Archive for the ‘Theology’ Category
5August2008
Evaluating the Baptist proper rituals standard
Posted by Puretext under: General; Theology.
The Controversy
There is a bit of a controversy going on right now, coming mostly from the Baptists, about baptism. I believe the conversation begins with a sermon series by John Piper, though I first learnt of it via Fide-o. Other comments by Jason Robertson (Fide-o) here. John Halton gives us a take from the Lutheran perspective here and here.
Excluding the silliness of those who don’t take baptism and communion very seriously, the argument as I understand it boils down to a plain reassertion of the traditional Baptist position on baptism. Baptists hold to a particular form of baptism: It must be done by immersion; it must be done upon (that is, immediately after) confession of faith. So it rules out sprinkling, and the baptizing of infants. But the tricky part is the position that only credal baptism by immersion is acceptable. For Baptists, properly, there are no sacraments, only ordinances (those things which Christ has ordered us to do) - baptism and communion. So the value of doing of those things is not their direct spiritual impact, but the value of obedience. If you didn’t do it the Baptist way, it’s not just a little whoopsie.
This is where Baptists prove that they are still anabaptists - re-baptizers: The argument goes that if you didn’t follow the prescribed ritual, it isn’t that you didn’t do it wrong. You never did it at all. Sprinkled? Unknowingly “christened” in your infancy? It wasn’t obedience; it wasn’t baptism. You’re unbaptized. And unbaptized people can’t take communion. You are officially excommunicated.
And here I got a little theological education. I had been under the impression that to excommunicate was to say, in effect, that the excommunicated was not a Christian. After all, the scripture says to treat such a person as if they were unsaved. Evangelize them, but don’t offer communion. But Frank Turk informs me that you can still be a Christian even while excommunicated. Even though we should treat you like you’re not.
The Standards
Regardless, the traditional Baptist position on baptism boils down to these two tenants:
- Baptism must follow a specific set of rules in order to be done right.
- If it wasn’t done right, it wasn’t done at all.
The first point usually get’s all the attention, but it wouldn’t carry water without the second coming right behind it. Hence John’s Lutheran response: “I am baptized! So there!” And yet, you hear constantly all the arguments for the first point, but never even a hint as to how to evaluate the second. Where does it say that if it wasn’t done right, it wasn’t done at all? I don’t know.
I think I have come up with an interesting criteria for evaluating the doctrine on baptism that if it wasn’t done right it wasn’t done at all: by comparing it to other similar rituals and seeing what happens if a similar rule is applied. I have two such in mind: communion and weddings.
Read on, MacDuff!
4August2008
Doug Wilson on Roman Catholicism
Posted by Puretext under: General; Theology.
- If the daughter of one of your parishioners desired to marry a committed Roman Catholic, would she be marrying “in the Lord?” She would be marrying inside the covenant. She would also be marrying unwisely and sinfully.
- John Calvin recognized a distinction between the individual and the institution; would you say that the Roman Catholic Church is a true church? (elaborate). In the same way that an adulterous husband is a “true” husband, I would say that Rome is a “true” church. But in the same way that this same husband is being untrue, I would say that Rome is being untrue. Rome is still covenantally bound to Jesus Christ, and consequently she needs to stop cheating on Him. And incidentally, to acknowledge that a lying, cheating husband is still legally married is not to approve of the lying and cheating.
- Would you list some areas of deficiency within the Roman Catholic Church? Let me state it more strongly. These are not areas of deficiency—they are areas of covenantal rebellion. I would include on this list the idolatry of the Mass, Mariolatry, the worship of images, the papacy, their system of works/righteousness, purgatory, and much more.
This is strong language, I know, but I found it particularly helpful in dealing with the dilemma that Roman Catholicism is to Protestants. On the one hand, I think it is impossible to say with a former pastor of mine that the RCC is a “false religion.” A false religion knows nothing of Jesus Christ, or faith, or repentance. A false religion can’t sign on to the apostle’s creed, let alone the Nicene creed. yet the RCC happily does all of these and goes on to beckon protestants to return come in out of the rain. At the same time, Roman Catholicism partakes in all these creepy systems that seem to be totally at odds with the glorious lightness of the gospel. What do you call this thing? Covenantal rebellion might just be a good fit.
11July2008
Mystic
Posted by Puretext under: Essay; That Vision Thing; Theology.
I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m a mystic. But I’ve discovered that word makes some people, particularly non-charismatic evangelicals, nervous, so let me explain. By “mystic” I mean a person whose devotional life is characterized by intensely affecting spiritual experiences. These experiences may be in the realm of simple theological insight, or they may take more literary forms. At times they may cross over into the realm of prophecy; that is, dreams, visions, words, and phrases laden with theological context.
From a natural perspective, mysticism can come from two sources. It can be personal, or social: On the social spectrum, mysticism can be presented as something to aspire to. Some Christian traditions – the Pentecostals, the Orthodox, some revivalist traditions – present mysticism in such a way that it seems to be the only way to have a properly Christian devotional life. At the other extreme, some traditions, particularly the Reformed and Protestants as a whole, seem to perceive mysticism at best as something useless, at worst as something suspiciously unchristian, smacking of Papism, adding to scripture, even beckoning the demonic. On the personal spectrum, a person could be naturally predisposed to have certain kinds of experiences, or they could find themselves completely unable to do so, or they could be somewhere in between. (Please note that, for the sake of simplicity, I’m lumping what a person thinks about these things in with the social scale.)
The difficulty, of course, comes when a person’s natural predisposition doesn’t align very well with the tradition they find themselves in.
Read on, MacDuff!
9April2008
So I Shouldn’t Hear Voices?
Posted by Puretext under: Theology.
Alexander Jordan and I have been having a discussion about how to know God’s will for your life, in which he has been proving himself to be pleasant, helpful, humble, and above all, thorough, while I have shown myself to be reactionary and emotional, responding to the feeling I get about the whole idea, rather than the actual arguments in his posts.
In my defense, I have only to say that he has been the blogger, carefully planning his series, and I have been the commenter, responding in the moment. He also seems to have the advantage of a great deal more time in which to structure highly advanced explanations of his position while I am limited to responding quickly in slap-dash fashion. Nevertheless, I wanted to bring the discussion to the attention of my readers and see if I could get some opinion.
Jordan has been describing his view of knowing God’s will as contra writers like John Eldridge, which puts me at a bit of a disadvantage, because I’ve only read a little of John Eldridge, and usually I tend to agree with the general vicinity of where he’s going, but very little with how he gets there. So there’s a danger, I think, on both our parts, of shooting past each other. This is especially true since I have already confessed to not reading Jordan’s posts as thoroughly as I ought. Nevertheless, here’s what I believe is the position he’s advocating:
Read on, MacDuff!
1April2008
A Single Line
Posted by Puretext under: Quotables; Science; Theology.
that caught my attention:
“If death is to be approached as martyrdom” he says, in the context of dying of old age, as if that were an assumption that everyone had already thought of. We proceed from there:
If death is to be approached as martyrdom, i.e., as an opportunity to witness to our faith, what do services do we require or request of our healthcare especially at end-of-life? how can that goal be realized in the greater Chrisitian community, i.e., the Church. For example, individuals lifetime spending on healthcare is concentrated to an astounding degree on the final decade of life. Is that a Christian response to healthcare?
One could say that this single perspective could change your whole view on medicine at the end of life…
31March2008
Irenaeus, Mosaics, and Old Wives’ Tales
Posted by Puretext under: Essay; Theology.
Being kept up by a baby who would not sleep, and who would wake his mother with his cries if he were not constantly being bounced about in a chair, with my supply of Agatha Christie and Dick Frances novels depleted, I found myself the other night reading a copy of Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, and I ran across this quote:
They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and to use a common proverb, they “strive to weave ropes of sand,” while they try to adapt with an air of probability, the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, to their own particular assertions, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions.
Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should re-arrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that *this* was the beautiful image of the king which the skillful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king’s form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king.
In like manner do these persons patch together old wives’ fables, and then endeavor, by violently drawing away from their proper connection, words, expressions and parables whenever found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions. (Book I, Chapter 1.)
It’s a pretty good image for misquoting the Bible, isn’t it?
Read on, MacDuff!
7March2008
Unbalanced Complementarianism
Posted by Puretext under: Theology; Younguns.
I’m slowly acquiring the capacity for writing again as I crawl my way out of the morass of being a new teacher, and I wanted to share a bit of somebody else’s hyperbole with you.
Owen Strachan, whom I do not know, has a post on the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood blog reflecting positively on a quote than just hit me exactly the wrong way: “A man who really gets Ephesians 5 is the kind of man who will be willing to work two jobs and live in a trailer to enable his wife to be the primary caregiver of his children.”
Yes, I get the point. The upwardly mobile, upper echelon middle class lifestyle isn’t nearly as important as providing for your wife the privilege of being able to stay home with the kids. Believe me, I know. Even as a teacher at a Christian school, I have a very low opinion of the parenting capacity of daycare workers, preschool teachers, and teachers in general in comparison to moms. They are simply too poorly paid, and too little invested to be an adequate substitute for actual full-time parenting. Ideally, the earliest I’d be comfortable sending a child to school would be in the early teens, when all the “raising” should be done and all that’s left for the school is the actual education. But then, I think a child should be ready for college level curriculum (not lifestyle) by about 14.
By all means, let mom stay home, especially if all that’s sending her to work is your dream of a house that’s just a little bit bigger, or a retirement that’s just a little bit nicer. Because what you’re really doing by sending your wife to work is not actually earning more money, but merely skimping on proper child care.
But be serious. I suspect that neither Owen Strachan nor Dr. Russell Moore (whose quote it is) has ever actually faced the prospect of working two jobs long-term, yet living in a Trailer Park. I must confess it lacks an appeal. The mobile home idea actually isn’t so bad, though it is my wife who insists she would rather be in a smallish apartment. But to say that a husband and a father should take up a second job so his wife can stay unemployed borders just slightly on getting it exactly backwards, especially if you measure things in time rather than in dollars: what you are actually saying is that full-time mothering is so important that it should be purchased at the expense of any fathering at all.
Really. If I am working two jobs on a long term basis, when am I going to see my son? Is mothering so important that it trumps fathering entirely?
7June2007
Who was married?
Posted by Puretext under: Theology.
It has been my privilege to hear arguments from time to time that the Apostle Paul was married, despite the impression you get in 1 Corinthians 7:7. (What state exactly is Paul recommending when he says, “I wish that all were as I myself am”?) Usually, when people say that Paul was married, it’s on the basis that everyone back then knew that the first requirement to be a Pharisee was that a person had to be a father. Since Paul called himself “a Pharisee of Pharisees.” He must therefore have actually been a father. It sounds pretty shaky to me, but then I’m not the foremost authority on the Pharisees.
Nevertheless, in his letter to the Philadelphians, Ignatius lists Paul among the married:
Read on, MacDuff!
6June2007
Jesus, Really
Posted by Puretext under: Quotables; Theology.
But as for me, I do not place my hopes in one who died for me in appearance, but in reality. For that which is false is quite abhorrent to the truth. Mary then did truly conceive a body which had God inhabiting it. And God the Word was truly born of a Virgin, having clothed Himself with a body of like passions with our own. He who forms all men in the womb was Himself really in the womb, and made for Himself a body of the seed of the Virgin, but without any intercourse of man. He was carried in the womb even as we are, for the usual period of time; and was really born, as we also are; and was in reality nourished with milk, and partook of common meat and drink, even as we do.And when He had lived among men for thirty years, He was baptized by .John, really and not in appearance; and when He had preached the Gospel three years, and done signs and wonders, He who was Himself the Judge was judged by the Jews (falsely so called), and by Pilate the governor; was scourged, was smitten on the cheek, was spit upon. He wore a crown of thorns and a purple robe; He was condemned: He was crucified in reality and not in appearance, not in imagination, not in deceit.
He really died, and was buried, and rose from the dead, even as he prayed in a certain place, saying, “But do Thou, O Lord, raise me up again, and I shall recompense them.” And the Father, who always hears Him, answered and said, “Arise, O God, and judge the earth; for Thou shalt receive all the heathen for Thine inheritance.”
The Father therefore, who raised Him up, will also raise us up through Him, apart from whom no one will attain to true life. For says He, “I am the life; he that believeth in me, even though he die, shall live: and every one that liveth and believeth in me, even though he die, shall live for ever.” Do ye therefore flee from these ungodly heresies; for they are the inventions of the devil, that serpent who was the author of evil, and who by means of the woman deceived Adam, the father of our race.
–Ignatius of Antioch, letter to the Trallians
