More on Same-Sex Marriage, and Why It Isn't So Revolutionary After All

A couple months ago, I wrote a blog post about how I don't think same-sex marriage is a re-definition of marriage in our culture at all.

Now, Michael Horton (over on the White Horse Inn blog) is lending some credibility to my claim. He says,

"Both sides trade Bible verses, while often sharing an unbiblical—secularized—theological framework at a deeper level. If God exists for our happiness and self-fulfillment, validating our sovereign right to choose our identity, then opposition to same-sex marriage...is just irrational prejudice.

Given the broader worldview that many Americans (including Christians) embrace—or at least assume, same-sex marriage is a right to which anyone is legally entitled. After all, traditional marriages in our society are largely treated as contractual rather than covenantal, means of mutual self-fulfillment more than serving a larger purpose ordained by God. The state of the traditional family is so precarious that one wonders how same-sex marriage can appreciably deprave it.

Same-sex marriage makes sense if you assume that the individual is the center of the universe, that God—if he exists—is there to make us happy, and that our choices are not grounded in a nature created by God but in arbitrary self-construction. To the extent that this sort of “moralistic-therapeutic-deism” prevails in our churches, can we expect the world to think any differently?"

From either perspective, whether you are pro- or anti-same-sex marriage, we are getting what we deserve.

All Authority Really Means 'All'

An interesting set of quotes from Michael Horton's, The Gospel Commission-

“Not even the new birth is the result of human decision or effort. We are not given steps for ‘How to Be Born Again’. Jesus’s statement in John 3, that one must be born from above in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, is not an imperative (i.e., command) but an indicative (i.e., statement of fact). That is, it simply declares the state of affairs…The gospel is for us, not about us.  It isn’t about anything that we do, feel, or choose. It is the Good News about Jesus Christ and what he has accomplished for us. Of course, the new birth evidences itself in conversion: a lifelong response of repentance and faith.” (p. 30)

“We often speak of ‘making Jesus our personal Lord and Savior’, but this obscures two important points. First, we do not make Jesus anything, especially Lord and Savior. It is because he already is Lord and Savior that we are freed from the fear of death and hell.  All authority belongs to him already.” (p. 32)

 “The early Christians were not fed to wild beasts or dipped in wax and set ablaze as lamps in Nero’s garden because they thought Jesus was a helpful life coach or role model  but because they witnessed to him as the only Lord and Savior of the world. Jesus Christ doesn’t just live in the private hearts of individuals as the source of an inner peace. He is the Creator, Ruler, Redeemer, and Judge of all the earth.” (p. 33)

 What part of, 'all authority' do we not get?

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.

Secularization as a Christian Heresy

“Secularization—that is, the gradual conformity of our thinking, beliefs, commitments, and practices to the pattern of this fading age—is not just something that happens to the church; it is something that happens in the church.  In fact, it’s difficult to think of secularism as anything other than a Christian heresy.” 

When I read Michael Horton, the going is usually slow, and every couple pages, I have to put the book in my lap, lean my head back, and think.  The above quote is from the introduction to his recent book, The Gospel Commission: Recovering God's Strategy for Making Disciples.

It shall be an interesting read.

Discussions, Controversies, and Divisions- Where's the Line?

In the blog bailiwick where I hang (see the list on the side column), there isn't a lot of controversy.  I tend to read a more monolithic set of blogs.  When I want an opinion contrary, I know where to go find it (like Roger Olsen's blog...if he says the sky is blue, then I assume it must be something else...he's the author of How to be evangelical without being conservative, for example).  I seek those out as the need arises, but the need does not often arise.  Having grown up a semi-Pelagian, I am familiar with the other side of the Calvinist-Arminian debate.

Frank Turk has a blog he shares with a couple other fellows called Pyromaniacs.  It is usually a fun read, and there isn't much there I disagree with, though there's often stuff I don't fully understand.  Today, Frank published An Open Letter to Michael Horton. 

That got my attention.  I like Mike.  He co-hosts a radio program called The White Horse Inn, which I would listen to more often if I had time, but catch when I can.  Horton has written several outstanding books, including Christless Christianity and it's sequel, The Gospel-Driven Life.  I recommend both (though they can get heavy in places).  He just came out with a new systematic theology that I blogged about earlier today. He edits a magazine called Modern Reformation, to which I also subscribe.  I like Mike (did I mention that?).

So when I started in to Turk's letter, I was a bit ambivalent.  Nothing improved much after reading the very interesting post (found here).  It pointed out how much Turk appreciated and looked up to Horton, as do I. No disagreement there. But it also pointed out a possible problem with the results of the way Horton portrays the gospel.  Turk didn't say Horton said anything wrong at all...on the contrary, he completely agrees with Horton on the gospel.  The problem, Turk said, was how some people might react to what could be a bit of imbalance in the results of the presentation of the gospel in a indicative/imperative dichotomy.  (If you've read my blog in the past, you know I've presented the same dichotomy at times, leaning heavily on Tullian Tchividjian in the process.)

I noticed a lot of comments were already posted, and the article wasn't but a couple hours old.  Unusual.  In fact, there were over 200 comments in less than four hours.  Very unusual. While some of what Turk said made sense to me, I was still skeptical of Turk's thesis, so I started skimming the comments.  I quickly ran across a guy named Charlie (read the post and the comments, down to Charlie's, for the full effect).  Charlie was living, breathing, walking, talking empirical evidence that the problem Turk was fearing was a real problem...in living color.

A few months ago, I read a blog post (or maybe an interview, I don't recall for sure) by John Piper on what he saw as some threats to the integrity of the relatively new reformed resurgence, or as it is sometimes called, the YRR (young, restless, and reformed) movement.  Piper listed a few, but he missed one that I think is a real threat, and that is exemplified by Charlie in the Pyromaniacs comments section.  It's hard to summarize the problem, but it basically involves those of a certain reformed perspective denying that anyone outside their perspective can call themselves 'reformed' in any meaningful way.  Charlie uses name-calling to make his point:  he's a Baptist-hater.  He calls Baptists anabaptists, Arminians, Pelagians, and adherents to Roman Catholicism.  Wow.  He makes so many errors of basic logic, it is hard to even start on a criticism.  But that's not the main point.  I digress.  Back to the main point: divisiveness.

That won't work, folks.  Having heard Charlie, I now see Frank Turk's point, and he's right.  We need to balance the presentation of the gospel with the implications of the gospel, just as scripture does.  No, we don't need to call the gospel 'law' or call law 'gospel', and we certainly don't need to confuse justification with sanctification, but we need to be cognizant of what it means when the gospel is proclaimed and people believe.  We can't divorce the message of the gospel from what it means to us.  Good news is only good news if it is good news to the hearer.  The fact that someone won the Powerball Lottery on Saturday was good news to them, but it didn't mean much to me.  So that means that news was a subjective kind of good news.  The gospel is not subjective, it is objective, in the sense that it is universal good news to 'all He came to save'.  It is not simply an academic concept, as real, objective, and historical factual as it is.  The content of the gospel is express in words (not how we live), but words mean things (to quote Rush Limbaugh).  And the gospel means something very real to all of us.

Turk approaches the issue with fairness and brotherly love, and I have to think Horton will answer in the same way.  (Hopefully the right way to dialogue about disagreements will truly embarrass Charlie and he can see how disruptive his tact can be.  The 'line' in the title of this post?...Charlie crossed it, in my opinion.) I don't say this pointing a finger only at Charlie, however. I can see myself falling into the same trap, if not careful.  I usually lack balance because I'm such a black-and-white person, and I need constant biblical correction from my peers (thank God for my wife and my fellow SS classmates) to not get unbalanced.  If Iva Bates was a knee (a reference that those of you who worked through Experiencing God will get), I'm a foot.  As in, 'I'll-plant-my-size-12-Nike-in-your-hiney' kind of foot. I hope I never grow to old to listen to correction and rebuke from other Godly people.  If I dish it out, I gotta take it!

I also look forward to Mike Horton's reply, as I think it will build up the kingdom (knowing Horton) and God will be honored (knowing Turk).

Horton's, "The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology"

I just got my copy of Mike Horton's new systematic theology.  It is MUCH bigger in the hand than it looks in the amazon.com photo.

I've been waiting on this for a while.  I have used Grudem for years, and still love it and recommend it.  (I don't know of any systematic theology more accessible to the layperson than Grudem.)  There are, however, a few areas of Grudem I don't like as much, and I'm curious to see how differently Horton treats them.  (I think Grudem flirts with old-earth creationism a bit too much, and I tend to be a bit more cessationist than Grudem is, for a couple of examples.)

I'll post a review of this book down the road.  Probably way down the road, as systematic theologies tend not to be page-turners at times, and this one is right at a thousand pages long.

Purpose-Directed, but Promise-Driven

This tidbit was too good not to pass on.  Mike Horton wrote a fantastic article (found here) in Modern Reformation magazine called, "The Great Announcement".  Here's a good summary of the article-

"The Great Commission actually begins with the declaration, 

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). 

This is the rationale for everything the church is called to do and to be. 

The church’s commission is indeed directed by a purpose 

(“making disciples of all nations”), but it is driven by a promise."

This is just another reminder of how often we miss the idea that gospel imperatives (the things we are commanded to do) are always stated in context with gospel indicatives (what Jesus has already done).

Rick Warren's book (Purpose Driven Church) got a lot of attention, but I fear it only reinforced many of us missing the main point.  Go read the Horton article for all the details. 

The Tyranny of the Contemporary

A year or two back, Al Mohler gave a talk at one of the conferences he regularly speaks at which he titled, The Tyranny of the Contemporary.  He had many good points (as usual), but a couple were especially relevant to our culture today, and particularly to this part of the country.  One of these points was about how we are told that the gospel is offensive to folks today, and that this is a new problem.  Funny.  I think the New Testament writers made clear that this problem existed two thousand years ago, and Christian leaders since that time have continually reinforced the idea that the gospel was offensive to non-regenerate folks ever since.

Another point that Dr. Mohler made was in regard to the idea of full churches and empty preaching.  At least in the Southern Baptist denomination (in which I participate), this is true to some degree.  We measure pastoral success by baptisms, giving levels, and above all, attendance levels.  One will often hear pastors and laypersons alike asking each other at state or regional meetings how 'big' their church is.  "Whatcha runnin' these days?" is a common question.  I've never been asked how deep the church is.  Just how big.  Maybe it happens, but not when I've been listening.  And on top of that we keep reading about how we are losing our youth to secularism.  As Michael Horton puts it, we are not only not reaching the lost, we are losing the reached.  I won't say this is completely due to poor preaching and the abandonment of the gospel in preaching, but I'd be willing to bet some lunch money a good statistician could find a fairly strong correlation between these things.

Dr. Mohler also talks about the universality of these issues.  Citing John 6, he notes that 'seekers' never seek what ought to be sought and needs to be found.  He reminds us that after Jesus fed the five thousand, those in attendance looked not for spiritual truth from the source of this miracle, but rather they looked for more food.  Physical food.  Bread.  Not the bread of life.

And people say the offense of the gospel is a new problem?

So in response, we look to new ideas and programs to try and outfox the problems.  We look to contemporary technologies, contemporary worship styles, contemporary dress and mannerisms, contemporary programs, contemporary advertising campaigns, contemporary church names, and on and on it goes.  But where'd the gospel go?  I don't recall Paul saying anywhere that contemporary ideas were the power of God unto salvation, but we certainly tend to live like he did.

Every time we are tempted to buy into a new idea about anything, we ought to run it past Romans 1:16-17 four or seven times just to make sure we are keeping the main thing, the main thing.


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What Younger Believers Need (and Don't Need)

Every once in a while, I come across a statement in a book I’m reading that begs to be shared.  This is one of them.

“Younger believers don’t need another speaker to come in and tell them about dating, self-esteem, and relationships.  They need to have relationships with saints who have put on a few miles in the Christian life and have faced challenges to their faith and practice that younger believers have not.  And the lessons learned from these relationships need to be passed on to the rest of us in unplanned, unchoreographed, and unplugged conversations.”

This is from Michael Horton’s, The Gospel Driven Life, p. 197.  I highly recommend this book.  But since it is the sequel to, Christless Christianity, you’ll probably need to read that one (highly recommended as well) first.

We tend to over-think and over-react when we hear bad things going on with our youth.  I'm afraid that's part of the problem.  Saying we need to simplify things is easy, but doesn't give enough information.  This paragraph is an appeal to simplify, and it give all the information we need to do what is suggested.

We need to stop age-segregating our churches.

Trivialization of Sin

One of the biggest problems of moralistic, therapeutic deism (or MTD, on which I've written in the past) is its engulfing power to trivialize our sin.  One of the key findings, if you read the book of Hebrews, is the danger of trivializing sin.  Sin was a big deal in the garden, it was a big deal in the Old Testament, it was a big deal at the time of Christ, but in recent days it has been turned into anything other than a big deal.  It has been called quite a few things less than it is, including a bad habit, an addiction, and even 'the way God made me'.  I can't think of a more egregious bit of blasphemy, but it is a common bit these days.

The answer isn't necessarily found in the fundamentalist/liberal dichotomy (as if that were an accurate description in the first place).  Fundamentalism reduces sin to certain behaviors.  Sin is what those other people do. Liberalism reduces sin to social structures (what others aren't doing).  Spiritualism reduces God to something inside us that simply needs enlightened, so that there is no such thing as sin, only 'inner darkness'.

Christian Smith (UNC, now at Notre Dame), came up with the term, MTD.  He has now published a follow-up to his 2005 book, called 'Souls in Transition'.  (Buy it here- http://fwd4.me/P0t ).  It looks at where they (the subjects of the 2001-2005 study) are now.  The statistics are fascinating, though too numerous to list here.  For a good overview, watch/listen to Michael Horton's speech at this years Christless Christianity: 2010 West Coast Conference, called Moralistic & Therapeutic Deism.  It can be found here-

  http://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/christless-christianity-2010-west-coast/moralistic-therapeutic-deism/

This doctrine is the natural fallout of the idea that people are inherently good and the American corollary, "God helps those who help themselves."  (A majority of evangelicals thought that was a verse from the bible in a recent Barna survey.)  The problem is, it trivializes sin to the utmost.  Failure to preach about sin is pastoral cruelty (C Fitzsimmons Allison).  Eliminating sin by eliminating a holy God (which is what MTD does) is more than that, it is spiritual malpractice.  One of Smith's findings was, the more a person attended an evangelical church or youth group, the more likely they were to embrace MTD.  That's an ugly picture of what is happening in many of our churches and youth groups today.

When you hear sin depersonalized (it doesn't hurt anyone else, it's just a problem to your self-esteem), generalized (not a specific act, just a set of feelings or depression, etc.), and deflected to outsiders (those other people 'out there'), you know you are hearing MTD.  2 Tim. 3:2-5 is the biblical response to this kind of thinking.  Flee.


[Note:  I have not received any compensation for mentioning the book or the video above.]

Why Is the Gospel So Incoherent?

I'm reading Michael Horton's The Gospel-Driven Life right now, and I ran across this paragraph that says a lot more than the number of words in it indicate-


“The gospel is unintelligible to most people today, especially in the West, because their own particular stories are remote from the story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation that is narrated in the Bible. Our focus is introspective and narrow, confided to our own immediate knowledge, experience, and intuition. Trying desperately to get others, including God, to make us happy, we cannot seem to catch a glimpse of the real story that gives us a meaningful role.” (p. 71)


I think Horton is right...when we try to fit God and His story into our life narrative, it doesn't work. We have to fit our life narrative into His story (metanarrative?) for things to work right.

If Jonathan Edwards Were To Preach Today...

…his sermon would have to be titled, “Somewhat dysfunctional (but well meaning) victims in the hands of an empowering God.”  At least, that’s what our culture would demand he preach. That’s NOT the gospel.  And the demons laughs as this impotent substitute is presented to thousands of people marching toward hell, but with a high self-esteem. “If people today find the preaching and teaching of sin and the cross irrelevant, it is only because we, like Israel, have dulled their sense of God’s holiness and righteousness.” (M. Horton, Gospel-Driven Life, p. 51) If we claim a God with no wrath, then we offer the cross as a solution with no problem.  Edwards was right in 1741, and he’s still right today, in spite of what is popular in evangelical Christianity.  We are sinners, and sin makes God angry.  We need to be saved, alright…not from our low self-esteem, but from God’s wrath.   And He has provided the means (the cross) and the sacrifice (His son) to propitiate that wrath. THAT’S the gospel.