BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

God's immanence in blessings and curses...

Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And He answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:1-5)

(Tim) The headline ran, "Some see human link in severity of U.S. floods." It piqued my interest, so I read the teaser: "Natural disasters like floods are normally blamed on nature, but some experts believe humans are at least partly responsible for this month's massive flooding in Iowa and elsewhere in the US farm belt."

Right. Nature and man are blamed, but God is absent. Man can sin against nature and mother nature can take her revenge, but the discipline and judgment of God only comes in the life to come...

Ah yes, let a study committee handle it...

(Tim) For the record, I'm disappointed Rocky Mountain Presbytery's City Church in Denver was allowed to take the PCA's ball and go home without being disciplined for her rejection of biblical sexuality and polity. A plant of the Presbyterian Church in America, she (and particularly her pastor) should have heard a clear "No" from her presbytery, somewhere or sometime. Instead, she saw her presbytery enmeshed in a bunch of split votes that demonstrated tepid leadership, at best; and trendy postmodern commitments to biblical sexuality, at worst.

What would a pastor or session have to do in order to receive a clear disciplinary "No" from a presbytery of the PCA today in this matter of sexuality?

I can hear some responding, "No one's ordained a woman elder or pastor, yet."

If we think it's possible to avoid declaring the boundaries of biblical sexuality at every point leading up to the eldership, but then to hold firm there, our problems are much deeper than the biblical doctrine of sexuality...

Slip sliding away: Twenty year Wheaton prof on "sexual preference"...

God only knows
God makes his plan
The informations unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway
When in fact we're slip slidin away

                        - Paul Simon

(Tim) Yesterday, one of our congregation's Wheaton alumni was talking about other Wheaton alumni she keeps in touch with. She described her friends' typical post-graduate spiritual condition as consisting of a crisis experience a few years after graduation in which a decision is made between throwing it all away or turning and facing the fact that they're a sinner and coming to true Christian faith. Her grief was obvious as she described the spiritual bankruptcy so often characterizing her friends' post-Wheaton lives...

Speaking positively about the difficult parts of shepherds' work...

(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?

The net of interwoveness...

(Tim, w/thanks to Jake) Last week, a young man training for pastoral ministry passed on a link to this article from USA Today. And next to the link, he wrote: "quoted: pope benedict, mohler, keller, driscoll, osteen, etc."

Not to destroy "peace ...in the world," or to "tear... the net of [PCA] interwovenness, the fabric of humanity," but really, men. Can anyone fail to see the stark contrast presented in the final paragraphs of this article between Pastors Keller and Driscoll? Sin is man-centered with Pastor Keller, but very God-centered with Pastor Driscoll.

Note the article's author says, "Driscoll is sharply clear."

Precisely.

Another post on Gary Gygax and D&D...

(Tim) An excellent post on Gary Gygax and D&D by Pastor Travis Hutchinson. The post makes good applications to the copy-cat nature of what passes today for Christian imagination; also to the inhospitality of our church youth groups.

The merry heart and home of Dungeons and Dragons' Gary Gygax: A first person account...

(Tim: I first met Paul Cote walking down the hall of our dorm at Northern Illinois University. Wearing a tall leather Lincoln hat, Paul mentioned he liked Dylan. We became friends. Since then, we've roomed together, gotten our M.Divs. together, and we continue to visit and correspond. Through the years, I've occasionally asked Paul to retell the story of his friend, Gary Gygax, and the beginnings of Dungeons and Dragons. What did he think about all the Christians who were convinced that D&D was something close to necromancy or child-murder?

Here on the occasion of the death of Gary Gygax is Paul's personal account of the origins of D&D in the Gygax's merry home, a home large and generous enough to take Paul and many other teenage boys in and to give them fun. As you read this eulogy, stop and think: What if our Christian homes were as stable, joyful, and generous to the waifs all around us?)

When I was a 13 year old boy living in Chicago, a friend's father introduced his son, my friend, and me to military board games published by the Avalon Hill Company of Baltimore: Gettysburg and The Battle of the Bulge. As boys we had enjoyed listening to our fathers telling stories about World War II, and watching old war movies with John Wayne, and especially Errol Flynn. And on rainy days when you couldn’t play outside, these games were more fun than abstract games like cards and chess. Historian John Keegan states in the introduction to The Face of Battle, “for a young man training to be a professional soldier, the central question is: what is it like to be in a battle?” Knowing that our fathers had gone to war, and that it was a formative moment in their lives, in becoming men, our imaginations were fired by the same question, and war games, like reading military history, were a way of thinking about these things.

Here's a picture of Gary Gygax at the podium, addressing the opening of the first wargaming convention, the Geneva Convention (Gen Con.) held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Standing next to Gygax is Bill Hoyer, president of the International Federation of Wargaming (IFW). This and the other photo below may be the only pictures taken at this first wargaming convention in 1968.

Avalon Hill published a magazine for its customers called The General, and through an ad in the back I began corresponding with a “war gaming club” in the Chicago land area, with the grandiose name, "The International Federation of War Gaming" (IFW). The IFW consisted of a couple of dozen gamers, most of whom had never met one another, but who played games by mail, wrote articles about games etc. That’s when I began corresponding with Gary Gygax, who worked in downtown Chicago but commuted by rail to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Gary lived in a small, comfortably run down house on a main street in the Town. He had 5 children, all close in age, and all having bright red hair just like his wife, Mary...

Baudelaire on Satan's strategy...

(David Lehr, by way of Tim) Baudelaire said (in the Lehr translation), "It's more difficult to love God than to believe in Him. On the other hand, it's more difficult for the men of our time to believe in the Devil than to love him. Everyone serves the Devil, yet no one believes in him. It's his sublime subtlety."

The sacrifices Mother Earth requires of us...

(Tim: not for the squeamish) Back in the late seventies, my wife, Mary Lee, and I decided to have our first child at home. Not being lovers of hospitals, we figured childbirth was a labor best carried out in an environment where the mother would feel perfectly at home. Not being simps, though, we prepared as conscientiously as we could. Since our parents weren't on board, we contacted a family friend who was a renowned pediatric surgeon asking him what he thought of our plans. He said hospitals were for sick people and a home birth would be safer than a hospital birth. This did much to quell our loved ones' fears.

Next, we read every book and article we could get our hands on and enrolled in a course designed to prepare couples for a home birth. At the end of the course, husbands were to be capable of catching the child themselves if the doctor and midwife didn't show up.

This all happened in Madison, Wisconsin, so the other couples taking the course were not, shall we say, entirely normal. Nor were our instructors.

The doctor who helped teach the course had practiced in Santa Cruz prior to moving to Madison, and while in Santa Cruz had attended many home births. So there was a good bit of the northern California funkiness coming with him which, combined with the Madison east-side culture, reached critical mass within that group. One night when we got home after our birthing class, we were repulsed to find among the evening's handouts a recipe...

Who's kidding whom...

Over and besides those qualifications that should be in all Christians--they that rule the church of God, should be men of counsel and understanding. ...Remember what was said of old, (Malachi 2:7) "the priest's lips should preserve knowledge: and the people should seek the law at his mouth."  But when this is wanting, the people will be stumbling and departing from God and one another. Therefore God complains, (Hosea 4:6) that his people were destroyed for want of knowledge; that is, for want of knowing guides. For if the light that is in them that teach be darkness, how great is that darkness! and if the blind lead the blind, no marvel both fall into the ditch. (John Bunyan, Exhortation to Unity and Peace, pp. 29,30.)

(Tim) In a screed for peace posted by Prof. Reggie Kidd of Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando) a week ago today, Dr. Kidd proved himself an able controversialist, but of the modern sort. A jab, a parry, and a thrust; he lopped off the heads of his opponents sending them rolling into the ditches at the side of the road, but all was well—Dr. Kidd never posed the slightest threat to the feminized discourse characteristic of our modern defenders of the faith who claim for themselves Calvin’s, Luther’s, or Machen’s mantle. Said the good Dr. Kidd while sheathing his bloody blade,  “It should be obvious to all that I am a man of peace.” And so he titled his post, “Mutual defenestration means self annihilation.” Not surprisingly, the one-hundred plus comments his post garnered are permeated with admirers congratulating him on his irenic spirit.

Bosh.

Apparently it takes a pastor with many session meetings under his belt to see who’s kidding whom. One could go on at length demonstrating the exact perimeter of the swaths cut by Dr. Kidd’s sword, but there’s one stellar example. Keeping in mind that Dr. Kidd possesses the terminal degree and his life’s work is within the Academy, could there be a more fatal thrust to the bodies of his intended victims than to call the Report of Ad Interim Study Committee on Federal Vision, New Perspective, and Auburn Avenue Theologies adopted by the PCA General Assembly this summer “a tendentiously and carelessly written paper?”

No, this short piece by Dr. Kidd is no blow for peace. It’s too bad the guys commending him can’t see it, but the rest of us shouldn’t allow ourselves to be bamboozled. To focus our thoughts, let’s line up Dr. Kidd’s good guys and bad guys. In fact, to purge the pomo spirit from among us this Monday morning, all at once let’s do every one of those hateful things that go directly against the spirit of our age: let’s delineate, distinguish, and divide.

First, who are Dr. Kidd’s friends?

Northwestern University: a morality play for the church...

(by Tim) Sadly, reformed pastors identify less with those who live in rural communities and make their living as sheep farmers (what used to be called "shepherds") than with those who live in books and make their living as academics. So this story from today's New York Times is particularly instructive.

There's a big stink over a psychology prof at Northwestern University named J. Michael Bailey who's gored the ox of transexuals around the country. But before we get to Prof. Bailey and the transexuals, a few comments about the lesson Christians should learn from this battle.

For decades, freedom of religion and freedom of speech have been under a sustained attack and the content of the books we read, the sermons we listen to, and the Bibles we carry to church Sunday morning all bear witness to the attrition of these freedoms.

Speaking only of our Bibles, did you know that millions of Bibles used by evangelicals have had words deleted in order to avoid expressing incorrect opinions deemed to have the potential of being hurtful to women and Jews? Evangelical Bible scholars, linguists, translators, graphic designers, publishers, bookstore owners, and pastors all joined together to produce and sell Bibles that would not be vulnerable to charges of sexism or antisemitism. Many hundreds of times, the original Hebrew and Greek words were changed or deleted so the Bible would be less offensive to moderns...

Cool dudes or a pregnant mother of four: evangelicals, take your pick...

-posted by Tim Bayly

So, twice in three days, I was depressed hearing about the influence of a certain cool dude's ear-scratching book telling everyone how wise he is at meeting the culture where it's at, and how unutterably stupid the Church is. Oh, how weary I grow of these Bible-betraying fools and their sycophants. They sell out to the world and call it thinking biblically. They betray the Lord and call it God's new thing. They are cowards and call it tact--sometimes even evangelism! But do they bear one iota of resemblance to the Apostle Paul? No, the thought of them being lashed or stoned is laughable. The world wouldn't bother. Well, God just reminded me that there are still many who have not bowed the knee to Baal. He has promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church and He's always faithful to His promises. How was I reminded? I came across this most excellent comment by one of Mom Taylor's granddaughters under my tribute to Mom on her 90th birthday. May God give us many more mothers like Leslie Taylor. But more, may He fill His Church with Titus 2 women who WILL teach the younger women of the church to be godly women, and therefore godly wives and mothers. If Leslie is the kind of woman evangelical feminists are trying to push into the pulpit, I say "You go, girl!" Here's Leslie's comment:

It is tragic that home economics has largely disappeared because I am convinced that being a mother requires more education and training than any other occupation. One of the most noticeable effects of feminism is how unprepared and clueless many of today's mothers are (and I was one of them). I know that there have always been spoiled children and clueless mothers all throughout history, but what is going on in America today is an epidemic of enormous proportions, and the church is no haven. When Christopher [her husband] and I left the park with the kids yesterday...

Faithful shepherds stand in the gap...

We all know what it is to play warfare in mock battle, that it means to imitate everything just as it is in war. The troops are drawn up, they march into the field, seriousness is evident in every eye, but also courage and enthusiasm, the orderlies rush back and forth intrepidly, the commander's voice is heard, the signals, the battle cry, the volley of musketry, the thunder of cannon--everything exactly as it is in war, lacking only one thing...the danger.

So also it is with playing Christianity, that is, imitating Christian preaching in such a way that everything, absolutely everything is included in as deceptive a form as possible--only one thing is lacking...the danger

-Soren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon "Christendom" 1854-1855, translated with an introduction by Walter Lowrie, (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1956) p. 258.

Addendum: Wednesday evening, March 8, Bryan Chapell and I met together to discuss this recent series of posts. After our discussion, here are several clarifications and corrections that I believe need to be made. I have made them here, at the top of the post, because it would be difficult to weave them into the post itself in a way that would call attention to them sufficiently as corrections.

First, it is unclear that the paragraph beginning, "The whole things is a tempest in a teacup" is not my judgment, but rather a hypothetical construct of what the average member of the PCA might have thought to himself.

Second, I refer to "the Covenant/Redeemer/Reformed mantra, "A woman may do anything a non-ordained man may do." Bryan told me that this is not his position and that he speaks against this position as an adequate representation of the Biblical perspective. This is an encouragement to me.

Third, Bryan rehearsed his actions in response to the chapel time in which Diane Langberg spoke, and clearly my own summary of those actions is not accurate. Here is an accurate record of what happened:

When General Assembly convened that summer and the time on the agenda arrived when President Chapell was asked to give an answer for what had happened on his watch, President Chapell told the assembly:

That Diane Langberg had been told ahead of time what the standards were for her speaking during the chapel time;

That after she spoke at Covenant Seminary, Diane Langberg received a letter reminding her of the standards, and expressing concern that those standards had not been followed; and

That the administration of Covenant Seminary met with students to explain the situation and to assure the seminary community that what had happened was not according to the standards they were committed to upholding.

Since I implied Covenant Seminary was not upholding the PCA position in its response to Diane Langberg's chapel time, I regret this inaccuracy and now believe Covenant's response was good.

Some wonder how I could accuse prominent teaching elders of the Presbyterian Church in America and the institutions they lead of sympathizing with the egalitarian, feminist cause? Don't I know the PCA's reason to exist is tied at the heart to opposing these ideologies? When a group of mainline PC(USA) churches left their own denomination for a more conservative one back in 1983, wasn't it necessary for them to found the new denomination, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, precisely because the PCA wasn't willing to compromise on women in office? And isn't the same reason behind our present failure to bring into the PCA many churches currently departing the PC(USA) train wreck: that these churches and their pastors are determined to enter a denomination that allows their women to serve as pastors, elders, and deacons?

So, as a denomination we've paid our dues. We've seen the cost of our convictions, and haven't wavered. What on earth am I thinking, then, to accuse our seminary and its president of being allies of the egalitarian, feminist ideology?

It's a fair question, although I have no confidence I'll be able to answer it to the satisfaction of more than a few because the heart of the answer is tied up, not with specific arguments about Scripture's teaching about sexuality, but rather its teaching concerning the nature of pastoral ministry.

Several years ago, Covenant Theological Seminary had a woman preach in chapel. When it was reported within our denomination, it scandalized a number of presbyters across the country...

Mainline sodomites and evangelical feminists: Who really loves Jesus?

The 2006 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) met a few weeks ago and approved a measure that clears the way for practicing homosexuals to be ordained and installed as pastors and elders of the church. Many news organizations covered this event, but no one commented on the most newsworthy aspect of this radical step--namely, that the measure was itself the product of a Task Force that included a number of evangelicals, and that the evangelicals were instrumental in selling this proposal to the church. How does it happen that evangelicals promote the normalization of sodomy and advocate a plan that clears the way for sodomites to shepherd God's flock? There's a lesson here--a very important lesson--particularly for evangelicals who think all that's important is that people "love Jesus" and have prayed the sinner's prayer. Please read on...

Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds. (2 John 1:5-11)

The late Elizabeth Achtemeier was adjunct professor of Bible and homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia and served on the board of Presbyterians Pro-Life, a reform organization within the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). Particularly because of her courageous opposition to some of the most poisonous aspects of feminism within mainline Presbyterianism, it came as no surprise that Elizabeth was appointed to the PC(USA) General Assembly's blue ribbon Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity as a representative of those on the evangelical end of the denominational spectrum.

This so-called "PUP Task Force" was formed several years ago to try to mediate the chronic tensions over sodomy that have split the PC(USA) since the mid-seventies. The denomination made a conscious effort to balance the membership of the PUP Task Force between those who still hold to Scripture's condemnations of sodomy and those who have rejected Scripture's condemnations and demand the Church endorse sodomy by accepting practicing sodomites as members and placing them in the office of pastor and elder.

When Elizabeth died in the middle of the Task Force's work, her son Mark Achtemeier, a PC(USA) seminary professor teaching systematic theology at Dubuque Theological Seminary, was appointed to take her place and he served on the Task Force through the completion of its work this past year. The Task Force brought a number of recommendations to the (national) General Assembly this year, all of which were carefully crafted to end the divisive battle over the normalization of sodomy.

Up until this time, those seeking to normalize sodomy and to ordain sodomites to the offices of pastor and elder had to contend with PC(USA) denominational standards that forbade such ordinations. If churches defied these standards, they could be brought up on charges, although through the years a variety of technicalities were used to escape accountability. True, the denomination's definitive guidance was a roadblock to those seeking to normalize sodomy, but the practice across the country was a far cry from that definitive guidance. Lesbians and gays were active at all levels of the church as members, leaders, and officers, and there was little accountability for those who flaunted their rebellion against God's Word.

Yet even as they rebelled against Scripture's doctrine of sexuality and got away with only a few slaps on the wrist, the sodomy lobby worked feverishly to change church law so that sexual perversion would no longer be formally condemned and informally overlooked, but positively celebrated. Nothing less would do. Thus for years every level of church government found its time consumed by the battle, and people grew so weary of the controversy that the PUP Task Force was appointed and given a mandate to find a way out of the quagmire.

This year's national General Assembly was D-day, and the Task Force released its recommendations a few months before the Assembly so there would be plenty of time for commissioners to weigh its recommendations before the assembly convened. When those with biblical commitments saw the report and read through its recommendations, they were sickened to see that the Task Force had thrown in the towel and called it quits. Assuming the General Assembly adopted the Task Force recommendations (which it now has), they knew the definitive guidance would become obsolete. Rather, local rule would prevail. True, in theory this meant conservative churches and presbyteries could enforce the definitive guidance if they so chose, but only within their own jurisdiction. Meanwhile, liberal churches and presbyteries would be cut loose to do as they thought best--including ordaining and installing self-affirming active sodomites as pastors and elders. Really, the recommendations amounted to a ceding of the historic Presbyterian principle of connectionalism to the all-American ecclesiastical default of congregationalism.

But as shocking as the parameters of the surrender were, the shock turned into disbelief when the names of those who had signed on to the surrender included a number of evangelicals, including Elizabeth Achtemeier's son, Mark. People were flabbergasted. How could Elizabeth's son betray Scripture and the souls under his protection in this way? Did he care nothing for those tempted by same-sex intimacy? Was he really prepared to join the long line of self-proclaimed prophets who cry "Peace, peace" where there is no peace? As the smoke cleared, there was no denying that Mark Achtemeier had been co-opted by the sodomites...

A very common error...

I've said before that the evangelical church hates discernment. And although in theory we agree that the body has many parts and that the eye ought not to say to the hand, "I don't need you," the spiritual gift of discernment seems about as useful as an appendix or tonsils.

Not infrequently, then, a comment is posted on this blog in which some good fellow accuses David, me, or one of our readers of judgmentalism, discrimination, or some other variety of sinful behavior.

Here's a classic example of this genre that was submitted to our blog earlier today, followed by my response. The comment was posted beneath a post I did some time ago on Pastor Rick Warren.

Wheels vs. Motor: A comment on Marcus Borg's "The Character of God"...

This excellent response to Marcus Borg was written by Pastor Dan Reuter, a dear friend who serves Brown County Presbyterian Fellowship in Nashville, Indiana.

Our British cousins commonly speak of automobiles as "motors." We, at least colloquially, tend to call them "wheels," as in "I got wheels, man." Which of us is correct?

It's a ridiculous question, but hardly more ridiculous than Dr. Marcus Borg's sermon on the character of God. Wheels are useless without motive power and the motor is no vehicle without wheels. But Dr. Borg tells us that there are two metaphors for God which are so far divorced that "they virtually produce two different religions."

One metaphor-the bad one, according to Borg-is of God as monarch, lawgiver, and judge. This is the God of the Ten Commandments, the God who demands obedience, the God who demands, at the very least, faith. And this is the God before whom we never measure up. He is the God who, ultimately, will "get" us because of our failure to do what he tells us. The last word of this God is, according to a colleague whom Borg quotes with approval, "divine ethnic cleansing." The words which Borg associates with the God of this monarchial metaphor are "requirements," "in-group," and "vengeance." Borg's language as much as his argument-actually, there isn't much argument-makes it clear that this God, if he exists, is bad. No right-thinking person today would admit to worshiping a God who has anything to do with vengeance or exclusion, much less ethnic cleansing. And even requirements seem to be a rather dated notion in an era of noncompetitive "sports" with no losers and no winners.

The other metaphor is the one which pictures God primarily as a lover. The bad, lawgiving God "also loves us," Borg admits, but his love is conditional and therefore not to be reckoned on the same exalted plane as the love of the divine Lover who is only that. God, says Borg, "is in love with us." In fact, he quotes another colleague who says that God is "besotted with us." And With this God there are also other words associated: "compassion," "liberation," "justice." Once more the language says it all. Who nowadays admits to being against compassion or liberation or justice?

What do Marcus Borg, Greg Johnson, Zane Hodges, and Gene Roddenberry have in common...

Another exercise in discernment: please join this work. Resistance is not futile.

In the godly, fear and love embrace.

Dear readers, my brother, David, and I have often written here that our work on this blog is an extension of our calling to serve as shepherds of God's flock. And although we recognize this calling is primarily to particular congregations in Toledo and Bloomington, we approach this blog as an extension of our local ministry and work to serve as shepherds here, also. In fact, a high proportion of our readers are present or past members of our congregations. Whether the medium is the telephone, E-mail, church newsletters, or blogs, David and I are working to correct, encourage, and rebuke, with great patience.

At times we give in to the temptation to waste these words on inconsequential matters, but we hope not too often. Seeing the title of my recent post, "The World Cup, racism, and the reprobate," some likely wondered why I was squandering time on soccer? But the post wasn't really about soccer, but rather the sin of racism, and the failure of pastors and elders who connive at this sin in their congregations.

Why this lengthy preamble?

Here is a link to a piece I believe to be terribly dangerous. I've considered whether it's too dangerous to be circulated, but I think we need to read it. It's a sermon by Lutheran scholar Marcus Borg, titled "The Character of God," given at Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 24, 2000.

Professor Borg is leading the souls he's teaching in a liberal and academic context to a place that is similar to the place Covenant Theological Seminary graduate and PCA pastor, Greg Johnson, takes us in his piece , "Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt: The Rare Beauty of Weakness Christianity." Sure, Pastor Johnson uses terminology and arguments that would appeal to conservative reformed, rather than liberal Lutheran, academic types. But both pieces, I believe, lead souls to presume on God's grace and allow no place for the fear of God...

Poisonous grace: an exercise in discernment...

Here's an exercise in discernment.

Greg Johnson is a graduate of my denomination's seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and this article he's written strikes me as typical of the sort of poisonous grace talk I've run into too often, recently, including among men from Covenant. Because the error is so common, it might be good for us to critique this particular piece as a means of warning others away from these errors.

Note well: I am not saying everything in this article is bad. There are things here worth saying, some of which are downright helpful and good. But the admixture of truth and error ultimately renders this piece unsalvageable except as an exercise in the practice of that most-neglected-of-all-spiritual-gifts, discernment.

So would you please take some part of this article and, quoting it, show how it is contrary to Scripture? Don't worry if your work is duplicated by someone else. I'm hopeful we'll have thousands of words written about this piece, permanently deposited here in our comments section to be read by others. Of course, it's proper to note the good points Johnson makes, but my principal concern is to see the errors exposed as a warning to all.

Feel free to argue against another reader's critique. The goal here is to grow our discernment quotient, making us all more useful in defending the church against false teaching--particularly false teaching hiding behind the cover of "grace."

Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt: The rare beauty of Weakness Christianity

by Greg Johnson

1. The Diagnosis: Quiet Time Guilt

I recently watched as a congregation I love was spiritually raped. A Christian ministry came into the church for a three-day program whose purpose was to encourage believers to pray more. During one of the breakout sessions, a man expressed his frustration with unanswered prayer. He had faithfully prayed with and for his daughter for years, and still she was not walking with God. He was broken, depressed, perhaps more than a little ashamed. How does God in his grace speak to this man? A bruised reed was crying out for help.

"You need to try harder. You need to pray more." That was the message he was given. I was enraged. Having known this church for many years, I was horrified. What I was hearing was what one seminary professor calls sola bootstrapa. Self-reliance--we pull ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps. The teachers who said such things surely meant well. The problem was not a lack of sincerity on their part. The diagnosis is far more severe. The problem was heresy. Any heresy wounds the soul.

When I look upon the evangelical world today, I see millions of sincere believers who are loaded down with false guilt by teachers who fail to grasp the basics of biblical prayer. To sharpen the point slightly, Christ's sheep have been lied to. They have been told that prayer is a work that we must perform in order to get God to bless us. As heresies go, this one is often subtle. Prayer has become a work rather than a grace. The result has been a loss of joy in prayer.

And prayer is not the only grace we've turned into a work. Personal Bible study has become a source of bondage as well. A whole generation of Christians has been told that God will bless them if they read their Bibles every day, as if the act of reading the Scriptures were some kind of magic talisman by which we gain power over God and secure his favor. This is not the religion of the Bible. This pervasive belief that God gives us grace as a reward for our devotional consistency is antithetical to the religion of Jesus Christ. Prayer and Bible study--what evangelicals for the past century have called the "quiet time"--have become dreaded precisely because they have been radically misunderstood.

It's ironic, but the Quiet Time has become the number one cause of defeat among Bible-believing Christians today. At one time or another, nearly every sincere believer feels a deep sense of failure and the accompanying feelings of guilt and shame because he or she has failed to set aside a separate time for Bible study and prayer. This condition is called Quiet Time Guilt. And it's a condition with many repercussions. The shame of Quiet Time Guilt manifests itself in even deeper inability to fruitfully and joyfully study Scripture. Prayer becomes a dread; Bible study a burden. The Christian suffering from Quiet Time Guilt then despairs of seeing God work in his or her life, until finally he or she simply gives up. He may continue outward and public Christian commitments like church attendance, but secretly he feels a hypocrite. What is the root of Quiet Time Guilt?

2. The Culprit: Legalism

The root of Quiet Time Guilt is legalism. Often when we think of legalism, we think of the petty man-made rules that have so often strangled the churches--rules against dancing or drinking or makeup or 'secular' music. But these legalistic rules are merely an outward sign of a deeper legalism of the heart. When prayer and Bible study are thought of primarily as duties ('disciplines') rather than as grace, both prayer and the study of Scripture become unfruitful in our lives...

Click here to finish reading Johnson's article, "Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt."