These days, it seems as if everyone is talking about the late evangelical theologian Carl F. H. Henry (1913–2003). Greg Thornbury has authored a widely acclaimed new book titled Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F.H. Henry (Crossway, 2013). Thornbury, Collin Hansen, and John Starke recorded a conversation for The Gospel Coalition about a famous encounter between Henry and Karl Barth. A few months ago, Jason Duesing wrote an online essay honoring Henry in 100^th year of his birth. The Carl Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School is hosting a major academic conference later this year, among other Henry-related scholarly activities. If you’re not familiar with Henry, he was a founding faculty member of Fuller Theological Seminary, the first editor of Christianity Today, and one of the architects of postwar neo-evangelicalism. His book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947) offered a broadside against the fundamentalist tendency to divorce evangelism and social engagement, while his six-volume God, Revelation, and Authority (1976–1983) was one of the most important works of evangelical theology written in the second half of the 20^th century. Though he is known primarily as an evangelical theologian, Henry was a Baptist. In fact, for much of his adult life he was a Southern Baptist. In 2004, Russell Moore wrote an article for The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology titled “God, Revelation, and Community: Ecclesiology and Baptist Identity in the Thought of Carl F. H. Henry.” Moore concludes that Henry was a convictional Baptist, but his ecclesiology was underdeveloped in his writings, in part because of his historical context. Simply put, few neo-evangelical theologians wrote on ecclesiology other than in the broadest strokes, in part because of the parachurch nature of postwar evangelicalism. I would say it like this: Henry was a conservative evangelical who held to Baptist ecclesiological convictions; the accent, however, was on the former aspect of his identity. By contrast, I consider myself an orthodox Baptist, which also makes me, by definition, a type of evangelical. I would encourage you to read Moore’s excellent essay to learn more about Henry’s Baptist identity. Henry himself discusses this topic in his essay “Twenty Years a Baptist,” which has most recently been reprinted in Why I Am a Baptist (B&H Academic, 2001), edited by Tom Nettles and Russell Moore. For an excellent short introduction to Henry’s thought, including his identity as an evangelical and Baptist theologian, see Al Mohler’s chapter on Henry in Theologians of the Baptist Tradition, edited by Timothy George and David Dockery (B&H Academic, 2001).

(Image credit; This post has been cross-published at Christian Thought & Tradition)

I need to begin this post with a caveat: I have never written a monograph. There are many reasons for this, chief among them my propensity toward distraction and boredom. Simply put, at this season in my life I can’t think of a single historical topic to which I want to devote 200 or more pages. I can, however, think of dozens of topics to which I want to devote 15–50 pages as well as numerous primary sources that I wish to see reprinted in critical editions. For that reason, my own scholarly publications tend to fall into three broad categories: 1) journal articles or contributed essays; 2) critical book reviews; 3) editing primary sources. Perhaps I’ll write a monograph or two at some point, but don’t hold your breath. For the time being, that’s not really my style.

Because I have never written a monograph, I’m obviously not an authority on this topic. However, I work with lots of authorities on this topic. (Maybe I can pass myself off as an authority by osmosis?) I also know that many readers of this blog are seminary students and younger scholars who probably do want to write monographs. So my desire in this post is not to position myself as an authority, but rather to point readers to a helpful resource I have found for those interested in publishing academic monographs.

Religion in American History is a consortium blog of mostly college and university historians who study American religious history. Some of the contributors are evangelicals, while others are not. Many have written on topics that at least intersect with the interests of the readers of Between the Times. Religion in American History is a particularly helpful resource if you want to read substantive reviews of recent monographs (and sometimes important journal articles) in the field of American religious history.

Randall Stephens, who serves as one of the three “blogmeisters” for Religion in American History, has written a helpful post titled “Turning it into a Book.” In that post, Stephens collates suggestions from various publishers, along with his own insights on the topic. While Stephens focuses primarily on publishing for university presses, his suggestions also apply to church historians and other scholars who wish to publish monographs with other types of scholarly presses such as Eerdmans, Baker Academic, IVP Academic, Zondervan, Wipf and Stock, Pickwick, or T&T Clark (to name a few options). I think they also generally apply to scholars (or even pastors) who wish to publish monographs, textbooks, or even semi-scholarly books with more conservative evangelical presses such as Crossway, B&H, Moody, and Kregel.

If I ever do get around to writing a monograph (my lonely and heretofore unpublished dissertation is screaming at me from the shelf as I type), then I’ll consult Stephens’s helpful post on the front-end of that project. No doubt many of this blog’s readers will “beat me to the punch” and publish one or more scholarly monographs. If so, I hope you folks also find Stephens’s post useful, even if you are writing in a different discipline than my own.

(Note: This post was first published at Historia Ecclesiastica on April 26, 2013. It has been revised for a broader audience.)

HONORING “LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL

By Mark Liederbach with Tom Iversen

April 16^th marked the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”

Many (including us) rank his letter as one of greatest pieces of American literature ever written.  It is at once a powerful and elegant exposition of, and argument for, natural law as well as a sturdy call to repentance and an outright challenge for those who claim to be aligned with the Gospel of Jesus Christ to stand up and be counted in the fight for truth and justice.  Fifty years later it is still poignantly relevant to a culture experiencing a full assault on notions of moral truth, ethical standards, religious conscience and rightly ordered freedom.

Sadly, too many evangelicals (both white and black) are unfamiliar with the masterpiece that is MLK Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” But consider some of the astounding statements found within:

Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being ‘disturbers of the peace’ and ‘outside agitators.’ But they went on with the conviction that they were a ‘colony of heaven’ and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be ‘astronomically intimidated.’ They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest. Things are different now. The contemporary Church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the archsupporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.

The early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the Church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

In considering the philosophical and biblical sturdiness as well as the theological and moral challenge present in the Letter, we can’t help but be drawn to the words and thoughts of the Apostle Paul in Acts 17 that have a similar shaping influence on questions of justice, truth and morality.  There, in Athens, on Mars Hill, while engaging the Greek philosophers and bringing the truth of the Gospel into the marketplace of ideas, Paul made this remarkable statement:

and God made from one blood every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being… (Acts 17:26-28. Italics added for emphasis). 

One Blood

In Him we live and move and have our being.

Ideas to rock the status quo and change a world.

One blood means there is only one race: the human one.  Thus, racism is fundamentally stupid and unbiblical.

In Him we live and move and have our being means all humans will only find hope fulfilled and a satisfied soul as each person rightly aligns him or herself to the God who created all things for His own glory.  And that can only happen through faith in Jesus Christ.

One important difference between Dr. King’s Letter and the Apostle Paul’s speech on Mars Hill relates to the audience to whom each was directed.  It is interesting to note that Dr. King made his argument not so much to unbelievers or those who directly persecuted him, but to his brothers and sisters in Christ.  His target audience was those tepid, timid “white churchmen [who] stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities” and justify their inaction by saying “those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real concern.”

Perhaps the reason the words of MLK Jr. and Paul are so powerful and transcend notions of race or ethnicity is not because of the elegance of the writing or the catchiness of certain phrases, but rather (and far more importantly), because truth always transcends categories of race and ethnicity.  And speaking truth in the face of injustice or ideas that stand in opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is one of the key ways true Christ followers must “take captive” and “destroy” ideas and speculations that stand against the things of God in their own heats and in the culture at large.

It is for this reason that at the 50 year anniversary of Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”  we are especially grateful to God for Dr. King and his calling all of us to be stand and fight not just for ending the moral stupidity of racism, but even more so, to be the kind of people who do not acquiesce to the ideas of culture but rather shape it for the Glory of God.

Fifty years ago Martin Luther King Jr. stood like a man and called all of us to be better.  Fifty years later he is still calling us up to be men with him.

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is timeless work of ethics, philosophy, theology, amazing writing … AND a good reminder of two astounding truths: 1) The Gospel is thicker than blood (and therefore skin color) and; 2) our lives and our world can only be transformed into wholeness  through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

(Image credit)

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Mark Liederbach is Professor of Theology, Ethics, and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as Vice President for Student Services and Dean of Students, and is a Research Fellow for the L.Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture. Tom Iversen serves as an elder at North Wake Church in Wake Forest, NC.

Was Hitler ill? You bet he was, but not in any sense that would exonerate him or make him less responsible for his actions. In a recent edition of London Review of Books, Richard J. Evans reviews Was Hitler Ill? by Hans-Joachim Neumann and Henrik Eberle.[1] Neumann and Eberle survey the various explanations offered as the reason(s) for Hitler’s violent reign over the Third Reich (and extermination of over 6 million Jews and dissenters), but focus on the “mental illness” explanation which has been one of the most popular. They conclude that Hitler was sane “according to any reasonable definition of the term, and fully responsible for his actions.”

Evans recounts the possible explanations for Hitler’s actions. Explanations for his anti-Semitism include: that he had Jewish ancestry (and presumably was ashamed of this); he had a bad Jewish doctor who had overcharged his family; he once visited a Jewish prostitute; and he was a sadomasochist, and in Freudian manner, “projected his sexual perversions onto a world stage.” Numerous biographers have argued that Hitler was homosexual and the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 was a means to cover up (to that point), by murder, any with knowledge of his forays.

His heterosexual relationship with Eva Braun was for Hitler likely a public relations move to protect his public persona and health (per his doctor, Theo Morell). Evans provides a laundry list of health problems Hitler experienced: chronic hoarseness from speechmaking, dysentery, irritable bowel syndrome, a tremor in his left arm that many began to notice in 1941, and bad teeth. His health declined and never fully recovered after the injuries he suffered in the unsuccessful assassination attempt of 1944. During all this Hitler’s doctor, Morell, prescribed at least 82 drugs taken by Hitler, according to Neumann and Eberle.

Kudos if you already feel a sense of irony. For as Evans states, “the contrast with his regime’s obsessive drive to breed a race of healthy Aryans . . . was striking.” By cataloging Hitler’s health (or lack thereof) Neumann and Eberle, then, firmly answer the question of their book Was Hitler Ill? The answer is “a resounding no; or, to put it more accurately, he was no more so than everyone is at one time or other. He wasn’t mentally ill; whether his beliefs were rational is an entirely different matter.” Most would rightly argue his beliefs were not rational, rather they were the basis of his racist, perverse, and evil thoughts manifested in political control and violence.

In response to the authors’ fine point that Hitler was responsible for his actions, and cannot be exonerated on the basis of “mental illness,” I’ll make only one point, albeit an extended one: Hitler was indeed sick. He was sick unto death, and as such, was sick not only physically, but more important spiritually, and his spiritual sickness affected him in all of his capacities: moral, rational, creative, relational, affective, and so forth. For sin is a multi-faceted horror that affects the whole human being; it is a vandalism of the shalom God intended for his human imagers.

As Cornelius Plantinga outlines in Not the Way Its Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, sin vandalizes shalom in at least nine ways.[2] Those nine ways shed light on Hitler’s sickness unto death. Sin is a corruption, in that it both blurs distinctions and destroys unions. This can be seen in Hitler’s destruction of the union God intends for the human race (e.g. Jew and non-Jew).  Sin is a perversion, in that it twists God’s creation toward unworthy or wrong ends. This can be seen in the way Hitler turned his own loyalties, energies, and desires away from God and toward building his own kingdom with a jerry-rigged ideology that sought to justify the diversion. Sin is a pollution, in that it brings together what ought to remain apart. It is a disintegration, in that it divides that which ought to be together. It is a progressive corruption, in that one sin leads to another. Like a cancer, it not only kills but reproduces itself. One notes the progressive corruption taking place over the course of Hitler’s life.

Sin is both a privation and a parasite. It is not normal. It is an alien intruder, party-crashing God’s good creation. C. S. Lewis writes, ““Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness.” Evil must draw upon God’s good creation in order to attack God’s good creation. “The smartest blows against shalom,” writes Plantinga, “are struck by people and movements of impressive resourcefulness, strength, and intelligence – that is to say, by people and movements gifted by the very God and with the very goodness that their sin attacks.” And again, “…rebellion borrows boldness, imagination, and creativity from the very God it attacks.” Precisely because God had created Hitler in his image and gifted him greatly, Hitler was able to draw upon those gifts to attack his fellow imagers and vandalize God’s shalom.

Sin is a masquerade, in that it pretends to be what it is not. “To do its worst,” Plantinga writes, “evil needs to look its best. Evil has to spend a lot on makeup. . . . Vices have to masquerade as virtues – lust as love, thinly veiled sadism as military discipline, envy as righteous indignation, domestic tyranny as parental concern.” Hitler’s Aryan philosophy did exactly this, making his Aryan agenda appear attractive to the German people. But sin is also a great folly, in that it goes against the grain of the universe. It flouts wisdom, and at no point moreso than its desire to worship something or somebody more than God.

Finally, sin is addictive. God created us to long for him, but sin is taps into this longing and siphons its energies into false gods who strangle life rather than giving life. Hitler, an addict like the rest of us, needed to face the truth about his addiction, tearing away the layers of denial and self-deception that have “protected his supply.” In fact, as Plantinga writes, “Addicts are…tragic figures whose fall is often owed to a combination of factors so numerous, so complex, and elusive that only a proud and foolish therapist would propose a neat taxonomy of them.”

Hitler’s evil life arose from numerous and complex factors which we cannot firmly or comprehensively discern, so it would be proud and foolish of us to propose a neat taxonomy of them. The one thing we can affirm, taking our cue from Paul in the book of Romans, is that Hitler was an idolater whose suppression of the truth led him on a downward and evil spiral in which his thoughts were futile and his foolish heart was darkened, in which he did evil deeds and approved of others who did them also (Rom 1:18-32).  Hitler was sick unto death.

In recent years, the subject of altar calls has been sometimes hotly debated among Southern Baptists. If you don’t know the term, altar calls are a form of public invitation wherein attendees are urged to walk to the front of a worship center or other gathering place to discuss spiritual matters, normally near the conclusion of a worship service. Evangelists such as Billy Graham give altar calls at the conclusion of their evangelistic meetings. In many churches, pastors invite attendees to the front to seek counsel related to conversion, to express a desire to be baptized and/or join the church, and to discuss any number of other spiritual matters. Many churches also invite folks to pray at the front of the worship center, even if they do not discuss these prayers with a pastor or other spiritual counselor.

Altar calls have been common among American evangelicals for about two hundred years. During the Second Great Awakening, frontier Methodists first used this practice in their camp meetings. Some Baptists in the South also adopted the practice, which they almost certainly learned from the Methodists, since these two groups frequently cooperated in camp meetings in the Carolinas and Georgia through the 1810s. In the 1820s and 1830s, Charles Finney popularized the view among Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists in the urban Northeast. Though he was accused of introducing “Methodist” practices among these more Calvinistic churches, altar calls (along with his other “new measures”) became popular among many evangelicals.

Though it is impossible to determine with certainty when altar calls became a part of the weekly liturgy of most Southern Baptist churches, the practice was common after the Civil War and nearly uniform by the early twentieth century. This more or less coincides with the same period that Southern Baptists almost universally embraced “protracted meetings” (revival meetings) as a means to evangelize their communities. Though I can’t prove it, I suspect the two trends are related, since both reflect practices that emerged during the Second Great Awakening.

Back to the present. In my opinion, the debate about altar calls is “much ado about nothing.” I put altar calls in the category of what Augustine calls adiaphora: the “indifferent matters” that various Christians might disagree about without breaking fellowship. Simply put, altar calls are a particular strategy, born out of a particular context, that may or may not work in other contexts. Though open to various abuses (what strategy isn’t?), I don’t believe altar calls are inherently anti-biblical or manipulative. Though helpful in some contexts, altar calls aren’t biblically mandated means of encouraging spiritual decisions. As a mostly itinerant preacher, when I preach, I adapt my practice to the tradition of the church or other context in which I’m preaching. I would estimate that I extend an altar call about 75% of the time.

In taking this approach, I’m deliberately pushing back against two tendencies that I think are extremes and that frequently shoot at each other in this particular debate. On the one hand, I reject the argument that altar calls are (almost) always inappropriate. Some folks who make this argument are Calvinists who believe the practice is out-of-bounds because of its roots in the more Arminian wing of the Second Great Awakening. Other Calvinists reject altar calls because of their particular understanding of the regulative principle of worship; since altar calls aren’t in the Bible, we shouldn’t employ them today. Still others, from a variety of soteriological perspectives, reject altar calls for methodological reasons. Altar calls are seen to be relics of a bygone era of revivalism and cultural Christianity that simply do not work in a more postmodern, urban, post-Christian world.

On the other hand, I reject the view that altar calls are (almost) always necessary for one to be an evangelistic preacher or church. Some folks who make this argument are vocal non-Calvinists who are reacting negatively to the theological critiques that some Calvinists have advanced concerning altar calls. Others are simply pastors and other leaders who have found that altar calls useful in their contexts and seem to have a hard time understanding that the strategy might not work in other contexts. I suspect that still others defend altar calls for experiential reasons; they have expressed their own significant spiritual decisions in part by responding to altar calls.

I suspect that much of the debate isn’t about altar calls per se, but rather is about concerns each extreme has about the other extreme. Therefore, I want to offer some constructive advice to those who are strongly for or strongly against altar calls.

If you are strongly in favor of altar calls, be sure that you don’t require altar calls for individuals to seek spiritual counsel. To say it a different way, make sure that altar calls are but one avenue through which an individual can seek counsel, make spiritual decisions known, etc. Second, when it comes to conversion in particular, make sure that the altar call doesn’t replace baptism as the public profession of faith. This elevates the altar call, which is simply a human strategy, and downplays baptism, which is an ordinance commanded by our Lord. Finally, don’t turn altar calls into a sacrament by implying that one is saved through walking an aisle. I know that no pastor really teaches this, but I also know that many folks seem to hear this. (I did throughout my teenage years.) Pastors need to be extra careful to be as clear as possible that an altar call doesn’t convey any sort of grace, but is simply a way to encourage folks to share what the Lord has already done in their lives or to seek spiritual counsel from pastors or other leaders.

If you are strongly against altar calls, be sure that you are being intentionally evangelistic in your corporate worship gatherings. Press the claims of Christ upon sinners and plead with them to repent and believe—in that very moment. Provide them with avenues to make spiritual decisions known or to seek spiritual counsel. In my church, where we don’t regularly extend altar calls, we always remind folks that elders are standing at each door and are eager to talk and pray with anyone who desires to do so. Much of what happens in other churches during an altar call happens in our church after the service as individuals talk to a pastor about spiritual matters. Second, don’t assume that just because altar calls were popularized by folks with theological convictions that Southern Baptists reject (Methodists; Finney) means that altar calls are, by definition, theologically suspect. There are good and bad forms of altar calls; give your brothers the benefit of the doubt on this unless you have clear evidence that someone is being manipulative.

There is much in the Southern Baptist Convention that is worthy of debate and discussion, provided we are Christ-like and extend brotherly love towards one another. But I don’t think this issue is worthy of too much debate (discussion, perhaps). Let’s extend each other Christian charity in methodological strategies that don’t conflict with biblical teachings, since churches are free to adopt these strategies or dispense with them. This includes the altar call. For readers who want to consider appropriate ways to extend an altar call, check out Danny Akin’s chapter “Giving an Invitation: Soul Winning from the Pulpit” in Engaging Exposition (B&H Academic, 2011).

(Image Credit)

Several summers ago, I was serving as the youth minister in a little country church. Our small youth group had piled into a fifteen-passenger van and were on our way to church camp. I was driving the van while one of our adult volunteers, a middle-aged woman, was riding shotgun. During the drive, she shared with me her conversion testimony. She had been raised in a theologically liberal Lutheran congregation. She remembered being forced to memorize a catechism as a young child, but claimed she never heard the gospel until she was in her twenties. As she concluded her testimony, she exclaimed, “I sure am glad that Baptists don’t do catechisms!” I cringed.

Over the years, I have met many other Baptists who feel this way about catechisms. Around Southeastern Seminary, there is a great story about a former church history professor who was asked by a student how parents can help their kids to memorize basic doctrine while avoiding “the dangers” of catechism. I have also heard a few folks argue that it is legalistic to teach children to memorize doctrine before they understand the gospel (of course, these folks rarely make the same argument about children memorizing Scripture, even “legal” passages like the Ten Commandments). Some simply identify catechisms with pedobaptists; catechesis is the sort of thing that Presbyterians and Lutherans do. We Baptists stick with Bible Drill and Vacation Bible School.

You might be interested to know that there was a time when Baptists did, in fact, “do” catechisms. In fact, Baptists have written numerous influential catechisms over the years, including many Southern Baptists from bygone days. Though Baptists have often had an awkward relationship with other Protestants because of our fusion of both radical and reformational tendencies, the latter traditions bequeathed to the earliest Baptists an emphasis on catechesis. In fact, perhaps more consistently than at least some of our pedobaptist friends, earlier generations of Baptists embraced a dual commitment to both catechesis and conversion. Baptist children often learned basic doctrine and ethics via catechisms, though as they grew into their teenaged years they were also urged to personally trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, submit to believer’s baptism, and become a member of the church. Sometimes pastors catechized the church’s children in what was an early version of “youth group” (Richard Furman is one noteworthy example). More often, parents taught their children the catechism. It wasn’t until the latter half of the nineteenth century that catechesis began to wane among Baptists.

Thankfully, Baptists have begun to recover an emphasis on catechisms over the past generation or so. Many noteworthy Baptist catechisms have been compiled in edited volumes by authors such as Tom Nettles, Timothy George, Jim Renihan, and Tom Ascol. First Baptist Church Tallassee, Alabama has published a catechism based upon the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. My friend Steve Weaver is working on a new edition of the Orthodox Catechism, a Baptist revision of the Heidelberg Catechism first published in 1680. John Piper published an updated version of the famous Baptist Catechism of 1693. Solid Ground Christian Books has reprinted Benjamin Beddome’s Scriptural Exposition of the Baptist Catechism, first published in 1752. Jim Scott Orrick has recorded an album that puts the 1693 catechism to music. Greg Nichols has edited a Baptist revision to the Westminster Shorter Catechism (1648). No doubt there are others of which I’m not aware. The texts of many Baptist catechisms can also be found on the internet at such websites (let Google be your guide).

If you want to know more about the importance of catechesis in general, check out Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way (Baker, 2010), written by Gary Parrett and J.I. Packer. Even if you aren’t convinced that using catechisms are a helpful way to teach your children the basics of the faith, consider purchasing this book, which is more about the importance of deliberately forming young people and new believers in the faith than it is an apologetic for using formal catechisms. If you want a more sustained Baptist apology for the use of catechisms, Tom Nettles has written two articles for Founders Journal: “An Encouragement to Use Catechisms” and “An Encouragement to Use Catechisms, Part 2,” both of which are available online.

(Note: This post is cross-published at Christian Thought & Tradition)

A few years ago, Justin Taylor posted a great short series on Holy Week that looked at each day of Jesus’ final week leading into his crucifixion and resurrection. It’s a helpful resource for personal devotional study this week as you prepare for celebrating the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ this coming Lord’s Day.

Holy Week: What Happened on Sunday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Monday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Tuesday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Wednesday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Thursday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Friday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Sunday?

Note that there are two Sundays. The first marks the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which many churches commemorated last Lord’s Day by celebrating Palm Sunday. The second Sunday is of course the day of the resurrection. There is no post for Saturday, because on that day Jesus was dead in the tomb and his followers were despairing. But on that second Sunday, up from the grave he arose, with a mighty triumph o’er his foes!

(Note: This post was cross-published at Christian Thought & Tradition; Image credit)

I’ll see your one, and raise you another. In a recent edition of the Times Literary Supplement, John Gray reviews Vladimir Tismaneanu’s The Devil in History, which provides an extended criticism of communism in relation to fascism.[1] Gray’s account of Tismaneanu’s book spurred me to mediate some of his thoughts in blog format, and to add a criticism of my own.

In the book, Tismaneanu argues that in many respects Communism and Fascism in the 20^th-century were at one. He makes clear that “‘Communism is not Fascism, and Fascism is not Communism. Each totalitarian experiment has its own irreducible attributes’” (p. 7). The two political philosophies share similarities, however, that must be acknowledged by those of us living in the 21^st-century. Tismaneanu especially wants the attention of political liberals and utopians who think Communism is essentially good even if the Russians and Chinese applied its principles poorly.

Tismaneanu notes that Communism and Fascism shared the view that mass-killings are good for society. He writes, ‘Communism, like Fascism, undoubtedly founded its alternative, liberal modernity on the conviction that certain groups could be deservedly terminated. The Communist project, in such countries as the USSR, China, Cuba, Romania, or Albania, was based precisely on the conviction that certain social groups were irretrievably alien and deservedly murdered.’ (p. 7)

Communism and Fascism also shared ethnocentric, racist, and anti-Semitic beliefs which underlay their political philosophies. Tismaneanu writes as one with first-hand experience, as a child of Jewish parents who directly fought Fascism. His parents joined forces with Communists in order to fight the Fascists. Ironically Tismaneanu’s book endeavors to show “that Communism acquired some of Fascism’s defining characteristics” (p. 7).

In the end, Tismaneanu’s burden is to challenge a liberal intellectual infatuation with the “communist Utopia” (p. 7). These utopians are ones who believe that communist principles are true but that its historical application in recent history went awry due to unforeseen events, circumstances, or psychologies. For instance, Tismaneanu rejects the view that Stalin’s ruthlessness did not stem from his communism but merely from his sociopathic personality. Undoubtedly Stalin was a sociopath. However, Tismaneanu shows “methodological violence and pedagogic terror were integral features of Bolshevik doctrine” (p. 7). Stalin did not invent mass-killings; rather he perfected what Lenin taught.

As Gray notes, not every scholar will find Tismaneanu’s treatment of Communist totalitarianism convincing. Yet, Tismaneanu is certainly correct that in 1918 Russia Bolsheviks spoke of opponents as “byvshie liudi (former people),” which implied that those who were so-called were in fact considered sub-human. Thus these sub-humans could be discarded without much thought. So Gray reminds us, “in politics, the other face of radical evil is an inhuman vision of radical goodness” (p. 7).

This inhuman vision of radical goodness was underlain by a passionately held eschatology. Both Communism and Fascism, Tismaneanus writes, “were fuelled by millenarian religion ….[and] both were militant chiliasms that energized extraordinary ardor among unconditionally committed followers” (p. 8). Although Leninism, which grew into Communism, and Nazism denied alternative construals of meaning (like religion) and progress (like science), they both established themselves on particular world and scientific views: Nazism on the basis of racial hierarchies and eugenics, and Communism on the basis of historical-materialism. It is no surprise, then, that both laid hold of “militant chiliasms” in search of their power.

As a complement to Tismaneanu’s thesis, I wish to add that Liberalism falls under the same scourge. In fact, if I had written the book, I might have eschewed Fascism in favor of Liberalism. Both Liberalism and Communism emerged during an age of Revolution which sought to bring society into conformity with the Enlightenment faith. In order to buttress the Enlightenment vision (which had fallen on hard times in light of the social misery of the Industrial Revolution), true believers in Enlightenment Progress felt the need to compose an even greater myth.

Marxists and Communists applied Darwinism to the social realm, arguing that history is propelled by class conflict. Humanity progresses via class revolutions that eventually would lead to a utopia marked by the redistribution of wealth.

Liberals based their myth on the sovereignty of the individual, and focused on sexual, economic, and political freedom. This freedom often was conceived as autonomy in relation to God, rather than merely freedom in social and political affairs. Their response to the 19^th century’s suffering was either to explain it in terms of evolutionary progress (Herbert Spencer) or seek a government-based social justice (John Stuart Mill).

An example is Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama’s thesis is that the end of the Cold War signaled the rise of “a form of society that satisfied its deepest and most fundamental longings.” All of the really big questions will have been settled; hence there will be no further progress in principles and institutions. For him, Western values would triumph. In particular, democratic capitalism would have no competitor; it would be the final form of society. Even religious ideologies would not overturn this. Fukuyama’s is a Hegelian view of history, utopian and wildly optimistic. (It does, however, have some dark strains, such as his focus on the Nietzschean concept of The Last Man.)

One of Fukuyama’s strongest critics has been Samuel Huntington. While he rightly rejects Fukuyama’s Hegelian method and utopian aspirations, however, Huntington himself fares no better by rejecting all “universal” history and leaving himself with only the particulars. In other words, Huntington rejects the notions of God, something beyond this world, and the idea that God is guiding history towards a triumphant ending.

For those of us who are believers, however, there is a master narrative that interprets this world and points towards a time of restoration and hope. In four plot moves—Creation, Fall, Redemption, New Creation—we learn in broad stroke form both the direction in which history is moving and the framework for interpreting the events, times, and developments of this world. God through Christ is redeeming for himself a people and one day will restore even creation itself. Moreover, the people he redeems for himself will consist of worshipers from among every tribe, tongue, people, and nation—a phenomenon that transcends not only cultures and civilizations, but even history itself.

In response to the Enlightenment faith and its utopian myths which reject God and the hope of divine redemption, we offer the Christian faith as the true story of the whole world.

I recently came across a wonderful, brief introduction to the life and literary legacy of Jonathan Edwards by Joel Beeke and Randall Peterson. The essay, which is available online, is reprinted from Meet the Puritans (Reformation Heritage, 2007), which Beeke and Peterson co-authored. In the essay, the authors provide a basic summary of Edwards’s biography and theological convictions. They also provide an annotated bibliography to reprinted editions (scholarly and popular) of Edwards’s written corpus.

My chief interest in Edwards concerns two interrelated topics: his spirituality and his theology of revival. For this reason, my favorite of Edwards’s works is A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746). I have frequently required Religious Affections in my Church History II class. More than one student has told me that being required to read Religious Affections for my class changed his or her spiritual life. Read what Beeke and Peterson have to say about Religious Affections in the aforementioned essay:

This work is often regarded as the leading classic in American history on spiritual life. Edwards here presents a more mature reflection of revival than in his Faithful Narrative, reflecting upon the strengths and weaknesses of the Great Awakening after it crested. Fundamentally, Edwards grapples with the questions: What makes a person a Christian? What is it about a person that would move others to recognize him as a Christian? What is the difference between true and false Christian experience? Edwards first considers the nature of affections and their importance in religion, answering the charges of Charles Chauncy. He views affections as the desires of the heart based upon intellectual reflections, and argues that true religion consists in the affections.

In the second part of his work, Edwards describes twelve signs of gracious affections that may not necessarily indicate saving faith. These include intense feelings; experiences that produce physical effects; fluency in spiritual matters; not causing one’s own affections; having verses of Scripture impressed upon the mind; the appearance of being loving; experiencing a variety of affections; being moved by affections to spend much time in religious matters; affections that move one to praise God; affections that lead to a strong sense of assurance of salvation; affections that lead one to act in ways that are accepted by the godly. Edwards goes on to argue that external signs motivated by religious affections neither deny nor confirm genuine religious experience. He takes a middle position between those who claimed the phenomena that took place in Northampton proved the revival true and those who said the phenomena showed it to be false.

In the final section, Edwards explains the true marks of genuine conversion, noting that they all arise from the illumination of God’s Spirit. He describes twelve true signs of gracious affections:

• A new birth, or regeneration
• A new transcendental perspective in daily life that focuses on God’s glory
• A love for the loveliness of divine things
• A “new taste” that combines “heat with light”; understanding is essential but insufficient by itself
• A deep conviction of an immediate sense of divinity and total control of self by the truths of the gospel
• An evangelical rather than legal humiliation
• A radical change of nature that results in conversion
• A genuine love for and meekness toward others
• A Christian tenderness toward others
• A kind of symmetry or proportion of all the foregoing affections
• A desire for a growing relationship with God
• A gracious love that manifests itself in behavior

If you haven’t read Religious Affections before, I would encourage you to do so. A paperback of the Yale University Press critical edition, which includes a scholarly introductory essay by John Smith, has recently been published at a very affordable price (pictured above). You can also read the critical edition for free online at the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University. There are also many popular reprints of Religious Affections available on the market. The one I read while in seminary (my first introduction to Religious Affections) was the edition published by Banner of Truth. It’s also fairly easy to find free PDF versions of Religious Affections on the internet.

If the idea of reading Edwards scares you a bit, check out Sam Storms’s Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections (Crossway, 2007), which is a wonderful modernization of the original work (pictured left). Another helpful modern updating of Religious Affections, this one written by Gerald McDermott, is titled Seeing God: Jonathan Edwards and Spiritual Discernment (Regent College Publishing, 2000). Craig Biehl has also written a study guide to the book titled Reading “Religious Affections”: A Study Guide to Jonathan Edwards’ Classic on the Nature of True Christianity (Solid Ground Christian Books, 2012).

(Note: This post was first published at Christian Thought & Tradition on February 25, 2013.)

I came across this letter recently from John Newton, the converted slave-trader most well-known as the author of “Amazing Grace.” It’s called “Advantages From Remaining Sin,” and is a fascinating explanation of the many ways God uses the remaining sin in the lives of believers. As J. C. Ryle said, ”Christ is never fully valued, until sin is clearly seen. We must know the depth and malignity of our disease, in order appreciate the great Physician.”

“The gracious purposes [of this indwelling sin] . . . are manifold. Hereby his own power, wisdom, faithfulness, and love, are more signally displayed: his power, in maintaining his own work in the midst of so much opposition, like a spark burning in the water; his wisdom, in defeating and controlling all the devices which Satan, from his knowledge of the evil of our nature, is encouraged to practise against us.”

“The unchangeableness of the Lord’s love, and the riches of him mercy, are likewise more illustrated by the multiplied pardons he bestows upon his people, than if they needed no forgiveness at all.”

“When, after a long experience of their own deceitful hearts, after repeated proofs of their weakness, wilfulness, ingratitude, and insensibility, they find that none of these things can separate them from the love of God in Christ, Jesus becomes more and more precious to their souls. They love much, because much has been forgiven them.”

“In a word, some of the clearest proofs they [Christians] have had of his excellence, have been occasioned by the mortifying proofs they have had of their own vileness.”

Peter Kreeft has aptly observed that remaining sin can also keep us from pride. Sometimes God lets us stumble in the “smaller sins” (like lust) to keep us from committing the “bigger one,” pride.