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On July 9, 2016 By In Politics

Reconciliation at the Table

We are a divided people. Children turn against parents, parents turn against children, politicians turn against politicians, and we turn against those who rule over us. From within, we have been working steadily to undo Paul’s great theme in his writings: the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile in Christ Jesus. Our oneness is challenged daily as we hear of reports of brothers and sisters tearing one another, gossiping, cursing one another. Authority figures are being killed and authority figures are unjustly killing. If you try to find a consistent trend there is none. We destroy our unity because we have sabotaged the image-bearing status of humanity, as Al Stout noted here.

But our solution is near us. It seems too simple; too safe and yet too dangerous.

When we taste the Eucharist we taste physical elements offered to God’s people for edification, wisdom, and nurture. Yet when tragedy strikes we run away from the meal that brings together male and female, slave and free. What would the world be like if police officers and their black neighbors were to eat and drink at the table together? What would it look like for the one in authority to partake of bread and wine with the tattooed Hispanic convert? What would it look like to be formed by something given to us, something served each week by a minister of the Gospel? What would it take to get estranged brothers to embrace each other at the culmination of worship, and then say, “Peace be with you,” as they look into each others’ eyes and drink the blood of Christ and eat his body?

The Gospel of the sacraments ought to do that for us. The Apostle Paul understood this when he wrote: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” a Baptism unites us into the oneness formed by the Spirit. God takes us from our diversity and unites us into his Threeness and Oneness.

Why have conversations about unity abandoned conversations about the table?

If the Church wishes to see unity, let’s encourage the weak and strong, young and old to build ecclesiastical patterns of weekly eating, weekly partaking, weekly loving, weekly embracing, and weekly serving one another—in and through our diversity—that we may find union with Messiah Jesus: the source of all true reconciliation. So this Sunday b come and serve your brother and sister with intentionality as you eat and drink in the name of One Lord, one faith, and one baptism.

  1. I Corinthians 12:13  (back)
  2. or whenever your church communes at the table  (back)

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On July 7, 2016 By In Culture, Politics, Pro-Life

Reconciliation and Bearing God’s Image

Guest Post by Al Stout

At Providence Church in Pensacola, Fl,[1] we have a regular Vespers’ service on the first Wednesday of each month. We sing the majority of the service, we read three lessons from Scripture– an Old Covenant, New Covenant and Gospel passage–followed by a short homily. This week we read Genesis 1:26-31; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; and John 3:1-8 and I delivered the homily.

Reading the news of the day, there were a couple stories about men being shot and killed while being arrested or detained by police. I saw some of the responses to those shootings. I began to contemplate what it is that gives men and women, no matter their level of sin or righteousness, dignity. This is what I asked those who were at Vespers…

—–

What is it that gives man dignity? What moves the Church to advocate for the unborn child and the prisoner? What compels us to give honor to the most innocent and the guiltiest, that they should be treated with dignity?

In Genesis 1 God declares that we are created in the image of God. Man was created in goodness and while still pure commanded to take the image of God to the rest of creation. They were to reflect the image of the Creator to His creation that did not bear that image. This is part of the subduing of creation mandated by Holy Spirit. By carrying the authority of God by way of His image, we would participate in Creation, its management, and husbandry. Even without sin man took the image of God to the world.

The fall did not undo this. Man is still to take the image of God out to the world, but with the fall came a haze over our eyes. Blindness is a type of death[2]. We could no longer see properly; not just creation, but we could no longer see God himself in those He created. So, when Cain kills Abel and he is confronted with his sin, he cannot see the value of his brother, his inherent dignity. He slanders him by declaring to God that Abel is not worthy to be watched over, cared for, ministered to… “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen 4:8-9).

This cloudiness of eyesight can affect us as well. It is hard for us to see the image of God in an unborn child or in the man guilty of murder. If we forget that they are both image bearers we can trash them both. We can literally put the most innocent into the garbage, but we can also forget the prisoner; leaving him or her to physical assault and even rape. Turning such humiliation into a joke, we laugh with the world as fellow prisoners or guards strip men and women MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD of their dignity, or sounding support with glib comments like “Can’t do the time, don’t do the crime[3].”

When we forget that even the guilty bear the image of God, we can quickly find ourselves supporting or even participating in evil far greater than the crimes perpetrated by these guilty persons. (more…)

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On June 3, 2016 By In Politics

What Sin Compartmentalizes Christ Unites: an Ode to Byron Borger

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On Facebook, I’ve been compiling lists of “go to books” on various topics (apologetics, discipleship, education, etc.). A friend sent me this question: what are your list of “go to living writers/thinkers?” Being a schoolteacher in the Summer, I had the time to give it some thought. At first, I typed out a list of ten names in no particular order: Ken Myers, RC Sproul, NT Wright, John Frame, Eugene Peterson, Robert Barron, Peter Leithart., Alistair Begg, Marilynne Robinson, Os Guinness.

I was relatively happy with the list. It was honest; it reflected those to whom I look and trust. However, after some thought, I deleted the names. In their place I wrote one name: Byron Borger. Of course, one person really isn’t a “list.” One person can’t represent the depth or breadth of a tradition. Yet, I’m confident those familiar with Byron’s work at Hearts and Minds Bookstore will understand my rationale. As I looked over the authors–those people who have been so pivotal to my formation as a Christian, I was struck by something: If I didn’t directly learn about them from Byron, I at least read one of their books at the insistence of one of his brilliant reviews. Just this week, in fact, I started David Dark’s new book at Byron’s recommendation.

For those unfamiliar with the work of the Byron and his wife Beth, Hearts and Minds Books is an independent bookstore located Dallastown, PA going on 30 years. Prior to starting the store, Byron was a college minster with Coalition for Christian Outreach. When you email Byron a question, as I have, you feel his college ministry background. He’s a man who has clearly spent his life engaged with big questions and big ideas. He’s eager to connect just the right person with just the right work. Sure, there are times he gets excited about a particular book and strives to get everyone to read it (i.e. Visions of Vocation), but that’s not his typical MO. Observing from a distance (we’ve never met in person), I’ve found Borger’s vocation to be more similar to a pharmacist than a bookseller. People come to Hearts and Minds with one deficiency or another. After some listening, Borger prescribes just the right supplement of Al Wolters or Richard Middleton or an obscure gem hidden in a tacky dust jacket. (more…)

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On May 27, 2016 By In Politics

Happy 142nd, GKC!

One-Hundred and forty-two years ago this Sunday, Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in Kensington, England.  I tend to keep track of the anniversary of his birth, because I was born 100 years and 2 days later.  (It would be way cooler if the “2 days” part was not there, but it is what it is.)

Since you’re here, and given the small amount of time you have to devote to reading blog posts, I am going to give you the gift of brevity for Mr. Chesterton’s birthday, i.e. I’m going to hush and let GKC speak for himself.  If the best gift you can give an author is to quote him, then Mr. Chesterton, having perfected the art of quotability, must be one of the easiest people in the world to buy for.

Below is a sampling of his poetry. Although it is not his best-known genre, it is one of my favorites.  Also, through his poems, you can instill a love for him in your children that may be hard to accomplish through prose while they are young.  My children will not remember the day before they heard the following three poems, and I can’t imagine them ever wanting to.

Hint: For maximum enjoyment, read the poems aloud.  The words take shape when they’re spoken that cannot be formed in your brain.  If you don’t believe me, try it both ways.  I think you’ll like them better aloud. So will your kids.  (Your best, fake, British accent doesn’t hurt either.)

The Englishman

St George he was for England,
And before he killed the dragon
He drank a pint of English ale
Out of an English flagon.
For though he fast right readily
In hair-shirt or in mail,
It isn’t safe to give him cakes
Unless you give him ale.

St George he was for England,
And right gallantly set free
The lady left for dragon’s meat
And tied up to a tree;
But since he stood for England
And knew what England means,
Unless you give him bacon
You mustn’t give him beans.

St George he is for England,
And shall wear the shield he wore
When we go out in armour
With battle-cross before.
But though he is jolly company
And very pleased to dine,
It isn’t safe to give him nuts
Unless you give him wine.

Here’s our second favorite.  If you have an interpretation, we’d love to hear it.  If not, that’s okay. We’ll never love it any less. (more…)

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On May 26, 2016 By In Politics

Family Liturgy: Short and Sweet

If you are anything like me, daily life in your household generally conforms to a pattern, a liturgy, a modus operandi. Every day certain things happen, and other things happen every few days. Some patterns, however, are weekly, monthly, or annually. Some things are necessary on a daily basis, like eating and drinking, and as long as we’re alive, these will continue unabated. Some events are weekly, like Sunday worship, other events occur annually, like birthdays and Christmas.

Finding Time for Family Worship

One pattern that I have clumsily endeavored to establish for decades now is a time of daily worship together in the home as a family. We’ve tried, failed, repented, and tried again hundreds of times over the years. But a couple of months ago, with a little help from a friend, we began again with hopes for a better outcome, a perpetual outcome.

Last summer, my wife attended a talk at the 2015 CiRCE Institute Annual Conference by Cindy Rollins about family liturgy and then related to me what she had learned. She gleaned that the overarching principle in planning a family liturgy for the long haul is to keep the time together short, simple, and therefore, sustainable. The pattern can then become a thread weaving each successive day to the memory of yesterday, as well as a foretaste of what can be expected tomorrow. (more…)

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On May 6, 2016 By In Politics

Scholars Speak on Trump’s Nomination

Ted Cruz’s departure from the Republican race, and most recently, John Kasich’s, catapulted long-time front-runner, Donald Trump, to become the national representative of the GOP in this election cycle. Trump’s remarkable rise has shocked the media and many of the conservative voices of our day. Many of these conservative voices have made it abundantly clear that voting for Donald Trump will precipitate the end of the party and the end of the conservative ethos of the party of Ronald Reagan.

This entire process has left conservative evangelicals asking the question: “How shall we then think?” Kuyperian Commentary asked several Christian scholars to offer their answers to such a profound question.

Andrew Sandlin
Founder and President, Center for Cultural Leadership

More troubling than Trump the candidate are the cultural forces that have propelled his success. That long list is topped by the erosion of classical liberalism ( = modern conservatism). Its chief features include the dignity of the individual, the separation of powers, the priority of reasoned discourse, the protection of private property, and the universality of moral standards. The cultural Marxism that gradually captured the Democratic Party since the late 1960’s undermines every tenet of classical liberalism. The truly shocking development has been the more recent and swift adoption of  Trump’s populism, which also abandons classical liberalism:

He champions his own form of identity politics that mirrors cultural Marxism.

He considers Congress an obstructionist institution that should be bypassed.

He shouts down thoughtful opposition, just like campus neo-Marxists.

He disdains reasoned discussion in favor of ad hominem denunciations.

He advocates trade policies that raid the wallets of middle-class American consumers.

He employs almost any gangbanger tactic — just like the neo-Marxists — as long as it accomplishes his sordid political objectives.

The most ominous aspect of this development is that classical liberalism, the political theory of the Founding and rooted in Christianity, is no longer represented by a major American political party.

This development is unprecedented in American history.

Brian Mattson
Senior Scholar of Public Theology, Center For Cultural Leadership

Vote your conscience. Some musings:

My loyalty and obligations are to the truth, not a political party. The GOP electorate has decided it will no longer be a welcome home for classical liberalism, and therefore it is no longer my home. Political realignment is now a full-scale reality, whether I realize it, like it, or even participate in it.

One approach: vote for Donald Trump and hope for the best. Stack a final, tiny, leaky sandbag on the pile, hoping and praying it stops the torrent of radical leftism while not producing something even worse. But with the distance between two evils so slight (in my view), I think subsidizing this ideological decline with our votes might be the real abdication of our civic responsibilities.

Another approach: Reject Donald Trump. Energetically participate in the political realignment. Congress is the levee wall: support solid down-ballot candidates. Bolster institutions that stand for the truth, strengthen alliances, and plant long-term seeds that will flourish when (if) our national nightmare recedes. I am sitting here looking at my daughters, and I owe them better than a sandbag and a wish.

Maybe you can do both. But I can’t and won’t.

Peter Leithart
President of the Theopolis Institute

Andrew Sullivan has determined that the Donald’s candidacy is a blast from the last trump, announcing the end of democracy. Sullivan underestimates the federal government’s blessed capacity for gridlock, and Trump’s capacity for compromise, change, and moderation.

The real worry is less that, if elected, Trump will make good on his promises; he won’t. The real worry lies elsewhere. Trump’s campaign has been a masterpiece of scapegoating, blaming our economic stagnation on China and Mexico and our decline in global prestige on feckless political and media elites. You can be morally certain he won’t accept responsibility for his failure. And then who will the Trump tribe find to blame?

If Trump isn’t the end of the world or American democracy, he may be the end of the GOP as we know it. To that, we can say a hearty Good riddance. It’s become difficult to see what the conservative party still conserves, other than the wealth of its donors and the lifestyle of its Beltway elites.

What we’re hearing is not the last trump, but Trump may be an agent of divine judgment against the Party that has been most promiscuous in invoking God’s name. Here’s hoping He shakes the GOP down to the foundations, and keeps shaking until only permanent things are left standing.

Thomas S. Kidd
Distinguished professor of history, Baylor University

I’ve said for months that I could never vote for Donald Trump for president. Trump becoming the presumptive GOP nominee has not changed that. I will not vote for either Trump or Hillary Clinton, assuming she becomes the Democrats’ nominee. Christians will argue about which of these two options is worse, and I’m honestly not sure how I would distinguish between the two. In any case, I can’t vote for either of them.

What to do in November, then? I will wait to see if there is a reasonable choice for a third party or write-in candidate. If not, I won’t cast a vote for president. I do believe that we have a civic obligation to participate, however, so I will vote for the down-ballot offices. I generally won’t vote for Democrats, but this time, I also won’t vote for GOP candidates who actively support Trump. I may have a relatively incomplete ballot!

We Christians should remember that as we express dismay about election 2016, we are hardly without hope. American Christians have too often put too much importance on politics, anyway. It’s a great time for us to remind ourselves that our ultimate citizenship is in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

George Grant
Pastor of Parish Presbyterian

During that particularly distressing post-Nixon, pre-Reagan period in American history, Francis Schaeffer prophetically declared,

“This is our moment of history and our responsibility: not to just to write and talk of far-off ideals, but to struggle for Scriptural and practical means of doing what can be done in a fallen world to see people personally converted and also to see what our salt and light can bring forth in the personal life and the political and the cultural life of this moment of history.”

His exhortation is as apt today as it was then—and perhaps, even more so.

Faced with the prospects of a desultory presidential electoral cycle, many Christians today have given vent to handwringing jeremiads. In truth, this election affords us a tremendous opportunity:

We have the opportunity to stand courageously for Biblical truth severed from the compromises of political partisanship. The Republican Party has long disregarded us. Now, it has altogether discarded us. We are thus morally, culturally, and politically unencumbered by their half-measures, empty promises, and feeble entreaties.

We have the opportunity to mobilize a groundswell of support for principled and purposeful reformation at a time when the two major parties have little more to offer than revolutionary fantasies.

We have the opportunity to model ardent prayerfulness. It was John Bunyan who quipped, “You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” We have acted as if the opposite were true. We no longer have the luxury of that foolhardy project.

Finally, we have the opportunity to display an unwavering confidence in the Gospel hope. When all about us are despairing, we can reaffirm that the throne room of the Most High has not been vacated, that the Ascended Christ still has His iron scepter and the earth remains His footstool. As Chuck Colson asserted, “Thankfully, hope doesn’t ride on Air Force One.” We need not set our hopes upon either Tweedledee or Tweedledum.

This is our moment. It is past time for us to roll up our sleeves and go to work. It is high time for the church to be the church.

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On April 23, 2016 By In Politics, Theology

Problems in public theology

The task of speaking for Christ in the public square – the kind of thing done here in the UK by our friends at Christian Concern and the Christian Institute – is an urgent and important one. Yet it is fraught with difficulties. Here are some of them.

1. The British evangelical and Reformed church has given only limited attention to the task of constructing a public theology. Many churches appear to view almost any kind of public engagement as a distraction from the gospel, a view that only serves to reveal an unbiblical and minimalist view of the gospel itself. Yet the fact remains that with a few exceptions British evangelical and Reformed churches are largely disengaged from public life, leaving the task to courageous para-church organisations like those mentioned above. One reason for this is that we have failed to articulate a clear theological rationale for such engagement. Consequently, until we recover something approaching a biblical view of eschatology, ecclesiology, and indeed of the gospel itself, this situation is unlikely to change.

My impression is that the situation is a little better in the US. Yet even so, I’m not sure there are many reasons for optimism. Just to take one slightly unnerving example, if a Christian-dominated political constituency is capable of bringing this man to the brink of the nomination for Republican presidential candidate, it clearly has some way to go before it can really be said to have worked out all the details of its public theology.

(more…)

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On April 15, 2016 By In Culture, Politics, Theology, Worship

The doxological foundations of a Christian social order

Introduction

In recent years, various writers have given some thought to the shape of a distinctively Christian social order: What would the world look like if large numbers of people turned to Christ and sought to live out their faith in every sphere of life?

This is an important question for at least two reasons. The first is of particular concern to me, as a Minister in London England: this issue has been almost entirely neglected in contemporary British evangelicalism. While God has blessed us richly in the last century or so with a rediscovery of the priority of biblical preaching, personal faith, evangelism, church planting and so on, we have not given enough thought to the ways in which the gospel should impact the wider structures of society – the life of nations, our educational systems, the media, the law, politics, medicine, the arts, and so on. It’s about time that we did.

Second, these questions about the nature of a Christian social order are not merely peripheral or academic. In the contrary, the answers we give to them will profoundly shape the kinds of decisions we make in many different areas of our lives. They will help us decide how we should educate our children, what kind of political change we ought to work and pray for, how we should vote (and what to expect from even the best candidates if they win), what strategies we should employ as we engage in public life, what kinds of attitudes we ought to have towards our vocations, and a whole range of other questions.

Indeed, almost every major decision (and a good many minor ones) we make in our lives as individuals, families, and churches presupposes some kind of answer to this question, since at its heart it is about the shape of history (past, present and future), and our interpretation of the past and our expectations for the future will necessarily shape our decisions in the present. Life is eschatology.

A neglected question

There is one important issue, however, which has been rather neglected (so far) as we have sought to reformulate our vision of a distinctively Christian social order. The question concerns the role of the church in bringing about the change we seek for. At a superficial level, it appears that the church’s role is far from neglected. Everyone affirms that the church must pray; everyone affirms that it is through the church’s evangelism and witness that people are draw to faith in Christ and begin to display the transformed lives that lie at the heart of the social change we desire; everyone affirms that the church has a vital role as a place of teaching, fellowship, encouragement, and so on; and most importantly of all everyone affirms that it is in response to the church’s prayers that God acts graciously in the world to bring about the social change that we long for. At their best, these affirmations have been self-consciously corporate in focus – that is to say, “the church” has meant not just “That collection of individual Christians who worship at St Ethelwine’s and then head off to pray and evangelise and so on in the hope that that Spirit of God would draw other men and women to faith,” but rather, “That congregation at St Ethelwine’s in response to whose corporate prayer, evangelism and community life the Spirit of God is at work to change the world.”

But this answer, it seems to me, stops short of explicating the full extent of the church’s place in this aspect of the Spirit’s work. In particular, it fails to address explicitly the vital importance of the church’s worship on the Lord’s Day as the first step in God’s plan to renew and re-create the world.

The worst effects of this are seen when Lord’s Day worship is replaced (almost) entirely with evangelistic activities, on the well-intentioned but ultimately misguided assumption that this is the best use of our precious time together if we want to see our communities transformed by the gospel. Of course evangelism is vitally important, but worship is vitally important too, and the two activities are not to be seen as a trade-off, as though doing one would detract from the effectiveness of the other. On the contrary, both are necessary (at different times, in different contexts), and it is in response to both of them (and also, as it happens, in response to the renewal of our relationships within the corporate life of the church) that God works to change the unbelieving world around us.

So what exactly is this missing element? How exactly is the church’s worship related to the Spirit’s work to renew and transform the world? The answer could be put like this: It is as the church gathers in the presence of God, lifted up in the Spirit into the heavenly places in Christ Jesus to worship before the Father, that God is at work both to renew and reorder the relationships between the members of the church and to transform the unbelieving world outside the church by drawing people to faith in Christ and bringing about the broader social change we long for.

To put it most simply, everything begins with worship. A Christian social order has doxological foundations.

(more…)

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On March 31, 2016 By In Politics

Peter Leithart on the Trinity

A couple of weeks ago at Emmanuel in London, we had the privilege of welcoming Revd. Dr. Peter Leithart to speak at both our annual Church Conference and our annual Ministerial Conference on the subject of the Trinity. The videos and audio recordings for both these conferences (Church Conference; Ministerial Conference) are now available, and I recommend them to you heartily.

The first of the Ministerial Conference lectures can be found below. For the other recordings please visit Emmanuel Evangelical Church.

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On March 14, 2016 By In Politics, Theology

The End of the Evangelical Christian? A Response to Russell Moore

The rise of Donald Trump has caused Christians of all varieties to question their conservative bona fides. There are many reasons conservatives have chosen Donald Trump. Some have chosen the real estate mogul as the most suited to destroy the Washington machine. Some support the former Apprentice host as the voice of anger for those silenced by the mainstream media and the establishment GOP. Others find his open hostility to illegal immigration his most redeeming value. But while conservatives may have a few reason for voting for the Donald, conservative Christians, in particular, are having a more difficult time. After all, these conservative evangelicals are contemplating voting for someone who believes in God but has not sought God’s forgiveness. In Trump’s world, that is not a contradiction, and for some evangelicals, the contradiction is an acceptable compromise.a

The result has been unnerving for many evangelicals who are generally on the side of Ted Cruz; a conservative Southern Baptist from Texas, who speaks the evangelical language with extreme ease. They cannot fathom why conservative Christians have endorsed someone who does not understand the most fundamental of evangelical commitments.

Some evangelical leaders have embraced Donald Trump enthusiastically. Consider the very conservative Southern Baptist, Robert Jeffress, who endorsed Trump and referred to the Republican front-runner as a “great Christian.” Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. praised Donald as “a successful executive and entrepreneur, a wonderful father and a man who I believe can lead our country to greatness again.” (more…)

  1. While the passion for a Trump candidacy seems to be on the rise, a vast majority of Conservative voices on the right and liberal voices on the left have found  a surprising common ground: #nevertrump.  (back)

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