The Gospel Coalition

Not long ago, I received an advanced copy of Andy Crouch’s forthcoming book Culture Making (IVP). What I have read so far is excellent. It will not only be a book that contributes tremendous value to the ongoing discussion of Christ and culture, but my expectation is that after it comes out in August it will be leading the conversation. Mark my words: this is one serious book, that if taken seriously, has the potential to make a serious impact. Seriously!

Anyway, here is an interview Andy did a while back with Student Soul. In it he describes what he means by “culture making”:

Cultural transformation is something that a lot of Christians talk about and aspire to. We want to be a part of transforming the culture. The question is, how is culture transformed? Does it happen just because we think more about culture, or because we pay more attention to culture? As I was thinking about cultural transformation I became convinced that culture changes when people actually make more and better culture. If we want to transform culture, what we actually have to do is to get into the midst of the human cultural project and create some new cultural goods that reshape the way people imagine and experience their world.

Buy the book!

Today I finished a twelve week series on the book of Jonah. I’m actually quite sad about it. In the ten years or so that I’ve been preaching, I’ve never been so gripped and changed by a series. In fact, I told my wife a couple weeks ago that my whole preaching ministry will forever be divided into two groupings: every sermon I preached before the Jonah series, and every sermon I preached after it. It was that life transforming for me. You can listen to all of them here.

One of my main points over the last couple of months has been that Jonah needed God’s salvation just as badly as the Ninevites did illustrating that those who know God need God’s rescue just as much (albeit, in a different way) as those who don’t know God. The word salvation in the Bible literally means rescue. But when the Bible uses the term salvation, it uses it in three different ways. If you know God it means that God has rescued you from the penalty of sin (justification); God is rescuing you from the power of sin (sanctification); and one day God will rescue you from the presence of sin altogether (glorification). If you don’t have a relationship with God, you need all three forms of rescue. If you do have a relationship with God, even though you have experienced one form of God’s rescue, you’re still in need of the other two forms. All this means that the saved need God’s salvation just as much as the non-saved. If you don’t believe this, then the Gospel will simply be a set of truths that non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, not an overarching truth that Christians must embrace in order to continually be being saved. And Jesus will quickly become irrelevant to you as you frustratingly try living life in your own power.

My friend Kal Hendry (the head of our deacons) wrote a note to all the deacons a little while ago and it was so good that I thought I would post it here. Now, it’s an analogy so it will inevitably “break down” at points–but I think you’ll get the gist of it. He wrote:

While I was listening to the sermon today, I thought of an analogy regarding how the Gospel is for all people – saved and unsaved – as in the story of Jonah.  I pictured us, like Jonah, alone in the open seas drowning (dead) in our sins.  Through Christ, God has rescued (resurrected) us from death as he throws the life preserver (the gospel) around us and secures it (by the Holy Spirit).  We are no longer drowning (dead), but are alive and secure in the life preserver (gospel).  However, we still need the life preserver (gospel) because we are still being rescued.  In other words, we are not in the boat (new earth) yet, but still in the ocean.  Our rescue is certain as we hold tight to the life preserver (gospel) while Christ brings us closer and closer to the boat (new earth).  Once we are completely out of the water (this life), it is then and only then when we will fully realize the how large and deep the ocean of our sin and depravity was and how awesome and magnificent our Rescuer was and is!

Amen!

Read Derek Thomas’ recent interview of D.A. Carson about his must read new book Christ and Culture Revisited.

I had to travel this week to Dallas which gave me an opportunity to do a lot of reading and writing. I brought this book with me that I mentioned the other day, This Beautiful Mess by Rick Mckinley, that my friend David Kopp sent me. I haven’t carefully read the whole thing, but what I’ve read so far I like. It’s well written, easy to read, and, like every good book, will at times make you laugh and at other times make you cry.

Here is a portion that started off making me very sad but my sadness quickly turned to out-loud laughter. What he says is so true:

Recently, my friend Scott was killed. I went to the graveside with his family to lead the memorial. The whole time there in the graveyard we felt the sting of death. The awful mess of grief and rage and unfairness was right there under our feet. I hated it.

But no one dies in the kingdom of God. It is in the kingdom of Satan, our enemy, where death reigns. A pastor friend of mine told me that as he was preparing for a funeral once, he decided to go through the Gospels to see how Jesus dealt with funerals. What he discovered was that Jesus did not care for them much. Every one He went to He raised the person from the dead. Jesus doesn’t do funerals, not even his own. 

Any day now, you should be receiving your tax rebate check intended to “stimulate our economy.” Many have asked me what this is all about. On his blog, my friend Josh posted a helpful explanation from Dave Barry: 

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China?
A. Shut up.

For decades, Boston University sociologist Peter Berger says, American intellectuals have looked down on evangelicals. Educated people have the notion that evangelicals are “barefoot people of Tobacco Road who, I don’t know, sleep with their sisters or something,” Berger says. It’s time that attitude changed, he says.

Read the rest of this article here.

“That’s the latest question in the Washington Post/Newsweek forum On Faith. The question is brought about by the publication of An Evangelical Manifesto. Respondents include N.T. Wright, Cal Thomas, Chuck Colson, and Martin Marty.”

(HT:JT)

Rick Mckinley, pastor of Imago Dei Community in Portland, wrote a book entitled This Beautiful Mess that was sent to me the other day by my friend David Kopp. I have only had the chance to skim it but yesterday I read some sentences that I think are relevant to the ongoing discussion re: the essence of the Gospel and how it relates to God’s Kingdom. I think Rick makes a helpful (and balanced) distinction:

Sometimes it seems as though we find two gospels in the New Testament–the gospel of Jesus and the gospel about Jesus. The gospel of Jesus is usually taken to mean His announcement of the kingdom and the life He embodied in His loving actions toward the world. The gospel about Jesus refers to his atoning work on the cross and His resurrection, through which we can receieve the forgiveness of sin through our faith and repentance.

I believe, however, that the two are actually one gospel and that when we lose the tension that comes from holding both together, we experience an unhealthy and unbiblical pendulum swing in our faith.

If all we value is the salvation gospel, we tend to miss the rest of Christ’s message. Taken out of context of the kingdom, the call to faith in Christ gets reduced to something less than what the New Testament teaches. The reverse is also true: if we value a kingdom gospel at the expense of the liberating message of the Cross and the empty tomb and a call to repentance, we miss a central tenet of kingdom life. Without faith in Jesus, there is no transferring of our lives into the new world of the kingdom.   

“According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate…Young evangelicals are more of a swing constituency than they’ve been for decades, said Andy Crouch, an editor at Christianity Today, a national evangelical magazine: ‘This could turn out to be the election where both parties realize that the evangelical vote is so hopelessly split down the middle that it’s not worth courting them at all because what parties need are blocs that can be appealed to en masse,’ Crouch said. ‘Paradoxically, evangelicals would become less relevant than ever before.’”

Could this be the unforseen backlash of an over emphasis on politics among Evangelicals over the last 30 years? 

Read the rest of this article here.

My friend Collin Hansen wrote an engaging book that came out recently charting the growing interest in Calvinism among young adults. The name of the book is Young, Restless, and Reformed (based on this Christianity Today article by the same name published 2 years ago). Collin is an editor for Christianity Today and a seminary student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

The Henry Center at Trinity recently hosted a conversation between Collin and Dr. Doug Sweeney, professor of Church History at TEDS, on Collin’s book. The conversation took place at TEDS on April 28, 2008 and can be watched here.