So says presidential spokesman Bill Burton, in response to a question from a reporter today relating to a recent poll where nearly one in four people surveyed expressed the opinion that Obama is a Muslim.
It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant some people are about religion. Burton’s statement here is particularly laughable. He’s trying to say something that will cause people to believe that Obama is a Christian. So what he chooses is to say that Obama prays daily. I don’t know whether Obama does or not, but that’s really beside the point, isn’t it?
Burton is trying to combat the perception that the president is a Muslim by pointing to his frequent prayer. But Don’t Muslims pray too? In fact, aren’t they required to pray 5 times a day, facing Mecca? Actually, Jews pray too. So do Mormons. Lots and lots of religions require or encourage prayer. Daily prayer no more makes him a Christian than it does a Jew. In other words, the mere fact that Obama might pray daily does nothing to identify the precise religion to which the president adheres.
For an administration so intent on tolerance and diversity, and so insistent on the equality of all religions, their insistence on Obama’s Christianity reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where an NYU student thought that Jerry and George were gay. They strenuously insisted to her they were not gay, but every time they did, they’d catch themselves and add, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
I would offer the president’s team a suggestion if they want to combat the perception that he’s not a Christian or that he is a Muslim. Here goes: quit letting him say things that Christians (and probably Muslims) would recognize are demonstrably false when he talks about religion. [Note: this will probably require the input of someone who has some knowledge of scripture and history, admittedly a tough act these days.]
Case in point: at the end of the Iftar dinner where Obama stirred up the hornets’ nest about the Ground Zero Mosque, Obama said the following:
For in the end, we remain “one nation, under God, indivisible.” And we can only achieve “liberty and justice for all” if we live by that one rule at the heart of every great religion, including Islam —- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
In which religion was the golden rule announced? I don’t think it was Islam, or Hinduism or Buddhism. Christians are well aware of this, because they know that this standard of conduct for the Christian is different from that of all other religions (some of which seem to be really OK with smiting infidels, or treating them as second class citizens). Moreover, Christians know how dismally they fail to live up to this standard, which teaches them their need for Christ.
Islam has no such teaching, and recognizes no such need for salvation. Neither does any other religion.
Perhaps Obama’s failure to speak, and, by extension, to think, like a Christian, makes people wonder whether he may be a Muslim.
I am reading Lauren Winner’s book, Girl meets God. I enjoy her fresh and honest observations of some aspects of Christianity and the Christian life. I couldn’t agree more with this one about infant baptisms, which she declares she loves, and explains why. I do too, and for many of the same reasons. I have other reasons….but this one is succinctly well put.
“Sometimes people wonder how babies can be baptized; indeed, that very wondering was the genesis of the Baptist church. Baptist believe babies shouldn’t be baptized. They say there’s no scriptural precedent for it, that Jesus and John were both baptized as adults. Hannah, who’s a Baptist, often says that a baby can’t promise to do everything one promises in baptism. I have never found this a very persuasive argument. It strikes me as too individualistic. The very point is that no baptismal candidate, even an adult, can promise to do those things all by himself. The community is promising for you, with you, on your behalf. It is for that reason that I love to see a baby baptized. When a baby is baptized, we cannot labor under the atomizing illusion that individuals in Christ can or should go this road alone. When a baby is baptized we are struck unavoidably with the fact that this is a community covenant, a community relationship, that these are communal promises.”
As our own pastors are careful to declare when our babies are presented for baptism….baptism is not a signal of something the baptismal recipient has done, but rather it is a sign of something Christ has done and is doing…and has promised to do.
This week, I’ve read (on the strong recommendation of everyone in the Riverwood book club) D.G. Hart’s The Lost Soul of American Protestantism. It is a fantastic read, and I join the book club in heartily recommending it to everyone. The thesis of the book is that the popular division of American Christianity today between liberal mainliners and conservative evangelicals is inaccurate. The true distinction, Hart argues, is between confessional Christians, who adhere to the historic creeds of the church, and pietists, whose consciences having been formed by the revivalist movements, look to outward works of the believer to measure true Christianity. This second group has, during the past century, split into two groups - one looking to social activism to find the proper measurement of works, the other looking to personal acts of devotion, such as daily devotionals, evangelism activities, and external individual moral behavior. Hart argues that this second group of pietists, in the latter half of the 20th century, has thrown in with conservative political movements to further their ambitions.
I go to all this length because after reading this book, I ran across the Conservative Bible Project, a group of Christian conservatives who are trying (Wikipedia style, no less) to produce a new translation of the bible that will employ “conservative principles to reduce and eliminate” … “translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.” Now, no one will argue that translation bias should not be eliminated. However the use of a political ideology to try to accomplish this is deeply flawed. Get this:
As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:
Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, “gender inclusive” language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level.
Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop; defective translations use the word “comrade” three times as often as “volunteer”; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as “word”, “peace”, and “miracle”.
Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as “gamble” rather than “cast lots”; using modern political terms, such as “register” rather than “enroll” for the census
Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”
(internal notes and citations omitted)
Free Market Parables? You’ve got to be joking. Powerful conservative terms? Give me a break.
You’ll find no one more in favor of free markets and political conservatism than yours truly, but that emphatically stops at the door of the church, especially in the translation of scripture. Good grief!
It gets worse. Here’s one of their suggestions for a possible approach to this conservative translation:
identify terms that have lost their original meaning, such as “word” in the beginning of the Gospel of John, and suggest replacements, such as “truth”
So not only are they planning to inject politics into the scripture, but they’re going to jettison one of the most poetic parts of the entire Bible:
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. 6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
If all that weren’t indictment enough (and it is), it appears that they don’t even intend to always start from original texts, using KJV instead since it’s in the public domain:
In the United States and much of the world, the immensely popular and respected King James Version (KJV) is freely available and in the public domain. It could be used as the baseline for developing a conservative translation without requiring a license or any fees. Where the KJV is known to be deficient due to discovery of more authentic sources, exceptions can be made that use either more modern public domain translations as a baseline, or by using the original Greek or Hebrew.
This is an abomination on just about every front conceivable. Watch, though, as predicable elements of the evangelical movement hail it for combating the forces of liberalism. I’ll also predict, if this effort follows through to fruition, that some churches even will use it and crow about how that gives them conservative street cred.
I submit that this entire pathetic example proves that Hart’s analysis is, sadly for the Church, dead-on accurate.
Those reading this post who weren’t at Riverwood when Bryan Bond was the pastor probably don’t know this, but he really hated church sign boards. In fact, he used to collect them - the worse they were, the better for the collection.
I drove by one today that is probably the very worst I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying a lot. Not only is this one theologically wrong-headed and un-Biblical in just about every way imaginable, but even on a purely secular level, to put this up during a recession simply boggles the mind.
Here goes:
I really think that the greatest favor that the government could do for churches is to pass a law prohibiting any church from having such a signboard. Obviously, it’s something that churches just can’t deal with.
…because if we had decided to rent out an auditorium in a public school instead, Tim’s sermon yesterday might have gotten us kicked out!
Such is the fate that may befall the New Hope Church in Melbourne, Florida. Because their current facility is too small to accommodate their recent growth, the church now rents out the auditorium of Sherwood Elementary. This was apparently not a problem until the pastor started a sermon series entitled “Great Sex For You,” and the church sent out 25,000 flyers to local addresses inviting local residents to attend the series. The flyers asked “Is your sex life a bore?” and asserted that God created sex to be enjoyed. According to Florida Today,
Bible in hand, Pastor Bruce Cadle said the Christian church has been “shamefully silent” on the typically taboo topic. “Sex between married believers is a holy activity. It’s not a dirty activity. It’s not a shameful activity,” Cadle preached. “It’s a holy activity. And the Bible is so clear about this. But it’s still hard for us to get it.”
Check out the backdrop used during the sermon:
This generated complaints (six) to the school and the district. The district’s director of risk management Mark Langdorf:
described the controversy as “obnoxious and inimical to the best interests of the school board. We believe the type of advertising used is not appropriate for students to read in any elementary school,” Langdorf said. “If it is inappropriate for the students, then it should not be used to advertise any event held at an elementary school in Brevard County.”
That’s not all. The principal of the school wrote a letter to the parents that said:
[W]e were not aware this flier was being sent to home [sic] prior to the distribution. I apologize for any discomfort this flier may have caused you and your family… . The materials in the flier were not sponsored nor endorsed by the Brevard County School System. District officials are reviewing this matter to determine if further action is appropriate and legal.
Discomfort caused the family? Yeesh. Does this all seem a bit overblown? What is so controversial about a sermon saying that married folks should enjoy sex? Really, now, if this is so “discomforting” to all these families, I guess they’d stroke out at an episode of Desperate Housewives. Also, I do not know, but would be really curious to find out what the districts sex education policy is, since most such programs take a totally value-neutral approach to the topic. Maybe everyone’s so desensitized to such stuff that someone saying that sex is to be actually enjoyed in a marriage is scandalous.
The faux outrage by the school and district here is striking, though. A thought exercise for an exit question: Suppose the picture had been of two men’s feet and the sermon had been on the need for tolerance and acceptance of gay relationships. Would the reaction by the school system have been the same?
On Tuesday of this week, President Obama delivered a speech at Georgetown University on the state of the economy. The speech was given in Gaston Hall, which has behind the dais the seal of the university and, above that, the letters IHS - a fairly common (though perhaps more commonly Roman Catholic) representation of the name of Jesus. Georgetown is a Jesuit university. Or, at least, it is nominallly so.
Apparently, at the request of Obama, the university agreed to cover over the apparently offending IHS with a black piece of plywood, so that it would not appear behind the President. Read the whole story here. There’s another thread with more before and after pictures here.
I don’t know which is worse - that the White House would ask for such a thing, or that a Christian university would agree to it. If the President is so offended at the name of Christ, why go to a Jesuit university to give a speech? And, if the university so easily agrees to scrub Jesus’s name for the sake of anybody, much less a politician, it’s not much of what I’d recognize as Christian.
The whole sorry incident brings to mind immediately Matthew 10:
32”Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
Of course, that’s only compelling to those who believe it, isn’t it?
Thus sayeth Evangelist Roland Belew, commenting on a series of sermons being preached at the Daystar Church in Good Hope, Alabama (in Cullman County). The series is entitled “Great Sex God’s Way,” and the church has taken out billboard with the sermon title on it throughout the town. You can (and should, for sheer entertainment value if nothing else) read about it here.
Really, the whole thrust of the series is one that I’d say should be flat out non-controversial for any Christian, i.e., that sex is to be enjoyed within the framework of marriage, and nowhere else. No great news there. Yet, the billboard still seem to be causing some commotion. The town’s 22 year old mayor opined that “some people just aren’t ready for that.” Perhaps like the mayor, given his youth?
The best line of the whole article - unintentionally hilarious to us reformed types - comes from Evangelist Belew, who preaches at a truck stop:
Belew worries that vulnerable teenagers will get the idea from the sign that God says it’s OK for them to have sex. “It’s a delicate subject. Preach the word of God and people will live right and get right,” said Belew.
There’s an interesting article on the NYT website about the morality and religion of the Danes and Swedes. The article reports on the findings of Phil Zuckerman, who teaches sociology at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA. Mr. Zuckerman spent over a year in Denmark and Sweden studying how their society, which is overwhelmingly atheist and post-Christian, maintains such relative morality.
And the best answer he appears to have is that they just do culturally. One Dane quoted at the end explains: “We are Lutherans in our souls — I’m an atheist, but still have the Lutheran perceptions of many: to help your neighbor. Yeah. It’s an old, good, moral thought.” The author of the article dutifully reports all of this without ever asking the blazingly obvious question of WHY.
Indeed if Jesus was, as one of the interviewees suggests, simply a “nice man who taught some nice things,” then there’s certainly no compulsion to do what he says. And sometimes those “nice things” that Jesus said can be kind of inconvenient - like loving your enemies - or contrary to your self-interest - like turning the other cheek - or are perhaps even flat-out unbelievable - like the meek inheriting the earth. So why believe them or behave in accordance with them? This question, which fascinates me, never gets asked. (In my view, it’s never asked because anyone can see that it has no logical answer. At least the Existentialists took their atheist worldview to its logical end.)
The impression that one is left with is that Western society, now free of the limitations of actual religion, should simply adhere to the morals taught by the church (oh, but not the ones about sex, and maybe some other ones too, in the right situation - which can’t be defined), because they were inherited in our Western tradition. That’s a good reason, right?
In other words, having jettisoned actual Christianity as the teacher of right from wrong - and indeed having rid ourselves of the quaint notion that there is such a thing as right and wrong - we really hope, like the Danes and Swedes, that we come up with some amorphous, ill-defined, unsourced moral obligation to keep our cherished Darwinism from taking over socially.
I didn’t have the chance to comment on it when the news broke over the holidays, but I suppose by now everyone knows that at Obama’s swearing-in ceremony, Rick Warren will deliver the invocation. Predictably, given Warren’s support of the California initiative to ban gay marriage, many gays were incensed at this selection.
Obama may be accused of many things, but political stupidity isn’t one. The first official inauguration event is this weekend on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Three guesses who got invited to do the invocation, and the first two don’t even count.
Of course, V. Eugene Robinson, the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire for the Episcopal Church USA.
Conservative megachurch pastor? Check. Liberal gay bishop? Check. All bases covered.
The NYT has an interesting piece on this. You can read it all here. Get this:
Bishop Robinson said he had been reading inaugural prayers through history and was “horrified” at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were.”
“I am very clear,” he said, “that this will not be a Christian prayer, and I won’t be quoting Scripture or anything like that. The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer.”
Bishop Robinson said he might address the prayer to “the God of our many understandings,” language that he said he learned from the 12-step program he attended for his alcohol addiction.
Where does one even begin? “The God of our many understandings”????? First of all, it doesn’t even make sense. A god understood in different, and contradictory ways, is definitionally NOT one and the same being. But, hey, if you learned it at a 12-step program, then it must supercede all that stuff the Church teaches, right?
More to the point, though, is the utter lunacy of thinking that saying something so ridiculous would make everyone feel like it’s “their prayer.” Orthodox Christians, who hold that there’s one way to the Father, and that’s through the Son, will not feel that this is their prayer, but I suppose they don’t count. How about muslims? I doubt that “the God of our many understandings” will fit with their conception of Allah, either. And any prayer that singles out a monotheistic god (as opposed to many gods) will naturally not comport with most eastern religious understandings either.
But the painfully intense stupidity is not the worst. The worst is that the Bishop of New Hampshire is horrified (his word) at aggressive Christianity. This must truly inspire the faithful to fill the pews of the ECUSA.
So says the New York Times in a profile of Mark Driscoll, his church in Seattle, and that wacky Calvinism he preaches.
Read the whole thing here. It’s not entirely accurate about Calvinism (would you really expect differently from the NYT?), but neither does it shy away from some of Driscoll’s critiques of modern evangelicalism. Here’s a sample:
What really grates [on Driscoll] is the portrayal of Jesus as a wimp, or worse. Paintings depict a gentle man embracing children and cuddling lambs. Hymns celebrate his patience and tenderness. The mainstream church, Driscoll has written, has transformed Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture that … would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.”
Like I said, read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Allahpundit comments on this article here, complete with clips of Driscoll’s sermons on YouTube. Highly recommended. AP is an atheist, BTW.
Next Sunday we will have our annual Christmas musical worship service. This will be the third year that we have centered around the format known commonly as Lessons and Carols. The L&C service was started in England in the late 1800s and was popularized in the early 20th century by use at King’s College, Cambridge. It is still an annual event at Cambridge and is often broadcast across the world on radio. There are nine Scripture readings, or lessons, telling the story of Christ’s birth. Each of the lessons is followed by 2 carols which vary from year to year. This year, for the first time, we are using the full complement of 18 carols. These vary across styles and period but all relate to Christ’s coming to Earth in such a strange, wonderful way.
In addition to the adult choir, there will also be music from our handchime choir, our RCS kids and our instrumentalists. There is also to be a reception following. It will be a beautiful and meaningful service and I hope you will make plans to be with us and bring several others with you!
A couple of thoughts I wanted to post this Saturday evening. It may seem as though I’m going to harsh on the Methodists; this is purely coincidental. It just so happens that these anecdotes, showing the modern church’s two frequent errors, both come from Methodist churches.
Today, we drove past a rural United Methodist Church. The signboard said “Confessing your sins is not as good as forsaking them.” Kimberly and I laughed out loud. Now, I don’t mean for anyone to read this and think that I’m urging anyone to sin. However, the clear implication of this sign was that if folks would just stop that pesky sinning, they wouldn’t have to do all that ugly confessing. This is one extreme.
The other is represented by the Rev. Jenny Cannon of Bethesda, MD. Rev. Cannon’s church is participating in a national event called “Don’t Go to Church, Be the Church.” I am not making this up; if you can’t believe this - and that would be an understandable reaction for any Christian - read the whole sorry thing from the Washington Post here.
Apparently the Bethesda United Methodist Church has canceled Sunday school and worship services, so that its members can go and perform community service work - like cleaning up a park or assembling supplies for victims of the floods of Hurricane Ike. Here’s the money quote from Rev. Cannon:
[The event] is meant to communicate that the church is “more than coming together for worship.”
So there are the two extremes. On the one hand, the church whose sign we saw clearly believes that the problem with humanity is that stubborn refusal to quit sinning. On the other, a church that believes that community service is more important than worship.
They both, though, have one thing in common: both seem to not have much need for Christ.
Everyone who’s even a casual reader of this blog knows how much I love watching political drama. This, however, is going completely off the rails. I know nothing of Rep. Cohen, whether he claims to be a Christian or not. If he does, then he is in serious need of rebuke about who Jesus is and what he was on this earth to do. It wasn’t “community organizing.” Suggesting such (on the floor of the House of Representatives, no less) either demonstrates shocking levels of ignorance or the cynical manipulation of his own religion for political gains.
If he’s not a Christian, then he’s the dumbest politician EVER (and that’s a prize for which there are many competitors). How many Christians will be offended by this? How many ordinary folks (especially women) who are not rabid partisans will be put off (or insulted) at Gov. Palin being likened to Pontius Pilate? Comparing your party’s candidate to Jesus? And the opposing Veep is Pilate? Disrespecting the religion of the overwhelming majority of people in this country is idiotic.
I like change. I really do. I just want things that should change, to be the things that do the changing. I don’t want trees to stay the same. They grow, they go through seasonal cycles, and then they rot, die, and fall on my roof. I want to see them change colors and then go to sleep for the winter. Trees are supposed to do that. But I don’t want something that is immutable (unchangeable) to be displayed as a shape-shifting conformer to the trendy cultures of men. You may think you want a God who is casually accessible through your current avant-garde tastes, vocabulary, and styles. But will you respect him in the morning? Will you respect him 20 years from now, dressed in polyester, rayon, mumbling, “Groovy, my child.”?
My growing love for “traditional” liturgy reflects this idea. The way I worship God, now, must be acceptable 20 years from now, because it reflects the immutable attributes of God—that are not cyclically shed or adopted by the Church’s whims. (WCF, shorter catechism, Q&A #4: What is God? God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his Being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.)
Walk with me, if you will, down memory lane:
“Jesus is My Friend” (Bonus: Christian Ska’s early years)
and….
“The Renewed Mind is The Key” (Bonus: seamless choreography)
Kudos to those who watched until the end. You did what I could not.
Here’s a story about a Baptist church in Florida who has a member who won $6 million in the Florida lottery. The member then wanted to tithe and contribute $600,000 from the winnings. The pastor rejected the money.
My first reaction is that this is silly legalism of the worst kind. I don’t see how playing the lottery occasionally is any worse than buying a raffle ticket - something no one blinks at, morally speaking.
I noted last week the return of the cross to the St. John’s Church in Baghdad, and Michael Yon’s dramatic picture. Today Yon has another post, which I recommend that everyone read in full. There are some more great pictures.
The first services have been held in the church since it was closed. Strikingly, the church was filled with Muslims. They want very much for their Christian neighbors who fled to come home. So, to demonstrate that it’s OK to do so, they went to mass. The pictures are remarkable.
Here’s one, followed by Yon’s description:
Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”
Yon says he hasn’t seen a gunfight in months. He’s in Baghdad. Remember the civil war going on there, what, six months ago? The local al Qaeda goons would have killed any muslim for walking into a church then. What an astonishing turnaround - doggone near a miracle, if you ask me.
Two thoughts come to mind, one political, the other not. Has anyone seen mainstream press coverage of anything so remarkable? Ought not this to be front page news? This is a military and strategic turnaround (assuming it holds) of the most dramatic kind. But, I am convinced that those running the mainstream media outlets are so hostile to the concept of victory in Iraq (and especially to a resurgence of any semblance of Christianity there) that they couldn’t bear to publicize this remarkable event.
As a Christian, though, I cannot help but be moved by this. God works in ways so mysterious and yet wonderful. I would have thought that Iraq (Baghdad, even) would be one of the most hostile places on earth for believers. I would certainly never have dreamed that muslims there would be filling a church to essentially beg their Christian neighbors who fled persecution to return. But, God always preserves for himself a remnant, doesn’t he? And in the most unlikely of places and at the most unexpected times. It’s not the way I or any other human would go about building a kingdom. But it’s just beautiful, and amazing to watch unfold.
Jimmy Hopper sent me this NYT article on “praise rock.” It’s an article about larger churches spending time building a musical culture adapted specifically to the various generations reflected in their church.
“When you start a church,” said Tom Mercer, 52, the senior pastor, “you don’t decide who you’re going to reach and then pick a music style. You pick a music style, and that determines who’s going to come.”
Obvious critiques abound. If contextualization comes first, you become a slave to it. Now, I’m all for contextualization, but a church must be faithful to the historic Church’s greatest concerns: Word, prayer, and sacraments—first and foremost. Then other concerns will/should flow from this emphasis. To an extent Mr. Mercer was correct: the music style does determine who will come. And, those who come will also determine the very substance of the church. People and their beliefs matter. Churches are not abstract entities.
However, the very same critique can be leveled at those within the PCA who have emphasized another necessary component: Mercy-Ministries. If a church becomes dominated by a practical exercise of good, it often times will compromise the very things it should be emphasizing over and above everything else—so that the “mercy” can be maintained, groomed, and expanded. Mercy-ministries (or any other ministry) that do not flow from The Big Three (Word, sacraments, prayer) will not have longevity past the energized few who began them. I talk with many twenty-something Reformed people who want to choose a church based on the mercy-programs that are emanating from the church. And there are also pastors who want to “plant-an-urban-integrated-church-that-likes-mercy.” Well, ok, but how will that be fed? By the Word or by cool mercy mercy techniques. And this (in principal) is just as faulty as choosing a church for its music or building a church around its music.
In an upcoming Salt and Light article, I will be addressing the issue of how we as Reformed and Presbyterian Christians should interact with the wider Christian world. Reformed Christians in America have an upleasant history infighting and sectarianism (see Machen’s Warrior Children). In my view, whatever one thinks about the Federal Vision in all its particulars, a consistent and positive thrust of the movement has been the willingness to interact with those outside the relatively small Reformed world, and even smaller world of the Presbyterian Church in America. Presbyterian minister Doug Wilson made these instructive comments recently:
When C.S. Lewis wrote of mere Christianity, he used the image of the hallways of a great house. He emphasized that it was in the rooms that one slept, took one’s meals, visited with family and friends, and so on. All the action took place in the rooms — and that is where my Reformed identity resides. That’s where I keep my books, and my slippers, and my laptop. But it is possible (and desirable) to go out into the hallway from time to time and fellowship with the other residents of this great house. I can do that without forgetting where my bed is, and without trying to get all the Christians to sleep in the hallways.
When a particular tradition becomes in-grown it is easy to think that “this room” is the only room where anything worthwhile is going on. One of points of FV catholicity is that we don’t think this is true — God is doing wonderful things in other parts of the house. This has been taken (and ought not to have been taken) as us expressing a desire to move out of our Reformed library with its fat books and burnished leather chairs, and tobacco, and Drambuie on the rocks, and carpet you could lose a shoe in. So don’t get me wrong. I like it here and have no intention of moving out — although I still reserve the right to get chased out.
But I can still be grateful for those Campus Crusade guys staffing the mud room, getting new people into the house, and making it possible for them to eventually make their way to the library.
The context may be found here. Healthy ecumenism is not coming together to feel good about coming together. Healthy ecumenism is coming together around the truth of the gospel that has been believed by all Christians everywhere at all times.
Like Wilson, I like our room. When my friends in the room lock the door, however, and tell me I can’t take a stroll down the hall to borrow a book from another room, or perhaps borrow an insight from another room, I think we are dealing with an incredibly historical naivety and ridiculous insularity. Let’s continue to decorate the room and invite others in, but for the love of all that’s good, let’s keep the door open.
There was a very significant musical event in Tuscaloosa Sunday night when the Music Department of Riverwood presented the Fall Concert under the overall direction of our Director of Music, Jeff Miller. It is now 48 hours later and when I think of the beauty, emotion and delight of the music, I am again filled with wonder and thoughts of worship.
There were four parts to the concert. Our Children’s Choir had obviously spent much time and practice and were wonderful (and cute as always.) The Riverwood Korean Worship Choir had three pieces that they did with their usual competence, beauty and obvious joy in the Lord. And it was a joy for the audience to hear Jesus Loves Me in Korean and understand in a new way how the message of Christ has reached all peoples and languages.
Then we had our supremely talented instrumentalists: Linda Graham on piano, Nancy Hopper on violin, Sarah Vander Wal on cello, and Bill Hopper on oboe. They played alone and as accompaniment to several choir pieces. They are spectactularly talented. There is nothing better in Tuscaloosa.
Finally we had our wonderful adult choir bring us a worship service in song; from the Call to Worship to the Benediction. Our choir is unpaid and all that they do is to worship and glorify God. I’m no expert but I do enjoy music and have heard many concerts. They are good; very, very good.
I could say something about every piece because it was all concert-hall quality but I’ll just mention two things. The Riverwood Trio, Linda, Nancy, and Sarah played a new composition by Gwyneth Walker, A Vision of Hills, based on the Irish hymn, Be Thou My Vision. Jeff said that it had never been performed before in Tuscaloosa. It will never be performed better. It’s simply not possible for it to be performed better than these ladies played and you have to hear it to understand how beautiful the piece is.
The other one I want to mention was the beautiful and haunting spiritual, He Never Said a Mumbalin’ Word sung by the Adult Choir. Someone who had suffered composing music about the suffering of our Lord. If you were there and heard it, I doubt that you will ever forget it. In fact, I’m going to have to talk Jeff into doing it on a Sunday morning sometime, maybe around Easter.
By this post, I want to personally thank everyone who participated for an unforgettable evening. Jeff Miller does an absolutely wondrous job and the Music Department adds so very much to Riverwood worship. If you missed it, you really missed something special. The next concert will be on December 16 and will be A Service of Lessons and Carols. Take the advice of a guy whose been around a little bit and be there. You won’t be sorry and you’ll never miss another one.
What a great, great day of worship last Sunday was at Riverwood! Pastor Lien’s sermon has been on my mind literally since he finished. He brought us yet again to the mighty Gospel of God, this time cutting through the cant of self glorifying religiousity to see it again. I had taught a series entitled “Jesus and the Pharisees” and actually taught a lesson on this passage (Matthew 15:1-20) and never made the connection that Tim did about how totally this “super-Spirituality” permeates our life today and how cleverly it subverts true spirituality. His points about how super-spirituality is used to hide evil, and how the Lord told His disciples (and us) never to follow leaders who are immersed in this; that they are blind and will lead you into a pit, are really stunning. And then the charge: “The realization of personal evil is the preeminent requirement to understanding that we need the mercy of God.”
How very often I’ve hidden behind “super” spirituality. Again I say, “I’ve done that. I’ve done even worse.” It is always “back to the Gospel.” If you weren’t at the service, go here to hear the sermon and here to view the sermon notes.
After worship, we returned in the evening to hear our own Sarah Doss Yarborugh speak of her summer internship in an inter-city ministry in Memphis, TN. in what is the fourth poorest zip code in America. She spoke wonderfully of how much she, a college student from an affluent family, had learned from serving the Lord there. Sarah’s testimony was so unaffected, so sweet, so personal, that it moved and inspired everyone.
Then we heard Chuck and Michelle Tarter speak of their wonderful Gospel Friendships Outreach ministry in Ireland. They spoke of the concept of their ministry and of their personal experiences in bringing the Gospel to the people there as well as their personal coming to and walk with God. It was a great, inspiring time and it certainly caused me to consider the power of God throughout the world given, as it always has been, through His grace and through His servants.
