Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism

Moody Publishers, 2007.

Summary: An update of the earlier “Dispensationalism Today,” it has been expanded and in many ways improved. (I don’t have a copy of the earlier work and must rely on my memory.)

The author argues that Dispensationalism springs from a normal or literal hermeneutic. “The nonliteralist is the nonpremillennialist, the less specific and less consistent literalists are covenant premillennialist and the progressive dispensationalist, and the consistent literalist is a dispensationaslist” (102). He then attempts to defend normative or historical Dispensationalism, against progressive dispensationalists, non-premillennialists, and covenant premillennialists.

The marks of a Dispensationalist are then teaching a separation between Israel and the Church and literalism.

Benefits/Detriments: The spirit of the work is generally irenic. There seems to be a lack recognition of the role of presuppositions in Dispensationalistional hermeneutics. I was amused to discover that the only systemic theology of my childhood home (besides the Scofield and Ryrie study Bibles) was by an “ultradispensationalist,” Charles F. Baker.

Tremper Longman III, Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation

vol. 3 in Foundations for Contemporary Interpretation, Zondervan, 1987.

Summary: An introduction to literary approaches in biblical interpretation by a conservative Christian who maintained a high view of Scripture. [My understanding is that his view of Scripture has dropped considerably in later publications. Added--03/08/12] Longman engages with literary critics secular, liberal, and orthodox and attempts to draw insights from their work.

Longmen’s own summary “We have recognized a tendency among some scholars to reduce the Bible to literature and to deny history. Other scholars, particularly those of us whose doctrine of Scripture is conservative, must resist the temptation to ignore the literary aspect of divine revelation by reducing the Scripture to history and theology. I have intended this book to stimulate all of us to a more balanced reading of the Bible” (152).

Benefits/Detriments: Incredibly helpful.  A must read for handling historical narrative and poetry.

Fictional stories are powerful literary devices because history is linear and the human mind can encapsulate the whole without exhaustive knowledge. Because God is omnipresent and omniscient, his view of reality is the only exhaustive perspective, and his inspired narrative, poetry, parables, and the like while sharing commonalities with other literary works exist as separate though similar categories. The difficulty and perhaps even danger of literary approaches to the Bible is accepting genre categories of non-believers without recognizing the belief policies that drive the definitions. Yet there is also the danger of adopting an uncritical literary interpretation from the enculturated habits of mind which are independent of the Bible and right reason. Both the non-believer and believer can misinterpret the Bible through faulty definitions and presuppositions and both are real threats to the church.

Longmen is aware of this tension, but I am concerned that he sometimes forgets the uniqueness of God’s perspective and authorship when handling the Bible and the critics.

The Irresistible Revolution, by Shane Claiborne

Shane Claiborne, the author of The Irresistible Revolution, is a man of great moral clarity and bravery. He not only espouses and evangelizes for communal living, public protest, and pacifism, he lives it.

He’s not just writing about an irresistible revolution, he’s trying to lead one. And while he is not a complete stranger to the radical chic lifestyle, he’s willing to poke fun at himself and others for resort conferences and self-absorbed navel gazing. He’s articulate, passionate, well educated, and widely read. Quoting with appreciation Che Guevara, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mama T (a.k.a. Mother Teresa), Jim Wallis, Dorothy Day, Gandhi, John Yoder, Bono, Bonheoffer, Rich Mullins, and the red-letter Christian brigade, he discloses his broad philosophical and theological influences. Tracing the potential trajectory of all these ideas is like observing a cognitive dissonance cluster bomb, and it led me to the conclusion that he truly believes what he teaches: that great social change can come through hokey street theater, the use of sidewalk chalk, and blowing bubbles at bemused police officers (189).

Moral Authority

After reading his report of funky antics as a “theological prankster” (281), it’s tempting to pat him on the head and tell him to grow up and buy a shirt with buttons. But this misses how deadly serious he is: he has spent time in jail, risked his life protesting the war in Iraq, and makes every attempt to live his life as consistently around his confused ideals as possible. This alone gives him a great deal of moral authority.

And we must not miss the other reason for his moral authority. Much of his critique of the American evangelical church is accurate. In general, we are fat, insulated, and isolated from the poor and disenfranchised. We have compromised with our culture on the issue of civic religion. Our churches are characterized by the market’s brand of statistically-driven pragmatism. And our theology and practice can be an incoherent mess. When our bright young people notice all this, they begin looking around for a way to follow Jesus that is less staid and less compromised, and Claiborne intends his autobiographical manifesto to be a how-to-guide for them.

The Major Problem

The major problem is the cluster bomb I mentioned above. His theology is an unbiblical and incoherent synthesis which might be described as popularized Christian anarchism for young, disaffected, middle-class Americans.

I don’t say this to be mean spirited. Claiborne has asked to be critiqued from a theological perspective. He writes, “the answer to bad theology is not no theology but good theology. So rather than distancing ourselves from religious language and biblical study, let’s dive into the Scripture together, correcting bad theology with good theology” (169). I agree. If he’s accurately following Scripture, we should follow him. If he’s not, then he needs to stop the “theatrics of counterterror” (188) and join us in a rather different task.

Warrior King Or Slaughtered Lamb?

To begin with, Claiborne calls Christians to correct our “distorted understandings of the warrior God by internalizing our allegiance to the slaughtered Lamb. . .” I am all for internalizing my allegiance to the warrior God, because he is the slaughtered Lamb. But that’s not what Claiborne means, he means something like, don’t understand Jesus Christ through the Old Testament’s descriptions of an angry God, because Jesus was a pacifist “Mediterranean peasant revolutionary” (112). This view squares badly with Revelation 6:15-17, where the kings, the generals, the poor, and the free all attempt to hide themselves from Jesus Christ while begging the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

The Bible teaches that Jesus came as the Suffering Servant the first time. When he returns the second time, he will come with his sword drawn as the Warrior God to tread “the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God” (Rev. 19:15). In Claiborne’s desire to correct one distortion, he introduces an opposite but equally distorted view. He wants us to exchange Christian militarism for Christian pacifism. But neither can bear the weight of the entire Word of God.

“Sell All” Or “Health and Wealth”?

Claiborne also calls the church to correct “the health-and-wealth gospel by following the Homeless Rabbi.” The “health-and-wealth gospel” is a pox on the church in all its variants. But Claiborne continues his theme by quoting Rich Mullins: “We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy too” (98-99). A bit of head scratching is in due order when one reads such statements. How does one make the universal need of salvation identical to the particularized need of the rich young ruler? And how does one interpret the Gospels so that the redistribution of wealth is equated with salvation?

At some point while reading The Irresistible Revolution, the hermeneutic becomes clear: the Gospels, especially the Sermon on the Mount, are to be read “literally” (77) or radically—as long as they support modern liberalism. It’s only a literal reading of any passages that lead to something like Christianized socialism with a dash of anarchism. The cure for the “health-and-wealth gospel” appears to be a gospel that confuses salvation by faith alone with the redistribution of wealth to the poor.

But there is a second layer to Claiborne’s attempts to follow Jesus “literally.” He believes that much if not most of Jesus’ ministry can be summed up as prophetic street theater. In other words, Jesus wasn’t crucified for claiming to be God, rather, “Jesus was crucified not for helping poor people but for joining them” (144). Jesus’ example and actions were “like street theater at a protest” (f. 9, pg. 281) and the “dazzle of the resurrection” is described as the “theatrics of counterterror” (281-282).

Suddenly the bubbles and sidewalk chalk make sense. Shane Claiborne believes that he is literally following Jesus’ example by his “prophetic” protests which often unfold as passing out spare change on Wall Street, getting arrested for minor civic violations in support of the homeless, and shilling on behalf of Saddam Hussein. The irresistible revolution at its silliest is outdoor drama with a fancy name; at its most theologically serious, it fails to make distinctions between the deserving and the undeserving poor (as required by 2 Thes. 3:10), between the megalomaniac dictators and the management of Taco Bell, between Christians and non-Christians.

Not Really a Radical

Perhaps the most ironic issue is that Shane Claiborne has strait-jacketed himself into a theological paradigm that cannot escape the confines of popular Western culture. His avowed interest in the anti-establishment rock band Rage Against the Machine, with their two Grammy Awards and Sony corporation contract, may be entertaining, but it neither furthers the cause of Christ nor social justice. He might like to quote Che Guevara, but Che’s contribution to Communist thought amounts to having an iconic photo taken of himself (by Alberto Korda) and being shot by the C.I.A. while wearing two Rolexes. Clairborne’s moral earnestness and passion are exemplary, but street drama as theology hinders his ability to think carefully about complicated issues; instead he claims that Jesus’ teaching on paying the temple tax in Matthew 17:24-27 is illuminated by the statement “when the emperor passes, the peasant bows. . .and farts” (185, n. 12).

Since Claiborne has accepted the Christian Century crowd’s romanticism of popular leftists revolutionaries, he has missed the true radicals—like that Protestant scholastic who risked his life by sneaking into Catholic controlled Paris to share the true gospel with an arch-heretic; like the Covenanters who were burned at the stake for refusing to worship bits of bread during the masses that Claiborne enjoys attending (325); like Christian police officers and soldiers who have the challenge of simultaneously “loving their enemies” while also loving the people they protect; like Christian business men who provide millions of people with jobs and the dignity of supporting their families through the creation-mandated activity of work, and doing so with honesty and integrity in a fallen world.

The fundamental issue is not that Claiborne is too radical or even rebellious. No, it’s that he takes the easy way out. It’s hard to spend your money in a godly way and to give it to the poor wisely, so he scatters it on the ground as a “jubilee” and abrogates a responsibility given to him by God. It’s no fun to hold a job and legally purchase abandoned buildings for the homeless, so he “reclaims” them as a squatter. It’s difficult to be patient under the current regime of sin and death, and so Claiborne pretends that swords can be pounded into plowshares and poverty can be eliminated without the return of Christ.

In Shane Claiborne’s revolution, flatulence jokes become theological reflection, the crucifixion morphs to a lampoon, and prophetic preaching is reduced to heckling presidential candidates. It’s not much of a revolution, but perhaps it’s the revolution a compromised American Church deserves.

By Shane Walker

Malise Ruthven, Fundamentalism: The Search for Meaning

Oxford University Press, 2004.

Summary: Fundamentalism is a response to Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment and includes particularly religious people of all conservative stripes. Fundamentalists behave as if will-to-power is necessary to establish the regimes or the public space they feel is necessary for them to practice their faith. Individual Fundamentalists may not be stupid, but their behavior leads to stupid outcomes—“they are selfish, greedy and stupid” (pg. 217). “Protestant fundamentalism is a dangerous religion” (ibid.) as are all other forms of fundamentalism.

Malise Ruthven lacks any sense of epistemological or philosophical humility or irony. As far as I can tell, he is what he loathes in “fundamentalists,” only well-educated, sophisticated, and published by Oxford Press.

Pierre Rousselot, The Problem of Love in the Middle Ages: A Historical Contribution

Marquette University Press, 2002.

Summary: Rousselot argues from the primary sources that in the Middle Ages there were three basic positions on love: Augustine, Thomas, and Abelard or eudemonistic, natural, and ecstatic. Thomas view is natural because love seeks the “natural unity” provided by the source of being. The ecstatic view is found in the medieval mystics and Abelard and Duns Scotus. This view is irrational, violent, and egalitarian. Oliver O’Donovan teaches that “ecstatic” and “natural” love both require a corrosion of self and lead to pietism and mysticism, but Rousselot believes that the self can be maintained in natural love if a neo-Thomist understanding of the part’s participation in the whole is maintained. Because a Christian’s view of love helps define both his theology proper and anthropology, this is an incredible important discussion.

The book appears to be competently translated, but the reviewer lacks the language skills to make a judgment—readable and scholarly.  Latin quotes are kept in text and footnotes, but translated.

Oliver O’Donovan, The Problem of Self-Love in St. Augustine

Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006.

Summary: O’Donovan carefully discusses the theological tensions and developments in Augustine’s efforts to understand the biblical and natural revelation on the two great commandments. (The problem is balancing the love of God, self, and neighbor.) Augustine comes to a Christian eudemonistic solution in contrast to Thomas and Abelard. A helpful early work by O’Donovan that sets the foundation for his later works like “Common Objects of Love.”

Mark A. Yarhouse, Homosexuality and the Christian: A Guide for Parents, Pastors, and Friends

Bethany House, 2010.

Summary: Yarhouse explicitly rejects homosexual activity as sin while finding many aspects of homosexual practice social constructions. He divides the homosexual experience into three tiers: same-sex attraction, homosexual orientation (long-term same-sex attraction accepted as a personal norm), gay identity (a cultural construction of self and group identification).  He argues that while “same sex attraction” can be independent of behavior, orientation and gay identity requires cognitive acquiescence and maintenance.

He challenges both the church and those who would like to obey the Bible yet who experience same sex attraction to focus on finding orientation and identity in Jesus Christ. This is especially the case, because the cause or causes of same sex attraction are not clear: nature and nurture both appear to play a role. Since individuals give different significance to internal (nature) and external (nurture) stimuli and events, a single cause or set of causes for same sex attraction may never be found.

Because gay identity is a social construction, the gay community has created a script of self-discovery which conforms to the popular belief policies of modernity. As a person explores the conflicts created by same sex-attraction, the gay community offers them a prepackaged, attractive explanation, which justifies and romanticizes their experience and desires. Yarhouse would like the church to offer a script which focuses on finding one’s identity in Christ while recognizing the lasting implications of same sex attraction.

Benefits: An extremely helpful consideration of the social construction called homosexuality or gay identity. He establishes a broad and scientifically informed argument to defend this position. He is biblically informed and very aware of the persuasive and attractive nature of the gay community’s script to entice those with same-sex attraction into their community.

Excellent resource for everyone who needs to consider these issues carefully.

Detriments: Weak on the negative physical, psychological, and spiritual impact of acting out same-sex attractions and creating gay identity. Sexually active gay males are especially at risk for bowel infections and diseases, destruction of the sphincter, STDs, and depression. While depression can be linked to adverse social responses, the physical trauma and diseases are intrinsic to how same sex attraction is acted out by the gay community. Further, the negative spiritual ramifications of centering self-identify on something forbidden by God cannot be under estimated.

Philip Aubrey, Mr Secretary Thurloe: Cromwell’s Secretary of State—1652-1660

London: The Athlone Press, 1990, 247 pgs. 

Summary: A concise consideration of the history and activity of John Thurloe (1616-1668), a Puritan lawyer and member of parliament, who became Secretary of State successively under the Rump Parliament, the Nominated Assembly, the Protectorate of Oliver and then Richard Cromwell, brought back as Secretary under Monck, and did some work for the restored Charles the II. 

His position as Secretary of State and Postmaster General also led to him being the head of domestic and international intelligence collection through both agents and the interception and monitor of the mail. Thurloe also had code breakers. For instance mathematician and pastor John Wallis (1616-1703), who helped develop infinitesimal calculus and the infinity sign, seems to have broken some of the codes “after supper” as a favor for friends (28). 

His success in intelligence gathering can be drawn from the following narrative:

The Duke of Richmond was given leave by the Protectorate government to go abroad, but only on the condition that he did not see his cousin Charles Stuart. In order to keep his undertaking, their meeting took place in the dark. When, on his return, he told Cromwell that he had not seen Charles, the Protector exclaimed that it was no wonder, since the candles had been put out (103). 

The Secretary was a personal friend of Oliver Cromwell and provided intelligence and counsel to the Cromwells on international and domestic affairs. He managed to hide his papers sufficiently well to allude discover until decades after his death from natural causes.

He appears to have been an Independent or what we would call a Congregationalist and sat under the preaching of John Owen. 

Benefits/Detriments: Mr Secretary Thurloe was written by a former British naval officer with connections to the intelligence services. The book is a bit dry for non-specialists, but a fascinating read for those interested in thinking through how a godly and thoughtful Christian interacts with the exigencies of government service. 

Thurloe’s life reminds me of an epithet on worn a tombstone in a forgotten cemetery: “He lived as he was a Christian.” The closing paragraph of the book summarizes it well:

In an age when the tenure of any office under the crown or the republic was looked upon by many as personal service to the monarch or Protector, by others as a licence to extract fees and by a few as a right to income in return for minimal exertion, Thurloe saw his role quite plainly as service to the public and to the nation as a whole. His achievement lay in his devotion to his duty to God and Man as he saw it, in his single-minded pursuit of efficiency in administration and of godliness in living. There was nothing hypocritical about the expressed desire of the Puritan leaders to carry out the will of God. Thurloe could lay down his burden in the knowledge that he had done his very best for God, his nation and his family (226). 

John Owen, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers; the Necessity, Nature, and Means of It; with Resolution of Sundry Cases of Conscience Thereunto Belonging

In The Works of John Owen, vol. 6, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1967, pgs. 1-86.

Summary: John Owen (1616-1683) is the prince of Puritans. His works are often dense, but decidedly evangelical and desire “universal obedience” to our Lord Jesus. Of the Mortification of Sin is a wholesome, practical, and academically sound consideration and development of the biblical doctrine of the mortification of sin.

Owen presents the argument from Romans 8:13, “If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live,” that “The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin” (7).

This is necessary because while saving grace can never die, sanctifying grace must be renewed through the means of grace. “The vigour, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.” (9).

He argues the following: we are told several things in Scripture which indicate that sanctifying grace must be renewed. The first is 2 Peter 3:18, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” And then 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”

These verses inform us that while our salvation is complete (Rom. 8:1), our sanctification is one of gaining, not grace as an object, but grace as an effect of walking with the Spirit of God, and from 2 Corinthians 4:15, Owen speaks of “renewing grace” (47).

Grace in the Reformed view is the activity of the Spirit of God, and whole salvation is monergistic, sanctification requires active cooperation. Thus, “by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body.”

The war is against the residual flesh or the power of indwelling sins are “the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul (1 Pet. 2:11). Christians by not mortifying sin, suppress the Spirit, quench his work, and walk contrary to him. And in so doing, empowers sin. The person who is fully given over to sin was never saved, but the born-again believer entangled in the trap of sin declines both in his power and peace.

Fundamental to the Christian walk is the Spirit’s power and peace or strength and comfort:

Strength and comfort, and power and peach, in our walking with God, are the things of our desires. Were any of us asked seriously what it is that troubles us, we must refer it to one of these heads:—either we want strength or power, vigour and life in our obedience, in our walking with God; or we want peace, comfort, and consolation therein. . . . Now, all these do much depend on a constant course of mortification (21).

The spiritual things that we most need are most threatened by allowing indwelling sin within our hearts. Further, the Bible speaks of grace dying, “Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.” (Rev. 3:2). For those not born again drawing grace is stops prior to regeneration, but for the believer the sanctifying grace may grow desperately weaker until he repents and turns again to Jesus.

Owen then goes on and works through the practical means by which we mortify sin by giving us nine directions. (1.) Consider the dangerous symptoms of any lust. (2.) Get a clear sense of the guilt of sin, the danger of judicial hardening, temporal correction, loss of peace and strength, and the evil of grieving the Spirit, wounding yourself, losing your usefulness. (3.) Load the conscience with guilt. (4.) Striver for a vehement desire for deliverance. (5.) Consider the weakness of your natural temperament. (6.) Work to limit the occasions and advantages of the sin. (7.) Attack the sin in the first movements. (8.) Think on the excellency and majesty of God. (9.) Find your peace only in agreement with God’s word.

Even with these suggestions Owen argues that work of mortifying must be acting on faith in Christ through cooperation with the Spirit.

“Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls” (79). We achieve this by considering “the provision which is laid up in Jesus Christ” (Ibid.) by prayerfully expecting relief from our sin and help from Christ.

In so doing we must “Act faith peculiarly upon the death, the death blood, and cross of Christ, that is on Christ as crucified and slain. Mortification of sin is peculiarly from the death of Christ” (83). Our Lord Jesus died to destroy sin, and so it is an especial concern for him. We then “act faith on the death of Christ, and that under these two notions,—first, In expectation of power; secondly, In endeavours for conformity” (85).

Finally, we must so act in reliance on the Spirit of God, because the Spirit “clearly and fully convinces the heart of evil,” (85). “The Spirit alone reveals unto us the fullness of Christ for our relief. . .The Spirit alone reveals unto us the fullness of Christ for our relief. . .The Spirit alone establishes the heart in expectation of relief from Christ. . . The Spirit alone brings the cross of Christ into our hearts with its sin-killing power; for by the Spirit we are baptized into the death of Christ. . .The Spirit is the author and finisher of our sanctification; gives new supplies and influences of grace for holiness and sanctification, when the contrary principle is weakened and abated. . . [And] in all the soul’s address to God in this condition, it hath the supportment from the Spirit” (86).

Detriments: Owen is strong spiritual and academic tea. He cannot be skimmed and his vocabulary is arcane. While I agree strongly with his conclusions on the importance of universal obedience as the intended outcome of our sanctification and his means of mortification, if you find yourself overwhelmed by the spiritual burdens suggested by Owen, by all means read Luther.

Benefits: This is the biblical way of personal sanctification. The way is narrow, the air bracing, the struggle real. O but to join our Christ in “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” (Heb. 12:2).

“Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you” (9).

Samuel Miller, Thoughts on Public Prayer

Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1985 reprint 1849, 306 pgs.

Summary: Samuel Miller (1769-1850), one of the founding professors of Princeton, was a godly and strident Presbyterian. The book lays out the history and theological development of public and cooperate prayer. Miller is adamantly against Roman Catholic forms of prayer and Protestant liturgies. 

Chapter 2 covers the history of public prayer. It includes the explanation as to why many churches are designed so that worshipers face east. The Septuagint translated the Hebrew word for Branch in Zechariah 6:12 with a word “strictly speaking. . .applied to the rising and appearance of the sun, and by metonymy, it is applied to the East, because the sun rises in the East” (87).

The habit of closing eyes in prayer was known in Origen’s day (c. 185-254): “We learn also from Origen, that ministers in his day were accustomed in public prayer, to officiate with closed eyes. . . ‘Closing,’ says he, ‘the eyes of the body, but lifting up those of the mind.’” (63) [Cf. Contra Celsum, Lib. viii.]

He also makes the somewhat suspect argument that, “Thus it is inconvertibly evident that, for the first three hundred years after Christ, standing in public prayer was the only posture allowed, on the Lord’s day, to the mass of Christian worshipers, who were in a state of union with the Church” (125). And, “The posture of sitting in public prayer has no countenance either from Scripture, from reason, or from respectable usage, in any part of the Church’s history” (127). 

Chapter 3 covers the arguments for set and normative forms of written prayers in the church. This chapter is of historical interest only as extemporaneous prayers are now allowed in the vast majority of Protestant communions. 

Chapters 4-6, Frequent Faults of Public Prayer, Characteristics of a Good Public Prayer, The Best Means Attaining Excellence in Conducting Public Prayer. These three chapters are the marrow of contemporary usage. His advice is rich, warm, practical, and evangelical. He makes careful use of the distinction of the gift of prayer and the spirit of prayer. 

Benefits/Detriments: The last three chapters are of wholesome interest to those responsible for public prayer. They are also summarized in Ligon Duncan’s modern edition of A Method for Prayer: Freedom in the Face of God by Matthew Henry as an appendix. Recommended for pastors with a historical bent.