Category Archives: offsite

John Frame on Horton’s “Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church”

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The title of this book is alarming, certainly by design. But the subtitle is even more so. Does it mean that the whole American church (all traditions, denominations, locations) is committed to an “alternative Gospel?” Or is it that, though part of the American church upholds the true, biblical gospel, there is within that church a movement (evidently a significant movement) to the contrary?

We should keep in mind that such language makes the most serious indictments. To be Christless is to be doomed to Hell (John 3:36). And if someone preaches an “alternative gospel,” contrary to the gospel preached by the apostle Paul, he is to be accursed (Gal. 1:8-9). People who preach “another gospel” are not Christian friends who happen to disagree with us on this or that matter. Rather, they have betrayed Christ himself. The whole church ought to rise up against such persons and declare that they are not part of the body of Christ and that they have no part in the blessings of salvation. Indeed, if they do not repent, they have no future except eternal punishment.

In my view, many Christians (especially those in the conservative Reformed tradition that Horton and I both inhabit) use this sort of language far too loosely, even flippantly. It is time we learned that when we criticize someone for preaching “another gospel” we are doing nothing less than cursing him, damning him to Hell.

But Horton actually indicates to his readers that these charges are not to be taken seriously.

Read the rest at: Review of Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church.

John Piper pushes for a more Biblical understanding of the order and parts of salvation

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Glorification Now? :: Desiring God.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me it would be excellent if the Reformed tradition (i.e the grammatical customs preserved by those who call themselves “Reformed”) reformed themselves to conform more closely to Pauline speech.

Right now, the term “sanctified” is only used for changes relating to sin.  I become less sin-prone means I become more sanctified.  But the change that Jesus wroughts in believers by His Spirit, involves transformation that goes beyond the issue of sin.  The author of Hebrews uses Jesus as a model for believers and says that Jesus himself learned obedience through suffering.  Saying that Jesus had to be sanctified throughout life is impossible.  But if we used the “glorification” we could include sanctification in the case of sinners and yet see Jesus as a model and pioneer.

Excellent post.  Go read it.

Are We Losing Sola Scriptura?

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My point is not to defend Murray’s thesis (though I do affirm it), but to draw attention to the manner in which Professor Clark criticizes it. He does mention several Scriptures, with whose interpretation of Murray’s he disagrees, but this is not the main point of his criticism, and he spends little time on the Bible. Rather, Professor Clark complains that “Mr Murray’s argument was taken entirely [emphasis in original] from Scripture.” Clark finds this “biblicism” untenable for a Reformed theologian.

Read the whole sad thing here: Are We Losing Sola Scriptura?.

Let the courts go where they wish

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I haven’t been tracking anything because it bores me, largely for the reasons mentioned below.  This statement struck me as pretty insightful.

Sotomayor is not going to rend the fabric of the nation. That´s already been done. She´ll probably go along in that muddled way that passes for being a ‘thoughtful´justice.

And that´s as it should be.

I´m all for a period of doing what´s been done. And if the only conservation going on is the conservation of liberal achievements, then so be it. Continuity is still a good thing. The settled law of the land is still the settled law of the land.  We´ve suffered from enough revolution- through- the- courts for me to believe that conservatives should adopt the same judicial activisim in turn.

Libertarians sometimes like to talk about radical capitalism. But to me, capitalism isn´t radical in its essence. It´s conservative. What it conserves is time. The frequent observation that capitalism ¨speeds” up time (you´ll find it in much modern political theory) is true enough at one level. But at another level, capitalism is backward-looking, not just forward looking. It concretizes our past actions, preserves them.

There are many libertarians who like to call  themselves radicals, but I´m not one of them. I like to call myself a tory-bohemian. A traditionalist as to forms. An agnostic and skeptic as to substance.

This makes me fond of style…convention.  Style is not everything, but it´s more than the left realizes. Style is our conversation with the past.

The past is important to me. Very important. And the kind of capitalism that uproots the past and overturns everything in its path is only one face of capitalism — it´s corporatism, gigantism – the out growth of state intervention.

I like to think that  without massive state intervention, capitalism would emerge as something entirely different.

To return to Sotomayor. The court´s been political for decades. Pretending this is something new and not to be tolerated is simply silly. Let the courts go where they wish.

Pat Buchanan gained nothing by opposing Sotomayor for being an activist. I saw him debate Rachel Maddow on her show,  and Maddow cleverly limited her argument to repeating that 108 out of 110 Supreme Court justices had been white males. She knew that one fact was enough.

And she´s right. Demographics have changed, and the court is expected to reflect demographics. Buchanan argued that justices are supposed to be picked for their mastery of legal analysis.  But anyone who´s read case law knows how convoluted the arguments are.  They´re mostly political…and sophistical. And often bogus.

So, arguing for some kind of mastery of bogus ¨legal science¨ isn´t nearly as effective as arguing for what the population wants. And Rachel Maddow is a smart cookie who knows how to argue effectively. It´s as simple as that.

Conservatives would do better to focus on society and forget the court

Read the whole post here.

If only Calvin were read this clearly in the PCA

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When I read Calvin’s massive Institutes of the Christian Religion and other writings, I read a false gospel. The Calvinists often rush to explain that we just don’t understand Calvin or that we’re wrongly interpreting him. I didn’t get the Calvin code book, I guess, because he seems very clear to me, clearly wrong, but communicating it in plain fashion.

via Calvin 500 « Jack Hammer.

Make sure you go read the entire entry before you decide why I posted this.

Heads of Household Membership & Male-Only Voting in the Church

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Increasingly, I have been made aware of an idea and practice floating around in Reformed circles of the need for heads of household membership in a church, with its sometimes attendant practice of “male-heads-of-household voting.” What follows are my thoughts on the practice.

Read the rest at Patriarchy.org: Church Issues.  Let me know what you think.  I haven’t reviewed this in quite some time.

Because this blog can never say enough good regarding Against Christianity

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I just finished reading Against Christianity by Peter Leithart. In this book, Dr. Leithart contrasts compares and contrasts “Christianity” and “Christendom.” Christianity is defined as “a set of doctrines or a system of ideas.” Unfortunately, as the good doctor points out, “The Bible gives no hint that a Christian ‘belief system’ might be isolated from the life of the Church, subjected to a scientific or logical analysis, and have its truth compared with competing ‘belief systems.'” Jesus didn’t come to propose a new philosophy, but rather to establish a new society, the Church. And the Church is not only a new society, but a new humanity, the beginning of the eschatological state of the human race. As Leithart writes, “…the Church presented herself not as another ‘sect’ or cult that existed under the umbrella of the polis; she was an alternative governing body for the city and the beginning of a new city.”

Read the rest at: The Flying Inn: Against Christianity.

“Death in the gallery”

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This past weekend, my husband and I treated ourselves (actually, admission was free) to SLU’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art’s (MOCRA) “Good Friday” exhibit. The exhibit closed Sunday, May 17.

I am a great art admirer. I say “admirer,” not “lover,” because the latter implies knowledge, and I cannot lay claim to much knowledge of art. I am, as Tolkien said of his own relationship to the land of Faerie, “a wandering explorer (or trespasser) in the land, full of wonder but not of information.” [J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories”]

Especially I am attracted to the religious art.

Read the rest: St. Louis Presbyterian Examiner: Death in the gallery.

Scott McKnight on recovering the Gospel of the Kingdom

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Many readers of the Bible read the whole Bible through the lens of the gospel they believe and this is what that gospel looks like:

  • God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
  • But you have a sin problem that separates you from God.
  • The good news is that Jesus came to die for your sins.
  • If you accept Jesus’ death, you can be reconnected to God.
  • Those who are reconnected to God will live in heaven with God.

Every line of that statement is more or less true. It is the sequencing of those lines, the “story” of that gospel if you will, that concerns me and that turns Jesus’ message of the kingdom into a blue parakeet. And it is not only the sequencing, it is the omitting of major themes in the Bible that concerns me. What most shocks the one who reads the Bible as Story, where the focus is overwhelmingly on God forming a covenant community, is that this outline of the gospel above does two things: it eliminates community and it turns the entire gospel into a “me and God” or “God and me” gospel. Who needs a church if this is the gospel? (Answer: no one.) What becomes of the church for this gospel? (Answer: an organization for those who want to do that sort of thing.) While every line in this gospel is more or less true, what concerns many of us today is that this gospel makes the church unimportant.

via Kingdom Gospel 1 – Jesus Creed.

Hat Tip: iMonk

At some point I should research and write about how Hodge may or may not have brought this “gospel” (the one without the kingdom) into Presbyterianism.