There are about three topics that roll through my layers of brainwork in just about everything I do. And if you threaten me with a light-saber, it probably boils down to the Church in all its facets and formation. Like a repetitive Levitical drum, I re-acquaint everyone with my assertions on travel sports on the Lord’s Day.
I have written and re-posted this little essay probably five or six times, and I have seen many conversions and perhaps the greatest amount of fury I think I have ever experienced from anything I’ve written.
This means that I have hit something powerful in the evangelical ethos: “the right to do as I please on Sunday mornings” and “the right to devotionalize my children as I deem best on the Lord’s Day.” So, since I find these reactions absurd, I want to re-post with some edits and kindly ask your shares to spread the good news of ending weekend travel sports once and for all.
Time to stir things up a bit with some good ol’ fashioned biblical fundamentals. Not fundamentalism, but just fundamentals; the kind of thing every Christian should do but doesn’t because of convenience or some other sanctified rhetoric.
I have written about this before, but since I received two or three witnesses’ worth of negative responses, I wanted to try again to see if I received more this time. So, with my motivations out in the open, here it is!
We have entered what is, quite frankly, one of my favorite seasons of the Church Year: Ordinary Time. The season is not principally named “ordinary” because nothing “extraordinary” happens during the season. Rather, “Ordinary” comes from numbering the Sundays between the Day of Pentecost and Advent. Ordinal numbers are used to number the Sundays: First, Second, Third, etc. However, there is a delicious linguistic twist for paronomasiacs (punsters). Ordinary Time happens to be, well, quite ordinary. The church uses green as the liturgical color to mark off the season that lasts around six months. This is a time of steady growth after the waters of baptism have fallen on us at Pentecost. There are no real big parties for these several months, only the steady grace of the day-in-day-out regularity and, in many ways, imperceptible growth.
If you think about it, most of history is like this. We read about epic events in Scripture and other histories outside of Scripture, but while all that is going on, most of the world is plugging on day after day living ordinary lives. This is reflected well in the Church Calendar.
I recently made a point about our tendency towards overreaction. This is especially true among young fathers, whom I have seen accumulate numerous theological perspectives and a host of church membership cards. The fundamentalist reading “The Sword of the Lord” yesterday is now listening to lectures on iconography from his new favorite Eastern Orthodox podcast. They are about to take their spouses and families through emotional roller coasters because the latest thing to shine on X is calling them; the new movement is drawing them from yonder.
While I would love to see a worldwide Reformed revival, I am firstly committed to a worldwide ecclesiastical revival. I want to see men who love their wives and children at home, their congregations in service, their shepherds in submission, and their worship in faithfulness and joy.
The CREC is experiencing an enormous boost in attendance and interest; many come from standard independent and evangelical backgrounds. If they leave their flocks for legitimate reasons, my immediate encouragement when they arrive in our pews is to avoid making radical decisions in the first year. Sit. Learn. Ask. Read.
Graduation speeches have changed dramatically over the years. At one time, the conclusion of academic training offered students the opportunity to give orations in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as well as participate in formal academic debates on philosophical questions. Professors would offer lectures on topics for which they were known, whether in philosophy, theology, or the sciences.
On the other hand, the tone of modern-day graduation speeches combines Chinese proverbs with sentimental broth borrowed from last year’s soup kitchen. If it’s an Ivy League school, they may afford some renowned politician or athlete to address the school. Think of Jerry Seinfield’s speech at Duke. His general theme of “don’t take yourself too seriously” was a subtle but rich way of addressing campus riots. I actually thought it was quite sobering.
But the environments at high school and college graduations are deteriorating faster than Biden’s dog, Commander, whose cognitive skills are like his masters’. A quick search of this year’s graduation speeches will reveal fights among students, dirty dancing on stage, the wardrobes of homeless populations in San Francisco, an NFL player chugging down a can of cheap beer, and students exiting the speech with Palestinian flags. It is safe to say that graduations reflect the institution.
The Church celebrates the Ascension of our Lord today. Since most churches do not have Thursday services, many traditionally celebrate Ascension on Sunday.
But today, the Ascension of Jesus is barely mentioned in the evangelical vocabulary. We make room for his birth, death, and resurrection, but we tend to put a period where God puts a comma.
Theologically, however, If the resurrection was the beginning of Jesus’ enthronement, then the ascension is the establishment of his enthronement. The Ascension activates Christ’s victory in history. The Great Commission is only relevant because of the Ascension. Without the Ascension, the call to baptize and disciple the nations would be meaningless. The Great Commission is rooted in Jesus’ enthronement at the right hand of the Father. Christ has all authority in heaven and earth, and image-bearers imitate our Lord’s reign by de-throning rulers through the power and authority of our Great Ruler, Jesus Christ.
The Ascension is a festive day because it vindicates the Church’s triumph over the world and defines us as a people of glory and power, not weakness and shame.
As Jesus ascended, we too entered into his ascension glory (Col. 3:1). This glory leads us to full joy. As Alexander Schmemann once wrote:
“The Church was victorious over the world through joy…and she will lose the world when she loses its joy… Of all accusations against Christians, the most terrible one was uttered by Nietzsche when he said that Christians had no joy.”
A joyless Christian faith is a faith that has not ascended. Where Christ is, we are. And we know that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. He is ruling and reigning from his heavenly throne. The Father has given him the kingdom (Psalm 2), and now he is preserving, progressing, and perfecting his kingdom. He is bringing all things under subjection (I Cor. 15:24-26).
Jesus died a bodily death, was raised bodily, and ever reigns bodily at the Father’s right hand. As one author observed:
“Jesus has gone before us in a way we may follow through the Holy Spirit whom he has sent, because the way is in his flesh, in his humanity.”
When the Church worships her Lord, we are worshipping the God/Man, One who descended in human flesh and ascended in human flesh. He is not a disembodied spirit. He is truly God and truly man.
As we consider and celebrate the Ascension of our blessed Lord, remember that you are worshiping the One who understands your needs because he has a body just like you, and he rejoices with you now because he has a body just like you
Tucked away on a Thursday within the fifty days of Easter, ten days before Pentecost Sunday, is Ascension Day. Holy Week at the end of Lent leading up to Easter Sunday receives a great deal of attention in the church. Many churches will even observe some form of Ash Wednesday and, possibly, Shrove Tuesday to kick off the Lenten. However, Ascension Day comes and goes in many of our churches without much of a second thought. Maybe we push its recognition to the following Sunday, but you just don’t hear that much about Ascension Day. Besides, who wants to meet on Thursday?
Is it really that big of a deal in Scripture? Luke draws attention to the historical event of the Ascension of Christ at the end of his Gospel and the beginning of Acts, but I suppose we have to know the history of the resurrected Christ before the church received the Spirit. The Ascension only takes up a few verses in Scripture, right? Not really. The historical record of Jesus’ ascension only takes a few short passages, but ascension is a major theme in Scripture that Jesus takes up and fulfills.
While the United Methodists continued on their jolly path toward self-annihilation, lesbianizing their way toward childlessness and queerizing its worship with the decorum of three-cord guitar aficionados, The House of Representatives did not want to miss the opportunity to get some attention.
They passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act (320-91). In the old days, we would call that a bipartisan landslide. This was a fairly sped-up bill to stop the kerfuffles on university campuses. In the old days, the kids called this an “overreaction of epic proportions.” At least, that’s what I called it when I was a kid.
As you all know, there is plenty of anti-Jewish sentiment that deserves public flogging. And I do think that what we have witnessed at Columbia and Chapel Hill would provide us with some candidates for this trial period.
However, the problem with this bill—apart from making parts of the Scriptures impossible to interpret evangelically—is that everything happening on college campuses was actually headed toward sanity.
We were having fun seeing stupidity humiliated on public television. We were watching leftism expose itself in real-time in exchange for humanitarian aid in the form of gluten-free cookies. The PR team was on our side, and we even got some CREC attention (thanks, Rory!) on national television. I guess you win some, and our representatives get jealous and help us lose some. They do not want us to relish too much winning.
Even public opinion was favorable towards those opposing the Marxist lollipop guild. But this level of immaturity will only make us Christian Nationalism harder. Let the Senate understand.
Instead of bringing common sense, this bill will reanimate the Fuentes lobbyists on X, exacerbating the already-difficult pastoral task of keeping the kooks out of our churches and the Neo-Nazi sympathizers away from our kids.
I don’t say this too often, but I wholeheartedly agree with the UFO Catholic provocateur Matt Walsh when he concludes:
“This is honestly one of the most insane pieces of legislation I’ve ever seen.”
This week I listened to a couple of sermons by a well-known and greatly beloved Presbyterian minister that were a blessing to my soul. It would take a miracle of grace to make me one-tenth the preacher he was, and I could not hope to make one-hundredth of the impact his life and ministry had and continue to have even after his death. But there was one section in his last sermon that struck me powerfully, and not in the way he probably expected or hoped.
Somebody asked me a question a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about different congregations, and I was telling him how much I love [this congregation]. I said, “It’s a fantastic congregation.” He asked me, “How many people in the congregation do you think are really Christians?” I answered: “I don’t know. I can’t read the hearts of people. Only God can do that. I know that everybody who is a member of the church has made an outward profession of faith. So, 100 percent of our people have professed their faith.” He asked, “But how many do you think really mean it?” I said, “I don’t know, 70 percent, 80 percent.” I may be seriously overestimating or underestimating that, but one thing I know for sure is that not everybody in this room is a Christian.
The point this brother was making is good and right and true, in one sense. He was emphasizing that you must be born again. You cannot rely on your church attendance, church membership, or outward acts of religion for your salvation. You must personally trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, and amen. We might paraphrase Paul’s words in Romans 2 and say: He is not a Christian who is one outwardly, nor is baptism that which is merely the outward application of water to the body. He is a Christian who is one inwardly, whose baptism is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter. As the Lord himself warned: Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not [recited the catechism] in Your name, [sung the psalms without instruments] in Your name, and [kept the Sabbath holy with stiff collars, straight-backed chairs, and sour faces] in Your name?’ Yet the Lord will not acknowledge them. We need this kind of preaching from Jesus and Paul in our pulpits today.
Unfortunately, this was an example of a good point being made in an unhelpful (and, arguably, unbiblical) way. It was not expressed in terms of the need for personal faith but in terms of one’s identity as a Christian. When the pastor says, “I don’t know what percentage of this church are actually Christians, but I am sure not all of them are,” he is making a statement that Paul never made.
The church in Corinth was a hot mess of pride, division, doctrinal confusion, and immoral behavior. Their abuse of the Lord’s Supper was so egregious that the apostle said it wasn’t even the Lord’s supper! But listen to the opening lines of the letter.
To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus… eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
(1 Corinthians 1:2-9)
Were all of the members of the church in Corinth Christians? They were sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, recipients of grace and peace from God, servants of our Lord Jesus, eagerly awaiting the coming of the Lord who would confirm them (in salvation) to the end so that they would be found blameless on the day of Christ. But, of course, we can’t know if they are really Christians!
I do not want to sound presumptive, but I know that every member of the congregation I serve is a Christian, truly, objectively, and personally. If you have been baptized, you belong to Christ, have been engrafted into the stock of Israel, made a member of his Body, been given his Holy Spirit, and are called to holiness.
If you are married, then you are a husband (or wife), and you are called to faithfulness in that relationship. We do not say, “We can’t know how many of these married people are really spouses.” All of them are. You may be an unfaithful spouse. You may betray your mate, break your marriage vows, or act hatefully and harmfully to the one you have been called to love. The curses of the marriage covenant may fall upon you for violating that sacred trust, but it is not because you were not really married. It is because you were married and did not live in loyalty to that covenant bond.
The Christian doctrine of sanctification can be summed up by knowing who you are in Christ and acting like it. You have been made a member of Christ, partaker of the Holy Spirit, adopted into the family of God, and given an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Act like it. Live in reverence, love, faith, and gratitude. Do not neglect or forsake the blessings of that covenant of grace. Be loyal to your covenant God and King.
Knowing whether you are a Christian does not require a gnostic insight into the secret decrees of God. We do not seek that knowledge through a burning in the bosom. We are not required to remain agnostic about who is a Christian or not, hoping only with great reserve that perhaps, in their heart of hearts, they really meant it and so will be found in the secret number of the elect on the last day. We look to the objective work of Christ, the objective promises of God, and the objective ministry of his word in the preaching, sacraments, and obedience of Christ’s Body.
You are a Christian, so act like it: in your marriage, in your parenting and grand-parenting, in your work, in your studies, in your private devotions, in your personal morality, in public and in secret, in your outward acts and in your inward thoughts and desires. Live as a Christian should, by assembling with the Church on the Lord’s Day, confessing your sins and your faith, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord, receiving his pardon and precepts, rejoicing in the means of grace and in the mediatorial work of his Son. Live not in terror but in triumph, not in the fear of judgment but in the holy fear of a son seeking to please his beloved Father and blessed Lord. Live by faith, worship with joy, obey from love, and die in hope. You are a Christian, so live and die like one, resting in the work of the Righteous One and rejoicing in his righteous reward.
We must shift our focus on liturgical efforts towards hospitality. This may seem straightforward, but implementing it on a large scale is no easy task. Some congregations may express a desire to embrace this approach, but they find themselves hindered by self-inflicted wounds. Their priority is often showcasing their distinctiveness rather than demonstrating it through tangible actions.
In our inquirer’s class, we use a saying that goes something like this: “We need to bathe our weirdness with a deep sense of commonness.” Internally and behind the scenes, we don’t view ourselves as weird, but we are quite aware that the perception exists in a thoroughly de-liturgized culture.
This came across in an observation from a mother who raised her daughter in a Reformed context and saw her daughter go into a different tradition altogether. Now, mind you, the daughter was not antagonistic towards Reformed Theology, but she found the practices of this broadly evangelical environment more friendly and inviting. For the record, I am the last person to give much credence to an impressionable young adult. Still, I do want to take the opportunity to offer some general thoughts on the art of commonness and why black coffee Calvinists like myself think our churches need more than mere liturgism.
The first observation is that our Reformational theology/liturgy should be inviting. However worship is communicated–paraments or stripped tables–it must carry on the gravitas of joy from beginning to end. We live in a culture that craves the normalcy of joy. If we invite younger generations to taste and see Geneva’s God, we must also ensure that we don’t portray Geneva as some ogre attempting to tyrannize conscience. Geneva needs to show up with smiles and greetings, not five points of inquiry.
The second point is that liturgical worship should evoke a sense of the holy. Our liturgy should guide people to see God’s sovereignty permeating every aspect of worship, every line, and every response.
Once, a visitor told one of our congregants that even though the liturgy was foreign to her, it was incredibly joyful. But even if the impression is oppositional–and it has happened–we should still communicate a culture where the holy is a common ritual of the people. You cannot control reactions, but you can manage interactions. You can control a sweet disposition towards a visitor. You can sit next to them when they walk in alone and guide them through the order of worship.
Third, and finally, if the liturgy is a living liturgy–contrary to modernistic ritualization experiences in mainline churches with alternating “Mother God” lines–then that liturgy must breathe life into the home. It needs to be perpetuated with food and drink for those strangers who visit. If they are not invited to see your lived-out liturgy, it is unlikely they will find pleasure in your acted-out liturgy on Sunday mornings. It will continue to be strange and foreign rather than warm and inviting.
Our liturgical efforts must move into hospitable efforts. In fact, liturgy necessarily moves into homes. Ultimately, we may still appear strange, and our songs may still give a Victorian vibe, but at the very least, we will have given visitors a sense of the holy and an invitation to joy.
Our Reformed churches should contemplate that model in our day.
I want to take a moment to reflect for my readers on ecumenism and how it is possible for Reformed Protestants to be ecumenical while still being faithful to Christ who is the sole Head of the Church. Does Reformed Protestant Ecumenism have to dissolve into a soft amorphous goo of dead liberalism? In fact, I will argue that Protestant theology has a stronger basis for a boldly orthodox ecumenical theology than either the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Churches. That all stems down to the catholicity of the Reformed tradition.
Let me explain.
I’ll begin with this truth. It is impossible for a church or a group of churches not to have a tradition. Every church develops a tradition, because a tradition is the framework wherein truth is passed on from generation to generation. Tradition is the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation. Tradition is the cultural expression in a church or group of churches, of a church that is either compromising, ossifying, or seeking to be faithful to the Word of God.
This is why the Reformed churches technically are not just reformed, but always reforming (semper reformanda). We are not just reforming according to any standard. When the Christian Reformed Churches of North America lost their way as a denomination (for example), it was because the cultural zeitgeist became the standard. It is that cultural zeitgeist that is also hollowing out so many denominations. But we need a standard to protect ourselves from wokeness, from feminism, from secularism hollowing out our traditions and leaving them empty shells of death. That standard is the Word of God.
Now, to be clear, when I quote from the Reformed confessions, I am quoting from a tradition, and from a confessional tradition, at that. I’m quoting from a tradition that recognizes that the tradition is not the standard, but the Word of God is the standard. The Word of God gives birth to the tradition, and the tradition is always being reformed according to the standard, that is the Word of God. Confessions are not the Word, but a response to the Word. All tradition is a response to the Word. Tradition will either express faith in Christ and belief in the authority of His Word or it will express unbelief. God’s Word commands “believe!” In confessions and traditions, the church ought to respond with clarity “I believe!”
In the Belgic Confession of Faith (French/Dutch Reformed tradition), Article 7, you will find this truth: “We believe that this Holy Scripture contains the will of God completely and that everything one must believe to be saved is sufficiently taught in it.” It continues later… “Therefore we must not consider human writings— no matter how holy their authors may have been – equal to the divine writings; nor may we put custom, nor the majority, nor age, nor the passage of time or persons, nor councils, decrees, or official decisions above the truth of God, for truth is above everything else.” You will find in the Westminster Confession of Faith (Scottish Presbyterian Tradition), 1.10: “The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.” Again, you will find in the 39 Articles (British Anglican tradition), Article 6: “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”
I largely refer to Anglicans, Presbyterians and Reformed as the Reformed Protestant tradition although we share much in common with the 1689 London Baptist Confession as well as the Augsburg Confession of the Lutheran Churches. These are different traditions in various ways, but historically, each tradition had a high regard for the authority and sufficiency and inerrancy and infallibility of the Word of God. Each tradition (on paper) claims to subject its tradition to the Word of God. Yes, liberalism has savaged each one of these traditions, just as wokeness and feminism and marxism and secularism is doing damage again today.
The authors Theses of Berne wrote in 1528: “The holy Christian Church, whose only Head is Christ, is born of the Word of God, and abides in the same, and listens not to the voice of a stranger.” In the midst of the savaging of the Protestant traditions and all the divisions across the Christian world, what better hope is there for renewal, then to go to the Law and to the Testimony and there to find Christ and His will for the Church (Isaiah 8:20)? The Word of God must undermine all the fortresses of unbelief in the feminism and marxism and secularism and death that is leading to the downfall of the West and the East as well as the children of the West (Reformational Protestantism). The Word of God governs our protest and we protest unbelief and revolution wherever it might be found.
It is where the Reformed Protestant tradition diverges from both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Traditions, wherein we find the most potential for a principled ecumenicity. If you place the authority of the tradition on an equal level with the Scriptures, then you have lost the ability to reform the tradition. This is because the tradition is the standard and where it errs and contradicts itself, there will be error and contradiction in the church that upholds that standard. If the Western Church (Roman Catholics) must cling to their tradition as the true succession of the Apostles and the Eastern Church (Eastern Orthodoxy) must also cling to their tradition as the true succession of the Apostles, then which one is right? It becomes a combat of traditions without a higher standard to arbitrate contention over orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Of course, the same could happen in the Protestant world. What if the Dutch Reformed and the Scottish Presbyterians (for example) can’t work together because each one is placing their particular tradition higher than the authority of the Word of God?
Over the years, I have run into Baptists, Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed, Anglicans, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox authors who are able to contend for the truth of God’s Word against the lies of Marxism and feminism (for example). I have allies against wokeness & liberalism across the board. But I am able to recognize that because as a result of my reformed dogma, I am able to subject my own tradition to the Word of God. I seek to always be reforming my own tradition according to the Word of God (which might be a thought foreign to the RC and the EO – and even many Protestants these days).
There are a number of doctrines that I find to be confusing and even offensive to me in both the RC and the EO. For example, prayers to Mary, as much as I might try to extend the most charity to those who promote them, I find to be both Biblically and philosophically incoherent, and in worst case scenarios idolatrous (whether intentional or unintentional). For example, Roman Catholic dogma tends to blend justification and sanctification. Yet, because I have the Word of God as the highest standard, that is the standard that I can call the Roman Catholic Church and the liberal Protestant church back to. I am able to unequivocally reject both wokeness and prayers to Mary, to try to properly define the relationship between justification and sanctification, because I am seeking to faithfully reform my own tradition in subordination to the Word of Christ who is the sole Head of the Church. And while the RC and EO church pervert ancient Apostolic doctrine, nevertheless, I realize that some of their theologians are some of my greatest allies in the battle against the wokeness and liberalism of this age. Most orthodox Roman Catholic theologians still maintain the ecumenical creeds, which are faithful responses to the Word of God. We find unity where God’s Word is the highest standard. It is the Word above all earthly powers.
Traditions will always butt heads. But those who are wise will realize that we need a common standard and that we need to rally to that standard.
That standard is the Word of the Living God.
This post was also posted today, here on nathanzekveld.substack.com.
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’Abraham Kuyper
