Commending Cinematic Discernment
Noah (2014) is Gnostic!
In his post, “Sympathy for the Devil,” Dr. Brian Mattson connects the dots and demonstrates The Noah movie is not a Bible movie, but it’s “creative license” was issued from the Kabbalah, and other Gnostic sources, from the bodiless Adam and Eve at the beginning of the film, to the circular rainbow at the end of the film.
Darren Aronofsky has produced a retelling of the Noah story without reference to the Bible at all. This was not, as he claimed, just a storied tradition of run-of-the-mill Jewish “Midrash.” This was a thoroughly pagan retelling of the Noah story direct from Kabbalist and Gnostic sources. To my mind, there is simply no doubt about this.
So let me tell you what the real scandal in all of this is.
It isn’t that he made a film that departed from the biblical story. It isn’t that disappointed and overheated Christian critics had expectations set too high.
The scandal is this: of all the Christian leaders who went to great lengths to endorse this movie (for whatever reasons: “it’s a conversation starter,” “at least Hollywood is doing something on the Bible,” etc.), and all of the Christian leaders who panned it for “not following the Bible”…
Not one of them could identify a blatantly Gnostic subversion of the biblical story when it was right in front of their faces.
DO NOT ignore Dr. Mattson’s post! This is the most important and informative one to surface in this deluge of Noah “conversation.”
Dr. Mattson recommends that all Christians get informed on Gnosticism so they can spot this kind of stuff in the future. He recommends we begin by reading Against Heresies by the Church Father Irenaeus of Lyons (begin here). It gave us most of what we’ve known about Gnosticism since the late second century. It’s required reading in this era of Gnostic revival. Noah is only the latest platform promoting Gnosticism in our culture.
For the record, no one is saying don’t go see the movie. What people like me would say is be an informed viewer. I don’t care if you like it or hate it, or if you ever see it. But if you do, do not miss the fact that there is more to “creative license” than meets the eye.
From Inscrutability to Concursus
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16 ESV).
Jeffrey A. Stivason discusses the development of B. B. Warfield’s understanding of how the words of Scripture were not just those of the human writers, but the very product of the breath of God.
A Rude Awakening
This weekend we are in Boerne, TX with a small band of church friends to attend the Texas Hill Country Bible Conference sponsored by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Today is the first day, and we spent last night in the local La Quinta Inn.
I dreamed that it was Halloween, or as we Reformed folk sometimes refer to it, Reformation Day, and two of my favorite local churches were celebrating the Reformation and promoting their churches by being out and about on their properties to interact with trick-or-treaters and fellow observers of Reformation Day. I have no idea why I’m home and not at church and participating, but the events were covered on the local news, and I noticed in the footage that legendary (in his circles) Reformed theologian and Ligonier Ministries founder, Dr. R.C. Sproul was at one of the churches!
What? I decided to call one of the elders of one of the churches to see if this was still going on so I could come meet Dr. Sproul, but couldn’t reach him! As I prepared to call another guy, my alarm goes off and I’m frustrated because I want to get through to someone!
I didn’t want to get up yet, but I reluctantly succumbed to consciousness. I laid there wallowing in my missed opportunity for a moment, and then I sighed with relief when I realized that it’s okay, because at least today I get to meet the current president of Wheaton College and former pastor of Philly’s Tenth Presbyterian Church, Dr. Phil Ryken.
#starstruckmuch?
Pot Calls Kettle Black
John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and recent host of the controversial Strange Fire Conference, predicted in an interview with Christianity.com that what he calls the “Reformed Revival” will reverse itself in the next few years. He thinks this is so, because he sees so many of the younger generation who seem to be merely adding the doctrines of sovereign grace to their otherwise non-Reformed modes of operation like contemporary worship music, drinking beer, and Arminian forms of evangelism. He says in time, their Calvinist soteriology will fall by the way side because of the contradictory positions they hold.
Watch the video first, then read my comments below:
I find it ironic that this pastor should offer this critique of other pastors when he himself has added the five points of Calvinism to a non-Reformed view of eschatology. Reformed theology, after all, is not the home of Dispensational Premillennialism. Those who embrace total depravity, unconditional election, particular redemption, effectual calling and perseverance of the saints but reject the Covenantal theology in which these doctrines were developed, should think twice before criticizing others for selectively embracing popular elements of Reformed theology without embracing the whole system.
I also find it amusing that he should critique Calvinists for drinking beer. The enjoyment of alcoholic beverages in moderation is historically more Reformed than otherwise.
But I am in agreement with MacArthur that the five points of Calvinism isn’t enough. I would encourage him and members of the movement which a few years ago was called the Young, Restless and Reformed to take another look at the rest of Reformed theology. If it’s so right about the sovereignty of God in election, redemption and regeneration, what makes you think it’s so wrong about eschatology, church government and the sacraments?
Reforming Saint Nicholas Day
Saint Nicholas privately giving to save poor girls from slavery.
As much as I love the Reformed tradition, some of its more extreme instincts, in my humble opinion, lead it to throw out the baby of the communion of the saints with the bath water of Roman Catholic superstition. One case in point is the memory and example of the saints of the past. Not wanting to retain a Romanist veneration of the saints, we neglect the important and edifying discipline of gleaning from the history of the church the graces of the saints conveyed to us in the annals of church history. This may lead us to keep an eye on the historic church calendar, but we do not have to allow the entire worship of Christ to be distorted by this. There are ways to corporately remember the faith and works of the saints without violating the regulative principle of worship. What it takes is a little ingenuity on the part of Reformed congregations—their members under the informed supervision of their sessions.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 26, “Of the Communion of Saints,” presents the biblical principles that go along with the communion of believers with Christ by the Spirit through faith, and with each other in love.
All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by the Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory (1 John 1:3; Eph. 3:16-18; John 1:16; Eph. 2:5-6; Phil. 3:10; Rom. 6:5-6; 8:17; 2 Tim. 2:12): and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces (Eph. 4:15-16; 1 Cor. 3:21-23; 12:7,12; Col. 2:19), and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man (1 Thess. 5:11,14; Rom. 1:11-12,14; 1 John 3:16-18; Gal. 6:10). [WCF 26.1, as adopted by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church]
With regard to this section of the confession, there are gifts and graces to be communicated by one believer to others. This does primarily intend to apply to all living believers who are physically present among the saints in their generation of the church militant. But just as our confession transmits to us the corporate Reformed understanding of biblical faith, piety and practice, so can church history communicate to us the benefit of the gifts and graces of great Christians of the past who are now numbered among the church triumphant in heaven, with whom we are lifted in the Spirit on a weekly basis to join them in worship of Christ.
In one sense, this takes place all the time in one Reformed church or another as pastors illustrate the teachings of Scripture with examples of the works and experiences of saints of the past. By so appropriating their examples in the exposition and application of the Scriptures to us, I submit that we are benefiting from the gifts and graces of these historic saints, and so are experiencing the communion of saints even with them, if only in a sense. If the teaching ministries of Calvin, Luther, Spurgeon, Warfield, Machen, etc., continue to build up and instruct the church, why not the lives and works of those who published nothing, as their lives are recorded in church history?
One of the Scripture proofs in the section of the confession above is Romans 1:11-12,14. In this passage, the apostle Paul expresses his desire to commune with the saints at Rome.
For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
If Paul desired to impart a spiritual gift to the Romans in person, for his strengthening with the Romans in their mutual faith in the Person and Work of Christ, he certainly did impart such not only to them, but also to all Christians who would follow to this present day, twenty centuries later in his writing the most comprehensive exposition of the gospel of Christ in his letter to the Romans.
Paul’s grace was the grace of apostleship. Other ministers of the gospel have spiritual gifts to impart which are outworkings of this Pauline gospel. In the case of Nicholas, the grace of generosity to the poor among his parishoners has been communicated to us today through sixteen centuries of church tradition. If we may demythologize the traditions of St. Nicholas’ “wonder-working” intercessions, among other fanciful traditions, what we find remains is the kernel of a godly example of generosity on a par with that first lived by Christ in his state of humiliation. As Paul wrote, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9, ESV). Saint Nicholas was rich, and he used his wealth to relieve the poverty of those in his ministerial care. Truly, Saint Nicholas excelled in the grace of giving, taught in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. His example can help us learn how to live out the teaching of this passage.
It seems to me that due to the Reformed tradition’s utter rejection of corporate recognition of such great saints from church history, depriving ourselves and our congregations of their gifts and graces, are we not also neglecting a sense of communion with those professing Christians, whether Protestant or Catholic, who do recognize these days? We may be appropriately divided from Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians over essentials like justification by faith alone, or other Protestants over important doctrines like the sovereignty of God in the gospel, ecclesiology and the sacraments, but we can at the very least affirm the validity of, rather than despise, their edifying themselves with the gifts and graces of the saints of the past. We could furthermore, I propose, go a step further by not only affirming them in their commemoration, but perhaps exemplify a “more perfect way” of doing so in the context of Reformed theology, piety and practice.
Many Reformed churches are happy to commemorate Reformation Day on a yearly basis. We promote our commonly held Protestant distinctives, displaying our unity with Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist and Baptist Protestants. We also take it a step further and do it in a Reformed way. If we can do it with the memory of the works of Saint Martin Luther, why can we not do it with others like Saint Nicholas? Today is Saint Nicholas Day. December 6 is the anniversary of his death. It is on this day that Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches commemorate his life and ministry in their various ways. Yet the Reformed ignore it, although many of them have borrowed from the Anglicans at Christmas and found a way to bring into greater conformity to the Refomred confessions the Anglican Service of Lessons and Carols.
I say we should find a way to bring into greater conformity to our confessions the commemoration of the life and ministry of Saint Nicholas (read all about him here) and so reform in a more winsome and attractive way, the commercialized specter of Santa Claus, rather than merely turning up our noses to it and saying “Bah! Humbug.” Saint Nicholas is the world’s favorite saint. Sure, they’ve refashioned him in their own image, but we shouldn’t just leave him to them. Let us keep alive the true Saint Nicholas, who currently enriches our Christmas seasons with his emphasis on sacrificial generosity to the poor, and perhaps, through such edifying efforts build bridges over which some of the elect may find their way into the communion of saints through faith in Christ by the power of the Spirit and love for one another, and we can learn from Saint Nicholas how to better minister to the needy among us, as well as in the world, without feeling like we’re capitulating to some liberal “social gospel” or postmodern version of progressive “social justice.” Let us reform Saint Nicholas day and perhaps in his providence the Lord will use us to reform the way Christian charity is done in a more perfect way.
Happy Saint Nicholas Day!
Journalist Accused of Committing Sin of Journalism
Mark Driscoll, pastor of Seattle, Washington’s Mars Hill Church, must have been very thankful for his friends in the Christian publishing world on Thanksgiving. Since he was asked some tough questions about some passages in his latest book, A Call to Resurgence, which gave insufficient citation to one of his sources, they’ve been circling the wagons around their author.
But Driscoll is no stranger to controversy. It’s plagued his ministry since the beginning. He started out a member of Emergent Village, working alongside Brian McLaren and others, trying to find new ways to do church with the “emerging” generation of postmoderns who were leaving Evangelicalism, or at least lowering the Evangelical bar even closer to the ground than it already is. To his credit, he left Emergent Village, when they left orthodox Christianity. You can read about that in “Navigating the Emerging Church Highway.”
Building a church in what he calls “the most unchurched city” in America, Seattle, Washington, Driscoll earned a reputation among his Evangelical and Calvinistic colleagues for his delivery—irreverent at best, and vulgar at worst. I personally recall Steve Camp’s ongoing blog crusade calling him out for this. But they have since buried the hatchet in the wake of an edifying debate Mark did on Nightline. I don’t know if what Camp called Driscoll’s “scatological” language has ended, but Camp’s crusade certainly did.
A year or so ago, Mark got in trouble for joining James MacDonald and others at the Elephant Room Conference to pass some soft-ball questions to T.D. Jakes about the Trinity, before declaring him an orthodox brother in Christ. Jakes was raised in the Oneness Pentecostal tradition, but now plays both sides of the Trinitarian divide with carefully crafted language which demonstrates he hasn’t repented of the anti-Trinitarianism of his youth. This No Compromise video handles the issues well.
I haven’t followed Mark Driscoll’s ministry that closely over the years. My theology and interests are on a slightly different trajectory from his, so I’m not aware of the datails in many of the scandals and stories about which I’ve heard. Liberals, however, also find much to criticize in him. Just search your favorite Left-wing site and you’re likely to find posts on his being “anti-gay,” among other things, some of which even his conservative critics would likewise critique, even if for different reasons.
A few weeks ago, when John MacArthur hosted his latest Truth Matters conference at Grace Community Church on the subject of how the charismatic movement often features false forms of worship (see my recent post on this here), the Charismatic Calvinist Mark Driscoll crashed the conference to pass out copies of A Call to Resurgence and tweeted a much-debated claim that security personnel confiscate his books, while cell-phone footage seemed to indicate otherwise, and a representative of the conference accused Driscoll of lying about the incident. See that story here.
It was therefore no surprise to me, when Mark Driscoll was as defensive as he was when he went on the Janet Mefferd Show and was asked some tough questions about several pages in A Call to Resurgence in which he borrows heavily from Dr. Peter Jones of TruthXChange.com but gives only one citation referencing him as an “example.” This is insufficient, because it does not clearly state Jones was the actual source. While I can see how Driscoll may have thought he was doing justice to Jones’ intellectual property, and neglected to cite him properly, his defensive tone and attempt to turn the tables on Mefferd by making the issue her “grumpiness” and “rudeness,” demonstrates to me that Driscoll wasn’t serious about doing what needs to be done, even though he tried to use all the right sentiments to come off as someone who is suffering for doing the right thing. If you listen to the interview, it is true that Mefferd seems to be relentless in her questioning even after he began saying he’d talk to Jones about the matter, even though she was asking if he’d go to his publisher about it. But the tone he takes with her in his own defense, and the pretentious way he attempts to frame her as a bully betrays his insincerity on this, in my opinion.
In the days that followed that interview, Driscoll’s publisher, and a prominent Reformed promoter of one of Driscoll’s past publishers attempted to follow Driscoll in turning the tables on Mefferd and make her the bad guy. But the fact that he is a source of income for them makes their objections less meaningful, if not a real conflict of interests.
Then Mefferd kept finding more examples of plagiarism in other books he’s written. She provided photographs of the texts in question so her listeners could see for themselves how he used the language of others without proper, if any documentation of his use of their intellectual property (but Mefferd removed them all yesterday, upon her apology motivated by her regret over the controversy caused by the interview, though not the inaccuracy of her criticism). The only person who can’t be persuaded that Janet Mefferd is correct in her assertions and documentation are those who want Driscoll to prevail in this controversy, or those too squeamish to stomach a trained journalist doing what journalists do when presented with obstacles in their effort to get at the truth. They get persistent.
Today’s “Bully Pulpit” episode of The Mortification of Spin, in which Dr. Carl Trueman, Rev. Todd Pruitt, and Aimee Byrd address the need for accountability for Evangelical celebrities, and hence the necessity of a free Christian press. Listen to “Structured Accountability.” I am thankful that there are real journalists like Janet Mefferd who are willing to do what they can to hold celebrities accountable for their behavior.
Toward a More Public Profile
Our pastor, Rev. Joe Troutman, returned from an OPC Missions conference in Orlando, Florida last week with a head full of new outreach ideas and a heart full of motivation to begin doing more to look outward toward our community, having spent the last few months focusing on getting our own new building up to shape for regular worship services. God has been good to us during this time, in eliminating the headache of having to find a place to meet every Sunday morning, and a member’s home in which to meet for evening worship.
Our little body of believers has been being edified together in the gospel, and the Lord has been adding to our number in terms of covenant children born, and grown believers joining. A small part of this new outward focus now involves a public Facebook page for our church, Mid Cities Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Bedford, Texas. It is a work in progress as far as profile pics and such, but I wanted to take this opportunity to invite any of the readers of the blog who’d like to keep up with the ministry of this church in the heart of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. We’ll be posting sermon podcasts (which are also currently available in the sidebar of this blog) and events as they come up, and whatever else our pastor and we come up with in the future in the hopes it is a blessing to you. Like us at http://facebook.com/MCOPCpublic today for a little virtual Reformed communion.
Strange Fire Conference Kindles Controversy
For the past week or so, evangelical sites have been critiquing John MacArthur’s Strange Fire conference, which condemns “the Charismatic Movement” as a tradition that performs false worship practices. Featuring, in addition to himself, messages by Joni Eareckson Tada and R. C. Sproul, along with a number of lesser known associates of MacArthur, this conference anticipates the November 12 release of a book by the same title (pre-order the hardback here). One of MacArthur’s stated purposes was to “start a conversation” about the errors, extremes and dangers of the movement as a whole; judging from the reaction, I’d say he started something more akin to a cyber-riot.
But MacArthur probably isn’t surprised. He’s been the provocateur of tremendous controversy before, over the relationship between the Lordship of Christ and the freeness of God’s grace in salvation, back in the 1980’s, centering around his book, The Gospel According to Jesus. In both cases, I think it is fair to say that the intensity of the reaction is partly due to ways in which MacArthur’s message misses the mark, and opens himself up, as one Cessationist reviewer put it, to easy refutation due to his failure to draw careful distinctions between the various movements–in this case, within the Pentecostal tradition and the Charismatic Renewal, Word of Faith Movement, the Brownsville Revival, New Apostolic Reformation, and any number of other varieties which feature distinctive forms of the so-called “charismata,” or purportedly supernatural manifestations of the power of the Holy Spirit.
In addition to his denial of the legitimacy of the focus on the miraculous in this multi-faceted tradition, the Strange Fire Conference also intends to focus on ways in which the movement in general promotes false forms of worship, as the conference name implies, being an allusion to the account of the deaths of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, in Leviticus 10:1-3 upon their offering of “unauthorized” (ESV), or “strange” (KJV), fire in their censers, in direct violation of God’s explicit and detailed prescription for Israelite worship.
1 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them.
2 And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.
3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.'” And Aaron held his peace.
Fair or not, MacArthur and his fellow conference speakers would all advocate worship derived solely from the clear teaching of Scripture, a distinctive of Reformed theology known as the Regulative Principle of Worship. Undoubtedly, MacArthur, et al desire to see them come into closer conformity to Scriptural modes of worship, in essence calling the movement as a whole to Reformation as the Calvinistic Reformed tradition understands it.
Now it is possible for us not only to read, watch and hear what critics of the Strange Fire Conference have to say, we can all, friend or foe, see for ourselves how the messages of the conference were presented. Audio files of the have now been released, and are available for free download, with video and transcripts of each session forth-coming. Judge for yourself whether MacArthur’s charges against so-called Continuationism (the view that New Testament sign gifts are ongoing today) and his distinctive case for Cessationism (the view that these came to an end with the close of both the Apostolic era and the canon of Scripture–with which I agree) are legitimate, and where he misses the mark.
Visit Grace To You’s blog post, “John MacArthur on Making an Informed Response to Strange Fire” to watch a short introductory video and to download the audio files for each session of the conference which has set the evangelical blogosphere ablaze, in my view, both rightly and wrongly.
Sermon Notes: Crossing the Jordan, Part 1
The following are notes from the sermon I heard yesterday, October 13, 2013 at Mid Cities Presbyterian Church. The sermon is called “Crossing the Jordan, Part 1,” and is based on Joshua 3:1-5. Rev. Joseph L. Troutman preached the sermon. Some of the material below is original to me, however.
1Then Joshua rose early in the morning and they set out from Shittim. And they came to the Jordan, he and all the people of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. 2 At the end of three days the officers went through the camp 3 and commanded the people, “As soon as you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place and follow it. 4 Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length. Do not come near it, in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.” 5 Then Joshua said to the people,“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”
The big idea of this sermon is that the gap between God and Man is caused by our sin, and is bridged only by Christ, who is God with us.
1. Follow Me (verses 1-3) they set out from Shittim. And they came to the Jordan The distance between Shittim and the Jordan River is about 12 miles. The trip took about a day.
and all the people of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. Day 1:Their arrival, there for partial day; Day 2: “Lodged” all day; Day 3: There a partial day before crossing the river. Similar to the timing of Christ in the tomb–he wasn’t in the tomb for precisely 72 hours, but part of the first day, all of the second, and rose before sunup on day three.
Condition of the Jordan River, see verse 15: (now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest) It was springtime, and the river was turbulent.
“As soon as you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place and follow it. Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length. Do not come near it, in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.”
The ark of the covenant symbolized God’s presence. It was holy because God is holy. In the Bible, all visible signs of spiritual truths are so closely associated with the spiritual truth that it is identified as if it were the spiritual truth. In the Hebrew text of Joshua 3:17, the ark is not only called the ark of the covenant, but the covenant itself. This is why some mistake baptism as the thing that actually saves, and that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper are actually transformed into the literal body and blood of Christ. The sign is called by the name of the reality, but the sign only points to the reality; the sign is not the reality. That’s why, in chapter 27, section 2 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, it reads:
There is, in every sacrament, a spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified: whence it comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.
In a sense, the ark was treated by the Israelites the way the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are treated by Bible-believing Christians today.
2. A Safe Distance (verse 4)
Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length. Do not come near it,
Two thousand cubits is about three thousand feet–over half a mile. This distance which the Israelites were to keep between themselves and the ark of the covenant symbolizes the distance between the holy God and sinful humanity. Although God was with his people, their sins still separate them from him; however, the Levites were graciously allowed to carry the ark, and thus the priesthood does its job of mediating between the holy God and sinners. They represent the people to God, and thus he is near his people while keeping a safe distance for the good of his people. This nearness of God with Man, while at the same time being separate from them is ultimately bridged in the person of Jesus, our Great High Priest.
3. Consecration (verse 5)
Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”
The people must set themselves apart from unclean things, as well as from common things. God is holy, so they must be holy. God is clean and he is uncommon, therefore, so should the Israelites make this spiritual fact ceremonially visible in the same way the ark makes the presence of the Lord ceremonially visible. They were to wash their clothes and abstain from sex, as in Exodus chapter 19, which gives a good description of the way the people must consecrate themselves and keep a safe distance from Mount Sinai, and the severity of the consequences if they do not.
the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it.Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.” So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people; and they washed their garments. And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.”
Similarly, Christians should see themselves as called out from the unclean and the common, to be God’s chosen possession.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).
“…for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” Miracles are a sign of God’s power announcing that the observer is in the presence of God. Christ himself so far surpasses Old Testament miracles that if we are unaffected by the fact of his incarnation, righteousness, substitution for us on the cross, his resurrection and ascension to be enthroned on the right hand of God the Father, this speaks ill of our spiritual condition. Jesus, the God-Man bridges the gap between the holy God and sinful humanity, and consecrates those who repent and believe that they might draw near to God to serve and worship him.
Taylor’s Theses on Anti-Intellectualism
Justin Taylor of Crossway Books has organized under the headings of five theses, or propositions, a useful collection of quotes by leading intellectuals whose words effectively call evangelical Christians to resist the temptation of anti-intellectualism.
Biblical Christianity is less about experience or works, and more about what one believes. By majoring on experience and works, Christians have unjustly condemned the Christian pursuit of knowledge, and so deserve many of the world’s accusations of ignorance and anti-intellectualism.
An Ordinary Reformation
Westminster Confession of Faith 1.7. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.
Westminster Confession of Faith 5.3. God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.
Westminster Confession of Faith 18.3. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto. And therefore it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure, that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance; so far is it from inclining men to looseness.
If everything in the Christian life is “dynamic,” “epic,” “impactful,” “powerful,” and “extraordinary,” then the extraordinary becomes the expected norm, rather than the exception. It’s easy to see that with such high spiritual expectations, disillusionment is sure to follow. For this reason, I’d like to direct you to a series of episodes of the White Horse Inn called “Ordinary.” Along with concepts like “sovereignty,” and “predestination,” one of the unsung distinctive doctrines of Reformed theology is the way that God ordinarily works through ordinary means in our lives by His Word and sacraments. He reveals himself and his work of redemption to us in the Scriptures, grants to his chosen regeneration, faith, justification, repentance, sanctification, communion with him in grace and assurance. That he ordinarily does so through the “ordinary means of grace” (the Word read and preached, the sacraments and prayer), means that, indeed, in extraordinary circumstances, he is free to work by extraordinary means. The extraordinary nature of these means should be our first hint that this will not be what Christians should expect every Sunday during their so-called “worship experience.” Take some time to listen and be reformed to a liberatingly ordinary Christian spirituality.
We Don’t Need No Education
For those of you still awaiting my closing post on “Gender Roles: Complementarianism,” rest assured I have not forgotten, but the post is still not ready. Stay tuned, true believer! In the meantime, I enjoyed the following video…
Listen as Dr. W. Robert Godfrey, President and Professor of Church History at Westminster Seminary California and Ligonier teaching fellow, discusses the tendency toward anti-intellectualism throughout church history, and calls believers to not only love God with their hearts and their strength, but also with their minds. This lecture was delivered at the 2012 Ligonier national conference on “The Christian Mind.”
Watch: We Don’t Need No Education
And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions. Mark 12:28-34
Delay on Part 3
It’s summertime and life is going to interfere with my blogging for the next week or so. Please be patient as you look forward to part 3 of my series on Gender Roles, dealing with liberal egalitarianism and hyper-conservative patriarchalism and the more genuinely biblical and evangelical movement known as complementarianism.
Gender Roles, part 2–Patriarchalism
Vision Forum founder Doug Phillips and family
I’ve been aware of Vision Forum (VF) ever since I began searching the internet for Reformed websites back in the late 1990’s into the early years of the first decade of the twenty-first century. What I saw in Vision Forum was a site promoting traditional, conservative Americana of all kinds. Cool reprints of things like Of Plymouth Plantation and the writings of John Quincy Adams, the sixth American President who dabbled with Calvinism in his early adulthood, but would ironically return to the Unitarianism of his father and the intellectual elite of his day. Fun stuff, if you are into strident third party ultra-conservatism (for the record, VF founder Doug Phillips is son of Nixon-era figure and third party founder, Howard Phillips, whom I was providentially prevented from voting for in the 1992 election, but that’s another post!).
But then I found Phil Johnson’s Hall of Church History and any fledgling interest in Vision Forum fell by the wayside. My initial introduction to Vision Forum and its association with homeschooling and conservative politics raised no red flags. To me, it was what it was.
It was not until more recent years that I grew in my familiarity with the details of Vision Forum’s vision for families by their promotion of concepts like patriarchalism among others like the so-called family-integrated church (FIC), quiverfull and multi-generational faithfulness movements. Classified under these headings we find the dark side of the homeschooling movement. At the time of this writing, I have nothing against homeschooling, per se, but these movements which find their origin within the homeschool movement leave much to be desired, in my humble opinion. For more information on the latter movements, see here, here, and here.
Please recall that in the last post, I summarized my understanding of egalitarianism as practiced among “mainline” liberal Protestant denominations and an increasing number of Evangelical denominations and movements, and noted that there have been two major responses to this movement: namely, patriarchalism and complementarianism. The former is an extreme response, the latter is more moderate, unless you’re an egalitarian.
Complementarianism agrees with patriarchalism that:
(1) Eve was created to serve as “an help meet”(KJV) for Adam, or a “helper suitable” (NASB) for him, and that this is a creation ordinance binding on all human marital relationships; that a relationship of loving leadership by example and sacrificial protection on the part of the husband, and of respectful and voluntary submission on the part of the wife typifies the relationship between Christ and the church for which he died (Ephesians 5:22-33),
(2) and that consistent with this state of affairs, the New Testament explicitly limits offices of ordained church leadership to men (1 Timothy 3:1-7, notice candidates for church office are assumed to be male, and evidence to the contrary is lacking elsewhere in the New Testament).
Nevertheless, complementarianism disagrees with patriarchalism that wives, or women in general, should therefore necessarily refrain from seeking work or leadership roles in civic or commercial society outside the home. In short, complementarianism respects a greater degree of liberty for women than does its more extremist counterpart, patriarchalism.
In what ways does patriarchalism restrict the Christian liberty of women in the name of following the teaching of Scripture? To answer this question, let us consult a Vision Forum Ministries-published semi-creedal statement, “The Tenets of Biblical Patriarchy” drafted by Phil Lancaster, in consultation with Doug Phillips and R.C. Sproul, Jr. This statement lists 26 points under the following headings:
(1) God as Masculine (point 1)
(2) The Image of God and Gender Roles (points 2-4)
(3) The Authority of Fathers (points 5-7)
(4) Family, Church and State (points 8-11)
(5) Men & Women: Spheres of Dominion (points 12-14)
(6) Procreation (point 15)
(7) Education and Training of Children (points 16-21)
(8) A Father and His Older Children (points 22, 23)
(9) The Sufficiency and Application of Scripture (points 24-26)
Let’s look at point 11, under the heading of “Family, Church and State”:
11. Male leadership in the home carries over into the church: only men are permitted to hold the ruling office in the church. A God-honoring society will likewise prefer male leadership in civil and other spheres as an application of and support for God’s order in the formative institutions of family and church.(1 Tim. 3:5) (emphasis mine)
By this statement, patriarchalists cannot state that the Bible teaches that women shouldn’t work outside the home (among other things, like vote, for instance!), but appeals to the biblical mandates of male leadership in the home and the church and asserts that a society can only honor God if it “prefers” male leadership in societal spheres. By implication, this means that a society actively dishonors God if it allows women to vote, work outside the home and lead in other societal venues. They do allow for exceptions in the case of single women—“unmarried women may have more flexibility” (point 14), but I submit that in patriarchal circles, this exceptional circumstance will likely be discouraged, if not frowned upon. They only concede the possibility that single women may have more flexibility, which means, when in doubt, see point 11.
While we’re on this point, let us consider the Tenets’ reference to “a God-honoring society.” Did I mention that Vision Forum is postmillennial (not necessarily a problem) and theonomist (a big problem!)? Political liberals commonly refer to theonomy as “Dominionism,” which is a movement among interdenominational charismatic churches. The fact is, dominionism is based on theonomy, aka Christian Reconstructionism. Vision Forum’s vision for patriarchalism is a means to the end of taking dominion over the nations of the world and subjecting them all to the Law of God, and it is in this way that they believe Christ’s Millennial Kingdom will be established in the earth. These facts are implicit in their notion of a “God-honoring society.” In the radical patriarchalist’s perfect world, therefore, all women will be restricted to the domestic vocation of housewife, barring the undesirable exception of singleness. But in a future glorious Kingdom of Christ, would not He be willing to provide a husband to provide for and protect every woman? In the meantime we have to make due with conceding the possibility that single women may have the flexibility to work outside the home, and perhaps even vote.
Then there is the matter of “A Father and His Older Children,” points 22 and 23. Notice the extra restriction on adult daughters as compared to adult sons.
22. Both sons and daughters are under the command of their fathers as long as they are under his roof or otherwise the recipients of his provision and protection. Fathers release sons from their jurisdiction to undertake a vocation, prepare a home, and take a wife. Until she is given in marriage, a daughter continues under her father’s authority and protection. Even after leaving their father’s house, children should honor their parents by seeking their counsel and blessing throughout their lives. (Gen. 28:1-2; Num. 30:3ff.; Deut. 22:21; Gal. 4:1,2; Eph. 6:2-3) (emphasis mine)
23. Fathers should oversee the process of a son or daughter seeking a spouse. While a father may find a wife for his son, sons are free to take initiative to seek and “take a wife.” A wise son will desire his parents’ involvement, counsel, and blessing in that process. Since daughters are “given in marriage” by their fathers, an obedient daughter will desire her father to guide the process of finding a husband, although the final approval of a husband belongs to her. Upon a Marriage taking place, a new household with new jurisdiction is established, separate from that of the father. (Gen. 24:1ff.; 25:20; 28:2; Ex. 2:21; Josh. 15:17; Jdg. 12:9; 1 Sam. 18:27; Jer. 29:6; 1 Cor. 7:38; Gen. 24:58)
The implication is that an adult daughter of a Christian patriarch ought not move out of her father’s home until she has been “given” by him in marriage. There is a dangerous wooden-literalism in patriarchalist biblical hermeneutics which leads to imposing this aspect of Ancient Near Eastern culture on twenty-first century Christians. Here is one of the other problems with patriarchalism as a response to egalitarianism: it looks back fondly on the way things were done in the past and makes some of the customs of that era moral absolutes for the present.
Another era which patriarchalists mine for unbiblical moral absolutes is the ante-bellum American South. This era is considered by Phillips, and other patriarchalist leaders as the greatest form of Christian culture ever experienced on earth, and patterns much of its ideals accordingly. Arch patriarchalist Doug Phillips is a huge fan of southern Presbyterian theologian R.L. Dabney, who was in many ways a fine Reformed theologian, with the exception that he was a bitter opponent of emancipation for slaves, and is a poster-child for the use of the Bible in support of the institution of chattel slavery. You can read more about the inherent racism and sexism of patriarchalism in a blog post entitled “Patriarchy, Christian Reconstruction and White Supremacy” at the blog Diary of an Autodidact. The fact that Southern idealism is a strong influence on this movement is further evidence of the extra- and unbiblical nature of the patriarchalist movement as directed and informed by Vision Forum.
For these and other reasons, it would be unwise for an Evangelical Christian to resist the cultural pressures of liberal egalitarianism by subjecting one’s self and one’s family to the so-called “Tenets of Biblical Patriarchy.” In the gracious providence of God, complementarianism is the name of the more biblical approach to the roles of husbands and wives in the family, the church and society. Keeping in mind what we’ve discussed about it above in contrast with patriarchalism, we’ll look at complementarianism in more detail in the next post.
The Misadventures of Captain Headknowledge 
Westminster Releases Tome on Doctrine of Scripture
Pleasing to the eye, desirable to make one wise 😉 Get one for yourself, and one for your church library!
Edited by Richard Gaffin and Peter Lillback of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA. Click image to view at wtsbooks.com.
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