Opportunity for self-analysis

No one wants to appear flippant in suggesting too soon that some good can come out of the Norway mass killing allegedly perpetrated by Anders Breivik. Yet, it is precisely our ability and impulse to learn good from unspeakable tragedy that distinguishes us human beings among all creatures in this creation cosmos.

As usual, the post-event commentary reveals a lot about the commentators and about our current cultural situation. But such commentary supplies enough to lead all of us to pause for personal reflection.

For someone like me who is committed to advancing a particular worldview, it is more than troubling to hear the word worldview joined loudly with words like ideology, fanatic, paranoia, extremist, along with, in this case, Islamophobe. Such conjoining you’ll find in the rather challenging essay, Breivik’s Warped Worldview, posted yesterday by Stephen M. Walt, the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

It’s easy to let yourself get annoyed by such unflattering associative language. Ironically, at one point, Walt cautions against “guilt by association,” of which he himself has been a victim–and in this essay, a perpetrator.

All of us need to pause for some self-reflection. The talking heads and pundits need to acknowledge and reflect on their own worldview, being honest enough with themselves and the rest of us to admit that nobody lives without one. And those of us who confess to holding a Christian worldview need to ask hard questions about the extent to which grace and compassion season justice and rightness in our speech, our look at the world, our view of others around us, near or far.

Unlike your genetic makeup, which is given to you and belongs to nature, your worldview is received and nurtured throughout a lifetime. And your worldview leads to building either orphanages, shopping malls, or terrorist bombs. A worldview always sprouts hands that build, feet that walk, and cultures that live. Or die.

To seize this opportunity for self-analysis, we need harbor no illusion that others will “get it” with respect to our worldview. That is not the first order of business right now. Rather, with a view to those hands, and feet, and cultures, we need—all of us—to continue to think deeply about what is good and worthy of praise, what is true and honorable and right and pure and beautiful and respected. And then do what we learn.

That, my friends, is what Sunday’s worship should be good for.

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Preaching: not “about” Jesus, but the very voice of Jesus (Rom. 10:14)

You’ll find an essay opening up that rather cryptic title here.

For me personally and professionally, this essay has been among the most formative, life-changing, and vision-inducing treatments I’ve encountered.

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A nested balance: preaching prophetically to life particularities

On 12 June 2011, Dr. John Piper addressed a group of law students at a gathering sponsored by the Alliance Defense Fund.

I direct your attention to the comments recorded at 36:23 – 41:01 as profitable for reflecting on the relationship between (1) Christianity, (2) the church, (3) preaching, (4) the Bible, on the one hand, and cultural obedience.

Hallowing God’s Name in Public Life (by John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org)

Having listened to that section, I invite you to rewind back to 14:26 – 18:08. Listen and think along with Dr. Piper’s well-crafted analysis.

Now ponder this as well: by the phrase “nested balance,” I have in mind something like what computer programmers call a “nested subroutine.” In this case, it refers to demonstrating the very thing you’re seeking to explain–while you’re explaining it!

Here’s what I mean. While explaining how the gospel impacts cultural structures, Dr. Piper is demonstrating how that happens by speaking these words to law students. He is describing to law students the relationship between (1) – (4) and cultural obedience as a gospel preacher! He wouldn’t be there otherwise. He is modeling the very culture-being-transformed-by-gospel-activity many of us are advocating.

Sadly, the term “transformation” slides across the lips of some people with a sneer, a snort, and a sniffle. What is annoyingly unhelpful is their persistent binary thinking, as though we have only two choices: either (1) we humans/Christians/churches transform culture, OR (2) the church must restrict itself to focusing on “spiritual” things (whatever they are) lest she slip into preaching “the social gospel.”

Here, once again, with Dr. Piper’s analysis, we’re invited to consider a third way.

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Announcement

Press Release
21 July 2011
St. John, IN

Dr. Nelson D. Kloosterman, Executive Director of Worldview Resources International (WRI), has been received as a member and teaching elder by the Chicago Metro Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).

In December 2009, Dr. Kloosterman formally announced his plans to leave teaching at Mid-America Reformed Seminary to begin theological translation, consulting, and church leadership training as Executive Director for WRI. He will now do this as a “theological missionary” under oversight within the PCA, a church family eagerly committed to speaking the gospel into today’s culture. The church with which he and his wife will be associated is the Lincoln Square Presbyterian Church of Chicago.

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A conversation and convocation Pro Rege (“for the King”)

Anyone tracking contemporary worldview discussions in the tiny Reformed/Presbyterian corner of the cosmos will be helped by these two balanced articles recently published in Pro Rege, a quarterly faculty publication of Dordt College, located in Sioux Center, Iowa: “Worldview, Sphere Sovereignty, and Desiring the Kingdom: A Guide for (Perplexed) Reformed Folk,” by James K. A. Smith, and “Serious Education for Serious Christians,” by Carl Zylstra.

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Dutch Inspiration for Tim Keller

Dutch Inspiration for Tim Keller
By James Eglinton
Translated by Nelson D. Kloosterman

Monday, 11 July 2011
Nederlands Dagblad

. . . New York City clergyman Tim Keller gleans much from British and American authors. . . . But when it comes to his church’s niche in New York City, we hear the sounds of Dutch names: Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck.

The Presbyterian clergyman Tim Keller is attracting worldwide attention through his work with Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. In his sermons and books, Keller makes frequent use of the British author C. S. Lewis and the American Reformed theologian Jonathan Edwards. “From Lewis especially I have learned a lot about communicating with others, especially with skeptics. And theologically my thinking has indeed been shaped by Edwards.”

But anyone who listens to Keller talk about the wider role of Redeemer within the culture of New York City will hear other names: those of the church father Augustine and of the Dutch neo-Calvinist theologian Abraham Kuyper.

Unthinkable

Central to the work of Redeemer in New York City is the Center for Faith and Work, a center where Christians are trained to live out of their faith in their work or in their public function. Keller’s vision for this, as he indicates, would be unthinkable without Kuyper. “Kuyper said many helpful things. Especially his idea of sphere sovereignty has helped me. That idea assumes that various social relationships—among persons, families, volunteers, associations, and churches—each has its own responsibility. According to a well-known aphorism, Kuyper discovered that ‘there is not a thumb’s-width in life about which Christ does not say: ”Mine!”’ But that authority of Jesus is carried out through various social connections. Christ’s absolute claim upon human existence does not mean, for example, that the church as church may control the state.”

Keller discovered the Dutch neo-Calvinists in the 1970s during his study in Boston at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. There the Swiss theologian Roger Nicole gave his students Herman Bavinck’s Doctrine of God to read. “I also had to work through a translation of a small portion of Bavink’s dogmatics. I became deeply impressed by the balance and thoroughness of Bavinck’s theology. He was very nuanced. He displayed a healthy piety, but nevertheless was no pietist. And his orientation to the Bible occasionally kept him from adopting traditional positions.”

Keller narrates how one of Bavinck’s basic insights has become foundational for his own theology and vision for Redeemer. “Bavinck’s fundamental idea that grace restores nature was truly a revelation for me. In my opinion, this has enormous consequences for how you look at the church and the world.”

“Many Christian traditions view sanctification as a journey out of the natural world to a spiritual world that has nothing to do with ordinary life and your calling in that life. For that reason, we at Redeemer ask the question: ‘How does your faith affect your work?’ That is really crucial for following Christ. Most evangelical churches in America make believers into disciples of Christ by removing them from the world and bringing them into the church. Discipleship supposedly involves how we study the Bible, how we lead Bible studies, how we pray, evangelize, overcome temptation, forgive, and seek relationships with others, practice fellowship with other believers, how you can work in the congregation. And that is also important. But at the same time, this doesn’t help people lead a recognizably Christian life in society, at work, in art, in media, in the marketplace, etc.”

Neglect

At the same time, Keller is not uncritical regarding the Kuyperian tradition. He points out that many churches in this tradition place heavy emphasis on living according to a Christian worldview while neglecting spiritual piety and evangelism. On the other hand, he realizes as well that some churches move to the other extreme: “They place all the emphasis on piety and evangelism, but neglect the integration of faith and work.” So he is seeking a middle way with the help of Bavinck and Kuyper. “With Kuyper I believe in an antithesis, an opposition between belief and unbelief. Ultimately there is no neutrality. Thinking proceeds from belief in God or from belief in an idol. But at the same time, unbelievers are often inconsistent. Despite their mistaken presuppositions and ideals, they display their goodness and possess many insights, by virtue of God’s common grace.”

It is that balance that has led, in the case of Keller and Redeemer, to a flourishing church in a city that for the most part is secular.

Why are Kuyper and Bavinck at this moment more popular in America than in the Netherlands? To this question Keller supplies a philosophical answer. “C. S. Lewis is much more widely known and read in the United States than in Great Britain. The same pertains to other well-known British Christian authors, like J. I. Packer and John Stott. Lewis, Packer, and Stott are not neo-Calvinists. So I don’t think that the reason lies with the content of the thought of Kuyper and Bavinck. For various reasons, America possesses a far more flourishing religious institutional life and an enormous evangelical subculture. European Christian authors and thinkers simply have more readers in America than in their own countries.”

* * *

The Scotsman James Eglinton obtained his doctorate with a dissertation on Herman Bavinck, and is doing research at the Theological University in Kampen on how Calvinism in the Netherlands and in Scotland have influenced each other.

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If all 14 sides can agree with this, we can get on with life . . .

Talk about moving the ball downfield . . . this Gospel Coalition conversation shows us the way forward!

Without using even one Dutch word, though mentioning Abraham Kuyper approvingly (!), but not mentioning neo-Calvinism even once! Everyone here accepts as valid and useful the distinction (not separation!) between church-as-institute and church-as-organism. Everyone here agrees that the former has a limited mandate, though related to the latter, which has a culture-salinization mandate.

Do these men say everything anyone could possibly ever say about any little particular snippet of truth relating at all to the theme of Christ-and-culture?

Of course not. They don’t need to. But what they do say is clear and comprehensive enough for all 14 sides of this discussion to agree.

So let’s put our sticks down inside this circle . . . right here, right now. I’m willing. Are you?

Now, then, let’s get on with life, and let the church-as-institute continue using the means of grace for discipling the church-as-organism for cultural obedience.

Waddya think? All in favor, vote “like.”

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The Work of the Holy Spirit: Personal Conversion and Creation Renewal are not Alternatives

Contemporary horror movies have recently attracted stern warnings and public attention throughout The Netherlands and Great Britain, occasioned by the Dutch movie “The Human Centipede II.” The British council for classifying movies has forbidden the showing of this second version of the Dutch movie because of its violent sexual content.

In that connection, Dr. H. van den Belt discusses the biblical perspective on the relationship between “unclean spirits” (a frequent subject of the horror genre) and the Holy Spirit. He observes that what pertains to individuals and to an entire generation in Jesus’ day can pertain to an entire culture as well. When the “house” of an entire society becomes inhospitable to the beneficial influences of Christianity, Satan takes up residence in that house.

In that context, Dr. Van den Belt offers the following commentary.

Re-creation

The general work of the Spirit serves to restrain corruption with respect to culture. At the end of history, the Spirit will retreat and surrender people to their own fleshly nature. The end of history will be a repetition of the time just before the Flood. Back then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever” [Gen. 6.3, ESV; alternate reading]. Obviously the general operation of the Spirit within culture possesses a restraining influence.

The Bible’s discussions about the work of the Spirit deal more broadly than with simply the inner renewal of the heart. The Spirit also works in creating life and in maintaining the world.

The early church confessed that the Holy Spirit is Someone who makes alive. He awakens dead sinners to the life of faith, but He also works new life within a creation that has been subjected to death. Originally the feast of Pentecost was the feast of harvest, celebrating the fact that grain sown in the earth had borne fruit.

Reformational Christians are not very accustomed to relating the working of God’s Spirit to nature and to culture. The under-appreciation of the broader work of the Spirit betrays an incorrect vision of the relationship between nature and grace. Here, too often the point of departure involves an antithesis between the general and the special working of the Spirit. Only the latter is saving.

For the Reformation, grace is not opposed to nature, but opposed to sin. By grace, a person does not become super-human, but genuinely human. Grace restores and redeems nature, but it adds nothing new to nature. “The re-creation is not a second, new creation. It introduces no new substance, but is essentially reformatory,” according to Herman Bavinck.

Not everyone has understood that well. Some see grace more as a redemption out of the creation than as a redemption of the creation out of the grip of evil. The Anabaptistic movement that was vigorously opposed by the Reformers does enjoy a certain power of attraction with its categories of radical opposites.

Soulful

A result of this anabaptistic influence is that many Reformational Christians in practice have room for the work of the Spirit only in the soul. In this way, the vision relating to re-creation possesses literally a “soulful” character, because the focus on personal conversion obscures the perspective on the renewal of heaven and earth.

The Bible ties the work of the Holy Spirit to the creation and re-creation of the world. In Genesis 1, the Spirit hovers over the waters. Like a bird brooding over its nest, so the Spirit of God waits for the moment when the Word calls life into being. It is the Holy Spirit who as God’s breath creates man as a living soul.

That creating work is always ongoing. Psalm 104 sings of the new life that God provides within a dying world. All creatures, even the young lions roaring for their prey, wait for the Spirit to open His hand to feed them. When God hides His face, they are terrified, and when God takes away their breath, they die and return to the dust [Ps. 104.28-29]. But, as the poet sings, “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground” [Ps. 104.30].

In fact, Reformed liturgy pays attention to the work of the Spirit in politics. This explains why the formal liturgical prayer “for all the needs of Christendom” contains the petition that with respect to the members of civil government, God would “preside with His Holy Spirit in their assemblies.”

Art

Throughout history, Christian theology has investigated traces of God’s presence within paganism. Not in order to excuse pagans or to assume that pagans could be saved in their own way, but precisely in order to show why they are not to be excused. It is very important to uncover the continuing connection between Creator and creature.

Traces of God’s revelation are to be found especially in logic, the principles for thinking, in ethics, the principles for conduct, and in aesthetics, the principles of art. Since through sin man has become totally corrupt, then everything that is genuinely true, good, and beautiful owes its existence to the Spirit of God. Augustine ties all truth, goodness, and beauty to God as the highest good, absolute truth, and consummate beauty.

It is indeed risky to draw a straight line from everything that is true and pretty to the Spirit of God. The creating and recreating Spirit is not limited to the creation. Therefore it is so important to continue confessing that the Holy Spirit is God whose being is personal, rather than an impersonal force.

The Bible does not tie the Holy Spirit seamlessly to the true, the good, and the beautiful, but especially to the weak, the ignoble, and the despised. Sanctification is consecration. The Holy Spirit redirects unto God the creation suffering because of sin and liable to death. He constitutes the connection who brings new life amid death.

The Bible connects the work of the Spirit also to the gift of art. That applies to devotional music, to be sure. But architects and visual artists like Bezalel and Oholiab were also filled with the Spirit of God in order to be able to do their creative work [Ex. 31.6; 36.1-2; 38.23].

Christians may pray for the working of the Holy Spirit in their own lives, but also for the corruption-restraining working of the Spirit in society. That working extends to the meetings of literary guilds, of the advertising review council, and of the film rating commission. Where the Holy Spirit is absent, the demons of terror have free reign.

Therefore the church prays for the world this petition as well: “Veni creator Spiritus”—Come, Creator Spirit!

Dr. H. van den Belt, “Focus op bekering mag zicht op vernieuwing aarde niet ontnemen,” Reformatorisch Dagblad (13 June 2011)
http://www.refdag.nl/opinie/toegespitst/focus_op_bekering_mag_zicht_op_vernieuwing_aarde_niet_ontnemen_1_569153

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