For about a year now, I’ve been enjoying the social media insights of Justin Wise. Justin is the social media director for Monk Development, an Internet solutions company. He also co-directs the Center for Church Communication. He blogs about social media strategy, personal productivity, lifestyle design, and entrepreneurship. Today, he’s joining me for a conversation about the future of social media.

Justin Wise: I believe that social media will continue to integrate more deeply into the minutiae of everyday life. Social will find its way into what we eat, what we wear, where we are (and where we’re going to be), what we’re listening to. Social is and will continue to be everywhere.

When I say “social,” I really mean two things:

Share and interact. We want the ability to tell people, namely our friends and family, what we’re doing/eating/going to/listening to. We share, much in the same way we’d tell a friend or spouse over dinner, what our day was like. Now we can share socially and experience feedback in real-time, regardless of where our “conversation partners” are located.

My favorite example of this is the Nike+ running app for iPhone or iPod touch. I use this app for every run I complete, and it’s been astounding to see the results. You can connect the app to your Facebook profile, and your friends can “cheer” you on by commenting on the status update the app posts whenever you start a workout. I hear these virtual “cheers” in my headphones as I’m running. Similarly, I can post the stats from my run across social networks and challenge other runners to a timed race. I’ve heard everything from “You run a lot!” to “I’m going to start running because of you.” Social is actually affecting the real-world lives of people that are sometimes continents away. That fascinates me.

This, hopefully, isn’t breaking news. We’ve all experienced the impact of social, whether a small business owner, megachurch pastor, or Fortune 500 company. Everyone has been impacted by social. I see this when I talk to small-town churches who, quite bewilderedly, say something to the effect of “We know social media are important, but we have no idea where to start!” This is not an uncommon reaction.

That said, organizations will build social into their structural fabric by resourcing social media as a department. In the same way that organizations have communications, PR, legal, and accounting departments, they’ll have social media departments.

Brian Solis says that we’re about the enter Social Media 2.0. Much like Web 2.0, culture reached a saturation point with the Web, and innovators started doing what they do best…innovate. We’re starting to reach critical mass with Social Media 1.0, where literally everyone and their grandmother are using social media in some fashion.

Trevin Wax: For many years, I heard social media gurus saying that social media (from a business standpoint) was all about the conversation. You’re not using it right if you’re not heavily engaged in the conversation across social media platforms. I’ve always scratched my head at that kind of talk because – in my case, at least – I always felt like the people who read my blog and follow me on Twitter were doing so because of the content I was providing, not just the conversational aspect. It was passing on good content through my daily link-posts or (hopefully) crafting interesting articles for the main page that were driving the social media engine. A few months ago, I saw that other social media people were now talking more about content creation and content curation as the heart of social media strategy. What do you make of this shift?

Justin Wise: “Engaging in the conversation” is a waste of time. While that may seem like an overstatement, it’s not. I even have the data to prove it.

I wrote a post on this very topic using the data of Dan Zarrella, the social media scientist at HubSpot. Dan equates “engaging the conversation” to unicorns and rainbows—they make you feel better but don’t accomplish anything.

With the addition of iBooks Author, Apple, once again, is creating a “blue ocean” in which to market. If you make ebook creation as simple as Apple has while claiming sole publisher rights to books created with the tool, more and more authors will drift to the platform. This is typical Apple—creating an ecosystem where they control every last detail from start to finish.

Books on writing bore me. Either they focus too much on grammatical do’s and don’ts or they exalt the intangible features of good writing that are caught, not taught. That’s why most writing books leave me with a passionate desire to write more – not because they’ve inspired me but because I’d much rather go ahead and write than read another boring book about writing.

Doug Wilson’s brief book Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life is a delightful exception. Wilson only has seven exhortations for us writer-wanna-be’s, and he delivers them in two pages. That’s right. In two pages, you get the gist of the book, but those two pages will whet your appetite for what the rest of the book delivers.

Reading Wordsmithy is a lot like savoring a meal at the same time you are learning to cook. As you learn how to mix up the ingredients that make for good writing, Wilson dons his chef’s hat in order to properly demonstrate all that he is exhorting you to. In other words, you won’t leave the table hungry.

After reading Wordsmithy, I sent Doug a few questions about writing. Here are his answers:

Trevin Wax: When did you first begin to write?

Doug Wilson: I remember wanting to “make books” around the sixth grade. And I think I wrote my first poem around the same time (it was about a sea anemone). But I did not seriously begin to write until after my stint in the Navy, when I was around 22.

Trevin Wax: Have you always found joy in the writing process? Or is joy something that has developed over time?

Doug Wilson: When I began to set myself to writing, my initial efforts were pretty stiff and cardboardy. But I wanted to do it and wanted to learn how to do it.

I think that I knew from the beginning that joy was the point. My wife already had her degree in English Lit, and I was a philosophy major. She knew how to type, and at the time I didn’t, so she would type out my papers for me. I must have set myself to making it interesting early on because I remember her telling me that I couldn’t put things “like that” in an academic paper. I had enjoyed reading lively writing from the time I was in high school (C.S. Lewis, William F. Buckley, et al.), and I knew I wanted to move in that direction if I could figure out how. Other models came later – e.g. Wodehouse, Mencken.

Trevin Wax: One of the takeaways from your book is that writers should know the rules of grammar but also be willing to bend them. Are you a word fusser or a word libertine?

Doug Wilson: I would say I am a fusser on the basics and a libertine around the edges. To illustrate, I think table manners are essential to civilized life, but if the court of Louis XIV demands 22 salad forks, my sympathies move to the antinomians.

Clear thinking and clear writing go together, and the rules of grammar are (for the most part) dedicated to keeping things clear. When they begin to obscure that clarity and become counterproductive, then it is time to remember that man was not made for the Sabbath.

Trevin Wax: What’s the correlation between good reading and good writing?

Doug Wilson: Good reading is foundational. Constant exposure to that which is undeniably good helps train your ear. It helps train you to throw out things that are guilty of no writing “sin” but that are equally free of any virtue. A melody can be dull without breaking any musical laws, and writing can come off like it was written by a committee without parts or passions. Reading good stuff educates a future writer in the intangibles.

Trevin Wax: What’s your take on the current state of the “blogosphere”? Do blogs help us write better?

Doug Wilson: Some blogs are great, of course, but most of that world is just noise. And most of the really good stuff is going to find its way into print. Blogs are a way for a prospective writer to make it in the minors.

The best thing about blogs is that they provide a dedicated writer with an occasion to crank it out in a disciplined fashion. If he gets good, his blog will get noticed, or his writing talents will be. But this only works because this part of our world is like the rest of the world. Cream rises, which only works if it is not all cream.

One of the more helpful theological books I read this year is J. Todd Billings’ Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church (Baker Academic, 2011). After reading through it, I was happy to offer this word of recommendation:

In Union with Christ, Todd Billings expounds upon an important New Testament doctrine by exploring its contemporary ramifications in light of careful historical and exegetical reflection. This is a thought-provoking book that will ignite fresh conversations about the nature of our participation in Christ.”

Today, I’m honored to have Todd join us here at Kingdom People to talk about the importance of the doctrine and the reality of “union with Christ” and what it means for our salvation.

Trevin Wax: Todd, you say something bold at the beginning of your book – that the doctrine of “union with Christ” is theological shorthand for the gospel itself. Explain what you mean by this statement and why we need to see the importance of union with Christ in how we conceive of the gospel.

Todd Billings: Good question. Well, my bold statement comes from John Calvin, who claims that the “sum of the gospel” is the double grace of justification and sanctification, gifts which are inseparable yet distinct, received through the Spirit in union with Christ (Institutes 3:3:1). I think that Calvin brings us a profound insight here.

Union with Christ encompasses many, many different ways that the New Testament talks about Christian identity:

• being “in Christ,”
• abiding in Christ the Vine,
• walking by the Spirit,
• the forgiveness of sins in justification,
• the gift of new life by the Spirit who works in and through believers in sanctification.

It’s a corporate image because the Spirit unites us not only to Christ but to Christ’s body, the church.

It’s also a covenantal image that brings together the Old Testament and the New, for to be in Christ is to be in God’s covenant of grace. We not only believe that Jesus Christ, in His life, death, and resurrection, is the culmination of God’s purposes in creation and covenant, we are united to Jesus Christ by the Spirit and thus participate in the One who is the true Prophet, Priest, and King.

It’s also eschatological as well as ethical, for we have already “died” to sin, yet we are called to “put to death” the old self (Rom. 6:6; 8:13). All of this happens through the Spirit (Rom. 8:9). I could say more, but even this short description indicates how this “sum” of the gospel is not a reduction of it — it’s an expansive vision of it compared with the many ways that Christians tend to domesticate the gospel today.

Trevin Wax: What are some of the ways we tend to reduce the gospel today?

Todd Billings: There are several common ways. On the one hand, sometimes we as Christians reduce the gospel to a conversion experience, or to “justification alone” — such that the entirety of the gospel comes to be about the forgiveness of sins. Sanctification becomes “our own work,” an optional extra for super-Christians.

On the other hand, sometimes we downplay or ignore the forensic imagery of justification, and we think that the gospel is just about our own transformation. On that side of the equation, the gospel can become reduced to our own lives, our own efforts to do good. It is no longer good news about God’s grace revealed to us in Christ.

But the gospel is more than either of those reductionistic options. The good news is nothing less than Jesus Christ, as the culmination of God’s purposes in creation and covenant, and our union with this same Christ by the Spirit. This means that we must say “both/and” to forensic (legal) and transformational images of salvation — because, in the words of Calvin, “free remission of sins cannot be separated from the Spirit of regeneration. This would be, as it were, to rend Christ asunder” (Institutes 3:16:1). The two gifts of the double-grace are distinct yet inseparable.

In the book, I explore many specific ways that this plays out, and I draw upon sociological work to illustrate exactly how some of these “reductions” of the gospel have taken place. Then I explore the quite remarkable way in which a theology of union with Christ addresses these reductions of the gospel. For example, in the first chapter I draw on the sociological work of Christian Smith to show how God is seen as conveniently distant by many Christians today. And in response I describe a biblical and Reformational theology of salvation as adoption by the Triune God in Christ as an antidote to that problematic view of the gospel.

Trevin Wax: How does a proper understanding of “union with Christ” aid us in sanctification? Or better put, how does the reality of union with Christ help us become more like Him?

Todd Billings: Our temptation is to think that we should imitate Christ from a distance, or ask, “What would Jesus do?” This can often lead to a practice of sanctification that is focused upon ourselves and our own efforts rather than upon loving God and neighbor and growing in conformity to Christ.

There are several dimensions of good news relating to union with Christ here. First, we are not just given a ticket to heaven and then told to try really hard to act like Christ. By the Spirit’s power, we are given justification and sanctification as gifts. Thus, even our new life in Christ is a gift, not an achievement.

Second, we don’t follow Christ at a distance, but by the Spirit’s power we are united to Christ in His death and resurrection – Christ isn’t just a distant model from history, Christ lives in us by the Spirit. At the same time, this union remains a differentiated one so that we don’t confuse the work of Christians with the work of Christ.

Third, in light of union with Christ, we can go beyond the sermon punchline of “try harder to do good,” the moralistic preaching that is so common today. Instead, in gospel proclamation our true identity is held before us – that we are adopted children of the Triune God, whose true identity is in Christ by the Spirit. The exhortation becomes: live into this new identity, which is your true identity. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ because you have been united to Him in His death and resurrection.

Finally, undergirding all of this, it’s important to recognize that affirming the effectual work of the Spirit in sanctification is not to say that we can be lazy in sanctification or that our identity is annihilated in sanctification. Rather, it is to affirm that the Spirit is the One who brings life to those who are dead in sin, thus activating believers to love God and to service in the world. When the Spirit effectually acts in sanctification, we (in our created goodness) are being restored, not annihilated. This short video about the book explores a bit more how union with Christ illuminates misunderstandings about “total depravity.”

Trevin Wax: How does “union with Christ” challenge the prevailing ways we go about doing theology and ministry?

Todd Billings: My book is full of surprises for many people. It explores the surprising, astonishing ways in which a theology of union with Christ can illuminate our understanding of the gospel, correct misunderstandings, and change the conversation about many areas of theology and ministry. It does this through showing how a biblical theology of union with Christ, together with insights retrieved from the Reformation, can open up new avenues, new ways of approaching biblical and theological issues that shake up our contemporary categories.

For example, as this short video about the book explores, union with Christ can move us beyond an “either/or” that polarizes divine transcendence and mystery from the Christian’s union and communion with God.

The book also explores the insights provided by a theology of union with Christ as a way to move beyond shortcomings in our contemporary talk about ministry, as this short video about the book’s critique of “incarnational ministry” shows.

Trevin Wax: Thanks for writing such a helpful book, Todd. And thanks for stopping by to talk about it here!

Last week, I sat down with Keith and Kristyn Getty to talk about their new Christmas album, Joy: An Irish Christmas. I’ve long appreciated the Gettys for the way they serve the Church through their hymn writing. Reading this transcript, one can sense Keith and Kristyn’s heart for evangelism, for the Church, and for praising the Lord who took on flesh to save us.

Trevin Wax: How do you go about choosing songs for a Christmas album? You probably have so many favorites.

Kristyn Getty: It’s a long, long process. Was it two years ago when we first started thinking about a Christmas album?

Keith Getty: Yes. Judson Baptist in Nashville asked us to do a Christmas show. And we didn’t have one.

Kristyn: That’s right. So we had to put some songs together for it, and that was the beginning of the sorting process. Then we developed the Irish theme with an Irish friend of ours who is fantastic at arranging music with an Irish side to it. Then, for the album, we brought out a few songs we wrote many years ago for a project that we did at home in the UK called Incarnation.

Keith: So it was basically a mixture of those three things: the older carols we’d written, the new carols we’d written, and carols that we loved that other people had written.

Kristyn: It was quite refreshing, actually, because for all our other albums, we have tried to write everything. It worked out well that in the year we were having our first child for us to take on a project where we didn’t have to write as much.

Trevin: Do either of you have a personal favorite Christmas song on the album?

Keith: My favorite Christmas song isn’t on the album because it didn’t fit the style of where we were going – “Once in Royal David’s City.” I love the melody, but it really doesn’t fit an Irish approach.

Kristyn: I enjoy singing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” Our arrangement with the band has a lot of energy.

Trevin: How has having a baby changed Christmas for you?

Keith: Well, we have a song called “How Suddenly a Baby Cries,” and it’s true that things are forever changed.

Trevin: Your song “Jesus, Joy of the Highest Heaven” has some lines about the glory of the incarnation. When I first heard that song, it reminded me of when we had our first child. He was six months old at Christmas, and I remember thinking about how helpless a baby is. And the glorious mystery of the incarnation hit me like never before…

Kristyn: You taste it in a new way. You know, you understand it before, but life experience helps you understand it differently. You view childbirth differently too. In one of our songs, we had a line that described Mary as “frail.” And after I’d given birth, I thought, Frailty has nothing to do with the process! So we changed the word to “young.” The song “Magnificat” has been meaningful to us because we’ve sung that song through the journey of the struggle to conceive, waiting for her to come and then now that she’s arrived.

Trevin: Whenever I hear “Magnificat,” I think of SBTS professor Chip Stam. There’s a YouTube video of you all at the hospital singing the song for him.

Keith: Chip was a good friend of ours who died this year of cancer. Track 9 on the album, “O Savior of Our Fallen Race,” is dedicated to him. That hymn melody is actually called “Stam.”

Trevin: Thinking about Chip and other men like him, are there some particular authors or worship leaders you turn to when you are looking for inspiration in the hymn-writing process?

Keith: The Bible is the primary inspiration. We read the whole Bible every year systematically. Likewise, our church focuses on expositional Bible teaching. In the last two years, I’ve been inspired by the whole history of Christian verse, especially poetry in English language. So I enjoy that. Authors? Tim Keller and Don Carson are two of the people who we’re closest to in terms of understanding theology. They’ve got a broad vision of understanding the gospel but in a sense that’s culturally relevant and artistically fulfilling.

Kristyn: Also, my uncle, Dr. John Lennox.

Keith: Yes, Professor Lennox introduced us. I had sort of a skeptic phase, and he helped me.

Kristyn: He’s one of those people whose strong faith makes you stronger. Whenever I’m with him, within a few minutes, either in conversation with myself or other people, he’s talking about the Lord and trying to find a way of communicating the gospel. He’s a phenomenal evangelist and a great Bible teacher.

Another person who has inspired me is Joni Eareckson Tada because of the contagious joy that she has, her unbelievable cheerfulness, and her deep faith that has been tested and shines brightly. Regarding some of the gentler songs that we’ve done – perhaps not an individual line – but the thought of her sometimes informs my singing.

Trevin: Does the fact that churches immediately grab on to certain hymns surprise you? Do you ever expect a hymn to take root quickly and then find it didn’t become as popular as expected?

Kristyn: Well, everybody’s different. And different denominations, different groups, link on to different things.

Keith: But I think different songs have different value. The last song we wrote is always the one we’re most excited about. Take two songs on the Christmas album: “O Savior of Our Fallen Race” and “Jesus, Joy of the Highest Heaven.” The second one, a children’s hymn, is useful and timeless, but has a sense of immediacy. The first one, “O Savior of Our Fallen Race,” is probably one of our best melodies ever, but it will be a gradual build, as it’s not in the style for the popular evangelical church. So different songs find different homes.

Trevin: One of my favorites is “Jesus Is Lord,” but it’s not on any of your American albums.

Keith: It was the closing hymn at Chip’s funeral, actually. He wanted his funeral to finish up with the theme of Jesus as Lord.

Kristyn: I like that one too, but it’s not one we do with the band very often.

Trevin: Looking beyond to other singers, bands, and artists… are there any particular songwriters or people you look up to or respect?

Kristyn: There’s Stuart Townend and then everybody else! After him, I loved Vikki Cook’s melody to “Before the Throne of God Above.”

Keith: Graham Kendrick pioneered the way. “The Servant King” is pretty unsurpassed.

Kristyn: Our worship music diet growing up was Graham Kendrick…

Keith: And deserved to be because it was head and shoulders above everything else.

Trevin: What’s your impression of the other side of the modern hymn movement – the practice of taking old, obscure, forgotten hymns and giving them new music with a band and things like that? Sojourn, Red Mountain Church, etc.

Kristyn: I think it can be very, very good. The only thing I would say is that if the original melody was greatly loved, I’m usually disappointed unless the new melody is incredible. But the way these groups are taking more obscure texts that people don’t sing anymore and composing a beautiful melody for them is fantastic.

Trevin: How do you recommend people approach this Christmas album?

Kristyn: Carols are a further opportunity to help tell the gospel story. It’s incredible that you can be in supermarkets and malls and street corners and hear songs like “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” We pray that the songs that are old will be heard in fresh ways and that the new songs will be an avenue for the gospel to reach into people’s lives.

Keith: Christmas in our culture is our biggest chance. Once a year, the culture determines that it’s okay to bring your friends to church, to have the gospel presented in songs and sermons and on television. This opportunity probably won’t be around forever, not to the degree that it is now. So it’s a huge opportunity. You’ve got captive audiences every time. We’ve got to be strategic about these things.

Kristyn: If a little bit of Irishness might draw some more people in, that’s exciting. Christmastime is also an incredibly difficult time for people. Our culture creates a sentiment, and the expectation is that we all have to tap into it somehow. Yet many people feel outside of that sentiment because that’s not where they are. That’s an opportunity for us to present the gospel story that gives people answers to their deepest longings.

Trevin: Thank you both. That is good counsel for church leaders and church members who want to reach out during Christmastime. And thank you for your service to the Church through your hymn writing.

Today, I’m happy to welcome my friend Tony Reinke to the blog to discuss his important new book, Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books (Crossway, 2011). I had a chance to read a pre-release copy of this book, and I offered this endorsement:

“How to read, what to read, who to read, when to read, and why you should read—Tony Reinke answers all these questions and more in this very good and (surprisingly) brief book on reading. As he shows how reading can bring glory to God and growth to the church, Reinke encourages Christians to take up the discipline of reading widely and wisely.”

Good reading isn’t just about finding good books. It’s knowing how to read the good books you find. So let’s hear from Tony as we consider ways to improve and increase our reading.

Trevin Wax: What are the different ways one should read a book? Why should certain books be read one way and other books read another way? And how can you tell the difference?

Tony Reinke: Excellent questions, Trevin. I do think books should be read differently, with different degrees of completion and at differing speeds. We must read Scripture carefully and cover to cover. But all other books can be approached differently. I may read the book completely through. Or I’ll read one chapter. I may read the books very quickly. Or I’ll read them slowly.

Trevin Wax: Why the different approaches?

Tony Reinke: The most simple answer is that I read different books for different reasons. Partly this is determined by what I want my books to accomplish. For that I use a series of reading categories that set my personal reading priorities in place. Six categories frame my book choices:

1. Reading Scripture
2. Reading to know and delight in Christ
3. Reading to kindle spiritual reflection
4. Reading to initiate personal change
5. Reading to pursue vocational excellence
6. Reading to enjoy a good story

With these categories I can evaluate my books on the basis of how well they accomplish these tasks. Some books promise to help address one of these particular topics, and I may read it from cover to cover fairly slowly. Some books may have a chapter or two that will help answer some particular need in my life, so I’ll read just those chapters. Some books I read all the way through but at a fairly quick pace, often because the book is predictable or overlaps with other books I’ve already read. And some books, after having given them a fair shot, fail to prove their worth. And those are books I’ll stop reading. So how I read a book is largely decided by what I expect to get out of the book personally, even if I’m just reading for fun (category 6).

Trevin Wax: How much time and attention should we give to classic literature? 

Tony Reinke: I aim to give classic literature a fair bit of time in my reading diet, but that reflects the deficiency of my personal educational experience. I’m reading a number of classics simply to catch up, or so it seems that way. My awakening to the value of classic literature as a Christian can be traced back to my reading of Leland Ryken’s book Realms of Gold: The Classics in Christian Perspective. In Realms of Gold, Ryken guided me through The Odyssey by Homer, Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, Macbeth by Shakespeare, Paradise Lost by Milton, The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne, Great Expectations by Dickens, The Death of Ivan Illych by Tolstoy, and The Stranger by Camus. Through his book, Ryken helped me to see the benefit of classic literature. To him I remain indebted.

Trevin Wax: How have you found classic literature to be spiritually beneficial? 

Tony Reinke: In two ways. First, there’s a spiritually reflective benefit to reading classic literature. After reading the many excellent excerpts you posted on your blog from the Julie Rose translation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, I bought a copy, brought it to our annual June beach trip, and read the first 200 pages. Page after page, Bishop Myriel reminded me of Christ’s humility and sacrifice and compassion, to a degree that I was not expecting at first. The selflessness of Hugo’s character reminds us of how sacrificing our comforts and treasures can be used as a doorway for God to reach fellow sinners. The bishop’s character frequently led me to reflections about the kindness of the Savior. And that’s one of the most important uses of classic literature. I want to see Christlikeness on display. I want to see the fruit of the Spirit in action. And I want to be perceptive to godliness on the page because, as I explain in Lit!, the fruit of the Spirit is subtler and much easier to miss than the fruit of the flesh. So I read classic literature for spiritual reflection.

Second, there’s also a utilitarian benefit to reading classic literature. As someone whose nose is always in the social media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), I find that my attention gets broken up and fragmented on a daily basis. Over time I lose my concentration and find it hard to read serious books. For me classic literature is the remedy, and Shakespeare in particular. Shakespeare is a daunting read for me. Most of what he wrote was intended for a stage-play in the first place, not the reading chair. So when I begin to sense that my attention is becoming fragmented, I pick up Shakespeare’s works (the Jonathan Bate edition). In order for me to track with his works, I must pause at every antiquated word and look up the definition at the bottom of the page until the meaning becomes clear. To do this requires that I slow myself down and read with sustained concentration for 20-60 minutes. Rushing is not an option. As a result, I find that when I turn to read my Bible, I read it with much greater care and attention, able to once again focus my attention more carefully on each word and phrase that I read. So Shakespeare recalibrates my reading pace, restores my fragmenting brain, forces me to slow down, and ultimately helps me to read my Bible more carefully. I need that.

Trevin Wax: You recommend marking up books. Why?

Tony Reinke: I certainly do. So many Christians treat books as taskmasters. Most Christians have a stack of unfinished books in their house, maybe on a desk or a bookshelf. Those unfinished books are often a source of low-grade guilt. We’ve been conditioned to think that if we buy a book, we must read it from cover to cover. That’s not true, and I’m trying to loosen Christians from this misunderstanding of what is really a subtle form of slavery to books.

Apart from Scripture, all other books are optional reading. In fact, all other books are tools for us to use in our lives as we see fit. We use books when we need them. This means that we can read books cover to cover if we wish. Or we can read one chapter, or one page. It’s our call. By writing in a book, I claim the book as a tool. I own it; it belongs to me; it was purchased to serve me, and its value to me as a tool far exceeds its resale value. This does not give me license to ignore the truth God teaches me in my reading, but it does liberate me to see books as gifts from God, not as taskmasters. And that’s a very important stage of development for Christian readers.

Of course, I mark all sorts of things in my books, but fundamentally it is a claim of ownership, a claim that reminds me that my books are my tools and that I am not enslaved to them.

Trevin Wax: Name a few novels that you’d recommend Christians consider reading.

Tony Reinke: I really try to avoid giving out too many book recommendations since everyone’s tastes will be unique and different authors will make different impacts on various types of readers. But of course, a few excellent titles come to mind.

The seven books in the Narnia Chronicles by C. S. Lewis are very important, especially if you want an overview of just about everything Lewis really believed was important (according to Alan Jacobs). I believe it.

Also, The Lord of the Rings is wonderful. As Tim Keller has said, Tolkien’s epic wonderfully illustrates important but often very abstract themes like glory, brilliance, weightiness, beauty, excellence, and virtue. Those themes are not commonly illustrated.

And of course, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress is a classic. Bunyan is able to sketch out just about every type of person you could imagine seeing in this world – or more painfully, character traits that you may see in yourself – and presents them in striking detail and always in relation to eternity.

I would add Gilead by Marilynne Robinson to the list too. It’s a subtle and beautifully written novel by one of the best contemporary Christian novelists.

Trevin Wax: How can we read discerningly from Christians in other theological streams?

Tony Reinke: I think the key is to read selectively. For me it again goes back to keeping my reading priorities straight. First, I must invest sufficient time reading Scripture directly (1). There’s no substitute here. Next I choose excellent and trustworthy books on the person and work of the Savior (2), books by the likes of Packer, Stott, Piper, Carson, Ferguson … we have lot of great ones to choose from (your books included, Trevin!).

These two reading categories anchor my soul and hold me steady when I read everything else. With those anchors in place, I have a fair amount of flexibility to read from writers that represent a broad spectrum of theological views. My focus on Scripture and the orthodox gospel provides me with spiritual protection when I venture out to read books from other theological streams. Without these reading categories in place, I would never attempt to read as broadly as I do.

Second, with my categories firmly in place, I can then look to different authors to fill specific categories in my reading diet. So for example, I’m not reading Peter Kreeft for my ecclesiology, but I do want to read his book on logic (5). I’m not reading G. K. Chesterton to learn reformed theology (2), but I do read him to think about the effects of modern life on the soul (3). And I’m not necessarily turning to C. S. Lewis to discover new depths to the atonement of Christ (2), but he’s one of the first authors I turn to when I need fresh courage to battle personal sin (4). Knowing which authors cater to specific reading priorities has been really helpful.

Today, I’m excited to welcome pastor David Platt back to the blog to discuss his upcoming “Secret Church” simulcast. David is the pastor at The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, AL, and he is the author of Radical and Radical Together.

Trevin Wax: David, the upcoming simulcast was originally about the last days. Why did you change the topic?

David Platt: We had originally planned to cover “Heaven, Hell, and the End of the World” at this Secret Church. But then, due to a variety of factors in our church, our culture, and in my own life, I decided that we would switch to “Family, Marriage, Sex, and the Gospel.” Daniel Heimbach, who wrote a wonderful book on sexual morality and the gospel, has said:

“The stakes in the current conflict over sex are more critical, more central, and more essential than in any controversy the church has ever known. This is a momentous statement, but I make it soberly, without exaggeration. Conflict over sex these days is not just challenging tradition, orthodoxy, and respect for authority in areas such as ordination, marriage, and gender roles. And it does not just affect critically important doctrines like the sanctity of human life, the authority and trustworthiness of scripture, the Trinity, and the incarnation of Christ. Rather, war over sex among Christians is now raging over absolutely essential matters of faith without which no one can truly be a Christian in the first place—matters such as sin, salvation, the gospel, and the identify of God himself.”

I agree with Heimbach. So we are going to dive into some of the most sensitive, and I am convinced the most important, issues that we are facing not just in our culture but in other cultures around the world.

• Manhood
• Womanhood
• Marriage
• Parenting
• Singleness
• Sex
• Divorce
• Homosexuality
• Same-sex marriage
• Polygamy
• Pornography
• Adoption
• Abortion

I want us to look at how God’s Word uniquely and redemptively addresses each of these issues. I want us to see how the gospel transforms our understanding of family, marriage, sex, and a host of related (and controversial) issues that are ultimately foundational for the display of the glory of God in our lives, in the church, and in the world.

Trevin Wax: How is the Secret Church simulcast making an impact on “the secret church” around the world?

David Platt: On a very basic level, I hope the Secret Church simulcast is exposing more people to the importance of prayer for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world. I just heard today from a brother in a persecuted context who was so encouraged to see the church here intentionally praying for and focusing on our suffering brothers and sisters in other nations. And I’m encouraged to hear that biblical resources from Secret Church are getting into the hands of churches that otherwise would not have access to such resources.

In addition, I think one of the most exciting things about extending the impact of Secret Church through a simulcast is the opportunity to worship, pray, and study the Word in a global context. During our previous simulcast, people were sending in pictures of groups studying all over the world. At one point during that night, we put up a picture of a small group meeting in Cambodia. The fact that all of us in Birmingham, AL, were able to join with brothers and sisters there was wonderful.

Trevin Wax: How do you deal with the discomfort of talking about issues that are so fraught with social taboo and political controversy?

David Platt: It’s never easy to talk about issues like sex, abortion, divorce, and homosexuality because so many people have been affected in so many ways by these issues. There are different situations represented in almost every single seat, including emotional, many times painful, struggles from the past or maybe in the present. When you add this dynamic to the reality that these are political hot-button issues, I realize that addressing them requires sensitivity.

But at the same time, the Word is clear on so many of these issues, and the Word is good. Where the Bible speaks clearly, I want to speak clearly. Where the Bible speaks with compassion and tenderness, I want to speak with compassion and tenderness. And where the Bible speaks with force, I want to speak with force. And as we prepare to gather together and study His Word on that Friday night, I am praying that God, by the power of His Spirit, will take His Word and apply it appropriately to our hearts and that we will respond appropriately with our lives.

Trevin Wax: Did you expect the Secret Church idea to spread beyond Birmingham? Are you surprised by the hunger for this method of studying the Word?

David Platt: We really weren’t sure what the response would be for the first Secret Church. We kept it very simple and didn’t do a whole lot to promote it. We made a few announcements to our church and put some information on the web. That first Friday evening from 6:00 p.m. – midnight, we gathered in our auditorium and just studied the Word. We had a little over 1,000 people in attendance, and we had no idea how much it would grow from there. People were drawn to the simplicity and gravity of the Word and to time in concentrated prayer for the persecuted church. After that first gathering, word started to spread, and we quickly outgrew our seating capacity. During the last Secret Church simulcast, we had about 50,000 people gathered literally from around the world.

Trevin Wax: What responses from the previous simulcast have encouraged you?

David Platt: There are stories like Cindy and her husband who attended Secret Church for the first time via the simulcast and afterward started two Bible studies in their home, reteaching Secret Church materials. Or the church in Mexico where 10 men who attended that night decided to meet every Wednesday morning to go back through the material we covered that night, studying it in a deeper way in order to be able to reteach it. That’s what we want to see happen.

We want participants to come away with an insatiable hunger for God’s Word, and we want people, when they leave, to be equipped to share what they’ve learned with others. The primary goal of Secret Church is to equip brothers and sisters – here and around the world – to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth, no matter what it costs.

Trevin Wax: Thanks, David. It’s great to see your heart for the persecuted church around the world and your heart for discipleship in churches here in the United States.

For more information on the upcoming Secret Church simulcast – Family, Marriage, Sex, and the Gospel (November 4, 2011, 6:00 p.m. – Midnight) - click here.

Today I’m joined by Winfield Bevins, author of Creed: Connect to the Basic Essentials of Historic Christian Faith, and Derek Vreeland, author of Primal Credo: Your Entrance into the Apostles’ Creed. Both of these books deal with the use of the Apostle’s Creed in spiritual formation. I found these books to be helpful in different ways. Winfield focuses more on discipling a new believer, while Derek’s exposition intends to increase a believer’s knowledge of the basic truths of Christianity. I’ve invited Winfield and Derek to join me for a conversation about the usefulness of the Apostle’s Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer in discipleship.

Trevin Wax: I thought about titling this blog post Why We Love The Creeds… By 3 Guys Who Shouldn’t. After all, we are young-ish and early-on in ministry. Yet all three of us have come to the conclusion that the Apostle’s Creed is a terrific place to begin the discipleship process. Ironically, none of us grew up in churches where creeds were recited or referenced. So I’m curious, how did you guys stumble upon this early confession, and what convinced you of its value to the church today?

Derek Vreeland: I first heard of the Apostles’ Creed while I was in college in the early 1990′s. I had grown up in a non-creedal church that taught us the evils of “secular” music. The alternative to the devil’s music was, of course, heavenly inspired, contemporary Christian music, which included the late, great Rich Mullins. I heard his song “Creed” during the “Christian-music-only” phase of my spiritual journey. Singing about the creed, Mullins says:

“I did not make it;
no it is making me.
It is the very truth of God
not the invention of any man.“

In my second seminary experience, I entered into a time of personal rediscovery of the doctrine of the Trinity. I had spent much of my faith journey drinking from the well of the charismatic renewal, and somehow I had lost sight of the Trinity in the brightness of a robust view of the Holy Spirit. Elevating the role of the Trinity helped me to redefine my faith not as “charismatic” or even “evangelical” (though I embrace both of these traditions) but as Trinitarian. So I was able to answer the question “What kind of Christian are you?” with the single adjective “Trinitarian.”

Trevin Wax: So you came to see the value of the creed through the back door of discovering the importance of Trinitarianism.

Derek Vreeland: Yes. During this Trinitarian transition in my own heart and life, I found myself pastoring a church in rural South Georgia. As a congregation, we were hip, cool, casual, and nondenominational. I enjoyed that kind of vibe in church life and in the setting of Sunday morning worship, but I found that it lacked the depth and richness that come from connecting with Christian origins. We were self-consciously anti-traditional. The dark underbelly of this kind of approach to church life is it can lead to spiritual pride and elitism.

I began thinking: Why would we want to reject the gifts of the historic, traditional church? They gave us the Bible that we are absolutely devoted to. Why not accept the creed too? The beauty of the creed is it allows us to connect with the “faith that was once for all delivered to the saints,” and it gives us the essentials of what it means to be a Christian believer.

Trevin Wax: What about you, Winfield?

Winfield Bevins: I grew up in a nominal Baptist home. Everyone knows that Baptists are not known for being creedal. So needless to say, I never heard of the creeds until I was in seminary. There I discovered that church history was a treasure chest of ancient tools and practices for discipleship. As I studied church history, I was introduced to the Apostles’ Creed and its significance for all believers regardless of their background or denominational affiliation.

I began to think to myself, If the creeds mattered to the majority of Christians throughout the history of the church, shouldn’t they matter to us as well? Slowly I became convinced of the importance of the Apostles’ Creed as a universal affirmation of the basic essentials of the Christian faith and of its doctrinal importance for today.

Another development in my understanding of the creed happened when I began using the Book of Common Prayer for my personal devotional life. The Book of Common Prayer contains the Daily Office, which is based on the ancient practice of prescribed daily times of prayer. These services are accompanied by daily Scripture readings (a reading from the Psalms, the Old Testament, the New Testament, and a Gospel reading). The Apostles’ Creed is included in the Daily Office and is meant to be recited and prayed during morning and evening prayers.

By following the Daily Office, I discovered the devotional nature of the creeds. Doctrine and devotion go hand in hand. Creeds are not just something that we confess as a statement of faith on Sunday but truths that transform us as we seek to live according to the gospel message in the real world. Therefore, I believe the primary value of the Apostles’ Creed for today is in both doctrine and devotion.

Derek Vreeland: Winfield, we also are beginning to use the Book of Common Prayer in the devotional life of our church. We pray the collect for the week in our services, and I am beginning to incorporate this into my own devotional life. You make a good point. The creed is both devotional and dialectical. There is a liturgical rhythm to the creed that gives it a sense of devotional beauty that works well in private devotions and corporate worship.

Trevin Wax: It’s interesting you bring up the Book of Common Prayer. During my last year in Romania, I became very dissatisfied with my own lack of passion in prayer. A friend gave me the Book of Common Prayer as a help and guide. The idea of praying a written prayer was foreign to me, but I found that the collects and the rhythm and structure reinvigorated my prayer life. My spontaneous prayers were then shaped and formed by this time-tested guide to prayer.

The way I look at it is like a child trying on his dad’s shoes. As a kid, you think, Will my feet ever fit into these shoes? That’s the way I felt when praying the words of Augustine, Cranmer, etc. These are spiritual giants whose footsteps I walk in. My heart isn’t where it needs to be, but as I pray written prayers, as I pray the psalms and the Lord’s Prayer, I sense that God is slowly shaping my heart so that I start wanting the things I’m praying for.

It sounds like for you guys there is a devotional aspect of this that is distinct from the discipleship process. Let’s talk about that for a moment. How has the Apostle’s Creed and the Lord’s Prayer affected you devotionally?

Derek Vreeland: The devotional life is a part of discipleship in my view. As a follower of Jesus, we need to practice certain disciplines so we can put ourselves in places where we can be changed and transformed by the Spirit. I have made the Lord’s Prayer the very basis of my own prayer life.

I believe evangelicals have made the mistake of assuming Jesus never intended us to recite the prayer He gave. Jesus gave us both a pattern to pray and a prayer to pray when He said, “When you pray, say…” (Luke 11:2). I tried to pray on my own for years, praying spontaneous prayers, which for the most part were shallow and weak. I do pray spontaneous prayers, but my personal prayer life is built around the prayer Jesus gave us.

Praying the Lord’s Prayer keeps me focused on God and His kingdom, which makes the Lord’s Prayer a perfect companion to the Apostles’ Creed. One of the weaknesses of the creed is there is no reference to the kingdom of God, no reference to anything Jesus actually taught. The creed goes from the incarnation of Christ (conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary) to the passion of Christ (suffered under Pontius Pilate). So it is difficult to say that the creed contains all of the essentials of the faith without including the kingdom of God, which is central to all Jesus taught. Praying the Lord’s Prayer on a regular basis complements the creed with a regular request for God’s kingdom to come.

Winfield Bevins: I am not surprised that guys like us are beginning to discover and use the Book of Common Prayer. It offers a refreshing alternative to our ahistorical, postmodern, contemporary version of Christianity. It is not a substitute for personal or private prayer; rather, it is an aide that can help enhance and deepen our personal prayer life.

The Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer help us rediscover the devotional aspect of discipleship. While discipleship is very personal and private, it is also communal. It is my belief that disciples are made in community, not isolation. Perhaps the reason why many churches struggle with making disciples is that they do not know how to live in community.

Like Derek’s church, we also pray the collect each Sunday. In addition, we also say the Lord’s Prayer together during the service. By doing this we are reminded of the corporate nature of our discipleship. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “Our Father,” “Give us,” “Forgive us,” and “Lead us.” We pray it personally, but we also pray it corporately together. It reminds us that we are not alone, that we are a part of a larger Christian family of men and women who have gone before us in the faith as well as with millions of believers living today.

Likewise, whenever we say the Apostles’ Creed, we are also uniting with Christians everywhere who are affirming the same essentials of the faith. It wasn’t invented yesterday, and there is something comforting and devotional about that, kind of like a warm cup of coffee in the morning. The Apostles’ Creed is a great gift to the church and belongs to all Christians everywhere.

Derek Vreeland: The devotional life is a part of discipleship, but it is only one part. I agree that discipleship is communal and that the Lord’s Prayer, with all of its third-person pronouns, helps to underscore the communal nature of following Christ. This is another reason why the Lord’s Prayer is the perfect companion to the Apostles’ Creed. The creed is all in the first person – “I believe…” The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that there is a “we” behind the “I.”

I also see the ecumenical value of the creed. We can become stunted in our spiritual growth if we only read and fellowship with Christians within our own tradition. Connecting with Christians of different traditions through conversation or through their writings stretches us and allows us to see our blind spots. We may not always agree, but what binds us together is our common confession of faith through the creed.

Trevin Wax: Thanks for this conversation, guys! May the prayer given to us by our Lord and the creed given to us by the early church aid our spiritual growth as the Spirit fashions us into the image of Christ.

Today, I’m welcoming N.D. (Nate) Wilson to the blog to talk about truth and beauty. Nate is the author of a number of books, including Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God’s Spoken World. The DVD of Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl is available in the iTunes store (and for my international readers, you can find it in iTunes in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Netherlands/Belgium, and Sweden too!).

Trevin Wax: Nate, thanks for taking the time to join me for a blog conversation. I’ve been beating the drum for a while now about the need for Christians to go beyond mere affirmation and articulation of Christian truth and seek to proclaim and celebrate doctrine in ways that underscore the inherent beauty of Truth Himself. As I’ve made this case, I’ve noticed that your name keeps coming up in comments and emails.

Last week, I started reading Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl and then I watched the excellent DVD based on the book. I’m happy to see that while guys like me are blabbing on about the need for beauty, guys like you are already delivering thoughtful, rich, dare-I-say exuberant prose that stirs up a sense of wonder at life, love, and the beauty of Christian truth.

Why is it important that we seek to communicate truth in persuasive and artistically powerful ways?

Nate Wilson: It is important that we communicate well (in ways that resonate artistically as well as theologically) because it adds a great deal of persuasive force – a sort of aesthetic affirmation and enticement to believe what is being said.

As a simple example, imagine being taken over to some family’s home and being told in advance that this family had really tapped into a deeper and truer and more beautiful way of relating to each other. But then, when the front door opens, all you smell are stale socks and a little pyramid of cat poo that’s lurking in the corner. The smell itself is already an argument against everything you’ve been told about these people, and anything they might have to say to you. But imagine if that door opens and you get hit with the smell of baking bread–you are now prepared to react differently. This is not to say that the wonderful smell establishes truth all on its own, but it is a testifying witness.

And this issue goes a lot further than mere pragmatic examples of efficacy in persuasion. If we Christians have the truth, and that truth is beautiful – more beautiful than any other message or religion out there – and then we present it in stammering, clumsy, irreverent, or ugly ways, well, we’re hypocrites. We’re living unfaithfully to the Truth. But if we live in a state of celebration and joy and gratitude, and if our words and our art and our presentations of that truth hit people like the smell of baking bread, then we’re getting somewhere.

Trevin Wax: Joy is a major theme in your writing. But you’re not talking about the abstract concept of joy or our need for joy or our pursuit of joy. (It’s possible to talk a lot about joy and yet be so serious about it that people don’t feel the lightness of weighty joyfulness.) No… the way joy encompasses your work is in your expression of joy and wonder. You don’t write about it; you write from it. Where did you get this emphasis on joy, and why is it important for us to cultivate joy in our lives and our work?

Nate Wilson: It all goes back to the warmth and joyfulness that my parents created and maintained in our family as my sisters and I were growing up. It was deep, constant, and completely genuine. And we (as we grew) understood that it was utterly and profoundly connected to our faith, and to the One in whom our faith rested. We laughed looking out at the world, because He was so obviously laughing as He spoke it.

We fed on P.G. Wodehouse because his words and wordplay were successful (if accidental) theological imitations of the playfulness of reality. We were in fellowship with each other. Our parents didn’t allow bitternesses or resentments or feuds to ever take root and grow – no stale socks or poo pyramids to ruin the atmosphere.

(Sidenote: My little sis has written a great book for young moms in the trenches on exactly this kind of stuff. It’s called Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches, and it’s darn good.)

Again, this all comes back to the hypocrisy of unfaithfulness (in this case, unjoyfulness). Do we have a message of joy and grace for the world, or do we not? If we do, then why don’t we act like it?

“Hey Bob,” I tell my neighbor. “If you turn to Christ, you can have a life and an outlook like mine, which, as it turns out, kinda sucks. You interested?” Joy is our strength, our gift. Joy in redemption and in reunion with God is what we have to offer, but we can’t offer the world what we don’t cultivate ourselves.

Trevin Wax: It’s obvious to me that you’ve read a lot of G.K. Chesterton. Like Chesterton, you expose the pompousness of the silly philosophy that passes as serious, and yet you maintain a whimsical sense that shows you don’t take yourself too seriously. What is it about Chesterton’s vision and writing that has inspired you? And why should we read Chesterton today?

Nate Wilson: We should read him because he was a prophet of joy, because he was a seer into the sleeping and blind souls of men, and he always seems to find the right words to slap us awake. He was/is incredibly perceptive about the seductions of self-importance and seriousness, and it’s hard to read anything he writes without gaining something.

But his book Orthodoxy should be required reading for absolutely everyone. It was the first book that I ever finished and then flipped back to the beginning to start over again. He wasn’t a Protestant, but I think we can call him a Puritan (“the last Puritan” is my tag for him). Obviously, I don’t go everywhere he goes, but I am blessed to have his writing around me, providing a voice like that of an amusing, wise, and deeply affectionate uncle.

Trevin Wax: Every time I talk about the need to express truth in the most beautiful and captivating manner possible, I get pushback from some well-intentioned folks who think that I’m advocating the kind of sophistry and rhetoric that Paul condemned in 1 Corinthians 1. There are some who think that whenever we start talking about art and beauty, we’re already stumbling down the path of doctrinal compromise and cultural capitulation. (Ironically, in making this point, these folks will use well-crafted analogies and thoughtful rhetoric.)

What’s the difference between articulating Christian truth faithfully (making good use of rhetoric, beauty, and art) and relying on rhetoric and persuasion that Paul describes as “foolishness” in the eyes of God?

Nate Wilson: First, I think the suspicious types have the right idea, and I’m with them when people tell me that aesthetic relevance is achieved (in worship, for example) by banging on drum kits while wearing skinny jeans. Beauty is a slippery concept in our culture, and less-than-helpful dupers and dupees regularly try to use it as a protective umbrella for all sorts of nonsense. But this is because they are looking to the foolish standards of the world to discover what is beautiful (which is what Paul is ripping on in 1 Corinthians). Shiny does not equal beauty. New technology does not equal beauty. Guys in skinny jeans equal the opposite of beauty. We need to backtrack a long, long way and dig into the narratives of Scripture (and natural revelation) so that we might develop a mature Christian aesthetic.

But having a Christian aesthetic is not optional. God made the world, and it is beautiful. He told (and lived out) the gospel, and it sets an aesthetic ideal for us. Grace is beautiful. Redemption is beautiful. And we should wear that on our faces, in our relationships, in and on our buildings – that’s how our lives should smell, and it’s what our art should pay tribute to.

Trevin Wax: Your dad says we might be on the verge of a Kuyperian renaissance in the arts. (See here.) Do you agree? If so, what signs point in this direction?

Nate Wilson: I agree with him. He likes to stick his finger in the wind, point to little wispy clouds on the horizon, and predict flash-floods. He has done it with educational movements; he did it with what some now call the New Calvinism; he has done it with postmillennialism (a position that’s still in process but is now off the endangered species list and growing); and now he’s predicting a wave of robust, Calvinist art. Ha! Seriously? It might seem ridiculous to some, but throw your mind back 10 years. How much more ridiculous would it have seemed then? And that, my friends, tells you which way the wind is blowing – even if it still only feels like a breeze.

But know this about my father, he doesn’t just like making predictions (preferably early enough that they seem impossible); he likes making predictions and then working his tail off to make them come true. Think of it more as a gameplan. He’s checking off his fight-these-strategic-battles list. He’s not a guy in the stands making a prediction. He’s more like a coach trying to call a play. That’s why he’s so involved in Christian education all the way up through the college level, and that’s why he predicts the things he predicts.

More on the data side of things, everywhere I go, people want to talk to me about the arts, particularly writing and film (obviously, I’m not a sculptor). I think he’s accurately spotted another cloud on the horizon, or maybe it’s actually all the same cloud, and he’s just labeling phases of one single growing storm. Call it Reformation…

Trevin Wax: Nate, I’m grateful for your work. Thanks for stopping by the blog.

Nate Wilson: Thanks so much for the chance to talk about this, Trevin. There’s so much more to say (and do), but I hope this was helpful as far as it went. In the meantime, a tall aspen tree is rattling against my attic window as one of our first Fall rains rolls in. Out in the yard, I have a four-year-old son in a raincoat, manfully doing his Christian duty on a tire swing, and I’m beginning to suspect that two floors away, my lovely wife is baking pumpkin bread. And that is a suspicion that I must confirm…

This is a world flooded with grace, as we should be.

Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl Movie Trailer from Gorilla Poet Productions on Vimeo.

Today, I’m happy to welcome a pastor-friend of mine, J.D. Greear, to the blog to discuss his new book, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary. J.D. is pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh, NC. Gospel also includes a small-group companion piece called Gospel Revolution. 

Trevin Wax:  J.D., few people would be so bold as to call their book Gospel. (I can think of four other books with this title, but they’re all in the Bible!) But that’s what you’ve done. You’ve expressed in laypeople’s terms the type of confidence and security that comes from believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. In a nutshell, what is the insight into the biblical gospel that has revolutionized your spiritual life in the past few years?

J.D. Greear: Ha, yes. I figured with a title like “Gospel,” no one could really critique it. I hope readers will forgive the hubris.

The burden behind the book is that many of us who grew up in conservative, evangelical churches have failed to avail ourselves of the power of the gospel. We know it as the forgiveness of sins but not as the power of transformation.

The Great Commandment leaves us in a dilemma: it tells us that God’s expectation of us is that we love Him with all our hearts, souls, and minds. But how can true love be commanded? Obedience without desire is drudgery, both to us and to God.

What the law cannot do, however, the gospel does. It is only as we learn of the richness and beauty of God’s love for us that we grow in love for Him. The Spirit of God uses the message of God’s acceptance of us in Christ to produce in us what religion is entirely unable to produce: a desire for God.

Nothing we are commanded to do for God will change us as much as dwelling on the news of what He has done for us.This is where so many of our church traditions have gone wrong—not in emphasizing bad things but in emphasizing good things at the expense of the gospel.

Trevin Wax: You and I come from similar backgrounds – strict observance of the letter of the law, lots of focus on rules, church standards, check-list Christianity, etc. You’ve mentioned that, in the past, even some of your mission work and pastoring was done from this kind of mindset. What was the turning point for you?

J.D. Greear: Honestly, it was listening to Tim Keller preach at the Resurgence conference about 5 years ago. I don’t want to say it was all brand new, but in that moment it felt like so many things clicked—like Luther when he described how all in a moment a flash of light burst through all these truths sown into his mind over the years and he saw how every verse, every story, had always been about justification by faith. I saw how justification by faith had always been the point—not just for salvation but sanctification as well. All the verses I had learned as a child in AWANA, the mission trips I had gone on, and the John Piper books I had read in college had been pointing at standing in hushed awe of the God of the gospel, an awe that leads to worship and then to life change.

God wasn’t just trying to correct my behavior; He was recapturing my heart—and He wouldn’t do that through a list of what I was to do for Him but through the message of what He had done for me. Tim Keller certainly was not the first one to preach the gospel to me, but in that moment, by the grace of Jesus and the power of the Spirit, it all made sense. It was my “John Wesley listening to Luther’s commentary on Romans” moment. I get emotional just thinking about it. It’s one reason I was so honored to have Tim Keller write the foreword for this book.

Trevin Wax: As I read through your book (a second time!), I paid closer attention to the “gospel prayer” you use as a tool for spiritual formation in your own life. How has this prayer helped you, and why do you recommend it to others?

J.D. Greear: I didn’t write it all at once; it developed over the course of about a year and a half as I tried to grasp what it really means to align my thinking with the gospel. I taught it in several “versions” to our church before settling on the form it is in now.

Peace, joy, radical generosity, audacious faith, and unwavering trust are all the fruits of dwelling on the gospel. I have certainly seen that in the last 5 years. That is the “secret,” if you will, of the gospel: these fruits are not produced, at the heart level, by focusing on them; they come by focusing on Jesus. That is what makes the gospel truly a “revolutionary” message.

Trevin Wax: One of the statements from that prayer is “Your presence and approval are all I need for everlasting joy.” There are some who might interpret this line as sounding a little like a prosperity-gospel teaching. I can imagine a TV preacher twisting it to mean something like Be happy in Jesus because He loves you and is with you. How does the biblical gospel keep our need for God’s approval and presence from turning into a self-centered, sentimentalized view of status-quo living?

J.D. Greear: The prosperity gospel presents God as a means to an end. Cloaked in the language of faith, it teaches us to use God as a means to the things we really love. The true gospel makes God Himself the end. Faith’s desire is not a bunch of things from God; faith is seeking more of God Himself. After all, that’s what the forgiveness of the gospel is all about: not the rewards of heaven or escape from the punishments of hell but reunion with the God in whose presence is fullness of joy. So, in saying, “You are all I need for everlasting joy,” the point is not “You are all I need to gain access to other things that will give me joy” but “You Yourself are all I need for joy.” I hope I make all this clear in the book, but you’ll just have to buy it to see (smile). 

Trevin Wax: One last question… just out of curiosity. How in the world did you manage to get Tim Keller to write the foreword?

J.D. Greear: Ha! He told me that he doesn’t do that a lot anymore, but then I told him that my book was “simultaneously better than he ever imagined but more in need of his endorsement than he’d ever dared hope,” and that seemed to win him over.

Today, I’m having a conversation with Matthew Lee Anderson, author of the new book, Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith. Matt blogs at Mere Orthodoxy and writes often for Christianity Today.  I wrote this endorsement of his book:

Tattoos, cremation, abortion, gay sex, yoga, online church: No subject is off limits in Matthew Anderson’s provocative book on the body. Anderson challenges us to deepen our understanding of what it means to be embodied. When it comes to body matters, the body matters. Though few will agree with all of Anderson’s diagnosis and prescription, all who read this book will be challenged to consider how our views of the body line up with (or depart from) Scripture and Christian theology. This is a highly ambitious project that deserves careful consideration. 

Trevin Wax: Matt, one of the points you make in your book is that evangelicals have not given enough attention to the body. Are you talking about book-length treatment of the body, or are you speaking more generally of our view of heaven, resurrection, spiritual discipline, etc.”? How does this lack of attention work itself out in practice?

Matthew Anderson: I should probably narrow my claim there to, “Evangelicals have not given enough attention to the body from a uniquely theological standpoint.”  That is, we haven’t made it a point of conscious reflection in our theological efforts.  I think there are lots of strands of evangelicalism that contain aspects of an account of the body that is evangelical, which is why I think the complaint that evangelicals are gnostic is somewhat overstated.  But have we been as consciously attentive to the body from a theological perspective as we should be?  Probably not.

Trevin Wax: So, we’re not gnostic per se, but we have not been consciously thinking about our bodies theologically? What does “a uniquely theological standpoint” look like? How does it play out practically, let’s say, in how we consider tattoos and piercings?

Matthew Anderson: Yes, I think that’s the right way of putting it.  I think in order to be “gnostic,” you should consciously be trying to escape the body.  Not everyone is going to agree with that, of course, but inattention is not the same as repudiation or rejection.  And honestly, there hasn’t been nearly as much of the latter (that I can find) as people tend to say.  I qualify this, though, and note I’m not a historian and could be wrong.

As for a “uniquely theological standpoint,” I think it’s one that starts with the revelation of Jesus Christ and reflects on our embodied experience and our matter through that lens.  We talk a lot about why Jesus had to die to accomplish our salvation, and rightly so.  But why did he have to take on a body?  And why did he have to die bodily?  And what significance does that have for our bodies?  Those are all questions we can ask of the counsel of Scripture without thinking about medicine or science or dieting.

How that plays out practically in, say, tattoos….someone should write a book on that.

Trevin Wax: You talk about viewing our bodies through the lens of Jesus’ incarnation and bodily death. Curious, you didn’t mention the resurrection (which you do in the book, so you’re off the hook, I guess!). How has the truth of the resurrection influenced (historically) Christian thought on the body? And how should it influence the choices we make today?

Matthew Anderson: Well, leaving the resurrection aside was definitely a mistake.  It’s hard to say how pervasive the influence of the doctrine has been on Christians throughout the centuries.  But I think one of the central things the resurrection grounds is hope, which seems to be a uniquely Christian virtue.  The possibility of restoration and an embodied life after death allows for a sort of flagrant disregard for death.  In light of the resurrection, death’s power turns out to be no power at all.  And that enabled the martyrs to enter cheerfully into their sufferings (even while it sometimes might have made them a little too eager to die) and others to kiss those who were dying of deadly diseases as a way of bringing comfort.

Which is, I think, precisely how the doctrine should affect us now.  With all our emphasis on the intrinsic goodness of the body and of sexuality, we have to remember the corruptibility and decay of the body and look elsewhere for permanence and stability. When it comes to choices that we make, I think we need to be careful to see the counterfeit resurrections that are being held out to us, if I can use a phrase that echoes your own “counterfeit gospels,” and ensure that our hope is found in nothing less than Jesus’ blood, righteousness, and risen body.

Trevin Wax: You mentioned our need to look elsewhere (and not the body) for permanence and stability. What about identity? Our society is becoming increasingly muddled on issues of gender and sexuality, with men claiming to be women trapped in male bodies, etc. Likewise, one of the reasons it is so difficult to have a conversation about the nature and morality of homosexuality is because those who engage in homosexual behavior often conflate their behavior/attractions with their identity. Sexuality becomes the primary identity, the defining aspect of who they are. How does a Christian view of the body affect our identity when it comes to gender (male or female) and sexuality (attractions and actions)?

Matthew Anderson: Do we get to the hard questions after this one?  Oh, wait….

This is a really delicate issue, and one that I probably can’t do justice to here (though I give it a fighting effort in the book).  On the one hand, Christians want to relegate the status of sexual identity to the edges, rather than the center.  Our identity is to be firmly in Christ and we are to take the narrative for our own lives not from our sexual desires or dispositions (whether toward people of the same sex or not), but from the narrative of the Gospel.

However, that narrative leaves no part of us untouched, including our sexuality, as it establishes genuine norms for the expression of our sexuality.  Part of the problem of our contemporary sexual confusion is a subtle rejection of the body’s role in shaping our identity and self-understanding.  Culturally, “gender” sometimes gets treated as though it can be totally separated from the structure of our physical bodies, which turns our bodies into objects that are infinitely malleable either by our own wills or by the social forces and influences around us.  A Christian view of the body, though, sees it as a gift that has been given to us by God, and that it’s structure sets the conditions for our freedom and joy.  Whatever gender is, I think it is supposed to emerge out of the body and our sexual differences, not overwhelm them and treat them as irrelevant or reconstructible in light of our felt experience of the world.

Trevin Wax: What’s the takeaway from your book in regards to the day-to-day choices we make as Christians? How does a thoughtful, theological perspective on the body affect our choices daily?

Matthew Anderson: A couple ways. First, I think that it changes the way that we pray, such that presenting the members of our body becomes something that we intentionally practice, in the way that we might tithe intentionally or worship on Sunday mornings. That means becoming more attentive to how our feet, ears, eyes, etc. have been trained as “instruments for unrightousness” and deliberatively asking God to retrain them as “instruments for righteousness.”

Related to that, I hope that it makes us engage our whole person in the spiritual disciplines, such that if we are claiming that Jesus is Lord, we are actually kneeling before him to acknowledge his Lordship with our knees as much as our lips and hearts.