growing-in-grace-july-august-2002

SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES ❘ FAMILY PIETY ❘ CHURCH DISCIPLINE

MODERN REFORMATION

GROWING IN GRACE: A Defense of Piety VOLUME

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GROWING IN GRACE: A DEFENSE OF PIETY

15 Reformation Piety Drawing from his own personal history, as well as from examples from church history, the author contrasts evangelical and Reformed forms of devotion. In the process, he shows the incredible richness of Reformed piety. by Michael Horton Plus: “What is Pietism?”

20 Reconsidering Our Accounting: The Church Visible Is the Church Disciplined This pastor tells the compelling story of having to teach his members the importance of church membership. In the process, the church’s bloated membership roll had to be prayerfully and painfully edited. by Mark Dever Plus: “Convinced but Confused?” and “What’s Wrong with Pietism?”

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By These Means Necessary: Scriptural and Sacramental Spirituality for All Nations Faith’s journey begins sacramentally in Baptism, the author argues, and it is sustained by Word and Sacrament. He draws on the works of Martin Luther to make a case that Word and Sacrament sustain Christians throughout their earthly lives. by John Nunes

33 Work as (Spiritual)Discipline Using the provocative film The Big Kahuna to frame his argument, this church historian makes the case that Christians, in whatever calling, need to see their work as a religious vocation approached with reverence and gratitude. by D. G. Hart

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36 Thinking Differently: Resisting Five Common Misconceptions that Work Against Family Piety This writer and teacher contends that too often believers accept uncritically the world’s definition of successful childrearing. She offers a better way to approach both parenting and spiritual formation. by Starr Meade In This Issue page 2 | Letters page 3 | Open Exchange page 5 | Ex Auditu page 6 Preaching from the Choir page 9 | Speaking of page 11 | Between the Times page 12 Resource Center page 26 | Free Space page 41 | Reviews page 44 | On My Mind page 52 J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 1

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Editor-in-Chief Michael Horton

Living Unto Him…

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MODERN REFORMATION

Executive Editor Mark R. Talbot

common accusation against Reformation theology is that it does not produce genuine “heart religion.” While not slighting the inward and individual aspects of true piety, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and their heirs have always stressed the

outward and social dimensions of authentic Christian living. Yet many of our evangelical friends believe that true piety cannot develop among those who relate to God primarily through institutional and sacramental means.

As our interview in this issue with Dallas Willard indicates, many evangelicals believe that authentic Christianity is primarily a matter of individuals cultivating private spiritual disciplines.

Each contributor in this issue of Modern Reformation emphasizes a particular aspect of a rightly ordered piety that is rooted in the distinctives of our Reformation theology. For us, true Christian piety is necessarily linked with the Reformation doctrine of sanctification as the moral or recreative act of God that changes our inner nature, and that is inseparably connected to but distinct from justification.

In this issue, we emphasize true Christian piety’s corporate and objective aspects because we believe that while sanctification takes place within individuals, it is not individualistic. It does not occur only or even primarily in lone Bible reading, prayer, and meditation; it has familial and corporate aspects. Editor-in-chief

Upcoming Issues September/October: “This is My Father’s World.” How are we to understand the doctrine of providence in the post-9/11 world? The same way the Church always has expressed its confidence in God’s loving care of creation. Contributors include Kim Riddlebarger, William Cwirla, Mark Talbot, and Ann Hart.

November/December: “Lift Up Your Voice!” Why do Christians sing?

Can we have a “theology of music”? How can I interact with contemporary culture in creative and constructive ways? Contributors include: Gene Edward Veith, Dan McCartney, and Ligon Duncan.

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and Reformed theologian Michael Horton argues that true Christian piety is nurtured and transmitted by our fulfilling our duties to our churches and families. Lutheran pastor John Nunes explores Martin Luther’s emphasis on preaching and the Sacraments as cross-cultural and objective means of grace. Baptist pastor Mark Dever emphasizes another of the corporate aspects of holiness in his article on church discipline. Those charged with the pastoral care of their congregations will want to pay special attention to Dr. Dever’s advice to them, found in the sidebar to his article. Book Reviews editor and church historian D. G. Hart reflects on the 1999 movie The Big Kahuna, to show that a vital part of true Christian piety involves our seeing everyday work as vocational—as a product of and a vehicle for God’s sanctifying work in our lives. Finally, author and educator Starr Meade exposes some common misconceptions about the Church and child-rearing that undermine our cultivating true Christian piety in our children.

Each branch of the Reformation-born churches witnesses to the gospel-motivated and Church-centered nature of the sanctification process. Each stresses the corporate and objective aspects of true piety because each recognizes that God has promised by these means to be actively and graciously at work in us, sanctifying us so that we may live obedient lives of thankful gratitude to our “faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with his precious blood has fully satisfied for all [our] sins … and makes [us] sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him,” as the Heidelberg Catechism so beautifully puts it.

Managing Editor Eric Landry Alliance Council Gerald Bray ❘ D. A. Carson Mark Dever ❘ J. Ligon Duncan, III W. Robert Godfrey ❘ John D. Hannah Michael Horton ❘ Rosemary Jensen Ken Jones ❘ John Nunes J. A. O. Preus ❘ Rod Rosenbladt Philip Ryken ❘ R. C. Sproul ❘ Mark R. Talbot Gene E. Veith, Jr. ❘ Paul F. M. Zahl Department Editors Lisa Davis, Open Exchange Paul S. Jones, Preaching from the Choir Brian Lee, Ex Auditu Benjamin Sasse, Between the Times D. G. Hart, Reviews Staff ❘ Editors Ann Henderson Hart, Assistant Editor Diana S. Frazier, Contributing Editor Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Celeste McGhee, Proofreader Katherine VanDrunen, Production Assistant Contributing Scholars Charles P. Arand ❘ S. M. Baugh Jonathan Chao ❘ William M. Cwirla Marva J. Dawn ❘ Don Eberly Timothy George ❘ Douglas S. Groothuis Allen C. Guelzo ❘ Carl F. H. Henry Lee Irons ❘ Arthur A. Just Robert Kolb ❘ Donald Matzat Timothy M. Monsma ❘ John W. Montgomery John Muether ❘ Kenneth A. Myers Tom J. Nettles ❘ Leonard R. Payton Lawrence R. Rast ❘ Kim Riddlebarger Rick Ritchie ❘ David P. Scaer Rachel S. Stahle ❘ David VanDrunen Cornelis Van Dam ❘ David F. Wells Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals © 2002 All rights reserved. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exists to call the church, amidst our dying culture, to repent of its worldliness, to recover and confess the truth of God’s Word as did the Reformers, and to see that truth embodied in doctrine, worship and life.

For more information, call or write us at: Modern Reformation 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 546-3696 ModRef@AllianceNet.org www.modernreformation.org ISSN-1076-7169

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In “Whatever Happened to Evangelicalism” (January/February 2002), D.G. Hart continues his analysis of the woes caused by “pietism.” He brings “pietism” up a lot in his various analyses, all of which are seriously hampered because true biblical piety is never compared or contrasted with the flawed “pietism” Hart presents. There are differences and they should be discussed. By mingling them together the truth is compromised. … He claims evangelicals (heirs of “pietism”) are today’s versions of 17th century reactionaries who rebelled against formalism by stressing “heart over head,” “ethics over doctrine,” and “spiritual zeal against Word and doctrine.” Such an either/or presentation of the belief process is unsatisfactory and is not applicable to biblical piety, which would consider these things complimentary and not contradictory. Hart, and MR in general, fear Christian “individualism” and pit it against the reformers and the communal life of the Church, its forms and Sacraments. While individual spiritual experience is subjective and hard to verify and validate that is no reason to deny its authenticity in all instances or suggest it is anti-creedal or anticonfessional. Most pietists would view Creeds and Confessions as worthy formulations and guides for the faithful when kept in perspective…. Perhaps someday, if Hart’s scholarly analyses can become more objective, that “solitary convert, endeavoring to lead a holy life,” under the influence of the Holy Spirit, will be given a little more consideration as the missing ingredient in what makes up truly pious, affectional, experiential, confessional Christianity.

June Engdahl San Francisco, California

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Thank you for your clarifications in Dr. Gordon’s “The Insufficiency of Scripture” (May/June 2002). I agree with his view of biblical sufficiency as clarified, and I appreciate his patience with those of us who over-reacted earlier!

The one area that continues to concern me about this issue of Scripture’s sufficiency is that of pastoral counseling. Dr. Gordon does not address that in any depth…. However, I trust we all agree that there is an underlying biblical perspective on the human heart, including our emotions, which is divinely authoritative and redemptive, and which has significant practical implications for the care of souls. Apart from this perspective, counseling deteriorates easily into the blind leading the blind, whether the counselor is personally a Christian or an unbeliever.

Patrick Morison Via e-mail Having read your clarification by Dr. Gordon on his article “The Insufficiency of Scripture” I was relieved to find that your commitment to orthodoxy has not waned. I must confess that the entire episode made me more than just a bit nervous. I am from a denomination (Southern Baptist) that has fought intense battles over the inerrancy and sufficiency of the Scripture. We have heard from our “moderates” time and again the worn refrain “we believe in inerrancy and sufficiency” but when closely questioned one discovers that they believe in “inerrancy and sufficiency of purpose.” The purpose of the Bible they then say is salvation and when the Bible speaks of salvation it is inerrant and sufficient but historically, or scientifically (or in most in other discipline one can imagine) then of course it is errant and insufficient. This article seemed to tread perilously close to that point of view when I first read it. Having said that, I am in agreement that the “take two verses” approach is simplistic to the point of being dangerous and appreciate the follow up.

Felix R. Kerr Athens, Tennessee

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I greatly profited from reading your issue on justification (March/April 2002), but wished there had been more discussion of what constitutes saving faith. I found the definition of it espoused by Rev. Jones wanting, when he denies any necessary element of commitment in it. Saving faith necessarily involves commitment, as I’ve been taught at Philadelphia Conference on Reformation Theology and heard preached from Reformed pulpits. It is synergistic, in that unlike regeneration, it is an act of the will as stated by Edwards, and in that sense is a work as averred by Jesus in John 6:29.

But throughout the New Testament, it is clearly distinguished from and contrasted with all other works (most emphatically in Ephesians 2:8), and as such can never be considered as just another good work. It seems that in an effort to refute the Roman Catholic view of faith, Rev. Jones reduces saving faith to the basest form of faith that John MacArthur decried in The Gospel According to Jesus. To me this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Albert H. Fink, Jr. Swarthmore, Pennsylvania I just wanted to commend you on another outstanding issue, “Right With God” (March/April 2002). Wow, this is such a needed corrective for the church today. Thank you for the great articles. I really enjoy each issue. I know that MR ran a critical article on me a while back but I wasn’t offended because it was based on common inaccuracies and myths about Saddleback by a seminary student who’d never been to our church. There’s an interesting story behind that story. People always lump us with some other well-known large churches that we actually disagree with in major ways.

Anyway, I just wanted to say I think you’re doing an outstanding job. God bless you guys.

Rick Warren Via e-mail In the statement, “In Paul’s letters to the Galatians, we see that he understands the basic message very clearly …” Dever is getting the horse before the cart (“What the Good News Is: Faith” from March/April 2002). How could Paul not teach Pauline theology?

Has he developed a Christian theology from the rest of the NT as if Paul never existed and then compared Galatians to it? My problem with Romans and Galatians is that there are NO statements in Exodus through Deuteronomy that: 1) Indicate that anyone who did NOT come out of Egypt with Moses was bound by the Mosiac Covenant except those who want to convert to Judaism. 2) Indicate that the Mosaic Covenant was concerned with anything but physical life and death, no references to the next

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world. 3) Indicate that there were sacrifices for intentional capital sin. 4) Indicate that violation of every one of the Ten Words required death. Thus Paul’s argument that Christianity freed Gentiles from keeping the Mosaic Covenant is a straw man. The Mosaic Covenant wasn’t made with Gentiles. The Mosaic Covenant didn’t have anything to do with justification in the next world. I would be happy to recant if anyone can find verses in Exodus through Deuteronomy that make these statements.

Judy Wald Via e-mail As your March/April feature articles said, it is true that justification by faith is the doctrine upon which the Church stands or falls. Was it not therefore important to clarify WHAT KIND OF faith we’re talking about? A faith which produces love, obedience and holiness is a faith planted by that imperishable seed, the living and enduring Word of God (1 Pet. 1:23). But a faith that does not produce these things is lifeless as a stone and will save nobody.

John E. Taylor Royal Oak, Michigan I was thoroughly delighted to read the original article in MR (January/February 2002) and now the explanation offered by Dr. Gordon (May/June 2002).

He was too kind by half…. Since Scripture obviously cannot rule between homeschooling and public school or between nonprofit work and marketplace work, one must turn to fleeces and fancies, praying earnestly for “a word from the Lord” or a sign. Any sign. Better to make a decision about college based on how many red cars pass your house in an hour than to consider written information in the library, data from the Internet, or discussions with alumni. The former is a sign of depending utterly upon God, the latter a weak accommodation of the world’s (icky) wisdom….

Peg Strodtbeck Via e-mail

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Modern Reformation Letters to the Editor 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 215.735.5133 fax ModRef@AllianceNet.org Letters under 200 words are more likely to be printed than longer letters.

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by Douglas Freeman

Of Holy Communion, Baptism, and the Need for Confessional Unity

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he Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and Modern Reformation magazine have been in the forefront of the endeavor to proclaim, to an increasingly apostate church, the pivotal and crucial biblical doctrines propounded by the great theologians and confessions of the Reformation. The pages of Modern Reformation ring out with clarity as Reformed,

Interested in contributing to Open Exchange?

Send your name, address, and essay topic to: Open Exchange c/o Modern Reformation Magazine 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 or contact us by e-mail at OpenExchange @AllianceNet.org

Lutheran, and Baptist theologians assert the centrality of the doctrines of justification by faith alone, election by grace alone, the blood atonement, the imputed righteousness of Christ Jesus to all believers, and sola Scriptura.

Why, then, is there not one unified, confessing church? As most everyone knows, the Protestant Reformation was divided over other, perhaps less central but nevertheless extremely important doctrines: the Lord’s Supper and Baptism.

Is the time not now past due for a fresh look at these centuries-old divisions? No matter where one stands on these issues, it is undeniable that there is error, in whole or in part, in the conflicting and contradictory teachings of Reformed, Lutheran and Baptist churches. And is it not our solemn duty to root out these errors, in order to eliminate the scandal of a fractured church?

Through our study of the Bible and the Reformed-Lutheran, debate over Holy Communion, my wife and I became convinced of the biblical truth of the doctrine of the real presence of the true body and blood of our Lord in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper (i.e., the classical Lutheran doctrine). We understand how reason rebels against the clear words of Scripture— “this is my body” and “this is my blood”—but find no warrant for putting a gloss on these words of Jesus, as the Reformed church, following Ulrich Zwingli, has.

We are also convinced by the biblical witness

that Baptism is for repentant believers, not babies just out of the womb.

The Lutheran confessions are clearly contradictory on these issues. In his attack on Roman Catholic sacramentalism, Philip Melancthon wrote in Article 13 of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession that “we condemn the whole crowd of scholastic doctors who teach that unless there is some obstacle, the Sacraments confer grace ex opere operato, without a good disposition in the one using them. It is sheer Judaism to believe that we are justified by a ceremony without a good disposition of the heart, that is, without faith.”

Considering this statement in the Lutheran confessions (which I believe most Reformed theologians would heartily endorse), how can the Lutheran and Reformed churches defend the baptizing of infants?

My conclusions, then, are bound to offend everyone. I am stating that Lutherans and the Reformed are in error on infant Baptism, and that Baptists and the Reformed are in error on Holy Communion, and that these serious errors have created a scandal—a divided and fractured confessional church.

Once again I ask: Is the time not past due to discard the traditions of men, and to seek unity based upon the biblical witness concerning Baptism and the Lord’s Supper? Sola Scriptura!

Douglas Freeman lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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1 John 1:6–10

Why the Church Needs the Gospel Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be

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here are many ways to analyze what’s wrong with American culture today, but

listen to what it says.

Sometimes he preaches withtwo of the biggest culprits are relativism and narcissism. Relativism is extreme out courage, for fear of opposition. Sometimes he skepticism, the denial that there is any such a thing as absolute truth. Relativism preaches without love, for lack of compassion. This is is what leads many Americans to think like the why, when one of my housewife from Dayton, Ohio, quoted in the colleagues telephones other From National Review, who said, “Nothing is black and congregations, he sometimes PHILIP GRAHAM white and every circumstance merits its own asks to speak to “the biggest RYKEN judgment.” Narcissism is extreme individualism, sinner in the church.” He the demand for absolute individual autonomy. It is means, of course, the pastor. self-admiration, self-satisfaction, self-glorification.

This may seem somewhat It was the narcissist who said, “I believe everybody mischievous, but it has the Senior Minister should really be able to basically do what they serious purpose of showing Tenth Presbyterian want to do,” according to Christopher Lasch in his that ministers need the gospel Church Philadelphia, PA as much as anyone else. book The Culture of Narcissism.

Now consider a church’s Unfortunately, relativism and narcissism have fellowship, and all of the started coming to church. The problem is that the world is too much with us, and so the Church is too ways it is hindered by envy, discord, and much like the world. Christians are fast becoming as selfishness. We are quick to take offense, but slow relativistic and narcissistic as anyone else. Even non- to forgive. We are more interested in having our Christians have started to notice. The New Yorker, of own gifts recognized than in honoring the gifts of all places, complains that “The preacher, instead of others. Of course, this is only the beginning. In looking out upon the world, looks out on public our worship we are guilty of sinful thoughts and opinion, trying to find out what the public would irreverent attitudes. In our pastoral care we are like to hear. Then he tries his best to duplicate that, negligent and inconsistent. In our discipleship we and bring his finished product into a marketplace in often take the easy way out. In our missions and which others are trying to do the same. The public, evangelism we lack passion for the lost and zeal for turning to our church culture to find out about the God’s glory. In our outreach to the needy we are world, discovers there is nothing but its own merciless. No wonder Jesus taught us to say, “We reflection.” Of course, then the question becomes, are unworthy servants” (Luke 17:10)!

Why even bother to go to church?

This is why the Church needs the gospel. It is The sad truth is that in each and every area of because we are full of sin—absolutely full of it. ministry, the Church is crippled by its own sin. Look at any congregation on any given Sunday, Start with expository preaching. The ministry of and you will see row upon row of twisted, God’s Word is often hindered by the minister. hardened sinners who love the world more than Sometimes, in his disobedience, he does not really they have ever loved Christ.

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If We Confess Our Sins It is impossible to understand the Church without being totally, brutally honest about the sinfulness of its sin. This is something the Apostle John tried to impress upon the readers of his first epistle, which he began by explaining why the Church needs the gospel.

Apparently, in the days of the apostles there were Bible teachers who denied the totality of their depravity. John makes three statements that summarize their mistaken theology, each of which begins with the words, “If we claim…”: “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” (1 John 1:6) “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8) “If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” (1 John 1:10) In one way or another, each of these three statements denies the biblical doctrine of sin. Verse 6 denies that sin affects our relationship with God. We can lead a life characterized by habitual ungodliness and still have unbroken fellowship with God. Anyone who operates this way is living a lie.

Verse 8 denies the sinful nature. We are basically good; in our essence as human beings, we are without sin. Anyone who thinks this way is selfdeceived. Verse 10 denies having committed any particular sins. Notice the past tense: “have not sinned.” Not only is it our nature not to sin, but in fact we have never actually committed a sin. This is a deliberate lie because all of us know that we all sin.

The basic theological error in these statements is perfectionism, the belief that it is possible to be sinless in the present life. John was responding to Christians who thought they had it all together, and who, therefore, failed to recognize that they needed the gospel as much as anyone else. The gospel is not something we believe when we first become Christians and then outgrow; it is something we need every moment of every day.

The reason is that we are not without sin. We never have been and we never will be, on this side of glory.

Instead of denying the pervasive power and presence of sin, our response should be to confess it. Here is another “if” statement: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Sin is not to be denied; it is to be confessed.

Rather than claiming that we are perfect, we must

admit that we are corrupt to the very core. Not only are we naughty by nature, but we have also committed many actual sins.

If we are to be forgiven, then our sins must be confessed, not only personally, but also corporately. Repentance should become a regular part of the rhythm of congregational life. Since we sin in every area, we must also seek forgiveness in every area, saying: Great God in heaven, we have sinned. We confess that we do not truly listen to your Word. We read it and hear it, but we do not obey it. We say, “That was a great sermon!” but it doesn’t make much difference, because we are not willing to change.

We confess that we do not worship you the way you deserve to be worshiped. We are more concerned about what we get out of it than what we put into it. We are often distracted. Our lips keep moving, but our hearts are cold and still.

We confess that we do not love one another very much. We do not want to be bothered with other people’s problems. We do not care enough to confront, but when other Christians fail, we are quick to condemn them. We think the worst about others, rather than the best.

We confess that we do not always fulfill our responsibilities to one another. Those of us who are shepherds have little love for your sheep. We are harsh when we should be gentle, and when we need to be firm, we lack the courage to say or do what is right. Those of us who are sheep do not honor our shepherds. We fail to pray for them, and then we complain when they do not meet our expectations.

We confess that we are not willing to pay the high cost of discipleship. We try to be as worldly as we think we can get away with.

We prefer to squeeze our faith in around the edges of life, rather than to let you stand at the center and rule everything we are and everything we have.

We confess that we lack passion for missions and evangelism. We think of missions as something someone else does, somewhere else, rather than something you have called us to do right here and right now.

We lack the courage to proclaim the gospel.

We are afraid to talk about spiritual things, for fear of what our friends may think.

We confess that we lack compassion. We think it is important to help the poor,

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provided that someone else actually does the helping.

In the name of Jesus, we ask forgiveness for these and all our sins. Amen.

and will forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9).

The third statement identifies Jesus as “the atoning sacrifice” (2 John 2:2). To use the proper term for it—the term that appears in the original Greek—Jesus is our propitiation. To propitiate is to He Will Forgive Our Sins turn away wrath. The fact that propitiation was What happens when we confess our sins? It is needed shows how much God hates our sin. Unless very simple: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful his anger is turned aside, we will be destroyed by and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us the holiness of his justice. But Jesus has propitiated from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). God has God’s wrath. He has done this by offering himself promised to forgive everyone who truly seeks his for sinners as a perfectly righteous sacrifice.

This does not mean that herefore, the Church that always needs the gospel always has the gospel. If God the Son had to persuade God the Father to love us, we trust in Jesus, then no matter how badly we make a mess of things, he is even though he didn’t want to. On the contrary, making always rising to our defense, presenting his atoning, propitiating work as the atonement for sin was the Father’s idea in the first place. forgiveness for our sins.

As John wrote near the end of his letter, “This is how forgiveness. He offers a total pardon that extends God showed his love among us: He sent his one to each and every sin, including sins committed by and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, people in the Church, who ought to know better.

Earlier we noted that in 1 John 1 there are three but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning “if” statements that deny the reality of sin. Each of sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9–10). Making them is also followed by an “if” statement—not to propitiation was the Father’s loving plan. The cross was God’s way of turning aside God’s own wrath. deny sin, but to deal with it: To summarize, God offers forgiveness for sin “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, through the person and work of Jesus Christ— we have fellowship with one another, and specifically through his death on the cross. This the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from sacrifice is something that Jesus did in the past: he all sin.” (1 John 1:7) died on the cross to atone for our sin. That part of “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just his saving work is finished. However, in order for and will forgive us our sins and purify us us to be forgiven, we also need Jesus to do from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) something for us right now. We need him to take “If anybody does sin, we have one who his atoning work and apply it directly to our sins. speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus God has made provision for the forgiveness of our Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sin through the present work of Jesus Christ. John sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 2:1–2a) wrote, “If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, What these verses have in common is that they all the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1b). point to salvation in Christ. God’s answer to the In one sense, Christ’s work is finished. He paid problem of our sin is the gospel, the good news the full price for sin on the cross; no further about Jesus. The first statement speaks of “the blood payment is needed. However, Jesus continues to of Jesus” (1 John 1:7). This refers to the lifeblood take what he has already done for our salvation and that he shed on the cross. The blood of Jesus, which to give it to us today. To describe this ongoing paid the price for sin, has the power to purify; in work, John uses a term that comes from a court of other words, to remove the guilty stain of our sin. law: Jesus “speaks to the Father in our defense.”

The second statement speaks of God’s justice. That is to say, he is our advocate, our legal counsel, God does not simply overlook our sin. Indeed, he our defense attorney. Jesus Christ stands before cannot. He is a righteous God, and, therefore, it the highest of all courts to present his work on the would not be right for him to forgive us, unless in cross as the basis for our forgiveness. some way our sin received the penalty it deserves.

But God has preserved his justice by receiving the Christ Intercedes for the Church punishment for our sin in the person of his own It is all too easy to criticize the Church. After [ C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 1 0 ] Son. It is on this basis that “he is faithful and just

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Hymns in Your Church Hymn Services One method of introown hymnals; others simply choose not to use them. The danger of losing our rich repertory ducing hymns to a congregation or Bible study group is of historic Protestant song lurks ever nearer, for it takes only one generation for a hymn to through a short hymn service that is both worshipful and effectively disappear. Those seeking a modern educational in nature. This might last 15 to 20 Reformation should recall that Luther, Watts, minutes and include three or more hymns. It is Wesley, Newton, and other pastors and helpful for the leader to have consulted resources theologians exerted much effort writing hymns and for the purpose of learning about the hymn’s author compiling hymnals for their people. Why? or composer. A theme can unify such a service; for Because they knew that Scripture and doctrine example, “Hymns of Philip Doddridge,” “Hymns of could be imparted and appropriated when people Joy,” “Passion Hymns,” “Hymns written by remembered it through song. In his commentary Missionaries” or something akin to these. on Psalm 9, Dr. James Montgomery Boice wrote, More significantly, the leader should have “It is striking that in each part the psalmist considered the role(s) of the hymn—praise, combines singing with preaching. And, it is proclamation, prayer, confession, thanksgiving— interesting to remember that great periods of and should share such insights with the church history have always been marked by both.” congregation. The central focus of a good text must Education is the best means for introducing be God and his Word. A passage of Scripture upon hymns and/or a more challenging musical which the hymn is based can be read and its place in language. A text understood is one that can be the hymn noted. Such preplanned hymn services meaningfully sung—and worship must be enrich the hymn-singing experience and are more intentional. The following are some suggestions to meaningful than randomly having the congregation assist in bringing about a reformation of hymnody choose “favorites.” The choir can assist in in your church. introducing new tunes by singing the first stanza; or, it can draw attention to the text by singing a median Choosing Hymns for Corporate Worship stanza as a means of setting it apart.

Hymn selection should not be cavalier. No matter who selects the songs of your congregation, Hymns-of-the-Month the same criteria apply. The text must be biblically Another helpful way to introduce hymns is to sound and meaningful, and the music that select a hymn-of-the-month and sing it each accompanies the text should be excellent and Sunday at one or more services throughout that should facilitate one’s understanding of the text. month. The same hymn could appear in the Melody, harmony, rhythm, and form are among Sunday school curriculum and at the youth group the parameters for judging musical quality. For meeting, making it a churchwide effort. Families ministers without musical training or musicians could purchase their own hymnals for devotional without doctrinal clarity, this is a precarious task use. This would demonstrate value to the entire that would be best undertaken in partnership with congregation and make hymn learning a shared an informed colleague. experience. Singing hymns is a unifying activity, and it is part of our spiritual heritage.

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n many congregations today, the hymnal has fallen out of use. Some churches do not

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Information concerning the hymn’s provenance can appear in the bulletin or be recited by a song leader. When it comes time to sing, a trumpet on the melody line will aid in leading the congregation. The choir can once again function as a teaching ensemble and should be employed in helpful, creative ways in worship.

Hymn Festivals Anytime is a good time for a hymn festival, but certain seasons or events are especially well-suited: Advent, Easter, Pentecost, Reformation Day, the opening of a new church, the dedication of a new pipe organ, the installation of a new pastor. At a hymn festival, the concepts of a hymn service are brought into a grander context. This is a wonderful opportunity for pastors and music directors to work together to prepare a meaningful worship service. Planning is essential. Theme, timing, and texts all need careful consideration.

The structure of the service should be solid. The “flow” of events, ideas, keys, and mood should be considered seriously, and a printed order of service is an important help for the congregation. A hymn festival can center around one doctrine, era, country, theme, or composer; or, it can have considerable diversity. As always, rehearsed choirs and instrumental ensembles will contribute to the effective leading and accompanying of hymns.

Paul S. Jones (D.M., Indiana University) is the organist and music director of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is director of music and worship for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

SPEAKING OF

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o condemnation now I dread, Jesus, and all in him, is mine.

Alive in him, my living head,

Ex Auditu [ C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 8 ]

all, this institution is made up entirely of sinners, so it is never hard to find someone or something to complain about. And Satan is the Adversary who is always busy accusing us for our sins. But no matter what Satan or any person says about us, Jesus is always ready and able to defend us. He constantly intercedes on behalf of the Church. He does not claim that we are not guilty; he must acknowledge that we are. However, he presents his saving work as our airtight defense against every accusation. Whenever there is any question about our standing before God, Jesus points back to the cross where he atoned for our sin. “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34). That is what Jesus is doing at this very moment: defending us so that we will receive the forgiveness he has promised.

Jesus intercedes for us in all our failures. He intercedes for preachers who, through their own weakness and sin, distort the truth of God’s Word.

He intercedes for the worshipers who have lost their passion for God’s glory. He intercedes for Christians who disturb the peace of the Church, or who are too selfish to serve. He intercedes for missionaries who have decided to give up their calling. Jesus stands before his Father’s throne and says, “Yes, it’s all true. They are guilty as charged.

But may it please the Court to remember that I have died for their sins. ” No one knows how many problems there are in the Church any better than Jesus does. He sees it all, which is why his ministry of intercession is such a full-time job. The Bible teaches that “he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them” (Heb. 7:25). Therefore, the Church that always needs the gospel always has the gospel. If we trust in Jesus, then no matter how badly we make a mess of things, he is always rising to our defense, presenting his atoning, propitiating work as the forgiveness for our sins.

and clothed with righteousness

divine, bold I approach the eternal throne, and claim the crown, through Christ my own.”

— Charles Wesley, And Can it Be? 1739

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Philip Graham Ryken (Ph.D., Oxford University; M.Div. Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia) is senior minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Speaking of...

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anctification is…

simply the art of getting used to justification…. It is the justified life.

Gerhard O. Forde, Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification, 13

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unday feels odd without church in the morning. It's the time in the week when we take our bearings, and if we miss it, we're just following our noses. Of course, there's a lot about church that can be aggravating—empty sermons and smarmy people and a certain comfy, complacent feeling. And then you have that organist in your face, destroying quietness wherever he can and then cranking up during hymns and assaulting you with the trumpet stops so you can't hear yourself sing. But believing Christians are the people I want to be among. And every word of the Creed is true. And the organist shuts up during the prayers at least. And you think about your considerable sins. And you go forward to partake of the Savior's death and resurrection, and that's the whole thing. Isn't it?

Garrison Keillor in an interview with The Lutheran magazine (January 2002)

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alf-understood secular ideas, loosely based on self-help psychological manuals, have taken the place of serious engagement with Christian theology. And it needs to be challenged, in that it has often altogether evaded the biblically grounded ideas and attitudes forged by the reformers, substituting inadequate and inauthentic spiritualities largely incapable of meeting the needs of the modern situation.

Alistair McGrath, Spirituality in an Age of Change, 194-195

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he sacraments can never be separated from the Word of God. Nor do the sacraments provide sanctifying grace from Christ which is not available to us in the message of the Scriptures. It is the same grace we receive, because it is the same Christ who is held out to us. Both Scripture and sacraments point to the same Lord. But, as Robert Bruce so well expressed it, while we do not get a better Christ in the sacraments than we do in the Word, there are times when we get Christ better.

Sinclair Ferguson, Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification, 73

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Of the World, But Not In It egachurch attendees have stayed fit with Christian aerobics and weight lifting for more than two decades. And some have put the fat right back on by eating at the fast food franchises in their church lobbies for almost as long.

Until now, though, aficionados of the “fullservice” churches still had to leave the sheltered spiritual environment at least once per day—to go home to sleep.

The staff of Louisville’s 22,000-member Southeast Christian Church, for instance, admits that even their church-village, which they liken to a community “refueling station,” closes from 11 p.m. until 5:30 a.m.

That last barrier to a complete ’round-the-clock evangelical subculture is about to be removed. Glendale, Arizona’s Community Church of Joy has initiated a $100 million capital campaign to add, among other things, a housing development to its

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menu of offerings. Judging its sprawling campus, conference center, school, mini-mall, and mortuary insufficient to meet all extant needs, Senior Pastor Walt Kallestad believes that the addition of a hotel, a water park, and subdivisions will help transform the Church of Joy into what he hopes will be a genuine “destination center.”

While the Church of Joy may be the first to add housing, it is not really atypical.

Though it maintains a loose affiliation with the mainline Lutheran church (ELCA), the Church of Joy—like many megachurches—long ago substituted the word “community” for its denominational label, which leaders worried would limit its potential market. Instead of broadcasting their theological distinctives, megachurches prefer to differentiate themselves from other churches by highlighting the breadth of programs they offer.

According to David Kinnaman, vice president of

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As in medieval Catholicism, in which church and town were inseparably linked (a bishop, above, blesses the local town fair), today's megachurches are seeking to Christianize their own particular version of "village life."

Barna Research, which advises “24/7” churches, this only makes sense in an environment where people “are looking at churches with a similar cost-benefit analysis they’d give to any other consumer purchase.” After all, Kinnaman notes, one out of every six adult churchgoers “church-hops” annually “based on their need du jour....There is little brand loyalty. Many are looking for the newest and the greatest.”

The Apostle Paul made similar judgments about his context, recognizing that

people have always looked to religion to satisfy all of their this-worldly desires.

Nonetheless, he chose to ignore most of these “felt needs,” instead pushing on to our real need—for a Savior.

“Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:22-24).

percent increase of United States seminary students in the

I Believe… With 97 Percent Probability t an April conference in honor of retiring Yale philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff (MR, Free Space, September/ October 1999), Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne departed from the focus on language which has characterized so much of

last decade who are over 35 years of age. This over-35

demographic (“well-off baby boomers looking to explore their spiritual side,” according to some analysts) now constitutes 52% of all seminarians, and is thus radically reshaping the ministerial curriculum. For according to the Association of Theological Schools, the majority of

this cohort is not pursuing the Master of Divinity degree or preparing for traditional pulpit ministry.

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Anglo-American philosophy the last generation—by bringing out his calculator.

Using Bayes’ Theorem, a formula, probability Swinburne constructed an elaborate equation in support of Christian theism. While acknowledging that the chances of “someone dead for 36 hours” coming back to life do indeed appear slim at first glance, Swinburne claims that the probability of Jesus’ resurrection, given the data we have, is actually 97 percent.

Swinburne’s data-driven, inductive method for defending Christian theism may be unique, but his goal surprisingly is not. In the last two decades—largely through the influence of Wolterstorff and Notre Dame’s Alvin Plantinga—philosophical

ÍHarold Camping, who heads Family Radio Network and hosts a significant amount of FRN’s programming, has announced the dissolution of the Church. Though there is no indication anywhere in Scripture that the visible Church will be dissolved before the Return of Christ, Mr. Camping is proclaiming to his radio audience that this time has now come. Camping is indeed correct about the darkness of “these last days” (the period between Christ’s first and second comings), but this is a cause not for abandoning the Church, but for clinging all the more steadfastly to her.

For Christ promised us that

arguments for religious belief have come back into fashion in academic circles.

Both Calvinists, Wolterstorff and Plantinga have helped create an influential school of thought known as “Reformed epistemology.”

Arguing against the Enlightenment insistence that an individual’s belief is warranted only if there is clear evidence in support of the belief outside the mind of the individual doing the believing, Reformed epistemologists point out that every argument begins somewhere, with some presuppositions.

Most Enlightenment thinkers start by assuming that they can distinguish between good and bad evidence. But why? Where

even ”the gates of hell shall not prevail” against the Church that he is building (Matt. 16:18) [The Alliance broadcasts one radio program on FRN]. ÍPresident Bush has expressed his vigorous support for the Clergy Housing Allowance Clarification Act (CHACA).

Since 1921, the tax code has allowed ministers to deduct from their taxable income an amount set aside for housing expenses. The logic was essentially that parsonages provided by large churches to their ministers had not been considered a taxable benefit, so it would be unfair to disadvantage the pastors of small churches (without

is the external evidence that we can trust our reason?

This is simply a presupposition, or what Reformed epistemology calls a “basic belief.” According to Wolterstorff and Plantinga, if belief in reason constitutes a legitimate “basic belief” from which to begin an argument, so too does belief in God. This line of thinking has been so influential that University of Texas professor Brian Leiter, who ranks philosophy departments for academic journals, tells the New York Times that there is nothing less than a “growth movement” of religious belief in elite philosophical circles.

Ironically, though this defense of theism builds upon a rejection of the Enlightenment demand for

parsonages) by taxing their entire incomes, even the portion spent on housing.

In recent months, this argument had come under attack in the federal courts.

The CHACA, which passed the House and Senate unanimously in May, aims to clarify and support the clergy deduction, and thereby to stop what would amount to tax increase on America’s ministers totaling as much as $2 billion. ÍLost amid news of the sex scandals involving Roman Catholic priests in America are the growing reports from Italian newspapers that multiple Vatican insiders are calling on the Pope to abdicate. The enfeebled 81year-old pontiff, whose

external proofs, the movement has been successful enough to make room even for dissenting thinkers like Professor Swinburne, who remain committed to beginning with Enlightenment assumptions. Swinburne, who is Greek Orthodox, belongs to the “evidentialist” school which insists upon verifiable evidence beyond the thinker’s presuppositions. Though this position has led many philosophers to Bertrand Russell’s conclusion that there is simply not enough evidence to support belief in God, Swinburne claims conversely that data such as the eye witness testimony about Jesus’ resurrection point in exactly the opposite direction.

Parkinson’s disease prevented him from even walking the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, is evidently being urged by both liberal and conservative cardinals to step down. While Roman Catholic tradition does not allow a pope to “resign”— because there is supposedly “no one set in authority over him to whom he can offer his resignation”—Article 332 of Church canon law does allow “for a pontiff freely to lay down his office” in a manner not considered a “resignation,” given circumstances such as John Paul II’s advanced illness.

Celestine V, the mountain hermit, was the last Pope to leave the office voluntarily— in the thirteenth century.

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GROWING IN GRACE | A Defense of Piety

Reformation Piety any of us were reared in pious evangelical homes and churches where “Christianity” and “Churchianity” were regularly contrasted.

Christianity involved having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ whereas Churchianity involved an attachment to mere externals. This contrast could also appear in terms of the informal versus the formal, real versus nominal, born-again versus dead religion—or as an inward, individual, direct, and deeply personal experience with God as contrasted with an external, corporate, mediated, and sacramental faith. In these sharp antitheses between personal experience and churchmanship, unnecessary divisions occur that rob us all of what each side of genuine piety provides.

It is well worth exploring Christian piety as a cascading phenomenon.

Reformation piety, I will argue, rather than expressing Christian life as flowing outward from the individual to broader relationships (i.e., the Church as the aggregate of the individually regenerate), sees it as cascading down from the Church and the family to the individual. And, thus, authentic Christian piety never requires choosing between a personal relationship with God in Christ and a commitment to the duties of Church and family.

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In Defense of Duty n contemporary culture as well as in evangelicalism, a great deal of both time and energy is spent on an apparent duty to ourselves and our personal growth.

Yet in other contexts, duty is almost a dirty word. Partly out of reaction to a

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stultifying legalism and rote traditionalism, evangelicals tend to avoid the word duty in nearly every reference to Christian growth. We find it particularly difficult to speak about our duties to family and church. If we want our children to go to church, then it cannot under any circumstances be out of a sense of duty. If Sunday evening worship is to be defended these days, then the argument must not invoke duty.

Yet duty is a crucial word. Think about how “disciple” relates to “discipline” and about how the Apostle Paul thinks of the Christian life as a race that requires serious commitment to exercise.

our duty contributes not even in the slightest toward our redemption.

A Tale of Two Pieties ur view of piety is shaped not only by how we conceive of the spontaneity/duty contrast.

A brief look at Church history reveals even deeper contrasts.

Advocates of pietism and early American revivalism saw themselves in continuity with the Reformation, but they were also self-consciously critical of that tradition. Not only doctrinally but also practically, pietistic revivalism and reformational piety are quite distinct.

In the late nineteenth centuChildren reared in Christian homes were no longer being considered heirs of the ry, the great American Presbyterian minister and covenant but targets of conversion. theologian Charles Hodge was among those voicing concern that the revivalistic spirit in American How many things do we in fact make ourselves Protestantism had eroded the Reformation’s do—even when we don’t feel like it—precisely out covenantal approach to Christian formation. of duty and in the best interest of others as well as Children reared in Christian homes were no longer ourselves? If we are successful at anything, we being considered heirs of the covenant but targets have to concede that it is at least in part because we of conversion. Instead of growing in the grace and have denied ourselves a little leisure or pleasure by knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, they were forcing ourselves to exercise, to practice, to study, expected to have a radical experience that they or to do whatever was necessary for reaching a goal could relate to others with distinct “before” and beyond our immediate gratification. In the after- “after” pictures of themselves. Beyond relying on math of 9/11, Americans are coming to appreciate God’s ordinary means of grace and family nurture, again the duty of citizenship. We can only hope parents were to seek extraordinary means or to that we will not have to wait for disaster in our avoid means altogether in attempting to bring their churches or families to awaken our sense of duty in children to a supposedly immediate encounter with the God of blinding glory. these spheres.

These two quite contrasting visions of piety creWithout a sense of duty, we are left to our own whims. As the most superficial of reasons for doing ate divergent approaches to practical devotional or not doing this or that, decision-by-whim— exercises. Governed by the covenantal mentality, spontaneity—leaves us forever in the shallow end Reformed and Presbyterian churches at least used of the pool. And as those who claim to believe that to conceive of piety as a family affair. Its center was even Christians remain simultaneously both sinful family worship, with Bible and catechism reading, and justified, we should need little convincing that singing, and prayer. Such daily exercises fed off a if we are to wait for the spontaneous upwelling of churchly piety in which the Lord’s Day blessing desire for good works before we love God and our cascaded down to each family unit and was neighbors, we will live passively, surrendering to renewed and increased throughout the week. our selfishness. To be sure, the gospel’s indica- These practices are still central in many Reformed tive—what God has done in Christ to save us— and Presbyterian homes with which I have become drives all of its imperatives—all of the commands familiar. Coming as I have from a quite different of the Christian life; nevertheless, just as duty to background, they are a constant witness to me of our athletic goals requires sustained effort, so we God’s faithfulness “to a thousand generations” cannot expect to grow in our faith over our life- when I see the truth of God and praise of his name times if we refuse to act on duty. The difference for on the lips of babes.

At least in its American version, pietistic revivalthose who understand the gospel of God’s free grace is that we know that our salvation has already ism has generated a completely different concepbeen objectively secured by Christ and subjective- tion of proper Christian piety. Instead of God’s ly applied by the Spirit. We know that fulfilling blessings cascading down from church to family to

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individuals, it tries to work the other way around.

But, then, just as the focus of salvation falls almost exclusively on the individual, piety is largely regarded as a private affair. One’s personal relationship with God is too intimate, too personal, to be regarded as mediated within ordinary social structures—even if they are structures such as family and Church, which God himself has founded.

To be sure, any defense I would wish to make of the covenantal model of piety would have to include a defense of infant Baptism. However, I believe that even those brothers and sisters who do not view that practice as biblical can agree with me about the dangers of American individualism when it affects our practice of piety.

The individualistic approach does not actually do away with means or methods. In fact, it multiplies them. Since each person is supposedly unique, a multitude of techniques must be available. Nineteenth-century Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield speaks of the Higher Life Movement, enormously formative in twentieth-century evangelicalism, as representing an “infection” arising from Wesleyan perfectionism rather than from Reformation Christianity. “These two religious systems,” he declares, “are quite incompatible. The one is the product of the Protestant Reformation and knows no determining power in the religious life but the grace of God; the other comes straight from the laboratory of John Wesley [Eighteenthcentury Anglican reformer and founder of Methodism], and in all its forms—modifications and mitigations alike—remains incurably Arminian, subjecting all gracious workings of God to human determining. The two can unite as little as fire and water.”

Seeking spectacular conversions requires embracing spectacular means; and the more we concentrate on these, the less stock we put in the ordinary means that God has promised to bless. To be sure, extraordinary means are initially more attractive; they offer shortcuts like “How to be Filled with the Spirit in Seven Easy Steps.” Like new diets—“At least 3 inches off your waist in your first week or your money back!”—new strategies for spiritual discipline and warfare are marketed almost daily. These spiritual shortcuts appeal to us for precisely the same reasons that dieting and exercising shortcuts do. And yet, as any good dietician, coach, or weight trainer will say, “No pain, no gain.” Shortcuts end in disappointment and despair. The same is true in the Christian life.

You can’t become a master of English literature by attending a seminar or reading Cliff’s Notes. Good parents do not set their children in front of a television all day. Everything worth having requires

What is Pietism?

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ietism is a recurring tendency within Christian history to emphasize Christian practice over theology and church order. Its own historians identify four general traits in this tendency: (1) it is experiential— pietists are people of the heart for whom Christian living is a fundamental concern; (2) it is biblical—pietists are, to echo John Wesley, “people of one book” who take their standards and goals from the pages of Scripture; (3) it is perfectionistic—pietists are serious about holy living and make every effort to follow God’s Law, spread the gospel, and aid the needy; and (4) it is reform-minded—pietists usually oppose what they regard as coldness and sterility in established church forms and practices.

As a distinct movement, Pietism arose in the seventeenth-century German Lutheran Church when Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) attempted to infuse new life into the lifeless and corrupt official Protestantism of his time. From religious meetings in his house, Spener instituted devotional circles for prayer and Bible reading. He emphasized the universal priesthood of all believers. His efforts quickly won the support of a large body of pastors; and the movement’s hymns did much to spread its ideals. But a clash with the institutional church became inevitable when Spener’s friend and disciple, August Hermann Francke (1663-1727), attacked the University of Leipzig’s theologians, demanding that they convert their lectures into devotional meetings and completely condemning all philosophy, doctrine, and homiletics.

Pietism’s anti-traditionalism, individualism, and practicality have influenced almost all branches of Protestant Christendom but they have been especially influential in Wesleyan Methodism, New England Puritanism, and German Lutheranism.

— compiled from the Oxford Dictionary of Church History and the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology

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cost-counting—and discipleship is framed by Jesus explicitly in these terms. Becoming an English literature scholar requires years of hard work, not all of which is always interesting or exciting. But with the goal in mind, one works at it. Similarly, we come to think and to act in Christian ways by long years of pursuing that goal. Coming home from work each evening to lead the family in worship often seems tedious. It’s easy to say to ourselves, “Hey, it’s been a long day at work today. Let’s just take tonight off.” But whether it is family training or bodily exercise, there is a very simple law of cause-and-effect in play here. We must be willing to pay the price. Those who work at a goal have a better chance of reaching it than those who don’t.

This does not diminish grace at all. But it does underscore that ordinarily God fulfills his covenant promise through the diligent care of parents, pastors, Sunday school teachers, and the larger covenant community.

So when some of our Christian brothers and sisters think that we Reformational folk do not care

California, to take up my new post teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and we joined the URC church there. I occasionally had visited this church as a seminarian and had seen it as seemingly ethnically ingrown, unconcerned about outreach, and its members as somewhat nominal in their commitment to “real Christianity.” There just wasn’t the excitement I had known in other churches. “Are they really converted?” I sometimes wondered, although I knew theologically that such a question was not for me to answer.

Over the last three years, my wife and I have become involved in the life of this congregation.

My parents, upon moving to the area, joined as well. During this time, I have had the pleasure of revising my earlier opinions. This has occurred in the midst of personal trials. In addition to my wife’s difficulties with pregnancy, my father has had brain surgery to remove a benign tumor. This surgery has resulted in severe paralysis that makes it quite difficult for him to communicate. In our distress, God heard our cry, and he has used his people to nurse Seeking spectacular conversions requires embracing spectacular means; and the our wounds. Cards have promised to remember the more we concentrate on these, the less stock we put in the ordinary means that family in prayer. And tangible expressions of service God has promised to bless. abound, such as the pastors and elders bringing God’s Word and the Lord’s Supper particularly about piety or life in the Spirit, they to my father, the deacons moving my mother closcould not be more mistaken. It is just that our er to us, and meals being provided for her until understanding of piety and life in the Spirit con- things return to normal. More recently still, there trasts markedly with American Christianity’s pre- has been a steady outpouring of love and assistance vailing patterns. As we search the Scriptures with the birth of our son. I have never seen a together, we become aware of a piety that runs church so prepared to care for its flock. deeper and further than anything we have seen in As we have become closer to the church famipietism. By seeing the Spirit’s work as intertwined lies, we have learned, in spite of their Dutch with the ordinary means of grace we do in fact see reserve, that they are deeply pious and committed him as crucially active in the everyday lives of his to expressing it. But they express it in covenantal people. We see him at work whenever we terms, as the long-term piety that James talks encounter the Word of God preached and read, about in his epistle, rather than in the individualiswhenever we witness a Baptism, or receive the tic, self-directed way so prominent in the churchSupper. We also see him working in the fruit he es of my youth. Perhaps this is why I did not see produces when his people think of others as more it before. These folks do have a personal relationimportant than themselves—even when it comes ship with Christ, and they display just how real to cultivating piety.

Christ is to them in fairly mundane, practical ways each day. They may not talk about the “spiritual A Personal Illustration disciplines” and how much time they spend alone want to close with a personal story. with the Lord daily, but most of them attend Although I have been Reformed for many years and a church twice on Sunday and nurture their family’s church planter in the United Reformed Churches spiritual growth throughout the week. Their own (URC), I have only recently become a parishioner in a private time in God’s Word and in prayer is predominantly Dutch congregation. enriched by the substance that God provides in This happened when my wife and I moved to Escondido, these communal contexts. When we dine with

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them, we hear their children Arminianism Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609) was a Dutch theolorecite the Catechism with its supporting Bible verses. gian who questioned some of the basic assumptions of Reformed They pray with knowledge and understanding as well as theology, arousing a bitter controversy, which came to a head durwith zeal and familiarity.

So what should we make ing the Synod of Dort (1618-1619). Central to his theology was Arminius' radical view of preof Churchianity? If it is a merely external commitment destination. Effectively, Arminius was saying that God does not choose anyone but instead to an institution, then our evangelical brothers and sis- foresees that some will choose him. This was a position with Pelagian and Greek patristic ters are right to reject it. A personal relationship with roots. Arminius' views were developed by his followers in the five theses of the Remonstrant God through Jesus Christ is essential, and no matter how Articles (1601). Synod delegates developed five arguments in response to these articles (now pristine one’s external standing in the Church or in a popularly known as the "Five Points of Calvinism"), condemned the Remonstrant Articles, and commitment to his or her family, each child of God removed from ministry and exiled Arminius' followers. must be related individually — Excerpted from the and personally to him. We New Dictionary of the Theology, S.V. must make time for our own “Arminianism” refreshment, for our own opportunity to be confronted with the Word of God and to talk to our Heavenly Authentic Christian piety is expressed with othFather in prayer. If, however, the Church is God’s ers over a lifetime, as God’s people are exposed to gift through which he promises to deliver on his the work of the Spirit through Word and gospel and sanctify a people for himself, then there Sacrament, so that their union with Christ is concan be no proper piety apart from churchmanship, cretely experienced in this life by their union with family worship, and catechesis. As Scripture itself each other. This piety is not as flamboyant as the corroborates (see, e.g., Heb. 10:24, 25; Acts 2:42), individualistic piety encouraged by spiritual fads, there is no place in Christian discipleship for a but it runs deeper and further under God’s prompiety that expresses itself in various routines of pri- ised blessing. Then, instead of concentrating vate devotions but is willing to forego membership exclusively on our own spiritual blessing, we in the visible Body of Christ and regular attendance become instruments of blessing for others wherevupon the public means of grace even while it lays er God has placed us in this world and in the flock aside essential duties to the covenantal nurture of he has purchased with his own blood. ■ one’s family.

There is good reason why the New Testament speaks of God’s people in covenantal terms, a tem- Michael Horton (Ph.D., Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and the ple of living stones, an assembly, an ark, a body, a University of Coventry) is associate professor of apologetics holy nation, a vine, a tree, a spouse, and so forth. and historical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary For the Church and the family are regarded as in California, and chairs the Council of the Alliance of much more than mere aggregates of individuals Confessing Evangelicals. Dr. Horton’s newest books are A who have a personal relationship with God. We Better Way (Baker, 2002) and Covenant and are supposed to see our individual piety as resulting Eschatology (Westminster/John Knox, 2002). from our belonging to the people of God, at church and at home. We are “living stones” only as we are “being built up” into “a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:4–5). It is by being grafted onto the Vine that we who were dead and fruitless are made alive so that we may bear fruit to God. It is only by virtue of our connection with the body whose head is Christ that we are anything but lifeless, amputated limbs.

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GROWING IN GRACE | A Defense of Piety

Reconsidering Our Accounting: The Church Visible Is the Church Disciplined n September of 1994, I became the pastor of a local congregation in Washington, D.C., composed of about 500 individual members. As good Baptists, we counted individuals, not families.

Computing the number of members that way reflects the strong Baptist tradition of the necessity of individual profession of faith for Church membership. Membership cannot be inherited or even automatically assumed and confirmed at a particular “coming of age.” That should have meant, then, that I was beginning to lead a church of 500 indi-

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viduals committed to its life and ministry.

That was far from the case.

It wasn’t all bad. In fact, I was taking on the leadership of a congregation that had, by God’s grace, remained faithful to his gospel when many churches around it had not. When other churches began to compromise on the authority of Scripture, the exclusivity of salvation in Christ, and justification by faith alone, this congregation had stood firm. Nevertheless, a changing community, an aging congregation, and some previous pastoral infidelities had resulted in a church that was declin-

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ing in size, growing older, and abandoning its neighborhood of over four decades.

When I became its pastor, the church’s regular attendees numbered only about 130. But in my own prayer times, it was the missing 370 that weighed particularly on my mind and heart.

I was reminded of Hebrews 13:17: “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.

Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

I wasn’t struggling with not being respected or obeyed. It was the middle sentence that caught my attention: “They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.”

Of course, the Lord Jesus had warned that all of us would need to keep watch over ourselves in light of the coming of the end (Mark 13:33; Luke 21:36). But we see more than just such self-watchfulness in the New Testament. We see Paul laboring over—and yearning for—those whom he taught (e.g., 2 Cor. 6:4–6; 1 Thess. 1–3). He understood that he had been given the watchman responsibilities spoken of by Ezekiel: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself” (Ezek. 3:17–19; cf. 33:2–6).

I knew I wasn’t Ezekiel or Paul, but I also knew I was in the leadership position of Hebrews 13. I was a teacher who would face a stricter judgment (James 3:1). If nothing else, then, compassion worked in my heart. I imagined standing before God’s throne at the last day, holding the hands of hundreds of people I had never met, but as their titular pastor having in effect assured them that they would, as far as I could tell, be fine. I felt like I was saying, “As far as we can discern, you have a credible profession of faith. You are trusting in God and, except for the most gross hypocrisy, you are now and will be eternally saved from the just penalty of your sins.” Could I say that of people I’d never met? Could I, even passively, allow scores or hundreds to slip into eternity with me at the helm of the church that called them “member” with no word of caution or contradiction?

I remembered the words of the Scottish minister John Brown in a letter of paternal counsel to one of his pupils newly ordained over a small congre-

gation. Though written as a prose sentence, I meditated upon it phrase by phrase: ”I know the vanity of your heart, and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small, in comparison with those of your brethren around you; but assure yourself on the word of an old man, that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ, at his judgment-seat, you will think you have had enough.”

Of course, the responsibility wasn’t merely mine. I had not been this church’s pastor when these people were taken into membership, nor even as they had been allowed to remain in membership for years—or in some cases, decades— after we had last heard from them. But were I to allow the situation to continue, I would be the pastor who was responsible for allowing them to remain as members in good standing.

Hebrews 10:25 instructs Christians not to forsake the regular assembling of themselves together.

We know from Acts and Paul’s letters to the Corinthians that Christians assembled every week on the first day. By both instruction and example, the New Testament shows us that regular congregating is a Christian duty. Yet hundreds of our members were defaulting on it.

Some of this nonattendance may have been for valid reasons. Some may have been prevented simply by age—and should be cared for by us. Some may have been temporarily prevented by military postings or college education or service overseas as missionaries. But the vast majority had simply become lost to us. They had wandered away, even if they lived in our own neighborhood. They were fully able to attend this church or join some other, but they did not. Or at least they had not let us know if they had.

With this weighing on my conscience, I began to lead the congregation in a massive search for the missing members. We interviewed older members and probed their memories. We found old directories and made phone calls. We wrote letters and sent messages via relatives. We found a few who joined with us again; we found that more had died.

Several were upset when we contacted them.

Some were happily involved in other churches and had simply neglected to tell us. A good number were shocked that we would consider taking them off the church roll without their choosing. But most of these members we simply couldn’t find.

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We would send letters, but most correspondence received no response whatever.

Yet we had tried. We had discharged, belatedly, our obligation to watch over them. They would not slip into eternity to stand before their Creator and Judge without at least some word from that family of faith that had, perhaps back in 1937, accepted them into their number and given them the “right hand of fellowship” but had then let them slip out quietly and unnoticed. Now—like the posthumous righting of some old wrong—we could quiet our consciences. I know I quieted mine.

This process culminated in most of our members—all of the merely nominal ones—being voted out of membership one by one at a members’ meeting in May of 1996. Name by name we had taken them in. Name by name we would see them out. As the pastor, I wanted to make it utterly plain to the assembled members what a serious matter it is to take someone into church membership. I was teaching them what a serious matter it is to be a church member. I was teaching them what a serious matter it is to be a Christian.

Gone, I prayed, would be our days of easy-come, easy-go membership. Such memberships tend to be fleeting and to mislead people about what it means to be a Christian. A decision

is made, an aisle is walked, a card filled out, a handshake given, a vote taken, and the person is baptized and admitted to church membership. We had made people think that in responding to our easy call, they were responding to Christ’s saving call. We had made responding to Christ sound as easy as filling out a request for a mail-order catalog.

And we had reaped the bitter fruit. Our rolls were full and our pews were empty. Our people were tired and our membership was meaningless. Our hopes were dim and our witness to the world nonexistent because we were the world. We had almost ceased being the Church.

By God’s grace, we recovered our witness before it was fully extinguished. Church discipline—for that is what we were beginning to practice—was becoming for us a biblical imperative and a practical reality. Membership began to take on meaning as we required more careful consideration on our part and theirs before people joined. We began to articulate our membership expectations. And we began to act as a congregation—carefully, prayerfully, slowly—to exclude from our number those who persevered unrepentantly in sin.

New members now affirm the Christian gospel and some other basic Christians truths, particularly about what we believe and how they will live.

Historically Baptist churches have a statement of

Convinced bu How to Begin Practicing Church 1

Study the biblical passages relevant to the practice of church discip l i n e .

Consider getting copies of Jay Adams, Handbook of Church Discipline (Zondervan, 1986), or the volume I edited, Polity (Center for Church Reform, 2001). Although the first is written by a Presbyterian, I as a Baptist think it is very helpful, and though the second is by Baptists, non-Baptists have affirmed its usefulness for them.

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Know the practice of your own denomination. Consult with pastors that you respect.

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Consider contacting the Center for Church Reform and coming to Washington for one of our weekends. Here you can look at one example of a church that has recently struggled to recover the practice of church discipline.

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Communicate clearly to your existing members and potential members the need for church discipline so that they are convinced of the need for it in principle before they ever need to put it into practice. Help them particularly to see the great benefits of church discipline. For this, see my Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Crossway, 2000) or the booklet version of it (Center for Church Reform, 2001).

faith saying what we commonly believe and a church covenant saying what we will do together.

In reinstating this, we have recovered an aspect of the Church’s corporate piety that was also recovered at the Reformation—the discipline of the visible Church.

In Book IV of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin teaches us how to distinguish the false from the true Church. In chapter 1, section 9, he takes up the question of the marks of the true Church, writing, “Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the Sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists.”

To the right preaching of the Word and the right administration of the Sacraments, the right discipline of the Church has often been added as a third mark (although it really is implied in the proper administration of the sacraments). So article 29 of the Belgic Confession says, “The marks by which the true Church is known are these: If the pure doctrine of the Gospel is preached therein; if she maintains the pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ; if church discipline is exercised in punishing of sin; in short, if all things are managed according to the pure Word of God, all things contrary thereto rejected, and Jesus Christ acknowledged as the only Head of the Church.”

These marks include what both creates and preserves the Church: There is the fountain of God’s truth, and the lovely vessel that contains and displays it. The Church is generated by the right preaching of the Word. It is distinguished and contained by the right administration of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which includes the regular and faithful practice of church discipline.

In many churches, practicing church discipline is aided by statements of faith and church covenants. Seeking to be faithful to Scripture and useful to the Church, such simple summary documents enunciate borders and boundaries in faith and practice.

Though the New Testament doesn’t mandate them, Baptists and Congregationalists have felt led to create these extrabiblical documents by working out Scripture’s implications. This practice agrees with chapter 1, section 6, of the Westminster Confession, where the divines stated that the whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the

ut Confused?

Discipline in Nine Difficult Steps 5

Educate your new members about the expectations of church membership. Consider having them sign something that acknowledges that they understand such discipline and desire it. For more help on this, see Ken Sande, The Peacemaker (Baker, 1997).

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Develop a body of godly lay leaders in the church who agree on this in principle and in any particular case that you begin to pursue.

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Practice patience. It is better to go slowly at first and to make sure that you are bringing the congregation along with you than to rush ahead and risk causing the congregation as a whole to reject this biblical practice.

Remember that the Church ultimately is Christ’s. It will not fail. Meditate on Matthew 16, Acts 9, and Revelation 21–22.

Pray about the subject in general and with any specific case in particular.

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Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the word; and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the word, which are always to be observed.

Our statements of faith and church covenants clarify some of these circumstances concerning the government of the church and so we adopt them out of Christian prudence and in accordance with the general rules of God’s Word.

What rules? Primarily the Bible’s teaching on membership and discipline. In Matthew, our Lord says, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along,

so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” (18:15, 16). Here our Lord is assuming several things: 1) that anyone who is called a “brother” may have a responsibility to repent; 2) that other Christians must be willing to be involved in this process, even when it is initially unsuccessful; 3) that the ultimate court here is a local assembly—not a bishop or session, not a synod or a convention of assemblies; and 4) that if there is no repentance, then Christians must take action that makes it clear to the offender and others that we no longer consider him a member of this assembly or, by implication, a Christian.

Did the early Christians understand this passage in this way? I think so. For instance, in the case of the adulterous man mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul presumes that the young Corinthian Christians should have known better than to have allowed him to continue in their fellowship. “You should have put him out,” Paul says. “Hand him over to Satan.”

“Get rid of the old yeast.” “You must not associate

What’s Wrong

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hen Paul, Silas, and Timothy first wrote to the church in Thessalonica, they said they knew that God had saved the Thessalonians because “our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction” (1 Thess. 1:5). The authenticity of the Thessalonians’ faith was evident in their imitation of their teachers’ lives and in their joyfulness in welcoming the gospel message even as they suffered severely for it.

Pietism’s insistence that true Christian faith manifests itself in changed lives is obviously correct. Dead orthodoxy makes even less contact with spiritual realities than the devils’ shuddering belief (see James 2:19).

Yet pietism’s general traits have regularly led to spiritual deadends. For instance, its experientialism can lead Christians to agonize over whether their inward experience of God warrants their believing they are saved rather than helping them simply to rest on Scripture’s promise that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (see Rom. 10:13). Its biblicalism, combined with its individualism, can encourage its followers to approach

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the scriptures in naive, undisciplined, and even dangerous ways (see 2 Pet. 3:16). Its perfectionism tempts sinful human beings, who are already too prone to try to earn God’s favor, to substitute legalism and moralism for the true righteousness of God that must be imputed to us as a gift (see Rom. 3:21-30). And its tendency to see only coldness and sterility in established church forms and practices often causes those caught in its circles to neglect the biblically-authorized ecclesiastically-mediated means of grace; namely, the regular gathering of God’s people for preaching, teaching, and public Scripture reading (see Heb. 10: 24-25; 1 Tim. 4:13) and for obedient participation in the Sacraments of Baptism and Communion (see Matt. 28:19-20; Rom. 6:3-4; 1 Cor. 11:23-26).

To be sure, these are dangers for pietism but dangers that are not equally present in all of its expressions. As David W. Brown notes in the New Dictionary of Theology, Spener and Francke acknowledged that Luther’s doctrinal reformation had been absolutely necessary even as they stressed that an individual’s saving acceptance of it would inevitably be accompanied by a reformation of life. They saw themselves as historically Lutheran in insisting that faith must become active in love. And their empha-

with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.” “Judge those inside.” “Expel the wicked man from among you.” Certainly, Paul believes in simul justus et peccator—“at once righteous and a sinner.” Yet he also assumes that those who are justified will not normally and repeatedly and unrepentantly sin as this man has. I think his assumption is inspired. Certainly his directions are.

Paul seems to be angry with the Corinthians for not seeing the basic, elementary inconsistency between their proclamation and their acceptance of this man. By their laxity, they undermine their witness to others, jeopardize this man’s soul, and dull their own consciences. Most crucially, they misrepresent God’s Spirit and the holiness of life he imparts. As those who most specially bear his name—those not only made in his image, but redeemed by his Son and indwelt by his Holy Spirit—they are in effect allowing that name to be taken in vain.

Was this New Testament emphasis new? Not really. God has always intended that his character

should be displayed to his creation corporately through his people. Adam was given Eve, and they were given children. The promise came to Abraham, and he became the father of many nations. God redeemed the nation of Israel from slavery and gave them his laws. Individuals and indeed the whole Israelite nation were punished when they became indistinct from world around them.

In Leviticus 26:33, God warned his people that if they became marked by unholiness, then he would scatter them. In other words, their becoming indistinct from those around them removes any reason for preserving a distinct place for them.

They would then become exiles, scattered among the nations. And so they did.

In the New Testament, God again shows that he intends to express himself through his people.

Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5 show what should happen whenever this distinction between the Church and the world is breached. The whole New Testament reinforces this through its grand vision of the Church. [ C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 5 1 ]

g with Pietism? sis on spiritual experience was meant to be an appropriation of, rather than a substitution for, biblical revelation. “In general,” Brown claims, “Spener and Francke attempted to walk the middle way between dogmatic rigidity and emotional warmth, between faith and works, between justification and sanctification, and between forsaking the fallen world and affirming it through love of neighbour, enemies and God’s good creation.”

Yet if this accurately assesses early German pietism, then perhaps it also suggests why pietism often goes wrong. For New Testament Christianity does not attempt to find some via media between doctrinal accuracy and emotional warmth—it trusts that God will send his Spirit to warm the hearts of those he has chosen as his Word is faithfully and fully proclaimed (see 2 Thess.

2:13-14; 2 Cor. 1:19-22). It does not seek a balance between faith and works, for it recognizes that all truly good works arise only from saving faith (see Eph. 2:8-10 with John 6:25-29). And it does not pit sanctification against justification because it sees our growth in godliness as what God accomplishes within us once the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us has made us fit for adoption into God’s family and for being indwelt by his sanctifying Spirit (see Rom. 5:1-5; Gal. 4:3-7; Eph. 1:13-14).

Much of contemporary American Christianity is more the outworking of pietistic tendencies than it is of this kind of New Testament faith which the Reformers recovered. We see this in the kind of Pentecostal and charismatic emotionalism that cuts itself loose from a doctrinally full and sound faith. We see it in popular evangelicalism’s contempt for systematic theology and in its neglect of the great, life-orienting creeds and catechisms—all on the assumption that earnest believers should read little more than their Bibles if they are to get an unbiased and truly biblical “take” on Christian faith. We see it in the subjectivism and antitraditionalism of many seeker-sensitive services that trim the gospel to fit individuals’ felt needs. Above all, we see it in the democratization of the American church where the forms of American church life are regulated primarily by what “works” in attracting crowds rather than by careful ecclesiastically-based theological thinking that safeguards “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3).

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GROWING IN GRACE | A Defense of Piety

By These Mea I

f Lutheran theologian Paul Raabe, in A Confessing Theology for Postmodern Times (Crossway 2000), is right, then an examination of any cultural group’s practice of Christianity must be rooted in the religion and God of Israel: “The only hope for Hispanics or Chinese or Germans or Americans is to come to Zion and worship the God of Israel, not to build their own Gentile

religion or Gentile temple.” God’s people live their earthly lives as a pilgrimage of faith based in a particular Christian spirituality. By faith, eyes, hearts, and hopes are fixed on the final city of God. But in the meantime, like Jesus in Jerusalem, God’s people are to be passionately consumed with the things of the Father’s house—“for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Isa. 56:7).

A popular proverb says that “faith is lived most abundantly by looking forward, but faith is understood most completely by looking backward.”

Christian faith offers a fullness of life in Christ, leaning forward toward this soon-coming King of Kings while looking backward to the presence of God in his visible Word who won the victory of salvation by acting in history. It remembers deliverance’s strong hand—“We’ve Come This Far by Faith”—even as it anticipates God’s return in Christ—“Soon and Very Soon.”

Faith’s journey begins sacramentally with three

splashes of water—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Baptism is performed once, applying the eternal, once-and-for-all, life-giving benefits of Jesus’ death and resurrection to his people. The ensuing pilgrimage’s struggles do not make us more acceptable before God. No hajj, prayer-vigil, or cultural practice such as Kwanzaa can make us righteous before the Father. It is from their faith in Christ’s righteousness that disciples embark on the perilous, cross-laden path that follows the rest-giving One who is calling out to them, “Come unto me.”

On this journey, Christians may slip into sin or slide into doubt. But God’s word of promise spoken at Baptism is not thereby broken. When we fall from our faith, Scripture does not tell us to get rebaptized. It tells us to reaffirm the faith of our Baptism—a faith that rests in God’s promise (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38, 39).

Today, many people are going tragically off track, derailed by false doctrine. The Church has

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ans Necessary: fallen for Satan’s deceptive traps of humanly manufactured, plastic teaching—literally, plastoi logoi (2 Pet. 2:3)—and this has thrown her into crisis. But doctrinal corruption is seldom innovative; and so looking backward to Martin Luther’s battle for the means of grace can be useful in our pluralistic times.

No Magic in These Means uther railed against Roman Catholicism’s “magical” conception of the means of grace, charging it with devaluing both the potency and efficacy of God’s Word. The devaluation of God’s Word through a denial of the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture is central to our modern Church crisis. Luther viewed God’s Word as the power for the justification of everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16), as well as the Church’s only doctrinal norm.

In Luther’s time, renewed appreciation for God’s Word was prompted primarily by God’s Spirit moving his people to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Bible—especially in the original languages of Greek and Hebrew. At the same time, late medieval humanism benefited the Reformation by its commitment to return to origi-

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nal sources, as expressed in the motto, Ad fontes! (“To the sources!”). This resulted in the reformers’ investigating the teachings of the early Church. In this way, much of their work was catalyzed by the recovery of many stifled or forgotten voices.

Thus, Ambrose, the St. Augustine-mentoring bishop of Milan, influenced Luther’s view of the Word and the Lord’s Supper by linking the consecration of the bread and the cup of Communion with the speaking of God’s Word—specifically, with the repetition of Jesus’ words as Paul reports them in 1 Corinthians 11. In contrast, by the time of the Reformation the so-called transubstantiation of the elements into Christ’s body and blood had been linked to a human uttering, a human prayer.

Ambrose helped Luther see that this view had not always been the case by observing that in all that is said prior to the moment of consecration, “the priest offers praise to God and renders intercession for the people, for the kings, and for others. But at the point where the Holy Sacrament is effected, the priest no longer employs his own speech but the speech of Christ.” Thus, with the Lord’s Supper as with Baptism, it is God’s Word that affects the Sacrament. And so there is no magic in these means of grace.

church systems. Luther, Philip Melanchthon, John Calvin, and other Protestants are repeatedly accused of sowing the seeds for the innumerable denominations that have sprouted, especially in American soil, with the decline of pastoral authority and the rise of Pentecostalism. For example, German Catholic theologian Hans Küng claims that there “is no doubt that in fact enthusiasm very largely triumphed over Luther.”

Enthusiasm, commonly understood, involves positive, passionate energy. Without this kind of enthusiasm nothing great is ever accomplished.

But this is not the way that reformational Christians understand it. For us, the word enthusiasm possesses a technical and negative sense. It refers to those fanatical, heretical “ravers” (Schwaermer in German) who boast that “God dwells in them” (en-theou). These enthusiasts maintain that God deals directly and immediately with human beings—apart from the external, objective Word and the Sacraments. Modern-day church ravers manipulate their hearers emotionally, especially in evangelism.

Frankly, I find God’s promise to work through Word, water, bread, and wine to be a greater source of strength and divine engagement than any unbiblical claim that God will work in us directly and immediateFaith’s journey begins sacramentally with three splashes of water—Father, Son, and ly. Yes, God’s Spirit, like the wind, blows where he wills, Holy Spirit. Baptism is performed once, applying the eternal, once-and-for-all, and one must never quench the Spirit; but “faith comes life-giving benefits of Jesus’ death and resurrection to his people. from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ” Luther’s affirmation of Scripture as the Church’s (Rom. 10:17). A means-of-grace based theology only doctrinal norm extended to what Scripture like Luther’s can generate exuberant faith. In fact, says makes a Sacrament. He consequently came to as Melanchthon said, it is enthusiasm, technically see that Sacraments were not made through incan- understood, that can lead to “dissolute,” “indolent, tations, smells (incense), or bells (which were rung and sluggish” spirituality. at key points during mass). Over against such Often when I emphasize in Bible classes that the sacramental mechanism in Roman Catholicism, the Spirit usually works through the designated means reformers restored God’s Word to a central place. of grace, it prompts questions like, “Well, can’t God Lutherans use the word Sacrament to refer to cer- just touch us directly?” or “Are you telling me that emonies instituted in Christ’s preaching. They God can’t come to me in a dream?” Double-edged identify three: Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and questions like these are pastorally and philosophiAbsolution. Each of these external rites are signs of cally tricky. Pastorally, we know that Christ’s love the entire gospel, testimonies of the remission of compels us to give every answer with “gentleness sins or of reconciliation, that convey God’s grace to and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15)—without doing more his pilgrim people, given for Christ’s sake and pro- damage than wretched presuppositions like these claimed in his Word. are already doing to our questioners.

Philosophically, whenever someone asks a question A Battle from Both Sides that starts, “Can God…?,” the answer is almost ome Church historians, especially among the always, “Yes.” So after conceding God’s ability, I Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, raise a question frequently found on the lips of our accuse the reformers of dismantling essential Pentecostal friends, “God is bound to his Word,

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isn’t he?” In Scripture, God Spiritual Mentoring between Ambrose and Augustine: The reveals how he has bound himself regarding his dispenfuture Church father, Augustine, was nurtured in his spiritual joursation of forgiveness and grace. Word, water, bread, ney by Ambrose, bishop of Milan, in whom the authority of the and wine are his self-designated means. Here Jesus’ Church was represented. Augustine was driven increasingly to the authority of revelation through father words Abraham to the rich man which was concretely given to him by the authority of the Church. Augustine had arrived in whose greed gained him hell can help: “If they do not lis- Italy at the point of religious crisis. He visited Bishop Ambrose and was fascinated by the ten to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be churchman’s kindness which persuaded him to become a regular attender of his elder’s preachconvinced if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31). ing. Practically, Augustine endured a career crisis at this time when after opening a school of Luther’s battle for the priority of Scripture and rhetoric he was defrauded for tuition by his students. He eventually accepted a vacant profesSacraments as the means of grace was fought, then, not sorship at Milan. Spiritually, Augustine sought divine grace in Christian Baptism. He was baponly with Roman Catholics.

To the Scylla of Rome was tized by Bishop Ambrose in Milan on Easter Sunday, 387, it is believed. added the Charybdis of the — Compiled from Paul Tillich’s A History of Christian Thought (Simon and Schuster, 1967), enthusiasts.

“Suddenly,” as well as the Catholic Encyclopedia (Robert Appleton Company, 1907) Luther said, “there arise fanatical spirits [who] … in a short time … subvert everything that we had been building for such a long many so-called evangelicals is, likewise, to time and with so much sweat.” In his customary encounter a plethora of ideas about God and faith. caustic way, Luther ascribes the rise of these sec- Where Word and Sacrament do not link the holy tarian opinions to the devil. Modern confessional God and human faith, we find sentimentalism and evangelicals find themselves between a similar rock subjectivism. People seek to experience God’s and hard place. In addition, however, we have an power directly and immediately. And, consequentencroaching pluralism that is striking at concepts ly, at the level of much popular piety, knowledge about God is confined to the domain of feelings, such as objective truth. emotions, and “heartfelt” religion.

The Reformation Continues When we think about our hearts, we often start uther proclaimed that the Church always with a skewed definition. In Jewish-Christian needed to be reformed—ecclesia semper refor- thought, the heart is much more than emotions manda. Biblically faithful women and men and feelings. It is the seat of our personalities (Gen. must fight relentlessly to reclaim the reformational 6:5; Ps. 84:2), the source of our vitality (Josh. 5:1; solae: sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone!”), sola gratia Ezek. 21:6, 7), the wellspring of courage (2 Sam. (“Grace alone!”), sola fide (“Faith alone!”), solus 22:46; Ps. 27:3), the root of our rationality (1 Kings Christus (“Christ alone!”), and soli Deo gloria (“Glory 3:12; Prov. 2:2), and the center of our moral charto God alone!”). We must continue reforming the acter (Deut. 8:2; Matt. 5:8). Scripture seldom uses Church at the rocks and hard places that we now the word heart to refer simply to feelings and emofind ourselves between. tions. And no wonder, since basing our assurance During the Reformation, debates raged over of eternal salvation on feelings and emotions sets us both the number and definitions of the up for a wild roller coaster ride of religious highs Sacraments. Today, we must confront theological and lows.

Today, especially, we should remember that salpluralism and religious syncretism if we are to maintain that women and men can be saved in only vation comes from outside us—extra nos—by means one way—by grace alone, through faith alone, in of our hearing God’s external, objective Word. As pilgrims, our hearts must be firmly grounded in the Christ alone.

In his day, Luther felt compelled to denounce strength of this Word. Psalm 84:5 alludes to this those who were co-opting the term evangelical. when it says: “Blessed are those whose strength is Today, to hear the preaching and see the piety of in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.”

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This Psalm’s last phrase literally translates as “in whose heart are the highways to Zion” (ESV).

These are the roads trustingly taken in life, the discipleship decisions made, the concrete confidence a believer has that God’s Word as it is found in the Scriptures can be a “lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Ps. 119:105).

The truth and efficacy of God’s Word is under attack in our pluralistic society. In conscious contrast, we must preach and teach it with zeal, zest, and accuracy. In the end, we confront our pluralistic and syncretistic time with words, just words— but they are the powerful, efficacious words of the gospel. The Church is meant to be the “mouth house” of God. We know that it is God’s Word that presents Christ; it is this Word, spoken by us, that is the means through which God speaks. Where God’s Word is present, the Holy Spirit is working; and where the Holy Spirit is working, things are happening: disciples are being made, sin is being jettisoned, lives are being transformed, communities are improving. In the end, “the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever” (Isa. 40:8).

The Means Are Meant for Every Tribe and Every Nation unday morning service is still the most segregated hour of the week in America. We have been successful to a fault in reversing the diversity of Pentecost. This is due in part to our church growth mania that often succumbs covertly to the sacrilegious principle of homogeneous units. Most American churches are monocultural islands in a sea of multiethnic opportunity.

“I do not agree with those who cling to one language and despise all others,” Martin Luther declared. “The Holy Spirit did not act like that in the beginning. He did not wait till all the world came to Jerusalem and studied Hebrew, but gave manifold tongues for the office of the ministry, so that the apostles could preach wherever they might go. I prefer to follow this example. It is also reasonable that the young should be trained in many languages; for who knows how God may use them in times to come?”

Luther’s words loom large in our rapidly increasing multilingual reality. We who are committed to the truth and efficacy of God’s external, objective Word ought to scrutinize the curricula we employ and the languages we use, perhaps especially in those regions where there is a rapid rise of Spanish language and cultures. Demographers suggest there are seventeen emerging Hispanic subcultures in the United States, and in some areas of the nation the Hispanic presence is growing 400 per-

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cent faster than any other ethnic group.

In a pluralistic and syncretistic time like ours, the watchword of many is “tolerance.” The way to celebrate and embrace diversity is to be tolerant.

This invocation of tolerance can approach the level of religion. For some, this thinking is a kind of faith in the secular, civic realm. These secular religionists dismiss the preaching of God’s Word as unhelpful even as they view secular tolerance as salvific. For others, tolerance has become an essential part of their religion. Their churches possess their own rare, in-house language, their own predictable patterns of ritualized behavior, and their own approved liturgies of social orthodoxy. But the difference between this and true religion is simple: true religion rests on biblical truth and its practice requires the recognition of transcendence—of God’s coming to us from outside our cultures by means of his external, objective Word and his other self-designated means of grace—and of the need for relational depth. The creeds of tolerance are artificial, earthbound, and surprisingly superficial in an age allegedly yearning for authenticity. Tolerance’s proponents dismiss the “otherworldly” and distrust absolutes with an ironic, dogmatic ardor often tinged with self-righteousness.

Attempts to create righteous and socially correct communities apart from the gospel are always contrived. They may scratch at sin’s superficial symptoms but they cannot cure its deadly plague. Their treatments may seem salutary but they are, in fact, deeply unhealthy since they are only skin deep.

In contrast, God’s designated means of reconciling human beings with himself have multiple dimensions. In the preaching and teaching of his Word, in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, God creates a connection to himself by faith. The promise of life in God is conveyed to the baptized through water and the Word. Inherited sin is thereby exchanged for Christ’s righteousness and full and free forgiveness is extended. A new orientation and destination is adopted and a new pilgrimage begins.

On this journey, our fellow-travelers change forever. We must seek inclusive fellowships that confess trinitarian truth. Authentic multiethnic communities should come out of baptismal and eucharistic living, as John’s vision of robed palm-branch wavers from every nation, tribe, people, and language attests (Rev. 7: 9–12). These communities cannot be manufactured, manipulated, or replicated merely by raising ethnic consciousness.

We must lay claim bravely to that which has already claimed all of us who believe and are bap[CONTINUED N PA Lord, GE 51] tized and, thus, become a community ofOone

GROWING IN GRACE | A Defense of Piety

Work as (Spiritual)

Discipline hat happens to Christianity in the workplace? Does faith make a difference in the way believers work? These are questions that the 1999 movie The Big Kahuna, starring Kevin Spacey and Danny Devito, raised in surprisingly thoughtful ways. The film features three colleagues from the same company who host a cocktail party at a manufacturers’ convention in a Wichita hotel. They sell industrial lubricants and hope to make a deal with the president of Indiana’s largest manufacturer, “the big kahuna.” Over the course of the evening, they fail to make the deal for the interesting reason that one of the men, Bob, talks with his guest about Christ instead of about his company’s product. One of the many issues raised in Bob’s ensuing conversations with his colleagues—the movie is long on dialogue—is whether he was justified in using company time to evangelize.

Several reviewers found this to be an unrealistic dilemma, noting that evangelicals made their peace with being Christians at the office long ago. According to a writer for Christianity Today, “Even if Bob has cultivated no fully developed spirituality of work … it is improbable that this Bible-imbued believer feels no compulsion to do a good job even under intense pressure to do so.” But the conundrum confronting Bob is not simply whether to work or evangelize. As Christianity Today’s

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writer notes, the real issue is whether Christians have a “spirituality of work.” Is work religious? Or is work an indifferent affair that needs to be baptized by evangelizing or fellowshipping with co-workers?

The Big Kahuna highlights this issue by demonstrating how many believers justify their work.

Although the phrase “full-time Christian service” may have been more popular a generation ago than it is today, the idea expressed by it is still prevalent among Christians. There are, as the phrase suggests, jobs that engage believers full-time in explicitly religious endeavors, most commonly as pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and others that support the work of spreading the gospel. Other callings that believers may choose are forms of “part-time Christian service” because they do not have a direct bearing on bringing people to Christ. For instance, a professional basketball player is doing little to tell others about his faith while he is on the court. He does have a tremendous opportunity, though, if at other times he publicly proclaims his faith and uses his celebrity to enhance the image of Christians.

Believing football players have begun to kneel in the end zone after a touchdown and point up to the sky in an effort to acknowledge their faith. Pity the linemen who do not enjoy the spotlight or the janitor (for that matter) who never stands a chance of achieving celebrity and gaining a wider audience for his Christian profession!

God-honoring—work. All legitimate vocations— including baking, farming, blacksmithing, and shop owning—were, according to their teaching, worthy of divine approval because God had created the world good and so work in his creation was not sinful but valuable. Martin Luther put it this way: “All the duties of Christians, such as loving one’s wife, rearing one’s children, governing one’s family, obeying the magistrate, etc., which [Roman Catholics] regard as secular and fleshly … are fruits of the spirit. These blind men do not distinguish between vices and the things that are good creatures of God.” In other words, for Protestants everyday work changed from being a necessary evil to being a necessary good.

The daily work of saints was necessary because of the related Protestant doctrine of providence, which is the idea that God superintends all things according to his sovereign plan. The reformers taught that God used the labors of people in so-called secular fields to provide for his creation.

Of course, God could provide supernaturally, such as when, for example, he fed the Israelites in the wilderness with manna and quail. But God also providentially provides food through the natural means of dirt, water, seeds, plants, farmers, truck drivers, and food service professionals. Luther amplified this notion poignantly when he wrote: “[I]t looks like a great thing when a monk renounces everything and goes into a cloister, carries on a life of asceticism, fasts, watches, prays, etc….

On the other hand, it looks Is work religious? Or is work an indifferent affair that needs to be baptized by like a small thing when a maid cooks and cleans and evangelizing or fellowshipping with co-workers? does other housework. But because God’s command is there, even such a small work must be praised as a service Central to this idea of work, then, is that for it of God far surpassing the holiness and asceticism of to qualify as Christian it must involve the procla- all monks and nuns.” The doctrines of creation and mation of Christ. Forms of work outside evangel- providence, in the reformers’ hands, elevated work ism and the ministry do not involve such procla- that was once thought to be tainted because of its mation and so do not possess spiritual significance “worldliness” into a calling blessed by God. unless a personal testimony can be added. The The corollary to the doctrine of vocation is that result is someone like Bob in The Big Kahuna whose of the priesthood of all believers. Ordinary Christians, in primary rationale for selling industrial lubricants is the reformational scheme, now behave as priests to use business contacts to spread the good news. But before God in their daily vocations. This involves sales itself, the task of describing and commending the spiritual service they render to God because the superiority of a particular product, apparently their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. When has no religious—read “redeeming”—significance.

Paul writes in Romans 12 that believers are to offer The Protestant Reformation’s conception of themselves as “living sacrifices to God,” he is simpiety was designed in part to undo this mind set. ply reinforcing what he says to Timothy (1 Tim. The reformers developed the idea of vocation to 4:4, 5) about the way both the Word of God and teach that ordinary Christians need not be monks prayer consecrate those affairs in which Christians or priests in order to be engaged in pious—that is, are engaged throughout their lives. The reformers

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taught that as priests, and by the practices of prayer and studying God’s Word, believers actually offer fragrant sacrifices to God in the daily and ordinary tasks he gives them to perform.

Ironically, contemporary Protestants have often taken the reformational doctrines of vocation and the priesthood of all believers almost contrarily to what the reformers intended. For contemporary Protestants, the priesthood of all believers usually means that each Christian is called to be an evangelist, not that the ordinary and nonreligious work of nonordained believers has religious significance before God. The result is that many of us are still as uncomfortable with worldly and secular affairs as was the medieval church; we have missed the Reformation understanding of vocation that was supposed to make us content with the common work to which God calls us, showing that even in the feeding of children or the cleaning of toilets Christians, as living sacrifices, actually give God glory. Instead, we often think we must be soul-winners to justify our day jobs.

The true reformational doctrine of vocation not only clarifies the nature of full-time Christian service by teaching that all Christians, whether ordained or not, are engaged in such service. This view also has important implications for piety and sanctification. When the Apostle Paul tells Christians to put on the new man, to abound in works of righteousness, and bear the fruit of the Spirit (Eph. 4 and Gal. 5:16–26), his point is that believers are to say “No” to self and “Yes” to holiness. These are the two components of sanctification, what theologians call mortification (dying) and vivification (living). As much as religious practices such as prayer and worship contribute to our sanctification, we sometimes miss the part that work plays. The reformational doctrine of vocation implies that work is a means of sanctification since it cultivates virtues such as moderation and self-control that are part of godliness (Titus 2). It may not be entirely clear how washing a floor, hauling garbage, or planting tulip bulbs glorifies God and sanctifies us. But when believers work with a sense of reverence and gratitude, they do.

With this perspective on work, Christians may think they do not need to seek the conversion of non-Christian co-workers. This understanding is wrong, especially since the Apostle Peter urges us always to be ready “to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15). Yet if adopting this perspective means that believers start to take delight in serving God in the very tasks to which he has called them rather than having to supplement work with religious interludes at the water cooler, then the doctrine of

vocation does exactly what it is supposed to do. For work itself has significance in God’s sight, even to the point of sanctifying believers. Had Bob known this, he might have been able to sell industrial lubricants to the big kahuna with a clear conscience, recognizing that this work was ordained for his own holiness and blessed in God’s sight. ■

D. G. Hart (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University), academic dean and professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, is the author of The Lost Soul of American Protestantism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).

Vocation n the eighties, the band Loverboy told us that “Everybody’s working for the weekend.” Of course not everybody is, but many people these days sense a lack of purpose and meaning in their lives relating to their work. The May/June 1999 issue of Modern Reformation explored the issue of “Vocation” from several different perspectives. Articles include:

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“The Doctrine of Vocation: How God Hides Himself in Human Work” by Gene Edward Veith “How to Discover Your Calling” by Michael Horton “God’s Vocation, Our Vocation” by Mark Talbot “Neither Individualism Nor Statism: Kuyper on Christian Concern for Laborers” by W. Robert Godfrey “To Join or Not to Join? The Calling of Church Membership”

by Preston Graham “Death, the Final Calling” by R.C. Sproul Although this issue is out of print, you can access these articles online at the new, updated web site for Modern Reformation magazine: www.modernreformation.org. In addition to select articles from the current issue, you can also browse back issues, read special Internet-only articles, and make changes to your subscription. Log-on today and enjoy the benefits of Modern Reformation, online!

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GROWING IN GRACE | A Defense of Piety

Thinking Differently: Resisting Five Common Misconceptions that Work Against Family Piety hen my children are grown, the one thing I hope they will take with them from our family is …” How would the average American parent answer that question?

The answers would certainly vary, but how often do we hear a parent say, “I want my child to have learned piety in our family?”

Would even Christian parents give such an answer? One definition of piety is “devotion to religious duties.”

The faithful observance of duty in a culture as feeling-oriented as ours sounds less than interesting. Yet devotion to duty ensures that what is right and important gets done, however we feel about it at the moment. Devotion

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to duty is a part of good character, and devotion to religious duty—piety—is an essential part of godly character.

Family piety must begin with the knowledge of the one true God, which means God as he has revealed himself in the Bible. If it is true piety, it will not stop there but will spread out into a daily commitment to live in the light of God’s revelation—seeing the world as God sees it, loving what he loves, and living to see and to show his glory.

Several commonly held misconceptions about what is best for children threaten to derail the training of our children in this kind of piety if we should thoughtlessly embrace them. So what are these misconceptions

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and how do they hinder us in practicing piety in our families?

Misconception 1: “Good parenting is child-centered.” ncreasingly, the parents considered to be the most exemplary are those who give the most to their children. Indeed, it always has been true that good parents must give and give and give, often going without the rest or pleasure they would like to have, in order to meet the needs of their children. Today, however, we often consider the good parent as the one who gives the child not just what he needs but what he wants, as well. The measure of a good parent is defined by the speed with which he or she is willing to set aside other concerns to do what a child would like to do:

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■ I have just begun to eat my dinner and my toddler, not hungry, wants to go out to play. If I am a good parent, I will leave my meal and go outside.

■ I am in the middle of a conversation with someone when my child begins tugging on my sleeve and demanding my attention. Since I am a good parent, I excuse myself from the conversation to hear my child’s request.

■ My husband and I would like to spend time alone together, but my children do not like having a baby-sitter, so we stay home.

■ It is the Lord’s Day and I want to attend worship, but my children dislike sitting through the church service, so we all attend Sunday school, then leave.

Child-centered parenting may be an attempt to guard against spending inadequate time teaching, training, loving, and enjoying one’s children. But parenting goes to the opposite extreme and becomes wrongfully child-centered when what the children prefer is the most frequently used criterion for parental choices.

Child-centered parenting fails on two counts.

First, it fails to prepare a child for life in the real world. As children grow, they will find that playmates, teachers, bosses, and spouses do not base all of their decisions on their preferences. If children have come to expect the constant fulfillment of their desires by others, then they will be prepared only for disappointment. Second, and more important, child-centered parenting fails to train a

child in piety. Parents must model that God and his will are supreme. Although part of a parent’s responsibility to God includes giving time and attention to a child’s concerns, he has given parents other responsibilities as well. The godly parent makes God’s will central, not the child’s: ■ I call the baby-sitter and spend time alone with my husband whether the children prefer that or not, because God has called me to be a wife.

■ We attend worship as a family whether or not the children would rather do something else because God has called us to worship with his people.

Children, too, must be trained from an early age to consider others—and especially God—as more important than themselves. Learning to wait to speak until someone else is finished, learning to entertain themselves because Mom or Dad must do something else right now, learning to set aside their own preferences and desires for the sake of another’s—all of this is part of the training required to prepare children to live lives for the glory of God rather than for the immediate satisfaction of their own desires.

Misconception 2: “The most important element of spiritual teaching for children is the child’s enjoyment.” s a Bible teacher in a Christian junior high school, I am alarmed at how many parents seem content to teach their children to feel good about a nice God who takes care of us and answers our prayers and how few go on to teach them to know the God of the Bible. Children have grown up in churches with programs designed for them and they have had fun, but they know very little about the Bible or about God’s character.

Piety must begin with the knowledge of the one true God, which means God as he has revealed himself in the Bible. Yet there is an anti-intellectual sentiment in many evangelical circles that makes a virtue of loving and doing, while actually despising learning and knowing. Doctrine and academic knowledge are contrasted with heartfelt love for Jesus, as though we may have one or the other but not both. Although one can know about God without loving him, one cannot love the true God without knowing him. And since the true God has chosen to reveal himself to us in the pages of the Bible, we cannot know him without study.

One of the most important ways to teach children about Scripture’s God is to read widely in Scripture with—and to—them. Another very

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important means of teaching the substance of the Christian faith is by means of a good catechism. A catechism takes the primary doctrines of the Christian faith and presents them through questions and answers. Its value lies in its stating biblical truths in clear, concise sentences that are easily remembered. One objection to using catechisms is that they rely on mere rote learning, seemingly void of meaning to the learners. Granted, catechisms do use rote learning; but rote learning is actually one of the most effective learning methods, especially for children. Do you still remember the alphabet, your multiplication tables, old nursery rhymes? How did you learn them? Learning a catechism does not have to be mere rote learning, however, since parents and teachers can—and should—take the time to make sure that children understand the meaning of each answer and can locate its scriptural source.

Study and catechetical memorization are not always fun; they often require hard work and dili-

thus, focused on those things that set humans apart from other creatures—namely, the humanities of history, language, philosophy, art, music, and literature. They believed that once their children were educated in this way, they would be able to recognize, value, and create what is good, true, and beautiful. Many centuries later, Puritan poet John Milton, fully valuing the humanities, added that the true end of education was to repair the ruins left by man’s fall. He believed that education should teach students to know, love, and imitate their Creator. In other words, studying the humanities Christianly would help students to become truly human in the way that God intended. Later still, eighteenth-century theologian and philosopher Jonathan Edwards wrote that the end of all we do, including academic study, should be to see and savor the glory of God in what he has made.

Whatever kind of education we choose for our children, we must realize that they spend a large portion (perhaps the largest portion) of their everyday Devotion to duty is a part of good character, and devotion to religious duty— lives absorbing what we have chosen for them. So have we piety—is an essential part of godly character. asked ourselves whether they are being adequately trained to see the glory of God in gence. But the God who gave us his Word in the every academic discipline they encounter? Are we Bible calls us to such diligence and hard work so that teaching them to work diligently, not only to we might know him. Engaging children when we acquire those skills they may some day use in a job, teach is important and we want our children to enjoy but also at those tasks that require intellectual rigor learning; yet we should never make our children’s that can enrich their lives and make them more fully enjoyment the top priority in our worship services, human? Are we faithfully reminding our children, Sunday school classes, Vacation Bible Schools, or by our words and deeds, that we are requiring these family devotions. Solid, intellectual substance pulled things so that they may see more fully God’s glory from the propositions God gives us in Scripture must and show it to their generation? be our top priority as we lay the foundations on which Misconception 4: our children will build lives of piety before God. “A family’s top priority should be involvement Misconception 3: in its children’s activities.”

“The goal of education is a fulfilling or merican children today have many things to lucrative career.” do. Most American families seem to believe meet many parents who are concerned that eduthat the best parent is the one whose chilcation be practical, packed with acquiring skills dren are involved in the most activities. Soccer, basetheir children will be able to use, especially to ball, dance, gymnastics, music lessons, art classes— earn a living. Rare is the parent who understands for many families, the list is very long and the family and values education as that which would most car is always in motion to one activity or another. fully develop his child’s potential—as a human Certainly, these activities are all gifts of God to being created in God’s image—to bring God glory. be enjoyed. Scripture teaches that whatever we do The ancient Romans, having conquered the can be done to the glory of God and it puts physiknown world, had slaves to do all of their work for cal exercise, competition, art, and music in a posithem. Consequently, they needed no vocational tive light. However, Scripture only mentions these training. Instead, they needed to teach their chil- things infrequently. What it repeatedly emphadren (who were free people or liberi—from which sizes as worthy of our time and attention, what it we get the concept of the “liberal arts”) how to calls on us to love and value, what it discusses from make wise use of their free time. Their education, every conceivable angle, is the Church that Christ

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redeemed with his own blood. Considering the tremendous importance the New Testament places upon the Church of Christ, true family piety— devotion to religious duties—must include a family’s commitment to a local church body. When a family is so busy with children’s activities that it must take Sunday as a day to stay at home together as a family and rest, or when those activities take place on Sunday and must be attended, precluding church attendance, a family is not seeing as God sees or loving what Christ loves.

Children can learn very early that a church body is their family and that God’s people are their people. They can learn that worship and meeting with the people of God are top priorities—indeed, duties given by God—that are not to be set aside.

Faithful parents can set the example of involvement in a local church and be sure that their children, however young, have some way to serve there themselves.

involvement. Faithful participation in the Church is so important to our Lord Jesus Christ. The diligence of both parents and congregation are needed in this most vital part of a child’s training in piety.

What would we most want our children to take from our families when they are grown? Do we want our children to know God, as he has revealed himself in his Word, and to love him with a love that moves them to glorify and serve him all their days? Do we want Christian piety in our children?

Then let us examine our priorities and our practices. Center our parenting around God rather than around our children. Pass on the substance of the faith we hold through diligent study of the Scriptures and catechetical instruction. Educate our children with the glory of God in view as education’s chief goal. Give the church the priority that Christ gives it in our families—and remember to include the children in our churches. ■

Misconception 5: “Church is for adults.” am sure that no parent or pastor would ever say that church is for adults and not for children.

Yet considering the assumptions many make that children will “get nothing out of” a worship service and judging by the way most sermons seem to be addressed only to adults, it appears we assume that the worship service, at least, is only for adults.

Most pastors and laypeople could do much more to include children in the church. Sermons should not be “dumbed down” because children are in the congregation, but pastors can remember the children as they prepare their sermons and, thus, work in an illustration or an explanation that would help them to focus on a main point and be able to discuss the sermon with their parents at home. Worship leaders can take a moment to explain a verse or two of a hymn before singing it to help not only children but adults understand the words being sung.

It is often said that children are the Church of tomorrow. They certainly are—and all of us who comprise the Church of God would do well to remember that. But we must also keep in mind that the children among us are part of the Church of today. We should work hard to include them now so that they will still want to be here later. Parents can teach their children that God requires their involvement with a church. They can set the example by faithfully bringing their children to worship each week. But it is only the Church itself—the people of God whom the children see each Sunday—who can make those children feel that they belong, who can help them want to be there, devoted to this particular religious duty of Church

Starr Meade (B.A., Arizona College of the Bible) teaches Latin and Bible at Redeemer Christian School in Mesa, Arizona. Her most recent publication is Training Hearts, Teaching Minds: Family Devotions Based on the Shorter Catechism (P&R Publishing, 2000).

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Devotional Resources

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f you’re ready to try something different and worthy of the effort that family devotions demand, the editors of MR have compiled the following list of resources for your benefit. Starr Mead’s own book, Training Hearts, Teaching Minds (which is offered in our “Resource Center” on pages 22-23) is an excellent example of devotional material based on the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Parents interested in pursuing such catechism-based devotional material should also read Donald Van Dyken’s Rediscovering Catechism: the Art of Equipping Covenant Children (published by P&R Publishing). In addition to his own thoughts, Van Dyken gives a helpful list of resources for family catechism training. The Christian Reformed Church published a helpful translation of the Heidelberg Catechism and included the relevant Scripture texts.

Parents who are members of churches normally associated with the Continental or Dutch Reformation should make use of this book. Parents in Presbyterian churches or other fellowships that use the Westminster Standards should find G.I. Williamson’s The Westminster Confession of Faith: For Study Classes (published by P&R Publishing). The study class format lends itself to family devotions, especially for older children who are able to wrestle with more difficult doctrinal concepts.

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We Confess…

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ut Christ was given so that for his sake we might receive the gift of the forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit, to bring forth in us eternal righteousness and a new and eternal life…. it is clear that without Christ and without the Holy Spirit we cannot keep the law. Therefore we also hold that the keeping of the law should begin in us and increase more and more. But we mean to include both elements, namely, the inward spiritual impulses and the outward good works. Our opponents slanderously claim that we do not require good works, whereas we not only require them but show how they can be done.

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, 1531

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ince we are redeemed from our sin and its wretched consequences by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why must we do good works? Because just as Christ has redeemed us with his blood he also renews us through his Holy Spirit according to his own image, so that with our whole life we may show ourselves grateful to God for his goodness and that he may be glorified through us; and further, so that we ourselves may be assured of our faith by its fruits and by our reverent behavior may win our neighbors to Christ.

The Heidelberg Catechism, 1563

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hat is a sacrament? A sacrament is an holy ordinance instituted by Christ in his Church, to signify, seal and exhibit unto those that are within the covenant of grace, the benefits of his mediation; to strengthen and increase their faith and all other graces; to oblige them to obedience; to testify and cherish their love and communion one with another, and distinguish them from those that are without.

The Westminster Larger Catechism, 1647

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isten now to the comforting assurance of the grace of God, promised in the gospel to all that believe. Thus says our Lord Jesus Christ, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that all who would believe in him might not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

To as many of you therefore, Beloved Brothers, as abhor yourselves and your sins, and believe that you are fully pardoned through the merits of Jesus Christ, and resolve daily more to abstain from them and to serve the Lord in true holiness and righteousness, I declare, according to the command of God, that they are released in heaven from all their sins, (as he has promised in his gospel), through the perfect satisfaction of the most holy passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. But as there may be some among you, who continue to find pleasure in your sin and shame, or who persist in sin against their conscience, I declare to such, by the command of God, that the wrath and judgment of God abides upon them, and that all their sins are retained in heaven, and final that they can never be delivered from eternal damnation, unless they repent.

The Heidelberg Liturgy, 1563

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An Interview with Dallas Willard

Spiritual Discplines and Means of Grace: Contrast or Continuum?

MR: Would you give us a little background as to how you came to see the importance of spiritual disciplines? Your theological journey?

DALLAS WILLARD

Professor School of Philosophy University of Southern California

DW: My desire to be an effective minister or just preacher, as a very young man, led me to intensive prayer, and to make that effective I was driven in turn to lengthy periods of solitude and silence, and later to fasting. This kind of life made me see the Bible in a new light as embodying and holding forth a different kind of life, which in time I came to see as life in the kingdom of the heavens as a disciple or apprentice of Jesus. I came to see that to trust him meant to accept him as one who was right about everything and not just the way to forgiveness of sins.

MR: What writers, Christian and non-Christian, have particularly influenced you as you’ve thought about these issues?

DW: A book by James Gilchrist Lawson, Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians, opened the reality of Christians through the ages to me, and caused me to see that a life of holiness and power in the kingdom of Christ was possible. Next in order came The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, then Finney’s Lectures on Revival and his autobiography, then the writings of John Wesley, and Law’s Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. After these, in slower progression in later life, the writings of Jeremy Taylor, Richard Baxter, Francis de Sales, John Owen, and others similar to them.

MR: In your estimation, what are the most effective methods of growing spiritually? What are the key spiritual disciplines?

in the kingdom of the heavens, decide to learn to do the things that Jesus taught and did. This will include the things he did by going into solitude and silence for long periods of time, walking in fellowship with his Father and in prayer. You rarely meet anyone who has actually decided to do this, but without such a decision, little of a “spiritual” life will come.

It is difficult to say anything accurate in general terms about “key spiritual disciplines,” for they are not righteousness but wisdom, and their application depends to some degree on the condition of the person in question. Nevertheless, at the outset of discipleship, solitude and silence are basic, extensively, and wisely used. This should never be done in complete isolation. I think service and secrecy (not letting your good deeds be known) are also vital. Study of the Scripture (especially memorization of substantial passages) is essential, and fellowship with some few individuals, at least, who are of like serious mind. These are all parts of discipleship to Jesus and can only succeed for growth in the kingdom if he is constantly guiding you. That too, as is all of this, is something to be humbly learned as you go along. There is not formula. It is a kind of life with and in God, after all.

MR: You say that living a spiritual life depends on deciding to learn to do the things that Jesus taught and did. Don’t we risk making Jesus more an example to follow than a Redeemer in whom we trust? And since his primary mission was unique, should imitation of Jesus be made so central?

DW: First, on the basis of the gospels’ vision of life

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DW: The issue is not a “spiritual” life, but a life of obedience and fulfillment. A spiritual life can mean almost anything. There are risks any way you take Jesus. The question is, how can you trust Jesus as Redeemer and not trust him in what he says to do?

And of course what he says to do is what he did.

People who say they trust Jesus as Redeemer and do not bend every effort to obey him are selfdeceived. They do not trust him. They trust some story about him. As long as you are clear that your

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anything else. So, how are we doing?

Spiritual disciplines are taught in the scriptures by practice, by example, as Paul said to the Philippians, “These things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things; and the God of peace shall be with you” (4:9). Because our practice is not one of example, we cannot understand this, but in the biblical context, this was something that didn’t even need to be said.

Spiritual disciplines (as ecause of misunderstandings of the basic nature of Grace, people today are not explained to painful lengths elsewhere) are not matters of only saved by it, they are paralyzed by it. Real Grace makes you active as righteousness, earning merit and so forth. They are nothing else does… matters of wisdom. No one should practice them who doesn’t need them. Once sins are not forgiven because you follow his you decide to obey Jesus, then you can deal example, or because you do anything else of honestly with the issue of means. Until you do, of “merit,” and clear that obedience, too, only course, you need nothing. succeeds by grace, you should in the language of 2 Peter 1, “give all diligence” to do the things Jesus MR: What do you expect to happen to a person who pretty said to do. Because of misunderstandings of the faithfully practices spiritual disciplines over a long time? basic nature of Grace, people today are not only saved by it, they are paralyzed by it. Real Grace DW: They will increasingly manifest the fruit of makes you active as nothing else does (1 Cor. the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control 15:10, 2 Cor. 9:8).

(Gal. 5:22–23) —and this will be obviously easy MR: You identify the disciplines of silence and solitude as for them; and there will be manifestations of divine essential to the life of Christian discipleship. But since power in conjunction with who they are and what everything necessary for faith and practice is taught in they do.

Scripture, on what basis can we call such disciplines “essential”?

MR: Earlier you said that reading certain books caused you to see that a life of holiness and power in the kingdom of Christ DW: Just drop everything not explicitly taught in was possible. Here you say that faithful practice of spiritual Scripture from your practice and see how much is disciplines over a long time will lead not only to our left of ordinary church activities. Just be consistent. increasingly manifesting the fruit of the Spirit but also to Here is something essential that is taught in manifestations of divine power in conjunction with who we are Scripture, “Set your mind on things above, not on and what we do. Would you please be a bit more specific things that are of the earth…mortify the parts of about what you mean when you talk about such your life that are only of earth: immorality, impurity, “manifestations of divine power”? passions, evil desire, and greed . . . . Also put aside anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech…. DW: I mean that you will see accomplished by Do not lie to one another since you laid aside the your words and actions what cannot possibly be old self with its practice and have put on the new explained by your efforts and talents. self…. Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one MR: “Spiritual disciplines” is, of course, closely associated another and forgiving each other …. And beyond with one’s understanding of sanctification. Some have all these things put on love, which is the perfect suggested that Reformation traditions, for example, are less bond of unity” (Col. 3). Now, is this essential? In interested in spiritual disciplines than, say, Roman Catholic or fact, today’s consumer Christianity denies that it Wesleyan groups, because of theological differences. Do you is—at least by its practice. agree that one’s view of sanctification matters here and how How do you do it? This is the area of means. does your own theological perspective shape your advocacy of As I say in my Spirit of the Disciplines, if what you are spiritual disciplines? doing accomplishes this, then you don’t need

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DW: Talk of “sanctification” is now largely counterproductive, in my opinion, though I have tried to say something about it in my recent book, Renovation of the Heart. Basically, sanctification is living in a relationship to the Master that brings and sustains right thoughts, feelings, choices, and habits, enabling one to do what is right religiously, morally, and prudentially, and to do this out of who one has become rather than from external obedience. Theologically, the most important thing here is to understand that grace is for whole life and not just for forgiveness. Grace is God acting in one’s life to accomplish what one cannot or will not do on one’s own. Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning. One needs to study grace inductively throughout the Bible to learn what it is and how it works in daily life. The single most harmful obstacle to spiritual growth in Western Christianity today is a misunderstanding of grace that keeps it out of daily life and obedience.

MR: You’ve spoken recently at Beeson Divinity School on synergism (cooperating with God’s grace) regarding God’s work in salvation. How does your view on this subject influence your views of sanctification?

DW: See above.

MR: Reformational churches hold (at least in principle if not always in practice) pretty strongly to a mediated relationship with God through Christ. Not only is Christ our only intercessor, but our relationship with Christ is mediated through Word and Sacrament. So when we talk about the work of the Spirit and the life of piety, we can’t help but talk about the ordinary means of grace (preached Word, Baptism, Lord’s Supper). What role do the corporate hearing of the Word and receiving of the Sacraments play in a spiritual disciplines approach to piety?

DW: They play an essential role, but if they are taken, as they often are, as the sole and sufficient activities to be engaged in, they will fail miserably.

Experience should make this clear to any observant and honest person.

disciplines is too individualistic, self-focused, and oriented to what we can do for God rather than what he has done for us?

That it starts with us and works its way to God instead of the other way around?

DW: These are misunderstandings based on willing or unwilling ignorance of what it is like to practice spiritual disciplines in apprenticeship to Jesus. Just look, for example, at how Calvin and Luther actually lived and follow their example, and you will see that it was not an early version of today’s consumer Christianity. When one says, “While we are to be given to a life of prayer, regular Bible study, and so forth, the basis of all real Christian piety is what happens when the Word is preached and the Sacraments are administered,” what is understood usually is that the only thing really required is attendance to preaching and taking the Sacraments. Look at the lives of those who practice this and see if you think that is what the New Testament writers had in mind. Of course that is an abuse of the Reformed teachings as they come from Calvin and Luther. And they were very sensitive, as we must be, to the abuse of a life of spiritual disciplines. The only thing that can carry us beyond abuses from all sides is the sincere intent to obey Jesus and the steady will to find how to walk with him and receive his grace to actually do it. Anyone who proceeds in this way will find their way by his grace into a life of holiness and power.

Without this, you can theologize all you want and in any way you want; it will lead to nothing in the way of a spiritual life in Christ.

The author of numerous books and articles, on both philosophy and Christianity, Dallas Willard (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) is a professor in the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, where he has taught since 1965. Dr. Willard’s newest book, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (NavPress, 2002) explores many of the issues raised in this interview. For more information on Dr. Willard’s writing, teaching, and speaking activities please visit http://www.dwillard.org.

MR: Beyond the corporate emphasis, classic Lutheran and Reformed churches have wanted to emphasize that while we are to be given to a life of prayer, regular Bible study and so forth, the basis of all real Christian piety is what happens when the Word is preached and the Sacraments are administered. These are things God does for us, that then give rise to faith and obedience. Out of this source, centered on what God has done for us in Christ by his Spirit through his Word, we then engage in regular family devotions and personal devotions as well. How would you respond to the criticism that the approach often associated with spiritual

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Reconsidering Homosexuality in Light of the Fall

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his very important book will strengthen the hand of all who seek to witness

Yarhouse are not postmodernists. They believe in within the churches to a traditional ethic concerning homosexuality. It will also data and the harmony of that data with the creation of blunt the edge on the use of science—or, rather, pseudo-science—to intimidate God. They are also honest enough to spell out their proponents of the traditional view. This presuppositions from the beginning: work reveals the face-behind-the-mask of the assault on the classical viewpoint that Let us give away our punch line at the very has come from homosexual advocacy start: We will show, persuasively we hope, groups both within and without that while science provides us with many Christianity by unveiling the self-interest interesting and useful perspectives on sexual that governs and directs the ferocity of orientations and behaviors, the best science their assault. of this day fails to persuade the thoughtful Jones and Yarhouse demonstrate that Christian to change his or her moral stance. the use of “scientific” findings to batter Science has nothing to offer that would even remotely constitute persuasive evidence that the churches into changing the would compel us to deviate from the historic traditional Christian view is not scientific Christian judgment that full homosexual at all but rather pseudo-science in the service of something else. Jones and intimacy, homosexual behavior, is immoral.

Yarhouse establish their case soberly and Secondly, the authors discredit the widely without polemic. In fact, they write less angularly than many of us who have fought in this held notion that homosexual orientation extends Homosexuality: particularly heated battle.

The Christian to at least 10 percent of the population. They state The Use of community should salute them for the tone they that even if the percentage were that high, it would Scientific have taken and for the spirit which they have been not directly affect Christian moral teaching. That Research in the given. Moreover, their book has golden value for is because Christian moral teaching is not based on readers of Modern Reformation because its diagnosis polls. But they do demonstrate conclusively that Church’s Moral of the problem of being human is rooted explicitly the 10 percent figure is based on faulty statistics Debate in a Pauline—hence an Augustinian, hence a deriving from Alfred Kinsey studies of the 1940s Reformational—understanding of human paralysis. and 1950s of men in prison. In fact, when males

by Stanton L. Jones and females are combined, homosexuality almost What Does the Book Say? & Mark A. Yarhouse certainly characterizes less than 3 percent of the This book argues, first, that science should population and is probably lower than 2 percent.

InterVarsity Press, 2000 dialogue with religion, and that reason, with the Jones and Yarhouse argue, thirdly, in a chapter $12.99, 192 pages, Paperback evidence that supports it, helps rather than detracts entitled “What Causes Homosexuality?” that the from our understanding of the Bible. Jones and best hypothesis for explaining homosexual

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orientation is “interactional.” In other words, environmental, psychological, genetic, and also experiential factors interact to produce a person’s self-understanding as homosexual. The authors show that the turn, in recent years, away from a psychological/psychoanalytical theory of homosexuality to a biological/genetic theory reflects a bias in favor of the latter because that would supposedly excuse or vindicate homosexual activity. That argument, so familiar to us now, goes as follows: If biology or my genes determine my orientation, then how can I possibly be held responsible for acting on it? If homosexual is the way I am, then how can anyone—and most especially the God who made me—blame me for acting out of impulses that I had no choice or part to play in creating?

Theologically, the argument comes out this way: God don’t make no junk! He made me gay.

Therefore, my homosexuality must be a part of his plan. And who is the Christian Church to tell him that what he created is bad? We hear this virtually everywhere. My own denomination, the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A., together with the United Methodists and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), are prone to take this position in official documents, as Jones and Yarhouse note without comment.

Fortunately, our authors see this argument for what it is: Christianity without the fall, theology minus original sin.

Even if the homosexual condition of desiring intimacy and sexual union with a person of the same gender is caused in its entirety by causal factors outside the personal control of the person, that does not constitute moral affirmation of acting on those desires…. At the broadest level all humans are heirs to a predisposition that we have not chosen and that propels us towards self-destruction and evil—our sinful nature. The plight of the homosexual who has desires and passions that he or she did not choose is in fact the common plight of humanity.

Jones and Yarhouse see the turn in the 1990s toward biological theories to explain sexual orientation as being so attractive to nontraditionalists because such theories appear to refute the traditionalists who are thought to believe that homosexual orientation is merely a choice.

But we never said that. From Romans 3:23 to Step One of the Twelve Steps in Alcoholics Anonymous, we simply observed that the human problem is beyond choice. The human problem is

a problem of bondage, to which the only effective solution must come completely from outside the situation. This is what we understand the gospel of Christ to be: a solution extra nos. The Good News is entirely beyond and outside ourselves. (On this vital point, see Rod Rosenbladt’s brilliant tract Christ Alone in the Alliance’s Today’s Issues series, available online at www.AllianceNet.org.)

Fourthly, this book faces head-on the question of whether homosexuality is pathology. The authors’ starting point is the 1974 American Psychiatric Association (APA) vote to remove homosexuality as a pathological psychiatric condition from their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the official reference book for diagnosing mental disorders in America.

Jones and Yarhouse report, again without an edge, that the APA vote circumvented normal channels because of explicit threats from gay rights groups to disrupt APA conventions and research.

They then discuss the elevated statistics of distress among homosexual persons, a statistic which is irrefutable whether it is due to the condition itself or to society’s rejecting attitude toward the condition. They also review the evidence of promiscuity in the gay lifestyle and even among committed gay couples. The statistics shatter the myth of sexual monogamy among committed homosexual couples. And they conclude that the “clear evidence of relational instability and promiscuity among male homosexuals must figure as problematic for Christians.” Fortunately, the authors exempt no one from such problems: all—Christian heterosexual married couples, non-Christian gay couples, all—fall, can fall, and do fall.

The book deals next with the question of whether homosexuals can be changed to heterosexuals. The authors admit that there are few confirmed cases of orientational change. They take their stand, theologically, on 1 Corinthians 6: 9–10: “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were.” That is what some of you were. The Apostle Paul indicates that some homosexual persons are no longer such. Jones and Yarhouse want to say that as long as there is even one case of a change—and there are such cases, although few—then we cannot abandon the possibility. But the core issue here is this: “The church’s stance on homosexual behavior requires only that individuals be able to refrain from homosexual action and find a life of fulfillment in God’s own provision in meeting their

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personal needs and not that they necessarily be able to become heterosexuals.”

Finally, Jones and Yarhouse offer a five-part synthesis of Christian sexual ethics that is valuable and also uplifting to readers. This discussion may be the high point of the book. It consists of an ethic of obedience, by which we submit to the revealed will of God; an ethic of loyalty, loyalty to the recorded will of Jesus in the New Testament; an ethic of principle, for the most fundamental purpose of sexual intercourse is that it “was made by God to create and sustain one fleshedness in a male-female married couple”; an ethic of caution, not only on account of HIV and unwanted pregnancy, but also because sex before marriage increases, without one statistical shadow of a doubt, the likelihood of divorce after marriage; and an ethic of virtue, by which Scripture urges us to develop in self-control, trustworthiness, faithfulness, and purity.

This five-fold ethic of sexuality contributes significantly to the content of the book. Moreover, for Reformation-minded readers, it will be “a lamp unto our feet,” for it takes very seriously that one empirically verifiable Christian doctrine, original sin. As the authors say, Christians must … remember that because we are fallen, we are inclined to deceive ourselves, to rationalize—after the fact—the wrong behaviors to which we have committed ourselves. . . . [I]t is essential that we strive to pursue righteous living even when we do not understand it because it can be that in that state when we have been freed

by God from the most egregious of our sinful behavior patterns that our moral vision will be clear enough for us to be more able to form true ideas.

Could Puritan theologian John Owen have said it better?

Does Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church’s Moral Debate have any defects? Well, there are one or two eccentric footnotes, such as the one concerning the Levitical prohibition against sexual intercourse during the menstrual period. And the book could be more appealing graphically. Because of the importance of its findings, this book should be in hardcover. But it is an overwhelmingly fine book, a book which I wish to send to leaders in my own denomination.

“Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!” (William Tyndale).

Paul F. M. Zahl (Dr.Theol., University of Tübingen) is dean of the Cathedral Church of the Advent (Episcopal) in

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Birmingham, Alabama, and a member of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Dr. Zahl’s latest book is Five Women of the English Reformation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001).

Richard Sibbes: Puritianism and Calvinism in Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England

by Mark Dever Mercer Univesrity Press, 2000 $19.95, 271 pages, Paperback Texas politician Jim Hightower famously dismissed moderates with the crack that “the only things in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”

Texas highways notwithstanding, the English Puritan Richard Sibbes was a moderate in every best sense of the word.

Sibbes’s moderation enabled him to pursue a fruitful gospel ministry amidst the tempests embroiling seventeenth-century England. “Moderation” should only be applied to Sibbes with caution, however.

While he resisted entreaties from his more radical nonconformist friends to leave the declining Church of England, Sibbes’s devotion to Christ, the Church, and reformed orthodoxy knew no tempering.

Rather, his irenic spirit and wise perceptions shielded him from some of the violent ecclesial and political divisions of the day, and he preached to glorify God and edify his people both then and now.

Alliance council member and contributor to Modern Reformation Mark Dever’s biography, Richard Sibbes: Puritanism and Calvinism in Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England, stands as the most authoritative treatment of Sibbes yet produced. Dever’s work has garnered accolades from eminent scholars of historical theology, among them Richard Muller and Eamon Duffy. And no wonder, for Dever has done a masterful job of resuscitating, from relative obscurity, an eminent figure in the life of the Church. His scrupulous archival research and exhaustive study of Sibbes’s writings have produced a comprehensive portrait of Sibbes’s life, thought, and historical context. Dever achieves an elusive balance, presenting a book worthy for scholars, pastors, and lay Christians alike.

As a leading cleric in seventeenth-century

Cambridge and London, Sibbes deeply influenced many of the Puritans who subsequently repaired to the new hope of New England. In turn, American Puritanism from John Cotton to Jonathan Edwards bears the unmistakable stamp of Sibbes’s intellectual and spiritual imprint. Yet, it is as a local English pastor that Sibbes is best understood and appreciated. His sermons resonate with an earnest and tender concern for the spiritual nurture of his flock. While holding faithfully to the doctrines of divine sovereignty and human depravity, he did not shy from the affections.

“Oh, what should water my heart, and make it melt in obedience unto my God,” he wondered, “but the assurance and knowledge of the virtue of the most precious blood of my Redeemer, applied to my sick soul, in the full and free remission of all my sins, and appeasing the justice of God?” Against the few scholars who have disparaged Sibbes as a proponent of moralism and mysticism, Dever persuasively defends him as a faithful adherent and proponent of reformed orthodoxy.

Contrary to those such as R. T. Kendall who diminish Sibbes’s Calvinism, Dever concludes “for Sibbes, the Reformed doctrines of predestination were nothing other than God’s love language to his people, a ‘delightful determinism’.” Likewise in response to those who have accused Sibbes of “preparationism”—and thus an excessive emphasis on human agency in salvation—Dever demonstrates that Sibbes clearly understood the salvation of souls as wholly wrought by God. Sibbes just made unusually effective use of preaching the Word as a means of grace.

The preeminent ecclesial concern of Sibbes’s day was whether or not to remain within the increasingly questionable Anglican church.

Though his closest friendships and theological sympathies were with the nonconformists who left the Church of England, Sibbes himself chose to stay. He did so not out of timidity but rather humility. Sibbes feared the perils of relying too heavily on unrestrained conscience and maintained a strong sense of deference to authority—both earthly and divine.

Moderate in his disposition and judgments, yet rigorous in his theology and passionate in his devotion to Christ, Sibbes joyfully navigated the turbulent seas of his day in the belief that he lived “in the best tymes of the gospell.”

William Inboden Civitas Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a doctoral candidate in history Yale University New Haven, Connecticut.

SHORT NOTICE New Dictionary of Biblical Theology Edited by T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner (with D. A. Carson and Graeme Goldsworthy as consulting editors) InterVarsity Press, 2000 $39.99, 866 pages, Hardcover This ambitious work is organized in three parts.

Part One is composed of twelve major articles that “are intended to provide the reader with a clear statement of the basis upon which the rest of the Dictionary is built.” Part Two opens with seven articles “on the most important biblical corpora” and then proceeds to survey the theology of the Bible’s individual books. Part Three focuses on topics, such as Abraham, Adoption, Evil, Exodus, God, Law, Sacrifice, and Word—that the editors take to be “of central importance for an understanding of the unity of the biblical corpus.” This dictionary holds to a high view of Scripture. The list of contributors is impressive and generally represents the more conservative wing of biblical scholarship.

The articles in the first part are conceptual, historical, and thematic. They range from an introductory piece through surveys of biblical theology’s history as well as of the challenges made to it. These articles explore the canon, concept, and plot line of Scripture, as well as consider its unity and diversity and the relationship between the two Testaments. They close with a piece on how preaching and biblical theology relate.

Articles such as Brian Rosner’s “Biblical Theology,” Kevin Vanhoozer’s “Exegesis and Hermeneutics,” and D. A. Carson’s “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology” are repetitious and overlap because their authors find it necessary to distinguish biblical theology from exegesis and systematic theology, for example. Nevertheless, Rosner’s piece includes a worthwhile section on why traditional “word studies” are inadequate basis for doing theology; Vanhoozer’s survey of recent developments in hermeneutics turns into a masterful defense of why we must read Scripture as God’s one Word; and Carson’s attempt to discriminate between biblical and systematic theology furnishes us with what are undoubtedly the best characterizations of each, such as systematic theology ordered as topically, logically, hierarchically, and synchronically as possible while biblical theology traces out the history of

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Redemption and is as inductive, comparative, and diachronic as possible. Among other things, this means that biblical theology is a “mediating discipline” while systematic theology is a “culminating” one.

The articles on the biblical corpora in Part Two are written by acknowledged authorities such as Darrell Bock on Luke to Acts; D. A. Carson on the Johannine writings; and Douglas Moo on Paul.

Yet, they are so brief that they risk being superficial. The articles on individual biblical books, often by the same experts, are slightly better.

Topics in the third part are treated in not especially satisfying ways. In part, this is because they are quite brief. Also, in some cases they do not take account of all that Scripture says. For instance, the article on hatred, in maintaining that human hatred is wrong, does not consider that David pleads his bona fides before God by stating that he hates all of those who hate God (see Ps. 139:21–24).

Perhaps this book’s ambitiousness is really its downfall. By trying to both define and defend biblical theology, to summarize the particular theologies of all the biblical books, and also to survey the major theological themes of the Bible, its editors have attempted too much. In addition, many articles lack the crispness and punch that really good editing can produce. This is a worthwhile reference work but could have been a much stronger one.

Mark R. Talbot Associate Professor of Philosophy Wheaton College Wheaton, Illinois

Being Presbyterian in the Bible Belt: A Theological Survival Guide for Youth, Parents and Other Confused Presbyterians

by Ted V. Foote, Jr. and Alex P. Thornburg Louisville, KY.: Geneva Press, 2000 $12.95, 91 pages, Paperback As a publication arm of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Geneva Press has a penchant for books with inviting titles. Several years ago it published How to Spell Presbyterian. This book raised the important point that becoming a Presbyterian

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involved, literally and figuratively, a lesson in spelling, even if the book itself was replete with examples of misspelled Presbyterianism.

Being Presbyterian in the Bible Belt is also cleverly titled, and it is written in a humorous vein. In a breezy style that is sometimes too glib (“who the hell knows?” is its cheeky response to the question of the afterlife), the book explains how the grammar of Presbyterianism differs from the predominant tongue of other American Christians, especially the ascendant idiom of American evangelicalism. Bible-belt rhetoric too often sets the agenda of religious dialogue in terms and categories that are unpresbyterian. As a remedy, this survival guide outlines the Christian faith in a way that is “unapologetic about the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition.”

The differences highlighted in this book involve Presbyterians in “when-did-you-stopbeating-your-wife” questions, like the classic evangelical icebreaker, When were you saved?

The authors rightly question the fundamentalist loading of the moment of conversion, and, true to Calvin, they describe it not as a decision in one’s past but as a lifelong process. Against evangelical me-’n’-Jesus individualism, they stress the corporate character of faith. Yet they offer no countervailing argument for Christian nurture.

Infant Baptism, for example, is justified on the bare premise that “God saves,” not on the doctrine of the covenant of grace.

The very writing of this book seems a concession that the glory days of the Protestant mainline are over. Even American Muslims outnumber Presbyterians, the authors acknowledge. In a manner reminiscent of the ethicist, Stanley Hauerwas, the authors try to transform their marginalization into a virtue: Our time allows us to be more deliberately Presbyterian. But unhappily, a therapeutic undercurrent runs through the book, as if its ultimate design is to help Calvin’s confused and diminishing heirs feel at ease. It’s okay if you believe different things, the authors reiterate; really it is. Ultimately, the Presbyterian antidote to fundamentalist self-righteousness is selfacceptance.

Moreover, Being Presbyterian is full of AuburnAffirmation agreeableness. Presbyterianism is a big tent: It is elastic enough for open theism or predestination (in mono or stereo), Christus Victor or penal substitution or moral influence on the atonement. Some Presbyterians see the fall as a helpful myth to explain the perennial “distance between God and humanity in every age.”

Predictably, the one area where the authors admit

that Presbyterian “shortcomings” stand to gain from evangelicals lies in contemporary forms of worship.

Most significantly, this small book disappoints because its focus is almost entirely on Presbyterian faith with very little to say on practice (with few exceptions, such as permitting inter-faith dating).

But might not Presbyterians find themselves conspicuous in the Bible Belt by the way they live as much as the way they talk? Consider how they ought to regard the sanctity of the Lord’s Day or teach the catechism to their children. Absent a discussion of practice, Being Presbyterian unwittingly suggests that Presbyterianism is a dialect without consequences. If so, a future generation of communicators will surely lose this accent. For all their diagnostic skills, the authors seem at the end willing merely to substitute one form of moralism for another.

Despite its flaws, this book may be helpful for two audiences beyond its intended readership.

Conservative Protestants can learn from reading it how others perceive them.

Despite their boundary-drawing efforts over the past halfcentury, evangelicals and fundamentalists remain indistinguishable through mainline eyes.

Moreover, the authors, claiming to be evangelical in an historical sense, employ the label neoevangelical to describe contemporary Bible Belt conservatism. The resurrection of the prefix for uncomplimentary purposes is a curious reversal of Harold Ockenga’s logic when he coined that term in 1947.

Finally, this book may prompt Reformed confessionalists to reflect on their differences with the language and rhetoric of evangelicalism, which is both hegemonic and threatening to the faith and practice of Presbyterian orthodoxy. Foote and Thornburg remind Presbyterians (and implicitly, Lutherans and Episcopalians) to mind not only their tongues but also their habits, so that they might witness in ways more consistent with their faith before a watching world that includes not only pagan neighbors but evangelical friends, as well.

John Muether Librarian Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando, Florida

BOOK NOTES Excellent Protestant Congregations: The Guide to Best Places and Practices

by Paul Wilkes Louisville, KY.: Westminster/John Knox, 2001 $18.95, 259 pages, Hardcover Time was (and still is) when denominations produced directories of all member congregations in part so that church members, while on the road, could worship in a place of like faith and practice.

Excellent Protestant Congregations represents a new stage in the genre of church directories. Stripped of theological and liturgical standards, this book lists 300 congregations and profiles the top nine in the author’s assessment. It functions as the spiritual equivalent to the Michelin’s guides to restaurants and hotels by rating congregations according to the author’s (and his staff’s) criteria for meaningful congregational life. The book includes addresses and websites for all 309 congregations so that Protestants on the road may find the “best” places to practice their faith.

Aside from the audacity of identifying excellent churches at a time when most church leaders and publishers are loathe to claim any form of religiosity is better than another, this book displays a remarkably shallow understanding of the Church in its criteria of evaluation. In approach, these churches are pacesetters, unafraid to take risks or make mistakes, and have a clear sense of mission.

The work of these churches is essentially evangelistic and laity oriented.

Excellent congregations also possess a sense of being a community and transforming the communities around them. Their spirituality is “traditional without being traditionalist.” And in structure, these churches have elaborate mechanisms for finding leaders and training laity.

According to these five areas, the excellent congregations are unparalleled. But the evaluators give no heed to Word, Sacrament, catachesis, or discipline as Christians historically understood and practiced them. Which is to suggest that today’s most successful churches may be the ones that least resemble the Christian Church.

For that reason, readers may want to apply reverse logic to Excellent Protestant Congregations, using it as a guide to churches that should be avoided when traveling or moving to a new town.

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No Other God: A Response to Open Theism

by John M. Frame Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2001 $12.99, 235 pages, Paperback The proponents of “open theism” have had their say and now classical theists are beginning to hit their stride in response. John M. Frame, who teaches systematic theology and apologetics at Reformed Seminary in Orlando, Florida, writes one of the latest installments from the orthodox wing of evangelical theology in No Other God. Perhaps the greatest attraction of open theism is that it appears to make God accessible by emphasizing his love, responsiveness, sensitivity, and vulnerability (though the efficacy of a kinder, gentler God in saving sinners does not appear to be a problem). Open theism also seems to give men and women greater significance by emphasizing human choices and God’s response to them. Frame draws upon material from his forthcoming book, The Doctrine of God, to respond to the challenges raised by open theists. To the point about God’s vulnerability and love, Frame responds with the commonsensical notion that the sort of person most people want in a spouse is someone who is both strong and capable of giving the needed support. In other words, a loving God need not be a deity subject to change or less than fully in control. To the notion that men and women enjoy greater freedom and responsibility in the open theist system, Frame answers (among other things) that Scripture never teaches the kind of liberty that open theists assert. Along the way, Frame responds to many other points—whether God changes, whether he suffers—and draws upon biblical and philosophical arguments to show the errors of open theism.

The book’s conclusion could be stronger. Frame compliments open theists for performing a valuable service, one that forced him to think harder about the “give-and-take” between God and his creatures.

At the same time, he writes that his interaction with open theism has led him to “affirm more strongly than before, God’s exhaustive knowledge and control of his world.” Those looking for a readable and theologically informed response to open theism will be hard-pressed to find a better book. Still, it is not clear that Christians needed the heterodox views of open theism to become better acquainted with the first article of the Creed—“I believe in God the Father, Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.”

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The Pastor’s Public Ministry

by Terry L. Johnson Greenville, S.C.: Reformed Academic Press, 2001 $10.00, 80 pages, Paperback The senior pastor of Savannah’s historic Independent Presbyterian Church for well over a decade, Terry L. Johnson has quietly emerged as one of American Presbyterianism’s most thoughtful and articulate defenders of historic Protestant worship and ministry. He is responsible, in large measure, for The Trinity Psalter, a companion piece to Great Commission Publication’s Trinity Hymnal, which features a complete set of metrical psalms for congregational singing.

Johnson has also produced two useful books on worship, Leading in Worship, a source book of liturgies and prayers for pastors and church officers, and The Family Worship Book, a volume that argues for the importance of family worship and also gives tools for parents to sing hymns, learn creeds, and read through the Bible during devotions in the home.

Johnson’s latest book, The Pastor’s Public Ministry, extends his careful attention to the importance of worship and the ministry of the Church. Based on lectures originally given at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, the book covers the pastor’s responsibility in leading worship, corporate prayer, and preaching.

Johnson starts and ends with the premise “the most basic and essential task of the minister is that of leading public worship.” As useful as the book will be for seminarians and pastors in thinking through their responsibilities as “stewards of the mysteries of God,” it may be even more valuable for church members who want to know more about the ministry of Word and Sacrament and why it crucial to the work of the Church. Perhaps best of all is the service Johnson provides by defending the means of grace in an era when the effectiveness of those means is being seriously questioned.

Re-Considering Our Accounting

By These Means Necessary

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The Church universal and glorified is not the only grand vision of the Church that we see in the New Testament. The church local and visible is also portrayed as a light in a dark world, presenting the only ray of true hope (Phil. 2:14–16) and showing by our love for one another that we are Christ’s disciples (John 13:34–35). The glorious Church universal is truly the invisible church unless it is manifested in the imperfect but truly supernatural life of the local and visible church.

Church discipline is no more all there is to the piety of the local church than correction is all there is to the art of parenting. Yet trying to lead a church without discipline is just as unworkable as trying to parent children without correcting them. An undisciplined church confuses sinners, discourages saints, and dishonors God. For our own sake as well as for the sake of others, for our churches’ and for God’s own name’s sake, let us not disregard God’s clear commands to discipline his Church. To disregard these commands cannot be right, and it is never safe, especially not for those who must someday give account. ■

one faith, one baptism (Eph. 4:5). This water is “thicker” than any blood except the blood of Christ by which our sin has been washed away. God’s self-designated means of grace bind us together more effectively than any sociological principle.

What he has joined together in Baptism, and what he keeps together at the table of Holy Communion, no racism, no sexism, or no ethnocentrism can ever put asunder.

So it is this kind of sacramental spirituality that defines who we are when we say “we.” Who are we? Well, we are those who have put our faith in the gospel, who have been baptized, and who together celebrate Communion.

The Church has a long way to go, but it has a helpful legacy and a glorious future. Along its pilgrims’ way, it has a God who feeds his weary people with his gifts of forgiveness and reconciliation as conveyed by the Sacraments that Christ instituted in his preaching. God’s Word, water, bread, and wine really are bread from heaven that make us, his weary pilgrim people, fresh and clean. The prolific Welsh hymnwriter, William Williams (1717–1791) expressed this poetically:

Mark Dever (Ph.D., Cambridge University) is senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. A member of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Dr. Dever’s most recent book is Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Crossway, 2000).

Correction The demands of space sometimes cause relevant material to be left out of articles we adapt from other sources for MR. Unfortunately, Dr. Gaffin's article, "A Reformed Critique of the New Perspective" in our March/April issue, fell victim to this kind of situation. The essay from which it was adapted, "Paul the Theologian," Westminster Theological Journal, 62 (2000) 121-41, was a review of two books, N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Founder of Christianity?

(1997), and James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of the Apostle Paul (1998). We apologize for creating the impression that Professor Gaffin was assessing the entirety of Wright's and Dunn's views.

The May/June "Between the Times" column inaccurately listed the percentages of Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians who believe that “sinners' works cannot earn them salvation" as 18, 20, 21, and 22. The correct percentages are 24, 26, 27, and 31 respectively.

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren land.

I am weak, but Thou art mighty; Hold me with Thy pow’rful hand.

Bread of heaven, Feed me till I want no more. ■

John Nunes (M.Div., Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary, St. Catherines, Ontario) is pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Dallas, Texas and a member of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

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False Piety: Justification by Relationship

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n the last half of the twentieth century, a new definition of salvation was offered up in the

not a substitute, sacrificing himself for the sins of his sanctuaries of most evangelical churches. Instead of encouraging those listening to the people, fulfilling the Law and imputing his righteousness. preached Word of God to respond to the gospel message with faith in Christ, Rather, he is the example of God’s great concern for increasingly, preachers invited their listeners to humanity. His death is God’s cosmic object lesson: enter into a “personal relationship with Jesus Here are the painful and destructive effects of sin, Christ.” now renew your obedience and return to God. For both those who offered this new call of God does call us into a relationship with him. salvation and for those who responded, But it is first a communal relationship—not relationship replaced faith as the instrument of disconnected from the visible Church. Second, it salvation. In other words, this new gospel declared is a relationship in Christ. We can stand in the that we are not saved “by grace through faith,” but holy place—before the throne of the Father— by “choice through relationship.” The Arminian because we have the clean hands and pure heart HOWARD J. and revivalistic streak that prompted this change of that Christ won for us in his life and imputed to us AHMANSON language culminated in America during the Second by virtue of his death and resurrection. Third, it is Great Awakening, which was dominated by the a relationship that flows from a legal declaration Pelagianizing tendencies of Charles G. Finney, and change of status. No longer are we rebels and Chairman who made no effort to hide his disdain for the strangers: We are the children of God, adopted as Fieldstead and traditional Protestant formula of “salvation by grace his sons and daughters—enjoying the benefits of Company, Christ’s death on the cross. through faith.”

Irvine, CA If we think that we are justified by relationship, Finney urged those who attended his meetings to make a decision for Christ. This refrain was apart from faith in Christ and trust in his life, death, quickly adopted by American Protestantism in its and resurrection, we have no basis for true piety or evangelistic crusades. More recently, the “decision” worship. We are still in our sins. Our works, far that one makes for Christ has evolved—due in part from being good, merit damnation. Let us keep the to the romantic and therapeutic age in which we old terminology and accept the Reformation’s live—into “asking Jesus into the heart.” witness to biblical truth: that ungrateful and This new lingo reflects contemporary rebellious sinners are declared holy and righteous Christianity’s shift away from the legal, or forensic, by their Creator because of the only righteous one, doctrine of justification to one more “user- God’s true Son, who interposed to save. Now, on friendly”—a family room model of justification. that basis, we joyfully worship, serve, and love our No longer is God the righteous Judge who has Father, knowing that our relationship with him is been sinned against by his rebellious creation. secure in the One who enjoys eternal fellowship Now, he is the loving Father of strong-willed but with the Father and the Spirit, our Savior: Jesus misdirected children, patiently waiting for them to Christ. realize the error they made, ever willing to accept them as prodigals. In this latter scheme, Christ is

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