I began this blog in November of 2006. I have included a preview of the blog here, which will always list the seven most recent posts. But if you click the link introducing a particular post (next to the ">>" symbol), it will automatically take you to the Reformed Baptist Blog site in a separate window. If you want to go straight to the blog's main page, here is a link:
Back in July I announced that I will personally be active on Twitter, but now I have also added the Reformed Baptist Blog feed to my Twitter account, so it should be an additional way to stay updated on the latest blog posts. This post is not only an announcement of this new feature but also a test to see if it works.
If you want to follow the blog on Twitter, you can check the "Follow Me" button on the right panel of this blog.
This month's free audio book from ChristianAudio.com is Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road by Tim Keller. Here is the description from the ChristianAudio.com product page:
"Why would someone risk his safety, destroy his schedule, and become dirty and bloody to help a needy person of another race and social class? And why would Jesus tell us "Go and do likewise"? Like the wounded man on the Jericho road, there are needy people in our path- the widow next door, the family strapped with medical bills, the homeless man outside our place of worship. God call us to be ministers of mercy to people in need of shelter, assistance, medical care, or just friendship."
Although I have not yet read or listened to this book, I have consistently heard good things about things about it from others who have read it. At any rate, the audio version is free this month, but the print version is also being made available at a 50% discount for the month of August, so you may want to check it out.
"Themelios is an international evangelical theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith." This is the opening line of the description of the journal at the Gospel Coalition website. Many of you may already be familiar with this journal -- at least to some extent -- if you have had some bible college or seminary studies and had to research and write papers. But for those who may not be familiar with it, here is the description from the website:
Themelios is an international evangelical theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith. Its primary audience is theological students and pastors, though scholars read it as well. It was formerly a print journal operated by RTSF/UCCF in the UK, and it became a digital journal operated by The Gospel Coalition in 2008.
Themelios is published three times a year exclusively online at The Gospel Coalition. It is presented in three formats:
iPaper (a Flash-based interface that allows flexible viewing without requiring you to download the document)
PDF (for downloading and citing pagination)
HTML (for greater accessibility, usability, and infiltration in search engines)
Themelios is copyrighted by The Gospel Coalition. Readers are free to use it and circulate it in digital form without further permission (any print use requires further written permission), but they must acknowledge the source and, of course, not change the content.
D.A Carson currently serves as the General Editor of the journal. Past contributors include a wide variety of scholars such as D.A. Carson, J.I. Packer, John Stott, Gordan Wenham, Richard Bauckham, Gerald Bray, Craig Blomberg, Geoffrey Bromiley, I. Howard Marshall, Richard Mouw, Michael Homes, etc. As you can see, there is a pretty eclectic group of scholars, and many of them would not hold to Calvinistic, Covenantal, or Baptist views. But it is still worth checking out.
All the issues since 1975 are freely available for download and reading here. See what you think.
Since tomorrow we will celebrate our countriy's birthday, I thought I would share with you a free series I found our about. It is called A Biography of America and involves a number of leading historians discussing and explaining the various periods in the development and history of America.
Each roughly half-hour episode includes a clickable link for key events, maps, transcripts, and a full video. Here is a listing of all 26 episodes:
1.NEW WORLD ENCOUNTERS: THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICA
Professor Donald Miller introduces A Biography of America and its team of historians. The program looks at the beginnings of American history from west to east, following the first Ice Age migrations through the corn civilizations of Middle America, and the explorations of Columbus, DeSoto, and the Spanish.
2.ENGLISH SETTLEMENT: NEW ENGLAND AND VIRGINIA
As the American character begins to take shape in the early 17th century, English settlements with dramatically different personalities develop in New England and Virginia. Professor Miller explores the origins of values, cultures, and economies that have collided in the North and South throughout the American story.
3.GROWTH AND EMPIRE: THE BEST POOR MAN'S COUNTRY
Benjamin Franklin and Franklin's Philadelphia take center stage in this program. As the merchant class grows in the North, the economies of southern colonies are built on the shoulders of the slave trade. Professor Miller brings the American story to 1763 with the Peace of Paris and English dominance in America.
4.THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE
Professor Maier tells the story of how the English-loving colonist transforms into the freedom-loving American rebel. The luminaries of the early days of the Republic -- Washington, Jefferson, Adams -- are featured in this program as they craft the Declaration of Independence and wage the war for freedom from British rule.
5.A NEW SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
After the War for Independence, the struggle for a new system of government begins. Professor Maier looks at the creation of the Constitution of the United States. The Republic survives a series of threats to its union, and the program ends with the deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on the Fourth of July, 1826.
6.WESTWARD EXPANSION: THE EMPIRE OF LIBERTY
At the dawn of the 19th Century, the size of the United States doubles with the Louisiana Purchase. The Appalachians are no longer the barrier to American migration west; the Mississippi River becomes the country's central artery; and Jefferson's vision of an Empire of Liberty begins to take shape. American historian Stephen Ambrose joins Professors Maier and Miller in examining the consequences of the Louisiana Purchase-for the North, the South, and the history of the country.
7.THE RISE OF CAPITALISM: THE UNSEEN HAND
Individual enterprise merges with technological innovation to launch the Commercial Revolution — the seedbed of American industry. The program features the ideas of Adam Smith, the efforts of entrepreneurs in New England and Chicago, the Lowell Mills Experiment, and the engineering feats involved in Chicago's early transformation from marsh to metropolis.
8.THE REFORM IMPULSE: RELIGION AND INDIVIDUALISM
The Industrial Revolution has its dark side, and the tumultuous events of the period touch off intense and often thrilling reform movements. Professor Masur presents the ideas and characters behind the Second Great Awakening, the abolitionist movement, the women's movement, and a powerful wave of religious fervor.
9.SLAVERY: THE SOUTH AND SLAVE CULTURE
Professor Donald Miller introduces A Biography of America and its team of historians. The program looks at the beginnings of American history from west to east, following the first Ice Age migrations through the corn civilizations of Middle America, and the explorations of Columbus, DeSoto, and the Spanish.
10.THE COMING OF THE CIVIL WAR
Simmering regional differences ignite an all-out crisis in the 1850s. Professor Martin teams with Professor Miller and historian Stephen Ambrose to chart the succession of incidents, from "Bloody Kansas" to the shots on Fort Sumter, that inflame the conflict between North and South to the point of civil war.
11.THE CIVIL WAR: VICKSBURG
As the Civil War rages, all eyes turn to Vicksburg, where limited war becomes total war. Professor Miller looks at the ferocity of the fighting, at Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and the bitter legacy of the battle"and the war.
12.RECONSTRUCTION
Professor Miller begins the program by evoking in word and image the battlefield after the Battle of Gettysburg. With the assassination of President Lincoln, one sad chapter of American history comes to a close. In the fatigue and cynicism of the Civil War's aftermath, Reconstructionism becomes a promise unfulfilled.
13.AMERICA AT ITS CENTENNIAL: THE REVOLUTION BETRAYED
As America celebrates its centennial, five million people descend on Philadelphia to celebrate America's technological achievements"but some of the early principles of the Republic remain unrealized. Professor Miller and his team of historians examine where America is in 1876 and discuss the question of race.
14.INDUSTRIAL SUPREMACY
Steel and stockyards are featured in this program as the mighty engine of industrialism thunders forward at the end of the 19th century. Professor Miller continues the story of the American Industrial Revolution in New York and Chicago, looking at the lives of Andrew Carnegie, Gustavus Swift, and the countless workers in the packinghouse and on the factory floor.
15.THE NEW CITY: PLANNED ORDER AND MESSY VITALITY
Professor Miller explores the tension between the messy vitality of cities that grow on their own and those where orderly growth is planned. Chicago"with Hull House, the World's Columbian Exposition, the new female workforce, the skyscraper, the department store, and unfettered capitalism"is the place to watch a new world in the making at the turn of the century.
16.THE WEST
Professor Scharff continues the story of Jefferson's Empire of Liberty. Railroads and ranchers, rabble-rousers and racists populate America's distant frontiers, and Native Americans are displaced from their homelands. Feminists gain a foothold in their fight for the right to vote, while farmers organize and the Populist Party appears on the American political landscape.
17.CAPITAL AND LABOR
The making of money pits laborers against the forces of capital as the 20th century opens. Professor Miller introduces the miner as the quintessential laborer of the period"working under grueling conditions, organizing into unions, and making a stand against the reigning money man of the day, J. Pierpont Morgan.
18.TR AND WILSON: TWO FACES OF POWER
Professor Brinkley compares the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson"the Warrior and the Minister"in the first decades of the 20th century. Professor Miller discusses American socialism, Eugene Debs, international communism, and the roots of the Cold War with Professor Brinkley.
19.A VITAL PROGRESSIVISM
Professor Martin offers a fresh perspective on Progressivism, arguing that its spirit can be best seen in the daily struggle of ordinary people. In a discussion with professors Scharff and Miller, the struggles of Native Americans, Asian Americans, and African Americans are placed in the context of the traditional white Progressive movement.
20.THE TWENTIES: THE TENSIONS OF PROSPERITY
The Roaring Twenties take to the road in Henry Ford's landscape- altering invention-the Model T. Ford's moving assembly line, the emergence of a consumer culture, and the culmination of forces let loose by these entities in Los Angeles are explored by Professor Miller.
21.FDR AND THE DEPRESSION
Professor Brinkley continues his story of 20th-century presidents with a profile of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Brinkley paints a picture of America during the Depression and chronicles some of Roosevelt's programmatic and personal efforts to help the country through its worst economic crisis. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt is at FDR's side and, in many respects, ahead of him as the decade unfolds.
22.WORLD WAR II: TOTAL WAR
America is enveloped in total war, from mobilization on the home front to a scorching air war in Europe. Professor Miller's view of World War II is a personal essay on the morality of total war, and its effects on those who fought, died, and survived it, including members of his own family.
23.THE FIFTIES: FROM WAR TO NORMALCY
World War II is fought to its bitter end in the Pacific and the world lives with the legacy of its final moment: the atomic bomb. Professor Miller continues the story as veterans return from the war and create new lives for themselves in the '50s. The GI Bill, Levittown, civil rights, the Cold War, and rock 'n roll are discussed.
24.THE SIXTIES
Professor Scharff weaves the story of the Civil Rights movement with stories of the Vietnam War and Watergate to create a portrait of a decade. Lyndon Johnson emerges as a pivotal character, along with Stokely Carmichael, Fanny Lou Hamer, and other luminaries of the era.
25.CONTEMPORARY HISTORY: CRITICAL THINKING ABOUT 1972
The entire team of historians joins Professor Miller in examining the last quarter of the 20th century. A montage of events opens the program and sets the stage for a discussion of the period-and of the difficulty of examining contemporary history with true historical perspective. Television critic John Leonard offers a footnote about the impact of television on the way we experience recent events.
26.THE REDEMPTIVE IMAGINATION STORY, MEMORY, AND IDEN
Storytelling is a relentless human urge and its power forges with memory to become the foundation of history. Novelists Charles Johnson (Middle Passage), Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha), and Esmeralda Santiago (America's Dream) join Professor Miller in discussing the intersection of history and story. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., closes the series with a reflection on the power of the human imagination. I hope you enjoy the fourth of July holiday this year.
Now, as with any discussion of American history, one is going to encounter potential biases in the historians doing the work, but this series should still be helpful if you keep on your critical thinking cap while you read and watch. You can see them all here.
I will now be on Twitter. I will try to "tweet" at least several times per week, and will use Twitter to help inform readers about new blog posts as well. If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can check the "Follow Me" button on the right panel of this blog.
These Christian missionaries were exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion, but apparently the Constitution carries little weight in Dearborn, where the Muslim population seems to dominate the political apparatus.
Somehow I don't think we've seen the last of such things.
Update 25 June 2010
This is a video of an interview on FOX News of two of the men who were arrested, along with their lawyer.
Note: After publishing this post at 3:05 this afternoon, I received some helpful feedback from a brother in the Lord, who lovingly reminded me that I had not been as gracious as I could have been in pointing out that there have been good aspects of the Family-Integrated Church Movement as well as those negative things criticized in this post. For example, they have stressed the importance of family in a culture that is destroying families all around us, and they have also stressed the importance of a Biblical understanding of gender roles as well. And they have called fathers, in particular, to be faithful to their God-given role as such. For all these emphases we should all be grateful, even if we have to take exception to some of their overemphases and dangerous language. 10:55 PM 24 June 2010.
Before we consider the two errors I have in mind, it is appropriate first to briefly consider the meaning of the Jeremiah text, in which God promised through the prophet Jeremiah that He would one day establish a New Covenant with His people, a promise which found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ:
NKJ Jeremiah 31:31-32 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah -- 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.”
Here the Lord says that the New Covenant will be different than the Old Covenant which the the people of Israel broke, and He implies that the difference will be that it will be an unbreakable covenant. That this is so – and how it is so – becomes clear in the following verses:
NKJ Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
The New Covenant will not be like the old, breakable covenant because God will ensure that those who participate in the New Covenant have the law within their hearts. Indeed, there will be no one who has partaken of the New Covenant who does not have a new heart. Ezekiel put it this way:
NKJ Ezekiel 36:26-27 “26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”
So we can have assurance that we will be preserved in covenant faithfulness such that we will never lose the blessings of the New Covenant, and this will come about through the gift of the Holy Spirit and the transformation of our hearts. But there is more:
NKJ Jeremiah 31:34 “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
There are two New Covenant blessings mentioned here:
First, unlike the Old Covenant, everyone who is a member of the New Covenant community knows the Lord.
Second, unlike the Old Covenant, everyone who is a member of the New Covenant has his sins forgiven.
It is clear that when God says that all in the New Covenant will know Him, He does not just mean that they will know about Him, but rather that they will have a personal relationship with Him as believers who have been forgiven by Him. Nevertheless, there are two current errors that deny this fundamental teaching, either expressly or by implication.
The Error That the New Covenant Church is Made Up of Believers and Their Children
The first error is held – and has been held for centuries – by our Presbyterian brethren. This is the error that teaches that, like the Old Covenant community, the New Covenant community is made up not only of believers, but of believers and their children. This means that the New Covenant Church includes unbelievers and covenant breakers. But the problem with this view is that is treats the New Covenant like the Old Covenant in the precisely the way in which God said it would be different! For He clearly indicated that the New Covenant would differ from the Old in that it would be an unbreakable covenant consisting only of those who truly know Him.
Now, I certainly do think we may have hope that children born to believers may indeed come to faith in Christ and thus become a part of the New Covenant community. But there is no such promise in Scripture. All we can do is pray for our children who have not yet come to know Christ and continue to lovingly share the Gospel with them, with the hope that God in His providence placed them in our families for this very purpose.
The Error That the New Covenant Church is aFamily of Families
The second error is held by a small but growing minority of our Baptist brethren, even by some who would call themselves Reformed Baptists. This error is remarkably similar to the previous one and teaches that the local church should be viewed as a “family of families.” But the problem with this view is that, as with the previous view, the Church is viewed as being likethe Old Covenant community in the inclusion of our children, whether or not our children are believers.
Now, some who describe the church this way would definitely not want to agree with the implications of the Presbyterian view. For example, Voddie Baucham has sought to distance himself from some of the errors associated with the "family of families" concept, here and here. He admits that the phrase is potentially problematic, and he is forthright about the way the terminology may lead or has led some to wrongly conclude that it is an attempt to describe the nature, rather than the ministry, of the church. However, even though he admits that this terminology – terminology which he and his church have helped to promote – is "enigmatic," I think he fails to see how much the terminology has been taken by many common advocates of the Family-Integrated Church Movement (FICM) themselves as descriptive of the nature of the Church, his own belated protestations notwithstanding.
In addition, Scott Brown, another man who has done much to advance the "family of families" view of the church, has posted a series of articles responding to Reformed Baptist objections to this terminology. One of these articles is entitled The Church is a "Family of Families" -- Part 5 and is subtitled "What have we learned from this controversy over 'Family of Families'?" In this article Brown speaks to the way he believes FICM advocates have often been misunderstood and of the way the National Center For Family Integrated Churches (NCIFC) will make use of the phrase "family of families" in the future. Although he says that it no longer appears in current NCFIC literature and has been removed from their core document, "A Biblical Confession for Uniting Church and Family," he also states that, "We have no intention to abandon the use of the phrase or the concept behind it. It is a very important principle that undergirds a biblical understanding of church and family life."
Thus while Brown obviously sees that the phrase "family of families" has been problematic when used as a descriptive term for the Church, so much so that it has been removed from all of the NCFIC literature, he nevertheless thinks that there is no need to abandon use of the phrase among FICM advocates.
So we have a situation in which two of the leading voices of the FICM recognize the problem with the "family of families" terminology, but sadly neither are really willing to stop using it. I find this deeply troubling, since the phrase is clearly not just problematic because it leads guys like me to misunderstand them as making a statement about the nature of the Church when they really don't intend to do so, as Baucham suggests in the defense posted above. Rather it leads to problems among FICM advocates themselves, a number of whom I have encountered in pastoral ministry and who have clearly seen the term "family of families" as describing the nature of the Church. And, frankly, I can understand why they have thought so, since this is a hard conclusion to avoid given the nature and grammar of the phrase when tacked onto the sentence "The Church is." Thus, when they have consistently heard the motto, "The Church is a family of families," how does it not sound like an expression about the nature of the Church? And how, by the way, was such a problem with the language not foreseeable? I think we all know how a slogan can take on a life of its own, and this one has definitely done so.
In addition there is often a strong, consistent, and Biblically unbalancedemphasis among FICM advocates upon the biological family that eclipses any emphasis upon the Church as a spiritual family, an emphasis that tends to reinforce the notion that the term "family of families" is indeed descriptive of the nature of the Church.
So confusion is rampant, and astonishingly the blame for the confusion is usually placed by them on those of us who disagree. But, again, we do not see the language as problematic just because it leads to a misunderstanding of their position by those on the outside who might be critical, but also because it leads many within the FICM movement to erroneous ideas about the Church. Yet we are still told that we are just being too critical and unwilling to listen attentively to the way they qualify the language. However, in my opinion, the confusion that has come about is their fault, for they are the ones who have employed such easily misunderstood language in the first place. And until FICM advocates such as Baucham and Brown are willing to reject such language entirely, this confusion will continue to reign among many (and guys like me will have to keep writing posts like this one).
I will conclude by saying that this is more than a little disturbing to me as a pastor, whose primary objective is to help the Church understand God's Word better rather than to accept the obfuscation of important theological matters. And I have to say frankly that I just can't get my head around the idea of a pastor who does accept the use of such language, apparently just because he can't let go of a pet term no matter how truth-distorting it might be.
Such a situation just makes me think that some of these men have lost sight of what is really important. In elevating an emphasis upon the biological family to a place of such central importance that it eclipses clear Biblical teaching about the true nature of the Church as a spiritual family, along with an unwillingness to state that matter in a fundamentally sound way, they may just be losing sight of some truly essential matters. For example, if the need to state important Biblical truths in a way that helps to promote clarity in understanding is not seen by them as being of grave importance, then they have got a bigger problem than we all might think. I, for one, think that stating Biblical truth in a clear and understandable way is always a crucial matter. And I think that seeking to avoid the use of language that distorts important Biblical teaching and easily leads to misunderstanding is equally important, don't you?
