John H Armstrong

The New Calvinism

A recent TIME (March 21, 2009) magazine cover story caught a lot of attention, especially among evangelical Christians. Right alongside of ideas like "Ecological Intelligence," "Africa: Open for Business" and "Reinventing the Highway" was "The New Calvinism." This short article, written by David Van Biema, the senior religion editor for TIME, is both insightful and simplistic. It is insightful because he tracks a movement that is gaining a measure of momentum. It is simplistic because the brevity of the piece doesn't allow for any serious interaction with the "ideas" that are explored. Biema writes:

If you really want to follow the development of conservative Christianity, track its musical hits. In the early 1900s you might have heard "The Old Rugged Cross," a celebration of the atonement. By the 1980s you could have shared the Jesus-is-my-buddy intimacy of "Shine, Jesus, Shine." And today, more and more top songs feature a God who is very big, while we are . . . well, hark the David Crowder Band: "I am full of earth/ You are heaven's worth/ I am stained with dirt/ Prone to depravity."

As popular as the David Crowder Band is, at least with some young Christians, I seriously doubt that we should equate the popularity of a little known band with "an idea that is changing the world right now." Van Biema then writes:

Calvinism is back, and not just musically. John Calvin's 16th-century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.

This stereotypical representation of Calvinism is, at the very best, a "half-truth." With a name like Van Biema I would have thought the senior religion editor at TIME could have done better. (I wonder if he has a background in one of the Reformed denominations?) But this paragraph really sells the article, and thus makes it all the more interesting for many readers. The truth of American (and Dutch) Calvinism is, however, far more nuanced than this short paragraph expresses. The last line is most definitely not faithful to the confessional realities of historical Calvinism but rather to the common and popular misunderstandings of the doctrinal system this label represents. This paragraph plainly equates Calvinism with fatalism, not with wholistic and healthy Reformed confessionalism. If I was required to believe what Van Biema calls Calvinism I would drop the label in a heartbeat. (This article seriously raises the problem with all these labels in general, thus it is one reason why I do not generally use them. Regular readers know why I do not like the pop-religious labels commonly employed in our culture; "evangelicalism," "Calvinism," "emergent," etc.)

Van Biema recovers some balance in this short piece when he concludes:

Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by "glorifying" him. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism.

The best part of this story occurs in the actual reporting that Van Biema does. His short analysis of the movement of "neo-Calvinism" is, well, quite brilliant. Here is what he writes:

Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don't operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today, "everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world" — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle's pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom's hottest links.

The article quotes Southern Baptist Seminary president Albert Mohler, an older leader among the younger neo-Calvinists: "The moment someone begins to define God's [being or actions] biblically, that person is drawn to conclusions that are traditionally classified as Calvinist." (Really? If this were so why then do so many with a genuinely classical and high view of God, such as Roman Catholics and the Orthodox, not embrace what we call Calvinism?) Van Biema then gets to the heart of this neo-Calvinist resurgence when he adds:

Of course, that presumption of inevitability has drawn accusations of arrogance and divisiveness since Calvin's time. Indeed, some of today's enthusiasts imply that non-Calvinists may actually not be Christians. Skirmishes among the Southern Baptists (who have a competing non-Calvinist camp) and online "flame wars" bode badly.

The irony here is that John Calvin was not arrogant or divisive, at least in the way so many neo-Calvinists are. John Calvin was a rather shy, retiring and generally reticent man. The real John Calvin is a lot more interesting, warts and all, than the popular neo-Calvinist stereotypes. And those who call themselves Calvinists have always been of several types (Dutch, Swiss, French, Anglican, Scottish and American Presbyterian, American and English Puritan, Edwardsian, etc.) some fitting the portrait of these modern neo-Calvinists and some, like me, mortified by this description. (Again, the labels just don't help much when the truth is much more interesting!)

Take a much-maligned modern biblical scholar like N. T. Wright and consider my point. Wright is not a neo-Calvinist by anyone's account. Yet his exegetical and biblical work is as indebted to John Calvin (in a broad and positive sense) as any major academic New Testament scholar today. My friend Scot McKnight, who is not a Calvinist, writes of N.T. Wright's new book, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision (SPCK): "Tom Wright has out-Reformed America's newest religious zealots---the neo-Reformed---by taking them back to Scripture and to its meaning in its historical context. Wright reveals that the neo-Reformed are more committed to Tradition than to the Sacred Text. This irony is palpable on every page of this judicious, hard-hitting, respectful study."

You ask, "What is Wright saying and doing in this new book that Scot McKnight, a non-Calvinist, would praise so warmly?" Answer: He is correcting the neo-Reformed movement regarding its reading of a major biblical doctrine. He is particularly correcting John Piper's treatment of justification, which is one of weaker efforts to prop up ideas that are not a part of Paul's first-century context or the full biblical narrative, which has to include Genesis 15 and Deuteronomy 27-30 in the background to understand what Paul is saying in Romans and Galatians. (Piper began this rhetorical battle by writing The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright (Crossway, 2007). Piper's book, widely praised by a who's who list of the very neo-Calvinists that Van Biema's research mentions (and assumes), is so severely flawed that it staggers me to think credible people are actually excited about it. (I will write more about this issue in future blogs but my reason for citing Scot McKnight's endorsement is to show that there is a wide berth between these neo-Calvinists and those of us who are often attacked by these neo-Calvinists as non-Calvinists. The neo-Calvinists think we, many of us Reformed ministers and theologians, are not "Reformed enough." Some even think that we are dangerous because we do not say exactly what they say about justification, predestination and the church.

The bottom line here is that Van Biema has captured the rise of what I prefer to call "neo-Puritanism," not "neo-Calvinism." The movement that is represented by names mentioned in articles like this one, and popular books like that of Collin Hansen, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists (Crossway, 2008), represents a very small slice of what is dubbed neo-Calvinism by religion writers and proponents alike.

Because this movement is driven by neo-Puritanism it has all the marks of previous Puritan movements without a great deal of the maturity and the historical context of the times in which these movements evolved spiritually. I am not, as some will know, an anti-Puritan. But I spent more than twenty-five years of my life within this neo-Calvinist American movement. At times I feel like these years of my life (between about age 25 and 50) so profoundly colored my thinking and living that they robbed me of spiritual fruitfulness and deep joy. I now enjoy such peace, assurance and joy that I wonder how I ever got into this kind of Calvinism.

Please read my words very carefully. I am not accusing specific people in this movement, many of whom remain my friends, of malignity or bad motives. I am not suggesting that I am, because of my own journey over the last decade, superior to them in any personal sense. My critics sometimes charge, on this blog and elsewhere, that my disagreements with neo-Calvinism sound this way. If so, please forgive me. I am simply attempting to be honest with myself while I am also trying to be critical in the most honest and helpful way that I know. Criticism of movements and leaders, done respectfully and carefully, is always right. Ad hominem and malicious character attacks are always sinful and wrong! If you want to see how this works I plead with you to read N. T. Wright's response to John Piper. He devastates Piper's arguments without turning against the man, which would have been so easy to do given how Piper wrote about him. (This book will be available in an American edition, from Inter Varsity Press, in May and can be pre-ordered on Amazon.) The simple fact is this: the majority of those who side with John Piper, and those who endorse his book, will very likely never read Wright's book. This is tragic since they will never rightly get the sense of this important pastoral and practical debate.

In discovering the catholicity of the Christian Church I was personally delivered from this strange mix of modernity and Puritanism that fostered deep personal doubt. (I was led to believe that it was a good thing to "doubt" God's grace in my life on a rather regular basis.) This mix of modernity and Puritanism gave me a deep angst toward much of evangelical Christianity. I developed a latent hostility toward all things mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox. I would never say it, but the truth is this: I felt like I was among the elect (when I wasn't led to doubt this sweet truth of comfort and assurance), the elite and the truly faithful. I was a Marine for the kingdom and everyone else, at their best, was not quite as sold-out, faithful and radical as me. I have come to believe that this type of arrogance is actually rooted in the theology and preaching of neo-Calvinism, or a mixture of modernity and Puritanism.

Van Biema ended his little article in TIME by writing:

Calvin's 500th birthday will be this July. It will be interesting to see whether Calvin's latest legacy will be classic Protestant backbiting or whether, during these hard times, more Christians searching for security will submit their wills to the austerely demanding God of their country's infancy.

That is a brilliant conclusion. "Classic Protestant backbiting" is precisely what neo-Calvinism is creating. Look at the divisions in the Southern Baptist Convention and you will see my point. (I have watched this movement for neo-Calvinism from its infancy. I personally attended the first meeting (and several more the years following) of the group that started this effort back in the 1980s. I personally knew the founder who dreamed up the idea of recovering Calvinism in the SBC and then spread the "doctrines of grace" very widely. He is now with the Lord.) Look at the quarrels between these neo-Calvinists and the various strands of emergent (and emerging) Christianity. I was also involved in the various "gospel" recovery groups which were begun, now creating large gatherings of folk who believe they are the people who are preaching and recovering the "biblical gospel." When I was involved back in the mid-1990s it was decided early on that Arminians (Wesleyans, Methodists, Pentecostals, etc.) were not welcome, along with all other Christians who were not Calvinists or Lutherans. It fascinates me now, looking back with hindsight, how these movements sought to unite conservative Lutherans and conservative Calvinists  in a growing alliance. This has not worked so well thus neo-Calvinism has no appeal to real Lutherans, rightly so. Historically these two groups were, and in some ways still are, fiercely divided! I guess if your target group is "popular" evangelicalism then you can try to unite in a common fight. It does sell books and create alliances for a new brand of evangelicalism marketed as the "old" brand.

What I personally hope and pray for is the recovery of the richer, fuller and more mature thought of John Calvin, without the neo-Puritan edges that are commonly used to present "an austerely demanding God," the God who was preached by most of the early American Puritans. Neo-Calvinism goes wrong precisely because in trying to find a God who is not too small, a truly worthy goal, it creates a church that is too small. More about this later, especially when my book, Your Church Is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ's Mission Is Vital to the Future of the Church, is published in early 2010 by Zondervan. If you want to read a few snippets of the material that will appear in this book check out my ACT 3 Weekly articles from the last few months of 2008. They are now archived as articles and podcasts at ACT 3 online.

 

 

  

Why Politics Matters Deeply and Why Politics Is Sometimes Dirty Rotten Business

Last week I watched two very interesting DVD accounts of political lives. I was struck by how important politics is, on the one hand, and why the whole business stinks on the other.

The first DVD I watched was a 90-minute History Channel documentary titled: "The True Story of Charlie Wilson." Charlie Wilson was the Texas Republican Congressman whose story was made into the popular Hollywood movie, Charlie Wilson's War, in 2008. The documentary was obviously not as fast moving and dramatic as the movie but it had a lot more interesting information than the movie. (I saw the movie last year and enjoyed it.)

Charlie Wilson was a hard drinking, hard living playboy who was drawn to partner with Gus Avrakotos, a CIA agent nicknamed "Dr. Dirty." The two of them would mastermind, over the course of ten years, to arm the Afghan Mujahideen in their war with the Soviet Union. Together these two men created the largest and most successful CIA campaign in history. One could say, and not exaggerate the facts at all, that the two of them, not Ronald Reagan, brought down the Soviet Empire. (Reagan did help them toward the end of their effort.)

This was an unorthodox alliance if where ever was one. Arming the "freedom fighters" with high-tech stinger missiles was the knock-out punch (President Reagan approved it) that finished the Red Army and sent them home in utter defeat. This was the beginning of the end for the Soviets. But at what price did we help the Afghan fighters win this war? We left Afghanistan after the military campaign was over, as we have sometimes left other countries. The besieged nation then became a staging ground for terrorism in the pre-9/11 world. We now know that this created the very problem that we face in Afghanistan today. "The True Story of Charlie Wilson" will plainly show you why politics really matters in the real world of life and death. But it will also show how deals are made and who makes them, thus politics often stinks!

The second DVD I watched was the 1997 TNT mini-series on the late George C. Wallace, who served four different terms as the governor of Alabama. This made-for-television series was an award winning film starring Gary Sinise, who plays Wallace brilliantly. It also stars Angelina Jolie, in one of her earliest big roles, as Wallace's second wife, Cornelia. Mixing real historical television scenes with Sinise acting as Governor Wallace is done in a deft and effective way. Wallace is rightly pictured as a driven, politically shrewd and power-hungry man. I have to admit I disliked Wallace with a passion. I was at the University of Alabama just a few years after he stood in the door of the Foster Auditorium to prohibit two black students from registering. (The National Guard was federalized and the governor was removed!)

What I had forgotten was how Wallace, initially more liberal and progressive in his views, took the "race card" when the Klan offered it to him and became an ardent, angry segregationist. He bitterly fought the Civil Rights Movement for several decades and might have been the nominee for president of the Democratic Part in 1972 had he not been shot five times in a Laurel, Maryland, shopping mall where he was campaigning. But I also forgotten that Wallace, after he had been shot and lived with pain every day of his life, made a very public profession of faith in Christ and went to specific black people in Montgomery to confess his sins and seek their forgiveness. In his fourth term as governor, in the late 1980s, Wallace did more to advance Civil Rights than any previous Alabama governor. In the film version of his story the hymn Amazing Grace is used after Wallace appears in a black church service to ask forgiveness. It is very moving stuff. I was again struck by this thought: Politics is necessary and politics really matters to the well-being of many people and the protection of their basic civil rights. But politics is messy precisely because angry, self-serving, needy people run for office in order to pursue their own power and personal agenda.

So politics is necessary. In fact, Christians should not flee politics or hate this part of the created order. We need righteous men and women to serve us as citizens. Sadly, too few do. And as a result the people suffer. But no matter how you cut it there is often a rotten side to politics because people sometimes do rotten things. This means you can never solve the deepest human problems through politics alone. These are two very good DVDs. I found them in my public library and enjoyed them both. They reminded me of what can be done, and what cannot be done, through politics.

Your Church Is Too Small

Many of you have prayed for me as I wrote a book telling my own story and explaining what I mean by missional-ecumenism. That book was completed last November, at least the draft was finished. I then gave it to Zondervan, my publisher. After several delays the book was put into the production schedule and will be released in February of 2010 if all stays on track.

When a book is accepted by most publishing companies a process begins that includes choosing a title and subtitle, creating art work for front and back of the book, and doing macro-edits and then micro-edits. The process takes several months. Then the marketing and sales people also get involved. I will personally be very proactive in the work on this book, even meeting with the staff at Zondervan on Monday, April 6, for a private time of dialogue and planning.

Last week the final title for the book was chosen after a process of discussion between me and several editors at Zondervan. The final title is: Your Church Is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ's Mission Is Vital to the Future of the Church. I am very pleased with this choice and believe it accurately reflects the passion of the author.

Pray for the next steps in this process. The designer is working on three looks for the cover. I will interact with this process. Then we will make some decisions about the content and about who might endorse the book. We will also work on various markets. Who might buy the book and why? How might other ministries use it and which ones should we contact? The process, including my writing, will be about 30 months in all.

A Lunch With Visionary Pastors

One part of my ministry is the privilege of meeting with pastors, both one-on-one, and in small groups. On Thursday, March 19, I had a lovely luncheon with six pastors in Rockford, Illinois. Rockford is a city of 150,000 people located about 75 miles northwest of my home. I was the invited guest of co-pastors Bill Ward (photo at left) and David Smazik (photo at right)  at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Rockford. David and Bill have been friends for several years and Westminster is a congregation that supports ACT 3 in its budget. Over the past few years David, Bill and I have talked about gathering a small group of mainline Protestant ministers who share the same kingdom values, doctrinal orthodoxy and vision for the church. Finally, last week, the meeting happened.

The pastors who joined us included another pastor from Westminster, Brad Rogers, plus three senior pastors from growing and vibrant churches in the city of Rockford. These included a United Methodist Church pastor, an Evangelical Lutheran (ELCA) pastor and an African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) pastor. The seven of us spent time sharing, listening and discussing the state of the church. We talked about what our responsibility is as leaders in the present moment in which we live and lead the church.

For those who still think nothing good ever comes from mainline Protestant churches I wish you could have heard what these pastors shared with one another and seen the mutual love they had for one another and the kingdom of God in Rockford. Their churches are alive and well! Their vision is solid and their churches are profoundly faithful to the gospel of the kingdom in a balanced way. Each pastor has a keen missional vision joined with an ecumenical spirit. They all embrace "mere Christianity" and each openly wants to help people love Jesus more deeply.

Another blessing I enjoyed was seeing how this concept of co-pastors (both Bill and David share the so-called senior pastor role equally) not only can work but it can work very well. I have always wondered why so few pastors are willing to try this approach and when they do so few seem to actually pull it off. I think the primary reason is not that the church itself will not accept this model but that so few pastors can work together in humility in this way. If I am right about this it is a pretty sad commentary on the state of pastoral humility in our time. Bill Ward and Dave Smazik have both shown me time and time again how two talented and God-called men can work together in a way that shows honor and love for each other and serves the greater good of a growing and effective congregation.

One deep impression that I formed in meeting with these six pastors was that there is much more in common when ministers like this share a kingdom perspective and vision than when ministers are simply bound by denominational connections. Each of these pastors probably found more in common with each other in the room we were gathered in last week than they often do in their own denominational settings. This underscores my vision of missional-ecumenism. It is not an ecumenism of ideas so much as one of a shared vision of the kingdom and the gospel of Christ. I look forward to meeting with these pastors again in June.

If you live in the Rockford area ACT 3 will do one of our Saturday Breakfast meetings at Westminster Presbyterian on May 16 at 8:30 a.m. I hope some of you will come. Check our Web site for information.

The Emerging Church: Can We Talk?

Since the late 1990s a conversation has been going on about the emergent church. Opinions and reactions range from one end of a broad spectrum to another. Personally, I have longed to see someone deal with these issues fairly from the perspective of a deep commitment to the ancient Christian faith. Now this has been done. A good friend, Dr. Jim Belcher, has written the book I will recommend to many: Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (IVP). This fine book will be out later this year.

The late Robert Webber spent considerable time among the leaders of the emergent discussion. Many found him to be a friend to those who were seeking for new ways to relate the gospel to our time. Yet these leaders never really heard the true passion of Bob, who once said to me, "John, I fear this is a huge reaction against traditional conservative evangelicalism without a serious foundation consciously rooted in the ancient Christian faith." I believe Bob was right. Emergent has been primarily about a reaction. Unless this movement embraces "mere" Christianity very seriously it will come to very little over time.

Defining emergent Christianity is notoriously difficult. Much like the Jesus Movement in the 1960s, which touched my life powerfully, and then the Church Growth Movement in the 1970s and 1980s, a movement I studied directly under the leading voices of that time (which led me to plant a church), this new movement has representatives of all sorts. Some are moving toward theological positions that are remarkably close to old liberalism while others are still quite conservative in their theological beliefs. Postmodernism impacts all of this but few of the emergents I know are "hard" postmodernists.

Even the use of the term "emergent" is suspect. Who is and is not emergent? I have been called emergent by one leading conservative minister who refuses to acknowledge how broad a brush he has used to make his point. Yet I do not know one single emergent writer who would call me emergent. I am not a "conservative traditionalist" (as this one man would define it) but I am certainly not emergent. I am a mainline minister, of Reformed conviction, who holds to evangelical beliefs (in the main) and yet I would call myself, before all else, a "mere" Christian. I do this in the same spirit we saw in yesterday's post about C. S. Lewis.

All of this underscores how unhelpful labels can really be. They generally end serious conversation and lead to war. If I can label you then I can attack you and get others to agree with me. Some ministers, of my personal acquaintance, intentionally use this method because it works to build their own ministries and to raise money. (It also sells books!) I have to fight my own cynicism when I hear and see things like this. I can tell you that I have no respect for such thinking and have a serious problem with the kind of people who promote this way of thinking. It is sectarian to the extreme.

 Emergent Christianity, or emerging Christianity, are reformation movements that come out of the 1990s. The source for most of this movement is evangelicalism. Many in Gen-X found much to not like about the evangelical church. (I agree with them on this point.) They began to protest, a good Protestant response, much of what they saw. The writings of these men (they were/are mostly white men) found fault with a lot of what my generation had done in the church. These men held conferences, wrote books and sought to let their views become more widely known. In time the movement got the label: emergent.

By the early years of this decade a large scaled push-back began to emerge from more traditional evangelicals. A raft of books appeared and conferences were held to respond to these emergent writers. Some of the responses are still rolling out (blogs are filled with this) and this reality makes for a whole new set of books and events. It is like a ping-pong game. Having lived through the 1980s and 1990s, when the enemy was pragmatic evangelicalism, I can tell you that there is a kind of "fierce" (angry) evangelicalism that believes every new wind that blows along for about five years or more must be strongly opposed. This wind is seen as the new enemy of the church. This is the case now with emergent Christianity. It is endangering multitudes thus traditional conservatives have to rally the troops and sound the alarm. Much of this, from my perspective, is not new. It is the same thing I saw in my lifetime of ministry, especially when I was most active in the world of conservative Calvinism.

Conservative Calvinism knew it was "true evangelicalism" (or at least the best form). Because of this we lived on the margins, always showing what was wrong with everyone else. We produced conferences, talk shows, magazines and books. The target was often Willow Creek, or marketing and the related centers of evangelical renewal. The fact that I now talk about this makes some very unhappy with me since I was an insider to these historical events. The fact that I have acknowledged the barrenness of this approach, and my own sinfulness in embracing it, really angers a few. But my story is my story. I was there. I helped lead the charge and I now wish I had never done it.

What eventually rescued me was "mere" Christianity, or catholic, apostolic and ancient faith. I experienced the Spirit's work in creating and preserving the church in and through the creeds and the Holy Scriptures. This reality spoke to my deepest fears and an intense longing for someplace to live and love besides the "constant polemic" of the conservative Reformed world. I did not walk away from the influence of John Calvin, who I still esteem very highly even though I disagree with him on some points. I did intentionally leave the kind of Calvinism that created an "angry" God who hated sinners and loves only the elect. I did leave the kind of Calvinism that has lost all practical connection to common grace. And I did leave the kind of Calvinism that treats other Christians as the enemy.

This is why I engage the emergents with love and respect even though I am sometimes troubled by the things I read in the popular writers of this movement. Because I respect these men, and want to listen to them, I am seen as compromised. This is the problem. Theology done without the whole church always leads to deep suspicion and a lack of regard for others. I know no other theology now than "evangelical and ecumenical" theology. The discussion about God, the Bible and the core truths of Christian practice, must all be conducted within the context of listening to others who come from traditions within the church that are not my own.

Mere Christianity and the Reality of Hell

Not long after his rather dramatic conversion to Christ, in 1929, the late C. S. Lewis wrote to a friend: “When all is said (and truly said) about the divisions of Christendom, there remains, by God’s mercy, an enormous common ground.” My bedrock conviction, and that of ACT 3, is that Lewis was right, profoundly right. This enormous common ground should be discussed, reconsidered and taught. Christians need to know that "core orthodoxy" is a reality and that holding to it really matters a great deal. It is here, as Lewis argued so often, that we find the central truth of Christianity, the truth that unites all who know Christ as Lord.

Walter Hooper notes, in his preface to Christian Reflections (Eerdmans, 1967): “From that time (i.e. 1929) on Lewis thought that the best service he could do for his unbelieving neighbors was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times—that ‘enormous common ground’ which he usually referred to as ‘mere’ Christianity.”

Lewis held views that many of us disagree with heartily. His understanding of the nature of divine inspiration troubles some. His conclusion on certain issues that come from reading the biblical text still troubles some evangelicals. (He was not a theologian, but a professor of English literature who became an evangelist and Christian apologist.) But Lewis was always a thoroughgoing supernaturalist in a time when many in the Church of England were expressing great doubt. He believed in the basic Christian doctrines of creation, fall, the incarnation and the four last things (death, judgment, heaven and hell).

Walter Hooper says the thing that singularly set Lewis apart from many others was his total confidence in the immortality of all mankind. Lewis really believed that there was a heaven and a hell. This was an important ingredient in his understanding of “mere” Christianity. (By “mere” Christianity Hooper says he believed in “pure” Christianity and in another place Lewis referred to his views as those that were a part of “deep church.”)

Lewis spoke of hell enough that some accused him of being preoccupied with it. Such is not the case. Hooper says, “For him the real problem was: so much mercy, yet still there is hell. Regardless of what we all wish Christianity were, he knew this terrible doctrine has the support of Scripture (especially of our Lord’s own words) as well as that of reason: ‘If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it.’”

Mere Christianity is not some kind of “weak kneed” orthodoxy for those who want to deny the essential elements of Christianity. It is “true” and “deep” and is established by faith in basic teachings of the Scripture. And it can bring Christians together in powerfully important ways.

How Can We Enter the Reality Which Is the Church?

The late Indian theologian-evangelist, D.T. Niles, relates the story of sitting in the 1954 Assembly of the World Council of Churches and listening to a great sermon by Archbishop Michael of the Orthodox Church. He said that for half an hour he listened to the bishop speak of the church as it is spoken of so wonderfully in the Bible. Then, without warning, the audience discovered that the bishop was talking about the Orthodox Church. The Episcopal Bishop of Washington leaned over to Niles and said, "D.T., she'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes."

Niles goes on to say that this happens whenever one group of Christians, or another, begins to talk about the church. We think, in our own minds, that they are talking about the whole Christian church when in fact they are talking about our own church; e.g., Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, etc. Niles says it is true for all of us: "She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes!" There is a wide gulf between the church we confess when we say we believe in "one holy catholic church" and our own church or particular expression of the church.

I have found this to be the biggest barrier of all to serious ecumenism. My Catholic and Orthodox friends, whom I love and regard with deep esteem, still insist (over against each other as well as all Protestants) that one of them is "The Church." One has to be wrong and both know this much. Pope John Paul II desired the unity of the two ancient churches and saw little come of his efforts. Protestants have generally proven to be far more willing dialogue partners with Catholics than the Orthodox. In some ways this is an odd thing since the Eastern and Western churches were united for ten centuries and share a strong common bond in the way they read the early church fathers. This may say more about the power of culture to divide us than it does about theology, which makes it even more tragic to my mind.

If one studies this long enough they soon see that there were moments in church history when it could have been a very different story but those moments are now past. This has led many to conclude that no serious effort for unity should be undertaken now since there is no chance at all that we will ever solve the differences between us.

D.T. Niles expressed my view plainly when he wrote: "Our primary task is to ask God to tell us how we, in our day and generation, and in the places where God has put us, can so enter into the reality of the Church that those who see us can see in us and through us and by us the Church made visible---visible in beauty, visible in its freshness, visible as the bride and body of Christ. We do not change the Church. It is the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ. All we can do and must do is to make that Church visible, a little more visible, that men may see it in its beauty and its power" (The Message and Its Messengers: Missions Today and Tomorrow, D. T. Niles, Abingdon Press, Nashville [1966], 19).

Niles describes the day the Church of South India was formed, a wonderful story for those who are to read it. (The missional theologian Lesslie Newbigin had a major role in this union of several churches.) The church became free of Western mission societies on that day but Niles reminds us that the church is never free as we think of freedom. It is not ours. It is Christ's and we are not free to make it into what we desire. There are limits given to us by the nature of the church and the teaching of our Lord. We have profound differences about the "nature" of the church but this does not mean we simply sit down, figure it all out and create the church we believe is the right one. Such an idea is bereft of biblical and historical reality.

The evangelical problem, with regard to the church, is precisely this---we think the church is a human institution that we can remake anytime we desire. We can read the manual and then tinker with it and fix it. This view of reformation has nothing to do with the views of the magisterial Protestant Reformers but it seems to be the dominant view of many of their heirs five centuries later. Until we repent of this huge mistake we will never seriously consider what the reality of the church really is before God.

For God So Loved the World

No text may be better known than John 3:16. We see it at ballgames and we hear it from Christians regularly. Most of us who have any background in the Christian faith learned it before we heard almost any other Bible text. Luther said this text was "the gospel in miniature."

But is this text all there is to Christianity? Some evangelicals seem to think so. They treat this as a kind of magical verse that unlocks the door of life to all who say it and believe it. (What does it mean to believe it?) What happens to all the texts that speak about things like "loving your enemies" (Matthew 5:43) or Micah 6:8, "What does the Lord require, but that you do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with God." Does a "simple faith" in the words of John 3:16 settle everything and we are "one and done?" Even simple readers of the Bible should recognize that this approach is reductionistic to the extreme.

John 3:16 describes how the mission and ministry of Christians is to be defined. God so loves the world that he enters it, lives in relationship to it, and dies to save it. He now comes to us in the person of this same Jesus, who poured our the Spirit in his place. He calls us to trust his love and to follow the vision of life he embodied in love. He calls us to give our hearts and minds to him and to seek and follow him all the days of our lives. This is what the gospel does in those who receive it and who experience the life that Jesus and John call "eternal life"

The Christ of John 3:16 is a verb. He comes into the world because he loves the world. But he is also an example. He shows us how to live in love. He is the question but he is the only answer. He bids us to see his love in everything in this world since he renewed it (Colossians 1:15-20) and will renew it totally when he comes again (Romans 8:18-30).

God is love. Christ came to reveal that love to us so that all might know that God is not a distant divinity but a very human person who loves and gives. Do you believe the gospel and do you then seek to live it in your life day-by-day? You do if you are a real Christian.

A Dallas Retreat on Spiritual Awakening

This Saturday, March 28, I will teach a unique seminar from 9:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship (The Treehouse), in Carrollton, Texas. Men and women from the north Dallas-Fort area have formed a group of intercessors to seek God for awakening through a special Day of Prayer on May 5. (This event will be held at the Rough Riders Baseball Park in Frisco, Texas, and is sponsored by a group called God of the City.)

The event at which I speak this weekend will be a half-day retreat for this group of intercessors, as well as other ministry leaders from the Dallas area. I will speak on revival. There will be a time for fellowship and prayer included in the seminar. If you would like to attend you should email: maryann@godofthecity.com. There is no charge. Coffee and light snacks are provided but there is no child care.

There will also be a special ACT 3 Evening event this coming Sunday evening at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Plano, Texas. This event begins at 6:00 p.m. and is open to guests as well. I will present the address: "My Three Conversions: A Journey to Trinitarian Unity in Mission." Because there is a dinner for this event if you plan to attend you must sign up. You can do so on our ACT 3 Web site.

I hope old and new friends of ACT 3 will join me for one or both of these events. It would be a joy to see some of you again and to meet some of you for the first time.

Christianity Is Christ

Christianity is many things. It is a religion, in the best sense of the word, and it is a relationship with God. It is an ethical and doctrinal system that teaches us how to live and what we must believe if we would faithfully follow Christ. But more than all of these Christianity is Christ.

All earnest inquiry into Christianity should begin with an inquiry into the person of the man Jesus of Nazareth. Who was this historic person? And if he was raised on the third day, as true Christians believe, who and where is he today? And what difference does this really make?

The crucial question, so it seems to me, is very simple: Was the carpenter of Nazareth really the Son of God?

John R. Stott suggests that there are two good reasons why all inquiry into Christianity should begin here. First, Christianity is Christ. The person and work of Christ are the foundation for all that the Christian religion has been built upon. This is true of Islam, in the sense that it is built on Mohammad, yet the prophet never claimed the things for himself that Jesus did. If Mohammad is a false prophet then Islam would still not be totally wrong. But if Jesus is a false teacher Christianity is a charade, a false religion built upon a false foundation. Stott says, "Take Christ from Christianity, and you disembowel it; there is practically nothing left."

It still baffles me that so many who do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God still remain convinced that Christianity is a great religion. "Jesus is a great man," they tell us. But he claimed so much more than this for himself. The philosophy he taught and the ethics he shared are not the primary issue with Jesus. The primary issue is Jesus himself. Liberal Christianity failed because it wanted to strip the Jesus of the Scripture and the Creeds from his supernatural actions and his divine nature and still keep Jesus in some sense.

The second reason why Christianity is about Jesus is that Jesus is the ANSWER to all important questions. If he is who he said he was then the existence of God is proven. Questions about our duty and our destiny, about life's meaning and what follows death are answered. And the purpose of divine revelation is also plainly answered.

If you are not a Christian you should make it your goal to gain a deeper understanding of who this man was and is. If he is the God-man then you will find that your most important questions will be answered, or at least have potentially credible answers that you can rest your life upon. If he is not the God-man then find some faith that doesn't make so many demands and claims upon your life and get on with it.