Horton on Piety

"Reformation piety. . . rather than expressing Christian life as flowing outward from the individual to broader relationships (i.e., the Church as the aggregate of the individually regenerate), sees it as cascading down from the Church and the family to the individual. . .At least in its American version, pietistic revivalism has generated a completely different conception of proper Christian piety. Instead of God's blessings cascading down from church to family to individuals, it tries to work the other way around. But, then, just as the focus of salvation falls almost exclusively on the individual, piety is largely regarded as a private affair. One's personal relationship with God is too intimate, too personal, to be regarded as mediated within ordinary social structures-even if they are structures such as family and Church, which God himself has founded.

So when some of our Christian brothers and sisters think that we Reformational folk do not care particularly about piety or life in the Spirit, they could not be more mistaken. It is just that our understanding of piety and life in the Spirit contrasts markedly with American Christianity's prevailing patterns. As we search the Scriptures together, we become aware of a piety that runs deeper and further than anything we have seen in pietism. By seeing the Spirit's work as intertwined with the ordinary means of grace we do in fact see him as crucially active in the everyday lives of his people. We see him at work whenever we encounter the Word of God preached and read, whenever we witness a Baptism, or receive the Supper. We also see him working in the fruit he produces when his people think of others as more important than themselves-even when it comes to cultivating piety.

Authentic Christian piety is expressed with others over a lifetime, as God's people are exposed to the work of the Spirit through Word and Sacrament, so that their union with Christ is concretely experienced in this life by their union with each other. This piety is not as flamboyant as the individualistic piety encouraged by spiritual fads, but it runs deeper and further under God's promised blessing. Then, instead of concentrating exclusively on our own spiritual blessing, we become instruments of blessing for others wherever God has placed us in this world and in the flock he has purchased with his own blood." Horton, Michael, "Reformation Piety," Modern Reformation Magazine (July/August Issue 2002).

The Christian Ghetto

". . .[P]ietism tended to create a 'Christian ghetto' that the Reformation had attempted to dismantle. Called out of the church into the world, evangelicals were again encouraged, especially through the revivalism of the last century-and-a-half, to help build a Christian empire within America. Eventually, we came to the place where we had our own networks, movies, talk shows, cruises, rock stars, entertainers, and other trappings of modern hedonism, without having to bother leaving the ghetto. We called it evangelism, and perhaps we even intended it to be evangelism, but it has ended up only creating a church that is of the world but not in it, instead of being in the world but not of it.

Therefore, we often judge our spiritual health in terms of how many people are involved with small groups, Bible studies, prayers circles, and accountability groups; and we are led by the statistics to conclude that we are actually quite vigorous. But Reformation Christianity (i.e., biblical Christianity) should lead us to different standards for judging health: Is the church truly being the church? That is to ask, Is the Word rightly preached? Are the sacraments rightly administered? And is there a healthly concern for the practice of church discipline and good order? If those questions cannot be answered with any degree of confidence, there is not health, regardless of the bustling activity in the ghetto." Horton, Michael, Where in the World is the Church, 141-142 (2000).

Would you like fries with that? (Thoughts on Vocation Part 5)

"One day, a gentleman on a walk passed a construction site and inquired of the workers, 'What are you doing?' 'I'm breaking rock out of the quarry,' said one. Another replied, 'I'm in charge of making the mortar that will cement the stones.' A third man, caked in mud, was pushing a wheelbarrow, and he stopped just long enough to say, with a sense of proud delight, 'I'm building a cathedral." All three men were engaged in the same task, but only one had the 'big picture' in view. Apart from the transcendent (divine, vertical, theological) perspective, we can only see the details of daily routines. . .But when we begin to sign the composition of our daily scores with 'Soli Deo Gloria'--'To God Alone Be Glory'-- as did Bach, that can make even drudgery divine." Horton, Michael, Where in the World is the Church?" 159-60 (2000).

How would recapturing the doctrine of vocation affect the guy mopping the floors at McDonald's? Would understanding that he is loving his neighbor through his work give him more meaning and better perspective of the earthly and heavenly kingdoms? Lord, make us glad to serve in whatever work we are called to do.

* See archives for previous post on vocation.

. . .and Ya Daddy Don't Rock and Roll (Thoughts on Moralism -- Part IV)

"The Bible is far more than a rulebook to follow," Jerry Bridges states in Gospel-Driven Santification. "It is primarily the message of God's saving grace through Jesus Christ, with everything in Scripture before the cross pointing to God's redemptive work and everything after the cross--including our sanctification--flowing from that work. Bridges goes on to say, " So I learned that Christians need to hear the gospel all of their lives because it is the gospel that continues to remind us that our day-to-day acceptance with the Father is not based on what we do for God but upon what Christ did for us in his sinless life and sin-bearing death. I began to see that we stand before God today as righteous as we ever will be, even in heaven, because he has clothed us with the righteousness of his Son. Therefore, I don't have to perform to be accepted by God. Now I am free to obey him and serve him because I am already accepted in Christ (see Rom. 8:1). My driving motivation now is not guilt but gratitude. . .For a growing Christian, desire will always outstrip performance or, at least, perceived performance. What is it then that will keep us going in the face of this tension between desire and performance? The answer is the gospel. It is the assurance in the gospel that we have indeed died to the guilt of sin and that there is no condemnation for us in Christ Jesus that will motivate us and keep us going even in the face of this tension. We must always keep focused on the gospel because it is in the nature of sanctification that as we grow, we see more and more of our sinfulness. Instead of driving us to discouragement, though, this should drive us to the gospel. It is the gospel believed every day that is the only enduring motivation to pursue progressive sanctification even in those times when we don't seem to see progress."

"Ya Mama Don't Dance. . .(Thoughts on Moralism -- Part III)

John Hendryx, of Monergism, writes in his article Christ vs. Moralism , "[a] common religion of our time is one of moralism, and many evangelicals tend to moralism without even realizing they are. Moralism seeks to achieve perfection through behavior modification. It often accompanies the religion of 'family values' that we hear about each day on the radio. This kind of religion risks self-righteously looking down on unbelievers by putting our supposed morality in a comparison with theirs. It is as if we believe our entrance into Christianity is by grace but that our lives in Christ are due to our maintained by some kind of moralism. . .Unfortunately a large percentage of Christians think moralism, avoiding wrongdoing of every kind, is what Christianity is all about, (otherwise why so much effort to get our morals put into law) not realizing that we need to repent of trusting in our good deeds and bad ones. . .The world would believe us much more if we simply stopped pretending and boasting about being so much more moral than we really are."

"Ya Mama Don't Dance. . ." (Thoughts on Moralism -- Part II)

William H. Willimon writes in his book Peculiar Speech - Preaching to the Baptized, "Unfortunately, most of the theology I learned in seminary was in the translation mode. Take this biblical image and translate it into something more palatable to the people who use Cuisinarts. The modern church has been willing to use every-one's language but its own. In conservative contexts, gospel speech is traded for dogmatic assertion and moralism, for self-help psychologies and narcotic mantras. In more liberal speech, talk tiptoes around the outrage of Christian discourse and ends up as an innocuous, though urbane, affirmation of the ruling order. Unable to preach Christ and him crucified, we preach humanity and it improved."

"Ya Mama Don't Dance. . ." (Thoughts on Moralism -- Part I)

The protagonist in Sarah Dunn's semi-autobiographic novel The Big Love makes an interesting statement regarding modern evangelical Christians:

"I was raised as an evangelical Christian, a real born-again, a tribe which completely lacks a comedic tradition and is almost entirely missing an intellectual one. . .Because I realize I don't have to tell you this -- people hate evangelical Christians. They hate, hate, hate them. They hate the Christian right, they hate the Moral Majority, they hate Jerry Farwell, they hate the pro-lifers, they hate people with the little silver fish on the back of their minvans, they hate the guy at the office with the weird haircut who won't put money into the football pool."

Although this comes from Alison, Dunn's fictional character, it rings painfully true. Why does the world view modern evangelical Christians in this way?

Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, two researchers from UNC, Chapel Hill, have described the new American religion as "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." While Smith and Denton's studied the beliefs of teenagers, they recognized that most teenagers share the views of their parents and what is being taught in their churhes. Gene Veith's article A Nation of Deists describes the essentials of this new religion. "[T]his creed is a far cry from Christianity, with no place for sin, judgment, salvation, or Christ. Instead, most . . .believe in a combination of works righteousness, religion as psychological well-being, and a distant non-interfering god."

Have we traded in the promises of God for the Gospel according to Dr. Phil?

Bono on the Psalms

"Abandonment, displacement, is the stuff of my favorite psalms. The Psalter may be a font of gospel music, but for me it's in his despair that the psalmist really reveals the nature of his special relationship with God. Honesty, even to the point of anger." Bono, the Bible, and the Blues, Modern Reformation, Volume 14, No. 1, January/February 2005, p. 33.

"Psalm 40 is interesting in that it suggests a time in which grace will replace karma, and love replace the very strict laws of Moses (i.e. fulfil them). I love that thought. David, who committed some of the most selfish as well as selfless acts, was depending on it. That the scriptures are brim full of hustlers, murderers, cowards, adulterers and mercenaries used to shock me; now it is a source of great comfort." Id. at 35.

Is Bono a believer? Joost Nixion, executive producer of St. Anne's Public House, has an interesting editorial entitled A Case of Vertigo.

For good material on singing the psalms, I can not recommend Crown & Covenant Publications more highly.

What is your favorite psalm?