Song (s) of the Week

Ok, so I couldn't decide between these two songs by Sojourn. Both Songs are off of the These Things I Remember album, but Before the Throne is excellent also.

The Christ Hymn - Sojourn

Crippled Soul - Sojourn

We Need Some Old Time Religion

A couple of weeks ago I was in a discussion with a couple of guys about the word 'religion'. It's not a word that shows up often in the Bible, only five times by my count. It's a word that has fallen on hard times. As Christians we often say things like "Christianity isn't a religion, its' a relationship". We've come to associate religion with things people do to earn God's favor, the external trappings of faith. The word didn't always have such connotations. Edwards wrote in his treatise Religious Affections that "true religion consists so much in the affections, that there can be no true religion without them". Calvin's life work was titled The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Octavius Winslow's Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul, and Matthew Henry wrote of the Pleasantness of the Religious Life. People prayed for a and talked about a revival in religion and it was a good thing. It included the internal realities of a relationship with God AND the externals that accompany these realities.

For this reason, I think we need to bring back the word 'religion' in its older (biblical) sense. The focus on relationship over religion may have been a healthy corrective to dead and stale orthodoxy without affections. However, the pendulum has swung to far the other way.

One of the points well argued by David Wells in The Courage to be Protestant is that the emphasis on spirituality, an emphasis than many churches are trying to tap into, is contrary to a biblical understanding of spirituality. This 'new spirituality' is all about accessing God from within, finding purpose and meaning within. This is all done without the trappings of organized religion. Spirituality is a private matter whereas religion is a publicly practiced matter. Christianity is increasingly feeling the affects of this new spirituality. All things external to self are deemed unnecessary to the relationship with God. These external things can include the church, the sacraments, revelation (the Word), fellowship with other believers, doctrine, etc. These are seen as the trappings of organized religion, not the ingredients of an internalized relationship.

But is that how the Bible views these things? Of course not. These 'external trappings' are a vital part of God's mission, his purposes, his communication of grace in our lives and his working for our eternal good. If the church embraces this new spirituality and ditches these 'external' aspects of religion, it will be her death. Here Wells may be guilty of some extra drama, but his point is good,

"Sometimes it [the new spirituality] is dressed up in sophisticated psychological language. More commonly we hear it in the everyday self-talk of our therapeutic culture. It is there in the television chatter, in the magazines near the checkout counter at the supermarket, and it is mentioned between neighbors. This understanding of being spiritual sounds plausible, compelling, innocent, and even commendable, but , let us make no mistake about it, it is lethal to biblical Christianity. That is why the biggest enigma we face today is the fact that it's chief enablers are evangelical churches, especially those who are seeker-sensitive and emergent who, for different reasons, are selling spirituality disconnected from biblical truth" (178).

Again, he might be overstating things to sell a book, but it's a good point. Many of us and our churches are trying to tap into our cultures heightened sense of spirituality but are doing so uncritically. The new spirituality is antithetical to biblical Christianity in that it minimizes the importance of the God who stands outside of self and reaches down to us. God, in the new spirituality, is accessed by reaching up to him in all our human potential, on our terms and without accountability. As we tap into the spirituality of those who are not believers, and we should (see Acts 17) we must confront these wrong assumptions and correct them in light of biblical truth (see Acts 17).

It's not that Christianity isn't about relationship (gotta love double negatives). It is. But this relationship comes to us as God who is above us reaches down to us, mediates his grace to us, calls us to believe and live his word and holds us to account. We cannot loose this.

The good news of the day

Good news for baseball fans: only 5 days till pitchers and catchers report for spring training and only 18 days till the Indians start their preseason! What to do in the meantime?

Thank You Michael Phelps

I want to thank Michael Phelps for illustrating something I think we all know real well - heroes suck. Ok, not like Phelps was a personal hero of mine, though he's an amazing swimmer, but still - he was a hero for a lot of people.

My hero's tend to be dead, but still, the more I learn about my hero's the more I realize how flawed they were. Luther was an anti-Semite, Servetus is a blemish on Calvin's ministry (though he was under the death sentence all over Europe), Edwards owned slaves, Wesley was Wesleyan, etc...Even those heroes whose sins aren't so public were still flawed. I'm sure of it.

As I've been reading through Genesis and Exodus, the same truth hits you square between the eyes. The Pentateuch is sometimes uncomfortable. Abraham pimps his wife out to powerful men to save his skin. Isaac follows dad's example. Jacob is just slimy. Moses is a murderer. We could go on, but point made. God uses people mired in sin to accomplish his purposes. Even after they are called and begin serving God the process of sanctification is slow and painful and never quite complete, at least not in this life.

As we consider our heroes we should come to a place of worship. Certainly not of our heroes but of the God who gave them the privilege of serving his purposes.

Follow up on Core vs. Crust

Kevin DeYoung followed up his original post about the Core and the Crust with 12 questions (part 1, and part 2) to help prevent crustiness. Here's a summary with some reflection of my own:

1. Do we actually care about evangelism? It is possible that we run the risk of being individual little Ephesian Churches who loved truth and holiness but had lost sight of their first love (Rev 2:2-7). In the context the love could refer to the churches love for Christ or their love for others. Most commentators agree that both are in view. The church cared a lot about being right but forgot the priority of love. Sounds like me at times. How about you?

2. Do we wear smallness as a badge of honor? I have definitely been tempted to this at times. People left the church/ministry. Why? Cause they couldn't handle the truth! At least that's what I told myself to make me feel better. This understanding was re-enforced by very Reformed and godly people. But has Jesus called us to be small for smallness sake? Can we be right and preach truth and winsome at the same time? We should, at least in my opinion, try.

3. Are our passions in the right proportion? Good thing to check constantly.

4. Do we (or our pastors) preach with personal, passionate, pleading? This isn't a 'drop the truth in their laps and see what they'll do with it' kind of business. As Christ's ambassadors we plead with people, be reconciled to God.

5. Do we know ourselves? What DeYoung means is that we're not all Driscolls or Pipers. Good on that, but it certainly is tempting to try to mimic those men and copy their ministries (other may be tempted to mimic or copy Bell or Kimball or Hybels, etc).

6. Are we fighting the battles that matter most in our context? I remember preaching a sermon in my previous church about Open Theism. Now it was a hot topic in our denomination at the time, but seriously, no one in the congregation I was in cared. It wasn't a controversy that touched their life or context in the slightest.

7. Are we bringing everything up all the way to the glory of God? Not so sure I understand DeYoung on this one.

8. Are we experts in Scripture first? For many Scripture takes a secondary role in their theological development. Some can quote Piper or Bell McLaren or Calvin more than Scripture. Not good, not good at all. Sola Scriptura!

9. Are we theological snobs? Ah, yep. I think we all are at times. Own it. Some are social justice snobs or evangelism snobs or Calvinist snobs are NT Wright snobs. We're human, it's what we do because pride runs deep.

10. Can we accept that there are Romans 14 issues? Without causing division, can we agree to disagree?

11. Are we resounding gongs and clanging cymbals? See question one.

12. Do we possess deep and pervasive piety? If not, what is our theology good for. The gospel is transformational, not merely informational. Right doctrine should be evidenced in right living.