Defending Doctrine

With the timeliness that suggests providence, the New Reformation Press reprinted a fabulous quote from the English writer of the early 20^th century, Dorothy Sayers, that is a great starting point for tonight’s rebuttal.  Here is the link:

            The New Reformation Press: More Than a Feeling

I have already linked to the comments to which I will refer tonight at the end of the prior post.  The text is well written and on the whole more cordial than I have been.  Let us address then, with the decorum and grace of Christians, our differences, and see if I too can suggest a reading list that matches at the very least the distinguished names we encountered there. (There is almost no possibility that I will achieve what I am seeking to do with this post in terms of decorum, so I will apologize now so that I don’t miss my chance later.) Let’s begin.

While I would agree with Ogre that we may be worlds apart in theology and doctrine I do believe that we share a common goal in understanding that the Church needs reformation.

This sentence should take primacy in our discussion.  The importance of this next point is vital in our discussion.  If we both think the Church needs reformation, what do you believe is the problem?  If I am at all convicted that we might view the same problems, I am certain we have different solutions.  Our reformations would look nothing alike.  From my perspective, your reformation took place in the mid-19^th century, and you have already won the day.  Your reformation is the reason for the modern church we have today.  What more, pray tell, would you have us do to the church that we haven’t already done in the last 150 years?  We have revivals, altar calls, modern music, an abandonment of the word and sacrament means of grace, and a disdain for doctrine that would truly embarrass and disappoint Screwtape all the more.  Where else can you go to destroy the last vestiges of the Reformed tradition?

Perhaps we can find the answer to this question as we explore the next section of the post. 

I am here to testify to the power of Christ crucified and alive in me. I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God written with man’s hand and that the full meanings of Scripture are still being unlocked for us today as God reveals new truth about Himself through His Word. I believe that there are layers of meaning in Scripture when taken in the original Hebrew from both a pictographic and phonic context and that what is stated in the Bible is pertinent for today as Jesus is a fulfillment of the law as set forth in the Old Testament.

I have read this several times, and I must confess that I have no idea what it means.  As a seminary student who will soon embark upon the study of Greek and Hebrew, and as a person who has already formally studied to a limited degree four languages other than English (mastering none of them,) I have a great idea of the importance of phonemes, conjugation, inflection and grammar.  I have no idea of the pictographic or phonic context of any of those languages.  Maybe I’m just being stubborn and your meaning is the same as mine.  But there exists in this passage the insistence upon continuing revelation based upon the Word rather than as specifically and carefully recorded in the Word.  The idea of divine inspiration is being applied to the modern eye and ear receiving the Word rather than to the humans who recorded the Word.  I am here to testify to the power of Christ crucified and alive in me. This creates a situation in which there is continuing revelation.  The implication is that the revelation of redemptive history as laid out across time and as recorded in the Bible is insufficient to its stated purpose: the salvation of man.  This is a troubling perspective to me and one to which I will return in a bit.  You see, I am here to testify to Christ incarnate, crucified and arisen.  Do you see the difference?  I am not a part of the predicate of my declaration.

Not for one second do I want to challenge the experience of any person who claims the title of Christian.  I avoided that in my first post, and I shall do that now.  But I will leave this question out there on the subject: if experience is the key to conversion and ongoing revelation, and my experience is different than yours, how is the revelation the same?  How can we all call ourselves by the same label, when each has his own experience of God?  Let’s move onto the next statement I would like to discuss.

The Apostolic Reformation is not about doctrine, rules or a denomination but rather about relationships and ‘fathering’ the next generation. It is our desire to model Christ-likeness through the power of the Holy Spirit and His grace to the people around us on an intergenerational level….

My favorite line on this subject comes from Mike Horton, and he’s so well read, who knows where he found it: How can you have a relationship with someone you know little or nothing about?  Here is the problem.  If you want to go around proof texting, you are going to have to dirty your hands with some doctrine.  The two are not separable.  The Bible was not created to give us a sort of Barlett’s quotations of useful phrases to fit any occasion.  There is a story that unfolds from Genesis to Revelation, the story of the greatest rescue mission of all time.  Doctrine is the plotline of that story.  Doctrine is the story. (Paraphrasing Dorothy Sayers.) 

Rather than discussing an exegesis of Acts 2 and the Joel passage that it quotes, which I have done several times before, I want to avoid the exegesis issue with you for a while longer.  How can one at the same time as claiming not to be a theologian, nonetheless use passages towards a specific purpose or goal, the very functionality of being a theologian of one stripe or another?  We cannot debate theology when one side does not acknowledge that we are doing just that.  We are all theologians, every one of us, including the Muslims, the Buddhists and the atheists.

As a brief aside, the comparison of Martin Luther, John Knox, John Calvin and John Wycliffe to Pierce, Wagner and those others as like individuals is troubling.  Martin Luther, John Knox and John Calvin followed the example of Wycliffe who was perhaps first in articulating sola scriptura before we came to know that view of authority as such.  The others you mentioned absolutely do not hold to anything remotely resembling sola scriptura.  In my effort to keep my tone civil, I need to let this go.  The simplest thing to say so that I can move on is that Martin Luther’s writings are not a part of the Canon, not even for Lutherans.

On the topics of dominion and theocracy, we can agree that your first statement about not speaking for NAR is certainly true.  Your definition of dominion is completely different than that given by Wagner and has no significant eschatological import as his certainly does.  So we can safely avoid that discussion as I was remarking on Wagner’s position, not on your experience, which I have stated that I consider out of bounds. 

In your last paragraph, you returned to proof texting and using a verse out of context.  Again, I think it would be wonderful to do exegesis of some of these passages that you quoted, but it would require a commitment by you to stay the course.  What will you do when your understanding of a passage runs afoul of other passages?  Will you follow the thread of reason and discernment to a different path, or will you accept contradiction within the Word of God? 

If you want to be challenged, keep coming back.  I have only two rules that I will keep for myself on this thread.  First, I will not discuss your experience or mine for that matter.  Neither is contained within the Bible.  Second, although I linked to your website in the prior post, I do not use names on this blog.  I have been blessed with far too little humility and far too little knowledge, and I do have my own experience with the Holy Spirit.  Be that as it may, I believe that there is such a thing as saving faith and that faith has a specific object.  We can call each other brothers in Christ when that definition is at least preserved.  Please do return as this debate might be helpful to many others who read here.

And finally, as for that once promised reading list, and I’m sure I’ll be getting some suggestions from some of my brothers tomorrow, here are some that you yourself recommended in your post, indirectly of course, plus a couple of others.

The Institutes of Religion by John Calvin. 

The Small Catechism by Martin Luther.

Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis.

Putting Amazing Back into Grace by Mike Horton

Try the Building Blocks posts on this blog from this year.

And I leave you with Dorothy Sayers once again.

The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ.

…Theologically this country is at present is in a state of utter chaos established in the name of religious toleration and rapidly degenerating into flight from reason and the death of hope. 

– Ogre –

The New Apostolic Reformation

Earlier today, in suggesting one of the links on the lower right column of this blog, a website was recommended to me suggesting similarities between the two organizations.  The organization that I named was the magazine Modern Reformation. This magazine is the doctrinal hard copy of the White Horse Inn radio show.  The organization compared to these is the New Apostolic Reformation on a site that is called Global Spheres.  Here are the links:

Modern Reformation           WhiteHorse Inn                   Global Spheres

If you are familiar with WHI and MR, I apologize in advance.  The stated goals of these two organizations is:

We believe that each generation must rediscover and apply the gospel to their own time. We long to see a second reformation – a modern Reformation take hold of our churches and return them to the God-honoring, Christ-centered, Spirit-wrought places of worship they should be….  So, we’re putting our time and resources to work toward one, helping Christians “know what they believe and why they believe it.”

It is important to understand that their discussion is all about doctrine, all about the Gospel.  The theme is that you do not even attempt to answer questions about the world until we have the Gospel straight.  We’ll see how this works in a bit.

The stated goal of GS and the NAR is:

NAR has no official statements of theology or ecclesiology, although a large number of us do happen to agree upon many somewhat radical conclusions. Most of us have long track records of service within traditional Christianity, and we have needed to go through paradigm shifts to get where we are now. Keep in mind that one of the affects of every paradigm shift is that some people get pulled out of their comfort zones. One of the reasons for opposition to some of the more radical ideas of NAR is that certain people have decided not to change and they are upset with those who have chosen to change.

So, while one group seeks to return to Christ-centered, Bible-centered, confessional (or creedal) historic Christianity, the other group is seeking to leave this mold.  Let’s look at some specific planks of the NAR and evaluate them in terms of the historic Reformed traditions that are represented by WHI and MR. 

Apostolic governance.  This conversation is in terms of modern alignment of prophets with apostles.  The first thing for the Reformed mind to grasp is that these terms are not restricted in Pentecostal minds to the Biblical period.  Even when we will accept that prophecy in terms of using prophetic voice in teaching and instructing is a modern exercise, we would never presume to use the term “Apostle” outside of its Biblical context or timeframe.  This whole concept is a non-category to the Reformed mind.  While most Pentecostals will assume incorrectly that the reformed are all cessationists, believing that all gifts of the spirit ceased at the death of the last apostle, our understanding of the gifts of the spirit are still very much “confined” by scripture.  The understanding of the gifts of the spirit in the Reformed mind is that they are rooted in the John 14 and 16 passages as exemplified by the sermons in Acts.  In other words, the Holy Spirit was sent to testify to the truth of the Scriptures concerning Jesus Christ.  No more and no less.  The Pentecostal mind, for reasons that I personally do not understand, does not feel that this is sufficient understanding of these gifts.  This position is further fleshed out in the next few concepts. 

The office of prophet.  The Reformed will note quickly that it is always Old Testament scripture that refer to the office of prophet.  (Yes, there are 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, but that is really not the scope of this post.)  We will go on to state in a matter of fact manner that the purpose of those OT prophets was to testify to the coming messiah.  We will point to Matthew 3 and say that John the Baptist was the last of the OT prophets; because we had no need of prophets in that sense once Jesus began His earthly ministry.  But the Pentecostal will point to those same OT promises out of redemptive historical context and say look at these verses!  Here are the examples quoted by Dr. Wagner:

Surely God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7)  Believe in the Lord your God and you shall be established; believe His prophets and you shall prosper. (2 Chronicles 20:20)

Note for ESV users, the word prosper is translated succeed for us, thus you can see immediately where that difference leads.  Yes, this is the style of Biblical interpretation that leads to the prosperity “gospel.” On another day, we can do proper Biblical exegesis of these two passages, but that is not the purpose of this post.

Dominionism.  Here we have another non-category for Reformed believers.  This word is best translated into our categories as a sort of theology of Glory.  As most of us are amillennial in our eschatology, we need to keep touch with the premillennial dispensationalism that remains the mainstay of Pentecostal theology.  This term is a gradual conversion of the world to Christianity, or the granting of dominion over the earth as it is in heaven.  This is a far cry from our understanding of the Great Commission that we hold completely satisfies the requirements prior to the second coming of Christ.  By dominionism, these Pentecostals hold that conversion of at least a majority of the earth to Christianity is necessary to induce the Second Coming, or create the necessary conditions for the Second Coming.  We will not be discussing raptures or raptors or rafters in this post.

A theocracy.  This is putting the cards on the table.  Here is where we finally can look at tangible differences that both sides understand.  The Reformed position is that the only Biblical theocracy on the planet past, present and future was First Temple Israel.  The Pentecostal, dispensational system insists that a vital part of dominionism is a Christian theocracy.  That we Reformed not only see this as unnecessary, but disagree on its Biblical foundation, is to see into the heart of the gulf between the groups.  The two kingdom motif is a category distinction that does not exist in the Pentecostal world.  It would take a careful exegesis of several parables to teach the doctrine of two kingdoms, again beyond the scope of this post, so I will defer to past and future posts on this topic.

Extra-biblical revelation.  While both groups hold that the Holy Spirit is very active in the world today, because the Pentecostals overlook the normal “relatively mundane” gifts of the Holy Spirit, they assume incorrectly that the Reformed do not have a robust doctrine of the Holy Spirit.  Instead, the work of the Holy Spirit becomes one of extra-biblical revelation.  This is not seen as directly affronting John 14 and 16.  This is seen through an interpretation of those passages that hangs upon this part of one verse.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (John 16:13 ESV)

From this half of one verse out of context, we get all of this extra-biblical revelation.  Read Dr. Wagner’s defense of this topic.  The violence that he does to the authority of scripture is the typical liberal working over.  The irony that a group that holds to the supposedly more enlightened view of the Holy Spirit has such a narrow view of inspiration when it comes to the Canon.  Arguing over the inclusion of the Apocrypha when it doesn’t support any of their arguments seems remarkable!

Supernatural signs and wonders.   Rather than spend any more energy on this topic, I’ll give it the same of course treatment that Dr. Wagner does.  Once we get to this part of the discussion, our world views, our Biblical views, our eschatology, our theology are so far apart, that I agree with him that this is an of course moment.  For the record, most Reformed to not doubt supernatural signs and wonders in the least.  They occurred all through the Bible.  They always occurred in reference with bringing Glory to God and bringing light to the story of redemptive history at that point in revelation. Our current point in the redemptive historical timeline we call the interadvental period.  Therefore, supernatural signs and wonders, when they begin to occur, should warn us that the Second Coming is truly at hand.

The last segment of Dr. Wagner’s perspective is called Relational Structures.  This is such a noncategory for the Reformed, I will defer any explanation for now.  I would like, instead to turn to the Reformed Confessions.

 The Reformed Confessions and Historical Documents

Here is the last link I will supply for this post.  It also exists at the bottom of the right column.  At this website, all of the historic Protestant confessions and catechisms can be found.  This is a valuable resource.  My Pentecostal friends, in order to understand this Reformed group with whom you so often disagree, it might be helpful to study your own history.  Eventually, you will run into one of these documents.  On this blog, I have a completed review of the 39 Articles and about ¾ of a review of the Heidelberg Catechism.  In order to have a discussion with someone who differs from your opinion, it is first important to understand their opinion.  Ignorance of these documents and their importance in the development of Protestant churches in the last 500 years is really inexcusable.  These documents are in the background of any conversation that you have with a Reformed Protestant on doctrine.

The WHI and MR have these confessions in mind when they give their mission statement that I quoted at the outset.  When you read them, you will begin to understand what we mean by the authority of scripture.

– Ogre –

New Year 2012

The Troll and Ogre have now been writing for a whole year.  There are a few regular visitors, and there have been a number of transient visitors over the last year.  This cycle of days that we call a calendar has brought about a season of change unlike any other for me.  But rather than dwell upon my year, I would like for this New Year to focus upon that cycle we call a year in terms of the Church Calendar. 

A week ago, we celebrated the start of the year, with the Birth of Jesus.  But really, isn’t that just the beginning of the New Testament cycle?  When do we as Christians learn and grow to understand the Old Testament?  When do we take time to understand the events that lead up to Christmas Day?  How do we understand why God required of Himself to condescend to become fully human if we do not understand the events of redemptive history that preceded that eventuality?

We do not know God.  We do not understand His Holiness.  We do not understand sin.  We do not understand death.  We do not understand righteousness.  We do not understand Salvation.  We do not understand that we have lost all of this knowledge.

And yet, it is there for us to read in printed form, the Word of God.  The lessons are there to be read.  The teachers exist who can lead us to understand the meaning of the Old Covenants.  The teachers exist who can lead us to understand the New Covenant in Christ.  The Scripture reveals all that we need to understand God, His Holiness, sin, death, righteousness and Salvation.  We need teachers who teach about Christ.

Therefore, Christmas, which many consider the beginning, is actuality the climax.  Christmas is the moment when God condescends to become man, to intervene on our behalf as one of us, to fulfill all of the Law and the Prophets.  Everything that comes afterwards is a necessary part of the drama that leads inexorably to Easter. 

Lent is a season before Easter that is about Atonement.  We have lost the meaning of Lent.  It has become the symbol of piety and pseudo-pious displays of deprivation, meant to impress each other rather than God.  Lent, instead could be a season to learn and understand about the Old Covenant symbolism, the types and shadows that will be fulfilled at Golgotha.  Lent might be an opportunity to learn about the Holiness of God and the complete desolation and death of sin, but it is an opportunity that we eagerly forgo for the opportunity to turn inward and focus on our own piety and righteousness, no longer realizing the emptiness of that gesture.

Easter is the holiday about which Christians seem to be most embarrassed.  In some circles, it is fashionable to celebrate Passover with Sadder suppers, never once focusing on the events of the first Passover outside of the lentils sealed by Lambs blood soaked hyssop branches.  Holy week so closely mirrors and yet completely outshines Passover that perhaps the close connections are hidden from us now.  The game of types and shadows that Christ plays with the whole of the Old Testament is broken into pieces so small, that all the king’s men cannot endeavor to put the story back together again.  The unbroken thread of redemptive history is tangled beyond recognition for all but the most diligent scholar, a game that used to be child’s play.

After Easter, we learn about Pentecost and the Ascension.  Instead of the vicarious substitutionary atonement, we get the substitutionary salvation and continuous special revelation, inwardly derived and superior to the antiquated written Word.  Perhaps, just maybe, Jesus had a higher view of the Word than this.  John calls Jesus the Word.  Perhaps the Word should be viewed with greater esteem that these later, nonscriptural, personal revelations, dreams and visions, inspired by spirits, no doubt, but doubtlessly not the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is described as the Helper, not the Savior.

We have that long season of the Trinity that links us to the last season of the Church calendar.  The Trinity are easily named by most, and easily explained by few.  Their relationship and their unity of substance is no longer considered a worthy topic for teaching, no longer relevant.  We do not need to know God to have a personal relationship with God.  We just jump right into “personal” relationship with the internal projection of what and who we think God should be, rather than who God reveals Himself to be through His Word and Sacraments.  The Trinity season, an opportunity to do so much of the background teaching, is instead lost in the American ritual of summer vacation, because we all know that God needs a holiday as well.

And finally, Advent ends the calendar.  After the long season of Trinity, that season that symbolizes this long period known as the Last Days, we come to Advent, the season about the Second Coming of Jesus, the season about the beginning of the Age to Come, the season about Revelation, Judgment and Salvation, the season about Resurrection and everlasting life.  Advent has become a shopping season rather than a season of learning about our certain future hope for Salvation through our faith in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ on the Cross and His Resurrection and Ascension, Firstborn from the Dead, Prophet, Priest and King.  Advent is the most Christian of seasons, and the most lost in our present evil age.

I had a year to remember.  I started a blog.  I ended a career and started another.  I began in earnest a process of learning that will continue for several years to come.  And yet, I can say today, that I am ready.  I will not be caught unawares by the thief in the night.  There is oil in the lamp and my best rags on my back.  You will find me, from time to time, here, under my bridge.  I will take time to teach, when the weary, wandering soul takes refuge here with me.  I will offer a rock or chair for sitting and a rock or bread for eating.  And I will teach.  There remains much for me to learn, but the gulf between where I was a decade past and now has become so vast, that I am certain that I was in good mind deciding to teach, and not wait for the conferment of credentials by man.  I will continue to teach.

The warnings of Peter (2 Peter 2:1) mean much to me now.  I understand their import and their gravity.  There is a responsibility with claiming the title of teacher.  Those who do not believe in judgment do not fear it, to their personal and particular peril.  Those who do not understand righteousness, do not fear judgment to their impending surprise, shock and bewilderment.  Those who understand righteousness and its source, have full and certain hope in the One who has declared them blameless before God, and they must teach.

2011 was a most interesting year.  2012 will be spectacular.

Maranatha!

Troll and Ogre

Why is this relevant to me?

It has been brought to my attention that some of my newer readers are unaware of my mission statement.  While Ogre certainly has other fish to fry, for myself, this mission is simple.  I want to take that question and bury it in facts.  One of my realizations is that the quest for “relevance” has, in fact, almost paradoxically, rendered the Gospel untaught and unknown to vast numbers of nominal Christians.  This is a situation that, once it was shown to me, in all facets of the word, angered me.  I was angry for spending half of my life in the dark.  I was angry for my own culpability in my failure to seek out the truth (only later understanding that the Holy Spirit seeks me.) I was angry for the failure of my church in my youth and through my young adulthood to teach me what I regard today as the essentials of the faith.  The bottom line is that I was made to do the heavy lifting that should have been done on Sundays by the church.  I perceive that the virus of Protestant Liberalism has so infected the traditional Protestant churches, that the Gospel has been lost.  Therefore, as I leave the world of physicians and patients, I hope to turn my healing energies to the church militant in general and the church corporate in specific.

Why is this relevant to you, my dear reader?  You are a part of the church militant by definition.  The church militant are those Christian believers who are still alive in this present evil age.  But the church corporate is where I level the charge of failure to teach the Gospel, and therefore, as I move forward in the next phase of my life, that is the fertile ground for my skills as healer.  Since those of you who come by these notes through a Bible Study posting are also members of a particular church corporate, you have the opportunity to double dip into my medicine cabinet.

Why should you care?  The Episcopal Church was one of the traditional Protestant denominations that upheld the tenets of the Protestant Reformation.  Knowing why our church exists is important to our culture as a church corporate.  Do we understand the issues that caused Europeans in general, and the English in particular, to split from the Church of Rome?  Are there historical documents that speak specifically to these issues?  For Episcopalians, why do we use a Book of Common Prayer?  From where is this historical piece of literature derived?

When dealing with those questions, I am led naturally to application in the present day.  When diagnosing the current condition of the church militant and the church corporate, I find that the answers to those questions above are no longer known or honored by either.  If you believe that the Gospel is independent of culture and time, and I do, then you will look at cultural forces to be irrelevant in the consideration of the Gospel.  A timeless truth is self defining as independent of those forces.  Would we not expect the Word of God to be such a timeless truth?  Certainly, for timelessness and truthfulness are at the heart of our very understanding of God.  We need the perspective of our past to understand where we have arrived, and to evaluate if that journey was, in fact, a journey with God.

Therefore, in my writings, you will find several threads, several types of posts.  I will tackle particular sections of scripture based upon the conversations and questions that I have during the week.  In these types of posts, I will attempt to exposit the meaning from the traditional reformed position.  In another type of post, I will discuss historical issues relevant to the Reformation in general and the Episcopal Church in particular.  Posts such as the series on the heretics, the historical documents of the Reformation, particularly the 39 Articles as they are our Anglican and Episcopal heritage, will naturally be undertaken to give perspective to our modern conversations.  They are relevant because history is always relevant to modern man.  We build our lives on the shoulders of our ancestors.  Those who forget our history are doomed to make the same mistakes.  One scholar said that we should read at least one source on theology from antiquity, or at least from a different century, for every 5 modern books we read, not because they were necessarily right, but because they made different mistakes.  The third type of post is topical.  Posts on topics such as the Trinity or the Holy Spirit or women in pastoral roles or marriage make up the bulk of those posts.  Those posts are often authored by Ogre, rather than Troll, as often they are confrontational with positions that I find unBiblical.  Those authored by Troll, tend towards the instructive rather than the confrontational.  My style is often reminiscent of the social graces of Trolls and Ogres, and thus we can understand the monikers. 

But the focus of this blog never changes.  I am first and foremost a Christian, who happens to believe that the Reformers of the sixteenth century, following in the tradition of Jesus, Peter, Paul and Augustine, got it right.  Secondly, I am unashamedly Episcopal, unashamed because I know the history of our church and the wisdom of that book we use in worship every Sunday, the Book of Common Prayer.  I also understand that we cannot, as we have done, lose sight of the source text, the Bible, as we worship on Sundays.  The Bible must remain our focus as reformed believers who uphold the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.  My mission statement then is to heal from within.  Nothing that I write is my own.  I stand upon the shoulders of greater men, who ultimately put all of their faith in the meritorious work of Jesus and our imputed righteousness based upon it.  This is the Gospel, and the Gospel is worth defending, teaching, spreading, discussing and learning.  I hope this has helped you understand why I choose some of the topics that I choose, and why I believe that it is relevant to us today.

--Troll--

BioLogos on Calvinism, Part 15

Evolution and our Theological Traditions: Calvinism, Part 15 | The BioLogos Forum

The first line says "Summary." I'm taking this as a good sign. Evaluation and summary to follow in a week or so.

--Ogre--

Context, Context, Context

On some days, Ogre just sits in awe wondering how undisciplined God’s creatures can be in the discernment of His Word.  The distraction and distortion of the Word is the favorite tool of the unholy one.  We hear the Words of the Lord from Scripture and rip them from context, applying new meaning to suit the ends of the perpetrator of lies.

A case in point follows.  We will look at two passages recently quoted.  Ogre will replace these passages in their proper context and demonstrate the value of context. The first passage is Ephesians 6:10-12.  The second is 2 Corinthians 10:3-5.  What is interesting to me is that we just studied both of these in Bible study last month.  In a room full of fairly learned men, a half dozen of whom are ordained, from backgrounds as diverse as orthodox reformed such as Ogre to Protestant Liberals such as Methodists and modern Anglicans, no one came up with the mysticism that I read recently concerning these passages.

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Spiritual warfare.  What is it?  Although the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places is only one line item in this list, it was the one lifted from this passage.  Before we discuss the pertinent passage from the Old Testament, let’s go back through this whole passage, and the whole section of the epistle.  The Armor of God consists of three parts, according to Paul.  The model for his imagery is Roman armor.  There is a Breast plate, a Shield and a Weapon.  Notice the whole paragraph.   There is reference made in metaphoric terms to each of these parts.  The armor consists of truth, righteousness and faith.  The shield is faith and the weapon is the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.  Therefore, knowledge of the Word of God is the cornerstone of this armor.  Truth, righteousness, faith, salvation and the Word of God are our weapons.

Who are we fighting with these weapons?  Let’s go back to the antecedent clause in the letter, Ephesians 4:11-16, but particularly verse 14.  So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  So, it seems bad doctrine is the problem.  We need these weapons of truth, righteousness and faith, along with salvation and the Word of God to battle bad doctrine.  The irony is just crashing down around me.

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

This passage is about knowledge and arguments, reasoning.  In every interior reference of this passage, the weapons are, again, truth and the Word of God.  The power is in the Word of God, truth and righteousness.  And most importantly, these things are from the Triune God. 

Finally, some eschatology for a Lord’s Day.  Genesis 3:15; Psalm 41:9; John 13:18;Jeremiah 23:19, 30:23; Ezekiel 10:9; Habakkuk 3:13; Revelation 13:3 

Genesis 3:15 talks about the spiritual battle.  The head of the serpent will be bruised by the heel of the Son of Man.  But the heel of the Son of Man will in turn also be bruised.  This imagery is present throughout scripture.  I’ve highlighted a very few of the pertinent passages.  The bottom line is this: the outcome of the battle between good and evil has already been decided.  Jesus triumphed over death.  We live in the time between the Ascension and the Second Coming in Judgment.  This present evil age remains while the Age to Come is breaking in upon us in the Word and Sacraments, through which we receive God’s Grace.  The battle is over the Word.

With what does Satan tempt Jesus?  He twists scripture.  He knows that he can’t lie directly to Jesus.  His only hope is to twist scripture to suit his ends.  Of course, twisting scripture to its author is also hopeless.  But this is the nature of the Devil’s temptations.  The battle is over the Word.  Good Doctrine is the battle.  It says this in the scripture.  Do not deny the scripture or allow it to be twisted to evil.

--Ogre--

Doctrine is defined as the substance of the faith or teachings

This gives me great pain, but enough is enough.  I have grown weary of being vilified by a person who should know better.  I’ve tried being more circumspect, but today was over the top.  This is a direct quote.

We must remember that we are called into a relationship with a Person, not a doctrine. Heb. 1:3. Jesus was the exact representation of God while here on earth. When you look at the life of Jesus, the way He treated people, you see nothing but love, kindness, and mercy. The only hard words Jesus had for anyone were for the religious leaders, who were turning people away from God. ~ Dr. James B. Richards

Thanks *** for this!  I know too many people that need to be reminded of this!!!

First, do not be mislead that this quote has anything to do with Hebrews 1:3.  Here is that verse. 

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

I will await anyone at any time showing me one verse from any place in the Bible that says, “we are called into a relationship with a Person, not a doctrine.” Any time and any place you can find this verse, email me, text me or be as openly tactless as this post.  This verse does not exist in the Bible.

So, what about Dr. Richards?  He thinks that Jesus never treated anyone except for religious leaders with anything but love, kindness and mercy.  Two things can be stated with confidence based upon this assertion.  First, Dr. Richards has never heard of the Law and Gospel distinction, has never read Martin Luther, and has no clue about the content of the Council of Trent.  Secondly, Dr. Richards believes that because he asserts something, everyone will accept it as the truth, because his word is equal to that of Jesus and His prophets and His Apostles.  What do I mean?  Let’s see.

Jesus was the exact representation of God while here on earth.  I’m not sure what Dr. Richards means by this.  I thought Jesus actually was God while here on earth, as He was before and He is now.  Jesus was also wholly human.  This statement of Dr. Richards almost sounds like docetism.  But let’s move on in this statement.  In other ways, it is in error.  Let’s talk about what Jesus actually said.

Matthew 5 is commonly talked about in terms of the Beatitudes.  The second half of the chapter is the rest of the Law.  Jesus is doing what God does in Matthew 5.  He is dispensing blessings and curses.  This is what God does, and His audience in that time knew this.  He was treading on dangerous ground.  Jesus wasn’t killed because He did miracles.  He was killed because He forgave sins, openly, publicly and in no one’s name but His own.  The Jews viewed this as blasphemy.  Look at Matthew 5:48.  You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.  Thanks, much, Jesus.  Under the Law, in order to have salvation, we must be perfect.  This is what he told people.  That is not mercy; that is justice.  Move on to John 6:60-70.  He tells His disciples that no comes to Him unless it is granted them by the Father.  Many leave Him at that moment.  Then He invites the twelve to leave as well.  Those are very hard Words in most people’s opinion.  Was the rich young ruler just a parable or did that really happen?  Were not those Words spoken to that young man very hard?  And so another comment says that the difference was that Jesus was "in relationship" with his disciples!  Really?  First, where does the Bible say that???  Second, what kind of a relationship it is when so many disciples left Him that day???  Please, please, please, read first.  Learn.  Assertion without the knowledge to back it up is just plain dangerous.  It is the tool of the enemy.

Were the Jewish leaders turning people away from God?  This is a tough question to be sure.  The answer is both yes and no.  They attempted to turn people away from Jesus, but towards the Father.  In a technical sense, I would agree with Dr. Richards on this point.  The Triune God is NOT the same god as the God of Israel that does not contain all three Persons of the Trinity.  But I wonder if Dr. Richards means the Triune God?  After his statements, is it fair to assume that his meaning of god is the same as the Biblical meaning of God?  I’m not sure.

Finally, what is doctrine?  What does the word mean?  Let’s go to wiki:  Doctrine is the set of what is taught by the Bible; doctrine is the statement of the Christian faith.  There are 28 specific references to sound doctrine in the New Testament epistles.  Perhaps this is a little more important than a relationship.  Perhaps this relationship of which you speak, that has absolutely NO references in the Bible, should stand far behind sound doctrine.  Perhaps this spiritual warfare of which you speak should be reexamined.  If your weapons do not include truth, righteousness, faith, salvation and the Word of God, then either you are not using the correct weapons, or you are fighting the wrong side of the fight.  If the target of your fight isn't bad doctrine, perhaps you need to reread Ephesians, particularly chapter 4.

I am indeed weary.  Luckily, the true sacrament of Communion through which Grace will be given me, I will once again receive in two days time.   

To deny doctrine is to deny the Bible.  To deny doctrine is to deny God.  What we are taught by the Word is called doctrine.  Doctrine is the content of the faith.  That is the definition of doctrine.  If you deny the things that Jesus, His prophets and His apostles teach, then you deny Jesus.  How much more plain can this be?

--Ogre--

God in a Box

This is the old reliable nonsense retort hurled towards the reformed, or any confessional church for that matter.  You can’t put God in a box.  What they really mean is that there has to be room for me in that box.  That is what is behind all of these protestations.  If God is in a box, there  must be room for me and my input.  What do I mean?  Let’s see.

Arius thought that Jesus wasn’t wholly God.  This was just inconceivable.  He just couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea.  If he couldn’t conceive of the thing, then the thing couldn’t be true.  His views needed room in the box.

Pelagius thought that all that Original Sin stuff was rubbish.  Adam was a bad example and Jesus was a good example.  We get to choose which example we follow.  We had to have the power over our own salvation.  Our free will needed room in the box.

Arminius thought that our salvation was based upon grace, if we would just accept the offer of grace.  God will take 99 steps if we will just take one.  He needed room in the box for his one step.

Gnostics and mystics believe in all sorts of things.  God does this and god does that and no limits are possible.  All we have to do is ask god, and like the cosmic butler or a genie in a bottle, he will do those things because he knows us deep inside.  He might send a spirit that they will call “holy” to do some of these things for them.  They need room in the box for all of their supplications and all of their extra things they expect a god to do.

I have a box.  God fits into it nicely, because He says He fits into it.  He hasn’t told me about any parts that don’t fit.  So, I just concern myself with the parts that do fit.  Those are the only parts that I know about.  Those are the only parts He has told me about.  Someday, after I die, perhaps I’ll learn about a larger box, perhaps about more parts, if that is a part of my inheritance.

Oh, by the way, here is a picture of my box:

Everything we know about God is found here.  Everything that He has revealed about Himself is found here.  If it isn’t found here, well, it isn’t God, is it?

--Ogre--

Antiphon to a Homily

No, Sir, I don’t agree. These passages are two of the quintessential statements of the Gospel. As Dad said, we had two Gospels read this morning.

For those who might read this, here is the background. The readings this morning, given above, are from 1 Corinthians 15 and John 20. Most of us recognize them and many even know their sources. The homily that accompanied these absolute gems of scripture focused on John 20:30. We were told that we have to read between the lines and apply the things not written in this book to mean our experiences in our lives in this time. Really? With these two scriptures, this is what we get?

In that last paragraph of John 20, John is making a point about why he wrote his Gospel and why he included the stories that he selected. We should remember that John was the last of the Gospels to be recorded, and that John is different from the Synoptics in a number of ways. John spends as much time discussing theology as he does telling the historical narrative of Jesus. John does not use nearly the number of events in the life of Jesus as, for instance, Luke. His purpose was somewhat different. Rather than trying to read something into that paragraph that simply isn’t there, let’s try reading what John actually said.

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John tells us that Jesus did more miracles than he reports in his Gospel. No problem there, we know about others of them from other Scripture sources. John also tells us that his purpose for writing was to affirm to the reader that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. That seems like a first order important item. John also tells us that we may have life in the name of Jesus if we believe that He is the Son of God. That is about as clear and concise a statement of the faith as exists in scripture. But let’s not just let John tell us these things, what does Paul say?

Verses 3-11 are absolutely incredible! Paul delivered to us what he first received. Can you deliver an experience? Can you receive an experience from someone else? Perhaps you can receive and deliver something else…like the news, Good News, the Gospel. What does Paul say that this Good News might be? To begin, it is of first importance, not just some trivia he picked up eaves dropping on the road to Ephesus. This is the meat, the main point, the punch line.

Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, He was buried, He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and He appeared to quite a few people, some of whom were still alive and could be questioned on the matter.

Fantastic! Paul is telling us that he gave us these Doctrines, delivered to us not only as historical fact, but in fulfillment of prophesy. The Scripture of Paul’s time was the Old Testament. 1 Corinthians is thought to be the oldest of the New Testament documents; therefore, scripture has to mean the Old Testament. So, logically, in accordance with the scriptures has to mean in fulfillment of prophesy. But more than that, it is also historical fact, and here is the list of witnesses. Our doctrine derives directly from historical events that happened regardless of how we might feel about them, or what these facts mean to us 2000 years later. And these same events fulfilled prophesy signifying the messiah. Paul appeals to the resurrection as a historical event. He links this event to the doctrine of salvation. And there were a lot of witnesses, lots of them. Back in the first two verses, Paul calls this the Gospel by which you have been saved.

Both John and Paul believed that these historical events actually happened. Both John and Paul believed that Jesus was exactly Who He said that He was. Both John and Paul believed that Salvation was linked to and dependent upon the Resurrection of Jesus. Both John and Paul believed that belief in these facts were the fruits of the Spirit that signify true faith and therefore are sufficient for salvation.

My opinion is not found either in the lines or between the lines of these two passages. My experience is not found either in the lines or between the lines of these two passages. In fact, expand to the whole Bible, and you will fail to find one line anywhere about me or my experience. The Gospel is news. The News is external to you and your experience. You have to Hear about it. How you react to it does not have an effect on the News. The News is still the same. The same facts remain unchanged. The same historical events occurred 2000 years ago.

No, Sir, I do not agree.

--Ogre--

BioLogos on Calvinism, Part 14

Evolution and our Theological Traditions: Calvinism, Part 14 The BioLogos Forum


Surprisingly enough, this one has the feel of actually being the last one. Rather than jump all over his conclusions, I'm going to work through from beginning to end on my own, then decide how to present this to you. This is a huge topic by now, and his historical account, while flawed in some areas due to the bias of his conclusions, is still compelling. I hope to have a preliminary work on this in a couple of weeks.


--Ogre--

BioLogos on Calvinism, Part 13

Evolution and our Theological Traditions: Calvinism, Part 13 The BioLogos Forum


I know this has been a long time coming, but he is promising a summary in the 14th post. Since this has become so long, I'll probably not review the whole thing until June, with some sort of reference system used to deal with the lengthy series. There is, at least the possibility, the promise of an endpoint.


--Ogre--

How to Listen to Joel Osteen--or Not

How to Listen to Joel Osteen Unto the Glory of God

If this were not so true and so horrible in the lives of so many people, both in Houston and elsewhere, this post would be almost comical. The first point alone had me in stitches. Alas, this man is counted among the wolves leading good people to Hell with his talk of prosperity and worldly gains. While Joel Osteen is the poster boy, there are so many others who qualify on these points.


--Ogre--

BioLogos on Calvinism, Part 12

Evolution and our Theological Traditions: Calvinism, Part 12 | The BioLogos Forum

Well, he's going after the giants now. Machen this week and Vos next week. I hope there is a point.

--Ogre--

BioLogos on Calvinism, Part 11

Evolution and our Theological Traditions: Calvinism, Part 11 | The BioLogos Forum

I hope this is winding down. This is going to be very difficult to summarize. I'm going to start working the problem and be prepared for the end.

--Ogre--

BioLogos on Calvinism, Part 10

Evolution and our Theological Traditions: Calvinism, Part 10 | The BioLogos Forum

The promise exists now for at least two more posts. I'm going to work on a summary of where they have gone so far with commentary. I plan to share this on their site, so this should be interesting.

--Ogre--

BioLogos on Calvinism: Part 9

Evolution and Our Theological Traditions: Calvinism, Part 9 | The BioLogos Forum

It is actually quite interesting where these arguments are going. It is too bad that framework isn't in his view as a possibility. As usual, there will be more.

--Ogre--

A Physician's Journey to Faith: Part 3, the rational

In part one, I told the background to my story.  In part two, I introduced the frame upon which I built my faith.  In this post, I will discuss each of the individual pieces and how they fit together.

As physicians, we are trained to think critically.  We are trained to read journals with an eye to bias and error.  We have a scientific method that demands reproducibility and testability of hypotheses.  The rest of academia has the eighteenth century German philosophers and the nineteenth century Second Great Awakening that has influenced critical thinking to the present day.  Modernity and Post Modernism are the offspring of this thinking and these paradigms have infiltrated Christian theology as well.  John Wesley and Charles Finney have done great harm to the Reformation ideas that are our Protestant heritage.  We must never give into the idea of Kierkegaard that religion is in the realm of the irrational, while science is in the realm of the rational.

1 Corinthians 15 is a vital Pauline text for this discussion.  In this chapter, Paul lays out the historical facts upon which our faith is based.  He goes so far as to say that if these facts can be proved false, then Christianity crumbles like a house of cards.  Uniquely, our faith is not just an endorphin driven religion of experience.  Our faith is based upon historical events that happened external to us, and regardless of how we feel about them.  Our reaction to these facts are independent of the facts themselves.  This is what is at the core of the uniqueness of Christianity.

At the end of the last post, I gave a list of terms:  Covenant theology, Calvinism, Amillennialism, the Five Solas of the Reformation and Framework theory.  Let's look at each of these and see what they are and how they influence our thinking.  Remember, this is always going to be about thinking.  As R.C. Sproul points out, Romans 12:2 is good mantra for all Christians, but particularly for us scientists.

Covenant theology is a system of looking at the Bible as a series of Covenants.  There are eternal Covenants that you might read about and there are specific Historical Biblical Covenants.  We are talking more about the latter group.  Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation.  It is the application of rules or presuppositions to a text to assist in interpretation.  The basic hermeneutic of Covenant theology is that the whole Bible is about Jesus and the redemptive history of God from Genesis to Revelations.  This may sound obvious, but we must review what we think about the Old Testament in this light.  This is essentially what it is thought that Paul was doing in his three year sabbatical.  After applying this basic hermeneutic, we can then evaluate the various covenants of the Bible.  The most important Covenants are the Adamic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant of Grace through Jesus.  An excellent reference for this topic is Michael Horton's Introducing Covenant Theology.

Calvinism has evolved beyond the writings of Calvin to a more complete system.  Often you will read about five point Calvinism.  The acronym TULIP is used as a mnemonic to assist in recall.  I have recently written about this and I will link to those posts as I list the five points.  T is for Total Depravity, which is original sin.  U is for Unconditional election, which means that it is all about God and not about us.  This is where the discussion of predestination comes into play.  L is for Limited Atonement, which is the idea that while the resurrection was sufficient for the whole world, it was actually efficacious only for Christ's elect.  I is for Irresistible Grace, which means that you can run, but you can't hide.  Christ, through the Holy Spirit, will succeed in gathering in the elect to Himself.  P is for the Perseverance of the Saints, which means that you cannot loose your salvation if you were truly justified by faith.  This whole system is about justification and sanctification.

Amillennialism is actually the second oldest view of redemptive history.  The most common view held in the US is still Dispensationism, which is a type of Premillennialism.  Amillennialism is closely related to Two Kingdom distinctions that you will often read on my blog.  In this system, there is no rapture and no Christianization of culture required prior to the Second Coming.  Good references on this topic are these two books from Kim Riddlebarger: A Case for Amillennialism and The Man of Sin.

The Five Solas of the Reformation are a statement about justification that are in direct opposition to positions held by Rome.  In addition, each of these solas is specifically rejected by Rome at the Council of Trent.  Therefore, these are the issues that make us Protestants.  We should not discard them lightly.  The full formula of justification using the five solas looks like this.  We are justified by Grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ Alone, to the Glory of God Alone as testified in Scripture Alone.  They are usually written in Latin, ironically enough.  I have written on these intermingled with other topics, but I will likely go through them in more detail in the near future.

Framework theory is a view of Genesis 1-2 that treats this section of that book as a separate type of literary genre called creation genre.  The basic idea is that Genesis is not a science book, but an explanation or laying out of the order of the Two Kingdoms.  Meredith Klein has written an excellent piece on this that I have sited by a separate post in the past and I will do so again here.  What he calls the two registers is what I will call the Two Kingdoms.  The Framework model is a newer name for this discussion and does not appear in this article.  This discussion actually dates back to Augustine, but has been supplanted in the US by Genesis literalists as the predominant viewpoint.  Framework allows scientists to be scientists and Christians to be Christians and me to be both.  This was the great final piece that made it all fit together for me.

In summary, hold fast to logic and reason.  Christians do not need to retreat to the irrational realm with other religions.  We alone among the religions of the world base our faith upon historical, public events, particularly those that we remember this week.  Application of systematic theology is essential for a scientific mind to be convinced of the truth of scripture.  I believe the set of structured thought that I have outlined above represents a great starting point for having an understanding of scripture that leads to true faith.  Many Protestant denominations have supported most of these tenets, including the Anglican Church.  I hope that by following this line of thought, you will have the opportunity to have a revitalization of your faith in the same manner that I have.

Maranatha!

--Ogre--

BioLogos on Calvinism, Part 8

Evolution and Our Theological Traditions: Calvinism, Part 8 | The BioLogos Forum

In the never ending post, we have the promise of another part. I'm going to ask him how long this will be.

--Ogre--

A Physician's Journey to Faith: Part 2, the frame

In the first part, I tried to lay the background of my journey on the table.  In this section, I going to reveal the framework that I needed to start putting the pieces together.  The last post ended with the word dispensationalism.  This post will begin with the word eschatology.

Eschatology is the study of the redemptive history of God from Genesis to Revelations.  Most people think that eschatology is all about end times, if they know the word at all.  But like any story, you can't have an end without having a beginning and a middle.  Dispensationalism was the Eschatological system espoused by John MacArthur.  It has a lot of momentum in the church, particularly from Tim LaHaye and his Left Behind series.  But it asks a lot of a scientist, too much.  I knew I didn't like it, but I didn't know why.  I heard Tim LaHaye speak about three years ago and I was struck about how defensive he was toward his positions on eschatology.  He was talking to a roomful of his fans, and yet he was busy defending his view from an unseen detractor.  I needed to know who this unseen antagonist was, and what was he saying that so upset LaHaye.

It was OK that I was upset by the Gospel.  I had already learned that the Gospel was offensive to man, external to him.  But I was really surprised to see Tim LaHaye so spooked by some unmentioned theologians.  My answers came from out in left field.  I don't believe in karma or fortune.  But I do believe that the Holy Spirit works to reveal the gospel to the elect.  My son graduated from high school two years ago.  His godfather, who he had not seen maybe ever, sent him a graduation gift.  The gift was a study bible and the recommendation of a radio program in Austin, where my son was to matriculate in the fall.  As any good parent, I decided I needed to know what was recommended to my child.  I found the website that was affiliated with the show and looked into it.  There were a series of podcasts for first time visitors.  I listened.

It is an amazing thing when the pieces start to fall into place.  I learned how the Calvinism framework worked.  I learned about a new (to me) eschatology system called Amillennialism and how it dovetailed with a systematic theology called Covenant Theology.  I now had to reread everything.  Everything had to be redigested in this new context.  I had found new teachers.

The moment of revelation where you know that you have found guys who have the information that you want is tremendous.  The URL for that website is the top link on the right when I'm not under the bridge.  I have been learning at a rapid pace since.  But there was still the question of Genesis.  I was OK with Genesis 3 and 15, but the rest of the book was still problematic.  I decided to go listen to a couple of the guys on the White Horse Inn speak.  I was listening to Mike Horton talk about his 2009 book.  I decided to ask him about Genesis 1 and 2.  I don't even remember how I made the question relevant to the discussion.  He taught me another term: Framework theory.

Now my personal theological framework was complete.  I had Covenant Theology, Calvinism, Amillennialism, the Five Solas of the Reformation and now framework theory.  In the final post of this series, I'll lay out these terms and talk about their interconnection.

--Ogre--

A Physician's Journey to Faith: Part 1, the issues

One of the very real issues that faces scientists of all stripes is the notion that Christianity is necessarily contrary to modern science.  The lay press is full of examples of this.  Al Mohler and others seem to be taking these battles personally, and I am grateful for their efforts for the integrity of scripture.  What follows in this brief series is the story of my own personal reconciliation of these two seemingly divergent positions.  Shelve your sneers, dear long time reader, as I tell my story.  I will stay out of those types of stories that so irritate me.

If you read my blog, you will know that I am currently following the progress on BioLogos of a discussion of Genesis 1-2 in terms of Calvinism.  The discussion is long and convoluted, but quite interesting.  I hopefully will be able to start my rebuttal soon, when their series comes to a close.  But that is jumping to the end.  The beginning is my departure from the Episcopal church over Gene Robinson.

I am currently not proud of the reasons for which I left the Episcopal Church USA.  I believe today that the issues are of second order.  The first order issues came later, but in the beginning, there was my reading of Paul that was colored by my modern American Evangelical influences.  What happened next is important for me, but perhaps not a description of your own path.  I went to a different church.

I never felt comfortable in the style and practice of "worship" in a Pentecostal church, and the style of topical preaching always seemed skewed.  I thought that it was interesting that a group of people who sneered at Episcopalian knowledge of the Bible received almost no actual Biblical preaching.  Lists for moral or ethical improvement filled our "messages" with proof texting being the technique for grounding the messages in scripture.  The ability to quote verses by the laity was staggering.  But the ability to discuss theology was staggeringly absent.

I became aware of two truths that would need to be addressed if I were to get any clarity in this arena.  The first truth is that I knew this was important.  My understanding of this truth I would frame differently today, but at that time, I knew that I needed answers to reconcile my scientific vocation with my spritual journey.  The second truth is that the stereotype of Biblical illiteracy was true.  But it was also more true in the rest of the Christian world than they were willing to admit.  Therefore, I was at a loss for how to go about the task of filling this void.

The Bible is a daunting task.  Reading it straight through is rough work, even for a motivated man.  I felt that if I could find some guidance or framework for inquiry, I would end up reading the whole thing eventually.  I put my first toe into the blogosphere...and then I fell into it.  There is much to learn and much to read.  At the end of all of this, my best advice is use the links on a site.  If you don't like where they go, you probably won't like where they start.  Those sorts of dead ends are many, but it is surprisingly easy to get a good start.

The key words that first struck me were arguments between Calvinists and Arminians.  I had heard of John Calvin, but I had no idea why an ethnic church would be his theological opponent.  I had not heard of Jacobus Arminius at that point.  Pelagius and Arius were yet to be discovered.  The Council of Trent was unknown.  And so I started reading about John Calvin.

It is a strange thing to think you have an idea about what something is or isn't and then discover that you didn't even know the issues.  As I started to read about Calvinism, I discovered my first set of good teachers.  The Pyromaniacs blog was my first home.  I learned a lot from Phil, Dan and Frank.  I bought and read books by their mentor, John MacArthur.  And then I learned my next critical word: dispensationalism.

Next post: The Path to Covenant Theology

--Ogre--