wish-list-for-the-21st-century-january-february-2000

INTERVIEW WITH NEW NAE PRESIDENT | A REFORMATION FOR THE BLACK CHURCH?

MODERN REFORMATION

Wish List st 21 Century FOR THE

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9, NUMBER 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2000, $5.00

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WISH LIST FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

15 We Wish for…the Reformation for the Black Church On questions ranging from the purpose of the congregation to the training of clergy, the “black church” (like all of evangelicalism) could benefit by listening to our Protestant forefathers. by Ken Jones

18 We Wish for…Pastors, Elders, and Deacons Who Understand and Faithfully Execute Their Offices Paul calls church officers “stewards of the mysteries”—that is, bearers of Christ.

This must be the starting point for all attempts at reformation. by Michael Horton

28 We Wish for…An End to Generational Segregation in the Congregation A former proponent of age-based appeal contends that such a program is as contrary to the reconciling effects of the Gospel as is building on class, race or gender distinctions.

by Michael Glodo

34 We Wish for…Evangelical Unity Founded on the Gospel Rather than on a Power Base Evangelical activism has been one of the major political stories of the last twenty-five years. Have we sufficiently considered all the effects of such a cultural stance? by Diana S. Frazier Plus: More Worthy Wishes

COVER PHOTO BY PHOTODISC

38 We Wish for…Laypeople Willing to Engage in an Ongoing Conversation on Confessional Christianity A statement of Modern Reformation’s editorial intent and a plea for some of your limited reading time. by Benjamin E. Sasse In This Issue page 2 | Letters page 3 | Ex Auditu page 7 | Speaking of page 11 | Between the Times page 12 Resource Center page 26 | Free Space with Kevin Mannoia page 43 | Reviews page 48 | On My Mind page 52 J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 1

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MODERN REFORMATION Editor-in-Chief

A Long-Term Wish List

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are changes on the calendar, such as the “1” becoming a “2” at the start of our

Dr. Michael Horton Executive Vice President

Diana S. Frazier Executive Editor

Benjamin E. Sasse Assistant Editor

Ann Henderson Hart

constructed numbering of years, often lead us to look up from our daily affairs to consider longer-term trends. In evangelical circles the last few months, much of

this assessment has, not surprisingly, focused on the apparent decline of the culture. Of course, the judgment that our age is unique in its cultural discontinuity is nothing new in American revivalism.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Yale President Timothy Dwight (also the grandson of Jonathan Edwards) was convinced that the influence of deism in elite American culture, the chaotic example of the French Revolution, and the prospects of Protestant disestablishment not only nationally but also in the states of New England, posed an almost insurmountable challenge. The turn of the twentieth century saw more of the same, though the particular cultural obstacles took other forms. This time, the notable hotbutton issues included the explosion of immigrant populations in the cities and the influence of evolutionary thought in the academy. Today, at the turn of the twenty-first century, we are again told that “culturewarring” should dominate our priorities.

Though many of the cultural challenges we face are indeed important and genuinely worthy of our attention as citizens, in this issue, we would rather use the occasion of looking at long-run trends to focus attention on some of our “in-house” challenges, instead of thinking exclusively of the problems and needs in the culture “out there.” As we considered our wishes for Evangelicalism in the twenty-first century, we quickly realized that this issue could run to 500 pages. We ultimately settled on five feature articles, but these should not be thought of as our Top Five. Perhaps more accurately, they are an “Under-Considered Five”—goals worthy of further reflection but infrequently discussed.

We are particularly delighted to have Ken Jones, pastor Next Issue of Greater Union Baptist Christian Liberty Church in Compton,

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Production Editor

Irene H. DeLong Book Review Editor

Dr. Mark R. Talbot Column Editor

tackle the issue of the Reformation and the black church. Outside Los Angeles, some of you may know Rev. Jones as the resident Baptist on the theological round-table discussion that is The White Horse Inn radio program. The second and third feature articles in this issue are also particularly about needs in evangelical churches: theologians Michael Horton on the importance of thoughtful and faithful officers, and Michael Glodo on the dire need for congregations to stop segmenting believers the same way that Madison Avenue segments consumers. Finally, two articles move beyond the local church context to consider the possible perils of evangelical activism and the promise of a meaningful evangelical community of discourse.

In our ongoing quest to interact with real rather than caricatured alternatives to confessional evangelical positions, we have also offered Kevin Mannoia, the new president of the National Association of Evangelicals, some “Free Space” to outline his hopes for Evangelicalism in the coming century. As we reported in last issue’s “Between the Times” (MR’s recently added news column on the American religious scene), Rev. Mannoia has announced that the NAE will move from Illinois to California in an attempt to broaden the constituency of the organization to include more minority groups. In addition to exploring further these matters of sociological composition, we wanted to ask him some questions about Evangelicalism’s theological composition as well. We hope you find the discussion beneficial, and, as always, we welcome your wishes for Reformational churches and the evangelical movement in the coming years.

Brian Lee Copy Editor

Alyson S. Platt Layout and Design

Lori A. Cook Production Assistant

Lydia Brownback Marketing Assistant

John J. McClure Alliance Council

The Rev. Alistair Begg Dr. James M. Boice Dr. W. Robert Godfrey Dr. John D. Hannah Dr. Michael S. Horton Mrs. Rosemary Jensen The Rev. Ken Jones Dr. J. A. O. Preus Dr. Rod Rosenbladt Dr. R. C. Sproul Dr. Mark R. Talbot Dr. Gene E. Veith, Jr. Contributing Scholars

Dr. Allen C. Guelzo Dr. D. G. Hart Dr. Carl F. H. Henry Dr. Arthur A. Just Dr. Robert Kolb The Rev. Donald Matzat Dr. John W. Montgomery Mr. John Muether Dr. Richard A. Muller Mr. Kenneth A. Myers Dr. Tom J. Nettles Dr. Leonard R. Payton Dr. Lawrence R. Rast Dr. Kim Riddlebarger Mr. Rick Ritchie Dr. David P. Scaer Ms. Rachel S. Stahle Dr. David F. Wells Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

© 2000 All rights reserved. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exists to call the church, amidst our dying culture, to repent of its worldliness, to recover and confess the truth of God’s Word as did the Reformers, and to see that truth embodied in doctrine, worship and life. For more information, call or write us at: Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals 1716 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 546-3696 ModRef@Alliance Net.org www.AllianceNet.org

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which your earlier issues had lent themselves. Too much jargon and technical language is a symptom of the problem. I feel like I am reading an academic journal (boooring!) rather than your prior popular exposition. Too many professorial contributors and too few pastors (the Hermeneutics issue, for example) can draw an issue that way.

(And what is with the cow-towing to the Continuing Frustration with the Redesigned MR Lutherans? They are naturally dry as dust in their As a long time subscriber to your magazine, I expositions, and they form a large part of your have been encouraged and enriched by many of writers, especially in the preaching column, Ex your excellent articles. I was, however, a little Auditu. I do not enjoy the Lutheran haughtiness and dismayed with your recent design changes. As a method of interpretation. They may add a nice side newspaper publisher by trade, I deal on a regular dish, but as a main course, they are too much.) basis with (young) employees with creative minds, Such a total change does not sit well, and does not sharp eyesight, and new Apple computers with lend itself to re-reading, as had been my practice. thousands of fonts. Ah, the opportunities now Please try something else if you must pursue novelty available to the designers of the world. like a teen-age girl, or find another source to stretch Please consider, as you evaluate your new your font folder. I am more interested in solid design, your choice of typeface for the feature information than gaudy decoration, so keep your columns. I am entering the reading glass stage of editors at bay, or at least on a short leash. Otherwise, life and your font choice is not making reading they will go crazy playing with font, form, graphics, your articles any easier for me—and I would information, and other items without any limits— imagine many of your older readers would agree. pure chaos, as unrestrained modern artists do without A bolder font would be much appreciated. Thanks sensible guidance. Just some thoughts for your for the excellent magazine. consideration.

Riley Stephens I am a pastor with computer publishing Mesa, Arizona experience, and both of these perspectives were assaulted by your changes. (I t is clear from the fact that many from the Reformed community have offered responses to this am surprised by the response it engendered in me. I hope I issue that they, rightly perceive it as a problem warranting inquiry. So to decry the inquiry as was civil enough in this discourse.)

impious would be in tension with the many Reformed attempts, great and small, at theodicy.

I have not enjoyed the multitude of changes since the July/August issue, I am afraid. The typeset is too small and hard to focus on; and the graphics are more disturbing than edifying. It gives me a headache, making it hard to absorb the truths contained. The tone is too arch, arid, and academic for my taste as well, also increasing the difficulty of easy enjoyment and savoring—to

Pastor S. K. Selma, Alabama Editors’ Reply We have received a number of letters unhappy with our new layout, but this is probably our favorite. Where else could a publication be criticized for: 1) headache-producing fonts; 2) an addiction to academic jargon; 3) too much

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fraternization with haughty Lutherans; and 4) the pursuit of “novelty like a teen-age girl” all at once?!

To the charges: First, we heard the repeated point about the font size possibly being too small, and consequently, we made a slight change this issue.

Second, our goal is to clarify rather than obscure important theological discussion. As such, we hope that we can edit our contributors’ articles to make their topics more accessible, not less. When we fail at this attempt (which we undoubtedly due on occasion), we apologize. At the same time, we are unwilling to concede that anything that requires real work to understand is therefore necessarily “jargon.”

The unfamiliar—which usually includes theology in our day—generally does not become familiar immediately; we hope you find it worth the effort.

Third, may all Lutherans, both haughty and humble, be welcome here … though, of course, we hope that the humble carry the day. Finally, “novelty like a teen-age girl”? We are not even sure that we understand the charge, but given that most of our letters accuse us of being too confessional or too traditionally Protestant (read: boooring!), we are kind of enjoying this novel critique.

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It seems that there are no satisfying answers to the problem of evil forthcoming from the Reformed.

All attempts that I am aware of retain the basic substance of the Westminster Confession III.1 (which you also quote in the September/October issue). Yet this passage of the confession, despite its reference to the contingency of secondary causes, generates the very variation of the problem of evil mentioned above. For if causation is transitive—that is, if it is true that if A causes B and B causes C, then A causes C—which certainly seems to be, then one can interpose between God and his decree (A) on the one hand, and discrete instances of evil on the other (C), as many secondary causes (B’s) as one wishes, and God, by transitivity, will still be the cause of evil. The challenge to the Reformed is to present an account that offers good reasons to reject such a conclusion.

Moreover, pointing to the contingency of secondary causes is somewhat misleading, for what the Reformed mean by “contingency” is quite compatible with a sovereign decree that necessitates all future events/conditions/states of affairs among which are included a vast number of evils. What the Reformed mean by the term could well be dubbed “hypothetical hat has been most gratifying about some of your recent issues (e.g. or conditional necessity,” that is, necessary given God’s hermeneutics) has been the way that discussion has thrown some actual decree but contingent in the sense that it is, light on a crying need in our churches: sound preaching. I write to arguably, broadly logically possible (no contradiction is suggest that you devote an entire issue to the subject of homiletics. involved) that God should have uttered a different Evil and God’s Sovereign Decree decree. But if this is what contingency comes to You are indeed correct that a major motivation for the Reformed, it constitutes no salve for the (perhaps the major motivation, if experience is suspicions of those worried that the Reformed, allowed to have any say) for a revisionary approach despite their protestations to the contrary, to the classical and Reformed doctrine of God is unintentionally denigrate God’s goodness with a the problem of evil in its various expressions. For theology that implicates him in evil. example, with respect to specifically Reformed It might be asserted that the general tenor of canons, how is it that an absolutely good God this kind of inquiry into the goodness of God and should enunciate a sovereign decree that the justice of the decree is impious and that we do ensures/determines the bringing about of vast not, as the clay, have a right to expect an answer quantities of evil and sin, and yet be innocent of all from the potter; fair enough. But it is clear from the evil? Indeed, the variation of the problem of evil is fact that many from the Reformed community a powerful motivation to eschew the Reformed have offered responses to this issue that they, account of God’s sovereignty/omniscience and the rightly, perceive it as a problem warranting inquiry. related doctrine of the decree, in favor of some So to decry the inquiry as impious would be in other account which does not risk implicating God tension with the many Reformed attempts, great as responsible, in some significant sense, for evil. and small, at theodicy. And, of course, it is this

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problem of evil that constitutes a major intellectual barrier to the plausibility of Christian theism and perhaps a penultimate spiritual barrier to conversion. Thus the Reformed view, insofar as I understand it, seems to handicap the removal of this barrier to the faith.

It may be that the Reformed answer to the problem of evil is one only seen through the eyes of faith; one must have faith that God is absolutely sovereign/omniscient/good and his decree is just even if we can’t see exactly how it all fits together.

The goodness of God and the justice of his decree would be primitive and unanalyzable givens.

Perhaps this is not implausible. God, after all, is a transcendent being, who, but for his gracious revelation, would remain shrouded in virtual mystery, and who, even post revelation, remains immensely mysterious and inscrutable. Faith, not reason, would ultimately hold sway regarding this issue. However, it seems to me that a sort of intellectual bravado, according to which it is suggested (if not explicitly stated) that no insuperable intellectual problem of evil attends the Reformed view, haunts Reformed literature and its other various media on this topic. That is, there is at least an inchoate notion that the Reformed, on the strength of rational sweat, can diffuse the problem of evil. But I think a sober assessment of the situation renders such a conceit incredible. In my opinion the Reformed should be even more forthright than they are about the tensions resident in their theology proper and acknowledge up front that faith grasps what the intellect cannot with respect to a solution to the various incarnations of the problem of evil.

It is encouraging that a Christian publication is tackling in earnest such an important issue. I look forward one day to seeing a Reformed solution to the various problems of evil that truly satisfies the mind and soul, and I hope that such a day arrives soon.

B. K. Lee Riverside, California Thank you for the September/October issue on the current evangelical challenges to the classical doctrine of God. It helped me understand the significance of the issues that are presently at stake.

Of all the helpful articles, John Piper’s was the best contribution. He hit the nail on the head: We must let God be God. When man thinks that he is able to fully comprehend the Almighty’s

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awesomeness, God’s glory is lost and man suffers accordingly. The pastoral implications of the theology were made clear by Piper, who demonstrated that he is both a pastor and a theologian.

Paul Tautges Via Internet

Debates about Preaching What has been most gratifying about some of your recent issues (e.g., hermeneutics) has been the way that discussion has thrown some light on a crying need in our churches: sound preaching. I write to suggest that you devote an entire issue to the subject of homiletics.

Though a former professor affiliated with a well-known evangelical seminary, I had not heard of either the Law/Gospel or the redemptivehistorical approaches to preaching, until five years ago. I suspect that many of your readers— especially pastors who are Reformed soteriologically but largely self-taught in their homiletics—have never encountered these ideas.

If we indeed long to see a modern Reformation, then we must begin to see preaching that goes further than addressing TULIP. Your magazine would be a natural vehicle for airing such views.

Having suggested a theme, may I also suggest some contributors? How about Bryan Chapell (author of Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon) and Edmund Clowney (author of Preaching and Biblical Theology and The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament)?

R. S. Hartsville, Tennessee

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Please permit me to express my surprise that when I opened the September/October issue of Modern Reformation, I found a letter which at least seems to present a misunderstanding of the United Reformed Churches, a denomination which I cover regularly as part of my work as a reporter for Christian Renewal.

Rev. Tim Etherington’s main point is to criticize redemptive-historical preaching. That is certainly legitimate; there are a number of different Reformed views of preaching methods. (As a person who supports the classic Puritan emphasis on applicatory preaching, I personally sympathize with his concerns.)

There is legitimate room for disagreement within the Reformed community on this topic and has been since the 1600s, if not earlier.

However, his letter goes on to state that “having recently visited a United Reformed (URC) congregation, I see that this ‘redemptive-historical method’ of preaching is common in some of these circles. While I fully agree with and utilize this method of interpretation, I find RedemptiveHistorical preaching lacking in the area of application. This is, of course, by design.”

MR is a well-edited magazine and I respect its scholarly standards of accuracy. For that reason, it would have been nice if the editors—in their response to Etherington’s letter—had pointed out that neither the United Reformed Churches nor its predecessor body, the Alliance of Reformed Churches, have ever officially endorsed this or any other method of preaching.

If Rev. Etherington wishes to criticize any particular method of preaching, that is certainly his

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right. However, one ought not cite problems with the preaching of an individual local church— which may or may not even be a good example of the method being critiqued. A much better approach to such questions would be to analyze the preaching methods as taught by a seminary professor of homiletics who presumably knows the preaching method well and applies it effectively. I think it would be fair to say that the best preaching method, in the hands of a less than fully gifted preacher, will produce less than fully satisfactory results, and for that reason we ought to apply our critiques to the leading exponents and teachers of a preaching method, rather than to a single pastor of an individual local church.

To cite a single local church as if it were representative of a whole denomination is even less helpful. And I can assure your readers (from my work-related travels throughout the URC) that the method of preaching which he criticizes is not the only method used in the URC. I’m not even certain that “preaching lacking in the area of application by design” is the majority view. If it were possible to produce accurate statistics, I suspect that redemptive-historical preachers would be a sizable group in the URC and perhaps even the largest group, but that many preachers use an eclectic methodology, drawing what they see as best from a number of different sources, including the redemptive-historical approach.

I hasten to emphasize that I speak in no official way for either the URC or Christian Renewal, and I should point out that my membership isn’t even in the URC. However, given that I do get around far more widely in URC circles than most people, even URC ministers (who obviously stay in their own church most Sundays), I wanted to take the opportunity to correct any mistaken impression about the predominance of one type of preaching methodology within that body.

Darrell Todd Maurina Holland, Michigan

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1 Peter 1:1–2

Grace and Peace to Aliens and Strangers

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eter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered

Son that the unbelieving world has virtually no recourse throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen but to hate and persecute the Christian (Matt. 5:11-12, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of 10:22-23; John 15:18-25).

And in the book of Acts, even the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and though the Spirit of power sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours had been given to the Church, in abundance (1 Pet. 1:1-2). she still suffered greatly for the From If there is one religion which has defined our sake of “the name” (Acts 5:40R. S. CLARK time—that is, postmodern, pluralist, post-Christian 41; chap. 7). The Apostle Paul America—it is the religion of prosperity and considered suffering for his success, progress and self-fulfillment. This religion risen Lord a high honor (Rom. has become particularly fervent at the turn of the 5:3-5). So united are we to Assistant Professor and Academic Dean, twenty-first century. It is not new, however. At the Christ that Paul said that his Westminster beginning of the twentieth century, many were sufferings overflow into our Theological Seminary lives (2 Cor. 1:5-7). As a convinced that life was getting better in every way, in California result, suffering persecution every day. Efficiency experts were gaining control for Christ’s sake becomes a of the workplace. Political scientists advocated centralized government as part of the new era of down payment on the Christian’s future glory (Rom. universal prosperity. The go-go American religion 8:17-21). In short, suffering for the cause of Christ is did suffer a temporary setback, as European and part of what it is to be a Christian. “For it has been American youth choked on poison gas on the granted to you, on behalf of Christ, not only to battlefields of World War I. But the religion of believe on him, but also to suffer for him” (Phil. 1:29).

Against that background, it is no surprise that prosperity and progress returned, with even more vigor after World War II, and it has probably not the Apostle Peter greets the Christians of Asia Minor with those two most important words, yet reached its apex.

Evangelical Christians have not only been “grace and peace.” The Christians of the five cities deeply affected by the prosperity religion; indeed in central Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) needed they have been among its most ardent proponents. very much to hear these words, as do we.

Of those several pieties and theologies which have synthesized Christianity with the religion of To Strangers and Aliens in “This Age” progress, the “health and wealth” Pentecostalism Written from Rome in the early 60s, sometime and triumphalist, postmillennial, theonomic- after Paul had left the city, the Apostle Peter was reconstructionism are perhaps most notable.1 addressing five Christian congregations which had The Apostle Peter would have nothing of this recently become strangers and aliens, even though sort of “power religion.”2 Rather, throughout his they had not changed location.3 These two epistles and the entire New Testament a congregations were largely composed of Gentile different set of assumptions are at work. For Christians. (Some scholars, lacking imagination, example, in the teaching of our Lord, there is no wrongly assume that when Peter says “strangers and higher privilege than to be so identified with the aliens,” these must therefore be Palestinian Jews who

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had been displaced in the dispersion. Such a hypothesis is overly literal and makes this text unduly difficult. In fact, Peter is quite clear that these were Gentile Christians to whom he was writing.)4 These young Christians were undergoing a culture shock in their own towns and provinces.

They were struggling to understand the fact that being united to Christ makes one a stranger from, as Paul puts it, “this age.” Because they belong to Christ they were unjustly accused (1 Pet. 2:12).

They suffered unjustly (2:19). They endured daily insults and petty humiliations for the sake of the Gospel (3:14, 4:3-4). At some points, their conflict with the prevailing culture became so intense that the apostle described these informal persecutions as “fiery trials” (4:12-14).

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that heavenly city to which Abraham (with all believers in all ages) looked (Phil. 3:20, Heb. 11).

On the one hand we are “seated with Christ in the heavenlies” (Eph. 1:20, 2:6), and at the same time we are not there yet. We live in a twofold state: We are justified, but we are not yet glorified.

Christ himself is the chief stranger and alien.

Though he made the world (John 1:1-3), the world did not accept him (John 1:11). Thus he said that “foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man [God the Son incarnate!] has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58).

Even though he was (and remains) the second person of the Holy Trinity, he was crucified “outside the city gate” where the bodies of the sacrificial animals were burned. In an even greater way, the cross was a shame e are part of God’s remnant people. We live on God’s good earth, but as and we have the high privilege of being associated good as it is, it is not our homeland. Our ultimate allegiance is to that by grace, through faith, with our disgraced Savior (Heb. heavenly city to which Abraham (with all believers in all ages) looked.

13:11-14).

To these heirs of Christ’s humiliation (and us), Peter Surely committed Christian people still suffer in pronounced “grace” and “peace.” The former refers ways very much like this.

Local zoning to God’s eternal, unchanging, undeserved favor committees occasionally forbid the building of which is grounded in his own unconditioned churches or the holding of Christian meetings. freedom and will. The latter refers to the cessation Sometimes believers are fired from their jobs for of hostilities between God and man. In short, this refusing to compromise Christian principles. And benediction means, “never mind the way folks are in our daily lives, it is common for us to be mocked treating you; remember God’s attitude toward you.” for attempting any Sabbath/Lord’s Day observance or even the smallest acts of piety and obedience.

From Our Triune God The same tension is at work on a grander scale as This Apostolic benediction is not just well. Militant Protestant confessional belief and sentimental blather but an official declaration of practice are not often rewarded with access to the the actual state of things by Christ’s ordained, corridors of power. For example, J. Gresham authoritative representative. Peter could so speak Machen (1881-1937), when he was driven from the because it is our Triune God who has made things mainline Presbyterian Church in the inter-War so. Each person of the Trinity has been active in period, found himself exiled with a small remnant our salvation. God the Father willed from all which became the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.5 eternity that we should belong to the Son. The Marginalized for the sake of the Gospel, Machen Son willed from all eternity that he should redeem was mocked as a “fundamentalist” as if he were no us, and God the Spirit willed from all eternity to more intelligent than they thought William Jennings gather (through the preaching of the Word) and Bryan to be. More recently, the late Robert Preus sanctify us for whom the Son would and did come.

(1924-95) suffered great personal loss for daring to God is one, his will is one, and because it is God’s stand for historic Lutheran theology over against will, it is irresistible. These are among the great both liberals and evangelical pragmatists in his facts of the Christian faith.

Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Many other According to Peter we are more than just Christians have suffered a similar fate.6 Examples of “strangers and aliens”; we are “elect strangers and overt and covert hostility to historic Christianity are aliens.” We are at odds with “this world” or “this evil so many as to defy cataloging. age” precisely and only because we are “elect.” We As strangers and aliens, we are part of God’s are more than elect, however. We are foreknown. remnant people (see Gen. 45:7, 1 Kings 19). We As we read Scripture, we learn that “knowledge” live on God’s good earth, but as good as it is, it is and, more intensively, “foreknowledge” describes a not our homeland. Our ultimate allegiance is to type of intimate awareness the best analogy for

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which is the marital union.7 Thus God did not have mere advance warning that we were going to believe, but rather we believe because our Triune God has always known us intimately—can God know us in any other way?—as his chosen ones.

God has not simply foreknown and loved us his people from all eternity in the abstract, but he elected us to live out his will in a very specific context—that is, “in the sanctification of the Spirit.” We are elect to be morally renewed by God the Spirit himself.

In God’s sovereign administration of our salvation and Christian life, we are to think of the Father as having willed our lot, but we’re to think of the risen Christ (communicated to us by the Spirit) as the means, the sustenance, and the power of our life. The life of an elect alien may be lonely, but it is not barren. When we are not friends with the culture, “the World” (Jam. 4:4), then we are friends with God. The very essence of that friendship with God is the union we have with Christ through the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is he who draws us to Christ, who writes the Word on our hearts, who teaches us the Word, who transforms our minds, who sanctifies our hearts, who communicates to us God’s abounding graces.

So our alien status in the world is the result of the Father’s providence. Here Peter deftly unites perhaps the two greatest and most difficult facts of the Christian faith. It is impossible for sinners to earn God’s favor, and it is impossible for sinners to live outside of God’s providence. Whatever are circumstances in which we find ourselves, they are the result of God’s good and perfect will. Wherever we are, there God the Spirit is at work in us.

For Two Purposes It is the Spirit who enables us to realize—that is, to manifest our alien status—in Christ. Thus, Peter says that the purpose of the Father’s election and the Spirit’s ministry is our “obedience” and “sprinkling of the blood of Jesus the Messiah” (1 Pet. 1:2). As one of the great sixteenth century Reformed theologians, Caspar Olevianus, said: Christ died not only to justify us, but also to sanctify us.8 In this life, the purpose of God’s election is that we might not just enjoy our status as those identified with Christ, but that we might actually begin to live as those with whom Christ identified himself and who are in turn identified with him.9 In the early Church, as for the apostles, the privilege of martyrdom was considered the greatest and highest which could be granted a Christian.

This teaching may be difficult for us to receive with joy, but such suffering could not have been far from

Peter’s mind as he wrote these words. Remember, the Lord Jesus had promised him, “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18). Jesus predicted Peter’s martyrdom and Peter was predicting suffering, if not martyrdom, for his readers.

In this way, Scripture says, Jesus is not finished bleeding. Paul says, “I fill up in my flesh” Christ’s sufferings (Col. 1:24). What the world is not able to execute directly on the ascended Christ, it aims at us. At the same time, our sanctity is bound up with Christian suffering which becomes, as it were, a sort of seal of that identity with Christ.

When we live in Christ, in this hostile world, we will inevitably face the hatred of the enemy, sometimes even to death. This is almost certainly the force of this powerful shorthand: “obedience of the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

Such language evokes the myriad Old Testament sacrifices, finished by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus himself.

With this language “sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,” he was invoking a very specific episode in the history of salvation.10 In Exodus 24, we read that after Moses read God’s Law to the people, they cried out, “We will do everything Yahweh has said” (v. 3). The terms of the covenant having been spelled out, the people swore an oath before their Redeemer God. The next day Moses, acting as the federal head of the people, went before the Lord and built an altar where appointed Israelites offered sacrifices.

Afterward, Moses took half the blood of the offerings and put it in bowls. The rest he sprinkled on the altar and then read “the Book of the Covenant” to the people. Again, they responded, “We will do all that Yahweh has said; we will obey” (v. 7). In response, Moses took the blood of the covenant and sprinkled the people of God with it (v. 8).

According to Peter (like the writer to the Hebrews), we are to understand that it was with God the Son with whom the Israelites made covenant that day, a covenant they could not and did not keep. It was left to the true Israel of God—Jesus—to keep it, even to the cross (see also Heb. 12:18, 24).

Therefore, in our services, we have a very similar sprinkling ritual. Ours is the holy sacrament of baptism in which all of God’s people are sprinkled not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with Christ’s blood. In response, we too swear covenant oaths, “We will do all that the LORD has said.”

When Peter says, “unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,” he is invoking both Moses’ sprinkling of the Israelites and our baptism into Christ. Just as their baptism

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entailed death, so ours also requires our deaths, first ritually in the act of baptism, second spiritually in mortification, and third, if Christ wills, even a martyr’s death.

“May Grace and Peace Abound” The obedience for which Christ calls now is the same obedience to which he called the Israelites.

Yet we have two great advantages. First, we live in the “last days,” the days of the fulfillment of God’s great promise. God the Son has taken upon himself our nature. He has borne God’s wrath and redeemed us from it. Second, we have the privilege of living after Pentecost. The Spirit has been poured out upon us in the measure promised by the ancient prophets.

By our baptism, we are now identified with that suffering Savior. We have been marked, sprinkled by his blood. It is to us bloody Christians that our Triune God pronounces the blessing, “May grace and peace abound to you.” They can abound to us because Christ has earned them for us.

Now as heirs of such mercy, we must rejoice if it pleases God to bring our baptism to fruition, not only by saving faith in Christ, but in the privilege of suffering for his sake. May God the Spirit, through the Word, grant us that same abundant grace and peace now and when the time comes. Amen.

R. S. Clark (D.Phil., Oxford), a minister in the United Reformed Church, is assistant professor of church history and academic dean at Westminster Theological Seminary in California. He is co-editor of the recently published Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1999). This sermon was preached in March 1999.

SPEAKING OF

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hile in Luther and Calvin all the

emphasis

fell

on

the

redemptive event that took place with Christ’s death and resurrection, later under the influence of pietism,

mysticism, and moralism, the emphasis shifted to the process of individual appropriation of the salvation given in Christ and to its mystical and moral effect in the life of believers….This shift [from the forensic to the pneumatic

and

moral]

acquires

scholarly significance and force, however, only in the theology deriving from the Enlightenment…. The whole content of [Paul’s] preaching can be summarized as the proclamation and explication of the eschatological time of salvation inaugurated with Christ’s advent, death, and resurrection. It is from this principal point of view and under this denominator that all the separate themes of Paul’s preaching can be understood and penetrated in their unity and relation to each other.”

— Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, 44

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Speaking of...

T

he world created from nothing, man made from

the dust, the new kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, himself the new man, resurrection as a passage through death to life, the end as a new beginning, the life of future glory—all these show that reasoning is not the original form of theological expression, which is above all that of narrative.

Johann Baptist Metz, Concilium 85 (1973), 85-6

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nd He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken hearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.’ Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’”

Luke 4:17-21

“T

he story of God’s gracious relationship with God’s people is a very complex one, reaching from the past to the future. The Church must convey that story’s fullness. Consequently, when we plan worship, we need checks to protect us from our own biases—just as our selection process for worship music [involves] a series of grids. An advantage of liturgies passed down through the Church’s history is that testing over time has incorporated those necessary checks. Though we must still be vigilant against perversions of form, using the Church’s traditional liturgy frees us from perpetual experimentation. When Luther first described his theology of worship for people of the Reformation, he insisted that ‘the service now in common use everywhere goes back to genuine Christian beginnings.’”

Marva Dawn, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, 255-56.

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Catholics, Lutherans United on Justification?

M

ainlineAmerican Lutheranleaders continuetoexpress enthusiasmovertheJointDeclaration ontheDoctrineofJustification (JDDJ)—anecumenicaldocument signedinAugsburgonOctober31 bypapaldelegatesandtheLutheran WorldFederation(LWF). TheJDDJ claimstoresolvethenearly500year olddebatebetweenRoman CatholicsandProtestantsoverthe chiefissueoftheReformation.

Rev. H. George Anderson, presiding bishop of America’s largest Lutheran body (ELCA) and one of the five representatives of international Lutheranism at last fall’s historic signing, calls the document “a significant milestone in the reconciliation of our two church traditions” and an acknowledgment “that there is agreement on this crucial article of the Christian faith.” Anderson also says that multiple American celebrations between Lutherans and Roman Catholics at the parish level are expected across the country in the coming months.

Though there are no immediate institutional consequences, and though eucharistic interpretations continue to divide the two traditions, the JDDJ claims that the “teaching of the Lutheran churches presented in this declaration does not

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fall under the condemnations from the Council of Trent [and the] condemnations in the Lutheran Confessions do not apply to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church presented in this document.”

Pope John Paul II writes that the document is thus a key step “in the reconstruction of full unity among Christians.”

And his chief representative in these discussions, the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, explains the agreement as a call to common mission, especially in evangelizing secular Europeans “who have wandered far from their traditional faith.” LWF representatives echoed such sentiments, calling for more Lutheran/Catholic “common worship” and “more common action in public life.”

In spite of the fanfare, many theologians remain skeptical. One of the main reasons is that the JDDJ, while claiming basic agreement on the “central elements” of the faith, offers only passing explanations of why the two traditions have believed they had substantive disagreement for hundreds of years. Instead of “solving” the debate with reference to older formulations—which would likely have implied that one side had been in error—the JDDJ claims to offer a consensus definition

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H

that the document’s authors claim both traditions can accept. Reporters asked how the pope’s recently renewed focus on indulgences can be reconciled with the apparent agreement. Church spokesmen replied that details still need to be worked out, but that the “central” matters have been resolved.

Not surprisingly, confessional Lutherans are expressing extreme disappointment at the development and what it reveals about the theological state of international Lutheranism. The LWF, which claims to represent 58 million of the world’s 62 million Lutherans, admits there was some intraLutheran debate before the LWF agreed to participate.

In fact, seven LWF member church denominations— including the Church of Denmark—registered disagreement with the document. But the LWF insists that about 90% of all represented bodies were in

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accord with the agreement.

The second and third largest Lutheran bodies in the U. S., the Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Synod (which together comprise the vast majority of the world’s four million Lutherans not participating in the LWF), disputed the claims of ELCA leaders that this is a “magnificent breakthrough.”

It is rather, says Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod President A. L. Barry, a “woefully inadequate” statement of “how God saves (justifies) a sinner.” “Sadly,” it is thus “a betrayal of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Barry points out that the Vatican, before the signing, assured Catholics around the world that the document “does not represent a change in the teachings of the Catholic Church,” and does not “repudiate the doctrinal formulations put forward by the Council of Trent.” Trent was the sixteenth century Roman Catholic council that

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explicitly condemned the Lutherans and Calvinists for their teaching that justification was by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. For Rome, sanctification is a part of justification, and thus justification cannot be entirely apart from works.

According to Barry, this “very carefully worded statement” makes it possible for the pope to claim reconciliation, but exclusively on its terms—that is, “without changing, retracting, or correcting” any of the errors that led to the Reformation.

The JDDJ can be obtained at ww.elca.org/ea/ jddj/index.html. The confessional Lutheran response can be found at www.lcms.org/ctcr/docs/pdf/ justclp.pdf.

ÍBy a vote of 5-4, the U. S. Supreme Court blocked federal judge Solomon Oliver’s injunction against a Cleveland voucher program for 3,800 low-income students that includes religious education providers.

The high court has not yet heard full arguments in any school-choice case where religion is involved, but some observers consider this decision a preview. ÍAccording to London’s The Sunday Times, paganism, with roughly 100,000 adherents, is the UK’s most rapidly growing religion.

Rural, working-class youth constitute the majority of the followers of this religion which deifies

Women vs. the Feminist Vision?

I

maginetheSouthernBaptist Conventionmakingpublic pronouncementsaboutthejoys ofsubmissionandthesplendorofthe traditionalfamily. ImagineGloria Steinem,deanoffeminism, respondingwithherargumentthat women’sinclinationtonurtureshould bethoughtofas“compassion disease.” Thenconsiderstreamsof brightyoungfemaleintellectuals enteringthedebate…onthesideof theBaptists.

While the reality is more complex than this picture, a number of young thinkers— e.g., Danielle Crittenden with What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman (Simon and Shuster, 1999), Wendy Shalit with A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue (Free Press,

nature and recognizes a number of Norse gods.

Britain’s Charity Commission recently ruled, however, that pagan groups no longer qualify for tax exempt status, because they have not been “established for public benefit.” ÍThe Creation Study Committee of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) continues to meet to consider the “four major Evangelical views on the interpretation of Genesis 1-2.” According to the PCA’s Stated Clerk, L. Roy Taylor, the committee is especially “considering the constitutional aspects of the issue, i.e., how one’s view of

1999), Weekly Standard writer Noemie Emery—have begun to vehemently reject the feminist position that fulfillment is found in freedom from commitment and obligation.

Convinced that the sexual liberation of women actually only liberated men from the consequences of their actions and the need to

Westminster Confession of Faith IV:1, on creation ‘…in the space of six days…’ relates to one’s ordination vow in subscribing to the Westminster Standards.” ÍRabbi David Saperstein, chairman of the U. S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, has called on the Clinton White House to prohibit the China National Petroleum Corp.

(CNPC) from U. S. equity and debt markets. CNPC is attempting to raise funds for the new Sudanese oil pipeline. Sudan is currently under economic sanctions from the U. S. and other nations for religious persecution of Christians

take sex seriously, these young women are following an older generation of “antifeminist” women. Thinkers like Emory historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, writer Carolyn Graglia, and University of Chicago scholar Amy Kass, have long denied that gender equality must equal gender interchangeability. Summarizes Emery: “the feminist system of license, ‘choice,’ androgyny, resentment, and endless autonomy has been making more people less happy than anyone ever forced on free men.”

and animists. Roughly two million people have been killed in the Islamic government’s war against its southern region. ÍA study by sociologist James Davidson of Purdue University demonstrates that the marriage rate of Roman Catholics to nonCatholics today is twice that of the rate before Vatican II. In what some see as a parallel to the experience of Protestant liberalism, one of the main effects of a more “open” church has been the lessening of commitment to the faith community.

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21 W I S H L I S T F O R T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U RY

We Wish for…

The Reformation for the

Black Church t is evident, from even the most casual observation, that the evangelical church of our day has shifted dramatically away from the theological moorings of our Protestant forefathers. The influence of modernity, neoGnosticism and Pentecostalism extend from the most conservative confessionally Reformational churches to the nonconfessional and more distant heirs of the sixteenth century Reformation. In other words, all sectors of the evangelical church are affected to a greater or lesser degree by the same problems. Therefore, all segments of Evangelicalism could benefit from a recovery of the fundamental truths gained from the light of the sixteenth century Reformation.

I make mention of this because, although my focus here is the black church, it is with the understanding that the problems plaguing it are the same ones plaguing the evangelical church as a whole. The very fact of a “black church” is indicative of social and cultural factors that extend beyond theology. And the theological crisis affecting all of Evangelicalism is played out in the context of the black church against the backdrop of these extenuating factors. Two things should be understood before considering my main point: 1) The black church, although unique in terms of social, ethnic, and cultural distinctives, is not unaffected by the theological problems of the day. 2) Social injustices of the past and the present,

I

BY KEN JONES

although very real and deserving of serious consideration, do not exempt the black church from theological and doctrinal criticisms.

The Primary Mission of the Church?

Having said this, I will begin by saying the black church can benefit from recovering (or discovering) the message of the Reformation, in that it will provide a balanced and consistent theological framework from which its social ministries can be measured.

This applies particularly to inner-city black churches that are surrounded by economic depression and substandard living conditions. In such areas, local churches have provided food, clothing, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and job training. Such ministries and services are commendable and advantageous to the community. However, a problem I have observed among church leaders and pastors in the Los Angeles area is that many of them are defining these activities as essential to the primary purpose and function of the church. The theological framework of the sixteenth century Reformation would establish the church’s primary purpose and duty as administering the Word and the Sacraments.

But what I have seen in many inner-city situations is the exact opposite. Churches are being defined as being good or truly Christian, not by the message proclaimed, but by the duties and services performed. Here inner-city churches could learn from the Reformation.

Biblical Evangelism A second benefit from the Reformation that would be helpful for our black churches is that of being clear on the context of the Gospel, especially as it pertains to evangelism. There can be no doubt on the part of anyone who has attended a black worship service, that there is a genuine desire to save souls. Unfortunately, both the method and the message of soul-saving are greatly influenced by nineteenth century revivalism, spearheaded by people like Charles Finney, where the emphasis is on emotional manipulation. It is from this movement that we have inherited altar calls, mourners’ benches, making decisions for Jesus and the like. These things are still prevalent throughout Evangelicalism but especially so in our black churches. I believe that a recovery of the Gospel message, as articulated by the reformers with a proper and biblical understanding of the nature of God, of fallen man, Both the method and the message of soul-saving are greatly influenced by and of the redemptive work of Christ, would cause us to nineteenth century revivalism, spearheaded by people like Charles Finney, where reshape our message and rethink our methods. the emphasis is on emotional manipulation. It is from this movement that we have It has been my experience that while many in the black church are untrusting of what inherited altar calls, mourners’ benches, making decisions for Jesus and the like. white theologians have to This is not to suggest that the reformers were say, they are well versed in the theology of the four not concerned with the social ills and poverty of spiritual laws.

A return to reformational their day. Geneva under Calvin’s leadership and evangelism would be a return to the scriptural influence is a prime example of ministering to the teaching on the sovereignty of God, the needs of the community. And as the Reformation regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, and the spread throughout Europe so did hospitals to deal proper proclamation of the law that kills and the with health problems, schools to educate, as well as Gospel that brings life as the means of saving the other ministries to address other social needs. The lost. There must be a distinction between saving difference was that such activities were understood souls and getting people to make a decision to join by members in the church as the living out of the our churches. Again, this unbiblical evangelism is second table of the law (man’s duty to man). not unique to our black churches, but there are Although some of this work was done through the historical factors that cause it to manifest itself institutional church, it was not deemed the uniquely in our environment. defining work of the church. The church’s primary function was and is to properly administer the An Educated Clergy Word of God and his Sacraments. Proper A final benefit to consider from the Reformation administration of the Word clearly includes sound is the training of the clergy. A prevailing problem exposition of the law, which should lead its hearers in our black churches is that of preachers and (out of a sense of gratitude to Christ for what he pastors who are theologically unprepared. The has done) to a sense of duty to their fellow man, as reasons for this are manifold. For instance, there they have the opportunity and capacity to do so. was a time when educational opportunities were not

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afforded to us. And with the emergence of the black church as an entity, the calling and appointing of pastors was left in the hands of uneducated or poorly educated congregations. This should be understood alongside the fact that during slavery it was not uncommon for slave owners to take a slave that had been taught to read and educate him to be a spiritual leader among the other slaves. After slavery, in many cases, the educational institutions that would receive black students were liberal or Arminian. It should also be noted that sporadically throughout history there have been individuals who under favorable circumstances were able to defy the odds and get full academic training in theology and other fields when these doors were closed to other blacks. Such was the case of Lemeul Haynes, a halfblack, half-white, Congregationalist and Puritan who pastored a white congregation in the seventeenth century.

But these are exceptions. What was more common were barriers denying people of African descent educational opportunities. This is the reason that most black churches in this country are congregational, where the ordaining of ministers is in the hands of the membership or other autonomous bodies, not necessarily requiring any particular training. If a man was charismatic, was reasonably knowledgeable of Scripture, had a good reputation among the people, and was thought to be fairly devout, he could be ordained as a pastor.

I do not demean any of these men and am certain that many provided sound biblical preaching and leadership under the most trying of circumstances.

In fact, I relish the accounts given by elderly family and church members of preachers in their youth that lacked formal education and were able to accurately proclaim the Word of God. However, what was once a situation of necessity eventually evolved into a dangerous pattern of extremes.

Either congregations were choosing ministers based on the above-mentioned criteria, even though training was available, or they chose based on education regardless of the theological position of the candidate. The pattern of the reformers was to train ministers, not only in the necessary languages, but also in the doctrines of the Protestant faith. With the development of various Protestant denominations and their confessions of faith, ministers were trained in and charged to preach in the spirit of these confessions. Such training and theological and doctrinal integrity would be a great asset to all churches, but especially our black churches. Formal training would be ideal, but if not possible, training in the basic doctrines of Protestantism beginning with the solas and a knowledge of the major creeds and

confessions would be better than what is currently often the case.

In summary, I would wish to see the black church challenged by the Reformation to understand her status in the light of Scripture. In other words, she would be challenged to be more biblical than black, to be more theological than sociological. â–

Rev. Jones, a member of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is pastor of Greater Union Baptist Church, Compton, California.

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ince change for the good is initiated

by

a

positive

thought process that cancels

evil (which is present only in negative thinking),

there

is

in

[feel-good

American] popular religion none of the traditional Christian belief in the divine significance of suffering. Here suffering, like poverty, is the product of negative thoughts and the negative action they assure. Tragedy has no meaning. — Richard Quebedeaux,

By What Authority, 15.

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21 W I S H L I S T F O R T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U RY

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Pastors, Elders I

t will come as no surprise to regular readers of this magazine that my “wish list” revolves around the subject of ministry. If reformation occurs everywhere else, but not in the way we “do church,” then it will not be genuine reformation. Jesus didn’t found a renewal center, a small group model, a reformation coalition, or a political action committee. He founded a

church. And he did so with eleven lackluster followers (well, sometimes they followed) on whose weakness he founded the Ministry of Word and Sacrament.

For most American Protestants (including many of us), “ministry” has become a catch-all for nearly any God-glorifying activity. It is apparently not enough that one helps a neighbor fix her roof just because she’s a neighbor; one has to belong to a roof ministry, justifying what doesn’t need to be justified by referring it ultimately to an evangelistic yield. This mentality tends to distort both the goodness of the secular and the distinctiveness of the sacred. To play off of a Pauline phrase, “All things are helpful, but not all things are ‘ministry.’”

Roofing is not a means of grace.

Our Reformed and Lutheran forebears knew this distinction and it is found in the confessional and dogmatic heritage of these communions, especially as alternative theologies of ministry were propounded by both Rome and the “enthusiasts.”

It is not the minister, but the ministry, that is a means of grace. And the ministry that is a means of grace is that which administers the Word and the Sacraments. At least as the Reformed have interpreted it, the threefold office of Christ is mediated through the Church and its officers. The “priesthood of all believers” does not entail the “ministryhood of all believers.” The officers serve as Christ-bearers—“stewards of the mysteries,” as Paul calls them. They serve the people just as Christ did and continues to do through them. In the following, I would like to apply some of these assumptions in a “daydream” of how this might look on the ground. I’ll divide it according to office, although terms may vary according to ecclesiastical polity. The article focuses on the pastor, but also considers the elder and the deacon.

The Pastor’s Job: Word and Sacrament While team-building may be important for success in business, it is not ministry teams, but

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ministers, to whom God has entrusted the tasks of faithfully preaching his Word and administering his Sacraments. If ministry becomes anything and everything, then it stands to reason that the minister cannot possibly administer it all. My dream is to see pastors, who have sometimes adopted an erroneous every-member-a-minister approach, take responsibility again for the service of worship on the Lord’s Day. The pastor, after all, is God’s appointed worship leader, not merely the best speaker of the day. It would be great to see pastors learning more about church music (especially the Psalter!) and church musicians learning more about theology, and then to see them plan the services together.

At the same time, the minister must not confuse his ministerial authority with personal authority, for he is constrained by his office to preach not himself, but Christ. In that office (not in his person), he is Christ to us. When he stands in the pulpit and speaks to us, Christ is addressing us through him.

That means it is extremely arrogant for ministers to use the pulpit as a forum to share their personal insights about life and their worldview, or to display their technical grasp of the languages and theology.

We did not come to hear the minister in his person, but to hear our Lord and Savior through the minister in his office. We can “share” at the pub.

paid leave to engage in continuing theological education or to prepare sermons and catechetical material? It’s amazing to read the books of church order (including even those of this century) that define the minister’s responsibilities as the preaching of the Word, the administration of the Sacraments, the oversight of discipline, and the catechizing of the youth. (Hmmm, what about the youth pastor and youth ministry? Another time.)

Time to Be a Thoughtful Pastor-Scholar Then there’s the “vision” thing. Conservatives are notorious for myopia, and vision is sometimes mistaken for encroaching liberalism. Such thinking just has to stop, in my humble opinion. There is a knee-jerk, lazy conservatism afoot in our circles that is just as inimical to the hard work of genuine orthodoxy and passionate orthopraxy as its nemesis.

We have to stop viewing orthodoxy as a perch from which to criticize “those below” and begin to see it as a means to the end of serving God and our neighbor.

While many efforts at church growth are consumer-driven, we must provide real-life examples of church communities that are obsessed with working their theology out in practical mission. Being concerned with getting the Gospel out at the expense of getting the Gospel right is bad, but getting the Gospel right with little concern about getting it out is probably worse. ConFor most American Protestants (including many of us), “ministry” has become a servative-minded folks have to get beyond the “hold the catch-all for nearly any God-glorifying activity .… This mentality tends to distort fort” mentality and the sort of infighting that inhibited the both the goodness of the secular and the distinctiveness of the sacred. success of Abraham Kuyper’s labors in turn-of-the-century Holland. If a lazy liberalism Many teaching and edification ministries have goes with the flow of modernity, a lazy sprouted up across the country in a vacuum of conservatism is content to simply reject the present genuine preaching and teaching in the church. And as if it didn’t exist, usually retreating to a nostalgic too often some pastors, heavy-laden with spot in the recent past that was in truth just as expectations for involvement with myriad problem-ridden in its own way. Let’s stop waiting “ministries” that are not ministry, allow these groups for creative “progressives” to do all the thinking, to flourish in their midst precisely to avoid having imagining, constructing, and then sustain our to study and prepare in order to be pastors to their meager existence on our daily criticism. flock. Imagine what would happen if your local Pastors need support for their “vision” thing. church excised many of the “ministries” and the But there is vision and there is vision. While a pastor had all this free time? (I know, I know, a lot vision of leadership or a vision of reaching the of people would be upset if they had to miss a week community is important, it’s not foremost in or two of the children’s sermon, but they do not importance. A theological vision brings clarity and seem to care that they do not regularly receive focus to one’s ministry: What do I preach?, is of communion. And this even though the former is an greater importance than the question, How do I element of worship chosen by us, while the latter is preach? If we are clear about the former, the other an element of worship commanded by God.) visionary horizons will eventually merge with it.

But imagine: What would happen if pastors At a recent conference for ministers at were given time to be pastors—maybe even some Westminster Seminary in California, Tim Keller,

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pastor of New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, noted that many churches push “friendship evangelism” or door-to-door, or “inviteyour-neighbor-Sunday.” But this is rarely effective in attracting newcomers to church. Rather, he said, when pastors preach Christ clearly in a way that connects with the regular congregation, the people feel comfortable inviting their friends to church.

The problem is that many in our churches are simply afraid to invite their co-worker or family members to church. It’s more than a fear of personal embarrassment—it’s too great a risk in terms of turning visitors off to further discussion.

The layperson doesn’t know what tangent the pastor may end up pursuing this week; he or she is unsure that an unbelieving friend will clearly hear the Gospel in the service.

Keller’s point suggests that if more pastors could devote themselves to understanding the Scriptures, theology, and secular books and periodicals that might help gain an appreciation for the factors shaping their people, there might be greater growth. Most ministers know how easy it is to get sidetracked in pastoral ministry, and to lose the steam necessary for remaining a scholar-pastor. But that is what ministers are called to be, even if everything else has to go.

Good Preaching, Frequent Celebration of the Lord’s Supper Some conservative churches are shrinking because they are faithful both to properly governing/limiting “ministry” and to ensuring that the pastor can be a serious student. (Church splits over philosophies of ministry and worship, as well as theology, are not always avoidable—nor are they always wrong.) But not all conservative churches that are shrinking are shrinking for these reasons. Some of these, I’m convinced, are ineffective because although “ministry” is properly limited to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, the preaching is simply quite terrible (for a variety of reasons) and the Supper is administered infrequently. Increasingly, I hear the frustration of a growing chorus of folks who are weary of hearing the pastor preach himself rather than Christ.

Using the Scriptures to underwrite one’s pet peeves—viz., brow-beating the people for not being involved in programs, finding a way of leaping from a given text to discourses on America’s moral decline or one’s personal political views, offering cultural analysis (often that is as out of touch with the culture as it is the text), etc.—is not just a liberal temptation. I don’t know what I’m going to receive from a conservative preacher any more than from any other minister these days.

Furthermore, when the Supper is administered (at least in Reformed and Presbyterian circles), it is often with a certain degree of didactic overkill that tries to “correct” the liturgical forms that are apparently not sufficiently Zwinglian for American Protestantism. In Calvin’s liturgy, it was the service of Word and Sacrament, and although the city council repeatedly rejected his demand for weekly communion, his regular service continued to be a Word-and-Sacrament liturgy. Thus, even when the Supper was omitted, there was a “place-holder” marking what Calvin had hoped to see in the future.

Today, when we celebrate the Supper of our Lord, it is often “tacked on” to the service, even where our communion forms integrate the celebration with the rest of the service leading up to it. Frankly, I long for the day when Reformed pastors spend more time discovering the meaning and centrality of the Sacraments alongside the preached Word. Some signs of this have been appearing. In a growing number of Reformed and Presbyterian churches now, weekly communion is the norm. Pastors of these churches note how even their preaching has changed as a result, forcing them to be more Christ-centered and crosscentered in the light of the Sacrament. (Of course, the Gospel alone should force us to think this way, whether there is a communion service or not, but we can always use props to support our weakness.)

Part of the problem, of course, is the dearth of contemporary literature on the subject, but still there are our dogmatics—and that is usually a good place to start in order to dig more deeply into the Scriptures on this subject. We give lip service to “the Word rightly preached and the Sacraments rightly administered” as the means of grace, but often—in conservative and more “contemporary” circles alike—we have not given much attention to these matters of liturgy, preaching, ministry, and the Sacraments. Some of us who have come from mainstream Evangelicalism have simply attached Calvinistic or Lutheran distinctives to a basically nonconfessional stem, imitating the evangelical mainstream and picking up our practical views from Nashville, Wheaton, and Pasadena. But there is an organic unity to theory and practice and we need to talk more about how to bring those two together.

Baptism is not only a doctrine, it is an action. And it is not only an action in the church, but an action in the world as well. We need to end the separation of doctrine and practice that prevails in much of confessional and pietistic Protestantism alike.

Neither “Traditional” Nor “Contemporary” On occasion I’ve been called “high church” by friends simply for defending views that were well

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within the mainstream consensus of Reformed Christianity until revivalism and its more recent manifestations cut off communications with the past. But “high church” has traditionally identified a wing of Anglicanism that tends toward Roman (viz., sacerdotal) elements, aspects that are often regulated by human creativity rather than by the Word of God. I have no more interest in seeing the Reformed churches imitate Rome than in seeing them imitate Willow Creek. Much of the imitation, however, tends toward the latter these days.

I can’t resist an anecdote at this point. A Yale theologian with whom I met sporadically for tutorials a couple of years ago told me about his visit to a megachurch while visiting friends who attended there.

Belonging to a mainline denomination, this professor was uneasy about what he would find at an evangelical megachurch.

But at least there would be a bit of “Gospel” in there

myriad forms, in its lethal combination with modernity (entertainment, consumerism, therapeutic remedies, a passion for novelty, etc.)— is more of a threat to serious Christianity and genuine discipleship than mainline Protestantism.

Ironically, there is often more “Gospel” still clinging for dear life to the formal structure of some traditional mainline churches than one finds in some evangelical and, dare I say, Reformed/Presbyterian churches where everything serious and Christ-related has been marginalized.

This isn’t to think too highly of the current mainline churches. It is rather to say that the liturgies put in place in better days in those communions continue to proclaim some Gospel today, even if much of the clergy is more interested in other things. (Lutheran theologian Rod Rosenbladt often refers—quite wisely—to good formal liturgies as ways of protecting the laity from whatever idiosyncrasies the Being concerned with getting the Gospel out at the expense of getting the clergy of future generations will develop.)

Gospel right is bad, but getting the Gospel right with little concern about I don’t want to see us go “traditional” or “contemgetting it out is probably worse. Conservative-minded folks have to get porary,” but rather to think deeply again about the nature, purpose, criteria, and beyond the “hold the fort” mentality. effects of ecclesiastical life, somewhere, he figured. He and his friends entered especially the service. As a rule, I think, traditional the expansive building as chatter slowly folks are no more aware of why we should do x and surrendered to the soothing sounds of the praise not y than those they criticize. In fact, those they band. As the service progressed, this professor criticize often were raised in this sort of reactionary became convinced that he was not going to get any environment. So conservatives tend to live off of “Gospel” in the liturgy, so he waited for the sermon. the memory of the recent past, while progressives He thought to himself, “Well, they probably cram indicate little interest in anything but the near everything into some evangelistic spiel—at least future. This is a narcissistic way to live. It’s as if the there will be some Gospel there.” But the sermon only really important things to know or to be came and went without the Gospel, the pastor obligated to, are those things that happen within sharing his life experiences about following biblical one’s own life span. Genuine reformation, if God principles instead. At this point in telling the story, chooses to give it, will involve what Gadamer calls this professor looked up at me and said with some a “fusion of horizons.” We should not try to return indignation, “I’ve been a theologian of a major to some ostensible “golden age” that never was mainline denomination all these decades. I’ve golden anyway, but we also should not exchange endured terrible sermons that exchanged the blind nostalgia for the past for blind confidence in Gospel of Christ for trendy moralism and the present and the future. Let’s stop being sentimentalism. But I have never been in a church conservative or progressive, traditional or that was so utterly devoid of Christ or the Gospel contemporary, and start being Reformed! We do before or since.” have the scriptural, confessional, dogmatic, and Our old categories for thinking about the practical resources in our inheritance for this American church scene are becoming useless. I position, as we honestly and charitably work used to think that mainstream, “contemporary” through faithfulness both to truth and to applying evangelical churches had given in too much to the truth in our time and place, not in somebody else’s. culture, but at least they hadn’t gone as far as Our Good Shepherd brought his new covenant mainline churches. I no longer believe that. I am community through the persecutions, heresy, and convinced that the effects of latter-day schism, and the Enlightenment. He will also bring revivalism—the legacy of Charles Finney in her through whatever “postmodernism” turns out

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to be, which is undoubtedly many things. The point is, let us be critical of all times “in this present age,” and be just as daring in facing our challenges with confidence in God’s grace, using “the age to come” as the criterion. And let us not doubt the sovereignty, wisdom, and graciousness of our God in leading us by faithful proclamation of the law and the Gospel each week, even through brittle jars of clay.

The writer to the Hebrews tells us that through baptism, preaching, and the Lord’s Supper, believers “taste of the powers of the age to come.”

Further, he tells us that since we are already eschatologically seated with Christ in heavenly places, we run the race here below not only in company with our generation as the collective runner, but surrounded by the cloud of witnesses, as they help us to fix our eyes on Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith.

Parting company with the Enlightenment, we will have to join “one holy, catholic and apostolic church” once more, eschewing the individualism and hostility toward tradition that marks sectarian American Protestantism far more than confessional varieties in various places around the world. Not only are there more Reformed believers in Nigeria than in the United States, the Reformed churches there are far more aware of their connection to the Reformed tradition specifically and to the whole church—not just in Nigeria, and not even just here and now, but to the whole church spread throughout time as well as place. Many of our American brothers and sisters would call them “high church,” too. But their reference point is deeper and wider than one typically experiences in American Evangelicalism.

This sense of connection not only gives people a richer sense of belonging to a particular ecclesial tradition; it also, ironically, generates an ecumenical vision. We need both desperately in our circles today. Not joining the parade of novelties may endanger our membership in the evangelical club, but it is to the communion of our confession and of those who have confessed it before us and will do so after us that our loyalties must ultimately lie under God. Seeking genuine unity with those of like confession through the ages and around the world may actually appear sectarian and narrow to those for whom “this present age” is relatively normative. But it is a wider, deeper, and ultimately more enduring ecumenism.

That’s why it is so ironic that some Reformed and Presbyterian folks today suggest that having a set liturgy or set elements in every service represents the imposition of white, northern European religion on people in the two-thirds

world. The same is said about theology: it’s linear, western thinking. Then why was it that at the recent Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, the two-thirds world bishops of the Anglican communion threatened division if the Europeans and Americans didn’t stop trying to impose liberalism on them? The outspoken critic of Christianity, Bishop John Spong, even had to apologize to these bishops for having, earlier in the conference, blamed their orthodoxy on the suggestion that they were but one generation removed from animism, after all.

The same is true about liturgy and church music, much of the best of both originating in the near east. Africans are also among the earliest composers of services, prayers, and Psalters. While the reformers insisted on simply purging the unscriptural novelties that had been added during the Middle Ages, many of their successors today resemble more the radical “enthusiasts,” who, having the Spirit, wanted to start from scratch.

Very different from this, Calvin was fond of saying, “… according to the Scriptures and the ancient custom of the Church,” in offering his liturgical criteria. It’s rather difficult to imagine us saying that today in some of our circles.

No, this isn’t a “high church” dream at all. It is Reformed. And it is evangelical and catholic in the best sense of those terms, which is what being Reformed used to entail. If we know what we believe and why we believe it, why should we feel defensive and reactionary in the presence of those with whom we differ?

Elders Again, this article is neither an exegetical nor historical treatment of the offices, but an exercise in application. In Reformed polity, the minister holds a distinct office from that of the elders, while in Presbyterian polity, the minister is a teaching elder. Other subtle differences may exist across the landscape represented in this magazine.

Regardless, I think that most of us would agree that elders are entrusted with the supervision of the ministry along with the minister. In Reformed churches this is still often represented by having the elders file out of the consistory room to line up in front of the pulpit, shaking hands with the minister as he followed them. In Presbyterian churches, it was visually represented by the elders seated either to the sides or behind the pulpit. And I have heard of cases in recent decades in which the elders agreed to interrupt the minister midsentence, concluding the service or at least the sermon due to seriously deficient preaching.

Growing up in Evangelicalism, we attended

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The office of deacon is a ministry in Christ’s church. It is a ministry not to the spiritual needs of the congregation, but to their physical needs.

The fact that Christ has founded this office and has, in the Book of Acts, shown us examples of how it is to operate, underscores the full extent to which our Shepherd cares for his flock, in body and in soul.

In recent years, several books have been published related to the restoration of the diaconate in Geneva and, largely through its influence, in the wider Reformed world. Because space is limited here, I’ll offer just a few examples.

Add the plague to the stress of being overwhelmed by especially French and Italian refugees fleeing persecution, and then you have some sense of the daunting challenges that Calvin and his church council faced. They saw that the office of deacon had been diverted from its original purpose of helping the needy to being servants of the priest in the mass as well as in daily labors. Calvin and his fellow ministers thus put theory into practice.

Combination hotel/hospital buildings were built, entirely administered by the deacons. Refugees, often arriving in Geneva with little more than their clothes, were nursed back to health, then interviewed, and then either taught a necessary discipline (such as French, if they were not Frenchspeaking) or made apprentices to skilled workers.

Only in recent decades have Genevan hospitals been secularized, a testament to the enduring legacy of concern for the suffering that issued from the reformation of the diaconate.

Geneva, a backwater town with a reputation for a lazy, immoral, and The writer to the Hebrews tells us that through baptism, preaching, and the Lord’s undisciplined populace, thus became one of the major Supper, believers “taste of the powers of the age to come.” Further, he tells us that sources of industry and highly skilled craftsmanship. since we are already eschatologically seated with Christ in heavenly places, we run Low-interest loans were now allowed for those who had the race here below not only in company with our generation, but surrounded by arrived and had received nointerest loans as poor. It’s no the cloud of witnesses. surprise that banking flourished in Zurich and theologically well-informed, and dedicated to the Geneva. In fact, Geneva, Strasbourg, Amsterdam, ministry of reconciliation. The group may be and London became centers for refugees, Jewish as comprised of more plumbers and carpenters than well as Protestant. It is also no surprise that the businesspeople, but the different priorities would formative human rights thinkers and institutions stand in sharp contrast to the worldliness that are to this day located in these cities. Again, the surrounds us, even in our churches, even in ourselves. diaconate of the Reformation must be given a great deal of the credit for this success under God. Deacons Imagine a restored diaconate—not in the After challenging the concept of “ministries” whole Christian church, not even in your beyond the ministry of Word and Sacrament, I denomination. Imagine a restored diaconate in now need to make room for one major exception. your local parish. Here is where the people with many large churches. I would never have known what elders were, but I did not even really know who the leaders were, or to whom I could go. The pastor, of course, everybody knew. But nobody could talk to him, since he was so busy with those “ministries” we talked about earlier.

We need to recover the high view of office in general, but of the elder in particular. Too often, the elders (collectively called a “consistory,” “session,” or in some circles, “board of elders”) are selected not for the criteria that Paul lays out, but according to worldly status and skill. I once served on the pastoral staff of a church that, I was convinced, had selected its elders by lottery at the country club and various Republican Party dinners. Although this church had “Presbyterian” in its name, was traditional in its service, and competed with the Trooping of the Colour for pageantry on Reformation Sunday, the elders were at best indifferent, at worst hostile, to theology in general and Reformed theology in particular.

Another friend, a pastor of a large and wellestablished church, complained that his elders, being executives of major corporations, ran the church like a company, and that he felt pressure to compromise at every turn. “It used to be called the pastor’s study,” he confided, “but now it’s the pastor’s office.”

Imagine a body of elders committed to the task that elders are called to perform: namely, to visit every home of every church family at least annually, for the spiritual care and discipline of the membership. Imagine a consistory or session that was selected for being spiritually mature,

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not only theological depth but business experience are needed. Even today, in many Christian Reformed and United Reformed churches, an unemployed church member can go to the head deacon (or a secretary) and ask for a list of job opportunities offered by employers within the church. I have seen this in operation and it is a wonder to behold. Here the difference between difficulty and disaster is covered and people can go on with their lives, providing for their families.

The more the churches follow entertainment and consumer models of church growth, the less they will actually be churches. This is true not only for the ministry of Word and Sacrament, and for the work of spiritual oversight, but for the ministry of assistance. Experiencing genuine community depends not only on good preaching, regular celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and accountability to the people of God through their elders; it also requires actual embodiments of Christian care in tangible, institutional, systematic ways. Imagine a diaconate that is more than a glorified custodial service. Thinking about practical needs in our own communities, our minds reel with the possibilities. And because it is the ministry of assistance, not of reconciliation, it is not confusing either to us or to those we serve.

The diaconate does not exist to evangelize, to extend the kingdom, or to preach and teach.

Rather, it exists to look out for the temporal needs of God’s people. Rather than being overwhelmed with the great crises in our troubled world, we need to take active steps in our own churches for the restoration and reformation of the diaconate once more.

There is a lot of talk these days about “transforming culture.” But isn’t it a bit arrogant for us to talk this way when we look so much like the world that we’re supposedly going to transform?

We can’t live differently if we don’t think differently. And theology is the renewing of the mind by the Word of God. But that mind-renewal takes place not only for our own personal health.

It occurs because the Spirit is forming a community around a triumphant Lamb who was slain. It is not vague “enthusiasm”—revival, renewal, or even reformation, that will create this community. Rather, God has promised to do this by his Spirit through the ordinary means of grace.

We need to set aside the alleys that we have constructed as means of conveying God’s grace to the world and return to the highway that has been leveled before us by the prophets and apostles. A transformed church, faithfully executing the offices established by our Lord, will be blessed by

the Holy Spirit with flourishing leaves in this age, followed by the full harvest in the age to come.

Imagine that! ■

Michael Horton (Ph.D., Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and the University of Coventry) is associate professor of historical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and serves on the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

SPEAKING OF

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e are told that our theological differences will

disappear if we just get down on our knees together in prayer. Well, I can only say about that kind of prayer, which is indifferent to the question whether the gospel is true or false, that it is not Christian prayer; it is bowing down in the house of Rimmon. God save us from it!

— J. Gresham Machen, Education, Christianity and the State, 28.

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In Print January/February Book Recommendations Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality Neal Gabler (New York: Knopf, 1998) An important book that sharply illuminates our obsession with celebrity, gossip, scandal, and real-life melodrama. Neal Gabler shows us today’s astonishing conversion of life itself into Entertainment – Life the Movie.

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B-CLO-5 PAPERBACK, $13.00 Lutheran Worship: History and Practice Fred L. Precht (St. Louis: Concordia, 1993) This companion volume to Lutheran Worship examines the roots of Lutheran worship practices and critiques. It studies present corporate worship practices and contemplates future developments.

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On Tape From the Alliance Archives Christianity and the World A White Horse Inn series In this four-part series, hosts Michael Horton, Ken Jones, Rod Rosenbladt, and Kim Riddlebarger discuss the relationship of modern Christianity and contemporary culture. Four specific areas are addressed: the family, art, science, and education.

C-CATW-S 2 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $13.00 Seminar Tapes from the Theology of the Cross conference • Luther’s Theology of the Cross—Dr. Michael Horton • The Cross and Contemporary Worship—Dr. John Armstrong • Postmodernism: The Gagging of God—Dr. D.A. Carson C-97-SP0A 3 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $18.00 Amazing Grace James Boice We sing the hymn “Amazing Grace” with great emotion—but do we really understand why God’s grace is so amazing? Through this expositional study of key passages you’ll grow in your understanding of who God is, what he has done for you and how he can change your life. Topics covered in this series: how the Old Testament teaches grace, what it means to fall from grace, why God’s love embraces us despite our sins and the ways nonChristians experience God’s grace.

C-AG 16 MESSAGES ON 8 TAPES WITH A 36-PAGE STUDY GUIDE, $47.00 — NOW SAVE 30% — $32.90 The Armor of God D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Paul instructs us to put on God’s armor—but what does that mean?

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21 W I S H L I S T F O R T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U RY

We Wish for…

An End to Generational Segregation in the Congregation [DISCLAIMER: The following is not an argument for traditional worship. Rather, it is an appeal for biblical and Gospel worship.] e d dings a r e among the most festive and positive events we ever attend. Yet don’t you, like I, feel a discernible wave of sobriety at these words? “Whom therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

These grave words remind us that the bond established in marriage is ultimately created and regulated by God. It is to be inviolable because God made the bond, not just the institution of marriage. Since marriage is to reflect God’s

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redemptive love for his people acted out in Christ (Eph. 5:25-27), we rob God of that picture, and hence of his glory, when we treat marriage lightly or trifle with it. These wedding words remind us that, to break a marriage bond, we undo the work of God. Therefore, they should make us reflect soberly.

There is another bond which God has established that receives significant attention in the New Testament. It is not a creation ordinance like marriage but a “redemption ordinance,” a set of

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interpersonal relationships effected by the saving work of Christ. It is the relationship every Christian is to bear toward every other Christian individually and to the Church corporately. The work of Christ, by which he reconciled us to the Father, is to result in the reconciliation of people to one another.

When we come to God through repentance and faith in Christ, the result is that we come into a new relationship with the people of God. In Romans 10, Paul argued for the Gentiles’ legitimate share in God’s plan of redemption when he said, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon him…” (Rom. 10:12).

Similarly, in anathematizing the Judaizer’s annexation of the ethnic sign of circumcision to faith as a condition for justification, Paul said, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).

Again in Colossians 3:11, Paul addressed class distinctions arising from syncretism by asserting the new creation in Christ. This is “a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.” Similarly, the fracture of the church at Corinth caused by arrogance about spiritual gifts was rebutted in similar terms. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13).

In this pervasive Pauline doctrine, the apostle asserts a fundamental reality that must accompany the Gospel. When God makes us one with Christ he also makes us one with each other. Nowhere did he argue this more strongly than in Ephesians 3. The occasion of this epistle has eluded many scholars.

But there is good reason to believe that Paul was attempting to preempt the syncretism that had already caused deep problems at Colossi. Ephesians teaches that salvation is wholly a gift of God which comes by faith (2:8). As a result, Jews and Gentiles have been reconciled, made equal partakers of the Holy Spirit and united together into one household of God (2:14ff). In chapter 3, Paul appealed to his own unique apostolic ministry—steward of the mystery that Gentiles are equal heirs of God’s grace (3:6). His stewardship and calling was to preach “the unfathomable riches of Christ” (3:8). Paul’s appeal to the power that is already at work in them (3:20) is appropriate to his prayer that God would strengthen them in the inner man by the Spirit (3:16), so that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith (v. 17) and that they would comprehend the boundlessness of God’s love (3:18ff). This will be the source of God’s

glory to be revealed in the Church and in Christ for eternity (v. 20).

The implication of this linking of thought, taken simply, is this: If the Gospel is really preached and if the Gospel is really believed, then those who believe will find themselves in new relationships, relationships into which they would not—and could not—enter apart from the power of the Gospel. The Church, as a demonstration of God’s riches and power, should be made up of people who would normally not associate with one another otherwise. Conversely, the church where this reconciling effect is absent testifies to the absence or impotence of the Gospel.

This raises a very serious question. I realize this will be controversial, not so much because the doctrine is not clear, but because its consequences strike at some of the most deeply ingrained practices of many evangelical Christians. Of course, an obvious implication is that racial and economic segregation in the church are contrary to the very nature of the Gospel. It also makes clear why class bigotry is hostile to the Gospel. But another conclusion also seems inescapable: churches, and more specifically worship services, which are targeted to specific age groups to the exclusion of others share a fundamental failure to comprehend the heart of the Gospel. The problem plainly stated is that building the church on age appeal is as contrary to the reconciling effect of the Gospel as building it on class, race, or gender distinctions.

Add to this conclusion the fact that the family is the normal way in which the Gospel is to be propagated. The primary way in which the Gospel is to come to young people is through older generations. Anything that reduces interaction between generations in the church works counter to the covenant family.

Practically speaking, when we say in a pronounced way to a particular age group that we want them in a specific worship service, we are saying to other age groups that they are not wanted.

But even if we have another worship service for the other group, we are saying that the Gospel can’t effectively bring the two together. It is a statement of great doubt about the power of the God in the Gospel. Generational appeal in worship is an admission that the Gospel is not powerful. Having said all of this, some qualifications, explanations, and answers to objections in favor of generational worship need to be addressed.

Objection: “It works,” or “They won’t come if we don’t” Many who might object to such a severe judgment about age appeal will do so because age

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appeal “works.” If you believe that is an irrefutable response, then I can say little except to appeal to the fundamental problem of absolute pragmatism.

Most of my well-intentioned friends would not consider pragmatism an unanswerable argument.

As principled pragmatists, they would believe that what works should be given strong consideration as long as some basic principles are not compromised.

The first response to this principled pragmatism is to challenge whether it really does “work.” Most of my friends copying the great success stories of generational church planting are not finding much success, at least not the kind of success they’ve read about.

Moreover, the Great Commission itself speaks of the visible reign of the kingdom. Making disciples, baptizing, and teaching people to observe Christ’s commandments cannot be fulfilled apart from the visible church. The final phrase of the Great Commission—“I am with you always, even to the end of the age”—is elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel associated with the formal structures of authority in the Church (Matt. 18:20, cf. v. 15-19). In other words, evangelism is not the Great Commission but only a part of it. Perhaps better put, the Great Commission is the building of the Church, not merely (but certainly including) encouraging individual professions of faith.

Therefore, one has only The sociological realities which make market stratification possible and believed the Gospel in any full sense when one has profitable for advertising are root sources of angst, loneliness, callousness, joined oneself to the visible kingdom of Christ on earth, fragmentation, and alienation in the modern world. Their effects are ones the Church.1 You just haven’t preached the Gospel unless you’ve included the Church. which the Church should strive against in establishing the new eschatological And (back to the argument made earlier) one of the community envisioned in the New Testament. prime evidences of the But a more important question is whether such exertion of the reign/power of God is a a model is right. The biblical analysis with which congregation which transcends cultural barriers, we began asserts that there is a fundamental including age. The one who is reaching the lost is characteristic of the Gospel that is compromised. the one who calls people under the dominion of If people come under generational appeal, to what Christ through the Church. do they come? They come to a Gospel which is lacking one of its principal manifestations of Objection: “Communities are configured power. They come to a Jesus who doesn’t feel any this way today” Some of my friends would argue that today’s particularly urgent need to be a king. It leaves them in their own youth-world. And a message society is stratified not just ethnically and which leaves them in their own world fails to bring culturally, but generationally. Therefore, worship them into the world of the church—that is, the targeted toward a specific demographic profile is essentially the same as targeting a certain people world to come. group. They might even cite Paul’s famous statement regarding contextualization (1 Cor. Objection: “We must reach the lost” Others may resist my conclusion because they 9:19-23) and claim his example in preaching insist that we must reach the lost. And in order to differently to different people groups (cf. Acts 2, reach the lost we must do so in their terms. It is terrific 17). Such a response requires careful analysis of to be motivated by a compelling concern for the what is intended by the notion of accommodation. promotion of the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:16). This, after all, But aside from that, such an appeal reflects is the Church’s commission. But this is where ignorance of the fact that these new communities generational appeal falls desperately short. The word are built upon fundamentally worldly notions of “Gospel” has an object of reference. “Good news” has class, economics, race, commuting, and capitalism. a syntactical genitive. It is not any old good news The sociological realities which make market (e.g., a free car). Instead, it is the good news of the stratification possible and profitable for advertising kingdom of God/heaven. The Gospel is the news of are root sources of angst, loneliness, callousness, God’s reign (Is. 52:7; Rom. 10:15). And of course, fragmentation, and alienation in the modern world. the kingdom of God is not a realm, but a rule. To Their effects are ones which the Church should receive the Gospel means to come under the strive against in establishing the new dominion of God. Therefore, the lordship of Christ eschatological community envisioned in the New Testament. Therefore, the work of evangelism is inherent in the very term “Gospel.”

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should call people out of worldly stratifications, but especially out of ones that are the product of the dehumanizing forces of modernity.

Objection: “We’re just changing the package, not the contents” Many people would insist that the message of the Gospel and even Christian doctrine in general are not being compromised when they make generational appeals. They would insist that they are changing only the package, not the content.

But as Marshall McLuhan’s maxim—“the medium is the message”—tells us, when we change the form we alter the substance, too. Most of my seekerinterested friends, with their professed sophistication about cultural forms, should be the most aware of this. As a class, however, I find them largely unaware or uninterested in how the repackaging of Christian worship affects the content of the message. It is simply not credible, especially for the very ones who believe they are the most in touch with the times, to try to disconnect the medium from the message. At the least, adaptation of forms can implicitly validate the values of the culture from which they are adapted, be they urban ghetto hip hop or the Seattle sound.

It is essential to recognize that no medium is value-neutral. Thus, adapting those forms without serious reflection contradicts one’s claim to sophisticated cultural understanding. And even critical appropriation does not address the problem of rending the people of God by such contextualization.

Youth Culture and Market Stratification This is all sounding very strange to you if you (as I did) cut your teeth on youth ministry. Not only did I immerse myself in “yutes” for a number of years, I myself was once a “yute.” (If you don’t recognize the term “yute,” used by Joe Pesci in the movie My Cousin Vinny, then you probably don’t need to read this article.) I believed in the necessity of age appeal to attract people to the Gospel. But as I passed from twenty-something through thirty-something, I heard my peers expressing the same sentiments toward the Church that my junior high and high school charges did.

And it hit me like a ton of once-popular Levi’s jeans. Youth culture was primarily about market stratification, not about age.

Generational differences are likely as old as humankind, but the youth culture we know derives the majority of its identity from the Sixties. While there was certainly a strong ideological base for the youth revolt of the Sixties, Madison Avenue

quickly co-opted its strong sense of generational identity and increased purchasing power in the hands of young people. Since then, the social science of marketing has become increasingly sophisticated, subtle, and effective in grouping us and maximizing our economic response to advertising stimuli.

First we needed Fox as an alternative to CBS/NBC/ABC. Now we need the WB to replace Fox. Surge replaces Mountain Dew, Tommy Hilfiger instead of Levi’s. We moved from the Philadelphia of ThirtySomething to Melrose Place and 90210 and now we live on Hyperion Bay and Dawson’s Creek. The predominance of advertising as the language of cultural discourse requires “new-andimproved” everything because the corporation lives on beyond the lifetimes even of onceoptimistic, baby boomers. Essential to this product appeal is obsolescence and narcissism.

This is why Gen-Xers disdain the Boomer church to the same degree that Boomers did the church of the Builder generation. Young Life has come to church. This not only explains why the Gospel-narrating liturgy of traditional worship has turned into a period of kick-butt singing with a high-energy message tagged on. It also tells us how we have reached the point where the Gospel must come in demographically specific terms because it is automatically irrelevant if it comes in any antecedent form. I won’t buy an Oldsmobile if it’s my father’s and won’t believe the Gospel if it’s the “old, old story” my parents loved to hear.2 The Consequent Poverty What are the effects of a generational worship?

Many of the consequences should be apparent. It weakens the primary means by which the Gospel is to be propagated—the covenant family. The family often arrives at church together, separates in the parking lot, and only meets again at the car after worship is over. Parents depend upon program specialists to establish their children’s primary connection to the church, tacitly (and sometimes explicitly) saying to the children that the most important set of relationships in the church is the peer set. And then they scratch their heads, repent for unknown sins, and seek Christian counseling when their children stop regular church attendance in college or shortly after.

Another primary consequence of inculcating youth culture through generational appeal is the devaluation of older people. I remember those excruciating Sunday afternoons sitting on the front porch at Mr. and Mrs. Hamm’s house and the repulsive smell of urine in the nursing homes to which Mom and Dad dragged my reluctant

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One of those responses should not be the feeling that traditionalism is exonerated. Tradition must be evaluated on its merits in accordance with Scripture. Classical music, choir performances, and organ recitals are just as susceptible to the charges I have leveled at youth culture. This domination of cultural identity is not unique to the chronologically young but can be equally intense among the elderly with an insistence upon sentimental gospel songs that is often driven by nostalgia, not substance. My reasoning cannot be used legitimately to resist new music.

Neither is it a reason to eschew evangelism. In fact, as I see it, evangelism efforts should be thoughtfully directed toward reaching people “where they’re at.” Outreach events and programs are not subject to the same strictures as worship.

But such efforts must view themselves as a small part of the process and not the end itself. Yet, as noted earlier, evangelism is not the Great Commission. Aggressive outreach aimed at generational target groups must include programs to incorporate and integrate those reached into the whole family of God. The problems of genI would be a poorer Christian without the benefit of the wisdom and affection of eration appeal raised here also should not cause us to the old saints and without witnessing their perseverance. And many well-meaning dismiss legitimate generational distinctions. For but generationally targeted churches are evangelists for just such poverty. example, a church may be made up primarily of people from a particular immigrant In the generational appeal church or worship group. Many in the congregation may not speak service, these things will never happen. There will English very well or at all, yet all speak their be young men dreaming dreams, but no old men indigenous language fluently. They worship in seeing visions. Young men will have no elders to that language, be it Spanish, Korean, or Mandarin. which to be subject (1 Pet. 5:5). Titus 2:2-5 The first American-born generation will probably becomes a curiosity.3 I used to laugh at the be bilingual, speaking their native language and ridiculous mainline designation of “youth elder,” English in the home. Worship in the mother founded upon notions of the church as an tongue of their parents is intelligible. But the third egalitarian democracy. I now see officer nominees generation may not be fluent in or even know the of conservative Protestant church reflecting mother tongue. Native language worship is selections from all age groups. I would be a poorer unintelligible. This is a legitimate problem, not Christian without the benefit of the wisdom and brought on directly by materialism and narcissism. affection of the old saints and without witnessing There may need to be two different worship their perseverance. And many well-meaning but services in two different languages. generationally targeted churches are evangelists for What my analysis does mean is that worship just such poverty. Without a multigenerational (and church life) should be evaluated (according to church I would have known less of the power of the standard of Scripture) on the basis of whether the Gospel that brings God’s people into the new it is trans-generational, knowing that young people eschatological community established in Christ. always, to some extent, must learn to value what their parents value. How can this be done? It is Ways Forward challenging to sing and preach in ways that The realization that generational appeal holds multiple generations will appreciate. Let me fundamentally worldly and anti-Christian suggest two attributes of worship which lend assumptions should produce several responses. themselves to a trans-generational approach. brothers and me. The point of it all was lost on me until a moment in 1987 when I heard my 91-yearold grandmother pray at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Herrin, Illinois. We had sprung her from the home for a few hours. It was a simple phrase from her simple, toothless prayer before the meal that her old bones and years of longing produced— “…and we pray that we might see Jesus some day.”

It all made sense to me then. The long lines at funeral homes, waiting to be patted on the head by a distant relative or a friend of my parents I had never met before. Having my hand shaken up to the shoulder and called “old timer” every Sunday

by Uncle Charlie Matthews. (He was everybody’s uncle.) Bosky Sauer letting me pull the bell rope announcing worship to the whole town only to be too enthusiastic and causing the bell to turn upside down. (I’m glad Mr. Sauer’s septuagenarian legs held steady on the climbs up and down the steeple ladder.

My conscience couldn’t have borne it otherwise.)

Hearing Zeke Robb’s piercing (and slightly altered) tenor slicing through the congregational singing like the odd stem of a bagpipe.

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Historically, simplicity has been a prime virtue of Reformed worship. Simple liturgy and song is most conducive to corporate participation. They draw the least attention to themselves and, as a result, point people more toward their functions.

Though some might object that simplicity is aesthetically inferior, it is an impossible argument to maintain.

Peculiarity is another quality which will assist trans-generational worship. Music, in particular, which attempts to emulate to a high degree the styles from popular culture provides little reminder of the counter-cultural identity of being in Christ.

Singing “God makes me right-eous by fai-aith” to the tune of “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” is not only guilty of bad taste. It does little to reclaim one’s affections from the kingdom of this world for the kingdom of God. Simplicity and peculiarity in worship keep the substance of the Gospel on the table and before the minds and hearts of worshipers while allowing for truly aesthetic and affective expression.

“Whom God Hath Joined Together…”

The Gospel inherently includes the exercise of God’s dominion over the heart. The preaching of the Gospel is an appeal to make Christ king. One prime manifestation of that dominion is the reconciling work of the Gospel. Therefore, generational appeal in worship is contrary to the heart of the Gospel because its ultimate goal is not bringing generations together. This is as true for public worship, the consummate expression of the visible church, as it is for the life of the church as a whole. In the Gospel, God joins together people who have been estranged from one another as well as from him. Let no one put them asunder; let no one undo the work of God and the testimony to the power of the saving work of Christ in the Gospel. ■

SPEAKING OF

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he longer I looked into it the more I came to suspect that I was perceiving a universal law.

The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping. The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable levels of) intoxication…. Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand rediscovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made…. You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first

Rev. Glodo (Ph.D. candidate, Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia) is assistant professor of Old Testament and homiletics at Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando).

things first. From which it would follow that the question, What things are first? is of concern not only to philosophers but to everyone.

— C. S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, 278-81.

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21 W I S H L I S T F O R T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U RY

We Wish for…

Evangelical Unity Founded on the Gospel Rather than on a Power Base n a recent conversation with a national Christian media executive, I was reminded that we often shoot one another within the evangelical community rather than work together against the enemy. On the surface, that’s a valid observation. I have felt the pain from attacks within our circles.

And I’m sure I’ve lobbed a few finely honed barbs of my own. But I am concerned about an insistence upon unity for the sake of the Gospel that is increasingly focused on the unity and not on the Gospel itself. The standard rationale given is that we need to stand together to fight “the opposition”—by which one usually means the

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continuing decline of our culture. If you don’t go along with the mainstream of evangelical thought and take up the crusade against the current villain, you are considered a malcontent, a troublemaker.

This tension comes to the forefront because of the recent book, Blinded by Might,

by Cal Thomas and Edward Dobson. Church historian Bruce Shelley characterizes the book as “part otherworldly prophetic vision, part camp meeting invitation to evangelical political junkies to surrender all, and in small part, mea culpa.”1 Thomas and Dobson clearly have changed their earlier views and no longer believe that Christians can change the moral climate through

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politics. And while they don’t advocate a wholesale abandonment of participation, they do worry that the past two decades of activism have further distanced unbelievers from listening to the Gospel message.

There is a sense in which this may be true. The boom in the Christian media industry since the late 1970s, combined with recent technological leaps in the speed of communication, have made it possible for a power base to be formed and activated fairly quickly. Christian programmers like James Dobson, Beverly LaHaye, Jay Sekulow, and Oliver North have become celebrities of sorts and regularly call their listeners to action for one cause or another.

On a recent Focus on the Family program, James Dobson appealed to listeners to call Mellon Bank and voice opposition to the bank’s decision not to do business with Focus.2 The predictable result was that the switchboard at Mellon Bank’s Pittsburgh office lit up. At the crux of the embroglio was what Mellon perceived to be a conflict between Focus’ mission statement and Mellon’s nondiscrimination policy, namely not to discriminate based on race, creed or sexual orientation. The bank was afraid that conducting further business with Focus might be a step toward having this organization tell them that they couldn’t do business with certain other groups or hire certain people. But here’s the irony: in an attempt to avoid becoming the potential target of a Disney-like boycott, Mellon set off the exact thing they hoped to avoid. Only now instead of being boycotted for following standard anti-discriminatory practices in not considering sexual orientation in hiring decisions, they’d opened themselves to attack for refusal to do business based on the religious mission of a potential client.

But my real question is why is James Dobson telling his listeners all of this anyway? Not only is the story of the dealings with the bank not germane to the central purpose of their program, it generated an incredible expenditure of time and energy by his constituents, by Mellon employees, and certainly by those of us on the sidelines watching. Dobson has deviated from both the professed intent of Christian radio—proclamation of the Gospel and edification of the body—and from his own program’s focus on family values.

Historical Precedents Allow me to offer some personal experience which may shed light on this situation. My upbringing was American secular religion. I became a Christian when being “born again” was making headlines. Jimmy Carter was president and

the religious right was becoming a political force to be reckoned with. I was attending a small Christian liberal arts college when Ronald Reagan was elected President. Our campus had posters and pamphlets on “voting right,” most frequently using the abortion issue as a litmus test for candidates. As a Democrat who came from outside the Christian culture, I frankly didn’t get it. There was a lot of talk about morality, but what was really central was wielding power—or so it seemed.

The presence of a strong evangelical lobby such as the Moral Majority in the 1980s or James Dobson’s radio listeners in the 1990s is not a new phenomenon in American history. There are historical precedents for political maneuvering by a religious group throughout the twentieth century.

The Anti-Saloon League led the prohibition movement.3 With the pulpit as its base, the League became the church in action and functioned as the political arm of the Protestant churches. Permanent staff, volunteer speakers, and field agents reached about 50,000 during the final stages of the campaign. Ninety percent of the funds came from small pledges of a few dollars. Funding underwrote a formidable operation of publishing, lobbying, election of sympathetic legislators, and pushing the passage of legislation. The combined circulation of League publications exceeded 15,000,000. But the ultimate co-option the League pulled off was harnessing the prohibition movement to patriotism in support of the Great War effort. In a call for sacrifice of men and materials, grain was steered from the breweries to food production. And the coup de grace was a linking of the German-American Alliance to the breweries themselves, thus making the consumption of alcohol a suspect act.

Thousands of hours and dollars later, this effort to legislate personal morality ultimately failed to stand the test of the American governmental system and pluralistic society. And today it represents a symbol of a “Christian” society, where everyone is forced to swallow the taboos of a certain power base.

Later in the 1960s and 1970s, Carl McIntire used the same techniques to push his particular blend of Gospel proclamation and anti-communist rhetoric. Capitalizing on the Cold War paranoia, McIntire built an operation base that included the “20th Century Reformation Hour” radio broadcast, the Christian Beacon newspaper, Faith Seminary, Shelton College, and the Bible Presbyterian denomination. Once his “enemy” diminished, so did his movement. It’s now a small collection of churches, including several run-down properties in Collingswood, New Jersey.

In early 1998, I was present at a meeting presided over by Charles Colson to discuss the

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Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the Church’s Mission “The church and the Christian should not be interested only, or even primarily, in the general social effects of salvation, but in the fact that men and women should be brought nearer to God, and should live for his glory. When the church gives the world the impression that she is interested in revival only in order to heal certain moral sores, she is denying her own message. I am not primarily interested in revival in order that the streets of our cities may be cleansed; I am interested in it because I believe that for any man not to glorify God is an insult to God. I know that such a man is held bound, and my desire for him is that he may come to know God and glorify him in his daily life. The church is not interested primarily in the social consequences of irreligion. As I read my history, I see that it was because our fathers and grandfathers made that very error, towards the end of the Victorian era, that Christendom is in its present position. They became so interested in social conditions that they forgot this primary truth. They thought that if everybody was kept in order by certain Acts of Parliament, all would be well. But that is morality, and not Christianity.”

— Sanctified Through the Truth, 17.

“There are many today who say that Christianity is failing, and they say that because they know nothing about it. The foolish people who say—‘But look at the wars, look at the international situation! Your Christianity has been going for two thousand years and yet look at the state of the world, look at the terrible possibilities even now.’ But Christianity never said that it was in the world to banish war, it never claimed to do so, it has never offered itself as a social or a political movement for reformation. That is not what it is for. It makes Christians, and until you get Christians, you will never get Christian experience, you will never get Christian living, you will never get Christian anything. You cannot get the by-products of Christianity unless you have a belief in the Christian message first.”

— I Am Not Ashamed, 26.

“Light not only exposes the darkness; it shows and provides the only way out of the darkness. This is where every Christian should be jumping to the task. The problem of man is the problem of a fallen, sinful, polluted nature. Can nothing be done about it? We have tried knowledge, we have tried education, we have tried political enactments, we have tried international conferences, we have tried them all but nothing avails. Is there no hope? Yes, there is abundant and everlasting hope: ‘Ye must be born again.’ What man needs is not more light; he needs a nature that will love the light and hate the darkness—the exact opposite of his loving the darkness and hating the light.”

— Expositions on the Sermon on the Mount, Vol. 1, 168-69.

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then new Evangelical-Catholic document called “The Gift of Salvation.” In the course of the meeting Bill Bright, president of Campus Crusade for Christ, stood and suggested the document was needed so that the Gospel could go forth in Third World countries. Colson chimed in that it was necessary for Prison Fellowship’s work as well.

Both implied that the Gospel is not sufficient; agreement on political matters is apparently necessary as well.

Distinguishing the Church and Individual Christians Ultimately I think this syncretism is at the root of these movements. We see a world broken by sin. People we know and love are sucked into the muck and mire of our culture. We want to help.

But our most natural inclination is to respond with the Gospel and something. It’s wrongheaded. Our culture may never be transformed. That is not the Church’s calling—although Christians are, of course, called also to be citizens, parents, etc.

But the Church’s calling is to preach Christ crucified, dead, buried, and risen again. The result of that proclamation will be a transformation of individuals—who will then assemble as the Church. The purpose of the Church is worship, service, and proclamation of the Gospel. As the Church grows, culture changes. But if the Church takes her eyes off of her real calling (proclamation), she has failed.

As noted New Testament scholar J. Gresham Machen said nearly eighty years ago: “For if one thing is plain it is that Christianity refuses to be regarded as a means to a higher end….

Christianity will indeed accomplish many useful things in this world, but if it is accepted in order to accomplish those useful things it is not Christianity.”4 The problem is when we allow causes that are compatible to Christian teaching to become central. Eventually the tail wags the dog.

What we need to do is be the Church. Perhaps that’s what we should spend the better part of this new century learning to do. ■

Diana S. Frazier is the executive vice president of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals in Philadelphia. She has worked in the Christian media industry since 1981.

Other Worthy Wishes 1

We wish for an end to the harmful battle between systematic theology and biblical theology.

The system must arise from the text, and individual texts must be interpreted in light of the entire canon.

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We wish that a new reformation would sweep away the reactionary conservative-liberal way of thinking, and replace it with confessional ways of thinking instead.

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We wish for an awareness that the Christian life is a life of bearing the cross…which actually leads to delight in God’s providential care. The alternative (which is too often embraced) is a Christian life of “victory”…which actually leads to despair. The “theology of the cross” leads to heaven, and the “theology of glory” leads to many types of hell. May we soon get beyond the latter.

We wish that our churches would no longer be divided along socio-economic, political, and racial lines; that they would rather serve as a counter-culture for a world that doesn’t know what genuine (and unforced) brotherhood really is.

We wish for a resurgence in the belief that Christ is not only our justification, but also our sanctification. All too often, our sermons make it sound like we mature beyond the Gospel; as if Christ is somehow for the non-Christian, but the Christian can now derive life from the letter.

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We wish for theologically serious, churchly ecumenism. May the days of political coalitions and personality-driven “reconciliations” of various traditions soon come to an end, and ever fade from our memories.

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We wish for a recovery of catechesis—in the church and in what Luther called the “first church” (that is, the home).

We wish that churches would once again see their power for evangelism, growth, and outreach in terms of the ministry of Word and Sacrament.

We wish for patience with the “already/not yet” tension which comes from our place in redemptive history. Put another way, we wish for a healthy and balanced doctrine of creation—one that neither denies legitimate callings in this world (as do some varieties of premillennialism), nor sacralizes important-but-not-redemptive creative/ cultural activity (as do many versions of postmillennialism).

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We wish for the recovery of Lord’s Day observance. Somehow we have gotten the strange idea that the Lord’s Day doesn’t apply to us because we live in a hectic, post-industrial world.

Why?

We wish that the false gods of consumer culture would appear ever less tempting to us.

We wish for sheer delight in the hope of resurrected bodies. May everyone, from the male-patterned bald to the genuinely suffering, look to a glorious material future through the eyes of faith.

We wish that churches of the Reformation would practice what they preach, and do so in concrete terms, as the reformers themselves did with such great energy.

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We wish for a dose of the courage of the Christian martyrs who have run the race before us.

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We wish that the Sacraments which God instituted as means of grace would be rediscovered by contemporary Christianity.

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We wish that all of those former fundamentalists, evangelicals, and Roman Catholics who are now vocal secularists will hear the genuine message of law and Gospel sometime soon.

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21 W I S H L I S T F O R T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U RY

We Wish for…

Laypeople Willing to Engage in an Ongoing Conversation on Confessional Christianity he “information age” is the answer, we’re told. But what was the question? It surely wasn’t: “How can I learn to be more patient and kind?” Nor was it: “When will people stop moving around so much?

When will friendships again last longer than a car lease?”

Don’t misunderstand me: Impersonal, widely available information obviously has a very important place. Better structural specifications—that is, better information— could have saved many lives in the devastating earthquakes in Turkey in August and in Taiwan in September. Engineers who work on such projects are doing valuable work—as are doctors doing cancer research, the computer scientists and managers who help these other professionals share their data more easily, and many more.

Those pursuing these information-related earthly callings are demonstrating love to their neighbors, and they are to be commended.

But the breath-taking accomplishments of technology and business occasionally deceive us (with the shrewd assistance of marketers and advertisers) into thinking that all of life’s problems are simply technical riddles, soon to be solved by the

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forward march of Progress. This is rarely more evident than in the rhetoric surrounding recent developments in communications technology. To take a long-run perspective: smoke signaling, writing, and the invention of movable type were all communications revolutions that actually remade the world. It isn’t clear that Microsoft Office 2000 is quite that significant.

But the innovations of the last two hundred years—the telegraph and telephone, broadcasting via radio and television, and now the networking of millions of computer systems—have accomplished one thing that is completely new: It is now possible to transmit huge amounts of data over great distances for almost no marginal cost.

Almost anyone, anywhere in the world, will soon have access to the world’s best libraries and data storage facilities. As some technologists gleefully shout: “We have conquered space.” We are no longer confined to our present location, and to the limitations of our natural habitat, in the same ways that our predecessors throughout human history have been.

I will not pursue here all of the complex questions about the costs and benefits of the change. But it is worth noting—with more caution than most technophiliacs are usually willing to entertain—that there are indeed some costs to having so much information so readily available.

Put most crudely: In our age, it is incredibly easy to know a little about everything, and incredibly difficult to know a significant amount about anything. Who could remain focused long enough to develop competence? Almost everyone in the world shares knowledge of the details of Princess Diana’s fateful last evening, but few have shared enough evenings of food and conversation with their next-door neighbors to know them in anything more than a superficial way. We have miles of breadth but only inches of depth. Our lives are often fragmented and shallow.

“Consuming” Religious Literature But what does the pervasiveness of modern media have to do with Evangelicalism?

At one extreme (which might be labeled “neoGnosticism”), there is the reductionistic idea that our entire faith centers simply on the gathering of data. Therefore, now that one can watch church on cable, and have a Bible study in an electronic chat room, some assert that the physical assembly of believers is unnecessary. Those of us preferring material over virtual bodies, though, continue to think that things like the Sacraments and the holy kiss present a bit of a challenge to cyber-church.

(For further discussion of these matters, see the

May/June 1998 issue of MR, “Why Does Matter Matter?”)

But such a blatantly anti-material position is still quite rare. Much more common, though, is the simple, passive belief that we are too busy to become thoughtful about our theology. Modern life is just too hectic, we think.

However, might the problem actually be distraction, rather than being genuinely overworked? How many times a day do we really need to hear the news summary of distant atrocities? For floods and famine have always occurred—and they occur whether or not I know every detail instantly. Of what real use is such information? Similarly, do I really want to know where the Dow Jones Industrial Average stands fourteen times per week? The information concerns a small retirement account that I won’t be touching for forty years. And perhaps just 4,000 updates on Monica-gate in 1998 would have been sufficient for me to be a properly informed and responsive citizen.

My point is simply that the twenty-four hour cable news cycle (which also reshapes the time horizons of the print media1), and the ubiquitous presence of televisions and radios (there are now two-inch screens on my neighborhood gas pump!) really do affect our lives. And we are naive to deny that some of the effects are adverse. For one aspect of our sinful nature, our desire to usurp God, is that cravings for self-gratification are nearly limitless— and the marketers who put billboards and “new and improved” products all around us every day are well aware of these tendencies.

This article is not a call to flee the world and its information, much of which is important in the order of God’s creation. Rather, this is a call to be thoughtful about how the pervasiveness of information can lead us to think that all of it is important and necessary—and, consequently, that we do not have time to focus on other issues. The displaced topics are often of less “urgency,” but greater long-term significance.

Many friends say that they need to know more theology and church history, but they simply don’t have the time. Moreover, some complain, the effort required to read theology is particularly time-consuming. And time is what they claim not to have. Yet most of these same folks spend well over an hour every single day reading newspapers on the Internet or watching “news” programs on television. We should at least recognize that such habits/priorities are unique to our age.

This addiction to constant, new information about remote events has obviously had an effect on evangelical publications and readers. It is

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commonplace in Evangelicalism to say that theological distinctions are divisive, irrelevant, and too hard to understand. Yet armies of culturewarring evangelicals across the land seem to have little difficulty staying informed about the latest details on the status of gay ordination in some twenty-congregation denomination in southwest Ohio. Again, this is not to imply that the latter point is completely irrelevant. But it is to argue that we have ample time for distant events that do not affect us at all, while we have virtually no time for focused reflection on the important matters of doctrine, worship, and life that touch us where we actually live. Consequently, it isn’t much of a surprise that most market-conscious evangelical publications read like People magazine. Yet thoughtful Christians must take the time to consider at length the essentials of the faith.

To Create a New Community of Discourse MR exists to accomplish two things. First, we hope that a wide range of individuals learns from each issue. From overview articles to editorials and glossaries, we hope that a new Christian interested in understanding theological categories benefits from these pages. From more technical articles to book reviews and interviews, we aim to offer something for the pastor and professor as well.

Our first intention then is simply didactic; we aim to promote a classic Christian theology that is especially fed from the clear springs of Reformation thought.

Our second objective is more difficult to articulate; it has to do with creating a community of discourse. (Here a rather primitive form of communications technology—print—is our ally, rather than our temptress.) Robert Godfrey, President of Westminster Seminary in California, Having seen modernism deny both the authority of Scripture and the recently commented that “this Alliance exists to forge a supernatural character of the Gospel, and having grown tired of the world-denial new kind of Evangelicalism.”

The old, post-World War II of fundamentalism, Carl Henry and the “neo-evangelicals” understandably wanted Evangelicalism was based on hiding differences between to unite around all that they had in common.

Lutheran and Baptist, Reformed and Congregationalist, and affirming a minimalist consensus.

The Purpose of Modern Reformation Having seen modernism deny both the authority So now let me shift gears rather dramatically, and of Scripture and the supernatural character of the refine the twenty-first century “wish” that framed Gospel, and having grown tired of the worldthis article. (Candidly, let me put on the pitchman’s denial of fundamentalism, Carl Henry and the hat for a while.) The general hope behind this “neo-evangelicals” understandably wanted to unite article is that evangelicals would be more thoughtful around all that they had in common. Where there about how much “news” is really necessary, that we had been minority groups opposed to liberalism in would prioritize more wisely regarding how much of each mainline denomination, fundamentalism and our learning is devoted to different subject areas, later Evangelicalism nobly sought to bring these that we would take our obligations to think clearly refugees together. and Christianly—to be good stewards of our Please note that we are admitting that this minds—seriously. But, more specifically, I want to attempt was both understandable and noble. But, argue for the uniqueness of Modern Reformation’s as we see it, it suffered from at least two major position in the orbit of lay evangelical publications. problems. One of these was inherent in the vision; This argument might be conceived of as a statement the other developed over time. First, the nature of of our editorial intent, and as a plea for some of your “minimalism” (focusing almost exclusively on that limited reading time. which we share) can lead people to believe that To this end, I will attempt to answer four matters about which we differ (the Sacraments for questions: First and foremost, what does this instance) actually don’t matter at all. Over time, magazine exist to do that is different from other this tends to undermine people’s identification with publications? Second, what does it mean to say particular church bodies. “Joe” conceives of that MR is neither a “theological journal” nor a himself less as Reformed and more as evangelical, as “general magazine,” but rather a “theological magazine”? if the two are competing loyalties.

Third, who is the intended audience of MR? Again, we must be clear about what we are not Fourth, this magazine is published by the Alliance saying: We are not denying the importance of of Confessing Evangelicals; how are “confessing identification across denominations. After all, evangelicals” distinguished from “evangelicals”? fostering a type of pan-Protestant coalition is

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exactly what the Alliance exists to do. But this Alliance is not the church; it neither administers the Sacraments nor exercises discipline. It isn’t a preaching ministry either; instead, it aims to teach about—and recall people to—the basics of the Reformation. This Alliance, like much of what Evangelicalism originally sought to be, is important, but it is not the church, and it shouldn’t displace the church. For it is to membership in the visible Church which Christ calls us.

The second problem with Evangelicalism relates to the first, but shouldn’t be totally imputed to its founders. Refugees from liberalism knew what they had in common and why they were coming together, so they didn’t see the need to define and confess the entire substance of the faith.

They focused instead on defending the Bible and the supernatural generally. It simply didn’t occur to this first generation of neo-evangelicals that the very reason the Bible and the supernatural needed to be defended—that is, for the sake of the Gospel—might be forgotten over time. But by not directly subscribing to historic confessions of faith, by not connecting sufficiently to the older traditions of the Church, the substance that these brave pioneers affirmed implicitly was not passed on to their children and grandchildren.

Sociological conceptions of an evangelical (a conversion experience, belief in personal prayer, affirmation of moral absolutes, particular political policy positions, etc.) began to replace the common theological substance that had defined an evangelical. In other words, minimalism was troubling enough, but undefined minimalism led to a devolution of even the limited theology that was originally held in common by the first generation neo-evangelicals. In our day, it is not at all clear what an evangelical affirms about the work of Christ in the salvation of sinners. So what is the point of being an “evangelical” at all?

Multiple Identities as Concentric Circles In dissent from many of today’s evangelical leaders, we believe that the label “evangelical” should communicate a certain set of precise theological convictions. Being an evangelical shouldn’t be a sociological category— communicating things about political beliefs or musical preferences. Instead, “evangelical” should be thought of as a “genus” category, with the “species” being particular denominational traditions that are faithful to historic Protestantism.

To make this more concrete: Justification and the Sacraments are both very important, but not equally important. So I have two obligations: My first obligation is to membership in the visible

Church of Christ, where I am hearing the preached Word announce forgiveness in Christ, where I am receiving the Sacraments, and where I am being taught to obey all that Christ commanded. (These three together constitute the Great Commission Christ gave to the Church.) Yet, it is also important for both the health of the invisible church and her witness to the watching world that we have an understanding of—and an ability to articulate—that which all historic Protestants confess in common across denominations—namely, the five “solas” or “only’s” of the Reformation: sola Scriptura, solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, soli Deo gloria. In other words, even if two traditions differ over important matters such as church polity or the interpretation of the Lord’s Supper, that does not mean that they must deny those matters on which they do agree. Evangelicalism is that broader circle in which they still share a common—though shallower—identity. It is the context in which they clarify their agreements and disagreements, both possibly for their own correction and for the benefit of the watching world.

Yet this pan-Protestant coalition cannot undermine the coherence of particular theological traditions, for these traditions are deeper than the broad evangelical coalition and must not be sacrificed to it. So, as Dr. Godfrey says, in the new Evangelicalism, we talk honestly about our differences, allowing us then to cherish even more all that we have in common. Though the Alliance is criticized by some self-defined “bridge-building” evangelicals as being narrow and divisively dogmatic, we are actually one of the broadest coalitions in Evangelicalism. We are just honest about who we are in our churches before we come together in this extra-ecclesiastical coalition.

Lutherans don’t have to pretend that they are really Baptists to be accepted.

In MR, we have writers from Congregationalist, Baptist, Anglican, Reformed, and Lutheran communions, from both mainline and evangelical denominations. We have representatives from so many traditions not because there aren’t important differences between these traditions, but because there are—in spite of these differences—important doctrines that unite them as well. As has been stated, this unity is most clearly defined by the “solas” of our forerunner evangelicals (literally, “believers in the Gospel”): the reformers of the sixteenth century.

Wanted: Thoughtful Laypeople MR is a magazine rather than a journal, because it is not for specialists exclusively but for general readers interested in theology. But it is a theological

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magazine, and as thinking theologically requires work for fallen humanity, new readers should know that it will require some work. As thoughtful reading is often a challenge today, though, we have difficulty finding people interested in the work required to consider even the essentials, let alone the nonessentials. Thinking theologically—that is, thinking about God—is not popular in our day. So students—undergraduate students, seminarians, graduate students, and their professors—are our starting point. But it is our hope that all thoughtful evangelicals will view themselves as students interested in learning about the God who speaks and saves. That is, we hope that all evangelicals will classify themselves within our target audience.

To say that the magazine is about theology is not to say that sociology and culture will never be considered. Instead, it means that our unity will be based on a shared theology rather than a shared sociology. We will consider nontheological matters from time to time. For instance, we have often explored the challenges of commercialism in our age, because commercialism presents a challenge to Christian orthodoxy and ecclesiology—but we often disagree as we analyze this topic. Similarly, though we don’t consider politics much, we often disagree when we discuss politics. And that is fine, because being a Republican is not a prerequisite for membership in this community. But we do have much important agreement—agreement which begins with the “solas.” This is our common point of contact as we then explore other (still important) theological and cultural matters about which we are free to disagree.

This brings us back to Modern Reformation’s two purposes: 1) teaching individuals about historic Protestant theology; and 2) creating a community of Protestants who take their particular church bodies and confessions very seriously, and (not “but”) take their pan-Protestant, evangelical identity seriously as well. Simply put: our hope is that MR will serve as the mouthpiece for this new type of Evangelicalism, a “confessing Evangelicalism.”

Consider this your invitation to the community. In the light of eternity, we hope that interacting with the discourse here may be one of the better investments of your time. ■

Benjamin E. Sasse (Ph.D. student in history, Yale University) is executive editor of Modern Reformation.

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SPEAKING OF

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amuel Finley Breese Morse [was] America’s first true “spaceman.” His telegraph erased state lines, collapsed regions, and, by wrapping the continent in an information grid, created the possibility of a unified American discourse.

But at a considerable cost. For telegraphy did something that Morse did not foresee when he prophesied that telegraphy would make “one neighborhood of the whole country.” It destroyed the prevailing definition of information, and in doing so gave a new meaning to public discourse.

Among the few who understood this consequence was Henry David Thoreau, who remarked in Walden that “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate….We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”

Thoreau, as it turned out, was precisely correct.

He grasped that the telegraph would create its own definition of discourse; that it would not only permit but insist upon a conversation between Maine and Texas; and that it would require the content of that conversation to be different from what Typographic Man was accustomed to.

The telegraph made a three-pronged attack on typography’s definition of discourse, introducing on a large scale irrelevance, impotence, and incoherence. These demons of discourse were aroused by the fact that telegraphy gave a form of legitimacy to the idea of context-free information; that is, to the idea that the value of information need not be tied to any function it might serve in social and political decision-making and action, but may attach merely to its novelty, interest, and curiosity. The telegraph made information into a commodity, a “thing” that could be bought and sold irrespective of its uses or meaning.

— Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 65.

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Interview with Kevin Mannoia

Where Is Evangelicalism Headed?

One of the essential evangelical institutions, the National Association of Evangelicals, has a new president.

As such, we thought it might be useful to speak with Kevin Mannoia about the diverse coalition that he helps lead. We wanted to see if we could arrive at greater clarity about what an “evangelical” is, and where the evangelical movement is headed in the twenty-first century. —EDS. MR: Tell us a bit about your background, and what now brings you to NAE. KEVIN MANNOIA

President, National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)

KWM: Born into a strong Christian home, I have enjoyed the blessings of protective grace throughout my life. After seeing the Gospel of Jesus manifest in the lives of my parents, my own decision was the start of exploring the depths of what they had exemplified.

At age six, I moved with my family to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where my father assumed the presidency of the Free Methodist seminary. For eight years, I was shaped by the Brazilian culture and more importantly by the trans-cultural nature of the Kingdom of God. While attending camp in Illinois at age eleven, I made a public decision to accept Christ. Although no dramatic life change occurred as a result, I mark that as the point where my journey with him began.

During my sophomore year of college, I made the decision to serve through full-time ministry. Having laid out clearly defined plans for myself, God began the painful process of shaping my identity as his servant, motivated not by my personal agenda and plans but by the deep desire to know him. Though I have never sought any role in which I have served since—planter, pastor, superintendent, bishop (in the Free Methodist Church)—I have always felt confirmed in each as God has deepened my love for him and broadened my passion for his Kingdom.

Lately my soul has been captured by the mystery and simplicity of that Kingdom. As I move from culture to culture around the world, I increasingly see the “leveling place” of the Kingdom. Why are so many children born in abject poverty while mine were born into comfort?

Why do many women live in bondage to a cultural

position, while in other places they are free to teach, preach, and lead? Why are so many deprived of the knowledge of God only because of geographic location?

The only place I have been able to find answers is the culture of the Kingdom. Attempting to reconcile the issues on earthly terms is woefully inadequate. So I am propelled, now more than ever, not only to embrace but to declare the Kingdom— to the world and to the Church. For as the Church understands its unique role as trustee of the Kingdom, it will become healthy, whole, and one in making known to all people God’s call to wholeness, through forgiveness and holiness in Jesus Christ.

MR: This issue of MR is devoted to our “wish list” for Evangelicalism in the twenty-first century. Give us your assessment of and dreams for Evangelicalism.

KWM: We stand on the threshold of a new millennium that invites us to look back with appreciation on our past and to look forward to our future with the confidence provided by our forbearers.

It seems that today more than ever, everyone is evaluating their effectiveness and is willing to put everything on the table of scrutiny. Openness to change is unprecedented and honest dialogue regarding the effectiveness of the Church is plentiful.

In this environment of openness, evangelicals seem agreed that our impact for Christ on our culture could be vastly expanded. It is the fact that we are so open which makes us receptive to God’s call to new levels of obedience and change. Our history, if we are true to it, compels us to change to meet the call. To cling to our past devalues the spirit and faithfulness of those

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who created it. All those who have gone before us lived and ministered for this moment.

Needless to say, there are many reasons for joy.

Still there remains concern for the sluggishness of the U.S. Church. Together evangelicals feel the burden. Yet we should not be discouraged. Let us commit to new and aggressive movement in a postmodern, secularized culture. The Church is adopting new thinking and new actions as an apostolic movement which have implications for our structures and our ministries. This will require the most from the key leaders in the Church. It will require that we pray and seek the face of God for Spirit-anointed change. It will require that we hold loosely to methods and release personal agendas. It will require high trust as we embrace the future with all its opportunities.

God is placing upon the Church, and especially upon its key leaders, a call to enter a new era,

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for increased effectiveness. To describe it another way, the NAE will become the “plasma” which carries the life-giving “cells” of churches and ministries in fulfilling their mission.

MR: Give us some particulars. What does the NAE exist to do?

KWM: Let me articulate briefly the vision and ministry platform shaping the future of the NAE. As we have sought the face of God and discerned the wave which the Holy Spirit is creating in us, we set our wills to following him and doing what he is blessing. Out of this resolve emerges a God-given flow of power that cascades from one step to the next in a natural crescendo of energy, which results in Kingdom growth. This is not a program. It is not a slogan. It is not a gimmick. It is merely a description of a biblical o describe it another way, the NAE will become the “plasma” pattern of thought and influence, which engages us which carries the life-giving “cells” of churches and ministries in as we influence the Church into God’s promise. fulfilling their mission.

At NAE, we often talk about this “cascading flow” as characterized by health and transformational five levels: purpose, mission, values, strategic influence that are apostolic. The times in which we priority, and outcomes. Then built on this ministry live require this. Leaders must lead. Performance platform, we have three particular roles.

First, this cascading flow begins with the core must increase in multiplication of disciples, groups, leaders, and churches. We must show flexibility on convictions and foundations of purpose. We exist to methods and a steel resolve on purpose and values. know God. This is the “to die for” level of our identity. Although our core identity is rooted in God, we are shaped by our heritage, our theology, MR: What is the NAE’s role in all of this evangelical and our character. Here we grapple with the change? And what is the relationship between the NAE and question, “Who are we?” This results in our particular churches? conviction that a life lived in the presence of God will be holy as he is holy. We bear the cross of KWM: Responding to the coming moves of God Christ and die to self that we may live to God. is first a matter of obedience and surrender to him. Here in the top pool of the cascade we anchor Cross-bearing belongs to all of us. But it is also an ourselves to the heart of God. This sense of issue of stewardship. Consider the massive purpose is hammered out on the downward resources within the evangelical movement. We journey of brokenness, surrender, and emptying cannot squander them or the time God has given ourselves after the pattern of Christ. Without this us to do his work. God himself will hold us everything else is simply a program. Here we find accountable for our investment of these resources the well, the source, and the passion of our calling. in doing his mission.

Our nature is transformed by his.

The National Association of Evangelicals is Second, out of the overflow of our purpose of strategically placed on the forefront of this new Knowing God, we pour over into mission. day. As we lean into the future under God we Anchored with an identity that is rooted in God, assume a servant role in empowering the Church to from within us wells up the need to know, “What become a movement again to transform the are we here to do?” With a nature transformed by culture. We must become a unifying platform of God, our priorities then begin to be reordered as mission and values on which the diverse churches well. What is important to him now becomes and ministry partners can be validated in the important to us. His priorities become ours. We evangelical community and given broad influence see through his eyes. That which broke his heart

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and impelled him to the cross now drives us in mission—to Make Him Known. We act not out of coercion or embarrassment but because we see what the Father sees. Through mission-driven resolve we cover the world in our reach to all people, we cover the sin by the blood of Christ and we uncover the Church as the Body of Christ.

Third, in boldly pursuing our God-given mission, there are values that serve as the glue holding us together. This represents the next natural “pool” into which our thinking cascades as we overflow in desire to fulfill the mission. These values define our efforts and help us understand, “What binds us together as we move toward our mission?” At least ten of these values are relevant here: 1. We are connectional. We are “mutually submitted to one another as unto the Lord.”

This is a relational connectedness. Certainly there are organizational and financial results, but they are secondary to the relational foundation. It means something relationally to be part of the Kingdom. It means something relationally to be part of the evangelical movement. It means something relationally to be part of the NAE. 2. We are mission-driven. We will “make known the wonderful deeds of him who called us out of darkness into light.” Just as every wheel has a hub with many spokes emanating from the center, so also all activities in which we engage must flow out of the hub of our mission.

3. We are diverse. “Though there are many parts, there is one Body.” We believe that diversity strengthens the Church. Hence we value the myriad worship styles, ethnic ministries, programs and operational patterns which characterize our family across the nation. It is not a matter of tolerating the worship style that is different than ours; it’s a matter of celebrating the authenticity represented therein. It is not a matter of putting up with the theological differences among us; it’s a matter of rejoicing that our God is large enough to welcome us all into his fellowship.

Though we have clear boundaries under God, there is great freedom in the variety which characterizes the Church.

4. We are culturally relevant. We “become all things to all people that some might be saved.” Our society largely believes the Church does not connect with them. At the

dawn of a new day, we are committed to taking the Gospel to the people in ways that make sense—to them.

5. We are inclusive. We “bring them in from the highways and byways.” We must operate from the mindset that welcomes anyone into our circle. All are candidates for God’s grace.

Even though they may look or behave differently than we, we include them and allow God’s grace to use us in shaping them as he wills. Not to be confused with doctrinal pluralism, we cannot afford to fight the battles of selected issues while drawing lines which delimit the Kingdom Christ himself desires to establish among broken people. No matter how heinous the habit,

by God’s grace we become his hands of compassion and love for the person.

6. We value cell communities. We are the Church—the Body of Christ, in which believers are gifted to minister for the “edification of the Body.” Small groups of people manifesting the principles of the Kingdom in relationship with one another are the backbone of community. Church is not about maintaining an organization or preserving the icons. It is the dynamic presence of Christ working through those close around us in life-changing relationships of accountability and support. Through this personal intimacy the Holy Spirit can shape the deepest recesses of our lives.

7. We are culturally engaged. We are “in the world yet not of the world.” While we gladly embrace the holiness which results from an identity rooted in a holy God, we must commit to being in society, among the people as salt and light, transforming communities through the ministry of presence. Being set apart means nothing if it results in a segregated attitude. We must invade our communities, not with a holy war mindset, but with a servant spirit.

8. We are a movement. We “run the race” and rejoice as the “Church grows and spreads throughout the land.” We are aggressive in moving forward on our mission. This movement is more important than selfpreservation. A ship does not fulfill its purpose until it heads out of the harbor into the seas toward its goal. Likewise the Church cannot remain safely in port thereby

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denying the very reason for which is was instituted.

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faith venturing, and competent in seeing these outcomes manifested in their churches.

Now, with this ministry platform firmly in 9. We are scripture principled. We will follow the place, I can comment more particularly on the Word, which is “a lamp unto our feet and a three main roles of the NAE: The first is prophetic. light unto our path.” Everything we do is Casting a compelling vision for the missional future based upon the Word of God and principles of the Church. Signaling the need for the Church drawn from it. We value reason, tradition, to aggressively engage with culture in the name of and experience as sources of truth but all truth God and in response to the Spirit’s call to a new day is submitted to the bar of Scripture. In our of Kingdom expansion. efforts to engage other segments of society The second relates to empowerment. For unity and and the Church, this value will be most effectiveness in expanding the Kingdom. threatened. Some may ask us to compromise Validating the specialized effectiveness of the for the sake of unity. Yet unity without truth myriad ministry groups and denominations by is merely relativism. The role of Scripture establishing a common platform which expands remains unchallenged as the fulcrum of our the influence and exposure of each. message. On this we must not compromise.

The third role is about representation. To society, governments, and one another for godly witness.

10. We value transformed living. If Christ is “in us We aim to speak on behalf of the many evangelical Christians who wish their ather than attempting to define the edges, and then examine who is “over voice of righteousness to be heard in the key influence the line” or not, it seems a much more appropriate effort to focus on the centers of our culture.

center allowing the “edges” to take care of themselves under God’s grace. the hope of glory,” our lives will be different.

Today, more than ever, people clamor for a life-changing message that makes sense.

Living in the presence of a holy God results in a transformed life.

MR: You have talked a lot about the need for diversity and inclusiveness within Evangelicalism—yet you have said that we cannot compromise on truth for the sake of unity. But then you say that we cannot fight theological battles. Can you help us understand where the important lines are?

Fourth, with our values clear, the logical next question is, “How can we most effectively fulfill our mission?” The answer is the strategic priority of leadership upon which the Church will rise or fall.

Certainly there are many things which assist in the fulfillment of the evangelical mission. Programs, budgets, and facilities all serve as tools in mission activity. But more important than all of this is the leadership which influences and shapes the work of the Church. Our commitment, then, should be to pray for, identify, invest in and deploy godly, competent leaders.

Last in the cascading flow are the outcomes.

Ultimately we ask, “What are the results we expect in fulfilling our mission?” This defines a healthy church. Pastors and ministry leaders should have high permission and flexibility in using their gifts to creatively fulfill these outcomes. We want them to take initiative in manifesting these outcomes through their group’s ethos and community. We affirm them as they do. Rather than an environment of rewarding tenure, maintenance, and the absence of conflict, let’s systemically affirm those leaders and churches among us who are bold,

KWM: It is very tempting to overlook context in the pursuit of simple and clarifying statements to define ourselves. When we take various statements out of context it is easy for them to sound paradoxical. The nature of the Kingdom of God is often broader and more diverse than we are comfortable with. In fact, it is seldom concerned with our comfort—it creates a broad and diverse unity under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. But this unity is not created on battlefields of whatever kind among ourselves, only within the boundaries of God’s truth. Let me rehearse the context of my remark.

We celebrate the diversity of the Body of Christ and allow it to point us to a God who is above all and in whom such diversity can find meaning.

Rather than assuming that theological diversity within the Body is something which must be expunged or combated in order to allow a particular position to prevail, can we not accept the reality of a God who accommodates all our various differences while we remain rooted in his Word and daily pursue his heart? Suddenly our God becomes larger than any of us can conceive. Our celebration becomes centered in him and his

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greatness rather than our ability to outmaneuver or overwhelm our theological opponent. Such diversity within orthodox Christianity is of great value to understanding the mysteries of the Kingdom.

Implicit within this appreciation of our theological diversity is the belief that we pursue our distinctives with passion. Such belief assumes that theological examination helps us know God more fully both by what we discover and by the very journey of discovery. Hence to conclude that acceptance of diversity within the Church is a static condition demanding mere acknowledgment is naive and counterproductive. Rather it should compel us to explore with great zeal our unique family values, theological distinctives, and historic paths.

The danger of secondary issues becoming primary in theological debates is avoided when these issues are kept from becoming the litmus test for unity and inclusion.

Let’s not allow predetermined patterns of behavior or thought of secondary import to delimit a priori how our dying world sees the pearl of the Kingdom.

In calling the Church to celebrate diversity among us as a reflection of the greatness of God I am not suggesting the end of theological inquiry or debate but rather that it be clearly framed within a context of pursuing God, the unity of his Body, the foundation of biblical truth and a deeper understanding of his ability to accommodate our tendency to delimit his Kingdom on our own terms.

Related to your question regarding compromise on truth, let me reiterate my earlier comments, which really dealt with the role of Scripture. On the preeminence of Scripture we cannot compromise. Other segments of the religious community will ask us to compromise on our high view of Scripture as a means to achieve agreement and, in their opinion, unity. Scripture is the infallible, authoritative Word of God on which we stand and to which we submit ourselves individually and corporately. On this there can be no equivocation.

In a sense, the call to diversity is a call to celebration among ourselves. The call to be scripturally principled is a reaffirmation of our foundation vis-a-vis the encroachment of the world and a larger religious community.

MR: What do you think is the heart of evangelical theology?

What are the three or four central tenets? Or, put another way, what would place a professing evangelical outside the bounds of the tradition, as far as you are concerned?

KWM: Because the evangelical movement exists

to reinfuse the Church with its missional calling, its definition is tied on the one hand to its identity but on the other, to its cultural context. How we manifest our evangelical foundations may, therefore, differ from generation to generation as we attempt to remain obedient to our calling to be a relevant message of redemption to the everchanging world around us. Our activity is not static but dynamic in the effort to fulfill mission.

Our identity, though, certainly must remain fixed in the immutable nature of God and his mission for the world. His mission for the world is in direct response to the sinfulness of mankind. Hence to reframe or euphemistically overlook the issue of sin would lead to a devaluing of his action in our behalf. Further, that action is his uncompromising effort to reach his lost creation through the revelation of himself and his grace in creation, his written Word and the Living Word of Jesus Christ.

Finally, failure to recognize the Church as the Body of Christ in community and in mission negates the primary ongoing manifestation of God’s grace.

Within the Church, unity in identity and mission testifies to the character of God himself.

MR: Because of all of this theological diversity in Evangelicalism—or, put another way, because of the lack of clarity on many important matters—some confessional Lutherans, confessional Presbyterians, confessional Baptists, etc. are not sure that they are “evangelicals” at all. What would you say to them?

KWM: Ideally, being an evangelical means being a classic Christian. None of us is the arbiter of who is “in” and who is “out.” It is God who determines the “rules.” He will determine compliance. Yet for our need of assurance, there must be some points of confidence to which we can cling. Rather than attempting to define the edges, and then examine who is “over the line” or not, it seems a much more appropriate effort to focus on the center allowing the “edges” to take care of themselves under God’s grace. “Evangelical” is a term used for the sake of our human need to recapture the scriptural commitment and missional emphasis of the Church. We must never forget that first and foremost, we bear the name of Christ. His character and priority should be ours.

The NAE is an association, which, as with any organization, provides a basic framework in a statement of faith and a ministry platform to describe our ethos. To a significant degree this provides a description of the larger evangelical movement in its effort to be classic Christians and a healthy manifestation of the Body of Christ.

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On Prayer Breakfasts and Political Spin society. Jewett next examines the Christian tradition of distortions of Scripture and standards of morality. In response, 140 theologians and confession and governments’ historical attempts to ethicists signed a two-page statement—the “Declaration Concerning Religion, manipulate clergy. Jewett agrees that the reality of Ethics, and the Crisis in the Clinton Presidency”— repentance is a matter between the sinner and God. which addressed the misuse of religion in politics. Yet he also warns that clergy should exercise The substance of this book is a pastiche discernment lest they become a tool of governmental of twenty essays, eleven supporting the propaganda. Did the prayer-breakfast clergy play the Declaration, six opposing it, and three role of Jehonadab to Clinton’s Jehu? In answering yes, which do not address the Declaration Jewett reminds us of Hosea’s prediction of national but which are topically related to it. catastrophe when the Church allowed itself to be Gabriel Fackre also provides useful debased by the politicians of the day. background material by reprinting the Speaking in opposition, Nicholas Wolterstorff Declaration, the President’s televised takes exception to the Declaration’s third point, statement of August 17, 1998, and his which asserts that Clinton abused ethical standards comments at the White House prayer that “are central to the survival of our political system.” Wolterstorff argues that the Declaration breakfast of September 11, 1998.

The book is directed toward those overstates the case because while Clinton’s sins were who have considered critically the impact deplorable, they did not rise to the level of a national of these recent events. The essays plumb threat like acts of treason or bribery. He goes on to Christian views of confession, assert that the true threat to the political system lies forgiveness, and responsibility; the in “the pervasiveness of interest group politics.” biblical and historical concepts of honor and integrity With respect to Wolterstorff’s first point, one Judgment Day in government; purported distinctions between wonders whatever happened to the power of the at the White “Bully Pulpit” to influence national behavior and “private” and “public” morality; and related issues.

House: A Supporting the Declaration, Robert Jewett judgment. With respect to his second point, James Critical discusses the biblical concept of honoring those who Madison would have agreed with Wolterstorff’s Declaration are in government.

He notes that as a nation we have lament of factions, but also would have directed his Exploring Moral been asked to judge the President by his “public” and attention to Federalist Paper #10 in asserting that Issues and the not by his “private” morality.

In response, he sets out such is the stuff of a vibrant and free republic.

Political Use both biblical and historical arguments to assert that Attention ought to be given to the last essay by and Abuse of we ought first to discern whether honor is due.

Shelby Steele, who criticizes the notion that Religion While acknowledging the scriptural call for politically correct, publicly expressed morality can

by Gabriel Fackre submission to authority, Jewett argues that to accord sufficiently atone for, or render irrelevant, private honor to one who governs when no honor is due is behavior. Dubbing the phenomena “A New Idea for Eerdmans Publishing, 1999. not only contrary to Scripture but destructive to Good,” Steele examines this ethic as well as its flip side

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he wake of the Clinton impeachment left a number of casualties, including

$12.00, ??? pages.

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which demonizes those who think otherwise. Finally, Steele traces the baby-boomer-era journey that has led us to this state of affairs. In closing the book with Steele’s essay, Fackre has given us much to ponder.

Thomas Fawell Former law-intern in the Ford White House, and political advisor, Chicago, Illinois

All in all, this is a valuable addition to the long list of English commentaries on Romans, and one that should be especially welcome to the readers of Modern Reformation.

Mark R. Talbot Associate Professor of Philosophy Wheaton College

SHO RT NO T IC ES Romans

Old Testament Theology

by Thomas R. Schreiner. Baker Books, 1998. xxi + 919 pp. $39.99.

Calvin said a true understanding of Romans would open the door to all of the most profound treasures of Scripture. This book, which is part of the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, aims at helping its readers to gain such an understanding.

This series, under the general editorship of Gordon-Conwell Seminary professor Moisés Silva, attempts to provide up-to-date evangelical scholarly commentary that emphasizes the argumentative structure of each New Testament book. Each commentary proceeds in a way that is consonant with but not enslaved to the historic formulations of Christian doctrine as they are found in both the ecumenical creeds and the great Reformational confessions. So while these commentaries are exegetically oriented, they take Scripture’s overall theological thrust seriously. Their intended audience runs from the motivated Christian layperson to the serious scholar, with particular concern for pastors and teachers involved “in the preaching and exposition of the Scriptures as the uniquely inspired Word of God.” Schreiner, professor of New Testament interpretation at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, believes that Paul wrote Romans to unite the Roman church’s Jewish and Gentile factions under his Gospel in a way that would be true to the Old Testament’s predictions.

Rome then could serve as the base for expanding his mission to Spain, which would open the prospect for the salvation of many more Gentiles to the honor and praise of God’s name. So God’s glory as manifested in his age-old plan for saving both Jews and Gentiles (see especially Rom. 9-11) is the central theme as well as the ultimate motivation for Paul’s letter.

Schreiner always begins by considering Paul’s words in their specific grammatico-historical contexts but then often moves out towards a wider theological synthesis that highlights Paul’s more general perspectives. Like Calvin, he has tried to be brief, so that Paul’s meaning is not muffled by the commentator’s verbosity. So this commentary can be read straight through with profit.

by Paul R. House. InterVarsity Press, 1998.

655 pp. $34.99.

This book is written primarily for college and seminary students, but except for its first chapter it does not read like a textbook and so it should be useful to many. As Paul House observes, it can no longer be assumed that Christians know their Bibles. And so he has tried to write a book that gives its readers “the chance to absorb the biblical text and its theological emphases.”

House—who, like Schreiner, is a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—has succeeded. After a chapter surveying the history of Old Testament theology and outlining his own methodology, House analyzes the Old Testament’s unfolding theology book by book in chapters that follow the scheme of those books as they were received by the New Testament’s writers—the scheme of Law, Prophets, and Writings. He also follows the general order in which they were written, so that most of what we would consider the Prophets are considered right after 2 Kings, and 12 Chronicles is taken as the Old Testament’s terminus ad quem. House takes the Old Testament’s insistent monotheism as his centering theme. After listening to the separate theological voices of the various Old Testament books, he proceeds to show how those voices harmonize in their overall witness about God and what their witness means to us. Studying Old Testament theology is crucial, as House says, for “it is exceedingly hard to construct an adequate doctrine of God founded solely on New Testament passages” and so those “who do not know the Old Testament canon are therefore more vulnerable to unbiblical definitions of God than those who do.”

House appreciates the contributions of many scholars, but his own commitments are thoroughly evangelical. He recognizes that theology’s proper starting point is Scripture itself, considered as the wholly reliable, written word of God. So his “canonical” analysis of Old Testament theology is meant to be “God-centered, intertextually oriented, authority-conscious, historically sensitive and devoted to the pursuit of the wholeness of the Old Testament message.” And although House believes that “it is not Old Testament theology’s task to incorporate its results

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into a formal system” that would “justify Calvinism, Arminianism or some other time-honored system of belief,” he is not afraid to draw theological conclusions that can serve as the basis for a full-blown, biblically based systematic theology consonant with the great truths rediscovered at the Reformation.

This is biblical theology at its best: careful, clear, reverent, and edifying.

Mark R. Talbot

At the Heart of the Universe

by Peter Jensen. Good News Publishing, 1997.

176 pp. $11.99.

“Christian doctrine has a poor name, even among Christians. It is regarded as boring, divisive and irrelevant. Such a reputation, however, is a tragedy which impoverishes the churches and hinders their witness to the world. I have written this short book to describe the essence of doctrine and to show its importance and usefulness.”

With this statement, Peter Jensen sets the standard for what is to follow. How does one write a book of doctrine that will enrich the Church and her witness in the world without being boring, divisive, and irrelevant? And, of course, does he succeed?

Jensen’s method is simple, yet profound. In five chapters that artfully avoid most of the language of doctrine, he derives doctrinal categories through the tracing of biblical themes as they unfold in the story of the Bible itself.

In doing so, he chooses to begin with eschatology, titling the first chapter, “Tomorrow, Jerusalem.” He explains that “In this book I have chosen to reverse the [usual] order by considering ‘Last Things’ in the first chapter. The advantage of this procedure is that it captures the biblical sense of purpose in God and the corresponding dynamic history.”

This method has striking and very appealing strengths. Among them is a very visible and organic connection between topics of doctrine as they are crystallized in the eternal plan of God. The reader is free to see not only the essential links between doctrines, but also the links between doctrine and the unveiling of God in human history.

This is a delightfully written and winsome book about the heart of the Christian faith. It is of great importance because of its clear and biblical arguments and because, if read, it will enrich the Church and her witness.

At the Heart of the Universe would be a welcome addition to the layman’s library, the pastor’s study, or the classroom.

Rev. David White College Church Wheaton, Illinois

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Courage to Stand: Jeremiah’s Battle Plan for Pagan Times

by Philip Graham Ryken. Crossway Books, 1998. 208 pp.

“The Word of the Lord Came to Jeremiah…”

We face many important questions today that need answers: How does God respond to the repeated sin of his people? What is at the heart of idolatry? How should we deal with the suffering we face? Just how much control does God have over what happens in the world?

Questions like these were just as pressing a few thousand years ago when God set Jeremiah apart to be his prophet. Again and again, the book of Jeremiah records how “the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah…” The answers to the questions were on their way.

In Courage to Stand: Jeremiah’s Battle Plan for Pagan Times, Philip Graham Ryken walks us through Jeremiah to help us understand some of the answers the Lord gave. Ryken then faithfully interprets Jeremiah to show how some of these same answers apply today. We too live in a pagan nation. We too struggle with idolatry. We too suffer and wonder why God acts as he does. Ryken’s work serves, then, as a practical introduction to Jeremiah that is well suited to the readers of Modern Reformation.

Though his book is worthwhile to read for its discussion of God’s message to Israel, Ryken’s interest is not merely in the answers to questions. God’s word must also be properly received. Take, for instance, Micaiah, who heard a reading of Jeremiah’s scroll (see Jer. 36). First, Micaiah was careful to listen to the entirety of God’s word. Then, he responded appropriately to the message of coming judgment— with fear. For he was well aware that it would be “a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). Finally, he realized he needed to share God’s word with royal officials and king Jehoiakim.

Ryken comments that “to receive [God’s word] properly means to pass it on to others” (pp. 171-174).

God has revealed his character and purposes to us in Scripture. How well have we received it? Are we listening to it in its entirety? Or do we simply return to the same familiar passages? Do we take seriously those passages that speak of God’s hatred of sin and warn of coming divine judgment? Or do we acknowledge only God’s grace and goodness? Finally, are we active in sharing this word of the Lord with others? Or are we simply content with feeding on it for ourselves? Let us not be like the majority of the Israelites who rejected or ignored Jeremiah’s message.

Rather, let us be among those who faithfully receive and proclaim the word our Lord has given.

Steve Matlak Salt Lake City, Utah

E N D N O T E S Ex Auditu by R. S. Clark

Laypeople Willing to Engage in an Ongoing Conversation on Confessional

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By triumphalism I mean the attitude which tends to think of the church as “irresistibly

Christianity by Benjamin E. Sasse

conquering throughout the centuries … seemingly more interested in upholding its own

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rights and privileges than in promoting the salvation of all” (P. F. Chirco, s.v.

magazines to highlight in print exactly what time the previous night their Web site

Media critics have recently noted the tendency of newspapers and weekly

“Triumphalism,” The New Catholic Encyclopedia [Washington D. C.: Catholic University of

first reported a given story. The convergence of technology is clearly leading even

America Press, 1967]). Classic postmillennialism (e.g., the Princeton theologians C.

the most reputable of print sources to compete with the frantic pace of twenty-four

Hodge and B. B. Warfield) affirmed that the church will endure a great apostasy before

hour cable news. Longer run perspectives and topics not as hospitable to sixty

the second advent of Christ. Some recent advocates of versions of postmillennial

second stories and an assault of images (e.g., theology) are necessarily squeezed from

theonomic reconstructionism seem to deny the necessity of suffering for the Christian.

such an environment.

Instead they argue that the suffering described for the church was actually completed prior to A. D. 70. This new postmillennial school is now advocating a version of triumphalism. 2For a critique of some of these movements see Michael S. Horton, ed., Power Religion (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992). See also idem, ed., The Agony of Deceit (Chicago: Moody Press, 1990); idem, Made in America (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992). 31 Peter 5:13 says, “She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings” (NIV). Babylon is best read as a cryptic reference to Rome. 4The sorts of behaviors listed in 4:1-4 indicate clearly that the congregations to whom Peter wrote were composed primarily of Gentile converts. 5See D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). 6Much of the German Reformed Church (RCUS) was absorbed into what became the United Churches of Christ. Those who continued to believe and confess the historic Reformed faith found themselves cut off from their institutions and even their church properties. More recently the newly formed United Reformed Churches are confessionally committed exiles from the Christian Reformed Churches. 7This sense of the Hebrew verb “to know” is captured well in the Authorized Version (1611) of Genesis 4:1. 8Caspar Olevianus, In epistolam ad Romanos notae (Geneva, 1579), 207.

See Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A 114.

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For more on the connection

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between these two passages, see Edmund Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter: The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 35.

An End to Generational Segregation in the Congregation by Michael Glodo “The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined

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to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (WCF 25.2). 2For a carefully researched and compelling analysis of youth culture, see Quentin J. Schultze, et. al., Dancing in the Dark: Youth, Popular Culture and the Electronic Media (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991). 3Just so you don’t have to look it up: “Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be dishonored.”

Evangelical Unity Founded on the Gospel Rather than on a Power Base

by Diana S. Frazier Bruce L. Shelley, “An On-Again, Off-Again Love Affair,” Christianity Today, vol. 43, no.

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10 (1999), 54. 2See Focus on the Family program aired on August 17, 1999 or go to the web site at www. family.org and search on Mellon Bank. 3For a full accounting of the activities of The Anti-Saloon League, see Wayne B. Wheeler’s series “The Inside Story of Prohibition’s Adoption,” printed in the New York Times, March 28-April 2, 1926.

J.

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Gresham Machen, Christianity & Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 151-52.

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Haldane’s Revival

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in which he requires that all his intelligent creatures future, but believers in Christ should be looking to the future with optimism. This should acquiesce, and seek and promote it as their first and paramount duty.” may be the year in which the Lord returns. He can come at any time. Again, this may I think that is what is chiefly lacking in today’s be the year in which we see the beginning of the church, and that we are never going to have a rereformation for which we have been working. formation until we reestablish that perspective.

What will it take to see the beginning of a genuine revival in 2000? Let me answer that by But that will require everything the Alliance of reflecting on a revival that took place in French- Confessing Evangelicals has been calling for speaking Europe in the first half of the nineteenth since its initial meeting in Cambridge, century. It was called Haldane’s Revival after a Massachusetts, in 1996, chiefly repentance and a Scotsman named Robert Haldane (1764-1842). recovery of the Reformation doctrines.

For who is it who will be able to say, “To God be After his conversion, Haldane became concerned all the glory”? Not the world certainly. The world is with the evangelization of Europe, a passion which JAMES set on its own glory. Its creed is the cry of found him in the city of Geneva in the fall of 1815.

MONTGOMERY Robert Haldane was sitting on a park bench by the Nebuchadnezzar: “Is this not the great Babylon I have BOICE lake of Geneva one day when he got into a built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and conversation with some university students. They for the glory of my majesty” (Dan. 4:30), the precise Senior Minister, were studying for the ministry, but they were clearly opposite of Romans 11:36. Nor can Arminians say it.

Tenth Presbyterian not converted. So Haldane invited them to his flat in They can say, “To God be the glory.” But as long as Church the old city, not far from the great church once they hang on to the supposed ability of man to make pastored by John Calvin, where they participated that the final determination as to whether or not he will be winter in what we would call a Bible study. Haldane saved, apart from the sovereign regenerating power of taught them from the book of Romans, on which he God to enable him to believe, they cannot say, “To God be all the glory.” Arminian theology always would eventually write a great commentary. retains some of the glory for ourselves.

Each of those young men was soundly converted But here is my chief point. Neither can true followers through that study and became an effective leader in the revival that followed. These men were so of the Reformation say it, whether they be “five point effective in this work that a professor in the doctrines of grace” Calvinists or “five solas, Law and university named Monsieur Cheneviers later wrote Gospel” Lutherans, as long as what we are actually trying to Haldane to ask what it was that had gotten into to do is to build our own kingdoms, as many of us are!

God has said, “I am the Lord; that is my name! I these young students, what had so profoundly will not give my glory to another” (Is. 42:8). Until we transformed them and made them such effective understand that and begin to conform our desires and Christian workers. aspirations to it, we will not see the reformation we Haldane answered in a letter that is now part of his commentary. He said it was a study of the last say we want. But we can be revived. It has happened verses of Romans 11, particularly verse 36, in which before. Why not now? There has certainly never God is pictured as his own last end in everything he been a period in recent history in which a true does: “for from him and through him and to him Reformation has been more desperately needed. are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”

He said it was understanding that “the manifestation of the glory of God is the great end James Montgomery Boice (D.Theol., University of Basel) is of creation, that he has himself chiefly in view in all the president of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and his works and dispensations, and that it is a purpose senior minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. he start of the new millennium has many pundits wringing their hands about the

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