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VOL.22 | NO.2 | MARCH-APRIL 2013 | $6.50

THE NEXT BIG THING

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features VOL.22 | NO.2 | MARCH-APRIL 2013

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The Quest for The Next Big Thing

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I am of Paul…

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Timeline of Big Things

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We Don’t Need Another Hero

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Spring Cleaning

COVER PHOTO BY ROBERT DALY

BY CARL R. TRUEMAN

BY LEANNE SWIFT

BY THE MODERN REFORMATION STAFF

BY MICHAEL S. HORTON

BY MICHAEL S. HORTON

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departments 04 05 10 14 18

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

41 46 48

BOOK REVIEWS

BY RYAN GLOMSRUD

INTERVIEW ›› The Juvenilization of Christianity Q&A WITH THOMAS BERGLER

FROM THE HALLWAY ›› Making a Marriage

BY WILLIAM B OEKESTEIN

THEOLOGY›› Shepherding Like the Good Shepherd

BY BEN ARB OUR

THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD ››

Part II: By the Blood of a Better Covenant

BY ZACH KEELE

PETE WARD, JONATHAN FISK, AND MICHAEL ENNIS

GEEK SQUAD ›› Pastors, Flee the Spotlight

BY RYAN GLOMSRUD

BACK PAGE ››Popular Models for Pastoral Ministry

BY DAVID W. HALL

Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Executive Editor Ryan Glomsrud Managing Editor Patricia Anders Marketing Director Michele Tedrick Design Director José Reyes for Metaleap Creative, metaleapcreative.com Department Editors Ryan Glomsrud (Letter from the Editor & Reviews), Michael S. Horton Designers Tiffany Forrester, Ashley Stephens Copy Editor Elizabeth Isaac Proofreader Ann Smith Modern Reformation © 2013 All rights reserved. ISSN-1076-7169 1725 Bear Valley Parkway Escondido, CA 92027 (800) 890-7556 info@modernreformation.org www.modernreformation.org Subscription Information US 1 YR $32 2 YR $58 Digital Only 1 YR $25 US Student 1 YR $26 Canada 1 YR $39 2 YR $70 Europe 1 YR $58 2 YR $104 Other 1 YR $65 2 YR $118

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LETTER from the EDITOR

RYAN GLOMSRUD executive editor

In this issue we consider pastoral ministry in relation to the evangelical quest for “The Next Big Thing.” Inevitably, that thing—whatever it turns out to be—is based on youth culture and the modern fascination with celebrity. According to our opening interview with Professor Thomas Bergler, it may be that the evangelical church itself created the “culture of now” in America. This seems to be the underbelly of religious revivalism and a sociological shift in the twentieth century.

Editor-in-chief Michael Horton addresses this in “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” exploring the significance of the fact that “movements are largely youth driven, whereas institutions are usually run by elders.”

Our culture may celebrate The Next Big Thing, but Horton reminds us that we hope for a church reformation, not a revolution. Church historian Carl Trueman presses further, taking issue with the pervasive entrepreneurialism of the modern age, as well as the fixation on big personalities that is so much a part of even church culture.

Trueman insists that if we no longer comprehend the instruction to “let no man despise you because of your youth” (1 Tim. 4:12–13), we may have taken leave of Pauline Christianity.

This may seem like heavy criticism of evangelicalism, but we take these matters seriously, and so

our authors open the Bible in order to build their arguments. That is itself one of the legacies of the Reformation, namely, to be informed by Scripture at every turn. In keeping with this conviction, writer Leanne Swift meditates on 1 Corinthians 3:4– 6 (“‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos’”) in relation to celebrity-driven evangelical leadership. Ben Arbour, a doctoral candidate at the University of Bristol, applies John 10:14–27 (“I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me….My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”). This is a passage with real significance for ministry models in unusually large churches. It may be, argues Arbour, that “pastors who don’t know their people functionally deny that Jesus is the pastoral example.”

Also in this issue, Horton highlights a tendency we all have: to gather ever-expanding spiritual scrapbooks filled with all kinds of theological and spiritual collectibles (some real gems and some real junk). Based on 1 Thessalonians 5:21, he recommends a theological “spring cleaning,” so we don’t wonder what this or that doctrine is doing in our “scrapbook.” Making good on this scriptural command requires as much time thumbing through Scripture as our own scrapbooks.

To this end, we continue the yearlong series

by Orthodox Presbyterian Church minister Zach Keele on the theme of Christ in all the Scriptures. Knowledge leads to intimacy, which is also true of the marriage relationship, and author William Boekestein reflects on God’s blueprint for marital success from Genesis 2:18–25.

As you read this issue, contemplate the implications of John the Baptist’s declaration: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Beware of the cult of personality that turns a spotlight on “extraordinarily” gifted ministers. The pastoral Epistles instruct the church to grow by God’s grace through the means of grace, exercised routinely and ordinarily in Lord’s Day worship.

HE MUST INCREASE, BUT I MUST DECREASE. (JOHN 3:30)

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INTERVIEW

THE JUVENILIZATION OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY Q & A with THOMAS BERGLER

INTERVIEW

T H E J U V E N I L I Z AT I O N O F A M E R I CA N C H R I ST I A N I T Y

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Q & A with THOMAS BERGLER

homas Bergler is associate professor of ministry and missions at Huntington University and senior associate editor for the Journal of Youth Ministry. He has taught youth ministry for twelve years and is the author most recently of The Juvenilization of American Christianity (Eerdmans, 2012).

Please begin by explaining how the whole idea of “youth,” “youth group,” and “teenager” arose in common understanding today.

a.

Most scholars believe that the idea of adolescence was more or less invented around the turn of the twentieth century, and it had to do with changes happening in society such that the teenage years were beginning to be separated from adulthood. If you think back further in history, in the nineteenth century and before, by the early teen years, one was entering into the world of adult work. But as society changed, especially with the middle class taking more professional-type occupations, there was more schooling and longer preparation. So people started talking about this new phase of life called “adolescence.”

In my book I explore the 1930s and ’40s when there was a widespread perception in America of a crisis of youth and a crisis of civilization. The Great Depression had a huge impact on young people, with its high unemployment rates; and in Europe, the Fascists and the Communists had powerful youth movements that were leading young people astray.

People began to worry if the same thing could

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happen here in the United States: If we have a bunch of young people who can’t find jobs and are discouraged, will they begin to act out politically or criminally?

Throughout your book you talk about how in today’s youth ministry a relationship with Jesus has been turned into a romantic relationship, rather than a relationship with a historical person. Is this what you mean by juvenilization?

a.

My initial preparation for the book led me to ask how youth ministry has shaped the church. There are many benefits I could talk about, but one of the negative impacts of youth and youth ministry on the church in America has been the assumption of traits that are perhaps appropriate for adolescents, but then celebrating those and making them ideal for all ages. For example, I’m not surprised that in youth ministries people seize on the analogy of falling in love as an analogy for one’s relationship with Jesus. After all, what can be more powerful for an adolescent than that first time of falling in love? It seems like a great analogy because it suggests that the relationship you

have with Jesus is so emotionally powerful, so learning theology, apologetics, and church history, captivating, so obsessive even, that it should just and are digging deeper into the Scriptures than shape everything; you should their youth pastors or sometimes be thinking about Jesus 24/7. even their pastors.

It seems like an apt analogy Some of the responses to my to someone working with 14book mention a similar thing. I was to 16-year-olds because of reading the other day an article that the way they’re developing claimed, “The youth in my church emotionally. are going way deeper in their theoBut what happens when logical study than their parents or people are 44 years old, and THOMAS BERGLER other adults in the church.” One of they’re still thinking about the problems that happens is when their relationship with God The Juvenilization of we decide that young people or chilthat way? In other words, if American Christianity dren need a certain type of minisI’m not feeling intense emo(Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2012) try in order to really connect with tions about Jesus, then someGod or connect with the church. We thing must be wrong. Indeed, In The Juvenilization of might stereotype them and expect I don’t think it takes until 44.

American Christianity less of them than we might othFirst of all, the whole metaThomas Bergler, erwise. It’s probably the case that phor of “falling in love with associate professor of we underestimate what teenagJesus” is on really shaky ministry and missions at ers are capable of. You always have ground biblically. It’s immaHuntington University in the problem that there’s a specture to relate to Jesus with Indiana, examines how trum, because of spiritual developthese gushy feelings, and I youth ministries have mental issues. So in the same youth think we have evidence to sugvitalized major American group you have some who are very gest that this leads to a relachurch traditions over the advanced, and some who are really tionship with Jesus that has past seventy-five years. only there because of the pizza or all the staying power of an adoBut Bergler shows how whatever, but is that really that diflescent infatuation. this “juvenilization” of ferent from the adult church? No, I’m not saying that youth churches has led to you have the same problem there, ministries or young people widespread spiritual and you have to use some of the in particular caused all the immaturity, consumersame solutions, which is preaching problems of immaturity in ism, and self-centeredthe Word but also providing pastoral American society; but youth ness, popularizing a care, helping individuals take their ministries were the place feel-good faith—while next step, and not assume that just where the church made its unfortunately neglecting because some people in the group peace with some of these intergenerational are only ready for pizza and a really broader trends toward immacommunity and short talk, that that’s all we’re going turity, and as a result, withtheological literacy. In this to offer anyone. out anyone really intending it, critique, Bergler offers it paved the way for immatuconstructive suggestions rity even among adults in the for taming this You point out that in the process church. “juvenilization.” of “adapting to the new immature adulthood,” churches started looking a lot like youth groups, in part On a more positive note, we’ve because many evangelical pastors not only heard reports but seen began their careers as youth pastors over the past a phenomenon developing where young people, forty years. To take one highly influential example, millennials for example, are more interested in

a.

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INTERVIEW

Bill Hybels first experimented with his seekerfriendly model and church market research while serving as a youth pastor in the 1970s.

Even the emerging church movement—which among other things is a reaction against this white middle class suburban version of Christianity—is itself a product of juvenilization. In the 1950s and ’60s, youth ministry was something the church did on the side, but today it is so mainstream that actually everything in the church is

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subordinate to “youth ministry.” Nobody wants to grow up.

a.

There’s a bigger trend that a number of sociologists and students of human development have noticed, which is that the mainstream ideas of what it means to be an adult, or how and when you become an adult in American society, have changed over the past thirty to forty years. There is a new adulthood, but

PHOTO BY EDIN RAMIC, ILLUSTRATION BY ASHLEY STEPHENS

basically the new adult journey looks a lot like the old adolescent journey; that is, it’s an unending journey of self-exploration and self-development in which adults are trying to avoid getting stuck in anything, and commitments are only to be kept if they feel like keeping them and so on.

When it comes to responding to these developments, or as you put it, “taming juvenilization,” it’s important to ask about solutions. Is the answer just to unplug the youth group?

a.

No, that’s not the answer. Youth ministries are providing a vital function. One of my colleagues wrote a piece I hope will be published soon that uses the term “hybrid.” I think a hybrid model involves some age-specific youth ministry activities but then also intergenerational activities and involvements. One thing I think we should unplug is having a youth-only worship service on Sunday morning that’s happening at the same time as the adult worship service.

On my reading, Ephesians 4 talks about each part doing its work as the body is built up into Christ, into maturity. That spiritual maturity is a corporate reality as well as an individual one.

We can’t reach maturity as a church body unless we’re all together. That means adults need to pour into the lives of youth. Adults need youth, and youth need adults. If all we do is say that we’re all going to be together for that hour or two on Sunday morning, but we’re not going to do anything more to help adults connect with youth, we haven’t achieved much. We need to think about how we can facilitate meaningful interactions between young people and older adults.

You certainly see the effects of that turning the world upside down in the apostolic church, but also think of the Reformation where obviously the Reformers were very busy. Yet Luther and Calvin spent hours teaching catechism and the Psalms to the young people in the church; they were the main catechists. Very often today, however, young people can grow up without ever having met the pastor, much less having had the pastor teach them the faith.

“YOUNG PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY FOR ADULTS WHO TRULY CARE ABOUT THEM AND WHO WILL TRULY LISTEN TO THEM.” a.

I think that if we have a youth ministry, then we need to think about it as a ministry of the whole church. Hiring a youth minister can be helpful—I train youth ministers and I believe in that, and for churches that can afford it, I think it’s great—but we need to see that we’re hiring a youth minister to be the leader or coordinator of the whole church’s ministry to youth.

So how will that youth ministry incorporate the younger generations with the older generations, instead of simply nurturing and pampering one generation?

a.

Looking at all this from another perspective, in some ways I see the history of youth ministry as triage in response to a culturally destructive, humanly destructive divorcing of the generations that has happened in modern societies. Youth ministry is triage that tries to rescue some young people from the damage that’s been done because of the distance between youths and adults. The reality is, of course, that while there are always young people who don’t want to go to church, there is almost no young person who would not like personalized mentoring from somebody. I think that says a lot. Young people are hungry for adults who truly care about them and who will truly listen to them—if only that level of investment on the part of all of us adults wouldn’t scare us off.

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FRO M t h e H a l lw ay

Making a

Marriage

by William Boekestein

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F

ewer people are pursuing marriage today than ever before, and those who do are waiting longer to get married. In 1960, 59 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds were married compared to just 20 percent in 2010. In 1960, the median age for entering marriage was in the early 20s; today it’s nearly 30. As marriage has declined, cohabitation has increased, nearly doubling since 1990. This data reflects changing opinions and practices relating to marriage; 39 percent of Americans say they believe that marriage is becoming obsolete. At the same time, concern for God’s basic definition of marriage is declining. And these statistics have not even touched on the problems found within Christian marriages.

Our need for help in marriage is capped by the fact that marriage is God’s plan for an orderly and godly society. Through marriage God provides companionship for his people, raises up families who will communicate the gospel from one generation to the next, and illustrates his covenant relationship with his people. As important as marriage is, it should not surprise us that God has provided a plan for marital success.

Embedded in Genesis 2:18–25 is a description of the first wedded couple before man’s fall into sin.

While not exhaustive, there are six foundational aspects to consider for those who desire a successful marriage. Whether happily married, struggling in marriage, or longing to be married, it is important to grasp that human marriage is a beautiful analogy pointing to something so much bigger and better.

MARRIAGE IS FOR COMPANIONSHIP Nine times in the first two chapters of Genesis, God describes his world as “good.” There is no mention

of anything that is not good until Genesis 2:18 jumps off the page: “It is not good that man should be alone.” God isn’t only talking about marriage; he’s saying something about basic human nature. We were made to fellowship with others. Adam had lots of stuff before he met Eve. But he didn’t have companionship, and that was not good. To live consistently with how God has created us, we need to strive for deep friendships. With God’s blessing this pursuit may lead, in the words of Puritan Thomas Gataker’s description of marriage, to “one of the greatest outward blessings that in this world man enjoyeth.” True intimacy is found not merely in close emotional or physical relationships, but also in a lifetime commitment of companionship.

God’s emphasis on marital companionship reminds us that marriage is not simply a social contract where he pays the bills and she takes care of the house. If our marriages degenerate into that sort of contractual-ism, we need to take drastic measures to foster God’s gift of conjugal friendship. Through concentrated efforts such as reading good books together and scheduling time every evening to talk, MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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F R O M t h e H A L LW AY

couples can develop the openness and trust that allows each to find solace in the other’s company.

MARRIAGE IS COMPLEMENTARY

By God’s design, when a godly marriage is begun the two are better off, because they complement each other. That Eve was a helper “comparable to Adam” (2:18) assumes a complementary relationship; what one lacks the other supplies. Such a reciprocating relationship is found only in marriage. Both men and women are created in the image of God and are equal in dignity and value (Gen. 5:2). But because of differences in their constitutions and callings they are able to beautifully complement each other.

God made men to lovingly lead and wives to humbly help. Adam was placed in the Garden first to exercise dominion over it. As Paul says, “The husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church” (Eph. 5:23). Eve was created to be a helper. This doesn’t mean she is a doormat; God himself is described as the Helper (Heb. 13:6). The relationship between a husband and wife is like that of a godly king and queen.

As fallen creatures, men will struggle with leadership and women will struggle with submission. But when both submit to their unique callings as husband and wife, marriage becomes a heavenly choreographed dance.

MARRIAGE REQUIRES LEAVING AND CLEAVING In marriage God creates a new family unit: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife” (2:24). Contrary to conventional thought, the marital bond is stronger than the filial bond. As powerful as the parent-child connection is, Jesus says the marital bond is stronger (Mark 10:6–9).

For this reason, the influence parents have over an unmarried child must decrease when that child gets married. Children may and should still

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seek advice. They must attempt to honor their parents in all things lawful. Parents may and should offer counsel. But parents and children must recognize that marriage fundamentally changes their relationship to each other. A man’s wife must become the most important person in his life, and vice versa. Each can no longer give their parents’ views equal consideration.

MARRIAGE IS CELEBRATED PHYSICALLY Something powerful happens in marriage; two fleshes become one. At the risk of being overly graphic, in marriage, two complementary parts come together, emotionally, spiritually, and physically: “And they shall become one flesh.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). This verse does not simply describe how things were between Adam and Eve; it prescribes the proper marital state.

“CONTRARY TO CONVENTIONAL THOUGHT, THE MARITAL BOND IS STRONGER THAN THE FILIAL BOND. AS POWERFUL AS THE PARENT-CHILD CONNECTION IS, JESUS SAYS THE MARITAL BOND IS STRONGER (MARK 10:6–9).”

“AS A HUSBAND, CHRIST PROVIDES COMPANIONSHIP FOR HEARTBROKEN, LONELY, WANDERING PEOPLE. AS THE HEAD OF THE RELATIONSHIP, HE PROVIDES LEADERSHIP FOR THOSE LACKING DIRECTION.” In marriage, neither person has power over his own body but has given it to the other (1 Cor. 7:3–5).

Each marriage partner must render “conjugal rights” (ESV). Sexual abstinence should be temporary. This does not mean that sexual intimacy should be looked at as a chore (it never is at first!), but as a sacred trust both partners are called to develop together. Especially if the marriage bed has become frigid, this counsel is hard to hear. In such a situation each partner must promise to obey God’s conjugal command and, beginning with repentance, move to small expressions of affection and to being sensitive to the other’s vulnerability. If necessary, they should seek the help of a biblical counselor.

MARRIAGE IS FOR KINGDOM CULTIVATION God’s institution of human marriage comes in the context of the calling he gave to man to cultivate and subjugate the earth (Gen. 2:18b, 20b). God’s cultural design for man, in the words of John Murray, is to be “untiringly inspired by the apprehension of the Creator’s glory and by the passion to apprehend and exalt that glory more.” In the Garden, Adam was to apply his abilities to a plot of ground in order to make

it flourish (Gen. 2:15). For this task God gave him a coworker, Eve. This is still the calling of both single and married people: to bring the principles of God’s kingdom to bear in every area of life. God knows that “two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor” (Eccl. 4:9). Married couples should evaluate how, as married people, they will serve God better together than they could apart.

Although not the primary reason for marriage, God also ordained matrimony for the propagation of the human race and the establishment of godly seed. As God sovereignly blesses married couples with children, the potential for kingdom cultivation increases exponentially.

MARRIAGE COMMUNICATES THE GOSPEL After reflecting on these same principles, Paul stresses the importance of the institution of marriage: “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32). The best human marriage is a shadow of the glorious marriage between Christ and believers. As a husband, Christ provides companionship for heartbroken, lonely, wandering people. As the head of the relationship, he provides leadership for those lacking direction (Eph. 5:23). As the Holy One of Israel, Christ washes his bride with his Word and Spirit to cleanse her from staining sins. Christ feeds his wife to make her healthy and strong (v. 29), and his commitment is forever (v. 31). Marriages that truly reflect God‘s marriage to his people begin with a believing relationship with the perfect bridegroom, Jesus Christ (Matt. 25:6). As Charles Wesley writes in “Blest Be the Dear Uniting Love”: Joined in one spirit to our Head, Where He appoints we go; And while we in His footsteps tread, Show forth his praise below.

William Boekestein is pastor of Covenant Reformed Church (URCNA) in Carbondale, Pennsylvania. He is author of Faithfulness under Fire: The Story of Guido de Bres (Reformation Heritage, 2011) and The Quest for Comfort: The Story of the Heidelberg Catechism (Reformation Heritage, 2011).

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THEOLOGY

SHEPHER ING SHEPHERDING IKE THE GGOOD OO LIKE SHEPHER HEPHER SHEPHERD E

by BEN ARBOUR

vangelicals are paying more attention to the church now than they did in the twentieth century. Much of this comes as more and more Christians tire of pragmatism and historically unprecedented “seeker” strategies in the church. It is a sign of health that a number of books now line Christian bookstores on the doctrine of the church, the nature of worship, and even church polity or government and the biblical qualifications for church leadership. While there is much to be thankful for in this regard, we must continue to reflect on how Christ in his person and work should shape our understanding of pastoral ministry. Upon careful examination of the Scriptures, it appears that many actual practices of church leadership are far from what God intends. To better understand

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my concerns, imagine overhearing a conversation between Joe Christian and a new coworker of his.

Suppose also that Joe has been a member of XYZ Church for many years and understands as well as anyone what’s happening at XYZ Church, including the leadership structure.

Joe: You mentioned you’ve been looking for a church since you moved a couple months ago. Find anything yet?

Coworker: Nah, nothing spectacular. We’ve visited a few places, but the people haven’t exactly been warm and the preaching has been less than biblical. So we’re still looking. Where do you worship?

Joe: Glad you asked. I’ve been meaning to offer an invite. We go to XYZ Church. Great fellowship and the preaching is quite strong—you’ll love it.

Coworker: Yeah, I’ve heard of XYZ Church.

Who’s the pastor there?

How should Joe respond, especially if he wants to communicate his church’s understanding of a biblical model of leadership? It would be wonderful if Joe responds, “Well, there are many elders who pastor the flock at our church, but [Blank] does the majority of preaching.” Such an answer would indicate that the polity structure at XYZ Church isn’t just a formality. Instead, it is actually making a difference in how people in the pews understand biblical ecclesiology.

But imagine the dialogue between Joe and his coworker playing out differently, with the coworker asking good questions and gently pointing out some potential problems with Joe’s response.

Coworker: So, what else makes your church different from all the other churches we’ve been visiting?

Joe: We emphasize expositional preaching, and we’ve been growing like crazy, mostly from outreach and evangelism.

Coworker: That’s really encouraging news. Tell me again, who’s your pastor?

Joe: The pastor is [insert well-known pastor name here].

Coworker: I really enjoyed his last book. When’s the last time you met with him?

Joe: Oh, I’ve never actually met him.

Coworker: You’ve never met your pastor?

Joe: Nope, but the preaching is amazing.

Coworker: Yeah, it definitely is. I’ve listened to a bunch of his sermons online. I guess I’m curious—in what ways is he counseling you and shepherding you and your family in your walk with the Lord?

Joe: Well, he preaches on Sundays, plus there is his radio ministry. And then his books…

Coworker: Yeah, but in what ways is the person

you identified as your pastor aware of the situations and circumstances that are unique to your life? And how does he shepherd you and your family?

Joe: Well, I guess he doesn’t…

Coworker: [Long, awkward silence] Joe, it sounds to me like you’ve got a really great teacher and preacher, but not much of a “pastor.”

This basic phenomenon is quite common in evangelicalism today. I’ve even heard big name preachers say things such as, “Well, God is giving me a platform, and we’re reaching lots of people, so why not go with it?” To the thoughtful Christian, this sounds like, “I must increase so that he might increase”—just the opposite of the biblical portrayal of the spirit of prophecy. Furthermore, when shepherding is reduced to preaching, the relationship between the shepherd and the sheep suffers.

THE PASTOR SHEPHERD In many English translations, the original Greek term poimena is rendered “pastor.” Today, the term is used generally in reference to ministers or clergy. This is unfortunate, because “pastor” no longer points back to its original meaning. A more helpful translation is “shepherd,” the verb form of which is “to shepherd.” Thus a shepherd is someone who serves as a guardian, leader, or caretaker for other people. Doesn’t this sound an awful lot like discipleship? Is part of making disciples done through preaching and education? Absolutely. Are disciples made by preaching and education alone?

Absolutely not!

Pastoral leadership requires relationship. It is important to note that the command “to shepherd” isn’t given to all the saints. All Christians should encourage, rebuke, teach, admonish, and love one another. But unlike these “one another” commands, the command to shepherd is given uniquely and only to either apostles or elders in the New Testament. Delegating this responsibility to Sunday school teachers or small group coordinators, important as those roles may be, amounts to an abdication of leadership, especially when we consider the type MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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THEOLOGY

of authority required for biblical shepherding. After all, shepherding is frequently associated with the idea of ruling (cf. Matt. 2:6, 1 Tim. 5:17). In fact, poimaino is translated “rule” in many English versions of Revelation 2:27 and 19:15.

DEFINING OUR TERMS The noun “shepherd” (poimena) is related to

DIS CIPLESHIP AND IMITATION

the verb “to shepherd” (poimaino), and according to one Greek lexicon, poimaino means:

This is not the type of leadership the Bible promotes. Consider a sample of biblical texts: ➨ For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers.

For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. (1 Cor. 4:15–16) ➨ Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

(1 Cor. 11:1) ➨ Brothers, join in imitating me. (Phil. 3:17) ➨ What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things. (Phil. 4:9) ➨ For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. (2 Thess. 3:7–9) When writing to pastors, Paul likewise exhorts them to serve as examples for believers to emulate: ➨ Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

(1 Tim. 4:12) ➨ Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. (Titus 2:7–8) The imitation language is striking. How can someone imitate a person they haven’t even met?

The person you call “pastor” must be someone

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➨ ➨ ➨ ➨

To serve as a tender of sheep To watch out for other people To lead, guide, rule To protect, care for, nurture

you spend enough time with such that you can actually strive to follow him as he follows Christ.

Again, discipleship involves education, and that cannot be overlooked, but we shouldn’t misunderstand the other significant forms of pastoral ministry that support the normal means of grace.

It’s wonderful that churches are recovering pulpits as places for theological education and Bible exposition. However, the Scriptures make clear that preaching is necessary but not sufficient to see people conformed into the image of Christ.

The Great Commission presumes engagement with people in relationship. We are not called to make converts, nor merely to educate and make good students. Christian leaders, especially pastors, elders, and overseers, are called to see not merely that people know everything that Christ commanded, but that they obey. That simply cannot happen apart from real, genuine relationships.

What’s important is that the Bible—rather than “traditions” of recent American invention— shapes our theology and even our theological vocabulary. If we believe that the New Testament teaching on the church is normative and want to be faithful, then some adjustment may be in order. There is no better place to turn to reshape our understanding of shepherding than the “Good Shepherd” himself. Let us consider Jesus, then, as our model.

CHRISTOLOGICALLY SHAPED P OLITY If Christ is our example in all things, it makes perfect sense that we would take cues from him on pastoring well: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).

From this verse, we know that: (1) a good shepherd communicates with his sheep and the sheep listen; (2) a good shepherd knows his sheep; and (3) a good shepherd’s sheep follow him. This is radical in its simplicity. Is it enough, then, that a faithful pastor communicates to his congregation by preaching the Word? Hardly. In the context of the above passage, John 10:14 reads, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.”

Here Jesus says the relationship isn’t one-way— not only does the shepherd know the sheep, but the sheep also know the shepherd. The question becomes, then, whether this “knowing” is allowed to be generic. Does it meet the demands of Christ’s example? No, and here’s why: Jesus clarifies with great precision what kind of “knowing” he had in mind. “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14–15).

The “knowing” that Jesus has in view when describing a good shepherd is the same sort of relationship he has with the Father. This is certainly more than a one-way digital relationship, listening online, or watching a big screen. Christ really raises the bar here. The kind of fellowship that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit enjoy should shape the way pastors seek out meaningful relationships with their congregants. Conversely, pastors who don’t know their people functionally deny that Jesus is the pastoral example.

THE LORD AS SHEPHERD In Ephesians 5, Paul compares the relationship between a husband and a wife to the relationship between Christ and the church. That is, the marriage relationship prophetically testifies about spiritual realities. Paul is able to build this example because of the marriage imagery that is so prominent in

“IS PART OF MAKING DISCIPLES DONE THROUGH PREACHING AND EDUCATION? ABSOLUTELY. ARE DISCIPLES MADE BY PREACHING AND EDUCATION ALONE? ABSOLUTELY NOT!” the Old Testament (see, for example, Isa. 54:5; Jer. 31:32; Ezek. 16:32; Hos. 2:16). But the Lord is also called the shepherd of Israel in the Old Testament (Gen. 48:15; Ps. 23:1; Isa. 40:11; Jer. 31:10; Ezek.

34:15). Accordingly, pastors prophetically bear witness to the world about who Jesus is in much the same way that husbands do.

If a pastor does not have time to meet with his people, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, by analogy, he prophetically testifies that Jesus is too busy for us. The elder who is not eager to know his people prophetically tells the world that Jesus doesn’t really desire a relationship with us beyond listening to a sermon once a week. In conclusion, consider how the Lord, through the prophet Zechariah (11:17), warns bad shepherds: Woe to my worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock!

May the sword strike his arm and his right eye!

Let his arm be wholly withered, his right eye utterly blinded!

May God raise up true shepherds among us to care for their congregations, following the example of Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd.

Ben Arbour is a PhD candidate at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. He teaches courses in philosophy and ethics at Weatherford College, Texas.

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THE

G R E AT E ST STORY EVER TOLD

PART II

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B Y T H E B L O O D of a BETTER COVENANT

by ZACH KEELE

“

D

on’t make promises you can’t keep.”

We use this little proverb as a reminder

of how costly our words can be. Making a promise means you have to perform what is necessary to fulfill it. After we stroll through the narratives of Genesis, adorned with the gems of God’s promise, it is easy for a curious itch to prick our thoughts: Did God count the cost of his promise?

The Lord swore the handsome blessing of salvation to Abraham: “I will be your God and you will be my people.” The Lord promised to dwell with his people. Hebrews informs us, however, that no one will see God without holiness (12:14).

THE SAMARITAN DECALOGUE (CARVED LIMESTONE), FROM NABLOS IN SAMARIA, SUMERIAN SCHOOL (1ST CENTURY A.D.) . COURTESY OF LEEDS MUSEUMS AND ART GALLERIES UK.

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T H E G R E AT E S T S T O R Y E V E R T O L D

And if the drama of Genesis does anything, it undresses Abraham and all his children as unholy.

Abraham lies, Isaac favors, Jacob deceives, and the twelve boys could star in a soap opera. How then can the Holy Lord dwell with his unholy people? Did God make a promise he couldn’t keep?

This prickly issue that lies dormant in Genesis charges onto the stage as the curtains open in the book of Exodus. The first character in the spotlight is once again our Lord’s gracious fidelity to his promise. He remembers his covenant that he swore to the Patriarchs. With tender mercy, God hears the suffering tears of his own and he flexes his mighty bicep against the Egyptian whips. The Lord brings the haughty Egyptians low, but the lowly Israelites he elevates by carrying them through the Red Sea. The Lord is the strength and song of his people; he is their salvation.

And yet, the water of the sea has barely glassed up again when the soil of the story trembles beneath our feet. The thunders and rumbles, the lightning bolts and trumpet blasts, the blazing fire and thick darkness all herald a new character: Sinai. With a magnetic pull, Sinai seizes our gaze, for here we find the rare alloy of beauty and terror.

The beauty is unmistakable as God reveals his glory to his people. Imagine Sinai’s summit crowned with the fire of the Lord’s presence and cloaked in the black velvet cloud. Then there is the exquisiteness of the Lord’s words: “I brought you to myself…you shall be my treasured possession…you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:5–6). To be God’s treasured priests is a grand portrait of man’s chief end of glorifying and enjoying him forever.

But this very beauty glimmers so brightly we begin to cower and shrink back. The trumpet blast pierces the ears. The Lord’s loud voice rings out from the midst of the flames. The people cry out, “For this great fire will consume us.

If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, we shall die” (Deut. 5:25). The Lord orders, “Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death” (Exod. 19:12). Even Mary’s little lamb shall die if it touches God’s holy mount. A fence is set around Sinai with the warning: Don’t break

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through lest the Lord break out against you.

The Lord underscores to Israel that they will be his people, “if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant” (Exod. 19:5). The beauty of covenant fellowship is based on the condition of obedience. In order to be God’s special possession, Israel must be holy as the Lord is holy (Lev. 19:2). The fence around Sinai, later reproduced in the fences and veils of the tabernacle, declared that only the holy shall pass. And the avenue to this holiness was by obeying the law. Righteousness by the law was the Class 5 climb to holiness with God. The Sinai ratification ceremony of Exodus 24 powerfully dramatizes the beautiful terror of Sinai. After Moses has descended from Sinai with the law, he has bulls sacrificed. Moses sprinkles part of this blood on the people represented in the twelve pillars. As sacrificial blood, this consecrates Israel for their new identity and service to the Lord. But as ratification blood, this seals the people’s oath with a curse. With one voice the people swear, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” Moses then sprinkles them with the blood and declares, “Behold, the blood of the covenant” (Exod. 24:7–8).

“THE FIRST CHARACTER IN THE SPOTLIGHT IS ONCE AGAIN OUR LORD’S GRACIOUS FIDELITY TO HIS PROMISE. HE REMEMBERS HIS COVENANT THAT HE SWORE TO THE PATRIARCHS.”

P A R T II

“ON THE NIGHT HE WAS BETRAYED, JESUS SPOKE OF A BETTER COVENANT: ‘THIS IS THE NEW COVENANT IN MY BLOOD.’” The blood symbolizes the death they deserve if they fail to obey.

But the fruit of this ceremony could not be more tantalizing. In verse 9, Moses heads up the mount with Aaron, his sons, and seventy elders of the people.

They behold God enthroned in heaven, eat and drink with him, but God does not strike them. Covenant communion is enjoyed between God and his people around a table. This is the prophetic sign of what the people will enjoy if they obey all the Lord commanded them to do.

The holy fellowship goal of Sinai is gorgeous. Yet the trek of obedience is terrifying. This terror is not at all because something is wrong with the law.

Rather, it is because something is wrong with the people. Can they obey the law to become holy? The very next scene in the story answers this with an emphatic “No!” The golden calf undresses the people as unholy, as sinners unable to obtain righteousness by the law. And the rest of Israel’s history is a footnote to the golden calf episode; our own depravity and sin are footnotes to the dancing around the calf. As sinners, we will never see God.

FRANÇOIS PERRIER, ADORATION OF THE GOLDEN CALF, PAINTING, 1642

So, then, did God count the cost of his promise to Abraham? God promised to live with a sinful people, who are incapable of becoming holy. They cannot become holy by the law to live in God’s presence. If the law doesn’t work, how can God make his people holy to fulfill his promise to Abraham? Well, God surely knew the costliness of his promise—the cost of his own Son. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus spoke of a better covenant: “This is the new covenant in my blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins.” By the blood of Christ, we are made holy.

Christ redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us, so that the blessings of Abraham may come to us by faith. Christ brings you, then, not to Sinai, but to Mount Zion, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect by the better blood of Christ.

Zach Keele is pastor of Escondido Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Escondido, California.

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features 30

TIMELINE OF BIG THINGS

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WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER HERO

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SPRING CLEANING

24

THE QUEST FOR THE NEXT BIG THING

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THE

QUESTT QUES FOR

THE NEX NEXTT

BIG

by CARL R. TRUEMAN

THINNG THI

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If there is one thing that marks out this present age it is the quest for The Next Big Thing. One can see it all around in the wider culture: there is a whole genre of TV programs dedicated to finding the next pop star; companies like Apple make their money by constantly reinventing the same old products in slightly improved forms, assuming both that the public will fall once again for the notion that this version is so much better than the last, and that said public will not realize the company has already developed the next generation after this one, to be rolled out in just six months’ time. The public never seems to disappoint on either count. Why? Because the public assumes that the meaning of life is always in the future and, increasingly, to be found in some kind of technohere are many cultural factors that influence logical solution.

T

this spirit of the age, from the dominance of a scientific paradigm, which points constantly to the future as the source of something better, to the celebrity culture of Hollywood, with its constant production of new stars. Here, however, I want to focus on just three: the pervasive entrepreneurialism of the modern age; the obsession with youth culture; and the fixation on big personalities. These three factors are closely linked in the culture of the modern evangelical church.

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ENTREPRENEURIAL INNOVATION IN THE CHURCH In the wider culture, entrepreneurialism now enjoys the status of a virtually unquestioned virtue.

Information technology, the free market, and consumerism all underline the value and importance— the good—of entrepreneurialism. One has only to think of the connotations of “risk taker,” “innovative,” and “thinking outside the box,” compared to “routine,” “traditionalist,” and “conformism,” to see how positively the modern entrepreneurial spirit is typically viewed.

There is nothing wrong with this in the field of economic endeavor. When it impacts the church, however, it creates an environment where there is both disrespect for the way things have been done— and indeed thought—and where in practical terms there is a shift toward the kind of people who embody entrepreneurial values. This means a bias to the young. It also means that there will be an assumption, perhaps initially implicit but increasingly explicit, that the problems the church faces are by and large technical in nature.

A good example of this phenomenon would be some responses to Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert’s book, What is the Mission of the Church?

There, amid other criticisms, notable reviewers have criticized DeYoung and Gilbert for not having the technical sociological knowledge to write such a book. As Charles Finney in the nineteenth century turned revival into a technique, so his sophisticated modern heirs have apparently turned the church into a technical phenomenon. The assumption is that church leaders now need up-to-date sociological savvy combined with an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit.

This is a real problem. While there certainly are technical aspects to church—such as good places to meet, decent acoustics, proper ministerial preparation, friendliness, and so forth—most, if not all, of such things can be safely located in the realm of “common sense” and may be generally communicated without turning to technical sociological vocabulary or the expertise of a consultant. The major problem for the church is not technical but moral: human sinfulness. People do not refuse to believe because the minister has not mastered a particular demographic study or because he has failed to

26

understand how “people today” think (this, and its synonyms, are typically code for people between 18 and 35, and thus not a majority of almost any population). People do not believe because they are in rebellion against God. This should place obvious limits upon how important we regard technical issues, in what context we study them, and how much time we should be prepared to spend on them.

“THE CULTURE OF COOL” Innovation is cool, and the gravitational pull of cool is in only one direction: toward youth. Indeed, perhaps the most significant factor in the phenomenon of The Next Big Thing is youth culture. The emergence in the latter half of the last century of this as a separate concept and, more importantly, as a marketing opportunity, has had significant impact in all areas of life and has literally transformed the world. Youth culture depends upon the constant reinvention of its products and accoutrements. Youth markets consequently have a kaleidoscopic quality and speed of turnover that matches our increasingly short attention spans. The result is constant flux and change.

There are a number of good reasons to be concerned about youth culture in the church. Evidence suggests that the church in the West is not doing a particularly impressive job at retaining its own youth or attracting young people from outside. That indicates the approach of a worrying demographic shift in church attendance. In the face of such a trend, it is appropriate for the church to reflect long and hard on her youth strategy and to engage in some soul-searching. While no one would argue against the church doing her best both to retain her young people and to attract other young people to join, the means by which this is pursued is a topic for serious conversation.

The irony of the preoccupation with youth is twofold. It has actually led churches to take their cultural cues from that sector of society least qualified to offer mature wisdom rooted in experience and age. Part of this is itself the result of technical considerations: the power of the new medium of information technology is a power that resides primarily in the hands of the young. Thus if a denomination or parachurch group depends to a large extent upon its ability to have a significant and attractive online

I AM OF PAUL...

I

or ministry leader—past, present, and future. Those God calls into ministry are simply people to whom he has given an opportunity. So today’s celebrity culture

love what Charles Spurgeon said about John

within evangelicalism existed all the way back in bibli-

Calvin. He very sincerely agreed with his the-

cal times. It seems to be a common thing that has been

ology but he wouldn’t follow the man himself.

around probably forever.

He believed Calvin pointed people to the gos-

Today, it’s apparent among people relating to pop-

pel of Jesus Christ, so he grew from his teach-

ular, nationally known leaders. You know who yours

ing and preached the doctrines of grace to his church,

are. But what about lesser-known leaders in minis-

but he didn’t desire to be known as a Calvinist more

try? From a woman’s perspective, how about the lady

than a follower of Christ. In his work, A Defense of Cal-

in ministry who is so highly esteemed that everyone

vinism, he explained it this

in the church wants to be

way, “If any man asks me

her? Maybe she wants this

whether I am ashamed to

kind of attention, maybe

be called a Calvinist, I an-

she doesn’t. Again, we don’t

swer—I wish to be called

know her heart. But we can

nothing but a Christian; but

search our hearts and ask

if you ask me, do I hold the

the Lord to reveal any griev-

doctrinal views which were

ous way in us.

held by John Calvin, I reply,

It can be easy to elevate

I do in the main hold them,

people to a higher impor-

and rejoice to avow it.” He

tance than Christ himself,

must have clarified that for

probably for many reasons.

a reason—perhaps even

If there are people in our

then, people were tempted

lives who help us live to glo-

to idolize leaders in minis-

rify God in all that we do,

try. Spurgeon himself was

we praise the Lord; but we

probably idolized in his day,

will do well to remember

and I’m sure even now. I use

that we are all merely human and that everything we

Spurgeon as an example because I have to be careful that I don’t elevate him

have has been given to us from the Lord. As Paul re-

above the Lord—that I’m not reading his words more

minded the Corinthians: “Who regards you as superi-

than I’m reading God’s Word—because I love reading

or? What do you have that you did not receive? And if

Spurgeon, and quoting him, and all of that.

you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not

Paul wrote to the church at Corinth about this very thing. He said to them in 1 Corinthians 3:4–6,

received it?”

So while we can be ever grateful for the ministry of faithful servants of the Word who love God, we should

When one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am

never elevate them—or ourselves—to a place of high-

of Apollos,” are you not mere men? What then

er importance than him. “For from Him and through

is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through

Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory for-

whom you believed, even as the Lord gave op-

ever” (Rom. 11:36).

portunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.

Leanne Swift (BA Christian Ministries, The Master’s Col-

Here Paul rebuked the church for elevating men above

lege) has contributed to the Council on Biblical Manhood

God. Apollos was a mere man. Paul, himself, was a

and Womanhood’s Gender blog and has a collection of arti-

mere man. And the same goes for every Bible teacher

cles on various topics at www.hiswillmyhome.com.

THE APOSTLE PAUL, ICON OF A DEESIS TIER FROM UBISI, 14TH CENTURY, TEMPERA ON PANEL

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presence, then the most significant strategists are going to be those who have the most innovative and cutting-edge approach to this medium: the young and the entrepreneurial.

Now it is quite clear in the New Testament that Paul assumed that, with few exceptions, the church leadership would consist of older men, men of stature in the church community and of good reputation with those outside. That is why, when it came to the comparatively youthful Timothy, he had to counsel him to make sure that no one despised him because of his youth. Such advice would be at best unnecessary, at worst incomprehensible, today.

“Let no one despise you because of your great age” would be the more likely counsel.

THE CELEBRITY PHENOMENON In addition to the obsession with youth, there is another problem prevalent in the American church, and that is the cult of the Great Leader. This is a particular problem for the American church because of the predilection of American culture to invest supreme confidence and hope in individuals. A contrast with Britain is instructive here: in Britain, everything, from politics to sport, tends to be oriented toward institutions. The political party is always more significant than the leader; sport focuses on the team, not the charismatic individual within the team. In America, elections are about the great figureheads and magnetic personalities; and teams are often known first and foremost for the one or two superstars who represent them. There are signs that this may be changing a little under the impact of American pop culture in the U.K., but the general difference remains. This is not to say that the British way is in any way superior: if America idolizes the individual, then the U.K. arguably idolizes its institutions. Sufficient to the culture are the idolatries contained therein. But it is to say that Christians in specific cultures should be aware of the specific idolatrous tendencies of the context in which they live.

The cultural fall-out from this for the American church is that America has produced more than its fair share of church-leader figures who can seem like Christian alternatives to the culture of Hollywood. Those who regret the lack of famous young leaders in British evangelicalism not only demonstrate an unbiblical concern for youth

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“THE MAJOR PROBLEM FOR THE CHURCH IS NOT TECHNICAL BUT MORAL: HUMAN SINFULNESS.…

THIS SHOULD PLACE OBVIOUS LIMITS UPON HOW IMPORTANT WE REGARD TECHNICAL ISSUES, IN WHAT CONTEXT WE STUDY THEM, AND HOW MUCH TIME WE SHOULD BE PREPARED TO SPEND ON THEM.” in leadership but also reflect American culture’s preoccupation with significant, influential individuals. There is certainly much to be critical of in British evangelicalism as in its American counterpart, but the lack of possession of fame by its leaders is not one of them.

CONCLUSION At root, the concern for The Next Big Thing is not actually that new as a phenomenon, at least as a symptom of something deeper. It is simply a manifestation of the constant tendency of the church to assume its challenges are primarily technical, not moral, and thus to capitulate to the criteria of the secular world when it comes to setting its agenda. In an innovative, youth-oriented culture, the temptation for the church is to prize innovation and youth above all things. In this sense, Paul faced exactly the same problem in Corinth. There the proclivities of

the wider culture were shaped by Corinthian sonetworkers, the socially prestigious, the good-lookciety’s admiration for the great orators of the day, ing, and the suave. It would have been easy for Paul their equivalent of our pop stars, movie actors, and to have folded such factors into his prescriptions IT gurus. To make an impact, one had to be a masfor leadership. Yet Paul mentions none of these terful public speaker and, indeed, to look the part, things; he wants men in leadership who manage Greek orators pumped iron, had excess body hair retheir households well; who, if married, treat their moved, and tried their best to look like Greek gods wives with fidelity and respect; who are apt to teach come down to earth. (meaning competent, not necessarily outstanding); Paul did not simply reject this approach as techwho do not get drunk; and who are well thought of nically wrongheaded; he repudiated it as an actuby their neighbors and their work colleagues. In al contradiction of the theology of the cross and of other words, he wants people in leadership who are, the crucified Christ that formed by the criteria of the entrepreneurthe very content of his preachial and youth cultures, really rather ing. Worldly criteria, whethbland, nondescript people. Indeed, er Jewish or Greek, were as so it is quite likely that, were Paul alive much nonsense to him and irreltoday and looking at the church, evant to the question at hand— he would not be asking where the the question of how to see the young and the famous leaders are or church witness effectively to where The Next Big Thing is comChrist in the hostile culture. ing from, but rather: Where are all CARL R. TRUEMAN This kind of thinking set the the anonymous pastors and elders tone for his approach to church who work faithfully in their local The Creedal leadership as expressed in the churches week in week out, year Imperative Epistles. Paul wrote those letin year out? The widespread exis(Crossway, 2012) ters with a view to the end of tence of these, and not the church the apostolic era, wrestling with equivalents of George Barna or Jus“What if ‘no creed but the what church leadership should tins Timberlake or Bieber, would be Bible’ is unbiblical?” In this look like once those men passed for him a gauge of the church’s real book, Trueman argues from the scene who had received health. from Scripture and their commission directly from The problem of The Next Big common sense that Christ. His proposals are scarceThing is set to remain for Amercreeds and confessions ly likely to pass muster today ican evangelicalism. Everything are necessary for the among the technocrats, the socifrom America’s entrepreneurialchurch today. ologists, and the entrepreneurism to its fixation on youth culture ial: hold fast to the form of sound to the increasing evangelical fasciwords that expresses the aposnation with information technolotolic teaching; and appoint orgy is helping foster a church culture dinary, respectable men to positions of leadership. to which Pauline notions of church and leadership As to the first, it is by its very definition not innovaare not simply irrelevant but actually antithetical. tive. The task of the church is to pass on that which “Let no man despise you because of your youth” is a it has received, not to make it sexier or to soup it up verse worth pondering. The day it becomes incomin some way. Indeed, even the very form, not just the prehensible is the day the church takes its leave of content, is to be that which has been tried, tested, Paul. One sometimes wonders if that day has not aland, one assumes, somewhat staid. ready passed.

As to the second, the qualities Paul outlines are really very mundane. Hellenistic and Roman culCarl R. Trueman is professor of historical theology and church ture was quite familiar with the idea of the Beautihistory at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, ful People: the great orators, the powerful generals, Pennsylvania. the charismatic public figures, the wealthy, the MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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HOMOGENEOUS CHURCH GROWTH Homogeneous church growth is pioneered by Donald McGavran (missiologist and professor at Fuller Theological Seminary): “People like to become Christian without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers.…The world’s population is a mosaic, and each piece has a separate life of its own that seems strange and often unlovely to men and women of other pieces.”1

1970s

CHURCH GROWTH BOOM The church growth boom is defended by George Barna: “Think of your church not as a religious meeting place, but as a service agency—an entity that exists to satisfy people’s needs.”2

1980s

BIG BI B IG T TH H TIMELINE OF

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ummaging around in evangelicalism’s spiritual garage, we find a number of old “Next Big Things” cluttering up the works.

2005 REVOLUTION Barna celebrates the growing abandonment of local churches for Internet communities and resources.3 “Millions of believers…have moved beyond the established church and chosen to be the church instead.” 4 Institutions are no longer relevant and should be replaced by informal gatherings and Internet communities, he argues.5

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THE NEW CHRISTIANS

EMERGENT MOVEMENT

Emergent writer Tony Jones is fascinated with the Internet analogy: “There is no Internet headquarters. You can’t drive to an office building, park in the parking lot, and walk in the front door of Internet, Inc.”6 Coining the term “Wikichurch,” Jones says that “one can look at the qualities of Wikipedia and analogize them to many other scale-free networks, including the emergent church.”7

A Generous Orthodoxy: Brian McLaren defines the “Emergent Movement,” growing out of the Leadership Network of the 1990s.

2009

2006

HINGS HINGS HING NGS 2007 FROM MEGACHURCH TO SELF-FEEDERS Willow Creek Community Church releases its findings from a study of its members. Surprised that committed members described their Christian life as “stalled” or in decline, the leadership nevertheless concludes that it was not because the ministry itself was failing to deepen believers in faith and worship. Instead, they conclude that as believers grow in faith, they need the church and its programs less. Sheep must become “self-feeders” who are able to carry out their spiritual program without the aid of the church.

1 Donald McGavran, Understanding Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 163–64.

2 George Barna, Marketing the Church (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1988), 37.

3 George Barna, Revolution: Finding Vibrant Faith beyond the Walls of the Sanctuary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2005).

4 Back cover copy from Barna, Revolution.

5 Barna, Revolution, 22.

6 Tony Jones, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier (New York: Jossey-Bass, 2009), 180.

7 Jones, 182.

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WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER HERO

by MICHAEL S. HORTON illustration by STEVE WACKSMAN

S

eptember 2003 marked a turning point in the development of Western civilization. It was the month that Adbusters magazine started accepting orders for the Black Spot Sneaker, its own signature brand of ‘subversive’ running shoes. Af-

ter that day, no rational person could possibly believe that there is a tension between ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ culture. After that day, it became obvious to everyone that cultural rebellion, of the type epitomized

by Adbusters magazine, is not a threat to the system—it is the system.”

So Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter begin their intriguing study, A Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture (Harper Business, 2004). The idea is that especially with the American versions of modernity, perpetual shock is the new normal; each generation, enamored of its own unique potential, razes the empire to its foundations and starts over until the next generation has its own go at it. This means, of course, that everyone born of a woman must feel in his or her innards the primal imperative to “shake things up.”

Every now and again, of course, things do need to be shaken up. But in our culture it’s hard to know when one earthquake ends and another begins—especially with all of the aftershocks in between. G. K. Chesterton said it best: “The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.”1 Because the Word of God is “living and active,” always breaking into this present age of sin and death with its penetrating energies of judgment and grace, the church is always open to correction. Yet this Word doesn’t just tear down; it builds up. And building up takes a long time, across many generations.

There is every reason to rejoice in the rediscovery of the doctrines of grace in “Young, Restless, and Reformed” circles. However, the “Young and Restless” part is precisely what calls into question the extent to which “Reformed” is an appropriate part of its identity. There’s no minimum age

requirement for ministers. In fact, the apostle Paul encouraged Timothy: Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given to you by prophecy, when the presbytery laid its hands on you.

(1 Tim. 4:12–13) It’s natural to associate youth with a propensity to certain weaknesses, like impetuous or impulsive decisions, impatience, and foolishness. The most exasperating aspect of taking my children fishing is that they won’t leave the line in the water long enough to attract a living thing. This is called childishness. Even in secular societies across time there has been a consensus that wisdom comes with age and experience. Well catechized, especially by his mother and grandmother, Timothy was wise beyond his years. Yet he is to strive for that wisdom and sobriety that comes with age, especially with growth in Christ. And, unlike Paul, he was not called immediately by Christ as an apostle, but has his gift and authority as an ordinary minister from Christ through the church’s approval and ordination. He is not told to affirm his person, promote his record, or to rely on his charming charisma, but to take confidence in the gift he was given for his office and to fulfill that office faithfully.

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Movements are largely youth driven, whereas insacrament, and the spiritual and temporal care of stitutions are usually run by elders. The challenge, the saints became subordinate to the extraordinary especially in the church, is to “make every effort to inspiration and leadership of supposedly new apospreserve the bond of unity” (Eph. 4:3). This is more tles called immediately and directly by Jesus withdifficult, particularly in the body of Christ where we out any earthly confirmation. are drawn together from different backgrounds— Ever since, the wide river of Protestantism has and generations. Our culture celebrates The Next been fed by the streams of radicalism, as well as Big Thing, but Scripture speaks of an intergenerathe evangelical faith and practice of the magisterial tional covenant of grace. You can’t keep taking your Reformation. William McLoughlin reminds us that line out of the water or constantly take the temthe effect of Pietism in American religious experiperature or redirect your entire focus and strategy ence (especially culminating in the Second Great every minute. You have to let the King run his kingAwakening) was to shift the emphasis away from dom, follow his instructions, and become a disciple “collective belief, adherence to creedal standards as well as make disciples. and proper observance of traditional forms, to the With good reason we talk about our favorite emphasis on individual religious experience.” 2 If the Enlightenment shifted “the ultimate authority event in the sixteenth century as the Reformation, in religion” from the church to “the mind of the innot the Revolution. Unlike the radical reformers dividual,” Pietism and Romanticism located ulti(i.e., the Anabaptists), Luther, Calvin, and the othmate authority in the experience of the individual.3 er magisterial Reformers did not set out to “reboot” All of this suggests that for some time now, evangelChristianity. In fact, they meditated deeply on the icalism has been as much the facilitator as the vicwritings of the ancient church and even, as Calvin tim of modern secularism. called them, “the better scholastics” of the mediIt was especially with the revivalist Charles eval era. The wound was indeed deep, as they diFinney that emotional and spontaneous conversion agnosed the church of their day, but they had no delusions of grandeur. They did not believe they were reconstituting a church that had virtually disappeared since the SHIFTING AUTHORITY death of the last apostle. RathFROM CHURCH TO MIND TO HEART er, they sought to reform the church that had strayed from its script.

Reformation Faith The radicals were dubbed CHURCH “enthusiasts” by the ReformCollective belief and creedal standards ers. From “God-within” (entheos), the term faithfully captured what the radicals themselves taught: namely, Enlightenment that the Spirit speaking directMIND ly in their hearts was more auShift from the church to the mind of the individual thoritative than the external Word. Who needs a learned ministry, or even preaching and sacrament, when the Spirit works directly? Aren’t Pietism & Romanticism church offices, liturgies, and HEART creeds simply ways of imprisShift from the mind of the individual to the experience oning the spirit in the carapace of the individual, where ultimate authority lies of earthly forms? The ordinary ministry of preaching,

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experiences became the real test, over against the ordinary ministry. Rejecting classic doctrines of original sin, the substitutionary atonement, justification, and the supernatural character of the new birth, Finney placed salvation in the hands of the rugged individual. Going further than Rome ever has in terms of a theology of works-righteousness, Finney’s new gospel came with “new measures.”

In fact, one chapter heading in his Systematic Theology reads, “God Has Established No Particular Measures,” leaving the field wide open to the entrepreneurial imagination.

These innovations transformed the church into a stage for the showman-revivalist and his props.

While Christ instituted preaching and sacrament as means of delivering his saving grace, the only criterion for Finney’s methods was whether they were “fit to convert sinners with.” “Law, rewards, and punishments—these things and such as these are the very heart and soul of moral suasion.”

“YET WHEN IT COMES TO BASIC PRACTICAL ASSUMPTIONS, THE MOVEMENT-CONSCIOUSNESS TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER THE COVENANTALCONSCIOUSNESS THAT DEFINES REFORMATION BELIEFS AND PRACTICES.”

CONVERSIONISM AND THE NEXT BIG THING

to God’s promise, parents—and indeed the whole church—vow to raise these children in the covenant. There is the expectation that their children will come to profess their faith publicly before the elders and that this will be ratified by their being welcomed to the Lord’s Table.

While acknowledging surprising conversions (Luther’s, for example), the Reformers saw conversion as a lifelong process of growing and deepening repentance and faith in Christ. This, though, was not enough for the radicals. Conversion had to be a definable experience with evidence discerned by the standards of strict obedience. Especially with the rise of Pietism, the genuineness of this experience could be charted with pinpoint accuracy, through a series of steps. Eventually, the routinization of conversion-procedures—like those of the factories in the Industrial Revolution—could be calculated, measured, and reproduced. This is what happened with Anglo-American revivalists such as Finney, who promoted extraordinary evidence through extraordinary methods. If the churches will not follow, Finney insisted, they will simply have to be left behind.4 In other words, they have to think more like a movement than a church.

The spirit of radical Protestantism spawned successive waves of The Next Big Thing throughout the twentieth century. Many announced a new

There are surprising conversions, but if these are the rule, then of what use are the ordinary means of grace? Tragically, generations of evangelicals have been taught basically to treat their baptism and covenantal nurture as an impediment to genuine conversion rather than as means of grace. It may well be that the expectation of extraordinary episodes of personal experience in revivals helped to shape our American culture’s penchant for The Next Big Thing.

Conversion and covenantal nurture go hand in hand in Scripture. There is no opposition between personal faith in Christ and the ministry of the church, and “getting saved” and “joining a church.”

Peter declared in his Pentecost sermon, “The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God calls to himself ” (Acts 2:39). Cut to the quick by Peter’s sermon, many believed and were baptized, bringing their whole household under the covenant promises through baptism (Acts 16:14–15, 31; 1 Cor. 1:16).

The children of believers are holy, set apart by God’s promise (1 Cor. 7:14), although some will reject their birthright (Heb. 12:16; cf. 6:1–9). Responding

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Pentecost that will shake the old churches to their foundations, while liberal Protestants appealed to “what the Spirit is saying to us today” over against Scripture and the creeds. The Jesus Movement of the ’70s played the counterculture card during the era in which car companies advertised, “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.” Ironically, the counterculture became mainstream as the “church growth movement” embraced consumer culture. In one of its latest incarnations, the Emergent Movement, we hear once again the usual “get-with-it-or-getleft-behind” messages. There are calls to “reboot ‘church,’” with ordinary-ministry churches compared to payphones: they still exist but nobody uses them. Everything Must Change! is the title of a bestselling book. Away with pastors, preaching sermons; let’s make it more of a “conversation” with the Bible as one of the conversation partners. We share our journeys. Let’s make Communion into something more informal, along with labyrinths and a more aesthetic “Starbucks” feel. In any case, it’s not about going to church but about being the church, not about hearing the gospel but being the gospel.

Admirably, the “Young, Restless, Reformed” movement is genuinely “countercultural”—at least going against the tide of the usual human-centered orientation in many churches—when it comes to certain doctrines. Yet when it comes to basic practical assumptions, the movement-consciousness takes precedence over the covenantal-consciousness that defines Reformation beliefs and practices.

We may think like Jonathan Edwards, but we often act like Charles Finney.

In Head and Heart, Catholic historian Garry Wills observes, The camp meeting set the pattern for credentialing Evangelical ministers. They were validated by the crowd’s response. Organizational credentialing, doctrinal purity, personal education were useless here—in fact, some educated ministers had to make a pretense of ignorance. The minister was ordained from below, by the converts he made. This was an even more democratic procedure than electoral politics, where a candidate stood for office and spent some time campaigning. This was a spontaneous and instant proclamation that the Spirit accomplished. The do-it-yourself religion called for a make-it-yourself ministry.5

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THE MYTH OF NARCISSUS

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on of the river god Cephisus and the nymph Liriope, Narcissus was a beautiful child and all who saw him loved him.

When he was born, his mother asked the oracle Tiresias about her son’s future, whether or not he would have a long life. Tiresias responded, “If he knows himself—not.”

By the age of sixteen, Narcissus had broken the hearts of many—both male and female. One of his male admirers called out to Nemesis, the spirit of divine retribution against those who show excessive pride: “May he himself love as I have loved him without obtaining his beloved.”

Nemesis heard the prayer.

Narcissus happened upon a clear reflective pool of water and saw a beautiful face staring back at him. In vain, he reached out to embrace and kiss the other, not realizing it was his own image until after a long while. When he knew it was himself, he cried: “I am that other one! I’ve finally seen through my own image! I burn with love for—me!” The Roman poet Ovid says that Narcissus finally wasted away into death, his gaze remaining on his own reflection as he was ferried across the River Styx. All that was left behind of him was a flower “whose white petals fit closely around a saffron-colored center.”

SOURCE: NICOLAS-BERNARD LÉPICIÉ, NARCISSE CHANGÉ EN FLEUR (NARCISSUS CHANGED INTO THE FLOWER), OIL ON CANVAS, 1771

In fact, Wills repeats an older conclusion about celebrity culture—namely, that “the star system was not born in Hollywood but on the sawdust trail of the revivalists.”6 Today, even in a movement admirably committed to rediscovering the glory and grace of God, we hear a lot about celebrity pastors. Not the saving service of Christ through ordinary ministers who come and go, but the extraordinary ministry of Soand-So seems to grab our attention. The New Testament prescribes an order in which pastors and elders are equal and accountable to each other in local and broader assemblies. As we saw in Paul’s encouragement to Timothy, ordinary pastors are called and replaced through a process of discernment in the church. The minister comes and goes, but the ministry endures—determined by the authority of Scripture rather than by the effectiveness or ingenuity of those who bear the office. But today we devise “succession plans” with solemn announcements, build satellite campuses where the Great Teacher can shepherd sheep he has never met, and contemplate our personal “legacy.”

However, it’s time to grow up. It’s time for movements to give way to churches. As many people are learning in emerging nations (especially in the wake of the Arab Spring), the energy of the masses gathered in the square can be exhilarating; the hard part is forming a working, living, growing polity that can sustain a state over the long haul. Movements typically don’t like institutions. They live off the memory of the extraordinary Moment and find it difficult to move in a united way toward a sustainable environment for generations.

ORDINARY VS. EXTRAORDINARY In what he calls “a short but self-important history of the Baby Boomer Generation,” Joe Queenan, writer for The New York Times and GQ, makes sport of (among other things) his generation’s “absolute inability to accept the ordinary.”7 A baseball game used to be a baseball game, but now it replaces Bar Mitzvahs and First Holy Communions, weddings and funerals, as a moment of eschatological significance. He adds, Because Baby Boomers are obsessed with

living in the moment, they insist that every experience be a watershed, every meal extraordinary, every friendship epochal, every concert superb, every sunset meta-celestial.

Life isn’t like that. Most meals are okay. Most friendships work until they don’t work.

Most concerts are decent. Sunsets are sunsets. By turning spectacularly humdrum occurrences into formal rites, Baby Boomers have transmuted even the most banal activities into ‘events’ requiring reflection, planning, research, underwriting and staggering masses of data. This has essentially ruined everything for everybody else because nothing can ever again be exactly what it was in the first place: something whose very charm is a direct result of its being accessible, near at hand, ordinary.8 The technical term for this is narcissism. And the problem is that nobody can make us that happy, or even as happy as we think we deserve. Furthermore, the things I think will make me happy are actually trivial distractions from the gift that God delivers. It’s the ordinary, over time, that makes us who we are.

To be sure, there are extraordinary—even earthshaking—moments in our lives. However, for the most part, it’s the ordinary interactions, gifts, relationships, and chores that make life rich and meaningful. We don’t need another hero. We need ordinary shepherds who know who the Real Hero is and lead us back to him each week.

Michael S. Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation.

1 G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News (1924-04-19).

2 William McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 25. I am grateful to Toby Kurth for providing this and the following reference.

3 Ned C. Landsman, From Colonials to Provincials: American Thought and Culture, 1680–1760 (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997; repr. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 66 (emphasis added).

4 Charles Finney, Lectures on Revival, 2nd ed. (New York, 1835), 184–204.

“Law, rewards, and punishments—these things and such as these are the very heart and soul of moral suasion....My brethren, if ecclesiastical bodies, colleges, and seminaries will only go forward—who will not bid them God speed? But if they will not go forward—if we hear nothing from them but complaint, denunciation, and rebuke in respect to almost every branch of reform, what can be done?”

5 Garry Wills, Head and Heart: American Christianities (New York: Penguin Press, 2007), 294.

6 Wills, 302, citing Richard Hofstadter.

7 Joe Queenan, Balsamic Dreams: A Short but Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001), 23.

8 Queenan, 24.

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SP RIN G CL EANIN G

by MICHAEL S. HORTON

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illustration by STEVE WACKSMAN

ith four children and two parents with pack-rat proclivities, spring cleaning has by necessity become a year-round activity. You never know when you’ll need the odd Seekers of the day are apt to peel away the thing, but you don’t want to tough theological stuff and pluck out the most elements of faith, coming up with a take the time to evaluate dulcet soothing sampler of Judeo-Christian imagery, its value. So you accumu- Eastern mediation, self-help lingo, a vaguely conservative craving for “virtue,” and a loopy late a garage full of clutter.

New Age pursuit of “peace.” This happy freeMuch the same can happen in the storage of our lifedriving convictions. One of the things I encounter often, in my own life and in others, is a tendency to take on board certain beliefs without thinking about how they fit with the others we hold. Especially in our Internet age, it’s easy to surf the world of ideas the way we are drawn to knick-knacks at garage sales. Something interesting from this source, then the next site—it’s all interesting. We don’t know quite what to do with it when we click or pick it, adding it to our stock of clutter, but we file it away.

Over time, though, the danger is that we don’t end up holding anything with great seriousness. We have developed a habit of acquiring clutter rather than convictions. Instead of taking the time to evaluate (a) what we already believe and why we believe it and (b) the consistency of the new candidate of belief with these other convictions, we just add it to the attic.

I’ve used it before, but a great 1994 Entertainment Weekly piece by Jeff Gordinier makes this point well. Citing examples from TV, pop music, and best-selling books, Gordinier notes that “pop culture is going gaga for spirituality.” However,

for-all, appealing to Baptists and stargazers alike, comes off more like Forest Gump’s ubiquitous “boxa chocolates” than like any real system of belief. You never know what you’re going to get.

Another analogy for this pack-rat habit is the everexpanding loose-leaf notebook. We may keep adding pages, but never tear anything out. We need to take time to focus on at least some of our big beliefs and weed out the ones that contradict or undermine them.

We would do well to recall the wisdom of our spiritual forebears on this account. Think of the precision of the ecumenical creeds. After a few centuries of answering objections, fending off heretics, and edifying the faithful, the church fathers became skilled at knowing what to throw away and what to keep. These early creeds were able to cut off each major contradiction of the faith in a concise phrase that included both an affirmation and a denial. If this then not that. It’s common in our churches once a year to recite together the Athanasian Creed. If MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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anyone was misty on the Trinity and the person of Christ before they walked in, they discovered clear boundaries of Christian teaching by its rapier-like conclusion. Similarly, Reformation confessions and theological treatises often included both affirmations and denials: “This we affirm….Therefore, this we condemn.”

The problem with us today is that we affirm all sorts of things loosely in our cluttered notebooks.

We add pages from a conference here, a blog there, but without tearing anything out. We skim, nodding to things that sort of sound right, and rush on to our next immediate task. R. C. Sproul once told me about someone who exclaimed, “Dr. Sproul, you’re my favorite Bible teacher—you and Kenneth Copeland!” How could one possibly put those two resources in the same notebook? I heard something similar when, after expressing gratitude for the White Horse Inn, the person wondered why I would disagree with Joel Osteen. We need to be not only careful teachers, but also careful students—to be attached to the truth and not to men or movements.

As Walter Martin used to say, the Feds know that the best way to learn how to identify counterfeit

ON PASTORAL SUCCESSION Carl Trueman wisely reminds us: “The elite watchmaker Patek Philippe had a slogan at one time that was something like this: ‘You never really own a Patek Philippe; you merely look after it for the next generation.’ Thus it is with churches, in terms of the vibrancy of their life and their orthodoxy. Those privileged enough to be involved in the appointment of their own successors, or those who can merely shape the nature of the session which will oversee the search, need to make sure they make the right choices. They do not own the church; they are merely looking after her for the next generation.”

CARL TRUEMAN, “ON PASTORAL SUCCESSION,” REFORMATION 21 ( B LO G ), J U N E 17, 2011, H T T P : // W W W. R E FO R M AT I O N 21.O R G / BLOG/2011/06/ON-PASTORAL-SUCCESSION.PHP.

bank notes is to study carefully the real thing.

One of the dangers of looking to movements, perpetually anticipating The Next Big Thing, is that we lose real treasures in the clutter—and, more importantly, the habits that enable us to distinguish truth from error, the serious from the trivial, and the primary from the secondary. Good sommeliers develop a habit of discrimination over time, with practice and devotion to the craft. If they just replied to all of our queries about a bottle of wine, “Oh, that’s a great vintage!” we would doubt their skill. We’re always willing to invest in anything that’s valuable to us— sports, hobbies, family history, or technology. The more invested we are, the more we care for it and for the people who are a part of it. Since our first calling is citizenship in Christ, with his body, we should seek to develop habits of discriminating between what is beautiful and ugly, good and bad, true and false. Often we will find that things aren’t totally one or the other, but even that is a wise and generous appraisal that comes from discriminating habits.

Sometimes in my periodical spring cleaning, out of exasperation I have thrown out important things.

As all the stuff comes pouring out of the door like a tidal wave, I go into a “take-no-prisoners” stance. All I want is a pristine garage. I want to start over. Yet it doesn’t take long before the garage is once again captive to the chaos monster. Over the years, I’m sure that I have thrown out some important things that my wife and I wanted to pass down to our kids.

Evangelicalism is like that garage. There are some real treasures in there, gifts that should be shared with others and passed down to future generations. Yet we vacillate between indiscriminate accumulation and equally indiscriminate discarding. Each new generation seems to want to “reboot” Christianity, starting over from scratch. What we need instead is the patience, born of a love for what—and who—really matters, to evaluate what we believe and why we believe it and how it shapes our identity and living in the world.

So let’s allow the parade to pass us by as it marches behind The Next Big Thing. Instead, let’s do a little spring cleaning each day. There will be some forgotten treasures amid a lot of clutter, “but examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess. 5:21 NASB).

Michael S. Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation.

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book reviews 42 “We are the ones who judge.…

We have the allseeing eye.”

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BOOK REVIEWS

Gods Behaving Badly: Media, Religion, and Celebrity Culture

BY PETE WARD Baylor University Press, 2011 163 pages (paperback), $24.95

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hat is the chief end of man? “The chief end of man is to glorify ourselves, thus immortalizing our name and to reach Elysium.” Not the answer you were expecting? That’s probably due to the fact that I was quoting from The Homeric Shorter Catechism, a fictional document created by my daughter Sydney as part of a homework assignment given to her during our study of the Greek classics. In order to sum up her understanding of the GrecoRoman world before Christ, I asked her to rewrite the first few lines of the Westminster Shorter Catechism so that it presents not Christian but pagan convictions. And, for several reasons, I was reminded of this while reading Pete Ward’s book Gods ods Behaving Badly: Media, Religion, and Celebrity Culture.

At only 163 pages, I was able to read this book from cover to cover in just a few hours between takeoff and landing, and it ended up being time well spent. Ward argues that there is a kind of parallel between celebrity and religion, and that this parallel is evident in the very language we use. We adore our celebrities, and fans are said to be devoted. We watch American Idol and refer to superstars as legends and icons. Even the word fan, Ward argues, carries a religious connotation, since its Latin root is fanaticus, meaning “of the temple.”

But Ward is not arguing that our new culture of celebrity is in fact a new kind of religion, but rather that it is so powerful that only religious language can really capture its essence.

Another point Ward makes is that the linguistic parallels take us, not to traditional religion, but rather to an earlier more primal and

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polytheistic form that we find embodied in ancient paganism. Interacting with the thoughts of journalist Andrew Brown, Ward says that today’s media elevates celebrities “into the pantheon of the gods, and as in the Roman Empire their images are sent around the world....This ‘repeated apotheosis’ makes our popular culture ‘more like paganism than it is comfortable to admit.’” Hollywood, Ward concludes, has become our Mt. Olympus. “They sport and play, and we check them out from time to time....Through People magazine, the National Enquirer, Hello!, and Heat, we are given a window into the Elysium of the gods.”

One of the strongest parallels between yesterday’s paganism and today’s culture of celebrity is the obsession with image.

Statues of gods and goddesses in their idealized forms were chiseled into stone, reminding people throughout the Greco-Roman world of both their fame and beauty. Today’s movie screen divinities have their images sent around the world through a ubiquitous media, and are perfected not by means of a chisel but via Photoshop.

According to Ward, what’s at stake here is “not so much what we think of Meryl Streep or Sharon Stone or Elizabeth Taylor, but what we think of ourselves.” In other words, the celebrities are attractive to us because they reprep resent the human ideal, which is what we are all striving to become. But it goes beyond mere image. Gossip columns regularly feature stories about a particular celebrity’s new romantic dalliance, spectacular wedding, or sultry affair. “What is being debated,” Ward writes, “is the kind of life we should live and how we should live it. It is the intersection of style and ethics, decorum and discipleship. We are asked to choose our gods and then we are invited, or indeed enticed, to sit in judgment upon them.” That last line about sitting in judgment of the gods we choose is a theme that Ward takes up at length elsewhere:

The condemnation of celebrities who are tempted into “sin” takes us into the heart of the theology of the sacred self. We are the ones who judge.…We have the all-seeing eye.

We decide who goes and who stays. We sit in judgment on our own gods.

And we judge our gods because they have so much and yet fail to “make the most of themselves”— a key value in celebrity worship. After all, if this is a religion of the sacred self, what greater apostasy could there be?

At points, Ward’s book becomes a little repetitive, but the overall thrust of his thesis is one that has stuck with me. There are fascinating parallels between today’s culture of celebrity and yesterday’s cult of divinities. It’s good to remind ourselves of these things and of the clarity of our own confessions. “The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” God is at the center of the universe, not idealized forms of our own sacred self. We need to realize that Narcissus is among us, and he desperately needs a better story than the one he’s currently being sold.

Shane Rosenthal is executive producer of the White Horse Inn national radio broadcast.

Broken: 7 “Christian” Rules That Every Christian Ought to Break as Often as Possible

BY JONATHAN FISK Concordia Publishing House, 2012 280 pages (paperback), $16.99

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he late Michael Spencer (AKA The Internet Monk) once wrote an article for these pages in which he gave advice to the parents of “Alex,” a teen who doubted his faith. Spencer’s main point: Don’t distract Alex with anything that will

hide Jesus as the center of Christianity. Ministers, parents, educators, and friends have a bad habit of covering Jesus with layer after layer of feelings, relationships, behavior, and belief that have little to do with who Jesus is and what he did in time and space for his people.

Recognizing that problem, Lutheran pastor Jonathan Fisk has written Broken, an excellent book that identifies seven rules we often use tito hide the real Jesus. The ti adtle comes from Fisk’s good ad vice: We need to break those rules in order to rediscover incarthe Jesus who is God incar salvanate for us and for our salva tion, who was “broken” for us.

Jonathan Fisk is part of a new generation of Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod ministers who aren’t afraid to talk to people outside that denomsometimes parochial denom vidination. He first gained attention in 2012 for his vid eo response to Jefferson Bethke’s popular “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus,” which had more than 23 million views on YouTube. Fisk, who some have described as a cross between Max Headroom and Martin Luther, adeptly combines tech savvy and verbal skill on his own YouTube channel, providing a modern catechesis of sorts, tackling issues as varied as homosexuality, the millennium, and the Greek exegesis of the Gospel of Mark. You probably need to be of a certain age (or attention span) to appreciate his videos, but this, his first book, presents his wit and cultural insight in a seizure-free style.

The rules that Broken encourages us to break aren’t new to any of us. As Fisk says, Satan (the old crow of the Parable of the Sower) doesn’t have much new material. Muddling the promises of the gospel with mysticism, pharisaical traditions and rules, pragmatism, and antinomianism among other veils takes away the words and works of Jesus that are our only sure foundation of faith. All that’s left are our feelings, our behavior, our sense of what’s right—and these are not enough to sustain a Christian pilgrimage.

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BOOK REVIEWS

It was probably too much to hope that Fisk would not fall into the “us against them” mentality that particularly pits Lutherans against the Reformed—especially while covering such important ground as this book does. But I was disappointed by his caricature of the Reformed branch of the Reformation as “radical” (throwing us under the bus—or in the pyre, more appropriately— with the Anabaptists) when discussing the Lord’s Supper. I was mortified when he used this example as a corollary to the Prosperity Gospel! I hope that with time and “White Horse Inn-like” exposure to brothers in the Reformed world who are fighting the same battles alongside him, Fisk can come to see that we can be distinct according to our confessional standards without being antagonistic. Despite this frustration with the book, I can’t help but recommend it because there just isn’t anything else out there like it.

Broken is an apologetics book, but it will never admit to being one. And for that reason, it’s probably the best kind of book to read with someone who is struggling in the faith. Buy two and read it with someone. Simply throwing a book at a confused pilgrim won’t help him (even though it will make you feel good), and while you’re reading you might discover some rules that you also need to break.

Eric Landry is the pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Murrieta, California.

The Malice of Fortune

BY MICHAEL ENNIS Doubleday, 2012 416 pages (hardcover), $26.95

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iccolo Machiavelli’s infamous book The Prince is a staple of Western political thought. Its pragmatic descriptions of a suave and ruthless ruler maneuvering by whatever means he desires to achieve his ends has scandalized and intrigued readers since its composition in 1513. Yet, as history shows,

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“WE ALL YEARN PASSIONATELY FOR ETERNITY AS WE BLINDLY GROPE TOWARD IT.” Machiavelli the man was a far more complex (and ultimately endearing) figure than the popular conception of him as a corrupter of humanity.

The true Machiavelli that Michael Ennis brings alive in his historical novel The Malice of Fortune is a curious observer of human nature and a staunch supporter of republican government, continually looking back to the great men from classical history for guidance in how to interpret the actions of people in his time.

As a lowly secretary in the government of the Republic of Florence, Machiavelli is sent on a mission in 1502 to represent Florence’s interests with the powerful Borgia papal family, ruled

by Pope Alexander VI and militarily led by his illegitimate son Cesare Borgia (known as Duke Valentino). While serving in this ambassadorial capacity, Machiavelli meets a mesmerizing courtesan, Damiata, who is seeking to solve the mystery of the murder of Pope Alexander’s son Juan, committed some five years before—her young son being held hostage by the Holy Father until she finds out the truth. The two characters join forces with Valentino’s chief military engineer, a man by the name of Leonardo da Vinci, and travel across Italy to find the murderer, who is committing a new series of grisly killings and leaving elaborate riddles behind to challenge his pursuers. The horrifying and revealing truth, when it is unmasked, eventually serves as the hidden background for Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Does this sound fantastical? The amazing fact is that much of what happens in The Malice of Fortune is substantially true to history, the fictional elements entirely plausible. Ennis poured

twelve years of research in the riches of Italian history, customs, and culture into writing this book.

He diligently perused the works of Machiavelli and da Vinci, ensuring the characters were placed in the precise locations and time where history shows they were. The novel is written in a wonderfully poetic and pictorial prose style, vividly opening a door into the wonders (and horrors) of Renaissance Italy. Even the metaphors and allusions used, derived mostly from classical works, are proper to how the educated people of that time would have chosen to express themselves. In short, The Malice of Fortune is an exemplary work of historical fiction, crafted to make its world come brilliantly alive for us.

This novel also works well in providing a vibrant background to the conditions that precipitated the Protestant Reformation.

The religious life of Italy was a sham; the pope himself and high-ranking church officials engaged in shameless debauchery, with plenty of courtesans available to provide the usual pleasures. At one point in the book, Machiavelli comments on the immunity of the priests under church canon law, which prevented them from being prosecuted for civil crimes and allowing them to commit reprehensible crimes as long as they didn’t lapse into theological heresy. Damiata herself makes telling observations about the three main life choices available to women of her time: they could have an arranged marriage, they could become “married to Christ,” or they could become prostitutes. The pure irony of the last option is that becoming a courtesan (like Damiata) was the only way for a woman to become learned and even own property of her own.

Finally, under the rotting veneer of Christendom thrives a strong pagan undercurrent: the world of witchcraft, charms, and spells contributes a significant element to the events in The Malice of Fortune.

It is no surprise, therefore, that Luther would be horrified when he visited Rome a mere eight years later in 1510: all Italy was in need of Reformation, both theologically and socially.

I first discovered Michael Ennis just over a year ago through his two earlier books Byzantium and Duchess of Milan. I was wondering where to read quality historical fiction that would bring me into the world of that time and allow me to relate closely with the characters, since themes of the human condition remain perpetual no matter how big the time or location differences are. Michael Ennis perfectly filled that need.

I must say that no other author has affected me as Ennis has in his historical vividrealism, the poetic vivid ness and burning passion comof his style, and the com plete humanity of his characters (there’s even a small drop of sympathy for the reprehensible Borgias in the end of The Malice of Fortune). This also means that I must recommend Ennis only for wise and mature audiences, for he often deals with intense but necessary themes. Yet those who make the journey into his novels will end up learning much about who they are as human beings, and see a small glimpse of one of sinful humanity’s clearest truths: we all yearn passionately for eternity as we blindly grope toward it, performing both brilliant works and heinous crimes. As Christians, we can sympathize with this paradoxical condition, while at the same time rejoice that God is in the process of making all things new through Jesus Christ! It is thus with pleasure that I hold forth The Malice of Fortune to eager lovers of history and of humanity.

Dan Saxton is pursuing an MA in historical theology at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.

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GEEK S QUAD

PASTORS, FLEE THE SPOTLIGHT

S

by RYAN GLOMSRUD

peaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, London, was once a bustling public space for soapbox speeches. Today, there are rarely more than fifteen or twenty people gathered in that corner of the park at any one time, mostly cranks and unsuspecting tourists. Television and Internet have changed the public square tradition as every city’s “Speaker’s Corner” has relocated to the Web and every blog is now a soapbox. Even blog “Comments” sections allow for immediate feedback just like in old Hyde Park, where heckling and sledging (a British cricket term roughly equivalent to American trash-talking) usually win out over agreement and applause.

In our digitally connected world, does the image of a soapbox in the public square still resonate culturally? More likely, I think, the soapbox-turnedInternet blog follows the example of 24-hour cable news. The dominant model for public intellectual life, then, is that of full-time punditry, with celebrity anchors refusing to surrender the soapbox for even a minute. The show must go on, in what some call “newstainment”—every night and every morning the lure of the spotlight and the need to say something has birthed a professional class of around-the-clock commentators and bloggers.

Accordingly, consumer-driven news has furnished evangelicalism with a model for public discussion wherein the pastor-theologian

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imagines he has been granted permanent status as an opinion shaper and public intellectual. Like 24-hour news, the commentator-blogger always has an opinion to share, despite the particular news of the day or the question of relevant knowledge. It used to be that Hyde Park speakers would outstay their welcome and then be dragged from their soapbox by an angry crowd. Not so in corporation-owned news, where controversy sells and is actually desired. As the consultants forewarn, unless there’s a steady stream of content, no matter how amateur or trivial, shows and blogs simply won’t gain followers—and, of course, having “followers” is the unquestioned goal. Even in evangelicalism, it’s always the same “celebrity” bloggers who are ready to opine, never mind the issues at stake. Unfortunately, in our Christian circles today the blogs are where all the action occurs—which is not necessarily a sign of health.

Clearly a shift has taken place from the public square soapbox to the 24-hour cable news model in terms of evangelical dynamics.

In the past twenty-five years there have been several important debates about what constitutes the best model for a “public intellectual.” In a controversial book, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline (Harvard University Press, 2003), law professor Richard Posner complained of a very real problem in American culture—and consequently, I would add, in American evangelicalism

as well: namely, that public intellectuals frequently speak to issues for which they have no particular aptitude, and do so in ephemeral arenas where there is no accountability.

But there is another way to conceive of public intellectual life, one that borrows from Posner as well as Ronald F. Thiemann, former professor of theology at Harvard Divinity School. This model is less beholden to cable news and more akin to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. Thiemann and others argue that a public intellectual is a temporary role or space, rather than a permanent status. It is more literally a soapbox in the public square, never tied to specific individuals or organizations, and rarely occupied for any significant length of time.

Translated into evangelical leadership, a pastor might step into this public role at a crucial moment when in possession of learned expertise or unique personal experience that is both relevant and useful, and then step down from the soapbox so that real discussion and debate can ensue.

Upon reflection, I want to praise the pastors and theologians who are patiently (and quietly) faithful in their callings. We should encourage this practice more than the self-promoting celebrity pastorpundits. It’s time to discourage pastors from moonlighting as professional commentators on evangelicalism, even if in the name of extending the sphere of their “ministry” beyond their local church.

What’s the use of gaining Internet followers from thousands of miles away if your local community of faith has to suffer from a distracted shepherd?

WILD JOE O’CARROLL, PHOTOGRAPH BY BAIN NEWS SERVICE CIRCA 1914, COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Perhaps the occasion will arise for some pastors to mount the soapbox and have their say in the public square; but in the meantime here’s a suggestion worthy of the Geek Squad column: What if pastors took down their blogs and returned to the weekly

church newsletter in hardcopy? Here, the practical limitations (and expense) of printing and postage could offer some accountability and focus the pastor’s and congregation’s attention on the ministry of the church and real news within the local body of Christ. The benefit of Web communication is a cultural assumption; so also is the cable-news model of public life. Maybe it’s better to return to old technology, such as a church newsletter, until we can acquire more responsible habits in the application of new technology.

Ryan Glomsrud is the executive editor of Modern Reformation.

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B A C K PA G E

POPULAR MODELS FO R PA S TO R A L M I N I ST RY

by DAVID W. HALL

Pastor as Entrepreneur: The church exists to support the pastor’s organizational ideas. New plans are better than fixed roles and the pastor is the clever leader with a plan, regardless of whether his plans pass the tests of reality.

Pastor as Ultimate NeedMeeter:The pastor is a sensitive therapist/social worker, understanding the congregation’s needs and meeting these needs in extraordinary ways. Even the best versions of this model need to beware: only Christ is truly heroic and able to do for people what they really need done.

Pastor as Worship Leader: The pastor as contemporary Christian worship arts star. Likes to work out new songs for that next album.

Sometimes sings the closing prayer.

Pastor as Novel-ist: Yearning to be recognized, the pastor is aware that novelty is one path to recognition. The pastor wants to invent the killer ecclesiastical app or patent a new style of ministry. In a pinch, will settle for a new title or a new theological discovery that no one else has ever made.

Pastor as Blogger: Perhaps the most common model at present, the pastor cultivates a public image and builds celebrity capital with hundreds (nay, thousands) of Web and Twitter followers, many of whom are neither in that pastor’s church nor even in the same denomination.

Pastor as Emcee/Youth Comic: Onstage emcee, sort of Ryan SeacrestMeets-Billy Graham. The pastor specializes in dazzling, inspiring, and motivating audiences (especially the least inspirable group, namely, cynical teenagers).

PASTOR AS PASTOR: Ministry is neither so complex as to require instruction by a small set of pastoral illuminati, nor is it unattainable to the average pastor. Our tools are actually quite modest and simple. And there is a divine reason for that: the Lord does not want the ambassadors to be confused with our God and King who sends the good news and calls us by his grace. We are not given certain powers, because God knows how easily the human heart creates idols. So he has designed a set of tools that, when successful, do not bring glory to us. In John 15, Jesus called us to bear fruit that will last.

If you seek that fruit, you will be more interested in achieving a few things that endure, rather than chasing fantasies of ministry that easily evaporate into thin air.

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