Dead Man Blogging

I’ve heard the phrase “dead white men” as a scornful euphemism for traditional American and European history. Too focused on dead white guys. No minorities, no women, and no focus on _today_ and _tomorrow_.

Unfortunately, this is also true in the church. One of the ideas of the Reformation was _sola scriptura_, the fact that only Scripture is authoritative and normative in matters of faith and conduct. But _sola scriptura_ does not thoroughly reject creeds and tradition; it merely relegates them to a supportive role and elevates the scriptures.

Perhaps it’s because I grew up as a Baptist, but between a distorted view of _sola scriptura_ and misguided notions of the priesthood of every believer, it seems to me like Christians have by and large pretended to be cut loose from the thousands of years of history and millions of saints of God that have gone on before.

And we’re not just content to ignore them. In order to justify our disregard of tradition and history, we mock it. The classic hymns of the church are derided as “dry theological treatises” instead of the spiritually moving ad-libbed praise and worship choruses. Preaching the gospel is “irrelevant” and discarded in favor of “telling a story”.

More to the motivation of this post, traditional Christian views on societal matters are termed Pharisaical and legalistic, contra the new views based on grace, liberty, and love. Which is code for antinomianism.

If I were to even take the Christian church’s teaching from 50 or 60 years ago, I would be roundly denounced (again!) as a fundamentalist Pharisee.

For instance, even AW Tozer wrote and preached about the dangers of going to movies, and he was certainly opposed to “religious movies”. Here is a quote:

the motion picture in evil hands has been a source of moral corruption to millions. No one who values his reputation as a responsible adult will deny that the sex movie and the crime movie have done untold injury to the lives of countless young people in our generation.

Or how about this, about the profession of acting?

Bacon has said something to the effect that there are some professions of such nature that the more skillfully a man can work at them the worse man he is. That perfectly describes the profession of acting. … No one who has been in the presence of the Most Holy One, who has felt how high is the solemn privilege of bearing His image, will ever again consent to play a part or to trifle with that most sacred thing, his own deep sincere heart. He will thereafter be constrained to be no one but himself, to preserve reverently the sincerity of his own soul.

I don’t want to get into whether or not Tozer was right; that’s not the point. But when we read this, isn’t our first reaction to dismiss him as a reactionary legalist? Do we take him seriously?

I foolishly got into a discussion about divorce and remarriage the other day. Did you know that if you take the historic position of the Christian church, today, you are a gnat straining Pharisee just like the ones who criticized Jesus for healing a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath? I even quoted the Westminster Confession, hoping that would help. I was wrong.

What of separation from the world? There is a scathing quote by Spurgeon about Christians not partaking of worldly amusements. But if you present it today, you are criticized. For quoting Spurgeon!

What about quoting respected saints of God who have written that Christians ought to avoid all needless interaction with the unregenerate? If you say that today, you have no heart for the lost, and have missed the _whole_ point of the Gospel. I presented some quotes along those lines to some folks I go to church with - they didn’t even register as something vaguely within the pale of possible Christian thought. Why, those people must be Fundamentalist nuts! Matthew Henry? John Gill? Who are they?

What about keeping the Sabbath? The 1963 Baptist Faith and Message said Sunday “should be employed in exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, and by refraining from worldly amusements, and resting from secular employments, work of necessity and mercy only being excepted.”

This statement is similar to the Westminster Confession (written _three hundred years earlier_), which states that Christians should “observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their wordly employments and recreations; but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.”

Such legalistic Pharisaical nonsense! The BFM has now been updated. Now, Sunday should “_include_” acts of public and private worship. But the rest has been replaced by “Activities on the Lord’s Day should be commensurate with the Christian’s conscience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.”

What about the Roman Catholic Church? The Reformers held that the Pope (or at least the papacy) was the antichrist. There also seemed to be an idea that maybe it was Islam instead (although now we know we all worship the same God, right?). The 1689 London Baptist Confession said the pope was the antichrist. Even as recently as 1932, the LCMS said the pope was the antichrist and it was not open for discussion. But now we have new perspecitives on Paul that wind up bringing evangelicals and Catholics together. What gives?

The most common explanation for this deviation from history is that the world is changing and we must reinvent the church to continue to be relevant. Fine. Let’s grant that for the sake of argument. For the moment, let’s assume that changes in worship formats, replacing expositional preaching with storytelling, multimedia presentations, and practical, wordly advice from the Bible, is legitimate. Let’s assume that the role of singing is to create a particular spiritual or emotional state in the congregation. Let’s say that traditional church must be replaced with cell groups. I won’t argue that. At least, not now.
What I _will_ argue, though, is that any of the changes in the church’s _moral_ teachings can be justified by this.

Either Sunday is to be honored by an exclusive devotion to worship (plus acts of necessity and mercy - which is arguably worship too!), or it’s not necessary to be so strict. God’s standards do not change. It’s either _always_ been OK to have Superbowl parties on Sunday, or it will _never_ be. Either it has always been acceptable for Christians to enjoy non-sinful secular amusements, or it will never be. Relationship evangelism has either _always_ been a good approach, or it is _always_ sinful to have needless relationships with unbelievers. Either Spurgeon was right, or today’s evangelists are, on this question. The answers to these questions of sin and propriety cannot change over time.

The only tenable position for the modern evangelical church is that these old dead guys were dumb, they just fundamentally missed it. Because we don’t just disagree on a few peripheral issues. We disagree deep down at the very core. When I read what the church taught about questions of law, grace, morals, and so forth - to be honest, I _barely even understand them_. Those older teachings are almost entirely foreign to me. They are orders of magnitude different than most of the church’s positions today. We don’t even start from the same position. The Pope as Antichrist? Don’t go to movies? Some occupations are unbecoming of Christians? I can’t even usually begin to wrap my mind around it enough to deal with it.

Did you know that the elders of the Presbyterian(?) church, once upon a time, would stop by your house to make sure you had family worship? And they would _discipline_ you if you weren’t doing a good enough job? This is just fundamentally different from us.

As I even casually learn about bygone times, I have to say that 10% of the church’s historic teaching on moral questions sounds familiar. The other 90% is simply unrecognizable. And I grew up in very conservative, even fundamentalist, Southern Baptist churches.

Either we’re wrong today, or just about everyone else who died more than 50 years ago, has been. Must have been them. Old dead guys are dumb. Glad we’re done with that legalistic hypocritical morality. I’m going to go watch an R-rated movie this Sunday with all my lost friends.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

– Robert A. Heinlein

I think I agree with this. God gave us a commission to take dominion over the earth. Now, I start to run into eschatology and dispensationalism here, but I think I can be vague enough to still get at the point. When Christ told the apostles to go and make disciples, I do not believe this was a new thing. I believe it was a continuation of the dominion mandate. Or maybe a “fulfillment”.

If we take “the kingdom of God” to be “the rule of God in the hearts of men”, then WHATEVER your eschatology is, you’ve got to be behind advancing the kingdom in this sense. Even premillenial rapture-ready dispensationalists like me. If we do not assume that Jesus WILL come back within the next couple of decades and admit that He might not come back for 10,000 more years, then all eschatological systems start to converge for all practical purposes. The ship might be sinking, but right now the hole might be very tiny, and there is indeed brass that needs polishing and deck chairs to rearrange, for we may not sink for many years.

And if we are not Gnostics, we know that “teaching them to obey all things” that God commanded is not simply a mental or emotional exercise. We are both physical and spiritual beings, and we would be biblically illiterate fools not to realize that your body and your spirit affect each other for good or for evil (see Romans 8:11, 12:1 for instance).

It’s not hard to understand that your physical actions and circumstances will affect your spirit. Your physical actions may be sinful. Or perhaps, like Paul, you subject your body to discipline to bring it under control. Our physical eyes are a great source of temptation. Our physical mouths can praise God.

Our physical circumstances can influence us. One easy example - what if your job was to be a DJ at a strip club? Clearly, you would be exposed to a lot of temptation and wickedness. This would likely be a negative influence on you. On the other hand, if you were, say, a Bible translator, this would more likely have a positive influence on your spirit.

But I don’t think those extreme cases are really relevant to most of us. I believe there are far more pervasive and mundane circumstances that influence us more than we probably recognize.

I’ll start with another extreme, contrived example, and then move to a more mundane case.

Let’s suppose that a bunch of really moral Christians got together and formed an intentional community that was geographically separated from the rest of the world, and largely self-sufficient. And let’s further suppose that these Christians would ban anyone falling into various forms of sin, ban unbelievers, and so forth.

This might be good for them. Certainly many forms of temptation and evil influences would go away.

But what else would happen? Might these Christians tend to think of Christianity in terms of moral rules? Might they become self righteous? Would they demonize outsiders, remembering that they are sons of Satan but forgetting that they are also Christ’s lost sheep? You betcha.

In the Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan creates a familiar scenario where the Bad Guys live in one geographic location and the hardy men who live in those border lands daily struggle with them. But those who live far from the battle _don’t even believe it’s going on_. And they grow complacent, and weak - until the invasion.

Similarly, if Christians are so far removed from the battle of the seed of the woman vs the seed of the serpent, could we forget that there was a battle? Now we obviously aren’t all called to fight in the same way, and it’s possible that our cultural warriors are going about it all wrong. We do not have to live in a garbage can to know that it stinks. But it’s going to be hard to remember that it does in fact stink if you haven’t seen a garbage can in years.

Now let’s move from this silly example towards a more common one. Let’s say that a group of Christians were able to amass a fortune. An absolute fortune. And they established a trust fund that adequately provided living expenses for all the members of that community. Let’s assume it was managed somehow that they were absolutely confident the trust fund would always be there.

Would this affect those believers? Sure it would. It would remove the incentive to work. It would also remove a constant reminder that _God_ provides for us. They would not need to trust God for their daily bread.

There is a prayer in the Old Testament (somewhere in Psalms?) to the effect “God, please don’t make me rich, so I won’t forget You.”

It would be an evil thing for Christians to forget that God was providing the things they needed. I mean, they would know that _theoretically_ God was providing for them, but not in any practical sense.

Now I’ll attempt a poor segue to drive the point home.

In the same way, what if humans were able to specialize enough that, while the system as a whole was arguably having dominion over the earth, very few individuals could see that in a direct way? Would _that_ have any spiritual implications?

It’s one thing for me to give money to a church, who gives money to a state convention, who gives money to a national convention, who provides a budget for an organization, who sends a paycheck to missionaries. I know that my check is theoretically going to support missions. But it is another thing entirely for me to directly send a check to a missionary or to _be_ a foreign missionary. The first way is probably more efficient (and I do not mean to criticize the SBC’s Cooperative Program particularly - it’s just an example). But it might serve to help me forget what I’m actually doing.

It’s one thing for me to write programs that help produce silicon wafers which are then sold to companies that use them to make electronic chips that are then sold to other companies who assemble them into useful electronic devices. Yes, I am helping to make computers and cell phones. But I’m so far removed, and my contribution is so indirect, that it’s easy to forget. And the connection between making computers and taking dominion over the earth is another indirect link. There are way more than six degrees of separation between “Robert’s job” and “subduing the earth”.

It’s bad when it is just _what I do_ that is so far removed. But it’s even worse when it’s not only what I _do_, but what I _know how to do_. No human can do all those things Heinlein mentioned, and we don’t need to. But shouldn’t we have at least some minimum competency when it comes to all the various things humans do in order to have dominion over the earth? Wouldn’t that make it far easier to remember that we are _trying_ to have dominion over the earth?

I think we specialize too easily. That’s why Y2K was so scary. We cannot really survive without the system. We are not _interdependent_. We are _dependent_. If the system breaks down, we all die, because we are generally incompetent outside the area we’ve chosen to specialize in. Division of labor has made us lazy.

Hopping back to the strictly spiritual, 2 Timothy 3:17 says that the Scriptures will make us thoroughly equipped for every good work. It’s true that the church is a body, and the hand is not a foot, and the ear is not an eye. But we must not carry the metaphor too far. I used to excuse myself because I do not have the gifts of encouragement and mercy. And I don’t. But 2 Tim 3:17 says nothing about my gifts. It says that the Bible will equip me for every good work. It’s not my specialty, but I have no excuse to not be able to comfort and encourage others. Just like others have no excuse to not be able to preach and teach at some minimum level of competency.

I believe that a well-rounded liberal education and general competency in many areas of life, are essential to functioning as the redeemed children of God as we carry out the task of subduing the earth and establishing the rule of God in the hearts of men. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Genesis 22 records Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac at the Lord’s command.

Genesis 22
1 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
3 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.

(emphasis added)

Abraham rose up early in the morning. I doubt he got any sleep at all that night, but he obeyed quickly.

Similarly, good King Josiah (2 Kings 22-23) obeyed God immediately when the lost book of the law was found. He quickly sent for godly men and women for counsel, then when he was sure he understood, he sent for the elders of Judah. He called all the people together, read the book of the law, made a covenant between himself and the nation, and God, to obey it, and immediately began. He threw out idols, cleansed the temples, got rid of the idolatrous priests, and so for.

Over and over, we see godly men immediately obeying the word of the Lord. And so should we.

My pastor was discussing the pattern Jesus laid down for confronting sin in others, where you go to them gently at first, then with some others, then take it to the church. But, he noted, if he walked in and caught a friend in adultery, you can kind of cut to the chase a little bit. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” does not need a lot of thought. Just obey it. It’s black and white, cut and dried. Don’t steal. Don’t worship idols. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t muder.

However:

Psalm 1:1-2
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

(emphasis added)

Some things - perhaps most things? - are not quite as straightforward as adultery and murder and theft. The more general commands of scripture, and more general applications of specific commands (see Colossians 3:5, for instance), fall into this category.

I’m a pretty black-and-white kind of guy. I like rules and procedures. And what I tend to do is take a scriptural principle, quickly come up with half a dozen practical ways it should apply to my life, try to make those changes immediately, and expect you to do it, too.

I do not think this is the right approach. That’s not _meditation_. It’s not soaking up the word of God. The world of Christ is to _dwell_ within us, and that evokes a different picture to me than the way I usually go about it. I read Psalm 1:2 as “He likes the Bible and reads a lot of it” but that’s not what it says at all. We do not _devour_ the world of God. We meditate on it.

An elder at my church drew an illustration, which I will not attempt to reproduce. He drew a brain, and an arrow pointing into the brain which he labelled “Word of God”. And from the brain where arrows going to drawings of hands and feet. He said most of the time, we like to hear the word and immediately try to apply it, praying as we go. But, he said, the right approach is first to _meditate_. He altered his drawing so the word goes into the brain, from the brain to the _heart_, where it simmers a while, and then from the _heart_ to the hands and feet where it produces a rich, full, sincere obedience. But we short-circuit the heart.

David did not say “Thy word have I memorized” or “Thy word have I hid in my head”. The word is hidden in our _hearts_. It’s far beyond memorization or devotional reading.

I am not a patient guy. Not patient with myself or with others. If it’s right there in the Bible (or at least looks that way to me!) then I should immediately obey it in every way I can think of, and _you_ should obey it in every way _I_ can think of, too. What are you, backslidden? Are you sure you’re a Christian at all?

But what I’m starting to see is that this is much too hasty, is poorly thought out, does not last, and is not well received by others.

Someone once pointed out some Scriptures, and historical evidence, that suggested I should - like the Christians of the past - have a regular worship time with my family. OK, there it was, so I got started. It lasted about two weeks.

There was a belief in my head, but no conviction in my heart, about family worship. So it didn’t last. Largely, because I had nothing to say. It was a forced obedience to something I thought I should do.

A year later, I’ve been learning and meditating about the relationship of a father to his family and the family before God. Deut 6:7 has been soaking into my heart for a while now, and my _heart_ is beginning to change. So when I do start this (and I will) I believe it will be far more natural, _sincere_, and lasting than the first go-round.

I’m not very patient with others. So when a point comes up in a discussion and I have something to say, I tend to say it. All of it. Very quickly and bluntly. Because you know, I want _you_ to understand as much as _I_ understand. And I can really help you out by telling you what I’ve already figured out. What a friend I am!

It may not be surprising to learn that this is almost never well received.

Consider this hypothetical conversation:

Him: “Wow, I’ve been so busy recently. I’ve been on a weekend trip 3 of the last 4 weeks. I’m not sure I can commit to a regular Bible study group because my kids have all kinds of activities.”
Me: “1 Thessalonians 4:11 says to lead a quiet life. You need to cut out some of that junk.”

Hmm, why did he get mad at me? I was only trying to help. I guess he’s just not very teachable.

There very well may be times when that approach is proper, even in cases other than flagrant sin. But not usually.

It may _be_ sinful to lead such a busy life. But God has been patient with him so far. Being a Protestant, I have no fear of dying while in mortal sin. If God’s been merciful and patient so far, He will probably continue to be so while we patiently let His word pierce our hearts.

You and God are ultimately responsible for your own sanctification. I am not. I do not have to straighten you out, and especially not in one conversation. Most errors are not truly damnable heresies. All errors are important, but some are more important. Not all sins are equally heinous and have to be handled in the same way. There are no little sins, but some are bigger than others.

There is a time for boldness, for being confrontational. Jesus was. But there is a time to speak and a time to be silent. And, I suspect, a time to just say a little bit.

A couple of years back, I was first thinking of homeschooling. I was discussing it with another man, whose children are homeschooled. I discussed the concerns I had. His defense of homeschooling and the way he addressed my concerns actually turned me off to homeschooling. Now, I see that his _position_ was right, but his approach was not at all helpful.

I don’t _have_ to give you a five point outline of why I homeschool, why you should too, and what will happen if you remain rebellious in this area. Instead, I am really allowed to just say small things. You don’t have to take it all at once. We can be patient.

The same thing is true when it comes to flagrant sin that is very entangling. Overcoming sexual sin is not quite as easy as memorizing a verse or two. We are absolutely unyielding in identifying and confronting those sins, but it is unreasonable to expect a Christian to consistently be able to put away these sorts of sins immediately. Drug addiction, sexual sins, anger and bitterness, gossip, other types of habitual and entangling sins - these may take some time. Immediate and perfect victory may be theoretically possible, but is certainly not normal. Continued failure is not _excusable_ but it’s also not a sign that you don’t _really_ love Jesus.

Short circuiting the heart - skipping from the head to the hands - can only produce an external and hollow obedience. Earlier I referred to godly men who obeyed immediately. But theirs was not an external and hollow obedience. It was a quick obedience, but only because they were so much in the habit of meditating on the word of God and obeying as that word worked itself out in their lives. As we are progressively sanctified, our hearts should become more tender to the direction of God. Sincere obedience will come more quickly.

Nothing I’ve written should be construed as “Robert goes soft on sin”. Sin must be confronted and dealt with. Sometimes this will be harsh. Righteousness must be preached boldly and without compromise. God is to be obeyed. I’m still a frothing at the mouth fundamentalist. I am still The Rebukinator. But I’m also starting to learn to make knowledge acceptable (Proverbs 15:2), to be gentle (2 Timothy 2:24-25), and to control my tongue (James 3).

RC Sproul Jr writes about defending the Bible.

But the devil is perfectly happy when the people of God defend the Word of God, when they understand the Word of God, and when they memorize the Word of God. What drives him batty, however, is when we believe the Word of God. … [A]ll the defending, understanding and memorizing in the world won?t help you without the believing.
…
Our problem isn?t insufficient knowledge, but insufficient righteousness. You can?t get that through programs, classes, or para-church ministries. According to the Bible, there?s only one place to get that?from Jesus.