reaching-out-in-our-time-july-august-2003 by Modern Reformation

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REACHING OUT IN OUR TIME

11 The Dangers and Delights of Postmodernism What are the strengths and weaknesses of postmodernism? Can we be both critical and appreciative of it? D.A. Carson introduces us to the vast (and sometimes confusing) landscape of postmodernity. by D.A. Carson Plus: Why Should Christians Think About Postmodernism?

18 Pop Goes Postmodernism “Modern” or “postmodern”? “This present age” or “the age to come”? Labels matter. How do the labels we choose influence the work of the church? by Michael Horton

24 Reformation Resources for Postmodern Ministry Eight pastors, scholars, and church leaders reexamine the traditional ministries of the church in light of the challenges and opportunities of postmodernism. The Key to Postmodern Evangelism by Rico Tice Gospel Confidence for New Churches by Michael Kelly Peculiar Truth: Postmodern Preaching by William Willimon Modern Pluralism: Challenges Old and New by Rachel Stahle Redefining “Worship” for an Autonomous Age by Ronald Feuerhahn Every-Generation Youth Ministry by G. Mark Sumpter Transforming Truth: Apologetics in a Postmodern World by William Edgar The Soul of a University: Faithful Campus Ministry by Rod Mays COVER PHOTO BY NONSTOCK.COM

MODERN REFORMATION

Editor-in-Chief Michael Horton

A Setting or Rising Sun?

Executive Editor Mark R. Talbot

ne of the more famous anecdotes about the founding of the American Republic relates the words of Benjamin

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of a sun on the back of the Convention president’s chair and remarked, “I have often…in the course of the session…looked at that sun behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I have the happiness to know it is a rising and not a setting sun.” Someone with Franklin’s wise foresight is needed today to determine whether the behemoth called “postmodernism” is either a “rising sun”—a new and exciting development across different fields of knowledge, or a “setting sun”—the last great gasp of modernity and Enlightenment thinking. But of course, regardless of its actual identity, that thing called “postmodernism” has been the catalyst for a reevaluation of many aspects of ministry and theology in our time. In this issue, we wanted to ask the hard questions that church leaders and members are facing in this challenging era: How should my church change with the times? How can I be faithful to Scripture and my confessional commitments and still be relevant to a watching world? Does it matter what we do as long as we are effective? In order to answer these questions, we begin with D.A. Carson’s assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of postmodernism. Michael Horton follows up

Coming Soon September/October 2003: The Heart of the Gospel: Paul’s Message of Grace in Galatians November/December 2003: Trinity: God in Three Persons January/February 2004: Decision Making and the Will of God March/April 2004: Forgiven May/June 2004: A Good Church is Hard to Find

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with his reflection on how the church has sometimes adopted the methods and messages of postmodernism without considering their impact on the biblical and historic identity of the church. Our third feature article is actually a collection of eight essays by leaders in different churches and denominations who examine a number of the church’s ministries in light of the challenge of postmodernism: evangelism, church planting, preaching, worship, youth ministry, apologetics, pluralism, and campus ministry. Not all of these short articles mention postmodernism explicitly; but each author writes from the conviction that the church is currently ministering in a context that is sufficiently different from the previous generation to warrant a reconsideration of “how we’ve always done things.” On modernreformation.org this month look for a special interview with Tom Oden, a leading theologian and professor at Drew University. We will also feature excerpts from our September/October 1995 issue, Our Time: The Challenges and Opportunities of Postmodernism. Make sure you check out the study questions for D. A. Carson’s and Michael Horton’s articles. In the box to the left, we have listed some of the issues coming up in our editorial calendar. If there is a topic or an issue that you would like to see addressed in a future issue of MR please email us at modref@alliancenet.org with your suggestion. If you see an issue listed that you know your friends, family, or congregation would benefit from, call us to ask about our special bulk subscription rate: over sixty percent off the cover price!

Managing Editor Eric Landry Alliance Council Gerald Bray ❘ D. A. Carson Mark Dever ❘ J. Ligon Duncan, III W. Robert Godfrey ❘ John D. Hannah Michael Horton ❘ Rosemary Jensen Ken Jones ❘ John Nunes J. A. O. Preus ❘ Rod Rosenbladt Philip Ryken ❘ R. C. Sproul ❘ Mark R. Talbot Gene E. Veith ❘ Paul F. M. Zahl Department Editors Brian Lee, Ex Auditu Benjamin Sasse, Between the Times D. G. Hart, Reviews Staff ❘ Editors Ann Henderson Hart, Assistant Editor Diana S. Frazier, Contributing Editor Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Celeste McGhee, Proofreader Katherine VanDrunen, Production Assistant Contributing Scholars Charles P. Arand ❘ S. M. Baugh Jonathan Chao ❘ William M. Cwirla Marva J. Dawn ❘ Don Eberly Timothy George ❘ Douglas S. Groothuis Allen C. Guelzo ❘ Carl F. H. Henry Lee Irons ❘ Arthur A. Just Robert Kolb ❘ Donald Matzat Timothy M. Monsma ❘ John W. Montgomery John Muether ❘ Kenneth A. Myers Tom J. Nettles ❘ Leonard R. Payton Lawrence R. Rast ❘ Kim Riddlebarger Rick Ritchie ❘ David P. Scaer Rachel S. Stahle ❘ David VanDrunen Cornelis Van Dam ❘ David F. Wells Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals © 2003 All rights reserved. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exists to call the church, amidst our dying culture, to repent of its worldliness, to recover and confess the truth of God’s Word as did the Reformers, and to see that truth embodied in doctrine, worship and life. For more information, call or write us at: Modern Reformation 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 546-3696 ModRef@AllianceNet.org www.modernreformation.org ISSN-1076-7169

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I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to you for publishing the dialogue between Mike Horton and Roger Olson in the March/April 2003 issue of Modern Reformation. I found the interaction stimulating and interesting, especially because both men come from different theological perspectives. This kind of debate and interaction is sorely lacking in today's church! I consider myself a Reformed Protestant, so to hear Mr. Olson's perspective on Evangelicalism today was refreshing. I enjoyed his thoughts and points, he did a great job, as well as Mr. Horton. Their arguments were clear and concise, and civil! What a concept! Keep up the great work and please continue to publish material like this dialogue. As a layman, I am very appreciative of clear minded discussions about our common faith "which was once for all handed down to the saints" (Jude 1:3). Joe Loughery Puyallup, WA

plate, and brought out both favorable reasons for parachurch ministry as well as the very real dangers and pitfalls that far too many of us have lived through first hand. (I appreciated his comments on how the Alliance, itself, thinks through this.) My concern is that the common view of the church is so low. One way this is so readily seen is in the way so many Christians serving in parachurch ministries are so quick to pay lip service to the visible church, but in practice totally disregard its purpose, function, and authority/accountability. What tremendous blessings are missed! And we all are suffering because of this disregard. Rev. Bobby File Evangelical Fellowship Amarillo, Texas

For more Letters to the Editor log on to www.modernreformation.org.

Join the Conversation! Thank you for including an article approaching the subject of parachurch organizations and the church ("Who Speaks for the Church?" by Eric Landry, in the March/April 2003). I say "approaching" because it seems this particular topic is off limits in most circles, and it is very hard to find anything that seriously tackles this issue. In one of my ongoing searches for more information on this topic from the library of a leading Reformed seminary, I was told to "come on out and tackle the subject" because of the way it has been avoided the last several decades. I think that's true! Eric Landry did a commendable job setting the

Modern Reformation Letters to the Editor 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 215.735.5133 fax ModRef@AllianceNet.org Letters under 200 words are more likely to be printed than longer letters.

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Acts 2:1–13

Pentecostal Signs

ow can we individually and corporately as a church have “Spirit-filled” worship

the “time had come” for the Lord to ascend into heaven and evangelistic zeal? This is a question posed to us in our day. It is clear from (Luke 9:51). Just as we say “time’s up” when the grains of Holy Scripture that there are two ways to be “Spirit-filled.” sand fill the bottom of an hour-glass, so we see the The first way is the way of man, the way of the fulfillment of this feast in Law. Recall St. Paul’s words in Galatians 3:2, “This Acts 2. What the disciples only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the were celebrating was not the From Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of end of this typological Old DANIEL R. HYDE faith?” Are we as a young, growing church going Covenant feast, but the to “get in the Spirit” by relying upon the laws of beginning of the New methods, programs, psychological research, and Covenant reality. This is the the things that we can do? This is man’s way. dawn of the new age, the Pastor The second way is the way of God, the way of beginning of the harvest of Oceanside United the gospel. Our text this morning is not a “howthe nations which would Reformed Church Oceanside, CA come to Mount Zion to be to” text of law, but an “already done” text of taught by the Lord himself gospel. And it declares to us that we as the church (Isa. 2:2–4). are Spirit-filled! This is the wonderful and joyful Pentecost was fulfilled; it is never to be repeated. tidings to us today! We don’t have to, nor can we, do anything to “get in the Spirit;” but we But the benefits and blessings of that day continue. must simply receive him and his message by the The time had come for the Lord Jesus Christ—our Second Adam, the True Israel—to receive the God-ordained means of faith. reward of his merit, the Holy Spirit. But now he Pentecost Had Fully Come pours out upon us that Spirit (2:33), gathering the We begin in our text which says that “the Day church from the four corners of the earth. of Pentecost had fully come.” What was Pentecost? It was one of the three required feasts The Sign of a New Creation (2:2) for all Hebrew males (Exod. 23:17), which In an insignificant room, filled with one occurred on the fiftieth day after the Passover. It hundred and twenty insignificant men and women, was called the “Feast of Harvest” (Exod. 23:16) the significance of that day would be made known because it celebrated the end of the barley harvest by a powerful sign. No cool, gentle breeze which the Lord had abundantly provided. But our refreshed them, but a “rushing mighty wind” filled text tells us that it had “fully come” (2:1). the room, signifying that the church is a new creation. But what does it mean that it “had fully come?” Think about it for a moment. We take it for Luke uses a word with special, prophetic granted that wind in Scripture often signifies the Holy significance. The word translated “had fully come” Spirit. But why? Because, as Jesus says, “The wind is used in the Greek version of Jeremiah 25:12 to blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, say that the seventy years of Babylonian exile was but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. “completed.” Luke also uses it of Jesus to say that So is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

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Wind is sovereign, it is powerful, it is controlled only by itself. And so too is the Holy Spirit. We learn in Genesis 1:2 that the Spirit is the sovereign, creative presence of God. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:1–2). In the beginning God brought into existence all things, out of nothing, by his sovereign will. But the earth was as yet unformed. Thus, the Spirit of God comes and hovers over the mass of chaos to re-create, to fashion, to form a beautiful temple for the Lord out of chaos. From the very beginning the Spirit is the recreative presence of God. Look also at Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Adam was “of the dust,” meaning that he was made up of the same stuff that you walk on every day. Adam was dust, dirt, a lifeless lump of clay. It is the creative, life-giving power of the Spirit, the “breath of life”—the breath who gives life— that made him a living being. As in Creation, so in Redemption. Ezekiel sees a valley filled with dead man’s bones (Ezek. 37:1), and the Lord commands him to make them live by preaching to them. The preaching of the gospel—the announcement of what God is going to do—causes breath to enter the bones, putting flesh on them and bringing them to life. Verse 11 says, “these bones are the whole house of Israel.” Once again the Spirit re-creates, but this time it is his people, the covenant people, who are fashioned from virtually nothing— lifeless and decaying bones! We are reminded, beloved, that prior to the Holy Spirit’s life-giving work in our lives our souls were dark and empty, formless and void. We were, and still are, filled with depraved thoughts, full of darkness. We were that vessel of clay, dead in our trespasses and sins. The law commanded us to “love the Lord our God and our neighbor as ourselves,” but we had no power to obey. Nor did the law give us that power. We were a valley of dead, dry bones, a wasteland of spiritual and eternal death. But behold what God has done for us! He has made us a new creation—his church! He has given light to darkness, breath to dust, flesh to bones! As the Canons of Dort say, “What, therefore, neither the light of nature nor the law could do, that God performs by the operation of the Holy Spirit through the word or ministry of reconciliation; which is the gospel.” Not only as individuals, but also as the church of Jesus Christ are we a new creation. As we sing, “The church’s one foundation

is Jesus Christ her Lord, she is his new creation, by water and the word.” Corporately as the church we have been given new life and resurrected from the dead. We have been made a vessel of honor to glorify God through telling others about the wonderful new life God has given us. We are not the frozen chosen, but a Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered, Spiritanointed community of faith going into the world to spread the glorious news of Christ crucified, dead, and resurrected! The Sign of a New Temple (2:3–4) The second sign, “tongues, as of fire,” signifies that the church is a new temple. The imagery of fire in the Bible signifies both cleansing and judgment. All of those present at that ultimate Pentecost certainly knew the story of the burning bush in Exodus 3. The place where Moses stood was “holy ground” because Yahweh was there, signified by the burning bush. The image of fire illustrates the cleansing aspect of God’s holiness and purity. But the fire of God’s holiness also brings judgment, forcing Moses to the ground to acknowledge his un-holiness. God’s presence with his people in the wilderness was signified by the pillar of fire each night. This fire comforted Israel with protection and guidance, but warned the Egyptians of judgment if they traversed its boundary. Most important for our text in Acts is the account of the building of the tabernacle in Exodus 40:34–38 and its subsequent filling with the glorycloud, one of the Old Testament images of the Holy Spirit. We are told that when the tabernacle was finished, the Spirit descended to give his approval by consuming the offerings and filling the Holy of Holies with glory. This is the same Spirit who had descended to give his blessing to the first “temple,” the “very good” earth (Gen. 1:31). Thus, all who brought offerings to the tabernacle knew that they would be cleansed, as surely as their offerings were judged in fire, on behalf of their sins. But we know that the people failed, with the result that the temple and its priesthood were defiled. But the Lord spoke the gospel of a coming day, when he would “suddenly come to his temple” and purify the priests of Levi as a “refiner’s fire” (Mal. 3:2–5). At Pentecost, the earthly, typological tabernacle is fulfilled by the heavenly reality, even the Lord Jesus Christ himself (John 2:21; Heb. 10:20). The prophets looked forward to this more glorious temple in the person of our Lord, and in his body the church (Hag. 2:9). And thus Luke records for us in verse 4 that “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.” The

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church, this new temple, with its new priesthood of all believers, were purified as they were “filled” by this same Holy Spirit. The Sign of a New Humanity (2:4–13) There is not only a new creation, and a new temple in that new creation, but also a new humanity to worship as that temple. And we learn that the church is a new humanity in the sign of the languages of the nations. Pentecost reversed the curse of the tower of Babel. At Babel “the whole world had one language and a common speech,” and they began to elevate their own self-righteousness in the form of a city ascending to heaven. But God saw this and came down upon them in judgment, “confusing their language, so that they would not understand each other.” He “scattered them from there all over the earth.” The diversity of language and peoplegroups of the earth is a judgment of God. But the church is a new humanity, in which God’s grace undoes this cursed division. By this grace diverse peoples are reunited into one people, the people of the Lord; and by this grace they are reunited into one body, the Body of Christ. The prophets foresaw that in the new age of the Spirit “the cities of Egypt will speak the language of Canaan, and swear allegiance to the Lord Almighty” (Isa. 19:18). Those who had once hated God and his people would know him as Savior! And therefore, even now those once “afar off” (Eph. 2:13) have become sons of Abraham, in whom “all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). What a message of unity and blessing; what a message we have for the world. In all our diversity we truly come together this morning. We unite around a table, upon which Christ gives himself to us through the power of his Holy Spirit. Despite the color of our skin, the origin of our birth, or the political ideology in our minds, we unite before the world as a witness of the saving grace of God in which “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). May we live as this new creation, even as this bread and wine lift up our hearts to the new heavens and new earth! May we bring the sacrifice of praise, even as this bread and wine remind us of the temple in that New Jerusalem, namely Jesus! And may we be moved to a more fervent love for one another as a new humanity, even as we come forward to this table and receive of the one loaf! Daniel R. Hyde (M.Div., Westminster Theological Seminary in California) is the pastor of the Oceanside United Reformed Church in Oceanside, California (www.oceansideurc.org).

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Speaking of... C ulture’s essential service to a religion is to

destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object. Northrop Frye, Anagogic Phase: Symbol as Monad (1957)

ome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven, a mass of filth convoluted in a triple knot as in an intestinal obstruction. Dacians, Heruleans, Scythians, Sarmatians, Hyperboreans, heavy wheels without spokes, eyes sunk in fat, sodomy, double chins, illiterate emperors, fish fed on the flesh of learned slaves…all crammed into the passages of the Coliseum, and all wretched. And then, into this tasteless heap of gold and marble, He came, light and clothed in an aura, emphatically human, deliberately provincial, Galilean, and at that moment gods and nations ceased to be and man came into being—man the carpenter, man the plowman, man the shepherd with his flock of sheep at sunset, man who does not sound in the least proud, man thankfully celebrated in all the cradle songs of mothers and in all the picture galleries the world over. Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago (1958)

f mass communications blend together harmoniously, and often unnoticeably, art, politics, religion, and philosophy with commercials, they bring these realms of culture to their common denominator—the commodity form. The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value, counts. Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (1964)

id-Twenties Breakdown: a period of mental collapse occurring in one’s twenties, often caused by an inability to function outside of school or structured environments, coupled with a realization of one’s essential aloneness in the world. Often marks induction into the ritual of pharmaceutical usage. Douglas Coupland, Generation X (1991)

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Secular Clergy and the Trivialization of God s if reading from the script of an end-times thriller, General Secretary Robert Edgar, of the National Council of Churches (NCC) spent the days before the outbreak of the Iraqi war jetting around the world like a would-be head of state. Emerging from March meetings with officials in Moscow, for instance, Edgar, a former Democratic Congressman from suburban Philadelphia, announced to reporters,“WeagreedthatSaddam Hussein does have to disarm. [But we also] agreed that the United Nations weapons inspections are working, and that they need more time. If more inspectors are needed, put them in.” Sadly, Edgar is not unique among mainline ministers, past or present, in considering clergy particularly competent in geopolitical judgments. And, of course, there are many similarly disconcerting parallels on the Right, with evangelical preachers often mindlessly baptizing the hawk position. But the NCC’s struggle to be relevant

has been especially breathless of late, and would be almost laughable if one were not inclined to weep at the thought of the faithful old laity stuck in NCC congregations, particularly in rural contexts where there are often no alternatives. Many of these folks probably believe their hardearned contributions are being used to support foreign missions, when in fact portions of them are hijacked for causes so vacuous that they cannot be labeled anything but “godless.” The NCC’s hierarchy, for instance, decided to spend some of their incredibly cashstrapped organization’s funds to purchase anti-war advertisements in the name of God in East Coast newspapers and on the cable news channels. When mainline agencies turn from politics to more explicit theology, the results can be even more tragic, with content so vapid that one might conclude the leaders of establishment Protestantism

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are offering their own Saturday Night Live parody of liberal religion. In Pennsylvania, for instance, mainline congregations are currently supporting a public relations campaign by the Erie Peace and Justice Center to promote tolerance in a post-9/11 world by buying signs for city buses reading, “GOD BLESS THE WHOLE WORLD.” Yearning for their campaign to spread to other cities, organizers recently issued a solemn press release: “The Center hopes [this campaign] will achieve the same success as an earlier, ongoing ‘BE NICE TO EACH OTHER’ effort. Over four years, 70 billboards [and] over 100,000 stickers, pencils, magnets, and handbills have reminded people of the importance of civility—of being nice. Clustered about the central phrase, ‘Be nice to each other,’ are ten others in the same vein, such as ‘Be kind’ and ‘Be forgiving.’ The inspiration comes from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians.” MR is often critical—and rightly so—of the evangelical obsession with relevance and of arrogant claims of having found a single biblical prescription on dieting, dating, or budgeting. Yet at least when evangelicals move from thisworldly to other-worldly concerns, they usually have something angular, something interesting, something

Christian to say. It may take many evangelical preachers too long to get to the cross, but once there, at least then the great God sounds like more than a mere kindergarten teacher. The Church-State Blotter national survey by Mercury Public Affairs and various legal experts has found that 83 percent of Americans think there are too many lawsuits in this country. Much of the dramatic rise in cases—from less than 100,000 federal cases annually in the 1950s to well over 300,000 cases per year today—has been driven by increasing business litigation and product liability claims, more aggressive prosecution of student loan defaults, and the federalization of drug crimes. But a close look at dockets around the country reveals another interesting trend: the rising frequency of litigation about religion, as well as the involvement of religious organizations in other lawsuits. In some of the highest profile disputes of recent weeks, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Rutgers University have resolved their long-standing conflict, and the Justice Department and Texas Tech University have avoided court in the case of a biology professor who refused to write letters of recommen-

Say What?! “To those who say theology matters, I say, To hell with you!” — James Noel, professor at San Francisco Theological Seminary (PC(USA)) and a proponent of what he calls “Black/Postmodern liberation theology,” telling his audience at a recent Presbyterian conference that Reformation theology, and Calvin in particular, did not answer questions that interested non-whites.

“The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament” — title of a new book by United Methodist theologian Theodore Jennings, who claims his project asks “Was Jesus Gay?” in an attempt “to carefully and patiently explore texts from the Gospels that suggest something about Jesus’ own erotic attachments.”

“Jesus acknowledged his own sin.” — Bishop Charles Bennison, proponent of what he calls “post-modern

directive as a Bush administration attempt “to push the envelope on behalf of prayer in public schools.” ■ The Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco, which is the federal appeals court for the residents of nine western states, has now formally refused to rehear the case from last summer when it barred schools from using the Pledge of Allegiance because the Pledge since 1954 has contained the words “under God.” Attorney General John Ashcroft responded by announcing he will support an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Christianity,” writing to Episcopalians in Pennsylvania this Easter.

“If Lutherans take their commitment to ecumenism seriously, a conversion such as this cannot be viewed as switching over to an opponent.” — Sven Oppegaard, a senior Lutheran World Federation official, commenting on the conversion to Roman Catholicism of Ola Tjorhom, one of the most prominent theologians in the (Lutheran) Church of Norway.

dation unless students profess a “belief” in evolution. Nonetheless, many religionrelated lawsuits appear likely to end up before the bench this year. Consider a few: ■ Lawyers for high schoolers in Flint, Michigan, have filed a federal suit against a charter school that refuses to allow an “afterschool Bible study club” on the premises. Mathew Staver, a spokesman for the students, explains that extant laws require schools to tolerate religious organizations so long as such groups meet the rules applied to secular extracurricular outfits meeting in school buildings. It is “pretty clear what the

law is. But still there are some renegade schools that won’t comply with federal and constitutional law.” ■ In response to the spate of “religious use” lawsuits, the Department of Education has issued new guidelines in recent months distinguishing between private religious speech allowed in public schools, and governmentsanctioned religious speech which is prohibited. Schools found to be discriminating against religious student organizations will lose their federal funding, the guidelines warn. Barry Lynn, head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, opposes the

■ Americans United for Separation of Church and State has filed suit against Prison Fellowship and a handful of Iowa officials, charging that the state’s InnerChange Freedom Initiative discriminates against non-religious inmates. Complainants say the government is establishing religion and that public funds finance the program. Defendants respond that these faith-based programs have dramatically “reduced prisoner recidivism” and that federal law allows states to choose whether to include religious groups among their social service providers. ■ In related developments, prison officials in Florida have discontinued an Orlando prison policy of granting early release to inmates who regularly attended religious services. And look for similar lawsuits in Georgia, where the new governor, Sonny Perdue, is pushing a faith-based

program called “One Inmate, One Church.” In a recent statement, Gov. Perdue insisted “that the Bible is not a passive book—that it calls us to action, and this is a wonderful opportunity for churches to play an important role in building society. The Gospel is all about redeeming our society for the Kingdom of God.” ■ The Unitarian Universalist Church has filed a supporting brief on behalf of two of its adherents in Goodridge v. Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which the Massachusetts Supreme Court began to hear in March. Julie and Hillary Goodridge, a lesbian Unitarian couple, are suing Massachusetts for full state recognition of their marriage, in a case many experts expect to have national implications in the debate over defining marriage. Expect many denominations to follow the Unitarians’ lead and file amicus curiae briefs, both pro and con, in the case. ■ A California appeals court recently banned public prayers in Jesus’ name before all civic events in the state, including “pre-meeting” prayers, on the grounds that such practices constitute government establishment of sectarian religion. David Laurell, the mayor of Burbank, has spoken with elected officials in several other city governments about appealing the ruling. “I’m all for invocations that are all-inclusive, but I don’t want me or anybody else to tell people [delivering premeeting prayers] that it has to be that way.”

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REACHING OUT IN OUR TIME

The

Dangers and

Delights of Postmodernism ostmodernism” is on the lips of many people. For some, it evokes all that is good and exciting about intellectual advance during the past three decades or so; for others, it signals the abandonment of truth, the adoption of nihilism, multiplied confusion, and God-defying arrogance. For many others, its meaning is unclear. They know it is something they are supposed to be excited about or concerned over, but they are not quite sure what it is. The meaning of postmodernism is not transparent. Moreover, its range of application—it has been applied to literature, art, communication theory, architecture, epistemology, jurisprudence, the philosophy of science, and more—means that its associations for one person may be very different from its associations for someone else. Seventy-five years ago a particular architectural style was called “modern.” Then style changed; so what should the new style be called? If “modern” refers to the contemporary, then every style should be called “modern” in turn, at least for a while. But because “modern” had been attached to the previous style, the new style that displaced it had to be called something else. So the new style was called “postmodern.” Something similar has happened in several domains. Still, one use of the label “postmodern” very largely holds the rest of its uses together. This is its use in the field of epistemology. Epistemology is the study of how people know things—or at least of how they think that they know them. Initially, this sounds terribly abstruse. For the practical (like those, for instance, who repair their own automobiles), it can sound downright silly, like medieval debates over the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. Yet we have all adopted some form of epistemology. We come to our beliefs—those things that we claim to know—by a wide range of means. But when we move outside our usual circles (especially if we travel much and listen well), we become aware that many people see things very differently. They dismiss as bunk what we take as obvious. For example, while

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Americans mourned after 9/11, many Muslims danced in the street. We knew that the destruction of the twin towers in New York and the violence against the Pentagon in Washington were evil acts of terrorism, while they knew that they were just and courageous deeds, sanctioned and blessed by Allah. Here are two competing truth-claims. But what are truth-claims? And how does one “know” them? Christians need to think about epistemology. We shall gain a better appreciation of the role epistemology plays if we indulge in a quick historical survey, before summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of postmodern epistemology. Premodern Epistemology remodern” here refers to the period from the late Middle Ages through the Reformation to the dawn of the

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Enlightenment (c. A.D. 1200–1600). For most Europeans during that time an account of human knowing would go something like this: God exists and knows everything. We human beings, made in his image, know only an infinitesimal part of what God knows. In fact, if we are to know anything, then we must come to know some part of what God already perfectly knows—and so revelation is required. Revelation can come through Scripture or the church’s teachings or by the Spirit’s illumination or through experience or by means of what we today call “science.” (For these premoderns, the means or locus of revelation was not as important as its reality.) On this general point, Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin agree: human knowing is a small subset of God’s knowing and comes to us by revelation. Where they differ is on how much revelation is given through each means. Aquinas was convinced that

Why Should Christians Th

ostmodernist epistemology is a pretty abstract topic. So what are the practical lessons that we can glean from thinking about it? First, it helps us to avoid two errors. We should cherish and cultivate some elements of postmodernism and abominate others. So any response to it that is either completely negative or uncritically positive is wrong. Complete rejection of everything postmodern is culturally backward, intellectually wrongheaded, and denies the common grace found in every culture. Yet we should be wary of those who think of themselves as “postmodern Christians” or “postevangelicals” or the like. By and large, they dismiss modernism (or some caricature of it) with scorn while uncritically adopting a postmodern agenda without careful biblical reflection. “We want relational truth, we want Jesus the truth incarnate, not propositional truth,” they say. This is wise in its affirmation and foolish in its denial. For example, there are at least eight “believe that _____” clauses in John’s Gospel, where what is to be believed is some propositional truth (see John 11:27, 42; 14:10; etc.). Some of these cases make it clear that believing some specific proposition is essential for salvation (see John 8:24; 20:31). Scripture can be expounded in inaccurate, boring, and irrelevant ways, but this does not mean that we should give up the faithful exposition of God’s Word by which we are taught not to sin against him (see Ps. 119:11). Almighty God esteems the person who is humble and contrite and who trembles at his word (see Isa. 66:2). And godly leaders are charged with making a habit of regular and deep reflection on that word (see Deut. 17:18–20; Josh. 1:8–9; 2 Tim. 3:14–17).

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More specifically, postmodern emphases can enhance our Christian lives in these ways. 1. Postmodern openness to “spirituality”—which often means something like “authenticity”—encourages us to ensure integrity, humility, and consistency between our teaching and our conduct. If people visit our churches and face condescension, dismissiveness, self-righteousness, or what is perceived as religious cant and sloganeering, they will leave pretty quickly. As far as I can see, postmodern visitors cope equally well with innovative styles of churchmanship and more conservative styles, provided they “read” what is going on as genuine, authentic, sincere, humble, and unfaked. These have always been Christian values; so here postmodernism merely provides us with an extra incentive to be what we should. 2. Postmoderns often value personal relationships over truth structures. Of course, we do not want to sacrifice the gospel that was “once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3), but it is always good to be reminded that lost men and women are not mere potential information receptacles. They are people—God’s image bearers. We should always mirror Jesus’ attitude as he wept over Jerusalem (see Luke 19:41–42). There are countless ways we can adjust our evangelistic priorities if we remember this. 3. An astonishingly high proportion of Western preaching during the later modern period focused on the Bible’s discourse texts. Preachers paid relatively little attention to its many narrative passages. Of course, we must always teach the whole counsel of God, but how we do that can vary enormously. Many of us

enough was revealed through nature and experience that someone could, by paying proper attention to these sources of “natural revelation,” gain some significant knowledge about God. By contrast, Calvin was convinced that “special” revelation—revelation coming through Scripture, the Spirit, and the church—was necessary for us to know anything about God in the way that we should. Premodern epistemology was very open to the supernatural. That meant it held countless millions (at least on the popular level) in thrall to beliefs and “knowledge” that most of us would dismiss as laughable today: silly superstitions, the magical powers of relics, high confidence in omens and astrology. The Reformation significantly weakened some of these beliefs. Yet it is worth noting that even this epistemology—which was substantially correct in recognizing that all human know-

ing is a subset of God’s knowing and consequently a function of revelation—could nevertheless be corrupted by sinful human beings and thus coupled with indefensible superstition. Modern Epistemology odern epistemology arose by moving away from God to the autonomous individual. It begins with the “I.” Historians often point to René Descartes as the crucial transitional figure. Early in the seventeenth century he saw that many of his acquaintances in the intellectual world were rejecting both premodern epistemology and Christianity. Some of them were atheists. So he sought for a common intellectual base, a foundation on which both he and they could build their beliefs. He eventually settled on his famous axiom, “I think, therefore I am” (in Latin, cogito, ergo sum).

hink about Postmodernism? need to learn how to preach from the whole range of literary genres in the Bible, including the narrative passages, instead of remaining comfortably at home in the more linear thought of its discursive texts. At the same time, we should confront and correct postmodernism on these matters. 1. While postmoderns tend to like narrative, they are deeply suspicious of “metanarrative”—the big story that makes sense of all the little stories. But the Bible’s sweeping story line, from Genesis to Revelation, is the metanarrative within which all the individual narratives of the Bible, and our own stories, must be interpreted. With biblical illiteracy growing both within and outside the church, the need to emphasize the Bible’s main story line becomes increasingly urgent. This big story line helps to establish a Christian worldview. Unless we are content to drop isolated Christian insights into the shifting sands of alien worldviews, we must reestablish this story line in the minds of Christians and then draw the connections that enable this metanarrative to give us a Christian worldview. 2. Among other things, this means reestablishing the horror and obscenity of all idolatry. We must preserve the biblical insistence that salvation means being reconciled to God and thus to others, that we are God’s image-bearers and so our first obligation is to recognize our creatureliness and dependence with gratitude and faith, and that this “world” is passing away and so our hope is set on the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness. We are so adept at teaching Christians to be fulfilled,

and so practiced at inviting them to live the abundant life, that we neglect to prepare them to die well. Yet only those who are passionate about laying up treasures in heaven are equipped to live and serve well here. 3. Because of the postmodern penchant for open-ended interpretation, it is becoming more and more important for Bible teachers—whether they are speaking to large crowds or leading small groups or counseling others one-on-one—to show that their teaching and encouraging are grounded in Scripture. Now, of all times, we must not back away from God’s Word. Instead, we must become more explicitly scriptural, so that Christians see that we always trace the most fundamental issues back to what God has said. Then if someone replies, “Oh, that’s just your interpretation,” we must never let this evasion go unchallenged. With the text open before us, we must ask our challenger what his or her interpretation is and then examine what Scripture actually says. Where there is uncertainty, we should admit it; where an interpretation—whether theirs or ours—is weak or false, it must give way to Scripture. Common grace assures us that no worldview is entirely mistaken; the pervasive power of sin assures us that no worldview in any way removed from Scripture is benign. Let God be true, and every worldview a liar.

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Descartes was not a skeptic. He was Roman Catholic all his life. He published his acceptance of this axiom—along with a number of other philosophical claims that have not stood the test of time—in the 1630s; and it exerted wide influence. Descartes was convinced that whatever else might be doubted, as long as “I” am a thinking being “I” cannot doubt my own existence, for there must be an “I” who is doing the thinking. Hence, “I think, therefore I am.” Here, surely, was a foundation that he and his skeptical friends could share. And Descartes was persuaded that from this foundation he could erect an argument that would move people toward theism and even Christianity.

called “ahistorical universality”—that is, if something is true, it is true everywhere, at all times, for all peoples, in all cultures and languages. If we can show that water is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen, then that is as true in Peru and Pango Pango as it is in Mexico City or Medicine Hat. It was true in A.D. 1300 and it is true in A.D. 2003. Real truth is objective truth that transcends culture and history. It is true whether anyone believes it or not; and that is why it is to be pursued and cherished. (6) Although it was certainly not so in Descartes’s time or for a long time afterwards, modern epistemology has increasingly been linked in the Western world to naturalistic assumptions. Naturalism claims there is nothing more than matter, In other words, in modern epistemology we start with an adequate foundation, add energy, space, and time. Modern epistemology was methodological rigor, turn the crank, and out pops truth. originally developed primarily by theists (many of whom were Christians) and deists. Darwin, however, made atheThe critical elements that sprang out of his ism intellectually respectable; and so in the twentiwork and developed into modern epistemology eth century modern epistemology was increasingly can be summarized as follows: (1) The foundation linked to naturalism, not only in scientific circles, of our knowledge is no longer God in his omnis- but also in the sweeping rise and fall of communism cience, but “I,” the human knower. So human and fascism. knowledge is no longer seen as a subset of God’s knowledge but as something grounded in nothing Postmodern Epistemology o what about postmodern epistemology? Of more than each of our existences as individual thinkcourse, history is messy. The transition from ing beings. (2) It is assumed that absolute certainone historical movement to another is not ty—a certainty borne of true knowledge—is both desirable and attainable. (3) The structure of human abrupt. Invariably, some forces prepare the way for a knowledge and certainty is profoundly “foundation- shift and others retard it. And even when there is a alist.” Descartes looked for a commonly acceptable new paradigm, not everyone adopts it. Even today “foundation” on which he could build all the rest of many modernists argue for their corner and many human knowledge—what we might call the “super- other thinkers have mixed epistemological pedigrees. Even during the reign of modern epistemolostructure” of human knowledge, including our belief in God and in the existence of a world that exists gy, there were many anticipations that all was not independently of our consciousness. Foundation- well. Yet for convenience we may accept the comalism has been assumed in most modern disciplines mon assessment that postmodern epistemology from history to microbiology to particle physics. In came to prominence in much of the Western world each discipline there are axioms, fundamental about 1970. It is usefully analyzed with reference assumptions, and then conclusions that are built to its rejection or modification of all six of the eleupon those axioms and assumptions. Usually, the ments of modern epistemology. 1. Postmodern epistemology continues to fasten autonomy of human knowing—that is, its independence from God’s knowledge—is either an on the finite “I”—or, more corporately, on the finite explicit or implicit part of these disciplines. (4) To group, the “we.” But it draws very different inferestablish rigor and control in each discipline, there is ences from this axiom than modern epistemology a strong emphasis on method. Until very recently, a did. Because all human knowers—or groups of doctoral dissertation in the Western world has been knowers—are finite, they think and reason out of a checked as much for its methodological rigor as for specific and limited cultural framework, some speits results. In other words, in modern epistemology cific “interpretive community.” I am a white, midwe start with an adequate foundation, add method- dle-aged, European Canadian, with a reasonable ological rigor, turn the crank, and out pops truth. (5) amount of Western education behind me, and a Truth itself is understood to enjoy what some have white-collar job. Surely it is not surprising if I look

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at things differently than, say, a sub-Saharan African scholar or a twelve-year-old illiterate street prostitute in Bangkok. 2. Reflect deeply on the first point, postmodernism insists, and absolute certainty will no longer be assumed to be possible. To be frank, it is mere illusion, the product of disreputable arrogance. Moreover, absolute certainty is not even desirable. It engenders a narrow outlook and cascading selfrighteousness. Surely it is better, postmoderns tell us, to encourage insights that flow from many different perspectives, including different religions and diverse moral codes. 3. Because the “foundations” that we erect are produced by finite human thought, we should abandon the comfortable illusion that they are secure. Postmodernism is profoundly anti-foundationalist. 4. Similarly, as finite human beings we invent our methods, which are themselves shaped by particular languages and cultures and social groupings. Consequently, no method has any deeper significance than the preference or convenience of some particular group. To hold, as modernists did, that to build on a firm foundation with rigorous methods would enable us to uncover truth was self-delusion, for neither our foundations nor our methods transcend our limitations. 5. From these first four points we must infer that whatever “truth” we discover cannot possibly enjoy “ahistorical universality.” It will be true for one culture, but not another; it will be true in one language, but not in another; it will be true for this social grouping, but not for that one. Even in the scientific domain, it is argued, we are learning that large theories are not infrequently overthrown by later theories, that Western medicine has its triumphs and failures while Chinese medicine can make similar claims, and so on. Any claim to have achieved “ahistorical universality” is just one more form of modernist hubris. 6. Many postmodern voices still speak out of the assumptions of philosophical naturalism that are common among late modernist thinkers. Yet substantial numbers of postmoderns are now convinced that there are many, many ways to “knowledge” and “truth”—i.e., to “knowledge” and “truth” that are helpful to you or your “interpretive community.” They will happily applaud traditional science, while anticipating the breakthroughs that will come by “feeling” rather than thinking (“Feel, Luke, feel!”). They accept both astrology and religious claims because they do not take them to be different in kind. Anecdotal evidence is as persuasive to such people as controlled, double-blind scientific experiments. Consequently, many postmoderns think of themselves as more “spiritual” and

less “naturalistic” than their modernist forebears. The Correlatives of Postmodernism any complex social factors interact with postmodern epistemology without necessarily being either its causes or its effects. For instance, significant shifts are taking place in the processes of secularization, in our assumptions about the nature of tolerance, in our approaches to religion and morality, in our strengthened individualism, in our estimations of what is important, in our rising biblical illiteracy, and especially in our unrestrained devotion to horizontal, social analyses that squeeze out God. These developments often strengthen postmodern epistemology as well as often being strengthened by it. For example, the more biblically illiterate our culture becomes, the less likely we will be to retain our Judeo-Christian roots and the more open we will be to the pluralism that postmodernism strengthens. In that sense, biblical illiteracy may be a contributing cause of postmodernism. Conversely, the stronger the hold that postmodernism exercises on the culture, the less incentive there is to read the Bible as an authoritative revelation. In that sense, biblical illiteracy may be one of the results of the impact of postmodernism on the culture. It is similar with each of the other factors I have mentioned. What we must recognize is that Christians should not adopt either modern or postmodern epistemology. Both epistemologies make some important and true claims; and each also makes claims that Christians will want to deny. Some Christians, intuitively sensing the dangers of postmodern epistemology, pan it entirely, reverting to the more familiar modern epistemology. They conveniently forget that epistemological modernism has not always been the Christian’s friend. Others cherish postmodernism, not least because of its freshness and iconoclasm. They view askance anything that has ties to old-fashioned modernism. So what is required is some evenhanded reflection on both the strengths and the weaknesses of postmodern epistemology.

Strengths of Postmodernism 1. Postmodernism tellingly criticizes modernism’s vaunted autonomy and firmly checks its considerable arrogance. This is no small gain. Epistemological modernism has encouraged us to think that human beings enjoy both the right and the ability to stand in judgment of God. It does not easily allow us to see the fundamental obscenity implied in obscuring our dependence upon him; it is too busy thinking large thoughts about human beings and our potential, and small thoughts about everything we see and study, including God.

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Postmodernism is properly sober about human finitude. Rightly applied, that is a great gain. 2. Postmodernism is much more sensitive than modernism to the deep and undeniable differences that characterize people of different races, languages, ages, cultures, and genders. For about ten years I worked part-time for the World Evangelical

the rulers were determined to prevent religious differences from erupting into bloodshed. Moreover, pagan defenses against Christianity assumed that all religions are valuable and lead to “god.” From a Christian perspective, this assumption is not a good thing. Nevertheless, this pagan outlook increasingly characterizes today’s Western culture. Developments like these may not be very honorable, but Postmodernism articulates what we should have known…there is more to human they have at least one beneficial side effect: Many of the knowing than rationality, proofs, evidences, and linear thought. New Testament documents—and especially those depicting the church in a Fellowship, organizing a number of conferences that gentile setting—speak much more immediately brought together theologians and senior pastors and prophetically to our situation than they did to from many corners of the world. Just watching Western Christians half a century ago. For examthese people coming into a room and greeting one ple, Paul’s address to the Athenians (see Acts another was an education. As the groups discussed 17:17–34) and his letter to the Colossians now papers and tried to reach consensus as to what bristle with immediate and urgent relevance. So Scripture says, we all became aware of the different postmodern cultural trends have played a crucial baggage that we each carried, to say nothing of dif- role in enabling many of us to read our Bibles with ferent cultural expectations about what was courte- fresh eyes and from a slant that is very close to the ous, what was funny, what was persuasive, and so on. one adopted by the New Testament’s first readers. Postmodernism’s emphasis on the finiteness of the “I” has made us rejoice in cultural difference and made Weaknesses of Postmodernism et we must not be naive. Postmodernism us suspicious of haughty cultural hegemony. That is has many weaknesses. not all bad. It reminds us of the enormous role of presuppositions in all human knowing. Of course, 1. It habitually exaggerates the difficulties we have that is why Jesus’ disciples, prior to the cross, had no category for a crucified Messiah (e.g., Matt. in communicating with one another. This is perhaps 16:21ff.), even though Jesus repeatedly explained most amusingly demonstrated when postmoderns the notion. It took the cross and the Resurrection accuse their reviewers of not really reading their books closely and carefully. In other words, in spite for the pieces to come together in their minds. 3. Postmodernism articulates what we should have of their theories, postmoderns expect their critics to known but what modernism made difficult to see, treat their published works fairly, in line with their namely, that there is more to human knowing than authorial intent as displayed in their text, although rationality, proofs, evidences, and linear thought. No this runs against some of their postmodern claims. 2. Postmodernism pushes its claim that all knowmatter how much we retain the view that evidence and logic are fundamental to human reflection and dis- ing is subjective by regularly presenting us with a course, we are now much more aware of the way that frankly manipulative antithesis: Either we finite aesthetic, social, intuitive, linguistic, and other factors human beings can know things omnisciently or we influence our thinking. Postmoderns are often more are necessarily adrift on the sea of “knowledge” withimpressed by the authenticity of relationships than by out a compass and without a shore. But this antithethe brilliance of linear argument. And for Christians sis is appalling: it demands that we be God or lost in that, surely, is a plus, because Christians are to be known subjectivity. In reality, as premodern epistemology by their love for one another (see John 13:34–35). understood, we may know some true things but Invite a biblically literate postmodern into a Christian never in an omniscient manner; we may know that family or Christian church that overflows with love, certain things are objectively true but never with the integrity, and compassion, and the most challenging ele- absolute certainty accorded to God alone. Recognizing this allows us to construct models of ments of “apologetics” have already been looked after. 4. Postmodernism is implicitly religiously plu- human knowing that are much closer to what each ralistic, as was the Roman Empire in the Apostle of us actually experiences than what either modern Paul’s time and for several centuries after that. The or postmodern epistemology give us. But if we perimperial government in Rome made it a capital mit this absolute antithesis to stand, then postmodoffense to desecrate a temple—any temple—for erns will always win the epistemological debate.

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3. When postmodern thinking is applied to realms such as doctrine and morals, it does more to loosen the constraints of living with integrity and with self-denying concern for others (to say nothing of living with a high regard for orthodoxy) than any other single development in the past century. This thinking erupts not only in courses in cultural anthropology (which today could not possibly condemn, say, child sacrifice, since doubtless the practice was very meaningful to its practitioners) but in our science fiction (e.g., Star Trek: Voyagers never tires of story lines in which alien cultures with behavior and stances utterly abominable in our eyes are in reality no less fine than our own—it all depends on one’s point of view). It makes us uncomfortable with concepts like “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) or with a defined gospel, the abandonment of which is nothing other than the rejection of God, a rejection that spells anathema (see Gal. 1:6, 8–9). Postmodernism’s more radical forms are hopelessly deficient when it is important to talk about truth. By exaggerating the challenges we face when we try to communicate with others (the first point), and by deploying an unnecessary and manipulative antithesis (the second point), postmodernism destroys the objectivity of truth. Postmoderns correctly perceive that there can never be, among finite knowers, an uninterpreted truth. But from this they incorrectly infer that there cannot be any knowledge of objective truth at all. Radical hermeneutics (with German roots), radical appeals to the nature of language (developed in France), and radical claims in the social sciences (from America) have conspired to convince us that objective knowledge is forever beyond us. Nothing, however, has actually been shown except that omniscient, objective knowledge is forever beyond us. But we finite human beings can know some things objectively, even if nonomnisciently; we can know in the only ways that finite beings can ever know—with such a powerful degree of approximation to what is really true that it serves no purpose to say that we do not know objectively. Our knowledge is always in principle correctable, as all finite knowledge must be, but it is not for that reason not knowledge. And Christians can add that our knowledge is all the more securely based because God, with his omniscient mind, has chosen to disclose himself to us in human words. The implications of this revelation cannot be teased out here, but they are of staggering importance. 4. After rightly challenging the sheer arrogance of modernist epistemology, postmodernism displays its own brand of arrogance. Postmoderns are so certain that uncertainty is our lot that they insist

that even if there were a God who spoke and disclosed himself, we could not possibly know that he had. This is stunning arrogance, arrogance of a form that goes on to transform what has traditionally been called “tolerance” into a new and terrifying intolerance. In the past, I might insist that some claim is nonsense, but I would defend to the death the right of others to claim it. In other words, I might strongly disagree with certain ideas, but I would tolerate the person upholding them. But under this new, postmodern view of “tolerance,” we are tolerant only if we take all claims to be equally valid. Those who challenge this view are taken to be intolerant—and they should not be given any respect or attention, because they are so intolerant. Thus postmoderns have infinite tolerance for all ideas—though why it should be called “tolerance” when they cannot disagree with any of these ideas is not transparent: Can I properly be said to tolerate what I do not disagree with, but display no tolerance whatsoever for those who disagree with their postmodern ideology? Concluding Reflections his essay does not respond to postmodernism systematically. That would demand quite a different piece. Still less have I attempted to sketch an alternative Christian epistemology, although astute readers will detect the direction I would take. My point has been simpler. Informed Christians will neither idolize nor demonize either postmodernism or modernism. Both are founded on profoundly idolatrous assumptions. And both make some valuable observations that, when they are properly integrated into a more biblically faithful frame of reference, enable us to reflect fruitfully on the world in which we live. So here are, simultaneously, some of the blessings of common grace and some of the distortions of fallen, would-be autonomous rebels. ■

D. A. Carson (Ph.D., Cambridge University) is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and is a council member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. He most recently edited Worship By the Book (Zondervan, 2002). Copies of this article are available for purchase by calling (215) 546-3696 or by ordering online at www.modernreformation.org.

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REACHING OUT IN OUR TIME

Pop Goes Post n advertisement has appeared in a number of evangelical magazines for yet another Bible translation. Looking smart and sophisticated, a woman stares intently at the reader. The caption reads, “If you want to attract me, you’d better watch your language.” The ad goes on to relate how busy this young professional is these days, so the Bible needs to be suitably tailored to her lifestyle. In many respects, this captures the mood of mission these days: unswerving devotion to the adage that the customer is king. Furthermore, this woman is treated as the definitive norm and rule for ministry in a postmodern era. Are we postmodern? Should we be?

Naming “Postmodernism” hat is “postmodernism”? It depends. To an architect, sculptor, painter, or novelist postmodernism often refers to the specific artistic movement that reacted against the International Style and High Modern art and literature. To political theorists, it can refer to the end of utopian ideologies. To philosophers, it usually signals a transition away from a particular way of thinking about what we know and how we know that it is called “Cartesian foundationalism.” And to economists, it may mean the shift from an industrial-age economy to an information-age economy in capitalism’s current global phase. (For more on some of these uses of the term postmodernism, see D. A. Carson’s article in this issue.) Many now breathlessly announce that we have entered a postmodern age. Yet few are willing to pause and define how the term postmodernism is being used. Most often, it is just a code word for something new, for a supposed break with the past and the dawn of a radically new era. Of course, given that the word modern means what is new, a more modern description of an era could hardly be sought. In many ways, much of postmodernism is little more than “most-modernism.” For instance, it

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was the modern philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)—and not postmodern philosophers Jacques Derrida (b. 1930) or Richard Rorty (b. 1931)—who introduced the view that the “world” conforms to the knower’s conceptual categories rather than vice versa. There is just too much of the modern in the postmodern to be able to speak in sweeping terms of a major paradigm shift in culture. Suffice it to say for our purposes that there are two over-arching types of postmodernism: academic and popular. There is great variety among the former. On a host of points that we cannot pursue here (namely, notions of tradition, language, the critique of autonomy, progress, presence and absence, etc.), thinkers generally classed as postmodern in the academy today have a lot to teach us about the very dangers that so many popularizers of postmodernism embrace. Remarkably fruitful discussions and debates abound in these deep waters and I find myself among those who enjoy wading in them. There is also great variety among the popular versions of postmodernism, but I cannot bring myself to acknowledge that they are either sufficiently distinct from modernism or that they are

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tmodernism sufficiently coherent to place under one label. Much has changed since the storming of the Bastille and the invention of television, some of it for the better and some of it for the worse. But pop-postmodernist cheerleading for the idea that we have entered a radically new era—a utopia of unprecedented opportunity—fails to move me. This is not because I am a stodgy conservative. I just do not believe the hype. I think every historical period has its pluses and minuses. Typecasting them just leads to knee-jerk demonization or equally impulsive lionization, making it hard to conduct cost–benefit analyses in particular cases. History and Scripture remind us that no era can be regarded as either an unmixed blessing or an unmixed curse. Human sinfulness and God’s common grace coincide throughout the ages between the fall and the consummation. Kneejerk conservatism and breathless progressivism can both become copouts for serious evaluation. Call me dismissive, but I cannot get beyond the notion that pop postmodernism is little more than the triumph of popular culture with its obsessions with technology, mass communications, mass marketing, the therapeutic orientation, and conspicuous consumption. Postmodernism—or whatever one wishes to designate our brief moment in history—is the culture in which Sesame Street is considered educational, “sexy” is the term of approbation for everything from jeans to doctoral theses, watching sit-coms together at dinner is called “family time,” abortion is considered “choice,” films sell products, and a barrage of images and sound bites selected for their entertainment and commercial value is called “news.” This easily translates into hipper-than-thou clubs passing for youth ministry, informal chats passing for sermons, and brazen marketing passing for evangelism, where busyness equals holiness and expository preaching is considered too intellectual. It can account in part for homes where disciplined habits both of general domestic culture and of instruction in Christian faith and practice give way to niche marketing and where churches become theaters of the absurd. If modernity is pictured as the crusty tyrant, wrinkled with the fatigue of old age and faded dreams, postmodernism’s visage is that of a child who refuses to grow up and accept the challenges as well as

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the opportunities of wisdom, truth, righteousness, and having responsibilities as well as having a good time. Stated in such intentionally simplistic terms, one can hardly distinguish postmodern from boomer—that post-war generation that has been so aptly described by David Brooks, in his Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, as one who insists on having his cake (the fruit of hard labor and genuine community) and eating it too (absolute freedom of individual choice). This take on postmodernism is hardly new. Marxist intellectual Alex Callinocos’s illuminating analysis of postmodernism concludes that it is little more than the result of the self-obsessed flower children of the revolutionary sixties now taking their place in the professional new middle class. In other words, postmodernism and boomer go handin-hand. There is no epochal change in Western culture, Callinocos insists. “Moreover, much of what is written in support of the idea that we live in a postmodern epoch seems to me of small caliber intellectually, usually superficial, often ignorant, sometimes incoherent.”

Superficial appeals to “our postmodern era” too easily cause us to capitulate before that worst of all threats: obsolescence. Frank Kermode calls postmodernism “another of those period descriptions that help you to take a view of the past suitable to whatever it is you want to do.” This is like references to the “Dark Ages,” which—in spite of their wealth of discoveries, advancing technologies, the founding of universities, and so forth—were effectively nicknamed by the scions of the Renaissance. They thereby sold subsequent generations on the spin that they were in fact breathing new life into Western civilization. In contemporary Evangelicalism, psychological categories overwhelm confessional ones; managerial models of ministry outstrip the pastoral; categories of consumption, sometimes brazen and at other times indirect, reign over a more discipleship-oriented paradigm. Furthermore, ministers are constantly told these days that they must be market-driven rather than product-driven. The pragmatic takes precedence over the deliberative, autonomy over authority, the individual over the community, and the new and improved over the tried and …postmodernism…is little more than the result of the self-obsessed flower tested. All of these trends have their roots in modernichildren of the revolutionary sixties now taking their place in the professional ty, even if pop postmoderns have uncritically embraced new middle class. them. It is not so much the modern versus the postmodern but the total capitulation to pop culture that John Fatalism or Reformation? Seebrook identifies as “the culture of marketing allinocos’s appraisal fits perfectly with what and the marketing of culture.” Evangelicals I see in contemporary Evangelicalism. In obsessed with family values in a vaguely moral concontemporary Evangelicalism, postmod- text often reflect the opposite values in the practice ernism is the new code word for mission, a new way of their faith as niche marketing breaks up the genof enforcing not just change but particular changes erations, entertainment drowns out catechesis, and that involve particular ideological assumptions. the attraction of the customer edges out the comThere is even a note of fatalism in these challenges munion of saints across all times and places—and I that verges on bullying: “Get with it or get left am just talking about evangelical attitudes about behind.” This is just the way things are now, so we what should happen in the youth group! had better adapt. Pop postmodernism today assumes that “is” If a church still thinks that the means of grace implies “ought”; that “the way things are” is itself appointed by Christ as the Lord of his church are neutral, benign, or perhaps even an unmixed blesssufficient for the conversion of sinners and the edi- ing. We do not take the trouble to analyze the fication of the saints, then critics must show from ways in which, for example, the culture of marketScripture why this is not still true although we have ing is fraught with peril for both culture and reached the dawn of space travel. Why must church, because being “cutting-edge,” “effective,” change in the faith and practice of Christians par- “successful”—or, in more pious terms, “missional,” allel change in technology? Is there any relevant simply requires it. connection between the patterns of ministry estabC. Peter Wagner argues, “Traditional church lished in Scripture and the surrender of dial-up models no longer work in our fast-changing world. providers to broadband Internet? If there is, then I A commitment to reaching the lost is driving new fail to see it. apostolic churches to find new ways to fulfill the

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Great Commission.” In this outlook, “our fastchanging world”—what the Bible identifies as this fading age—becomes the norm and church models are viewed in thoroughly relativistic terms, as if the Lord had left the twenty-first century church to find “ways to fulfill the Great Commission” other than Word and Sacrament. Just how does a faith that is passed down “from generation to generation” survive being marketed by a pop culture that declares, “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile”? According to George Barna, it is “critical that we keep in mind a fundamental principle of Christian communication: the audience, not the message is sovereign.” Is this the same evangelical movement that castigated the World Council of Churches for its slogan, “The church follows the world’s agenda”? A Different Typology hat if, instead of adopting the division of history into “modern” and “postmodern” in our evangelism and outreach, we followed the New Testament distinction between “the present evil age” and “the age to come” or between life “in the flesh” and “new life of the Spirit”? Jesus and Paul drew these contrasts (see Luke 18:30; Rom. 7:5–6; 8:5–9; Gal. 1:4). No matter what generation is currently rising, its members belong either to “this passing age” or to “the age to come.” In fact, a good mark of being “conformed to this world” rather than being “transformed by the renewal of [our] mind” (Rom. 12:2) is that we think of ourselves and our generation “more highly than [we] ought” (v. 3). Every generation since the Fall (just think of Cain’s proud city and Babel’s tower) has sought to “conspire against the Lord and against his anointed” in spite of God’s declaration that he has “set [his] king on Zion, [his] holy hill” (Ps. 2:2, 6). Neither modernity nor postmodernity comes out a winner in that contest. To all our kings and kingdoms—read, the “experts” and the imaginary “generations” that they have created for niche marketing—the King in heaven still laughs, charging all those who pride themselves in breaking their chains to “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled” (see Ps. 2:4, 12). Whether modern or postmodern, the truth is that “the present evil age” is fading away and the truly new age that is dawning is the kingdom that comes down from heaven in the glory and power of Christ’s resurrection. “Blessed are those who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:12). If “the age to come” is breaking into even “the present evil age” through the preaching of the cross and resurrection, we really are in the presence of the One who has the power to disrupt our vain

plots, to “rescript” us and take us “nowhere” people—we “aliens and strangers”—and give us a place around the Lamb’s table with Abraham and his children from every time and place. No longer confined to the narrow vision of the modern or the postmodern, we are “raised . . . up with [Christ] and “seated . . . with him in the heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6) from where we announce the new creation that has appeared in these last days. For those who have been filled with God’s Spirit there is no need to be bullied by the spirit of this age, whatever its form. The agenda of the church in postmodernity is its task in every age: to tell the story, be written into it ourselves through Word and Sacrament, and to live that story in the power of the Spirit who incorporates us into its unfolding plot. Thus are we made participants in and living witnesses to the inbreaking age-to-come that relativizes all of our failed plots, all of our ages, and all of our eras, as they spin out under the sun. ■

Michael Horton (Ph.D., Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and the University of Coventry) is associate professor of apologetics and historical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California (Escondido, California), and chairs the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. This article has been excerpted and revised from a contribution to a collection of essays edited by Leonard Sweet, to be released soon by Zondervan. Professor Horton has quoted from Frank Kermode, History and Value (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 132; John Seebrook, The Culture of Marketing and the Marketing of Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000); C. Peter Wagner, “Another New Wineskin,” Next volume 5, number 1 (January–March, 1999), p. 3; and George Barna, Marketing the Church, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1988), pp. 41, 51. Copies of this article are available for purchase by calling (215) 546-3696 or by ordering online at www.modernreformation.org.

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In Print July/August Book Recommendations Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture Gene Veith Exploring the history of both modern and postmodern thought, and describing the new paradigms that characterize contemporary thinking, Veith provides a walking tour of contemporary thought and culture. B-V-1, $16.00 Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology Neil Postman Postman chronicles our transformation from a society that uses technology to one that is shaped by it. Particularly, he traces technology's effects on what we mean by politics, intellect, religion, history, and even truth. B-POST-2, $12.00 Primer on Postmodernism Stanley Grenz Grenz provides readers with a real handbook on a vague and confusing movement. In addition to helpful summaries and explanations, he also points out a few of the challenges and opportunities for the church. B-GREN-1, $16.00 After Modernity.What? Thomas Oden This vigorous and incisive critique of modernity lights the path to recovering the revitalizing heritage of classical Christianity. B-ODEN-1, $18.00 The Gospel in a Pluralist Society Leslie Newbigen Does the Christian message change in a society marked by religious pluralism, ethnic diversity, and cultural relativism? Newbigin's incisive analysis of contemporary culture suggests how Christians can more confidently affirm their faith in our post-Christian era. B-NEWB-1, $18.00 Christian Belief in a Postmodern World Diogenes Allen Can postmodernity favor Christianity? Allen shows how Christianity and Christian beliefs are supported by philosophical and scientific principles. This book is a helpful resource for those struggling with Christianity's place in a world of religious pluralism. B-ALLEN, $25.00 To order, complete and mail the order form in the envelope provided. Or, use our secure e-commerce catalog at www.AllianceNet.org. For phone orders call 215-546-3696 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET (credit card orders only).

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On Tape From the Alliance Archives THE The American Religion WHITE HORSE INN Is American Christianity more American than it is Christian? Have the secular ideals of consumerism and pragmatism replaced the biblical doctrines of sin and grace? In this White Horse Inn series, hosts Michael Horton, Kim Riddlebarger, and Rod Rosenbladt show us the difference between historic Christianity and religion across the American landscape. C-AR-RS, 6 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $33.00

THE Christianity and Popular Culture WHITE HORSE INN In this White Horse Inn series, hosts Michael Horton, Kim Riddlebarger, and Rod Rosenbladt discuss the ways in which popular culture affects our world–view, and, more importantly, our faith. Featuring interviews with Ken Myers and John Fisher, these tapes help us to better understand the attractive appeal of a consumer driven culture and provide a stern warning for those who want to adopt the methods of pop-culture for the purpose of evangelism. C-CPC-S, 3 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $18.00

Two Cities, Two Loves – 22nd Annual PCRT Based on St. Augustine’s City of God, this conference recalls believers to the Bible’s teaching about the city of man, which is doomed to perish, and the glorious City of God, which is eternal, and to an ever stronger faith in God. The six messages are given by Dr. James Boice, Dr. William Barker , Mr. Ken Myers, and Dr. Michael Horton. C-95-P0A, 6 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $33.00

Daniel: Whose God is God? HE Taken captive and marched off to another counBIBLE try, Daniel and his friends have some amazing STUDY adventures in Babylonia. But through it all, they HOUR are faithful to God and God blesses them. As Dr. James M. Boice tells you their story, you’ll learn more about the sovereignty of God, the necessity of sanctification, Christian living in a secular culture, and the portrait of Christ in Daniel. C-DAN, 8 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $43.00

THE The Tower of Babel: Christian Theology and WHITE HORSE INN Apologetics in a Postmodern Age What is modernity and why is there such a reaction to it? How does our faith relate to this massive upheaval in human thought during our own lifetime? In this four-tape lecture series Michael Horton introduces a topic that has become paramount in every university discipline at the present time: the collapse of modernity and the replacement of it by postmodernism. C-TOB-S, 4 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $23.00

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REACHING OUT IN OUR TIME

Reformation Resources for Postmodern Ministry

The Key to Postmodern Evangelism by RICO TICE The key to evangelizing our postmodern generation is forming relationships and faithfully proclaiming the gospel. We can not wait for people to come to us; we must take the gospel out to them. The course called Christianity Explored began when Chris Hobbs, former curate at All Souls Church in London, England, brought Michael Bennett’s Christianity Explained course to England in 1990. With the help of All Souls and several other churches and organizations, the material was rewritten and expanded into a ten-week course aimed at people who want to investigate Christianity or who want just to brush up on the basics. We present Mark’s Gospel, warning people clearly and lovingly about sin, judgment, wrath, and hell, so that the wonder of God’s grace can be understood. We developed this course out of our desire to present the gospel clearly and faithfully, but within a relaxed and relational context. We believe that a sense of community is vital to its success.

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Although we refuse to compromise on “difficult” truths such as sin and repentance in Mark’s teaching, we believe it is vital that each guest feels welcome right from the beginning of each evening. We ask our leaders to arrive at least half an hour before guests arrive so that they can commit the evening to prayer and then welcome those who are at their tables. Within the groups themselves, it is vital that guests are listened to and able to voice their opinions—heretical or not! Our motto is that “silence means agreement” and everyone is encouraged to speak, whether as part of group discussion or one-toone at the end of the evening. We have found that people need to belong before they are asked to believe and that establishing trust over coffee and a meal is a necessary foundation for our witness. We are confident in the power of Scripture to transform lives. At the beginning of the course each guest is given a Bible and then the talks and group discussions take people step-by-step through Mark’s Gospel. We focus on Christ: who he is, why he came, and what he demands of those who want to follow him. We let Mark’s Gospel tell the gospel—the good news that although we are more wicked than we ever realized, we are also more loved than we ever dreamed. 2 Corinthians 4 reminds us of the need to “set forth the truth plainly.” This means teaching that humanity’s biggest problem is that God is angry at our sin and that sin can be paid for in only one of two places: in hell or at the cross. It is only when we understand this that we can see the wonder of God’s grace, discover our true identity, and be assured of eternal salvation. If we love others and

trust the Holy Spirit, then we will tell people the truth and trust God to open their blind eyes. We remind our leaders that while their role is to preach the gospel faithfully (see 2 Cor. 4:5), the results must be left up to God (see 2 Cor. 4:6). The Christian life is far from easy, so participants are asked to count the cost of being a disciple (see Luke 14:25–34) before they make a commitment. If they choose to do so, then they are encouraged to attend our follow-up course, Discipleship Explored, and to become part of a church fellowship. We aim to make disciples and not just converts—and becoming part of the church family is integral to this process for the way in which it supports and encourages new believers. Christianity Explored works on two levels: one involves our sharing the gospel with unbelievers and the other involves our equipping believers for works of service. We want to train leaders to share Mark’s Gospel so that they are then equipped to evangelize in all areas of their lives (see Eph. 4:11–12). As one of our group leaders has commented: “Christianity Explored does not guarantee success, but it faithfully and lovingly warns people of God’s rightful anger at their sin and points them to the only person who can rescue them—Jesus Christ.” ■

Rico Tice received his ministerial training at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and serves as curate at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London, England. For further details on Christianity Explored, please visit their website www.christianityexplored.com.

Gospel Confidence for New Churches b y M I C H A E L K E L LY Scripture never blames preachers when individuals or even entire cities reject the gospel. Evangelicals, on the other hand, question the man or his methods when ministry stalls. They spend millions studying and then trying to replicate “successful” churches. That irony may puzzle some, but it terrifies church planters who are often under tremendous pressure to deliver fast-growing ministries. Granted, the twentieth century presented compelling challenges to the church. We preach an

absolute Word to a visual, hyper-subjective age that is more interested in “indigenous authenticity” than getting saved from, well, whatever. For example, ministry in a city such as Seattle puts us in a culture with its own values and presuppositions. Early in our work here, my family stopped at an intersection and saw three pedestrians standing on the corner waiting for traffic to stop. One was in a beautiful flowing sari, another was pierced and painted in gothic style, and the third was in drag.

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We are not in Kansas anymore. In fact, not even Kansas is in Kansas anymore. We can debate the cultural geography of Kansas, but the question remains: Can the church survive outside the heartland? Many believers wonder whether this age might just be too much for us. Struggling ministries and cultural morass peck away at our confidence and drive us to obsess about the only thing we can change—how we do ministry. Re-examining ministry can be profitable, even necessary, and the tabula rasa of a brand new church makes it ideally suited for thinking creatively. Unfortunately, we almost always do that under a marketing paradigm. We are children of our age who have been well-catechized by Madison Avenue. In a backwards way our biblical commitment can actually work against us. We know that we cannot change Scripture’s message, but lingering doubts about its contemporary effectiveness are not easy to dispel. That tension makes us all too ready to believe the promise that marketing can help by changing the package without changing the product. The only remedy is to regain biblical confidence. Biblical confidence is not simply confidence that the Bible is God’s inspired Word. What I am talking about is more difficult to sustain. To put it bluntly, biblical confidence is the conviction that the Bible’s message is so true that anyone who rejects it has a problem. That should not be difficult for us to accept. The gospel tells us that we all have a problem! It also tells us that accepting God’s work in Christ is the only solution. That alone has always been enough for the church’s best sons and daughters. They were confident that the gospel can prevail over any idea in any age. Although biblical confidence can overcome our market bias, it is not a “shut-up and listen” approach to culture. Instead, it rescues important questions about culture from ecclesiastical marketers and puts the work of crafting relevant ministry back in the context of missions, where it belongs. It leads us from a marketing paradigm to a missionary paradigm where cultural analysis and adaptation can be done from a position of strength and biblical theology rather than from a platform of fears, fads, and focus groups. Not surprisingly, Christ himself models this kind of confidence. He went further than anyone else to meet people where they were, yet he could still look unbelievers in the eye and say, “You do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:26–27). The steel in those words is our antidote to marketing. How does a missionary paradigm based on bib-

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lical confidence influence church planting in a post-Christian America? First, we can get out of a contest we cannot win. Frankly, we are pathetic marketers, but we can be good missionaries. Unbelievers may not “get” the gospel, but they know it is not a product. Better to be what we are and speak to the world plainly rather than try to be what we think it wants. Second, we can do better at applying the gospel to the forms and aesthetics of a post-Christian culture. Biblical confidence could be an excuse to sing the hymns we like while the neighbors we do not like perish—but that is self-righteousness, not confidence. Confidence does not lead us away from issues of context and ministry. It leads us through them by a better road. I cannot chart that course here, but a missionary paradigm forces us to think biblically about the work of planting churches cross-culturally, which is where the church in America now is. Third, we can reject unrealistic expectations. No church planter wants to be the eighth son of Sceva (see Acts 19:11–17). The demands of the work are difficult enough without the burden of “success” that marketing imposes. Instead of patching faltering faith with stories about “great churches” (read “great” as “got big fast”), we should measure effectiveness in five-to-ten-year segments and by two-to three-hundred-member congregations. Finally, we can focus on the man instead of his gifts. Of course, the church does not need any more bad preachers, but character compels where gifts only impress. In the world of the marketed church, “gifted” equals “effective” and “effective” equals “big.” But that equation does not always hold in biblical math. No doubt we should look for gifted men, but biblical confidence looks past gifts to the heart, as does God, who is not as impressed with packages as we are (see 1 Sam. 16:7). The New Testament church knew a lot about rejection, but it did not obsess over ministers and methods like we do. Instead, saints pressed on and churches were planted. Along the way, many of those congregations faded into history but Christ’s church advanced. In fact, every faithful congregation that lifts its voice this Lord’s Day is proof that the gospel is worthy of our boldest confidence. ■

Michael Kelly (M.Div., Covenant Theological Seminary) is senior minister at Green Lake Presbyterian Church in Seattle, WA. Rev. Kelly also serves as the Chairman of the Puget Sound Church Planting Network.

Peculiar Truth: Postmodern Preaching by WILLIAM WILLIMON In one of his aphorisms, Nietzsche, father of all things postmodern, asks, “What if truth were a woman?” The question sounds sexist, but my Christ-conditioned ears hear more. What if truth was not detached, objective, free-standing, unconditional, and everything else that modern, Western folk have been taught to think of it? What if truth were more personal, relative, intuitional, corporeal, and personified? In short, what if truth is a crucified and risen Jew named Jesus? In John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). He does not say that he has come to talk about truth, or that he has some interesting truth to share with us. He simply says he is truth. He also says that he is the way, implying to my ears that his truth is not only a person—personal—but also that it is a way, a journey, a movement to somewhere we would not have gone had we not encountered and been called by Mr. Way, Truth, and Life. Postmodernity has wonderfully exposed the way that our epistemologies have been corrupted by Western, modern, democratic, and capitalist ways of knowing. We take difficult, thick, bubbling Scripture and boil it down to “Four Spiritual Laws” or six fundamentals or a few abstract, detached ideas about “what Jesus really said.” Biblical Fundamentalism and the Jesus Seminar are two last gasps of modernity’s attempt to contain Jesus. At the beginning of the modern period, Francis Bacon was clear that his methodology sought truth for purposes of control. Truth is what we discover in order that we might run the world as we damn well please, controlling things in such a way that we never need recourse to God either to explain the world or to make it work. Christians are currently in a process of rediscovering how very odd our peculiar notions of truth are in a world that has been dominated, at least in the West, by essentially atheistic ways of knowing. How do we reach a postmodern world? What will preaching be like in postmodernity? When I began preaching, I thought that the modern world was my greatest homiletical challenge. What can

we say to all these skeptical, critical, modern people from an old, culturally conditioned, Jewish book like the Bible? Postmodern proclamation, I think, will be less troubled to submit itself to the now discredited canons of modernity and more open to claims that originated in a time other than our own among a people other than ourselves— that is, the claims of Scripture. Preaching in postmodernity will exploit the linguistic construction of all reality, as long as postmodernists understand that Christians do not believe all reality is a byproduct of human discourse. We believe that what is most real is the product of a relentlessly self-revealing God and the conversation this God has initiated with us at Pentecost. Whereas modernity believed that we construct our reality through our heroic personal choices, Christians know that we live in the reality constructed by the Word. Too much of modern preaching saw a sermon as an attempt to elicit religious sentiments from individual hearers. Postmodern preaching will be more about formation than evocation, the formation of a countercultural linguistic community called “the church.” Postmodern preaching will take Acts 2 as its model—that is, in terms of a word from heaven meant, not just to speak to the world, but rather to expose, unmask, and then to change the world through the generation of a countercultural community who now know something they could not possibly have thought up on their own. The promise is of the evocation of a new people, a counter polity offered “for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39). Even more important, it will be preaching that admits that it is derivative from and frighteningly dependent upon steady traffic between here and heaven. All faithful preaching begins as an act of a determinedly self-revealing God, Yahweh, who loves to talk, who delights in argument, declaration, epistemological conflict, assertion, and promise, who loves to create something out of nothing through nothing more powerful than words. It will be preaching that constantly points beyond itself

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to the Savior whom some recognized as Word made flesh. It will be speaking that worries more about obedience to the text than about the allegedly contemporary context of our speaking. It will trouble itself more over proclaiming the Word than over any lack of contemporary response. Realizing modernity’s grave limits, it will be preaching that is willing not to be heard, understood, or grasped by affluent, early twenty-first century people. It will be preaching that delights in the convoluted thickness of the biblical text. We preachers ought never to forget that what Acts 2 wants us to call the gift of the Holy Spirit, is what the world attributed to too much booze too early in the day (see Acts 2:13). Modernity, and the liberalism it spawned, enforced a closed epistemology in which all knowledge was self-derived, readily available to anyone, anywhere, who used modernity’s methodology. It arrogantly claimed that everything in the world is capable of being known—or “grasped”—by anyone who is “reasonable.” Nothing is miraculous, gifted, or unavailable to the knower, nothing essential must be added to the natural world from outside the natural world. Some have called this modern way of knowing “demystification.” I prefer to call it modern closed-mindedness. Christians know only because we have been addressed by a self-revealing God. All of our

knowing is miraculous, a gift of God from outside the limits of our experience. Preaching has something to say to the world only because of God’s grace. Preaching is heard, not because the preacher has succeeded at last in making commonsense contact with modern people, but rather because of God’s miraculous intervention. Karl Barth (18861968) says that if you will always think of preaching as you are told to think of “manna” in Exodus 16, you will not be far from the Kingdom. I remember an old preacher saying that at least two miracles happened that day at Pentecost. The promised Holy Spirit descended with power. Yes. Equally miraculous was that Peter preached. Peter, who could find nothing to say in the courtyard when confronted by the maid just a few weeks earlier (see Luke 22:54–62), stood up, raised his voice, and preached (see 2:14). Preaching is still a sign and wonder (see Acts 2:43); a gift, miracle, irrefutable evidence of a sound from heaven; the only way this creative God creates new worlds. ■

William Willimon (S.T.D., Emory University) is dean of the chapel and professor of Christian Ministry, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.

Modern Pluralism: Challenges Old and New b y R A C H E L S TA H L E Pluralism has emerged as a hot topic among Christians today. This can suggest that it is a new phenomenon, representing a thoroughly unique situation with new tensions and benefits. But as Ecclesiastes states, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Although the extent of modern pluralism is new, God’s people have encountered the competitive interaction of diverse worldviews for thousands of years. In Egypt, Israel’s challenge was to preserve her faith in the midst of another religion. Later in Canaan, it was to conquer diverse idolatries. God’s

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judgment on Israel in the Babylonian captivity was prompted by her having adulterously betrayed him in favor of disgusting local religions that belonged to cultures that God had commanded her to eliminate. In Christ’s time, although she had managed to maintain a sense of her own identity in the midst of the Greco-Roman climate, Israel had replaced Abraham’s religion of faith with a hollow legalism. Jesus challenged his hearers to turn away from false religion of all kinds, Jewish or Gentile, and to turn to him alone for salvation. The early church faced paganism, emperor worship, philosophy, Judaism,

or eastern mysticism squarely with its salvation message. From Pentecost onward, she was challenged to share the gospel in a culturally, ethnically, and religiously pluralistic scene. Modern pluralism is global, but our challenges are not much different than the ones that faced Christians then. Our first goal as we engage a pluralistic society sounds simple, but it may be the most difficult: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27). We must cultivate a holy lifestyle that actively seeks to know and obey God’s Word by banishing all corrupting influences. The pure in heart also reach out to care for those in need and thus avoid the separatist, ghetto mentality that characterized many Pharisees. Only spiritually upright believers are adequately equipped to carry out this evangelical lifestyle, being ready in and out of season to share the reason for their hope (see 1 Pet. 3:15). Paul demonstrated in his preaching a basic knowledge of the religions that he countered. Effective witness must do the same today. In the twenty-first century, we should be at least generally aware of the world’s distinct religious and cultural perspectives so that we can engage others in intelligent conversations. Studying other religions in order to share our faith more effectively can be a daunting prospect because their terminologies and concepts can be so confusing. In fact, it is just plain hard work to learn other faiths well enough to have discussions with our friends. In addition, many non-Christians assume there is universal salvation and are repulsed by our claims about sin and judgment. The answer to our hesitation or ambivalence about sharing the gospel is the simple fact that Jesus Christ commands his church to do so (see Matt. 28:19–20), and he equips us for the task with the power supplied by the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit (see 2 Tim. 3:14–16; Acts 1:8, 2:4). If we are devoted to living holy lives and are knowledgeable about our faith and the beliefs of others as well as devoted to taking every thought captive to obey Christ (see 2 Cor. 10:5), then joy-filled evangelism follows naturally. Ancient Israel was charged to seek and destroy all idolaters, but we are charged to seek and save the lost. This requires compassion, energy, and understanding. Those who do their divinely appointed jobs as ambassadors for Christ will be persecuted (see 2 Tim. 3:12). In fact, if we are not being persecuted, then we should ask if our lives are really manifesting the gospel. Jesus warned, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me

before it hated you” (John 15:18). Yet when we are falsely reviled we are blessed just like the prophets, and we will receive a great heavenly reward (see Matt. 5:11–12). Sometimes Christians paint life in a pluralistic world as a foreboding prospect where truth is threatened at every turn and nonbelievers are enemies who are suspect until they prove themselves worthy to hear the gospel. A different “spin” goes like this: pluralism, global communication and travel, and English’s dominance as an international language provide us with what may be history’s greatest harvest field. The mission field is both “over there” and “right here,” next door. So we must make certain that our lives are blameless. We must research the sacred texts of our neighbors’ religions. We must befriend them and pray for them, sincerely caring for them so they know that they are not just another mission project. We must ask them to explain their beliefs and then discuss how they differ from ours. We must pray that our witness to them will show the gospel in both our words and our daily lives. Above all, we must love them unconditionally, as God does: Christianity is the only religion where salvation is an unearned gift that has the sure outcome of a transformed earthly life and eternal joy in the presence of a personal, loving God. No other religion guarantees salvation and provides the peace of knowing that the weight of our eternal destiny is not borne by us, but by God himself in Christ. We must reflect seriously on just how revolutionary Jesus’ gospel is, especially in an age confused by a hodgepodge of worldviews that all require reliance upon self for fulfillment and redemption. So our modern pluralistic situation is not unique, although it does present some distinctive challenges. Pluralism should excite our hearts as we are stretched to think through the content and implications of the gospel and see the evangelistic opportunities that pluralism allows. Spiritual complacency has no place today. Though pluralism threatens to stain even us by the impurities of its tainted fruit, we are after all equipped and enabled by the Holy Spirit to overcome all obstacles. ■

Rachel Stahle (Ph.D., Boston University) is a contributing scholar to Modern Reformation and serves on the staff of First Presbyterian Church in Quincy, Illinois.

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Redefining “Worship” for an Autonomous Age by RONALD FEUERHAHN Today, “worship” means something different to each person. Yet there may be a common denominator among many people, a description of worship that many would recognize. It goes like this: “When I worship, I thank and praise God.” Sound familiar? Is there a different way to describe worship? Is there any really different way of talking about worship? From God to Us The aforementioned description of worship involves an action from people—us or me—toward God. “I” am the subject of the verbs—the source of the “thanking” and “praising”—and God is their object. I am the actor; God is the audience. Yet could it be another way? I want to, I need to, I ought to, I must praise God, thank him for his mercy toward me, his gifts to me, and so on. Of course, this is all correct. But is it the right starting point for Christian worship? Is this Christian worship’s chief emphasis—from me to God? Language can be ambiguous and misleading. For instance, when we call something the “worship of God,” do we mean our work for God or his work for us? The word of can point either way, either for God or from God. Sometimes we speak of “a worship service.” Again, is it our service to God or his to us? The answer is, It is both. But which comes first? What is first in the Christian understanding of worship? The introduction to Lutheran Worship answers, “Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise.” That is it! First God acts, and then we act. God acts through his Word, which is an active Word. Then, and only then, do we respond. As the Apology to the Augsburg Confession puts it, “It is by faith that God wants to be worshiped, namely, that we receive from him what he promises and offers.” In God’s Name A familiar verse of Scripture tells us that “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt. 18:20). One of the most direct indications of God’s presence among human beings in

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the Old Testament was expressed by God’s name. Thus, Israel is told, “But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there” (Deut. 12:5, my emphasis; see also 12:11; 14:23–24; 15:20; etc.). God later revealed that Solomon would “build the house for my name” (1 Kings 5:5). At the temple’s dedication Solomon announced, “I have built the house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel” (1 Kings 8:20). God then responded to Solomon’s prayer at the dedication by declaring, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time” (1 Kings 9:3). The children of the New Israel were called people of “the Way” (Acts 9:2) and “Christians” (Acts 11:26). But they were also identified in another manner. Jesus spoke with Ananias in a vision, and Ananias answered him: “[H]e [Saul] has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your [that is, Jesus’] name” (Acts 9:14, my emphasis). That same Saul, now Paul, would later open one of his letters with these words: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” (1 Cor. 1:2, my emphasis). Worship, then, must also be in God’s name. Heaven on Earth W. Loehe has said, “In public worship the Church experiences a special nearness to God; she approaches into the very presence of the Bridegroom, it leads a heavenly life on earth, an earthly life in heaven.” We learn in Hebrews (10:19–20) that “we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he has opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.” When Jesus died, the curtain separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place was “torn in two, from top to bottom” (Matt. 27:51; Mark 15:38). Here we learn that the body of Christ is the curtain through which we enter the holy of holies, just as in the old

covenant there was the veil through which the High Priest entered. St. Paul describes this: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand” (Rom. 5:1–2, my emphasis). Because of this we have “confidence … through Christ toward God” (2 Cor. 3:4). “For through him we … have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). In fact, no one comes to the Father except through him (see John 14:6). When in the great Gloria in Excelsis we declare that “we worship you,” where does this take place? In church? Of course. But even more in the very presence of God and of his Son. It is truly, in the words of the hymn, “at the Lamb’s high feast we sing.” ■

Ronald Feuerhahn (Ph.D., Cambridge University) is associate professor of historical theology at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. Professor Feuerhahn’s quotation from Lutheran Worship can be found in the introduction to Lutheran Worship (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1982), p. 6; his quotation from the Apology to the Augsburg Confession is found in Article IV, 49; and the quotation from W. Loehe is found in Liturgy for the Christian Congregations of the Lutheran Faith, translated by F. C. Longaker with an introduction by Edward Trail Horn (Newport, KY:1902; reprinted by Fort Wayne: Repristination Press, 1995), xi, [translation altered].

Every-Generation Youth Ministry by G. MARK SUMPTER One of my greatest privileges in working for reformation in the world of the historic Reformed faith has been to serve as a church janitor. I am a four-congregation veteran. In some way or other over the years, the janitorial supplies closet has served as my “pastor’s study.” Janitorial duties in the church building contribute, in their own way, to the work of biblical reformation. For starters, church janitors see a lot of theology: partially chewed finger nails under the pew, scribbled notes left in a hymnal that passed between spouses about a 14-year-old daughter’s attitude, the tell-tale sign of covenant kids hanging around the fellowship hall—red “church-punch” stains on the tile floor. Show me a solid church janitor and I will show you a growing theologian. Janitors are servants. They serve the Lord by serving others so that ministry can take place. Of course, ministers are servants, too. In a context about the ministry of the gospel—a ministry characterized as foolishness before the watching world—the Apostle Paul writes, “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1, my emphasis). We who are part of the church’s older generations need to heed Scripture’s exhortation that we be ser-

vants of all (see Gal. 5:13). We should take our cue from holy precedent that turns the wisdom of men on its proverbial head—“the older shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23). In 1976, Duke University professor John Westerhoff, noting the growing absence of children and young people within the ranks of the professing church, sounded the alarm for a teaching ministry to our children and youth in his book Will Our Children Have Faith? Yet an even more poignant question is this, Will our faith have children? That is, are we, as reformational Christians, ready to embrace the biblical and theological principle that baptized children and youth help make up today’s church and not merely tomorrow’s church? And, in this light, do we recognize that they have a sanctified office, expressible in youth-appropriate ways, to help the church carry out her mandate to do the work of evangelism? Serving our young people calls for us to equip and deploy them in evangelistic ministry. But how should we lead them into this service? The Need for Godly Models It is common knowledge that the greatest way to teach is not simply through the dissemination of information but through role modeling. What has made the greatest impact on your life? My guess is some

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blend of words and example. When Paul urged Timothy to show godly resolve about his calling, he strengthened his son in the faith by reminding him of his own example (see 2 Tim. 3:10–11). Faithfully serving the rising generation includes providing role models for them that go beyond the requisite of giving wise counsel. Our church youth must see us in a lifestyle of prayerful and practical obedience regarding the lost world around us. Hospitality evangelism—reaching out to those around us through friendships and community involvement—is a great way for young people to catch a glimpse of us doing the work of evangelism. The Importance of Training It is much easier to talk the work of the evangelist than to do the work of an evangelist. Training young people in the skills of conversing about the central truths of the gospel means that we must prepare ourselves for testimony and witness through memorization of Scripture and mastery of Bible doctrine. It means assisting them to spot nonChristian assumptions about God, the creation, human beings, Christ, and so on. R. C. Sproul’s two-part video series, Choosing My Religion, is a great resource here. When we train our young people in the Scriptures and church’s doctrinal standards they become appropriately grounded in their faith and that makes them more ready to evangelize. The Necessity of Practice Keep in the mind the saying, “Practice makes us productive.” Paul told Timothy to train himself for godliness (see 1 Tim. 4:7). The church must provide ways for families to practice evangelism. One local church sponsored a picnic for the community emergency medical services staff and their families, deploying teams of families to organize, prepare,

serve, and conduct parts of the picnic. The effort involved the youth, as part of the church, to be the church in this evangelistic witness. For example, the church children made small gifts to give away to the children of the staff. Practice in evangelism could also mean that when a pastor asks a deacon to go calling at the hospital he also asks the deacon to bring along his 14-year-old son. Practice at evangelism requires that we move into ways of facilitating experience, of promoting give-and-take in Bible and doctrinal knowledge, and of evaluating personal abilities. When we do this with our young people, it treats them as part of today’s church. Being a church janitor has taught me some unconventional lessons about serving God’s people. The “arrows” of the church—our children and young people—in the hands of faithful, servant-warriors—the older generation—can prepare those warriors to “speak with their enemies in the gate”(see Ps. 127:4). I once watched two adults team up with two young people as they carried out a call to elderly folks. In a sense, it was the young people who led the way. Why? Because they “connected” more effectively with the elderly than the adults did. Fruitful witness went forth that afternoon. Once again, the wisdom of Scripture proved piercing: “a child shall lead them” (Isa. 11:6). Will we humble ourselves and serve among our children and youth so that they might effectively and faithfully lead us? If and when we do so, we should keep in mind that God has made his church an every-generation people of God. ■

G. Mark Sumpter (M.A.R., Westminster Theological Seminary in California) is senior minister of Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grants Pass, Oregon.

Transforming Truth: Apologetics in a Postmodern World by WILLIAM EDGAR It was educational, if distressing, to read some college newspapers right after September 11, 2001. Students were often shocked by the unspeakable cruelty of the terrorist acts and had no problem

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calling them “evil.” Some professors, however, had a different take. “You haven’t listened to us!” was their rhetoric. In the vigorous exchanges that flooded the pages of these gazettes, some ques-

tioned the propriety of calling anything good or evil or right or wrong. “It’s not about absolutes, but about perspective and power!” was the sorry supplication. For argument’s sake, let us assume that there is some truth in the claim that we are a postmodern culture. The central negative claim of postmodernists is that we need to be “suspicious of metanarratives.” This unusual way of putting things simply means that no all-encompassing accounts of reality or grand systems for ethics are to be trusted. Such accounts and systems are part of (for instance) Christianity and Marxism, but inevitably, postmodernists claim, they lead to violence and coercion. And thus, postmodernism replaces modernism, which sought to ground human life in humanly constructed metanarratives—and which failed under its own unrealistic expectations. This postmodernist claim is being proclaimed in several quarters. At the university level it boils down to this: Knowledge is not about truth but about power. Michel Foucault, the fascinating and maddening French social historian, has traced how the quest for power has led to the development of knowledge in several areas. For example, he believes that modern hygiene is not just something good for which we should be grateful. We should also be wary of it because it involves giving unprecedented control to parents over children and to doctors over less-educated patients. What positive claims do postmodernists make? They say we should see that we do not need any grand philosophical schemes in order to do some good. For example, ethicist Edith Wyschogrod wants us to abandon moral theory and just act as “postmodern saints” who simply feel an “excessive desire” to try to relieve others’ suffering. The street-level equivalent of this viewpoint is found in the therapeutic model of human relationships: “Don’t offend me—and be sensitive to where I’m coming from.” It is also found in the philosophy of Bob Pittman, MTV’s founding chairman, who says the best programming is “nonnarrative” and makes you feel a certain way rather than giving you any objective knowledge. From this perspective, styles and identities become like clothes to try on. If they fit, keep them; if not, toss them away. How do we bring the message of Jesus Christ to this culture? It is not easy! For our belief in objective truth and moral absolutes is constantly met with the charge of terrorism—the charge that we are just forcing our perspective on other people. Unfortunately, sometimes that charge is credible. For instance, William Meade, Episcopal Bishop of Virginia before the Civil War, told slaves that even when their whippings were not deserved

they served to give God glory and prepared them for the next life. His “metanarrative”—that is, his way of justifying such unjust treatment—was worse than that of Job’s counselors. Today, some right-wing Fundamentalists hope for a kind of Christian theocracy where unbelievers will be second-class citizens. This is one reason why so many people fear “Fundamentalists,” even if they hardly know what that word means. Yet usually this charge that our belief in objective truth and moral absolutes is terroristic is unfair. Christian faith is not about theocracy and coercion; it is about what really is true and good. But how do we address those who confuse the quest for power and the search for truth? For our first step, we can do no better than to follow the Apostle Paul. He had a God-given genius for finding the fatal contradiction in unbelief. Yet whenever he did so, he did not simply lay bare unbelief’s logical inconsistencies; he also underscored the true consciousness of God’s revelation that was found in the unbelievers’ culture. For example, in Athens he quoted the Athenians’ favorite poets both to show that their idols were inadequate and to show that they knew the truth, even in denying it (see Acts 17:28). Similarly, we can find plenty of evidence within postmodernism for belief in ultimate truth and meaning, despite its claims. After all, the postmodern bumper sticker that reads “Practice random acts of kindness, senseless acts of beauty” is not encouraging random acts of cruelty or ugliness. Wyschogrod’s vision is to relieve suffering, not increase it. In spite of all the talk of “feeling” rather than “knowledge” in the MTV world, only certain feelings qualify. The gurus who advise teenagers on those channels are strongly moralistic. Their recommendations are anything but arbitrary. So where do these instincts for kindness, beauty, compassion, and morality come from? Scripture informs us that they come from the sense of deity that all human beings possess, no matter how much some attempt to suppress it (see Rom. 1:19–21). If you insist that I must be sensitive and inoffensive, then you must play by your own rules and listen to the voice of God within you (see Rom. 2:1–4, 14–16). This apologetic strategy is not just a clever “gotcha” tactic to dismantle an opponent’s worldview. Rather, it appeals to the consciences of those who are trying to live in the fabricated and inconsistent world of postmodern therapy. It acknowledges the insistent reality of divine revelation. The second step may be more difficult. It is to present the gospel persuasively and not coercively (see 2 Cor. 5:11–21). This is the full-orbed gospel

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of transformation (see 2 Cor. 3:17–18). Because Jesus Christ atoned for the guilt, the pain, and the misery of the human condition, when we turn to him in repentance and faith we own up to the hopelessness of so many postmodern claims. It is important to recognize that knowledge can be about power. But taken alone that claim is reductionistic. Knowledge is also about truth. Indeed, if postmoderns are right that knowledge can be about power, then they themselves have discovered a truth. The Christian apologist pleads for centering knowledge on God’s truth and God’s glory rather than on human power. We acknowledge that our only hope is in the weakness and “folly” of God’s wisdom that puts the lie to the world’s arrogant pretensions (see 1 Cor. 1:21–25).

To believe in Christ is to abandon postmodernism’s cynicism, skepticism, and despair and to begin again, not with randomness or sensitivity, but with the Rock—Christ crucified and risen again. To believe in Christ is also to abandon modernism. Modernism’s absolute faith in human reason is no friendlier to the gospel than postmodernism’s rejection of reason. Divine revelation is not a cruel and cold metanarrative but a warm and sufficient truth, a truth we can live by, a truth we can trust; transforming truth (see 2 Pet. 1:2–4). ■

William Edgar (Dr. Théol., Université de Genève) is professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia, PA).

The Soul of a University: Faithful Campus Ministry b y R O D M AY S A general survey of the history of campus ministry in the United States confirms that there has been significant growth in both para-church and church-based campus ministries over the past forty years. Pastors can confirm that many in their churches credit their “coming to Christ” or “growing in faith” directly to some campus ministry. In contemporary Western culture the university is a main formative influence on how we think and live. College campuses are, indeed, marketplaces of ideas—our cultural “brains.” Christ’s church, as “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15 [NKJ]) has a compelling reason for loving the “academy” and trying to capture it for the gospel. She will want to inform and shape the intellectual forces that drive our culture by being salt and light in academic settings. Campus ministry is most effective when it is driven by a sound doctrine of the church. We must ask: Where will students be in ten years, after they leave campus? Properly functioning campus ministries direct students from themselves to the church. They teach students to respect the church for its God-given role in society, as the place where they can be connected and loved for a lifetime and

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as the place where truth resides. Postmodernism deconstructs truth, meaning, and individual identity and thus tends to disconnect people. But we, as made in God’s image, are made for relationships. As the biblical basis for truth and meaning has been removed from our culture, we have grown more disconnected from our families and churches. The university’s artificial environment encourages the growth of temporary and transient communities. And so, all too often, college students fall into one of two “black holes”: either they disappear from the community of believers when they enter the university and face challenges to their faith or the distractions of personal rebellion, or they disappear after leaving the university because no church is enough like their college ministry. Consequently, the church needs to be on the college campus for her covenant children as well as to bring others to Christ. We want to rescue students from the “black holes” that both their sin and the culture’s sins have created. What should be the goals of a church-based campus ministry? First, we want to see students grow in grace. Exposing students to the means of grace is crucial. Consequently, we must direct

them to a church committed to God-centered worship, expository preaching of the Word, administration of the Sacraments, and the practice of discipline. Second, fellowship and service should flow from this growth. We want to teach students to relate to others in gospel-centered relationships, equipping them to love and serve others incarnationally. This means modeling for them what it means to be united to Christ and his followers in a body of believers. The church’s love and concern can attract and connect students in this disconnected postmodern environment. Third, we want them to develop a world-oriented Christianity through a proper understanding of evangelism and missions. We must emphasize proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to the university community and beyond in winsome and engaging ways that do not see the university as the enemy. Students do not need to be taught militant, aggressive, antagonistic evangelism. Instead, college evangelism should be organic, growing naturally out of personal relationships. It is both intentional and loving, with our continuing to relate to unbelievers, even if they reject our claims, because we care about them as human beings and because we realize that their “No” may not be their final answer. We want students to demonstrate what it means to be Christian and thus “make the invisible God, visible.” Finally, students need a grid for interpreting and evaluating life. So we must help them to develop a biblical world-and-life view. This set of presuppositions about Creation, the Fall, and redemption provides them with a frame of reference when classroom or campus culture challenges or contradicts Scripture’s truth. It is liberating to learn not to compartmentalize life by some sacred/secular dichotomy and thus begin to live all of life for God’s glory. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). These goals help us in crafting a stable foundation for effective campus ministry. (1) We need a fixed theology, something like the Westminster Standards that provides us with an organized way to teach the truths of Scripture. (2) We must embrace a flexible methodology that does not take a “cookie-cutter” approach to campus ministry. (3) We should use seminary-trained and ordained campus ministers who have the knowledge and skills to shepherd students biblically. (4) We should be motivated by the realization that God is at work. Our awareness of God’s sovereignty should inform all that we do. (5) We must strive to understand the individual. Each of us is created in God’s image but with our own unique identities. Christ’s body is designed to function with unity in its diversity. (6) We must work to understand the learning process by translating doctrine into

practice. And (7), we must study the demographics of the campuses we seek to reach, since each has its own “personality.” This strategy for reaching college campuses in our time flows from three interconnected principles, starting with a firm commitment to the sufficiency and inerrancy of Scripture. Many students are asking, “How can I know God?” and “How can I know myself?” The answers are found in Scripture. Once students know who God is and that they are sinners, then they may ask, “How can I be right with this holy God?” The answer is justification: By faith alone, in Christ alone, through grace alone. The gospel is outside us. We become right with God not because of what we do but because of what Christ did. This simple gospel is one of the most exciting things to talk about on college campuses because it is so misunderstood. As it is taught and believed, one more question will be asked: “Now, how can I please God?” The answer is sanctification, both as a definitive act—by which Christ’s work has made us holy before God—and as a progressive and active work on our part out of obedience and love for God’s law. Only by and through the power of the gospel can we love God more than we love sin. Of course, the final goal of all campus ministry is to see multitudes go to heaven, that city God has built for his people, where all the redeemed will glorify him and enjoy him forever. ■

Rod Mays (D.Min., Luther Rice Seminary) is the National Coordinator for Reformed University Ministries, the campus ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America.

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hat do we pray for in the second petition? In the second petition (which is, “Thy kingdom come,”) acknowledging ourselves and all mankind to be by nature under the dominion of sin and Satan, we pray, that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in; the church furnished with all gospel officers and ordinances, purged from corruption, countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate: that the ordinances of Christ may be purely dispensed, and made effectual to the converting of those that are yet in their sins, and the confirming, comforting, and building up of those that are already converted: that Christ would rule in our hearts here, and hasten the time of his Second Coming, and our reigning with him forever: and that he would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world, as may best conduce to these ends. Question 191, Westminster Larger Catechism (1647)

he development of strategies for world evangelization calls for imaginative pioneering methods. Under God, the result will be the rise of churches deeply rooted in Christ and closely related to their culture. Culture must always be tested and judged by Scripture. Because men and women are God's creatures, some of their culture is rich in beauty and goodness. Because they are fallen, all of it is tainted with sin and some of it is demonic. The gospel does not presuppose the superiority of any culture to another, but evaluates all cultures according to its own criteria of truth and righteousness, and insists on moral absolutes in every culture. Missions have all too frequently exported with the gospel an alien culture and churches have sometimes been in bondage to culture rather than to Scripture. Christ's evangelists must humbly seek to empty themselves of all but their personal authenticity in order to become the servants of others, and churches must seek to transform and enrich culture, all for the glory of God. Article X, Lausanne Covenant (1974), “Evangelism and Culture”

herefore we pray here in the first place that [the Kingdom of God] may become effective with us, and that his name be so praised through the holy Word of God and a Christian life that both we who have accepted it may abide and daily grow therein, and that it may gain approbation and adherence among other people and proceed with power throughout the world, that many may find entrance into the Kingdom of Grace, be made partakers of redemption, being led thereto by the Holy Ghost, in order that thus we may all together remain forever in the one kingdom now begun. The Second Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Martin Luther’s Large Catechism (1530)

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Engaging the Coming Generation Colleen Carroll is the author of The New Faithful (Loyola Press, 2002), which chronicles the (re)turn to Christian orthodoxy among members of the post-Boomer generation. MR: Briefly explain to our audience what you discovered as you traveled the country and spoke to young Christians.

COLLEEN CARROLL

Author and Journalist

CC: I discovered a hunger for Christian truth, clearly and courageously articulated, among a growing number of young adults. These young Americans—ages, roughly, 18 to 35—were not the sort of people that one might expect to be embracing the demands of an orthodox (small “o”) Christian faith. Many were raised in secular homes by liberal baby boomers who had rejected Christianity, or at least, any form of Christianity that made objective moral demands. The attraction of these New Faithful to Jesus Christ and the time-tested truths of the gospel is a startling and growing trend that promises to make a significant impact on American culture. MR: What is it about the coming generation that makes them so hungry for serious worship and teaching, in contrast to their parents’ (boomer) generation? CC: The young Christians I interviewed—most of whom are evangelicals and Catholics, with a few mainline Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians in the mix—articulated a hunger for truth, a hunger for the living God. In some ways, they see their attraction to Christianity and moral absolutes as a “rebellion against the rebellion” of the boomer generation, as one twenty-something man put it. Most of these young adults—including many who were raised in Christian homes—have suffered through decades of weak moral teaching, theological confusion, and worship experiences centered more on feel-good entertainment than praising God. They are starving for Jesus, for the gospel, for a faith that means something, demands something, changes something. And many have witnessed in their parents the effects of a diluted

faith that does not change lives—hypocrisy, careerism, materialism, divorce. Others have faithful parents, but still find Christian orthodoxy attractive because it belies the cultural drift toward hedonism and moral confusion. MR: What do the New Faithful think about creeds and confessions? Is there more to this (re)turn to orthodoxy than a worship style or a Christian ethic? CC: Though they have significant theological divisions within their ranks, the New Faithful generally agree on an orthodoxy that approves the tenets of the Apostles’ Creed, an orthodoxy that demands strict standards of public and private morality, and that regards Jesus Christ as the supreme Lord and savior who alone can save them from sin and death. In terms of worship, a good number of the New Faithful are attracted to contemporary worship, as long as it is paired with a strong scriptural message. But I found a surprising number of young Christians—both Protestant and Catholic—who were hungering for more traditional or liturgical worship and had a deep, almost visceral attraction to the Sacraments and sacramental theology. In terms of morality, this group was fairly uniform in its rejection of abortion, premarital, extramarital, or homosexual sex, and any behavior that would violate the Ten Commandments, as well as in its embrace of the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule, and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.

For the rest of our interview with Colleen Carroll log on to www. modernreformation.org.

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An Interview with Richard Rorty

Truth, Evil, and Redemption Professor Richard Rorty is a leading postmodern philosopher. He recently responded to a few of our queries about the central tenets of the Christian faith and postmodern philosophy. MR: How would you define truth in contrast to the ways we have usually thought about it?

RICHARD RORTY

Professor of Comparative Literature and Philosophy Stanford University

RR: I think that it is a mistake to try to define the word “true.” We call beliefs true if we think ourselves justified in holding them. Justification is relative to particular audiences and circumstances. There is no such thing as absolute, unchallengeable justification (though, of course, there is such a thing as absolute, unshakable conviction). But since truth is an absolute notion (we don’t say “true for you, but not for me” or “true then, but not now”), you cannot define truth in terms of justification. Nor can you define it any other useful way, as far as I can see. If one says, for example, “true beliefs are beliefs that correspond to the way things really are,” this is entirely unhelpful, since we have no test for how things really are apart from the test of whether we are justified (by our current lights, given our present circumstances, to certain audiences) in describing them in a certain way. The very absoluteness of truth makes it an indefinable and unanalyzable notion. MR: You’ve made some intriguing comments about Christian theologians and churches selling out robust versions of Christianity in exchange for cultural clout. Do you find, as an outsider looking in, that this contributes ironically to its irrelevance? RR: No, I’m delighted that liberal theologians do their best to do what Pio Nono said shouldn’t be done—try to accommodate Christianity to modern science, modern culture, and democratic society. If I were a fundamentalist Christian, I’d be appalled by the wishy-washiness of their version of the Christian faith. But since I am a non-believer who is frightened of the barbarity of many

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fundamentalist Christians (e.g., their homophobia), I welcome theological liberalism. Maybe liberal theologians will eventually produce a version of Christianity so wishy-washy that nobody will be interested in being a Christian any more. If so, something will have been lost, but probably more will have been gained. MR: What is a neo-pragmatist account of evil and sin? RR: There is none. Evil, as Dewey said, is just a rejected good. The notion of sin is one no pragmatist has any use for, since it suggests that even if we do our honest best we are still in “Dutch” with a superhuman power. Pragmatists typically want to stick to this-worldly choices, and try to ignore the question of other-worldly judgment. MR: How does such an account take seriously the depth of human malice in, say, modern slavery or the Holocaust? Were the victims really victims? RR: Sure, they were victims. There is a lot of sadism and malice in all of us, waiting to be released when the social bond is loosened. I don’t think the presence of such sadism and malice requires any deep explanations, any more than does the presence of kindness and decency. We know what empirical conditions are likely to bring out either, and that is all there is to know about either.

For the rest of our interview with Richard Rorty log on to www. modernreformation.org.

BOOKS | Worship by the Book

Designer Worship?

mid the growing number of popular works on worship (many of uneven quality),

of the rest of Carson’s introduction is an exposition New Testament scholar D. A. Carson has edited a volume that is both of the different points raised in his comprehensive theological and practical. The book contains engaging essays on worship from definition. While he agrees that the New Testament representatives of three distinct radically expands the meaning of worship to Protestant traditions (Anglican, Free embrace all of life lived coram Deo, Carson stresses Church, and Presbyterian/Reformed) that corporate praise and adoration should not be prefaced by a theological introduction discarded by Christians (as some have recently that examines the Bible’s treatment of argued). “What remains constant,” across the worship. testaments he explains, “is the sheer GodCarson begins by noting the centeredness of it all” (41). Although one can unfortunate polarization that has garner a list of essential elements of corporate emerged in the “worship wars“ affecting worship from the New Testament (which would many Protestant congregations in recent include the reading of Scripture, prayer, praise, years. “The widespread confusion is etc.), there is no prescribed order for or punctuated,” Carson observes, “by arrangement of these elements. The first of the three practical essays that follow strongly held and sometimes mutually exclusive theological stances that make Carson’s introduction is by an English Anglican attempts to construct a biblical theology of rector, Mark Ashton. He examines Cranmer’s worship a pastorally sensitive enterprise…. It is liturgical work highlighting three underlying Worship by the not easy to find an agreed-upon method or principles that distinguished it, namely, its biblical Book common approach to discovering precisely how thrust, its accessibility, and its balance. The author by D.A. Carson et al. the Bible should re-form our views on worship” notes how Anglican liturgical revision in the (13–14). A good starting point is to settle on a twentieth century has not always adhered to Zondervan, 2002 clear definition of worship, working from the Cranmer’s approach. His suggestions for ordering 256 pages (paperback), $16.99 distinctive perspectives afforded by both Sunday worship stress the importance of edifying systematic theology and biblical theology. After believers and evangelizing visiting nonbelievers. reviewing some of the more recent literature on The second essay by Congregationalist R. Kent worship, Carson offers a detailed definition that Hughes surveys how the Puritan critique of the includes the following: “Worship is the proper Book of Common Prayer initially shaped Free Church response of all moral, sentient beings to God, approaches to worship and also how the last two ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator- centuries have witnessed what Hughes aptly terms God.…Such worship therefore manifests itself a “free-fall to pragmatism” (147). By focusing on both in adoration and in action, both in the evangelism alone, the Sunday service in many Free individual believer and in corporate worship, which is Church congregations became simply an worship offered up in the context of the body of evangelistic lecture and many evangelicals believers …”(26 emphasis in the original). Much accordingly became disconnected from centuries

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of Christian practice. The last essay, by Presbyterian pastor Tim Keller, addresses the unique problems of worship in a multicultural urban setting. Keller argues that Calvin’s understanding of corporate worship can be very helpful in addressing our current confusion. Calvin’s approach evinces three “salient traits”: simplicity, transcendence, and a distinctive order that reflects a kind of “Gospel reenactment” (208, 214). All three essays conclude with outlines of actual services designed to reflect the formative principles they discuss. Although Worship by the Book has much to recommend it (Carson’s thorough and balanced introduction is particularly good), some of the arguments advanced in the three essays are unpersuasive. At least two of the three essayists argue that one of the most important functions of Sunday corporate worship is evangelism. Ashton declares that “the twin New Testament aims for the Christian meeting” are “edification and evangelism” (85). The biblical warrant for this assertion appears to be 1 Corinthians 14:23–25 and Acts 2:5–12. Keller, for example, contends that “these two case studies show that nonbelievers are expected in gathered worship, that nonbelievers should find the worship comprehensible … and that nonbelievers may be convicted and converted through corporate worship” (218). Yet these two brief passages represent an inadequate basis for general arguments about gathered worship. Neither case is presented in the New Testament as a prescriptive example. The passage in Acts relates the extraordinary events of Pentecost; in the other, the Apostle Paul is concerned about Christians in their assemblies doing things that are intelligible to the occasional “outsider” who may drop by. Yet, as F. W. Grosheide notes in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Paul is simply dealing here “with hypothetical cases in his concern to show the greater worth of prophecy [i.e., reading Scripture and preaching in today’s context]” (333). Corporate worship on the first day of the week in Scripture is primarily a gathering of the saints. Obviously one should take care to make the service accessible to visitors (and this has not always been done) but orienting much of Sunday worship around the needs of nonbelievers lacks biblical justification. (Ironically, Ashton actually invokes this evangelistic concern to argue against the biblical pattern of weekly communion. Since communion isn’t for non-Christians then the Sacrament should not be administered frequently. Others might suggest that such a situation called instead for stricter communion discipline.)

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Another more general problem with the essays is their lack of grounding in their ecclesiastical or confessional traditions (this is particularly the case with Ashton’s contribution). It is lamentable that the Book of Common Prayer has become for many little more than a liturgical “resource“ to be dismantled by well-meaning worship committees. The author admires Cranmer’s robust biblical critique of medieval Catholic teaching (as does this reviewer) but he apparently feels Cranmer didn’t go nearly far enough. In his eagerness to expunge anything even remotely suggestive of Roman Catholic teaching, Ashton advocates lay presidency at the Lord’s Supper and criticizes congregations that regard “the administration [of the sacrament] . . . as a particularly holy or edifying moment in the service” (104). Such an oppositional approach can produce unscriptural results, as when Ashton has his entire congregation recite together the dominical words of institution (“This is my body, etc.“) in one of his model communion services in order “to avoid suggesting that the leader is a ‘priest’ who turns the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ by his words” (117). Despite their vehement rejection of transubstantiation and sacerdotalism of any kind, neither Calvin nor Cranmer found it necessary to discard what Jesus modeled in the Last Supper. The three essays evidence an individualistic ecclesiology where every man is his own liturgist and confessional standards are worn rather lightly (reminiscent of Judg. 21:25). Keller does identify the way forward correctly: “I believe the solution to the problem of the ‘worship wars’ is neither to reject nor enshrine historic tradition but to forge new forms of corporate worship that take seriously both our histories and contemporary realities, all within a framework of biblical theology” (198). “Enshrining“ the past (be it the Reformation past or that of the early church) is obviously not the solution but greater respect for and respectful engagement with confessional traditions and with the historical witness of the church catholic is sorely needed. Such an approach need not degenerate into mere traditionalism or antiquarianism. Parts of these essays contain sound and helpful counsel in designing corporate worship that reflects biblical principles but the design-your-own approach they assume has surely not served confessional Protestantism well in the past two hundred years. Gillis Harp Grove City College Grove City, PA

Preface to Theology: Christology and Theology Method by John Howard Yoder Brazos Press, 2002 431 pages (hardcover), $34.99 This book is a posthumous publication of one of America’s foremost theologians of the later twentieth century, John Howard Yoder. Yoder, who died in 1997, was a Mennonite who taught both at Goshen Seminary and the University of Notre Dame. Yoder’s association with these two institutions itself indicates something of the fascinating nature of Yoder and his work. Though committed to the Anabaptist, Mennonite tradition of the “left wing” of the Reformation, Yoder attempted to do his work as a catholic theologian interacting with the broader streams of the Christian tradition. Though his Anabaptist heritage shines through unashamedly throughout this work, Yoder does display an impressive grasp of the history of theology and often maintains a critical posture toward his own heritage. An introduction to this work, by editors Stanley Hauerwas and Alex Sider, is helpful in placing Yoder within his theological and ecclesiastical context. As the title of this work indicates, Yoder presents an introduction to the study of theology, following largely the material from a seminary course that he taught. The arrangement of the book, however, is different from what one would ordinarily expect to find in such an introductory work. Rather than dealing systematically with individual topics such as the nature of theology and the doctrine of revelation, Yoder by and large pursues a historical outline. He begins with the New Testament material, first dealing with the apostolic preaching and then moving to the Gospels and the later theologians, namely, Paul, the author of Hebrews, and John. Then he travels beyond the New Testament to examine the development of theology in the very early postapostolic church up to the fifth-century Council of Chalcedon. In traversing these fields, Yoder focuses primarily on the church’s teaching about Christ. His goal is to learn and teach theology by watching it happen in the early centuries of Christianity and reflecting upon it critically. The final section of the book explores the theology of the three offices of Christ (prophet, priest, and king), which allows Yoder to move beyond the early church to the medieval and Reformation eras, and into the contemporary scene. Many substantive issues raised in this book are worth mentioning, but space permits only three in

particular. The first concerns the significance of the church’s creeds. In his historical work, Yoder naturally spends considerable time addressing the development of creedal statements in the development of Christology. Though Yoder works out of a tradition that is often indifferent to, if not hostile toward, creeds, he expresses a great deal of appreciation for the usefulness and even inevitability of creeds in the church’s life, even while distancing himself from any sort of absolute commitment to them. A second matter is closely related to the first, since it too concerns the ecclesiastical nature of theological reflection. Yoder makes a rather passionate case that theology ought to be developed by teachers of the church, who are in the church and working for the church, not by those who are simply professional theologians. While one might be surprised to find such sentiments being expressed by one coming out of a “low” church tradition, it is in many ways an effective challenge to both theologians and laity in traditions that view themselves as having much higher views of the church. A third substantive issue that is worth brief mention is the Atonement. Yoder surveys various theories of the Atonement and looks upon them as relatively far removed—at least temporally speaking—from the biblical witness. Though Yoder views the theory of a substitutionary atonement as the strongest of the principal options, he also offers a number of criticisms of it and suggests a better alternative. Yoder’s argument is driven in significant part by his distinctively Anabaptist/Mennonite pacifism. It is at this point, perhaps, that Yoder’s theology is most likely to commend itself or be exposed as wanting. Yoder expresses the concern several times through the book that doctrine and ethics not be separated. In considering the Atonement, Yoder penetrates to the heart of both doctrine and ethics, and their intimate relationship is indeed revealed. Yet, his uncompromising opposition to all violence and identification of agape as nonresistance—as applied to God as well as to human beings—compels a view of Christ’s saving work that is quite removed from the idea that Christ bore the wrath of God in the place of sinners. A few other points are worth brief mention. First, readers of Modern Reformation may be pleased to discover that Yoder has read, assigned to his students, and done serious reflection on the work of important Lutheran and Reformed theologians. Lutherans will find interaction not only with Luther himself, but also with Franz Pieper, whereas Reformed readers will note the appearance of names such as Hodge, Machen, Berkhof, and Van Til.

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Second, and on a somewhat negative note, the text could have been edited significantly better. Third, readers should be warned that the material here was completed several decades ago and does not interact with theological work produced since the 1960s. On several fronts, therefore, the book is somewhat dated and must be read in that light. All told, this work is undoubtedly an important addition to theological literature and can serve as a very helpful introduction to the thought of Yoder particularly and to contemporary Anabaptist/Mennonite thought more generally. David VanDrunen Westminster Theological Seminary in California Escondido, CA

Charles Hodge Revisited: A Critical Appraisal of His Life and Work by John W. Stewart and James H. Moorhead, eds Eerdmans, 2002 375 pages (paperback), $25.00 At the beginning of his essay on Charles Hodge’s view of spirituality, Mark Noll writes, “This paper is a sympathetic account of a failure.” In many ways, Charles Hodge Revisited reads like the academy’s sympathetic account of what they deem to be a failure—the maintenance and defense of Old School Calvinism in nineteenth-century America. And yet this book may be the first step toward a recovery of Charles Hodge as an important public intellectual set in the context of his times. This collection of essays, from the 1997 conference co-sponsored by Princeton Theological Seminary and Princeton University, does treat Hodge sympathetically. For the first time, Hodge is placed both in “the intellectual weather of the nineteenth century” and in the larger history of ideas. Hodge engaged the rising tide of Romanticism, represented by European theologians such as Schleiermacher and American theologians such as John Williamson Nevin and Horace Bushnell, and attempted to maintain creatively the long-standing partnership between religion and science. Further, these scholars view Hodge as particularly alive to his times, reflecting brilliantly on political and cultural issues related to the Civil War and wrestling less satisfactorily with the problems related to slavery and Darwinism.

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In the assessment of these scholars, Hodge does not come off so well. Like most ministers and theologians of his age, he lived in and sought to reinforce a patriarchal world where “manly ministers” maintained rule over “womanly women.” In addition, Hodge’s failure during the national debate over slavery to speak on the side of emancipation represents “a disappointment, and perhaps a crueler disappointment than even his critics have claimed, because Hodge did actually see what truth and justice were tending toward, and refused to hasten it even after Appomattox” (325). Hodge’s failure in accounting for the relationship between doctrine and life could be attributed to allowing “his own religious experience to come first in determining the meaning of Scripture” which “gave the lie” to his development of theological method, compromised his Augustinian stance, and undermined the biblical content of his theology (204). Not surprisingly, Hodge’s approach to biblical interpretation, while not “pre-modern” and aware of some aspects of historical-critical method, was certainly “naïve” in his conception of biblical authorship and generally deficient in “historical consciousness.” So where does that leave Charles Hodge for modern believers and postmodern intellectuals (assuming the two overlap to some degree)? This book sounds an ambivalent note. The best that the editors could manage in their introduction and conclusion was that Hodge was relevant because he provided an example of a professional theologian engaging a full range of intellectual issues and mediating cultural disputes for the advancement of American Protestantism. While this is a good mandate for religious intellectuals making their way in the academy, it fails to provide a serious explanation for Hodge’s continuing vitality in conservative Reformed circles. Yet it is precisely as a conservative Reformed theologian that Hodge merits consideration. And it is at this point that Charles Hodge Revisited fails to consider Hodge at all—as a theologian who devoted forty years to teaching systematic theology and continues to exert a broad influence today. To be sure, this book provides discussions of Hodge’s theology (particularly, theological method, his doctrine of Scripture, and the importance of representation for his theology), and references to Hodge’s Systematic Theology abound. But in offering a critical appraisal of Hodge’s life and work, this book fails to consider the central part of Hodge’s lifework—the year-in, year-out training of ministerial candidates in systematic theology. Even so, Charles Hodge Revisited provides a starting point toward a full-orbed consideration of Charles

Hodge as a theologian and public intellectual, and offers an important resource for those seeking to understand his continuing importance to Reformed theology in America. Sean Michael Lucas The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville KY

SHORT NOTICES Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper by Keith A. Mathison P&R Publishing, 2002 370 pages (paperback), $15.99 A potential source of embarrassment for many Christians in the Reformed camp is the infrequent observance of the Lord’s Supper. Lutherans and Episcopalians have no trouble celebrating the Lord’s Supper every week in most parishes. But Reformed and Presbyterian congregations have generally regarded monthly observance as sufficiently frequent, thank you very much. This fine book by Keith A. Mathison provides genuine comfort for embarrassed Calvinists. It explains John Calvin’s understanding of the Supper, shows how Ulrich Zwingli’s view over time became the dominant view among Calvinists, offers biblical support for Calvin’s high view of the sacramental meal, contrasts the Calvinist view with Lutheran and Roman Catholic positions, and weighs in on contemporary debates about frequency, the use of wine or grape juice, and paedocommunion. The lasting impression left by Mathison’s guide to these issues and debates is that practice is closely tied to faith: the higher one’s estimate of the Lord’s Supper and its benefits, the more likely congregations will be to celebrate the Sacrament frequently. Perhaps just as important is Mathison’s clarity in demonstrating that Zwingli’s notion that the Supper is of largely symbolic value is distant from Calvin’s and peripheral to sixteenth-century Reformed Christianity.

Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity by John Piper, Justin Taylor, and Paul Kjoss Helseth, eds. Crossway Books, 2003 416 pages (paper), $17.99 Why another book on open theism? One answer is that the teachings of open theists seriously undermine Christian orthodoxy. Another, as the editors of this book state, is that the proponents of open theism continue to reformulate their positions in the light of objections leveled against their views. Consequently, Beyond the Bounds is among the latest of attempts to show the errors of open theism. Its authors include names familiar to readers of Modern Reformation, such as Michael Horton and Mark Talbot. The book’s contents are divided into five sections: historical, philosophical and cultural, hermeneutical, theological, and structural. The last section, the one regarding the basis for fellowship among Christians, may be one of the most important matters for consideration. As William Davis points out in his chapter on the cultural conditions that have encouraged open theism, one of the most significant factors in this movement’s popularity is the decline of ecclesiastical authority among evangelical Protestants and the rise of para-church Christianity. Whether or not this book, which represents an amalgam of scholars from various denominations, can counteract the ecclesiastical independence that has characterized contemporary Evangelicalism, it nonetheless provides a collection of arguments that refine and deepen the ongoing critique of open theism.

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Covenant Confusion

uch of the confusion that I see in the current theological discourse within the

our confidence of communion with God and various Reformed branches of the Reformation churches pertains to an enjoyment of his promises); (3) the Sacraments (signs and ignorance of historic covenant theology. By historic or classical covenant seals of God’s covenant promises—what they are and theology, I mean the bicovenantal theology how they work); and (4) the continuity of exhibited in, for instance, the Westminster Confession of redemptive history (the unified plan of God’s Faith (but with a pedigree stretching back to Zurich salvation). Covenant theology is also a and Geneva, and behind them into the Patristic era), hermeneutic, an approach to understanding the which fully appreciates the fundamental difference Scripture—an approach that attempts to biblically between God’s dealings with man pre- and post-Fall, explain the unity of biblical revelation. and thus the vital distinction between God’s Covenant theology is a blending of biblical and goodness and his grace. systematic theology. It is biblical theology in the sense The current popularity of sundry mono-covenantal that covenant theology recognizes that the Bible itself J. LIGON DUNCAN approaches (that is, systems that deny the covenant of structures the progress of redemptive history through III works/covenant of grace framework of biblical history, the succession of covenants. It is systematic theology whether they are Barthian or Hoeksemanian or in that it recognizes the covenants as a fundamental Schilderian) exists only because of a widespread lack of architectonic or organizing principle for the Bible’s Senior Minister familiarity with the more robust historic Reformed theology. Thus it proceeds to integrate the biblical First Presbyterian Church tradition on this subject. Furthermore, a serious effort teaching about the federal headships of Adam and Jackson, Mississippi at historical theological reacquaintance with classical Christ, the covenantal nature of the Incarnation and bicovenantal Reformed theology would also prove to Atonement, the continuities and discontinuities in the be a great boon to current Reformed Lutheran dialogue progress of redemptive history, the relation of the on the relation of their law–grace hermeneutic to the Jewish and Christian scriptures, law and gospel, into a Reformed covenant of works–covenant of grace coherent theological system. Covenant theology is an ecumenical Reformed hermeneutic of Pauline polemics. Covenant theology is the gospel set in the approach to understanding the Bible, developed in context of God’s eternal plan of communion with the wake of the magisterial Reformation, but with his people, and its historical outworking in the roots stretching back to the earliest days of catholic covenants of works and grace (as well as in the Christianity and historically appreciated in all the various progressive stages of the covenant of grace). various branches of the Reformed community It explains the meaning of the death of Christ in (Baptist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Anglican, light of the fullness of the biblical teaching on the and Reformed). In light of this, J. I. Packer is surely divine covenants, undergirds our understanding of right when he says “in modern Christendom the nature and use of the Sacraments, and provides covenant theology has been unjustly forgotten” (see the fullest possible explanation of the grounds of his introduction to Witsius’ Economy of the Covenants our assurance. Put another way, covenant theology (P&R Publishing). is the Bible’s way of explaining and deepening our understanding of: (1) the Atonement (the meaning of the death of Christ); (2) assurance (the basis of

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