KATA IWANNHN

2003-05-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Emeth's hard work, this blog is moving here. In a little while, Emeth will add an automatic redirect to this blog, but for now you'll have to click the link yourselves.

Unfortunately, with the new blog I will have lost all your old comments, though I've copied the most recent ones over to the new blog.

2003-05-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

I've recently been reading The Catholicity of the Reformation, edited by Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson. The book is a collection of essays, all but one from Lutheran authors, demonstrating that the intention of the early Reformers wasn't to create a new kind of Christianity but rather was to reform and renew in keeping with the historic catholic (note the lowercase c) Christian tradition.

On Saturday, I read David S. Yeago's essay, "The Catholic Luther." Yeago, himself a Lutheran, offers an interesting approach to Luther's story.

The traditional Luther-story goes like this: Luther was a young priest with a very troubled conscience, which nothing in the Catholicism of his day could help because it kept pointing him to his works. Then he had the famous Tower Experience in which he discovered justification by faith alone. After that, he got into controversy, first with regard to indulgences and then with regard to justification itself.

More recently, scholars have argued (convincingly, says Yeago) that the Tower Experience happened in 1518, which is to say that it happened after the 95 theses (which don't talk about justification by faith alone) and the beginning of the indulgence controversy.

Yeago agrees that the Tower Experience did take place in 1518. But his read of Luther's history up to and including that point is quite different from either of those other interpretations.

If we look at his earlier writings (as opposed to his reflections twenty-five to thirty years later), we don't find Luther wrestling with a troubled conscience or asking how he can find a gracious God. Rather, we find him wrestling with the question of idolatry and how we can find the true God.

The problem, says Luther and much of the catholic tradition at the time, is that people want a god who benefits them. They love God for his gifts and not for himself, which, they say, is a form of idolatry ("I worship the God who makes me feel good").

So then how can you know that you're worshipping the true God (who can't be used) instead of this idol of your own imagination? Luther's response is the theology of the cross: the true God comes to you in sufferings — the sufferings of Christ but also our own sufferings — such that we are left clinging to him even when he doesn't seem to benefit us at all. In fact, if we're clinging to him even though it appears to be his intention to damn us (and we should be willing to be damned if only we have the true God, he says), then we know that we're not worshipping an idol.

Yeago agrees that Luther did talk about uncertainty of salvation during this point, but Luther didn't see it as a problem. In fact, Yeago says,

It should be clear that this strategy utterly excludes the sort of confident assurance of God's favor that Luther later came to teach; on the contrary, for the early theologia crucis our uncertainty of salvation plays an important role in weaning us from self-interested piety: we must learn to cling to God even though it seems most likely he will damn us (p. 23).

There is a marked difference between this early Luther of the "theology of the cross," whose view leads to and embraces a lack of assurance of salvation, and the later Luther, who proclaims assurance. What made the difference? In 1518, Yeago says, Luther began to study sacramental theology.

To the question "What is the sacrament good for, anyway?" Luther finally responds: the concrete, external, public sacramental act in the church is the concrete, external, public act of Jesus Chrsit in the church. When we come to the sacrament, we run into Jesus Christ: his word, his act, his authority. The question with which every participant in the sacraments is confronted, therefore, is simply this: Is Jesus Christ telling the truth here? Can he do what he promises? Can we count on what he says? (pp. 25-26).

Luther's basic question remains the same: How can I find the true God, as opposed to idols of my own imagination? But the answer changes. His earlier answer appears to have been this: "the one who I am to adore and in whom I am to put my trust is precisely the one whom all experience says is bent on destroying me" (p. 27). His new answer would have been different:

"The true possesor of deity is the one whom I encounter here — in the particular flesh of Jesus Christ and in the concrete sacramental sign." It is the particularity and concreteness of God's presence that now bear the brunt of the task of foreclosing idolatry; the true God, who by definition cannot be used, is the God who makes himself available as he chooses, here and not there, in the flesh born of Mary and the specificity of his church's sacramental practice, not in the groves and high places consecrated by our religious speculation and self-interest (p. 27).

The whole theology of the cross changes:

[I]n Luther's early "theology of the cross," God hides his saving presence in the torment he visits on his elect; in the mature theology, the gracious hiddenness of God is primarily a matter of his lowliness, his kenosis ni the incarnate Son, in his chosen signs, and in his saints. The tribulations of the faithful are no longer identical with the grace that saves them, although they drive them to seek that grace and are the veil under which it is hidden from the proud and mighty of this world (p. 28).

Yeago's thesis seems quite radical: far from being driven by his troubled conscience to find a new solution for his sins which meant that he had to break from the version of Christianity in which he lived, Luther originally thought that a troubled conscience was a good thing ("theology of the cross") but then began to study the historic, catholic tradition of sacramental theology and adjusted his thinking so that he now proclaimed the certainty of forgiveness in Christ, a forgiveness received only by faith ("Does Jesus Christ mean what he says?").

Yeago's essay is brief (you'll find a still briefer, earlier version of it here) and it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. He admits that in the short compass of this essay (originally a speech) he can only assert, though he plans to offer a more extended argument for this reading of Luther's history in the future. As he says, "I will, so to speak, describe the shoe; readers may let Luther wear it if they find that it fits him" (p. 13).

Anyone else read this essay? Have any of the other Luther scholars responded to it? Has it caught on in Luther scholarship? Is Yeago coming out with his extended argument anytime soon? At any rate, it's certainly an interesting and thought-provoking article.

2003-05-05T09:39:00.000-07:00

The de-Garvering begins! Welcome back, Brian and Mark! And if you guys are back, can Joel be far behind?

Mind you, even though his last name became the verb meaning "to quit blogging," Joel hasn't really quit himself. He's developed a new art form: microblogging. He's blogging one word at a time.

2003-05-02T17:46:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I bought a new computer. I had planned to add an extra 256 RAM, but it turned out that the RAM they had in stock didn't work on my computer. No problem. They ordered some more that would work, and on Tuesday they installed it.

Yesterday evening, my computer kept freezing. I had to shut the thing down and start it again, and then it would work fine ... for a while. (By the way, with the new computers which have a software-generated shutdown, you can't turn off your computer by simply pressing the on switch. But if you hold that switch for ten seconds it will shut off your computer.)

Early this afternoon, I ran my Norton Disk Doctor program to see if it could find and solve the problem. All of a sudden, I had a blank screen with a message at the top: "Operating System Not Found." Yike!

I tried this and that, but there wasn't a whole lot of this-ing and that-ing I could really try. I had no operating system, and you can't do much without one. And "You can't do much" includes "You can't edit or print or access the sermons you just wrote."

I called the store and the tech guy told me he wasn't busy, so I brought him the computer. Less than an hour ago and about two and half hours after drop-off, he called me. My computer is up and running. In fact, he's even been able to solve another glitch I had which he hadn't been able to solve the other day when they installed my RAM.

What caused the computer to tell me my operating system had taken a stroll? Um ... the new 256 RAM that was supposed to have worked on this computer. It's a funny thing about RAM: Sometimes it'll work for a while (say, from Tuesday till Friday) and then ... kablooey. So now I have my computer back and running, and the tech guy is on a quest for the perfect RAM for me.

In other news (completely unrelated, except that I had to have my computer back and running in order to find it), check out Jeff Meyers's latest blog-entry on Augustine's style of preaching. I've managed to get a chuckle out of my congregation at times and last Sunday I got an "Amen" in the afternoon, but Reformed congregations are a lot quieter than Augustine's, it seems!

2003-04-30T17:36:00.000-07:00

After seeing this rant by a frustrated Canon Press editor (thanks for pointing it out, Lucy!), I've decided to add Jared & Mackenzie's blog to my list.

2003-04-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

Tonight, after Tim and I went out for supper, I headed off to the Grande Prairie Regional College, where, after an hour or so of hanging around and one quick rehearsal, we sang at the Encana Grande Prairie Music Festival. "We" here is Jubilate, the six-member group I've been singing with since about the middle of March. We sang two madrigals (words by Michelangelo, music by Jacob Arcadelt) and John Rutter's "A Gaelic Blessing."

I was pretty nervous about the concert (my gut is still in a knot), especially since (as I mentioned in my previous post) the concert was being adjudicated and the adjudicator had given out very few gold stars earlier in the week. In the middle of the first song, I heard and felt my voice break slightly, but no one else noticed, and, in spite of the fact that I was trembling a bit with nerves and adreniline, people said we all looked quite comfortable.

The adjudicator told us that hearing us made her homesick, since she sings with a small ensemble herself and loves renaissance and baroque music. All week, she'd been hammering groups on their dynamics: their louds weren't loud enough and their softs weren't soft enough. But mirable dictu, she didn't say anything about that to us, which means we must have remembered not to bellow through the pianissimo parts. She had us work on a couple of things, but complemented us on our phrasing and blend, and (though I should blush to relate it) she also complemented "Mr. Bass" on his low E.

2003-04-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, it's snowing. It was wonderful spring weather for most of the week, but this evening the light rain has turned into light snow. I gather that farther south, around Calgary, they've had a few inches of it. Here it's not coming down that heavily (yet).

I was thinking of going for a walk tonight, but that's off. Instead, I'll practice my madrigals for the upcoming Music Festival on Tuesday, where we're going to be adjudicated, which means I have to learn to sing forward in the next couple of days or we're in trouble. And then I'm going to return to the fun of James Blaylock's The Disappearing Dwarf, early Blaylock to be sure, but still enjoyable.

2003-04-26T18:21:00.001-07:00

Last night, I finished reading Philip Lee's Against the Protestant Gnostics. It's a very good book in many ways, in spite of the significant differences between Lee's theological and political stance and my own.

Lee's goal is to reveal the gnosticism which lurks in much Protestant thought, but it seems to me that there's more than a little gnosticism in his own thinking. For instance, it doesn't seem that Lee believes in a historical fall; he speaks also about those who have "literalized and thereby gnosticized" the "biblical images" such as the Atonement (p. 107). He also indicates that he believes that Scripture, being the words of men, contains errors (p. 219). All the way through the book, I have penciled in question marks, x-es, and even a few comments.

And yet, as I say, in spite of those significant differences between Lee's view and my own, I appreciated a lot of what Lee says. For instance, he argues that much modern feminism is gnostic in that it attempts to deny the significance of created sexuality. He defends ordinary Christian life as opposed to the spiritual flights of the gnostic elite. He upholds the importance of the church and the sacraments, as well.

Lee, following the early Reformers, argues passionately for weekly communion. He cites Calvin:

All this mass of ceremonies being abandoned, the sacrament might be celebrated in the most becoming manner, if it were dispensed to the Church very frequently, at least once a week.... Thus we ought always to provide that no meeting of the Church is held without the word, prayer, the dispensation of the Supper, and alms (Institutes IV.17.43-44, emphasis Lee's, though I've modified the punctuation).

Later in the book, Lee writes something worth pondering:

The eucharistic feast must be restored to its rightful place if the churches of the Reformation are to be reformed. The account given in the Acts of the Apostles makes it clear that teaching, preaching, prayer and the breaking of bread were from the beginning the essential elements of Christian worship. Indeed, the Church's teaching, preaching and praying culminate in the breaking of bread with Christ and all his people. "This is the joyful feast of the people of God" where and when the eyes of the faithful are opened and they recognize the Lord. Historically, the simple reenactment of the Last Supper and of the post-Easter meals of Christ and his disciples has been the central act of the Christian community.

The irony of Protestant history is that although the sixteenth-century Reformers fought like tigers to restore the wine to the people, their descendents have now deprived the people of both bread and wine. The Protestant celebration, when it is on rare occasions held, has been spiritualized to the extent that it could scarcely be recognized as a meal at all. The purely symbolic wafer of the Roman celebration, which John Knox thundered against as a distortion of Christ's "common bread," has in most Protestant churches been replaced by minute, carefully diced pieces of bread unlike any other bread ever eaten by any culture. The common cup which the medieval Church withheld from the faithful is, except among the Anglicans, still the sole possession of the clergy. The unordained are now given thimble-like glasses filled with Welch's grape juice. The symbolism is quite clear. We all come before God individually; with our individual bits of bread and our individual cups of juice, we are not of one loaf and one chalice. Our relationship to Christ is private and personal. What may be even more significant is that by partaking of this unearthly meal with our unbreadly bread and our unwinely wine we are making a clear statement that the bread and wine of spiritual communion has no connection with earthly communion. It is an unmistakable gnostic witness against the significance of ordinary meals: common bread, wine, the table fellowship of laughter and tears....

Frequent communion, of course, would call for a simple, less elaborate service than the unmeal-like ritual now practiced. The funereal procession of clergy and lay leaders passing the diminutive dishes to the solemnly sitting or kneeling communicants would probably have to be replaced by the crowded gathering of the faithful about the Holy Table for a breaking of the common loaf and the passing of a common cup. Those who argue that the intimacy and the everyday quality of such a celebration would take away the sense of mystery simply do not understand the nature of drama and mystery. It was [French filmmaker] Jean Cocteau who said "vagueness is unsuitable to the fairy world ... mystery exists only in precise things." Concreteness, the preciseness of home-baked bread and earthy red wine, in pottery plates and chalices, received with much chewing and swallowing, witnesses to the mystery of the Word made flesh. The present practice unwittingly undercuts the mystery and leaves us with the vague and unhelpful feeling that some undefined perfunctory act must be taking place (pp. 272-273).

The book is certainly thought-provoking, though it requires a fair bit of discernment. I'll leave you with this beautiful bit of the French Reformed baptismal liturgy, which Lee quotes. The minister takes the child in his arms and says:

Little child, for you Jesus Christ has come, He has fought, He has suffered. For you He entered into the shadows of Gethsemane and the terror of Calvary; for you He uttered the cry "It is finished." For you He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and there for you He intercedes. For you, even though you do not know it, little child, but in this way the Word of the Gospel is made true, "We love Him because He first loved us" (cited p. 254).

2003-04-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a brand-new article in which N. T. Wright explains the significance of the resurrection, which is not quite what Rev. Gospelman or Mr. Smoothtongue thought. And here, for those who might be interested, is a related news story, which also mentions the lightning bolt incident alluded to in the Ship of Fools article.

2003-04-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a snippet from James Jordan's "Biblical Perspectives on the Arts" (Biblical Educator 4.1). It was written in 1982 and I don't know if Jim would put it the same way today, but I thought it was worth passing on:

Francis Schaeffer, in his fine booklet Art and the Bible (Intervarsity), mentions what he calls the major and the minor themes in Christian art. The minor themes are sin, depravity, ugliness, and the like. The major themes are salvation, righteousness, beauty, and the like. Because Christian fine arts are realistic, they deal with the minor themes, but they show the triumph of the major themes. This need not be true in each and every piece of art, but will be the message of the corpus of an artist's work as a whole....

Because fine arts often deal with the minor themes as well as the major ones, fine arts are not always "beautiful." To bring across the horror of sin, the fine arts sometimes present what we might call "anti-beauty," but the overall tendency is to create a fuller beauty as the ultimate goal.

Tolkein has put it very well in the opening passages of the Silmarillion. Satan abstracts one small set of notes from the great hymn of the angels, and harps only on them; but God is able to turn this dissonance into a new tragic melody, which eventually works its way back into the hymn, and the last beauty is greater than the first.

2003-04-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

During this past week, I have been listening to appropriate music: Bach's St. Matthew's Passion and Arvo Pärt's Passio (short, of course, for Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Johannes: The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John).

Today and tomorrow, I'll be listening to John Taverner's Lamentations and Praises, fitting music for Good Friday and Holy Saturday. I realize I quoted these lines last year at this time, but I'll quote them again:

In a grave they laid You,
O my Life and my Christ;
and the armies of the angels were sore amazed
as they sang the praise of Your submissive love.

Right it is indeed, life-bestowing Lord,
to magnify You;
for upon the Cross
were Your most-pure hands outspread,
and the strength of our dread foe
have You destroyed.

2003-04-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

Way back when I started blogging, three of my earliest posts talked about Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy, Blue, White, and Red. Now, at long last, the movies have come out in a DVD box set: Three Colours. Tim spotted them in a store here in Grande Prairie.

2003-04-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

Two more quotations from Wright's The Challenge of Jesus:

The mission of the church ... can be summed up in the phrase "reflected glory." It is precisely through engaging in the christological task, focusing on Jesus and allowing our picture of God to be shaped thereby not as a detached intellectual exercise but as the very heart of our worship, our praying, our thinking, our preaching and our living, that we are enabled to reflect that glory. When we see, as Paul says, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and when we discover the length and breadth of what that phrase means, we see and discover this not for our own benefit but so that the glory may shine in us and through us, to bring light and life to the world that still waits in darkness and the shadow of death (pp. 124-125).

And toward the end of the book:

But if we are to be kingdom-announcers, modeling the new way of being human, we are also to be crossbearers. This is a strange and dark theme that is also our birthright as followers of Jesus. Shaping our world is never for a Christian a matter of going out arrogantly thinking we can just get on with the job, reorganizing the world according to some model that we have in mind. It is a matter of sharing and bearing the pain and puzzlement of the world so that the crucified love of God in Christ may be brought to bear healingly upon the world at exactly that point. Because Jesus bore the cross uniquely for us, we do not have to purchase forgiveness again; it's been done. But because, as he himself said, following him involves taking up the cross, we should expect, as the New Testament tells us repeatedly, that to build on his foundation will be to find the cross etched into the pattern of our life over and over again (pp. 188-189).

2003-04-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

Barb points out that my article entitled "Reading the Bible" has been published in U-Turn online. I received the hardcopy in the mail last week, but hadn't checked yet to see if it was up on the webpage.

While you're surfing U-Turn, check out Peter Leithart's "The Christian and Literature" (which is part of the intro to his Brightest Heaven of Invention) and Jeff Meyers' "Drinking with Thanksgiving."

2003-04-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

I've been reading N. T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus and came across this paragraph on the relationship between Jesus' death and our vocation:

When we speak of "following Christ," it is the crucified Messiah we are talking about. His death was not simply the messy bit that enables our sins to be forgiven but that can then be forgotten. The cross is the surest, truest and deepest window on the very heart and character of the living and loving God; the more we learn about the cross in all its historical and theological dimensions, the more we discover about the One in whose image we are made and hence about our own vocation to be the cross-bearing people, the people in whose lives and service the living God is made known. And when therefore we speak ... of shaping our world, we do not — we dare not — simply treat the cross as the thing that saves us "personally," but which can be left behind when we get on with the job. The task of shaping our world is best understood as the redemptive task of bringing the achievement of the cross to bear on the world, and in that task the methods, as well as the message, must be cross-shaped through and through (pp. 94-95).

2003-03-28T21:28:00.000-08:00

Ever since I read Bruce Mawhinney's Preaching with Freshness at the start of my ministry, I've been following his recommendation and taking (or trying to take) Fridays off. So today I read a bit, did some errands around town, drove out to Sexsmith, fifteen minutes north of here, to peruse the magazines in the Peace River Bible Institute library, drove home and checked out one of the Christian book stores in town (I almost needed a magnifying glass to find the book section!), and then had supper.

Here are a few scattered (but chronological) observations:

* Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong's voices blend beautifully and their duets are great music to get the day started.

* It strikes me as interesting (not to say rather strange) that the latest issue of Bibliotheca Sacra, the journal published by Dallas Theological Seminary, contains an article by David F. Wright entitled "The Baptismal Community," in which Wright talks about how the early church viewed baptism as the entrance into the church, turning pagans into Christians. He also talks about infant baptism in this connection. Yes, this is in a Dallas Theological Seminary journal and it's based on a lecture Wright gave there. Strange but encouraging. What's up with today's dispensationalism?

* Having read Peter Leithart's Westminster Theological Journal review of John Milbank's The Word Made Strange, I realize that I do need to make the effort to read more of Milbank. I have Theology and Social Theory, but it's a pretty intimidating tome and I wrestled greatly with his "An Essay Against Secular Order."

* For that matter, I need to make a point of reading Leithart's other articles and reviews in WTJ.

* For the last several Sundays, we've had groups of PRBI students showing up in our afternoon services. John Bell, who teaches Corporate Worship, has been recommending that they check us out as an example of a more liturgical church (which might be hard for an Anglican or a Lutheran to believe). It's great when students spot me later and come up to talk, as one did in the restaurant last night and another did in the library today. I'll have to see whether it's possible for me to follow in the footsteps of my predecessor, Bishop Bill, and do some teaching there.

* It's also nice when, out of the blue, you run into a friend and end up having a good talk. Nice to see you in the library, Jamie!

* Joe Henry's Shuffletown is one of my favourite albums. It's a combination of folk (?) and jazz and a bit of quirkiness. There's some wonderful instrumentation, and Joe has his trademark voice and offbeat sense of timing. Many times I can't really make head or tail of the lyrics — I often have a sense that I'm grasping fragments of a story — but there isn't a song on the album I don't like. I wish I had it in CD format.

* It is a pity that there don't seem to be any good bookstores or music stores in Grande Prairie. Which is to say, there's no Chapters or A & B Sound — or even anything close.

And now I'm off to read some more of N. T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus and Anthony Trollope's delightful Barchester Towers. Good night, all!

2003-03-25T21:56:00.000-08:00

While reading through Thomas Oden's Becoming a Minister, I came across this quotation from Martin Luther:

Unless those who are in the office of preacher find joy in him who sent them, they will have much trouble. Our Lord God had to ask Moses as many as six times. He also led me into the office in the same way. Had I known about it beforehand, he would have had to take more pains to get me in. Be that as it may, now that I have begun, I intend to perform the duties of the office with his help. On account of the exceedingly great and heavy cares and worries connected with it, I would not take the whole world to enter upon this work now. On the other hand, when I regard him who called me, I would not take the whole world not to have begun it (Table Talk, LW 54, #113, pp. 12-13).

2003-03-24T13:26:00.000-08:00

This summer, I'm booked to speak at Reformation Covenant Church's annual Family Camp, along with Jim Jordan. The camp runs from June 9-14. It's located on the Oregon coast, which is very convenient, since I have to leave early in order to attend Classis Western Canada 2003 in Salem at the end of the week.

So far, none of the topics have been finalized, though one suggestion was that I would speak about covenant and evangelism. I'm expecting to hear some more in the near future.

2003-03-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

Aha! With the help of Russ, I've managed to fix my blogger problem. The cure? I cut my template and pasted it into a word processor file. Then I selected another template, went in to edit it, and pasted in my old template. It worked! Thanks, Russ!

2003-03-23T22:05:00.000-08:00

Why, oh why, won't Blogger publish my template? I keep revising it, saving changes, and hitting publish, only to get a blank where an error message would normally appear and a link which, though advertising itself as leading to "more info," leads only to a general troubleshooting page. Nothing I do seems to help. Anyone else having trouble publishing changes to your template?

2003-03-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

Another quotation from James Jordan's The Sociology of the Church:

The Bible taught the early church how to worship, but in the later Middle Ages, great corruptions set in. The Protestant Reformers were primarily interested in the restoration of worship, rightly perceiving it as the center of the Kingdom. After all, when God called Israel out of Egypt it was not first and foremost to establish a theocratic nation, but to engage in a third-day worship festival. Unfortunately, within a hundred years, the liturgical dreams of the Reformers were mostly in shambles.

The Reformers wanted three things. First, they wanted a return to Biblical regulation of worship. Almost immediately, however, this concern was sidetracked by a minimalist approach. The rule, "we should do in worship only what is actually commanded in Scripture," was taken in an increasingly restrictive sense. The Reformers had realized that God's "commands" are found in Scripture in "precept, principle, and example." Their heirs tended to exchange this wholistic openness to the Word of God for a quest for "explicit commands." Instead of reading the Bible to see the patterns presented there for our imitation, there was an attempt to find the bare minimum of what is actually "commanded" in the New Testament. The book of Revelation, which shows how worship is conducted in heaven ("Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"), was ignored. Anabaptist minimalism soon overwhelmed the Reformed churches.

Second, the Reformers wanted a return to Old Catholic forms, as they understood them. A reading of the liturgies they wrote shows this. Though all of the Reformers tended to over-react against anything that reminded them of Italo-Papal imperial oppression, they were not so "anti-catholic" as to reject the early church. Soon, however, sectarian reaction against anything that "smacks of Rome" overwhelmed their concern.

Third, the Reformers wanted participation in worship from the whole priesthood of all believers. They wrote dialogue liturgies in which the people had many things to say and sing. They had their congregations singing, for instance, the creeds, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer. Soon, however, the strength of the Medieval devotional tradition reasserted itself — the "low mass" tradition in which the people only sat and watched and listened, while the minister did everything. This Medieval tradition was the essence of the Puritan view of worship. In worship, the Puritans departed from the desires of the Protestant Reformers.

It is important to understand that although the Puritans did uphold the theology of the Reformers, they rejected the Reformers' views on worship at some crucial points. After the Puritan Revolution failed and Charles II came to the English throne, there was a conference at Savoy between Puritan Presbyterian churchmen and the newly restored Anglican bishops. It is very interesting to note what the Presbyterians proposed. They wanted "to omit 'the repetitions and responsals of the clerk and people, and the alternate reading of Psalms and Hymns, which cause a confused murmur in the congregation': 'the minister being appointed for the people in all Public Services appertaining to God; and the Holy Scriptures ... intimating the people's part in public prayer to be only with silence and reverence to attend thereunto and to declare their consent in the close, by saying Amen.' In other words, no dialogue, no responsive readings, no congregational praying of the Lord's Prayer or any other prayer. The Anglican bishops replied that "alternate reading and repetitions and responsals are far better than a long tedious prayer." They also noted that "if the people may take part in Hopkins' why not David's psalms, or in a litany?" In other words, if it is all right to sing metrical paraphrases of the psalms, why is it wrong to read responsively the very words of Scripture?

Originally the Puritan movement had not been opposed to prayerbook worship, but in time the combination of state persecution with the continuing strength of the Medieval quietist tradition led the Puritans into wholehearted opposition to congregational participation in worship (pp. 28-30).

2003-03-19T10:03:00.000-08:00

Last night, I finished reading James Jordan's The Sociology of the Church, a book I deeply enjoyed. I found Jim's treatments of the nature of conversion and of Pentecostalism and the gift of tongues very helpful and very balanced. The book is quite challenging, and there's a lot in it that I'll need to think through some more, but I highly recommend it.

I may post some more quotations from this book later on. But here, from an essay entitled "God's Hospitality and Holistic Evangelism," is a quotation about the eldership:

Rule in the church is to be by means of footwashing (hospitality) as much as by giving orders (Mark 10:42-45; John 13). Christ rules by being present with us, by being our Host and having us over to His house for dinner, even by being our Servant! The elders, who are to imitate Christ, must do the same (pp. 235-236).

2003-03-18T21:48:00.000-08:00

Tim has just published a new essay online: "Paradoxology: Thoughts on the Trinitarian Grounding of Human Faith." I highly recommend it.

2003-03-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

Mark Horne (who isn't blogging) just posted Travis Tamerius's interview with N. T. Wright at Theologia for your reading pleasure. Here are a couple of paragraphs to whet your appetite:

Look at what Paul actually says when he talks about how people become Christians. Look for instance at 1 Thessalonians where he says quite a lot about it without ever using the word justify or any of its cognates. He talks about the gospel coming to you in the power of the Spirit. You accepted that word not as the word of man but as what it really is, the word of God that is at work in you believers. It's quite clear what Paul is talking about, that he comes into town announcing that Jesus is Lord, as a royal herald. He is saying that the crucified Jesus is the Lord of the world. And this is not, "Here is a way of salvation. You might like to apply it to yourself." It's not, "Here is a new way of being religious and you might enjoy it." This is really an imperial summons: "On your knees!" Nobody ever went into a Roman town and said, "Caesar is lord and you might like to have this experience of acknowledging him as lord if that suits you." They said, "Caesar is Lord, get on your knees and we want the tax right now."

And when that message is announced, some men and women find to their astonishment that they believe it. I say to their astonishment because it's stupid. Paul says that it's stupid. He knows it. You can just imagine it. It's like someone telling a joke in a foreign language and not knowing why people laugh. Paul was going around the Roman world saying that this crucified Jesus is the lord of the world. He must have felt many times this is the craziest thing imaginable yet when I say it, lives are changed, the community emerges, people love each other. That is grace. And it is all of grace. But then the minute they say, "I really believe that Jesus is Lord, I really believe that God has raised him from the dead" and so on, then the doctrine of justification comes in and says you are all one in Christ Jesus. And, the proof is right there in Galatians 2:11-21. The first major discussion of justification is really all about who you are allowed to eat with. It's not about how to go to heaven when you die.

(Note: Wright does not deny that believers to go to heaven when we die, though he stresses that our final goal isn't heaven but the resurrection body. As well, his point here is that the first major discussion of justification has to do with table fellowship here on earth and not, there in Galatians 2, with how to go to heaven.)

2003-03-13T10:22:00.000-08:00

My mother tells me that my previous blog entry is getting old, and she's right. So here's an update.

I wasn't able to move into my new home on the Saturday as I'd hoped and so I stayed the weekend at my deacon's house. On that Monday, March 3, while I still had access to the computer, I finished proofreading Ralph Smith's book on the covenant and the Trinity (forthcoming from Canon Press). I highly recommend the book, by the way. It contains a very helpful critique of Meredith Kline's understanding of the covenant.

As soon as I'd fired off the list of typos to Doug Jones, I started packing all the stuff I had at Leo's place. I arrived here in the early evening, went out for supper, and then spent my first night in my own home.

For most of the next week, a large part of my time was spent taking books out of boxes and putting them on the shelves which line the walls of my basement study. It's the first time I've seen all my fiction and all my non-fiction together in one place. Most of my fiction stayed in boxes (or was still at my parents' place) during my four years in Lethbridge.

As for my own reading now, I've just finished Manly Wade Wellman's John the Balladeer, which is a collection of all of his short stories starring John, who travels the Appalachians with his silver-stringed guitar, encountering and overcoming evil of all sorts (recommended by Jim Jordan), as well as Gene Wolfe's wonderfully titled The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (no, that's not a typo: the first story in the book is entitled "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories"). I'm also two-thirds of the way through Jim's The Sociology of the Church and loving it.

This past Monday, I also joined a singing group. It's a small group — about eight people — and they sing what, I suppose, gets roughly categorized as "classical music," though it ranges from Renaissance madrigals (two of which I need to learn this week) to John Rutter's "A Gaelic Blessing." In case you're wondering, I'm one of the two basses.

This week I also taught a catechism class, attended the Grande Prairie Regional College's InterVarsity meeting (to which I've unofficially been appointed a "resource person"), and led a men's Bible study, and tonight we'll be having a meeting of the church council. On Monday, my phone lines were installed and shortly thereafter I had about 300 e-mails in my Inbox; now, however, there are only thirty. So I've been fairly busy. Nevertheless, I do hope to do some more blogging in the future.

2003-03-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

At long last, my new house is finished. For the last several weeks, while my house was being built, I have been living in the basement of my deacon's house (and I deeply appreciate his generosity in allowing me to do so). But on Friday, I took possession of my new house. Alex, Calvin, James, Steve, Tim, Jamie, and Leo all helped move my stuff from my garage into the house. Thanks!

I should be moved in by tonight (or at least by Monday). But the phone company tells me that they won't be able to install my phone lines until ... March 10. So I will be incommunicado for the next few days, I'm afraid.

2003-03-01T09:38:00.000-08:00

Andrew Kuyvenhoven on the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 16:

Most people are sooner inclined to say that Jesus took the fear out of dying than to confess that he puts us to death while we are living. We don't mind "dying in the Lord," when the time comes, but we would like to continue having our own life as long as we're here (103).

2003-02-24T19:47:00.000-08:00

In connection with my reading of Genesis, I've also been reading James Jordan's Primeval Saints. Here's a quotation relating to the Tower of Babel:

Ever since this time sinful human beings have tended to view people who speak other languages as inferior, or even as only talking animals. The word "barbarian" comes from the way other languages sound in our ears: "bar bar," almost like the barking of dogs. European conquerors treated Africans and Asians as barbarians, seldom bothering to learn their very rich and complex languages, despising the inescapable manifestation of the image of God in these cultures.

The Christian knows that God has established Christianity to create a true unity of confession ... among all nations and peoples, but this unity will not destroy the diversity of languages. Instead, each nation and language will praise Him in its own tongue (Rev. 7:9). Enlightened Christians seek to recognize and appreciate the beauty of every language God has put into the human race. Good missionaries do not seek to destroy everything in pagan societies, but rather they bring the Bible to such cultures and let the Bible transform them into true cultures.

At Pentecost (Acts 2), God sent out the gospel in all languages. While the Bible is the original and pure form of God's Word in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, the fullness of His revelation will not come until every language comes to express biblical truth in its own unique way. Every language has a particular set of perspectives on the Word of God, and thus every language is fitted to reveal God and praise Him in a special way. Throughout eternity the saints will delight to learn language after language, learning to praise God in new ways, age after age, forever and ever.

2003-02-24T09:43:00.000-08:00

I've been reading through Genesis for the last few days, and on Saturday I noticed something in Genesis 9 that I hadn't spotted before.

We tend to think that God placed the rainbow in the cloud primarily to remind us that God won't destroy the world with a flood — and, of course, that's part of the function of the rainbow, which is why God tells Noah about the rainbow. But the rainbow has that man-comforting function because God says that He will look on the rainbow and remember the covenant (Gen. 9:16). The rainbow functions primarily, then, as a memorial for God so that when He sees it He will remember His promises and His people. In fact, that's the purpose of many of the memorials in Scripture: they are God-appointed reminders to God of His covenant.

All of that was familiar to me already. But what I hadn't noticed before was that, right after speaking about how He will see the rainbow and remember His covenant, God then says that the rainbow is "the sign of the covenant" (Gen. 9:17).

In our Reformed sacramental theology, we speak of baptism and the Lord's Supper as "signs" (and "seals"), language we have learned from Scripture. But as we think about the sacraments as "signs," we ought to take into account what Scripture means when it speaks of something as a "sign of the covenant." And here in Genesis 9, the "sign of the covenant," while it does have a man-ward function, serves primarily to remind God of His faithfulness to His covenant.

In this connection, we might think also of the signs God places on men's foreheads in Ezekiel and Revelation. They are put there so that God will remember these people in grace and so that the people will not be destroyed in God's judgment.

So too, then, with the sacraments. Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as "signs" of the covenant, identify us to God as His people so that He maintains His covenant faithfulness to us. That isn't their only function, of course, but it does appear to be one of their primary functions.

Perhaps this is old news to you (especially if your name is Mark Horne), but I can't recall seeing much discussion along these lines — okay, I can't remember any — in standard Reformed treatments of the sacraments.

2003-02-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

This morning, I sifted through my "Blogs I Read" list and shook a few of them into another category: "Fellow Church Members." All the bloggers in this category are members of Covenant Reformed Church here in Grande Prairie. Now if we could just get a church website up with some pictures....

2003-02-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

On Friday night, my new landlords and I watched Changing Lanes. I'd seen it once before and enjoyed it, but I had thought some elements were implausible. This time, however, some of the things that had appeared to me (and, I gather, to some reviewers) to be weaknesses didn't look as weak as I had thought.

I recall hearing that Gattaca got some bad reviews because the reviewers thought the characters (indeed, all the people) seemed a bit stiff and stand-offish. But that, of course, was the point. In the future as portrayed by Gattaca people would be that way.

So, too, with Changing Lanes: What some people saw as weaknesses were there for a reason. Here's the first and perhaps biggest implausibility to come to mind: All the events in the movie take place on one day. The two characters meet and carry out their vendetta against each other and the whole thing is over by suppertime.

But it seems to me that the implausibility is designed to make a point and the point has to do with which day it is. We hear it fairly early in the movie: "It's Friday. Good Friday," we're told (to which the Ben Affleck character responds, "What's so good about it?"). Later, in a crucial scene in the movie, we're shown a Good Friday celebration in a Roman Catholic church ("The wood of the cross on which was slain the Saviour of the world"). Watch for an icon hanging in a closet in one scene, not to mention other times when the camera lingers on a cross.

The movie is, quite simply, about reconciliation, the kind which comes about only when one lays down one's rights, accepts suffering without retaliation, and repays evil with good — all of which has everything to do with Good Friday. On first viewing, I was moved by the ending and intrigued by the pervasive Christianity but also disturbed by a few elements. On this second viewing, while I still see some flaws in the ending, I understand it better and my appreciation for the whole has grown.

2003-02-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

As Jessie pointed out to me recently, I haven't blogged since my installation. That Friday night was pretty rough, but the flu seemed to abate by the next Saturday, only to recur again Monday night. It seems to be gone now. Thanks for your prayers and encouragement!

I felt pretty good on Sunday. I preached my inaugural sermon in the morning: Philippians 1:1-2, which is not only a reminder of the role of ministers ("slaves of Christ Jesus") and the status of all the members of the church ("saints in Christ") but also the kick-off to a series on Philippians.

The Bishop preached in the afternoon. His sermon on Joshua 4 was entitled "My Trip to the Holy Land." All kinds of people travel to Israel to be baptized in the Jordan. But we have been baptized in the Jordan. Just as Israel did, we too have left Egypt through the Red Sea and entered the Promised Land by passing through the Jordan because Jesus was baptized in the Jordan and we have been baptized into Him.

For now, I'm still living in the basement of the deacon's house. On Monday they should start laying the carpet in my new house (upstairs and down, I hope). So it's possible that I'll be in there in a couple of weeks ... or so.

2003-01-31T20:39:00.000-08:00

This evening, I was installed as the pastor of Covenant Reformed Church in Grande Prairie, Alberta. Bill led the service and preached on Isaiah 62:1-7 ("The Lord Enlists Restless Preachers for Zion's Glory"). The congregation sang exuberantly, I gave the benediction, and several other churches passed on greetings and wished the congregation and me the Lord's blessing.

While the congregation was still enjoying fellowship (and yes, sometimes fellowship does mean food and there's nothing wrong with that), I went home early. It appears that I've come down with the flu — not so pleasant for this weekend in particular. I hope I'm feeling well enough to preach my inaugural sermon on Sunday morning. But I trust that this affliction, too, will be for my profit. At the very least, it's a helpful reminder at the outset of my ministry here that God's grace is sufficient for me and that my help is in the name of YHWH who made heaven and earth.

2003-01-23T23:43:00.000-08:00

A hearty welcome to the world of blogging to B. J. Kennedy, the Angliterian from Ruston, Louisiana.

2003-01-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

The Lord has been gracious to me. On Saturday, when I checked the weather report, they were predicting snow all week for the whole of Alberta. On Monday, as we prepared to load up the truck and set out, the report had changed: flurries for southern Alberta, snow in central Alberta — and, by Tuesday, just in time for the move, clear and sunny from Edmonton north to Grande Prairie.

The roads were good most of the way, except for some blowing snow and a few snow-covered patches north of Edmonton. The transmission on the moving truck was going — no reverse and difficulty getting into third and fourth gear — but the truck arrived safely in Grande Prairie yesterday afternoon, and now all my stuff is stored in the garage and laundry room of my (future) house. I was able to spend a night with my parents in Red Deer, and I've now arrived safely here in Grande Prairie as well.

As I left Lethbridge, somewhat frightened by reports of bad roads, I listened to His Majesty's Clerkes singing "O Praise the Lord of Heaven" by William Billings and I remembered who my God is:

He sends out His command to the earth;
His word runs very swiftly.
He gives snow like wool;
He scatters the frost like ashes;
He casts out His hail like morsels;
Who can stand before His cold?
(Psalm 147:15-17)

2003-01-19T20:10:00.000-08:00

After a week of packing which left my bedroom, my living room, and especially my study piled with boxes, I'm now ready to move. I'm very grateful for all who helped by supplying boxes, taping the boxes together, and even loading the boxes.

Four young men from Grande Prairie — Alex, Calvin, Steve, and Darren (who alone doesn't have a blog) — arrived on Friday evening. They helped me finish packing on Saturday and on Monday — tomorrow! — they'll load up the U-Haul and head for Grande Prairie, nine and a half hours northwest.

The weather, however, doesn't look particularly good. Grande Prairie got about eight inches of snow already this weekend, and they predict another two to four inches on Monday and periods of snow the rest of the week. (Here's a link to the Alberta weather forecast so you can follow my treacherous route from Lethbridge through Calgary, Red Deer, and Edmonton to Grande Prairie.) I deeply appreciate your prayers for this trip.

After I arrive in Grande Prairie, I'll leave my stuff in storage until my house is finished, which may be anywhere from two weeks to a month, during which time I'll live with Leo and Yolanda Wattel (Leo is the deacon at Covenant Reformed).

My installation as the pastor of Covenant Reformed Church will be on January 31. The former pastor, Bishop Bill, will lead the service and preach. I'll preach my inaugural sermon on February 2.

It's hard to leave Lethbridge, but I'm looking forward to getting settled in Grande Prairie and taking up my work there.

2003-01-15T10:28:00.000-08:00

At long last, I'm home again.

On January 2, I left Lethbridge and drove to Calgary, accompanied by my colleague and friend, Theo Lodder, pastor of the Canadian Reformed Church in Taber. He was catching a 6:30 AM flight to St. Louis and I a 6:40 flight to Texarkana, Arkansas.

I arrived in Texarkana on Friday afternoon and was picked up by Steve Ramsey, one of the elders of the CRE church there, who took me to the home of Tom and Dixie Lincoln (Tom is another elder). On Saturday, I went for a walk by the lake with Dixie and the Lincoln's daughter Lydia, and then Steve took me on a tour of Texarkana. For lunch, we ate Texarkana's best barbeque (Big Jake's). Eventually we ended up at the home of another elder, Ben House, where we had catfish for supper and a good talk afterwards. Ben gave me a copy of his book of poems, Dirt Roads and Confederates.

On Sunday, I gave a talk on the social implications of the Trinity during the adult Sunday School hour, borrowing extensively from Ralph Allan Smith and Jeff Meyers ("I'm speaking, not as an expert, but as an enthusiast," I said). I preached on Philippians 2:1-4. In the afternoon, there was a meeting at the Lincoln's house for people who wanted to understand more about the Auburn Avenue controversy. Tom tells me that I started talking at about 9:30 that Sunday morning and finished at 11:30 that night. No wonder I had a bit of a sore throat!

On Monday, Jan. 6, Tom drove me down to Monroe, Louisiana, and dropped me off at Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church, where I was booked to speak on Tuesday. But plans change. Steve Schlissel was supposed to speak first, with a response by R. C. Sproul, Jr., but R. C. had been delayed due to bad weather.

So, after the four presenters (Schlissel, Doug Wilson, Steve Wilkins, and I) and the three respondents who were present (Joey Pipa, Morton Smith, and Carl Robbins) had prayed together for the grace to be able to discuss our differences in a brotherly way and for unity in the truth, I gave the first talk (on "Covenant and Election") and then Carl Robbins responded. Carl was very gracious and his critique of my talks (last year and this year) was helpful. After Carl's talk, all seven of us assembled on the platform. I responded first, and then Carl spoke briefly, and eventually the discussion expanded to include the other men. That was the format for the rest of the conference: presenter, respondent, discussion, along with two question and answer periods.

Doug Wilson opened the second day of the conference with a talk on the distinction between the visible and invisible church, and Morton Smith responded. In the afternoon, Steve Schlissel spoke, largely about the dangers of imposing our theology on Scripture and missing what Scripture itself says, and then R. C. Sproul responded, largely about the need for brotherly love. In the evening, Steve Wilkins spoke about the efficacy of baptism, and Joey Pipa responded. On Wednesday morning, the eight of us had another chance to discuss our differences and a chance to summarize some of what we had been saying in the course of the conference.

The conference itself had several enjoyable moments and several which were highly disappointing. I encourage you to buy the tapes.

The talks, of course, are but a small part of the attraction of any conference. I go to conferences as much for the chance to visit people as to hear lectures. This year I made a lot of new friends and met some old friends, including people with whom I've exchanged e-mail or whose blogs I read. It was great to be able to visit (however briefly) with Robbie McBroom, B. J. Kennedy, Jim Jordan (who introduced me to single malt Glenlivet on Wednesday night: definitely something to sip slowly in small amounts), Duane and Sarah Garner (I hope you're all feeling better soon!), Jon Amos, Jeff Meyers, Tommy Lee, Matt and Sora Colvin, Jessie Bates, Matt Harper (who doesn't want to be drawn into the Reformed blogging world), John Owen Butler, and Barb.

After the conference was over I had a long nap, which, with the help of a couple Tylenols, managed to quell my headache. That evening I spent at the Wilkins' house with Jim Jordan, Jeff Meyers, Doug Wilson, and a few others, where the conversation wasn't limited to the recent conference but spread out to include such things as John Buchan, the Scottish Covenanters, and our evaluation of history ("If I'd been back there, I wouldn't have sided with.... Or would I?").

On Thursday, Robbie drove me out to Ruston, LA. As Jon Amos pointed out, Jeff Black commented recently that if you want to see where the Auburn Avenue stuff is heading, you should check out the website of John Knox PCA. Well, I was a living example of the truth of that statement this last week: I went from a URC in Canada to a CRE in Texarkana to Auburn Avenue, only to end up at John Knox, where I visited with the pastor, Jeff Steel, a friend for whom I'm very grateful.

My hosts, Volney and Betty Pierce, were very gracious. Volney makes a pretty good breakfast, though I can't say that I'm a fan of grits yet. The waffles and bacon and eggs were good, though!

On Sunday I attended a glorious service at John Knox (the liturgical flagship of the PCA). That evening I preached at Auburn Avenue, wearing a robe to do so for the first time in my life. (The robe was borrowed from Rich Lusk: Thanks, Rich!)

On Monday, B. J. — who has a servant's heart — drove me to the Shreveport airport, and I arrived back in Calgary that evening. I drove home to Lethbridge on Tuesday morning. It was snowing lightly, but it was also quite cold, so the snow was very light and powdery. The roads were in decent shape (one lane open, the other snow-covered), but the trucks swirl up so much snow that at times visibility was very poor.

Nevertheless, I'm home again, ready to start packing for my move to Grande Prairie. If you want my new snail-mail address, feel free to write to me and ask. I should be moving on Monday or Tuesday, depending in part on the weather.

2002-12-30T10:06:00.000-08:00

As a follow-up to my Piper quotation, here's something Jeff Meyers wrote:

I am convinced that we have not even begun to think about the massive influence of ritual(s) (especially those that we unthinkingly adopt in our typical evangelical worship services) in Reformed theological circles. We continue to do seminary without professors of Reformed Liturgy. This is amazing. It is ecclesiastical insanity. Our Reformed seminaries graduate men with little or no liturgical competence. We actively teach silly, sentimental pop worship, not realizing that one day we will, because of our pop worship (lex orandi, lex credendi), abandon the orthodox faith (The Lord's Service, p. 81).

I'm grateful that at Mid-America Reformed Seminary I wasn't taught silly pop worship. Still, I wish I'd had more training and done more thinking about liturgy in seminary.

2002-12-29T22:29:00.000-08:00

Barb posted this a while ago, but it might be worth posting again. It's part of John Knox's 1560 Scots Confession on baptism:

And so we utterly condemn the vanity of those who affirm the sacraments to be nothing else than naked and bare signs. No, we assuredly believe that by Baptism we are engrafted into Christ Jesus, to be made partakers of his righteousness, by which our sins are covered and remitted, and also that in the Supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us that he becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls (Ch. 21).

I came across this quotation (again) in an article entitled "Mysteries of God and Means of Grace" in the May/June 1997 issue of Modern Reformation. The article is by Michael Scott Horton. Horton is opposed to the idea that Romans 6, Galatians 3:27, and similar passages refer to some kind of "Spirit baptism" (as opposed to sacramental baptism):

In many conservative Reformed and Presbyterian circles, it is as if the prescribed forms for Baptism and the Supper were too high in their sacramental theology, so the minister feels compelled to counter its strong "means of grace" emphasis. In this way, the Sacraments die the death of a thousand qualifications. The same is true when we read the biblical passages referring to Baptism as "the washing of regeneration" or to the Supper as "the communion of the body and blood of Christ." Why must we apologize for these passages and attempt to explain them away? Our confessions do not do this. Our liturgical forms (if we still use them) do not do this, but we feel compelled to diminish them these days.

We hear quasi-gnostic sentiments even in Reformed circles these days, such as the "real baptism" that is spiritual, as opposed to "merely being sprinkled with water," or the "real communion" with Christ in moments of private devotion. How can we truly affirm the union of earthly and heavenly realities in the Incarnation? Or how can we regard the Word of God as a means of salvation if it is but ink and paper or human speech? A subtle Docetism (the ancient gnostic heresy that denied Christ's true humanity) lurks behind our reticence to see these common earthly elements as signs that are linked to the things they signify. Surely the Sacraments can remind us of grace, help us to appreciate grace, and exhort us to walk in grace, but do they actually give us the grace promised in the Gospel? The Reformed and Presbyterian confessions answer "yes" without hesitation: A Sacrament not only consists of the signs (water, bread and wine), but of the things signified (new birth, forgiveness, life everlasting).

Later, Horton comments:

We simply cannot say that we take a literal approach to the text while interpreting these clear passages as allegorical of a spiritual reality detached from the obvious reference to physical sacraments.

At another point in the article, Horton talks about Calvin's view of infant baptism:

Rather than sharply dividing between an external and internal covenant of grace, as some have done in American theology, Calvin simply concludes that infants "receive now some part of that grace which in a little while they shall enjoy to the full" (Institutes 4.16.19).

And here's Horton's summary toward the end of the article:

In Baptism, we have been swept into the new creation and in the Supper we are actually fed with the body and blood of Christ as pilgrims on the way to the Promised Land, and yet, by promise already living there.

2002-12-28T13:17:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest tragedies in the church today is the depreciation of the pastoral office. From seminaries to denominational headquarters, the prevalent mood and theme is managerial, organizational, and psychological. And we think thereby to heighten our professional self-esteem! Hundreds of teachers and leaders put the mastery of the Word first with their lips but by their curriculums, conferences, seminars, and personal example, show that it is not foremost.

One glaring example is the nature of the doctor of ministry programs across the country.

The theory is good: continuing education makes for better ministers. But where can you do a D.Min. in Hebrew language and exegesis? Yet what is more important and more deeply practical for the pastoral office than advancing in Greek and Hebrew exegesis by which we mine God's treasures?

Why then do hundreds of young and middle-aged pastors devote years of effort to everything but the languages when pursuing continuing education? And why do seminaries not offer incentives and degrees to help pastors maintain the most important pastoral skill — exegesis of the original meaning of Scripture?

No matter what we say about the inerrancy of the Bible, our actions reveal our true convictions about its centrality and power (John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, pp. 84-85).

2002-12-27T20:18:00.000-08:00

Good news! Jeff Meyers has started blogging! Jeff is one of the pastors of Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church (PCA) in St. Louis, Missouri, and is the author of a forthcoming book on worship, an earlier edition of which I've quoted on this blog. He's also a doctoral student at Concordia Theological Seminary, where he's studying the doctrine of the Trinity (the subject of another forthcoming book, I hope). You'll find some of his papers here. On my recent trip to and from Red Deer, I listened to Jeff's very helpful talks on apostasy, given at the 1996 Biblical Horizons conference.

As well, a belated welcome to Jim Witteveen. He commented on one of my blog entries, but I didn't notice until now that he's started a blog, entitled Cartas de Santiago. Jim is a member of the Canadian Reformed Church in Abbotsford, BC.

Welcome to the world of blogging, Jeff and Jim!

2002-12-25T13:31:00.000-08:00

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

2002-12-24T22:53:00.000-08:00

For the first time since 1997 (and probably for the last time in many years), I'm spending Christmas with my parents. And for the first time in twelve years, my sister, Charlene, is here, too.

So far, I've done a fair bit of reading. I'm part of the way through P. G. Wodehouse's The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories and Gene Wolfe's wonderfully titled The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories. No, that's not a typo. The first story in the book is entitled "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories."

Today, Charlene and I went out to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding at the matinee this afternoon. It was the second time I've seen it, and I still love it.

After supper, we opened our presents. That's been a Christmas Eve tradition in our home since we were kids. Later, we watched The Christmas Carol (starring Alastair Sims: is there really any other version?). And now my parents are upstairs, listening to new CDs (so far, we've heard Dr. John's Afterglow, Tony Bennett and k.d. lang's A Wonderful World and most of Diana Krall's Love Scenes, all three gifts to my mother). My father is probably looking through his new book on cars of the '40s.

Tomorrow, more relaxing, snacking, and reading — for me, at least. My father and sister are going out for a long bicycle ride. And on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas for you Americans!), I'm heading up to Edmonton to join my friends Keith and Jenn. We're gonna see The Two Towers at the IMAX theatre in the West Edmonton Mall.

2002-12-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

Hmmm.... I can't seem to access any of the blogs hosted by Upsaid — Matt's or Tim's, for instance. Something has turned Upsaid down!

2002-12-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten — G. K. Chesterton, cited as the epigram in Neil Gaiman's Coraline, a fairly decent (and spooky) children's fairy tale which I read this afternoon while sitting in Chapters.

2002-12-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

George links to this article by Henry Morris (from the Institute for Creation Research) in which Morris claims that God created Jesus' human nature ex nihilo and then plunked it down in Mary's womb. Jesus did not receive his human nature in any way from Mary.

I was a little surprised to find that anyone still holds this view. Many of the early Anabaptists also taught this heresy, as Dr. Jelle Faber shows. The Belgic Confession, art. 18, addresses this heresy as it proclaims the good news of Christ's birth:

We confess, therefore, that God has fulfilled the promise He made to the fathers by the mouth of His holy prophets when, at the time appointed by Him, He sent into the world His own only-begotten and eternal Son, who took the form of a servant and was born in the likeness of men (Phil 2:7). He truly assumed a real human nature with all its infirmities, without sin, for He was conceived in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit and not by the act of a man. He not only assumed human nature as to the body, but also a true human soul, in order that He might be a real man. For since the soul was lost as well as the body, it was necessary that He should assume both to save both.

Contrary to the heresy of the Anabaptists, who deny that Christ assumed human flesh of His mother, we therefore confess that Christ partook of the flesh and blood of the children (Heb. 2:14). He is a fruit of the loins of David (Acts 2:30); born of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom 1:3); a fruit of the womb of the virgin Mary (Luke 1:42); born of woman (Gal 4:4); a branch of David (Jer 33:15); a shoot from the stump of Jesse (Is 11:1); sprung from the tribe of Judah (Heb 7:14); descended from the Jews according to the flesh (Rom 9:5); of the seed of Abraham, since the Son was concerned with the descendants of Abraham. Therefore He had to be made like His brethren in every respect, yet without sin (Heb 2:16; Heb 4:15).

In this way He is in truth our Immanuel, that is, God with us (Mt 1:23).

Heresy robs us of our Christmas joy! Jesus wasn't just a humanoid. He wasn't a human-looking thing with no connection to the human race. He was (and still is) a descendant of Adam and Abraham and David, part of our human family. Only if that is true could he be the kinsman redeemer we need and the Saviour God promised. There's no redemption without relationship. And so God's eternal Son took on our human nature from His mother Mary to be Adam's Son, our brother, and the Saviour who is truly God with us. Joy to the world!

2002-12-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

I'm nearing the end of the first week of my leave of absence, my first week as the former pastor of Trinity Reformed Church (URCNA) in Lethbridge, Alberta, and as the pastor-elect of Covenant Reformed Church (URCNA) in Grande Prairie, Alberta. For the last week, I've been finishing up some odds and ends. For instance, I've sorted through some of my books so that I can get rid of a pile of unwanted or duplicate volumes. I've also visited a lot of people here in Lethbridge. And I've waited for my house to sell.

Today, I had lunch with a member of the congregation, after which I bought some groceries and went to the post office to ship away some of those unwanted books to friends who did want them. Then I dropped off several years worth of unwanted back issues of magazines at the Mennonite Central Committee store, did some Christmas shopping, checked out some furniture someone bought me at Capital Furniture, and ended up at Chapters, where I read Neil Gaiman's nicely done short story, "We Can Get Them For You Wholesale." In the evening, I met a family from the church at The Attic for supper, followed by tea at their place.

And now, when I finish blogging, I'll head to the living room, where I'll read a bit more of James P. Blaylock's The Elfin Ship, his first novel, from which this line (which Duane Garner could have written):

"'Time flies like an arrow,' Grandpa used to say, 'but fruit flies like bananas'" (p. 210).

2002-12-01T21:39:00.000-08:00

Last week, I read Witold Rybczynski's Taming the Tiger: The Struggle to Control Technology. Rybczynski is an architect, but he's also a gifted writer and a student of the history of ideas. In other books, he's written about the origins of the weekend (Waiting for the Weekend), the idea of "home" (Home), building his own house (The Most Beautiful House in the World), and the history of the screwdriver and the screw (One Good Turn, in response to a request to write about the most important tool invented in the last millennium).

I bought Taming the Tiger because it was by Rybczynski, not because I was particularly interested in the topic. The book turned out to be more enjoyable than I expected, however.

Rybczynski examines, evaluates, and questions the arguments of those who believe that technology is a threat to society (e.g., Jacques Ellul). He begins the book by surveying the history of opposition to technology, noting along the way that the Luddites were not so much opposed to the machines themselves as they were to the way the machines were being used. He writes, "'Man versus machine' was a convenient explanation, not least because the machine was politically easier to blame than the entire social system" (p. 39).

In a later chapter, Rybczynski reviews several attempts to abandon technology (Kampuchea in the '70s, Burma, Madagascar in the early 1800s, the American Plains Indians in the late 1800s). He also explores four individuals' attitudes toward technology: Henry David Thoreau (who, incidentally, rejected technology and then relied on factory products to build his house on Walden Pond), William Morris (who tried to get back to history, and ended up with a movement that produced hand-crafted products only rich people could afford), Walter Gropius (whose Bauhaus movement tried to make art suitable for a machine age, but ended up with sterile ugliness due to a failure to understand technology), and Wally Byam (who invented the Airstream trailer). Unlike many of the European thinkers (and the Bauhaus guys in particular), Byam didn't use technology "to fashion a new way of life," but rather "to redefine an old one," which suggests that there is more than one way to use technology.

Technology opens a door, Rybczynski says, but we don't necessarily have to walk through it. While we likely can't simply get rid of the technology, we don't have to use it in destructive ways or even in the ways it was intended. "The historical record does not support the dour theory of technological inevitability" (165). Some inventions never get used (think of the reluctance of many armies to use chemical weapons). Some get abandoned even though they work fairly well (think of the Zeppelin). The big issue is how we control the technology.

Rybczynski writes:

Technology is controlled in three ways, two of which I have already described: the actual design of the device, which is always an attempt to reduce its unpredictability and the choice of whether or not, or when, to use the machine (p. 195).

What's the third way? It's to use the technology in a manner that's different from the original intention. People can and do control and shape technology. They decide how they're going to use it.

It is a mistake to look at a Mexican or an Indian bus and say, "Look, they are using our technology," or, seeing differences in application, to conclude that it is not being used in the "right" way. This attitude betrays the arrogance and short-sightedness of the originator, who fails to understand that although a technology may at one time have been ours, the process of using it, and controlling it, has now made it theirs.... The most important lesson that can be learned from seeing the different emphases that different civilizations attach to technology is that this process is determined as much by the nature of the tool-user as by the nature of the tool (pp. 210-211).

In the end, says Rybczynski, we need to realize that "our technology is a symptom of our culture, not vice versa....[T]echnology is a human activity" (pp. 222-223). It reflects our culture, our interests, our character, our goals.

We sometimes like to think that it's our technology which forces us to act in certain ways (technological determinism) or shapes our culture in ways we don't like. We look with nostalgia at the way things were in the past before all the modern technology came along and we bemoan the way that technology has shaped us and made us "modernists" (which appears to be the underlying thrust of much of David Wells's No Place for Truth, critiqued ably by Peter Leithart).

But is technology really our problem? Or is blaming technology really a convenient excuse to avoid taking responsibility? As Rybczynski says, "[T]he struggle to control technology has all along been a struggle to control ourselves" (p. 227).

2002-11-30T10:09:00.000-08:00

Bishop Bill blogs again! This time, he's reporting on a lecture Richard Gaffin gave at Mid-America Reformed Seminary recently.

2002-11-25T15:44:00.000-08:00

That we do in fact enter into God's special presence in the midst of his gathered congregation must never be slighted or forgotten. True, God is present everywhere. But his omnipresence is not what I am referring to here. God has promised to be present with his people in a special sense when they gather on Sunday.

The one who skips church for the golf course or shopping mall or state park may not argue from God's omnipresence to justify his not being in church. Sure, God is present on the golf course, just as he is present in hell. But this general presence of God doesn't do the people in hell much good. God is present in heaven and hell, but he is not present in the same way in each of these locations. That is the difference.

Even if we cannot define it precisely, God is present in a special sense when his people gather as the church on the Lord's Day. He is present there for us. This is the place, the location where he gathers his people around the Word and Sacraments. He has promised to be there for us when his people gather.

It is not so much that God was not present in, say, Damascus, when the pillar and fire led the people of Israel out of Egypt or when his presence filled the tabernacle upon its completion; rather, the Lord was at these appointed places in a special, life-giving way. Similarly, it is not that God is absent from the food court in the mall on Sunday; rather, he has promised to be present in a special way, the way of salvation and blessing, at the Communion Table in church. He has not promised to be in the mall on Sunday for you. Actually, he may be present there against you so that you could very well experience his judgment and curse, rather than his promise of blessing, life, and salvation.

Moreover, when we are in God's special presence every week, receiving from him his promise through his Word and Sacraments, we can go forth out of church into the world with the full assurance that God will be with us and for us wherever we may be during the week. Without being in the Lord's special presence we have no assurance of his omnipresent help in every situation and location. See Gen. 3:8; 4:16; Exod. 33:14-15; Deut. 4:37; Deut. 12:7, 18; 14:23; 15:20; Judges 18:6; 2 Kings 13:23; 17:18-23; Matt. 18:20; 1 Cor. 5:4; 11:18ff.; etc. (Jeffrey J. Meyers, The Lord's Service [St. Louis: Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church, 1999], p. 45n8. I've added some paragraph divisions for easier reading).

2002-11-19T23:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, John Bekkering (friend, elder, and realtor) came over. We signed some papers and then he put a lock-box on my door and a sign on the front lawn. I'm selling my house and moving to Grande Prairie, where I've taken a call to pastor Covenant Reformed Church, following in the footsteps of the eminent Bishop Bill DeJong, who has taken a call to Kansas City and who, incidentally, has published his first blog post in months!

The sign on my front lawn, though, is a sad reminder that I'm going to be leaving Lethbridge. I'll preach my last sermon here on Sunday. I've been here for four years and I'm going to miss a lot of the people.

This afternoon, a couple came by to see the house. The comments I overheard seemed positive. I'm hoping that this place will sell quickly so that I can turn around and snag a place in Grande Prairie. Your prayers are appreciated.

2002-11-15T23:25:00.000-08:00

Part of the reason why so many Christian worship services have no logic, no order, no movement, is because those who superintend those services of worship have not paid attention to the Bible's main instruction in the formation of a worship service because that instruction is found in the Old Testament.... It is this disregard for the importance of what is done in the worship of God and the order or logic with which it is done that has led to the common pejorative use of the words "liturgy" and "liturgical" in many evangelical and even Reformed circles. This is a mistake in more ways than one. Every church service is a liturgy, if it has various elements in some arrangement. That is what liturgy is. Liturgical churches are churches that have thought about those elements and their proper order. Non-liturgical churches are those which have not. It is no compliment to say that a church is a non-liturgical church. It is the same thing as saying it is a church that gives little thought to how it worships God (Robert S. Rayburn, "Worship From the Whole Bible," The Second Annual Conference on Worship: The Theology and Music of Reformed Worship, February 23-25, 1996 [Nashville: Covenant Presbyterian Church, 1996], pp. 22-23).

2002-11-13T10:36:00.000-08:00

I feel vindicated. Never in my life have I imbibed eight glasses of water a day, and I've always suspected that that "requirement" was a myth. And now, at last, Heinz Valtin, a Dartmouth kidney specialist, has debunked that myth.

2002-11-11T14:49:00.000-08:00

Martin Bucer was a man loved by all. He was a man who won friends wherever he turned, but only because it was his nature to make friends. He loved people. He loved the church fathers. He loved beer. He upheld the faith once for all given to the saints, and he upheld it with a smile. Bucer's life was so laced with joyful orthodoxy that Roman Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc was forced to say in his book Characters of the Reformation, "I shall not touch upon the life and influence of Bucer lest the malleable reader come to believe that the Reformation had its own Chesterton."

Joshua Clark's short article on Martin Bucer reminds me that I want to get to know Bucer better.

2002-11-06T20:17:00.000-08:00

Often the giving of praise or glorifying of God is set over against the worshiper's expectation of receiving anything from God in church.... Here let me say that not only is the super-spiritual-sounding assertion that "we just gather together to give praise to God, taking no interest in what we might get from him" unbiblical, it may also easily slip into doxological hubris.

For us, as creatures of God, there can be no such thing as "disinterested praise." We simply cannot love or praise God for who he is apart from what he has given us or what we continue to receive from him. We are not his equals. The notion that pure love and worship of God can only be given when it is unmixed with thoughts of what we receive has no biblical grounding. To be sure, it sounds very spiritual and pious. It even comes across as self-denial. In fact, however, there is no such worship in the Bible for the simple fact that we cannot approach God as disinterested, self-sufficient beings. We are created beings. Dependent creatures. Beings who must continually receive both our life and redemption from God.

Our "worship" of God, for this reason, necessarily involves our passive reception of his gifts as well as our thanksgiving and petitions. We cannot pretend that we do not depend upon him. We will always be receivers and petitioners before God. Our receptive posture is as ineradicable as our nature as dependent creatures.

We must be served by him. Recognizing this is true spirituality. Opening oneself up to this is the first movement in our "worship," indeed, the presupposition of all corporate worship. It is faith's posture before our all-sufficient, beneficent Lord. Praise follows after this and alone can never be the exclusive purpose for our gathering together on the Lord's Day (Jeffrey J. Meyers, The Lord's Service [St. Louis: Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church, 1999], pp. 7-8. I've made a couple of corrections in punctuation and added some paragraph divisions for easier reading).

2002-11-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

The Church today is in dire need of reformation. This is not said with any denominational exclusivity — the Reformed churches today need reformation as much as anyone else. I say this as one who embraces the richness of the Reformed faith, as will become apparent enough later. But at the same time, because of this Reformational commitment, it is still necessary to say that to be Reformed is not enough. We must certainly live up to what we have already attained, but together with this we must not be allowed to assume that the last significant attainment was in the middle of the seventeenth century. Semper reformanda is not something we should all chant together right up until someone actually tries it (Douglas Wilson, "Reformed" Is Not Enough, p. 13).

2002-10-30T23:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a couple of weeks since I've blogged, and most of that time I've been away. On Friday the 18th (well, actually, in the wee hours of the 19th), Tim Gallant, Jamie Soles, and Alex Barendregt descended on my house like a herd of locusts (okay, a rather small herd). On Saturday, we drove down to Moscow, Idaho, for the 2002 Christ Church Ministerial Conference.

I greatly enjoyed all of the lectures. Peter Leithart's talks continued to whet my appetite for his doctoral dissertation (forthcoming sometime soon, right, Jon?). On the Tuesday evening we were there, Duck Schuler's choir sang Bach's "Jesu, Meine Freude."

But perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the conference was the chance to visit with a lot of friends, old and new — which happened in all the breaks and lunches, at the few times I was able to stop by Bucer's Coffeehouse Pub, in the evenings (mainly spent watching movies or hanging out with my friend Chip), and especially during the glorious long Sunday afternoon and evening spent with a crowd of people at the Leithart's.

On the 24th, we drove back to Lethbridge. Tim, Jamie, and Alex left for Grande Prairie early the next morning. That afternoon, I drove up to Red Deer, where I stayed overnight at my parents' place. On Saturday, I travelled to Edmonton, shopped a while at The Book Outlet in the West Edmonton Mall (discount books!), and then headed over to a friend's house for the night.

On Sunday, I preached in the morning and evening at the Orthodox Reformed Church. In between, I visited with Rev. Jakob Kits, one of the retired ministers in that congregation, who mentioned that there's a Cornelis VanderWaal webpage (which must be this one, though alas it's all in Dutch).

On Monday, I went to The King's University College to visit my friend, Arlette Zinck, who teaches English there. Arlette wasn't there when I arrived, so I stopped by Douglas Harink's office and had a chat about his concerns with N. T. Wright's "supersessionism." Arlette showed up later and we had a good (albeit brief) visit.

The drive home, however, wasn't so pleasant. The snow started around Olds, an hour or so north of Calgary. I hit Calgary at rush hour and crawled slowly through the city on wet and soon-to-be-icy streets. I finally stopped for supper to give the traffic a chance to thin out before I headed south into the night. The highway between Calgary and Fort Macleod (150 km), as the road report people like to say, was in poor winter driving condition. To make matters worse, I was pretty tired and had a pounding headache. The last half-hour or so to Lethbridge was much better, but I was exceedingly glad to be home again.

And now I'm getting back to my regular routine — part of which includes the customary noticing that it's past midnight and that Colin Dexter's delightful The Way Through the Woods is still awaiting me. (Well, maybe a couple of chapters anyway before I head to bed.)

2002-10-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

John van Popta, my friend, colleague, and neighbour, has just informed me that he has a webpage. John is the minister of the Canadian Reformed Church in Coaldale, just a few miles east of Lethbridge. His page includes links to some of his articles and sermons (including an interesting series of four sermons on the parable of the prodigal son), but I'd especially encourage you to read his journal of his son's battle with leukemia.

2002-10-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I just finished shovelling snow for the first time this year. It wasn't snowing when I woke up this morning, though it had rained some the night before. But by noon, the wind had picked up, the snow was falling as fast as rain, and I could barely see the houses across the street. Within half an hour we had our first centimetre (or even half an inch, for you Americans). It let up a while ago and the snow started to melt, so I went out to shovel my driveway and sidewalk. Now I'm back inside (obviously), drinking a cup of Bigelow's Constant Comment tea. The sun just came through the clouds and Lethbridge's first blizzard is officially over.

2002-10-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a big welcome to another Reformed blogger — my old friend, Nick Smith. Back when I was in seminary, I tutored Nick in Latin. He must've learned at least five or six words and maybe even a conjugation or two from me, but most of the time we just talked (in English, in case you were wondering). Now he's a Covenant College grad and a computer programmer who's planning (someday) to head to seminary. Welcome to the world of blogging, Nick!

2002-10-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

Here's some advice from Dr. Luther's letter to Prince Joachim of Anhalt (1534), who suffered from melancholy and "dejection of spirit":

I should like to encourage Your Grace, who are a young man, always to be joyful, to engage in riding and hunting, and to seek the company of others who may be able to rejoice with Your Grace in a godly and honorable way. For solitude and inwardness are poisonous and deadly to all people, and especially to a young man. Accordingly, God has commanded us to be joyful in his presence; he does not desire a gloomy sacrifice. [Luther quotes Ecclesiastes 12.] No one realizes how much harm it does a young person to avoid pleasure and cultivate solitude and sadness. Your grace has Master Nicholas Hausman and many others near at hand. Be merry with them; for gladness and good cheer, when decent and proper, are the best medicine for a young person--indeed, for all people. I myself, who have spent a good part of my life in sorrow and gloom, now seek and find pleasure wherever I can. Praise God, we now have sufficient understanding of the Word of God to be able to rejoice with a good conscience and to use God's gifts with thanksgiving, for he created them for this purpose and is pleased when we use them (Martin Luther, Letters of Spiritual Counsel, trans. Theodore G. Tappert [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1955], pp. 92-93).

How many pastors give that kind of advice to depressed young men today?

2002-09-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

What happens in our public worship? Frederica Matthews-Green writes:

A little church on Sunday morning is a negligible thing. It may be the meekest, and least conspicuous, thing in America. Someone zipping between Baltimore's airport and beltway might pass this one, a little stone church drowsing like a hen at the corner of Maple and Camp Meade Road. At dawn all is silent, except for the click every thirty seconds as the oblivious traffic light rotates through its cycle. The building's bell tower out of proportion, too large and squat and short to match. Other than that, there's nothing much to catch the eye.

In a few hours heaven will strike earth like lightning on this spot. The worshipers in this little building will be swept into a divine worship that proceeds eternally, grand with seraphim and incense and God enthroned, "high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple" (Isaiah 6:1). The foundations of that temple shake with the voice of angels calling "Holy" to each other, and we will be there, lifting fallible voices in the refrain, an outpost of eternity.

If this is true, it is the most astonishing thing that will happen in our city today.

In the latest Credenda/Agenda (which isn't yet online), Doug Wilson argues that it is true — though it's not so much that heaven touches down on earth as the other way around: "Christians have the enormous privilege of ascending into heaven in their worship on the Lord's Day." Commenting on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Wilson writes,

In our public worship, we do not come to a mountain that can be touched (12:18), but we do come to a mountain, a heavenly Zion. What happens when a small group of saints gathers in a clapboard community church somewhere out in the sticks? At their call to worship, they ascend to the City of God, to the heavenly Jerusalem. They walk into the midst of innumberable angels (12:22). They come to the general assembly of the universal Church, and come into the presence of God Himself (12:23).

2002-09-23T21:54:00.000-07:00

At last! There's a new post on Bishop Bill's blog. Actually, he wrote it ages ago, but due to some glitch with Blogger (a blogoglitch?) he lost his template and wasn't able to post anything. Yesterday afternoon, I stole (um ... borrowed) his identity for a while, reworked his template, and hit "Publish." He still gets a 503 Error (don't we all? when will that be fixed?), but at least his post showed up. And now I look forward to more from him. Yes, Bill, that's a hint.

2002-09-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I finished reading Heroes of the City of Man by Peter Leithart. It's a very helpful introduction to Greek and Roman literature from a Christian perspective. He starts with classical epics — The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid — and then deals with Greek drama, covering a play each by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes, and Aristophanes. It took me a long time to read the book, since I was also reading the works he discusses, but it was well worth it. Here's a quotation to whet your appetite:

Classical epic ... leaves us with three fundamental theological options: Heaven rings with the petty squabbling of adolescent gods, which means the world is not under control at all, or heaven and earth are ruled by a heavenly Führer, or things are governed by an impersonal and faceless power that grinds along, indifferent to humanity or justice. Take your pick: chaos, totalitarianism, or determinism. Whichever you choose, the world is a pretty grim place, with no hope for redemption....

By contrast, the Bible proclaimed from the beginning that there is one God, Yahweh, who created the world good and rules all things. Violence and evil are not written into the fabric of creation but are due to sin and His righteous judgment on sin, and therefore there is hope of redemption from evil. Ultimate reality is not a gaggle of gods, nor an autocrat, nor an impersonal Fate. Rather, ultimate reality is Three Persons in an eternal communion of love. Above us is a God who is love, whose love overflows in creating a world He did not need and in redeeming a world that had turned from Him. Heaven is not a battlefield or a prison; it is a dance hall filled with song. And, one day, earth will join in (p. 21).

2002-09-20T22:44:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I took a drive through Mormon country (why should the Mormons have all the good scenery?) in southern Alberta to Waterton Park, which is on the Montana-Alberta border. Steve Drent, a member of the congregation here, is one of the managers at a hotel there, so part of my reason for taking the trip was to visit him. I arrived in Waterton around 2:30. Steve was at the desk, but several of his workers had left to return to university, and so he was short-staffed and quite busy. He suggested that I take a hike. No, seriously. He recommended the Bertha Falls trail.

Before setting out, I took a walk around Waterton and stopped for a bite to eat. This was my first visit to Waterton. When I was young, my parents used to rent a cabin in Banff for a week each summer. Today, Banff is wall-to-wall people, but Waterton isn't nearly that crowded. In fact, Steve has had people tell him that Waterton is like Banff was fifty years ago. Of course, it's probably busier during the summer, but when I was there it was pretty quiet and there were deer everywhere.

While I was sitting on the porch of the restaurant, I spotted more members of the congregation: Louis and Cindy Brandsma and several of their children . Louis is a painter and lover of nature, and the Brandsmas have been saying for a long time that we ought to take a trip to Waterton together. It turned out that they were camping in Waterton for the weekend and that Louis had wanted to take the Bertha Falls trail that afternoon. So we did.

The trail wasn't nearly as steep as the one from Lake Louise to the Lake Agnes tea house, but it wasn't as wide or as developed. We stopped at a lookout with a great view of the Waterton lakes and then continued to the Lower Bertha Falls: beautiful. Across the river, we could see several feet of snow — all that remained of what must have been a huge snowfall (or avalanche) last winter. Louis kept saying that he'd love to see a bear ... across the river, of course. I don't know if I'm that much of a lover of nature. At any rate, we didn't.

When we got back to Waterton, Steve's shift had ended and we went for coffee. Steve had another engagement for supper, so I ate supper on my own and then drove back home in the evening, listening as I drove to an interview with Clyde Kilby on one of the Mars Hill tapes, in which he recommended going for a walk outside every day, rain or shine, in order to maintain contact with "real things" — perhaps advice worth taking seriously in a computer age (says he, as he writes a post for his blog).

When I got back to Lethbridge, I went over to Keith and Jenn Griffioen's place, fed their cat, and watched Snow Falling on Cedars before returning home again. I don't know why I put off going to Waterton for so long. I think I thought it was farther away, but the drive there is only an hour and a half. I'll have to go again!

2002-09-09T22:58:00.000-07:00

Good news! I'd been a bit concerned about my weight recently. I'd been hoping to lose a few pounds and last week my wish was granted. I lost ten pounds on Friday. Yes, just like that. All of a sudden.

Here's what happened. I'd had my scale in the basement, where I sometimes exercise, but last week I brought it upstairs. On Friday, Keith and Jenn Griffioen were over. In the course of the evening, Keith departed to another room for a few minutes and returned with the report that my scale was off by at least ten pounds. Jenn then verified it, so I have the confirmation of two witnesses. I'm not particularly glad to discover that I have a defective scale, but it does mean that I'm ten pounds lighter than I thought, so.... Break out the ice cream and let's celebrate!

2002-09-05T22:31:00.000-07:00

As Wayne has mentioned, the latest Reformation and Revival Journal is out. It's entitled "Justification: Modern Reflections." Among the articles are

Sounding the Alarm: N. T. Wright and Evangelical Theology
Travis Tamerius
N. T. Wright and Reformed Theology: Friends or Foes?
Rich Lusk
A Study of Justification by Faith
Don Garlington
Justification by Faith Alone
Norman Shepherd
Lutheranized Calvinism: Gospel or Law, or Gospel and Law
P. Andrew Sandlin

I'll certainly be reading this issue with great interest. It also contains the second part of Travis Tamerius's interview with N. T. Wright. I've only skimmed the interview, but here's one of my favourite quotations. Wright is talking about how Paul's statement that the Thessalonians had received his message, not as the word of man, but as the word of God:

It's quite clear what Paul is talking about [in 1 Thessalonians], that he comes into town announcing that Jesus is Lord, as a royal herald. He is saying that the crucified Jesus is the Lord of the world. And this is not, "Here is a way of salvation. You might like to apply it to yourself." It's not, "Here is a new way of being religious and you might enjoy it." This is really an imperial summons: "On your knees!" Nobody ever went into a Roman town and said, "Caesar is lord and you might like to have this experience of acknowledging him as lord if that suits you." They said, "Caesar is Lord, get on your knees and we want the tax right now."

2002-09-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

This week, I had to write only one sermon instead of my usual two and I finished it early, which freed up the end of the week. Yesterday, I drove up to Calgary where I met my parents, who had driven down from Red Deer. We had lunch and then we drove out to Lake Louise, a little over half an hour northwest of Banff, where we hiked from the chalet up to the teahouse on Lake Agnes.

And when I say "up," I mean up. We used to hike this path every year when I was still living at home, but they've made it steeper since I was a teenager. I used to leave my parents in the dust, but this time I don't think my father was far behind me at any point.

At the top, we had tea (of course!) and large cookies at the tea house. The tea house is built beside Lake Agnes, and it has a great view of the green water of Lake Louise down below. It's quite high up and the wind off Lake Agnes and the glacier was chilly, so the tea was very welcome.

The descent was much easier and, since I wasn't panting for breath and expecting my heart to beat its way out of my ribcage as I was on the way up, I was able to observe a lot more and do some thinking. I don't know how many times I've made that hike. My parents must have done it at least thirty times. When I was in high school, I wrote a fantasy novel (which, mercifully, is buried in a closet somewhere along with its rejection slips). At one point in the story, where the characters travel through the mountains, I drew on my memories of the hike up to Lake Agnes. In particular, I remember trying to describe the rocks I saw every year along the trail. Yesterday, I saw some of those rocks again and they brought back a lot of memories of hikes gone by.

One of the difficulties of being single, I find, is that it's hard to enjoy the beauty of a walk like this. On this trip, I was able to share the joy of the hike with my parents, and there's always a certain camaraderie with the other hikers, expressed in greetings and occasional conversation. But it would be hard for me to go hiking on my own.

In order to enter fully into the experience, you need someone else with you, someone else who can point things out to you and to whom you can praise the beauty and with whom you can share the experience and relive it again later. As C. S. Lewis says, "All enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise.... I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation." Maybe one of these days, I'll be able to take my wife on that hike. (Note to self: Get in better shape before then.)

My parents and I parted in Calgary again, and then we drove back home. My legs were aching from the walk, and the descent in particular took its toll on my knees. During the hours in the car on the way home, my back began to ache and I was desperately tired. It felt as if there was a knot in my spine a few vertebrae down from my shoulders. I was hungry when I got home, but I was almost too tired to eat. I did manage to have a bowl of cereal and then I went to bed. It took me a while to get comfortable, but at last I fell into a deep sleep. I was pretty tired and a bit stiff this morning when I preached, though the back pain at least was gone.

And now, as I look at the clock, I realize that it's time for the second service. Gotta run (well, hobble anyway). I'm not preaching, but after the service I am interviewing a couple who want to join the church.

2002-08-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

T Bone Burnett was slated to be the keynote speaker for the International Bluegrass Musicians Association recently. He wasn't able to make it, so he had someone else read his speech for him. The speech is partly about O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but along the way, he talks about the music industry (quoting Larry Poons: "We live in an age of music for people who don't like music"), "rock and roll" (a phrase that goes back to the late nineteenth century, he says, and used to include what we'd call swing and bluegrass and country and some other styles of music, too), what makes for good banjo playing, and what went wrong with country music. He says,

To me, however, the interesting thing about the sound of O Brother is not, as many have accurately remarked, that it is true to the sound of that period. The interesting thing is that it sounds so completely modern. It has high fidelity. Fidelity to what was happening in the room when the singers and players were singing and playing all at once. All of this is to say that by the grace of God and the Coen Brothers, people are once again listening to other people play and sing music.

I note that T Bone has teamed up with the Coen Brothers to form DMZ Records (with Bono from U2, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and others on the board). In this press release, T Bone describes DMZ as a "musician-centered label," and says, "We're not going to concentrate solely on traditional American music. We're going to do music that is good, music that will become traditional American music."

They've just released a CD by the 75 year old mountain musician Ralph Stanley, who sang the haunting "O Death" in O Brother. "We're going to have a 75-year-old rock star," T Bone says here. Almost makes me want to listen to some bluegrass. Almost? Well, actually, it does.

2002-08-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

Here is a helpful review of the English Standard Version by Kathleen Nielson. Nielson notes that the ESV has "the obedience of faith" in Romans 1:5 and 16:26. The benefit of the translation "the obedience of faith" is that it leaves the work of interpreting that phrase up to the reader, whereas many translations simply give the translators' own interpretation. The NIV, for instance, has "the obedience that comes from faith" in Romans 1:5 and reworks 16:26 so that it reads "so that all nations might believe and obey him."

Many translations, it appears, shy away from anything that might seem unclear or ambiguous on a first reading, which seems strange on the face of it: Why couldn't Paul write something that you wouldn't fully understand until you had read further in his letter? Should we assume that everything Paul wrote was immediately clear to his first readers so that they would never have to wrestle to figure out his arguments or what he meant by a phrase like "the obedience of faith"?

Nielson notes, as well, that the ESV has "the obedience of faith" in both Romans 1:5 and 16:26. One of my pet peeves with a lot of translations, a peeve I share with Nielson, is the inconsistency with which they translate certain phrases. Nobody reading Romans 1:5 and 16:26 in the NIV, for instance, would guess that Paul uses exactly the same phrase ("the obedience of faith") at the beginning and end of his letter. But surely the repetition of that phrase is important, isn't it?

Nielson also addresses the idea that the goal of translation is to produce a version of the Bible which is easy to read:

In one sense, the ESV might be accused of being more difficult than some other contemporary versions. Two responses come quickly to mind. First, this accusation of difficulty is not a problem with the translation; it is a problem with the Bible and with taking the time to read and study it. I remember the first time I taught Shakespeare. The play was King Lear, and one of the first questions from my first-year college students was: "Couldn't we read this in a modernized version?" My answer was no, because I wanted them to read the words Shakespeare wrote, to understand them, learn from them, and delight in their beauty. By the end of that class, most of those students had taken in that play wholeheartedly, memorized parts of it, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

The process did require a bit of work. Anything worthwhile does. For good reason the church has developed teachers and preachers and theologians, to help us dig into the riches of the inspired word of God. The ESV is certainly not difficult to the degree that Shakespeare is! It does, however, respect readers enough to give them the biblical text in all its demanding beauty.

Is there a perfect translation out there? No. (One of these days, though, I will have to check out the ESV.) But articles like this remind me why I spend time working through each passage I preach in the Greek or Hebrew instead of simply relying on an English translation.

2002-08-22T23:21:00.000-07:00

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that the arrival of my new bookshelves was bittersweet since I might be moving. Someone named Sarah (Sarah who?, I wonder) asked why. Here's the report I've put off writing for the last few weeks. On July 28, after three months of discussions between the elders and me, the consistory read this letter to the congregation following the morning service:

An open letter to the Congregation of Trinity Reformed Church.

Dear Congregation,

One of the issues that consistory has recently had to deal with is the matter of children at the Lord's Supper. This issue, which is often referred to as "paedocommunion," came to a head for consistory when we were required to make a decision on Tim Gallant's Appeal to the Classis of Western Canada (June 6 & 7, 2002). In his appeal, Gallant challenged the ruling of Classis 2000 "that the Reformed Confessions require a profession of faith as a prerequisite for the reception of the Lord's Supper." Mr. Gallant felt he could not sign the form of subscription if Classis placed the paedocommunion view outside of confessional bounds.

In our discussions on this issue, our consistory has maintained that those who approach the Lord's Supper must be of a proper age to examine themselves and to commemorate the Lord's death according to the commands of I Corinthians 11:25-29. It is, therefore, the position of consistory that our confessions do require a profession of faith as a prerequisite for reception of the Lord's Supper. This position was supported unanimously by our consistory and was fully supported at Classis 2002. Our consistory also supports the rationale that Classis gave in denying Mr. Gallant's appeal.

The reason that you are receiving this letter is that out of these discussions we became aware that our minister, Rev. Barach, is currently struggling with his views and beliefs on paedocommunion. At this time Rev. Barach does not have a firm position on the issue; rather, he is actively examining the arguments (for and against) trying to see what Scripture has to say on this matter. This became an issue for him in 2000 when Mr. Gallant first brought his appeal forward. It was not an issue for Rev. Barach when he signed the form of subscription himself in 1999. It should be noted that Rev. Barach has not preached, taught or promoted paedocommunion in our congregation.

The problem we face is that Rev. Barach cannot agree with the consistory and classis position that those who hold to the view of paedocommunion subscribe to a belief that is outside of confessional bounds. He is unable to support consistory in the stance we have taken and the direction we wish to pursue on this issue.

Based on this history, it was decided at our last meeting that:

The consistory of Trinity Reformed Church dissolve our relationship with Reverend Barach pending Classis approval in accordance with article 11 of our church order. Our intent is to dissolve the relationship with the following two provisions:

1) That Rev. Barach maintains his full ministerial duties until such a time that he can find a new position or until December the 31st of this year.

2) That consistory will continue to provide Rev. Barach with his full salary until such a time that he can find a new position or until July 31, 2003.

Consistory would like to stress that this is a mutual agreement between consistory and Rev. Barach. We agree that this is the best action that we can take at this time to keep and promote unity in our congregation and in the church of Christ at large. Consistory has a great appreciation for the love and leadership Rev. Barach has brought to our congregation over the last 3 years. It is our desire to proceed in this manner [sic: matter] in such a way that his name is upheld and the communion of the saints is maintained. We ask that the congregation support us in this matter with your prayers, discussions and actions.

If you have any questions about the current situation please talk to your district elder.

On Behalf of Consistory,

Gerrit Greidanus (Clerk)

Article 11 of the URCNA Church Order reads:

If, for reasons other than such as warrant ecclesiastical discipline, either a minister of the Word or the congregation he is serving desires to dissolve their pastoral relationship, that dissolution shall occur only upon mutually satisfactory conditions and only with the concurring advice of the classis. If the released minister desires to receive a call to serve another congregation, the council from whose service he is being released shall announce his eligibility for call, which eligibility shall be valid for no more than two years, whereafter he shall be honorably released from office. If the minister released from his congregation desires to leave his office in order to seek non-ministerial labor, he must receive the approval of the classis before doing so.

The consistory also included a letter from me:

Dear Congregation,

I want you to understand that I too share consistory's concern for the peace and purity of the church. I love this congregation, with its commitment to God's Word and its appreciation of God's sovereignty and God's covenantal bonds with His people. I deeply appreciate the love that the congregation has shown me and the assistance and encouragement that you have given me. It has been a wonderful three years. It is my hope that we can continue to work together as brothers and sisters in Christ until such a time as I secure a new ministerial position. I trust that we will be able to do this together under God's grace and with His blessing.

In Christ,

Rev. John Barach

The consistory's decision has been very painful for me. I had asked the elders to allow me to withhold judgment on the issue of paedocommunion and I had promised not to promote it or militate against our current practice. Nevertheless, the elders decided that it would be better for us to work to dissolve our relationship and I acquiesced to that decision. I'm grateful that they have stated in their letter that I have not been promoting paedocommunion publicly (I wasn't the one who brought up the issue!), and I appreciate their desire to uphold my name. But it's going to be very hard to have to leave Lethbridge.

According to the Church Order, this decision still needs to be ratified by a classis. My guess is that the earliest we could have a classis would be the first couple weeks of November.

In the meantime, I'm continuing to preach and carry on my other ministerial work. I've preached (from Philippians 2, in particular) that the path to vindication and exaltation with Christ is not the Adamic path of self-seeking and self-assertion, but the path Christ took, the path of self-sacrifice, humility, and submission. And now the Lord has given me the opportunity to back up my preaching by my example.

If you want more information, you can e-mail me. I appreciate your prayers for the congregation and for me.

2002-08-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

My sister has written up her account of her 1200 km ride.

2002-08-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

As I reported a while back, my sister Charlene rode in a 1204 km race through the mountains of British Columbia and Alberta. They've now posted her times. You can find pictures of the ride here and here.

Here she is recovering somewhere along the way:

And here is Char with my dad, who was working as a volunteer:

Char's Achilles tendons are still killing her, but other than that, she's feeling pretty good. She spent a week with our grandmother out in British Columbia and is now back at work. I haven't talked to her since the ride, but I hear that she's planning to write up an account and I look forward to reading it. (And for those who wondered, yes, she did pass a couple of bears, one of which was fairly large.)

2002-08-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

This morning, my bookshelves arrived — seven of them. It took the elderly gentleman who made them a couple of hours to make sure all the shelves fit, and then I spent the next couple of hours filling them with the books which, for as long as I've lived here, have been piled up around the walls of my bedroom. The arrival of the shelves is somewhat bittersweet, however, since I'm not sure how long I'll be living here, and I'm reluctant to unpack all the boxes of books I have stored downstairs in case I have to pack again a few months from now.

I had supper tonight with Keith and Jenn Griffioen. After supper, we went to see Insomnia. It's not perhaps a great movie, but I enjoyed it. It's a murder mystery, but the mystery isn't the main focus.

Al Pacino plays Detective Will Dormer from Los Angeles who has come to Alaska with his partner to help find the killer of a teenage girl. But things go wrong in a way that might lead people to suspect Dormer himself of a crime. Dormer covers things up. After all, if he's under suspicion, his entire life's work could be undone; criminals he's arrested in the past might go free if there's any suspicion cast on him and his methods as a detective. But Dormer can't sleep, and the midnight sun doesn't help. Add to the mix the fact that the suspect in the murder knows what Dormer has done.

The film presents a number of moral questions worth pondering, primary of which is whether the ends justify the means. Jeffrey Overstreet at Looking Closer writes,

This movie should be seen, discussed, and pondered more than once. Movies regularly sell us the lie that a hero is somebody willing to do anything to catch the bad guy. Most big screen heroes work in varying methods of vigilante justice. Many commit small crimes in order to stop those who commit big ones. And audiences cheer. But who’s to say that the criminals themselves weren’t trying to accomplish what they saw was good through unclean methods? Insomnia is a tragedy, but it tells the truth about the wages of sin. It’s one of the best American thrillers I’ve ever seen.

The scenery was breathtaking. Although the story is set in Alaska, the film was shot in northern British Columbia, in a town that Keith had visited a few times.

Now I'm off to have a cup of tea and read a bit more of Holifield and the last short story in Gene Wolfe's Endangered Species.

2002-07-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

Today, I finished reading Bret Lott's The Man Who Owned Vermont. Lott, I'm told, is a member of a PCA, and this was his first novel. He does a very good job of getting us into the lives of ordinary people, people who make the same kinds of blunders and commit the same kinds of ordinary (but no less harmful) sins most of us do.

Rick Wheeler is an RC Cola salesman whose wife has left him. He doesn't know why, or so he tells himself (and us). Aching from what he sees as the failure of his marriage, he tries to cope by throwing himself into his work, making new friends, and even meeting someone new. But as the story progresses (and as Rick fills us in on what has happened in the past), we see that coping is no replacement for reconciliation.

It's a heartbreaking story, and at times it frightened me. I look forward to being a husband someday, Lord willing, but I'm also aware — and books like this make me more aware — of my own inclination toward selfishness, and, as Lott shows, selfishness and a failure to give oneself to another destroy marriages.

In Acts, Larry Woiwode writes, referring to the novel which "was used to draw Kuyper over the threshold into conversion,"

The right book at the right time has that potential. It can teach us to live, or make it possible to live, or render incarnate through its characters the lived life of a Christian, or simply draw us out of bed and set us on our feet again. This can seem nearly miraculous when it happens, and this is the moment we seek, writers first of all, when we enter the first sentence of a novel: a way to live (p. 44).

Conversely, as with Lott's novel, a story can also shed light on our lives and even move us to repentance as it shows us people living out our destructive tendencies.

2002-07-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

More good news! Bill and Kim had a baby boy at 4:30 this morning. His name is Ian Nathanael DeJong, and he's a big boy: 10 lbs 13 oz. Congratulations, Bill and Kim!

2002-07-29T15:34:00.000-07:00

This past week, my sister Charlene took part in a 1204.3 kilometre bicycle race in the mountains of British Columbia and Alberta. The ride started in Kamloops, BC, headed north through Clearwater, east through Jasper, Alberta, south to Lake Louise, and then west to Kamloops again. You can see a map of the route here.

Charlene has ridden 200, 400, and 600 kilometer rides already this year, but this was her first 1200. They're supposed to have posted her times here, but they haven't yet. She is listed, however, on the final results page. Scroll down till you find Rider # 512, Charlene Burwood. She completed the ride in 88 hours and 33 minutes, counting the few hours in which she slept.

Congratulations, Char! I'm proud of you!

2002-07-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have been following the story of the RPCUS heresy charges, here is the official response from Trinity Reformed Church, the congregation which I pastor:

Dear Sir,

We received your letter containing your resolutions and your Call to Repentance, but we do not intend to act upon them. You have not substantiated your charges and your statements were not clear. Your Call to Repentance does not distinguish Rev. Barach from other speakers, nor do you indicate which errors he is accused of teaching.

Furthermore, you have not pursued your concerns in a brotherly and edifying way. While Matthew 18 may not apply to public matters, Joshua 22 provides a biblical example of brothers seeking clarification before acting. At no point have you sought to contact Rev. Barach to seek clarification.

On behalf of the elders of Trinity Reformed Church,
Gerrit Greidanus, Clerk

This letter was adopted by the consistory on Monday and has been mailed (and e-mailed) to the Covenant Presbytery of the RPCUS.

2002-07-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

I've been fairly busy recently, and haven't been able to read as much as I would have liked to. I'm still working my way through E. Brooks Holifield's The Covenant Sealed. He points out that many of the early Puritans thought that "conceptual understanding was essential to sacramental worship" (pp. 35-36). In fact, it seems that some of the early Puritans saw the efficacy of the sacraments as a matter of reasoning. William Perkins wrote:

The signes and visible elements affect the senses outward and inward: the senses convey their object to the mind: the mind directed by the holy Ghost reasoneth on this manner, out of the promise annexed to the Sacrament: He that useth the elements aright, shall receive grace thereby: but I use the elements aright in faith and repentance, saith the mind of the believer: therefore shall I receive from God increase of grace. Thus, then, faith is confirmed not by the worke done, but by a kind of reasoning caused in the mind, the argument or proofe whereof is borrowed from the elements, being signes and pledges of God mercie (cited p. 53, emphasis Holifield's).

Elsewhere, Perkins wrote,

[When] the elements of bread and wine are present to the hand and to the mouth of the receiver; at the verie same time the body and bloud of Christ are presented to the minde: thus and no otherwise is Christ truly present with the signes (cited p. 58).

William Bradshaw wrote in a similar vein:

Hence also it appears, that we specially eate the flesh of Christ, and drink his bloud, when with a beleeving heart and mind, we effectually remember and in our remembrance, we seriously meditate of, and in our meditations are religiously affected, and in our affections thoroughly inflamed with the love of Christ, grounded upon that which Christ hath done for us, and which is represented and sealed unto us in this Sacrament (cited p. 59).

From quotations such as these, it seems that at least some of the Puritans thought that the way the sacraments (and the Lord's Supper in particular) work is by making us think. Moved, it appears, by a fear of any kind of ex opere operato view ("not by the worke done," says Perkins), they adopted instead a view grounded on the primacy of the intellect — as if God's way of working was primarily (or even, perhaps, only) through the mind and depended on intellectual understanding: no intellectual understanding, no efficacy of the sacraments and no grace enjoyed by those who use the sacraments.

2002-07-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

In his comments on a previous post, Duane relates his best (worst?) worship service blooper — and it's a wonderful one! — and asks for mine. Here it is.

I was preaching the sermon that would be evaluated in connection with my candidacy exam, after which I would be declared eligible for call. The sermon was on Exodus 33, where Moses asks to see the LORD's glory. The LORD refuses to show Moses His face, but does give him a view from the back.

I said, departing dangerously from my manuscript, "A view from the back is an imperfect view. It's like when you're walking in a mall and see someone...."

I meant to say, "from the back" or "from behind." Either would have been acceptable. But what came out was the combination: "It's like when you're walking in the mall and see someone from the behind...."

Afterward, my pastor came up to me and said, "Well, now we know what you look at when you walk in the mall!"

2002-07-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

For the past two weeks, it has been very hot here in Lethbridge. I don't have air conditioning, and my study is the highest (and hence, the hottest) room in the house. The two big windows facing south are wonderful in the winter, but in the summer they let in a lot of heat. (The three walls covered with bookshelves, floor to ceiling, on the other hand, are wonderful year round.) Today was a little cooler, and we even had some rain early in the morning. The sun is out now, though, and it's starting to heat up.

Which leads me to this question: Do you categorize books as "winter reads" and "summer reads"? I can't say that I have every book categorized that way, but there are certain books that just seem as if they would be better read when the weather is cold and there's snow on the ground. Take The Lord of the Rings, for example: I could certainly read it during the summer, but there's something about it that calls (to my mind, at least) for cold weather. The same is true of The Book of the New Sun: I deliberately chose to read it in the winter. Mind you, the sequel, The Urth of the New Sun, made a great spring read for some reason.

I just finished reading John Updike's The Centaur, probably the Updike book I've enjoyed the most so far (more than Rabbit Run). The book is somewhat odd. The main character, George Caldwell is a teacher at the high school in Olinger, a setting to which Updike has frequently returned. That part of the story seems pretty straightforward, but in a couple of chapters, the story is told as if Caldwell is Chiron, a centaur, and the whole story is linked in some way to Greek mythology. In fact, Updike, at the request of his wife, even included an index at the end, showing all the references to various mythological figures. But when you look up those references, you don't see, for instance, the name "Venus" on the page to which he refers you; rather, you might see a reference to Vera Hummel.

Sometime, it might be worthwhile for me to re-read the book and look at those connections more carefully. For now, I just enjoyed the story and the beauty of Updike's poetic prose. I suppose I could have read it comfortably in the winter — the description of the falling snow toward the end of the book is beautiful — but it made a pretty good summer read, too.

Mysteries I could read in any season. Just recently, I read and enjoyed Dorothy Sayers' The Documents in the Case, written, interestingly enough, as a collection of letters and other documents.

Well, my company has just arrived home. Alex and Calvin Barendregt and Tim Gallant, all from Grande Prairie, are down for the weekend. Gotta go!

2002-07-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Have you ever found a typo or a grammatical glitch in a Bible? Generally it seems as if Bible publishers are pretty careful to make sure that there are no such errors, but once in a while one slips through. In the 1600s, one version of the Bible left out the word "not" in the Seventh Commandment: "Thou shalt commit adultery."

The mistake I found in my edition of the NKJV isn't that funny, but here it is. In Ezekiel 14:21, I have

For thus says the Lord GOD: "How much more it shall be when I send my four severe judgments on Jerusalem — the sword and famine and wild beasts and pestilence — to cut off man and beast from it?"

What the Lord says here is clearly a question, not an indicative statement, and therefore it should be "shall it," not "it shall." Not a huge glitch, but it's the only one I've found and I'm curious whether this same error shows up in all editions of the NKJV or just in the one I'm using. Did some editor finally spot it and fix it?

2002-07-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

Once again, I'm indebted to Joel. He has a very helpful post on the phrase ex opere operato, a phrase which is often tossed around in discussions of the sacraments. Thanks, Joel!

2002-07-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

Messiah's Congregation in Brooklyn, where Steve Schlissel is a pastor, has posted its response to the RPCUS resolutions now. Check out their new offer on their homepage: "Find the Heresy and Win $1,000,000.00." (Of course, you've got to notice the comment at the end: "Payable by the RPCUS — as long as we're 'charging' each other.")

2002-07-10T23:12:00.000-07:00

Last night, I started reading E. Brooks Holifield's The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, 1570-1720. I've often seen the book in footnotes and bibliographies and I finally tracked down a copy.

So far, I've read only the first part of the first chapter, the section dealing with Luther and Zwingli. I'm just starting the section on John Calvin. But already, I've begun to wonder about a theological strain which can be found in the early Reformers and which still infects the church today, namely, the idea that real worship is "spiritual" as opposed to physical — an idea which tends to downplay the sacraments.

If I recall correctly, Carlos Eire, in War Against the Idols, points out that the iconoclasm of many of the Reformers was grounded on Christ's statement that God is Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and truth, which they took to mean that our worship should be purged of all the "externals" and "physical stuff" which characterized medieval Roman Catholic worship. I'd agree that there were problems with medieval worship, but I question the "spiritual worship is non-physical, non-external worship" argument and the exegesis and the understanding of God's "spirituality" that lie behind it. It seems like a remnant of gnosticism, not to mention a far cry from the robust and even sensual worship we find in Scripture.

Zwingli's view of the sacraments, in particular, seems to have been shaped by this emphasis on "spiritual" worship. Holifield writes:

Zwingli believed that the Spirit acted directly on the souls of men without the mediation of material instruments. Implicit in that belief was a devaluation of external means, which, he said, could "never cleanse the soul." In effect, Zwingli divided the world into material and spiritual spheres which could never intersect, and then he located Christian existence solely in the realm of spirit. Consequently, internal spiritual baptism, constituted by an immediate relation between the Spirit of God and the spirit of man, was not necessarily related to the external water baptism. Zwingli's presuppositions left little room for baptismal efficacy. In 1525 he even denied that the sacrament could strengthen faith: "It does not justify the one who is baptized, nor does it confirm his faith, for it is not possible for an external thing to confirm faith" (p. 7)

By 1531, Zwingli did admit that the sacraments could strengthen faith, which is certainly an improvement on his earlier position.

It strikes me that this same sort of view lives on today. If Paul says something about baptism which sounds as if baptism is efficacious in some way, then people conclude that Paul mustn't be talking about water baptism. He must mean Spirit baptism instead.

Looking for a topic for a doctoral dissertation in Reformation church history? Here's one worth studying. Where did this "spiritual worship versus 'physical, external' worship" view come from? Some of the Reformers got it from Erasmus, but did it originate with him? Why the opposition to "externals"? What's the exegesis behind that? Does it have something to do with the Reformer's understanding of the move from Old Covenant to New Covenant? I expect so. What's the rest of the history of this "not water baptism but Spirit baptism" interpretation? How did Reformed people end up claiming that God's real work is immediate (i.e., unmediated)?

I imagine Holifield is going to give me some answers, though I want to be cautious as I read him. Reformation scholars, like other scholars, sometimes (mis)read their sources in terms of their own categories and questions. At any rate, the book looks like a very interesting read.

2002-07-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

It's the 493rd anniversary of John Calvin's birth, and he's celebrating on Valerie's blog. Look! He's about to smile....

2002-07-08T13:10:00.000-07:00

The lectures from the 2002 Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church's Pastors' Conference are now available online here. I've provided links to my three lectures in the column on the side under "Articles and Lectures."

In related news, Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, where Doug Wilson is the pastor, has posted their official response to the RPCUS resolutions.

2002-07-04T23:02:00.000-07:00

In the comments on the last post, Chris asked for a list of the books I bought on my vacation. I'm not sure that list would make gripping reading for anyone besides me. It would also be one of the longer posts on this blog!

I did pick up some books I'd bought via Half.com and had shipped to my friend Chip, including Donald Howard's The Idea of the Canterbury Tales, Jill Raitt's The Colloquy of Montbeliard, about the debate between Jacobus Andreas (Lutheran) and Theodore Beza, and Gene Wolfe's Bibliomen (hard to find) and The Book of the Short Sun (all three Short Sun novels in one volume!). And when I got home, I found that my copy of E. Brooks Holifield's The Covenant Sealed had arrived. I paid an arm and a leg for it, but it looks very good.

Enough about books I bought. On to books I've read. While I was at my grandmother's place, I read N. T. Wright's New Heavens, New Earth. It's a fairly short booklet, but it provides a very good discussion of the Christian's future hope. "Christian hope," Wright says, "is not simply for 'going to heaven when we die,' but for 'new heavens and new earth, integrated together'" (p. 5). Along the way, Wright provides some helpful exegesis. 1 Peter 1:4 speaks of "an inheritance ... kept in heaven for you," but that passage doesn't indicate that we must go to heaven to enter our inheritance.

The point is that salvation is being kept safe in heaven for you, in order then to be brought from heaven to where you are, so that you can enjoy it there. It is rather like a parent, in the run-up to Christmas, assuring a child that "there is indeed a present kept safe in the cupboard for you." That does not mean that on Christmas Day and thereafter the child is going to have to go and live in the cupboard in order to enjoy the present there. Rather, it means that at the appropriate time the present will be brought forth out of its safe hiding-place, so that it can enrich the life of the child in the world of real life, not just in the cupboardly world (p. 7).

Nor does "Our citizenship is in heaven" (Phil. 3:19-21) mean that "heaven is our real home, the place to which we will eventually go" and that we are "just a-passin' through" here.

The point of being a citizen of a mother city is not that when life gets really tough, or when you retire, you can go back home to the mother city. The people to whom Paul was writing in Philippi were Roman citizens, but they had no intention of going back to Rome. They were the means through which Roman civilization was being brought to the world of Northern Greece. If and when the going got tough there, the emperor would come from Rome to deliver them from their enemies in Philippi, and establish them as a true Roman presence right there. So, Paul says, "from heaven we await a saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body" (p. 8).

Wright doesn't deny the reality of heaven ("God's dimension of reality"), nor does he deny that believers who die before the day of resurrection continue to live with Christ. But he rightly stresses that living with Christ in a disembodied state in heaven isn't our final goal.

"Departing and being with Christ," or "living to God," ... are for the New Testament writers ways of expressing a temporary stage, ahead of the time when God will restore all things, and will renew his people to bodily life, in the midst of his new creation (p. 21).

Here's Wright's summary of the Christian's hope:

Christian hope, therefore, is for a full, recreated life in the presence and love of God, a totally renewed creation, an integrated new heavens and new earth, and a complete humanness — complete not in and for itself as an isolated entity, but complete in worship and love for God, complete in love for one another as humans, complete in stewardship over God's world, and so, and only in that complete context, a full humanness in itself (p. 24).

Good stuff!

2002-07-02T23:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm finally back from my vacation. As you've read in my last post (which, of course, you've read and re-read for the last month, judging by the comments on it), I left home on June 5 to attend Classis Western Canada of the United Reformed Churches. After the classis, I drove from Ponoka, Alberta, to Abbotsford, British Columbia — an 11-hour-or-so drive -- for a classis-wide pulpit exchange. Which reminds me of a dialogue I once had, understandable perhaps only to those who know the Dutch word for "Reverend":

TERRY: "So when you have a pulpit exchange, you come here and our pastor goes to another church and that pastor goes to another church.... It's kind of a domino effect!"

ME: "No, Terry. It's the dominee effect."

On June 9, I led worship and preached for the Surrey Covenant Reformed Church (URC) in the morning and then for Maranatha Canadian Reformed Church in the afternoon. That was the first time I had preached in a Canadian Reformed Church. I was very well received. Several of the members came up to me afterward and told me that they were delighted that our churches had entered into ecclesiastical fellowship and that they were looking forward to closer relations in the future.

My grandmother lives in Abbotsford, so I figured I would start my vacation after the pulpit exchange. I did a lot of reading that week (June 10-15) and hit a few of my favourite used book stores. I also spent a lot of time with Rob Schouten, the pastor of the Abbotsford Canadian Reformed Church. We went into Vancouver to visit Regent College. I blew a lot of money in their bookstore. No surprise there, eh? On the 16th, I preached in the morning for the Langley Reformed Evangelical Church (CRE) and in the afternoon for Immanuel Covenant Reformed Church (URC) in Abbotsford. Call me Mr. Ecumenical: three denominations in two weeks.

On June 17, I left Abbotsford and drove to Moscow, Idaho, where I spent most of the next week, staying at the home of Chip and Janet Lind. Janet was away, so Chip and I were batching — and I have to say that Chip can cook better than I can! We had company over for a couple of nights in a row, and Chip made some pretty good food. I also caught up on my movie watching: I saw Being There, Waking Ned Devine, and Strictly Ballroom, all a lot of fun.

While in Moscow, I spent some time at Bucer's Coffeehouse Pub, sipping Guinness and reading John Frame's The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, and P. G. Wodehouse's Piccadilly Jim. Ahhh.....

On Thursday, June 20, I had lunch and a good talk with Doug Wilson. I also chatted with Doug Jones. It sounds as if Canon Press has a lot of great stuff lined up. Peter Leithart has just finished a book entitled Against Christianity (see his great essay, "Against Christianity; For the Church"). Steve Wilkins has a book coming out soon (on celebration, if I recall my glance at the cover correctly). And they're hoping to publish books on worship by Leithart and Jeff Meyers and on the Trinity by Ralph Alan Smith and Jeff Meyers sometime next year. I'm looking forward to them eagerly!

On Friday morning, I drove up to Spokane and caught a flight to Chicago, where I was picked up, housed, fed, and automobiled by Wes White, a student at Mid-America Reformed Seminary and an e-mail correspondent of mine. I hadn't met him before in person, but it was great to be able to get to know him in person. Chicago was extremely hot and humid, especially after Lethbridge (dry and windy as a rule, but rainy to the point of flooding the week I was in Abbotsford) and Idaho (warm but dry).

The primary reason I flew out to Chicago was to attend the wedding of Sarah Smith and Tim Boer. When I was in seminary, I spend a lot of time at Sarah's parents' place and it was great to be able to witness Sarah's wedding and to visit old friends (in particular, Sarah's older brother, Nick and his new wife). I also had coffee with some classmates from seminary who are pastoring in the area.

On the 27th, I was back in the air, arriving back in Spokane by about 10:30 in the evening. I spent that weekend with Peter and Noel Leithart. Peter and I did a lot of talking, and I spent some time with him and several of his sons at the ball diamond on Saturday morning. That evening, we watched Run Lola Run, a rather odd movie (Peter: "What just happened there?" Me: "I have no idea").

I worshipped with Christ Church that Sunday: great music, weekly communion, raised hands for the Gloria Patri, congregational Amens, and all kinds of other enjoyable things, as well as a helpful sermon in Wilson's "Reformed Is Not Enough" series. I spent that afternoon with Roy and Bev Atwood, a home where the food is always good (to say nothing of the wine!). Then I attended the "Men's Forum" in the evening before returning to the Leitharts.

The next day — Monday, in fact — I drove the eight hours or so back to Lethbridge where I found waiting for me, among other things, a birthday present from some online friends (who appear to have been surfing my Amazon wishlist: many thanks, Chris and Sydney!) and over 400 e-mails.

In other news, as some of you probably know from the blogs by Mark and Davey, I've been officially declared a heretic. The Covenant Presbytery (RPCUS) has adopted some resolutions (confusingly identified as a response to the "New Perspective on Paul," though they have little or nothing to do with what normally goes by that name) and has made a statement about the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church's Ministerial Conference this January at which I spoke along with Steve Wilkins, Doug Wilson, and Steve Schlissel. Interestingly enough, the presbytery never contacted any of us to discuss our views with us nor did they document any of their charges. In fact, they never quote any of us. And some of their conclusions flow from leaps of (il)logic I'm having a hard time following. Andrew Sandlin has written a good response. Tapes of that conference are still available.

And now I've caught up on most of that e-mail and put away the trunkload of books I bought (you think I exaggerate?). I should probably clean up the living room a bit — one of my elders is coming over tomorrow — and read a little more Wodehouse before bed, my own bed, the bed I've missed. It was a good vacation and I enjoyed visiting all my friends, but it's great to be home again.

2002-06-05T12:15:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday, and for the first time in quite a while, I'm going to be able to celebrate it with my parents, assuming, that is, that I can stop doing all the last minute things I need to do and get out the door. I'm heading up to Classis Western Canada, a meeting of delegates from the various United Reformed churches in this region (which stretches from Thunder Bay, Ontario to Smithers, British Columbia and to Salem, Oregon). But in God's providence, the classis is scheduled for the day after my birthday and the venue is only half an hour north of my parents' place. Happy birthday to me!

2002-05-29T23:02:00.000-07:00

Last night, I started reading John Frame's The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, a book I read for the first time back in 1990. I enjoyed it then, but I think over the last couple of years in particular I've learned some things (and, I hope, gained some theological maturity) which will help me appreciate it even more. This book really ought to be a standard textbook for first year theology classes! Here's a sample quotation from the Introduction:

We tend to forget how often in Scripture God performs His mighty acts so that men will "know" that He is Lord (cf. Exod. 6:7; 7:5, 17; 8:10, 22; 9:14, 29f.; 10:2; 14:4, 18; 16:12; Isa. 49:23, 26; 60:16; etc.). We tend to forget how often Scripture emphasizes that although in one sense all people know God (cf Rom. 1:21), in another sense such knowledge is the exclusive privilege of God's redeemed people and indeed the ultimate goal of the believer's life. What could be more "central" than that? But in our modern theologizing — orthodox and liberal, academic and popular — this language does not come readily to our lips. We speak much more easily about being saved, born again, justified, adopted, sanctified, baptized by the Spirit; about entering the kingdom, dying and rising with Christ; and about believing and repenting than we do about knowing the Lord (p. 2).

I also love his reference to God's "mysterious historical slowness, which is never too late" (p. 2). Between this book by Frame and The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, I'm in for some good reading in the days to come!

2002-05-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe, but ... it's snowing. It started with a thunderstorm last night. By midnight or so, the temperature had dropped enough that the rain was turning into small pellets of soft hail mixed with snow. I had a hard time sleeping because the wind was lashing the stuff against my bedroom window, so I've been groggy all day today. When I got up this morning, we had a couple of inches of heavy, wet snow, and there's more coming down. In fact, it's snowing so steadily that I can hardly see the houses a block away. It certainly doesn't look like a typical mid-May in Lethbridge. Last year, it was bone dry for most of the spring and summer. Now if only I could get motivated (and get my head clear enough) to write a sermon. This is a day for curling up with a cup of tea and a good book.

2002-05-15T23:45:00.000-07:00

I just came home from seeing In the Bedroom — thanks in large measure to Critique. If it hadn't been for Drew Trotter's review in the latest issue, I probably would never have seen the film. It would have been my loss. The filming is beautiful, the acting superb, the story heartbreaking. It's a story of grief and loss, exacerbated by miscommunication and injustice — and all without the gospel and therefore without hope. Painful to watch, but well worth seeing.

2002-05-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, you come across a story which is almost perfect: the tone, the characters, the atmosphere, the little details, the plot — everything seems to come together to make the story just right. That's the case with Neil Gaiman's "Chivalry," one of the stories in Smoke and Mirrors. The story opens with this line: "Mrs. Whitaker found the Holy Grail; it was under a fur coat." It's not long after she brings it home from the thrift shop that Galaad comes looking for it, and Mrs. Whitaker invites him in for tea.... Gaiman says that the story is "very friendly," and it is. It was a delight to read. (Alas, some of the other stories in that volume look horrid.)

I read "Chivalry" while sitting in Chapters up in Calgary this weekend. I had a pulpit exchange with Theo Hoekstra, the pastor of Emmanuel Reformed Church in Neerlandia, a small town about seven hours northwest of here. On the way, I stayed overnight with my parents in Red Deer and did some book shopping in Edmonton at a store that buys and sells seconded books at greatly reduced prices. Heavily laden with books, I arrived in Neerlandia, preached twice on Sunday, led the Young People's study at their request, and visited several old friends. I arrived back in Lethbridge this evening. Now it's time to read a bit and head to bed. Good night!

2002-05-08T22:46:00.000-07:00

I don't remember why I stopped reading John Frame. When I was first becoming Reformed, I was a big Frame fan. In fact, it was when I was reading a section in The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God that the light came on and I understood the biblical basis for infant baptism.

But for some reason, I stopped reading Frame around the time I went to seminary. Perhaps it was because I didn't like something he'd written. Perhaps it was just that I was so busy keeping up with the reading in seminary that I didn't have time to read Frame on the side. Perhaps it was something else.

Recently, however, I've started to read Frame again. I read his Perspectives on the Word of God back in January, as reported here. And yesterday morning, I finished Evangelical Reunion: Denominations and the One Body of Christ, about which I will now procede to rave. First, the obligatory caution: I don't necessarily agree with everything Frame says in this book. But I certainly agree with a lot of the points he makes.

Frame argues that God intended his church to be one, not to be shattered into thousands of separate denominations. He traces the history of denominationalism and examines both the dangerous effects of denominations and the reasons why we love 'em ("My home, my family, my team"). Denominations tend to foster an "us against them" attitude: we bolster our confidence in our own denomination by running down others. We're inclined to pretend that our "team" has a corner on the truth and thereby justify not reading or interacting widely with the rest of the Christian community. But, as Frame says, "We should get used to rooting more for 'the church' and less for a particular denomination" (p. 61).

Frame then goes on to talk about working toward reunion. Part of the path there involves getting to know people from outside our circles.

It is easy enough to be denominational chauvinists if we never encounter anyone from any other tradition. It is not so easy when we meet real flesh-and-blood fellow Christians from other branches of the church. This is especially the case when God calls us to stand together with them against unbelief (p. 72).

He talks about how to deal with differences of doctrine, practice, history, government, and priorities and then addresses our attitudes and our assumptions with regard to Christians from other churches. He points out that at least some degree of doctrinal tolerance is necessary and inescapable. We are continuing to learn, both as individuals and as churches and groups of churches: God doesn't teach everyone everything all at once or even at the same rate. Therefore, we must be tolerant toward those who disagree with us. We ought to labour as much as possible to preserve the unity of the church.

Frame's book isn't perfect. In places it may raise more questions than it answers. I don't think Frame would mind that. His goal is to get people thinking and discussing these issues as we work toward greater unity. Unfortunately, the book received only a few reviews before sinking into virtual oblivion with barely a ripple. It's good to see that the book is available, complete with a new appendix, at Third Millennium. Christian Book Distributors also has some copies of the out-of-print first edition for $0.99, if you prefer an actual book. It's well worth buying, reading, thinking about, and discussing, even if you end up disagreeing with him at points.

And while I'm raving about stuff, let me add that Miles Davis's Kind of Blue is a great album and Chaim Potok's In the Beginning is a great book, and I'm going to go and combine them now for a few minutes before bed.

2002-05-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

The Christ Church Ministerial Conference coming up in October this year looks fantastic. The title is "Liquid Gospel, Edible Words: The Sacramental Theology of Historic Protestantism." Here's the lineup:

Doug Wilson
The Early Reformers and the Lord's Supper
True Blessings, Real Curses
Worthy Participation
The Puritan Approach to Metaphor

Doug Jones
A Theology of Taste and Touch
Sensing Bread, Sensing Wine
The Poetics of Water

Duck Schuler
Music of the Supper

Peter Leithart
In Defense of Ritual
Neither Jew Nor Greek
One Loaf, One Body
Do This

I can hardly wait!

2002-05-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

This evening, I attended a lecture at the Canadian Reformed Church in Coaldale. The lecturer was Cornelis Van Dam and the topic was "The Year of Jubilee." Dr. Van Dam gave a fairly good explanation of Leviticus 25 before moving on to show how Christ fulfilled the Year of Jubilee and how the Jubilee applies to us in Christ.

He emphasized that because of Christ's coming we are living permanantly in a Jubilee situation and must then live lives characterized by mercy toward others. We have been redeemed, liberated from burdens and bondage, and our lives ought to reflect that freedom. Part of living in liberation includes our attitude toward our work. Work is not to be our master. We ought to take time off, to make time for enjoyment, and to spend time with our families. I was interested to discover, during the question and answer period afterwards, that Dr. Van Dam thought the Jubilee Project, involving the forgiveness of third world debt, was a good idea, grounded on some principles of the Year of Jubilee, though not a direct application of the Jubilee law.

Afterwards, I joined Dr. Van Dam and John van Popta, the pastor of the Canadian Reformed Church in Coaldale, for a glass of sherry at Rev. Van Popta's place. Dr. Van Dam is the chairman of the Theological Education Committee of the Canadian Reformed Churches, and I'm the chairman of the corresponding committee in the United Reformed Churches, so it was nice to be able to meet, especially since the goal of our committees is to work out an agreement about theological education between our federations as we move toward unity. Not that we talked much about our committees this evening. For that matter, I haven't even called the first meeting of my committee. Guess I should get started on that soon!

And now I'm back home, typing this up before sitting down to finish Colin Dexter's The Jewel That Was Ours. I'm a sucker for an Inspector Morse mystery! In other news, the wind is blowing, the temperature is dropping, my power is flickering a bit, and it looks as if we might be in for some snow.

2002-05-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

Project Neocalvinisme is a site with a wealth of material by Kuyper, Bavinck, Schilder, and others. Thanks to Gideon Strauss for the link. There's only one catch. Most of this stuff is in Dutch.

2002-05-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

Joel has just translated and published Calvin's "Instruction in Christian Doctrine for Young Children," which he wrote while in Strasbourg in1538-1539. I especially like the way it begins:

Teacher: My child, are you a Christian in fact as well as in name?

Child: Yes, my father.

Teacher: How is this known to you?

Child: Because I am baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Thanks for making this catechism available, Joel!

2002-04-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

Last week, I read N. T. Wright's Holy Communion for Amateurs. It's meant to basic introduction to the Lord's Supper, but it covers a lot of ground in a helpful and very readable way. There are certainly spots at which one might quibble. My friends who've studied liturgics more than I have might question the liturgical order Wright presents toward the end of the book, for instance. I'm surprised that Wright didn't include anything about the efficacy of prophetic symbolic action (e.g., Ezekiel beseiges a clay tablet he calls "Jerusalem" and the city itself is beseiged), since that's something Wright discusses elsewhere. But I appreciated what Wright did include. Now I'm wondering whether Wright's forthcoming The Meal Jesus Gave Us is the same book with a different title or perhaps a larger work on the same subject.

The other book I read last week was Tim Power's Dinner at Deviant's Palace, a fairly light bit of science-fiction, set in a future California (Irvine, Venice, and Ellay). Powers' presentation of the seductive power of evil is okay, but a little clunky in places. Still it was an enjoyable read.