Twitter in Church?

Time magazine had an article on the appropriateness of using Twitter during a church service. As I've said before the whole phenomena of Twitter is beyond me. I'm simply not that tech savvy. Josh Harris has cast his vote as solid no. I do know that when I'm with my son and he starts "texting" his friends I find myself very distracted. I know there is a conversation going on but I have no way to contribute other than "What did you say?" "What did they say?". Not the same thing as a conversation. Furthermore, I start to feel like my own company must be dreadfully boring since he feels the need to start a conversation with someone who may not even be in the same town. "Give me anybody but dad to talk to!" He assures me I'm overreacting. But that leads me to thinking about someone tweeting during a church service. While I've not experienced it (that I know of) I think I would find it distracting. Can we not sit still for one hour without the need to employ the latest technology for whatever reason? Here's how Harris put it:

"Even if I didn't look at anything else, the mere act of "tweeting" some quote or question or thought from the sermon would be several minutes in which I wasn't actively listening to the sermon. Brain space would be taken up with typing and getting my word count under 140. God's word preached is so important, so precious, I don't want anything to distract me from hearing it. What if those two minutes in which I'm distracted are the two minutes my soul needs the most?"
On the other hand how is this any different from taking notes with pen and paper? I often find myself writing down notes and, yes, sometimes I do lose what is being said during that time. Should we cease taking notes during a sermon? (Frankly, I rarely keep any of my sermon notes. But I find my retention is much greater if I write down at least a rough outline. ) I suppose if someone were tweeting next to me I might find it distracting. Perhaps it would be something I would just get used to. I'm not sure. Some of the other concerns that Harris expressed such as the temptation to check email, prompting other people to pull out their phones and start tweeting or checking email should not be too quickly dismissed. We should be sensitive to any activity that may distract us or those around us. I think if someone next to me politely said "I would like to take a few notes on my latest new gadget. If you find it distracting please let me know and I will stop" that would go a long way with me. You never know, perhaps after the service I might learn a little something about all this new technology and I might make a new friend.

Update: John Piper has weighed in and not surprisingly agrees with Harris. Since most of their comments and concerns are unrelated to "note taking" it seems they have a point. Tweeting, as I'm beginning to understand, is a sort of running commentary and that seems a rather strange thing to do during the service. Can't we wait till the end of the service to engage in commentary? Are anyone's thoughts all that important that they can't wait an hour? What does it say about how we esteem the practice of worship if we think it is more important to comment on it rather than do it?

Glittering Vices - A Review

Imagine with me that you go to the doctor and tell her you are experiencing a couple of symptoms but never gave it much thought because you’ve coped okay with it but would still like a diagnosis. After many tests you return to see her and she informs you that you have cancer. Then before you can wrap your head around it she tells you that you have Leukemia, Lupus and Lou Gehrig’s disease. As you sit there in stunned silence she says, “It’s okay I have the cure for all of them.” That’s how I felt reading Rebecca DeYoung’s book Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins. DeYoung was my doctor and with each chapter I was diagnosed in vivid detail with the gravity of the vices in my life. But at the end of each chapter came the remedies which are all rooted in the grace of God.

DeYoung is serious about these vices which is contrary to our contemporary society which takes pleasure in mocking them. She is equally serious about not obsessing over them but rather thinking through them in the broader context of spiritual formation. (10) It helps to know what our problems are so we can better deal with them. If I don’t know I have a disease it can’t be treated. If I don’t think I’m guilty of, say, sloth then we will not pursue the remedy. Herein lies the problem. Our culture has so redefined, trivialized, or marginalized these vices that we don’t give them a second thought except to say “that’s not me” or “so what if it is—what’s the harm?”

DeYoung starts with a brief history of the seven sins which originally were eight. Along the way the list was modified and eventually settled in at seven: vainglory, envy, sloth, avarice (greed), wrath (anger), lust and gluttony. (28) Early on pride had been on the list but with time was moved off the list and became the root of the other seven vices. Four authors are given special interest: Evargius of Pontus (346-399 AD, one of the desert fathers), John Cassian (360-430, a disciple of Evagrius, Pope Gregory I (540-604, also called Gregory the Great) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).

But why these seven? Isn’t murder more deadly than sloth? The list was never intended to show the worst sins nor the ones committed most frequently rather they are the “capital” vices in the sense that they are the “source” or “fountainhead” of many other sins. DeYoung’s preferred term is “capital vices” rather than “deadly sins” though they are certainly deadly. The term “vice” is more appropriate than sins because “vices concern deeply rooted patterns in our character, patterns broader than a single act but narrower than our sinful human condition in general.” (34) But these seven were chosen because “they aim at the things that most attract human beings, the goods which we most long to possess.” (38) “When our character is distorted by vice, we seek these goods—and they are genuinely good things—in a misguided or even idolatrous manner: in the wrong way, at the wrong times and wrong places, too intensely, or at the expense of other things of greater value.” (39)

In the next seven chapters she treats each of the vices. She leans heavily on Thomas Aquinas for the elaboration of what the vices are but makes smart use of contemporary movies to illustrate her points. Thus Amadeus shows us Antonio Salieri’s envy of Mozart, the chief character in the film Groundhog Day oddly enough illustrates sloth, and the film The Mission illustrates both good and bad anger. This nicely demonstrates what she says early on: “we implicitly draw our lists from a mental picture of someone we admire (or despise) as a model of moral excellence (or corruption). Role models who embody a moral idea are anchors for moral education into the virtues (or vices), since we learn and acquire character traits by observing and imitating role models.” (17)

With each chapter I found myself cut to the quick especially as I became blindsided by one vice after another which I had assured myself was not that prevalent in my life (confession here: sloth and gluttony I never saw coming, envy hit me from new angles, and the others, well. . . let’s not go there). I began to think my chief problem was spiritual blindness but it really boils down to pride. It’s not a pleasant experience to have our vices exposed to the light of day. But when all is said and done I’m glad they were because now I know what I’m dealing with.

When Joel Osteen was once asked if he uses the word “sinners” he said, “I don't use it. I never thought about it. But I probably don't. But most people already know what they're doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change." I disagreed with him then and I disagree even more now. Our sins and vices are more subtle than we can imagine and more deadly than we know. We ignore them to our own demise. To talk about “change” to a people left to their own imagination as to what is wrong with them is like a doctor giving a cancer patient a band aid because all the patient can see is a cut finger. As DeYoung so aptly concludes: “The more we understand the dynamics of sin and the deep network of its combined forces in us, however, the more amazing we will find the grace and power promised to us to help us change.” (184) Having identified and properly understood these seven vices we can all the more effectively work to take them out at the root.

With all this said those in the Reformed and Lutheran communities may object that this is, at its core, law and not gospel. It is filled with imperatives and not enough indicatives. Sanctification is ultimately up to us and not God. We started our life in Christ by faith but maintain it by works. Michael Horton asks in another context "I'm not sure, however, how directing people to greater concentration on themselves is going to overcome the narcissistic captivity on themselves." (emphasis his. Modern Reformation Vol. 18 March - April 2009, p. 48) He continues, "we just can't staple a non-evangelical practice to an evangelical theology. The right doctrine gives rise to the right kind of piety." DeYoung is not insensitive to this. She says, "seeking improvement in virtue is grace-empowered effort: it is an earnest desire to be all that God wants us to be, not a self-help program driven by willpower and a self-made conception of a new and improved self." (57) But I'm not sure this is going far enough by Reformed standards. Horton says, "Apart from the imputation of righteousness, sanctification is simply another religious self-improvement program determined by the powers of this age (the flesh) rather than of the age to come (the Spirit). This gospel not only announces our justification, but our participation in the power of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. Therefore, we cannot look to Christ at the beginning for our justification, and then look away from Christ to our own progress and countless manuals that offer formulas for spiritual and moral ascent when it comes to the Christian life (sanctification)." But, DeYoung never intended to write a Reformed understanding of the seven deadly sins nor an exposition of Reformed sanctification.

I enjoyed reading this book and feel like she still has much to offer even to Reformed communities. No doubt introspection can become an obsessive habit but if we never look at ourselves with an eye to the subtle ways in which sin can manifest itself then the remedy of even the gospel will be of no effect.

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung is an associate professor of philosophy at Calvin College

N. T. Wright - Reviews and Responses - 2

My friend Paul Adams has begun a list of links to the various responses to N. T. Wright's new book Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision. He will add more as he comes across them or if you know of some he has missed I'm sure he would appreciate a quick note. If you're interested in this book and would like to see some of the responses give Paul's site a visit. He has done the leg work for you.

Mark Galli, St. Francis and the Gospel

St. Francis of Assisi is often attributed with the words, "Preach the gospel at all times, when necessary, use words." Mark Galli, senior managing editor for Christianity Today magazine and author of a biography on St. Francis, says Francis never uttered the popular slogan and his life contradicted the sentiment. In an online article Galli notes that "no biography written within the first 200 years of his death contains the saying. It's not likely that a pithy quote like this would have been missed by his earliest disciples." Furthermore, Francis was well known as a preacher and sometimes a very fiery one. "'Hell, fire, brimstone' would not be an inaccurate description of his style." Galli thinks we sentimentalize Francis "because we live in a sentimental age." The popular slogan has more in common with "a postmodern assumption that words are finally empty of meaning." He continues, "But the gospel is a message, news about an event and a person upon which the history of the planet turns. . . .the Good News can no more be communicated by deeds than can the nightly news." Galli concludes with a more appropriate saying, "Preach the gospel—use actions when necessary; use words always."

Coming Soon From IVP: Bible Study Guides from N. T. Wright

IVP will be releasing eight new study guides this July from N. T. Wright. For groups looking to study these books of the Bible from a premier New Testament scholar and that is informed by the new perspective this series will be without peer. The books scheduled for release are Romans (pictured here), Matthew, Mark, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians & Philemon, 1 & 2 Thessalonians and 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. I don't know if they will complete the New Testament. My guess is they will wait to see how these do and go from there. These will be a perfect match to use with his popular commentary series The New Testament for Everyone.

Closer to Truth - A Website Worth Visiting

This is a great website! It is called Closer to Truth: Cosmos. Consciousness. God. Since I found it I’ve watched interviews (webisodes) like:

Arugments for God? with Alvin Plantinga
Arguments for God? with Richard Swinburne
Is God in time? with William Lane Craig
Is God all knowing? with William Lane Craig
Arguing God from the moral law? with J. P. Moreland
Arguments for atheism? with Daniel Dennett
Is God a person? with the Venerable Yifa (a Buddhist nun)
Is God necessary? with Bede Rundle
Does God have a nature? with Bede Rundle
Fallacies in proving God exists? with Michael Tooley
Can brain explain mind? with John Searle
Does a soul have an afterlife? with Nancy Murphy
Why did our universe begin? with Roger Penrose
Is mathematics invented or discovered? with George Lakoff
Is time travel possible? with Kip Thorne
Is time travel possible? with Michio Kaku
Is time travel possible? with Seth Lloyd (I'll admit I got stuck on this topic. Maybe I've watched too many episodes of Lost.)

It will be hard to get any reading done since there are so many more I want to watch. If you like philosophy (or theology or science) this is a great website. Best of all the interviews are informal and very accessible. In other words you don’t have to be a professional philosopher or a scientist to understand it (at least not most of it). Give it a visit and pick a topic that interests you. You won’t be disappointed. If you're already familiar with this website what have you enjoyed the most?

Deepak Chopra's The Third Jesus

I've read enough of Chopra to know I was not going to waste my time with this latest work. But I will refer you to a review done by Robert Schmidt of Denver Seminary who offers a poignant and scathing review. He says, "While Chopra’s writing style is clear and easily accessible to the layperson, his work is neither rigorously academic nor true. Chopra is guilty of bad history, bad theology, bad logic, and blatant untruths. Every turn of the page is a new experience in the irremediable." Schmidt limits himself "to the Jesus of history, the Jesus of the New Testament, and the Jesus of non-duality." Schmidt dismantles Chopra's work showing how he misuses evidence, ignores the contexts of New Testament passages and is logically contradictory. Schmidt concludes: "his [Chopra's] means of persuasion entail a spectacular display of shoddy academics, appalling theology and logical buffoonery making his book intellectually unpalatable and impossible to take seriously." None of what Schmidt wrote surprised me. I've seen it before and it was what I expected to find. This sort of rubbish from Chopra, (and Eckhart Tolle), which is made popular by Oprah is simply trying to make Jesus more acceptable to a group that is uncomfortable with the Jesus of the New Testament. Strip away the offensive elements of the Jesus in the New Testament (repentance, final judgment, etc.), re-interpret a handful of NT passages, give it a veneer of eastern mysticism and, presto, you have a third Jesus. Give this Jesus the blessing of the likes of Harvey Cox and John Shelby Spong (see the Editorial Reviews on Amazon) and you have the complete package. Top it off with a glowing endorsement from Oprah to ensure off-the-chart sales. I'll pass on The Third Jesus and stay with the Jesus of the New Testament.

Coming Soon from Crossway: Understanding English Bible Translation

Leland Ryken has been a vocal advocate for the "essentially literal approach" to English Bible translation. With three works already under his belt on this subject, The Word of God in English, Choosing a Bible and Bible Translation Differences, it's hard to know what else could be said. But this volume promises to be an "up-to-date clarification of the issues underlying modern Bible translation" (from the Crossway catalog, Summer - Fall 2009). I will be looking to see how much, if any, he responds to Mark Strauss' criticisms of the ESV. Ryken is a professor of English at Wheaton College and also served as literary stylist for the English Standard Version (ESV). It is planned for release this September. It is a paperback, 192 pages and sells for $12.99.

N. T. Wright - Reviews and Responses - 1

Well, the fire just got turned up over N. T. Wright’s book Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. Craig Blomberg has offered a thoughtful review (preceded by a shorter post on the Koinonia blog) which has sparked responses from Justin Taylor (and here) and Doug Wilson. (See also the response by R. Scott Clark here.) Taylor insists that Blomberg has misunderstood the difference between Christ’s active and passive obedience. This is fleshed out a bit more by Wilson. (I cannot emphasize enough how important the comments are in these posts. Defenders from both sides are heard although sometimes with more heat than light.)

Wilson’ critique is more engaging and a bit frustrating. He is disappointed that Wright did not engage Piper more. He says,

“How many actual citations of Piper's book are in Wright's book? How many particular arguments does he engage with and actually seek to answer? And the problems that attend this above-it-all, breeze-by approach also show up in Blomberg's review. If the claim is that Piper misunderstands Wright, would it be too much to ask to be shown where and how he does? It is too easy to lump a particular critic in with a crowd of assumed (and more easily handled) critics, and there to demolish him.”

Secondly, Wilson complains that Wright has not responded to any of his writings. He notes, “I have spent the last several years answering Wright in terms of a cosmos-encompassing, life-affirming, culture-transforming vision of the lorship [sic] of Christ over all things, and Wright has not engaged with me at all. Now why would he not engage with me? Yes, I understand -- I am a nobody pastor in the chimney part of Idaho. But other than that, why would he not engage?” His speculation on Wright’s silence is unnecessary and pejorative. Wright’s critics are many and he simply can’t respond to them all still make a book of reasonable length. Had the book been 1,000 pages the readership would have been much less.

Finally, after quoting this statement from Blomberg’s review where he was summarizing Wright, “Where Israel failed to live up to its obligation, the faithful Jewish Messiah succeeded,” he says:

“Yes, exactly. Where Israel had disobeyed, the new Israel had now obeyed. Not only did the new Israel die to suffer the penalty of the old Israel's disobedience, but the new Israel also lived it right. He lived as faithful Israel because Israel needs to have lived faithfully. He obeyed, He was faithful Israel, in whom we also (by faith) may be faithful Israelites. Does Wright use the doctrinal jargon of Reformed theologians, does he use the shibboleth of "active obedience"? I couldn't care less. But I would be very interested to see an argument that demonstrates any substantial difference at all between the doctrine of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, as advanced by the best and most careful Reformed theologians (see Justin Taylor's point), and the doctrine represented by Blomberg's summary above.”

My own thoughts are a jumbled mess at this point and I’m trying to sort it out. Teachers that I admire are on both sides of the issue to varying degrees. I’m thinking of hosting a forum on the New Perspective next year. The more I read about it the more excited I am about the prospect. I was delighted to see a book in the works from IVP tentatively called "Justification: Five Views" with Michael Horton (Traditional Reformed), Michael Bird (Progressive Reformed), James Dunn (New Perspective), Theosis (Veli-Matti Karkkainen) and Catholic (Gerald O'Collins & Oliver Rafferty).

New from Bethany House: The King James Only Controversy

This updated and revised edition of James White’s book, The King James Only Controversy, has only gotten better. There are not many books that deal with this issue as thoroughly and with as much sanity as this one. White offers a devastating rebuttal to the advocates of the King James Only position. What is that position? It is the belief that the King James Version (KJV) translation of the English Bible is the only acceptable English translation and that all other translations are corruptions of God’s word. Not only that but they also believe the KJV is inspired and inerrant. The chief proponents of this position are Gail Riplinger, Peter Ruckman, Samuel Gipp, J. J. Ray and D. A. Waite. This should not be confused with those who believe in the superiority of the Byzantine Family of Greek manuscripts over the eclectic texts used by virtually all modern day translations (NKJV is the notable exception). Names in this group include Dean Burgon, F. H. A. Scrivener and H. C. Hoskier.

White is meticulous in his research and demonstrates with charity how ill founded the KJV Only arguments really are. There is an added benefit to reading this book. The reader will come away with an excellent understanding of what textual variants are in Greek manuscripts, their significance, and how scholars judge between them as to which is the better reading. In other words it is a mini course in textual criticism. And while it doesn’t make a significant difference in the book White shows awareness of recent developments in the field of textual criticism by such notables as Bart Ehrman, D. C. Parker, and Eldon Epp (193). In fact, White added one extra question in his “Question and Answers” chapter which directly interacts with Bart Ehrman (303-07). No one should confuse Bart Ehrman with a KJV Only advocate but since he has become the recent pop star of textual criticism with an eye to debunking the Christian’s confidence in Scripture White appropriately deals with him. (White has debated Ehrman and the audio and video are available from White's ministry website here.)

One interesting addition is White’s answer to “those who demand a ‘single example of error in the KJV!’” (236) He points to Revelation 16:5 which in the KJV reads “And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.” The key phrase is “and shalt be.” White notes that “every Greek text—not just Alexandrian texts, but all Greek texts, Majority Text, the Byzantine text, every manuscript, the entire manuscript tradition—reads “’O Holy One’” (237). Where did the reading “and shalt be” come from? None other than Theodore Beza. Beza thought there was sufficient similarity between “holy one” and the future form of “shall be” that the latter was probably the more accurate reading which would “allow him to make the change to harmonize the text with other such language in Revelation. But he had no manuscript evidence in support of his conjecture (237 emphasis his). To bolster his case White shows photo copies of Erasmus’ third edition Greek New Testament, the Stephanus text of 1555, the 1538 Coverdale translation, and the 1560 Geneva Bible. White concludes “Quite simply, before Beza, no Christian had ever read the text the way the KJV has it today” (241 n. 58). White admits that some manuscripts do omit the reading (holy one) but none contain the KJV reading. It is a reading “created out of the mind of Theodore Beza, one unknown to the ancient church, unknown to all Christians until the end of the sixteenth century” (241). I can’t imagine any responsible answer to this sort of evidence.

I’m grateful that the endnotes have been made footnotes. I wish the indexes had been updated. They include no reference to many of the new figures like Ehrman, Epp, Maurice Robinson and others. But this is an inconvenience and nothing more. If you can only buy one book on this subject this is the one. It is 364 pages and sells for $15.99. James White is director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization, and an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

Angels and Demons - A Response from Ascension Press

Ascension Press has a website which offers a downloadable book available written by Mark Shea. Shea's blog, "Catholic and Enjoying It" is a great resource for Catholics and Protestants. His book, Answering Angels and Demons, is only a meager 19 pages but is in a helpful question and answer format for easy reference. He covers such issues as the infallibility of the pope, the relationship of the Catholic church to scientists during the Middle Ages with particular attention to Copernicus and Galileo, and the perennial question of what's all the fuss about when it is only a work of fiction.

I'm not sure Angels and Demons will get all the attention that The DaVinci Code did but questions will still be raised and doubts will be planted in the hearts of young Christians (or even older uninformed Christians) and if for no other reason that demands a response.

Mark P. Shea is the author of By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition published by Our Sunday Visitor. One of my favorite Catholic authors, Peter Kreeft, says of this book "This is not just another book of Catholic apologetics. It's not only a good think; it's also a good read. Concrete, clear, compelling arguments."