The Presbyterian Curmudgeon wishes for a merry Christmas album

With just five days to Christmas, I suppose it's time to officially give up on this year's Christmas offerings. Having been enchanted by She & Him's first two albums, I had high hopes for A Very She & Him Christmas, but said hopes were dashed. Not bad, but it felt like they were much too cool to fully commit themselves in the way a Christmas album demands. Having said that, I did like their rendition of "Baby, It's Cold Outside," in which they reverse the lines assigned to male and female.

As nothing else has emerged to capture my imagination this Yuletide season, I find myself harkening back fondly to Raul Malo's Marshmellow World and Other Holiday Favorites. And being disappointed with She & Him's "Little Saint Nick," I've now determined the definitive version is by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem on the 1979 classic John Denver & the Muppets: A Christmas Together.

Looks like another round of traditional Christmas tunes for the curmudgelings this year.

Christmas Sunday & the marks of the Church

From the time of the Reformation, Protestants have used three "marks" to identify true Churches: the faithful preaching of the Word, the proper administration of the sacraments, and the Biblical exercise of Church discipline. As Westminster Confession of Faith 25.4-5 recognize, these marks are not absolute rules, but are observed on something like a sliding scale, as particular Churches are "more or less pure" according to how purely they exercise these marks.

Two out of these three marks are explicitly liturgical, that is, concerned with the Church's Lord's Day worship, and the third is at least implicitly liturgical. This is why I've come to believe American evangelicalism has definitely begun its slide into apostasy.

Do a Google search for "no Sunday services on Christmas," or something similar, and you'll get a remarkable number of hits. While at least one Denver-area congregation points to the difficulty of using its rented facilities due to the holiday, most of these evangelical congregations (and all the ones I found give every indication of being in the evangelical camp, as opposed to, say, mainline Protestant) either give no explanation or say Christmas is a day to spend with family. As a Christian who has a family which includes small children, I agree that Christmas is certainly a day to spend with family; it's just that Sunday is always a day to spend with family in worship services.

I don't know how to quantify this phenomenon, but I'll guess the number of congregations cancelling Sunday services this December 25, 2011 is fairly small, percentage-wise. Nonetheless, the fact this story is attracting much less attention than it did back in 2005 is telling: the evangelical community has become that much more indifferent to Lord's Day worship. Not hostile, mind you: just indifferent as to whether worship services on the Christian Sabbath are all that necessary to a Church's identity.

Which brings me back to my main point: if a group of people don't even gather together to perform those exercises which might serve as marks of a true Church, can they be considered a Church at all?

Maybe this will help with my commute

Looks to me like the new spaceport will be in Aurora, but I'm sure Denver will annex it if it starts making any money.

Free systematic theology!

I was privileged to study systematic theology under Robert Strimple just a few years before he retired, and was quite pleased when Westminster Seminary California's first endowed chair was named in his honor. While it's not quite the same as being in the classroom, his lectures are now available online as free mp3 downloads. Get 'em while they're hot!

Also good in liquid form

Beer: it's literally a life-saver.

Take that, John MacArthur.

Mmmhop(s)

Dear Hanson,

Please, oh please do not be yanking my chain. Mmmhop(s)? It's a dream come true.

love,

The Presbyterian Curmudgeon

Imposing their religion

NPR ran a story today on Morning Edition about the effort of some Roman Catholic institutions to fight against provisions in federal law requiring employers to provide contraception services in health care plans on the grounds this violates their religious beliefs and doctrinal standards. Sadly, the ACLU, which once upon a time was interested in preserving civil liberties such as those enumerated in the First Amendment, has taken sides against these Roman Catholic institutions. 

But [Sarah] Lipton-Lubet of the ACLU says this isn't a fight about religious liberty.
"What the bishops and their allies are asking for is the ability to impose their religious beliefs on people who don't share them," she said.

Ms. Lipton-Lubet seems sadly irony-impaired, not realizing her organization is joining forces with the federal government of these United States to impose their religious beliefs on people who don't share them.

Why I'm not on Facebook

Larknews posts this cautionary tale.

At last, something specific for "Occupiers" to protest

Switzerland's highest court has ruled that local authorities can impose fines on people hiking nude in the Alps.

No Biking in the House without a Helmet

    In this book, Melissa Fay Greene tells the story of how she and her husband came to adopt five children internationally in addition to their four biological children. Much of the early part of the book is taken up with the mechanics of international adoption, and so does not apply directly to parents such as ourselves who adopt domestically through social services. However, the more substantial part of the book is the story of how the family incorporated five new members, not as babies, but as children who had already had families of their own. As her family expands to an unwieldy size, Greene begins asking herself, and the reader, a basic question: are they becoming a family, or a group home?

    By the book’s end, as one might expect, they are clearly a family, but Greene offers no formula as to how they got there. Throughout the book, and without explanation, Greene inserts chapters on the developing personalities of each of her children, along with others recounting various anecdotes in the family’s history. Taken together, these explain how they became a family: each child is loved and appreciated for who he or she is as a unique person; and even more, a family becomes a family by acting like a family.

5 minutes you'll never get back

English cuisine is still a horrorshow, and Sting is still an easy target.

No theory of religious liberty?

Peter Leithart provides this provocative summary of Steven Smith's Foreordained Failure: the Quest for a Constitutional Principle of Religious Freedom.

 

Christmastime is beer (2011)

As a public service, I thought I should inform the world of the beers I'd like to see under my Christmas tree or proffered to me by supplicants.

You're welcome, world.

My favorites (i.e., by the case, please) are Full Sail Wassail from Full Sail Brewing and Breckinridge Brewery's Christmas Ale. This year, I'm very interested in trying out two offerings from AC Golden (i.e., Coors): Batch 19 and Winterfest, along with New Belgium's Snow Day. To be safe, a case of each so I can give them appropriate study and analysis.

I'm not picky, though; nearly any beer with "winter" or "Christmas" on the label is likely to please my SADS-immune palate, as is anything featuring hops. Give your favorite Presbyterian Curmudgeon a merry little Christmas this year.

Still annoying

For those who follow the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches, the Vision Forum, et al, amongst the movement's and its associated personalities most annoying characteristics is a pretension of grandeur, perhaps no better exemplified than in the title for an upcoming event: "White Unto Harvest: A Great Commission Mega-Conference." 

With you, I'm not sure what "Great Commission" is doing in an adjectival position, but more to the point: mega-conference? Really? Can't these people hold even a conference without needing to assert how big and important they are?

I suppose they could be more annoying if they tried, but I have a hard time imagining how.

Cheap shot, but oh so true

Thank you, Agnes.

Defending Francis Schaeffer

The writings of Francis Schaeffer had a profound influence on me and continue to color much of my thinking on cultural and political matters. I continue to be disppointed by his dalliance with the "religious right" towards the end of his life, but no hero is without clay feet. Thus, I've been offended by the gross misrepresentations of Schaeffer's work which have recently appeared in media outlets eager to pillory Michele Bachman for her Christian faith. Thankfully, byFaith, the PCA's online journal, has compiled several refutations here.

The end: still nigh

Two words: eyelash extensions.

Marriage & poverty

Much more can be said, and has been said, on the important connection between nuclear family stability and economic security, but a good introduction is this article in the Presbyterian Church in America's online journal byFaith.

Public radio membership pays off

Although Pa Curmudgeon has been following jazz since before my advent, I only got serious in my mid-20s. The wife of a fellow seminarian, Pam York, is a Berklee-trained jazz pianist; when I asked her for help, she loaned me the recordings of Miles Davis' first quintet and an introductory essay by one of her professors. Active on the local scene in San Diego county, she was also gracious enough to let me tag along to a few gigs and festivals.

Thanks to the now-long-gone Columbia and BMG music clubs, I began tracking Miles Davis through the decades at the price of only one CD for twelve. I quickly realized, though, that I would never, ever, ever be able to build up my own library to the extent I would need to really get a good grasp on the form. Thankfully, I was called to Denver, home of one of the nation's premier jazz stations, KUVO. I joined literally the week I made the move here in 1999 and have renewed each year since. After all, for only $89 a year, KUVO gives me access to a jazz library far out of my reach, and quite affordably, too.

Since I joined KUVO to save money on CDs, it's a tad ironic I ended up winning the drawing for 48 albums earlier this month, and got to record a promo in the bargain. Pa Curmudgeon is denying his envy even as I write.

News of the inevitable

I think it was about fifteen years ago I read a throwaway line from James Jordan, something to the effect of "Does anyone really think the speed of light is an absolute?" It stuck with me, and now has been vindicated, at least apparently, by the CERN lab in Switzerland.

It's not that I have any beef against Einstein: to the extent I understand his physics (and once math is involved, I understand very little of anything), they seem a useful model for the universe in which we live. The fact I see Einstenian physics as a model, though, reveals my real beef, which is against those in the hard sciences who tend to treat their models and theories as something more final and definite, who think they are able to speak on moral and metaphysical questions on the basis of scientific research. If verified, the lasting value of the CERN laboratory results will be to remind us that all scientific models and theories, because falsifiable, are at best provisional: they stand until a contrary data point is discovered, and they are useful only so far as they are useful. And when it comes to judging the ultimate questions of human existence, which are not material but metaphysical, they are of very limited utility indeed.

Perhaps that's the sort of attitude one might expect from a pastor, who deals in final answers to metaphysical questions, answers which are in a strict sense falsifiable but in fact cannot be falsified because no contrary data points exist. However, I think my attitude is not the result of a parochial superiority complex, but instead has to do with the natures of our respective fields. Scientists are human beings attempting to describe the world around them. Preachers are human beings who declare God's description of the world he has created on the basis of what God has already and authoritatively declared in the Bible. That declaration is complete, and unlike scientific models and theories, shall never change.

The pleasures & pains of coffee

Balzac got it right, and tells you how you can too.

Now hanging in faculty lounges everywhere

And let's take a moment to salute Rick Detorie. "One Big Happy" probably won't go into eternal reruns when he dies, but while he's with us, it's a reliably upbeat strip which consistently delivers well-crafted gags. In a time like ours when newspaper editors quickly jettison solid and insightful writing in favor of predictable, cheap, and workshop-produced dreck, "One Big Happy" is a bright spot on the ever-shrinking funny pages.

The structure of Proverbs 17:26-18:3

Surprisingly enough, it's a chiasm.

A: an unjust society (17:26)

   B: how to prevent folly (17:27-28)

   B': how to cultivate folly (18:1-2)

A': a just society (18:3)

Interestingly, each verse in this text is synthetic (i.e., the second line repeats or emphasizes the point made in the first line), but the chiastic pairs are antithetic (i.e., one element contrasts with the other).

John MacArthur vs. the spirits of the Reformation

John MacArthur recently created a small kerfuffle in the Christian corner of the blogosphere with a series of posts admonishing the "Young, Restless, Reformed" crowd for what he perceives as immaturities on their part. Let us first take a moment to ask why a baptist who holds to a dispensational eschatology thinks he is any kind of an authority on what it means to be reformed. Sadly, in the parlance of the broader evangelical community, "reformed" has come to mean merely "believing God is sovereign in salvation." This is sad because at the time of the Protestant Reformation, "believing God is sovereign in salvation" only earned one the label "not a damned heretic." The most cursory glance at the classic Reformed Confessions (the Westminster Standards, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dordt, et al, etc.) would indicate "reformed," properly understood, is a label which includes a great number of things, among which, not incidentally, are the baptizing of the children of Christian parents and not holding to a dispensational eschatology.

When not-damned-heretics such as John MacArthur take upon themselves the label "reformed," they inevitably end up constraining the reformed aspects of their thinking by the baptistic ones. This is evidenced in MacArthur's post "Beer, Bohemianism, and True Christian Liberty."Actually, I sympathize with MacArthur to the extent he is put off by the desperate need of certain young evangelicals to appear hip. While at the moment that need is manifested by beer snobbery, it has existed amongst evangelicals since the founding of the American Republic, and in previous generations spawned the megachurch and, horror of horrors, the aesthetic abomination of "contemporary Christian music."

But as is almost inevitable amongst baptists who prefer abstinence, MacArthur ends up condemning our Lord himself. MacArthur writes, "It is puerile and irresponsible for any pastor to encourage the recreational use of intoxicants—especially in church-sponsored activities." (I'll not comment on that dash.) Consider the implications of MacArthur's statement in light of John 2:9-11.

When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

If John MacArthur, rather than the beloved disciple, had written the Fourth Gospel, no doubt the interpretation of Jesus' decision to give as his first sign an encouragement to use intoxicants recreationally would have been quite different.

I can't stop John MacArthur or the young turks who've been irritating both him and me from using the label "reformed," as the First Amendment still is in force in these United States (for the time being). I can continue to wish, though, that both he and they would become truly reformed and seek to conform their doctrine and practice to the plain teaching of Scripture, rather than adding to, and ultimately contradicting, God's Word.

By way of counterpoint, consider Pa Curmudgeon, pointing out what they're serving at the house of John Knox, a bona fide Reformer.

Insert clichéd lawyer joke here

From Cardiff, Wales, courtesy of Pa Curmudgeon.

A diner after a curmudgeon's heart

As Mrs. Curmudgeon can tell you, I hate to read "homemade" as an adjective for a restaurant's fare, since said fare was actually prepared in said restaurant, not a home. Apparently, someone at Gunther Toody's corporate offices agrees: they now offer "dinermade" soups with their blue plate specials.

Unfortunately, this wonderful new adjective is trademarked, and so can't be used more widely. Every silver lining has a dark cloud, it seems.

Where would Luther cruise?

The hosts of the White Horse Inn spend a fair amount of time denouncing theologies of glory. Remarkably, they've found a way to do that and curry the patronage of the wealthy at the same time.

The structure of Proverbs 17:21-25

In terms of form, Proverbs 17:21-25 create a chiasm:

17:21- synthetic parallelism
17:22- antithetic parallelism
17:23- no parallelism
17:24- antithetic parallelism
17:25- synthetic parallelism

Given that 17:21 and 25 are thematically identical, the formal chiasm leads us to discover a thematic chiasm as well:

17:21- a father's grief over a foolish son
17:22- the effects of wisdom & folly
17:23- folly reaches its highest degree in wickedness
17:24- the choice between wisdom & folly
17:25- parents' grief over a foolish son

As the chiasm's frame, 17:21 and 25 put a strong emphasis on folly's effect on the family. However, because 17:23, the chiasm's center point, explores how wicked folly can corrupt government institution, the text's subject is the broader society, rather than the narrower family.

A question only foster parents ask

At a recent foster parent training seminar, Mrs. Curmudgeon and I had Baby #4 in tow, then exactly four weeks old. Several people approached us during the breaks, asking some variation of "So how old was she when she was placed in your home?"

Despise the dash

While I find the dash listed as an acceptable punctuation mark in all reputable style guides, I cannot accept it. So far as I can tell, the dash exists to set off sentence fragments from their contexts. However, any sentence fragment could simply be rewritten to create a proper sentence. Thus, the dash announces to the reader, "I, the writer, can't be bothered to take the time to construct sentences with care or, let's be honest, a modicum of attention; hence, you may reasonably conclude I don't like you very much."

In other words, the dash is the height of rudeness, and rudeness is never acceptable.

The restoration & the Church

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”

In 2 Corinthians 6:16-18, Paul paraphrases and combines Ezekiel 37:27 (via Leviticus 26:11-12), Isaiah 52:11, Ezekiel 20:34, and 2 Samuel 7:14 to demonstrate that the New Testament Church is the temple of the living God. With the exception of 2 Samuel 7, these verses all come from passages prophesying the return of the exiles from Assyria and Babylon to Judah. (Even Leviticus 26 can be read in this way.) Thus, I was surprised when none of the commentaries I consulted made much of this fact. Along with his use of Hosea in Romans 9, this passage demonstrates the way in which Paul saw the Restoration promises fulfilled: first in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, but with much greater effect in the work of Christ and the joining of Jew and Gentile in the Church.

2 points:
1) As Christians, we would do well to think through the implications of the Church as the Restoration of Israel from exile.
2) Given how the Restoration prophecies of Jeremiah 31 are developed in Hebrews, here is another good reason to believe Paul is in fact the author of that epistle as well.

Funny

But perhaps too subtle to be 10 bucks worth of funny.

So glad I have an iPhone

David Byrne understands my needs.

Solomon, it seems, was a hiker

Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs
rather than a fool in his folly.
-Proverbs 17:12

So did he have little bells on his sceptre?

With Choirs of Angels

I suggest getting yourself on Wordmp3.com's e-mail list because a good many of the site's free downloads are wonderful little gifts. I just listened to a lecture by Ken Myers, "With Choirs of Angels: Music and Transcendent Order," in which he eloquently and succintly argues the Church must cultivate in her members an understanding of order in music (over against choosing music merely on the basis of preference) as part of her broader program of enabling them to find order in the cosmos itself.

Which I guess you might expect from an Episcopalian.

The structure of Proverbs 16:31-17:6

In his NICOT commentary (vol. 2, pp. 35-36), Bruce Waltke argues Proverbs 16:31-17:6 form a unit because the framing verses share the words "crown" and "glory," and both are on the theme of old age. However, 17:6 adds sons to the mix. The center verse of the text, 17:2, is the only other place we find a mention of sons. This suggests the theme is the outworking of cross-generational relationships within a family, which is confirmed when we see the text forms a chiasm:

A: the glory of the righteous aged (16:31)
B: the righteous' restraint under God's sovereignty (16:32-33)
C: man must make right spiritual judgments (17:1)
D: the true son is righteous & wise (17:2)
C': the Lord judges the spirits of men (17:3)
B': the wicked's self-indulgence under God's sovereignty (17:4-5)
A': the glory of righteous generations within a family (17:6)

The Christology of Proverbs 17:2?

A servant who deals wisely will rule over a son who acts shamefully
and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers.

Proverbs 17:2 may have a Christological emphasis. The wise servant who replaces the foolish son calls to mind the younger son motif of Genesis, in which the younger or youngest son replaces the oldest son as the favored or designated heir (Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Reuben and Joseph). This is in turn typological of Christ, the second Adam who replaced the first Adam as covenant head of God's people and mediatorial executor of God's plans. While Christ is the Son of God, he is also the Servant of Isaiah's songs.

Thus, there may be more going on in Proverbs 17:2 than a warning against nepotism.

All of God's lyrics, please

To the Editor:

I write in response to Peter Wallace's review of God's Lyrics in the June 2011 issue of New Horizon (p. 23-24). As I have not read it, I cannot comment on the book itself, so I wish to make clear I am focusing on a deficiency in the review.

Mr. Wallace presents his understanding of Douglas O'Donnell's arguments with what appears to be approval. He presents four characteristics of Old Testament song, and explains why, by these criteria, much of modern and classic hymnody is deficient (including "Amazing Grace" and "Jesus Paid It All"). Mr. Wallace's review would have been stronger had he asked how another source of worship song would measure up under these criteria: namely, the Psalter. In particular, Psalms 16, 51, 127, and 128, while much beloved, do not recount the Lord's acts in salvation history, nor do they celebrate his judgments. While one might argue they do encourage God's "ways of living," they are much more interested in recounting "just my experience." (Many other Psalms might be cited: I challenge anyone to count up how many Psalms meet all four of Mr. O'Donnell's criteria.)

It seems to me Mr. O'Donnell has identified the characteristics of songs which respond to significant episodes in redemptive history; however, if Mr. Wallace's review is accurate, he has not presented all "principles of hymnody from Scripture itself," at least not if one considers the Psalter part of the Scriptures. The review would have been stronger if Mr. Wallace had noted this deficiency.

I write at this late date because I believe some in our Churches wrongly believe censoriousness is identical with orthodoxy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the criticisms leveled against much of the song used in worship today. If Mr. Wallace's review is accurate, Mr. O'Donnell's standards for hymnody are so narrow they have the effect of criticizing Scripture itself.

With Mr. Wallace, I believe congregations should sing these redemptive-historical songs, and all the other songs of Scripture, and I hope the new psalter-hymnal being prepared by the Committee for Christian Education will make them more widely available. With Mr. O'Donnell, I believe we need to learn our principles of hymnody from Scripture itself, but we must pay heed to what all the songs of Scipture actually say, not what only some say or what we might wish they would say. With all the pastors and members of the OPC, I hope, I believe we should treat everyone (including hymn-writers) with charity and also give expression to the full range of Christian experience in our worship of the Risen Savior.

grace & peace,
The Presbyterian Curmudgeon

A good day over at First Things

First, Peter Leithart demonstrates that a truly prophetic call for social justice must be rooted in Biblical law.

Next, David Hart worries grammatical laxity will lead us, inevitably, to cannibalism.

Finally, Leroy Huizenga rehabilitates the medieval fourfold sense of Scripture, in the process helpfully pointing out the overlap between allegory and typology.

The very strange habits of Amazon shoppers

I just added D.G. Hart's From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin to my Amazon wishlist. When I did so, Amazon informed me "Customers buy this book with He Stopped Loving Her Today: George Jones, Billy Sherrill, and the Pretty-Much Totally True Story of the Making of the Greatest Country Record of All Time by Jack Isenhour."

Customers? Plural? Really?

Thing is, I find myself interested in both titles.

Science discovers the obvious (again)

Think of all the money these researchers could have saved on lab mice if they had only interviewed a few addled parents of infants. Of course, the coffee bill would have to be pretty considerable if they were to get anything coherent...

A time to fight: rough draft

The Presbytery of the Dakotas, OPC (of which I am currently moderator) is to meet next September 27-28 in Freeman, SD. The Arrangements Committee is, well, arranging a symposium on "Sex, Gender, and American Presbyterianism" for the preceding evening on Monday, September 26. I hope to contribute a paper entitled A Time to Fight: Sex, Gender, and the Confessions of the Reformed Churches in North America. I've posted the rough draft on Google Docs and welcome your thoughtful comments as I prepare it for submission.

Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure has bothered me ever since I was assigned a scene from it for an acting class in college. There's nothing happy or comic about it up until the very last moments: I wondered whether Shakespeare got his pages mixed up and an everyone-gets-married scene got transposed from As You Like It in place of the tragic bloodbath which would fit much better with what came before.

In a post on the First Things website, Gabriel Torretta argues that while the conclusion is technically comic, it should be read darkly as the usurpation of the state over all other institutions. Then, in a nice turn, he considers the parallels between Shakespeare's Venice and present-day state behavior in these United States.

The restlessness of the temp

Whilst in seminary, I worked as a security guard for Pinkerton, assigned to the Hewlett-Packard plant in north San Diego county. Like the security guards, most (if not all) of H-P's non-salaried employees were in fact contract employess, including the line workers assembling printers. A regular feature of my job came whenever a line was shut down, the product run having been completed. The standard procedure was to wait until the last day, inform the workers about halfway through the shift, and also notify them their contract was up and they were now without work. Extra guards would be assigned to the line area to make sure nothing was stolen and no one indulged in a little spiteful vandalism. At the time, it seemed to me a policy which assumed it would offend and outrage those subjected to it might need some rethinking.

In a discussion of the Sabbath as occasion for enjoyment, Peter Leithart draws out some spiritual implications of these hiring policies:

The problem is that many larger corporations fail to give employees any sense of being part of a larger whole, and this is especially true when the employee’s employment is precarious. How is a worker supposed to experience the social satisfactions of labor when he’s never sure if he’ll be part of the team for the next project? It is like being in Egypt; it is like bricks without straw, labor without Sabbath.

Lisbeth vs. Katniss

I began reading Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy about a year ago, and got through the last book sometime during the winter. In one sense, it became a journey of personal discovery: I realized I tend to subconsciously skip over names I can't pronounce, which meant that, since the series is set in Sweden, I had lost track of at least half the characters by the time I got a few pages into the second book. Given its best-selling status in the U.S. as well as world-wide, I am now much more cheerful about my countrymen's ability to concentrate on difficult details.

While the overall plot of the Millenium trilogy is interesting, Larsson, like John Grisham, tends to focus on unimportant details which serve only to fatten the page count. Seriously, I don't need to know what kind of sandwich the characters were eating when they met in a café. By the end, I was glad to know Larsson (being dead) wouldn't be writing any more books I'd feel obliged to read.

Not so with The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins' dystopian trilogy written for teenagers. (The publisher is Scholastic, which is not the first imprint to which I look for dystopia; but then, I am a worn-out curmudgeon.) In the Millenium trilogy, you get literally hundreds of pages of people talking or looking at computers before 10-20 pages of action. The Hunger Games are extremely plot-driven, and hence are much more difficult to put down. As the series progresses, the narrative takes on a fever-dream quality reflective of the mental and emotional disintegration of its main character and narrator, Katniss Everdeen. I appreciated this not only stylistically but artistically. In this post-apocalyptic future, adolescents are forced to fight each other to the death. Instead of making the survivors cold-blooded killers, Collins chooses instead to portray them as damaged goods, a much more likely scenario.

Interestingly, The Hunger Games is much more successful as a feminist work than is the Millenium trilogy; interestingly because the latter has an explicitly feminist agenda. (SPOILER ALERT: crucial plot points will now be revealed.) The sections of the first and third books of the Millenium trilogy are headed by epitaphs of a feminist bent: in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, statistics on domestic violence; in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, a history of female warriors. One of Larsson's main characters is the much-ballyhooed punk hacker Lisbeth Salander, who in the first book falls for the other main character, idealistic journalist and stud Mikael Blomkvist, but by the end is embittered against him when she realizes he is still romantically entangled with another woman. Throughout the trilogy, Blomkvist tells woman after woman that he is happy to have sex with her, but will not commit to any one of them. At the end of the third novel, Lisbeth chooses to let Blomkvist back into her life. Although there's no commitment to a sexual relationship, implicit or otherwise, she does clearly accept him on his own terms: that is, as a philanderer. A feminism which endorses the worst forms of chauvinistic behavior is not much of a feminism at all.

The Hunger Games likewise ends on a crucial decision for its main character. Here, however, Katniss, having been exploited by two competing power bases, chooses to assasinate the president of the newly victorious rebel coalition. In one stroke, she rejects her own history of exploitation and frees (what once was) North America from a pattern of political and military oppression. Her move is a classic example of feminist empowerment, over against Lisbeth's implicit acceptance of male sexual dominance.

In the epic match-up of Lisbeth vs. Katniss, I know which I will encourage my daughters to read.

The Married Lifestyle

In a post on the First Things website, Gabriel Torretta succintly shows why same-sex marriage is merely a symptom of the disease of self-centeredness which has been infecting the institution of marriage for a long time now. Hence, opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage will be a losing battle so long as no-fault divorce is the national standard and the Churches (particularly those attended by evangelicals) continue to neglect calling husbands and wives to self-sacrifice in imitation of Christ.

Men Without Hats

Can I get away with calling the band which gave us "The Safety Dance" unknown?

Whenever I hear people dismiss Men Without Hats as a one-hit wonder, it seems to me they don't know much about the band's broader output. While their first couple albums gave us solid, danceable pop music, their third album, "Pop Goes the World," is a truly impressive accomplishment. A concept album on the wonders and perils of passing fame, its title track was simultaneously a deconstruction of rock band clichés and an earworm-catchy pop anthem. I listened to this album obsessively throughout high school, and it still holds up today.

Impress your hipster friends with your in-depth knowledge of obscure French Canadian bands. Get yourself some remainder-binned Men Without Hats albums.

A call for reflection

In a comment to my earlier post, "An unreflective call for reflection," a confused reader wrote,

May I ask for a clarification? Are you arguing in favor of chorals? That is, incense was part of the sacrificial system...so would you advocate for burning it?

confused reader...thank you for your reply

Without wishing to sound snarky (curmudgeonly, yes; snarky, no), I was arguing for care and reflection regarding liturgical questions, especially by OPC ministers. Whatever one might think of choirs, I believe the Rev. Tracey failed on this count.

To the next question, there's a world of difference between would and could. Both choirs and incense were part of the sacrificial system, which is to say they were part of Temple worship. As singing was part of Temple worship and now is incorporated into New Testament worship, we have a precedent by which one could argue for the burning of incense in the Church's worship. (I'm assuming, of course, that C. Reader's questions have an eye towards New Testament worship regulation.) I don't know whether I would make such an argument. Whether such an argument would be exegetically sound is another matter entirely. Clearly, exegesis has led us to conclude some parts of Temple worship (such as the sacrifice of animals) must be abandoned while others (such as singing) should be continued.

Again, let us reflect on such matters with care and a refusal to rely on oversimplifying formulae.

Theses on preaching: the very Word of God

My sermon on 2 Corinthians 5:20, in which I argue the thesis of the 2nd Helvetic Confession 1.4 (that the Word of God preached is the Word of God), is now available at Park Hill Presbyterian Church's SermonAudio site.

Union & double imputation

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

I believe the writings of John Murray enabled me to grasp firmly the doctrine of double imputation: Christ's righteousness is accounted to us, and our sin is accounted to Christ. In the last few years, James Jordan has on any number of occasions asserted that this doctrine is not in the Westminster Standards and not required by Scripture. Whether it was originally intended to be in the Westminster Standards is open to debate, but certainly the animus imponentis of American Presbyterianism is to find it there, as is demonstrated at least as far back as A.A. Hodges' commentary on the Confession of Faith. Moreover, even if one doesn't quite find the imputation of Christ's righteousness in 2 Corinthians 5:21, it's certainly there in Romans 4:3-5. Hence, I do not understand how anyone can reject this doctrine.

At the same time, some who have made their bones in opposing the Federal Vision (in which camp is James Jordan) have also wanted to distance themselves from Calvin's emphasis on union with Christ as the font of all the benefits of redemption. Exhibit A: J.V. Fesko in the Spring 2010 issue of The Westminster Theological Journal. This, too, mystifies me, as Paul clearly tells us we are righteous not merely because of an external, forensic declaration, but because we have been united to Christ ("in him").

Recent debates in Reformed circles have caused some to lose sight of our historic points of consensus, at least as evidenced by 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: pp. 340-348 (vol. 1)

In a footnote to Book 2, chapter 6, Battles argues the phrase "gospel and law" should be attached to Calvin as "this radical in Christo passage" requires us to confess that all true knowledge of God comes only through Christ. In particular, I find section 1 of this chapter an astonishingly clear and powerful articulation of the centrality of union with Christ for all knowledge and piety. Calvin's deep appropriation of Biblical paradigms (particularly from 1 Corinthians 1) here only makes me wonder all the more at the need some have felt in the recent Federal Vision controversies to distance themselves from Calvin's doctrine of union with Christ.

In the liner notes to Bitches Brew, Ralph J. Gleason wrote

What is so incredible about what Miles does is whoever comes after him, whenever, wherever, they have to take him into consideration. They have to pass him to get in front. He laid it out there and you can't avoid it.

Too many, of whatever theological tradition, try to avoid John Calvin. Avoid Miles Davis, and you avoid jazz. Avoid John Calvin, and you avoid any kind of serious reflection on the Bible and Christ.

Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: pp. 239-340 (vol. 1)

In Book 2, chapters 1-5 of the Institutes, Calvin clearly sets forth the doctrine of total depravity from Scripture, explains the bondage of the will to sin, and handily answers every objection one might raise against these doctrines. If anyone thinks man in his natural state has a perfectly free will, he or she should turn here to learn why the Reformed are persuaded otherwise.

Of course, that raises the question as to whether such a person wishes to learn, and hence risk being persuaded.

Summer is here: mmmbop!

To celebrate the solstice, I downloaded one of the all-time great contributions to the bubblegum-pop canon: Hanson's "Mmmbop." A work of lyrical genius married to an insanely catchy hook achievable only by early adolescents, it centers around the Sinatra-esque refrain "Mmmbop, diddy-bop-doo-wop."

Aah, summer is at hand. Diddy-bop-doo-wop, indeed.

Too Reformed to be Evangelical, updated

First, I should note these lectures are divided over 2 mp3 files; you can find the second here.

Second, I had a chance to finish listening to the whole session while driving to and from Calhan (east of Colorado Springs) yesterday. Peter Leithart's lecture adds liturgy to the ecclesiastical perspective, and he contributes some interesting comments in the panel discussion. I was especially intrigued by his suggestion that the Church's present-day condition may mirror the historical patterns of the Israel-Judah divide as described in 1-2 Kings. I've tended to look at the Restoration era, as described by Isaiah and Ezra-Nehemiah, but this also strikes me as a fruitful area for reflection.

In said panel discussion, Darryl Hart helpfully reminded us that the Psalms must always be sung with an eschatological orientation. At the same time, Michael Horton unfortunately suggested that some of the Psalms should not be sung by the Church today, betraying a Klinean practical dispensationalism found in too many Westminster California graduates (and now, distressingly, professors).

Too Reformed to be Evangelical

Wordmp3.com is offering, FOR FREE!!!!, a set of three lectures and panel discussion by D.G. Hart, Michael Horton, and Peter Leithart on the uneasy relationship between the Reformed and evangelical traditions, recorded at the 2009 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. I find them thoughtful, and the focus on ecclesiology provides a helpful introduction to the fundamental divide between American Christianity's emphasis on "what works" and the more historic practice of the Christian faith which centers on the ordinary means of grace.

A.A. Hodge on perseverance

In his commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 17 (or as he calls it, "chapter XVII"), A.A. Hodge provides these helpful clarifications to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints:

1) ...the true doctrine is not that salvation is certain if we have once believed, but that perseverance in holiness is certain if we have truly believed.
2) The certainty... of an individual's salvation is known to him only through the fact of his perseverance in holiness.
3) This doctrine teaches, not that persistent effort on our part is not necessary in order to secure perseverance in grace to the end, but that in this effort we are certain of success; for it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

[Emphases original; the Presbyterian Curmudgeon prefers tasteful understatement.]

Sacramental Realism

Addressing theologian Douglas Farrow, Peter Leithart handily dismantles frequent Roman Catholic cavils against Prostestant sacramental theology, demonstrating that we do indeed have a sacramental practice.

And in just three paragraphs, too.

Not so helpful

For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

Ralph Martin (Word Biblical Commentary, p. 126) begins his comments on 2 Corinthians 5:13 by writing "The total understanding of this passage may be beyond our grasp." One appreciates the honesty, but I was hoping for a bit more.

Harold Camping is a clever man

Harold Camping has been deservedly subject to ridicule because May 21, much like May 20 and May 22, was notably free from apocalypse. Sometimes, the best way to deal with heretics isn't to argue with them from Scripture, but instead to giggle at their arguments supposedly taken from Scripture. Nonetheless, I give the man credit for how he explained away this present age's stubborn refusal to come to an end: the judgment was "spiritual."

This explanation has some plausibility because most people, including most Christians, tend to think "spiritual" = "having nothing to do with real life." Hence, Christians can be spiritual (i.e., religiously-minded) without having to give God ten percent of their money or one-seventh of their time because time and money are real, and God is spiritual. Contrast that common gnostic attitude, however you see it manifested, with the Apostle Paul's insistence in 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5 that the spiritual/resurrection body is very much corporeal.

Camping, obviously, is trying to dodge accountability. Still, it's a clever, even an insightful, dodge.

Coffee May Lower Risk Of Deadliest Prostate Cancer

Earlier research suggests coffee reduces the risk of diabetes, liver disease and Parkinson's disease — possibly because of its insulin-lowering effects, its anti-oxidant qualities and other properties, including some yet to be discovered.

Why yes, it's always been about healthy choices for me.

Get thee to a newsstand

The March 2011 issue of First Things included an essay by Timothy George, president of Beeson Divinity School, entitled "Reading the Bible with the Reformers," in which he argued the Bible should be read in dialogue with the Church's historic creeds and confessions, along with the last 200o years of interpretation. Finding this rather standard protestant fare, my only reaction was to wonder how a Baptist can place himself within the broad stream of ecclesiastical consensus. But then, I'm a presbyterian curmudgeon.

Given that I was reading First Things, I should have anticipated the vehement objections registered by several Roman Catholic correspondents in the May issue's letters column. These complained that Protestants cannot have a "churchly hermeneutics" as they do not accept Rome's (supposedly) authoritative magisterium. In a polite reply, Timothy George pointed out theological divisions within Roman Catholicism not only prior to the Protestant Reformation, but today as well, forcefully demonstrating that Rome's recourse to an ecclesiastical authority which stands over the Scriptures has utterly failed to produce anything like a doctrinal consensus.

For once, I cheered on the Baptist. This material is available online, but only to paying subscribers of the print edition. Perhaps you can still find the May issue at better newsstands everywhere.

The end is nigh

From the BBC:

An Israeli couple have named their baby daughter Like, taking inspiration from the Facebook social networking site, Israeli media say.

Apparently, that 2nd word no longer abides

Today, I once again heard someone on the radio say she is "hopeful that" her recent work will help others, and I once again thought how sad it is that the English language lacks a verbal form of the word "hopeful."

(1 Corinthians 13:13, by the way.)

Thanks for Nothing

The band Middle Brother has perfected the melancholically bitter post-breakup song; you can bear witness to this cultural milestone through a live version performed on the World Cafe. It almost makes me wish I were once again a sensitive ponytail guy in my early 20s.

Almost.

Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: page 310-11 (vol. 1)

As he explores the manners in which man's will acts freely in Book 2 of the Institutes, Calvin turns to Job 1 as a brief, but very helpful, case study of how God, Satan, and man can all be active in the same event "without either excusing Satan as associated with God, or making God the author of evil." (Book 2.4.2)

Spring is here

I drove down to Littleton Adventist Hospital this morning to meet our congregation's newest member and (so far as I know) my next baptizand, and thus spent about an hour driving around and enjoying the Front Range's first perfect day this spring. Thanks to my father's record collection, that means my fancy turns once again to poisoning pigeons in the park.

The Moral Economy of Guilt

But how, in a society that retains its Judeo-Christian moral reflexes but has abandoned the corresponding metaphysics, can a credible means of discharging the weight of sin be found?

The question comes late in "The Moral Economy of Guilt" in the May 2011 issue of First Things, but drives Wilfred M. McClay's explanation of the present ascendance of the cult of victimhood in our culture today. More basically, McClay provides an accessible and powerful cultural rationale for seeking expiation of sins in the Cross of Christ.

An unreflective call for reflection

As a doctrinal respondent for the OPC website, I was surprised to see an answer to a question on worship music (not something I wrote, by the way) called out in Ordained Servant as an example of unpresbyterian thinking. From Stephen J. Tracey's review of T. David Gordon's Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns:

All too often our answers to "missional" music questions fall short. An example of this appears on the OPC website series of questions and answers. The only question relating to church music includes the following sentences:

Choirs were used in the Old Testament worship of God and are therefore not forbidden, so choral responses reverently executed today are not forbidden. Similarly, special music is referred to and is therefore not forbidden.

^{The argument that something is not forbidden is not the Presbyterian understanding of the regulative principle of worship. Something needs to be commanded. This lack of carefully nuanced answers contributes to the frustration that swirls around this debate....}

The Rev. Tracey is incorrect: the formulation "what is not commanded is forbidden" is not, in fact, the presbyterian understanding of the regulative principle of worship, as it cannot be found in the Westminster Standards. Moreover, in context, the doctrinal respondent has cited Scriptural example of the use of choirs; therefore, "not forbidden" is a negative formula for "commanded by way of example."

Am I picking at a nit? Firstly, my blog is called "The Presbyterian Curmudgeon:" this is what I do. Secondly, Mr. Tracey is accusing the doctrinal respondent of not thinking clearly; the least he could do is demonstrate good manners by carefully reflecting on whether that criticism is in fact warranted. Thirdly, debates over liturgical practice are not helped by falling back on unreflective formulae.

While the recently introduced Directory for Public Worship is a vast improvement over previous versions, the debate surrounding it in the OPC's presbyteries and General Assemblies showed observers that the average OPC minister could have done with a great deal more study and reflection on liturgical matters. That still seems the case, sadly.

The singer vs. the song

As I convert my old audiocassettes to mp3s, I'm in the Gs. Hence, today I listened to Vince Gill's 1992 album I Still Believe in You, which includes one of the all-time great anti-cheatin' songs, "Under These Conditions." In it, two people in difficult marriages, though strongly attracted to one another, decide not to have an affair because of their existing commitments and obligations to their children. Later, of course, Vince Gill divorced his wife and subsequently married Amy Grant, the Christian recording artist who had divorced her first husband. Both Gill and Grant have children from their first marriages.

As is too often the case with country music, sometimes the song is better than the singer.

Christ and Him Crucified

This Good Friday, Peter Leithart shows the fullness of the Cross by running through every Biblical symbolic interpretation of the Cross I can think of, and a great number more, over at the First Things website.

Slave, not Lord

2Cor. 4:5 Οὐ γὰρ ἑαυτοὺς κηρύσσομεν ἀλλὰ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν κύριον, ἑαυτοὺς δὲ δούλους ὑμῶν διὰ Ἰησοῦν.
2Cor. 4:5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.

In the Word Biblical Commentary, Ralph Martin points out the neat contrast between kurios (lord) and doulos (slave): Paul proclaims himself not as kurios but doulos.

Reprobation & assurance of salvation

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4 strike me as a good proof text for the doctrine of reprobation. Reprobation is the necessary reverse of election: if God has chosen some for everlasting life in Christ, he has not chosen others. These have been blinded and cannot understand the Gospel, no matter how clearly it is proclaimed to them.

At the same time, those who question their own salvation ought to take some comfort from these verses. Many have spiritually shipwrecked themselves on the rocky fact that only God knows his secret counsels, and thus only God knows who he has elected. Nonetheless, anyone can know whether he has understood the Gospel of the glory of Christ. If he has, he is not one of the perishing unbelievers; his sight is not veiled because he is not reprobate but elect.

Getting the late unpleasantness right

As annoying, mawkish, and just plain weird as the weeping Abraham Lincoln cover of last week's Time magazine was, the actual cover story, "Why We're Still Fighting the Civil War," was actually illuminating and helpful. It tracks the history of interpretation of the War of the Rebellion, shows the origins of the war over slavery in the territories (particularly Kansas), demonstrates the origins of Confederacy apologetics, presents the current-day scholarly consensus (giving due to the contributions of John Hope Franklin and other mid-20th century African American historians), and properly presents the justifiers of secessionism who claim anything other than slavery caused the Civil War as the fringe group they are. Members of said fringe will not be persuaded, of course, but as the text of the Declaration of Independence hasn't gotten through to them yet, that's hardly a criticism.

All in all, an unusually good showing for Time. And then they published this week's cover story...

RTS affirms my choice for WTSCA

I didn't come to the Gospel Coalition 2011 exhibitors hall looking to feel better about where I chose not to attend seminary 16 years ago, but Reformed Theological Seminary has provided me with one.

Also, as so many will be happy to testify, if there's anything at which I'm inherently talented, it's repelling.

SBTS concedes to WTS in regional playoffs

Mrs. Curmudgeon and I are in Chicago with Canadian Pastor and Canadian Pastor's Wife for the Gospel Coalition 2011 conference, as my annual sabbatical. It's already worth the trip: the kind fellows at the Accordance exhibition booth helped me figure out how to set up my search text displays.

Al Mohler, president of The (I didn't know the definite article was capitalized until reading the conference booklet) Southern Baptist Theological Seminary gave the opening lecture or sermon, presenting the argument for a redemptive historical reading of the Old Testament from John 5:31ff. In one breath, he gave credit, in order, to Geerhardus Vos, Richard Gaffin, and Edmund Clowney. It was like being at a Westminster Theological Seminary (in California, of course) alumni rally.

One might be tempted to ask why a man who could only quote presbyterians in making his hermeneutical arguments would still refuse to baptize babies, but one wouldn't want to sound like a curmudgeon.

Top Ten Signs Your Pastor Has Caught You Napping During His Sermon

From the Sacred Sandwich.

The hazards of gentrification

A few years ago, this stretch of Sand Creek ran beneath the runway of the old Stapleton airport, and only the most dedicated juvenile delinquent would bother spraypainting the name of his band of troublemakers along the concrete support walls. Now that Stapleton has become a richly diverse community of people who make six figures or more a year (motto: "We're not a gated community, we just have a private highway exit"), the runway bridges are gone and a new breed of juvenile delinquent explains they must wear black on the outside because black is how they feel on the inside.

Dog bites man

Pa Curmudgeon e-mailed me this New York Times article on the difficulty single pastors find in receiving a call in evangelical circles, thinking, no doubt, of my own experiences when a recent seminary graduate so, so long ago. Back then, I not only experienced the soft discrimination discussed in this piece, but actually lost a potential call due to being single. The elders of an OP Church were inclined to recommend me to their congregation, but decided not to because several members wrongly thought 1 Timothy 3:2 barred me and they didn't want to start a new pastorate with a fight.

If the quotes in this article properly represent Al Mohler's position, he's either ignorant or willfully ignorant. Of course evangelicals discriminate against single people in general and single pastors in particular. This prejudice is often more annoying than substantial, but is nonetheless real. Married Christians who would deny this are an awful lot like white people who don't think race prejudice still exists in America.

My advice to unmarried pastoral candidates: get over it. More precisely, why are you seeking the same sort of positions as your espoused and family-encumbered brethren? Paul, the patron saint of single pastors, wrote "I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is." (1 Cor 7:26) Singleness provides the opportunity to enter into the present distress and take risks for the sake of the Gospel and Christ's Church. Because I was single, I was able to take a relatively risky call which four married men before me had declined. Why would the Lord keep a man single unless he wanted him to take a chance for Jesus, a chance which a man who has to provide for a family really should not?

Ministers of Word and sacrament are in particular called to imitate and participate in Christ's sufferings (Colossians 1:24-27). Ironically, the discrimination into which Christians so easily fall can be a door opening to the privilege of filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body; that is, the Church.

Where sacrifices should be offered

Lev. 17:1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev. 17:2 “Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the people of Israel and say to them, This is the thing that the Lord has commanded.
Lev. 17:3 If any one of the house of Israel kills an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp, or kills it outside the camp,
Lev. 17:4 and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it as a gift to the Lord in front of the tabernacle of the Lord, bloodguilt shall be imputed to that man. He has shed blood, and that man shall be cut off from among his people.
Lev. 17:5 This is to the end that the people of Israel may bring their sacrifices that they sacrifice in the open field, that they may bring them to the Lord, to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the Lord.
Lev. 17:6 And the priest shall throw the blood on the altar of the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting and burn the fat for a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
Lev. 17:7 So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.

Verse 7 takes things in an interesting direction. Up to this point, it seems we have a straightforward application of the 2nd Commandment, a regulation for worship which requires Israelites to offer their sacrifices only in the manner the Lord has regulated rather than worshiping him in whatever manner might occur to them on their own. Leviticus 17:7, though, draws a connection between worship in whatever random location one might choose and the worship of false gods, taking us firmly into 1st Commandment territory. This passage suggests that once one has decided to go one's own way, it's not one's own way for very long; instead, one ends up following the well-worn way of wickedness and perdition laid out by the evil one.

The lectionary bring us to John 4 this coming Lord's Day. There, Jesus famously pronounces the end of Temple worship and its replacement with worship in Spirit and truth. In conjunction with Leviticus 17, it would be an error to presume one gets to worship however or wherever one might like so long as one feels spirity. Instead, the "truth" bit in John 4:23-24 calls us to worship according to the Spirit's instruction through the Word, which requires Christians to worship on heavenly Zion, in the fellowship of the saints as they are gathered together in the Church's Lord's Day worship (Hebrews 12:22-24).

Heb. 13:15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

The problem with young people these days

(Along with a number of others, I answer questions posted to the OPC's website, a gig I fell into through Mrs. Curmudgeon's maternal grandfather. Last week, I was asked to reply to a person lamenting the casual dress so often seen at worship services these days and, to my surprise, pulled off a fairly decent response.)


This matter does not lend itself to a quick or simple answer, although I hope to be relatively straightforward. I should reveal something of my own prejudices from the outset by revealing I wear a white Genevan gown when leading worship, and I have (at least once that I can recall) talked about dress in worship in a sermon.

First, I should note that we live in a culture which is tending toward greater informality in dress for all occasions. This becomes remarkably evident when one compares a picture of a ballgame from the 1950s to one today. Regional variations are also important. In Chicago a couple years ago, I was struck by how many more suits I saw on the streets there than in the business districts of Denver. To be wildly imprecise, it seems the informality common on the beaches of California a generation ago has now migrated across the country even as far as Boston.

This being the case, many Americans simply have no sense of how formality varies with occasion nor how this might impact dress, and this is reflected by their wardrobes. Especially given the casual way in which worship services are conducted in many evangelical congregations, I think it would never occur to many of our countrymen and coreligionists that they should have a "Sunday best."

You suggest the Scriptures are not silent on this matter. Well, yes and no. I'd be astonished if anyone could draw a straight line from a Biblical passage to "gentlemen should wear ties on Sunday morning" without violating every hermeneutical and homiletical principle known to the reformed. Thus, to the best of my knowledge, the OPC as a body has never spoken to this question. At the same time, I've noticed the Scriptures spend a great deal of time discussing aesthetic matters, particularly in the Law and Wisdom literature, and this discussion tends to support greater formality in dress. I ground my teaching on this matter in the Fifth Commandment: that is, dress is one way in which one shows honor to others, in this case our Lord and Creator (Shorter Catechism #63-64).

Given the extraordinary difficulty one might have trying to prove to, say, one's teenage son that God expects him to wear a coat and tie to services, I think many pastors and elders are reluctant to make too much of an issue of this. Frankly, I'm more concerned that members attend the evening service than that they wear long pants for it. The Church ought never be turning people away solely on the basis of their clothing choices, no matter how infelicitous, and a preoccupation with this matter out of proportion to the Bible's interest in it runs the risk of adding to the Law of God. I think modeling by the session and mature members of the congregation will have the greatest impact: that is, if these dress in an appropriate manner, others will follow suit (no pun intended, although that's a pretty good pun if I say so myself).

Are the clergy to blame? To the extent they are still captive to the misguided spirit of the 1960s which revered the hatless President Kennedy and eschewed formality at all costs, yes. More substantively, clergy who have treated the worship service as little more than an occasion to present a sermon are to blame. Sessions should give careful attention to the conduct of the service as a ritual shaped by Scripture in which reverence and awe in the presence of God are evident throughout. Why would people dress formally for the liturgy when the liturgist's demeanor is informal?

Reverence and awe, honor and duty. I suspect that the more we who shepherd the sheep work to cultivate these attitudes in ourselves and in them, the more we will find everyone's dress being appropriate to the occasion.

grace & peace,
the Presbyterian Curmudgeon

The Church-integrated family, again

(In January of this year, I was contacted by another pastor who thought I might have been unfair to the leaders of the "family-integrated church" movement in my December 2010 Ordained Servant essay. Here's what I wrote in response, lightly edited.)

Dear Friend,

I think a couple points might be helpful in understanding what I did not address in my essay, and where this piece fits in with (what I understand is) Ordained Servant's editorial agenda. To begin with, I am firmly convinced the National Center for Family-Integrated Church's men and I disagree as to the correct reading of the times. The overarching crisis of our day is the collapse of the Church, of which any problems in the nuclear family are only symptoms. I firmly believe the Church is in as bad a condition today as she was immediately prior to the Protestant Reformation, only this time the core problem is schism rather than heresy. (On a cheerful note, I actually think reformed teaching is, on the whole, at a historically high level.) Christians in these United States bear primary responsibility for this sad state of affairs; the Church has been under assault here since before the founding of the Republic.

Hence, when the NCFIC men say "we recognize that the family—and especially fathers—are the focus of a fierce and unrelenting attack by the world, the flesh, and the Devil. This has escalated to the point that Christians must rise up in defense of the church and family in uncompromising biblical defense.", I think they're crazy. The Book of Revelation is clear: the Church is the target of Satan's assaults, and to turn one's attention even slightly in another direction is to give him more rein. These men need to focus their attention on building up the Church first and foremost, and I will believe they are serious about it when they repent of being Baptists and petition to enter a real presbyterian denomination.

Consequently, the very phrase "family-integrated church" is a ginormous red flag to me, as the Church must always be kept the central institution. The problem is not congregations fostering healthy families, but congregations which are organized with that as their main purpose; when, as I clarified in my essay, "by implication (and sometimes by flat-out statement), the church exists to support the family." Thus, my goal was to present a positive alternative to this error by demonstrating "the proper relationship of the family to the church: because the church is eternal, the temporary family must work to make its members better church members." I did not intend to present a direct critique of the NCFIC or its members. I have been told by the editor that a direct critique of the NCFIC is in the offing for Ordained Servant, but I don't know when.

Nonetheless, your suggestion I might be setting up a straw man is a valid one. However, the webernet abounds in testimonies of spiritual abuse in congregations sporting the "family-integrated" label (Mrs. Curmudgeon has made a minor hobby of discovering and forwarding me these sites). These are by definition anecdotes, but I take from them a couple very serious points. While the NCFIC men on occasion offer qualifications, at least a few have a tendency to strong rhetoric which is taken at face value by people impressed by it. (I've read and listened to a fair amount of Kevin Swanson in making this judgment.) This tendency to strong rhetoric can easily overwhelm the less-strong qualifications. Moreover, as a pastor, I am grieved by the damage done by the patriarchy movement to the souls of too many people. And of course, a few is too many. With that in mind, my essay was intended as a positive defense, an innoculation (if you will) against error. Give people a right view of the relationship between Church and family, and they might see patriarchalism for the schismatic and heretical notion it is.

To better understand my thinking, you should also know the OS piece was actually the first of a two-part argument. The follow-up seeks to show how, from the 1647 Directory for Family Worship, one might develop a "Church-integrated family." For editorial reasons, Greg Reynolds chose not to run it, so I will make it available in case you're interested. This might be the kind of constructive corrective you mention. It also shows the direction in which I firmly believe we should be moving: towards a recovery of historic Presbyterian practice in the life of the Church. When Presbyterianism, which is the Biblical religion, is rightly conceived and practiced, Churches will not only be well-ordered but families will (God willing) thrive as well.

In sum, it seems to me your concerns lie less with what I wrote than with what I didn't write. It may be that the NCFIC men and I agree on the relationship between family and Church, but we certainly disagree on how the Church should be organized. I believe that traces back to a defective ecclesiology on their part (whether by commitment or actual practice). I hope the December issue of Ordained Servant will be part of a helpful dialogue in which they learn to reform their faith and practice to the contours of historic and confessional Presbyterianism.

grace & peace,
the Presbyterian Curmudgeon

Why a curmudgeon is an unironic Scouter

From Elizabeth Scalia.

Ten Reasons Ash Wednesday Is Better than Christmas

Stolen from davebarnhart.net:

10. No braving the malls looking for Lent gifts

9. No pressure to send "Merry Ash Wednesday" cards

8. No explaining why using chi-rho isn't "X-ing Jesus out" of Lent

7. No dominionist fundagelicals trying to fight culture wars by putting "Jesus resisting temptation in the wilderness" displays on public property

6. No celebrity holiday albums

5. No Ash Wednesday sitcom specials

4. No saccharine email forwards about "the true meaning" of Ash Wednesday

3. No tacky Ash Wednesday sweaters

2. "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return" extremely difficult to use in consumer marketing strategies

1. Nobody ever says, "Ash Wednesday is really all about the children."

Merit in the Covenant of Life

Many writing under the Federal Vision banner have objected to the notion that God might have determined to reward Adam for keeping the Covenant of Life. In his commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 164-6, A.A. Hodge captures their discomfort well.

The word "merit," in the strict sense of the term, means that common quality of all actions or services to which a reward is due, in strict justice, on account of their intrinsic value or worthiness. It is evident that, in this strict sense, no work of any creature can in itself merit any reward from God; because - (a) All the faculties he possesses were originally granted and are continuously sustained by God, so that he is already so far in debt to God that he can never bring God in debt to him. (b) Nothing the creature can do can be a just equivalent for the incomparable favour of God and its consequences.

However, he also answers their objection this way:

There is another sense of the word, however, in which it may be affirmed that if Adam had in his original probation yielded the obedience required, he would have "merited" the reward conditioned upon it, not because of the intrinsic value of that obedience, but because of the terms of the covenant which God had graciously condescended to form with him. By nature, the creature owed the Creator obedience, while the Creator owed the creature nothing. But by obedience the Creator voluntarily bound himself to owe the creature eternal life, upon the condition of perfect obedience.