to draw near, and we say, “Let me first hear the lies of tongue and pen of earthly rulers.” Chesterton says, “Deliver us, good Lord!” from this kind of fanaticism and blatant disregard of your holy laws. We are comforted by false things in this nation when the abiding truth is that only the Gospel promises true comfort.

Finally, Chesterton petitions God to “bind our lives together, smite us and save us all.” This is a bit of a Psalmic imprecation from Chesterton’s pen. He is longing for a form of death/resurrection in the lives of God’s people. In other words, make us faithful citizens who wield a “single sword”, that is, a faithful Gospel proclamation to crush our dependence on earthly rulers and to satisfy our hunger in the divine ruler of all creation, Jesus Christ.

Our country will only survive if our pride is taken away. Our freedoms will only last when the thunder of God is proclaimed when the peoples clap their hands and sing for joy to a ruler who will never falter, never sleep, and never die. Let us pray to our God of earth and altar!

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On May 23, 2017 By In Counseling/Piety, Family and Children

Never Be Dismayed

Guest Post by Leta Sundet

I’m afraid of messing up. Not just of messing up in general, but of messing this up—the big This that is the story that is my life, the story that God is attempting to tell with me as His material.

The question casts its shadow over all my decisions. Can I ruin things? Is it possible for me to forfeit some good God intends for me or—worse—the people around me, by a sinful decision?

Say, hypothetically, I don’t relish the thought of hardship; so I don’t seize a challenging opportunity, and I miss my vocation. Say I’m afraid of rejection or of real, messy love, so I don’t risk a relationship with someone who might have been the Right One after all (and now I’ll never know). Say I safeguard my convenience and shun someone in need until it’s too late for me to help them, for anyone to help them.

Each one of those decisions, made in sin—I would have no trouble asking for forgiveness for it. But the exact nature of that forgiveness would be unclear to me. I know that Jesus died for my sins, that he will erase them from my record. But does grace mean that God will erase the consequences, the unraveling of those decisions? Rewind the tape? How could he?

And if, in fact, those decisions are irrevocable, shouldn’t I live in positive dread of sin? Not out of fear for my soul, which I know is safe, but out of fear for my story? (more…)

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On May 19, 2017 By In Film

Wall-E and the New Creation

Guest Post by Remy Wilkins

In an inverse Eden, a land laid waste, one works alone tending the trash. There are none like him in all the earth, inquisitive, playful and most drawn to those mysterious, dancing bipedal creatures who lost earth and left it to go wandering the vast wilderness of space. Humans have been driven from the earth by a flood of garbage, leaving in an ark designed not to keep them safe, but to keep them away. Only Wall-E remains the last Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class.

As he navigates past derelict robots we realize that what separates him from the rest is his ingenuity and love of the earth. He has made a home, adopting the practices of humanity, he takes off his shoes, collects parts so that he may service himself and, most importantly, he rests. His rests are not the pragmatic powering-down kind, though he does that as well, his rest is in play. He collects doodads and thingamabobs and practices his dance moves, but he also takes time to study the numinous.

I was introduced to the numinous secondhand by the intellectual spendthrift C.S. Lewis, but the word was popularized by the German theologian Rudolf Otto. He defined the numinous experience as having in addition to the tremendum, the tendency to invoke fear and trembling, a quality of fascinans, the tendency to fascinate and compel. This numinous experience, however, is not impersonal, but there is a feeling of communion with a wholly other.

Wall-E demonstrates this yearning for the numinous in his nightly examination of Hello, Dolly, particularly that most visually ephemeral emotion of Love. He sees hand-holding, he fiddles with his own clunky hands, he records Cornelius and Mrs. Molloy singing:

It only takes a moment
To be loved a whole life long.

Later he plays a snippet of the song as he stares into the night sky. Clearly, he is looking for someone. He has friendship in the form of Hal the roach, but he has yet to discover that divine spark of love. (more…)

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On March 31, 2017 By In Interviews

Christians and the Movies: Interview with Brian Godawa from 2009

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In 2009, Pastor Brito and Jarrod Richey interviewed Hollywood screenwriter, Brian Godawa. While the audio quality of the first 15 minutes is quite poor, the final 30 minutes are quite good and informative. Buy Brian’s book.

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On March 30, 2017 By In Politics

Engaging the University with a Doubleshot of Bavinck(s)

bavink

Guest Post By Tyler Helfers

One of my passions in serving as a campus minister is to introduce our students and faculty to dead, Dutch theologians. Perhaps it is an obligation because I serve in the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA), and study at Calvin Theological Seminary. However, I tend to think it is because of the tremendous gift these men are to the Church, and how, even today, their works remain relevant to faith and practice in our academic setting.

While I could talk of Vos, Kuyper, Schilder, Dooyeweerd, Van Til, Berkouwer, or Ridderbos, I find myself drawing most often on two others: Herman Bavinck and J.H. Bavinck. In a society that champions the sovereignty of self, and increasingly convinced that religion is irrelevant to the common way of lifea, the works of both Bavincks—a balance of cultural nous and confessional fidelity, missional zeal and Kingdom vision—serve as a blessing and bright hope for the future of both the church and wider culture.

Nature and Grace

At the heart of Herman Bavinck’s theology is the principle that “grace restores nature.” According to Bavinck, the religious antithesis should be between grace and sin, not between grace and nature, as posited by the dualistic approaches of both Roman Catholicism and the Anabaptists.b Bavinck writes:

Grace restores nature and takes it to its highest pinnacle…The re-creation is not a second, new creation. It does not add to existence any new creatures or introduce any new substance into it, but it is truly “re-formation.” In this process the working of grace extends as far as the power of sin.c

The implications of this are profound and all encompassing. Not only are fallen human beings reconciled to God and restored to fellowship with Him, but also enabled by the Holy Spirit to once again live out their created purpose (vocation). However, the re-forming effects of grace are also extended to the whole of nature, including the world of culture, society, and politics.d

As it relates to campus ministry, the blessing of this principle is twofold. First, it guards against the twin dangers of separatism and secularism. Much of what is encompassed under the banner of “campus ministry” is nothing more than an Anabaptist separatism that Bavinck describes as “[only] rescuing and snatching of individuals out of the world which lies in wickedness; never a methodical, organic reformation of the whole, of the cosmos, of the nation and country.e” Thus, ministries engage primarily in evangelism, Bible study, and providing a sub-culture for Christian students (as opposed to a holistic approach to discipleship and working for reformation of the broader campus culture). On the other hand, the principle thwarts the efforts of secularism to relegate faith in general, and the work of Christ in particular, to private life and the heart. As a result of the way in which God is at work, faith cannot help but find expression in the public square, and do so in ongoing, relevant ways that point to Christ and the Kingdom.

(more…)

  1. a) Christopher Dawson, Religion and World History: A Selection from the Works of Christopher (University of California: Image Books, 1975), 257. He goes on to explain that the “process of secularisation arises not from the loss of faith but from the loss of social interest in the world of faith. It begins the moment men feel that religion is irrelevant to the common way of life and that society as such has nothing to do with the truths of faith.”  (back)
  2. b) Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Abr. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 82.  (back)
  3. c) Ibid, 498.  (back)
  4. d)Ibid, 83.  (back)
  5. e) Jan Veenhof, “Nature and Grace in Bavinck,” Pro Rege 34, no. 4, (June 2006), p. 17.  (back)

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On March 16, 2017 By In Theology

The Art of Balanced Living

In Book III of Plato’s Republic, Socrates and Glaucon engage in a dialogue concerning music and gymnastic. Socrates proposes that music is pivotal for a well-ordered soul, and gymnastic is pivotal for a well-ordered body, but too much music, without gymnastic can make a person too soft. Whereas too much gymnastic, without music, can make a person too hard and forceful. He proposes that a wise leader needs both music and gymnastic in order to be “tuned to the proper degree of tension and relaxation”—in order for the person to be harmonious.

Considering harmony, do we balance our lives amidst the host of good choices that God has placed before us? Do we live a balanced life so that we can lead a balanced church or team or family? Do we see each member and each personality as balancing the other personalities and members in order be “tuned to the proper degree of tension and relaxation?” Can we relax in the reality that God has ordained things as they are, or is there always tension that someone is getting in the way of us being successful? Can we be thankful for a proper tension even though the pressure is sometimes extreme, knowing that iron-sharpening-iron creates heat and sparks?

The word “balance” used to rub me the wrong way. It felt like a mystical, Eastern spiritualism promoting both good and evil in some yin-yangy sort of way. But what about balance between some good and some other good? What if the colors of the particular yin-yang in front of you are not black and white, but red and blue, or green and purple? What if, internally, we are trying to balance our gold with our silver with our precious things? What if, externally, we have some good and someone else has some other good and someone else another? (more…)

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