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On October 29, 2020 By In Family and Children, History

A Brief Case for Halloween

By now, more than half of my readers have voted. Good. Get on with your life, people! To those whom I’ve had some influence, I am grateful. To those who continue to be as stubborn as I and unchanged, I applaud you. To those still undecided, as R.C. Sproul used to say, “What’s wrong with you people!” And to Evangelicals voting for Biden, I can no longer help you if you’re a part of the anarcho-syndicalist commune. And to all my third-party friends, I see the two of you. Being in the minority on issues is a specialty of my particular denomination. So, two very conservative cheers! Convictions aside, I know all about going against the flow.

I have argued that if we are to pray for those in authority over us (I Tim. 2:2), it follows that we should have some participation in the process. Praying for someone you’ve had no interaction with in the electoral process makes the whole process shallow.

But now that we’ve moved on, let’s talk about that Halloween business for a bit, shall we? After all, Trump is not going to give you candy. Your neighbor is. And herein lies the first case for Halloween: the neighborliness of it. Halloween is an extension of that festive spirit. We should abide by principles that establish more powerful platforms of community life. At this point, my Wendell Berry friends are cheering me on from the balcony.

I can already see from afar and up close the parents who wish to preserve decency and order in the home by keeping demons away. There is a kind of consistent curmudgeon who avoids all festivities. Christmas? Boo! Lent? Ascetic! The Feast of St. Augustine’s cat Felix? A return to sentimentalism! But Halloween, with some of these folks, receives a different kind of wrath. “Halloween?” Paganism mixed with vampiric orgies devouring candy offered to idols!

For the uninitiated, Halloween is a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. “The word “hallow” means “saint,” in that “hallow” is just an alternative form of the word “holy” (“hallowed be Thy name”).” All Saints’ Day, which liturgical churches celebrate this Sunday, is a festive occasion remembering the faithfulness of God to the sons and daughters of the kingdom who gave their lives and from their labors now rest with Christ. Jesus claimed victory on the cross as an act of triumph (Heb. 2:14; Rom. 16:20). He died and rose so that we might live abundant lives (Jn. 10:10). We affirm and cherish the life we have and the life of the saints gone before us, who now embrace the God-given sabbatical of eternity (Heb. 4).

The Eve of that day is the traditional Halloween. Now, before you bring your Cotton Mather to bear on this question and before you show me some variation of Zechariah’s vision to make a case against offering candies to little kids, and before you claim the ancient Celtic festival as the root of all the world’s evil, let me first lay out my presupposition. And here it is: we practice Halloween at our household because Jesus makes a mockery of evil (Ps. 2, Mat. 23) and because fun is a distinctly Christian virtue. God is a playful God (a powerful Lutheran view, btw), who delights in treating evil with all the playfulness and mockery He can muster. In the divine currency, that’s an infinite supply of it.

I have interacted with anti-Halloween advocates in the Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, and other mainline traditions, which means you all are everywhere. But the simple outline above indicates that what we are doing on Halloween is not giving demonic powers a high-five, but we are exercising our ability as judges of angels (I Cor. 6:3) to rule over everything, including candy and captain boomerang. And if the bar of kit-kat needs saving, someone has to do it. Why not your six-year-old?

Jesus is Lord over demons and outfits of superheroes. I would like to add the caveat that if your eight-year-old is dressed like some sexy version of Catwoman, you’re doing it wrong, but I suspect most of you are more self-aware. You can participate in an event with Presbyterian zeal and have a blast without failing basic biblical principles of modesty.

In my estimation, the best way to prepare to celebrate the saints gone before us is by spending the Eve of that day eating candy, being neighborly, dressing up with your favorite outfit, and singing Psalm 2 as a parting hymn or any Luther classic. Everything is Christ’s, and we are his, and everything the world has is ours (Rom. 4:13). They may drink like sailors and eat their candy like gluttons, but we drink in honor of St. Peter and St. Augustine and eat candy for the joy set before us (Heb. 12:2).

Additional Resources:

What Should Christians Think About Halloween? By Steven Wedgeworth

Concerning Halloween by James B. Jordan

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On October 11, 2020 By In Discipleship, History, Theology, Wisdom

Jesus Is NOT Coming Soon!

When I was growing up, the churches I attended heavily emphasized the imminent return of Jesus. We even sang the song, “Jesus is coming soon / morning or night or noon / many will meet their doom / trumpets will sound / all of the dead shall rise / righteous meet in the skies / going where no one dies / heavenward bound.” Jesus could come at any time and rapture all of Christians out of here. Seven years of tribulation would start after this followed by Jesus returning to finish off the world and establish his millennial kingdom. We developed ways of thinking about how it would happen and when it would happen.

Everything in the news pointed to this imminent return of Jesus. The development of the European Common Market, the Illuminati, the Russian Bear coming from the north, China’s one million (or was it two million?) foot soldiers, a computer called “The Beast,” threats of computer chips in the right hand and forehead to buy and sell, Henry Kissinger’s name somehow adding up to 666, Israel becoming a nation again in 1948, the red heifer being bred in Jerusalem, talk of rebuilding the temple, and even unseasonably warm or cold weather (because you don’t know the times or seasons). Hal Lindsey wrote The Late Great Planet Earth in the ’70s. There were eighty-eight reasons why Jesus was coming in 1988. When that didn’t happen, the Gulf War in the early ’90s was a sure sign. I was working in a Christian bookstore during seminary in the early ’90s at the time and Armageddon, Oil, and the Middle East Crisis by John Walvoord was selling like hotcakes. (You can get it pretty cheap now!) There were movies such as A Thief in the Night and A Distant Thunder that dramatized the rapture and after-effects used to scare teenagers into a decision. The Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye is where I started losing touch with that part of the American Christian world, though I’m certain it remains alive and well. (They must be having a field day with 2020!)

The disciples had their own version of this when they were nearing Jerusalem in Luke 19. This is it. All the signs point to the kingdom of God coming immediately, which means that the old order is done away with and David’s victorious son is enthroned in Jerusalem. All of that would happen, but just not the way they envisioned it. Jesus had to instruct his disciples in the fact that he was not coming soon, at least not in the way that they were thinking.

To instruct his disciples in the time and manner in which the kingdom comes, Jesus tells a parable about a nobleman, ten servants, and ten minas (that’s money not little fish). (Lk 19.11-27) The nobleman (who is, no doubt, Jesus) goes away to receive a kingdom. He entrusts each of his ten servants with a mina apiece and expects them to do business and make a profit while he is gone. He will come back and evaluate what they have done, expecting that they have been faithful stewards, having made him a profit. Consequently, he must give them time to do what he expects them to do.

Jesus is working with a deep theme that begins with man’s creation and runs through all of history. The theme goes something like this: God creates and establishes his people, gives them commands and responsibilities, leaves them to do what he says, and eventually returns to evaluate their work, dispensing rewards and punishments. This is a pattern established before the fall. God created Adam, placed him in the Garden with specific commands (work and guard the Garden, don’t eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil), gave him help to complete his task, left, and eventually returned to evaluate what Adam did.

This is what God does with Israel over its history. Israel is created at Sinai, given commands and responsibilities, he leaves them to do what he says, and eventually, he comes to visit them in the Person of Christ Jesus to evaluate their work, dispensing rewards and punishments.

Jesus says that this is the pattern that he will continue to follow with his church. Jesus creates the church through his death, resurrection, ascension (the time he receives the kingdom; cf. Dan 7.9-14), and the pouring out of his Spirit at Pentecost. He gives gifts to the church through the Spirit. While he is gone, seated at the right hand of the Father, he expects the church to “make a profit,” investing the gifts he has given to see them multiply. What started with small gifts in the first century must be multiplied until all of the nations are discipled. (Mt 28.19) Jesus will come back when the time for this mission is completed, and each of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of the deeds done in our body, whether good or evil. (2Cor 5.10) Each of us will give an account for the stewardship Jesus entrusted to him/her.

This is typified every week in our worship-work pattern. On the Day of the Lord, the Lord’s Day, we gather in the presence of our King to be re-created through worship, instructed, and supplied with what we need to go out and do the work we have been called to do. As images of God, we are to go out and be productive, taking what the Lord has given us and making more out of it. But the Lord’s Day is also a day of judgment, an evaluation of the work we have done the past week; works that we are presenting to him through tithes and offerings, which include the bread and wine of the Supper. Jesus evaluates our works dispensing praise as well as rebuke.

These weekly patterns are microcosms of history, reminding us that we have responsibilities to be faithful stewards of what our Lord has put in our hands. One day these weekly judgments will give way to the final judgment. Our desire should be to hear on that day, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” 

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On June 14, 2020 By In Church, Culture, History, Politics, Theology, Worship

Kingdom Revolution

We are in the midst of a revolution. Societal structures are being overturned and a new order of government is taking over. Old symbols of tyranny are being toppled. The way we live in relationship with one another is being redefined. Our understandings of what constitutes justice and peace are being reshaped. Language itself is being transformed. Logic and rationality are being turned upside down so that not just what we think but how we think are being radically transformed.

This is what happens in revolution because a revolution is the overturning of one culture and the creation of another.

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On March 9, 2020 By In History, Theology, Wisdom

God as the Main Character in Esther

God is not mentioned in the book of Esther. What does that mean? Why does a book of the Bible not mention God? While this can seem mysterious, the reality is that God is not absent in the story at all. He is all over it. In fact, the better way to describe it is that He is the main character. While there are lots of people acting in the story, no one character in the story is moving the story forward. Through the events of the story, we see that God is the one who is making everything happen. In this way, each character in the story is really more of a side character upstaged by God performing his sovereign plan. 

God’s Plan

God’s sovereign design is emphasized at the beginning with Vashti refusing to obey the king’s request at his feast. If Vashti had not done this, then the rest of the story would not have happened. While Vashti was acting on her own account, God removed Vashti in order to make way for Esther.

When looking at Esther’s rise, we see that she did not choose to be queen. God put her there. And this position was not particularly nice. She was chosen by the king as an object to gratify his desires. But Esther did not remain passive in this event, rather she attempts to gain the king’s favor by following the advice of Hegai about what to take in with her to the king. But even this highlights that her role of queen was not her choice but one that was given to her. Which is to say, God turned the heart of the king to make her queen.  

We see God’s sovereignty in Mordecai also. The story notes that he was from the tribe of Benjamin. This reference highlights and draws us back to other stories about Benjamin. One important story in Israel’s history is the story of King Saul who is also from the tribe of Benjamin. The story of Esther notes that Haman is an Agagite. While Haman may or may not be a direct descendant of King Agag whom King Saul fails to kill, the story of Esther does suggest that this story is at least an echo of that earlier story. God is at work telling a similar story through Mordecai. While Mordecai is a kind of Saul, called to defeat the wicked Haman, he actually does very little to bring this about. Mordecai angers Haman and that is about all he does. The real cause of Haman’s downfall is designed by God who is orchestrating the events. 

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On March 6, 2020 By In History, Theology, Wisdom, Worship

Sabbath Harder: Eric Liddell and Complete Surrender

Original post at CrossPolitic Blogazine

Christians should know how to keep Sabbath. I am not saying this the way that some in our culture would say it. Some people say we need more rest because we are too busy, living crazy, distracted lives. These people suggest we need to do some yoga and find our inner guru stillness. That is not what I am talking about. I am suggesting that we are not doing enough with Sabbath. What we really need is to Sabbath harder. By that, I mean we need to have a better understanding and vision for Sabbath. This means we have more to do, not less.

In the fourth commandment, God commands his people to rest. He says work on six days and then rest on the seventh. This is a command. This is not an option. While it might seem like a command will dampen our joy, the reality is that obedience brings great joy and peace. This command is a wonderful gift so that we have one day out of seven to rest. This Sabbath rest is a gift to us because we are reminded what our rest should be founded on. It should be founded on something that God has done, not something we have done.

In Deuteronomy 5, it says that the Sabbath day is a memorial for what God has done for his people: once they were slaves in Egypt and God brought them out with his mighty hand. God has done this great work and so the people need to rest. In the new covenant, we celebrate and remember God’s work on Sunday, the first day of the week, the day Jesus rose from the dead. Our Sabbath rest is on the first day of the week because our lives are oriented around the Gospel. God has done a great work for us and we are to reflect and remember and celebrate that work. This is something American Christians need to do more. 

Eric Liddell and Sabbath

The story of Eric Liddell is a wonderful lesson of how to Sabbath harder. In 1924, Eric was a runner who was going to compete in the 100m event at the Olympics in Paris. However, that year the 100m event was held on a Sunday. So Eric switched events, changing over to the 400m event. Eric refused to run on Sunday because he knew that was against God’s law. He honored God above men. Eric knew of the schedule issue ahead of time so he was able to train for a different event but this new event was still a huge challenge for him. It is crucial to see that while Eric honored God and kept Sabbath, this did not mean that Eric sat back and was passive about it all. Actually, he jumped in and worked harder. He trained for the 400m and he won that race. 

The famous movie Chariots of Fire records the story well. The character Eric in the movie talks with his sister about being a missionary in China. He explains that he will be a missionary but that God also made him to be a runner. He says the great lines, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” In this way, we see that Eric was not a snooty sabbatarian; he truly wanted to enjoy the good gifts of God in his life. He knew that God had called him to be fast and he wanted to use that gift to honor God.  

After he won the 400m, Eric explained how he had won: “The secret of my success over the 400m is that I run the first 200m as fast as I can. Then, for the second 200m, with God’s help, I run faster.” 

In this quote, Liddell is not saying that he ran 50% and then God added another 50%. Rather, the whole thing was a gift of God. By God’s grace, Liddell ran the whole thing. 

That is the correct vision for Sabbath rest: we need it because that is where we are reminded that we cannot do what is required. We must run and strain for the goal but we cannot get there in our own efforts. We must look to God for our strength in order to run. Paul in Romans 9:16 says it this way: “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” 

Sabbath as Surrender

Later in his life, Liddell went to China to be a missionary. He followed God’s calling on his life and he worked and served there for several years. He eventually gave his life there dying in 1945 in an internment camp. His last words are recorded to be: “It’s complete surrender.” 

Liddell’s last words summarize the Christian life: it is surrendering everything to God. But this surrender does not mean that we remain still and passive and don’t have anything to do. Rather, It is a complete surrender to God’s will for our lives and so this means that we work harder and longer than we ever thought possible. But this comes from God’s strength, not from us. 

There are two errors in how we approach Sabbath rest. One error is to think that rest means inaction: I just sit here and do nothing. Some might erroneously encourage us to a still quietness as if our problem is that we are too busy in life. But busyness is not the problem for Christians. The reverse is more often the case: we are too lazy. So Sabbath is not about finding an inner peace or quiet. True Sabbath rest is about action. 

The other error is to think that I must do everything. God might save me, but I am the one who has to run the race. So I get out my running shoes and I run. I grit my teeth and I try to run harder and faster: as if God will be more pleased with me, if I can just do more things faster. But this is wrong too. My job is not to do what I think; my job is to do what God says to do. 

This means that I must obey God all the way, every day. I must obey the command to glorify God but the reality is that this command is an impossible task for me. So it is only by God’s grace that I can fulfill the task before me. 

The answer then is complete surrender. We must give it all up to God. In God’s command to rest on the Sabbath, he is not saying that the other six days are ours to do with as we please. All our days belong to God. He has claimed them all. There is nothing left over for us. In turning to God, we must surrender it all to him. Then God in his grace gives us back six days to serve and obey him. 

Sabbath as Launch

In this discussion, it is important to emphasize God’s grace to us. It is all grace. I am not saying that we must do our part and then God adds his part. The truth is that all of it comes from him. God gives us the task to run and we must run our best. And we run only by God’s grace. And then God takes us even farther than we thought possible. And that is by God’s grace also. When it is all done and we reach the end, we will see that we had run because we had surrendered it all to God. He will get the glory because we were merely obeying what he had told us to do.

In Luke 17, Jesus says it this way, “Does [the master] thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’” At the end, when we have run our hardest and in God’s strength we have gone even farther than we thought possible, we will say like Liddell, I didn’t do it. I just surrendered it all to God. I don’t deserve any praise. I was just doing what I was commanded to do. 

In this way, we see that the Sabbath is not about us having a chance to rest or for us to get a chance to take a nap, although those things are good gifts from God. The true vision of Sabbath rest is that life is like a pole vault competition. The pole must be placed in a stationary spot, a spot that doesn’t move. This is not to keep the pole from moving, but because the pole is supposed to move. The stationary spot is the point from which something larger can be launched. Sabbath is like that spot for the pole. We set it there in God and in his great work of deliverance, and then He launches us farther than we ever thought possible. 

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On January 30, 2020 By In Culture, History, Theology

A Dead Man Dying: The Life of Francis Schaeffer

Francis August Schaeffer died twice. He died once May 15, 1984 at the age of 73. But he had died once before that, back in 1930. He was a senior in high school and he had just read through the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation. At that time, he was an agnostic and was thinking about throwing out the Bible permanently. But after he read through the Bible, he was struck by the truth of the Scriptures and his life was never the same. The day he submitted his life to the Truth, he died. 

That first death shaped everything for Francis. His college career bent quickly toward ministry, specifically pastoral work. Even when his parents insisted on a more practical career, Francis knew that God had called him to ministry. Francis threw himself into studies and his work. He sought out those in need and ministered to them. One of his tactics was to catch up with students who had been drinking Saturday evening and help them get home and as part of his help, he got them to agree to come to church with him the next day. This would become a signature part of his ministry: befriend the needy who are close at hand.  

Francis studied at Hampden-Sydney college and then later he went to Westminster Theological Seminary. He met his wife, Edith, when they both attended a talk given by a Unitarian who was arguing that “Jesus is not the Son of God”. Francis stood up and argued against the speaker’s erroneous position. Edith also stood up, agreeing with Francis. She quoted Dr. Gresham Machen in her response (Francis Schaeffer, by Colin Duriez, p. 30-31). This intrigued Francis. They met up later and began a friendship. The work of publicly defending the Christian faith defined their lives together. This was the beginning of many opportunities for both of them to work together and defend the truth. 

When Francis was done with seminary work, he went on to pastor a few churches. One in Grove City PA, another in Chester PA, and then a third in St. Louis. During this time, he and Edith worked on ministry to young people. They created a Summer Bible School to minister to children which eventually developed into Children for Christ (p 59). Because of this work, the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions in 1947 asked Francis to tour Europe for three months and make a detailed report on thirteen countries. This was his first work in France and Switzerland. Francis and Edith were then asked by the Board to be missionaries in Europe. They were commissioned to work with the World Council of Churches. It was in Amsterdam where Francis first met Hans Rookmaker and an enduring friendship formed that lasted throughout their lives. One evening, Hans met up with Francis and they began talking about Jazz music, which Hans was very interested in. This sparked an extensive conversation and, as Edith reported, they spent the night wandering the streets, discussing Christianity and culture (p 77). 

In the early 1950s, Francis went through something of a spiritual crisis which caused him to re-examine all of his beliefs about Christianity. He proceeded to work through these things in great detail over the next few months. Through this struggle, he became more thoroughly convinced of the truth of Christianity and how it answered what he called “the problem of reality.” His later book True Spirituality contains much of the ideas and philosophical problems that he wrestled with during that time. Through this spiritual struggle new fruit developed and Francis renewed his ministry to people in Europe and the seeds for L’Abri were planted. 

At this time, he was ministering to people in Switzerland, but because of his work in a region that was heavily Roman Catholic he was asked to leave because he was proselytizing. They were kicked out Feb 14, 1955 (p 127). Even though they were forced out of one portion of Switzerland, they were granted permission to go to another part. He resigned from the missionary board in June of that same year and he and Edith decided to go to the tiny village of Huemoz and purchase Chalet les Melezes. They needed a down payment of one thousand dollars in order to make the purchase and they received a letter in the mail with that exact amount (p 131).

The work of L’Abri began and guests began to visit. Many of the first visitors were friends of the Schaeffer children who were now in high school and college. This work blossomed into more and more people coming. The ministry of the home was to invite all people who were interested in questions about reality and Francis would dialogue with anyone. This work brought many people from all around. 

The work became so famous that a journalist from Time magazine made a visit in November 30, 1959. January 11, 1960 the article was published entitled “Mission to Intellectuals” (p 150). The ministry expanded into a tape ministry and a book ministry and eventually included two movies: How Should We Then live?  and Whatever Happened to the Human Race? The book How Should We Then Live? is still an important read, forty years later. Other works include Escape from Reason and The God Who Is There. 

Later at the end of his life, when someone asked Francis what the reason is for being a Christian, he responded by saying, “There’s one reason and only one reason to be a Christian, which is that you’re convinced it is the truth of the universe” (p 109). In 1978, he found out that he had cancer. Treatment for it was able to push it into remission and he continued his work for another six years. 

His daughter records that at the end of his life, when Francis was on his deathbed, she visited with him. She says that he was going in and out of consciousness and “there were several occasions when he was much more lucid, and once I said, “Is it true?”–what a thing to say to a dying person–and he said, “It is absolutely true, absolutely sure” (p 204).

That scene captures the ministry of Schaeffer: a dying man who takes the time to answer the questions of another. And that question is the one that Schaeffer knew to be the most important one.

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On December 31, 2019 By In Culture, History

Yes, Jesus was born on (or near) December 25

OK, maybe the title of my article is a little too bold. The Bible doesn’t give us the date of Jesus’s birth, so we can’t claim a particular date with certainty. But is it the case that Jesus was actually born in late summer? Is it the case that the church chose December 25 to co-opt pagan festivals? Enough people — Christians and non-Christians alike — believe these theories that they are repeated every Christmas season. Yet given the historical data we have, there’s no reason to believe them.

Let me state up front that it doesn’t really matter when Jesus was born; what matters is that he was born. Remarkably, a New Testament author never recorded the date for us, even though they could have. Surely Mary and Joseph and the shepherds remembered the date, and this date would have been known by Jesus and passed on to the apostles. Yet the Holy Spirit didn’t deem it necessary to put into writing.

If it doesn’t matter, then why defend a December 25 date? Defenders of December 25 primarily do so in response to the naysayers. It’s a matter of defending the decisions and intentions of the church, and of historical accuracy. Given the information we have, there’s no indication that the church wanted to co-opt pagan festivals. In fact, the opposite was generally true: The church wanted nothing to do with pagan practices. Christians, of all people, should want to be charitable to our ancestors and not impugn their motives.

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