By Peter Leithart
Mike Allen of Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, scores some points in his review of The End of Protestantism. He lodges the fair complaint that my rhetoric sometimes outruns my evidence. He argues that more stress on the present reality of the church’s unity deepens the tragedy of division; divisions in the church “straightforwardly oppose reality.”
Of course, I have parries to these criticisms. The complaint about rhetoric misconstrues the genre of the book, which is sermonic rather than academic. Sermons need arguments too, but sermons aim to move, not merely to convince.
Mike is right that I don’t provide complete arguments or probative evidence for many of my assertions, that doesn’t mean there are no arguments or evidence to present. In some cases, I mistakenly wrote as if the reader would be familiar with my other work, where I offer fuller arguments. Mike is also right that my assertion that “nothing has so weakened our witness as our tragic divisions” is unprovable. But there’s plenty that makes it plausible – the New Testament’s forceful emphasis on unity as a part of the church’s witness, the testimony of unbelievers over several centuries, and the cultural effects of the church’s fragmentation documented by writers like Brad Gregory. (I suspect Mike is as skeptical of Gregory as he is of me, but I’ll leave that for another day.)
Some of his other criticisms miss the bull’s eye. Mike thinks he can rebut my discussion of global Christianity by saying that the globalization of the church is likely to make Christianity more “fissiparous” rather than more unified. But I make exactly that point (p. 128), and his criticism misrepresents my argument in any case. The north-south inversion of Christianity isn’t evidence that “unity is just around the corner” (Mike’s mischaracterization, not my words). Along with the softening of Protestant-Catholic and East-West boundaries, it’s evidence that God is busting up the old world of post-Reformation Christianity, an end that offers opportunities for fresh beginnings. Mike doesn’t think these trends have much of anything to do with one another, but, working within the biblical paradigm I outline in chapter 8, I take both trends as signs of what appears to be an epochal internal restructuring of Christianity.
Mike’s point about the present unity of the church is criticism of a different order and requires a different sort of response. Like many, perhaps most, Reformed thinkers, Mike takes the present unity of the church as an invisible or heavenly unity, and characterizes my position as illegitimately empirical. Mine, he charges, is an ecclesiology of sight rather than faith. He acknowledges that I occasionally speak of present unity (p. 28), but thinks that present unity doesn’t play a large enough role in my book.
Let me attempt a slight restatement of my position that I hope takes account of Mike’s criticisms.
For starters, a methodological remark that addresses one of the underlying issues in Mike’s review: He characterizes the “underlying logic” of my book as “sociological” rather than “theological.” I don’t accept the criticism because I don’t acknowledge that disciplinary separation. More positively, I write from the conviction that theology is inherently sociological and that biblically-informed history-writing is a mode, and should be one of the chief modes, of theology. Are Samuel and Kings political science or theology? Is Acts history or ecclesiology? To my way of thinking, The End of Protestantism is a thoroughly theological treatise.
To the question of unity more particularly: An empirical test is integral to the biblical portrayal of unity. Jesus prays the church would be unified enough for the world to recognize it (John 17:21, 23). This cannot be a unity discernible only to faith, since Jesus expects the world to discern it. If our unity doesn’t show the world that the Father sent the Son, it’s not the unity Jesus prayed for.
On the basis of Ephesians 4:4-6, Mike argues that the unity of the “one body” is a present reality but not an empirical reality. The unity must be the unity of the invisible church. “God reveals oneness first as a gift in the present” that “must be maintained.” It “can be stretched and even scandalized” but remains inviolable. In the midst of stretch and scandal, we need to view the church theologically rather than sociologically or empirically.
This is a questionable reading of Ephesians. Nothing in the passage suggests that Paul is speaking of an invisible body (a strange category in any case). Immediately after the “poem” on oneness, Paul writes of gifts distributed by the ascended Lord Jesus to His church (vv. 7-11), gifts including visible apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers who build up what must be the visible “body of Christ” (v. 11). Does it make sense to say that “body” in verse 4 is an invisible company when “body of Christ” in verse 11 is a visible communion? What warrants the insertion of a visible-invisible distinction? It seems more straightforward to conclude that for Paul the unity of the body is as visible as the unity of baptism. (more…)
In this interview, Uri Brito speaks with Gary DeMar, author of 
On October 26, 2013 By Kuyperian In Books, Scribblings Like
Marc Hays: Lust of Flesh and Eyes & Pride of Life
“…John focuses attention on the relationship between the world and “desire.” He enumerates three evil desires, or lusts (epithumia): the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life.
The desires John lists are, first of all, variations on the desires evoked by the tree of knowledge. Eve saw that the tree was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable for wisdom (Gen. 3:6); she was gripped by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. Adam and Eve took the fruit of the tree of knowledge prematurely, but the things they desired from the tree were truly desirable, and God planned eventually to fulfill the desires of Eve’s heart.
In the Old Covenant, Yahweh offered Israel the tree of knowledge in the form of three gifts, and then stored them away in the temple, hidden in the Most Holy Place, until the fullness of time, until Israel became mature enough to receive her inheritance. These are the three gifts in the Ark: a jar of manna, the gift of food and life; the tablets of the law, written with the finger of God, the gift of instruction and wisdom; and the rod of Aaron that had budded with almond blossoms, the gift of authority, the gift of glory. Israel had these gifts in part: they had life in the presence of Yahweh, they had the wisdom of God in Torah, they had a share in the glory of God. But for Israel the fulness of these gifts lay in the future, and the life of each Israelite, and the life of Israel as a nation, was to be directed by the desire for these three gifts, by the anticipation that someday the veil would be rent and the gifts would be opened and distributed freely. Yahweh promised that when he came forth from his tent, he would bring these gifts with him.
That is the gospel, which is, once again, the gospel of the rent veil. In the fulness of time, God sent these gifts not in part but in full. God sent Torah in the flesh, his Eternal Word and Wisdom; the Father sent bread from heaven, the One who is the way, the truth and the life; he exalted humanity to heavenly places to share in his authority to judge. By his death and resurrection, Jesus tore down the veil where the gifts of God had been hidden away. By his death and resurrection, Jesus made these gifts available to anyone who trusts in him. Jesus is the life of God; Jesus is the wisdom of God; Jesus is the glory of the Father, the exact representation and image of his Father. In Jesus we have life and wisdom and royal glory. In Jesus, who is the ark of God, the gifts of God are freely offered to those who are united to Jesus and follow him. He is the tree of knowledge as he is the tree of life. Under the Old Covenant these gifts were holy, taboo, unapproachable. But no longer; now, it’s holy things for holy people.”
Good gifts to be thankful for as we enter into worship tomorrow morning, as we proclaim the Preface and Sanctus together with our kin in Christ atop His holy mountain.
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