The Kingdom Come

by Phil Johnson



econd Timothy 3 begins with a stern, prophetic warning: "But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty." And then Paul gives a dead-on job description for the typical 21st-century celebrity: "People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God."

But get this: When Paul says "People," he is not talking about People magazine or the secular celebrities that grace the cover of that periodical. He is predicting a time when those traits will be characteristic of church leaders. Notice that the people he is describing "hav[e] the appearance of godliness, but [deny] its power" (v. 5).

We are living and ministering in a time such as Paul described. Watch today's rock-star pastors on their YouTube channels and you will see every characteristic Paul listed played out in vivid detail on the church stage.

So what are Paul's instructions to Timothy? Should he mentor these guys, invite them for Elephant-Room-style dialogue, become a headliner in their conferences, or publicly embrace and encourage them in the that hope he can harness their popularity and perhaps influence them for good? Not at all.

With regard to pastors and church leaders who promote and model innovative, worldly, self-loving ministry philosophies, "reckless [church leaders], swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure"—Paul wants Timothy to be a separatist: "Avoid such people" (v. 5). In fact the Greek term is active, aggressive: "from such turn away."

Paul then reminds Timothy of his singular duty to be both a student and a herald of the Word of God: "As for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed . . . . All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work" (vv. 14-17).

This has been a repeated theme in Paul's counsel to Timothy. First Timothy 4:6: "put these things before the brothers." What things? "the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed." Verse 11: "Command and teach these things." Verse 13: "Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching." Chapter 6, verses 2-4: "Teach and urge these things. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing." Second Timothy 1:13: "[Hold fast] the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me." Chapter 2, verse 15: "Present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth."

New Testament pastors are called to be simple and single-minded in the carryibng our of a single task. Yet, amazingly, the straightforward clarity of Paul's charge to Timothy seems utterly lost on many 21st-century church leaders. They have been blinded to it by the quest for celebrity and a worldly standard of success.

What's ironic about that is that even the great apostle Paul would not have measured up to their notion of "fruitfulness" and prosperity. Both of his epistles to Timothy end by noting how many unfaithful former companions forsook him when the cost of standing firm became too high. He was neither popular nor "fruitful" by the Elephant-Room standard of fruitfulness.

That ought to make us stop and reassess the direction of the contemporary evangelical movement. I for one, don't want to go where the movement seems headed.

by Dan Phillips

Let's make a step forward from the basic considerations we laid down about any word from God, a couple of posts ago. I'll take this as established:

• There is no such thing as a word from God that is erroneous. If a word affirms error, it is not God who is speaking (Num. 23:19; Jn. 17:17; Tit. 1:2; Heb. 6: 18).
• There is no such thing as a word from God that is not absolutely morally-binding (Deut. 18:19; Jn. 15:22). This absolute obligation is all-encompassing: if God tells us to act or refrain from acting, we must comply; if God tells us to think or believe, we must agree. I sin equally if I fail to love my wife (Eph. 5:25), and if I fail to refrain from committing adultery (Rom. 13:9) — but I also sin if I do not believe that Christ is God (Jn. 1:1) and that He became flesh (v. 14).

Sad but true, I wish I could say that all professed Christians (myself included) "get that" in terms of accepting and embracing and practicing it with complete consistency regarding the Bible. Sanctification is a process.

But I'd like to stir your pure minds to thought in another direction. Take a hypothetical — oh boy, I wish it were hypothetical. But let's put it as one.

HYPOTHETICAL: Brother X says that God "told" or "has called" him to do Y, which is not in any way directly stated or contained in Scripture.
Now here are my questions, and I really would urge you to think hard about this. Picture me looking you straight in the eye, requiring that you lock gazes with me as I say very intently: it is failure to think through the implications of such claims that accounts for a great deal of sloppiness and error in the professing church today.


My questions, then:

1. What absolute and immediate obligation does that put on every person who hears that assertion?
2. What must the consequences be for church discipline?

Have at it.

by Frank Turk

Before we get full-on blog here today, my friends Steve Hays and Jason Engwer are waging the war against popular old-school atheism.  By that I mean they are actually engaging the old-school atheists and basically beating them down in a manner suitable to the means presented by the lot of them.  I mention it because Steve and Jason have written a response to the latest tome from the John Loftus school of inbred atheism, and it's called The End of Infidelity.  The e-book is available at this link, and I commend it to you if you care at all about atheist apologetics.

Note to Steve and Jason & the rest of the Triabloguers: The reason I say "old school atheists" above is that the hard-core post-modernist bent has set in, and the old rationalist, materialist, neo-positivist atheism is, frankly, running on empty.  Nobody wants all that philosophical baggage any more these days, and the next generation of atheists will be in the same vein as a young fellow named Chris Stedman, who is on staff at the (now get this) Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University.  He's the face of nice atheism, and has a book coming out called (F)a(i)theist.  In 10 years, John Loftus will be a homeless person muttering to himself about his self-published archive that banished Theism into the outer darkness of people he wouldn't associate with anyway, but Stedman and his lite version of interfaith collegiality between unbelief and belief will be alive and well among those who think superficial "nice" is the most important virtue.  Let's find a way to preach the Gospel to that, and stay ahead of the curve.



OK -- so you're all over the Elephant Room 2 fiasco, right? There's nothing left to say, it's been said, and we need to just move on.  Carson and Keller have offered the penultimate careful evaluation (the ultimate to take place behind closed doors with no chance that anyone will see how this gets resolved), James MacDonald has stopped posting videos extolling his own humility (at least through the moment at which I am typing this), and we're done.

Um, no.

Mark Driscoll has, with his usual panache, escaped all scrutiny.  He's the Eddie Haskell of pastoral trouble-making, usually getting someone else on the hook for his own impishness, and getting away with most of it because he's really such a nice boy according to Mrs. Cleaver.  And this is a very troubling issue as his tribe of manly men for Jesus (the Acts29 network) are not usually this quiet -- unless Pastor Driscoll has put his foot in it (again).


Now, what I am very excited about is that not everyone has let what he has done here go unnoticed.  To their credit, Carson and Keller said this much in their pronouncement from Mount Caritas:
Here is where the distinction becomes interesting. Neither the terminology of "manifestations" preferred by Oneness Pentecostals and other modalists nor the terminology of "persons" supported by historic creeds is directly used in Scripture. Where does it come from? It comes from thinkers two or three centuries after the New Testament was written who were doing their best to summarize large tracks of biblical themes and texts in faithful, accurate summaries, even if the terminology was not directly dependent on the terminology of a specific verse or two. History has shown, for the reasons briefly set forth in our first pairing, that the terminology of "manifestations" was soundly trounced and declared heretical: it simply could not be squared with what the Bible says. The "persons" terminology prevailed (along with words like "subsistence") not because it derived directly from usage in the biblical documents themselves, but because it could be shown that this terminology did a great job of summarizing what the Bible actually says.And then again:
To attempt theological interpretation without reference to such developments is part and parcel of Biblicism One; to attempt theological interpretation that is self-consciously aware of such developments and takes them into account is part and parcel of Biblicism Two. We hasten to add that both Biblicism One and Biblicism Two insist that final authority rests with the Bible. All the theological syntheses are in principle revisible. Yet the best of these creeds and confessions have been grounded in such widespread study, discussion, debate, and testing against Scripture that to ignore them tends to cut oneself off from the entire history of Christian confessionalism. The Bible remains theoretically authoritative (Biblicism One), but in fact it is being manipulated and pummeled by private interpretations cut off from the common heritage of all Christians.Statements with which I whole-heartedly agree -- but which Pastor Driscoll has tacitly denied in his interaction with Jakes (and has openly denied as demonstrated here).  So on the one hand, the clever person can see the distancing of TGC from Driscoll's new friendship and new alliance with a man TGC does not hold in such high esteem, and at the same time we can also see the basis for a rebuke for what has happened.

But what's going on with Acts29?  Not a statement?  Not a mention?  Not a notice that they have seen it and therefore rebuke the twittering pajamahadijn for making such a big thing of this?

Listen y'all: this is a big thing.  Driscoll himself has rebuked Osteen-ism from his own pulpit, and wants you rubes to man up and shoot the wolves.  But here he is with the only other fellow in the English-speaking world who has the scope of influence of Osteen and the self-same lousy Gospel and theology, and the same worn out lines which Christianity Today can't recognize from 2000 even tough they printed them, and he's shaking hands with this fellow in a way which even Keller and Carson find dubious.

See: I get it when you guys are offended that Phil or John MacArthur wag a finger at you and yours -- because it feels like your father wagging his finger at you for forgetting to fill up the car when you just drove home from saving all the orphans from a house fire.  You guys see yourselves reaching a generation for Christ, and the (from your perspective) indignation over holiness (which looks, from your perspective, a little stilted) seems to be unwarranted parental umbrage.  So if they tell you that you ought to say something about Mark or to Mark, they can just go mind their own business.  You're busy with something else, like ministry.

But you have to ask yourselves: is it right that the President of your Church Planting Network (they called those "conventions" back when your pappy was a deacon; they called them "associations" in the 1980's) can embrace a guy that the rest of you know is not someone you would bring into the fold?  You know you wouldn't let Jakes preach from your pulpit - shouldn't you at least ask what is now expected from you and your tribe after Mark gave him the Big Hug and the "welcome to the Family" speech?

Apparently all the right people are on the bus ...
The Gospel Coalition has made it very clear about where they stand on this.  I am grateful for what they have said, even if it's too little, too late.  But you guys are silent?

Well, maybe that's how it goes.  Maybe there's a bro-code I don't know because I'm not a bro, and you guys can accept that Mark Driscoll can lead you into associations with people you know will be harmful to your local church's theological and missional well-being with no consequences because he's "fruitful" and "humble". Lumpy never ratted out Eddie, after all.

But let's be honest: that's showing something which, in the final account, we might be able to call "fellowship" or "perseverance" or some such Bible word that puts a good face on it. But that's not being a leader by any means.  That's not showing leadership.  And in the end, you're supposed to be pastors and not merely a hipster mutual appreciation society.


UPDATED: Wow. As I was writing this post, it turns out Acts29 was making an announcement which shows they are "excited about the future of Acts 29". You can read the whole thing here, but as it turns out Pastor Mark's performance at the Elephant Room will not only have no effect on his status inside A29: he actually is going back to being the leader of the pack. (cue motorcycle music)

And before things go completely south from that announcement, let's remember that when those guys are using the terms "Prophet," "Priest," and "King," they are using Bible terms to identify organizational functions, not theocratic anointings.  That Driscoll is now the leader of their "Prophet board" does not mean anything more than he's the leader of their board of directors.  That they feel like they have to call themselves a "Prophet board" rather than "board of directors" is funny enough; let's not escalate the hilarity by trying to figure out which visions Driscoll will see now ...
ANOTHER UPDATE: Oh brother.  Apparently James MacDonald is now repeating his side of the story -- with some addenda (like the private repudiation of the Prosperity Gospel Jakes made to him).  The round up of that activity is best found here.

by Dan Phillips

"Careful" has become a shudder-inducing word for me. Like "gay." In fact, very like "gay."

That's too bad, because it's a really good word in itself (like "gay"!; I'm going to stop saying that). It's a great word, in fact. Your kids are going on a hike, or to play touch football, or to the shooting range. "Be careful," you say. Right. Or I was chatting with a lady police officer the other day, and parted with "You be careful" and a prayer for her safety.

But lately the word has joined "nuanced" and "helpful" and "thoughtful" to give me the shudders. I don't think any of the words are irredeemable. But what I do fear is that all those words show up frequently in the writing of elites who think God's truth and damning error are nothing really to "get het up about," and certainly not worth passion or bareknuckled, plain-spoken, frontal, clear, and — let's just say it — masculine rhetoric. Not worth risking angering anyone, or being perceived as angry.

Isn't it good to be "careful"? To be sure, "careful" is a necessary and important adjective in many contexts. Don't we want to make careful distinctions between trinitarianism and tritheism,  between the Biblical gospel and libertinism, between inerrancy and bibliolatry, between elder leadership and totalitarian thralldom, and a hundred other things? If we preach on prophecy, don't we want to be careful, sticking to the text and avoiding wild conclusions and leaps or cowardly equivocations?

Of course we do. But as used in those contexts, "careful" means factual, warranted, clear-cut, concise, unambiguous, forceful. It is a servant of truth, an enhancer of truth. It serves to make the truth of (say) the Trinity and the Gospel clearer and more obviously distinct from error and false teaching.

So when is it bad? I think elites are sometimes — and I want to be careful here, haha — using the word as a code-word for "dainty" or "harmless" or "toothless." I think they are using it sometimes to mean "nobody (and no ruinous error) actually got hurt." I think they are using it to mean "false teaching and particularly its purveyors are treated with kid gloves." I think they mean "false teachers are treated with great respect." I think they mean "false teaching is described, but inoffensively." I think they mean "nobody is made to feel too bad about perpetrating or embracing heresy or ruinous idiocy."

Plain enough?

See, that paragraph is an example. It was plain, wasn't it? It also had necessary qualifiers and distinctives, didn't it? It wasn't unnecessarily inflammatory, was it? Isn't that being careful, in the best sense?

But no elite is likely to link to this as a "careful" post — any more than they ever do to any of my posts, whether they're about atonement in Proverbs or repentance in a false teacher or anything else.

Why? Truth is, I don't really fully know. And I am also pretty sure (being honest, not sugar-coating) that my very real shortcomings, which I'm trying to overcome but am still a work-in-progress, haven't helped.

But I've come to think that it's partly because They are deeply, deeply concerned that no one feel too bad or get too worked up about soul-damning or otherwise ruinous false teaching. Perhaps we might reluctantly be forced to conclude that some course or doctrine is unadvisable, but we don't want anyone too upset, and we want to protect the respectability of apostates and false teachers and their enablers. (For instance, we won't apply those labels; that wouldn't be careful.)

These elites seem deeply, deeply concerned that false teachers and incompetent/irresponsible leaders remain dear colleagues and beloved friends whom they wish nothing but well and happiness and bunnies. They seem  deeply, deeply concerned that, at all costs, they themselves be seen and lauded by all as careful, thoughtful, helpful, nuanced, judicious, measured, and all those dainty things. All the blood drains from their faces at the thought of being thought angry. "Oh merciful heavens and frisky penguins, not that!"

You see, now, those paragraphs weren't careful. They make people look bad if they are more concerned about their reputation and collegial relations and Club membership than they are about God's truth and Christ's church. And of course, they would admit none of these things of themselves. That is part of being careful: not describing anyone or anything in terms that person wouldn't apply of himself.

But I ask you who have reached out to cultists and other false teachers: how would that modus operandi work out? I wager that every one of you is shaking his head ruefully. Cultists and false teachers never describe themselves in unflattering terms. Mormons, Roman Catholics, you name it: overhear their conversation, and it's all about various facets of their error. Confront them about those very errors, and they deny it. RC to RC will talk about praying to this or that dead person all day long; but if you say "You worship dead people, and that is idolatry," and they'll say they do no such thing. Disagree, and you're "ignorant." Then, once you've left the room, the conversation resumes exactly as you described it.

These elite will embrace select apostates to Rome as great and esteemed friends. But they will shun more frontal, edged, bareknuckled, passionate-for-truth, doctrinally-sound folks like the plague. They will feign both blindness and deafness, then carry on as if no one had said anything, congratulating themselves and "disappearing" contraries, so that they never happened.

The question I think we are left with is: which best serves Christ and His church? Which more effectively alarms sheep against wolves, encouraging and admonishing and instructing the former while exposing and refuting and repelling the latter?

Our problem of course is that we are ever the pendulum. Dainty brothers will say I've painted a caricature, an extremity, and that's not them. Then they will turn around and depict what I advocate in terms of hateful, (truly) ignorant, screaming, all-caps Courier font discernmentism at its worst and blindest and dumbest, and will say that that is what they reject.

So I'd just come down to specifics: Elephant Room 2. I'll ask the non-careful questions. Questions like:

1. Who was right, who was wrong?
2. Who was proactive, who was reactive?
3. Who warned sheep and opposed wolves openly and proactively, and who made the pasture easier pickings for the predators?
4. Who put himself out on the field during the time of battle and risked criticism and discomfort to guard the truth, and who stayed in the faculty lounge sipping tea and tut-tutting and holding top-secret discussions?
5. Who, now, by his actions, continues to extend legitimacy to the predators or those who failed to warn against them or sufficiently oppose their false teaching?
6. What are the consequences for either, now that the dust is settling?
7. Did we learn anything?
8. Will anything change?
9. When sounds of explosions and gunfire fill the air, who do you want to see at your door: a man in a smoking-jacket with a teacup and a bag of Constant Comment, or a rough fellow in camo, armed and trained and ready to go?

So in sum, trying to bring this bristling double-decker to a close, I offer this dialectic:

We should be careful to be Biblical, to be accurate, factual, on-target, articulate, proportionate, and appropriately concerned for showing that love which has God and His truth first in affection, and man a close second — and which remembers that truth and love are not mutually exclusive.

We should not be careful to sell out God's dignity, honor and truth and the health and wellbeing of His church by avoiding offending anybody, making our false priority to avoid trouble, to avoid disagreement, to blunt the edges of the Gospel or of truth, to protect the credibility of false teachers and enable their continued harming of souls, to avoid being unpopular and ill-thought-of by those among whom the truth is ill-thought-of, to avoid all criticism, to protect our reputation and popularity among the elite.

We should care about doing our best to see God's truth triumph decisively over error — first in our own lives, then in our churches — more than we care about how we ourselves are perceived.

There. Have I said all that should be said? Absolutely not. Have I said all that could be said? In no way.

Have I said something that needs to be said? I think so.

Have I said it carefully?

Probably depends on who you ask.

by Phil Johnson

After five decades spent obsessing over a warped notion of "relevance," American evangelicalism is overrun with "change agents" who are so steeped in worldly values that they can't distinguish true relevance from mere trendiness. Their philosophies of ministry are complex, wrong-headed, counterproductive, and hostile to the notion that some things—namely God Himself and the truth He has revealed in His Word—are by definition not susceptible to change.
    By contrast, what Paul bequeathed to Timothy in two brief epistles was a remarkably simple, straightforward, but comprehensive ministry philosophy. Not only did Paul not urge Timothy to be innovative; what he did urge Timothy to do flatly contradicts practically every ministry philosophy currently in vogue.
    This is part 1 in a series of posts I intend to write in the days to come.



onsider the undue stress today's leading church-growth gurus invariably put on innovation. We are relentlessly told that pastors and church leaders must be novel, "contemporary," cutting-edge—architects of change within the church.

Evangelicals have been obsessing for at least four decades about "relevance." But that word as used in evangelical circles has become practically synonymous with novelty and fashionableness. It has little to do with actual relevance.

Of course, the church's only true relevance lies in her role as a community where God's Word is proclaimed, where the whole counsel of God is taught, and from which the gospel is taken into the world. But when a church nowadays advertises itself as "relevant," we know exactly what is meant—and let's be honest: it isn't about anything Paul told Timothy to do; it's about being "innovative."

Consider how an organization like Leadership Network sells itself: "Leadership Network seeks to help leaders navigate the future by exploring new ideas and finding application for each unique context." "Our free indispensable twice-monthly email newsletter featur[es] the best in innovative church strategies." Podcasts feature "numerous conversations about various topics of church innovation." The organization sponsors three series of books:

• Leadership Network Publications (Jossey-Bass) present thoroughly researched and innovative concepts from leading thinkers, practitioners and pioneering churches.
  
• The Leadership Network Innovation Series (Zondervan) presents case studies and insights from leading practitioners and pioneering churches that are successfully navigating the ever-changing cultural landscape.
  
• The Exponential Series (Zondervan) highlights the innovative practices of healthy, reproducing churches.

And don't forget "Engaging and inspirational videos from a number of today's innovative church leaders." Then there's "Connections,"—"Inspiring stories that show how Leadership Network is helping innovative churches and church leaders better realize their vision and maximize their impact." Something about "innovation" appears on virtually every line of that web page.

The Catalyst Conference has a similar theme. The main qualification for being a speaker at any of the Catalyst events is that you must be perceived as an innovator—a "change maker."

But, as it turns out, "innovation" in evangelical contexts almost never has anything to do with real originality. The best-known fruits of recent "innovative" thinking in the evangelical realm have been Emergent religion and hipster Christianity. But both Emergents and hipsters slavishly ape worldly fads and conform to postmodern and politically-correct values. "Innovation" has conditioned evangelical churches to follow every new wind of faddishness. "Innovation" itself turns out to be a worn-out cliche. There's nothing truly fresh or original about it. How it coninues to get so much publicity is a mystery to me. The more evangelicals imitate worldly fads and values, the more irrelevant they become.



Here's a gentle word of admonition for those who have made an idol out of "innovation": There is hardly any more wrong-headed approach for anyone who aspires to be a true spiritual and biblical leader in the church. It's an emphasis that is entirely missing from Paul's instructions to Timothy.

Actually, the truth is even more alarming than that: The church's current infatuation with novelty and contemporary fashion is antithetical to Paul's message to Timothy. It is irreconcilable with a Pauline approach to ministry. It represents precisely the path Paul warned Timothy not to follow:

"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry" (2 Timothy 4:1-5).

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "His Own Funeral Sermon." That's a sermon Spurgeon preached on Sunday evening, 19 October 1890, the weekend after the death of William Olney, longtime deacon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Mrs. Spurgeon said the message would have been a suitable eulogy for Spurgeon himself. So when he died less than two years later, the sermon was published within a few days of Spurgeon's funeral.

eople talk nowadays about Zeitgeist, a German expression which need frighten nobody; and one of the papers says, "Spurgeon does not know whether there is such a thing."

Well, whether he knows anything about Zeitgeist or not, he is not to serve this generation by yielding to any of its notions or ideas which are contrary to the Word of the Lord.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not only for one generation, it is for all generations. It is the faith which needed to be only "once for all delivered to the saints"; it was given stereotyped as it always is to be. It cannot change because it has been given of God, and is therefore perfect; to change it would be to make it imperfect. It cannot change because it has been given to answer for ever the same purpose, namely, to save sinners from going down to the pit, and to fit them for going to heaven.

That man serves his generation best who is not caught by every new current of opinion, but stands firmly by the truth of God, which is a solid, immovable rock.

But to serve our own generation in the sense of being a slave to it, its vassal, and its valet—let those who care to do so go into such bondage and slavery if they will.

Do you know what such a course involves? If any young man here shall begin to preach the doctrine and the thought of the age, within the next ten years, perhaps within the next ten months, he will have to eat his own words, and begin his work all over again. When he has got into the new style, and is beginning to serve the present world, he will within a short time have to contradict himself again, for this age, like every other, is "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

But if you begin with God’s Word, and pray God the Holy Ghost to reveal it to you till you really know it, then, if you are spared to teach for the next fifty years, your testimony at the close will not contradict your testimony at the beginning. You will ripen in experience; you will expand in your apprehension of the truth; you will become more clear in your utterance; but it will be the same truth all along.

Is it not a grand thing to build up, from the beginning of life to the end of it, the same gospel? But to set up opinions to knock them down again, as though they were ninepins, is a poor business for any servant of Christ.

David did not, in that way serve his own generation; he was the master of his age, and not its slave. I would urge every Christian man to rise to his true dignity, and be a blessing to those amongst whom he lives, as David was. Christ "hath made us kings and priests unto God his Father"; it is not meet that we should cringe before the spirit of the age, or lick the dust whereon "advanced thinkers" have chosen to tread.

Beloved, see to this; and learn the distinction between serving your own generation and being a slave to it.

On Evangelicalism's Current Cults of Celebrity
by Phil Johnson

hanks to Lane Chaplin for taping and posting this:

by Phil Johnson



f you subscribe to my Twitter feed, you already know that I flew back from Ukraine yesterday. It's great to be home, of course, but it was a remarkable privilege to teach pastors and seminarians at Irpin Biblical Seminary. It was an even greater thrill to spend a day with the saints in Grace Bible Church, Kiev. Last Sunday was one of the truly great and joyous highlights of my life—rich worship followed by a full afternoon of fellowship with the people of that church. It's a day I will never forget. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if Darlene could be there.

Anyway, this past week I've been thinking a lot about my first visit to Kiev, with John MacArthur, more than 20 years ago. I remember those days clearly. It was late September and early October 1991, exactly 50 years after the Nazis slaughtered 33,771 Jews at a Kiev ravine called Babi Yar—and less than two months after the collapse of the Soviet Union. People were hungry—starved—for the gospel.

Since then I have been to some 35 countries on five continents, and I've never seen any culture more eager to listen to the gospel than Ukraine (and the rest of the former Soviet Union) in 1991. The churches I visited were all crowded. A steady stream of recent converts gave their testimonies in every service I attended. Each new believer was brought to the front of the church and encouraged to "repent." And they did—confessing their sins with heartfelt remorse, and verbally professing their newfound faith in Christ with overflowing joy and enthusiasm. It was amazing and uplifting and deeply convicting to someone like me, who had become somewhat sluggish spiritually with the comforts and refinements (and superficiality) of Western evangelicalism.

Anyway, one of my most vivid memories of Kiev in 1991 was a day we were walking across a public square in downtown Kiev with a bundle of Russian gospel tracts and Scripture booklets. Ukrainian people crowded around us, clamoring to get one. I was caught quite off guard by the suddenness and enthusiasm of people's response. The moment was unforgettable.

But we weren't the only Western Christians in the square that day. There was a group of "gospel clowns" and mimes from some American church, and we inadvertently interrupted their performance, because even the people who had been watching them suddenly ran over to get gospel literature from us as we approached the center of the square. One of the mimes glared at me. And then, breaking character, he said something to me in English. He wanted us to move on so that they could get on with the task of pantomiming the gospel.

To this day it amazes and appalls me that anyone confronted with the openness of Eastern Europeans in the wake of the Soviet collapse would think wordless "performance art" is a better medium for declaring the gospel than straightforward preaching, simple one-on-one witnessing, and plain-language gospel literature. It's like anti-contextualization—culturally insensitive, incomprehensible to the target culture, and tainted with the scent of spiritual jingoism—but I'm certain those mimes believed their method was the very epitome of innovative "relevance."



And it occurs to me: That reflects precisely how multitudes of American evangelicals still think. They are more enthralled with their clever methodologies and ingenious "contextualizations" than they are with the gospel itself. Honestly, they seem at times to love their own flamboyance far more than they care about lost souls.

At least Rob Bell was honest about what he was trying to do. He openly called himself a "performance artist." But let's face it: the typical Noble/Furtick/EdYoungJr-style shtick is nothing more than bad performance art, too. The recent Code Orange Revival was promoted by garish floor gymnastics that looked like a poor imitation of something from Cirque du Soleil. Virtually all Mark Driscoll's major gaffes are products of a mind that has been overexposed to movies, rock concerts, cage fighting, Chris Rock, and whatnot. Even the Elephant Room, heavily promoted as a rare moment of candor and tough questions, turned out to be carefully scripted and strictly controlled so that no opinions were harmed during its filming.

A lot of what's called ministry these days is mere spectacle. Authentic apostolic-style gospel ministry is nothing like performance art.

When evangelical megachurches gave up the pulpit for a stage; traded psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs for AC/DC tracks; hired vaudevillians instead of pastors; and turned away their ears from the truth to follow fables, they chose a path of apostasy.

The only way back starts with repentance.

by The Pyromaniacs: Dan, Frank and Phil

A few people noticed that a mugging was about to happen. There was no doubt. It was unmistakable: an act of violence was about to unfold right in front of their eyes, and it was going to be gruesome.

Something had to be done. Those who saw events begin to unfold could not imagine not doing what they could to prevent it. So they let out a shout of warning.

The moment they began to cry out, however, a circle of people formed around both victim and perpetrator. The circle was composed of big, respectable, decent folks. Their backs were turned towards those crying out.

Oh good. The right people were on the scene! Surely they saw what was going to happen. Surely they'd intervene.

And yet... they did nothing.

So the outsiders, really alarmed now, raised their voices. They were pointed, they were specific, they were passionate, they were eloquent to the point of heart-breaking. It was a life or death situation; this was not the moment for collegial tea and crumpets on the deck. But there was enough time, if someone did something in response to all their shouts and cries.

To all this, the inner circle of watchers maintained absolute, lofty silence, as far as could be told. It was as if they couldn't hear.

But how was that possible? The folks who were sounding the alarm were right there, and they were plenty loud. Yet these good, decent folks just stood there. But this one... did he actually have his hands over his eyes so as to "not see" the people waving their arms? And that one... were those his fingers, stuck in his ears so as to "not hear" the cries of warning?

Others formed in the crowd as well, onlookers...

Then, suddenly and inevitably, it happened. It was every bit as brutal and shocking as the outer circle had warned. Worse. Still, they gasped. They gaped. How could this have happened?

And then, at long last, the inner circle finally turned around and faced outward.

As the bodies were being carted off.

They made hushing, calming gestures with their hands. "Now, now," tutted a central figure:
"No doubt what happened was regrettable. It's a sad day, and a sad, sad thing that happened. We are all deeply grieved. All of us love peace. We all detest violence. We cherish exactly what you cherish. We are with you. We are you."No doubt many will be upset. No doubt many will wonder why something wasn't done. Well, just be assured, your leaders are in charge. They have the situation well in hand. There is absolutely nothing to be alarmed about, nothing to be upset or energized about, certainly nothing to raise your voices about. If there had been, you know we would have told you."Perhaps something good may even come of this! "Now, back to your homes and churches with you, go on, that's a good lot."We may even write a book about this. If one of us does write a book, we'll be sure to let you know. And if we don't tell you, you don't need to know."And to the slack-jawed amazement of those who had cried alarm and had been ignored, to their ears came the sound of...

Applause!

Applause, and shouts of praise for the inner circle of silent spectators. Praise for their sagacity, their "nuance," their "judiciousness," their "carefulness," their "graciousness" (towards the muggers), their "thoughtfulness," their "helpfulness"; the hours they'd put into such careful and intelligent watching and spectating, and then for so articulately commenting... after the mugging.

And so, in the end...

...nothing changed for the better.

by Frank Turk


We don't really do book reviews here at PyroManiacs because, well, you come here for the truly crafty reproaches which we lay out here. And, I might add, you people are hooked on the loads of introspection and honest-to-Gospel repentance we call you to week in and week out because let's face it: you people are a wreck, and you need the whole-grain goodness we dollop out.


But we do get a lot of books in the mail, and from time to time I find some of the books arrive in a somewhat-providential moment where they are simply and exactly what the doctor ordered in terms of content and relevance.

This week from Crossway, I got two titles which I am absolutely giddy about because they have a ton of insight to shed on my theme topic for 2012, which is spiritual leadership. You know: I have written about being a good non-pastor in the church over and over because I am a non-pastor in the church. However, it seems to me that this year those who are in some way fitted or called to lead God's church need a little encouragement (both the carrot and the stick) to get on with it for the sake of their charges. The two books I have to recommend here are a good place to start.

The first book is edited by Dr. Anthony Bradley -- a credible person with an internet personality probably in the same class as me. He's a fellow drunken master, and I am a great fan of his insights and work on all manner of issues, even if I can admit that I wince about 3 times per 25 sentences whenever I read him or hear him. He is the kind of crazy genius we need in the Reformed camp, and in the Evangelical camp, and in the Man camp.

Dr. Bradley has edited a book with the modest title, Keep Your Head Up: America's New Black Christian Leaders, Social Consciousness, & the Cosby Conversation. The book is a collection of 10 essays plus preface and conclusion in which fellow leaders in the Black Christian community, including Dr. Bradley himself, discuss the credibility of the critique of black culture presented by Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint in their 2007 book, Come On People. It is a fantastic examination of the need of mankind for the Gospel -- not just spiritually, but personally and humanly -- as applied to the condition of Black society and culture in America. The centerpiece of the book is Dr. Bradley's own unpacking of that thesis, and it is by itself work the price of admission.

From my perspective, which is not that of a black man in America, this book is teaching me about my own self-blindness and my own self-satisfaction, and my own continuing needfulness for the Gospel, for faithful preachers of God's word, and for His church because it speaks to the needs of others, different from me, who have the same need. I hope this book finds its place onto your bookshelf because it is an important book regarding the Gospel because it is not an egg-headed book of systematic theology. It is about bringing the Gospel home to human culture and letting the Gospel be the solution to those cultures.

The other book is in the 9Marks series of books on church life from Crossway. This one is by the beloved Thabiti Anyabwile, Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons. This is careful and simple book, expressly about the call and qualification of the servants of the church who are also its leaders, and I credit Thabiti for writing it to the church rather than to fellow theologians.

Let me say this about the books in the 9Marks series: Mark Dever's fingerprints are all over these books, and that's not at all a bad thing. Dever's fatherly love for the local congregation comes out from all of these books, but in this book especially. It's funny how much Thabiti doesn't say about the local pastor in this book: there's no chapter on white boarding; there's no chapter on productivity or time management; there are no references to secular business practices. There are no suggestions about how to hear what God's own voice is telling you to do.  Selah.

Instead, Thabiti takes Paul's directions for calling Deacons, Elders, and Pastors, and lays them out for us real people to take seriously as God's plan for leading the local church. It's not even 150 pages long, which is to its credit: there is no fluff in here. This is the vernacular theology of how those called to be, as Thabiti says, the waiters in God's church ought to be trained up, and called out, and then serve and see their own service.

And I bring these two books up for one reason only: how much of the controversy of the last two weeks could have been cut off before it even became public if the advice and insight contained in these two books only could have been harnessed by men who we otherwise see as heroes of the faith and respected leaders? What if we rebuked the Americanisms and Secularisms in our own forms of leadership and our own perceptions of what leadership should accomplish for the telemetry of the Gospel and the call to sacrificial service inherent in the qualifications for deacons, elders and pastors? Would it have produced the Elephant Room, or would it have produced something else -- something that looks more like a shepherd with a flock of people in his sacred care, form who he is willing to be poured out for like a drink offering?

Read these two books, and I leave my question to your conscience. Be with God's people in God's house on His day this week, and get undone by the Gospel.

James MacDonald Plays the Race Card
by Phil Johnson



I know it's not my day to post, but this:



is probably the most blatantly racist presentation I have ever witnessed from an ostensibly "mainstream" evangelical source.

The take-away message is this: If you're an old white guy with any hint of Reformed theology in your confessional statement and you don't think T. D. Jakes's equivocations at Elephant Room 2 were sufficient to erase decades of concern about his Oneness leanings and his relentless proclamation of a false Prosperity Gospel—then you must be a racist. And even if you don't think you're a racist, you should shut up anyway. Because in the black community relationships are more important than any doctrine, including the gospel and the Trinity. We all should strive to subjugate doctrine to relationships anyway.

If on the other hand you are a young black man with Reformed convictions—or any black person who just has a keen interest in doctrinal and biblical accuracy—you are a sellout and a reproach to your own community. The only possible explanation is that you are guilty of "White Idolatry." You secretly wish to earn favor with Whitey. You should not only shut up, you should be ashamed. As far as the importance of relationships is concerned, we don't really care to have one with you.

End of discussion.

So much for open dialogue and not hiding behind walls of disagreement. The Elephant Room experiment clearly wasn't really about that in the first place. It wasn't about real unity or truth, either.

How does 2000 years of Christian consensus on the doctrine of the Godhead get sent to the back of the bus so blithely in the name of unity and racial reconciliation?

And why the deafening silence from so many men and ministries who supposedly are committed to standing for the defense and proclamation of core gospel truths? If you can be intimidated into silence by the race card when a greed-mongering prosperity-gospel Sabellian-sympathizer is being hailed by once-sound evangelicals as someone to be emulated, what doctrine will you defend openly and publicly?



Addendum 1[Added by Frank]: Chantry dropped a link to an article by Thabiti Anyabwile over at the TGC web site about this sort of thing, published the day before the Elephant Room.  There are probably a dozen money quotes in that essay, but here's the one that stands out like a watchman on the wall:I also want my non-African-American brothers to realize the harmful dynamic of pitting one African American against another. When two white brothers disagree publicly over a theological issue, there’s likely not a community “back home” trying to decide which brother is “black” and therefore which brother to follow. Historically, some white leaders have intentionally played one African American leader against another with the aim of dividing and weakening the community. That’s a history well-known and a strategy much hated in African-American communities. So, when a conflict between two African American religious leaders takes place publicly, care must be taken not to walk into this troubled narrative and trap. Inevitably, pitting two African-American leaders against one another is going to result in (1) one of those leaders losing “black” authenticity in their community, (2) one or both of those leaders being marginalized for their cooperation with “outsiders” to the community, and (3) the White brothers who do the pitting being seen as unconcerned about the Black community and unrighteously attempting to anoint the next Black leader. No one wins. if you’re from outside the African-American community, think very long, hard, and carefully about ever calling some African Americans to take your position in defense against other African Americans. It’s disastrous for everyone, and, frankly, you won’t begin to pay the deeper costs over the longer period that your African American friend will.Read the Whole Thing.  For the record: I mean you, A29 pastors & leaders (specifically people who were heckling Chad Vegas' blog post on quitting A29 over this event), HBC pastors, and specifically the staff of the mothership at HBC on James MacDonald's staff.

by Dan Phillips

[You might expect something on ER2 and, eventually, I may write more about it. Meanwhile, I'd just ask you to re-read Thabiti's eloquent and moving post from October 1 of 2011, and this and this, and ask yourself where we would be today if the thoughts in posts such as those and other similar warnings, written months in advance of ER2, had been so broadly and publicly taken up that it would be impossible for MacDonald and Driscoll to ignore such concerns. Meanwhile, this.]

It is a central tenet of Christian faith that there is such a thing as a word from God (Gen. 1:1; 15:1; Jn. 1:1, 14, 18; 3:34, etc.). Without that assertion, made and affirmed, there simply and literally is no Christian faith (Rom. 10:17).

So, HSAT, let's think through some questions about words from God:

1. Does it change anything, if there is a word from God?
2. Does it change everything, if there is a word from God?
3. Does the Bible ever depict the arrival of a fresh word from God as intended to be welcomed as a casual, business-as-usual affair?
4. Is there such a thing as a word from God that is not inherently fully true, and thus inerrant?
5. Is there such a thing as a word from God that is not instantly, inherently and absolutely morally-binding?
6. Even in the cases of words from God that do not direct me to do something (i.e. Jer. 18:1; Jn. 1:14), are they not still inherently and instantly and universally morally-binding in that believers must affirm that they are God's words, and must believe them?
7. Does not the very existence of tests of prophecy (i.e. Deut. 13:1ff.; 18:15ff.) underscore the fact that, if it is a word from God, all people are obliged to embrace it appropriately?
8. If the elder(s) of a local church knew of anyone in the congregation that was in rebellion against a word from God, either by refusing to do what the word said to do, or refusing to believe that the word was God's word, would they not be obliged to confront and discipline that person, and ultimately to expel him or her as an unbeliever, absent repentance?
9. Can a body of believers be in the regular practice of disobeying, ignoring, or being ambivalent about words from God, without disastrous spiritual consequences?

There. Now I'll ask and answer two more questions:

1. Say... isn't that an awfully basic list of awfully easy questions? (Answer: in "evangelicalism" today? It should be, yes. Would to God that it were. But no, evidently it is not.)
2. Are you going somewhere with this, fella? (I mean to, yes; probably Thursday.)

by Phil Johnson

"Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity" (Ephesians 6:24).
'm in Ukraine for the remainder of the week, with a fairly grueling teaching schedule. So this is nothing more than one of those "This Is Where I am Right Now" posts that Frank Turk so despises. And here's a scene from last week's seminar on the life and ministry of C. H. Spurgeon:



Oh, and there's this:

D.A. Carson has responded to Mark Driscoll's attack on evangelicals in the UK.

I'm surprised Carson didn't mention Rico Tice in his short-list of young English preachers who answer Driscoll's challenge and debunk his caricature of UK evangelicals:


See especially how Tice punctuates his comment at 3:00.

A couple of years ago, I heard Tice preach a superb, solidly biblical message on hell at St. Helen's Bishopsgate in London. He's articulate, courageous, and (as one-time captain of Bristol University's Rugby team) surely more virile than anyone who thinks manhood is best exemplified by being a spectator at cage fighting events.

Anyway, I have to say I'm also kind of surprised Carson said anything at all. In the words of a friend of mine, here's the shorthand history of The Gospel Coalition's efforts to corral Driscoll's motormouth:

· Driscoll credits (?) God with playing porn in his head
[ crickets ]
· Driscoll accuses folks of child molesting...though says he could be wrong
[ crickets ]
· Driscoll writes another sex manual
[ crickets ]
· Driscoll validates a false-gospel preaching modalist
[ crickets ]
· Driscoll says Brit pastors are weenies
NOW YOU WAIT JUST A MINUTE, YOUNG MAN!!

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from The Greatest Fight in the World: C. H. Spurgeon's Final Manifesto.



e have nowadays around us a class of men who preach Christ, and even preach the gospel; but then they preach a great deal else which is not true, and thus they destroy the good of all that they deliver, and lure men to error. They would be styled "evangelical" and yet be of the school which is really anti-evangelical.

Look well to these gentlemen. I have heard that a fox, when close hunted by the dogs, will pretend to be one of them, and run with the pack. That is what certain are aiming at just now: the foxes would seem to be dogs. But in the case of the fox, his strong scent betrays him, and the dogs soon find him out; and even so, the scent of false doctrine is not easily concealed, and the game does not answer for long.

There are extant ministers of whom we scarce can tell whether they are dogs or foxes; but all men shall know our quality as long as we live, and they shall be in no doubt as to what we believe and teach.

We shall not hesitate to speak in the strongest Saxon words we can find, and in the plainest sentences we can put together, that which we hold as fundamental truth.

As the Kenneth Talbot-led ex-"Full Preterists" start to wake up to the things some of us longer term "formers" have been saying; it becomes amusing or perhaps vindicating to read what they eventually write.  For example,
when Sam Frost first left the movement he said:

"I won't belittle you as "hyper-preterists" or "heretics" or any of those things. I know that doesn't work. It just inflames passions. Pointless, actually. You are made in God's image, and on that basis alone, worthy of respect. I will try my hardest. " -- source Jan 12, 2011
But a little over a year later, on Jan 25, 2012 Frost said this to a group of hyper-preterists:

"...the term, historically, "hyper-preterist" was not invented by FP. It came from a July, 1997 Chalcedon Report article (Kenneth Gentry). It applied to us regular FP. Later, FP picked it up and applied it to folks like Chris Camillo, "Taffy" and the like in order to distance themselves from the term. I don't like revisionism." -- source Jan 25, 2012
This is significant because it shows that Frost may finally be getting it.  The prefix HYPER is not meant as a pejorative but as a grammatically accurate qualifier.  Saying a person is a Full-Preterist is as senseless as saying a person is a "Full-Calvinist" if and when they go beyond (hyper) historic Calvinism.

But the hyper-preterists where Frost posted this are threatening him with banishment if he continues.  Hyper-preterist Tami Jelinek had this to say about the issue:

"We are not "hyper-preterists" (the moderators of this site, nor anyone I know of who posts here regularly). Personally, I *do* consider hyper-preterism heretical. In fact I do not consider hyper-preterists believers, or Christians. To anyone posting here who is referring to any of us as "hyper-preterists": this language needs to stop immediately or you will not continue to post here." -- source
Comparing Frost's comments to Jelinek's, it is apparent that she is doing exactly as Frost said; engaging in "revisionism".  That is, it is like a liberal Democrat trying to deny his views are ideologically socialistic.  Just who are these "hyper-preterists" Jelinek wouldn't consider believers or Christians and why does she think Christians should consider her a believer or a Christian?  Jelinek calling others heretical is like a Mormon calling a Jehovah's Witness a cultist.

Lastly, on a little side note, Frost's sidekick, Jason Bradfield recently admitted this:

" Error begets error. I don’t think it is insignificant that hyperpreterism flourished in Church of Christ circles. That doesn’t account for all of it, but it certainly explains a great deal." -- source Jan 19, 2012
This is important because I early on pointed out that the Church of Christ denomination's "Restorationism" was a big factor in why so many of the first and still most predominant leaders within the Hyper-preterist movement come from the denomination. (see here, here, here)

So, while Frost and the other Talbot-led formers are too full of themselves to set aside their hatred for me, they are just now beginning to use the arguments many of us independent formers used almost a decade ago; and for which they lambasted us.  Maybe they can have a little humility and admit they were wrong and wrong to attack us for as long as they have.

While Sam Frost was still within the FP movement, he often complained how it was not systematic enough.  It seemed he wanted to dictate how it would be presented.  Well, it appears he is still at it. Commenting on an article where the author was detailing how "partial-preterism", if consistent should/would lead to FPism, Sam said:
"And, I don't get FP's using this argument (I used to use it when David Engelsma was saying it). Do you want to drive people AWAY from your view? Scare them off?...[Instead] Here's what you should post: "this is what X said, and I quote X" Then, deal with X's actual words and show where they contradict Y in Scripture or in his own argument. Or, "if P, then Y" of necessary inference - but anything else, like this fellow writes, is speculation and useless "leads to" fearmongering......It's like bringing up Hitler in an argument....." -- link: http://deathisdefeated.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2362512 
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