Dallas Willard’s The Great Omission

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Dallas Willard’s The Great Omission is vintage Willard.  By that I mean that he here explores the same topics he explores in his other books:  discipleship, the disappearance of the idea and possibility of discipleship from modern Christian practice (thus, the title of this book), the disciplines, and Lordship salvation.  It is safe to say that Willard essentially writes the same book every times he writes a book.  Now, that sounds like a real criticism and possibly a slight, so let me clarify:  I am absolutely thrilled that Willard keeps writing the same book!  Indeed, I hope he does 20 more.

Why?  Because nobody is saying what Willard is saying in the convincing and powerful way in which he is saying it.  Furthermore, Willard has his hand on the great tragedy of modern Evangelicalism:  the disappearance of discipleship.  Thirdly, while he writes the same book in terms of focus and thesis, the wonder is in the nuances and shades he brings.  So his books really do form a kind of prism of discipleship which shimmer, shine, reflect, and refract as you turn them this way and that, and, as such, they form a wonderful whole.

I was first introduced to Dallas Willard sixteen years ago when the pastor of the church I was serving as a Minister of Youth gave me The Spirit of the Disciplines.  It absolutely rocked my world.  The Divine Conspiracydid the same, though I found parts of it troubling.  And now The Great Omission has threatened to top them all.  But not really, because these books need one another and I need all of them.

This book is actually a collection of various articles, lectures, and reviews on discipleship and the disciplines that Willard has written or delivered over the years.  They are occasional pieces, but they flow very well together in this book.

Willard repeats the following a half-dozen times in this book:  Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort.

That’s a profound and simple way of putting a truth that we desperately need to get straight today.  Grace does not mean that we do not construct a deliberate, intentional, and solid plan for becoming more like Christ.  At the heart of this plan lie the disciplines that Willard summarize here but has spoken of in greater length elsewhere.

The absence of such concrete plans for conformity to Christ, as well as the absence of any apparent need to construct such a plan leads Willard to a shocking conclusion:  grace as we currently have defined it actually works against us being conformed into the image of Christ.

I agree.  It does.  This is evident and beyond dispute.

Willard is essentially seeking to strike a blow at the odd and gnosticized form of Christianity that fuels much of revivalistic Evangelicalism.  He is seeking to undermine that weird notion that one may have Christ as Savior but not Lord.  It is a blow that needs to be delivered, and Willard does so here with aplomb, clarity, and charity.

Trust me:  this is a book you will be glad you read.

Scot McKnight’s Fasting

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A tremendous, tremendous book!  Fasting is part of Thomas Nelson’s “The Ancient Practices Series.”  McKnight, an Anabaptist theologian, handles the subject in a careful, balanced, and thought-provoking way.

He defines fasting as “the natural, inevitable response of a person to a grievous sacred moment in life” (xx) and then spends the remainder of this book unpacking that definition.  This definition posits fasting as responsive instead of instrumental.  That is, fasting is a response to a “sacred moment,” be it conviction over sin, a recognition of God’s holiness, heartbrokenness over the suffering of the world, etc.  And it is an inevitable response:  it happens when we realize that we simply cannot eat, that eating in such a situation would be almost blasphemous.

McKnight hits the instrumental view of fasting (i.e., fasting in order to see this or that result) squarely between the eyes time and time again.  He is right to do so!  He convincingly shows that fasting for results misses the biblical impulse for the act and makes us into selfish consumers.  We do not fast for this or that, we fast for God.

Now, in this context there is an appropriate way to look at results, but the results ought not be what drives the fast.  To be sure, in doing this McKnight is striking out against consumer religion and pragmatic religion, two scourges of modern evangelicalism.

The book is well-written and well-organized around the various kinds of fasting.  He makes a convincing case for the reimplementation of calendar fasting along the lines of the early Christians’ compelling example.  He draws from various sources within Christendom to illustrate where fasting has been approached correctly and where it has been approached incorrectly.

The book is marked by pastoral concern and a strident balance.  This is especially clear in the final chapter where McKnight deals with the question of fasting and health.  I was, frankly, a bit surprised at the skeptical approach he employed towards the alleged health benefits of fasting.  He seems to be reacting to the kind of faddish fasting industry that views it as a cure-all for various physical maladies.  In this he is no doubt right.  He passes on the advice of his own medical team that the health benefits of fasting are minimal.  On the contrary, fasting presents various physical challenges and needs to be approached very carefully.  McKnight’s cautions are well-grounded (and he is no doubt aware of the penchant for faddish extremism among evangelicals, particularly), but I do wonder if he has not perhaps overplayed his hand a bit here?  At the very least, the tenor of this chapter differs markedly from other things I have read about the health benefits of fasting.  But, then, what do I know about the science of the body?  (Answer = very little!)

Regardless, McKnight is dead on in his assertion that we do not fast for health benefits or for any other results that may or may not come (he uses the wardrobe in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe as a great illustration at this point).  We fast for God.

The Difference Between Being a Bold Witness and Being Foolish

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Here’s a little illustration from Robert Seiple’s tremendous article “From Bible Bombardment To Incarnational Evangelism: A Reflection on Christian Witness and Persecution” in the recent issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs.  It illustrates precisely the difference between genuine persecution and doing something dumb in the name of missions.

Many of my personal views on the complex intersection between evangelism and persecution were crystallized by an incident in 1998, when I was working for the U.S. State Department.  During the summer, 30 Filipino Christians were ushered off to jail for distributing Bibles in the Islamic state of Saudi Arabia.  It doesn’t require too much imagination to see how the combination of elements in this episode – Bibles, Christians, and Saudi Arabia – could have been a recipe for disaster.  Fortunately a disaster was avoided.  Working with both the U.S. Embassy and the Philippine Embassy, the State Department was able to get each of these earnest Filipino evangelists released (immediately deported, but released) before the summer was over.

Four months later I was in Saudi Arabia, and I stopped by the Philippine Embassy to thank the Ambassador for his help in the successful resolution of this incident.  “You know,” he said to me, “under Saudi Arabian law you can bring one Bible into the country in your briefcase.  These people tried to smuggle 20,000 of them into the country.  Then they claimed Saudi Arabia for Christ by the year 2000!”  I was not unfamiliar with these kinds of bold, if unrealistic, missionary campaigns, but to the Philippine Ambassador this was nothing less than bizarre.

“They were running out of time,” he went on, “and here they still had all these Bibles.  So they started to walk down the streets of Riyadh, throwing Bibles over walls, literally hitting unsuspecting Muslims on the head.  Saudi Arabia’s Muttawa (religious police) stepped in immediately, of course, and 30 of my countrymen ended up in jail.”

Now I ask you:  are these brothers and sisters to be commended for their courage or reprimanded for their foolishness?

The Association: Does It Matter?

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“The Association:  Does It Matter?”
Wyman Richardson
Pastor, First Baptist Church – Dawson, Georgia
2009 Spring Meeting of the Summerhill Association
First Baptist Church – Lumpkin, Georgia

This evening I’ve decided to do something a bit different for this associational sermon.  I’ve decided to ask a question that was certainly asked by earlier Baptists and that, truth be told, is often asked by Baptists today.  The question is, “The Association:  Does It Matter?”

I ask it because it seems to me to be a reasonable question.  After all, none of us want to waste our time with things that do not matter.  Furthermore, I ask it because it is consistent with Baptist history to ask the question.  The fact that the vast majority of Baptists have answered the question in the affirmative does not mean it need no longer be asked, it simply means that it has been traditionally answered, on the whole, in a certain way.  And, finally, I ask it because, what I just said notwithstanding, I’m not sure that many Baptists really believe our own answer anymore.  Which is to say, I’m not so sure that today we are answering this question to anybody’s, much less to our own, liking.

In other words, when I listen to young ministers and laypeople and, I might add, to some older ministers and laypeople as well, I get the feeling that many of our assertions must be operating on the inertia of tradition and assumption.  Many associations are not operating on the basis of fundamental conviction, or of absolute certainty that the enterprise is even needed, but merely because, to use our great Baptist default, “That’s how we’ve always done it.”

But “That’s how we’ve always done it” can only drive us so far.  Eventually somebody is bound to ask, “Sure, but why?”

That’s the question I want to ask and try to answer tonight.  Why the Association and does it matter?

Frankly, I’m not convinced that I need to offer a defense for asking the question, but I would like to give some other reasons for asking it, just in case any of you think the question is inappropriate or, even more alarming to me personally, in case any of you think it is unnecessary.  Here are my reasons:

1.  Baptist experience is being increasingly infiltrated by radical isolationist and tribal ways of thinking.  Human beings instinctively draw inward and shun the fellowship of others.  With the Baptist emphasis on the autonomy of the local church, sometimes we have been tempted to think that if our church does its own thing without any thought of others, then that’s no problem.  Our American culture of radical individualism feeds into this and perverts our notions of autonomy into isolationism.  In other words, local church autonomy is a good thing, but it is too easily confused with the type of radical hyper-individualism that plagues our culture and undermines genuine efforts at community.  Baptist theologian Timothy George warned about this happening on a denominational level in 2001.  He wrote:

“Especially troubling right now are isolationist forces within the denomination, some of whom oppose Baptist efforts even with other evangelicals…If left to grow like kudzu, it could reduce the Southern Baptist Convention to a mega-sect.”

2.  Denominationalism is shifting and changing and, some say, collapsing.  This has led increasing numbers of young Baptists to ask whether or not things like associations are even necessary.  Now I offer this as a warning especially to those of you who may not believe me:  if the association does not become a viable, helpful, and authentic expression of Christian unity it will die and disappear.  It is not a matter of “if”, only of “when.”  You do realize that over 80% of our young people leave the Church after high school graduation and never return?  You do realize that the vast majority of our churches are plateaud and/or dying?  You might also consider taking the time to look up the recent (March 10) and widely-discussed Christian Science Monitor article by a Kentucky Baptist named Michael Spencer entitled “The Coming Evangelical Collapse.”  It will, to put it mildly, give one pause.

3.  The assumptions of the modern church growth industry are undermining cooperative efforts.  Increasingly local church pastors view other local church pastors as their competition.  A whole host of destructive and ego-driven realities are pouring into the ministry and into local churches:  career advancement based on having the biggest and best church, the false notion that the biggest church is the best, a view of missions that is really less about the salvation of the lost than about the growth of our church, etc., etc.  On and on it goes.  Suffice it to say that the obsession with growing “my church” undermines genuine cooperative efforts.  No matter how many times we gather together in one room, if I am not genuinely hoping for your success and the success of your local congregation, we do not have unity.  Somebody once said that two cats tied off at the tail and thrown over a clothesline are united but they don’t have unity.

For these reasons, and a whole host of others, it is time for us to reconsider the Baptist rationale for associations.

Biblically Grounded If Not Biblically Prescribed

To begin with, it is clear that earlier Baptists saw the Association as absent from the specific words and specific instructions of Scripture but in line with the voice of Scripture.  That is, the New Testament never says, “And you shall form an Association!”, but the New Testament clearly holds up cooperation as an ideal and, indeed, a necessary function of the people of God.

For instance, in his 1860 Corrective Church Discipline, Baptist P.H. Mell wrote:

“…The Scriptures recognize no such bodies as Associations and Councils. The church is the highest and the only ecclesiastical body known to the New Testament…Associations are institutions of modern date. They are not opposed to the general principles of the Scriptures; and as advisory councils, and a means of promoting Christian union and cooperation, if they refrain scrupulously from infringing upon the internal rights of the churches, and from lording it over God’s heritage, they may be made to subserve a valuable purpose.”

That is, the Association is not explicitly called for in Scripture, but it is not opposed to Scripture principles, and, furthermore, approached rightly, it can serve a useful function.

So the question becomes one of harmony with Scripture principles and usefulness for the churches in the completion of their task.

I’ll deal with the second issue first.  What are the practical benefits of the association?

Uses and Benefits

The “Summary of Church Discipline” drawn up by the Baptists of the Charleston Association in 1774 in South Carolina listed 12 “benefits arising from an association and communion of churches”:

The benefits arising from an association and communion of churches are many; in general, it will tend to maintain the truth, order, and discipline of the gospel. By it

(1) the churches may have such doubts as arise among them cleared, which will prevent disputes, Acts 15:28, 29;

(2) they will be furnished with salutary counsel, Prov. 11:14;

(3) those churches which have no ministers may obtain occasional supplies, Song of Sol. 8:8;

(4) the churches will be more closely united in promoting the cause and interest of Christ;

(5) a member who is aggrieved through partiality or any other wrongs received from the church may have an opportunity of applying for direction;

(6) a godly and sound ministry will be encouraged, while a ministry that is unsound and ungodly will be discountenanced;

(7) there will be a reciprocal communication of their gifts, Phil. 4:15;

(8) ministers may alternately be sent out to preach the gospel to those who are destitute, Gal. 2:9;

(9) a large party may draw off from the church by means of an intruding minister, or other ways, and the aggrieved may have no way of obtaining redress but from the association;

(10) contentions may arise between sister churches, which the association is most likely to remove;

(11) and the churches may have candidates for the ministry properly tried by the association.

These and other advantages arising from an association must induce every godly church to desire a union with such a body.

It then warned “any” who would “stand off”:

But should any stand off, it would argue much self-sufficiency, Rev. 3:17, and little or no desire after the unity of the Spirit, Eph. 4:3, or mutual edification, 1 Cor. 12:11–14.

Thirty-one years later, in 1805, Samuel Jones wrote his Treatise of Church Discipline, in which, in Chapter XII, Article 3, he spelled out the “special uses” of the association:

“The meeting thus of churches by their delegates is of special use; to gain acquaintance with, and knowledge of one another—to preserve uniformity in faith and practice, Phil. iii. 16.—to detect and discountenance heresies—to curb licentiousness in the wanton abuse of church power—to afford assistance and advice in all difficult cases—to contribute pecuniary aid when necessary—to make appointments of supplies for destitute churches—And every way advance and secure the interest of religion, and strengthen and draw closer the bonds of union and fellowship.”

These are all good reasons and benefits, and I do not dispute any of them.  The Association, properly understood and operated, can be a great benefit to the churches.  More than that, it can assist the churches in being a greater benefit to the world.

This principle of strength in unity must not only be taught, it must be demonstrated.  It must be shown that we are stronger together than apart, that we need one another.

Biblical Rationale

And yet, pragmatism should not be the only basis for our union.  We are bound together in this Association not only because we find it useful, but, I would argue, because we find it necessary.

I will not provide an exhaustive biblical list of passages calling for or assuming the unity of God’s people, but I will point out a couple of teachings that I think should be considered again.

The first is Christ’s “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17, particularly verse 11:  “And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”

This is an amazing verse.  We are to be one as Christ and the Father are one.  That is, the model of our unity is the Trinity itself:  Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  That, friends, is a profound “oneness”!  While the implications of this prayer for oneness are not specifically fleshed out in terms of what that means for inter-congregational-cooperation, can we not agree that it would be virtually impossible to read the “High Priestly Prayer” and conclude that all is well so long as our church keeps the bills paid and gets along tolerably well?

I grant you that this unity need not necessarily mean a formal “Association,” but it certainly means that we associate.  This prayer undoubtedly calls for more than the Association, but it almost certainly does not call for less.

Consider also Acts 15, a passage appealed to frequently by earlier Baptists as a foundation for the Association.  (I will point out, however, that other Baptists disagreed and argued that this had nothing to do with Associations…but, then, where would we Baptists be if somebody didn’t disagree!)

You will remember that Acts 15 is about the Jerusalem Council.  Consider the first two verses:

1 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.

Granted, you will not find the Baptist “Association” here, but you will find some very familiar looking ideas that we Baptists can relate to:  (1) conflict, (2) the need to have conflict resolved, (3) the appointment of delegates, (4) the representation of various congregations in a joint meeting, and (5) group decision making.

This all sounds very familiar.  Again, I am not claiming that the Bible lays down the specific structure of our Associational system, I only claim that the Association is in harmony with biblical principles and that sometimes these principles come together in ways that look very much like what we do in our Associations.

Consider also the over fifty “one-anothering” commands in the New Testament.   The Church is by nature a “one-anothering” Church.  Consider:

•  “be at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50)
• “wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14)
• “love one another” (John 13:34-35, 15:12,17, Romans 12:10a, 1 Thessalonians 4:9, 1 Peter 1:22, 4:8, 1 John 3:11,23, 4:7,11-12, 2 John 5)
• “Outdo one another in showing honor.” (Romans 12:10b)
• “Live in harmony with one another.”  (Romans 12:16, 15:5-6)
•  “welcome one another” (Romans 15:7)
• “instruct one another.” (Romans 15:14)
• “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” (Romans 16:16, 1 Corinthians 16:20, 2 Corinthians 13:12, 1 Peter 5:14)
• “wait for one another…” (1 Corinthians 11:13)
• “have the same care for one another” (1 Corinthians 12:25)
• “comfort one another” (2 Corinthians 13:11)
• “agree with one another” (2 Corinthians 13:11)
• “serve one another” (Galatians 5:13, 1 Peter 4:10)
• “Bear one another’s burdens…” (Galatians 6:2)
• “bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2)
• “Be kind to one another…” (Ephesians 4:32)
• “forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32)
• “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Ephesians 5:19)
• “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21)
•  “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom” (Colossians 3:16)
• “increase and abound in love for one another” (1 Thessalonians 3:12)
• “encourage one another” (1 Thessalonians 4:18, Hebrews 10:25)
• “build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
• “seek to do good to one another” (1 Thessalonians 5:15)
• “exhort one another every day” (Hebrews 3:13)
• “stir up one another to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24)
• “confess your sins to one another” (James 5:16)
• “pray for one another” (James 5:16)
• “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” (1 Peter 4:9)
• “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another” (1 Peter 5:5)
• “we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7)

Furthermore, we see in the Bible that the Apostles did not view the local congregations as so detached that they could not appeal to the example of one in order to help another.  This reality led to a consistency in the message Paul delivered to each individual church.  Paul teaches his “ways in Christ…everywhere, in every church” (1 Corinthians 4:17).  He encourages each believer to live the life to which God has called him.  This, Paul says, is his “rule in all the churches” (1 Corinthians 7:17).  Furthermore, the rules of propriety in dress as well as propriety in gender roles are the same in “the churches of God” (1 Corinthians 11:16, 14:34).

Paul clearly felt that the example of one church could be helpful for another.  “Now concerning the collection for the saints,” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 16:1, “as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do.”  It was this reality that undergirded the very possibility of circular letters:  “Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.  And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:15-16).

There was an organic unity, then, even among the local congregations.

This is what I mean when I say that you will not find the Association in the words of Scripture but you will find it in the voice of Scripture.  What we are doing here is in harmony with the New Testament picture of the Church.

There are numerous other passages that we might appeal to, but let me appeal to one that should eclipse them all:  the assumed and implicit unity of God’s people in the fulfillment of the call to evangelize the world.

Consider that beautiful commission that Christ gives the eleven in Matthew 28:

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Let me ask an obvious question:  is there anything in the words or tenor of the Great Commission that would have led the disciples naturally to the conclusion that what Christ was calling for here was radically isolationist, separated, tribal, keep-to-yourself congregations of Christians who did not care what the other equally paranoid congregations were up to?  Do you read this commission and come away with, “Hey, let’s draw up the drawbridge and put another pig on the spit and do our own thing”?

No.  Absolutely not.

First of all, the Great Commission is diverse in geography but cohesive in content.  That is, the Great Commission assumes the presence of congregations all over the earth but assumes that they will be doing the same thing.  Do we not see, then, the foundations of an organic unity whereby churches that are bound in solidarity around the mission of Christ will by definition be cooperating and associating churches?

Secondly, do we not see a transgenerational core to the Great Commission?  I completely reject as absurd the notion that the Great Commission was intended only for the eleven.  I refuse to believe that when Christ told the eleven to teach “them to observe all that I have commanded you” that they did not immediately understand that they were to teach others to join with them in what Christ had just commanded, the Great Commission, and that these others would not understand that this meant, first of all, evangelizing their own children.

This means, then, that the Church, regardless of its local and autonomous congregations, is indeed bound together in a beautiful and powerful association around the gospel that continues to this day and, indeed, until the end of time.  Unity and association is hardwired into us.  It is in our bones.  To be a Christian is to be necessarily associated.

So should our outward form not comply with our new reality in Christ?  Should those of us who are associated through the shed blood of Christ in the power of His gospel and in the Commission to evangelize and in the common call to worship God, pray, study His Word, encourage one another, and help one another not, in fact, formally associate?

Of course we should.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, does the Association matter?  Yes.  Yes it does.  But it matters only insofar as we are faithful to the gospel, faithful to the Great Commission, faithful, indeed, to Christ.

R.C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God

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This coming Thursday through Sunday, my brother David and I will be attending the 2009 Ligonier conference in Orlando, FL, on “The Holiness of God.”  In preparation for this conference, I just finished reading R.C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God.  I’m ashamed to admit that I have never read this great work before.

I’ve read and listened to Sproul before, and I’ve long been aware of the status of this book as a “modern classic,” but until now I’ve never been able to speak personally about this book.

I sincerely regret my delay in reading this.  It is, in a word, tremendous.  Sproul looks at God’s holiness in a compelling and easy-to-read way that leaves the reader awestruck at the greatness of our God and the wonder of His holiness.

His opening chapter on how God called him into His presence out of a deep sleep was powerful and set the right tone for this book.  His discussion of how creation declares God’s power and holiness was really well done and I daresay it will challenge most readers (as it did me) to think rightly about the grand wonder of creation.

His handling of the “hard sayings” of the Old Testament was well done, but I daresay it remains insufficient to answer the critics’ questions.  Of course, one of the points of Sproul’s argument is that, like Job, our questions mask our own pride and God’s answer is, in the end, His own being.

I thought the sections on Luther and Edwards were particularly good, especially the latter.  His discussion of imputed righteousness was helpful and his illustrations were quite useful, I thought.

All in all, a wonderful discussion of God’s holiness in an accessible format that is well deserving of the admittedly much overused “modern classic” label.

Imago Dei

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My convictions concerning the sanctity of life from conception to death are not primarily ethical or political in nature.

They are theological.

They are rooted in the biblical idea of mankind being created imago Dei, in the image of God.

I recently read the following words by R. Kent Hughes which reminded me of this great and beautiful truth:

“So consider this:  Though you could travel a hundred times the speed of light, past countless yellow-orange stars, to the edge of the galaxy and swoop down to the fiery glow located a few hundred light-years below the plane of the Milky Way, though you could slow to examine the host of hot young stars luminous among the gas and dust, though you could observe, close-up, the protostars poised to burst forth from their dusty cocoons, though you could witness a star’s birth, in all your stellar journeys you would never see anything equal to the birth and wonder of a human being.  For a tiny baby girl or boy is the apex of God’s creation!  But the greatest wonder of all is that the child is created in the image of God, the Imago Dei.  The child once was not; now, as a created soul, he or she is eternal.  He or she will exist forever.  When the stars of the universe fade away, that soul shall live.”

[R. Kent Hughes.  Genesis.  (Wheaton, IL:  Crossway Books, 2004), p.36-37.]

Let it be clear that we are not clear.

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I was scrolling through some old selections of Neuhaus’ “While We’re At It” and came across this gem that I clipped some years back.  It’s a great example of how a lack of clarity in speech, especially in the area of theology, can get us in a fix.

Here’s the selection:

This item is left over from the 1994 meeting of the Episcopal House of Bishops. During the debate on a pastoral letter dealing with sexuality, Bishop William Frey observed: “It’s evident we’re not prepared to teach much of anything, because we disagree on the meaning of so many words. We’ve been doing theology in a Hegelian fashion for so long that the center keeps shifting. Today I can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ and that’s the thesis. Someone else can say ‘Jesus is not Lord’ and that’s the antithesis. The Anglican via media then becomes ‘Jesus is occasionally Lord.’ I would like a clear admission that we are unclear.”

[Richard John Neuhaus, “While We’re At It,” First Things.  October 1995.]

Carl F.H. Henry’s Has Democracy Had Its Day?

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It’s impossible to read the late Carl Henry without receiving at least some benefit.  To be sure, Richard Land overreaches in the Introduction when he observes that “Carl F.H. Henry is undeniably the twentieth century’s greatest evangelical theologian, and arguably its most important theologian of any perspective” (iii), but Henry was, no doubt, a great theologian, and a great mind, and his works will remain important for a very long time.

In Has Democracy Had Its Day? (published by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC in 1996), Henry explores the titular question with characteristic precision and insight.  Written almost 13 years ago, there are aspects of the work that are a bit dated, but the question is no less pressing for our day than for the day that saw its original publication and Henry’s thoughts on the matter are still more than worthy of serious consideration.

In this work, Henry deplores the threat to democracy that had come about by the ascendency of a “secular humanism” and “naturalistic relativism” (62) that had detached democracy from its transcendent underpinnings, had called into question the very existence of truth itself, and had come to deplore the Judeo-Christian heritage that has played such a crucial role in our nation’s life from its inception.  He is not unaware that “Christianity stipulates no one permanent form of government in the name of divine revelation” (3), yet he pursuasively argues that “the biblical emphasis on human depravity and the consequent temptation to divert political power to inordinate ends argues for limited government as least oppressive.  A democratic political context apppears the most promising framework for fulfilling the public duties incumbent on human beings.  A democratically chosen and constitutionally limited government seems to be the political structure most compatible with the Christian insistence on human worth and liberty and most likely to accommodate the promotion and protection of human freedoms, justice, and peace” (6).

Yet, Henry argues, democracy is in peril.  His diagnosis is compelling:  “A generation that elevates the essentiality of human rights to intellectual priority yet simultaneously contends that all philosophical affirmations are culture-conditioned sooner or later will engulf those very rights in moral relativism” (9).  Henry saw this happening in his own day, and, of course, the intervening 13 years have done nothing but solidify the prophetic truthfulness of his contention.  Furthermore, Henry’s observation that “were [the United States] to vanish suddenly from the globe, the remnants of the Free World would be plunged into grief and mourning” (54) remains a great truth, if less self-evidently so in light of the media’s constant funneling of anti-American sentiments into our homes and, to be sure, the presence of some very real anti-American sentiment in some parts of the world today.

One of Henry’s repeated themes is that Christianity’s despisers nonetheless must use the fruits of Christianity to rail against it.  “Even the nonreligious feed on the very creeds they have rejected” (21).  And even more poignantly, “Those who assail democracy from radical perspectives themselves avoid despair only by munching on facets of faith anchored in beliefs they now demean as outworn” (45).

Henry continues the theme he laid out in his tremendous The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalismby calling on conservative believers to be involved in social engagement and not to retreat into their sanctuaries.  This is true enough, but I will state again as I have stated elsewhere on this blog that our prophetic witness to the power of Christ will accomplish more than political activism ever could even though Christians should be involved in political activism.  It is a matter of priority and perspective.  I think Henry would agree.

Interestingly, Henry calls in this work for co-belligerency between Protestants and Catholics and, indeed, between believers and non-believers where they are able to stand together against certain common threats.  While there are corners of the church that believe co-belligerency to be a sellout, I do not think so.  Again, it’s all a matter of perspective.  What are we trying to accomplish?  It would be absurd and blasphemous to check our Christian convictions at the door for political expediency, and, on the gospel itself, there can be no compromise, no matter how noble the social cause.  This must never happen.  But if I can maintain my Christian witness while standing beside whomever in the fight against, say, abortion, then fine and good.  Yet the witness must remain and the gospel must not be compromised.

Finally, Henry was good at turning a phrase.  Some of the more memorable quotes from this little book include:

“If we are going to abandon democracy, we had better be sure of the alternative we are welcoming.” (viii)

“Jesus did not, to be sure, say to the disciples: ‘Go ye into all the world and teach democracy, capitalism, and privatization of business.’  He did not name a political apostolate.  He gave priority to a gospel that sutains freedom, justice, and grace.” (4)

“Only two alternatives lie before a democracy:  either self-restraint and self-discipline, or chaos and authoritarian repression.” (10)

“In an age when accepted standards of right and wrong are scorned, when absolutes are demeaned as a return to the superseded past, when doubt threatens to evaporate great national beliefs and political principles and weakens inherited guidelines, when new conceptions degrade the minds and corrupt the lives of the newly emerging generations, those who refuse to abandon history to the forces of decadence must speak out.” (23)

And, finally:

“No government can perpetually survive on red ink, but without ethical imperatives it is unworthy of survival.” (49)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church

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Try as I might, I simply cannot believe that a young man in his twenties could write such a mind-boggling, thought-provoking, and insightful masterpiece as Sanctorum Communio.  I feel that I will never think of “church” in quite the same way again.  In fact, I feel like I’ve just been given a view of a mountain that I know I must go back and climb again, but the overall sensation of its height is so startling that I’m not quite sure how to begin.  (Maybe, in a weird way, a kind of awed despair is the mark of all truly great books?)  They say that Barth’s commentary on Romans fell on the playground of the liberal theologians like an atom bomb.  Well, Sanctorum Communio has fallen into the playground of this Baptist pastor in just the same way.

Originally published in 1930, three years after it initially appeared as Bonhoeffer’s doctoral dissertation (and 15 years before Bonhoeffer would be put to death), Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church represents a staggering achievement.  Karl Barth would later say of this work, “I openly confess that I have misgivings whether I can even maintain the high level reached by Bonhoeffer, saying no less in my own words and context, and saying it no less forcefully, than did this young man so many years ago” (2).  He would also call this book “a miracle.”

It is steeped in sociological categories that many readers might find offputting.  I do not claim to have followed some of the more technical aspects of the social philosophy sections, but struggling through these parts is reward enough in and of itself to warrant the effort.  Even so, I daresay that the work is accessible enough to anybody who cares deeply about the church.  I found it to be so anyway.  (In a strange way this book reminds of Moby Dick.  I had to sludge through some of the sailing history and terminology that was, frankly, foreign to me.  But the story, and, on hindsight, the foundation that the denser parts of that book lend to the story, was overwhelming.)

I had certain disagreements with Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology.  His approach to church discipline is, in my opinion, hopelessly muddled and amazingly oversimplified.  But I do recall seeing a more biblical handling of it in his Finkenwalde guide, Life Together, so I want to reserve passing too harsh a judgment on him in this regard.  Furthermore, I (obviously) have reservations about his handling of infant baptism.  I thought it was pretty par-for-the-course as far as such arguments go.  There was nothing terribly new about it.  But, in truth, I remain, to date, firmly unconvinced, though a bit more appreciative than I would have been ten years ago.

Bonhoeffer begins by describing the fundamental sociality of existence.  He does this by showing the necessity for one person to acknowledge the other as a genuine person.  Only when this happens can we speak of the “individual” existing:

“When the concrete ethical barrier of the other person is acknowledged or, alternatively, when the person is compelled to acknowledge it, we have made a fundamental step that allows us to grasp the social ontic ethical basic-relations of persons…Thus, the individual exists only in relation to an ‘other’; individual does not mean solitary.  On the contrary, for the individual to exist, ‘others’ must necessarily be there” (50-51).

But this understanding of “I” and “You” (which Bonhoeffer calls “the social basic category…the I-You-relation) is itself a work of God.

“God or the Holy Spirit joins the concrete You; only through God’s active working does the other become a You to me from whom my I arises.  In other words, every human You is an image of the divine You” (54-55)

What strikes me about Bonhoeffer’s argument is how it aims a blow directly at the fragmented, isolationist understanding of the person that has overwhelmed not only our basic relational assumptions but also, in evangelicalism, our ecclesiology.  We have become a people of the lone individual, or so we like to think.  But relationality is fundamentally necessary and also God-enabled.  In a footnote, Bonhoeffer praises his doctoral supervisor (or whatever he was called at the time), Dr. Reinhold Seeberg, for presenting “the idea of sociality as an inherent component of original human nature.  He thereby brought back into theology an important doctrine without which the ideas of original sin and especially the church could not be fully understood” (64).

I do not know about the truthfulness of this statement from a historical-theological perspective (whether or not it was Seeberg who brought this understanding back), but I do believe that the sentiment is true.  In fact, I believe that our rejection of this sentiment (whether explicitly or implicitly) has led to the weakening of the church in profound and tragic ways.

Bonhoeffer goes even further in this direction:

“It is our view that there would be no self-consciousness without community – or better, that self-consciousness arises concurrently with the consciousness of existing in community.  Second, we assert that will is by its nature oriented toward other wills” (70).

Yes, but does this destroy the reality of the individual?  To be sure, we are individuals-run-amuck, but can we not speak of “the individual”?  Bonhoeffer’s answer is telling and, I believe, quite profound:

“The universal person of God does not think of people as isolated individual beings, but in a natural state of communication with other human beings.  Furthermore, in relations with others, I do not merely satisfy one side of my structurally closed being as spirit; rather, only here do I discover my reality, i.e., my I-ness.  God created man and woman directed to one another.  God does not desire a history of individual human beings, but the history of the human community.  However, God does not want a community that absorbs the individual into itself, but a community of human beings.  In God’s eyes, community and individual exist in the same moment and rest in one another.  The collective unit and the individual unit have the same structure in God’s eyes.  On these basic-relations rest the concepts of the religious community and the church” (80).

Bonhoeffer also points to the potential benefits of conflict in communities:  “Genuine life arises only in the conflict of wills; strength unfolds only in strife.  This is an old insight” (85).  This is a welcome word for those who wrongly think that all conflict is inherently bad or injurious to the body of Christ.

He then moves to the issue of sin and human culpability.  He argues for an individual and corporate understanding of sin, whereby, in a very real sense, my sins represent the sins of the whole world.  This opens up the very real possibility for corporate repentance.

When Bonhoeffer moves into a more specific discussion of the church, he sees these sociological realities as reaching their apex in the body of Christ:  “There is in fact only one religion in which the idea of community is an integral element of its nature, and that is Christianity” (130-131).  Furthermore, Christ is present in the church:  “The church is the presence of Christ in the same way that Christ is the presence of God” (138).  And He is poignantly present because of “the paradoxical reality of a community-of-the-cross, which contains within itself the contradiction of simultaneously representing utmost solitude and closest community.  And this is the specifically Christian church-community” (151).

Here is one of the great strengths of Sanctorum Communio:  it’s argument that the church is an inherently necessary definitional reality.  How badly do Southern Baptists, among others, need to return to this kind of understanding of the church?  The church is not a voluntary association of separated, isolated, “saved” individuals.  The church is the necessary definition and identity of the community of the cross which is comprised of all of those who are in Christ.

Bonhoeffer goes on to some very helpful discussions of forgiveness of sin, the Lord’s Supper, the need for confession, and the interchange of wills within the body of Christ.  I found all of this illuminating, even when I disagreed.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the book in this review, but I do hope it has given a picture of the kind of thinking and wisdom you’ll find in Sanctorum Communio.  This book is a masterpiece and a treasure.  Every pastor should read this and drink long and deep from this well.

Jim Elliff’s Revival and the Unregenerate Church Member

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Here is a nice surprise: a thought-provoking little booklet on regenerate church membership that I recently spied on my bookshelf even though I do not remember getting this and haven’t a clue where it came from!  I was finally able to read this and I found it to be reasonable and convincing.  Written by Jim Elliff, President of Christian Communicators Worldwide, Revival and the Unregenerate Church Member is especially timely given the passage of Resolution #6 at the Southern Baptist Convention annual gathering in Indianapolis in 2008 and the wider discussions going on in the Convention concerning regenerate church membership.

I do not concur with all of Elliff’s arguments.  I do not, for instance, believe that the invitation system isnecessarily harmful, though, in truth, he appears to stop shorting of saying this (though a perusal of some of the other material on his site suggests that he does appear to hold invitations to be harmful) and though I do agree that the invitation system has certain dangers if not handled in the appropriate way.  This is, however, (in my opinion, but probably not Elliff’s) tangential to the greater issue:  that local churches which do not exercise appropriate oversight of the congregation, that allow the structures of accountability to disappear beneath the siren song of pragmatism and consumeristic models of church growth, that do not preach on the biblical ideal of a regenerate church membership are inevitably shooting themselves in the foot and are, indeed, harming their own ministry efforts and gospel effectiveness.

I have never been so convinced of the need for a return to regenerate church membership as I am right now.  While I suspect that Elliff goes a bit further than I would be comfortable going in certain areas that I would class as “adiaphora” (having an invitation), I wholeheartedly agree with the central focus of this little work.