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Why Won’t Those Older Chistians Change?

Written by Rick Shrader

Why Won’t Those Older Chistians Change?

by Rick Shrader

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In the current debate over change, we seldom have the patience or the interest to listen to our elders.  It has become tragic to hear of a generation of Christians who have come to the Lord out of their sinful past, given their money over their life-time to their church, raised their kids in their church, only to have their church taken away from them in one leadership change and themselves asked to sit quietly on the sidelines.  The biblical admonitions to learn from our elders as well as to respect them, takes a back seat to the need for growth and innovation.

No older saint I know is advocating unnecessary blindness.  Most of our seniors realize that there will be a time when their reasoning powers as well as their physical powers wane.  Most I know welcome the younger families and are glad for their vitality and participation.  But this is often taken advantage of by younger Christians who do not have a full perspective of the history that preceded them.

Christianity is not unique in its respect for gray hair.  Most healthy civilizations as well as most religions have long traditions of giving honor to their elders, usually men and women.  But for the Christian, from the fifth commandment to honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee (Ex 20:12), to Paul’s admonitions to rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father . . . and let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor . . .and even against an elder receive not an accusation but before two or three witnesses (1 Tim 5:1, 17, 19), respect, patience and recognition have always been the Christian ethic toward older saints.

Our fault in this area comes for a number of reasons.  One reason may be a younger generation’s inability to listen and learn. Ralph Waldo Emerson once retorted,  “The secret of a true scholar?  In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him; and in that I am his pupil.”1 Will Rogers said the greatest compliment you could pay to a person is to ask a question and then listen to his response.  Our generation seems to have little time to listen.

Another reason may be a modern notion that what is changing is always better than what remains the same.  Norman Geisler recently wrote concerning modern notions of God,

It is difficult to understand how we can know that everything is relative and changing.  How could anyone be sure that something is changing without having some unchanging measure to measure the change?  And if everything is changing, then there could not be the standard or measure by which we could measure the change.2

When we ask our elders to sit on the sidelines of ministry, we may be removing landmarks that we cannot do without!  Those eyes have seen things that others have not.  They have seen spiritual victories and defeats caused by repeating truths and errors over many years.  Just because the body is wrinkled and the clothes are an older style does not mean the wisdom inside is somehow less.  It may mean the very opposite.  Paul warned the Corinthians, For which cause we faint not; but though the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day (2 Cor 4:16).    I have often said at funerals that some saints grow so much throughout their Christian life that finally their spirit cannot fit inside the body any longer and God graciously lets them leave!  Some of the wisest words of biblical characters are the ones just before death:  Moses to Joshua; Elijah to Elisha; Paul to Timothy.  We would do well to listen to the wisdom of saints in this “prime” of their life also.

Still, when it comes to accomplishing our personal goals and creating our personal visions, the elders are often obstacles in the way of progress.  When I hear critical statements about older saints being reluctant to change, it is easy to identify a number of false assumptions made about the thinking of our elders.

Old Age Means Ignorance

The assumption is that older Christians have no good reason for refusing change, or have never thought through the consequences of not changing.  Typical of our generation, we think that any change is better than no change and therefore it is senseless to resist.  G.K. Chesterton described it,

Modern men are not familiar with the rational arguments for tradition, but they are familiar, and almost wearily familiar with the rational arguments for change . . . . The language which comes most readily to everyone’s mind is the language of innovation; but it is a language that is rather exercised than examined.3

Thomas á Kempis described his Lord’s thought of him as, “unless thou stand steadfast in Me, thou mayest change, but not better thyself.”4 It could be that many seniors know the consequences of proposed changes far better than younger people and are also willing to stand their ground out of conviction and love for the ministry.  It is near-sightedness for younger adults, because the seniors say it in older terminology while wearing older (and far less expensive) styles, to interpret such conviction as old-age senility.

Old Age Means Compliance

This assumption is that because some saints are older they should automatically give in to younger desires.  Youth is always thought to be better.  Older folks are there to pay the bills, staff the menial chores and stay off the platform unless they are willing to act like youth.  Whatever the younger generation desires, they have always insisted on and gotten.  Walt Whitman once described it as, “Open up all your values and let her go–swing, whirl with the rest—you will soon get under such momentum you can’t stop if you would.”5 Perhaps the elders among us realize that.

The great sixteenth century British parliamentarian, William Wilberforce observed in his own day and culture,

At length, old age has made its advances.  Now, if ever, we would expect it would be high time to make eternal things the great object of attention.  No such thing! It is now required of them to be good-natured and indulgent to the frailties and follies of youth, remembering that when they were young they gave themselves up to the same practices.

How opposite this is to that dread of sin which is the sure characteristic of the true Christian.  Such a dread causes him to look back upon the vices of his own youthful days with shame and sorrow.6

Old Age Means Neutrality

The cry of today’s cultural changers is that all changes of “style” are morally neutral. It should not matter to the older folks that the church now looks different, sounds different and has been “styled down” to an easy, casual atmosphere that is comfortable for any level of spirituality.  Are we to think that folks who have been under the sound of the Word for decades have no sensitivity to grieving the Spirit?  Is it possible that younger saints may not yet have this sensitivity?

Wilberforce finished his statement by saying, “Then instead of conceding to young people to be wild and thoughtless—a privilege of their age and circumstances(!)—he is prompted to warn them against what has proved to him to be a matter of such bitter reflection.”7 But this decision to resist what others consider to be harmless, will bring impatient accusations quickly on one’s own head.  To disagree is to say the other is wrong.  And we know how youth love to be told they are wrong!

Old Age Means Surrender

The final straw for many older saints is to be told that they won’t and can’t change.  The irony behind this accusation is two-fold.  On the one hand, we forget that they did change!  Years ago they repented of an old life in sin and became new creatures in Christ!  They quit going where they used to go and talking like they used to talk.  They gave up old habits and even changed the way they looked to more reflect their new found spiritual life.  They started giving sacrificially to start new churches, build buildings and send missionaries.  To say that these folks won’t change is to deny their very testimony for Christ.

On the other hand, the irony deepens when it is finally seen that the younger people coming to the church are the ones that don’t change!  They want the church to be like they already are: same music, same casualness, same impulsiveness with no change of life-style outside the church.  Chesterton said, “The modern man found the church too simple exactly where modern life is too complex;  he found the church too gorgeous exactly where modern life is too dingy.”8 And when such is the case, who has had to do the changing?  In our age, I dare say, not the younger people!

When I read George Barna deriding older saints for not always changing at the drop of a hat (or should we say ball cap?), I said to myself, “Good!”  He wrote, “Most older adults are not about to accept the new ways of experiencing and learning about God.  In fact, there is not much that most of them will change in terms of values, perceptions, and behaviors at this advanced state of their life.”7 Perhaps that is because they already have changed and are waiting for another generation to do the same!

And So . . .

We really owe a debt of gratitude to the elders among us for fighting a good fight and finishing their course well.  I pray they are not too offended by today’s immaturity.  As one writer said, “The charge of hypocrisy is the unintended compliment that vice pays to virture.”9 I know they know that!

Notes:
1. Quoted by Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (Garden City, NY:  Garden City Pub, 1927)  4.
2. Norman Geisler, Creating God in the Image of Man (Minneapolis: Bethany Books, 1997) 66.
3. Quoted by Michael Aeschliman, The Restitution of Man (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 8.
4. Thomas á Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1980) 190.
5. Quoted by William Strauss & Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning (New York: Broadway Books, 1997) 146.
6. William Wilberforce, Real Christianity (Minneapolis:  Bethany Books, 1997) 116-117.
7. Wilberforce, 117.
8. G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Wheaton:  Harold Shaw, 1994) 96.
9. Ravi Zacharias, Deliver Us From Evil (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996) 112.

 

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Is There An Alternative Point Of View?

Written by Rick Shrader

Is There An Alternative Point Of View?

by Rick Shrader

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(To The Traditional vs Progressive Debate)

An ancient saint once said, “It is equally wrong and stupid to censure what is commendable, and to commend what is censurable.”1 G.K. Chesterton once argued against a false premise by stating, “It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.”2 That is what I often think after hearing or reading comparisons of today’s ministry philosophies.

Should we be traditional or progressive in our ministry?  Are these two ways of approaching “how we do church” mutually exclusive, two sides of the same coin, or are they even choices at all when trying to be biblical in church ministry?  I think we have become, like the world around us, champions of the definition!  That is, we spend more time arguing to make the definitions of those buzz words fit what we already do, than evaluating our ministry in light of Scripture and changing to fit it.

None of us wants to be seen as anti-traditional because we realize we have an historical faith that is filled with traditional teaching.  Yet none of us wants to be seen as non-progressive because that would mean we are not visionary and up-to-date with today’s culture.  So it seems that good people from both points of view go out of their way to convince us that they are really both.

On the one hand

To be “traditional” ought to mean that we realize the value of our history, a history that is rooted in the historical person and work of Christ.  Christians are still doing what Christians have always been doing:  praying constantly, studying an old book, singing scriptural songs, witnessing of the resurrection of Christ.  It has not historically included unswerving loyalty to one Bible translation, nor only one expression of modesty as opposed to others just as modest. Those things are more ritual than traditional and, as James Draper wrote, “There is nothing wrong with ritual as long as we understand that ritual is like a telescope—not something to look at, but something to look through.”3

Regardless of its difficulties, I am more inclined to be called a traditionalist today than a “progressive.”  It seems to me that those who have misused the definition of “traditional,” have done so out of a positive desire to honor Christ and a willingness to be identified, not with the world but with Him.  I can live with that and argue with these fellow believers about definitions.

On the other hand

To be “progressive” ought to mean that we see clearly where a lost culture is going and we take the steps outlined in Scripture to speak to it regardless of the consequences.  That would be truly progressive in the biblical sense.  Though I believe most progressives truly love souls and desire to see them saved, many, I am afraid, simply do what the Apostle John warns us about apostates:  They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world hears them. (1 Jn 4:5).  To do such a thing is to love the world and its praises more than the praise of God.  Much of today’s “progressiveness” becomes simply worldliness.  It is not, like its “traditional” counterpart, willing to be despised by the world.  In fact, many “progressives” see that as an error to be avoided at all costs even though it is the clear biblical teaching such as when Peter writes, If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you:  on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified (1 Pet 4:14).  Such an approach wins us to the world, but is misguided at winning the world to Christ.

A Dilemma

It is not the purpose of this article to simply criticize the traditional and the progressive approaches, though, as I have stated, I believe they both have their faults.  I do not question the evangelistic sincerity of either.  Nor do I doubt that spokesmen for either approach could produce verses to support their point of view.  I do believe, however that too often we read our perspective into the Bible, seeing wording that supports our preconceived ideas and thus merely confirm what we already think.  We all know this is a fatal flaw of anyone’s Bible study, including, of course, mine.

In my own circle of Christian friends, many of whom are ministers and instructors, I have, for a number of years, been left in “no-man’s-land” when it comes to whole-heartedly supporting either of these two sides.  I have felt that neither is what I read clearly in the Scripture, nor what I see is the need of the lost world.  On numerous occasions I have been unable to say “Shibboleth” (see Judges 12:6) as was requested of me in order to have the blessing of participation in either side.  This was all of God, at least for my account.  It drove me back to the Scripture for my help and my foundation (aren’t you glad I didn’t use the tired misnomer “vision” at that place?).

I think sometimes we have to lose any hope in man’s blessing, which all of us by nature wants, in order to find help solely in God.  It is my own opinion that far too many Christian leaders are desperately desiring far too much approval by their peers.  But the Apostle admonishes,  For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise (2 Cor 10:12).

An Alternative

From the Gospels to the book of Acts and the Epistles to the church letters of Revelation, I find an overwhelming call in the Scripture for sacrifice:  sacrifice of our wills, our life’s possessions, things, and even our own life; sacrifice to the point of danger to the body whether by harm or ridicule; sacrifice of the praise of men in this life for the praise of our Savior in the next life.  This is biblical patience.  We are called to give of ourselves in this life; to wait for our rewards; to live an inward life of contentment though the outward man is perishing day by day.

We are living sacrifices, having no ability of our own toward our outcome.  We are stewards of God, entrusted with divine instruction for the household of God.  We are heralds of the gospel, having no right to embellish or bargain with the message from the King.  We are earthen vessels, made to be broken and disposed.  We are priests, offering up spiritual sacrifices to God.  We are sheep and branches and lively stones and a host of other analogies that make us totally dependent on the Lord for any usefulness we may have.

Personally, I have not found this type of thinking in services where participants shout, wave hankies or black Bibles and brag about how tough they are; nor have I found it in services of loud, unsettling music accompanied by casualness, shallowness and bragging about how accepting of everything they are.  Rather, Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire (Heb 12:28-29).

A Biblical Model

This “sacrificial” model of New Testament ministry is seen in virtually all Bible writers.  One of my favorite passages is Second Corinthians, especially from chapter 3 to chapter 6.  Paul’s own ministry is put forth as an example against the false apostles who “commend themselves.”  Paul, on the other hand, is always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body (4:10).  He is an “earthen vessel” (4:7); bearing the “light affliction” (4:17) of this life; ready to be “absent from the body” and “present with the Lord” (5:8); an “ambassador for Christ” (5:20) who proclaims a message of reconciliation of the sinner before a holy God.

This ministry must not be “blamed,” Paul says in chapter 6.  Therefore, in order not to “give offense in any thing” and to “approve ourselves as the ministers of God,” we must enter into a three-fold approach to a sacrificial ministry.  I say “three-fold” due to the various cases of the prepositions used in verses 4-10.4

I am proposing that we are sacrificial servants . . .

In Propitiatory Relationships

The believer finds himself in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, etc.  Paul was the example of evangelism that often resulted in antipathy with the world.  I call these “propitiatory” because the sinner is taking out his anger at our Lord through the believers.  Just as sinners crucified Jesus because His perfect life aggravated their sinful soul, so His servants are to speak of Him to sinners and enter into the same persecutions brought on by their guilty consciences.

Is this not the “fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death?”  Yes!  And it is this that brings to our evangelism the “power of His resurrection” (Phil 3:10).  It is when Jesus is lifted up in the way of a cross, that all men are drawn to Him.  The evangelist must be willing to enter this frame of mind if he is to minister.  Suffering for our Lord is primarily to be rejected and resisted, even hurt, by the sinner for Christ’s sake.  Paul knew this fellowship well.  He also knew the power of such preaching.

By Passive Responses

How did our Lord and His Apostles respond in such circumstances?  By pureness, by longsuffering, by kindness, etc.  Peter says of our Lord, Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:  Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judges righteously (1 Pet 2:22-23).  Should those who represent Him respond any differently?

The effectiveness of our witness does not come through human instincts.  We are preservationists by human nature.  We would protect, strike back and defend ourselves when others attack us.  But the true minister does not because his Lord did not.  If the kernel of wheat dies, it will produce more wheat than can be imagined!

As Perceived Realities

How was Paul perceived by those who persecuted him compared to what Paul really was?  As unknown, yet well-known; as dying, and behold we live; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, etc. Just as sinners perceived Jesus to be different than what He actually was, so His servants are to be perceived differently by the world than what they really are in Christ.

Aren’t people more concerned with how they are perceived by others than with anything?  That is why true evangelism is so difficult.  It truly takes a dying to self, a willingness to be seen in a bad light in order to be effective.  The believer knows, of course, the way God really sees him and is content.

And So . . .

The Corinthians were poor evangelists because their own selfishness restricted the power of their witness (vss 11-13).  They could not bring themselves to such sacrificial action.  They were unequally yoked to the world (vss 14-16) to the point that God Himself could not be as a Father to them (vs 18).

It is spiritual near-sightedness to preserve our image before the world and lose them, rather than concede our image in order to win them.

Notes:
1. Gorgias, “The Encomium on Helen,”  Orations: Homer To Mckinley, Vol I (New York: Collier, 1902) 49.
2. G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Image Books, 1956) 93.
3. James Draper, Jr., Colossians: A Portrait of Christ (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1982) 8.
4. All Greek texts agree in the prepositions used.  The A.V. does the best job of dividing the en into locative and instrumental cases in vss 4-7.  Other versions follow the word for word translation of en being “in” (usually taken as locative) where the A.V. recognizes how en can be instrumental as well.  Lenski says, “This en differs from the en found with the preceding plurals which = ‘in the midst of’ the experience of tribulations, etc.  The present eight en = ‘in connection with’ purity, etc.”

 

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Whatever Happened To Postmodernism?

Written by Rick Shrader

Whatever Happened To Postmodernism?

by Rick Shrader

Maybe it’s just the nature of the beast, but like a passing train, our fascination with this cultural phenomenon came upon us quickly and loudly, stopping everything in its path and demanding our piquant interest, until, just as fast, it rolled on past and we returned to newer and less demanding stimuli.

It is not that we think it is unimportant.  We thought the New Age Movement was important, but these things come and go.  Besides, if it does not affect our hearers directly, we may begin to sound monotonous and even narrow, stuck in a rut while others have moved on to newer things (as Chesterton said of the Middle Ages, “those who were trying to put things right were most vigorously accused of putting things wrong.”1).  It is imperative that leadership today have fresh ideas.  We must recognize where the cutting edge exists and focus our attention there.  Visionaries look forward to things not yet seen, they don’t dwell on the past, with things that have been hashed and rehashed to death!  As the philosopher said, everything has an end, except the sausage which has two!

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Nothing is wonderful except the abnormal and nothing is abnormal until we have grasped the norm.”2 In other words, we may have a hard time seeing the new thing at all, either as a blessing or a curse, if we don’t first have a firm grasp of our present condition.  If the new thing agrees with our basic convictions, it is a blessing.  But if the new thing is contrary to our foundational principles, it will be recognized as a curse.  But if we have no abiding conviction or philosophy, the new thing is simply faddish or even boring.

Postmodernism has been more like a virus than an invading army.  It has permeated from within until it has brought all things to its own level, rather than conquering from without and destroying all that exists.  A virus can make you weak and lethargic but may not drastically change your pattern of activity.  Some can kill quickly and others slowly and still others can be overcome.  But in either case, all active processes are affected though almost invisibly.

Most cultural observers have predicted that postmodernism would change society at the most basic levels of honesty and integrity.  Os Guinness, for example, wrote,  “If President Clinton did not exist, he would have to be invented.  Or to express the point more carefully, the recent crisis of America’s first postmodern president is not just the sad story of a flawed individual, but the full flowering of a generation of trends in American society.”3 Those tracking generational trends see millennial kids as outwardly clean-cut and polite, while inwardly void of moral direction.4 We might say that the passé attitude toward postmodernism, and the tiring of its constant critique, even the hostility toward being labeled with such a word, is, for lack of a better term . . . Postmodern!

The residual effect of this cultural virus may still be too difficult to detect or predict.  Some have seen postmodernism as a whole new era that follows two hundred years of modernism, while others have seen it more as a hinge that connects modernism to whatever is coming next.  From a Christian perspective, we must keep the possibility open that this could be the generation of the Anti-Christ, with its lack of love for truth and its amoral ethic that all things are permitted for self-interest, and nothing is permitted which is opposed to that.

Within professing Christendom these residual effects are beginning to surface.  I would propose that the following postmodern characteristics linger among us and are commonly accepted within many churches.

Change is the only acceptable standard

As Christians, we cherish our belief in measuring all things by the unchanging standard of God’s Word.  We understand that we cannot tamper with the Word of God or with the absolutes which it places in our lives.  We also have a profound respect for the tradition of our faith for the last two thousand years and we work diligently at teaching that to our children.  To pay respect to tradition is to give all past generations of believers a say-so in our current affairs.  At the same time, we understand that man was created to create.  It is art of the highest order for one who is made in God’s image to make, produce, invent and grow things in this world.  “Doing” is one of the two “dignities of causality” given to us be our Creator.  The second is prayer.

But, frankly, none of this is what the postmodernist is getting at when he talks of change.  He is talking of a lack of absolutes; a world that is here by random chance and changes in order to survive.  To change is to always get better.  Change creates new information; change eliminates the old; change produces a new set of moral standards by the minute; change destroys any old moral standards including God.  Charles Jencks, a leading postmodernist wrote, “One of the key shifts to the Post-Modern world will be a change in epistemology, the understanding of knowledge and how it grows and relates to other assumptions.”5

Christians that defend change are not talking the same language as the postmodernist when he defends change.  But the postmodernist will gladly accept the confusion because it proves that his thesis is true: meaning and truth change constantly.

Ethnology is the only history there is

An Ethnologist is one who studies the culture (or “ethnos”) of any people.  He is not so much interested in the facts of what happened as in the  motivation for why it happened.   Thus Thomas Jefferson is accused of fathering a child by a slave-woman, not because the facts show conclusively that he did, but simply because he could have.  And believing that he did is better for today’s needed tolerance than not believing it.

Two Christian authors from the Toronto Institute for Christian Study, make this alarming statement:  “Since all worldviews in a postmodern reading are merely human inventions, decisively conditioned by the social context in which they occur, and certainly not given to us by either nature or revelation, any ‘truth’ we claim for our cherished positions must be kept strictly in quotation marks.”6

Thus we are seeing Christians defend their “right” to do strange things based on cultural practices from both the past and the present.  With seeming little regard for the fallen nature of man’s constitution, any expression from within the imagination of his heart is immediately accepted as either good, or at the least, morally neutral.  The postmodernist has come to this ethnology because he has eliminated all basis for moral expression, while the postmodern Christian has done the same by, strangely, professing that the only moral standard is the Bible.  All else is fair game.

Added to this is the current disdain for strict fundamentalism.  Alan Wolfe, writing for the Atlantic Monthly says, “Postmodernism exercises such a fascination over the evangelical mind, I believe, because of the never-ending legacy of fundamentalism.  In one sense evangelical scholars have moved away from Billy Sunday and in the direction of French poststructuralism: they cast their lot with those who question any truths rather than those who insist on the literal truth of God’s word.”7 Some are so embarrassed by their Christian heritage that they would rather take the road less criticized.

Truth is a broader tent than it used to be

Probably the best-known character trait of postmodernism is the denial of absolute truth.  This criticism is fair.  Albeit, a postmodernist might deny that proposition by arguing that truth is absolute, but only for the moment.  Since all things are constantly changing (even, we find, the orbit of the molecules within the atom) nothing remains “truth” even for a second.  By the time it takes you to describe the truth, all has changed and it is truth no longer.  So we are left with Kierkegaard’s postulate, “The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.”8

No serious believer can accept this premise.  But as a rising tide raises all boats, so the love for truth even in the church is born along too much by the culture around us.  One secular writer remembers, “When Hermes took the post of messenger of the gods, he promised Zeus not to lie.  He did not promise to tell the whole truth.  Zeus understood.”9 I think we could live with that in many Christian circles!  If George Washington couldn’t tell a lie, and Richard Nixon couldn’t tell the truth, we can’t seem to tell the difference!

And So . . .

The list could go on, including the canny ability we have to criticize ourselves for being postmodernists while all the time enjoying being postmodernists.  Some of the best definitions of the virus have come from those who have it.  But truth and knowledge can only help us if they truly force us to their side.  Whatever happened to postmodernism?  It is alive and well and has found a welcome incubation even in Christian culture.

Notes:
1. G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Image Books, 1956) 74.
2. C.S. Lewis, God In The Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1994) 26.
3. Os Guinness, Character Counts (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999) 9.
4. I have reviewed William Strauss and Neil Howe’s Millennials Rising as well as the Atlantic Monthly’s April 2001 article, “The Organization Kid.”  Both present a picture of the “Millennial” generation as smart, polite, aggressive, no-nonsense young people but at the same time devoid of moral foundations apart from their own drive to succeed.
5. Charles Jencks, “What Is Post-Modernism?” From Modernism to Postmodernism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996. 478.
6. Quoted by Albert Mohler, The Coming Evangelical Crisis (Chicago:  Moody, 1996) 37.
7. Alan Wolfe, “The Opening of the Evangelical Mind,” The Atlantic Monthly, October, 2000, 73.
8. Quoted by Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God? (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994) 205.
9. Andrea Fontana, “Ethnographic Trends in the Postmodern Era,” Postmodernism and Social Inquiry, David Dickens & Andrea Fontana, eds. (New York: The Guilford Press, 1994) 219.

 

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Free To Be A Servant

Written by Rick Shrader

Free To Be A Servant

by Rick Shrader

Martin Luther wrote, “A Christian man is a free lord over all things and subject to nobody.  A Christian man is a ministering servant in all things and subject to everybody.”1 It seems that great men have always had a sense of true servanthood.  I don’t believe that great men ever wanted to be great; they wanted to be like Christ and were thrust into positions of spiritual leadership.  The very desire to be great by today’s definition, too often contradicts the Lord’s admonition to be servant of all, which is the true greatness of the Christian faith.

One of the most used and abused passages in the New Testament is 1 Corinthians 9:22, I am become all things to all men that I might by all means save some. This is one of those seemingly pragmatic verses that allows us to do whatever was already in our mind to do.  The justification, of course, would be that someone might get saved because of the way we did whatever it is we wanted to do.  The wording of the verse allows it all.

We should have read verse 19 before we got to verse 22.  For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. What does this “freedom” that Paul speaks of allow him to do and why does making himself a “servant” give him more ability to win people to Christ?  Does this coincide with the usual pragmatic understanding of verse 22?  These are questions of debate and difference today.  Sometimes we have a sort of “censorship by success” attitude; that is, only if your understanding of these verses has brought you “success” do you have a right to speak about their meaning!  Of course, this is the pragmatism I am objecting to here.

How Are We Free?

There are few things that bind a person more than money and popularity.  In 1787 a convention was convened for the purpose of forming the constitution for the new states.  Benjamin Franklin was opposed to paying governmental representatives for obvious reasons.  In an address titled “The Dangers of a Salaried Bureaucracy,” Franklin spoke these words:

Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men.  These are ambition and avarice; the love of power and the love of money.  Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but, when united in view of the same object, they have, in many minds, the most violent effects.  Place before the eyes of such men a post of honor, that shall, at the same time, be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it.2

The Apostle Paul was overtly concerned with these vices and made conscious effort to avoid the loss of effectiveness that would result by failure in these areas.

1. Free from financial bonds.  Money, of course, is not evil of itself but rather the love of money.  Paul says in verse 11, If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things? It is right to pay the ministers of the gospel who have brought spiritual blessings to us.  But Paul goes on to say, Nevertheless we have not used this power; but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ (vs 12).  To some (no doubt false apostles) the receiving of payment for spiritual service would cause one to be “greedy for money” and thereby disqualify him for the ministry.  But for Paul this was not a danger.  Rather he wanted to be “free” from the assumption (by him or them) that the preacher is indebted beyond the gospel truth itself to those who pay him.  He must be free from such expectations.

R.A. Torrey recalled his days working with D.L. Moody and wrote of the large amount of money that came to their evangelistic organization.  He said of Moody, “Millions of dollars passed into Mr. Moody’s hands, but they passed through; they did not stick to his fingers.”3 Maclaren once wrote, “But this is always true—that the people who do not make worldly good their first object are the people who can be most safely trusted with it, and who get most enjoyment out of it.”4 What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.

2. Free from human bonds.  In the same way that we may place ourselves under obligation to payment, we may place ourselves under obligation to applause.  It is a temptation in our day to do what it takes for people to reward us with their presence and their approval.  But in such a case we have placed ourselves in bondage to them as really as if they paid us to perform to their expectations.

Dag Hammarskjold once commented,

Around a man who has been pushed into the limelight, a legend begins to grow as it does around a dead man.  But a dead man is in no danger of yielding to the temptation to nourish his legend, or accept its picture as reality.  I pity the man who falls in love with his image as it is drawn by public opinion during the honeymoon of publicity.5

In one of the most telling verses describing the false apostles, Paul again took great pains to avoid the pitfall of bondage to human applause, For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise (2 Cor 10:12).  For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth. (18).  Freedom from such comparisons was a prerequisite for Paul’s approval before God!

How Are We Servants?

When the Apostle says that I have made myself servant to all, that I might gain the more (1 Cor 9:19), he is taking us beyond the earthly motivations to a higher one.  Once Paul was free of the lower motivations of riches and status, he had access to the Christ-like motivation of servant (agape) love.  This chiasm will be further elaborated in chapter 13 where love envieth not; vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up (13:4).

Agape love is an all-giving love.  To take back payment (in any form) for its use, would no longer be service, but wages.  But this giving of oneself completely and unselfishly is to align oneself with Christ and His followers, whether John the Baptist in his prison or the Apostle Paul in his.  This is where the power comes from for witnessing and this is why Paul knew he would gain the more by entering into such service.  He says, And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you (23).

1. Servants that love the Lord.  The first commandment is to love the Lord our God which naturally will be followed by service to Him.  We cannot truly love Him and love the things of the world.  To be in the gospel ministry for wages or applause is to settle for a powerless ministry.  L.S. Chafer wrote,

Spirituality is not fained by service: it is unto service.  When one is truly spiritual, all effort is diverted from self struggle to real service.  Spirituality is a work of God for His child:  service is a work of the child for his God, which can be accomplished only in the power of the indwelling Spirit.6

Paul wrote to Timothy, as a young man susceptible to earthly motivations, Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.  No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs (pragmateiais, literally “pragmatisms”) of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier (2 Tim 2:3-4).  It is the Lord we are striving to please, not humans who are blinded by their own nature.

2. Servants that love the souls of men.  The second commandment is to love those who do not (at least for the moment) love us.  One of the hardest lessons for us to learn in parenting is that often we must do the hard thing with our children whether they understand or not.  There is no more servile work on earth than for the faithful parent of an ungrateful child!  Paul loved his own people to the point of wishing he could be cursed if it would bring them to salvation (of course he knew that only Christ could do that).  But his only return on that love was constant persecution and hatred for reminding them that they were sinners.  That is true servanthood!

In a chapter titled “The Insane Necessity,” G.K. Chesterton pointed out that for someone to follow us because we make them is not really following.  But for someone to follow us even though we cannot make them, is the essence of true service.  He wrote, “Submission to a weak man is discipline.  Submission to a strong man is only servility.”7 We cannot make someone come to Christ, but the best way to persuade him to do so is to show our own submission to Christ in front of him.  That is both to love the Lord supremely and to love our neighbor as ourselves!

And So . . .

What does it mean to be free from all men and to be servant of all?  It means to be free from any motivation higher than true service.  Self aggrandizement only weakens our gospel witness.  Jesus said to Paul, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. To which Paul responded, Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Cor 12:9).

Thomas a Kempis, centuries ago, wrote the Lord’s response to his prayer as,

And yet, what great matter is it, if thou, who art but dust and nothing, subject thyself to a man for God’s sake, when I, the Almighty and the Most High, who created all things out of nothing, humbly subjected myself to man for thy sake.”8

Now that would define all things to all men!

Notes:
1.  Quoted by R.C.H. Lenski, First Corinthians (Minneapolis:  Augsburg Publishing House, 1963) 374.
2. Benjamin Franklin, “The Dangers of a Salaried Bureaucracy” Orations from Homer to McKinley, Mayo Hazeltine, ed. (New York: Collier, 1902) 1850.
3. R.A. Torrey, Why God Used D.L. Moody (Murfreesboro: Sword of the Lord Publishers, nd) 20.
4. Alexander Maclaren, Exposition of First Kings (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1959) 159.
5. Quoted by Chuck Swindoll, The Grace Awakening (Dallas:  Word Publishing, 1996) 243.
6. L.S. Chafer, He That Is Spiritual (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972) 55.
7. G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong With The World (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 1994) 77.
8. Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1984) 157.

 

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No Past, No Future, No God!

Written by Rick Shrader

No Past, No Future, No God!

by Rick Shrader

Blaise Pascal wrote, “We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is.”1

It seems that in times of unbelief, the powers of darkness work hard to destroy both the confidence in where we came from and the assurance of where we are going.  As Pascal pointed out, the result is the failure of the only stewardship we really have—the present.  Never have we been so adept at inspecting the past and predicting the future while the present stands so morally bankrupt.

Two philosophical dangers have appeared in our day, each attempting to eat up the church from  opposite directions.  Postmodernism has attempted to detach the church from its sacred history, and Open Theism is now attempting to strip her of her prophetic future.

Issues like these are usually kept from the church at a safe distance.  They are for the clergy and various academics who politely debate the finer points, while the laymen and novices are sheltered, many times willingly so.  I heard one speaker at a theological lecture series lament that the subject (the openness of God) had now been made available to laymen through recent books and therefore the “cat was out of the bag.”  The regret, of course, was that the average lay person in our churches cannot handle such challenges to their faith and will be led about with the new winds of doctrine.

No doubt, as Lewis wrote, “There will always be people who think that any more astronomy than a ship’s officer needs for navigation is a waste of time.”2 But I think that the member in the local church is more aware of these things than we want to admit.  If, in fact, the danger exists, let’s put it out there for scrutiny and trust the Spirit of God to bring the truth to light.

Postmodernism:  No Past

Who would have thought we could take a man seriously who told us we can determine the future but we cannot know the past!  Yet this is exactly the belief that postmodernism has brought to our generation.  In the first half of the 20th century Martin Heidegger wrote,

The past is past.  That means the former beings are no longer beings.  All historiology deals with beings that are no longer.  No historiological presentation is ever capable of making a former being into the being it was.  Everything past is only something that has passed away.3

This kind of statement alarmed men like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who wrote, “’[Some say,] ‘Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye.’  But the proverb goes on to say: ‘Forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes.’”4

The Proposition:

Postmodernism’s elimination of history actually amounts to a linguistic sleight of hand.  From Saussure to Derrida and Baudrillard, these French deconstructionists have been talking of language as a series of “signs” (what became the study of semiology).  Every time a person describes an object, or an idea (the “signified”) with a word or even a thought (the “signifier”), some meaning is lost because the sign that is used is “different” than the thing that was being described.  The claim is that we can never recover fully what the sign was signifying, and therefore, its history is lost.  The writing or speaking (even filming) of history has been distorted many times over by an infinite use of these “differences” so that we cannot know the past.

The Therefores:

If we cannot know what actually occurred in the past, the past is both lost to us and open to whatever reinvention we would like to make.  Our opinion would be just as valid as anyone else who wrote or spoke about it.  As a matter of fact, our opinion is more valid because we bring the history into our own context.  If I write a history of John Kennedy or Pearl Harbor or D-Day and believe that my story could have happened because I have properly psychoanalyzed what the characters were like, then I have written “history.”

Ironically, older books have less validity, because though they are closer to the original event, they are further from us and the contextualization of the event into our culture.  They don’t know how to say it in our lingo and therefore are meaningless to us and our world.  All of the past is  “fluid” rather than “static,” waiting for modern man to bring the past into the reality of the present.

Postmodernists have no time for the Bible because it is an old book that cannot possibly speak to our culture.  Its meaning is lost (to semiologists, lost the moment it was written) in antiquity and its relevance closed to the generation to which it spoke.  Miracles are the church’s wish for what could have been and God Himself is only a modern interpretation of old religionists.   No past?  Then no God!

Open Theism:  No Future

On the heels of postmodernism’s elimination of the past is the evangelical belief in the Openness of God; a belief that God is limited in His knowledge of the future due to the true free will of men and angels.  Now God is being limited due to man’s inability to understand Him.  In his famous sermon, Jonathan Edwards said, “God is not altogether such an one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so.”5 How true in this new philosophy of Open Theism!

The Proposition:

The position of Open Theism (The “Openness” of God) can best be seen within Open Theist’s writings as in this explanation by David Basinger:

We maintain, rather, that God possesses only what has come to be called ‘present knowledge.’  God, we acknowledge, does know all that has occurred in the past and is occurring now.  Moreover, God does know all that will follow deterministically from what has occurred, and can, as the ultimate psychoanalyst, predict with great accuracy what we as humans will freely choose to do in various contexts.  God, for instance, might well be able to predict with great accuracy whether a couple would have a successful marriage.  But since we believe that God can know only what can be known and that what humans will freely do in the future cannot be known beforehand, we believe that God can never know with certainty what will happen in any context involving freedom of choice.6

In similar fashion, Richard Rice explains that (in their view) God only knows the future as it unfolds for Him to see.  He writes:

He [God] acquires the value of creaturely events as they happen, as they come into existence . . . His experience is the infallible register of temporal reality.  It reflects every event and development in the temporal world.  All that happens enters His memory and is retained forever.  Nothing escapes His notice.  But God’s experience is also the progressive register of reality.  Events enter His experience as they happen, not before.  This means that God experiences the past and the future differently.  They are not the same for Him.  He remembers the past exhaustively, in all its detail.  Every aspect is vividly present to His mind.  But His experience of the future is different.  He anticipates the future, to be sure, and in a way unique to Him, as we shall see.  But the future retains its essential indefiniteness from God’s perspective as well as from ours.7

Traditional theology, they say, has fallen prey to Western thought and has left the more Eastern thought of the Bible.  John Sanders, for example says, “This placing of (what I shall call) the ‘absolutistic’ conception of God derived from Greek philosophy above the ‘personalistic’ conception presented in the Bible has, in the history of the church, led to many problems.”8

The Therefores:

If God does not know that future that involves the free will choices of humans, how is it that prayer works?  Are we simply asking God to smile on us if we make the right free will choices?  Do we really possess the “dignity of causality” in prayer because the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much? How did David conclude, Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them (Psa 106:23)?

Besides prayer, what does Open Theism do to prophecy?  Surely much if not most of prophecy dealt with human choices.  The prophet’s ability to accurately foretell the future was the confirmation of the True God as opposed to false gods.  And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God?  For the living to the dead?  To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them (Isa 8:19-20). No future?  Then no God!

And So . . .

G. Campbell Morgan wrote, “Man has ever been attempting to construct a deity out of the imaginings of his own heart, and the result has been the idea of God as an enlarged man, and a consequent misconception of His true being.”9 If man can eliminate God’s past, and eliminate God’s future, how much can God exist only in the present?

Notes:
1. Blaise Pascal, Pensees (London:  Penguin Books, 1966) 47/163, p. 43.
2. C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns (New York: HBJ, 1986) 101.
3. Martin Heidegger, Basic Concepts (Bloomington: IU Press, 1998) 73.
4. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (New York: Harper & Row, 1974) x.
5. Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Compass Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 2
6.  David Basinger, “Practical Implications,”  The Openness of God (Wheaton: IVP, 1994) 163.
7. Richard Rice, God’s Foreknowledge & Man’s Free Will (Minneapolis:  Bethany House, 1985)26.
8.  John Sanders, “God as Personal,”  The Grace of God and the Will of Man (Minneapolis:  Bethany House, 1989) 167-175.
9. G. Campbell Morgan, Understanding The Holy Spirit (USA: AMG, 1995) 145.

 

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Loving The Brethren: an additional persp...

Written by Rick Shrader

Loving The Brethren: an additional perspective

by Rick Shrader

There is no more difficult command in the Bible than for each one of us to love the brethren.  This isn’t just a worldly love in the family or emotional sense, it is agape love that gives of itself because it is right to give.  Perhaps there is no more direct application to G.K. Chesterton’s statement than in this area of the Christian life, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.  It has been found difficult; and left untried.”1

My mother used to say that it is hard to love the unlovely.  Churches and individuals have been guilty of this failure and I think more so as America celebrates an opulent life-style where unlovely people just don’t fit it.  It is a dangerous trend for churches to “target” audiences to which it wants to minister, and not at all surprising that too often such audiences turn out to be the upper classes of society.  Even the “millennial” kids with their lap-tops and trust funds are only a small percentage of all of our nation’s young people.

But with that said I want to turn the attention of this article toward another neglected area of biblically mandated love.  That is the Bible’s command to love the brethren that are in the church!  I don’t mean the ones that are on the fringes of Christian living (and neither do I sleight that worthy and proper attitude), but the ones that are holy and pure and have hungered and thirsted after a biblical righteousness.  I find, especially in John’s first epistle, the consistent command for the errant believer to love the obedient believer.

It has been a trend in our current society to make heroes out of those people who fail.  And of course failure is never their fault, always the fault of the rest of society.  Failure is celebrated as victimhood and therefore deserving of both applause and redistribution of resources to make things even.  I am simply making a comparison that has drifted into the church and caused us to forget how God in His Word admonishes failing brethren to love those who have not failed.

As a pastor I have often seen and felt the love of good Christian people for the sinning and disobedient within the church, but I have also seen and felt the antipathy of the erring brethren toward those who would encourage and even admonish them to do right.  Of course we know that sin blinds the perspective and obedient believers are to continue ministering to the disobedient.  But we must not forget that those who are in sin and disobedience lie under great obligation from scripture to repent and change.

The cure for our sin is to look upon Christ and see the difference in our lives and His and then to confess our failure to meet that holy standard.  Kyle Yates wrote, “No stronger cord can ever bind us than the cords of love so clearly seen as we look upon the incarnation, the life, and the death of our Lord and Saviour.”2 I find several ways in which the sinning Christian is admonished in scripture to follow this pattern toward Christ and also toward the brethren.

The erring are to love the righteous

In his third epistle, John admonished believers to love one another and not be like the world which hates believers because believers are righteous.  For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous (1 John 3:11-12).  John does not bother us with whether or not Abel loved Cain.  True Christianity will be like Abel and not like Cain.  But when brethren fall out of love with one another, the attitude of Cain has crept in and caused the sinning brother to react in the same way (as the whole lost world).  Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer (vs 15) John says of him, and has called into question his own salvation: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

Who is called upon for action here?  The sinning brother!  And what is he to do?  Love the “righteous” brother!  The righteous brother has remained true to his Lord, loving in spite of the lack of return on his investment.  He cannot do more than he has done any more than Abel could change his righteous actions at the altar of God.  But Cain could have and should have changed his attitude toward his brother!  John has merely drawn the parallel to believers within the church.

Long ago William Wilberforce observed, “John Owen has made an apt comparison:  Religion in a state of prosperity is like a colony that is long settled in a strange country.  It is gradually assimilated in features, demeanor, and language to the native inhabitants, until at length every vestige of its distinctiveness has died away.”3 This happens as much in the matter of brotherly love as in any matter.  We have let the world dictate how the sinning brother should respond and we have encouraged him in it rather than admonished him to love the brethren.

The prosperous are to love the poor

Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? (1 John 3:16-17).  In an affluent society, it is common for the church to cater to the rich and famous and to overlook their obvious sins.  It is always easier to admonish the lower class to respect the higher class than to admonish the wealthy.  James called this “respect of persons.”  My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons . . . . Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? (James 2:1, 4).

In this case, it is the wealthier brother who needs to find it within himself to love the poor brother as an equal.  The very lack of it is to admit to his sin.  Perhaps it is the repulsive thought of shaking hands and embracing; or the loathsome task of having such an one to the house for dinner; or just the pridefulness of thinking oneself better because of possessions.  And we ought to avoid all humbuggery like “I love him as a brother”  which, of course, is to admit that you do not at all!

Chesterton wrote once, “Love desires personality; therefore love desires division.”4 It is the world that tries to put everyone on equal footing so it can bring itself to love everyone.  The early churches seated slave and master on the same pew, and rejoiced that God had made such an arrangement possible through the cross of Calvary!  He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant (1 Cor 7:22).

The deserters are to love the loyalists

It is one of the sad realities of church life that when a sinning believer needs the church the most he slips away, almost hiding and waits for his brethren to discover what has happened and come and find him.  John says that’s the attitude of the world, not believers!  They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: (1 John 2:19).  The book of Hebrews was largely written to keep the true believers from deserting the fellowship and going back to the temple worship:  But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul” (Heb 10:39).

I was given a book by a good friend of mine who had gone through difficult times and found great help in the book.  In it, the author, David Jeremiah, writes,

“We’ve missed you in church.”  “Well, the truth is that we’re having trouble in our marriage.”  If that’s true, get up early and go to both services!  You need all the church you can get in such a time.  Our faith isn’t a luxury intended for periods of smooth sailing—neither is our fellowship.  When trouble comes along, that’s when it’s wonderful to be part of a faithful, Bible-believing body of people who will rally around you.  They’ll pray for you, support you with their resources, encourage you, and counsel you in the tough decisions.  The devil is the only one whose opinion is that you should take a sabbatical from church in the hard times.5

Who is commanded to love the brethren during those times?  The ones who have remained have not ceased to do so.  It is the one who has left who needs to love the brethren!  (Note: Even if he has been wronged, separation only adds insult to injury.  I am writing of those who sin and then leave).  When Peter developed a wrong attitude, he separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision (Gal 2:12).  Jude says this is the action of the lost, not the saved, These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit (Jude 19).

The unbelievers are to love the believers

This is not redundancy but warning.  When John says, He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now (1John 2:9), he means, of course, that such an one claims to be a brother but in reality is not.  Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him (1 John 3:15).  Sinning “brothers” may be sinning because they are not brothers at all and therefore have no brotherly love in them.  Such hypocritical ones need desperately to experience the love of Christ so they can truly love the brethren.  We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren (1 John 3:14).

And So . . .

I hope this can be taken as an additional view of what it means to love the brethren.  It should be a subject for introspection.  As Francis Schaeffer wrote,  “We must not get angry.  If people say, ‘You don’t love other Christians,’ we must go home, get down on our knees and ask God whether or not they are right.  And if they are, then they have a right to have said what they said.”6

Notes:
1. G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong With The World (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 1994) 37.
2. Kyle Yates, Preaching From The Psalms (New York: Harper, 1948) 168.
3. William Wilberforce, Real Christianity (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1997) 99.
4. G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Wheaton: Harold Shaw, 1994) 142.
5. David Jeremiah, A Bend In The Road (Nashville:  Word Publishing, 2000) 97.
6. Francis Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1972) 13.

 

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We Have This Treasure In Earthly Vessels

Written by Rick Shrader

We Have This Treasure In Earthly Vessels

by Rick Shrader

A look at Christian selfishness

Savonarola once wrote,  “In   the primitive church the chalices were of wood and the prelates were of gold;  to-day the prelates are of wood and the chalices are of gold.”1 Paul told the Corinthians that we are less than wood, we are clay (“ostraka”) vessels.  “Clay vessels are cheap, utterly common, the least valued, used with small care, bound to break sooner or later.”2 Yet the sage was right, we desire the earthly rather than earthen.

I should not presume to write on selfishness.  This tap root of our sin nature is more deceitful than any of us could imagine or master.  This is “where passions have the privilege to work and never hear the sound of their own names.”3 One cannot tell a selfish man he is selfish, and every last one of us is selfish to the core.  But when we are commanded by God to pay attention to something, we must give the best of our efforts and ask the Holy Spirit for help.  It is because this trait of ours is so comely that we must give it more comeliness.

The church at Corinth was not unlike many churches throughout our history, nor its individuals unlike many of us today.  They displayed their selfishness, however, in every way they could.  Whether through their preference of showy gifts and flashy individuals, or their propensity for excluding the poor and overlooking the sinful, their self-centeredness manifested itself in almost every area of their Christian lives and ministries.  Francois Fenelon wrote, “This is the decision of man, and it is the judgment of God, who would not have us so occupied with ourselves and thus, as it were, always arranging our features in a mirror.”4

Paul told the Corinthians, rather, that, we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor 3:18). If we look at the image of Christ in the mirror long enough, we will eventually be formed into that same image.  But the surprise to our selfish nature is that Christ is not selfish but caring, not strong but weak, not defensive but defenseless, and that to be like Him we will be always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body (4:10).

How is it that Paul had such power with God?  As Dr. Harju used to say in class, he was a hook-nosed, runny-eyed, little Jew!  How could he be so persuasive among the diverse world in which he ministered?  Is it not because he knew that Jesus said, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me (Jn 12:32)? Hadn’t Paul realized, in the midst of his own thorns that God insists, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9)? And didn’t he know that we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us (2 Cor 4:7)?

It is when the earthen vessels start to become earthly that we lose our power with God.  Whereas “earthen” means made of the earth; of baked clay, “earthly” means worldly, nonspiritual, sensual, carnal, corporeal, natural, temporal, mortal. Of course, the reason we are “earthen” is to be broken, disposable, easily shattered.  When this happens to the vessel, the Light within can shine through!  The power is not in the vessel but in the Light!  But the vessel often disagrees.  As the old proverb goes, ham and eggs is a contribution to the chicken but a total sacrifice to the pig.  But God will not have the eggs without the ham, and He will not give the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God (4:4) until the vessel agrees to break.

Haven’t we all learned by experience and observation that in Christ’s ministry we are too often in the business of avoiding breaking the vessel.  Because our selfishness is so deceptive, however, we almost always feel we are making great sacrifices for God when, in fact, we are only protecting ourselves from being broken.  Diogenes Allen wrote,

Our existence is more real to us than the existence of anything else because the existence of everything else is evaluated in terms of its usefulness and attractiveness to our purposes.  Everything is subordinate to our will.  To do evil is to attempt to retain that perspective and relation to others.  To refuse to do evil is to recognize that we are not at the center and that all things are not to be judged with ourselves at the center.5

Self-preservation and self-aggrandizement are both part of our selfish nature.  Yet by these we protect our vessel and keep it from being broken.  In the “thorn in the flesh” passage, Paul concludes his lesson on strength out of weakness by writing, Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong (2 Cor 12:10). We would do well to examine ourselves in the light of these five “vessel breakers.”

Infirmities:  Our human weaknesses

C.S. Lewis wrote, “In coming to understand anything we are rejecting the facts as they are for us in favor of the facts as they are.  The primary impulse of each is to maintain and aggrandize himself.”6 Few of us see a difficulty very clearly when we are in the midst of the difficulty.  For all of our talk about having experienced it, we usually are much more objective, and therefore more correct, before the trial.

Our human weaknesses drive us to cover up for ourselves.  It is embarrassing for others to see us as we really are.  Therefore we let our infirmity defeat us by not using it to bring glory to Christ.  William Wilberforce once wrote,  “One may almost say that the main object and chief concern of real Christianity is to root out our natural selfishness and to correct the false standard it would impose upon us.”7 This is a basic human weakness.

Reproaches:  Our open vulnerabilities

Why is it that we don’t like reproaches?  If we are right; if we told someone the truth who needs it very badly; why do we withdraw because of that person’s reaction?  Did we stop giving our children medicine because they fought against us?  There is no one so vulnerable to reproach as the one pouring in the oil and the wine.  So we often avoid it!  Tozer wrote, “The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him.  It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect.”8 And it saves our self-respect as well.  But evangelism is going to cost someone his self-respect; either the saint or the sinner.  The sinner, if he is going to find repentance; the saint, if he is going to show it to him.

Necessities:  Our unmet needs

Whether real needs or perceived needs, we do not like to be left with unmet needs.  Did you ever see a child throw himself on the floor, kicking and screaming, because he didn’t get what he wanted?  Isn’t that because he was not able to see the whole picture the way his father could see it?  His father knew what he needed and when.

Very few believers could ever live as Paul lived.  What he calls mere necessities would be abject poverty and ruin to most of us.  We would throw ourselves on the prayer closet floor and scream until God changed things.  Yet we go far beyond necessities to what Ravi Zacharias called “non-profit envy:  a man with ten sheep looking at his neighbor’s hundred sheep would wish that ninety of his neighbor’s sheep would die.”9 Our “needs” are too often a comparison of our status with others’.

Persecutions:  Our enemies’ victories

Here we must remember that our Lord’s cross was a victory to the world, the flesh, and the Devil.  Yet it became the power of God for the salvation of the world.  Paul prayed, That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death (Phi. 3:10). Too often, persecutions from the world are conceded as failures to the Christians rather than victories for the cross of Christ.  Heaven forbid that we might be despised by the world!  I am not advocating ignorant provocation, but rather the attitude of Christian history, as Calvin said :  “Let men do their utmost, they cannot do worse than murder us!  And will not the heavenly life compensate for this?”10

Distresses:  Our difficult circumstances

It is not speaking well for our generation that the distresses of life cause us to fail the Lord.  The divorce rate is as high today among believers as among non-believers (though I doubt the definitions).  Church drop-out rates fluctuate with the economy and the stock market.  It is true, today’s society is fast-paced, pressure-packed and full of over-night calamities.  In the midst of these, can we let the peace of God rule in our hearts?  Can we lose everything in this world and still praise Him?  We know we should, but we’re not sure if we will!  Only our selfish desires will keep us from it.

Paul wrote, In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you (1 Thes 5:18). When our selfishness asks out of the race, we need to trust in the fact that God knows what He’s doing.  I believe history is God’s will and we must accept the fact that God has done right and done best.  Anything less would be earthly rather than earthen.

Notes:
1.  Savonarola, “On the degeneration of the church,”  Mayo Hazeltine, Ed., Orations: Homer To Mckinley, Vol 3 (New York: Collier and Son, 1902) 1281.
 
2. R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation Of Second Corinthians (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1963) 974.
 
3. C.S. Lewis, God In The Dock (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1994) 190.
 
4. Francois Fenelon, “Simplicity and Greatness,” Orations, Vol 4,  1637.
 
5. Diogenes Allen, Christian Belief in a Postmodern World (Louisville:  W/JKP, 1989) 106.
 
6. Quoted by Michael Aeschliman, The Restitution of Man:  C.S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 68.
 
7. William Wilberforce, Real Christianity (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1997) 107.
 
8. A.W. Tozer, Worship and Entertainment (Camp Hill, Penn:  Christian Pub, 1997) 148.

9. Ravi Zacharias, Just Thinking, Winter 1999, p. 3

10. John Calvin, “On Enduring Persecution,” Orations, Vol 4, 1379.

 

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The Obvious Lie

Written by Rick Shrader

The Obvious Lie

by Rick Shrader

Mark Twain once said, “The secret of success is sincerity.  If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”1 He should have been living today, we would hire him to teach leadership seminars.  And it wouldn’t matter whether it was business, politics or church, the image we present has become more important than what we really are.

I call this “The Obvious Lie” because of the amazing ability we have in our day to hear and see a catchy sales pitch, know it cannot possibly be true, and yet be persuaded by it anyway.  The more fantastic the claim, the better we like it.  Does drinking your favorite beverage on a deserted island really make dancing girls appear?  No, and no one really cares.  Does it make you snow board down a snowy slope any faster?  Of course not, but that’s not the point.  The point is image, non-reality, using a product that is simply associated with those things.  So, do we really care that the commercial has lied to us?  Evidently not.

Obviously, we ought to be concerned about this state of affairs when it comes to presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ, but I am afraid we are not.  As a matter of fact, we are more than willing to use it than to fight it.  Glenn Ward, in a non-Christian book summarizing this postmodern phenomenon writes,

The increasing invasion of signs and images (in media, display, advertising and so on) into the fabric of everyday life has created a dream world of ideal lifestyles for us to fantasize about and identify with.  For example, many commercials are more concerned to attach a sense of lifestyle and experience to the product being sold than to give details about the product itself.  Because of this, we get as much satisfaction from consuming the images attached to goods as we do from whatever practical function the goods might serve.2

We have become so used to this form of communication in our lives  that we expect to be lied to.  The truthfulness of the message no longer matters. I have seen “mission statements” posted on business walls that if true, would both invade any privacy the customer had left and take three times the personnel available to see it accomplished.  I suppose we have learned that they simply want to “feel our pain” whether they can really do anything about it or not.

Lynne Cheney, who has been writing on these things for years, quoted Richard Lanham of UCLA describing what he called “The Rhetorical Man.”

Rhetorical man is an actor; his reality public, dramatic.  His sense of identity, his self, depends on the reassurance of daily histrionic reenactment …. He thinks first of winning, of mastering the rules the current game enforces.  He assumes a natural agility in changing orientations.  He hits the street already street-wise.  From birth, almost, he has dwelt not in a single value-structure but in several. He is thus committed to no single construction of the world; much rather, to prevailing in the game at hand…. Rhetorical man is trained not to discover reality but to manipulate it.  Reality is what is accepted as reality, what is useful….Rhetorical man does not ask, ‘What is real?’ He asks, ‘What is accepted as reality here and now?’  He is thus typical present-oriented.  Past and future remain as possibility only, a paradigm he may some day have to learn.3

Using the postmodern lie

I have for a long time been an advocate of the church not jumping on this band-wagon.  I cannot see that just because we are smart enough to notice what the postmodern culture is doing and accepts, that we should adopt the same technique.  One Christian writer advocates, “Give postmoderns a new experience they haven’t had before.  The experience of a new story, the ‘feel’ of a new consciousness, is the key to personal and social change. . . . Total Experience is the new watchword in postmodern worship.  New World preachers don’t ‘write sermons.’  They create total experiences.”4 It is my contention that preaching the truth to postmoderns cannot be done with the same obvious lie with which they preach to themselves.

What some seem to fail to take into account is that postmoderns believe that experience creates truth and there is no such thing as finding truth.  Facts are out, stories are in.  Narratives must be interpreted into the listener’s context, not the writer’s or speaker’s context.  Listen, for example, to two of the most prominent postmodern writers.  Jacques Derrida, in his famous Grammatology writes, “The feelings of the mind, expressing things naturally, constitute a sort of universal language which can then efface itself.  It is the stage of transparence. . . . The written signifier is always technical and representative.  It has no constitutive meaning.”5 Similarly, Jean Baudrillard says, “We are in a logic of simulation which has nothing to do with a logic of facts and an order of reasons.”6

The postmodern audience demands image, story, self-interpreting histories because it believes truth is created in this way.  The law of non-contradiction is out, the law of contradiction is in.  The differences no longer reveal error, rather they allow for  individual truth for each person.  Can we allow this misconception of what we are preaching to go on?  Can we continue to let the hearers interpret our message in such a subjective way?

Is godliness a means of gain?

I have always read the description of “men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth” in 1 Timothy 6:5 as “supposing that gain is godliness.”  But the phrase is properly translated “who suppose that godliness is a means of gain” (NKJV).  There is a key difference.  It is not that some think earning a lot of money makes one a godly person.  Rather, it is that some people actually see that putting on the air of godliness will be profitable!  We can “gain” things by being godly.  This notion, coupled with the propensity to use the lie as a working methodology, makes for a dangerous combination.

Consider the words of our Lord when He instructed the disciples on what is greatness.  “Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister.  And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all” (Mk 10:43-44).  Isn’t it our nature to decide that, since we want to be “great,” we will have to get there by serving for a while?  Servanthood becomes a means to greatness rather than (as Jesus means) servanthood being greatness.

With the church in the midst of a consumer society, we have to ask ourselves how we intend to “build a church.”  Are we so sold out to the goal of attracting people that we will use the image of godliness to gain a crowd?  If so, then our image of godliness will end up being whatever the audience wants to interpret as godliness.  Let them be the judge.  Let them set the standard and write the definitions.  One young postmodern is quoted as saying,

It’s a pretty cool thing because there is no right or wrong when it comes to faith.  You believe what you believe, for whatever reasons seem right to you, and nobody can take that away from you.  And then, if you change your mind, that’s not an admission of failure or being wrong, but just a change of heart or maybe a sign that you’ve learned or grown up.  It’s not like math.  In spiritual matters the playing field is wide open.7

The author of the book compliments the young man for his sincerity.  As has become the common theme, the church is criticized as being Pharisaical for not accommodating the young man’s point of view and every negative trait about older people in the church is put on display.

The Sardis factor

In recent classes of Bible college or seminary students where I have spoken, I have read Revelation 3:1 and asked what it means.  The second half of that verse reads, “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.”  Almost without exception the answer has been that the church at Sardis was a dying church where not much was going on.  It seems almost an impossible concept for today’s future church builders that the church may very well have been a growing, active church and yet have been spiritually dead!  John MacArthur writes,

The church at Sardis was proud of her reputation for being spiritually alive, but the Lord warned her that she was really dead and needed to repent (Rev. 3:1-2).  If she did not He would come upon her like a thief (v. 3)—just as one night enemy soldiers under Cyrus had sneaked into the seemingly impregnable acropolis at Sardis by way of an unguarded footpath. . . . Overconfidence led to carelessness, and carelessness led to defeat.8

Today, success, even in God’s church, is based on today’s method of evaluating success.  And for all of the talk of a new vision for a new age, that method is the same it has been throughout the pragmatic twentieth century—acceptance by the world rewarded by their gracious attendance.  Yet will they respond as Paul describes in 1 Cor. 14:25, “And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.”  Not just go through the motions, mind you, because he has been asked to and that’s the spiritual experience for the day.  But because his sin, in all its ugliness before a holy God, has buckled his knees and his heart and left him in total despair without a Savior!  Spurgeon wrote,

The battlefront is altered, but do not imagine that the conflict will be less severe.  The whole land reeks before the Lord, and is corrupt with sin.  If Christians do not labor to stay evil, who will do it?  He who does not cry out against the wolf cannot surely be at enmity with the lion.9

Notes:
1. Quoted by Os Guinness, Unriddling Our Times (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999) 63.
2. Glenn Ward, Postmodernism (UK: NTC, 1997) 109.
3. Quoted by Lynne Cheney, Telling The Truth ( 190.
4. Leonard Sweet, Postmodern Pilgrims (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000) 43.
5. Jacques Derrida, Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1997) 11.
6. Robert Antonio and Douglas Kellner, “The Future of Social Theory”  Postmodernism & Social Inquiry (New York: The Guilford Press, 1994) 129.
7. George Barna, The Second Coming of the Church (Nashville:  Word Publishing, 1998) 75.
8. John MacArthur, First Corinthians (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984) 227.
9. Charles Spurgeon, reprinted in The Baptist Vision, Feb. 2001.

 

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The Real Issue of the Dimpled Ballots

Written by Rick Shrader

The Real Issue of the Dimpled Ballots

by Rick Shrader

The real issue of the election was not how to count the Florida votes. That game had been played many times before in major cities where the outcome of close elections had to be secured. No, the real issue was played out in the Supreme Court of Florida and of the United States. It is still being displayed in the United States Senate over who will be the Attorney General and thereby interpret the United States Constitution.

We saw two courts, one state and one federal, divide their opinions over a new issue. It was not just that some judges were appointed by Democrats and some by Republicans. That mattered some. Nor was it just that some were liberal and some were conservative. That mattered more. The real issue was, and is, the text of the Constitution itself. That historical document and the very words written two hundred years ago can now be taken in one of two ways. Either the United States Constitution is a fixed document or it is a fluid document.

A judge may be a strict constructionist and believe the Constitution should be taken as the writers and founders intended. This means that he must study its historical context and setting to determine what the framers meant by the text they wrote. Then he must apply the meaning of that text to the situation before him. Judges with this point of view talk about this process as “the rule of law.”

On the other hand, a judge may be a fluid constructionist and believe the Constitution is a fluid document that has been evolving and changing over the last two hundred years. Not that the words on the page have changed, but their original meaning can no longer be ascertained (nor needs to be). The only meaning available to a reader today is today’s meaning. Rather than the culture changing to conform to the text, the text changes to conform to the culture. If today’s culture rejects the Judeo-Christian ethic, the Constitution must be read to reject it also.

Too often, this differentiation defines Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, Christian and non-Christian. But the bottom line is the old or new view of writing and syntax, the old or new view of history and context, the old or new view of culture and ethnology, the old or new view of morality and religion.

If this seems a “stretch” to you, consider what French postmodernist Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote in 1979:

The adviser thus faces a major conflict, in some ways reminiscent of the split introduced by the Kantian critique between knowing and willing: it is a conflict between a language game made of denotations answerable only to the criterion of truth, and a language game governing ethical, social, and political practice that necessarily involves decisions and obligations, in other words, utterances expected to be just rather than true and which in the final analysis lie outside the realm of scientific knowledge.1

We are now reaping the results of half a century of such deconstructionist philosophy.

Christians have always had to contend with the anti-theistic trends in the country in which they lived. Our grandfathers did at the turn of the last century when German Rationalism came across the sea from Europe in the form of Modernism and attacked the Scriptures as being the Word of God. That was a (so-called) scientific attack based on historical and archaeological studies. Our grandfathers fought back, arguing better and sounder science, history and archaeology and they won the day.

But (as we flippantly parrot today) “the rules have changed.” If ever David’s words applied they apply now, If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Psa 11:3). We are not fighting Modernists. The new Postmodernists despise their Modernist fathers and grandfathers. They see Modernism as a brief and flawed phenomenon in the history of thought. Modernism used scientific method and logically constructed language to reach conclusions. This is no longer valid. The Word of God need not be attacked as unhistorical, unscientific, or even uninspired. All of those foundations for discussion have been removed by this generation. There is no language nor history nor science. Everything is in a state of fluid change and “becoming.”

The end of language

The most philippic attack on language itself has been by French linguist Jacques Derrida. His proposition is that meaning is transferred from a) the original “thing” (the “signified”); to b) the thought (“signifier”) about the thing; to c) the sound of a voice speaking about the thing; to d) the writing down of the thing. In each instance, some meaning is lost. In order for you to transfer your (wider) thoughts into (narrower) words, you are forced to drop some of the meaning about your thought. To Postmodernists like Derrida, this shows that no writing can possibly transfer the original meaning. Derrida calls this loss of meaning “The original sin of writing.”2 And he sees all language, spoken or written, as a perversion of meaning. He says, “There is therefore a good and a bad writing: the good and natural is the divine inscription in the heart and the soul; the perverse and artful is technique, exiled in the exteriority of the body.”3 That is, only the original thought (the “signified”) is good, every attempt to express it (the “signifier”) is bad.

If you made it through the last paragraph, congratulations! You can see why cultural watchers say things like, “They have, in good postmodernist fashion, abandoned the classical conception of truth and are simply playing with various contortions of consciousness.”4 Ironically, the very seriousness of this subject creates every reaction from ridicule to emulation. It becomes hard to believe that our national institutions, our schools and even our churches are affected. One professor writes, “Postmodernist tenets may seem academic and somewhat arcane, but they are being taught throughout contemporary universities. The new generation of college graduates has been immersed in this kind of thinking. Our new teachers, journalists, lawyers, judges, and political leaders have been indoctrinated.”5

The end of history

It is not a large jump from the end of language to the end of history. If we cannot really transfer truth “absolutely” in the form of language, how can we know anything that has been recorded as history? Most of history we learn by reading what someone wrote about events that happened. Add to this dilemma the “hermeneutics of suspicion,” that most of history was written by the powerful in order to control the weak. Those that controlled the governments, the religions, the institutions of business, recorded the history in a way that would continue to be advantageous to them. Of course, this history must be “deconstructed” by looking beyond the actual text and discovering these cultural motives.

Veith points out how this applies to the documents of our nation:

Consider, for example, the Declaration of Independence. . . Although the text speaks of equality, its language excludes women (“all men are created equal”). Although it speaks of liberty , its author, Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves. The surface meaning of equality and freedom is completely contradicted by the subtext, which denies equality and freedom to women and minorities.6

In other words, the Declaration and the Constitution must not be taken as they were written. They must be deconstructed. And when they are, deconstructionists can usually find whatever agenda they set out to find. The original meaning is lost, irrelevant, and biased.

Is there a conclusion?

Christians have much reason to be alarmed. Our faith is based on an historical event: the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the integrity of the historical record (the Bible) of that event. We cannot separate the Jesus of history (what really happened) from the Jesus of faith (what we want to believe happened). And we cannot negotiate with the text of the Scripture. This is why Christians will increasingly be seen as a danger to the new way of thinking. Dan Story summarized it this way, “Christianity and Christian ethics are no longer relevant. In fact, orthodox Christians are seen as bigoted, narrow-minded, and anti-intellectual because we refuse to accept other religions as ‘paths to God’ or to consider homosexuality, pornography, or abortion as permissible in a moral society.”8

But we need not fear for the truth of Christianity. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth (2 Cor 13:8). We must fear rather for a generation from whom the words of Scripture will be concealed. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost (2 Cor 4:3). The new battle for the Bible is a battle for the clear proclamation of God’s Word.

Notes:
1. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota Press, 1979) 32-33.
2. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) 35.
3. Derrida, 17.
4. Douglas Groothuis, The Soul In CyberSpace (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997) 119.
5. Gene Veith, Jr., Postmodern Times (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994) 67.
6. Veith, 55.
7. Michel Foucault, “Nietzche, Genealogy, History,” From Modernism to Postmodernism, Lawrence Cahoone, ed. ( Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 1996) 368.
8. Dan Story, Engaging The Closed Mind (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999) 9.
 

 

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Culture: The Incarnation Of Our Religion

Written by Rick Shrader

Culture: The Incarnation Of Our Religion

by Rick Shrader

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There may be no more important word in today’s Christian vocabulary than “culture.” R.C. Sproul wrote, “Adjusting to the customs and worldview of one’s environment is one of the strongest pressures people experience. To be ‘out of it’ culturally is often considered the nadir of social achievement.”1 Everything has to be relevant to the culture from tennis shoes to worship styles. It would be difficult to find a discussion group or seminar on ministry today without interacting with the word “culture.”

Cullen Murphy, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, notes that we used to regard nature as something that was to be held in awe, and culture as something we could control and modify. Now we hold “The culture” in awe and treat nature as something we can control for our own purposes. He then comments, “‘The culture’ is today the more fearsome realm, or at any rate the more convenient scapegoat, and the notion that we have only limited influence over it appears to be widespread.”2

This obvious flip-flop of priorities has both degraded the natural realm, which ought to remain the domain of spiritual wonder, and exalted the cultural realm to a god-like status that can only be obeyed but not controlled. Politicians make campaign promises to control the environment but Hollywood defers its ability to curb profanity and violence.

We would do well to remember that the root of culture is the “cult” or the society formed by the mores of the people involved. Francis Schaeffer once wrote, “We of the West may not be brainwashed by our State, but we are brainwashed by our culture.”3 We have let culture form us rather than we forming our culture. In an atheistic society that would not be considered bad. There, beliefs and values are relative and are only formed as a result of what people naturally do. But in a Christian society (whether that be a single life, a family, a church or a nation) the opposite is true. Belief comes first and then forms and controls the values as well as the actions. The result is nothing less than culture.

In short, as the title to this article suggests, culture is the result of our beliefs. T.S. Eliot, in a book called Christianity and Culture, wrote, “We may go further and ask whether what we call the culture, and what we call the religion, of a people are not different aspects of the same thing: the culture being, essentially the incarnation (so to speak) of the religion of a people.”4 A professor at our university (CSU) wrote in our local paper, “Religion defines our relationship to the world around us. It is intriguing how important religion is to our culture, family and value systems.”5 Because this is true, I would suggest at least three logical imperatives that follow.

We cannot separate belief and culture

As we have seen, culture on any level, is an outgrowth of what we believe. God holds us all responsible for our actions because those actions have been thought of in a person’s mind and then acted out. So the scriptures can say, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he (Prov 23:7); doing the will of God from the heart (Eph 6:6); They do always err in their heart (Heb 3:10). Perhaps the closest biblical word is “custom” (eqos) as when the Philippians complained that Paul and Silas taught customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans (Ac 16:21). Earle Cairns noted that Luther preached that culture must follow consistently from faith. He writes, “Above all, he [Luther] awakened his day to the fact that culture was not merely a matter of reason, but of regeneration by faith in Christ.”6

Today, no one wants to be responsible for his own actions, yet he wants to be free from anyone telling him how he ought to think. Actions have been totally divorced from scrutiny and often with the silly mantra, “don’t impose your moral standards on me!” That is silly because it is itself an imposition of the moral standard that no one’s thinking outside oneself shall have any bearing on how one acts. But the statement immediately strikes a thinking person as wrong because we know intuitively that all of us are bound to act in such a way that is determined by our moral belief. If one lies, he has somehow figured out in his head why saying what he said is justified. His moral imperative may have been self-preservation, or prejudice or any number of reasons, all of which he believes took precedent the moment he “lied.” The person who tells the truth has also acted on principles that he believes.

It has been my experience in reading that many non-Christians are recognizing this principle faster than Christians. Too many Christians believe “The culture” (notice how the definite article grants the word status) is only to be discovered and modeled and has nothing to do with religious or moral values. Consider the contrast from David Dickens (not a professing believer), Professor of Sociology at UNLV, “Thus culture historically has been fused with religion. The axial principle of contemporary culture, however, is the expression and remaking of the self in order to attain self-realization and self-fulfillment, which implies the denial of all limits or boundaries to experience.”7 No doubt, whatever you believe you will act out in some way.

We cannot separate faith and works

Though we may be more familiar with this language, perhaps it will help to consider it in light of what has already been said. It is simply inevitable that you will live in accordance with what you believe. The reason a lost man cannot live a Christian life (to any biblical consistency) is because he really does not believe what Christians believe. Sooner or later he has to go back to being consistent with his own thoughts. One commentator has written, “For the real business of life is not so much to get things done in any way, as to diffuse a right spirit among men, and get them to do things well.”8

It ought to be a subject of early Sunday School that when we come to Christ we change from an old life to a new life. And if, as believers, we lapse into the old way of life, we have chosen a way that is inconsistent with what we now believe. Demas loved this present “age” (aiwna) but his thinking had become wrong-headed. G.K. Chesterton correctly observed, “The moment we care for anything deeply, the world (that is, all the other miscellaneous interests) becomes our enemy.”9

If we continue to hold culture as inviolable we will continue to worship at its altar by our works. But if we realize that we are not to do so, indeed do not have to, we will live consistently with our faith regardless of the customs and cultures of the people around us.

We cannot separate worship and evangelism

Sometimes this is termed “message and methods” or “belief and methodology.” I call it “worship” because that is what we are doing when we consciously live before God in spirit and truth (Jn 4:24). Worship is our cognitive belief system, our always walking before God in an unseen faith (2 Cor 5:7). I call it “evangelism” because that is the living out of our faith to the rest of the world, to every person in every circumstance. If our worship constitutes our religion, then evangelism constitutes our culture. In every action we are affecting our world and creating a culture that is positive or negative for the gospel’s sake (1 Cor 9:23).

I have always been concerned when Christians speak of their worship, message or belief as something that is unchangeable but speak of their evangelism, methods or methodology as always changing. In fact, it ought to be the very opposite. My belief has to be compared to and corrected by the Word of God. I should be constantly honing my thinking (which is my true belief system) to God’s standard. But my methodology ought to (and it will) simply follow in obvious consistency behind my belief. I smile with Os Guinness when he wrote, “A well-known proponent states, ‘I don’t deal with theology. I’m simply a methodologist’—as if his theology were thereby guaranteed to remain critical and his methodology neutral.”10

It would be inconsistent (hence hypocritical) of me to act in a way that does not follow from my belief. It would be inconsistent to evangelize in a way that contradicts my worship. It would be inconsistent to use a method that is not parallel to my message. I concur with the concern of older writers who were alarmed when they saw the dichotomy of message and methods that was current. A.W. Tozer, for example, in the 50s wrote, “’The message is the same, only the method changes,’ say the advocates of compromise.”11 L.S. Chafer, in the 20s wrote, “It may be conceded that genuine results are sometimes obtained even where misleading methods are employed; but there by be great harm done as well.”12 D.L. Moody, in the 1800s wrote, “But, some say, if we take the standard and lift it up high, it will drive away a great many members from our churches. I believe it, and I think the quicker they are gone the better.”13

Now I am aware that the rebuttal to this point of view would focus on the ridiculously obvious such as the color of shirts or the type of organ. Such is to miss the point. John MacArthur said, “I do believe we can be innovative and creative in how we present the gospel, but we have to be careful to harmonize our methods with the profound spiritual truth we are trying to convey.”14 The Bible doesn’t ask us to use gospel stealth tactics, luring unbelievers with something that is contrary to our faith, and then revealing a non sequitur for a belief system. Rather, as Paul admonished Philemon, That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus (Phile 6).

Notes:
1. R.C. Sproul, Willing To Believe (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997) 16.
2. Cullen Murphy, “The Culture Did It,” The Atlantic Monthly, December 2000, 18.
3. Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1998) 159.
4. T.S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949) 101.
5. Robert Theodoratus, Coloradoan, 5/1/2000.
6. Earle Cairns, Christianity Through The Centuries (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977) 322.
7. David Dickens, “North American Theories of Postmodern Culture,” Postmodernism and Social Inquiry (New York: The Guilford Press, 1994) 79.
8. W.G. Blaikie, “Second Samuel,” The Expositor’s Bible (New York: Funk & Wagnels, 1900) 290.
9. G.K. Chesterton, Heretics (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000) 22.
10. Os Guinness, Dining With The Devil (Grand Rapids: Baker Book, 1993) 26.
11.  A.W. Tozer, Worship and Entertainment (Camp Hill: Christian Publications, 1997) 166.
12. L.S. Chafer, True Evangelism (Chicago: The Bible Institute Colportage Assoc., 1929) 13.
13. D.L. Moody, Spiritual Power (Chicago: Moody Press, 1997) 120.
14. John MacArthur, Ashamed of the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1993) 85.

 

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