-
Tim Keller Goes to Meet God
Timothy J. Keller, who was the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, co-founder of Redeemer City to City, and the author of several books, died at the age of 72 on May 19, trusting in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. He is survived by his wife Kathy, his three sons and their wives, a sister, and seven grandchildren. A livestream worship service will be held in the coming weeks. More details will be provided here as they become available.
In a similar way as I did with people who were very much different from Keller–Rachel Held Evans and Jack Spong–I will make comment with what I wrote while he was still living, namely from my post The Real Problem with @timkellernyc:
It’s fair to say that Keller, being the Reformed type that he is, had a “higher” demographic (at least in terms of AGI) than the Churches of God were reaching. The problem with this, however, is exactly the same as the Anglicans are struggling with: the higher you go in this society, the more your parishioners are expected to conform–and will if their careers depend upon it–to what the world’s idea happens to be. If you’re trying to be “winsome,” you will adapt, but sooner or later you’ll either realise that you’re in a no-win game or you’ll cross the line.
It’s a similar (but not identical problem) I discussed in my piece Squaring the Circle of Anglican/Episcopal Ministry. Ministering to an elevated demographic, Anglican/Episcopal churches have not, IMHO, figured out how to break the cycle of elevation/liberalisation/apostasy, and something tells me that Keller hasn’t either. The obvious solution is for us to focus our efforts on the “poor in spirit,” to use Our Lord’s expressive phrase, but a great deal of Evanglicalism isn’t prepared to do that. (One group that has done so successfully is the Assemblies of God, but the way they vote doesn’t appeal to our elite wannabees.)
It’s a hard pill to swallow, Tim (and James for that matter,) but the sooner we take the medicine, the better we will feel in the long run.
I grew up in a world where “meaningful and respectable Christianity” didn’t quite go together for many of the important people in my life. That has driven many of the choices I have made, including swimming the Tiber while at an Episcopal school. But those choices made me an unsuitable audience for people like Tim Keller. Let us therefore without rancor celebrate the ministry he was called to while recognising that there were others for whom God has a different plan.
-
American Christianity’s Faustian Bargain Comes Back to Bite
A new survey reveals the stunning impact COVID-19 had on Americans’ religious perspectives.
The percentage of adults with a biblical worldview has plummeted to just 4%. Dr. George Barna, director of the Cultural Research Center, finds the results of the American Worldview Inventory report alarming.
“It’s … much more extensive than we actually expected. Typically, you don’t find that religious beliefs change very much,” Barna told CBN News. “They’re probably the most stable of the factors in a person’s life because they relate to worldview that’s formed when you’re young, and it doesn’t change much as you age.”
The piece went on to detail solutions. But I think the reason for this crash is one that you’ll never get the establishment (such as it is) in American Christianity to admit: the hog-tying of material prosperity with Christian faith. It’s one I’ve discussed more than once, but especially in my piece My Thoughts on “Christianity’s Decline in the Northeast”. Making upward mobility a piece with getting saved was a short-term fix but problems were inevitable, and now they’ve come back to bite us.
When things are going well and everyone is moving up (or thinks they are) this works. But when disaster strikes as it did with COVID and the backwash, people trained in this will come to the conclusion that either God doesn’t exist, he doesn’t care or is incapable of bailing them out of their situation. This is especially true in this country, where the “perfect life” obsession is the product of extended prosperity and institutional continuity.
But this isn’t a decent Christian rationale. Some of us saw Christianity as a counterweight to the basic injustices and setbacks of this life. Some of us knew that there would be sacrifice and renunciation for the prize. Some of us…but not enough, not in this country at least.
Late Roman Empire Christianity was based on something that could survive the collapse of the “Eternal City” and its Empire, that transcended the disaster unfolding around them. And it did in a way that endured for centuries, in some ways up to the present. But I doubt American Christianity will replicate this. American Christianity and its progeny outside the country, like the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, will come to the situation where the patient lives but the doctor dies.
-
We Are Already Defeated — Stand Firm
No more is it about your personal conscience. Are you not bound in obedience to your bishop? And if you are, how is he ok with you saying any of these things? 28 more words
We Are Already Defeated — Stand FirmIt’s worth recalling that much of the rot in the Episcopal Church that finally exploded in the 1960’s started in its seminaries. Now we’re seeing that same thing all over again as TEC and ACNA “share” seminaries and, ultimately, seminarians.
Anglicanism has been focused (I’ll avoid using the term obsessed) on a well educated clergy since its start. In those days the main threat was William Tyndale’s ploughboy, and as it happened many of the clergy in England were ignorant of such basic things as the Lord’s Prayer and the Decalogue (which is why both have pride of place in traditional BCP’s.) Moving on to North America, the Episcopal Church catered to a wealthier (and better educated) clientele, and a well-educated clergy was necessary to keep up with those in the pews.
But educated in what? It’s not a good idea to inculcate your core people–in this case your clergy–in ideas that negate the raison d’être of your institution. The left understands this completely, which is why they’re not so hot on academic freedom these days.
A system of ministerial formation where the practitioners hand down more of the faith than the simply that which comes from the pure academics would go a long way to rectifying this problem. Another thing that would help would be for an “educated clergy” to be defined by their general educational level and not just that coming out of seminary. After all, we’re supposed to be living the faith that was handed down from the Apostles. So why do we keep outsourcing the job?
-
Anglicans Shouldn’t Be Building New Colleges — The North American Anglican
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was…
Anglicans Shouldn’t Be Building New Colleges — The North American Anglican -
Traffic Report — Northern Plains Anglican
It is a procession that’s been on the road ever since Jesus’ resurrection.
Traffic ReportTim Fountain is an old friend going back to the original Stand Firm in Faith days. He has a special needs child, which quite a few of my present church people deal with. We both come from places where things made a little too much “progress” (he in Southern California, I from South Florida.) Who knows, had I had a rector such as him, I might have hung around the Episcopal Church a little longer…
-
Pulling the Plug on Bishop Rick Stika
Even the current Occupant in the Vatican has had enough:
The embattled Bishop Rick Stika will be asked by Vatican officials to resign as Bishop of Knoxville, after more than two years of scandal over the bishop’s leadership of his eastern Tennessee diocese.
According to sources close to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, Pope Francis decided last month to request Stika’s resignation, after reviewing the results of a Vatican-ordered investigation into the bishop’s management.
This blog has followed this sorry saga in posts such as The Sad Case of Knoxville’s Catholic Bishop, Rick Stika and Bishop Rick Stika Keeps His Priests Down. He has deflected investigation from his own alleged sexual misadventures and those of others. But on a larger scale he built from the resources of a small and relatively impecunious diocese a true white elephant in the form of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, diverting funds from the COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program to help pay for it.
This pontificate has had few bright spots; hopefully getting Rick Stika out of his bishopric will be one of them.
-
The presentism fallacy — The Logical Place
In recent times, there has been a trend in the popular media towards viewing past events and people through the prism of present-day attitudes. This trend is manifested in attempts to ‘cancel’ the past, including by silencing various discussions, banning books, tearing down statues and so on. In historical and literary analysis, presentism is a […]
The presentism fallacy — The Logical PlaceAnd this, I might point out, comes from an atheist…
-
Book Review: “Reformation Anglicanism: Essays on Edwardian Evangelicalism” — The North American Anglican
Reformation Anglicanism: Essays on Edwardian Evangelicalism. Edited by Mark Earngey and Stephen Tong. London, UK: The Latimer Trust, 2023. 260 pp. $11.50 (paper). In some ways, and for some people, the Edwardian period of the English Reformation is fertile ground for speculations about what could have been. 1,144 more words
Book Review: “Reformation Anglicanism: Essays on Edwardian Evangelicalism” — The North American AnglicanWhile reading this review, something hit me: maybe God didn’t want the Church of England to be a truly Reformed church. Maybe that’s why poor Edward VI (of blessed memory) left us so soon.
So why is this? As I noted in this post:
From J. Herbert Kane’s A Concise History of the Christian World Mission:
One would naturally expect that the spiritual forces released by the Reformation would have prompted the Protestant churches of Europe to take the gospel to the ends of the earth during the period of world exploration and colonisation which began about 1500. But such was not the case. The Roman Catholic Church between 1500 and 1700 won more converts in the pagan world than it lost to Protestantism in Europe. Why did the Protestant churches take so long to inaugurate their missionary program? What were some of the contributing factors?
The first, and perhaps the most potent, factor was the theology of the reformers. They taught that the Great Commission pertained only to the original apostles; that the apostles fulfilled the Great Commission by taking the gospel to the ends of the then known world; that if later generations were without the gospel, it was their own fault–a judgement of God on their unbelief; that the apostolate, with its immediate call, peculiar functions and miraculous powers, having ceased, the church in later ages had neither the authority nor the responsibility to send missionaries to the ends of the earth…
Moreover there were the Predestinarians, whose preoccupation with the sovereignty of God all but precluded the responsibility of man. If God wills the conversion of the heathen, they will be saved without human instrumentality. If God does not will the salvation of the heathen, it is both foolish and futile for man to intervene. Calvin wrote: “We are taught that the kingdom of Christ is neither to be advanced nor maintained by the industry of men, but this is the work of God alone”.
Added to this was the apocalypticism which anticipated, with some dismay, the rapidly approaching end of the age. Luther particularly took a dim view of the future. In his Table Talks he wrote: “Another hundred years and all will be over. God’s World will disappear for want of any to preach it”.
It unlikely that the Church of England would have even this to its credit if, as noted above by Calvin, “We are taught that the kingdom of Christ is neither to be advanced nor maintained by the industry of men, but this is the work of God alone”.
But you’ll pull the pin on the grenade if you suggest such as thing…
-
If You Want to Bring the Nation Back to God, Start with Morning and Evening Prayer
Today is the anniversary of the landing at Cape Henry. It’s an event especially feted by the Christian Broadcasting Network and Regent University, as can be seen in this video:
Five years after the landing, William Strachey produced the document For The Colony in Virginia BRITANNIA, Laws Divine , Moral and Martial, etc.. There’s no doubt that this document underscores the Christian nature of the colony, but it’s a little different than what people who advocate for the same thing today would produce. One example of this from the document is as follows:
First since we owe our highest and supreme duty, our greatest, and all our allegiance to him, from whom all power and authority is derived , and flows as from the first, and only fountain, and being especially soldiers imprest in this sacred cause , we must alone expect our success from him, who is only the blesser of all good attempts, the King of kings, the commander of commanders, and Lord of Hosts, I do strictly command and charge all Captains and Officers, of what equality or nature soever, whether commanders in the field, or in town, or towns, forts or fortresses, to have a care that the Almighty God be duly and daily served, and that they call upon their people to hear Sermons, as that also they diligently frequent Morning and Evening prayer them selves by their own exemplar and daily life , and duty herein, encouraging others thereunto, and that such , who shall often and willfully absent themselves, be duly punished according to the martial law in that case provided .
pp. 2-3
This sends many ships to the bottom, including the “Communion Every Sunday” crowd on the one extreme and the revivalists on the other. But it also reflects a major shift that was occasioned by the founding of the Republic: the shift from an established religion (in this case the Church of England, in Virginia the church until the founding of the Republic) to one where there is no established church.
If we go back to the colonial roots of our founding, we will discover that what was started with isn’t quite how it’s going now, in more ways than one.
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 