Picking tulips

It was my occasion today to engage in conversation with some fellow believers on Facebook, over the subject of limited atonement. My brothers and sisters were incensed at the idea and, like many people brought up in our tradition-bound churches, believed that it was opposed to the message of salvation as being a message of hope for all people.

I have seen a lot of different reactions from people in these sorts of conversations: in a couple instances I had people who just switched to full emotional outburst mode, not wanting to even discuss the topic and calling the idea of Calvinism "satanic." In such cases while I often press them to explain more, typically it's something ingrained deeply and it's beyond my purview to dislodge such thoughts. In other cases it's just because they have certain understandings about what the Bible says, and while we have had respectful conversations it's simply a matter of disagreement. And in some instances people have applied terms such as "four point Calvinist" to themselves, meaning that they believe in some of the less controversial doctrines that descend from the famous TULIP acronym, but limited atonement or unconditional election are sticking points for them, usually for the same reason as the second group but with less reticence over the term "Calvinist."

My desire here is to expound on why I believe in the doctrines of grace, and to explain my contention that, as Charles Spurgeon put it, "Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else." I want to say first and foremost that I'm not here to defend John Calvin as a perfect man, and if your response to this involves wrongs committed by Calvin then quite frankly I'm not interested. John Calvin was just a man, and like myself, a sinner. But he provided a thorough, deep, and accurate understanding of what the Bible teaches about God, about us, and about God's role in bringing about salvation for our sakes.

Advent: Why has He come?

You might not have noticed yet, but it's the Christmas season.  I know, I know..."Really?  I didn't notice.  I mean, aside from the EVERYTHING CHRISTMAS IS EVERYTHING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I CAN'T TAKE IT" sorry...I think I was channeling a retail employee for a moment there.  My point is, it's Christmas, and that also means that it's time for one essay and discussion after another about "the real meaning of Christmas" or "what Christmas is all about."

Well, let's start simple:


 But more specifically: why did Christ come?  Why did God move to effect salvation of man by sending His Son to Earth to become human, to live the life he did, to die, and to rise again?  To examine all the implications of and answers to that question, would require a book and perhaps someday I'll be given the chance to write that.  But I want to speak to the presuppositions underlying the issue, as well as share some of the more thought-provoking reading I've been blessed to engage in lately, thanks to the new house which gives me my own "study" to do said reading.

One of the remarkable things about Christianity is the nature of God as He reveals Himself in His Word.  I am going to turn over a not-small portion of this post to Francis Schaeffer, because I don't feel I can explain it better without simply plagiarizing him:

The historic Christian answer concerning verifiable facts and knowing turns on who God is, on who is there.  The God who is there according to the Scriptures is the personal-infinite God.  There is no other god like this God.  It is ridiculous to say that all religions teach the same things when they disagree at the fundamental point as to what God is like.  The gods of the East are infinite by definition--the definition being "god is all that is."  This is the pan-everything-ism god.  The gods of the West have tended to be personal but limited; such were the gods of the Greeks, Romans and Germans.  But the God of the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, is the infinite-personal God.

[...]

How then is God's creation related to Himself and to itself?  On the side of God's infinity there is a break between God and the whole of His creation.  I am as separated from God in the area of His being the Creator and infinite and I being the creature and finite, as is the atom or energy particle.  I am no closer to God on this side than the machine.

However on the side of God's personality, the break comes between man and the rest of creation.  In terms of modern thought this is a dynamic conception of which modern man and modern theology know nothing.  So Schweitzer identified himself with the hippopotamus, for he did not understand that man's relationship is upward; and therefore he looked downward to a creature which does many of the same things as himself.  But on the side of personality, if our relationship is upward, then everything concerning man's "mannishness" is in place.

 So what does this have to do with the question above?  What relevance does this have to do with the season of Advent, when we celebrate the coming of God in Jesus Christ?  It's relevant because Jesus came not as an impersonal force, not as a new faceless edict from a prophet...He came as a man.  Jesus came as a man who then built personal, deep relationships with other people.  He preached for certain, but reading the Bible we see that His biggest, most transformative work was done in the lives of the men and women He was closest to: He healed many, but His disciples He worked with beyond physical pains down to their hearts, loving them gently and leading them to become the men who would boldly proclaim His name to the world. 

God is infinite and His infinite nature is something that leads many to say things like "We can't really ever understand God" in the sense that trying is a fool's errand.  But no one has been asked to express the inexpressible: it is God's good purpose to give us Himself personally just as much as to awe us with His infinity.  "The heavens proclaim the glory of God," wrote the psalmist, and gazing into the sky and seeing the vastness of the universe, knowing as we do now how much more vast and great it is than they could have dreamed those thousands of years ago both in a macro and micro sense, we wonder exactly how much greater our God is if this universe is just a speck compared to His majesty.  But we are edified, and humbled, by the man Jesus Christ who came to Earth to live the life we can never live, die the death we deserve to die, and to look broken, rebellious sinners in the face and bring restoration, healing and love to them.  Praise God, those words came to me through His Word and His Spirit, and changed a heart once buried in sin.

And so this advent season, we look back to His first coming, and ahead, to His second.  May that day come soon, to give rest to the weary and to complete the work begun on the cross and at the grave.

Music in church and heart

If you're a Christian (or heck, not a Christian) and on any form of social media, you probably saw this video on your newsfeed within the last couple of weeks:


The Worship of God Q&A: Holy Hip-Hop from NCFIC on Vimeo.

The topic of "holy hip-hop," "reformed rap," or whatever you'd like to call it is not a new one.  It, along with Christian rock music and its descendants like Christian metal, have a history of controversy in the church.  I have experience from my much, much younger days of our church undergoing a split because the older, hymn-preferring people were greatly vexed by a new music minister that dared to bring in more contemporary worship music (very, very tame stuff by today's standards--things like early Michael W. Smith, Michael Omartian, and the like).  The gentlemen above do not seem to have a much better opinion, or understanding, of rap music as it exists today in Christianity.

The reaction to their words has been very broad of scope, and while of course there have been a lot of ill-advised words from random Internet commenters, the thoughtful and thorough responses of many Christian rappers have been very interesting and heartening to see.  My own thoughts are a combination of annoyance, which I am trying to suppress, and a desire to teach.

I have a music degree, and I spent, and continue to spend, a lot of time thinking about, studying, and participating in or performing music.  Music history, while generally a rather vexing subject for any performance major especially when you're talking about history before the Baroque era, is a subject that one should at least be nominally familiar with before drawing judgment on any form of music.  I say this because of one of the points made by Scott Aniol, a point he defends in a continued discussion with rapper Shai Linne on his website: that rap music is, by its very nature, immoral.  I am deeply concerned by his arguably ignorant statements he makes about hip hop in general and Christian hip hop especially.  To be totally honest, I view his position as descriptive of the problem of communication between American evangelicals and much of the rest of society: so many evangelicals are so concerned about "cleaning up" things and putting them within a certain little Christian box.

But when that's your desire, when you're more worried about things like the style of music your kid is listening to than the actual content of it, you're missing out on actually engaging your kid where he is.  Likewise, we have a huge section of this country that exists in hip hop culture.  I can speak from experience in saying that it's very easy for cultural conservatives to look at that culture, roll their eyes at its style and speech and say things like "Rap is just 'crap' without the C."  But I'm not interested in trying to conserve a particular culture: I'm interested in seeing more and more people come to know, love and worship Jesus Christ as Lord.  How is it possibly helpful for me to come up to someone who has existed in this world and say "Well, it's great that you want to know Jesus, but you're going to need to wear these clothes, throw out all this music and start listening to some Bill Gaither."*

Answer: it isn't.  When you put up all these extra, culture-oriented barriers between a person and knowing Christ, the concern arises that you don't particularly understand the Gospel, and might even need to review the book of Galatians.  But let's step back from that for a moment and return to the issue of music history and its relevance to this issue.  In particular, in response to this statement from Aniol:

Third, you are making a very common category error in these discussions. I agree completely, of course, that whatever God creates is good. God created music. God created meat. These things are good.
But God did not create rap. People did. For that matter, God did not create Gregorian chant, German chorales, Appalachian folk tunes, country western, jazz, or rock ‘n’ roll. People did. And because these are all human communication, they are moral.
It is very dangerous to ascribe to God something that he did not make.

 This is a difficult area because it's understandable that sinful things have arisen from the minds and desires of man, twisted as they are by our innate brokenness.  And I certainly understand his wariness and resistance towards music that are not part of the traditional realm of church.  But I disagree vehemently that God did not create those forms of music.  God did not simply create the realm of sound and the rules and laws of physics that cause sound to come across to our ears in such a way that our brains recognize it as music.  God created sound in such a way, on purpose, that it would sound like thus and so when certain sounds come together, and perhaps more importantly He endowed us with the creativity to do with music what we do, and all of it in one way or another will eventually glorify God.

To be sure, rap has a very twisted and broken history.  But so does all music, and for the simple reason that it all comes from broken, sinful humans.  The church was the forefront of music development for a long time simply because for a period of time, they were funding a lot of its best and brightest.  One example: the oratorio style was developed in response to the church rejecting opera as an acceptable style for performance in churches.  But people who knew and understood the medium and wanted it to be used to glorify Christ got hold if it, removed the costumes and staging and cleaned up the subject matter, and bam: new style, church-approved.  Or for that matter, take a look at old-style gospel music like the aforementioned Bill Gaither*: look at its roots in blues and folk music, and you will find a lot of music that is not acceptable in church for its subject matter But people who loved Jesus and grew up with a history and culture in those forms of music began to use it for His name and created a new genre, one that rightfully for many people is regarded fondly and is stirring to their souls.

I'm not trying to write a hyper-accurate or detailed history here.  I simply want to make the point that I do not accept the presupposition that there is a thing that cannot be redeemed for the sake of Christ, because all things that are true belongs to Him.  Let me just head off the obvious argument right here: "Are you saying there can be Christian porn?"  Of course not.  That's because sex, like everything else, was created by God for a purpose, and porn is a twisting and abuse of that purpose into sinfulness. 

This is a tough subject to tackle because I want to give it the proper gravity it deserves, but I also don't want to go on and on since I don't think I'm that terribly interesting.  I will, however, pass you off to some gentlemen much more suited to speaking to this issue than myself, and I would encourage you to listen to the whole hour:


*There is nothing wrong with Bill Gaither, or liking Bill Gaither.  Please do not write me or comment saying "Stop making fun of Bill Gaither!" because I'm not.  Crikey.