Wes White on the Institutional Church

Wes White has written an excellent short piece on why there is nothing wrong with the Church as an Institution per se. The Anarchist "House Church movement" by [Frank] Viola et al is just another "Restorationist" anti-institutional institution in its own right. Christ however instituted order in the Church, and this excludes the anarchist attitude of the so-called "House church movement". As it has been said, we are not opposed to having church in homes; what we are objecting is the sheer naivete that "Institution" is necessarily bad and that a house church is not an institution- that a house church is an "organism" not an "organization". As Pastor White says:

To bring this to a close, the institutional church is highly necessary if our goal is for Christians to come together. If people are going to come together, they must have an organization of some sort. An institution is really just an organization plus time. Institutions are inevitable in human society. If Christians are called to love one another, then they will inevitably form institutions. If they take the Bible seriously, they will set up boundaries of fellowship.

So, why not simply form your own organization based on what you think the Scripture says? At times, like during the Reformation, this may be necessary. However, even in the Reformation, the Reformers sought to look to the best of the past in order to learn how to put together their institutions. Theoretically, you may be able to build a better institution, but knowing you (whoever you are), probably not. The likelihood is that if you start from scratch, you will still build an institution. It will just be a very bad one.

Misquoted verses: Compiled article

I have just created and uploaded the compiled article containing all the exegesis of the misquoted verses onto my website. It can be found here.

Misquoted verse: 1 Cor. 9:22

To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. (1 Cor. 9:22)

When it comes to the issue of contextualization, this particular verse is the most utilized verse for prooftexting. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with trying to reach out to others, or presenting information in an understandable way, or removing stumbling blocks to belief? What does this verse actually teach, and can it be used to promote contextualization, however defined?

The context of this verse outlines what Paul did in reaching out to the Jews who are under the Law, and the Gentiles who are outside it. In other parts of Scripture, the Law with its rituals and ceremonies have been stated to be abrogated with the coming of the New Covenant (cf Col. 2:16-17; Gal. 5:2-6, Heb. 8:13), and therefore participating in these rituals are rendered not necessary at all. However, it is not sin to take part in these rituals per se.

In contrasting being "under the law" and "outside the law", we must realize that the Law here refers especially to the ceremonial aspect of the Jewish religious law. Paul is thus advocating accommodation on something which is not necessary for salvation or the Christian life. Among the Jews, he continues keeping the form of these rituals so that he would not needlessly antagonize them. Among the Gentiles, he lives like a non-Jew who do not observe the Jewish religious laws, since they are not necessary anyway. In both of these scenarios, Paul brings himself to their level by adopting either neutral lifestyle which are both spiritually proper.

In light of this, the type of accommodation and "contextualization" that is biblical is one in which the options are ethically and spiritually neutral. Whatever options made can never violate the biblical rules of conduct — that we should be holy as God is holy (Lev. 11:44-45, 1 Peter 1:16). Paul is manifestly not an antinomian, and it is a mistake to interpret the word "law" as meaning anything other than the religious code of the Old Covenant. Neither is the phrase "by all means" meant to be taken as an absolute, as if prostitution is also a legitimate means (To win prostitutes, you should be one as well?), but the phrase is to be understood in context as referring to all valid means possible.

In conclusion, 1 Cor. 9:22 teaches that we should as much as possible find ways to relate to others. However, such does not give us license to compromise the Christan faith and message, or be a pragmatist who thinks that the ends justify the means. Contextualization that compromises the Christian faith and message cannot therefore utilize 1 Cor. 9:22 as a prooftext, for the context does not lend itself to such an abuse.

Book Review: Why We Love the Church

Kevin DeYoung, the pastor of University Reformed Church, has came out with an excellent book entitled Why We Love the Church — In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion. It is an excellent book which refutes the Emerging/Emergent redefinition of the church, as well as the nonsense coming from the "American House-Church" movement of George Barna and Frank Viola. The review can be found here.

This book is the second of its kind co-written by Pastor Kevin DeYoung and his church member Ted Kluck. The first, Why we are not Emergent (By Two Guys who should be), was indeed a great book written in a very engaging format. For obvious reasons, I like the section by DeYoung more since he deals with the theological issues while Kluck deals more with the experiential aspect. This book is no different. Although I am sure Kluck's portion are good and could be of help to some people, I unfortunately cannot appreciate his sections much, and thus will mainly stick with DeYoung's sections in the book.

In his fight for organized religion, the main antagonists DeYoung faces are the decentralists and anti-institutionists found especially in the American house-church movement, with the main spokesmen being the emergents, the pollster George Barna and house church leader Frank Viola. In the introduction, DeYoung outlines for us this new anti-institutional house-church phenomenon, and the way he would address the issues involved.

[more]

Robert Reymond on Christian ministry and the Inspiration of the Bible

Here is a very interesting quote by Dr. Robert Reymond on the topic of the Inspiration of Scripture as it relates to Christian ministers:

The candidate for Christian ministry who does not believe that the Bible is God's inspired Word should not enter the ministry. He does not belong there. If he is already in the ministry he should either quit because he should never have entered it or at the very least he should tell his congregation that he does not believe the Bible is God's inspired Word so that those who have the sense not to submit to his authority, stripped bare as it is of the authority of God's Word, can leave and listen to a pastor who does believe it, because all the other doctrines of the true Faith are derived from the divinely inspired Bible and rest upon it for their authority. The doctrine of inspiration is the bedrock — the mother and guardian — of all the other doctrines of Scripture! It is that important!

— Robert Reymond, Faith's Reasons for Believing (Ross-shire, Scotland, UK: Mentor, 2008), p. 111

Do keep in mind Dr. Reymond's view of the Inspiration of Scripture is the biblical idea of Verbal, Plenary Inspiration and Inerrancy of Scripture, not the subjective inspiration of Neo-Orthodoxy or the mythological kerygma of the Neo-liberals.

New Evangelical Calvinism: Ambassador for Christ or embarrassed of Him?

[continued from here, here, here, here and here]

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All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Cor. 5:18-20)

As Christians, we are called to be ambassadors for Christ; to represent our King as His messenger to proclaim His Word. In the secular world, ambassadors represent not themselves or their interests but the interests of their respective countries. Even if they personally feel a certain way, they do not express their personal feelings (or at least aren't supposed to do so), but only such as benefits their countries' interests.

The Christian is an ambassador for Christ, and thus represent Christ to his fellow men. This of course has many implications for our behavior, including how we live our lives and our witness for Christ to those who do not know Him. We will however focus on the aspect that is at contention here in the New Calvinism: The focus on being an ambassador in our attitudes in Gospel and Truth proclamation.

An organization that has became the de facto flagship of the New Calvinism, The Gospel Coalition Network, epitomized the mood of the New Calvinism in its handling of the truth, an improvement over the older New Evangelicalism half a century ago which jettisoned the importance of truth in her outreach. Instead of the perceived opposites found within "Fundamentalism" and the Postmodern Emerging Conversation, the Gospel Coalition has came up with a "mood" or approach to truth which they call a "chastened correspondence theory of truth", as stated

We adopt a “chastened” correspondence–theory of truth that is less triumphalistic than that of some in the older evangelicalism. But we also reject a view of truth that sees truth as nothing more than the internally coherent language of a particular faith– community. So we maintain, with what we hope is appropriate humility, the principle of sola Scriptura. (I.4.1) [42]

The older evangelicalism is considered "more triumphalistic" with its uncompromising proclamation of the Truth which is perceived to not take into account the fact that we perceive the Truth only partially and infallibly. Since our perception tints our view of the Truth (perspectivism), we are to be humble in our proclamation of the truth as we may be wrong. Such humility or a chastened attitude precludes the prophetic proclamation of Truth as being definitely THE truth, unless it be accompanied by disclaimers that we may be wrong and therefore invite others to correct us if they are able to; to show us that our perception may not be totally true. So says the New Calvinism and the Gospel-centered movement. However, is this view of ourselves and our knowledge of truth biblical?

First of all, it must be conceded that we are most definitely not neutral with regards to Truth, and therefore we may not be definitely true. Sometimes even what we strongly think is true may be wrong, and we should welcome criticism and evaluate our theories accordingly. However, to extrapolate this fact "We are not always definitely true" to "We are always not definitely true" is a logical fallacy, a fallacy hat the Gospel-centered movement and New Calvinism are in fact committing.

How do we Christians come to know biblical truth? We know biblical truth through God's revelation in the Scriptures, which are objective and absolute truths free from all human perspectives. The Truth therefore is present with us, and this truth being free from human perspectives and biasness will never be wrong and needs no apologizing. After all, this is what is meant when we say that Scripture is the ultimate authority for all of life.

The next step has to do with internalizing the external Truth into our minds, which of course is not an infallible process due to sin. In point of fact, the unregenerate cannot receive the truth of Christ, and are not able to perceive them as truth but only as seeming folly (1 Cor. 2:14). However, the same passage informs us Christians that we can and do definitely understand God's Truth. As it is written:

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. ... The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:12, 15-16)

Those who are truly believers, the regenerate, will have the mind of Christ and the Holy Spirit (cf Jn. 16:13; 17:17) and understand God's truth. No doubt new believers have to grow in Christ and renew their mind (Rom. 12:2), but definite knowledge of the truth can be achieved, otherwise the passage in 1 Cor. 2 makes absolutely no sense, giving us the contradiction that even with the mind of Christ and being able to judge all things, the truths we obtained through having the mind of Christ are not necessarily true. We must here differentiate between definite and exhaustive knowledge of the truth: Definite knowledge of truth deals with the quality of our knowledge of the truth as being 100% confident to be true, while exhaustive knowledge of truth deals with the quantity or depth of our knowledge of the truth. We most definitely cannot obtain exhaustive truth since we are finite and God is infinite, but there is nothing to prohibit the definite acquisition of truth especially since we have the mind of Christ.

All of this ties back in to the issue of being an ambassador for Christ. Ambassadors are to represent their countries, not themselves. Similarly, in Gospel and truth proclamations, we represent God and not ourselves. We are still not perfect and are still sinful, but we are NOT representing our own human frailties but the perfect, infallible and sinless God whose greatness surpasses our puny human frames. Having given the mind of Christ, and thus able to definitely know truth, are we then to shrink back and adopt a "chastened" attitude with regards to truth? We are jars of clay containing the truth of Christ (2 Cor. 4:7). Is the value of the treasure fundamentally affected by the type of jar it is in? So why are we so focused on ourselves rather than the Christ who uses us weaklings to proclaim His truth?

We are therefore to be bold in our proclamation, because the message we have does not depend on the state of the vessel for its existence and truthfulness. Our job is in presenting it clearly through faithful exegesis of Scripture, and thus let the Scriptures speak for themselves, and we need not ever apologize or try to be humble in its proclamation. In fact, since this is God's truth we are talking about, humility is portrayed in proclaiming it authoritatively, and the "chastened" attitude is in fact false humility which devalues the Word of God by making its proclamation less authoritative than what it actually is.

Will the New Calvinists reject this new "chastened" attitude towards the Truth of Scripture? Will we rather let Scripture and Scripture alone dictate to us the relative definiteness of the various truths of Scripture, and react accordingly, instead of allowing philosophical and cultural analyses to shape our epistemology?

Conclusion

We have seen five major issues of concern with New [Evangelical] Calvinism. All of these are serious in their own right and have the potential to derail the entire movement from the Scriptures. On top of this, the issue of pragmatism (part of New Evangelicalism) has lately reared its ugly head, seen especially when it comes to defending Driscoll and Keller from criticism by pointing to how successful they have been in reaching the lost and church planting. Now each one is a serious concern in its own right, but compounding them all together and it seems that the New Calvinism is fraught with many problems as they continue in the errors of their predecessor the conservative wing of New Evangelicalism. Will we and the New Calvinists be willing to listen to Scripture and be willing to biblically re-evaluate New Evangelicalism, or will we continue in the deluded thinking that as long as our doctrine and our Gospel narrowly defined is orthodox, our larger worldview and ministry philosophy are irrelevant? Will we learn from Scripture and from history, or will we repeat the same mistakes over again?

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana

May God be with us and open our eyes to see the truth and rejects the errors in the New Evangelical Calvinism. Amen.

References:

[42] Theological Vision for Ministry, The Gospel Coalition Network (http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/about/foundation-documents/vision)

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Check out the full article available in PDF format here.

Panel on the Emerging Church

In this rather long video (88' 20"), Pastor Kevin DeYoung, Emergent Tony Jones, Scot McKnight and the Harris twins participated in a panel held about two weeks ago at the Christian Book Expo in Dallas to discuss the Emerging Church Movement:

My two cents take:

Kevin DeYoung was excellent, although I can emphatize with his frustration with the two representatives of the Emergen* Church Movement. Check out his blog here btw.

Tony Jones: If what he asserts of his theological knowledge is correct, they remain merely cognitio, sans assentio and fiducia. In point of fact, it is revealing that the idea of the perspicuity of Scripture is new to him despite his pompous pronouncement of familiarity with Church history.

Scot McKnight: I wonder if there is anyone he cannot tolerate besides Christians who believe in and practice Jude 1:3 in any form.

The Harris twins: Good questions asked. It is hoped that they would mature in the faith and learn that subterfuge is a very good strategy used by the enemy and his soldiers.

[HT: TeamPyro]

Book reivew: Confession of a Reformission Rev by Mark Driscoll

I have just finished a book review of Mark Driscoll's book Confession of a Reformission Rev., which has been uploaded to my website here. Here is the conclusion

Driscoll's book is a good window into the worldview of the conservative "calvinist" emerging church. What it shows is indeed rather alarming, and serves to perpetuate and accentuate the problems in the churches. What is the point of having solid doctrine when such doctrines have no bearing whatsoever on life and ministry? What is the point of becoming a Calvinist when the most fundamental point of Calvinism — the Sovereignty of God — is denied over and over again through the incessant need to be relevant, "missional" and adopting the methodologies of the world? It is not enough to profess sound doctrine, but that such profession must be a true confession from the heart which will manifest itself in proper Christian living and fidelity to Scripture alone for all of life. May God show Driscoll his errors so that he may repent and obey God 's Word fully and not partially. Amen.

Some people have asked me on my current focus on Mark Driscoll especially since he seems to be an American problem (for now). First of all, the main thing is the issues involved, not the person. Secondly, whatever that is in the US would come over to Singapore sooner or later. Thirdly, I know of a leader in my former church who is currently enamored by Mark Driscoll. It is simply naive to think that Singapore does not have to deal with this issue now; with the growth of the Internet, ideas can spread very very rapidly.

True vs. false ideas on spiritual disciplines and retreats

I recently had my personal spiritual retreat on Monday afternoon (December 29th): to seek God especially for His direction for the new year (2009). I have been clearing leave during this season so I have had the free time to slow down and take stock of this passing year, and Monday afternoon was the time I had set aside to seek God exclusively for an extended period of time. It has indeed been a very refreshing time, though also one in which the flesh rails against the spirit the most. But I digress.

Normally, I prefer not to reveal more personal stuff publicly on the Internet, focusing instead on more important stuff like doctrine and Christian issues. After all, I am nothing but dust but Christ is everything; Christ alone is eternal and worthy of praise, and that's why we should talk about Him and not ourselves, let alone me. Yet I will concede in this post so that my life experience in this particular episode may hopefully be used to instruct others — not that my life is that great, for I know my sins and weaknesses, but that Christ be magnified in the proclamation of His truth.

The idea for this post came about in the course of the retreat itself as I prayed over the terrible blight of spiritual poverty in the [Visible] Church. It must be admitted that modernist Evangelicalism, with all its positive thinking, 12-steps-to-this and 7-steps-to-that programs, is spiritually bankrupt and the thirst for true spiritual reality has swept many professing Evangelicals into the contemplative camp in search of spiritual satisfaction yet all they receive are counterfeit trinkets. Yet the Protestant Reformed tradition has the biblical answer to the heart's yearning for spiritual reality, and the tragedy is that so many overlook the truth, and even worse when they ignore it altogether. Instead of following God's way, they prefer their own methods; they have forsaken the fountains of living water for broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jer. 2:13). What utter folly! Yet like irrational animals (Jude 1:10), they refuse to listen to God and tumble into the pernicious error of Contemplative Spirituality, thinking that they can approach God under their own terms in their own manner (cf Lev. 10:1).

In this post therefore, I will share my own experience of how a biblical spiritual retreat is done which I am sure is reasonably biblical, and contrast it with the anti-Christian practice of Contemplative Spirituality. May this be edifying to the saints.

I started my retreat after lunch, which I had done outside somewhere in the Central district in the city. Finding a relatively quiet spot in the outdoors (ie no distraction except moderately soft background noise), I proceeded with the retreat proper. I don't have a particular liking of fixed schedule of things to do as it reminds me of Modernism (although fixed order/liturgies are not Modernism, yet Modernism does consist of them) and anyway this was a personal retreat, so the activities during the few hours of retreat was more or less done in a dynamic fashion "as the Spirit leads" so to speak. First of course was prayer to dedicate this portion of time to the Lord, then the remaining time was spent alternating between prayer, reading the Word, reading a good Christian book I had with me (A Heart for Reformation — review here) and worship. The retreat was finally closed with a closing prayer after all was done.

Prayer is a two-way conversation, although NOT in the way the Contemplative spiritualists have made it out to be. In prayer, the focus must be on God and on God's Will, NOT treating God as if he is a Santa Claus to be thrown a shopping/wish list at! That is not prayer. Unless one comes before God in humility and contrition of his sins, God will not hear. The focus is always on God (theocentric) not on fulfilling our own whims and fancies or even our yearnings for spiritual reality. In prayer especially when we desire sweet communion with our LORD, there must be preparation in terms of genuine repentance and we must live in obedience to Him. It is no coincidence that the first few propositions in the Lord's Prayer asks us to glorify God and calls for His will to be done. God speaks to us today through His Word as the Spirit illuminates it to our hearts, and therefore knowledge of the Word of God and doctrine is important as God uses His Word to speak to us. Isn't it any wonder therefore when few Evangelicals can hear God speaking to them, for they know not the Word of God nor biblical doctrine? How can anyone claims to love God and want to know Him, yet refuse to read and understand the primary love letter God has written to us in the Bible? Whose fault it is when Evangelicals complain that they cannot hear God and have communion with Him? If they refuse to learn the language of God's revelation and believe its truth, they have only themselves to blame; God does not reward disobedience!

Traditional Christian spirituality revolves around what are termed the "means of grace" to nurture our walk with God (progressive sanctification). In our personal walk, these includes prayer and the Word. (Corporate means of grace includes hearing the preaching of the Word and the Sacraments). Contemplative spirituality however guts both means of grace and replace them with counterfeits. In place of the Word of God, they offer mantras loosely based upon the Word of God (ie Lectio Divina). In place of biblical prayer, they offer contemplative prayer. In the former substitution, an easy method of repeating biblical words/phrases over and over again in counterfeit meditation is given. Such is Jeroboam all over again. Remember the reason given by King Jeroboam of the northern Kingdom as to why he made the two golden calves in the first place? It was because it was too hard to go up to Jerusalem to worship God (1 Kings 12:28 - NIV), so here was an easier alternative to be pious before God, or so it was claimed. The biblical method of reading and using your mind to understand God's truth is so hard (and we don't want to appear too doctrinaire, right? Why, that would be just like the Pharisees!) for many, and so substituting it with Scripture as mantra is just so much easier to do in order to purportedly get the same spiritual benefits.

Along with a counterfeit "Word" comes counterfeit prayer. Why should we spend so much time understanding God's Word, and then after that we are "forced" into contrition and repentance as the Word of God exposes our sins? No, no, no! That wouldn't do at all! Here's an easier method which requires little effort and promises the same benefits as the harder one PLUS, you do not need to feel uncomfortable as the Spirit pricks your conscience over your sins. Practicing Contemplative prayer and hearing God "speaking out of the silence" is much more alluring than having the Holy Spirit communicating God's truth to us while devastating our idols and pride. Why the necessity for pain when there is an easier alternative?

True biblical spiritual disciplines and retreats are done wholly dependent and in obedience to the Word of God, while false spiritual disciplines and retreats are practised according to the vain imaginations and philosophies of Man (Col. 2:8). Biblical spiritual disciplines center on the means of grace as spelled out in Scripture, and thus comprise thoughtful reading, understanding, systematizing, meditation on and application of the Word of God and its truths in the lives of Christians. Coupled with that is prayer which is done intelligently based upon a proper understanding of the Word of God and submission to His Will. A time of spiritual retreat is therefore a period of time set aside and devoted to God whereby all worldly and even ministry matters are placed to one side so that the believer can spend that period of time focused on reading God's Word, praying and worshipping God. The "silent retreat" promoted by the contemplative spiritualist mystics however voids the Word of its power and promotes spirituality without God and therefore leads people away from God. Such laziness in contemporary Evangelicalism is definitely not acceptable before God and will be punished by Him. As it is written

The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied (Prov. 13:4)

It is very unfortunate that this doctrine of demons has entered the Evangelical Movement through the Trojan horse of Quaker Richard J. Foster and his organization Renovare. Through his best-selling book The Celebration of Discipline, Foster introduces undiscerning Evangelicals to the so-called Desert Fathers and the "Christian" tradition of contemplation, a tradition which developed during the Dark Ages as the Church then has sliden into apostasy. Just as we do not tolerate the doctrine of Arianism (that Jesus is not truly God) just because it was once embraced by some who call themselves Christians at one time or another in church history, it is simply stupid to argue that we should consider the "Contemplative tradition" as being a legitimate Christian tradition just because some who call themselves Christians once practiced it.

As we have seen, Contemplative Spirituality is un-biblical and anti-Christian in its outlook. We must remember that Contemplative Spirituality is not about being quiet as opposed to being pre-occupied by other matters (that is a straw-man), but about seeking intimacy and communion with God apart from the God-appointed means of doing so. By attempting to short-circuit the process of growth, Contemplative Spirituality pits itself against Christ and His Word, and is therefore not to be promoted or partaken of by Christians. Remember:

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death (Prov. 14:12, 16:25)

With this, let me close with this exhortation to all believers. If you value your walk with God, I implore you to have nothing whatsoever to do with the blasphemous and anti-Christian methodologies of Contemplative Spirituality. Reject them like the plague that it is, and turn back to the simplicity of the Gospel and the pure spiritual milk therein (1 Peter 2:2). Otherwise

30 Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. 31 Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” (Ez. 18: 30-32)

Amen.

The self-defeating position of those who deny the ability of language to convey truths perfectly

Over in the comments section at my post linking to my friend Mike Ratliff's post on there being only two religions in the World, a guy who calls himself Antithesis has attempted to promote the view of the imperfection of language to convey truth perfectly, in service to his neo-orthodox anthopo-theo-logy. Of course, the fact that he uses language to convey his point of view, and assume that his propositions are able to convey his thoughts perfectly, makes his position utterly self-defeating.

For if language is not perfectly able to convey the truth, then how much imperfection may there be in propositions made by anyone? Who or what determines how much imperfection can exist before there is a breakdown in communication between two people such that communication is impossible? And if communication may not be possible, then why bother trying at all, since you would have no certainty that the person you are talking to would be able to understand you at all? Of course, it may be objected that in general, communication is possible and in fact happens often between people, but such is an empirical observation which is of no comfort at all to the "language is unable to communicate truth perfectly" crowd. If p refers to the ability of language to communicate perfectly, and q refers to the actual empirical fact of language being largely able to communicate truth perfectly, then the propositions "If p, then q" is most definitely true. Therefore, the empirical fact of everyday language usage is congruent with the theory of the perfect communicative property of language, while the converse is not, as we shall see in the next paragraph.

It may be very tempting to state "If ~p, therefore ~q" but that is a logical fallacy. Rather, what can be seen is that the denial of p makes one skeptical about the possibility of q. Since language is not deemed to be able to communicate truths perfectly, therefore there can be no certainty whatsoever that people are able to communicate truths perfectly. For Antithesis and the neo-orthodox who think like him, the fact of q should disturb them, for either their theory is wrong, or that most people are deluded and wrong when they exude so much confidence that the many sentences they make in their entire lives could be understood at least most of the time.

An objection may be made that we must take into account the noetic effects of sin, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with the ability of language to communicate truths perfectly or not. This is unless one thinks that language is a thoroughly human invention instead of being first and foremost a gift of God at Creation and one which is not super-intended by God (ie to have a anthropocentric view of language instead of a theocentric view). Language however is first and foremost from God who is the foremost communicator to Man His creation. That God super-intends the development of language such that sin does not touch language (a non-moral instrument) but rather the moral ability of the moral creature to discover truth from language can be seen in the narrative of Scripture in which the ability of words to communicate truths perfectly was assumed throughout by God and all the people in both testaments, including the pagans. In fact, in a classic passage on the judgment of God upon His people for their sin, God said:

Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed (Is. 6:9-10)

In verse 10, God states that His judgment removes the people's ability to discern the Truth, but if that ability is present, they would thus be able to know the Truth and repent of their error. Furthermore, in Rom. 1:18-32, the whole idea present is that Man are darkened in their understanding (Rom. 1:21) and that caused them to sin even more. Therefore, the noetic effects of sin affects the sinner's ability to discern the truth, NOT upon the ability of the instrument, language, to convey truth perfectly.

This neo-orthodox position suffers also from a blatant contradiction of the doctrine of Scripture, more specifically the doctrine of the Verbal Plenary Inspiration of Scripture which I have proven to be biblical in a previous article . For if VPI is true, which it is, then the very words of Scripture must be inspired (Verbal Inspiration). However, if language cannot convey truth perfectly, then that would mean that the very words of Scripture is irrelevant; only the sense of them is important. It is inconceivable to think of each word of Scripture being at the same time inspired and yet at the same time not relevant to knowing the Truth. The two properties necessarily conflict and contradict each other because inspired words MUST be individually relevant and not irrelevant, and irrelevant words cannot be individually important, much less inspired. And so therefore, the attack on the ability of language to convey truth perfectly actually results in an attack on the Inspiration of Scripture.

It may be seen that Antithesis does not truly know or understand logic at all. There is a marked difference between sentences and propositions which he does not even seem to be aware of, which I have learned early on in my logic module class. Using the same words or phases does not necessarily mean that the same thing is being talked about and therefore would lead to different propositions. A cursory look at the known logical fallacies would show that the logical fallacy of equivocation (using one word to express two different things in different instances) and amphiboly (using one phrase or sentence to mean two different propositions) is built upon the fact that using the same word or sentence even does not mean that they are the same proposition. For otherwise how can they be called logical fallacies at all? Antithesis has here tripped himself up and shown himself to be totally ignorant of logic as seen in the following exchange:

Daniel: 3)You should go and be a lawyer; words seem to be mere putty to you. Question: In your opinion, is there ONE meaning for any particular sentence made by anyone?

Antithesis: Let’s consider the sentence, “Great!” in different contexts.

A boy got his exam results, and it is an A. He said, “Great!”

A boy got his trousers torn by his school bullies. He said, “Great!”

Do those two sentences - “Great!” - mean the same thing? But according to you, they both mean the same thing. One meaning, right?

First of all, Antithesis totally misunderstand the question that I was asking, which was about a particular statement; a single statement, NOT two similar statements used in two different contexts. His example however is flawed, for the two exclamations of "Great!" are not the same proposition. In language, it is typical to let the context feel in the meaning for you instead of stating a proper statement containing all the necessary information that is implicit within the context. For these two examples, the propositions made by these two boys are actually, after filling in information from the contexts:

1st boy: Great = I am happy to have accomplish this feat (of scoring an A)

2nd boy: Great = A terrible thing has happened to me (trousers torn by school bullies) (and I am being sarcastic about it)

This failure to distinguish between sentences/phrases and propositions is a very fundamental error in logical argumentation — one which is covered in basic logic class within the first few weeks, and therefore it should not be made by those who have studied logic in any degree whatsoever.

Last but not least, Antithesis shows us in the end that he does not understand basic logical argumentation at all; thus being the 'perfect' illustration for our case that God has indeed in punishment blinded the eyes of those who do not believe (Is. 6:9-10). Over at Joel's blog on a totally unrelated subject, Antithesis has commented, and I have posted one of my replies over here

Antithesis seems to have so much time in his hands to attempt to communicate his "truths". Of course, since language cannot perfectly convey truth, who exactly knows what he is actually saying? Maybe when he says "it does speak a lot concerning your reasoning ability", we should interpret it 'literally' as a compliment instead, as in "your reasoning ability" = subject, "it does speak" = verb, "a lot" = quantity, therefore we should interpret this phrase as Antithesis is praising Joel's great intellectual ability! Of course, since this whole thing is a silly discussion anyway, perhaps the adjective "silly" is meant to describe his tirades on my blog in wasting my time responding to his silly questions?

Applying the great Antithesis' neo-orthodox philosophy of language to his own writings truly has been so much fun. [Michel] Foucault would be proud...

To which Antithesis replied with this post which completely misses the point that the comment is an exercise in reductio ad absurdum.

In conclusion, it can be seen that the inability of language to convey truths is impractical and inconsistent with the praxis of those promoting it and it also undermines and contradicts the doctrine of Verbal Plenary Inspiration. Those who try to defend this self-defeating position are affirming the position in practice while denying it in theory — a sure recipe for disaster for them. Also, it would be a good idea for us to brush up on our logic so that we can spot all the many logical fallacies the Neo-Orthodox (and their cousins the Liberals and Emergents of which this is relevant too) commit over and over again especially in the field of epistemology.

P.S.: This would be my first and only serious post against the person who calls himself Antithesis. If not for the fact that this issue is an important issue, I would not have bothered to refute someone who is so full of himself and who refuses to submit himself to the authority of Scripture, but instead places himself and his reason (and probably "scholarship" too) in judgment over the Word of God.

Excerpt from Above all Earthly Powers

I have been reading through David Wells' book entitled Above all Earthly Powers: Christ in a Postmodern World, before going on to his latest book The Courage to be Protestant. I don't exactly take to the sociological analysis portions, but overall the book does presents its case of the collapse of Evangelicalism as it succumbs to the Zeitgeist or Spirit of the Age. Anyway, here is a good excerpt which describes the error of the entire seeker-sensitivity philosophy and methodology and also "seeker-sensitivity version 2", as seen by some in the rush to "contextualize" the Christian faith and to be "missional".

Many in the new seeker-sensitive experiment in "doing church" have seen only the surface habits of this postmodern world and have not really understood its Eros spirituality. Theirs is an experiment in tactics in which innumerable questions have been asked about the ways the Church can become successful in this culture and they are all prefaced by the word how. How do we get on the wavelength of Generation Xers? How do we do worship so that the transition from home to church, from mall to church, and from unbelief into a context of belief, is seamless and even unnoticed? How do we speak about Christian faith to those who only want techniques for survival in life? How can we be motivational for those who need a lift without burdening them? How can we say what we want to say in church when the audience will give us only a small slice of their attention, especially if we are not amusing? And what is emerging, as the evangelical Church continues to empty itself of theology, is that it now find that it is tapping, wittingly or not, into this broad cultural yearning for spirituality, and capitalizing on that disposition's inclination not to be religious. Evangelical spirituality without theology, that even sometimes despises theology, parallels almost exactly the broader cultural spirituality that is without religion. Evangelical faith without theology, without the structure and discipline of truth, is not Agape faith but it is much close to Eros spirituality.

This, however, is not understood. Church talks about "reaching" the culture turns, almost inevitably, into a discussion about tactics and methodology, not about worldviews. It is only about tactics and not about strategy. It is about seduction and not about truth, about success and not about confrontation. However, without strategy, the tactics inevitably fail; without truth, all of the arts of seduction which the churches are practicing sooner or later are seen to be the empty charade that they are; and because the emerging worldview is not being engaged, the Church has little it can really say. Indeed, one has to ask how much it actually wants to say. Biblical truth contradicts this cultural spirituality, and that contradiction is hard to bear. Biblical truth displaces it, refuses to allow it its operating assumptions, declares to it its bankruptcy. Here, indeed, is an anti-god, dressed up in the garb of authenticity, but whose world is a world of fiction. Is the evangelical Church faithful enough to explode the worldview of this new spiritual search? Is it brave enough to contradict what has wide cultural approval? The verdict may not finally be in but it seems quite apparent that while the culture is burning, the evangelical Church is fiddling precisely because it has decided it must be so like the culture to be successful.

[David F. Wells, Above all Earthly Powers: Christ in a Postmodern World (Eerdmans, Grand Rapid, MI, USA, 2005), 162-163]

CT article: Emergent's New Christians and the Young, Restless and Reformed

Interesting articles from Christianity Astray Today, here and here, part of a series of interactions between Collin Hansen (representing Neo-Calvinism) and Tony Jones (representing Emergent):

A new movement is attracting a younger generation of Christians, shaking up institutions, denominations, and churches along the way. Not everyone in the movement is attracted to it for the same reasons, but they gather at conferences and online to share thoughts, debate, and learn from the elder statesmen of the group. Now a new book attempts to explain, sympathetically, what's really going on.

Actually, it's two books, and two movements.

Collin Hansen's Young, Restless, Reformed started as a September 2006 Christianity Today article. Now editor-at-large for Christianity Today, Hansen has examined why many young Christians are drawn to Calvinism, whom these new Calvinists are listening to, and what they're passionate about.

Hansen's book begins with a note comparing the relative obscurity of the new Calvinism and the prominence of the emerging church. Among his interviewees was Tony Jones, national coordinator of Emergent Village, and author of the new book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.

Jones is the author of several previous books, but The New Christians is more journalistic in its approach, describing the origins of the emerging church, why it's growing, and how it's changing.

The books and movements share a number of themes: reaction against entertainment-driven church life, desire for transcendence, rediscovery of tradition, and a need to answer common misconceptions about the movements. Christianity Today invited Hansen and Jones to read each other's books and discuss how the rise of one movement might illuminate aspects of the rise of the other. Are both movements scratching the same itch? Are there internal tensions in one movement that also appear in the other?

...

This look very interesting. Elsewhere, it is stated:

Hansen: ... The young Reformed evangelicals I interviewed would gladly stand with Emergents on your dispatch 14: "Emergents embrace paradox, especially those that are core components of the Christian story."...

Can anyone discern what is going on here? Why is it that I am worried about this new developing Calvinist movement?

[HT: Christian Research Net]

See also

Being doers of the Word Article: Christianity Today ditches Sola Scriptura and takes up Church Tradition

Book Review: Faith Undone

I have just finished reading Roger Oakland's book Faith Undone, and I have done up a book review here. I would highly recommend this book to all who want to know more about the Emergent/Emerging Church Movement and where it is headed, as well as the growing apostasy within the "evangelical evanjellybean" churches.

Orthodoxy or Orthopraxy

Just listened to one of Carson's sermon posted on BiblicalThought.com, in the article The Relationship Between Experience and Truth. Near the end of the sermon, Carson said:

“So, which is it?

Experience or Truth?

The left wing of the airplane or the right?

Love or Integrity?

Evangelism or Discipleship?

Subjective knowledge or Objective knowledge?

Faith or Obedience?

THE FRONT WHEELS OF THE CAR OR THE REAR WHEELS???

In the light of Holy Scripture, brothers and sisters in Christ…

DAMN ALL FALSE ANTITHESES TO HELL!!!

I put it as strongly as that. Do you know why?

Because:

• They generate false gods.
• They generate idolatry.
• They perpetuate idols.
• They twist and distort our souls.
• They launch the church into violent pendulum-swings, whose oscillations succeed only in dividing brothers and sisters in Christ, and taking us away from the cohesiveness of God-given, life transforming Revelation.

The Truth is, that Jesus is Lord of all!

He is Lord of the truth and our experience.

He insists that we bring every thought into captivity to His gracious self disclosure.

He insists that we love him and that we trust him.

He makes us slaves in every domain, and thereby frees us.

Jesus is Lord!” — D.A Carson

In a later article entitled Orthodoxy or Orthopraxy, Stephen Macasil also attacks the postmodern, Emergent 'emphasis' on Orthopraxy while undermining Orthodoxy, and states in no uncertain terms that the Emergent's stance is a false antithesis and thus nonsensical. As he said, "Wrong thinking is wrong living"; a statement I heartily agree.

With this, I would like to share a few more thoughts.

One reason why I am extremely wary and uneasy and critical too of all the "practical godliness" Christians is because it is impossible to be truly godly without right doctrine. And the sentiment by Macasil makes is even plainer that believing the wrong doctrine is wrong living, and thus ungodly So what if you can behave practically like a saint even? So what if you have a "life transformation" from somone akin to a murderer to being almost a perfect saint, even keeping the 4th commandment to the very minute and second (as well as keeping all the >30 rules of do's and don'ts on the Sabbath)? As long as you believe in wrong doctrine, or worse still believe in a false "gospel", you are not truly living rightly. Therefore, those who focus on "practical godliness", "being a better Christian", even "living a life in practical obedience to the commands of Scripture", and yet downplay the importance of doctrine are sinning. I don't care how much of a saint you may behave, you are most definitely not one if you downplay and especially ignore the Truth of Scripture.

And all this false antithesis extends also to the Neo-Orthodox heresy, which creates a false antithesis between Jesus and the Word, whereas they come together. Truly, Neo-Orthodoxy generate false gods and generate idolatry (the idolatry of an alien 'christ' apart from the Word), twist and distort the souls of its adherents, and finally creates chaos within the Church. On another subject, I have no symphathy also for the "hyper-Evangelism" Decisional Regeneration movement, who are only interested in getting people to say a sinners' prayer, with the church existing only for evangelism (ie afer you are saved, you are supposed to just learn how to do evangelism, do it and that's it) and think that it is not important to grow in the knowledge of the Word of God. Of course, the converse is true, but I haven't met churches which are focused too much on Discipleship at the expense of Evangelism.

And so therefore, to end off:

Damn all false antitheses to hell! — D.A. Carson

Article: Christianity Today ditches Sola Scriptura and takes up Church Tradition

Here is an excellent article by Pastor Bob Dewaay on the growing apostasy within Evangelicalism proper. Just some excerpts:

In a cover article for Christianity Today, The FUTURE lies in the PAST, church history professor Chris Armstrong examines the trends in evangelicalism that have resulted in current evangelicals looking to ancient practices and teachings from church history from which to draw inspiration. He cites a D. H. Williams comment on “the almost overnight popularity of bishops and monks, martyrs and apologists, philosophers and historians who first fashioned a Christian culture 1,500 years ago,” and correctly identifies Robert Webber and Richard Foster as key early leaders of the movement that takes us back to ancient Christian practices and ideas.

...

... But where do they end up? My research suggests that mysticism is a key uniting factor amongst all the diversity of this movement. The “ancient-future Christians” want a spirituality that has no Biblically set boundaries. Armstrong writes, “From Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and living practicing monks and nuns, they must learn both the strengths and the limits of the historical ascetic disciplines.”

...

This brings us to the debate at the time of the Reformation: has God spoken in a binding, authoritative way only through Scripture, or does He speak throughout history through the Roman Catholic Church and her traditions?

If the Reformers were correct, then the article in Christianity Today is senseless. Why would we believe “Christ” is guiding a process that is not spelled out in Scripture? Why consult church history rather than search the Scriptures for the beliefs and practices God has ordained?

The only answer to these questions is that these postmodern “evangelicals” have rejected the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. They want to reject “rigid propositions” but refuse to do the hard work of learning the Bible and learning how to determine what are or are not valid implications from Scripture. It never even occurs to the article’s author to ask whether the Bible ordains asceticism and mysticism (they are condemned in Colossians 2 and Deuteronomy 18).

And this is one more reason why Christians should separate from what is called Evangelicalism today. Christianity Astray is sliding further and further into apostasy, and will bring many professing Christians down together with her.

I will blog more about this when I tackle the contemporary "reformed evangelical movement", but this is one of the things I am concerned about. How can one continue to drink from the toxic waters of modern Evangelicalism and not be contaminated at the very least? Is there truly anything to be gained at all from seriously considering the answers of postmodernism, the Emerging Church Movement, and consider legitimately the whole idea of "contextualization" in the area of evangelism? Or how about the entire neo-Kuyperian slant? It is not a matter of just throwing the words "Fundamentalist", "hyper-____", or any theological labels, especially those which are meant to smear the opponent as being hateful or unbiblical or extreme, but a matter of true fidelity to Scripture. Honestly, I care less about labels; I only use them for descriptive purposes. Anyway, more to come later.

Driscoll orthodox?

This article casts legitimate doubts on the growing sentiment of believers about Mark Driscoll's orthodoxy. Not to mention Driscoll's manifestly inappropriate speech in the promotional video for the upcoming sexuality 'Song of Solomon' conferences, which probably sounds more like soft-porn I guess. (Yeah right, striptease dances by wifes to their husbands is biblical... Why hasn't anyone seen this before?...)

Roger Oakland exposes the Emerging Church Movement

Interesting talk given by Roger Oakland exposing the Emerging Church Movement in general:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

[HT: Christian Research Net]

Expository preaching conference: Reflection (part 3)

[continued from here, here and here]

Dr Don Carson gave a short approximately 2 hours talk on the Emerging Church Movement on Friday afternoon, from 2-4pm including Q&A. It was informative, especially since Carson has researched and has even written a book on the Emerging Church Movement, entitled Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church.

In this talk, Dr. Carson spend most of his effort on analyzing the Emerging Church on the fronts of Epistmology and Truth. In this he presented the truth excellently. The Emerging Church Movement is by and large fraught with a flaweed Epistemology which have more in common with Postmodernism than with biblical Christianity. Similarly, their delibrate obfuscation of the truth doesn't help matters.

Now, of course, when discussing an ever-evolving and non-monolithic movement, sweeping generalizations are generally not helpful. Carson acknowledges this to be the fact, and definitely whatever one might say, they would be always at least one person who could speak up and protest that this is not what they or their group believes to be the case. Nevertheless, despite the variation in beliefs and practices, there are a few traits common to the Emerging Church Movement. The most important similarity of course is the emphasis placed on praxis or works over and against doctrine. The Emerging Church Movement, in a bid to reach the culture, has a certain propensity to ape it even on areas where Chrstians are told not to ape the world. This is particularly seen in the area of Epistemology, whereby the Emerging Church Movement by and large have embraced the skepticism and cynicism of Postmodern deconstructionist theories, and have thus applied these theories to the doctrines of Scripture.

As it happens, most people in the audience doesn't seem to an inkling of philosophical trends, and thus Carson took some time to explain the difference between the pre-modern, modern and postmodern epistemologies. Everything here of course is a summary, and he didn't have the time to go into the details. That is why although it lasted about 2 hours, it is still considered short, since only a summary of the main points could be stated, and only those 'in the know', so to speak, are most likely to know the various people which Carson mentions (Derrida, Foucault etc.). As it is already, Carson did not have the time to mention various trends in the Emerging Church Movement with the recent polarization and possible fragmentation of the movement (which I asked him about it privately), and the difference between Emerging and Emergent, and of course the various leaders within the movement, only mentioning the most famous figurehead and leader Brian McLaren, and Rob Bell in passing. Incidentally, Carson is of the impression that Mark Discoll has left the Emerging Church Movement. If he has indeed done so, I sure hope he has made it public and renounced the heretics in them publicly, otherwise he would continue to be tarnished with the label of the rapidly apostasizing Emerging Church Movement.

All in all, this was a good introduction to the challenge of the Emerging Church Movement. It is hoped that the next talk on this issue, if it would ever materialize, would be much longer and more in-depth.

And so, in conclusion of the three posts, I am thankful for the opporunity to attend this conference, and for God to provide us with a good speaker in the person of His servant Dr. Don Carson. For those who did not go for the conference, if you are interested you may purchase CDs of the sermons and talks here (go to the 'PT tapes' section) when it is ready.

Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling, to the only wise God our Savior, be all blessing and glory and honor and power and praise. Amen.

Vagueness, clarity and boldness

Although both the Pyromaniacs and CRN have utilized this Youtube video against the Emerging Church Movement, I thin it is VERY appropriate to widen the net to include all New Evangelicals also. This is sadly the sitation in many churches here in Singapore too, as many professed Christians, especially "full time workers" are so 'aggresively inarticulate' (to use a term in the video) that they do not take a stand on anything, but behave exactly like (evan)jellyfishes.

As an experiment, you may want to try the following:

1) Try asking your pastor or any pastor or full-time worker whether they have a stand on any clear issue mentioned in Scripture (ie women being elders, the Doctrines of Grace, publicly calling out heretics etc.)

2a) If they have no stand on these clear Biblical issues, they are Evanjellyfishes.

2b) If they have a stand (regardless of whether it is right or wrong), ask them whether they will enforce it. Use real life cases where possible (ie ask them whether it is biblical to call out David (Paul) Yongi Cho as a heretic), and why.

2bi) If they will not or do not enforce it, they do not truly have a stand on the issue, only an opinion. As such, they are Evanjellyfishes.

2bii) If they say they will and/or do enforce it, either (1) they really will or do enforce it, in which they are one of the rare people, or (2) they are lying.

Note: Parts of it is hyperbole. I am NOT asking you to criticize all your church leaders, nor to rebel against them.

Emergent and the Emerging Church Movement

I always wanted to do this, but anyway here's my take on the similarities and differences between Emergent and the Emerging Church Movement (ECM).

Similarities:

Both are a reaction to Modernism and the Modernist church situation

Both despise what they term as "dead orthodoxy"

Both desire to "reform the church"

Both desire to be "missional" and its members to be "authentic"

Both have a preference for "narrative theology" and have a skepticism of truth claims

Differences:

Emergent	Emerging Church Movement (ECM)
Teaches various heresies	Tolerates those who teach heresies and even defend them
Is more organized (i.e. Emergent Village)	More amorphous

Anymore?