Category Archives: American Evangelicalism

The Christian Existence: Contra Systemic Dualisms

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The right and left binary represents a dualism that genuine Christian theology rejects. Dualism generally says that there are equal and opposing forces, light versus dark, in a cyclical battle of yin and yang. The Kingdom of God is grounded in the reality of God become [hu]man. There is no dualism, no competitive relationship between the fallen and unfallen; all of reality is subsumed within the singular person of Jesus Christ. Thus, Christianity, the Gospel comes with different expectations. The Christian is not in a loggerhead with the darkness, per se; the Christian moves and breathes from within the atmosphere of the heavenly Zion. This reality is not of this world, and thus not of the dualisms that often frame this world system. We are emissaries of the living God in the risen Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. In that sense we move differently than others, not being shaped by what the world optically presents to us as if it gets to determine reality by brute presence.

The aforementioned should have an impact on the Christian existence in this world. It should keep us moving towards and from the upward call in Christ Jesus. Politics, culture wars, and the like should never be defined by the whims and whams of the base person, the profane systems of thought progenerated by this world system; the evil age. Jesus is already reigning at the right hand of the Father (see 1 Cor 15), and will come once and for all riding on His white steed with the sword of God proceeding from His mouth. Maranatha

On Being Churchless in the 21st Century: A Personal Tale

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It is not easy to find a sound, healthy Bible teaching evangelical church in the 21st century. For example, we (my wife and I) have been without a stable church for quite some time. We have “church-shopped,” and that gets almost defeatist after a while. It isn’t that we’re looking for the “perfect church,” not at all. We are simply looking for a church where the Word of God is opened and exposited in a way where Christ is central; where the Gospel is central; where genuine Christian proclamation is taking place. Unfortunately, the MANY churches we have visited over these last many years are still more concerned with being “relevant,” and user-friendly than they are with being biblically faithful. But then you’ll visit a church that is ostensibly biblically and doctrinally focused, and all your generally left with are John MacArthur-like churches. Or you’ll visit a church that is either, in fact, a mega church, or aspires to be one. Or maybe, you’ll visit a church that has a bunch of satellite campuses, with one mothership campus that keeps the franchise steady. But in the main, most so-called evangelical churches out there in the 21st century, are indeed peddling what has been called a moralistic therapeutic deism; so not really even the Christian religion, but a folk religion. They literally have a Ted Talk for the sermon and a tryout for American Idol as “worship.” And this is pervasive.

On top of all of that, and at a personal level, my job doesn’t make things very easy either. I work on-call which in and of itself makes it prohibitive towards looking for a solid church. And then when it works out to try and do that, we end up wasting our time at the types of churches described previously. So, we are in a hard spot; and I don’t think we are alone. What we have been doing in lieu of being able to find a worthwhile church is live viewing a church online that used to be my parents church, and that we attended back in the day in Lakewood (Bellflower), CA. I am friends with the senior pastor, and they have something very unique going as far as churches go in the 21st century. But ultimately, while it is good to still get the Word taught, doing online church isn’t sustainable; as far as meeting bodily needs, such as fellowship, friendship, and an immediacy to one-another that Christians ideally ought to have; indeed, as the body of Christ meeting physically around the Word taught, and the Bread and Welch’s Grape Juice consumed (i.e., communion, “Lord’s supper” etc.)

So, as you think about it, please pray that we will finally be able to find a healthy sound Bible teaching church that we can settle into. Thank you.

Matthew Henry’s Perspective on Thirdwayism: Contra Secularism’s In-Breaking into the Churches

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The evangelical churches in North America, in particular, and in the West, in general, have largely been secularized. To say something has been secularized has broad affect. But primarily, I am wanting to emphasize how pagan Enlightenment categories have been uncritically swallowed by the churches. Whether that be to affirm climate change (as “creation care” or ecotheology), softness on Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer-Intersex (i.e., “gay Christians”) issues, critical theory and critical race theory, Liberation theology, and a whole host of other antisupranaturalistic Enlightenment categories and ideologies, the evangelical churches, by and large, have allowed themselves to be defined by. And if the culture, as the Apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit identify for us, is in fact an ‘evil age,’ then what in God’s Holy Name hath this darkness to do with the Light? As Christians, as ambassadors, as emissaries of Jesus Christ we have been called to bear witness to Jesus Christ, and by this witness, by His reality, His resurrection power indwelling us, indeed as we participate in His life by the Spirit, by His Light we are to expose the darkness; which would entail, that we, on the other hand, repudiate the secularism, the paganism, the Enlightenmentism that so many of the evangelical churches are in fact imbibing (even in the name of Jesus Christ as “bridge-building” aka thirdwayism).

Conversely, the aforementioned has a history. The formative parts of that history are present within the 17th and 18th centuries (so, the Enlightenment). This was a time when the empiricism and rationalism of someone like John Locke, the rationalistic dualism of Immanuel Kant, the Deism of the like et al. was in full blossom. The Deists, of course, simply believed that there was a transcendent god, up there yonder, who got everything started, who created the heavens and earth, gave it a good spin, and has since left it to itself; and to us. Embedded in Deism was a charred rationalism, that when applied to the confessional Dogmas of the historic church, with particular focus on the doctrine of the triune God, left God almost dead in the gutter; left a God, as noted, who was most assuredly not three-in-one / one-in-three. As such, being a confessional Christian—someone who affirmed the orthodox ecumenical church creeds of Nicaea, Constantinople, Chalcedon, with reference to the triunity of God and the deity of Christ—had come to wane. In the face of the intelligentsia of that day and hour, to be a confessional Christian was looked at like being the village idiot or something. Even so, and by the mercy of God, such persons persisted.

In the midst of this, those “persistents,” the people who withstood succumbing to the Deists and rationalists among them, within the “churches,” remained faithful to the reality of the triune God. Indeed, here is how contemporary church historian, Nick Needham, writes about one of these ‘faithful,’ with direct reference to Matthew Henry himself:

For the Dissenters, Presbyterian Matthew Henry (1662–1714, author of the famous Bible commentary, spoke in a similar vein as the 18th Century began:

The low condition of the church of God ought to be greatly lamented; the Protestant interest small, very small; a decay of piety; attempts for reformation ineffectual. Help, Lord! There are but few who are truly religious; who believe the report of the Gospel, and who are willing to take the pains, and run the hazards of religion. Many make a fair show in the flesh, but few only walk closely with God. Where is he that engageth his heart, or that stirs up himself to take hold of his Maker?[1]

The way Henry was referring to his time and day in the churches sounds eerily similar to our day and time. More than ever, so-called evangelical Christians, particularly “the leaders,” have allowed the erosive powers of the current world culture[s] to seep into the churches; and they have done this all in the name of Jesus Christ. There are many who use the name of Jesus Christ, refer to the Bible, use all the right Christianese, and yet they have in point of fact denied the power of God, the Gospel, in favor of cloistering with the various secular ideologies run amok among us in this world system. These ‘forces,’ within the churches, particularly as we see that given expression in a magazine like Christianity Today, or in the writings and activities of the late, Tim Keller’s thirdwayism (acquiescing to the progressive ideologies of the 21st century), in the name of bridge-building, or in the “winsomeness” of someone like Russell Moore or J. D. Greear, have taken the many peoples of the churches into the slough of despondency, right along with them. This shan’t remain the case!

Like in Henry’s day, it is easy, and at a point, even appropriate to bewail the current church situation. But we cannot stay in that status. The ‘faithful’ must recognize our current moment, as that has been foisted upon us, even by us, and first and foremost repent. Once this step has been taken it is incumbent on each and everyone of us, indeed as individual members of the church, to keep in step with the Holy Spirit, take up our crosses daily, and follow Jesus Christ. As we live out our unique callings by our Master, as we shine brightly with the Brightness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as we expose the darkness with the Light of Christ, we might be able, yet, to inject the churches, the church, with the vitality of our risen and ascended Lord. That can only come as we participate in the life of Christ, in union with Him, and by His resurrection and ascension energy, in shared koinonia (fellowship), one with the other, by which the power of God, the Gospel, can come to have full effect on the liveliness of the churches, and as the light to the world that Jesus is Savior and Lord.

[1] Nick Needham, 2000 Years of Christ’s Power: Volume 5: The Age of Enlightenment and Awakening (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2023), 99.

The Dandelion of God’s Kingdom in the Midst of the Profanus Communio: With Reference to Charlie Kirk

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Charlie Kirk was just a guy, a highly motivated and gifted brother. He was constrained by the love of Christ. He saw himself as an emissary for Jesus Christ. And it was because of all of this that he died a Christian martyr’s death. He was too young, some would say (I would). And yet, the Lord has a story, has a ministry, a service for each one of us who are His own. Sometimes that story entails living a long life on this earth, eighty or ninety years, maybe. And other times, like my little brother, it only lasts thirty minutes outside of the womb; and in Charlie’s case, it was thirty-one, almost thirty-two years. Our Lord, in His earthly ministry, had somewhere around thirty-three years, and then ascended. The point is, is that we all have something to do for our Lord whilst here. He has uniquely, in Himself, given each of us the strength, the gifts (as needed, relative to steps of faith) required to live out His witness through us, one for the other, and the other for the one.

Charlie, in obedience to his calling, took many steps into the Jordan. And with each step the water parted into the promised land of God’s abundance for Him in Jesus Christ. This is the power of Christ’s witness in someone’s life who has decided to charge hard after Him and His mission for the world. This “hard charging” is of course, not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the living God where there is liberty.

But as is all too apparent, as these steps are taken in this ‘evil age’ there will always be pushback. The world system, or the Beast kingdom, is at counter-purposes with the missio Dei (‘mission of God’) at every step. As the Apostle Paul recognizes, in his epistle to Timothy, there are doctrines of demons afoot and funding this world system. For those without the armor of God, for those who are still inhabitants of the kingdom of darkness, they are easy prey to such doctrines. They have no protection. As such, such populates look for safety in numbers; they look for groups and tribes that offer them a sense of safety and stridence within a clearly broken and fragmented world. It is within these cathedrals of darkness where the Enemy of our souls offers up the sacrament of their own bodies as the ultimate meaning of what is real, what is right, what is hope in the midst of darkness. And without the Holy Spirit, without being participants in the Kingdom of the Son of His love, these wary and frightened souls find repose and solace within the dictates of their own fellow bodies. It is within this type of profanus communio (unholy communion) that all manner of dastardly deeds, vices, thoughts, ideas, notions, feelings, so on and so forth are cultivated; all to the end of upbuilding this holy body, “my holy body” “our holy body” within the desires of our sickened and blackened hearts, beyond all feeling.

Charlie Kirk, and all faithful Christians bearing witness to the holiness of the Kingdom of God, the ‘kingdom of the Son of His love,’ push into the aforementioned unholy communion. The darkness and delusion are exposed by the light of Christ, the power of God. It is this reality, the ascended Christ reality, that buggers the whole darkness-project. When self-actualization driven by my darkened inward turned navel feelings is challenged all it can do is recoil in shrieking anger and despise. The devil himself, identified by Jesus, as the father of lies, as the author of murder, becomes instigated by the light-bearers, as they reflect the Light of Light in the face of Jesus Christ, and he attempts to mount a counter-assault on such faces. This counter was what Charlie Kirk experienced; indeed, instigated by the devil, and implemented by his minions within the multilayered kingdom of darkness. Within this more volatile, this more active aspect of his kingdom, within the evil age, these agents of darkness, ensnared in ways that  they cannot even imagine themselves, lash out. In this instance, Charlie Kirk experienced what, I’m sure, the Dragon of old, in all his futility, hoped would extinguish the penetration of the Kingdom of Light of Light, into his kingdom of darkness; particularly among the young. And yet because of the Great Reversal, the one where Jesus triumphed on the cross, making a public spectacle of the Enemy and his minions, has been flipped on its ugly dragon head. The seed of the Kerygma, the Gospel, the Power of God, has now been blown a thousandfold all across the globe. The Kingdom of Light of Light spreads, not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the LORD. Like a massive dandelion, the breath of the Holy Spirit blows forth, in what appears to be dead seeds, only to spread God’s Word all across the lands. Indeed, so much so, that it penetrates the conclaves of darkness the Enemy has so ghoulishly and carefully been cultivating for his own murderous and destructive ends.

The bottom line, the eschatological reality, is that God has already won. Charlie Kirk’s death within the economy of God’s Kingdom is no death at all. Instead, it is a spur that only magnifies the strength and Light of God’s Kingdom; resulting in more seeing, rather than less. We grieve at Charlie’s death, and we really do!, but we know the Victory has been already had. Charlie stepped into the eternal arms of the everlasting Father the split-second that bullet ended his earthly life; at least “ended” for the time being. Charlie was in union with Christ. Christ has already died, been buried, rose again, and ascended for over two thousand years; thus, Charlie, and all the saints past, present, and future (as the Lord tarries) lives, not dies.

Barth on Human Sexuality and the LGBTQI+ Agenda

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There is an irony with Karl Barth, many, but one of them is that he is highly traditional in regard to human sexuality. This is ironic because the places, in the 21st century, that serve as harbingers and promoters of his theology, both Princeton Theological Seminary (and its Center for Barth Studies) and all of those with similar sensibilities, must distance themselves from Barth on these matters; that is, in order to stay politically and socially correct. But it is better to be biblically and christologically correct for my money. Here is a short snippet from Barth on this, with particular application towards, what today, would entail and implicate the LGBTQI+ agenda.

God’s sanctifying command aims at and wills man himself. This means, of course, the man who in his totality is man or woman, who is physical in every filament and cell of his body, who even as the spirit-impelled soul of his body is not sexless, nor above sex, nor bi-sexual, but mono-sexual man or woman, and lives in the presence of and in responsibility to God in this total and definite orientation of his being. . ..[1]

For Barth, human sexuality is something determined not by a particular socio-cultural context, but instead, by the Divine command of God. There is no wiggle room on this with Barth, he is very clear, all throughout the context I have taken the above snippet from.

Indeed, folks who are ostensibly his gatekeepers today must periodize Barth, and simply leave these aspects of Barth to his own historically misogynistic and cis gendered roles that were prominent at that time. In other words, such Barthians must simply make Barth a product of his time on these matters, not fully “come of age” on human sexuality, as we have in the 21st century. This is similar to what this same sentimentality will do with Jesus, in its hard Kenotic iteration. That is, they will attribute human error to Jesus, in regard to history, canonicity, hell, human sexuality, so on and so forth, by making Jesus a product of His time. But of course, this would reject then a strong doctrine of Divine freedom vis-à-vis the incarnation. Even so, Barth is simply reflective of and a witness to the Dominical teaching of our Lord on the implicates of a human sexuality. May the churches take heed.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/4 §54 [133] The Doctrine of Creation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 126.

A Catholic Ripping of the Protestant church / A Protestant Riposting to the Catholic churched

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The following is from an X/Twitter account that identifies herself as THE Based Trinity™. She is clearly a Roman Catholic, of the Latin Mass proclivity. And she was recently, or at some point, invited to a Protestant church service. Below I will provide her response to that experience, and then below that I will respectively present my response to her as I offered that on X.

I got invited to a Protestant “service.” Here’s how it all went down. The intro alone was 40 minutes of the “worship” band finding the resonant frequency of all my internal organs, making me queasy, with the zombies around me waving their hands in the air like they didn’t care (about actual scripture). This was followed by guilt tripping tithes and forced socialization, boomer women screaming commands at God to HEEEAAAHHHL IN JESUS NAME some specific congregants, a hot mess of a sermon with the theme of “don’t complain”, usurping parts of St. Paul’s epistles before boldly declaring “if you’re born again, ALL YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN!”, heaps of vain repetition (pastor making the congregation repeat every 6th or so line he calls out), and the good ole “altar call” where people go kneel before the worship band (prots like to call that idol worship when we do it). Not to mention the fact that I was repeatedly ambushed by everyone forcefully introducing theirselves – even when I was very obviously trying to maintain my sanity by quietly reading my Catholic Press prayer book. One lady tried shoving a visitor contact card in my face while I was doing so, and gave me this appalled dirty look when I politely declined. I’d gone to the 8am Mass beforehand, prayed my usual pre-Mass rosary, then prayed an extra rosary afterward.. but when I came out of that dentist’s office “church” I was ready to go to the noon Mass. I felt dirty and hollow and it broke my brain and my heart that while I was in there, everyone was lapping up the emotionally charged nonsense and waving their hands and muttering those “yes Jesus thank you Jesus Aaaaaymen” vain Protestant repetitions. Nothing has ever made me want to run back to my car and gun it to a TLM more than what I endured today. Of course, there was plenty of irony woven into the sermon. It pains me to see so many well meaning people who are so dangerously misled. Pray for them. We have to.

And my response:

As an evangelical I’d say this is an apt description of many evangelical church services in North America (although, “altar call?” if only most churches still did those). But yes, in my view, the evangelical churches have almost totally gone to seed; quite badly in fact. Even so, this does not necessarily entail that the Roman Catholics are the only or recommended alternative. It has its own problems—many in fact. What this does mean though, I think, is that evangelicalism shouldn’t be left on life support any longer by those of us who can feel this gal’s angst and emptiness, just the same. I don’t know what the way forward is for the evangelical churches (in name only). A return to simplicity and a Word focusedness is the only way I can really imagine. The Word for the Protestant, and the American evangelical as an ostensible subset, must shape the Protestant worship service; it must shape the body life of the church; it must be disentangled from this or that period of theological development and allow to stand on its own, within the history of its interpretation. Protestants, de jure, have a much surer way to offer than do the accretions found in Romanism. There is hope for the Protestant, a balm of Gilead available; and it must resound and find its ground in a theology of the Word of God alone as the esse of all that is real, and breathing and life giving. But I can resonate with this Catholic gal’s conclusion, in regard to the vanity of the evangelical churches. It’s just her antidote that is aloof.

On Ethnic Israel and Jesus

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Given what’s going on with Israel and Iran I jotted down some thoughts (elsewhere online) on Israel and how ethnic Israel continues to relate to the Man from Nazareth, Jesus Christ.

There is a right-wing movement among some so-called MAGA people who are highly antisemitic, or we could more accurately say: supersessionist. They have bought into the old rhetoric that Israel as a nation ceased to exist in 70AD, never to reunite again. But her ethnicity has always been vouchsafed in the Man from Nazareth (see Jeremiah 31). Her ethnicity transcends itself in its purpose as the Messiah bearer for the world. And yet, the promises made to the fathers remain irrevocable (see Romans 11:29). If the nation of Israel, as a people group ceases to be, this would entail that the Man from Nazareth, the Son of David, would cease to be. But since He cannot cease to be in his particularity as a regionalized man, then neither can the nation that bore him cease to be in its perdurance before God. And this is why, I would suggest, that whether leftist or rightist, antisemitism has continued to exist down throughout the ages. The Enemy of our souls seeks to kill, steal, and destroy anything that stands for the ultimate purposes of God; including the Jews. Rightists are just as malevolent as the Leftists, and of the spirit of this age; in the kingdom of darkness rather than in the kingdom of the Son of His love. The pattern has always been: “to the Jew first, and then the Gentile.” That motif has never changed.

Jesus is the true Israel; the Jew from Nazareth. The church is only the true Israel for supersessionists and some Catholics.

The whole Kingdom of Christ is contingent upon the fact that Jesus is the Son of David. That’s where his free election to be human was and is situated. Jewishness wasn’t abrogated by the ascension of Christ, Jewishness was amplified by the expansionism of becoming the one (Jesus) for the many in the organic fulfillment of both the Abrahamic and New Covenants, respectively (and all the covenants in between, Davidic in particular). The nation or eretz (Land) of Israel today isn’t the Kingdom, per se; but it is a foreshadowing and demonstration that God remains faithful to His promises; for the Jew first, then the Greek. Political Israel today isn’t the Kingdom of Christ, but it is a demonstration of God’s faithfulness to His Word; which He willingly descended into in a Jewish body by design and grace. Only a Gnostic or Marcionite could think that God emptied His “human shell” at the ascension. No Christian of canonical principle would ever affirm that ethnic Israel was superseded by the coming of the Son of Man. Lots of rubbish being pushed around in the “Christian” church on this.

The Triune Worshippers against the Eunomians and Classical Liberals

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Being a human coram Deo (before or in the presence of the living God), in regard to its telos or purposefulness, is underwritten by being a worshipper of the triune God rather than an as an idolater of a self-projected god of a unitarian and individualistic origination. So-called classical liberalism, much of which was in fact Teutonic or German in orientation, of the Enlightenment/ -post higher critical ilk, is of the latter instance. That is to say, higher critics of the New Testament so demythologized the NT of its reality in the Theandric person of Jesus Christ, that all that was left for Jesus to be, at best, was as an exemplar for others to find in themselves; in mimicry of Jesus’ example of what it meant to operate with a Father-God consciousness; in Schleiermacher’s zeitgeist, having a “feeling” of dependence upon a Father-God. To the point, the classical liberal was necessarily turned inward to the inward curvature of the soul, wherein all that was left to fill the gap between God and humanity, wasn’t the divine personhood of the Godman in Jesus Christ, but instead, the divine personhood resident in each human being as they cultivated the feeling they had for Godness; indeed, as that godness was resident within the environ of their own human being. In other words, once the classical liberal denuded Jesus of His eternal and triune deity, all they had left was some type of Arian-unitarian notion of God wherein the mediator between God and man, was a naked humanity purely predicated by being an abstract human enmeshed in the world processes of existential existence among the other animals alongside us.

James B. Torrance (brother of Thomas F. Torrance) describes this type of unitarian way, with reference to Adolf Von Harnack and John Hick:

Model 1: The Harnack (Hick) Model. The first model . . . is that of nineteenth-century Protestant liberalism, given classical expression by Adolf Harnack [sic] in his 1900 Berlin lectures Das Wesen des Christentums, or What is Christianity? Recently Professor John Hick has sought to revive it in an adapted form. According to this, the heart of religion is the soul’s immediate relationship to God. What God the Father was to Old Testament Israel, he was to Jesus, and what he was to Jesus, he was to Paul and still is the same to us and all men and women today. We, with Jesus, stand as men and women, as brothers and sisters, worshiping the one Father but not worshiping any incarnate Son. Jesus is the man but not God. We do not need any mediator, or “myth of God incarnate.”

In Harnack’s own words: “The Gospel, as Jesus proclaimed it, has to do with the Father only and not with the Son.” Jesus’ purpose was to confront men and women with the Father, not with himself. He proclaimed the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of mankind, but not himself. “The Christian religion is something simple and sublime.” It means “God and the soul, the soul and its God” and this, he says, must be kept “free from the intrusion of any alien element.” Nothing must come between the child and his heavenly Father, be it priest, or Bible, or law, or doctrine, or Jesus Christ himself! The major “alien element” which Harnack has in mind is belief in the incarnation, a doctrine which he regarded as emerging from the hellenizing of the simple message of Jesus.

This view is clearly unitarian and individualistic. The center of everything is our immediate relationship with God, our present-day experience. The Father-Son relationship is generic, not unique. With this interpretation, all the great dogma of the church disappear:

    • The doctrine of the Trinity. We are all sons and daughters of God and the Spirit is the spirit of brotherly love.
    • The incarnation. Jesus Christ is not “his only [unicus] Son, our Lord,” but one of the class of creaturely sons of God. Sonship is not unique to Christ.
    • The doctrines of the Spirit, union with Christ, the Church as the body of Christ and the sacraments. Jesus did not found a church. He proclaimed the kingdom of God as a fellowship of love.

This liberal reconstruction made deep inroads and accounts in measure for the moralistic view of Christianity—where Jesus is the teacher of ethical principles, and where the religious life is our attempt to follow the example of Jesus, living by the golden rule, “doing to others as you would be done by.” With this moralistic, individualistic understanding of God and the Christian life, the doctrine of the Trinity loses its meaning, in fact disappears—and with it all doctrines of atonement and unconditional free grace, held out to us in Christ.[1]

For students of theological history what should be evident is the way that history repeats itself; albeit in different dress and grammar. At base, there is only so much space for the human wit to innovate ‘under the Sun.’ In other words, the issues the Protestant or classical liberals presented the Enlightened and post-Enlightened world with were, by and large, the same issues the early church Fathers, like Athanasius, Irenaeus, Cyril et al. were faced with by the Arians, Eunomians, and the many other traditional heretics we know of today.

The key to genuine worship of the triune God is that first the person must confess the fact that there is a triune God. Once this confession has been made, not in abstraction, but from within the depths of Christ’s vicarious confession for us—as He lamented with and worshipped the Father for us, in the breath of Holy Spirit—the potential worshipper can simply repose in the bosom of the Father, and worship from within the center of God’s life as that is the Only Begotten. Once this move is understood, indeed as the move of God for the world in the Theandric person of the eternal Son, Jesus Christ, we are no longer thrown upon ourselves (as TFT was wont to phraseize), but upon the mercies and graciousness of the living God; indeed, the living God who truly is, Immanuel, God with us. The classical liberals were too taken by their own moment in history, indeed an Arianizing and Eunomianizing moment, and as such, like the Vienna Positivists, lived and breathed in a vacuous turmoil of their own making. To be sure, they would have had it no other way; that is, until they went to stand before the living God. Now like the Rich Man they gnash their teeth as they remember the poor man, Lazarus, and realize that he had found and been found by the narrow way of the living God’s kingdom in the risen Christ.

All that is left for the unitarian, the Arian and Eunomian, the classical liberal worshipper of God is to first worship their own innards, and then attempt to project those onto the feelings they themselves discern as the Holy drip of God’s Fatherly life built into the immanent frame of their own deified lives, as it were. What a tragedy indeed.

[1] James B. Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic Press, 1996), 25–6.

God is Not on a Binary or even Trinary: With Reference to Christianity and Sexuality

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It’s unfortunate that, on a binary, either you are a “conservative” and thus believe that God relates to humanity as Law prior to Love; or that you are a “progressive,” and thus that God only relates to humanity as Love (which entails, that God stands with the other, so-called, in a purely affirming way—in this instance I’m thinking of so-called Gay Christianity and LGBTQ in general).

And yet it is possible, and I believe, required, to think God as triune Love, and yet a God of holiness who contradicts all of our righteousnesses; whether that be left, right, or in between somewhere. God’s life and act of love doesn’t allow us to stay where He finds us—tossed off into the brambles of the ditch in our mother’s afterbirth—but He picks us up, cleans us up, in His holiness, and sets us next to Him, as the Bride of His Son. He calls us to deny whatever we are predisposed to—that is, whatever base desires that reign prevalent in our lives, whatever those might be—and to live a life in participation with His, through union with Christ. A life that continuously burns away what we take to be okay and good and righteous, and instead clothes us with His robes of righteousness, wherein freedom for Him, and thus others abounds.

I am one of those who sees God as inherently loving and gracious. But at the same time believes that entails a Fatherly contradiction to what we, left to our own sinful natures, would project onto Him; as if He is simply there to affirm us in whatever we believe is the good way. God’s Law, as the Apostle Paul states, is the Law of Christ. Which is to say, that God is love; with all of the weight, contradiction, and transformation that comes with. As a consequence, we ought to expand beyond the secular social imaginaries we inhabit, and repose in what God has eternally imagined for us in participation with the Son of His bosom forevermore. First and foremost, it is to live a life of Godly love wherein His holiness, rather than “ours,” is the centerpiece.

Can Christians Still Learn from Steven Lawson’s Teachings and Preachings?

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Qualification. This whole post is an exercise in de jure. The basic principle I am getting at on this occasion is to touch on whether or not a sinner, or someone who has been found to be in sin, could have still been used of God to bear witness to Christ in spite of their own personal moral and egregious failures. 

As most know now, at least those in the “right” circles, Dr. Steven Lawson has fallen morally. The church he started in Dallas, TX, Trinity Bible Church, made the announcement a few days ago that Lawson had admitted to being in an “inappropriate relationship with a woman” (a bit of an understatement). Now the news has come out that Lawson has been in an ongoing relationship with a gal in her late twenties (Lawson is 73) for at least five years; and he only admitted to it because the gal’s dad found out about it and threatened to expose it if Lawson himself didn’t. In other words, Lawson’s “coming forward” wasn’t because he was repentant, it was because he got caught; which I’m sure now he’s shedding many tears over (i.e., getting caught).

Suffice it to say, this has produced all types of fallout in the conservative evangelical and Reformed circles Lawson had become a “star” within. He was a fellow of Ligonier Ministries, the late R.C. Sproul’s ministry, and faculty and head of the DMin program at The Master’s Theological Seminary (John MacArthur’s school). As noted, Lawson was founding pastor of his church, and also of an international ministry known as OnePassion; and then of course, I’m sure he was on the board of various and multiple other unnamed ministries worldwide (in fact I know he was). When a high-profile pastor falls to such a besetting sin (which in my view, currently, has predatorial characteristics to it), it is going to produce angst, anger, and grieving of untold magnitude for those who held Lawson up as a model church leader in the respective evangelical world.

In a way there is a parallel here, for me, between Steven Lawson and Karl Barth. As everyone knows I see Barth as a unique theologian for the church of Jesus Christ in ways that go unmatched in regard to his Christ-focusedness, among other things. And yet, as I have already rehearsed much too much already in the past, he lived in an adulterous relationship that he forced upon his wife and family from in and around 1926 till the time of his “mistress’s” death in the 60s. If you don’t know, Charlotte Von Kirschbaum lived in Barth’s house, along with his family. She was his “secretary” and fellow theologian involved in all of his work, with particular focus on his magnum opus the Church Dogmatics. I had heard rumblings of this for years, but it wasn’t till 2017 when Christianne Tietz published an essay that for the first time translated some of Barth’s and von Kirschbaum’s love letters. This was my “Steven Lawson moment,” and I wrote about it; and received lots of pushback on it, from many sectors; and lost connections with many because I dared to highlight it; and more. That said, what became the struggle for me was whether or not I could continue to read and learn from Barth. For me he wasn’t some modern demon, but a faithful explicator of the Word of God; in ways that could be in parallel with the church fathers of the patristic period. And so now, I would imagine, the same question is being pushed upon those who sat under Lawson for so many years and decades. They are wondering whether or not they can ever listen to another sermon preached, or ever read another publication from Lawson again.

In light of my own struggles with this and Barth, I would say: yes. For me this has always come back to the objective reality of the Gospel itself/Hisself. The Gospel is greater than its messengers, than its witnesses. Bobby Grow does not predicate the Gospel, nor does Karl Barth, or Steven Lawson, or anyone. The Gospel and its reality in Jesus Christ stand on the power of His indestructible life, and no filth or sin of those who bear witness to it can smear or corrupt its reality at the Right Hand of the Father. And yes, there can be reproach brought upon the witnesses to the Gospel when the witnesses themselves fall into a variety and sundry sins and immoralities. But ironically, even that reproach is ultimately reversed by the Gospel they have been bearing witness to; even while living in egregious sin. That is to say, the whole point of the Gospel is to bring salvation to sinners; even those who have been given the role to teach and preach it for the church. As James says, ‘the teacher will be under a stricter judgment.’ Indeed, we can see this playing out currently in the life of Lawson. But ultimately, he is not condemned before God in the risen Christ, because Christ is risen. There are some temporal consequences that Lawson will now have to bear up under, and hopefully he will be genuinely repentant; and not just upset that he got caught. Indeed, as long as Steven responds in the right way the Lord can and will use this in his life to prune and shape him more into the man of God God sees him to be in Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, we are all Steven Lawsons and Karl Barths. This is no excuse for engaging in sinful activities, it is simply to acknowledge that we all need to be vigilant in our walks with Christ; we all need to understand that we are in a spiritual battle that we have no resource to fight without being fully dependent upon the One who raises the dead.

I understand there will always be an asterisk next to Lawson’s name. But insofar that the LORD truly used and spoke through him to genuinely bear witness to the risen Christ, it would be foolish to think everything he preached and wrote was all rubbish (bearing in mind I am a heavy critic of the type of Lordship salvation and 5-point Calvinism he was a proponent of). Again, the measure of reality is not Steven Lawson or Karl Barth, it is the reality of the risen Christ and the triune God. We are all sinners while simultaneously being used of God to point people to Christ, if we are.