Category Archives: Special day

Calvin 500 Celebration: Thoughts On The Linkage Of Theology And Polity — Part 1: The Sovereignty Of God And The Gift Of The Church

I will begin with the Church, into whose bosom God is pleased to collect his children, not only that by her aid and ministry they may be nourished so long as they are babes and children, but may also be guided by her maternal care until they grow up to manhood, and, finally, attain to the perfection of faith. What God has thus joined let not man put asunder (Mark 10:9) to those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a mother. This was true not merely under the Law, but even now after the advent of Christ; since Paul declares that we are the children of a new, even a heavenly Jerusalem, (Gal. 4: 26.) [Inst. 4.1.1]

Probably the most frequently cited distinctive of Reformed theology is “The Sovereignty of God.” To put it very simply, God is in charge, we are not, and God has the power and authority to do whatever pleases him in his good and perfect will. To put it another way, God created this world and God allows us to live in it. The Geneva Confession Article on God begins in 2.1 with:

Following, then, the lines laid down in the Holy Scriptures, we acknowledge that there is one only God, whom we are both to worship and serve, and in whom we are to put all our confidence and hope: having this assurance, that in him alone is contained all wisdom, power, justice, goodness and pity.

While this may seem an obvious theological principle of Christianity, in John Calvin’s theological framework the logical consequence of God being in charge leads to the conclusion that God gets to decide who is saved for eternity, the concept of predestination. But that is a very rough and brief statement, it leaves our one important logical step, and is a subject for later in this series.

But as we consider Calvin’s doctrine of the Sovereignty of God, what are the implications for the Church and our polity?

While there are a multitude of implications the one I want to focus on now is the gift of the Church. If God is absolutely sovereign then the Church is not a human institution and does not belong to us. As Chapter 25.6 begins in the Westminster Confession “VI. There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ…” In Calvin’s Geneva Catechism it is similarly expressed:

Master. – You therefore mean nothing more than Paul says, namely, that Christ has been appointed head of the Church, and raised above all principalities, has obtained a name which is above every name. (Eph. i. 22; Phil. ii. 9.)

Scholar. – It is as you say.

And later in the questioning:

Master. – What is the Church?

Scholar. – The body and society of believers whom God hath predestined to eternal life.

So, because the Church belongs to God, God gets to decide who is part of it.

But the other side of this is that God also provides for the Church.

But as our ignorance and sloth (I may add, the vanity of our mind) stand in need of external helps, by which faith may be begotten in us, and may increase and make progress until its consummation, God, in accommodation to our infirmity has added much helps, and secured the effectual preaching of the gospel, by depositing this treasure with the Church. He has appointed pastors and teachers, by whose lips he might edify his people, (Eph. 4: 11) he has invested them with authority, and, in short, omitted nothing that might conduce to holy consent in the faith, and to right order. In particular, he has instituted sacraments, which we feel by experience to be most useful helps in fostering and confirming our faith. Forseeing we are shut up in the prison of the body, and have not yet attained to the rank of angels, God, in accommodation to our capacity,has in his admirable providence provided a method by which, though widely separated, we might still draw near to him. [Inst. 4.1.1]

Specifically, God provides leadership, particularly for the preaching of the Word, and God provides the Sacraments so that “we might still draw near to him.” The leadership and Sacraments are for our benefit and by extension the benefit of The Church.

One application of this is that the officers of the church, teaching and ruling elders as well as deacons, need to see their role as stewards or shepherds. The Church of Jesus Christ is entrusted to us, what are we doing to return that which is entrusted to us back to its true owner in better condition than when we received it?

Revolution and Community

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“When in the Course of human events…”

When you think about it the United States’ Declaration of Independence is a really bold and audacious document. It sets out the theory and specific reasons why thirteen colonies should break ties with their mother country and govern themselves. As the lead character in the movie National Treasure says when proposing a toast to the Declaration — “To high treason.”

(And I was recently reminded by an old episode of the TV show History Detectives that not all the colonists wanted to break with the mother country. As Winston Churchill said – “History is written by the victors.” But that is a reflection for another time.)

It is a shame that most people only remember two selected phrases out of a longer sentence in the Declaration — “all men are created equal” and they are endowed with “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Now there is nothing wrong with these concepts, but rather that they are taken out of the context of the document.

First, between these two phrases comes the reminder that as all humans are created equal they are endowed “by their Creator” with the rights.

Second, the next line says “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”
And so, while the Declaration is frequently thought of as a document that secures my personal right to happiness, it is actually a document that sets forth the role of God, the government, and the community in providing and securing that happiness for us as a society. Yes, the Declaration of Independence is not so much about me as it is about us.

When was the last time that you read the Declaration of Independence? Outside of the opening and closing it gets a bit less interesting. The majority of the document is the enumeration of the “repeated injuries and usurpations” that had been inflicted on the colonies. Have a look.

And after all the “whereases” comes one concluding paragraph:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. (emphasis added)

The Declaration concludes as it began, with reliance on God and a mutual pledge to the community on their sacred honor.
This was not about any one of them individually. This was not safe and easy as Benjamin Franklin is quoted pointing out at the signing of the Declaration – “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” And this example holds for the faith community as well as general society.

Now I will let John Adams have the final word. On July 3, 1776 he wrote to his wife Abigail –

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

(Note: In a rare action I am cross-posting this on both my Everything in Moderation and The GA Junkie blogs.)

Greetings On Trinity Sunday

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For those of you who use the liturgical calendar, I wish you a happy Trinity Sunday.

Some of you may have seen “If God text messaged the 10 Commandments.” (h/t Being Presbyterian)

Well, in case you did not see it the Liturgical Comic Strip Agnus Day for Trinity Sunday has the Athanasian Creed down to a tweet:

The Dad, Son & Spirit are God; God is Dad, Son & Spirit; Dad≠Son, Son≠Dad, Dad≠Spirit, Son≠Spirit, Spirit≠Dad, Spirit≠Son. Done.

Yes, less than 140 characters. Even room for a hashtag. As the straight man in the strip says to the maverick – “You scare me.”

Have a blessed Lord’s Day.

Christmas is now over, what next? — Reflecting on the Twelve Days of Christmas

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Christmas Day is past. All of my preparations, reflection, travel, hosting, worrying, church-hopping, family time, and a multitude of other things, focused on that one day out of the year, have met their deadline, ready or not. Now what?

We are now in the “Twelve days of Christmas,” the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany. Usual notation seems to have Christmas as the first day, although I have seen cases where Epiphany is the twelfth day.

In the simplest sense, the Twelve Days of Christmas are just a part of the liturgical calendar — The days of Christmastide after Christmas and before we enter the season of Epiphany.

And yes, it has its own song (with a wild rendition on YouTube by the a capella group Straight No Chaser, although in my opinion a now removed version recorded about a decade ago was better done). And Dave Walker has his vision of it over at CartoonChurch.com.

I’m not suggesting that the materialistic chaos of the Christmas Day gift-giving and celebration be repeated another eleven days. (Although there could be some wonderful ways of “sharing the Christmas season” with others that could happen during this time.)

But as a liturgical and devotional vehicle the days of Christmastide provide us a chance “clutch the baby Jesus” a few more days, as the preacher I heard the morning put it, and remind ourselves not to move on too quickly from this miraculous event where we celebrate God incarnate as a human being. We need time for it to sink in that it is Emmanuel, “God with us.”

But this year the twelve days of Christmas seem more important to me than in the past. It is probably the way in which the realities of this broken world have really intruded into my holiday season.

Within my own family my father-in-law was hospitalized with pneumonia the second day after Christmas. And while he is still in the hospital and making progress against this setback, this is only a piece in a larger set of health challenges that have permanently affected his lifestyle.

But it is also interesting how this year I am more aware of other peoples’ health challenges out there in the “Church Virtual,” the collection of brothers and sisters in Christ that I know mostly, if not entirely, in the on-line community. I would especially lift up for prayer the Rev. David Wayne, AKA JollyBlogger, who was diagnosed with cancer just before Christmas and spent Christmas Eve day in the OR. While I only know David as a faithful medium-term reader of his blog, this is the power of the on-line world that we do become Christian Community with each other through this Web 2.0 stuff. Praying for you David and rejoicing that you came home today.

And speaking of Web 2.0, I am becoming a fan of Facebook status updates as a way of building and maintaining Christian Community. (Twitter is a similar vehicle.) Through this conduit I was aware of various challenges and obstacles that my friends encountered through the holiday season, and it quickly filled up my prayer list. Again, even 134 character updates are a tool in the development and maintenance of covenant community.

So, I pray that you also may not pass over Christmas too quickly but continue to find ways of “hanging onto” the season in these twelve days.

The 400th Anniversary of the Birth Of John Milton

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Another quick note for today…

I could not let the 400th anniversary of the birth of writer and poet John Milton earlier this week go by unrecognized. While I have generally had little contact with Milton in the past, it is interesting that over the summer I began reading Paradise Lost, and this fall my son, for a literature class, had to read Paradise Regained. Paradise Regained is significantly shorter than Paradise Lost. (There is probably a theological commentary in there somewhere about the sovereignty of God and how much the adversary and humans did to try to mess things up but how God, just through Jesus Christ, was able to set things right again.)

Anyway, if you want some interesting reading on John Milton and his impact I can recommend:

An interview about Milton with Milton scholar Leland Ryken from Wheaton. He points out that Paradise Lost is of such an epic style of epic poetry that scholars have coined the label “the Miltonic style.”

And one other — Ligonier Ministries has a post about the significance of Paradise Lost and their discussing the topic in the December issue of their publication Table Talk.

And I have some motivation to pick up the book and continue reading over the Christmas vacation.

Reformaion Day 2008

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A little over twenty years ago my wife and I had the wonderful opportunity to travel on a church “study tour” to Germany and Switzerland. It was great to see several of the architectural landmarks of the Reformation. But a more important observation was how history is read, or presented, through various lenses. The examples were numerous, both on my part and on the part of the places we visited and people we talked to. A couple of examples:

At the time we visited Germany was still a divided country and visiting Erfort and Eisenach required crossing into East Germany, the DDR. It was very interesting visiting the Wartburg Castle in Eisenach and seeing and hearing the official presentations about the castle under “godless communism.” If you are not familiar with the Wartburg, it is the castle in which Martin Luther hid out and finished his translation of the Bible into German. It is an impressive structure with a long history and wonderful architecture. But when we visited, the information on Dr. Luther was almost devoid of religious significance. It acknowledged the historical facts and the context of the Reformation, but the official view was that his pastoral and professorial duties were just his occupation. The great achievement of translating the Bible into German was not getting Holy Scripture into the common tongue for all to read, but rather by translating an important work into German he established a linguistic and grammatical standard for the German language. Oficially, what was translated was not important in itself, just that there was now a recognized and widely distributed book that would set the standard for the written language. If you don’t need God, you don’t need God’s Word for its own sake.

On the other end of the spectrum was visiting with local pastors from both East and West Germany. In West Germany, the Evangelish (Lutheran) Church was effectively a national church and we saw school children, as part of their classes, coming to church. A parish did not need to directly support their pastor since support came through their taxes. The church was a pivotal point in the community. In the East, we were told it was a rare exception to be the pastor of a single church. The general trend was to minister to three congregations: “To serve less would be an offense to the people and to serve more would be an offense to God.” But you could tell that the pastor we spent the evening talking to was dedicated to his work serving God and he loved the people.

A friend of mine had a similar experience when he visited the communist bloc with a church youth group a few years before our visit. At one stop a local came up to him and quietly introduced himself as another Christian. My friend expressed concern for the man because it must be hard to be a Christian in that country. The man reversed the comment to my friend, expressing his concern for the Americans because being a Christian was too easy, before slipping away into the crowd.

A lot is being said right now about how we have entered a Post-Christendom era (for example the recent Trinity University Consultation on Post-Christendom Spiritualities) and people are concerned about the decline of the U.S.A. as a “Christian nation.” Elsewhere, the British Parliment is considering the disestablishment of the Anglican Church and the Church of Scotland is discussing if it should be a national church. And from many sides people are suggesting that we may be in the midst of a “New Reformation.”

I am not convinced that this is a totally negative turn of events. As products of Christendom how do we live our lives? Do we remember that one of the earliest names for the Covenant Community was “The People of The Way?” Our faith is not just an hour and some coffee on Sunday morning but a lifestyle choice. Are we too embarresed by our churches to invite our friends and neighbors to join us on Sunday morning? Do we take our faith too lightly? Do we recognize and give thanks for the freedom we have to practice our religion? Maybe, like Christians throughout history, including those I met in the communist bloc, some challange, rejection, or even oppression would help to focus our faith on living according to “The Way.” Is there a cost of discipleship? In the face of conflict do we need to stand up and announce what we believe? Sometimes we do need to declare “Here I stand. I can do no other. May God help me. Amen!”

Happy Reformation Day!

Happy Celebration of the Incarnation

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In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God…

…The Word became flesh
and pitched his tent among us.
(From John 1)

This is the mystery, and the magnificence, of Christmas! God, in the person of the Son, came to earth and dwelt among human kind, fully human and fully God. This reality, the Incarnation, was the theme of one of the services we attended last night. And while one of the sermon illustrations was one of the good, but over used and simplistic, explanations of the reason for the incarnation, I can not criticize it because any human explanation of this divine mystery is going to be simplistic and flawed.

So on this Christmas day, thank God for the gift he has given us and celebrate it with family and friends.

Merry Christmas.

(And for tomorrow, Happy Boxing Day or Feast of Saint Stephen if you are so inclined.)