Rev. Steve Macias

On June 30, 2021 By Steve Macias In Books, Church, Discipleship, Theology 1

Kill Goliath and Save his Skull

Last week, our church hosted a Vacation Bible School that included the story of “David and Goliath” as one of the Bible stories. I was responsible for the “Bible story station” that introduced the characters, the meaning behind the story, and its application. Groups would spend twenty minutes with me and then return later in the day for ten minutes of reflection and prayer.

Our VBS theme’s package included scripted lessons that a leader could simply read with sample questions and ideas for applications for various age groups. Our materials were produced by the Methodist publisher Cokesbury and generally faithful to the Biblical story. They were also insightful about how to manage the attention of younger students, but like all modern children’s curricula – do not expect much from the child.

On Bite-Sized Lessons

Exercises like this always cause me to question how much of Sunday’s sermon is actually understood by my youngest congregants. The VBS curriculums seem to assume that children need everything delivered in such easily digested, bite-sized pieces. Perhaps this level of VBS is meant for children who may have never been to a church. But not even two minutes into my introduction of David and Goliath it was obvious that my group of eight and nine-year-olds were already very familiar with the details of the story—down to the number of stones that David collects. The study guide wanted me to focus on “facing bullies” and “overcoming adversity” but the kids had heard it all before.

Caught off guard, I went into “Rev. Clowney Mode” and thought I would pivot into teaching how Goliath’s downfall points to Christ. Now completely off script, I asked the students, “So what happened to Goliath next?” A few hands went up. One young man was so excited to share that I decided to ignore his impatient “I know! I know!” and call on him anyway. “David cut his head off!” For some strange reason, this scene wasn’t included in the coloring sheets and didn’t make it into any of the suggested drama skits for the day. Go figure.

And, “and then what happened?” I asked. The students looked at each other, shrugged, and back to me. Here I explained that King David eventually took the giant’s skull to Jerusalem, to be buried just outside of the Holy City of Jerusalem.

I asked them to consider Goliath a type of serpent, reminding them that “coat of mail” that we see described as his armor in 1 Samuel 17 is more akin to a breastplate of snake scales. I then asked them to remember the Garden of Eden and to consider the promises made to Adam and Eve after their expulsion, chiefly that a descendent of theirs was to crush the head of the serpent. I pointed out that in our Scripture reading, David’s stone “sunk” into Goliath’s head. David was Adam’s great-great (times thirty-five generations) grandson and he was well aware of the promises to his family’s line. He and all future generations would remember David as the son of Adam who had crushed the serpent with a stone to the head.

Yet David was only fulfilling part of that promise. David’s battle with Goliath was looking forward to when the Messiah would destroy the true serpent and undo mankind’s death curse. David anticipated this when he brought Goliath’s skull back to Jerusalem as a covenant sign of God’s future faithfulness. For the very place that David buries Goliath’s skull is to become the very same spot that Jesus is to be crucified: Golgotha.

*David with the Head of Goliath*, circa 1635, by Andrea Vaccaro

As James B. Jordan points out:

“Golgotha is just a contraction of Goliath of Gath (Hebrew: Goliath-Gath). 1 Samuel 17:54 says that David took the head of Goliath to Jerusalem, but since Jerusalem was to be a holy city, this dead corpse would not have been set up inside the city, but someplace outside. The Mount of Olives was right in front of the city (1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 23:13), and a place of ready access. Jesus was crucified at the place where Goliath’s head had been exhibited. Even as His foot was bruised, He was crushing the giant’s head!”
Biblical Horizons Newsletter No. 84: Christ in the Holy of Holies The Meaning of the Mount of Olives by James B. Jordan (April, 1996)

I had gone way off course from the VBS script. I was talking about burying a giant’s skull and Christ crucified, where the script had this as its closing reflection: “If you wonder how you can face challenges that might seem bigger than you, remember that with God you can find what you need to help you meet your challenges.”

At reflection time they returned eager for more juicy details about David’s bloodlust, only for me to remind them of Christ’s present promises to conquer sin and that perhaps us miserable sinners are more like Goliath than David in the story. We deserve a stone to the head for our life of war against God. And like Goliath’s lifeless skull outside of Jerusalem, our only hope was the blood dripping down from the saviour on the cross.

On Practical, Relevant Preaching

The need for a “practical application” and the lure of relevance or accessibility has detached the Christian meaning of David versus Goliath from its place in the story of the Gospel. King David as a historical figure with a natural and spiritual lineage leading to Jesus is of no real consequence in the VBS version. While I have no doubt that this story also presents a great opportunity for character building in giving us examples of overcoming adversity, let’s not limit David to the realm of mere fable.

After all, popular authors have done much better than pastors with this self-help approach. For example, Malcom Gladwell parlayed the underdog notion of David and Goliath into a New York Times Bestseller back in 2015 when he connected this story to all sorts of character applications. Everything from the religious sacrifices of the French Huguenots to the jumbled but noble struggle of dyslexics. In Gladwell’s applications, the whole idea of the story was simple: what we saw as disadvantages in the small-statured shepherd boy, were actually his secret weapons against the Philistine giant. David had it in him the whole time, everyone else just couldn’t see it. Is this the message of Christ?

We must contend that the Holy Spirit did not include the battle with Goliath to add a Hebrew hero to the Aesopica. David’s battle must be more than a story for inspiring courage and spurring on self-development. We have not faithfully taught any passage of Scripture without connecting it to the story of Christ’s redemption. Or as Rev. Edmund Clowney put it, “Preachers who ignore the history of redemption in the preaching are ignoring the witness of the Holy Spirit to Jesus in all the Scriptures.”

Rev. Clowney was Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, where he served for over thirty years, sixteen of those as president. He authored several books, including *The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament*.

Esoteric Speculations

Grounding our teaching in the story of Christ also prevents the fetishizing of obscure details in the Hebrew text. I was recently asked to lead a book study through Michael S. Heiser’s book The Unseen Realm. While leading the study, I quickly learned that the generation of men taught under “relevant preaching” styles had missed out on the necessary theological framework to hang the Old Testament narratives. They craved the order and structure The Unseen Realm offers. Unfortunately, Heiser’s book reads like he has just recently unlocked a secret code to understand the Bible through special ancient symbols and obscure language clues.

Speculations about Nephilim, angels, and giants creep in and have the power to wedge an artificial gap between our historical theology and our new pet passages. Men like Othmar Keel, Meredith Kline, and Gregory Beale have been offering us similar approaches to Biblical symbolism while staying within Nicene orthodoxy and the historic church. And of course, James Jordan offered a very accessible compendium of Biblical symbolism in his book Through New Eyes.

How much did Goliath’s armor weigh? Were his ancestors fallen angels? Did the giants survive the flood? Does new Philistine DNA evidence prove the existence of bronze-age giants? The depths of the Biblical text are inexhaustible, or as D.A. Carson put it in his book The Gospel as Center, “The Bible is an ever-flowing fountain…” but wild speculations detached from the story of salvation are not equal to seeing Christ in every passage of Scripture. To see Christ in every God-breathed passage is to drink from the living stream, while a desire for obscurity inevitably leads to the brackish waters of pseudo-scholarship based in the mysteries of pseudepigraphon and cliches of post-modern religious studies.

Teach Christ

There’s nothing foolish, redundant, or mediocre about Christ-centered preaching. Those who love the Lord will never tire of hearing how Christ is present on every page. Those who are far from him desperately need to hear him speak to every area of life. Let us never grow weary in taking captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

On September 17, 2020 By Steve Macias In Culture 1

Climate Alarmism is the Left’s Version of Rapture Theology

“We must make sure that nobody is left behind…”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ (September 2019)

One of the most disappointing ministry stories that I’ve ever encountered was that of a young woman who recounted how she ended her Awana glory days. This young woman was part of a Christian family and a baptized member of the local First Baptist Church. She had been through multiple stages of Awana and considered herself “on fire” for Christ. When the year 2000 came around, her pastor encouraged her to put her faith to practice. He warned that Y2K and all of the apocalyptic events surrounding the new millennium were certainly signs of the end times. “Jesus is coming back. Don’t be left behind,” was the clear message.

This young woman was ready for the return of Christ. Her pastor shared that December 31st of the year 1999 was going to be the last day of the world and that the Lord would rapture up the faithful believers into Heaven. Everyone else will be left behind to face the most difficult times mankind has ever known. The message was clear – everyone who does not believe will face certain disaster. It was a powerful tool for conversions. It made the fear of the Lord into a pressing reality and gave evangelical Christians a paradigm by which to read current events.

But on January 1st, 2000 – Jesus did not return. And neither did this young woman. Not to Church at least. She was more than disappointed, she felt deceived. Her entire worldview was built around Christ’s return and her pastor’s ability to tell the truth.

Christian teachers who expect the imminent return of Christ are largely from the American dispensational and premillennial camps. This innovative 19th century movement can be traced back to men like Darby and Scofield, yet it now holds a great deal of influence in evangelical circles today. You may even be familiar with some of their more ardent advocates like Tim LaHaye of the fiction series “Left Behind” (which was also made into a movie with Nicolas Cage and Jordin Sparks). Our friend Gary Demar refers to this theological movement as “Last Days Madness.” (See his book by the same title here).

But rapture theology permeates not only the evangelical world, but the entire human condition. The idea that the world is running down toward destruction is a common trope also embraced by climate alarmists and is often coupled with phrases like, “left behind.”

In a press release, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks, “We must make sure that nobody is left behind as a result of the climate impacts that we are already experiencing and more and more will experience in the future.” This apocalyptic language is common throughout the climate change discussion. One of the most eminent prophets for American environmentalism is former Vice President Al Gore. In 2006, Gore’s famous An Inconvenient Truth set the clock at ten years until the ice caps were gone and irreversible damage had been done. But as David French put it, “Well, the ten years passed today, we’re still here, and the climate activists have postponed the apocalypse. Again.”

Postponing the apocalypse happens again and again. Today’s climate prophets like Greta Thunberg sound eerily familiar to the wonks predicting the coming rapture. “I want you to panic… I want you to feel the fear I feel every day,” preaches Thunberg. And she’s not alone in her preaching, ”The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,” says millennial Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The religious overtone of these conversations continue in almost every level of politics. In responding to wildfires and hurricanes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims, “Mother Earth is angry… She’s telling us with hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, fires in the West…”

I remember when the news media would mock men like Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson for linking natural disasters to the wrath of God. Yet, climate alarmism seems to embrace the very same rapture mentality: the end is near, be afraid.

The negative effects and false prophecies of climate alarmism have been readily apparent for decades. Yet our politicians continue to choose the religion of climate activism over the welfare of human life. In his book “Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All” Michael Shellenberger chronicles how end-times environmentalism has done more damage than good.

More than embracing junk science, modern climate change alarmist often reveal a hatred for our world.

“When we hear activists, journalists, IPCC scientists, and others claim climate change will be apocalyptic unless we make immediate, radical changes, including massive reductions in energy consumption, we might consider whether they are motivated by love for humanity or something closer to its opposite We must fight against Malthusian and apocalyptic environmentalists who condemn human civilization and humanity itself.”
(Apocalypse Never, p. 274)

While I don’t personally agree with many of Shellenberger’s ultimate conclusions, there is an underlying truth that humans can improve the health and well being of our planet. We can transform once arid environments into farmland and relieve some of the worst human suffering by economic development. There’s no need for alarm, but rather hope.

The myths of limited resources and overpopulation are used to malign human life by climate alarmists. Again, wielding a similar weapon American Dispensationalism spurns the world and looks to escape a sinful world via the rapture. But the message of the Gospel is that Christ’s resurrection has overcome the sin of Adam. The lamb of God has come to take away, not the people from the world, but the sin from the world. We have therefore both a spiritual and cosmic hope for this world and the next.

We cannot allow the “apocalypse nonsense” of the left’s “climate alarmism” or dispensational “end times madness” to be the rudder of a Christian future. Christians ought to recognize the power of our sovereign God in history and the present reality of Christ’s dominion for the life of the world.

On November 10, 2019 By Steve Macias In Politics Like

Masks and the Armor of God

The Mask and the Person

Our English word for “person” comes from the Latin word “Persona” or the Greek equivalent πρόσωπα (prosopon). ^a This Greek version of person should conjure in the mind of the reader the idea of ancient Greek theaters and the various “masks” they would use to express emotions and communicate identity. Today phrases like “be my own person” reveal that we share this Hellenistic inclination to use person as an expression of who we are as an individual. Or perhaps, like the Greek actors, we use masks to contrive an identity as to alter how we are seen by others.

The Greek theatre modeled itself after the Greek god Dionysus. Dionysus is famous for his bodily transformations and for appearing to mortals as a variety of creatures, as a male or female, and as the patron of wine and various ceremonial meals. Professor Thanos Vovolis of the American University of Greece describes a connection between the mask and the Dionysus. “This contradictory, polymorphous, paradoxical god [Dionysus], was most often depicted as a mask.” ^b

(more…)

A word also worthy of study for its Christological implications in the work of Theodore of Mopsuestia. (back)
The Acoustical Mask in Greek Tragedy and in Contemporary Theatre by Thanos Vovolis (back)

On June 26, 2019 By Steve Macias In Theology Like

How is God called Father?

Our most basic statement of faith, the Apostles’ Creed sets forth the essential truths about how we are to understand the Christian God. This Creed begins with, “I believe in God the Father Almighty” as the foundational statement of Christian theology and serves to articulate the first leg of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The term “God the Father” applied to the first member of the Godhead is later complemented by the identification of Jesus as the “God the Son.” Identifying these two persons of the Trinity with titles that are also associated with the human roles of father and son.

(more…)

On May 10, 2019 By Steve Macias In Podcast 2

Episode 57, Conversation with Steve Macias on the Legacy of R.J. Rushdoony

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Who was R.J. Rushdoony? Rush influenced the homeschooling movement, the Moral Majority and remarkably established much of the groundwork for a Kuyperian revolution applying Van Tilian thinking to all areas of life. If you’ve never heard of Rushdoony, this is the perfect episode to find out about this pioneer of the Christian Reconstructionist Movement.

Resources:

Chalcedon Foundation

The Messianic Character of American Education by Rushdoony

Christian Father Fatherhood Leadership Dad

On October 20, 2018 By Steve Macias In Family and Children, Men 1

The Father-Leader

The Faith of our Children

I sat across the table from a father holding his beautiful five-month-old daughter. On my lap, I have my own infant son and another of mine, a toddler, underfoot. Somewhere in between the prattling about of these tiny humans, we were actually able to get a few complete thoughts out. Through the years, one particular thought has come up in our conversations over and over again, “what can we do to ensure our children stay in the faith?” Neither of us was raised by what we would call Christian fathers. We both came to Christ in high school in the context of a public school Bible club and youth group. Back then, we would lament the milquetoast Christianity of those raised in the church. Perhaps it was “old hat” to them or they had just spent years going through the motions – and now they felt no sense of urgency. Or they didn’t share our sense of urgency.

Now both of us went on to marry virtuous women raised in the church – both of the Reformed tradition. And the Lord has blessed us with Children to lead and guide in the way. I explained to my fellow father, how my wife and I had our son in a Christian School. I shouted to our five-year-old at the other end of the dining table, asking him to recite the scriptures he had been memorizing the week before. As if somehow this answered the question weighing on our hearts. The Christian School will certainly help my children learn scripture, discipline their habits, and train them in a variety of academic disciplines, but it will never replace the single greatest influence on my child’s future trajectory: their father.

A Father’s Lasting Influence

It’s not hard to see how much influence a father has on his child’s future. From a worldly perspective, this is often referred to as the “birth lottery.” Writing for Business Insider, Alison Griswold writes, “the amount of money people make is strongly predicted by what their parents earn…” Even in an age of unprecedented social mobility, a father can significantly determine one’s potential opportunities for education, friends, a spouse, and jobs. What college you end up at or who your wife might be, is nearly predetermined by the circumstances created by your father.

Just as fathers play a significant role in determining the worldly circumstances by which children leave the household and enter society, so to do fathers determine the spiritual circumstances by which children enter the faith. The Book of Proverbs takes this a step further to say that the crown of a father is not his children, but his grandchildren. “Children’s children are the crown of old men,” (Proverbs 17:6). A father’s impact is then not merely on his immediate children, but multigenerational. To be a father is to represent the trajectory of an entire lineage. Certainly, the reader can see that the father is an important role which can either bring forth a series of covenantal blessings or a generational disaster. It is for this reason that every father that calls himself a Christian must be wholly committed to the success of his wife, his children, and his grandchildren.

The Father’s Commitment

This commitment to the success of your family is a discipline and habit. It requires the grace of God and a spirit of humility. God’s grace isn’t infused on passive men but requires men to submit and obey the Lord. Grace is free, but not painless. As Flannery O’Connor rightly quipped, “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” This is why St. Paul encourages you to, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12) As a father, I have often failed to meet what I understood to be my fatherly obligations. I am often impatient with my wife and children, imprudent with my time, and selfish with my resources. Do not despair. The conviction here is God’s means of renewing his call for you to lead your family. Acknowledge to God and to your family that you have not been the father and leader that our Lord expected you to be. Explain that you truly desire their success. Wives and children need to know that you love and need them.

The Father-Leader Explained

A father-leader must recognize that his family is an essential part of his own salvation. He needs the prayers of his wife and children. He needs their gifts and even their weaknesses. The wife and children the Lord has given you are part of God’s plan of forming you into the image of his Son, therefore the father-leader must recognize where his family is going and be patient. I often remark that my sins are most evident in the sins of my children. Fathers should then look at our sins as a clue to where our children will also struggle. This is why it is so important that Fathers are working out their own issues, so as to avoid their owns sins being, “visited unto the third and fourth generation.” To avoid passing on their sins as their children’s inheritance.

Father-leaders reject that they are fathers by the mere happenstance of biological functions, but see their role as ordained by the sovereign God. Yet this does not mean that he should demand or expect immediate results. A relationship of influence is a privilege that a father must earn, guard, and protect by investing in life-long relationships with each member of his family. This requires time, sacrifice, patience, and humility as you continue to demonstrate your commitment to your family. Your family wants to see in you a certain consistency that they can count on. Commitments must be evident, your wife and children know what it means to be “on your calendar.” They can see how you treat those whom you respect and honor. If raising faithful children is important to you, then you must strive to be more than a sperm-donor and more than a financier of food, lodging, and clothing – you must be a leader demonstrating his commitment to his children by fulfilling his God-given responsibility to lead his family.

On October 16, 2018 By Steve Macias In Culture, Politics Like

Russian Orthodox Schism: Autocephaly and Eucharistic Communion

As of October 15, 2018, the New York Times is reporting “The Russian Orthodox Church on Monday moved to sever all ties with the Constantinople Patriarchate, the Orthodox mother church, to protest its moves toward creating an independent church in Ukraine.” In more ways than one this represents a real schism in the Eastern Orthodox Church and can undermine the Orthodox claim to be a faithful representative of the historic Christian faith. For the non-orthodox, this is a challenge to our understanding of institutional and denominational Christianity.

(ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO – Getty Images)

Political and Religious Schisms

It is important to note that this schism is hardly a surprise to any who have seen the political undercurrent in this ongoing feud between the Hellenic and Slavic Orthodox Churches. Certainly every church conflict can be said to have some degree of political posturing, whether it is Rome’s Imperial power grab of the Great Schism, Henry VIII in England, or even the German princes that enabled Luther’s work. But this present schism presents a greater crisis to the contemporary Orthodox church and its American diaspora.

The jurisdictional authority of Constantinople as an important patriarchate is an ancient tradition, one that can be traced back to the “pentarchy” – a term used to describe the five self-governing jurisdictions of the undivided church. Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem were to be considered chief jurisdictions with special honor, authority, and significance. The stability of this five-headed church begins to fall apart in the 7th century as the Eastern territories are brought under Muslim rule, which happened to coincide with Rome’s increasing claims for universal jurisdiction. After the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches, Constantinople becomes the Ecumenical Patriarch of the East and is recognized as “first among equals” of the Eastern Churches.

The Birth of the Russian Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox Church is born centuries later, first as a subordinate jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but then as the Byzantine Empire crumbled the Russian Church claimed its own canonical independence. It is interesting that just as Rome claimed control as the East fell to the Muslims, the Russian church claims control as Byzantium falls. It would be over a century before this movement of self-government or “autocephaly” was officially recognized by the other Orthodox Churches. Today, the Russian Church represent a large chunk of Orthodox Christians and claims canonical jurisdiction over the Slavic Orthodox churches in Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan as well as Orthodox Christians living in other countries who voluntarily submit to its jurisdiction.

The conflict between the Russian Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate over the canonical status of Ukraine has reached the point of schism. The Russian church is currently disallowing any of its members from celebrating communion with Churches under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In the United States, two-thirds of the Orthodox Christians are under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople – what are commonly called Greek Orthodox. And over a hundred thousand Orthodox Christians in America are under Russian-origin jurisdictions like the Orthodox Church in America (autocephalous), the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and the Churches of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Jurisdictional Multiplicity

Many American Christians are familiar with this sort of jurisdictional multiplicity and conflict. In my own tradition as an Anglican we have jurisdictions with identical prayer books, liturgies, and vestments, but completely out of communion. Some is justified, no Christian can or should commune with a female “bishop” as she prays to God using feminine pronouns, and denies the literal resurrection. Other breaks are similar to this current Orthodox struggle in that they are historically complicated and deeply political.

But this Orthodox question of canonical jurisdiction and authority of autocephalous churches poses an issue for all Christians. Many have fled the denominational chaos of Protestantism for the greener pastures of Orthodoxy as a solid, unified church. Perhaps believing that she was the sole representative of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Others frustrated with the canonical division of Orthodoxy turned to Rome, hoping the Pope to lead the church through these conflicts and the Lord gave them Pope Francis.

It is a great sadness that the Russian Church would bar an otherwise faithful Christian from its communion altar. Functionally, the schism excommunicates the majority of American Orthodox Christians, at least temporarily. Can any branch of Orthodoxy claim to represent the unbroken tradition while denying real Christians access to the Body and Blood of Christ? As an Anglican Priest ordained in the Western Apostolic Succession of Sts. Peter, James, and John, and Paul – I recognize that the seeds of these poisonous canonical divisions were planted nearly a millennium ago with the Great Schism of 1054.

Bishops and Princes

The temptation for Catholic-minded Christians is to abuse our Apostolic identity as license to become the sole institutional representatives of Christ’s Kingdom. Bishops and Archbishops, Patriarchates and Metropolitans, are tempted to leave their chief calling to be shepherds of souls for the form of princely rule and worldly control.

Should the Russian Church maintain its stand against the Ecumenical Patriarchate, what effect does this have on the Orthodox identity as the faithful representative of the undivided church?

It is likely that Orthodox Christians in both jurisdictions are troubled over this – I’m sure they want Christ’s Church to be one. But perhaps rather than attempting to maneuver the canons into the favor of one jurisdiction or another, may we seek a humbler solution. Perhaps this moment is a time for Orthodox, Catholic, and Apostolic Churches to revisit what it means to be “one church.”

A Eucharistic Ecclesiology

In evaluating the merits of Russian autocephaly or the canonical authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch, perhaps we have overlooked the basics of Christian ecclesiology. The Holy Spirit brings the risen Life of Christ to us through faithful proclamation of the Gospel and His Sacraments. Imagine what it might look like to return to the simple eucharistic unity of our Apostolic fathers like St. Ignatius of Antioch who wrote: “Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

The Eucharist is the symbol and the means by which the Church becomes one with Christ and thus one with each other. St. John Chrysostom declares that Christ “mixed Himself with us and dissolved His body in us so that we may constitute a wholeness, be a body united to the Head.” To extend Eucharist fellowship is to recognize another Christian (and their doctrine) as part of the body of Christ. As St. Paul teaches, “For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” Just as to deny or bar one from Eucharist fellowship is to declare them outside of the body.

Perhaps at this time, when the dangers of building entire ecclesiastical structures off the flimsy merits of institutional jurisdictions are most visible, we can seek renewal around the Eucharist. The wounds suffered at 1054 have not healed, but the institutions that emerged have limped their way through a thousand year desert. Here now, as the churches become more and more divided – may we return to the Eucharistic promises of Christ’s real presence and to the reality of a undivided church around a shared altar.

On January 9, 2018 By Steve Macias In Books, Theology 1

Contours of the Kuyperian Tradition

In March 2017, IVP Academic published Craig G. Bartholomew’s systematic introduction to the Neo-Calvinist school of thought entitled, Contours of the Kuyperian Tradition.

Kuyper scholars like James D. Bratt, author of the 2013 Kuyper biography Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat, have recommended Bartholomew’s book. “Agree with Kuyper or not, this is the place to go to learn, in brief, what he said, did, and wrought,” said Bratt.

Over at the Jesus Creed blog on Patheos, The Rev. Canon Dr. Scot Mcknight has two posts on the book. On December 22, McKnight overviews his familiarity with Kuyper’s work and poses the usual objection to Kuyperian thinking: the how. In the Reformed world, we have seen a variety of Neo-Calvinist interpretations from Rushdoony’s Reconstructionism to James K.A. Smith’s efforts to revive Augustine’s “permixtum of the saeculum.”

McKnight is likely familiar with this variety (and history) of its applications and expresses his nervousness at Bartholomew’s paragraph: “Mission is easily reduced to evangelism and church activities, and indispensable as these indeed are, mission is much broader. As David Bosch points out, “Mission is more than and different from recruitment to our brand of religion; it is alerting people to the universal reign of God.”

McKnight and I belong to the same Anglican Diocese, where he is Canon Theologian. While McKnight doesn’t embrace the term Kuyperian – I do and here’s one reason why. McKnight returned to Contours on December 28, 2017 and pulls up to Kuyper’s conversion story. Interestingly, this is a place where McKnight’s Anglican tradition and Kuyper can actually touch historically. Kuyper’s conversation happens while reading a popular novel: The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte M. Yonge – a disciple of Father John Keble, who closely supervised the writing of the book.

McKnight and Bartholomew point to Kuyper’s quote:

“I read that Philip knelt, and before I knew it, I was kneeling in front of my chair with folded hands. Oh, what my soul experienced at that moment I fully understood only later. Yet, from that moment on I despised what I used to admire and sought what I had dared to despise.”

It is not clear in his blog if McKnight has made (or would agree with) this connection, but I would posit that it is no coincidence that Kuyper’s conversion and ecclesiology are born out of a Yonge novel. McKnight is likely familiar with the “Tractarian/Puseyite” traditionalism (or Oxford Movement) that Yonge hopes to romantically entangle the reader with. Her inclusion of high-church, sacramental Anglo-Catholicism is essential to the historic import of the book. In Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, Bratt notes how Kuyper made the connections himself, “the hero’s funeral rite in the Church of England conveyed the comforts available from a pure ‘mother-church’ that was there to guide each step of the pilgrim’s way.”

McKnight goes on to connect Kuyper’s critique of modernity with his emphasis of separation and the sphere-sovereignty of the church. While Kuyperianism is often maligned as a political theology, McKnight, Bratt, and Bartholomew all point to his bold emphasis on the importance of the Church.

Perhaps, I am putting too much weight on Kuyper’s conversion story and its connection to the Tractarians, but they both spring from the same revolt against modernity. Both Neo-Calvinism and Anglican Traditionalism are born to combat the tides of what they saw as liberalism. It is impossible to understand the Anglo-Catholics as a liturgical movement alone, they also represented an anti-modernist political philosophy for the Church against the encroachments of “whiggery.” In a similar way, Kuyper would develop a political theology as a result of his high view of the church, as a defence against modernism, not as a tool for power or mere social engagement.

On January 5, 2018 By Steve Macias In Theology 1

The Word Makes History

St. John begins his Gospel with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” ^a

The Word as “Logos”

His use of “word” is often explained with its connection with the Greek “λόγος.” ^b The Scripture explains that God is Word, and this is associated with the Son in Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity. While there may be additional philosophical and theological meanings for “word,” my core idea here is of God coming to us through the medium of language. (more…)

John 1:1 NKJV (back)
Strongs 3056: Logos is a word as embodying an idea, a statement, a speech (back)

On January 3, 2018 By Steve Macias In Podcast, Worship 1

Episode 24: On Music Making Culture

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:31 — 14.8MB)

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In this episode of the Kuyperian Commentary Podcast Jarrod Richey and Derek Hale discuss music making in our culture.

The Desert of Musical Literacy

Jarrod begins with the observation, “Everybody in the world has music around them all the time, and yet, no one can make it. Everybody has a device, everybody has access to the world’s greatest music (and the world’s worst music) at the touch of a button or the click of an app. And yet, very few people have formal music training, have the ability to make music, or to be what we would call literate in music.” (more…)