Finding freedom in our work

I just finished reading Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work (Dutton, 2012) by Tim Keller and co-author Katherine Leary Alsdorf, the director of Redeemer's Center for Faith & Work. This book is a good introduction to the excellent work of that ministry. It's helped me approach my "day job" with a healthier attitude and shown me that I can serve God (and my neighbor) at work, even though I'm ambivalent about the mission of the company I work for.

In the last chapter the authors talk about the concept of "the work under the work." This is what truly motivates us to work. It could be merely the paycheck, or it could be achieving  a sense of success and self-worth by being more productive than our peers. It could even be something as noble-sounding as making the world a better place. Every Good Endeavor argues -- effectively in my opinion -- that if the "work under the work" isn't grounded on the promises of the Christian gospel then our work will ultimately be a futile attempt to find redemption apart from the only one who can provide that -- namely Jesus of Nazareth.

Keller and Alsdorf also unpack the symbiotic relationship of rest to work as seen in the Old and New Testament's teaching on Sabbath rest, most notably in the Fourth Commandment. In Deuteronomy 5:15 the observance of the Sabbath is tied to God's rescue of his people from slavery in Egypt -- the Sabbath is portrayed as a "reenactment of emancipation from slavery." (p. 235) How might observing a rhythm of work and Sabbath rest apply to us? We're not slaves are we? Well, maybe. Here's a good quote.

Anyone who cannot obey God's command to observe the Sabbath is a slave, even a self-imposed one. Your own heart, or our materialistic culture, or an exploitative organization, or all of the above, will be abusing you if you don't have the ability to be disciplined in your practice of Sabbath. Sabbath is therefore a declaration of our freedom.  It means you are not a slave—not to your culture's expectations, your family's hopes, your medical school's demands, not even your own insecurities. It is important that you learn to speak this truth to yourself with a note of triumph—otherwise you will feel guilty for taking time off, or you will be unable to truly unplug. (p. 236)

The Bible's depiction of healthy work and healthy rest is great news for a culture in which busyness, restlessness and anxiety are constant companions -- and this book quite brilliantly unpacks it much more than I can do in a short post. Bottom line: read this book! You can have my copy...as long as you pass it on when you're done.

Confounding them like Jesus did

In Center Church pastor Tim Keller writes about missional churches that confound the traditional categories of "conservative" or "liberal", "fundamentalist" or "progressive" -- churches that are harder for outsiders to write off because they don't fit with some preconceived notion or bias. Keller describes one mark of this kind of church:

A missional church will be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice than traditional fundamentalist churches and more deeply and practically committed to evangelism and conversion than traditional liberal churches.

 I thought of this in relation to the latest round of media coverage concerning Pope Francis' interview with America magazine. The coverage follows the pattern seen a few weeks ago in reaction to the Pope's off-the-cuff remarks on homosexuality, particularly his comment "Who am I to judge?". The pattern goes as follows. The Pope says something about hot-button issue x, y or z that sounds like he's changing church teaching. Media jumps to the conclusion that he's a liberal like them. Then other interpreters jump in to point out that he isn't saying anything different than what the church has always said, just saying it in a more winsome and effective way.

Writing at the First Things blog here's Matthew Schmitz arguing for the latter.

The Pope’s approach is one familiar to any reader of the gospels. Pharisees try to discredit the gospel by trapping its teacher; the teacher refuses the terms of their question and raises the spiritual stakes. The point here is not to compromise on or back away from truth, but rather to reject its caricature. This is good practical guidance. If it’s what he meant in his broader remarks, then those remarks offer wise advice well worth taking.

Perhaps Francis is an example of a church leader committed to busting up the traditional categories like Jesus did -- neither liberal or conservative but confronting dogmas of both the right and the left with the subversive claims of the gospel.  If so, he's an example that Evangelical Protestants would be wise to emulate.

The marks of revival

Yesterday I listened to a talk Tim Keller gave at The Gospel Coalition conference on a Biblical theology of revival. By revival Keller doesn't mean a programmedc event, or one that can be worked up by a method -- contrary to Charles Finney and his many imitators -- but a spontaneous work of the Holy Spirit characterized by a recovery of the gospel and a deep sense of repentance. Interestingly, he said that revival is often a quiet affair -- quiet in that the church gets quiet before God. This is contrary to revival-ism which tends to be noisy.

In looking at various revivals down through church history Keller sees that they look different but have several common denominators, including the two mentioned above -- recovery of the gospel and deep sense of repentance. Elaborating on those common characteristics of revival Keller said something that I think is worth latching onto -- revival is always accompanied by "sleepy Christians waking up" and "nominal Christians getting converted."

First, sleepy Christians waking up -- these are people who are genuinely saved but for some reason have lost the joy and power that should be their's in Christ. All the promises of God in Christ are objectively true for them but they aren't experiencing the fruit of those promises. Keller illustrated it this way. Imagine a father and his young son walking down the street side by side. Suddenly, in a spontaneous gesture of affection, the father picks up his son, hugs him to his chest, and says "I love you!" What's happened at that moment? Objectively the father's love is the same as before, but now the son is experiencing that love in a fresh subjective way. This is part of what happens when sleepy Christians wake up.

Secondly, nominal Christians are often people who have gone to church all their life. They may be leaders or officers in the church! Keller picked out the example of a former church treasurer who came to him and confessed that he had never understood the gospel until now even though he'd been serving in the church for years. Our churches are filled with such people -- faithful churchgoers who've never experienced the transformative power of the gospel, many of whom are clinging to some form of works-righteousness to get them into Heaven.

You might be saying: "What about the unconverted outside the walls of the church? Doesn't revival affect them?" The neat thing is that when you have a local church, or denomination, or parachurch movement, full of sleepy Christians waking up and nominal Christians getting converted, the world can't help but notice. Those once sleepy and nominal church members have the "savor of Christ" on them and channels are opened for extraordinary operations of God.

As an elder charged with the oversight of a local church I can't think of a better prayer than this -- that the sleepy Christians in our pews are awakened and that the nominal Christians (and only God knows exactly who they are) will be converted. That's how revival starts.

Unconditional Grace?

Here's a thought provoking quote from Tim Keller (Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road, pp. 226-7).

Grace is not unconditional acceptance, but it is undeserved. That is a very difficult balance to strike! God's grace comes to us without prerequisites, finding us as we are. God's grace does not come to the "deserving" (there is no such person), and it does not discriminate. Rather, initially it comes to us freely. But once it enters into our lives, God's grace demands changes; it holds us accountable. Why? Grace demands our holiness and growth for our sake as well as for God's glory. Grace intercepts destructive behavior, protects us from the ravages of sin, sanctifies us so we can be "holy and happy," two inseparable qualities.

In summary, grace is undeserved caring that intercepts destructive behavior. It is not unconditional acceptance, nor is it a legalism that says, "Shape us or I will stop loving you." Rather, it says, "Your sin cannot separate you from me," and then, in addition, says, "I won't let your sin destroy you." Grace comes to the unlovely person, but refuses to let him remain ugly. Grace begins as "justification," a free act of God alone, but it becomes "sanctification," a process by which the person cooperates with God in spiritual growth.

I find that a helpful distinction because it challenges my tendency to make grace cheap. Bonhoeffer's classic definition of "cheap grace" is worth repeating -- "Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."

In other words, it's the grace we gladly extend to ourselves, with no strings attached. But the grace of God is different. We see it modeled in the earthly ministry of Jesus: the perfect balance of grace and truth. He healed and forgave the undeserving, but he didn't leave it at that. His free grace was accompanied by a message of repentance. "Go and sin no more." Divine grace shakes things up.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.  (Titus 2:11-14)

Idolatries exposed

The events in State College, PA early Sunday morning were like something seen back in the days when Iron Curtain domino's were falling one after another. Often the final act in the drama was a toppling of the venerable leader's statue. The unceremonious hauling away of the 900-pound bronze statue of legendary football coach Joe Paterno bore a striking resemblance to those scenes from 1989.

This morning the NCAA delivered a near fatal blow to the Penn State football program and Paterno's legacy. I have mixed feelings about all this. I haven't read The Freeh Report so will reserve judgment on the actions of Penn State and the NCAA except to say that the sordid saga has illuminated the idolatrous hold that sports has on segments of our society. As a lover of sports, especially college football, I have to ask myself: "If this had happened at the University of Florida would my reactions be different? Would my identification with the Gators skew my moral perspective?"

The other story in the headlines is the evil mass murder in Aurora, Colorado. Predictably, the aftermath has been dominated by dueling slogans on the issue of gun control. Those who favor further restrictions on gun ownership are quick to lead with this issue. On the other side those who favor the laxest possible restrictions on gun ownership want to change the subject and talk about the evil and/or insanity of the murderer. Both sides have their good points. Someone with murderous intent will find a way to carry it out even if guns aren't available, but when one can legally collect weapons, ammo and armor sufficient to hold off a regiment of soldiers equipped with Revolutionary War-era muskets the potential for mayhem is exponentially higher. I wonder if Aurora isn't also exposing an area of idolatry prevalent among us related to guns and gun ownership?

Tim Keller has defined the sin of idolatry this way: "Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry."

Keller also notes that idolatry has a corporate dimension. We see this in the history of Old Testament Israel and we can see it (if only dimly) in our own contemporary cultural contexts. "Indeed, each field of vocation and study has its reigning idols, as do political parties and ideologies. While secular societies have made an idol of human reason and human autonomy, other more traditional societies make idols of the family or racial purity."

What are the idols I am prone to find meaning in more than God? What are the idols we are prone to put in God's place? As we reflect on the weekend's heartbreaking headlines may we turn to God and his word for answers.

Tim Keller Q & A

Recently Tim Keller fielded some very tough questions at Oxford University. Now more than ever these are the types of questions Christians need to be equipped to answer.

Watch and listen here

And a hat tip to the blogger who edited these videos!

The reason for the Trinity (Keller)

Appropriately, Tim Keller ends The Reason for God with a chapter on the Trinity. If I was investigating Christianity as a skeptic I'm pretty sure the doctrine I would have the most trouble with would be the doctrine of the Trinity. One God in three persons. Really?! All that business about essences and substances just seems like splitting hairs, right? On the face of it the doctrine seems like a logical impossibility. Aren't our Jewish and Muslim neighbors right when they accuse Christians of being polytheists? After all, the main thrust of the Old Testament seems to be monotheism. Nothing about the Trinity there.

As you probably guessed I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate. No, I don't believe Christians are polytheists, and one can make out the beginnings of trinitarian theology even in the OT. Nevertheless we must acknowledge that we're in the presence of a mystery we can't fully explain. Keller writes: "The doctrine of the Trinity overloads our mental circuits." We may never wrap our minds around it, but the Trinity is essential to Christianity. So much flows from it, not least the Incarnation of the Son of God that we celebrate in a few days.

Unique to the Christian understanding of God is that he is love. It's not only that he is loving (which he is!), but that he IS love. From eternity past self-giving love has been part of the essence of the Godhead -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This would not be possible if God wasn't triune, Keller explains.

If God is unipersonal, then until God created other beings there was no love, since love is something that one person has for another. This means that a unipersonal God was power, sovereignty, and greatness from all eternity, but not love. Love then is the essence of God, nor is it at the heart of the universe. Power is primary.

However, if God is triune, then loving relationships in community are the "great fountain . . . at the center of reality." When people say, "God is love," I think they mean that love is extremely important, or that God really wants us to love. But in the Christian conception, God really has love as his essence. If he was just one person he couldn't have been loving for all eternity. If he was only the impersonal all-soul of Eastern thought, he couldn't have been loving, for love is something persons do. . . . Ultimate reality is a community of persons who know and love one another.

If Keller is right, and the Trinitarian nature of God is the key to ultimate reality, then this has massive implications for the way we live. For one thing it shows us that relationships are key to human flourishing, and selfishness is ultimately a destructive dead end. Jesus put it most succinctly: "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it" (Mark 8:35 NIV). In sum: "You were made for mutually self-giving, other-directed love. Self-centeredness destroys the fabric of what God has made."

The Reason for God is terrific. Even better than I expected. One of the author's heroes is C.S. Lewis, so it's not surprising that his fingerprints are all over the book. I think Keller has written a Mere Christianity-type book for our day -- one that will strengthen the faith of believers, respectfully challenge skeptics, and reward sincere seekers of truth.

Quotes from The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (pp. 225-7)

Two ways of avoiding Jesus

Quote from Tim Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism:

Sin and evil are self-centeredness and pride that lead to oppression against others, but there are two forms of this. One form is being very bad and breaking all the rules, and the other form is being very good and keeping all the rules and becoming self-righteous. There are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord. The first is by saying, "I am going to live my life the way I want." The second is described by Flannery O'Connor, who wrote about one of her characters, Hazel Motes, that "he knew that the best way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin." If you are avoiding sin and living morally so that God will have to bless and save you, then ironically, you may be looking to Jesus as a teacher, model, and helper but you are avoiding him as Savior. You are trusting in your own goodness rather than in Jesus for your standing with God. You are trying to save yourself by following Jesus. . . . It is possible to avoid Jesus as Savior as much by keeping all the Biblical rules as by breaking them. Both religion (in which you build your identity on your moral achievements) and irreligion (in which you build your identity on some other secular pursuit or relationship) are, ultimately, spiritually identical courses to take. Both are "sin." (Chapter 11 "Religion and the Gospel", p. 183)

Keller ends this section by saying that the first kind of self-salvation project (building your identity on moral achievements) results in lots of good moral behavior, but ultimately leaves people deeply frustrated and unhappy. I'll be honest. I'd rather live next door to a religious moralist than a rule-breaking libertine, but both types of people are living lives in opposition to the gospel of Jesus, who said: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)

Which Christianity? (Keller)

The first half of Tim Keller's The Reason for God deals with some common objections secular Westerners have to Christianity.

How could a good God allow suffering?
You can't take the Bible literally.
The church has been responsible for so much injustice.
Hasn't science disproved Christianity?

Questions and statements like these constitute what Keller has called elsewhere "defeater beliefs" -- beliefs that have to be confronted before you can gain a hearing for the gospel message. The second half of the book is devoted to making the positive case for the Christian faith.

But before getting to that, Keller anticipates a question in an Intermission chapter -- How do you define Christianity? After all Christians are a veritable hodge-podge of beliefs and practices. Imagine the disorientation of someone attending a Catholic Mass one day and a Pentecostal service the next. He could be forgiven for thinking he had experienced two different religions. Nevertheless, Keller writes that it's possible to identify a core of beliefs and practices that make up what C.S. Lewis called "mere Christianity."

. . . all Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians assent together to the great creeds of the first thousand years of church history, such as the Apostle's, Nicene, Chalcedonian, and Athanasian creeds. In these creeds the fundamental Christian view of reality is laid out. There is the classical expression of the Christian understanding of God as three-in-one. Belief in the Trinity creates a profoundly different view of the world from that of polytheists, non-Trinitarian monotheists, and atheists, as I will show in Chapter 13. There is also a strong statement of the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ in these creeds. Christians, therefore, do not look upon Jesus as one more teacher or prophet, but as Savior of the world. These teachings make Christians far more like than unlike one another.

What is Christianity? For our purposes, I'll define Christianity as the body of believers who assent to these great ecumenical creeds. . .

That's good. Also included in the Christian view of reality expressed in the creeds are humanity's fall into sin, salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the establishment of the church to continue Christ's mission until he returns to judge sin, remove evil, and usher in the new heavens and earth.

Of course, once you start asking the "how" questions (How does Jesus's death accomplish our salvation?, etc.) you will get significantly different answers from different traditions and denominations. Also, since Christianity is spread across every region of the world it will look different depending on the context. So even though there are no truly "generic" Christians there is a definable body of beliefs that define Christianity. Even believers who've never heard of the creeds listed above are defined by the beliefs which they articulate, and the episodes of church history from which they emerged. The Roman Catholic and the "no creed but the Bible" fundamentalist have more in common than they might think!


Quote from this edition of The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, pp. 120-1

The leap of doubt (Keller)

I'm finally getting around to reading The Reason for God by Tim Keller. Being a pastor for twenty years in one of the most secular and skeptical corners of the globe -- Manhattan NYC -- must have been good preparation for writing this book. I figured it would be a good read, but so far it's exceeded my expectations.

Keller introduces the book by presenting a paradox. On the one hand a sizeable segment of Western society is alarmed by a rise of robust religious belief. These "secular liberals" fear this will lead to intolerance and a "turn back the clock" mentality. On the other side are religious believers -- especially of the Judeo-Christian variety -- spooked by the rise of secularism and disbelief, which these "traditional conservatives" fear will lead to moral relativism and permissiveness. So which is it? Is our society, and the world, becoming more or less religious? The answer is yes. Both religious belief and secular skepticism are on the rise. The author counsels secularists to let go of the cherished 20th century idea that scientific advance has made the demise of religion inevitable -- and he urges believers not to dismiss skepticism out-of-hand and to wrestle seriously with the doubts of our nonbelieving neighbors. Both sides need to stop the name-calling and seek to reason with each other. It's this new way forward that animates the book.

Keller proposes that each side look at doubt in a new way -- an approach he says has been fruitful in talking to skeptical New Yorkers over the years. What does this mean for believers?

A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. . . . Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, that are plausible rather than ridiculous or offensive. (p. xvii)

I really appreciate this point that faith doesn't mean the absence of doubt. The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is unbelief. In my experience Christian communities that discourage the asking of hard questions aren't very successful in keeping the next generation once they go out into the wider world.

What does Keller's approach mean for skeptics?

. . . skeptics must learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their reasoning. All doubts, however skeptical and cynical they seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs. You cannot doubt Belief A except from a position of faith in Belief B. For example, if you doubt Christianity because "There can't be just one true religion," you must recognize that this statement is itself an act of faith. No one can prove it empirically, and it is not a universal truth that everyone accepts. . . . The reason you doubt Christianity's Belief A is because you hold unprovable Belief B. Every doubt, therefore, is based on a leap of faith. (p. xviii)

This same principle holds true with other common objections too -- like the person who can't accept the existence of moral absolutes because he or she believes morality is determined by each individual. Again, that person is making a statement based on a deep-seated personal belief that can't be proven. Or the person who simply sees no need to investigate the existence of God. That person is taking a leap of faith that "no God exists who would hold you accountable for your beliefs and behavior if you didn't feel the need for him." Keller's thesis can be summed up by the phrase doubt your doubts.

The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then to ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. How do you know your belief is true? It would be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is frequently what happens. In fairness you must doubt your doubts. (p. xviii-xix)

Keller suggests that by taking doubt seriously both believers and nonbelievers will find greater clarity and humility in their respective positions, and will find mutual understanding and respect where it didn't exist before. As followers of Jesus this is something to be desired (1 Peter 3:15).

Quotes from this edition of The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

The promise of true community

"Jesus says, 'When you enter into a relationship with me I will weave you into a human community deeper and more beautiful than you can imagine.' To be saved by Jesus means not just to have your individual sins forgiven -- it does mean that but it means more -- it means to be woven into a new human community -- a true human community that God is creating."

Tim Keller, The Community of Jesus

Christiane Amanpour interviews Tim Keller

If you aren't able to watch the embedded video you can watch it on YouTube.

What's the Bible about?

John 5:39 records an amazing statement by Jesus: "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me."

It can't be repeated too often that the main character of the Bible is Christ. He said so himself. Here's a neat video illustrating this. The voice is that of Tim Keller and the drawings are by Gustave Dore.




via The Gospel Coalition

Proverbs: meant to be read cumulatively and communally

There is a way of reading Proverbs that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is . . . disillusionment? That's my tongue-in-cheek translation of Proverbs 16:25. I'm referring to a way of reading Proverbs that takes individual proverbs out of context and absolutizes them. For instance, Christian parents should take great comfort from Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." I do! Yet we've seen examples where children of godly parents have departed from the way of life and never returned. Do these examples give the lie to 22:6? Well, no. Proverbs was meant to be read in it's entirety, with each proverb building on the others to give a full picture of life lived coram Deo.

Incidentally, some Old Testament scholars believe Ecclesiastes was a response to a way of reading Proverbs that turned it into a collection of failsafe principals. Qoheleth "the Preacher" seems to contradict the author(s) of Proverbs at a number of points. The righteous don't always prosper. Some times the hard worker starves, while the lazy man grows fat. Calamity overtakes the wise and the foolish. This is vanity. But back to Proverbs . . .

Today at the Redeemer City to City blog Tim Keller shares some of his insights from preaching through Proverbs. He says that this ancient book of wisdom is both more and less than we moderns typically take it to be. Keller writes:

So Proverbs cannot be "dipped into". It only repays very long study in which you keep the whole book in your head and compare passage with passage. How is that best done? In a community! Some commentators argue that the book of Proverbs was originally written as a manual to be studied by a community of young men under the mentorship of older men -- for a number of years. Each proverb was to be discussed and considered and compared to the others. Examples from life were to be shared. In other words, Proverbs may have been written to be the basis for deep, comprehensive personal growth through mentoring in community. It touches on every area of life.

Read the whole thing

Sounds like a great idea for a small-group Bible study!

Keller @ Willow Creek

JR Kerr asks "What does the Gospel have to do with popular leadership/management theory?"

and

Tim Keller uses the prophet, priest and king model to analyze contemporary evangelicalism.

Giving and keeping

"If I leave behind 10 pounds, you and all mankind bear witness against me that I lived and died a thief and a robber."

John Wesley

I'm re-reading Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road by Tim Keller. It's challenging me again as it did the first time I read it 4 or 5 years ago. Keller asks if it's possible for comfortable American Christians to do the ministry of mercy without radically altering our lifestyle. And should Christians live a "simple lifestyle" in order to give more away?

Ronald Sider answers a resounding yes and advocates a "graduated tithe" in his book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. This is where the percentage given increases as income increases, and all income above a certain point is given away. Also, "Sider urges families to live communally, to buy no clothes for two to three years, and to radically lower their lifestyle so that they can give 20-50 percent of their income to the Lord and to the needy." (p. 68) Is this too radical? Keller appeals to prominent evangelicals from the 18th century to demonstrate that the teaching of a "simple lifestyle" is not a radical, new fad.

The pastor and hymnwriter John Newton advised choosing a standard of living which is "barely decent" and that "we are to spend a penny on the poor for every penny we spend on ourselves." (p. 69) Jonathan Edwards chided those who adopted a standard of living (i.e. "just enough for myself and my family") based on the expectations of their social class. He saw that the amount thought "just enough" will invariably be calculated to maintain the lifestyle an individual or family has grown accustomed to. Edwards believed that if an individual's giving didn't burden one, or cut into one's lifestyle, then they weren't giving enough. (p. 74)

Perhaps the best example is John Wesley. Keller cites a sermon Wesley preached on Matthew 6:19-21 in which he "flatly states that any Christian who has more than the 'plain necessaries of life lives in an open, habitual denial of the Lord; he has gained riches and hell-fire.'" (p. 71) I'm guessing this kind of preaching wouldn't go over well today, even in churches that count Wesley as their doctrinal forebear and hero. Wesley lived what he preached. At the height of his fame he earned as much as 1,400 pounds a year from the sale of his sermons and books, yet his spending remained modest in the extreme throughout his life, and when he died "his estate consisted of a coat and two silver teaspoons." (p. 69)

These examples aren't confined to those well-known figures. "Rather, it was common teaching in the evangelical churches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." (p. 69) Wesley and his contemporaries might well count it a symptom of deep worldliness that the majority of Western Christians today are as preoccupied as the world with ever-larger well-appointed homes, new cars, leisure activities, and retirement portfolios. More typical of today's thinking is a Christian finance writer quoted by Keller who writes, "God's simple requirement is that we give ten percent of our income; once we have paid that, we know that no more is demanded." By that rule the man who earns a million dollars is free to spend $900,000 on himself. But how does that jive with the teachings of Jesus on money and possessions, as well as the many apostolic admonitions and warnings? Not well, Keller believes. He calls it "a form of Phariseeism." (p. 75) I see it as an example of ignoring the weightier matters of the law -- justice, mercy and faith.

I'm the first to admit I have far to go in this area. Keller suggests three principles to guide our giving that I believe are Biblical and worth pondering.

First, we must give so that we feel the burden of the needy ourselves.

Secondly, we may only keep whatever wealth we need for our calling and ministry opportunities.

Thirdly, we must not be generous in such a way that we or our families become liabilities to others.

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2

A good place to stand

Tim Keller wrote Ministries of Mercy (P&R Publishing, 1989, Second Edition 1997) before he was the evangelical celebrity he is today. I think it's still the contemporary book to go to on mercy ministry and the church. It's been a few years since I read it, but something about the current political climate reminded me of the following quote. It's as true today as when he (and Schaeffer) first wrote it.

Our nation is becoming a mosaic of different groups, each with a unique complex of needs. Most churches are surrounded by growing numbers of the unemployed and underemployed, new immigrant populations, singles, divorced persons, unwed mothers, the elderly, prisoners, the dying, sick, and disabled. Poverty is on the rise, the percentage of the elderly in our society is exploding, ethnics are pouring into our country by the millions, and federal money for helping agencies, hospitals, and other such institutions is drying up. . . . Regardless of our political views, it is indisputable that millions of people who once looked to the government will now need service and aid from churches and other agencies. The church will be forced by demographics to see what the Bible has always said. Love cannot be only expressed through talk, but through word and deed (1 John 3:17).

While accomplishing that task, Francis Schaeffer said, Christians may be at times, "cobelligerents" with the Left or the Right, but never allies. "If there is social injustice, say there is social injustice. If we need order, say we need order. . . . But do not align yourself as though you are in either of these camps: You are an ally of neither. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is different from either—totally different." (pp. 25-26, bold emphasis mine)

Keller and Nouwen on elder brotherishness in the church

Tim Keller:

There is a big difference between an elder brother and a real, gospel-believing Christian. But there are also many genuine Christians who are elder brotherish. If you came to Christ out of being a younger brother, there is always the danger of partially relapsing into addictions or other younger-brother sins. But if you've become a Christian out of being an elder brother, you can even more easily slide back into elder-brother attitudes and spiritual deadness. If you have not grasped the gospel fully and deeply, you will return to being condescending, condemning, anxious, insecure, joyless, and angry all the time.

Elder brothers have an undercurrent of anger toward life circumstances, hold grudges long and bitterly, look down at people of other races, religions, and lifestyles, experience life as a joyless, crushing drudgery, have little intimacy and joy in their prayer life, and have a deep insecurity that makes them overly sensitive to criticism and rejection yet fierce and merciless in condemning others.

The Prodigal God (Dutton, 2008) pp. 70-71

Henri Nouwen:

Outwardly, the elder son was faultless. But when confronted by his father's joy at the return of his younger brother, a dark power erupts in him and boils to the surface. Suddenly, there becomes glaringly visible a resentful, proud, unkind, selfish person, one that had remained deeply hidden, even though it had been growing stronger and more powerful over the years.

Looking deeply into myself and then around me at the lives of other people, I wonder which does more damage, lust or resentment? There is so much resentment among the "just" and the "righteous." There is so much judgment, condemnation, and prejudice among the "saints." There is so much frozen anger among the people who are so concerned about avoiding "sin."

The lostness of the resentful "saint" is so hard to reach precisely because it is so closely wedded to the desire to be good and virtuous.

The Return of the Prodigal Son (Doubleday, 1992) p. 71

Tim Keller: evangelist to skeptics

@ The Layman

Fred Barnes: journalist, TV pundit, church planter

Fred Barnes has a fascinating piece in in The Wall Street Journal about being part of an Anglican church plant in Northern Virginia. Man, it brings back some memories! I've written previously about our church planting experience and how it changed our attitudes about the church. One of the questions you often hear is "why plant new churches when so many existing ones are struggling?" Barnes writes:

There's a theory behind church planting. It rejects the idea of trying to fill up existing churches before building new ones. Old churches are often "closed clubs" that don't attract new residents or young people or "the lost," says the Rev. Johnny Kurcina, an assistant pastor of The Falls Church. Besides, population increase far exceeds church growth in America. This is especially true in cities.

As an Episcopal Church rector, Mr. Yates began thinking about planting churches 20 years ago. But the bishop of Virginia "wouldn't allow us to discuss it," he says, fearing that new Episcopal churches would lure people from older ones. In 2001, he was allowed to plant a church, but only a county away in a distant exurb.

Mr. Yates was strongly influenced by the Rev. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan. Mr. Keller has led in creating new churches -- Redeemer has planted more than 100 churches in New York and other cities around the world. Innovative new churches, he has written, are "the research and development department" for Christianity, attract "venturesome people" as fresh leaders, and have the spillover effect of challenging existing churches to revitalize their ministry.

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