Engaging the What? (XI)

The Autonomy of Man

We ended our last issue with a provocative statement from Herman Bavinck’s Stone Lectures at Princeton in the 1908/1909 academic year. The lectures were delivered in the following order: “The Idea of a Philosophy of Revelation,” “Revelation and Philosophy,” “Revelation and Philosophy (II),” “Revelation and Nature,” “Revelation and History,” “Revelation and Religion,” “Revelation and Christianity,” and “Revelation and Religious Experience.” There were two other lectures that were not delivered: “Revelation and Culture” and “Revelation and the Future” that are included in the book.[1]

We have been examining Bavinck’s views on culture and comparing them to many of the contemporary admonitions to “engage (the) culture” issued by a number of pastors or church staff members. While we believe that Christians should be aware of the various aspects and facets of modern culture, we have also been forewarning that when we engage culture it will engage us back. There is, if you will, a kind of spiritual graveyard that is filled with ill-equipped Christians who got “hammered” by the culture or, worse yet, bought into many of the secular progressive PC aspects of culture and were either badly tainted by it or capitulated to it.

I have also been requesting my Presbyterian Church in America colleagues, who are so vociferous about the need to engage the culture to give a more detailed exposition of precisely what it is that they have in mind. Are we to head down to the local pub and shoot pool as a manifestation that we are genuine, authentic? Of course, Southern California pastors like me only frequent the trendy microbrew establishment, but that is beside the point. Does engaging the culture involve evangelism? How much or how little? Does it avoid head-to-head confrontation, thereby eliminating the clear antithetic components of Christianity to culture? Does it avoid being countercultural? If not, what kinds of confrontations are allowed and which aren’t? Do pastors have to view every movie that comes down the pike and comment on them—particularly in the sermon to show that he’s hip? Does the pastor, like President Obama, have to have a final four bracket interest, or does he need to be a former wrestler like me, who believes it’s better to have wrestled and lost than to have played basketball?

Do you need to be an aficionado of fine wines and Renaissance art or is it okay to get stuck in the Baroque—I’m speaking specifically about Country Western Baroque, of course—and with only select artists? As Bavinck has implied, ought Christians to branch out more into areas of culture that seem less trendy like, say, economics. In fact, a very good case could be made for pastors and youth leaders spending more time on the study of economics in order to be able to combat the ridiculous notions on poverty by “leaders” like Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis. Ridding the world of poverty—or the U.S. for that matter—is not a warm fuzzy feeling, but actually involves some industrial strength thinking, a good view of total depravity, and a thorough grasp of the contents of the sayings about sloth, laziness, a diligent work ethic, and poverty found in the book of Proverbs—not to mention Paul’s exhortation in 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” Utopic notions of ridding the world of poverty give us tingly sensations, but they do not comport with reality or Scripture (cf. Matt. 26:11; Mark 14:7; John 12:8).

We ended last time with a statement by Bavinck that is worthy of our time and attention. He wrote, “The heteronomy of law and the autonomy of man are reconciled only by…theonomy.”[2] Bavinck made that statement as an ethical truth firmly ensconced in theological reflection. In other words, he spoke unashamedly as a Christian, who was willing to bring the truth of Scripture into the public arena. Why did he do that? Well, he understood then what far too many of Christians are willing to concede today as they engage culture, namely that “All culture, whatever significance it may have, just as all education, civilization, development, is absolutely powerless to renew the inner man.”[3] To put it bluntly: Bavinck was not a theological moderate.

There is a debate raging within the Republican Party as we speak that whereby some, such as Colin Powell and John McCain are urging a more conciliatory tone. Other power brokers within the Republican Party are urging other leaders to distance themselves from the divisive issue of abortion. The reasoning is that if the right-wing religious fanatics leave the Party, then Republicans will have a better shot at winning in the next election. That’s really funny, because except for abortion, few Republicans are more moderate than John McCain. If he didn’t win in the last election, what makes the Republicans think that someone similar to him, holding similar views will get elected next time?

Now carry those thoughts over into the “let’s engage the culture” realm. Do I need to be a moderate Christian when I speak with Christianity’s cultured (or highly uncultured and uncouth despisers)? It is necessary for me to use foul language and speak filth to prove that I’m authentic? To do so would make me genuine—genuinely wrong. Do I need to concede truth in order to present the gospel? If Paul was concerned that there was only one gospel, what is it? Is it the Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian gospel? Or, is it the gospel of God’s sovereign grace in the Reformation sense of the words “sovereign grace”?

Bavinck answers these questions when he explains, “Thus the true, and the good, and the beautiful, which ethical culture means and seeks, can only come to perfection when the absolute good is at the same time the almighty, divine will, which not only prescribes the good in the moral law, but also works it effectually in man himself.”[4] Bavinck was a presuppositionalist and so was Abraham Kuyper. Together these two men forged a vibrant and robust reawakening of what came to be called Neo-Calvinism in the Netherlands. They were effective in politics because they continued a political party known as the Anti-Revolutionary Party, which was begun by Groen van Prinsterer. Note the title. It was a political party that opposed the tenets of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment and embraced the truths of the Reformation. Bavinck and Kuyper hammered out a biblical life and worldview that they then strove to implement politically and socially in the fabric of Dutch life. It would be one thing if pastors urged their respective congregations to engage culture once each member had been properly catechized and instructed in the biblical foundations of God, man, society, truth, knowledge, and ethics, but it’s quite another thing to send them out ill-prepared.

Moreover, far too few are instructed in the biblical fact that man is totally, radically corrupt and seeks constant autonomy apart from God. We are constantly reminded by statistics that a large percentage of those who call themselves Christians believe that man is basically good. One can only wonder how someone could have even a rudimentary acquaintance with the Bible and entertain such thoughts. In addition, by cutting himself off from God, man can have no consistent basis for ethical life. Without it why was it wrong for Hitler to murder so many people? Bavinck states the matter this way: “Ethical culture…can neither in the source nor in the essence of morals be independent of the metaphysical foundation; and finally much less can it dispense with it in the definition of the goal of morality. As long as it remains diesseitig,[5] it cannot give to the question, What may be the goal of the moral action? any other answer than that this is to be found either in the individual man or in humanity.”[6]

Obviously, individual man or humanity cannot provide the standard of true culture because “Neither humanity nor the individual can have origin or the goal in itself. There was a time when they did not exist; they are transitory, and near their end. In the universe they occupy a temporary, transitory place; they are a means, and not an end, and certainly no final end, because they are not their own origin.”[7] If I may paraphrase what Bavinck is saying, he is alluding to Nietzsche’s endeavor to reverse all the values of Christian ethics.[8] Now Bavinck throws down the gauntlet and challenges culture either to live as Nietzsche’s Übermensch or to recognize and acknowledge that Nietzsche’s nihilism was tragic and to live according to God’s laws (theonomy).

In our next issue, we’ll continue this line of thought.

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[1] Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation, (Henry Dosker; Nicholas Steffens; & Geerhardus Vos [trans.]), (Scarsdale, NY: Westminster Discount Book Service, n.d.).

[2] Ibid., 263.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] This German word means specifically those matters that are dealt with in the “here and now” on this side of eternity. As Bavinck employs it, it refers to efforts made “from below” without any reference to the eternal, which the Germans call jenseits. No extra charge for such wonderful enlightenment or, better, Aufklärung.

[6] Ibid., 263-264.

[7] Ibid., 264.

[8] See, Ibid., 249.

Engaging the What? (X)

An Intriguing & Interesting Question

Like it or not, the modern Church is being forced to relinquish her obsession with entertainment and superficiality and is being forced to “put up or shut up.” Some are opting for the latter. In a provocative article in World magazine (April 25, 2009), Tony Woodlief addresses the matter of “Practical atheism” among those who call themselves Christians (p. 54). Woodlief quips, “While the vast majority of Americans claim to be Christian, in other words, a good many of us don’t seem capable of explaining what that means.” (Ibid.) The good folks at Barna Research surmise that of those who call themselves Christians only about 10% hold consistent biblical beliefs. (Ibid.) That is to say, only about 10% of professing Christians hold to the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, biblical justification by faith, and a biblical worldview concerning God, man, society, truth, knowledge, and ethics. According to the Barna researchers, only a small percentage of those claiming to be Christians believe that the Bible should play a big role in their ethical decision-making. This might explain why so many who call themselves Christians voted for a man who is so outspokenly pro-homosexual and pro-abortion. Is it just me, or are those two positions impossible to square with biblical truth?

One of the most trenchant statements in Woodlief’s article reads this way: “The way many churches respond to declining public interest exacerbates the problem. The Christian church grew when its leaders stressed biblical study and fervent prayer, each of which was considered, in the early church, a means of knowing God. The modern feel-good church, meanwhile, de-emphasizes both in favor of ‘messages’ that are ‘relevant to my life.’ (Don’t tell me what Job said about the imponderable glory of God, tell me how to have fulfilling personal relationships.)” (Ibid.) Repeated pleas have been made—to no avail—to have some of our PCA gurus clearly delineate what they mean when they instruct their congregations to “engage (the) culture.” I must admit that I have heard a number of such sermons by church planters and it remains unclear what they mean for the troops to do. The congregation walks out of the meeting place understanding that it is incumbent upon them to engage culture, but unsure just how they should go about doing it. Since I’m PCA, I designate my own church affiliation first, but not with the idea that they are the only ones encouraging (vague) cultural involvement.

In fact, I am all in favor of cultural and political involvement, but since I cut my teeth on Calvin, Bullinger, the Puritans, Bavinck, and Kuyper (just to mention a few) and not McLaren or Wallis, I tend to be more critical of the modern stuff—not because it’s modern, but because it is so deficient in substance. In addition, I am suspect of much of the admonitions to engage because it is virtually bereft of any notions of being counterculture or of the healthy notion of the biblical antithesis when it comes to culture. It’s one thing for a pastor to urge his flock to be culturally aware and to engage literature, music, movies, DVDs, TV programs, and the like, and it’s quite another neither to prepare nor warn them for the spiritual pitfalls if they are not biblically discerning and wise. One of the best recent examples of warning and preparation is Brian Godawa’s book Hollywood Worldviews.[1] Brian does an admirable job of what to look for in the movies and what to watch out for as well.

It is not as if no one besides Godawa has issued any warnings at all, however. James Davison Hunter has written several books, one on evangelicalism, and points to where Christian efforts need to be very circumspect when engaging culture[2]. D.A. Carson has also written many helpful monographs on Christianity and culture,[3] but the most helpful writer that I have found in “our time” is David Wells, from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. In his many volumes on the evangelical church, David has issued a clarion call and has sounded a well-documented warning about how the evangelical church is crumbling from within. But few seem prepared to listen and once you’ve started down a particular road, stubborn human nature makes it difficult to admit being wrong. The net result is tantamount to polishing the brass and rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Those who wasted decades in the mega-church tend to hang around still; against better judgment, knowing that something has been and still is dreadfully wrong; dreadfully unbiblical. We’re witnessing the same phenomenon in the Emergent church movement as well. The wheels are coming off, but some of those who have been emerging and conversing for a decade-and-a-half will, no doubt, continue to hang around a spiritually bankrupt undertaking that every day more and more looks, thinks, and acts like the world and the theological liberalism of the Social Gospel movement.

The upshot is that we have those who call themselves Christians attempting to rationalize casting their vote for a President who has a 100% positive rating with Planned Parenthood, NARAL, NOW, and every pro-abortion organization on the planet. These are the same folks that want us to engage culture, especially when it involves universal health care. They want us to buy into the bogus concept of global warming and hug trees and Al Gore and attempt to end global poverty, even though no president, Democrat or Republican, has effectively done so to this point in history. If we cannot solve the problem of poverty domestically, how can we expect to solve it internationally? And, oh, by the way, no European or Asian nation has solved it either in case you were thinking about asking them to help us.

Even though a number of modern day pastors will not openly admit it, deep inside they believe “that Christianity has had its day, and can no longer live with our present-day culture.”[4] Well, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say that any real pastor would never concede that Christianity has had its day. That’s fair enough, especially since Bavinck was referring to the manner in which the world thought about the Christian faith often in history. There is a point to be made, however, that the latter part of Bavinck’s statement is applicable to some modern pastors. Something has to give; something has to change in order to make the gospel relevant to modern man, is the thinking. As Bavinck points out in his lecture on “Revelation and Culture,” his day was not the first time people thought Christianity was defunct. What is being suggested by modern church planters today has all been thought, said, and done before. One of the key reasons Christians should not despair is that it is Christ who gathers, protects, and defends his Church, by his Word and Spirit (Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 21, Q/A 54).

What is quite often not taken into account is that “modern culture is an abstract name for many phenomena, and forms no unity at all. Not only are there innumerable factors which have contributed to its development, but it is also in the highest degree divided in itself.”[5] What precisely does Bavinck mean? Here is his explication: “Everywhere, and in all domains, in politics, social economy, art, science, morals, instruction, education, there are parties, tendencies, and schools which stand in opposition to one another; the realms of justice and culture, church and state, faith and science, capital and labor, nomism and antinomism, combat each other, and proceed on different principles.”[6]

This being the case, a simple appeal to “engage (the) culture” is insufficient for it flattens the complexity of the matter at hand. Moreover, it provides no specific approach. What could or should it mean to the man or woman in the pew to engage politics? Social economy? Education? Morals? In addition, there is no accompanying admonition to remember that Christians are to be, at crucial times, countercultural or antithetical to culture. Culture is not “monolithic” and an encouragement to engage it without more detailed information can set untaught Christians for getting hammered or worse, absorbed by or enamored of culture. In point of fact, one of the main concerns of pastors today is that their congregants are far too worldly.

Bavinck writes that in his time “There is in modern society a striving after independence and freedom, such as was unknown in earlier times, or at least not recognized in the same degree.”[7] Allow me to put this in a Southern California/American context. Some parents do not function as parents and I’m not just talking about those who live in or near the poverty line. This is a phenomenon that crosses race, gender, and economic boundaries. Many secular—and some Christian—parents are far too interested in, to borrow a phrase from Neil Postman, entertaining themselves to death. What specifically should we do to correct that as we engage the culture? 50% of black males in New York City are unemployed. How do we effectively engage a culture of unemployment? What does it mean for Christians to engage the culture of education and the National Education Association? Does it mean that Christians ought to be leery about sending their children to government schools? Do we engage culture by being in favor of a voucher system? How do we engage a culture whose current President pushed hard for extra hate-crime legislation that favors homosexuality? How do we engage a culture where approximately 50% believe that abortion on demand is their “right,” and the President gets on national TV and espouses a culture of death? How do Christians engage a national debt that neither our children nor our grandchildren will be able to pay? Should Christians accept evolution as a viable option for life, especially since objecting to it might upset Christianity’s cultured—and tenured—despisers. Will capitulating on key doctrines make Bill Maher happy, and is that even an important consideration?

You see, up to this point, engaging the culture meant having classical or jazz music, going to art exhibitions and haute couture in general. Certainly, this can be part of engaging culture, but I’m wondering what, after all this heavy-duty engaging, has changed in culture. Has American culture changed one iota in light of our efforts? Don’t get me wrong: I am not saying that we should not make attempts to make inroads into the moral, political, and economic morass of our 21^st century modern culture, but are we realistically assessing if we’re doing the right thing or heading in the right direction?

Added to this is the question of whether the modern Church and the PCA in particular has become more knowledgeable in the Word, holier in her actions, and more deeply concerned about evangelizing the lost. I am convinced that it is both wrong and dangerous to proceed from the thesis that evangelism trumps everything. In Galatians 1:6-10, the apostle Paul reminds the Church that there is but one gospel. Twice in those verses, he employs a very strong word meaning anathema (avna,qema; anáthema). I recently said to our Men’s Bible Study that I am convinced that what we call Apologetics should be a sub-section of evangelism. If the one to whom we’re presenting the gospel has a question about Christianity, we answer it and then right back to presenting the gospel to them. For example, if a CEO, CFO, or UFO, asks us the Christian view of abortion, we should clearly and succinctly get back to the gospel, stating that if this person has had an abortion and repents and believes then Christ’s blood is sufficient to cover that horrific sin as well.

In our next issue we shall take up Herman Bavinck’s thesis that “The heteronomy of law and the autonomy of man are reconciled only by…theonomy.”[8]

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[1] Brian Godawa, Hollywood Worldviews. Watching Films with Wisdom & Discernment, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002).

[2] See, for example, James Davison Hunter, Evangelicalism, The Coming Generation, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987).

[3] Comp. D.A. Carson, Christ & Culture Revisited, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008); The Gagging of God, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996); & D.A. Carson & John Woodbridge (eds.), God & Culture, Essays in Honor of Carl F.H. Henry, (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1993).

[4] Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation, (Henry Dosker; Nicholas Steffens; & Geerhardus Vos [trans.]), (Scarsdale, NY: Westminster Discount Book Service, n.d.), p. 247.

[5] Ibid., 251.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid., 253.

[8] Ibid., 263.

Engaging the What? (IX)

A Clear Account

We have been investigating Herman Bavinck’s Stone Lectures and particularly his discussion of the relationship between God’s revelation to man and culture.[1] Bavinck believed that “If we are to speak of the relation which Christianity bears to culture, we must first of all give a clear account of what we understand by culture, and of precisely the kind of culture Christianity is to form a contrast to.”[2] In the 1700s, it became fashionable to speak about “culture” “along with other terms, such as civilization, enlightenment, development, education” and the like. When the word “culture” is employed, it “indicates generally cultivation, improvement, and always presupposes an object which must be improved.”[3]

If Christians engage culture and are called to improve it, how does this occur if the Christians are content merely to dialogue or to show the cultural despisers of Christianity that Christians are “nice”? Does engaging culture include complimenting an “artist” on a piece of music that is mere drivel and nonsense (for example, the “music” of John Cage) or fawning over a taxpayer endowed piece of “art” that is a cross in a bottle of urine? In our time, we are embarrassed that Christianity has not done more in the arts, but we seem to fail to remember that “Culture in the broadest sense…includes all the labor which human power expends on nature.”[4]

To return to Bavinck’s comment about the “object which must be improved,” we understand that this object “may be indicated generally by the name of nature, for it always consists of something not made by man, but offered to him by creation.”[5] Therefore, when Christians engage culture and the cultured despisers of Christianity, it appears that certain “givens” or axiomatic matters must be considered, namely how nature may be improved and how man can honor the Creator (and Redeemer and Sanctifier) in the process. This is why Bavinck can say that culture is inclusive of all the labor that human beings expend on nature. Moreover, “the whole visible world of phenomena which is outside man, but also, in a wider sense man himself; not his body alone, but his soul also” must be brought into the equation. Engaging culture, therefore, relates to the total man; body and soul.

But in many church plants and some PCA church plants this is not the case. Non-Christians are invited to display their works of “art” and far too often there is no challenge from the Christian side about their hermeneutic of art or of their life and worldview. After all, we would not want to be offensive in any way, and we all know that the gospel is a stumbling block of offense. Thus many encourage secular artists in their secularism and unbelief; others mistakenly believe that art or “the arts” are neutral. They are not. There is a definite anti-God bias. The artist must be confronted—at some point—with their unbelief and need for a Savior. I realize that this doesn’t sound all that intellectual, but it is truly the most important part of the equation. Emergents don’t believe what I’m saying because they’re rushing madly towards universalism. Youth pastors think this is nonsense because most of them are virtually entirely bereft of theology, although there are some good youth pastors—a few; a handful; one or two. Even among my PCA colleagues there are those who are embarrassed that they’re Presbyterian. One can only wonder why one would remain in a church of which they are loath to use the name and inform Christianity’s cultured despisers that they are in a Presbyterian church.

Far too often, we suffice with someone telling us that they are not religious, but that they are very spiritual. Right. As Entertainment Weekly noted (I know, but my subscription to the National Enquirer expired), “Pop culture is going gaga for spirituality…Eastern meditation, self-help lingo, a vaguely conservative craving for ‘virtue,’ and a loopy New Age pursuit of ‘peace.’”[6] Few pause, reflect, and then accuse the nonsense that passes as spirituality today. We fail to decipher “the Gnostic character of the soup that we call spirituality in the United States today.”[7] And this is part of a larger problem of sucking up to pagan artists and inviting them to display their products in our churches without any critique; only appreciation. Appreciation of what? Art without God? Art against God? Many of these “artists” are invoking their right to have their own private convictions. They cling to them “no matter how ridiculous” and expect them to be “not only tolerated politically but respected by others.”[8] Horton compares European and American nihilism and concludes that while our European counterparts just denied God, “American nihilism is something different. Our nihilism is our capacity to believe in everything and anything all at once. It’s all good!”[9]

How far has evangelicalism devolved in this regard? Horton surmises, “Americans just want to be left along to create their own private Idaho. While evangelicals talk a lot about truth, their witness, worship, and spirituality seem in many ways more like their Mormon, New Age, and liberal nemeses than anything like historical Christianity.”[10] Curtis White, writing in Harper’s puts it this way: “We would prefer to be left alone, warmed by our beliefs-that-make-no-sense, whether they are the quotidian platitudes of ordinary Americans, the magical thinking of evangelicals, the mystical thinking of New Age Gnostics…”[11] And this is precisely the dilemma that many who want to engage culture—within and without the PCA—must face and give a biblical answer to. If we invite artists to our church plant openings or continued meetings, what are we attempting to accomplish? There is a broad chasm between belief in the true living God of Scripture and unbelief.

This being the case, Bavinck contended that the primary stumbling block between Christianity and secularism was supernaturalism.[12] Sadly, there are a number within the camp that calls itself “Christian” that find the supernaturalism problematic as well, or at least prefer “selective supernaturalism.” But Bavinck does not allow such a theology of convenience. He avows that “Christianity is the pure and true religion” and that therefore “it is not less, but more supernatural than all other religions.” How does he draw out the difference between Christianity and the other world religions or ideologies? The other world religions, he explains, “dissolve the godhead into all kinds of natural powers, see everywhere in the world only the influences of good or evil spirits, and cannot therefore bring man into a true fellowship with God.”[13] To put this in a modern context, Bavinck would deny the Emergent church movement’s notion of a Christian in the way of Hindu, Buddhism, or Islam, only to mention a few. The creeds and confessions of the Church were not designed to speak to a McLaren-esque tertium quid.

In their obvious liberalism (no creeds, only deeds; smells and bells), they desire to defend the indefensible. It would seem that one of the primary reasons both the mega-church as well as the Emergent church movement have either explicitly or implicitly decried the historic creeds of the Christian faith and doctrine is because if people studied either one, they would quickly discover just how off base, misleading, and wrong these movements are. It’s far better to tell your congregants that the creeds are just doctrine, if you don’t know them yourself and you want to keep the “troops” in the dark. Worse yet, some pastors negate and scoff at knowing doctrine from their pulpit. This way, they keep their people ignorant of the things of the faith. Anecdotes and joining Habitat for Humanity are sufficient to assuage the seared consciences of many. The devotees to modern culture are all too happy to hear something “upbeat” and “snappy” instead of learning about who God really is and what he expects of them in terms of holiness and obedience. All of the modern accoutrements and cool entertainment factors are departures from Scripture and what the Church through the centuries, especially since the Reformation, has taught.

Allow me to illustrate briefly. Some today believe that creeds are stodgy and don’t discuss the important, practical, and pertinent aspects of 21^st century life. John Muether writes, “We have converted the church to a commodity that solicits the patronage of customers, offering therapeutic sanctuaries of relaxation and relevance. The churches are shed of whatever seems unappealing to the greatest number of potential believers, including their history, denomination distinctiveness, and especially their duty to exercise discipline.”[14] Willem van ‘t Spijker thinks just the opposite, however. In his article, “The Continued Relevance of the Heidelberg Catechism,” he points out that the Westminster Shorter Catechism “places most of the emphasis on the inner workings of the Holy Spirit.”[15] Therefore, according to a number of modern “spirituality” pundits, if the modern Christian is curious about the person and work of the Holy Spirit, one of the worst approaches is carefully to examine what Scripture and the orthodox confessions of Christ’s Church teach. More helpful, the modern Christian thinks, would be Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Brian McLaren, Rick Warren, or Two-Buck-Chuck Finney.

In an excellent article that I highly recommend, John Muether wrote the following insightful analysis of the modern Church in the March 2009 issue of Tabletalk: “Mary is a deeply committed evangelical Christian who is eager to work for the transformation of culture. A home-schooling mother of three teenagers, she serves on the board of a crisis pregnancy center, and she devotes Saturday mornings to leading a local campaign for a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages. But a funny thing happens on Sunday. Mary awakens with uncertainty about where or even whether to go to church. Her family began attending a new church six months ago because it offered a better youth program, but her husband is not pleased with the pastor, and he prefers the message at a church he has begun to attend on Saturday nights. She is still attached to her small group at her former church, which is planning to launch a home church group.”[16] Muether continues, “What Mary fails to recognize is that the moral subjectivism and cultural relativism that she combats for six days a week is the very phenomenon to which she succumbs on the Lord’s Day. Zealous to defend moral order and transcendent authority in the home and society, she struggles to submit to the authority of the church.”[17]

And this is a major problem with modern Christians as they attempt to engage culture. Without realizing it, they have been engaged by culture repeatedly and it has hammered them so badly, yet in such a subtle manner, that they no longer recognize its profound influence upon them. As Muether puts it, “A child without a family is an orphan to be pitied. A man without a country is a refugee to be welcomed. A Christian without a church is, well, a typical American evangelical.”[18] While many today claim to be seeking “authenticity” (which, by the way, few, if any, have taken the time to define. It’s like “engaging (the) culture” in that no one wants to define what it is.), fewer than 50% of those who call themselves Christians are members or regular attendees of any church. Here’s the sum of the matter and Muether nails it: “Ironically, evangelicals like Mary are denying authority where God is most eager to ordain it. Contrary to contemporary wisdom, the Bible teaches that one cannot yield to the authority of the Word without submitting to the authority of the church.”[19] Or, as both Augustine and Calvin said it, you cannot have God as your Father unless you have the Church as your mother.

How does this manifest itself in our modern culture and in the modern Church? Here is Muether’s description: “Individuals who come to churches after comparison shopping are not catechicized [sic] into habits that enable them to submit to the authority of the church. Rather, they are conditioned to bail once the church fails to meet their needs. Thus, Christians today can no more imagine the church usurping their sovereignty as consumers than they can imagine the same of Wal-Mart.”[20] And this is further complicated by PCA church plants that want to hide the fact they’re PCA or constantly attempt to sweep PCA distinctiveness—in doctrine, polity, or ethics—under the proverbial carpet. It is precisely this approach that does more damage than good, yet few want to acknowledge that fact.

What a number of modern Christians fail to take into account is the fact that belief and unbelief are diametrically opposed. Bavinck explains, “Christian morals lays stress upon sin and grace, the ethics of evolution proclaims the natural goodness of man; the former regards man as a lost being, who needs salvation, the latter sees in him the one creature who can reform and saved the world; the first speaks of reconciliation and regeneration, the second of development and education; for the one the new Jerusalem comes down from God out of heaven, for the other it comes slowly into being by human effort; there divine action moves history, here evolution is the all-directing process.”[21] Bavinck concludes then, “But this is certain,—if the gospel is true, then it carries with it its own standard for the valuation of all culture.”[22] Those claiming that Jesus (and his ethics) is in their camp need to keep in mind that “Neither shallow optimism nor weak pessimism finds in him an ally.” In fact, Jesus “accepted the social and political conditions as they were, made no endeavor to reform them, and confined himself exclusively to setting the value which they possessed for the kingdom of heaven.”[23]

Bavinck summarizes what he considers to be the proper Christian perspective on Christianity and culture when he says, “In a word, agriculture, industry, commerce, science, art, the family, society, the state, etc.,—the whole of culture—may be of great value in itself, but whenever it is thrown into the balance against the kingdom of heaven, it loses all its significance…. The truth of this declaration can be denied only by the man who shuts his eyes to the awful seriousness of real life.”[24] As we close off this installment, I want to leave you with these concluding thoughts from Bavinck: “Not only does Scripture teach that man has lost himself, and may lose himself more and more, but our own experience also testifies to this. Man is lost before God, for he does not give himself to God, and does not serve him in love, but flees from him, and hides himself from his presence. He is lost for his neighbor, for he abandons him in his need, and sacrifices him to his own interest in the struggle for existence. He is also lost for himself, for there is a cleft between his being and his consciousness, a dissension between his duty and his desire, between his conscience and his will. That is the reason why we seek diversions in the world; instead of re-collecting our thoughts we scatter them, and in proportion as with our representations and imaginations, with our thoughts and desires, with our inclinations and passions, we move in various directions, we lose more and more the center of our own life. Man is ever losing himself more and more.”[25]

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[1] Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation, (Henry Dosker; Nicholas Steffens; & Geerhardus Vos [trans.]), (Scarsdale, NY: Westminster Discount Book Service, n.d.).

[2] Ibid., 249.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid. Emphasis added.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Jeff Gordinier, “On a Ka-Ching and a Prayer,” Entertainment Weekly, October 7, 1994.

[7] Mike Horton, Christless Christianity, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), p. 160.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid., 161.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Curtis White, “Hot Air Gods,” Harper’s, December 2007, p. 13.

[12] Bavinck, TPR, 254. He writes, “It is supernaturalism, which in point of fact forms the point of controversy between Christianity and many panegyrists of modern culture.”

[13] Ibid., 255.

[14] John Muether, “Knowing His Voice. The authority of Christ’s church, Tabletalk, March 2009, p. 17.

[15] Willem van ‘t Spijker, “The Continued Relevance of the Heidelberg Catechism,” in Willem van ‘t Spijker (ed.), The Church’s Book of Comfort, (Gerrit Bilkes [trans.]), (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2009), p. 263.

[16] Muether, Knowing, 15.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid., 17.

[21] Bavinck, TPR, 256.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid., 257.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid., 257-258.

Engaging the What? (VIII)

What the Church Needs Now Is…?

The modern Church is floundering around badly and seems willing to accept any new trend or fad as long as it has nothing to do with historic Christianity, doctrine, or expository preaching. Thankfully, there are notable exceptions to the spiritual malaise that a number of churches are involved in, but their intractability to return to what has served the Church well for centuries defies comprehension. It is almost as if they have wandered so far from the traditional path that they cannot or will not find their way back. Mike Horton’s new book, Christless Christianity, provides an excellent outline for just how bad it is in “our time.”[1] This is not to say that the Church has not experienced tough times in the past, where spirituality was at low ebb, but you really do have to wonder how low the Church can sink.

There does come a time when you have to at least consider how many who call themselves Christians, but are not in possession of even the most rudimentary understanding of the Christian faith, who live like pagans, and generally manifest a pagan ethic are truly saved. But it’s precisely into this environment that many encourage their congregations to get out there and engage (the) culture. As I have mentioned a couple of times, far too few who recommend engaging culture provide the congregant with a reliable roadmap or blueprint of how cultural engagement should take place or what it should look like. Is cultural engagement really just a matter of what feels good or right or are there prerequisites before venturing out into the abyss?

In the last two installments, we took a look peek at what Herman Bavinck called the “circles of culture”[2] and noted that much too little attention is devoted to the more mundane aspects of culture. We tend to concentrate more on the arts, which is a fun thing to do, but surely culture is more than the arts. Man’s production and distribution of material goods has not been addressed by many telling their folks to engage culture; neither has agriculture, industry, nor trade—not to mention economics. It’s more appealing and less tedious to apply ourselves to aesthetics while chatting gaily and sipping on our Chardonnay.

When I was younger—much younger—Dionne Warwick sang, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” Okay, we know what the world needs, but what is it that the modern Church needs now more than anything else? From the days of the advent of the mega-church, leading into the current Emergent church movement debacle a plethora of gimmicks and fads have been tried. They all remind us of bottle rockets: They take off with panache and a great deal of fanfare, rocketing quickly into the air, promising to deliver whatever you’ve been missing in your life. As quickly as they launch almost, they fizzle or give off a “pop!” They all purport to know how to “do church” or how to bring the lost into the fold. There are projects, programs, purpose-driven lives, or bricks with your name on them that will line some ridiculous pathway. Remember the prayer of Jabez? What function did that fad accomplish except to make Bruce Wilkerson laugh all the way to the bank as “the faithful” purchased his book, coffee mugs, trinkets, and other worthless commodities? We tried the prayer of Jabez and nothing changed for us spiritually. (Most were probably just hoping for the material gain that Bruce Wilkerson promised if you recited Jabez’s prayer (Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep from harm so that it might not bring me pain!)

Mr. Wilkerson never took the time to explain how Jabez fit into redemptive history or if there were anything messianic about his words. But, you see, this is precisely what the modern Church doesn’t want to hear. A quick prayer that will—more or less, guarantee “expanded boundaries” (with a little help from Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae) and a better stock portfolio—cause us to prosper without putting forth too much effort is what modern Christianity thrives on. Joel Osteen promises a kinder, gentler sort of legalism and the Emergent church movement encourages us in burying our guilt in solving climate change (it’s your fault that your carbon footprint is so big! Has anyone actually seen a carbon footprint? Does it look like Big Foot’s?), global poverty, or, in Michael Moore’s case, global obesity. When Bill Hybels—similar to Dr. Spock of child rearing fame—announced that the Willow Creek experiment had bombed, what did he do? Any reasonable person would have turned to Scripture and charted a new, better, divine path for his congregants, but Mr. Hybels is far too slick and packaged for such a tawdry approach. He invited the Emergent church movement non-leader leaders in to do his spring youth conference. As the cartoon figures in the Guinness beer commercial put it: Brilliant! Simply brilliant!”

Bavinck contends that there was a struggle waged against Christianity in his day by culture.[3] Rather than wanting to hear the voice of the Christian faith in a pluralistic society, culture aimed at “a theoretically proclaimed and practically applied autonomy and anarchy…”[4] This striving of culture places it on a collision course with Christianity. Why is that? Bavinck explains, “For Christianity comes into collision with such an autonomy, as does every religion. It asserts all possible freedom and independence for man, for it teaches his creation after the image and likeness of God; but it maintains at the same time that man is a creature, and thus can never become or be absolutely independent; it joins him to God, and binds him to his word and will.”[5]

In his exposition and explanation of the relationship of God’s revelation and culture, Bavinck warns of an antagonism and prejudice against Christianity by cultured (or uncultured) despisers. While not wanting to place a stumbling block before the unchurched, the modern Church has abandoned the gospel, all the while wanting so desperately to be “missional.” What does it mean to be “missional” if we never present the stumbling block of the cross? Or, what does it mean to be “missional” if we are constantly compromising the central focus of the gospel message? For, as Bavinck says, “It is supernaturalism, which in point of fact forms the point of controversy between Christianity and…modern culture.”[6]

But, asks the 21^st century Christian, isn’t it possible to “soft peddle” these aspects of the Christian faith? After all, we don’t want to offend our secular counterparts. Bavinck believes that there must be a presuppositional confrontation between the secularists and Christians because “The Christian religion cannot abandon this supernaturalism without annihilating itself.”[7] To the modern Christian’s mind, accommodation is not the same as self-inflicted annihilation. But it is precisely the accommodation that ends up being the problem. How does one decide what we’re prepared to jettison for the sake of accommodation and what is non-negotiable? This is an especially trenchant question in light of the horrible lack of knowledge about the faith among a lion’s share of Christianity that sees little, if anything, wrong with Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, Bill Hybels, or Robert Schuller’s theology, just to mention a few. In fact, TBN airs so many goofy shows, it’s little wonder that the secularists think Christians are nuts, charlatans, and hucksters.

We are still trying to learn from our 21^st century advocates of engaging culture precisely what it means, specifically and concretely, to engage it. How do we or can we know if we have (effectively) engaged culture? What types of things ought to be done and said? Is engaging culture the same as evangelism? More? Less? What? In order to be an effective youth leader, do I need to have listened to all the CDs of the Red Hot Chili Peppers? (One form of good torture at Gitmo would be to require the detainees [read: terrorists who want to kill us and rip our spinal cords out] to listen to loud music featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers 24/7.) Or, to be an effective youth leader do I need to be conversant with the confessions and catechisms of my church (if your church doesn’t have one, go out and get one ASAP. I suggest the Westminster Shorter Catechism or the Heidelberg Catechism) and desire to aid the parents in producing godly offspring (Mal. 2:15)?

When the Reformed churches were looking for direction, purpose, and true spirituality, they turned to the creeds of Christendom as well as to a “combined effort” in structuring the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, many scoff at the creeds and the catechisms. (Their motto is: Deeds, not creeds.) And I’m not only talking about liberal theologians and pastors here. The PCA has its share of pastors who question the validity of this kind of teaching. They prefer to entertain and make it more “fun.” Their gimmicks are designed to put the “fun” back in “fundamentalism.” As we noted last time, church historian, Willem van ‘t Spijker believes that catechisms in general and the Heidelberg Catechism in particular (used by his church) play “an important role in educating the church.”[8] Precisely. This is an excellent place to start, especially in our time. The modern Church is in dire need of being educated about real Christianity. This might cause a type of “Scottish Revival” where many hangers-on beat feet out of the Exits, but that could be a good thing as well, separating Ersatz Christians from the real deal.

Simultaneously, the modern Church does not need to become navel gazers either and van ‘t Spijker is convinced that that will not be the case. In grounding Christians in the truth of biblical confessions, “The primary objective was to prevent the collapse of church and society as a consequence of people’s sinful nature.”[9] Bingo. This is almost as paradoxical as supply-side economics. Unfortunately, most modern Christians are theological Keynesians: they want to try all the wrong things when the right thing to do is staring them right in the face every time they open Scripture. What modern Christians no longer realize is that the “eternal youth” of, say, the Westminster Shorter Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism is precisely what Christians need today.

For anyone who is not embarrassed by either the Bible or our confessional and catechetical standards, they understand that they owe their “vitality and lasting relevance not least to the plan and method of its treatment of the catechetical material.”[10] In both the Westminster Shorter Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism, convinced and committed preachers joined hands with Christian academia to govern doctrine and preaching. Preaching! Not story telling or cutesy anecdotes, but God-fearing, Christ-centered, and Spirit-filled and –anointed expository preaching of the whole counsel of God.

There is no comfort from philosophy or postmodernism; there is no comfort from culture. Only Christ’s Church possesses, by grace, true comfort in the face of radical corruption, total depravity and, as someone once called death, “that immutable law.” What the world needs today is not more brie, but divine truth in the face of sin and death, in the forgiveness of real sins and eternal life. As Willem van ‘t Spijker puts it, “Our heart demands something that does not vanish with death. Only the church offers us something that never perishes.”[11] You can go anywhere in society any time and find a way to be entertained. God has placed eternity in man’s heart (Eccl. 3:11) and all the art exhibits in the world will not satisfy him. It’s the Church’s place to present man with what God has placed in man’s heart.

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[1] Mike Horton, Christless Christianity, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008).

[2] Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation, (Henry Dosker; Nicholas Steffens; & Geerhardus Vos [trans.]), (Scarsdale, NY: Westminster Discount Book Service, n.d.), p. 250.

[3] Ibid., 254.

[4] Ibid. Emphasis added.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Willem van ‘t Spijker, (ed.), The Church’s Book of Comfort, (Gerrit Bilkes, [trans.]), (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2009), p. 92.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid., 97.

[11] Ibid., 101.