Unexamined ideas can have unintended consequences. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” That may be overstating the case, but one thing is certain, the unexamined life will invariably produced unintended results. The fact is that our ideas and principles produce results. If we have never thought through the implications of those ideas and principles, they are going to surprise us with unintended consequences, undesired consequences, or second and third order consequences. If our ideas and principles are never articulated or scrutinized we will continually be caught off guard by the natural effects of our worldview. Follow a particular line of thought by adhering to a particular form of behavior for any length of time and there will be a whole string of effects. There will be a kind of worldview domino effect. One effect will lead to another and another and another and another.
This is worldview thinking at its most practical level. Let your mind dwell on forbidden and destructive fantasies and before you know it your thought life will be marked by unfaithfulness. Unfaithfulness will inevitably creates restlessness and discontent. That may lead directly to adultery. That may in turn result in separation or even divorce. The ripple effect of consequences may not end there: children are affected. Neighbors and friends are affected. On and on and on it goes. Worldviews matter. Ideas have consequences. Often, they have unintended consequences.
Thursday, August 4
Thursday, July 28
Whaa’z Uuuup Geoff-Dog?
Baba Brinkman wants modern teenagers to learn to love Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic Canterbury Tales as much as he does. So, the Canadian rap artist has translated some of the best-known works of the fourteenth-century poet into hip-hop in an effort to make them “more appealing.” According to Baba, “All the themes of rap music are there in the tales: jealousy, anger, greed, lust.” He had the idea of converting Chaucer into rap when he was working toward a masters’ degree on the poet nearly a decade ago. “I tried to keep the rap versions as close as possible to the original, so I went through the tales line-by-line,” he said. “It was a painstaking process to convert Chaucer into a rhyme scheme that young people would like."Yeah! I bet!
Commenting on the translation effort Jonathan Dickson, an English professor at a prestigious East Coast university, asserted, "I’m sure a few uppity traditionalist-types might object. But hey dude, we’ve had rock-n-roll Shakespeare and goth Milton, so why not hip-hop Chaucer?”
Hmmm. I think I’d best refrain from commenting on electric-razzle-dazzle Shakepeare, street-wise-posse Chaucer, or hipper-than-thou Ivy League Lit profs lest I find myself relegated to the cultural backwater of uppitydom. But, haute-goth-drag Milton? About that, I really think I'm just gonna have to go on record as hopelessly moss-backed.
Wednesday, July 27
Federal Vision Reports
At its 80th stated meeting earlier this month the Louisiana Presbytery of the PCA adopted a report from an ad hoc committee on the various controversies surrounding the Federal Vision (or Auburn Avenue) theological movement. The report is available online at the Louisiana Presbytery website. This is the second full report on this issue from the PCA--the other came from the Mississippi Valley Presbytery earlier this year. It too is available online in a downloadable PDF file. As you will be able to readily discern, the two reports probably could not be more different--only highlighting the depth and breadth of this roiling controversy.
Monday, July 25
Reformation 21
The new online e-magazine of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is a gold mine of helpful book reviews, astute cultural commentaries, serious theological reflection, and practical pastoral resources. Esteemed Reformed scholars like Derek Thomas, Phil Ryken, Justin Taylor, Ligon Duncan, and John Piper join rising stars like Nate Shurden (one of my former students) to create a remarkable and welcome site on the web. There are also a host of archived classics--sermons by Charles Spurgeon, Horatius Bonar, John Calvin, and R.C. Sproul. Not likely to shy away from fierce controversies like the New Perspective and Federal Vision debates, Reformation 21 is sure to be provocative, informative, and incisive. You'll want to be sure to bookmark it (what an interesting linguistic anachronism that phrase is: bookmarking a website)!
Tuesday, July 19
What a Difference!
What difference can covenantal discipleship and substantive education make? It can make all the difference in the world. The circumstances surrounding the birth of our own nation are instructive in this regard.
The coronation of King George III in October 1760 marked a turning point in the relations between England and her American colonies. His German great-grandfather and grandfather, George I and George II, had allowed the powers of the Crown decline under their rule. When he arrived from Hanover, George I spoke no English, and the ministers of state, who spoke no German, were forced to speak to him in ecclesiastical Latin to conduct any conversation. George II was an absent king, spending most of his time back home in Hanover and leaving the administration of the country to his wife, Caroline, and his Prime Ministers, Sir Robert Walpole and William Pitt.
However, the new king was determined to be a new kind of English monarch, and a bold adjustment of style and policy was in order. Eager to assert his authority over his dominion, he began by dismissing many of ministers of state that had been appointed by his grandfather, George II.
The most notable dismissal was William Pitt, the popular Prime Minister, who everyone acknowledged had been running the country during the entire course of the Seven Years War. Pitt’s departure from the government only served to increase the problems for the new king. The Peace of Paris, which ended the Seven Years War, had left the British with the enormous problem of governing and protecting a vast new empire. On one side of the globe, they had added the subcontinent of India to their holdings; on the other they had added Canada and all the land west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River.
Victory in the war presented the king with a major defensive headache. British North America more than doubled in size, and now included many more hostile Indians and unfriendly Frenchmen. The king felt it necessary to station some 7500 soldiers in the American colonies as a permanent defense against French and Indian raids along the frontier. Nearly half of the soldiers were earmarked for Canada, a quarter for duty in the West, almost a quarter for Florida, while seven hundred were left in the old colonial seaports to handle supplies destined for the soldiers on the frontier. The presence of these soldiers would prove to be a great source of trouble to colonists, who did not believe that the British government should maintain a standing army in peacetime and grew suspicious that the intended purpose of these troops was to suppress their liberties.
But, all that was hardly the worst of it. Unknown to George at the time, a new kind of threat to his absolute authority as king was about to land on the American shores. John Witherspoon was a well-known Presbyterian preacher, reformer, and educator in Scotland who was called by the struggling College of New Jersey to assume the helm as president. The problem the college trustees were facing was that their presidents kept dying in rapid succession, including Jonathan Edwards and Samuel Davies who both died just a few months into their terms. Little did the trustees know how good of a choice they had made in their selection. Assessing the importance of Witherspoon’s arrival to the colonies, Woodrow Wilson, who would himself serve as president of Princeton and then later be elected Governor of New Jersey and President of the United States, said, “It was a piece of providential good fortune that brought such a man to Princeton at such a good time.”
Witherspoon, who had been imprisoned like so many other Scots patriots following the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Stewart royal cause by the German Hanoverians, quickly took to his new office, and he began to aggressively transform the college into new kind of institution that was focused on creating Christian cultural leaders. His biographer, Varnum Lansing Collins, noted the importance of this shift: “However little others may have thought of it or he himself have realized just then was the belief that the function of such a college was not merely to educate candidates for the ministry, but also to send out into the widening spheres of colonial life Christian gentlemen and scholarly men of affairs.” The classical curriculum would now be devoted to more than just theology; it would prepare them for the whole of life.
Students would devote their time to learning “the permanent things,” Witherspoon determined. New topics were incorporated into Witherspoon’s Moral Philosophy lectures, including ethics, political science and law--none of which were being taught at a college anywhere in the colonies at the time. Economics was also a part of the broadened academic focus, and he lectured against the use of paper money in favor of hard currency and the virtues of the free market.
These studies rooted the students in the Reformation doctrine of calling and vocation. Witherspoon emphasized the pervasive role of religion to guide and inform every area of study, and the necessity of every man to do his duty, and he would echo this theme in a sermon delivered just days before he would sign the Declaration of Independence. “Upon the whole, I beseech you to make a wise improvement of the present threatening aspect of public affairs, and to remember your duty to God, to your country, to your families, and to yourselves, is the same. True religion is nothing else but an inward temper and outward conduct suited to your state and circumstances in providence at any time.”
Faith must be translated into action, and the whole discipleship process at the College of New Jersey would be founded on this fundamental belief. Academics at the college were intended to build these “Christian gentlemen” who exhibited the traits of practical determination, spiritual devotion, a love of liberty and virtue, and vigilance against tyranny and apathy. Witherspoon was dedicated to building a new, peculiar kind of man who was animated and activated by a Christian worldview, and the impact of his efforts would profoundly influence the direction that the entire country was about to take by training a whole generation of American leaders and statesmen. Garry Wills, a modern historian, was not overstating his case when he said that Witherspoon was “probably the most influential teacher in the history of American education.”
And that made all the difference!
The coronation of King George III in October 1760 marked a turning point in the relations between England and her American colonies. His German great-grandfather and grandfather, George I and George II, had allowed the powers of the Crown decline under their rule. When he arrived from Hanover, George I spoke no English, and the ministers of state, who spoke no German, were forced to speak to him in ecclesiastical Latin to conduct any conversation. George II was an absent king, spending most of his time back home in Hanover and leaving the administration of the country to his wife, Caroline, and his Prime Ministers, Sir Robert Walpole and William Pitt.
However, the new king was determined to be a new kind of English monarch, and a bold adjustment of style and policy was in order. Eager to assert his authority over his dominion, he began by dismissing many of ministers of state that had been appointed by his grandfather, George II.
The most notable dismissal was William Pitt, the popular Prime Minister, who everyone acknowledged had been running the country during the entire course of the Seven Years War. Pitt’s departure from the government only served to increase the problems for the new king. The Peace of Paris, which ended the Seven Years War, had left the British with the enormous problem of governing and protecting a vast new empire. On one side of the globe, they had added the subcontinent of India to their holdings; on the other they had added Canada and all the land west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River.
Victory in the war presented the king with a major defensive headache. British North America more than doubled in size, and now included many more hostile Indians and unfriendly Frenchmen. The king felt it necessary to station some 7500 soldiers in the American colonies as a permanent defense against French and Indian raids along the frontier. Nearly half of the soldiers were earmarked for Canada, a quarter for duty in the West, almost a quarter for Florida, while seven hundred were left in the old colonial seaports to handle supplies destined for the soldiers on the frontier. The presence of these soldiers would prove to be a great source of trouble to colonists, who did not believe that the British government should maintain a standing army in peacetime and grew suspicious that the intended purpose of these troops was to suppress their liberties.
But, all that was hardly the worst of it. Unknown to George at the time, a new kind of threat to his absolute authority as king was about to land on the American shores. John Witherspoon was a well-known Presbyterian preacher, reformer, and educator in Scotland who was called by the struggling College of New Jersey to assume the helm as president. The problem the college trustees were facing was that their presidents kept dying in rapid succession, including Jonathan Edwards and Samuel Davies who both died just a few months into their terms. Little did the trustees know how good of a choice they had made in their selection. Assessing the importance of Witherspoon’s arrival to the colonies, Woodrow Wilson, who would himself serve as president of Princeton and then later be elected Governor of New Jersey and President of the United States, said, “It was a piece of providential good fortune that brought such a man to Princeton at such a good time.”
Witherspoon, who had been imprisoned like so many other Scots patriots following the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Stewart royal cause by the German Hanoverians, quickly took to his new office, and he began to aggressively transform the college into new kind of institution that was focused on creating Christian cultural leaders. His biographer, Varnum Lansing Collins, noted the importance of this shift: “However little others may have thought of it or he himself have realized just then was the belief that the function of such a college was not merely to educate candidates for the ministry, but also to send out into the widening spheres of colonial life Christian gentlemen and scholarly men of affairs.” The classical curriculum would now be devoted to more than just theology; it would prepare them for the whole of life.
Students would devote their time to learning “the permanent things,” Witherspoon determined. New topics were incorporated into Witherspoon’s Moral Philosophy lectures, including ethics, political science and law--none of which were being taught at a college anywhere in the colonies at the time. Economics was also a part of the broadened academic focus, and he lectured against the use of paper money in favor of hard currency and the virtues of the free market.
These studies rooted the students in the Reformation doctrine of calling and vocation. Witherspoon emphasized the pervasive role of religion to guide and inform every area of study, and the necessity of every man to do his duty, and he would echo this theme in a sermon delivered just days before he would sign the Declaration of Independence. “Upon the whole, I beseech you to make a wise improvement of the present threatening aspect of public affairs, and to remember your duty to God, to your country, to your families, and to yourselves, is the same. True religion is nothing else but an inward temper and outward conduct suited to your state and circumstances in providence at any time.”
Faith must be translated into action, and the whole discipleship process at the College of New Jersey would be founded on this fundamental belief. Academics at the college were intended to build these “Christian gentlemen” who exhibited the traits of practical determination, spiritual devotion, a love of liberty and virtue, and vigilance against tyranny and apathy. Witherspoon was dedicated to building a new, peculiar kind of man who was animated and activated by a Christian worldview, and the impact of his efforts would profoundly influence the direction that the entire country was about to take by training a whole generation of American leaders and statesmen. Garry Wills, a modern historian, was not overstating his case when he said that Witherspoon was “probably the most influential teacher in the history of American education.”
And that made all the difference!
What About Harry?
He's a wildly lauded pop-culture phenomenon. He's bigger than anything since the iPod Shuffle. Even Hollywood blockbusters have a hard time keeping pace with his box office booty. He's enmeshed in a world of wizzards and magic and evil sorcerers. Can he possibly be good? I mean really! On the face of it, isn't it obvious that Harry Potter--to say nothing of the craze that swirls about him--has to be dangerous, dispicable, and desultory from a Christian worldview perspective?
Well, not necessarily. In fact, according to Jerram Barrs, the J.K. Rowling novels featuring Harry Potter may actually be all they are cracked up to be--and more. In his latest Christian Counter-Culture essay from the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, this renowned professor of apologetics and evangelism makes a powerful case for Harry, Hogwarts, and Hermoine. If it seems more than a little paradoxical to you that a thoughtful Reformed theologian would be wild about Harry but wouldn't even think of touching the Left Behind novels--much less actually reading them--then you probably ought to read this!
For a totally contrarian view, my friend Doug Phillips, raises grave concerns at his Vision Forum site about the themes of sorcery in the Potter books. Be sure to read the whole essay carefully--Doug artfully uses sarcasm to make his point.
After you have read the to-and-fro and pillar-to-post discussions that Barrs and Phillips have launched, you may still find yourself wondering what a Christian ought to think about Harry and Hogwarts. If you've made it this far into the discussion then you may want to try to go further by tackling John Granger's book, Finding God in Harry Potter. I have found it to be the most thoroughly informed work--from both a theological and a literary perspective--on the subject thus far.
But, one thing is clear: this is not a simple debate--it is fraught with the complexities of language, definition, literary form, thematic purpose, and cultural differences (remember that Rowling is a European not an American, so the metaphysical terminology she uses may rankle the average Evangelical unfamiliar with the Medieval traditions and forms she borrows from the fairy tales, myths, and legends of continental Christendom). Thus, this not a debate that will be won or lost with simple sloganeering, however impassioned or emphatic.
Monday, July 18
Tour de France
As the Tour climbs through the Pyranees, Lance is not the only one robed in glorious yellow. What splendor!
Muggle Publishing
Magic seems to have surrounded the release of the latest Harry Potter novel as the J.K. Rowling tome set just about every publishing record imaginable on both sides of the Atlantic: for largest print run, for the biggest pre-sales, and for the most single-day sales. The security measures leading up to the release--to protect against the spoilers--were matched only by the publicity blitzes--to protect against the naysayers.
Alas, all is not magic in the world of Harry and Hogwarts. It appears that Bloomsbury and Scholastic (the UK and US publishers) are run by Muggles and not by Wizzards. While Rowling's writing and the plotting are as ingenious as ever in The Half Blood Prince, her sixth book in the seven book series, there are numerous typos throughout the 652 page yarn--"site" instead of "sight," "fug instead of fog," "their heart" instead of "the hearth," etc. Nit picking, I know! My guess is that such twiddly bits will hardly dampen enthusiasms--enthusiasms being what they are!
By the way, for those still trying to sort out whether this "wild about Harry" stuff is a good or bad thing, I recommend the helpful and balanced Looking for God in Harry Potter by John Granger (Tyndale).
Alas, all is not magic in the world of Harry and Hogwarts. It appears that Bloomsbury and Scholastic (the UK and US publishers) are run by Muggles and not by Wizzards. While Rowling's writing and the plotting are as ingenious as ever in The Half Blood Prince, her sixth book in the seven book series, there are numerous typos throughout the 652 page yarn--"site" instead of "sight," "fug instead of fog," "their heart" instead of "the hearth," etc. Nit picking, I know! My guess is that such twiddly bits will hardly dampen enthusiasms--enthusiasms being what they are!
By the way, for those still trying to sort out whether this "wild about Harry" stuff is a good or bad thing, I recommend the helpful and balanced Looking for God in Harry Potter by John Granger (Tyndale).
Monday, July 11
Righting Every Wrong
I always seem to learn things the hard way. I have a proclivity for majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors. I have a difficult time recognizing what is actually important, what is genuinely precious, or what ultimately matters in this poor fallen world. So, though I would like to claim that my vision for covenantal succession, my agenda for classical education, and my commitment to raising up the next generation of leaders has arisen out of some profound virtue, some deep insight, or some well-defined strategy, I can’t. I must confess that I have arrived at most of my discipleship convictions by default—the kind of default that is attributable solely to the grace and mercy of God.
It was not too terribly long ago that I was an untempered zealot. I wanted to right every wrong and undertake every righteous cause. I committed myself to stand against all manner of injustice. I was determined to champion beauty, goodness, and truth—the essential elements of Christian civilization—wherever they might be threatened. I plunged headlong into social activism, political involvement, and cultural renewal.
Unfortunately, I found that I was hardly prepared for such an undertaking. I was woefully ignorant of the very legacy I wished to defend. Unlike so many of the great leaders I looked up to, I was so poorly educated that I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. When I compared my grasp of the issues, of the historical precedents that underlay those issues, and the theological principles that defined those issues with any of the great men and women of the past who laid the foundations of our freedom in the first place, I was appalled.
What made matters even worse, was that as I looked around I really did not very many others who were significantly better prepared for the difficult challenges our culture posed than I was. With no little consternation, I began to ask, “Where are the Martin Luthers for our day? Where are the John Calvins? Where are the Charles Spurgeons? Where are the likes of Thomas Chalmers, or John Knox, or Theodore Beza, or Martin Bucer, or Jan Comenius, or Gerhard Groote, or Abraham Kuyper? Where are the reformers, the champions, the heroes?”
I very nearly drew a blank. Hope grew dim.
It was only then that I began to comprehend that the most important thing I could do for the rest of my life was not undertake one more campaign, fight one more fight, or launch one more project—as worthwhile as all those things might be. It slowly dawned on me that in order to reap the benefits of stalwart leadership, a people must make substantive investments far in advance. Leadership must be prayed for, planned for, and prepared for—it doesn’t just happen. I know, I know, that is hardly earth shattering news. But I had finally come to the realization that in order to bring about reconciliation, restoration, and reformation in our culture we would have to commit ourselves to the multigenerational agenda of covenantal faithfulness—just as it had always been; just as it always would be.
The Scriptures speak eloquently of our responsibilities to effectively train up the next generation of leaders. The responsibilities therein rehearsed have been part of the confession of faith of God’s people from the earliest days—indeed they constitute a primary application of the first and great commandment (Deut. 6: 4-5; Matt. 22: 37-38). They constitute a central element in what it means for those who are saved to keep covenant with God: “And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently unto your children.” Alas, I was not arrested by the glorious opportunities presented by the next generation until I had effectively given up on my own.
I still want to right every wrong and undertake every righteous cause. I still try to commit myself to stand against all manner of injustice. I remain determined to champion beauty, goodness, and truth—the essential elements of Christian civilization—wherever they might be threatened. But today, I do so, with a whole host of similarly motivated co-laborers, as we teach young men and women the wonders of math and science, the delights of history and language, and the marvels of art and music—and all from the perspective and application of the Christian worldview as derived from God’s revelation so that they might joyously walk in God’s gracious covenant as faithful disciples of their Sovereign.
And as a result, hope grows brighter with every passing day. A new generation of leaders is ready to step across the threshold of the future. Just in the nick of time.
It was not too terribly long ago that I was an untempered zealot. I wanted to right every wrong and undertake every righteous cause. I committed myself to stand against all manner of injustice. I was determined to champion beauty, goodness, and truth—the essential elements of Christian civilization—wherever they might be threatened. I plunged headlong into social activism, political involvement, and cultural renewal.
Unfortunately, I found that I was hardly prepared for such an undertaking. I was woefully ignorant of the very legacy I wished to defend. Unlike so many of the great leaders I looked up to, I was so poorly educated that I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. When I compared my grasp of the issues, of the historical precedents that underlay those issues, and the theological principles that defined those issues with any of the great men and women of the past who laid the foundations of our freedom in the first place, I was appalled.
What made matters even worse, was that as I looked around I really did not very many others who were significantly better prepared for the difficult challenges our culture posed than I was. With no little consternation, I began to ask, “Where are the Martin Luthers for our day? Where are the John Calvins? Where are the Charles Spurgeons? Where are the likes of Thomas Chalmers, or John Knox, or Theodore Beza, or Martin Bucer, or Jan Comenius, or Gerhard Groote, or Abraham Kuyper? Where are the reformers, the champions, the heroes?”
I very nearly drew a blank. Hope grew dim.
It was only then that I began to comprehend that the most important thing I could do for the rest of my life was not undertake one more campaign, fight one more fight, or launch one more project—as worthwhile as all those things might be. It slowly dawned on me that in order to reap the benefits of stalwart leadership, a people must make substantive investments far in advance. Leadership must be prayed for, planned for, and prepared for—it doesn’t just happen. I know, I know, that is hardly earth shattering news. But I had finally come to the realization that in order to bring about reconciliation, restoration, and reformation in our culture we would have to commit ourselves to the multigenerational agenda of covenantal faithfulness—just as it had always been; just as it always would be.
The Scriptures speak eloquently of our responsibilities to effectively train up the next generation of leaders. The responsibilities therein rehearsed have been part of the confession of faith of God’s people from the earliest days—indeed they constitute a primary application of the first and great commandment (Deut. 6: 4-5; Matt. 22: 37-38). They constitute a central element in what it means for those who are saved to keep covenant with God: “And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently unto your children.” Alas, I was not arrested by the glorious opportunities presented by the next generation until I had effectively given up on my own.
I still want to right every wrong and undertake every righteous cause. I still try to commit myself to stand against all manner of injustice. I remain determined to champion beauty, goodness, and truth—the essential elements of Christian civilization—wherever they might be threatened. But today, I do so, with a whole host of similarly motivated co-laborers, as we teach young men and women the wonders of math and science, the delights of history and language, and the marvels of art and music—and all from the perspective and application of the Christian worldview as derived from God’s revelation so that they might joyously walk in God’s gracious covenant as faithful disciples of their Sovereign.
And as a result, hope grows brighter with every passing day. A new generation of leaders is ready to step across the threshold of the future. Just in the nick of time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)