Category Archives: Presbyterian/Reformed

Revelation 7 multiculturalism

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One of the more interestingly problematic characters in contemporary SF is John Ringo. As the blogger over at Aliens in This World put it, “John Ringo is an odd bird, even by comparison to the normal oddness of science fiction writers. Ringo can write really really good, bad, and creepily-unwholesome-I-need-a-shower books. Often inside the same cover.” That captures it quite well, I think—particularly the way Ringo so often juxtaposes things I really appreciate with things I really don’t. He has in some ways a very perceptive eye, but a deeply flawed worldview underlying it, which makes him one of the few people I’ve run across (along with Ann Coulter) who can articulate conservative conclusions in such a way as to make me react like a liberal. This all is probably why the only books of Ringo’s I really like are the Prince Roger/Empire of Man series he’s co-writing with David Weber. (IMHO, they fill in each other’s weaknesses quite nicely.)As I say, though, he does have a good eye, and little tolerance for nonsense (he’d use a much more pungent word there, of course, having a rather rough tongue), virtues which are often promiscuously on display in his work—along with his pronounced animus against received pieties of any kind. That animus can color and distort his perception, but at times, it can also inform and strengthen it; when it does, the attacks he unleashes can be devastating.One good example comes from the fifth chapter of his latest project, a novel titled The Last Centurion, in which he takes a swing at multiculturalism. The novel is set in the future, but the examples on which he draws are from this decade, including this one:

Group in one of the most pre-Plague diverse neighborhoods in the U.S. wanted to build a play-area for their kids in the local park. They’d established a “multicultural neighborhood committee” of “the entire rainbow.” . . . There were, indeed, little brown brothers and yellow and black. But . . . Sikhs and Moslems can barely bring themselves to spit on each other much less work side by side singing “Kumbaya.” . . .The Hindus were willing to contribute some suggestions and a little money, but the other Hindus would have to do the work. What other Hindus? Oh, those people. And they would have to hand the money to the kumbaya guys both because handing it to the other Hindus would be defiling and because, of course, it would just disappear. . . .When they actually got to work, finally, there were some little black brothers helping. Then a different group of little black brothers turned out and sat on the sidelines shouting suggestions until the first group left. Then the “help” left as well. Christian animists might soil their hands for a community project but not if they’re getting [flak] from Islamics.

Now, maybe that sounds unfair to you; but if so, check out this piece (among others) by Theodore Dalrymple, based on his extensive experience working as a doctor in one of Britain’s immigrant slums. I won’t cite any of his stories—you can read them yourself; be warned, they aren’t pleasant—but I can tell you the conclusion to which they’ve led him:

Not all cultural values are compatible or can be reconciled by the enunciation of platitudes. The idea that we can all rub along together, without the law having to discriminate in favor of one set of cultural values rather than another, is worse than merely false: it makes no sense whatever.

The problem here is the unexamined assumption that “the intolerance against which [multiculturalism] is supposedly the sovereign remedy is a characteristic only of the host society,” and thus that if those of us who belong to the dominant culture would just set aside our idea of our own superiority, then all the problems would go away. Unfortunately, life isn’t like that. For one thing, this rests on the essentially racist assumption that all “those people who are different from us” are really all alike and thus all on the same side; but it ain’t necessarily so. To be sure, this assumption isn’t only made by white folks. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assumed that Hispanic immigrants would ally themselves with American blacks, and thus supported loosening immigration laws; Jesse Jackson assumed the same, which is why he proclaimed the “Rainbow Coalition.” As Stephen Malanga writes, though, it hasn’t worked out that way.More seriously, it isn’t only Western culture that is plagued by intolerance, hatred, violence, and other forms of human evil; other cultures have their own problems, too. As Dalrymple writes, “many aspects of the cultures which they are trying to preserve are incompatible not only with the mores of a liberal democracy but with its juridical and philosophical foundations. No amount of hand-wringing or euphemism can alter this fact.” Nor will any number of appeals to the better angels of our nature; human sin is a cross-cultural reality.Does this mean multiculturalism is hopeless? No, but it means it cannot be accomplished politically. If the divisions between people, and between groups of people, are to be healed, there must be another way; and by the grace of God, there is. It’s the way incarnated in the ministry of the Church of All Nations, a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation in Minneapolis which is founded and pastored by the Rev. Jin S. Kim. It’s the way that says that our divisions cannot be erased by human effort, but only by the work of the Spirit of God—and that we as Christians have to be committed to giving ourselves to that work. We can’t make it happen, but we need to do our part to be open to God making it happen. This is the vision God has given us to live toward:“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number,
from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,
standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes,
with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice,
‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’
And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders
and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne
and worshiped God, saying, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving
and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.’”—Revelation 7:9-12 (ESV)

Reclaiming the gospel?

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I applaud the Evangelism and Church Growth arm of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s General Assembly Council for taking evangelism and church growth seriously. All Christians should, after all, and particularly those called to lead a declining denomination like ours, which is declining in considerable part due to a failure to take them seriously. I applaud them for seeking to reach out to and inspire those “who have a passion for evangelism, for church growth, and a desire to share the gospel message with all God’s people.” I applaud them for holding a contest for middle-school and high-school students to produce a T-shirt design to help them do that; contests have a way of getting people excited, and unveiling the winner at the Evangelism Breakfast at General Assembly should stir up interest.

Where I have a problem is with the theme of that breakfast: “Reclaiming the Gospel.” There are a lot of things we might say we need to do with the gospel, but reclaiming it? In the first place, we don’t need to re-anything the gospel. It is already “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,” as Paul teaches us; it doesn’t need anything done to it, and certainly not by us. We just need to stand up with Paul, declare that we aren’t ashamed of it, and preach it.

In the second place, if we did need to re-something the gospel, it wouldn’t be reclaiming it. We never claimed it in the first place—it claimed us, or rather Jesus did, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Theoretically, we as heirs of the Reformation understand that the gospel isn’t about us—it’s something God did for us by his grace, not any of our own doing—and that the power of its proclamation isn’t about us either, it’s about the Spirit of God. To talk of reclaiming the gospel, it seems to me, gets that seriously out of whack, as if we somehow appropriate it and put it to work to accomplish our purposes. No. God appropriates us and puts us to work to accomplish his purposes through us. It’s Christ’s ministry, not ours; it’s the Spirit’s power, not ours; our job is not to reclaim the gospel but rather to submit ourselves to the gospel, to place ourselves at Jesus’ disposal, so that by the leading and power of the Spirit we may be used to carry out his ministry in this world.

I appreciate the heart being shown here for evangelism, but I’m seriously concerned by the fuzzy and human-centered way in which that heart is expressed. This is of a piece, it seems to me, with the very un-Reformed understanding of grace expressed in the Covenant Network’s mission statement, which I think also shows a laudable heart skewed by a serious failure of understanding; it suggests to me that our theological foundations have eroded to a significant extent, such that our guiding assumptions come less from our Reformed heritage than from the world around us. In the end, that’s no way to build up the body of Christ; it’s no way to grow the church.

Blinded by the darkness

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As I posted a few weeks ago, the Rev. Dr. Paul E. Detterman, past PC(USA) associate for worship and current executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal, preached an excellent sermon on 1 John 2:1-11 and Matthew 28:18-20 at our February presbytery meeting. His sermon has now been posted on PFR’s website (note: it’s a PDF), and I encourage you to read it. He’s speaking in this message as a Presbyterian to Presbyterians, so it’s addressed specifically to intra-Presbyterian issues, but it is by no means limited to them. There’s a lot in this sermon, but I want to highlight a few things in particular.

You have invited me to preach the Word of God, and preaching God’s Word can be a very dangerous thing. God’s Word is liberal enough to make conservative people very nervous—but it is also conservative enough to make liberals squirm. And because most of us have our emotional/ideological feet far out in the aisle at any gathering like this, when God’s Word rolls through, toes will be smashed. It happens.

This was part of Dr. Detterman’s opening paragraph; I appreciated the reminder as he began speaking that we should never open the Scriptures assuming they’re only going to tell us what we’re comfortable hearing. God isn’t limited to what we like.

We forget basic theology so easily—like who God is and who we are and why we should care. Theological amnesia is not a liberal problem or a conservative problem—it is a human problem. It is the human problem, to be exact, and it is exactly where our passage from John’s letter begins.

Indeed, it’s all too easy to go about our normal lives in a very ungodly forgetfulness, rather than living out the reality of who we are in God in the cold, hard facts of our daily circumstances and situations and choices. Specifically, Dr. Detterman identifies the three great inhibitors of our call to carry out the Great Commission as the inverse of 1 Corinthians 13:13: we have forgotten biblical faith, hope, and love. That doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten those words—but we’ve forgotten what they really mean, and replaced their biblical content with our own.

We really don’t know how dark our present darkness really is until we see flashes of God’s penetrating light—then we see how much of God’s reality we are missing.

The problem is, as John notes, there is something in us that prefers darkness and resists the light, and so we let the darkness blind us, congratulating ourselves all the while on how well we see.It’s a great sermon, and there’s a lot more to it than this; again, I encourage you to read it for yourself, especially if you’re a part of the Presbyterian Church (USA)—no matter where you stand on the conflicts that wrack this denomination, Dr. Detterman’s sermon will challenge you toward greater faithfulness.

Abiding in the light

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On my post below on the PC(USA)’s recent church-court rulings, my wife’s Uncle Ben left a comment in which he noted, among other things, that “we all have varying lists of issues A-Z that we consider essential that don’t quite match what other people think are non-essential. Of course, one gets tangled up in that nasty charity stuff, too, even if we can codify essentials. Darn that I Cor 13.” True statement, that, one which was echoed today by the Rev. Paul Detterman, executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal, in a powerful sermon to our presbytery assembly on 1 John 2:1-11. (Unfortunately, no one taped his message, but when I asked him for a copy, he said it would be posted on the website; when it is, I expect I’ll have more to say on it.)

As the Rev. Detterman noted, sin is sin, and it’s “not love but cultural capitulation” to tell people otherwise—and yet, when we let those who disagree with us become enemies and treat them as such, that’s sin too. “By this we may know that we are in [Jesus]: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. . . . Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness . . . and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” We may disagree—in fact, we will disagree, there’s nothing more certain than that; but how did Jesus treat those with whom he disagreed? He spoke to them quite sharply, to be sure, but he never stopped loving them; though their hard, cold hearts drove him to his death, that death was for them, too, just as surely as for any of the rest of us. May we also learn to love those who oppose us, even to the point of being willing to lay down our own good for theirs.

It all depends on what the meaning of “shall” is

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but the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly (hereafter GA PJC) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has apparently decided that “shall” actually means “shall,” and that if the church’s constitution says you can’t do something, then you actually aren’t allowed to do it. That might sound like a trivial exercise in logic, but not, alas, in this denomination, where there are many who insist their personal beliefs/preferences trump the decisions of the body, and thus that they don’t have to play by the rules. We even had a task force composed of a lot of bright people suggest that we formalize that; on their recommendation (at least as widely understood), if you want to be a Presbyterian pastor without believing and doing what Presbyterian pastors are supposed to believe and do, all you should have to do is stand up and say, “I don’t accept this part, that part, and the other part” (for instance, only have sex with a person of the opposite sex to whom you’re married; the deity of Christ; and the belief that salvation is only through Jesus) and your presbytery should say, “Oh, OK, well, we have no right to object,” and approve you as a pastor anyway. Now, however, the denomination’s top court has come along and said, “No, you can’t do that.”

—At least, that’s what they’ve said to the behavior part; as far as beliefs go, I’m not sure. On the one hand, when GA PJC told presbyteries they can’t adopt resolutions declaring that they’re going to hold candidates for ordination to the constitutional standards, their reason was as follows: “Adopting statements about mandatory provisions of the Book of Order for ordination and installation of officers falsely implies that other governing bodies might not be similarly bound; that is, that they might choose to restate or interpret the provisions differently, fail to adopt such statements, or possess some flexibility with respect to such provisions.” That would seem to imply that in fact other governing bodies are similarly bound. On the other hand, in the Pittsburgh case, they noted that the church requires candidates “to conform their actions, though not necessarily their beliefs or opinions, to certain standards” (emphasis mine); clearly, they’re leaving room for dissent. Which is fine, as far as it goes, since we don’t all agree on everything, and never have; the question is, how far does that go? Does that just apply to “manner of life standards”—you can disagree with the requirement to obey X, but you still have to obey it? Or does it apply to theological standards as well? Someone’s going to try to argue that it does, you can be sure of that. Which would mean, if we ended up there, that you could deny the deity of Christ, the necessity of his saving work, and pretty much everything else that has historically defined what it means to be a Christian, as long as you don’t have homosexual sex. If GA PJC has upheld the behavioral standards but not standards of belief, then at least we all have to play by some of the same rules; but how much have we really gained?

My greatest objection to all the toleration of defiance in this denomination, and to the task force recommendation which was clearly intended to institutionalize that, has always been that it’s a deadly blow to what we understand by “church”; if we’re truly to be in relationship with each other, then each of us has to honor and abide by whatever the body as a whole decides. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”—if it does, then something is deeply, deeply wrong. We have every right to work to change policies and standards with which we disagree, but that doesn’t give us the right to act now as if they didn’t exist. To claim otherwise isn’t a mark of spiritual maturity, but of the highest degree of spiritual pride. For us to be a part of this denomination is to be committed to each other, and to recognize that we really do need each other after all; and to do that, we need to stand down and accept that if the denomination—which is all of us together—says, “No,” that means “No.”

Another sort of different

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It’s amazing what you can find randomly wandering around the Internet. Usually, you don’t (or at least I don’t), but there are times when Web panning turns up a nugget. I was surfing aimlessly yesterday for a couple minutes while my brain tried to track something down, and I landed at Doug Hagler’s blog, only to find myself in the blogroll. I would not have expected that. Doug’s good people from what I can tell—we’ve never met personally, I only know him from around the blogosphere, and primarily from his comments on Jim Berkley’s blog—but he and I don’t agree on a whole lot. (I would have said we don’t agree on much of anything, but from his blog, it’s evident we agree on Tolkien, anyway.) Doug’s one of those folks in the More Light/Covenant Network stream of the PC(USA), and I’m . . . slightly not. Still (especially these days), one is always grateful for those with whom one can disagree intelligently and civilly, because there can be real value to those conversations; and I’d certainly put Doug in that category. (Besides, you have to like someone who can write, “You’re only allowed to take me as seriously as I take myself. That should serve to restrain both of us.”) As such, I’m happy to return the favor and add him to the blogroll. I’d especially recommend his post on eucatastrophe, which is perhaps my favorite of Tolkien’s concepts. (This all ties in with my earlier post on Alison Milbank’s book.)

I should also note, I’m grateful to Doug for tipping me off to a development I’d missed during the whole packing/moving process: Peter Jackson has settled his legal squabble with New Line Cinema, and he and Fran Walsh are back on board to do The Hobbit (and also a sequel; my wife was wondering if they’re planning to make a movie of the journey back home, which Tolkien completely glossed over). There are legitimate criticisms to offer of the work Jackson, Walsh and Philippa Boyens did with LOTR, but that said, I can’t come up with anyone who would have done a better job. Jackson et al. doing The Hobbit is clearly the best-case scenario, and I’m glad to see it.

Ministry as trinitarian work

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I noted last month that I was looking forward to reading Dr. Andrew Purves’ book The Crucifixion of Ministry: Surrendering Our Ambitions to the Service of Christ, and had been ever since reading a version of the book’s introduction in Theology Matters. It’s not a long book, only 149 pages, but I read it slowly; it’s dense material, requiring thought and reflection and intentional engagement. I’m still processing it, and I expect I will be for a while.

At the moment, though, I’m only doing so indirectly. One of the blurbs on the back of Dr. Purves’ book is from Dr. Stephen Seamands, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary; the blurb reminded me that his book Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service had been sitting on my shelf, and my to-read list, for quite some time. On my last trip, then, I made sure to toss it in my bag so I could start reading it once I finished Dr. Purves’ book. It proved to be a wonderful pairing.

The core of Dr. Purves’ argument is that ministry isn’t something we do, because our own ministries aren’t redemptive; only the ministry of Christ is redemptive. Thus he writes, “The first and central question in thinking about ministry is this: What is Jesus up to? That leads to the second question: How do we get ‘in’ on Jesus’ ministry, on what he’s up to? The issue is not: How does Jesus get ‘in’ on our ministries?” We need to understand the work of ministry in light of “the classical doctrines of the vicarious humanity (and ministry) of Christ and our participation in Christ through the bond of the Holy Spirit,” and understand that true ministry, redemptive ministry, happens not through our work but through Christ working in and through us. Thus Dr. Purves speaks of “the crucifixion of ministry,” the displacement and death of our own ministry in favor of the ministry of Jesus.

Where Dr. Seamands’ book is proving to be such a wonderful complement to this is in the fact that he makes the same point but sets it in a trinitarian context. He agrees that, as he puts it, “Ministry . . . is not so much asking Christ to join us in our ministry as we offer him to others; ministry is participating with Christ in his ongoing ministry as he offers himself to others through us. . . . The ministry we have entered is meant to be an extension of his. In fact, all authentic Christian ministry participates in Christ’s ongoing ministry. Ministry is essentially about our joining Christ in his ministry, not his joining us in ours.”

Where Dr. Purves focuses on unpacking that truth, however—and rightly so, since its implications for how we minister are significant—Dr. Seamands broadens the picture: “The ministry we have entered is the ministry of Jesus Christ, the Son, to the Father, through the Holy Spirit, for the sake of the church and the world.” As he notes, Jesus’ ministry on Earth was directed to and guided by the will of the Father, rather than being driven by the needs, desires, demands and complaints of the people around him. “Of course, Jesus often met human needs and requests, but . . . they did not dictate the direction of his ministry; his ministry to the Father did.” This is a profoundly freeing thought for those of us who too often find ourselves captives to the wills and whims of people in our congregations—which I suspect is most of us in pastoral ministry, at least some of the time.

In discussing the role of the Spirit, at least in the first chapter (I’m not that far along in the book as yet), Dr. Seamands focuses on the fact that “only through the Spirit can we discover what the Father is doing,” and thus keep the work we’re doing oriented to the Father rather than to the church and the world. This is certainly critically true, and he’s right to emphasize the importance of surrendering ourselves to the Spirit’s guidance and leading; but I think he underemphasizes the fact that it’s also only by the Spirit’s empowering that we can in fact “get ‘in’ on Jesus’ ministry,” because it’s the Spirit who unites us with Christ and fills us with the power of God. Without the Spirit filling us by connecting us with God who is the source of all life, we have no power to do anything beyond our own skills and hard work; and as Dr. Seamands notes, “ministry . . . demands more than our best, more than anything we have to offer. To participate in the ongoing ministry of Jesus, to do what the Father is doing, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Between these two books, I suspect I’m going to be spending a lot of time thinking about these things, and their implications for the work to which God has called me within his church. I would invite you to do the same.

Good news—no boundaries

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“We are called to be global Christians with a global vision, because our God is a global God.”

—John Stott

It occurred to me today, all of a sudden, that I’ve never blogged about Words of HOPE. I’ve served on the Board of Direction since September 2005, but I’ve never so much as mentioned the organization here, nor did I have the link to our website up. (That’s now been rectified.) That’s really too bad, because Words of HOPE is a remarkable and wonderful ministry, and one which should really be much better known around the church in America.Our purpose is captured quite well in our mission statement:

For more than 50 years Words of HOPE has pursued a single, well-defined mission: To proclaim Jesus Christ through broadcasting in the languages of the world’s peoples, seeking with our partners in ministry to build the church by winning the uncommitted to faith in Christ and by encouraging Christians in the life of discipleship.

The only major thing that leaves out is our unblinking focus on working with the indigenous church in the hardest places in this world to reach with the gospel. We don’t go in as missionaries per se; instead, we partner with our brothers and sisters in Christ in places like Iran, Bhutan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia—places where the church is small, where the work of spreading the gospel faces great difficulties, and in many cases where Christians face great resistance and even persecution—to equip and empower them to reach their own people with the good news of Jesus Christ.

We are committed to serving international Christians throughout the world, working with them to enable them to use broadcasting to communicate the gospel to their own peoples, with the goals of winning individuals to faith in Christ, strengthening believers in the life of discipleship, helping existing churches to grow, and establishing new churches where there were none before. In partnership with other mission agencies, we seek to work with and through indigenous organizations and churches, rather than establishing our own.

Broadcasting, and principally radio broadcasting, is our niche, and it’s what we bring to the table for the global church. We do produce significant printed materials, and the Internet is becoming an increasingly important part of our ministry, but radio remains, as it has always been, the main part of our work. As our mission statement puts it,

Our goal is to enable international Christians to produce and air biblically-focused radio programs in their own languages. . . .Our principal focus from the beginning has been the use of radio to communicate the gospel. Radio is universally available; it reaches large numbers of people, including those who are illiterate or living in “closed” areas of the world; and as a word-centered medium it is uniquely suitable for conveying the message of the Bible and its implications for all of life.

For penetrating closed societies (like most Islamic countries), and reaching the poorest parts of the world, where illiteracy is nearly universal (such as Niger), there is no better tool than radio broadcasting, especially as radio is easily the most trusted source for news and information in many places around the world.Words of HOPE is a ministry which grew out of my home denomination, the Reformed Church in America, and is unabashedly Reformed in its founding theology; equally, we’re unabashedly evangelical, committed to proclaiming

the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord he now offers the forgiveness of sins and the liberating gift of the Spirit to all who repent and believe,

as the Lausanne Covenant (1974) puts it. Finally, we’re committed to an ecumenical and non-sectarian approach,

to the positive proclamation and propagation of what C. S. Lewis called Mere Christianity; that is, the large body of truth that all believing Christians hold in common.

We aren’t interested in reinventing the wheel; rather, we want to find what God is doing around the world by his Spirit, and join in, working with whomever God has raised up to accomplish his purposes, seeking to enable and empower them in the work he has given them. Thus our mission statement concludes,

We totally and gladly depend upon the gracious sustaining and energizing power of the Holy Spirit to be fruitful in this ministry. We gratefully recognize that the Spirit is choosing to work through us, our partners and supporters. We recognize even more our limitations, inadequacies and failures. At the same time we rejoice with firm hope in the sovereign God who blesses our efforts and causes his word to bear fruit.

We’re currently at work in over 40 countries, strengthening the local church around the world in its witness, serving the work of the Kingdom of God in some of the most resistant nations on Earth; and we do it all with a paid staff of twelve and a budget of less than $3 million. It has been said by others familiar with our ministry, and I completely agree, that if you want to put your money to work to reach the world for Jesus Christ, there is no more cost-effective way than to support Words of HOPE. “Good news—no boundaries.” That’s what we’re all about.

The crucifixion of ministry

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I’m a book person. As I’ve noted before, one of my regrets is that I don’t have time to read everything I’d like to read. Still, every year there’s a book or two that is simply a must-read for me, that I wait for and make the time for, whatever else might be going on. This year, at the top of that list is The Crucifixion of Ministry: Surrendering Our Ambitions to the Service of Christ, by the distinguished professor of pastoral theology at Pittsburgh Seminary, Dr. Andrew Purves; it’s finally out from IVP, I have it on order from Amazon (though they still list the release date as October 30), and I’m very much looking forward to reading it. Indeed, I’ve been looking forward to it for about a year now; Theology Matters ran Dr. Purves’ introduction to his book as the lead article in last year’s November/December issue, and it completely blew me away. I won’t try to summarize it, because I don’t think I can do Dr. Purves justice; I’ll just tell you, if you’re in Christian ministry, either for pay or as a volunteer—if you’re a leader in the church in any way—click the link and read it. Here are a few excerpts to whet your appetite:

Alternatively, Jesus is God active in the life of the world, in our personal lives, and in ministry at every turn. The problem is we rarely think radically enough concerning Jesus. We have him tamed, boxed, and safe. But as he is the living and reigning Lord, the question now becomes: What is he up to and how do I get in on whatever it is that he is up to? The answer is twofold: the classical doctrines of the vicarious humanity (and ministry) of Christ and our participation in Christ through the bond of the Holy Spirit. Everything is cast back on to him, on to God who is present for us by the Spirit in, through, and as Jesus Christ, yesterday, today, and for ever. In this case, because ministry is what he does, ministry is properly understood as gospel rather than law, as grace rather than as obligation.The first and central question in thinking about ministry is this: What is Jesus up to? That leads to the second question: How do we get “in” on Jesus’ ministry, on what he’s up to? The issue is not: How does Jesus get “in” on our ministries? . . .Exploring these issues brings us to the difficult awareness that our ministries must be displaced by the ministry of Jesus. This is more than relinquishment, however. We must be bumped aside, firmly, perhaps mortifyingly. For us, this means the death of our ministries. The reason is that this displacement is not an invitation to let Jesus take over by letting him “in” on our territory. Rather, this displacement has the character of mortification—otherwise, most likely, we would never let go of our grip on our ministries. What we think we should do, and can do, and in fact do in ministry, is put to death. Why? Simply put: too often they are in the way. Our ministries are not redemptive, even when conducted from the best spiritual, therapeutic, and moral motives. Only the ministry of Jesus is redemptive.I am calling this process of displacement “the crucifixion of ministry” in large measure because crucifixion carries the notion of redemption in Christian thought. As the crucifixion of Jesus is staggering good news of our salvation, now also the crucifixion of ministry by the process of painful displacement by the ministry of Jesus, likewise, is staggering good news—for us, the ministers, and for the people we minister among. The crucifixion of ministry is the ground for the redemption of our ministries, and for us, the ministers, the source of hope, joy, and peace in our service. . . .In summary fashion this is the argument. 1. The ministry of Jesus is the ministry of God. That, at the end of the day, is what most of our creedal and confessional language concerning Jesus Christ is about. 2. Jesus’ ministry is at once historical, present, and future. It is not just a past influence reaching into the present. 3. By sharing in the life of Jesus (the doctrine of our union with Christ, which is the principal work of the Holy Spirit), we thereby share in his, that is, God’s, continuing ministry. In other words, it is he, not we, who primarily “do” ministry; and by the gift of the Spirit we are joined to him to share thereby in his life, and thus, in his ministry in some regard. Wherever Christ is, there is the church and ministry. . . .The crucifixion of ministry is good news! 1. Conceiving ministry as our ministry is the root problem of what ails us in ministry today. 2. Ministry, rather, is to be understood as a sharing in the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ, for wherever Christ is, there is the church and her ministry. The effect is that our ministries are displaced by Christ’s ministry—thus the notion of the crucifixion of ministry. In more formal terms, we need to recover the paramount significance of two weighty but quite neglected doctrines: the vicarious humanity and ministry of Christ, and our union with Christ. The Christian identity and the faithful practice of ministry are not possible on any other terms.

This is just to give you a feel for Dr. Purves’ argument; for the rest, including his discussion of the “two major crucifixions or seasons of dying in ministry,” go read the article.

Conversation on Calvinism

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The question has come in, what does it mean to be Reformed? . . . OK, so it means to be Calvinist, but then, what’s that? So, to kick things off and provide a logical place for discussion, here’s a brief summary, cribbed straight from our membership class at church.

Central themes of Reformed doctrine

Total depravity (Romans 3:9-11, 8:7-8)

  • not “total corruption”—not that we’re as bad as we could possibly be, incapable of any good at all
  • but that there is nothing we do which is untainted by sin—our motives and desires are never pure, always mixed
  • also called “total inability”—in and of ourselves, we are not able to turn away from sin and toward God, because we are born in slavery to sin; left to our own devices, we would be without hope

Irresistible grace (John 6:43-44, Romans 9:14-18, Ephesians 2:1-10)

  • therefore it is only by God’s grace that we are saved, through his gift of faith to us
  • his grace breaks the shackles of sin on our lives
  • the Spirit can make himself irresistible—if he so chooses, we cannot resist his work any more than the prisoner can resist the key that unlocks his chains
Unconditional election (Romans 9:14-18, Ephesians 1:3-6, 2:1-10)
  • therefore our salvation cannot depend on our own effort and initiative, because those are not and cannot be sufficient
  • God chooses whom he will save
  • we do not know and will never know on what basis; all we know is that it is his free gift
    ––his choice and his love have no conditions and no strings attached

Limited atonement (Mark 10:45, John 10:14-15, Romans 8:31-32, Ephesians 5:25-27)

  • the death of Christ on the cross was immediately effective to save all those whom God chose (the elect)
  • it was sufficient to save all, but only efficient to save the elect
  • not made available for people to choose or not, but powerful in and of itself

Perseverance of the saints (Romans 8, Philippians 1:6, 1 John 2:1-6, Jude 24-25)

  • therefore, since our salvation is God’s work in our lives, and since it is a work of transformation, it is not something we can undo
  • we have been justified (our relationship with God has been restored—the penalty for our sin has been paid and his wrath at our sin has been satisfied), and we are being sanctified (made holy—we are being changed into the people God wants us to be, so that we live lives that are in accordance with his will)
  • this means we are in process; we are saints, because we are in right relationship with God, but we are also sinners, because we’re still being changed
    ––Lutheran language: simul iustus et peccator, “at once justified and a sinner”
  • the fact that we still sin doesn’t mean that we have fallen away from God, nor does it mean that we risk losing our salvation–it just means we aren’t perfected yet; our sin cannot be so big or awful that it undoes what God did

Note: the standard acronym for these five points (in slightly different order) is TULIP. It’s an effective mnemonic, especially since this particular summary of Calvinist doctrine was first developed in the Netherlands.Overarching theme: the sovereignty (lordship) of God

  • it’s all about what God does
  • this doesn’t mean it’s not about what we do; but it does mean that what we do is a response to what he has done, is doing and will do
  • we don’t carry the responsibility on our shoulders, whether for our own salvation or anything else—he does