Postmode

This video was interesting, especially in its observation about liberal versus conservative views of the role of government in charity.

Distilled essence: Conservatives are more generous with their own money; liberals are more generous with everybody else’s money. Socialism is government-sanctioned thievery, people.

I’ve kind of gotten to a point in studying theology where all of the general concepts make sense to me, and I have a general understanding of what is orthodox and what is unorthodox. But I also have a horrible memory and have done nothing to link my beliefs to scripture; essentially, if called upon to defend my theological persuasions, for a great number of them I could not (at least if my own knowledge is the key factor; I’ve actually had several experiences where God totally brought random pieces of Scripture to my mind, out of the blue, when talking with some people). I was talking with my friend Sean about this about a week or two ago, and I’ve decided that I really want to be studying these issues and at least be writing down a defense of orthodox beliefs that I would hold to but could not defend on the spot. This may not be the end goal I seek for, but it gets me a step closer and I would certainly be more likely to remember this stuff.

I’m starting with discipline because it’s a topic I’ve been meaning to get a better grasp on for a while now. But it should be obvious that this isn’t necessarily a large issue of orthodox doctrine, as justification or penal substitutionary atonement is. Thus, accept that these are about orthodox doctrines even when it comes to the loosest of things. In this new category of posts on this blog, I want to consider anything that is true and has a bearing on or basis in Scripture or the Church.

I begin with discipline. I have begun studying the topic, and the first full resource (aside from articles and blog posts) that I’ve turned to is Jay Adams’ Handbook of Church Discipline. I don’t have the time or space to do a full outline of where all of this comes from in Scripture, but it’s all basically drawn out as an implication of a few select passages, mainly Jesus’ words on discipline in Matthew 18.

Discipline is a mark of the true church, commanded by Jesus (Matthew 18:15-20). It is a right of every professing believer, who receives the right by virtue of being in the church catholic, but by means of the church local. Furthermore, discipline is fundamentally a matter of educating believers. As Adams says, in Hebrews 12:11 the word discipline in Greek is paideia, which refers to the Greek way of educating children. Therefore, this context suggests that the author is saying that the goal in discipline is to teach. Teach who? Those who are either 1) unlearned (preventive discipline) or 2) sinning (punitive discipline).

Preventive discipline consists primarily of teaching believers the Word of God; secondarily it consists of administering the sacraments of water baptism by either immersion or sprinkling (as an infant if the parents are in agreement, or else as adults) and holy communion. In essence, our attempt is to equip members to hopefully be at a point where they will know what is sin, and not do those things that are sinful.

Punitive discipline consists of four stages. In all of these, the chief goal is that the person listen and repent. If at any point the person does repent (even if it is after having been removed from the church body) they are to be welcomed back, accepted, forgiven, loved, and most importantly assisted with the sin and effects of the sin they were struggling with. When calling a member to repentance, the member should be confronted as much as is necessary at one stage to confirm that the person has not listened to the call to repentance. This is not a once-a-step deal. This does not apply in all places, though; for example, see Titus 3:10-11. In such cases, discipline can be executed much more quickly so as to be in line with Paul’s commandment to Titus.

The first two stages of punitive discipline can be described as informal because it does not require the elders or congregation as a whole to have any part at all. In fact, from the “widening” scope of the number of people who find out about the sin in the system that Jesus has established for us, it is clear that keeping the issue confined to as few people as possible is a priority, which would mean that the elders or congregation not only are not required to know, but in fact should not know. The person’s reputation is to be protected unless it is necessary to discipline them within a wider group of people.

Informal discipline is done by calling the sinning member or group to repentance first on a one-on-one basis (e.g., one person calls a person or group to repentance), and if it is clear that the person or group has not listened to the call to repentance, this is escalated to include two or three witnesses going with the original confronter for yet another series of calls to repentance given to the sinning member or group. It is not necessary that these people have witnessed the person or group’s sin themselves; they are there to confirm that the member was confronted and called to repentance and did not in fact do so. This is evident from Jesus saying in Matthew 18:16, “that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” The word that I believe to be used for “charge” here, rhema refers to the words spoken or the subject matter discussed. So they are to be there to witness what is said to the person.

The third and fourth steps of punitive discipline can be described as formal, meaning that the leaders and entire church are involved. In these stages, the entire local church exercises discipline towards an errant individual or group. The third step of discipline consists of calling to repentance, in the presence of the entire gathered congregation (and them only) the member or group who is/are in sin. If they do not repent, the second stage of formal discipline is to cast the person out into the world and treat them as a Gentile and a tax collector (Matthew 18:17).

David Hoos has posted some excellent thoughts on documentaries and Ben Stein’s new movie, Expelled, on his blog, The Waterspout. Do recommend the read. [Link]

excerpt

While I think it’s neat that some I.D. sympathizers have gone and made themselves a movie, and one that is getting a decent exposure and release, I can’t help but wonder why they chose the style they did. Ben Stein is acting like Michael Moore in Expelled. He’s playing David against an academic Goliath. No doubt that is the idea behind it but frankly that worries me. If we truly believe we have the stronger case as I.D. folks, then why resort to a pathos heavy documentary?

- David Hoos, “No Moore, No Less” on The Waterspout Blog

Read the rest here.

And I am afraid there are Calvinists, who, while they account it a proof of their humility that they are willing in words to debase the creature, and to give all the glory of salvation to the Lord, yet know not what manner of spirit they are of. Whatever it be that makes us trust in ourselves that we are comparatively wise or good, so as to treat those with contempt who do not subscribe to our doctrines, or follow our party, is a proof and fruit of a self-righteous spirit. Self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines, as well as upon works; and a man may have the heart of a Pharisee, while his head is stored with orthodox notions of the unworthiness of the creature and the riches of free grace.

- John Newton (coincidentally quoted in a book by the author below named, Reformed Is Not Enough)

Are you children of Abraham? Don’t show us the papers of your family tree — do the works of Abraham. Are you Lutherans? Then preach like Luther did. Are you children of Calvin? Then do the works of Calvin. Don’t read us the words of Calvin in a monotone; don’t read them off the marble monument you set up in the lobby of the Reformed museum. And if you try to read them in that monotone, and I object, don’t try to make it appear that I have problem with his words. Preach them to the world in the open air; preach them in such a way that people start accusing you of being a madman, or drunk, or evil, or something. Preach them in such a way that people set up anonymous websites to destroy your reputation. Don’t pin his words to a poster board like a row of dead but orthodox butterflies.

- Doug Wilson, “Orders of Magnitude” on Blog and Mablog

I think that one misunderstanding of what I said yesterday about Isaiah 5:13 could arise, mostly just from the sort of example I used to typify the problem that I see with a lot of the people I know. I said, “It frightens me that we lack knowledge and that some even adopt an attitude of rejecting (at least they think they reject) systematic studies of the character and nature of God and his works.” This seems to suggest that the problem I get distressed over is the fact that not all of the people I know want to break open Wayne Grudem’s (excellent, I might add) Systematic Theology and read through the section on penal substitutionary atonement, careful to memorize every jot and tittle. I want to make it clear that my problem is not that people do not do this. It’s not that people sometimes reject the idea of a system of studies on the character and works of God. This happens, and I think it is a problem to be addressed for some individuals who are explicitly against this, but it is only a symptom (not common among those whom I know) of the underlying attitude; my problem is with the willful ignorance that underlies this problem. So this is a very bad example because this does not typify the sort of willful ignorance I see in a lot of the people that I know; it is only one example, which is on the far end of the spectrum of this problem. This underlying problem of willful ignorance shows itself in much more common attitudes.

Since this misunderstanding could result, I want to provide a better example of the sort of problem I see. In order to do this, it will be helpful to consider how Psalm 1 characterizes the “blessed man”:

Psalm 1
¹Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
²but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

³He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers. ⁴The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

⁵Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
⁶for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

Psalm 1, ESV

In this passage, we are shown that there are two kinds of people: the wicked and the righteous. Some might be inclined to say that this passage only shows that it is far better to do the things that it talks about here because it begins with, “Blessed is the man”. They are inclined to believe that this means that this is not a characterization of the righteous, but that it instead is addressing the super-righteous people who are most blessed, or something along those lines. However, the entire conclusion of this Psalm, in verses 5 and 6, is aimed at contrasting the lives and fruit of the righteous with the lives and fruit (or lack thereof) of the wicked. It is said of the blessed man that all these things are true, and then it concludes with “So the LORD knows the way of the righteous”. In other words, the blessed man is being described as doing these things particularly because this is the way of the righteous. Yes, there are those who live in a way that is more righteous and there are those who live in a way that is less righteous, but what is being talked about here is a characterization of the righteous life - not people who are somehow the “most righteous”. So because of the conclusion, we can say that it is the righteous who do not walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of scoffers; the righteous who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night; the righteous who are like a tree planted by streams of water, yield fruit in season, and do not wither; the righteous who prosper in all they do; the righteous who are not like chaff that the wind drives away.

Now, if this speaks of all the righteous, then it follows that what is said in verse 2 is true of those who are part of the “congregation of the righteous”. The righteous delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night. “Meditate” here means something along the lines of “ponder” (MacArthur) or “muse” (Strongs). In other words, the righteous have a fascination with the law of God and delight in thinking on these things day and night.

Now, when it comes to the people I know, this is much closer to what I’m talking about. The rejection of the the systems of studies of God and such is only a symptom of this deeper problem of willful ignorance. Willful ignorance shows itself much more often in not making it a priority to meditate and delight in the law of God. I hope that clarifies what it is that distresses me.

Therefore my people go into exile
for lack of knowledge;
their honored men go hungry,
and their multitude is parched with thirst.

Isaiah 5:13

One of the biggest things that I pray for the church in general, and in particular for my friends and family in the church, is that God would give them a heart to drink deeply from his word, not only for the emotional impact it has on them, but more importantly to our own culture, for their own benefit in hard study. Calvin says in his commentary on this verse, “…he charges them with gross and voluntary ignorance, as if he had said that, by their madness, they brought down destruction on themselves. The meaning therefore is, that the people perished because they despised instruction; whereas they might have been preserved if they had listened to good counsels…” (here). It frightens me that we lack knowledge and that some even adopt an attitude of rejecting (at least they think they reject) systematic studies of the character and nature of God and his works. I say that they think they have rejected this because they actually haven’t; everyone has a system of theology. What differs is what that theology consists of. In this case, they have a theology of ignorance and are content to leave everything at a simple level; all belief and no understanding. But belief without understanding is belief without substance. Belief without understanding is an attempt to have unintegrated belief, which ultimately doesn’t hold up to anything.

If one is truly intellectually honest, I think that they will see that this strikes absolutely at the heart of Aminianism. Arminianism insidiously destroys any of the basis provided in scripture for trust in God and his goodness. How can we pray to God when all evil is the result of individual motivation and not the sovereignty of God? One might argue that God’s sovereignty means that it is useless to pray; this is not true, for we find that while God is sovereign this doesn’t mean he doesn’t use means, and we are commanded to pray not only to show his glory as provider, but also because it is commanded and is a means in his sovereign plan. Arminianism can’t even do that. It is truly a despicable portrayal of God. Why ask God for what he can’t do? Why have hope that he will do anything?

So why do religious believers pray for God’s help or healing? They ask for God’s action to come in to a situation and change it, yes; but if they are honest, they don’t see prayer as a plea for magical solutions that will make the world totally safe for them and others.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, in response to the tsunami in Asian waters

In particular, the idea that if once we got rid of religion, all problems of this kind would vanish, seems wild. Whatever may have been its plausibility in the eighteenth century, when it first took the centre of the stage, it is surely just a distraction today. It is, however, one often used by those who do not want to think seriously on this subject, and who prefer a ritual warfare about the existence of God to an atrociously difficult psychological enquiry.

Mary Midgley, “The Problem of Natural Evil” in Wickedness

I’ve been watching The Moment of Truth on Fox since it started airing, and I’m still not sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, I think that there is a place for truth to be told and that we should honor and thank God for those who are not only truthful, but more importantly have nothing to lie about. The only flaw in this concept, for Fox and America, at least, is that honesty doesn’t equal entertainment. We’re a nation of gossippers, and I think that The Moment of Truth has capitalized on this in its selection of contestants. Of all the contestants I’ve seen so far, only one didn’t have anything that was truly overtly shameful, a guy named Ray. Aside from lust, he was truly an honorable, honest man.

But even in myself I find that the thing I like about everyone else is seeing the hidden, inner parts of their lives revealed on national television. It tells me something about myself and about culture. In talking about this, it is necessary to consider the “long face” of “moral disenfectant”. Please note that I’m noticing this sort of sinful attitude in myself here, not trying to excuse it. Doug Wilson said in “Serious Filum” last month on his blog:

At any rate, here is the thought that came out of this, and is related to something C.S. Lewis said somewhere, I think describing the oeuvre of D.H. Lawrence (oeuvre is a fancy French word to describe the work of self-important people). Lewis said that there is a common fallacy out and about that thinks that a long face is a moral disinfectant, that basic moral considerations do not come into play just so long as you take whatever it is you are doing seriously. According to this odd theory, the sin is not found in the sin itself, but rather in any frivolous response to it. What we need around here is a furrowed brow, intensity of purpose, a willingness to talk about how “Americans need to become more comfortable with our bodies,” the tapping of the front teeth with a thoughtful pencil, and a desire to tie sexual liberation in with justice concerns for coffee growers in Central America.

These movie producers [Note from John: see the blog post for more about what he’s talking about here] were (or at any rate, wanted to be) serious artists. They were working with the contours of narrative (all rise!) and making art, you see.

The same thing happens with other professions too. This is why a blowhard like Bill O’Reilly can be waxing indignant about the moral degradation of (let’s make something up, but not far-fetched) having some pole dancer give a talk to a high school jobs fair assembly somewhere, and to prove his indignation is real, he shows us multiple clips of pole dancers prancing around in their skivvies. When Maude from Wisonsin [sic] writes in to say something along the lines of, “Hey!” he will respond that what he is doing is “just journalism, madam.” This is serious journalism, and it justifies what seriousness always justifies these days, which is whatever we have around here that needs some justifying.

I don’t think it’s immoral to be honest about the subjects that The Moment of Truth is dealing with in many cases. But I do think it is immoral not just to make entertainment and show out of it, but even more so to pretend it’s OK because we have the “long face” of “moral disinfectant” on. Hence, all of my comments below perhaps proceed from a sinful indulgence of maintaining this straight face and pretending it’s OK to be entertained by all of this. Yeah, I laughed at some of the things. Who wouldn’t laugh at a guy’s confession of padding his underwear to look better endowed? (Not that I think that this is necessarily sinful, although certainly concerning…)

What I can’t get over with all of this is that every single episode has an announcer saying, “Watch as he/she destroys their family…” Is this what we should be doing? The truth needs to come out, and it will destroy families in some cases because of the indiscretions and sins of man, but why in the world are we glorifying this? What is it about our society that we get an rise out of hearing that somebody’s next question is going to continue to destroy their marriage? It’s despicable.

But nevertheless, ignoring this it has been very interesting to see some of the things on the show. So far, to the best of my knowledge, there have been two separate Mormon contestants on the show. Neither of those contestants had not struggled deeply with sin. In the case of the one man, he had been a drug addict and was sexually unfaithful according to Scripture. And in the case of tonight’s finale, the Mormon woman said that she had lesbian fantasies and would pose nude in an adult magazine for several hundred-thousand dollars. (Correction: She lied about whether she would pose for $100,000, and lost. She said in her defense that she would do it for several hundred-thousand. Haha, sucker.)

It’s a given that people will struggle with things like these. But both of them, from what the show seemed to convey, had not made any progress whatsoever in getting past this. And in tonight’s finale, the Mormon woman said things that stuck out to me. She said that if her husband left the Mormon church, she would not stay with him. This is obviously unscriptural because Paul says that the believers should stay with their unbelieving spouses, because who knows how God will use the believing spouse? Is it any wonder? It is just evidence that they don’t believe what God says in Scripture. And Scripture says that if we have the spirit in us we will produce the fruits of the spirit: that is, our mindsets will be conformed to the image of Christ, so that we have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; and our hearts will be changed so that we seek to please and glorify God. Shouldn’t we think that this means something when we aren’t seeing this fruit? But I digress.

I wish, however, that I could say anything different of the one holy and catholic Church (i.e., not Mormons; I’m not Mormon…). There is nothing that differentiates us from the culture around us. So few of us seek to glorify God in our minds or in our actions. I myself struggle to do this, and it is bitter. How often have I been snappy and rude, without grace for the smallest thing? Is this what we’re called to? I think - although I don’t know and can’t confirm this from any extensive experience - that being grieved over sin as God is grieved and taking joy in God as God has made us to take joy are two sides of the same coin. In both cases, inherent in doing this is understanding not only how deeply we have sinned against God in our entire beings, but also understanding how great and amazing is his grace in having forgiven us and made us righteous before him. We need to understand this. But it is true of many in the church today what Christ said, that on judgment day he will say to those people, “Depart from me, for I never knew you.”

In many cases, the people explained (perhaps tried to excuse) their answers afterwards. But in the case of this woman and one other before her, their whole approach was to say, “Well, everyone does it at some point…” And above, I even asked with the joke I cracked about the guy padding his underwear to look more well-endowed, “Who wouldn’t laugh?” But this is just trying to make it sound as if we’re not that bad. “Oh yes, there are those people who are really horrible nymphomaniacs, but I only had sex with five people outside of marriage.” This is the fruit of a hard spirit that is not submitting itself to God.

As with everything, the answer is Christ. If we’re honest, the answer is the Gospel: that we once lived in covenant fidelity to God, that we screwed it up and in Adam inherited a sin nature that is corrupt, fallen, and cannot do anything good of itself, and so as a consequence we sin and incur God’s wrath on ourselves. And if we’re honest, we also say that the free gift of God is grace in Christ Jesus. But even once we have been saved by the blood of Christ, if we’re not grieved over sin and taking joy in the grace of God, we are shamefully sinning against God and need to repent of that. These things should not be happening here; this is not how it should be. But I thank God for his grace.

I’ll end on this note: Jars of Clay has a great song called “Oh My God” from Good Monsters that I think mirrors what I’ve been expressing here part and parcel. This song is epic not only in its musical brilliance but also in its lyrical profundity; observe:

Oh my God, look around this place
Your fingers reach around the bone
You set the break and set the tone

Flights of grace
And future falls
In present pain
All fools say
“Oh my God”

…

Sometimes I cannot forgive
And these days, mercy cuts so deep
If the world was how it should be
Maybe I could get some sleep

While I lay, I dream we’re better
Scales were gone and faces light
When we wake, we hate our brother
We still move to hurt each other

Sometimes I can close my eyes
And all the fear that keeps me silent
Falls below my heavy breathing
What makes me so badly bent?

We all have a chance to murder
We all feel the need for wonder
We still want to be reminded
That the pain is worth the thunder

Sometimes when I lose my grip
I wonder what to make of heaven
All the times I thought to reach up
All the times I had to give

Babies underneath their beds
Hospitals that cannot treat
All the wounds that money causes
All the comforts of cathedrals

All the cries of thirsty children
This is our inheritance
All the rage of watching mothers
This is our greatest defense:

Oh my God
Oh my God
Oh my God

(HT: Thank you much to Jill Antolin for bringing these words to mind from C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain)

I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never meant to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world, and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps by God’s grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had for me but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over–I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed. And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless.

- C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, pp. 106-107

I connect so much with these words that Lewis wrote. It seems like there are these world-shattering moments of fear and complete helplessness, when I am so ready to rely on God and submit everything to him in prayer, but then daily life comes and the monotony of it all can be equally shattering to the strength of my faith in God. It is so easy not to take complete joy in Christ and to not be grieved by my own sin or hard-heartedness, and yet when I become fearful, there I am, begging him to keep me safe. Is it not a great wonder that he doesn’t cast us off? And is it not an odd coincidence that we look at the continued lack of faith in God on the part of the Israelites following Moses following God, and yet we think we would never be so blind and stupid; or that we look at the disciples in their constant ignorance about Christ and his sovereignty and lordship, and think we would never be so foolish? It is important to remember just how foolish we are, and how most of us have not by any means made any great progress beyond these fellow fools. God have mercy; God be pleased to grant us the grace to take joy in what he takes joy, and to be grieved over what he is grieved by.