The Gospel Coalition

Scotty Smith on “The Genuine Life”:

1. Gospel astonishment versus theological cockiness
2. Chief repenter versus former sinner
3. Preaching Christ to yourself versus preaching yourself

Dinesh D’Souza believes that we need to look at Barack Obama the father in order to understand Barack Obama the son:

Obama gets his identity and his ideology from his father. Ironically, the man who was absent for virtually all of Obama’s life is precisely the one shaping his values and actions. How do I know this? Because Obama tells us himself.

Scot McKnight recommends a new commentary on The Gospel of John:

Here’s what I will say: this Commentary will become standard; it is both conservative and original — it is exegetical, readable, and massively learned… I predict it will be the go-to Commentary for expository preachers for at least a decade, perhaps more.

Francis Chan: 7 questions to ask before you preach or teach the Bible

When I was learning to speak Romanian, I was curious about the origin of certain expressions and phrases. Sometimes, Romanians could tell me where the expression came from. Other times, they couldn’t.

In case you ever wonder why we say what we say, here are the stories behind ten common English expressions:

Red Tape

Origin: 16th century

Story: Henry VIII sent 80 petitions to Pope Clement VII asking for his marriage to Catherine of Aragon to be annulled. The petitions are bound with red tape. The expression was popularized after the Civil War, when veterans’ records were bound in red tape and were difficult to access.

OKAY

Origin: 19th century

Story: The initials O.K. once stood for “Oll Korrect”. But the phrase became popularized in the 1840 U.S. presidential election when the Democrats claimed that OK stood for “Old Kinderhook” – the nickname for candidate Martin Van Buren of Kinderhook, NY. “Vote for OK” became a slogan and the word “okay” eventually spread across the world.

Raining cats and dogs

Origin: 17th century

Story: Some speculate that this phrase arose in the 17th century as a result of poor drainage systems in Europe. During heavy showers, drains disgorged their contents of any animal corpses that may have accumulated. This occurrence is documented in Johnathan Swift’s 1710 poem ‘Description of a City Shower’, in which he describes “Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,/Dead cats and turnip-tops come tumbling down the flood.”

A Little Bird Told Me

Origin: Biblical

Story: The root source of this expression is from Ecclesiastes 10:20 (KJV) “Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.” Various authors over the centuries, including Shakespeare, have made reference to birds giving messages. The phrase was popularized as a song by Harvey Brooks in 1947.

Beat around the Bush

Origin: 18th century

Story: This phrase originated within the world of boar hunting. Noblemen once hired workers to walk through the woods and beat the branches. By making noises, the workers caused animals to run toward the hunters. Since boars are dangerous animals, unarmed workers avoided the dense undergrowth where boars could typically be found. So they beat around it rather than going into it. This evasive technique was termed “beating around the bush.”

Red Letter Day

Origin: Middle Ages

Story: Medieval church calenders were illuminated manuscripts with highlighted words in red ink. In the first edition of the Book of Common Prayer (1549), holy days were noted with red ink. The phrase now refers to any special day or day of personal significance.

Bigwig

Origin: 17th Century

Story: Wigs came into fashion in the 17th century and eventually were used by almost all European nobility. Ostentatious displays of nobility became popular through the use of bigger and bigger wigs. The title “bigwig” now refers to someone rich and powerful.

Blockbuster

Origin: World War II

Story: “Blockbuster” was the name given to large conventional bombs used in World War II which had enough power to destroy a city block. Now, the term refers to a successful production in the film industry.

Pipe Dream

Origin: 19th century

Story: A “pipe dream” originally referred to the dreams experienced by the smokers of opium pipes. Today, it refers to a fantastic hope or plan that is impossible to achieve.

Face the Music

Origin: 1830′s – 1850′s

Story: In musical theater, a nervous or inexperienced performer must summon up all his courage to face the audience as well as the musicians in the orchestra pit. The phrase is now used to refer to the need for one to face the consequences of their decisions.

How do I know I’m saved? John Piper on how perseverance of the saints is not an excuse for laziness:

I have learned again and again from firsthand experience that there are many professing Christians who have a view of salvation that disconnects it from real life, and that nullifies the warnings of the Bible and puts the sinning person who claims to be a Christian beyond the reach of biblical threats. And this doctrine is comforting thousands on the way to hell. Jesus said, if you don’t fight lust, you won’t go to heaven.

Gene Veith: When conservative Christians were politically liberal:

Of course conservative Christians can be liberal politically. That was arguably the norm up until a few decades ago. But now things have changed. Most conservative Christians, not all, but most, are now alienated from their government, which in their eyes has become a force for secularization. Now they want a smaller government to minimize its power to threaten their way of life and their beliefs.

Michael Patton to evangelicals:

Evangelicals: We can and we must distinguish between sssentials and non-essentials better. Draw our circles too tightly, and we slip into fundamentalism. Draw our circles too wide, and we slip into liberalism.

When writing about those with whom you disagree:

I’ve observed that advocates on either side of these two issues have produced an amazing amount of vitriolic polemics.  Some of what’s available is well thought out and well written, while other material seems to be literary temper tantrums.  All this has set me to thinking about what are the best ways to engage in a debate.  With no claim of originality, I have come up with three rules of thumb…

O Lord Jesus Christ,
you are the sun of the world,
evermore arising and never going down,
which by your most wholesome appearing and sight,
brings forth, preserves, nourishes,
and refreshes all things,
as well that are in heaven as also that are on earth.

We beg you mercifully and faithfully
to shine in our hearts,
so that the night and darkness of sins,
and the mists of error on every side
may be driven away.

With you brightly shining in our hearts
we may all our life go without stumbling or offense,
and may decently and seemly walk (as in the day time),
being pure and clean from the works of darkness,
and abounding in all good works
which God has prepared us to walk in;
you who with the Father and with the Holy Spirit
live and reign for ever and ever.
Amen

- Thomas Cranmer

Julie Rose’s new translation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables is terrific. On Saturdays, I am sharing some quotes worth pondering (see first, second and third collections here):

“Good thoughts have their bottomless pits just as bad ones do.” (365)

“Great blunders are often made, like great ropes, out of numerous strands.” (395)

“The counterfeits of the past assume false identities and happily call themselves the future. That ghost, the past, tends to fake his passport. Let us be alert to such a trick. Let us be on our guard.” (421)

“The stubborn determination of old institutions to perpetuate themselves is like the obstinacy of rancid perfume in clinging to your hair, the claims of rotten fish to be eaten, harassment by children’s clothes wanting grown-ups to wear them again, or the tenderness of corpses coming back to embrace the living.” (425)

“A convent is a contradiction. As a goal, salvation; as a means, sacrifice. The convent is supreme selfishness resulting in supreme self-abnegation. The taking of the veil or the habit is suicide reimbursed by eternity.” (430)

“We need those who forever pray for those who never pray.” (431)

“Caesar’s toll is never anything more than what is left over from God’s toll. A prince is nothing next to a principle.” (455)

“It is a funny thing how a secure conscience makes everything else secure.” (458)

“Joy is the backward surge of terror.” (463)

“Laughter is like sunshine; it chases winter away from the human face.” (470)

“There is no doubt that one side of virtue leads to pride. There lies a bridge built by the devil.” (470)

“All the crimes of the man begin in the straying of the child.” (482)

Seven links for your weekend reading:

1. More emerging adults single than married

2. Audio from the “Baptists and the Cross” conference now available online.

3. Solomon on social media

4. Jared Wilson: Discipleship on Christ’s terms

5. Palin says abortion is an essential issue in the mid-term elections

6. Fred Sanders on YUBA Theology

7. J.D. Greear: Can people be saved apart form hearing about Jesus?

In 2007, Stephen Prothero (professor of religion at Boston University) wrote a book called Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know–And Doesn’t. Prothero made the case that secularism in American education was converting the citizens of our country into religious illiterates at just the time we need to be more aware of the role of religion in society. Religious Literacy struck a chord as it quickly climbed onto the New York Times Bestseller list. (See my review here.)

Three years later, Prothero is back with another book, provocatively titled, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World–and Why Their Differences Matter (HarperOne, 2010). His new book builds on the case he made before: religion matters.

But Prothero goes a step further in God Is Not One. He not only seeks to convince Americans of the need for religious knowledge; he also believes we need to put an end to the idea that all religions are fundamentally the same. Not only does religion matter, our religious differences matter too.

Prothero believes that many scholars are unable to understand each religion on its own terms because of their mistaken foundational belief that all religions are fundamentally the same:

“This [belief that all religions are fundamentally the same] is a lovely sentiment but it is dangerous, disrespectful, and untrue. For more than a generation we have followed scholars and sages down the rabbit hole into a fantasy world in which all gods are one… The idea of religious unity is wisful thinking, and it has not made the world a safer place. In fact, this naive theological groupthink – call it Godthink – has made the world more dangerous by blinding us to the clashes of religion that threaten us worldwide.” (2-3)

So Prothero sets out to give us a brief history and description of the eight big religions in our world today. His goal is to promote tolerance, not uniformity:

“Tolerance and respect are empty virtues until we actually know something about whomever it is we are supposed to be tolerating or respecting.” (5)

At one level, I affirm Prothero’s attempt to demonstrate the irreconcilable differences between the religions of the world. When it comes to cracking the pillars of liberal mushiness regarding the deepest beliefs of religious adherents, Prothero is an ally. He writes:

“God is not one. Faith in the unity of religions is just that – faith (perhaps even a kind of fundamentalism). And the leap that gets us there is an act of the hyperactive imagination.” (3)

But at another level, I’m troubled by what Prothero fails to see (or address). When he starts analyzing the world religions, he enters a rabbit hole of his own. He carefully makes distinctions between religions and then weighs their positive and negative aspects. The result makes Prothero out to be an objective, non-committed scholar standing over each religion, making judgments on religious manifestations. But in the end, I wonder: On what ground does Prothero determine what is positive and negative?

So Prothero can say:

“We need to see the world’s religions as they really are – in all their gore and glory. This includes seeing where they agree and disagree, and not turning a blind eye to their failings.” (17)

But nowhere does Prothero engage in any serious reflection about his own vantage point. What are the tools he uses to judge the “gore and glory,” the “successes and failings” of the world’s religions? Where do these tools come from?

It is interesting to see Prothero give Islam the first chapter of the book. He claims that Islam deserves first place regarding influence:

“To presume that the conversation about the great religions starts with Christianity is to show your parochilaism and your age. The nineteenth and twentieth centures may have belonged to Christianity. The twenty-first belongs to Islam.” (63)

A provocative move, for sure, albeit overstated. For me, the frustrating aspect of the treatment of Islam and Christianity is the way Prothero goes to great lengths to rehabilitate Islam’s image. He wants us to see mainstream Muslims as inherently tolerant and peaceful. Then, when describing Christianity, Prothero informs us of violence perpetrated by Christians in the past. It appears that he is trying to level the ground between Islam and Christianity by pointing out that peace and violence have a place in both histories.

Ironically, Prothero’s attempt to level the playing field proves the point he doesn’t try to make. The very fact that he has to search for language of Christian warfare indicates that the violent strain of Christianity is not as pronounced as the strain in Islam. Christians apologize constantly for the Crusades. I’ve never heard a Muslim apologize for their ancestors taking over vast portions of Europe by sword.

In a book that summarizes the beliefs of eight different religions, analysis must be simplified. At times, Prothero simplifies things well. Other times, his analysis is too simplistic. For example, he summarizes the main monotheistic religions this way:

“Judaism begins and ends with a story. If Christianity is to a great extent about doctrine and Islam about ritual, Judaism is about narrative.” (243)

Or take this:

“Whereas Christians strive to keep the faith, Jews strive to keep the commandments.” (245)

Any subtlety or nuance disappears from statements like these. Perhaps I am being too hard on him at this point. How else Prothero can be short and precise about eight major religions without making these kinds of summary statements at times?

Overall, God Is Not One is an informative book about the religions of the world that fails to live up to its subtitle. Prothero admirably lays out the differences of the world religions, and yet by failing to put forth his own foundational beliefs, we are left with little understanding as to how and why these religious differences matter.

Parts of Hungary were flooded with toxic sludge earlier this week. Horrible pictures. (HT – Z)

Tim Keller wonders if we are in a late-modern stage rather than a postmodern one:

We can certainly use the term “post-modern” to refer to many aspects of our life in the world now. There certainly are discontinuities with the recent past. But I conclude that an over-emphasis on the post-ness of our situation can lead us to celebrate the greater tolerance, the end of “Christendom,” the fall of Reason-capital-R, and the openness to the spiritual, without seeing that it is based on a kind of hyper-modernity that is perhaps more antithetical to Christianity than ever.

Lots of discussion this week about whether Southern Baptists are bound by our funding mechanism (the Cooperative Program) or our mission and theology. Micah Fries weighs in here:

Our existence is dependent on one thing and one thing alone – advancing the glory of God into every corner of the globe through the advance of His Gospel, and doing so in a way that is faithful to the biblical convictions that Southern Baptist hold closely. This is the only cause I know worth uniting around in such a way that I willingly, and passionately ask my church, my family, and even myself, to exhaust our collective energy and resources to pursue.

A former porter’s closet measuring five square metres (55 sq ft) has gone on the market in Rome at $65,000. (I don’t care how great the view is; it can’t be worth it!):

The property, which is being described as the world’s smallest apartment, lies in the heart of the Italian capital, which has become one of the world’s most expensive cities for property, but is barely large enough to contain a single bed.

Today, I’m posting an email conversation between myself, Matthew Lee Anderson and Joe Carter about the current political climate and what role evangelicals are playing in the upcoming mid-term elections. I hope you enjoy listening in:

Trevin Wax: Let’s talk about November. What are your predictions? Will this be a repeat of 1994?

Joe Carter: I expect that the Republicans will gain a majority in the House but that the Democrats will retain a narrow edge (1-3 seats) in the Senate. But even if the GOP were able to gain control over the entire legislature it would not be nearly as significant as the “Republican Revolution” of 1994.

Fifteen years ago, the mood was much different. The Democrats had retained majority control of the House since 1952. The Republican representatives in 1994 had a lot of pent up energy and frustration and were willing to make bold moves.

Today, the attitude is much different. The GOP only lost control of the House and Senate in 2007. They know that without a filibuster-proof, veto-overriding majority, they won’t be able to accomplish much. The best we can expect is gridlock and obstructionism. As a conservative, I’m all for impeding the expansion and power of the federal government. But it won’t be a winning message in 2012.

Trevin Wax: What role is the Tea Party playing in all this? In what I’ve seen, the Tea Party seems to be an outlet for pent-up frustrations on the part of many conservatives. But since the Tea Party is a protest movement, I wonder how well it’s going to play in general elections when you’ve got to be constructive and visionary.

Matthew Lee Anderson: Trevin, you’re right about the Tea Party being an outlet. But I see no reason to doubt that their energy will carry straight over into the generals. 2008 was a change election, and in one sense, 2010 is as well.

Joe is right that conservatives had a lot of pent-up frustrations in 1994 that were unleashed in and through policies and governance. It’s a different situation, of course, but we have to remember that the limited-government libertarians who drive the Tea Parties have a lot more than 2 years of anger to release. Though they don’t say it as often, there was a lot of frustration with Bush’s economic policies that has then been transferred to Obama’s even worse economic policies.

The real question for the Tea Party folks, though, is whether they can do anything other than win elections. The problem of conservatives’ failure to govern has been around a long time, and I suspect it will continue long into the future. Getting your people into office is only the first step, and whether the Tea Party will have the endurance to sustain the pressure to actually get things done is an open question.

Joe Carter: At this stage of the election, there is only one way that the Tea Party can really do to affect the outcome: increase voter turnout. How they’ll be able to make an impact after the election – or if they will at all – still remains to be seen.

Trevin Wax: Sarah Palin has been making headlines with her endorsements and her seeming embrace of the Tea Party ethos. Yet she didn’t do too well at the Values Voter Summit. A lot of conservatives really like her, but I get the feeling that a much smaller number have the confidence to get behind her if she decides to run for president. What do you make of Palin?

Joe Carter: Palin came along at a time when the Republican party needed its own Obama – an attractive, charismatic candidate that few people know much about and could project their own beliefs onto. But now that the Left is starting to realize that they may have made the wrong choice in electing an unqualified candidate, the Right is growing cautious about making the same mistake.

A lot of people (including me) rationalized our support of Palin as a VP candidate by claiming that she could “grow in office.” But after two years of seeing her in the spotlight, many of us are having second thoughts.

She has a negligible amount of experience in governance – a term as mayor of a small city and two years as a governor of a modestly populated state. Her resigning as governor didn’t instill much confidence in her ability to handle the pressures of elected office. And, despite pleas for her to do her homework, she has failed to distinguish herself in any area of public policy. The country has too many complex problems to let a neophyte candidate replace the current underprepared President.

Also, she is completely unelectable. By nominating Palin, the GOP would be signaling that they realize that they can’t defeat Obama in 2012 and have decided to exploit her popularity to fill the campaign coffers in preparation for 2016.

Matthew Lee Anderson: What Joe said, and this… Palin is probably the Republicans’s best and most effective political talent, but John McCain ruined her for conservatives. Had she not been turned into an instant celebrity, she would have had a few more years of governance and she would have had to work much harder to build the sort of coalition that she now controls. And that would have meant building an organization rather than a fan base, and potentially working a lot harder to demonstrate that she is a serious policy thinker in addition to a savvy speechmaker.

When it became easy for Palin, she lost the pressure to become a credible Presidential candidate. That sort of short-sightedness has been the Republicans’ loss, as she has the sort of charisma and easygoing image that is required in our media-saturated political environment.

Trevin Wax: There’s been a lot of talk about the GOP’s Pledge to America, specifically the lack of focus on social issues. Do you think we’re seeing a turn away from social issues and toward economic policy within the Republican Party? If so, what does this mean for conservative Christians who care deeply about the moral values of our society?

Joe Carter: The GOP has been trying to turn away from social issues for years (as I’ve complained about incessantly since 2003). Very few representatives in Congress care deeply about those issues. Most see them as, at best, a distraction, and, at worst, the reason the party doesn’t appeal to “independents” (read: liberal-leaning libertarians).

Unfortunately, too many conservatives give them a pass and make excuses for them. Economic issues are indeed a primary concern (when are they not?) but that does not mean the Republicans cannot also focus on social issues. When the Democrats are in power they manage to deal with both at the same time.

If conservative Christians don’t hold the GOP accountable they will soon find themselves persona non grata, just as we are now with the Democratic Party.

Matthew Lee Anderson: To build on Joe’s point about social conservatives’ relationship to the Republican party, at the Values Voter Summit last weekend, there was lots of talk about limited government and economic conservatism, to plenty of cheers. Yet if a social conservative were to go in front of the Club for Growth, one of the main economic conservative organizations, and talk about abortion, they’d be completely ignored. So the disconnect is very, very real.

Social conservatives have started making the case that economic conservatism actually depends upon strong families, growing demographics, low crime rates, and all the other issues social conservatives have historically thought about. And I think that’s a good strategy. But it needs to be combined with the sort of political savvy that really pushes Republicans to give more than lip service to social conservatives, as they so often do.

Trevin Wax: Glenn Beck has certainly gathered a following. Mitt Romney has (at least) a chance at becoming the Republican nominee for president. How does Francis Schaeffer’s idea of co-belligerence work in this scenario? Is it working? I worry that some evangelicals don’t think theologically enough to understand the difference between working side-by-side on certain political issues and standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the gospel.

Matthew Lee Anderson: I suspect the theological problems run both directions, and that Mormons also don’t understand enough of the differences or what’s at stake in those differences, which simply muddies the water even more. But evangelicals who want to be political co-belligerents with Mormons (as I do) need to think through not only our own political theology a lot more carefully, but Mormon political theology as well.

Marriage is a great example here. Mormons have a very different view of marriage than has existed in most of church history. How much of that plays out into their defense of traditional marriage, and how much of that matters? I have no idea, as that’s a recent realization for me. But I suspect it matters some, and that if evangelicals want to preserve the distinctiveness of Christian theology in its relationship to marriage, we need to be judicious about how we align ourselves with those who agree with ballot initiatives like Proposition 8.

In other words, if we’re going to be co-belligerents – and we most definitely should be – we should do so without secularizing our own views on the matter, which is a constant temptation for Christians who wish to interact in the public square.

Joe Carter: I think Matt is right. All of us—Christians as well as our religious co-belligerents—need to develop a more robust political theology.

Civil religionism is simply insufficient. Civil religion requires that we all get on the same page by setting aisde the God we really believe in and refer to a generic deistic entity that is palatable in the public square. But this is something Christians should not do. We should not hesitate to proclaim the name of Jesus.

We have both general revelation (mediate and immediate) and special revelation. We can agree on the general revelation aspects, which is why we can work as co-belligerents. But we can’t set aside what God has shown us through special revelation. Anyone who rejects Christ has rejected God. Jesus made it clear that there’s no way around that. Whatever Being that the other traditions are talking about, it ain’t the true God.

However, rather than letting that fact this divide us, this should simply be acknowledged, accepted, and factored into our approach to co-belligerency. We have to stop thinking that we all have to worship the “same God” – however unclear our understanding of him – in order to work together. We also have to stop thinking that our political alliances prevent us from spreading the gospel message that the triune God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – and not the tritheistic god of Joseph Smith – is the only way to salvation. It would be better for us to lose our nation than to lose the souls of our fellow citizens because we refused to share the Gospel.

Trevin Wax: A sobering word to end on, Joe. Thanks to both of you for this stimulating conversation!

Lovers of ancient languages will be thrilled to hear specimens of Old Babylonian, including portions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, being read on the internet: hear them here at www.speechisfire.com. (HT)

A video interview with Brett McCracken about his book, Hipster Christianity.

Jon Acuff with some funny comments about asking people to scoot into the middle when at church:

I like the seating arrangement at most churches. No one has a ticket. Each Sunday morning is a seat free for all. And it all comes to a head when the pastor says one thing: ”Please scoot to the middle so people who just got here can squeeze in.” But every time I hear that phrase three things go through my head…

Doug Baker writes an interesting profile on Matthew Smith and his music:

It is rare that a young man such as Smith, who is obviously musically gifted— both as a vocalist and with an ability to write tunes that people can sing and remember—would become and remain interested in Christian hymns. A quick look over the CDs he has recorded reveals that he is a student of the Bible and theology as most of the songs emerge from reading older theological works that are normally only discovered through teaching by a well-read pastor or theologian.