zion-november-december-2009

JEROME AND AUGUSTINE IN AMERICA ❘ APOLOGETICS FOR POSTMODERNS ❘ “DEEP” CHURCH

MODERN REFORMATION

Zion VOLUME

18, NUMBER 7, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009, $6.50

MODERN REFORMATION

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Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Executive Editor Eric Landry Managing Editor Patricia Anders Marketing Director Michele Tedrick Department Editors Mollie Z. Hemingway, Between the Times Ryan Glomsrud, Reviews Michael Horton, Final Thoughts Staff | Editors Jason Ching, Digital Production Assistant Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Elizabeth Isaac, Proofreader Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Contributing Scholars Michael Allen Peter D. Anders James Bachman J. Todd Billings John Bombaro Jerry Bridges John N. Day Adam S. Francisco David Gibson W. Robert Godfrey T. David Gordon Gillis Harp D. G. Hart Paul Helm John A. Huffman, Jr. Daniel R. Hyde Ken Jones Julius J. Kim Philip J. Lee Jonathan Leeman Richard Lints Korey Maas Keith Mathison R. Albert Mohler, Jr. John Warwick Montgomery Kenneth A. Myers Roger R. Nicole Robert Norris J. I. Packer Craig Parton Mark Pierson Lawrence R. Rast, Jr. Donald P. Richmond Kim Riddlebarger Rick Ritchie David Robertson Rod Rosenbladt Justin Taylor Kate Treick David VanDrunen Gene E. Veith David F. Wells Donald T. Williams William Willimon Todd Wilken Paul F. M. Zahl

Zion

14 Marching to Zion In joining the royal procession, we are recipients and heralds of Christ’s victory and heavenly reign at God’s right hand.

by Michael Horton

20 The Destiny of the Species If we are creatures made in God’s image, then we are necessarily pulled by our future.

by Jason J. Stellman

25 Jerome, Augustine, and the Fall of Rome Two ancient fathers of the faith provide an object lesson for U.S. Christians today.

by Kim Riddlebarger

29 Zion Made Manifest The architecture of the heavenly city is beyond human capabilities on this earth.

by Reginald C. Quirk

32 Kingdom Worship on Kingly Terms To recover a biblical theology of worship, it is important we grasp the relationship between worship and the kingdom of God.

by Jon D. Payne

36 Illusion, Confusion, and Solution How do Christians make a truth-claim to a postmodern culture that is skeptical that objective truth exists and can be known?

by Doug Powell

40 Getting Rid of Conversion?

Donald Williams’ Response to D. G. Hart

42 Why It Is Less Crazy Than It Sounds D. G. Hart’s Response to Donald Williams

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In This Issue page 2 | Letters page 3 | Between the Times page 4 Ex Auditu page 8 | Preaching from the Choir page 11 | Interview page 44 Required Reading page 48 | Reviews page 49 | Final Thoughts page 56

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IN THIS ISSUE

Zion is Comin’ Our Way Oh, children, Zion train is comin’ our way; get on board now!

They said the Zion train is comin’ our way; You got a ticket, so thank the Lord!

Zion’s train is—Zion’s train is—Zion’s train is—Zion’s train— They said the soul train is coming our way; They said the soul train is coming our way.

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he same metaphor that gives life to Bob Marley’s “Zion Train” speaks to a common human need for a place of refuge, a purposeful end to life’s journey—where what is hoped for becomes a reality. It is easy to see why the image Zion evokes was such a powerful tool of hope for Southern slaves who saw their own experience of enforced exile in the same manner as those children of Israel who sat by the waters of Babylon and remembered Zion (Ps. 137).

In many ways the theme for this year, Christ in a Post-Christian Culture, has been an occasion for us to recall with Israel and other exiled people the hope of Zion. But for Christians, this hope isn’t merely metaphorical, nor is it even a return to a life now lost. It is a reality to which we are brought ever closer; it is a reality in which we already participate as it breaks into our exile.

These twin realities are at the heart of several of our articles in this issue.

Reformed theologian and Editor-in-Chief Michael Horton emphasizes our rightnow identification with Zion as we proclaim its realities to a passing evil age around us. Cambridge-based Lutheran theologian Reginald C. Quirk emphasizes the seen and unseen nature of Zion through the ministry and witness of the church. Presbyterian pastor and regular Modern Reformation contributor Jason Stellman draws out the implication of our future orientation toward Zion.

Understandably, exiles get weary of their wilderness wandering. In our own day, such weariness usually results in some kind of misplaced triumphalism that almost always degenerates into deep pessimism (with terrible ramifications on both ends for the church’s witness and practice). Reformed pastor Kim Riddlebarger applies lessons learned from church history to our present day temptation to equate our earthly homes with our heavenly homes. And Presbyterian pastor Jon Payne helps us understand how the church’s gathered worship makes the kingdom visible in our midst.

The final two articles of this issue take things in a slightly different direction.

First, Doug Powell’s very practical exposé of postmodernism’s illogical foundation shows you how to witness to the truth of Zion among people who are skeptical of the Bible’s truth-claims. And the dialogue between Don Williams and D. G. Hart highlights important issues of definition and pastoral care in our churches.

Thank you for making your way through this big issue and this important yearlong theme. Next year, we’re “Recovering Scripture.” If you give a gift subscription this Christmas, we’ll increase your subscription by one free issue. So, find someone to work through the issues with you and rediscover the importance of Scripture in 2010.

Eric Landry Executive Editor

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NEXT ISSUES January/February 2010 Recovering Scripture March/April 2010 Inspiration and Inerrancy

LETTERS y o u r

Among the many commemorative symposia and publications on Calvin this year, to several of which I have contributed myself, the June/July 2009 issue of Modern Reformation is the best I have seen. I am impressed that you have gathered such a variety of perspectives in this issue! May I be forgiven for wishing there had been at least one Baptist voice in the Calvin choir? Still, I appreciate your making it clear that Calvin has something important to say to the entire body of Christ. Well done!

Timothy George Beeson Divinity School Samford University Birmingham, Alabama

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Huguenot martyrs did so long ago.

And keep this modern reformation marching steadily forward for your kingdom and glory!

Heidi Parisi Boxford, Massachusetts

This afternoon I read “On the Road: Walking in Calvin’s Footsteps” by Douglas Bond in the “Calvin at 500” (June/July 2009) issue of Modern Reformation. I’d like to see more from this fellow. His writing has a “you are there” quality that has a way of helping me remember the facts he’s sharing. I found his article to be very enjoyable and informative as well.

Diane Barnett

Thank you so much for your issue “Calvin at 500” (June/July 2009) and the accompanying White Horse Inn broadcast interview with Dr. Robert Godfrey. Both were especially meaningful after having the privilege of joining Dr. Godfrey at the Calvin 500 Conference in Geneva this past July. It was a five-star, all-you-can-eat spiritual buffet—scholarly presentations of current research in the morning, and passionate preaching of the Word and worship every night! How I thank God for the dedication of these men to carry on Calvin’s ministry of proclaiming the glories of Christ and his Word to the world. And yet the occurrence of this event could go unnoticed if we laypeople passively sit back, engorged by the rich meals we consumed at the conference (or every Sunday, for that matter) and merely ruminate and digest. What a tragedy if we were not inspired and motivated to share the biblical message of Calvin’s work and example with our families and neighbors, but to continue in our timid, powerless, consumer mentality. Lord, forgive us! Fan the flame of boldness and joy in our hearts and minds, and enable us to proclaim your gracious Word as those

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ELCA CONVENTION VOTES TO ROSTER PARTNERED GAY CLERGY The 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted 559–451 to roster gay and lesbian clergy living in committed relationships. The assembly had earlier approved a resolution to “recognize, support and hold publicly accountable life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships.”

The church, the nation’s seventh largest, had spent eight years studying the issue. Previously, clergy who identified as having same-sex attraction had to remain celibate.

Pastor Richard Mahan of the denomination’s West VirginiaWestern Maryland Synod protested that the changes were contrary to biblical teaching. “I cannot see how the church that I have known for 40 years can condone what God has condemned,” Mahan said. “Nowhere does it say in scripture that homosexuality and same-sex marriage is acceptable of God.” But others, such as Bishop Gary Wollersheim of the ELCA Northern Illinois Synod said, “It’s what Jesus would have us do.” Some delegates worried that the action would further erode the membership of the ELCA. The church had 5.3 million members 20 years ago, but reported 4.6 million for 2008.

Other major actions taken during the convention, which was struck by a tornado during proceedings, included a decision to adopt a full communion agreement with the United Methodist Church. Passed with a vote of 958–51, it is the ELCA’s sixth full communion relationship and the first for the Methodists. The ELCA had previously entered into full communion with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ, the Reformed Church in America, the Episcopal Church, and the Moravian Church.

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CHRISTIAN MARTYRS IN SOMALIA

An al Qaeda-linked terror group in Somalia beheaded four Christians according to human rights watchdog In-

ternational Christian Concern (ICC).

Members of Al-Shabaab (which means “youth” in Arabic) kidnapped Fatima Sultan, Ali Ma’ow, Sheik Mohammed Abdi, and Maaddey Diil and eventually beheaded the Christians after they refused to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. They had been working to help orphans.

The militant group told the families of the victims that their bodies would not be returned to their kin as Somalia cemeteries were only for Muslims.

Though Somalian Islamists have been known to carry out ruthless

Notable Quotables “We have always been kin. We’ve been cousins, and now we’ll be part of a closer family.”

—The Rev. Donald McCoid, ecumenical official for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, on approval of a communion agreement with the United Methodist Church.

“When you’re trying to market Jesus, sometimes there’s a tendency to mute traditional Christian symbols. Difficult doctrines are left by the wayside. Hell is a morally repugnant doctrine. People wonder why God would send people to eternal punishment.”

—The Rev. Fred Johns, pastor of Brookview Wesleyan Church in Irondale, Alabama, telling Religion News Service that pastors’ avoidance of the doctrine on hell is a market-driven approach.

“My campaign is not based on a foundation of lies. My values are not lies. It’s just the information I provided to the people is false.”

—Antwon Womack, candidate for the Birmingham, Alabama, Board of Education, explaining that he would not drop out of the race after his résumé was shown to be riddled with lies.

“Yet, the selective retelling of American history found in the Patriot’s Bible is not what concerns me the most. What disturbs me more is the way the commentators attempt to give their idealized version of American history divine authority by weaving it into the biblical narrative.”

—Greg Boyd, senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, reviewing the American Patriot’s Bible for Christianity Today.

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attacks against the country’s Christian minority, Muslims there are also the “victims of Al-Shabaab’s cruelty,” the ICC reported. Somalia’s Christians comprise less than 1 percent of the African nation’s 9.8 million people.

The extremist group has been forcibly removing Mogadishu residents’ gold and silver teeth using rough tools—or even just their hands, according to Reuters. The group alleges that such artificial teeth are used for fashion and beauty and therefore break strict Muslim religious law.

Al-Shabaab has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States Department of State.

PROTECTING INMATES FROM THE BIBLE After the American Civil Liberties Union protested, a Virginia jail has agreed to change its policy censoring religious material that was being sent to prisoners.

“The censorship of religious materials sent to prisoners violates both the rights of detainees to practice their religion freely while incarcerated as well as the free speech rights of those wanting to communicate with prisoners,” said David Shapiro, staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project.

Anna Williams, a devout Christian whose son was detained at Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford, asked the ACLU for help after her letters to him were tampered with. Her letters included passages from the Bible to support him spiritually during his confinement. Jail officials removed the religious material. In one case, a three-page letter was reduced to nothing more than the greeting, first paragraph, and “Love, Mom.” “People do not lose their right to religious worship simply because they are incarcerated,” said Daniel Mach, director of Litigation for the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

Prison Fellowship, the Rutherford Institute, and the Becket Fund for

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Religious Liberty, among others, joined the ACLU in demanding that jail officials guarantee they would stop censoring Bible passages.

THE ULTIMATE IN OUTSOURCING In Kerala and other parts of India where the Roman Catholic Church has a stronghold, outsourced Mass intentions—prayers offered on behalf of Roman Catholics in the United States, Canada, and Europe—are dwindling.

The faraway prayer requests had been a great source of income for poorer priests and impoverished churches. But the global downturn is hitting the practice, according to India’s Global Post newspaper.

“There is a 50 percent fall recently in outsourced Mass intentions,” Sebastian Adayanthrath, bishop of Kerala’s Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese, told the newspaper.

One Bangalore-based rector said each Mass—offered in memory of a dead family member, thanksgiving for a child’s college admission, or wedding anniversary—generates 250 rupees ($5.00), five times what locals pay for the same service.

IN THE NAME OF THE DECEASED

More families are forgoing religious funerals for memorial services led by secular celebrants, according to USA Today.

The trend is giving rise to pastoralstyle secular celebrants who deliver unique personalized eulogies without mention of God or the hereafter, according to the article.

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By the Numbers 1 in 8 Ratio of background checks conducted on volunteers or prospective employees through LifeWay Christian Resources that found a criminal history, according to the Southern Baptist Convention publishing house. #1 California’s Thomas Aquinas College, in a ranking of most religious student bodies according to the Princeton Review’s latest college ratings. Followed by Brigham Young University, Wheaton College, Hillsdale College, and University of Dallas.

8% American congregations led by women according to the National Congregations Study. Only 5 percent of Americans attend a church led by a woman.

24% ABC primetime programming hours that include lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered representation as measured by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

92% African Americans who consider themselves Christian, according to the Barna Group. That compares with 85 percent of the general population. Sixty-six percent of blacks believe the Bible is “totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches” compared with only 49 percent of the general population.

83% Mormons who say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 56 percent of the general population, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Seven-in-ten of those raised Mormon still identify as Mormon, somewhat lower than among those raised Protestant (80 percent of whom still consider themselves Protestant).

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“What we’ve found in the past decade is that when you ask people whether they want a minister, people say, ‘Not interested,’” says William McQueen, president of Anderson-McQueen Funeral & Cremation Centers in the St. Petersburg, Florida, area.

The Official Catholic Directory shows a 23 percent drop in the rate of Catholic funerals for parish-identified Catholics over the last decade.

McQueen said that only 50 percent of the deaths they deal with include a religious service. More than one quarter of U.S. adults told the American Religious Identification Survey, conducted by Trinity College, that they don’t expect a religious funeral when they die.

In response to the trend, the Anderson-McQueen business has replaced its chapel with a “Heritage Hall” and a “Remembrance Hall.”

One woman who chose a secular service for her husband said neither she nor he had ill feelings about church life. “We just wanted something different, something that was truly about him and his life,” she said.

CONTRACEPTION IS A CIVIL RIGHT?

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) told Belmont Abbey College that it violated discrimination laws because its employee health insurance plan does not cover contraception.

Eight faculty members filed an EEOC complaint against the college in Belmont, North Carolina, claiming that the school’s health-care plan was

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discriminatory.

“As a Roman Catholic institution, Belmont Abbey College is not able to and will not offer nor subsidize medical services that contradict the clear teaching of the Catholic Church,” the college’s president, William Thierfelder, responded at the time.

The EEOC had told the college in March 2009 that its investigation had been closed with no finding of wrongdoing, according to the Wall Street Journal; however, the case was reopened.

The EEOC is already on record claiming that the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act mandates contraceptive coverage. Religious employers are not exempted. North Carolina law does exempt religious institutions, but only if the inculcation of religious values is one of the primary purposes of the entity and if the entity employs primarily people who share the religious beliefs of the entity. The complainants had argued that the school should not qualify for an exemption because most of its employees are not Catholic.

Thierfelder told the Washington Times that he would rather close the school’s doors than violate the church’s teachings on contraception should the college lose its battle for religious freedom.

Some religious liberty observers say the decision shows that federal health-care laws and guidelines could severely restrict religious freedom in the U.S. AT LEAST THE BOOKS HAVE SPINES A new book about twelve controversial Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad will be published with one big omission: the cartoons. Yale University Press decided that The Cartoons That Shook the World should not only omit the cartoons themselves but any other image of Muhammad, including a drawing for a children’s book, a nineteenth-century Gustave Doré sketch, and works by Botticelli, Blake, Rodin, and Dalí.

After their original publication, Danish imams took the cartoons— along with three more incendiary images that were never published by any newspaper—on a tour of Muslim countries. Ensuing riots left hundreds of people dead, including nuns and priests.

The book’s author, Jytte Klausen, a Danish-born professor of politics at Brandeis University, accepted the decision but refused to sign a gag order on the matter. The university refused to provide a fourteen-page summary of its decision unless she did so.

“The capitulation of Yale University Press to threats that hadn’t even been made yet is the latest and perhaps the worst episode in the steady surrender to religious extremism—particularly Muslim religious extremism—that is spreading across our culture,” Christopher Hitchens wrote in Slate.

John Donatich, director of Yale University Press, said that printing the cartoons would mean “blood on my hands.”

While not bloody, the censorship provoked a widespread negative response from across the political spectrum.

“Note who is not held responsible: the potential rioters, who are apparently automatons and spring uncontrollably and unstoppably into action whenever a Westerner dares to offend them. Thus, as part of our relentless quest for a quiet life, the press must avoid causing offense to anyone. If that is not appeasement, I don’t know what is,” wrote the Heritage Foundation’s Ted Bromund.

CHOOSE YOUR MAJOR WISELY College students who major in education or business show an increase in religiosity while attending school. But those who major in the humanities and social sciences become less so, according to data compiled by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

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Professor Miles Kimball, who coauthored the study, speculated that the latter majors’ tendency toward postmodern challenges to faith might be to blame.

The study also found that high school students who attend religious services more frequently or who view religion as more important to their lives are much more likely to go to college.

One interesting finding was that majoring in the biological or physical sciences does not affect religious attendance of students. Physical science majors, however, did report a decrease in the importance of religion in their lives.

Religious attendance is correlated with remaining in one’s major field of study.

TREATING UNWANTED SEXUAL ATTRACTION The American Psychological Association declared that it is ethical—and can be beneficial—for counselors to help some clients reject gay or lesbian attractions.

According to new guidelines discussed in the Wall Street Journal, therapists must make clear that homosexuality doesn’t signal a mental or emotional disorder and must advise clients that gay men and women can lead happy and healthy lives, emphasizing that there is no evidence therapy can change sexual orientation.

But if the client retains the belief that embracing his same-sex attraction would be sinful, psychologists can help construct an identity that rejects the power of those attractions. That can mean living celibately, learning to deflect sexual impulses, or framing a life of struggle as an opportunity to grow closer to God. Judith Glassgold, who chaired the APA’s Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Homosexuality, said, “[W]e have to acknowl-

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edge that, for some people, religious identity is such an important part of their lives, it may transcend everything else.”

When the report was issued, much of the mainstream media highlighted its critique of reparative or conversion therapies. It concluded there is little evidence that “gay-to-straight” therapies work. But even that conclusion was disputed.

Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International (a Christian group that assists homosexuals who want to change), said that the Christian community has an understanding different from the APA of what is considered change. He describes himself as a former homosexual.

APA dismissed studies showing successes in reparation therapies by saying that subjects “became skilled in ignoring or tolerating their same-sex attractions.” Chambers says that simply describes people who are successfully resisting temptation.

The report was released days before psychologists Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse released their latest set of data from a longitudinal study following people who are trying to change. Their findings, published in a book titled Ex-Gays?, show that 38 percent of the subjects followed in the study said they had successfully left homosexuality, while an additional 29 percent said they had only modest successes but were committed to keep trying.

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Painter was convicted of disturbing the peace. He was given a ten-day jail sentence.

Officials with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal group, told the Los Angeles Times that it was the first time they knew of that criminal law had been used to keep a church quiet.

The bell registered 67 decibels, the volume of normal conversation.

Judge Lori Metcalf sentenced Painter, but suspended his punishment as long as the bells remained quiet and the bishop stayed out of trouble. She permitted the ringing of bells on Sundays and certain church holidays.

The Alliance Defense Fund plans to appeal on First Amendment grounds.

YOU CAN’T RING MY BELL The Cathedral of Christ the King in Phoenix, Arizona, began pealing church bells on Palm Sunday 2008.

The complaints from neighbors came shortly thereafter. Church leaders cut back the tolling and put up Styrofoam to muffle the sound but continued to toll the bells.

Prosecutors ended up filing charges against the church, and Bishop Rick

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Pilgrim Justice: On the Way to Zion

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he Book of Hebrews opens by telling us that God spoke long ago in many different

about the covenant secondhand; she has heard ways and in many places to the fathers, and that in these last days he has spoken about the promises, and she has no doubt seen the to us in his Son, Jesus Christ. These words always ring in my ears when I read of blood. But now, from the door of the tent, she hears the Lord’s dealings with Abraham. this solid and sure promise: “When I return this time next The Lord appears to Abraham in visions, he appears to year, Sarah will have a son.” This promise spoken to the old him as a smoking or a flaming torch, or sometimes he just woman Sarah was too much to be believed. “appears.” In Genesis 18, he appears as three men standing Abraham had laughed with joy, disbelieving joy, in the by the oaks of Mamre. In each one of these encounters, last chapter, when the Lord had said that the promise would promises of Zion proceed from his mouth: come through a child born to Sarah; Sarah’s laugh has a bit more harshness to it. Pleasure for an old woman? Both I will make you a great nation; I will bless your name Sarah and Abraham had offered the Lord a way out of his and all the families of the earth will be blessed....Look foolish pledge: “Fulfill your promise through Hagar and at the stars. So shall your descendants be....To your Ishmael,” they suggested. But it was not Abraham’s promise alone. Not just Abraham was promised a son, but the descendants I will give this land....Kings shall come woman also would have her very own son. The child of forth from you. And Isaac, the one who will come promise would come through this woman’s seed. from your very own wife, I will establish my covenant We make of grace too small a thing. for him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants The New Testament looks back at Sarah and Abraham after him. and sees in this episode a picture of faith and grace, a picture of the weakness and emptiness and deadness of the recipiThe myriad promises to Abraham in Genesis confirm, ent, and the power and strength and mercy of the giver. expand, and overlap one another. Hebrews assures us that Abraham, as good as dead, and his wife, past the age of givAbraham heard these promises and looked forward to the ing life. Lifeless. They are like dry bones in the valley, but the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. word of promise comes to these bones and brings forth But it also tells us that he was a stranger and an exile on the earth. So many promises, yet still so many doubts. Abraham from them life—and not just a son but a nation, a worldbelieves but still asks, “Lord, how may I know that I may blessing nation born of the womb filled with death and sin. possess it?” And this is why the covenant is sealed by a Their laughter rings through the ages; in the name of their covenant and with blood: first the blood of the ceremonial son Isaac (which means “laughter”), grace bears the fruit of beasts split in two; and then Abraham and Ishmael’s own, the laughter of an old man who can scarcely believe the the blood of circumcision, the blood of the eternal covenant. goodness of God and an old woman struggling to do so. In Immediately after that bloody day of the first circumciIsaac’s very name, God commands them and us to recall this sion, we find yet another remarkable promise of the Lord. laughter, to recall the unbelievable magnitude of grace, the This promise comes sandwiched between two visitations— majesty of life’s victory over death, and to recall that no thing one of blessing and one of cursing—and Abraham’s response is too difficult for the Lord. tells us something about the way of pilgrims in this world, Likewise, we make of sin too small a thing, and God’s pilgrims on their way to Zion. very real judgment on sin is often just an afterthought, no more real or believable to us than the impending birth to the The Blessing and the Curse aged Sarah.

As Abraham is entertaining his heavenly visitors, the As the men rise up to leave, Moses gives us a glimpse of Lord, for the first time in Genesis, asks directly: “Where is the remarkable deliberations of the Lord with his counselors: Sarah, your wife?” The covenant—which has been promised “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since and sealed to Abraham, the covenant of male circumcision, Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and and which has been sealed with the ritual cutting of all the in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed?” Earlier men of the household—is for Sarah as well and for all her in Genesis, at Babel, we had seen a similar deliberation of the daughters. The daughters of Eve are heirs of the promise, as Lord, “Come, let us go down there and confuse their lanmuch as the sons of Abraham. Until now, Sarah has heard guage.” Here we have a similar moment of judgment: the 10 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

Lord has discerned the wickedness of men; he has heard their cry, and he is coming down to confirm his judgment and punish the offense. But covenant grace makes a division among men.

A new question arises: What shall I reveal to Abraham— the one who will receive and be a source of great blessing— about the dispensing of the curse? What does the blessing have to do with the curse? More to the point: What do the blessed have to do with the cursed?

Summary of the Gospel What follows is a remarkable summary statement of God’s grace in the gospel, not in the form of a promise made to Abraham, but in the form of divine deliberation.

This is not God’s speech to man, but God’s speech to himself: For I have chosen him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.

It begins with divine initiative: “For I have chosen him.”

This is not an abstract choosing but a divine knowing—a divine knowing that is purposeful in its goal. And the purpose is that Abraham may command his household to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. The gospel here for Abraham is not a command; it is not in the imperative voice, “You must do this.” But the purpose of the gospel is that Abraham might nevertheless have this law as a rule of life, that he and his household might do righteousness and practice justice. Paul echoes this sentiment when he writes to the Romans that “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son.” Holiness is the endpoint of redemption. The rectitude and justice of Abraham’s seed is a means of bringing about the Lord’s blessing, yet this remains a blessing that the Lord alone brings upon Abraham.

There is no difficulty, no conundrum from the standpoint of the text about divine initiative and Abraham’s response.

Just as there is no doubt whether Abraham and Sarah conceived Isaac from the natural powers within their aged bodies, so there is no doubt that the holiness of Abraham’s household flows from the author of life who is above; that the lives of the redeemed are lived in partnership with their Redeemer, yet utterly dependent upon their Lord for whom nothing is impossible, is no mystery. The blessing is sure; all conditions are to be fulfilled by the Lord. Abraham surely will become a great and mighty nation. His offspring will surely bless all the nations of the earth. And Abraham will be conformed unto his image.

Knowing Judgment “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” This is a rhetorical question if ever there was one. Shall I hide

from my chosen vessel of righteousness what he has been delivered from, what he has been liberated from? Keeping the way of the Lord means not standing in the path of sinners nor sitting in the seat of scoffers. The blessed man of Psalm 1, who delights in the law of God and meditates on it, knows that the wicked are driven away like chaff and will not stand in the judgment. Holiness brings division, and the wicked will not stand, nor will the sinners enter the assembly of the righteous.

Knowing and reflecting on God’s judgment then has a salutary effect on the saints. It helps direct our steps onto the pathway of righteousness. In this vein, Peter writes often in his Epistles of the Flood, comparing the waters of the Flood to baptism. Our salvation is like Noah’s; we too are spared the judgment of the Lord. For Peter, Sodom and Gomorrah are also an example to those who would live ungodly lives and of what the judgment holds for them. But they are also an example of the judgment that the faithful pass through and are delivered from, shielded by the cleansing blood of the Lamb.

“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?”

Should we who seek shelter in the ark with Noah, bearing the baptismal mark of the covenant in our bodies, should we not consider the judgment of God? Have we really considered our blessedness, if we have not considered what this blessedness has delivered us from? Have we really considered our baptism, if we have not beheld the watery grave that swallowed Pharaoh’s armies?

Trading for Souls So Abraham, the believer, possesses by faith the fruit of the covenant, righteousness, and peace with his God—even friendship with God, as he now shares in his counsel.

Indeed, the nature of the coming Day of Judgment is only fully clear to those who have had the law written on their hearts.

It’s hard to say for sure how this would have sounded to Moses’ first readers, but to our ears the closing scene of this chapter presents a tremendous irony and even a sense of comedy. Abraham has been welcomed into the divine counsel, and this man of faith—this man of fits and starts— speaks with a jarring boldness to his covenant Lord: “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” It is ironic, is it not, that Abraham appeals to the Lord’s righteousness in requesting that the righteous and wicked be treated alike, that the righteous and wicked both be spared?

That he proceeds to negotiate with the Lord is even more absurd. Would you spare the city for the sake of fifty righteous souls?

Forty-five? Forty? How about ten?

What makes Abraham think that a supremely merciful and just God would somehow be open to the banter of a marketplace merchant, trading souls like carpets in Marrakesh? God’s justice demands the judgment of the wicked; their evil deeds cry out to him, and the righteous men living in their midst are tormented—even threatened— by their lawless deeds (as Peter writes). Furthermore, Abraham is a doer of righteousness. He is one who, having N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 11

judgment. Especially and particularly in the face of this impending judgment, he cries foundations on earth, but desiring a better country out for mercy—for the mercy of the living God who must prepared by God. deal justly with his people, and who alone promises mercy and forgiveness on the believed and having been reckoned righteous, can for the basis of his justice. On the basis of his justice and not our first time in all sincerity command his household in the own. May we, like Abraham, have our hearts filled with love keeping of the way of the Lord. for a dying world when we consider its fate.

Shouldn’t Abraham affirm the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah? Shouldn’t he, dare I say, delight in the removal of urban blight, a little cultural cleanup? And what about Dr. Brian Lee is pastor of Christ Reformed Church in WashMoses, the author of our story? Isn’t he writing Genesis in ington DC. part to prepare his people—an army in training—for the military conquest of the children of these wicked men living on the plain? Isn’t he preparing Abraham’s offspring for holy war?

Abraham is a pilgrim, not building a holy city with

Speaking Of…

Pilgrim Justice Abraham’s boldness with the Lord reflects a new calling.

Abraham, the doer of righteousness, is unwilling that the Lord might perform this act of righteous judgment on the cities of the plain.

How different is he from James and John in Luke 9, standing at the ready to call down fire from heaven like latter-day Elijahs. How different is he from some of us, who so deeply desire that the Lord might judge those evildoers in our midst.

Abraham had been reckoned righteous by faith. He knew himself a sinner and trusted in the mercy of his Lord. Where does he think he might find these righteous men in Sodom, even ten? Does he not know the sinfulness of man? The covenant and the painful circumcision were only a few days old.

Or does Abraham see his own wickedness in Sodom and Gomorrah? Grasping the magnitude of grace, grasping that no thing is too difficult for the Lord, does he hope that believers might be in their midst? Does he still feel the smart of the blade and have compassion on those for whom its full force is about to fall?

The Book of Hebrews helps us out. Abraham is a pilgrim, not building a holy city with foundations on earth, but desiring a better country prepared by God. Abraham the believer, Abraham the doer of righteousness, is the dispenser of justice, yes, but it is a pilgrim’s justice. The land is his by right and by promise, but he does not claim it or purify it with the terrible swift sword. So different from the armies of Israel, so much more like Christ.

Armed with the gospel, he is full of hope and compassion for the wicked in his midst.

Abraham knows he is a doer of justice only because he is a believer. And he knows intimately that nothing is too difficult for the Lord. He to whom righteousness has been reckoned by faith—who does because he believes—dispenses the justice by faith even in the face of the Lord’s impending

Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God; God, whose word cannot be broken, formed thee for his own abode.

On the Rock of Ages founded, what can shake thy sure repose?

With salvation’s walls surrounded, thou mayst smile at all thy foes.

See, the streams of living waters, springing from eternal love, well supply thy sons and daughters, and all fear of want remove.

Who can faint while such a river ever will their thirst assuage?

Grace which like the Lord, the giver, never fails from age to age.

Round each habitation hovering, see the cloud and fire appear for a glory and a covering, showing that the Lord is near!

Thus deriving from our banner light by night and shade by day, safe we feed upon the manna which God gives us when we pray.

Blest inhabitants of Zion, washed in our Redeemer’s blood; Jesus, whom our souls rely on, makes us monarchs, priests to God. Us, by his great love, he raises, rulers over self to reign, and as priests his solemn praises we for thankful offering bring.

—John Newton

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PREACHING FROM THE CHOIR p e r s p e c t i v e s

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id you ever have a hymn not work for you? Did you find that you didn’t res-

line doesn’t carry the same tone as the Sermon on the onate with what it was saying? Or worse yet, you couldn’t figure out why any- Mount. The Sermon on the Mount, challenging as body would be singing those words in the first place? it is, is not off-putting in the same way as this line of I first noticed this in childhood. The song I especially the hymn. If someone has received real consolation from the remember was “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore.” The thing hymn, then I’ll stand corrected. But I never liked it. I try to exasperated me. It probably didn’t help that I thought the picture my grandmother singing this verse and meaning it, first line was “Michael, Row the Butter Shore.” (I could and the picture is just bizarre. imagine reeds sticking out of butter and what it would look I was happy when I learned that one thing that made a like when the oar scraped through reeds and butter hymn orthodox was objectivity—that it was not first and together.) But even later, when I understood some of the foremost about us. Hearing that, I could see some of what words, I couldn’t figure out why the song would be sung. bothered me about certain songs I had sung in worship Some songs worshipped God. In other contexts, some songs before. They were not about God and what he had accomtold a fun story. I could understand a praise song. I could plished. The worst ones weren’t even really about us. They were about those we might be like, though often with lower understand “Puff the Magic Dragon.” But what was motives intact. Sometimes the tone was wrong in the words.

“Michael, Row the Boat Ashore” about? I also kind of hated Sometimes you could even hear it in the music itself. This his sister. I imagined she was trimming the sail with scissors is a difficult thing to do well, to marry text to tune. A good before they set out. I could imagine the adults saying how text and a good tune can even come together in a bad marhelpful the sister was. I always hated how some compliant riage. Or hit a rocky patch in one or another verse. girl always got attention for this kind of helpfulness. And The tonal question is a different one from whether a here we were, singing about it in church. Yuck. hymn should be happy or somber. Tone asks whether it is As time wore on, I came to understand the lyrics and still cloying or finger-wagging or triumphal. Sometimes a tone had a problem with the point. I think it is a perfect examis always inappropriate. Sometimes it is appropriate in one ple of a song that doesn’t do anything helpful. Perhaps it context but not in another. A good question to ask might be, delights some similarly to how “Puff the Magic Dragon” might, with enjoyable images. If so, then it has one virtue.

“If I didn’t know this was a hymn, what would I think the One that was entirely lost on me. music was about?” One popular praise song makes me think I remember going to my grandmother’s Lutheran church of a floor wax commercial. in Minnesota. (From what I can tell from their website, they In the modern worship wars, I tend to lean strongly in the have not been affiliated with any Lutheran body for a long direction of the hymnal. But I don’t find that the hymnal time, but their background was Finnish pietism.) One of the itself is a guarantee of goodness. Certain modern writers do hymns they sang during my visit was “What a Friend We better than certain older writers at avoiding common probHave in Jesus.” This one was a bit different. I really liked the lems. And we can probably get more people on board in the first verse. Although this was long before I had ever heard long run if we can teach the criteria of a good worship of him, I had a Garrison Keillor Lutheran church moment. song.

But then, what was going on in the later verses? “Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer.”

Rick Ritchie is a long-time contributor to Modern Reformation.

Hmm. Written out, it sounds like good advice—though I He is a graduate of Christ College in Irvine, California, and Gordonwould not tend to call them “friends” once they had done Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. this, but I can still follow the point. Yet, given the tone of the hymn, there again was a yuck factor. There was a picture of a kind of consolation that just seemed out of place. Now the New Testament does offer consolation for rejection. The Sermon on the Mount talks about counting this as joy because people treated the prophets so before us. But really.

The hymn is mostly sung by those raised in the church.

Those whose friends know they are Christians already. The N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 13

Celebrating Calvin Ten Ways Modern Culture Is Different Because of John Calvin

by David W. Hall Epilogue

as hallmarks of Calvin’s political legacy,1 and these permeate the cultural contributions noted above:

The Calvinist view of liberty, wherever it spread, gave citizens confidence and protections. Within a century, the American colonies would exhibit these Calvinistic distinctives. Not incidentally, one of the first colonial law codes was named “The Massachusetts Body of Liberties.” So close were law and liberty that Calvin’s disciples customarily associated law codes with tables of liberties. The reason was that a proper understanding of liberty is essential for any successful venture, whether it is business, civic, or religious. Calvin had seen an oppression of liberties—both in Paris as Protestants were persecuted and in the eyes of the many Roman Catholic refugees who arrived regularly at Geneva’s walls—and he formed his view of liberties based on God’s Word and also in a fashion that avoided misuses of it.

Few thinkers with a lineage as ancient as Calvin have as much future promise. Calvin set forth both the positive necessity for well-ordered government as well as the limitations of its scope. His Reformed theology compelled government to be limited to the role of servant of the people; his political insights helped restrain the Leviathan. Today, when individuals frequently act as if centralized government agencies can provide lasting solutions to a wide range of social and individual problems, Calvinistic realism is one of the few substantial intellectual traditions that cogently warns against the twin dangers of utopianism and the threat of expansive governmental power.

Of all the theologies, Calvinism has made the most significant contribution to democracy. One summary of political Calvinism reduced Calvin’s ideas to five points that may be of continuing validity. Herbert Foster noted the following

• The absolute sovereignty of God entailed that universal human rights (or Beza’s “fundamental law”) should be protected and must not be surrendered to the whim of tyranny.

• These fundamental laws, which were always compatible with God’s law, are the basis of whatever public liberties we enjoy.

• Mutual covenants—as taught by Beza, Hotman, and the Vindiciae—between rulers and God, and between rulers and subjects, were binding and necessary.

• As Ponet, Knox, and Goodman taught, the sovereignty of the people flows logically from the mutual obligations of the covenants above.

• The representatives of the people, not the people themselves, are the first line of defense against tyranny.2 At least an elementary grasp of Calvin is essential to any well-informed self-understanding of Western democracy— indeed, for modernity itself. Unfortunately, many remain unaware of the signal contribution that the leadership of Calvin has made to open societies. We may even credit Calvin’s Reformation with aiding the spread of participatory democracy. Even if this heritage no longer holds a place of honor in our textbooks or in our public tradition, we owe our Calvinistic forefathers a large debt of gratitude for their efforts to establish limited government and personal liberty grounded in virtue. A single man with heart aflame changed the world.

American Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once estimated the paramount political accomplishment of the

The very name of John Calvin stirs up controversy. For those who have been primarily on the negative side of the divide—and for those on the opposite ridge— Modern Reformation has been featuring a series in 2009 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Genevan Reformer’s birth (July 10, 1509). Rather than focus on biography or theology, this series looked briefly at ten areas of culture irrevocably transformed by the influence of Calvin and his band of brothers and sisters. Love him or hate him, he was a change agent. We think for the better.

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millennium as law established by elected representatives instead of by the king or his experts. His candidate for the finde-millénaire award in late 1999 was the principle that laws should be made not by a ruler, or his ministers, or his appointed judges, but by representatives of the people. This principle of democratic self-government was virtually unheard of in the feudal world that existed at the beginning of the millennium....So thoroughly has this principle swept the board that even many countries that in fact do not observe it pretend to do so, going through the motions of sham, unopposed elections....We Americans...have become so used to democracy that it seems to us the natural order of things. Of course it is not. During almost all of recorded human history, the overwhelming majority of mankind has been governed by rulers determined by heredity, or selected by a powerful aristocracy, or imposed through sheer force of arms. Kings and emperors have been always with us; presidents (or their equivalent) have been very rare.3 It should be noted, however, from the highlights above that Justice Scalia is describing the kind of republicanism pioneered by Calvin and his disciples—a republic grounded in the eternal truth of morally ordered liberty.

Even during the twentieth century, intellectuals certainly remained aware of Calvin. In fact, in the words of contemporary theologian Douglas Kelly, Calvin’s legacy continues and is “perhaps the stronger and deeper for the very fact that its roots are largely unperceived.” Large segments of political thought have often embraced such forward-looking Calvinistic concepts as respecting fixed limits on governing power and permitting people the rights to resist oppression, with little awareness of their genesis.4 Calvin’s original formulation of these ideas was eventually “amplified, systematized, and widely diffused in Western civilization....Thus modified, it would prevail across half of the world for nearly half a millennium.”5 Calvin should certainly be acknowledged for his overall contribution to the legacy of freedom and openness in democratic societies. It is undeniable that he had a large influence on the American founding fathers, who had absorbed much more Calvinism—particularly in their views of the nature of man and the need for limited government—than some realize.

John Calvin was much more than a theologian, and his influence extended far beyond churches.6 Calvin and his disciples, when measured by this new millennium, will probably make more lasting contributions than Karl Marx, Napoleon Bonaparte, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, or Henry Ford. Calvin inspired the cultural changes that gave rise to the political philosophy of the American founders, a truly extraordinary event in world history. Founding fathers, such as George Washington, James Madison, Samuel and John Adams, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson7 stood on

the shoulders of some of history’s greatest philosophers, not the least of whom was a pastor from Geneva hundreds of years ago. That he is still commemorated 500 years after his birth as a culture-shaping leader indicates the robust character of his thought and a sturdy legacy for generations to come.

David W. Hall (Ph.D., Whitefield Theological Seminary) is senior pastor of Midway Presbyterian Church in Powder Springs, Georgia, and executive director of Calvin500 (www.calvin500.org). He is the author of several books, including The Legacy of John Calvin (P&R, 2008), and The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding (Lexington, 2005).

Herbert D. Foster, Collected Papers of Herbert D. Foster (privately printed, 1929), 163–74. I have summarized the five points of political Calvinism slightly differently, referring to: depravity as a perennial human variable to be accommodated; accountability for leaders provided via a collegium; republicanism as the preferred form of government; constitutionalism needed to restrain both the rulers and the ruled; and limited government, beginning with the family as foundational. The resulting mnemonic device, DARCL, though not as convenient as TULIP, seems a more apt summary if placed in the context of the political writings of Calvin’s disciples.

2Foster, 174. Besides Calvin, this idea was reiterated in Buchanan, Beza, Peter Martyr, Althusius, Hotman, Daneau, Vindiciae, Ponet, William the Silent, and others.

3Antonin Scalia, “The Millennium That Was: How Democracy Swept the World,” The Wall Street Journal (7 September 1999), A24.

4Douglas Kelly, The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1992), 4, 27.

5Kelly, 32.

6Some of the foregoing work was also contained in my dissertation, “The Calvinistic Political Tradition, 1530–1790: The Rise, Development, and Dissemination of Genevan Political Culture to the Founders of America through Theological Exemplars” (Whitefield Theological Seminary, 2002).

7A recent article further corroborates Jefferson’s ease with religion. See “What Would Jefferson Do?” in The Wall Street Journal (9 March 2001), D26. That editorial contains a finding by Kevin Hasson, to wit: “The Framers did not share the suspicion that religion is some sort of allergen in the body politic. Quite the contrary, they welcomed public expression of faith as a normal part of cultural life.”

It is also noted that in Jefferson’s day, the Treasury Building was used for a Presbyterian communion, Episcopal services were held in the War Office and, as the Library of Congress exhibition states, “the Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.” That America today doesn’t know its own history here is a reflection of the larger revisionism that today portrays the churches, synagogues, and mosques that criss-cross the country not as bulwarks of freedom but as incipient threats to the American way of life. The editorial concludes by suggesting that if future Supreme Court justices are hostile to the free expression of religion, “they’ll have to do it without Jefferson.”

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ZION

Marching to Zion: Joining the Royal Procession BY

MICHAEL HORTON

On a cold November day in 1095, Pope Urban II roused the great crowd assembled before him to take up the cause of holy war against Islam. Instead of fighting each other, the people were told to unite against the common enemy and retake the Holy Land. “If you must have blood,” he exhorted, “bathe in the blood of infidels.”1 Substituting itself for its ascended Lord, the church assimilated a civilization to that ecclesial body. The church father Eusebius declared that it was from Christ and by Christ that “our divinely favored emperor [Constantine], receiving, as it were, a transcript of the divine sovereignty, directs, in imitation of God himself, the administration of this world’s affairs.”

Included in this, says Eusebius, is that the emperor “subdues and chastens the open adversaries of the truth in accordance with the usages of war.”2 14 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

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Though less violent, many Christians in America still demand visible symbols of Christianity in the culture.

Ironically, many Christians today who decry the legacy of “Christendom” nevertheless confuse the advance of Christ’s kingdom of grace with the common activity of Christians working alongside their neighbors in culture.

While we may still tolerate the ordinary means of grace, we grow impatient with this apparently meager visibility of Christ’s reign in this present age. Across the political spectrum, many proclaim that Christ’s kingdom is advanced not by proclaiming the forgiveness of sins in Christ’s name so much as by cultural transformation. We seem to hear less today about Christ’s unique person and work than we do about us and our mission of “incarnating,” “redeeming,” and “reconciling.”

Misunderstanding the March: Replacing Jesus here did Jesus go after he accomplished our redemption? And how did the church—and allegedly Christian empires—come to think that they could keep his seat warm until he returned in power and glory to reign on the earth? The disciples themselves missed the point of Jesus’ journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. They expected Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem to be the victory celebration and that they would sit at his side for the inaugural ball. He had prepared them for his departure in the Upper Room, as he explained how his ascension to the Father meant that the Spirit would descend to dispense the gifts of his victory.

Even after the resurrection, when he explained how all the Scriptures pointed to his saving work, they were not ready for his ascension. Just before this momentous event, they still asked, “Lord, now are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6, emphasis added). They were still thinking about a kingdom of earthly power here and now, not a kingdom of grace. They were ready for the ax to fall, for the sheep to be separated from the goats, and for fire to consume the enemies of God. Instead, they were told to go throughout the world preaching the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ until he returns at the end of the age. As they stood gazing at the ascending Lord, the disciples were told by two angels, “‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’” (vv. 10–11).

Refusing to be located in the time between the times, the church often substitutes itself for its absent Lord. Just compare the pomp and circumstance with which Memorial Day and Independence Day are celebrated in churches across America with the relative obscurity of Ascension Day. Nobody expects The New York Times to celebrate Christ’s victory over sin and death each week, but why should the church give the impression that there is something more important and more impressive to focus on than this report?

Obviously, a cure for AIDS would grab the front-page headline for weeks on end. We would all dance in the

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streets. Right now, there are Christians working alongside non-Christians in labs and on the field to try to achieve that success. In our common callings, we are not ushering in Christ’s kingdom of glory and power, but sharing with non-Christians in temporal blessings and woes and loving our neighbors through the gifts we have been given by God’s common and saving grace. Only the church, however, is commissioned as Christ’s agency to announce each week that the whole kingdom of Satan has been toppled forever; that we are now in the hand-to-hand combat phase of ferreting out guerilla strongholds that have not yet yielded to the truth of their defeat, and awaiting the return of the King for the last battle. The end of all disease, poverty, oppression, violence, disaster, idolatry, and sin is at hand. Which is more powerful: the announcement of God’s work or the calls to our work? Once we realize that the gospel is the power of God for salvation, our action becomes a “reasonable service.” If our service is front and center, however, the church may easily (wittingly or unwittingly) proclaim itself as the Messiah.

Knowing What Time It Is e still have trouble knowing what time it is or what kind of kingdom Christ has inaugurated.

If we are still thinking in terms of a fully consummated kingdom of glory and power present now in the world, whether as the church or as Christian movements, then the gospel will be considered foolish and the divinely prescribed methods of delivery (preaching and Sacrament) will be judged too weak to really grab the world’s attention. The challenge for us, as for the first disciples, is to believe in a kingdom of grace and await the arrival of the kingdom of glory.

When an agnostic creates a cure for a terrible disease, we neither reject this gift of God’s common grace nor imagine that he or she is advancing Christ’s kingdom. It was not simply to believers but to all human beings that God gave the commission, “Be fruitful and multiply,” as his stewards of the earth. God preserved and protected Cain, the idolater and murderer, because he wanted the secular city to continue.

The Great Commission, however, is not the cultural mandate, and the kingdom of Christ cannot be identified with any of the kingdoms of this age. Like the exiles in Babylon, New Testament believers are called to participate in the common life of their captive city, while remaining “exiles” and “sojourners” in their hearts. We share the travails and joys of the secular city, while witnessing to the greater judgment and salvation found in Zion. If we could resolve our top ten crises in the world today, we would still have the devil on our back, sin mastering our heart, and everlasting death as the penalty for our mutiny. Do we really believe that our greatest crisis is the wrath of God and our greatest solution is the death and resurrection of Christ?

As a minister, I am called regularly by God to make a political speech—a deeply partisan political speech.

However, it is not to rally the troops in defense of

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Christendom against the infidels of various sorts. It divides not between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, but between Christ and Antichrist. As heralds and ambassadors of the age to come, we are given the commission to go into all the world with the announcement that Jesus Christ is Lord and King, the only Sovereign who holds the keys of death and hell—who opens and no one can shut, who shuts and no one can open. It is he alone who will rid the world of evil by his wisdom and might, subduing chaos, and leading his own into the place that even now he is preparing for them.

In this covenantal gathering, the cross is raised, not as a cultural symbol but as the proclamation of Christ crucified for sinners. Our role is not to represent Western civilization, democracy, or the free world, nor to oppose these systems, but to announce and to exhibit—however imperfectly—the triumph of Christ’s weak kingdom over the powerful kingdoms of this age. For now, we pray for secular rulers, pay our taxes, and fulfill our callings together with our non-Christian neighbors and citizens.

As Calvin pointed out, the distinction between the “two kingdoms” does not mean that Christ is not king already, but that for now he rules both kingdoms in different ways. The kingdom of God advances by Word and Spirit, while the kingdoms of this age progress or decline according to the light of God’s moral law inscribed on the conscience in creation and the Spirit’s work in common grace.

The cities of this age rise to the heavens in pride, but the City of God—the New Jerusalem that is coming down out of heaven as a bride prepared for her husband—alone promises and gives true liberty to its sons and daughters beyond the ultimate triumph of death and hell. We witness to the ascended King who will return again to judge the living and the dead and to reign forever.

From Royal March to Enthronement (Psalm 68) nlike the first Adam, who led creation on a detour in the thanksgiving parade from its appointed path, this Servant of the Lord finally fulfilled our human destiny. Psalm 68 records a royal march of Israel, foreshadowing the faithful Servant, Jesus Christ. The psalm begins with the battle cry, “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered!” (vv. 1–3). As Jewish scholar Jon Levenson observes, Zion represents the eschatological destination of the people of God, a mountain that rises far above the failures of the human partner in the covenant and exists by God’s grace. Psalm 68, then, “records a march of YHWH from Sinai, a military campaign in which the God of Israel and his retinue…set out across the desert.”3 As important as Sinai is in the march, it lies midway between Egypt and the earthly Zion: Canaan. The focus shifts from Sinai to Zion, for example, in Psalm 97 (cf. Ps. 68:8–9; Deut. 33:2; Ps. 50:2–3).

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The transfer of the motif from Sinai to Zion was complete and irreversible, so that YHWH came to be designated no longer as “the One of Sinai,” but as 16 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

“he who dwells on Mount Zion“ (Isa. 8:18)….The transfer of the divine home from Sinai to Zion meant that God was no longer seen as dwelling in an extraterritorial no man’s land, but within the borders of the Israelite community.4 And in the Zion traditions, Levenson comments, “there will emerge something almost unthinkable in the case of Sinai”—an unconditional divine oath that God himself, above all the vicissitudes of human disobedience, will somehow arise and scatter his enemies and save his people. So Zion takes on a cosmic, universal role that Sinai never did. “Not only Jerusalem and the land of Israel, but even the people of Israel can be designated as Zion,” as in Isaiah 51:16 and Zechariah 2:11.5 Leading captivity captive, ascending, giving gifts to and receiving gifts from even his enemies, crushing the head of the serpent, and dwelling forever in Zion (Ps. 68:19–23), this is the King who “daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation,” from whom alone we receive “escape from death.” Although Levenson interprets Psalm 68 as a march from Sinai to Zion, echoing the trial of Adam from commission to consummation—and even points out the failure common to both—he concludes that Zion is finally absorbed into Sinai within Judaism. The ascent of Mount Zion, he suggests, is an allegory for “the ethical ascent of man.”6 Levenson even recognizes that this is where Christianity and Judaism part ways: Where the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70 transfers Jewish atonement from the earthly Zion to the inner hearts of the faithful, the New Testament announces that Christ is the true Temple and those who believe in him are his living stones.7 From his victory on the mountain of Golgotha to his ascension to the true heavenly Zion and enthronement as the King of kings and Lord of lords, Yahweh leads captivity captive. This is already anticipated at various points in Jesus’ ministry. The return of the Seventy in Luke 10 anticipates the victory march. Jesus pronounces the “woes”—the covenant curses—upon the enemies of his kingdom, including Israel’s religious leaders, while the Seventy return with joy, breathlessly reporting to their Lord, “Even the demons are subject to us in your name.”

And Jesus said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.

As the Captain of salvation, Jesus Christ in his earthly ministry marched from Sinai to Zion, leading captivity captive. Resisting the way of glory falsely promised by Satan in the temptation, Jesus went the way of the cross, marching all the way to the gates of hell to crush the serpent’s

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head and to throw open the prisoner’s doors. Psalm 68 ends with the arrival of the military procession—drawn from Israel and the nations—into the sanctuary of the Great King who has ascended in triumph. In his Upper Room discourse (John 14–16), Jesus prepared the disciples for his departure. He would be crucified, buried, and then rise again on the third day. Then he would ascend, both to send the Spirit from his throne and to prepare a place for us.

In the meantime, on the basis of his victory (“All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me”), he commissions them to “go into all the world,” proclaiming, teaching, and baptizing. In his covenant with Abram, God promised that in him and his heir (Jesus Christ) all the nations of the earth will be blessed. This hope was kept alive by the prophets. Even in the process of pressing God’s charges against Israel for violating the Sinai covenant, they prophesied the day when God himself would descend and build a highway from Jerusalem to Egypt, Assyria, and all nations. A remnant from all peoples would be gathered into the royal march of the Great King, not to an earthly mountain and temple but to the heavenly reality that the earthly Jerusalem only prefigured.

The Conquering King Ascends hrist’s ascension opened up a fissure in history, locating the church in the precarious collision of the two ages: this age of sin and death, and the age to come. It is easy in the absence of Christ’s visible reign in the flesh on the earth to substitute ourselves or the church.

What we are doing right now on earth becomes the frontpage news. However, we miss the whole point if we fail to see that it is still what Jesus is doing that is the big news.

He ascended to heaven in order to rule and subdue history to his gracious and holy designs, to dispatch his Spirit to sweep sinners into his victory parade, and to spread his kingdom of peace to the ends of the earth. This may not capture the world’s headlines. In fact, Peter describes these last days as an era in which scoffers mock, “Where is the promise of his coming?” After all, it seems as if “all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Pet. 3:4). Nevertheless, as Peter goes on to relate, this era of apparent weakness for God’s kingdom is actually due to God’s patience. His energetic activity may not be seen in the daily press, but it is reaping a harvest of redeemed sinners from the ends of the earth.

In Ephesians 4, we—the new covenant believers—get swept up into this victory march. Just as the dragon’s tail swept a third of the angels from heaven in his fall in Revelation 12, the Savior’s ascension sweeps into his wake a remnant from every tribe and tongue on earth.

However, this triumphant march is not like the holy wars of the Old Testament. Christ does not call his people today to drive the serpent’s emissaries out of a supposedly holy land or to rule over them by the temporal sword. He came to crush the serpent’s head himself. In this contest, Jesus must fight alone. No one but Jesus hung on that cross, bearing the weight of the world’s sins. Nevertheless,

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his resurrection draws innumerable captives into his train.

He reigns as victor for us in heaven, while we bring news of his victory to the earth. The world does not welcome this news any more after his resurrection than when he first arrived. The announcement of good news provokes the rage of the dragon; and although he knows that he has lost the war with the seed of the woman, he spends his last days in pursuit of his co-heirs.

Ephesians 4:1–6 records a march as believers “walk in unity.” As he writes this Epistle, Paul himself is under house arrest in Rome, “the prisoner of the Lord.” Even in prison, he is not the captive of Satan or Caesar; he is the Lord’s prisoner and under his reign. Despite their intentions, the devil and his ambassadors are actually serving the Lord’s reign through Paul’s ministry. He calls the Ephesians to “walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (vv.

1–2). This exhortation stands in sharp contrast to the old covenant command to eliminate the serpent and his seed from God’s holy land by the sword. Yet it also stands in contrast to the complaining, backbiting, and attempted mutiny against Moses’ leadership exhibited by the Israelites on their march through the desert.

Having been raised from spiritual death and seated with Christ (Eph. 2:1–6), saved by grace alone through faith alone (vv. 6–8), believers are predestined to walk in good works together toward their destination (v. 10).

With the two hands of Word and Spirit, the King creates a body of which he is the head. That unity is already lodged in God’s election, redemption, calling, and sealing elaborated in Ephesians 1. We must be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:2). Yet the preservation of this unity depends ultimately on its source. In other words, we cannot drum up this unity by our own resources. It cannot be enforced. The imperative to preserve this unity depends always on the indicative fact that we are united by Christ and his gospel.

“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:4–6).

Notice what is not included here: one universal pastor or form of church government, one movement, one program, or one experience. Longing for a more visible security than the gospel we hear proclaimed, we are easily misled into thinking that if we could only unite behind a pope or a charismatic leader or a revival or social program, we could really know who is in and who is out. At last there would be true unity. Doctrine only gets in the way.

Let’s just love Jesus and transform the world.

However, we are directed here to find our unity precisely in the doctrine: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” If you want to find the “one body” and “one Spirit,” you must look for the place where Christ is proclaimed in Word and Sacrament. The King not only saves, he preserves the body N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 17

that he has saved through his current gift-giving reign.

We are one in Christ (Eph. 1–3); therefore, let us walk together according to this high calling. Our Conquering King will not keep the spoils of victory all to himself. As he lived for us, died for us, and rose for us, so he rules for us in heaven until all of his enemies and ours are defeated.

Far from establishing a clericalism that excludes laypeople from Christ’s gifts, the ministry of Word and Sacrament that Paul highlights in Ephesians 4 is the means through which Christ distributes them for the completion and maturity of the whole body in the gospel. Ironically, many Christians today as in the past imagine that the Scriptures offer a blueprint for transforming the kingdoms of this age, while claiming that the Bible is relatively silent on the doctrine or at least on the worship and government that Christ has instituted for his church. The reverse, however, is the case in the New Testament. The doctrines and imperatives for godly living are clearly revealed. Through the apostles, Jesus has given clear instructions on the proper ministry of his Word and Sacraments as well as the offices in the church and their qualifications. Yet beyond the call to diligence and loving service in our secular callings, the Scriptures do not offer Christians a blueprint for economic development, civil legislation, social progress, and political stability. As “salt” and “light,” Christians make a difference in all sorts of ways in varying degrees, but salt is a preservative not a savior.

“The secular” is not a place, but a time. It is not a period in which Christ is absent, much less a supposedly neutral space to which he is barred access. The term saeculum, apparently coined by Augustine, simply means “of the age.” While the Greeks divided reality into “this world” of shadowy appearances (the physical realm) and the “other world” of true reality (the spiritual realm), Jesus and Paul divided reality into “this age” and “the age to come.”

Biblical eschatology knows nothing of a salvation from the realm of time, space, and matter, but only of the salvation of the whole creation at the end of the age. So the question is not whether Christ is now Lord of the whole earth, in all of its spheres, or whether the creation itself will be renewed. Rather, it is a question of timing. As Paul teaches in Romans 8, we have already been justified— no longer condemned, we have been renewed definitively by the Spirit who indwells us. Yet we wait patiently for Christ’s return, when the children of God will be raised immortal and the whole creation will share in the triumph of God’s everlasting Sabbath. In between these two advents of Christ, we live not in the shadows but in the tension between this present age, dominated by the powers and principalities of sin and death, and the age to come, ruled by the power, righteousness, peace, justice, and grace of our triune God. Joining the throng of pilgrims to Zion, away from the thrall of Vanity Fair, we testify to the world that there is something greater, richer, deeper, and fuller than our best life now. Through preaching and Sacrament, the Spirit brings the “solid joys and lasting treasures” of the age to 18 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

come into this present age that is passing away. By caring sacrificially for brothers and sisters who are overlooked by the regents of this passing age, and belonging to a communion of saints that defies the natural, cultural, or political affinities of the temporal city, we already indwell a new creation that will be consummated when Christ returns. In our common prayer, songs, and service, we point ourselves and our neighbors to another King who makes his subjects co-heirs and fellow children of the Father. And in our common witness, we become God’s means of gathering strangers to the Sabbath feast. Then, as we are scattered into the world as “salt” and “light,” we pursue our callings as parents, children, volunteers, citizens, Little League coaches, employees and employers with the assurance that our primary citizenship is in Zion.

So now we have Christ’s answer to his disciples when they asked at his ascension, “Now are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” Right at the moment they ask this, Jesus leaves. But where does he go? He goes to heaven to claim the prize of his victory—not only for himself but for us. And he sends his Spirit to lead the ground campaign of grace.

In this present phase, we are neither merely waiting for Christ to establish his kingdom nor building his kingdom of power and glory through our own impressive campaigns. Rather, we are recipients and heralds of his victory and his heavenly reign at the Father’s right hand. We live now as those who have already been justified and transferred from the tyranny of Satan and sin to the liberating reign of Christ and the age to come. In the ministry of Word and Sacrament, in the fellowship of the saints that transcends earthly divisions and demographics, in the diaconal care for those in need, and in its mission to the world, the church testifies that Christ is already Lord and will consummate his kingdom when he returns. Just as Daniel prophesied, this Kingdom of David’s greater son endures from generation to generation and brings the liberated captives into the everlasting rest. There is only one kingdom that cannot be shaken. “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and awe” (Heb. 12:28). ■

Michael Horton is J. Gresham Machen Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido).

Robert Payne, The Dream and the Tomb: A History of the Crusades (New York: Stein & Day, 1985), 34.

2Douglas Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 115.

3Farrow, 19.

4Farrow, 91.

5Farrow, 137.

6Farrow, 137.

7Farrow, 137.

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Samuel Davies on the Two Kingdoms

By Michael Horton In the context of the clash of European empires for the American colonies, Presbyterian preacher Samuel Davies (1723–61) turned the colonists’ attention to Christ’s kingdom as “the best refuge from this boisterous world” of violence and domination.1

His empire encompasses not only the living but the dead.

“You hence see, my brethren, the universal extent of the Redeemer’s kingdom; and in this respect how much does it differ from all the kingdoms of the earth?” And just in case the application was left in doubt, Davies supplied specifics:

“My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus said, as much as to say, “I do not deny that I claim a kingdom, but it is of such a nature, that it need give no alarm to the kings of the earth. Their kingdoms are of this world, but mine is spiritual and divine, and therefore cannot interfere with theirs. If my kingdom were of this world, like theirs, I would take the same methods with them to obtain and secure it; my servants would fight for me, that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now, you see, I use no such means for my defence, or to raise me to my kingdom: and therefore you may be assured, my kingdom is not from hence, and can give the Roman emperor no umbrage for suspicion or uneasiness.” (185)

The kingdoms of Great-Britain, France, China, Persia, are but little spots on the globe. Our world has indeed been oppressed in former times with what mortals call universal monarchies; such were the Babylonians, the Persians, the Grecian, and especially the Roman. But in truth, these were so far from being strictly universal, that a considerable part of the habitable earth was not so much as known to them. But this is an empire strictly universal.

The Jews of Jesus’ day failed to recognize David and Solomon as mere types of the coming King and therefore expected a political messiah (187). No wonder Herod acted so rashly at the news (188).

It is the mediatorial kingdom of Christ that is here intended, not that which as God he exercises over all the works of his hands: it is that kingdom which is an empire of grace, an administration of mercy over our guilty world. It is the dispensation intended for the salvation of fallen sinners of our race by the gospel; and on this account the gospel is often called the kingdom of heaven; because its happy consequences are not confined to this earth, but appear in heaven in the highest perfection, and last through all eternity. (190) Indeed, “The whole universe is put under a mediatorial head; but then, as the apostle observes, he is made head over all things to his church, Eph. I.22. That is, for the benefit and salvation of his church, all uses of the universe put to that end” (190). His priestly ministry has conquered not only sin and death but demons, powers, and Satan himself (192). Even ordinary providence in sending sunshine and rain is ordered ultimately “to support and accommodate heirs for his heavenly kingdom.”

But Jesus reigns absolute and supreme over the kings of the earth, and over-rules and controuls them as he thinks proper; and he disposes all the revolutions, the rises and falls of kingdoms and empires, so as to be subservient to the great designs of his mediation; and their united policies and powers cannot frustrate the work which he has undertaken. (192)

And while huge empires have always proved disastrous in the earth, “Jesus is equal to the immense province of an empire strictly universal.” (193) The laws of earthly kingdoms can reach only to the end of one’s life in this world, but the laws of Christ’s kingdom extend into the world to come; “human laws extend only to outward actions, but these laws reach the heart, and the principle of action within.” Earthly kings have their ministers, but this King has heavenly angels and ministers “of an humbler form” who are “appointed to preach his word, to administer his ordinances, and to manage the affairs of his kingdom.” Their courts are adorned with “a meek and quiet, zealous and faithful spirit, and a life becoming the gospel of Christ,” not with silver and gold (194).

Earthly regimes have their armies, so too the kingdom of Christ in heaven and earth, but his war leads to everlasting peace, salvation, and blessing, not to perpetual turmoil and death (195).

Other kingdoms are often founded in blood, and many lives are lost on both sides in acquiring them.

The kingdom of Christ, too, was founded in blood; but it was the blood of his own heart: life was lost in the conflict; but it was his own; his own life lost, to purchase life for his people. Others have waded to empire through the blood of mankind, and even of their own subjects, but Christ shed only his own blood to spare that of his soldiers….O! the generous patriotism, the ardent love of the Captain of our salvation! (197) His subjects have spilled their blood as well in their witness to this gospel, but the most oppressive kingdoms of this world have not been able to subdue it (197–8).

Jesus, our king, has his arms too, but O! of how different a kind! The force of evidence and conviction (continued on page 24) N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 19

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The Destiny of the Species BY

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here’s a not-so-subtle irony in the fact that our education system promotes the idea to our nation’s young people that they are little more than highly evolved animals, and then, when little Johnny grows up and behaves like one, we conclude that his real problem is his lack of education.

The idea that man is simply a product of his past, the cumulative effect of genes and environment, is one way to tell the human story, but it utterly fails to take into account the most profound aspect of man’s psyche. If man were an animal, then he would indeed be pushed by his past. But if man is a creature made in God’s image, then he is necessarily pulled by his future.

Due to the fact that many American Christians narrowly equate “eschatology” with the events immediately preceding the return of Christ (such as the Rapture and the rise of the antichrist), the significance of this term is obscured or often lost altogether. The word “eschatology” is derived from the Greek word eschatos, which means “last.” Eschatology, then, refers to the study of last things and, more specifically, how the future relates to the present.

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JASON J. STELLMAN

Which Came Last, the Chicken or the Egg? nyone familiar with the hit television program House knows the value of a proper diagnosis. The show’s main character, Dr. Gregory House, is a physician with an uncanny gift of identifying rare maladies in his patients by noticing symptoms that most doctors overlook. If the patient is suffering from numbness in his left ring finger while simultaneously feeling acute kidney pain coupled with a rash on his right pinky toe and an unexplained taste of lemon in his mouth, Dr. House will somehow figure out that the patient must have visited Borneo last month where he surely contracted a rare strain of a virus carried by the fish that swim in the lake next to the hotel that are caught and served for dinner in its restaurant. And he’ll make this diagnosis without even getting up from his desk.

There is a danger, however, in focusing too much attention on man’s ailments, an error G. K. Chesterton calls “the medical mistake.” In his book What’s Wrong with the World, Chesterton writes: “The first great blunder of sociology...is stating the disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that in social

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matters we must actually find the cure before we find the disease.”1 Man, Chesterton insists, is distinct from an animal at precisely this point: while all that needs to be known about a cocker spaniel can be found by examining its past, the owner of the cocker spaniel can only be understood by examining his future. In other words, the cure for man must be identified before we can diagnose his illness, for we will never properly understand man’s condition until we determine his telos, until we ask what man is made for in the first place. Chesterton’s point, therefore, is that man can only be understood from the vantage point of the future, after running on ahead, as it were, and then looking back.

Chesterton uses the famous chicken or egg quandary to illustrate his point. The real question, he insists, is not which came first, but which comes last.

Leaving the complications of the human breakfasttable out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg.

He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist.

Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself.2 Chesterton’s point is that we mustn’t think of ourselves solely in immediate, practical terms, but also in ultimate ones. Eggs have only one purpose: to produce a chicken.

Chickens, on the other hand, have more options than merely to be egg-layers. When considering ourselves solely from the perspective of this present age, it is easy to see ourselves as little more than consumers, as workers, as cogs in a cruel machine with no ultimate purpose. But when we think in more idealistic terms, we begin to see that we were made for something much grander than this world.

We need to be more idealistic, Chesterton argues, by which he means that we must “consider everything in its practical essence” or what it is ideally designed for. He points out that “idealism only means that we should consider a poker in reference to poking before we discuss its suitability for wife-beating.” He continues: But I know that this primary pursuit of the theory (which is but pursuit of the aim) exposes one to the cheap charge of fiddling while Rome is burning….There has arisen in our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a theorist. A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, to the way things commonly work.

When things will not work, you must have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at all. It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is

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burning; but it is quite right to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome is burning.3 Philosopher Peter Kreeft agrees: Men live not just in the present, but in the future.

We live by hope. Our hearts are a beat ahead of our feet. Half of us is already in the future; we meet ourselves coming at us from up ahead….Animals’ lives are like an arc coming to them out of their past; they are determined by their past. They are pushed; we are pulled.4 After all, the gospel transforms lives not by changing our past but by changing our future, for it is the latter, and not the former, that makes us what we are. “God,” says the writer of Ecclesiastes, “has put eternity into man’s heart” (3:11), and whether he is conscious of it or not, man’s job is to chase it.

The Unworthiness of Egypt ur dual citizenship—the fact that we live in this age with a longing for the next—results in a tension characteristic of all pilgrims. This tension is illustrated for us by the lives of two Old Testament saints mentioned in Hebrews 11’s “Hall of Faith.” The first is Joseph and the second is Moses.

In Hebrews 11:22 we read: “By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.” This cryptic passage is referring to the account in Genesis 50:24–25 in which Joseph, the son of Jacob, said to his brothers: “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.”

A cursory reading of these verses would suggest that Joseph’s desire to escape Egypt (even postmortem if necessary) was for obvious reasons. After all, wasn’t Egypt a cruel land, a place of slavery and a house of bondage (Exod. 20:2)? Not for Joseph it wasn’t. As Exodus 1:8 makes clear, Egypt did not become a place of oppression for Israel until “a pharaoh arose who knew not Joseph.” Joseph’s own tenure in Egypt was characterized not by oppression but by the power and wealth that accompanied his own exalted position as second-in-command to the king himself. Thus, whatever it was that caused Joseph to long to escape Egypt and enter the Promised Land, it certainly wasn’t Egypt’s difficulty or discomfort.

The second saint whose misgivings about Egypt may cause us to scratch our heads is Moses. Having been brought up as the adopted son in the royal family, Moses’ experience of Egypt was similar to Joseph’s. Stephen tells us in Acts 7:21–22 that “Pharaoh’s daughter adopted [Moses] and brought him up as her own son. And [he] was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he

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If it is true that all men and women share an inexplicable

do I count my life dear unto myself” (Acts 20:24, KJV). It was utter folly for Paul—as ache for eternity, how much more ought the believer to for Joseph and Moses—to choose earthly comfort, recognize this longing and give expression to it? which is fading, over eternal blessedness, which never ends. For two of these saints, was mighty in his words and deeds.” Yet, Moses’ pedigree however, this choice did not only mean the loss of presnotwithstanding, Scripture says of him: ent pleasure but the gaining of present persecution.

Although eternal concerns always trump temporal ones, When he was grown up, [he] refused to be called the the choice was obvious. son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God…. He considered Groaning for Glory the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treast is not my intention to downplay the goodness or ures of Egypt…he left Egypt, not being afraid of the beauty of this present creation. Much has been said, anger of the king. (Heb. 11:24–27) both biblically and extra-biblically, about the wonders of nature (one need only think of Thoreau’s Walden, King What was it then that brought both Joseph and Moses to David’s Psalm 8, and Krakauer’s Into the Wild). The aposcome to despise the land that symbolized such protection, tle Paul has something to say on this topic as well, a paspleasure, and power? sage that may be the most sublime of all: Thankfully, the text of Hebrews 11 spells out very clearly these saints’ reasons for refusing to give Egypt For the creation waits with eager longing for the their allegiance, despite all it had done for them. What is revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was only hinted at in Joseph’s mention of “the exodus of the subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Israelites” is made explicit in Moses’ own refusal to claim him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself Egypt as his true homeland: The “pleasures” of Pharaoh’s will be set free from its bondage to corruption and land were “fleeting,” and its “wealth” and “treasure,” obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of though impressive to be sure, could not hold a candle to God. For we know that the whole creation has been the “reproach of Christ” and the “affliction” suffered by the groaning together in the pains of childbirth until people of God. Because Moses “endured as seeing him now. (Rom. 8:19–22) who is invisible,” all the enticements of earth’s most powerful kingdom could not sufficiently capture his heart or Scholars have called this passage Paul’s commentary on affections, nor could it distract him from “looking to the Genesis 3:17–18, which is where God pronounced his reward,” the “city with foundations, whose architect and curse upon creation because of man’s sin. In the apostle’s builder is God” (vv. 25–27, 10). version, the cosmos itself is said to actually feel the burden and the weight of its own bondage to decay. The way creWas Egypt a place of comfort for Joseph and Moses? ation deals with its own futility is to eagerly anticipate, and Did it abound with provision and pleasure? Indeed it was, even groan for, the day on which it will experience the liftand it certainly did. But according to Scripture, that was ing of the curse and the fullness of God’s redemption of all never the issue. It is not Egypt’s goodness or badness that things fallen. Apparently, according to Paul, the fate of the Hebrews 11 highlights, but its worthiness of these saints’ cosmos is bound up with the fate of the elect. And creation devotion. Speaking of all the saints of Hebrews 11, verse knows it.

38 sums up the problem with a beautiful succinctness: “Of It would stand to reason, therefore, that if the subhu[these saints] the world was not worthy.” man created order can recognize that there is something The “unworthiness” of Egypt in particular, and of this unsettling and off-kilter about its own situation, then the present age in general, is defined throughout the New same recognition should be found in those who, unlike Testament in terms of their fleeting, passing, and tempothe rest of creation, are made in the very image and likeral nature. Paul argues that the sufferings that characterness of the Creator. Just as the Book of Ecclesiastes is a ize life in this world “are not worthy to be compared with description of the vanity of life “under the sun,” it seems the glory that will be revealed in us,” and that the “slight not only reasonable but experiential that all who look at momentary afflictions” we face here and now only serve earth from this vantage point can tell, at least intuitively, to prepare us for “an eternal weight of glory beyond all that this age is but an un-merry merry-go-round, a wild comparison” (Rom. 8:18; 2 Cor. 4:17). Paul’s own life and goose chase without the wild goose. ministry bear this out. Upon his final departure from The fact that God has placed eternity into man’s heart— Ephesus to Jerusalem, where he would face immediate essentially rendering him restless, frustrated, and ruined for imprisonment and eventual martyrdom, Paul confidently earth’s spoils—is what makes the unbeliever’s art so proassured his flock, “But none of these things move me, nor

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foundly meaningful (more so than even the artist often realizes). When we consider Edvard Munch’s The Scream, The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” or the Wachowski brothers’ Matrix film trilogy, what else do we see but proof that even fallen man is haunted by a longing he cannot explain, only feel.

In the Romans 8 passage, Paul moves from considering the cosmos to all people in general and then from all people in general to the people of God in particular. If it is true that all men and women share an inexplicable ache for eternity, how much more ought the believer to recognize this longing and give expression to it? This is exactly what Paul argues in Romans 8: And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (vv. 23–25) Yes, the cosmos may groan, Paul argues, but “we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit” ache with an even greater frustration than both the non-believing human and subhuman created order. Or at least we should. The irony, however, is that the unbelieving world often displays, through its art and other media, an even greater frustration with earth than many believers exhibit. We of all people should recognize our provisional “cocoonish” condition; and yet the more we talk about redeeming the culture and reclaiming America for Christ, the more one gets the impression that if we were actually given wings and bidden to fly, we would be disappointed to leave our cocoon behind untransformed. What does that say about where our true devotion lies?

As hesitant as we may be to admit it, when we compare contemporary evangelicalism’s fixation with earth with contemporary paganism’s frustration with it, the conclusion seems inescapable that—sometimes at least—the latter does a much better job of imaging the God they deny than the former does of imaging the One they confess.

Will the Real Escapist Please Stand Up? h,” says the cynic, “isn’t all this talk of ‘heaven’ and ‘eternity’ just escapism, a desire for ‘pie in the sky when you die’?” It would be quite tempting (and maybe even truthful) to answer yes to this question. After all, does not the fact that heaven is ultimate while earth is only penultimate necessarily demand the conclusion that a willingness to settle for the latter is foolish at best and masochistic at worst? Who wouldn’t hope to graduate from the temporal and attain the eternal, to “escape” the provisional and arrive at the permanent?5 But no one wants to be dismissed as an escapist, right?

In my mind, the only way the Christian can admit guilt is

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with a few qualifications. Heaven is to earth what the outside world is to the womb. If there is such a thing as birth, then it follows that the womb is only temporary. Likewise, if there is such a thing as the new birth, then earth must be temporary as well. Is it “escapist” for a fetus to want to emerge from the womb? As Peter Kreeft says, “‘There is a tunnel under this prison’ may be an escapist idea, but it may also be true.”6 In other words, whether or not a hope is escapist is incidental to whether that hope is grounded in fact. If it is factual, then its being escapist is beside the point. Consider Kreeft’s parable: There was a rumor among the caterpillars that they were destined to become butterflies. Some caterpillars believed it; others disbelieved; and still others doubted. Now what would be the reasonable attitude of each of the three groups of caterpillars toward this rumor? Which could reasonably call it escapist?

Would not even the uncertain want to explore it further? For if it is true…it is not escapism. The charge of escapism therefore logically boils down to the charge of falsehood; only those who are certain the rumor is false can reasonably call it escapist.

Otherworld-liness is escapism only if there is no other world. If there is, it is worldliness that is escapism.7 Did you catch Kreeft’s point? In order for the label “escapist” to apply to the one who is homesick for heaven, the cynic making the charge must be certain that heaven does not exist. But such certainty is impossible to attain, which is why the charge of escapism is mere wishful thinking on the part of the one making it. And if the unbeliever is merely skeptical about heaven’s existence rather than certain of its nonexistence, then is it not he, rather than the believer, who is the real escapist? After all, sometimes heaven is that which we desire to escape from rather than to. Avoiding God is easier than embracing him. Before the prodigal can come home, he first must run away.

What about the charge often leveled against Christians that they are “too heavenly minded to be any earthly good”? If we spend all our time hoping for harps and halos, it is asked, when will we ever find the time to work toward earthly happiness and humanitarianism?

As Kreeft points out, the charge that heavenly mindedness diminishes earthly goodness is not necessarily true (though in some cases it might be). Let us answer the question with a question: Who is more likely to quit smoking during pregnancy, the mother who plans for an abortion or the one who plans to give birth? The answer should be obvious. Roads that actually lead somewhere are usually better maintained than dead-end ones, and likewise, when our earthly sojourn is seen as just that—a sojourn on the way to our heavenly home—then it is reasonable to assume that this pilgrimage will be taken with great seriousness and care. If death is not the end of the road but actually ushers us into the presence of the God N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 23

who gave us life and demands an account of how we lived it, then is it not to be expected that the pilgrim with an eye on his destination will live more purposefully than will the tourist, the goal of whose trip is to get the greatest possible bang for his buck?8 Bananas, BlackBerrys, and the Narratives That Define Us s we live in this world, we are constantly faced with the challenge of choosing among the narratives that compete for our allegiance and seek to define us. Are we merely highly evolved animals, apes that climbed down from their trees, put on suits, and went to work? Did we just exchange our banana for a BlackBerry?

Are we simply pushed by our past, driven by mere instinct and the desire for the survival of the fittest? Or, as God tells us in his Word, are we creatures made a little lower than the angels, whose fall from such heights precipitated our being lifted even higher?

It is only when we embrace our eschatologically oriented, future-focused identity that our present status as dispossessed pilgrims becomes at all tolerable. But God wants to lift us higher still, to the point where we not only tolerate our obscurity but embrace it, boasting like Paul in our infirmities, knowing that divine strength is perfected in human weakness. In short, we must realize that if we are to live as the divine image-bearers we are rather than the animals the Darwinists want us to be, the first thing we must do is dwell less on our past and more on our future.

The chicken is indeed produced by the egg and, likewise, we are the product of our ancestry in some sense. But all of that pales in light of the deeper question of what the chicken is for. Sure, the “origin of the species” is important, but not nearly as important as its final destination. ■

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Jason J. Stellman is pastor of Exile Presbyterian Church in Woodinville, Washington, and author of Dual Citizens: Worship and Life Between the Already and the Not Yet (Reformation Trust, 2009).

Samuel Davies on the Two Kingdoms (continued from page 19) in his doctrine, attested with miracles, the energy of his dying love, the gentle, and yet efficacious influence of his Holy Spirit; these are the weapons with which he conquered the world. His gospel is the great magazine from whence his apostles, the first founders of his kingdom, drew their arms; and with these they subdued the nations to the obedience of faith. (201) After summarizing the history of this kingdom from Adam to the martyrs, Davies refers to Constantine’s conversion: “But now she had a more dangerous enemy to encounter, I mean prosperity: and this did her much more injury than all the persecutions of her enemies. It has fanned the flames of heresy, ambition, pride, and worldly power” (204). Yet withal, Davies assures them that the small gains of Christ’s kingdom in Virginia will prove fruitful, especially in view of the missionary enterprise being extended to the ends of the earth, especially to the Jews who have by God’s providence been remarkably preserved as a people to this day. In fulfillment of Romans 11, God will again pour out his Spirit on the Jewish people.

“Posterity shall see this glorious event in some happy future period” (205). “What conqueror ever erected such a kingdom!” (206). A sermon like this demonstrates that it is quite possible to sharply distinguish the two kingdoms without setting them in irresolvable conflict when each is going about its proper task. Davies could draw stirring contrasts between the story of empire and the story of Christ’s kingdom that Stanley Hauerwas would relish, yet see no reason to reject the appropriate jurisdiction of the temporal state, however its goals and procedures differed from that of the church.

All quotations taken from Samuel Davies, “The Mediatorial Kingdom and Glories of Christ” in Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730–1805, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991). This quotation can be found on page 183.

1

G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 3.

2Chesterton, 6.

3Chesterton, 7.

4Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 29.

5On this topic, see my book Dual Citizens (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust, 2009), 120–22.

6Peter Kreeft, Heaven: The Heart’s Greatest Longing (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 164 (emphasis added).

7Kreeft, 168 (emphasis added).

8See http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/heaven.htm.

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ong lay the world in sin and error pining.

Till He appeared and the Soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope; the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born!

—Placide Capeau

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Jerome, Augustine, and the Fall of Rome: An Object Lesson for American Christians

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hen an alien spaceship destroyed the White House in the 1993 science fiction film Independence Day, I’m told that pre-9/11 moviegoers were not horrified at the possibility and that some even cheered (perhaps because they were a bit cynical about the current occupant of the Oval Office). As the world’s lone superpower, we believe there is no nation on earth that would dare invade our nation and occupy our territory. While terrorists may do great damage and cause huge loss of life (as they have done), from a strategic

point of view, a terrorist strike is of little consequence when it comes to challenging the military and economic might of the United States. At this point in our history, the fall of the American Republic to a foreign adversary (space aliens aside) is unthinkable.

Similarly, the citizens of the Roman Empire once thought themselves invincible and therefore safe from invasion. That is, until a Visigoth general named Alaric led an army of Germanic tribes over the Alps into northern Italy. The audacity of Alaric’s incursion into the heartland of the Roman Empire enabled him to quickly occupy much of northern Italy, before laying siege to the rest of the Italian peninsula to the south. It was not long before Alaric’s army was outside the gates of the City of Rome.

When Alaric’s forces broke through the Eternal City’s remaining defenses on August 24, A.D. 410, his men ransacked and looted the symbolic heart of the empire.

Ironically, this “barbarian” army included a significant number of Arian Christians who did little damage to the churches in the city and minimal harm to orthodox Christians.

Spared from invasion for eight hundred years, the unthinkable had now happened: Rome had been sacked.

How on earth did an army of barbarians pull off the impossible? History had come to a dramatic turning point, and everyone living at the time seemed to know it, even if they were not sure what this meant for their collective futures.

If Edward Gibbon’s assessment is correct, the myth of Roman invincibility obscured the moral and economic rot (what Gibbon calls the loss of “civic virtue”) that had eaten away much of the foundation of Roman society.

Rome’s battle-hardened armies were off guarding the farflung territories of the empire. The empire’s treasury was empty; and a government, which prided itself on providing both bread and entertainment for its citizens, had nothing left to give them when the barbarians finally came. In the wake of the unthinkable, all that remained was the blame game—how and why did the invincible empire come to such an ignominious end?

The purpose of this essay is to briefly consider how the Fall of Rome provoked different reactions from two prominent church fathers living at the time: St. Jerome and St. Augustine. Their response to Rome’s fall serves as an object lesson for many American Christians, who may see the health and success of the American Republic as in some way connected to the success and vitality of the kingdom of God. Once the blame game began, many Romans blamed Christianity for Rome’s defeat. The widespread embrace of Christian virtues encouraged people to focus upon loving one’s neighbor and doing good to others. Christians were preoccupied with heavenly things, not the things of this earth; but the pagans saw these virtues as vices, contributing to a soft and complacent military.

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emperor saw himself as a protector of the church, even calling the Council of Nicea strength to endure these trials, not spend time in 325 to deal with something as weighty as the Arian lamenting the outcome of God’s mysterious providence. controversy. Paul’s “minister of God” became John’s “beast” of the Apocalypse.

Others saw the seeds of the empire’s defeat in Now, two centuries later, the Roman emperor was calling Constantine’s conversion to Christianity after the battle of an ecumenical council to deal with a controversy over the Milvian Bridge in A.D. 312. Now that Christianity was the deity of Christ. No wonder Christians struggled to make the favored religion throughout the empire, the conversense of the mysterious providence of God. sion of so many pagans surely meant that traditional It is easy to see why the Fall of Rome would come as a Roman “gods” were not summoned with sufficient zeal to shock to Christians who had seen the emperor go from rally them to Rome’s defense. Many opined that the Fall arch-persecutor to devoted protector. Christians were of Rome was the ultimate revenge of Rome’s jilted deities. not only citizens of the Roman Empire, they were also What more proof was needed than when Romans stopped members of the kingdom of God. With Rome’s fall, sacrificing to their gods, the gods stopped aiding the numerous questions arose about how these two kingRoman army in battle? doms (the civil kingdom and the kingdom of Christ) were While many Romans blamed Christians for the related to each another. Did the Fall of Rome mean the calamity, it is important to understand that Christians fall of the church was at hand? How would the Fall of were just as taken aback as the pagans. From a Christian Rome impact Christendom? Had Christ’s triumph over perspective, the Fall of Rome was terribly perplexing. To Caesar been reversed by a pagan army? the Christian mind, this event must be tied to the eschaIt is illustrative to consider the reaction to these events tology of the New Testament, which taught the Lord’s of Jerome and Augustine. St. Jerome (347–420) is best imminent return after a brief period of unprecedented known for the Vulgate, his translation of the Scriptures upheaval in the political and natural orders. Although in into Latin. Jerome was born into a Christian home and as the mid-fifties of the first century Paul instructed a young man spent significant time in the City of Rome, Christians in Rome to consider the Roman Empire (even indulging the weakness of the flesh, as well as learning if pagan) a “minister of God” (cf. Rom. 13:1–7), about forty about the virtues of a Roman education (including rhetyears later the apostle John viewed that same Roman oric, philosophy, Greek and Latin). After receiving some Empire and its emperors as the God-hating beasts of the sort of vision, Jerome devoted himself to a lifelong study land and the sea, empowered by the dragon (Satan) to of Scripture. Convinced by Christian hermits to adopt an openly persecute the people of God (Rev. 13). ascetic life, Jerome spent extended periods of time in relAfter enduring a series of Roman emperors, many of ative seclusion in Bethlehem, periodically returning to whom were self-proclaimed deities as well as zealous perRome, as well as to other centers of Christianity in servsecutors of the church (Nero, Titus, Domitian, Decius, ice of the church. and later Diocletian), it seemed nothing less than a miraGreatly influenced by the church fathers Hippolytus and cle when in 312 Emperor Constantine saw his famous Irenaeus, in his Commentary on Daniel (written in 407) “sign in the sky,” claimed to be converted, and became Jerome defended the idea (in his discussion of Daniel 11:24 what some consider to be the first Christian emperor of ff.) that the Christianized Roman Empire was the mysteriRome. How did the emperor turn from professing his own ous “restrainer” mentioned by Paul in 2 Thessalonians, divinity into an ardent supporter of Christ and his church? who staved off the antichrist. Jerome also believed that at Constantine’s conversion changed everything. As church the time of the end, the restrainer would be removed and historian Henry Chadwick puts it, “The conversion of the antichrist would appear, leading ten “pagan” tribes to Constantine marks a turning-point in the history of the victory over Rome, dividing the spoils of the Roman church and of Europe.” Although much of the persecuEmpire, and culminating with the return of Christ. tion of Christians ceased, Constantine’s conversion also led Upon learning of Rome’s fall just three years after comto a situation in which the church became “more and pleting his commentary on Daniel, Jerome was despondent. more implicated in high political decisions.”1 The great He wrote in the preface to his commentary on Ezekiel, pagan empire and Christ’s church suddenly had many mutual and deeply entangled interests. Christendom was I was wavering between hope and despair, and was born. torturing myself with the misfortunes of other peoBefore Constantine’s conversion, some theologians ple. But when the bright light of all the world was (such as Tertullian, 160–220) did not believe that, since the put out, or, rather, when the Roman Empire was empire was so steeped in paganism, a Christian could be decapitated...the whole world perished in one city. emperor of Rome. But after Constantine’s conversion, the Who would believe that Rome, built up by the con-

It was a Christian’s duty to pray and to ask God for

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quest of the whole world, had collapsed, that the mother of all nations became their tomb?2 Jerome describes how pilgrims from Rome, having lost everything, made their way to Bethlehem. It was the end of the civilized world as he knew it. Christendom had been overcome by pagans. Jerome concluded, “If Rome can perish, what can be safe?”3 Jerome died in 420, no doubt feeling as though the Fall of Rome was somehow tied to the end of time and that the only way to survive in a world once again under barbarian (and pagan) control was to do as he had done—withdraw into the wilderness, maintain whatever Christian virtues he could, and wait for the end. Through sixteen hundred years of hindsight, it is apparent that Jerome’s worries proved unfounded. Christendom remained and even gained in influence. Although Rome had fallen, the end did not come. In fact, Rome’s luster eventually returned, and Jerome became a Catholic saint. Not quite what he had anticipated.

St. Augustine (354–430) likewise lamented the Fall of Rome. A man of great learning and also steeped in Roman culture, by 410 Augustine was an influential bishop with enough troubles to occupy his time—the Pelagian and Donatist controversies were raging, along with the endless church politics that went with such controversies. When Augustine learned what had happened in Rome, he wrote a number of letters to refugees attempting to comfort them. Augustine even preached a series of sermons attempting to calm the fears of those living in Roman North Africa who saw in the Fall of Rome their own eventual fate—which, ironically, came to pass in 430, the year of Augustine’s death.

The Vandals (another Germanic tribe) eventually laid siege to Hippo, the city in North Africa where Augustine’s bishopric was located and in which Augustine lay dying.4 Although Augustine knew his health was failing, he hung on long enough to witness “violence destroy his life’s work in Africa.”5 Despite his own difficult circumstances, Augustine’s perspective on the Fall of Rome was much different from Jerome’s.

Augustine believed it was futile to ask what specific sins (either on the part of Christians or pagans) brought about the events in Rome. Augustine believed that ours is a fallen race, and he reasoned, “Who are we to complain should God allow such things to come to pass?” Both Christians and pagans deserve such judgment. It was a Christian’s duty to pray and to ask God for strength to endure these trials, not spend time lamenting the outcome of God’s mysterious providence. In a sermon preached in late 410, Augustine told his congregation, “Do not lose heart brethren, there will be an end to every earthly kingdom. If this is now the end, God sees. Perhaps it has not yet come to that: for some reason—call it weakness, or mercy, or mere wretchedness— we are all hoping that it has not yet come.”6 It is out of Augustine’s growing concern to understand the relationship of the purposes of God in relation to the

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affairs of men that in 413 he began work on his famous City of God, eventually completing it in 426 at seventy-two years of age. While City of God deals with the Fall of Rome, this volume (Augustine’s longest) developed into a full-fledged apologetic for the superiority of Christianity to even the most sophisticated and learned forms of paganism.

In book nineteen of City of God, Augustine undertakes a groundbreaking discussion of how Christians ought to distinguish between an earthly city and a heavenly one— just as Babylon stands apart from Jerusalem throughout redemptive history. The earthly city (the City of Man) is centered upon earthly things such as power, conquest, wealth, and comfort, while the contrasting values of the heavenly city (the City of God) can be seen in the church and are identified (in certain ways) with the kingdom of God.7 Both cities will exist side by side until the time of the end when the earthly city will perish, even as the heavenly city anticipates its final consummation when the Lord returns.

While Augustine believed the conversion of Constantine was a great blessing, he also did not think this fundamentally changed the distinction between the two cities. The church and its members will always be pilgrims on the earth. Such is the nature of God’s economy. While Christians must render obedience to Caesar and the civil law with our bodies, Augustine believed that our minds must remain in submission to Christ. After all, we are “wayfarers on the earth.” Christians are not to take issue with “diversity of customs, laws, and traditions whereby peace is sought and maintained,” provided these do not “stand in the way of faith and the worship of the one true God.”8 The seeds of the much more thoroughly developed Lutheran and Reformed doctrines of “two kingdoms” had been planted.

No doubt Augustine felt sickened much like Jerome did upon learning of the sack of Rome. In earthly terms, this was a disaster, plain and simple. Rome’s fall brought fear and hardship on many whom Augustine knew and loved.

As a pastor, Augustine sought first to comfort his flock.

“Be of good cheer,” he told them. Through his pen and pulpit, Augustine did his best to explain the calamity to God’s people and to point them to the heavenly city that cannot be shaken by earthly troubles.

Yet, unlike Jerome, Augustine did not think that the Fall of Rome in any way altered or slowed the progress of the kingdom of God. While a blow to peace and stability, Rome’s fall did not necessarily mean that the end of the age was at hand or that all was lost. On the contrary, Augustine had come to believe that Christendom was the problem, not the solution. Tragedies like this are part and parcel of the fallen world. But Christ’s kingdom does not depend upon the health and vitality of Rome for its success. Christ’s is a spiritual kingdom grounded in Word and Sacrament, not armies, national treasuries, or civic virtue.

What happened in Rome was horrible. But the heavenly city is a spiritual kingdom and will triumph, regardless.

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this way, the City of God advances in the middle of the travails of the City of Man. that God chooses to advance his heavenly kingdom. This Even if the City of Man should fall, there is still a kingdom is embraced by faith, and yet its members funcheavenly city in our midst, and it is founded upon Jesus’ tion as salt and light in the earthly kingdom where their death and resurrection.

Although all earthly kingcivic virtues help restrain the evil around us. doms will perish in time things earthly and things heavenly. Augustine’s response (even our own), the heavenly kingdom advances through is particularly helpful in this regard. His response should the preached Word, the administration of the Sacraments, remind American Christians that the progress of God’s and through the power of God. It is Augustine who kingdom does not in any sense depend upon the wealth, reminds us that in the end, when all the kingdoms of this technology, or military power of the United States. Like the world finally pass away, one kingdom will remain—the Fall of Rome, a fall of the United States would be a horrikingdom of our God and of his Christ. ■ ble event. Much as it did for the citizens of Rome, our illustrious national history and our apparent military invincibility actually sets up American Christians to unwitKim Riddlebarger is pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anatingly confuse things earthly and things heavenly. If the first heim, California, and a co-host of White Horse Inn. step down the slippery slope toward confusing the City of Man with the City of God is to equate the worldly successes of the American Republic with the blessing of God, then the 1Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (New York: Penguin, second step comes easily—to equate the political, military, 1967), 125. moral, and economic health of our nation in some sense 2Jerome, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Volume VI: St. with the kingdom of God. There are many who would Jerome, Letters and Select Works, eds. Philip and Henry Wace weep at the fall of America, not only because of the nature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 500. of such a tragedy, but because they have confused the suc3Jerome, The Christian Church in the Epistles of St. Jerome (Loncess of their nation with the progress of the kingdom of don: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1923), 123.

God. In this, they follow Jerome—the fall of America must 4Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley: University of Calmean defeat for the kingdom of God. Not true. ifornia Press, 1969), 190.

Jerome and Augustine also demonstrate differing escha5Brown, 425. tologies and understandings of God’s providence.

6Augustine, Sermon 103, Sermons (Hyde Park, NY: New City Augustine reminds us that American Christians are Press, 2000), 11. absolutely justified to be concerned about public morality, 7Henry Chadwick, Augustine (New York: Oxford University the coarsening of our culture, and the irresponsible behavPress, 1986), 100. ior of politicians (such as how they handle the national 8Augustine, City of God (New York: Image, 1958), XIX.17. economy). But these things by necessity belong to the City of Man. We share these same concerns with our nonChristian American neighbors, who likewise desire public morality and responsible public conduct. We may be pilgrims in the City of Man, but we are not merely “passing through.” The City of Man is also ordained by God and ruled by Christ. It is here in the midst of the daily affairs of he situation would surely have been hopeless the earthly city that God chooses to advance his heavenly had the very majesty of God not descended to kingdom. This kingdom is embraced by faith, and yet its us, since it was not in our power to ascend to him. members function as salt and light in the earthly kingdom Hence, it was necessary for the Son of God to become where their civic virtues help restrain the evil around us. for us ‘Immanuel, that is, God with us,’ and in such a Although many of us would have a hard time accepting that an economic disaster or a moral meltdown might way that his divinity and our human nature might by actually serve the mysterious purposes of God, this too is mutual connection grow together. Otherwise the nearthe lesson taught us by Augustine. As sinners, we have no ness would not have been near enough, nor the affinright to question God’s purposes should they include ity sufficiently firm, for us to hope that God might either personal or national calamity. God has his reasons, dwell with us.” and we should not spend time lamenting what God has

It is here in the midst of daily affairs of the earthly city

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—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

ZION

Zion Made Manifest I will not cease from mental fight Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand ‘Til we have built Jerusalem In England’s green and pleasant land

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o ends William Blake’s hymn “Jerusalem.” Set to Parry’s wonderfully stirring tune, it has become a favourite patriotic song in these shores (you will find a clue in my spelling of “favourite” that it is none other than England’s green and pleasant land). An invariable part of the national flag-waving festival that is the last night at the Proms, it has become the anthem of the fanatical travelling band of English cricket supporters, the Barmy Army. It is still sung regularly at meetings of the Women’s Institute up and down the land, and it stokes up the fervour of many a young rugby team in school assemblies on match days. Thankfully, the one place it is seldom heard is in church, because, if it can be called a hymn, it is one of very dubious pedigree. The apocryphal legend behind its opening, about Jesus having been brought to England

by Joseph of Arimathea, need not detain us. Nor shall we dwell on what might be implied by the reference to “dark satanic mills.” The lines included above lay out the issue.

The subjects of the verbs, in the first person, indicate that it is we who will build Jerusalem. Surely there is a confusion of ideas here. It might be possible for us, by the grace of God, to build a better England, or a better America, even a better world. But to give it the name “Jerusalem” suggests something more; a spiritual realm perhaps, the heavenly city that comes down from God out of heaven. Such architecture is beyond human capabilities.

The Role of the Church as Distinct from the Role of the Christian in Society want to suggest that it is the Christian’s duty to build a better nation and a better world, but this is quite distinct from the church’s work. There are dangerous errors on either side, which sit equally uncomfortably with the New Testament model of church. On the one side, the church might discourage her members from being socially or politically active, reasoning either that the material world is transient and unimportant or that the Christian should forsake involvement with it for fear of its contamination. On the other side, the visible church may redefine her own mission in social and political terms, eclipsing the gospel message by giving up preaching the Word of God to serve tables (Acts 6:2).

One of the legacies of the Reformation is a view of the Christian as living simultaneously in two realms. Luther taught that every Christian belongs to two realms. Under the rule of God’s left hand, as the image goes, he or she is to be a conscientious citizen—a Christian, yes, but a Christian in society. But under the rule of God’s right hand, within the kingdom of grace, the Christian is to be nourished in the fellowship of the church with the gifts of God’s grace. According to this scheme, social and political activity is the responsibility of the Christian, but not the distinctive work of the church.

Some will feel uncomfortable about the distinction that is being made between the role of the church and that of the Christian. A readiness to accept it will probably hinge upon ecclesiological definition. If the church is seen as an

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aggregation of Christians, then the duties of the church might well be the sum of the duties of Christians. The catechetical materials used within my own denomination may well encourage such a view. In examining the third article of the Apostles’ Creed, the edition of Luther’s Small Catechism that many of us use answers the question “What is the holy Christian church?” in this way: “The holy Christian church is the communion of saints, the total number of those who believe in Christ. All believers in Christ, but only believers, are members of the church (invisible church).” The difficulty with this answer is not that it is untrue, but rather that it seems to invert the relationship between Christian and church. It suggests that the church comes about because there are Christians, which is rather akin to saying that a mother exists because her children exist. The church gives rise to Christians, rather than vice versa. The kingdom of God gives birth by water and the Spirit, and so believers are incorporated into it. The kingdom does not come into being because Christians happen to assemble. This much is presupposed by the images of the church in the New Testament. St. Paul uses the image of the body, not a random collection of members, but one in which “we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph. 4:15ff.). Jesus portrayed himself as the vine and his people as branches who will wither apart from the vine (John 15:5–6). The church, then, functions with respect to Christians to nourish them and build them up and not merely as Christians collectively going about their disciple business.

The Christian in Society he Christian is in the world and in society. The Fourth Gospel abounds in warnings about the world, which Jesus presents as opposed to him and to his by its very nature. To be in worldly society was so inconvenient for the ascetics that they withdrew from it as far as they could. The place of the Christian is, however, in the world, to be its salt, its leaven, and its light. Some governments make this easier than others, and it is the latter that make it more necessary. The challenge for the Christian is to make his or her course with one eye on Romans 13 and the other on Revelation 13. To oppose the rule of government is to ignore the warning of Romans that “whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed.” On the other hand, to comply with the wrongdoing of an evil or corrupt government is to join with those who follow the beast of Revelation. It is sometimes suggested that the theology of the Reformation, distinguishing the two realms of the Christian’s loyalty, for example, allowed the collaboration of churches and Christians with the horrors of the Third Reich. The reasoning is that Christians too readily submitted to the abhorrent regime out of a misguided sense of duty. An

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alternative view, however, is that the success of such a regime arose rather from a confounding of the two realms than from a clear distinction between them. Again, if the church is merely the sum of its members, her witness must be the duty of the Christian writ large, to be subject to the governing authorities. But if the church belongs to a parallel realm, as the custodian of divine grace, she is in a position to expose the evil of those who exercise authority in the world.

In this matter, the example of the apostles will be a guide. Besides Paul’s teaching to the Romans that we have already considered, the synoptic Gospels all recall Jesus’ injunction to render what is Caesar’s to Caesar, and St. Peter specifically instructs his readers to honor the emperor. In practice, this meant a respectful disposition toward earthly authority, as Paul showed to King Agrippa in Acts 25. When the demands of earthly authority contradicted the revealed will of God, however, a choice was to be made. That choice for the Christian is plainly stated in the apostles’ dictum: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). But such a choice also carried consequences, and in this case they were fortunate to get away with a beating. Nevertheless, they were not only prepared to live with the consequences of their stand, but they even rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name (5:41). They were mindful, I suppose, of the indignities that Christ had suffered for them.

For the most part, however, Christians can exercise their calling in the world without hindrance from government and often with the approval of society. For those who see the hungry and feed them, or the thirsty and give them drink, or strangers and welcome them, or the naked and clothe them, or the sick or in prison and visit them are doing it for Christ and to Christ. Such a way of life is motivated by compassion, not by the desire to appear Christlike. Nevertheless, it gives witness to the one whose name the Christian bears.

The Church in Society t does not necessarily follow that, because the Christian is called to the charitable works drawn in the last paragraph from Matthew 25, the church is also called to perform them. Rather, when the New Testament uses the term “church,” it is to describe a preaching, praying community, either in a particular location or in a more universal sense. In 1 Corinthians 11:18, Paul speaks of the Christians “coming together as church” when they are coming together for the Holy Supper. The same Epistle, three chapters later, refers to the church as being built up by the prophecy within it. The term is not used in connection with performing works of love toward people’s physical needs, although the duty to attend to those needs in one’s neighbor is clearly enjoined upon every Christian.

It can therefore be seen as a matter of definition: if the institution we call “church” is engaging in that which is not its distinctive work, it is not the church in the sense of having the unique mandate and authority of God. It is, in

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these activities, the equal of any political, social, or charitable organization.

Of course, it is sometimes convenient for Christians to exercise their charitable activities, for example, collectively through the organization already set up for the work of the church proper. This organization brings together people who know each other, who have developed mechanisms for working together, and who share a common theological outlook that helps them act together without fear of compromised beliefs. But these activities do not define it as church. If it proclaims the gospel, distributes the Sacraments, and nurtures the spiritual life of its people, it is church. If it does not do these things, it does not become church by dispensing charity.

An interesting perspective is given by the experience of the apostles in their earliest attempts to define their roles.

By the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, already they sensed that their essential work was being sidelined by charitable activity. Before looking at the solution they proposed, it would be helpful to understand the nature of the charitable work. It appears not to have been care for the needy in the wider community, but specifically for those in the church. This much is suggested by the use of the word “their” in Acts 6:1. It says “a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.” Most commentators understand from this that the distribution was to support widows within the Christian community, rather than to dispense alms to those outside. Be this as it may, the appointment of those who were to carry out the work might seem to place it at the heart of the infant church’s understanding of its mission. The rationale, however, for establishing an office to administer the distribution is precisely that the task was detracting from what the apostles saw as their priority. “It is not right,” they explained, “that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.” The practical assistance rendered by the Christians collectively was to be an adjunct to, not a replacement for, the ministry of the Word.

For historical reasons, it must seem to many, especially in Europe, that to take the institution of the church out of the realm of public life is an abrogation of its duty. Within these “Christian countries,” the roles of church and state have been intertwined for centuries. In Britain, for example, the established church has long been involved in national government, with Church of England bishops sitting in the nation’s upper legislative house. Conversely, the instruments of state have been marshaled to support the mission of the church with, for instance, successive education acts requiring the teaching of religious education within maintained schools. Now that the country is said to have entered a “post-Christian” phase, these practices are called into question both by those outside the church and by those within it. Many cling to the little influence the Christian message can maintain through such mechanisms. Some see the institution as the conscience of the nation. Others consider that, with so small

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a proportion of the population presenting themselves at worship, the church has little opportunity to offer anything to the majority unless it engages in social action. But some still believe that what the church uniquely has to offer is the gospel, which remains supremely relevant even for those who have no time for it.

The Church and the Christian he church and the Christian are distinct entities, but of course they are not unrelated. Rather than thinking of the church simply as the sum of Christians, we have tried to stress the maternal role of the church, in giving birth to her children and nurturing them in their faith and life. With this understanding, clearly the church plays a vital role in instructing and preparing her people to live out their sanctified life in their own civil and social situations. The church is equipped to guide her children in all areas of life. We have considered how Scripture repeatedly affirms the duty of Christians as citizens, especially in relation to the government. The teaching of Jesus details the responsibilities of each one in respect to neighbor. In his Ephesian letter, St. Paul spells out the principles of mutual submission in fulfilling family roles.

In many instances, these teachings prescribe behaviors that are approved by wider society, perhaps because they accord with the law universally written on the human heart, and perhaps because the expectations of the society have been shaped by Christian teaching in the past.

The church, being faithful to divine revelation, also brings unique spiritual values to the Christian’s life in society—values that are not necessarily shared by the society at large. The Christian, for example, will be taught the absolute value of human life. Believing that life itself has a value that transcends the mere quality of life, the Christian is likely to oppose euthanasia and also to be disproportionally represented among those giving hospice care to the terminally ill.

Finally, the church’s defining message, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is what motivates her people to act in the world in a way befitting those for whom Christ also died.

By uncompromisingly proclaiming her distinctive message, the church is acting for the good of the world, releasing Christians to serve in it. ■

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Reginald C. Quirk (D.D., Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri) is currently chair of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England and has served as pastor in four ELCE congregations, including Resurrection Lutheran Church in Cambridge, England, where his time is shared with his duties as preceptor of Westfield House of Theological Studies.

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KINGDOM WORSHIP ON KINGLY TERMS

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n our day, the evangelical church in America is experiencing a blitzkrieg (lightening war) against biblical worship. The explosive shells of pragmatism, innovation, and amusement are slowly demolishing the church’s understanding of both the nature and practice of Lord’s Day worship. The chief strategist behind this bombardment is, of course, Satan himself, knowing that a successful assault on the theological foundations of Christian worship will bring remarkable confusion and injury to the citizens of God’s kingdom (e.g., 2 Kings 21:9; 1 Cor. 10:1–22; 11:17–34). Readers of Modern Reformation will know that our own congregations in the Reformed and confessional heritage are not impervious to this attack. On the contrary, our churches are very much in the line of fire. We have also experienced setbacks in the battle, unwittingly trading in our culturally unfashionable spiritual armor for the more chic apparel of this world. In order to fight off the devil’s attacks and recover a theology of worship that conforms to Scripture, it is important that we grasp the relationship between worship and the kingdom of God.

Worship and the Manifestation of the Kingdom ark writes that soon after commencing his public ministry, our Lord Jesus “came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel’” (Mark 1:14–15). Here Christ announced the profound significance of his divine mission.

The grand yet mysterious unfolding of the history of redemption, which from the beginning anticipated the Messiah’s earthly ministry, was now in its fullness (Gen. 3:15; Gal. 4:4–5). The “eternal purpose of God” was indeed “realized in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:11).

God’s sovereign timetable was complete; the kingdom of God was at hand. The sinless life, propitiatory death, and hell-conquering resurrection of Jesus Christ would thus be the glorious fulfillment of all God’s covenant promises (2 Cor. 1:20). The beginning of the end had come, and God’s children would be introduced to a new life of faith between the two ages. Citizenship in Christ’s kingdom required repentance and faith, which are divinely

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imparted gifts to the regenerate (Acts 11:18; Eph. 2:8–9).

Since the dawn of this new age, Christians have lived between the already-and-the-not-yet; that is, “already” enjoying the blessings of the coming kingdom of God, though “not yet” in the fullest sense (e.g., beatific vision, freedom from sin, etc.). Indeed, according to the Book of Ephesians, those who are united to Christ are already redeemed through Christ’s precious blood, justified by faith, adopted “as sons,” and “seated with [Christ] in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:5–7; 2:6, 13). Nevertheless, not until the “coming ages” will we “acquire possession of our inheritance” and apprehend completely the “immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:13–14; 2:7). As Paul states, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). So what, you may ask, does all of this have to do with Lord’s Day worship?

When the visible church gathers together before the triune God on the Lord’s Day, and the divinely instituted means of grace are faithfully set forth, Christ and his eternal kingdom are distinctly and uniquely manifest to the church. In other words, when the gospel is preached and the Sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are faithfully administered by God’s ordained servants, Christ’s eternal kingdom powerfully breaks into this “present evil age.” Through the unadorned media of water, bread, wine, and preaching, Christ faithfully exercises his munus triplex, that is, his three royal offices of Prophet, Priest, and King.

As Prophet, Christ himself declares judgment and salvation to the gathered church through the audible and visible Word (preaching and Sacraments). As Priest, he intercedes for his people, graciously tendering himself to them (through these same ordained means) as the crucified and risen Lamb. As King, he rules, guides, protects, and disciplines his blood-bought Bride through the faithful ministry of the elders/ministers (John 21:15–17; 1 Pet. 5:1–4; 1 Cor. 5:3–5).

Therefore, in public worship on the Lord’s Day—when the church is assembled before their sovereign King, and the divinely sanctioned means of grace are set forth by those whom God has commissioned—the kingdom of God is manifest like at no other time during the week. It is on the Lord’s holy day that God’s holy people, led by God’s holy servants, hear God’s holy Word, participate in God’s holy rite (baptism), and partake of God’s holy meal.

No home Bible study group, Christian conference, or sanctified rock concert, as encouraging as they may be, should turn the church’s primary attention away from what God himself promises to bless in the lives of his elect.

In public worship, God’s people receive a precious foretaste of the coming kingdom; a limited but real participation in the worship of the eschaton. In the gathered assembly, therefore, when we offer grateful praise for the gifts and benefits of Christ’s kingdom, we mingle our voices with the celestial chorus above, composed of angels

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and departed saints. Indeed, our earthly Sabbaths are designed, by God himself, to provide us with no less than a weekly foretaste of the eternal, heavenly Sabbath in Christ’s kingdom, where we will worship God and feast at his royal table forever (Rev. 7:9–12; 19:6–10).

Suffice it to say, if our churches deemphasize the centrality and importance of the Christian Sabbath and strip our worship services of the divinely ordained means of grace, we will be playing right into our enemy’s hands. If we are not careful, our churches and worship services will increasingly resemble the kingdoms of this passing world more than the eternal kingdom of God (John 18:36).

Worship and the “Unimpressiveness” of the Kingdom ne day, God’s invisible kingdom will become visible (Matt. 25:31–46). When God’s kingdom does appear, it will be exceedingly impressive to both believers and unbelievers. Indeed, every knee shall bow (Phil. 2:10). For now, however, in this period between the two comings of Christ, the kingdom of God will be—from the world’s perspective—profoundly unimpressive; in particular, as it is manifested in worship. But isn’t this “unimpressiveness” God’s idea?

Recently, our family went to Walt Disney World in Florida. My wife and I took great pleasure in watching our children enjoying the various rides, musicals, parades, fireworks displays, and character meals. One evening, during a spectacular fireworks show in front of Cinderella’s Castle, it occurred to me how often we, the evangelical church in America, are more shaped by a philosophy of the Magic Kingdom in our worship and ministry than we are by a theology of God’s kingdom. The two are very different, you know.

The Magic Kingdom exists to provide a wonderful and memorable time of entertainment and fun for families.

The kingdom of God, the church, does not. The Magic Kingdom unconditionally affirms and accepts all people.

The kingdom of God does not. The Magic Kingdom seeks to provide a casual, easygoing, happy-go-lucky environment, making mankind’s comfort, well-being, and happiness the ultimate goal. The kingdom of God does not. The Magic Kingdom preaches that true joy, hope, and fulfillment come from believing in ourselves. The kingdom of God, however, does not. In fact, the kingdom of God is quite the opposite on all counts. Even so, what seems to be emerging—even, sadly, in some Reformed circles—is an increasing number of church planting and revitalization efforts that look suspiciously more like a production of Walt’s Orlando than John’s Geneva.

Attempting to imitate the Magic Kingdom’s philosophy in our approach to worship and ministry is not only impossible (Disney will always do it a thousand times better!), it also demonstrates pronounced unbelief in God’s promises to communicate Christ to the elect through the plain, unimpressive, yet life-transforming means of Word and Sacrament. Between the two ages, the manifestation of God’s kingdom in worship, through water, bread, wine,

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and the preached Word, may not be outwardly impressive to a culture that is used to fast-paced Hollywood movies, high-profile sporting events, and multibillion dollar theme parks. Nevertheless, that is no reason to jettison the means to which God has attached his saving promises.

Worship and the Edicts of the Kingdom od has issued royal edicts for worship. His kingdom worship is not what we ourselves devise. In other words, Christians are not free to choose how they will worship God, no matter how sincere their intentions might be to encourage fellow believers or to reach out to the lost. Ministers, therefore, who design worship services for their congregations, should not aspire to be creative, pragmatic, or utilitarian, but rather faithful to the voice of God in Scripture.

The writer to the Hebrews understood this point when he wrote, “Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28–29). Here we learn that there is, indeed, such a thing as worship that is unacceptable to God. The framers of the Westminster Confession explain:

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The acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.

The regulative principle of worship—that is, the principle that worship services must be constituted only of elements prescribed by God himself in his Word—is not some kind of dusty, outdated Puritan notion. It is a biblical principle that both protects and promotes true, divinely regulated worship for the gathered people of God in every generation (Exod. 20:4; Lev. 10:1–3; John 4:23; Acts 2:42).

Every liturgy, therefore, should be filled with the following elements: The reading and preaching of Scripture (1 Tim. 4:13; 2 Tim. 4:1–5; 1 Cor. 1:18–24); prayers (Acts 2:42; 1 John 1:8–9); singing of psalms and hymns (Ps. 95:1; Eph. 5:19); tithes and offerings (1 Cor. 16:2); and the right administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Acts 2:38–39; 1 Cor. 11:17–34).

Worship is the most important activity for the citizens of God’s kingdom. Doesn’t it make perfect sense then that our infinitely wise and sovereign King dictates the stipulations for worship and not us? The episodes of Aaron and his recalcitrant sons should be ever-present reminders of what God thinks about humanly conceived methods for worship (Exod. 32; Lev. 10).

When we conform to God’s royal edicts for worship, not only is God pleased and glorified, but we, his redeemed children, are immeasurably blessed. Why? Because when the means of grace are central, so is Christ; and when 34 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

Christ is central, the elect are converted, comforted, and spiritually nourished in him. A recovery of this truth would do wonders for the health and expansion of the visible church, which brings us to our final point.

Worship and the Advance of the Kingdom he kingdom of God is advancing, spiritually and numerically, through the regular, faithful, ongoing ministry of the local church in Lord’s Day worship.

Where the means of grace are carefully set forth, God has unequivocally promised that his kingdom will grow (Isa. 55:10–11). At first glance, however, this does not always seem to be the case.

Someone recently informed me about an evangelical church in the Southeast where attendance has grown to over ten thousand in a very short span of time. Surely reason to celebrate, right? Doesn’t this kind of numerical success clearly demonstrate that God is smiling upon this church? I went to the church’s website to investigate and watched several services. There I was introduced to the new pragmatism and what, I have since learned, is the new model for church planting.

The church’s weekly order of worship consists of an edgy rock concert (about thirty-five minutes, complete with ornate sets and lighting), a brief devotional by an assistant, more music, concluded by an hour-long, markedly informal, Jay Leno-style talk. The pastor’s messages were all very similar: topical, chatty, laced with humor (at times, crude), and generally moralistic. Also sprinkled throughout the messages were a few choice and, if I might add, prideful words for the “religious people” who question their church’s methods. In one talk, he actually shouted “scoreboard” to his detractors. A clear articulation of the old adage, “The ends justify the means.”

On another occasion, after expounding upon some of their unconventional methods of reaching the unchurched, the pastor confidently declared: “We are willing to do anything short of sin to see somebody come to Jesus.” As noble as this may sound, is this really the manner in which God would have us work toward the advancement of his kingdom? A better question may be: If the faithful preaching of the Word, the right administration of the Sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline (three marks of a true church) are at best undervalued, and at worst disregarded altogether, is the kingdom of God really being advanced at all?

Inevitably, there will be some who point out that it was the apostle Paul’s desire to be “all things to all men” (1 Cor. 9:22), thus giving Christians the green light to do whatever it takes to win unchurched Harry and Mary. But this is a common misunderstanding of a text that speaks more about Paul’s willingness to remove unnecessary cultural barriers than about decentralizing the means of grace (read: decentralizing Christ) in public worship in order to grow the church. Elsewhere, Paul makes it abundantly clear that the health and advancement of the kingdom are absolutely dependent upon gospel proclamation through

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Word and Sacrament. Not only has God ordained the message of the gospel but also the method or means of its delivery (1 Cor. 1:18–21; 10:16; Titus 3:5; 1 Pet. 3:21).

What Harry and Mary need—whether churched or unchurched—is not another rock concert or talk show.

What they need—what we all need—is a joyful but reverent encounter with the living, triune God in public worship, where the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is proclaimed all throughout a Word-regulated liturgy.

According to the inspired Paul, Christians are converted and established by the unadulterated gospel which is the “preaching of Jesus Christ” from all of Scripture (Rom. 16:25; Luke 24:27, 44–45). Cornelius Venema adds: “Those with a biblical view of the power of preaching should not fall prey to any spirit that diminishes it. It is by means of preaching that Christ’s Kingdom advances, his name is proclaimed, and his people are discipled.” Although other tools for church growth were available in the first century as they are today, such as entertaining music and drama, the apostles advanced the kingdom on God’s terms, not man’s. Indeed, wherever God’s Spirit led them they preached “Christ crucified” for sinners. Moreover, they established churches with theologically trained and spiritually qualified under-shepherds who were committed to providing spiritual oversight to the flock (2 Tim. 4:1–5; Titus 1:5ff.).

The advancement of the kingdom is God’s sovereign work through God’s ordained means. Therefore, let us be faithful to employ those divinely ordained means and trust God with the results. May faithfulness, not success, be our goal. Perhaps with this more biblical and God-centered approach to worship and kingdom advancement, ministers who experience growth will be less likely to shout out “scoreboard” and more likely to express with the apostle Paul, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:31; 3:7).

Final Thoughts uring the Second World War, the goal of the German blitzkrieg was to aggressively attack a small section of the enemy’s frontline with an all-mechanized force (e.g., fighter planes and tanks) until the line was broken, only to subsequently proceed without concern for the flank positions. The purpose was to come at the Allied Forces with wave after wave of military might, causing intense fear and confusion.

Satan’s tactics are similar when it comes to his assault on the kingdom of God and its most important activity of Lord’s Day worship. He tirelessly comes at the church with wave after wave of temptation to be avant garde, deceiving us into replacing and/or deemphasizing the soul-saving, faith-nourishing means of grace with our own lesser means. Therefore, let us stand firm and joyfully obey the Bible’s teaching on worship as it relates to the kingdom of God and its manifestation, “unimpressiveness,” edicts, and advancement. Perhaps then our worship services will be in “demonstration of the Spirit

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and of power, that [our] faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:4–5). ■

Rev. Dr. Jon D. Payne is minister at Grace Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Douglasville, Georgia.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, XXI.i.

Cornelius P. Venema, Christ and the Future (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2008), 58.

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Why It Is Less Crazy Than It Sounds (continued from page 43) faith, participation in worship, or memorization of the catechism is sincere. Which is another way of saying that drama is no guarantee of authenticity.

If Williams could expand his notion of conversion to include the experience of covenant children who never have a dramatic encounter with Christian truths, I am fairly certain he would abandon an insistence upon conversion of the evangelical kind. I am also rather confident that if Williams considered the plight of pious boys like Charles Hodge, he might understand why some believe telling a child to repent of submitting to parents in the home, of attending the means of grace, of praying and worshiping with parents in family worship, and of memorizing the catechism is precisely the wrong thing to tell a baptized young person who has yet to make a profession of faith. I agree with Williams that a pagan needs to convert (in both the evangelical and Reformation senses), and I concede that some of the testimonies I heard as a child in a fundamentalist church were indeed remarkable and moving—especially the ones involving a former life of drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll being transformed into a life of godliness. But I would bet (if betting were godly) that Williams would not want every child of a Christian home to live a life of wanton disregard for God’s moral and civil law in order to know his need for a savior. In fact, William’s good sense and concern for genuine faith will likely allow him to make room for those whose testimony is neither exciting nor extraordinary, but boring and routine because they have continued in the faith and walk in which they were reared by their parents, pastors, and elders.

D. G. Hart is the author most recently of (with John Muether) Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism (P&R Publishing), and of A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State (Ivan R. Dee). He is an elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

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Illusion, Confusion, and Solution: Apologetics in a Postmodern World I am the mindfreak There’s no reality Just this world of illusion That keeps on haunting me

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o sings magician Criss Angel during the opening to Mindfreak, his popular television show on the A&E channel. But Angel’s popularity may be grounded in something more than his excellence in magic. The way he presents magic may have struck a chord with how our culture has come to view truth and our ability to know it. His claim of “what you see is what you get” seems aimed at challenging our most basic beliefs about how the world works. And his use of magic to present a world where there are no rules and where interpretation is the measure of truth has prompted MTV to call him the “postmodern Houdini.”

In fact, his theme song could be an anthem for the postmodern mindset in general. And the questions that are raised by the lyrics begin to show us some ways we can answer postmodern claims. For example, if there is no reality, as the song claims, then there is no standard by

which we can judge and identify illusion, so how would we know an illusion if we saw it? If only illusion existed in the world, then it wouldn’t be illusion, it would be reality. And if he claims to be the Mindfreak, then he must not be since all is illusion. So it’s not illusion that haunts Criss Angel, but reality. Or really, it’s truth that haunts Angel, since an illusion isn’t the denial of reality, only a misinterpretation of it. Illusions are, after all, untrue representations about how the world actually is. Although the mechanics of a magic illusion are extremely logical, the effect they produce is designed to encourage people to accept, if only for a moment, the illogical, and become skeptical about having truth about the world. This skepticism that we can have knowledge about the way the world is, that there is no reality we can access, and that all is illusion or interpretation is at the very heart of the popular concept of postmodernism.

But there is an elephant in the room that even Houdini couldn’t vanish: The only way an illusion can exist is as a parasite on something that contradicts it—reality. An illusion has no independent existence. It is like what dark is to light, or cold is to heat. Postmodernism has that same

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kind of dependence; it is not a thing itself, but a rejection of something. And the thing it rejects is any thinking that there is a view of the world that is universally valid and that we can have knowledge of the world rather than just our interpretation.

This poses an interesting problem for anyone who wants to defend the truths of the historic Christian faith.

Christianity views the world as a kind of map; it describes an origin, a destination, and a deliberate, purposeful process that connects the two. The map of postmodernism is a blank page where each person ascribes to it an origin, destination, purpose, and process. Where the Christian uses the map of Christianity as a guide, the map of the postmodern is not a guide, but is itself guided by each person’s beliefs. How do we make a truth-claim to a culture that is increasingly skeptical that objective truth exists and can be known? How do we convince those who think everything is interpretation and that their interpretation is only as good as its reflection of reality? How do we answer someone who can, along with Terry Gilliam’s screen version of Baron von Munchausen, say, “Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I’m delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.” How do we reach those who believe they are trapped in a metanarrative and that the only way out is to accept some other metanarrative?

How are Christians to navigate a relativistic and pluralistic culture that denies there are objective directions by which to navigate and labels anyone who tries as arrogant and intolerant?

The answer is to expose the illusion, to reveal how the magic trick works by showing the truth that makes the lie possible. Like illusions, postmodernism works only from a certain angle, by accepting its terms and presuppositions.

Outside those angles, postmodernism is exposed as being an insufficient description of the way the world is. Truth, after all, is true from any angle. This means that postmodernism cannot account for the reality it claims to encompass and that no matter how hard it tries, some reality remains exposed and reveals a contradiction that shows postmodernism is false. And it’s usually not too hard to see. It’s like a glass on the ocean floor claiming it contains the ocean. These contradictions provide an access point that allows Christians to speak of objective truth in a way that can resonate with those who deny it exists.

Take, for example, the recent change in the Québec Education Program’s curriculum. Prior to the 2008–09 school year, school children in Québec were required to take classes in religious and moral education, which were designed to generally reflect the religious confession of each student and their family. Roman Catholics and Protestants each had their own classes on the subject, and a third section covered everybody else.

But beginning in September 2008, those classes were replaced by a program called “Ethics and Religious Culture,” which is described by its architects as an “entirely nonreligious structure.” According to a Québec Education Program document on the curriculum,

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By talking about “ethics” rather than “morality,” emphasis is placed on how students examine the underlying values and norms regarding, in various situations, human behavior. While endeavoring to form autonomous individuals, capable of exercising their critical judgment, this instruction also has the objective of fostering dialogue and community life in a pluralist society.

The document goes on to explain that the values and norms that students will examine are grounded in society.

The main components of religion are “built on the exploration of the socio-cultural contexts in which they take root and continue to develop.” Furthermore, [E]thics essentially consists in critically reflecting on the meaning of conduct and on the values and norms that the members of a given society or group adopt in order to guide or regulate their conduct….The reflection will focus on such subjects as…questions that concern us as members of a society in constant flux.

The program encourages students to analyze “values and norms specific to groups, institutions, and organizations by examining how to explain the presence and transformation of these values and norms in a given society.”

It also tries to give students the tools “for seeking out common values, the valorization of projects that foster community life and the promotion of the democratic principles and ideals inherent in Québec society.” Taken together, these things should foster a “spirit of openness” and point students toward the two main goals of the program: “The recognition of others and the pursuit of the common good.” And this recognition of others is “linked to the principle that all people possess equal value and dignity.”

The program’s postmodern philosophy can be seen most obviously in a couple of places. First, the emphasis of the program is on the knowledge of a diverse range of beliefs, while carefully avoiding the idea that any of the beliefs could actually be true. Religious belief is presented as a way that people choose to define themselves, and no belief is any better or worse than any other. Second, it contains the same fatal contradiction that all postmodern claims have: although it treats all views of the world as if they are of equal value, by doing so it tacitly claims that the only correct view of the world is the postmodern one.

But part of the ways differing views differ is in the factual claims they make about the way the world is. This leaves only two possibilities regarding their truthfulness: either all the views are false or one of them is correct. They can’t all be correct. To claim they are all of equal value is to misunderstand or misrepresent them. And to claim that they are all equal but that the only correct way to see the world is the pluralistic, postmodern way is just nonsensical, like saying that some things are more equal than others. It is a self-refuting statement because the claim fails on N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 37

objective truth; and that although it uses the language of values, it cannot account speaking truth to people who don’t think it exists. for the standards to which it appeals in any meaningful its own terms. Both of these postmodern aspects of the way. Also, if postmodernism rejects the idea of a univerprogram are made even clearer in light of the fact that the sally valid way of seeing the world, then in claiming to be program is not just for public schools but is mandated in the correct way to view the world, it violates its own all private schools as well, including parochial ones. principle. In postmodernism, a denial is actually an affirRecently, seven students were suspended and faced mation. Thus it fails on its own terms. expulsion over their refusal to participate in the program.

And this is what gives Christians their greatest apoloThey saw it for what it is—an attack on the ability to recgetics opportunity—demonstrating the failure of postognize objective truth and an attempt to reduce religious modernism is not enough, after all. Christians must show belief to mere preference. But while we can applaud the why a biblical worldview is the best account of the world students for their insight, courage, and rejection of such and our experience. One of the most effective ways to do ideas, apologetic engagement is perhaps a more effective this is to ask what the necessary preconditions are for the way to expose the bankruptcy of the program. Asking the existence of a value such as goodness or virtue. What has right questions and critiquing the program’s claims on its to be true in order for “good” to exist? If grounding it in own terms show not only how it is entirely insufficient as an arbitrary source renders it meaningless, then the source a description of the world, but that it inadvertently bormust be immutable or unchanging. The source must also rows from and assumes the truthfulness of Christianity. be infinite since there could never be a time when the Take the program’s goal of trying to teach students to value didn’t exist. For example, there was never a time strive for the “common good.” According to the curricuwhen good wasn’t good. This would also mean the source lum, values and norms like goodness are products of paris transcendent from the universe since the source did not ticular societies. But the curriculum also describes those come into existence like the universe. Because this source societies as always being in flux. Given that, what could is transcendent, infinite, and unchanging, it would also be possibly be meant by “good”? If the thing that grounds valuniversal; it would not change from culture to culture. ues is always in flux, then the values are arbitrary because And because values prescribe behaviors and govern oughtthey are always subject to change. This ethical convenness, or the way things should be, the source would have tionalism is a form of relativism where consensus decides to be personal since a physical universe cannot account for what is right and wrong, and majority rules. What is something nonphysical, such as what governs what we moral, or in favor, at one point in time can become ought to do. These things are within the exclusive domain immoral, or out of favor, at another point if the mood of of the mind and personhood. The necessary precondition the majority changes. Society can never change for the for any kind of meaningful concept of values, then, is the better; it can only change. This also means there is no existence of a transcendent, universal, immutable, infinite room for reform. After all, how could anyone claim the person. In other words, God. moral authority to challenge a culture’s values if the valThis biblical view of the world also solves postmodues are determined by consensus? Anyone who made ernism’s other major tenet—that we cannot escape intersuch a challenge (such as William Wilberforce or Martin pretation. Of course, to make such a claim someone would Luther King, Jr.) would be immoral and unethical by defhave to transcend interpretation, once again demonstratinition, which is clearly counterintuitive. And any society ing that in postmodernism denial is affirmation. But that truly embraced such a view has nothing to restrain although Christianity agrees that people are trapped in them from punishing such so-called reformers. interpretation if left to themselves because of their fallenThe same is true for the program’s goal of “openness.” ness and finitude, it also holds that God has revealed himWhat makes openness a virtue? And, given that society is self to us. Our interpretations are corrected and guided by in flux, will there ever be a time when openness becomes God’s self-disclosure—Scripture—and ultimately belong to a vice? If so, would the Ethics and Religious Culture him (Gen. 40:8).

Program be abandoned? And what gives all people equal Within the three religions that have a personal view of value and dignity? Again, an objective standard is God as described above (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), appealed to by the program—the very thing it is designed only Christianity truly provides robust grounds for values. to deny. And just because all people have equal value and And this is because of the Trinity. The Trinity allows us to dignity doesn’t mean that all their ideas are equally valid. see God interact with himself; it is a window into his Beliefs are only as good as their accurate description of the character. For example, how do we know God is a loving way the world is, something the program denies on the God? Surely, we could point to the Incarnation, but that one hand and claims for itself on the other. relies on something outside himself (the world) and God So we see that for postmodernism to claim there is no doesn’t rely on the world for the way he is. In the Trinity, access to objective truth, it must actually have access to however, we see him actively loving within the Godhead,

Christians have cause to rejoice. We have the privilege of

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but without being contingent on anything outside himself.

Only the Trinity allows God to escape being arbitrary or relying on something or some standard outside himself.

Islam’s view of God as radically one fails on one or both of these problems and prevents it from providing a proper grounding of values. And the non-trinitarian view of Judaism fails for the same reason. The way we can have confidence in God’s character and his promises is through the Trinity.

Now, an apologetic response to postmodernism doesn’t mean we have to walk everyone through the philosophical merits of holding to Trinitarianism. But we should understand that it is the engine that drives the whole enterprise if we are going to exclusively defend Christianity and not simply monotheism. It doesn’t have to be front and center in our arguments, but it is at the core of them.

For example, let’s say you’ve just gone to see the latest Spider-Man movie with a buddy who holds to postmodern views. As you talk about the movie you both mention how much you liked it. As a Christian, you can make sense of Spider-Man’s objective morality and sense of oughtness, and you know your friend, as a postmodernist, cannot. When you start trading favorite lines, your friend quotes the constant refrain throughout the movie: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

“Ever wonder who you think he’s responsible to?” you ask.

“To society,” says your friend, “for the greater good.”

“But he can do pretty much anything he wants with little or no consequence,” you reply. “Why should he care about the greater good?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do, of course.”

“Says who? What makes the well-being of people a good thing and why should he care?”

“Those things were discovered as societies evolved,” says your friend. “Certain things were destructive to the community and others promoted peace, prosperity, and the propagation of the race.”

“Even if that’s true, it doesn’t answer the question.

Where do the criteria come from for recognizing what is good?”

“Hey, why all the fuss? It’s just a movie!”

“No, it’s a worldview contained in a movie,” you point out. “I agree with you that those things are good and that Spider-Man is obliged to them. But I’m not sure I understand what you liked about the movie, given that it seems to run counter to what you say you believe.”

“Honestly, that sounds a bit arrogant,” your friend protests. “It sounds like you think you have the truth and everyone else is wrong.”

“Do you think what you believe is true?”

“Of course! That’s why I believe it.”

“Me too,” you respond. “So why are you saying I’m arrogant for thinking I’m right?”

“Because different people have different truths. I don’t think anyone should push their views on anyone else.”

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“Different people have different truths? Is that true?

Because if it is, then it’s false. And if you don’t think anyone should push their views on someone else, then why are you trying to change my mind?”

“Because,” says your friend (who is now wishing he would have gone to the latest Woody Allen movie instead), “you’re acting as if there is only one valid way to see the world when you can’t transcend your own interpretation. If you’d been born in India, you’d see it much differently.”

“Maybe so,” you admit, “but that doesn’t mean the view is correct. Anyway, by saying there is more than one valid way to see the world, you are claiming to have the only valid way of seeing the world. That doesn’t make any sense. Not only can you not account for any values in any meaningful way, but your entire system is self-refuting; it contradicts itself. And to make any meaningful statement, you have to borrow from my Christian worldview even as you reject it. Just by trying to talk me out of my view defeats your view and proves my case.”

The framework of the Christian worldview and proper grounding for the things being debated are all there, but without being overt. If we understand the parasitic nature of postmodernism, we can exploit its weaknesses by asking questions until the view collapses under its own weight. At that point we can give them the good news and provide a biblical worldview as the solution that makes sense of their world and their place in it.

Legendary nineteenth-century magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin described a magician’s stage patter as a “tissue of lies.” In the end, postmodernism is no different. Its misrepresentations of the world are obvious and easily exposed. And what it does get right, it cannot account for.

But rather than being discouraged by the mood of the contemporary culture, Christians have cause to rejoice. We have the privilege of speaking truth to people who don’t think it exists, and of offering a view of the world that provides meaning and value to people who have none. The vast difference between our current culture and a biblical worldview allows Christians to speak with great contrast and volume. Postmodernism doesn’t mute the good news of the gospel; it inadvertently amplifies it if we take advantage of our apologetics opportunities. ■

Doug Powell (MA in Christian Apologetics, Biola University) is the author of the Holman QuickSource Guide to Christian Apologetics (the title is not his fault) and has also contributed to the Apologetics Study Bible and the forthcoming Apologetics Study Bible for Students. As a recording artist, he has released seven solo albums and one with the band Swag. He is also a fulltime graphic designer. Visit him online at selflessdefense.com and dougpowell.com.

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Getting Rid of Conversion?

A Response to D. G. Hart

By Donald T. Williams D. G. Hart’s essay “The Evangelical Narrative: Getting Rid of the Church” (Modern Reformation, November/December 2008) is an insightful study of the nature of evangelicalism and its relationship to Reformation Christianity, and an incisive critique of what Hart sees as evangelicalism’s resulting weakness in ecclesiology and approach to ministry. I find Hart’s history plausible, his analysis impeccable, and his criticisms of the evangelical movement in America both biblical and pertinent. Nevertheless, I cannot shake off a certain unease about his presentation, a haunting fear that in its very excellence, it may tempt us to impale ourselves on the horns of a False Dilemma.

Summary Hart agrees with Mark Noll in seeing evangelicalism as a “new kind of Protestantism” that began with the First Great Awakening and its stress on “conversion and holy living—as opposed to church membership and attending the means of grace” (36, emphasis added). He references Whitefield’s opinion that “it was best to preach the new birth and the power of godliness and not to insist on the form [of worship and church government]” as representing a new set of assumptions: that “the individual’s conversion experience matters more than corporate worship, the simple teachings of the Bible more than creeds, and the fellowship of the Spirit more than church membership” (36). These emphases contrast with the religion of the Reformers, in which “to be a Protestant was to be a member of a church, and to grow in grace meant attending diligently to the weekly ministry of the church, through preaching, the sacraments, Lord’s Day observance, catechesis, and the oversight of church officers” (37). The essence of evangelicalism is its tendency to replace these practices with personal experience. Hart cites nineteenth-century Presbyterian theologian John Williamson Nevin’s observation that the revivalists of his day wanted him to think that all these churchly observances “must pass for nothing...that regeneration and conversion lay outside the church,” which was “more a bar than a help” (37). The end result is a form of Christianity in which the church is reduced to an almost optional club for individual believers, whose personal experience matters more than creed or communion, and whose privatized faith is increasingly uninformed by Word and Sacrament.

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Critique Hart is right. This is indeed where American evangelicalism increasingly finds itself, and it is less than full-orbed biblical Christianity. Why then do I feel a need to add anything more to my response than a hearty “Amen”? Well, let’s go back to the italics I added to one of his quotations. According to my learned colleague, evangelicalism began with a stress on “conversion and holy living—as opposed to church membership and attending the means of grace.” And Hart continues to write in his essay as if we had to choose one or the other, as if the two emphases are somehow inherently inimical to one another. This opposition bothers me a great deal. Surely Scripture demands both of us? And surely there are classic forms of evangelical religion that emphasize conversion and holy living in addition to, not opposed to, church membership and the means of grace? If there aren’t, there should be.

Let us begin with Scripture. Evangelicalism at its best takes seriously what Jesus told Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Highly significant is the person to whom this was said.

Nicodemus was completely committed to and immersed in the forms of outward religion that were current for God’s people before Pentecost. He was a covenant member of the community of faith as it then existed, who was in as good a standing as one could be. If Nicodemus—circumcised, immersed in Torah, faithfully participating in the sacrificial system—needed to be born again, what should we say of a good Presbyterian who was baptized as an infant, catechized, confirmed, and is faithful in his attendance to the ministry of Word and Sacrament? If Nicodemus, who was in the identical position to our hypothetical Presbyterian for his period in salvation history, needed regeneration (that is, the new birth) to make his outward observances spiritually efficacious, how is it that baptism, catechesis, and confirmation now suffice to do for Hart’s Presbyterian what circumcision and temple observance did not suffice to do for Nicodemus? Does our good Presbyterian not need to be born again as badly as his evangelical counterpart who has had a conversion experience needs the church and the means of grace?

I pause to notice just one further biblical statement, this time from the Book of Acts. Luke tells us that in the

them to his church—public worship, the true preachheady days of the church’s establishment in its New Testament form after Pentecost, “The Lord was adding to ing of the Word, the right administration of the Sacraments, and prayer—which are the normal means their number day by day those who were being saved” by which his children come to faith and grow in grace.

(Acts 2:47). Note carefully what he does not say: “The Lord was saving day by day those who were added to the They “work” not because there is anything magic church.” Is the difference between these two stateabout them but because God has graciously promised ments not significant? Evangelicals certainly believe to bless and to use them when they are received in that it is. Does it follow from the fact that they are wrong faith. To neglect them or to take them lightly, as too when they draw the conclusion that the church and its many evangelicals do, is foolish disobedience. But ministry are not then cenfaith is the key word here. tral to the Christian life that We do not share the Does our good Presbyterian they are also wrong about Roman Catholic expectatheir initial premise that the tion that the means of not need to be born again new birth is central? No, it grace work ex opere operato, does not. as if we were dealing with as badly as his evangelical Because it was Nicosome kind of magic formucounterpart who has had a demus who needed to be lae rather than the gracious born again, we should conaction of our personal conversion experience needs the heavenly Father. “Do they clude that evangelicals are as right to see dead orthonot create faith rather than church and the means of grace? doxy and nominalism as merely respond to it?” our threats to the church—as Reformed brothers and sisHart is to see the amorphous and rootless subjectivism, ters may well ask. Yes, mysteriously, but not automatinto which conversionism degenerates when it is not ically. To speak as if in and of themselves they remove rooted in the kind of churchly life to which Hart so the need for the new birth is to replace them with a rightly exhorts us—as a threat to biblical faith. Because Romanist view of the Sacraments working ex opere operto be baptized, catechized, and confirmed is not necesato. Or so it seems to this Reformed evangelical. sarily to be born again or to show any evidence of Reformed evangelical? In his essay, Hart usefully asks spiritual life, good Presbyterians need to hear evangelus to consider whether that dual designation is not a ical warnings about nominalism just as surely as evancontradiction in terms. Too often it has been. I gelicals need to hear theirs about privatized faith. Those devoutly hope it doesn’t have to be. who are not blind to what is in the pews around them Do evangelicals need the church with its ministry must resonate with Wesley’s warning: of Word and Sacrament? Absolutely.

Do good Presbyterians need to be born again?

Say not then in your heart, “I was once baptized, Absolutely. and therefore am now a child of God.” Alas, that Can we find the place where the Reformed churchargument will not hold. How many are the manship of D. G. Hart and the evangelical emphasis baptized gluttons and drunkards, the baptized on the necessity of the new birth meet? If we can, I believe we will finally find the new reformation and liars and common swearers, the baptized railers the new awakening that we so desperately need. and evil speakers, the baptized whoremongers, thieves, extortioners?1 Wesley is of course echoing Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10. Nominalism—the capacity of fallen human beings to go through all the right motions and mouth all the right words without any of it ever penetrating their hearts—is a real threat both to the life of the church and to the salvation of individuals. My cry is simply that both warnings, Hart’s and this one, need to be sounded if the church is to be faithful to the gospel and healthy as a community of faith.

Donald T. Williams (Ph.D., University of Georgia) teaches at Toccoa Falls College. His most recent books include Mere Humanity: Chesterton, Lewis, and Tolkien on the Human Condition (Broadman, 2006), Credo: Meditations on the Nicene Creed (Chalice, 2007), and The Devil’s Dictionary of the Christian Faith (Chalice, 2008).

John Wesley, “The Marks of the New Birth,” in A Burning and a Shining Light: English Spirituality in the Age of Wesley, ed. David Lyle Jeffrey (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 227.

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Conclusion The place where I hope my brother and I can come together is the doctrine of the means of grace. God has graciously instituted certain practices and committed

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Getting Rid of Conversion?

Why It Is Less Crazy Than It Sounds A Response to Donald T. Williams

By D. G. Hart To question conversion is not the same thing as favoring dead orthodoxy or nominalism. A middle position may actually exist between my original essay, “The Evangelical Narrative: Getting Rid of the Church” (Modern Reformation, November/December 2008), and Donald T. Williams’ gracious response, “Getting Rid of Conversion?” That position answers one of Williams’ concluding questions with a measure of ambivalence.

To his first question, “Do evangelicals need the church with its ministry of Word and Sacrament?” I respond “of course” and I am glad Williams agrees. But to his second question, “Do good Presbyterians need to be born again?” I have reservations and this is likely the place of our disagreement. I understand that to say someone does not need to be born again sounds unbiblical. If by the new birth we mean regeneration and effectual calling, or if by conversion we mean our response of repentance and faith, then clearly all Christians need to be born again and converted. But conversion is a contested term and, despite meanings attached to it through 250 years of revivalism, one can plausibly argue that not every Christian needs to be converted even if all believers need the sovereign grace of the Spirit in regeneration. Conversion is especially tricky if it means turning from previous patterns of life to follow Christ. For some believers, telling them they need to be converted could be very bad counsel.

Take the case of Princeton theologian Charles Hodge. He grew up a pious boy, remembers never cursing and always praying to God in the course of daily activities, not to mention that he regularly attended the means of grace on Sundays and worshiped with his family in the home. But when he went to Princeton for college, he believed he needed to convert and did so during one of the college’s revivals. One of Hodge’s friends reported the news by saying that Charles had “enlisted under the banner of King Jesus.” If I had been alive, I would have liked to have asked the reporter, “Was Hodge really an enemy of Christ before his conversion?” Did his baptism, religious practices, and pious convictions count for nothing? Hodge gave every indication that he was trusting in and fearing the Lord prior to his experience of conversion. But without that experience, he was supposedly outside the kingdom of Christ. That is not what Reformed Protestants believe about children who

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have been baptized and are submitting to the instruction and rule of their Christian parents and church officers. Even more troubling is the idea that by converting, Hodge would forsake his previous way of life for one of service to and love for the Lord. If he had been a pirate, liar, or philanderer, maybe the young Charles would have needed to change course. But he was leading a Christian life. From what sordid past should he have converted?

So whether he intended to or not, Williams has raised a bigger question than simply the desirability or necessity of conversion for each and every Christian.

He has broached subjects such as infant baptism, church membership for baptized children, the means and timing for non-communicant Christians coming into full communion—in other words, how does conversion (of the evangelical kind) fit with the ordinary means by which children of the covenant grow up and inherit the faith of their parents? Even more significant is that the ideal of conversion as a dramatic experience may send the wrong signal to baptized children growing up in Christian homes and the church. Do we really want these children to convert and reject their previous way of life? Sure, we want them to profess their faith, and yes, sometimes covenant children do not profess faith as readily as they might. But what if they are like Isaac or Timothy, that is, like those biblical saints who did not undergo a conversion in the modern evangelical sense because they never knew a day of their life when they did not trust in and fear the Lord?

Williams’ language of being a “good Presbyterian” as in “Do good Presbyterians need to be born again?” clarifies our apparent disagreement. I cannot fathom why a Presbyterian who needs to be regenerated would be called “good.” I know of no “good” Presbyterians who are at enmity with God, who go to church and reject (when they do go) what the minister preaches, who refuse to receive instruction and counsel from elders, and who read the Westminster Shorter Catechism and think it is the stupidest and most boring Christian manual known to man. This sort of person is a bad Presbyterian. Although he may have been baptized as a child, reared in the church, and constrained by a host of social and personal factors to continue to go to church, his obstinacy in refusing to submit to the teaching and discipline of his

church runs directly counter to good Presbyterianism.

Such a person should come off the church roll and be treated as a nonmember. He is a prime candidate for the gospel. If and when the Spirit uses the Word to convict this person of sin and to trust in Christ, and if Williams wants to call the outworking of this person’s faith and repentance a born-again experience, I will not object. I do object, however, to calling an unbelieving Presbyterian “good.” Christianity, in whatever form, cannot abide unbelief.

Truly “good Presbyterians” fall into two classes: communicant and non-communicant members. (This is not simply a Presbyterian idiosyncrasy but the nature of every confessional church that practices infant baptism.) Communicant members are those who have been examined by a local body of elders regarding the profession of their faith and have been observed to be living a life that conforms to this profession. They truly trust Christ and are willing to submit to the oversight of the church, as near as human eye and ear can discern the state of a person’s heart.

These professors are communicant church members in the sense that they commune with the rest of the body in the Lord’s Supper, arguably the highest expression for now of union and communion among Christ and his people.

Do these communicant members need to show evidence of a conversion experience? On the sessions where I have served, church members do not necessarily give such a testimony. Some have. Others have talked about their growing up in Christian homes, going to Christian schools, worshiping in the church their entire lives, and eventually determining that the promises of the gospel were true and that they desired to commune with Christ and his people in a fuller way than their baptized non-communicant status. This suggests it is possible to be a “good” Presbyterian without having undergone what evangelicals understand as a born-again experience.

To ask whether conversion (in the evangelical sense) is necessary for non-communicant members is redundant. I have already remarked that many members of the congregations to which I have belonged grew up as non-communicant members who eventually professed their faith without the experience commonly called conversion. To be sure, they may have encountered certain hardships or come under conviction for certain sins that may have prompted their desire for closer communion with Christ and his church than what they had as non-communicant members. And non-communicant members need to display faith and repentance in response to regeneration and effectual calling the way any other Christian needs to. But no session or consistory on which I have served has ever had a personal narrative in mind or a set of requisite peaks and valleys in personal devotion

for determining who is and who is not converted and, therefore, worthy of church membership. Instead, elders and pastors have looked for a credible profession of faith: whether someone believes the Bible to be the Word of God and the only infallible rule of salvation; whether someone receives and rests upon Christ alone for the righteousness that God demands; whether someone lives a life characterized by repentance; and whether someone shows a willingness to submit to the church’s oversight.

I also wonder what Williams thinks of the older Reformation sense of conversion. When looking through the Three Forms of Unity or the Westminster Standards, for instance, a reader will see little if anything about conversion as a dramatic experience of new birth. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, conversion was synonymous with sanctification. This is why the Heidelberg Catechism (Q. 88) speaks of conversion as “the dying away of the old self, and the coming-to-life of the new.” In this sense, all Christians do need to convert. I may even outdo Williams here because I would say that Christians do not experience conversion once but do so constantly over the course of their entire lives. I suspect Williams has in mind the Great Awakening sense of conversion—a reorientation at a specific crisis period from an ungodly to a godly way of life. Again, not all Christians have such an experience, and to demand it of them is to set into motion real problems for the classes of church membership practiced by virtue of infant baptism. The demand for conversion may cause good Christians to doubt their faith if they do not have experiences similar to adult converts.

If Williams worshiped in any of the congregations where I have been an officer and became acquainted with the members of these churches, he might likely concede my point that conversion (in the evangelical sense) is unnecessary. And I will certainly admit his contention that those who attend the means of grace need to do so sincerely; Christianity is inauthentic if a person simply goes through the motions of church life. Dramatic experiences of conversion arose in the eighteenth century precisely to counter such insincerity. But heightened experiences of God or dramatic conversions are no more reliable in revealing the true state of a person’s heart than going to church and reading the Bible and praying at home. People do and have faked encounters with the Holy Spirit, from conversions and speaking in tongues to walking down the aisle. Sometimes Christians even recognize at a later point in their lives that the experience they had and believed to be so earth shattering was really just a blip on a much bigger screen of gradual growth in grace and dependence on Christ. Ultimately, only God can see whether a believer’s experience, profession of (continued on page 35)

N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 43

INTERVIEW f o r

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An Interview with Jim Belcher

Going Deep White Horse Inn host Michael Horton recently spoke with Jim Belcher. He is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California, and author of Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emergent and Traditional (IVP, 2009).

Why did you write this book and what were the experiences behind it?

In the mid-1990s when I was doing twenty-something fellowship at Lake Avenue Congregational Church, I was part of a conversation that back then would have been called Generation X, or Gen-X ministry. Gen-X is the slacker generation that followed the Baby Boomers and includes anyone born in 1965 and some ten or twenty years after that. There were a number of folks on the staff at Lake Avenue who began entering into almost a national conversation that became the emerging conversation.

There were things I liked about that conversation, but there were also things I was struggling with and wanted more of.

So we went to plant a church in Orange County, and after a couple of years when the church was going very well, I became involved in a new denomination, a new tradition, a new history. We were developing a different style of worship. We were really embracing liturgy and the church traditions and history, but we were also modern and contemporary at the same time, engaged with the culture. About 2002 or 2003, I began reading some of the books from my old colleagues: Mark Oestreicher, who is with Youth Specialties; and Rob Bell, a friend of mine and colleague who is at Mars Hill in Grand Rapids.

In these books, I recognized many issues we had discussed, but there

4 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

were a number of things I had some concerns with, or what I would call “Calvinist misgivings”—I get that from Richard Mouw at Fuller Theological Seminary. There were some things that I was just a little uneasy about. I liked a lot of their critique, but I didn’t often like some of the answers. So I decided to set out and think—as someone who knew these guys—of what a sympathetic critique would look like.

It started that way, but within a few months of writing up the proposal and working with InterVarsity on it, I shifted from a sympathetic critique to a critique of someone who’s on the inside. I realized the emerging church is more than just a few people. It’s a broad movement, which I had been part of, and a lot of what they recognized as problems with the traditional church, I also held as well. So I decided not to write a critique of anyone but to work on a dialogue between the two sides—the traditional church and the emerging church—and to present a third way.

I look at both sides’ strengths and weaknesses and then move beyond this to a different way.

What are some of the big questions being posed by people in the emerging camp?

Is it true that the traditional church is too wedded to the Enlightenment, and thus it has become too individualistic, that it doesn’t have a strong sense of community in that we are sanctified in commu-

nity and that we grow in community? They’re most critical of the megachurch movement on this: it’s a purveyor of goods and services.

How can they serve the individual?

They’re not looking to develop community. So their response to it oftentimes is home churches, house fellowships, a smaller ecclesiology that does not have all these obstacles.

It’s amazing to me that this is presented as “postmodern” versus “traditional,” when just twenty years ago many of us were writing in critique of this innovative model of the church growth movement based on consumerism and so forth, which they’re now calling the “traditional model.”

That’s right, and they group not only the megachurch model into the traditional. The funny thing is, when I first started reading some of their critiques, I agreed with them. People in the Reformed camp—such as Os Guinness, you, and David Wells—have been critiquing the megachurch model for years. The emerging church throws into the critique the entire Reformed movement, the Lutheran movement, a lot of the Anglican Church—historic, confessional, creedal churches. Then the protest goes, “Wait a minute.

You’re throwing us into that.

That’s a little unfair.” I find myself saying, “You’re a little late to the party here. We’ve been critiquing this for a long time.” And so I had to sort through what it is they’re really after. As postmodern or as modern as they think they are, in some ways it’s ironic that they’re

going back to models that in some ways are ancient. But the difficulty is, and I say this in the book, that they don’t often link the ancient model, which they pick up pragmatically, to the ancient creeds and confessions.

What would be another critique?

Another critique would be worship. They think that the worship in the megachurch and even in the traditional church—hymns, liturgy, sermons, etc.—is antiquated and outdated and that they need to use more of the arts, be more creative, use more dialogue. So they work to be innovative, whatever it takes to engage the culture. I think it’s critical that our preaching, the way we communicate, and even our worship connects with people in the pews. I don’t have trouble with that. I think the difficulty comes for them when they want to do that, but they don’t have a standard that will keep them from becoming exactly like the culture. Everybody likes to think they’re biblical, and everybody wants to think they’re connecting with the culture. But what is it that really keeps us from losing our grounding and becoming syncretistic, like the culture?

The Quakers and the Plymouth Brethren movement eschewed any kind of church office or strong emphasis on preaching and Sacraments. How much of this is really new?

John Armstrong and I visited Solomon’s Porch, where Doug Pagitt is the pastor and where Tony Jones attends. Afterward, John said, “This really reminds me of the Brethren movement and Brethren services in the Sixties. It doesn’t seem very emerging or that radical.

I’ve seen it before.” Interestingly, in Doug Pagitt’s book on preaching, he mentions a critic who asks, “How is what you’re doing in your service any different from a Brethren church service?” So even Pagitt acknowledges that people have critiqued him in that way and

that there’s not a lot of difference between them. When you go to the service, it’s very warm, very trendy, very cool; it’s almost like friends sitting around on couches and having good spiritual discussions. But there’s no formal preaching of the Word, although they did talk about the Scriptures, but there’s no Sacrament. I think these guys have been influenced by mentors in that Brethren tradition.

What do you think are some of the helpful admonitions our emerging friends give us?

There are many areas in which to learn and grow from dialoguing with them. I think they’ve actually tapped into the individualism of the church. They are calling for a recommitment to community and the importance of fellowshipping together in that part of the church.

I think there are times when even Reformed believers need to have a better understanding of the corporate nature of the church.

In its public assembly, it’s corporately structured in its liturgy and in its Word and Sacrament ministry; but what happens the rest of the week?

The emerging church says that our faith really needs to be taken out into the world, and so they want to engage culture, but they don’t always have the resources. The irony is that the Reformed tradition has tremendous resources for understanding how our faith relates to the rest of the world and how we live together in community during the week, but we often don’t focus on that as much.

In the area of the gospel and the kingdom, I think there are times where even in the Reformed camp we have downplayed the importance of the kingdom of God and what Jesus talks about in the Gospels. We oftentimes give the impression that we’ve pitted them against each other: justification and then the gospel of the kingdom; instead of understanding that

they’re really the same thing, when Jesus announces the kingdom of God and he invites us in, the process of being invited in is through atonement and through justification and through the salvific process and what Christ has done on the cross. Yet when we move into this new realm, we’re into the kingdom. Reformed folks say we’re not dualistic, but oftentimes we live dualistically, and I think what they’re calling us to do is to live non-dualistically. Unfortunately, what happens is that if you don’t get the atonement side right, and you move into the kingdom without that really squared off, you move then into what we would call law and there’s no motivation of the gospel to keep us going.

In your book, you point out how it shares with megachurches—and even before that, with more traditional, fundamentalist, and evangelical churches—moral imperatives not necessarily always grounded in gospel indicatives.

Exactly. It’s exciting the way they do it, which is different from how the old fundamentalists approached it. They’re not worried about smoking and dancing, and so they’re exhorting for the kingdom. When you first read it, it’s very exciting: “I want to live 100 percent for the kingdom and to take care of the poor”—that is, activities you actually do find in the Bible. But as you begin to read, and the excitement wears off, you realize that these are still imperatives without the indicatives to give us the power, and you begin to find yourself losing steam. In the end, it’s the same result. People are going to give up or they’ll become Pharisees and be proud that they can do it: “Why can’t you have the same commitment?” Most of my friends who grew up in that environment have gone back to the world and live the way they want.

N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 4 5

One helpful issue you bring up is the priority often given to belonging over belief. Or at least, the temporal priority: first of all, people should belong and then, after a while, hopefully come to Christian conviction. What does that do to not only church membership but to baptism, especially when it seems that the model in Acts is that people heard the gospel preached, came to saving faith and then said, “What’s next?” To which the reply was, “Be baptized.”

That’s right. This Sunday I’m preaching on Acts 2, so I’m right at that text. I think what has turned the emerging people off to a lot of the traditional church is the feeling that the message of salvation is clean up your life first and then come in. I don’t think it’s wrong to say that before you join the church, you need to become a believer. But we see in the life of Jesus that sinners and nonbelievers hung out with Jesus to the point where the Pharisees had bad thoughts about him. But there comes a time where he sets his face toward Jerusalem and starts challenging the crowd and his disciples, asking: “Are you with me? Do you know who I am? Do you know what I’m going to do? Do you really believe? Are you ready?

Repent and believe the gospel.”

There is a stage where that’s the natural progression.

The emerging church has done a good job of saying, “We’ve put up artificial barriers, whether they are cultural or moral barriers for people even coming anywhere near the church. We want to drop those barriers and let everybody in because they need to belong.” I’ve tried to say that belonging is a part of it for some people, and it’s important, but there’s going to come a time where they have to be challenged to go deeper with the gospel: to confess, repent, join the church, be baptized, and so forth.

In the deep church, we have said that we want to be open and 4 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

guest-friendly. We want people to be able to come and interact with us in public worship. I think Ed Clowney used to call it “doxological evangelism”: let them come in and hear this in a public setting. We’re going to challenge them as they come into our presence to come closer to the well that is Jesus, to the gospel, and to repent and believe. When that takes place, eventually membership happens, and they come deeper and deeper in. I had a tough decision with a guy a while back, however, who didn’t want to repent or change, nor did he want to come deeper in, but he wanted to be a member and to take the Lord’s Supper. I told him we were glad he was here and that he could hang out as long as he wanted to, but that the gospel was calling him to repentance.

We’ve spent time talking about the practical concerns about church life, that it’s inseparable from the doctrine that shapes it.

When we talk about the Emergent Village and the doctrinal trends you see with Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and others, does it trouble you?

All three of them are different, but there are some similarities. I began to have some concerns four or five years ago when people started saying, “We don’t like the direction,” and they were a little coy or weren’t coming right out and saying what they were saying. There’s a drift to Doug’s theology with which I’m extremely uncomfortable. I find his last book really disturbing, and I think Scott McKnight would have said the same thing. I’m trying to be as gracious as I can, but I need to point out the areas in which the church needs to grow so I don’t shut down any dialogue. But at the same time, when somebody really moves away from the fourth- and fifth-century consensus; that is, Tom Oden’s Classical Orthodoxy or C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity.

Now, we’re not talking about evangelical consensus but about Christian consensus.

Yes, exactly. When you start saying that you reject these key doctrines, which have rooted the historic church for thousands of years, then you need to be called out, because at that point your community and the Holy Spirit that you said has guided you in this, has now taken you outside of a 2,000-year tradition, and that’s a dangerous place to be. And so, I do call him out on that as lovingly as I can, because I had a great time visiting his church, and I enjoy him and he’s an incredibly interesting guy. But when you categorically deny the blood atonement and say that it’s credited to outside forces and it’s not biblical, you’re saying that all the doctrines from the fourth and fifth centuries and from the Reformation are not set and that you want to rethink it all. That’s the part that worries everyone.

“Rebooting” is one of the phrases McLaren uses. Again, it sounds so modern. You think of Immanuel Kant and the great paragons of modernity, all the way up to the modernists that orthodox Protestants such as J. Gresham Machen were up against in the 1920s and ‘30s: Let’s start over; let’s tear down the old city blocks and rebuild skyscrapers; we’ll build from the foundations up. It sounds pretty Cartesian and foundationalist.

Of course, you can do that. If you don’t have the same view of outside authority—and the only authority is you and your community—then really, every generation needs to start all over again. You don’t want any of the inherited wisdom of the past, because that’s going to get in the way of your understanding of truth. So you throw that out, you wipe the slate clean, and you and your group get to do all the writing. And, of course, as you say, the irony is that it is very modern.

Turning now to your alternative, how would you define the third way that you’re proposing here?

We have the emerging on one side and the traditional on the other.

There are strengths and weaknesses in each. The way I define “traditional” is the broadly evangelical church, with a small “t.” This is the movement that coming out of the Reformation would have been part of the radical reformation that moved into independent churches and became the evangelical church.

The Reformed church, with its liturgy and its Word and Sacrament, really lost out when it came to American Christianity. It didn’t win the battle or become part of the broader evangelical movement.

When I talk about the “traditional church,” I’m talking about a church that is rooted in the Scriptures, but that looks to tradition with a small “t.” They are the “No creed but Christ” church. What I also call the “traditional church” goes back to the original “Tradition” with a big “T”— what Dan Williams calls the “Big T Tradition,” which I think is reforming, vibrant, and dynamic and has the resources for further reformation. That’s what Calvin and Luther returned to. When someone like Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted to reform the American system on civil rights, he didn’t just pull it out of the ethos of the day. He went back to the Constitution and even to the Scriptures. You appeal back to something that allows you to have the moral high ground, if you will. So much of the traditional church with a small “t” cannot go back that far because they’ve disavowed it. And so when they get into a shouting match with the younger emerging guys, they argue as to which side is biblical. They don’t have the resources to go beyond that and to appeal to the larger tradition that could get them out of this.

So, first of all, what I say is important for the deep church.

When we look to form our church, we’re looking at three things: we’re biblical; we want to connect with

the culture—being contextual and being all things to all men in order to reach them, which is important; and we have this great tradition.

Obviously, Scripture is the most important, but the other two are also critical for understanding how we as the church can be connected into the twenty-first century. I think that gets us to what Newbigin says: the problem with most churches is that we’re either syncretistic and we look exactly like the culture, or we’re completely irrelevant and we don’t connect with the culture. I think when we have Bible tradition and a desire to be missional in the culture, we’re neither syncretistic nor irrelevant. We’re actually extremely relevant, but distinct at the same time. We’re really what Hauerwas wanted, which was a resident alien.

We’re both alien to the culture, but we’re also residents in the culture.

Peter and the other apostles exhort us to live as strangers and aliens in this passing evil age, yet they also call us to work well with our hands, to give to those in need, to be effective in our callings, to pray for those in authority over us, and to be salt and light in the world. Negotiating that is more difficult than saying it ought to be done.

Those are the tricky parts, but I think if we look back to the grand tradition, even this tradition is being reformed, which is also what

the Reformers did. The goal isn’t to be primitivistic and just to go back and say that’s the whole thing.

We can’t, in any case.

But it becomes a resource, and it becomes a resource for navigating tricky waters such as you just raised. How do we be both distinct from the culture and salt and light at the same time? How do we stand away from the culture and be distinct as a distinct community that Christ is forming, but at the same time, engage it in love and all of those exhortations? Well, we look to the Scriptures certainly; but at the same time, there are fabulous resources in the history of the great tradition. It’s what Christopher Hall calls the “history of the Holy Spirit,” how it’s worked through the church.

Those resources help us navigate these waters so we don’t become either irrelevant on one side or syncretistic or chameleon on the other.

Regardless of where we are on the spectrum of this debate and conversation, your new book is helpful. On every topic, you express your point of view in a fair and evenhanded way and state some of the representative positions out there—and you don’t just go for the most obvious and egregious error—so I think it’s a healthy conversation starter for those of us who need it. We all need to be part of the conversation and not just critique each other.

Speaking Of…

“I

hope no reader will suppose that ‘mere’ Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions....It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms....[Y]ou must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and paneling. In plain language, the question should never be: ‘Do I like that kind of service?’ but ‘Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here?

Does my conscience move towards this? Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?’ When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more.”

—C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 4 7

REQUIRED READING FOR 21ST CENTURY CHRISTIANS mo de r n r e fo r matio n must-reads

Readings for Pilgrims on the Road to Zion Dual Citizens: Worship and Life Between the Already and the Not Yet

by Jason J. Stellman Reformation Trust, 2009 This first book from regular contributor Jason Stellman provides a stirring defense of the Two Kingdoms approach to church and culture recovered in the Reformation.

A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State Ivan R. Dee, 2006

by Darryl Hart Is Christianity good for the world? Only insofar as the promises of God are made manifest by the church, argues the author. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Hart offers a different vision for the church militant in our age.

Ascension and Ecclesia Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009

by Douglas Farrow The Ascension, the author argues, clarifies the church’s role and mission in the world.

Why then the disagreements over that role and the distractions from that mission?

Because for many Christians, their understanding of the church as the always-present body of Christ has displaced the important new reality introduced by the Ascension.

People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology WJK, 2008

by Michael Horton This award-winning treatment of ecclesiology concludes our editor-in-chief’s four-volume dogmatics.

Employing the lens of covenant theology, the author traces the history of the church from the Garden of Eden to the Garden City of the New Jerusalem.

SEE ALSO: Augustine of Hippo: A Biography by Peter Brown (University of California Press)

Beyond Culture Wars: Is America a Mission Field or Battlefield? by Michael Horton (Moody)

4 8 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

In the Splendor of Holiness: Rediscovering the Beauty of Reformed Worship for the 21st Century by Jon D. Payne (Tolle Lege) City of God by St. Augustine (Penguin Classics)

REVIEWS w h a t ’ s

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This is Not Your American Calvin

O

f all the literary put downs aimed at Calvinism, H. L. Mencken’s was

recently designated number three on the top ten list of “Ideas arguably the best. Of course, Mark Twain’s rendition of Calvinist preach- Changing the World Right Now.” The reason for this strong showing and Sabbatarian severity in The Adventures of Huck Finn captured ing—right between number two, “Recycling the Suburbs,” and well the defect that has number four, “Reinstating the Interstate”—had to do with tarnished John Calvin’s the popularity of certain American evangelical preachers reputation ever since who stress divine sovereignty at conferences where college his birth a half millenstudents earnestly sing Christian rock songs. As surprising as nium ago. According to the appeal of Calvinism to youth might be, the more reliable Huck’s description of a way to exonerate Calvinism is to link it to Puritan New Presbyterian worship England and the American founding. An online editorial at service: the Washington Post trotted out quotations from John Adams to George Bancroft that claimed Calvinism to be responsi“It was pretty orble for the nation’s experiment with liberty. Op-ed columns nery preaching, but do not provide space sufficient to reconcile doctrines like preeverybody said it destination and actions like the execution of heretics with was a good serCalvin’s supposed five-hundred-year legacy of liberty. But mon, and they all certainly for people who identify themselves as Calvinist, the talked it over going quincentennial has yielded relief for sagging self-esteem. home, and had Historians might have a point about the demographics of such a powerful lot the American population in 1776, minus of course the relito say about faith gious convictions of the politicians justifying war with and good works England. French, German, and Dutch Reformed along with and free grace and Scottish and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and English Puritans Calvin preforeordestinacomprised a formidable portion of the population and the

by Bruce Gordon tion [sic], and I loudest Christian arguments for revolution. But biographers Yale University Press, 2009 432 pages (hardback), $35.00 don’t know what all, that it did seem to be to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run Modern Reformation invites you to submit across yet.” a book review for publication in the

Predestination and Sundays spent in devotional overdrive are not selling points for any faith, especially one having to compete in the land of the free and the home of the brave. But Mencken’s single phrase, that Calvinism occupied a place “in his cabinet of horrors but little removed from Cannibalism,” took the public relations problem to a whole new level. Because Mencken was a classifier of words and an editor of books, one can well imagine a cabinet in his study where on the “C” shelf, “Calvinism” did in fact sit next to “Cannibalism.” One can also plausibly wonder if Mencken believed Calvinism more horrific than its neighbor because it taught the gnashing and grinding of teeth not only in this life but for the lengths of eternity.

Birthday celebrations—especially quincentennials—have a way of changing perceptions. This is no less true for Calvinism, a form of Protestantism that Time magazine

Reviews section of an upcoming issue.

We would like to give you the opportunity to critique, evaluate, and consider books both good and bad from your reformational perspective. Thoughtful Christians will examine the most important books of the day, and we want to encourage interaction with books that inspire and instruct, or maybe frustrate and concern. Submit your review of 1,000 words or less in an email to reviews@modernreformation.org.

Please reference the guidelines and suggestions available at www.modernreformation.org/submissions.

N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 4 9

of Calvin find this point much harder to make. Of the several biographies published this year to catch the wave of Calvin’s 500th birthday, Bruce Gordon’s Calvin is resolutely sheepish in drawing connections between Calvin and twenty-firstcentury America, let alone Calvin as the source of modernity in the West. The Yale Divinity School professor stays close to the texts to which Calvin devoted most of his energy and to the politics in which Calvin had to negotiate efforts to reform the church. In the process, Gordon reminds readers why writers like Twain or Mencken could so easily ridicule the ideas that most people associate with John Calvin.

Calvin’s rise to arguably the greatest Protestant Reformer, second only to Martin Luther, was unexpected. He did not set out to be a reformer or even a church leader. Until 1536, when he turned twenty-seven and began to minister in Geneva, he had given every indication of pursuing a life of contemplation dedicated to the study of texts from Latin and Greek antiquity. Only three years earlier, he had converted from merely supporting church reform—the way humanists did—to a full-blown Protestant. Prior to his conversion, he had studied theology and law in France, the country of his birth. Arguably, the most surprising aspect of Calvin’s early life was the detour he took to Geneva en route to what he imagined a life of study in Strasbourg. In Geneva, he met the opinionated preacher, William Farel, who literally put the fear of God in Calvin to stay and work for the city’s young Protestant church.

Calvin’s first stint in Geneva lasted for two years and must have given him second thoughts about heeding Farel’s threat.

The city council resisted many of his and Farel’s initiatives, especially making the church rather than the state responsible for excommunication. In 1538, Calvin and Farel needed to leave Geneva, and during this time Calvin finally made it to Strasbourg where he ministered to French Protestant refugees. Three years later, Geneva’s city council asked Calvin to answer Roman authorities who were hoping to coax Geneva back into the Roman Catholic fold. Calvin’s defense of Protestantism smoothed over old tensions and allowed him to return to Geneva, where he worked until his death in 1564, though he did not gain citizenship until 1555.

Gordon faced a difficult challenge in presenting the life of a pastor in a manner appealing to readers beyond the academically gifted or religiously motivated. What helps Gordon’s narrative substantially is the political situation in which ministers like Calvin worked. Not only did Calvin wrestle throughout most of his life with Geneva’s city council, but Geneva itself held a secondary status within a confederation of cantons and cities in modern-day Switzerland that required its leaders to act in concert with cities like Basel, Bern, and Zurich. At the same time, Calvin’s political reach extended beyond the Swiss to all of Europe, thanks to the many Protestant exiles who sought refuge in Geneva and who often took the lessons of Calvin’s reform back home. This meant that Calvin corresponded with religious leaders and state officials, from England to Poland. He reserved his greatest care for former countrymen and women who were often the objects of persecution from 5 0 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

French authorities. Even then, Calvin’s fellow French Protestants needed to weigh Calvin’s counsel lest it lead to death. Calvin was not an advocate of Christian rebellion even against obvious tyrants.

Gordon also handles exceptionally well the two major blemishes in the countenance of Calvin’s reputation: predestination and the execution of the heretic, Michael Servetus. In both cases, Gordon shows how complicated the issues at stake were and how fragile was Calvin’s mastery of the situations, not for lack of effort but because he was only one player among many. Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is easily caricatured because it included not simply the idea that God elected some to salvation (single predestination), but actively condemned the rest of fallen humanity (double predestination). Although single predestination is not necessarily any easier for freedom-loving moderns to accept than its darker cousin, and although theologians from Aquinas to Luther at least served the single flavor, Calvin bears the reputation almost solely as a severe teacher of election, merely following cold logic. Gordon demonstrates that Roman Catholics promoted the distaste of predestination to discredit Calvin during his lifetime. He also shows that Calvin’s fellow Protestants were uncomfortable with his teaching, even to the point of having his books burned—as vigorous a display of opposing heresy as was then imaginable. Yet Calvin’s explanation of the doctrine was eminently plausible (even if unpleasant) given his reading of Scripture, and his counsel to pastors on how to teach and use it was sensible. Gordon ably navigates these choppy theological and historical waters.

The case of Servetus involves even more biographical dexterity than predestination. A renowned heretic throughout Europe, Servetus was also a gifted physician even if an unstable character. Gordon recounts how Servetus almost went out of his way to gain Calvin’s attention, and that Calvin tried to warn Servetus of his predicament—holding views that would be banned practically anywhere in Europe.

Although Calvin prosecuted the theological case against Servetus, Geneva’s city council determined his guilt and the need for execution. Even then, Geneva could not act without the approval of its Swiss allies. Gordon includes the relatively familiar part of the story that has Calvin unsuccessfully recommending what many considered a more humane form of execution: the sword as opposed to being burned at the stake. Gordon sees in aspects of Calvin’s conduct a “visceral hatred” of Servetus, an oddly certain judgment upon a man who wrote little about his personal motivation. But Calvin’s attitude mattered far less to Servetus’s fate than the political realities confronting a small and weak city like Geneva. To maintain the city’s reputation and avoid slurs upon Protestantism, Geneva’s authorities could do nothing less than execute Servetus.

The only point where Gordon’s biography stumbles is in the author’s conclusions about Calvin’s motives, such as the point about hating Servetus. Gordon argues repeatedly that Calvin was so tight-lipped about himself that biographers need to speculate on his character. Calvin did not even want a marked grave lest he be turned into an object of veneration.

On the one hand, Gordon writes, “by concealing himself [Calvin] created space for the faithful to meet God directly.”

On the other, Gordon does not resist punctuating the narrative with unflattering assessments of Calvin’s motivation. This allows Gordon to render the closing scene from Calvin’s life in an odd and distancing way. On his deathbed, Calvin was reading excerpts from his papers to fellow ministers and students; his condition was deteriorating, but no one dared interrupt Calvin because they did not want him upset.

Gordon takes this as an emblematic moment in Calvin’s life: “He was happiest, in the company of friends whom he enjoyed and needed, yet with their acknowledgment of his superiority to the extent of being afraid of him. To the end they were his disciples. That had always been Calvin’s way.”

In point of fact, much of Gordon’s biography shows the opposite, that Calvin regularly complied with the wishes and judgments of allegedly inferior peers and colleagues.

It is fair to say that Calvin was a reserved, hard-working pastor and scholar who was always negotiating with political and religious figures well beyond his control. If Gordon’s biography reveals any significant truth about Calvin, it is the all too commonsensical one of how human lives, even the ones of seemingly great and influential persons, are captive to circumstances and powers outside their capacity to master. In that way, the truly remarkable aspect of Calvin’s life is that among the sixteenth-century Protestant leaders, a man who lived in exile all of his adult life and ministered against his will in a small and relatively unimportant town would become a figure to whom scholars and pundits would attribute the forces of modern politics, economics, and education. Gordon laudably avoids that sort of attribution and recognizes the limitations, both good and bad, both plausible and somewhat far-fetched, of a smart, productive, and in some cases brilliant minister and theologian.

D. G. Hart is author and editor of more than twenty books on American religious history and is currently writing a global history of Calvinism for Yale University Press.

Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction

By Rowan Williams Baylor University Press, 2008 290 pages (hardback), $24.95 Fyodor Dostoevsky has been hailed by many scholars as one of the most brilliant and important novelists of all time. His two most famous novels, Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, are routinely required reading in many high schools and universi-

ties across the United States. He also happens to have been a devoted Christian. Dostoevsky’s Christian beliefs, however, have often been a subject of confusion or even criticism for many of his readers. In fact, this Russian Orthodox believer “has been to some extent co-opted into the service of an anguished agnosticism” and even into the “Death of God” movement (2). Yet in recent years, scholars have paid more attention to the role of faith in Dostoevsky’s writings, and Rowan Williams, the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, is among the best of them.

Over the course of five extensive chapters in Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction, Williams develops a brilliant argument that upholds both the complexity and integrity of the author’s Christian faith. He examines all of Dostoevsky’s most well-known novels—Notes from the Underground, The Idiot, Devils, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov—and even a few letters, bringing out various literary and theological themes. Yet the overarching theme is how Jesus Christ is clearly manifest in Dostoevsky’s uniquely “dialectical” narrative. “Instead of imagining a deeply divided authorial mind...we have a text that consciously writes out the to and fro of dialogue, always alerting us to the dangers of staying with or believing uncritically what we have just heard” (3).

In chapter 1, “Christ Against the Truth?,” Williams examines Dostoevsky’s narrative method in light of one of his most famous and shocking statements: “If someone were to prove to me that Christ was outside the truth, and it really was the case that the truth lay outside Christ, then I should choose to stay with Christ rather than the truth” (15). From this opening, Williams demonstrates that Dostoevsky, while concerned with the truth, was not concerned with writing novels as religious apologetics. Rather, he recognized that “‘Truth’ as the ensemble of sustainable propositions about the world, does not compel adherence to any one policy of living rather than another” (25). In other words, the bare facts about Christ do not guarantee belief in Christ. Furthermore, Williams connects this understanding of Christ to the task of writing fiction. Dostoevsky recognized that fiction should not “approach human affairs as if they belonged to the world of evidence” (58). Instead he allowed a certain “narrative indeterminacy” that created room for “radical patience with the unplanned and the undetermined decisions of agents” (58).

In chapter 2, “Devils,” Williams applies this notion of “narrative indeterminacy” and applies it to the role of the demonic in Dostoevsky’s novels. Williams analyzes many passages from Karamazov and Devils to explain that the essence of the diabolical is the “perversion of freedom”: “The Devil’s priority is to prevent historical change and to free human agency in the timelessness of a ‘rational’ order in which love or reconciliation is impossible” (108). Thus, just as serious “to and fro” dialogue, which is pervasive throughout Dostoevsky’s novels, creates a free place for genuine Christian faith, so does demonic dialogue twist this place into something destructive.

Williams continues to discuss in chapter 3, “The Last Word,” Dostoevsky’s use of dialogue in his novels. In particular, he addresses how the structure of dialogue itself N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 5 1

counters the role of the demonic: “If the Devil’s aim is silence, God’s is speech” (113). But Dostoevsky is not merely claiming free speech for the sake of free speech. Rather, “Speech may be free but it needs to be hearable—otherwise it fails finally to be language at all. And I as speaker need to acquire skills to listen or my response will be no response” (134). Thus, Williams demonstrates how Dostoevsky purposefully employs this kind of dialogue, which allows for a certain amount of irresolution in order to force the reader to enter into dialogue with the characters in the story. Thus, the reader arrives at the Truth without following an obvious agenda. Ultimately, says Williams, Christ is the “‘last word,’ not as the force which provides the final episode...but as the presence with whom ultimately every speaker may discover an exchange that is steadily and unfailingly life-giving and free from anxiety” (139).

In chapter 4, “Exchanging Crosses,” Williams expands his argument by examining how Dostoevsky’s characters are like Christ (or not like Christ) in their capacity to foster lifegiving dialogue with other characters. He couches this Christ-likeness in terms of feeling “responsibility for all” and “love for the other.”

Responsibility is the free acceptance of the call to give voice to the other, while leaving them time and space to be other; it is the love of the other in his or her wholeness, that is, including the fact of their relatedness to more than myself...[it is] confirmation that the tactics of narration in Dostoevsky’s novels are inseparable from the vision that drives them. (187) In other words, it is not simply that the characters in Dostoevsky’s novels create a free space where responsible dialogue is possible, but that Dostoevsky as an author actively promotes this kind of dialogue as a structure in which responsible, real-world Christian faith can grow.

In chapter 5, “Sacrilege and Revelation,” Williams brings together the various themes of his argument by explaining Dostoevsky’s use of imagery and iconography. He first discusses how certain characters in the novels choose to venerate or desecrate the icons of Christ that they encounter.

They are not merely reacting to images of Christ, but they are reflecting a Russian Orthodox notion of how Christ is “imaged-forth” by emptying himself, by becoming human.

Dostoevsky, says Williams, is intentionally writing a “narrative of vulnerability” in which “a true image will necessarily be something that is broken or spat upon....[It is a] ‘kenotic’ story at the center...the complex unfolding of true images in narratives of sin and forgiveness, suffering and enduring presence” (224). Thus, Williams weaves together all the theological and narrative strands: Dostoevsky’s characters engage in a dialogue (chapter 3) that is part of an indeterminate narrative structure (chapter 1) in which the self-emptying love (chapter 4) of the Incarnate Christ (chapter 5) overcomes violence of the demonic (chapter 2).

Though he does not claim professional authority for this book, Williams has clearly demonstrated that his great abil5 2 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

ities as a scholar of theology also serve him well as a scholar of Slavic literature. He is a thorough reader of the text with a strong grasp of the Russian language, though, thankfully, he does not require such knowledge from his readers. The style of the book itself is generally clear, but it is dense in content, demanding full attention from the reader and offering excellent analysis.

This book is not for those who are looking for first-time exposure to Dostoevsky. It assumes that the reader is familiar with all of Dostoevsky’s major novels and is difficult to follow without such knowledge. But for Dostoevsky enthusiasts, who are interested in an academically rigorous examination of both the literary and theological aspects of the author’s famous works, this is certainly a valuable and thought-provoking read.

Jordan Easley is an M.Div. student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life

By Herman J. Selderhuis InterVarsity Press, 2009 287 pages (paperback), $25.00 Long before Jack Kerouac, there was John Calvin. According to the Genevan Reformer, the Christian life was a sojourn, and we are always on the road. The metaphor of pilgrimage serves as a distinguishing feature of this fine new biography by Herman Selderhuis (church historian at the Theologische Universiteit Apeldoorn in the Netherlands).

Calvin was all too familiar with the lifelong calling of a refugee. Pilgrimage meant first of all the pain of separation from friends who remained in the Roman Catholic Church.

Calvin urged French Protestants to leave their country, following the command that Abraham obeyed. Fleeing France was important not so much for avoiding persecution and possible martyrdom. The real threat, as Calvin saw it, was the temptation to return to the Catholic Church. He likened France to Egypt, and he could not imagine how the Reformed could worship God in Catholic surroundings. As Selderhuis summarizes it, “One either stayed with Pharaoh or one followed Moses.”

Contrary to popular impression, Calvin did not extend this metaphor to assert that Geneva was the Promised Land.

The folly of imagining such was graphically displayed in Anabaptist Munster. Even in Geneva, Calvin experienced homelessness. His first stay (1536–38) resulted in another exile, to Strasbourg, where he was happiest and most productive. When he returned in 1541, respect came gradually

for Calvin as Genevan citizens continued to resist the counsel of a Frenchman. When he finally earned citizenship in 1559, he still described himself as a “foreigner in this city.”

Though Calvin is frequently compared to twentieth-century totalitarian monsters, Selderhuis argues that he was hardly the tyrant of Geneva. Calvin was downright apolitical by sixteenth-century standards; he exerted little political power in the city and even less did he try to cultivate it.

Often he was more lenient and humane than city officials, as the Servetus affair reveals (to which Selderhuis appropriately devotes a mere three pages). Calvin did not get his way in the execution of the heretic even though “the smell of smoke has clung to Calvin’s clothes for centuries.”

Exile encouraged the Christian to see the world as a strange place. Calvin’s Reformed restlessness cultivated discontent with this present age and prompted reflection on the future life. His love for the Psalms was owed in part to their being “existential pilgrim songs.” Though Selderhuis only briefly alludes to the Psalms in this book, readers can find this theme developed further in the author’s earlier work, Calvin’s Theology of the Psalms (Baker Academic, 2007).

The world, under the pronouncement of God’s curse, lost the order with which God endowed it at creation. So where amid the sin and chaos is that order to be found? Calvin writes that only in the reign of Christ in the church is God’s order restored. There is no stability in the universe except in the church that is built on the foundation of God’s Word.

The church is a fragment of paradise on earth because of its order. Even here, Calvin was no perfectionist; Selderhuis writes that for Calvin, simul iustus et peccator applied corporately as well as individually.

Calvin reserved his strongest words of condemnation for those who would destroy the order in the church. When the wicked usurp ecclesiastical authority, the church is converted into a Babylon or an Egypt. Selderhuis concedes that Calvinism itself “unleashed a fury of scandals and schisms,” but these cannot be blamed on Calvin himself. Sojourning did not mean separatism. Throughout the book Selderhuis notes the strong ecumenical impulse in Calvin. The breech with Rome owed to Rome’s breaking unity by abandoning the gospel. The failure of Lutherans and the Reformed to unite was an ongoing frustration for Calvin, which, Selderhuis laments, is overlooked by Calvin’s followers: “The Reformed had little esteem for the Luther in Calvin.”

Selderhuis’s portrayal is supported by his extraordinary attention to Calvin’s letters. B. B. Warfield called Calvin “the great letter-writer of the Reformation,” and his letters fill eleven volumes of the Corpus Reformatorum. Amid a remarkable number of direct quotations from these letters, Selderhuis observes that “the real Calvin is to be found in his correspondence,” which Calvin himself claims to be “the living image of my soul.” Nor are Calvin’s sermons neglected by the biographer; he notes, for example, how the changing conditions of Calvin’s ministry in Geneva affected his homiletical style.

From liberal use of these resources, Selderhuis’s pen gives us a fuller picture of Calvin than previous treatments that

SHORT NOTICES The Inklings of Oxford: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Their Friends Text by Harry Lee Poe and photography

by James Ray Veneman Zondervan, 2009 176 pages (paperback), $24.99 “The Inklings” now have their own travelogue for dedicated fans, having achieved nearly mythical status among a certain population of thoughtful Christians. The Oxford world of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, the most famous names to emerge from the informal society of writers called the Inklings, is captured in prose and pictures in a new coffee-table type book by Harry Lee Poe and James Ray Veneman.

The text generally follows the passing years and careers of Lewis and Tolkien especially, with other figures like Warnie Lewis, Hugo Dyson, Charles Williams, and Dorothy Sayers dropping in for guest appearances. As the narrative develops, we learn the value of the Inklings to the actual development of the great books we associate with Lewis and Tolkien. We also learn of the equally treasured opportunity at the time for friends to converse and amuse themselves during the darkness of the Second World War. The stories are probably familiar to most fans, but the real value of the text is the chronicle of the development of the Inklings through the years as a social, literary, and even political force.

The photography gives life to the book. Recent graduates in caps and gowns stand next to shadowy stills of the Eagle and Child pub, transporting the reader back in time to the Oxford of the Inklings.

Recent photographs of the Kilns (the Lewis home) show how similar it looks after more than fifty years, but also how suburbanization has changed the face of Oxford’s surrounding district. Even those who are totally unfamiliar with Oxford will be delighted by the dawning realization that many of their favorite literary places (from Toad Hall to Hogwarts School of Wizardry) can be found along the rivers and in the colleges of this ancient city.

Long-time fans of the Inklings’ books will thoroughly enjoy this feast for the eyes. Those who are just beginning to discover the literary treasure trove left behind by the authors, who gathered each week in Oxford’s parks and pubs, will find their discovery to be (continued on page 55) N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 5 3

seem more wooden in comparison. The pilgrim metaphor especially challenges the prevailing wisdom that Calvin taught a world-affirming spirituality. At the same time, Selderhuis does not diminish Calvin’s revolutionary effect on Western civilization. Instead, this book underscores the irony of a pilgrim life: it is the church reformer, not the cultural warrior, that yields the most stunning of social transformations. Under the heavenly mindedness of Calvin’s preaching and the diligence of his catechetical instruction, Geneva emerges as the most cosmopolitan of European cities.

Selderhuis describes Calvin as a “verbal decathlete” with a gift for words. The same can be said for the lively prose of this well-written book. Selderhuis can turn a phrase wonderfully, and this able translation reads fluently. For example, here is his explanation for the organic growth of Calvin’s Institutes from first (1536) to last edition (1559): “Just as with children, the book kept its name and main characteristics, but in growing up it gained experience, size and weight.”

All students of Calvin should treat themselves to this biography in this jubilee year. They will come to agree with the author’s observation that “Calvin was not made of stone, and if there are Reformed Christians who are, they are not Calvinists.”

John Muether is librarian and professor of church history at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.

POINT OF CONTACT: BOOKS YOUR NEIGHBORS ARE READING Home

By Marilynne Robinson Picador, 2009 336 pages (paperback), $14.00 When Marilynne Robinson came to Philadelphia’s Free Library last fall to read from her new novel, Home, she drew a crowd of loyalists. The auditorium wasn’t completely packed— she was competing that night with the last of the televised presidential debates.

It seemed a fitting juxtaposition, given that Robinson prefers to write about small town America in the 1950s when television was a relatively new invention and people had fewer options for diversions. Her novel Home and its predecessor in 2004, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, are both set in rural Iowa and deal with the lives of ministers and their offspring. Indeed, Home returns to several of Gilead’s 5 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

characters but shifts the focus from Rev. Ames, the retired Congregational minister in town, to his lifelong friend, Rev. Boughton, a Presbyterian minister, and the return of two of his middle-aged children to the family homestead.

As Robinson commented wryly at the library, “I don’t deserve to have insights into the pastor’s family.” This literature Ph.D., who heads the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, describes herself as a liberal Protestant believer and churchgoer. She has long thought about the history of religious ideas and has published a book of essays, The Death of Adam, defending the Puritan intellectual and ethical tradition—including the writings of John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. She acknowledges that Calvin believed in our “total depravity” but adds: “The belief that we are all sinners gives us excellent grounds for forgiveness and self-forgiveness, and is kindlier than any expectation that we might be saints, even while it affirms the standards all of us fail to attain,” Robinson writes in her essay “Puritans and Prigs.”

Yet in her novels, Robinson sublimates polemics and is instead animated by character. Although she hadn’t planned to write another novel set in Gilead, she told the Philadelphia gathering that “the characters were insisting,” and she wondered, “Why am I denying them their lives?”

When Home opens, daughter Glory has returned to Gilead to care for her ailing father. A former teacher, Glory has been disillusioned by an irresponsible fiancé, who has drained her of her finances and self-esteem. She is a broken 38-yearold woman, at home again. “‘Home to stay, Glory! Yes!’ her father said, and her heart sank.” With these words, the novel begins. We sense Rev. Boughton’s enthusiasm for both the company and the care that her return represents. We also see how her father’s expectations depress his daughter.

Conflict, a classic ingredient of good storytelling, is introduced immediately. Robinson uses the third person to narrate the story, which allows her to move from Glory’s thoughts to her father’s, and then to other characters as well.

Robinson says she is character-driven in her novels. The characters take shape in her mind and then act in accordance with their natures. Glory is a nurturer. She dreamed of settling down in a home in a town larger than Gilead. She longed to have children—three at most—and not the family of eight children of which she is a part. In contrast, Rev. Boughton believes that this homestead “embodied…the general blessedness of his life which was manifest, really indisputable. And which he never failed to acknowledge, especially when it stood over against particular sorrow.”

The great “sorrow” of Rev. Boughton’s life soon returns to Gilead in the person of Jack, his oldest son. This prodigal, who abandoned his girlfriend and baby daughter twenty years ago, also left a family behind to worry and to pray.

Jack was a minor character in Gilead. He was named after his father’s friend, Rev. John Ames, and is a disappointment to both clergymen. In his youth, Jack engaged in theft, drank too much, and didn’t even come home for his mother’s funeral. It would be easy to paint Jack as the irresponsible black sheep. But Marilynne Robinson doesn’t do easy.

When asked by an interviewer why Jack, who becomes

the center of Home, wasn’t written in first-person narrative, Robinson responded: “Jack is thinking all the time—thinking too much—but I would lose Jack if I tried to get too close to him as a narrator. He’s alienated in a complicated way.

Other people don’t find him comprehensible and he doesn’t find them comprehensible.”

As the story unfolds, Jack, Glory, and their father transition from being overly polite and tentative around one another to gaining a familiarity that living together under one roof often brings. Few writers express the beauty in the mundane tasks of family life like Robinson. From preparing a chicken, to washing dishes, ironing, and cutting back vines, the author describes these activities so accurately and poetically that they come to life and ring true. Most of the action takes place within the confines of the home. Grand themes—of good and evil, guilt and grace, youthful dreams dashed and the regrets of old age—are interwoven seamlessly within the minutia of family life. And the subject of faith finds a home on virtually every page.

About Glory, Robinson writes: “For her, church was an airy white room with tall windows looking out on God’s good world, with God’s good sunlight pouring in through these windows and falling across the pulpit where her father stood, straight and strong, parsing the broken heart of humankind and praising the loving heart of Christ. That was church.”

Handsome and worldly-wise Jack surprises them by playing an old hymn that his father requested: “Softly and Tenderly, Jesus is Calling.” To his sister’s amazement, he continues to play other hymns. Glory is shocked both at his memory and at his piano playing. Jack counters that he’s supported himself by playing the piano in cocktail lounges and that he’s also made ends meet by washing dishes in restaurant kitchens.

Jack—whom we find likeable, flawed, sensitive, and deeply uncomfortable within his own skin—asks his father and Rev. Ames in one pivotal scene: “Do you think some people are intentionally and irretrievably consigned to perdition?” We sense that his question is far more than an academic one. As Glory says of her brother, there was “an incandescence of unease about him whenever he walked out the door or, for that matter, whenever his father summoned him to one of those harrowing conversations.”

Toward the end of the novel, Jack seeks to pacify his father in his dying days. He is haunted by the thought that he should pretend to have a saving faith, but thinks he should just let his father die in peace. This scene is strangely moving, as are so many others in the rich and powerful novel.

To finish a Marilynne Robinson novel is to feel enriched.

She has great gifts as a writer; she has thought deeply on every character and scene and takes faith, however she defines it, very seriously. Undoubtedly, it was not by chance that Rev. Boughton asked his son to play the hymn: “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling…calling oh sinner, come home.”

Ann Henderson Hart lives in Philadelphia and is a regular contributor to Modern Reformation.

(continued from page 53) twice as enjoyable when paired with these stories and pictures of their new, though long-departed, friends.

Eric Landry is executive editor of Modern Reformation.

Left Behind or Left Befuddled: The Subtle Dangers of Popularizing the End Times

by Gordon L. Isaac Liturgical Press, 2008 168 pages (paperback), $16.95 After reading Left Behind or Left Befuddled, I realize just how odd it is that a Presbyterian like me actually believed some very strange stuff. Only now do I question why my church youth group watched the short film, A Thief in the Night. This scary rapture movie was released in 1972, two years after The Late Great Planet Earth soared onto the best-seller list. I had forgotten about this old film until I watched Left Behind: The Movie. Although released in 2000, I watched it about six months ago—mostly because I was interested to understand the “Left Behind” hoopla. Right away, I was bothered by the fear factor that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins managed to weave throughout the story—how could one not be frightened by the antichrist and the Great Tribulation?

Then I read Left Behind or Left Befuddled and understood why these end times scare tactics have bothered me and how dangerous this thinking can be for the church and its place in the world.

As a professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Gordon Isaac explains the history of Dispensationalism (the roots of the “Left Behind” series), which began only in the late nineteenth century. In fact, in A.D. 431 the Council of Ephesus condemned “millennialism” and approved St. Augustine’s view, which “eschews speculation regarding an end time calendar” (31). In this short book, Dr. Isaac manages to provide a full historical/theological account of current end times thinking.

Although naturally critical of this obsession with biblical prophecy, Dr. Isaac finishes the book on a wonderfully positive note with “Recapturing the Christian Imagination.”

This enlightening book should be mandatory reading for all Christians. Augustine would surely shake his head in disbelief at just how far some of us have gone over the edge into some murky and frightening waters, when we should instead be joyfully anticipating the marriage supper of the Lamb in the City of Zion.

Patricia Anders is managing editor of Modern Reformation.

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FINAL THOUGHTS f r o m

t h e

d e s k

o f

t h e

e d i t o r - i n - c h i e f

“To Be a Pilgrim”

I

n 1684, John Bunyan wrote his only hymn, “To Be a Pilgrim,” from an English prison

this idea of autonomy is deep in the fallen heart, where he was serving a twelve-year sentence for preaching without a license. Reflecting but it has been especially nurtured ever since the on the words of Hebrews 11:13, which speaks of the saints of old having “confessed that Enlightenment. Then came two world wars, followed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth,” Bunyan by others, each time weakening confidence in the perincluded the hymn in his famous work, Pilgrim’s Progress. fectibility of humanity and the power of absolute reason.

Although the text went through some revisions before being Exhausted, the postmodern era has swung to the other side inserted into The English Hymnal in 1906, the original words read: of the pendulum. Not a master, but a tourist, the postmodern person is content to saunter from booth to booth at Vanity Fair.

Who would true valour see, There is no destination, just a journey. The modernist thought Let him come hither; that he or she had arrived, while the postmodernist surfs the One here will constant be, Internet with no particular goal beyond random choice. They Come wind, come weather rarely stay anywhere for long, since there are so many things There’s no discouragement to do, to see, to experience, and to join.

Shall make him once relent It is easy to be a master, especially if you are a privileged His first avowed intent member of a privileged culture. It is also easy to be a tourist, To be a pilgrim. without any itinerary or destination. To be called, however— like Abram out of his moon-worshiping family in Ur or like Whoso beset him round Peter to drop his nets and follow Jesus even to Calvary—is the With dismal stories most difficult vocation to embrace. In fact, it is impossible. As Do but themselves confound; Abram, Peter, and all believers ever since have come to realHis strength the more is. ize, becoming a Christian pilgrim is a gift of grace. Everything No lion can him fright, about this journey to Zion seems odd, surprising, and counHe’ll with a giant fight, terintuitive. Abram knew that God’s promise contradicted the He will have a right facts of his own experience. Assuming that glory rather than To be a pilgrim. the cross awaited them, Peter did not understand the point of Hobgoblin nor foul fiend his master’s journey from Galilee to Jerusalem until after he Can daunt his spirit, had denied Jesus three times and was nevertheless restored by He knows he at the end his victorious Savior after his resurrection. Judging by the Shall life inherit. winding and often daunting path of Bunyan’s pilgrim Then fancies fly away, “Christian” in his celebrated book, the Christian pilgrimage is He’ll fear not what men say, not easy. Often, Christian meets his greatest obstacles not in He’ll labor night and day the form of obvious giants who block his path to the Celestial To be a pilgrim.

City, but in the subtler form of distractions and distortions of It’s hard for us to be pilgrims. It’s always been difficult, of the faith that promise to make the trek easier. course. Everything in Satan’s arsenal is directed against our Going beyond Bunyan’s image of a lonely pilgrim, we confidence in Christ. As strange as it may seem in the light have in Scripture the confidence of a “cloud of witnesses” of our riches in Christ, our own hearts are still impressed who cheer us on from the heavenly stands. Though farther with this passing evil age. Even in the church, distractions along, not even they have arrived finally at their destination, abound: easier, simpler, and faster ways to have our best life as they wait with us for their resurrection and glorification. now. Pilgrimage—the long, often difficult and tedious, and On that day, we will all have arrived and the body of Christ self-denying path to Zion—is about the most un-American will be as glorious as its Head. One day we will not need faith idea one can imagine. to believe with John Newton, “Solid joys and lasting treasThe modern era was all about being a master. It’s best ures, none but Zion’s children know.” expressed in that line from the poem “Invictus” (Latin for “unconquerable”) by William Ernest Henley: “I am the Michael Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation. master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” Of course, 5 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G