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Six Faces of New Paganism

As I mentioned in a brief post yesterday, I have begun making my way through Bruce Waltke's Old Testament Theology. It is a massive book and is perhaps just a bit intimidating, but I have been enjoying it a lot. It is my first attempt to read an Old Testament theology and even through the opening chapters I can see that there is much to learn.

After six introductory chapters, Waltke turns to Old Testament theology proper in a chapter entitled "The Gift of the Cosmos" and here, as we might expect, he discusses God's work as creator. He argues here that it is critically important that we read the opening chapters of Genesis properly, acknowledging the author's intended literary genre. Though he eventually argues that this section is meant to be read as "ancient near eastern cosmogony," which in turns leads to supporting his views on theistic evolution (a view I do not support) I found something very useful in this section. He explains how a wrong reading of the creation account leads to further and deeper problems. He shows how culture's refusal to acknowledge the creator necessarily leads to the anti-God worldview so apparent in society around us. "Christians now live on a mission field with worldviews that besiege the message of ethical monotheism." He says that this new paganism has six faces and one proceeds from the one before it.

1. The common worldview of the Western world since the time of the enlightenment has been materialism. This philosophy says that matter and its motions constitute the entire universe. Everything in the universe has to be regarded as due to material causes.

2. There is an implication to materialism. Since everything is material, ideally and theoretically, everything is subject to empiricism. Here he quotes Alan Reynolds who says, "empiricism, which insists that all knowledge is based on observation, experimentation, and verification, has led to belief in a self-sufficient universe that can be understood on its own terms, without any need of the transcendent or of God."

3. Together materialism and empiricism entail a belief in an inherent coherence within nature between cause and effect. This, in turn, has led to belief in determinism, which understands reality as mechanical and without inherent value. Life's origins and the nature of humanity have natural rather than divine causation.

4. Secularism is a political or social philosophy that embraces each of these "-isms"--materialism, empiricism and determinism. It embraces natural causation and and rejects religious faith and worship in the public square. Nature, society, and government become instruments dedicating only to fulfilling our material desires which masquerade as "rights." This is fast becoming the dominant worldview among Western intellectual elites.

5. Secular humanism is a system or mode of thought or action in which human interests, values and dignity are predominant. This leads to a kind of intense pragmatism that calculates everything in terms of its benefit to humanity. There is no acknowledgment of God and his rule of the created order.

6. Post-modernism or New Ageism marks what is really a return to old-fashioned paganism, though with a distinctly modern twist to it. New Ageism takes distinctives of Eastern religion and distorts them with Western concepts. Post-modernism replaces the objective reality of God as revealed in special revelation with subjective deifications of individual expressions of spirituality. Waltke says, "it rejects the notion of a revealed moral code and instead tests truth by its therapeutic value." In this worldviews there are no better or worse cultures but merely differences between them.

I was able to see through these six faces of the new paganism how important it is that we get Genesis right! The irony, I suppose, is that I am not at all convinced that Waltke is correct in his views on creation. Still, he acknowledges the creator, of course, and acknowledging God as He reveals Himself in the Bible is a safeguard against the post-modern, secular humanistic viewpoint that pervades society. Those in our society who refuse to admit the existence of this God are soon left with materialism and from there empiricism and all that these -isms entail.

A La Carte (7/3)

Where Are Europe’s Babies?

"You can't have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home." The statement, shockingly obvious as it may be, was offered by Carl Haub of the Population Reference Bureau. He was speaking of Europe's looming demographic disaster. As The New York Times Magazine reports this week, many Europeans are now asking, "Where are the babies?"

The cover story is by Russell Shorto, who contributes some of the most interesting pieces run in the magazine each year. As he makes clear in this article, the radical decline in birthrates will bring equally radical social challenges.

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Quote - Inexcusable Hubris

I have recently been reading Bruce Waltke’s (rather large!) Old Testament Theology and came across this quote. It seemed appropriate in light of all of the attention being give to The Shack and its distinctly feminine portrayal of God. Waltke argues here that it really does matter how we think of God and how we address Him.

God, who is over all, represents himself by masculine names and titles, not feminine ones. He identifies himself as Father, Son, and Spirit, not Parent, Child, and Spirit, nor Mother, Daughter, and Spirit. Jesus taught his church to address God as “Father” (Luke 11:2) and to baptize disciples “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). God’s titles are King, not Queen; Lord, not Lady. God, not mortals, has the right to name himself. It is inexcusable hubris and idolatry on the part of mortals to change the images by which the eternal God chooses to represent himself. We cannot change God’s names, titles, or metaphors without committing idolatry, for we will have reimagined him in a way other than the metaphors and the incarnation by which he revealed himself. His representations and incarnation are inseparable from his being.

Book Reviews - “A Book You Will Actually Read” Series

In his rather unique ministry, Mark Driscoll has come across some rather unique challenges. Among these challenges has been finding a way of addressing some of the fundamentals of the Christian faith with a fast-growing church body comprised primarily of men and women who have no Christian background whatsoever. Because Driscoll sound found that he would not able to meet with each of these people one-by-one, he began to write booklets which were subsequently distributed by the thousands. Crossway happened upon these books and entered into a publishing agreement to print and distribute this series they’ve called “A Book You Will Actually Read.” The booklets are part of the literature ministry of Resurgence, called Re:lit (which, in turn, is a ministry of Mars Hill Church).

The “A Book You Will Actually Read” series is a growing collection of short books (under 100 pages) written by Mark Driscoll and addressing various foundational aspects of Christian theology. These are books that you will actually read and books that you can read in just about an hour. “The hope is that the big truths packed into these little books will make them different from the many other books that you would never pick up or would pick up only to quickly put down forever because they are simply too wordy and don’t get to the point.” They are meant to be a quick infusion of theology that invites the reader to investigate further. The first four titles available are On Who Is God?, On the Old Testament, On the New Testament and On Church Leadership.

On Who Is God?

This volume is divided into five sections: Knowledge about God (how we can know God exists), Perspectives about God (how different people relate to God), Nature of God (the attributes and names of God), Incarnation of God (prophecies of God’s incarnation and their fulfillment in Christ) and Worship of God (how we are to worship God). A lengthy appendix offers a list of books appropriate for further study. Driscoll says “This modest book is an attempt to briefly and simply explain who God is through the lens of both philosophy and theology. Certainly this book could be an entire library of books explaining in great detail the person and work of God, and this is therefore not intended to be exhaustive, but rather introductory in nature.”

On the Old Testament

On the Old Testament seeks to provide an overview and basic understanding of the Old Testament scriptures. The first section of the book answers nine common questions about this portion of the Bible (e.g. Who Wrote the Old Testament? What Is the Central Message of the Old Testament? Why Are There Different Bible Translations?) while the second section offers advice on how to read each of the literary genres. Driscoll explains this book’s genesis as being his own growing understanding of the Old Testament in the months immediately following his own conversion to the Christian faith.

On the New Testament

On the New Testament mimics the pattern established in On the Old Testament. Once again the first section of the book answers nine common questions about form, format and theology of the New Testament (e.g. Can Books of the New Testament Be Written Today? How Were the New Testament Books Chosen as Scripture? What Principles Can Help Me Interpret the New Testament?) while the second section offers advice on how to read each of the literary genres. Driscoll says, “My intent in writing this book is to be of service to you as a pastor. I have had to read a great number of books and spend thousands of hours in study since my conversion in order to arrive at the conclusions that I’m sharing with you. I wish someone would have given me this book as a non-Christian or new Christian because it would have been quite helpful to me. I pray that you will find it helpful as well.”

On Church Leadership

Whatever the agenda of Driscoll’s critics, they always seem to raise the issue of his complementarian understanding of church leadership. In On Church Leadership he outlines his understanding as clearly and thorough as he has ever done. He does so in six brief chapters entitled Pastor Jesus, Elders, Women in Ministry, Deacons, Members, Leadership Teams. Driscoll explains that he wrote this book to address the fact that so few of the people converted through the ministry of Mars Hill Church had any real understanding of leadership and gender roles within the church. “To help our people understand how we are governed, I wrote a booklet that we published internally to answer their questions.”

The books live up to the claim that they can be read in just about an hour. In fact, I read all four of them in a single five hour flight with time left over to read the airline magazine I found in the seat pocket ahead of me. In general I found them valuable reading. They are, by design, only a basic overview of the topics, but they still manage to cover those topics well. In most cases I found the appendices nearly as valuable as the books themselves. This is especially true for On the Old Testament and On the New Testament where the appendices (which are nearly the same) contain a great deal of excellent information on improving Bible study and building a study library. There is much wisdom to be gleaned. If there is a weak spot in the series, I would have to point to On Church Leadership which I felt did not deal as well with the subject matter as did the other volumes.

Two things should be noted. First, there is a fair bit of overlap in the books and several times the reader will find sections that have been copied and pasted from one to the next. But since the books are not necessarily meant to be read in sequence, this is more a note than a critique. Second, the reader will want to bear in mind that these books were written by a pastor specifically to his own congregation. Hence, while the theology is generally sound, the teaching and the format may not be transferable in all cases. The books may well be appropriate for placement in church libraries and elsewhere, but it would be wise for pastors and leaders to read the books carefully to ensure that they are suitable for that specific congregation.

Writing about these books Bruce Ware says, “Mark has a gift of taking weighty ideas and expressing them in clear and lively language” while D.A. Carson says the books are, “serious, informed, reverent, but not technical discussions of great themes.” I agree with both of these men. These books are uniquely valuable in their lively and relevant discussions of important theological themes. I look forward to further entries in the “A Book You Will Actually Read” series.

You can purchase them, of course, at Amazon.

A La Carte (7/2)

A Worldview Gone to the Dogs . . . Literally

The news out of New York City has to do with Leona Helmsley, a woman whose name (plastered all over Manhattan) became synonymous with the materialistic excesses of the 1980s. Helmsley, who died last August, still manages to make the news -- this time with regard to her instructions concerning the multi-billion dollar trust she left behind. Her instructions: The entire trust is to be spent on dogs. Billions of dollars.

Leona Helmsley became a presence in the news and the media through her involvement in the management and promotion of the many properties held by her husband, the late Harry B. Helmsley, who built a legendary fortune in New York real estate. Their many holdings included New York's prestigious Helmsley Palace Hotel, for which Leona did her own television advertisements as the "queen" who stood guard over her palace.

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It’s a Fact, Eh? - Canada Day

Today is Canada Day and I, like just about every other Canadian, am taking the day off from work. But it does give me a good opportunity to add a new article to the “It’s a Fact, Eh?” article archives.

Every year on July 1, Canada pauses for one day to focus on our nation. Though often compared to America’s Independence Day, Canada Day celebrates something quite different. The day marks the anniversary of the joining of the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada into a federation of four provinces. At this time what had previously been the Province of Canada was divided into Ontario and Quebec. This all happened on July 1, 1867. However, even at this time Canada did not become entirely independent and it was not until 1982 that Canada fully and finally severed political ties with Great Britain.

Though Canada Day (or Dominion Day as it was known then) was first instituted in the 1860’s there is no record of any substantial celebrations being held at that time. The Canadian citizens still considered themselves British and saw little reason to mark the occasion. In fact, the day really only became an important national holiday in the middle of the twentieth century. The centennial celebrations in 1967 really kicked off the tradition of marking the day in a special way. This year marks the 141^st anniversary of Confederation and also the 400^th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City, which also marks the founding of Canada. It is a good day to celebrate Canada.

Today many Canadians will mark the day by attending public events or celebrations—parades, festivals and the like. Most towns will hold public fireworks displays when night falls (around 10 PM in this area). The “official” ceremonies will be held on Parliament Hill on Ottawa and this is where our Prime Minister will make his Canada Day appearance. The province of British Columbia is celebrating in a very strange way by instituting a carbon tax that will raise the already-high gas prices by 2.4 cents per litre (10 cents per gallon) this year, rising to almost 8 cents per litre by 2012. Personally I prefer our plans, which involve heading to a local park and watching the kids have fun in the splash pad over there. Then we’ll probably enjoy lunch at McDonald’s (well, the kids will enjoy it) and head on home for a quiet afternoon. Because the fireworks are so late and because my girls are absolutely terrified of them, we’re unlikely to take in any of the local shows. We’ll have to wait until the kids are a little older before we do that. And, of course, we’ll pause to celebrate one of the greatest things about being Canadian—we’re not American.

Enjoy your Canada Day!

A La Carte (7/1)

A New Search and Destroy Mission

Even before the Nazi Party came to power, the doctors of Weimar Germany began to divide humanity into those who should live and those who should die. They developed the category of "life unworthy of life" in order to designate those whose infirmity, deformity, race, or lifestyle rendered them subhuman in terms of rights.

Similarly, the eugenicists of the twentieth century -- in America as well as in Europe -- called divided humanity into the "fit" and the "unfit," and called for more children from the fit, less from the unfit.

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Do Tummy Aches Disprove God?

The Heaviest Obligation

A.W. Tozer has been in the news lately (or in the blogosphere at any rate) following the release of A Passion for God, a biography of the man written by Lyle Dorsett. Dorsett dealt honestly with some shortcomings in Tozer’s character and I, like many readers, was surprised (and perhaps even shocked) by some of what I learned. Yet even as I’ve thought about these things, I’ve found that my high respect for Tozer remains. Much of what he taught continues to resound in my mind. Here is just one example of this.

Tozer premises The Knowledge of the Holy, probably his best-loved book, on the now-famous statement that “what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” While he does not provide a Scripture reference to back this claim (I don’t recall a verse that states, “God spake thus: what thou believest about me is the most important thing about thee…”) I believe he is correct in this assertion. After all, “the history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” If no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God, the same is true of individuals. We can never rise above our idea of God.

Why is this important? As Tozer says, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God…Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God.” And he is right, for once we have decided who God is, we chase after that image of God. It is, then, critically important that we learn about who God is through the Scripture, for this is His self-disclosure. Otherwise, we move towards a fabricated and false image of God. We put aside the real thing and chase after a mere shadow.

And here are words that gripped me and have long given me food for thought: “Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes into your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential religious leaders think of God today, we might be able with some precision to foretell where the church will stand tomorrow.” This is a sobering though, for when we survey the leaders of the church today we will find a vast variety of views on God, many of which are clearly unbiblical. We have “Christian” leaders who deny the Trinity and others who deny the atonement. We have leaders who, it seems, must never have stopped to seriously consider just what they think of God. There are many followers who have likewise never stopped to consider who God is, what He has done, and what He demands of us. And as we can see where the church will be led in the future, we can look at the leaders of families, men like myself, and understand where we will take our families. When I survey my heart and ask what comes to mind when I think about God, I will know where my family will stand tomorrow.

“It is my opinion,” writes Tozer, “that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.” If this was true of the middle of the last century, how much more true is it in the early years of the current century? And yet, “All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him.” But still many Christians do not think deeply about God, about what He is like, or about what we must do about Him. “I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.”

This is a serious matter. “Before the Christian church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets a wrong answer to the question, ‘What is God like?’ and goes on from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind.”

And here is Tozer’s charge: “The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worth of Him—and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.”

Having read these words and having pondered them, I see, more clearly than ever, the importance of placing myself and my family under the leadership of spiritual leaders who have a high and biblical view of God. If nothing is more telling and more important than what comes into my mind when I think about God, it must also be critically important that I learn from men who think deeply about God and who humble themselves under His word. And I see the importance of being the kind of spiritual leader who has a conception of God that is worthy of God. This task of learning who God is through his self-revelation in Scripture, and honoring Him as He really is, is the greatest service I can do to my family and to its future generations.

A La Carte (6/30)

A Date with Disaster — Presbyterians Approve Homosexual Clergy

Meeting in San Jose, California, the Presbyterian Church USA, the liberal branch of American Presbyterianism, moved to approve homosexual clergy on June 27, 2008 -- a date that may well mark a final blow against biblical orthodoxy in that denomination.

The PCUSA has debated sexuality issues for decades now, with activists for homosexual ordination pressing their case until they finally got their way at the denomination's General Assembly. In that historic meeting, the General Assembly actually approved several proposals.

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Thirty Three Things (v. 68)

Memoirs - A Best Friend

Several times a day a train rumbles along the tracks that cross our street—Eureka Street—just a few houses up from our home at number thirty-eight. It is a passenger train, one made up of a long string of double-decker cars. In the morning it shuttles commuters from Markham and Unionville into downtown Toronto and in the evening it brings them home again. In the morning it drives with the engine at the front; in the evening the engine is at the back, pushing from behind. Occasionally a freight train comes through at night. Though visitors to our home insist it wakes them up and sounds as if a locomotive is driving right through the yard, I have long since grown accustomed to it and barely notice it anymore.

Beside the track is an old freight yard or something—I never really learn what it is. Giant oil tanks stand behind a beat-up old chain link fence. My friends and I have little trouble passing through the fence and there we find huge puddles, ponds almost, filled with frogs and tadpoles. We collect as many as we can and bring them home in pails, watching them sprout legs and eventually hop away. One day the old man next door, the grandfather to one of my friends, tells us that the puddles are filled with lime and that if we ever step in them we’ll need to have our legs cut off. We never go back there again and eventually the old tanks are torn down and carted away.

I find a way of making a little bit of money from the train. I get it in my head one day to put a quarter on the track and to let the train run over it. Sure enough the train’s wheels pass over that coin and leave it smashed flat. I take it to school and the kids are jealous. I tell them that I can do the same for them, but it will cost them. The next day I am back with a whole row of coins, but I’ve charged each of those kids for the privilege of having their coins pounded beneath the train. I’m seven years old and a budding entrepreneur. I use my windfall to buy gum, baseball cards and little styrofoam airplanes. I feel rich.

One day I am biking down the road and have to stop at the crossing as a train goes by. Another boy who looks about my age stops his bike beside me. I vaguely recognize his face, but cannot place him. He looks at me; I look at him. “Got a staring problem?” I jeer at him. He insists he doesn’t and we begin to talk. I soon recognize him from a local camp I went to. His name is Paul. He gives me his address and telephone number and I run home and write them down. A few days later I go to his house, which is only a short distance away, and a friendship is born. Though we do not go to the same school or the same church, Paul and I become the best of friends. At my wedding some fourteen years later, he serves as my best man. There is never any question.

Paul and I have the kind of friendship every boy should experience. Though we are very different in many ways, we have so many of the same interests. He and I both love anything that involves soldiers and guns and destruction. We pretend endlessly that we are soldiers, creeping through my big backyard with guns at the ready, taking fake potshots with fake guns at the real planes that fly over on their way to the nearby airport; we play baseball in the court outside his house, using tennis equipment to make the ball go further and tearing up his lawn as we slide hard into home plate; we build whole worlds out of Lego. We play mostly at his house because where I have three noisy younger sisters, he has only one quiet older brother. It’s an easy decision and we try as often as we can to get away from the little girls. I learn to love his family and they come to love me, referring to me affectionately as their “third son.”

Paul is a good friend, and a best friend, though eventually life begins to take us in different directions. I marry and become preoccupied with my family; Paul moves far away to Thunder Bay and begins life anew in the north. Though we see each other only rarely today, when we do meet up we never lack for things to talk about. There are just so many memories to recall and to relive together. I pray that my son is so blessed as to someday have a friend like Paul.

Book Review - Heaven Without Her

I came very close to tossing this book away. With so many books coming my way these days, I need to move assess them quickly, determining which are worth a closer look and which are not. I cannot read them all. In this case, I saw the cover, I saw the title, I skimmed the back and thought “not likely.” But then I noticed that the author had included a little note inside. There she drew my attention to a couple of the endorsements that she felt would be meaningful to me—namely, Nancy Pearcey and Mark Buchanan, both authors whose works I am fond of. As I looked further I saw that it is also endorsed by Ray Comfort. Based on all of this I decided I would read it. And I’m glad I did.

Heaven Without Her is a memoir. It is the life story of Kitty Foth-Regner, who, until the year 2000, was living exactly the life she wanted for herself as an ardent feminist. She owned her own business, and a rather successful one at that, had a live-in boyfriend whom she loved, and owned a house with a beautiful garden. It was all she had ever wanted. But when she learned that her mother had a terminal illness and as she watched her mother succumb to death, her heart was stirred with questions of eternity. Was there something to her mother’s Christian faith, or was that faith really nothing more than wistful delusions?

Kitty set out to determine what was true. Her searching took her through most of the world’s major religions (and a few more). She saw quickly how each of them failed to offer good answers and true comfort. All but one, that is. As she explored Christianity through the guidance of sound pastors and theologians, she found a faith that offered answers to the toughest questions. She found a God who loved her as He had loved her mother before.

In this book, Foth-Regner documents hear search. In a fun and narrative style, she describes how the Bible answered all of her questions and how her heart was first convicted, then convinced, and finally renewed. The unthinkable happened—she became a Christian, and this despite so many years of feminism and agnosticism. Her old passions and desires fell away and were replaced with new ones; holy ones.

Heaven Without Her is a valuable read and I think an important one. i consider it an important apologetic work. Sure it presents truths that have been written in other books over and over again, but rarely have they been written in so readable a style. The innovation here is not so much the content as the style and its readily accessible format. This is an ideal book to give to a person who may have questions about the Christian faith. For that person who seems to be seeking or searching, this is a book that can provide answers and can show how God has worked in the life of another of His children. Despite my initial apprehension, having read the book I now highly recommend it.

(Interestingly, Amazon shows that people who bought this book have also bought Same Kind of Different As Me, another fantastic memoir. I recommend them both!)

A La Carte (6/27)

Memoirs - Speech Day (1989)

Over the past few weeks I’ve been writing down some memories. It has been a fun process of just thinking about the past and recording some significant events and moments. While I’ll probably post them mostly on weekends, I thought it would be fun to post this one today. I see this as a testament to God’s grace in my life that so much as changed.

It is the worst day of my life. Today I will have to stand before my classmates and deliver a speech. I am shy—almost unbearably shy. I never, ever raise my hand in class to answer questions. When the teacher’s eyes roam the room looking for a person who can answer a question, I cringe and hide behind the person ahead of me, doing anything, anything, to avoid eye contact. When I know my turn is coming, I almost panic, sweat beading on my forehead and my face blushing crimson. And today I will be called upon to stand in front of my classmates and a panel of parents to give a speech. It’s almost more than I can bear.

I know my speech is good. I’ve chosen to discuss and to refute evolution, rather a safe topic in a Christian school. My mother pitched in to help me gather and organize my material and I am confident that the content is as good as anyone’s in the class. We’ve even consulted Nancy and Rick Pearcey, our good friends who are well-versed on the subject. I’ve got funny illustrations about millions of monkeys banging away at millions of typewriters; I’ve got fascinating facts about the absurdities of evolution and the truths of Scripture. I have memorized the speech so I will not be dependent upon my notes. If I can just deliver the content well, I am convinced that I am likely to win the competition (a mixed blessing, to be sure, since this would then earn me the dubious privilege of competing against the best of the other local Christian schools).

I watch as a couple of classmates deliver their speeches with mixed results. Some are disorganized while others have clearly neglected preparation. A couple stumble for words and repeat their speeches in voices that are only barely audible. My hearts beats faster as I realize that we are closer and closer to my time. Finally my name is called and I slip to the front of the class, my eyes firmly fixed on the carpet. I reach the front and look out at the rows of desks, and behind them, the panel of judges. My heart rate increases. I don’t know if I can do this.

“Teachers, judges and classmates…” With my heart in my throat I begin my speech, stumbling a little at first but soon speaking a little more smoothly. I may have expected that it would get easier as I go, that I would stop noticing all of those eyes staring back at me. But it does not get any easier. Finally, finally, after what seems like hours, I make it to the end of my speech. I glance at the clock. Uh oh. When I timed my speech at home it had come in at around fifteen minutes; yet only five minutes have passed since I began. And already I am finished. Lots of people are smiling; a few are laughing. The Principal makes a crack that I do not hear and everyone laughs. I sit down, mortified, as one of my classmates says something about the “Micro Machine Man.”

My speech, my wonderful speech, is an absolute ruin. Because the content was sound, I still manage to pull of an acceptable mark. But the judges later tell me that if only I had slowed down and given the speech in an intelligible voice, I would have been a finalist. I would have had a good chance of winning.

I realize that day that I am not cut out for public speaking. It reaffirms that I will not answer questions in class and that I’ll continue to be the back-row guy that no one notices. I do not stand before a crowd or give another speech for fifteen years.

Reading Classics Together - The Next Classic (Round 4)

To this point the “Reading Classics Together” effort has gone very well, at least by my assessment. We’ve read J.C. Ryle’s Holiness, John Owen’s Overcoming Sin and Temptation and A.W. Pink’s The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross. We’ve had hundreds of people participate by reading the books together and discussing them each week. All along we’ve been reading some of the classics of the Christian faith—books many of us wish to read but books few of us have ever made time for. And now it is time to decide on the next classic we’ll read together.

There are two names that were continually in my mind as I pondered where we should go next: John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. The potential trouble with both of these men is that their seminal works are, in a word, long. If we are to read a long work I wonder if I may just be reading alone by the end. Regardless, I have decided that works of this quality will be worth it. And so I am proposing that our next book be The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards (all 350+ pages of it).

Here is what the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University says about the work:

A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections stands as Edwards’s most penetrating interpretation of the awakenings of his time, not to mention one of the most penetrating of any time. As in Some Thoughts, he argued against the extremes of emotionalism on the one hand and intellectualism on the other. Affections were essential to true religion, but they had to be tested. First, Edwards lays out his religious psychology of affections, which encompassed both understanding and will and involved the total range of human faculties. Answering critics of the revival, Edwards then discusses at length a series of “negative” signs, or unreliable criteria for judging the graciousness of affections. Finally, and most famously, he provided twelve “positive” signs for self-examination. The twelfth sign, which Edwards gave the fullest treatment, was the importance of Christian practice as evidence of the state of the heart. Here, for Edwards, was the ultimate standard for visible sainthood.

It is going to be a demanding read, and something of a long one, but I know the payoff will be worth every second spent in the book.

I will be reading from the Banner of Truth edition of the work, but you can follow along in any of the unabridged editions (of which there are many available). For technophiles, there is a Kindle edition available for only a couple of dollars. For those who are not interested in spending money, CCEL has the complete text available in HTML, PDF and other formats right here.

If you wish to purchase a printed copy of the book, you can do so from Amazon, Westminster Books, Monergism Books or just about anywhere else good Christian books are sold.

We will target July 17 as our start date. That gives you three full weeks to secure a copy and to read the Introduction and Preface. Then, every Thursday following, we’ll read a portion of the text and discuss it together.

It would be a helpful gauge of participation if you’d post a comment on this post indicating that you’d like to read this book with us. So if you are going to read along, let me know, either with a comment or a quick email. I’m looking forward to reading this next classic with you!

Book Contest: J.I. Packer Edition

Since last week’s little contests went over well, I thought I’d try another one. The style is similar—here we have a list of 21 quotes. Each of these quotes are endorsements for a book and each is written by J.I. Packer (quite the prolific reader and endorser!). As I am flying to Vancouver for a meeting tomorrow, it seemed to me that Packer would be an appropriate subject.

Your task is to send me a list of the titles and author(s) for each of these books. Send your list (partial or full if you can figure out all of them). Whoever gets the most right will win a $50 gift certificate for Westminster Books. Should two or more correctly identify all of the books, I will randomly select a winner from among them. Where the book’s author or title is explicitly mentioned in the endorsement, I have replaced them with [Author] or [Title].

Now I know that you can probably Google most or all of these—and that is not against the rules. By why not at least think about them first and see if you can figure them out. There is no advantage to being the first to submit your answers, so don’t feel you need to hurry. Just get your answers in before 12 PM Eastern tomorrow and I will announce a winner as soon as I can get to a computer and tally it all up.

Submit your answers here.

1. “The healthy biblical realism of this study in Christian motivation comes as a breath of fresh air. Jonathan Edwards, whose ghost walks through most of [Author]’s pages, would be delighted with his disciple.”

2. “This extended declaration and defence of the penal substitutionary view of Christ’s atoning death responds to a plethora of current criticisms, many of them in-house, with a thoroughness and effectiveness that is without parallel anywhere. The book’s existence shows that a British evangelical theology which exegetically, systematically, apologetically and pastorally can take on the world is in process of coming to birth. I hail this treatise as an epoch-making tour de force, and hopefully a sign of many more good things to come.”

3. “[Author]’s insight into human nature, divine grace, and Christian life yields a better blueprint for marriage than the self-absorbed rule-ridden role-play with which too many stop short. This is a wise and liberating book for struggling couples—and many others, too.”

4. “In this crowded world of Bible versions [Author]’s blend of accurate scholarship and vivid idiom make this rendering both distinctive and distinguished. [Title] catches the logical flow, personal energy, and imaginative overtones of the original very well indeed.”

5. “It is a privilege to commend so sensible, clear and fruitful an overview of basic Christian belief.”

6. “[Author]’s disarming introduction to personal faith is a modern classic. Long life to it!”

7. “Following in the footsteps of the late great Francis Schaeffer, two leading scholars here give wide-ranging guidance on how today we may show we are Christians by our love.”

8. “Brilliant [Author] is one of God’s best gifts to our decaying Western church, and would-be learners and teachers of the faith will gain hugely from these fascinating pages.”

9. “Clear, well informed, up to date, and firmly anchored in the mainstream of Christian wisdom. Oriented to the church, the Holy Spirit, and the future in a biblically proper way, this work transcends the rationalism and individualism that mar some of its predecessors…An outstanding achievement.”

10. “[Author] rises grandly to the challenge of the greatest of all themes. All the qualities that we expect of him—biblical precision, thoughtfulness and thoroughness, order and method, moral alertness and the measured tread, balanced judgment and practical passion—are here in fullest evidence. This, more than any book he has written, is his masterpiece.”

11. “[Author]’s offensive against Arminian-type views of election among evangelicals is a very solid piece of work. The thoroughness of its arguments gives it conclusive force.”

12. “Here is a modern reader’s edition of a classic Puritan work by a classic Puritan author. It is a powerful Trinitarian profiling from Scripture of the truth that fellowship with God is and must ever be the inside story of the real Christian’s life. The editing is excellent, and the twenty-seven-page introduction and the thirty-page analytical outline make the treatise accessible, even inviting, to any who, with Richard Baxter, see “heart-work” as the essence of Christianity. [Author] is a profound teacher on all aspects of spiritual life, and it is a joy to welcome this reappearance of one of his finest achievements.”

13. “Careful, thorough, wise, and to my mind, convincing.”

14. “Here is the quintessence of the gospel, the new wine of God’s kingdom at its purest for us today! Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest [title].”

15. “Thought is packed tight in this masterful survey of the covenantal frame of God’s self-disclosure in Scripture, and for serious students it is a winner.”

16. “This 25-year-old classic still makes one think, pray, get real with God, repent, and find joy in wise obedience more effectively than any other book I know. I cannot recommend it too highly.”

17. “[A] sober, encouraging book…The two sides of the author, the biblical scholar who reads, thinks, and misses no detail and the pastoral teacher who understands people, feels with them, and cares for them, combine here to give us a treatment of suffering under God’s sovereignty which is outstandingly accurate, wise, and helpful. All who follow the author’s fast-flowing argument will find their heads cleared and their hearts strengthened.”

18. “Honest historian [Author] informs us straightaway that he views the Christian story through the lenses of Protestant, Reformed, evangelical, baptistic, free-church spectacles. His telling of the tale, journalistic in style while scholarly in substance, then proves his point. You will find this book clarifying and invigorating.”

19. “[Author]’s exciting study…is a major step forward in the reappraisal of Puritanism…no student in the Puritan field can excuse themselves from reckoning with this important contribution.”

20. “I commend this eager and warm-hearted tour guide to the Book of Common Prayer with much enthusiasm …”

21. “This racy little book open up a far-reaching theme. With entertaining insight [Author] looks into the attitudes, alliances, and strategies that today’s state of affairs requires of believers. Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox alike need to ponder [Author]’s vision of things—preferably, in discussion together. What if he is right?”

A La Carte (6/25)

Coming to a Mall Near You — Planned Parenthood’s New Strategy

"It is indeed a new look...a new branding, if you will." That's the explanation offered by Leslie Durgin, a senior vice president at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. She was speaking of Planned Parenthood's new "upscale" approach to marketing abortions and other "services" to wealthier suburban women.

This new strategy and marketing plan was described in chilling detail by reporter Stephanie Simon of The Wall Street Journal [article available by subscription only]. "Flush with cash, Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide are aggressively expanding their reach," she explains, "seeking to woo more affluent patients with a network of suburban clinics and huge new health centers that project a decidedly upscale image."

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Celestial Teapots, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, and Other Silly Atheist Arguments

Book Review - Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life

I think it is safe to say that, of all theologians contemporary or ancient, few have had as profound an affect on my life as Francis Schaeffer. Though I’ve read little of what he wrote, though he died when I was only a young child, and though I have never heard even one of his sermons, I know that my faith has been shaped by him. He was, after all, a major influence on my parents and on so many of their friends. Shortly after their conversion, my parents went three times to various European L’Abri locations, spending upwards of a year at them. In so many ways Schaeffer shaped their fledgling faith just as they later shaped mine. I am indebted to him as I am to them. And in this I am hardly the only one. Though it has been almost twenty five years since his death, Schaeffer’s impact is still felt throughout the Christian church.

Despite my indebtedness, and despite his influence over me, I know so little about Francis Schaeffer. Though widely admired, it seems that few people have taken on the challenge of documenting his life (his son’s recent attempt notwithstanding). It was with great interest, then, that I turned to Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life, a new biography written by Colin Duriez, who has previously written accounts of the lives of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The publisher’s description aptly summarizes the content. “From his working-class childhood in Pennsylvania, to the founding of L’Abri, his personal crisis of faith, and his latter years as a compassionate controversialist in the worldwide spotlight, all the eras of Schaeffer’s life unfold within these pages. But Duriez, who studied under and interviewed Schaeffer, also takes a deeper look, revealing those distinct life phases, as well as Schaeffer’s teachings and his complexities as a person, within their historical context so that contemporary readers may better understand all of who Schaeffer was—and why he still matters today.” Duriez depends largely on oral history he gathered—upwards of 150,000 words of it, to describe the life of this great Christian.

I find that there are at least two kinds of biographies. There are some where the reader closes the cover and feels as if he now knows a lot about the book’s subject; then there is the occasional sublime biography where the reader closes the book and feels as if he truly knows the subject. While I wanted this biography to fit in the latter category, I feel that it fits instead in the former. This is not meant as a critique as much as an honest assessment. Though the book has undoubtedly increased my knowledge of Francis Schaeffer, my respect for him, and my understanding of his impact on the church, I do not feel as if I really know him, as perhaps I did with Jonathan Edwards after reading Marsden’s great account of his life or with Whitefield after enjoying Dallimore’s two-volume masterpiece.

Yet the book stands on its own merits and it stands well. It is thorough without being burdensome and grapples well with the complexities of Francis Schaeffer, his life, and his ministry. It describes a man who had a unique gift for teaching and a deep, reverent love for his Saviour.

The best and, to my knowledge, the only full-length biography of Schaeffer available today, this one is well worth the read. I do not think it will stand in history as the definitive account of Schaeffer’s life, but it is still a very good account and one that will bless you as you read it. If you have been influenced by Schaeffer or if you have sought to understand his ministry, you will want to secure a copy for yourself.

A La Carte (6/24)

Betraying God in Worship

Only on rare occasions can I bring myself to buy greeting cards. When it is Aileen’s birthday or when it is our anniversary, I either tell her how I feel (not something I’m particularly good at most of the time) or I buy a blank card and fill it with my own words. Or occasionally, to my shame, I forgo to card altogether. For some reason it just seems fake, disingenuous, to give her a card with a little poetic inscription written by someone else—someone who has never met her and knows nothing about her. What do the words mean when they’ve come from someone else? It seems that a card like that really means nothing to me, and I would rather give her a card that has come from my heart rather than the mind of a stranger. I prefer to invest the time and affection in expressing myself for her benefit.

Have you ever stopped to consider what it must be like to work for Hallmark or another of the companies that create greeting cards? Imagine spending your whole day attempting to come up with wonderful statements of deep feeling—love, remorse, sympathy—yet without feeling any of the associated emotions. Imagine having to write words that express sympathy, yet not feeling any sympathy yourself. Or imagine having to write words that can express the deep, passionate love a man has for his wife as they celebrate fifty years of marriage, but without having ever experienced that sort of love yourself. It must be very odd to spend the whole day writing words of love and passion from a husband to a wife but then return alone to an empty home and a life lived alone.

I fear that all too often I, as a Christian, can worship God in just this way. So often I sing songs with the most wonderful lyrics, but in a way that betrays my true feelings. I sing “When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.” But when I sing those words, so often it is as if I am a single man writing a greeting card to celebrate a fiftieth wedding anniversary. Though the words may sound wonderful, they are devoid of any true understanding. When I sing “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me” do I even try to understand just how amazing God’s grace is? Have I experienced that grace and allowed it to transform my life? Do I know that the very grace I sing about is the only thing keeping me from an eternity of separation from God? Do I feel deep love and affection to the giver of grace? Or do I merely parrot back the words?

True worship relies on both feeling and understanding, or as Jesus said, on spirit and truth. Worship that is devoid of feeling and emotion will be dead worship, for the God we serve is worthy of feelings that express His worth. He evokes these feelings in those who love Him. It is the very height of hypocrisy to pay lip-service to God when I do not truly feel affection for Him. At the same time worship needs to be thoughtful. While it engages my feelings it must also engage my mind. My feelings must have their basis in what I know about God so that the more I know about Him the greater will be my feelings of affection for Him.

Before I married my wife I heard time and again from the wonderful older couples in our church that after forty, fifty or even sixty years of marriage, they continued to love each other more deeply and more intimately. I marveled that this could be true, yet through the first decade of my marriage I have already seen that it is not only possible but it is the way God intended marriage to be. I love my wife in a deeper way now than I did the day we exchanged vows. In the ensuing years we have faced trials together and have spent countless thousands of hours talking and laughing and worshiping together. The more I learn about Aileen and the more time I spend with her the greater my feelings of affection for her. To know her is to love her, and to know her more is to love her more.

Likewise, great knowledge of God must produce great feelings of affection for Him. These feelings of affection give me the burning desire to worship Him. I long to express my feelings, not as a means to some devious or selfish end, but simply as an expression of the affection I have for Him. As such, worship is not a means to an end, but it is an end in itself.

A La Carte (6/23)

In Error and Apostate — The Anglican Division Looms

The world-wide Anglican Communion has been skating on thin ice for decades now, skirting disaster only by an infinitely creative arrangement of compromises. Now, with the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops coming in just a few weeks, a group of 300 conservative Anglican bishops is meeting in Jerusalem. Their meeting will make history, and may well define the ultimate breakup of global Anglicanism.

The Global Anglican Future Conference [GAFCON] featured an address by Dr. Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Nigeria, on Sunday evening. Archbishop Akinola has emerged as one of the most courageous and theologically committed leaders of worldwide Anglicanism.

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Thirty Three Things (v. 67)

Book Review - The Snake Charmer

The Snake Charmer is one of two books I plucked from Dr. Al Mohler’s suggested reading list for dads. It is a book that is rather unlike any I’ve read before. It is a biographical account of the life of Joe Slowinski, one of the world’s great herpetologists. Slowinski dedicated his life to studying snakes and, in particular, poisonous snakes.

In 2001, Slowinski led an expedition of biologists and botanists as they traveled through the jungles of Burma. It was there that he was bitten by a many-banded krait, the most deadly snake in Asia and one of the most deadly snakes in the world. A world away from any kind of hospital or clinic, Slowinski knew that his chances of survival were slim. It was this quote, provided by Dr. Mohler, which gave me an interest in reading the book:

As his friends gathered around, Joe calmly explained what was happening to him. No one in the world knew more about the venom of Bungarus multicinctus than Joe Slowinski. He described the effects of a slowly deepening paralysis: The snake’s venom works on several different parts of the nervous system simultaneously, blocking the nerve impulses that transmit instructions to the muscles, including those required to maintain life. There will be no pain, he told them. “First my eyelids will drop; I won’t be able to hold them up.” Soon he would lose the ability to speak and move his limbs, he said. Within a few hours, his respiratory system would shut down: The paralyzed central nervous system would be unable to instruct the diaphragm to breathe, causing a swift death by asphyxiation…

As the morning wore on, Joe’s physical condition deteriorated precisely as he had predicted it would. In stark contrast to the hysteria that prevailed after Joe was bitten by the cobra when he was filming with the National Geographic team, the scene at the schoolhouse in Rat Baw was wonderfully calm, even solemn. Joe lay down on his sleeping bag in his tent, with Moe Flannery and Guin Wogan lying next to him to provide human warmth and comfort. The men quietly gathered nearby. Joe asked someone to find an Ace bandage he could wrap around his right forearm to slow the traffic of blood and lymph in his hand, though by now the toxin had passed throughout his body. There was nothing more to be done except wait and see how serious the bite was.

Written by Jamie James, The Snake Charmer is a good and interesting account of the life of this man. He is a man who is hard to like—he was brash and immature and obnoxious; he was committed to understanding nature through a Darwinian lens and had only venom for creationists. Yet he was a man who loved God’s creatures and who fought to understand and preserve them. Woven into the book are many interesting facts about some of God’s least-understand and most-feared creatures. This book is an easy read and a perfect selection for a warm summer day outdoors.

The Church Bulletin Project

A short time ago I was trying to help a friend redesign the bulletin for our church. In need of inspiration, I took to the web and began looking for examples of bulletins. I was rather surprised to see that there was really not a whole lot available out there. The majority of sample bulletins I dug up were the Christian equivalent of Microsoft Word’s clip art collections—covered with awful art that someone thought would appeal to Christians. Most of them were unsightly. Few offered anything interesting in terms of the layout of the information within; it is the text layout that interests me more than the “bells and whistles.”

I thought it would be interesting and perhaps helpful to piece together a small collection of church bulletins. Perhaps this can help inspire others as they attempt to create the perfect bulletin for their church.

So I am asking if you will do me a favor. Will you keep the bulletin from your church this weekend and send it to me? You can scan it, photograph it (assuming it’s a photo of reasonable quality) or mail it to me. Once I build up a collection, I will post them for all of us to see.

Thanks in advance!