Friday is for Rawk! Rick Derringer

This Rawk Friday will be a little different as I won’t be sharing one of my photographs. Instead I wanted to point you to a true story of transformation and redemption in Rick Derringer. Some of who are a little older remember Rick in the McCoys and then providing a part of the soundtrack to our high school years in the seventies with Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo! (still, one of the greatest songs ever). Derringer has seen a change in his life that many of us can relate to as his attention slowly turned from the excesses of the world to the life we were meant to live. I’ll let a part of his testimony take over here: (read the whole testimony here)

 I have come to realize that the Lord allowed me to survive drugs, alcohol and sins of the flesh so that I can stand here today as an example. A living, breathing example for all of you who think there’s no way out; for all of you who think you’re trapped in your addictions. The Lord can fix it all! He can bless you with the strength to beat any addiction. He died on the cross for your sins and gave you the opportunity to spend eternity in Heaven.

Rick’s faith is not a passing-Paris Hilton phase in his life. Check out how he has rewritten one of his signature songs ‘Still Alive and Well’. Originally a paean for his friend’s recovery from addiction, Derringer is using his music and his stage to bless others now. 

Just in case you forgot or missed it back in the day, here’s an old video of Rick playing with Edgar Winter and doing Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo

Rick Derringer’s Web Site: www.rickderringer.com

By the way, he sells one of the greatest albums of all time there (Derringer Live) so stop by and buy two or three copies. 

Theological Balance

As I prepare a lesson on AVL trees (a form of balanced BST), I notice the similarity of the imbalanced tree and the least God-honoring thing that occurs in theological discussions within many blogs. For example, many adhere to a Calvinist theology and in support of that they have read much of the standard corpus on the topic and can quite handily post quotes from these works on their blogs. Many times, the posts are without comment, I suppose to confer some finitude to the quote that is posted as if to say, here is a statement by John T. Ulip which says that Calvinism is right, all other theological constructs are wrong and no analysis is necessary.

While the pursuit of truth is noble, the true pursuit of truth requires the engagement of opposing viewpoints to the same degree as you pursue those you agree with. In other words, the Calvinist (or Arminian) library should be nearly equally filled with works representing both theological schools. This is far different from presenting a quote by Mr. Ulip who says Arminianism is false and heretical; you honor God in your pursuit of the truth by reading deeply from both schools before presenting something as fact. In matters of theology, it is not acceptable to believe something is wrong simply because someone else told you it is wrong. God gave you a mind and the ability to use it to discern truth, and you honor his gifts in you by coming to a decision from the fruits of your own labors.

Because, after all, the Arminian is also going to say “the Arminian view is correct because the bible teaches it.” How will this argument go? Is, is not! Is, is not! 

How Desperate?

A familiar praise chorus that plays in my mind quite often is that soaring, multi-note verse which we sing “I……I’m desperate for you” in a cry from our heart to Jesus. We love to sing the song to our savior or even just hear it playing on the CD player but what would Jesus really desire from us? Is he pleased with our pitch-perfect rendition of the song or would he rather that you and I were truly desperate for him. I’ve had the quiet of a warm summer evening alone to meditate on how truly desperate I am and I come up wanting.

In Mark chapter two, the story is told of an event in which a great crowd has gathered to hear Jesus teach in Capernaum. So many people gathered, desperate to hear the word of truth taught that there was no room anywhere, even in the doorway or outside the door. Four men, also desiring to be near the Lord, brought their paralyzed friend in the hope that a brief touch from the Healer might free their brother from his bondage. They moved en masse from door to door, window to window trying to catch a glimpse of Jesus but there were so many others already there that hope began to fade. They were desperate.

The normal avenues of getting close to Jesus were closed but these five men were unwilling to be turned away. They climbed, muscling the unmoving body of their friend inch by inch up the outside stairway all the while fearing the Jesus might finish his talk before they could find even a small opening. Upward they went, bumping the paralyzed man occasionally against the wall but never stopping as they looked for another window, another door. Finally, they could go no further. Ahead of them lay the expanse of a thatched roof which to some might be the indicate the end of the line. Not to a desperate man though. These friends were willing to go to any length, take any risk, and experience any hardship in order to heal their friend. The hole started small, probably nothing more than a wind shifted opening in the thatch but with the application of eight hands, the opening became bigger. Large enough to spy the Lord at first, the men knew this wouldn’t be enough so they returned to work, scraping and moving the thatch until the hole was big enough for a man. Their hearts pounded from the exertion and excitement as they grabbed a corner of their friends mat and lowered it desperately into the sight of the Savior. All the Paralytic could do was look to Jesus with hope.

We need to ask ourselves how desperate we are. Are we comfortable, putting Jesus in a secondary or tertiary position in life? Are we turned away by the crowd around Jesus, telling ourselves that we could never push through the wall of people to get closer to him? Would we go to the windows or even up the stairs a couple of steps in order to catch a glimpse before turning away? None of these option reflect a heart that is truly desperate for Jesus. Only when we are willing to scratch a hole in the roof, to break down some walls because we are unwilling to be turned away from our Hope are we truly in need. Jesus is waiting. 

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.

Friday is for Rawk (on Saturday) Glory Bound

Pro skater Mike Vallely fronts a new band, Revolution Mother. Vallely is very much in the Henry Rollins mold; intense on stage and extraordinarily personable in person. Behind him are guitarist Jason Hampton (the Electric Hillbilly) and drummer Brendan Murphy (no nickname). Best question of the set: “Are there any outlaws left out there??!!” to the trucker hatted teens that surrounded the stage.

Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child

Bad Luck and Trouble If you haven’t met Jack Reacher yet, you’ll find him to be either your best friend or your worst enemy. A former Army investigator now in civilian guise, his ability to read the wind and find whoever it is he decides to search out fits perfectly with his itinerant lifestyle and the interesting coincidental violence that he finds himself involved in. Child’s protagonist is a multi-dimensional man with a profound sense of justice: righteousness does not end with the capture of an elusive perpetrator but with the suffering and sometimes demise of that individual. Judge, jury, and executioner. I came to discover the Reacher series through the paperback version of The Hard Way picked up while browsing before plane trip to L.A. and was captured from page one.  

In the latest saga, Bad Luck and Trouble, someone has made the mistake of killing members of Reacher’s former investigative unit by dropping them helplessly from the back of a helicopter onto the packed sand of the Southern California desert. When he is cryptically contacted by another member of his former unit, Frances Neagley, and told of the murder, Reacher snaps into action vowing to avenge the death rather than just finding the murderer. Bound by the creed ‘no one messes with the army investigators’, Neagley has attempted to reassemble the remaining members of the crew only to discover that others have fallen to the same fate. The four who remain work methodically to close the noose on a murderous plot involving terrorism and a new form of SAMs.

Reacher is the perfect combination of brains and brawn to keep propelling the story forward. The picture the reader forms in their mind of this mind is well fed by Child’s prose. Laconic and violent when the situation calls for it, he can also be a smooth conversationalist when he wants to extract the secrets that you are so desperately trying to keep buried. His actions never veer into the implausible, except for the picture of Reacher folding himself into a hot rod Honda as surveillance cover. He takes his place alongside Harry Bosch, Elvis Cole, and Joe Pike as my choices for escapist heroes.

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