BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Pastoral approaches to opposition...

(Tim: For those who skip the comments, here's one just posted as part of an exchange under the post, "Slaughterhouse-Two hundred and fifty thousand...." It would be good to read this in context, seeing the comments that gave rise to it. Regardless, the issues here dealt with come up frequently enough on this blog that I thought I'd give it main level posting in order to make some of the methods David and I employ on this blog more clear to our readers.)

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Dear Friends,

It's unusual for such comments as that made by Ben above to be signed, and thus for us to know the person and life that's given rise to them. My guess is that, almost always, such comments come from desperate sinners who make no effort to hide it; their anger and tormented consciences are right there in plain sight.

It's my inclination to deal with them one of two ways: Either dismiss them and delete their comments, or call them to the Cross. Arguing and exposure are not my first choice.

On the other hand, most of the comments put up here on this blog that oppose what we write--particularly on matters such as abortion and sexuality--come from those who think of themselves as leaders, wise souls, deep thinkers, the cream of the crop. These people should be treated in an entirely different way; not at all with patience and tenderness, but satire, irony, and any other weapon that will expose them before the eyes of the sheep...

True Gospel preaching, perfectly contextualized and relevant...

"The fact that you and I are in the twentieth century is utterly irrelevant. It doesn’t make any difference at all. And all this talk about the need of a new message, some relevant word, is a denial of the Gospel." -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

(Tim, w/thanks to Heidi) A number of months ago, Martyn Lloyd Jones' biographer, Ian Murray, wrote...

A wedding sermon...

(Tim) From the Pulpit of Church of the Good Shepherd
Wedding of Lucas Weeks and Hannah Bayly
May 17, 2008

That He Might Sanctify Her

Ephesians 5: 21-33

Lucas and Hannah, it’s a curious thing that the God Who made us, the One who is our Creator and therefore knows us best, has not left us free to develop according to our own inclinations. He does not abandon us to our own sentiments and passions...

Evangelizing mystical relativists...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kevin) Here's a helpful op-ed piece from the New York Times detailing the challenges we'll face in our preaching in the coming decades. It's written by David Brooks who's frequently good.

On commentaries...

(Tim, w/thanks to Jeff) Have I ever said anything about commentaries? Sure, but I'll have another hack at it.

When I left seminary, we had no money, so book purchases were mostly from used bookstores and resale shops. But I felt the need to have something "substantial" on at least one of the Gospels, so I took everyone's advice and spent about 40 of our limited dollars on I. Howard Marshall's commentary on Luke. "Stupendous example of evangelical scholarship at its very best" they all said, and I took the bait.

We moved to Pardeeville and I began preaching. Immediately, I looked for an occasion to use my most-excellent new tool and it wasn't long in coming. Choosing a text in Luke, I opened Marshall and...

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.

Ellul, Nuremberg, and abortion; with a note on the Obama/Wright ruckus...

(Tim) When I read Jacques Ellul's False Presence of the Kingdom a number of years ago, I found it very helpful in giving me a Christian understanding of Church-state relations, and particularly the danger of the Church being compromised in her work and message by the influence and power of the state.

Any Christian pastor watching the ruckus over the sermons of Senator Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, this past few weeks should have quickly concluded that this controversy is significant, principally, in yielding one more step in the inexorable movement of the removal of truth and courage and boldness from the proclamation of God's Word in churches around our country. It's been a terrible moment when someone watching closely could literally watch the feminization of discourse taking huge steps forward, particularly in the public discourse of the Church and Her Word known as preaching. (And no, I'm not defending the particulars of Pastor Wright's sermons.)

If you haven't read this work by Ellul, buy it now and read it carefully. Ellul has the sort of mind and pen that probe and expose our hearts such that we are invigorated and feel as if we might be partaking of the air and wind of another more truthful and honest age.

Remembering Ellul's wonderful bracingness, I just found and read a short essay by him, from 1947, titled, "On Nuremberg." I post it here as an historical meditation on the depravity of man, and thus the necessity of the substitutionary atonement--Good Friday's priceless treasure of the cross and blood and death of Jesus Christ. Oh how we need that precious blood!

Think beyond ourselves, to the terrible bloodsheds Western civilization has been (and presently is) built upon...

Brothers, we must not buy into this...

(Tim) Here's an interview with the Rev. Dr. Tim Keller, the senior minister of Manhattan's Redeemer Presbyterian Church which is likely the most influential congregation of our own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America. The occasion of the interview was the arrival of Dr. Keller's book at No. 18 on the New York Times bestseller list. The interview was done by Anthony Sacramone, editor of Richard John Neuhaus' First Things to which I'm a charter subscriber. I note this because I'm hopeful it will discourage readers from coming to the wrong conclusion as to why I say the following...

Although many of the pastors I love and respect look to Dr. Keller as the model preacher for our age, I do not. And of course, my purpose in saying this is to warn shepherds of the consequences of accepting Dr. Keller's preaching paradigm so clearly presented in this interview...

Sermons yesterday and today...

(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?"

Was the preaching of Jonathan Edwards from heaven or earth?

(Tim) Preparing to preach tomorrow on Matthew 21:23 ff., the question the chief priests and elders of the people asked of Jesus reminded me of the attack of Charles Chauncy on Jonathan Edwards and the other preachers of the Great Awakening:

When (Jesus) entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?” (Matthew 21:23)

Isn't this always the question the status quo, official Christianity, the powers that be, or Kierkegaard's "Christendom" asks of true heralds of Christ: "By what authority are you doing these things?"

So no, although there are clear and significant problems that accompany bypassing proper authority, particularly when it's ecclesiastical authority, the dangers of letting that authority silence you when you are a herald of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are much greater...

 

Shepherds sneaking into the fold, undercutting "properly recognized and authorized shepherds"...

(Tim, with thanks to Dave C.) Commenters on this blog warn those who would "commit their very soul and eternal destiny to men (who preach) lacking the proper authority from God's ordinary means of salvation, the Church" pointing out that "the Church is the one given the task of calling and charging ministers with particular tasks and spheres of ministry." They conclude their warning: "Nor should we take kindly to supposed shepherds to sneak into the fold and take allegiance away from properly recognized and authorized shepherds..."

So I wonder who they'd side with in this battle? In this particular case (which is by no means rare across church history) who is it who is "lacking the proper authority from ...the church?" Who are the "properly recognized and authorized shepherds?"

One of the very many  problems with this Neo-Old School, Mark Noll, Daryl Hart argument is its failure to acknowledge that, by this very construct, John the Baptist, our Lord, and the Apostles all abrogated to themselves authority that bypassed those who claimed to be the only true successors to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Aaron. In other words, John the Baptist, our Lord, and every one of the Apostles were "lacking the proper authority ...from the church," and were not "properly recognized and authorized shepherds."

I believed, therefore I spoke...

(Tim) Keith Knowlden put a link to this clip up as a comment under "Debates over Women in Leadership." Excellent. Remember what they said about our Lord at the end of His Sermon on the Mount:

When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. (Matthew 7:28, 29)

This whole trend is a part of the movement of our culture toward feminine cultural ideals. And it's particularly destructive in our communication patterns--what in the past I've called the feminization of discourse. When these patterns infiltrate the Church and men preach as if they were inviting the members of the congregation to share a journey with them, our message has changed and is no longer faithful to the Word of God. But of course, we won't be accused of arrogance, will we?

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...

One in ten check E-mail during worship...

(by Tim) If they did it while I was preaching, I'd think I had no one to blame but myself. (Thanks, Janet.)

Preaching: the power of words or of God...

A dear friend just lost his father. Following the funeral, he sent me this meditation. How we who preach and those who receive the Word need the power of the Holy Spirit:

For the kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power. -1Corinthians 4:20

I was recently reminded of this verse, and of the power of preaching, at the wake for my father. My dad was a member of The Veterans of Foreign Wars, and they performed a brief, simple ceremony at the funeral home. There were six men there, and one by one they read a brief prayer or statement about a virtue associated with military service and placed an object on the casket--a sprig of evergreen, a red rose, and so on. Then the saluted the flag, and the casket. It was very moving, and very powerful. And I couldn't help thinking that here were six very average old guys, not tall, not distinguished looking, not great speakers, not remarkable in any way to outward appearances, but they had all served in the armed forces in time of war.

It was who they were as men, what they had done, which was special, and what their service meant to them that made the simple ceremony meaningful, and got you all choked up. How much more, the preaching of the word, in spirit and in power. It's not how you speak, or even what you say in a way (you don't need to be original) but who it is that is saying it, what it means to them, and with what authority they speak.

Don't skip this piece...

A great short article on preaching here by Doug Wilson. Inspiring for those of us who preach.

Preaching and the feminization of discourse; a timely parable...

For a number of years, I've thought we need a book for preachers called The Feminization of Discourse. The book would show how the feminine priorities that have taken over the Western world have turned the preaching of God's Word from authority to mutual exploration and discovery. One friend lamented the preaching he'd sat under for a number of years saying, "Along with the indicative, can't we please have the imperative?" Read anything about the differences between male and female conversation and it's no mystery why the worship and preaching of our--yes, PCA--churches feel like a tea party. Having a reformed form of godliness, we deny the power thereof.

Our preaching is so graceful--more graceful than the preaching of Jesus or the Apostles. Anyone read the book of Acts, recently? Notice how often those listening to the sermon are confronted with the statement, "You killed Jesus!" No wonder repentance was the entry point to faith and baptism back then. But today? We're compassionate Christians, kinder and gentler elders, and sensitive graceful preachers who want to be liked. Above all. Yes, insofar as we can be liked and still be obedient, that's fine. But a choice between the two is no contest; being liked wins.

Now of course, right here the feminization of discourse kicks in and many are ready to condemn me for being dogmatic, making generalizations, or demonstrating a harsh and judgmental spirit, right?

Well, meet my friend Cesar Millan and see if we preachers have anything to learn from him about our exercise of the authority God has delegated to us, particularly in  the pulpit...

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...

Plain, manger-like preaching...

In response to the final couple paragraphs dealing with preaching and rhetoric in my post, Worship wars: musicians, pulpiteers, and aesthetics, my dear brother, Ken Pierce, wrote:

I am not sure that it's fair to characterize men who have a different pulpit presence than personal presence as having displaced God's glory with their own.

It's rough around the edges, but my concern about this matter is so deep that I'm willing to take my lumps with this response.

It's not simply a "different pulpit presence" I'm aiming my criticisms at, but a different man. If the Apostle Paul went from talk around the table to writing one of his letters to preaching, no one would have been struck by the change in his personality, illustrations, or vocabulary. He wasn't a commoner while eating and a patrician while writing and preaching. And this is not at all to say that life should be lived at a monotone. It may well be that occasions are rare for a father to lift his voice at home or at potlucks, but if he doesn't make some radical alteration in his tone when he speaks of death, Heaven, and Hell, his tone will belie his message.

Clearly I didn't express myself very well since I agree with much you've written, and yet...

Don't you see the danger of turning the pulpit into a stage by employing rhetorical devices, illustrations, vocabulary, and affectations that detract from the foolishness and simplicity of the Gospel? Is this really no danger at all?

We've all seen women so painted on the face they've made themselves hideous. Gilded lilies.

I'm going to go out on a limb, here, but I think this issue is critically important for a recovery of the authority and power of God in evangelical and reformed pulpits. Comparisons are odious, but I would choose Peter, Stephen, Paul, Calvin, Luther, Edwards, Lloyd-Jones, and MacArthur any day of the week over John Doe, Joe Schmo, and the Reverend Doctor J. Wright Holiday.

Why? Because when I finish reading or listening to the men in the first list, the principle thing I'm left with is not the breadth of their reading or the depth of their learning, but the power, authority, justice, and mercy of our Heavenly Father. The messenger has not become the message...

They take the pulpit to be a stage...

Aside from Scripture, I've found Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor to be the most helpful book I've read on the calling of the teaching elder (pastor). Baxter's work is also extremely helpful for ruling elders. Strauch's Biblical Eldership is about the only contemporary book being read today on the eldership but I'd discourage its purchase or use due to Strauch's potent anti-clericalism. When I read him years ago, I found him to have a proudly disimissive attitude toward pastors that bore more resemblance to the galloping egalitarianism of American culture than, say, the Pastoral Epistles. But more on this later...

Here's the section of Baxter I quote more frequently than any other. Baxter is responding to those who object to pastors preaching to the conscience:

They say, "You are so precise and you keep talking about sin, and duty, and make such a fuss about these things, while pastor so-and-so, who is as great a scholar as you and as good a preacher, will be merry and joke with us and leave us alone, and never trouble himself or us with this sort of talk. You can never be quiet and you make more commotion than needs to be made; you love to frighten men with talk of damnation, when sober, well-educated, peaceable (reformed) pastors are quiet, and live with us like other men."

(People) will give you leave to preach against their sins, and to talk as much as you will for godliness in the pulpit, if you will but let them alone afterwards, and be friendly and merry with them when you have done, and talk as they do, and live as they, and be indifferent with them in your conversation. For they take the pulpit to be but a stage; a place where preachers must show themselves, and play their parts; where you have liberty for an hour to say what you (desire); and what you say they regard not, if you show them not, by saying it personally to their faces, that you were in good earnest, and did indeed mean them. -Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, (Banner of Truth, Carlisle PA: 1974) p. 85.

By the way, here's a page with a picture of Strauch among the other speakers at Doug Phillips Vision Forum's recent third annual Conference for Uniting Church and Family held in St. Louis this past week. Strauch and Phillips working together makes theological sense to me.

A pastoral context for our posts...

Our longtime friend and sister in the faith, Elizabeth, just posted a comment recommending that we encourage our readers to listen to our sermons, the better to get a context for our writing. She writes:

To a casual observer this blog might give the impression that your conservatism is about being on the right side of the culture wars. And then too you have sympathizers posting that they'd rather be Baptists because at least then people would know where they stand on hot-button social issues. Your friend's second paragraph shows he is sympathetic to this outlook. ...I suggest you point him (and your general readership) to your recorded sermons, and start posting more here about the central doctrinal content of the faith, so that there will be no mistake as to whether your Christianity is merely a question of the best alternative to feminism, communism, corporate America, etc. Don't, like so many other American evangelicals, underestimate the dangers of a merely moral religion. Rome will beat you at it every time.

This is wise advice. So here is a link to David's 2006 sermons, and here is a link to my own. Recently, David has been preaching a series on idolatry, while I'm coming to the end of preaching through Galatians.

Readers might be particularly interested in three sermons I recently did on Galatians 6:1,2 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) focussing on the biblical doctrine of the church and the threats to that doctrine posed within the conservative reformed, or evangelical world. I'd encourage readers to listen to all three sermons, but if you only have time for one, make it Part 3.

Luther: Do not preach on lofty topics...

Rector Bernard von Dolen, minister in Herzberg, complained bitterly about his arrogant auditors who despised the reading of the catechism.

Dr. Martin Luther was greatly disturbed and fell silent. Then he said, "Cursed be every preacher who aims at lofty topics in the church, looking for his own glory and selfishly desiring to please one individual or another. When I preach here I adapt myself to the circumstances of the common people. I don't look at the doctors and masters, of whom scarcely forty are present, but at the hundred or thousand young people and children. It's to them that I preach, to them that I devote myself, for they, too, need to understand. If the others don't want to listen they can leave. Therefore, my dear Bernard, take pains to be simple and direct; don't consider those who claim to be learned but be a preacher to unschooled youth and sucklings."

-Martin Luther; Luther's Works, vol. 54; Table Talk; ed. & trans. Theodore G. Tappert; gen. ed. Helmut T. Lehmann; pub. by Fortress Press; pp. 235-236 under heading "Preach to the Simple and Not to the Learned" (also "Between March 28 and May 27, 1537" "No. 3573").

The honesty of comedians...

An appalling and horrible thing Has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? (Jeremiah 5:30,31)

Comedians die if they lie, pastors die if they don't.

A comedian tells a joke about a ballet dancer who's a "pansy" and his audience laughs. But pity the pastor who warns his flock away from a specific art form because of the sexual degradation associated with it. Opera? Film? Ballet? WWF? Cheerleading?

Yeah, I know, WWF and cheerleading aren't really art. Yeah, there are some good Christian movies. Yeah, we need Christians singing at Ravinia and Tanglewood.

Back up. My point wasn't to build a biblical theology of callings but to point out that pastors are paid to lie while comedians live off the scandalous truth.

Now, at this point I could do the standard qualifications and emasculate the post by saying there are some pastors who refuse to lie, some churches that want the truth, not every comedian is honest, and so forth.

Instead, here are some morsels from Kierkegaard's Attack upon Christendom:

The difference between the theater and the church is essentially this, that the theater honestly and honorably acknowledges itself to be what is is; on the other hand the church is a theater which dishonestly tries in every way to hide what it is....

The actor is an honest man who says plainly, "I am an actor."

One never gets a priest to say that, at any price.

Yes, I still love my church and no one here is asking me to lie. Yes, I'm speaking in generalities. Yes, I've had a good day. No, I'm not suffering from dyspepsia...

One of the most profound statements ever written by the Apostle Paul concerning the pastorate is his plaintive question put to the believers in the church of Galatia: "So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?" (Galatians 4:16).

Manly preaching...

I've been reading about a pastor named Mark Driscoll who rebukes emergent church leader Brain McLaren for equivocating on homosexuality. Driscoll pastors a church in Seattle. So, I followed a link to his church's site and then another link to Driscoll preaching on Google video.

Well, brothers and sisters, I'm not a fan of canned sermons. I don't listen to tapes. I don't watch videos. It's rare that I'm impressed by the preaching of dudes in untucked shirts. But this sermon was powerful. If this sermon is representative of his approach to pastoral minmistry, Mark Driscoll will be a force for Christ in years to come.

O tidings of comfort and joy...

Again, this from my reading fifteen years ago. Speaking of which, where will you take tidings of comfort and joy this Christmastime?

Christmas, 1988, N Train

A young woman we know writes: It was the gilt-edged pages that gave him away. Most people who read the Bible on the subway have a small pocket edition and keep it to themselves. This young man looked as if he had come away with the family King James. Otherwise, he was ordinary-looking; gray jacket, plaid scarf, blue jeans, white sneakers, bristly brown hair; a gold wedding band. He waited until the N train had pulled out of the Queensboro Plaza station and was under the East River, and then he read aloud, "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus..." A groan went out from my fellow-passengers.

Talk about a captive audience. The train was too crowded for people to switch cars. And New Yorkers will put up with all sorts of things rather than give up their seats on the subway. I couldn't help thinking that the young man was lucky there were no maniacs aboard and no piles of stones at hand. But no matter how you feel about being force-fed the gospel under the East River it holds up better than the Times or the Post or the subway ads for Dr. Zizmor, dermatologist. Anyway, no one moved. No one said, "Oh, shut up." No one wanted to be identified as an irreligious loner at Christmastime.

I found myself criticizing the young man's intonation. He had a good strong voice, but the words rocked up and back unvaryingly: "...to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child." When he was done, and the shepherds had rejoiced, he changed--thank goodness--his rhythm. He started singing "Joy to the World." He sang two full verses of it, again in a good, strong voice. But no one joined in. I was tempted, partly because I felt sorry for him--singing in the face of so much hostility--and also because I'm a sucker for actual human voices raised in song, as opposed to canned carols such as one hears in Doubleday (pa-rum-pa-pum-pum) and in Barnes & Noble (gloh-o-o-o-o-oh-o-o-o-o-oh-o-o-o-o-oh-ria). But I was sitting next to a man rigid with pain and fury at having his subway meditations interrupted, and I felt sorry for him, too. Especially when the young man finished singing and began to preach, reminding us that we were all God's creatures on the N train and that for each of us He had a plan. God's creature next to me was probably thinking that he didn't take the subway to fall in with God's plan--he took the subway to get to Fifty-ninth and Lexington.

("The Talk of the Town" in The New Yorker, Dec. 26, 1988.)

Boxing: a parable for preachers...

Here's an excerpt from an article on the work of great boxing trainer, Teddy Atlas, explaining how Atlas prepares men to fight in the ring:

All good cornermen think of themselves as masters of the psyche. They are Freudians. Atlas is just more so. He is convinced that boxing is, in large measure, psychological, that the loser is the fighter who lies to himself, who finds ways to rationalize his passivity and makes a "silent contract' with his opponent: I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me. They clutch and grab and back up, and while they may think they're being clever they are really signing the contract.

Atlas walked over to Muriqi. He came up close to his man's face, right where he could be seen and heard, and he spoke calmly, sternly.

"Now, look, you've got to be thinking about July 7th," he began. "You won every round last time, but you didn't do the things you need to be a pro. This is why I hesitate to take guys at this level. I might not be too good at other things, but I do know this. I'm going to tell you things that will upset you sometimes, but it will make you better. In your mind, it's easy. What I'm trying to tell you is, it's not. You'll reach the point when it won't be easy. That's what we're preparing for.

"A pro cannot let go." Atlas paused, as if searching Muriqi's eyes for any trace that this was sinking in. "A pro cannot let go. You have to keep from letting yourself do what's easy and just be there. Everything is painful. Everything is painful. There's a difference between making things livable for yourself and doing more. There is pain if you want to be something different: a pro, a champion. And rich."

(From Remnick, David. A Reporter at Large: Cornerman: "Teddy Atlas teaches men to fight". The New Yorker (The Sports Issue), 21 & 28 August 2000.)

The centrality of preaching in Protestant worship...

The absence of faith in the power of the Word of God preached to convert souls and sanctify saints is obvious to pastors today, and I have little doubt we are, ourselves, largely responsible for this. We have not preached as a dying man to dying men so our congregants lack the dedication to this means of grace that Scripture demands and church history demonstrates. Our sermons are filled with the indicative and few to no imperatives, so it's no wonder our people would be more inclined to invite their unbelieving friends and neighbors to a Franklin Graham crusade than our Lord's Day worship services.

We must work to restore biblical preaching in the power of the Holy Spirit to our worship work and that will always entail defending the prominence of the Word preached to those who have come to despise preaching and preachers.

Some years back I had such a man in my congregation and following a sermon I preached on the nobility of the Bereans of Acts 17:11 he wrote taking me to task concerning the prominence I said Scripture, the Early Church, and the Protestant Reformation gave to preaching. His errors are repeated in countless churches within the evangelical tradition today and so I here reproduce my letter of response hoping it may be helpful to others as we contend for the proper place being given to the sacred desk in our Lord's Day worship.

* * *

As I understand it, your questions are as follows: First, what is the time frame for my statement that, since the Reformation, the sermon has become the centerpiece of worship and that this is a restoration of the pattern for worship within the Early Church? And second, what are the sources for my statements concerning the centrality of preaching?

Wash me, Lord....

Reading one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, John 9, last night I was struck by the intimacy--frankly, the almost repugnant intimacy--of what Christ did to bring sight to the blind man.

Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). (John 9:6,7)

Imagine the man knowing that he has spit and mud on his eyes. Consider the faith it required to leave the dirt and saliva there all the way to the pool of Siloam.

This is a man desperate to see. Hence, the faithful obedience. We continue to read in verse 7,

So he went and washed and came back seeing.

He had to be led to Siloam. He had to fight the urge to clean the mess of Jesus' saliva and mud from his eyes before Siloam. But he believed. Out of desperation, he trusted Christ and he saw.

What is so striking here is the contrast with the vast crowd of disciples back in John 6 who turned away, grumbling to themselves, "This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?" after Jesus told them,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." (John 6:53-56)

And so, Scripture tells us, many turned away from Christ. They did not receive spiritual sight because they would not eat His flesh or drink His blood.

What tragedy to be too proud to turn to Christ as He commands us to.

Several thoughts on this:

1) Communion with Christ is always intimate. We drink His blood and eat His flesh, we must get His spit in our eyes if we are to enjoy His benefits in our lives. When Scripture speaks of our being "in Christ" and our "putting on Christ", it's not mere metaphor. The reality is right there in His body and blood.

2) Pride is the great inhibitor of intimacy with Christ.

3) Desperate need is a gift from God. When we are so desperate that we look to Jesus as our only hope and implicitly trust what He tells us to do, we are blessed.

Itching ears...

In my previous post, Kinkade, the Navigators, and Dylan, I mentioned Richard Clayderman and said I'd return to my comment, explaining it soon. Here, then, is an excerpt from a 1986 Chicago Tribune article about Clayderman. When I read it, I typed it up and have saved it since for such a moment as this. Few things I've read seem to come as close to the philosophy of preaching prevalent in evangelical churches I've known in my lifetime.

When Richard Clayderman sits down at the ivories to play his quivering version of Love Story or Love is Blue or Love Me Tonight, you'd almost think he has a shot at dethroning Liberace as the king of schmaltz.

"Liberace is a great old pianist, and I admire him, but I'm much different. My playing is simpler, sweeter. Of course, I can play difficult pieces too, but that is not what my vibrations are all about."

Indeed, where Liberace has endeared himself to fans with hyper-romantic pianism and glittery costumes to match, Clayderman has made a fortune taking a simpler, gentler approach. Yes, he too plays the classics, but in a manner similar to the way Cliffs Notes handles great literature.

Consider Clayderman's recent recording of the slow movement from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, a masterpiece better known as the theme music for the film Elvira Madigan. Clayderman's recording, to the certain horror of the longhairs, reworks, re-edits and rewrites Mozart's original!

"I love and respect this piece," he explains, "but it needed a little more rhythm, so my arrangers fixed it...

Professing Christians, Awake!

For some years I've been on the mailing list of a tract publisher named "The Inheritance Trust." Their ministry, as far as I can tell, consists entirely of publishing Puritan sermons in pint-sized booklets, three to four times a year. I've been receiving them like clockwork for nearly ten years now--through an address change--without ever being asked for a penny of support. (You can request to be placed on their mailing list here.)

But what sermons they are! I keep the little booklets on my desk, my dresser and in my car for months.

The latest mailing contains an exceptional sermon by Asahel Nettleton, one of the leaders of the Second Great Awakening.

Read these initial paragraphs and you'll want to read the entire sermon.

And that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep (Romans 13:11).

The text is addressed to Christians. The language is borrowed from natural sleep in which a person is in a great measure insensible to the objects, and to what is passing around him, but life remains in the body. And thus it is when there is much insensibility to divine things among Christians they sleep; but life remains in the soul. Language similar is often addressed to sinners; but then the image is borrowed from the dead who sleep in the dust. Hence the exhortation: Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

I. When does the Christian sleep?

1. In general the Christian sleeps when he desires his own case, and begins to consult that, when it comes in competition with duty. Religion is the great business of his life. It imposes on him many duties which are painful and contradictory to corrupt nature. Thus the fraternal admonition, Exhort one another daily, lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13) Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him, (Leviticus 19:17) is the command of God. To neglect this and similar duties for fear of incurring reproach, is to indulge in spiritual sloth. You may sit down and rest quietly if you will not disturb your fellow sinners around you with a sight of their sin and danger. This requires no effort. And here thousands resign themselves to rest. Individuals or a church may close their eyes on the conduct of an offender and be silent, and this awful indifference to his soul assumes the name of charity, without lifting a finger to restore such an one in the spirit of meekness. The slothful servant will ever consult his own ease by sinful contrivance to shun duty.

"Church Gunman Said Upset Over Sermon"

The man in Brookfield, Wisconsin, who killed seven churchgoers, including the pastor and two members of his family, before shooting himself is said to have been upset over a sermon. This from the AP wire service story...

Ratzmann regularly attended the gatherings at the Sheraton each Saturday -- the church group did not have a building of its own. But Frazier said Ratzmann walked out of a recent sermon "sort of in a huff."

"Something that the minister said he was upset about. I'm not quite sure what exactly," she said.

I can think of several other preachers who died as a result of what they preached: John the Baptist, Stephen, Paul...

A sizable majority of Protestant churches assume that the hallmark of good preaching is that, though smooth and affecting, it never ruffles a congregational feather.

I suspect God is more frequently the offended party at American sermons than parishioners.

Marriage ceremonies that defend the faith...

Note: The following essay is the fruit of research I've done on the history of marriage ceremonies, specifically their liturgy. I've asked the question "How can my work as a pastor officiating at marriage ceremonies be used by God to strengthen the commitment within our congregation to God's Truth in the area of the meaning and purpose of sexuality?"

I've been to too many weddings in which the presiding pastor didn't bother "improving" the time, by which I mean that the very areas of biblical doctrine our culture hates were carefully (or maybe even thoughtlessly) excised from the liturgy--the three purposes of marriage, the warning of the seriousness of vows, the word 'obey' in the woman's vow, any mention of the wife's duty to submit to her husband, and so on.

So this essay is my effort to think through this aspect of pastoral ministry biblically, and to record my new commitments concerning how I will preside at the weddings of our congregation. The essay is published in a collection of essays offered by...

Princeton Seminary yesterday, and reformed seminaries today...

My dear brother in Christ, David Wegener, has been a great encouragement to me through the years. Now serving as lecturer at the Theological College of Central Africa under our denomination's mission agency, Mission to the World, I continue to cling to our friendship gaining much from David's knowledge of Scripture and church history.

Occasionally David writes in such a helpful way that I wish others could read him. So this time I wrote and asked his permission to put some of his reflections concerning the decline of Princeton Seminary up on this blog. He kindly agreed.

David Wegener, my brother David Bayly, and I share a growing concern over the weakness of the training offered at reformed seminaries where men from our congregations (and other friends) have taken their Masters of Divinity--what my Dad used to refer to as "the union card" of pastoral ministry.

Our criticisms of these seminaries must be developed more fully (which we hope to do), but it may be summed up by observing that it is almost a basic assumption of the curriculum that a good shepherd will avoid controversy.

Ruminate on that a bit and our good readers will quickly see how very much of faithful pastoral ministry this eliminates. Consider just two of the pastor's duties, preaching and discipline, and it's easy to see the damage the Church will suffer when reformed men trained by these seminaries stand in the pulpit and moderate session meetings having been stripped of their ability to "fight the good fight."

Ironically, though, the conflict stripped from the work of the shepherd is given back to these men in a strictly circumscribed outlet that is safe and culturally approved--the pages of Sports Illustrated. The same shepherds so meticulous in avoiding controversy in their pulpits carefully study the stats of three-hundred pound behemoths who make a living crashing through lines of scrimmage trying to sack quarterbacks.

Making common cause with the cultural forces intent on feminizing the Western World, seminaries today are turning out shepherds quite similar to the castrati who, as late as the twentieth century, sang in the Sistine Chapel Choir in a woman's voice...

O tidings of comfort and joy...

This from my reading fifteen years ago. Speaking of which, where will you take tidings of comfort and joy this Christmastime?

Christmas, 1988, N Train

A young woman we know writes: It was the gilt-edged pages that gave him away. Most people who read the Bible on the subway have a small pocket edition and keep it to themselves. This young man looked as if he had come away with the family King James. Otherwise, he was ordinary-looking; gray jacket, plaid scarf, blue jeans, white sneakers, bristly brown hair; a gold wedding band. He waited until the N train had pulled out of the Queensboro Plaza station and was under the East River, and then he read aloud, "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus..." A groan went out from my fellow-passengers.

Talk about a captive audience. The train was too crowded for people to switch cars. And New Yorkers will put up with all sorts of things rather than give up their seats on the subway. I couldn't help thinking that the young man was lucky there were no maniacs aboard and no piles of stones at hand. But no matter how you feel about being force-fed the gospel under the East River it holds up better than the Times or the Post or the subway ads for Dr. Zizmor, dermatologist. Anyway, no one moved. No one said, "Oh, shut up." No one wanted to be identified as an irreligious loner at Christmastime.

I found myself criticizing the young man's intonation. He had a good strong voice, but the words rocked up and back unvaryingly: "...to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child." When he was done, and the shepherds had rejoiced, he changed--thank goodness--his rhythm. He started singing "Joy to the World." He sang two full verses of it, again in a good, strong voice. But no one joined in. I was tempted, partly because I felt sorry for him--singing in the face of so much hostility--and also because I'm a sucker for actual human voices raised in song, as opposed to canned carols such as one hears in Doubleday (pa-rum-pa-pum-pum) and in Barnes & Noble (gloh-o-o-o-o-oh-o-o-o-o-oh-o-o-o-o-oh-ria). But I was sitting next to a man rigid with pain and fury at having his subway meditations interrupted, and I felt sorry for him, too. Especially when the young man finished singing and began to preach, reminding us that we were all God's creatures on the N train and that for each of us He had a plan. God's creature next to me was probably thinking that he didn't take the subway to fall in with God's plan--he took the subway to get to Fifty-ninth and Lexington.

("The Talk of the Town" in The New Yorker, Dec. 26, 1988.)

Speeches and sermons...

Assuming that, when the normal American goes through church doors, he doesn't go through a paradigm shift about the nature of leadership, it's interesting to note what the secular authorities advise concerning the speeches of Bush and Kerry:

(Kerry) uses what George P. Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkley, calls "hedges," words and grammatical constructions that imply uncertainty or qualification.

"There are certain forms of grammar that don't commit you, phrases like 'I believe' or 'I think,'" Mr. Lakoff said. "Kerry has to learn not to do that."

"It is possible to be decisive and not sound decisive," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "People who speak in sentences that contain parenthetical phrases, people who begin a sentence and then deflect to add a series of illustrative examples before they end the sentences" do not seem authoritative, she said. "The language of decisiveness is subject, verb, object, end sentence." (Alex Williams, "George 'The Squinter' Bush vs. John 'The Grinner' Kerry--A Showdown of Style!" New York Times; Sunday, September 26, 2004.)

And what of pastors? Do we use "hedges?" Do we preach in a way that "implies uncertainty?" Are we careful to "qualify" our proclamations?

If so, our preaching "does not seem authoritative" to the souls we have been called to shepherd. Nuanced, yes; but not authoritative.

How sobering is that? What a contrast to the preaching of the prophets, apostles, and our Lord Himself:

Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:4, 5)

As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:9-12).

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:18,19)

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell--and great was its fall."

When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.(Matthew 7:24-29)

Presidential/pastoral leadership...

Page one of the New York Time's "Sunday Styles" section carried a piece by Alex Williams on the upcoming presidential debates titled, "George 'The Squinter' Bush vs. John 'The Grinner' Kerry--A Showdown of Style!" Here are some excerpts:

...the candidate who voters perceive as the winner will probably be chosen not on the substance of what he says, but on the cut of his jib. The subtle style cues... account for as much as 75 percent of a viewer's judgement... the mano a mano is about style--those nonverbal messages that speak to hearts, not heads.

...in some sense it comes down to which man you would want in your living room for the next four years.

...even one deftly delivered witticism, as long as it seems spontaneous (like Reagan's "There you go again" in 1980) could be the deciding factor.

Each candidate must channel his gifts as an onstage communicator--that is, a thespian--said Susan Batson, a longtime acting coach. (Kerry's) greatest opportunity... is to laugh more, to radiate a vulnerability with his eyes, a sense of compassion and wisdom, as opposed to single-mindedness and aggression. He can be "sort of a combination of Henry Fonda and James Stewart," she said.

Note there's nothing here of substance. The entire discussion centers around the candidate's ability to cop a posture or to be an actor, to put his audience at ease. Even taking into account that the piece appeared in the "Sunday Style," rather than the more weighty "Week in Review" section, it's clear the debates are expected to be the pivotal event of this election. And Williams points out that campaign experts expect "hearts, not heads" to prevail in the conclusions voters draw from the debates.

So what does this say about our view of leadership? If our president must put us at ease as we sit with him in our living room, could Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill carry an election today? No, it's doubtful either Lincoln or Churchill "radiated vulnerability with their eyes."

But to get really serious, what does this say about pastoral leadership today? If presidents are picked with little concern for substance, but an overwhelming emphasis on "subtle cues," "non-verbal messages," deftly delivered witticisms" that "seem spontaneous," and their ability to "radiate vulnerability," no wonder our seminaries are turning out men who have few leadership skills.

If "single-mindedness" and "aggression" are a liability to John Kerry, one wonders which church in which suburb and denomination would issue a call to Jesus or the Apostle Paul? And anyone who responds saying that a different philosophy of leadership prevails among biblical churches should pull his head out of the sand.

Preaching: what the echo answers...

Another word from Kierkegaard:

Folios and folios have been written to show again and again how one is to recognize what true Christianity is. This can be done in a far simpler way.

Nature is ... acoustic. Only heed what the echo answers, and thou shalt know at once what is what.

So when in this world one preaches Christianity in such a way that the echo answers: "Glorious, profound, serious-minded Christian, thou shouldst be exalted to princely rank," etc., know then that this signifies his preaching of Christianity is, Christianly, a base lie. It is not absolutely certain that he who walks with fetters on his legs is a criminal, for there are instances when the civil magistrate has condemned an innocent man; but it is eternally certain that he who--by preaching Christianity!--wins all things earthly is a liar, a deceiver, who at one point or another has falsified the doctrine, which by God has been so designed, in such a militant relation to this world, that it is eternally impossible to preach what Christianity is in truth without having to suffer in this world, to be repudiated, hated, cursed.

When one preaches Christianity in such a way that the echo answers, "He is mad," know then that this signifies that there are considerable elements of truth in his preaching, without its being, however, the Christianity of the New Testament. He may have hit the mark; but presumably he does not press hard enough, either by his oral preaching or by the preaching of his life, so that, Christianly speaking, he glides over too easily, his preaching after all is not the Christianity of the New Testament.

But when one preaches Christianity in such a way that the echo answers, "Away with that man from the earth, he does not deserve to live," know then that this is the Christianity of the New Testament. Without change since the time of our Lord Jesus Christ, capital punishment is the penalty for preaching Christianity as it truly is: hating oneself to love God; hating oneself to hate everything in which one's life consists, everything to which one clings, for the sake of which one selfishly would desire to have God's aid to get it, or to console one that one did not get it, console one for the loss of it--without any change capital punishment is the penalty for preaching this in character.

-Soren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon "Christendom," (Boston: Beacon Press, 1956), pp. 278-79.

Doctrinally orthodox and blandly inoffensive...

A brother in Christ comments on an earlier post: "Today in America, the opportunities for a doctrinally orthodox pastor to maintain a bland inoffensiveness don't seem all that great."

To the contrary.

As a lawyer-friend of mine once put it concerning the preaching of his church in another state, "With the indicative, can't we please have the imperative?"

Or as a Bible Study Fellowship leader from one of my former churches put it, "It's not up to the preacher to apply the text--that's the job of the Holy Spirit. He is the One who should convict of sin, not you."

There is a relentless opposition to pastors preaching in such a way as to apply the text to the lives of their congregants, to preach to the conscience and not just the mind, and to call for repentance. In fact, there is a relentless opposition to pastors who move past teaching, to preaching.

This opposition is documented across church history and in the Scriptures. Consider Jesus' summary statement concerning Jerusalem:

Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, "BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!" (Matthew 23:34-39)

Speaking of the absence of danger in the preaching of his day, Kierkegaard was pointing out what is true here today--that pastors have given up preaching, settling for truisms, velveteen rabbit stories, and nostrums. We have given up working for the salvation of the souls we were called to guard and have settled for working for the building of our kingdoms or the maintenance of our lifestyles. And when security becomes the greatest good, danger must be removed. But not in too obvious a way.

If it's too obvious, the pastor might be exposed as the charlatan he is, holding the sinecure he does, and then the gig would be up. So we must act as if we're shepherds, good shepherds, and preachers and prophets, but do it in such a way as to avoid danger scrupulously. Give the congregants drama, all the drama they want, but fill the gun's barrel with blanks.

No, the market for "doctrinally orthodox pastors (who) maintain a bland inoffensiveness" continues to be a bull market.

Shopkeeper or shepherd...

Still more from the wise Danish curmudgeon:

It is pretty much the same now with the modern clergyman: a nimble, adroit, lively man, who in pretty language, with the utmost ease, with graceful manners, etc., knows how to introduce a little Christianity, but as easily as possible. In the New Testament, Christianity is the profoundest wound that can be inflicted upon a man, calculated on the most dreadful scale to collide with everything--and now the clergyman has perfected himself in introducing Christianity in such a way that it signifies nothing, and when he is able to do this to perfection he is regarded as a paragon. But this is nauseating! Oh, if a barber has perfected himself in removing the beard so easily that one hardly notices it, that's well enough; but in relation to that which is precisely calculated to wound, to perfect oneself so as to introduce it in such a way that if possible it is not noticed at all--that is nauseating.

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

Preaching without danger...

Ask me to list my favorite books and up there near the top would be Kierkegaard's Attack Upon "Christendom". Every pastor and elder should read it, as should their wives. It pierces our hypocrisy and points the way back to the path and cost of discipleship. It skewers the modern expectation that the model pastor will have the affect and temperament of a shopkeeper, instead calling for a restoration of manliness to our preaching and pastoral care.

To entice our good readers to find the book and read it, here's one of the hundred or so passages perfectly suited to the work of reform so desperately needed in the evangelical and reformed pulpits of our day.

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.

(From Attack Upon "Christendom" by Soren Kierkegaard; 1944, Princeton University Press.)

[Please note: This recommendation of Attack Upon Christendom is not a general recommendation of Kierkegaard. My friend Don Johnson warns that Kierkegaard was a "father of liberalism," and I do not have the knowledge to agree or disagree, although the book Don cites for his concern, Murray's Evangelicalism Divided, has been one of the formative influences in my work and just yesterday, again, I recommended it to a brother for his reading list. So while acknowledging this concern with Kierkegaard--a concern I've heard before--I place this volume by Kierkegaard high on my list and encourage all to get it and read it.]

Honoring your pastor...

"As disobedience reproaches the ministry, so obedience honors it... When there is a metamorphosis, a change wrought; when people come to the word proud, but go away humble; when they come earthly, but go away heavenly; when they come, as Naaman to Jordan, lepers, but they go away healed; then the ministry is honored... You cannot honor your spiritual fathers more, than by thriving under their ministry, and living upon the sermons which they preach."

(From Thomas Watson's, The Ten Commandments, Banner of Truth Trust, 1981, p. 125.)

Stage and audience, or platform and congregation?

Our words for different aspects of worship indicate our theology of worship. Consider 'stage' or 'platform,' 'audience' or 'congregation;' what's the usage in your church? How you answer might also predict whether your musicians perform or lead.

I'm reminded of this from a volume in my library ragged from use, kept on the same shelf as Idols for Destruction, Charles Simeon of Cambridge, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, Augustine's Confessions, Knowing God, Life Together, Blamires'The Christian Mind, and Praise of Folly:

The theater / The church.

The difference between the theater and the church is essentially this, that the theater honestly and honorably acknowledges itself to be what it is; on the other hand the church is a theater which dishonestly tries in every way to hide what it is.

-Kierkegaard, Soren Attack Upon Christendom (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944) p. 197.

More from this prophet later...