A TR Looks at 66

A TR Looks at 66

Really Cool Young RUF Guy

Really Curmudgeonly Old Guy

Frankly I’d rather be a pirate looking at 40, but I never made enough money to buy Miami, and I’ve been looking at 40 in the rear view mirror for almost 26 years now.  I’ll have to settle for being an old TR looking at 66.

I published The Six Points of TR back on August 20. You can find it here: http://thechristiancurmudgeonmo.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-six-tr-points.html. My purpose was to give an accounting according to my memories of the origination of the term and what I think it signified.

I followed up on August 30 by posting a copy of Mr. Guy Oliver’s 1976 paper TR: The Anatomy of a Slogan  which he presented to a group of alumni, including several of the original TRs, as his contemporaneous and outsider’s take on the “movement.” You can find that here: http://thechristiancurmudgeonmo.blogspot.com/2013/08/tr-anatomy-of-slogan-by-guy-oliver-1976.html.

What I propose to do now is to reflect on the  the six points I used to describe TRism more that 40 years after my graduation from seminary and ordination to the ministry (both in 1972).

1. Calvinistic Theology. 

These men held enthusiastically to Reformed theology as they learned it from the Westminster standards, Berkhof, and professors who had studied at Westminster Theological Seminary with Murray (e.g. Morton Smith and Palmer Robertson). Dr. Morton Smith's lectures were dry, but his three volumed syllabus and class discussions gave students who "got it" the framework of a working theology. TRs grasped, could articulate, and saw some of the practical implications of Calvinism.

I remain a Calvinist. I am thankful for the working theology I absorbed in the classes taught by Dr. Smith, despite the fact that I may hold the distinction of being the only RTS student ever kicked out of a final, when Dr. Smith found my showing up for a systematics exam wearing Bermuda shorts unacceptable.  I am also grateful for the historical perspective provided by Mr. (later Dr.) Albert H. Freundt in his church history and history and character of Calvinism courses.

It is true, I think, that I have a greater appreciation for the sources and for the breadth of the stream of Calvinism through the centuries and so not the Westminster tradition only. Along with that appreciation, I have come to believe that, because of the integral relations of ecclesiology and sacramentology to Calvinism, while Baptists can affirm some doctrines of Calvinism, they cannot properly be called Calvinists. 

I also find it astonishing that men seem so glibly to subscribe to everything in the Confession and Larger and Shorter Catechisms given the number of words and amount of detail in them. I always appreciated it in Potomac Presbytery, when my friend, Dr. David Coffin, upon hearing men say they had no differences with Standards, would rise and ask, “And have you read them?” As to my own case, I wonder how it is that, after having been a member of 8 different Presbyteries, and of Mississippi Valley twice before, I am found to have an exception to the Standards because I do not affirm 6 24 hour days of creation.

Despite some puzzlements regarding Calvinism, confessionalism, and subscription, happily Calvinistic I remain.

2. Biblical Theology. Probably the most exciting courses offered were the young Dr. Palmer Roberston's Old Testament and New Testament theology courses. Dr. Robertson had studied with John Murray, Meredith Kline, and Ed Clowney, understood Vos, and was in the process of constructing his own contributions to the field of Biblical theology (later published as The Christ of the Covenants). Dr. Robertson gave students a framework for understanding the Scriptures, particularly the unity of the covenants, the progressive nature of revelation, and the Christ-centeredness of the Scriptures.

I have found that two things I absorbed in seminary have served me very well through 41 years in the ministry: (1) the theological framework I got from Dr. Morton Smith, and (2) the framework for interpreting and using the Scriptures given to me by the Biblical theology courses of Dr. Palmer Robertson. Dr. Robertson saved me from many things, three of them being (1) theonomy, (2) the more fanciful flights of Biblical theology, and (3) the moralistic-exemplary approach to Old Testament biography.  Sober grammatical-historical exegesis combined with high a regard for systematic theology make for a healthy form of redemptive-historical understanding of Scripture and its right use.

3. Pre-suppositional Apologetics. Some faculty came from the Dutch theological tradition (e.g. DeYoung, Kistemaker), others had studied under Van Til (e.g. Smith, Robertson), and others were familiar with Schaeffer (e.g. Killen).  TRs were convinced Van Tillians. They did not trust reason, rejected the theistic proofs, and did not believe there were any "brute facts." They pre-supposed the Bible and the whole Christian faith as the foundation for all thought. They thought they would demolish strongholds of unbelief and take every thought captive to Christ.

I am some sort of presuppositionalist still, but I find Van Til hard to read and harder yet to understand. Apologetics has not been at the top of my reading list. But, I do think it is important to address issues of “ultimate concern” for believers and non-believers. I recall a footnote in a booklet by Dr. John R. DeWitt where he quotes someone to the effect that is it a great thing to believe in God. I think one of the things that makes it great is that sometimes it is so hard. Yet how can one not?

4. World-and-Life View. There was Dutch influence from Christian Reformed faculty members and from Kuyper's Stone lectures at Princeton. There was the Van Til influence from Westminster trained faculty. But, ironically, the primary shaper of students' understanding of a Christian world-and-life view, was a Biblical theologian, Palmer Robertson. Dr. Robertson's unpublished paper on the kingdom and the church combined a Southern Presbyterian theology of the spirituality of the church with a sphere-sovereignty view of the kingdom. The church has a limited mission but the kingdom is bigger than the church. Christians could advance the kingdom by bringing Christ's rule to bear on everything.

With regard to world-and-life view matters I have undergone significant change. Several things have contributed to this: (1) I am an a-millenialist, who believes we must await the coming of Christ for the transformation of creation. There is a lot more “not yet” than “already” in my view. I think a-millenialist pessimism is Biblical, realistic, and healthy. (2) I believe with the Westminster Confession that the visible church is the kingdom of Christ in this age. I used to believe otherwise, but I didn't know any better. (3) To me the spiritual nature and mission of the church are crystal clear in the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. I struggle with understanding why so many find this so difficult. (4) I came to see that lot of what we think and do in this world lies in the realm of “common grace”  and “natural revelation” - a realm which we inhabit with non-believers.

Recently I made the humorous comment on a Facebook thread that “I don’t do worldview.”  A brother who was born the year I went to seminary admonished me that I, along with everyone else, do have a worldview and went on to quote James Sire. I used to tell students the same thing - that, even if it was nothing more than believing “you only go around once so grab for all the gusto you can” (quoting an old beer commercial), you have a worldview. Well, yes, I do have a worldview, and it is grounded in the reality of God and Christ. But, my worldview does not include the belief that there is a distinctly and uniquely Christian view of everything.

5. Experimentalism. Calvinistic experimentalism (or an emphasis on Christian experience) was not a great emphasis of the original faculty. It certainly was not taught in the Practical Department by those responsible for homiletics and counseling courses. Exposure to experimentalism came through one Congregationalist, two Baptists, two Presbyterians, and one publishing house. The Congregationalist was Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Some had heard him "live" in the summer of 1969 at the Pensacola Theological Institute, but his primary influence came via  books (especially The Sermon on the Mount) and taped sermons. The two Baptists were Ernie Reisinger and Al Martin both of whom preached on campus. The Presbyterians were Edwardsian John Gerstner and Puritan Dutchman John R. DeWitt. The publisher was The Banner of Truth with its books and monthly magazine. TRs got from these emphasis on self-examination and conversion, searching sermon application, and a longing for revival.

I first experienced Calvinistic experimentalism in seminary. I remember Ernie Reisenger preaching in chapel and urgently inquiring, “Have you closed with Christ?” Frankly, never having heard conversion or coming to faith put in those terms, it took me a little while to figure out what he meant. Then there was John Gerstner who preached Puritan preparationism. If you knew you were not saved, you put yourself in the way of grace and hoped God would be merciful. But the preeminent experientialist I experienced was Al Martin who, as one classmate put it, nailed us to the back of the chapel wall, preaching such texts as, "Take heed to thyself and to thy doctrine." Martin was popular in Mississippi and visited several towns where he preached sermons on the “true conversion rare and difficult” theme. And, a number of us took this kind of preaching are our model.

I think it was a serious mistake. Just the other day a friend and I were commiserating about the damage we did to the saints with our preaching by the ways we applied our sermons, by the kind of introspection and self-examination we urged, and by guilt and doubt we encouraged.

Several things moved me away from this sort of thing: (1) My own self-examination under that sort of preaching produced discouragement and sometimes despair. (2) Ministering to students I came to appreciate that Christians could be pretty “messed up” and yet be Christians. (3) I came to see that texts such as “Prove yourselves whether ye be in the faith” did not call for the kind of self-examination experientialists exhorted Christians to perform. I became convinced that Paul’s exhortation to “examine yourselves” before coming to the Lord’s Table was not meant to lead to self-excommunication. I saw the1 John is not about tests of whether faith exists but proofs that it does. (4) I came to believe that if we really believe that children of believers are holy, if we believe in infant baptism, and if we believe in the Christian nurture of children, we should not treat covenant children as little infidels. (5) I saw that our theology leads not to our focusing on regeneration or on conversion understood as a certain kind of experience but on profession of faith to be charitably judged. It is not the perfection of faith but faith that saves. It does little good to tell people that they are justified by faith, if the assurance of faith then dies the death of a thousand cuts of qualification.

What I came to ask myself is, "How do I regard those to whom I preach and to whom I give pastoral care?” The conclusion I reached is that they are pilgrims, climbing a steep, winding, and dangerous path, beset by many temptations and discouragements. What do they need? Well sometimes they need a kick in the butt from the law. But more frequently they need the comfort, encouragement, and strengthening of the Gospel.

6. Nouthetic Counseling. Like experimentalism nouthetic counseling came from an outside source, Dr. Jay Adams and his book Competent to Counsel.The book was assigned reading but the counseling courses were not nouthetic in orientation. However, Dr. Adams' book changed the way TRs understood pastoral counseling. Whatever the "presenting" problem the underlying problem, unless there was brain injury or disease, was sin. Once the sin was discovered, confronted, and confessed the counseler could guide the counselee through a program of behavioral and attitudinal change. Change could be effected in a relatively short time. Even long standing problems like depression and life-dominating sins like homosexuality would give way to the nouthetic approach. Identifying the primary problem as sin  meant there was hope for the counselee. The nouthetic approach gave confidence to the pastor who made good use of his Bible. Adams also shaped the TRs' understanding of marriage, children, and family life with loving husbands, submissive wives, obedient children, and happy outcomes.

Noutheo is certainly one word used to describe what how Christians minister to one another. “Admonish the unruly” (1 Th. 5:17) Paul says. But with regard to nouthetic counseling as described above, I have become convinced that the world and people, including Christians, are more fallen and complicated than most of us thought when we learned about nouthetic counseling. And so it is, too, with marriage, family, and child rearing.  The ways people are wired, the impact of early childhood nurture and lack thereof, and the various ways people experience life are more determinative than we think. Problems, including besetting sins, are often more intractable than we would like. There are many mysteries that will not be cleared up in this world. And there are many problems that will take the coming glory to resolve.

Neo-conservatives used to be described as liberals who have been mugged. You can call me a TR who has been mugged by reality. I am not alone.

Transformed and Transforming?

Transformed and Transforming?

Dr, William B. Evans
The Eunice Witherspoon Bell Younts and Willie Camp Younts
 Professor of Bible and Religion at Erskine College 

Dr. William B. Evans in his most recent posting at the Ecclessial Calvinist, What’s Wrong with 2K?, refers to me as “one of my more ardent 2K Facebook friends.” I suppose I’m both pleased and disappointed, indifferent and chagrined. 

I’m pleased he describes me as a friend; I’m disappointed I'm no more than a “Facebook friend.” I'm indifferent about being described as one of his “more ardent” 2K friends; I'm chagrined he uses me as one who can vouch for the accuracy of his definition of 2K. 

I did say, as he quotes me, that a description he offered on Facebook is "a good, concise explanation.” But, I am in no way qualified to approve or disapprove. I came to 2K not by reading any of the 2K theologians but through my own amateur reflections. Long before all the 2K dust up, I listed on Facebook my “political views” non-technically as “Two Kingdoms.” I do not know to what extent I agree or disagree with that the apologists for and expositors of the 2K position. 

As I have said before I believe with the Westminster Confession that the church is “the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (XXV:2), a limitation of the kingdom with which Dr. Evans explicitly disagrees. There came a time when I became convinced that what I had taught students and others - that there is, at least in principle a distinctly Christian (or Biblical) world-and-life view of everything - was wrong. I concluded that the goal of finding the Christian view of everything is impossible to attain, not Biblically mandated, and has (as Dr.Evans thinks 2K has the potential of doing) divided the Reformed community (think 1K theonomy.)

I want to call attention to a concern of Dr. Evans that he expressed in his Transformationalism Again: Mr. McWilliams Glosses the Text and to which he returns with What’s Wrong with 2K?. His concern has to do with a connection he sees between a denial that Christians are called to transform culture and society with denial that grace and the gospel transform individuals. There is, as Dr. Evans sees it, a (necessary?) relationship between individual transformation and societal transformation. Or to put it more bluntly, those who do not want to seek the sanctification of culture may not be very concerned about the sanctification of themselves. Limiting societal transformation to the life of the church rather than extending it (at least potentially) to all corporate life may be the result of giving precedence to justification (forensic, external, objective, imputed righteousness) over regeneration and sanctification (personal, internal, subjective, infused righteousness).

Here Dr. Evans is giving one of two answers to his question (the validity of which I will not now challenge), “Why has the careful and nuanced Reformed transformationalism that was common currency of the previous generation become so controversial?”:

First, as people on both sides of the transformationalist question are increasingly aware, there is a connection between personal transformation, or individual soteriology, and corporate transformation, and battle lines on the question of individual soteriology have been sharply drawn more recently.  I’ve noticed that some who are deeply concerned to safeguard the extrinsic and forensic alien righteousness of justification are reticent to speak of any real, intrinsic change in us.  Positive changes in our behavior are explained in terms of direct divine activity on us, a divine occasionalism that nevertheless leaves us unchanged as to our being.  That is, to use the language of the older Reformed tradition, they will speak of immediate divine grace, but not of “created graces” in us.  Historically, this denial of created graces was a hallmark of antinomianism (as W. K. B. Stoever has shown in his splendid A Faire and Easie Way to Heaven: Covenant Theology and Antinomianism in Early New England [Wesleyan UP, 1978]), and if you want to see where this sort of thinking can lead, read this . . . and grieve!  (Note: The link to “this” is to a column by Steve Brown.) To cut to the chase, it makes little sense to speak of corporate or societal transformation when we are embarrassed to say much about individual transformation.

He picks up on this again in his more recent posting:

... there seems to be at work in 2K a real skepticism about any sort of intrinsic transformation—personal or corporate... Related to this, there is in 2K a persistently disjunctive impulse—separating sanctification and justification, Law and Gospel (another Lutheran distinctive), the transformatory and the forensic, the kingdom of the world and the institutional Church.

Thus Mike Horton... rejects the older Reformed scholastic notion of the infusion of gracious habits in regeneration found in the Canons of Dordt and the Westminster Confession (Dordt III/IV, Arts. 11, 12, Rej. Par. 6; WCF 13.1), which denominated a real and lasting change intrinsic to the Christian, and he challenges the distinction between regeneration and effectual calling (see his Covenant and Salvation, 230-242).  Horton’s reasoning here is clear in that he thinks the older infusionism subverts forensic justification: “Infusionism has never created a forensic space in its ontology” (Covenant and Salvation, 215).  He also rejects the traditional participationist option—another historic way of articulating real change in the Christian—as too Platonic...Consistent with his prioritizing of the forensic, Horton argues that the forensic decree of justification results in sanctification via what he calls a “covenantal ontology,” and he tries to flesh this out using speech-act theory...  At the end of the day, despite Horton’s intriguing and significant effort to recast Reformed soteriology in a contemporary idiom and his clear desire to affirm that a change in the Christian’s behavior takes place, his explanations of how this works never get much beyond the extrinsic and the evocative.  It seems that he simply does not have conceptual apparatus at his disposal to say much of anything about a real change or transformation intrinsic to the Christian.

Frankly much of this is way over my head, but I do get what he is saying about personal and individual transformation and cultural and corporate transformation. But I have two questions.

(1) If we grant all that Dr. Evans believes and says about personal transformation, what is the necessary connection between personal and societal transformation? If regeneration and sanctification transform the character and conduct of the individual Christian, why must that transformation extend to the broader (otherwise secular) society?

What do we find in the Apostolic letters about societies? First there is the society of the church where, at least in principle, there is transformation of the way people live together (e.g. Galatians 5:13 - 6:10; Ephesians 4:25-32). There is a distinction between the way the people of the world treat each other and the way the saints in the church are called to treat one another. An interesting question would be to what extent this transformation was realized in the New Testament churches, where, despite the exhortations of Jesus and the Apostles, people could bite and devour one another. It doesn’t take much reflection on contemporary church life to be reminded there is not a little bickering, backbiting, and bitterness among the saints today.

There is also the transformation of home life. Husbands love their wives, and wives submit to their husbands. Parents do not provoke or discourage their children but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Children honor and obey their parents. Masters are not harsh but fair and just in their treatment of slaves. Slaves respect and obey their masters.

But, then what? Where is the teaching about the transformation of governments? Christians are told how to behave as citizens, primarily by recognizing that God has established government for societal order and by obeying governmental authority. We know that citizens of the Empire and its provinces did not have the freedoms and rights that obtain in the Western democracies to elect, change, and influence government. But where are there even the most rudimentary directions to Christians to transform government and how to go about it? What would a transformed government look like? A government that in its constitution recognizes the “crown rights of King Jesus”? A government that takes the Old Testament civil code as its model for the enactment of laws? A government that convenes ecclesiastical assemblies and enforces true doctrine? A government that feeds and provides medical care for the poor? A monetarist or gold standard economy? Free trade or tariffs? Women voting or men only? What would be the platform of a Christian political party?  

Go on from there. What is Christian pedagogy? Abeka or CSI?  Phonics or see and say or both? What is Christian economics? Shall Gary North tell us? Christian art? Will Rookmaker and Schaeffer show us? Christian astronomy? Christian physics? Christian math? Christian history? Christian grammar? Christian cooking? Christian journalism? Christian business? A Christian labor organization? I understand that there are plenty of Christians who have answers to these questions. But they disagree and not infrequently contradict one another. And sometimes it is these world-and-life view issues that lead to the most ardent condemnations of one another. Who decides?

I just don’t know how personal transformation works out in societal transformation beyond the societies of church and family.

(2) Regarding personal transformation, it shows how ignorant I am of the academic literature and discussions to say that I am not familiar with the “created graces” and “occasional immediate grace” distinction. I do know the justification/sanctification distinction, the imputation/infusion distinction, the positional/progressive sanctification distinction, the already/not yet distinction.

But I think my question does not depend on my familiarity with the literature and discussions. My question is practical and based on observation and experience. It is very simple. 

What do we make of a lack of personal transformation? I do not question that there are people whose faith came to conscious and distinct expression and who are very different from the way they were before (some having remarkable almost instantaneous changes and others experiencing change of a more progressive nature). 

But there are many who don’t. The same sins beset them. And not just the same sins, internal and external, but the same doubts, the same fears, the same defeats, the same relational issues. Their Christian lives are marked by fits and starts.  Some are open about themselves. I would guess that for every one who transparently admits the reality, there are at least several who don’t.

What about those who cannot sing, “What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart”? If regeneration infuses a new nature and if sanctification transforms character and behavior, how do we explain this?

For some the answer is clear, if not easy. Such folks as I describe are not true Christian believers. It does not matter that they have asked for change or profess to trust in Christ. The realities of their lives testify that they do not possess true faith, for, if they did, they would be different. For some who give this answer it is evidence that true conversion is rare and that there are relatively few real Christians.  What is there for these souls  to do? Keep reading the Bible and praying, keep going to church and being around Christians. Perhaps God will be merciful yet and sincere faith will be granted and the true new life of transformation  will begin.

The regeneration-justification-sanctification connection is difficult to explicate - at least as I see it. If regeneration infuses a new nature, does change precede justification? If justification is proved by sanctification, do both then become necessary to be right with God? Are we saved by what Christ has outside of us for us alone or by that and what Christ does to us and in us? The cases and situations that the Apostles had to address in their letters and the realities observed in pastoral situations suggest that these are questions that may be worthy of further exploration.

People such as D.G. Hart and the “crypto-Lutheran” 2Kers at Westminster West can address the whole of Dr. Evans’ responses to the Dr. Trueman’s blog. But I have these two questions. As I find more true in old age than in youth, I’ve got more questions than answers.

The Gospel of Truth-in-Currency

Worldview on Steroids

Last Friday the Rev. Dick Knodel, once a minister of the PCA but mostly of the OPC, who now is pastor of the SW Ohio RP Fellowship which has made
application to be received into the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North American, posted on Facebook a criticism of liberalism's ideological faith. He took to task Washington’s economic, and especially its monetary, policies. He labelled the Fed’s monetary policy as an affront to God who alone has fiat power (the power by which he called the world into existence) and will not share his glory with another.

Now, I don’t understand money except that I need it and never have found I had too much of it. I agree with George Bailey, who when told by the angel second class Clarence that money is not used in heaven, replied, “Well it sure does come in handy down here, bub.” And, while I am not sufficiently knowledgeable of Hebrew to know if the translation is correct, I have long appreciated the NIV’s rendering of Ecclesiastes 10:19: “A feast is made for laughter, wine makes life merry, and money is the answer for everything.”

When it comes to government economic policy, my intution tells me there must be some kind of similarity to the economic realities within which I must live. While I may charge big sums for a long time (though I am restrained by what the evil bankers will allow), the time will come when I will have to (1) pay what I owe, (2) file for bankruptcy, or (3) die. All the options involve pain for somebody. My guess is that there must be some point, however far in the future it may be, when government debt will cause a lot of pain for quite a few somebodies. And, while the government has a power I don’t, which is to make money by printing it, I don’t see how printing money can postpone some kind of economic reckoning indefinitely. However, as Carl Trueman would like to be proved wrong about transformationalism, so I would be very happy to be proved wrong about economics.
 
But, since I don’t understand money, my purpose here is not discuss monetary policy. Rather I call attention to the closing paragraph of Pastor’s Knodel’s commentary where he brings his remarks around to the Gospel:

Come to Christ, the Eternal Word or Fiat-Power, all ye who labor & are heavy laden. Believe in his teaching of private property, and truth-in-currency! Leave off these FALSE PROPHETS & their FALSE GODS!

Someone BETTER is near by who CAN LEAD US OUT OF BONDAGE!

As I said, I do not know much about economics and money, but I do think I understand something about the gospel. And, unless I am misreading Pastor Knodel, the call of the Gospel at the end of his commentary is for those who labor and are heavy laden to come to Christ, the “Fiat-Power.” Faith is to “Believe in his teaching of private property, and truth-in-currency.” Repentance is to “leave off these false prophets and false gods.” The Eternal Word is better and near at hand, and he can lead out of bondage. 


I must admit that I made a rather snarky if accurate statement in response: “That last paragraph is no gospel.” The next day Pastor Knodel was busy, presumably preparing another evangelistic sermon, but found time to try to try to enlighten me: 

Bill Smith I'm not committing a whole lot of time to this line of questioning, but I would remind you that Jesus generally approached people in terms of either Lordship or sin/salvation. For example, the Rich Young Ruler was handled entirely within the Lordship paradigm. From this we deduce that the one implies the other: If Christ is truly your Lord, then you will have bowed the knee to his gospel -- and availed yourself of THAT. And if you have asked him for forgiveness and atonement, then you will also happily accept his sovereignty over you! 

The difficulty Fundies have with the gospels is that Jesus only speaks of his kingdom for the first 2/3 of the gospels, and never did give a bonifide (sic) altar call. He doesn't even talk all that much about sin (and implicitly how much men need to be saved from it). He does talk a whole lot about the necessity of the Kingdom, and how central he is/was to THAT! But if you understand what I said above, there is no problem at all; Christ's ministry is unified and clear. 

The whole of God's revelation (including Moses) has to do with Christ's Word and Kingdom. Men cannot submit to that without the Holy Spirit's work, which works through the gospel of his life (righteousness obtained) and death (atonement made for sin!). 

But when the Spirit so works, man instinctively desires holiness -- part of which is his desire for Christ's Lordship (and definition of righteousness as it is detailed in his Law!). 

Lordship and salvation are friends with each other, just as are the two natures of Christ -- united in one person. In Christ, one implies the other. 

Matthew Bryan also tried to help me: 

Bill, to the extent the whole counsel of God contains the fullest presentation of the gospel, and not only the narrowest view necessary to escape the flames, yes, the gospel is there. 

The gospel is the good news that sets us free from sin, individually, institutionally, culturally. The gospel applied sets us free from the slavery of theft and fraud. Hallelujah! 

Don Freeman chimed in:

You're only preaching the Gospel if you say the magic words, "Choose Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior". Nothing else is Gospel. (sarcasm).

(Bazinga!)

And again:

There was a time when Biblical Christianity was a thorn in the flesh of tyrants, who are always idolaters and who always work to throw off God as described in Psalm 2. But the truncated version of Christianity, which is so popular today, won't oppose the idolatrous state but actually supports it. Shameful.

I confess that I find this all confusing - both Pastor Knodel’s further comments and those of his allies. Somehow this full-Gospel comes back around to U.S currency. It’s all bound up together. But what I suspect is that this is the Gospel of worldview - on steroids. One has to wonder if when Paul said that no man can say Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit, he was thinking about currency.

Here are Jews who are cut to the quick by Peter’s Pentecost sermon and cry out, “Brethren, what must we do?” Peter answers, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Fiat-Word for the forgiveness of sins…Save yourselves from this perverse monetary system.” Here is the just moments ago suicidal Philippian jailer on his knees before Paul and Silas, asking, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Paul replies, “Believe in the Fiat-Word and his teaching of private property and truth-in-currency. And, by the way, this will make Caesar tremble.” And the jailer, cries, "Hallelujah! Good news!" They go into the house to speak more of this currency Gospel, and then the whole household are baptized into this faith. And they all rejoice about truth-in-currency.

To my observation dying is usually pretty hard. I am not saying there are no triumphant deaths, but I don’t think there are so many as hagiographic sermon illustrations might lead us to believe. John Murray’s last intelligible words were not, “I'm about to slip into glory!” but, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” My request is that when I come to die, please do not let within 100 miles of me anyone whose gospel is about Fiat-Words, or Moses’ law, or currencies, or quaking tyrants. I know that then, as now, the only comfort I can hope to get will come from being assured that even my sins, horrendous and innumerable as they are, are covered by Jesus blood.

On the many occasions when I have stood at the Table and given our Lord’s invitation, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls,” I have never once thought of our Lord as the Fiat-Word. I have never once thought I was calling sinners to his monetary system. I didn't know he had one.

I am seldom - no, never - accused of being a pietist. But if this makes me one, go ahead, make my day.

The Unorthodox Curmudgeon

I Need to Go to Paris

There are Questions That Bother Me So

A Fruit of the Spirit? The other day in response to a humorous remark I made on facebook about my being irenic, someone asked, also in a humorous vein, if curmudgeonliness is a fruit of the Spirit. I have thought about it and concluded that it is not. It belongs I think to the realm of common grace. It is a fruit of rationality. How could anyone who is rational consider the state of the world and the church and not be a curmudgeon? How long can it be till people heed Howard Beale’s call, stick their heads out of their windows, and yell, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”? I don’t recommend you stick your head in the church window and yell that at the praise team, but perhaps, something along the lines of, “How did it ever come to this?!”

Daddy before the Smoking
Police Got Him

Gun Safety? My dad owned a pistol. The only time I remember his taking it out was when I was a very little boy and a group of neighborhood men went out one night to see if they might catch a Peeping Tom (they didn’t). I believe my brother got the pistol after my dad died. Anyway, I am for the second amendment and have nothing against guns. But I keep hearing we are supposed to feel safer when people have ready access to guns. However, that has not been my experience. I have driven cars for a company that will pick you up. Twice I have had men take pistols out of a car and carry them in the passenger seat of a car I was driving. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt more afraid than unafraid. Or maybe it wasn't the guns but the people, since guns don't kill people.

Len Dawson

Mind if I Smoke? The other day my old campus minister buddy, Tom Cannon, who posts on his blog only as often as hell freezes over (apparently it last did right after the PCA GA), posted on facebook a picture of Kansas City Chiefs’ quarterback, Len Dawson, drinking Fresca from a bottle and smoking a cigarette at halftime of the 1967 Super Bowl. It reminds us how much things have changed. Smoking is one of the few issues conservative fundamentalists and liberal fundamentalists can join in opposing. In fact the fundamentalists of the left may be even stronger opponents of smoking than my old fundamentalist school teachers - that is, if you’re smoking just regular tobacco. Anyway, just as Walker Percy in his famous piece on bourbon said he would not recommend drinking to anyone, so I would not recommend smoking to anyone. However, I am not sure the world is a better place now that smokers are cast out into outer darkness by people weeping and gnashing their teeth. A favorite picture I have of my dad shows him standing on the steps of a building in Pensacola cigarette just visible in his hand (see above). I remember him, however, as a pipe smoker until a fellow Gideon told him it hurt his “testimony” at which point he gave it up. My Papa (maternal grandfather) was a pipe smoker, and my memories of him smoking his pipe are only warm and nostalgic. I remember when people could smoke in their homes. Heck, I  remember when I could smoke my pipe in the house! I recall years ago a a woman writing in The Readers' Digest that her mother had died when she was a little girl. She wrote that she came home from the funeral and burial and sat in her father’s lap, and of how the smell of cigar embedded in his suit comforted her. Now, I am sure she would write of how the offensive and disgusting smell of the cigar smell caused her to gag, bolt from her father's lap, and run from the room into the arms of a tattooed aunt, who gave her an organic veggie sandwich on gluten free bread.

Don Francisco Moreno

A Reformed Hispanic Network? I know this is not a politically correct question and that it may be looked on as a theologically incorrect one as well, but I have to admit that sometimes the thought comes to me of what would be said if someone formed a Reformed Anglo-American Network. I ask because, as person with an ancestor named Francisco Moreno, I was thinking about starting a Reformed Sort of Hispanic Network. I may limit it, however to fellow white sort of Hispanics. My ancestor who by the way had 27 children was from Spain, you see, and something of an aristocrat. Perhaps it should be the Semi-Aristocratic White Sort-of-Hispanic Network (or SAWSHN).

Shall the Transformationalists  Win? I know I am in a rather small minority who believe the that the kingdom and the church are the same (WCF XXV:2) and that the mission of the kingdom, aka church,  is spiritual (WCF XXV:3, XXXI:5). This view gets scoffed at as a retreat (from what? I am tempted to ask), as a denial of Christ’s Lordship, as inconsistent with Reformed history and theology, as - well unorthodox. As a recovering transformationalist myself, who like all recovering persons can’t understand why others can't admit their problem and go to a meeting or something, I sometimes worry about my minority status and about what would become of me if the transformationalists win. But, then I remember there are so many kinds of transformationalists that transformationalists are unlikely to transform much of anything. There are theonomic-reconstuctionist transformationalists, compassionate conservative transformationalists, Keller transformationalists, neo-Calvinistic transformationalists, Covenanter transformationalists, Kennedy-Falwell transformationalists. And those are just varieties of Reformed transformationalists. Can you imagine if the people of this country tired of the current liberal insanity and asked Reformed transformationalists to see what they can do? I have worried that, if that ever happened, I might be in trouble as revolutions tend to “deal with” those who are in their camp (or big tent) but not sufficiently orthodox. What would they do with me? Stone me as as the judicial law would require? Use a modern equivalent like a firing squad? Imprison me at the hard labor of planting Christian flags on every square inch of the prison yard? Torture me by making me listen to Christian bands around the clock with ? Put me in a reeducation camp to get my mind right by reading Rushdoony? Compassion me to death with help? Do reparative therapy by having me watch old Coral Ridge videos? Put me to work in a soup kitchen? Worse yet, make me attend a Christian aerobics class?  Pass the hemlock please. However, I now think that before they got to me and other 2-Kers, there would be transformationalist internecine war. I could go underground for years before they started looking for me.