Between the Trees

Note: This is part of an ongoing series called What is the Gospel? Part One can be found here.

Before presenting the two sides, let’s start with some basic ground rules:

1) This is an intramural discussion. In other words, it’s a disagreement amongst brothers and sisters. As such whatever discussion we have has to be consistent with biblical expectations for how Christians function in community. (Think John 13 and 17 or Paul’s words in 2 Timothy.)

2) Because it’s an intramural discussion, the language we use is going to be vitally important. Once when I was discussing this issue, the discussion ended when the other person told me that I, “clearly have no idea what the Gospel is.” Needless to say, the discussion was basically finished at that point because I was no longer defending a theological proposition, but my status as a Christian.

3) Let’s also commit to asking good questions before making judgments. As someone who has had many discussions about this question, I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the time when we think we’re disagreeing, we’re really just talking past each other. Or, if there is genuine disagreement, it’s actually over a much subtler point than we might first suspect.

4) Finally, I introduced the discussion by saying I wanted to describe “both” sides, but that’s a bit of a misnomer because even if there are two basic teams on this issue, the reality is within both those groups, there will still be a tremendous amount of variance in how different proponents of a similar view might express their ideas.

5) Last point - beneath the surface of this entire discussion are some very basic but much bigger theologial questions. For example, “How do the Old Testament and New Testament relate?” or “What is the nature of the Fall in Genesis 3?” or “Can we distinguish between ‘implications’ of the Gospel and the Gospel itself?” or “How should we interpret Scripture?” In other words, the posts may beg more questions than they answer, but if nothing else they can hopefully move the discussion forward by exposing the larger questions that undergird the very specific questions that many Christians are wrestling with today.

Recently Christianity Today posted a discussion of Tullian Tchvidjian’s new book Unfashionable. It was prompted by a mostly-critical review by Tullian’s friend Tim Challies. Tchvidjian is a rising star in evangelicalism whose first book Do I Know God? drew rave reviews a few years ago. He’s also recently become the pastor of James Kennedy’s former church, Coral Ridge Presbyterian.

The discussion at CT is titled, “Are Christians overemphasizing cultural renewal?” While I have very strong opinions on the question, I’m not naive enough to think that as a 21-year-old college student I can contribute anything new to the discussion. So instead I’m going to try to summarize both views in the next couple of posts and hopefully provide resources presenting both sides of the discussion. Since I’m on summer break now, I’m going to have a lot more time to do this, so hopefully the posts will be coming almost daily.

If you don’t read Pitts’ column, you owe it to yourself to start.

Here’s his latest.

Whether our sin is legalism or license, the answer is not embrace its opposite. The answer to both errors is the Gospel.

I recently read this description of a major modern American evangelical:

“[He] was a showman who introduced drama and excitement into his sermons by pounding the pulpit, standing on a chair, doing handsprings, and jumping on top of the pulpit. He preached what one observed called a ‘muscular Christianity.’ Jesus, ‘was no dough-faced, lick-spittle proposition,’ he declared. ‘Jesus was the greatest scrapper that ever lived.’ The lesson to be drawn was clear: ‘Let me tell you, the manliest man is the man who will acknowledge Jesus Christ.’”

The answer might surprise you.

I got this e-mail yesterday from Nelson Musipa, the director of Navigators in Zambia, where I spent the summer two years ago.

“Dear Friends,

This past Sunday I came back from Kabwe where I had gone to attend a Leadership Team meeting only to find that Tatenda our youngest daughter who had started running a temperature on Saturday night was not improving. We Immidy had started her on Malaria treatment because we suspected that could be the problem especially that we have had a lot of mosquitoes around. We decided that since she had just taken the Malaria medicine we observe how things would go most of Sunday. By 7 PM the temperature was not showing any signs of going down. It would only go down when we give her Paracetamol and as soon as it wears off it would shoot up again. It was then we decided to take to hospital. After examining her the Doctor said that she her Tonsils were inflamed and decided to admit her and put her on antibiotics. Today is the fifth day and her temperature is still on the high side. The only encouraging thing is that she has started to eat again and her appetite is improving. This morning the Doctor said her throat is still inflamed and that the Lymph nodes are also swollen. The doctor decided to carry out some more tests and do a full blood count. Her medication has also been changed. Its been challenging to see active Tatenda not that active, in pain and discomfort.

1. Please pray for her healing and complete recovery.
2. Pray for physical and emotional strength especially for Immidy who is by the bedside.
3. Pray that the enemy will not take advantage of anything and that our faith would remain strong.

In Him

Nelson”

When you think of it, please remember to pray for the Musipas. Nelson is the taller one to my right (your left) in the picture below.

With classes finishing up a week from Friday, I’m starting to put together a summer reading list. Here’s what I have so far, I’m also hoping to do some lighter reading, possibly some Stephen Lawhead and some of the Arthurian books I haven’t been able to read for class this semester:

1. Crunchy Cons - Rod Dreher
   
2. A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada - Mark Noll
3. Economics in Christian Perspective - Victor Claar and Robin Klay
4. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther - Roland Bainton
5. Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places - Eugene Peterson
6. Leading with a Limp - Dan Allender
7. Christ of the Covenants - O. Palmer Robertson

Interesting excerpt I came across today in Fareed Zakaria’s book The Post-American World (which, by the way, is an excellent read) :

For a century after 1894,  most of the cars manufactured in North America were made in Michigan. Since 2004, Michigan has been replaced by Ontario, Canada. The reason is simple: health care. In America, car manufacturers have to pay $6,500 in medical and insurance costs for every worker. If they move a plant to Canada, which has a government-run health care system, the cost to the manufacturer is $800 per work. In 2006, General Motors paid $5.2 billion in medical and insurance bills for its active and retired workers. That adds $1,500 to the cost of every GM car sold. For Toyota, which has fewer American retirees and many more foreign workers, that cost is $186 per car. This is not necessarily an advertisement for the Canadian health care system, but it does make clear that the costs of the American health care system have risen to ap oint that there is a significant competitive disadvantage to hiring American workers. Jobs are going not to countries like Mexico but to places where well-trained and educated workers can be found: it’s smart benefits, not low wages, that employers are looking for.”

Thoughts?

Note: This is part 3 of an ongoing series discussing the question of hell. Here are posts one and two.

Last time, I tried to offer a take on the big story of Christianity, putting the questions of hell and divine judgment in their proper contexts. I’d like to sum up four major points from this story:

1. God does not stand between us and heaven. He is not trying to keep us from going there by beating us back into hell. Instead, we are standing between God and the restoration of what He has created. If we are not mercifully spared, we must be dealt with some other way. And, if God’s work of saving the cosmos is to succeed, part of sparing us must be restoring us into our right roles in relation both to God and to creation. The sense many people have that God could somehow save people while they continue on in their merry little ways, rebelling and worshipping idols and abusing the world and one another, is to completely miss the point. You cannot be saved without becoming a worshiper of Yahweh, because until you do you are still standing in the path of the freight train of restoration coming to this world, shaking your fist.

2. Human sin really is bad. It’s destructive. When God punishes sin, it is not some petty dictator killing a political prisoner. It is a doctor pouring antiseptic on the wound. The only ones who see it as anything but good are the bacteria. Too often, we have articulated the doctrine of sin in such a way as to keep hell from making sense. It is true that human sin is ultimately grave because it offends the holiness and glory of God. However, we miss the point when we separate this fact from sin’s other consequences. God in His holiness and glory wants the world to work together in joy, beauty and shalom. To pretend as if we are offending God without also breaking the world we live in misses the whole point.

3. Because of this, the idea of judgment (of which hell is a part) is actually a good thing. Granted, it’s not a happy thing for those being judged. But when we see that the thing keeping the world from working in the way we all know it should is our own shalom-breaking, it helps us recognize that God’s wrath poured out on sin is the wrath of a Father coming to defend His beloved. And this, assuming you love what the Father loves, is a very good thing.

4. In addition, salvation really is gracious on God’s part. If the story I told last time is the biblical one, then there would be no reason that God couldn’t have fixed things without saving any of us. He could have simply come like a warrior and wiped us all out. But He didn’t. He instead included us in the restoration.

Next Time: Now that we’ve laid the groundwork (some might say belabored the point), I’d like to begin to examine the biblical and exegetical concerns that lead us to a doctrine of hell.

I’m sorry for the dearth of posting, but seminary is crazy right now. That said, I had to make a quick comment.

There is a video game called Guitar Praise, which for those not in the know is Guitar Hero for church kids. One of the reviews on the site starts “We are not conformed to the world.”

So by making a (mediocre) rip-off of a successful video game, white-washing it Christian so that your kids can (spend hours pretending to) play guitar with tobyMac instead of Guns ‘n’ Roses, and then marketing it (for substantially more than the secular version), we’re being a radically Christian influence on the culture.

Uh-huh.