Death in the City - Chapter Four: An Echo of the World

Here, Schaeffer examines whom Jeremiah was speaking to. It was not merely to the ordinary man on the street, but included the leaders, to kings, prophets and religious leaders anyone drawing the people away from God. His audience included even the land itself.

An example: “The princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf; I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth” (Jer. 34:19-20).

But his sharpest criticisms were aimed at the religious leaders who were leading the people astray. Jer. 2:8 – “The priests said not, ‘Where is the Lord?’ and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.”

Just as then, so today many religious leaders are leading people astray, away from God’s truth. Many try to treat people with love by toning down the message of Scripture. Today’s leaders and yesterday’s prophets are not speaking for God. Schaeffer says they are merely “taking the social consensus of their day and speaking as though that was the Word of God”. Their message is just an echo of those in society, those whom we could call secularism’s priesthood, such as unbelieving philosophers, scientists and sociologists. They merely couch the message in theological jargon.

In previous generations, even if the culture at large was mainly deistic, one could still walk into a church and hear the truth. This is not the case anymore in many churches. What you hear today are echoes. Jer. 23:30 – “Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words every one from his neighbour.” One prophet repeats a message he heard from another prophet. The theology of today is likewise merely an echo, an echo of what “man says, what materialistic society teaches, what materialistic psychology teaches, what materialistic economics teaches, what materialistic philosophy teaches.”

Schaeffer asks, “Do you expect God to sit there and just…say, ‘Isn’t that nice?...And if such a god existed what…would be the use of having him?”

Men of today are no different from those of Jeremiah’s day. Schaeffer says, “Men today do not perhaps burn the Bible…But men destroy it in the form of exegesis; they destroy it in the way they deal with it. They destroy it by not reading it as written in normal literary form, by ignoring historical-grammatical exegesis, by changing the Bible’s own perspective of itself as propositional revelation in space and time, in history….You who call yourselves Bible-believing Christians…should be filled with wonder and amazement that men dare so treat God’s Word.”

Jesus: An Inconvenient Truth

This First Things blog post makes some observations about the pretensions a certain film director cum "biblical scholar"

Refusals as resolutions

Douglas Groothuis has listed what he resolves not to do in 2007.

Death in the city - Chapter three

Death in the City – Chapter Three: The Message of Judgment

Schaeffer continues his look at Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. Just as he wept, we too must weep over our church and culture. Neither Jeremiah’s life nor his message was easy. So must our message be. Schaeffer writes: “Christianity is not romantic, not soft. It is tough-fibered and realistic. And the Bible gives us the realistic message I am convinced the church today must preach if it is to be any help in the post-Christian world.” Such a message will make us unpopular both in the church and in the culture.

In Jeremiah’s day there was much external religiosity, but the people had turned away from God to other things. Thus, He rejected their offerings and sacrifices. “When men turn away from the propositional revelation of God, it destroys the acceptability of our worship to God. We are not jousting over abstract theological terms. We are dealing with a question of believing God and believing his revealed truth.”

Jeremiah also rebuked the people’s apostasy. This is the hallmark of our current generation and shows up in the church as relativism. “Men no longer believe that there are absolutes, and more and more it has become the accepted thing not to speak the truth….As men have turned away from God, who alone gives a basis for absolutes in truth, men have become untruthful and hypocritical with each other.”

Jeremiah also rebuked the people for looking to the world for help, everywhere except to God. But that help failed. In the same way the church today looks elsewhere, to mere psychology, to new theology. Schaeffer is adamant that we must look directly to God for help. “It must be the Lord’s work done in the Lord’s way.”

As a result, Jeremiah’s message to the Jews was: utter destruction. “When men turn away from God, the city becomes the city of destruction.” Jeremiah 9:11 says, “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals; and I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there.”

Schaeffer concludes: “Our generation needs to be told that man cannot disregard God, that a culture like ours that has had such light and then has deliberately turned away stands under God’s judgment. God is a god of grace, but the other side of the coin of grace is judgment. If God is there, if God is holy (and we need a holy god or we have no absolutes), there must be judgment….The final reality is that God is really there….But does your Christianity end with something less than God who is there?

Favourite Christmas Hymn

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

This is without a doubt the greatest Christmas hymn written. It cuts through all the clutter (no cattle lowing, no angels with golden harps, no rustic little towns, no narrative of wise men or shepherds – not that there’s anything wrong with these things, but the hymn gives us the main point of it all). What’s the main point? God with us. God saves us. God for us. As C.S. Lewis wrote: “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”

Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

Refrain
Hark! the herald angels sing,“Glory to the newborn King!”

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;
Christ the everlasting Lord;
Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

Refrain

Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

Refrain

Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display Thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to Thine.

Refrain

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
O, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.

Refrain

The Christmas Star

There have been many theories regarding the star of Bethlehem. I happen to think that Michael Molnar's theory is the best one.

Will's way with words

Why do people like Shakespeare?
And what would it be like to be insulted by him? (of course I would never say such things to a person...though I might write them...anonymously...)

Blurbing books

Scot McKnight has a humourous post on writing book blurbs

Death in the City - Chapter Two: The Loneliness of Man

The current generation has a hunger for meaning in life (this seems to apply as much today as is did in 1968). Unfortunately, the “dust of death” is everywhere. They hunger for meaning because they have forgotten their main purpose in life. To quote the Westminster Shorter Catechism, our chief purpose is “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Both parts of that succinct statement are needed. Since we’re made in His image, genuine fulfillment can only be in reference to God which brings about an “affirmation of life”. In Christianity the whole man needs fulfillment. This is unlike Platonism where the soul finds final fulfillment and the body is minimized.

Even though, like today’s generation, the Jews of Jeremiah’s day turned away from the true God, they at least turned to idols, recognizing that there was something out there. Only recent modern generations have turned away to God to a belief in a purely materialistic universe. But this means we’ve turned away from the only one who can comfort us and bring meaning, the infinite-personal God who is there.

What are the consequences of turning away from God? Not only the loss of individuals but the loss of our culture. Insofar as the culture was built on Reformation principles, turning away brings death to the city. Schaeffer quotes Lamentations 1:19. “I called to my lovers but they deceived me; my priests and elders perished in the city while seeking food to revive their strength”. He extends the word “city” to include the concept of “polis”, the sociological group or culture.

But what sort of death will this be? It manifests itself most sharply in the form of loneliness. If we reject God, believing that there is no God, then there is no purpose for man’s existence. He is surrounded by thousands or millions of others in the city and yet he is lonely.
He concludes, “In Jeremiah’s day God worked into history upon the basis of His character, and He continues to do so….God judged [the Jews] as they had turned away from Him. He will do the same in our generation.”

Favourite Hymn #10

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Refrain
Rejoice! Rejoice!Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Refrain

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

Refrain

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Refrain

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

Refrain

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

Refrain

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

Refrain

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Refrain

Death in the City - chapter one

Death in the City by Francis Schaeffer (IVP, 1968)

Chapter One

This book is an adaptation of a series of lectures Schaeffer gave at Wheaton College in 1968. He starts the book with the question: How should orthodox, bible-believing Christians view life in a post-Christian world? His goal is to attempt to answer this question through the lens of Jeremiah, Lamentations and Romans.

To those who long for revival, Schaeffer offers this corrective: “There cannot be true revival unless there has been reformation.” He also admits that reformation is incomplete in the absence of revival. The two go together. He writes: “Reformation refers to a restoration to pure doctrine; revival refers to a restoration in the Christian’s life.”

He lays the blame for the directionless and morally bankrupt nature of our society on human foolishness. Quoting Romans 1:21-22, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasoning”. This foolishness in rejecting God is not merely religious foolishness, but intellectual foolishness. Man has taken a position that is out of step with what he, if he really examines things carefully, knows to be true about the universe. Thus, he is left in a position of intellectual and personal tensions. He laments that, while humans have always turned from God, the speed with which western society has rejected God in his own generation is remarkable.

His phrase “post-Christian”, is now part of the evangelical lexicon. In the generation before his, Christians could have had common ground on which to discuss question of value, ethics, and religion; but in the course of a generation, western (European/North American) culture has abandoned its cultural, religious and intellectual heritage.

He sums up the result of this rejection with strong words: Western culture is under the wrath of God.

There is currently a popular praise song called “Days of Elijah”. Schaeffer, however, believes that we are living in the day of Jeremiah. He writes: “The book of Jeremiah and…Lamentations show how God looks at a culture that knew Him and deliberately turned away. But this is not just the character of Jeremiah’s day of apostasy. It’s my day. It’s your day.”

How does God judge? Unlike Zeus who throws down thunderbolts, God can directly intervene or he can simply turn away, letting the natural course of history do what it has always done. Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. These are the civilizations that make up the detritus of history. Western culture is in danger of the same fate. He concludes the chapter with this statement: “As the Jews of Jeremiah’s day were hungry for bread and had no comforter, our post-christian world is hungry in state and society and in the individual longings of the heart, for it too has turned in our own day from the only sufficient Comforter.”

Favourite Hymn #11

O God Our Help in Ages Past

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.

Thy Word commands our flesh to dust,
“Return, ye sons of men:”
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by the flood,
And lost in following years.

Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

Like flowery fields the nations stand
Pleased with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower’s hand
Lie withering ere ‘tis night.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

Reformed Dogmatics - Introduction

Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics – Prolegomena (Baker Academic, 2003) isn’t exactly an easy book to read or summarize. So I'll just summarize the intro and let y'all read the book.

This is the first of a four volume set. The series is edited by John Bolt of Calvin Theological Seminary and translated by the late John Vriend.

The introduction is written by Bolt. Bavinck’s Dogmatics was first published a hundred years ago and represents the high point of four hundred years of Dutch Reformed theological thought. He was also serious about engaging other theological traditions such as Roman Catholicism and modern liberal Protestantism.

Kampen and Leiden

Bolt begins with a brief biography and a short history of the religious and political circumstances surrounding Bavinck’s life. Bavinck was born in 1854. He was indelibly shaped by the deep pietism of Reformed spiritual life, in particular that of the Christian Reformed Church which had seceded from the National Reformed Church in the Netherlands twenty years before his birth.

Although he began his theological training at Kampen Theological School, the seminary of the CRC, he transferred, to his parent’s dismay, to the Univesity of Leiden, the training from which was one of the biggest influences in his theological thinking. His reason was to “become acquainted with the modern theology firsthand” and to receive “a more scientific training than the Theological School is presently able to provide.” His time at Leiden seems to have shaken his faith somewhat. Bavinck wrote: “Will I remain standing in the faith? God grant it.” Bolt writes: “The Leiden experience gave rise to what Bavinck perceived as the tension in his life between his commitment to orthodox theology and spirituality and his desire to understand and appreciate what he could about the modern world, including its worldview and culture.” This tension in his thinking revealed itself in his attempt to reconcile modernity with Reformed pietism.

An example of this tension is found in his creation theology, where he engages the modern philosophy of Kant and Hegel, the scientific theory of Darwin, and the geological theories of his day.

Grace and Nature

It would probably be folly to try to encapsulate Bavinck’s theology in a short statement, but this might work: “His heart and mind sought a Trinitarian synthesis of Christianity and culture, a Christian worldview that incorporated what was best and true in both pietism and modernism, while above all honoring the theological and confessional richness of the Reformed tradition dating from Calvin.”

The framework Bavinck used to do this was Dutch neo-Calvinism, a theological movement propelled by its pioneer, Abraham Kuyper, politician, future Dutch prime minister, journalist, founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, and aggressive adversary of the modern spirit in church and society. Dutch neo-Calvinism set its sights not only on church matters but also on the whole realm of thought, “the arts, the professions, education, culture, society, and politics”. It was, like Bavinck, “appreciative of much in the modern world but not uncritically so.” Bavinck writes, “The thoughtful person places the doctrine of the Trinity in the very center of the full-orbed life of nature and mankind.” His whole theology is shaped by the Trinitarian concept that “grace restores nature.”

Prolegomena

Theological prolegomena deal with “introductory matters of definition and method”. Bavinck defines “dogmatics” as the “knowledge that God has revealed in his Word to his church concerning himself and all creatures as they stand in relation to him.” Bavinck never backed away from honestly engaging modern thought, notably, the Kantian claim that “God cannot be known and the subsequent effort to maintain the study of theology as a form of human religious experience.”

Traditional Reformed theology is organized around six loci (i.e. chief themes or places): the doctrine of God, humanity, Christ, salvation, the church, and last things. Bavinck follows these throughout this work.

Bolt’s words sum up things well: “Dogmatic theology is a science; it is a disciplined, rigorous, systematic study of the knowledge of God. Strictly speaking not every believer is or needs to be a theologian. The long history of theology parallels the life-history of the church but is not identical with it. In that connection, Bavinck’s lengthy discussion of the history of dogmatics has few parallels in any single volume published more recently…though it is a century old, Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics continues to be relevant to many issues still discussed in theology today….it is biblically and confessionally faithful, pastorally sensitive, challenging, and still relevant.”

I've got too much time on my hands.

Your Language Arts Grade: 100%

Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).

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Make a Quiz

The Great Depression

By Pierre Berton (Penguin, 1990)

I’m actually not going to summarize this book – the structure doesn’t lend itself to summarization easily (and if isn’t easy I won’t do it). I’m about halfway through it. Berton’s prose is light and readable and he has the knack of telling a story well. If all Berton writes is correct then one can only shake one’s head in disbelief at the incompetence of Canada’s leaders in the 1930’s – William Lyon Mackenzie King, R.B. Bennet, et al. Had Canada had reasonably competent leaders the suffering may have been mitigated somewhat. This is not to say that there would have been no suffering at all. Nor that there would have not been much suffering. But to have had as much suffering as did occur is unconscionable.

One story Berton tells is pretty sad. A couple with one son decide, after losing everything, that their only recourse is to kill themselves. They use what’s left to buy a little gas for their car, park in a school garage, connect a hose from the exhaust to the inside of the car and wait for death. Unfortunately, due to their poverty, they weren’t able to buy enough gas to do the job for the whole family. The parents survived but their young son’s cold lifeless body lay in the back seat. Distraught, the mother tells her husband to stab her to death with a butcher’s knife. In order to avoid any unnecessary pain, he tries to knock her out first with an engine crank. The carbon monoxide did just enough, though, to weaken him so that he couldn’t generate enough force. So he decides to just stab her, but he’s not strong enough to penetrate her winter coat. He tries to slice her throat but the blade misses her carotid and she ends up still alive but bleeding profusely. They use razor blades to cut their wrist but the cuts aren’t deep enough. They finally give up and wait for a slow and agonizing death. They were found in time. Later they were charged with the murder of their son.

Well, there are heartwarming stories in the book as well. I’ve also heard stories from seniors in my church about their experiences during the depression, stories of poverty but also stories of faith, compassion and God’s providential care. Berton’s story is worth reading. And the stories of those who went through those times are worth hearing.

What's next

In lieu of my actually writing anything interesting I think I’ll (try to) summarize some of the books I’ve been reading recently. I’m a slow reader so these may come somewhat less than speedily. Nor is it at all certain that I’ll be able to capture the relevant or salient points the author is making. In fact, it’s more probable that I’ll miss his/her point completely and lead you, cherished reader of this blog, on a wild goose chase of non-existent and/or highly underdeveloped ideas/content that were not even the main point(s) of the book. (I should probably edit that last sentence but, eh, whatever…). So, let the excitement begin! (yawn)

What kind of reader are you?

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Read this

Some people think Man or Rabbit may be C.S. Lewis' best short essay. I think they could be right.

Favourite Hymn #12

For the Beauty of the Earth

For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies.

Refrain:
Lord of all to Thee we raise,
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour,
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light.

Refrain

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind's delight,
For the mystic harmony
Linking sense to sound and sight.

Refrain

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild.

Refrain

For Thy Church that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore
Her pure sacrifice of love.

Refrain

For the martyrs' crown of light,
For Thy prophets' eagle eye,
For Thy bold confessors' might,
For the lips of infancy.

Refrain

For Thy virgins' robes of snow,
For Thy maiden mother mild,
For Thyself, with hearts aglow,
Jesu, Victim undefiled.

Refrain

For each perfect gift of Thine,
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of Heaven,

Refrain

Youth trends

Time magazine has a story on what I hope is a good trend in the church