I was planning one blog entry, and then started another casually, and, after it began growing steroidally, saw a common thread between them. So here they are.

If you want to enter the kingdom, enter it like this…

Jennifer told me that, at breakfast today, Charis, our young two-year-old, begged (or whined) to pray at the table. It was her older sister Evangeline’s turn, but she told Charis that she could pray too. So, Charis folded her hands and said: ” ‘ear ‘od. T’ank you for my waffle. T’ank you for my ‘line. Tank you for my Ca’vin. T’hank you for my Nevin. Amen!”

One of the wonderful things about being a Presbyterian is that we can accept the God’s graciousness not only to us, but to our children. We can believe, truly, that faith alone justifies, even (or especially) the faith of a child, and that no works are required, especially no works only possible for the more mature. Not only can Charis’ siblings be touched by her prayer, but I can encourage them that a member of the household of faith has just spoken to the Lord on their behalf.

I was raised, praise God, by faithful Christian parents so that I also grew up singing and praying to God from infancy seamlessly into toddlerhood. I too prayed to God as a two-year-old, as part of the comprehensive discipleship my parents practiced as commanded by the great commission.

The problem was there was always a sort of “bad conscience” hanging over us. We were typical modern American Evangelicals. Faith wasn’t enough because, as we inherited an overgrown (and yet anemic) ordo salutis from the distant past, a conversion experience was a basic requirement. I had to pass through the ordo to reach salutis. I had to ask Jesus into my heart.

I remember quite vividly being asked if I was born again by my school teachers in Liberia, West Africa. Yet these same teachers, who considered this matter an open question, allowed me to lead class in prayer in Jesus name, and demanded that we pray for forgiveness when we sin.

Naturally, this was a theologically Arminian environment. How could it not be? On the one hand we were being treated like disciples and on the other we were being told we were devoid of the new life that is in Christ Jesus communicated by the power of the Spirit. The flesh was somehow able to profit up to a point. Yet, the fact that we both believed the Gospel and trusted in Christ was not enough. There had to be a ritual, a new sacrament, in effect. One had to say the magic words, the sinner’s prayer.

And when I invoked the spell, I was saved. I could now tell all my teachers the good news. Everyone was thrilled for me. I had passed from death to life.

Oddly, looking back on this environment, I thank God that I was raised by Arminians at home and school. If one adds to this conversionism which presumes to identify itself as Evangelicalism, a healthy conviction of total depravity, and a consistent practice of it, then life becomes truly insufferable for children. I have known of one famous Presbyterian teacher (though actually influenced by congregational Puritan Jonathan Edwards) who taught congregations that they should not allow their young children to pray the Lord’s prayer. After all, how dare they “presume” to call God Father, as the Lord’s prayer does? They are little vipers by nature under God’s wrath and curse. Without a trust in God’s grace to be truly for us and our children, as members of the body of Christ, the “doctrines of grace” become anything but gracious for little ones in the Christian home. How likely is it that I would have embraced the Gospel if I had been raised to believe that, even though I knew the Gospel and was ready and eager to believe it, that my prayers were an abomination to God and I was under his wrath and curse until I “accepted Jesus”? The only way it would have ever occurred to me not to accept him would be if my parents introduced the idea in that way.

Thank God for Evangelical Arminian parents, and for Predestinarian parents who, though they lack a proper confidence in God’s covenant, are at least inconsistent.

Anti-Calvinists?

When I was in seminary a book I checked out from the library was Nicholas Tyacke’s Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism c. 1590-1640. Since that time I have often wished I had access to it. Now that I am back in St. Louis, I went to the library and checked it out.

Tyacke’s first duty, in showing how Arminians took over the Anglican Church, is to show the reader who might have doubts that the Anglican Church was truly a Calvinist institution at one point in time. One of his witnesses is Archbiship Toby Matthew. Tyack shows how Matthew’s responded to the claim by Arminians that “we so preach the doctrine of God’s eternal predestination that we make thereof a mere stoical and fatal necessity, and teach the people that if they be predestinate they shall be saved do what they list, [while] if they be not predestinate they may not be saved do what they can” (p. 18). Here is Matthew’s response to this charge:

Whereas our doctrine is this: that whether a man be predestinate or no, yet he should live so much as may be in a holy obedience. Because if he be predestinate he must make his election sure by well doing, working out his salvation in fear and trembling; for he that hath that hope that he is one of God’s sons doth purify himself, and being a vessel of honor must keep himself fair and clean for the use of his Master, being sanctified and prepared unto every good work. But if he find not himself to be predestinate yet may he not loose the reins to the lusts of concupiscence, as do the Gentiles which know not god, but rather bridle and restrain both his actions and his passions, yea his very affections and perturbations that he receive not . . . deeper damnation, . . . [and] that it may be easier for him in the day of judgment, being ascertained that in the world to come there are degrees as well of torment as reward.

Now, the following response to the above quotation is only applicable if Matthew was truly representative of English Calvinism. Because if he was, then no wonder God decided to bring an end to the Calvinist hegemony and give the country over to Arminians! What on earth would motivate him to allow such a corrupt inversion of the Reformed Faith to prosper anywhere on earth?

Matthew responds to the charge of necessity by, in reality, pleading guilty! God will send you to heaven or hell “do what you list.” Matthew’s only comfort is to assure people that God isn’t totally sovereign. While he controls the final category, you get to choose your level. You can do more for a better heaven or a cooler hell.

What Matthew should have said to be faithful to Scripture and truly represent the Reformed heritage is that Anyone who trusts in Christ will be saved from wrath and will inherit eternal glory. Nothing in the doctrine of predestination changes the fact that all who hope in Christ will be saved. And the job of a Gospel preacher is emphatically not to tell people that they might go to hell, “do what they list,” because there is nothing they can do about it, but to exhort them to repent and trust in Christ in the absolute certain promise that, if they do so, they will escape every punishment for their sins because Christ has died for all the sins of all who are found in Him.

Truthfully, this cheer for Arminianism is somewhat muted on my part because I can’t believe that Matthew could possibly be representative. Thankfully, all the predestinarian preaching I have heard in the PCA has affirmed 1. God’s total control over everything that happens in history, 2. Man’s total responsibility to God for all his behavior, including his acceptance or rejection of the Gospel, and 3. God’s sincere promise to everyone who hears the Gospel that they will be saved (not “might be”; will be) if they believe.

But if Matthew was representative, then I am not surprised at all that God did not see fit to preserve that religious tradition. Who wouldn’t prefer Arminian preaching to that horrible mixture of fatalism and Arminianism?