Anti-intellectualism No Answer to Dead Orthodoxy

"At many times in history, Christians reacted against academic versions of theology that deaden life. Examples like the Great Awakenings, the rise of Pietism, Kierkegaard's rejection of state Lutheranism, and the charismatic renewals come to mind. Too often, evangelicals today replace dead orthodoxy with anti-intellectual activism or moralism rather than with theologically vital spirituality. The model of piety valued most among evangelicals typically stresses inward moral holiness and outward Christian service set in opposition to reflective thought.

"...Indeed, the church cannot avoid theology in seeking to fulfill its mission. Though some think they can suspend theology, avoid the academic stratosphere, and achieve practical relevance, they succeed only in replacing a well-considered theology with a hodgepodge of theological scraps randomly interlaced with cultural ideas." - David Clark, To Know and Love God: Method for Theology, pp. 208-209.

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Interview with the Editors of A Theology for the Church

James Hamilton Jr. posts Part I of an interview with Peter R. Schemm and David P. Nelson, the associate editors of a recently released systematic theology titled A Theology for the Church. Here are their responses to James's initial question about why pastors should continue studying theology:

DPN: ....Pastors should read theology because the ministry of the pastor, from preaching to any number of pastoral acts, is inherently theological. So, the most faithful pastors will be good theologians, and good theologians are made through years of continuous reflection of the teachings of Scripture. I think it is important, as a professor of theology in a seminary, to pursue a lifelong study of theology. How much more important, then, for a pastor, who has the responsibility to feed God’s sheep, to study theology continually. We hope A Theology for the Church will aid and enrich such study of the Scriptures.


PRS: The most compelling reason that a pastor ought to read/study theology is that it is the essence of his vocation to do so. The nature of pastoral ministry is so directly rooted in truth and doctrine that the Apostle Paul can hardly write a paragraph of the so called Pastoral Epistles without referring to something like “the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth” (Titus 1:1; cf. 1 Tim 1:3; 2 Tim 1:13). This makes sense since the church itself is “the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth” (1 Tim 3:15). And, it is also why so many of the great pastors throughout the history of the church were theologians—from Paul to Augustine to Luther to Fuller. It is our hope, then, that TFC will assist in forming the next generation of pastor-theologians.

The interview also addresses the benefits of encouraging lay people to study theology and suggestions for cultivating a church atmosphere in which biblical theology is valued. Thanks, James!

Biblical Counseling Resources

I recently described an article by David Powlison as one of the most thorough treatments on the subject of lust that I've ever read. With P&R's permission, Justin Taylor is posting excerpts from a revision of that article as it appears in Seeing With New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture. Here's what he's posted so far: Introduction, Question 1, Question 2, Question 3, Question 4. Do yourself a favor by reading these and forthcoming excerpts.

Tim Lane, coauthor with Paul Tripp of How People Change and Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, has been appointed as CCEF's Executive Director.

Tom Brown reflects on the church's role in the counseling process:

In the contemporary world we have all become familiar with the notion of the support group. The local church is God’s ultimate support group. But unlike the contemporary model that orders its support around habitual sin like alcoholism, gambling or gluttony, the New Testament orders its support in Jesus Christ as Lord among the visible community of forgiven sinners. The ministry aim of this community is not just to deal with the symptoms of sin but to go to the heart of the matter and deal with sin at its root. This happens when the church can competently say with Paul, “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ” (Colossians 1:28).

Church-Shopping Teens

The New York Times reports on the church-attending habits of American teenagers. According to the article, the practice of attending multiple churches is "particularly pronounced among young people" who, while they may go to church with their families, also participate in youth programs offered by other congregations. The article cites a survey conducted by the National Study of Youth and Religion under the leadership of Christian Smith, author of the book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (about which I blogged here and here).


Many parents are enthused that their children want to participate in religious services even if at another congregation.

Parents also want their children to have an "authentic" relationship to faith, and "if you don't choose it, it's not authentic for you," said Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina and director of the survey on youth and religion.  Emily and her parents, who are evangelical Christians, say her decision to attend the megachurch, New Life, reveals the strength of her faith and the profoundly individual spiritual course each believer follows.

"I saw that my parents' relationship to Christ and my relationship to Jesus Christ were different, and my kids aren't going to relate to Jesus Christ the same way we do," said Emily's mother, Tracy Hoogenboom, 49. "And that's to be expected because Jesus Christ is your own personal lord and savior."

Focus on the Family's director of teenage evangelism, Jose Zayas, also expresses approval for the trend: "[Teenagers] gravitate to where they feel a connection. They're more pragmatic than their parents' generation. They look at what works for them. I think it's healthy."



I have to count myself among those who, according to the article, decry this approach as consumeristic. I wouldn't expect the Times to cover this aspect but something I'm concerned about is how this growing trend might adversely affect teens' ability to construct coherent biblical/theological frameworks. When I was a new believer, eager to learn all I could about the faith, I listened to Christian radio every chance I could, sometimes for hours on end. I listened to teaching from a variety of conflicting theological perspectives and wondered how they fit together. I eventually came to realize that such integration was not always possible because the assumed theological systems (which are inevitable) were contradictory in many points. I fear that in many cases, participation in multiple congregations will only contribute to further splintering young minds that are already fragmented.  I'd be interested in hearing others' reactions to the article so if you read it please share your thoughts.

Four Challenges for the Church

Today on Stand to Reason's blog Greg Koukl identifies four challenges facing the church and three of them are from within. Among them is an implicit relativism in the church due to valuing experience over truth:

This happened because there is an unhealthy hunger for an experience of personal revelation that has replaced our hunger for truth. Many Christians desperately want God to communicate with them directly. They are taught more and more from pulpits all around the country that this is what every Christian can expect to happen. This trend has seriously distracted Christians from focusing on the Word already given, the Bible.

A related problem I see is that of a faulty ecclesiology that fails to appreciate the corporate or communal nature of the church. Most of the "you's" in the New Testament are plural ("y'all"), addressing whole bodies of believers. However, we're prone to read them as though they're addressed to us as individuals in isolation from the rest of God's people . For example, Paul's admonition to not "let the sun go down on your anger" lest we give the devil an opportunity (Eph. 4:26-27) is frequently presented as a warning against the possible demonization of the Christian who nurses bitterness regardless of the fact that the whole chapter is a call to preserve the unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4:1-3). The thrust is corporate not individualistic. When Jesus' followers nurse bitterness against each other and refuse to pursue reconciled relationships, we give Satan an opportunity to disrupt our communion and mar our witness to the world and the principalities and powers.

In his book The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit, Craig Van Gelder claims that the current emphasis on the individual believer is in large part due to the influence of Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke. According to Locke's social contract theory, the only social obligations to which one is bound are those entered into voluntarily. Van Gelder quotes from Locke's "A Letter Concerning Toleration" in which he applies his theory to the nature of the church:

I take (it) to be a voluntary society of men joining themselves of their own accord in a church order to the public worshipping of God in such manner as they judge acceptable to Him....I say it is a free and voluntary society. Nobody is born a member of the church....since the joining together of several members into this church-society...is absolutely free and spontaneous, it necessarily follows that the right of making its laws can belong to none but the society itself; or at least to those whom the society by common consent has authorized thereunto.

On the result of adopting this understanding of the nature of the church, Van Gelder writes:

In this view, while the divine aspects of the nature of the church may be included confessionally, the church's identity is shaped primarily by its social organization. Because of the voluntary, individualistic nature of joining this social organization, its focus tends to be on the rights and privileges associated with membership, not on a covenantal commitment to the community and its values.

Of course, the New Testament does have much to say about the ministry of the Spirit in the life of the believer. The issue is one of emphasis. Van Gelder offers the following clarification:

While the calling, saving, sealing, gifting, and empowering works of the Spirit can be developed biblically from the perspective of the individual, this is not the New Testament's primary focus in defining the relationship between the Spirit and the church. The Bible's focus is not on individual Christians but on the formation of a new type of community, a new humanity that is indwelt by the Spirit.

I Want My MTD!

I just got around to reading an article that appeared in Easter Sunday's New York Times Magazine called "The Soul of the New Exurb." What are exurbs? Once small counties experiencing rapid growth "into dense communities of subdivisions filled with middle-class families likely to move again and again, settling in yet another exurb but putting down no real roots." The piece highlights Surprise, AZ and the megachurch of 5,000 that has grown in its midst. If the writer's description is accurate, it takes no stretch of the imagination to see why the authors mentioned in my previous post on "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" believe that the unorthodox theological beliefs of American teens don't differ all that much from those held by adults. Describing Lee McFarland, the church's senior pastor, Jonathan Mahler writes:

McFarland works under the assumption that people don't want to be intimidated by their pastors, that modernity has punctured the myth of the morally superior religious leader. He is replacing the sinner-be-damned fundamentalism that once characterized much of evangelical Christianity with forgiveness. McFarland never talks about transforming your life though struggle, surrender or sacrifice; he talks about being happier by accepting Jesus -- into your office, your kitchen, your backyard, your marital bed, everywhere. "People aren't looking for the elevated holy man who's got all of the answers," he told me one afternoon. "They want someone to be real with them."

There are more false dichotomies in that one paragraph than I know what to do with. Fortunately, we don't have to choose between taking a morally superior stance and telling a fellow sinner that he, just like us, is guilty of sin and in need of receiving God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It is exactly because I am under God's condemnation that the message of forgiveness is such good news. The pronouncement of forgiveness through faith in Jesus is not meant to replace the declaration that sinners will be damned but rather, presupposes it. Have we so imbibed the cultural concept of tolerance that we now think it self-righteous to preach the gospel?

The article notes that the church was built on Rick Warren's "Purpose-Driven Church" techniques. This included polling residents to find out what kind of music they listened to and why they believed people didn't go to church. The answers to these questions were then used to structure the services. Fuller Theological Seminary professor Eddie Gibbs, author of Church Next, warns: "The danger though, is that you end up with a Gospel that endeavors to meet your needs without challenging your priorities." He notes in his book that "Worship is designed not to make people feel good about themselves . . . but to make them holy" and offers the following caution concerning limiting worship music to sentimental praise songs: "Intimate worship that degenerates into a casual overfamiliarity is both presumptuous and embarrassing to those who see God from a transcendental perspective."