logos redux

“I want you and all your subjects to be baptized. If you refuse, I will have you killed on the spot. And I swear that I will ravage every island with fire and steel.”

Years ago I spoke with Ecuadorian evangelical theologian and author René Padilla about these stories of growth. He said, “Ah, Guillermo, we must ask our church-growth friends two questions: What is church? What is growth?” In other words, mere numerical growth is not sufficient to measure the biblical chruch. Latin American church growth fascinates the number-hunters of North America who see size as the prime measure of growth. Some emphasize the need only for homogenous churches, but the reality of Latin America is that sociological and anthropological categories cannot become our guidelines. Many churches are large, but they are perhaps obese, not healthy. As one church leader told me this year, “We have more births than midwives in our country.”

This is pretty good. (Although I would probably represent the “religious fanaticism” he distances himself from. I’ve listed a few of the better quotes below. Some of them come from the author’s conversation with a stranger, filled out with his real answers below.

Mrs. GSP: Do you use a curriculum?
Me: Oh, sure! Absolutely.
Real answer: Give me a break! These kids are 5 years old. What curriculum was involved when you were in kindergarten? As I recall, it was mainly scissors and paste. My wife will talk as long as you want her to about the fact that there’s no real evidence to back up the recent move toward “academic,” full-day kindergarten, and plenty of evidence that young children need more unstructured playtime than most of them get. The real purpose of all this formal schooling is to get the kids out of the house and train them to stand in line and follow instructions while mommy and daddy get back to their ultra-important lives as economic production units. If you break down the impressive-sounding, bureaucratically adumbrated federal list of kindergarten standards, a whole lot of it amounts to learning to count from 1 to 20, learning the alphabet and the months of the year, and learning to tell time…

Mrs. GSP: What do you do about socialization?
Me: Oh, we’ve got a nice support network. They have a circle of friends. They do lots of classes and activities. They go to birthday parties and stuff.
Real answer: My public answer is OK, as far as it goes. But hang on a minute, lady: What do you mean by “socialization”? In a legendary Internet screed called “The Bitter Homeschooler’s Wish List,” Deborah Markus answers this question by observing, “If you’re talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet.” Ordinary schools tend to socialize children by way of enclosed, age-homogeneous pods, while home schooling tends to socialize children through a wide range of interactions with older kids, younger kids and adults, as well as peers. It’s not up to me to decide which is better, and I’m pretty sure both methods have their pros and cons. We like the sound of option B, at least for now…

At the time of the 1970 census, there were a reported 15,000 home-schoolers in the entire United States, nearly all of them presumed to be members of religious minorities who objected to the contents or method of public education. By 2007, the Department of Education estimated that there were 1.5 million home-schooled children in the country…

As for the “why” question: We’re not ready to surrender our kids, and ourselves, to a 10-month-a-year, all-day institution whose primary goal, at least at this age, seems to be teaching kids how to function within a 10-month-a-year, all-day institution. Our kids are learning plenty — not exactly the same things other kindergarteners learn, I suppose, but plenty. They’re making friends and having fun. They can go to the beach on gorgeous fall afternoons, or hit zoos and museums on crisp winter mornings, when other kids are sitting at desks doing worksheets about the letter B. Hell, I wish I could do it.

Calvin on Psalm Singing:

The psalms could incite us to raise our hearts to God and to move us with such ardor that we exalt through praises the glory of his name . . . . And truly, we know through experience that song has great force and vigor to move and enflame hearts to invoke and to praise God with a more lively and ardent zeal.

And a description of worship under Calvin’s leadership:

Finally, after these acts of adoration, these prayers said kneeling, this quickening instruction, the worship culminates in the supreme ceremony of holy communion. Calvin has been very greatly misunderstood. For him the complete act of Christian worship is that at which the Lord’s Supper is celebrated, and the complete Sunday morning office is that which includes the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Have men said that this worship, the true Calvinian cult, was in its nature poor and cold? Those who were present at it have told us that often they could not keep back tears of emotion and joy. Singings and prayers, adoration and edification, confession and forgiveness of sins, acts ritualistic and spontaneous—all the essential elements of worship were there; and what is not less important, they were combined into an organism that though very simple, was yet both supple and strong.

The title of this book is alarming, certainly by design. But the subtitle is even more so. Does it mean that the whole American church (all traditions, denominations, locations) is committed to an “alternative Gospel?” Or is it that, though part of the American church upholds the true, biblical gospel, there is within that church a movement (evidently a significant movement) to the contrary?

We should keep in mind that such language makes the most serious indictments. To be Christless is to be doomed to Hell (John 3:36). And if someone preaches an “alternative gospel,” contrary to the gospel preached by the apostle Paul, he is to be accursed (Gal. 1:8-9). People who preach “another gospel” are not Christian friends who happen to disagree with us on this or that matter. Rather, they have betrayed Christ himself. The whole church ought to rise up against such persons and declare that they are not part of the body of Christ and that they have no part in the blessings of salvation. Indeed, if they do not repent, they have no future except eternal punishment.

In my view, many Christians (especially those in the conservative Reformed tradition that Horton and I both inhabit) use this sort of language far too loosely, even flippantly. It is time we learned that when we criticize someone for preaching “another gospel” we are doing nothing less than cursing him, damning him to Hell.

But Horton actually indicates to his readers that these charges are not to be taken seriously. So Horton backs away from the serious language of his title:

“Before I launch this protest, I should carefully state up front what I am not saying. First, I acknowledge that there are many churches, pastors, missionaries, evangelists, and distinguished Christian laypeople around the world, proclaiming Christ and fulfilling their vocations with integrity. (20)”

So evidently “Christless Christianity” is not the gospel of the American church. Many of its members are assuredly not Christless. Further,

“Second, I am not arguing in this book that we have arrived at Christless Christianity but that we are well on our way. (20)”

Whew! Evidently Christless Christianity is not yet the gospel of the American church, though we are on our way to adopting it.

This is something of a “bait and switch.” Horton scares us to death with his brash title, telling us that we are headed for Hell. But then he backtracks, says he didn’t really mean it.

Since Horton spends a great part of this book telling us that we have lost seriousness about the issues of God’s law and gospel, we should hold him also to a high standard of seriousness. To say that we are under God’s curse, and then to turn around and say, “well, not really,” is not to meet such a standard. We might conclude that Horton is not joking here about holy things, but he is “well on his way.”

You sent me a sorry nag and five good asses: the nag is too wretched to ride, and I simply can’t ride the asses because they are asses.

Further, in the same way that the church has wrestled with its understanding of Christ and the Scripture through creeds, commentaries, systematic theologies, and the like, so also the church has developed ways to do its worship. These include structural forms, written prayers, hymns, rules for preaching, the church year, the lectionary, and numerous symbolic ceremonies. Interestingly, in the early church these resources were being developed at the same time that creedal statements were coming into being. Yet, we evangelicals who affirm the Nicene and Chalcedon creeds and boast that we remain faithful to their intent are profoundly neglectful of the liturgical forms and theological perception of worship shaped by some of the same Church Fathers. Specifically we need to recognize that those who have gone before us, those who have wrestled the meaning and interpretation of the faith in creeds and liturgy, were women and men of faith. To accept the creeds, on the one hand, and reject the liturgies by inattention that often expresses itself in disdain, on the other, is contradictory and unwise. For orthodoxy was primarily given shape in the liturgy, and the creeds were originally part of the larger liturgical witness. We recognize that the early church was unusually gifted with the spiritual leadership of Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. Yet we neglect to study the worship of the church which reflects their faithfulness to Christ and the orthodox tradition.

Robert Webber, “An Evangelical and Catholic Methodology”

Since the blood of Christ is not corrupted by any decay but flows continually in unadulterated purity, it will suffice us to the end of the world… Christ who rose from the dead to give us life pours His own life into us. This is the continual consecration of His life that the blood of Christ is continually being shed before the face of the Father to spread over heaven and earth… Christ so rose from the dead that His death was not abolished but keeps its eternal power, as if he had said, that God raise up His Son in such a way that His blood once shed in death has power to ratify the eternal covenant after His resurrection, and brings forth its fruit as though it were always flowing.

Yep, this is straight from the pen of one Mr. John Calvin. Quoted in: Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation by Gerrit Dawson, Chapter 6. The chapter is worth a read. I haven’t read the rest of the book.