Intellectuelle::Theology

Particularism--This is the teaching that salvation is only through the death of Christ. That is, salvation is through Christ in particular. Particularism is the opposite of universalism. Universalism teaches that all are saved even apart from the particular work of Christ.

Meditating on the ramifications of particularism has deprived me of more sleep than a gallon of stiff java�and, no, Marla, I�m not a coffee drinker. The Trinity and the hypostatic union are tough nuts to crack, but neither contain the potential horror of particularism. For, if salvation is only through faith in Christ, and if most people do not believe in Christ or even hear the gospel at all, than�well, you make the deduction for yourself.

Rarely have I been so disturbed by a theology which I do not agree with. I have been reading more about the beliefs of Clark Pinnock and John Sanders, both leading proponents of inclusivism. I wanted to examine inclusivism in more detail and critique it to follow up on my last post. I already had several items I wanted to mention, but I decided to research more before posting. What I found has upset me deeply. In fact, I hardly slept last night, and I would ask that you pray for me as I sort out these thoughts.

Clark Pinnnock and John Sanders not only teach that people may receive salvation without a conscious faith in Christ, but they teach a variety of theology called "Open Theism."

There once was a gal for whom sin
Was a concept that caused her chagrin
She was good enough! But then God called her bluff
And she accepted that sin 'twas within.

If there was any concept of an afterlife in my youth, it was a place (according to my mother) where everyone except Hitler, serial killers, and her ex-husbands would be. Behind this thinking was the idea that people were basically good, or at least, Good Enough for a God who was All Love, All The Time. This kind of love, of course, meant never having to say you're sorry, or, in theological language, never having to repent of anything.

It was not until I was older that a friend, newly converted, explained to me that even the sins we humans consider the most heinous can be forgiven with a contrite spirit. I did not want to accept this, because I was still holding on to the idea that in God's eyes, there were good people and bad people, and that God's judgment (if He ever judged) would certainly be determined by putting good deeds and bad deeds in the opposite side of a cosmic scale and checking the balance - in theological language, salvation by works. And since most people weren't outwardly Hitlers, we could deduce that our friends, at least, would be in The Good Place.

Not long after this discussion with my friend, I admitted that even *I* was a sinner and so I Accepted Christ As My Personal Savior. I didn't know anything about the theological distinction of Calvinist versus Arminian, but I was definitely Arminian in my thinking, assuming that there was some island of good inside people that could freely choose or reject salvation. I was very disturbed when I first encountered the idea that even faith is a gift, and that all people are spiritually dead, uninterested in and unable to choose salvation. This struck me, of course, as "unfair", and RC Sproul has said that this is one of the common modern misconceptions about God, which is exacerbated by our democratic mindset - we think that God should be an equal opportunity savior, which He obviously is not if salvation comes through a gift that not everyone receives.

As I pondered these questions, I remembered my own life and the fact that I was at one time a horrible blasphemer who hated God and His Son. I swore I would *never* be a Christian. So I had to admit that in my case, at least, something intrinsic needed to be completely rewired before I would ever admit that I was not morally good. Since I have always thought that people, despite their surface differences, are very much alike in that they all share the common human experience, it seemed safe to assume that if *I* wasn't good and righteous, then the rest of humanity probably shared that sorry distinction. And the Scriptures, as I studied them, seemed to insist that, indeed, there are none who are righteous, and none who seek after God. Although I would have always said I was seeking God and truth, my real search for these things came *after* I had believed, rather than being what led me to believe in the first place.

One of the most difficult hurdles to get around when you accept 1) that all are sinful and need salvation and 2) that everyone is not saved, is the question of WHY some are saved and others aren't. In our democratic thinking, this smacks of elitism, and we don't like that. But how often do we ask the opposite question, namely, "Why does God save anyone at all?" If all of us, worldwide, are dead in our trespasses and sins, what would be just is to let all of us perish. We cannot know why He chooses some rather than others, but we do know that it is nothing in the person that makes them more deserving of God's mercy.

Those of us who have been regenerated and tasted the sweetness of Christ need to remember that we are saved by grace, and be careful that we don't present ourselves as having somehow been more worthy of God's mercy than another. We are not to take our salvation for granted, but are always to be saying, "God have mercy on me, a sinner."

Open theism sounds like what happens when Arminianism, Humanism and Postmodernism have "a conversation" about theology with The Message in one hand and Lattes and Chardonnays in the other.  Emergent-C in your chai tea, anyone?  There's something going around, but [cough, cough] the church's immune system is too weak to fight it off...

As for inclusivism, our friend Arminian is at this party, too (he's invited everywhere because it would be "unloving" to leave him out). I normally don't socialize with him (though we used to be pals), but there's one thing we agree on.  All babies go to heaven.  Thinkling Jared helped me out here by saying that he believes God predestined all children who die (or something like that).  After all, Jesus said that to enter the kingdom of heaven, we need to be like a child...who is more like a child than an actual child?

"While we shun as poison the idea of the really contradictory, we embrace with passion the idea of the apparently contradictory." - Cornelius Van Til

"If embracing with passion the apparent contradictions of Scripture is the height of Christian humility, it follows that attempting to harmonize these apparent contradictions, that is, doing systematic theology, must be the apex of sinful arrogance and pride." - Sean Gerety, "The Evisceration of the Christian Faith," The Trinity Review, July/August 2005

I would be curious to see any VanTillian reactions to this article. As a highly interested observer of the Clark-CVT controversy who is not yet committed to either side (but is leaning, as you can probably tell, toward one), I'd prefer not to debate it directly right now. But if you know of anyone who has blogged about or written a response to Gerety's provocative article, please let me know. And feel free to make your own comments on it here; I'm just making the disclaimer so nobody thinks I'm game for an all-out VanTillian v. Clarkian battle. ;)

Link to us and you, too, can get "discovered" (once people discover us!).  Browsing through the stats, I found Wittingshire, co-authored by a husband and wife.  Amanda explains how LOTR came to be the theme of their blog, offering up Tolkien's own explanation of the ring of power as what led them to define it as  philosophical materialism (a.k.a. naturalism, which is the belief that the natural/physical/tangible world is all that exists, i.e. no spiritual world).  Read the post to see her argument and then come back to comment on this conclusion:

Did you catch that? Materialism (also known as naturalism) denies the existence of free will; that is, it takes away freedom. It says your will doesn't exist, that everything you do--every song or poem you write, every good deed you perform, every cruelty you inflict--is not a choice or a creative act, but is simply the inevitable result of causes over which you have no control.

Materialism says you are nothing but a puppet.

While I totally agree with her point about materialism, what struck me was how much this sounded like Calvinism (minus the God aspect, which I know is huge).  This is one reason I haven't fully embraced the Reformed view, though I lean toward it more than any other.  I keep having the sense that all theological explanations about God's sovereignty and our free will (or lack thereof) are incomplete and that the tension between those concepts will be dissolved when we shed this earthly existence.  C.S. Lewis helps me out here (it's only fitting to mention him in the same post with fellow inkling Tolkien):

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think... How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask - half our great theological and metaphysical problems - are like that. ~from A Grief Observed

(I googled for that quote and it ended up taking me to my own blog -- I love it when that happens!)

Perhaps one basis of the alleged incongruity between righteousness and intellectual activity is the notion that righteousness consists of a number of observable actions. That is to say, righteousness is supposed to consist in good works. Before the fall Adam was obligated to tend the garden. Had Adam and the race continued in the estate in which they were created, there would no doubt have been public worship on the Sabbath, and even the discharge of economic duties as the population and civilization increased. But these external actions, even before the fall, would not have exhausted righteousness. Righteousness also requires right thinking about God. The point is more clearly seen when we consider man's estate after the fall. His duties, in addition to public worship, now include ministering to the sick and unfortunate, restraining sin and crime, and to this end establishing civil government. But none of these external actions is righteous or pleases God, unless motivated by righteous thinking. It is the intellectual activity that makes the external action pleasing to God.

In an attempt to show the biblical relation between man and logic, Clark is addressing the pietistic objection to identifying God's image in man as largely consisting of rationality.

As some of you know, I about started WWIII when I blogged about feeling pressured by what has come to be known as "quiver full theology."  In essence, quiver full adherents believe the same thing about birth control as Catholics--that it's sinful because it interferes with the will of God.  Of course they hold a lot of other beliefs, too, but that is the underlying assumption.  I have been ruminating over QF since my initial post and have boiled it down to three areas (the sanctity of life, God's will and evangelism/"kingdom" building) that I want to address here on this blog...hopefully in the near future.  But in the meantime, something occurred to me that doesn't fit with anything that's been discussed or that I plan to discuss, so I posted it to my blog and I would like your feedback on that single aspect (not the whole BC/QF issue).  I'm not allowing comments on this post because I don't want to create two discussions. (no, this is not a cheap trick to get you to visit my blog, but while you're there, you're always welcome to poke around)

In the August 2005 issue of Christianity Today, Ashley Woodiwiss, an associate professor in the department of politics and international relations at Wheaton College, describes theological orthodoxy as a "massive theological project to reconstruct the way we talk about reality" and "targets the modern notion of the 'secular' as an autonomous realm of thought, word, and deed." These are words that, frankly, speak to my heart. Anything that can be done to reveal and refute the notion of autonomy is okely-dokely in my mind!

James K.A. Smith, of the Kuyperian Dutch Reformed tradition says:

Anyone who knows me at all knows that the subject of common ground between believers and unbelievers is a topic I take great interest in. My position is that believers and unbelievers lack epistemic common ground and so anything that looks like agreement on the surface is just that - on the surface.

So the article, Paul before the Areopagus: Reflections on the Apostle's Encounter with Cultured Paganism" in the current Philosophia Christi has obvious interest to me. J. Daryl Charles writes:

"Paul is not waxing dishonest in seeking to establish rapport with his audience; he is, however, using wisdom in bridge-building...A very conspicuous strategy in Paul's address is the movement from general to specific. The apostle moves in calculated fashion from general revelatoin (vv. 22-9), which serves as a bridge or common ground between believer and unbeliever, to special revelation..."

We know from Romans 1 that all men know about God, I'm not disputing what Scripture says man knows. I am questioning, however, whether appeals to general revelation are rightly categorized as "common ground" arguments. This is something I've been working to articulate for some time...as some attempt to engage culture with arguments from "common ground" and appeal to Paul's visit to the Areopagus as grounds for doing so, they must remember that Paul wasn't done with his argument until he preached the risen Christ - an obvious proclamation of special revelation.

All you �League of Reformed Blogger� types and other online covenant theologians are probably experiencing knee pain now as the sight of the foul term �dispensationalism� causes your knees to jerk upward and hit the top of your desk. Please, save your knees, relax, even take up TM if it helps you (just kidding).

For I am here to take a few jabs that the wooden literalism that dispensationalism can promote, especially in the interpretation of prophecy.

I used to go through mental contortions every time I realized that my tradition, my teachers had�gasp�flaws, mistakes, errors, and even inconsistencies in their thinking. Instead of moping and mourning, I�ve decided to indulge a certain sado-masochistic delight in jabbing myself and those in my camp. This is therapeutic for me. And much cheaper than psychotropic medications.

For some time I've been reflecting on the evolution of my faith by examining my view of Scripture during three periods: the years before I made my profession of faith in a Baptist church at age 12, then in the three more or less unchanged years following that, and finally in the past three years. Taking into consideration my apathy toward Scripture during those first two periods, I've judged that what I considered to be my "conversion experience" could not have been when it "happened," if we can speak in those terms at all. (R.C. Sproul, Jr., by the way, has recently written a thoughtful piece at his Squiblog that relates to this.) It took me a while to swallow the realization myself, so what I want to offer for consideration is my reasoning and the implications of such a conclusion.

Jeremy Pierce, a.k.a. Parableman, left a comment on a post on my blog that I thought constituted a worthy topic for Intellectuelle. Before I quote him, though, let me give you some background...

As many of you know, I've been challenging the validity of a "theology" known as "Quiver Full" that I discovered through the God blogosphere--the idea that married people are supposed to have as many children "as God allows" and that to use any form of family planning--artificial (non-abortifacient) or natural--is sinful because in a nutshell it's a) not trusting God; b) disregarding the sanctity of life; and c) failing to grow God's kingdom.

I haven't specifically addressed those issues yet because it took the preliminary discussions of QF theory (which is what I have come to call it instead of theology) for me to recognize and distill its foundation to those three premises.

I am not opposed to large families, but I don't see things as black-and-white as the QF camp and what got me started on this whole thing was the attitude that those who didn't subscribe to QF were in error...and even more importantly, sin. I approached this topic because of the condemning view QF takes against those who use family planning--that we are operating outside God's will, violating the sanctity of life and failing to raise up disciples to evangelize the world. Those are huge accusations to make against fellow believers. So my posts thus far have mainly been defensive rather than offensive.

In an article in the August 2005 issue of Christianity Today, Sam Torode reflects on his conversion to Orthodoxy. Essentially, the article focuses in on what makes Evangelicalism different from Orthodoxy and why Torode now sees more to "applaud than to disagree with." But there are some things that bother me about this piece, I only will focus on one at this time.

Torode lists 4 evangelical distinctives that he disagreed with when converting to Orthodoxy, though, he never says he agrees with them now:

1. Salvation is by faith alone, not works
2. The Bible is the standard for Christian doctrine and practice
3. Everyone needs a personal relationship with Jesus
4. "The church" means all Christians everywhere, and there is no "true" or "perfect" church this side of heaven.

Instead, what Torode does is endorse ambiguity. "I'm not arguing for relativism, but humility. Objective truth exists, but our human ability to discern it is limited. In fact, Truth is not a set of ideas - it's a person. We only know Truth as much as we know Christ."

This quote reminds me of my own fundamentalist roots where I often heard statements like this used to endorse anti-intellectualism.

I'm feeling a bit under the weather, so I am going to leave this entry in the hands of commenters.

With the recent hurricane devastation in the South, I'm sure a lot of people are wondering why such a thing occurs, and a lot of them cannot reconcile such great devastation, death and disorder with a Good God Who Is In Control. Often, people will answer this question by deciding that if there is a God, He is either not good, or not all powerful.

If an unbeliever asked you where God is in natural disasters, how would you answer? Would you give the same answer for tragedies that originate from human evil?

For those interested in what's going on in the emergent church community, September 15 begins "A New Kind of Conversation Blogging Toward a Postmodern Faith� with contributors Brian McLaren, Mabiala Kenzo, Bruce Ellis Benson, Ellen Haroutunian and Myron Bradley Penner.

"This blog-book will discuss what a postmodern evangelical faith looks like. The blog format will make it possible to allow you the reader, to participate in the writing of both the blog and the eventual published book to follow by Paternoster Press. Be a part of this experiment in conversation by adding your voice to the discussion. Sign-up to be notified when this project kicks off, or just check out the website.

"There is no evidence that Jesus even existed.�
�We have absolutely no credible evidence outside the Christian gospels that Jesus lived or died.�

Claims like these float around (see here), and sadly, I used to swallow them whole. I thought the Bible and Christian writings were the only ancient writings that mentioned Christ. Wrong! There are extra-biblical sources, both Jewish and pagan, that (a) mention the existence of Jesus Christ and (2) were written sufficiently close to the life of Christ to be historical credible.

Here's an example:

Pete is my RUF minister with an explosive laugh and contagious enthusiasm for "arguing," which is really his pet way of framing anything he's going to say: "This is what I'm arguing for." For an hour on Monday evenings, Pete "argues" with a perfectly obliging group of freshmen that the Bible is not a moral lesson, but a progressive revelation centering on Christ; with Christ thus established as the whole Word, he sounds out the syllables to us - all familiar sounds, but combining to form an incomprehensibly richer word than the one I have heard all my blessed Baptist life.

And I cannot help but wonder how life would have been different if sweet Miss Mary had been able to show me this in Sunday School ten years ago. It's not that I hold any true resentment against her or any of my teachers, though I joked about it last night. How could I? They weren't taught themselves that Genesis 22 isn't about making our own sacrifices for God. They weren't given a clue what those dastardly lists of unpronounceable names are doing in the Gospels, which are otherwise good and safe fodder for last-minute lessons. So with whom does the blame rest? Wrong question. The responsibility for repairing the damage certainly lies with me and the rest of the Church who are concerned with theological education, which shouldn't have to be a qualifier.

I'd hate to come off as the type of person who is always going on about "my passions" and "my burdens" as if they are the all-important goals that crowd out all others, even if I'm polite enough to pretend to hear out your ideas. But "what I'm arguing for" is simply that it should be our passion, our burden to educate the Church, and then we can begin to make up for the failure of the past, and then we can begin to deal with the relativistic mess we find ourselves in because of that failure.

Working on (read: blissfully devouring) my Latin vocabulary yesterday, I got to diligere, a verb that Wheelock defines as "to love, esteem highly; to choose." Well, that's a bit different than the derivative word in English, I thought, and the wheels started turning.

Paraphrased from Etymonline, the source that is to amateur linguists what Monergism is to amateur theologians (okay, or what the The Evangelical Outpost is to aspiring front-runners of the blogosphere):

diligence: from O.Fr. diligence "attention, care," from L. diligentia "attentiveness, carefulness," from diligentem (nom. diligens) "attentive, assiduous, careful," originally prp. of diligere "value highly, love, choose," from dis- "apart" + legere "choose, gather." Sense evolved from "love" through "attentiveness" to "carefulness" to "steady effort."

I'm going to take a risk and infer some things about human nature from the evolution of a word. (At least you can know that if my logic is flawed, the basic principles still hold true.) The word begins with yet another denotation of "love" and travels through "attentiveness" and "carefulness." This makes perfect sense connotatively, if you will: we know that all men have some ultimate goal in mind that commands their worship and directs their will. Whatever his highest end is, a man values anything that can get him there. Even a lazy man will pay close attention to the means by which he can attain his goal; some of the most evil men in history were obsessively detail-oriented.

It should be convicting to consider the ultimate end of a Christian's work. Within the context of an exhortation to servants in Colossians 3, Paul identifies it: "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." If the attentiveness and effort we put into our work is in accordance with the measure of our love for Christ, how can laziness, time-wasting and any form of slacking off be things to joke about? The place to begin in cultivating diligence, then, is not in driven attempts at self-discipline, but in cultivating a love for God and for his law. Unless we learn to "delight in [his] testimonies as much as in all riches," we cannot consistently uphold a work ethic that differentiates us from the world. In this way we enjoy the logical progression from loving and highly esteeming our Master to keeping up steady, careful effort in every work that he has prepared for us to do.

She messed with my blog. She's not that innocent!

In spite of my prior warnings, Annie Crawford at Chief Executive Mom has refused to listen or change her ways. Instead, she has taken her crimes one step further. She has not only plagiarized some of my thoughts but has now stolen and blogged my entire theology of God's sovereignty. It's rare that I read a post more than two words long which I fully agree with. This one is lengthy but describes exactly where I am. Just read God's Eternal Decrees and see what I mean!

If this continues, I might have to give up being a serious theology blogger and just focus on being really sarcastic.

I wrote the following heresy quiz to test your knowledge of early Church heresies. All of the following heresies relate to the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. I will reveal the answers after giving you an appropriate amount of time to consider your choices. Choosing the corrent answer may involves the ability to make suble distinctions between similar statements, so read carefully. Those of you who are brave may want to leave your answers in the comment box. Good luck!

Adoptionism:

(A) The philosophy that encourages adopting orphans
(B) The teaching that God �adopted� Jesus, who was a man, by the indwelling of logos, who is not a separate person from God the Father.
(C) The teaching that God adopts us as his children.

Dynamic Monarchianism:

(A) The teaching that a power from on high (i.e. �Christ� or �logos�) came upon the man Jesus and he became deity.
(B) The teaching that monarchs should be dynamic leaders.
(C) The teaching that Jesus was a butterfly.

Modalistic Monarchianism:

(A) The most frequently occurring value in the set of Monarchs
(B) The teaching that Monachs should be model leaders.
(C) The teaching that God the Father and God the Son are one without any distinction in person or essence; they are merely two different modes of the very same God.

Sabellianism:

(A) An new diet based on the cuisine of Sabellius, Italy.
(B) A musical style based on the works of Finnish composer Sibelius.
(C) The teachings of Sabellius that God metamorphosed himself as needed to be either the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit.

Unitarian Monarchianism:

(A) The teaching that Unitarian Church will one day rule the world.
(B) A secret religion founded by Thomas Jefferson and encoded in the Declaration of Independence.
(C) A Judaistic sect founded by Ebion that rejected the virgin birth and taught that Christ was a man born of Joseph and Mary who was destined to be the Messiah.

EXTRA CREDIT: Anyone who actually gets the subtle jokes embedded into this quiz automatically passes, even if all questions are answered incorrectly.

UPDATE: Yes, as some of you correctly guessed, the answers are (B), (A), (C), (C), (C). I was reviewing my church history notes from a class I took last year when this idea came to me. All of the heresies named above were real heresies that caused real controversy in the early church. The heresies named below, however, are different. Atlantic (who--to the best of my knowedge--doesn't have a blog) brought these to my attention in the comment section. Lest you miss them, I have exerpted her comment below.
I think what she wrote is even funnier than what I wrote! Thanks, Atlantic.'

"Meanist Monarchism
(A) The teaching that God is a mean monarch
(B) The view that ethical behaviour adheres to �the golden mean�
(C) The teaching that God is the arithmetic average of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (as distinct from Radical Monarchism, the teaching that God is the geometric average of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit)

Medianist Monarchism
(A) The spiritualist practice of attempting to contact monarchs through mediums
(B) Television, radio and internet coverage of butterflies
(C) The teaching that God is one of a set of supernatural beings, of which precisely half are too large for our universe, half are too small � so only God is just right.

Note that these heresies have strict classification systems for sins � some are within one standard deviation, some within two standard deviations, etc. � although different sects use different distributions. The most liberal ones use the �normal distribution� technique, in which all sins are considered excusable because they are �normal human nature� anyway. However, the stricter sects (who can often be identified by the fish decal on their automobiles) use the poisson distribution. "

Ever get asked tough questions? I have. One such question is below followed by my response. Having done my best, I'm not entirely conviced of the accuracy of my own response.

Explain how Matthew 15:21-28 illustrates the theological foundations for mission developed in the Old Testament.

Jesus� self-identity as the Messiah of Israel shows that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promises made specifically to Israel. His teaching and his ministry were directed primarily towards Israel, right in line with his self-identity. Yet, the missio Dei seen in the Old Testament is about more than the Israelites. It is about bringing salvation to the whole earth through the seed of Abraham. Jesus' life and teaching gives hints of the worldwide scope of the missio Dei.

This text of Matthew 15:21-28 can be quite a disturbing story to read for the first time�or even the fiftieth time. We love to think of Jesus as the embodiment of love and acceptance for all people, especially outcasts, but here it seems that Jesus demonstrates an embarrassing coldness and lack of concern for a Canaanite women and her demon-possessed daughter. Looking closer, however, we can see a few surprising things.

First, the woman appeals to Jesus as �Lord, Son of David.� David, of course, is the greatest of the Jewish kings and the one from whom the Jews expected the Messiah to come. How did this woman know anything about David, much less the Davidic messianic expectation? She must in some way have already come into contact with Jewish thought and perhaps even understood the Jesus was the promised one of David. She clearly had some grasp of Jesus� identity and the fact that she asked him for healing shows that she also knew of his ministry.

Second, it is important to note that Jesus� disciples were with him. Jesus was not alone, and thus his actions may well have been calculated to teach the disciples a lesson. This seems to be a helpful way to view the text. When, in v. 23, he refuses to answer the woman�s plea, his disciples grow impatient with the situation and urge him to send her away. Their attitude towards her is clearly one of callous disregard. But Jesus does not send her away. Instead, he voices to her the objection that no doubt was in the minds of the disciples��I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.� Probably the disciples were cheering in the background. When the women then kneels and restates her plea, Jesus says in a most insulting way, �It is not right to take the children�s bread and toss it to their dogs.� In essence, he says, �Why should I take what rightfully belongs to Israel and give it to you?�

The answer the woman gives is notable. "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. With humilty and boldness, she indicates that the Gentiles could share in the blessings given to Israel without detracting from Israel. This mindset is right in line with the promises of the Old Testament which indicate that the nations would share in the blessings of Israel.

And, in the end, Jesus does grant the woman�s request. Were his blunt statements to her designed to test and strengthen her faith or perhaps to teach his disciples something about the heart of God? I think it may be some of both.

I�ve been wrestling lately with what I understand to be the Calvinistic proposition that our salvation rests purely upon God�s predestination of our fate, i.e., our being chosen by Him either for glory or destruction, according to Romans chapter 9. Having not studied Calvinism thoroughly, I allow that I may not be understanding (or representing) it properly. But I have understood enough, I think, to raise some questions. Not all of them can be covered in a blog post, but I would like to raise a few aspects of them and get some feedback.

What I cannot reconcile is that being chosen equates with being predestined. A major sticking point for me is that God created (by choice, of course) Adam and Eve with the ability to choose between good and evil, and called that �good.� Or, did He predestine them to choose evil, and call that �good?� I don�t think that this can be gleaned from Genesis 2:17: �but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat [says the Lord], for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.� God must have made Adam and Eve with the capacity to obey, i.e., to choose to obey or to disobey, as well as to be deceived, as is written in Genesis 3:1-6.

Did mankind lose the ability to choose for himself between good and evil after the Fall? Was this part of the curse? Genesis 3 doesn�t say. In Genesis 6:5, however, the Lord observes that �every intent of the thoughts of [man�s] heart [is] only evil continually.� My question here is, does man�s depravity of heart necessarily mean that he lost his ability to choose between good and evil, or merely that he lost all desire (will) to choose good? So that, after God started over with Noah�s family and still their descendants continued man�s prideful legacy, He began showing His goodness to them in various ways so as to restore to their hearts some of that desire to choose good.

Perhaps if God has indeed continued to grant humankind the freedom, since the Fall, to choose good or evil, He also influences this choice to varying degrees as He, in His sovereignty, may. Perhaps it could be compared to the laws of nature � God has created (and sustains) the laws of nature but can (and does) suspend them, �supernaturally,� any time He chooses.

Now I realize that�s an oversimplification and all the serious theologians out there are rolling their eyes. But bear with me: there has to be a way to reconcile Romans 9 with passages that seem to indicate that we have a choice. For example:

Luke 13:3, 5 � Jesus� words to those who reported to Him that Pilate had mingled the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices, and asked whether these Galileans had perished because their sin was greater than other Galileans): �I tell you...unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.�

Jesus could merely have been speaking a truth, and could have qualified His statement by saying, �Unless God elects to call you so that you therefore repent, you will perish.� But He didn�t. His words seem to indicate that the persons to whom He was speaking had a choice in the matter. This is not to say that anyone can repent without being called by God, but surely someone can be called by God and choose not to repent, can they not? This would not mean that God is not sovereign, because He can change mens� (and women�s) minds if He so chooses. But what if He chooses, in His sovereignty, to allow people choice in the matter of receiving Him?

John 3:14-18 � Jesus says, �And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life. [Why didn�t He say here, �...that whoever is elected by God to receive His calling may have eternal life?�] For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.�

Acts 13:39-40 �...through Him (Jesus) everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses. Take heed, therefore, so that the think spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you: �Behold, you scoffers, and marvel, and perish; for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.�� (emphasis added)

Why would anyone need to be exhorted to take heed, if they had no choice in the matter?

Colossians 1:21-23 "And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach -- if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven..."

Hebrews 2:1-3 �For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the work spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience receives a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?� (emphasis added)

Hebrews 3:12-15 �Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called �Today,� lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end; while it is said, �Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.�� (emphasis added) (Those who came out of Egypt, led by Moses, hardened their hearts and were disobedient, which provoked the Lord.)

Titus 2:11-12 �For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.� (emphasis added)

What need is there to be instructed not to deny ungodliness unless it is indeed an option that we may choose?

Here�s what C. S. Lewis had to say about the fall of man:

According to [the doctrine of the Fall], man is now a horror to God and to himself and a creature ill-adapted to the universe not because God made him so but because he has made himself so by the use of his free will. To my mind this is the sole function of the doctrine. It exists to guard against two sub-Christian theories of the origin of evil � Monism, according to which God Himself, being �above good and evil,� produces impartially the effects to which we give those two names, and Dualism, according to which God produces good, while some equal and independent Power produces evil.

Against both these views Christianity asserts that God is good; that He made all things good and for the sake of their goodness; that one of the good things He made, namely, the free will of rational creatures, by its very nature included the possibility of evil; and that creatures, availing themselves of this possibility, have become evil. Now this function � which is the only one I allow to the doctrine of the Fall � must be distinguished from two other functions which it is sometimes, perhaps, represented as performing, but which I reject. In the first place, I do not think the doctrine answers the question, �Was it better for God to create than not to create?�...Since I believe God to be good, I am sure that, if the question has a meaning, the answer must be Yes. But I doubt whether the question has any meaning: and even if it has, I am sure that the answer cannot be attained by the sort of value judgments which men can significantly make. In the second place, I do not think the doctrine of the Fall can be used to show that it is �just,� in terms of retributive justice, to punish individuals for the faults of their remote ancestors. Some forms of the doctrine seem to involve this; but I question whether any of them, as understood by its exponents, really meant it.

.....It would, no doubt, have been possible to God to remove by miracle the results of the first sin committed by a human being; but this would not have been much good unless He was prepared to remove the results of the second sin, and of the third, and so on forever. If the miracles ceased, then sooner or later we might have reached our present lamentable situation: if they did not, then a world, thus continually underpropped and corrected by Divine interference, would have been a world in which nothing important ever depended on human choice, and in which choice itself would soon cease from the certainly that one of the apparent alternatives before you would lead to no results and was therefore not really an alternative. (emphasis added) The Joyful Christian, pp. 48-50.

Lewis is indicating here that the whole point of choice is that it bears consequence. That is the whole basis of morality. Here is the other problem I have in my (no doubt deficient) understanding of Calvinistically-understood predestination: if God is controlling the entire board, and man has been given no steam to run with on his own, how can he possibly be held accountable for his choices, the moral compunction for which lies in the result of a choice, i.e., it either promotes life, or death, spiritually-speaking? How can it be possible that the first two humans, Adam and Eve, had this type of choice, but, after making the wrong one, deprived the rest of humankind of the ability to choose for themselves forever?

It seems to me that we can still credit God with mercy, lovingkindness, longsuffering, and justice, and sovereignty if we allow that He allows us to choose between good and evil, the truth of which He Himself defines, except in some situations in which He may choose to override our choices. We can choose to be open to what He offers or to reject it. Otherwise, obedience has no meaning. If He can make us obey Him, as a general rule, then what point would there be in His demanding of us that which He chooses or denies for us anyway? Making us obey Him is not the same as causing us to obey Him. He can cause us to obey but we�ve still made the choice. If He makes us obey, though, then the choice is His, not ours.

We can choose to fear, or to act on our fear, or we can choose to put our fear aside and trust in God, based on a belief that He is Who He says He is and can do what He has demonstrated throughout history (including Biblical accounts) that He can do...can we not?

I've got a song* stuck in my head this afternoon that is only aggravating the mental train wreck occurring therein. In chapel (mandatory for all Baylor freshman; joyful obligation it is not) I heard this song, and it brought back not-so-fond memories of youth group church camps. That was only the sentimental reaction. Then I started listening to the words.

Big. Mistake.

Many men will drink the rain
And turn to thank the clouds
Many men will hear You speak
But they will never turn around

Well, true enough. This is a verdict realized all over Scripture. I'm curious, though, as to why we're singing so happily about the reprobate...

I will not forget You are my God, my King
And with a thankful heart I bring my offering
And my sacrifice is not what You can give
But what I alone can give to you

First of all, I know my memory too well to sing this first line with a clear conscience. But I know my weak stomach too well to think too hard about what follows - at this point, I am in serious danger of retching. What on earth (or perhaps under the earth) could we offer as an original gift to God? Does evil count as a gift?

A grateful heart I give, A thankful prayer I pray,
A wild dance I dance before you
A loud song I sing, A huge bell I ring,
A life of praise I live before You

Yes. Thank you, Jesus, for giving me the choice to choose you and live sinlessly forever after. And thank you for legs to dance so wildly. And this bell. Wow, what a great...bell. ?

Many men will pour their gold
And serve a thing that shines
Many men will read your Word
But they will never change their minds

Now I'm just confused. Again, why are we singing about people headed on the wide road to destruction? I thought semi-Pelagianism was all about love and acceptance and self-empowerment!

(chorus repeat)

Ohh, I see. The idea is contrast. Us = sharp, ever obedient, um, wild dancers. Them = pathetic, hopeless idolaters.

...now what, after all, is idolatry?

*(the song is "I Will Not Forget You," copyright Ben and Robin Pasley, 1999)

By sheer providential goodness, I've gotten a job as a sort of editorial apprentice in my school's academic press. The job is turning out to be even better than I had expected, and when you are constantly battling a neurotically idealistic Anne Shirley within, that's nothing less than a miracle. A couple of weeks ago I got to claim the first outstanding employee benefit: free access to the boss's library. Among all the hippest new works in higher criticism, an ugly duckling of a book stood out like a A New Kind of Christian on the bookshelf of yours truly (and so it stood for a time, but that's a long story): across a tattered, once-blue cover my widening eyes beheld A Reformation Debate: John Calvin & Jacobo Sadoleto.

Score.

To descend to the actual point of this essay-ette, the book consists of two letters, both written in 1539, after the fight between the civil authorities and the reformers (foremost at this point were Guillaume Farel and John Calvin) had erupted in Geneva, where many had adopted the Protestant reforms under the leadership of these two men. An Italian bishop ministering in southern France appealed on behalf of the Catholic church to his Genevan neighbors, pleading with them to return to the faith and lambasting the schismatic Frenchmen who had led them away from the Church. Calvin's letter is a defense of his ministry and his former parishioners (he had gone to Strasbourg to work with Martin Bucer by then) in three parts: first, an address to Sadoleto himself, and then two speeches he constructed--for himself and for his average parishioner--that he imagined being given before the tribunal of God on Judgment Day.

I�ve been reflecting lately on the influences that led to my becoming a Christian as well as on those that have informed my faith. These influences have, I would say, been largely evangelical with an emphasis on the experience of faith. By experience, however, I do not necessarily mean in the sense of �I experienced this wonderful, warm feeling that told me that God is really there.� I mean experience as in experiencing the changed life that results from an authentic belief in salvation through Jesus Christ. Personally, I would count readings in philosophy and theology as influential and as experiential as relationships or anything else I�ve experienced that have illuminated God�s reality and love to me. (I realize that my own conversion experience may or may not be similar to anyone else�s.)

As to just what constitutes experience, though, clearly any thought a person has ever had has been experienced just the same as any feeling that�s been experienced. An experience is something that happens to you.

The denomination of the church I belong to, the Evangelical Covenant Church, had its beginning among Swedes who were seeking an authentic faith as opposed to what was being offered by much of the state Lutheran church at the time. They sought to experience the new life in Christ rather than merely assent to dry doctrine that did not result in new life.

Now, doctrine ultimately should not be �dry,� of course, and ought not be considered doctrine unless it is indeed the truth that, once believed, results in new life. Truth is truth, this cannot be denied. But just what is truth? Is truth limited to that which can only be apprehended intellectually? Is true doctrine found only in thought? If doctrine is to apply to whole persons, as surely it must, then it must be found in affection as well. We are not merely minds, we are also hearts (feeling-entities). The Bible speaks of belief, which is an assent of both the heart and the mind (consent of the will). If one wants something to be true but cannot consent to it, then one doesn�t truly believe. If one thinks that something may be true but cannot sympathize or harmonize with it, then one doesn�t truly believe. Though truth certainly is not dependent upon someone believing it in order to actually be true, and though one can experience truth whether one assents, consents, or sympathizes with it or not, a person cannot experience salvation unless one assents, consents, and sympathizes with the gospel. Regarding Truth-with-a-capital-T (absolute truth), the redemptive and regenerative part of it cannot be and will not be experienced unless one consents and sympathizes. And if one does not consent/sympathize, then, because Truth is Truth, one will experience its damnation.

If proper doctrine is spoken but not lived and demonstrated by those speaking it, can it truly be taught by those speaking it? Can it truly be imparted? Can the Word of God by itself transform? I don�t believe so. Can God cause the Word of God to transform someone (via the Spirit) regardless of the example of the source? Yes, of course, but I wonder how often this actually happens. Persons who accept a teaching �out of context,� so to speak, are probably not as likely to accept Truth as they are a counterfeit or a sham (i.e., whatever is being represented). Or, more likely, they will not accept it at all. There is more that conveys the Truth than mere word. And there is more that prevents a person from accepting the Truth than mere hardness of heart on that person�s part. It may be a truly receptive heart that refuses to accept even a word of Truth that is not conveyed with the Spirit that witnesses to it (or if one has never had an experience that enables one to comprehend the Truth).

Whether or not consent to and sympathy for the gospel is wrought wholly by God is a matter of very serious debate among Christians today. I won�t argue it here. But I think that the debate ought to be viewed holistically.

Here�s my proposition: if doctrine is thought, then it must be feeling as well. If doctrine applies to the whole person, then it must encompass the Truth as it applies to feeling as well as to thought. One cannot have proper thought without proper affection, and vice-versa. What I mean by this is, salvation comes by the love of God that comes by God's love. Love is greater than both thought and feeling though it informs and illuminates both.

The Bible speaks often of �hardness of heart.� This refers to an unyielding will. The will encompasses both the mind and the heart � it must. The will cannot merely involve mind over feeling; if one chooses to do what is right in the eyes of God as far as one believes, then one is choosing an allegiance to God over an allegiance to something else, whether that something else is a feeling or a thought that is at odds with what is right in the eyes of God. Allegiance therefore involves the choosing of one affection over another, or one thought over another. As long as we are in this life and possessed of fallen humanity, we will always live with a conflict between our fallen-ness and the redemptive life that comes only from God through Christ and is given only by God. Anyone who denies this is denying reality. (Romans 7:14-25)

This conflict, therefore, is the experience of the one living by faith in God through Christ. This conflict is truth. Yet, praise God that, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we may also experience the truth of salvation and be delivered from the truth of condemnation and damnation.

The inestimably jolly blogger, Pastor David Wayne, is also consistently thoughtful, knowledgeable, and challenging in his writing.

Pastor Wayne recently expressed concern that his traffic might diminish while he is out of town, but he�s got nothing to worry about with his scheduled repostings of lots, and I mean lots, of good stuff. One post in particular, The Essence of the American Religion, hit on something I�ve been thinking about for awhile: the nature of the �God-love� that is preached throughout a large portion of American Evangelical Christianity.

Pastor Wayne uses a quote from Harold Bloom's book, The American Religion:

The essence of the American (religion) is the belief that God loves her or him, a conviction shared by nearly nine out of ten of us, according to a Gallup poll.

the core creed of American religion (American Christianity?) is "God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life.�

Truly, God's love is wonderful beyond imagination, but that is not the essence of Christianity, although many must think it is.

...in saying that the essence of American religion is the belief that God loves me, this would go a long way to explaining the state of American Christianity. In a country where so many claim to be Christians, maybe its the case that most of those believe in a God who is only half a god, or one quarter, or one tenth of a God. To believe in a God of love, without believing a God who is also holy, righteous, omnipotent, merciful, wrathful, omnicient, etc., is to believe in a dimunitive god. Thus we have a diminutive Christianity - a Christianity adhered to by millions yet which is grows more and more irrelevant in our day...

I responded to Pastor Wayne's post with this comment:

"God's love is seen on the cross, but it is His holiness and justice that come into the most vivid focus on the cross."

It is because of God�s love that He sent Jesus to minister and to die on the cross. Because of His love for us, He set up a way that His holiness and justice could be honored and satisfied without us having to pay the penalty required. What does love mean if not what God demonstrated in Jesus� sacrificial death on our behalf?

I think what�s important isn�t that we de-emphasize God�s love but that we make sure we understand and teach what that love really is. Many no doubt do misunderstand it but I don't think that means we shouldn't teach it.

While the facts of our degeneracy and sin are absolutely true, we also have been created (and are commanded) to love God completely and our neighbors as ourselves. Why would He command something of us that He didn't also create us to need to be "complete," or "whole"? (part of the imago dei) I think everyone deep-down wants to have a truly loving relationship with God* (though some Calvinists may disagree) and the only thing that makes this possible is Jesus' death and resurrection.

I think we'd be hard-pressed to make a case that people do not have a very deep desire to be loved by other people. I believe this is part of the way we were created. I likewise think we are hard-pressed to make a case that a person's greatest desire is not to be loved by and to love God (whether they realize it or not). However, a person is not capable of it without God's regeneration. God�s love, which we find by accepting His terms and obeying them, i.e., accepting His love, is that ultimate love.

He created us and saw that it was good. Does He love His creation? He must; He provides for and sustains it, etc. And then there�s John 3:16 � �For God so loved the world...�

*not just a �feel-good� relationship with Him

****

I�m wondering what others might have to say.

(I hope it�s OK to do this; to cop my own comment from someone else�s blog and quote them as well. Someone let me know if I�ve violated blog etiquette!)

�Where words are many, sin is not absent; but he who holds his tongue is wise.�

This is, I admit, a strange quote to choose as an opening for a post about submission. But I want to keep it in mind as I write. I am conscious that I am young; that my theology is developing; that I�ve already embarrassed myself enough in the past by trying to �educate� others with my great wisdom. So, my wish is that you would take my thoughts as reflecting where I am now in my journey to understand the Scripture�not as a rant against any who might disagree with me or an attempt to conjure up some kind of conspiracy theory.

Now, with those disclaimers in place, I want to go to Ephesians 5: 21-22. In most of your Bibles, you will find a heading �Husbands and Wives� dividing verse 21 and 22. And verse 22, of course, is usually translated like this: �Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord.� The Greek there is not difficult or ambiguous. The way most English translations render it is good enough. Well, except for one thing. There is no verb �submit� in the Greek "wives {submit} to your husbands. " This is not a matter (like the ending of Mark) where scholars debate whether or not the word is actually in the original texts. Everyone is in perfect agreement that the word �submit� is not in verse 22. Translated literally, the Greek says, �Wives to their own husbands as to the Lord.�

I meant to post this just before Holy Thursday�better late than never. I hope everyone here is having a wonderful and prayful Easter season.

Holy Thursday is the special commemoration of the Last Supper, which was a Passover meal. My husband is a Jewish Christian and we are both very interested in the Jewish roots of Christianity, so in our household, we have a Passover seder of sorts on Holy Thursday. This usually is close to the first night of Passover according to the Jewish rabbinical calendar � this year the first night of Passover was the Wednesday of Holy Week.

Writing about the universal message of Christianity, Chuck Colson writes:

"[Jim] added, 'Propositional truth is not the highest truth. Indeed, the highest truth is personal.' Like all statements that can lead us into error, those have the ring of truth. Of course, truth becomes relational when we come to Jesus, Truth himself. But our doing that isn't what makes it true. He is the truth whether or not we ever experience him....My experience is that most mainstream evangelicals are so steeped in the experiential gospel that they never think about truth propositionally. (Barna found while 63 percent of Americans do not believe in truth, 53 percent of evangelicals don't either.)"

Colson is writing specifically about the Emerging Church, but he puts his finger on a problem that has its roots are in the broader spectrum of modern Christendom.

A major shift seemed to have occurred in the early 70s with the Jesus Movement. Reacting to what seemed (an in some cases no doubt was) stale, empty religious practice, Christians began putting an emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus. While this is an important balance, since then the message often offered by Christians seems to be much more subjective than objective.

A personal relationship with Jesus does matter. And personal experience adds a dimension to the truth that is unique. But too often the appeal seems to be primarily or even wholly subjective. And that plays into the relativism and pluralism of the age.

The Gospel message is an objective statement about our sinful state and broken relationship with God, and the offer is also an objective one: We can be reconciled to God only through His Son. The objective facts make the subjective relationship possible. The two sides cannot be reversed because a personal relationship with God is predicated on reconciliation only Jesus makes possible. There is no other way.

And the objective facts are an anchor that ensures perseverance. Feelings are fleeting and we may not always or rarely feel close to Jesus. Jesus doesn't always make life better - Hebrews says God will discipline His children and Peter warns us of testing. Subjectively, life doesn't always feel better with God; but objectively we are better off because of what we know to be true.

The Christian life can be subjectively full when a personal relationship with Jesus is fulfilling. Our relationship with Jesus is based on a state of reconciliation with God, and that's objectively true even when it doesn't seem so subjectively.

Jim Tonkowich puts his finger on the real issue motivating the doctrinal and policy disagreements we've witnessed most recently in the national conventions of the Episcopal and Presbyterian U.S.A. churches. "It is the underlying understanding of truth, and how we know it."

"The left--also known as progressives, liberals, revisionists, and (in some circles) heretics--base their convictions on individualism, subjectivity, and majority vote with passing references to Scripture and creeds. The right--also known as traditionalists, conservatives, evangelicals, and orthodox (not necessarily said as a compliment)--insist on submission to the authority of the Bible and of historic confessions, regardless of contemporary preferences. It is this division that makes the conflict between the two sides so rancorous. Compromise on issues is possible. Compromise on the fundamental questions of truth and authority is not....

"No one informed these undoubtedly well-meaning people that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."...In contrast to Christians through the ages, the denominational left has substituted sentiments for facts, passions for authority, and subjectivity for reason. Their belief seems to be that if they "create space for dialogue" it will allow them to emote and vote with the result that a simple majority determines the new revised standard version of God's truth and will."

Jim points out that the same problem may be closer to home than you think even if you don't belong to one of these denominations. The same crisis of truth and authority motivates much of the emerging church discussion.

"Emerging or post-modern church leaders insist that truth is relational and must be experienced. I agree, but to leave it there is to fall into the same subjectivist error in which the mainline/old-line denominations are mired. The traditional Christian understanding is that truth is true even if it is not experienced. It is true objectively and absolutely. This is an assertion for which modern people have little patience....

" ...The current breakdown in the Episcopal church is the natural result of this crisis in authority and truth."

Just to throw in a couple of cents from my thoughts on the discussion about what "evangelical" means. I don't even know anymore what specifically it means when someone uses it. It used to be a fairly defined word, as Bonnie identifies with denominations of a certain confessional bent. I think it's rarely used very specifically anymore.

"Christian" doesn't seem to be enough of a description anymore. Since the 70s, some Christians feel it necessary to distinguish themselves as "born again" Christians as opposed to "Christian." It's not used as much anymore, but it seems to indicate a Christian who had a conversion experience and takes their faith seriously. The "Jesus movement" generation felt it important to distinguish themselves from the dead, traditional Christians. As someone who was born-again without a memorable conversion experience, and who developed a deep relationship with Jesus from my childhood in a Lutheran church, I always felt this a bit unfair. Though I saw the point. "Evangelical" seems to be the latest term for a serious Christian or one who thinks it's really true.

There certainly are people who call themselves Christian who mean something very different than what I would mean when I say I'm a Christian. I think the Bible is true and God's Word. I think Jesus really rose from the dead. And I think there is a real Heaven and Hell. You can't take that for granted anymore when someone says they're a Christian. Thus the unfortunate need to qualify what "Christian" means.

I also think that the increased use of the qualifier "evangelical" is a result of our post-denominational trend. Many churches are non-denominational and many others belong to a denomination that they don't advertise very prominently. There's a move beyond denominations, which I don't think is very healthy in general because of confessions of faith have a tendency to become less specific. And Christians tend to be less well-educated in the faith. But without the specific description of a denomination that identifies a Christian's doctrinal beliefs, "evangelical" becomes a decent catch-all to provide a general sense of what a Christian believes.

I think these trends requiring qualification of "Christian" are unfortunate. And I'm always frustrated with terms that are vague, and "evangelical" is that kind of term. It narrows the field, but is often used in very different ways.

Gallup, along with Baylor University, has released the first analysis of another new survey (see the Pew Poll I mentioned yesterday). This one strikes me as very informative because it was more specific in the questions asked.

An issue brought out in the survey relatant to a discussion here is that the term "evangelical" means very little to people. I think that's because it's very vague and means different things to different people. Instead, Christians use more specific terms to refer to their Christianity: Bible-believing or born-again. Those are terms that have meaning.

The most helpful question the poll posed to people was what their view of God is. It didn't presume that belief is God means everyone who believes in God is similar. The poll allowed people to identify one of four general descriptions of God they believed in: the Authoritarian God, the Benevolent God, the Critical God, and the Distant God. As described in the article, I'd still have a hard time choosing between the first two categories and don't feel comfortable with either description as offered. But what this demonstrated in the poll is that people's view of God influences their religious practice and their values and political views. That's fairly obvious, but I don't recall another poll that recognized this.

Predictably, those who tend to believe we are accountable to God and that He is involved in our world also have more objective moral views and conservative political opinions. Those who believe God is distant or we aren't accountable to Him tend to be more relative in their values and liberal of libertarian in their political views. That makes perfect sense to me. People's religious worldviews are influencing their other viewpoints, and whether or not we're account to God is very significant in influencing those views.

Friday was the feast most commonly known as Michaelmas – now the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, Archangels, in the Catholic liturgical calendar. It used to be a holy day of obligation and often celebrated with a feast of Michaelmas goose, but this isn't commonly done anymore, which I think is a shame.

Angel, of course, originally means just “messenger”, but has come to hold the special meaning of the beings of pure spirit created by God and often appearing as His messengers in Scripture. (Fallen angels exist as well, of course, but are not usually referred to as ‘angels' in an unqualified manner.)

Obviously, a lot of what is found in popular culture about angels is quite wrong. Angels are not fluffy winged creatures (fat and cherubic or otherwise), and while they are perfectly good, it's no accident that they the first thing that angels often say to men is “Do not be afraid!” I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis's fictional encounter with an eldil-angel in Perelandra in which “My fear was now of another kind. I felt sure that the creature was what we call ‘good', but I wasn't sure whether I liked ‘goodness' as much as I had supposed. This is a very terrible experience. As long as what you are afraid is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that is also dreadful?”

(If you’re tired of this by now, read no further)

These comments are in response to the blogosphere mainly, or, more specifically, to the section of the blogosphere I read, because that is where most my observations have been made.

1) I’ve read statements to the effect that, without God’s saving grace we all deserve to go the way of the abject sinner, which is to say, we are all Ted Haggards in heart.

While I agree with the first part I don't believe the second part is true. I believe we do have some control over whether or not we succumb to our sinful tendencies, after we accept the truth of the gospel. I believe God makes available choices and means by which we can avoid some sin. Oftentimes, though, we turn from these. I know I do. I get lazy. I coddle myself, and this breeds a habit of spiritual laziness and bad habits of thought. The consequences of this usually serve as a warning, though, and I make some changes. I see the price that is or will be paid for my errors, and that is usually enough to wake me up. Sometimes it takes awhile, and the squeeze has to be pretty tight before I’ll do anything. But still, I thank God daily for His care of me (and those around me) in this way.

2) I read a statement to the effect that we cannot be prideful over Haggard’s fall because the only reason we’re at all saved or conquerors of our own disgraceful sin is because of God’s grace. We can’t say, “I’m not as bad as Haggard because I don’t sin that badly.”

I think there’s a fallacy here, and it is not that there are degrees of sin, but that we distinguish between degrees of sin wrongly. Yes, some sins are more outwardly destructive than others, but I know from personal experience that subtle sins – even those that look “good” on the outside – can have devastating consequences for both those who sin in this way and the ones whom these sins affect.

Also, if there is no reward for doing good; if the good is all of God and noneof us, then why are we told to run the race here on earth, looking to heaven and not to man, and to look for our reward in heaven? We will all be held accountable and rewarded according to our actions. I’m not looking forward to that, actually, because I fear I do and have done a lot more that’s not deserving of reward than I have done that is! Not that I’m trying to keep my own account, because that’s rather impossible and a waste of time. But I think that the credit God gets is that, without Him and all the means He makes available, we would be unable to conquer even the tiniest sin on our own. He made everything, anyway, which is why in Him we live and breathe and have our being. And we love because He first loved us.

Therefore, any bragging about what awful sinners we really are except for the grace of God – in essence bragging that we are as bad as Ted Haggard except for the grace of God – is of no use. Each of us is responsible for our own selves before God, so any sort of comparison is prideful. (And yes, I am guilty of this as well!) At the same time, any sin is that which separates us from God and brings down those around us and we are accountable for it.

We must also distinguish, perhaps, between salvation in Christ and perfection in salvation – what might be referred to as salvation as distinguished from sanctification. If it’s true that we have no choice over our own salvation, we certainly do have some choice concerning our own sanctification.

3) Many bloggers I’ve read have said that they’d never heard of Ted Haggard before, and one (can’t remember who) said that he believed that probably 95% of us haven’t.

I wonder, though, why that would be, and what it means. Does it mean that Haggard was really of no consequence? Or does it mean that, even in this Age of Information, we are still limited in our awareness by the spheres we live in? Can we help it that we live in such a limited awareness? Probably not. But I don’t think we should assume that we’re aware of more that’s important than we really are (I am guilty of this too), as much as we can help it...this again is pride. Whether pride in our own knowledge or in the technological capacities we have, it’s still pride – the pride of man.

If Haggard was not of consequence because of his erring theology (Pelagian, perhaps, whether he knew of it as that or not), yet he was of consequence because of his promulgation of errant theology, then he really is of consequence as a brother and leader and therefore deserves our loving aid and correction rather than our judgment for his errant theology.

4) Theology is very important, and is surely not taught as it should be. But I don’t think this means that it is not taught as much as it should be, for it is taught al