Jonathan Edwards

Under the post, Repenting of parachurch, Baptist childhoods..., one comment elicited this response from your scribe. I posted it as a comment, there, but also put it here for the benefit of those who don't keep track of comments. (TB)

Brothers, allow me a few responses, although they must be hopelessly brief considering the weight of these matters.

>>Be careful when you sling around words like apostasy, idolatry (Per Calvin we're all "fabricum idolarum") and heresy.

We are careful. That is, careful--very careful--to keep them alive. The proper word to use concerning Roman Catholicism is 'heresy'. Read Joe Brown's Heresies. Reformed pastors and elders use this word following our Reforming fathers's example because Roman Catholicism is a system of doctrine that leads souls to Hell. Systematically.

The center of Rome's system is the merchandising of salvation through...

And it will be, like people, like priest... (Hosea 4:9b)

"A feminized Christianity may work to attract a certain type of man, but

he’s probably not the man you want around when the local Imam starts

practicing taqiyya on your congregation."

(Tim, w/thanks to Tim R.) Here's an article about the effeminacy of the Christian church, today. The piece approaches the crisis by noting the attractiveness of Islam to real men, making the point that a re-masculinized Christianity is necessary to hold off the forces of Islamic jihad. But if faith in Jesus is for this life only, we are of all men most foolish. We love, worship, and trust Jesus, not because it's useful, but because we fear the Holy God and know our sin, we dread Hell's worms and fire, and we ache for Heaven's joy and peace in the presence of the Lord. And yet...

Reformed men and women need to understand how focused the PCA is on gussying herself up for this effeminate age. As a denomination, we are all about perfect pitch rather than men making music to our God Who is a consuming fire. No Delta blues for us; it's all Julliard, violins, pianos, and maybe the occasional acoustic guitar or mandolin just to keep the audience off-balance. As with music, so with preaching: we allow no danger and take no risk. After all, women don't like danger. It could hurt their child.

But men? Real men don't wake up until they see why they're needed. And that need usually has something to do with danger--bullets, grenades, bombs, sexual predators, heresy, the wrath of God, death, and Hell.

But what have we done to Hell? We've turned it into the Narcissists' heaven. It's man getting himself forever, and what's not to like about that? No scared children. No women having hissy-fits over spiders hanging over the crackling fire. No worms eating a carcass. Just me, myself, and I forever...

Then the Pharisees went and plotted together how they

not?”

But Jesus perceived their malice, and said, “Why are

you testing Me, you hypocrites?” (Matthew 22:15-18)

(Tim: this is first in a series, with the second, here) A few years ago, I was speaking with a friend who taught

theology at a respected evangelical seminary. We were discussing the response

of some Christian leaders to being confronted over their abuse of Scripture. I

expressed my conviction that the leaders’ commitment to turn from their sin was

only pragmatic, and that in time they would proceed to do the very thing they

had just promised not to do.

My friend was astounded that I could think these men capable

of deception. He went on to tell me why he thought I was susceptible to such

uncharitable thoughts: “Your problem, Tim, is that you spent too many years in

the mainline denomination with other pastors who weren’t even Christians. But

now, you’re back in the evangelical world and these men we’re working with are

believers. You should never accuse another believer of lying.”

Really? Never?

(Tim, w/thanks to Jake) For a number of years, Yale's been hard at it putting the works of Jonathan Edwards online, freely available for hoi polloi who can no longer afford the critical edition now running around $110 per volume

. It's an ill wind that blows nobody some good, though, and I suspect the high price of the hard copies is part of the reason all of us are now able to search the volumes online. So I'm happy.

Don't allow anyone else to give your Edwards to you. When I was at seminary in New England, I took a course in Edwards' works under Richard Lovelace. One night (it was a small evening seminar), I well remember coming to the session with great anticipation, having read a good portion of Edward's harder truths that week. But then, Dr. Lovelace started the class with a statement to the effect that "Here, Edwards goes a little bit off the deep edge, engaging in his well-known penchant for negativity."

Yes, yes; that's the problem with Edwards. He's so negative you get an ulcer reading him. What we need today is something positive that people can relate to; something that will give people hope and not lead them into despair.

Well, if you've read Edwards, you know that there are few men in the history of the Church who are more...

God has ordained the Sacraments to divide men...

(Tim) From The Huffington Post, here's some commentary on the congregational applause that greeted Senator McCain's statement at the Rick Warren pow-wow, that life begins at conception:

These are church people. What they say and

what they do often doesn't match....

As loudly as they may have applauded McCain's straight talk about

abortion, a lot of women in that audience have had abortions. A lot of

their mothers, their sisters and their daughters have too.

How do I know?

I know because evangelicals who've studied each other have shown

again and again that evangelical behavior differs very little from that

of the rest of the country.

The writer is correct to say the church is filled with women who have murdered their babies. Even if you don't believe the pollsters, do the simple math and you'll see that the over two-thirds of Americans who claim to be Christians have to account for the murder of millions of the babies murdered since 1973's Roe v. Wade. And although the writer doesn't mention it, the church is also filled with the men who fathered those children and demanded or acceded to their murder.

Acknowledging this, we need to keep some things in mind.

First, regardless of how they identify themselves spiritually or

theologically here on earth (membership in the PCA, for instance), like

unrepentant adulterers and thieves, murderers who refuse to confess

their blood-guilt and ask for God's mercy will not be in heaven. As the

Apostle Paul puts it so bluntly:

Or do you not

know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not

be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor

effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor

drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of

God. (1Corinthians 6:9,10)

Second, as a minister

of the Word and Sacrament, the essence of Pastor Warren's calling is to

be as constant and explicit in making this dogmatic pronouncement as

the Apostle Paul in the Word of God. He cannot fail to discipline those

who, while murdering their unborn children, attend his church and take

the Lord's Supper there.

"For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, Everyone is greedy for gain, And from the prophet even to the priest Everyone deals falsely. They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, 'Peace, peace,' But there is no peace. Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; They did not even know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time that I punish them, They shall be cast down," says the LORD. (Jeremiah 6:13-15)

(Tim) A few years after Yale was founded, a student spoke critically of one of Yale's tutors saying, "He has no more grace than this chair." Yale's response was swift: The student was expelled and, despite his apology (contra Wikipedia), Yale refused to reinstate him. Centuries later, Yale named one of her Divinity School buildings for this student. It's the only building ever named for a student who was expelled.

One of this student's contemporaries also attended Yale a few years earlier when Yale was just being chartered. At that time, Jonathan Edwards himself was caught up in the discipline of Yale's tutors. Their infraction?

They were promoting Arminian theology. Yale had been founded because of Harvard's betrayal of Christian doctrine, so no one involved in Yale's founding was about to let it happen again.

What does Yale discipline today?

This past year, a Yale art student regularly impregnated herself (artificially, with a syringe), then killed the babies she never knew by taking oral abortifacients--all of which she carefully documented with a video camera for display at a Yale art exhibition. Yale's administration was quite embarrassed and released a statement...

(Tim) Here's a response to this comment left by a reader: "It seems that many in the complementarian community spend almost all their energy on the negative side of the equation."

Feminism is toxic and its relentless attack on Scripture and the Church doesn't give faithful shepherds a lot of opportunity to take their preaching and teaching somewhere else, avoiding this breach. We must focus our defensive work where the good deposit is under attack. In response to people complaining of the frequency of his preaching against fornication, Spurgeon said once that he'd stop preaching against it when people stopped doing it.

Pastors today aren't preaching or teaching against this heresy. And when we do, we do it half-heartedly making it clear to our flock and other shepherds that we wish the need for battle would go away because we're men of peace and love and grace, and we really don't enjoy beating up on women.

Now I may not have captured our critic's sentiments, personally, but from many years experience I know I've hit the mainstream. So think where we'd be if Calvin or Luther or Knox of any of hundreds of other shepherds had tried the positive approach in the darkness of Rome's shadow across the Middle Ages? What if Calvin had written his Institutes without the central thrust of opposing and exposing Rome? Would anyone read them?

The real issue isn't that many within the complementarian camp spend almost all our energy on the negative side of this equation, but that we live in an evil day much like the day of the Apostle Paul and Athanasius and Peter Waldo and John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and John Newton and J. Gresham Machen and Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Francis Schaeffer, and that our work must follow theirs in being faithful with God's "yes" and His "no." And if our only "no" is said in opposing those who don't say "yes" often enough to suit our tastes, we're not really saying "no," are we?

(Tim, w/thanks to Dave M.) Here's a good explanation why "modern readers" will find Jonathan Edwards' sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, "a difficult text." The explanation is from the most recent E-mail newsletter produced by The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University:

Jonathan Edwards' (in)famous (sic) sermon, "Sinners in

the Hands of an Angry God," is among the most anthologized pieces of

American literature. It is taught in most American literature survey

courses in high school and college as the classic example of a Puritan

sermon. As a result, it forms the only impression that most people have

of Jonathan Edwards.

In spite of the obvious benefits to the legacy of Jonathan Edwards

from this wide anthologizing, "Sinners" is a difficult text to engage,

understand, and teach. The language is relentless and challenging. Its

form and content is unfamiliar to most modern readers. Most of all, the

text itself is specifically designed to provoke fear and discomfort in

its hearers. All of these factors contribute to making "Sinners" a

difficult text to read in 2008.

But difficult texts are often important texts that careful study.

While "Sinners" is not representative of the full orb of Jonathan

Edwards' thought, it is Edwards' most famous text and will no doubt

continue to be studied and taught for many years to come.

Pastors and elders, would the souls under your care understand Edwards' sermon, or would they also find it "difficult?"

(Tim: a dear Christian brother writes:) I'm currently reading through Charity and Its Fruits by Jonathan Edwards and, in his Lecture VII, "The Spirit of Charity is an Humble Spirit," he mentions two things that I hope will be an encouragement...

[h]umility disposes men to be of a yielding spirit to others, ready, for the sake of peace, and to gratify others, to comply in many things with their inclinations, and to yield to their judgments wherein they are not inconsistent with truth and holiness. A truly humble man is inflexible in nothing but in the cause of his Lord and Master, which is the cause of truth and virtue. In this he is inflexible, because God and conscience require it. But in things of lesser moment, and which do not involve his principles as a follower of Christ, and in things that only concern his own private interests, he is apt to yield to others.

I feel that many evangelicals have no way of connecting the dots between humility and inflexibility in "the cause of truth and virtue." Not to draw too fine a point, but I think it is also worth noting that Edwards maintains this inflexiblity not only for God's sake, but also for conscience's sake. Conscience is constrained by the Word of God. I fear that there are far too few whose conscience is pricked by or who would blush at an easy departure from the inconveniences of Holy Scripture.