the-imitation-of-christ-march-april-2009

FOLLOWING JESUS ❘ “SPIRITUAL FORMATION” PITFALLS ❘ “INCARNATIONAL” MINISTRY?

MODERN REFORMATION The Imitation of Christ

VOLUME

18, NUMBER 2, MARCH/APRIL 2009, $6.50

MODERN REFORMATION

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Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Executive Editor Eric Landry

The Imitation of Christ

Managing Editor Patricia Anders Marketing Director Michele Tedrick Department Editors Mollie Z. Hemingway, Between the Times MR Editors, Required Reading Ryan Glomsrud, Reviews Michael Horton, Final Thoughts Staff | Editors Ann Henderson Hart, Staff Writer Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Ben Conarroe, Proofreader Contributing Scholars Peter D. Anders James Bachman S. M. Baugh Gerald Bray Jerry Bridges D. A. Carson Bryan Chapell R. Scott Clark Marva Dawn Mark Dever J. Ligon Duncan Adam S. Francisco W. Robert Godfrey T. David Gordon Donald A. Hagner John Hannah Gillis Harp D. G. Hart Paul Helm Hywel R. Jones Ken Jones Peter Jones Richard Lints Korey Maas Keith Mathison Donald G. Matzat John Muether John Nunes Craig Parton John Piper Kim Riddlebarger Rick Ritchie Rod Rosenbladt Philip G. Ryken R. C. Sproul A. Craig Troxel Carl Trueman David VanDrunen Gene E. Veith David F. Wells William Willimon Todd Wilken Paul F. M. Zahl Modern Reformation © 2009 All rights reserved.

For more information, call or write us at: Modern Reformation 1725 Bear Valley Pkwy.

Escondido, CA 92027 (800) 890-7556

14 Following Jesus: What’s Wrong and Right About the Imitation of Christ Do we need “spiritual directors” or rather pastors who feed us, elders who guide us, and deacons who care for us? What does it mean to become more like Jesus?

by Michael Horton

19 Incarnational Ministry and the Unique, Incarnate Christ When we couple the term “incarnational” with “ministry,” what is the relationship between the one Incarnation and the activity and ministry of the church?

by J. Todd Billings

23 Simple Grace, Simple Growth If “spiritual formation” is another means of grace given to us by God, what happens when we don’t have enough time for prayer and personal Bible study?

by Kate Treick

27 Imitating Jesus Can we “imitate” Jesus? A theologian provides a Reformed answer by looking at Christ’s Incarnation, his messianic work, and his canonical context.

by Michael Allen

31 A Catechetical Imitation of Christ Does responsibility for spiritual growth belong to the individual? A Lutheran pastor considers what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

by John Bombaro

12 Celebrating Calvin Ten ways modern culture is different because of John Calvin.

by David W. Hall

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In This Issue page 2 | Letters page 3 | Between the Times page 4 Ex Auditu page 8 | Interview page 36 Required Reading page 40 | Reviews page 41 | Final Thoughts page 48

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IN THIS ISSUE

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esus said that the kingdom of heaven was like a field of wheat ambushed by a jealous neighbor who scattered weeds so that the resulting mess was too difficult to sort out until harvest time (Matt. 13:24ff). When the harvest came, the authentic crop, the wheat, would be distinguished from the crop of domestic terrorism, the weeds, and the reapers would go to work on both. During this long, long summer of growth that Christians are experiencing before the harvest of Jesus’ Second Coming, the quest for a reaper’s intuition is nearly universal. We want to have certainty—not merely of our being a stalk of wheat and not a sneaky weed, but even of our growth and development as wheat. Not content with being wheat, we want to be sower, feeder, and reaper, too.

On one level, the search for authentic Christianity isn’t a bad quest. But every generation seems to have a few insistent stalks of wheat who take on the voice of the servants in Jesus’ parable, insinuating that if the other stalks of wheat don’t care about the exact same things they do or go about their growth in the exact same ways, they just might be unsuspecting weeds! When we begin to use our own Christian experience as a judge of someone else’s “wheatness,” we have gone far beyond the sort of proper self-judgment the Bible recognizes and encourages and have slipped into the introspection and self-righteousness that the Bible roundly condemns.

“Of course,” someone is saying with a sneer, “exactly what I would have expected from the folks at Modern Reformation. Let’s not even talk about Christian growth for fear of being self-righteous.” We’ll ignore the sneer and instead say that the Reformation also faced head on the problem of authentic Christian living. But their answers (and the resources they’ve passed down through the generations) provide a different way of looking at the problem and the solution.

In this issue, we’re applying some of those answers to our current questions.

First up is our editor-in-chief and Reformed theologian Michael Horton who contrasts a grace-filled approach to Christian living with one that is duty bound. Along with his article, we’re happy to feature Todd Billings, professor at Western Theological Seminary, who takes on the current mantra of “incarnational ministry” and shows its limits as a guide for ministry and piety. Kate Treick, a Presbyterian pastor’s wife and a mother and artist, writes from a heart that most of us with kids can resonate with: How can we pursue holiness in the midst of potty-training and preschool? Systematic theologian Michael Allen addresses whether or not we can imitate Jesus by looking at Christ’s Incarnation, messianic work, and canonical context. Finally, regular MR contributor and Lutheran pastor John Bombaro shows us how disciple-making and disciple-living go hand in hand through the waters of baptism and into service to the church and the world.

We hope this issue of Modern Reformation is an encouragement to a truly authentic pursuit of the Christian life: one founded not in our own self-interest, but in the grace of the Sower who cares enough for his people that he will not uproot them in a hurried harvest, but will allow and encourage their growth through the means he has provided.

Eric Landry Executive Editor

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NEXT ISSUES May/June 2009 Jesus Among Other Christs June/July 2009 Calvin 500th Anniversay Issue

LETTERS y o u r

You requested feedback on how this discussion of the two kingdoms doctrine stimulated my election-year thinking (October/November 2008). Well, it has transformed my thinking. This issue was a wonderful introduction to how these doctrines, which I had encountered before primarily in the realm of “vocation,” extend to the political/government arena. It is a wonderful new landscape on which I now look out.

This new perspective simultaneously relaxes the old “conservative-Christian” angst regarding the tremendous cosmic consequences that supposedly hang in the balance every election season, while at the same time creating a new, genuine interest and desire to be involved in the political process as a citizen of the earthly kingdom.

Captain Brian J. Surer United States Marine Corps

Roger Olson’s article, “The American Gospel” (November/December 2008), serves as a well-documented and fair critique of one of the most dangerous pseudo-Christian movements to infiltrate the church in modern times. Classifying the Word-Faith movement as another charismatic or Pentecostal movement fails to emphasize its heretical core. Dr. Olson did a fantastic job in connecting the movement to New Thought and Christian Science rather than classical Pentecostalism. He rightly recognized that many charismatic and Pentecostal movements have distanced themselves from Word-Faith doctrine. I followed every paragraph with an affirmative nod, recalling my ecclesiastical background in a Word-Faith congregation. I trusted in Christ and his work on the cross as a young boy, but I always felt like a second-class Christian knowing that I didn’t have the “full gospel” promises of divine healing and prosperity at my disposal.

With God’s providence, a friend introduced the gospel to me stressing jus-

tification by faith alone, not faith plus healing plus prosperity plus tongues.

It was that moment where I felt liberated, knowing that Christ’s blood satisfied the wrath of God. I pray for God’s elect in this movement to leave, if possible, or stir up a reformation of the truth within.

Andre Jose Chouravong Maplewood, Minnesota Am I missing something? In his essay, “What is the Future of Evangelism?” (November/December 2008), Dr. Timothy George writes, “We have special gifts to share with our brothers and sisters in Christ (including Roman Catholic believers who know and serve Jesus) and much to receive from them.” I live and was raised in southern Ireland as a Roman Catholic until my conversion to biblical Christianity. Now I am very appreciative and much indebted to all at Modern Reformation where most of what I read concerns American religion, but I am confused with Dr. George’s statement above. Can Dr. George explain to me and to your Protestant readers how Roman Catholics are our brothers and sisters in Christ? Do these Roman Catholics deny justification by grace alone through faith alone, do they pray to Mary as a co-mediatrix or to the dead saints, do they do penance to alleviate their time in purgatory, do they believe the pope is Christ’s Vicar on earth, in the sacraments all seven including the bodily presence of Christ in the Mass? If not, they are hardly Roman Catholics as I was. If yes, they cannot know and serve Jesus.

Thomas Mahon Swinford co Mayo Ireland Editorial Response The confessional statements of the Reformation all assert that “particular Churches...are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is

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taught and embraced” (WCF 25.4) and that the Roman Catholic Church still has believers in it, though the church itself degenerated “as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan” (WCF 25.5). Although Modern Reformation registered strong opposition to “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (a document our friend Professor George supported), the editors acknowledge that members of Christ’s flock may be found in the Roman Catholic Church. In Calvin’s words, “There is still a true church among her.”

Modern Reformation Letters to the Editor 1725 Bear Valley Parkway Escondido CA 92027 760.741.1045 fax Letters@modernreformation.org Letters under 200 words are more likely to be printed than longer letters. Letters may be edited for content and length.

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LOSING MONEY DOESN’T MEAN FINDING GOD

As the economy tanked in 2008, many reporters wrote that people were flooding churches in response.

“Bad times are good for evangelical churches,” declared The New York Times, citing anecdotal evidence. Broadcast media outlets ran with the story.

But a review of 300,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the previous year showed no evidence that attendance at American churches increased. At the end of the year, the same percentage of people reported weekly or near-weekly church attendance as earlier in the year—42 percent.

Still, churches have been responding to the change by helping families dealing with foreclosure and job loss. Newspapers across the country report that food banks and other religious charity outlets have seen an increase in requests—which points to the double-edged sword of economic recessions. Churches and congregations rely on recession-vulnerable funds—voluntary donations from individuals, investment returns, and, at times, government disbursements.

But their costs associated with helping the hungry and unemployed increase at the same time their funds decline. The economic downturn also makes it hard to plan.

“Perception and fear are a greater concern now than the real economic problem, and the fear of things getting

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worse will probably dominate people’s reaction,” Chuck Zech, a professor of economics who studies church finances at the Villanova School of Business, told the Boston Globe.

Denominations are being hit harder than local congregations since the national church bodies rely more on investment income. Lutheran Social Services reports additional problems coming from state budget cuts. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reports that church welfare funds “are already getting taxed to the limit.” The LDS, Utah’s largest employer, also announced a hiring freeze in January.

PERMISSION TO TREAT HIS HOLINESS AS A HOSTILE WITNESS? Fighting the Vatican makes fighting city hall look easy. Litigants involved

with two sexual abuse cases—one dating to 1928—wending their way through the United States courts are drawing interest for going further than anybody else has against the Vatican.

Conventional wisdom holds that the Vatican treasury can’t be subject to damages because it is a foreign state with sovereign immunity. But there are exceptions. If the abuse victims can demonstrate that bishops are officials of the Vatican and that they harmed children by failing to report sex abuse, they have a chance of getting to trial, according to National Public Radio.

A federal court in Oregon and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio said they’re open to this idea.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers are preparing to demand documents from the Vatican’s secret archives as well as witness lists

Notable Quotables “We’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.”

—Bishop Gene Robinson discussing Obama’s invitation to the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation.

“Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.”

—Atheist Matthew Paris writing in The Times (U.K.) about the benefits of Christianity apart from good works.

“It’s not easy to represent theological ideas by using the taste buds. But the key thing for Calvin is the glory of God, his excellence, his perfection. So we chose a chocolate that we chocolatiers find exceptional, rare and flawless.”

—Swiss chocolatier Blaise Poyet, describing the chocolate pralines he created to mark the 500th anniversary of Swiss Protestant Reformer John Calvin’s birth. He was quoted by Ecumenical News International.

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that go all the way up to Pope Benedict XVI himself. He oversaw the sexual abuse investigations as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger.

Anthony Picarello, the general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told NPR that he expects the lawsuit will fail not only because courts rarely get involved in internal church affairs but also because it would be difficult to show that bishops were following Vatican orders.

Attorney William McMurry begs to differ.

“If you look at it from a 40,000-foot view, what you see is bishops, over a century, doing exactly the same thing,” he told NPR. “Bishops moving priests from parish to parish, from archdiocese to diocese, even some to foreign countries. And not one—not one—reporting as required by state law this known or suspected child abuse. Now that just doesn’t happen by accident.”

And plaintiffs have a 1962 document signed by Pope John XXIII telling bishops how to handle sexual abuse cases in which every member of the clergy involved was commanded to remain perpetually silent or face eternal damnation.

MEET THE NEW LEADER, NOT THE SAME AS THE OLD LEADER Just prior to being elected metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in America in November, then-Bishop Jonah gave an unusually straightfor-

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ward speech about the culture of corruption that has surrounded the church for decades.

The 49 year old—who was a monk until ten days prior to the meeting, when he was made assistant bishop of Dallas—called the two previous metropolitans “corrupt,” said the culture inside church headquarters was “fundamentally sick” and rooted in fear and intimidation, and said the church had been “without leadership for 30 years.”

He said ecclesial power is worthless without love and accountability, and if nice ritual is all the church has, then nobody should care about it. He also challenged his audience of clergy and lay leaders to forgive the embezzlement and other scandals perpetrated by previous leaders.

“Yes, we were betrayed. Yes, we were raped. It’s over. It’s over,” said Bishop Jonah. “We have to confront the anger and the bitterness and the hurts and the pain and the resentment that we have born within us as reactions against the people who have hurt us.”

After a standing ovation, Bishop Jonah was elected the new metropolitan of All America and Canada, the only Orthodox church that is not controlled by a secular government. He was enthroned at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington on Dec. 28, 2008.

Jonah was raised as an Episcopalian, converted to Orthodoxy during college, and eventually became a novice at Valaam Monastery. After returning to America, he was ordained and spent twelve years building several missions and the Monastery of St. John of San Francisco in Northern California.

The new metropolitan’s vision for the church stresses college ministry and cooperation among the many ethnic jurisdictions of the church that will lead to Orthodox hospitals, schools, and nursing homes.

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By the Numbers 25. Percentage of 12 to 17 year olds who viewed the most sexual content on TV who were involved in a pregnancy, compared with 12 percent of those who watched the least, according to Rand Corporation.

17. Average age at which young Americans lose their virginity, compared with 21 for conservative religious youth.

80. Percentage market share enjoyed by The Cavanagh Company, which bakes communion wafers.

32. Percentage of Americans who admire President Barack Obama over all other men. Pope Benedict XVI and Billy Graham were each admired by 2 percent of those surveyed by USA Today/Gallup.

35. Percentage increase in calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by late 2008 compared to the previous year.

100. Number of anniversary years of Gideons International, the nondenominational evangelical group run by businessmen. The group has given out 1.5 billion copies of Scripture since its founding in 1908. $39.99. Sales price of “Playing Gods: The Board Game of Divine Domination,” which bills itself as the world’s first satirical board game of religious warfare. The game was created by the managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

FAITH HEALER, HEAL THYSELF The Pentecostal Canadian evan-

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gelist, who created a religious and media phenomenon with faith-healing revival meetings held in 2008 in Florida and throughout the country, was forced to step down after it was reported he left his wife for his intern, drank too much alcohol, and refused any system of accountability, according to the directors of Fresh Fire Ministries, the organization he led.

Services led by the tattooed Todd Bentley featured light shows and power-chord Christian rock. He was criticized for violent faith healings—kicking and hitting those who sought his help. Testimonies from people who said they’d been healed by Bentley were unable to be corroborated by media outlets such as Nightline and the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Fresh Fire Ministries posted a 3,600word statement saying Bentley’s “sins of the flesh” were inexcusable, but defended his ministry and the controversial revival itself, and said critics were motivated by Satan.

“How many believers have become almost vicious in their attack against Todd, demonizing not only him but his ministry and everything he has ever done? What sort of spirit do you think is behind this?” the directors’ report asked. “What Todd has done should not only be defined by his present failure. He has raised the bar on what is possible.”

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their presence in the general population. Lutherans, 4.6 percent of the population, hold 4.5 percent of Congressional seats.

For all of the media concern over the influence of evangelicals, who comprise 17 percent of the adult population, they in fact hold just 12 percent of Congressional seats. Pentecostal and nondenominational Protestants, who each account for roughly 4.5 percent of the American adult population, hold less than 1 percent of the seats in Congress. The House has two Muslim members and two Buddhists.

People who claim no religious affiliation—roughly 16 percent of the population—have no representation in Congress.

CIZIK HAS LEFT THE RESERVATION

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REPRESENTATIVES’ RELIGION REPRESENTATIVE? The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently offered a breakdown of the religious affiliation of members of Congress. Just under 55 percent of Congressional seats are held by Protestants, down from 74 percent in 1961.

Jews make up just 1.4 percent of the adult population in the United States but claim 13 percent of Senate seats and 7 percent of House seats. Likewise, Catholics, Mormons, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists are overrepresented in Congress relative to

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The political head of the largest evangelical umbrella organization in the country, representing some 45,000 churches, resigned in December 2008 after telling National Public Radio he supported gay civil unions and wasn’t sure about same-sex marriage.

Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, had long been criticized for some of his

liberal political views, including his advocacy for government regulations to combat global warming. But his defenders noted the difficulty of maintaining a bipartisan lobbying agenda while representing an overwhelmingly Republican constituency. Still, he took a bridge too far in supporting a broadening of gay rights, particularly after Christian conservatives enjoyed decisive wins in three states on the same-sex marriage issue.

Many observers thought Cizik’s focus on what he called “creation care” distracted from more important topics such as abortion and same-sex marriage. But the media loved him. His Evangelical Climate Initiative, a document claiming scriptural authority behind calls for government caps on greenhouse gas emissions, was highlighted on the front page of The New York Times. And TIME named Cizik among its top 100 most influential people in 2008. In the end, the evangelicals won.

“This sends the message that you can’t leave the reservations on basic issues of where your constituency lies,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said after the resignation.

“A number of left-leaning evangelicals had started believing their own press, saying that evangelicals were not concerned with issues of marriage and family. The NAE found out this week that their members do care about those issues.”

Even evangelicals who supporteded Cizik’s environmental advocacy were troubled by his comments on marriage, according to U.S. News & World Report. “I don’t know what was going on in his head,” said Christianity Today Editor David Neff, an NAE board member. “When I heard that interview, I said to myself ‘Good grief— what are you talking about?’”

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THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE UNIVERSALISM In June 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life’s landscape survey discovered that 70 percent of Americans said they believed religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life.

Considering that this belief is not held by the official teachings of most Christian churches, some observers wondered whether respondents interpreted the question to be about members of other denominations rather than other religions.

So Pew asked the question more specifically—although still somewhat ambiguously—and found that 52 percent of Christians think that at least one other non-Christian religion can lead to eternal life. Fifty-six percent said nonbelievers will receive salvation and about 42 percent said atheists would go to heaven.

Only 29 percent of respondents said that their religion was the “one, true faith leading to eternal life,” but this actually represents a significant increase over the previous year when only 24 percent said the same. The increase is especially pronounced for white evangelical Protestants, among whom the figure rose from 37 percent to 49 percent, and black Protestants, among whom the figure increased 10 points to 45 percent. The more people attended church, the more likely they were to respond that their religion was the one, true belief.

When asked to specify what determines eternal life, 30 percent replied “one’s belief“ and 29 percent said “one’s actions.”

Alan Segal, a professor of religion at Barnard College, interpreted the results to The New York Times. “We are a multicultural society, and people expect this American life to continue the same way in heaven.” He said that Americans meet so many good people of different faiths that it’s hard to imagine them going to hell.

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CONSCIENCE RIGHTS ATTACKED

A month before leaving office, the Bush administration issued a rule reinforcing the conscience protections of health-care workers. While federal law already protects doctors from being forced to participate in medical situations they find morally objectionable, medical societies had been indicating a move toward compelling doctors to perform such work or lose standing.

The new rule protects hospitals, receptionists, and volunteers in medical experiments against medical care they find morally repugnant.

“This rule protects the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience,” Bush’s Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a statement.

The most common moral concerns cited include opposition to birth control, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research, and assisted suicide. The rule requires all providers of health care to certify that they protect the conscience rights of their employees. Violators will lose their federal funds.

Critics opposed the rule for everything from being too broad to being too repetitious of previous federal regulations. Pro-choice activists said they were worried about access to abortion and abortion-related services. Abortion rights supporters in Congress, including Democratic Representatives Louise Slaughter of New York and Diana DeGette of Colorado, said they would work immediately to rescind the protections.

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CELIBATE CLERGY IN THE PC(USA) . . . FOR NOW Early returns indicate that members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will uphold the church’s constitutional ban on noncelibate clergy. A majority of the denomination’s 173 regional presbyteries would have to ratify the 2008 vote of the General Assembly of the church to overturn its requirement forbidding the ordination of pastors, elders, or deacons in any sexual relationship outside of marriage.

But early indications suggest that the presbyteries will vote along the same lines as they did in 2001, the last repeal effort. In fact, presbyteries have supported the ban on noncelibate clergy three times since 1996.

The General Assembly also approved a loophole to the ban that permits ordination of gay clergy and doesn’t require ratification by presbyteries. That measure allows presbyteries to ordain ministers even if they declare a reservation about a particular point of doctrine. Using this so-called local option, an Iowa presbytery enrolled a gay man as a candidate for ministry.

The move is likely to be tested in church courts.

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n the year 1273, two years after beginning his fabled journey to the East along the famed

Mary Magdalene. At one time so utterly possessed by Silk Road to China, legendary traveler Marco Polo and his company ascended the Terek demons that the power of evil over her was total. She Pass through the Pamir, the traditional dividing line between the East and the West, head had lost all sense of self-possession. Virtually nothing ed to the wild western border of China. They traversed a reabout her that was her remained. But then Jesus—the Lord gion that came to be called the “rooftop of the world,” some over all the cosmos—delivers her. Liberates her. And in her fourteen-thousand feet above sea level, surrounded by the freedom she chooses to follow Jesus literally everywhere. So highest mountain peaks on the planet: the Hindu Kush, the much so that as the ministry of Jesus unfolds—and his life Tian Shan, and the Himalayas. For twelve days they journeyed unravels—sweet Mary does not flee as many of the others through these dizzying heights, and then slowly descended do. Oh no, she stays, and the Bible reveals that she even enalong the Silk Road entering the Taklimakan Desert, another dures the darkness of the cross and follows the battered body rugged forbidding place—though of a different nature—parts of Christ to the grave, to ensure its safekeeping. of which, if you see photos, look much like the Badlands of Then, after the Sabbath, she returns to find the tomb empSouth Dakota. Farther from the ocean than nearly any othty—and quite logically fears that the body of Jesus has been stolen. How else could such a huge gravestone be moved? It er place on earth, this desert gives the sense of being in the is bad enough to live in the absence of his presence, and now middle of nowhere. Moreover, the region is grim in its exthis—this cruel theft. Confused and distraught, she runs to tremes, with huge seventy degree temperature swings bePeter and the “beloved disciple” to tell them the horrible news. tween day and night. In fact, the desert is aptly named beThis additional tragedy. They come—in their haste jostling each cause the word Taklimakan means “Place of No Return.”1 other to get there first—and verify the “theft,” after which they Place of no return. I imagine you can think of a few such return to their homes. After all, what else is there to do? spots. Places you don’t want to go because you’ll never escape.

But Mary thinks otherwise. Ever devoted, she lingers, broGeographically, emotionally (you fill in the blank)? kenhearted.

And of course, physically and spiritually there is one preAnd in the moments that follow, blind in her grief, she aceminent place of no return. It is death. For no one death takes tually talks to two angels in the tomb, and then has an anxever comes this way again. All that lives, dies, and is nevious conversation with a man she supposes to be the gardener, er seen again. even blames him: “Tell me, where have you taken him….”

Actually, there is an exception to this, which is why we “Mary!” are here today! The exception is Jesus Christ and he is why She gasps then sputters the word, “Rabboni!” we have gathered. To worship our risen Savior—the One who Yes, the faithful friend, Mary of Magdala, is the first to meet died a real death, a brutal death, but then rose from the dead, and by so doing conquered sin and death. and recognize the risen Christ! Indeed, as Jesus said earlier And Christ’s conquering exception makes all the differin this Gospel, his sheep “follow him because they know his ence for us—both in the here and now and in the age to come. voice.” Just a word from Jesus clarifies her sight. Then she colAccordingly, I invite you this morning to listen again to what lapses at his feet and won’t let go. Jesus responds to her rethe resurrected Jesus said to Mary Magdalene when she enaction in verses 17–18, and his words reveal three privileges countered him: that are ours because of Christ’s resurrection.

Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means ‘Teacher’). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20:16–18)

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The Privilege of Eager Anticipation It is surprising in some respects that Jesus’ first words to Mary are not, “Yes, it really is me. I’ve risen!” Instead, his words are about what is yet to occur: Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

The words “do not hold on to me” are not because Jesus is embarrassed and Mary is making a spectacle of herself trying to hold onto him. Nor is it because there is something about him in his risen state that requires “hands off,” as if he were like wet paint that first needs to dry: “Ooooh don’t bump into me or you’ll spoil the final look.”

No, what he actually says is “stop clinging to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” Meaning, it is not necessary.

I am going away. Yet I am with you for awhile before I ascend to my Father. That will happen, yes, but not yet. In fact, as we read, his impending ascension is the very message she is sent to communicate to the others, but it is not the reason she cannot show her present devotion to him.

You see, Jesus is opening up her mind to the grand vistas of his sovereign rule that are yet to be fully revealed. There is something to anticipate!

The cross of Jesus leads to the atoning death of Jesus, which leads to the resurrection of Jesus, which leads to the ascension of Jesus to the Father’s right hand forty days later, which confirms his exalted rule over all, which when he comes again will be universally seen.

In other words, for John, the death and resurrection of Jesus are stages in his ascent in glory to glory. The climax of Jesus’ story is not his death and resurrection—as great and necessary as these are—but it is the return of the crucified Jesus in a resurrected body to the Father.2 Vindicated. Triumphant. Ruling. This is all part of the good news!

Your Lord lives and your Lord rules! So don’t hold on to me as though I am some private dream come true about to vanish into thin air; but rather, my reign and rule—my impending ascension—this is to be shared. Go and tell my disciples!

And of course, Jesus’ resurrection signals in the here and now to Mary that this is in fact true and this will in fact happen. Jesus’ resurrection is a bit of God’s future advanced to us in this present world. That is, with the resurrection a taste of God’s promised future—his visible triumphant reign and his new creation—has come to meet us and lead us confidently through this present age into the fullness of the age to come.

It is the sign of the overlapping of the ages. Yes, the age to come is partly here… now!

Think of it this way. At this very moment the Red Sox are in Japan. They flew eighteen hours to get there from Florida via Chicago. And in Tokyo right now, the time is thirteen hours ahead of us—which means, it is nearly a new day! So, if this afternoon, Dice-K decides to phone you up and talk to you—enter your life, so to speak—you can rest assured that he is calling you from the future! It is already Monday in Tokyo.

One prominent New Testament scholar, N. T. Wright, says that what happens with the resurrection is much like this.

The whole world is still in “old time”—11:00 a.m., so to speak.

Evil and death are still at work.

We see evidences of their sad debris all around us day by day. We deal with this all the time…we know the pain of a fallen world. Up close and personal. So much so that we think that nothing will ever change. But suddenly we get, not a phone call, but a visit, from some-

one who is living in New Time! He is already in the New Day. Indeed, this Someone has gone through death— conquered sin and death in fact—and is living in God’s New Creation, and to our astonishment He has come forward into our fallen world. He has come to tell us in the here and now that the New Day has truly dawned and though we feel sleepy, and though it is still dark outside (evil yet remains), in fact the victory of the Age to Come has arrived and the New World has begun.3 That’s what the resurrection announces. A sign that the future is here! It has burst into the present—with power! To top it off then, when Jesus tells Mary that there is still more to anticipate—namely, his ascension—he is affirming his reign and rule that spring from his resurrection. The one leads to the other. The one is tied to the other. That’s what Jesus is saying—and that is breathtaking! In other words, as William Willimon reminds us, Easter is first and foremost about God: Easter is not about the resuscitation of a dead body.

That’s not resurrection. It’s not about the “immortality of the soul,” some divine spark that endures after the end. That’s Plato, not Jesus. It’s about God, but not God as an empathetic but ineffective good friend, or some inner experience, but it is God who defeats sin and creates a way when there was no way, God who makes war on evil until evil is undone, God who raises dead Jesus and sets in motion a chain of cosmic events and by so doing shows us who’s in charge here.4 Therefore, living on this side of the ascension of Jesus, we too have eager expectation! Namely, we are awaiting the second coming of Jesus, when he will universally display his glory for all to see, in the fullness of the new creation, the fullness of God’s victory. The new heavens and the new earth.

The future that awaits us.

The Privilege of Family Participation In addition to our eager anticipation, another privilege of the resurrection is the privilege of family participation. The message that Mary is asked to bring to the disciples is more than Jesus is risen and will ascend to his Father: “Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Notice the emphasis on our participation: my brothers...my Father and your Father…my God and your God. All of which is to say that because of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and exaltation, his disciples actually share in his Sonship with the Father. We are given a family privilege that lasts forever. The Father, who is Christ’s by nature, is now ours by grace.

Jesus’ resurrection has inaugurated a new level of intimacy that we’ll spend the rest of eternity enjoying and exploring.

The bonds of relationship that exist between Father and Son are given to all of Jesus’ disciples—his brothers and sisters.

This is what John’s prologue says, that Jesus grants to those who receive him or believe in him the right to become children of God—to belong to his family.

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His words to Mary in John 20 then are all about full membership in this family and participation in its joys and glories. Or as Paul writes: “As God’s children, we are heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Rom. 8:17; cf. Heb. 2:11–12).

Oh yes! Jesus the beloved Son shares the chief benefits and privileges of his Sonship with all his followers. That’s because God’s intention in our redemption is to draw us into fellowship with himself, which we gain through Jesus’ death for our sins and resurrection for our new life.

We are privileged to share in the joy of the Godhead. Not to be gods, obviously, but to enjoy the deep level of communion, love, and perfect union of fellowship that exists among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is what prayer is all about. About our new relationship.

Not just bringing him our petitions. But also enjoying being in God’s presence. This intimacy is a gift of the resurrection.

The Privilege of Joyful Proclamation Lastly, as the balance of the passage unfolds there is the privilege of joyful proclamation: “Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: ‘I have seen the Lord!’ And she told them that He had said these things to her.”

What else can she do? Only what Jesus asked her to do!

Happily and eagerly. Go and tell…I’ve seen the Lord! He’s back from the place of no return. And you should hear where he’s headed. We’ve got things to anticipate! A family in which to participate.

We have a message to proclaim.

That was Mary’s charge and it is what we are called to do and say as well. To proclaim that Jesus is risen and so nothing is the same, despite how it may appear at times. In the world and in us. Redemption is ours!

Indeed, we are called to this: to affirm that the world is different and that we are different on account of the resurrection of Jesus, that all who call on the saving name of Jesus are being transformed. In fact, we are signposts of the new creation with God’s transformation.

You know, there are some pretty strange signposts out there in this world. Signs, for instance, pointing to real places with names like Bleary (meaning “portion”), Odder (“river bank”), Pity Me (that’s pretty much it!), No Bottle (“new building”), and my favorite: Dull. “It is a quarter mile to Dull!”

Actually, most of these are ancient Gaelic words and don’t mean anything remotely close to how they sound to us.5 For instance, this last place, Dull, doesn’t mean that at all. It is Gaelic for “a meadow.”

So it is with your life. If you are a Christian, people assume you are dull and committed to nothing but dullness, right? “Warning… warning… here he/she comes—quarter nautical mile to dullness, fast approaching at two o’clock off the port bow!”

But it is quite the contrary! You are a signpost to hope— a signpost of the new creation and of the power of the resurrection at work transforming you and using you to make a difference in this world. And because this is true, it means that we have not just a reason to be here today—to even run here today—but to run to this world with the news that’s not 10 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

dull! News that is life-bestowing. News that is necessary. News that bestows hope.

Jesus Christ has risen!

He is risen indeed!

Dorington Little is senior pastor of First Congregational Church of Hamilton, Massachusetts. This sermon was given at Gordon College Chapel on Easter Sunday, March 2008.

Works cited 1Laurence Bergreen, Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu (New York: Vintage, 2008), 77.

2Andrew T. Lincoln, Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in John’s Gospel (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2000), 207.

3N. T. Wright, Christians at the Cross: Finding Hope in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus (Ijamsville, MD: Word Among Us Press, 2008), 75–76.

4Dr. William Willimon from his sermon, “Easter as Earthquake” (4 April 1999).

5See www.farfromdull.com/home.php.

Join the Conversation!

Have you ever considered writing for Modern Reformation?

Here’s your chance! We’re reintroducing many of our old departments and we want your words to be featured in them.

“Open Exchange”: A forum for reader response. If you’ve ever read an article printed in our pages and thought that something else needed to be added, this is the place for your contribution.

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Send in the transcript to give others a model to follow.

“Preaching from the Choir”: Perspectives on music in the church. Beyond the old “worship wars,” we want to give people a way to think about the music we sing in formal worship contexts and in our private worship. Draw attention to the resources that matter.

“Family Matters”: Resources for home. Catechism resources, ways of teaching theology to children, help with holiday themes: this is the place to direct others to resources you’ve found helpful in your efforts to be faithful at home.

“Borrowed Capital”: Witnessing to Christ in our age. Where do you start in your witness for Christ? How do apologetics play a role in your evangelism? Got a story or a helpful idea? Share it with others in this space.

“Common Grace”: God’s truth in art and culture. God gives gifts to both believer and unbeliever.

How do we see those gifts expressed in the art and culture surrounding the church? In this space, we want to hear from artists and cultural observers looking for glimpses of grace in life.

Intrigued? Ready to write? Send your 650-word essay (Ex Auditu sermons can be longer) to editor@modernreformation.org.

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Celebrating Calvin Ten Ways Modern Culture Is Different Because of John Calvin

by David W. Hall Ethics and Interpretation of the Moral Law: The Decalogue

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Calvin’s interpretation of the Ten Commandments as ethical pillars was widely influential for generations of character development. In his discussion, he argued that this moral law was necessary; for even though man was created in God’s image, natural law alone could only assist in pointing toward the right directions. Although acknowledging conscience as a “monitor,” Calvin knew that depravity affected such conscience and people were “immured in the darkness of error.” Thus, mankind was not left to natural law alone, lest it be given over to arrogance, ambition, and a blind self-love. The law, then, was as gracious as it was necessary. Such a fundamentally positive view of God’s law would become a distinctive ethical contribution of Calvinism.

The law also shows people how unworthy they are and leads them to distrust human ability. Calvin frequently used phrases such as “utter powerlessness” and “utter inability” to make the point that people are dependent on God’s revelation if they are to do well. The law is a “perfect rule of righteousness,” even though our natural minds are not inclined toward obedience.

Calvin noted that the law is full of ramification, and that it should not be limited to narrow applications. There is always, he wrote, “more in the requirements and prohibitions of the law than is expressed [literally] in words.” Each commandment also required its opposite. If one was not to steal, then he also should protect his and others’ property. If one was not to lie, then he was to tell the truth, and

if one was not to commit adultery, then he should support marital fidelity. Calvin believed that we must reason from the positive command to its opposite in this way: “If this pleases God, its opposite displeases; if that displeases, its opposite pleases; if God commands this, he forbids the opposite; if he forbids that, he commands the opposite.” This wide application of the moral law created the basis of an ethical theory that spread in time throughout the West, and it also exhibited a sophistication that was not always present in some theologies.

Calvin believed that the law had many practical functions: it convinced like a mirror; it restrained like a bridle; and it illumined or aroused us to obedience. Another chief design of God’s law, however, was to guide and remind believers of God’s norms.

Calvin’s commentary on sexuality (when discussing the seventh commandment) spans less than a thousand words in the Institutes, but is ever so profound. His discussion of “thou shalt not steal” was rich with texture, calling for a person not only to avoid theft but also to “exert himself honestly to preserve his own” estate (II, 8, 45). These and other commentaries formed the Protestant work ethic. Similarly, when he spoke of the internal scope of the commandment prohibiting false testimony, he noted that it was “absurd to suppose that God hates the disease of evil-speaking in the tongue, and yet disapproves not of its malignity in the mind” (II, 8, 48). While those expositions may be brief, they are excellent and so worthy of consulting that most Protestant confessions thereafter did just that. Some of the codifications in various Puritan contexts would follow Calvin’s train on the need and proper use for the law.

The very name of John Calvin stirs up controversy. For those who have been primarily on the negative side of the divide—and for those on the opposite ridge— Modern Reformation is featuring a series in 2009 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Genevan Reformer’s birth (July 10, 1509). Rather than focus on biography or theology, this series looks briefly at ten areas of culture irrevocably transformed by the influence of Calvin and his band of brothers and sisters.

Love him or hate him, he was a change agent. We think for the better.

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Calvinists, then, were not legalists but admirers of the perfections and wisdom of God’s law, which they trusted more than themselves. Calvin’s followers regarded their own native abilities with such low esteem and God’s revealed law in such high esteem that they became the creators and supporters of constitutionalism and law as positive institutions. Moreover, charity was the aim of law and purity of conscience would be the result.

Freedom of the Church: The Company of Pastors

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Calvin labored extensively to permit the church to be the church—and culture was impacted by a robust, vibrant church. Less than two years after Calvin’s arrival,1 he was exiled from Geneva. The struggle was an important one, involving whether the church and her ministers could follow their own conscience and authority, or whether the church would be hindered by state or other hierarchical interference.

In 1538, Calvin and William Farel (who pastored the Genevan churches of St. Pierre and St. Gervais respectively) declined to offer communion to the feuding citizenry, lest they heap judgment on themselves.2 In return, on April 18 of that year, the City Council exiled them for insubordination. In 1541, however, Calvin was implored to return to Geneva.

When he returned, rather than seeking more control for himself over church or civic matters, he sought to regularize a republican form of church government. One of Calvin‘s demands before returning to Geneva in September 1541 was that a collegial governing body be established of pastors and church elders from the area.3 When it came time to replace ineffective centralized structures, rather than opting for an institution that strengthened his own hand, this visionary reformer lobbied for decentralized authority, lodging it with many officers. He also insisted that the church be free from political interference—separation of jurisdictions, not a yearning for theocratic oppressiveness, helped also to solidify the integrity of the church—and his 1541 Ecclesiastical Ordinances specifically required such a separation.

The first priority of Calvin and Farel upon their reengagement in Geneva was the establishment of the protocols in Calvin’s Ecclesiastical Ordinances, a procedural manual that prescribed how the city churches would supervise the morals and teaching of their own pastors without hindrance from any other authorities. The priority that Calvin assigned to this work shows how important it was for him that the church be free to carry out its own affairs, unimpeded by the state. The sovereignty of the ministerial council (Consistory)4 to monitor the faith and practice of the church was codified in these 1541 Ordinances. They were later revised in 1561, just prior to Calvin’s death, and provided enduring procedures for a free church. Obviously, this arrangement marked a departure from the tradition-

al yoking of political and ecclesiastical influence under Roman Catholic auspices. The Genevan innovation also differed slightly from the current practices in Bern and Lausanne, both of which were also Protestant.

In nations or regions where the civil government has ever or often sought to influence the church to change its views, this Calvinistic signature is greatly appreciated. A church free from external, hierarchical, or civil control was a radical and lasting contribution that Calvin made to the modern world. When the church is effective at promoting her God-given virtues, that free church is a powerful influence for society’s good.

David W. Hall (Ph.D., Whitefield Theological Seminary) is senior pastor of Midway Presbyterian Church in Powder Springs, Georgia, and executive director of Calvin500 (www.calvin500.org).

He is the author of several books, including The Legacy of John Calvin (P&R, 2008), and The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding (Lexington, 2005).

Works cited 1Henri Heyer, Guillaume Farel: An Introduction to His Theology, trans. Blair Reynolds (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), 60.

2Arthur David Ainsworth, The Relations between Church and State in the City and Canton of Geneva (Atlanta: The Stein Printing Company, 1965), 15, reports that the unrest began with a minister denouncing the political government from the pulpit, which led to his arrest.

3Theodore Beza, Life of John Calvin (Darlington, UK: Evangelical Press, 1997), lxxvi.

4The first Consistory in 1542 was comprised of twelve elders elected annually by the magistrates and nine ministers. By 1564, the number of ministers grew to nineteen.

The Consistory met each Thursday to discuss matters of common interest and church discipline. Alister McGrath, A Life of John Calvin (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1993), 111.

Since Calvin insisted so strongly on this institution after his Strasbourg period, some believe that he imitated the practice of Bucer (McGrath, 13).

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T H E I M I TAT I O N O F C H R I S T

Following Jesus: What’s Wrong and Right About the Imitation of Christ BY

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MICHAEL HORTON

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haring his priorities for the next thirty years, bestselling author Richard Foster disclosed his “spiritual formation agenda” in a January 2009 Christianity Today article. Foster observes that there is a lot of interest these days in “social-service projects.” “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but where, oh where, are those who think of changing themselves?”

Besides the obsession with world transformation, he complains that an overemphasis on grace in some circles “will not allow for spiritual growth.”

Having been saved by grace, these people have become paralyzed by it. To attempt any progress in the spiritual life smacks of “works righteousness” to them. Their liturgies tell them they sin in word, thought, and deed daily, so they conclude that this is their fate until they die. Heaven is their only release from this world of sin and rebellion. Hence, these well-meaning folks will sit in their pews year after year without realizing any movement forward in their life with God….People may genuinely want to be good, but seldom are they prepared to do what it takes to produce the inward life of goodness that can form the soul.

Foster also blames much of the distraction from spiritual growth to “a Christian entertainment industry that is masquerading as worship” and “an overall consumer mentality that simply dominates the American religious scene.”

I find much of what Foster says about contemporary spirituality persuasive. It should come as no surprise to a regular reader of this magazine that I would find him spot-on in his worry that the holiness of God has been eclipsed by the ephemeral exuberance of entertainment passing for worship and consumerism packaged as mission and discipleship. I think he’s right that there is a kind of “cheap grace” that fulfills the fond dreams of the antinomian who comforts himself with the syllogism: “God likes to forgive, I like to sin: what a great relationship!”

Even if we eschew antinomianism, there is a kind of laziness that does not revel equally in the “already” of new life in Christ and the “not yet” of its consummation.

There are too many passages in Scripture that call us to go on to maturity, to leave our old life behind, and to strain toward the prize. Many of those passages are found in the same chapters as our favorite verses on the Good News of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. For example, after announcing that we are saved by grace alone—and that even faith is a gift—Paul adds, “For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he predestined us to walk in” (Eph. 1:8–10).

More than Imitation he Reformers recognized that grace is first and foremost God’s favor toward sinners on account of Christ. This “justice” or “righteousness” by which

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we stand accepted in God’s presence is imputed, not infused; declared immediately, not progressively realized.

At the same time, they just as strongly affirmed that God’s Word does what it says. Everyone whom God declares to be righteous is also progressively sanctified. While remaining sinful, believers now struggle against indwelling sin.

But why? If the full remission of sins and favor with God is the believer’s possession through faith alone, and God’s grace is greater than our sin, why shouldn’t we go on sinning? That is the question Paul knew his teaching on justification would provoke. His answer, in Romans 6, is that the same Good News that announces our justification also announces our death, burial, and resurrection with Christ. Paul does not threaten with the fears of purgatorial fires or worse, but simply declares to those who believe in Christ that he is not only the source of their justification but of their deliverance from sin’s allcontrolling dominion. They still sin, but never in the same way that they did before. Now they love what they hated and hate what they loved. I am among a dwindling number of exegetes who still believes that Romans 7 focuses on this paradox: only believers struggle with sin, because sin is both an enduring reality (with many setbacks) and yet the believer’s enemy.

Nowhere in this lodestar passage for the Christian life does Paul direct our attention to the imitation of Christ.

He has already painted too dark (realistic) a picture of human depravity to imagine that the devil, the world, and our sinful hearts could meet their match in our deeper commitment to follow Christ’s example. He calls us not simply to imitate Christ but to live out our union with him. But before he speaks an imperative, he announces the indicative of the gospel: Christ’s saving work has accomplished far more than we imagined. The Spirit’s work of uniting us to Christ makes us not mere imitators but living members of his body. We are incorporated—baptized—into Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.

Jesus said the same thing in John 15. His disciples are not only forgiven; joined to him as the life-giving Vine they become living branches, bearing fruit that will remain. We have no life in ourselves, he tells them. There are no resources for following Jesus, imitating him, becoming his disciple. We are dead branches, cut off, without hope in this world. Only then does Jesus issue his imperatives to love and serve each other as he has loved and served us.

There is a world of difference between having a role model whose example we fall short of ever reproducing and having yourself “killed” and re-created as branches of the Tree of Life. Doing what Jesus did is different from bearing the fruit of Christ’s righteous life. In fact, the most important things that Jesus did cannot be duplicated. Because he fulfilled the law in our place, bore our curse, and was raised in glory to take his throne at the Father’s right hand, we can have a relationship with him—and with the Father—that is far more intimate than the relationship of M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 15

a devotee to a guru, a student to a teacher, or a follower to a master.

Following Christ is the consequence, not the alternative to or even means of union with Christ. Even when Scripture calls us to follow Christ’s example, the relationship between master and pupil is asymmetrical. For example, Jesus refers to his impending sacrifice for sinners as the model for his followers in Matthew 20:28. It is obvious, however, from the context that Jesus’ act of selfsacrifice is unique and unrepeatable. We are not called to die for our neighbors’ sins or to bear the wrath of God in their place. When Paul calls us in Philippians 2 to “have the same mind” as Christ in his self-humiliation, he obviously is not calling us to set aside the heavenly glory and power belonging to the second person of the Trinity and to descend to earth—even hell itself—in human flesh. We are not incarnations of God. Nevertheless, we are beneficiaries of his Incarnation, united in body and soul to his glorified flesh.

As George Lindbeck observed (see the “Justification and Atonement” sidebar on page 18), imitation has its place, but not under the category of “gospel.” The call to follow Christ and his example is an imperative—the third use of the law directed to Christians rather than to unbelievers. The “imitation-of-Christ” paradigm of spirituality makes Christ’s self-sacrifice and humility an analogy for our discipleship. The “union-with-Christ” paradigm makes our love and service an analogy of Christ’s inimitable accomplishment.

Calvin offers helpful insights on this point in his comments on Jesus’ prayer in John 17. Believers are “sanctified by the truth,” which is God’s Word (v. 17), “for the word here denotes the doctrine of the Gospel”: here Calvin challenges the “fanatics” who imagine a sanctification that comes from an “inner word” apart from the external Word.1 “And for their sakes I sanctify myself,” Jesus prays (v. 19).

By these words he explains more clearly from what source that sanctification flows, which is completed in us by the doctrine of the Gospel. It is because he consecrated himself to the Father that his holiness might come to us; for as the blessing on the firstfruits is spread over the whole harvest, so the Spirit of God cleanses us by the holiness of Christ, and makes us partakers of it. Nor is this done by imputation only, for in that respect he is said to have been made to us righteousness; but he is likewise said to have been made to us sanctification (1 Cor 1:30) because he has, so to speak, presented us to his Father in his own person, that we may be renewed to true holiness by his Spirit. Besides, though this sanctification belongs to the whole life of Christ, yet the highest illustration of it was given in the sacrifice of his death; for then he showed himself to be the true High Priest, by consecrating the temple, the altar, all the vessels, and the people, by the power of his Spirit.2 16 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

The goal is “that they may be one” (v. 21).3 Calvin is as much on home ground in discussing the richness of the organic-horticultural metaphors as the legal. While they are distinct, the organic and the legal are two sides of the same covenantal coin.

Paradoxically, it is this very liberation that issues in constant inner struggle, since we belong definitively to the new creation—“the age to come”—with Christ as our firstfruits and the Spirit as the pledge. Yet we still live in “this present evil age” and continue to pretend that we are not those whom God has worded us to be in Christ. By contrast, the struggle of the unregenerate, according to William Ames, is “not the striving of the Spirit against the flesh but that of the flesh fearing flesh inordinately desiring.”4 Ames’s statement points up the fact that however useful Aristotelian or Kantian conceptions of “ethics,” “virtue,” and “duty” may be, the definitive categories for theology are covenantal and eschatological: the tyranny of sin (flesh) and the reign of life in righteousness (the Spirit).

Natural ethics and the enabling power of the Spirit in common grace may check immoderate habits, but the Spirit creates a new world through the gospel.

Just as Paul’s treatment of justification led logically to the question, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” (Rom. 6:1), the Reformation unleashed radical elements that went well beyond the views of the Reformers. Lutheran theologian Gerhard Forde reminds us, “Luther had hardly begun to proclaim the freedom of the Christian before he had to fight against abuse of the term. He did not do this in such a way as to speak about the good works that must be added to faith.

Instead, he did so by calling people back to that faith that occurs ‘where the Holy Spirit gives people faith in Christ and thus sanctifies them.’”5 Luther’s response at this juncture was precisely Paul’s: Though justified through faith alone, this faith “is never alone, but is always accompanied by love and hope,” according to the Formula of Concord (Epitome III, 11; cf. Solid Declaration III, 23, 26, 36, 41).

Apart from the imputation of righteousness, sanctification is simply another religious self-improvement program determined by the powers of this age (the flesh) rather than of the age to come (the Spirit).

This gospel not only announces our justification, but our participation in the power of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Therefore, we cannot look to Christ at the beginning for our justification, and then look away from Christ to our own progress and countless manuals that offer formulas for spiritual and moral ascent when it comes to the Christian life (sanctification). Again Forde is insightful: In our modern age, influenced by Pietism and the Enlightenment, our thinking is shaped by what is subjective, by the life of faith, by our inner disposition and motivation, by our inward impulses and the way they are shaped. When we think and live

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along these lines, sanctification is a matter of personal and individual development and orientation.

It is true that we also find this approach in Luther.

No one emphasized more sharply than he did our personal responsibility….But this approach is secondary. ‘The Word of God always comes first. After it follows faith; after faith, love; then love does every good work, for…it is the fulfilling of the law.’6 Even in sanctification, “the focus is not upon the saints but upon sanctification, upon the Word of God in all its sacramental forms, and also upon secular institutions that correspond to the second table of the law….Only God is holy, and what he says and speaks and does is holy. This is how God’s holiness works, which he does not keep to himself, but communicates by sharing it.”7 What this means is that we who once were curved in on ourselves, seeing the world but not really seeing it rightly, must be called out of ourselves to be judged as ungodly and then dressed in Christ’s righteousness. This is necessary not only for our justification but for our sanctification as well. Our identity is no longer something that we fabricate in our bondage that we mistake for freedom.

“To become new men means losing what we now call ‘ourselves,’” C. S. Lewis observes. “Out of our selves, into Christ, we must go.”8 “Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it,” he adds.

“It will come when you are looking for Him.” To be in Christ is to be “very much more themselves than they were before.”9 “He invented—as an author invents characters in a novel—all the different people that you and I were intended to be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to ‘be myself’ without Him.”10 “To enter heaven,” Lewis says, “is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth.”11 Far from creating a morbid subjectivity and individualism, as is often charged, this view frees us from being curved in on ourselves, fretting over our own souls. In a moving letter to Cardinal Sadoleto, Calvin made much the same point, when he argued that only by being freed of having to love our neighbor in the service of our own salvation are we able to really love them for their own sake.12 Sanctification is a life not of acquiring but of receiving from the excess of divine joy that then continues to overflow in excess to our neighbor and from our neighbor to us.

Conclusion I agree with Richard Foster’s concern to step away from our daily routines and to be silent before the Lord, to receive his commands and promises, and to pour out our cries, praises, and intercessions to the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit. Many of us coming out of “monastic” evangelicalism may easily overreact, neglecting—even ridiculing—habits of daily Bible reading and prayer that nourish

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our souls. I think Foster is right that the problem for evangelicalism today is not that it is too monastic, but that it is too worldly. However, Christ has not left us as orphans, to fend for ourselves by finding spiritual directors and our own means of grace. He promises to work in us by his Spirit through preaching and sacrament.

Paul says in Romans 10 that the message of the gospel (“the righteousness that is by faith”) has its own method: Christ himself descending to deliver the Good News through his ambassadors and to unite us to him through faith in his gospel. The imitation paradigm easily slips into “the righteousness that is by works,” offering agendas for ascending to heaven to bring God down or descend into the depths as if to bring Christ up from the dead. But Christ is not dead. Nor must he be pulled down from his throne in order to be present in our lives. Paul says that he is present objectively through his Word and Spirit.

When it comes to his methods, Foster’s advice is consistent with his message. Where Scripture teaches that Christ’s objective work outside of us in public history is the gospel—“the power of God for salvation”—Foster writes, The most important, most real, most lasting work, is accomplished in the depths of our heart. This work is solitary and interior. It cannot be seen by anyone, not even ourselves. It is a work known only to God. It is the work of heart purity, of soul conversion, of inward transformation, of life formation….Much intense formation work is necessary before we can stand the fires of heaven. Much training is necessary before we are the kind of persons who can safely and easily reign with God. It would be a travesty simply to lump together medieval mysticism, the Anabaptist tradition, Quakers, Pietism, and Protestant liberalism. Nevertheless, there is a common thread running through these diverse movements—a theology of works-righteousness that emphasizes: • Christ’s example over his unique and sufficient achievement; • The inner experience and piety of believers over the external work and Word of Christ; • Our moral transformation over the Spirit’s application of redemption; • Private soul formation over the public ministry of the means of grace.

When we reverse the priority of these emphases, however, we experience more profoundly the delight of our inheritance, grow in our faith and gratitude toward God and our love toward our neighbors, are constantly renewed inwardly, and take from our public assembly enough morsels to feed on in our family and personal prayers and meditations throughout the week.

We do not need more spiritual directors, but more pastors who feed us, elders who guide us, and deacons who care for the flock’s material welfare. Realizing more and more what it means to be living branches, we need more M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 17

and more to put to death the actual deeds of unrighteousness and live more and more to the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit.

Baptized into Christ, fed richly by his Word and at his Table, let us not leave the festive day forgetful of God’s service to us, but be led back each day into his Word and into the world with joyful hearts to be conformed to Christ’s image as we work, play, raise children, steward earthly resources, enjoy dinner with friends, and breaks with coworkers. Don’t feed off of your New Year’s resolutions; rather, feed off of your union with Christ. You are part of the harvest of which the glorified Christ is already the firstfruits! Then resolve again, every day, to return to Christ, to recall your baptism, and to repent of all that weighs you down and distracts you from running the race with your eyes fixed on Christ. ■

Baker, 1968), 171.

5Gerhard Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 56–57.

6Forde, 58; LW 36:39.

7Forde, 59.

8C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 224.

9Lewis, 161.

10Lewis, 225.

11C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 127–28.

12John Calvin, A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto’s Letter to the Genevans and Calvin’s Reply, ed. John C. Olin (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966), 56.

Michael Horton is J. Gresham Machen Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido).

Works cited 1John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids: Baker, reprinted 1996), 179–80.

2Calvin, 180–81.

3Calvin, 183.

4William Ames, The Marrow of Divinity (Grand Rapids:

JUSTIFICATION AND ATONEMENT Most of the many theologies of the cross that proliferate in our day (including those influenced by liberation theology) seem to fit this pattern [moral influence]. In them not only does revelation subsume soteriology but, so the reformers would say, law absorbs gospel. This is what happens when the crucified God is first of all the prototype of authentic human existence so that it is by being prototype that Jesus Christ is Savior. From a traditional perspective, the error here is in the reversal of the order: Jesus is not first Example and then Savior, but the other way around. He is trusted and loved as the one who saves from sin, death, and the devil, and it is from this trust and love that there arises the longing to be like him in his life and death. Theologies of the cross that stress the imitatio Christi [imitation of Christ] have their place, but that place is not with atonement, but with what Calvinists call the third use of the law, and with what Luther, if I may coin a phrase, might call a Christian’s use of the first use of the law. Contemporary theologies of the cross remind us of truths much neglected amidst Christendom’s triumphalism, but insofar as they make the imitation of Christ primary, they are not the gospel, not that which saves.

To suppose that they are turns them despite themselves into theologies of glory....But justification itself is rarely described in accordance with the Reformation pattern even by conservative evangelicals. Most of them, as has already been indicated, are conversionists holding to Arminian versions of the ordo salutis, which are in respect to Pelagianism further from the reformers than is the Council of Trent.

George Lindbeck, “Justification and Atonement: An Ecumenical Trajectory,” in Joseph A. Burgess and Marc Kolden, eds., By Faith Alone: Essays on Justification in Honor of Gerhard O. Forde (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 209.

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Incarnational Ministry and the Unique, Incarnate Christ

By J. Todd Billings

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he term “incarnational ministry,” like “missional” or “Emergent Church,” is used in a wide variety of ways. Sometimes “incarnational ministry” means ministry that crosses cultural barriers to be an embodied presence to people in need. At other times, it’s used to talk about culturally relevant analogies for the gospel. In still other contexts, “incarnational ministry” has become shorthand for affirming that intellectual assent to faith is not enough—faith needs to become embodied and “incarnate” in acts of love and service, as in the earthly ministry of Jesus. It is understandable if you find these different uses of the phrase puzzling. For in its common evangelical usage, “incarnational ministry” often has surprisingly little to do with the unique Incarnation of the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ. For instance, surely Muslim, Jewish and other religious practitioners would affirm that faith should be made manifest in concrete, physical acts of love and service. But these persons would not affirm the Incarnation of the eternal Word made flesh in Jesus Christ.

This leads us to a question underlying the coupling of

the term “incarnational” with “ministry.” What is the relationship between the one Incarnation, and the activity and ministry of the church? Should our ministries be guided by analogies between the Incarnation and our own Christian lives?

As Timothy Cowin—one missional blogger—suggests, the Incarnation is important for ministry because it teaches that “Jesus came to physically be with us” to show the Father’s love to tax collectors and sinners, seeking not to retreat from culture but to “penetrate” it. The Incarnation applies to us because “the missional church sees its mission as the same as the Lord’s.”1 Stated differently, for Cowin, the Incarnation is about engaging in a set of inclusive and loving activities (like in the ministry of Jesus), since the mission of Jesus Christ is the same as our own.

Although Cowin makes some legitimate points about the church’s calling to be in but not of the world, approaches like this one risk missing a profound truth of the gospel that the Incarnation is utterly unique. Whereas it may sound empowering for us to have the “same” misM A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 19

sion as Jesus in the Incarnation, there is a subtle but profound danger in this incarnational analogy. It is God alone who saves, and God alone saves through the Word that takes on flesh in Jesus Christ. The Incarnation is not a pattern of activities that we copy. The Incarnation is unique—it is not simply a truth that Jesus lived a self-sacrificial life, but that the eternal Word became incarnate in this man Jesus who lived such a life. The Incarnation is a reality without which the ministry of Jesus, his death, and his resurrection would have no significance for our salvation. As such, the Incarnation is a central, constitutive truth of the gospel.

Yet, there is something right about those who seek to recover the doctrine of the Incarnation and its implications for our lives and ministries; there is something right about the sense that we should not enter into ministry in a prideful way that looks down upon others rather than serves others; there is something right about the calling to cross-cultural barriers for the sake of the gospel. In order to explore this further, I will examine how the incarnational analogy has functioned in evangelical missiological circles. After this analysis, I will point to one area in which I think analogies can be made from the Incarnation that do not compromise its uniqueness or centrality; finally, the article ends by drawing upon the wisdom of the Heidelberg Catechism in articulating the ways in which we participate in Christ and his mission, and the ways in which our mission remains distinct from that of Jesus Christ himself.

A common example of the use of “incarnational ministry” in missiological circles comes from a widely used textbook, Ministering Cross-Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships, by Sherwood Lingenfelter and Marvin Mayers.2 In Ministering Cross-Culturally, Lingenfelter argues that the Incarnation has profound consequences for cross-cultural ministry. Jesus came into the world as a “learner,” needing to learn about Jewish language and culture. Like a careful anthropologist, he studied the culture of his people for thirty years before he began his ministry. Key to the rationale for this position is the Christ-hymn in Philippians 2. In Lingenfelter’s rendering, although Jesus Christ was “in very nature God,” he identified with humanity and human culture, taking “the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Phil. 2:6–7). In fact, Jesus not only completely identified with humanity but with Jewish culture in particular. Thus, Lingenfelter sees the Incarnation as the model for incarnational ministry, for Jesus was “a 200 percent person”: “he was 100 percent God and 100 percent Jew.”3 Lingenfelter goes on to make a direct analogy with our own ministry: we should seek to become 150 percent persons, becoming less like persons of our own culture and more like persons of the culture to whom we seek to minister (thus 75 percent of each culture).

Lingenfelter has legitimate and pressing missiological concerns that underlie his use of the incarnational analogy.

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He has seen the tendency of Western missionaries to retreat to their safe missionary compounds, rather than approaching the receiving culture with humility and respect.

He has seen how this action—of distance, rather than humble engagement—distorts the message that Christian missionaries try to communicate. Thus, the Incarnation seems like an attractive analogy to inspire missionaries to acquire a posture of learning and cultural engagement.

While I share Lingenfelter’s practical missiological concerns, I think that his close analogy between the Incarnation and cross-cultural ministry is not the best way to address these concerns. It depends upon a questionable interpretation of Philippians 2 and a reduction of Christology to a problem of math. (How exactly is a “200 percent person” one person rather than “two sons,” as the ancient heresy of Nestorianism claims?)4 But for our present purposes, I will focus upon two observations.

First, Lingenfelter’s portrait of the Incarnation tends to conflate the unique Incarnation with our own process of learning about another culture. The deity of the Son is seen as a “culture” and the taking on of humanity as a second “culture” taken on in the Incarnation. Thus, Jesus, as the pioneer of our faith, shows us how to take on a second culture as well. But here is the problem: the divine nature is not a “culture,” and we cannot (and should not) see ourselves as analogous to the pre-incarnate Word that then takes on humanity. The deity of the Word won’t fit into the box of “culture” because God is not a creature— and culture is a characteristic of creaturely existence. Instead, God is the transcendent and mysterious creator of the universe. The truth of the Incarnation is that in the eternal Word, this same transcendent God takes on the flesh of human beings for the sake of our salvation.

Second, this doctrinal conflation can lead to a significant problem in practice: it can conflate the mission of Jesus with our own mission. While Lingenfelter certainly would not want to be promoting a messiah-complex among missionaries, the close analogy between the incarnational as a culture-crossing action and our own culture-crossing action makes this a constant issue. I recall times in which missionaries schooled in incarnational ministry told me they were “cheating” from the model if they gave something away to persons in need, or if they presented any ideas that were not already inherent in the culture of reception. Behind this sense of “cheating” is the assumption in that our identification with the culture is enough—that is our mission. Yet, while I agree that missionaries should seek to identify with the receiving culture, our identification with that culture is not inherently redemptive. We should identify with the culture so that our lives offer an intelligible witness to the one Redeemer of peoples from all cultures, Jesus Christ. It is not enough to bear witness to Jesus as the model for crossing cultures.

Jesus is much more than a model.

Instead, in our teaching about the Incarnation, we must be crystal clear about the fact that this is a unique event. Jesus Christ is central to the gospel because the In-

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carnation is not something that happens in various forms to various persons. Jesus Christ is the one and only incarnate Word. There is redemptive power in the Incarnation; apart from the Incarnation, Christ’s obedient life, death, resurrection, and ascension would be of no use to us. Because of the Incarnation, we know that it is none other than GOD who has sought us out and cleansed us from our sins. “In Christ” we know and have fellowship with God. If God and humanity were not united in Jesus Christ, then being “in Christ” would not be a locus of our communion with God. Indeed, if we are to make analogies between the Incarnation and our own lives, it should point us to the reality that Jesus Christ is not a “200 percent person”—in which deity and humanity are framed competitively, two persons smashed into one. Instead, the Incarnation shows us how God’s action in our life does not mean the evacuation of human agency, but the empowerment of it. Augustine points this out in his debate with Pelagius about grace. Augustine writes, “This birth [of Christ], which joined the human to God and the flesh to the Word in unity of one person, was undeniably gratuitous; Good works followed; they did not earn this birth.”5 In other words, just as the divine Word takes on flesh in the Incarnation—before the flesh could merit anything on its own—so also God’s work in our lives is received as an unmerited gift, with good works following.

Christians often struggle with spiritual pride—we find it difficult to take a compliment in a way that does not give ourselves “spiritual bonus points” for our own faithful acts.

We know we should give credit to God—but really, I was the one who performed that act of service and love, right?

Ultimately, a competitive, non-incarnational view of divine and human work underlies this ambivalence. In the Incarnation we see that true God and true humanity are brought together in one person, Jesus Christ. When we perform an act of love and service, we can give the Spirit the credit while still recognizing that this act is our own in a secondary sense. Why? Because as we become more like Christ by the Spirit, we are not becoming “less human” by becoming more like God. Our true humanity is being restored as the Spirit unites us to God in Christ.

The Unique Incarnation and the Work of the Church f it is misleading to see the Incarnation as an example of culture-crossing or to conflate Christ’s mission and our own, what can we say positively about the ways in which our lives and ministries participate in the incarnate Christ and his mission? The Holy Spirit has united believers to the living Christ; thus it is important to think about the positive ways in which we participate in Christ. I think that the Heidelberg Catechism (HC) is very instructive on this point. Rather than taking the Incarnation as the point of departure for how we participate in Christ, it speaks in terms of the three offices of Christ:

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Question 31. Why is he called “Christ,” meaning anointed?

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Answer. Because he has been ordained by God the Father and has been anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief prophet and teacher who perfectly reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God for our redemption; our only high priest who has redeemed us by the one sacrifice of his body, and who continually pleads our cause with the Father; and our eternal king who governs us by his Word and Spirit, and who guards us and keeps us in the redemption he has won for us.

Question 32. But why are you called a Christian?

Answer. Because by faith I am a member of Christ and so I share in his anointing. I am anointed to confess his name, to present myself to him as a living sacrifice of thanks, to strive with a good conscience against sin and the devil in this life, and afterward to reign with Christ over all creation for all eternity.

Note how the HC does two things simultaneously. First, it speaks about a profound union between believers and Jesus Christ—we are not lone-ranger Christians; we are profoundly connected to the living Christ: “I am a member of Christ and so I share in his anointing.” Its language is strong and unequivocal on this important connection.

But secondly, note how our “membership” in Christ and “sharing” in his anointing are derivative and subordinate to the living Christ. Christ alone is the “chief prophet and teacher,” our “only high priest,” and our intercessor to the Father. In our own person, we can do none of these things. The Son is a child of God by nature, but we are children of God by grace. This difference has profound consequences for ministry.

The consequence of this distinction is that we should not seek to simply “copy” Jesus as the “missional blogger” advocated at the beginning, or as some other advocates of incarnational ministry suggest. We belong to Christ—“in body and soul, in life and death,” as the first answer to HC states. But we are not Christ. And, in spite of a potentially misleading claim in the “mission statement” of my own denomination (the Reformed Church in America), we should be cautious about seeing ourselves as “the very presence of Jesus Christ in the world.” We belong to Christ, but the only Savior is the living Christ himself— the Son by nature, not simply by grace. Our ministries should point to the Head of the body, the One to whom we belong. Paul brings together these teachings of union with Christ and yet pointing to Christ when he writes that God has made known his riches among the Gentiles in the mystery of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” But rather than follow up with this stunning affirmation of union with Christ by focusing upon our own redemptive action, Paul continues: “It is he [Christ] whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:27–28, NRSV). We are united to Christ in M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 21

a profound way, yet we do not simply copy the action of the one Redeemer. We bear witness to Christ the Redeemer rather than ourselves; we find our maturity and identity as ones united to Christ but also as “servants” of Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:1), the one Incarnate Word who reconciles us with God. The answer to HC 32 above is also instructive for thinking through the implications of the three offices of Christ— the difference between Christ as prophet, priest, and king and our own lives that participate in the one prophet, priest, and king. We are “anointed” by the Holy Spirit to bear witness to Christ, to “confess his name.” We are not the great prophet and teacher, but we confess the One who is. Secondly, we offer our entire lives as “a living sacrifice of thanks” to “strive” against “sin and the devil.” Christ alone offers the perfect atoning sacrifice. Our own sacrifice is one of gratitude and thanksgiving—done with a “good conscience” because of the complete work of Christ our high priest. Finally, we “share” in the kingship of Christ by sharing in his resurrection and exaltation, looking to the day when we will “reign with Christ over all creation for all eternity.” Christ is prophet, priest, and king. We are united to this same Christ. But as members of the body serving the one Head, we participate in Christ through acts of professing Christ and his truth, loving God and neighbor in gratitude, and living in hope of our final resurrection, exaltation, and reign with Christ. We do participate in Christ’s “mission,” in a certain sense. But precisely because Christ is the only mediator between God and humanity— the only perfect prophet, priest, and king—our “mission” is distinct from that of Jesus Christ himself.

In terms of Christian ministry, the result of this approach is one that gives a central place to the church’s ministry of Word and sacrament. Negatively, this means we are not sent to go out and “take over the culture,” or to seek to be the Savior to those around us. Positively, it means that we point to Christ, the Head, through the word of the gospel held forth in both Word and sacrament. There is no human set of activities—no matter how loving or revolutionary—that can bring redemption. Redemption comes through Jesus Christ alone, made possible by the Spirit’s work in uniting us to Jesus Christ.

This approach toward Christian ministry overlaps, on some key points, with some visions of incarnational ministry. As Lingenfelter suggests, we need to seek out relationships with those to whom we minister, displaying our faith in lives of humility and service. We need to approach ministry as learners of the culture and history of those around us. Yet, it is not necessary to draw upon the Incarnation as a model for culture-crossing in order to promote these virtues in Christian ministry. These norms coincide with the humility and gratitude of those who know they belong to Christ but are not Christ themselves: we present our lives as “a living sacrifice of thanks,” serving God and loving our neighbor in humility and gratitude. A life of gratitude humbly recognizes that we are not our own, but that we belong to Jesus Christ. Ulti22 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

mately, the fact that we are “not our own” should call into question our allegiance to national or cultural priorities that fuel our ethnocentric tendencies that compromise our witness to the gospel. As a way of giving thanks to God, we are called to seek out relationships with those in need and move across cultural barriers that threaten to block our grateful witness to Jesus Christ, the One to whom we belong.

Moreover, in contrast to seeing incarnational ministry as the model for culture-crossing, the Heidelberg Catechism’s teaching directly counters our own messianic tendencies: we are not the Redeemer—we belong to the Redeemer.

We are freed from manipulating those to whom we minister because we do not need a list of spiritual accomplishments to please God; and it is with “a good conscience” that we strive “against sin and the devil.” In the unique Incarnation and the once-for-all sacrifice on the cross, we have been cleansed from our sins and filled with the Spirit who brings new life. Precisely because the Incarnation is unique—and we do not need to copy it — we are freed for humble, non-manipulative witness and service for the sake of the gospel. ■

J. Todd Billings (Th.D., Harvard University) is assistant professor of Reformed theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. He is the 2008 winner of the John Templeton Award for Theological Promise for his book, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Belivers in Union with Christ (Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology) (Oxford University Press, 2008).

Works cited 1See http://timothycowin.wordpress.com/2007/05/ 08/incarnational-ministry-the-way-of-jesus/.

2Sherwood Lingenfelter and Marvin Mayers, Ministering Cross-Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003).

Lingenfelter also uses the analogy in Teaching Cross-Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Teaching and Learning, coauthored with Judith Lingenfelter (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003).

3Lingenfelter and Mayers, 17.

4For further analysis of the biblical and christological issues raised in proposals such as Lingenfelter’s, see my article, “‘Incarnational Ministry’: A Christological Evaluation and Proposal,” Missiology: An International Review 32:2 (April 2004), 187–201.

5Augustine of Hippo, quoted from “On Rebuke and Grace” in Theological Anthropology, ed. and trans. J. Patout Burns (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1981), 101.

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Simple Grace, Simple Growth During my two babies’ nap-time the other day, I googled some articles on spending time with God. Among my search results was an article that seemed perfect for me at this stage in my life: “No Time for God?…How busy moms can rekindle their spiritual lives.”1 Just for me!

The woman being interviewed urged busy moms to set aside time for personal Bible study, even just a few moments each morning. “It can be as simple as writing in a journal every morning or spending two or three minutes a day with the Lord,” she explained. She went on to offer a few other suggestions: prayer, journaling, and time for fellowship with other moms. All helpful suggestions. And yet, there was something missing from the equation. I couldn’t help but feel let down by her short, manageable list.

I think the list plays into a pattern I have noticed in my spiritual life. When I look back on my journey, I am struck by the fact that at various points I have lived as if it were my own work and discipline that brought about my spiritual growth. Sometimes this took the shape of well-meant quiet times— Bible and journal in hand—that were undertaken as my most essential spiritual duty. Later, as a more sophisticated college student, I began to explore the “spiritual disciplines” laid out by Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, and found in them natural extensions for my daily quiet times. “Spiritual formation” was all the rage. I was determined to grow spiritually, and Foster promised that I was virtually guaranteed growth as I participated in ancient practices such as contemplative prayer, simplicity, and solitude.

A few years later, I taught a course on spiritual formation to a dozen eager college students. Imagine the scene: a small circle of desks pulled into a courtyard from the classroom in order to bask in the California sunshine.

On alternate days we would scatter among the garden

paths, sitting under the trees or among the bird-ofparadise to spend individual time practicing classic spiritual disciplines. We would spend time meditating on Scripture, envisioning ourselves as participants in the stories, and then reflect on what we had learned. We practiced different methods of prayer gleaned from dusty centuries of church history. Surely we were on the fasttrack to spiritual growth!

My life now? Gone is the monastery-like tranquility.

I’m not a monk, I’m a mother! In fact, I am the mother of two children under the age of two. My days are filled with sippy cups, bottles, diapers, Elmo, crayons, chores, church activities, and occasional moments of coveted nap-time solitude. My individual spiritual practices?

Let’s just say they don’t involve hours spent alone under the trees with my Bible imagining myself as Mary Magdalene. A few moments reading Scripture, and prayer for friends and family as they pass through my mind. Am I missing out? The writers I used to admire asserted that those disciplines were actually God’s means of grace for me. Was I more spiritual then? Happily, I have discovered that the answer is no. And, indeed, I have discovered that there are some serious problems with the framework of spiritual disciplines that I once held dear. That discovery has brought freedom and hope for this busy mom.

Perhaps you, like me, did not grow up in a church that used terms such as “the means of grace.”

Historically within the Reformed tradition, the phrase “means of grace” refers to that which God uses to convey

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Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we hope in the gospel, meaning in our suffering, and now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. the love of God poured out in our hearts.

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we Christ and all of his benefits, including making his people know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, more like Christ. character; and character, hope. And hope does not disThese are the ordinary ways that God nurtures his peoappoint us, because God has poured out his love into ple. The most fundamental aspect of something being a our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. “means” lies in the consistency with which it provides the You see, at just the right time, when we were still expected result. For example, by means of soil, seed, rain, powerless, Christ died for the ungodly….But God and sunshine the Lord provides food for his creation. demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we Likewise, spiritual means of grace by definition bring were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have about the expected result—growing in Christ-likeness. now been justified by his blood, how much more For the church, these means are the Word, the sacraments shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and prayer.

(Rom. 5:1–9, italics mine; see also Titus 3:4–5) Foster and other modern writers on the disciplines are not content with this list. Foster asserts in his hugely popIf you tend to skip over long quotations, go back and ular Celebration of Discipline that it is the spiritual disciplines re-read that one. (How do I know that temptation? that are “God’s means of grace.”2 He writes, “The inner Guess!) If it’s the only Scripture you meditate on today, righteousness we seek is not something that is poured on it will be worth it. If we are Christians, it is because we our heads. God has ordained the Disciplines of the spiriare justified by faith in Christ. Because of this justification tual life as the means by which we place ourselves where we have peace with God, hope in the gospel, meaning in he can bless us.”3 Is this true? Are the disciplines—such our suffering, and the love of God poured out in our as prayer, fasting, solitude, meditation on Scripture, servhearts. And that’s before we even start practicing any ice, and celebration—the means that God has given kind of spiritual discipline! These truths alone should whereby we might grow in grace? Some of these are bring great comfort and peace to our hearts. worthwhile and biblical activities; indeed, I have seen Justification is not the end of the Christian life. It is their value at various times in my own spiritual life. But not the goal toward which we work, but the very beginare these activities necessary for spiritual growth? Are ning of the path. If your trust is in Christ, then you have they in fact “means of grace”—instruments that God been adopted into the family of God and all of these benpromises to use to bring about our spiritual growth? efits are already yours. And then comes growth. The theWithout them, am I destined for a life as a second-class ological term for our growth in Christ is “sanctification” or citizen in the kingdom of heaven or, worse yet, incapable “our growth in holiness.” The Westminster Shorter Catechism of reaching my full potential as a believer? defines it like this: Sanctification is the work of God’s free In order to answer these questions, let’s first establish a grace, (1) whereby we are renewed in the whole man basic theological framework for understanding where any after the image of God, (2) and are enabled more and spiritual disciplines fit into the Christian life. Are they necmore to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness (WSC, essary for justification before God? Clearly not. We are 35). We are renewed, and as we grow in the grace of not made righteous by works of law, but by the grace of Christ, we begin to look more like him.

God: “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has Who is responsible for sanctification? Many would say been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This that this is where the spiritual disciplines come in. Only righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all God can transform us, but the disciplines are described as who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall a means of grace that God uses to bring about that transshort of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace formation. Foster’s instruction is clear: the disciplines are through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:21– something we do in order to place ourselves where such 23). Justification is a legal declaration of our status by God: transformation can occur.4 Marjorie Thompson puts it a we have been justified through the atoning work of Christ. slightly different way: she compares the undertaking of Paul goes on to assert that justification has always come spiritual disciplines to the training regimen of an athlete through faith in God and his promises, all the way back to or the consistent practice of a skillful artist. She asserts, Abraham (Rom. 4:18–25). The benefits of this justifica“We will choose spiritual disciplines only if we have a tion are manifold: strong desire to grow.”5 If we desire to grow, we will structure our lives in such a way as to include these pracTherefore, since we have been justified through tices. As a result, we will be “open to the mysterious work faith, we have peace with God through our Lord of grace in our heart and our world.”6 Foster warns

Because of this justification we have peace with God,

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against turning these disciplines into laws, and he emphasizes that we must listen to Jesus as our Guide and follow his direction.7 They are not to be treated as laws, and yet the fundamental principle remains: the disciplines are to be understood as a key means of grace in the life of the believer.

There is a significant underlying problem with this understanding. The truth is that our sanctification is not ultimately up to us. Abraham Kuyper describes sanctification as “the confession of an awful power, which lives and works effectually in us.”8 He argues that mere self-betterment has nothing to do with sanctification, even when the attempts are to better ourselves spiritually. Instead, we must give ourselves to hearing the Word and to confessing our sin: “In city and country church the Word must be preached persistently, and with ever-increasing purity, until, convicted of personal unholiness, men begin to see that by absolute sanctification, not mere self-betterment, they must restore unto God His right; until, feeling their inability, with broken hearts they turn to God to receive the Mystery of Sanctification from the treasures of the Covenant of Grace.”9 Thus sanctification is not a work we undertake through various methods and disciplines, but an amazing act of God’s grace. We simply turn to him in our brokenness and receive from him this treasure of grace as he makes us more like Christ. This is fundamentally different from believing that it is up to you to cultivate spiritual growth through the faithful practice of spiritual disciplines.

Honestly, this goes against everything that is popular in the world of evangelical spiritual formation. We want mystical ancient practices! We want labyrinths and retreats of solitude, candlelit vigils of contemplative prayer, something that we can do to achieve new highs in the spiritual world. We want just a little control, just a little self-reliance. Unfortunately, this is not what the Lord has in mind. As the Old Princeton theologian Archibald Alexander affirmed, our spiritual growth is not found in our own attempts at devotion. Instead, “To be emptied of self-dependence, and to know that we need aid for every duty, and even for every good thought, is an important step in our progress in piety.”10 I don’t know about you, but I find great comfort in this fact, even as it sobers and humbles me. The truth is that I don’t really want to be “emptied of self-dependence.” I like being self-dependent.

But in my life-mission of Christ-likeness, it undermines everything. The more I realize that I am incapable of moving toward spiritual maturity by my own feeble attempts, the more I can see Christ working in me.

So, if it’s not ultimately up to me to assure my own growth in Christ, then how do I grow spiritually? Do I just sit around waiting for God to do something? Christ prayed for his followers, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17; see also Eph. 5:26). It is through the Word of God that we are sanctified. It is helpful to remember that, by the Spirit of God, the Word of God himself indwells us. We are sanctified through this

G R A C E ,

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ongoing work of the Spirit who leads, guides, and teaches us (John 16:13–15). When we look to the early church members’ own practice, we see that they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). In other words, the early Christians were devoted to hearing the Word of God (the apostles’ teaching) in the fellowship of believers, to the Lord’s Supper (the sacraments), and to prayer. The Lord has not changed—he uses these means of grace today to sanctify his people. The Word and sacraments work in tandem to strengthen our faith. Calvin notes that “the office of the sacraments differs not from the word of God; and this is to hold forth and offer Christ to us, and, in him, the treasures of heavenly grace.”11 Thus it is in the context of the worshipping community that I can expect to experience growth in grace.

This teaching seems rather countercultural in today’s Christian world. “What?! Go to church? Listen to the sermons, receive sacraments, and pray? Well, sure, pray…I can see myself going on a silent retreat, or going to the mountains or the ocean with my Bible to pray…that sounds more like spirituality to me. But the rest of this teaching seems really outdated.” It strikes at the heart of our individualized, American Christianity. It goes against the spiritual trappings of many popular retreats and special events. But it’s the truth. Are you the mother or father of young children, trying to structure your life in a way that makes the most of your days, looking to grow spiritually but unsure of how to do it? Listen to the Word preached in fellowship with other believers and reflect on it; make it a priority to be there when your church celebrates the Lord’s Supper; and be consistent in prayer—not just on your own, but with other believers.

There are lots of practices you can add to this list, but these are the “means of grace”—the places where we can expect God to meet us, and the manner in which we know he will sanctify us.

I’ve watched documentaries on Chinese brothers and sisters praying in secret, and I’ve worshipped with brothers incarcerated in San Quentin. No matter the circumstances, we need the church, the Body of Christ.

Christians must worship together. Christianity is not, at its heart, individual. I would even go so far as to say that daily personal quiet times are not the most fundamental aspect of spiritual growth. While our time studying and meditating on the Word is important, we cannot underestimate the significance of the corporate nature of our spiritual life. We read in Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”—but the rest of that verse reads, “as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.” The context in which the Word of Christ is to dwell in us is in our corporate identity as the Body of Christ. Because of this, our spiritual disciplines must have at their core a corporate setting. This also helps to remind us that ultimately, our spirituality is not all about us. If I see retreats or even time M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 25

in me (Phil. 1:6). And as I grow in grace, I have the joy of teaching my children that singing “Blessed Assurance” in his ear, I knew that God will faithfully complete the work that he has also my satisfaction is in Christ alone, and that I need this begun in them. The purpose of their lives is to glorify God time with his people to remember that. and enjoy him forever. And because it is he alone who is for personal Bible study as the fundamental component responsible for our spiritual growth, that growth will be to of my spiritual growth, it is easy to become self-absorbed his glory. ■ in my spirituality. But if my spiritual life is shaped by meeting with God in the presence of his people and hearing the Word preached by someone set apart to preach Kate Treick (MA, church history, Gordon-Conwell Theological it, then the chance of me focusing only on what I want Seminary, Massachusetts, and medieval studies, Fordham Univerto hear is somewhat lessened. There I am reminded that sity) is a writer, artist, musician, and pastor’s wife. She lives with it was not something I did that made me part of God’s her husband Joel and their children Lily and Jack in Lookout people, any more than any other Christian person; Mountain, Georgia. rather, he chose me to be part of his people (1 Pet. 2:9– 10). I am part of his Bride. The gathering of his people Works cited 1Interview with Julie Baker by Carla Barnhill, Christian is to his glory, and to spend time with his people is to my great benefit.

Parenting Today, July/August 2001, vol. 13, no. 6, 34. AcI experienced this last Sunday. I had rushed to get to cessed online 11 November 2008 at http://wwwchrisevening church, setting up my toddler with a few bites of tianitytoday.com/cpt/2001/004/4.34.html.

2Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: supper while I fed our three-month-old baby. After a drive bombarded with the sounds of Elmo and his Sesame HarperSanFrancisco, 1988), 7.

3Foster, 7.

Street friends, I deposited my daughter in the nursery 4Foster, 7. and, finding my usual side-door entrance locked, hurried 5Marjorie Thompson, Soul Feast (Louisville, KY: Westup the long hill to the front of our church. I careened into the foyer, my beeper from the nursery falling out of the minster John Knox Press, 2005), 10.

6Thompson, 10. diaper bag and sailing across the floor. Finally, I settled 7Foster, 10. into a seat in time to hear my husband begin the service, 8Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit (White noticing that Baby Boy was once again wide awake. And then I encountered God. Not with flashes of light and anFish, MT: Kessinger, 2008), 433. Accessed online 14 gels singing, but in the sweet voices of the men and March 2008 at http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenwomen around me as they began to sing his praise. I thal/reformationink/aksanctif.htm.

9Kuyper, 439. Italics original. heard him as my husband Joel directed our attention to 10Archibald Alexander, Growth in Grace, accessed online John 6, turning our gaze to the men and women who had just seen the miracle of Jesus feeding five-thousand hun15 March 2008 at http://www.thehighway.com/ growth_ gry men and their families, as they now sought more Alexander.html.

11John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 17: True bread and fish. Joel reminded us that we often seek that office of the sacraments, accessed online 24 September 2008 which only gives temporary satisfaction, when Jesus at http://www.reformed.org/master/index.html? mainwould draw us to be satisfied in him. We turned to the frame=/books/institutes.

Lord in prayer, asking him to help us find our satisfaction in him. Then I came forward to receive the Lord’s Supper, little baby dozing on my shoulder. I had received the Word preached, and now received the Word in the Supper; I was reminded of his sacrifice, was given a foretaste of heaven. As I stood, holding my again-awake baby and singing “Blessed Assurance” in his ear, I knew that my satisfaction is in Christ alone, and that I need this time with his people to remember that. I can count on the Lord to use these means of grace to bring his spiritual work in me to completion and to glorify himself in the midst of it all.

I am not sentenced to second-class status in the Kingdom of God because I am a busy mom. The Lord is faithful and he has promised to complete the work he began

As I stood, holding my again-awake baby and

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T H E I M I TAT I O N O F C H R I S T

Imitating

Jesus

by Michael Allen

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hat would Jesus do?”

Though the bracelets were influential, the question is not without controversy. Two key debates deserve mention.

First, Jesus has been many things to many people, and he calls for many things from them. Jesus would free the oppressed or have a quiet time or eat with the marginalized or wash people’s feet or battle on Israel’s behalf or remain celibate or maintain serenity in the midst of pain or model righteous anger in ridding the religious establishment of its presumption or exorcise demons or live a life of poverty or talk at length about the apocalypse and the kingdom to come or die to show that murder simply does not work.

Liberals and conservatives, religious and secular— everyone has use for the morality of Jesus. Christianity Today and the Jesus Seminar each suggest their own use for the Messiah in contemporary moral discussion. Historical and exegetical debate ensues regarding the best texts and the right readings: is Jesus a sage, a liberator, a monastic, or a pietist? Whereas many see Jesus as a political activist today, Thomas Aquinas and much of the medieval tradition interpreted him as a monastic-like figure.1 Novelist Richard Russo points to the conundrum: “Oh dear me, it is complicated. No surprise that people are always trying to simplify life. What’s that question our evangelical brethren are always asking? ‘What would Jesus do?’ What, indeed?”2 Second, many fear that talk of the imitation of Jesus or even of Christian morality, will somehow undermine the gracious nature of the gospel. When Stanley Grenz and certain leaders in the Emergent movement have contrasted the call to faith in Christ with an emphasis on imitating Christ, this fear is understandable.3 Yet James Gustafson rightly warns us that “the Christian life is not less moral because it is not primarily moral.”4 While our following Jesus is not the ground for our standing before or adoption by God, it is nonetheless an important aspect of the Christian life. While I would disagree with much of Gustafson’s description of ethics, he is right that the Christian life is moral but “not primarily moral.” In fact, if M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 27

Christian morality involves trusting dependence on God as its core, then morality only arises when it is not primary. As in the Exodus, freedom is given that the people may then serve or worship YHWH (e.g., Exod. 8:1; 9:1; 10:3). While sanctification and Christian service do not merit anything, they are a crucial aspect of redeemed life.

Much more interesting than these two issues, however, is a logically prior question: is it even possible, much less preferable, to follow this Messiah’s morality? We cannot imitate bolts of lightning, but we can imitate our parents.

Is Jesus more like a lightning bolt from heaven or more like our parents? Issues of continuity and discontinuity affect the usefulness of imitating Jesus as a principle for Christian ethics.

I will argue that “What would Jesus do?” is a necessary but not sufficient question for Christian ethics. First, the necessity will be seen by observing that Jesus is really human according to the biblical testimony. He lives an authentic human life and, thus, models ideal human behavior. Second, the insufficiency is shown by noting that Jesus fulfills a unique calling in redemptive history, to which no one else is called. His example must be qualified in several respects. By viewing ethics in light of the Incarnation and the atonement, his continuity and discontinuity with us, then, we can appreciate the importance and the difficulty of imitating Jesus.

Incarnation he Word became flesh” (John 1:14). The doctrine of the Incarnation can be understood as involving three factors: (1) the Word, (2) flesh, and (3) a becoming or relationship between (1) and (2).

Debates about Jesus (the christological controversies) have focused on one or more of these issues. With regard to our question, the second facet is important. If we are going to give any credence to following Jesus, to imitating his lifestyle, then we must ask about the nature of his humanity.

That the Word became “flesh” means that every aspect of human life was assumed by the Word. The Epistle to the Hebrews is particularly emphatic in this regard: “He had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17). The immediate context illustrates the scope of this statement that Jesus was “like his brothers in every respect.” First, “he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin” (2:11). Second, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things” (2:14). Third, “Because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (2:18).

In the early church, the Apollinarian heresy was deemed spiritually harmful, because it denied that the Son of God assumed full humanity. The Apollinarians suggested that the Word took human flesh as a garment, yet assumed no human intelligence or mind. The Word was

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clothed in flesh. How would this lead to imitating Jesus?

Well, Apollinarians favored the pursuit of faith apart from reason. Just as Jesus really only knew things divinely, so humans ought to pursue knowledge of special revelation to the exclusion of the slow and arduous study of natural phenomena or philosophy. The Christian life involves becoming a bit less human, if the Apollinarian approach is adopted.

The church responded by affirming the maxim “that which is not assumed is not healed.” This principle well summarizes the teaching of Hebrews 2. If Jesus redeemed only human bodies, then the human intellect remains plagued by death and sin. To redeem the whole human person, Jesus must have assumed a complete human nature.

Because Jesus was fully human, “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), he can function as a moral exemplar. It is important to note that the biblical teaching of humanity as the “image of God” is heightened with regard to this particular human. In fact, the process of salvation involves being “predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29). Jesus is humanity perfected, transfigured, even glorified. As even his ascended reign is continuous with human existence, we ought to ask what he does and how we might follow.

Because Jesus was really human, perfectly human, he is the climax of the “great cloud of witnesses” described in Hebrews 11 and 12. Indeed, the chapter break sadly skews much interpretation of this text. Hebrews 12 offers the highest heights of human faithfulness: “Looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (12:2).5 The term “author” might better be rendered “prototype,” highlighting the exemplary function of Jesus’ faith in the midst of suffering.6 Jesus is human; his experience is continuous with ours; thus, he can and should be imitated.

Messianic Work he Christ’s life saves precisely because, while human, he was also human in a very different way.

He can help his brothers and sisters because he is also the anointed one, set apart and sanctified by the Spirit for the work of salvation. In other words, several factors qualify our attempt to follow Jesus by imitating his behavior.

First, Jesus does not relate to God as a child redeemed from his own sin, while we must always commune with a Father to whom we have been reconciled. Hebrews is very explicit about his innocence: “It was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people” (7:26–27). He needed no atonement because he was sinless.

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Jesus did trust his Father, believing that joy would come on the far side of Calvary (12:2). Yet Jesus did not believe his Father would forgive him his sins. Indeed, such an issue was moot. Jesus is “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (4:15). Jesus’ piety was not shaped by confession or gratitude for forgiveness. Quite to the contrary, the Christian is meant to do all things in the shadow of the cross. Every good gift and every righteous response to God is meant to be a glorying in the cross (Gal. 6:14). Our trust in the Father must be cross-centered in a way that the incarnate Son’s was not and could not be, for we are only adopted children and not children by nature (like Jesus).

Second, Jesus’ faithfulness is maintained by a superabundant blessing by the Holy Spirit, which is greater than any such blessing promised for his followers in this life. Again, Hebrews witnesses to the Spirit-anointed works of the incarnate Son. His identity as Messiah is evident due to the witness of “signs and wonders and various miracles,” all of which can be termed “gifts of the Holy Spirit” (2:4). Furthermore, his priestly ministry surpasses that of the Old Covenant (chapters 8–10), because his messianic work was “through the eternal Spirit” (9:14).

The Spirit perfected Jesus’ humanity during his earthly life, whereas no such gifting is promised to his followers.

Unlike the one who was to be a perfect lamb, Christians will be perfected only upon resurrection. Whereas he was transfigured prior to death, our glory comes only on the other side of the tomb.

We do receive the same Spirit that rested upon Christ, and we will do things greater than even the Son (14:12).

Thus, we should have a rock-solid confidence that the same Spirit—who ministered to the Messiah in the wilderness and who kept him faithful while suffering hell on the cross—rests upon us. Still, we have no promise that the Spirit will ensure our sinlessness now. We must be realistic by realizing the story arch into which we have been cast. We will not obey as consistently or perfectly as does the Son, because we are not wholly sanctified like him in the here and now.

Third, Jesus’ lifestyle was that of the Messiah, whereas we are to be followers of this pioneer of the faith (Heb. 12:3). The same Epistle to the Hebrews that emphasizes the likeness of Jesus and his followers also heightens the once-for-all nature of his atonement and his ministry. He is the “great high priest” and “after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (1:3). There is a sharp discontinuity between the human life of Jesus and, well, everybody else. This must be honored if we are not to lose the singular sufficiency of the Christ for salvation (solus Christus).

The issue is distinguishing what is repeatable from what is not. Herman Witsius argued that we are to imitate his humanity but not his mediatory work.7 For example, consider his obedience to the law. Jesus obeyed the law that he might be perfectly suitable as a sin-offering. None of us needs to serve as a sin offering. We might imitate his

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obedience, however, without the goal of being sin offerings. Whereas he loved persons by dying on their behalf, his followers are to love their neighbors by pointing them to Jesus’ death, not by dying themselves. There are differences in vocational calling to be teased out.

Fourth, Jesus’ obedience was settled within the cultural contexts and constraints of the first century, whereas we live in different times. This difference is the most obvious and, therefore, needs little unpacking. Various actions that he performed would have different social meaning if repeated identically today. Imitating him is necessarily a hermeneutical enterprise because we live in a world without the Roman Empire, Pharisees, and so forth.

Fifth, Jesus’ piety is documented for us in the New Testament, yet the “life of Jesus” that we can glean from these texts does not directly exemplify any number of social issues that we might imitate. For example, we have no idea how Jesus would act within marriage, for we have no evidence that he was married. While he taught certain things related to marriage, he does not act as a moral guide by means of his own behavior in this regard. We could multiply this limit by showing the number of areas that are simply not recorded by the evangelists or that Jesus presumably did not interact with personally. Whatever he did, we know he did perfectly; but we are not told what this looks like or what it involves.

Karl Barth said that “in all these things He goes before us once for all; not in His humanity as such, for in this respect He makes us like unto Himself; but in the way in which He is a man, that is, in virtue of His unique relation to God.”8 Jesus is uniquely human; his experience is discontinuous with ours; thus, he cannot and should not be imitated directly and without qualification.

Ethical Triangulation: Putting Jesus into Canonical Context ow might we move forward? I suggest that a key principle will be the practice of “ethical triangulation,” where we imitate Jesus well by imitating those who have followed him (especially the disciples and apostles of the New Testament). Our whole task is trying to locate godly behavior on the moral map. Just as a cellular signal can be located by viewing it relative to a number of towers, so the path of obedience can be discerned by viewing the life of Jesus as one of several examples given to us in the Bible.

We should read the stories of Jesus as happening in our own moral world; but, as Robert Sherman says:

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If we see ourselves in such a narrative, we should not be too quick to identify ourselves with the character of Christ, seeking to imitate him in some univocal fashion. Rather, we should identify ourselves with the disciples, recognizing how the conditions and obligations of their lives have been changed because of what Christ has accomplished for them, and because of the Spirit’s continuing power and guidance.9 M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 29

Sherman’s words are to be heeded, precisely because they echo the emphasis of the New Testament. The apostle Paul called on his readers to imitate him (Phil. 2:19–30; 3:16; 1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1; Gal. 4:12; 1 Thess. 1:6; 2:14; 2 Thess. 3:7, 9). The writer to the Hebrews offers a number of examples for the congregation’s consideration: “Those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (6:11), “your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God” (13:7), and, most importantly, “those who have faith and preserve their souls” (10:39). This last group includes the saints from Abel to Jesus, and their obedience is described in multiple ways. They are to be imitated as those whose belief impelled radical obedience (11:6).

How will our Christian life relate to the life of Christ?

We will look to his life story as a source for Christian ethics, but we will view his obedience within the canonical context provided by the saints. They are not sinless, evident by the many names in Hebrews 11 that are linked to certain scandals in the Bible (e.g., compare Abraham in Heb. 11:8–12 and 17–19 with Gen. 12:10–20 and 20:1– 18). Still, the Bible points us to the righteous behavior of these imperfect images of Christ. As we reflect on their search for faithful ways to honor God, we will have our eyes opened to the way this would look in our own callings and contexts. They serve as final authorities for Christian practice, not because of their own merit but because God has employed them in this biblical capacity.

We should follow and even imitate Jesus, the true and perfect human. Yet we must never allow this emphasis to become a principle of identical repetition, for we are not like him in every respect. Noting key differences and adjusting our moral standards accordingly will be aided by looking also to the example of saints in the pages of the Bible. In so doing, we look to Jesus within canonical and covenantal context. ■ Michael Allen (Ph.D., Wheaton College) is adjunct professor of theology at Knox Theological Seminary and Wheaton College. He has written The Christ’s Faith: A Dogmatic Account (T & T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology; London: T & T Clark, 2009) and Reformed Theology (London: T & T Clark, forthcoming).

Works cited 1Respectively, F. Scott Spencer, What Did Jesus Do? Gospel Profiles of Jesus’ Personal Conduct (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003), and Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 3a.40.

2Richard Russo, Empire Falls (New York: Vintage, 2002), 172.

3See, e.g., Stanley Grenz, Revisioning Evangelical Theology: A Fresh Agenda for the Twenty-First Century (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 17, 31, 48–52.

4James Gustafson, Christ and the Moral Life (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 183.

5Sadly, most translations insert the word “our” into the phrase “author and perfector of faith,” suggesting that Jesus did not exemplify faith himself. “Our” does not ap-

pear in the original text, nor is it necessary to make sense of the verse. Jesus really believed in the Father’s promise in the midst of trials; therefore, he exemplifies a trust and dependence that we are to imitate. See my The Christ’s Faith: A Dogmatic Account (T & T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology; London: T & T Clark, 2009), esp. ch. 6.

6On translating archegon, see N. Clayton Croy, “A Note on Hebrews 12:2,” Journal of Biblical Literature 114, no. 1 (1995), 117–19.

7Herman Witsius, The Economy of Covenants between God and Man (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1990), vol. 2, 34.

8Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. III/2: The Doctrine of Creation, eds. Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1960), 49.

9Robert Sherman, King, Priest, and Prophet: A Trinitarian Theology of the Atonement (Theology for the Twenty-First Century; London: T & T Clark, 2004), 212.

Speaking Of… [The Gospel of John] issues a sharp and timely reminder to re-learn the difference between mercy and affirmation, between a Jesus who both embodies and speaks God’s word of judgment and grace and a home-made Jesus (a Da Vinci Code Jesus, if you like) who gives us good advice about discovering who we really are. No wonder John’s gospel has been so unfashionable in many circles. There is a fashion in some quarters for speaking about a ‘theology of incarnation’ and meaning that our task is to discern what God is doing in the world and do it with him. But that is only half the truth, and the wrong half to start with. John’s theology of the incarnation is about God’s word coming as light into darkness, as a hammer that breaks the rock into pieces, as the fresh word of judgment and mercy.

You might as well say that an incarnational missiology is all about discovering what God is saying No to today, and finding out how to say it with him.

That was the lesson Barth and Bonhoeffer had to teach in Germany in the 1930s, and it’s all too relevant as today’s world becomes simultaneously, and at the same points, more liberal and more totalitarian....Let’s get real, let’s get Johannine, and let’s listen again to the strange words spoken by the Word made flesh.

—N. T. Wright

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A Catechetical Imitation of Christ

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o I get this assignment from Modern Reformation asking me to consider writing something on recovering discipleship in the local church, particularly paired with the idea of vocation. Good topic as usual. So I head off to the local evangelical bookstore to do a little reconnaissance in the “discipleship” section and find that the shelves are glutted with paperbacks from the usual suspects (Max Lucado, Rick Warren, Stormie Omartian, that Eldredge couple, Joyce Meyer, John Ortberg Shop, Joel Osteen, etc., etc.), and then it hits me that I’m looking in the wrong section for confessional input on the subject. In fact, I’m probably in the wrong store.

Then my survey of the best-sellers, blog-spots, and hottest trends of what is peddled in North American evangelicalism as biblical discipleship (under various designations such as “spiritual growth,” “the art of Christian living,” one’s “walk with the Lord,” “living the Christian life,” and “life in the Spirit”) revealed what seemed to be competing sides of the same neonomian coin: the cultivation of “self-feeders” via spiritual disciplines of American Christianity or the formation of sanctified selfishness through the art of developing “a better you”—in the name of Jesus, of course. Either way, the Pauline idea of Christ Jesus “whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30)

gives way to fabricated standards of law—be they never so sanctimonious—and unapologetically touted as our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification.

The former mode of discipleship, as recently attested to and promulgated by Willow Creek’s agenda-setting “Reveal” study and encore publications, seeks to bring believers to an elevated level of Christian discipleship by weaning them from the breast of the church that they may find solid food as hunters and gatherers beyond the walls of the cloister-crib. Responsibility for one’s own spiritual growth belongs to the individual Christian. Being a disciple, first and foremost, means being a doer not a receiver. The church essentially is a nesting ground for hatching believers and regurgitating spiritual disciplines in the brood setting until those committed Christians chirping for the worms of advanced independent Bible study, quiet time, and self-anointed ministries take flight as bona fide disciples. The church-growth model of the “assembly of believers” thus proves itself to be a half-way house for pilgrims on the journey to spiritual maturity so that what “you do unto the least of these” you really do as an individual Christian, not as the Body of Christ. The cost of discipleship, then, is really a return to the wilder-

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JOHN BOMBARO

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evangelical businesses. Is this the end of discipleship in the local church when paired and object of divine wisdom: he is the Word of God. with the idea of vocation— consume Christianly?

The disciple learns of him, from him, through him, And if various vocations do find a place in the scope and for him. of discipleship, there are poor, nay, depressing mechanisms in place for coping ness, but this time with a Christianized version of Bear with persistent failings in those vocations. This is inGrylls’s “Man vs. Wild” training. Presumably, the gates of evitably the result when the tendency within the church hell will not prevail against you. is to appraise, even define or adjudicate the legitimacy of As a byproduct of American Gnosticism, the latter the disciple on the basis of the qualitative and sometimes mode of discipleship is even more dispiriting, for those quantitative expression of discipleship in the context of two trust in Christ as their all in all (Eph. 1:23). Show me the church (e.g., attendance at Bible study, services, the “keys” that’ll show me the money or the honey, prayer meetings, etc.), or that of vocation (e.g., witnesswhichever may be the heart’s desire. There is no end to ing at work, Christianizing one’s sphere of employment, the recycling of techniques in this genre of literature (and or rendering social or vocational settings as missional). so-called preaching) that takes its cues from Neo-PlatonWithout care and boundaries, the mark of church disciism, pop psychology and just about every pseudo-science, pline very easily denigrates into adjudicating the authenpromising to enhance your Christian walk by informing ticity of one’s standing as a disciple by way of some and inspiring that power within you—you just need to Christian community’s subjective standard of piety. The learn how to unlock the potential that is the new you! recovery of discipleship in the local church, however, From the Coptic hermits to Kenneth Copeland, the oncemust stand on that which is objective. hidden “steps,” “keys,” “secrets,” and “ways” of authentic Back in my study I find a different kind of literature on discipleship are disclosed by entrepreneurial pastors in discipleship than at the bookstore. These books are on my categories that leave justifying grace as an indemnifica“creeds, catechisms, and confessions” shelf and that is betion clause. In this vein, discipleship brazenly sports a cause the word “disciple” (µαθητηζ [mathëtës]), whether sandwich board over its nakedness, whereas Willow in its masculine or feminine forms, quite simply means Creek models wear a more acceptable neonomian dress “learner.” And what does the learner learn? The disciple concerning the Christian life and increasingly fashionable (catechumen) learns to “sound again” (catechesis) the antinomian undergarments regarding ecclesiology. learning (catechism) of the Master. In Scripture there are But the Hydra of evangelical perspectives on discipleseveral groups of disciples. John the Baptist had his lot ship has another, more prominent head: the bifurcation of (Matt. 9:14). The Pharisees have theirs (Matt. 22:16). the Christian life into strictly secular and sacred domains.

And, of course, Jesus of Nazareth called disciples to be his In many evangelical churches (and even in my own exstudents. Usually a disciple is defined by a four-fold experience in Presbyterian and now Lutheran ones), disciplanation: a disciple is one who believes his doctrine, impleship is spiritual disciplines plus service in the various bibes his spirit, imitates his example, and lives to do the ministries of the church, with those ministries ranging work of his master. Consequently, the Pharisees in John from leading Bible study to frothing milk at the narthex 9:28 declare that they are “Moses’ disciples”—arguably coffee bar. Discipleship just never seems to envelop one’s believing his doctrine, imbibing his spirit of obedience, imdistinctly non-churchly vocation(s) because of a comitating his example, and living to do his work. partmentalization factor: that’s the world out there and The transition from Judaism to Christianity, however, it’s full of nothing but worldliness. There just does not brings with it two additional sine qua non dynamics that seem to be a theological way of understanding how a eclipse Old Testament religion in whatever form it may Christian’s secular means of employment and assorted voappear: resting on the vicarious sacrifice of the Master to cations in a non-Christian country, amidst a post-Christpropitiate and expiate sins; and, secondly, being united to ian culture, can in fact be a God-pleasing, God-ordained the Master—that is, the actual creation of the disciple stations for the expression of biblical discipleship; at least, through holy baptism. Consequently, what is different not without getting Christian Legal Services or Focus on about being numbered among the disciples of Jesus of the Family involved. Perhaps it is for these reasons that Nazareth is the birth of the disciple through the sacrament there is a persistent effort to baptize otherwise legitimate of holy baptism and the Master himself being the subject vocations, as God-blessed venues for the expression of disof such learning, as well as the redeeming object of discicipleship, with “Christian” adjectives that fill The Sheppleship. No longer is the disciple the scholar of an Old Tesherd’s Guide: The Christians’ Choice of Yellow Pages. As if that tament facilitator of YAHWEH’s word. In the New Covenant, the Messiah himself is the source and object of is where the Good Shepherd leads us in discipleship: to

In the New Covenant, the Messiah himself is the source

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divine wisdom: he is the Word of God. The disciple learns of him, from him, through him, and for him. Recovered discipleship within the local church means getting this order right: the disciple is made by being baptized and trusting in the Christ of the cross; and then by way of catechesis, learning to believe the teachings of Christ, imbibing his spirit, imitating his example, and living to do the work of the Master.

The catechetical imitation of Christ therefore begins with being made a learner, a disciple, by way of liturgical initiation—baptized “into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19)—and continues with its necessary catechetical counterpart: “teaching them to observe” all that Jesus commanded the apostles (Matt. 28:20). Baptism, it turns out, has been engineered by God to provide the framework for assimilation and orientation into the household of faith and the exercise of the faith; for our new baptismal identity provides the basis for developing a biblical mindset or worldview and the expression of discipleship that flows from it.

Looking to Luther’s Small Catechism, an answer begins to emerge to the question of how Protestantism might recover discipleship in the local church in connection with the idea of vocation. In 1529, Luther consciously designed the Small Catechism in its chief parts (the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the sacraments of Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion) to accommodate the essential need for disciples—i.e., the baptized—to learn the basic biblical message through its fundamental components of Scripture and to incorporate it into their daily living.

Luther did not purpose the catechetical process to primarily make possible a subjective internal experience for the Christian neophyte, though to be sure that has its place. Neither was it principally compiled as a methodology for performance-based Christian living. Rather, it was intended first and foremost to ground the disciple’s faith in the objective content of sacred doctrine. Thereby, reasoned the Wittenberg Reformer, catechesis in the catechism’s contents integrates theology and life. “It fastens people’s attention on the basics of both,” writes Charles Arand, “so that they are not distracted by peripheral concerns. Thus by getting back to basics, as it were, the church has the opportunity to rediscover and recover something of the original purpose of the catechism”;1 namely, discipling the baptized that they may own their identity in Christ and give expression of their discipleship toward the brethren in the church and through their various callings to serve their neighbor in the world. In Luther’s mind, that was only possible if discipleship consisted of learning the theology of the cross; for only the theology of the cross could be authentic Christian catechesis and therefore the only biblical theology for the disciple to live by. The cross of Jesus Christ is the holy gospel and it is the gospel that saves and sanctifies or, put differently, creates the disciple and issues forth in discipleship. As Herman Preus expressed it, the

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life of the disciple is born under the cross and can only be lived under the cross.2 Baptism is an identity-making event. Having been baptized into Christ’s death (Rom. 6:3) and “buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too [through baptism] might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4 ESV). The disciple is numbered among the forgiven and receives the Holy Spirit who starts them on the warpath against the flesh the rest of their tensionfilled life. This is what it means to live simil iustus et peccator; that is, as one daily being raised through the waters of baptism for our justification (Rom. 4:25) and at the same time needing the drowning of the old man with its works of sin (Rom. 6:6; Col. 3:9). The disciple’s Christian life among the brethren and through their vocation is going to be one of persistent failure, of constant sin and transgression. If the Christian’s status or standing before God and the world is the result of the expression of his failed discipleship, then the disciple has been enslaved by sin and duty-guilt. Luther will have none of this devilish defeatism when it comes to who we are as disciples of Jesus the Son. The design and purpose of catechesis—indeed, of the Small Catechism itself—is intended to counteract this deceptive, counterfactual state of affairs. The catechism or the Scripture-content learning of the disciple ultimately throws itself back upon the objectivity of God’s identity-making, saving work, and promise through his gospel Word and sacraments.

It works the other way around, too. For Luther, there is a use of the law for the baptized that is altogether instructive and flows from one having been justified freely

by God’s grace. It says, “You are in the church by way of having been made a disciple by the power of God’s word and sacrament and since this is the case, the expression of your discipleship may be seen as part and parcel of being Christian.” Honoring your father and mother or St. John’s emphasis on loving one another is the recognition that you are a disciple, made one by baptism, continuing as one through the learned expression of discipleship, loving your brethren, and being an upper room servant through a motley of vocations. The catechetical imitation of the Christ who serves is thus built upon the foundation of baptism in which God brings the justifying benefits of Christ.

Drawing off of the words of 1 Peter 3:21, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Luther said that those with a clear conscience are most free. It turns out then that it is the understanding of one’s identity in Christ through baptism that undergirds the twofold theses within Luther’s treatise, The Freedom of a Christian: “A Christian is perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all” (LW, 31:344). In other words, the disciple is free from sin, judgment, guilt, and the condemnation of M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 33

present discussion, we might say that we learn of Christ as disciple-citizens in the spirito being a disciple and a life of discipleship and, thereby, tual realm of the church, but express our discipleship as is able to live without despair or delusion and even go servants to our neighbor in the earthly realm of governto bed in peace and joy. ment through our respective and numerous vocations. the law. There is no “you have to” in order to be justified.

Most vocations are learned, inherited, entered or earned Christ has fulfilled all the law and brings grace that is reoutside of the auspices of the church. Consequently, being ceived through faith alone, and at the same time the disa disciple does not include learning from Christ the skill of ciple is bound to a life of servant-discipleship through carpentry. The Messiah did not come to have us imitate various vocations through the law of the Spirit (Rom. 8:1– his trade, much less hone skills on butchery, baking, and 4). For the liberated-yet-enslaved disciple, there is no candlestick making. Such things pertain to vocation and neonomianism or antinomianism because there is only God’s left-hand governing and have no place in the catethe law of the Spirit. The life of the disciple’s faith is thus chism.4 It is in the right-hand kingdom, the kingdom of shaped around the gospel, not Christian service or vocathe church that we learn of Christ what may be the will tional expression, though to be sure the manifestation of and ways of God for man. Thus, the doctrine of the two discipleship to the world takes place in and through the kingdoms or governments of God precludes the prevailing power of forgiveness that breeds love for the brethren and evangelical idea of the “ministry of everything.” One does service to neighbor (2 Cor. 5:18–19). Anything otherwise not have a lawn-mowing ministry or a ministry of chirowould make the gospel law and the law gospel. practic adjustment. There is only one ministry of Word Having ascertained from Matthew 28 what a disciple is and sacrament, which is the stuff of disciple-making and (viz., catechumens undergoing catechesis to live out the content of the disciple’s learning. It is principally this that catechism), we then see that this learning sends the seaLuther wants the catechumen to believe, teach, and consoned and illuminated disciple out into the world to be fess. It seems that, when it comes to vocation, leaving salt and light, to exercise discipleship in love for the techniques behind for good old-fashioned catechesis brethren (“By this all people will know that you are my promises to do more to further the life of discipleship. disciples, if you have love for one another” [John 13:35]), In the disciple’s vocations, principles of discipleship are through one’s vocation (“Love your neighbor as yourself” expressed amid the struggle of their simil iustus et peccator [Matt. 22:39; Gal. 5:14]), as well as the Ten Commandexistence. In Luther’s theology of the cross, there are but ments (the law of love spelled out in specific terms), two principal reasons for discipleship: knowing and loving which Luther set as the first chief part of the Small CateGod in Christ crucified and training the et peccator dynamic chism. of the disciple’s existence for servanthood in worship and Manifesting the Christian life by having love for one anvocation. And it is that et peccator nature that Luther says other has both ecclesiastic and missional components. Corwe ought to treat roughly with the gospel, because it is the gospel that slays it. porate confession and holy absolution, the Pax Domini and, It is precisely here that the rubber of catechetical learnof course, Holy Communion, liturgically facilitate the exing meets the road of Christian discipleship in vocation. pression of discipleship and bear witness that Christ is King My wife and I, for example, are in constant recognition in the midst of a gracious and peaceful kingdom. Christ of our failure to meet the ideal of “godly parents.” But discatechizes the baptized in the midst of the church, because cipleship manifests itself in our respective vocations as fathe learning of Christ takes place where Christ’s real voice ther and mother through the power of forgiveness and (the Word) and real presence (the sacraments) may be returning to the touchstone of being justified by God’s found: hence the catechism instructs in the gospel of God grace alone, by faith alone, on account of Jesus Christ (the Apostles’ Creed), the devotion life of the disciple (the alone.

Lord’s Prayer), and a multipronged exposition of the sacraCertain forms of discipleship break down at the point ments. But vocation, too, has a missional enterprise, yet it when we prove ourselves moment-to-moment failures at is not, in Luther’s thinking, ecclesial because on the whole our respective vocations. We try to imitate Christ through vocation pertains to God’s left-hand kingdom. our vocations, and when we failed we found that our forLuther was fond of articulating God’s governance mer evangelical wisdom threw at us more techniques for through a theology of “two kingdoms” though which God swimming in quicksand. Luther, however, would have rules both the spiritual and the earthly realm, though in the disciple to know their identity and adopt a liturgical different ways. “In the spiritual realm of God’s right-hand rhythm to their Christian life. In fact, he built in these kingdom, God works through the word and sacraments. liturgical elements into the Small Catechism’s instrucIn the earthly realm of His left-hand kingdom, God rules tional and devotional parts. through the means of vocation.”3 In the context of the

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Take for instance the Small Catechism’s section on “Daily Prayers” that “the head of the family should teach his household to pray morning and evening.” The day starts with a remembrance of baptism: “In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” The catechumen knows that they have been adopted into the family of God and then enters into the drama of redemption by repeating the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, followed by this wonderful prayer intended to launch the disciple into their vocational service: I thank you my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all my doings and life may please you. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me.

Amen.

Then, when the battle-weary disciple readies for sleep after having sinned against God in thought, word, and deed in their vocations, one’s baptismal identity is renewed and the drama of redemption reaffirmed.

In the evening when you go to bed, make the sign of the holy cross and say: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Then kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. If you choose, you may also say this little prayer: “I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have graciously kept me this day; and I pray that You would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.”

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and young, able and disable, employed and unemployed, single or married, parent or not. The objectivity of our sacramental identity in Christ allows disciples to love with the reality of simil iustus et peccator, to live with our sinful failures and still go to bed in good cheer. Discipleship, then, goes back to the touchstone of baptism at each and every occasion. It is the justifying identity of the disciple— not his or her vocation.

If there is hope to recover in the local church discipleship as the learning of Christ and then living it in love to the brethren and through the disciple’s vocations, then we must recover a catechetical imitation of Christ, replete with a sacramental identification with Christ and a liturgical rhythm for Christian living and the dying to self, especially when we fail at virtually every step along the way. ■

Rev. John J. Bombaro (Ph.D., King’s College, University of London) is the parish minister at Grace Lutheran Church in San Diego, California and a lecturer in theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego.

Works cited 1Charles P. Arand, That I May Be His Own: An Overview of Luther’s Catechisms (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2000), 16–17.

2Herman A. Preus, A Theology to Live By: The Practical Luther for the Practical Christian (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 149.

3Gene Edward Veith, Jr., The Spirituality of the Cross (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 73.

4Gustaf Wingen, Luther on Vocation, trans. Carl C. Rasmussen (Evansville, IN: Ballast Press, 1999), c.3.

The best line Luther saves for last. “Then go to sleep at once and in good cheer” (Und alsdann flugs und fröhlich geschlafen). How is that possible after having made a mess of one’s vocation? Simply because the disciple, being simil iustus et peccator, is invited and urged by Christ to go to the touchstone of their baptism at each and every occasion.

The catechumen knows that there is a liturgical rhythm to being a disciple and a life of discipleship and, thereby, is able to live without despair or delusion and even go to bed in peace and joy.

Our vocations, then, are opportunities for us to do the theology of the cross to our brethren and neighbors and experience it for ourselves as forgiven sinners. For the baptized, we do what we are. Our identity, be it in the right- or left-hand kingdom, goes back to something more objective—holy baptism. This obtains for all people—old M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 35

INTERVIEW f o r

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An Interview with Craig Carter

Christ and Culture in Post-Christendom Craig A. Carter is professor of religious studies at Tyndale University College in Toronto, Canada, and the author of Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective (Brazos Press, 2007).

First of all, both you and D. A. Carson attempt to reexamine this idea of Christ and culture, which is the title of a book by H. Richard Niebuhr published nearly fifty years ago at Yale University, creating the typology for “Christ and culture.” Can you tell us a little bit about who he was and why his book was significant, and why you are still talking about it?

H. R. Niebuhr was an important theologian at mid-century. He was a liberal Protestant and a brother of Reinhold Niebuhr, but he had a reputation for being more conservative in some ways than his brother. I think what his book did at mid-century was to reinforce the idea of the liberal Protestant hegemony in North America. It was the church of the ruling classes and was growing in the post-war period when mainline denominations were expanding.

Niebuhr provided a way for them to understand how they could be the church of the culture, and how that could be conceived in a more or less orthodox way, while of course respecting the formalities of the separation of church and state in the United States.

In his book, it seems he actually pushes the Christ-transforming culture model, rather than the Christ of culture model. Do you see it differently?

The Christ-transforming culture

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model is definitely his favorite model, but it’s very vague as he has fewer specific examples. In his Christ against culture model, he starts out specific and clear, and he has all kinds of heavyweight theological criticisms of that type with many examples and specifics. Toward the end, where he deals with transforming culture as his last type, he gets very vague and the criticisms are almost nonexistent. Although he claims that this is the view of Augustine and Calvin, his concrete modern example is F. D. Maurice, a British socialist. It’s clearly his point of view, but it’s kind of a moderate left-wing liberal progressive point of view that he ends up promoting.

Many evangelicals in the past and especially younger evangelicals today appeal to that book and say, “The model of Christ transforming culture that Niebuhr is defending is what I want to do. I think that’s the biblical model.” Do you agree that there are many who assume this?

You’re right of course and as to why you’re right, you have to understand the history. In 1951, liberal Protestantism was dominant and Roman Catholicism was the church of immigrants—the church of people who weren’t completely Americanized; it was a bit foreign and under the control of a foreign power—so it was an outsider church. And neo-evangeli-

calism was just emerging out of fundamentalism—the National Association of Evangelicals, Christianity Today, and Fuller Seminary were all founded within a five-year period of 1951, when the book was published.

The evangelicals wanted in and the Catholics wanted in; and that’s why everybody liked the book, because everybody wanted to have the Christ-transforming culture perspective, everybody wanted to be exerting cultural influence. Between 1951 and 1980, evangelicals achieved a high degree of cultural influence and became involved with the mainstream; they came out of their fundamentalist isolation. So in that sense, the book sort of provided a justification for what they already wanted to do.

In his book, Niebuhr is pretty critical of the Christ of culture view, which he identifies with liberalism.

Are you saying that the Christtransforming culture model is virtually indistinguishable from the Christ of culture model?

I think Don Carson makes a good point when he says that the Christ of culture model—the examples Niebuhr gives of cultural Protestantism of the nineteenth century and the Gnosticism of the first couple of centuries—is non-Christian.

You couldn’t even call this the left wing of Christianity; it’s beyond the pale completely. But the interesting thing about the Christ-transforming culture model is that it’s vague enough that everybody can read into it what he or she thinks should

be there. And I think that’s what really happens. I think people selfidentify with Christ-transforming culture because it seems to be moderate between the “against” and the “of,” and because it seems to be positive in sense of progression. But I think you find conservative evangelicals reading themselves into it, and you see left-wingers reading themselves into it. Everybody reads themselves into it, and it’s really designed in that way. I think that that’s part of the secret of the book’s success: the fact that everybody wanted in on transforming culture and exerting an influence on culture about the time he wrote it; and secondly, the fact that he left it vague enough so that nothing he said in that last model rules very many people out.

You mentioned earlier that Niebuhr singles out Augustine and Calvin in support of Christ-transforming culture, which is odd given their explicit distinctions between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world. How would you distinguish Augustine and Calvin from Niebuhr’s Christtransforming culture?

Since I wrote that book three years ago, I have been reading Augustine fairly seriously, and I have observed that everybody sees precedent for his or her view in Augustine. So you have the conservative Augustine, you have the socialist Augustine, the liberal Augustine—it doesn’t seem to matter what point of view someone has; they read that into him. He’s foundational to the rest of the development of the history of Western thought, and I find that kind of amusing. I’ve been on a bit of a search for the historical Augustine here, and I have a feeling that Augustine does not fit hand in glove very well with Niebuhr’s liberal views at all. My tentative conclusions so far are that he does not.

In one of your chapters, you write that Christendom was a bad idea.

Why? I believe that Augustine invents the

idea of the secular for the first time.

Previous to that, cultures, including the Roman Empire, had joined together political and religious authority in one figure: the emperor, who was also the high priest. The Roman Emperor was the Pontifex Maximus high priest of Rome.

Now, with Augustine, after his initial enthusiasm for the Theodosian revolution in which the Arians were finally routed and Emperor Theodosius, who began to reign in 379, called the Council of Constantinople in 381 and solidified Nicene orthodoxy as the faith of the empire.

Augustine converted in 386 and in his early years he was perhaps thinking that the Kingdom of God was on the verge of coming, that the conversion of the emperor and of the empire was the prelude to the conversion of the entire world.

But after 410, as he reflects on the sack of Rome and as he begins to write the City of God, which he writes over the next twenty years, he develops an understanding of the state as part of the secular. Now, the secular is not the profane—the profane is that which must be renounced in order to become a Christian—and it’s not the sacred. We shouldn’t see the state as sacred nor should we see it as profane; we should see it as secular. That means that Christians should be members of the state and they’re also going to be members of the City of God, the church. They’re going to be living in an eschatological tension. Between the first and second coming of Christ, this tension will always be here; this push and pull between the city of man battling and the City of God; and on earth, the state and church. The Christian is always living in this tension.

Christendom is the relaxation of that tension in one way, and I believe that the modern state is the relaxation of that tension in another way.

Let me explain. In the medieval period, in several points in that time throughout the period of Christendom—such as the crowning in 800 of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor by the pope—the church

sought to take over the state and absorb the state into itself, so that instead of a state-church tension, the tension is relaxed because the church takes over everything. This makes the church the ruler of the secular realm, and it makes the church responsible for using violence to impose the gospel.

Now, I think the word “Christendom” is a little problematic. I think the proper term for what happens when the church takes over the state is really “Constantinianism,” which is a heresy named for a person, and it’s a heresy whereby the future Kingdom of God is sort of grasped with human hands and brought back into the present, as if we were already living in the kingdom, as if the second coming had already occurred. Well, that Constantinianism is a flaw that happened many times during Christendom, but I would now want to be a little more careful and nuanced and not criticize Christendom as such. Christendom as such occurs anytime the majority of people in a given culture become Christians. But that doesn’t mean that the Constantinian heresy is going to take over; that doesn’t mean necessarily that the church is going to absorb the state and become violent, but in Christendom that can happen. So, really, I would say the heresy there would be called Constantinianism.

But in the modern period, the opposite occurs. The church is privatized and pushed to the margins, and the state takes over the role that the church had played; and the state in many ways takes the place of God and provides security and equality to the people, and the people trade their freedom for that security and equality. In discussing that in my course, I teach The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky in which we find the Grand Inquisitor who illuminates extremely well that move of the modern state. Christendom isn’t a bad idea, but Constantinianism is a bad idea, and Constantinianism happens in Christendom.

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In the Reformation, the magisterial Reformers repudiated Anabaptism comthink about not just what will be accepted by the majorpletely. They also repudiated monasticism. So in Roman ity culture, but rather what is faithful to Jesus Christ.

Catholicism, you have room for both a pacifist witness and a just war witness. The So, in Constantinianism all nonHoward Yoder, who is probably orders and the clergy are all pacifist; Christian voices or heretical voices having a much more significant the faithful, however, may particiare pushed not just properly from impact today on younger evangelipate in war under the just war theothe mainstream of the church, but cal thinkers and pastors such as ry under strict conditions. And so, also are no longer allowed in the Brian McLaren, Stanley Hauerwas, the just war theory functions as a public square in civic life; whereas and a whole host of folks than he witness to the fallenness of this in secularism, the voices of particuhad in his own day. Could you, first world. Pacifism functions as a witlar people who have religious conof all, tell us a little bit about John ness to the eschatological future victions are now declared heretical.

Howard Yoder and where he kingdom of peace. But Protestantism Right, and the secular, which was stands in this trajectory of what basically did not make any room for invented by Augustine and which is you’re talking about and how he’s a pacifist witness. The Anabaptists a function of his eschatology— used or misused today? were basically repudiated; and the which I believe is a biblical eschatolJohn Howard Yoder is a very influthirty-nine articles, for example, exogy—the secular is not the same as ential theologian, and his legacy is plicitly addressed the Anabaptists secularism. Secularism is an ideology very much contested. I was troubled and condemned them. that seeks to push religion out of the when I heard that Brian McLaren The other way to read Yoder is to public square altogether. And so secwas featuring John Howard Yoder’s read him as saying that all Christians ularism or even secularization is a The Politics of Jesus on his booth at his who are true Christians should folmodern invention; I believe the “Everything Must Change” tour, below Jesus and be pacifists. Well, the term only goes back to the ninecause there is a strong tendency problem receiving that from a teenth century. Secularism is the now to see Yoder as basically teachProtestant perspective is that Protesmodern problem we deal with. ing a liberal progressivist kind of aptants tend to take this second readOne of the disappointing things proach. Yoder was brought up in a ing, rather than simply accepting the about the reaction to my book is conservative Mennonite denominaAnabaptist witness as a necessary that a number of people read my tion; he read and spoke about eight part of an overall Christian witness. book and concluded that all we have languages and was extremely bright.

They immediately apply pacifism to to do is make sure that we don’t try In the aftermath of World War II , he the state and say, “Well, if Yoder’s to impose our Christian beliefs on went to Europe as a relief worker for right, then we shouldn’t have invadanybody; we should just sort of back the Mennonite Central Committee ed Iraq.” I would contend that Yoder away from doing that, and we and founded orphanages in France. does not think that pacifism should should repudiate the religious right While in Europe, he did his Ph.D. at be applied that simply to the state; I and repudiate anything that has to Basel, where he studied under Karl would argue that Yoder believes in do with conservatism. We should Barth, Oscar Kuhlman, and many separation of church and state, the join in the liberal progressive moveothers. He wrote a book that was distinction of church and state: the ment forward and thereby avoid published in 1971 called The Politics church has a witness, the state has a Christendom or Constantinianism, of Jesus, and he wrote it under aswitness. But when Protestants reand everything is wonderful. That signment as a case for a Mennonite ceive Yoder, it’s very easy to move to reaction has pushed me to think pacifist position. Published by Eerda liberal pacifism and believe that by more broadly—we know what is mans, it has sold over a hundred implementing a liberal pacifism that wrong with the church taking over thousand copies, has been translated includes the state they are following society, but that’s not really the into eleven languages, and it has Yoder. This, I think, is something problem today. The problem today is been very influential. that’s controversial. the state taking over religion; and in Now, there are two ways to read my follow-up book, I hope to be a The Politics of Jesus; and I’m currently That’s really helpful in understandbit more balanced in talking about struggling with trying to work ing the different ways of reading Yothese two ways so that you can relax through the issue of how Yoder der, because it seems that especially that eschatological tension. should be received and appropriatin the case of Brian McLaren and the ed, because you can see it as an Emergent movement, it sounds a lot You have written a book on John apology for an Anabaptist position. more like the Christ of culture in the

I think that the church has to be courageous and has to

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guise of Christ-transforming culture than it does the Christ against culture of Anabaptism.

Yes, the weakness of evangelicalism as a whole and the Emergent church is, of course, a low ecclesiology, a very vague ecclesiology. And, of course, when someone like McLaren decides that Yoder is convincing, he wants to apply it to America, because in a sense America is his church. And so, ironically, even though he sees himself as a radical and so on, I think you’re right that if America is your church, you are already accommodated to the culture to a very great extent and it doesn’t really matter whether you’re Jerry Falwell or Jim Wallace.

So he’s a radical in the same sense that H. Richard Niebuhr and Reinhold Niebuhr were radicals; in other words, perfectly American liberal progressives.

Right, and I’m interested in interpreting Yoder in a way that makes being a good American problematic in that sense.

What’s the alternative to Christendom then?

My book can be a post-Christendom perspective in two ways: it can mean that we’re living after Christendom and so we’re rethinking what it means to engage our culture in a post-Christian society; but it could also be read as post-Christendom, as anti-Christendom. I think if we read it in the first sense, as being in a post-Christian society, I think we read it quite differently.

My Christianity and Culture course begins with the problem of modernity. The problem of modernity is that modern people believe that we are improving the world; we’re being progressive; we’re pursuing equality and freedom through science, technology, and political liberalism. We have brought history to its highest point. But I look around the Western world today and I see a precipitous decline in Christianity, and I see the rise of a culture of death.

Well, it’s hard to put all that togeth-

er. It’s hard to see the West as progressive, and so I think that the Western world is in fact not progressing, but regressing; I think that we’re in decline morally and spiritually and that economic and political and military decline will follow moral and spiritual decline.

So what does it mean to be a Christian in this culture? I think the first thing it means is before we have any grandiose delusions of reforming the culture or making the culture good, we have to first of all worry about making sure that we are not being evangelized by the culture, making sure that we’re not being transformed by the culture; and the first step in that is to begin to think with a critical distance between the church and the culture. It seems odd to me in many ways— having grown up in a fundamentalist Baptist church and in sort of an anti-Catholic ethos—that the Roman Catholic Church is doing a better job of resisting the identification with culture than Protestants are.

Do you think that especially, ironically but especially, when you hear a group, a leader, or a movement in Christian circles say that its great goal is to transform the culture, does your bell go off at that point and tilt toward the assumption that this probably is going to be more the case, that it is taking the culture on board more than it is actually transforming the culture?

One can’t over-generalize about that. I believe that in the early centuries of the church, between the Book of Acts and, say, the year 300, that the early church fathers to a very great extent did transform the culture in which they lived. I believe they Christianized Platonism and used it to take concepts and hammer them into different shapes and to make them work. I think they created a whole new literature, a whole new system of education, and a whole new worldview and way of thinking. So I think that the church can transform the culture. That is possible.

Do you think the difference is that they didn’t set out to transform the culture, but that they set out to defend the Christian faith and pursue their common callings and that the culture ended up being transformed, whereas when we set out to transform culture, it tends to happen in the other direction?

I do make that point in the book. I think you see that over and over again in history. It’s a great irony of history. I would even go so far as to say that what the fathers were doing was trying to create Christian culture. The fact is that two things happened simultaneously: they created a Christian culture, and the old pagan culture in the West crumbled; and that created a vacuum so that the Christian culture that was created became dominant. Now, I don’t see modernity crumbling in the same way anytime soon. That means that if we do the same thing they did, we may create a Christian culture that is based in the church and that doesn’t surrender a square inch of creation, but which seeks to think about all of life from a Christian perspective. The problem is we’re going to have quite a clash, I believe.

And our own homes and our own churches have to become Christian before we can become salt and light in the world?

I think the more we try to be salt and light, seeking a place at the table and all that, we have to be careful because that can lead to compromise. We can make our aspiration fit whatever we think is possible to have accepted by the majority culture. So in that sense I think that the church has to be courageous and has to think about not just what will be accepted by the majority culture, but rather what is faithful to Jesus Christ and what is honoring to God, and in that sense, we have to be prepared to be a minority.

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REQUIRED READING FOR 21ST CENTURY CHRISTIANS mo de r n r e fo r matio n must-reads

Readings on Christlikeness Love Walked Among Us

The Discipline of Grace

NavPress, 2001

by Paul E. Miller Jesus’ sacrificial love was the embodiment of his mission to reclaim and reconcile sinners with God, whom he also calls to follow his own example of love. The author helps us to know, understand, and imitate Jesus’ actions in the Gospel narratives.

NavPress, 2006

by Jerry Bridges What role does the grace of God play in our pursuit of holiness? Bridges revisits his groundbreaking book, The Pursuit of Holiness, and reminds us that the same grace that brought us to Christ keeps us in Christ and matures us as believers.

True Spirituality

Grace Upon Grace: Spirituality for Today

Tyndale, 1972

by Francis Schaeffer Schaeffer wrote this book in light of a need to be honest about his own lack of spiritual progress. Along the way, he learns again what it is to live the Christian life in the face of our culture’s idols and personal sins.

SEE ALSO: Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism by George Marsden (Eerdmans) Lutheran Spirituality Series (8 vols.) by various authors (Concordia)

Concordia, 2008

by John Kleinig Spirituality is so often conceived as something that we do, but in Kleinig’s words, it’s something that we “receive.”

Having received the grace of God in Christ, the spiritual disciplines take on a different meaning as avenues through which the fruit of grace received can be expressed.

God at Work

by Gene E. Veith (Crossway)

Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

by Donald S. Whitney (NavPress)

Grace in Practice

by Paul Zahl (Eerdmans)

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REVIEWS w h a t ’ s

b e i n g

r e a d

You Are What You Worship

T

his is a terrific book and is well summarized by its title. The intersecting con-

Israel’s persistent sin across many generations. As God’s chosen nacepts of idolatry and worship are examined in this large scale biblical theo- tion, the prophets wrestle with the irony of Israel’s apparent dislogical study. Beale’s core claim, “What we revere, we will resemble either loyalty to the God who is so faithful to them. The language of the for our ruin or for our blinding of the eyes and the deafening of the ears is applied restoration,” aptly capto Israel both corporately and individually. Beale traces this tures the central biblical language of sensory malfunctioning to the covenantal ininsight about idolatry. dictment on idolatry. As Israel has worshipped idols, so they As creatures of the Livhave become like the idols, having eyes but not seeing and ing God, we are made to having ears but not hearing. The contrast is made all the more worship our Creator, sharp by comparing the Living God with the lifeless idols fashand in a tragic reversal, ioned from wood and stone. By following the idols, Israel we turn instead to worhas become spiritually lifeless in reflecting the very idols they ship the “dead” idols have made with their own hands. that we have created Part of the Divine judgment on idolatry was to put Israel with our own hands. into exile. The Promised Land was the place of God’s unique The question is not redemptive presence. As such, the judgment announced in whether we will worthe prophets was a recapitulation of the original exile in Genship but rather what we esis 3 when Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden of will worship. Beale’s God’s sustaining presence. Drawing upon abundant evidence earlier work, The Temple from the Ancient Near East, Beale argues (as he did in the and the Church’s Mission: earlier volume) that images were set up in sacred temples as A Biblical Theology of the representatives of divine rule over the region. So Adam and Dwelling Place of God (Inlater Israel were to reflect God’s character over their respective We Become What We terVarsity Press, 2004), Worship: A Biblical provided much of the Theology of Idolatry Modern Reformation invites you to submit biblical framework of

by G. K. Beale a book review for publication in the worship underlying this InterVarsity Press, 2008 Reviews section of an upcoming issue this latter project on idolatry.

341 pages (paperback), $26.00 year. We would like to give you the opporThough each book stands on its own, the volumes can be read with greater bentunity to critique, evaluate, and consider efit in tandem with each other. books both good and bad from your In this volume on idolatry, Beale traces in meticulous deReformational perspective. Thoughtful tail the biblical accounts of idolatry right through the entire Christians will examine the most important canon. He provides a slow and careful exegesis of the mabooks of the day, and we want to jor passages dealing with idolatry. Following him will require encourage interaction with books that much effort on the part of the reader, but is worth every bit of effort given. It is by painstaking efforts of this sort that the inspire and instruct, or maybe frustrate and theological unity of the Scriptures can be sustained and our concern. Submit your review of own theological impositions avoided. Beale’s labors give am1,000 words or less in an email to ple testimony that it is not fundamentally we who interpret reviews@modernreformation.org.

Scripture but Scripture that interprets us.

Please reference the guidelines Beale starts with the foundational text of Isaiah 6 and then and suggestions available at proceeds backward through Exodus 32 (the golden calf episode at Mt. Sinai) all the way to Genesis 1–3. The probwww.modernreformation.org/submissions. lem of the prophetic materials, as evidenced by Isaiah 6, is

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regions. Israel functioned as a kind of corporate Adam, and its disobedience was reflected in the idols it worshipped and in the fact that it reflected the idols it worshipped. The archetypal episode of idolatry in the Old Testament is found in Exodus 32 where Moses described Israel as stiff-necked and hardhearted, just like the golden calf they had created. This paradigm of idolatry then “echoes” across the rest of the Scriptures as the most apt way to describe unbelief.

The New Testament picks up this recurring theme of idolatry though often more implicitly than the Old Testament books. Beale makes the exegetical argument that the striking reality presented in the Gospels and then more fully explained in the Epistles is that God sovereignly reverses that which had early been reversed by sin, viz., turning idol worshippers into renewed image bearers. This process is enacted by the Holy Spirit and mediated through the true image of the Living God, Jesus Christ. What idolatry had corrupted is now restored by Divine grace. We were originally created to worship the Living God, and then in sin we worshipped the dead idols, and finally in Jesus Christ we are recreated into God’s image. This is the tale written across the meganarrative of Scripture and in which the gospel gains traction in our lives.

Beale’s work will prove an invaluable resource for pastors committed to expository preaching as they wrestle with the large number of scriptural passages that relate to idolatry, not merely in Old Testament prophetic materials but also scattered throughout the entire New Testament. It will also be beneficial for Christians of every vocation as they think more clearly about the conceptual patterns of idolatry that echo across the breadth of Scriptures into our own contemporary experiences. Beale has done the church an enormous service in bringing to life the significance of this theme for our present considerations. He has also drawn us closer to the lifegiving Scriptures, which warn us against the ever-encroaching temptations of the idols.

Richard Lints is the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation: Volume 1, 1523–1552 edited by James T. Dennison Reformation Heritage Books, 2008 800 pages (hardback), $38.00 Is there an objective definition of the adjective “Reformed”?

Judging by current popular usage, there appear to be as many definitions as definers. What must one believe to be “Re4 2 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

formed”? Is the doctrine of predestination all there is? Arguably, the answer to these questions should be sought in some objective, ecclesiastical, public, authoritative summary of the theology, piety, and practice of the Reformed faith. Fortunately for us, there are such documents. They are the confessions and catechisms of the Reformed (including Presbyterian) churches of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A few of them—such as the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dort, and the Westminster Standards—are well known, but there were many other confessional documents written (and adopted) from the early sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century. Indeed, from 1523 to 1675 the Reformed churches produced a major confessional (or catechetical) document every six years.

Until now many of these documents, which testify to the development of the Reformed faith from infancy to maturity, have been available only in German, Dutch, or Latin collections. With the publication of this important volume and series, English readers will now have access to a rich treasure of ecclesiastical confession and instruction in the faith.

This is the first of a projected three-volume series that should become the finest, most comprehensive collection of Reformed confessions available in English. The first volume contains thirty-three documents from Zwingli’s “Sixty-Seven Articles” (1523) to the Geneva Consensus of 1552. Each entry includes a brief introduction, including helpful references to original source documents. The work is generally well executed, bound solidly, and well presented. The translations seem to be reliable; some are original and others are revisions or republications of existing translations. The documents are generally well selected so that the expected documents from the period are included. The inclusion of the Genevan Consensus (1552) is interesting since, as the editor notes, it was not an ecclesiastical document. There are, however, some delightfully unexpected entries in the first volume (e.g., two witnesses to the Spanish Reformation, a Lasko’s confession, and the Large Emden Catechism) and one unhappy entry projected for volume three. The latter is addressed below. The reader may be a little surprised to see five distinct Waldensian documents included in the collection. As the editor indicates, the relations between the Waldensian movement and the Reformed Reformation are disputed and thus it is hard to know whether these documents belong in such a volume.

Any collection of confessions undoubtedly involves a certain measure of editorial subjectivity. It is the nature of such a project that some documents will be included and others excluded. To be sure, a collection of confessions and catechisms witnesses not only to the unity of the Reformed faith, but also its diversity within boundaries. Nevertheless, in view of the

unity of the Reformed churches on the question of infant baptism, from the beginning of the Reformed Reformation until today, the boundaries for that doctrine among the Reformed churches would seem to be settled firmly. Thus, it would seem difficult indeed to justify the announced intention to include in the final volume the 1689 Baptist catechism by James Keach. The seventeenth-century Baptist movement unequivocally rejected a cardinal Reformed doctrine: infant baptism. Certainly Keach’s Catechism (like the Waldensian documents) should be published and studied, but the question is whether it should be published under the cover of a collection of Reformed confessions? It strikes this reader as more than odd to include in a series of Reformed confessions, which overwhelmingly confess and stoutly insist upon the doctrine and practice of infant baptism, a catechism that denies the same. To include a Baptist confession would seem to imply that the Reformed theology, piety, and practice of the sacrament of Holy Baptism is somehow not essential to being Reformed. One hopes that the editor will reconsider the inclusion of documents that are fundamentally at odds with the confessional consensus on essential points, so as to avoid the impression of sanctioning a “lowest common denominator” approach to defining the adjective “Reformed.”

Despite this one concern, this varied collection is an invaluable witness to the development of the Reformed faith in the classical period. If we are to recover the Reformed confession in our time, every Reformed pastor, teacher, and seminary student should own and study this collection.

R. Scott Clark is professor of church history and historical theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido).

Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis

by Michael Ward Oxford University Press, 2008 347 pages (hardback), $24.00 The Chronicles of Narnia have been a puzzle to C. S. Lewis scholars for decades. Most of them admit that the books are excellent children’s stories, full of rich fantasy, memorable characters, and vivid settings. But there is a lingering concern behind the praise: What is the organizing framework? While the reader may find the golden Aslan, courageous children, and talking creatures throughout the Narnian corpus, there seems to be no guiding theme, no pervasive arc that holds them all

together. Moreover, how does one account for the seemingly random appearances of characters like Father Christmas, Bacchus, or the Snow Queen into the Narnian landscape? In fact, J. R. R. Tolkien called them a mish-mash of “various mythologies… carelessly and superficially written” (8) and, for this reason, disliked the Chronicles altogether. Yet in spite of the criticism, Lewis’s books continue to delight new generations of readers, both young and old. So what is their secret? Planet Narnia has finally proposed an existentially and intellectually satisfying answer.

In Michael Ward’s brilliant new book, he contends that Lewis arranged The Chronicles of Narnia through the creative matrix of medieval cosmology. Lewis, after all, was a professor of medieval literature. So it should not be surprising that the medieval configuration of the planets—one of his favorite subjects of academic study—would be the “imaginative key” that unlocks the secret to his children’s stories.

According to Ward, each of the seven medieval planets— Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn—correspond to the seven Chronicles of Narnia (in publication order). Every book takes on the traits of a different planet, traits that communicate both the personality and atmospheric influence of that planet. Of course, the skeptic may be asking, “The long-lost imaginative key to Narnia? Is not Michael Ward simply reading medievalism into Lewis’s stories?” But Ward is ready with an answer.

The first two chapters of the book provide the background to Lewis’s thought concerning medieval cosmology. They address Lewis’s reasons for secrecy, citing primarily his preoccupation with “atmosphere”: “Atmosphere is…the full tasting of a work of art on the imaginative palate. If we are properly to enjoy it, we must ‘surrender ourselves with childlike attention to the story’” (18). According to Lewis, enjoyment of atmosphere can be described as “participant, inhabited, and personal” (17). In other words, the mood and feel of the Chronicles becomes apparent only when one is no longer looking for them, when the reader has moved from the realm of observation to participation. A good atmosphere is not meant to be found.

In conjunction with the idea of “atmosphere,” the chapters address Lewis’s love for mythology. In particular he liked the notion that the planets, following the character of their mythological counterparts, exert influence upon the earth.

For example, if a kingdom is preparing for battle, then it is probably under the sway of Mars, which is both the name of the planet and the name of the Roman god of war. Ward writes, “Lewis naturally considered pagan religions to be less true than Christianity; but, regarding them without reference to the question of truth, he felt they possessed the superior beauty” (27). His desire was to take this beauty and redeem it by incorporating it into the Christian worldview. He found his outlet in the Chronicles.

In the next seven chapters, Ward describes how each of the seven Narnian books has a different “atmosphere” under the influence of a different medieval planet. He also examines the places where each planet appears in Lewis’s scholarship, in his poetry, and in his space trilogy. In fact, the furM A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 4 3

ther one reads, the more apparent it becomes that medieval cosmology was not just a Narnian oddity but a driving spiritual symbol in Lewis’s life. Instead of attempting to give each planet a cursory glance, it will be better to examine one planet and one Chronicle in detail. Jupiter is an excellent place to start. It is the pre-eminent planet in Lewis’s thought, appearing both in his earlier works and in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the beloved first book of the series.

Jupiter, or Jove, is a kingly planet. Ward cites several sources that elaborate on this definition. In The Discarded Image, Lewis writes, “The character that [Jupiter] produces in men…[is] expressed by the word ‘jovial’….We may say it is Kingly; but we must think of a king at peace, enthroned, taking his leisure, serene….When this planet dominates we may expect halcyon days and prosperity” (43). This idea of kingly prosperity also appears in That Hideous Strength. In this text, the noble archangel of the planet Jupiter descends upon the earth and “at his coming there was holiday” (52). Yet, the truly Narnian aspects of Jove, as Ward points out, appear in one of Lewis’s early poems called “The Planets”: Of wrath ended And woes mended, of winter passed And guilt forgiven, and good fortune Jove is the master. (54) Major themes from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe emerge here.

Ward discovers Jovial imagery throughout the first book.

When Aslan is “on the move,” one hundred years of the Witch’s winter pass into summer (57). By Aslan’s death Edmund’s guilt is forgiven. When Aslan appears, he arrives as the king of the Beasts, shaking his royal, golden mane, wearing a crown, and holding council under a great pavilion (60). The very name of Aslan stirs courage within the children and “according the poem, Jupiter inspires the ‘lion-hearted’” (63).

Likewise, “Jovial nations are ‘just and gentle.’” (64). Thus, Aslan gives titles to two of the children: King Edmund the Just and Queen Susan the Gentle. Even Father Christmas has his place. The “loud-voiced, red-faced, jolly” symbol of holiday is the perfect figure of joviality. Indeed, the reader is certain that he falls under Jupiter’s sphere with his final words: “Long live the true king!” (66).

Lewis, however, was not merely concerned with clever imagery; Jupiter’s realm carries theological weight as well. Aslan, who is the Christ-type, is the “king of kings” (67). Indeed, as Ward observes, Aslan is a king who “makes the imagination royalist…[because] good kings…are a reflection at the creaturely level of an aspect of the divine nature which naturally attracts respect” (68). He teaches people how to worship God as King. Yet Aslan in his kingliness (after Christ) ultimately finds his honor by submitting to the commandments of the higher king and, in turn, consigns this honor to lower kings who rule over creation in his stead (69). This type of kingliness beautifully demonstrates how humanity is made in the image of God. People are his vice-regents upon the earth. Ward draws more insight from the Jovial influence, 4 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

but there is no need to be exhaustive.

Ward handles each successive planet with the same skill and clarity, extracting both imagery and theology from Lewis’s medieval framework. He concludes the book with three chapters resolving various speculative questions such as: “Why did Lewis write the Chronicles at all?”; “Why is the scheme not more perfect?”; and “Did Lewis believe in Astrology?”

Ward readily admits that his answers to these questions are by no means comprehensive, and there are times when he enters into speculation himself. Yet, overall, he speaks with his characteristic level of precision and humility.

Michael Ward is an excellent writer, and his lifelong study of Lewis is evident throughout this fine book. Although unpretentious, he writes with clarity and with content, and his research is thoroughly academic (with almost sixty pages of endnotes). For all who are interested in the mind of C. S. Lewis or who want to enrich their enjoyment of The Chronicles of Narnia, I highly recommend this book.

Jordan Easley is an M.Div. student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Wheaton College, Illinois.

Politics & the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship

by Eric Gregory University of Chicago Press, 2008 384 pages (hardback), $45.00 This is a significant and learned book. Its basic concern is the theology of Augustine and its implications for citizens seeking to live responsibly in a liberal democratic society. Before I get to Eric Gregory’s argument, a few words of explanation about Augustine and “liberalism” may be helpful.

As most readers of Modern Reformation know, Augustine of Hippo was a great theologian of the church in fourth- and fifth-century North Africa. Many aspects of Augustine’s theology have been widely influential in subsequent Christian theology, including his convictions about the place of Christians in social and political life.

In The City of God, perhaps the greatest work of Christian theology ever written, Augustine spoke of two cities: one consisting of those who love God above all; and the other consisting of those who love created things above all. Though these two cities have different destinies in the age to come, they intermingle in the present world. Augustine proposed that Christians, as citizens of the City of God, must learn to

live in common with the citizens of the city of man here and now, even as they remain distinct from the world in their religious devotion to God and their expectation of the eternal heavenly kingdom.

This is where the question of Augustine’s relevance for liberalism comes into play. Readers should not think of “liberalism” here in the sense of left-wing political or theological views, but in the classic sense of the term. Classical liberalism refers to the kind of society that America represents: a religiously pluralistic and tolerant society typically characterized by the rule of law, democratic election of political leaders, protection of individual human rights, a market economy, and freedom of speech. Many influential social thinkers of the past century have been “Augustinian liberals.” Despite various differences with one another, these thinkers have found Augustine’s theology helpful for defending the existence of a social-political world in which people of different religious faiths live together peacefully. They have also found in Augustine’s ideas a helpful balance between the need for Christians to live responsibly as citizens and the need to have limited expectations about what political action can accomplish in a sinful world that will one day pass away.

Politics & the Order of Love is a delightful engagement with various aspects of Augustinian liberalism. Frankly, it is a book written primarily for scholars who already have some acquaintance with Augustinian theology and modern political theory. Among theological and political ethicists this work may become required reading, but the typical lay reader would probably find it very difficult. A short review such as this cannot do justice to the wide-ranging discussions of Gregory’s book, but I offer a few comments about his argument in order to give readers a general idea about what it accomplishes.

Gregory has two basic goals in this book. First, he seeks to describe the various versions of Augustinian liberalism and the important critiques of it over the past century or so. Gregory leaves few stones unturned, and readers who wish to learn about the history and contours of Augustinian liberalism will find this book a tremendously helpful resource. Second, Gregory develops his own constructive version of an Augustinian liberalism. He does an admirable job in trying to account for the strengths and weaknesses of the various proponents and critics of Augustinian liberalism. The end result is a nuanced and balanced proposal that seeks to engage his interlocutors in a winsome and generous way. To put it (a little too) simply, Gregory interacts with Augustinian liberals who tend toward a pessimistic view of what politics can accomplish in a sinful world, with Augustinian anti-liberals who believe that Christians should look to the church as their community over against civil society, and with anti-Augustinian liberals who think that love is an inappropriate virtue for political life. In response to the concerns of them all, Gregory presents an Augustinian liberalism that upholds the importance of both love and justice in civil society and that affirms both the limits of politics in the face of sin and the beneficial prospects of politics as we seek the good of our neighbor in Christian love.

SHORT NOTICES Quitting Church

by Julia Duin Baker, 2008 192 pages (hardback), $17.99 Citing multiple surveys and interviews, Julia Duin puts a real face on the myriad of people who are vacating America’s pews in Quitting Church. The author narrows her focus considerably by examining exiles from specific kinds of churches, mostly large congregations; ones characterized by powerful and charismatic pastors, but nonetheless where mid-week programs and small group Bible studies bear the burden of most of the church’s ministry. The concern of the book is certainly relevant and timely, given the large representation of these kinds of evangelical “megachurches” across America. Of particular benefit for Reformed, Presbyterian, and Lutheran ministers whose churches do not fall into the typical evangelical mold, this book can be used to identify the types and varieties of people who have deep frustrations about their past relationship with the church, having been deeply hurt in some cases, and who might one day wander into one of our congregations. Herein lies the weakness of the book, however, in that Duin’s readers are nowhere encouraged to keep searching; her own advice to church-quitters offers little by way of criteria or guidelines for identifying a good church.

Rather, she proposes a solution that was prominent in the 1970s called the “covenant community movement” that aimed to create a “perfect church” at home.

The book plays off of a false dichotomy between two extremes, the exceptionally large megachurch and the microsized Emergent, house-church model. Duin refuses to allow for other possibilities, other kinds of “good churches” or covenant communities—ones rightly ordered by the faithful preaching of the gospel and administration of the sacraments, together with Christian discipline. From a Reformational perspective, though, these true churches are exactly what “quitters” need, regardless of their size or location.

Finally, it should be noted that on a few occasions Duin curiously mentions that she is “Reformed” and even alludes to the Westminster Standards. Her way of understanding the tradition, however, amounts to a belief in the basic sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace—essential truths to be sure—which is only the tip of the iceberg and which neglects a robust ecclesiology.

Most Modern Reformation readers will find this book interesting, if not a little frustrating. Burned-out evangelicals could use it to understand the fire from which they came and from which they still need to emerge.

Mark Vander Pol is an M.Div. student at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido).

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Gregory is to be commended for this stimulating study. I confess to being an Augustinian liberal of sorts: I believe that Augustinian and Reformation theology, following the teaching of Scripture, properly set forth a twofold vision of Christians as pilgrims in this world. On the one hand, Christians should recognize themselves as citizens of heaven who view political institutions as temporary and limited in scope—not to be identified with Christ’s heavenly kingdom. On the other hand, Christians should not withdraw from this world but participate responsibly in political life, seeking to promote the (modest) social goods that politics appropriately pursues. Faithful readers of Modern Reformation will be familiar with these themes. Liberalism, as described above, is not a perfect political system and it will not usher in the Kingdom of God on earth; but it does, I believe, provide a relatively congenial context for Christians to worship freely and to pursue good in this world without putting their ultimate hope in political action. Gregory’s work generally shares this perspective.

With the limited space remaining, I offer one brief critical comment. I greatly appreciate Gregory’s Augustinian refusal to choose between love and justice in political life, as if they were mutually exclusive virtues. Seeking justice is itself a form of love, a pursuit of the good for our neighbor.

But I do not believe that Gregory has given due account of the uniqueness of the fullness of Christian love as revealed in the New Testament. Christian love in its fullness is a love grounded in the love of God in giving his Son over to death for our redemption (e.g., see 1 John 3:16). As such, Christian love does not seek justice so much as it presupposes that justice has already been satisfied once-and-for-all when Christ satisfied the demands of God’s law. Thus Christian love freely and unconditionally forgives but in no way violates justice in the process. This fullness of Christian love is in fact the standard of conduct in the life of the church and its discipline.

But a love of unconditional forgiveness cannot serve as the standard for civil law nor as the goal of politics. Gregory very helpfully shows us an Augustinian way truly to love both God and neighbor. Difficult and important questions still remain, however, for Augustinian liberals seeking to understand the uniquely redemptive and forgiving character of Christian love and how we are to express that kind of love in the context of a political life whose chief task is to secure justice in a very sinful world (Rom. 13:3–4).

David VanDrunen is Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido).

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POINT OF CONTACT: BOOKS YOUR NEIGHBORS ARE READING The Shack

by William Paul Young Windblown Media, 2007 248 pages (paperback), $14.99 Man meets God in this fictional story of the middle-aged Mack. In the telling, Mack receives a mysterious note one winter afternoon, four years into his “Great Sadness,” inviting him to the shack where his youngest daughter, Missy, was murdered after her disappearance from a family camping trip. Upon arrival, Mack encounters three people in the Oregon wilderness, each presented by the narrator as a member of the Trinity: God is a beaming African-American woman named Papa; Jesus, a handyman in jeans with Middle Eastern features; and the Holy Spirit, an Asian woman named Sarayu who is an imperceptible presence at best. Over the course of one weekend in this supernatural company, Mack comes to terms with what he believes about who God is and how God regards him.

The shack is William Paul Young’s metaphor for the heart housed by hurts, lies, and secrets. His aim in the story is to offer an approachable God of relationality and love through whom his protagonist can make sense of tragedies, failures, and disappointments. However, there is another task threaded throughout the book. Young means to dismantle preconceived notions about God and all religious conditioning (93, 119, 179, 205). In so doing, however, he creates false antitheses between faith and life, belief and practice, doctrine or religiosity and the experience of God, all of which in his view are mutually exclusive.

The book is useful in that Young makes a number of assertions and arguments that serious Christians should consider. He is an engaging storyteller—even if the plotline is prosaic at times—and the themes tackled (namely, how we think about God) matter a great deal. However, Young has little regard for the way in which God has revealed himself in Scripture, as when Papa tells Mack, “If I choose to appear to you as a man or woman, it’s because I love you. For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me Papa is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning” (93).

This misses an important point, namely that God reveals himself to us by accommodating our creatureliness. God

names himself and describes himself in ways that are graspable to humans; he gives us metaphors and analogies that are readily understandable. Although God is spirit, and thus neither anatomically male nor female, he identifies certain pronouns that conform to the way of redemption itself (God sends his Son, who becomes man in order to make satisfaction for sin, so that we might become children of God, Abba, our Father). It is no small thing to challenge God’s self-revelation the way Young frequently does and play fast and loose with the names, titles, and designations we find in Scripture. There is, therefore, a more fundamental issue at stake in The Shack: the act of naming and the authority that goes with it. By renaming God, Young subverts the authority of the One to whom the act of naming belongs in the first place.

Similarly, Young frequently hop-scotches over the finer points of what constitutes orthodox or “right” teaching and opts for a different classification, the “almost right,” where parts can be isolated from the whole. This is where the reader must handle the author’s arguments carefully, because many of God’s attributes are inaccurately portrayed. For example, The Shack lays aside God’s transcendence or “otherness” in favor of an exclusively close, near, and relational God. This reductionism continues when the cross of Christ is all but overlooked (101) as the reconciliation that makes possible a close relationship with God. Young consistently prefers a more palatable God molded into our image, a God who is like us, or more importantly, who likes us, rather than the God of the Bible.

The book is unfortunately filled with other teachings that are not in accordance with Scripture; and not just about who God is, but about what God has done for us in the gospel.

For example, Papa says, “I am not who you think I am, Mackenzie. I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it” (120). For Christians, this line of reasoning runs afoul God’s revealed attribute of justice and holiness (and so impinges on who God is), but it also removes an indispensible element of the gospel itself— the work of Christ on the cross in satisfying the just demands of the punishment of the law. The fact that the wages of sin is death, and that this payment was meted out in the crucifixion of Christ, is part of the logic of the gospel. Without it, God’s work on our behalf is severely undercut, reducing God to a resource for our own positive self-affirmation.

Young states at the outset that readers will come to The Shack from their own perspective and that not everyone will appreciate the story. However, the broad popularity of the book means that Christians should take seriously its portrayal of God and evaluate it against the teaching of Scripture. The Shack is unapologetically a work of fiction and so plays by literary rules.

Nevertheless, it must be read carefully and with great discernment, and with the recognition that in places it strays far and wide from a biblical God who is not like us, but became one of us in order to save us out of our sin and misery.

Sunny Chung is office manager of the White Horse Inn and attends Christ United Reformed Church in Santee, California.

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FINAL THOUGHTS f r o m

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d e s k

o f

t h e

e d i t o r - i n - c h i e f

A Rich Tradition

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tion of Christ, has sold (and continues to sell) more provided a needed course-correction in doctrine we need to look elsewhere for prac- copies than any other book besides the Bible. It was tice. If you want to learn about justification, ask a Reformed or Lutheran person. one of my mother’s favorites and was assigned But if you want to learn about life in the Spirit, ask Pentein my introductory Bible class at a Christian college. There costals; if you want to learn about growing in grace, look to are valuable insights in this book, especially its simple but the great tradition of Catholic devotion, Protestant pietism, sometimes profound wisdom concerning the practice of a deWesleyan writers, and contemporary experts on the spiritual vout Christian life. Nevertheless, poring over this book again disciplines. This impression isn’t just the fault of “outsiders.” in preparation for this issue, I was reminded of what is missIt is no doubt due at least in part to the increasingly shallow ing from this celebrated classic: most glaringly, Christ in his savconnection that many of us within Lutheran and Reformed ing office. It is not an understanding of doctrine “that makes churches have to our own inheritance. Luther, Calvin, and a man holy and just,” he writes in his opening paragraph, “but other reformers wrote a great deal of material that we today a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God.” “I would rather would call “devotional literature”—prayers, books on prayer, feel contrition than know how to define it.” His twenty-fourth chapter, on how to appear before God’s judgment, excludes catechisms, and songs. More importantly, their sermons are any mention of Christ or his gracious mediation; the fires of alive with a piety that breathes the air of Scripture. Their liturpurgatory are meant to be felt in this life, drawing us to congies wove the threads of Scripture into the very cells of Christ’s tempt of this world and the body, in order to ascend God’s people: even the prayers, songs, and other aspects of the servholy hill through inner purification. I’m not sure, however, ice were intended to make Christ’s Word dwell in his sheep how directing people to greater concentration on themselves richly. This is piety and it flows out of the public ministry of is going to overcome the narcissistic captivity of our times.

Word and sacrament into the daily lives and practices of famAs Thomas Finger documents in A Contemporary Anabaptist ilies at the table and individual believers in their own Bible Theology (IVP, 2004) the Anabaptists were no more interested reading and prayer. in the justification of the ungodly than Rome. The whole emIf this is true, then we need to correct our thinking and phasis was on discipleship, defined as the imitation of Christ. practice on two points. First, we need in our own Reformed and Lutheran circles to reconnect with the deep spiritual pasThis legacy from the deeply introspective and moralistic myssion of our own heritage that we have forgotten or lost to tics of the late Middle Ages to the Anabaptists, Ignatius of a lazy kind of rote traditionalism. Second, we need to be perLoyola, and the Pietists has been perhaps more decisive in suaded again that the gospel is the power of God for salvashaping contemporary evangelical spirituality than has tion to everyone who believes—not only for justification but Reformation piety. Although many of us were reared on this for sanctification as well. We can learn much from other tradiet, somehow it has become chic—even “postmodern.” ditions—even the Puritans freely imbibed and recomSo let us attend more faithfully to the means-of-grace piety mended the works of better writers in the medieval tradiof Scripture, recovered in the Reformation. Let us particition of spirituality, and Luther was not ready to throw out pate more regularly in the public service where God promeverything he had learned and practiced in his past. Nevises to feed us with his Living Word and we respond as one ertheless, we just can’t staple a non-evangelical practice to people in faith and thanksgiving. And then let us go to our an evangelical theology. The right doctrine gives rise to the homes and evangelize our children in the faith and steep ourright kind of piety. If the gospel produces the fruit of rightselves even more deeply in that faith through our personal eousness, then only the truths of God’s free grace will genprayers and meditative reading of Scripture until our very erate a particular kind of piety that looks up to Christ in faith pores are filled with the love of God, his goodness, and his and out to the neighbor in love. wisdom for living as pilgrims in this passing age.

As Richard Foster observes, Protestant movements such as John Wesley’s “holy clubs” and the “inner mission” of the Michael Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation.

Norwegian Pietists have their roots in the heritage of Catholic spirituality, identified with medieval writers such as Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471). His classic work, The Imitahere has long been a nagging suspicion among many that while the Reformation

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