Piper: Why are Calvinists so negative?

I just stumbled across John Piper’s answer to this question, and it’s predictably excellent. Some of the points he makes:

• The intellectual appeal of the system of Calvinism draws a certain kind of person, who doesn’t tend to be the warm fuzzy type.
• When people come to believe in the doctrines of grace, they’re often amazed that they missed them for so long, and sometimes angry that their churches haven’t been teaching them.
• Calvinists do want to convince others of the truth of these doctrines. At best this is not out of elitism, but it sometimes comes across that way because of our sin.

Piper does a good job of acknowledging that this stereotype exists, admitting that it’s often accurate, and explaining why it is often inaccurate. It’s a much better answer than a cliche like “A proud Calvinist is an oxymoron.”

Hip social action and apologizing for Christians isn’t the Gospel.

Kevin DeYoung (coauthor of Why We’re Not Emergent and Why We Love the Church, both highly recommended) has a great post today: The Gospel Old and New. He outlines the typical presentation of what he calls the New Gospel (my summary):

1. Start with an apology for how terrible all [other] Christians are.
2. Appeal to “God as love,” with no reference to his wrath.
3. Give an invitation to “join God’s mission,” defined as working for peace and justice on earth.
4. Close with a “studied ambivalence” on eternity: Is there a hell? Who am I to say? But let’s work for the here and now.

His conclusion:

This is no small issue. And it is not just a matter of emphasis. The New Gospel will not sustain the church. It cannot change the heart. And it does not save.

Read the whole thing.

3 Christian phrases there’s nothing wrong with, but I’m sick of.

1. “I struggle with…”
2. “Prayer request”
3. “Quiet time” (Actually, there might be something wrong with this one.)

Yours?

Mike Kruger Dismantles Bart Ehrman

Read my professor/pastor/mentor/friend Mike Kruger’s review of the latest book from the predictable-but-always-available-for-an-NPR-interview Bart Ehrman.

Ehrman is chair of the Religious Studies department at UNC-Chapel Hill, and in odd-numbered years he tends to put out a book basically alleging that everything orthodox Christians believe is wrong. This year it’s Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them).

***

UPDATE: More than one intelligent person hasn’t picked up on it, so I need to point out that I’m being sarcastic/ironic/less than serious in the following.

(Incidentally, In the process of making sure I got Ehrman’s title right for this post, I noticed this:

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

This is the most confusing thing I’ve ever seen. Which is it? Is he a Distinguished Professor, or is he the department chair? Or is he head of Graduate Studies? We’re obviously looking at a conglomeration of at least 3 original sources, all of which had differing– and mutually exclusive– views of Ehrman’s job. Someone doesn’t want us to know the truth.

Moreover, if Ehrman can’t even get his own story straight, why are we supposed to trust that whatever he says about the Bible is right?)

Coexist?

You’ve seen these, right? They make me mad. Why? Because they don’t really mean what they say.

Let’s break it down. We’ll call each worldview by the letter it’s supposed to represent. So:

• C = Islam
• O = Pacifism
• E = “Gender equality” (=the LGBT agenda)
  
• X = Judaism
• I = Wicca / Pagan / Bah’ai
• S =Taoism / Confucianism
• T = Christianity

And let’s assume a very broad definition of “coexist”: living together without calling for the destruction of each other. Here are the problems with that:

• C wants to kill E, X, T, and (by implication) O. If they achieved the world they wanted, I and S would also no longer exist.
• O doesn’t allow for effective resistance or defeat of C.
• E stands in direct opposition to C, X, and T, and accuses those who speak against them of hate speech. Also, they’re trying to edge X and T out of public schools in favor of their own agenda. (They’re afraid C will be offended, so they get less trouble.) E is actually very, very intolerant.
• X’s existence is threatened not only by C but also by O, who invariably supports C over X.
• I and S are statistically insignificant and are mainly on there to complete the bumper sticker.
• T is who the bumper sticker is really arguing against, but poses no physical threat to any of the others.

Historically, T has brought about more tolerance– “coexistence” if you will– than any other movement. But the kind of “coexistence” the people who make this sticker envision is one where at least X and T are completely marginalized.

UPDATE: My wife reminded me that I was supposed to mention this: Worldview issues aside, on a purely graphics basis, this bumper sticker is awesome.

Favorite Christian books I’ve read this year

I quit my bookstore job almost a year ago, which explains why I don’t do as many book reviews as I used to (no free books and less time/excuse to read books). Also, I took a Christian book hiatus for a while. But anyway, here are some of my favorite Christian books I’ve read since entering the private sector.

• Christless Christianity
• Give Me This Mountain
• The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism
• To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson
• ESV Study Bible (I’ve said this before, but seriously. Do what you have to do to get this.)

As you can see, I went on a bit of a missionary biography kick. You should too.

Hitchens to believers: Man up!

Christopher Hitchens on his debates with Douglas Wilson:

Wilson isn’t one of those evasive Christians who mumble apologetically about how some of the Bible stories are really just “metaphors.” He is willing to maintain very staunchly that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and that his sacrifice redeems our state of sin, which in turn is the outcome of our rebellion against God. He doesn’t waffle when asked why God allows so much evil and suffering—of course he “allows” it since it is the inescapable state of rebellious sinners. I much prefer this sincerity to the vague and Python-esque witterings of the interfaith and ecumenical groups who barely respect their own traditions and who look upon faith as just another word for community organizing. (Incidentally, just when is President Barack Obama going to decide which church he attends?)

Sometimes Christians are embarrassed of or afraid to defend what we believe, so we pussyfoot and equivocate, thinking maybe then unbelievers will like us. Hitchens’ take here suggests otherwise. If you’re going to believe something the world hates (and they will), might as well man up and really believe it. They may think we’re stupid, but at least they won’t think we’re irrelevant.

New sermon audio

In July I preached on Romans 15:14-33 at our home church, Uptown Church in Charlotte. I got this text because we were in a series on Romans, but it turned out to be a great missionary passage. Right click & “save as” to download:

“Where No Man Has Gone Before: Paul’s Missionary Vision“

“He is not after those three points. He is after that woman’s job.”

In his talk at DG’s Calvin conference, Doug Wilson gives a great illustration of Calvin’s doctrine of the supremacy and self-authentication of Scripture.

One day, the schoolmarm in the one-room schoolhouse of modernity gave a test to all the little kids in her class. The schoolmarm’s name was Mrs. Enlightenment, and one kid was named the Bhagavad Gita, and there were the Vedas, and there was the Koran, and another was the Book of Mormon. And of course the test was also given to the best student in the class, the Holy Bible.

When the tests were graded and returned, it turned out that the Bhagavad Gita scored a 38, the Koran a 52, the Book of Mormon a 17… and our Scriptures, our Bible, scored an impressive 97.

What does this make all of us want to do? It makes us want to get up to the teacher’s desk pronto, and argue for the three points, that’s what! We have fallen for the trap of thinking that inerrancy requires us to be grade nerds: always the best student in the class, but one who cannot abide making a mistake and who will argue with the teacher over every last point.

But something is more fundamentally wrong with this picture than that unfair grading process. The problem is that the Bible never enrolled in that class to begin with, and never agreed to be tested by any Mrs. Enlightenment. The Scriptures do not take these tests; the Scriptures administer tests. The Bible is not that which meets the standard; the Bible is that which sets the standard.

So would Calvin have agreed that the Bible is like silver refined sevenfold, as in Psalm 12:6? Yes, certainly. Would he have agreed with a score of 97? Of course not. The Scriptures are not a possession of ours which we may put into the world’s balances to be weighed. Rather, the Scriptures are God’s scales, in which he places the entire world, and all the nations of men.

…[series of Calvin quotes and explanation]…

[Calvin] would have no trouble showing that the three points were rightfully ours. But he would also have no trouble showing Mrs. Enlightenment that unbelief ought not to be teaching that class or grading the papers. He is not after those three points. He is after that woman’s job.

Listen to the whole thing. (Don’t just read it; it’s not a full manuscript and some of the best parts are off-the-cuff.)

2 kinds of faithfulness: a note on Rev 2:10

“Be[ing] faithful unto death” could look very differently for two different believers.

For one, it might mean refusing to budge while staring down the barrel of a gun or the edge of a knife. And it might be over really fast. (This was apparently the case with the original readers.)

For another, it might mean 80 years of steady plodding.

I wonder which is harder.