Gavin Ortlund on "That Hideous Strength"

Baptist pastor & scholar, Rev. Gavin Ortlund, produces great and edifying videos - many defending the historic continuity and catholicity of classical Protestantism over against charges that Protestant theology is something totally novel that emerged only in the 16th Century as a departure from the Great Tradition of the ancient church.  As someone who cares greatly about the catholicity of our faith - that my beliefs are shared by Christians across every age (and not only the last 500 years) I greatly appreciate his work in this area.

Another passion that Gavin and I share is a love of C.S. Lewis.  Here is Gavin's review/introduction to one of Lewis' most mature novels, That Hideous Strength.  I think that Gavin is right to put this novel alongside Till We have Faces as being some of Lewis' best fiction.

Having read a bit of Charles Williams, I can tell you that you definitely see Williams' influence on this novel by Lewis.  Much of the other things Gavin says in this video strike me as "right on."  Gavin is right to point out that when Lewis talks about "the masculine" and "the feminine" in this work, he is not really talking about what we think of as gender or sex, but rather about something far more "Jungian": archetypal characteristics that - in mythologies, symbols, and typologies across many cultures - have been associated with a "masculine" or a "feminine" spirit for a variety of reasons that I suspect we moderns/post-moderns can only barely begin to appreciate.  I suspect there are depths of wisdom and insight buried there that Lewis would have recognized more readily than most of us.

I like what Gavin has to say about conversion often (especially in a post-Christian culture) being a "multi-stage" process.  This rings true to my experience and that of others I've known, and is refreshing to hear from a significant Baptist thinker.

A final point he makes that I think is very important is the connection between beauty and evangelism.  Roman Catholic Bishop Robert Barron is constantly making this point in his own excellent YouTube ministry (following a thinker named Hans Urs Von Balthazar): beauty points us to God, to the Source and Ground of all beauty, just as discovering truth points us to God who is the Highest Truth. 

It is my hope that in years to come Christians of all denominations and churches will be known by our wholesome and beautiful ways of being and building in this world in a way that will draw people in, as in the early centuries of our faith.  Lewis' work certainly is a great example of exactly that.

3 Articles: Anglicans, Atheists, and Baptists

Here are some articles that I wanted to feature on Gloria Deo with a more complete commentary, but just haven't had the time.  Nevertheless, they will likely be interesting to some of you readers.

1) The Anglican choir of Westminster Abbey is travelling to Rome to sing for the Pope.  Actually they sang with a Vatican choir at Vespers last night and a Pontifical Mass today, which is the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul (and my birthday).  Liturgically, Anglicans are quite similar to Roman Catholics, and musically Anglicans are (in my opinion) the jewel of all Christendom.  This sort of ecumenism - actually praying and worshiping together and sharing our in our liturgical treasures together is every bit as important as joint theological statements for the growth of ecumenical unity throughout God's one holy church. 
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2) This next one is a bit old now, but I couldn't let it pass without comment:  Atheists "Rally for Reason" and are urged to mock religious believers.  Rather than advocating being logical and reasonable, Richard Dawkins seems to be advocating a smear campaign religious people that wields appeals to emotion and logical fallacies rather than actual reasoning.  Anyone else find the irony of all this disturbing?  Excerpt below:

Thousands of atheists showed up at the National Mall Saturday for what they believe will be a game-changing event for secularists. Though the Reason Rally was billed as a celebration of reason and a "coming out" event for atheists, as opposed to an anti-religion one, some viewed it as the latter.

"They said it wasn't going to be anti-God but all the signs are. So it doesn't fit because they're really not rallying for reason. They just say they are," said Tom Gilson, a writer and missions strategist.

Richard Dawkins, author of the best-selling The God Delusion, was the most anticipated and well-known speaker at the rally.  In his brief address, Dawkins encouraged fellow atheists to ridicule those who claim to be religious.

I can't help but wonder if Richard Dawkins is simply an angry person.  I wonder if he is aware that new research (see the book How God Changes Your Brain) suggests that religious practices of deep prayer and meditation can help build compassion?  There may be another sad irony there.
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3) Finally, I recently heard that, in the days leading up to the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in New Orleans the on-going debate between the Calvinist and non-Calvinist factions of the SBC has flaired up to the point of heresy charges being hurled by the Calvinst side against a statement issued by some of the non-Calvinists. 

The statement opposing Calvinism states that:
"We deny that Adam's sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person's free will."  Calvinist Baptists have charged that this is an example of (semi-)Pelagianism, which was condemned as a heresy by the ancient church (though these Baptists depart from the ancient church on quite a number of issues and it is interesting that they would turn to the early fathers as authoritative in their opposition to the other group).

Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, denies the charge.

"We are obviously not semi-Pelagians," Patterson said. "We do believe that the entire human race is badly affected by the fall of Adam. However, we don't follow the Reformed view that man is so crippled by the fall that he has no choice."

Patterson didn't assist in the framing of the document, but was one of six former SBC presidents and two SBC seminary presidents to affirm it.

I've tried to be a bit more careful in tossing around the charge of "heresy" myself, though I certainly recognize the very real danger that heresy represents to the health, mission, and unity of the church.  It seems to me that the statement above does at least sound like it could be some kind of Semi-Pelagianism, which is heretical, or at least slipping that way. 

Now many of my Methodist readers might be surprised to read this and think "But don't we believe that humans have free will as well?"  Actually, Wesleyan theology completely agrees with Calvin (and Luther and St. Augustine) on this point: our will is completely broken and corrupted by Original Sin.  However, where Calvin thought this situation required that God should choose for us who would receive salvation and who would not (predestination), Wesley emphasized that we, because our wills are corrupted, require the aid of God's "prevenient grace" - the strengthening grace of God that is given to every person to allow us, ins pite of sin-sick wills, to choose freely whether to submit to or even to reject the Gospel summons that Christ gives to every person.  You might say we believe in grace-enabled free choice, but not in a naturally free will.

As part of this whole theological debate within the SBC I can report that the SBC did "affirm" the use of the Sinners' Prayer, that some (especially Calvinist) Baptists argued was part of an unBiblical folk religion that developed in American Evangelicalism.  I would add (along with Calvin, actually) that what Jesus gave us according to the Bible to initiate us into him was not "the Sinners' Prayer" but actually the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion (see Rom. 6 and John 6, for example). 

I would, however, also point out that the Sinners' Prayer - in its most basic form - can be a legitimate form of piety that does have some Biblical precedents (such as Luke 18:13 and Mark 10:48) and, like these passages, closely resembles what the Eastern Christian Tradition calls "The Jesus Prayer" ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God: Have mercy upon me, a sinner. Amen.") which I frequently use in my own praying.  The Jesus Prayer, unlike The Sinners' Prayer, is one that we must return to again and again: it is not intended as a "one time conversion" prayer but a prayer for continuous aid from the Savior, and continuous conversion and conformity to him.

Baptists and Vatican begin new dialogue

The Baptist World Alliance and the Vatican's ecumenical arm begin a new series of talks today at Duke Divinity School (one of our fine United Methodist institutions). This will be the first round of dialogues since the late 80's between these two groups. Check here for more.

How very good and pleasant it is when brethren live together in unity! It is like the precious annointing oil on the head, running down the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his vestments. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountain of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing: life forevermore. - Psalm 133

Southern Baptist Seminary bans "Charismatic" teaching

My dad tells a story of when he was in the navy stationed in Italy. One day he and a friend went into a beautiful old Roman Catholic Church to pray and have a look around. While inside they watched a very old nun shoo-ing a white bird, that looked suspiciously like a dove, out of the church with a broom. He and his friend just looked at each other not missing the powerful symbolism of how the old established churches had neglected the Spirit of God.

That story came to mind when I read that Southwestern Seminary's leadership had voted to ban any teaching or preaching that was favorable to Charismatic experiences, in particular speaking in tongues (even as a private experience), a decision similar to that of the International Mission Board because of which I was very critical of the IMB. The seminary's only board member that voted against the ban lamented the "charisphobia" that this decision represents.

I wonder which is worse: attributing activity to the Holy Spirit which he has clearly not taken (as when some church leaders - even bishops - claim that the Spirit is leading the church in a direction contradictory to the clear teachings of the New Testament and unanimous tradition of the Church) or banning the work of the Spirit when it does show up because it threatens the control of church leadership and the status quo (as has happened pretty much anytime a Spirit-led renewal has broken out). Now I know the SBC does a lot of good ministry and brings more people to know Jesus Christ than probably any American denomination (except perhaps the Assemblies of God, a pentecostal denomination), but this ban is part of a trend in the wrong direction on the part of the SBC. I hope that young charismatic Baptists will challenge this move in an appropriate manner.

Some have argued that charismatics ought to "let Baptists be Baptist," but I don't buy this. Since when was "being Not-Charismatic" somehow constituative to being Baptist? Classically, the SBC is congregationalist in polity, allowing each congregation freedom in doctrine and practice. If, in practice, the mission board and the seminaries become "top-down" doctrinal filters for the convention, then the SBC finds itself moving toward becoming a denomination with certain confessions or creeds. This is fine with me (I think those are vital things to have - one reason that I am not Baptist), but it does turn the question of who is really "being Baptist" on it's ear, I think. Unlike some of my fellow Methodists who are (sadly) more than happy to do so, attacking the SBC is not at all my point. I have many personal connections to SBC churches and have been greatly enriched by those ministries. My point is simply "cracking down" on the Charismatic movement, which if judged by its fruit in so many lives and churches must clearly be seen as a work of the Holy Spirit, is wrong.

The United Methodist Church (in spite of her many shortcomings) has, like several of the older more liturgical churches, actually (ironically) done a better job on the whole (we certainly have plenty of examples of "charisphobia") of integrating the blessings of the Charismatic movement into the life of our denomination. The Aldersgate Renewal Ministries, which are affiliated with the UMC's General Board of Discipleship is a ministry that focuses on teaching congregations to explore and use ALL of the charismata in the life of the local church (in a responsible manner consistent with our tradition), through various annual seminars and events and it is one of those few "official" ministries that I am really proud of.

Calvinist Comeback

One of the things that happened to me when I was at LSU, were the debates with the 5-point Calvinists. This happened alot. I attended several of the campus ministries at LSU, and at the Baptist ministry I met a handful of real live Calvinists. At first, I thought it was some sort of strange coincidence, after all "there hasn't been a Calvinist in these parts in a hundred years!" But I met alot more than I expected.

Turn's out this trend isn't just isolated to South Louisiana. A large number of young seminary students, especially among the Baptists, are turning to classical "5-point" Calvinism. According to a Christianity Today article about this trend, there may be alot more young people connected with a resurgence of Calvinism than are involved with the much more widely publicized "emerging church movement."

To be honest this movement distrubs me a little, and makes me glad I am not Baptist (like the whole forbidding missionaries to practice "speaking in tongues" did awhile back). Reaction to this Calvinistic trend has been varied. Young and zealous Calvinists with their tight rational system with all of its certainty can come of as (and sometimes may actually be) arrogant and narrow, not respecting the rest of us. I have even met 3 or 4 Calvinists at Perkins School of Theology (and none of them among our Presbyterian students!) which is according to conventional wisdom the sort of liberal seminary where I would never find one.

Now, my own theological perspective is Wesleyan (meaning something like Anglo-Catholic + Charismatic + Evangelical + a hint of Progressive = Wesleyan), which on a couple points is very un-5-point-Calvinist. John Wesley preached a scathing critique of 5-point-Calvinism in his sermon "Free Grace", because he understood the logical repercussions of its teachings.

Here is a very brief run down of the teachings of 5-point (TULIP) Calvinism and why I find it problematic (I realize that this is a gross simplification focusing on the problems not the "pluses," but I think I cover the fundamentals).

Total depravity - this expression does not occur in scripture, but if it means that "every inclination of all the thoughts of their hearts were evil, and that continually" that causes me to wonder why so many non-Christians do so many apparently good (or at least refrain from even more evil) things. Calvin himself addressed this problem with what he called "restraining grace" which is in my opinion very similar to what Wesley called "prevenient grace." Both of them ended up saying the same thing: we are totally depraved in theory, but it doesn't play out that way in practice (Calvin says we are able to refrain from some evil and Wesley says we are also able to freely choose to accept/reject Christ) all because the grace of God is already at work in every person.

Unconditional election - those who are elected by God for salvation are not elected based upon any work or quality of their own. There are no conditions they must meet in order to become the elect, God simply chose them (apparently arbitrarily since "there is no partiallity with him," which is very problematic). This is necessary because our depravity and the corruption of our wills is SO total that if God did not choose for us, then no one would be saved at all. Unconditional election is aimed at the same problem (our broken will) as Wesley's prevenient grace. If Unconditional election is true, then surely God, who wants everyone to be saved according to 1 Tim. 2:4, would therefore act in accordance with his own will and elect everyone for salvation unconditionally, to do otherwise would seem to imply some imperfection in God if he wills one thing (universal salvation) and then acts to ensure it can never happen. Thus if I believed in unconditional election I would immediately be a universalist Calvinist. I am of the opinion that we are elected according to the foreknowlege of God on the condition of our faith in Christ and our consequent and necessary participation in the covenant and the covenant people of God, and that all humans are called to do that by the grace of God, though many reject this calling.

Limited Atonement - Since God chose before the foundation of the world who would be saved, then Christ only died to save those people. Otherwise Christ is dying to save people whom God ordained could not be saved and this would make no sense. This teaching is the one most likely to be rejected by Bible-believing young people who are otherwise tempted by Calvinism since it plainly contradicts explicitly several (and implicitly several more) verses of Scripture, most notably 1 John 2:2. I have never yet met a Calvinist who could explain this one away to my satisfaction.

Irresistable Grace - since God has already chosen who will be saved, they cannot resist his grace to the point of not being saved. They will be saved whether they want to or not (though, I would imagine they will always want to or would not be elected). Along with unconditional election this doctrine would essentially eliminate our freedom to accept or reject God.

Perseverence/Preservation of the saints - those who have been elected may not fall away from salvation, since God's decree cannot be annulled and since grace is irresistable. I tend to lean away from this idea, but with some humility and uncertainty, simply because there are a number of passages of Scripture that speak of Christians "shipwrecking" or falling away from Grace (such as Hebrews 6:4-6, John 15:6, etc.). Though many passages also seem to endorse it.

I think 5-point-Calvinism has erred in some other broad assumptions that lay behind the actual 5 points: 1) I think it is overly individualistic in its understanding of election. God elected Israel as a people (not a collection of individuals) and God has elected the Church as a people. It is no surprise that Calvinism developed after the emergence of Western individualism, but ancient Jews and Christians who wrote the Bible would not have shared our more recent individualistic assumptions. 2) Calvinists tend to assume that God is contained within time. I think it is important to remember that when we talk about God doing something or knowing something "pre" or "before" or "after" that this language is only a glimpse or an attempt to capture a reality that is for us incomprehensible: God, God's knowledge, and even (some of?) God's action transcends time - as bizzare as that seems. Thus the phrase "pre-destination" can be misunderstood to include the elimination of free action, but I think this is an error based upon an overly anthropomorphic view of God. 3) Five-point-Calvinism is too "neat" to be Biblical. As I pointed out above, 5-point Calvinism must simply ignore or explain away several passages of Scripture because they contradict the schema. Of course, the whole point of any schema is that it is neat and anyone can learn it. But the Bible is just not that neat and clean like some mathematical theorem. It is as messy and bewildering and wonderous as real life.

Though I am clearly no Calvinist, I think the re-emergence of Calvinism can potentially teach the rest of us some important lessons. Chief among them: doctrine really is important. I think Osama bin Laden has also begun (in a very different way!) to help those of us in mainline churches and seminaries remember that in theology an "anything goes" attitude toward doctrine really can be dangerous. The Calvinists, who take seriously the need to have a teachings that are Biblical and rationally coherent, will seriously challenge some of the less weighty theological teachers and ideas that are mindlessly accepted in many "mainline" circles.

Another thing that Calvinists can remind the rest of us is that election really is a Biblical doctrine that is at the very HEART of the Biblical story. I would like to see a greater emphasis on the relationship between election and covenant among Calvinists and a re-learning by most of us of the relationiship between covenant and sacraments (Scott Hahn, a Presbyterian turned Roman Catholic, is a worthy teacher along these lines). I think all of us need to reconnect the ideas of election (of a covenant people), covenant relationship, faith, and sacrament (as covenant oath) that all work together in classical Christian orthodoxy. This lesson (that I am admitedly still learning) will help us avoid the extremes of Calvinism (denial of freedom) on the one hand or medieval Catholicism (reliance on self-merit) on the other, and Scott Hahn's book Swear to God is as fine a place to start as any I know (though clearly, he is a Roman Catholic apologist).

Finally, the rest of us should learn to speak more of the "sovereignty of God." I understand this not simply to mean "God is the cause of everything that happens," as some Calvinists often seem to mean, but that God is rightly the Sovereign of the universe. The Kingdom of God is what this story really is about - it is about God, his glory, and his will, and his worthiness of our trust and worship, and really just his wonderous self.

God created the universe and we have misused our freedom (which God graciously allowed us) and have partiallly ripped it away from him by our rebellion (if sovereignty means "God strictly controls every thing" then the concept of "sin" loses its meaning since we could not do anything unless God willed it, in which case even our sins would be according to his will, which is a self-contradiction - this problem was explored by Milton in Paradise Lost). And yet, God's providence is still somehow seen in the various circumstances of our lives and even our past decisions. His will does already reign and yet will reign more fully at the restoration of all things. I freely admit this paradox, but I do not believe it is possible to clearly understand this mystery in a systematic and comprehensive way, the exact nature of the sovereignty of God is a mystery beyond our human comprehension a fact of which the failure of 5-point Calvinism to capture the mystery should make us aware.

Southern Baptist Mission Agency Bans Tongues

The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist convention has voted to bar new missionaries who speak in tongues as a "private prayer language."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/002/1.21.html

I think this decision is interesting for various reasons:

The article seems to imply that public tongues (with an interpretation) would still be acceptable; but in my (limited) experience of charismatic and neo-pentecostal worship, most people speak in tongues to themselves while they pray or sing and public interpretation is relatively rare.

I wonder what it means that a mission agency is banning something that many Christians experience as or believe to be a move of the Spirit? Church history shows that this is often how new denominations form; the Methodists were run out of the Anglican Church and the Holiness/Pentecostals were run out of the Methodists over disagreements about which unusual behavior was and was not a move of the Spirit.

Maybe more tangibly: since neo-pentecostalism is the fastest growing form of Christianity, especially in Africa, South America and Asia, I wonder how this policy will affect Southern Baptist missions and evangelism (if it does).