China

I've made brief notes before here and here about the growth of Christianity in China. Recently Peter Leithart summarizes an article over at The Telegraph which states China is on course to become 'world's most Christian nation within 15 years.' From the article:

"Mao thought he could eliminate religion. He thought he had accomplished this," Prof Yang said. "It's ironic -- they didn't. They actually failed completely."

Communism writes off (persecutes) religion wholesale. But perhaps in God's providence the evil that is communism is merely a tool that God is using to graze cultural idolatrous woodlots, i.e., a type of pagan clear-cutting; Communism is the "Emerald Ash Borer" of the forest-that-is-paganism. So now the seed of the Gospel can be planted and new Psalm 1- "righteous man" tree farms can be cultivated? Perhaps. What the communists intended for evil the Triune Lord intended for good.

I'm guessing Christian China is singing Psalm 2 with zeal.  

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the 

LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 

Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 

Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 

Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. 

I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 

Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. 

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. 

Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 

Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

Reconciled

"The reconciled world is the church." -- St. Augustine (Sermon 46).

"But the sum is this, that Christ doth repair with his grace the world, being destroyed; which cometh to pass when he reconcileth us to the Father." -- John Calvin (Commentary on Acts 8:5).

Athens and Jerusalem - Academy and Church

"Above all things, preserve the Kirk [Church] from the bondage of the Universities. Persuade them to rule themselves peaceably, and order thair [sic] schools in Christ; but subject never the pulpit to their Judgment, neither yet exempt them from your Jurisdiction" (John Knox, Works of John Knox, Vol. 6, 619).

Prayer: A Concert of Voices (Craving God's Help)

"When Satan afflicted the early church with fierce persecution, the New Testament church met corporately for prayer until the Lord heard their cries and filled them with boldness to continue preaching (Acts 4:24-31). Acts 4:24 says, "They lifted up their voice to God with one accord." The Greek word used here actually means 'a concert of voices'" (Joel R. Beeke, The Family at Church: Listening to Sermons and Attending Prayer Meetings, 44).

Benchmarking Spiritual Church Growth Via Community Impact

"Another mark of spiritual church growth is community impact. Some remarkable results followed the ministry of the early church. In Acts 4, Peter and John are in the hands of the authorities as a result of their preaching and healing ministry. After the trial the writer declares that these authorities "took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus." There stood the man who had been healed. The miracle was evident. . . . If we imagine that a spiritual impact on a community will always involve social acceptance, we are mistaken. But whatever the response, we must not be satisfied until the neighborhood around us becomes aware of our presence, and as a result, recognizes our relationship to the living Jesus Christ" (Harold L. Longenecker, Building Town and Country Churches, 83).

Longenecker provides a couple benchmarks for ascertaining spiritual growth in a local church:

1. Find out if "the neighborhood around [the local church] becomes aware of [their] presence,"
2. Find out if the neighborhood "recognizes [the local church's] relationship to the living Jesus Christ."

In order to know these, a local church must:

1. Proclaim Jesus to the neighborhood, and--
2. Then listen to the neighborhood.

Re-Thinking Family, Church, and Society: Peter J. Leithart on "Natural Society"

You can read Peter Leithart's recent thoughts on family, church, and society here, or below:

Christian political thought has historically gotten off on the wrong foot through misinterpretation of Genesis 1-2. Adam and Eve are taken as “family,” and hence the family becomes a “natural” institution. Families band together and soon there are cities and kingdoms, also natural institutions.

Augustine says this, and so, following him, does Isidore. And everyone of course follows Augustine and Isidore.

The church comes later, a top layer on nature, the supernatural society.

But the garden is not “home” but sanctuary; Adam and Eve are not “family” but worshiping community, created and placed in the place of God’s presence and offered the fruit of the tree of life.

There is no more natural society than the church.

In Praise of the Ordinary

Thoughtful/edifying article by Michael Horton, an Ode to the "ordinary". 

Even Calvinism seems to have gotten back its groove.  According to TIME, the “New Calvinism” is one of the top ten trends changing the world today.  Collin Hansen’s description—and title of a book explaining the phenomenon—says it pretty well: “Young, Restless, and Reformed.”[2]  While it’s exciting to see many younger folks digging into the doctrines of grace, the “restless” part works against the “Reformed” bit.  Like all movements, the “New Calvinists” often display a greater interest in making it up as they go rather than wrestling with the actual confessions, concerns, and convictions of churches that have forged their consensus through a long conversation.  There is more to being Reformed than “five points.”  

In many ways, it’s more fun to be part of movements than churches.  We can express our own individuality, pick our favorite leaders, and be swept off our feet at conferences.  We can be anonymous.  Although encouraged by like-minded believers, we are not bound up with them so that we should feel compelled to bear their burdens or suffer their rebukes. Yet this movement-mentality keeps us restless and makes ordinary life in and submission to an actual church seem intolerably confining.

The Witness and Work of the Church

From While We're At It by David Mills in the November - 2012 issue of First Things:

"Look for a building with a cross on it," people escaping North Korea for China are told, because Christians are more likely than anyone else to help them escape the Chinese police. The police, reports Melanie Kirkpatrick, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, will send them back to the hell-on-earth that is North Korea, where they will be tortured, thrown into prison camps, or killed. You don't leave utopia.

 Christians will help refugees either merge into Chinese society or get into South Korea. People go to jail for this, mind you. It is cheering to know that Christian sin China will risk their freedom for strangers. And cheering that the little religious freedom the government has conceded lets the believers put on their churches a symbol of freedom, a symbol not only to those oppressed by sin but those oppressed by man.

This is a wonderful reminder to pray for the persecuted church, that believers will trust God and persevere under tribulation, that believers will proclaim the Gospel and rely on the strength of God by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, that believers will be sustained by God and protected and preserved as Witnesses. There is always Witness to be done.

Also, this causes me to reflect, and ask pointed questions: In the United States when The Great Default comes (Google "The Great Default"), will American churches have the same reputation as the Christians in China? Will people point to a "Cross" and say, "Go there for help. They'll gladly assist you." This is one of the advantages of a church having a brick-and-mortar building.

The Lord, however, does not bless all churches with brick-and-mortar buildings, so this means churches that meet formally in a residential or rented commercial building should think creatively to overcome this roadblock--relatively easy now with the wide-scale adoption of Internet Access, since churches can put the symbol of a "Cross" on their Web-presence, and Social Media can just as readily point to the physical symbol on a building as it does to the virtual symbol on a Website, Podcast, etc., and all of these serve as aids to inform people where help can be found.

Building brick-and-mortar churches and placing Crosses on steeples takes skill, knowledge, and wisdom about the world (e.g., architects, contractors, crane operators, etc.), so too building a Web-presence and placing virtual Crosses on the Internet takes skill, knowledge, and wisdom about the world. The church, therefore, needs faithful Christians who build in both arenas: we need Christian architects, contractors, crane operators, etc., and we need Christian web developers, graphic and brand designers, and copy writers and content publishers. There is always Work to be done.

Jay E. Adams: Handbook of Church Discipline – A Right and Privilege of Every Church Member

At church we've started a new men's book study over Jay E. Adams' Handbook of Church Discipline. The book was on my assigned reading list during my second year of ministerial training, so I have read it once and benefited greatly. Adams' has three objectives for the book: 1) “to present a clear, concise biblical description of church discipline,” 2) “to provide a ready reference to which you may turn for help in situations requiring church discipline,” and 3) “to convince the dubious that church discipline is not only a biblical requirement (and therefore feasible) but also a right and a privilege of every member of the church of Christ, and therefore, a blessing that should not be withheld” (8).

I believe Adams wonderfully accomplishes his three-fold aim in this important book. Despite the books shelf life (originally published in the 1970s), I had not heard of it until I saw it listed on my syllabus for ministerial training. I find myself, however, wishing that I had been exposed to the book earlier in life. 

I was raised in a United Methodist Church in rural Indiana. Without reservation I believe that it was a wonderful local church, despite the hiccups. On the one hand, as a child I learned both at home and church how to trust in and obey Jesus Christ, but, on the other hand, at times things arose that were very troublesome. For example, when I was in eighth grade I attended my first “abstinence” men's retreat, which was a retreat put on every other year by our church, which provided a platform for leaders in the church to provide instruction to young men on God's design for sexual purity and marriage. The retreat had plenary sessions that all of the young men attended together, but they also had breakout groups divided up by age/maturity, that way they could accommodate and be sensitive to the differences between the maturity, experiences, and the differences in the type of questions asked by, for example, a sixth grader instead of a senior in high school. The retreats typically ran Friday through Saturday evening, and at the end of the retreat they had, for lack of a better phrase, an “altar call” for Sexual Abstinence, where each of the boys/young men were given the opportunity to sign an “abstinence card” which stated that they would wait until they were married to have sex. One of the Lay Elders (that is Methodist-speak for someone who is not a pastor but is formally part of the church rule and leadership) was our breakout group leader; each of the breakout group leaders were called “counselors” and they were the ones who oversaw and facilitated the card signing.

Fast-Forward two or three years: the Lay Elder who led/taught the breakout session I attended, the very same man who signed my “abstinence card” as a witness, the very same man who had been my “counselor” for the two day retreat . . . that man abandoned his wife and their children, and he abandoned them so he could shack up with a woman he met on the Internet. I was deeply troubled by this for several reasons, but what troubled me the most, even at such a tender age, was that formal church discipline was never adjudicated. And when I say none, I mean Zip, Zero, Nothing-at-All.

I even went to my parents and asked them why our pastors hadn't handled the situation in accordance with the instructions provided in Matthew 18. I had attended a two week leadership and worldview camp hosted by David Noebel at Summit Ministries in Colorado, and it was while there that one of our instructors taught how the church had been invested with the power by Jesus Christ to bind and to loose, that is, to execute church discipline. I had never heard about church discipline at church; it was not taught and was not practiced. So, I asked my parents something to the effect of, “After confronting Mr. _____ about his sin, which he then refused to confess, why didn't the Elders/Pastors bring this situation before the members of the church?” My parents tried to answer to the best of their abilities, but in the aftermath I just kept wondering to myself if the outcome would have been different if the Pastors/Elders of the church had brought the situation before the entire church, as they are clearly instructed to do so in Matthew 18.

Typically I am not much of a proponent for “what if” questions, but I believe in this case, in light of the circumstances, it is valid. To paraphrase Jay Adams, church discipline is a “right and a privilege” of members of a church—it is a blessing! But in the situation I have been describing, that right and privilege, that blessing, it was withheld by the pastors from the Lay Elder that had fallen in to sin when they failed to exercise church discipline. 

In the case of this Lay Elder, even though he was removed from church leadership it left a huge question mark over his head in the minds of a lot of people from the church. Since formal church discipline never occurred, many people at the church were absolutely clueless about his sin. Eventually the church was told Mr. _____ was no longer a Lay Elder, they knew, obviously, that he wasn't attending church regularly, but all of this coincided with him taking a new job outside of the State so that wouldn't have raised red flags for a person that wasn't in the know. And so what you had in effect was this: sometimes he would attend church when he was in town and people who didn't know any better would interact with him as if everything was fine and dandy. In this case, the Sheep were not being protected from a Wolf.

I now attend a church where the Elders do exercise church discipline, and it has been blessing to my family, as well as a means of protection. As a result of formal church discipline several Wolves have been scattered from our church. I am thankful for the right and privilege of church discipline, first, because I know that it is one of the means by which God oftentimes calls men to repent and turn away from their sins (and no Christian is so holy that he does not have to worry about falling in to sin and needing the mutual support and love of others to encourage and implore them to repentance), and, second, speaking as a husband and father, I am thankful for church discipline because it provides much comfort to know that my wife and our children are being protected from Wolves. Not only does Christ protect us by sending us the Holy Spirit, in order that we might have discernment and be made wise according to the fear of God and knowledge of the Scriptures, but he has also provided Under-Shepherds, the Elders/Pastors, who are ambassadors to us that care for and protect us through teaching, rebuke, and admonishment. Church discipline is a blessing, and that is why I wish I, as well as others, had been introduced to Adams' “clear, concise biblical description of church discipline” at a much earlier point in my life.

This is the rub. Church discipline not only protects the Sheep from the Wolves, but it honors and glorifies God. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance for Christians to attend churches that practice church discipline. Like Adams says, it is a biblical requirement, it is feasible. I would encourage anyone that is a member of a church that does not practice church discipline to talk to the church officers (pastors, elders, etc.) about the biblical requirement, and if you discover that they are not reasonable men, that they do not care to honor and glorify God, that they do not care to gather the sheep and scatter the wolves, then I would recommend that you look for a new church to attend, one which practices church discipline. If you do transition, there must be a dialogue with your current church officers and the officers of the church you intend to transfer your membership to, and in everything you must conduct yourself with gentleness, respect, and the peace of Christ. 

Pastors: Reminding Members – God is Father and Church is Mother

“I will begin with the Church, into whose bosom God is pleased to collect his children, not only that by her aid and ministry they may be nourished so long as they are babes and children, but may also be guided by her maternal care until they grow up to manhood, and, finally, attain to the perfection of faith. What God has thus joined, let not man put asunder (Mark x. 9): to those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a Mother" (John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), Book IV.I.1.).

The Church According to James B. Jordan

I have been listening to a collection of lectures from the 1990s on worship by James B. Jordan. Lots of excellent quips, here are a few:

"The Church creates civilization."

"The Church is the nursery of culture."

"The Church also is the pioneer of the Kingdom of God."

"The Church controls the world through the liturgy of the Church."

Church: Elders-Prayer for Congregation

“One of the central duties of the eldership is that of prayer for the congregation of the saints. This important truth is revealed to us through the first crisis in the church at Jerusalem. The reason they appointed deacons to serve in that church is that they did not want to be taken from their service of the church which they rendered through prayer. They said, ‘We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word’ (Acts 6:4). The truth is a very simple one; talking to men about God must always be accompanied by talking to God about men” (Douglas Wilson, Mother Kirk, 192).

Church Reformation: Diverse but United

“As reformation gets underway, we will find that our churches continue to be diverse in many ways. Some will have roots in the Jesus-people movement of the seventies. Others will have a dispensational Bible church background. Still others will have come out of the charismatic movement. In this we will see reformation in the churches that have had no clear historic connection to the historic Reformed churches.

“In other situations, churches with a Reformation heritage have been busy throwing it all away. In their midst, there will be some who are distressed by the steady drift of these formerly evangelical Presbyterian and Reformed communions into various kinds of compromise, and so have consequently taken a stand.

“The principles which bring such disparate groups together are obviously not cultural, but rather scriptural and theological. Together we affirm these key scriptural principles stated here [dedication to authority of Scripture, affirmation of ultimacy of Scripture, reformational understanding of doctrine of salvation, ecclesiastical government that is presbyterial and representative, etc], and expect that they will continue to bear fruit in different cultural ways” (Douglas Wilson, Mother Kirk: Essays on Church Life, 53).

Douglas Wilson: Reformation – Scripture, Repentance, and Church

“By the grace of the Lord, we must resolve to be faithful to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. From Genesis to Revelation, we must not be embarrassed by any passage of Scripture, and once we have submissively ascertained its meaning through careful and patient grammatical, historical and typological study, we must seek to put it into practice the day before yesterday” (Douglas Wilson, Mother Kirk: Essays on Church Life, 16).

“In a godly culture, the first social manifestation of grace is found in the family. But our culture is so rebellious that we have institutionalized our rebellion and cannot even conceive of how a genuine obedience would appear. We must nevertheless begin; Christians must insist on the abolition of the government school system, our nursing home system, our government welfare system, and countless other agencies and bureaucracies designed by the godless to replace the family. The family, and only the family, is the ministry of health, education, and welfare. Christians must hasten the destruction of this godless system of salvation by works through separating themselves from it. Christians must take their children out of government schools and day-care centers, their parents out of rest homes, and food stamps out of the budget.

“And this brings us to the point of this book, which is the reformation of the Church. The first duty of all Christian churches is to proclaim clearly the gospel of Christ as Scripture has revealed it to us. Our preachers must therefore repent of their ignorance, slothfulness, timidity, and prideful ‘wiser than God’ assumptions, and return to a bold proclamation of the truth of the Gospel. We need have no fear in preaching this message, for it abases man and exalts Christ. We need to tremble for having neglected it. . . . The point of this book is the reformation of the Church, and not the reformation of nations and culture. Nevertheless, if the Church were to be reformed, it would have a dramatic impact on the surrounding nations and culture” (17-18).

“Modern evangelicals in our culture have gotten money, power, and influence, and it has been like giving whiskey to a two-year-old. But the need of the hour is theological, not political. The arena is the pulpit and the table, not the legislative chamber. The message is Christ crucified and risen for His chosen sinners and now acknowledge Lord of all. This risen and conquering Christ is the Head of the Church. Before we are equipped to proclaim His lordship to the inhabitants of all the earth, we must live as though we believed it in the Church” (22).

Church of Christ: Accept Word of Jesus

“Those who accept salvation on the terms on which it is offered them constitute the church, those who reject it constitute the world; good men and angels belong to the one, wicked men and angels to the other; the head of the first is Christ, and the head of the last, Satan (A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines edited by William Smith and Henry Wace).”

The nobleman in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John is a figure of the Church of Christ – “And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him”. The Church of Christ, by accepting salvation, believes the word that Jesus speaks to them.

Wicked men and angels are not a figure of the Church of Christ; they are the antitype - they do not believe the word that Jesus speaks to them.

The Church of Christ accepts the Word of Jesus and give him glory; in doing this they are glorified and blessed by the word of Jesus. The wicked men and angels, seeking their own glory, are disobedient; they do not receive glory (Pro. 25:27), only judgment.

Medieval Church - Wisdom: Cost of Discipleship, Again

Does the American church today show its glorious wisdom at the front door, in the portal of the church? Are martyrs, bloody swords, and suffering servants of God our Sunday morning greeters? Hardly.

Rather, oftentimes we are greeted by Goliath-sized TV monitors, touch screen lobby digital directories, and “Information Centers”. Technology is a gift from God, but technology be damned if it veils any of the central truths of the Christian life; particularly, the cost of discipleship.

Medieval Church - Wisdom: Cost of Discipleship

“In the Middle Ages, the church showed its glorious wisdom by placing statues of the martyrs at the front door, in the portal of the church. Thus the faithful were welcomed into the church with scenes of decapitation, bloody swords, and suffering servants of God. The church, up front, at the first, portrayed the cost of discipleship.”

Lord, Teach Us: The Lord’s Prayer & the Christian Life by William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas

Credo

“The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth form a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one,” and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess” to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send “spiritual wickednesses,” and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and the unrighteous, and the wicked, and the profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory (Against Heresies, Book I.X).”