Why Anglican? By J I Packer

J.I. Packer:

I identify myself as a heritage Anglican, or a main stream Anglican, on the basis of that view of things. I adapt to state my Anglican identity, words from the great Pastor Duncan of the Free Church of Scotland, who something like 150 years ago, said in answer to a question about his identity as a minister of the church, “I’m first a Christian, second a Protestant, third a Calvinist, fourth a Paedo-baptist, and fifth a Presbyterian”. Well, I go with the first four; and then “fifth I’m an Anglican”. And if I’m asked to explain further what is the Anglicanism that I stand for, I reel off eight defining characteristics of my Anglicanism like this.

Anglicanism is first biblical and protestant in its stance, and second, evangelical and reformed in its doctrine. That’s a particular nuance within the Protestant constituency to which the Anglican church is committed – the 39 Articles show that. Ten, thirdly, Anglicanism is liturgical and traditional in its worship.

I go on to say, fourthly, Anglicanism is a form of Christianity that is pastoral and evangelistic in its style. I quote the ordinal for that and I point out that ever since the ordinal and the prayer book required the clergy to catechize the children, Anglicanism has been evangelistic, though the form of the evangelism has not been that of the travelling big tent – the form of the evangelism has been rather institutional and settled; the evangelism was part of the regular work of the parish clergyman and the community around him. But let nobody say that institutional parochial Anglicanism is not evangelistic and, today, I know the wisest folk here in England are recovering parochial evangelism in a significant way. Thank God they are.

And then I say, fifthly, that Anglicanism is a form of Christianity that is episcopal and parochial in its organization and, sixthly, it is rational and reflective in its temper. I make a point of that. I say that, in Anglican circles, any question can be asked and the Anglican ethic is to take the question seriously and discuss it responsibly. There are, of course, Protestant churches which, I think you have to say, are always running scared and as soon as a question of this kind – a real puzzle of our Christian truth, of the ways of God – is raised in their circles, they bring out the big stick. “Now you mustn’t talk like that, you shouldn’t be concerning yourself about that. Just stay with the ABC of the Gospel and Bible truth”. Theological reflection is discouraged rather than helped on its way. That makes, I believe, for real immaturity. So I celebrate the fact that Anglicanism, characteristically is rational and reflective and believes in the discipline of debate and sustained discussion, believing, you see, that like panning for gold, the gold of truth will be distilled out through the discussion and the dross of error will be panned away.

Seventhly, I tell people that Anglicanism as a form of Christianity is ecumenical and humble in spirit. Unlike some denominations, we do not claim that Anglicanism is self-sufficient. What we say, rather, is that the Anglican way is the way of a person with an unlimited charge card going through a large department store and being free to say of every valuable thing you see and would like to make your own: “That’s for me. Put it on charge”. Anglicans have always rejoiced to receive wisdom from outside their own circles. They have a vision of Christendom as a fragmented reality with flashes of truth and wisdom scattered all across the board. Our business as Anglicans, seeking the glory of God, is to pick up as much truth and wisdom (get as much help, I mean, from these scattered shards of truth and wisdom) as we possibly can. I am comfortable with that. I would be uncomfortable with anything else.

Then, eighthly, I tell people that Anglicanism characteristically is national and transformist in its outlook. By `national’ I mean that the Anglican way is to accept concern for the spiritual condition of the national group within which the gospel is being preached. By `transformist’ I mean that Anglicans seek, under Christ, to see the culture changed into a Christian mould as far as maybe. So Anglicans have always been concerned about education and educational institutions, and about a Christian voice being raised in Government and things of that kind. Please God, it will always be that way wherever Anglicans go.

All this sounds, I suppose, very triumphalist; but I do believe that Anglicanism embodies the richest, truest, wisest heritage in all Christendom. When people say “Those are fine words but everywhere in the west Anglicanism is sinking”, I have to admit – in Canada, yes, and in Britain, yes, and in the States, yes, and in Australasia, sure. It is true; but still, I think, we may stay our hearts by reminding ourselves what is going on under Anglican auspices in black Africa. There the church grows and the gospel advances by leaps and bounds.

Tim Keller in Louisville

Tonight, November 16th at 7:00 PM at Calvin Presbyterian Church. Calvin is where I did my student internship during seminary. And Dr. Keller is very friendly to us Anglicans, having been instrumental in planting Christ Church in NYC.

Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters

A talk and book signing by the author, Dr. Timothy Keller (Excellent book review here.)

Free and open to the public - No reservation needed

As pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New York City, Dr. Timothy J. Keller makes a point of reaching out to immigrants, urban professionals and artists, offering an intellectually compelling case for belief in God. Newsweek magazine called Keller “a C.S. Lewis for the 21st century, a defender of orthodox Christianity.” He is the author of the best sellers, “The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism” and, “The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith.” He will be at Calvin for a talk about his just released book, “Counterfeit Gods.” Books will also be available for purchase and signing by Dr. Keller.

This presentation is the final event of the annual Festival of Faiths, and is sponsored by Carmichael’s Bookstore.

John MacArthur on Intolerable Christianity

In these postmodern times, tolerance is the supreme virtue of the public square. Tolerant people can be broad thinkers, open-minded, and charitable to every worldview—every worldview, that is, except biblical Christianity. The authoritative demands of Jesus Christ are beyond the threshold of postmodern tolerance.

In this postmodern era, one virtue is esteemed above all others: tolerance. As a matter of fact, tolerance may soon be the only virtue secular society will embrace. Many traditional virtues (including humility, self-control, and chastity) have already fallen out of public favor and in some quarters are openly scorned or even regarded as transgressions.

Instead, with the beatification of tolerance, what was once forbidden is now encouraged. What was once universally deemed immoral is now celebrated. Marital infidelity and divorce have been normalized. Profanity is commonplace. Abortion, homosexuality, and moral perversions of all kinds are championed by large advocacy groups and tacitly encouraged by the popular media. The modern notion of “tolerance” is systematically turning morality on its head.

Just about the only remaining taboo is the naive and politically incorrect notion that another person’s “alternative lifestyle,” religion, or different perspective is wrong.

One major exception to that rule stands out starkly: it is OK to be intolerant of biblical Christianity. In fact, those who fancy themselves the leading advocates of religious tolerance today are often the most outspoken opponents of evangelical Christianity. A classic example of this is the Web site at religioustolerance.org. Page after page at that Web site lambastes Bible-based Christianity. It is one of the most bitterly anti-Christian sites on the World Wide Web.

Why is that? Why does authentic biblical Christianity find such ferocious opposition among today’s self-styled champions of “religious tolerance”?

It is because Christianity is diametrically opposed to the postmodern ideas that have made this an age of “tolerance.” Here are six key concepts that set Christianity in opposition to the very spirit of our age:


1. Objectivity
True Christianity starts from the premise that there is a source of truth outside of us. God’s Word is truth (Psalm 119:160; John 17:17). It is objectively true—meaning it is true whether it speaks subjectively to any given individual or not; it is true regardless of how anyone feels about it; it is true in an absolute sense.

Of course this existential generation finds such a view utterly distasteful. People prefer to seek truth inside themselves. If they contemplate the meaning of Scripture at all, it is usually only in terms of “what this verse means to me”—as if the message of Scripture were unique to every individual.

But authentic Christianity regards Scripture as the objective revelation of God’s truth. It is God’s Word to humanity, and its true meaning is determined by God; it is not something that can be shaped according to the preferences of individual hearers.

2. Rationality
Biblical Christianity is also based on the conviction that the objective revelation of Scripture is rational. The Bible makes good sense. It contains no contradictions, no errors, and no unsound principles. Anything that does contradict Scripture is untrue.

That sort of rationality is antithetical to the whole gist of postmodern thought. People today are taught to glorify contradiction, embrace that which is absurd, prefer that which is subjective, and let feelings (rather than intellect) determine what they believe. But such irrationality is nothing less than an overt rejection of the very concept of truth.

As Christians, we know that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). He does not contradict Himself. His truth is perfectly self-consistent. That sort of black-and-white rationality is one of the main reasons biblical Christianity is intolerable in a generation that rejects reason.


3. Veracity
Authentic Christianity is based on the conviction that God’s objective revelation (the Bible) approached rationally yields divine truth in perfectly sufficient measure. Everything we need to know for life and godliness is there for us in Scripture. We don’t need to seek principles for godly or successful living through any other source. Scripture is not only wholly truth; it is also the highest standard of all truth—the rule by which all truth-claims must be measured.

Such a conviction is the very antithesis of the postmodern notion of “tolerance.” And that is another major reason why Christianity has been targeted by the proponents of postmodern “tolerance.”


4. Authority
Because Christians believe Scripture is true, they teach its precepts with authority and without apology.

The Bible makes bold claims, and faithful Christians affirm it boldly and without compromise. That, too, is a profound threat to the “tolerance” of a society that loves its sin and thinks of compromise as a good thing.


5. Incompatibility
Scripture says, “No lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21). As Christians, we know that whatever contradicts truth is by definition false. In other words, truth is incompatible with error.

Jesus Himself affirmed the utter exclusivity of Christianity. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). That sort of exclusivity is utterly incompatible with postmodern notions of “tolerance.”

Moreover, as Christians we understand that whatever opposes God’s Word or departs from it in any way is a danger to the very cause of truth. Genuine Christians therefore eschew passivity toward known error—and that too has set the postmodern defenders of “tolerance” against us.


6. Integrity
Since all of the above is true, genuine Christianity sees integrity as an essential virtue and hypocrisy as a horrible vice. Such a mind-set is virtually the antithesis of postmodern “tolerance,” and it is yet another reason our society despises our faith.

Unfortunately, the church in our generation is drifting from these fundamental convictions and has already begun to embrace postmodern ideas uncritically. Evangelicalism is quickly losing its footing, and the church is becoming more and more like the world. Fewer and fewer Christians are willing to stand against the trends, and the effects have been disastrous. Subjectivity, irrationality, worldliness, uncertainty, compromise, and hypocrisy have already become commonplace among churches and organizations that once constituted the evangelical mainstream.

The only cure, I am convinced, is a conscious, wholesale rejection of postmodern values and a return to these six distinctives of biblical Christianity. We must be faithful to guard the treasure of truth that has been entrusted to us (2 Timothy 1:14). If we do not, who will?

Why Should I Not Kill You?

Cruel Logic – short film from Brian Godawa on Vimeo.

Ray and Kirk are right...appeal to the conscience, and the facade of postmodern ethics crumbles.

Romans 1 in action

Many thanks to ChannelAte.

Why Christ's Physical Resurrection Matters

The Apostle Paul said: "16 if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied." (1 Cor. 15) While many modern so-called churches have forgotten this timeless truth, it still speaks today.

I offer this poem by John Updike as an Easter meditation.

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier - mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

— From Telephone Poles and Other Poems by John Updike
© 1961 by John Updike

John Updike's take is that if all there is is all we can control, we are dead to truth and beauty, and most to be pitied. This Easter, my prayer for you is a deep encounter with the truth of the Risen Christ - a true human (like you and me) and also true God. As his body has been raised into glorified perfection, so shall ours be. And as his body is one, may he also make his church - his body on earth - to be one. Amen.

Milgram Study Still Shocks!

Chuck Colson reports on a recent rehash of the Milgram experiment.

The results: apparently 40 years of slamming authority structures, transcendental meditation, and not really educating our children has produced the same result as the last 5,960 years of recorded history. DEPRAVED HUMANS.

In fact, this is just one in a long line of scientific proofs for the one indisputable starting point of soteriology - Total Depravity. There is no place in our humanity (will, body, intellect, etc.) that exists as an island of righteousness or wholeness. We are corrupt in even our best intentions - and the more honest one is, the more they recognize that to be the case.

(BTW, I challenge any skeptic to sincerely examine the claims of any other religion and find one as consistent with reality - scientifically defined or otherwise - as Christianity has proven to be.)

So what do we do? If all the vast techno-prowess we have still leaves us with wicked humans with itchy fingers on bigger and badder weapons, what's to be done.

The answer is simple: Tell'em about Jesus.

Blind Man Walking

A man with brain damage that makes him clinically blind can navigate an obstacle course, seemingly by using a part of his brain other than the visual cortex to perceive the objects in his path. This remarkable ability, discovered through a chance observation, is shedding light on a curious phenomenon known as blindsight.

The man, known as patient TN, was studied by a multinational team led by Beatrice de Gelder at Tilburg University in The Netherlands and Alan Pegna of the Geneva University Hospitals in Switzerland.

The researchers tested TN extensively to confirm that he was completely blind. They used brain imaging to show that there was no activity in his visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes most of the information coming from the retina. They then persuaded TN to set his stick aside and walk down a corridor strewn with lab equipment.

"It's quite a distance to walk," says de Gelder. "He walked much faster than we had expected, without hesitation or any kind of exploration." She adds that he did it completely subconsciously, with no idea that he had been avoiding obstacles in his path.

The team think the visual signals from the retina were processed by neural pathways below the damaged cortex. "It's a major lesson that brain damage can release minor neurological pathways that had previously been suppressed, allowing them to play a more significant role," she says.

This discovery is fascinating for neurobiologists, evolutionary theorists, and medical practitioners for the ways it can advance their fields in treatment of pathology. It's fascinating to me, a practical theologian, because of the way it confirms the Scriptures and explains spiritual encounters in the world.

Humankind is blind because of the Fall. Our sin separates us from God, and that separation extends to all parts of human experience. Nowhere is it more evident than our ability to recognize God for who He is and ourselves for who we are. This affect of the mind is dubbed by theologians the noetic effects of sin. The Apostle Paul writes about it in Romans 1:18-23:

18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Echoing the sentiment of Job, Paul is describing the condition of non-Jewish peoples. But don't think that he excludes the Jewish people (to whom the Law was given and through whom came the promised Messiah) - just look at the next chapter (and ch. 11). For even Moses pointed out that God's redeemed people can be quite blind in their own right.

Deuteronomy 29:2 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: "You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, 3the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. 4But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. (See also Ezekiel 12:1ƒƒ and Jeremiah 5:20ƒƒ)

God's reconsitituted redeemed - the Church - can face the same problem of blindness (cf. 1 John 2:9ƒƒ). It troubled Jesus then, and it troubles his people now.

So where do we go from here? If the people on the outside of the covenant are hopelessly blind, and many within the covenant are blinded, too, what's to become of the world?

Hear what Paul said to the people of Athens when he noticed that they were groping about for a deity they intuited was out there, but didn't know.

Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

We stumble and grope. We get it partially right, but mostly wrong. And yet still, there is an abiding, deep, and stubborn perception of the divine. Even secular and atheistic antagonists recognize the persistence of religious belief.Calvin called this phenomenon the sensus divinitatis.* As Francis Bacon wrote in Novum Organum Scientiarum,

For man by the Fall fell at the same time from his state of innocency and from his dominion over Creation. Both of these losses however can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and sciences.

The search for that latter dominion goes on, and I've related a small step in that direction above. The Church is largely responsible for making this search so successful (maybe even possible) in the West. But we've failed in our first calling, which was to help people who seek after God find him in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

When we preach or explain our faith and someone rebuffs us, we get offended instead of praying for Satan to be hampered. We argue, fuss and fight. But sometimes what blind people need the most is for someone to patiently be there, walking beside them to steady them when they wobble or stumble...someone who knows the way around those obstacles.

May the King Who opens our eyes grant you grace to do just that!

* I learned about this in Paul Helm's class taught in conjunction with the release of his book John Calvin's Ideas. Read his blog and you'll quickly see why I can't read Calvin without hearing it in a British accent. You don't have to spend $60 to get at his work on reformed epistemology. The outlines of the argument are present in an earlier article. Paul Helm, "John Calvin, the Sensus Divinitatis, and the noetic effects of sin" International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Springer, ISSN 0020-7047 Volume 43, Number 2, pg 82, April 1998

Heresy Helper

Yeah...I know. It's not really a meaty "Theology Thursday" post. But I'm low on time and have surgery coming up next week. Whattayawant?

Thanks, Sacred Sandwich!

Losing God the Father

Last Spring, a seminary friend of mine was invoking his privilege as a senior to give one sermon at the midweek chapel service. The senior sermon serves as an opportunity to share something of your faith with the community that, for two or more years, has been part of shaping that very faith. There are basic, "broad middle" sermons. Some sermons that question the person's call after 2.5 years of education. Many sermons that criticize the Bush administration. And a plethora of GLBT, Social Justice, or other standard Christian Left sermons. Fine and dandy.

But my friend was called in to the dean's office. His crime? He dared to use masculine pronouns and speak of God the Father. Apparently, inclusive language isn't meant to include half of the population.

Don't get me wrong. Inclusive language in regards to humans is a good thing (though it can make for poor writing in the hands of less-skilled writers). It's a seminary policy to use inclusive language.

But a recent Touchstone article asks, "What are we losing?"

A lot of feminist and post-modernist theologians talk about how people have felt excluded by masculine god-talk. (Which, let's be clear, is MASCULINE, but not necessarily MALE.) They want to jettison 4,000 years of linguistic reflection on the basis of 40-60 years of empowerment talk. But I don't think they've thought through all the implications. They can tell you why they don't want masculine god-talk, but have a harder time justifying the alternative they propose.

Do you know why masculine god-talk is important? Please feel free to use the comments section to elucidate. And stay tuned...the vicar is about to stir things up.

Preaching Hell in a Tolerant Age

Brimstone for the broad-minded.
by Tim Keller

The young man in my office was impeccably dressed and articulate. He was an Ivy League MBA, successful in the financial world, and had lived in three countries before age 30. Raised in a family with only the loosest connections to a mainline church, he had little understanding of Christianity.

I was therefore gratified to learn of his intense spiritual interest, recently piqued as he attended our church. He said he was ready to embrace the gospel. But there was a final obstacle.

"You've said that if we do not believe in Christ," he said, "we are lost and condemned. I'm sorry, I just cannot buy that. I work with some fine people who are Muslim, Jewish, or agnostic. I cannot believe they are going to hell just because they don't believe in Jesus. In fact, I cannot reconcile the very idea of hell with a loving God—even if he is holy too."

This young man expressed what may be the main objection contemporary secular people make to the Christian message. (A close second, in my experience, is the problem of suffering and evil.) Moderns reject the idea of final judgment and hell.

Thus, it's tempting to avoid such topics in our preaching. But neglecting the unpleasant doctrines of the historic faith will bring about counter-intuitive consequences. There is an ecological balance to scriptural truth that must not be disturbed.

If an area is rid of its predatory or undesirable animals, the balance of that environment may be so upset that the desirable plants and animals are lost—through overbreeding with a limited food supply. The nasty predator that was eliminated actually kept in balance the number of other animals and plants necessary to that particular ecosystem. In the same way, if we play down "bad" or harsh doctrines within the historic Christian faith, we will find, to our shock, that we have gutted all our pleasant and comfortable beliefs, too.

The loss of the doctrine of hell and judgment and the holiness of God does irreparable damage to our deepest comforts—our understanding of God's grace and love and of our human dignity and value to him. To preach the good news, we must preach the bad.

But in this age of tolerance, how?

How to preach hell to traditionalists

Before preaching on the subject of hell, I must recognize that today, a congregation is made up of two groups: traditionalists and postmoderns. The two hear the message of hell completely differently.

People from traditional cultures and mindsets tend to have (a) a belief in God, and (b) a strong sense of moral absolutes and the obligation to be good. These people tend to be older, from strong Catholic or religious Jewish backgrounds, from conservative evangelical/Pentecostal Protestant backgrounds, from the southern U.S., and first-generation immigrants from non-European countries.

The way to show traditional persons their need for the gospel is by saying, "Your sin separates you from God! You can't be righteous enough for him." Imperfection is the duty-worshiper's horror. Traditionalists are motivated toward God by the idea of punishment in hell. They sense the seriousness of sin.

But traditionalists may respond to the gospel only out of fear of hell, unless I show them Jesus experienced not only pain in general on the cross but hell in particular. This must be held up until they are attracted to Christ for the beauty of the costly love of what he did. To the traditional person, hell must be preached as the only way to know how much Christ loved you.

Here is one way I have preached this:

"Unless we come to grips with this terrible doctrine, we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a flea bite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him, he was experiencing hell itself.

"If a mild acquaintance denounces you and rejects you—that hurts. If a good friend does the same—the hurt's far worse. However, if your spouse walks out on you, saying, 'I never want to see you again,' that is far more devastating still. The longer, deeper, and more intimate the relationship, the more torturous is any separation.

"But the Son's relationship with the Father was beginning-less and infinitely greater than the most intimate and passionate human relationship. When Jesus was cut off from God, he went into the deepest pit and most powerful furnace, beyond all imagining. And he did it voluntarily, for us."

How to preach hell to postmoderns

In contrast to the traditionalist, the postmodern person is hostile to the very idea of hell. People with more secular and postmodern mindsets tend to have (a) only a vague belief in the divine, if at all, and (b) little sense of moral absolutes, but rather a sense they need to be true to their dreams. They tend to be younger, from nominal Catholic or non-religious Jewish backgrounds, from liberal mainline Protestant backgrounds, from the western and northeastern U. S., and Europeans.

When preaching hell to people of this mindset, I've found I must make four arguments.

1. Sin is slavery. I do not define sin as just breaking the rules, but also as "making something besides God our ultimate value and worth." These good things, which become gods, will drive us relentlessly, enslaving us mentally and spiritually, even to hell forever if we let them.

I say, "You are actually being religious, though you don't know it—you are trying to find salvation through worshiping things that end up controlling you in a destructive way." Slavery is the choice-worshiper's horror.

C. S. Lewis's depictions of hell are important for postmodern people. In The Great Divorce, Lewis describes a busload of people from hell who come to the outskirts of heaven. There they are urged to leave behind the sins that have trapped them in hell. The descriptions Lewis makes of people in hell are so striking because we recognize the denial and self-delusion of substance addictions. When addicted to alcohol, we are miserable, but we blame others and pity ourselves; we do not take responsibility for our behavior nor see the roots of our problem.

Lewis writes, "Hell … begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps even criticizing it. … You can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine."

Modern people struggle with the idea of God thinking up punishments to inflict on disobedient people. When sin is seen as slavery, and hell as the freely chosen, eternal skid row of the universe, hell becomes much more comprehensible.

Here is an example from a recent sermon of how I try to explain this:

"First, sin separates us from the presence of God (Isa. 59:2), which is the source of all joy (Ps. 16:11), love, wisdom, or good thing of any sort (James 1:17) . …

"Second, to understand hell we must understand sin as slavery. Romans 1:21-25 tells us that we were built to live for God supremely, but instead we live for love, work, achievement, or morality to give us meaning and worth. Thus every person, religious or not, is worshiping something—idols, pseudo-saviors—to get their worth. But these things enslave us with guilt (if we fail to attain them) or anger (if someone blocks them from us) or fear (if they are threatened) or drivenness (since we must have them). Guilt, anger, and fear are like fire that destroys us. Sin is worshiping anything but Jesus—and the wages of sin is slavery."

Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that the people on Lewis's bus from hell are enslaved because they freely choose to be. They would rather have their freedom (as they define it) than salvation. Their relentless delusion is that if they glorified God, they would lose their human greatness (Gen. 3:4-5), but their choice has really ruined their human greatness. Hell is, as Lewis says, "the greatest monument to human freedom."

2. Hell is less exclusive than so-called tolerance. Nothing is more characteristic of the modern mindset than the statement: "I think Christ is fine, but I believe a devout Muslim or Buddhist or even a good atheist will certainly find God." A slightly different version is: "I don't think God would send a person who lives a good life to hell just for holding the wrong belief." This approach is seen as more inclusive.

In preaching about hell, then, I need to counter this argument:

"The universal religion of humankind is: We develop a good record and give it to God, and then he owes us. The gospel is: God develops a good record and gives it to us, then we owe him (Rom. 1:17). In short, to say a good person, not just Christians, can find God is to say good works are enough to find God.

"You can believe that faith in Christ is not necessary or you can believe that we are saved by grace, but you cannot believe in both at once.

"So the apparently inclusive approach is really quite exclusive. It says, 'The good people can find God, and the bad people do not.'

"But what about us moral failures? We are excluded.

"The gospel says, 'The people who know they aren't good can find God, and the people who think they are good do not.'

"Then what about non-Christians, all of whom must, by definition, believe their moral efforts help them reach God? They are excluded.

"So both approaches are exclusive, but the gospel's is the more inclusive exclusivity. It says joyfully, 'It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. It doesn't matter if you've been at the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced fully and instantly through Christ.' "

3. Christianity's view of hell is more personal than the alternative view. Fairly often, I meet people who say, "I have a personal relationship with a loving God, and yet I don't believe in Jesus Christ at all."

"Why?" I ask.

They reply, "My God is too loving to pour out infinite suffering on anyone for sin."

But then a question remains: "What did it cost this kind of God to love us and embrace us? What did he endure in order to receive us? Where did this God agonize, cry out? Where were his nails and thorns?"

The only answer is: "I don't think that was necessary."

How ironic. In our effort to make God more loving, we have made God less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all. The worship of a God like this will be impersonal, cognitive, ethical. There will be no joyful self-abandonment, no humble boldness, no constant sense of wonder. We would not sing to such a being, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all."

The postmodern "sensitive" approach to the subject of hell is actually quite impersonal. It says, "It doesn't matter if you believe in the person of Christ, as long as you follow his example."

But to say that is to say the essence of religion is intellectual and ethical, not personal. If any good person can find God, then the essential core of religion is understanding and following the rules.

When preaching about hell, I try to show how impersonal this view is:

"To say that any good person can find God is to create a religion without tears, without experience, without contact.

"The gospel certainly is not less than the understanding of truths and principles, but it is infinitely more. The essence of salvation is knowing a Person (John 17:3). As with knowing any person, there is repenting and weeping and rejoicing and encountering. The gospel calls us to a wildly passionate, intimate love relationship with Jesus Christ, and calls that 'the core of true salvation.' "

4. There is no love without wrath. What rankles people is the idea of judgment and the wrath of God: "I can't believe in a God who sends people to suffer eternally. What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?"

So in preaching about hell, we must explain that a wrathless God cannot be a loving God. Here's how I tried to do that in one sermon:

"People ask, 'What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?' But any loving person is often filled with wrath. In Hope Has Its Reasons, Becky Pippert writes, 'Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it. … Anger isn't the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.'

"Pippert then quotes E. H. Gifford, 'Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.'

"She concludes: 'If I, a flawed narcissistic sinful woman, can feel this much pain and anger over someone's condition, how much more a morally perfect God who made them? God's wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.' "

A God like this

Following a recent sermon on the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the post-service question-and-answer session was packed with more than the usual number of attenders. The questions and comments focused on the subject of eternal judgment.

My heart sank when a young college student said, "I've gone to church all my life, but I don't think I can believe in a God like this." Her tone was more sad than defiant, but her willingness to stay and talk showed that her mind was open.

Usually all the questions are pitched to me, and I respond as best I can. But on this occasion people began answering one another.

An older businesswoman said, "Well, I'm not much of a churchgoer, and I'm in some shock now. I always disliked the very idea of hell, but I never thought about it as a measure of what God was willing to endure in order to love me."

Then a mature Christian made a connection with a sermon a month ago on Jesus at Lazarus' tomb in John 11. "The text tells us that Jesus wept," he said, "yet he was also extremely angry at evil. That's helped me. He is not just an angry God or a weeping, loving God—he's both. He doesn't only judge evil, but he also takes the hell and judgment himself for us on the cross."

The second woman nodded, "Yes. I always thought hell told me about how angry God was with us, but I didn't know it also told me about how much he was willing to suffer and weep for us. I never knew how much hell told me about Jesus' love. It's very moving."

It is only because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus' proclamation of grace and love are so brilliant and astounding.

Tim Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

Originally published in Leadership journal, October 1, 1997.

Copyright © 1997 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.

For more on Hell from Tim Keller, go here.

Reminder to those who allege reductionism

Since the California ruling on Same Sex Marriage, my inbox has been full of requests for money and activism to support traditional marriage. Some of the Christian organizations even ask me to pray. (Shame on the others!) There have been insightful commentaries and legal musings (can you say balkanization), along with the standard tripe. There's just a tremendous amount of energy going toward dealing with the issue.

Plenty of people on the other side say that the right is obsessed with homosex. Now that's like saying that during a flood, Iowans are obsessed with sandbags. But even if we do come off as a bit fixated, there's a reason beyond morbid obsession that the battles rage these days over sexuality:

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

(Luther's Works. Weimar Edition. Briefwechsel [Correspondence], vol. 3, pp. 81ƒ.)

In each age, we are asked to give allegiance to the powers of this world or to the Kingdom of God and His Christ. Everyday, we choose sides. The place where Christians must rush in to fill the gap is where the nay-sayers allege that Christ's Kingdom does not extend. If it is sexuality, we will speak of His Lordship there. If it is economics, we must contend for him there. If it is freedom of conscience, we will challenge those against it.

Right now, a tiny contingent of the population* is waging an enormous rhetorical (and now political) campaign against Christ's Lordship over human relationality & sexuality. It's a big deal, because Paul describes that sacred bond as a mystery illustrative of Christ and His Church. As stewards of the mysteries, our service to Christ cannot constitute an erosion of that union.

If nothing else, think of the children and the minorities.

*Less than 3% of men and 1.5% of women, according to Sex in America: A Definitive Survey, Robert T. Michael, John H. Gagnon, Edward O. Laumann, and Gina Kolata, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1994, p. 176.

Seminary or Cemetary

"I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God's word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now. Nobody is to blame for this except the pope, the bishops, and the prelates, who are all charged with training young people. The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell." - Martin Luther

CPMs of the world, take note!

Miracles not on 119 West F Street

I try to leave John Shuck alone these days (he started deleting my comments, so what's the point of seeing him outside of a PJC?). But his recent post on miracles cuts to the heart of the disagreement that I and most other orthodox Christians have with him. Strangely enough, it's not THE GAY. It's THE MIRACULOUS.

The dividing line has already been drawn - we're just rehashing it hoping to come up with a different result. Machen, in his book title Christianity and Liberalism, showed that non-supernatural / modernist Christianity (which he termed liberalism) and supernatural / fundamentalist Christianity (which he simply called Christianity) are in fact two separate religions sharing a common source and some overlapping language. Of it, he said:

There is much interlocking of the branches, but the two tendencies, Modernism and supernaturalism, or (otherwise designated) non-doctrinal religion and historic Christianity, spring from different roots. In particular, I tried to show that Christianity is not a "life," as distinguished from a doctrine, and not a life that has doctrine as its changing symbolic expression, but that--exactly the other way around--it is a life founded on a doctrine.

Trying to be "nice" about it has let the bomb get bigger before it blows up in everyone's face. It would have been better to take a different route (especially in our denomination) 80+ years ago.

If you'd like to read on the historic and philosophical arguments that support the Bible's claims of the miraculous, visit (and support) Greg Koukl's ministry at Stand to Reason. I also highly recommend the work of Gary Habermas on miracles generally and especially on the resurrection of Jesus.

MITHras BUSTERS

This is me being dorky in the British Museum. I saw this Mithraic tauroctony and had an idea that could only make punsters grimace, my Latin and NT teachers grin, and my apologist friends clap.



(Full size here.)

Somebody should tell the bull to watch out for his gonads.

And yes...that is a poorly Photoshopped Irish crozier I'm using for the attack! Watch out, or I just might turn into a mitred smiter!

Unmistakable Truths

Hmmm... dig up the corpse of Jesus and you get to claim that your faith is not beholden to fact because you can make it a metaphor or just dump the whole "realism" project. (Not to mention that everyone else who disagrees with your interpretation does so from intellectual dishonesty or, worse, moral bankruptcy.)

Dig up something an anthropologist claims is a human ancestor and you demand that everyone's faith claims have to change in accordance with that "fact."

Anyone else smell inconsistency? (Hint: it smells kind of lemony.)

Evolution and relativism = "unmistakable truth" over which only the mentally deficient can disagree.

orthodox Christianity = misogynistic powerplay for privileging a narrow "western" view.

A most fascinating hermeneutic....

Talpiot Tomb Tricks Truant

I just posted the following at John Shuck's blog. No claims to originality - most of this was culled from various readings and some outright copied from Ben Witherington.

A couple of things:

1) Craig Evans has written a recent (2003) article on Jewish burial traditions, focusing on how they illuminate the Gospel narratives. You can find it in a PDF file here.

By following his footnotes, you can find a wealth of information. Take a look at the Anchor Bible Dictionary or the Encyclopedia Judaica (you can read the old article on burial here). You'll find that the Gospels reflect intimate acquaintance with these traditions.

You'll also discover that the tomb of the family of Jesus would not be in Jerusalem. It would be somewhere in Galilee or Bethlehem (either the one in Galilee/Zebulun or the one in Judea/Judah).

2. The tomb was discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem back in 1980 by arcaheologists of the Israeli Antiquities Authority (though outside of the Jerusalem of ancient times, as all burials had to be done outside the city). Amos Kloner and Joe Zias, two of the original archaeologists involved in the project, have openly repudiated the findings of the show in strong terms, both on television and in the public forum.

Let's face it - if Jews could prove that they had the body of the man Christians say was resurrected (and Muslims say ascended without death), why would they sit on it for twenty years?

3) It does seem to date from before the second century, and it is a very nice tomb belonging to a middle-class (or better) family. It was decorated from the outside and on the inside with a strange rosette shape, indicating the attention was to be drawn to it rather than being a secret.

Do we believe that Jesus' family was well-to-do? Do we believe that anyone associated with Jesus and his family closely enough would want to draw attention to his burial place? It could hardly be argued that any of his disciples would want to do so.

4) The names are a big problem for those who believe it's the biblical Jesus. Some names are in Hebrew, others in Aramaic, and the one of Mariamne is in Greek! That suggests it's a multi-generational tomb (rather than everyone being piled in there at roughly the same time).

5) History of the names - Richard Bauckham provides the following statistics. Out of a total number of 2625 males, these are the figures for the ten most popular male names among Palestinian Jews. the first figure is the total number of occurrences (from this number, with 2625 as the total for all names, you could calculate percentages), while the second is the number of occurrences specifically on ossuraies.

1 Simon/Simeon 243 59
2 Joseph 218 45
3 Eleazar 166 29
4 Judah 164 44
5 John/Yohanan 122 25
6 Jesus 99 22
7 Hananiah 82 18
8 Jonathan 71 14
9 Matthew 62 17
10 Manaen/Menahem 42 4

No mention is made in the documentary of the fact that though we only have a few hundred ossuaries with inscribed names, there is in fact another ossuary with the inscription 'Jesus son of Joseph'. Apparently this was not a rare combination of names at all.

For women, we have a total of 328 occurrences (women's names are much less often recorded than men's), and figures for the 4 most popular names are thus:

Mary/Mariamne 70 42
Salome 58 41
Shelamzion 24 19
Martha 20 17

At one juncture we are told that the name Mariamenon is found in Hippolytus a second century church historian. Two problems with this. Firstly so far as I can see, that name never occurs in the works of Hippolytus [I'm using the Lightfoot The Apostolic Fathers vol. i, part ii (London, 1889-1890)]. Secondly, Hippolytus died in about A.D. 236. He comes to us from the end of the second century A.D. He could never have known any eywitnesses or even second-third generation followers of Jesus. Even if he did mention the name in question (the one on the ossuary found at Talpiot), he provides no early second century evidence for this name, much less for the theory that this name is one way of referring to Mary Magdalene.

In fact the Acts of Philip, at best a fourth century document is the basis of the theory of Prof. Bovon that Mariamenou Mara= Mary Magdalene, but nowhere in that document are the two equated. The woman referred to in that document is an evangelist in Greek who is the sister of Philip (whether Philip the apostle or the later Philip the evangelist found in Acts 8, is up for debate).

In sum, there is a reason that every Biblical archaeologist, save possibly one, interviewed either in the Discovery Channel special or in the hour long debate thereafter repudiates or is unpersuaded by the findings of the show.

It's not the tomb of the biblical Jesus of Nazareth.

If you want to find his body, you'll see it come together (usually on Sunday mornings) to be fed on the Word and then sent out into the world.

Or you can ask John Dominic Crossan to point to some fossilized dog turd to find the remains of a Jewish rabble-rouser that people falsely called God.