Theology Central
Theology Central exists as a place of conversation and information for faculty and friends of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Posts include seminary news, information, and opinion pieces about ministry, theology, and scholarship.Tozer on the Thought Life
Make your thoughts a clean sanctuary. To God, our thoughts are things. Our thoughts are the decorations inside the sanctuary where we live. If our thoughts are purified by the blood of Christ, we are living in a clean room no matter if we are wearing overalls covered with grease. Your thoughts pretty much decide the mood and weather and climate inside your heart, and God considers your thoughts as part of you. Thoughts of peace, thoughts of pity, thoughts of mercy, thoughts of kindness, thoughts of charity, thoughts of God, thoughts of the Son of God—these are pure things, good things, and high things.
–Tozer, A. W. How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit (Kindle Locations 510-514).
Ghent Altarpiece Restored
The restoration of the famous painting depicting the “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” is now complete. Read the story here.
Al Mohler on Economics
Albert Mohler offers “Twelve Theses for a Christian Understanding of Economics.” Read them at the Washington Times.
Some economic systems treat the idea of private property as a problem. But Scripture never considers private property as a problem to be solved (see, for instance, the Ten Commandments). Scripture’s view of private property implies it is the reward of someone’s labor and dominion. The Eighth and 10th Commandments teach us that we have no right to violate the financial rewards of the diligent.
Eric Metaxas on Relativism
His personal reflections, stemming from his own university experience. At the Intercollegiate Review. By the way, Christian students who aren’t members of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute ought to be.
Of course, Christians do not believe only in moral laws and in doctrine. To treat truth as authoritarianism and fundamentalism is to set up a straw man. The Bible itself strongly condemns the Pharisees, who were full of moral rules and judgment but had no love and grace for those who struggled morally. People who try to turn the God of the Bible into an authoritarian figure who merely thunders judgment may rather quickly flip their wigs and worldviews when they encounter the figure of Jesus. He famously showed grace to the woman taken in adultery and did not condemn her as the Pharisees did. So Jesus was no authoritarian or fundamentalist. But neither was he a relativist. He said to the woman, “Go and sin no more.” He didn’t wink at sin; he acknowledged it as sin and then he forgave it.To have only half the truth is to have none.
Sticking His Neck Out
John MacArthur on D. A. Carson’s theory of tongues in Showing the Spirit:
If that interpretation did not come from one of the most respected academic authors of our day, it would probably gain no traction in any serious forum. But because of that particular writer’s reputation as a distinguished evangelical scholar, many charismatics cling to his idea as if it were a credible defense of their position. It’s not. It is a transparently desperate attempt to defend the indefensible. Implausible theories like that from respected sources only serve to legitimize a movement that, in reality, is built on untenable arguments and exegetical fallacies.
MacArthur, John F. Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship (p. 236).
Does the Pronoun War Matter?
According to Anthony Esolen, it’s not just a war over pronouns, but over reality. Read him here.
The sexual revolution always has been a war waged against the ordinary family, against the ordinary ways of men and women and children. The moral law as regards sex is meant to protect that family from threats without and within: from the pseudo-marriage that is fornication, from the betrayal of marriage that is adultery, from the rickets and scurvy of impure habits, and from the mockery of the marital act that is sodomy. If a man’s home was his castle, then the walls round that castle were his people’s understanding of the moral law and the customs that gave the law vigor and force. Who then would benefit by riddling the walls with holes? All people who could not, because of their own failings and vices, enjoy the good of family life; all people who saw the family as the great opponent in the way of their statist ambitions; all rebels against Nature and Nature’s God, who would be happier to see a man leave his wife and children to take up with another man than to see a young woman turn away from the hothouse of a lesbian relationship to become a wife and mother after the ordinary way of nature.
Conservatism Fiscal and Social
Can you have one without the other? Carlos Flores says NO.
The social conservative observes that nature has providentially provided such an environment for the formation of a virtuous people who are ready to participate in (or establish) a political project: the family, where the child can depend on the love of his or her mother and father (and on the love between his mother and father) for his or her formation into a virtuous person. The child’s mother and father do more than this, however: they provide a representative of the two halves of humanity, man and woman, for the child to come to know and have a relationship with. In this way, the child can learn how to form relationships with persons of either sex and how to conduct him- or herself in marriage and relate to his or her spouse later in life.
Thoughts on Imposing Beliefs
We often hear that we should not impose our beliefs upon others. In ways we agree with that statement–and in ways we do not. Ryan Dueck is not a fundamentalist. He is not even a conservative. He is a liberal writing for a liberal publication. But he has some useful reflections upon whether it is even possible to avoid imposing beliefs upon others. Read him at the Christian Century blog.
I think that if pressed most of us would say that responsible parenting requires at least some imposition of views, unfashionable as it might be to admit this and much as we might be pleased to imagine that the sum total of our parental duty is to present our young saplings with a smorgasbord of ideological options from which to choose for their independent selves. Whatever we might say, we all do this, even if only by the example we set (or fail to set). We are always indoctrinating our children into some vision of what matters and what doesn’t in the world. There’s no avoiding imposing our views.
Kindles and Civilization
If you ignore the references to Catholicism and substitute the word conservative for Catholic, Glen Arbery’s essay at The Imaginative Conservative has something useful to say. Here is his conclusion, but you will want to see how he gets there.
At present, clearly, inhuman rationalism and technology have us in their thrall. But with grace and the poetry of experience, we can make a start back into the given, back into the real. As I’ve said before, it’s the long game of education. That it has present rewards is evident in our students, but a cultural transformation is what we are about.
Good Theology vs Good Hymnody
I recently came across this snippet from Tozer:
Dr. Simpson used to say, “Being filled with the Spirit is as easy as breathing; you can simply breathe out and breathe in.” He wrote a hymn to that effect. I am sorry that it is not a better hymn, because it is wonderful theology.
–Tozer, A. W. How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit (Kindle Locations 356-357).
He is right to emphasize that good hymnody requires more than good theology. Hymnody also involves sensibility, and if the sensibility is mismatched to the theology, the result is a caricature. Bad hymnody can trivialize good theology. It can sentimentalize good theology. It can debase good theology. What is left is no longer good theology; in fact, it is bad Christianity.
New Atlantis Responds to LGBTQI Critics
Evidently, the recent edition of the New Atlantis touched a few nerves in the LGBTQI community, specifically at the so-called “Human Rights Campaign.” At any rate, the HRC has roundly denounced New Atlantis for drawing unacceptable conclusions about homosexuality and transgenderism. Now the people at New Atlantis have published a response. Here’s part of it.
The Human Rights Campaign attempts to preemptively argue that its political assault on Johns Hopkins and its scholars poses no threat to academic freedom, precisely because the HRC recognizes that the public will see this assault for what it is: an obvious threat to academic freedom, and intentionally so. The HRC says that it “has been in communication with Johns Hopkins over the need for an official statement” about the New Atlantis report. The HRC is demanding that the university “clarify that McHugh and Mayer’s opinions do not represent it.” As leverage, the HRC has threatened to alter the way that it ranks the university’s hospital and its medical affiliates in HRC’s Health care Equality Index.
Set aside the fact that this threat calls into question the methodology and validity of HRC’s Healthcare Equality Index. This blatant effort to intimidate Johns Hopkins University by insisting that the entire university must answer collectively for everything written by its faculty is a disturbing strategy designed to make impossible respectful disagreement in the academy on controversial matters. The HRC’s claim that its efforts “pose no threat to academic freedom” is nonsense; intimidation tactics of this sort undermine the atmosphere of free and open inquiry that universities are meant to foster.
Pope Francis Names New Cardinals
Seventeen of ’em, as a matter of fact. And from the looks of things, his choices are going to change the direction of Roman Catholicism. Read Michael Avramovich’s evaluation.
Three Americans were among the new cardinals; one was the recently appointed archbishop of Chicago, Blaise Cupich, a man with impeccable liberal/progressive credentials. Another was Archbishop William Tobin of Indianapolis, a relatively small archdiocese never before considered important enough to be headed by a cardinal. The third American cardinal-designate is a former bishop of Dallas. Vatican observers have noted that all of the new cardinals reflected the preference of Pope Francis for liberal progressives over conservatives.
Arguments vs Aesthetics
Over at First Things, Carl Trueman opines that traditionalists are losing the conflict over marriage and sexuality, not revisionists have a better argument, but because they have a more compelling aesthetic. He doesn’t think this situation is going to turn around any time soon. He writes,
At this point in time, it is very hard to see where traditionalists might seize the aesthetic advantage in the debates over sexuality and identity. It will be very hard to gain a narrative advantage for traditional positions. Not only do we not have significant access to pop-culture media, we must also acknowledge that, for every narrated story of a broken gay marriage or family, there will be just as many, if not more, from traditional marriages and families.
Substitute Beat for Bounce?
Tozer’s theory of Spirit filling was deficient in certain ways. But the following statement rings true, and what it talks about hasn’t got any better just because the styles have changed.
Then, also, the Spirit gave a bright, emotional quality to their religion, and I grieve before my God over the lack of this in our day. The emotional quality isn’t there. There is a sickliness about us all; we pump so hard trying to get a little drop of delight out of our old rusty well, and we write innumerable bouncy choruses, and we pump and pump until you can hear the old rusty thing squeak across forty acres. But it doesn’t work.
Tozer, A. W. How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit (Kindle Locations 263-266). Kindle Edition.
LGBTQI Organization Aims to Organize Christian Students
Soulforce, an activitst LGBTQI organization, has launched a new publication called Kudzu. Here is the description.
Kudzu is a monthly publication of Soulforce geared towards student activists at Christian schools.
Through this newsletter, we aim to create a network of youth activists sprouting from ground of Christian higher education and establish sustainable solidarity through the shared goals of unearthing heteropatriarchy and white supremacy on their campuses.
Coming to a Christian campus near you.
George Washington’s Religion
Paul Gottfried asks, “Was Washington a Christian?” Here’s an excerpt:
These founders were most emphatically not modern secularists, and Washington was not an exponent of modern democracy. Our first president was a man of the eighteenth century, who believed in the benefits of property relations and gender-specific education, and, perhaps above all, as he tells us in his Farewell Address as president, in the public need for religious beliefs. In these respects, he was little different from the English monarch his countrymen broke from during the Revolution.
Miraculous Gifts and Mormonism
Osteen’s muddled comment about Latter-day Saints introduces an interesting point of discussion— especially since the founders of Mormonism claimed to experience the same supernatural phenomena that Pentecostals and charismatics experience today. At the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in 1836, Joseph Smith reported various types of charismatic phenomena— including tongues, prophecy, and miraculous visions. Other eyewitness accounts of that same event made similar claims: “There were great manifestations of power, such as speaking in tongues, seeing visions, administration of angels”; and, “There the Spirit of the Lord, as on the day of Pentecost, was profusely poured out. Hundreds of Elders spoke in tongues.” More than half a century before Charles Parham and the Pentecostals spoke in tongues, the Latter-day Saints reported similar outbursts, leading some historians to trace the roots of Pentecostalism back through Mormonism.
–MacArthur, John F. Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship (p. 51). Thomas Nelson.
Did the Early Church Worship?
A dear brother recently wrote to me asking whether there is any evidence that the New Testament churches engaged in worship. His question grew out of his background: the fundamental Baptist churches in which he had been reared did not worship (as that term is now understood), and the worship that he saw in churches today looked more like amusement. Here is part of my reply:
The fundamental Baptist churches in which we were reared did not place much emphasis upon worshipping God. In fact, certain species of fundamental Baptists denied that we were even supposed to worship Him, whether individually or corporately. For them, the entire focus was upon service, especially evangelism. Soulwinning was the only worship that God desired!
I think that was a badly deficient vision of what the church is and what it is for.
Perhaps some brief definition is in order. By worship I certainly do not mean that kind of business that is promoted by contemporary P&W (Praise and Worship) teams. Watching somebody put on a show is not worship by any acceptable definition. No, by worship I have in mind what is implied by the old Anglo-Saxon term, weorðscipe, “to ascribe value.” In right weorðscipe, the value ascribed corresponds to the thing valued, because of its value. The true and living God is of infinite value, not simply because of His benefits, but because of who He is. Worship, then, is a reflection back to God of His infinite, intrinsic worth predicated upon who He reveals Himself to be. Synonyms for worship are praise, admiration, and adoration.
Did New Testament believers, or the New Testament Church corporately, ever engage in worship? And should we as well?
Let me give you the simplest answer that I can. I think we agree that in the New Testament church, the Scriptures were read aloud. In fact, that is the only way that most people gained an acquaintance with the Bible—by hearing it read in church. For the moment, let’s leave aside those passages in the Old Testament that are devoted entirely to the worship of God. Let’s focus on the New Testament. When we open its pages, we find such passages as these:
Rom. 11:33, 36 – Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Eph. 3:20-21 – Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
1 Tim. 1:17 – To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
1 Tim. 6:15b-16 – He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
Jude 24-25 – Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
Rev. 1:5b-6 – To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Rev. 5:12, 13 – Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! …To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!
Rev. 7:12 – Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.
This list could be extended, and it includes only direct attributions of praise and adoration. These are direct expressions of worship in the text of the New Testament itself. Now just what do you think the church was doing when these Scriptures were read? Can any believer listen to such words in a detached and coldhearted way? Can you? Or do you not long to enter into the expression of wonder and to exult in the greatness and majesty of the God who is being adored?
You’ll notice that so far, I haven’t said a word about music. Worship is not equivalent to church music. But that is not to say that we should not employ music in the worship of God. We are, after all, supposed to be singing and strumming to the Lord with our hearts (Eph. 5:19). Right musical expressions are an important aspect of worship in the New Testament, just as they were in the Old Testament.
I think there’s plenty more in the New Testament about the church’s worship. I just wanted to give you one example of how the New Testament does teach on this topic. We learn, not only by looking at what the Bible says, but also at what the Bible does.
Not That It Would Ever Happen
From Tozer:
Our trouble is that we are trying to confirm the truth of Christianity by an appeal to external evidence. We are saying, “Well, look at this fellow. He can throw a baseball farther than anybody else and he is a Christian, therefore Christianity must be true.” “Here is a great statesman who believes the Bible. Therefore, the Bible must be true.” We quote Daniel Webster, or Roger Bacon. We write books to show that some scientist believed in Christianity: therefore, Christianity must be true. We are all the way out on the wrong track, brother! That is not New Testament Christianity at all. That is a pitiful, whimpering, drooling appeal to the flesh.
Tozer, A. W. How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit (Kindle Locations 244-249). Kindle Edition.
How Should We Fight the Culture War?
John Goerke argues that tone is important.
“Right intention” means holding to an ideal of peace, to an ideal of the finer things in life. It is a striking feature of J.R.R. Tolkien that the smallest and most vulnerable of Middle-Earth’s inhabitants rise to be the bravest knights and the boldest spies. Hobbits are not warriors by trade; they are plump homebodies who would sooner polish off another pint of ale than polish the edge of a sword. Yet to keep the ale and the cheese and the merriment of a family around the fireplace, these tiny hobbits will outlast even the fiercest man on the battlefield. Even in the midst of war these hobbits sing songs the night before battle. The shrillness of the weekly mailings I have written of above undermines this common sense principle. To speak amongst ourselves in the harsh tones of protest and anger actively undermines the values for which we started speaking in the first place.
APPLICATION & AID