Calvinistic Baptist Classics on Audio?

Justin Taylor’s most recent entry on his blog deals with audio books—LibriVox—and he sugegsts that maybe “Some enterprising individual or group should organize a way to get the Puritan classics and others in audio form.” This is a scintillating idea! Given my Calvinistic Baptist inclinations I wonder if there might be some interest out there for getting some Calvinistic Baptist classics on audio. Some of Benjamin Keach could be done or Abraham Cheare of Plymouth. Worthy of thought—and some action.

Why the Persecution of Christians Then & Now?

Why have Christians been persecuted in the history of the Church? The reasons vary from age to age. But one thing is constant. C.E.B. Cranfield, the great biblical scholar, well describes this constant when he says of the existence of believers in a pagan world: “Their very existence is an affront to human self-centredeness, a remainder of the absolute claims which God makes upon men’s lives and which so many want to ignore and forget.” [I & II Peter and Jude, p.119].

And this “ignore and forget” can all too easily slide over into acts of violence.

Being a Theologian: Four Prerequisites

Having been involved in theological education for the past thirty years—first as a student at Wycliffe College, the University of Toronto, and then as a full-time teacher at Central Baptist Seminary, Heritage Baptist Seminary, and Toronto Baptist Seminary, and adjunct at a few other schools, including Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—I have thought a lot about what makes a good theologian and student of theology. Many have pondered this before me, and I am thankful that their words are around as a source of wisdom. Here is Martin Luther’s four-fold pathway to being a true theologian: How to be a great theologian by Ray van Neste at his blog “Oversight of Souls.”

Birmingham Christian Union & Standing Fast for Christian Convictions

The Christian Union in Birmingham University, England, has been banned from meeting and its bank account frozen because it rightly refused to give way to the Birmingham University Guild of Students’ demand that the Union include politically correct statements about lesbians, gays, bisexuals and those who are transgendered in their constitution. The Union is appealing the ruling through proper legal channels. See the report in The Times. What is evident here is that Christians are increasingly having to adopt non-conformist positions in contemporary western culture. But this is nothing new. Was not the Ancient Church prior to Constantine glorious in its non-conformity? And were not our English-speaking Puritan forebears given power and unction when they went through similar trials? And did not the Spirit of glory (see 1 Peter 4:14) rest upon our Baptist forebears on both sides of the Atlantic because of their refusal to be “politically correct” in their day?

Christians, take heart from these heroes of the past and determine to be faithful, “come wind, come weather”!

Thanks to Crawford Gribben at his blog, irish-reformation, for this information: Opposition to Christian student group in Birmingham.

History & Silence

I have just finished reading History and Silence. Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2000), written by Charles W. Hedrick, Jr., who is Professor of Ancient History in Cowell College of the University of California at Santa Cruz. The book details the way that the memory of a member of the Roman senatorial elite, Virius Nicomachus Flavianus (d.394) was purged and then rehabilitated in the late Roman Empire. Flavian, a pagan senator, was implicated in the revolt of Eugenius against the Roman Emperor Theodosius the Great in 394. Due to the fact that Theodosius was a Christian the revolt has frequently been interpreted as one last attempt by the pagan elite of the Empire to stem the tide of Christianization (p.39-46). According to one early life of Ambrose, the famous bishop of Milan, when Eugenius and Flavian marched out of Milan, where they had set up court, to do battle with Theodosius at the River Frigidus, they assured Ambrose that they would win. And when they returned they would turn Ambrose’s cathedral into a stable (p.45). But the two-day battle was won by Theodosius—victory being credited to a wind that God sent in response to the prayers of Theodosius. Eugenius was executed on the field of battle and Flavian compelled to commit suicide.

Hedrick does a brilliant job of using the way Flavian’s memory was purged and rehabilitated to analyze the mindset and politics behind what was called damnatio memoriae, namely the way in which the Roman state sought to destroy the memory of a dead public enemy. Along the way there are some excellent discussions of such things as the nature of history, the rehabilitation of a text and the role of silence.

With regard to the latter, Hedrick notes that “the theme of silence is pervasive in most historical writing” (p.131) for the historian is nothing less than the “guardian of memory”—seeking to recall what many have forgotten—and the “vindicator of silence”—speaking about things that had been shrouded in silence (p.135). Both of these are good—and we should add classic—descriptions of what it means to do history.

From One Baptist Church to Another

Here is an excellent reflection by Kevin Bauder on the nature of Baptist congregational life and the way that the independence of the local church must be balanced with the interdependence of congregations of like faith and practice. The concrete case that is at the base of his reflection is a letter from the elders at Clifton Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky (Thomas Schreiner, Bruce Ware, Shawn Wright, and Brian Vickers, all of whom are professors at Southern Baptist Seminary) to the elders of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, regarding the latter church’s proposal of withdrawing the necessity of believers’ baptism as a prerequisite of church membership. As it turns out, this proposal has itself been withdrawn. See Clifton and Bethlehem, Pedobaptist Churches?,  & Bethlehem and Baptism.

Christ Alone–Sufficient for the New Year

Another favourite author of mine is the poetess Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). She was born into a remarkably gifted family in London, December 5, 1830. Her parents, Gabriele and Frances Rossetti, were emigrés from Italy. Her father was actually a political refugee. Christina was taken by them to be baptized at All Souls, Langham Place, which was not far from where the family lived. Though the family was gifted artistically, they had little money and seem to have struggled financially, despite the fact that her father was a Professor of Italian at King’s College, London. It was from her mother that she imbibed her Christian faith.

I love her poem that echoes that watch-cry of the Reformation, “Christ alone.”

None other Lamb, none other Name, None other Hope in heaven or earth or sea, None other Hiding-place from guilt and shame, None beside Thee.

My faith burns low, my hope burns low, Only my heart’s desire cries out in me By the deep thunder of its want and woe, Cries out to Thee.

Lord, Thou art Life tho I be dead, Love’s Fire Thou art however cold I be: Nor heaven have I, nor place to lay my head, Nor home, but Thee.

What a possession to have going into this new year. Christ: life and fire, heaven and home, hiding-place from guilt and shame. It was having Christ that enabled Christina to live from day to day, for he was the only secure Hiding-place from guilt and shame.

She knew what a weight she bore—a weight all of us bear, though not all of us know it.

God strengthen me to bear myself; That heaviest weight of all to bear, Inalienable weight of care. [cited Kris Lundgard, The enemy within (P&R Publishing, 1998), 21].

Where did that strength come from? From none but Christ—Christ alone!

Reader, do you know him? Is he to you what he was to Christina Rossetti? May He be yours as you enter this new year—and he will be Light and Life for all that this new year brings.

The New Year & Blazing into Glory

One of the great things about blogging are the utter gems one finds in other people’s writing. This is such a one from Charlene Dash, the spouse of a former student, Darryl: Walking Thoughts. It is a great reflection for the new year. I love the lines near the end, where she concludes her reflection:  “Small, repetitive, daily living that, at best, will breathe life-giving love into toxic places, that is the work that the Creator designed. The location is inconsequential really. The blaze of glory is reserved for the Creator alone and, to the world around us, is often seen best when our living and doing is no more.”

Is the End of Religion What We Should Be into ?

In the nineteenth century books with titles like The End of Religion were written by those deeply antagonistic to Christianity as a worldview—men like Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872). Today, such books are being written by professing Christians. According to one blog entitled Jesus and the End of Religion the authors have a “deep conviction that Christianity as a religion has got way off track from the spiritually-radical, anti-religious message of Jesus” and that “Jesus did not intend to establish a new religion, Christianity. Instead he showed us a new way to approach God and others. Unfortunately, however, his simple message was quickly institutionalized. Despite its many adherents, the Christian religion has lost its way and is viewed negatively by much of the world because of its history and current distortions. In the spirit of Jesus’ message, it’s time for religion (especially Christianity) to die, and for the resurrection of new faith and life.” There is little doubt that Christian faith communities are not always what they should be, but these statements basically write off the entire history of the Church! Can one read such statements and not see a reading of the second century and later through the old liberal historical paradigm of the development of the early church—charismatic and free and no institutional leaders up to the mid-first century as opposed to the second-century church with restrictions and rules and bishops and increasingly less freedom—nascent Catholicism? The problem with the paradigm is that it simply does not fit historically. Moreover, it puts you in the horrifying position of agreeing partly with the analysis of people like the followers of Herbert W. Armstrong who assert that for nineteen centuries the church had lost her way until Herbie came along! And it is all too easy to junk the entire past—how many times have Christians tried to do that from some radical Anabaptist types to various charismatic sorts in the Puritan and Enlightenment eras—and start over. But we cannot start over completely new, for the simple reason that the past is not so easily shaken off! To think otherwise, is sheer historical naïveté.

Trueman, Blogging & Numptiness

There is a lot of wisdom here in Carl Trueman’s latest look at blogging: The Theatre of the Absurd. Some great statements:

  • “the free access to public exposure which the web provides has facilitated what appears to be a dangerous confusion of categories, that of the right to speak with the right to be heard.”
  • “the danger of an uncritical attitude to the web and to blogging is that it comports very easily with the conversational model of theology which is now gaining currency among the advocates of advanced modernism (aka postmodernism) of the Western church situation… The absolute democratization of knowledge to which an uncritical attitude to blogging etc leads is, after all, inimical to any hierarchical view of truth, and thoroughly comfortable with the ‘this is my truth now tell me yours’ approach which is gaining ground even as I write.”
  • “the category of scholar is one which should be reserved for those who have established themselves in their chosen field by actual scholarly achievement, not by simply talking a good game. This credibility is achieved by consistent, careful and scholarly contributions to a field in terms of refereed publications which then enjoy currency among qualified peers outside the person’s immediate circle of epigonous friends.”
  • “pompous and arrogant numptiness”—I had never heard the word “numptiness” before I started reading Carl’s work—it is such a great word, one of those typical Britishisms that capture an entire world.

Edward Trivett’s Christmas Hymn

Edward Trivett’s Christmas hymn—just found at Free St. George’s: “Our Christmas Message.” Was very surprised to see this. Then to read that this was “THE Christmas hymn in Norfolk two hundred years ago.” Trivett (1712-1792), a Particular Baptist pastor, had a thriving ministry at Worstead, Norfolk, during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Would love to know where this hymn was found. Thanks to Free St. George’s for posting it. Though I do think the host of Free St. George’s must have been somewhat in jest to call it “THE Christmas hymn” of two hundred years ago!

Let me take this opportunity to thank him for his warm wishes of about ten days ago—“A word of Explication.” I am only very sorry that when we met recently at The Westminister Conference I did not take more time to get acquainted. My sincere apologies!

Christmas & Apollinarianism

Speaking of the past, it has been an old habit of mine at this time of year to read something in keeping with this season that emanates from the past. This year it was Gregory of Nazianzus’ First Letter to Cledonius, also known as Letter 101. Gregory Nazianzen (c.330-390)—or Greg Naz as my Doktorvater, John Egan, used to call him—has long been a favourite theologian. He could be a bit waspish at times—witness his On His Life. But what profoundity of theology he penned. His letter to Cledonius was written in 382 and addresses a then-growing controversy surrounding how best to understand the Incarnation. How exactly are the two natures one in Jesus Christ? In some ways, it is a more difficult theological issue than the doctrine of the Trinity. Gregory is writing against Apollinaris, a long-time defender of Nicene Trinitarianism. Apollinaris seems to have regarded the deity within the person of Jesus Christ as serving instead of a human mind. Gregory rightly rejects this position. For, as he argues, what has not been assumed cannot be redeemed, or, in his own words: “the unassumed is the unhealed” (Letter 101.5) The Incarnation must involve the assumption of all that entails genuine humanity—including mind—otherwise redemption cannot come to that aspect of humanity.

It is rich theology and is a salutary reminder that there is far more to Christmas than even we believers often think! By the way, the translation I was reading is that of Lionel Wickham, St. Gregory of Nazianzus: On God and Christ. The Five Theological Orations and Two letters to Cledonius (Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002). Frederick Williams, now teaching at Queens University Belfast, translated one of the theological orations; Wickham did the rest.

Past & Present–Keeping a Proper Perspective

There is no doubt that we who are Christians are called to love the past as a place of revelation and wisdom. There is no better example of this than the fact that over the past few days we who have been called by God to love the Lord Jesus have been celebrating a glorious event: the Incarnation of that Lord, even the Lord of Glory. But this faithfulness to the past has another dimension—another horizon, as it were, namely, the present in which we demonstrate our faithfulness to that past. And as such, we must be very cognizant of the day in which live. Our call is not to antiquarianism—love of the past for the mere fact that it is past. That might be the mindset of the Old Order Mennonites or the Amish, but it is most certainly not our calling as faithful Christian disciples.

I do like what Kirk Wellum has recently blogged:  “By the gracious providence of God we live at a point in world history where we have the ability to speak to people as never before, in all sorts of different ways. This is one reason why some of us are blogging. We can speak to anyone who has access to a computer, no matter where they live in the world, and no matter where we are located, about the truth as it is found in Jesus. This is not a time to be lamenting that the past is past and the world as changed; it is a time to ask the Lord of the harvest to open our eyes and to sanctify our imaginations so that we might do what we can with the time we have.” [Bravo... Bravo!!!].

On Discerning Aright Our Baptist Roots

Just read Tim Enloe’s entry On Being Amazed at Secularist Intolerance at his blog Societas Christiana. There is much that is good in Tim’s critique of contemporary Baptist thinking, but he seems to give the impression that Baptist thought per se is primarily beholden to the Enlightenment and its emphases on “(1) individual autonomy in matters of “value” (including religion and morals) and (2) the neutral Public Square.” But the truth is that the same matrix that shaped the 17th century Presbyterians whom Enloe undoubtedly loves—and we too honour—shaped the founders of our Baptist witness, men like John Bunyan, Abraham Cheare, William Kiffin, and Hercules Collins. That witness persisted into the early nineteenth century largely unchanged. It was under the impress of revivalism, Jacksonian democracy, the romanticism of the Victorian era, and the acid-rain of liberalism, that Baptist values began to shift in the directions indicated by Enloe. But, it is important to remember, these things were not this way in the beginning. And our battle-cry must ever be, Ad fontes.