Ministry – Page 4 – LOVE | ACCEPT

Punk Ethos and the Disciple of Jesus

I don’t make any secret of the fact that some of my favorite music is Punk rock. Not the MTV, stuff but the old-school, hardcore, Mohawked, three-chord PUNK RAWK that is guaranteed to get a circle going if more than two people are listening. Some look at the music and musicians from a distance and pass judgment saying that no Christian should be anywhere near this kind of music. In general, I have to say they’re wrong. There might be some overly nihilistic bands that feed the undercurrent of despair among their fans but by and large, the Punk genre has an ethos that fits well with the Lord’s message.

This past week I have been witness to an unprecedented amount of finger pointing that screamed ‘Why don’t you care about this or that situation’. The trouble is, it stops right there. You rarely see people act on the injustices that they criticize you for crossing to the other side of the street to avoid. The punk ethos is different. While it criticizes the social wrongs of this world, the folks of this tribe are also know for acting on the problems as well. Rather than pointing my finger at you and whining because you don’t care about poverty or the homeless or the elderly I going to do something about it and then encourage you to join me.

Jesus could have sat off at a distance pointing to the myriad of brokenness that he surveyed and then implored his disciples to do something about it but that wasn’t His style. He got down in the dirt with the woman about to be stoned, He crossed the racial and gender dividing lines at the well, He touched the lepers and so many other act of mercy and grace. His style is my style and we hope it will be yours as well.

But I’m not going to pull my ‘Hawk out and wonder why you don’t devote yourself to the same concerns as I do. The Spirit works His ministry differently in all of us.

Tragedy and a Theological Loss For Words

Two tragedies have intertwined themselves in my mind as I worked today. One is a current news story not unlike the heart breaking incident with Addie Kubisiak that broke our hearts last winter. It appears that a women has kept the bodies of infants who she possibly miscarried wrapped in plastic in various parts of her home. Little else is known at this point. The other story was a reminder of the destruction of a young family on a downtown Denver street at the hands of a drunk driver who plowed through a red light running over the entire family as they crossed the street to get hot chocolate last November. This picture can still bring me to tears: Becca Bingham still keeping her children close as she escorts them into the arms of their savior.

While the professional theologians can spend their time immersed in the Word in an effort to bolster certain theological positions or to identify certain Greek or Hebrew structures, the Pastors of this world must search the Scriptures to help provide answers to a world that asks of our God, why, why why? Why does He allow these things to happen? How does one answer the problem of Evil in a world that has little concept of what total depravity means. What can the pastor offer to the father who must now face life alone and broken?

How do you tell this father (sitting leftmost in the picture in the front pew) to go on despite this tragedy. Theologian Steve Camp insists that we give it to him straight: there is no way to know whether or not his children are in heaven being comforted by the Lord Jesus or condemned to an eternity in Hell. Camp looks sideways and says, c’mon, we all know that you Pastors just say that the children received a special mercy just to comfort the father, knowing all the while that it isn’t true. Here is his post on this subject: Weekly Dose of the Gospel.

While Camp correctly asserts that even babies are inflicted with a sinful nature from before their birth, the theological positions on infant condemnation are not as clear cut as he likes to proclaim as he posts on a variety of subjects. It does not appear that the Lord viewed those unable to make a conscious decision to accept Him as under condemnation:

Matthew 18:3 – And he said: “I tellyou the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 19:14 – Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

These are the condemned? There are indications throughout Scripture that persons are held to a different moral standard of responsibility and we must consider them carefully before exclaiming that the Scriptures are silent. Deuteronomy 1:39 for example:

And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad –they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.

All is not as cut and dried as some would like to make it. It may be nice to be insulated from tragedy and be able to speculate and make proclamations about the destinies of the men, women, and children who we all come into contact with on a daily basis, but it comes with a responsibility. As for me, I would rather walk among the wounded and help them to trust the same sovereign, merciful God that I trust. Lord Jesus, bring us peace.

Gracism: I Will Life You Up

In Gracism, David Anderson highlights Paul’s analogy of the body in 1 Corinthians 12 as a call for unity in the body, with all members weak and strong contributing to good of all other members. No division of any kind is approbated for God designed his body so that each is reliant on the other and none are to stand alone. Anderson roots much of his book in verses 21 – 26:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, , while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Doing Life Together From this passage, he distills seven principles for the Gracist to put into practice.

“Special Honor” – lifting up the humble among us.
“Special Modesty” – protecting the most vulnerable among us from embarrassment.
“No Special Treatment” – refusing to accept special treatment if it is at the detriment of others who need it.
“Greater Honor” – God, as a Gracist, has given greater honor to the humble.
“No Division” – when the majority helps the minority, and the stronger help the weaker, it keeps us from division within the body.
“Equal Concern” – having a heart as big for our neighbors as we do for ourselves.
“Rejoices with it” – when the humble, or less honorable, are helped, we are to rejoice with them.

In applying the first principle, the Gracist is committed to locating and lifting up those who are the fringes or our churches, our communities, and our cultures. This includes those who are in any kind of minority or in need of a voice at the table because their own is too weak or quiet to be heard. It takes extra effort to locate these brothers and sisters but as Paul teaches, these parts are indispensable to the whole and require special honor.

When we who perceive ourselves to be in the majority or in a position of authority attempt to put this into practice, David gives a word of caution in selecting our approach. There are many ways of offering ‘special honor’ that can be misperceived or denigrating to the very people that we are attempting to honor. Prayer is most appropriate but we can remove any authoritarian barriers by also asking the recipeint of our prayer to be in prayer for us, making us all equal in our need of the grace of God. We must be sure that any attempt that we make to lift others is seen by them as honoring to other than ourselves. He gives the excellent example of his church adopting a community in which they could come and serve and lift the people of that community. A wise leader cautioned him on his use of the term adopt as it connotes an authoritarian position over the weaker community, diminishing them and making them feel like children. A better term, he opined, would be to partner with the community, humbling the church and lifting the community to equal places at the table.

Who are the people in your world that need Special Honor?

Gracism and Racism

Anderson defines racism as ‘speaking, acting or thinking negatively about someone else solely based on that person’s color, class or culture’ in Gracism. It is productive to add an aspect of power on the part of the racist that extends over the oppressed but we can continue in our discussion of David’s book without it. In beginning to lay the foundation of his ideas, Anderson begins by making the case logically and theologically that inclusion within the body of Christ makes sense in this day and age. Not only does the Bible make a clear case for reaching out to all people but it also makes clear our reliance on one another.

The excursus of 1 Corinthians 12 begins with an observation of Paul’s insertion of a reference to race and culture in verse 13:

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body–whether Jews or Greek, slave or free–and we were all give the one Spirit to drink.

The apostle didn’t casually mention the union of all members of the body and then toss in this reference to race and culture. In fact, it can be argued that this applies a filter through which the remaining verses of this pericope are to be read. A new reading of the verses 14-27 points us to action; anyone who may feel, look or truly be ‘unpresentable’ or ‘weaker’ must be handled, and even honored, differently. The Church body should never be content with those that surround them, they must constantly be looking toward the fringes looking to include other parts of the body who something to contribute to God’s mission.

We as the body are confronted with questions that derive from this idea. We must ask ourselves first if our church, small group, or Bible class represents a group that Christ would assemble, being inclusive as He was. We must confront our choices by asking if we are perpetuating segregation among Christians and simply justifying it with my preferences and comfort? Those who militate for multi-ethnic churches within the Body must prepare for disagreement. Anderson recounts an attack from an African American man who felt that his message was against the black church, calling him a menace. His reply is stark where he says:

I’ve never read a text of Scripture that outlines God’s design for a one-race church….As much as I love the black church and at times miss it, there will be no black church in heaven. There will be one church and it will be multicultural. One bride, not a harem, is what Jesus is coming back for.”

A sobering thought for those who insist on continuing in unicultural ministry. Are you truly reflecting your Lord?

The Seduction of Compromise

Compromise is a winsome suitor. She will tempt you with promises of peaceful agreement on all sides if only you are willing to lower your standards to meet the needs of the other side. It is a seductive ploy, tempting you to soften your position with a siren song of calm and a self-image of one who is not stubborn but willing to consider the ideas of others. The trouble that compromise brings though is that it never ends. Once you have compromised what you believe to be right, it will be expected from you again and again until one day you are no longer able to compromise any further, then what? Will you stand on your principles then?

2 Timothy 4:3-4 says “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” For the pastoral leadership, compromise is death. The temptation comes to the pastor in the form of concerns about the size of one’s church or the retention of a congregation. Murmurs will begin about how other churches do things, or about how happy a family would be to stay if only the Sunday school did such and such, or worship will be limited to the same 15 songs because a musician that you ‘need’ will not learn any others… and so on and so on. The pastor will say, ‘I’m a servant of the people’ and he or she soon becomes a people pleaser.

The trouble is, people are rarely satisfied and will continue to demand that you compromise. One day, you’ll look up and decide that you are not going to compromise any longer, that you are going to stand on your principles and guide the church according to your original vision…often looking at suddenly empty seats where the family you changed ‘A’ for used to sit. And over there is a chair where so and so who you changed ‘B’ for used to sit and so it goes around the auditorium. You were afraid they wouldn’t stay if you stuck to your guns in the first place and it turns out they wouldn’t stay anyway because you were unwilling to make them more and more comfortable.

The work of God is not about making people comfortable, it is about making them uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with their sinful state, uncomfortable with their lack of concern for justice, uncomfortable with their lackadaisical relationship with the Father, uncomfortable period. God has given you, the shepherd a vision for where the sheep are to be led. There are no shortcuts on this path and the journey is hard. Don’t let one little wandering sheep pull the entire flock off of the path. Do what’s right from the beginning.

Views on Divine Election: Corporate & Open

The view that election in the Bible is corporate in nature is one of the least discussed and considered positions when this topic comes up for discussion. William Klein, one of my seminary professors, wrote the seminal book on this topic in The New Chosen People. In order to understand this view of election two terms must be inextricably linked in your mind: corporate and vocational. Any discussion that purports to refute this view without this pair of terms front and center should be dismissed out of hand due to its ill formed argument.

Election as Corporate and Vocational

1 Peter 2:9 provides a starting point from which to work: “But you are a chosen people , a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (NIV) The challenge to the predominant belief that election is about a number of the fallen being unconditionally or conditionally chosen for salvation begins with the reading of plurality found in this body of scripture. Rather than election as individuals, election is seen as a people group. Thus, when Peter writes that ‘you are a chosen people’ (cf. NASB – race, KJV – race, RSV – race: race confers community better than the NIV choice of ‘people’) he is speaking corporately and he assigns their God given mission in saying ‘that you may declare the praises of him’. Election then,is about a people and their God-given task. God’s objective in a corporate election is found in the calling given to this people: not the salvation of a few but the gathering of the nations into an eschatological fellowship. The election of the community is a component of God’s comprehensive will to save humankind.

The Corporate view developed out of theological struggles with what Calvin himself calls a dreadful decree (Institutes 3.23.7) in which God who on one hand exclaims His love for the whole of the world while simultaneously electing some to salvation and choosing others for destruction. Barth (himself one of the greatest Calvinist theologians) diverged from his mentor as he considered the Augustinian double predestination that the theological framework demands and found it unacceptable saying that makes God out to be two-faced saying ‘that it makes it sound as if God were saying to humanity, not “yes” but “yes” and “no”‘ (Church Dogmatics)

Theologians Paul Jewett and William Klein, among others, point out that when the topic of election is raised in the Bible, it is consistent in referring to the elect as a class, not individuals. The plural language puts election into corporate terms, Klein saying “The biblical data present an impressive case that election is not God’s choice of a restricted number of individuals whom he wills to save but the description of that corporate body which, in Christ, He is saving.” (New Chosen People) This notion is most clearly portrayed in the election of Israel as a people through which the world will be blessed. The Church continues in this tradition as those elected in Christ to carry on the blessing of the world. This election is not for privilege however, but for vocation. God calls a people to himself in order to change history. The corporate entity elected by God would be His covenant partners in the salvation of the whole human race. The called community has the potential to be an advance representation of eschatological future, attractive and welcoming those still outside the community (1 Cor 7:29).

Conclusion

This view of election is little discussed in the shadow of the ongoing Calvinism-Arminianism tussles but it presents a substantial enough body of texts and logic to prevent it from being dismissed out of hand. Though it can sometimes veer into the areas of Open theism and Unviversalism, it is representative as a whole of the loving character of God presenting Him not as capricious and arbitrary but as desirous of the salvation of all of His children and His willingness to use the Church to to fulfill this desire.

Alternate Views:

The Calvinist View

The Arminian View

The Supralapsarian Calvinist View

The Sublapsarian Universalist View

The Calvinist Struggle with Truth

See this simple post…yet another horrific example of the evil that exists in the dark hearts of men.

But is this really an example of the total depravity of humankind? Those with a theological understanding of depravity must admit that an equally appalling vision of depravity is seen when you and I view our visage in the mirror. The Calvinist must take it one step further and ask the ultimate cause of horrors like Darfur, like the Holocaust, like …

Calvinism (and any theology derived from Augustinianism) is ultimately determinist meaning that God’s sovereign will is exercised as the cause of all things, including human acts. Gordon Clark says “I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do it.” (Clark, Religion, Reason, and Revelation, 221) Without a libertarian free-will, the man would be unable to not perform this wicked act and though the ultimate motivator for this heinous act may have preceded the moment by several hours or months or years, a determinist view sees all events from the beginning of time until the end to be causally connected like links in a chain (cf. Sproul, Invisible Hand). If God has arranged things in such a way that previous events and the choices associated with them cause those that follow and these choices are irresistible, events and choices must be seen as God’s intentional activity. Calvinist Edwin Palmer puts it bluntly as he intones that ‘the Bible is clear: God ordains sin.’ (Palmer, The Five Points of Calvinism pp 85, 103, 106)

To return to the earlier mentioned post that confronts us with a picture of a refugee child being shadowed by a buzzard and the suggestion that this shows the ‘total depravity’ of humankind. As mentioned before many times, the total depravity point of the TULIP has nothing to do with measurement of evil, only that the bond between God and man is so completely wrought that only divine intervention can repair it. Given that, how do we work through Calvin’s system without coming to the conclusion that this scenario was anything but determined from the beginning of time? The Calvinist who thinks about their theology can come to nothing other than a morally reprehensible conclusion about God. Many will attempt the canard of ‘permit but not decree’ but the logic required by the theologian to supportion this notion is so uncomfortably twisted as to lead inevitably back to the previous conclusion.

Let’s think about our theology and ensure that it matches the whole of God’s revelation. So many times, we claim a theological standard that we have not given sufficient consideration to. This requires that we examine the possibility found in alternative systems before declaring them heretical. We must come to a conclusion: God is the author of sin or God is love.

Views on Divine Election: Supralapsarian Calvinism

Within the Calvinist soteriological discussion, there exists an intramural debate regarding the order of God’s sovereign decrees for redemption and reprobation. Specifically, the question to answered is this, when the decrees of election and reprobation came into being was humankind considered to be fallen or unfallen. In other words, what did God have in view when His decrees were issued. Did He contemplate humankind as collective members of a corrupt, fallen mass or, were they seen as simply as beings that He would create. In the earlier discussion of the traditional Calvinist view, the majority Infralapsarian position was detailed. Briefly, the Latin infra locates the decree for election after the Fall and makes the objects of that decree fallen and corrupt. The complete ordering of decrees (as detailed by Boettner in Reformed Doctrine of Predestination) reads then as:

Creation
Permit the Fall
Election to redemption
Decree the work of Jesus Christ as atonement
Sending of the Holy Spirit for the application of redemption

Supralapsarianism

Those who order God’s decrees in a Supralapsarian fashion place the decree to election to redemption and eternal life and reprobation and destruction prior to the Fall. Thus, the reordered decrees would be:

Election of some of the future creation of humankind to life and others to death
Creation
Permit the Fall
Send Christ to redeem the Elect
Send the Holy Spirit to apply the redemption

With Beza as his teacher, Arminius was exposed to this plan’s ordering and it became one of the primary factors in the development of his theology. He vehemently disputed this idea as, for Arminius, it made God the author of sin and ran completely contrary to His holy character. By placing the discriminating decree in the first position, God exercises His sovereign will to elect humans as humans, not fallen humans.

The debate between the infralapsarian and supralapsarian positions is very speculative as scripture does not provide an overwhelming body of evidence confirming one side or the other. The choice is largely made along the lines of procedural logic (the rational planning principle.) Placing God’s will over the lives and eternal destinies of His creations in the forefront of all of His succeeding decrees manifests His sovereignty in what some theologians call the greatest example of soli Deo Gloria. They are convinced that this exercise best brings glory to God, the predominant aim exhibited in Scripture for all of God’s activities.

Other Views on Election

Views on Divine Election: Traditional Calvinist

The key to understanding the Calvinist notion of divine election rests in shielding the sovereignty of God from any effectual interference by humankind. Election to salvation is rooted purely in the sovereign grace of God and it is unconditional in every aspect; it does not rely in any way on the behavior, belief, or action of the man or woman on which it is visited. Calvin says:

We shall never feel persuaded as we ought that our salvation flows from the free mercy of God as its fountain, until we are made acquainted with his eternal election, the grace of God being illustrated by the contrast—viz. that he does not adopt all promiscuously to the hope of salvation, but gives to some what he denies to others. It is plain how greatly ignorance of this principle detracts from the glory of God, and impairs true humility. (Institutes III, xxi, 1)

Calvin is quoted in a different context restating this principle a bit more starkly:

Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which he hath determined in himself what he would have to become of every individual of mankind…eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for other. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say he is predestined to life or to death. (Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature ‘Calvinism’)

The Calvinist view of election has three facets; it is unconditional, individual, and infralapsarian, and scriptural references abound in support of each of these ideas. When election is referenced in this discussion, the Calvinist has in view a salvific election, one that produces salvation from perdition. This is an important but often overlooked distinction because theology also recognizes that there is an election to service and many theological disagreements balance on the recognition of this fine point. Careful exegesis is required then when stating unequivocally that one’s theological position is absolute; remember, context must always be considered when referring to a single verse in support of a tenet. Let’s look at each of the facets on their own.

Election is Unconditional

The U in TULIP represents election as unconditional; God graciously elected some to be saved according to His sovereign will without respect to their individual qualities, characters, or choices. This means that the choice was not conditioned on something that humans would do or the choices they would make, their behavior (good or bad) or any unique characteristic that might separate them from those who are bound by their sin and headed to perdition. Unconditional election is forwarded as the position that brings the greatest glory to God. Because salvation requires no human agency from start to finish God appropriately receives all of the glory for the transaction.

Scripture: Eph 1:3-6, Rom 9:10-16, John 17:2,6

Election is Individual

Election to salvation is done on an individual basis by God, bypassing one while selecting the next. While scripture speaks of God choosing a people, the Church, or a bride, this election is composed of the collective individuals who are recipients of His grace. This deeply theological concept contributes in a much greater sense than just scholastically. The joy that the recipient feels is heightened by the idea that God the Father has elected them as an individual. They are not a faceless part of the whole but a known entity to the God of the universe.

Scripture: John 6:37, Acts 13:48

Election is Infralapsarian

The question that remains in examining the Calvinist view of election has to do with the timing, or sequence of God’s decrees. The matter to be answered is when did God decree that salvation would be granted to the elect, before or after the decree to allow the Fall. Calvinist theologians can indicate disagreement on this point, some leaning toward Supralapsarian timing while others take the Infralapsarian view. The orders of each are:

Supralapsarianism (Decree of Salvation/Reprobation precedes the decree to allow the Fall)

The decree to save some and condemn others
The decree to create both the elect and the reprobate
The decree to permit the Fall of both classes
The decree to provide salvation only for the elect

Infralapsarianism

The decree to create human beings
The decree to permit the Fall
The decree to save some and condemn others
The decree to provide salvation only for the elect

Of the two, the dominant position through Calvinist history has been the Infralapsarian position though the issue is often left in an indefinite state that allows for a melding of the two positions. Once again, the theological desire to protect the sovereignty and the moral integrity of God is foremost in the conduct of this intramural argument. When searching the Scriptures for support, an important cue to remember is that when election to salvation is seen, it must logically follow that the need for that election is driven by a humankind that requires saving.

Scripture: Acts 13:48, Rom 8:29-30

Conclusion

The unconditional nature of election to salvation is key to the entire Calvinist theological framework. When contrasting this system with others, much of the debate hinges, knowingly or unknowingly on understanding the true positions of competing theologies with regard to election. It is incumbent upon us then to glorify God through our devotion to proper scholarship before engaging in any form of definitive declaration as to the validity or illegitimacy of positions not our own.

Solus Christus

Other Views on Election

Calvinism & Arminianism: Election 2007

The sotereological frameworks of Calvin and Arminius have been widely debated since their codification and there remains today an ongoing kerfuffle, especially in hyperventilated world of the blogosphere where anonymity often shields the purveyors of ideas from having to support them by examining their underpinnings. The positions taken are often of the ‘I’m right because my beliefs are beyond challenge’ sort and any engagement usually degenerates (with proper Christian faux-humility – e.g. ‘forgive me for disagreeing’, ‘we pray you’ll come to understand your error’, etc.) into disagreement without adequate consideration of the opposing position. What I often discover being left out of these C&A spats is any discussion of one of the fundamental differences between the two schools of thought, the concept of election. Because an understanding of divine election is so critical to being an educated participant in the debate, my contribution to the conversation will be to outline the different positions that are taken, starting with the classical Calvinist and Arminian positions.

God is glorified and our faith enriched when we all contribute to the conversation and I would encourage anyone who has something to add to do so. That said, I have but one requirement and that would be that sources and citations be included with your statements. This helps all who read the threads to follow up and explore our points further AND it prevents us from furthering mythological positions that have no actual support. As an example, the Arminian position is often misrepresented on several points. For one, there is a meme that winds up in many posts that states Arminian theology as seeing humankind as less than totally depraved. Though it is completely untrue, this idea is passed from person to person without any real effort made to discover whether or not it is correctly representative of the theology. This lack of scholarship is not glorifying when discussing the matters of God.

So, on with the show…