Asking the right questions

I have the privilege of serving on a pastor search committee, so I've spent some time thinking about questions I want to ask candidates. Matt Schmucker turns it around and suggests some questions a potential pastor should ask of a church. I'd be very impressed if a candidate came to us asking these questions.

Categories

To the Apostle Paul there are only two categories of people that really matter: in Adam or in Christ. This is a major theme of the first six chapters of Romans (especially 5 & 6). Being in Adam means being a slave of sin, but one who is in Christ is a slave of God. Paul's metaphor of slavery doesn't negate human freedom, but the freedom that comes from being in Adam ultimately proves illusory and leads to death. True freedom, that leads to life, only comes through being in Christ. Romans 6:23 is a concise summary statement of this dichotomy. The Reformation Study Bible notes that:

The triple contrast of wages, sin and death, with gift, God, and eternal life, brings Paul's argument to a memorable focus.

Here's another way to picture it:

I am receiving: wages or a free gift

I am serving: sin or God

My destiny is: death or eternal life

"I seen another world"

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Got fear?

This note on Romans 3:18 (where Paul is quoting from Psalm 36) in The Reformation Study Bible hit me right between the eyes.

3:18 no fear of God. In the Old Testament, the essence of a proper attitude to God is "fear", the absence of which is practical atheism.

Paul Edwards on TWBB

Readers may recall that I had mixed feelings about Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood. Paul Edwards has watched it three times (!) and offers a thoughtful appraisal that makes a lot of sense. Edwards writes:

The Passion of the Christ exceeded all expectations at the box office and since it did, evangelical Christians have come to expect “socially redeeming” films to overtly, explicitly, and clearly spell out the Christian gospel almost “verse by verse.” The gospel is present in There Will Be Blood more in the form of a photographic negative than as a detailed Technicolor® print.

and writing on TWBB's problematic (for me) final sequence:

Even family ties are no match for the unrestrained depravity that overtakes this man by the end of the film, resulting in his truly being abandoned by everyone, including his own conscience, which is the ultimate end of sin. Daniel Plainview’s closing line in the film is nothing more than a paraphrase of James 1:15: “Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.”

Thanks Governor!

Thanks to Mike Huckabee for running a campaign largely characterized by decency and plain speaking. Despite the open contempt of conservative establishment mouthpieces like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, he made it to March, and pointed a way forward for constructive evangelical engagement with national politics in the future.


Joe Carter has some thoughts on yesterday's results.

Drury nails it

Keith Drury likes old-fashioned holiness people. So do I. They are an indelible, providential part of my heritage. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the folks in the photo is a distant relative! And though I'm one of those "Calvinist friends" that Professor Drury mentions in point #3 -- I hope they still like me. Actually, one of the things I appreciate about genuine Reformed/Calvinist practice and piety is that it does have a strong emphasis on holiness and holy living. And you won't find too many Reformed folks (that I know of) chasing after Rick Warren, Donald Miller and Rob Bell. Hmmm, maybe we have more in common than we think?

HT: W2WKB's Bog Splot

Piper clarifies

By way of clarification, I would say: In an Arminian institution, Arminians should be allowed to teach. But in institutions that regard Arminianism as defective view of God’s grace, they should not be allowed to teach. Or, more broadly, in an institution that thinks the truth is better served by having advocates of Arminianism and Calvinism, both should be allowed to teach.

BUT,

In my 22 years of formal education from age 6 to 28 (Summit Drive Elementary School, Greenville Junior High School, Wade Hampton High School, Wheaton College, Fuller Seminary, University of Munich) it became increasingly clear to me that diverse theological positions on the same faculty of a Christian institution diminished the importance of those differences.

For some issues, that is good. For others it is not. Which those are is one of the great challenges of every generation.

John Piper, Calvinism, Arminianism, & Education

Jack's endorsement

I look forward to a response. Isn't De Niro supporting Obama? We're waiting for you, Bob.

Reformado?

We live in an area heavily populated by first and second-generation Hispanic immigrants. I've noticed that if they go to church at all, it's to a Catholic church, Pentecostal church or (sadly) the Jehovah's Witness Hall. Our own church (which is at least nominally Reformed) rarely has a single Hispanic individual or family in Sunday worship. Granted, we're a fairly traditional "white bread" church, but still we have a good number of African-American families. Why no Hispanics? Part of it is that we don't do any Spanish-language outreach to this growing community, but there's also a huge cultural barrier. In the January/February Modern Reformation OPC church planter C.A. Sandoval provides some historical context and shares a possible point of contact with our Hispanic neighbors.

Historically, the Roman Catholic Church (by way of the Spanish Inquisition) did an amazing job of preventing the Reformation from making any significant or lasting impact upon Spanish subjects in Spain or the New World. As such, a virtually impenetrable fortress was erected around Spain and its colonies, and to this day the Reformation and its return to biblical Christianity form no real part of the Hispanic culture or religious background. More recently, after more than 450 years of Roman Catholic dominance and very little Protestant influence, the charismatic movement has swept through Latin America with its supernatural gifts. The movement claims to provide hundreds of thousands of Hispanics with a closer, more immediate, and more intimate relationship with God, which is missing in Roman Catholicism. Charismaticism, however, ultimately fails to ground itself in all of God's Word, and ignores not only the Reformation but most of the last 2,000 years of Christianity as well. Lastly, although pockets of historic Protestantism do exist in Latin America, many Protestant Hispanic churches and denominations have increasingly absorbed charismatic practices and doctrines.

While the history of Hispanic Christianity in Latin America is of course much more complicated, the majority of first- and second-generation Hispanics in the U.S. who call themselves Christian tend to be either Roman Catholic or charismatic in one way or another. Explaining what Reformed Christians and churches are, therefore, requires something other than a crash course in European or Protestant history. It requires an explanation that is both relevant to the Hispanic context and fundamental to our Reformed doctrines. And that explanation is simply this: that a Reformed Christian is one who takes all of God's Word seriously, and that a Reformed church is one that preaches, teaches, and does everything according to only the Bible.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the Roman Catholic and charismatic influences upon Hispanic Christianity and the Hispanic culture in general, many Hispanics still have some form of respect for the Bible. In the minds of many Hispanics, the Bible may not be the final and only authority on religious and spiritual matters, but it remains authoritative nonetheless and is still viewed as containing some level of supernatural or mystical power. Of course, respect for the Bible doesn't always translate into obedience to it; but in most of my interactions with Hispanics, I don't have to spend much time (if any) convincing them that the Bible is the Word of God. They may not have any clue what the Bible contains (again, due in part to the Roman Catholic and charismatic influences), but Hispanics still revere it on some level, either for religious convictions and traditions or superstitious motivations. And this remnant of reverence and respect for the Bible is precisely the point of contact and context that I make most use of when explaining what it means to be Reformed.

C.A. Sandoval, The Hispanic Challenge: Explaining What It Means To Be Reformed