The Craw

Benedict VXI = Tetzel?

Often, modern Evangelicals are uninformed about what Roman Catholics believe. They frequently react to a Rome that hasn't existed for centuries or which they read about as existing in the Reformation. But Rome has changed and adjusted. Though there are still many doctrinal issues that still separate (and should separate) Protestants and Catholics, we are moving closer to one another.

I found these quotes from Benedict VXI's recent encyclical interesting:

We have seen that God's eros for man is also totally agape. This is not only because it is bestowed in a completely gratuitous manner, without any previous merit, but also because it is love which forgives.

God's passionate love for his people—for humanity—is at the same time a forgiving love. It is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice. Here Christians can see a dim prefigurement of the mystery of the Cross: so great is God's love for man that by becoming man he follows him even into death, and so reconciles justice and love.

Why not go Baptist?

The Boneman picks up on a conversation at Ref21 where there seemed to be no difference for the recipient in the administration or non-administration of baptism. This is what happens when Reformed folk lose the high sacramentality of Calvin...we become Baptists with superstitious traditions.

Giant Americans

I frequently travel down to Springfield, MO to fill the pulpit of the CREC church there. This also gives me the opportunity to pig out on the road without my wife rebutting my assertion that ice cream is the fifth food group. I typically stop at the Breadco (Panera for all you shi-shi Angelenos) in Rolla and today I got a caffe latte (well actually two) and a cinnamon scone. First of all, the latte was gigantic and secondly, when I reached into the bag to grab my scone, I was shocked at its size. I had to grab it like a football with my doughnut hooks and I had to open my pie-hole wide like I was eating a fully stuffed Double-Double!

Why do we super-size everything here in the USA? I've traveled to the UK and know a scone when I see one. This thing was a scone loaf. I'm reminded of a friend I used to work with in LA who was from Milan. He used to ask me, "Why do you drink these giant cappuccinos here? You can't even enjoy the drink, its all about the giant size." Perhaps future generations will conform to a 21st Century American Jungian archetype that is a cross between the Donald and a sumo wrestler.

Non-Meritorious Merit

My Pastor, Jeff Meyers, has an interesting post on merit and its relation to the idea of the Covenant of Works.

What $2100 gets you in LA

As we are preparing to move back to the LA area to church plant, I have been looking into rentals. When we sold our home in the San Fernando Valley back in 2003 I thought $1200 would be a nice rental price for our little 3 bedroom abode with a very large back yard. Nowadays, $2100 gets you a two bedroom townhome in Valencia.

USSR Redux?

Increasingly, the situation in Iran has the feel of the decrepit Soviet Union in its final days.

Oh My

Some people just shouldn't be bustin' rhymes.

You're in there too

I am preparing a sermon on Matthew 5:17-20 and have been pondering the implications that arise from this or any texts of an eschatological nature. Once one has a proper view of union with Christ, a high view of the church naturally follows. The church, after all, is the holy bride betrothed to the king and even now in vital union with him. Take Matthew 5:18 as an example:

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law until all is accomplished.

Two things to note on a practical and ecclesial level: 1) The Law here includes the fuller corpus of "Law and Prophets" (vs. 17) and 2) The "passing away" occurs when all is accomplished. What is accomplished? All that is testified to in the Law and the Prophets. Now we are always wanting to focus in on Christ alone but the testimony of this same Christ, from beginning to end, also puts an emphasis on how he accomplishes all things (on earth) and this is done by His body, the church, through the Holy Spirit.

To take one piece of the testimony of the Law and the Prophets as an example. Daniel 2 tells of how a rock cut not by human hands will smash all the kingdoms of the earth and supplant them. This rock will then grow into a great mountain that will cover the whole earth. Yes, this is the expansion of the kingdom of God but it is also the story of the expansion of the church. We, the individual members of the church are being used by God to accomplish all these things. Often, in the name of protecting God's holiness, we make too little of His church. When the day arrives where the church catholic finally grasps this in its fullness it will be a glorious day of unity indeed!

Firing Cruise Missiles at Shadows

I just finished reading Nicholas Perrin's review of Guy Waters' "Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul" in the WTS and found his critique prescient. It should be remembered that Waters was one of the main contributors to the "MVP" report which has set the tone of southern Presbyterianism toward the New Perspectives. Perrin writes:

It should be said, in all fairness to the scholars under scrutiny, that it was never their intention to conform their reading of Paul to the details of the Westminster Confession. Of course, one would expect the point to be so obvious that it would hardly need stating. Nevertheless, we have in Justification and the New Perspectives an author who seems to be demanding a methodology from his opponents they would never be interested in using, demanding answers to questions they are not interested in asking, and demanding language they simply do not speak. (Nicholas Perrin, "A Reformed Perspective on the New Perspective." Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 67, No. 2, Fall 2005, p.389)

Demanding. Yep, that's us. May the Reformed culturesmog be lifted!

How Blue are You?

Mark's got a post on Donald Miller's "Blue Like Jazz" that draws in opinion from the Reformdom. The question lying under the surface is "What is the matter with Reformed folk?" Man, we are one surly lot! At the end of the day we scratch our heads when our people head off into Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. You don't have to either starve or swallow fins and scales.  You can eat the fish and spit out the bones.