Category Archives: Culture

Towards a Deistic View of Hell?

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Sadly, I think many so-called American “Christians” are headed in that direction.  We have a problem with a God who would eternally and personally pour out His wrath on sinful man in hell.  So we cope with that by making Satan the ruler of hell and we have skits and plays where Satan and his demons drag people into hell kicking and screaming.  If you have read Revelation lately then you will note that Satan, the beast, and the false prophet have actually been thrown into hell prior to the Great White Throne Judgment.  Who threw them in?  God did.  If Satan and his demons are already in hell then who throws those who are not in the book of life into the lake of fire?  God does.  Scripture is quite clear that God’s wrath is personal, which is why you read phrases like “the wrath of God” and “the wrath of the Lamb.”

“Ok, so I can cope with God throwing people into hell, after all He is just, but can’t hell just exist?”  “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17).  Nothing exists that God has not first made.  Furthermore, nothing that God has made can continue to exist apart from being sustained and held together by Him.  Not only did God create hell but He also sustains it.  We appreciate a personal God when it comes to redemption but when it comes to wrath and judgment the God of most evangelicals looks more like the disinterested uninvolved god of deism who has created a clock-like universe and a clock-like hell that exist and function apart from divine intervention.

Jonathan Edwards paints a sobering picture of hell, “God aims at satisfying justice in the eternal damnation of sinners; which will be satisfied by their damnation, considered no otherwise than with regard to its eternal duration.  But yet there never will come that particular moment, when it can be said, that now justice is satisfied.”[1] 

What does this mean?  Why is this important?

I think this serves as a sobering reminder that we serve a just God, a holy God, and a wrathful God.  At the same time, we live in a world filled with rebels, with enemies of God, who are storing up wrath for themselves and not just for the Day of Judgment but for eternity.  Brothers let us live and breathe the Gospel.  Oh that we would be like Paul, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (I Corinthians 2:2).

[1] Jonathan Edwards, “A Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1834), 1:121.

When Programmatic Become Problematic: Willow Creek Apologizes

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Earlier this month on Christianity Today’s blog Out of Ur there was an interview concerning Willow Creek Community Church’s recent admission of an apology for failure.  The article “Willow Creek Repents?  Why the most influential church in America now says ‘We made a mistake.’” is available here.  Before going any further, I have to give props to Justin Tapp for e-mailing me this article.

The article begins:

Few would disagree that Willow Creek Community Church has been one of the most influential churches in America over the last thirty years.  Willow, through its association, has promoted a vision of church that is big, programmatic, and comprehensive.  This vision has been heavily influenced by the methods of secular business.

Willow Creek recently published the findings of a lengthy qualitative study of the ministry at Willow Creek in a book entitled Reveal: Where Are You?.

The article summarizes Willow Creek’s philosophy of ministry saying, “The church creates programs/activities.  People participate in these activities.  The outcome is spiritual maturity.”  To their shock and disappointment, the study revealed that:

Increasing levels of participation in these sets of activities does NOT predict whether someone’s becoming more of a disciple of Christ.  It does NOT predict whether they love God more or they love people more.

I appreciate their humility in coming out and admitting their mistake and then publishing their failings in a book.  I think that the book will be an invaluable resource to all who have bought into the Willow Creek model and subsequently need to reevaluate their flawed philosophy of ministry.

What I do disagree with; however, is their proposed solution:

We made a mistake.  What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become “self feeders.”  We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

Fundamental to their proposed solution is individual autonomy.  While that may be an easy product to sell to narcissistic Americans, it is not a biblical understanding of the church.  The church is at its core a community and the Word of God is meant to be studied and applied within the context of that community.  Now what I do not mean is the medieval Catholic understanding of this where only a trained clergy can read the Scriptures, nor should we chain Bibles to pews (if you even have pews), nor am I advocating a church-endorsed translation of Scripture as prominent within Roman Catholicism.  What I am advocating is what you find in passages like Romans 12:1-8 where we see that spiritual gifts are given to be used in the context of community; or Ephesians 5:18-21 and Colossians 3:12-17 where we are called to teach and admonish one another; to the glory of God, or Ephesians 4:11-16 where we realize that pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc. are given to equip the saints for the work of the ministry so that the body of Christ can build itself up in love.  The point being that individuals do not grow toward spiritual maturity, the body of Christ does.  Just as in the human body, the body of Christ is comprised with numerous parts, each of which has its own functions.  When these individual parts do not grow as one the result is dysfunction and distortion.  If a grown man has the legs or the heart of a five year old, he will certainly not function as he should and yet such dysfunction and disproportion is far too often accommodated within the body of Christ.

Willow Creek’s failure serves as an alarm to remind us that no matter how popular or successful a particular church paradigm may be if it is not based on Scripture then it will ultimately fail.  Willow Creek is no exception they based the church on popular business philosophy, to the point that outside of Bill Hybels’ hangs a poster that reads, “What is our business?  Who is our customer?  What does the customer consider value?”  They may have enjoyed a season of success; however, it is clear that unbiblical ministry is not sustainable ministry.

This is also a reminder that church growth must be organic growth, “so that the Church may be a living organism within an environment.”[1]  Furthermore, “it must not be allowed to grow in a foreign form but in a form suitable to the world in which it lives.”[2]  Organic growth stresses both proportion and indigeneity.  The stress upon proportion means that the church must be in a state of equilibrium where growth occurs equally on all planes; failure to do so results in distortion as certain aspects are emphasized while others are neglected.[3]  Understanding this is crucial in both evaluating you ministry as well as developing your philosophy of ministry.  Far too many churches are buying into things like “the Willow Creek Model” and other various paradigms; however, we must remember that the local exists within a particular environment and what works in one environment may not be successful or healthy in another.

[1] A. R. Tippett, “Indigenous Principles in Mission Today,” in Verdict Theology in Missionary Theory (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1973), 128.

[2] Ibid., 128.

[3] A prime example is modern pop Christianity’s stress on numerical growth at the expense of genuine spiritual growth.

I Cannot Believe I am Endorsing Apple

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Wow, first, I have not posted in quite a while and yet I have posted twice today.  Second, both posts have been about topics that I am not particularly fond of.  Just to give you an idea of what a shock this is to me: there is only one Apple product in my house and we received it free.  Whenever QuickTime updates and automatically installs iTunes, I immediately delete iTunes, in order to have a minimal number of Apple programs running on my PC.  Call me a PC fanboy but I am just not big on Apple.

Why then am I writing this post?  Because Apple has just released a new feature to its iTunes store called iTunes U.  At iTunes U, you can watch classes from a host of schools like Duke, MIT, Stanford, and Yale.  What I am excited about are the free classes from Reformed Theological Seminary, like the 26 session Christian Apologetics class by John Frame.  So if you have iTunes check these resources out.  If you do not have iTunes download it and check these resources out.  Have no fears Windows Media Player you are still my dedicated media player.

More Political Musings

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I was rereading J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism and was struck by the following quote as it relates to several things but principally its relation to politics.

A solid building cannot be constructed when all the materials are faulty; a blessed society cannot be formed out of men who are still under the curse of sin. Human institutions are really to be molded, not by Christian principles accepted by the unsaved, but by Christian men; the true transformation of society will come by the influence of those who have themselves been redeemed (158).

Thoughts on the 2008 Election and Politics in General

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I was skimming back through Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity, by Nancy Pearcey, today and read this, “They [evangelicals] leaped into political activism as the quickest, surest way to make a difference in the public arena—failing to realize that politics tends to reflect culture, not the other way around.”  I continued to think about this and what it means during the upcoming elections and tonight I found a fantastic paper by John Piper entitled Taking the Swagger Out of Christian Cultural Influence (I have posted this paper in its entirety below).  I debated about posting this closer to the election; however, I concluded it would be best to post now and allow God’s Word to work on you over the coming months.  I will likely post on this again before the election.  Until then I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic.

Taking the Swagger Out of Christian Cultural Influence

The fact that Christians are exiles on the earth (1 Peter 2:11), does not mean that they don’t care what becomes of culture.  But it does mean that they exert their influence as very happy, brokenhearted outsiders.  We are exiles.  “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).  “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14).

But we are very happy sojourners, because we have been commanded by our bloody Champion to rejoice in exile miseries.  “Blessed are you when others . . . persecute you . . . on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12).  We are happy because the apostle Paul showed us that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).  We are happy because there are merciful foretastes everywhere in this fallen world, and God is glad for us to enjoy them (1 Timothy 4:3; 6:17).  And we are happy because we know that the exiles will one day inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5).  Christ died for sinners so that “all things” might one day belong to his people (Romans 8:32).

But our joy is a brokenhearted joy, because Christ is worthy of so much better obedience than we Christians render.  Our joy is a brokenhearted joy because so many people around the world have not heard the good news that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).  And our joy is a brokenhearted joy because human culture — in every society — dishonors Christ, glories in its shame, and is bent on self-destruction.

This includes America.  American culture does not belong to Christians, neither in reality nor in Biblical theology.  It never has.  The present tailspin toward Sodom is not a fall from Christian ownership.  “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).  It has since the fall, and it will till Christ comes in open triumph.  God’s rightful ownership will be manifest in due time.  The Lordship of Christ over all creation is being manifest in stages, first the age of groaning, then the age of glory.  “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23).  The exiles are groaning with the whole creation.  We are waiting.

But Christian exiles are not passive.  We do not smirk at the misery or the merrymaking of immoral culture.  We weep.  Or we should.  This is my main point: being exiles does not mean being cynical.  It does not mean being indifferent or uninvolved.  The salt of the earth does not mock rotting meat.  Where it can, it saves and seasons.  And where it can’t, it weeps.  And the light of the world does not withdraw, saying “good riddance” to godless darkness.  It labors to illuminate.  But not dominate.

Being Christian exiles in American culture does not end our influence; it takes the swagger out of it.  We don’t get cranky that our country has been taken away.  We don’t whine about the triumphs of evil. We are not hardened with anger.  We understand.  This is not new.  This was the way it was in the beginning — Antioch, Corinth, Athens, Rome.  The Empire was not just degenerate, it was deadly.  For three explosive centuries Christians paid for their Christ-exalting joy with blood.  Many still do.  More will.

It never occurred to those early exiles that they should rant about the ubiquity of secular humanism.  The Imperial words were still ringing in their ears: “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.  But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13).  This was a time for indomitable joy and unwavering ministries of mercy.

Yes, it was a time for influence — as it is now. But not with huffing and puffing as if to reclaim our lost laws.  Rather with tears and persuasion and perseverance, knowing that the folly of racism, and the exploitation of the poor, and the de-Godding of education, and the horror of abortion, and the collapse of heterosexual marriage, are the tragic death-tremors of joy, not the victory of the left or the right.

The greatness of Christian exiles is not success but service.  Whether we win or lose, we witness to the way of truth and beauty and joy.  We don’t own culture, and we don’t rule it.  We serve it with brokenhearted joy and longsuffering mercy, for the good of man and the glory of Jesus Christ.

—John Piper, August 27, 2003