"Nice!"

If you practically grew up in a broad/mainline evangelical church like I did, it's likely that you've been charged with acting in a less than Christian-like manner—apart from actual Scriptural imperatives. This is because one of the chief commandments of the moralist is niceness.

It seems that for men, at least, less testosterone is more. While I cannot accept the cheesy posturing of a Mark Driscoll, the times, I believe, demand the employment of creational endowments that serve to augment passion in the defense and protection of orthodoxy, testosterone being one of them (the rap sheet of this hormone includes the crime of inducing un-niceness).

I'm not sure if Tim Challies' hormone levels were higher than usual at the time he wrote this post, but he sure wasn't nice to the nice men. To that I exclaim, "Nice!"

Another post on an article by someone not particularly renowed for niceness can be found here. Hehehe.

Mere Christianity: The Appeal to a Heterodox Past

It is often lamented that modern (or postmodern) evangelicalism does not look to the past for the foundations of its faith and practice. While this is certainly true in a strict sense, there is no escaping the universal truth expressed in Ecclesiates 1:9 and the fact that evangelicals today owe a lot to the legacies of those who've pandered a notion of mere Christianity in the past.

Claiming to get at the kernel and leaving behind the husk, these seemingly "radical" innovators are actually no more than current expressions of a rebellious individualism that has marked heretics of a bygone era. Tradition is stiff, "new measures" are where the Spirit's at, doctrine divides, and a host of other meaningless catch phrases comprise their rhetoric.

In fact, "Christian liberalism" is mere Christianity and this is what J. Gresham Machen fought against, not liberalism per se.

To C.S. Lewis fans this little snippet from Dr. Carl Trueman has much to say:

Rage On!

In his trademark wit and humor, Dr. D. G. Hart responds to Justin Taylor's newest inveighing against "angry Calvinists" here (labeling Driscoll as clairvoyant was like fly on flypaper!).

***I had to take down the Heidelblog-derived content at the request of Dr. Clark***

Dr. Carl Trueman exhorts us to rage where rage is required:

And, while it may salve the surprisingly sensitive aesthetic consciences of some to convince themselves that our critiques are simply in bad taste, nothing more than the routine rants of rabid Reformed rottweilers, this is simply not the case.....Rather, we do what we do because we simply refuse to allow to go unchallenged the received mythology concerning the evils of Reformed Orthodoxy; we do what we do because we love the Reformed faith as much as we dislike shoddy historical writing; we do what we do to make our own small contribution to criticism of the bland aesthetic tastes of modern evangelical theology; and, above all, we do what we do because to remain silent at such a time as this would be to abdicate our moral responsibility to the church. In short, we do it because it is right for us to do so. The light may well be dying, but we will rage, rage against it; and be assured, we will never go gentle into that good night. (Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light, WTJ 70 [2008]: 18)

Targeting Tradition

In many, if not all, branches of "born-again" evangelicalism, tradition has gained a notorious reputation. The battle cry of the misinformed masses is "fallible!", and so they carry on, unmindful of the rich legacy of the past, while propagating their own traditions. Indeed, even as they rail against tradition, they pander their own twists on it, unwittingly falling prey to all sorts of errors that could have been avoided had the voice of catholicity been listened to.

Ned B. Stonehouse, in the 1957 Evangelical Theological Society presidential address entitled, The Infallibility of Scripture and Evangelical Progress, states:

"In insisting upon the distinction between Scripture and tradition and in pleading for greater consistency in working out the implications of this Protestant principle, I would not indeed suggest that we should despise tradition or in general minimize its historical significance. Tradition, in truth, is a factor of great significance within the history of special revelation itself. This is bound up especially with the fact that the special revelation of the Bible is a revelation in history. As such the truth of revelation is often presented as that which, on the one hand, is received and, on the other hand, is delivered over. To make this point more specifically it may now suffice to recall the words of Paul in I Corinthians 15:3, 'for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received'.

In addition to the tradition within Scripture there is the tradition beyond Scripture, the tradition of the church. And though this tradition is on a different level from that of which Paul has spoken, it remains true that for one who recognizes the providence of God, the kingship of Jesus Christ and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, historical tradition may oftentimes be of very great significance. To put the matter in a somewhat different way, it must be recognized that Scripture itself has made a profound impact upon the life and thinking of the church, and this is of course especially true as it has been accompanied by the operations of the Spirit in the hearts of men.

Nevertheless, the distinction between Scripture and tradition must prevent us from absolutizing tradition. No matter how high our estimate of the scriptural significance of any phase of history, including for example the Reformation, we may not make the judgments and practices of any such phase our startingpoint for our evaluations of truth or our standard concerning it.

In emphasizing this point as I do I am deeply concerned with a tendency which seems to me to be widely prevalent among evangelicals to obliterate or obscure this basic distinction."

Westminster Wednesday: Trueman on Bog Standard Evangelicalism

The idiom, "bog standard," is of British origin, essentially meaning "ordinary." As an adjective to the term, "evangelicalism," it gains a positive connotation.

Carl Trueman writes:

"Now, I am a confessional Presbyterian, but at my core I am what, to use British idiom, we would call a bog-standard evangelical, nothing fancy, someone with a central commitment to what the seventeenth century divines would have called 'fundamental articles:' prosaic, simple stuff like the Trinity, the Chalcedonian definition, justification by faith, penal substitution, bodily resurrection, final judgement etc. Just your standard theological meat and potatoes - no doctrinal equivalents of your poncey ciabattas or effeminate moccacino espressos."

The 5 Points of Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism

In Dr. Michael Horton's lecture entitled, "Christianity and Liberalism Today," delivered at Westminster Seminary California's 2011 annual conference (Christianity and Liberalism Revisited), he made mention of the 5 points of "Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism."

The 5 points of MTD are as follows, along with my very brief commentary on each:

Point 1: God created the world.

With logical positivism dead, and with none but the stubbornest of thinkers holding on to it as a valid epistemology, it comes as no shock that the intelligent conclusion of any philosophical process is that the existence of deity at the end of all causal chains is the only rational option.

However, this output of natural revelation only gives us the "what?" and not the "who?" For the determination of the latter, we need the inerrant, inspired, and authoritative Word of God, the Bible.

To those under the vise-grip of MTD, knowing that God created the world comes as no consolation, for every human being, being made in the image of God, knows this:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things" (Romans 1:18-23)

Point 2: God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other as taught in the Bible and most world religions.

Again, this is a product of natural revelation, with the Law being ingrained in the heart of every man. The trouble is that most, if not all, MTD-ers don't realize that God requires perfect obedience to His Law. One's estimation of what counts for goodness, niceness, and fairness will never measure up to God's standard. We need perfect obedience to be counted as righteous in God's sight.


Point 3: The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

Considering Point 2, the MTD man's conception of happiness is essentially existential, not coming to grips with the true nature of his problem, i.e., the wrath of God that weighs heavily upon him. As long as the endorphins are kept pumping, everything is fine with the world—the world revolving around me, of course!


Point 4: God doesn't need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a personal problem.

Knowing that God created the universe (Point 1), it obviously is the case that He alone knows and has the ability to keep the MTD man happy and feeling good about himself (Point 3) when bumps or potholes along the road of life make the joyride less than enjoyable.


Point 5: Good people go to heaven when they die.

See Point 2.


More on MTD by Dr. Horton below:

The Primacy of Preaching

I had this well-meaning and sincere, though misguided, individual tell me one time that the "praise and worship" part of the service was the most important one since it was the part that ushered the people into God's presence. Of course, such a notion is more in keeping with revivalism's modus operandi of stroking man's fleshly appetite for excitement and immediate experience than it is grounded on biblical doctrine—and the only thing that it really ushers people into is an adrenaline rush!

This mentality acutely reflects the sad state of modern Evangelicalism in how it has completely missed the fact of the dialogical nature of the worship service: God speaks; we listen and respond in worship, humility, and gratitude, and are sanctified by the spoken Word. What you have in most Evangelical Sunday services is a pop-rock concert in the beginning, a self-help, pseudo-psychological talk in the middle, and an encore of the previous "music ministry" performance in the end. God's Word in Scripture, if ever used at all, come in sporadic bursts of verses here and there that are forced to concur with the speaker's agenda, thereby stripping the text of its intended meaning, stifling the work of the Spirit in His sacramental function of quickening the Word, and robbing the people of blessing.

It is the preacher's job and mandate to be a scholar of Scripture for God speaks to His people through the preached Word. This is the most important part of the worship service. Let no one delude you into thinking otherwise.

"God thinks preaching is much more important than most people do. For God, it is not just verbal 'filler' in a Sunday worship service. Neither is it the sharing of
one’s experiences designed to inspire and stimulate those of others. Nor is it a nicely organized talk, complete with PowerPoint slides, intending to inform people of '10 ways to become more spiritual.' (I never found a text in Scripture that contained 10 practical ways to do anything!) Rather, the words of the preacher are to echo the words of his text, and, when faithful to that text of Scripture, contain 'the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes.' As Paul writes elsewhere:

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to
preach the gospel….For the message of the
cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of
God (1 Cor. 1:17-18).

You’ll need to contend with that whether or not you are called to preach. If you are, tremble! What you will declare with your lips is the redeeming energy of God Himself. If you are not called to preach, assigned instead to join God’s people as they hear faithful preaching and give it fleshly form in their obedience, take that task seriously too. God’s Word brings life or death. Remember the sobering words of the apostle, admonishing preacher and hearer alike:

For we are to God the aroma of Christ among
those who are being saved and those who are
perishing. To the one we are the smell of death;
to the other the fragrance of life. And who is
equal to such a task? (2 Cor. 2:15-16).

Who indeed?"

— Dr. John R. Sittema, 'Called to Preach', 15—16

Evangelical/Gnostic Voyeurism

Martin Luther has said that every human being is intrinsically a mystic. The claim is indicative of the proverbial "vacuum" that every man longs to fill with God (or notions of God); and yet it is also "human" to want to "get into" this God through means other than that which He has prescribed in His Word. It is a desire to peer into, as Luther calls it, "the naked God."

This Gnostic voyeurism is very much apparent in the many mutations of modern Evangelicalism. From the hyper-faith, hyper-supernaturalism, and experientialism of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement, to the extrabiblical, pragmatic, pietistic, and individualist "innovations" of the church-growth, purpose-driven, megachurch movement (interestingly, the Emergent Church movement merely gave the megachurch movement a "cooler" face, with essentially the same brain behind the operations), Gnosticism is alive and well.

The dangerously false assumption behind all this is that God is a God who can be approached, as Air Supply would put it, "Just As I Am." Yet the biblical account teems with examples of God meting out swift and final judgment on those who failed to approach Him, sincere or otherwise, in the means that He has prescribed. In the OT, we have Nadab and Abihu, beloved sons of Aaron, incinerated, and Uzzah struck dead. Especially in the case of the latter, sincerity and a desire to serve God were not, and will never be, mitigating factors. In the NT, we have Ananias and Saphira, the couple of deceit, snuffed of life by the same transgression. Fervent affection and devotion matters nil if recognition of the "otherness" of God, which is the reality behind God's use of physical and temporal means to interface with man, is rejected.

The Gospel is that God, through His Son Jesus Christ, became flesh, to the consternation of the Gnostics. Just as no Israelite could approach God unmediated by either Moses or the priesthood, so is it that only though the mediation of the God-Man, Christ, can anyone come into the presence of God without suffering the same fate as those sincere enthusiasts who gave no thought to God's prescribed means but thought of Him as like unto themselves. But then, even in the appropriation of Christ's merits, Gnosticism and Evangelicalism walk hand-in-hand in seeking out a private, personal Jesus who is accessible through techniques, methods, and devices, rather than the historical, objective, and enfleshed Christ who takes the initiative to reveal Himself to those whom the Father has chosen. It is "me and my God-ness" uniting with God, not God in His holiness and transcendence condescending to elect, justify, sanctify and eventually glorify me, all because of what Christ has done that is external to myself.

There are a host of other instances wherein this voyeurism is obvious. Suffice it to say that the only remedy to this insidious malady is the recovery of the great truths of the Reformation.