The Church

What Does It Mean to Practice World Missions In Todays World?

Nick Bogardus — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:23:49 -0800

Here is some helpful insight from Peter Cha to this timely question.

I read something today that AW Tozer wrote in the early 1960's that is on topic.

"How long do you think it will be, if Jesus tarries, before some of the amazing new churches like those in the primitive Baliem Valley of Iraian Jaya, Indonesia, will be sending gospel missionaries to Canada and the United States?

If that upsets you, you desperately need to read this chapter.

I have a reason for suggesting this as a possibility at some time in the future. In Chicago, I was introduced to a deeply serious Christian brother who had come from his native India with a stirring and grateful testimony of the grace of God in his life.

I asked him about his church background, of course. He was not Pentecostal. He was neither Anglican nor Baptist. He was neither Presbyterian nor Methodist.

He did not even know what we mean by the label, "interdenominational". He was simply a brother in Christ.

This Indian had been born into the Hindu religion, but he was converted to and became a disciple of Jesus Christ by reading and seriously studying the New Testament record o the death and resurrection of our Lord.

He spoke English well enough to express his Christian concerns for the world and for the churches. I asked him to speak in my pulpit.

Through that encounter I realized that unless we arouse ourselves spiritually, unless we are brought back to genuine love and adoration and worship, our candlestick could be removed. [Rev. 2-3] We may need missionaries coming to us, indeed. We may need them to show us what a genuine and vital Christianity is!"

-AW Tozer, Whatever Happened to Worship, pp. 81-21

Martyrs, Irony, Nuance, Ambiguity, & The Church

Nick Bogardus — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:11:34 -0800

(Those are jello cubes by the way.)

What can we learn from even the briefest glimpse of history?

Every year, John Piper performs a great service to the Church and does a biographical message on the life of a significant figure from church history. He's done Augustine, Athanasius, Luther, John Newton, J. Gresham Machen, and Charles Spurgeon among many others.

They are a great service to the Church at large, especially laypeople, because of the tremendous perspective you can gain from even the slightest grasp of history.

For example, what can the life of William Tyndale - a martyr whose legacy is the very English Bible you have - teach us? More specifically, what can the controversy between Erasmus & Thomas More on one side, and Martin Luther & William Tyndale on the other, teach us about the current state of the church?

Here are a few excerpts from the message notes of nearly identical message that Piper gave two years ago:

"Daniell puts it like this:

Something in the [Erasmus'] Enchiridion is missing. . . . It is a masterpiece of humanist piety. . . . [But] the activity of Christ in the Gospels, his special work of salvation so strongly detailed there and in the epistles of Paul, is largely missing. Christologically, where Luther thunders, Erasmus makes a sweet sound: what to Tyndale was an impregnable stronghold feels in the Enchiridion like a summer pavilion.³⁵

Where Luther and Tyndale were blood-earnest about our dreadful human condition and the glory of salvation in Christ, Erasmus and Thomas More joked and bantered....

...I linger here with this difference between Tyndale and Erasmus because I am trying to penetrate to how Tyndale accomplished what he did through translating the New Testament. Explosive reformation is what he accomplished in England. This was not the effect of Erasmus’ highbrow, elitist, layered nuancing of Christ and church tradition. Erasmus and Thomas More may have satirized the monasteries and clerical abuses, but they were always playing games compared to Tyndale.

And in this they were very much like notable Christian writers in our own day. Listen to this remarkable assessment from Daniell, and see if you do not hear a description of certain emergent church writers and New Perspective champions:

Not only is there no fully realized Christ or Devil in Erasmus’s book . . . : there is a touch of irony about it all, with a feeling of the writer cultivating a faintly superior ambiguity: as if to be dogmatic, for example about the full theology of the work of Christ, was to be rather distasteful, below the best, elite, humanist heights. . . . By contrast Tyndale . . . is ferociously single-minded; the matter in hand, the immediate access of the soul to God without intermediary, is far too important for hints of faintly ironic superiority. . . . Tyndale is as four-square as a carpenter’s tool. But in Erasmus’s account of the origins of his book there is a touch of the sort of layering of ironies found in the games with personae.³⁷

It is ironic and sad that today supposedly avant-garde Christian writers can strike this cool, evasive, imprecise, artistic, superficially reformist pose of Erasmus and call it “post-modern” and capture a generation of unwitting, historically naïve, emergent people who don’t know they are being duped by the same old verbal tactics used by the elitist humanist writers in past generations. We saw them last year in Athanasius’ day (the slippery Arians at Nicaea), and we see them now in Tyndale’s day. It’s not post-modern. It’s pre-modern—because it is perpetual." [all emphases mine]

This particular message is available in it's entirety at the Desiring God website.

Mongolian Church Planters

Nick Bogardus — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 01:20:09 -0800

Following the Missions Conference I wrote about last week, I was able to take

photographs of some of the Mongolian church planters who were in town

from all over the country being trained at the base that I teach English at.

You can see more of the photos here if you'd like.

Flannel Boards and Communion Wafers: Welcome to the Church Accessories Hall of Fame

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:12:46 -0800

Last week the stick joined the cardboard box as honorary members of the Toy Hall of Fame. The message is obvious: even primitive things have value, especially when the imagination gets involved. Who needs a Wii when you have a Tree?

So it got me thinking. Having spent some time in no less than nine states and at least 15 evangelical churches in my lifetime, I’m considering a proposal for a Church Accessories Hall of Fame. I’m not sure where to build it, but I can picture the architecture in my head: a monstrous mega-museum with maybe a hydraulic collection plate spinning on the roof?

Anyway, some of you can go way back, but for now, let’s start with some inductees from the 1970s: varnished oak tables from the foyer, the faux-leather hymn book, saltines on a tray, and maroon choir robes with giant zippers down the front. Long, padded pews, Sister Hannah’s flannel board with Caucasian Bible characters, and the plastic snack trays from the downstairs Fellowship Hall. We would have to include a collection of staff photos and their pyramid arrangement: pastor on top, with his wing men in dark suits in descending order according to their seminary degree and paychecks.

The 1980s wing? Here come the Jetsons. We need padded mauve sky-box chairs, a typed collection of praise songs with a plastic curlicue binding, and in a glass case under a halogen spotlight, let’s put one of those plasticized round communion wafers on a red velvet pillow. A black Sanyo keyboard with pre-set beats would be fantastic and so would the “dual-handled pouch-bag-offering-thingie” that everyone passed hand-over-hand down the aisle with choreographed wonder. I’ll donate my Texas pastor’s clear Plexiglas pulpit along with the 3-D silver dove that I glued to my bumper in college. Oh, and can we arrange to pipe in some Amy Grant elevator music?

The 1990s are a bit trickier. For our communion exhibit, let’s start with a big canister of compressed cracker nuggets (corn kernel meets saltine). Guests can raise and lower screens from a high-tech slit in the ceiling. Hand-made banners with silk tassels, espresso machines “on the plaza,” and a vintage visitor’s tent with requisite welcome bags will surely mark the decade’s outreach efforts. The ubiquitous Power Point slideshow (golden wheat stalks blowing? multi-racial families smiling? clouds billowing?) can round out the 90s collection.

So, does anyone have some more objects we can induct into the Church Accessory Hall of Fame?

Mr. Potato-god

Richard Dahlstrom — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:05:17 -0800

When I finished seminary, I was working as a carpet cleaner in Los Angeles, traveling throughout the city in a van and pumping steamed water into stained fabric. This trade allowed me conversation with a large cross section of humanity, and the many conversations I had about God during those days were, in retrospect, a profoundly valuable part of my theological education. It was because of these rug cleaning gigs that I got the chance to learn what people really thought about God.

It turns out that most people had lots of respect for "God". It also became quickly clear that for most, the god they respected was of their own making. Picking and choosing from the gamut of values and character qualities, they built their own unique notions of deity, resulting in endless 'designer gods', created in the same way I used to turn a potato into a character using my "Mr. Potato head" toy box, choosing this nose, those eyes, that mouth until...Presto! I've made a creature unlike any other.

The history of religion shows us that the biggest danger of all isn't walking away from the truth entirely; that would be blatant, obvious, bringing our desire for autonomy into the open. Much worse is to keep fiddling with all the genuine character qualities of God, pasting some on our designer god, while being careful to leave others in the box. When I do this I build a god that's just like me, a god that reinforces my basest natures, while providing enough idealism to convince me that I've the coolest, truest god on the block. Church history is rife with these distortions, but rather than breaking open textbooks, we can simply go to the Bible, where Jesus told the religious experts that the searched the scriptures because they thought it was there life could be found. The scriptures pointed to Christ, but those same experts were unwilling to come to Him that they might have life, preferring their designer idol to the real God. You can read about it here.

I'm of the opinion that it's not the real God that's been fought over and defended in the enormously destructive culture wars and denominational divisions during these past decades. Instead we've been busy hurting each other because of our defense of "Mr Potato-gods" - and mine is better, stronger, truer, than yours. The greatest tragedy of all is that every little group, it seems, has only a few pieces in their box, and could never find the true God without coming together with the other boys and girls to see what parts there have to offer.

I'm hoping there's a place where we can come together and throw all our pieces on the floor so that we can work together to build a testimony of the real Jesus. The right has some things to offer; some of their pieces are forgeries, and other pieces have gone missing from their box, so much so that the poor children don't even miss them. The left faces the same problem. Established and emergent churches face the same dilemma. Pray with me that we'll have the courage and humility to do this - each of us in our own circles, so that Jesus can have His way with us, and His real character can be seen.

O Lord Christ -

You've watched us try to scare each other into voting for God's man, as if one party had all the pieces in place and was committed to using them. You've graciously stuck with us, and we watched history this week, and pray that your mighty and merciful hand would be upon our new leader. You've faithfully brought us closer to your heart by breaking down walls of racism, even while we remain far from you in so many ways. I pray that we, your church, would have the humility and courage to come together in prayer, dialogue, prayer, and service, trusting that as we do so, we'll all become exposed to the missing pieces that might better represent your heart. To do this will require grace and love that none of us, on our own have. So we ask for your indwelling and the stirring of your spirit, to take us down this path. We'll thank you for it, and give you the glory, even as we pray that your glory would find expression through our lives, homes, and communities of faith in these amazing days. In your great name I pray...

Amen.

An Interview of Sorts: An Update And A Week In The Life

Nick Bogardus — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:26:17 -0800

The very kind Doc sent me a message recently that had some good questions about our time here in M*ngolia - so good in fact I thought they might make a good blog. Thanks Doc!

"What's your official (satisfying governement agencies) reason for being there?"

My official reason for being here is that I'm a Peace Corps volunteer's husband. My work visa was secured by the hospital, so the government knows me as an English teacher at the hospital.

What activities do you do in that regard?

I teach English to the doctors and nurses at the central hospital in our aimag, or state. I have one class of doctors and one class of nurses. This also involves judging or scoring the impromptu English competitions they like to have. M*ngolians love competitions. I also help by teaching them some basic computer and internet skills and simple translation.

What other things do you do?

On Tuesdays I co-teach a Bible study at the church with my Canadian friend, Jonny. Right now we're going through Romans and teaching their small group leaders; so what we teach them on Tuesdays disseminates out from there and gets taught in all of the small groups on Thursdays. I've also preached in the youth church service twice and will be preaching in the main service in a couple weeks. In that vein, I also help teach our ex-pat Bible study occasionally.

After work on Wednesdays I teach English to the missionaries and staff at the YWAM base on the edge of the city. That's one of my favorite things to do because it's such a unique community and everyone is so great there. It's a small building that's basically one long hallway with rooms on each side. I'm guessing that it houses about twelve families and a dozen singles who are all going through an intensive YWAM school of Biblical studies. Everything is communal and there is one bathroom, an outhouse, outside. I teach in the kitchen/cafeteria while a team of women prepares dinner for everyone. It's pretty amazing to see.

I never saw this coming but Kim and I have been able to serve our Mongolian friends by doing their wedding photography. God blessed us with so much help with our wedding, we're happy to lend our services back out to our friends too. We're also taking pictures for the Mongolian Missions Conference this weekend; which is the biggest gathering of Christians for the year (maybe 700 people).

Lastly, Kim and I co-teach an English conversation hour at the Christian cafe every Friday night and have the best students over once a month for a cooking and movie night where we teach them how to cook a Western dish with Mongolian ingredients and then we watch a movie together. Last time we watched The Princess Bride.

Two projects that I've had on the side but that I'd really like to complete before I leave are possibly getting the rights to license and print Bibles so that they're more affordable for the Mongolians - that I'd do with my friend Jonathan - and the other is that I'd like to get one or two good Christian books translated for the church.

What kind of humanitarian impact do you feel you're having?

I don't think I'll be able to see immediate humanitarian impact at the hospital because my students have such basic English. My prayer and goal is that I can equip them with English so that doors will open for them to get more training and more opportunities; whether they are utilizing more modern techniques at home or getting to work overseas. Maybe they'll pass on the English to their children too so that those doors open for them earlier in life. At the very least they'll be able to interact more confidently with western doctors that do short term visits in the hospital. I do the best I can knowing that I probably won't see the results myself and hoping that the benefits of knowing English spread to their families, to the rest of the hospital, and to the community at large.

What spiritual impact do you feel you're having?

When given the opportunity to teach or share my faith I beg God to keep me faithful to His Word, knowing that faith comes from hearing and that He is doing, and will do, far more than I will ever see or know. I do my best to do the necessary preparation and bring the truth of the passage to bear on my own heart first. Then, each time I teach I do everything I can to point to the cross. That way He gets the glory and not my silly self. It's a clumsy process because I'm such an impatient sinner, but it's one I ask for His help with because He IS patient and faithful. I've been fortunate to have some wise counseling while I've been out here and I'm so thankful for that.

So, in short, I say yes when I'm asked to teach and I beg and trust that God will take it from there.

What is the impact of all this on YOU?

I've really struggled trying to answer this one because I don't think I could summarize it yet. I think the best thing I might be able to do is just tell you about this past week.

The church that we go to in Erdenet hosted a national missions conference the past few days. It's one of the largest gatherings of Christians in the country and has about 700-800 attendees. This year they celebrated the 10 year anniversary of the Mongolian Missions Center in Erdenet (the organization I teach English for on Wednesday nights) and had the missionary who started the church out here come back to speak (he is now planting a church in Turkey).

Here are a few notes from what impacted me:

1) Being in a worship service in another country blows apart your narrow, homogeneous views of God. When you hear people in a completely foreign language worshiping passionate and praying desperately, you realize how small your view of God is. I like to sit there in worship, close my eyes, I imagine that that is what heaven is going to sound like - worship in tongues and languages we've never heard. We go to church a lot out here and it never ceases to floor me.

2) This small, young M*ngolian Church is intense about missions. Christianity has only existed in M*ngolia since the early 90s and the number of Christians here is in the thousands (less than 2% of the population are believers). Despite that, they have missionaries serving all over Mongolia, in Afgh*nistan, China, Korea, Russia, and the neighboring 'stans.

3) During the conference, the missionary who has been working in Afgh*nistan with the woman who was shot there a few weeks ago spoke. She delivered a powerful, lucid declaration of the Gospel that might've made some people back home squirm. She said that if we go on mission and don't preach the cross and why Jesus died, people don't understand what they're believing in or why it's so important. She said that if we don't preach the cross then people remain under curse of Adam (original sin) and can't be brought from death to life. One of the members on her team also shared last week in church and said that the last conversation he had with the woman who was murdered by the Talib*n was about suffering. Her last words to him? "I'm ready".

4) The missionary from N. Korea shared and relayed, with tears in her eyes, the stories about people in N. Korean countryside who are starving to death because of the government's policies. She said that because Mongolia has more than enough, they should share with their N. Korean brothers and sisters.

5) I had never seen a missionary pastor/church planter in action before today. It deeply affected me. Here was a man from Sweden who brought his wife and kids to Mongolia for 10 years to plant a church, who started his family in a nation as difficult as this. His Mongolian was absolutely perfect; there wasn't even a hint of a foreign accent. He preached in their native tongue, and he preached powerfully. He preached to them and related to them like a fellow M*ngolian. We talk a lot about contextualization and being missional back in the States, but I'll tell you what, what I saw this man do completely blew the doors off of those words for me. It made what is often a petty debate in America, urgent and vital. Before today I could've given you a list of people and churches who get being missional right, but what I saw this afternoon rocked me.

6) In his sermon the pastor made the fantastic point that missions is a mandate in Christianity. He used 5 scriptures in the NT that commanded it. He said that there are basically two kinds of calls; the call to and the call to send. He said that so often Christians only think of the "going" and rarely of the sending. His point was that the senders should support and love those who go in such a way that is sacrificial to support the sacrifices those who go have to make. Then, at the end of the service they had a time where they said that anyone who felt called to go to missions should come forward to receive prayer, and those who felt called to send should stay in their seats and the two groups would pray for each other.
Let me show you what that looked like. Here is the picture I took of it:

Look at the proportions between the two groups. It was overwhelming to see the passion, conviction, and radical nature of these people and their faith.

So, that was my week. One of the about 75 I'll have had here before I leave. That's why, even when things are at their most difficult here, we are joyful and thankful.

The Wrath of God and the Upcoming Election

Bonnie Lewis — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:19:40 -0800

Romans 13:1-7 says this:

" 1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor."

I have been pondering these verses over and over again in my head and heart and through prayer because they are difficult for me to accept. First, I think it's easy for all of us to live in fear of a government, an earthquake, a disease-anything that has the ability to have power over us. But, like this verse talks about, it is God who has appointed the government. But wait. What about corrupt leaders and rulers that have treated their people poorly or have failed us in the faith they professed to have? Did God really appoint them too? We are reminded of the Exodus and of Pharaoh's rule. Scripture tells us that God "hardened Pharaoh's heart", thus controlling Pharaoh and the situation even though Pharaoh was not a follower of Yahweh. It was a horrible time for God's people, and the fact that God allowed Pharoah to be in control, and His people to suffer tells us something about God. Our idea of comfort, or in this case, the Israelite's is vastly different from God's. It does not always look the same, but it does not mean that God has left the scene.

What we do see is that God used that situation to bring destruction against the myth of those days (some of the ten plagues is a a metaphor against the gods and goddesses of that day; resulting in an establishment of power and sovereignty of Yahweh over any other gods of Egypt), brought people out of Egypt and into the promised land, setting up the precursor to the story of our Christian faith: we are in slavery, and are in the Exodus. We need a Savior to rescue us and we are on this earth, rescued, but headed towards the promised land. So it is here that we find comfort and the truth of this Romans' passage speaks loudly: Our kingdom is not set up by the authorities of this world. We are called to abide by it because it's a part of order that God has set up on this earth. Why? Because He has appointed the leaders, and whether they know it or not, we see it or not, we have to have faith that God is using it for what He sees fit.

This last part is especially hard to swallow, because sometimes what we see is fitting, is hardly what God sees as necessary to His plan. We know that the Israelites hated their time in slavery, and in the wilderness. In fact, they even doubted God after He had rescued them! But God knew that the event of the Exodus would speak louder than the mis-understood cries of His people. This is why it is repeated in Scripture when God is declaring His name "It is I who brought you out of Egypt." This Exodus became a part of God's name, Rescuer and Redeemer.

So what happens when the president that is appointed is one that we do not agree with? What if we feel oppressed by a tax plan, a health care incentive, abortion rights to name a few? Does this change our view of God because He appointed it? No. In fact, it should change the view we have of ourselves and of our country. God's plan and purpose is to redeem all things. Revelation talks about the new heaven and the new earth, a restoration of all things He has created. So whatever the tax plan, whatever the foreign policy, God's agenda is to restore a world that He created, and we don't have a better idea of how to do it because we did not create it.

I agree that we should be in deep prayer, but our prayers should be focused on a deep faith in God and in His plans for our lives, this earth, and His return. No matter how bad it gets, or how scary it can become, we ultimately do not answer to this world, nor will we stay here forever, and it's empires, including the ones that we belong to will one day cease to exist. That is something that we can praise God for, and pray for ourselves and others-that we would have the strength to stand, no matter what the situation, in the peace that God is in control over everything.

This does not mean, however, that we should not vote, nor does it mean that we should vote for whomever is "cool" or "compelling" or the "norm". It is hard for all of us to stop judging other Christians for the choice they are making when they vote. We are all flawed in our thinking, every one of us, and the best we can do is read the Word, and vote not with our interest in mind, but how we truly feel that God would be honored the best. We must pray for discernment of these things, but these answers are also found in Scripture: caring for the poor, widow and oppressed, truth, honesty, the fruits of the spirit, the ten commandments, the beattitudes....the list goes on. But we face trouble when we realize that not one candidate fits all of these. So we feel the need to play warrior and we often give voice to slander or ridicule, and we put our faith in one person and we end up hating the other. This is no better than loving both and making no choice. Because it shows us our abilities to have faith in man rather than God.

The same thing happens when we make our decisions based on fear. Its so easy to get afraid of someone and so then we vote the other way. When we do this, we are putting our trust in the safer candidate. We must ask ourselves, "Is either one safe? "Or are both in danger of falling?" If we take a close look at the world around us, and Scripture we are aware that ever since the fall, the world is getting worse. It's not getting better. Sure we may have advances in technology or medicine, but the world according to God's purposes are not getting any better. So our trust can not be in one candidate, as we are tempted to claim that one person will destroy a good world. Our world is full of good things, but it's already in process of being destroyed. It's part of the plan. Both candidates will play a role in God's plan. To vote because we are afraid of the terrorist attacks that may happen if we vote one way, or the poverty if we vote another, for example, we are saying that the other candidate has the power to save the world. Unfortunately, I think we have to realize that neither have this ability. Sure, they may make things a bit better, but better according to whom? Better according to God's purproses to restore things in His timing, in His way, and only He knows that path. Afraid that this really is the end of the world? Then let's get this ball rolling. Why are you so afraid? Finally, it all can end. If it is, then our vote is not going to stop it. Cause it's not ours to stop. We did not create this earth, nor will we decide when it ends. The One who began it is the only One who has a say over life and death.

We are a Church that sees the upcoming election as a time of doom and dark ages that the wrath of God will come upon us. For aborting babies, for homosexual marriage, for not taking care of the poor, for stealing people's money, for being in a war. We think that this decision, this term, will bring wrath on His people. First of all, we are hardly a Christian nation. So let's stop that thinking now. The United States of America has not been appointed by God as His elect, and to act like that is to play God, and place politics with Religion in the same Bible, resulting in theology that is at best questionable. Secondly, we need to wake up and notice that this world is passing away. Abortions and everything else that we have labeled Christian issues and decisions and have thus cast our vote based on a few key words, is our sign that that is our wrath. We have been given over to the desires of our hearts, to be a world that has allowed this to take place. To exchange the worship of God for a lie. (Romans 1:24) This already is His wrath.

In addition, it has the danger of labeling people as "Good Christians" and "Bad Christians", and drawing thick black and white lines of what makes someone responsible or irresponsible. We must have grace for one another in our decision making, enough so that we can hear people out and we can discuss and pray together. How awful if we as the Body get to the point that we can not pray for whomever is appointed?

Man, woman, republican, democrat, barack or mccain need our prayers. Just like I need them and just like the homeless guy on the corner does. Because in Christ, we are all on the same playing field. We all are in need of Savior. So my hope is that we realize that we are called to act responsibly and through the Word, praying and discerning what would God want, even if that we means we have to potentially give up what we want. My hope is also that we all learn that our prayers need to not end in the out cry for the right person to be in office, but that no matter who is appointed, we realize God's sovereignty. And finally, my hope is that we do not judge one another, causing division between Christians because of who we vote for, that we would realize that we have the blood of Christ bonding us together that is stronger than any checked box on a ballot.

It had to be said. Where is our faith?

How Did Jesus Become God?

John Barry — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:58:56 -0700

A Hammer & Nails: Reformation Day

Nick Bogardus — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:58:53 -0700

If one wanted an image of what obedience in Christianity looked like, we might simply say, "A hammer and nails."

In His obedience, Jesus laid on His cross and let the Romans' hammer and nails secure Him to it, obtaining our salvation. In his obedience, Martin Luther listed his protests against the Roman Church and drove them into the Wittenberg church door, altering the course of history.

We seem to be a people hungry for change; hurling manifestos around like potluck recipes and calling for revolutions like a sweaty, crazed fan errantly shouting a song request towards the stage. We want a movement - more, we want to be a part of a movement.

And yet, among many of those with the loudest voices in the church, I haven't seen any hammers or nails. I've seen a lot of scotch tape and magazine cut outs - declarations made with arbitrary and odd-sized fonts like ransom notes for a fake kidnapping; voices and pens clawing for deconstruction and rethinking like clumsy, intoxicated wrecking balls.

And all the while, beneath this lust for change lies a foundation built with a hammer and nails.

The Reformation, and Protestantism as a whole, raised their banner around five God-glorfying truths, the Solas: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, and Soli Deo Gloria. These are war cries more revolutionary than Che Guevera, Karl Marx, or any of the contemporary trembling voices calling for change could ever be.

And these, The Five Solas, are what we should be rallying around right now.

Sola Scriptura

In a time when our focus has collapsed in ourselves, when God has moved almost exclusively inside us instead of outside of us, and when the subjective and the relative reign, we need to be reminded of the authority of God's word. When charismatics are kicking cancer patients in the chest to heal them and Evangelicals are programming their churches like Nickleodian, we need to be reminded that our ideas might need to be tested against an objective authority. We need a little less spiritual fiction and a little more Biblical truth in our lives.

Solus Christus

Jesus isn't just a teacher, but a Redeemer, Savior, and Lord. We need to be reminded that we did need to be redeemed and saved because we could not save ourselves, AND we indeed needed to be saved from something. This was accomplished on the cross, in our place, by our Lord who was, and is, and is to come. It is only through faith in Jesus that we have salvation and, though the book or sermon might be interesting, the Gospel is not preached if those are not mentioned.

Sola Fide

In a time when it seems that there is a lot of "Gospel+and" being taught, when works are quietly creeping in under the cover of well-meaning world saving born from the American can-do spirit, we need to be reminded that salvation comes to us as a free gift, by faith in Jesus alone. Not faith plus what we can do. Not faith plus what we need to do, but simply by faith in Jesus' work at the cross alone.

Sola Gratia

Our western mindset is great at feeling that we are owed. We exaggerate, we adjust to people's perceptions of us, and we tend to carry the general air that we should be catered to. We need to be reminded that our very faith itself is a gift, not a reward and not a wage that we earned. God is not lucky to have us and He doesn't owe us whatever we quietly or subconsciously want. It is by sheer grace that He saves people as selfish and obscene as we are.

Soli Deo Gloria

Because our salvation is by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible, then we are to live to glorify God, not ourselves, and under His authority, and not our own. This is the most thankful and liberating way to live, in worship. If the sin that we have been saved from is idolatry, then we have been saved for a life and eternity of true worship. We bring nothing to our redemption but the sin we need saving from and so we should live in wonder, awe, perseverance, and hope.

The solas are as revolutionary today because they are built on Biblical truth and Biblical truth flies of the smug face of any culture, be it 1517 Germany or 2008 America, making them applicable to any conversation about cultural engagement or about how to "do" church. More than that, it is these glorious truths that generate the passion, humility, and obedience that lovingly endures the excruciating pain of the cross, and that drives each hammer blow to an empire's door, straight and true.

Put down the scotch tape and pick up these nails.

----

Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God's grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace.

--Martin Luther, from his Introduction to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans

[This is part of Tim Challies' Reformation Day symposium. You can check out other Reformation Day posts at Challies.com.]

Reformation Day - Why Is It Important?

Dan Scott — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:50:38 -0700

Well, Reformation Day is this weekend. Unfortunately, many Christians are unaware of the importance of the Reformation.

Why is that important? Well, the answer to that question involves Mr. Henry M.

Never heard of him either?

Ahhh…..

Almost everyone who takes an introductory psychology course reads a passing reference to Henry M. in the textbook. However, I finally read his entire story and was spellbound by it.

In the early 1950’s, Henry M. was struggling with some sort of emotional difficulty that seemed resistant to all conventional treatment. So, incredibly to us today, his doctors decided to lobotomize him. They removed his hippocampus, a small organ inside the human brain whose purpose was unknown at the time. Then, for the rest of his life, the psychologists studied him.

After surgery, Mr. M. could do almost everything normally. He could speak without difficulty. He could read and write. He could take care of his basic needs. He had no problem with eating, dressing, hygiene and performing daily tasks. He only had one problem: he had no past. He didn’t know who he was or what he had experienced. On any given day he could not remember the events that took place. He couldn’t remember the people whom he had met, or things he had read, from the day before. He could listen to the same jokes again and again with fresh delight. Day after day he met the doctors and nurses, who cared for him at M.I.T, as though he were meeting them for the first time. He had become a prisoner of an eternal present.

Think about what “life” became for Henry M. Although he survived, although he could have fun, was capable of reproducing, could function in all the functions necessary for human existence, he did not really experience “human” life. The human being that Henry M had been, died in 1953, the year he lost his past. A person without a past doesn’t know who he is, does not know how he connects with the rest of the world, and does not know what any of his actions, even the pleasurable ones, actually mean. He experiences every event in life as disconnected from all previous and future events. He experiences events one at a time, isolated from any frame of reference or explanation that would link them together. In other words, the events of his life may provoke emotions, but never meaning. He becomes an intelligent animal. He lives, but he doesn’t know why.

Some years ago, I came to the conclusion that the spiritual life of most modern American Evangelicals and Charismatics has become like the world of Henry M. We like our joyful services. We experience the presence of God. We have learned to market ourselves. We carry on our church business. We continue to exist. However, we have largely lost our spiritual past and this has left us woefully unprepared to meet the spiritual challenges ahead. It leaves us incapable of growing quality lives and of reaching for maturity in all areas of life. We move heaven and earth to convince people to begin the spiritual journey, but have lost the map of where to direct them afterwards. Our interconnection with the culture around us has become almost entirely reactionary. We rage at cultural change but we offer no alternatives. We do not read. We do not create. We do not offer solutions. We seem only capable of critiquing the secular culture. And, while meaningful critique is important, it is not enough. Our spiritual ancestors did not just rage at other cultures and religions. They created an alternative civilization. They developed and refined their gifts and talents based on their Christian worldview. Now, the surrounding culture views us as perpetually angry and defensive. The unbelievers know we do not like what they are saying and doing but they do not see us as having any developed ideology or culture of our own.

In my opinion, the reason for this state of affairs is that we have forgotten who we are. For well over a generation we ridiculed and abandoned all the tradition, ceremony, doctrine, spiritual wisdom and artistic heritage of our Christian past. Instead of blaming our sense of inadequacy and spiritual dissatisfaction on our lack of prayer, study and creativity, we blamed our ancestors and their contributions. In other words, because we were unhappy with the present state of the church, we lobotomized it. Now, instead of connecting our lives and churches to the Christian community of the ages, we seem only interested in the feelings of today. The future frightens us because we are not sure of who we are. So, we don’t prepare for the future either. We have learned to be content with good services and a growing crowd. We watch our church budget and try not to make waves. We seem neither to notice nor care that the quality of our people’s lives seems not to change from month to month or from year to year – not to even mention from generation to generation. We have become content with just existing.

I believe that we have tried to address some of these issues at Christ Church, but doing that is going against the tide of both the American secular culture and the church culture. Nonetheless, I believe that we must keep moving against that tide. American Christians are in danger of becoming unbearably superficial, simply because we no longer take the time or energy to learn and draw from the richness of our heritage. That means that it becomes more and more difficult to win thinking pagans to the faith. It also means that it becomes more and more difficult to give our children the tools they need to grow into mature and well-equipped Christians. At best, they tend to become pagans who go to church on Sundays.

We do not know our Jewish heritage. Hence, we no longer memorize or recite the Ten Commandments. Therefore, our children do not know or revere them.

We do not know our Christian heritage. Hence, we do not know the creeds or the stories of good and evil that the church has participated in throughout the centuries (and may do again)! Therefore, we have no defense against heresy or mental sloth.

We do not know our reformation heritage. Hence, we do not know the deeds or words of Luther, Calvin or even Wesley. Indeed, we do not even know why these people are important to us. In many cases, we do not even know who they were.

We do not know our artistic heritage. Hence, we have lost our appreciation for centuries of hymns, painting, stained glass, architecture and other artistic treasures that were the results of gifted Christians creatively using materials to give witness to the story of redemption. Like science and mathematics, art is a continual conversation with the present and the past. Art builds upon or reacts to, what has come before. Without a Christian past, our modern Christian artists can only borrow from the secular world for their artistic ideas, or, if not, they remain trapped in perpetual artistic adolescence because they have no mentors, colleagues or adversaries.

We do not know our spiritual heritage. Hence, we have lost the lessons of the church fathers, the medieval mystics, the reformers, and the thousands of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox people of prayer and spiritual disciplines who wrote of the dangers and delights of their spiritual journey. Therefore, we too easily fall prey to charlatans, self-appointed gurus and con artists. We also tend to remain superficial and juvenile in our own individual spiritual journey.

We do not know our literary heritage. Hence, we have lost Dante, Milton, Bunyon, and Augustine. Much more seriously, in an age when the English Bible is available in a thousand versions and supported by thousands of commentaries, serious Bible study has become the dinosaur of American church life. Therefore, we cannot draw on our own heritage when we attempt to explain and defend our reasons for disagreeing with the non-believing culture around us. As we face a world that is increasingly hostile or apathetic about out faith, we have neither a light for our feet nor a lamp for our pathway. Indeed, we have no pathway. We insist on making up the journey as we go along.

In such a climate, it is no wonder that we provide few great leaders or thinkers for the various fields of society. Those Christians who do make it into places of leadership often keep their faith reserved for the “spiritual” part of their lives. It seems not to influence their decisions as bankers, governors, scientists or educators. Even more ominously, the faith increasingly seems not to influence the various aspects of the individual Christian’s private life. Many Christians seem amazed to hear anyone think that their faith should influence anything about their lives outside of that emotional part they call their “spirituality”.

Our definition of “spirituality” is much too narrow. Our happy church life is simply not enough. Likely, Mr. M was happy enough when he was well fed, sheltered and clothed. He was no doubt happy that his immediate needs were fulfilled. Happy or not, he had lost his ability to think about long range issues. In his lobotomized state, he had no future difficulties to face, or future opportunities to meet. That very illusion helped him to be happy. However, it was a shallow happiness that was the result of being incapable of realizing his true situation. That, I believe, is the state of American Evangelicalism, and certainly the state of the Charismatic Movement.

Like Mr. M, we too are locked into seeking only what appeals now, at the moment. Or, worse still, we are locked into defending and perpetrating the secular culture of a generation ago, believing that to be our Christian heritage. The lobotomy has affected both the right and the left: Christian liberals want us to adopt the present secular culture, the conservatives want us to adopt the secular culture of the 1950’s. In both cases, our Christian roots have been largely lost.

Remembering the events and issues of the Reformation would go a long way toward helping us recover our heritage and our minds!

Well, I’ve certainly written enough for now. I didn’t even get around to talking about the Reformation! I will write about this important history next. At least then you will be prepared with why it is important.