Tullian Tchividjian is grandson of world renowned evangelist Billy Graham and senior pastor of PCA mega-church Coral Ridge Presbyterian. Over at the Gospel Coalition Tchividjian sketches out a chapter from his book entitled Unfashionable that makes a case for what he understands as “God-centered anger.”  The idea, which is really quite popular, seems to be that one is free to express his anger when it is thought that the Most High would agree with him, but not so much when one’s emotions are less than heaven-framed.  As an example to make the point, he writes:

Years ago I was one of five thousand people listening to a panel discussion at a Christian conference. An editor of a conservative political-theological magazine was expressing his frustration with many of the political left-wingers, and doing so in an unnecessarily sarcastic and condescending way. When he finished, John Piper (another speaker on the panel) turned to him, and with utmost seriousness and precision, he said, “For a long time I have appreciated your ministry. You are an astute observer of our culture. I read your magazine every month. It’s always insightful. But there’s one thing missing from your ministry.”

The editor looked at Dr. Piper and asked what it was.

“Tears,” Piper replied.

The world so often senses our anger—but do they ever sense our grief? They think we’re angry simply because we’re not getting our way, but I’m afraid they don’t feel our sorrow over sin’s negative, dehumanizing effects. We fail to communicate our anger in a way that says, “You were made for so much more than this.” They assume our anger is only because we’re not getting what we want. No wonder they tune us out.

In the latest issue of Themelios, David VanDrunen offers a Reformed two-kingdoms interpretation of Matthew 5:38–42. After some careful exegesis that helps set up just why the church is not a work in retributive justice but rather a ministry of restorative reconciliation, he very helpfully defines a two-kingdoms approach to Matthew 5:38–42 and then shows how it contrasts to Lutheran, Neo-Calvinist or Transformationalist outlooks.

But one of the more interesting applications was in the very end concerning state action against the church. While he clearly recognizes the apostolic example to appeal to civil government “to abide by its own laws,” the accent seems placed upon the fact that “[T]he apostles…never retaliated when government officials treated them unjustly and never pursued legal action against those who persecuted them.” This brought to mind an example Stellman offers in his Dual Citizens when making the general point that voluntarily relinquishing rights (instead of clamoring for them) is in better service of boastworthy suffering for citizens of the New Covenant:

Here is a trickier example: if your legal right to practice your faith is in danger of being compromised, what should you do?  If you Google the phrase “law firms protecting Christians’ rights,” you’ll get myriad matches, and there’s no rule that prohibits you from taking to court anyone who infringes your right to pray or read Scripture wherever you want (within reason, of course).  There is something inconsistent, however, about Christians fighting for their faith by means of the sword of the U.S. justice system.  Would it not be far more Christ-like to patiently endure when we are wronged, as the writer to the Hebrews makes clear?

“But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. Therefore, do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward” (10:32-35).

“If you knew the Lord was returning tomorrow, how would that affect your passion for political and social issues?”

Actually, that is an important question the New Testament itself encourages us to ask. In I Cor. 7:31, the Apostle admonishes believers with the words, “let those who deal with the world deal as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.“ Paul is not suggesting an escapism that fails to care for the world beyond evangelism. But he certainly warns us to be careful where our passions lie; to remember when dealing with issues of this temporary age, whether politics, social issues, or even marriage ( as is the context of I Cor 7), that we remember that the Lord could return any time, and all that will really matter will be that which matters for eternity; salvation or judgment. I recently told my congregation that to be angry over a non-Christian’s politics is like finding out your neighbor has prostate cancer and only two weeks to live, and then coming home and complaining to your wife that your neighbor with cancer is not taking care of his lawn like he should.

I would contend that in the face of transformationionalists’ constant accusation of escapism and gnosticism directed at A-mils, A-mil’s have become overly timid in declaring the possibility of the Lord’s return at any time. Yes, it doesn’t help that extreme dispensationalists misuse Revelation to turn the Second Coming into a religious side show of who can match the current news events to Revelation. And too often theonomists and post-mils pull out the “dispy” accusation when we proclaim the potential immediacy of the Lord’s return, again causing us to shrink back. We even have a new comfort phrase, “optimistic a-mil” to assure transformationalists that we are not the extreme escapists of their caricatures.

But the New Testament many times over directs us to consider our use and passion for this world in light of the impending return of the Lord (Matt 24:44, James 5:9, Rev. 20:20 to name just a few). A-mils need to recover their backbones in the face of post mil theonomy, which assures us confidently that the Lord *cannot* return until they see their dreams of a Christianized world fulfilled. We must boldly proclaim that the Lord may tarry one thousand years, or he may return tomorrow. But let the reality of his potential return temper your passions for the things of man’s passing kingdom, compared to the things of Christ’s eternal kingdom.

 

 

But triadalism is actually the key to two-kingdom theology:

So we don’t work with only two categories: sacred and evil. There’s a third one: common. In this respect, the believer’s sphere of activity overlaps with that of his or her non-Christian neighbors. They share common blessings and common woes. Yet the holy nation that Christ is creating by his Word and Spirit is a remnant from all cultures, across all times and places. It is holy, not common, because it is claimed by God as the cherished object of his saving grace. Through his gospel, signified and sealed to us and to our children in baptism, the covenant community is that holy commonwealth that began with the announcement to our first parents after they had sinned.

Enjoying God’s creation is common. In its commonness, it is a remarkable testimony to God’s goodness, power, and other invisible attributes, as Paul tells us in Romans 1 and 2. However, hearing God’s gospel is holy and hearing and receiving it makes us holy, as Paul says in Romans 3 (and chapter 10). A great concert may witness to God’s glory in human creativity, but God delivers his saving Word in the covenant assembly. God is omnipresent and his creative power is evident through everything that he has made. However, the question for sinners is where God has promised to be present in grace and mercy.

God still separates one holy day out of six common ones. God still separates specific activities: preaching of the Word, public prayer, confession and declaration of pardon, administration of baptism and the Supper, singing the Word of Christ, and the fellowship of saints, from the common activities of work, friendships, and entertainment. So all of life is indeed blessed and upheld by God’s common grace, but there remains a distinction between the common and the holy; common grace and saving grace; that which is honorable, God-glorifying, and helpful to our neighbors and that which is redemptive.

I read a quote that struck a chord from a surprising source, and I thought I’d share it:

Let no one suppose that I claim that just living can be taught; for in a word, I hold that there does not exist an art of the kind which can implant sobriety and justice in depraved natures.

A few pages later, the same author expounded on the same theme, with more words this time:

I consider that the kind of art which can implant honesty and justice in depraved natures has never existed and does not now exist, and that people who profess that power will grow weary and cease from their van pretensions before such an education is ever found.

Google can find the quote for you, if you can’t wait for my point to play out.  But if you actually know who said that, I’d be very impressed!  In addition to guesses, feel free to also leave your thoughts on the content of the quote.

Hint 1: The author of this quote is very far in the past.

Hint 2: The quote struck a surprising chord because I didn’t expect this author’s tradition to be concerned with typical Reformed buzzwords like “just” and “depraved”.  Wesley is not a bad guess, but strike farther afield…

[UPDATE]: The answer is Greek philosopher Isocrates, writing Against the Sophists.  This from The Great Tradition, a compendium of classical writing about education, edited by Richard M. Gambe, which I am reading for “Parent Academy,” an activity of my kids’ awesome school.

The very next sentence after the first quote is:

Nevertheless, I do think that the study of political discourse can help more than any other thing to stimulate and form such qualities of character.

My point is, even though that one sentence seems to be orthodoxally reformed, if you take a second, closer look, it’s really not.  First off, he probably doesn’t think that everybody has a depraved nature.  Second off, he’s off on his categories.  What we are concerned about in the gospel is not “just living” or “implanting” sobriety and justice.  That’s catlick talk.  We are interested in “justified” and having justice imputed to us (around us), not implanted in us.

It just goes to show you, the gospel really is an alien concept.  Accept no substitutes.

Or so say the poli-tainers employed to stir things up and make a nice living. And so believe the masses and hoardes who lap it up, unawares of their own manipulation. But this clip reminds of how theocrats ape the Rushies and Beckies not only in their political opinions but also accuse two-kingdom theology of making the world safe for another Third Reich.

Pink Floyd’s famous song has always irked me. It’s not just because this was the cult favorite for those classmates of mine in the 80s who sort of scared me with their big hair, black tee shirts and faint wafting aroma of Mary Jane. But it was also because it was just such a dumb lyric. Yes, I get the irony. But, clearly, with all the double-negatives, you in point of fact do need education.

But maybe Gilmour was onto something without knowing it. As it has been suggested before around here, one of the interesting aspects of modernity is its exaltation of education. Instead of rightfully esteeming education and placing it in its proper and dignified place, the stakes of education can very often be over-realized (idolized?) as at least one way, along with politics and family values, to construct another modern end known as the Good Society. It can be to the point that the modern outlook is such that it might be said that human beings are actually made and shaped, not by the contours of the home, but in school. And one of the interesting ways this gets interpreted by culturally Reformed believers is to conceive of instruction and nurture in the faith to come by way of the day school, then the church, then the home. But if we’re being honest, what is unspoken is the skepticism that the home has any such duty; the notion is a relic of the past which deserves at best a nostalgic yet dismissive smile, the kind an adult has when he reminisces security blankets and teddy bears.

But at Yinkahdinay Wes Bredenhof points to the efforts of Dort that suggest something less modern and more Protestant:

On Friday November 30, 1618 in its morning session, the Synod of Dort issued its decree on the manner of catechesis. Dort followed Bremen’s division of catechetical duties. The work of parents, however, was put up front. According to Dort, it is the work of parent to instruct their children and the whole family with all diligence in the elements of Christian religion… It’s unfortunate that parental or domestic catechesis has been lost in so many places. It’s regrettable that many Reformed parents today expect the church to do virtually everything when it comes to the catechesis of covenant youth. The first responsibility lies with parents. Dort was right.

Not to ape all the retailers this year and start talking about Christmas way, way before its time. And not to lend any credence to forms of paganism that would that deal with us according to our sins, or repay us according to our iniquities.  But sometimes some pagan folktales do humanity a better service than other pagan folktales, as well as Christians stationed to teach other Christians who get bright ideas to turn a frown upside down.

Christmas is a holy day that the early church fathers invented because they were in competition with the Roman religion. One thing Christianity lacked was a big feast, and the Romans had one toward the end of December, Saturnalia, so the Christians established Christmas, sort of like one chain putting up a store right near its competitor.  It doesn’t have so much to do with Jesus as it does with business, and it’s been a big hit” the number of people celebrating Saturnalia and offering sacrifices to the gods has really diminished.

The Puritans weren’t into Christmas, knowing how shaky it was theologically, and the holiday was brought to America by the Dutch. It was in New York that Christmas became American with the invention of Santa Claus. It was in 1820 that Clement Clark Moore, living down in Chelsea, which was uptown then, coming home in his sleigh with the Christmas turkey, got the idea to write a poem for his children, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which a friend of his copied down and sent to a newspaper in Troy, New York, which published it without attribution.  Mr. Moore was a professor of Hebrew and Greek at the seminary down on Ninth Avenue and Twentieth Street, and he had no wish to go down in history as the author of light verse, though of course he did.

His poem gave us a picture of Santa Clause that was new and American. The Dutch version was less jolly: Sinterklaas came on Christmas and put cinders in the stockings of bad children. Professor Moore took out the judicial element and made him a sort of jolly uncle who brings you whatever you want no matter what. And the cartoonist Thomas Nast drew the picture of him as a rotund fellow with rosy cheeks and a big grin.

The Norwegians had never seen him as jolly either.  They believed in the Christmas elf, the nisse, who was mischievous if not actually malicious and who came around on Christmas Eve.  You had to leave him a gift of rice pudding, because it was he who would decide whether you had good luck or not so good.  The nisse didn’t bring gifts; he got them. He tasted your rice pudding, and if it wasn’t creamy enough or if it was too creamy or if there weren’t enough almonds in it, he wrinkled up his face and the next week you had a terrible earache, and the week after that a tree fell on your garage, and then your dad went in for prostate surgery. You had to learn to make rice pudding the way the nisse liked it. Otherwise, your life would be rotten.  And if you made a great rice pudding, sometimes the nisse out of pure meanness would make your toilets back up and get the IRS to call you in for an audit, and you’d open the door to find Mike Wallace and a cameraman filming. The stock would go down. Your newsboy would sue you because he tripped over the hose. You’d get your water tested; it’s got lead in it. One thing after another. All because of the pudding.

Some of us feel that this is truer to life than the idea of a fat man coming down the chimney and giving you all of your heart’s desires. It’s no wonder Clement Moore didn’t want his name put on his poem—he was embarrassed by it. He was a theologian; he knew he had created a commercial legend that would help sell things and that would cause disappointment, envy, impatience. What made him do it? It was a nisse who wrote the poem, out of sheer meanness.

Garrison Keillor, Life among the Lutherans

Not only can those with a patriotism of affirmation and a patriotism of dissent take a few lessons here (especially the former as it has a tendency to question the fundamental patriotism of the latter), but would that those with a sunnier take on what it means to be the church in the world demonstrate the same sober restraint Richard Gamble suggests for telling the American history. Forgetting the biblical image of the church being a light to nations, some prefer to think of the church as the soul of the nation.  But substitute words like “church” for “republic,” “pastor” for “teacher” and “sheep” for “student” and one begins to get a feel for what it may mean to think in terms of being a smoldering wick casting a weak light instead of booming sun fueling the soul of America:

If we are going to tell a story that has integrity to it, then we have to look intently and honestly in the mirror the muse of history offers to us. That mirror will show us a republic and a nation, modesty and hubris, self-restraint and imperialism, aristocratic virtues and populist demagoguery…

Surely the good citizen does not make a god of his nation. Surely the good citizen does not confuse the voice of the people with the voice of God. Surely the good citizen fears the lust for dominion that he knows lurks in every human heart, beginning with his own…

And so with our American story. At first, we tell a story fit for children. But we ought not always and only to tell a story fit for children. Someday we have to grow up. Children need to stop being children. The selective story of the American past needs to give way gradually and prudently to the larger story of America, a story fit for grownups and a not a story destined to keep citizens of the republic in a condition of perpetual adolescence. This is one of the greatest challenges facing the college history teacher. After more than twenty years of teaching, I still struggle—I struggle now more than ever before—with how to tell the whole truth about America in a way that helps young people become adults while at the same time avoids the contagion of cynicism and disillusionment. My students will be the first to tell you that I do not always succeed. I have to tell the right story. But that is not enough. I have to tell it right.

“More than our popular churches and institutions and movements, God wants us ourselves. He wants our hearts, our loyalty, our love for himself alone. He wants to find in us the same sense of intimate belonging to him that is appropriate to sexual union on the human level. More than showing the world how “relevant” the church can be, God wants us to show him how much we treasure him above all else. He wants to find in us the same sense of identification with him that is appropriate to human marriage. And we show him our love through doctrinal faithfulness to his Word, by following him heroically wherever he goes (we would rather die than turn aside, even one step, from following him to following the world), by resisting the world’s radical pluralism demanding unlimited tolerance levels for its ideas and values, by restricting our ministries only to those methods which are warranted by his Word and consistent with prayerful dependence upon the power of the Spirit, by nurturing our `vague half-believers in our casual creeds’  into earnest, informed, gladly devoted lovers of Christ alone, and in many other important ways. But above all, we show him our love by savoring the hope of eternal union with him in the new Jerusalem above as our only true fulfillment.”   

(God’s Unfaithful Wife, A biblical theology of spiritual adultery, Raymond C. Ortlund Jr., pg. 176)

Whoa! I step away from the interwebs for just a week (to prepare for this), and something happens!  In trying to catch up, an observation occurred to me that I didn’t see in Clark’s or Hart’s re-responses, so I wanted to post it before somebody else does.  (I also wanted to claim this post-title before anyone else — I can’t fathom how Clark failed to capitalize on the term “hit-job”; but I have to admit Hart has won the catchy-title-contest hands-down!)

Like many, I am shocked that Frame would jump to Osteen’s defense:

when Osteen presents a message that almost entirely lacks a focus on justification, Horton replies with an emphasis entirely lacking in sanctification.

In this quote, and the rest of his remarks about Horton v. Osteen, Frame reminds me of the father of the bride from Holy Grail: “Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who…” Osteen is weak on Justification, Horton is weak on Sactification (Frame claims), but if Horton were just not so devoted to bickering and arguing, maybe Horton and Osteen could team up; Horton would bring his Justification, and Osteen would bring his Sanctification, and wouldn’t everything be rosy!

Setting aside the unwarranted accusation that Horton cares nothing for sanctification, Horton’s point (which Frame seems to miss or discredit) is that Osteen’s attempt to bring Sanctification, without a foundation of Justification is precisely works-righteousness!  So if Osteen is lacking justification, he’s also lacking sanctification.  There’s nothing excusable or half-right about that, and Horton is right to lock and load Gal 1:6-9 and set sights on Osteen.

My opinion of Frame has fallen another notch.

One of the chief means for the church to affect culture, according to transformationalists, is for the pulpit to address the leaders of state; to teach them God’s law for statecraft, as well as rebuke them for disobedience to God’s law for statecraft. John the Baptist is often cited as an example of this, as he rebuked Herod. The problem with this thinking is that it fails to understand the discontinuity between the old and new covenants.  

One only needs to compare how John the Baptist spoke with Herod with how Paul spoke with political leaders in the Book of Acts. Paul has no rebuke for Agrippa, for example, only respect (Acts 26), though Agrippa was as immoral and corrupt as Herod. But Herod was a king in the theocracy of Israel, the nation that was set apart by God in the old covenant to belong to him. Thus Herod, an old covenant ruler in Israel, was rebuked by John, who was called to speak judgment against the covenant nation. Agrippa was a leader in the common grace state in the new covenant, and thus not treated the same.

Transformationalists fail to understand the prophetic idiom of the Old Testament.  In the Old Testament, nations and kings of nations were representative. In other words, as Israel typified the elect, Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, etc. were nations singled out by God for special purposes and types.  And of course in the Old Testament, kings represented the nation they ruled. So when the prophet Isaiah speaks of the glories of the new covenant with the words; Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn (Isaiah 60:3,4) we are to understand that in prophetic idiom, nations and kings represent people in general from those nations, not political leaders of nations and nations as a whole.

This is confirmed in the New Testament, first in the Great Commission (Matt 28:19), where we are commanded to baptize “nations.” Here clearly “nations” refers to people from all nations who believe the gospel we preach, not to political entities as a whole. And when we are given a picture of the eternal state, the fulfillment of that Isaiah passage, nations are then walking before God and kings are  bringing God glory (Rev 21:24) . This does not mean there will be a United States or Brazil in heaven, and that their political leaders will necessarily be there, but nations and kings again refers to the elect from every nation. It is actually the dispensationalists who fail to recognize this use of prophetic idiom concerning nations, causing them to wrongly interpret Matt. 25:32 as referring to God judging political nations depending on how they treated Israel (some might remember M. Kline’s critique of theonomy; that it borrows from a dispensational hermeneutic).  

Why is this important to the spirituality and message of the church? Well, the church does not distinguish the political nations or political power brokers of this world as having any special significance before God.  Our message is the same to all people; all are sinners that need to repent and believe in Christ. And when we explain how that sinfulness is expressed, we do what the Apostles do; we express those sins common to all mankind (Gal. 5:19&20 and I Tim. 1:8-10). To single out certain individuals based upon their positions of power is to accept the world’s definition of power and importance.

In the New Testament, the apostles never single out political leaders outside the old theocracy for any special rebuke or instruction. We are only told to submit to the government and honor the emperor (I Pet 2:13-17). To go beyond this and speak specifically to political rulers of the laws they should enforce is to go beyond Scripture and meddle in affairs we have no right to meddle in.  We have no more right in our preaching to call out certain leaders than we do calling out certain neighbors of ours.  There are some sinful ways Steinbrenner runs the Yankees, some sinful ways my local grocery store manager treats her employees, and some sinful ways my neighbor five doors down raised his kids, but it is not proper to single them out by name in my sermons, as well as the mayor of my city for how he makes laws.

So the transformationalist desire to single out politicians and political rulers for their perceived sinful statecraft fails to do justice to the new covenant age, where rulers and political nations have no more value or importance in God’s eyes than your local grocery store clerk or next door neighbor, and thus reveals a potential double-mindedness which still harbors a desire to have a say specifically among the power brokers that this world considers important. A political ruler who murders is as guilty before God as a neighbor who murders by hating in his heart. All murderers, immoral, rebellious, thankless,  liars, etc… who do not repent and believe are all to be told they must believe or be judged. Our message does not go beyond that to those we think have more power or influence as the world deems power and influence. All unbelievers are in the same condition; For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all (Rom. 11:32).

 

The common refrain that is heard from the transformationalists is that cult affects culture, or put in another way, “as the church goes, so goes the world.”  This standard belief is often so widely assumed that it is rarely questioned.

But let’s put the theory to the test, using a smaller scale; let’s say in a typical small American neighborhood of about thirty homes. Let’s assume two of the families in that neighborhood are Christian families, not nominal Christians, but genuine Christians. How does the presence of those two families affect the unbelieving households in that neighborhood? Does the divorce rate decrease among the  unbelievers in that neighborhood compared to neighborhoods with no believers in it? Does the crime rate decrease? Do those unbelieving parents in that neighborhood raise their children differently because of the presence of two Christian families?

The same test could be applied to work. Because you are a believer and you wait tables at Chili’s, does the manager cheat less on his taxes (assuming he does) because of your presence? Do the other workers because less greedy for money because you are also an employee? We could go on with examples, but all of you who live in neighborhoods and work at jobs know that the answer to these questions. The answer is almost always in the negative, and it is not because the Christians in these examples are disobedient to God, but that simply is the way life is in this fallen world, and we are never told to expect differently. So if the transformationalist assumption of cult affecting culture doesn’t really work on a local, micro level, why are they so convinced it must work on a national, macro level?

 

Suckled on the modernist work ethic, some Presbyterian parents may love it when kids talk about rebelling against low expectations and “returning to biblical and historical levels of character and competence” (where’d I put my WWJD bracelet?).

But I daresay Garrison Keillor’s Upper Midwestern upbringing amongst the Lutherans (“where even the Catholics were Lutheran”), which resonates with mine under the tutelage of the Lapsed Episcopalian, has a far superior grasp on the folly of great expectations of youth and their dazzled parents:

In Lake Wobegon, you learned about being All Right. Life is complicated, so think small. You can’t live life in raging torrents; you have to take it one day at a time. And if you need drama, read Dickens…The urge to be top dog is a bad urge. Inevitable tragedy. A sensible person seeks to be at peace, to read books, know the neighbors, take walks, enjoy his portion, live to be eighty, and wind up fat and happy, although a little wistful when the first coronary walks up and slugs him in the chest. Nobody is meant to be a star. Charisma is pure fiction, and so is brilliance. It’s the dummies who sit on the dais, and it’s the smart people who sit in the dark near the exits. That is the Lake Wobegon view of life (where the women are strong, the men are good-looking and the children are above average).

–Garrison Keillor, Life Among the Lutherans, Chapter 1 (It Could Be Worse)

 

Mike Horton explains why “semper reformanda” has much more in common with modernity than Protestantism:

Nevertheless, Reformed churches belong to a particular Christian tradition with its own definitions of its faith and practice. We believe that our confessions and catechisms faithfully represent the system of doctrine found in Holy Scripture. We believe that to be Reformed is not only to be biblical; to be biblical is to be Reformed. As important as it is to keep “Reformed” in the phrase, an even more dangerous omission is often found among more liberal Protestants who also leave out the “according to the Word of God” clause. And usually it is “always reforming,” instead of “always being reformed.” In this view, the church is the active party, determining its own doctrine, worship, and discipline in the light of ever-changing cultural contexts. Progressivism becomes an end in itself and the church becomes a mirror of the world.