Not Creative, But Faithful

I love this paragraph from Michael Horton's The Gospel Commission:

We must never take Christ's work for granted. The gospel is not merely something we take to unbelievers; it is the Word that created and continues to sustain the whole church in its earthly pilgrimage. In addition, we must never confuse Christ's work with our own. There is a lot of loose talk these days about our "living the gospel" or even "being the gospel," as if our lives were the Good News. We even hear it said that the church is an extension of Christ's incarnation and redeeming work, as if Jesus came to provide the moral example or template and we are called to complete his work. But there is one Savior and one head of the church. To him alone all authority is given in heaven and on earth. There is only one incarnation of God in history, and he finished the work of fulfilling all righteousness, bearing the curse, and triumphing over sin and death.

Sometimes I think one of the biggest problems of evangelicalism in our culture is our own emphasis on individuality that leads us to all kinds of creative ways of expressing what we think the Bible teaches.  The problem with this is, we are fallen creatures and what we think the Bible teaches is more often than not flawed.  If we ignore the faithful witness of church history (and who even cares about church history anymore...we can't even respect a hymn if it was written more than sixty days ago!), we are not only prone, but defaulted, to err in our creativity.

We, as witnesses to Christ's kingdom, are not called to be creative, but faithful.  We absolutely cannot be faithful unless we are saturated in the Word (scripture) and diligent in the study of our history of thought.  Those who ignore their theological history are doomed to (heretically) repeat it.

Spring Rolls On

Well, March is almost over, and I still don't have much to say.  I've been so busy going to my sons' baseball games, I don't have time to think.

A few tidbits-

I just saw that a Southwest Airlines flight from Orlando to Chicago had to make an emergency landing in Louisville.  Apparently, there were some smoking wires in the cockpit.  They should arrest those wires.  I understand it's a federal offense to smoke on a domestic flight.  <>

I just found out today that the head football coach is going to move my son, Will up to varsity for Spring football.  He's just a freshman.  So now I'm both very proud and very nervous.  Those other boys are very, very, big.  And fast.

I just got a promotion to full professor.  I'm pretty excited about that...it's the highest academic rank one can achieve short of retiring and being named Emeritus professor.  And as one retired gentleman explained once, 'Emeritus' is from the Latin:  E means your out, and meritus means you deserved it!

I just had the honor of co-approving the money for a new state champion wall sign for the high school gym.  (I'm one of the VPs for the Canyon Eagle booster club.)  The Lady Eagles went 38-0 this year; were the only undefeated team in the state of Texas, boys or girls; and the state championship game was Coach Lombard's 1100th career win.  He hasn't lost a hundred yet (98 loses).  That's almost unimaginable.  He's quite a coach, and a great Christian man who brought glory to God in the process of winning this title.  Hats off.  This was his 14th state title here at Canyon.  Wow.  On top of that, the Lady Eagles are now ranked in the top 12 nationally by USA Today magazine.

Our interim pastor preached on hell yesterday.  You don't hear that very often anymore.  Contrary to what we hear, everyone I talked to at church found it to be a positive, not a negative, sermon.  Good job, Dr. Shaw!

We only have two more lessons left in 2 Peter.  That means I have to find something to do for the summer.  Last summer, I used a six-week video series called, Chosen By God with R. C. Sproul.  Maybe I can find something like it for a different tact for early summer.  Then, by request, we are going to do some systematic theology, starting with the doctrine of prayer.  I'm looking forward to that study, even though it will be a tough prep, as I'll get some magnificent Bible study from it.

Just saw a pair of funny tweets from Fred Thompson- "Reporter at Biden fundraiser locked in closet. Only allowed out during Biden speech. Now that's what I call adding insult to injury."

And, "Hillary: U.S. won’t go into Syria the way it has in Libya. Oh, so Obama's going to go in with a plan?"

Good ones, Fred!

Creeds, Creedalism, and the Church in the 21st Century

I strongly believe that the Bible is our primary and authoritative source for theological information.  I also strongly believe that statements of faith (creeds, but that’s a bad word in Baptist circles, unfortunately) are important tools in studying the bible, sharing the gospel, and making disciples.

A creed is simply a concise statement of what one (or one’s group) believes.  It is a miniature systematic theology.  The church found creeds to be essential by the 4th century AD, and has used them effectively for the past 1600 years.  The only time things go wrong is when the creeds become the foundation rather than a reflection of scripture.  I don’t think that will be a problem in a 21st-century Baptist church.  In fact, even mentioning them to a few particular folks can get one run out of town on a rail.

Without creeds, things go awry in a hurry.  Just look at the drift of the SBC in the first half of the 20th century when ‘creedalism’ was a bad word through the convention.  In fact, the reformation doctrine of “the priesthood of all believers” was corrupted into what you now hear from many Baptists as, “the priesthood of the believer”, wherein they think any individual believer has the right and ability to interpret scripture apart from apostolic teaching, church history, or elder guidance.  I’ve had it thrown in my face in my own church.  Here's what Timothy George had to say about it-

"The priesthood of all believers was a cardinal principle of the Reformation of the 16th century. It was used by the reformers to buttress an evangelical understanding of the church over against the clericalism and sacerdotalism of medieval Catholicism. In modern theology, however, the ecclesial context of this Reformation principle has been almost totally eclipsed. For example, in the current SBC debate on the issue, both sides have referred (uncritically) to the "priesthood of the believer." The reformers talked instead of the "priesthood of all believers" (plural). For them it was never a question of a lonely, isolated seeker of truth, but rather of a band of faithful believers united in a common confession as a local, visible congregatio sanctorum."

When I talk about church history and elder guidance, I'm not envisioning a teaching magisterium or even an inerrant body of teaching from the mother church.  I'm envisioning the spirit-led and God-gifted men (and women) throughout the history of the church who have kept the church on the straight and narrow in the midst of heresies and movements that tried to drag her away.  Whether that be Aurelius Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, or Spurgeon, these men have been mightily used of God in keeping secularism, Pelagianism, and other falsehoods from dragging the church off-course.  While scripture is authoritative, the writings of these men are valuable resources in how the scriptures are interpreted and applied in an orthodox manner.

So a systematic approach to bible study is warranted in the culture of the SBC, I think.  J. I. Packer, in a recent Modern Reformation article, says it thusly- “It has often been said that Christianity in North America is 3,000 miles wide and half an inch deep. Something similar is true, by all accounts, in Africa and Asia, and (I can testify to this) in Britain also. Worshipers in evangelical churches, from the very young to the very old, and particularly the youth and the twenty- and thirty-somethings, know far less about the Bible and the faith than one would hope and than they themselves need to know for holy living. This is because the teaching mode of Christian communication is out of fashion, and all the emphasis in sermons and small groups is laid on experience in its various aspects. The result is a pietist form of piety, ardent and emotional, in which realizing the reality of fellowship with the Father and the Son is central while living one’s life with Spirit-given wisdom and discernment is neglected both as a topic and as a task. In the Western world in particular, where Christianity is marginalized and secular culture dismisses it as an ideological has-been, where daily we rub shoulders with persons of other faiths and of no faith, and where within the older Protestant churches tolerating the intolerable is advocated as a requirement of justice, versions of Christianity that care more for experiences of life than for principles of truth will neither strengthen churches nor glorify God.”

What is Packer’s answer to this?  Teaching of the truth of the gospel, of course!  He says, “The well-being of Christianity worldwide for this twenty-first century directly depends, I am convinced, on the recovery of what has historically been called catechesis—that is, the ministry of systematically teaching people in and coming into our churches the sinew-truths that Christians live by, and the faithful, practical, consistent way for Christians to live by them. During the past three centuries, catechesis as defined has shrunk, even in evangelical churches, from an all-age project to instruction for children and in some cases has vanished altogether. As one who for half a century has been attempting an essentially catechetical ministry by voice and pen, I long for the day when in all our churches systematic catechesis will come back into its own.”

I agree. 

I think this is one of the more important  answers to why we lose so much of our youth (I’m speaking of the church at large) when they leave for college.  Those statistics are appalling.  I also know that catechesis done in a dry and non-community environment will lead nowhere for most people.  It is essential it is done in a faith-community environment where people have each other’s ‘six’ and are willing to live out the truths they learn by giving of themselves and by service to both their brothers and the lost. 

This all comes back to basic Christian living…we as individuals and families need to live out the Christian life apart from church programming as well as within it, and we’ll find an amazing connection to our culture suddenly appear that we didn’t know was there.  The bible study, catechism, systematic theology, or whatever you call it (centered on the gospel, of course) is the foundation for living that life, and the actions and service, primarily the preaching and teaching of the word,  will be the means that God uses to bring the elect into His presence.

I’m looking forward to re-reading the book of Acts with an eye toward how the early church engaged their culture.  If I recall from the last time I read it, there’s a whole bunch of individuals sharing the gospel with other individuals, and not a lot of church-organized events and formal programs which lean on a professional pastorate to do the evangelization for the church.  And primarily, there was a tremendous dependence of all Christians to rely on the holy spirit to turn the hearts of the converts, rather than convincing them with methods and amusements, and this dependence was most faithfully demonstrated by an active and fervent prayer life among the believers.  And it was effected by sharing the gospel, which consisted of God’s judgment on sin, our hopelessness in sin, and God’s provision in Christ (all shared using the Old Testament, of course).

The Battle for Scripture- The Right Flank

It appears to me the battle for scripture has shifted in concentration from the left flank (liberalism) to the right flank (sufficiency of scripture).  Consider this quotation from David F. Wells,

"The Church is, therefore, awash in strategies borrowed from psychology and business that, it is hoped, will make up for the apparent insufficiency of the Word and ensure more success in this postmodern culture. Today, the issue is not so much the inerrancy of Scripture but its sufficiency and this at the very moment when a robust confidence in its sufficiency is precisely what the Church needs to have if it is to live out its life in proclamation and service effectively." (Wells, D., http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/rejection.html)

The battle for the left flank was critical.  Without the inerrancy of scripture, the Christian faith has little objective meaning and no power (Rom. 1:16). While we still need to guard the left flank from attack (most of the attacks come from within the ranks, by the way), the bigger attack from the culture is on the sufficiency of scripture.  Is the gospel, as given in the Word of God, sufficient to meet the needs of our present-day postmodern culture, or not?

I say it is, but it won't unless we teach it and preach it effectively, shying away from our fears about offending others with God's message.  Too many people don't know what a believer needs to believe to live the Christian life, so they don't do a very good job living a Christian life.  We've had too many years of fluffy Sunday School literature with little or no doctrinal meat in the weekly lessons, and as a result we are Mark Noll's worst fear- a scandalized evangelical church.  And instead of a reactionary return to doctrine, we see a lurch in the opposite direction, toward experientialism, in the so-called Emergent Church.  Unfortunately, our response to pressures from this emergent movement (no more than a postmodern form of liberalism) is to make our worship a bit more postmodern and "culturally relevant" rather than a return to a strong emphasis on doctrine.  People are desperate for something to believe, and we give them more pietism.  It won't work.

J. I. Packer, in a recent Modern Reformation article, says it thusly- “It has often been said that Christianity in North America is 3,000 miles wide and half an inch deep. Something similar is true, by all accounts, in Africa and Asia, and (I can testify to this) in Britain also. Worshipers in evangelical churches, from the very young to the very old, and particularly the youth and the twenty- and thirty-somethings, know far less about the Bible and the faith than one would hope and than they themselves need to know for holy living. This is because the teaching mode of Christian communication is out of fashion, and all the emphasis in sermons and small groups is laid on experience in its various aspects. The result is a pietist form of piety, ardent and emotional, in which realizing the reality of fellowship with the Father and the Son is central while living one’s life with Spirit-given wisdom and discernment is neglected both as a topic and as a task. In the Western world in particular, where Christianity is marginalized and secular culture dismisses it as an ideological has-been, where daily we rub shoulders with persons of other faiths and of no faith, and where within the older Protestant churches tolerating the intolerable is advocated as a requirement of justice, versions of Christianity that care more for experiences of life than for principles of truth will neither strengthen churches nor glorify God.”

What is Packer's answer to this?  Teaching of the truth of the gospel, of course!  He says, “The well-being of Christianity worldwide for this twenty-first century directly depends, I am convinced, on the recovery of what has historically been called catechesis—that is, the ministry of systematically teaching people in and coming into our churches the sinew-truths that Christians live by, and the faithful, practical, consistent way for Christians to live by them. During the past three centuries, catechesis as defined has shrunk, even in evangelical churches, from an all-age project to instruction for children and in some cases has vanished altogether. As one who for half a century has been attempting an essentially catechetical ministry by voice and pen, I long for the day when in all our churches systematic catechesis will come back into its own.”

I agree.