Imagine There's a Heaven...

A few days ago a thesis congealed in my simmering pot of mental stew. Maybe it was the serendipity of listening to a performance of a Christian musical group from the Caribbean at the same time I was reading D.A. Carson's Christ and Culture Revisited. I'm just naïve enough to imagine that this thesis might be widely affirmed—perhaps even reach consensus—but my latent inner realist reminds me that I'll be dispossessed of that notion in the comments section. Here's my thesis:

The cultural expressions that emerge from any given culture will invariably reflect the strengths and weaknesses of that culture. In other words, every culture will reflect an image of God that consists of a unique combination of fidelities and distortions.

The panel discussion embedded below, recorded by the National Center for Family Integrated Churches at its recent Worship of God conference, has opened a conversation about matters related to that thesis. I'm grateful for that conversation, but I'm unconvinced that the present direction of the conversation will be productive.

In my judgment, most of the comments in the panel were ignorant, irrelevant, indefensible, or unsubstantiated. Those arguments that were true and helpful are so tainted by their immersion in and apparent indifference to folly that they've been rather easily dismissed. Again, I haven't read everything, but I've seen enough blog responses, tweets, and reader comments on the blog of one of the participants to see one particular theme emerge: Our cultural differences are inevitable, and that's okay. Except I don't think it is.

In other words, many responses say that as long as God can use a form to advance Christian mission, our cultural preferences are matters of indifference. After all, they're just preferences. One theologian both affirmed and denied that cultural forms are neutral. In the same paragraph. One group says, "Rap is bad because I said so." Another says, "Form doesn't matter. It's all good."

I'm arguing that those approaches—reductionism, shame, misrepresentation, slogans—those approaches are way too easy. I'd like to think we could choose the more demanding, narrow path. That would require us—assuming we could embrace my thesis or something better—to shine a bright light of scrutiny on all our cultural expressions. Dissect Johann Sebastian Bach, Isaac Watts, Fanny Crosby, Mac Lynch, Chris Tomlin, Keith Getty, Scott Aniol, and Shai Linne. Every one of them. Not to mention all the men and women across the centuries and around the globe who likewise deserve to be mentioned.

Each of those individuals produced(es) works of art intended for Christian worship, and each of those works of art emerged from a complex and unique cultural milieu. What's more, each individual artist produced works of varying quality in different phases of their own artistic and spiritual maturity.

So what if old, godly, theologically astute white men from Grand Rapids sat down with young, godly, theologically astute black men from Philadelphia? (And yes, the black men are godly. Godly enough not to impugn the character, courage, and motives of people just because they disagree on musical form.) What if everybody at the table agreed that every culture represented at that table (along with all the rest) both reflects and distorts the image of God? That every culture is better suited to communicate certain aspects of Divine truth than it is others? And that no human culture produces optimal cultural expressions, because no human being or human culture is yet fully conformed to the image of Christ?

What if those old white guys and young black guys really tried to listen to and understand one another, and then—instead of simply singing an ecumenical "kum ba yah"—they helped each other understand the aspects of the other group's culture that are incompatible with Divine truth? (I have in mind more or less how Thabiti Anyabwile and Doug Wilson interacted extensively on slavery, race, and history.) And what if the forms that different cultures find accessible and meaningful were refined as a result, increasingly capable of reflecting the image of Christ? I actually think it'd be a good thing for us white people to hear from some non-whites how our idealized cultural forms might actually undermine aspects of the gospel in ways we'd never have perceived.

My guess is that one of these two groups would welcome a conversation with that purpose and tone. I'm not so sure the other would see any such need, let alone display genuine desire to listen and learn. I'd love to discover that my cynicism is unfounded—merely an illusion created by my culture, or perhaps my own sinful heart.

Will we praise Jesus' name in heaven in a variety of styles reflecting diversity of human culture? Or will the consummation of Christ being formed in us mean that we find a musical center that is accessible and meaningful to all his Church, and worthy of his Name? I don't profess to know. Despite what some say, I'm not persuaded that Revelation 21 is decisive. But I'd like to think we could learn to speak to our brothers and sisters with respect and affection, this side of heaven, even if we aren't yet sanctified enough to sing together.

A Very Special Black Friday Offer

If I can buy this spatula that will "pop open a bottle of beer" while I flip my burgers, why can't I buy Randy Jaeggli's The Christian and Drinking? I feel like we need a panel discussion to address this burning question.

Just Lookin' Out for Ya

If you're a leader in a very conservative, separatistic slice of American evangelicalism, and you spin a narrative of Al Mohler, Southern Seminary, and the Southern Baptist Convention that omits or distorts the content of this reflective essay, these talks (part 1 part 2), this article, or this documentary (video embedded below), then you really need to know that you're simply destroying your own credibility. You know what they say about half truths, right?

Stranger Fire

For more comprehensive reflections on John MacArthur's "Strange Fire" conference and book, I would direct you to Doug Wilson and Tom Schreiner. I'd just like to hammer home one particular point.

Some of you are members of cessationist churches. Some of you are cessationist pastors. I'll wager that most of you have used or heard used in your churches or camps or Christian colleges the language of "God told/spoke to/led me."(As in, "I was going to preach X sermon, but a few minutes ago God told me I needed to preach Y instead.")

So if you call yourself a cessationist and you've used that language or you welcome into your church those who use it, just know that you're affirming an even stranger fire than what's found in charismatic circles. Charismatics believe God continues to offer new revelation. You deny that he does, but you practice it anyway. I think that's pretty creepy.

"Is It Time to Join the SBC?": A Rather Friendly Rejoinder (Part 2)

See part 1 for background to this post. What you read below interacts with this article.

1. Research into the history of the Northern Baptist Convention (NBC) provoked Bauder's piece, at least in part. I very much look forward to reading whatever publications emerge from that research. One of the most interesting tidbits he shares is his observation that "Initially, the convention operated purely as a coordinating body, but with the creation of the General Board of Promotion in 1919, it became a controlling body," "engineered by theological liberals" . . . "an opportunity to seize the whole denominational machinery, including the churches."

Just six years later, the SBC Cooperative Program (CP) launched. Now, as to whether the SBC CP was likewise engineered by liberals to seize denominational machinery and churches, I must confess both some ignorance and some skepticism. Bauder seems to imply strong parallels when he says, regarding those who left the NBC and considered the SBC model, "[T]he risks inherent in the system were just too great." So while I'm not familiar enough with the dynamics in the SBC in the 1920s to comment confidently whether it was a liberal strategy, I can say that I've never encountered anyone who's attempted to make that case. I'd be interested to read it. What I can say is that if the CP actually was such a strategy, it failed miserably. Independent separatists might say that liberals succeeded for a few decades in the mid-20th century. I'd argue that they obviously didn't. Though liberals and indifferentists controlled most agencies for a time, the success of the Conservative Resurgence has clearly proven that loopholes in the system prevented denominational machinery from being seized. There's not much we Southern Baptists like more than a pitchfork rebellion, and now we know we can make one happen.

One more historical note before I move on: There were some battles over church property when churches attempted to leave the SBC. For several years, I was a member of a church that existed because people who voted to separate from the SBC lost their property in a courtroom fight. A strong majority had voted to disassociate from the SBC, but the minority sued, and some Southern Baptists testified on behalf of the minority. Unfortunately for that majority, the process of disassociation didn't conform to the governing documents of the church. I suspect the outcome might have been different had the disassociation been handled properly. Regardless, this was not a matter of convention ownership of local church property, as in recent Episcopalian/Anglican disputes, but of which faction of members held control.

All that to say this: The SBC cooperative structure may be a terrible idea for one reason or another, but I'm not at all convinced that it was a liberal idea. I'd suggest that the history of the NBC is far less relevant evidence to the issue than the history of the SBC. That, of course, remains a story in progress, but the present plot line of that story is surely not less encouraging to me than the plot line of the descendants of the separatist refugees from the NBC.

2. I appreciate Bauder's analogy between the CP and the Patriot Act: "In the hands of principled people, it can be both comforting and productive. In the hands of the unprincipled, or, worse yet, the wrongly-principled, it is bound to be devastating." Of course he's right. Unfortunately, I think that's the nature of institutional partnerships. The same could be said of an independent Baptist mission board, a Baptist Bible College, or Central Seminary. If I'm pastoring a church that's considering contributing $5,000 per year to any one of those agencies, I have to ask myself, "Am I comfortable making this investment, 1) realizing that this institution may not use the money precisely as I would, and 2) realizing this institution may change direction in the future as its board determines, but 3) expecting that the investment will bear fruit at least in the near term that justifies the investment, and 4) knowing our church can terminate the investment whenever we choose? Churches that partner with the SBC and/or Central Seminary answer that question, "Yes." We just have to be prepared and committed to walk away from our dollars that turned into bricks and mortar when and if we need to.

3. I am moderately skeptical of the SBC mantra, "We can do more together than we can do separately." Time will tell. (Interestingly enough, I heard GARBC National Representative John Greening embrace that language at their recent annual meeting.) But I do think we want to ask how—whether cooperatively or independently—we're going to get the gospel to places like Central Asia. (I'm assuming we want to.) These are Muslim countries. Highly inaccessible, unstable countries. Given the growing number of my friends and family members who serve as church planters in that part of the world and how they're getting there, I do wonder whether the mantra might prove true.

4. I'm unfamiliar with the mechanism that Bauder's classmate referred to when he told Bauder, "[The SBC] can get me a church if I need one. They have a good retirement program. And their insurance program is really great.” It is true that Guidestone offers retirement savings and insurance products, but to my knowledge the SBC does not subsidize those products. (Though I did make a note to put in a call to find out if I'm missing some windfall.) I do receive $17/month in a retirement savings match, but that's from our state convention, and I doubt that's what Bauder's friend had in mind. By the way, anything I save via Guidestone is my property, whether I eventually separate from the SBC or not. I'm also happy to report that we voted last month to permit Guidestone to expand its ministry assigment in order to provide insurance and investment products to like-minded individuals. So friends, what's ours is about to be yours.

So is it time to join the SBC? I don't know. Your call. Just count the cost.

"Is It Time to Join the SBC?": A Rather Friendly Rejoinder (Part 1)

Perhaps you've seen Kevin Bauder's recent article, "Is It Time to Join the SBC?" from his In the Nick of Time series. If you don't already subscribe, I'd strongly encourage you to do so via the link on the right-hand side of the page. Even when you disagree with his conclusions, you'll benefit from his command of history, his interaction with Scripture, and his relentless logic.

I've shared some of my perspective on affiliation with the SBC not too long ago. If you're interested in that, you'll find it there, not here. Frankly, I have no desire, let alone expectation, to convince anyone who's content and fruitful within their present partnerships to affiliate with the SBC. But from time to time I do encounter people at a crossroads who perceive opportunities and threats in their future, regardless of which route they choose. In my previous post I primarily addressed heart issues in that decision. My objective now is to help that sort of person make an informed decision.

Before I do that, one of my friends commented to me online about my previous post that I was speaking at a macro level and ignored micro-level choices. In other words, the points I was making about the sort of partnership the SBC is leaves out the local decision: "Which local church is going to be more spiritually beneficial for my family and me to covenant with?" That's an important question, just not the one I was addressing.

That's enough background. In the next post we'll dive directly into the matters at hand.

Off My Meds

Last weekend I had the opportunity to listen to David Murray of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary talk about his book, Christians Get Depressed Too. I haven't read the book, and I don't intend to summarize his talks. I do want to call attention to one particular point he made:

The brain's chemistry & electricity have been damaged by the Fall, just like our other bodily organs and everything else.

Some streams in the counseling profession want to medicate just about every problem. Others insist that mental illnesses and psychological disorders are fabrications, perhaps smokescreens for spiritual problems. Now, I assume it's true that we understand less about brain chemistry, the nervous system, and psychiatric medications than we do about the relationship between upper respiratory infections and amoxicillin. Nevertheless, I think we actually do know something about the extent of the curse, and we naïvely deny the complexity of the human condition if we exclude the physical processes of the brain from its effects.

Perhaps we could say that every self-respecting Calvinist ought to acknowledge that not every problem that has spiritual implications can be resolved exclusively by spiritual means.

Dallas, 1985: "Turn Around and Go Back!"

One of the pivotal moments in the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention was the annual meeting in 1985 in Dallas, where 45,519 Southern Baptist messengers descended on the city.

This year in Houston at a "9Marks at 9" event, Danny Akin and Al Mohler discussed that annual meeting briefly, and Mohler told an extraordinary story of what happened on the interstates outside the city.

Audio available here. Context starts at 22:53.

Seven Bad Reasons to Leave the IFB World for the SBC, and One Good Reason

As another Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting is about to begin, and you're about to read news stories about our democratic process and our crazy uncles who relish it, I thought I might share a few thoughts that reverberate in my mind from time to time. I'm a Southern Baptist pastor who spent the first 33 years of my life in independent Baptist/Bible fundamental churches. The last five of that were in an SBC seminary. Had God moved differently a few years ago or at some point in the future, I'd very happily pastor in an "independent" context again. In fact, one of the harder things I ever had to do was encourage the chairman of a pulpit committee not to bring my name up because I believed he'd harm his own credibility if he did so.

All that to say, I have some appreciation for both worlds and some sense of their respective strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. As I hear of more and more in the generations younger than mine leaving IFB circles for the SBC, I wanted to reflect on some good and bad reasons to do so.

1: Better theology
Don't naïvely fall for the "grass is always greener" lie. Depending on how where you draw the lines of "independent Baptist fundamentalism," the theological diversity in the SBC at least as broad as it is in the SBC world—everything from Ed Young, Jr. to Scott Aniol, and that's just the beginning. IFBs tend to be much more compartmentalized in their relationships, so the streams of relationships in that world are usually more homogeneous. You just think the SBC is better because the people you've heard of are more sound than lots of the influential IFBs you heard preach in chapel.

2: Influence
If you're a faithful, articulate young pastor, you're actually much more likely to find a position of influence in the IFB network. For one thing, it's a smaller pond. There might even be a smaller percentage of young pastors in, say, the FBFI, than at an SBC annual meeting. And every year we decry how old we are! By the way, is it really influence you want, in the sense of "making a difference for the sake of the name of Jesus"? Or is it personal prominence? Because that's just carnal.

3: Better preaching
Again, you're just judging by what you've heard. Average SBC preachers sound a lot like average IFB preachers. I suspect that more SBC preachers get the necessity of Christ-centered preaching (because the Bible is Christ-centered), while many IFBs are suspicious if not hostile to the notion, possibly because they see it as a threat to their Dispensationalism. The SBC's Christ-centered preaching is generally a good thing, of course, but you'll also find some who do it badly. Whether that's worse than not doing it at all, well, that's a different conversation.

4: Missions funding
I think it's a bit disingenuous to convert to the SBC world just so you can qualify for IMB funding that'll help you avoid three years of deputation. If you've really investigated the system and you think it's a good idea and you'll happily contribute to it even if the IMB turns you down for funding, maybe that's a different story. (I also think the SBC is headed for a massive financial restructuring not too far out in the future. Whether that restructuring actually becomes a full-blown crisis remains to be seen.)

5: Healthier churches
Again, I think there are plenty of unhealthy churches in both camps. Go pastor one, whatever camp it's in, and help it rediscover the full message and implications of the gospel.

6: Less politics
Different politics, maybe, but not less. Both circles leverage fear of man. Maybe IFBs use it more to disincentivize undesirable decisions (i.e. crossing lines on separation), while SBCs use it to incentivize desirable behavior (i.e. sending more money). I've seen friends steamrolled and wounded in both groups.

7: Relationships
I think the landscape in the IFB world is changing enough that you can cultivate local relationships with sound SBC pastors and churches (not to mention other sorts of churches), perhaps even constructive partnerships. As long as you don't get out too far ahead of your own church and you're mortifying your fear of man, you probably won't pay the price of ostracism like you might've ten years ago.

One Good Reason
Having said all that, here's one good reason you might consider cooperating with the Southern Baptist Convention: You want to partner with other believers who share gospel essentials and Baptist distinctives as much as you possibly can, for the sake of the spread of the gospel to all the nations. When all the underbrush is cleared away, I suspect this might be where IFBs and SBCs fundamentally differ. Among IFBs, you're viewed with suspicion (unless you possess the right pedigree) until you prove that you share the same theology and affiliations. In the SBC, if you're happy to cooperate by sharing financial and human resources that will be employed within the doctrinal parameters of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, SBCs will assume you're a gospel partner until you prove otherwise.

Just in case those sentences are a bit confusing, what I mean is that IFBs will scrutinize your personal beliefs and associations. SBCs will scrutinize your willingness to cooperate in gospel work that is rooted in a set of doctrinal affirmations. Most SBCs will want that work to say more than that those affirmations in one way or another, but will insist on them as a minimum. You actually don't have to affirm the BF&M2000 to be Southern Baptist, but you need to know how your money is going to be used when you start writing checks.

If that sort of partnership that sounds attractive to you, and you can hold your nose on some less foundational issues while you work for reform in whatever way you can, then maybe . . . maybe . . . you should consider friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Did the NT Authors Interpret the OT Right, and Should We Interpret It the Way They Did?

I'm not at all inclined to find a person credible who argues that the answers to those questions are simple. I'm even less inclined to find a person credible who argues that the answers to those questions are unimportant.

Greg Beale's Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation surely is one of the most helpful books on the subject. It's a survey, so it doesn't address a number of the key issues in great detail, but it does offer a robust bibliography.

Justin Taylor posted a helpful overview of the book with links to related lectures and interviews. But Beale makes a crucial point that Taylor's overview doesn't deal with explicitly: The NT authors appear to have modeled their hermeneutical approach to the OT on the hermeneutical approach later OT authors applied to earlier OT writings. In other words, Beale argues that a careful analysis of how, say, the prophets quote the Pentateuch would reveal a similar hermeneutic to what the NT authors use when they quote the prophets.

If that proposition is true, then it would have profound implications for all sorts of contemporary debates, not the least of which is the tension among Covenant Theology, Dispensationalism, and their alternatives. And I suspect what might prove helpful is a partner volume to Carson & Beale's Commentary on the NT Use of the OT—a Commentary on the OLD TESTAMENT Use of the OLD TESTAMENT.