He Is There and He Is Not Silent

 The only thing I’ve read of Francis Schaeffer is He is There and He is not Silent (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1972).  It has been a few years since I’ve read the whole thing, so I’ll have to re-read it again soon.  In sermon prep this week, I did re-read part of the book.  One quote stuck out (from pages 33-34):

“Evangelicals often make a mistake today.  Without knowing it, they slip over into a weak position.  They often thank God in their prayers for the revelation we have of God in Christ.  This is good as far as it goes, and it is wonderful that we do have a factual revelation of God in Christ.  But I hear very little thanks from the lips of evangelicals today for the propositional revelation in verbalized form which we have in the Scriptures.  He must indeed not only be there, but he must have spoken.  And he must have spoken in a way which is more than simply a quarry for emotional, upper-story experiences.”

“We need propositional facts.  We need to know who he is, and what his character is, because his character is the law of the universe.  He has told us what his character is, and this becomes our moral law, our moral standard.  It is not arbitrary, for it is fixed in God himself, in what has always been.  It is the very opposite of what is relativistic.  It is either this or morals are not morals, but simply sociological averages or arbitrary standards imposed by society or the state.  It is one or the other.”

I especially appreciate the next paragraph:

“It is important to remember that it is not improper for men to ask these questions concerning metaphysics and morals, and Christians should point out that there is no answer to these questions except that God is there and he is not silent.  Students and other young people should not be told to keep quiet when they ask these questions.  They are right to ask them, but we should make it plain to them that these are the only answers.  It is this or nothing.”

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Boice on Church and America

Here’s a great excerpt from J. M. Boice in Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 27.

“Evangelicals speak of ‘taking back America,’ ‘fighting for the country’s soul,’ ‘reclaiming the United States for Christ.’  How?  By electing Christian presidents, congressmen, and senators, lobbying for conservative judges, taking over power structures, and imposing our Christian standard of morality on the rest of the nation by law.  But we ought to ask: Was America ever really a Christian nation?  Was any nation ever really Christian?  Does law produce morality?  What about Augustine’s doctrine of the two cities – the city of man and the city of God – which meant so much to the Reformers?  Will any country ever be anything other than man’s city?  And what about America’s soul?  Is there really an American soul to be redeemed or fought over?”

One thing I appreciate about Boice is his churchly focus.  Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace is a great book, by the way!

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Materialism, Wealth, and Idolatry

 This is quite the book – a truly deep and thought-provoking read.  Although it was written around 20 years ago, the message is still relevant.  Schlossberg takes the reader through the main things in American culture that serve as people’s idols.  At first I thought it was going to talk about how Christians end up making idols out of certain things in our culture, but the book is broader than that.  He simply lines up the main things American’s “bow down to” and gives proof, citation, and critique.  The chapters include idols of history, humanity, Mammon, nature, power, and religion.  He ends with a few “application” chapters.  Below is a part from his last chapter, a constructive account of how Christian pilgrims should live in and interact with this idolatrous culture, specifically on the topic of materialism and wealth.

“Materialism, coupled with the productivity of machinery and electronics, has brought us to the universal expectation of More, first rising expectations and then rising entitlements.  This is what the Bible refers to as covetousness, which is condemned from the original Ten Commandments through the whole biblical literature.  The common observation that prosperity tends to bring spiritual complacency, pride, and moral decline goes back at least as far as the Pentateuch.  The wicked are identified as those who trust in riches rather than in God.

The biblical outlook on wealth seems odd only because we have adopted as normal a way of life that is hopelessly unable to produce what it promises and has demonstrated that inability to almost everyone.  As little children we learned that the doll or the game we invested with the aura of desire, and of which we thought we would never tire, inevitably palled on us after a time.  The same is true of all the world’s glittering satisfactions.  What they have in common is that, after the initial flash of gratification, they fail to satisfy, leading us to seek further for the next bauble. 

We ought instead to reconsider the basic assumption.  For if past acquisitions and attainments have not satisfied us, perhaps it is not in their nature to provide more than fleeting satisfactions.  This is the insight that led the prophet to inquire: ‘Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread…?’ (Is. 55:2).  For the greedy there is no conceivable level of wealth that would be enough, for greed is insatiable.  That is why trying to satisfy it, giving in to the love of money, causes such intense suffering (1 Tim. 6:10).”

Here’s his exhortation. 

“Christians need to renounce the systems by which their fellow citizens plunder each other, either within or outside the law.  …They should learn to give without receiving anything in return, reversing the process by which society is reducing itself to poverty.  They should be wary of the temptation to have ever more of the world’s goods, for that desire is what takes away personal freedom, delivering people into the clutches of those who want power. …The early Christians were said to have ‘joyfully accepted the plundering of [their] property’ (Heb 10:34); but this could only have happened to people who regarded themselves as pilgrims, content with whatever they had, having renounced the quest, on which their neighbors had embarked, for ever more goods to consume.  For them the statement of net worth was valueless in determining human worth.”

If I can add a quick illustration, we’re like that creepy dude in those treasure hunting movies – the foil to the main character who gets way into the cave to see all the jewels and gold.  We, like that guy, cram our pockets full of golden chains, saucers, and coins only to be stabbed for our idiocy by that spear-trap falling from the cave’s ceiling.  If only we could keep our hands off that glittering treasure!

Quotes above taken from Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction (Wheaton: Crossway, 1990), 311-312.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

New one by Timothy Keller – Coming Soon!

This one looks great Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller (to be released in a month or so).  I’ve read a tiny part of it (which you can do here) and can’t wait to read the rest.  Along the same lines, I just ordered Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture by H. Schlossberg.  More on that one later.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Evangelism: Targets of Marketing

I’m about as Emergent as a dead caterpillar in a sun-dried cocoon, but I appreciated this little bit from Heather Kirk-Davidoff in her contribution to An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007).  It has to do with the “old school” way of evangelism.

“Even if your theology is great, even if your church is wonderful, even if your community is the best group of people on earth, as soon as you approach someone with the intention of recruiting them into your theology or church or community, you become a marketer and the other person is the target of your marketing.  While GenXers have had a wide range of experience with religion or church or community, we share the experience of being targets of marketing from our earliest days of watching cartoons with product tie-ins.  We can spot a sales pitch from a mile away, and we never confuse that with an offer of genuine relationship.”

“The 1999 movie The Big Kahuna made this point brilliantly.  Addressing a colleague who turned a sales convention into an opportunity to witness to his Christian faith, one of the characters says, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or ‘How to Make Money in Real Estate with No Money Down.’ …Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it’s not a conversation anymore; it’s a pitch.  And you’re not a human being; you’re a marketing rep” (p. 37).

Granted, the rest of this essay is much less helpful, almost making relationship a sacrament.  Yet she’s dead-on in her critique of how we usually “do” evangelism.  That kind may not work anymore in a nation of spoiled consumers.  The Kirby will clean your carpets, Jesus will fix your marriage, and this house-alarm will keep the bad guys out.  This is what Barth (and Willimon following him) means by domesticating the gospel.

Side note: I liked Mike Horton’s contribution to The Church in an Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives (to name one of a few such books).

shane lems

sunnyside wa

The Privatization of Faith

Here in the U.S., we live in a culture (or cultures) where a person’s faith is OK as long as she keeps it private and is tolerant of other faiths.  Objective knowledge is public and for the textbook (i.e. the moon is around 384,000 km from the earth), while subjective values and beliefs are personal and private (i.e. Jesus is Lord).

Of course this type of reasoning – upon which much of the US’s political, cultural, moral, and economical structures are built – can be torn apart; the poor logic isn’t too hard to spot.  More on that at a later time (FYI: Newbigin is great when it comes to  “public” vs  “private” beliefs).  For now, I want to use one of Bavinck’s quotes to deal with this private v public when it comes to the church in the world.

“The more the Christian faith [or the church - spl] retreats from dealing with every possible question, restricting its content, and the more it applies itself to building a rigorous foundation, deducing all else logically from these fundamental principles, the more it will become inwardly weak and divided.” Herman Bavinck, Certainty of Faith (St. Catharines: Paideia Press, 1980), 9.

I love this quote, and it it indicts me.  History has proved Bavinck’s 100 year old words true.  The tough questions liberals and/or unbelievers have thrown at the church have often been answered poorly or simply avoided.  Instead of grappling with these questions publicly, the church has built trenches and walls around the fundamentals.  In Bavinck’s terms, she has buried her head in the sand (Ibid.).  She has focused her gaze within the trenches (privacy!), and “friendly” fire has resulted in a weak and divided church that can only give a blank stare to the world when it asks us tough questions.

In Newbigin’s terms, the gospel is public truth, not a belief we tuck away in our closets!

shane lems

sunnyside wa

The Gospel And Culture

If you’ve ever wrestled with how the gospel and culture relate, Lesslie Newbigin is a must read.  One thing he constantly discusses is the fact that everyone’s understanding of the gospel is quite cultural.  That is, my understanding of who Jesus is and what he’s done for his people is somewhat conditioned by my cultural upbringing and surroundings.  Of course, we can’t get away from it; it was part of Christ’s work to come to this earth in a certain place, time, and culture.  Furthermore, our doctrine of Scripture is one in which we must take culture into account (language, traditions, etc.).

The difficult thing, as Newbigin repeats, is to maintain a balance.  First, we don’t want the culture to overtake or domesticate the gospel.  In this paradigm, the gospel becomes just one more thing that people believe, along with other information.  The other – second – extreme we want to avoid is the “Christian ghetto” (in Newbigin’s great terms), where we isolate the gospel from other cultures and keep it wrapped up in ours, thinking ours to be superior.  Very roughly, the first extreme is somewhat the liberal way; the second is the fundamentalist way.

An example of the first is the social gospel or even “Christian America” where the gospel is a means to an end; the means is one among others (even if it is the “chief” means).  An example of the second is a church with their tradition X going into a totally foreign culture/place and making the people of this different culture change and adopt their tradition X along with the gospel (sometimes called “cookie cutter approach” to church planting).  Both are to be avoided.

I’ll put up a few Newbigin quotes on this later – I’m still pondering all this stuff, and it is quite stimulating.  (Note – the above ideas come in the last few sections of Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian, A Reader.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Politics, Religion, and Hart

I confess: I’m not bent towards politics in the least.  I vote, obey the government best I can, and pray for those in authority over me.  I wore the Green willingly for six years, and I have read stuff by Thomas Paine, Dwight Eisenhower, and a just few more such American political figures.  But that’s as far my political mind goes.

From a theological side, though, the interaction between the gospel and Western culture fascinates me.  I’ve enjoyed Newbigin lately (which you know if you follow us here at all), who is as provocative as he is edifying.  Another helpful book I recently finished is Darryl Hart’s A Secular Faith (Chicago: Ivan R Dee, 2006).

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  One of the first big statements that caught my eye was this: “The basic teachings of Christianity (my note: think Apostle’s Creed) are virtually useless for resolving America’s political disputes, thus significantly reducing, if not eliminating, the dilemma of how to relate Christianity and American politics” (p. 11).

Another such statement that I pondered was this one: “The trick of successfully employing any faith for public ends is to have access to the socially useful parts of religion while leaving behind its dogmatic and sectarian baggage” (p. 13).  In other words, “…efforts to use Christianity for public or political ends fundamentally distort the Christian religion because it is essentially an otherworldly faith” (p. 16).

Again, though I’m no politician, I do wince when politicians use religious garb to either make themselves look religious or to bathe their talk with “spirituality.”  I wince when Christians equate a certain political position with the Creed.  I believe Hart is right: this kind of stuff sucks the creedal core out of Christianity and leaves one with a shell of moralism.

I’ll interact with this book more later, along with D.A. Carson’s Christ and Culture Revisited and a few other Newbigin books.  Stay tuned!

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Newbigin: Plausibility Structures and the Empty Tomb

I just started reading this older but very significant work by Newbigin: The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989).  So far, it is more than intriguing!  I haven’t read much Newbigin, so I cannot yet offer a fuller critique/evaluation, but I’ll post a few parts that I thought were helpful (taken from the first chapter).  In the future, I also hope to blog a little bit more on the contents of this book.

“It is obvious that the story of the empty tomb cannot be fitted into our contemporary worldview, or indeed into any worldview except one of which it is the starting point.  That is, indeed, the whole point.  What happened on that day is, according to the Christian tradition, only to be understood by analogy with what happened on the day the cosmos came into being.  It is a boundary event, at the point where (as cosmologists tell us) the laws of physics ceased to apply.  It is the beginning of a new creation – as mysterious to human reason as the creation itself.”

He goes on:

“But, and this is the whole point, accepted in faith it becomes the starting point for a wholly new way of understanding our human experience, a way which – in the long run – makes more sense of human experience as a whole than does the reigning plausibility structure.  That the crucified Jesus was raised from death to be the firstfruit of creation is – in the proper sense – dogma.  It is something given, offered for acceptance in faith, providing the starting point for a new way of understanding which, instead of being finally defined by the impassable boundary of death (our personal deaths and the final death of the cosmos), moves from death outward to an open world of infinite possibilities beckoning us into ever fresh regions of joy.”

This is the main point of his paragraph: “One does not defend this new perspective by trying to demonstrate its compatibility with the old.  One challenges the old with the demand and the offer of a death and a new birth.”

In other words, we cannot try to cram the resurrection into the “plausibility structures” (that is, patterns of belief and practice accepted within a given society) in which we find ourselves.  Typically, in our cultures, plausibility structures help determine which beliefs are plausible and which are not.  The Christian faith is different; it doesn’t fit within one plausibility structure, but gives rise to a “radically different” one.  Now, because of the faith-creating resurrection of Jesus, we have a “dogma,” a new epistemological starting point, a new way of thinking.

The world and its way of thinking says: “What is dead stays dead!”

The church and its way of thinking says: “He is not here, he is risen, just like he said; the sting of death is gone!  I see all things through the empty tomb.”

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Preaching, Thomas Long, and Karl Barth Part I

 

Thomas Long writes on Barth’s view of preaching and then reflects on the current situation:

People in our culture, “believe in their hearts that God is present, but they just don’t expect to find God in church, in worship, in preaching.  God is present, they say, but not in there, not in that heavy and lumbering institutional church, not in that staid and plodding service of worship, and not in that endlessly boring and impertinent sermon.  God is present in butterflies and flowing brooks and sunsets, but not in church.  Yes, God is present – people today are fully persuaded this is true – but God is present in meditation and in the inner life of spirituality, present in times of inward ecstasy and wonder, present in moments of holy encounter scattered across the landscape of personal experience.”

“God is present, but not in hymn or sermon or Bible or creed or congregation.  Barth thought that the people had left behind the cherry tree, the symphony, and everyday life to come to worship in order to encounter God, but today ironically it seems that the reverse is true; people have left worship to find God in the cherry tree, the symphony, and everyday life.”

Taken from “What are They Asking” Circuit Rider, (Sept/Oct 2001), 6.  Go here for the full article — it is worth reading!  I’ll post one more blurb from it sooner than later in part II.

shane lems

sunnyside wa