The Gospel Coalition

At the TGC Women’s Conference Jenny Salt did a workshop entitled “Singleness: What Does God Think?” (only audio available).

I thought it might be helpful to pull together a few resources I’m familiar with regarding singleness—for those who are struggling and for those who are looking for theological foundations to this discussion.

Carolyn McCulley, Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye? Trusting God with a Hope Deferred.

“This book is one of the most biblical, substantive, and helpful resources I am aware of on this topic. Carolyn gives single women a map to help them discover God’s purpose, mission, and calling for their lives. Her writing is engaging, practical, thought-provoking, and refreshingly transparent. I am confident that every woman who reads this book will be greatly blessed, challenged, and encouraged.”

—Nancy Leigh DeMoss, author, radio host, Revive Our Hearts

“Carolyn McCulley has written a remarkable book, biblically saturated and Christ-exalting. Her words are wise, encouraging, personal, and much needed. I highly recommend it.”
—Randy Alcorn, author; founder and director, Eternal Perspectives Ministries

Lydia Brownback, Fine China Is for Single Women Too

“This wonderful little book proves that fine theology obviously is for single women. Every woman who partakes of the truths served here will discover a feast of encouragement that will nourish her soul and enable her to live a life of joy and zealous service.”

—Elyse Fitzpatrick, Author of Idols of the Heart

“Though specifically written for single women, this important book will engage the entire Christian community. Lydia Brownback directs us to Scripture to clarify how we can find contentment regardless of our situation. A superb book.”

—Vesta Sproul, Ligonier Ministries

Jennifer Marshall, Now and Not Yet: Making Sense of Single Life in the Twenty-First Century

“Jennifer Marshall has a fresh, positive, God-centered perspective on singleness as one of the many callings we live by in the Christian life. Now and Not Yet is about much more than marital status; it is about loving and serving Jesus in the space between the way things are and the way we expect them to be. Marshall is honest about life’s struggles and open to the legitimate desire to be married during what she calls “the unexpected in-between.” What she writes is full of biblical and practical wisdom for pursuing single-minded devotion to God and finding joyful contentment in His unique plan for your life.”
—Philip Graham Ryken, President, Wheaton College

“With sensitivity and a sharp-edged knowledge of God’s Word, Jennifer Marshall reveals the sweet and satisfying answer to our deepest longings, helping us all—whether married or single—find true pleasure in God. Thank you, Jennifer, for shining so much light on an oft-troubling topic.”
—Joni Eareckson Tada, JAF International Disability Center

Barry Danylak, Redeeming Singleness: How the Storyline of Scripture Affirms the Single Life.

John Piper’s foreword:

The greatest, wisest, most fully human person who has ever lived, never married. Jesus Christ. His greatest apostle never married, and was thankful for his singleness. Jesus himself said, that in the age to come we do not marry. And he added that the age to come had already broken into this world.

Therefore, the presence of single people in the church not only “attests the sufficiency of Christ for the reception of God’s covenantal blessings in the new covenant,” but also reminds us “that the spiritual age has already been inaugurated in Christ and awaits imminent consummation.”

When I met Barry Danylak at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England, in the summer of 2006, I was amazed at the research he was doing on a biblical theology of singleness. Not only was the scope of it unprecedented, but the theological and practical insights struck me as biblically compelling and practically urgent. I don’t know of anyone else who has ever provided the extent of biblical reflection on singleness that Barry has provided for us here.

Both marriage and singleness demand the most serious and solid biblical insight. These are realities that affect every area of our life and thought. We cannot settle for superficial pep talks. Our lives cry out for significance. And significance comes from seeing ourselves the way God sees us. Including our singleness. My guess is that virtually every single who reads this book will finish with a sense of wonder at who they are, and how little they knew about this gift and calling.

Barry is keenly aware of the progress of redemptive history and its stunning implications for the single life. Early in that history, marriage and physical children were fundamental to the blessings of the Mosaic Covenant. But they are not fundamental to the New Covenant the way they were then. And what is beautiful about the way Barry develops this historical flow is that the glory of Jesus Christ is exalted above all things.

Barry elevates but does not absolutize the calling of the single life. It’s greatness lies in this: “It is a visible reminder that the kingdom of God points to a reality which stands beyond worldly preoccupations of marriage, family, and career.” Indeed. And that greater reality is the all-satisfying, everlasting friendship of Jesus himself in the new heavens and the new earth. Marriage and singleness will be transcended, and Christ himself will make those categories obsolete in the joy of his presence. A life of joyful singleness witnesses to this.

And finally, a sermon by John Piper:

Law professor Robert Miller has an important and sobering response to a letter from Professor Robert P. George and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf sent to hotel executives urging them to cease the sale of pornographic films and channels on their hotel TVs.

George and Yusuf, building on the idea that all that is legal is not necessarily morally right, present the heart of their argument as follows:

We urge you to do away with pornography in your hotels because it is morally wrong to seek to profit from the suffering, degradation, or corruption of others. Some might say that you are simply honoring the free choices of your customers. However, you are doing much more than that. You are placing temptation in their path—temptation for the sake of profit. That is unjust. Moreover, the fact that something is chosen freely does not make it right; nor does it ensure that the choice will not be damaging to those who make it or to the larger community where degrading practices and materials flourish.

They conclude their appeal as follows:

We believe that the properly regulated market economy serves the good of all by providing products and services at reasonable prices and by generating prosperity and social mobility. But the market itself cannot provide the moral values that make it a truly humane and just institution. We—owners, managers, employees, customers—must bring those values to the market. There are some things—inhuman things, unjust things, de-humanizing things—that should not be sold. There must be some things that, for the sake of human dignity and the common good, we must refuse to sell—even it if means forgoing profit.

In Professor Miller’s response, he identifies some of the obstacles to this proposal—namely, the financial cost of such a decision, and perhaps (amazingly) the illegality and liability of it, given the relationship between executives and shareholders within a corporation.

This is the most important part of Professor Miller’s perspective:

There is an important lesson here about how our society is organized, and it can be best brought out by a comparison. Like pornographic videos, videos espousing racist views are immoral but legal, but we never find such videos on offer in hotel rooms or, for that matter, almost anywhere else. Why not? Obviously, because practically everyone nowadays finds racist views deeply offensive, and any company that attempted to make money selling such trash would be severely punished by the market. The situation is different with pornographic videos because a significant portion of the population wants to watch such videos and, more importantly, a large majority of the population doesn’t object to their doing so. With racist videos, market institutions reinforce a moral result; with pornographic videos, market institutions reinforce an immoral result. The lesson is that, when a people’s desires are consistent with moral norms, markets produce moral results, but when a people’s desires are inconsistent with moral norms, markets produce immoral results. The economic institutions of capitalism are thus analogous to the political institutions of democracy. With limited exceptions, laws can be enacted and enforced in a democratic society only if they command the support of a large majority of the population. Hence, it is not so much wrong as it is impossible to impose moral norms through law: the only norms that can be imposed in this way are norms that already command broad support.

The legal institutions of a democratic and capitalist society are not designed to give people what is good and prevent them from getting what is bad; they are designed to give people what they want and not give them what they don’t want. For this reason, some people decry capitalism and democracy as amoral. Such views are misguided. In a democratic and capitalist society, there is a certain division of labor: it is up to the people themselves to become moral individuals with moral desires, while the political and economic institutions of the society implement the individuals’ aggregated desires. In any alternative system, there are institutions not accountable to the people and powerful enough to impose their will (really the will of the individuals who control the institutions) on everyone who disagrees with them. The historical record of such institutions has been terrifying, which is the best argument in favor of democratic capitalism. It is true that, in such a system, it may be harder to be moral when your understanding of morality is different from the majority view, but at least you will not often be forced into doing what you think is wrong. You may be seduced, but you will not be coerced. Democratic capitalism is a moral system, but in this system the guardians of morality are not institutions but the people themselves. . . .

David Platt does not think it is wrong to pray or to encourage someone to pray the “sinner’s prayer.” He voted for the revised resolution at the recent SBC annual convention meeting. But he does explain some of the dangers he has seen:

• A specific “sinner’s prayer” like we often think of today is not found in Scripture or even in much of church history. Without question, Scripture tells us to confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and to call on the name of the Lord and be saved. At the same time, we never see anyone in Scripture saying, “Bow your head, close your eyes, and repeat after me,” followed by a specific “sinner’s prayer.”

• The use of a “sinner’s prayer” can potentially come across as unhealthily formulaic. I talk with people all the time who are looking for a “box to check off” in order to be right with God and safe for eternity. But there is no box. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Such saving faith is the anti-work (i.e., “not by works, so that no one can boast” in Ephesians 2:8-9), and I want to be careful never to communicate that someone’s work (or words) can merit salvation before God.

• I have seen the “sinner’s prayer” abused across the contemporary Christian landscape as people “pray the prayer” apart from a biblical understanding of the gospel or “pray the prayer” on multiple occasions to ensure their salvation or “pray the prayer” without ever counting the cost of following Christ. I have experienced this abuse in my own life: I can remember laying in my bed at night as a child/teenager, wondering about whether or not I’m really saved, and then thinking, “Well, I just need to pray that prayer again…and really mean it this time . . . and then I’ll know I’m saved.” I have seen this abuse in a variety of evangelistic settings (here and overseas, among children, youth, and adults) where people have been called upon to “pray the prayer” and “raise their hand” in ways that, despite good intentions, were theologically man-centered and practically manipulative. And I have seen this abuse in the lives of many people I pastor who prayed the “sinner’s prayer” at a point in their life and later came to realize that they were not truly saved. Consequently, on both a personal and pastoral level, I have cautions about potential abuses associated with the “sinner’s prayer.”

• It seems that “praying the prayer” is often used in a worship service or an evangelistic conversation to “cement a decision” or “close the deal” regarding someone’s salvation. People are often told immediately, “If you prayed that prayer, you can always know that you are saved for eternity.” Now I certainly believe that justification before God happens at a point in time (i.e., people don’t ooze into the kingdom of God), and it’s helpful (though not entirely necessary) for someone to be able to identify the point at which they were saved. Ultimately, however, I don’t want people to look to me or even to a “prayer they prayed” for assurance of salvation. I want them to look to Christ for this. Assurance of salvation is always based on His work, not ours. Objectively, we look to Christ’s past work on the cross; subjectively, we look to Christ’s present work in our lives; and supremely, we look to Christ’s unshakeable promises regarding our future. This is where books like 1 John biblically ground our assurance as believers. Assurance of salvation is not found in a prayer we prayed or a decision we made however many years ago as much as it is found in trusting in the sacrifice of Christ for us, experiencing the Spirit of Christ in us, obeying the commands of Christ to us, and expressing the love of Christ to others. I want to be careful not to give a person blanket assurance regarding their eternal destiny apart from the fruit of biblical faith, repentance, obedience, and love.

So how does he train people to lead others to Christ? Here is what he teaches his people:

• Share the gospel clearly . . . and call people to count the cost of following Christ. Make sure that the person you are talking with has a biblical understanding of the glorious reality that the just and gracious Creator of the universe has looked upon hopelessly sinful men and women in their rebellion and He has sent His Son, God in the flesh, to bear His wrath against sin on the cross and to show His power over sin in the resurrection so that everyone who repents and believes in Him will be reconciled to God forever. Make sure this gospel is clear. Tell them following Jesus will cost them their life . . . and tell them Jesus is worth it!

• If you are in a personal conversation with someone (and this could be applied in a small group, as well), ask them if they have any questions about the gospel. Ask them if they have ever repented and believed in Jesus (i.e., turned from their sin and themselves to trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord). Ask them if they would like to repent of sin and believe in Christ.

• Invite them to call on the Lord and be saved. If they see God for who He is, their sin for what it is, themselves for who they are, and Christ for who He is and what He has done, then by the grace of God through the Spirit of God they are more than able to call out in repentance and faith…so let them do so. You don’t necessarily need to tell them the exact words to say at that point. You have shared the gospel and the Spirit has opened their eyes to the love and lordship of Christ, so urge them to call out for His mercy and submit to His majesty.

• At the same time, be willing to let them be alone with God, if that is best. In some circumstances, it probably is best to encourage them to be alone with God in order that you might not unknowingly, unintentionally, or unhelpfully manipulate a decision, circumstance, or situation. As you call them to submit to the person of Christ, you can trust the Spirit of Christ to bring them to salvation.

• Most importantly, once someone repents and believes in Christ, be willing to lead that person as a new follower of Christ. Remember, our goal is not to count decisions; our goal is to make disciples.

You can read his whole piece—part 1 and part 2—online.

In a recent feature in The Atlantic (June 20, 2012), Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, said of “gay Christians” in same-sex marriages: “Some of us choose very different lives than others. But whatever we choose, it doesn’t remove our relationship with God.” When The Atlantic asked whether that means “a person living a gay lifestyle won’t go to hell, as long as he or she accepts Jesus Christ as personal savior,” Chambers said his “personal belief is that . . . while behavior matters, those things don’t interrupt someone’s relationship with Christ.”

Robert Gagnon (in a 34-page response) writes:

I have agonized for months about whether I should go public with my concerns about Alan’s leadership with Exodus. I have written to Alan a half dozen times since January 2012 when Alan made similar statements at a meeting of the “Gay Christian Network.” Our exchange was cordial but Alan has made clear to me that his views are fixed and will not change. Still, I had hoped that he would at least refrain from public comments of this sort. With his Atlantic interview it has become evident that he has no intention of keeping his aberrant views to himself. In fact, these views will define Exodus (even when Alan couches them as “his opinion,” which he only partly does in the Atlantic interview). There are, to be sure, many good parts to his interview. But the bad parts, which involve convictions at Alan’s theological center, are so bad that they fairly nullify the good.

As the opening to this article suggests, my main concern is that Alan’s comments to those living a homosexual life are ultimately unloving and ungracious. I don’t doubt that Alan intended his comments to “gay Christians” to be otherwise. Yet the actual result is to leave such persons deceived by giving them a message of “peace and security” when instead danger hangs over them (1 Thess 5:1-11). Who is gracious and loving? The parent that assures a child that crossing a busy intersection without looking both ways will produce no harm or the parent that does everything in his or her power to warn the child about the potential harm? Obviously the latter, for the warning is part of the makeup of a loving parent. In fact, state social services agencies count the former as abuse.

We saw above how Alan’s assurances to “gay Christians” are the antithesis of how Paul operated with regard to a case of sexual immorality in the church at Corinth.

You can read the whole thing here.

Here is a letter from Chambers on the new direction and emphasis.

This situation requires our careful analysis and prayers.

Update: Denny Burk’s brief suggestion seems plausible to me:

It appears that this has less to do with Chambers’ views on homosexuality than it does with his views on salvation. Chambers still affirms a biblical sexual ethic. He simply argues that Christians can ignore that ethic and still be considered Christians. It sounds like the non-lordship view of salvation that was made popular by Zane Hodges. This so-called “free grace” view teaches that an ungodly lifestyle need not trouble the assurance of a true “Christian.” The website of Chambers’ church in Orlando seems to confirm this view as well.

If you are unfamiliar with this controversy, I encourage you to read John MacArthur’s The Gospel according to Jesus and John Piper’s “Letter to a Friend concerning So-called ‘Lordship Salvation.’” The letter from Robert Gagnon calling for Chambers to resign also has extensive biblical and theological reflections on these themes.

I am excited about the potential for the new series, Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition, edited by David Dockery of Union University. I have desired to have a series like this for years—introducing various disciplines from a Christian perspective—and I am so thankful that it has come together under his capable leadership. We recently dialogued about the idea behind it, what’s coming next, and how all of this relates to the promise and peril of Christian higher education.

Tell us a little bit about this series and the contributors.

We are very excited about the opportunities associated with this new project and most grateful to Crossway for their support in this effort.  The “Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition” series is designed to provide an overview for the distinctive way the church has read the Bible, formulated doctrine, provided education, and engaged the culture through the centuries. The various contributors to the series all agree that personal faith and genuine Christian piety are essential for Christian living and for service in the church.

Why do we need something like this?

We believe that this series is needed at this time to remind ourselves and to help others recognize the importance of serious thinking about God, Scripture, and the world.  We believe that Christians need a renewed emphasis on these things in order that the truth claims of the Christian faith can be passed along from one generation to the next.

What do you hope this series will accomplish, by God’s grace?

It is our hope that the series will enable college and seminary students, faculty and staff, trustees, parents, and administrators, as well as church leaders to see afresh how the Christian faith shapes how we live, how we think, how we write books, how we govern society, and we relate to one another in our churches and social structures.

By exploring the Christian intellectual tradition and its inferences and application for all major subjects in a college curriculum, we hope to see afresh the richness of the Christian faith and its implications for the complex challenges that believers face in the world.

The contributors to the series will explore how the Bible has been interpreted in the history of the church, as well as how theology has been formulated.  We will seek to ask:

• How does the Christian faith influence our understanding of culture, literature, philosophy, government, beauty, art, or work?
• How does the Christian intellectual tradition help us understand truth?
• How does the Christian intellectual tradition shape our approach to education?

We believe that the series is not only timely but that it meets an important need because the secular culture in which we now find ourselves is, at best, indifferent to the Christian faith, and the Christian world—at least in its popular forms—tends to be confused about the Christian faith.

In order for us to reclaim and advance the Christian intellectual tradition, we must have some understanding of the tradition itself. The series, which will include at least fifteen volumes, will seek to explore this tradition and its application for our twenty-first century world.

Which books are available so far, and what are some of the books in the pipeline?

We are pleased that three books in the series have already been published.

Timothy George and I wrote the first volume called The Great Tradition of Christian Thinking.

Gene Fant, chief academic officer at Union University, has written a marvelous volume on The Liberal Arts.

Louis Markos, the fine C. S. Lewis scholar and professor of English Literature at Houston Baptist University, is the author of the work on Literature.

We will publish two additional volumes this fall.

David Naugle, author of the masterful work on the history of worldview thinking, has written the work on Philosophy.

Hunter Baker, well known for his award-winning work on secularism, is the author of the volume on Political Thought.

We hope to publish at least three or four volumes in 2013, 2014, and 2015.  We are excited about the forthcoming contributions to the series by Philip Ryken (Christian Worldview Thinking), Michael Wilkins and Erik Thoennes (Biblical and Theological Studies), Ben Mitchell (Ethics and Moral Reasoning), Edd Noell (Economics), Paul Munson and Joshua Drake (Music and Art), John Woodbridge and Greg Thornbury (History), John Bloom (The Sciences), and Read Schuchardt (Media and Journalism), among others.

Who is the target audience?

The series is particularly designed for Christian students and others associated with college and university campuses, including faculty, staff, trustees, parents, and other various constituents.  We believe the series can serve the academy and the church and help strengthen the partnership between the two in our shared calling and service.

Who else might read these books besides college students?  Why should others take a look at these volumes?

I think that the books can be quite valuable for pastors and church leaders.  At the heart of this work is the challenge to prepare a generation of Christians in all spheres of life to think Christianly about church, culture, and society.  We hope that readers will better understand the breadth and depth of the Christian intellectual tradition.  The works are designed to be accessible and understandable in order to provide a framework to help introduce Christ-followers to the great tradition of Christian thinking, seeking to highlight its importance for understanding the world, its significance for serving both church and society, and its application for Christian thinking and learning.  We trust that the series will be a starting point for exploring important ideas and issues such as truth, meaning, beauty, and justice. We are certainly encouraged by the initial warm response that the series has received from a wide-ranging group of scholars and academic leaders.

I know this is an impossibly broad question, but as you look into the future, what excites you and what concerns you about the direction of Christian higher eduction?

I am excited about many aspects of the future of Christian higher education and simultaneously concerned about the numerous challenges that we face.

I remain hopeful about the number of campuses who are seeking to take seriously the call to reclaim, apply, and advance the Christian intellectual tradition.  Last year, the journal First Things recognized about 25 Christian colleges and universities that were seeking to faithful in their commitments to academic excellence and to Christian worldview thinking.  I trust this number will expand in days ahead.

Unfortunately, many institutions take an either/or approach to this matter, thinking that they must choose between academic excellence or Christian commitment.  The result has been a long list of institutions, since the days of Harvard University, who have walked away from their Christian commitments and their connections to the churches.  On the other hand, there are some institutions that have focused only on Christian faithfulness and authentic piety, but have avoided serious academic work.  We must avoid this “either/or” approach to higher education.  Likewise we need to avoid models that separate head and heart, faith and reason, or Christian tradition and intellectual inquiry.  We need a coherent approach to Christian thinking and living that seeks to bring these matters together rather than separating them from one another.

Moreover, we must recognize that the changes in higher education seem to be ever-shifting in terms of philosophy, methodology, and delivery system possibilities.  It is impossible to keep up with these changes, but we must continue to monitor these trends and provide education that is faithful to our heritage as Christ-centered institutions while seeking to be ever more connected to the reformulations of the world in which we now find ourselves.  These changes are manifold and can be summarized in terms of technology, education delivery systems, and the interface between traditional education and the rest of society in terms of internships, classroom consulting, service learning, distance learning, and strategic institutional alliances.  All of these cause us to rethink traditional classroom boundaries.

Special interest groups continue to offer pressure on Christian institutions of higher education to conform on issues that will compromise our mission.  We must anticipate that the issues of sexuality and sexual freedom, including same-gender unions, could possibly impact federal funding or accreditation matters.  The right to hire will likely be the most important legal issue that Christian colleges and universities will face in the years ahead.  These issues, along with the growing economic pressures faced by every campus, will make the challenges of providing Christ-centered higher education in this century more challenging than ever before.

With these factors in mind, we must think wisely, carefully, strategically, and creatively as we look toward the future to become more thoroughly mission driven.  I am hopeful that Christian institutions in North American and particularly those in the Global South can work together to serve church and society, providing thoughtful foundations for us to engage the  culture and envision a blessed and kingdom-focused future for the days ahead.

Scott Klusendorf:

In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14 year-old black youth, traveled from Chicago to visit his cousin in the town of Money, Mississippi. Upon arrival, he bragged about his white girlfriends back in Chicago. This was surprising to his cousin and the cousin’s friends because blacks in Mississippi during the 50s didn’t make eye contact with whites, let alone date them! Both actions were considered disrespectful. Later that day, Emmett, his cousin, and a small group of black males entered Bryant’s Store where, egged-on by the other males, fourteen-year-old Emmett flirted with a twenty-one-year-old white, married woman behind the counter. After purchasing candy, he either whistled at her or said something mildly flirtatious. (Reports vary.) The cousin and the others warned him he was in for trouble.

A few days later, at 2:00 A.M., Emmett was taken at gunpoint from his uncle’s home by the clerk’s husband and another man. After savagely beating him, they killed him with a single bullet to the head. Emmett’s bloated corpse was found three days later in the Tallahatchie River. A cotton gin fan had been shoved over his head and tied with barbed wire. His face was partially crushed and beaten almost beyond recognition. The local Sheriff placed Emmett’s body in a sealed coffin and shipped it back to his mother in Chicago.

When Mamie Till got the body, she made a stunning announcement: There would be an open-casket funeral for her son Emmett. People protested and reminded her how much this would upset everyone. Mamie agreed, but countered, “I want the whole world to see what they did to my boy.”

The photo of Emmett’s mangled body in that open casket was published in Jet magazine and it helped launch the Civil Rights Movement in America. Three months later in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus when ordered to do so. She said the image of Emmett Till gave her the courage to stand her ground.

Klusendorf makes the application:

It’s time for pro-life Christians to open the casket on abortion.

We should do it lovingly but truthfully. We should do it in our churches during the primary worship services, comforting those who grieve with the gospel of forgiveness. We should do it in our Christian high schools and colleges, combining visuals with a persuasive defense of the pro-life view that’s translatable to non-Christians.

But open the casket we must.

Until we do, Americans will continue tolerating an injustice they never have to look at.

—Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009), 242-243.

J. I. Packer:

Gregg Frazer (PhD, Claremont Graduate University) is professor of history and political studies at The Master’s College and the author of a new major book on The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, Revolution (The University Press of Kansas, 2012). Mark Noll writes that the thesis is “Sophisticated, well-documented, and forcefully argued. Extreme partisans who champion ‘Christian America’ or complete secularism will not like this book, but all other readers should come away much better informed about the past and also much better situated to adjudicate religious-political debates today.”

Professor Frazer was kind enough to answer a few questions about this work.

What are the key “narratives” you are seeking to overturn in this book—either about Christian America or Secular America or the Wall of Separation between the two?

My primary claim is that the key founders (those most responsible for the founding documents and putting the new government into effect) were neither Christians nor deists, but “theistic rationalists” (a term of my construction).

I argue that both the Right and the Left are wrong about the founding.

The key founders did not create—or intend to create—a Christian nation.

But they did not create—or intend to create—a strictly secular nation with a “wall of separation” between church and state, either.

They believed that morality was indispensable for a free society and that religion was the best source for morality.

Contrary to the claims of secularists, they did not want to divorce or separate religion from public life; rather, they believed that religion was a necessary support.

Contrary to the claims of Christian America advocates, they did not believe that the religion needed for this purpose must be Christianity—and they were not Christians themselves.

The key founders were theistic rationalists.

What exactly is “theistic rationalism?”

“Theistic rationalism” was a hybrid belief system mixing elements of natural religion, Christianity, and rationalism, with rationalism as the predominant element.  Adherents believed that these three elements would generally complement one another, but when conflict between them could not be resolved or ignored, reason had to play the decisive role.  Because they borrowed from natural religion and Christianity, if one selects statements conveniently and out of context, one can make them appear to be either Christians or deists.  That is why both the Christian America camp and the secular camp can find snippets to support their claims.

We hear a lot of sweeping claims about what the “founding fathers” believed. But you’re uncomfortable with that kind of language.

General claims about “the founders” or “the founding fathers” where religious or political beliefs are concerned are not legitimate (with very few exceptions).

The founding fathers were a diverse group of individuals who were not all in agreement on virtually anything.  I make claims concerning only the “key founders” (as I call them). The “key founders” are those most responsible for the Declaration of Independence (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin), those most responsible for the Constitution (James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, James Wilson) and those most influential in putting the new government into effect (George Washington, Alexander Hamilton).

One should be very skeptical about general claims that begin with: “the founding fathers believed . . . ” or “the founding fathers thought . . . . “  There were Christians among the founders and there were deists among the founders and there were theistic rationalists among the founders—no legitimate claim can lump them all together.

Apart from the extremists on the Left and the Right, I imagine there is a sizable swath of the American public that simply asks, “Who cares?” Obviously you think this question matters or you wouldn’t have written a 300-page book on it. So in your view, what difference does it make how one answers the question of the founding fathers’ faith?

The question of the religious beliefs of America’s founders is important for a number of reasons in a number of categories.

For Christians, it matters because of the dangers of the “Christian America” view:

a) designating a mixture of Christian and non-Christian influences as “Christian” or “biblical” attaches the authority of the inerrant, infallible Word of God to a non-biblical hybrid of influences;

b) identifying “religious” people as Christians makes the Gospel one of moral behavior and pronouncements rather than the saving work of Christ and personal commitment to Him;

c) Scripture teaches that God hates generic, moralizing religion—promoting “religion” as Christianity exalts what God hates;

d) many confuse their cultural heritage with biblical Christianity and lose the ability to distinguish what is truly biblical from what is merely American tradition;

e) the Bible is reduced to a mere tool in service of a political agenda—proper use/interpretation of Scripture is not important, what is important is counting how many times it is quoted (no matter how incorrectly); and

f) confidence is placed in processes and institutions rather than in the sovereign God—belief that the political system was originally Christian focuses and directs efforts of Christians toward correcting the political system and misdirects the resources of the church.

For citizens, the competing claims of the Left and of the Right are based on their views/assumptions concerning the founding.  Consequently, the false view of the secularists results in the loss of religious liberty under the false “wall of separation” notion promulgated by the courts.  Also, theistic rationalism was the basis for the development of American civil religion, which has had a profound influence on most Americans and American traditions.

For those interested in history or politics, I argue that one cannot properly understand the religious language in the Declaration of Independence without understanding the theistic rationalism of those who wrote it.  Recognition of the theistic rationalism of those who wrote the Constitution and put it into effect is also vital to a proper understanding of religious liberty under the First Amendment and its proper application.  Finally, proper understanding of the role of patriot preachers in promoting the American Revolution is impossible without an understanding of their theistic rationalism.

All of these elements are, of course, explained in detail in my book.  It is impossible to do them justice in this space.

In terms of historical methodology, why do you give priority to private correspondence over public proclamations?

The bulk of the evidence in my book centers on the private correspondence, diary entries, and personal memoranda of the key founders—rather than on public pronouncements.  My focus is on what the key founders themselves said that they believed—rather than denominational affiliations or church attendance.  My assumption is that individuals are most open and honest concerning their true beliefs when speaking privately in writings that they do not think will be seen by the public.  Public figures know how to appeal to the public and say what the public wants to hear.  But there is no need to do that in private writings; there they are free to be candid and transparent.  In a number of cases, the key founders actually asked their correspondents to return the letter to them or to destroy it in order to keep it out of the public eye. Like today, denominational affiliations in 18th-century America were for politicians essentially club memberships and tell us virtually nothing about what an individual really believed.

In his book The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, David Holmes investigates four areas to determine a founder’s faith: (1) religious activity (e.g., church attendance); (2) participation in church sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s supper); (3) comparison of religious inactivity and activity; (4) use of religious language. He concludes that they can be broadly classified as non-Christian deists, deistic Christians/unitarians; and orthodox Christians. How does your methodology and conclusion difference from this?

As the title of my book suggests, my project was to determine the religious beliefs of the key founders, so I was not very concerned with public activities—except in cases in which an activity would have been unpopular or controversial or somehow gives insight into actual belief.  Consequently, my only interest in church attendance is to show some interest in Christianity and to trace the frequency of church attendance when the public is watching compared to when it is not.

As for the sacraments, I find Washington’s steadfast refusal to take communion and Hamilton’s intense desire to do so after his conversion to Christ (but not before) to be very informative.

The significance of religious activity and inactivity entirely depends on the nature of the activity and what it reveals about sincerely held belief and not on mere frequency or public recognition.

I consider their use of religious language to be absolutely crucial. There is no other way to get at what they really believed. What language did they use in public versus private?  What terms for God did they use?  Did they use specifically Christian language or generic “religious” language?

A matter of language that is critically important is to determine what they meant by certain terms.  Too often, for example, Christian America advocates simply cite quotes in which founders refer to “Christianity” or “Christian” and leave the false impression with Christian readers/listeners that those words meant the same thing to the founders as they do to them.  But key founders such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin meant something very different by those words.  They created their own versions of “Christianity” that bore very little resemblance to its actual or common meaning.  Other words such as “bigot” had very different meanings in the 18th century than they do today and proper understanding requires recognition and explanation of that fact.

A centerpiece of my argument is my conviction that the terms “Christian” and “deist” have been so broadly applied to the founders that they’ve become virtually meaningless categories.  This is largely due to the fact that those two categories have been the only generally accepted niches, so individuals have been shoehorned into one of those identifications whether they fit or not. I carefully define both terms to provide boundaries that would have been recognized in 18th-century America in order to produce more accuracy—more truth in labeling.

Holmes’s conclusions seem to me to illustrate my point perfectly.  While we do not deal with exactly the same people, Holmes covers five of the eight persons I class as “key founders.”  In common with virtually everyone (except me), he calls Jefferson and Franklin deists.  Along with many scholars, but not necessarily a majority, he also calls Madison a deist.  But his determinations regarding George Washington and John Adams highlight the “shoehorn” activity mentioned above and particularly point to the need for my work.  He calls Washington a “Deistic Episcopalian” and Adams a “Christian Deist.”  In 18th-century terms, these descriptions are nonsensical—and they do not stand up to the evidence.

What will be some key surprises readers will find in your book?

As for surprises readers will find in my book:

a) John Adams was so opposed to the idea of the Trinity that he said that he would not believe it if God Himself told him it was true;

b) Adams said that he knew of no better theology than that of the Shastra (a Hindu text);

c) Jefferson and Franklin were not, as is universally held, deists;

d) the story of Washington praying in the snow at Valley Forge is not true;

e) a number of the patriot preachers were not, in fact, Christians—including the most influential of them;

f) the Declaration of Independence was written artfully to appeal to persons of any religious persuasion and allow each to read his own beliefs into it;

g) the key framers essentially “established” their own religious beliefs in the Constitution; and

h) far from erecting a wall of separation between church and state, key founders including Jefferson attended worship services in the House chamber of the Capitol building.

A few weeks ago I highlighted three forthcoming books from Baker Academic that might be of interest to some readers.

Here below are three forthcoming books from IVP that caught my eye. The one by Peterson is due out in July; the ones by Kapic and Reeves are coming in September 2012.

Kelly Kapic, A Little Book for New Theologians: Why and How to Study Theology.

“Whenever we read, think, hear or say anything about God, we are doing theology. Yet theology isn’t just a matter of what we think. It affects who we are. In the tradition of Helmut Thielicke’s A Little Exercise for Young Theologians, Kelly Kapic offers a concise introduction to the study of theology for newcomers to the field. He highlights the value and importance of theological study and explains its unique nature as a serious discipline. Not only concerned with content and method, Kapic explores the skills, attitudes and spiritual practices needed by those who take up the discipline. This brief, clear and lively primer draws out the relevance of theology for Christian life, worship, mission, witness and more. ‘Theology is about life,’ writes Kapic. ‘It is not a conversation our souls can afford to avoid.’”

You can read the contents here.

Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith.

“If you have ever felt that the doctrine of the Trinity was a liability, a burden to be borne patiently, this is the book that will change your perspective. Michael Reeves’s Delighting in the Trinity presents the triune God as the best thing about the Christian faith. Convinced that ‘the triunity of God is the secret of his beauty,’ Reeves writes from a full heart, with contagious enthusiasm for the Trinity. Delighting in the Trinity is more stimulating, quotable and engaging than we usually expect a theology book to be. Page after page, Reeves finds new ways of talking, draws surprising connections and reminds us that the God of the gospel is good news in three persons.”

—Fred Sanders, Biola University, author of The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything

David Peterson, Transformed by God: New Covenant Life and Ministry.

“Those familiar with the work of David Peterson will know what to expect from any book he writes: careful exegesis, attention to biblical theology, doctrinal synthesis and practical application. This book does not disappoint in any of these areas as David expounds the nature of the Christian life within biblical-theological context. This is Christian scholarship at its best–in the service of the church.”

—Carl R. Trueman, Paul Woolley Professor of Church History, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

“David Peterson’s study Transformed by God is a careful, highly competent, biblically faithful and pastorally astute treatment of Jeremiah 31:31-34 and its New Testament resonances, with the New Testament illuminatingly identified as new covenant literature. A fine example of scholarship that serves the church in general and pastors in particular. Highly recommended!”

—Dr. Graham A. Cole, Anglican Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

David Sunday, my pastor and fellow elder who models what he preaches, writes at TGC:

As my friend Mike Bullmore says, God has a design for your family and ministry so that faithfulness in the family enhances faithfulness in the church, and faithfulness in the church enhances faithfulness in the family.

These callings can seem to be in tension with one another, but it is a dynamic tension in which we can experience God’s goodness. God never separates the assignments he gives us from his sanctifying process in us. He is at work within your family ministry to sanctify you for your church ministry—and he is at work within your church ministry to sanctify your family.

He goes on to talk about the opposite errors of (1) sacrificing family on the altar of ministry and (2) idolizing family to the neglect of ministry, and then writes:

Both these pitfalls—sacrificing and idolizing family—spring from a common error: they see ministry and family as taking from one another instead of enhancing one another.

What if, instead of bristling at the inherent tensions between our ministries in our families and ministries in the church, we embraced the fact that this is a healthy tension? Indeed, there are many situations when doing God’s will involves tension. A “balanced” Christian life still involves tension, fatigue, and difficult decisions. If we expect anything else, we will inevitably experience frequent frustration.

A wiser course is to embrace the tension as healthy, and to believe that God’s goodness is at work in the tension. How? By believing that our families belong to God to be freely submitted to him to be used for his purposes, to glorify his name through the advancement of the gospel of his Son. There is a way to walk faithfully in your responsibilities to our families and still “spend and be spent in the service of our bountiful Master.”

Your ministry and family are not designed by God to take from one another, but rather to enhance one another. You do not separate your life as a husband and father from your life as a pastor—in fact, you believe that through your ministry as a husband and father, God is using you to shepherd your church, and through your shepherding of the church God is equipping you to build up your family.

Especially if you are in vocational ministry or preparing for it, I’d encourage you to read the whole thing.

R.C. Sproul Jr.:

Though it was a close call, I elected not to preach at my dear wife’s memorial service. Wasn’t sure I could get through it. But in God’s good grace I was given a second chance, the opportunity to preach to many who knew and loved her. My friends at Boerne Christian Assembly in San Antonio offered me their pulpit one February Lord’s Day, and positively encouraged me to preach on the things I had learned during Denise’s battle, and after her victory. Though it was a close call, I made it through. And in God’s grace that sermon, The Mountain of the Brilliance of Life, was recorded. I have been deeply encouraged by those who have been reading my pieces through various internet outlets about our journey, who have let me know how they have been encouraged. My prayer is that this sermon would encourage still more, that we would all remember that our heavenly Father loves us, and that Jesus will never leave nor forsake us.

As a follow-up to Doug Wilson’s post on condemning types of music and freedom to enjoy cultural creations, I thought it might be helpful to post a segment from John Piper’s seminar on corporate worship.

The New Testament Is Very Open-ended on Cultural Forms

There is very little in the New Testament about the forms and style and content of corporate worship. Following Old Testament forms too closely contradicts the obsolescence of the wineskins. God must mean to leave the matter of form and style and content to the judgment of our spiritual wisdom—not to our whim or our tradition, but to prayerful, thoughtful, culturally alert, self-critical, Bible-saturated, God-centered, Christexalting, reflection driven by a passion to be filled with all the fullness of God. I assume this will be an ongoing process, not a one-time effort.

Culture Falls on a Continuum of Folk and Fine

One way to describe the differences in how people approach worship is to speak in terms of fine culture and folk culture.

By “culture” I mean a pattern of life including thought and emotion and speech and activity.

By “fine culture” I have in mind the pattern of life that puts a high priority on intellectual and artistic expressions that require extraordinary ability to produce and often demand disciplined efforts to understand and appreciate.

By “folk culture” I have in mind the pattern of life that puts a high priority on expressions of heart and mind that please and help average people without demanding unusual effort.

For example, it’s the difference between classical music and blue grass (or easy listening or rock or show tunes or oldies or country western—all of which are “the music of the people,” though I realize there is a continuum rather than a neat box for all kinds and qualities of music.)

Or another example would be the contrast between a Shakespearean drama at the Guthrie Theatre and “The Empire Strikes Back” at a movie theater.

Or one might think of the difference between reading Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Poem “The Windhover—To Christ Our Lord”:

I caught this morning’s minion, kingdom of
daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon,
in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air,
and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a
wimpling wing.

Or, on the other hand, reading the homespun poetry of Edgar A. Guest:

It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.

We Should Not Pass Judgment on Fine Culture or Folk Culture Per Se

There are caricatures of the excesses in both that are easy to condemn. That is not our purpose. It is more profitable to consider the strengths and weaknesses built in to both of them so as to avoid the weaknesses and affirm the strengths in both. Fine culture and folk culture have intrinsic vulnerabilities to sin and unique potentialities for God-glorifying goodness. They are redeemable.

There Are Intrinsic Vulnerabilities of Fine Culture

Intrinsic vulnerabilities of high culture include elitism and snobbishness. In demanding high levels of intellect and skill, it easily inflates the ego of those who succeed in it, and tempts them to look with contempt on folk culture with its simpler achievements. It easily isolates technical expertise from the larger issues of life and attempts to give it intrinsic value instead of defining its value in relation to other, more important spiritual and personal realities. It is inevitably less accessible to average people and therefore tends toward performance rather than participation, and this performance orientation carries again the tendency toward an atmosphere of aloofness and distance.

There Are Intrinsic Vulnerabilities of Folk Culture

Intrinsic vulnerabilities of folk culture include a laziness and carelessness. There is an intrinsic drift toward increasing indifference to simple disciplines that define excellence at the most rudimentary levels (for example, using bad grammar in worship songs like “you reigneth” or having “you” and “thou” in the same line. This is not like the word “ain’t” in “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.” It’s like singing “Thou ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.”). Folk culture, with its intrinsic anti-intellectualism tends to short circuit the mind and move the emotions with shortcuts. Thus folk culture is not generally a preservative force for great Biblical doctrine.

There Are Positive Potentials of Fine Culture

The positive potentials of fine culture include the preservation of what we might call the “life of the mind.” Fine culture is more likely than folk culture to inject into the stream of society the commitment to think hard and think clearly. It is more likely than folk culture to keep the intellect from atrophying. It is especially crucial that Christians not surrender the life of the mind to the secular world, first, because it belongs to God, and he commanded us to love him with our minds, and, second, because we will lose succeeding generations if we do not have intellectually credible expressions of faith to pass on to them.

Further, fine culture has the potential of preserving the very concepts of truth and excellence and beauty as objective ideals rooted in God as our Absolute. Folk culture tends always to exalt what works. It is intrinsically pragmatic and colloquial and does not measure its achievements in terms of objective, absolute ideals, but generally in terms of wide appeal and practical effect. Fine culture tends to march the beat of a drummer other than mass appeal or practical effect. At its best it strives to create images of excellence and beauty and truth that echo more faithfully the ultimate excellence of God. Fine culture thus has the potential (if not contemporary success) of helping preserve the real complexities of truth and thus guarding against the intrinsic tendency of folk culture toward over-simplification and eventual distortion.

Fine culture has the potential of touching some emotions that folk culture will not touch. Folk culture tends toward what can be commonly shared and therefore minimizes what is rare. However, some emotions that belong to God are rare and profound and may be awakened and carried best through the expressions of fine culture. For example, there are probably some senses of grandeur that find preservation and expression best in some grand and magnificent artistic statements that are not part of folk culture.

There Are Positive Potentials of Folk Culture

The positive potentials of folk culture include meeting people where they are in order to communicate. Folk culture affirms the importance of building bridges of shareable experience. It is a go-and-tell mentality rather than a come-and-see mentality. It goes the extra mile to make its vision accessible to the average person.

Folk culture keeps the truth clear that elite groups of intellectuals and artists that look with contempt on the common man and his needs and tastes are not admirable persons no matter how accomplished their talents. Folk culture has the potential of reminding us that God must have loved the common people because he made so many of them. Folk culture is by nature incarnational: it clothes its claims with the skin of ordinary people and affirms implicitly the value of getting through to the mind and heart of the masses.

Folk culture at its best has the potential of touching emotions that fine culture will not generally touch. Thus folk culture honors the preciousness of average wonders. Falling in love, taking a walk, eating a good meal, talking to a friend, swimming in the ocean, having a baby, planting a garden—all these are likely to be the subject of folk culture creations and communications. It helps us not to neglect ordinary beauty.

All We Do Is on a Continuum Between Folk and Fine

In the church all that we do falls somewhere on the continuum between fine culture and folk culture: our music, our architecture, our furnishings, our dress, our written materials, our preaching and teaching, our conversation between services, etc.

We Should Take the Strengths and Weaknesses of Both into Account in Our Planning

In thinking about our worship forms and about the general tone and atmosphere of our church, we should take the possible weaknesses and potential strengths of fine culture and folk culture into account. We will hopefully be able to affirm all that is good in both cultures and find a way both to “be ourselves” (which is partly inevitable) and be what we need to be to honor the excellence and truth and beauty of God and reach out to all the kinds of people God is calling us to touch.

Bobby Gilles:

Taken together, these songs tell God’s story from creation to the Second Coming and Christ’s reign in the New Earth. We believe these hymns cover themes and Bible stories that aren’t conveyed in many songs for the Church (read the scriptures that inspired each of these songs here).

• These songs teach that Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t simply akin to throwing himself in front of a bullet for us (as brave and noble as that would be), but rather that He is the Lord of all Creation who willingly died on His own tree, having known and determined to do so before creation’s dawn.

• These songs teach a crucial, blessed difference between Old Testament worship and our reality — that we don’t have to wait once a year for an appointed priest to pray and offer sacrifice for our sins, but that we can boldly go before God’s throne all the time. Christ’s sacrifice has “torn the veil.”

• These songs teach that we have nothing to fear because God has adopted us as sons and daughters through the cross, and made us joint-heirs with Jesus.

• These songs show that Jesus cast Satan from the sky, tied him up and crushed his head. The Holy Spirit is sweeping through the earth, and Christ is adding to His Church as the demons helplessly roar, knowing how this story will end. Christ will come again, bringing His people back to set up a kingdom wherein “love will cover all the earth, in the kingdom without end.”

Ross Douthat:

. . . the video is a testament to modern technology’s extraordinary feats — not only instant communication across blocks or continents, but also an almost god-like access to information about the world around us. The Man in the Google Glasses can find his way effortlessly through the mazes of Manhattan; he can photograph anything he sees; he can make an impulse purchase from any corner of the world.

But the video also captures the sense of isolation that coexists with our technological mastery. The Man in the Google Glasses lives alone, in a drab, impersonal apartment. He meets a friend for coffee, but the video cuts away from this live interaction, leaping ahead to the moment when he snaps a photo of some “cool” graffiti and shares it online. He has a significant other, but she’s far enough away that when sunset arrives, he climbs up on a roof and shares it with her via video, while she grins from a window at the bottom of his field of vision.

He is, in other words, a characteristic 21st-century American, more electronically networked but more personally isolated than ever before.

Read the whole thing. Here’s the conclusion:

In this kind of world, the Man in the Google Glasses might feel like a king of infinite space. But he’d actually be inhabiting a comfortable, full-service cage.

Among the books referenced in Douthat’s piece are:

• Eric Klinenberg, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone
• Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
• Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

You can hear the audio to this message here.

This message has two parts.

In the first part I will try to draw you into my amazement that I am still a Christian and still love the ministry of the word.

And in the second part I will try to draw you into an analysis of how that happened.

Our text is the book of Jude, and our focus will be mainly on verses 24 and 25.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

1. My Amazement that I Am Still a Christian

This year I complete:

• 60 years as a believer,
• 32 years pastoring Bethlehem Baptist Church,
• 44 years of marriage to Noël, and
• 40 years of being a father.

These are momentous days for me as we plan for my successor to assume responsibilities at Bethlehem. If there is a T4G in 2014, and if I am invited to come, I will not be speaking as the preaching pastor of Bethlehem. This is my last T4G as a pastor.

When I think about finishing these laps in my race, I am simply amazed that I have lasted:

• lasted as Christian,
• lasted as a pastor,
• lasted as a husband and father.

This excerpt from my journal of 1986 is the sort of emotional vulnerability that I have dealt all my life. There were reasons when it seemed like I simply could not last. I was 40 years old. I had been at the church for six years. My four sons were ages 14, 11, 7 and 3.

Am I under attack by Satan to abandon my post at Bethlehem? Or is this the stirring of God to cause me to consider another ministry? Or is this God’s way of answering so many prayers recently that we must go a different way at BBC than building? I simply loathe the thought of leading the church through a building program. For two years I have met for hundreds of hours on committees. I have never written a poem about it. It is deadening to my soul. I am a thinker. A writer. A preacher. A poet and songwriter. At least these are the avenues of love and service where my heart flourishes. . . .

Can I be the pastor of a church moving through a building program? Yes, by dint of massive will power and some clear indications from God that this is the path of greatest joy in him long term. But now I feel very much without those indications. The last two years (the long range planning committee was started in August 1984) have left me feeling very empty.

The church is looking for a vision for the future—and I do not have it. The one vision that the staff zeroed in on during our retreat Monday and Tuesday of this week (namely, building a sanctuary) is so unattractive to me today that I do not see how I could provide the leadership and inspiration for it.

Does this mean that my time at BBC is over? Does it mean that there is a radical alternative unforeseen? Does it mean that I am simply in the pits today and unable to feel the beauty and power and joy and fruitfulness of an expanded facility and ministry?

O Lord, have mercy on me. I am so discouraged. I am so blank. I feel like there are opponents on every hand, even when I know that most of my people are for me. I am so blind to the future of the church. O Father, am I blind because it is not my future? Perhaps I shall not even live out the year, and you are sparing the church the added burden of a future I had made and could not complete?

I do not doubt for a moment your goodness or power or omnipotence in my life or in the life of the church. I confess that the problem is mine. The weakness is in me. The blindness is in my eyes. The sin—O reveal to me my hidden faults!—is mine and mine the blame. Have mercy, Father. Have mercy on me. I must preach on Sunday, and I can scarcely lift my head.

That was 26 years ago. Same church. We built that building—and another one and another one. I hated it every time.

There were worse days—way worse days. Days when the marriage was under attack. Days when the soul was so numb I feared for my faith.

So, looking back, I am amazed [laughs!] that I’m a Christian today and am about to finish my pastorate at Bethlehem.

If—

• my faith in Jesus, and
• my eagerness to know him and his word, and
• my thrill at preaching, and
• my love for the church, and
• my fitness for ministry, and
• my fitness for heaven, and
• my sexual continence, and
• my spiritual marriage commitment to Noël

—depended decisively on me, I would have

• ceased to be a Christian long ago
• ceased to care about the word of God or thrill at exposition
• given up on the church
• ceased to be fit for ministry or heaven
• given myself to sexual indulgence, and
• ceased to be married to Noël.

I have no doubt about this—at all.

If the decisive cause for my faithfulness to Christ in any of those expressions must come from me, it will not come, because it is not there.

Therefore, the older I get, the more I am amazed, and full of wonder and thankfulness, that I am still a Christian—that I still love the word of God—more precious than gold, even much fine fold, and sweeter than honey and drippings from the honey comb—and that I still love the ministry of the word and the church of Christ, and that I still have not unfit myself for the eldership, and have still not given myself over to pornography or adultery, and that after 43 years I love my wife with the love of Christ. These things are to me utterly amazing.

So that I feel some sense of the wonder that Jude seems to feel. Because that’s what it took to keep me a Christian for sixty years, and to keep me alive in the pastoral ministry at Bethlehem for 32 years, and to keep me obediently married for 43 years—glory and majesty and dominion and authority, working before the creation ever existed, and working every present moment of my life, and working into the future to keep me holy and happy for ever.

That’s what it took to keep me from falling—and what it will take to get me home before the presence of his glory, blameless and full of unbridled joy. And that’s what it will take to keep you believing, and ministering, and holy to the end of your days, and then get you home.

This is the way doxologies work.

They refer first to something that God has done or will do, and then they ascribe attributes to God that account for that action, or are expressed in the action.

So, for example, you might say, “Now to him who fashioned the intricacies of the human eye and every molecule and atom in it—to him belong infinite, inscrutable wisdom and skill.”

Or you might say, “Now to him who adopts dirty, abandoned, rebellious children into his family—to him belong compassion and boundless mercy.”

In other words, the attributes that you ascribe to God are the ones that account for the action you are praising, or that come to expression in the action you are praising. These attributes account for the actions you are celebrating.

What is Jude celebrating and worshiping?

• God keeps us from stumbling;
• he presents us before the glory of God blameless,
• and he presents us before the glory of God with great happiness.

What came to expression in these three acts of God?

God’s

• glory
• majesty
• power
• authority

That’s what it took to keep me a Christian for 60 years. Jude is amazed at what it takes to keep us Christian, to keep us saved.

Do we have any idea of the degree of divine glory and majesty and power and authority that it took

• to give us spiritual life when we were dead (Eph. 2:5), and
• to keep us spiritually alive moment by moment for 60 years, and
• to stir up that spiritual life in such ways that it resisted sins and loved holiness and pursued spiritual fruit in the life of the church?

Do we know the degree of glory and majesty and power and authority that took?

No. We don’t.

We have no terms of measuring such things. How do you quantify a Spirit-creating spirit? Or a Spirit acting on spirit to sustain the life of that spirit?

God creates spiritual life when we are dead. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

We had no spiritual life.

Then the Spirit acted in us.

And now we are spiritually alive.

We are spirit. This is not spirit like the demons are spirit. This is holy spirit (little “s”). This is eternal, spiritual, God-created, and God-sustained spiritual life.

This spiritual life that we Christians have is not ours intrinsically. There is no autonomous life in me.

We have this life to the degree that we have the Holy Spirit in us, and to the degree that we are united to Christ—which are interwoven terms and realities. It is not the kind of spiritual life that we would have if the Spirit left us or we were not united to Christ. We would not be alive if we were not united to Christ by the Spirit. Our life is Christ’s life. The Spirit’s life.

The giving of this life, and the moment by moment sustaining of this life, and the stirring up of this life so that it treasures holiness and ministry is a work of God. This is why I said at the beginning:

If the decisive cause of my faithfulness to Christ must come from me, it will not come, because it is not there.

Christ created it by coming.

I bring nothing decisive to my creation. And I bring nothing decisive to the existence of this divine spiritual life in me. I exist as a Christian by it. I did not create it, and I don’t keep it in being. Not any more than the universe came into existence by its own power or is upheld by its own power (Heb. 1:3). It is upheld by Christ.

Jude is clearly amazed at what it takes to sustain spiritual life—to keep it from collapsing and to bring it to glory blameless and happy. He must sense that what it takes to keep us believing—to keep us alive—is very great.

So how do we measure that so that we can join him in the amazement?

How Do We Measure What It Took God to Preserve Our Spiritual Life?

I can only think of two ways that we can measure what it takes to accomplish the preservation of our spiritual life.

One is to think about the fact that this is something we cannot do at all, and God does. And the difference between nothing and anything is infinite.

If God says to you: Create a being with divine spiritual life, you will say, “I can’t.” And you will be right. You absolutely can’t.

Then he does it with a word.

The difference between your absolute inability and his absolute ability is immeasurably great. The measurement is the distance between us and God.

And the second way we know the measurement of what it took for God to sustain our spiritual life blameless and joyful before the glory of God is that he reveals it to us in verse 25: it took glory and majesty and power and authority. That is, it takes just about anything he’s got to do this.

Your creation and your preservation takes divine glory and majesty and power and authority. And any amount of divine glory and majesty and power and authority is infinitely greater than what you bring to your creation and preservation.

(2) How This Happened

How does God keep us

• when Paul’s strategies of not losing heart seem remote (2 Cor 4),
• when the language to articulate the gospel with words one more time won’t come,
• when I’m not depressed that your church false converts, but I fear that I may be one,
• when I can remember countless times when I have given no evidence of trusting the power of the gospel to convert a neighbor, let alone a terrorist,
• when Spirit-empowered, gospel-driven, faith-fueled effort feels as likely as flying by flapping your arms,
• when the fuel tank of death-defying devotion to world missions seems empty,
• when he holds out a treasure to me that I want almost as much as anything but says I can’t have it
• when the crown jewel of Jerusalem is cut in slivers by a propeller or by the prophetess Jezebel?

How does God keep us? Keep us believing, keep us serving, keep us married, keep us fathering?

Notice that Jude’s letter begins (v. 1) and ends (vv. 24-25) with the assurance that God is decisively our keeper.

Verse 24: “Now unto him who is able to keep you . . .”

Verse 1: “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,  To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.”

We are

• called
• loved
• kept for/by Jesus Christ.

The love of God moves him to call his elect to himself out of death and unbelief—and those whom he calls he keeps.

None is lost.

1 Corinthians 1:8-9, “He will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called.”

The called are sustained guiltless in the last day.

Romans 8:30, “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

The called are kept. No drop-outs.

That’s the framework of the book—being kept by divine, omnipotent, faithful power.

Sandwiched in there he warns against the false teachers who “pervert the grace of our God into sensuality” (v. 4) and who presume that they are saved but are “destroyed because they don’t believe (v. 5).

So these professing Christians are not called and they are not kept. And the evidence that they are not called and not kept is that don’t crave Christ, they crave physical sensations. They don’t prize they God of grace; they prostitute the grace of God.

Then after those many warnings, Jude tells us what we must do—not only for ourselves to be kept (vv. 20-21) but also what we must do for others who must be kept  (vv. 22-23).  I’m only going to deal with the first part (what we do for ourselves) because this brings out the paradox of the Christian life most clearly. I want to underline Kevin DeYoung’s message—because it’s here (and everywhere).

Verses 20-21:

But you, beloved,

building yourselves up in your most holy faith and

praying in the Holy Spirit,

keep yourselves in the love of God,

waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

So now Kevin DeYoung’s message starts to come into focus again—as it does all over the Bible.

1 Corinthians 15:10: “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

Philippians 2:12-13, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

Jude “Keep yourselves in the love of God, for God is the one who keeps you in his love.”

Verse 1: the love of God called you; the love of God will keep you; therefore keep yourselves in the love of God.

Keep yourself in God’s commitment to keep you.

“Keep yourselves in the love of God” is the main verb—the only imperative verb in verses 20-21, and the other three verbs are supporting participles—they define how Jude understands keeping ourselves in the love of God. Verse 20:

1. “building yourselves up in your most holy faith” (v. 20)
2. “praying in the Holy Spirit” (v. 20)
3. “waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life” (v. 21)

So keep yourselves in the love of God—keep yourselves in the omnipotent commitment of God’s love to keep you—

• by trusting that omnipotent commitment,
• by praying for its daily application to the specifics of your life, and
• by waiting patiently for God to finish his merciful work.

As I have prayed on my little prayer bench I built in 1975, I have probably prayed a thousand times “help me,” “keep me from temptation.” And what’s happening there? God is keeping me. The means of God’s keeping you is being provided by God.

The psalm I pray the most: “Preserve me O God, for in you I take refuge!”

You pray for God to keep you (“Preserve me O God!”). You trust the promise that he will (“for in you I take refuge”). And you wait for his mercy.

Even your praying is his doing—it is by the Spirit that you pray (v. 20). And your faith is his doing, not your own, “it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8).

My praying for his keeping and my trusting in his keeping is his keeping!

The glory and the majesty of his keeping consists very much in the power and the authority that he has keep you through the means of your keeping yourself in the love of God.

You are not a robot. And you are not autonomous. You a new creation, a new race. Your coming into being and your being sustained is unlike anything the world can ever experience. It is a mystery. A daily miracle. You are those who by prayer and trust keep yourselves in the commitment of God’s love to keep you praying and trusting.

God’s act to keep you praying and trusting, so that you remain in his love and are kept blameless and joyful for the glory of God, is the fulfillment of the New Covenant.

“I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jer. 32:40).

The New Covenant promise is that God will act so decisively for his elect that they will not turn from him. God will see to it that they will pray and they will trust and they will keep themselves in the love of God.

The New Covenant was bought by the blood of Jesus Christ. “This cup is the new covenant in/by my blood” (1 Cor. 11:25). When Jesus died for us, all the promises of God became Yes in him (2 Cor. 1:20). I will see to it that my own will not turn from me (Jer. 32:40). I will keep them from falling.

And that is the ultimate reason why Jude 25 says,

“To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority.”

The glory and majesty and power and authority that it takes to keep you and me alive in Christ—to keep us praying and trusting, to keep us in the love of God—was unleashed for us sinners, when Christ died for us. Therefore the glory and majesty and dominion and authority that keeps us from falling and presents us blameless and joyful to God is through the blood of Jesus Christ—the blood of the New Covenant.

Therefore when we ascribe glory and majesty and dominion and authority to God we do it through Jesus Christ.

So do not underestimate the power of the blood of Christ to keep you from falling. It’s power was at work “before all time” (Rev. 13:8), it is at work “now,” and it will be at work “forever.” Your keeping began before creation, it is happening now, and it will never end.

He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. ⁴ Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. ⁵ The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. ⁶ The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. ⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. ⁸ The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. (Ps. 121:3-8).

He sealed that promise—he bought it—with the blood of his Son. Therefore, keep yourself in the love of God.