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.

I haven’t put this essay over here in the current post format, so some of you may have never read this one. Remember, it’s an oldie, with quite a few references to things that aren’t true anymore (like me leading worship at a church on weekends.)

iMonk 101: Looney Tunes: “Praise and Worship Theology” is goofy

I defend myself from false accusations

Nothing stings the iMonk quite like the charge of hypocrisy. As a man of principle, I seek to avoid having the wagging finger of the disappointed public in my face, accusing me of phoniness.

So I must answer a recent charge made by a nameless autograph seeker who was briefly allowed inside the Internet Monk compound. With shock and not-a-little awe, this friend observed the Monk’s collection of contemporary Praise and Worship music. “Hey! I thought you were, like, really down on all this contemporary Christian music? How come you’re listening to it in the same office where you write all that stuff saying it’s bad for the church?”

It is, in fact, true that the Monk’s vast collection of music still contains a generous amount of CCM, and a considerable stack of Praise and Worship music. I must, however, say that my friend is sadly mistaken if he’s read my work and concluded that I have no place for contemporary Christian music in my life. Such is not the case, nor do I ever expect it to be the case in the future. Even though the vast majority of CCM is, in my opinion, boringly bad, I still find many artists worthy of my support.

Am I a rank hypocrite for listening to music at home that I do not use at my church? I’ll admit that I have a strange adherence to my own version of the regulative principle that excuses me from any sin accrued from listening to this music, some of which I would probably not use at church for reasons only crack-smoking Calvinists can understand. So unless you are willing to read the Puritans on worship, put that finger back where you got it.

Since you stopped in, however, I can tell you in a sentence why I enjoy contemporary Praise and Worship music a thousand times more on the stereo here at the Monk’s compound than in any church anywhere:

Here at home, I don’t have to listen to the drooling theological nonsense that comes along with Praise and Worship music use these days.

The iMonk said it.

Yes, the iMonk said: Evangelicals can’t stop turning methodology into theology. It’s astonishingly simple, and frighteningly common.

Do something. Roll over. Sit up and beg. Start using Powerpoint. Set up an idol of Baal in the parlor. Marry Larry King. Anything.

If it works, then an appropriate theology will be quickly supplied. Methodology, i.e. what we choose to do, if it works, becomes theology, i.e. what we believe about God, and what we believe God has endorsed.

Take the public invitation as an example (a subject I may have exhausted in three IM pieces this year.) Baptists started telling people to walk the aisle if they were responding to God. People walked. Within a year, theologians published the well known book, Everything God Has To Say About the Invitation. Here’s a quote.

“We now know that the Holy Spirit is pleading with you to walk the aisle. We know that if you hold on to that pew, you are resisting the Holy Spirit. We know that whatever goes on down front is the work of the Holy Spirit. We know that the Bible is talking about invitations in Southern Baptist Churches when it says “Take up your cross and follow me.” We didn’t know any of this stuff UNTIL we figured out what worked. Then God opened up our heads and poured that theology right in there.”

Understand this, and you may understand more than you want to know about evangelicals. Increasingly, the only theology that matters is the kind we cook up to justify whatever circus we are trying next. And THAT is why I can listen to P&W at home, because I can just listen to the music, and not to the worship leader explaining to me the following spectacularly looney theological revelations.

Gotta Love a List

WARNING: The following list contains a near-lethal dose of theological malarkey. There is so much raw blarney here the page is glowing. Take it easy, be careful, and don’t try this at home. In other words, please understand that this list is all wrong!

1. Contemporary Praise and Worship music is especially anointed of God. Advocates of P&W have lost the capacity to realize that Christian music companies will say anything to sell product. Once a couple of thousand units are moved, then “God is all over it,” and the artists, producers, musicians and girls working at the checkouts are all anointed by God with a special anointing.

This cynical use of a powerful Biblical concept to sell CDs is number one on my list of stupid things said by Christian worship leaders. I don’t want to be insulted by being told I have to like the next tune because God gave the lyrics in a dream or manipulated by testimonies of how this song has been anointed for the salvation of teenagers from broken homes.

God doesn’t anoint songs, bands or songwriters in any way differently than He anoints any other Christian. Worship leaders and Christian musicians need to call off the ego mania and read the Bible.

2. God has sent contemporary Praise and Worship music to…..

A. Revive the End Times Church before the Rapture. This is patently ridiculous.
B. Break down “religious strongholds” in the church. I think this means that God wants us to act strangely and say it’s the Holy Spirit. Losing a “religious spirit” seems to be Churchspeak for doing something that used to get the ushers on your case.
C. Minister to the special issues of “this generation.” “This generation” seems to be a movable term that most often applies to young people willing to fight you to turn the front of the church into a mosh pit. Apparently, this generation has special needs that preaching, teaching and prayer can’t reach. We’re supposed to believe that contemporary Praise and Worship music was sent by God to help young people from single parent families experience His love. God loves those kids, but this little bit of Hallmark card theology can get lost.

This type of spin gets lots of applause with people devoted to the idea that the Gospel isn’t nearly as exciting as what God is doing in the weekly dramas happening in these last days, end-times, free-in-the-Spirit churches. Churches that use lots of contemporary Praise and Worship music want you to know that God gave this tool to them, and you can see the results for yourself. How dare you say it’s marketing?

3. Praise and Worship Music evangelizes without preaching. I’m fairly used to hearing Christians “amening” their favorite music, and I’ve heard the occasional comment following a great song, “We don’t need a sermon. Let’s just have the invitation.” I’ve always figured this was about wanting to get on to the restaurants as early as possible.

But now, advocates of contemporary Praise and Worship music are saying that their music is anointed for evangelism, and preaching just gets in the way. After mesmerizing the crowd with 20 repetitions of their favorite anthem or ballad, these folks think the invitation ought to be next on the agenda, no preaching needed. Heck, a lot of these people would walk off a cliff if the cute worship leader said so, so why not have an invitation?

(I will confess bitterness here. I was once asked to speak for 10 minutes after an hour set by a local P & W band. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Dozens of girls and guys immediately ran out of the congregation and straight after the band, wanting- I suppose- advice on the Christian life. I’m not bitter. I spoke to the exhausted crowd, who really appreciated the chance to sit down and relax after an hour.)

With apologies to those who actually put a comprehensible Gospel in their music and presentation, it appears to me that the majority of Praise and Worship music falls somewhere between pretty good use of Bible texts to complete nonsense. (NOTE: This has greatly improved since I wrote this essay.) Preaching, when done right, proclaims Christ and how to be saved every time it opens its mouth. Any theology that says God can preach through whatever He chooses is good by me. Any theology that says leave out the preached Word is a loser, in my opinion.

4. Praise and Worship Music brings down the Holy Spirit. Among systematically goofy theology, this is one of the patriarchs. Starting innocently as the constant quotation of “the Lord inhabits the praises of His people,” (metaphor alert!) we are now told that if we really get into the music, and keep singing, “God will show up.”

I’ve heard this so often that I can’t believe I haven’t stood up and screamed yet. We are talking about telling people 1) That despite what scripture said, God isn’t with gathered Christians 2) until we make it happen by singing praise choruses. We bring God down into the room with music. (Gulp.)

Of course, what we are really doing here is identifying God with some good feeling generated by electronics and people singing together. (Idolatry alert!) “I just really felt like the Lord was in the worship today.” Well so what? When are any of our feelings the measurement of God’s reality? God PROMISES to be present with His people when they gather in His name. Music is completely irrelevant to the intention of God to keep his promises to His people.

5. Praise and Worship music brings a unique experience of God’s Glory. I’ve dealt with this in another essay, but it deserves a smack up sida the head here. Not only do these overconfident worship leaders claim special anointings and powers in P & W music, but they frequently assert that the music is mediating an encounter with the “glory” of God.

God’s glory is a major Biblical theme, and encountering the glory of God would qualify as the greatest trauma a sinful human could experience. The contemporary Praise and Worship crowd apparently believes that Christians are now invited to become like Moses, and experience the glory of God routinely.

In order to keep the encounter with the divine manageable, it turns into an event mediated by the church worship band. And seems to have a lot to do with getting “into” the songs. (Is this starting to sound vaguely familiar? Is anybody getting irritated yet?)

6. The overridingly important factor in deciding what church to attend is MUSIC. Sometime in the last 5 years, the majority of evangelical Church-hunting Christians I know have made the decision about where to go to church based almost solely on music (or “worship” as they perversely call it.) The deciding vote is usually, “We like the worship.” Which means we like CCM, and we like the band, and we like the fact that going to a church service is kind of like a concert, the kids like the music, and it’s the same songs I hear on the radio.

This is, of course, personal preference, and not theology, so have I broken stride? No, there is theology all over the place here, and it’s some of the most serious theological nonsense of the bunch.

Scripture hasn’t exactly left the church-shopper without a list to go by. Even with the divergent views on what scripture teaches about the church, it’s clear that church government, leadership, the sacraments, preaching, teaching, discipleship, doctrine and church support of the family are all areas where scripture gives some guidance of importance to any of us who are picking a church. Yet, I am not aware of any way to read the Bible that places music in such an important place in church life.

Music is part of Christian worship and Christian art. We’re interested- as we ought to be- in how music participates in the life and worship of the church. But there is simply no way- in normal circumstances- to justify music as the deciding factor in church selection. To do so is to betray a consumerist mentality rather than a Biblical worldview.

Theology? The implication is that the Holy Spirit is leading in such a choice. Even more importantly, the message is that music is the important factor in Christian growth and discipleship. My Christian consumerist friends are quite certain that it’s what happens during the 45 minutes of music at their church that will make the greatest different in the life they lead during the following week.

That’s outrageously wrong, and I can’t imagine why evangelicals are tolerating it. The demotion of preaching and the elevation of music is an invasion of the church by a culture that wants less content, less authority and more experience and feeling. Post-modern apologists may make the case that preaching is passe’ (and some forms of it always will be) but preaching as a divinely sanctioned methodology has Biblical theology on its side.

(By the way, a big iMonk salute to my friends who bucked this trend this year and joined churches where the Word was the main thing, and music had its appropriate, and secondary, place.)

7. People worship better with contemporary Praise and Worship music. Now….how can we put this nicely?…….We can’t. It’s arrogant and stupid to call a bunch of choruses played by a band “worship.” This little inanity has made it into mainstream Churchspeak and shows no signs of going away. (Even Rick Warren agrees. Ha!) Ever heard these lines?

“We had about 40 minutes of worship, and then the Pastor taught on giving.”

“I can’t worship at any church that doesn’t have the words on an overhead. I just can’t do it.”

“I think you’d like the worship better at our church. We’ve got three bands now.”

Are any comments necessary? How lame is it to say that a mini-concert with hand motions is “worship” and everything else is what we did before, after or instead of “worship”? Since when do we worship “better” based on whether we are singing “A Mighty Fortress” with piano or “Shout to the Lord” with a band? Do these people have any idea what worship is anyway? Maybe this will help:

Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So am I saying that music can’t facilitate presenting myself to God in response to his mercy? Music can facilitate that response, but saying that we, therefore, should choose a church based upon music is saying that it isn’t the message, but the presentation that makes a spiritual difference, and that’s terribly wrong.

8. Contemporary Praise and Worship music is used by the Holy Spirit to bypass the mind and go directly into the human spirit where real change can occur. I feel dirty typing such an absurd sentence, but it’s the unfortunate claim of many people who ought to know better. Advocates of P & W get all bleery-eyed talking about how this music just goes right past all those mental objections and barriers and ministers directly to the spirit. This kind of kookicity seems to come from the spiritual warfare camp, where tales of doing an end run on the devil by slipping in through music are pretty common.

What’s bad about this piece of theology is its rejection of the mind and its promise of getting people into the Kingdom without a fully aware decision to embrace Christ. Some might say this seems to be honoring the sovereignty of God and ought to be good news for Calvinists, but Reformed Christians are not looking for mindless Christians. We want to follow Paul in appealing to the mind and heart, persuading with a message and a ministry. Paul who, by the way, repeatedly rejected any kind of manipulation.

9. Contemporary Praise and Worship Music is taking music away from the devil and using it for God. Theology at work here: giving the devil credit for the appeal of the larger culture, especially music, and then sending the church on a mission to raid the pantry.

This reads like some nitwit prophecy that the Beatles were supposed to make music for God but Satan took them over and it wasn’t until CCM that God got the music back. Maybe evangelicals can’t find a positive way to do ministry, so they need to loudly proclaim just how close they are to the world in order to draw a crowd?

In other words, if the culture likes it, make a Christian version of it. That’s our appeal? Come down to church where the band is better than the group at the bar? “Taking back what the devil stole” sounds like a t-shirt at a TBN telethon.

Whatever music we make and however we make it, let’s do it for the glory of God and our joy in Him!

10. Using contemporary Praise and Worship Music is necessary for a church growth breakthrough. Little theology is evident in this, my last observation. It’s pure pragmatism. I hope you have caught on by now that we can expect the theology to follow. And, of course, it has. Read the above nine points. Articulated by the church growth gurus and evidenced by 23,000 people and nine services at Saddleback Valley’s Easter services, who can argue? It’s a God thing. Right? Perhaps. Or better, let’s hope and pray so.

I don’t believe that a “church growth breakthrough” in suburban America is going to need everything that is contemporary Praise and Worship music. Many good churches utilize such music in services that include strong Biblical preaching and other elements of Biblical worship. But then my argument isn’t against using the music per se, and it’s certainly not a quarrel with churches that seek to do worship Biblically with as much music as leadership believes is appropriate.

What I want to say is that if such growth occurs, the extent to which music is responsible for that growth is the extent to which we ought to be suspicious of that growth, and ask if the Gospel is being openly proclaimed? If growth occurs, we ought to be able to say with Luther, “The Word did it all!” However that Word came into the life of the church and bore fruit in the lives of Christians matters little, because God is great. But the same Word says that God is pleased to honor scripture, preaching and His sacraments as proclamations of the Word. Music is an echo, a teacher, an underliner. And in that role it is to be commended.

I commend those churches whose use of Praise and Worship music has avoided the theological numbskullery in this essay. May they grow and grow and grow some more. I commend every worship leader and musician who can see the proper place of music and works to keep music as the constant servant and encourager of the Word. I intend to keep enjoying praise and worship music, and encouraging it to have a God-centered, Biblical and God-glorifying purpose. Let’s pray that churches who are foolishly building an empty theology based on methods that work will humbly seek the truth that brings the power of freedom and life in Christ.

The current reformed and Calvinist revival loves Spurgeon, as well they should. It’s a regular feature of the most influential new-Calvinism web sites and ministries to quote Spurgeon for and against whatever the issue of the week happens to be. Spurgeon’s face is as much a brand logo of the new Calvinism as you will find.

Spurgeon’s church, The Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, is still in business, and that church has a prominent pastor, Dr. Peter Masters, who has a very influential voice for Calvinism across the pond. Dr. Masters isn’t a major voice in America, but many of the Calvinists you like, especially of the Macarthur variety, have been to the Tabernacle and preached at Dr. Master’s conferences.

His newsletter is still The Sword and Trowel, an obvious indicator that it remains the voice of Spurgeon’s kind of Christianity. It is not an exaggeration to say that Dr. Peter Masters sees himself as a successor to Spurgeon’s brand of particular Baptist Calvinism, and he writes and preaches with this responsibility frequently in view. Be careful. I am not saying Dr. Masters claims any of the authority of Spurgeon, but he does not run from representing his views on Biblical Calvinism as in line with the Calvinism and overall theology of Spurgeon.

So, if you will, please take a cold drink, follow the link to Dr. Master’s column on the current condition of American Calvinism, and when you’re done, return to this web site for a few observations.

In short, Dr. Masters calls out the new Calvinists, from A-Z, for compromise and abandonment of true, Biblical Calvinism. It’s the biggest throwdown within the current Calvinistic family I’ve ever read, and I’m stunned that no one- particularly at Challies, Between Two Worlds or Teampyro- has picked this one up. If I’ve missed it, my sincere apologies.

Who gets tagged as a compromiser? Sheesh. Who doesn’t get tagged?

Called out are……everybody. Driscoll. Piper. Mohler. People associated with Macarthur. Mahaney. T4G. Resolved.

Here’s the meat of the piece. (The “book” he references is Colin Hanson’s Young, Restless and Reformed.)

Resolved is the brainchild of a member of Dr John MacArthur’s pastoral staff, gathering thousands of young people annually, and featuring the usual mix of Calvinism and extreme charismatic-style worship. Young people are encouraged to feel the very same sensational nervous impact of loud rhythmic music on the body that they would experience in a large, worldly pop concert, complete with replicated lighting and atmosphere. At the same time they reflect on predestination and election. Worldly culture provides the bodily, emotional feelings, into which Christian thoughts are infused and floated. Biblical sentiments are harnessed to carnal entertainment. (Pictures of this conference on their website betray the totally worldly, show business atmosphere created by the organisers.)

In times of disobedience the Jews of old syncretized by going to the Temple or the synagogue on the sabbath, and to idol temples on weekdays, but the new Calvinism has found a way of uniting spiritually incompatible things at the same time, in the same meeting.

C J Mahaney is a preacher highly applauded in this book. Charismatic in belief and practice, he appears to be wholly accepted by the other big names who feature at the ‘new Calvinist’ conferences, such as John Piper, John MacArthur, Mark Dever, and Al Mohler. Evidently an extremely personable, friendly man, C J Mahaney is the founder of a group of churches blending Calvinism with charismatic ideas, and is reputed to have influenced many Calvinists to throw aside cessationist views.

It was a protégé of this preacher named Joshua Harris who started the New Attitude conference for young people. We learn that when a secular rapper named Curtis Allen was converted, his new-born Christian instinct led him to give up his past life and his singing style. But Pastor Joshua Harris evidently persuaded him not to, so that he could sing for the Lord. New Calvinists do not hesitate to override the instinctual Christian conscience, counselling people to become friends of the world.

One of the mega-churches admired in the book is the six-thousand strong Mars Hill Church at Seattle, founded and pastored by Mark Driscoll, who blends emerging church ideas (that Christians should utilise worldly culture) with Calvinistic theology.

This preacher is also much admired by some reformed men in the UK, but his church has been described (by a sympathiser) as having the most ear-splitting music of any, and he has been rebuked by other preachers for the use of very ‘edgy’ language and gravely improper humour (even on television). He is to be seen in videos preaching in a Jesus teeshirt, symbolising the new compromise with culture, while at the same time propounding Calvinistic teaching. So much for the embracing of Puritan doctrine divested of Puritan lifestyle and worship….

A final sad spectacle reported with enthusiasm in the book is the Together for the Gospel conference, running from 2006. A more adult affair convened by respected Calvinists, this nevertheless brings together cessationists and non-cessationists, traditional and contemporary worship exponents, and while maintaining sound preaching, it conditions all who attend to relax on these controversial matters, and learn to accept every point of view. In other words, the ministry of warning is killed off, so that every error of the new scene may race ahead unchecked. These are tragic days for authentic spiritual faithfulness, worship and piety.

If Masters were in the states, we’d say he’s selling fundamentalism. The call for separationism from anything not independent Baptist and fundamental; the insistence on excluding contemporary music and anything remotely Charismatic; the concern that anyone following the Puritans be…..Puritan in style and message. All of this is recognizable as fundamentalism.

Masters is upfront with his issues: Puritan theology divested of Puritan “lifestyle.” No compromise with the world means putting a host of issues, like dress and charismatic worship, into the category of essential matters.

Does the critque of someone like Peter Masters matter to American Calvinists? Probably not very much to the Young, Restless and Reformed who are listening to Piper at Resolved right now as I am typing. But Masters is raising the issue of the shape of true reformation, an issue that the eclectic, cafeteria-style new Calvinists would like to avoid.

It’s not just the issues that separate mainstream Calvinists from people in a bunker in Wyoming. It’s the issues that separate the OPC and the PCA; the issues that differentiates Mark Driscoll from Mark Dever; the issues that cause John Macarthur and John Piper to have such radically different views of Mark Driscoll.

Masters wants to be representing the “old line” of English Calvinism that culminated in Spurgeon and led to a resurgence of Calvinism in Britain under Lloyd-Jones and Banner of Truth. Instead, he comes off advocating a kind of “Calvinistic bunker;” trying to avoid any contact between the Christian and the culture.

In his day, Spurgeon had a great deal in common with Mark Driscoll. His popularity was of the superstar variety. His language was often described as “racy,” with no implication of profanity, but with a good deal of shock on the part of the religious establishment. Spurgeon’s preaching style took him out of the church and into public venues, where he became one of the few preachers to ever have someone in his audience trampled to death by a panicked crowd. Hyper-Calvinists and traditionalists found Spurgeon to be a dangerous innovator. Spurgeon might have identified more with Masters than with Driscoll, but the younger Spurgeon would have understood Driscoll.

In the future, don’t be surprised if a significant number of the young reformed follow the interpretations and style of men like Peter Masters back into the ghetto reformed theology sometimes seems to prefer, and don’t be surprised if some of today’s reformed heroes lose some of their luster in these kinds of contentions.

Reformed Christianity’s uneasy relationship with fundamentalism has been going on for a long time. At times, the reformed and their fundamentalist cousins are on the same page, but other times they couldn’t be more different. One doesn’t have to look far to find major league reformed blogs that flirt with fundamentalism one moment, then repudiate fundamentalism the next. Is it possible to detect a bit of frustration on Masters’ part toward men who he has judged as “with him” at one time, but who now seem far too tolerant of the other team.

The association of some Calvinists with fundamentalist ideas about culture and separation is nothing new, but a call-out from someone as prominent as Peter Masters is. It will be interesting to see if any of the leaders of the “new Calvinism” respond to Masters’ case.

For myself, I appreciate Dr. Masters’ zeal for a Christian community that reflects the totality of his own theological commitments. This is one of the great strengths of fundamentalism. Unfortunately, this community is not Jesus-shaped, but shaped into the image of a history of pure reformed practice. Once again, we see the tortured quest for the true church, this time identified as those who have renounced teeshirts and loud worship bands.

Those who fall into the center or the boundaries of the “truly reformed” are nervous that others are engaging culture with Christ and the Gospel rather than with the ideal of a pure, separated reformation. When Christ engages culture, there is a separation- a separation of what is essential to the Gospel from what may be engaged, appreciated and used within culture. There is a quest to put the Kingdom above any form of the church in culture and history, a quest that is never completed, but which is seen in the kinds of ecumenical Calvinism many have come to appreciate.

The question of faithfulness to the Gospel, scripture and the example of a faithful church is always relevant and needed. But not every answer is equally faithful to Jesus himself. Would Jesus stand apart from Christians with bands, tee shirts and Charismatic friends, and stand with those who confess the Puritans as model Christians? I do not think so. They would not matter as much to him as they do to some advocates of relevancy, and they would not offend him like they do Dr. Masters.

A Jesus shaped spirituality has to make these choices and live with the results. Following Jesus doesn’t take us into the bunker or make us so much like the world Christ cannot be seen. But our distinctiveness isn’t “the Puritan Lifestyle.” It’s the Gospel and the Christ-centered life it produces.