The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R Trueman

The cultural revolution that we're going through today has a historic background, and it's not just a thing that's happening right now.

The author drives deep into the history of philosophy and literature to show that all the things that are alarming to so many these days are really just a waypoint in a trajectory that was set centuries ago. Tracing the modern development from Rousseau to (almost) today, the author plays fair with views he opposes, explaining why transgenderism and other pathologies are not considered lowbrow comedy, but are somehow taken seriously in today's world.

Respect life

Here is the outline of the lesson for 2014-01-19, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. It’s based on Psalm 139. As I told the class, even if you aren’t thinking about the topic of this lesson, it would be a blessing to your soul to memorize this Psalm. Even though I forgot the outline (I left it on the printer at home), I managed to remember most of it. I got a little preachy toward the end …

Read

• 139:1–6
• 139:7–12
• 139:13–18
• 139:19–24

The basic outline of the psalm

• God knows me. (1–6)
  • ASK Who does God know to this level of detail? (everyone)
• I can’t escape from him. (7–12)
  • ASK Who can find a place where God can’t reach him? (no one)
• He knows every detail of how I was made, down to the molecule. (13–18)
  • ASK How much does God know about everyone? (everything)
• I hate God’s enemies, but what if I am one of them? (19–24)
  • ASK Why should I be merciful to those who hate God?
    • because to some extent, I am one of them
    • God may lead them to repent and trust in Christ

Implications

• The focus is on the 3rd section (13–18).
• If God knows how I am made, and he made me that way on purpose, what should my attitude be toward how I am made? (respect for life as made by God)
  • What about characteristics that can be corrected by surgery? (cleft lip/palatte?)
• We should have the same attitude about everyone God has made.
• What about those who don’t share our attitude?
  • Pro-choice?
  • Pro-euthenasia
    • The Liverpool Care Pathway was developed by Royal Liverpool University Hospital and Liverpool’s Marie Curie Hospice in the late 1990s for the care of terminally ill cancer patients. Since then the scope of the LCP has been extended to include all patients deemed dying.
    • In 2012, it was revealed that just over half of the total of NHS trusts had received or were due to receive financial rewards to hit targets associated with the use of the care pathway.[1] These payments are made under a system known as “Commissioning for Quality and Innovation” (CQUIN), with local NHS commissioners paying trusts for meeting targets to “reward excellence” in care.
    • In 2012 … the government advised that NHS hospitals should phase out the use of the LCP over the next 6–12 months, and that “NHS England should work with [Clinical Commissioning Groups] to bring about an immediate end to local financial incentives for hospitals to promote a certain type of care for dying patients, including the LCP.

But it’s bigger than health care.

• George -> Elizabeth.
• It is probably coming to your neighborhood, workplace, restaurants.
• So far, urbanized areas are more affected than suburbs, but It is coming.

How should we respond?

• Humility before God (per the psalm: “search me, O God & know my heart” …
• Knowledge that for anyone who is breathing, repentance and faith are still possible.
• Prayer for our neighbors.
• ASK What would we do if a transgendered person or a flamboyantly homosexual person came to worship at Wildwood? What would you do?
  • 1 Cor 6:11 “… and such were some of you.”
• Knowing the Gospel and being ready to share it:
  • In a short sentence: “Christ came into the world to save sinners.” I Tim 1:15
  • In a longer sentence: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:3–4
  • In a familiar sentence: “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

Not necessarily warm and comforting

Phil Johnson once again splits the goalpost.

The End

Regarding the death and end of Bob Guccione, the publisher of Penthouse magazine, Albert Mohler said

You will no doubt hear many Christians who are going to be tempted to say they would not want to be Bob Guccione on the day of judgement. Well, that is certainly true, but in truth every single sinner who does not come to know salvation in Jesus Christ is going to face the full justice and judgement of God. On that day, Bob Guccione will not stand out from the mass of sinners, because every single sinner will be seen with his or her sin fully exposed.

What we see in the death of Bob Guccione is another signal of the fact that human sinfulness is just as ugly as we must know it to be.

Offensive line in the sand

Once again, 120 years ago, Charles Spurgeon said something yesterday.

Liberation theology of the right

Todd Wilken:

You have written that there is a liberation theology of the left and there’s also a liberation theology of the right. Of course a criticism of many of those who were supporting Glen Beck and his Restoring Honor rally was that President Barack Obama is a “liberation theologian.” What do you mean by a liberation theology on the right?

Russell Moore:

Well I think liberation theology is any kind of theology that seeks to bypass the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and the empty tomb in order to get to some temporal value.

And so I think on the left you’ve got a liberation theology that says what we’re looking for is freeing the oppressed and we’re looking for all these — which may be good and right in and of themselves, but when you get to them apart from the Gospel you’re getting something other than the Gospel.

The same thing happens on the right, where you can take values that can be good in and of themselves and can be commendable, but you seek to get to them some other way than through the Gospel.

That’s essentially exactly what is happening in the third temptation of the Lord Jesus. Satan says to him, “You can have all of the kingdoms of the world if you just bow down and worship me.” Jesus refuses to do this even though Jesus ruling over the kingdoms of the world is obviously a good thing.

Ultimate trust

If the history of slavery ought to teach us anything, it is that human beings cannot be trusted with unbridled power over other human beings — no matter what color or creed any of them are. The history of ancient despotism and modern totalitarianism practically shouts that same message from the blood-stained pages of history.

— Thomas Sowell

More about The Shack

Here's 45 minutes or so about The Shack. This is a radio program, and there is an announcement (45 seconds) at the beginning and a couple of breaks (2 minutes each) in the middle.

In the current election

“There is no message in the New Testament for the lost except to tell them that they are lost, that they are under condemnation, that they are under the wrath of God, and that unless they repent they remain lost and will be lost to all eternity. This is what I want to emphasize, that the New Testament has nothing to say to the world this morning except that — nothing whatsoever. Our only message to those who are in the world is to repent and to believe the Gospel — nothing else. There is no further interest taken.

“If a man does not repent and believe the Gospel, well he remains where he is, and the Gospel has nothing further to say to him. There is no hope for the world outside Christ — none whatsoever. There is no improvement predicted or prophesied for the world — none whatsoever.

“There is no greater error or heresy than to think that it is the business of Christian preaching to improve the world somewhat. It's a denial of the Gospel. I am using my language advisedly and soberly. The idea that it is the business of the church to recommend Christian principles to the world and plead with it and ask it to put [them] into practice, to send messages to statesmen and ask them to put [them] into practice, I say, is a denial of [the Gospel].

“The only message of the Gospel to the world is to tell it to repent because it's under the wrath of God, and that unless it repents it's lost, and lost eternally.”

— D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Friendly Fire or Faithful Wounds?

Phil Johnson (from now on, I'll call him Phil), Pyromaniac, has completed a blog series on “contextualization.” To read what I'm talking about so this makes some kind of sense, go here and start reading from the bottom for the first post; to read the comment threads click on the dates; to comment on Pyromaniacs you have to have a Blogger/Google login (but you can read the blog and the comments without registering and you can comment here without registering, though it would be kind if you did so).

I want to comment on the series and its motivations and its implications. I waited until the series was complete before starting — it wasn't intentional, but it turned out to be better, since I've now followed Phil's entire train of thought.

There is an interesting difference between the text of the series proper and the comment threads — including Phil's own comments — that ensued. Please understand that I do not believe for a second Phil has any personal animosity in this; his concern is and ever was for the Gospel.

1. The motivation: I surmise from the timing that Phil started this series as a result of a sermon (about an hour long) and a speech (about an hour and a half long) given by Mark Driscoll (I'll call him Mark from now on), both freely available for download or in the Mars Hill podcast, founding pastor and usual preacher at Mars Hill Church in Seattle (not to be confused with that other Mars Hill). If you only have time for one, pick the speech. In both, Mark makes much of the word “contextualization,” by which he means translating the Gospel into terms that are understandable in the culture in which it is being proclaimed.
2. The problem: As Phil sees it, some have bent “contextualization” in a church planting context or missionary context into a shape that means “syncretism,” the adopting of pagan practices and beliefs as Christian. There are some for whom this is undeniably true, e.g., Doug Pagett or Rob Bell.
3. The implication (or the inference Phil seems to want us to draw): Mark should be avoided because he uses a word others use to mean something different. Further, since Mark's church participates in “worldly practices” as a church (this is the subject of previous blog posts and/or comments), even his detailed declarations of orthodoxy (right Biblical belief) are suspect.
4. The method: Phil begins the discussion by deconstructing (!) the word “contextualize”.
5. More method: Phil disputes the claim by the postmoderns that Paul the apostle in Acts 17 “affirmed” the culture in Athens in any way. Rather, Paul's strategy was to declare the Gospel as a contradiction of their culture and beliefs by “[unpacking] the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection and proclaim it with clarity”.

Analysis

1. There are several things Phil is right about.
1. Phil rightly protests the fact that the definition of “contextualize” is in general difficult to pin down.
2. Deconstruction can be a useful tool in “tearing down strongholds” of unbelief.
3. Using a word that is so wide open to interpretation that it has to be explained every time you say it to know which of the variegated meanings you intend is burdensome on both the speaker and the listener. In deconstructing “contextualize,” Phil is pointing out that many of the folks who are saying it are putting themselves in the position of Humpty Dumpty in Through The Looking Glass: (‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that's all.’).
4. Some of the people saying “contextualization” have bad theology and mean bad things when they use this particular word. The same thing could be said of those who abuse a word like “love.” As the old song says, “We say we love Coca-Cola, and we love mother's hot apple pie.” (Is anyone old enough to recognize that reference?)
5. Much of what goes on in the culture around us is questionable at best. Television, movies, music are all unreliable sources of belief. Or reliable sources of unbelief.
6. No one objects to translating the Gospel into understandable terms so people within a culture are able to understand it. (Phil said this in one of the comment threads.)
2. There are, however, several assumptions that lie under what Phil has said, and it is useful to bring them to the surface for examination .
1. Anyone who uses a word for which the definition across the spectrum of those who use it is fluid or even nebulous is automatically suspect, a kind of “guilt by vocabulary.”

   Evaluation:Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in. For all of Phil's protest over “contextualize” as a word (along with its conjugates), he continues to use words like “charity” in an in-house manner that won't be understood by those who only think of “charity” in terms the IRS will understand.

2. In protesting that the culture is opposed to the Gospel (which is true of every secular culture) Phil has implicitly embraced the notion that there is such a thing as a “Christian culture.”

   Evaluation: There's no problem with that statement as such. There are, however, two questions we must frequently ask ourselves:

   1. What part of what has grown up in our churches, what part of our culture, is extra-Biblical?
   2. What part of the Christian culture is therefore disposable?

   To ask these questions at once and in an operational and slightly more provocative, way: How has the offense ceased to be the Gospel and started being merely the Christian culture?

   And, to drive on to the next logical question, what does this say about our attitude about the sufficiency of Scripture?

3. Phil's series and the comments of many might be construed by some as friendly fire, i.e., the shooting of one's compatriots and allies. However, I believe Phil is engaged in polemics, the way you argue with your friends over some principle or doctrine you disagree about. I think Phil would get more yardage of substance (to mix metaphors) out of his disagreement with Mark over continuationalism. But in the present discussion, Phil is really talking more about others in the debate, and Mark gets drawn in via guilt by vocabulary (he said, repeating himself).

Thoughts, anyone?

Words of warning from a liberal theologian

This quote comes from someone you don't want to be associated with, one of the proponents of “post-liberal” theology. Here he is offering a critique of the way modern Evangelicals think about the Cross of Christ. I have inserted some expanatory notes in [brackets].

Our increasingly feel-good therapeutic culture is antithetical to talk of the Cross, and our consumerist society has made the doctrine a pariah. A more puzzling feature of this development as it has affected professedly confessional churches is the silence that has surrounded it. There have been few audible protests. Even most contemporary theologies of the Cross fit the pattern of Jesus as model. But justification itself is rarely described in accordance with the Reformation pattern, even by conservative Evangelicals. Most of them are conversionists holding to Arminian versions of the ordo salutis [the order of events in the salvation of an individual], which are further removed from Reformation theology than was the [Roman Catholic] Council of Trent. Therefore, where the Cross once stood is now a vacuum.

— George Lindbeck

About the Council of Trent: Follow the link, then look at the Canons (laws) that follow the heading “ON JUSTIFICATION” about two-thirds of the way down, starting between the markers [Page 44] and [Page 45]. Pay special attention to Canons IX, XI, XII, XXIV, and XXV (that's 9, 11, 12, 24, and 25 in English). If you agree with what these canons say, go make your confession to a priest, because you are already functioning as a Roman Catholic.