Tag: History

Mining the Archives: The Advance of God’s Kingdom

~ Bob Hayton ~ 3 Comments

From time to time, I’ll be mining the archives around here. I’m digging up Bob’s best posts from the past. I’m hoping these reruns will still serve my readers.

Today’s post was originally published January 9, 2006.

I have posted here the power point presentations used in a close pastor friend’s recent 10 week series on “The Advance of the Kingdom”. This is really a fantastic presentation focusing on God’s plan in creation and salvation as expressed in the Biblical covenants. It is really a presentation of Covenant Theology 101. The presentation is well done, and you can get the gist of his messages just from the power point slides.

This presentation really encourages us with the glory of God’s salvation and His progressive revelation of the greatness of the gospel. I encourage you to check this out, and see for yourself how Biblical the essence of Covenant Theology really is.

Here are links to the power point files for each of the 10 parts to the presentation.

the-advance-of-the-kingdom

the-kingdom-and-the-covenant

the-covenant-of-creation

the-coveant-of-adam

the-covenant-of-noah

the-covenant-of-abraham

the-covenant-of-moses

the-covenant-of-david

the-covenant-of-christ

conclusion

(Note: these were originally used in conjunction with the Sunday morning sermon, so there is some review in the individual parts. Also, if you don’t have Microsoft PowerPoint, sometimes you at least have PowerPoint viewer, or you can download Open Office.org’s software which can read .ppt files.)

For more on covenant theology and a redemptive-historical interpretation see my review of O. Palmer Robertson’s The Christ of the Covenants, which stands behind many of the ideas in this power point presentation. Also see my “Redemptive Historical” category.

“A Reformation Reader” edited by Denis Janz

~ Bob Hayton ~ 2 Comments

Author: Denis R. Janz, editor
Publisher: Fortress Press (Augsburg)
Format: softcover
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 453
ISBN: 9780800663100
Stars: 3 of 5

The Christianity that shapes our world today, was profoundly influenced by the Reformation — Roman Catholicism as much as evangelical Protestantism. For conservative evangelicals who prize the notion of sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), the Reformation represents a great restoration of the importance of Scripture and a revival of the true and saving doctrine of justification by faith on the basis of the merits of Christ alone, and by God’s free grace.

Any study of the Reformation does well to focus on the many documents and books written in that era. Some of the truly great Christian writings hail from that era. Luther’s commentary on Galations, and Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion deserve the attention of Christians of our own era as much as they shaped those in the midst of the Reformation. But there are scores of additional writings by other lesser known figures of that time, which do much to open our understanding of what actually was happening in that time, now nearly 500 years ago.

A Reformation Reader, edited by Denis Janz, brings these lesser known documents, and figures, to light. Zwingli’s Swiss Reformation work and writings; the Anabaptist movement and their writings — most notably the the Schleitheim Confession; and the English reformers Cranmer and Cromwell all are illuminated through Janz’s inclusion of key documents and insights into their role in the Reformation era. The context of the Reformation is made more vivid and clear by his inclusion of pre-Reformation Catholic authors and sentiments, and a discussion of the counter Reformation and the Catholic Council of Trent.

Janz introduces each section with a brief introduction to that segment of the Reformation. The pre-Reformation, Luther, Calvin, Swiss Reformation, Anabaptist movement, English Reformation and the counter Reformation movements are all represented. Janz brings up various scholarly disputes in how to interpret the Reformation. He does a good job staying neutral and explaining what the questions are. He presents documents that are able to challenge both viewpoints, and he encourages a study of the texts themselves.

This book includes a wide array of material. It certainly would serve well as a text book for covering the history of that era. The role of women in society in that day is explored alongside the other more typical theological disputes. Janz includes the writings of female characters throughout the book to serve that goal.

The book is more than a textbook, however. It provides a fascinating amount of material for the average Christian lay reader to explore. I enjoyed the historical perspective and the inclusion of many of the original writings of the key players in the Reformation. Most readers today don’t acquaint themselves with historical writings of that era, and so the selections from Calvin’s Institutes and Luther’s writings, for instance, allows for a first encounter with some of the key leaders in the Church’s history. It is hoped that this book will spur on its readers to desire a deeper reading of the classic writings of the Christian faith. I know it has done that for me.

I will point out just a few of the many interesting selections I enjoyed here. They are selections from Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, Erasmus’ The Abbot and the Learned Lady, some of the actual indulgences of the era of Luther, Luther’s 95 Theses, Luther’s Preface to the New Testament, Zwingli’s Of Freedom of Choice in the Selection of Food, Zwingli’s 67 Theses, the Anabaptist Schleitheim Confession, an autobiographical account of Calvin’s life, letters and judgment concerning Servetus, and Thomas Cranmer’s Preface to the Great Bible.

I highly recommend this book, and the study of this important time in Christian history.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by the publisher for review. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.

This book is available for purchase at the following sites: Amazon.com or direct from Fortress Press.

Generational Patricide

~ Bob Hayton

In a recent forums discussion at Sharper Iron, I came across some insightful and I thought quite helpful comments on what I call “generational patricide”. We were discussing Phil Johnson’s recent post explaining the demise of Neo-Evangelicalism. He wrote off the entire movement with nearly the same fervor he showed when declaring that the independent fundamentalist (mostly Baptist) movement is dead.

Now, it is common for former fundamentalists, like myself, to write off our former movement completely, just as Johnson dismisses Neo-Evangelicalism as just a mistake. I do grant Phil much more academic credentials than the average young fundamentalist (or reforming fundamentalist). Still, the tendency to write off the previous generation seems to be a normal human reaction. This is evidenced by how the emergent movement disdains the evangelicalism that birthed it.

Anyway, I think the following comments by Joseph are spot on. They should give us all pause, and encourage us to think more deeply about the movements we have left. Hopefully it can help us carefully step out into the future in a more charitable spirit toward our forebears.

First, it is a common historical occurrence that one group will emerge or coalesce as a reaction to a set of concerns, and when those concerns seem less relevant or are a matter of history, many within that group will criticize the group itself as being a mistake, as having serious problems, etc.. What happens here is that people ignore the fact that much of their criticism is only possible because of the successes of the original reaction.

Fundamentalism was, truly, a disaster for a robust, more-than-merely-orthodox Christianity; having a powerful intellectual and social testimony is not something unusual in Christianity. From the witness of the early church’s social practices to the likes of theologians like Augustine, it has historically not been that case that orthodox Christianity has to place itself within a cultural and intellectual ghetto. So, Fundamentalism, itself an important reaction to modernism with many successes, truly had the weaknesses New Evangelicals saw in it.

Now, a couple generations later, it’s easy for Fundamentalists and people like Johnson to criticize New Evangelicalism, even though, if we imagine it away, the vast majority of our textbooks in conservative seminaries and colleges as well as some of our best theological and historical thinking as conservative Christians gets imagined away as well.

So, like the New Evangelical reaction to Fundamentalism, this reaction to the New Evangelicalism is predicated on the inadequately acknowledged successes of New Evangelicalism. In that sense, it’s no better off, structurally, than Emergents or anyone else, for all these groups, in their failure to properly acknowledge their debt to those things that they criticize, react in an unbalanced way, and therefore produced equally if not more narrow slices of the Christian pie that only appeal to an equally narrow constituency. I think most of the criticisms of New Evangelicalism are sound; but I think they are also wrong in that they often them stem from a profoundly imbalanced conception of their significance and meaning, when the fact of the matter is that the clarity of the intellectual hindsight that produces such cogent criticism is often enabled by the successes of that which is being criticized (e.g. David Wells, sitting in his perch at Gordon-Conwell, issuing some of the best and most powerful criticisms of evangelical Christianity as a whole, is a good example; he’s right, but if you’re not balanced, you miss the obvious implications of his being paid to study and write by Gordon-Conwell and other funding institutions).

…

The tendency of every group and generation is to kill its father, which it can only do after it has been nourished and supported by and gained some independence from that which it later attacks. The only way such patricide can be mitigated is through the balanced integration of sharp, necessary criticism with a profound acknowledgement of its indebtedness — and the implications of such indebtedness — to that which it criticizes. That is something too often lacking in criticisms of any movement, in this case New Evangelicalism. And this imbalanced criticism comes down on our heads when the generation following us rises up, as the Emergents and many others have done, to decry a lack of balance, etc. in those groups that fostered them and to repudiate them with a breathtaking recklessness and ungratefulness. If we wish to avoid that, we must model the better way. [from this comment]

I’ve been thinking about what I wrote for a long time, and Phil’s comments were the occasion for putting them down. What you highlight is really important, I think, especially as a critique or warning for anyone who founds their identity on a movement; generally speaking, that’s just not a good idea – it will only maintain itself for a generation, and in order to survive it naturally institutionalizes; but the institutions that result are often reflective of concerns, emphases, and modes of expressions that passed with the original founders of the movement, and thus they often represent a kind of rigid, narrow, a provincial outlook if they fundamentally seek to ground their identity in the original movement.

If I ever wrote on either Fundamentalism or New Evangelicalism, my titles wouldn’t be about how they are dead, they would be: “After Fundamentalism” or “After New Evangelicalism.” Not stark repudiations, but recognitions that history has changed, new problems have emerged, and what we should gain from these movements is not a rigid commitment to their historically particular expressions, but to the fruit they bore and to the commitment they manifested to the principles, truths, and the one institution (the Church) that don’t pass away with history. Anything more than this and we’ll inevitably lapse into (unnecessary) provincialism and undercontextualization to our current context, a problem that, as Keller as noted, is no better than over-contextualization, for it simply means one is contextualizing to a different era or culture than the current one. [from this comment]

Those Five New Points of Calvinism

~ Bob Hayton ~ 9 Comments

Almost everyone reading my blog is familiar with the acrostic TULIP as standing for the five points of Calvinism. Probably most of you know what each point stands for: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of the Saints. Then the number goes down as to who knows what each point means. I would venture to guess that there would be disagreement over what people think “L” should mean, or what “T”, “I” or “P” actually imply.

If you’ve read any Calvinist literature, you have seen a recasting of the points. Some turn it from TULIP into ROSES (Timothy George), others like my former pastor John Piper, choose to consider the points in a thematic order rather than their order in the word TULIP. Piper’s pamphlet on the points spells the Calvinist flower: TILUP. I’ve seen books and essays advocate “efficacious grace” or “particular redemption” as opposed the the TULIP title of the point in question.

What very few of you who read this blog know, and what I just learned, is that the acronym TULIP is a very recent development. It apparently hails from the early 20th Century, first appearing in Lorraine Boettner’s 1932 book, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. I just finished reading an article by Ken Stewart [pdf] which traces the development of TULIP [HT: Dave Doran]. Stewart rummages through the literary remains of the 18th and 19th Centuries in a vain attempt to find any use of our flowery acronym. He finds many treatments of Calvinism in the first half of the 20th Century totally bereft of any mention of TULIP as well. Stewart cites Roger Nicole as one who also noted the newness of the TULIP scheme. From his preface of the 40th anniversary edition of Steele and Thomas’ Five Points of Calvinism, Nicole states: “Ever since the appearance of Loraine Boettner’s magisterial The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination it has been customary to refer to the five points according to the acrostic TULIP.”

A couple months back, Justin Taylor entertained this same theme on his blog, and in the comments proof of the use of TULIP was given in a 1913 article of the New Outlook, which cites a Dr. Cleland McAffee as using the term as a mnemonic device in his lectures back in 1905. So that is apparently the earliest documented use of the TULIP acronym found to date.

Stewart’s piece is well worth the read, as he concludes with a call for Calvinism to be more irenic and pleasing in its tone, especially when interacting with the wider Christian church. So I guess true Calvinism, isn’t all about fives. I for one, would be glad to let the TULIP wither. I love the heart of Calvinism, but a strict adherence to five points that aren’t adequately explained is not helpful. This might be a good time for all of us to go read the original Five Points in their entirety– I‘m referring to the Canons of Dort, of course.

UPDATE: I forgot to include the link to Stewart’s article initially. Here is the link (it’s a pdf file).

A Fundamentalist Self-Critique

~ Bob Hayton ~ 3 Comments

The last few years have seen the world wide web do a number on fundamentalism. I speak particularly of the independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement, and the influence of blogs like Sharper Iron (SI).

Jason Janz, SI’s founder, published his young fundamentalist survey, and soon thereafter Phil Johnson (of Pyromaniac fame), delivered his speech “Dead Right: The Failure of Fundamentalism“. A maelstrom of web action, interaction and reaction ensued which has yet to calm down. The fundamentalist blogosphere has been a place for theological critique and development, and has been the occasion for a slow exodus from the IFB movement.

Some, like myself, left the IFB from other considerations. Others were awoken to errors in extreme fundamentalism (IFBx) through the web. For all, the availability of conservative evangelical materials produced by John Piper and John MacArthur and others, has given a greater intellectual freedom to many as they can see what life outside IFB (or IFBx) halls looks like.

With the winds of change blowing strong, and with the emergent movement and other bleak theological developments on the horizon, many a fundamentalist leader and institution has taken a skeptical view of the web and of Sharper Iron and other fundamentalist blogs. This should not be surprising.

The reactions have not all been so stick-in-the-mud-like, however. Many fundamentalist leaders are jumping into the fray and being honest and open about the problems they see. Leaders like Dr. Dave Doran and Dr. Kevin Bauder and other contributors at Sharper Iron, give hope to fundamentalism as a willingness to change is displayed. The idea and merits of fundamentalism are being clearly put forth, and many a young man stays within the IFB ship hoping to play a part in righting it and seeing fundamentalism play a part in helping wider evangelicalism see the errors of its way (and there are many).

Now that I’ve brought you up to speed, let me encourage you to read this fundamentalist self-critique by Kevin Bauder. He has just started a series that will detail a history and critical examination of fundamentalism. His posts come first as essays in his online publication In the Nick of Time, from Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis. Then they are showcased at Sharper Iron. Andy Naselli tipped me off to the article being available, and I’m sure this week SI will be publishing it there. You can read it now here (pdf). [Update: here’s the link for the article on SI]. Let me add an excerpt or two from it to entice you to read the whole thing. Part 1 is also available here.

…Because they are cut off from the Christian past, fundamentalists have little sense of the extent to which they have truncated the whole counsel of God. While they rightly insist upon the necessity of confessing certain fundamentals, they have little patience for careful doctrinal exploration and articulation, even when the doctrines under consideration are fundamental. They profess to love the Bible as an object, but even in the better neighborhoods of fundamentalism it is not difficult to find people who despise the attempt to understand biblical teaching in any depth.

Fundamentalists are all about defending the faith. Too often, however, all that they are willing to defend is a truncated faith of slogans and clichés. Even the most important areas of doctrine are reduced to rather pat formulae. Non-fundamental areas of the faith may be left completely unexplored.

Comparing Fundamentalist faith and practice to the faith and practice of historic Christianity is like comparing a hamburger to a filet mignon. The two obviously have something in common, but it would be misleading to say that everything in the steak is also in the hamburger.

Kirsopp Lake said that Fundamentalism is the “partial . . . survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians.” To the extent that he is correct, Fundamentalists should probably be a little less enthralled with his description. And I think that he is right.