Elliot Ritzema

Author: Elliot

  • June 2009: Books Read

    1. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller. I’d been looking forward to reading this since it came out last year, and when I was talking with my cousin (who is not a Christian) over Christmas about a book to possibly read together, I knew this was the one. Since February we have been reading about a chapter at a time, he e-mailing me his thoughts and me responding with my thoughts. It has been a fruitful dialogue, I think, mostly because Keller covers so much in this book. The first half features chapters on various questions/objections that people in North America have about Christianity (e.g., “How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?”), and the second half features chapters that examine the claims of Christianity. Keller has clearly done a lot of thinking about cultural and philosophical issues and a lot of talking with non-Christians, and it shows. I highly recommend it both for believers who want an overview of modern/postmodern Western objections to Christianity, and unbelievers who want to know what some responses to those objections are.

    2. A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society by Rodney Clapp. The title of this book says it all, really. Clapp argues that we are in a post-Christian society, and says that the church’s response to this situation should not be to attempt to reassert Christian cultural dominance but to become a culture unto itself. I bought it used, and the previous owner had written a lot of question marks in the margins, and I could see why. It’s much too short for Clapp to really develop his arguments, so I’m not too sure that it’s likely to convince many people who don’t already agree with the thesis. I enjoyed it, but wouldn’t call it a life-changing book. For those who want more fully developed thought in this area, I’d recommend the work of John Howard Yoder or Stanley Hauerwas.

    3. Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch. I’m a sucker for books about culture. All you have to do, as an author or publisher, is put the word “culture” in a book title, and you can guarantee that I’ll at least pick it up and look at it. I was already familiar with the work of Andy Crouch, largely through the influence of my Sunday School teacher when I went to Third Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Fritz Kling. Back then (this was seven years ago), Fritz would hand out copies of the magazine of which Crouch was the editor, re:generation quarterly. I remember reading through a few issues and especially liking Crouch’s voice. One time, Crouch even came to Richmond and I went to meet him with Fritz and a group of others. I don’t remember a lot about the meeting except that Crouch talked about highways and how they were a product of and also produced culture. I thought his habit of looking behind the stuff of everyday life and wondering why it was there and what it said about culture was fascinating, and a good habit for me to develop too.

    Culture Making has talk about highways, and so much more. Crouch rejects one-dimensional Christian responses to culture, calling us to reject some, embrace some, but above all, make some. Culture abhors a vacuum, he says, so it isn’t enough for us to just pick and choose what we like and don’t like. If we want good culture(s), we need to make it. He presents a reading of the Bible in which culture is prominent, and urges us to stop trying to change the world. What we can do, instead, is start making culture in small groups (“the 3, the 12 and the 120,” he calls them) and trust God to magnify our culture-making efforts.

    It also has the story of what happened to that little magazine, re:generation quarterly. It failed, but Crouch encourages his readers to try and make culture, even if it sometimes means failure. Crouch is a good writer, and this is a good book. I hope it makes it into the hands of many Christians.

    4. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Even though many people of my generation read this book when they were in junior high or high school, I did not. Since it has been so powerful for so long and for so many people, I decided to read it.

    How can I review a book like this? I can only say that it was heartbreaking in its ordinariness. Everyone who reads the book knows how extraordinary the circumstances were under which it was written: Anne and seven other Jews hid in a secret apartment in Amsterdam for over two years as most other Jews in Europe were shipped off to death camps by the Nazis. In the end, the residents were shipped off too and only Otto Frank, Anne’s father, survived.

    Despite the extraordinary circumstances, though, the most compelling part about the book to me was just how ordinary it was. Anne was truly gifted as a writer, but in so many ways she was just like any other girl: she had conflicts with her parents, she desired romantic love, she had hopes and dreams for the future. One reason for the popularity of this book, I think, is that so many people can relate to Anne. She seems like us, or like someone we know and love. And because she is so like the rest of us, we can’t help but be chilled and saddened by the fact that what happened to her happened to millions of others, and could happen to anyone.

    5. The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day. I can’t remember the first time I heard who Dorothy Day was, but I’ve been curious to read this book, her autobiography up to the early ’50s, for a while. The front of my copy of the book calls her a “legendary Catholic social activist,” and I was curious to see how she got started, what motivated her, and what led to the Catholic Worker Movement, which she co-founded.

    The book didn’t disappoint. It was a quick read, and I found her description of the movement and the people involved to be inspiring. It made me want to be a part of something like it. Her writing isn’t all inspirational, however. After all, it is called The Long Loneliness, and she is honest about the loneliness it is possible to feel in the midst of many people and in the midst of a great movement.

    One tidbit that was surprising to me was that Day was not a socialist in her Catholic Worker days. I had assumed that she was… I suppose because I had read somewhere that before she became a Catholic she worked on several socialist newspapers. She actually describes herself as an anarchist and pacifist.

  • Truth Project 11: Labor (Created to Create)

    My group finished the Truth Project two weeks ago, but I’ve still got a couple of tours to review. This one is on Labor, and the last one is on Community.

    Del begins this penultimate tour by asking what the fourth commandment is. Anyone who knows the Ten Commandments would probably call it the Sabbath command, but Del calls attention to the fact that it begins with a command to work for six days (Exodus 20:9-11). He calls it instead the “labor command.” He goes on to say that the reason why God gave this command is because of his own nature: he rested on the seventh day and made it holy.

    The world’s view of work, according to Del, is that it is a “four-letter word.” It’s just something people do because they need the money. He says that “we’re seeing an increase in a negative view of work, corporations and this whole sphere.”

    Del then asks if God is concerned with economics, and whether he has spoken in this area. He refers us to James 5:4, which says, “Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.” He also refers us to Proverbs 22:29, which says, “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings…”

    Next Del turns to the historical example of Johannes Gutenberg and his invention of the printing press – arguably the most significant event of the last thousand years. Gutenberg worked, and his work changed the world. The world has certainly used the printing press and other inventions for evil, but the kingdom has been advanced by this and other inventions as well.

    Then Del returns to the Bible. In the early chapters of Genesis, God is depicted as the original worker, who placed Adam in the garden and told him to work it. This, says Del, shows that work was not originally a negative thing. Now it is often seen that way. What happened? Del’s answer is the curse of the Fall. His image of work before the Fall is of us in a canoe, paddling downstream. Now we are asked to paddle upstream. Work is still a good thing, but it is harder.

    Del stresses the importance of this sphere, but says that we (as Christians) don’t talk about it much. He gives us a general economic model in the style that he introduced to us in Tour 7: a circle with three actors in it. In the economic model, God is at the top, below and to the right is the steward, and at the bottom are material things. The important thing to remember in the general economic model is that God owns everything, and people are asked to take care of material things for him.

    After introducing us to the general economic model, Del lays out seven economic principles:

    1: All things belong to God (Ps. 50:7-12)

    2: God appointed man to be a creative steward of his goods with “ownership” rights. (Gen. 1:28) Under this principle Del defines economics as “management of the property that ultimately belongs to God over which He has placed a steward and over which that steward will be held accountable.” He also gives us a picture of the labor sphere: the Owner at the top, the worker below and to the right, and material things at the bottom. He refers to Ephesians 6:5-8 (“Slaves. obey your earthly masters…”) in this connection.

    3. Theft of another’s goods is wrong, (Ex. 20:15) and coveting another’s goods (like class envy and demand for redistribution) is wrong (Ex. 20:17).

    4. Skills and abilities to work come from God (Ex. 35:30-33)

    5. Work is profitable, good, and to be pursued; laziness is not (Prov. 14:23, 2 Thess. 3:10).

    6. Love God and not your goods (Matt. 6:19-20).

    7. Be compassionate and generous with your goods to those in need (Lev. 19:10). Del says that one of our responsibilities is to the poor: not to give them a handout, but to employ them. After quoting the verse in Leviticus, he says, “We need to ask ourselves, ‘What are the gleanings of our work?’” He says that the poor need a job. Where do those jobs come from? Not from the state, but from the sphere of labor.

    Del then shifts gears and starts talking about the arts and media. The presence and power of the arts and media are overwhelming, and Del quotes Francis Schaeffer as saying, “Whoever controls the media controls the culture.” Del asks whether truth applies to this area, and answers with an emphatic “yes.” If it doesn’t, he says, we will continually find ourselves persuaded by what is vile. He shows an interview with Gordon Pennington of Burning Media Group, who says that we ought to pursue truth in the area of the arts and media. We ought to approach work the way J.S. Bach approached his: at the end of most of his manuscripts, even his “secular” work, he wrote the initials SDG – Soli Deo Gloria, “For God’s Glory Alone.”

    Finally, Del shows an interview with Makoto Fujimura, an artist who argues that all art forms belong to God and urges Christians to leave behind their suspicion of the arts and pursue creative fields.

    I found this tour a welcome change from the previous tour, on the United States, in which I thought Del made some major errors. I think Del is correct in thinking that many Christians do not think about their work as Christians, and instead see it as just a way to earn money. Del’s call for Christians to devote more attention to the sphere of labor, and to think about work in terms of calling, is something that the church needs to hear.

    I also liked it that Del stressed Christians’ responsibility to the poor, not just to give them a handout, but to give them meaningful work. I was challenged by his question, “What are the gleanings of our work?” That is, what are the areas in which we can refrain from maximum wealth production for ourselves and instead provide the poor with work?

    I didn’t like Del’s implication that the relationships within this sphere are Trinitarian – but then, I expressed that objection during his tour on Sociology, so I don’t need to repeat it here.

    I also didn’t like it that Del laid the problems of this “sphere” at the feet of the world. Non-Christians are not the only ones who make work into a four-letter word. In fact, there are many non-Christians who love their work so much that it becomes an idol. I thought that Del was making a vast oversimplification here in saying that the “culture” thinks work is a bad thing. Some do. Some don’t. Del doesn’t help us relate to our neighbors when he paints with such a broad brush. Instead, he encourages us to think in caricatures.

  • Rock Garden

    For those of you who, like me, spend too much time on the Internet looking for (free, if possible) sermons and lectures to put on your MP3 player, let me put you on to a good source.

    Rikk Watts is a professor of New Testament at Regent College, where I went to school. Every two weeks during the school year, he gives evening talks at a young adult gathering called The Rock Garden at New Life Community Church in Burnaby, BC. The talks that he has given dating back to 2001 are available at no charge at the Rock Garden Web site (UPDATE 8/9/13: I checked the link that used to be here, and found that it no longer points to the Rock Garden site, so I removed it. I am not sure whether these talks are available online anymore). I was often busy on Sunday nights during my time at Regent, so I only went to the Rock Garden once, but I have greatly benefited from listening to the lectures and sermons available on the site.

    I should also mention that Regent has lots of classes and lectures available at regentaudio.com. It is wonderful that they record so much (and I have purchased a few classes and stand-alone lectures myself), but unfortunately for sermon and lecture gluttons like myself, you have to pay for it.

  • Truth Project 10: The American Experiment (Stepping Stones) – My Thoughts

    These are my reflections on tour 10 of the Truth Project. For a summary of the tour itself, go here (or just look below this post).

    This was one of the most difficult tours to watch. The reason is that I am familiar with the argument that Del proposes about the founding of the United States, have spent time studying it, and have found it historically inaccurate, misleading to a lot of Christians, and damaging to the church.

    Del’s thesis, broadly stated, is this: the United States was founded as a Christian nation. He is not saying that the people of the United States used to be all or even mostly Christians. He is not saying that the founders who crafted our founding documents were all or even mostly Christians. He’s not even saying that the United States has ever acted in a “Christian” manner. He is saying that the founders “tried to lay down biblical principles in the founding of this country.” If this thesis is true, then there is no problem with Del’s presentation. But if, as I will argue, Christianity was not the only influence in the founding of the United States, but one of many, then when we say the United States was founded on “biblical principles,” we are in fact combining Christianity with non-Christian influences, watering down the gospel, and neutering the church. Let’s examine Del’s claim, looking at his presentation chronologically.

    Del begins his argument by looking at the history of education in the United States. What he says does show that Christianity certainly had a greater cultural influence during the colonial era than it does today. His quotes from prominent founders show that they thought religion was very important for fostering virtue and morals. But does it prove that they were trying to lay down “biblical principles” in the founding of this country? I think that we shouldn’t go farther than the evidence suggests. All we can say from these quotes is that Gouverneur Morris, Sam Adams and Benjamin Rush thought that a virtuous people were the best kind of people to preserve a republic. Adams and Rush think that Christianity is the best source of virtue. I don’t see any official state recognition of Christianity here. I just see wise politicians placing a high value on virtue in the populace, and seeing that religion, specifically Christianity, is the best source of virtue. It seems to me that the emphasis in these quotes is not necessarily on Christianity, but on fostering virtue.

    Misleading Statement #1: Noah Webster was not, as Del would have us believe, a “founder” of the United States. He did not attend the Continental Congress or the Constitutional Convention. He did not hold public office until 1800. He was certainly a prominent citizen in the early days of the republic, but was not a founder.

    Del then recounts his own journey, saying that the history he learned as a young man is history that has been rewritten to exclude Christianity. It may be that the role of Christianity has been downplayed in some circles (though examples of this would have helped). But does that give us carte blanche to retaliate by ignoring non-Christian influences? This eye-for-an-eye method of history, it seems to me, is bound to leave everyone blind.

    Not only Del’s method of doing history, but also his biblical interpretation (which is often good in the other tours), is suspect. He quotes Revelation 2:5, which is Jesus speaking to the church at Ephesus, and says, “When Jesus removes his lampstand from a place, that church, that nation, becomes very dark.” Where in this verse, or this section of Scripture, is a nation mentioned? From the context, is Del justified in blurring the lines between church and nation? I don’t think so. This interpretation, which equates the United States with the church of Jesus Christ, is absolutely unjustified.

    Del continues to quote Founding Father after Founding Father, including George Washington, but if you look at the quotes closely, all you can come away with is that these men apparently thought religion and morality were important for preserving freedom. Again, as in the first round of quotes, their emphasis seems to be on fostering virtue. Christianity seems like just a means to the end of fostering a virtuous people. Del says during this round of quotes that “they [the founders] came here with a fundamental biblical worldview.” It is probable that some of them did (although it couldn’t really be said that the Founding Fathers “came here.” With the exception of a few, like Alexander Hamilton, they were born here. Perhaps Del is confusing them with the Puritans, who did come – 150 years earlier). Benjamin Rush certainly seems to have positive words for Christianity in particular (though if you read more about him, you will find that he was a Universalist). But all this is far from proving that the founding principles of the United States are biblical. All it proves is that several Founding Fathers thought Christianity was important for fostering the virtue that a republic requires. This does not mean that the United States is or was distinctly Christian or founded on “biblical principles.”

    The quote from Alexis de Tocqueville is an interesting one, because it shows the fusion of Christianity with other ideas in the founding era. Christianity and political liberty had become fused together in the United States, indicating that Christianity was in fact, as I am arguing, combined with other influences.

    Then Del turns to the Declaration of Independence. He says that human rights come not from the state, but from the Creator. I suppose if you want to talk about rights, then it’s better to have them come from someplace other than the state, because the state is prone to abuse them. But the idea of inalienable human rights, technically, is not something found in the Bible. They sure are found in John Locke, though, as well as the English common law tradition. This is another example of how Christianity was blended together with other influences in the founding of the United States.

    Del then says that he has heard over and over that the term “nature’s God,” used in the Declaration, is a Deistic term. So he quotes Edward Coke. But Coke’s quote, if anything, reinforces the idea that “nature’s God” is Deistic. Coke doesn’t talk about God’s intervention in history. He doesn’t talk about the history of Israel and the church. He doesn’t talk about Jesus. All he talks about is God putting the law of nature into man’s heart “at the time of creation.” Here is a definition of Deism from Wikipedia: It

    is a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme god created the universe, and that this and other religious truth can be determined using reason and observation of the natural world alone, without the need for faith.

    Coke’s quote looks a lot more like Deism to me than orthodox, biblical Christianity.

    But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that orthodox Christians used the term “nature’s God” too, and that it’s impossible to tell just from the fact that it is used whether it is meant as a Deistic or a Christian term. Even the fact that there is confusion, that there is a co-mingling, that there is a vagueness in language is troubling. Because if it isn’t entirely clear what Jefferson meant by the term “nature’s God” in the Declaration, when we take that term and say it is Christian, we’re taking a vague, amorphous conception of God and saying this is the God of the Bible. At best, it’s confusing, and at worst, it’s watering down the faith.

    I’ll skip over Del’s discussion of legal positivism, because I actually liked what he had to say there. But when he mentions that “virtually all” of the 13 colonies had religious tests for the holding of public office, I sat up and took notice.

    Misleading Statement #2: Del says that “virtually all” of the original 13 states had religious tests for office. Many of them did, but not all. Virginia and New York did not. Also, though Pennsylvania’s constitution originally contained a religious test, it was struck down before the Constitutional Convention in 1787. So it is not “virtually all,” but 10 out of 13. 77%

    It seems that the founding generation was not of one mind regarding religious tests. On the one hand, it is true that, as Del said, many of them wanted religious tests in order to ensure that those in public office were God-honoring men. But on the other hand, there were also many who were wary of religious tests because they were all too familiar with the religious tyranny caused by national churches in Europe. Most importantly for our present examination of Del’s claim that the nation was founded on biblical principles, Article VI of the Constitution contains the phrase, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” In the debate over the ratification of the Constitution, this very clause was brought up time after time in the state ratifying conventions. Many people wanted it taken out, and a religious test inserted in its place. But the Founding Fathers prevailed, and it stayed in -thus ensuring freedom of religion.

    Del then goes farther back than the founding generation, to the mid-17th century. He quotes the Constitution of the New England Federation of 1643.

    Misleading Statement #3: It is anachronistic to call a confederation of colonies in the 17th century “the United States.” The United States came 130 years later.

    The quote from this Constitution indicates that the people drafting it came to New England in order to advance the kingdom of God. That is all well and good, but the Puritans didn’t found the United States. As mentioned above, there were 130 years between this document and the United States Constitution. Over the course of that time, the influence of the Puritans waned and was combined with other influences, such as classical republicanism, radical Whig thought, English common law and the Enlightenment liberalism of thinkers such as John Locke.

    Del then quotes Ben Franklin’s plea for prayers to be offered during the Constitutional Convention.

    Misleading Statement #4: Although Franklin did make a public plea for prayer during the Constitutional Convention, it is worth noting that that plea was not acted on during the course of the Convention. Franklin’s proposal was not voted on, and no prayers were offered.

    Del closes with three more biblical passages, in addition to Revelation 2:5, mentioned above: Hosea 13:6, Deuteronomy 8:10-20 and 2 Chronicles 7:13-14. This is the most troubling part of this tour. He takes passages which are God speaking to his people (in the Old Testament examples, Israel; in the New Testament example, the church) and applies them to the United States. This is wrenching texts out of context, and results in blurring the lines between the church and the world. There were nations that thought of themselves as God’s Chosen Nation before the United States, and there probably will be after we’re gone. But we don’t have any biblical evidence that suggests God planned to choose a modern nation-state as his special people. To suggest otherwise is frankly unbiblical.

    This post has been rather long, and I haven’t even gotten into the Treaty of Tripoli of 1796, which is often brought into these discussions about whether the United States was founded on “biblical principles.” But in case you missed why this tour was so troubling to me, I’ll close by saying it as clearly as I can:

    There are some quotes that show several Founding Fathers thought that religion and morality made a better republic. Some (like Benjamin Rush, Samuel Adams and John Jay) had kind words for Christianity in particular and could be described as Christians. I do think that Christianity did have an influence in the founding of the United States, and that should not be ignored or minimized. But Christianity was certainly not the only influence. It was combined with other, non-Christian influences. The God mentioned by our Founding Fathers was in many cases a vague deity. When modern Christians take these vague references to “nature’s God,” or “Providence,” or “The Deity,” and claim that they are really references to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus Christ, they dilute Christianity. And when Christians take Bible passages about Israel or the church and apply them to the United States (or any nation), they dishonor Jesus by saying his bride and his body are not really who the Bible says they are.

    But don’t just take my word for it. Read the sources for yourself. In addition to the original source documents, which I recommend most highly, I’d recommend The Search For Christian America by Mark Noll, George Marsden and Nathan Hatch (Christians all, by the way), Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? by John Fea, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn, and The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America by Frank Lambert. Any of them are more fair-minded than the historical revisionism that Del gives us in this tour. Del’s definition of historical revisionism is “fiddling with the past to control beliefs in the present,” and that is exactly what he does. Ignoring non-Christian contributions to the United States for the purpose of making people believe that our founding was more Christian than it was is historical revisionism.

    My guess is that the main motivation for using selective quotes to make the founding of the United States seem more Christian than it was is to hang on to whatever influence Christianity had (real or imagined) in our society. My advice is: it’s not worth it. It’s not worth it to turn God into a vague deity, old and toothless, who does nothing but bless America. It’s not worth it to neuter the church by trying to merge it with the state. That has never worked. Forget about clinging to influence in society and trying to restore us to a mythical golden age. It won’t work, and it only alienates people from Jesus and the church. Instead, we should be faithful to the dangerous but good God of Jesus, and the church will turn the world upside down, the way the early church did.

  • Truth Project 10: The American Experiment (Stepping Stones) – Summary

    I’m going to warn you right now that this might be one of the longer entries in this series of reviews of Focus on the Family’s The Truth Project. What follows is my summary of the tour, and since the summary is so long, I will post my response separately.

    Tour ten of The Truth Project begins with Del issuing a disclaimer (much like he did before tour five). He says that he has three rules: we are not here to deify America, we are not here to deify the founding fathers, and the third is that we will not cast stones at the unbeliever.

    He begins the session proper with a question: what should the state (“the King”) look like? Whoever he is, he must see himself in relation to God. Del says that we are looking at America not because he (Del) is an American, but because he thinks that those who founded it had a comprehensive biblical worldview. The founders were sinful people like anyone else, but “I’m convinced,” Del says, “they tried to lay down biblical principles in the founding of this country.”

    Del then looks at education in America. He says that there is a great hatred for America within “liberal academia.” It is a country that people love to love and love to hate. He shows the difference in American education between the time that the states were colonies and now. The second best-selling book in the colonies (behind the Bible) was the New England Primer, which contained Bible lessons and catechisms. Now, Del quotes educational reformer John Dewey as saying that faith in God is outmoded and there is no natural law and no absolutes. Del also notes that at their foundings Harvard, Princeton and Columbia were all explicitly Christian, but now none of them are. He then quotes several “founders” (I’ll explain later why I put this in quotes) on education: Gouverneur Morris, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Rush and Noah Webster. They were all of the opinion that religion (specifically, Christianity) is of foremost importance for education of young people. He also cites Article 3 of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance to this effect.

    Del then asks, “How do we reconcile these statements with the idea that America was founded as a secular country?” Del himself was taught this, and he tells the story of how he came to change his mind. He worked in Washington, D.C. in the early ’90s, and while he was there he got to know more about the murals that decorate the walls in the Capitol. One is of Christopher Columbus, the second is of the baptism of Pocahontas, and the third is of the Pilgrims on the ship Speedwell. All three of these are religious, Del says, and profoundly Christian. Del then quotes Revelation 2:5, which is Jesus speaking to the church of Ephesus:

    Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

    Del explains this quote by saying, “When Jesus removes his lampstand from a place, that church, that nation, becomes very dark.”

    His transitional moment, he says, came on a Saturday morning when he attended an event where someone dressed as George Washington reenacted his farewell address from 1796:

    Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports… In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens…

    Del then quotes John Adams and Benjamin Rush to bolster the same point made by Washington: religion and morality are the foundations of freedom (Adams) and of republican government (Rush). He returns to Washington’s Farewell Address to make the point that morality can’t be maintained without religion. He cites Charles Carroll, Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry in quick succession to reinforce this claim. He also cites Rush again to show that it is not just religion in general, but Christianity:

    Christianity is the only true and perfect religion; and that in proportion as mankind adopt its principles and obey its precepts they will be wise and happy.

    Del then turns to Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, to argue that religion and politics, at the beginning, were closely tied to one another in America:

    The Americans combine the notions and Christianity and liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive one without the other.

    Del interjects that this is no longer true; we are taught that religion and politics don’t mix. He then cites Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, John Adams and Daniel Webster to the effect that laws are inadequate to govern people who are not already governed internally. Here is Adams:

    Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

    “The foundation of this country is not the Constitution,” Del says. “It is much deeper than that.” He doesn’t say exactly what it is, but one can reasonably assume that he means religion (specifically Christianity) and morality.

    Del revisits Romans 13 (which he looked at in the previous tour, on the role of the state), saying that the role of the state is to punish evil and condone good. This means that the state must know the basis for calling something good or evil. What do the founding documents of the United States say about the basis of calling something good or evil? Del quotes the Declaration of Independence:

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…

    The rights of man do not come from the state, but from the Creator, Del says. He quotes the Declaration again:

    … and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitles them…

    Del says that he has heard the term “Nature’s God” is a Deistic term. He claims that it is not, and quotes Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634):

    The law of nature is that which God at the time of creation of the nature of man infused into his heart, for his preservation and direction… the moral law, called also the law of nature.

    He also quotes William Blackstone, an English jurist who wrote an influential treatise on the common law called Commentaries on the Laws of England.

    Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.

    Del says that “laws of nature” is a legal term that comes from Coke and Blackstone. However, Del says, something has happened in the concept of law in America, as a result of the theory of evolution. Darwin’s Origin of Species was published in 1859. In 1869, Charles Eliot was appointed president of Harvard. In 1870, he appointed his friend Christopher Columbus Langdell as the head of Harvard Law School. Eliot and Langdell both believed that evolution was true. Langdell, Del says (supporting this with a quote), approached law the same way evolution is approached in biology. Law is, said John Chipman Gray, one of Langdell’s colleagues in changing the view of law in America

    a living thing, with a continuous history, sloughing off the old, taking on the new.

    This new legal philosophy was called legal positivism, which Del defines as “the claim that the state is the ultimate authority for creating, interpreting and enforcing law. All legal truth is based on the decision of the state.” Del quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes as a proponent of this view of the law.

    Del then quotes Noah Webster to the effect that it is important for people in political office to “rule in the fear of God.” Del says that virtually all of the constitutions of the early states had religious tests for office – that is, they had to make a statement before taking office that they were Christians or at least believed in God. He cites the original Delaware state constitution as an example. He says they did this because people wanted to make sure that if they gave the power of the sword to the civil magistrate, they wanted to make sure that he bore that power under the authority of God.

    Going back to the larger story, Del cites the “first Constitution of the United States,” the Constitution of the New England Federation from 1643. It says

    Whereas we all came to these parts of America with the same end and aim, namely, to advance the kingdome of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to injoy the liberties of the Gospell thereof with purities and peace, and for the preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospell…

    Del thinks it is because of these roots that it is now in vogue to hate America. He has Fr. Robert Sirico, head of the Acton Institute, talk about how we got to this point. Sirico says that Judaism and Christianity invented Western civilization, and asks, How did we lose control? and How are we going to re-insinuate ourselves into it?

    Del says that when he was young he was taught to believe, in contrast to Sirico, what Bishop Paul O’Brien says, that the United States was started by pagans and Deists. Del says that it was a Deist, though “not in the modern sense of the term” who stood up at the Constitutional Convention on June 28, 1787 and proposed that the delegates have someone (a clergyman) pray for them and their deliberations every morning. Del responds, “That’s one of your least religious founders. A pagan? I don’t think so!”

    Del then quotes Alexander Solzhenitsyn as saying about Russia in the 20th century: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened,” and Del applies this to the United States. He also applies these three passages from the Bible to the United States:

    When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me. – Hosea 13:6

    Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonousb snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. – Deuteronomy 8:10-20

    When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. – 2 Chronicles 7:13-14

    After quoting Hosea 13:6, Del says, “The warning is to us.” After quoting 2 Chronicles 7:13-14, he says, “It is you and I that must go before the Lord.”

    Del ends with the metaphor of light and darkness. It is very interesting, so I will quote it in full:

    Darkness doesn’t overtake light; light overtakes darkness. Why this rise of hatred for America? Why is this historic revisionism going on? If the enemy can destroy the Christian’s passion for America, then he has won the major battle for the soul of this nation. If you do not have a heart for her , if you don’t have a passion for her, you can learn all you want about Christian worldview… but you won’t do diddly doo for her. [Quotes Revelation 2:5] If Jesus removes the lampstand, we will become a dark nation like many who have fallen before us.”

    The above is just my summary of tour 10. Since I thought it was very important to include many parts of Del’s argument, it is long. So I will stop there, and leave my response to this tour until the next post.

    Update: My response is posted here. And just to warn you, I probably disagreed with Del on this tour more than any other tour of the Truth Project.

  • May 2009: Books Read

    1. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I had never heard of John Irving until I lived in Eastern Europe and saw his books in all the English language bookstores I visited. His overseas publishers are apparently amazing. I picked this particular one up just before my trip to Boston, because i thought it would be fun to read a book set in New England while I went to New England. As usual, I didn’t have as much time to read on the trip as I thought (which was good), and so I didn’t finish it until early May.

    The first hundred or so pages went pretty slowly, because there were so few surprises. I had seen the movie Simon Birch, which is based on this book, and the plot of the movie follows the first part of the book pretty faithfully. It became more interesting a couple hundred pages in, when things not contained in the movie started happening. It was a bit bizarre, though, to read about Owen growing up, driving, and smoking, because from the movie I always thought of Owen as an 11-year-old boy.

    The scope of the novel was also much larger than I had realized, too. It turned out to be not only a heartwarming tale of life in small-town New Hampshire, but a commentary on the Vietnam War. All in all, it was an interesting read, and I liked how Irving kept turning the screws and leading the story to its inevitable, tragic conclusion. My only complaint is that, by the end of the story, I didn’t find either of the protagonists (Owen or the narrator, John) to be sympathetic. I wasn’t particularly rooting for them, though it was interesting to see how things eventually played out. The main reason why I stopped rooting for Owen was that he screamed at his parents for coming to see him in a nativity play, and this was never explained. He became a much less sympathetic character as a result. The reason why I stopped rooting for John was that by the end of the book he had become whiny and cynical. Maybe Irving portrayed his characters this way on purpose, to make them anti-heroes, but to me it just made the book less enjoyable.

    2. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright. This book has been very popular in the past year, and I very much enjoyed reading it. Having gone to Regent, however, this book didn’t really have any “Aha!” moments for me. I was already familiar with the (biblical, but somehow overlooked in modern Christian culture) idea that we are meant not just to go to heaven when we die, but that we are to be resurrected and the New Jerusalem will come to earth.

    I thoroughly enjoyed the book, though I wish that Wright had spent more time emphasizing the biblical roots of his ideas. He does refer to the Bible quite a lot, especially in chapter 14. He also refers a good deal to longer discussions in his heavier books, like Jesus and the Victory of God and The Resurrection of the Son of God. It’s not that I don’t think his ideas are biblical; I just think that relying heavily on the Bible for every major point would go a long way toward silencing his critics who suspect that he is saying something new and strange. But I suppose there would always be critics, even if there were multiple Bible citations on every page.

    3. The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr. This is a novel involving talking animals, and it reminded me of Animal Farm by George Orwell. Unlike Animal Farm, however, this book was not intended to be allegorical. It is just a fantasy involving talking animals, and I thought it was rather a good one. The main character is Chauntecleer the rooster, who rules over a domain that even includes larger animals. He keeps time several times a day, rather like the set prayers that monks do, through his crowing. The narrator tells us that God put Chauntecleer and the other animals in place in order to keep watch over Wyrm, a great evil force that lies deep under the surface of the earth. Chauntecleer and the other animals don’t know anything about Wyrm until Wyrm tries to break free through the agency of his minion Cockatrice, a cross between a rooster and a dragon. It is a story of good vs. evil, and culminates in a huge battle between Chauntecleer and the other animals on one side and Cockatrice and his many serpent children (and ultimately, Wyrm) on the other.

    This was a fun book to read, and I’m glad I read it. Wangerin is a good storyteller, and he kept my attention the whole time. The only complaint that I would have, if any, is that the plot moves too quickly. Significant events in the book, like the final day of battle, only take up a few pages. Perhaps Wangerin intended the book for a younger audience than me. I would recommend it for children age 11 (or so) and up.

    4. God Will Make A Way: What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. I bought this book several years ago, during the summer of 2003 between my year in the Czech Republic and my year in Hungary. At the time, I was not sure what I was going to do after I was finished teaching, and the title really jumped out to me. I never got around to reading it until just now, though.

    It is by the authors of the well-known book Boundaries, and it is about what the title indicates: relying on God to make a way when life seems hopeless or just stuck. In the first part of the book, they give several principles to live by, and in the second half they talk about how those principles play out in various areas, like dating, marriage, divorce, addiction and planning for the future. It was not a life-changing book, since much of what I read here I had already read elsewhere, but it was also not a bad book. It was a good reminder of God’s providential care.

  • Truth Project 9: The State (Whose Law?)

    In tour nine of the Truth Project, Del looks at the State. He begins with a definition of politics from the first edition of Webster’s dictionary, 1828:

    The science of government; that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity; comprehending the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest … and the protection or its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.”

    Del then asks his audience whether the state can steal. He sets out to give his answer to this question by telling the story of a couple who had worked throughout their lives on a farm, and when the husband died the state took half of their property. He also gives an example from 1 Kings 21, where King Ahab and Jezebel had Naboth killed so they could take his vineyard. God, speaking through Elijah the prophet, calls this murder and theft. So, Del says, the state can steal.

    Then Del gives another example from Daniel 4:29-35, telling the story of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar looks out over his kingdom and swells with pride at how he built it all himself, and God judges him for his pride by making him live like an animal for a while. Del asks, “Who is in control here?” The answer is that God is sovereign over kings, and he cites several Bible verses (Proverbs 16:9-10, Proverbs 21:1, Daniel 2:21, Romans 9:17) to that effect.

    Del then turns to the question of what the sphere of the state is supposed to look like. He refers to 1 Samuel 8 and asks why Israel asked for a king. Del’s answer is that it was because their leadership (at that time, Samuel’s sons) was corrupt and they wanted to change their form of leadership. Samuel then warned them that if they got a king, that king would take what belongs to God. This is a warning, says Del, that they would become as slaves.

    So is the king sovereign over every sphere? Del turns to Abraham Kuyper and Neo-Calvinism’s notion of “sphere sovereignty” to explain this. Basically, sphere sovereignty is the idea that each sphere of life (e.g. the state, the church, the family, labor) has its own responsibilities and authority, and stands equal to other spheres of life (to paraphrase Wikipedia). The question is whether the state has sovereignty over other spheres. Del cites 2 Chronicles 26, the story of King Uzziah going into the temple to burn incense (and being punished with leprosy for it), as an example of the state (the king) meddling with the church (the temple). “This idea of sphere sovereignty,” Del sums up, “is critical to God.” This is why, in cowboy movies set in the Old West, criminals running from a posse can run into a church and the posse can’t follow them in. The churches exist outside the state’s sovereignty.

    Then Del cites Romans 13:1-6, pulling out three main ideas: authority, submission and purpose of the state. Del says that delegation of authority is found within the nature of God (John 17:1-2, 1 Corinthians 15:24, 27-28), and various forms of submission are found in the Bible (wives “subject” to their husbands, bondslaves “subject” to their masters, people “subject” to their rulers, all in Titus 2-3). Christians have the duty to pay taxes, respect and honor to the civil magistrate (Romans 13:7, 1 Peter 2:17). The purpose of the state is to punish evil and condone good. The state (in the form of the civil magistrate), says Del, is an agent of God’s wrath. If the state doesn’t know the basis for calling something good or evil, then good becomes whatever is in the state’s best interests.

    Del expands on this theme of the state doing what is in its own best interests by talking about pathologies that we have seen develop in various states throughout history. “The problem with pathologies in this sphere,” Del says, “is that they end in mass graves.” The one pathology that Del pays the most attention to is the rise of the state, when the state removes God and takes over sovereignty of other spheres. Del says that without God, this rise of the state continues until we have a global state.

    Del concludes that one of the attributes that marked the Roman Empire at its end was an increased desire to live off the state. Del returns to 1 Samuel 8 to say that when we look to the state (or a king) for our salvation and guidance, we are rejecting God.

    Del certainly covered a lot in this tour, and as is the case much of the time, I liked a lot of what he said. I agree with Del that God is sovereign over the state and that it is possible for the state to steal. I also agree that one of the effects of a loss of reliance on the transcendent God is that might makes right. There becomes no standard other than self-interest. And I also agree that in our sinful world, the state tends to aggrandize itself.

    But as one person in my discussion group put it, I like it when Del is speaking directly from the Bible, but when he doesn’t, not as much. In this tour, he tacitly endorsed the standard conservative American emphases of small government and property rights. In fact, much of this tour was standard conservative fare. Now, it may be possible to make a biblical argument for such things as property rights and limited government, but Del doesn’t make that argument. And any time Christianity is presented as being compatible with a non-Christian ideology (as conservatism is—and liberalism, too), red flags go up for me. Christians may well be on the same side of certain issues as followers of ideologies, but when Christianity is aligned with an ideology without tension and without remainder, that is a major no-no.

    Also, he accepted it as a given that sphere sovereignty is there in the Bible and that this is the way all Christians should view various spheres of life. However, not all Christians think that sphere sovereignty is self-evidently the way Christians ought to view the world. Del’s example from 2 Chronicles 26, in particular, can be explained in another way than appealing to sphere sovereignty. Del implies that the reason why King Uzziah broke out in leprosy was because God wanted to keep the spheres of government and religion separate. But as 2 Chronicles 26:16 says, the great sin of Uzziah was pride. He was overstepping his bounds, for sure, but the reason God was angry with him was because he did not think he needed to be consecrated (as the priests were) to offer incense. I don’t think that this would have been a problem if it had gone the other way, or if Uzziah had not been proud. I think of Samuel, in particular, who was a priest but who was intimately involved in the governance of Israel. I also think of David, who was king but danced before the Lord wearing a linen ephod (a priestly garment). At another point in David’s life, he and his men ate consecrated bread that was meant only for priests (1 Samuel 21). David was not condemned for either of these ventures outside of his “sphere.” There doesn’t seem to be as much biblical support for sphere sovereignty as Del would have us believe.

    Sphere sovereignty is certainly a legitimate concept through which Christians may interpret the world, but I’m saying that it’s not self-evidently the only biblical one (for example, Catholics have an idea called subsidiarity, which says that a matter should be handled by the smallest authority capable of handling it effectively). Del misleads us when he acts as if sphere sovereignty is the only game in town.

    Other than that, this was a good tour. Del’s warning at the end about the dangers of the expansion of the state and the desire to live off the state being a mark of a dying culture was perhaps too apocalyptic for my tastes. I think, for example, about the context of Romans 13. When Paul was writing, the “state” that he was talking about was the Roman Empire. I doubt whether Paul agreed fully with its ideas of what was good and what was evil. If Paul can write “let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established” about the Roman Empire, of all things, I think that Del’s apocalyptic language is a bit overblown. If Paul wants Roman Christians to submit to the rulers of the pagan Roman Empire, how come Del is so agitated about modern states, in many of which Christians at least have a political voice? I don’t want to speculate about what Del’s own politics might be, but I can’t help but wonder whether he has political interests that shape the stark language he uses at the end of this tour.

  • Truth Project 8: Unio Mystica (Am I Alone?)

    In the eighth tour of the Truth Project, Del (the presenter) looks at the mystical union between God and humans. He begins by talking about mysteries, saying how much he loved Hardy Boys books when he was a kid, and referring to Ephesians 5:31-32, which says that the mystery of marriage “is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” God, Del says, have given us a mystery and has also written the end of that mystery.

    Much of the early part of this tour consists of laying a biblical foundation for the doctrine of the mystical union between God and humans. Del cites Colossians 1:27, John 15:5, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 2:20, and John 14:16-17, all in the interest of showing that “the God of the universe dwelling inside us is the greatest mystery.” God has invited us into the Godhead.

    Another aspect of this mystery is that the church is the body of Christ, and God is interested on oneness in that body (1 Corinthians 12:27, Romans 12:4-5, 1 Corinthians 10:17). There is another aspect, which Del calls the “Mystery of Christ.” Citing Romans 16:25-26, Ephesians 1:9-10, 3:6 and especially Galatians 3:28-29, Del says that this mystery is that there are no racial barriers in Christ, no economic or class barriers, and no gender barriers. God wants his church to be united in him and with one another (John 17:20-23). This, Del says, is why you see so many “one another” commands in the New Testament (e.g. 1 Peter 1:22, Galatians 6:2, James 5:16), especially “Love one another” (John 13:34-35).

    After setting forth what our relationship with Christ and one another ought to be, Del looks at the pathologies that keep us from intimacy, fellowship and unity. The major pathology that Del mentions is our hunger for significance, for people to notice us. God has given us this hunger, but it needs to be satisfied within the covenant relationships God gives. Del gives a few biblical examples of how this hunger can become a pathology, like Saul’s jealousy of David and Jesus warning people to not do their “acts of righteousness” to be praised by others (Matthew 6:1-4). What keeps us from intimacy, Del says, is that we abandon God and prostitute ourselves. Our greatest desire should be for God (Psalm 42:1-2).

    Overall, I liked this tour. There was a lot of scripture quoted in it, which for a Christian worldview curriculum like the Truth Project is very good. I had never seen the various mysteries mentioned in the New Testament rolled up into one the way Del did it. This is not necessarily a bad thing; I had just never seen it before.

    Even though the title of the tour could appear individualistic (“I” rather than “we”), I found that the tour itself was not particularly individualistic.

    I also liked that Del, in addition to telling about what God wants for us, talked about those pathologies that keep us from being what God wants us to be. If he had ended after the first part of the tour, viewers would have been left with the issue of how the church all too often doesn’t look how it is meant to look. As it is, we can see that God intends for his people to be united to him, but we fail to be what we are meant to be. The fault lies with us and our pathologies, rather than with God.

    This was one of my favorite tours of the Truth Project. It lacked some of the things that have caused me to have a mixed reaction to several other tours. For one thing, it was saturated with scripture, and Del did not go farther than scripture warranted. It also did not include negative comments about people with differing worldviews, or who have other opinions. All in all, a very good tour.

  • 1 Corinthians 12:12-31: “One Body, Many Parts”

    This past Sunday, I preached at my church. Soon the church will post the audio of it on its Web site, but for now here are my notes. I’ve fleshed them out a bit so you can follow the gist of the sermon:

    What do the letters “INFP” mean? They are a Myers-Briggs type, and this is in fact my Myers-Briggs type. I visited a Web site this week that lists famous people who are listed under each personality type. Just for fun, I’ll read some famous INFPs:

    Homer (author of the Iliad and the Odyssey)
    Mary, mother of Jesus
    John, the beloved disciple
    Luke, author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts
    William Shakespeare
    Helen Keller, deaf and blind author
    Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood)
    Dick Clark (American Bandstand)
    Neil Diamond, vocalist
    Tom Brokaw, news anchor
    Julia Roberts, actor
    Fred Savage (“The Wonder Years”)
    Fictional INFPs:
    Anne (Anne of Green Gables)
    Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes)
    Bastian (The Neverending Story)
    E.T.: the Extra Terrestrial

    The Myers-Briggs isn’t the only personality test out there. Every time I log in to Facebook, it tells me that another one of my friends has taken a test to, say, find out which Muppet they are. In addition to personality tests, for Christians there are also spiritual gifts inventories. You take them, and you can figure out where you fit in the church: whether you should be prophesying or making coffee.

    Why do people love these kinds of assessments so much? I would argue that we want to know that we’re not strange. We want to know that we are unique and that our quirks have a purpose. We want to know where we fit in.

    There were no Myers-Briggs types in the ancient world, but here Paul is scratching that itch for significance for the Corinthians. He does it with a twist, though: he says “you are unique, and you matter – but it’s not all about you. You have special gifts, but you fit into a larger body.” The big idea in this passage is not just that we are special, but that God has put us all in the same body, each with unique gifts, and we need each other.

    The Corinthians thought the Christian life was all about them. They thought that having spectacular gifts was the sign of true spirituality, and people who didn’t have them weren’t really spiritual. The spectacular gift to beat all spectacular gifts for them was speaking in tongues. So their worship was very disorderly, because the people who spoke in tongues were falling all over themselves to prove how super-spiritual they were, and were ignoring other people. The passage breaks into four parts:

    12-13: No Lone Rangers

    Paul tries to correct the Corinthians’ error by comparing the church to a body. We are Christ’s body, and we are each parts of that body. What unites us is not our race or our culture or our social status, but our baptism by one Spirit. Take a minute to think about how radical this is – especially in Corinth, where many of the problems the church had had to do with their preoccupation with status. Now take a minute to think about how strange this seems even today. There are, or should be, no race divisions in the church, no distinctions based on status. If the church remembered this throughout its history, modern slavery wouldn’t have happened – or at least the church wouldn’t have been complicit in it. It’s a good thing that some Christians, like William Wilberforce, understood what verses like this meant.

    What unites us is that we were all baptized by the same Spirit. What is spirit baptism? It is not necessarily the manifestation of a spectacular gift. This is what happens to all of us when we trust Jesus and begin to follow him. Everyone is baptized once, and from then on they’re part of Christ’s body together with everyone who is now following or has ever followed Christ.

    14-20: No Reason to Feel Inferior

    What Paul says next is directed to those people who think that because they are not gifted in a particular way, that they are useless. Some people may think, “Well, if the church is a body, then I’m just an appendix. I’m not up front, I can’t play an instrument, I don’t have anything to contribute.” Paul is saying, though, that there are no unimportant parts in Christ’s body. The person who makes the coffee or vacuums the floor is just as important as the one who is preaching.

    Also, if everyone had the so-called “important” gifts, then the church couldn’t function. If everyone did the same thing, Paul says we would be like a body covered in eyes.

    I used to work at a camp when I was in college, and one summer our staff was pretty dysfunctional. One way this dysfunction manifested itself was in chapel, which we had every day. A lot of the staff wanted to be part of the worship team. A few weeks into the summer, half of the counselors were up on stage during chapel and everyone else was trying to look after their kids plus the kids of everyone on stage! This happened because we let ourselves believe that being part of the worship team was the best thing to do, so everyone wanted to do it. The problem is, when you think that some gifts are more prestigious or better than others, the church becomes dysfunctional.

    21-26: No Reason to Feel Superior

    Next, Paul defends against the other side of the coin: letting our significance blow up into self-importance. No gift is important on its own. Each person has his or her own proper place in the body, and we all need each other to function properly.

    In v. 22, Paul says that the “weaker” parts are actually more necessary – like the internal organs. Your liver and your kidneys might look weak, but you can’t survive without them.

    In v. 23, Paul is probably talking about sexual organs. We make sure that they are covered and treated with respect. God has actually given greater honor to those parts of his body that seem inferior. This is the way God works. He lifts up the weak.

    In v. 26, Paul says we are knit together. We are supposed to care if someone else in the body is suffering. This applies to the local body, the church, and also to the worldwide body. When a member of the body is persecuted in a distant part of the world, we are supposed to suffer. When a member of the body is dying because of disease or hunger, we are supposed to suffer.

    Likewise, when it’s going well for a member of the body, we are supposed to rejoice, because our destiny is tied up with these other members of the body.

    27-31: The Best Gifts Build Others Up

    Paul is driving the metaphor home here. Just in case anyone missed it before, he’s saying “YOU are the body of Christ.”

    When we keep reading, we might think, “Hold on a minute. Paul has been going on about how no gifts are better than others, and now it looks like he’s ranking them.” Paul does give a list of gifts here at the end, and he does say some gifts are better than others, but he has a totally different ranking system from the Corinthians. The Corinthians say that the best gifts are the most spectacular ones; the ones that let you show off how spiritual you are – but he’s saying that the best gifts instead are the ones that build up other people the most. What are the greater gifts? Gifts that build up others, like prophecy (see 14:1-5):

    “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy… Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves, but those who prophesy edify the church. I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. Those who prophesy are greater than those who speak in tongues, unless they interpret, so that the church may be edified.”

    What does it mean to “desire the greater gifts”? It doesn’t mean that we can ask the Spirit for what we want, and then like a vending machine he will give it to us. Then the focus would still be on us. It means that we should desire above all to build others up and serve the rest of the body.

    In America, individual freedom and self-expression are part of our history. Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” People don’t go to New York City to visit the Statue of Responsibility. They don’t go to Philadelphia to see the Love Bell. Liberty is part of our DNA as a nation. And today, individual liberty and self-expression are becoming more important than ever. Sociologist Jean Twenge wrote a book recently called Generation Me. In it, she writes about how the current generation of young people is more focused on the needs of the individual than ever:

    “So much of the “common sense” advice that’s given these days includes some variation on “self:”

    Worried about how to act in a social situation? “Just be yourself.”

    What’s the good thing about your alcoholism/drug addiction/murder conviction? “I learned a lot about myself.”

    Concerned about your performance? “Believe in yourself.” (Often followed by “and anything is possible.”)

    Should you buy the new pair of shoes or get the nose ring? “Yes, express yourself.”

    Why should you leave the unfulfilling relationship/quit the boring job/tell off your mother-in-law? “You have to respect yourself.”

    Trying to get rid of a bad habit? “Be honest with yourself.”

    Confused about the best time to date or get married? “You have to love yourself before you can love someone else.”

    Should you express your opinion? “Yes, stand up for yourself.””

    Freedom is better than slavery, but it should never be the number one priority. Biblically, this is the wrong way to go. Instead, love should be our number one priority. Building up others should be our number one priority. Not using our gifts and our freedom the way we want.

    Some of us might say, “God has gifted me to play the bagpipes, and I’ll leave the church unless I get to play them during worship.” That’s not what God gives us gifts for. God gives us gifts to build others up, not for making ourselves happy through self-expression.

    Being part of the body also helps us to discern what our gifts are. Apart from community, we can deceive ourselves into believing we have gifts that we don’t.

    Finally, Remember 1 Corinthians 12:7: A spiritual gift is a “manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Paul goes on in chapter 13 to tell us how we should exercise whatever gifts we have. Love isn’t a special gift that some of us have and others don’t. It’s how all of us should exercise whatever gifts we have, no matter what they are. We can’t all have spectacular gifts. We can’t all have gifts that make other people sit up and take notice. But that’s not the point. We can all use our gifts to build one another up in love, and that is more important.

  • Truth Project 7: Sociology (The Divine Imprint)

    The beginning of the seventh tour of the Truth Project sounded like we were revisiting the topic of the fifth tour: science. Del began by quoting Psalm 19, about the heavens declaring the glory of God, and talked to his audience about the design of a chicken egg. The chicken egg, he said, poses a problem: the problem of order. What we have is an orderly cosmos, and “God is not a God of disorder” (1 Cor. 14:33). Del doesn’t just say that God is a God of order, but also says (quoting James 3:16) that disorder is a vice.

    Here is where he makes the transition to the current topic. God is “displayed in great glory through the physical creation, but even more so in the order that He has created in the social realm.” God’s social system, Del says, is where “the real battleground lies.” Since God is triune, he is social by nature. And the way that he has ordered society is bound up in his Trinitarian nature. Del quotes the Westminster Confession:

    In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; the Father is of none neither begotten, nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.

    Del then looks at how this Trinitarian nature of God plays out in social systems, beginning with the family. In the family, the husband and wife are one in the same way that the Father and Son are one. The wife submits to the husband in the same way that the Son submits to the Father. Authority, submission, oneness and unity are shared by the Trinity and the family.

    Then he turns to look at the church as social institution, comparing it to the Trinity and to the family. Christ he puts at the top (where the Father and the husband are in the other spheres), then he puts the leaders (in the place of the Son and the wife, respectively), and then he puts the flock (in the place of the Holy Spirit and the children). The flock is supposed to honor elders the way children honor their parents (1 Timothy 5:17).

    Relationships are important, Del says, but at the Fall, relationships were severed: God and Man, Man to Man, Man and Creation, and Man internally. Social order is bound up in the nature of God because he created social institutions with the divine imprint of who he is.

    Then Del argues that our culture attacks the sphere of family. Divorce is commonplace, though God says “I hate divorce” (Malachi 2:16). Husbands are inconsiderate of their wives, though Peter says that their prayers will be hindered if they do that (1 Peter 3:7). The family, Del concludes, is serious business.

    The way that Del draws parallels between God’s Trinitarian nature and various social systems is, I think, problematic. When he diagrams the Trinity, he draws a triangle within a circle with the Father at the top, the Son below that and to the right, and the Holy Spirit at the bottom. He draws the same diagram when he describes social institutions. The problem with this is that he gives the impression that, simply because the Son submitted to the Father in his earthly life, there is inequality within the Trinity. When he says that the Son submits to the Father the same way that wives submits to husbands, and the same way that elders in a church submit to Christ, he is coming dangerously close to the heresy of subordinationism. I say “coming dangerously close” because Del may not believe that the Son is eternally unequal with the Father. But what he says does give that impression.

    I admire Del’s effort to show that God’s concern for order proceeds from his nature, but I think that he went about it in entirely the wrong way. When you see Trinitarian relationships in anything but the Trinity itself, I think that you are treading on very dangerous ground, because you are making a parallel that the Bible itself does not make. The Trinity is mysterious, so comparing it to things that we know more about can be helpful at times. But comparisons are only just that: comparisons. When we really start to think of the relationships within the Trinity in terms of relationships within the family, we have diminished the Trinity. I know that Del is only trying to show his audience that God is a God of order, but I’m afraid he does more harm than good here.