The Gospel Coalition

“The Bible is the rope God throws us in order to ensure that we stay connected while the rescue is in progress.” J.I. Packer

My dad was born and raised in Villars, Switzerland, only a couple of miles from L’Abri. I remember going to hear Francis Schaeffer preach on Sunday mornings when we would visit my father’s family. My paternal grandparents were huge supporters of L’Abri and as a result developed a close friendship with the Schaeffer’s. Francis and his beautiful wife Edith would come over to the house regularly for afternoon tea. All I remember about Francis Schaeffer was his unconventional clothing and appearance and his long-windedness. My gosh, the man could talk. And since I couldn’t understand a word he said, I was bored to tears. Little did I know that 20 years later God would use Francis Schaeffer to become one of my chief intellectual mentors.

Early in my Christian life, while I was in college, Schaeffer’s books radically transformed the way I thought. He set me on an intellectual exploration that continues to this day. He helped me see that Christianity is “true truth” about all reality, not just spiritual or pietistic reality. He championed the Protestant Reformers claim that because God is both Creator and Redeemer, there is no such thing as a secular/sacred dichotomy. “If Jesus is not Lord of all”, he used to say, “than Jesus is not Lord at all.” His entire career was spent unpacking Abraham Kuyper’s famous phrase, “There is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry out, ‘Mine.’” I could write much more about the ministry of L’Abri and Francis Schaeffer but for those unfamiliar with L’Abri, here is something I pulled off their website. Enjoy…  

L’Abri Fellowship began in Switzerland in 1955 when Francis and Edith Schaeffer decided in faith to open their home to be a place where people might find satisfying answers to their questions and practical demonstration of Christian care. It was called L’Abri, the French word for “shelter,” because they sought to provide a shelter from the pressures of a relentlessly secular 20th century. As time went by, so many people came that others were called to join the Schaeffers in their work, and more branches were established.

There have been four main emphases in the teaching at L’Abri:

First, that Christianity is objectively true and that the Bible is God’s written word to mankind. This means that biblical Christianity can be rationally defended and honest questions are welcome.

Second, because Christianity is true it speaks to all of life and not to some narrowly religious sphere and much of the material produced by L’Abri has been aimed at helping develop a Christian perspective on the arts, politics and the social sciences etc.

Third, in the area of our relationship with God, true spirituality is seen in lives which by grace are free to be fully human rather than in trying to live on some higher spiritual plane or in some grey negative way.

Fourth, the reality of the fall is taken seriously. Until Christ returns we and the world we live in will be affected by the disfigurement of sin. Although the place of the mind is emphasized, L’Abri is not a place for “intellectuals only”.

We are as concerned for living as we are for thinking and from the beginning the concern has been that the truth is as much exhibited in everyday life as it is defended in discussion. We do not do this perfectly of course but depend on the Lord to bring forth a measure of reality in our daily life.

My wife and I went to see The Kingdom the other night. We really liked it for a number of reasons but we also detected quite easily the relativistic worldview that was being espoused. I won’t blow it for all of you who want to see it, but I will say this: you have to really pay attention to one of the final scenes to clearly see the writers philosophical presuppositions.

I say all of this simply because after the film I was reminded that we live in a culture that does not know what to do with the reality of evil. Our unwavering commitment to the relativity of truth, political correctness, and prevailing tolerance does not permit us to pronounce absolute judgments on anything. “In the modern discussion”, says Os Guinness, “it is worse to judge evil than to do evil.” That is why the events of September 11, 2001 had our heads spinning. On that unforgettable morning we witnessed the unleashing of cruelty and violence in a most unspeakable manner. The murderous escapades of Osama Bin Laden and his minions outraged our sense of what is humanly permissible. What we experienced that day was downright evil and everybody knew it. But because absolute evils call for absolute judgments and we don’t believe in absolutes, we found ourselves unjustifiably enraged. Our sense of violation, in other words, had no anchor.

You see, if there is no such thing as absolute truth then there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong. And if there’s no such thing as absolute right and wrong, than terrorists can simply say, “Suicide bombing may not be right for you but it is right for me. So who are you to judge? What makes your truth any more valid than mine?” By refusing to acknowledge the reality of universal truth we forfeit our right to call anything evil. The truth is, suicide bombing is wrong for me, it’s wrong for you, and it’s wrong for terrorists. There are absolutes. We may choose to ignore them but that does not make them go away. And every once in a while we are confronted with the sobering fact that right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood (however politically incorrect they may be) are objective realities that all of us must deal with.

I was reminded of many things on that dreadful morning, but perhaps the most important reminder was this: there is absolute right and absolute wrong. There is absolute good and absolute evil. Truth is not relative. What is true for me is also true for you and vice versa. And unless we desire violence and cruelty, deception and perversity, to rule both in our lives and in our society, we must become people who are courageously willing and able to acknowledge the reality of universal truth and make appropriate judgments based on that truth. But in order for us to become people of this sort, we must know the truth, for as Jesus says in John 8:32, the truth alone “will set you free.”  

In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The truth is not some abstract idea. The truth is a person. And it is this person, the person of Christ, who alone can empower us to be courageous enough to see evil for what it is and to boldly call it out for what it does. Christ’s exclusive claim in John 14:6 may seem out of place in our relativistic world, but it’s a claim that all of us, including Osama Bin Laden, must reckon with.

“The Church is part of the Gospel. The fellowship of the church is part of God’s good news to men. It imparts to the gospel one of its most thrilling notes: when Christ saves a man he not only saves him from his sin, he saves him from his solitude.”

Frank Colquhoun from Total Christianity

Reggie Kidd, professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary, has written a book on worship entitled With One Voice that explores both the factual quality of Biblical truth and the beautiful quality of Biblical truth as it concerns music. This is a book written by a man who is, in the best sense of the terms, both an artist and a scientist. Here is a description of the book along with the book’s endorsements:   

“From David and Jesus to Bach and the Blues Brothers… Wait. What do the Blues Brothers have in common with King David? The connection lies not simply in the fact that they are all musicians, says author Reggie Kidd, but in the reasons they sing in the first place. With One Voice examines the rich heritage of the music of God’s people to show how song is woven into Scripture’s story, carrying believers into deeper relationship with God and with his purposes in redemption. More than a mere ornament of worship, music brings the worshiper into the company of the Savior. Through this exploration of music and song, join Jesus as he sings the lament of Psalm 22 on the cross and then conducts the “great assembly” upon his resurrection. On the way, discover Christ in the voices of David, Paul, Bach, the Blues Brothers-and possibly yourself.”

Endorsements:

“With One Voice reaches deep into the history and theology of Scripture to show what it was like to sing from the heart to God and how that experience can be ours today.” – John Frame, professor of systematic theology and philosophy, Reformed Theological Seminary

“Reggie Kidd blends heart and mind beautifully. He makes me seriously consider history and theology, but he also brings me to the core of worship, my heart before God. This is a great book.”-Cliff Young, Caedmons Call

“Reggie Kidd unfolds a vibrant, multicolored tapestry of faith-building, life-shaping artistic expression.”-Carl Stam, director, Institute for Christian Worship, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

As I continue to struggle with and ponder both the beauty and necessity of unity in the Body of Christ, I read these words by Josh Harris in his excellent book Stop Dating the Church: 

True unity is by the Spirit of God through faith in the gospel. Any form of unity that forsakes the central truths of the gospel–the substitutionary atonement of Christ, His resurrection, and justification by grace alone through faith alone–is no unity at all. All those who hold and cherish these core truths–the kind of truths that Paul described as of “first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)–enjoy true unity. We’re one in Christ, even if we exist on opposite sides of the world and worship in different traditions.

So you don’t have to think of denominational differences as the enemy of unity, but as something that makes true unity more achievable. We agree to agree on things of first importance; we agree to respect disagreements on things of lesser importance. “Denominations allow us to have organizational unity where we have full agreement, and allow us to have spiritual unity with other denominations, since we are not forced to argue our way to perfect agreement but can accept our differences of opinion on secondary matters.”

“There is but one God, and they that serve Him should be one. There is nothing that would render the true religion more lovely, or make more converts to it, than to see the professors of it tied together with the heart strings of love.”

Thomas Watson (1620-1686)

On Friday I had the privilege of meeting with Chuck Colson for coffee at a nearby Barnes and Nobles. He was remarkably gracious, humble, encouraging, hopeful, and intelligent. We talked for over an hour about life and ministry. We talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the Evangelical movement. He, like me, is concerned with the fragmentation of Evangelicalism. He, like me, is concerned with the way we can allow our distinctions and differences to become divisions. He sadly admitted that, in his experience, the Christian community can be just as cold as the political community; that the church can be just as ruthless as Washington. This led into a conversation about how destructive it can be when we Evangelicals downplay or altogether ignore Ephesians 4:1-7.   

In that passage Paul makes it clear that unity is something we as followers of Christ already possess. In other words, unity is not something we must achieve; unity is something we must maintain. The goal is to preserve and uphold what we already possess. The second law of thermodynamics states that everything tends toward breakdown. In other words, if we do not eagerly maintain the unity of the Spirit, we will become divided. The unity of the Spirit is that unity which exists by virtue of the fact that each Christian individually is united to Christ by the Spirit. And because we are united to Christ by the Spirit we are linked together. So just as bicycle spokes are linked together by their common attachment to the hub, so Christians are linked together by their common attachment to Christ. In Christ, Christians of every tribe, tongue, and nation, become brothers and sisters. We are all members of one family. We are all distinct, we are all different, but in Christ we are not divided. We don’t always act unified. But that doesn’t change the fact that in Christ we are one. This means that ultimately there shouldn’t be irreconcilable differences among those who are in Christ. What unites us (Christ) is far greater than what divides us (sin). There will be distinctions and differences between Christians, but there should never be divisions between true followers of Christ. Differences are good; divisions are bad. We are one family, united to one Christ, by one Spirit.

This is hard for me because my theological convictions run deep. I care passionately about truth. I recognize the absolute neccessity of “rightly dividing the Word of God.” So when I encounter a brother or sister in Christ whose theological and biblical convictions differ from mine, I have a hard time maintaining unity. And I’ve come to realize that there aren’t any easy answers either. I still struggle with this (always will). We all do. How do we Calvinist Christians, for instance, maintain unity with Arminian Christians? How do Baptist Christians maintain unity with Presbyterian Christians? How do Dispensational Christians maintain unity with Covenantal Christians? How do we properly understand the age old quip (ususally credited to St. Augustine): ”In essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity.”

I have to keep thinking hard about these things and working hard at these things. But a couple things are clear to me:

1) God intends his people to be a visual model of the Gospel. God wants us to live our lives together in such a way that we demonstrate the good news of reconciliation before the watching world. Not only do our divisions offend Christ, they offend the world. This is what inspired the lines, “May we abide in union with each other and the Lord, and possess in sweet communion joys which earth cannot afford.”

2) In the words of Herodotus: civil war in the face of an external threat is suicide. I received help from this illustration I read recently from my friend Reggie Kidd:

Following the deaths of the Spartan King Leonidas and “his brave three hundred” at Thermopylae in 480 B.C., the various Greek city-states decided they needed to pull together. Xerxes’ gargantuan army and navy were poised to overwhelm Greece, indeed the whole of Europe. At the eleventh hour the Greeks realized they needed each other.

Traditionally, Greece looked to Sparta for leadership on land and to Athens for leadership on the sea. But in this case there were misgivings about giving Athens command of the city-states’ combined fleets (despite Athens’ contributing the largest number of ships). Herodotus isn’t clear whether the reluctance was due to lack of confidence in or envy against Athens, or due simply to a recognition of Sparta’s moral capital.

The point is: Athens “got it”… when the enemy is at the gate, that’s not the time to be throwing each other out the window.

Rather than lobby for their traditional right to command, Athens accepted Spartan command of the navy as well as of the army. The result: two brilliant victories — one by Greece’s combined navies (at Salamis) and one by Greece’s combined armies (at Plataea) — and one huge and final retreat by Xerxes. The result: daughters of neither Athens nor Sparta were exported to harems in Persepolis.

There are times that call for a sense of measure and proportion — times when you need not to be doing a smack down on each other. Fifth century B.C. Greece figured it out. Will we?

One could say, then, that our survival as Evangelical Christians in the 21st century will depend in large measure on how serious we are about believing and applying Ephesians 4:1-7. The battle is fierce; the enemies are ruthless. We need eachother more now than ever before!