Mark Dever’s What Is A Healthy Church? is an intriguing summation of his Nine Marks of a Healthy Church that will encourage and convict the reader concerning his or her attitudes about the Church.  At least, I found that to be the case personally.

I’m familiar with Dever’s thoughts and, on the whole, I’m a fan.  He has done tremendous work towards calling churches back to a biblically-based and Christ-honoring way of approaching and “doing” church.  If you are not familiar with 9 Marks Ministries, you really should acquaint yourself with what Dever is doing there.

Dever wants us to take Church seriously.  I did cringe at his opening paragraph where he recounts his custom of telling groups he speaks to that if they are not faithfully engaged with a local church they may be going to hell.  This is clearly a rhetorical device that he qualifies and clarifies as he goes along, but, for some reason, I did not like it.

I suppose that some might try to accuse Dever of ecclesiolatry, but they would be a mistaken.  It is true that Dever has an intense interest in the Church, but that is because Jesus has an intense interest in His bride.  What interests Him should interest us.  Furthermore, as a Southern Baptist, Dever is more than aware of the ecclesiological crisis gripping our denomination.  The very idea of “church” needs to be rescued in the Southern Baptist Convention.

In this work, Dever wants to argue against the idea of churchless Christianity, a notion that the New Testament knows nothing at all about.  This will sound odd and possibly offensive to Americanized Lone Ranger Christians, but is thoroughly biblical and it is absolutely crucial.

Dever makes the crucial point that while the local church should not be confused with the Church universal, the local church seeks to emulate, as closely as possible, the realities of the universal Church in its own congregational life.  This emulation includes calling for a regenerate church membership, a covenanted church membership, and, above all, a membership founded on the gospel.

The summary of the nine marks that Dever closes the book with would be a great introduction to those unfamiliar with Dever’s work and a helpful reminder for those who are familiar with it.  Either way, you are bound to find this work thought-provoking and challenging.  You may not agree with all of Dever’s arguments, but I daresay you will have trouble denying the core of it:  that the body of Christ is important and that it ought to reflect faithfulness to the mandates of the Word of God and fidelity to the Church’s Groom.

A book about the untimely death of a fairly shallow Russian gentleman seems an unlikely story to become engrossed in while on vacation in picturesque Dahlonega, GA, but this is exactly what happened to my wife and me while I finished reading this powerful little story to her up here in north Georgia.

Let me just go ahead and make the following declaration:  everybody…everybody should read The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Written during Tolstoy’s own spiritual crisis (the Introduction by Ronald Blythe that discusses the events surrounding the writing of this story is worth the price of the book itself), the story represents Tolstoy’s own struggle to come to terms with death, and all of the spiritual and psychological realities that one’s awareness of the inevitibility of death brings.

The story is fairly straight forward.  It’s the story of a man working to get ahead and struggling through a fairly bad marriage (thanks largely to his own selfishness and egocentricity).  In the midst of a fairly nondescript and secular life, Ivan Ilyich bumps his side on a piece of furniture.  He doesn’t think much of it, until a few days later when it begins to hurt.  As time progresses, it hurts more and more, until Ilyich comes to realize that something is seriously wrong.

As it turns out, Ilyich is dying.  Throughout this process, he comes to hate almost everybody around him:  his wife (who he thinks wants him to die), the doctors (who’s glibness and formulaic diagnoses irritate him immensely), and, most significantly, God (Who he questions and accuses concerning the fairness of what’s happening to him).  The only person who’s presence he truly cares for is a servant boy who does not seek to dishonor Ilyich by denying what’s really going.  “We all have to die,” he essentially says, thereby becoming the first person to say aloud what everybody knows.

To be honest, I was growing discouraged with this book for a time.  Was this merely going to be a tale of untimely death and man’s vain attempt to make sense of it?  Fortunately for the reader, this is not the case.  In fact, the last couple of chapters are worth their weight in gold.

Ilyich begins to be haunted by the notion that perhaps he wasted his life and did not really live at all.  When the thought first occurs to him, he dismisses it as a possibility:  as in, “Whatever the cause of my anxiety might be, it just can’t be that I really missed the whole point of life altogether.”

He dismisses, in essence, the need for repentance in the exact same way that human beings do so today.  “What? I got it all wrong?  Well, that just cannot be the case!  My misery must be for some other reason.”

But then his wife recommends that Ilyich take the sacrament.  He seems offended at first, but then relents.  He partakes of Holy Communion.

Interestingly, after partaking of the broken body and spilled blood of Christ, Ilyich suffers for three days.  His physical pain is agonizing.  He has been pierced in the side, and he descends into hell, as it were.  But in his last moments, he seems to have an epiphany.  Suddenly he sees it.  Suddenly he understands.  He apologizes to his wife through halting, agonizing words: short bursts of sound, not unlike the seven last words of Christ.

Then he says, “Forget.”  But Tolstoy tells us that what he meant to say was “Forgive.”  The slip causes Ilyich no anxiety, because he is convinced that “He” will understand.

It is a powerful and moving scene.  It reminded me of old man Brideshead’s conversion near the end ofBrideshead Revisited, but in this case, we are Charles Ryder.  That is, we are the ones observing the scene and praying and hoping that the dying man will do it, will repent, will see it for what it is.

It also reminded me of Levin’s epiphany near the end of Anna Karenina, though throughout that story the reader feels that Levin is so very, very close that it’s almost inevitable.  In this story, we are pleasantly surprised to see Ilyich come to his moment of clarity, but there was no evidence earlier on in the story that he would finally do so.

As I say, everyone should read this story.  It draws us into a deathbed epiphany in a way that confronts us with the most profound question of all:  have we wasted our lives?  Are we wasting it now, today, right here where we are?

Tolstoy has done us the great service of showing us how to die in peace:  realize what is truly important, repent of our sin and selfishness, and know that, in Him, we will find a welcome that transcends our own foolishness.

Where do we go in the post-resurgence Southern Baptist Convention?  It is a question of no small import to America’s largest Protestant denomination.  After the cataclysmic (relatively speaking, of course) events of “The Controversy”, the Convention now finds itself looking for direction.  Various groups within the Convention seem to be pointing this way, that, or the other.  Yet the most intriguing call, and the call that would seem to have the greatest possibility of uniting the Convention, is the call for a “Great Commission Resurgence.”

To this end, LifeWay has published an interesting manifesto (of sorts) with an introduction by Thom Rainer (President, LifeWay Christian Resources), an essay entitled “Answering the Call to a Great Commission Resurgence” by Daniel Akin (President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary), an essay entitled “The Great Commission and the Local Church” by Chuck Lawless (Dean, Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism & Church Growth, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), an essay entitled “Accelerating the Great Commission in North America” by Jeff Iorg (President, Golden Gate Seminary), and an essay entitled “The Great Commission and International Missions” by Jerry Rankin (President, International Mission Board).  Together, these pieces constitute a clarion call for Southern Baptists to return to the Great Commission heartbeat that drove the Convention in her greatest moments and needs to drive her again today.

In Thom Rainer’s Introduction, he bemoans the current direction of too many of our churches:

“Instead of sin being an affront to a holy God, it has become a term to describe falling short of reaching one’s potential; instead of the cross being a place where God graciously bridged the gap to save sinners, it is being belittled as evidence of divine child abuse; instead of receiving salvation through unmerited grace, grace has become a term to describe God’s rewarding of individuals for reaching personal growth milestones; instead of Christ being THE way to peace with God, we hear too often tha all roads lead to God” (p.8).

Rainer’s response to this sad condition?  Realize that “people are open to the gospel” (p.10), appreciate the gains achieved through the Conservative Resurgence, but understand that “total biblical fidelity requires more than a cognitive agreement on the parts and the sum of the Bible.  True fidelity requires obedience as well” (p.12).  When we are obedient to God’s Great Commission call “the resurgence will have taken its full course” (p.12).

Danny Akin next dilineates seven areas of agreement among the different Convention sub-groups: (1) agreement as to a common confession of faith (BF&M 2000), (2) agreement on the inerrancy, infallibility and sufficiency of the Bible, (3) agreement on the necessity of a regenerate church, (4) agreement on the exclusivity of the gospel, (5) agreement on the sinfulness and lostness of humanity apart from Christ, (6) agreement that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and (7) agreement that the Great Commission is a divinely mandated assignment given to the church by the Lord Jesus.

One does wonder what the three-year struggle for the adoption of a resolution on integrity in church membership means for number 3, but, yes, it too is now, at least on paper, a point of agreement once again for Southern Baptists.

Akin then goes on to articulate five “needs” for coming together in a Great Commission resurgence:  (1) a sound theology, (2) letting biblical theology drive and determine our systematic theology, (3) a revival of authentic expository preaching, (4) the balance of a Great Commission theology, and (5) love and respect for each other (pp.19-23).

After describing some common truths that arise from studying Great Comission churches, Chuck Lawless offers some proposed “steps in reigniting a Great Commission passion in the local church” (p.31).  These include:  (1) Leaders, take the lead, (2) Select a Great Commission prayer team, (3) Honestly evaluate the numbers, (4) Teach again the truths of the gospel, (5) Invest first in a few believers, (6) Get ready to disciple new believers, (7) Teach children and students about the Great Commission, (8) Commission your church members to be missionaries, (9) Learn to celebrate God’s work, and (10) Do not give up on the local church.

Jeff Iorg offers two “theological foundations” for future success:  (1) affirm the gospel, without equivocation and (2) celebrate the church, without hesitation (pp.38-39).  He then encourages us to humble ourselves and seek God’s power, deploy believers through infiltration strategies, learn to communicate with secular people, and affirm methodological pluralism.

Finally, Jerry Rankin wants us to have an accurate understanding of the immensity of the task before us.  There are countless unreached people in the world and our mission successes as a whole are not enough.  “Southern Baptists have taken pride in now having more than 5,000 international missionaries,” he tells us.  “But that number represents less than three-tenths of one percent of our church membership” (p.61).

Taken as a whole, this powerful little collection of essays is impressive for the amount of content, motivational force, biblical exegesis, and practical suggestions that are actually contained therein.  The writing is tinged with genuine passion (most evidently seen, I think, in the essays by Akin, Iorg, and Rankin) and common sense practicalities (Rainer and Lawless).  All of the contributors are genuinely concerned about our undeniable drift from Great Commission conviction and yearn to see a wholesale return to a biblical, balanced, and stalwart enactment of our Lord’s clear instructions.

And so we must finally ask the crucial question:  are they right?  Is the way forward for the Convention a “Great Commisssion Resurgence”?  As for myself, I would like to register a resounding “Yes!”

We are in danger of becoming inwardly fixated and self-absorbed.  And yet, Great Commission faithfulness must not merely be seen as a denominational corrective.  It rests in the very heart of God Himself, and so our faithfulness to His commands are truly faithful to God.

So let us have a “Great Commission Resurgence.”  Let us pray for it, labor it, and model it in our own lives.  Only then will we truly become all that God has called us to be.

And all of God’s people said…”UGHHH!”  So help me, I tried.  I really, really tried.  But I only got through 39 pages of this book before I concluded that I had reached the point of diminishing returns.  The weird thing about it is, I have a really high tolerance for pain when it comes to reading books.  I can sludge through books that no human being should have to sludge through just because I hate starting a book and not finishing it.  But Mr. Sweeney is to be commended for breaking me of that habit once and for all.

I was fascinating by the description of this book and I picked it up because I do appreciate many elements of ancient, liturgical worship.  Thanks to Steve Harmon and D.H. Williams and a few others, I believe that catholicity is admirable and necessary and ought to be explored.  In other words, I was prepared to appreciate this book even when I knew I’d likely disagree with some of the things in it.

But I was not prepared, frankly, for the postmodern buzz words that were delivered in a such a way that you would think some angry fundamentalist had written them in an effort to caricature postmodernism.  I, for one, think that the conservative critique of postmodernity is often (but not always, mind you) wrongheaded and shallow.  But then I read the first 39 pages of this book and realized that maybe the caricatures do, indeed, exist.

Let me just share a few of Sweeney’s comments:

“I’ve never been a big fan of religious authority, especially not when it is made out to be the stuff of foundational or even propositional truth – as if following Christ is impossible without first believing or doing this or that or the other thing.” (p.5)

“The way we believe or don’t believe in the propositions of religion is entirely different from faith.” (p.7)

“I make the assumption that tradition and scripture are equally important.” (p.14)

“I don’t seek Truth with a capital T.” (p.18)

“Also, I think that Christians today are beginning to accept that notknowing is actually essential to faith.” (p.18)

“To look at faith through the lens of belief is to be stuck in some sort of rationalism that makes little sense today.” (p.19)

“Many of us today acknowledge that we live in a new era – some call itpostmodernity – in which propositional truth, certainty, and even papal infallibility play the same sort of smaller role in a spiritual life that they played in the pre-modern worldview.  We decide what is true in different ways.” (p.21)

and finally

“But my spiritual life is not ready for any conclusions, at least not yet.” (p.21)

And that’s just the first 21 pages!  It gets worse over the next 18.

A couple of ironies:  Sweeney likes Flannery O’Connor.  Flannery O’Connor!  She’s one of my favorite writers and she understood things better than most.  The irony here is that anybody who’s read Flannery O’Connor can imagine what she would think of the drivel being served up by Sweeney here.

Finally, it is odd for a man who doesn’t believe in propositional truth to write an entire book full of propositions, isn’t it?  It’s the irony of all these exercises in not-knowing.  You’ve got to know a lot to be able to convince folks we can’t know and you’ve got to say a lot to convince folks that we can’t really say anything.

Anyway, I don’t know.  Read this thing if you want.  Just email me and I’ll mail you my copy.

So Mrs. Richardson and Miss Richardson are out of town for the weekend and it’s just me and London (the dog) sitting at home staring at each other.  She’s staring at me with her fascinating underbite and bulging eyeballs, and I begin to think to myself, “Self, what shall we do?”  Then it hits me!  Of course!  Let’s knock out some Trinitarian theology!

So I grab Millard Erickson’s Making Sense of the Trinity: Three Crucial Questions and commence to read what turns out to be a tremendous and clear-sighted handling of the Trinity that frankly left me sad when it was all over.  This is one of those books that actually gets better as it goes along.

Many a seminary student knows the name Millard Erickson.  His Christian Theology (along with Wayne Grudem’s) pretty much dominates the evangelical seminary scene (or at least the Baptist expressions of it).  Through this work, and a whole host of smaller works such as Making Sense of the Trinity, Erickson has established himself as one of those solid, trustworthy, go-to guys that you might not always agree with on every detail but you know will never fail to teach you something.  Erickson taught for a while at Southwestern, then down at Truett, I think.  I believe he’s retired now.

This is a fantastic book that would serve as a great introduction to the Trinity for anybody looking for a good place to make a start.  Erickson explores the biblical basis for the Trinity and concludes that while it is not explicitly taught in Scripture it is implicitly and consistently taught.  His handling of possible Old Testament Trinitarian passages was solid and careful.  He avoids eisegesis, a problem for Christians seeking to find vestiges of the Trinity in the Old Testament, but nonetheless points out some fascinating instances of Old Testament texts that may well have been pointing to what the Church would come to understand as the Trinity.

His handling of the New Testament data was extremely helpful and thorough for such a small book.  He shows New Testament evidence, for instance, that the writers and the early believers viewed each person of the Trinity as divine and, in some sense, viewed them as three-in-one.

Other features of this text that I found helpful were Erickson’s very helpful discussion of perichoresis (which he seems to embrace and highly value) and his discussion of the practical implications of the Trinity.  His handling of the question of Christ’s subordination to the Father and whether or not that subordination applies only to Christ’s earthly incarnate state or applies to the Son from eternity past to eternity future was very helpful.  That’s a hot issue in the whole egalitarian/complementarian debate.  While Erickson doesn’t address that particular debate, he argues for incarnational subordination but, through the idea of perichoresis, stresses the eternal unity and equality of each person.  He argues that it’s very difficult to hold to eternal subordination (a term that advocates of this position would reject) without slipping into an idea of the Son as inferior.

As I say, Erickson is a trustworthy voice and one worth heeding.  This little book would be a great place to start.

I cannot express how very enjoyable and informative I personally found this impressive collection of essays.  Edited by Timothy George and Eric F. Mason,Theology in the Service of the Church is a unique and eclectic collection that will challenge, educate, and inspire the reader.  This Festschrift was presented to Fisher Humphreys on the occasion of his retirement from The Beeson Divinity School,

I felt that the strongest essays in the book were Curtis Freeman’s “Back to the Future of Trinitarianism?”, Steve Harmon’s “Remembering the Ecclesial Future: Why the Church Needs Theology”, Stephen J. Duffy’s “That They May All Be One: The Unity That is Ours and Not Ours”, and especially Ralph Wood’s “Jesus Thrown Everything Off Balance: Emily Dickinson, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor on the Necessity of Christian Radicalism in the Study of Literature.”

I thought this last essay was tremendous.  I was thrilled to see Wood’s opinion that “the non-Christian writer whose work retains overwhelming, even transformative, power is William Faulkner” (p.210).  I agree 100% and was glad to see that maybe I’m not crazy after all!  (I oftentimes tell my wife that I think Faulkner understood the Church better than most who are actually in the Church.)  Wood’s treatment of Faulkner’s work was very insightful, and his handling of O’Connor’s short story, “The Misfit,” helped me see that troubling little story in a new light.

Freeman’s essay on the Trinity was likewise very helpful and very good.  I thought some of his anecdotal observations about the disappearance of Trinitarian thought from Baptist life were especially interesting and troubling.

Fr. Stephen J. Duffy’s article on ecumenism and unity was fascinating.  Coming from a Catholic perspective, Duffy’s thought was occasionally foreign to me, but this essay was, I thought, one of the most thought-provoking pieces in the book.  I did learn a new term: perennem reformationem (continual reform).  I was also introduced to a concept I had never heard before: namely the existence of Protestant affirmations of the potential for the Bishop of Rome to offer the greatest possibility of ecumenical reform should appropriate reforms be allowed to reshape that office.  I’m not up on ecumenical speech, but this struck me as a frankly odd and virtually impossible idea.

In all, a tremendous collection of essays.  Check it out.