CDM Archive

Discipleship Ministries of the PCA

Charles

How is the Church to be in the World but Not of it?

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chd-inside.jpgIn a recent weekend seminar focusing on making Kingdom disciples, I encountered several questions regarding how the church is to be in the world but not of it. In Making Kingdom Disciples, A New Framework, I give a framework for being in the world but not of the world. The framework requires knowing the Word, knowing what we believe and why, and knowing the transforming effect truth is to have upon our lives. Included in the framework is the need to understand the world–not only to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, but also to know how to better communicate God’s truth in this world. Still, through my study, experience, and analysis I have a number of concerns about the church’s current involvement in our world.

First, as a church, do we completely understand our present situation? Much is going on in our world that is chaotic, fragmented and disconnected, causing us to trivialize the situation and see it has a passing fad. Yet, this very chaos is shaping our lives and culture. Second, if we do understand that what is happening in our world is shaping our culture and lives, do we know what to do about it? Are we prepared to give an explanation for what we believe and why, as the Apostle Peter instructed I Peter 3:15? Third, the church is battling two extremes. One is an indifference to the world around us, demonstrated by caving in to today’s irrational ideas of tolerance and political correctness. The other is capitulating to the world’s culture, busily embracing postmodernism’s pop cultural, market-driven focus where there is more form than substance. This has required a rewrite of Jesus’ Great Commission to read, “as you are going into the world, hold on to your faith but do not challenge others with that truth because after all, who’s to say you are right? Practice your religion in your private world, but do not bring it into the market place lest you be viewed as arrogant, dogmatic, and condescending to those who do not share your beliefs.

Also, as you are going into the world, be careful the topics you talk about lest you offend your neighbor and erect a barrier between you.” Growing out of that discussion and the subsequent questions, I coined a word for that context with which I tried to demonstrate how not to be offensive with our words. The word I flashed on the screen was “indolecism.” I did not want to offend anyone with the word lazy or slothful, but I suggested that I believe one of the reasons the church is ineffective is because Christians are lazy. They are not willing to expend the energy and time to study the situation, which at best produces a Christianity that is focused on me and mine rather than God. We have not understood what has gone before us in history and especially church history; therefore, we continue to fall into the same traps where our very survival is at stake. We would rather embrace the ways of the world to do our thing, even in the name of Jesus, than we would to think with a transformed mind about the world. I say, shame on us; God deserves better than that. Church history is strewn with wreckage of so many attempts of the church to buy into the world’s mold and ideologies, only to run aground and break apart. If we do try to pay attention to history, our tendency, because of the world’s influence, is to see it as simply one event after another with no connecting thread to help us make sense of those incidentals. Hence, we conclude history is relative and what is happening now is about the best I can try to understand, which of course you cannot do in a vacuum. In our seminar on modernity and its impact on our North American situation, I developed a one page schematic beginning with 1600 AD on to 2000 AD. One of the question posed was how North America moved from such a high standard of ethics and morality, which reflected a Christian consensus, to today’s street corner ethics and marketplace morality that has little or no semblance of Christian truth. Again, I concluded with the above group that I did not mean to be simplistic with the charge of indolecism, but we need to commit ourselves to being kingdom disciples who understand the Word and the world, to be thinking with a transformed mind in order to know what God would have us to do.

Those comments led me into a new book by David F. Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, Christ in a Postmodern World. Wells has already instructed us in the past with other books. This fourth and final volume concludes the series. As I read Above All Earthly Pow’rs, I was encouraged that I was not alone in my concerns as to what is happening in evangelicalism in general and within the evangelical churches in particular. I was reminded of Os Guinness’s challenge in a book we reviewed this year, Prophetic Untimeliness. In our attempt to be up-to-date and make the Gospel relevant, we are actually becoming more and more irrelevant. The church has lost is salt and light on the world today, as a result. We cannot be like that which we challenge and make an impact. David Wells understands today’s world and how we have reached our present circumstance. He demonstrates over and over how we have negotiated, trivialized, or rewritten, by careful editing, the truth of the Gospel all in our attempt to be relevant. What this has done, according to Wells, is to challenge the church’s integrity with its message, therefore asking, does the church have a missional future? Wells clearly demonstrates how the church is not being the church today because it is buying into a spirituality that makes truth peripheral at best. The church, in its paranoia about being relevant has taken on “postmodern habits of thought and even unbelief.” Wells points out that we have jettisoned our Christian orthodoxy by tailoring our message for the new consumer audience.

The problem today is that “truth” appears to have no market value to the non-churched audience and even to some within the church. One example says Wells is how sin is preached, if in fact it is preached. Sin is presented not as an affront to a holy God but that which “harms the individual.” And in some churches, he says all we need to complete the picture of our worship, cast in light entertainment, is “popcorn.” Wells uses statistics to show that America’s belief in God is slipping because we are not giving people something solid to hold to. All is relative or pragmatic and not only is that what the pop culture around us is saying, but that message is reinforced within the evangelical community. He points out that the emergence of postmodernism and growing interest in religion and spirituality define the American culture and neither in themselves should encourage us. The way we are being taught to engage culture is by being like it. He further points out that our task “is not only to understand the nature of biblical truth but also to ask how that truth addresses the issues of the day.” Churches have a God-given assignment to help the people see truth in its preaching and teaching but also to help Christians understand how to engage the world around us. Being a kingdom disciple requires our thinking about God, the Word, the world and especially, as Wells says, the things that the world imposes on us-the workplace, appointments made, people we will meet, and jobs that must be done.

As I read Above All Earthly Pow’rs, I was reminded of a quotation that I have frequently used, “it is not what we think we are–what we think, we are.” Wells says that we do not think enough about the world and why it is as it is, and he is right. For example, I have heard some leading evangelical preachers talk about the revival of spirituality today uncritically, instead of first explaining how today’s interest in spirituality is so different from how the Church has understood spirituality in the past. Wells addresses that very cogently throughout this book. Preachers, teachers, parents, Christians, this is the kind of book we should be reading in our effort to think and live like kingdom disciples. We cannot go with the flow and embrace a form of Christianity without the substance and make a difference. The great commission in Matthew 28 calls us to make a difference, to make kingdom disciples. What we may be hearing in some circles of evangelical may sound relevant, exciting, new, and we are tempted to applaud, but the real question is, does the truth have a life-transforming influence on us and are we making any difference in our world, as a result?

In summary:

Day by Day with Jonathan Edwards

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These two books contain daily devotions for one year. In the first book, Day By Day With Jonathan Edwards, Randall J. Pederson compiles 365 pithy, spiritually challenging topics from Jonathan Edwards, known as the energy and force behind the first New England Great Awakening, which began in 1740. Edwards was a great expositor of the Word, a philosopher, a pastor with great sensitivity to people, and as some biographers maintain, the last representative of Puritan theology and thought in the New World. His sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached in Enfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1741, is still found in many literature books. People who heard the sermon responded with great moaning and crying out, “what shall I do to be saved? Oh I am going to hell! Oh, what shall I do for Christ?” Today there stands a monument at the site of the Enfield meeting church. This volume contains daily devotional thoughts appropriate for a multitude of settings. It will give you the sense of Edwards’ spiritual sensitivity, theological brilliance and great intellect. It is a good way to introduce someone to Jonathan Edwards.

The second companion, Day By Day With The English Puritans is likewise a daily devotional containing thoughts from about 80 different Puritans. They range from people such as John Bunyan, Richard Baxter, Thomas Manton, to Thomas Watson, Richard Sibbes, William Gurnall and John Flavel.

J. I. Packer, noted for his love and appreciation for the Puritans, wrote, “These are wonderful in the way that all good devotionals are-that is, they enlarge your sense of God’s greatness, goodness, and closeness to you, and so make you praise and pray. I am sure the readers will be greatly energized by them in faith and hope and love.” Packer goes on to say that these men’s grasp of godliness remains unrivaled, and we today who lack it need to learn it from them.

As I have read through many of the daily offerings, I believe this would be a good way to acquaint someone, especially our covenant children, with some of these great men of the faith. Family devotions, Bible lessons, Sunday school classes, and individuals will appreciate having both these volumes to draw from in their thinking.

The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology

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This book is part of The Westminster Handbooks to Christian Theology series. Roger Olson is a well-known professor at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. This book is written for scholars and students who study topics of theological significance. Olson writes about people, organizations and controversial subjects related to evangelical theology.

First, about the book’s design. The first section is a 63-page summary of “The Story of Evangelical Theology,” beginning with an attempt to define evangelical theology. “Evangelical,” etymologically, means “of the good news” or “related to the gospel.” Evangelicalism, writes Olson, is simply synonymous with authentic Christianity as it is founded on and remains faithful to the “evangel-the good news of Jesus Christ.” He goes on to list the seven different definitions that are given to the term today.

In this introductory section, which is worth the price of the book because of its summary of twentieth century evangelicalism, he covers the diversity of roots in evangelicalism such as: pietism, revivalists, Puritans, Wesleyans, Old Princeton, Holiness-Pentecostals, fundamentalists and postfundamentalists. He also covers the tensions in evangelicalism among the Calvinists, Arminians and Pentecostals.

While Olson mentioned Charles Hodge and Benjamin Warfield in connection with old Princeton, I was disappointed that men like Machen, Van Til and Allis were not included. He did talk about Gordon Clark’s influence on Carl Henry who led the postconservative arm of the movement. He concludes with explaining how Billy Graham became the figure head of the movement of postfundamentalists in evangelical theology.

You will find the first 66 pages very interesting as Olson threads all the parts together into a tapestry that gives a wholistic view of evangelicalism in North America. The remainder of the book deals with movements and organizations related to evangelical theology. Some examples: The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, The Charismatic movement, Dispensationalism, Fundamentalism, Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship, Princeton Theology, Lausanne Conference, Puritanism, World Evangelical Alliance, and others. These are dealt with in alphabetical order and not usually more than one to two pages.

I particularly appreciated his defining Scottish Common Sense Realism and its later connection with Princeton Seminary. This influence philosophy simply states that human beings share certain basic experiences and cognitions that require no proof but are “common sensical.” The Princeton theologians then applied it to the knowledge of God and other theological subjects.

The book contains other good summary explanations of topics such as ethics, authority, doctrines, the Lord’s Supper, miracles, and prayer, as they relate to the broader evangelical movement.

The third section deals with current issues in evangelicalism such as: the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts, creation/evolution, Calvinism/Arminianism, epistemology/faith and reason, homosexuality, inerrancy of Scripture, and open theism.

My disappointment in the book is in the omission of some of the men from the Westminster Seminary faculty such as Machen (only mentioned briefly) and Cornelius Van Til who is generally looked to as the most influential presuppositionalists of the twentieth century; however, he does attempt to present presuppositionalism as distinct from fideism and evidentialism.

While I would like for him to have said more in certain places that would have given a stronger emphasis on reformed theology, this book will be of much value to its reader. It is concisely and clearly written. It will be an easy handbook to use.

Truth and the New Kind of Christian, The Emerging Effects of Postmodernism in the Church

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We reviewed D. A. Carson’s excellent book, Becoming Conversant With the Emerging Church in our July/Augusts issue. At the time of reviewing Becoming Conversant I was also reading the manuscript for Truth and the New Kind of Christian. While both books deal with the emerging church movement and both are in a helpful manner critical of the postmodern church paradigm, the two complement one another. While Carson examines, critiques and comments about the movement in a broader or more general way, Smith focuses more on the philosophical aspect of the movement. Smith, a professor of ethics and Christian apologetics at Biola University in California, writes as an analytic philosopher in this book.

He begins with a chapter on postmodernism, a focus of Smith’s for some time. J.P. Moreland stated that while most Christians lack the intellectual training to examine many issues, Scott Smith is uniquely equipped to do that and help us to see the roots of the issues. This book is a must read, especially by church leaders today as they shepherd God’s people through the turbulent waters of the postmodern paradigm.

We need to know how to respond to the attempt of postmodernism to eliminate objective truth, absolute or universal truth, and true authority. We need to know that truth is more than a linguistic or social construct that varies from person to person. Scott takes us there. He tells of a four-year period when he challenged students to critique the notion that ethics are only relative. He only found three students who could do that.

In chapter 1 he deals with objective truth and whether we can we know it. He begins to show how postmodernism has come into certain sections of the church through men like Brian McLaren, perhaps the most influential of the group, and Tony Jones, another youth leader. In this chapter he sets the stage to critique their embracing of the postmodern paradigm. But more than these types of popular leaders, Smith goes to the roots of postmodernism in Christian circles with people such as Brad Kallenberg, Nancy Murphy, the late Stanley Grenz, Stanley Hauerwas, and John Franke. You will be intrigued by his treatment. He delineates between the popular street version of postmodernism and the academic postmodernism–a fair distinction. Most of those in the popular vein of the emerging church would probably fit into the former of the two.

Chapter 2 deals with how these people believe we should see Christianity in a postmodern way, which then paves the way for chapter 3’s treatment of how the popular leaders such as McLaren and Jones advocate the postmodern paradigm for pastoral ministry.

Chapters 5 and 6 are particularly helpful because Smith analyzes the roots of postmodernism and critiques the emerging church. In chapter 6 he raises the question, “Would the acceptance of their proposal [to follow a postmodern paradigm for the church] lead to an emerging church, a new kind of way of being a Christian that allows us to venture ahead in faith, to proclaim faithful devotion and allegiance to Christ in a new emerging culture of postmodernism? Or would it lead to a submerging of the church in culture, such that the church ends up being ‘snookered’ and co-opted by it?”

Smith effectively critiques the idea that we construct our own reality by how we use words how it effects Christian belief and ministry. This means when we read and use Scripture we make it into what it is by how we use it within our local communities. This basically means that we make God what he is by the way we talk. When we claim that Jesus rose from the dead, the postmodern paradigm, at least within the emerging church trend would say, the statement about the resurrection is equivalent to the statement “Christians say that Jesus rose from the dead.” (Do you see the distinction?) It is an undercutting of objective truth and embracing in its place relativism and pragmaticism? Religious truth therefore becomes our opinion and values not fact or objective truth.

In conclusion, the emerging church people, operating on the postmodern paradigm will not build the church on the truth but other foundations that will not stand the test of time. It is a repeat of the problems of buying into the world’s ideologies, which has created disaster to the church of Jesus Christ that Smith’s book is a must read for all Christians young and old. It should be taught, studied, and discussed along with Carson’s Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church and David Wells’ Above Earthly Pow’rs.

A Senior’s Ministry and Retirement

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Editor’s Note: Christian Education and Publications is beginning to fulfill an earlier assignment by the General Assembly to develop a program of ministry around senior citizens. They are the fastest growing segment of our population. For example, in 2000 there were 70,000 centenarians in the U.S. One year later the number jumped to 100,000 and by 2050 it is projected to reach 834,000. Getting older can be a difficult experience in a person’s life, though I am convinced your ministry can thrive and grow as you age. David is even seen in Psalm 71 asking the Lord to continue his ministry in his older age: “Even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.” I relate to that prayer because it expresses so clearly my own prayers and desires for the next generation to know the Lord and my desire to help them.

Recently, knowing that CEP is involved in offering some training around the theme of senior citizens with the able leadership of Dr. George Fuller, several people have asked questions about our program and materials. They have also asked us about retirement. Is it a biblical concept?

In the book review section we comment on Paul Tripp’s book, Lost in the Middle: Midlife and the Grace of God. In the book he makes this observation: “the Bible does not talk about midlife crisis, but the Bible tells us everything we need to know about midlife crisis.” I would say the same thing about retirement.

Retirement is one of the topics addressed in our resource manual materials, Serving and Challenging Seniors, edited by George C. Fuller. To answer the question in this section of Equip for Ministry, I will use one of the pages out of those materials, written by Richard L. Bucko, a deacon at the Cherry Hill PCA Church in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:23-24).

Making the transition to the next phase of life is often a difficult and stressful experience. What will we do with our time? Do we want to go out while we are at the top of our game? Will the financial resources be adequate? One important part of the retirement decision is what you will do with your time if you’re not at a job. Having an answer to these questions in advance will make the retirement decision easier and less stressful.

Some research indicates that the ideal “retirement” arrangement involves doing what you did before, just less of it. Some of us may have that option in our past employment, but most will find that the former workplace will have to be left behind.

For those who “cut the cord” to the former work environment, transition efforts to prepare for the next phase of life can be comparable to having a second job. A second job that may well, and perhaps should, last over a year. It takes thoughtful and realistic planning as well as serious introspection. As I approached retirement from my profession of 32 years, I listened carefully to the stories of those I knew, and of others who had already made the decision. It became clear that successful retirees were the ones who knew what they would do with their time prior to making the retirement announcement and certainly prior to the retirement date.

As members of the human family, as well as the Christian faith, we have been given needs that must be filled for us to be happy and content. There are the basic human needs of air, water and food, but there are the “higher order” needs that must also be met for us to achieve true happiness and contentment. These needs must be considered as we plan our life ahead. Human interaction, self-worth and meaning in our activity are some of the things we should consider in selecting our retirement options.

This raises the thoughtful question: Does a Christian ever retire? As a Christian the answer is, of course, no, but as a worker the answer is usually yes. So then, what are the options for the Christian retiree?

The Options


I. Interest
If we have an interest or curiosity in the world around us it is difficult to be bored. Develop a plan to explore and develop interests that can be an individual quest-climb that mountain-and then the next. Or it can be as part of a group such as a hiking club, boat building or work as a museum docent. The possibilities are only limited by our imaginations and curiosity. Many of us will have the opportunity to be engaged more in Bible study groups and to read the bible daily.

II. Other Work
Second, find a part-time or full-time job. Is there a position open at the local library, can you drive a school bus, teach a class, manage a store? If we are willing to consider part time-at a less lofty position than we once had-the number of possibilities may be surprising. The trade-off for that full-time position you left may be greater flexibility (fish or play golf on a Tuesday), less stress and more time to explore the other options.

III. Make a Difference
The third option involves making a difference. Another way of expressing this is that we all gain a stronger sense of self and of belonging when we can feel our activity has meaning. Making the world a better place, one act at a time. This includes volunteering at your church in a form of ministry such as work on church property, visiting nursing homes, or driving the elderly to the grocery store. It also includes volunteering for a committee in your town (Shade Tree Commission or Zoning Board), running for the school board or helping to beautify public gardens ( and your own). We can certainly make an impact on those higher order needs when we feel that we have made a difference in the lives of others.

Combining two or all three of the option categories is certainly possible and can lead to the attainment of those higher-order needs that result in satisfaction and contentment. None of us can order our lives to perfectly meet our needs for fulfillment and contentment. But planning in an organized and purposeful manner can certainly make a difference. The three option categories stated above can provide a core for purposeful planning that can be put on paper to begin a daily and weekly calendar. You may learn that it is the beginning of a bad day when you get up and say, “What am I going to do today?”

Richard L. Bucko, Ed. D.
Principal (retired), Moorestown School District, New Jersey
Adjunct Faculty, Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey
Deacon, Covenant Presbyterian Church, Cherry Hill, New Jersey

You can obtain further information on CEP’s program, purchase the materials, and host a seminar in your church and presbytery on the senior citizen topic by contacting our office or Dr. George C. Fuller at fullergj@worldnet.att.net or 129 Farmington Road, Cherry Hill, NJ 08034-2513.