BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Nullifying the Word of God for the sake of academic reputation...

This is a post showing how (it seems to me) shame over the Bible's history of Creation has led to the (maybe) decline of Covenant Theological Seminary. But first, a short back-story...

Some time back I had a man in my congregation who had grown up Baptist and was pursuing graduate studies in science. One weekend he was home visiting his childhood church and he came under the influence of John Armstrong who--whether through preaching or conversation, I don't know--convinced him to stop graduate studies in science and begin graduate studies in theology. Being PCA at the time, I encouraged him to go to the PCA's Covenant Seminary over in St. Louis and he matriculated there a year or so later.

Watching him across the years is part of the reason I've warned people to avoid Covenant. There's more to say than this, but two things are worth highlighting... 

The world music of Alan Lomax...

At the height of the sixties civil rights movement, Alan Lomax put on a concert in Central Park. He was trying to close the distance between blacks of the south and white sympathizers in the northeast. One year later, in 1966, Lomaz recorded the Newport Folk Festival. But here are clips from Lomaz's recording of the earlier Central Park Concert. Check out numbers 43, 45, 48, and 50 by the Georgia Sea Island Singers from St. Simon Island. Then go exploring. By the end of February, Lomax's life work should all be up and ready. (TB)

Drab homes give birth to art idolatry...

(NOTE FROM TIM BAYLY: A large part of this post has been removed. A young man objected that I was replacing one idolatry with my own more sophisticated one, and I thought it best to pull the post rather than allow readers to concluding that I am promoting idolatry.)

Here's an interesting explanation of the worship of artists spreading through the PCA by way of Covenant, MNA, and Redeemer clones. George Bernard Shaw points out that this worship has its origin in artless homes and childhoods...

Reformed pulpits today show Erasmus won...

In his Bondage of the Will, Luther opposes the Roman Catholic church's champion Biblical scholar, Erasmus of Rotterdam. In an earlier post, I put up an excerpt from the beginning of Bondage of the Will in which Luther tells his readers he will be making assertions because it's the character of the Christian mind to "delight in assertions."

One longtime Baylyblog reader who is a committed Roman Catholic thought to defend Erasmus here by placing a large quotation from Erasmus immediately under the Luther quote I had posted.

Reading the Erasmus excerpt, it was apparent Erasmus was saying one thing while doing another. The way Erasmus speaks in this excerpt is common among scholars today and, having put those scholars in charge of the training of our future pastors at our denominational seminaries, we've arrived at the place where preachers often are incapable of saying, "Thus says the Lord God Almighty."

Pastors preach for the approval of the lowest common denominator, scholars and the professional and chattering classes they manufacture, rather than the farmers, truckers, and coal miners who used to be Presbyterian but long ago left for Baptist and Pentecostal churches...

Midwives, denominations, abortions, and my present political philosophy...

I don't write much about Indiana politics and government but it's caused me no small sadness to contemplate the term-limit-departure of our fiscally excellent governor a little over a year from now. Gov. Mitch Daniels will have completed his second term and will have to leave office.

If I am comforted in our loss of Mitch's magnificent fiscal leadership, my comfort comes from this: that his likely successor is a man, Representaive Mike Pence, who promises to govern with the same fiscal commitments while adding a theological framework to those commitments that promises to extend far beyond fiscal discipline, on to principles concerning many other areas of governance including the battlefields on which the destroyers of our nation and its states are focussing their revolution: sexuality, the Image of God in man, the origin and nature of sexuality and marriage decreed by our Creator in His Order of Creation, and so forth.

As you read through Daniels' penultimate State of the State Address delivered yesterday evening, you will gain a hint of why I respect him. He has been unflinching in disciplining the educationists of our state by a host of private initiatives that have finally brought competition into public education. True, he brags about over half of our state budget going to edcuation, and he seems to see higher education as an unqualified good. I disagree with both things as I disagreed with President Bush on similar matters. Mitch Daniels is not a wild-eyed enthusiast. He's a realist who really changed our state. Definitively. And reading, you'll see what difference it makes to each citizen of the state.

But there's something else I want to say, here.

Some thirty years ago, I was at the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly to oppose their denominational abortion policy. My dear Mary Lee was pregnant and, since we were in the habit of having home births, I'd called the midwest representative of the PC(USA)'s self-funded independent medical insurance plan to ask if they'd cover the cost of our midwife? It was awkward. He hemmed and hawed and said he didn't know and would have to get back to me on it...

Rejoice each day...

Here's a good devotional Rev. David T. Myers will be writing each day. It's a ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America's Historical Center which is run by our good friend, Wayne Sparkman. Each day's reading will include short doses of church history and the Westminster Standards, plus honey from God's Word. Why not subscribe and make your commitment to read this devotional and five chapters of Scripture a day this year? It's not too late to start.

The only way Biblical Christians today can survive without going all ghettoish is to remind ourselves that every doctrine we live and teach has been boringly normal across the centuries of Church history. It's only the hirelings of our own time who call these doctrines monstrous. So subscribe to Pastor Meyers' devotional and innoculate yourself against becoming a sourpuss. We stand in full and joyful agreement with all those fathers of the faith who went before us!

(TB, w/thanks to David Mc.)

Itching ears...

Sometimes we speak here on Baylyblog of "tall-steeple churches." What are they?

Tall-steeple churches are large, rich, and proud; and therefore quite influential.

Back in the day, posession of an earned doctorate was the line separating the men from the boys with the men pastoring tall-steeple churches and the boys relegated to short-steeples. Now an earned doctorate is no longer necessary. The D.Min. will do just fine.

But there's a new requirement. Don't even bother sending a tall-steeple church your dossier unless you've got a British or Scottish accent. Cockney most certainly will not do.

(TB)

Amazon and pastoral care...

There are two views of the pastoral ministry that are diametrically opposed to each other and locked in conflict. The competing views, though, aren't spoken of or written about, and the conflict passes without public notice. Jeff Bezos highlights the conflict in this explanation he gave of Amazon's view of customer relations:

Interviewer: Two years ago, you bought Zappos. Was that an attempt to absorb their so-called culture of happiness and customer service?

Bezos: No, no, no. We like their unique culture, but we don't want that culture at Amazon. We like our culture, too. Our version of a perfect customer experience is one in which our customer doesn't want to talk to us. Every time a customer contacts us, we see it as a defect. I've been saying for many, many years, people should talk to their friends, not their merchants. And so we use all of our customer service information to find the root cause of any customer contact. What went wrong? Why did that person have to call? ...How can we fix it?

That, good reader, is the view of pastoral ministry prevailing in our Reformed churches today. I say this from long and close observation. Most Reformed men run from intimacy...

Joint Reformation Sunday service in Lynden, WA...

After Lord's Day morning worship at Westminster PCA down in Vancouver, WA, Mary Lee and I will drive up to the US/Canada border for the 6 PM Annual Joint Christian Reformed Church (CRC) Reformation Sunday Worship Service hosted this year by First Christian Reformed Church in Lynden, Washington. I'll preach at the Reformation Sunday service, then speak on...

Roman Catholicism is a medieval heresy...

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

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

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

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

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

Repenting of parachurch, Baptist childhoods; Home Sweet Romans...

Here's a revealing, Biblically inaccurate interview with another in a long line of Evangelical intellectuals who felt that repudiating--really, really repudiating--their Baptist roots required them to turn to the Roman Catholic heresy. Honestly, what's with these guys? Can I see the hand of a man--just one man--who repents of his parachurch, Baptist heritage without becoming a Sacramentalist (you know, ex opere operato and all that), and then a full-blown Roman Catholic?

This is why I've said to my F-V sympathizing friends that we have to find a way to innoculate our parachurch, Baptist brothers against feeling the need to take the most radical step possible to put the faith of their childhood behind them.

First they embrace infant baptism, and that's not enough; then it's the smells and bells of...

Another (yawn) minced confession at the PCA's Redeemer Presbyterian Church...

"To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence." - G. K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

Here we have a wedding ceremony of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Manhattan.

Presiding over the service on the congregation's right wearing a suit is a male pastor (Scott Sauls) who formerly held his credentials in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church--a Reformed denomination that approves of female pastors and elders.

Presiding over the service on the congregation's left wearing a minister's robe is a female pastor.

Wedding ceremonies not being sacramental among us Protestants, one might argue it doesn't matter much if female pastors co-officiate with male pastors...

Rev. Coffin's views on Church and state...

ByFaith Online points its readers to a recent interview of Rev. David Coffin in the Washingon Examiner in which David says that when churches become involved in politics, "It's a kind of apostasy." (You can find the interview here.)

It should be noted that the man who advocates a strict separation of Church and state in this interview is the same man who told my brother Tim, during the 2002 General Assembly debate, that the PCA should not oppose women serving as combatants in the U.S. Armed Forces.

So here's a minister of the Word of God pedantically parsing his Biblical obligations in such a way that he can justify turning an official blind eye to one of the most depraved aspects of our culture's destruction of women--almost as bad as urging them to kill unborn babies in their wombs.

To lodge his Uriah Heapish kowtowing to our culture's attack on motherhood in the Westminster Standards is ludicrous. Has David read Reformed history--any at all? And if so, can he be serious? The Westminster Divines agreeing with him that the Church should be silent about men commanding women to take up arms as combatants in the defense of their country? 

But worse, David claims God's approval of this ridiculous two-kingdom novelty, a claim worthy of condemnation by every shepherd of God's flock. Unfortunately, few will take him on. And that's where we find the PCA--lurching between Tim Keller's feminism and David Coffin's pedantry.

(DB)

 

A sermon from a dying man to dying men...

Is Holiness Possible Today (With a Warning from Esau)

Along with a number of other dear brothers (Ron Scates, Gary LeTourneau, Jim DeCamp, Terry Schlossberg, Ben and John Sheldon), my friend Rev. Marty Radcliffe continues to languish in the heretical PC(USA). Pray for him. Marty was a godly encouragment to me in the work of the ministry back in the early eighties when we both were ordained and served within the PC(USA)'s John Knox Presbytery up in Wisconsin.

Marty just commented under the post, "Death of an eighteen-year-old brother...," that he'd recently listened again to my Dad's final sermon given from the pulpit of College Church in Wheaton a few weeks before he died. After Dad's death, I had three-hundred cassettes of this sermon duplicated and sent them out to many friends.

This is the sort of preaching almost completely absent from the PCA and other conservative Reformed circles today. And it's tragic. Out of fear of being labelled a "pietist" by godless hypocrites who persecute those pursuing the sanctification without which no man will see God...

The death of an eighteen-year-old brother...

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust, Perhaps there is hope. Let him give his cheek to the smiter, Let him be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever, For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness. (Lamentations 3:25-32)

(NOTE: Since posting this a few hours ago, I've made a couple corrections and added some text at the end.) Back in 1964, my brother, Joe, went off to Swarthmore on a (rare) full ride National Merit Scholarship. He was a philosophy major, ran on the Cross Country team, and loved the Lord. He planned to go on for a Ph.D. and serve in foreign missions.

Meanwhile Dad...

Reformed blings invite heretic to wax eloquent...

Jesus said, "...whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. - Matthew 20:27, 28

One of Baylyblog's themes is the necessity of avoiding all the Evangelical and Reformed bling. There's gold in them thar hills and that's the point, dear brothers and sisters. Jim MacDonald and Mark Driscoll are out having Elephant Room conversations and want you to come pay them money to see how bright they are.

Except check out the man they've invited to join them and wax elephant for their customers.

He's a pastor who claims he's a Christian, but he's not...

Christian bling: Dad's Gospel Blimp inoculated us against it...

To the left, readers will find a link where they can buy a DVD of The Gospel Blimp. The movie was directed by Shorty Yeaworth who also directed Steve McQueen in the cult classic, The Blob. Yeaworth did a perfect job on The Gospel Blimp. The acting is good and the style is retro to the max--cars with mega-fins, perfect crewcuts, and of course, the blimp.

I mention the movie now because, if they watch it, readers will understand why the bling of famous Christians holds no appeal to David or me. We grew up under a father who made Christian bling utterly repulsive to us. The rejection of personality cults and self-promotion was foundational to our upbringing.

Dad wrote The Gospel Blimp after years helping to found and leading the work of the parachurch campus ministry, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. And since it was a satire on Evangelicalism's pride and self-promotion, no one was willing to publish it. So Dad did the manly faithful thing and...

A tsunami of precious equivocation...

It is the final sign of imbecility in a people that it calls cats dogs and describes the sun as the moon—and is very particular about the preciseness of these pseudonyms. To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence. - G. K. Chesterton

A number of people have forwarded this clip in the past two weeks and it's been hard to know what to do with it. Keller's interview is about as bad as it could be. When the interview hit cyberspace, Keller issued an apology for one or two things he said. But his unfaithfulness to Jesus Christ and the Word of God was no momentary oversight or accident. It was a tsunami of careful, precise, well-placed equivocation, so the apology only made things worse.

For years, now, the Redeemer pastor has demonstrated a heavily nuanced and timid support for orthodox Christian doctrine...

Vandy students have hissy-fits over open-air calls to repentance...

Back when I was an undergrad at UW-Madison, I was strengthened in my faith by the open-air preachers on Library Mall.

Once I was privileged to protect one of the men when the student body vice-president, Leon Varjian (see pic above from the famous Lady Liberty prank) assaulted him. Varjian was pelting the preacher with eggs. Clearly it hurt, so between Varjian's trips back to his wagon to stock up (he had many dozens), I picked the eggs out of his stash and smashed them on the pavement.

Varjian got mad, but back then I was a longhair and I think he realized if he could batter a man with eggs, I could batter the sidewalk. So he stopped what he was doing and I stopped, too.

Another time a man was picking the preacher up from behind and humping him while the law enforcement officers watched and laughed...

Update to "A minister with a scripture" post...

The blog of the Gospel Coalition men continues to show itself thin-skinned, circling its wagons and refusing to respond to readers. The "Minister with a scripture..." post has been updated with the latest. Scroll down to the bottom of that post to keep abreast...

(TB)

"A minister with a Scripture..."

A few days ago, Tim Keller used his own Gospel Coalition blog to issue an apology for this very bad interview he did back in 2008 in conjunction with the release of his The Reason for God. The matter came to light only now because the video of the interview was only just released by Veritas Forum. Keller's apology is good in that apologies generally are; but it's bad in that some aspects of the interview that are most unfaithful to Scripture aren't addressed by the apology.

Noting this, I submitted a comment under the Gospel Coalition's announcement of the apology. The comment appeared for a few minutes, then was removed. Five days ago I submitted a request to the Coalition's e-mail asking them to...

A New York state of mind...

Good girls gone bad, the city's filled with them...

                - Jay-Z, "Empire State of Mind"

Here's a list of the fifteen zip codes in New York City that have the highest rate of abortion. The graph was created by the Chiaroscuro Foundation and it tells us Manhattan's Chelsea - Clinton zip code has the highest rate of child-slaughter in all of New York City.

The Chelsea-Clinton zip code is the zip code of Redeemer Presbyterian Church...

A wedding sermon for man and woman...

The Bible says it is better to marry than to burn with passion. But we say that it’s better to live with each other first to determine whether you are “compatible”. We say that it is better to burn with passion than to get married before you have established your career. We say that it is better to give ourselves to lust than to give up the prospect of two high-paying jobs. We even say that it is better to give ourselves to impurity before marriage than for people to think we are weird or to call us "legalists" or "prudes." - Joseph Bayly in a recent wedding sermon

Here's a wedding sermon that, across church history, would have been a yawn. But today it elicits anger and hatred--and from men and women claiming to be Reformed.

How have we gotten to the place that pastors leave out the word 'obey' in the woman's vow and preach sermons to brides that don't mention childbearing and submission?

Speaking in Toledo this past weekend at the Friday Night Bible Study at the home of Bob and Debbie Forney, I pointed out that the weddings I attend nowadays are entirely gender-neutral...

As a result of works, faith is completed...

In a post earlier today Tim quoted from an interview in Christianity Today's feminist blog, Her.meneutics, with Russell Moore, new president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Moore is asked:

HER.meneutics: Complementarians sometimes say that a feminist or egalitarian reading of the Bible owes more to our own cultural prejudices than to a faithful reading of Scripture. Is this true?

Russell Moore: I do not believe that egalitarian Christians are evil, Bible-destructing people. Most of them are trying to reconcile some things they find in Scripture (Jesus’ affirmation of women, for instance) with others that seem to contradict these (the teachings of Paul and Peter on the church and family, for instance).

If egalitarian feminism is not "Bible-destructing," it follows, arguing from the lesser to the greater, that neither is it soul-destroying. This attitude has long been reflected in CBMW's genteel, comrades-in-the-faculty-row approach to feminist heresy.

But Tim has already addressed this point in his excellent post below.What must be added is the observation that only in a Reformed Protestant world where the biblically-taught union between faith and works has been decisively severed could a man argue that a heresy which leads to significant rebellion against the Word of God is not an immediate threat to human souls.

You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was completed. James 2:22 

Francis Schaeffer's shame...

He who corrects a scoffer gets dishonor for himself, And he who reproves a wicked man gets insults for himself. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you, Reprove a wise man and he will love you. (Proverbs 9:7, 8)

In what world is it news when a man announces his Christian faith and leadership were only for the money and that he "faked it all the way?" In the Gray Lady's world where hypocrisy among pro-life Evangelicals is news fit to print because it somehow confirms their self-righteousness in promoting the slaughter of little ones and hating God.

My own father knew the elder Francis Schaeffer (they both attended Faith Seminary) and near the end of his life he became concerned about the anger and pride that characterized Franky's splenetic diatribes. So back in the early eighties, Dad wrote Franky a kind fatherly letter of admonishment. Franky never responded.

Years later, now, I'm in my late fifties and I realize how awful pride is and how very many nations, cities, churches, families, marriages, and men it destroys. It is the engine that drives that root of bitterness that corrupts many.

This is my way of saying that the real news about Franky is not that he's now confessing his whole life has been hypocrisy...

The blessing of Roger Nicole and his lectures on the authority of Scripture...

This past year, my dear friend and father-in-the-faith Dr. Roger Nicole went to be with the Lord. Other than family members, there are only a couple birthdays recorded each year on my calendar, but one of them has been Dr. Nicole's. His teaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary was in a category far beyond any professor I've sat under before or since (and I've had some superb profs).

I'll never forget Dr. Nicole's lectures in Systematics I on the doctrine of Scripture. One day he began by asking our class a series of questions probing our knowledge of the book of Psalms...

Things to appreciate about Campus Crusade for Christ/Cru...

What's Campus Crusade for Christ International/Cru done right? Here's a short list I hope others will add to...

Tilting at windmills...

Over on a conservative Reformed blog, a couple men have been arguing that the church today is being threatened by some who are taking father-rule (they call it "patriarchy") too, too far. No one really wanted to be specific, but when pressed by the esteemed brothers Craig French and RCJr., the following list of practices was submitted as proof of this grave threat.

We are told that the men who pose this threat within the Church are those "suggesting..."

Humility in deeds, not words alone....

It's important to remember that pride is made clear by both word and deed and not by words alone in assessing pride and humility. 

Neglecting this truth leads to false accusations. In Numbers 16, Korah, Dathan and Abiram lead a rebellion against Moses and Aaron saying, "You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” 

They accuse Moses of lording it over the people by speaking for God. Moses "angrily" defends himself before God by saying, "Do not regard their offering! I have not taken a single donkey from them, nor have I done harm to any of them." His defense lies in his deeds. He is not proud simply because he speaks for God. He has done them no harm, nor has he profited from them in any way.

Campus Crusade's Jesus Idol...

Atop Campus Crusade's Jesus Film web site are several paragraphs of boiler-plate Evangelical Jesus-marketing shtick:

Every eight seconds, somewhere in the world, another person indicates a decision to follow Christ after watching the "JESUS" film.

Every eight seconds... that's 10,800 people per day, 324,000 per month and more than 3.8 million per year! That’s like the population of the entire city of Pittsburgh, PA coming to Christ every 28 ¼ days. And yet, if you are like many people, you may have never even heard of it.

Called by some “one of the best-kept secrets in Christian missions,” a number of mission experts have acclaimed the film as one of the greatest evangelistic tools of all time. Since 1979 the “JESUS” film has been viewed by several billon people all across the globe, and has resulted in more than 200 million men, women and children indicating decisions to follow Jesus. In addition, through hundreds of partners an estimated 10+ million decisions have been made as the film "JESUS" is used extensively by the Body of Christ worldwide. (emphasis in the original)

A few points of arithmetic regarding these bodacious claims before reflecting on what such claims reveal....

I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about I, wanna talk about Number One...

Listen to the first minute or two and it's so clear what this video and at least two of these men are about. You'd have to be highly educated to miss it. Then the last minute or two, it surfaces again. As that patriarch of all things Evangelical, the late Vernon Grounds, said some years back, Evangelicals worship "the bitch goddess of success." Followers of Jesus Christ should have nothing to do with multi-site video venues.

And by the way, Mark Dever pulled in his horns after being whupped by the two alpha-males going two-on-one on him with fangs bared. Try to imagine the good doctor, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, agreeing to be part of this exchange. I apologize for posting it, but some things have to be seen if they're going to be properly condemned. (TB, w/thanks)

Multiple Sites: Yea or Nay? Dever, Driscoll, and MacDonald Vote from Ben Peays on Vimeo.

Mass graves being dug in Sudan, but no response from US or UN...

Scott is a missionary to the brand new country of South Sudan. My son-in-law, Ben Crum, with his wife, Michal, and our daughter, Hannah, worked under Scott at an orphanage in South Africa several years ago. Since then, Scott's turned his attention to the Sudanese and I commend him to you for your support. He's a member of a PCA church in Asheville, but serves under the Reformed Presbyterian mission agency.

If you read international news, you know Sudan has been the center of much oppression and state-sanctioned murder for years, now. The slaughter was directed by the Muslims in the north against the animists and Christians who predominate in the south. With the secession of the south and the creation of South Sudan, international human rights organizations hoped to be able to turn their attention elsewhere. Sadly, though, large tensions remain--particularly what will happen with the oil-rich Abyei region which hasn't yet held a required referendum on which nation to join.

Scott just sent an e-mail asking his friends and supporters for help exposing atrocities being committed now a couple hundred miles north of him in Sudan. He attached the report below outlining mass graves being dug...

Not to worry, Congresswoman Bachmann's resigned membership in her WELS church...

The Wisconisn Evangelical Lutheran Synod sees the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and raises them one. Or maybe ten.

In my former home of Pardeeville, Wisconsin, the WELS congregation was the dominant religious presence in town. When they called a new pastor, Mary Lee and I decided to invite him with his wife and children over for dinner. After a cordial introduction, we sat down at the table and I turned to him and said, "I've heard lots of things through the years, but let me ask you directly: do you pray, do I pray, or do we not pray at all?"

He answered, "You go ahead and pray and we'll sit by," and immediately his good wife turned to their children and said, "We're going to pray; fold your hands and close your eyes." God bless her.

We had a pleasant evening. During the conversation the WELS pastor told us his grandmothers was a godly Baptist and that he didn't pray with her, either...

One shocker after another from Carolyn Custis James...

This post is the contribution of two men from ClearNote Church of Bloomington, Jake Mentzel and Josh Congrove. Recently, Josh successfully defended his dissertation for a doctorate in Classics here at Indiana University, and Jake is the campus pastor of ClearNote Campus Fellowship. We're grateful for their work. (TB)

* * *

Carolyn Custis James recently wrote a blog post slandering the Early Church father, Augustine. Here are her claims:

Last week, in a well-known Christian college, a Bible professor stated unequivocally to his class that "Men are created in the image of God, but women are created in the image of man." His assertion is a flat denial of what is stated plainly on page one of the Bible, but unfortunately (his claim) has long roots that can be traced back to early church fathers, including the revered St. Augustine, and has done enormous damage. I remember the first time I heard anyone say, "God created both women and men in his image." I was in my twenties, had grown up in the church, and this was news to me.

It's hard to imagine the professor in question presenting the matter as Mrs. James reports it here. Surely he misspoke, was misunderstood, or misquoted? Where is Mrs. James' source?

Moving past the anonymous report, it's even harder to conceive that woman being created in the Image of God was news to Mrs. James when she first heard it. In her twenties? Seriously? What a sheltered existence she must have had!

We grew up in conservative Baptist circles and heard this basic truth of Scripture all the time...

Redeemer's bondage to cosmopolitan conceit...

“Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name..." - Genesis 11:4

...if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment... - 2 Peter 2:6-9

We make it a habit to say less than we know when we oppose ministries and their leaders here on Baylyblog. We don't want to overreach. This has been true of our criticisms of Redeemer Presbyterian Church and her pastor, especially.

Back in the early nineties we first started recommending Redeemer to souls moving to New York City, and by now we have close to two decades of listening to those men and women who have become a part of Redeemer's congregations.

Our second thoughts about Redeemer started seventeen years ago...

WORLD enters the Promised Land...

Father Bill Mouser submitted this excellent comment under the post, WORLD's schtick.... Reading the original post may be necessary to understand this comment. (TB)

Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants. (Leviticus 18:24, 25)

Imagine for a moment Joshua facing Israel as it's perched on the east side of the Jordan river, addressing that nation this way:

"For the longest time I’ve struggled to put my finger on just what I believe about homosexuality. Or, for that matter, about incest. Or, for crying out loud, Moloch worship. Forty years ago, after all that sturm und drang at the foot of Sinai, I think I would have come down pretty solid on the line of “absolutely not.”

"But, I’m not sure I can say that anymore. Wait a minute: It isn’t that I think homosexuality, or incest, or Moloch worship, or anything else Moses wrote in Leviticus 18, is OK and is something YHWH overlooks or agrees with. But it is that I’m understanding a little better that what is commanded of us Jews is simply not the same as what we should expect from those who inhabit the land YHWH has given to us...

Canned preacher, live musicians...

Driscoll is a popular pastor in the Pacific Northwest. He heads a group of multisite churches that regularly draw 10,000 parishioners a week across 10 locations. He preaches live at one location, and his sermons are sent out by video to the other locations the following week, when the services are held with live music...

Driscoll said the sermon this week will be pre-taped, in part so he can attend a baseball tournament his son is playing in. The message, he said, comes from the Gospel of Luke and is about Zacchaeus, a crooked tax collector who found redemption...

If the preacher's a digital image, why "live music?"

A year ago, Taylor and I were at a large church in Evansville, Indiana, where the preacher only showed up for the later services and used video to feed the early service flock. During the sermon, the large digital image hanging from the ceiling in front of us asked those present to raise their hands if...

Straining at gnats, swallowing camels...

(June 2--Please note that TypePad only displays the first hundred comments on a post by default. Comments past 100 can be displayed by clicking the "More Comments" link at the bottom of the 100th comment.)

Is Federal Vision theology (FV) worthy of the intense opposition Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) conservatives dignify it with? I suspect not. For a number of reasons, I suspect such opposition to FV theology in the PCA is a sign of conservative weakness rather than strength; opportunism rather than courage. But first a bit of history.

Four years ago when FV was first dealt with by the PCA at her 2007 General Assembly (GA), conservatives rallied in support of a report condemning aspects of FV theology. The report was adopted and trials of Federal Vision supporters followed, the latest of which is the upcoming trial of Peter Leithart in Pacific Northwest Presbytery. It would appear, then, that the PCA is dutifully reforming herself and the cleanup is mostly finished.

But perhaps as noteworthy as what happened within the PCA at the 2007 GA and following is what did not happen. To understand this, we must consider a pair of strange couplings that took place that year.

The 2007 General Assembly was notable, not only for its debate and subsequent vote on the FV report, but also for several mésalliances forged in the lead-up to that vote. On one side, the middle-aged lions of the Keller/Redeemer/hipster/missional party provided some support for the FV camp. On the other side, the old lions of the southern/tall-steeple/rich/broadly Reformed party provided some support for the Truly Reformed (TR) conservatives of the PCA.

When the heat of battle passed, though, both the hipster middle-aged lions and the rich old lions woke up to strange bedfellows. Neither alliance could last. Redeemer hipsters...

"But really, he's just not one of them..."

Here's an excellent summary of the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan by a fan of Scot McKnight and the Bishop of Durham. Don't miss the first comment.

(TB)

An elegy for my dear father, Roger Nicole...

For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. -1 Kings 11:4, 5

The rebels are dying. First, a few months back, it was our dear friend Dr. Roger Nicole. Then more recently, Catherine Kroeger and Nancy Hardesty. Both Nicole and Kroeger taught at our alma mater, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, although Nicole finished his career at Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando).

Back in the early eighties, Dr. Nicole's rebellion seemed fairly innocuous. He advocated women's ordination but held the line on the husband's authority in marriage and family life. Someone suggested Dr. Nicole's failure was the result of his Baptistic polity; that he had no doctrine of ordination, so the ordination of women was no big deal. It seemed about right as part of the explanation.

But I was more convinced Dr. Nicole's innate irenicism made it difficult for him to teach on a campus where the feminist rebellion was institutionally enshrined and his lectures were attended by many women preparing for the ministry. It was my gut feeling...

R2K says sermons on abortion are like Martin Luther King's "glorified leftist political screeds"...

(Tim) Following links to Baylyblog, I found this on a radical two-kingdom blog and place it here as another indication of the nature of this error and the motivations of those who hold it. The R2K blogger is addressing two questions asked by an R2K opponent. The second question ends like this: "...why are (R2K) folks so upset when people like the Bayly brothers preach sermons on highly politicized topics like abortion?"

Here's the R2K man's answer...

More documentation on the origin of the ESV...

(Tim: Most of the following was originally posted back in 2007. But last night I came across an old e-mail that adds to the historical record of the origin of the English Standard Version (ESV) within a working group composed largely of members and friends of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood during our work surrounding the Gender Neutral Bible Controversy. If you're interested in the material that's new with this particular post, today, take a look at the e-mail at the bottom of the post--I've put it under "ADDENDUM." This is one part of the history I'd forgotten but now document here, publicly.)

* * * * * * * *

(Originally posted October 27, 2007; but with an ADDENDUM added today, March 17, 2011.)

While moving into our new church offices, I found a new piece of correspondence documenting the origin of the ESV in the Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy. Why bang this drum again?

Because the denial of any connection with controversy at the heart of the ESV's marketing campaign is so typical of the inability of evangelicals to understand that faith is battle, and men who hide the battle for fear it will scandalize the sheep actually harm the sheep.

Imagine reformers of past centuries trying to hide the conflict from those they were defending: Think of Calvin holding cloistered meetings with Cardinal Sadolet that the men of Geneva knew nothing about; or Luther publicly denying that his use of the word 'alone' in translating Romans 3:28 was in any way connected with the battle against Rome for justification by faith alone; or the Apostle Paul announcing in his epistle to the Galatians that Peter's particular failure of table fellowship had no significant bearing on his issuing this present letter--that this letter had been in the works for years prior to that public confrontation...

"This woman, at least, will be saved by childbearing..."

(Tim, w/thanks to Shelly) It disgusts me to have to direct Baylyblog readers to Roman Catholic sites as often as I do, but there's no helping it. Reformed men and women are so busy sinning so grace may abound that there's almost no comparable teaching in the Reformed world. And certainly not in the PCA--I defy you to show me one single article this spectacularly beautiful and sanctifying for women published anywhere under the auspices of the PCA. In fact, on any site having any affiliation to the PCA. Or rather, any site affiliated with any of the chest-thumping Reformed men: Together for the Gospel. Acts 29. Desiring God...

Brothers, if you want to do a more Biblical job of loving your wife, read this. Sisters, whether married or single, if you're willing to trade in your iPhone and laptop for the salvation 1Timothy 2:15 promises woman, read this.

There's nothing more foundational to godliness in Christ Jesus than your femininity.



Classic rock and manly zeal....

"...it's indie or classic rock that moves our spirit."

(Tim) You all know ClearNote Church is filled with classical musicians but we worship mostly under the leadership of amplified instruments. This EP just released by our worship musicians gives you a good feel for how we're led. What distinguishes our worship leaders is that they use instrumentation and tunes and rhythms that are familiar to those who attend. We're not asked to go back into genres of previous centuries when we sing God's praises and pray.

Then too, we believe our music should be characterized by masculine zeal. The congregation should have men pushing us to express our joy and firm commitment and worship for the majesty and glory of God. Faint spirits and cold hearts are challenged when singing God's praises, here.

So you'll notice how well-matched the music and instrumentation and beat are to our goal. If you were to worship with us one Lord's Day morning, you'd notice this is how we pray and preach, also--we don't give people space for unbelief and ambivalence...

Sleepers awake!

(Tim: This from John Dvorak, nicely complementing E. Michael Jones' Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation & Political Control demonstrating the utility of pornography to keep citizens' docile. And believers? If we're drinking the grace patter tweeted by our Reformed luminaries--e.g. here and here--we're likely as fast asleep as the rest of them. How much more helpful the Gospels and Epistles would be if they were that short and graceful.)

'The Internet is now the opiate of the masses, replacing religion. People are riveted to their Facebook page. Do you really think that they can be made to "take up arms" as a flash mob to overthrow the government? Any government?

The Chinese recent action tells me that China's leadership doesn't get it, at all. This is ironic, because the Chinese culture was once forced into opium addiction, but they don't realize that this is a similar situation.

If they understood the opiate mechanism, they'd let the Internet flourish uncensored. It would quickly sedate the public into somnambulance. Cutting it off is like cutting off a supply of drugs, which angers the addicted and could cause a revolt...

Women warriors and the Church...

(Tim) On the subject of Joel Northrup forfeiting his state tournament wrestling match out of deference to a woman, one reader of this Baylyblog post called our readers' attention to a comment by a California high school wrestling coach on another web site. The coach's comment (No. 16) ended with this:

The Israeli army did extensive experiments in the 1960′s and 70′s trying to incorporate women into combat roles along side males, at a time when the survival of Israel was hanging in the balance. But the results were so disastrous, that they were soon abandoned. They found that men would routinely risk themselves and the units safety, and even abandon mission completion, whenever a female member of their combat unit was captured, or even injured. This protective role seemed to be so hardwired into these young men, that it was deemed impossible to “train out” of them. The Israelis determined that a boy would have to be trained from birth to disregard a foundational understanding (call it God given, or evolved) concerning the importance of women, as THE essential element in the continuum of human existence. To try and remove that understanding from the thought process of young men would result, I feel, in a world not worth occupying.

Few things are more indicative of these United States' moral and military bankruptcy than our ideological promotion of women in combat (of which women wrestlers are a sub-species), and few things are more indicative of the Reformed world's weakening commitment to the doctrines of Scripture than the PCA General Assembly AISCOWIM's split down the middle on whether or not to condemn women in combat (as well as the arguments made on the floor of GA when AISCOWIM presented its two reports). While it's true committee members talked much about the spirituality of the church, during internal debate it was always clear that...

Another manly hero for our time...

(Tim, w/thanks to many) Joel Northrup wrestles for Linn-Mar High School in Marion, Iowa. Wrestling's big in Iowa--something like football in Massilon, Ohio--and Joel had done very well, making it to state. But lightning struck.

Joel drew Cassy Herkelman as an opponent and decided to forfeit. He released this statement explaining his decision:

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cassy and Megan (Black, the tournament’s other female entrant) and their accomplishments. However, wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most of the high school sports in Iowa.

Is anyone surprised a young man who's retained some modicum of sexual modesty today is a homeschooler? Is anyone surprised the secularists consider this...

Leading worship, I: singing praises...

Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him; Worship the LORD in holy array. (1 Chronicles 16:28-29)

(Tim) Young men reading the stuff published on worship today would be quite justified in fearing that worship is very, very complicated and only the people who buy lots of books and read lots of articles and think very deeply about this matter could possibly design and lead a worship service that does what it's supposed to do. Why, simply the debates over what the Regulative Principle prohibits and requires are endless! What's a poor boy to do?

In the interest of cutting through some of the verbiage and helping Reformed pastors who want to follow the early Reformers in worship as they follow them in preaching God's Word, here are a few reforms which take their cue from Geneva.

1. The main method of restoring congregational participation within Reformed worship was to call congregants to sing. Thus the music had to be (and was) quite simple. Under Calvin, the congregation sang only the melody; it was plainsong with no parts. Certain men of our time debate endlessly over whether popular tunes known outside the church were used during early Protestant worship. Both sides have their scholars, but my recommendation is that you not waste time on the argument. Leave it alone.

Following the Geneva pattern of repudiating the high style of the idolatrous Roman Mass and cultivating a simplicity that would encourage the common man to join in the singing, we ourselves should repudiate high classical style that communicates our most-excellent taste while masquerading as being all about reverence for God...

Art ministry today: cool and hip...

(Tim) Whether in the U.S. or Western Europe, Reformed hipsters have fallen in love with art. For communicating the Gospel, preaching is out and art is in--it's the great white hope. Draw the Gospel. Sculpt the Gospel. Paint the Gospel. Use words only if you must.

David Baker is a student here at ClearNote Pastors College who, with his wife Marta and their children, were raising support under the Presbyterian Church in America's Mission to the World when God led them to move to Bloomington and begin training for pastoral ministry. David's a painter and he'd been headed to Dublin, Ireland, where he planned to be a part of an MTW team there, and to focus on the arts community. Recently, David corresponded with another MTW missionary in a Western European country about the arts movement within MTW and the PCA.

* * *

Dear (John Doe),

I should give you a brief background and update on what we are doing. As you may know we were on the path to work in arts ministry in Dublin, Ireland with MTW. We took a 5-year leave-of-absence from MTW for education and because of some other issues that made it clear that the yoking with the Irish church was not a good one. I'm now a pastor in training at ClearNote Pastor's College in Bloomington, Indiana. I continue to make art and I participate in a local gallery. I love using God's gift of artistic talent to His glory. He gives us these gifts.

When we were working on support raising we spent time with various churches around the country and we got to hear and see a lot of what was going on in the the arts ministry movement.

"He started disciplining me like I was one of his sons..."

(Tim, w/thanks to Taylor) Read this wonderful story and ask yourself where the church turns boys--undisciplined angry ones, at that--into men? Youth groups? Home school co-ops? Christian school science labs? Crew? Membership classes? Men's retreats?

You say your church is not a parochial school filled with inner city kids and your own fathers are the ones training their own sons. I say, "Yeah, right."

Face it. Each of our churches has a bunch of young men every bit as much in need of the discipline of playing on Bob Hurley's basketball team as the kids at St. Anthony High in Jersey City. In the ministry today, we're surrounded by man-boys whose fathers have turned their backs on them. These young men crave discipline--which is to say they crave fatherly love...