Time magazine gets really, really stupid

I used to go through life not knowing what would annoy me next. Then I subscribed to Time magazine, and that uncertainty was mercifully removed.

I must say, though, that with this week's cover story, "Heaven Can't Wait," received in our home during Saturday's Easter vigil, Time has plunged to new depths. The author, Jon Meacham, describes himself as a Christian, but seems blissfully unaware of the most basic Christian doctrines. The article is on the purported conflict between Christians who hope to go to heaven when they die, and those who long for the resurrection of the dead. At one point he does acknowledge the orthodox view that, in the words of Shorter Catechism #37, "[t]he souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection." In other words, Christians who confess the Apostles' Creed believe in both heaven and the resurrection.

As one of those Christians, I can't tell you how difficult it was to read this article. It's non sequitur after non sequitur, suggesting, for instance, that since the present order will be destroyed in the fires of God's judgment, we should work harder to preserve the earth's environment so it will be nicer when the resurrection arrives. I can't make this stuff up, and for once I wish I was.

An interesting story might have been on why the doctrine of the resurrection has been downplayed as the ultimate Christian hope in American evangelicalism, and whether this development is related to evangelicalism's gnostic tendencies. Instead, Time has published a major story which can't get even its basic facts straight. That may demonstrate, more powerfully than any editorial stance ever could, the magazine's dismissive attitude towards matters of Christian faith and practice.

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.

Regarding "Torah & Incarnation"

Dear First Things,

In “Torah and Incarnation” (October 2010), Meir Soloveichik captures quite well the essential distinction between rabbinic Judaism and Christianity, one grounded, ironically, in their respective readings of the Torah. That distinction is not so much how the gap between man and God is bridged, but who is to do the bridging.

Soloveichik finds in Deuteronomy 4:15 a declaration that the infinite God cannot, by his nature, become a finite human, whereas the passage itself warns Israel not to presume to worship God by images; in other words, to devise their own way to bridge the gap between man and God. The Lord controls his relationship with his people, saying later in Deuteronomy 30:14 that he has given his Word to instruct his people how to respond to him. In this vein, Soloveichik eloquently captures the communal, intergenerational dialogue participated in by every serious student of that Word. However, as Paul (reflecting on Deuteronomy 30:14) argues in Romans 10, this dialogue must not become our pursuit of God, but a discovery of God’s call to believe Jesus is the risen Lord.

Again, when he observes Christians are “carnal” in their belief in an Incarnate God who is really present in the Eucharist, Soloveichik is quite right. But for the Christian, this carnality is identical to, not at odds with, communion with God the Spirit; that is, the Christian faith rejoices in the union of spirit and body and rejects a solely intellectual pursuit of God without regard for one’s body. As the Torah itself teaches us to accept only God’s self-revelation, and as the Lord has revealed himself to us in his Incarnation, the Christian looks not to a present redemption, an Eden of the mind in this present age (however Isaiah 51:3 is properly translated), but to the inauguration of the new heavens and earth in which his body and soul will be one in resurrection glory, even as are those of the Incarnate Lord and Son of God, Jesus Christ, himself.

Dour on the New Calvinism

The Curmudgeon household has a subscription to Time magazine, a fringe benefit to taking The Denver Post (motto: "Denver's newspaper of record, like it or not."). Last week the editors favored us with their list of "Ten Ideas Changing the World Right Now." Number three was "The New Calvinism" (http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884760,00.html).

One might think that, as a Calvinist, I would be pleased to be getting a little recognition in the national media. But then, one would do well to remember I am a curmudgeon, not an evangelical. Presbyterians don't need to be validated by the media; the media needs to be validated by Presbyterians.

But of course, the article in question didn't mention presbyterians, other than a single reference to the Presbyterian Church U.S.A (motto: "For those who like synods, but not confessions."). In fact, there was no hint whatsoever that Calvinism might be anything other than five soteriological points; certainly, there was no indication Calvin's Institutes set forth an extremely robust ecclesiology.

Which is why I'm not sure why this "Calvinism" is "new." Southern Baptist Al Mohler is quoted as observing Calvinism is a natural consequence of thinking about God Biblically; the inevitable consequence is that those who take their Bibles seriously will end up thinking Calvinistically. True enough, and that's why back when I was in college and majorly immersed in evangelicalism, I discovered pretty much everyone (other than the committed Anabaptists) leaned toward the five points of Calvinism. Missing, however, was any kind of ecclesiology: after all, I was an evangelical by virtue of participation in parachurch ministries, not membership in the Church. I soon learned that theology without the ordinary means of grace (Word, sacrament, prayer, mediated through and in corporate worship) makes for pretty thin spiritual sustenance. Disembodied predestinarian doctrine isn't really Calvinism; it's a gnosticism which can kill the soul.

One way of reading recent American conservative presbyterian history (which just happens to be my way) is to see it as the story of "New Calvinists" coming into confessional presbyterian Churches, often as ministers, without any grounding in confessional presbyterianism itself. Not surprisingly, the result has been detrimental for presbyterianism: a diet of doctrine proves unsatisfying, and hungry congregants start devouring one another. Thus, try as I might, I just can't get excited about Time magazine getting excited about this so-called "New Calvinism."

Of course, if John Piper becomes a presbyterian, I just might renew my subscription.

Against gnosticism, for the Church year

Philip Lee has some interesting observations on the benefits of practicing the traditional liturgical calendar in the section "The Degnosticizing of Protestantism" in Against the Protestant Gnostics.

"The observance of the Christian year, which in some form or other has been practiced since ancient times, has always been an irritant to the gnostic spirit. It recognizes gnosticism's ancient foe, time, as having an important role within the Christian faith. ...The Christian year from Advent through Pentecost is a reminder that God has not approached His creatures in a general unidentifiable way, but in the particularity of space and time.

"The Protestant failure in celebrating Easter is closely connected to the Protestant failure to observe the Lenten season. ...Lent would be an admission that Christians, like all their fellow creatures, are not only captives of time, but in need of times and seasons. ...Without a particular remembrance of Golgotha in terms of the present, is there any wonder that Easter Sunday is unfulfilling for so many Protestants?"

Gnostic preaching

  Throughout Against the Protestant Gnostics, Philip J. Lee moves back and forth between liberalism and evangelicalism as he explores manifestations of gnosticism.  Interestingly, he does not clarify which of these two Protestant traditions he has in view in this comment on preaching, which in my experience applies equally well to both.  "These various secular attempts at line-blurring, which have largely been prompted by a gnosticized Protestant thought, ironically are now indirectly exerting an effect on church life itself.  ...A typical Protestant sermon is a verbal essay on a contemporary theme, sometimes employing biblical illustrations in support of the essayist's point of view.  The preacher who is bound to the text, confined to what he or she perceives as the biblical point of view, is a curiosity."

Social Darwinism as Calvinist heresy

  Boy howdy, do I like Against the Protestant Gnostics.  From page 202:  "In the United States, this parallel movement of spiritual individualism and economic individualism was aided by the popular understanding of Darwinism and its 'survival of the fittest' philosophy.  'This anti-social teaching,' [Martin] Marty explains, 'individualized the old Puritan-evangelical ideas about "election," ideas which were previously seen in the context of a covenanted community, and used them to justify personal economic competition.'"

Liberalism is gnosticism

More from Philip J. Lee: "The entire Bible was, for liberals, only a rich source of those truths that we, in our hearts, already know."

Infant baptism as polemic

More from Philip J. Lee:  "The final decision by the Church Fathers for the universal acceptance of infant baptism was a strong move against spiritual elitism.  The practice should have guaranteed that one brought to Christ in such fashion could take no credit for his or her election."

While we're at it

  In chapter 4 of Creation in Six Days, which in my not-so-humble opinion is by itself worth the price of the book, James B. Jordan argues that gnosticism is not an ordinary heresy, but a tendency to tranform "history into ideology and facts into philosophy."  The distressing prevalence of this gnostic tendency within confessional presbyterian circles is evidenced, again in my not-so-humble-opinion, by the way sermons which fail to preach Christ crucified, but do argue for predestination, are readily received as "reformed."

Gnosticism & elitism

  In Against the Protestant Gnostics, Philip Lee helpfully argues that gnosticism is better understood as a type or pattern than as a historic phenomenon.  That is, gnosticism is a way of thinking (namely, that one attains salvation through the acquisition of specialized knowledge) which has appeared in various guises and continues to manifest itself even within systems, such as Christianity, which are antithetical to it.  He also notes that gnosticism is, by definition, elitist;  only the select few can acquire the special knowledge.

  I wonder whether gnosticism is, or at least can be, consequent to elitism.  This would explain why certain personality types end up as self-described Calvinists.  These tend to view the doctrines of grace as specialized pieces of information which are known only to the few willing to study and understand them.  Ironically, grace (or rather, their knowledge about grace) becomes for them the marker which signifies their superiority to other Christians.

  In my opinion, those who think of themselves as reformed in their theology, and therefore superior, are less Calvinists than gnostics.