By Chaplain Mike

I thought this post from last year (4/19/10) was worth another look. I hope you will too. It’s a bit of a riff on the question asked by the prophet Micah: “What does the Lord require of you?” (Micah 6:8) In the light of last week’s discussions on “radical” and other adjectives we apply to Christianity, these words came back to my mind. I’ve made a few minor editorial changes to the original post.

I hope this will come as a bit of good news to you today. Maybe it will help you stop beating yourself up unnecessarily. I hope it will help us all to that end.

What I have to tell you is:

It’s OK.

It’s OK to just be a Christian.

It’s OK to just be a person who knows and is thankful that God loves you and gave his Son for you.

It’s OK to just be a person of the cross, to know that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again for the world’s salvation.

Really, it’s OK.

It’s OK to be someone who only really cares about trying to love God and love your neighbor.

It’s OK to think that the Apostles’ Creed is a comprehensive enough statement of faith for you, and that you are willing to have fellowship with other people who think the same.

You don’t have to be a certain kind of Christian. Adjectives like”reformed” or â“conservative” or”emerging” or “missional” or “radical” or “passionate” or any number of denominational or theologically constricting labels are not necessary.

It’s OK just to love Jesus and be thankful for what he’s done for you.

You don’t have to go to a “cool” church with a name like “Revolution” or “The Rock” or “Journey” or “The River,” though it’s certainly OK if you do. Your plain ol’ First Presbyterian or First Baptist or First United Methodist will work just fine too. It’s also OK if you attend St. Peter’s and your pastor waves incense around, or St. Basil’s, where intriguing icons invite your contemplation.

It’s OK if you don’t listen to Christian music, shop in Christian stores, wear Christian t-shirts, go to Christian conventions, become a Christian homeschooler or send your kids to Christian schools, patronize Christian businesses, participate in Christian causes, read Christian books, or identify yourself with Christian organizations. You can be a Christian without all that, it’s OK.

It’s OK if you don’t have a big library of theological books or Bible commentaries. It’s OK if you struggle reading through the Bible, because you can’t even make it past Genesis 5 because you can’t pronounce that long list of funny names. A great multitude of believers over the centuries never even saw a Bible, except maybe up front in a church somewhere, and even then they couldn’t read it. Guess what? God knew them and they knew him anyway. How about that?

It’s OK if you have no idea what it means to “engage the culture,” or “have an impact in the world.” You may not really understand what “social justice” is all about. If you’ve never been in a small group or taken a missions trip, never had your spiritual gifts inventoried, never tweeted the pastor during a message and wouldn’t know a PowerPoint sermon if it bit you, it’s OK.

I don’t think it really matters if you know John Piper from Piper Laurie, N.T. Wright from the Wright Brothers, YEC from NAACP, or Willow Creek from Nickel Creek.

You are OK if you stay out of the culture wars. Culture wars? You’re too busy visiting your neighbor who’s in the hospital, taking some food to the family, coaching that little kid who doesn’t have a dad, writing a note to a friend who’s discouraged, making coffee for the congregation on Sunday morning, volunteering at the school, mowing the lawn of a shut-in. Fact is, you’re smack dab in the midst of the real battle, the one those who do all the talking often avoid like the plague.

Oh, by the way, it’s OK if you say, “I don’t know” when people ask you about the burning issues of the day. It’s OK if you don’t have a strong opinion on gay marriage or stem cell research or global warming.

And it’s even OK if you are a bit fuzzy on your theology. If you can’t give a precise formulation of the doctrine of justification by faith or distinguish between the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed teachings on sanctification, you’re still gonna be OK. If you think “rapture” is what you felt on your wedding day, and have no idea of its theological meaning, that’s OK.

It’s OK to say, “I don’t know. Doesn’t make you less of a Christian.

Baptized as an infant? OK. Dunked in the creek as a young teen? OK.

Love to receive communion because you meet Jesus there, but have no idea how to explain it? In my opinion, that’s OK.

Because you trust in Jesus.

You know in your heart that you’re broken and need fixing.

It’s clear to you that he is the only one who can forgive your past, enliven your present, and guarantee your future.

And in response you have found simple ways to worship the One who means everything to you, with others who feel the same.

That’s what you know, and that’s who you are.

You’re just a Christian.

And that’s OK.

By the way, if you know someone like this, you might want read this post to them, because I have an idea they have no clue what the “Christian blogosphere” is, and they will probably never find my words.

That is perfectly OK with me. They’re gonna be OK.

This morning at evangel, Joe Carter voiced some of his frustration at the way the “law/Gospel” distinction sounds to his ears. I’ve wrestled with this myself on this site. Then, in the comments, Carter responded to Jared Wilson- and quoted him- in regard to the relation of the Gospel and sanctification, which he described as “behavior change.” (Quote follows)

Indeed, you did and I think you did a good job. But I also think you added in some stuff that leads to the very problem I’m referring to. For example:

Then, why, for the love of God, do we preach all manner of behavior modification, none of which could save a single one of us, when only the gospel saves.

You seem to be implying that “behavior modification” (i.e., sanctification) is not important. Now I know that this is not what you are saying. But how should other people who may think this statement is to be taken quite literally, be expected to respond? You are creating what could be considered a false dichotomy. Yes, only the gospel saves. But does that mean that Christians are not required to modify their behavior?

When I read this comment this morning, I immediately returned in my mind to my last visit to a church near me, a church I often attend when I am not preaching elsewhere. One thing about this church is predictable: I will hear about the necessity that my behavior must change. I must attend church more. I must do more church-related work. I must give more and witness more (and this despite that I am a full time missionary teacher working with mostly non-Christian teenagers.) I must support the church more. It is a constant example of the “church shaped spirituality” you’ll be hearing about in my book. Everything is about behavior. Behavior that must change. What I must feel. What God requires of me.

When I leave I am, literally, beaten down. The Gospel is a past tense matter and its time to get down to “application.” (Not a bad thing, but something that requires careful gardening.) The over-riding present tense concern is behavior, and I feel it. My behavior is not what the preacher believes it ought to be. And will I hear the “comfortable words” of the Gospel? Unlikely. Somewhere in the relationship between the evangel we proclaim, the offer to the broken and the demands of behavior change we make of the saved, there has been a disconnect. Readers of this site know this language. It is what, as I will say this fall, drives thousands of people away from the church for the sake of their own integrity to the gracious message of Jesus.

We’re on dangerous ground here, friends. Getting the Gospel of justification- a glad announcement of Good News- balanced with reality of Spirit-produced, Jesus-shaped “behavior” change is not just a matter of lining up arguments. It’s a matter of despair or confident assurance in God’s love. Say “required behavior modification,” and I am on the verge of despair, as are many, many others whose journey through evangelicalism has left them hungry for a place to stop and say “Here I know that God loves me, now, with no demands at all.” If you don’t think the sacramental presence view of the eucharist doesn’t touch many of us deeply at that point, you aren’t paying attention.

Why dangerous ground? Because we are talking about two hearts: the heart of the Gospel and the heart of every believer, that heart from which all true Gospel produced, God honoring, Jesus shaped change must flow. Behavior change is small change in the Kingdom if it is not a living garden growing out of soil saturated with the blood and body of Christ.

In my own journey to understand and clarify these issues, there are two resources I have linked more than any other in my blogging since the year 2000.

The first is an address by Dr. Rod Rosenbladt on “Reclaiming the Doctrine of Justification.” It’s in the Modern Reformation archive and should be regular reading for every Christian. In plain language, Dr. Rosenbladt explains the difference between the “law” and the “Gospel.”

Let me assure you this is life-changing help for the Christian who has been told that the Gospel includes “behavior change. The Gospel is an announcement that God has done, in Jesus, all things necessary for our salvation. The announcement has implications for behavior, but the word “required” is not there. The closest thing the Gospel has to a requirement would be the same requirement a drowning man has in stopping trying to swim and stopping resisting the lifeguard and simply resting.

Often, if someone is dying, we say he is “entirely in God’s hands.” This is not just a pastoral expression. It’s the essence of understanding the position of reformation faith. We rest. We stop. We are not involved in required works or required behavior change. We are, hopefully, deeply involved in lives that are in union with Christ and will bear fruit in ways that may be appreciated by others or that are measurable or ways that only God can see.

The second resource is J.C. Ryle’s little essay on The Difference Between Justification and Sanctification. Now some of you may find some statements from Ryle in this article that sound as if he is giving sanctification a place I would not, but a close reading of Ryle will make several things clear:

1) justification and sanctification are separate and not to be confused. 2) Both flow from the same faith resting entirely on Christ. 3) Sanctification is NEVER such a pressing matter that our salvation is cast into question because of our lack of progress in it. 4) The “necessity” of sanctification isn’t a necessity to justification, but a promise that one does flow and grow from the other. So a very imperfectly sanctified man who places his hope in Christ’s righteousness, not in his own, is by Ryle’s understanding “fit for heaven,” not by his works or efforts, but by Christ, through a faith more practiced and much deepened through the battles of sanctification.

The real concern for me is when connections to the Gospel are replaced by the sort of evangelical shorthand that sounds remarkably similar to certain smiling prosperity preachers. Calling sanctification “behavior change” is like calling marriage “washing dishes.” Saying Christians are “required” to modify their behavior turns something that is driven by a mighty and powerful promise- being dead to sin and alive to God- into the category of a “requirement.”

The Christian life is, as someone has called it, “The Promise Driven Life,” not the requirement driven life. The “requirements” of the law- Paul’s word, not mine- do one thing: they kill us. Change, whether in behavior, motivation or any other area of the Christian life, comes by faith in Christ and living communion with Christ in the new creation.

Evangelicals rightly pause at Roman Catholic ideas that grace enables us to do good works, which all adds up to faith. The RC system conflates justification and sanctification without flinching. Would that a few more evangelicals would flinch when our discussion of “behavior change” and the “requirement to modify behavior” begin sounding like the Reformation distinctives are merely semantics.

These aren’t simple issues and Christians reading this site have considered them many times over. Before I close let me mention that hundreds of IM readers have been encouraged in this area by a simple mp3 from New Reformation Press, The Gospel for Those Broken By The Church. If you have never listened to this presentation, purchase it and do so. It will be a real help to you on these issues.

Patrol Magazine is consistently on top of the current evangelical evolution. David Sessions and the Patrol staff have been doing outstanding journalism for two years now. It’s a young evangelical Rolling Stone, the magazine Relevant would like to be. There’s more to say, but this is a true note amidst the confusion that surrounds us. Expect this editorial to get the “people who criticize the beautiful bride of Christ are pathetic” treatment, but don’t be deterred. Evangelicals have their strong suits, strong churches and worthy messengers, but overall, this is what mainstream evangelicalism is cooking. Add Patrol to your feed and stop in frequently.

(Reprinted with permission from Patrol Magazine)

HOWEVER LONG it may take to relinquish its hold on American culture, evangelicalism in the United States—still probably best defined by the British historian David Bebbington as a movement whose members adhere to conversionism, Biblicism, activism and crucicentrism—faces near-certain extinction. It has been blinded by its symbiotic relationship with the Enlightenment, and has perpetually failed to see beyond its hopelessly Western perceptions. Confined to the paramaters of liberal rationalism, it has mounted no challenge to the present political order and offered no intellectually acceptable explanation for how one is to live and think in the postmodern world. As this magazine has chronicled, its brightest children are throwing up their hands in record numbers, defecting heavy-heartedly to less temporal churches, or to no church at all.

But rather than recognize evangelicalism for the sinking ship it is, its cheerleaders are calling in increasingly desperate tones for a regrouping. Last year, a collection of prominent leaders met in Washington, D.C. to consider an “evangelical manifesto” designed to clear up the theological and political confusion that is intrinsic in the movement. In January, the hard-right Web site WorldNetDaily offered a checklist for identifying “true Christians.” Southern Baptists assume the apocalypse is coming from within, and mobilized this year to draw lines between themselves and cussing drunkards like Mark Driscoll and Rob Bell. (Ironic considering that those same leaders, often perceived as “liberals,” are just as insistent on salvaging the term for themselves.) Most recently, the ecumenical journal First Things launched an evangelicalism-focused blog that devoted its first few days to further pulpifying the dead horse. Evangelicals simply cannot stop talking about who is and who is not an evangelical.

This definitional masturbation is frustrating for those who see many of the values typically associated with evangelicalism as worth preserving. First, it behaves as if evangelicalism were once a unified, coherent tradition to which Protestants can return. On the contrary, with its scatter-shot, authority-averse tendencies, evangelicalism has always been a concept in constant cultural flux, particularly in the democratic United States. Some evangelical denominations have kept a firmer grasp on their senses than others, but the broad sweep of American Christianity is hopelessly fractured, diluted, politicized, ideological, nationalistic, and often plain idiotic. The notion that the term and the culture it represents can be salvaged from this smoldering heap is naïve at best.

The fight to define evangelicalism in its latter days also operates on the mistaken premise that an imagined theological purity or conformance to a “lost” orthodoxy, rather than an emphasis on ethics, spiritual discipline and mystery, will revive the power of the Christian church. It is astonishing that so many intelligent Christians seem to believe there is a deficit in emphasis on evangelism and scriptural literalism, and that, if the hatches are just battened down on a more solid “worldview,” evangelicalism can resume explaining the universe to new generations of believers. In this respect, evangelicalism’s true believers resemble the faction of the Republican Party that asserts with a straight face that returning to “core principles,” and not a radical restructuring of priorities, will bring waves of Americans back to the right wing.

But so many twenty-somethings are not calling themselves “post-evangelical” because they know too little theology or have put too small an effort into synthesizing it with reality. They have come from the most apologetics-obsessed generation of Christians in American history, and have realized that many of their prepared answers are for questions that no one is asking. Adrift in the cultural sea, many turned to traditions and theological systems of the past, only to find those similarly unequipped to address the questions of our time. The only choice has been to begin the messy and at times overwhelming process of drafting something new.

The growing collection of post-evangelicals is what the defensive, definitional evangelical fears the most, and could by itself explain the recent obsession with protecting the label. Surely many of the intelligent professors, students, writers and bloggers rushing to its defense have also felt the naggings of cognitive dissonance and the inkling that the world might make more sense if they abandoned some of their cultural presuppositions. But haggling over the details of theology provides a psuedo-intellectual haven from real-world questions, where evangelicals can exercise their minds without coming to any unsettling conclusions. And thus the cycle of definition and redefinition continues, providing endless diversion as it cuts deeper and deeper ruts into what was once known as the Christian dialogue.

Refusing to align squarely with evangelical shibboleths requires courage, but the sooner it happens on a larger scale the better. All signs point to a near future where religion will play an increasingly climactic role in global culture and politics. Men and women who, as Mark Noll puts it in the final pages of The Evangelical Scandal, “think like a Christian”—by which he means “take seriously the sovereignty of God over the world he created”—should be leading the way on the meta questions that are already besieging society. But as long as they are busy drafting manifestos in their barricaded salons, hubristic rationalism will continue charging unchecked into the 21st century.

(Reprinted with permission from Patrol Magazine.)

IVCF at George Washington University has split over reformation theology. There is plenty of interesting reading here, btw. Good article.

Short version: a sizable contingent of students with concerns about a lack of precise reformation theology and overtures to Catholics by their George Washington University IV chapter have split off and formed their own campus ministry.

Collin Hansen, whose objectivity in this kind of story has to be somewhat questionable, gives the historical perspective to make it clear that the theological acumen of the current crop of GW IV students is considerably higher than in the past; high enough that the difference between IV’s statement on justification in 1960 and 2000 caused alarm.

InterVarsity’s Bear Trap Statement, adopted in 1960 at the national staff conference, specified that sinners are justified “by the Lord Jesus Christ through faith alone.” By contrast, the Doctrinal Basis of 2000 said that InterVarsity believes in “justification by God’s grace to all who repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.”

The word alone’s shift in placement is significant, said Doug Sweeney, professor of history of Christian thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

“Tridentine Roman Catholics could not sign the Bear Trap Statement, for justification by faith alone was anathematized at the Council of Trent,” said Sweeney. “Such Roman Catholics could sign the 2000 statement, however, for Catholics have always taught that salvation is found in Christ alone. Further, the 2000 statement allows for a Tridentine commitment to the necessity of faith being formed or perfected by love before one is finally justified. This is the doctrine that the 16th-century Reformers opposed most strenuously.

Lurking in the background of this controversy are two figures not to be missed: Capital Hill Baptist Church, a reformed Southern Baptist Church in D.C. that is the home to 9 Marks Ministries and N.T. Wright, whose theology questioning the achievement of Luther, etc on justification is- surprise!- leading an exodus of evangelical students into the Roman Catholic Church, or so we hear.

As a Southern Baptist, I’m always ready to look on the bright side of a church split, but this story can’t help but remind me of one of the defining moments in Reformed evangelical history: Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ refusal to take part in the 1954 Billy Graham Crusade in London. Lloyd-Jones was distressed over the direction of evangelicals being involved in an ecumenical movement with liberal churches, some of which tolerated denials of doctrines like the Virgin Birth. His refusal to be part of that Graham crusade set the tone for the conservative evangelical approach to evangelicalism and explains why you don’t see John Stott referenced particularly often by the young, restless and reformed.

I’m not much of a joiner, and official organizations involving various kinds of Christians can make me as nervous as any reformation Christian, but on the level of “common fellowship,” mercy ministries, church planting, encouragement for reform within various churches, appreciation of mutual faith in Jesus and a good meal, I’m in favor of a generous evangelical ecumenism. I could have cooperated with Graham and spoken my mind on where I parted from him and his methods/message. I’ve cooperated in many a fundamentalist area-wide crusade where I had to hold my nose at manipulation and rotten theology, but we made it through and I haven’t had any problem saying I disagree with those knuckle-head tactics.

I doubt that IV has a lot to worry about on the national level with this sort of division, but it demonstrates that when we talk ecumenism, Nicene creed confessionalism and so forth, our reformed Baptist brothers and sisters are thinking how to separate over issues like where is the “alone” in the statement on justification? Christ alone is Catholic. Faith alone is reformation. Of such divisions will the new evangelical ecumenism be made.

The 9 Marks blog is increasingly, uh…interesting….from a post-evangelical perspective.

Jonathan Leeman writes about the danger of seminary profs being disconnected from the local church, a point that I fully agree with based on scripture and my own experience in a Christian school. But when you are reading reformed Baptists, you never get a free lunch. Along with his thoughts about seminary professors and churchmanship, Leeman comments on what he heard at a recent conference at Gordon-Conwell.

Most of the speakers seemed only too happy to treat Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox as “brothers and sisters in the faith,” as easily as a Baptist might refer to a Presbyterian. Now, I trust that some RC and GOs are Christians, but such unqualified, unnuanced passing remarks effectively dismiss the Reformation and jeopardize souls. Don’t you realize the effect your passing comments have on sheep?

As John H at the Boar’s head Tavern comments, this is the view of the reformation that prevails among the YRR: It was the true believers separating from the unbelievers.

John H quotes someone who might know a bit about the Reformation: Martin Luther. Luther’s view?

We on our part confess that there is much that is Christian and good under the papacy; indeed everything that is Christian and good is to be found there and has come to us from this source.

For instance we confess that in the papal church there are the true holy Scriptures, true baptism, the true sacrament of the altar, the true keys to the forgiveness of sins, the true office of the ministry, the true catechism in the form of the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the articles of the creed.

Similarly the pope admits that we too, though condemned by him as heretics, and likewise all heretics, have the holy Scriptures, baptism, the keys, the catechism, etc. [...]

I contend that in the papacy there is true Christianity, even the right kind of Christianity and many great and devoted saints. Shall I cease to make this pretence?

This no doubt explains why Luther hasn’t appeared on the program of Together For the Gospel.

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict the 16th takes one of the most bold steps in reuniting the church any of us will ever see by creating a way for faithful Anglicans who seek communion with Rome to remain Anglican under Anglican leadership. It’s a stunner, and a move that will probably result in thousands of Anglicans moving to Rome.

It will be interesting to hear TEC’s and ACNA’s response to this move.

The two visions are work here are compellingly different and need little comment. Benedict the 16th is making a historic overture that underlines what has happened in Catholic Christianity since Vatican II. My allowing Anglicans to be Anglican, he presents a new model of communion that holds substantial possibilities within world Christianity. It is an example of Christian vision that seem, at least to me, to be about the Gospel in ways that we should all be able to appreciate.

Could we all ask ourselves this question: How could I meet other Christians halfway, and not demand that they become like me to be legitimate?

Could we consider how long we want to be the ones dictating terms of “true Christianity” to the Catholic and Orthodox communions?

In 1983 I was finishing seminary and serving as youth minister at a church near the seminary and populated by mostly seminary students and their families. Among the non-seminarians was a single mother and her 15-year old son Bryan. Bryan was what some would call “special needs.” Severely autistic, Bryan gave no outward signs of communication. He lived in a self-contained world of a few repeated movements.

Bryan and his mother had been part of the church for years and were much loved. Bryan accompanied his mom to adult Bible study, worship and Wednesday fellowship meals. She gave him commands for everything. To any observer, it appeared that nothing much registered with Bryan and nothing came from him in any form of communication.

One day, Bryan’s mother came to see our pastor and asked that he baptize Bryan. While we could not see his faith in Christ, she could, and as his mother, she was asking that he be baptized and be included as a professing member of the congregation.

If you aren’t a Baptist, let me give you the short course of why this was a problem. We believe that a person who is baptized must be able to make a credible and intelligible profession of faith as an individual before a local church. Not to be saved, but to become a member. Despite whatever we do on “infant dedication Sundays,” baptism remains, in every Baptist church, an entrance into the local congregation by way of one’s own confession of faith in Jesus.

Credo-baptism can be confusing to non-Baptists, because we don’t believe that there is any saving action in the act of immersion itself, but that the confession of faith in Christ that occurs in Baptism (or even AS baptism, if you like) is evidence that a person has placed faith in Christ and received the grace of God.

There are other, secondary, aspects to baptism that also come into play. For example, baptism is a “pledge” of a conscience that rests upon Christ and an “appeal” to enter into fellowship with the people of God and the Lord’s Table. I’m not trying to start baptism argument #256 here (and I’ll moderate accordingly), but these aspects of our Baptist view of baptism are important to what happened next.

Our pastor- a brilliant preacher and scholar- stalled. He didn’t know what to do. He told Bryan’s mother that he needed to get a advisement and input from the leaders of the church, since he would be undertaking an action of behalf of that congregation.

As you can anticipate, the congregation and church leadership were divided. One group said that Bryan’s mother was the person who we should pay attention to. She, more than anyone else in the church, was capable of speaking to Bryan’s spiritual condition. If she said Bryan understood the Gospel and was trusting Jesus, then baptize him.

The other group, which included yours truly, said that Bryan could not fulfill our church’s constitutional requirements for church membership and should, as Matt Schmucker says in his piece, be treated as one of the church’s children. In this church, that was not a matter of being the target of exclusion or revivalistic preaching, but of nurture, care and inclusion in every way.

What happened? Our pastor baptized Bryan. In the water, he talked to the congregation about the love Jesus had for Bryan and how Bryan’s condition was a constant parable of our own condition apart from God’s grace. He was confident that Bryan, in his way, responded to that love and was a believer.

I was, I believe, both right and wrong.

Our church constitution was, as Baptist churches see these matters, correct. Bryan was not able to make a profession/confession of faith in the terms in which our church defined those things.

But the Gospel is a greater thing than a church constitution, and if you don’t know those occasions when one needs to give way to the other, there is no point in having a church constitution at all.

In our tradition, those who come seeking baptism are not doing a work, but are giving testimony to what God has done for and in them. In the saving grace of God, they are passive. Should we put the active aspect of baptism before the passive aspect of the grace of God in salvation, we will misrepresent the Gospel.

Bryan was that test. I was right in how I read our church order. I was wrong in not seeing that Bryan and his mother were giving us a chance to magnify the Gospel.

My pastor was a wiser man and today I am as well. I do not know what happened to Bryan, but I look forward to seeing him in the Kingdom that is to come, when all of our brokenness falls away. In the meantime, may the Christian community be a witness to greater and greater grace.

“You called and you shouted
broke through my deafness
now I’m breathing in
and breathing out
I’m alive again!

You shattered my darkness
washed away my blindness
now I’m breathing in
and breathing out
I’m alive again!
I’m alive again!”

-Matt Maher, “I’m Alive Again,” 2009

WATCH: This short video- 8 minutes- of the building of a Gothic worship center for Covenant Presbyterian (PCA) church in Nashville. Don’t comment without watching, please.

Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville is a new church (1990) with an incredible worship center.

Jesus didn’t build cathedrals – or impressive temples- on earth. The New Covenant is explicit: the old temple worship and ALL its externals- are gone.

I don’t believe God wants most churches to build cathedrals to worship in. Most churches, as I see the cross cultural church planting task, should consider whether they even need a building, at least for a very long time. There’s a lot of reasons not to do this.

The resources spent on a Gothic Cathedral like this are mind-boggling. The economics of Jesus seem plain enough. the commitment to upkeep is massive. Such expenditures could fund missionary church planting efforts of monumental significance, print millions of Bibles, eradicate vast hordes of poverty and revolutionize the mission of the church in many places. (I have no idea what CPC’s resulting commitment to missions is, by the way, and I’d like to know.)

But I have changed my mind a bit on this subject, so stand by and take notes if you are tracking my inconsistencies.

I think some churches- and CPC Nashville seems to be one of them- should build beautiful gothic cathedrals if they can.

You see, God gifts us creatively and artistically. He gives some people the means and the gifts to express art to the glory of God in ways few others can.

In music. In stained glass. In architecture. In construction. In design and in the resulting worship and liturgy.

Some churches need to release those gifts into the culture, so that a city can see a gothic cathedral and experience worship sacramentally (aha!) in the glory of a physical worship center and all that can happen there. Some churches. Not all.

I know some will disagree, and to a large extent I am with you. I have to admit, the Planetshakers version of evangelicalism as a rock concert/stadium event with no real emphasis on preaching, the sacraments or beauty has made me appreciate what I’m seeing here, and particularly…

1. The presence of young adults
2. The sense of relating the building to the legacy of Christ in the community (But many great churches stand empty. Some are even Mosques. That can be naive.)
3. The desire for many other ministries to be spun off and resourced from this.

The upkeep, etc is a concern. I don’t know if I could ever be part of a church that did this. I’m uneasy at the whole business.

But I am really glad…really, really glad, that some churches can and do turn their gifts to this kind of tangible, visible, sensual sermon on the Glory of God.

God’s hand and peace on Covenant Presbyterian in Nashville.

NOTE: Would love to know from any CPC members if there was a theological process of presenting this kind of massive expenditure.

In short, religion hasn’t always carried around the obligation to “prove” God and his ways. As far as Christianity goes, it was a buy-in into rationalism that produced the kind of rationalistic fundamentalism that is, in my opinion, driving a lot of evangelicals into positions of increasing hostility to the findings of science. It’s common to read intelligent Christians, sometimes those who work in fields requiring technical proficiency, talking as if our default position toward science must be absolute skepticism or worse.

This morning at church, a little child sang “Jesus loves me….cause the Bible tells me so.” I wondered if that same child, wanting to be a doctor or an astronomer someday, will find out that they need to add verses like “The earth is 10,000 years old….” and “All scientists are lying….” Thankfully this isn’t true in every Christian communion. Please speak up if it’s not yours. Someone surely needs to know.

The divide between rationalistic apologists on the one hand and mystics/practitioners on the other is there for anyone to see. Evangelicalism has developed an entire personality of the rational devotionalist who can convince you that the Bible is whatever you want it to be in the realm of knowledge, from a book about the love of Jesus to a manual for all scientific knowledge to a diagnostic manual for the psychiatrist.

Suggest that dinosaurs might not have been on the ark and watch what happens. Evangelicals are puzzling me right now. They do know that Dr. Francis Collins is an evolutionist, right? He’s not on staff at AIG.

While I’m sure Armstrong can be faulted in some of her intellectual history, I have to agree that evangelicals are increasingly a group determined to set faith over against science and to find a way to put the word “Christian” in front of everything so that it’s OK for us to handle it.

I have sometimes wondered how much of my life I’ve spent listening to people who were, in their presentation of their beliefs, making no appeal to me other than a kind of badly aimed rationalism, where the fact that they could speak loudly and wave their views around convincingly was supposed to make up for any real personal credibility? How many blogosphere theologians are living the life taught by the Christ they constantly rant about being at the center of their life? Is the impression that many are living no different than anyone else in this culture just me?

The second article is part of Trevin Wax’s 2009 interview with N.T. Wright regarding his recent book responding to John Piper’s book criticizing his views on justification.

I constantly come across people who love both Wright and Piper, and they want to know how the two sync, or don’t. Wright’s answers to these specific questions regarding the differences between himself and Piper are very clear. If you are one of those people who imagine they can both be on target, I’d say you should think again.

Wright’s contention is that Piper and other reformed voices tend to displace justification outside of its place in the Biblical story and make it virtually the entire story. I’d say that not only do they do that, but they are quite ready to label you as a dangerous heretic if you have any argument with that conclusion.

I’m not prepared to say Wright’s views are flawless- his idea of the “whole life lived” always has me hitting the brakes, though his longer explanations usually help- but I’m firmly in his camp as to where justification occurs in the overall message of the Bible. It’s bizarre to say that locating justification properly is somehow rejecting it. Those who do reject justification deserve to be deemed dangerous. Those who make less of it in the total picture of the Bible than some do aren’t in that category at all.

The crisis of this moment has several parts, and like Episcopalians, particularly ones in Mississippi, they’re all related. The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of all being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention.

Not being a confessional church, this sort of thing isn’t quite as surprising as it would be if a Baptist said it, but it still underlines why the rifts in the Anglican Communion are about truly significant issues. I can spin these words to where they are better or worse, but what’s actually being said here? Let me suggest it’s something like: “Those of you forming the ACNA are no longer real Anglicans. You’ve become fundamentalist revivalists.”

You can read the whole address here.

My lowest of the low ecclesiology has the following essentials: 1) Keep the truth about Jesus safe, especially from smart Christians. 2) Constantly encourage me to be a Jesus follower in my sphere, not your church. 3) Assist me in those aspects of following Jesus that can’t be done alone, like baptism and the Lord’s Supper. 4) Know your place in God’s missional playbook and don’t act like you’re the whole show. 5) Don’t make stuff up to justify what you’re doing, then carp at me for not buying it.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Read Tim Brister’s post, Where Extraordinary Grace and Celestial Joy Meet.

I’ve been around Tom Ascol on occasion for more than 20 years. If you know much about the (dreaded) Founder’s movement, then you know everything I am about to say here, and everything that Timmy says in this post on an incident of restoration at Grace Baptist, Cape Coral, Florida, last night.

If Tom Ascol were Michael Spencer, or just about anyone else, the Founder’s movement, and the good fruit that has come from it (and you have no idea, folks. Really) would have almost certainly never come about. Grace Church would be on pastor five and the big issue would be whether to turn the music up to 11.

Tom is smart and articulate and ten other things, but he’s a pretty average guy in a lot of others. With all due respect to Tom, he’s what we call where I work “a plodder.” He’s not slow, he’s just not in a hurry. He does what’s right today, and twenty years later he’s still doing what’s right. He’s not out to grab hold of the next new thing or be credited for jaw-dropping innovation. He’s content to do the faithful thing that others have given up on, to show you that it can be done. When you’ve given up, quit, burned out and otherwise become of little use, Tom is still there, doing what he was doing when you started, keeping his hand to the plow and not looking back.

So last night, Grace Baptist received back a member they had disciplined 14 years ago. Read Timmy’s wonderful account. When you read that story, the heart of it is this: who did this drunk know- KNOW- he could call and who did that drunk KNOW would still be there, the same man with the same Gospel, more than a decade later? I’ll help you: it wasn’t the pastor on the billboard.

At most churches, if that desperate man had called the pastor of the church that he’d been baptized at, they would have had 4 pastors since, and the new guy would be too busy working on the problem of how to get a motorcycle into the service to stop and counsel that most famous of time wasters, a “repentant” alcoholic/addict. It would have wound up on a 21 year-old intern’s “to do” list between “be seen at Panera Bread. Twitter about it” and “buy new man purse.”

Tom stuck with his church through times when, as a Calvinistic pastor, the only things you heard about your church were criticisms from state and national voices about how you and your church were an insult to the concept of evangelism and missions. Tom never fired back in anger, he just came to work, nurtured Founders and Grace church, evangelized, started stunning ethnic work, sent missionaries overseas and kept at the task of preaching and pastoring. I notice that Tom is home a lot more than most of the names in the reformed resurgence. I assume that’s on purpose, and typical of Tom Ascol.

In the meantime, he kept his family, raised his kids, lived through enough hurricanes that you’d wonder what God was mad about, and then experienced- literally- a personal lightning strike that should have killed the rest of us. Tom wouldn’t die because he had things to do tomorrow. (I would have stopped ever preaching the book of Job after that, Tom.)

I’ll make a risky statement: I’ll bet Tom’s wanted to quit a few times, and didn’t. I’ll wager he’s had opportunities to leave the local church pastorate and do other things, but hasn’t. (Most people would make Founders full time, just to be impressive.) I’d be almost certain Tom has had opportunities at larger churches. But he’s stayed, to see it all through and to see it through to the good stuff, like what Timmy describes, that only happens in the years most people never see in ministry.

A lot of us are stuck in the evangelical wilderness. We long for a church that takes God seriously, and therefore takes this life seriously. We long for a pastor that is so dependably predictable that you know when you sit down you are going to hear about Jesus and the Gospel again. We long for a pastor that isn’t preaching the culture war, the denominational message-of-the-month, the latest church growth card trick. We want a man of God who could lead the church to put you out and still love you enough that 14 years later you’d call him and he’d bring you back.

But those guys and their churches are very rare. In my world, they are too far away to drive. Two hours to a good church doesn’t work for me. (I know you’re over there, Bill.) But for too many people with twenty churches five miles away, this pastor is still not there.

So take a moment and read about one faithful non-superstar servant who has, in the Kingdom, his denomination, his church and the life of one drunk, made a significant difference by “plodding” the Gospel in one place, in one calling, as long as God gives him opportunity. And despite the lightning strikes.

Thank you, Tom, for being one of those pastors I can always think about and remember that what scripture says about church and the men called to serve it isn’t describing the impossible in this world of ours. It’s just describing the rare and the seldom attempted.