In his book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Lesslie Newbigin offers some wisely balanced insight on the question of the church’s relationship to culture:

“Christian discipleship can never be all homeliness nor all heroism. It has to have elements of both and it has to learn from day to day when to accept the homely duties of life as it is, and when to take the heroic road of questioning and challenging the accepted ways. It was necessary for the early church, at crucial moments, to take the heroic path and to accept martyrdom rather than submit to what the vast majority of people took for granted. But it was also right that, when the time came with the conversion of Constantine, the Church should accept the role of sustainer and cherisher of the political order. It is right for churches to be dissenting communities challenging accepted norms and structures. It is right also in other circumstances for the Church to be the church for the nation or the parish, the cherisher and sustainer of the ordinary work of the farmer, the judge, and the soldier.”

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This morning, former Texas Governor Rick Perry appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. In the interview, he was asked if he thought America was in the midst of a “spiritual crisis.” As we all know, politicians are trained to present themselves as the solution to every problem. Perry could’ve easily taken the opportunity to say, “Yes, we have a spiritual crisis. Elect me and I’ll fix it by banning X or implementing Y.” Instead, he responded with the following:

“You know, I can only speak for myself, and I know where my hope for the future is in my Lord and Savior… If people are looking for government to be their savior, they’re looking at the wrong place. The things we have in this country were given to us by God, not by government. Now if you call a spiritual crisis relying on government as a crisis, I would suggest to you we’ve got a spiritual crisis if you’re looking to government to be your savior.”

Perry’s answer was built on three very astute observations. First, one’s hope can only be rightly placed in whoever created the institutions, people, and matter which make up reality. Second, a spiritual crisis occurs when one stops putting their hope in the Creator, but in something within the created order—say, an institution, person, or piece of matter (this phenomena also goes by the name “idolatry”). Third, “government” is in the created order, thus can’t be a person’s ultimate hope, or the solution to a “spiritual crisis.” On these three premises, Perry asserts that government is not only  impotent to provide the solution to our spiritual crisis, but the very impulse to look to government for an answer to the crisis is itself the crisis!

Who knows what would possess a politician to answer a question with such humility and theological acuity? Perhaps he recently read Acts 12. There, the prototypical politician, Herod, accepts the praise of man and does not give glory where it is due. Rather than telling the people where true hope is to be found, he gladly accepted the messianic role. As you may recall, he’s promptly eaten by worms—for real.

This may seem like an odd punishment; a grotesque thing to witness, no doubt. However, it’s not that unusual or odd at all. Actually, this is the hard reality with which every created thing will one day have to reckon. We have a beginning, we have an end. We go into the ground, and we’re eaten by worms. In the case of Herod, the process was just expedited a bit. As a created thing, your hope has to be found in a non-created being. More to the point, your hope has to be placed in the one who met the grave, yet escaped the worms. Herod was a created thing. Rick Perry is a created thing. America is a created thing. You and I are created things. Thus, our “spiritual crisis” can only be solved by placing our hope in the Creator as He’s revealed Himself in the resurrected Messiah, the giver of eternal life, Jesus of Nazareth.

Whatever Perry’s motivation was in answering the question the way in which he did, such moments of sanity are rare in our current political landscape—when they do occur, we should notice and applaud.

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A new era of acceptance for sexual relativism was inaugurated this week with the announcement of Vanity Fair’s upcoming issue, which will feature a cover story showcasing former Olympian Bruce Jenner’s official reveal as a “woman.”

Transgenderism—like egalitarianism—is ostensibly an emancipation from oppressive traditionalist categories. But it’s actually parasitically reliant upon traditional sexual conventions. Those who attempt to change sexes still feel the need to look and act masculine or feminine. Bruce Jenner’s transformation was not just a change of mind, it involved cosmetic surgery and hormone therapy. He also changed his name to something feminine (“Caitlyn”). Transgender rhetoric may be progressive, but its optics are confusingly traditional.

Witness the new Vanity Fair cover photo: Jenner is presented essentially as a supermodel. The wardrobe (or lack thereof) and composition intentionally accentuate the feminine characteristics Jenner is trying to assume. He is depicted as demure, voluptuous, even seductive (and thus objectified, take note). While this is the antithesis of manhood, it’s also the antithesis of androgyny or the rugged feminism of the modern age. Traditional ideals of beauty and sexuality are in the background here, albeit in twisted form. And far from being seen as objectionable, all this is deemed “heroic” and praiseworthy in the media.

The shape of Jenner’s “identity transformation” is an ironic revelation that human sexuality involves biological, aesthetic, and other natural givens that can’t be eradicated, even by those engaging in self-destructive revolt against divinely-created order. Though we may try to rebel against our Creator and fashion our own reality, we cannot transcend our created nature. We cannot escape living in God’s world and functioning according to the categories He has established.

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The “matter” of baptism (i.e. water), according to Alexander Schmemann, represents: (1) life, (2) death and destruction, and (3) purification. To participate in a baptismal liturgy, then, is to communally rehearse the biblical story of creation, fall, and redemption. Says Schmemann[1]:

“Baptism proper begins with the blessing of the water. To understand, however, the meaning of water here, one must stop thinking of it as an isolated ‘matter’ of the sacrament. Or rather, one must realize that water is the ‘matter’ of sacrament, because it stands for the whole of matter, which the biblical ‘mythological’ world view—which incidentally is more meaningful and philosophically consistent than the one offered by some ‘demythologizers’ –water is the natural symbol of life, for there is no life without water, but it is also the symbol of destruction and death, and finally, it is the symbol of purification, for there is no cleanliness without it. In the Book of Genesis creation of life is a victory of the Spirit of God over the waters—the chaos of nonexistence. In a way, then, creation is a transformation of water into life.

What is important for us, however, is that the baptismal water represents the matter of the cosmos, the world as life of man. And its blessing at the beginning of the baptismal rite acquires thus a truly cosmic and redemptive significance. God created the world and blessed it and gave it to man as his food and life, as the means of communion with Him. The blessing of water signifies the return or redemption of matter in this initial and essential meaning. By accepting the baptism of John, Christ sanctified the water—made it the water of purification and reconciliation with God. It was then, as Christ was coming out of the water, that the Epiphany—the new and redemptive manifestation of God—took place, and the Spirit of God, who at the beginning of creation ‘moved upon the face of the waters,’ made water—that is, the world—again into what He made it at the beginning.

To bless, as we already know, is to give thanks. In and through thanksgiving, man acknowledges the true nature of things he receives from God, and thus makes them to be what they are. We bless and sanctify things when we offer them to God in a eucharistic movement of our whole being. And as we stand before the water—before the cosmos, the matter given to us by God—it is an all-embracing eucharistic movement which gives the baptismal liturgy its true beginning.”

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N.H. Gootjes’ chapter Schilder on Christ and Culture in Always Obedient: Essays on the Teachings of Klaas Schilder offers some clear, practical wisdom for the Christian living “between the times.”

“Is this a period [between Christ’s first and second comings] in which only the duty to preach has to be fulfilled, and not the duty to work in this world? If applied consistently, this opinion would imply that a Christian should work only enough to enable him and his family to live and fulfill their duties and that in all the rest of his time he has to evangelize.

Such a view clearly goes against the New Testament. For example, when John the Baptist announced the coming of the Messiah, he did not say to the tax collectors, ‘Give up your work, and go out and preach.’ He said in Luke 3:13, ‘Collect no more than is appointed you.’ And when soldiers came, he did not tell them to leave the army to become evangelists. Instead he said, “Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages’ (Luke 3:14). Or to give another example, the problem with Alexander (2 Tim. 4:14) was not that he was a coppersmith but that he opposed the gospel.

The meaning of the time between Creation and Christ’s return is not limited to evangelism. It is also the period in which the Holy Spirit works in Christians to bring them to obedience to God. The Holy Spirit also requires us to see and do our daily work (as soldiers, servants, and so on) in the light of Genesis 1 and 2, even in a world that is no longer a paradise.

It is important to maintain that in this period of the New Testament church, regeneration should become apparent in the way in which each believer fulfills his daily work. Our daily work is more than a necessity to keep us alive. Our life should show that we work as God’s servants in God’s world.”

Gootjes then applies the cultural mandate to various professions, showing that the farmer, the garbage man, and the artist each have value in God’s good world:

“Because of the cultural mandate, our children who have the ability should be allowed to study, to become scientists, to become professors, if they can. Farmers and professors should not despise each other but should cooperate in the mandate to work in this world, each in his own place and according to his own ability…

[Further,] being a garbage man is not humiliating. For it is work that has to be done to keep our society going, as a part of the instruction ‘to keep the earth.’ This commandment implies keeping streets clean and preventing the outbreak of diseases.

And then there are those who have artistic ability. This too is a gift from God to be developed. It is true that artists often have a bad name among Christians. And the artistic world has itself partly to blame for it. They have fostered the idea that the artist must be completely free and completely himself to produce a meaningful artistic work. This often implies that the artist rejects God’s Word and becomes a god to himself. When Christians reject this, they are right. On the other hand, the arts should be seen as a possibility that God has given in creation. Artists, too, should have dominion over their part of created reality.

Seen from the perspective of the cultural mandate, followers of Christ may work in many jobs. In the church no one should despise another because of the work he does. The other is a fellow worker, a servant of God in his field.”

In conclusion, Gootjes offers this advice to pastors:

“This gospel confronts the believers again with the duty instituted from the beginning: to have dominion over the world. God’s gracious gospel puts daily jobs in the light of service to God. Therefore, the minister cannot limit his sermon to the inner life of the believer. Daily work comes within the scope of preaching. The sermon should touch the daily life of the minister’s congregation. Ethics in the workplace and in the schoolroom [should] be mentioned.”

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The Irish Presbyterian Thomas Witherow—who studied under Thomas Chalmers in Edinburgh—writes on the tendency of “professing Christians” to downplay those doctrines which are “non-essentials in religion.” If ever there were an admonition that the “gospel-centered” movement needed to hear, it’s this one:

 “It is very common for professing Christians to draw a distinction between essentials and non-essentials in religion, and to infer that, if any fact or doctrine rightly belongs to the latter class, it must be a matter of very little importance, and may in practice be safely set at nought… To say that, because a fact of Divine revelation is not essential to salvation, it must of necessity be unimportant, and may or may not be received by us, is to assert a principle, the application of which would make havoc of our Christianity… But if all the other truths of revelation are unimportant, because they happen to be non-essentials, it follows that the Word of God itself is in the main unimportant… If such a principle does not mutilate the Bible, it stigmatizes much of it as trivial… So in the Christian system, every fact, great or small, that God has been pleased to insert in the Bible is, by its very position, invested with importance… Every Divine truth is important, though it may be that all Divine truths are not of equal importance.[i]”

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In The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization, Vishal Mangalwadi quotes the Bach biographer Wilfrid Mellers as saying:

 “At the school which Bach attended in Ohrdruf the system of education was little changed from the old [Augustinian] prescription. Music was second in importance only to theology, and was taught by the same master, who believed that music makes the heart ready and receptive to the divine Word and Truth, just as Elisius [Elisha] confessed that by harping he found the Holy Spirit.”

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While reading Patrick Henry Reardon’s The Jesus We Missed: The Surprising Truth About the Humanity of Christ, I was reminded of the way in which Bill Edgar started off his commendation of the Reformed faith[i]. Commenting on the scandalous particularity of the God-man Christ Jesus, Edgar says:

“The second person of the Trinity became not humanity in general, but a man, a unique person from a unique place. Jesus Christ and his teachings, as William Temple once put it, were a ‘scandal of particularity.’ In S. Mark Heim’s felicitous expression, ‘If God were to be as human as we are, Jesus must have a fingerprint as unique as each one of ours.’ Only from this extraordinary particularity can Jesus then be universal. He did not look down from heaven and proclaim timeless truths with no application to culture. Rather, he became a real human being, a particular Semitic male, at a particular time of history, because such concreteness is the only way to be human. Because Jesus is a particular man, his message is then truly applicable to all of humanity, to women and to men from every tribe and group.

And so, the message has a shape. It has contours. It is particular in order to be universal. Just as God brought about the redemption of every kind of person through the one man, the God-man Jesus Christ, so his revelation, though encapsulated in words from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek languages, is universal, valid across all boundaries of time and space and culture.” 

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I’d like to say that the following passage from A Heart for God[i] is “Sinclair Ferguson at his best!” However, the truth is, this excerpt is fairly typical of the whole of Ferguson’s work. This is why I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that there’s not a contemporary who writes more beautifully, lovingly, or powerfully on the Christian faith than Dr. Ferguson. Commenting on Isaiah 6, Ferguson makes the following connection with the Cross:

“The discovery of God’s holiness has [this] profound impact on our lives: We enter into a deeper awareness of the blessings of forgiveness. This impact was certainly true for Isaiah. He saw one of the seraphs flying towards him, as soon as he had confessed his terrible guilt and pollution. He carried a coal—in his hand—lifted with tongs from the alter of fire and sacrifice in the Temple. With the burning coal, he touched Isaiah’s mouth! Think of the sharpness of the pain. Think, too, of the appropriateness of the action for the man of unclean lips. ‘See,’ said the seraph, ‘this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for’ (Isaiah 6:7).

Isaiah experienced this purification in a vision. But in effect his vision was a preview of the Cross. There, too, the holiness of God became visible, in the darkness of judgment that surrounded our Lord on Calvary; there, too, it became audible, as on the Cross He bore the sins of His people—as though He said, ‘I stand in the place of the man with unclean lips and the people with unclean lips,’ as He cried out, ‘My God, my God, I am forsaken. Why?’ God there unveiled how holy He is, judging His own Son when His Son appeared before Him in the robes of Man’s sinfulness.

Yet from the alter of the Cross, another Seraph flies to us. This One is the Spirit of Burnings. He brings us fire from the altar of Calvary, by which our sins are forgiven and cleansed. In the rediscovery of our sinfulness we learn what it means: ‘those who are forgiven much, love much.’ And we discover that the foundation of our love for the Lord lies in the recognition of His holiness, our sinfulness, and His grace.”

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In his book Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross[i] (which Kevin Vanhoozer calls “generous evangelicalism at its best”), Hans Boersma offers some wise words concerning baptism as an “objective bond of fellowship.”

“Baptism is the sacrament through which one enters into the Church and is united to Jesus Christ. As the prime sacrament of initiation, baptism does not simply signify the universal call or promise of the gospel, but it actually incorporates one into Christ and at the same time into the eschatological community of hospitality. We might be tempted to make fine logical distinctions here, in the hope of establishing the correct order pf things. But the Scriptures do not seem concerned about which comes first: our personal union with Christ or our membership in the church (cf. Acts 2:41; 1 Cor. 12:13). Karl Rahner has rightly cautioned against an individualized understanding of Baptism. It is the individual person who is baptized, but this person is baptized into the people of God. To belong to Christ means to belong to his Church and vice versa. Since Christ is the representation of Israel, who recapitulates her life, death, and resurrection, faith and baptism unite us to Christ and lead us into the Church.

We should resist the temptation, therefore, to prioritize between being united to Christ and joining his Church. Doing so leads too easily to a denigration of the significance of the Church as the visible communion of believers. Baptism, as the primary sacrament of initiation, rebuffs such attempts to play out faith in Christ against fellowship with the Church of Christ. Danish theologian Peder Nørgaard-Højen rightly comments that there exists ‘an essential relationship between being a Christian and the community of believers (the communio sanctorum) as the place in which the faith becomes concrete and the implications of baptism become visible.’  It is impossible to belong to Christ without at the same time belonging to the Church of Christ. Believing is never an isolated activity. To accept the invitation of the host implies that one is willing to share in the feast together with everyone who has accepted the same invitation. Baptismal hospitality is by definition corporate in character.

Baptism into Christ and into his Church implies a bond of unity with everyone who likewise has been baptized into Christ and his Church. We can only deny this objective bond of fellowship (koinonia) if we radically limit the implications of baptism to the local Church. Such a limitation hardly seems justified. To be sure, the local congregation and the baptized person’s life in and participation with it are of supreme importance. But to be incorporated into the local Church means to be incorporated into Christ and so to become part of his universal body as well.”

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