The apparent end of an era. Farewell old friend!
http://mashable.com/2011/04/26/rip-typewriter/#13161Typewriter
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Gospel Coalition Conference Plenary Session Video
Couldn't make it to the big event? No sweat! Now you can take it in at your leisure as many times as you like!
TGC The Gospel Coalition
Watch all nine #TGC11 plenary sessions http://ow.ly/4IsyS
Saturday, 23 April 2011
Love is all You need. ... REALLY? What was that Cross about again?
Yes, I did actually read Love Wins by Bell. Most of the words, anyway. What a sad and sorry excuse for a real book. Re-hashed liberal nonsense with a smattering neo orthodox double talk delivered in a post modern stream of consciousness. But it purports to champion God's Love so ... it must be good, RIGHT? Try to clear your head junior and then work through the material Resurgence has put together for us:
http://theresurgence.com/2011/03/15/a-chronology-of-rob-bell-on-hell
For a great Reformed perspective on this, enjoy this link:
http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/?s=rob+bell
------------------------------------------------------
8Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9Resist him, firm in your faith 1 Pet 5
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 1 Pet 3:15 ff
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24And the Lord’s servantd must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. 2 Tim 2 22-26
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spiritsa of the world, and not according to Christ. 9For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, Col 2
http://theresurgence.com/2011/03/15/a-chronology-of-rob-bell-on-hell
For a great Reformed perspective on this, enjoy this link:
http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/?s=rob+bell
------------------------------------------------------
8Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9Resist him, firm in your faith 1 Pet 5
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 1 Pet 3:15 ff
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24And the Lord’s servantd must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. 2 Tim 2 22-26
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spiritsa of the world, and not according to Christ. 9For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, Col 2
That Shack thing...
For all of you looking for a sound concise biblical response to the actual message behind The Shack, download and read this review. For all of you who got warm fuzzies reading the book, please read the review and ask yourself seriously whether the Real Trinity would want you to promote this stuff. This warm fuzzy teddy bear has a real and dangerous hook inside. PLEASE be careful!
http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/a-review-of-the-shack-download-it-here
Have a blessed Easter! May it be focused on the love of the Real Father who sent his one and only Real Son to die for us and be raised again that the Real Holy Spirit might bring us into newness of Life! Three Persons. One Substance. Holy Holy Holy
http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/a-review-of-the-shack-download-it-here
Have a blessed Easter! May it be focused on the love of the Real Father who sent his one and only Real Son to die for us and be raised again that the Real Holy Spirit might bring us into newness of Life! Three Persons. One Substance. Holy Holy Holy
Friday, 22 April 2011
Pietism vs Confessionalism/Truly a false dichotomy!
Can Pietism and Confessionalism Be Friends?
(Can anybody say both sides of the same coin?)
The Following excellent article is copied from the great blog
DeYoung Restless and Reformed
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2011/04/14/can-pietism-and-confessionalism-be-friends-part-3-of-3/
Those outside Presbyterian circles may not be aware (and may not care), but there has been a lot of discussion over the past few years about the dangers of pietism and how it differs radically from the older (read: better) model of confessionalism. Pietism, it is said, emphasizes dramatic conversions, tends toward individualism, pushes for unity based on shared experience, and pays little attention to careful doctrinal formulation. Confessionalism, on the other hand, is a more churchly tradition, with creeds and catechisms and liturgy. It emphasizes the ordinary means of word and sacrament and prizes church order and the offices. It is pro-ritual, pro-clergy, and pro-doctrine, where pietism, it is said, stands against all these things.
I am sympathetic with much of this critique of evangelical pietism. I agree with Darryl Hart’s contention in The Lost Soul of American Protestantism that American evangelicalism has tried too hard to be relevant, has largely ignored organic church growth by catechesis, has too often elevated experience at the expense of doctrine, has minimized the role of the institutional church, and has worn out a good number of Christians by assuming that every churchgoer is an activist and crusader more than a pilgrim. Confessionalism would be good tonic for much of what ails the evangelical world.
Concern for Confessionalism
And yet, I worry that confessionalism without a strong infusion of the pietism it means to correct, can be a cure just as bad as the disease. Is there a way to reject revivalism without discounting genuine revival in the Great Awakening? Can I like Machen and Whitefield? Is there a way to say, “Yes, the church has tried too hard to Christianize every area of life” while still believing that our private faith should translate into public action? Hart argues that after revivalism Christian devotion was no longer limited to “formal church activities on Sunday or other holy days,” but “being a believer now became a full-time duty, with faith making demands in all areas of life” (13). Given the thrust of the book, I think it’s safe to say Hart finds this troubling.
Further, Hart clearly sides with the Old Side in New England that opposed the Great Awakening, its emphasis on inner experience, and the insistence that ministers be able to give an account of God’s work in their hearts (32-42). While I agree wholeheartedly that experience does not a Christian make, I wish the strong confessional advocates would do more to warn against the real danger of dead orthodoxy. It is possible to grow up in a Christian home, get baptized as an infant, get catechized, join the church, take the Lord’s Supper, be a part of a church your whole life and not be a Christian. It is possible to grow up in an Old World model where you inherit a church tradition (often along ethnic lines), and stay in that church tradition, but be spiritually dead. There are plenty of students at Hope College and Calvin College (just to name two schools from my tradition) who are thoroughly confessional as a matter of form, but not converted.
I have no hesitation in commending confessionalism. My concern is that pietism–with its private Bible study, small group prayer, insistence on conversion, and the cultivation of “heart” religion–is frequently set against confessionalism. For example, Hart argues, “Confessional Protestantism invites another way of evaluating the making of believers. Its history demonstrates the importance of inheritance and the way that believers appropriate faith over a lifetime through the sustained ministry and counsel of pastors as opposed to the momentary crisis induced by the itinerant evangelist or the pressures of sitting around a fire at summer camp” (184). I like the first sentence, but why so negatively caricature the work of itinerant evangelists and the real conversions that may come at summer camp? I could be misreading Hart. Maybe he has no problem with any of these things. But when he says, “the central struggle throughout Protestantism’s history has been between confessionalism and pietism, not evangelicalism and liberalism” (183), I worry that committed Presbyterians will steer clear of anything that gets painted with a broad brush as “pietism.”
A Confessionalism with Deep Piety
We all feel and respond to different dangers (for example, see Ligon Duncan’s post and William Evans’ post, both of which I like). No doubt, revivalistic, hyper-experiential, adoctrinal, deeds-not-creeds, tell-me-the-exact-moment-you-were-born-again, go-conquer-the-world-for-Christ Christianity has a load of problems. If that’s pietism, then I want no part of it.
But I want a certain kind of confessionalism. I want a confessionalism that believes in Spirit-given revival, welcomes deep affections, affirms truth-driven experience, and understands that the best creeds should result in the best deeds. I want a confessionalism that believes in the institutional church and expects our Christian faith to impact what we do in the world and how we do it. I want a confessionalism that is not ashamed to speak of conversion—dramatic conversion for some, unnoticed conversion for many.
I want a confessionalism that preaches and practices deep piety. Whether this is labeled “pietism” or just part of our rich confessional tradition doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that we have ministers and parishioners who realize there is an external and internal dimension to the faith. I want Christians to know that going to church, hearing the word, reciting the creeds, singing the hymns, and partaking of the sacraments is not peripheral to the Christian life; it is our lifeblood. And I also want Christians who do all those things every week to pray in “their closets,” look for opportunities to share the gospel with the lost, submit to Christ’s lordship in every area of life, and understand that true faith is not only a knowledge and conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true; it is also a deep-rooted assurance” that not only others, but they too “have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation” (Heidelberg Catechism Q/A 21).
Part of the problem with this whole discussion is that there is no agreed upon definition of pietism or confessionalism. It’s not like “Presbyterianism” which is defined by the Westminster Standards. Confessionalism and pietism, as Carl Trueman points out about the Puritans in a different, but related, context, are not single, definable entities (Histories and Fallacies [1], 165). In some discussions, then, it’s easy for confessionalism to stand for churchly, doctrinal, mature Christianity while pietism is code for shallow, kitschy, decisionistic evangelicalism.
But the lines are not always neat and clean. For example, Jean Taffin (1529-1602), a Dutch reformer writing in the 16th century, well before pietism or Edwards’ Religious Affections [2], argues “that there are two main ways by which God shows us who his children are. The one is external and consists of visible marks to men. The other is internal and consists of testimonies by which the believer feels within himself that he is a child of God” (The Marks of God’s Children [3], 35-36). The external mark is “that we are members of the church of Christ” (36). The internal mark is that God “opens our eyes and ears to comprehend the revelation of our adoption and to certify to our hearts the assurance of faith” (38). External allegiance to the church and inner piety of the heart: these are the two ways God shows us we are his. If you’ll permit anachronism, this sounds like a good blending of the concerns of confessionalism and pietism.
Let me give one more example, this time from the father of pietism, Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705). In his classic Pia Desideria (“Pious Desires”), Spener argues for several innovations (for his day) that now seem commonplace to most evangelicals. He encourages lay ministry, arguing that one pastor is incapable of caring for the whole church. He advocates personal prayer, small group Bible studies, and accountability with a “confessor.” He criticizes overly academic sermons and the prevalence of constant polemics in the pulpit. While careful not to disparage learning, he maintains that “study without piety is worthless” (42). Moreover, Spener urges that those who “have put on Christ in Baptism, must also keep Christ on and bear witness to him in our outwardly lives” (48). He writes to cultivate an orthodoxy that affects the inner man and translates into living Christianity.
But for all this, he does not set this new “pietism” opposite the older “confessionalism.” Spener writes:
As the [Luther] Catechism contains the primary rudiments of Christianity, and all people have originally learned their faith from it, so it should continue to be used even more diligently (according to its meaning rather than its words) in the instruction of children, and also of adults if one can have these in attendance. A preacher should not grow weary of this. In fact, if he has opportunity, he would do well to tell the people again and again in his sermons what they once learned, and he should not be ashamed of so doing.” (Pietists Selected Writings [4], 47)
Certainly, some later pietists went off the rails. But I quote from Pia Desideria lest we too casually dismiss everything in the pietist tradition, thinking it equivalent to the worst excesses of evangelicalism. Spener was responding to real deficiencies in the German church. We should be thankful for things he wanted to change, and that his proposed changes allowed that some things should stay the same.
Proponents of confessionalism often turn to John Williamson Nevin (1803-86) for support. And with good reason. Nevin introduced the so-called Mercerburg theology, a kind of high church Calvinism which stressed the churchly, liturgical, sacramental, and clerical elements of the faith.
In his most famous work, The Anxious Bench [1] (1844), Nevin attacked the revivalistic system that made surprising conversions the norm and weakened the role of the institutional church. He maintained that Finney’s New Measures could not be reconciled with the older method of lifelong catechesis: “The spirit of the Anxious Bench is at war with the spirit of the Catechism” (62). On one hand, you have the system of the Bench which “makes conversion, in its own sense, to be the all in all of the gospel economy and the development of the Christian life subsequently a mere secondary interest” (70). On the other hand, you have the system of the Catechism which believes in sermons, systematic instruction, pastoral visitation, catechetical training, attention to order and discipline, and patient perseverance (61). These two systems are altogether different. You must choose one or the other. And according to Nevin, “It must be ever a wretched choice, when the Bench is preferred to the Catechism” (63).
Nevin was concerned that the New Measures were putting all the attention on bending the will to make a decision for Christ in a moment of great existential angst. By contrast, the better method of ministry is the slow, deliberate, ordinary work of preaching, worship, sacraments, discipline, instruction, and catechism. Nevin is right: the best ministries are “constant, regular, earnest; not marked with noise and parade; but like the common processes of nature, silent rather, deep, and full of invisible power” (76).
Old School, New Side
But it would be a mistake to read The Anxious Bench as a blanket attack on revival, religious fervor, or experiential Christianity. According to Darryl Hart, Nevin later moved away from his Princetonian pro-revival training (John Williamson Nevin [2], 101-103). But in 1844 at least—in his work that is usually seen as a devastating polemic against evangelical pietism—Nevin was decidedly not against the Great Awakening. Nevin opposed the New Measures, but in The Anxious Bench he puts his lot squarely with the New Side Presbyterians.
Nevin was not anti-conversion. He believed in “sudden conversions in later life, attended with experience more or less violent.” Conversions like this “under the proper circumstances are entitled to entire confidence and may be expected to occur frequently under faithful ministrations on the part of the Church.” The error “is in making this the exclusive conception of the process” (68).
Likewise, Nevin was not anti-revival. Because of the abuses of revival, some maintained strong prejudice “against everything of the sort.” But in truth, true revivals “belong constitutionally to the system of the Catechism” (74). Although the system of the Catechism “makes more account of the regular, the ordinary, and the general than it does the occasional and the special” it does not “by any means preclude the presence of what is out of the usual way” (72). Indeed, “For such special showers of grace, it is the privilege of the Church to hope, and her duty to pray, at all times. To call in question either the reality or the desirableness of them, is a monstrous skepticism, that may be said to border on the sin of infidelity itself. They are the natural product of the proper life of the church” (72-73).
Less Bathwater, More Baby
Nevin was careful to say what the system of the Bench did and did not entail. He didn’t want to lift up the Catechism by pulling down every good thing that might be associated with revivalism and the Bench.
In this system, room is found naturally and easily, of course, for all evangelical interests. It is a prodigious abuse of terms when some of the most vital and prominent of these are crowded out of their proper place, and made to stand in another connection entirely; when social prayer-meetings, for instance, and the various missionary and benevolent operations of the Church, are divorced in imagination from the regular life of Christianity, and ranked in the same bad category with such tricks of human device as the anxious bench. Family prayer, and social prayer, belong as much as private prayer itself, to the very nature of the Church. The spirit of missions is identical with the spirit of Christianity. For a church or a minister to oppose prayer-meetings, or efforts to send the gospel to the heathen, or efforts to raise up faithful ministers, or to circulate Bibles and tracts, for the promotion of genuine godliness at home, is to oppose Christ. We hear, it is true, of churches and ministers that look upon all these things as fanaticism, while they pretend to honor the good old way of the Catechism; but such ministers and churches, in the emphatic language of the apostle, “lie and do not tell the truth.” They honor neither the Catechism, nor the Bible, or Christ. And the evidence of this appears invariably in the fact, that the same ministers and churches hate all serious, earnest godliness, are perfectly worldly in their temper, make no account of the new birth, and show no sense of religion whatever any farther than as it may be supposed to consist in a decent morality, and an outward use, to some extent, of its standing ordinances. (72)
At times, Nevin could sound downright pietistic:
Dead churches and dead ministers that turn catechetical instruction into an empty form, and make no account of inward living piety, as a necessary qualification for membership in the Church of Jesus Christ, have no right most assuredly to identify themselves with the system of the Catechism. . . . God forbid that we should countenance for a moment that dreadful supposition that the work of the ministry calls for no special zeal, no missionary devotion, no full and entire consecration to Christ, no earnest concern for the salvation of immortal souls; or that a church may be considered in a right state, where the voice of prayer is silent, the tear of penitence unknown, the hand of benevolence palsied, the language of Canaan despised, and, the power of godliness treated as an idle dream. A church without life is an abomination in the sight of God. (71)
If nothing else, I’ve written these posts on confessionalism to get to that paragraph. I love the Catechism (I wrote a book on one!). I love the church (and wrote a book on that too). I don’t believe I’ve been shy to criticize the shallowness of evangelical theology and the general adoctrinal nature of contemporary evangelicalism. I like much of what I read from the proponents of confessionalism. I’ve always thought of myself as a confessional Christian, ministering in a confessional church. But I’ve learned over the years that confessionalism is not, by itself, Christlikeness. I’m not suggesting anyone is saying exactly that. I just don’t want young Presbyterian pastors and young, restless, Reformed Christians to think that a passion for evangelism, or small group Bible study, or doing good in the world, or a concern for piety, or an insistence on private prayer and inner experience is somehow antithetical to being good Calvinist churchmen. Most of the time I’m after the evangelical pietists to be more confessional. But I also believe those in the confessional tradition can easily lose the vibrancy, sincerity, warmth, and personal piety that have marked experiential Christianity at its best, from the Dutch Reformation to the Puritans to the Great Awakening to neo-evangelicalism. Provided we define our terms thoughtfully, confessionalism and pietism can be friends. In fact, we would all do well to introduce one to the other.
(Can anybody say both sides of the same coin?)
The Following excellent article is copied from the great blog
DeYoung Restless and Reformed
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2011/04/14/can-pietism-and-confessionalism-be-friends-part-3-of-3/
Those outside Presbyterian circles may not be aware (and may not care), but there has been a lot of discussion over the past few years about the dangers of pietism and how it differs radically from the older (read: better) model of confessionalism. Pietism, it is said, emphasizes dramatic conversions, tends toward individualism, pushes for unity based on shared experience, and pays little attention to careful doctrinal formulation. Confessionalism, on the other hand, is a more churchly tradition, with creeds and catechisms and liturgy. It emphasizes the ordinary means of word and sacrament and prizes church order and the offices. It is pro-ritual, pro-clergy, and pro-doctrine, where pietism, it is said, stands against all these things.
I am sympathetic with much of this critique of evangelical pietism. I agree with Darryl Hart’s contention in The Lost Soul of American Protestantism that American evangelicalism has tried too hard to be relevant, has largely ignored organic church growth by catechesis, has too often elevated experience at the expense of doctrine, has minimized the role of the institutional church, and has worn out a good number of Christians by assuming that every churchgoer is an activist and crusader more than a pilgrim. Confessionalism would be good tonic for much of what ails the evangelical world.
Concern for Confessionalism
And yet, I worry that confessionalism without a strong infusion of the pietism it means to correct, can be a cure just as bad as the disease. Is there a way to reject revivalism without discounting genuine revival in the Great Awakening? Can I like Machen and Whitefield? Is there a way to say, “Yes, the church has tried too hard to Christianize every area of life” while still believing that our private faith should translate into public action? Hart argues that after revivalism Christian devotion was no longer limited to “formal church activities on Sunday or other holy days,” but “being a believer now became a full-time duty, with faith making demands in all areas of life” (13). Given the thrust of the book, I think it’s safe to say Hart finds this troubling.
Further, Hart clearly sides with the Old Side in New England that opposed the Great Awakening, its emphasis on inner experience, and the insistence that ministers be able to give an account of God’s work in their hearts (32-42). While I agree wholeheartedly that experience does not a Christian make, I wish the strong confessional advocates would do more to warn against the real danger of dead orthodoxy. It is possible to grow up in a Christian home, get baptized as an infant, get catechized, join the church, take the Lord’s Supper, be a part of a church your whole life and not be a Christian. It is possible to grow up in an Old World model where you inherit a church tradition (often along ethnic lines), and stay in that church tradition, but be spiritually dead. There are plenty of students at Hope College and Calvin College (just to name two schools from my tradition) who are thoroughly confessional as a matter of form, but not converted.
I have no hesitation in commending confessionalism. My concern is that pietism–with its private Bible study, small group prayer, insistence on conversion, and the cultivation of “heart” religion–is frequently set against confessionalism. For example, Hart argues, “Confessional Protestantism invites another way of evaluating the making of believers. Its history demonstrates the importance of inheritance and the way that believers appropriate faith over a lifetime through the sustained ministry and counsel of pastors as opposed to the momentary crisis induced by the itinerant evangelist or the pressures of sitting around a fire at summer camp” (184). I like the first sentence, but why so negatively caricature the work of itinerant evangelists and the real conversions that may come at summer camp? I could be misreading Hart. Maybe he has no problem with any of these things. But when he says, “the central struggle throughout Protestantism’s history has been between confessionalism and pietism, not evangelicalism and liberalism” (183), I worry that committed Presbyterians will steer clear of anything that gets painted with a broad brush as “pietism.”
A Confessionalism with Deep Piety
We all feel and respond to different dangers (for example, see Ligon Duncan’s post and William Evans’ post, both of which I like). No doubt, revivalistic, hyper-experiential, adoctrinal, deeds-not-creeds, tell-me-the-exact-moment-you-were-born-again, go-conquer-the-world-for-Christ Christianity has a load of problems. If that’s pietism, then I want no part of it.
But I want a certain kind of confessionalism. I want a confessionalism that believes in Spirit-given revival, welcomes deep affections, affirms truth-driven experience, and understands that the best creeds should result in the best deeds. I want a confessionalism that believes in the institutional church and expects our Christian faith to impact what we do in the world and how we do it. I want a confessionalism that is not ashamed to speak of conversion—dramatic conversion for some, unnoticed conversion for many.
I want a confessionalism that preaches and practices deep piety. Whether this is labeled “pietism” or just part of our rich confessional tradition doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that we have ministers and parishioners who realize there is an external and internal dimension to the faith. I want Christians to know that going to church, hearing the word, reciting the creeds, singing the hymns, and partaking of the sacraments is not peripheral to the Christian life; it is our lifeblood. And I also want Christians who do all those things every week to pray in “their closets,” look for opportunities to share the gospel with the lost, submit to Christ’s lordship in every area of life, and understand that true faith is not only a knowledge and conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true; it is also a deep-rooted assurance” that not only others, but they too “have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation” (Heidelberg Catechism Q/A 21).
Part of the problem with this whole discussion is that there is no agreed upon definition of pietism or confessionalism. It’s not like “Presbyterianism” which is defined by the Westminster Standards. Confessionalism and pietism, as Carl Trueman points out about the Puritans in a different, but related, context, are not single, definable entities (Histories and Fallacies [1], 165). In some discussions, then, it’s easy for confessionalism to stand for churchly, doctrinal, mature Christianity while pietism is code for shallow, kitschy, decisionistic evangelicalism.
But the lines are not always neat and clean. For example, Jean Taffin (1529-1602), a Dutch reformer writing in the 16th century, well before pietism or Edwards’ Religious Affections [2], argues “that there are two main ways by which God shows us who his children are. The one is external and consists of visible marks to men. The other is internal and consists of testimonies by which the believer feels within himself that he is a child of God” (The Marks of God’s Children [3], 35-36). The external mark is “that we are members of the church of Christ” (36). The internal mark is that God “opens our eyes and ears to comprehend the revelation of our adoption and to certify to our hearts the assurance of faith” (38). External allegiance to the church and inner piety of the heart: these are the two ways God shows us we are his. If you’ll permit anachronism, this sounds like a good blending of the concerns of confessionalism and pietism.
Let me give one more example, this time from the father of pietism, Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705). In his classic Pia Desideria (“Pious Desires”), Spener argues for several innovations (for his day) that now seem commonplace to most evangelicals. He encourages lay ministry, arguing that one pastor is incapable of caring for the whole church. He advocates personal prayer, small group Bible studies, and accountability with a “confessor.” He criticizes overly academic sermons and the prevalence of constant polemics in the pulpit. While careful not to disparage learning, he maintains that “study without piety is worthless” (42). Moreover, Spener urges that those who “have put on Christ in Baptism, must also keep Christ on and bear witness to him in our outwardly lives” (48). He writes to cultivate an orthodoxy that affects the inner man and translates into living Christianity.
But for all this, he does not set this new “pietism” opposite the older “confessionalism.” Spener writes:
As the [Luther] Catechism contains the primary rudiments of Christianity, and all people have originally learned their faith from it, so it should continue to be used even more diligently (according to its meaning rather than its words) in the instruction of children, and also of adults if one can have these in attendance. A preacher should not grow weary of this. In fact, if he has opportunity, he would do well to tell the people again and again in his sermons what they once learned, and he should not be ashamed of so doing.” (Pietists Selected Writings [4], 47)
Certainly, some later pietists went off the rails. But I quote from Pia Desideria lest we too casually dismiss everything in the pietist tradition, thinking it equivalent to the worst excesses of evangelicalism. Spener was responding to real deficiencies in the German church. We should be thankful for things he wanted to change, and that his proposed changes allowed that some things should stay the same.
Proponents of confessionalism often turn to John Williamson Nevin (1803-86) for support. And with good reason. Nevin introduced the so-called Mercerburg theology, a kind of high church Calvinism which stressed the churchly, liturgical, sacramental, and clerical elements of the faith.
In his most famous work, The Anxious Bench [1] (1844), Nevin attacked the revivalistic system that made surprising conversions the norm and weakened the role of the institutional church. He maintained that Finney’s New Measures could not be reconciled with the older method of lifelong catechesis: “The spirit of the Anxious Bench is at war with the spirit of the Catechism” (62). On one hand, you have the system of the Bench which “makes conversion, in its own sense, to be the all in all of the gospel economy and the development of the Christian life subsequently a mere secondary interest” (70). On the other hand, you have the system of the Catechism which believes in sermons, systematic instruction, pastoral visitation, catechetical training, attention to order and discipline, and patient perseverance (61). These two systems are altogether different. You must choose one or the other. And according to Nevin, “It must be ever a wretched choice, when the Bench is preferred to the Catechism” (63).
Nevin was concerned that the New Measures were putting all the attention on bending the will to make a decision for Christ in a moment of great existential angst. By contrast, the better method of ministry is the slow, deliberate, ordinary work of preaching, worship, sacraments, discipline, instruction, and catechism. Nevin is right: the best ministries are “constant, regular, earnest; not marked with noise and parade; but like the common processes of nature, silent rather, deep, and full of invisible power” (76).
Old School, New Side
But it would be a mistake to read The Anxious Bench as a blanket attack on revival, religious fervor, or experiential Christianity. According to Darryl Hart, Nevin later moved away from his Princetonian pro-revival training (John Williamson Nevin [2], 101-103). But in 1844 at least—in his work that is usually seen as a devastating polemic against evangelical pietism—Nevin was decidedly not against the Great Awakening. Nevin opposed the New Measures, but in The Anxious Bench he puts his lot squarely with the New Side Presbyterians.
Nevin was not anti-conversion. He believed in “sudden conversions in later life, attended with experience more or less violent.” Conversions like this “under the proper circumstances are entitled to entire confidence and may be expected to occur frequently under faithful ministrations on the part of the Church.” The error “is in making this the exclusive conception of the process” (68).
Likewise, Nevin was not anti-revival. Because of the abuses of revival, some maintained strong prejudice “against everything of the sort.” But in truth, true revivals “belong constitutionally to the system of the Catechism” (74). Although the system of the Catechism “makes more account of the regular, the ordinary, and the general than it does the occasional and the special” it does not “by any means preclude the presence of what is out of the usual way” (72). Indeed, “For such special showers of grace, it is the privilege of the Church to hope, and her duty to pray, at all times. To call in question either the reality or the desirableness of them, is a monstrous skepticism, that may be said to border on the sin of infidelity itself. They are the natural product of the proper life of the church” (72-73).
Less Bathwater, More Baby
Nevin was careful to say what the system of the Bench did and did not entail. He didn’t want to lift up the Catechism by pulling down every good thing that might be associated with revivalism and the Bench.
In this system, room is found naturally and easily, of course, for all evangelical interests. It is a prodigious abuse of terms when some of the most vital and prominent of these are crowded out of their proper place, and made to stand in another connection entirely; when social prayer-meetings, for instance, and the various missionary and benevolent operations of the Church, are divorced in imagination from the regular life of Christianity, and ranked in the same bad category with such tricks of human device as the anxious bench. Family prayer, and social prayer, belong as much as private prayer itself, to the very nature of the Church. The spirit of missions is identical with the spirit of Christianity. For a church or a minister to oppose prayer-meetings, or efforts to send the gospel to the heathen, or efforts to raise up faithful ministers, or to circulate Bibles and tracts, for the promotion of genuine godliness at home, is to oppose Christ. We hear, it is true, of churches and ministers that look upon all these things as fanaticism, while they pretend to honor the good old way of the Catechism; but such ministers and churches, in the emphatic language of the apostle, “lie and do not tell the truth.” They honor neither the Catechism, nor the Bible, or Christ. And the evidence of this appears invariably in the fact, that the same ministers and churches hate all serious, earnest godliness, are perfectly worldly in their temper, make no account of the new birth, and show no sense of religion whatever any farther than as it may be supposed to consist in a decent morality, and an outward use, to some extent, of its standing ordinances. (72)
At times, Nevin could sound downright pietistic:
Dead churches and dead ministers that turn catechetical instruction into an empty form, and make no account of inward living piety, as a necessary qualification for membership in the Church of Jesus Christ, have no right most assuredly to identify themselves with the system of the Catechism. . . . God forbid that we should countenance for a moment that dreadful supposition that the work of the ministry calls for no special zeal, no missionary devotion, no full and entire consecration to Christ, no earnest concern for the salvation of immortal souls; or that a church may be considered in a right state, where the voice of prayer is silent, the tear of penitence unknown, the hand of benevolence palsied, the language of Canaan despised, and, the power of godliness treated as an idle dream. A church without life is an abomination in the sight of God. (71)
If nothing else, I’ve written these posts on confessionalism to get to that paragraph. I love the Catechism (I wrote a book on one!). I love the church (and wrote a book on that too). I don’t believe I’ve been shy to criticize the shallowness of evangelical theology and the general adoctrinal nature of contemporary evangelicalism. I like much of what I read from the proponents of confessionalism. I’ve always thought of myself as a confessional Christian, ministering in a confessional church. But I’ve learned over the years that confessionalism is not, by itself, Christlikeness. I’m not suggesting anyone is saying exactly that. I just don’t want young Presbyterian pastors and young, restless, Reformed Christians to think that a passion for evangelism, or small group Bible study, or doing good in the world, or a concern for piety, or an insistence on private prayer and inner experience is somehow antithetical to being good Calvinist churchmen. Most of the time I’m after the evangelical pietists to be more confessional. But I also believe those in the confessional tradition can easily lose the vibrancy, sincerity, warmth, and personal piety that have marked experiential Christianity at its best, from the Dutch Reformation to the Puritans to the Great Awakening to neo-evangelicalism. Provided we define our terms thoughtfully, confessionalism and pietism can be friends. In fact, we would all do well to introduce one to the other.
New Calvinism/Eternal Security
Easter is coming! Hallelujah!
I thought of a couple more links to share with you. The first is an online bible tool in multiple languages and translations. Good search feature and some other good tools too:
http://biblos.com/
Here is a nice article on the "new calvinists" that I feel is pretty accurate. These men represent more or less the type of teaching you will find at my church and in the books and studies we use. It is important to clarify that they do not represent the extremes of what some refer to as Hyper Calvinism. The older extreme Calvinists sometimes did not want to evangelize or even relate to the world much. I don't think it is fair to put Driscoll, Grudem, Mahanney, Dever, Sproul, Piper, Keller, MacArthur or Mohler in that group. These men all have a passion for the Word and for the lost. They do self identify as Calvinist for the most part and rightly so. They stand clearly in the Reformation tradition of evangelical Protestantism. To condemn what these men stand for outright is inappropriate whether I fully agree with them or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Here is a sympathetic Christian overview of the same topic:
http://theresurgence.com/2010/
This article by Driscoll might help you understand what kind of Calvinism you are likely to encounter at Mars Hill Seattle for example:
http://theresurgence.com/2009/
If you really want to dig on the Calvinist issue, you might want to read this article. Anything on this site is pretty good, by the way.
http://www.theopedia.com/
Finally if you don't have time for anything else PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO:
http://www.marshillchurch.org/
More specifically about eternal security. The belief that those who are truly saved will always remain saved is also known as the Perseverance of the Saints or just Perseverance. You will generally find that all self identified Calvinists believe this as well as many who aren't sure what they are. The general concept is also referenced as Eternal Security or Once Saved Always Saved. Generally speaking, the reason it is consistent with a Calvinist perspective is this: If God does it, it's done and you couldn't undo it if you wanted to.
The non Calvinist or Arminian tends to think we have more say in our choice for salvation. Simplistically, if you chose it, you could maybe change your mind or fall away. This type of thinking may appear to be consistent with what we observe around us, but probably does not reflect God's view as spelled out in the Bible.
We are told to keep ourselves in the faith and we are told that we are kept by God for His glorious kingdom. Both have to be true.
That's my simplistic answer. For something more in depth you might start here:
http://www.theopedia.com/
BE CAREFUL! You certainly don't need to take it all in at once. If this is new material for you and you try to absorb it at one sitting you may get indigestion. And it will probably make your head hurt!
Don't let go of Jesus! He certainly isn't going to let go of you!
27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me,a is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30I and the Father are one.” John 10 ESV
------------------------------
8Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, 9for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! 10Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. 11The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
12 if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.14Remind them of these things, and charge them before Goda not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. 15Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved,b a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 16But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. 19But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” 20Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable,c he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
2223Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24And the Lord’s servantd must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
2 Timothy 2 ESV
I thought of a couple more links to share with you. The first is an online bible tool in multiple languages and translations. Good search feature and some other good tools too:
http://biblos.com/
Here is a nice article on the "new calvinists" that I feel is pretty accurate. These men represent more or less the type of teaching you will find at my church and in the books and studies we use. It is important to clarify that they do not represent the extremes of what some refer to as Hyper Calvinism. The older extreme Calvinists sometimes did not want to evangelize or even relate to the world much. I don't think it is fair to put Driscoll, Grudem, Mahanney, Dever, Sproul, Piper, Keller, MacArthur or Mohler in that group. These men all have a passion for the Word and for the lost. They do self identify as Calvinist for the most part and rightly so. They stand clearly in the Reformation tradition of evangelical Protestantism. To condemn what these men stand for outright is inappropriate whether I fully agree with them or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Here is a sympathetic Christian overview of the same topic:
http://theresurgence.com/2010/
This article by Driscoll might help you understand what kind of Calvinism you are likely to encounter at Mars Hill Seattle for example:
http://theresurgence.com/2009/
If you really want to dig on the Calvinist issue, you might want to read this article. Anything on this site is pretty good, by the way.
http://www.theopedia.com/
Finally if you don't have time for anything else PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO:
http://www.marshillchurch.org/
More specifically about eternal security. The belief that those who are truly saved will always remain saved is also known as the Perseverance of the Saints or just Perseverance. You will generally find that all self identified Calvinists believe this as well as many who aren't sure what they are. The general concept is also referenced as Eternal Security or Once Saved Always Saved. Generally speaking, the reason it is consistent with a Calvinist perspective is this: If God does it, it's done and you couldn't undo it if you wanted to.
The non Calvinist or Arminian tends to think we have more say in our choice for salvation. Simplistically, if you chose it, you could maybe change your mind or fall away. This type of thinking may appear to be consistent with what we observe around us, but probably does not reflect God's view as spelled out in the Bible.
We are told to keep ourselves in the faith and we are told that we are kept by God for His glorious kingdom. Both have to be true.
That's my simplistic answer. For something more in depth you might start here:
http://www.theopedia.com/
BE CAREFUL! You certainly don't need to take it all in at once. If this is new material for you and you try to absorb it at one sitting you may get indigestion. And it will probably make your head hurt!
Don't let go of Jesus! He certainly isn't going to let go of you!
27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me,a is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30I and the Father are one.” John 10 ESV
------------------------------
8Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, 9for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! 10Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. 11The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
12 if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.14Remind them of these things, and charge them before Goda not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. 15Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved,b a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 16But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. 19But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” 20Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable,c he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
2223Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24And the Lord’s servantd must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
2 Timothy 2 ESV
Rejoice in the Lord! Celebrate the Resurrection! Live in newness of Life!
Hallellujah! Maranatha!
JB
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