In 1966, at a national evangelical conference in the U.K., D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones called on all British evangelicals to leave theologically mixed denominations. John Stott, sensing that many of his fellow evangelical Anglicans might actually follow Lloyd-Jones’ admonition, decided to rebuke Lloyd-Jones in front of the whole assembly and call upon his fellow evangelical Anglicans to maintain the course. Alister McGrath, in his biography of J.I. Packer, said that if Stott had not done this, there would have been an evangelical exodus out of the Anglican church.

The Stott / Lloyd-Jones debate is important for it highlights a real tension for evangelicals in mainline denominations. At what point should evangelicals simply pack up and leave the decaying husks of mainline churches that are declining all over the Western world? Complicating this even further is the fact that some Anglican evangelicals, like J.I. Packer and David Short, who at first argued for evangelicals to stay in mainline denominations, are now arguing for them to leave. Why? According to Packer and Short, the Anglican leadership have repudiated the gospel by their repudiation of biblical norms of sexuality. Simply put, they’re preaching a gospel without a need for repentance, which is no gospel at all.

No doubt, Short and Packer are right. A gospel without repentance is no gospel, and many in the leadership of mainline churches are guilty of this. Does it follow though that evangelicals should leave those denominations? Should we follow the advice of Lloyd-Jones, even if it is about 50 years after the fact?

I’m not so sure. Liberals fudging the gospel is nothing new. I mean, if John Greshem Machen is correct, theological liberalism can’t be called Christian, and he said that in the 1920s! And what about mainliners like John Spong? Spong denied the virgin birth and the resurrection of Christ and he was a bishop in the Episcopal church. If there ever was an award for preaching a gospel-less Christianity, Spong certainly wouldn’t have to worry about taking second place. And he has always appeared to get a sympathetic hearing in the Episcoal church. I realize that not all are were as extreme as he is, but many are extreme enough to warrant the admonition that they’re no longer preaching the gospel.

Orthodox Christians have always had problems in the institutional church. The Wesley’s, Charles Simeon, George Whitefield, John Newton – all faced opposition in their day. Unless you’re willing to break away and start a new denomination, faithless preaching will always coexist besides faithful preaching (in varying degrees of course). To once again reference Alister McGrath’s biography of Packer, in the post-war era of the 40s and 50s, Anglican evangelicals were hemmed in on all sides. Anglo-Catholicism was vibrant, liberal theology was growing in acceptance, and most Anglicans had committed themselves to a form of ecumenism which saw a concern for ‘right doctrine’ as being out of touch with the modern world. It was in that context that Packer urged evangelicals to reform the Anglican church instead of leaving it.

I realize that mainline churches allowing ministers to marry and ordain practicing homosexuals is a terrible move for biblical orthodoxy, but I don’t see how this is materially different from other forms of theological liberalism. All we’re seeing now are the Spong’s of the church open up the bedroom doors.

If, according to thinkers like Packer and Stott, having a mixed liberal-orthodox denomination was never a reason to leave in the first place, I hardly see how having practicing ordained homosexuals are a reason to leave. If Gene Robinson becoming a bishop means you’re going to leave the Episcopal church, why was it ok to stay when John Spong was a bishop? This argument only breaks down if faithful ministers are being coerced to assent to this slouch towards Babylon. If they’re not, and orthodox congregations are given space to preach the gospel, then Stott’s response to Lloyd-Jones from 1966 would seem to still apply.

It’s January 1st. Last night, millions of people made New Years resolutions. Come March, most of those resolutions will be unattained. Come June, most of those resolutions will be forgotten.

This is especially discouraging as many Christians made moral resolutions yesterday. Some will determine to stop cussing. Others will determine to read through their bible in a systematic way. I would venture to guess that their success ratio isn’t any higher than your typical secular person trying to lose 10 pounds. The result of this can be a feeling of hopelessness and the creation of a sub-Christian belief that true change is not really possible. People are what they are and that’s that.

What the church needs is more earthy and practical theology. It’s one thing to determine that the church needs to give more to the poor and another thing to lay out simple steps regarding how people can make changes in their lives to become the type of people who sacrificially give. And no, I don’t want to sit on a couch and talk about mommy and daddy issues, I want real advice from real people that really works.

As an aside, I think this is one of the reasons why so-called ‘biblical’ or nouthetic counseling became so popular (and effective?) in the 1970s and 80s. Contrary to other techniques offered in the church, nouthetic counseling was not only biblical, but rigorously practical.

I’m excited by a recent (for me) web start up called StickK.com. Started by two Yale professors, Dean Karlan and Ian Ayres, users sign up to the site and create a ‘commitment contract’ to help them follow through on a goal. After selecting a referee to check up on their progress, users determine to give a large amount of money to an anti-charity (e.g. the American Nazi party) of their choice if they fail to meet their goal. This is all done courtesy of a legally binding contract that you sign so you can’t back out if you fail. The money is automatically deducted from your credit card if you fail. Please note that this is all public, so if users fail to meet their goals, there’s an extra layer of humiliation added to the mix. The thinking behind this concept is that we all need added incentives to meet goals whose completion lies in the distant future.

It turns out that ideas like this work. According to one of the founders, 78% of stickK users who put money on the line and have a referee completed their goals. Only 35% met their goals when they put no money down. And if you’re not willing to believe the founder, hey, one of the Freakonomics guys loves the concept.

What people in the church need are not just exegetical sermons on personal repentance. We know that we need to. We need help; real and practical help.

So consider stickk.com when it comes to meeting your New Years resolutions, whether it’s disciplining yourself to pray everyday or lose those last 15 pounds.

Here are some more web resources for you to peruse:

Two JP Moreland sermons on personal change and New Years resolutions

Dan Ariely on temptation and self control:

Ray Ortlund on what St. Paul believed to be most relevant to the needs of early Christians in Rome:

We might imagine ancient Rome in terms of gleaming marble, flowing togas and sumptuous banquets.  But for most people there it was miserable.  For example, the apartment buildings of Rome were built higher and higher, until their shoddy construction gave way and sometimes tumbled down.  Jerome Carcopino, in Daily Life in Ancient Rome (New Haven, 1940), page 25, refers to the emperor’s alarm over “the frequent collapse of buildings” there.  If we could get into a time machine and go stand on some street corner in first century Rome and listen, we might hear off the in distance the roar of some wretched apartment building falling over.

This is where the Roman Christians lived and raised their kids and met for Bible studies and bore witness, and so forth.

What did the apostle Paul consider most relevant to their very real and urgent human needs?  His letter to them, including the wrath of God, the universality of human guilt, the righteousness of God in the death of Jesus, faith as our only conceivable response, union with Christ, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the divine plan for Jews and Gentiles, the new community created by the gospel, and so forth.

I’m reading a couple of investing books right now and came across this gem on crony capitalism and the pharmaceutical industry. The author was detailing Warren Buffett’s 2007 stake in GlaxoSmithKline and mentioned this neat little factoid:

And last but not least, vaccine manufacturers in the U.S. are completely immune from lawsuits. Back in the 1980s several bad batches of vaccines injured so many children that the resulting successful lawsuits threatened to bankrupt the manufacturers, so the manufacturers lobbied a bill through Congress making them a protected class.

Now I may have raised some questions about Ron Paul in a previous post, but I’m sure that Paul never voted for this ridiculous piece of legislation. Can other Republicans say the same?

The above video is part of a must see documentary put out by the Discovery Channel that tracks a class of sailors who are trying out to be Navy SEALs. This particular video shows what these soldiers must undergo during Hell week. Five days with little to no sleep; surf torture (hours spent in 50F water); minimal food; constant running, swimming and PT; the constant harassment of their instructors.

SEAL training is designed to weed out up to 80% of the trainees so that only the best will survive and go on to become a covert ‘operator’. These are the type of guys who took out Osama bin Laden and rescued U.S. civilians from Somalian pirates.

It was to my shame and amusement this week that I came across a Teen Mania program called ESOAL that seeks to mimic SEAL training. You can read a first hand account of ESOAL here.

It’s pathetic. I’ve written about Christian kitsch before, but this takes the cake.  The leaders from Teen Mania dress up like SEAL instructors and even mimic their mannerisms. In the Discovery Channel documentary, the SEAL instructors kept saying “It only pays to be a winner.” Anything less than coming in first place is penalized by the instructors. Coming in last place is penalized harshly, which makes sense given the nature of what SEALs do. Coming in last place for them could mean being captured or KIA. I don’t quite see how this relates to chubby Christian kids from El Paso who like Starfield, but this seems to be a slogan that Christian instructors at ESAOL have adopted.

ESAOL participants have to get ‘wet and sandy’ just like SEAL trainees. This means spending long periods of time covered in mud, sand, and ice cold water. And if they want to quit? There’s no private conversation with their counselors. They have to publicly ring a bell in shame, just like SEALs.

Other than being some deluded fantasy by middle aged white guys who’ve watched Platoon too many times, I don’t see what the point of this is. It’s embarrassing and silly to see grown Christian men mimic real life SEAL operators. Unfortunately, this embarrassing mistake isn’t confined to the Christian community. Teen Mania has been the subject of an MSNBC documentary and a report done by a local news station in Texas, which I’ve linked to below.

I’m glad that Ron Luce has taken some advice and cut off his mullet. Now, hopefully, he’ll take some more good advice and get rid of this ESOAL program. And Ron, the ESOAL program I can forgive, but the jury’s out on the mullet. Yeesh.

I recently came across the writings of the Reformed philosopher, Steven Cowan and have been enjoying them immensely. He’s one of the few who appears competent to tackle non-Reformed Christian philosophers on the freedom of the will, and the foreknowledge and foreordination of God. I’ve been loving his introductory philosophy text, For The Love of Wisdom, so much so that I’m going to rebuild my gr 12 philosophy course around it. It’s too bad the ministry frowns on high school teachers using non-ministry approved texts for courses (hello Big Brother!) or it’d be the textbook for my grade 12′s next year.

Through his blog, The Cowan Chronicles, I’ve learned that while Cowan is a political conservative, he is not a fan of Ron Paul. He gave some reasons for this in a recent post, which I think Ron Paul fans need to hear:

For all those out there who are enamored with Ron Paul and his foreign policy, I ask you to consider some implications of his views. Specifically, I ask you to imagine what would be the case if Ron Paul had been President of the U.S. in 1941 when the U.S. (in actual history) was attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and subsequently entered into World War II. Think about it: If Ron Paul had been President in 1941. . .

China would probably still be under Imperial Japanese occupation.

The Philipines would still be under Imperial Japanese occupation.

Some of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska would still be under Imperial Japanese occupation.

Korea, Burma, and most of SE Asia would be under Imperial Japanese occupation.

Australia would very well have been invaded by Imperial Japan and would still be under its occupation.

Nazi Germany would still exist and would still be occupying most of continental Europe and problably Russia too and possibly Great Britain.

Nazi Germany would still occupy most of North Africa and would likely have extended its rule to Palestine and other parts of Arabia.

Ron Paul supporters might object to all this by saying, “Wait a minute! Paul does believe in military responses to agression against the United States. Japan attacked the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor. And then the Nazi’s declared war on us. So, Paul would not have objected to our participation in World War II.” However, this response falters on the fact that if Ron Paul were President in 1941, we would not have had any naval or military bases in Pearl Harbor for the Japanese to attack in the first place! And even if we had military bases in Pearl Harbor, the Japanese would not have attacked us given Paul’s non-interventionist policies. They would have gone about their business and invaded the Philipines, Australia, etc., and not had to worry about our naval fleet in Pearl Harbor.

Ron Paul’s foreign policy would have been naive and dangerous then (not to mention cruel), and it’s naive and dangerous now.

For those that are confused about what molinism is I’ve included a video by Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason that I’ve found helpful. He also includes reasons why he’s not a molinist.

In my last post I pointed out that 1 Corinthians 10:13 poses a possible exegetical problem for the Reformed as it seems to presuppose a libertarian view of the will that is incompatible with Reformed thought. One possibility not mentioned already is that Paul is promising that Christians won’t apostatize, the text therefore being a proof for the perseverance of the saints, not libertarian freedom. 

Regardless, it’s not the case that molinism is without any difficulties. The clearest and simplest difficulty I see is that its reliance on libertarian freedom renders it unable to deal with texts like Ephesians 2:8-9, which highlight the sheer graciousness of God’s grace:

For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one may boast.

The problem here is that for the molinist, those who possess Christ can boast. After all, they chose Christ and others didn’t. Any theological construct that allows for a conclusion like that must have gone wrong somewhere.

Roger Olson in his Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities recognizes the problem:

At this point, of course, we know that some Calvinists will object that Arminianism is still nevertheless human-centered insofar as the person being saved makes a free choice and thus contributes the decisive element to his or her own salvation. Arminians reject that. The decisive element of salvation is grace; the only ‘contribution’ of the human person is nonresistance. Saying that mere acceptance of a gift is the decisive element is bizarre. Imagine a woman on the verge of bankruptcy boasting that her endorsement and deposit of a gift check that saved her from financial ruin was the decisive element in her financial rescue. Anyone who heard her and knew the true circumstances of her situation would consider her an ingrate or a lunatic. The decisive element was the gift of a check. (157)

Olson’s analogy just won’t work. A truer picture would say that there were 50 women who were facing bankruptcy and a generous donor wrote them all checks to bail them out. 10 deposited the checks. The other 40 didn’t. Why did the 10 deposit the checks while the rest didn’t? Olson cannot explain this without appealing to some sort of human merit. He does try to wiggle out of the problem by saying that the only ‘contribution’ that the woman gives is nonresistance, but this won’t due either. As Steven Cowan has said in a review of another book, “(the) point that his model requires a person only to refrain from acting has no teeth. It is obvious that refraining in a case like this requires an active choice! “Refraining” here means something like “acquiescing,” and acquiescing is doing!“

Complicating this even further is that the gospel is something that must not just be believed, but ‘obeyed’ (2 Thess. 1:8, 1 Pet. 4:17). So what Olson takes as mere nonresistance is much more complicated. Those who don’t believe have disobeyed the gospel, whereas those who have accepted it have not. Unless you’re a monergist, there’s merit and grounds for boasting everywhere.

What do you think?

Richard Foster and Dallas Willard discuss the spiritual discipline of simplicity:

RF: That’s why the Discipline of simplicity, for example, is a great—well, actually frugality  is the Discipline, and simplicity is the result of a life of frugality.

DW: But the way simplicity has been understood, it really is frugality. And it leads to a life where you are able to get rid of the clutter, and you are able to have a unified purpose. And that means, among other things, you can throw stuff away.

RF: I remember this wonderful phrase—I think it was from William Penn—about letting go of “cumber.”

DW: Yes, and think of a society in which we have all these rental places where you can put your junk.

RF: Right, I’ve got to rent another storage place.

DW: You’ve already got your garage full. But what that says about the person—I mean, that they are inwardly in bondage!

RF: Exactly, because simplicity is an inward reality [such] that, when that change comes about, the inward reality results in an outward lifestyle free of cumber.

DW: I guess the thing you practice most in simplicity is letting things go. It’s actually trusting God instead of keeping everything around that you might need, or on the other side (the really wealthy), [it would mean not] buying all this stuff.

RF: I remember once feeling drawn to experience this, and it wasn’t much really; it was a ten- speed bike, and I felt I needed to just let go of it. I just listened for a couple of weeks, and I heard a man mention that he wanted very much to get a bicycle for his son, but didn’t have the ability to do it. I went to him and said that we had one—used, but good—and I remember going to his house to give it to him singing that little chorus, “Freely, freely
did we receive, freely, freely give.” When we gave it to him, he came out to the car to talk to us, and he was only connected to the church in a really distant way, and he said, “Why are you doing this?” That gave a little opportunity to share a little about what was going on with me, and it was just a wonderful experience of letting go.

DW: Well, then, you know what you did was to bring the kingdom near to that man. You might just as well have said, “Because the kingdom is at hand.” I think after this talk, I’ll go home and throw away twenty-five books.

RF: And your wife will rejoice; so long as they are not her books.

In June of 1932, Martyn Lloyd Jones made his first trip to Canada. T.T. Shields, the infamous pastor of Jarvis Street Baptist Church, asked to meet with Lloyd Jones and Jones agreed. Here’s Jones’ account of the meeting from Iain Murray’s biography:

Shields came to fetch me and we had lunch. We talked on general subjects and then we went to sit in the garden. There, as we drank coffee, he suddenly turned to me and said, ‘Are you a great reader of Joseph Parker?’ I replied, ‘No, I am not.’ ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘I get nothing from him.’ ‘Man!’ he said, ‘what’s the matter with you?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s all very well to make these criticisms of the liberals but he doesn’t help me spiritually.’ ‘Surely you are helped by the way he makes mincemeat of the liberals?’ ‘No, I am not,’ I responded. ‘You can make mincemeat of the liberals and still be in trouble in your own soul.’ ‘Well,’ Shields said, ‘I read Joseph Parker every Sunday morning. He winds me up—puts me right.’ I felt my opening had come, so we began. We had a great debate. He was a very able man and we argued the issue about which I disagreed with him. In defence of his attitude he said, ‘Do you know, every time I indulge in what you call one of these “dog-fights” the sales of the Gospel Witnessgo right up. What about that?’ ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I have always observed that if there is a dog-fight a crowd gathers, I’m not at all surprised. People like that sort of thing.’ Then he brought up another argument. He said, ‘Now, you are a doctor and you are confronted by a patient who has got cancer. You know that if that cancer is not removed it is going to kill the patient. You don’t want to operate but you have to do so because it is going to save the patient’s life. That is my position. I don’t want to be doing this kind of thing, but there is this cancer and it has got to be removed. What do you say to that?’ I responded, ‘What I say to that is this: I am a physician but there is such a thing as “a surgical mentality”, or of becoming what is described as “knife-happy”. I agree, there are some cases where you have got to operate, but the danger of the surgeon is to operate immediately. He thinks in terms of operating. Never have an operation without having a second opinion from a physician.’At this point Shields got up, walked down the garden and then came back to re-open the conversation: ‘Well,’ he queried, ‘what about this: you remember Paul in Galatians 2? He had to withstand Peter to the face. He did not want to do it. Peter was an older apostle, a leader and so on. Paul did it very reluctantly, but he had to do it for the sake of the truth. I am in exactly that position. What do you say to that?’ ‘I would say this,’ I responded, ‘that the effect of what Paul did was to win Peter round to his position and make him call him “our beloved brother Paul”. Can you say the same about the people whom you attack?’ Shields was finished…[and] I made a great appeal to him. I said, ‘Dr. Shields, you used to be known as the Canadian Spurgeon…[but] you suddenly changed and became negatory and denunciatory. I feel it has ruined your ministry. Why don’t you come back! Drop all this, preach the gospel to people positively and win them!’ (272-273). (HT: Jake Belder)

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 1 Cor. 10:13

I’m a Calvinist. The problem is, Molinism, that seductress, tempts me often from my beloved. I have good reasons for being a Calvinist, the main ones being exegetical. Another good reason is that libertarian views of the will seem to imply an implicit denial of the sort of salvation by grace that St. Paul believed in, namely, in that the recipient of said grace cannot boast. If the efficient cause of my salvation is my will, and the efficient cause of someone else’s damnation is their will, I can boast in my choice. This is inconceivable for any self-respecting Pauline theology.

My Calvinism rests on a view of the will known as compatiblism. This view says that free will is compatible with determinism, where free will is defined as the freedom to act according to one’s desires. Opposed to Calvinists are Arminians and Molinists whose view of the will is called libertarianism. Libertarians are incompatiblists, who think that free will and determinism are not harmonious concepts. Freedom for the libertarian is defined as the ability to choose otherwise from what one chooses.

Now, here’s the problem for the Calvinistic compatiblist: how is 1 Cor. 10:13 compatible with their definition of freedom? William Lane Craig explains the problem for the compatiblist:

Imagine then, a situation in which a Christian succumbs to temptation. According to this passage, there was available to him at the time of temptation an escape route that he could have taken; he did not have to yield. He had the power to act otherwise than he did.

Craig goes on to say that any deterministic compatiblist view of the will ends up denying the promise of the passage. This makes sense to me. Is this enough to answer Craig’s siren call? No. But, it is definitely a problem text for the determinist, that is, unless I’m missing something …

Any thoughts?