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On March 4, 2016 By In Politics, Theology

Andy Stanley’s Big Frustration with Little Churches

Post by Uri Brito and Dustin Messer

In a recent sermon, Andy Stanley made the staggering observation:

When I hear adults say, ‘Well I don’t like a big church, I like about 200, I want to be able to know everybody,’ I say, ‘You are so stinking selfish. You care nothing about the next generation. All you care about is you and your five friends. You don’t care about your kids…anybody else’s kids.’ You’re like, ‘What’s up?’ I’m saying if you don’t go to a church large enough where you can have enough Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers to separate them so they can have small groups and grow up the local church, you are a selfish adult. Get over it. Find yourself a big old church where your kids can connect with a bunch of people and grow up and love the local church.

Stanley has since apologized in the way modern preachers apologize: via twitter. 

While we take him at his word (or tweet, as the case may be), this was not simply a slip of the tongue. While he may be sorry for the way in which he communicated the message—even sorry for a specific sentiment in the message—one can’t fake the sort of passion exhibited by Stanley as he described his antipathy for small churches. Again, we believe he’s genuinely sorry we’re offended, but Stanley clearly has heartfelt feelings about non-megachurches (microchurches?) that didn’t begin or end with the sermon in question. Below are three reasons we feel such a sentiment is harmful: (more…)

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On March 3, 2016 By In Culture, Politics

Unrelenting: A Prayer for Faithfulness

In their excellent book, Unchanging Witness, Professors Fortson and Grams spend a chapter recounting the capitulation of the numerous mainline denominations to the homosexual agenda, including the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church. But the account that caught my attention was the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA).

I am not an expert on the history of the PCUSA, but I believe there were serious issues, such as rejection of the authority of Scripture, rejection of the supernatural, and ordination of women, which preceded their acceptance of homosexuality. If true, their capitulation to the homosexuals was not a surprise. A denomination that ordains women is going to have a hard time barring the doors against homosexuals. Here is the timeline of how the PCUSA moved to accepting gays, gay ministers, and eventually same sex marriage (Fortson and Grams p. 157-158): (more…)

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On February 20, 2016 By In Books, Culture, Politics

Political Theology From a Field Hospital

The books of William T. Cavanaugh, Professor of Catholic studies at DePaul University, have a unifying feature: they challenge common assumptions. Just try reading The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict or Theopolitical Imagination: Christian Practices of Space and Time without questioning something you previously assumed.

This week week Eerdmans released his newest book, Field Hospital: The Church’s Engagement with a Wounded World. While the book (which Matthew Levering calls “Richly instructive”) is made up of a number of essays and lectures developed over several years, the work holds together as a cohesive argument, summed up in Pope Francis’ famous metaphor of the church as a field hospital. Says Cavanaugh:

“The image of field hospital pictures the church not simply lobbying but taking risks, refusing to accept ‘the political system’ or ‘the economy’ as is, but rather creating new mobile and improvised spaces where different kinds of politics or economic practices can take root.”

While there’s plenty within the pages with which to quibble (the distinguishing quality of any good book!), the book represents the mature, thoughtful thinking of one of the most creative Political Theologians working today. In keeping with Cavanaugh’s overall project, that which is “earthly” is revealed to be incredibly “heavenly,” and vice versa. For a taste, watch the following interview between Cavanaugh and Rachel Bomberger:

 

 

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On February 11, 2016 By In Politics

The President said what?

As a Brit, I don’t understand a great deal about the subtleties of Political-Religious discourse in North America. However, one man with a clearer grasp of the issue than I is my friend Joe Boot of the Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity and Christian Concern. He’s written an interesting response to President Barack Obama’s recent visit to a Mosque in Baltimore, which you can read online here.

I’m particularly struck by the following words, quoted by Joe from Sidney H. Griffith, which resonates strongly with my own experience of interacting with Muslims here in the UK:

“All of the Christian communities who lived within the world of Islam in the early Islamic period strove to cultivate good relations with Muslims at the same time that both in Arabic and in their own languages they clearly marked the difference between the two creeds.”

In other words, the best way to relate to people of other faiths is to welcome them warmly, while at the same time having a robust and clear-headed debate about the differences between us. This, it seems to me, is far more respectful and productive than to adopt the increasingly popular secular liberal pretence of blurring the very real differences between (for example) Christianity and Islam, since such fuzzy thinking simply serves to marginalise the substantive claims of both religions, subsuming them under a suffocating blanket of political correctness with which neither Muslims nor Christians agree, and thus subjecting both religions equally to the same high-handed contempt.

Naturally, I don’t think Islam is right, but neither do I think secular liberalism has much going for it. But while I have great respect for my Muslim friends (including a number of people who have been visiting Emmanuel both in recent weeks and also in the more distant past) who are willing to talk frankly about what they believe, I have very little time for the folly, ignorance or downright dishonesty of those who typically profess neither faith with any seriousness but try to pretend that Islam and Christianity are really just the same.

Different religions are, well, just different. And we need to learn peaceably, lovingly, and clear-headedly, to deal with it.

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On February 8, 2016 By In Politics

Cowards won’t debate

In recent years, the true character of the secular creed of Tolerance, Diversity and Free Speech has at last become clear.

As Stanley Fish saw years ago, and many others realized long before him, the aim of the movement is not to remove particular moral, political and religious values from the public square, leaving a Free Space devoid of substantive commitments where everyone can say live and let live. (Indeed, since substantive commitments of some kind are unavoidable, the very idea of this kind of Free Space is incoherent, and even those who thought that this is what they were seeking were in fact pursuing something else.)

Rather, the aim is to promote (and indeed where possible to impose) a very particular set of commitments, while at the same time treating those commitments as axiomatic – Things Upon Which All Decent People Agree. Anyone who for whatever reason takes exception to the paradigm must not be debated with; they must be silenced or excluded.

The most obvious example is the increasing prevalence of “No-Platforming” – the attempts by (for example) University student societies to exclude speakers from campus on the grounds that their views are (regarded by some people as) offensive.

As someone once said, the new religion of Tolerance, Diversity and Free Speech has two articles of faith: (1) All views are welcome; (2) If you don’t agree with me, shut up.

There’s a great deal that could be (and has been) said about this cultural shift. I want to make just one simple point:

This stance is cowardly. It reflects the conviction that these views are too weak to hold their own, and must therefore be protected from challenge in order to remain intact.

Thus, for example, a generation ago, university students had the courage to attend debates featuring speakers whose views they abhorred, in order to engaged them in argument. They did this because they were confident that their own convictions were strong enough to win the day. Marxists debated with capitalists, pro-abortionists debated with pro-lifers, atheists debated with Christians, and so on,  because they all had the moral courage and intellectual backbone to put their views in the ring with the opposition and (verbally, of course) slug it out.

There are still some today willing to engage in this sort of public debate. But those who believe that the only way to preserve their own values is to silence debate and shut down opposing views are not among them.

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On January 29, 2016 By In Politics

Vengeance is His

Christians get terribly confused about vengeance.

Here’s how the confusion arises. We begin by noting (rightly) that Jesus tells us not to take retribution into our hands for personal wrongs committed against us. Instead, he says, we should turn the other cheek (Mt 5:39). So far so good.

But there’s where the confusion arises. We leap from the (correct) claim that we should not exact vengeance to the (incorrect) conclusion that vengeance is itself a bad thing. As a matter of simple logic this reasoning doesn’t make sense. And it flies in the face of the teaching of Scripture.

In short, the Bible does not say, “You shouldn’t exact vengeance for personal wrongs because vengeance is a bad idea.” Rather, the Bible says, “You shouldn’t exact vengeance for personal wrongs because vengeance, though a good idea, is a complicated matter, and should therefore be left in the hands of God, who is able to sort out with perfect justice all the ins and outs of who did what to whom, and who’s really to blame for this and that, and so on.”

Thus when human beings are given (by God) the role of exacting retribution for wrongdoing, Scripture makes it clear that they are doing so as agents of God (as in Romans 13, for example – see below). And though this principle may in some circumstances be extended to other contents (a father defending his 4-year-old daughter from physical violence, perhaps?), it is not infinitely extensible, and (obviously) may not therefore be used to justify arbitrary acts of violence to avenge personal hurt feelings.

All of this and much more besides is wrapped up in Romans 12:17-13:7. Once again, note carefully, 12:19 doesn’t say, “Don’t take vengeance because that’s nasty.” Rather, it says, “Don’t take vengeance, because that’s God’s job.”

At this point, the connection to the imprecatory Psalms should be pretty clear.

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On January 11, 2016 By In Politics, Theology

Give the King Thy Judgments, O LORD: Constantine, Augustine, and the Legacy of Western Christendom (Part I)

 

Guest post by Jared Lovell (part 1 of 2)

The streets of Rome thronged with celebrants awaiting the advent of the victorious new emperor. Though it was typical for emperors or kings upon their ascension to be contrasted with their predecessors and praised as the ushers of a new era of peace and prosperity, on this day the world really was different from that which existed in those previous. It was October 29, 313, the day after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Regardless of what actually occurred leading up to the battle, whether there was a sign in the sky or a message communicated in a dream, Constantine emerged the victor, and the church of Christ had indeed entered a new era. For the first time, a sympathizer, if not yet a believer, of the Christian faith sat on the imperial throne.  This change in the political context of the early church has been regarded as a negative one by many in the modern world. Constantine and “Constantinianism”1 are easy targets for those holding to a broad spectrum of varying theological persuasions and serve as a kind of shorthand for critics for all that is wrong with Christianity in general and the church in particular. From Dan Brown’s fictional Da Vinci Code, which was very popular among secular audiences, to Anabaptist theologians such as the late John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas, to even a segment of the Reformed community,2 the “Constantinian shift” is a lamentable detour in the course of church history. That has happily expired, and any remaining vestiges of it must continually eliminated.

Surely all sides would acknowledge some immediate benefits to the early church due to Constantine’s ascension, the most obvious being the cessation of the fierce persecution of the church begun under Diocletian and continued under Galerius and Maxentius. Some critics, however, would claim that the presence of a Christian emperor and his continued favor towards the church set up problematic trajectories that weakened the church over time through nominalism and syncretism. Others, based on historical myths, would object more strongly to Constantine’s supposed use of the sword to force conversion to Christianity. In either case, Constantine’s legacy is considered to be a net negative for the church in history. However, a proper analysis of Constantine must do more than run his ideas and his actions through the grid of modern liberal secularism, the propositions of which are largely accepted uncritically by moderns, Christian and non-Christian alike. What if the Enlightenment and the precepts of modern secularism are not actually an improvement upon Constantinianism and thus not a valid standard of evaluation? What if agnostic neutrality in the public sphere is a myth? Rather than the standard hasty dismissals of Constantine and Western Christendom that followed in his wake, it is the intention of this author to provide a more Augustinian critique of the church and state relationship in the fourth and fifth centuries from which we may benefit today. In God’s providence, Constantine was used to guard the church as it rose into a new position of prominence in the world which brought its own unique benefits and problems and, tempered by the political philosophy of Augustine, constituted a step forward in the history of the Western church. (more…)

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On December 17, 2015 By In Politics

Wheaton’s Shema Problem

Wheaton College has a PR problem. It’s the kind of problem that is basic. It’s a Shema problem! The ancient words of the Torah declared with authority: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”1 The Shema, a central prayer in the Jewish tradition, has a special place in the Christian faith. It is not merely the declaration of a monotheistic God. For the Christian, it provides the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity.

While there is excellent scholarship suggesting that the Trinity reveals itself in the early pages of the Old Testament, the New Testament makes it abundantly clear. The Father is identified as God (John 6:27; Gal. 1:3; 2 Pet. 1:17; Jude 1) as is the Son (see John 1:1; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Tit. 2:13; 2 Pet. 1:1) and the Holy Spirit (see Acts 5:3-4; 1 Cor. 2:10-11; John 3:5-7 with 1 John 3:9). While the Shema establishes the oneness of the Christian God that oneness needs to be understood in light of all the biblical data (see references above). The Christian understanding of God is unique because God is not only defined as One but also as Three. And in light of this Unity and Diversity, the Christian God ceases to bear any resemblance to the god of Judaism or Islam—both religions vehemently deny the Trinity.

The Nicene Creed, the ancient creed of the Christian Church, begins by acknowledging the Oneness of God:

We believe in one God.

However, what makes this Creed universally accepted as a definition of Christian orthodoxy is its definition of who God is. The One God is the Father Almighty, Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life. This elaboration excludes any religion that denies the plurality of the Godhead. (more…)

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On December 2, 2015 By In Politics

Everything that’s wrong with secular liberalism

The problem with modern secular liberalism, at least here in the UK, was crystallised perfectly in a recent exchange between a group of Members of Parliament (MPs) and Lord Hall, the Director-General of the BBC.

The exchange related to what we should call the Islamic terrorist group variously known as IS (Islamic State), ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), or ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). Some recent commentators have abandoned these acronyms, in recognition of a number of mainstream Muslims who argue that “the term “Islamic State” gives a religious dignity to what is simply a terrorist sect” (Telegraph). Instead, they prefer the name “Daesh,” an Arabic acryonym for “Al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham“, the full name of  the group.

The term “Daesh” has an additional benefit: it sounds similar to the Arabic word “Dahes,” meaning “one who sows discord,” and is therefore regarded as highly insulting by IS/ISIS/ISIL followers. It’s always nice to be able to insult people who so richly deserve it.

This rings all kinds of biblical bells, of course. Think of the deliberate mockery of King Eglon of Moab in Judges 3 – the horrendously and hilariously overweight monarch whose name sounds like a blend of the Hebrew words for “fat” and “cow”. (My kids have had similar fun ever since they started learning German, when they discovered that the German for “Father” is “Vater“, and for “Daddy” is “Vati“. And yes, those V’s are all pronounced “F”.)

So, in July this year, a group of 120 British MPs wrote to Lord Hall, the director-general of the BBC, urging him to instruct his staff to use “Daesh” as well. Lord Hall replied that he was unable to comply, since this would break BBC impartiality rules by giving viewers the impression that the BBC was explicitly supporting the group’s opponents.

So here we are in the UK, where our Counter-Terrorism Security Office has just issued advice telling us to “run and hide” rather than “play dead” if the horrors of the Paris attacks should be repeated here, and our taxpayer-funded BBC can’t call a spade a spade without breaking its own impartiality regulations.

Meanwhile, in other unrelated news, expect Christian doctors to continue to be disciplined for offering to pray with their patients, Christian employees to continue to be told they can’t wear a cross in the office, and Christian Ministers to be arrested for reading out Bible verses in public.

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On November 13, 2015 By In Politics

Churches and Councils have erred

Thus says Article 21 of the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles. And though Emmanuel is not an Anglican church, everyone in the congregation here – along with pretty much every other Christian I’ve met – would agree with it.

But there’s more than one way to affirm this article of the church’s teaching.

It’s possible to say “Churches and Councils have erred, and therefore we can cheerfully ignore what our forefathers in the faith have believed for the last two millennia. Tradition can go wrong, so phooey to tradition. Just as long as I’ve got my Bible, I can find the truth, and I don’t need no help from anybody.”

But there’s another way to say “Churches and counciles have erred.” We could can say it with tears in our eyes and grief in our heart. We could say it as a lament, knowing that the historic teaching of the church contains countless glittering insights into the way of Christ which we have lost in large part because we have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. We could say it in hope, as we recommit ourselves to dig deeper into the riches of ages past, to sift the wheat from the chaff and recover treasures long-lost which, if only we could find them, would give fresh life and power to an increasingly anaemic 21st-century church.

This latter path, it seems to me, comes a good deal closer to showing the appropriate respect both to the wisdom of saints long dead and to the power and grace of the God who is the Lord of history. Unfortunately, it’s a harder road, and so in our day it is fast becoming the road less travelled. Please, Lord, help us to rediscover it.

Rev Dr Steve Jeffery is Minister at Emmanuel Evangelical Church, London, England (Blog, Facebook, Twitter)

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