Praise Factory: Free Online

I'm guessing there are about 30 8-year-olds running around my church who have a better grasp on theology than I did until I was about 24. One of the big reasons for that is Praise Factory, the children's ministry program designed and written by Connie Dever. Today that program went live online.

Now, I'm a huge fan of Kids4Truth, and I hear lots of great things about Children Desiring God too. And I can't offer you any sort of comparative analysis. But I do know this: Praise Factory is all free, and the theology is solid as a rock. Trust me, every now and then you get way more than you pay for.

Sweatting Bullets

Yesterday, in a conversation around the church, someone raised the historical fact that when Christian denominations and associations devolve into apostasy, it's never because apostates secretly gained a majority. Rather, it's because, when faithful believers exposed the apostasy and attempted to combat it, far too many people who believed all the right things refused to expel it. It happened in the Northern Baptist Convention. It happened in the Northern Presbyterian Church, and for decades (until 1979) it was the ethos that held sway in the Southern Baptist Convention.

It was with that conversation fresh in my mind that I began listening to Danny Sweatt's talk. Fortunately for the FBF, Sweatt is not an apostate (unless my wild speculation about open theism is correct, that is). But I think the principle holds. Too often, good men in a network of relationships refuse to publicly expose, repudiate, and eradicate grievous error in their midst—error that strikes at the heart of what they profess to hold in common. And when those otherwise good men abdicate their obligation to protect what they profess to treasure, they should not expect to to possess credibility as leaders. They have no right to expect followers. They are not leaders.

Kevin Bauder is a leader. He is one of a very few among perceived fundamentalist leaders who deserves credibility because he not only defines what he treasures, but exposes and pillories what threatens it.

I suspect that by now everyone has seen Kevin Bauder's systematic and succinct dismantling of Danny Sweatt's screed. It's being discussed pretty much everywhere we've grown accustomed to finding meaningful conversations in the fundamentalist blogosphere, and perhaps some where we haven't.

Too often fundamentalist "leaders" have named names of the conservative evangelicals with whom they disagree on one point or another. Sometimes those matters are significant, and sometimes they're quite peripheral. Seldom, at least to my awareness, have those same fundamentalist leaders named names of offenders, like Sweatt, within their own camp. Let's not pretend Sweatt's preposterous ramblings are unique among fundamentalist conferences or churches or camps or chapels. I wonder if this issue is simply more of a hot-button than most.

The specificity of Bauder's critique is refreshing. It's refreshing in part because it's new. Offenses like Sweatt's are not. So if I have the smallest quibble with Bauder's essay, it's his suggestion, "We did not create the problem." Last I knew, Bauder wasn't in the FBF. He didn't create the problem. But I'm not sure "we" is the best word choice.

FBF leaders, among other leaders, certainly have created this problem. Those who select these speakers are directly to blame, but so are those who've participated in the FBF while pleasantly tolerating this sort of thing. Does anyone seriously think that the sort of exegesis and argumentation Sweatt put on display was an aberration for him? Does anyone want to suggest that fundamentalists have a good track record of elevating only faithful expositors to the most prominent pulpits and platforms? In many [chirp, chirp]

I'm not suggesting that my generation and the ones coming after me will not, or even have not, created our own problems. We have, and we will. We must be repentant and reforming—always. I'm also not suggesting that there is no place for staying in a flawed association and working towards incremental reform. As a member of an SBC church that's engaged in incremental reform (and in a quite public fashion), I pray that the strategy succeeds in all sorts of associations, not only my own.

One might well wonder whether fundamentalist leaders have been as transparent and critical in their public assessment of their own associations as various conservative evangelical leaders have been concerning theirs. Today was a great step forward. May there be many more. We need them.

Has Open Theism Crept into the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship?

Based on his recent sermon*, I fear that Danny Sweatt is either an open theist or a passenger on the slow train that direction. Now I realize, that may be uncharitable. Maybe he's just confused, or maybe I don't understand him. But when he rejects the eternal decrees of God, I take that to mean something, and I think it has to mean one of three things, assuming he believes that God created the universe:

1: God created the universe as he did, but didn't know that Lucifer would rebel, that Adam would fall, and that countless other human sins would occur. They weren't yet real things that could be known.

That's open theism.

or . . .

2. God had to create a universe, and he had to create the one that he did, even though it certainly led to things he didn't really like.

I'm not going to chase this rabbit trail since I don't really think it's plausibly in play here. In other words, it seems to me that people who say the kinds of things Sweatt did usually run to open theism before they adopt the notion that God is constrained to have done something he didn't want to do. It "de-Gods" him even more than open theism does.

or . . .

3. God created the universe as he did, not only knowing that all those things would happen, but actually choosing to create the universe as he did instead of other ways that he might have created it—ways that did not include Lucifer's rebellion or Adam's sin.

We can argue whether or not this option constitutes an "eternal decree," but clearly, it doesn't change the fact that God created a universe structured in such a way in which sin would certainly come to pass. To pretend that an "eternal decree" makes God the author of sin in a way that this option does not is at best incoherent and at worst a deceptive intellectual shell game.

*If you really think you might care about this issue, you'll find broader critiques and wider discussion here and here and here.

Fundamentalist Cannibalism

Mark Farnham's article on SharperIron today is definitely worth reading. His basic argument is that non-Calvinist fundamentalists need to stop training their rhetorical guns on the rising "threat" of Calvinism, and instead defend the orthodox Christian faith against people who really mean to eradicate it.

Edgy, I know. But let's at least give the notion a fair shake.

I'm immensely grateful that Farnham would take a clear, public stance against some of the nonsense that's been emerging. It seems to me that many more people ought to repudiate it just as publicly. Perhaps I've missed them.

Some of you may have noticed in his brief bio that he's a Maranatha grad. In my book, he's the kind of guy who would make a great president for that institution someday—a former pastor, educational experience in a seminary setting, a clear thinker, a solid preacher, and to top it all off . . . an earned PhD in progress.

In related news, I just started watching the video of a debate in Dubai over the identity of God and how people are saved between Thabiti Anyabwile and a Muslim apologist. (You can start watching it here, and YouTube should be able to help you find the rest of the videos.) So anybody want to tell me that the increasing influence of Reformed thinkers like Anyabwile is the sort of thing that makes these times uniquely precarious? Seriously?

Good Stuff from the Junk Drawer

1. I enjoyed reading Scott Simons' reflections on the life of Jack Kemp at NPR.org, and hearing Cal Thomas' radio tribute, especially the part in which I found out that he was a member of a gospel-preaching church.

2. How great is the irony when disgraced convict and former DC mayor Marion Barry is the lone voice for family values on the DC city council?

3. Associated Baptist Press is a Baptist news agency founded in 1990 as an independent, alternative to SBC-operated Baptist Press. Some closer observers might say it's designed to be a non-conservative voice with a deliberate anti-Conservative Resurgence slant. From what I've observed, I'd be inclined to agree.

About a week ago, ABP published an article detailing the changes Al Mohler has made at Southern Seminary since he became president in 1993. For whatever reason, ABP pulled the article a few days later. The tone strikes me as if it was intended to expose information that would be damaging to Mohler. Frankly, the facts suggest he deserves gratitude and honor, so via the magic of Google, here it is, at least for now.

4. Some guy who once earned a trip to LA in an audition for American Idol (or so I've heard) told me about the American Conservative University podcast. Seems like a nice balance to my NPR habit. Top shows I've heard so far are #s 364 and 365 (Newt Gingrich lecturing in James Carville's classroom) and # 382 (Peter Schiff explaining why we shouldn't have been surprised by the financial system meltdown).

The Financial Breakdown: A Spiritual Diagnosis

Lots of things make me think of fellow CHBC member Paul Mills as a rather bright guy. He's a Cambridge PhD in economics. He knows more about theology than many seminary grads. He became a senior economist for the IMF after years of working in Her Majesty's Treasury doing things like managing the balance sheet of the United Kingdom. He's written several articles about the precarious implications of the housing bubble and things like derivatives and leveraging credit. But so have lots of people. Paul was writing those articles in 2007.

And he's a redhead with a British accent. Need I say more?

So last Wednesday night Mills was the guest lecturer at a CHBC Henry Forum. I understood some of it, but I especially liked the pretty pictures on the screen thingy.

If you want to know more about what happened in the financial crisis of the last six months, especially from a Christian perspective, you might benefit from listening to Paul's talk. And you can even download a PDF of the pretty pictures.

Update: Audio is back online.

Dispensationalism: 150 More Years to Get It Right?

As I was reading Andy Naselli's interview of Rolland McCune on his newly-released Systematic Theology volume, a couple things sent my mind in motion. But one of those simply floored me.

Naselli's twelfth question was a provocative one: "What issues have been lingering difficulties in your theological reflection?" It strikes me as the kind of question many theologians would have dodged—it's not especially fashionable for a professional theologian to admit he doesn't have everything figured out.

But McCune doesn't dodge or even unload a squid-like ink blob of obfuscation. Though I'd need some more explanation to grasp his broader point, the implications of his closing comments should be inescapable. Here's what he said:

When I was in seminary in the later 1950s, Dr. John C. Whitcomb opined in class that dispensationalism could take possibly two hundred years to be fully integrated into ST. Dr. Ryrie was reported to have said he thought dispensationalism was about thirty percent developed back then.

I've lived the vast majority of my life in unabashedly Dispensational contexts, and that Dispensationalism has been pretty dogmatic—the kind that sees Covenant Theology as serious error. In many cases, it's seen as the kind of error from which one needs to separate. Some might think of Covenant Theology as "uniquely precarious." Exposure to that sort of dogmatism seems to be the experience of quite a few people my age.

No doubt there are Dispensationalists who don't demonstrate that level of separatist dogmatism. No doubt many CT'ers are similarly dogmatic and condescending to Dispensationalists. And which system is right isn't really the issue here.

So what is the issue? Well, it simply seems to me as though advocates of a system that needs a bit more time to ripen—according to some of its most ardent advocates—might want to demonstrate some reserve when they critique other systems. I'm not suggesting that energetic debate is unfruitful. I've benefited immensely on a personal level from evaluating the clash between the best presentations of mutually exclusive views. And I'm certain that critical interaction has helped both camps move towards better articulations of their views. But I am wondering if a bit more charity and humility, coupled with less rhetoric and fewer straw men, might not serve the cause of the gospel well.

Creating a Culture of Grace in Your Christian School

I haven't reviewed this audio CD set from Paul Tripp. But if I had any level of oversight in a Christian school, it would be on the way to my address right now. The contact I've had with Christian schools of many stripes in many places has convinced me that the product description for this CD set is asking precisely the right questions:

Is your school something more than a system of rules, offenses and punishments? What is the vision that propels the mission of your Christian school? Are you content with behavior control and the dissemination of knowledge? Are you asking the law to do what only grace can accomplish? Rules restrain sin, rules expose sin, but rules will never deliver a child from sin.

Unless I'm missing my guess, Tripp's answers will be just as precisely true.

If there is another author/teacher who more effectively combines exegesis of Scripture and the human heart than Paul Tripp, that person's name isn't coming to my mind. Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands and A Quest for More are prime examples.

Let me know what you think once you've heard it, or better yet if you already have. If this set shouldn't be a cornerstone in any Christian school administrator's staff development toolbox, it'll be useful to me to hear the reason why.

HT

What If a Pill Could Help You Stop Sinning?

Would that be a good thing?

NPR tells the story of how a drug intended to combat alcoholism also reduces impulsive theft—kleptomania. (The audio version contains extra detail.)

In a nutshell, the drug functions as an opiate to reduce the high that accompanies addictions, whether it's derived from narcotics, theft, or other activities.

This story made me wonder: Would we be helped if medication really could reduce the frequency of our sin? Is it a good thing to see quantitative progress in living a moral life, wholly apart from the gospel? I'm not suggesting it's a good thing to be as bad as we can be; I'm wondering what might be the implications for a person who needs the transforming power of the gospel—regardless of whether or not they've been converted—if that person finds behavioral transformation through other means.

So if you knew it would help curtail your sin, would you take the medication or not?

The Scope of the Gospel: A Response to McKnight and Wright

Greg Gilbert's been working through a hefty project on the gospel, with particular focus on how contemporary theologians are trying to redefine it and the Church's mission. Though this blog hasn't been a venue for those battles, Greg's post today gets to the heart of the issue so pointedly that I couldn't resist posting a link.

Here's the conclusion:

In the NT, the good news is always the proclamation of forgiveness of sin through the substitutionary death of Jesus, and the call to repent to believe in him. Sometimes that's all the NT mentions as the "good news"; sometimes it also seems to zoom out to include in the good news all the promises that flow to those who are so forgiven. What the NT never holds out as the gospel, however, is the bare declaration that the kingdom has come apart from the means of entering it (faith in Christ's substitutionary death). Speaking biblically, the gospel is either Cross or Cross-and-Kingdom. But it is never Kingdom alone.