Saturday Ramblings 9.4.10

“Why is it,” I was asked while in England, “that you call it ‘Labor Day,’ but it is a day off?”

I don’t know. If it makes you feel better, I’ll be working that day. So, why do you refer to Fridays as POETS day?

“Push Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

I like it. I like it a lot.

So, fellow poets, are you ready to ramble? Because it’s Saturday!

Glenn Beck, the conservative talk show host, attracted a lot of attention after his recent rally in Washington, D.C. Was it because he made comments about President Obama’s theology? Not really. It was the wall of evangelical pastors who lined up behind Beck, linking arms in support of Beck’s call for America to return to God. This would have been just another “Let’s get back to the Christian nation America began as” kind of event if it weren’t for the fact that all of these pastors were supporting a Mormon. Beck is a practicing Mormon. Jim Wallis issued an open letter to Beck inviting him to a public discussion of his faith and the way he walks it out. And my friend Jim Garlow answered accusations that he was endorsing heresy. What bothers you more: the fact that Beck is a Mormon, or yet another rally wanting to return America to dubious religious roots?

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings 9.4.10”

“Don’t (worry about trying not to) waste your life”

Today we welcome guest poster, Sean Muldowney.

A Note from Chaplain Mike:
One of the most subtle forms of legalism takes hold of believers through forms of pietism. Pietism is an approach to the life of faith that emphasizes the intensity of our religious feelings and devotion. Modern evangelicalism is rife with it. Go to most any service and I can almost guarantee that you will sing more songs about how we want to worship Christ and be more wholly devoted to him than you will about his work on our behalf. Not that “religious affections” as Jonathan Edwards called them, are unimportant. But subtly, an unbalanced emphasis on spiritual experience and emotions leads us to put our trust in our subjective hold on Christ rather than on his objective hold on us through grace.

We have noted this week that one of the attractions of the New Calvinist Movement is their evident “passion” (see Damaris’s excellent post on the word itself) for a great God and his plan of salvation. It is ironic that even in this movement, this focus on spiritual fervency can lead to a sense of bondage. (Save your comments, I’m not saying they are the only ones who do this.)

Today’s guest commenter is Sean Muldowney, a 27 year-old graduate of the University of Connecticut with a BA in English, who currently works as an adolescent counselor at a youth crisis shelter. (You can read more of his bio here.) Sean made some comments this week in our series on New Calvinism that got my attention for the way he reflects so thoughtfully on his own experience and the faith. So I went to his blog, found this article, and knew immediately that our IM community should read it.

If you are hearing constant appeals to be more passionate, more devoted, more “on fire,” more “sold out” so that you won’t “waste your life” in Jesus, and they are tying your insides up in knots, here is a kind and gentle word for you today.Continue reading ““Don’t (worry about trying not to) waste your life””

Friday Night Lights

Many of you will be taking in a high school or college football game this weekend. Friday Night Lights will be shining bright. Football is a great game to watch with friends, to get to make new friends, to cheer for boys playing a man’s game, to hope for better things than last year.

To help prepare you for this season of Friday Night Lights, here are a few mentions of light from the Father of Lights. You’re welcome to print these out, take them with you, and read them at halftime. (Or not.) But please, this year, no giant foam finger, ok?

Then God said, “Let there be light“; and there was light.

Continue reading “Friday Night Lights”

With All Due Respect…

By Chaplain Mike

Please listen carefully.

Are you listening?

  • On day one of this week’s series on the New Calvinists (TNC), I gave an overview of the movement with lots of links so that you can go hear and experience their teaching and approaches for yourself.
  • On day two, I expressed my debt and appreciation for Reformed theology in my own journey.
  • On day three, I used Collin Hansen’s book as a template for helping us understand what’s “new” about TNC, and what different forms it takes. My evaluation was fairly benign, with these simple points of criticism: (1) TNC has not radically distinguished itself from modern evangelicalism except in doctrine. (2) TNC is vulnerable to fundamentalist tendencies.
  • On day four, I had us revisit some of Michael Spencer’s experiences and criticisms of what Scot McKnight called, “The Neo-Reformed.” His primary concern mirrored mine: “Do I want to discourage anyone out of Calvinism? No, I respect your journey. I think it has edges though; edges that can hurt without realizing it, and edges that need to be looked at, not overlooked.”
  • Later on day four, I directed us to Ray Ortlund’s fabulous counsel to his friends who embrace Reformed theology: “If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around.” Here is a Calvinist insider recognizing in himself and among his colleagues the same tendency toward arrogance and separatistism that we called fundamentalism.

Unless I’ve missed something, I think the character of our writing about the New Calvinists has been respectful, appreciative, and honest. We haven’t taken an overly critical tone. We haven’t dismissed them. We haven’t ranted about issues where we differ in interpretation. We haven’t called anyone a heretic or a monster.

Nevertheless, the TNC movement, even though it has risen up in reaction to many of the deficiencies of modern evangelicalism, continues to represent a part of the evangelicalism many of us have left behind. Why? For me, two main reasons:

  1. Because they haven’t moved far enough away from the contemporary evangelical system.
  2. Because they haven’t moved far enough toward the ancient, deeper, broader consensus of the one true catholic and apostolic church.

That is my primary critique. With that in mind, I’d like to say a few specific things, with all due respect of course.Continue reading “With All Due Respect…”

A Jesus-Shaped Challenge

A passage from Michael Spencer’s Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality struck me as I was reading it recently.  I’m going to offer it to all you faithful denizens of the Internet Monastery to consider.

Here’s a simple example.  Think about yourself if you had just spent three years with Jesus.  How would you treat illegal immigrants?  For vast numbers of typical American Christians, their immediate instincts are to either argue a political position or look for a way to end the conversation.  . . . Some of [their] answers could be better, and some could be a lot worse, but it’s the process of how we consider the issues that matters to me.  (Mere Churchianity, p. 51.)

Continue reading “A Jesus-Shaped Challenge”

My Five Favorite Non-Fiction Titles

You can put down your Sunday Times Book Review section now. I have your reading list for the next several months right here. Like my list of my five favorite fiction titles, I am going to start off with some honorable mentions. And there is one book in the top five you are going to want to argue with me as to whether it belongs in this list or the fiction list.

And as you did with the list of novels, please add to my list as you see fit. I am not saying these are the only non-fiction titles worth reading, or the only ones you should have in your library. These are my five favorites, and they are my favorites for various reasons. Your reasons will, of course, be different, so read accordingly.

So many books to read, so little time to read them.

Continue reading “My Five Favorite Non-Fiction Titles”

iMonk Classic: Ray Ortlund—Reduced to Jesus Only

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
Originally posted July 15, 2008

MOD Note: Back in 2008, Michael found this good word about what it means to be “Truly Reformed,” from one who is. Follow the link to read the entire post.

From Ray Ortlund’s blog…

Whatever divides us emotionally from other Bible-believing, Christ-honoring Christians is a “plus” we’re adding to the gospel. It is the Galatian impulse of self-exaltation. It can even become a club with which we bash other Christians, at least in our thoughts, to punish, to exclude and to force into line with us. What unifies the church is the gospel. What defines the gospel is the Bible. What interprets the Bible correctly is a hermeneutic centered on Jesus Christ crucified, the all-sufficient Savior of sinners, who gives himself away on terms of radical grace to all alike. What proves that that gospel hermeneutic has captured our hearts is that we are not looking down on other believers but lifting them up, not seeing ourselves as better but grateful for their contribution to the cause, not standing aloof but embracing them freely, not wishing they would become like us but serving them in love (Galatians 5:13).

My Reformed friend, can you move among other Christian groups and really enjoy them? Do you admire them? Even if you disagree with them in some ways, do you learn from them? What is the emotional tilt of your heart – toward them or away from them? If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around. The proof that we are Reformed will be all the wonderful Christians we discover around us who are not Reformed. Amazing people. Heroic people. Blood-bought people. People with whom we are eternally one – in Christ alone.

There’s a lot of things I’d like to say, but this is so good that I’m just going to leave it alone…although I’m pretty sure some quarters of the blogosphere won’t be able to do so.

iMonk Classic: Riffs (02:18:09)–Scot McKnight on the “Neo-Reformed”

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
Originally posted February 18, 2009

‘Twas not so long ago, on a Calvinistic web site you’ve all visited, that one could hear a serious call to present one’s reformed credentials if one planned to be part of the discussion.

‘Twas also not so long ago, on more than one Calvinistic web site, that a person disagreeing with the main points of the host would be asked to answer “What is the gospel?”

And ’twas not so long ago, that I said, “I’m not a Calvinist,” an announcement that has now earned me at least a weekly email or two telling me that I am about to leave the faith or become a Roman Catholic.

In my own journey, I had happy days as a Calvinist. My days at Southern Baptist Founder’s Conference meetings as a “Timothy George” type SBC Calvinist were good times. Then there were the bad times. Posts about me at certain flaming blogs. Days of posts about me after the word went out through certain Calvinistic chat rooms that I was leading my audience outside of accepted boundaries. Letters to publishers and my employer, and weirdness on comment threads where my name was invoked as “emerging” and “apostate.”

When I finally swore all this off, it wasn’t to become an Arminian, or a Catholic or a one man band. It was to get the heck away from whatever was/is going on among the newly energized reformation police.Continue reading “iMonk Classic: Riffs (02:18:09)–Scot McKnight on the “Neo-Reformed””

What’s New about the New Calvinism?

By Chaplain Mike

Reading the title of Collin Hansen’s book, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists, one might surmise it would be a chronicle and evaluation of the movement from a journalist’s somewhat objective point of view. Turns out that Hansen’s book is more of an homage to a phenomenon he considers a genuine religious revival taking place in our day.

So much so, in fact, that the Gospel Coalition announced on July 10 that Hansen will be joining the organization as their editorial director, writing and editing pieces “that spotlight the advance of the gospel worldwide, feature trustworthy and effective local church ministries, and bring theological discernment to cultural trends.”

In my opinion, Hansen’s book does provide a valuable overview of the “new Calvinist” movement, and is particularly helpful for discovering what’s different about this present manifestation of Calvinism. However, one should realize from the outset that Hansen is a cheerleader as well as a chronicler of the ministries and leaders about which he is writing.

This post will not be an in-depth review of the book. Rather we will use it to answer the question, “What’s ‘NEW’ about the New Calvinism?” How does this contemporary upsurge of interest in Reformed theology, much of which has emerged because of dissatisfaction with contemporary evangelicalism, differ from older manifestations of Calvinist teaching and practice in American churches and ministries?Continue reading “What’s New about the New Calvinism?”

The New Liturgical Gangstas (1)—On the Gospel

Today, we resume IM’s popular feature, “The Liturgical Gangstas,” a panel discussion involving representatives from different liturgical traditions who will be answering questions regarding theology and church practice. Lord willing, the Gangstas will appear on the final Monday of each month to share with our IM audience.

Who are the Gangstas?

Today’s Question: THE GOSPEL
On Internet Monk, we try to make the point that the Gospel is not simply a message we proclaim to non-believers but a message that Christians also need every day. In your tradition and church, how do you make sure the Gospel remains central in your preaching and practice?

In this post, we’ll hear from Fr. Ernesto, Wyman, Bill, and Dan.

Continue reading “The New Liturgical Gangstas (1)—On the Gospel”