It’s hard enough to advocate for a form of educational delivery many in our conservative Reformed environs deem as unwise at best and satanic at worst–have you ever noticed how the Reformed talk about secular education the way Fundamentalists talk about beer? Harder still is it when that form of education is serving up mediocrity and its own applications of worldviewry.  Which is why it is so refreshing to stumble upon this sort of thing.

It is important for the functioning of civil society that Christians along with everyone else are part of their community. That means that Christians are not expected to be different for the sake of being different. Christians are meant to be good neighbours – to participate in community activities, join in with local customs, play their part in their local society, to the fullest extent possible. While this world is never going to be a comfortable stay for pilgrims whose home is above, Christians still have a responsibility to be good friends, neighbours, and citizens in their local contexts. Society itself is not evil, and our non-Christian neighbours are not people to be feared or distrusted or kept at arm’s length. Standing aloof and refusing to be involved in what everyone else regards as a perfectly normal part of life, especially if you’re transmitting overtones that your children are too good or otherwise too special to mix with the rabble, is hardly conducive to good relationships in your community.

It’s a fairly popular way of theorizing against Islam, namely that to be a good Muslim one must also embrace violence. But, loathe as I am to admit, it may be that NRA logic is onto something. Maybe books don’t kill people, people do. To quell my unease at giving gunnie culture props, I will here borrow from the Van Tillians and suggest that the NRA is just stealing Calvinist capital.

But this Calvinist is pleased to borrow from a secular Jew on what’s wrong with the Bad Book theory:

I’m just saying that there are perfectly logical arguments that can be made that completely reverse the Christian apologetic claim that because Jesus preached non-violence and Muhammad (like Moses) led an army, therefore Christian civilization is inherently less-violent than Muslim (or Jewish?) civilization. Obviously, if you’re a Christian, you’ll find a Christian apologetic argument congenial. But that doesn’t mean it has analytical value.

For that matter, the United States was founded by genocidal racist slave-trading colonialists. Does that mean the Constitution is essentially and irredeemably racist? Isn’t that where the “bad book” theory logically leads?

In light of the recent dust-up that Darrell Todd (“Scoop”) Maurina’s hit piece has created (again, again, again, and again.But wait, there’s more), an Outhouse correspondent has reached back into the archives and requested something get re-posted. As if Old Life didn’t already cover it. And as if some of us haven’t been yawning for some years at Scoop’s cyber tirades. But far be it from us not to honor a request. There are many hyperventilating charges that get leveled at two-kingdom theology and its proponents. One of the most popular is dubbed public square antinomianism or some variation thereof. The idea, evidently, is that 2kers are Reformed Dispensationalists who are reluctant to break out the polish for the rails of the sinking ship, which tends to simply be code for, “So you take a pass on protesting abortion clinics? Well, take this.”

Immediate name recognition can be telling. Everyone knows William Wilberforce, the champion of abolition. But Stuart Robinson might be a bit more obscure. Robinson was a Kentucky Presbyterian minister in a border-state during the Civil War. Where Wilberforce moved at relative ease throughout England throughout his life, Robinson actually had to find refuge in Canada because his views were not conducive to either side in trying to figure out the problem of human slavery in America. It would seem that carefully distinguishing between the sacred and the secular is a more dangerous enterprise than abolition, popular sentiments notwithstanding. (Can Outhouse readers think of any contemporary socio-political issues many think are at least equally important as, or maybe, gulp, more than, Robinsonian concern? I can.)

The following the first is part of the conclusion of Preston Graham’s survey A Kingdom Not of This World, which takes up the phenomenon of Stuart Robinson’s effort to distinguish the sacred from the secular in the midst of a socio-political controversy not too unlike some in our day. I have italicized what I especially like about this quote, that is, as individuals we may very well come to very different conclusions as to how proximate justice may be realized even as we balance what it means to crane our necks for a better country. I post this for various reasons, but one is that two-kingdom views often get mistaken for being apathetic, pietistic (even antinomian) when it comes to the concerns of earth. But two-kingdom theology is arguably more concerned for the things of earth than any abolitionist, theonomist or transformationalist. It just doesn’t look the way any of these fine folks would presume.

Whereas individuals are encouraged to invest themselves in ‘things civil,’ the church, as a visible and constitutional organization, ought to be exclusively concerned for ‘things spiritual.’ This apolitical church resists the marginalization of theology and its subsequent realignment around a cultural agenda. The modern apolitical church serves to proclaim a gospel that transcends social restructuring, macroeconomics and political theory…even by Robinson’s own admission and practice, the line distinguishing things sacred from things secular is not always easy to discern, especially in the messiness associated with congregational life in general, especially when her people are called to participate in the world without being of the world. And yet this didn’t eliminate the responsibility of the church to draw the line all the same as from where scripture speaks and where it is left to human wisdom…His polemic was against the church confusing a political agenda after a reading of one or another political or social theory rather than agenda that still holds to things pertaining to God and faith as important in their own right. For example, such a church might preach justice, albeit to congregates who perhaps endorse opposing theories for the accomplishment of justice as derived from the social, economic, legal, and political sciences. Such a church may foster in its people works of mercy directed toward those who are needy, as an expression of true Christian love and witness, and yet be silent as to which particular program for accomplishing mercy is necessarily preferable given one or another reading of city planning….Robinson’s Scoto-American idea of the church would be distinguished as the ‘mediatorial body of Christ’ acting as an agent of special grace for God the Redeemer, in contrast with acting as an agent of common grace along with the state for God as creator.

And talk about “messy.” Robinson’s church contained not only those who had both non/abolitionist views but also slaves themselves. Now there is a communion rail I’d love to frequent.

Well, I hope you’re not like me. Below are some links to some helpful 2K lectures. I’ve also added them to the “The Tempting Sounds” list in the sidebar.  Perhaps you’ll take the time for a few of these so you can hear directly from some 2K thinkers.

The Two Kingdoms Doctrine in Scripture by Matthew Tuininga——>HERE

Christianity & Politics 2011 Lecture Series at Christ Reformed Church D.C.———>HERE

Also added: Christ and the State by David VanDrunen——>HERE

I came across the following account of a series of revivals that took place in North Carolina in 1802.

Presbyterians don’t generally know what to do with such accounts. We like to keep our hands at our sides. Still, I think there is a place in our theology for reformation and revival, to admit there are exceptional times of harvest, when God’s people are particularly conscious of sin and turn from it, and when the Lord brings in great harvests of souls.

I agree in principle that God certainly can, and does, sometimes grow his church at different rates at different times, but the following description of people camping from Friday-Monday (or longer?) for tent meetings on a mountaintop sounds a lot more like Finney than Ordinary Means.

The fourth general meeting was appointed on Friday, March 27, and was held at New Providence Church, under the charge of Mr. Wallis, in Mecklenburg county, about twelve miles southeast of Charlotte, and somewhat more than seventy miles north of Camden. The encampment was on a beautiful mount, easy of ascent from every direction, and more than half surrounded by a little crystal stream, which afforded water sufficient for the people and horses. It was clothed with a thick growth of giant oaks, with very little undergrowth. By three o’clock in the afternoon it was swept clear of timber, the tents were pitched, the fuel was gathered, and thousands, with their covered wagons and stretched canvas arranged in regular lines of encampment, covered the summit…

During the evening, and throughout the greater part of the night, there were exercises of singing, prayer, and exhortation in the several tents. The novelty of the scene, the fervor of devotion, and the depth of feeling so affected the multitude that few closed their eyes in sleep to the dawn of day. Before the services commenced on Saturday morning, three persons were struck down. At the close of the forenoon sermons several more were similarly affected; and the number continued to increase until the close of the meetings. Seventeen ministers were present, and about five hundred communicants participated in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which was administered in the midst of the camp without noise or disturbance. At the same time preaching was going forward at three different stations. At the close of the services on Monday, continuing as they did till midnight, there were about one hundred persons prostrate on the ground, the greater part of whom were shouting aloud, and many of them in the most earnest manner entreating for mercy. While Dr. Hall was at prayer, about forty fell at the same instant.

I’d rather go back to the notions from the previous post about what “genuine revival” looks like:

A genuine revival is noiseless, orderly, solemn and even awful. … The spirit of a genuine revival repudiates all excesses of feeling, speech, and action. It abhors all irregularities; all eccentricities in the manner of the preacher; all wild incoherent ravings; all personalities of address; praying for individuals by name in public assemblies, irreverent familiarity with the name of God; and calling on individuals in promiscuous meetings, to tell what God hath done for their souls. It rejects whatever is theatrical in gesture, pompous or vulgar in expression, and offensive to a cool dispassionate judgment, in stories and anecdotes. It demands solemnity; deep, heartfelt, all pervading solemnity in the preacher, the church and the congregation.

It seems that this author from Charleston SC in 1838 would have considered these 1802 meetings “about twelve miles southeast of Charlotte” NC, as:

In the second class, the truth of God is half wrapt up; doctrines offensive to the carnal heart may not be preached, lest the revival stop; total depravity; the sinner’s utter helplessness; eternal election; God’s absolute sovereignty; the resistless agency of the Holy Spirit, must all yield to the doctrine of the sinner’s ability; this is the grand fulcrum on which rests the whole moral machinery, by which he is to be renewed, and sanctified and transferred to heaven! And then, in order to complete success, protracted meetings of various kinds, extending from four to forty days must be maintained, and the most popular, not the most spiritual preachers in all the country must be called in, to give repeated and powerful impulses to the work. And when these means are exhausted, and the excitement once begins to flag, the Minister loses his order, the Church remits her prayer meetings; and the mass of community move on as if nothing had happened.

In such revivals we have little confidence. “Except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

11. No heavier curse can fall upon a community, than a spurious revival. Stupidity is dreadful; but it is mercy compared with false excitement. Lukewarmness is deplorable; but it leaves room for repentance. Infidelity is horrible; but it may yield to conviction. Hypocrisy and self deception are worse than all. The fire of God’s wrath only can remove them. They are the offspring of spurious revivals and combine in their character all, and more than all that is fearful in stupidity, lukewarmness and infidelity together.

12. A genuine revival is noiseless, orderly, solemn and even awful. God is in the midst of it. And his presence carries death to levity, presumption, arrogance and proud display. It inspires an awe like that felt at the foot of Sinai. It creates a trembling throughout the whole camp. It is marked by deep and often long continued conviction of sin; overwhelming sorrow for the hardness of the heart; earnest pleadings with a holy and just God for light and direction; a disposition to retire from observation, and vent the souls anguish in the closet; love for the Bible; abhorrence of all lightness of speech and behavior; clear apprehension of the law of God, in its purity, spirituality, compass and ends; great fears of self deception; thorough searchings of the heart; many, many tears and heart-breakings, in view of past offenses; and many strong fears that the day of mercy may have gone by forever.–Where religious excitement is not attended by marks like those both among Christians and sinners, we have no confidence in it.–Some souls may be converted; but more are likely to be ruined, beyond all hope of recovery.

13. The spirit of a genuine revival repudiates all excesses of feeling, speech, and action. It abhors all irregularities; all eccentricities in the manner of the preacher; all wild incoherent ravings; all personalities of address; praying for individuals by name in public assemblies, irreverent familiarity with the name of God; and calling on individuals in promiscuous meetings, to tell what God hath done for their souls. It rejects whatever is theatrical in gesture, pompous or vulgar in expression, and offensive to a cool dispassionate judgment, in stories and anecdotes. It demands solemnity; deep, heartfelt, all pervading solemnity in the preacher, the church and the congregation.

18. It is a fact, not to be disguised, that there is a vast difference between the revivals which blessed the Church in the days of Edwards, Strong, Griffin and Payson, and the revivals of the past ten or fifteen years. They are not to be named together. There are individual exceptions, no doubt. But we speak of them as classes. And in the first class, the whole truth of God was declared plainly, pungently, argumentatively, and without compromise. The whole reliance of Ministers and Churches was on the Holy Spirit. They stood still, and saw the salvation of the Lord. When the pillar of fire moved before them, they moved. When it passed behind them they passed in holy awe. And long did those revivals continue; deep and all penetrating was their influence; lasting as time and eternity were their visible and happy effects.

In the second class, the truth of God is half wrapt up; doctrines offensive to the carnal heart may not be preached, lest the revival stop; total depravity; the sinner’s utter helplessness; eternal election; God’s absolute sovereignty; the resistless agency of the Holy Spirit, must all yield to the doctrine of the sinner’s ability; this is the grand fulcrum on which rests the whole moral machinery, by which he is to be renewed, and sanctified and transferred to heaven! And then, in order to complete success, protracted meetings of various kinds, extending from four to forty days must be maintained, and the most popular, not the most spiritual preachers in all the country must be called in, to give repeated and powerful impulses to the work. And when these means are exhausted, and the excitement once begins to flag, the Minister loses his order, the Church remits her prayer meetings; and the mass of community move on as if nothing had happened.

In such revivals we have little confidence. “Except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

For at least two church brewing groups, the activity has gone commercial. Hess Brewing Co. in San Diego and Monday Night Brewing in Atlanta both started as Bible study group projects.

Mike Hess says the New Life Presbyterian Church group began with a dozen members and now boasts between 60 and 80 regulars with as many as 100 on occasion. That helped him “drain tanks” regularly, test out several recipes and get feedback on the flavors and styles. Hess Brewing is expanding into a new, larger location—a former Christian book store that had been owned by church members. Mr. Hess’s Belgian “Trinitas” beer, named for the Holy Trinity, is now one of the brewery’s mainstays.

I wouldn’t call H&S a “Bible study group project”; usually I call it something like a Reformed Men’s Theological Debate Society.

I guess it’s not too surprising that WSJ jumped on the phrase WWJB (and Google says it’s fairly ubiquitous), but happily the real point is captured fairly well in the closing quote of the article. Rather than beer being somehow sanctified through association with Jesus or his church, “beer or alcohol in moderation can be a gift from God’s creation.”

So how about you pop open a nice cold gift from God’s creation, and kick back and watch this cool time-lapse video of heavy machinery installing giant brew vessels into their basement home at the new Hess Brewery?

What do Abraham Kuyper and Jean Valjean have in common?  An at once modest but high view of political institutional power.

But too often the freedom championed today is the freedom of the antinomian revolutionaries, a blanket “freedom from” with no concern for the ends to which it will be directed. The problem with this libertine conception of freedom is that it treats all men as radically individual, as bearers of ‘rights’ over and against the societies to which we belong…

…Legalism and antinomianism fatally pervert the truth about just authority, and both errors loom large as threats to our political well being: the former as a propagandist terror and the latter as a destructive overreaction to it. Les Misérables instructs us in the Aristotelian golden mean between these two: We should neither worship nor despise the law, but navigating between this Scylla and Charybdis, between Javert and Enjolras, we should love and respect the law always. It will not be our salvation, but it will be instrumental in instructing and guiding us toward that goal. Let us delight in the law and follow the witness of Jean Valjean, of whom Hugo wrote, “It seemed as though he had for a soul the book of the natural law.”

Cornelius Van Til stands as the prince of twentieth-century Christian apologetics. He has had by far the most profound impact on my own thinking of all my teachers. His theological insight and prophetic witness have been a conscience, if not canon, and his warmly human and gracious godliness has been an inspiration for the life which is in Christ Jesus. To turn a biblical phrase, may he not regard the small estate of this book but only the unbounded esteem and affection his servant, the author, would express in dedicating it to him.

Who has unbounded esteem and affection for CVT and his prophetic canon? Guess the author and the book, and you win free unlimited access to the entire back archives of the Confessional Outhouse!

Some of the discussion at OldLife about high and low culture has prompted me to re-post.

Lane Keister seems to have much adulation for the recent book, “Do Hard Things.”

The book and the review are aimed at youth. Maybe it’s just memories of junior high counselors and high school just-say-no rallies, but I get nervous when adults are “given a microphone” and presume to address kids. And when religion is the backdrop I brace myself even more. These things rarely seem to go well. Speaking of doing hard things, it isn’t easy speaking with kids. It’s easier to talk to them. One irony is that the message most often has to do with not living down to low expectations, yet all the sub-text seems to assume kids are indeed fairly moronic. If the review is any measure, the book is no exception to this irony. But if I am being serious about the second greatest commandment and not exasperating children, I am not so sure swapping out a sweaty moralistic-therapeutic deism for a brainy one is any less transparent or patronizing.

It seems rather apparent that much of this, quite understandably, is simply a general reaction against the insipid. Certainly none of us who have made our trek out of wider evangelicalism and into the confessional tradition need to be convinced that dumbness reigns our former haunts. But ultimately what ails in Keister’s review is not only an absence of the eschatological categories that distinguish between the two ages but a confusion between popular culture and that which is merely banal. I am not as sure as Keister that they are really one and the same. And, ultimately, what this brief review reveals is that we Reformed are as vulnerable to cultural trapping as anyone else.

The cultural analysis Keister seems to echo by way of the book by Alex and Brett Harris seems overly reliant on a simplistic taxonomy between high and low culture. With the target audience of teens, there are, evidently, only two options: “slacking off and partying,” or “accomplishing things for Christ.” It is never very clear what is exactly meant by the phrase “accomplishing things for Christ,” but usually it seems to be code for “whatever our quarter of the religious sub-culture deems superior.” To my old evangelical circles this would translate into staying relentlessly well ahead of the “cool” curve, while for Keister it seems to mean filling every square inch with theological tomes. Granted, the latter may have more in common with a truer piety, but when pushed with all the fervency of a revivalist it seems that something has been Lost in Translation. Call me under-realized (go ahead, I’m used to it), but I’m not so sure that the best of our tradition understands the corrective to a zeal without knowledge to be a zeal for knowledge.

If the directive from the revivalist is to dive deeper into one’s experience with the risen Christ, the exhortation by certain Reformed is to dive deeper into one’s mind. But if it is really true that Christ is apprehended by faith alone then both of these tendencies look to be two sides of a skewed coin. If pietism’s legalism is to never let the inner life go un-groomed, certain Reformed are vulnerable to standing aghast at a mind at ease. If the wider evangelical world is about consuming, aping and even creating popular culture, the Reformed and Presbyterian world seems almost as smitten with doing the same only with a more sophisticated culture. Trafficking in a fair amount of stereotype and caricature of one by the other, both seem to have something of an indulgent love affair with one cultural strain or another. But, again, if faith alone is the ordained instrument by which to embrace Christ, it would seem that even cultural preferences are as finally invalid categories as reason, experience, emotion, ideology, etc. Despite what certain Reformed might assume, consumerism isn’t only for those who brandish Icthus symbols on bumper stickers and checking accounts. It can also afflict those who like to read thick books and understand the relevance of nearly extinct languages.

I have no problem with doing—or thinking—hard things. (Can one move from unbelief to the Durham Trail to Geneva without it?) But what about easy things, or those things in between?

I recall an exchange with another Presbyterian minister in which he was bemoaning the Western accent on the institution of work. The so-called “Protestant work ethic” was the culprit. We are “too consumed with work,” he seemed to be saying. Despite his protestations to the contrary, work (and material gain) kept coming off as icky or somehow impious. I couldn’t help feeling like a certain form of legalism was brewing in which I was probably supposed to look upon my own happy pursuit of particular vocation with suspicion. I was finally rendered something of a Little Dwarf with a chronic case of Hi-Hoism.

With Keister, I get the other impression. I get the sense I should feel a pang of guilt for my devotion to King of Queens re-runs every evening at 7, or for the fact that I am not quite sold on the idea of seeing to it that my children are ready for a PhD in high school. I wonder if it is enough that my own catechetical instruction has a six-year-old trying to not only pronounce but understand words like “justification” and “glorification,” even as she darts from the dinner table to take in some Nickelodeon. And if it’s guilt we’re after, I have quite a measure of it every time I walk into a book store and am confronted with all that I haven’t read. (I’m not kidding. It got so bad one time I had to leave my wife stranded at the coffee bar eighty-four seconds after walking in.)

While it would seem that the first minister might have me enjoy my work less simply because he confuses it with idle busyness (or material gain with an intangible form of materialism), Keister and company seem to conflate popular culture with that which is pure piffle. To be fair, he does suggest that none of this is “to say that we should just chuck popular culture entirely.” But one wonders just where in the world that comes from, or on what grounds, when just seconds before he told us that it “is barely worth one listen,” to say nothing of a general sentiment throughout that popular culture is probably best left untouched.  I’ve been around it enough that I like to think I know latent legalism when I read it. In response to both of these ministers, I don’t like my play being demonized any more than my work. And for what it’s worth, everybody knows what all work and no play can do to a body and soul. That lesson wasn’t lost on Shelley Duvall.

I know it is tantalizing to embrace the notion that society at large is being led down the tubes by the boogey-men of “dumbed down culture,” taking the cult with it. But every generation does this, and I do seem to recall something about even the gates of hell not prevailing against the church. And I realize it is to take some wind out of the sails for those who like to think “…it is really gutsy to rebel against the entirety of culture” when I say that a high and hard culture isn’t the solution to low and easy one, as if there needed to be a solution in the first place. But I think the more useful and over-arching categorical arrangement is Paul’s eschatological notion of this age versus the next one. What is “gutsy,” I think, is Paul’s eschatology. Moreover, the Reformed understanding of the doctrine of creation, in which we ascertain the essence of the material world to be “very good” while its condition sinful, is the ground by which we may partake in all things resident to this age, including high and low culture; we understand this age to be evil because it is passing as a result of our sin, not because it is inherently corrupt. It could be that any voice which tries to set up a class system between anything within this age not only misses sight of the correct taxonomy but may also flirt with a form of legalism. If the antithesis is between this age and the one to come then it doesn’t really follow that the antidote to a piety of sustained adolescence is the sanctity of intellectualism. Dualities are a treasured hallmark of the Reformed tradition. But the trick, it seems to me, is to get them right in the first place.

A denial of our creatureliness leads to a denial of the various ways we are indebted and gives rise to the autonomous individual. Autonomous individuals are marked by ingratitude, for their faces are turned unstintingly toward the blinding light of progress, and they cannot recognize either limits or debts. Such people live on borrowed capital just as a nation, blinded by consumption, lives on money borrowed from future generations. The ungrateful person (and the ungrateful society) is characterized by hubris, which seeks to dominate reality by a sheer act of will. But such a will to power necessarily entails expansion as the uncertainties of reality press in from every side. The ungrateful person or society cannot get the question of scale right because the human question is so badly answered.

In contrast, the grateful person (and society) recognizes dependencies on every level. Such a person is characterized by humility, which gives birth not to the urge to dominate but to the desire to preserve that which has been passed down, that which has been tended and cultivated, that which has and will produce fruit. In short, grateful people are stewards. They understand that they are part of a chain, a succession of responsibility. They grasp that their stewardship is not solitary but bound to a long line of stewards, stretching back in time. Indeed, grateful people understand themselves as members of a community of stewards, and among this membership are the living, the dead, and the yet to be born. Such people can rest in the mystery of existence, the goodness of community, and propriety of a scale suited to human beings.

Answer:

This is from Mark T. Mitchell’s “Politics of Gratitude.” I find Mitchell’s writing intriguing, both in this book and over at The Front Porch republic. He writes in a simple and modest manner, a form to match the content of much of his writing. As I said, the only quibble I have is his consistent suggestion that the modern ills of individualism and personal autonomy owe to the Protestant Reformation, suggesting further that something like the Roman Catholic Church is an institution good for cultivating the virtues of community, authority, place, modesty, and restraint.

But how anybody can read the confessional statements of Reformed Protestantism and conclude that the Reformation helped give modern society individualism and the atomization of society?

Belgic 31: We believe that ministers of the Word of God, elders, and deacons ought to be chosen to their offices by a legitimate election of the church, with prayer in the name of the Lord, and in good order, as the Word of God teaches.

So everyone must be careful not to push himself forward improperly, but he must wait for God’s call, so that he may be assured of his calling and be certain that he is chosen by the Lord.

As for the ministers of the Word, they all have the same power and authority, no matter where they may be, since they are all servants of Jesus Christ, the only universal bishop, and the only head of the church.

Moreover, to keep God’s holy order from being violated or despised, we say that everyone ought, as much as possible, to hold the ministers of the Word and elders of the church in special esteem, because of the work they do, and be at peace with them, without grumbling, quarreling, or fighting.

Belgic 36: We believe that because of the depravity of the human race our good God has ordained kings, princes, and civil officers. He wants the world to be governed by laws and policies so that human lawlessness may be restrained and that everything may be conducted in good order among human beings.

For that purpose he has placed the sword in the hands of the government, to punish evil people and protect the good.

And being called in this manner to contribute to the advancement of a society that is pleasing to God, the civil rulers have the task, subject to God’s law, of removing every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to every aspect of divine worship.

They should do this while completely refraining from every tendency toward exercising absolute authority, and while functioning in the sphere entrusted to them, with the means belonging to them.

And the government’s task is not limited to caring for and watching over the public domain but extends also to upholding the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist; to promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and to furthering the preaching of the gospel everywhere; to the end that God may be honored and served by everyone, as he requires in his Word.

Moreover everyone, regardless of status, condition, or rank, must be subject to the government, and pay taxes, and hold its representatives in honor and respect, and obey them in all things that are not in conflict with God’s Word, praying for them that the Lord may be willing to lead them in all their ways and that we may live a peaceful and quiet life in all piety and decency.

And on this matter we denounce the Anabaptists, other anarchists, and in general all those who want to reject the authorities and civil officers and to subvert justice by introducing common ownership of goods and corrupting the moral order that God has established among human beings.

WCF 20.4: And because the powers which God has ordained, and the liberty which Christ has purchased are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another, they who, upon pretence of Christian liberty, shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God. And, for their publishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature, or to the known principles of Christianity (whether concerning faith, worship, or conversation), or to the power of godliness; or, such erroneous opinions or practices, as either in their own nature, or in the manner of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace and order which Christ has established in the Church, they may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded against, by the censures of the Church. and by the power of the civil magistrate.

WCF 23.4 It is the duty of people to pray for magistrates, to honor their persons, to pay them tribute or other dues, to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority, for conscience’ sake. Infidelity, or difference in religion, does not make void the magistrates’ just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to them: from which ecclesiastical persons are not exempted, much less has the Pope any power and jurisdiction over them in their dominions, or over any of their people; and, least of all, to deprive them of their dominions, or lives, if he shall judge them to be heretics, or upon any other pretence whatsoever.

I’m not sure of Mitchell’s own religious affiliation, but the impulse to ascribe what is bad in modern society to the Reformation just seems like the mirror error of the neo-Calvinists ascribing whatever is good in modern society to the same (perhaps even all the way back to the advent of Christ). Conservative Calvinism seems to take a very different view and interpretation of history that isn’t quite as religiously loaded as either a pro-Catholic or neo-Calvinist take.

On a lighter note, a hopeless GenXer, every time I pick up this book to read or pass it by as it lays on the bed stand or coffee table or wherever I last set it, I can’t help but have this song play in my head for at least the next fifteen or so minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eabefjsJsAQ

Normally the price is $19.99 for eternal access (well, for the duration of this present evil age…), and I think even that is a good deal. Or, online access code is included with purchase of a hardcopy ESV Study Bible. Obviously the ESV is the translation of choice of the Reformed, and the ESV Study Bible is the official study bible of the Reformed, in particular of WSCAL-o-philes.

I requested my hardcover ESV Study Bible as a Christmas present when they were new (I guess that would be 2008), and ever since I’ve been a frequent user of the online version. But if I had it to do over again, instead of dropping a dollar-per-pound on the hardcover I would have bought the supermini pocket ESV (my current bible, which I got after the wheelbarrow that I used to carry around the study bible broke), and paid $20 for the online study bible. In addition to the expected benefits of faster computerized searching, and clicking around to chase down cross-references, I also found that it was distracting to have the whole study bible there in church — I would be distracted from worship by all the notes and articles and pictures and maps and such.

So if you have somehow not yet jumped on the bandwagon of the ESV Study Bible, now’s the time to do it!

On the plus side, such a plan will provide a steady (though not voluminous) stream of new content here at the ‘house, while simultaneously adding some public accountability from you kind folks. On the minus side, I think the jury’s still out on NCC, whether it is a Good Thing, or whether I should just buckle down and get back into SC and Training Hearts, Teaching Minds where we trailed off somewhere around the 2nd commandment.

What do you all think? Is anybody else out there willing to jump in with both feet and expose (indoctrinate?) their family to NCC?

Treatment of Baptism — Don’t Love It, Don’t Want to Dwell On It

The elephant in the room is that New City Catechism is paedo/credo-agnostic (see Q43-45). This is the first place critics of TGC will look to criticize (show of hands, how many of you looked at only a few questions before fast-forwarding to questions on Baptism? I know I did.) But I’d like to assume for the sake of argument that this is not a trump card, and set it aside — for now at least — to look at other matters. If you are stuck on the baptism thing, and don’t want to give the New City Catechism any further consideration because of it, well, there’s no lock on the Outhouse, don’t let the door hit yer butt on the way out!

Name — Don’t Love It

I mean c’mon, “New City”? I can only suppose they’re aiming at Heb 11:10 here (“looking forward to the city…whose designer and builder is God”), but coming from the citiest of all possible churches in the citiest of all possible cities, it strikes me more as a shameless plug for everything Redeemer NYC stands for; kind of like the sneaky practice of calling a law something like “The Freedom and Puppies Act” (what kind of cad could possibly be against Freedom — AND PUPPIES?!) If the goal was for Redeemer NYC to make a catechism for their own use, and also make it available for others, that would be one thing. But the introduction seems to imply the goal is a catechetical tool for not just Redeemer or even the PCA, but all Reformed churches (including “Reformed Baptists”). So why not search for a name that will not stick in the craw of country folk?

Plagiarism — Love it!

From just the authors and the name of this project, I would have guessed it would be a ground-up fresh effort (like the new PCUSA catechisms). But I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the New City Catechism (let’s call it NCC so I don’t have to keep typing “New City”, see above) is positively littered with quotes from HC and SC. It’s as if HC and SC were dropped in a bag, crushed with a hammer, many of the best bits were fished out, and glued back together with modern language. But that makes it sound bad, really I mean this in the best possible sense!

Length — Meh.

One prominent feature of the NCC is its brevity — just 52 questions, one per week of a single year. I appreciate the nod to the HC’s 52 Lord’s Days; and I am also sympathetic with the concern to provide something digestible by our modern, attention defecitted culture. But 52 questions is not a lot of room to cover what needs to be covered. One response to baptism grouches (who are not reading this far, see above…) might be that with two whole questions about baptism already, there just isn’t space to delve deeper.

More significant than this, however, is that with just 52 questions, NCC fails to follow in SC and HC’s footsteps and provide comprehensive coverage of the 10 commandments, the Lord’s Prayer (and in the HC’s case, the Apostle’s Creed). Some of this lack may well be covered by supplemental materials, at this point I just don’t know.

Structure — Love it!

As already noted, we’ve got the 52-week structure of HC. At a higher level, we have this three-part structure:

1. God, creation and fall, law
2. Christ, redemption, and grace
3. Spirit, restoration, growing in grace

This meshes well with HC’s guilt, grace, gratitude, and it also is fairly similar to SC except pushing the ten commandments before Christ and redemption (which makes pretty good sense, actually).

Also, I think it’s a brilliant touch to pack both children’s and adult’s catechism into one, by making each children’s answer just a subset of the words of the full answer. This catechism was obviously designed with memorization in mind.

Technology — Love it!

The website is very slick, with a clean, consistent layout. Each answer has a fuzz-out toggle to assist memorization, and four buttons, v:[erse], c:[ommentary], play button (video commentary), and p:[rayer]. The color scheme is clever and useful: brown and sand for Part I, blue and water for Part II, green and vine for part III. Apparently the iPhone app has even more bells&whistles, but not being a smartphone user myself, I wouldn’t know. (I’m not sure why there’s no Android app. This seems to be a slight against those who are not trendy enough to own an iPhone — akin to my comments above about the name.) Regardless, I hope  these toys serve to mitigate some of the unavoidable drudgery of catechesis, and reel a new generation into the practice.

Read more at This Day in Presbyterian History.