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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 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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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 February 24, 2016 By In Theology

The Upside-Downness of the Gospel: A Look at the Beatitudes, Part IX (Final)

Part VIII, Part VII, Part VI, Part V, Part IV, Part III, Part II, Part I

Note: I trust you have enjoyed this series of posts on the Beatitudes. My goal was to make them succinct for the reader who wished to navigate that glorious sermon.

 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

This is the last of the eight beatitudes and naturally it is the culmination of them. Jesus is saying that by living in this paradigm; by embracing this approach to life you will be persecuted. But not simply persecuted for any reason, but for righteousness’ sake. True righteousness is living by this standard. This is again the paradoxical nature of our faith that in order to seek righteousness and peace we will have to fight against those who seek unrighteousness and violence and war. Jesus came to bring peace, but the result of this peace was persecution from religious leaders and society, which Jesus came to redeem. Though Jesus was pure in heart, yet he was persecuted to death.

Jesus builds on the eighth beatitude and adds something to it. He was so certain of the persecution his disciples would undergo that he gave a few examples of how this is going to unfold:

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. [12] Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Even if there is no persecution for the way you live before men, there will be persecution from those who despise the gospel proclamation. Persecution is personal, but it is almost always communal. Many people are enemies of the truth and you will see their faces on the media, their writings; everything they say is in direct contrast to the truths you embrace. If the gospel is your deepest joy and living the gospel your greatest desire then it is to be expected that it will be daily mocked and scorned. One consequence of being in the kingdom of heaven is to be misunderstood by those outside the kingdom. How can they understand the culture of heaven when they have been trained by earthly teachers?

One early church father puts it this way:

“…whoever is not excited about the praise of people also is not humiliated by their accusations.”[1]

How shall we then live?

There is a strong emphasis on persecution in Matthew’s gospel, precisely because there was so much persecution occurring in the first century. I am referring to persecution in the biblical sense; that is, the kind that makes you literally lose your head. That’s the persecution the Gospel proclaims. What we judge as persecution in this country is not persecution in the Biblical sense. We would minimize the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in the Middle East if we equate their suffering with our suffering in this country over such things as abusive taxation or government intervention.  Verse 11 says they will revile and accuse you of all sorts of things because we believe and part of this new kingdom. The kind of suffering we have in our lifetime is marginalization and accusations. That is not persecution in its biblical definition. This is why Jesus expands the definition in verse 11, because while not all Christians will be persecuted, all Christians will be reviled and accused and marginalized at some time or another.

Verse 11 expands on the eighth beatitude. Jesus says that they will revile and accuse you of all sorts of things because we believe and are a part of this new kingdom. In our lifetime, the kind of suffering we have is not persecution as the prophets and disciples speak. What we have is marginalization and even isolation. This is why Jesus expands the definition in verse 11, because while not all Christians will be persecuted, all Christians will be reviled and accused and marginalized at some time or another.

The gospel and the kingdom caused the first-century society to make a decision concerning allegiance. Are you willing to be cut off from your loved ones to be connected to a new family for the sake of the kingdom? Are you prepared to be marginalized for speaking the truth in a world of lies? Are you willing to lose friends over the issues of abortion, same-sex marriage, sex outside of marriage, the authority of the Bible, and the priority of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus?

The Beatitudes are a “summons to live in the present in the way that will make sense in God’s promised future; because that future has arrived in the present in Jesus of Nazareth. The kingdom may seem upside down, but we are called to believe…that it is in fact the right way up.”[2]

[1] Ancient Commentary Series on Matthew (the incomplete version)

[2] N.T. Wright; commentary on Matthew.

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On February 11, 2016 By In Theology

The Upside-Downness of the Gospel: A Look at the Beatitudes, Part VIII

Part VII, Part VI, Part V, Part IV, Part III, Part II, Part I

Perhaps in the history of the 20th century no one hated the idea of humility, gentleness, meekness, and peace–as described in the Beatitudes– more than Friedrich Nietzsche.[1] Though he was the son and grandson of Lutheran pastors, he rejected the Christian faith in his student days and became what one author described “the representative unbeliever of the 20th century.”[2] Even though he lived in the 19th century, the 20th century was the century his works became known all over the world. And they became known primarily because of his famous declaration that God is dead. You may also be aware of the famous humorous reply: “Nietzche said God is dead; God said Nietzche is dead.”

If you know the story of Nietzche you know that he went mad; insane. But a year before he went insane, he wrote one of the most violent and polemic works against the Christian faith entitled The Anti-Christ. “In answer to his own question: “What is more harmful than any vice?” he replied, “Active sympathy for the ill-constituted and weak – that is, Christianity.”[3] Christianity, according to Nietzche, was a religion of pity instead of power. He believed the Christian God was the god of the sick and weak. Further he writes: “I condemn Christianity,” he wrote. “…it has made of every value a disvalue.” For all his ferocious antagonism for the Christian faith, he understood that the values of the kingdom of heaven are completely different/opposite to the values of the world he envisioned. In Nietzche’s world, only the strong and powerful and those possessing authority were valued; those who cannot help themselves have no value in his world. Adolf Hitler took these ideas quite strongly and the application of Nietzche’s philosophy led to the barbaric slaughter of millions of Jews in the 20th century. Ideas have consequences. It is no wonder that Nietzche’s madness became a perfect demonstration of where worldly values must eventually lead.[4] In Nietzche’s world, only the strong could reign, where mercy and meekness were mocked. The kingdom of heaven through its great message in the Beatitudes created an entirely different world; a world that is upside-down to those who are perishing.

We will see once again the upside-downness of the kingdom and the heavenly nature of it when we see that the way we are called to live is in direct confrontation to the way the world lives.

Jesus says in verse 9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” (more…)

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On February 11, 2016 By In Theology

A Neglected Means of Grace: Kuyper on Fasting

Abraham Kuyper’s little book on the Christian life, The Practice of Godliness, closes with a thorough commendation of fasting.

In Kuyper’s day, individual fasting had all but died out, and congregational fasting was non-existent. Kuyper laments: “We have become estranged from fasting, and we do not count it among the means of edification.”

According to Kuyper, fasting is a beneficial spiritual discipline the church cannot afford to abandon: “In these times of spiritual poverty not one means of grace or one channel of closer fellowship with God should be neglected.”

Some Protestants associate fasting with Roman Catholicism (in order to condemn or avoid it), but Kuyper says this is a mistake, stemming from a “biased reading of the Word, ignorance of the practices of our forefathers, and lack of earnestness in the pursuit of a godly life.” In fact, fasting has a robust protestant pedigree, and was “commonly practiced” and recommended by the reformers as “an expression of godly living.” But if fasting is a practice of godliness, it must be grounded ultimately in God’s word, and not mere human prescription. (more…)

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On January 28, 2016 By In Theology

Baptism is God’s work

My friend Fred Thompson made a tremendously illuminating comment about baptism recently. With his permission (thanks Fred) I wanted to say a few words about it. Here’s what he said:

“I keep thinking of the Red Sea baptism, a baptism of a nation, a mixed multitude, a nation that did not know where she was going, a nation that did not understand baptism. It was a new nation that left Egypt and she needed grace above all else, grace given through water and manna to all”

Fred has in mind the well-known typological connection between baptism and the crossing of the Red Sea during the exodus (e.g. 1 Cor 10). Pressing this point, it becomes obvious that many evangelical assumptions about baptism are at best only a part of the biblical picture.

For example, we readily treat baptism as an expression of our faith towards God, part of our response to him. But baptism is in the first instance an act of God’s grace towards us. Though of course Israel was called to trust the LORD, it would be a strange reading of the Red Sea crossing that placed the emphasis on the faithfulness of the Israelites’ response to God. (more…)

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On January 14, 2016 By In Family and Children, Theology

Global Anglicans Uphold Traditional Marriage at Primates Meeting

living the dream

The 2016 meeting of the Primates for the Anglican Communion has released a statement upholding their commitment to traditional marriage in response to the Episcopal Church (USA) and its official promulgation of same-sex marriages among members and clergy. See the official statement here.
(more…)

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On January 12, 2016 By In Theology

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

 

Guest post by Jared Lovell (part 2 of 2)

In the previous post, we looked at the context in which Constantine ruled by highlighting the significant events of his rise and reign. 

Constantine’s Reforms

Having set out the events that shaped Constantine’s historical context, the reforms and policies of his reign must be considered in this light. First, Constantine made reforms in the law that lessened the cruelty and recognized the dignity of human beings. From constant foreign and civil wars, to gladiatorial entertainment, to infanticide, to merciless punishments for criminals or political prisoners, Rome was a harsh and violent environment. Constantine began to reverse this trend. Most famously, he ended the persecution of Christians and extended tolerance to all religions in the empire. Constantine outlawed crucifixion as a means of execution and prohibited the use of torture to a person’s face, believing that the face reflected the image of God in man. The bloody spectacle of the gladiatorial games were also outlawed. Laws were also passed that expanded the property rights of women as well as affording them more protection against sexual depredation.15 The practice of infanticide, which had always been condemned by the church, was largely undermined by a combination of laws which prohibited parricide (the hastening of the death of a family member), provided assistance to desperate mothers unable to take care of their children, and incentivized adopting parents to claim unwanted children as free or slaves.16

Such laws as those aforementioned would not be found objectionable by today’s secular-minded critics. But what of Constantine’s favor toward the church which shocks the conscience of modern notions of separation of church and state? The second kind of laws to be considered are those in which Constantine sought to defend the church and to restore to it what had been taken during the persecution. In this regard, he was not acting outside of his duty as a magistrate to see that justice was preserved by applying standards not inconsistent with laws concerning restitution in the Lex Talionis. Constantine began by extending exemptions from taxation to churches as were already enjoyed by pagan priests. He then went further by returning lands to churches that had been confiscated from them by the state. Property that had been forfeited by martyrs was also returned to family members or to the church if no family members survived. But Constantine went even further when he began to donate money from the public treasury in order to restore churches that had been destroyed or neglected as well as constructing new churches and chapels. Yet, it may be argued that this action did not constitute state favor toward the church as much as it did the application of restorative justice. Constantine sought not merely to reimburse the church for its losses, but to restore them to the position that they would have held had the state not made war against them. Finally, Constantine also extended power and influence to the church by opening up the courts for the bishops to act as judges of disputes. While such action may seem to demonstrate an unhealthy union between church and state, it actually served as a check upon the power of the state that would have major implications for the development of law in the west.17 It has been typical throughout history for the state to try to accrue to itself a monopoly on administering justice. By allowing bishops to render judgment on civil disputes brought to them, pressure was taken off of an overburdened court system and resolution to conflict could be brought more quickly to the parties involved.18 It also served an educational purpose as people would not look to the state alone as the sole source of legal authority. (more…)

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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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