OK, then let’s agree that quotes go outside punctuation:”…is not a worldview–at least it is not a “this-worldview”. goes to “…is not a worldview–at least it is not a “this-worldview.” My snide comments done now, too.

“Wouldn’t you agree, though, that the Gospel offers transformation: of individuals (partially and imperfectly now, fully and utterly in the eschaton) and the world (ditto)?”

Yes, but as I have said before, I think the language of transformation (as is used by Keller, for example) is simply different from the biblical language of sanctification. This seems close to the heart of these discussions, I think. The lingo of transformation seems to imply rather strongly that one can transcend his humanity. I don’t believe that is what sanctification means, especially when I read the Reformed forms that teach those things. When I listen to Keller (whom I use as a catch-all to represent the warp and woof of American Christian piety across all traditions) I hear the same sort of thing I hear when I listen to any host of popular psychologies that tell us we can have our best life now, that we don’t have to die, that we are somehow exempt from having to slog our way through this life the way “the others” do.

“Dualism in the guise of heavenly-mindedness bothers me: the idea that a living community that witnesses to the eschaton in the middle of this world’s fractured communities will not/should not/cannot affect those communities.”

It does. But, again, something quite distinct tells me that what it means as defined by the flesh and the Spirit are, again, just two wholly different things. The former seems to suggest, “I am going to make it all better.” The latter seems to suggest, “I am going to begin killing you now; it’s going to get worse before it gets better…so don’t go about promising you are going to clean up NYC.” Yes, there is an effect. To suggest otherwise seems absurd. I am just not convinced that effect is as promising and golden as someone like Keller seems to imply, which is to say, “when we are done with this project NYC will never be the same, be better, etc.”

Taken from this view, I think I can say that when I went from unbelief to belief, that is to say became a Christian, it “was the worst thing that ever happened to me.” That is not what I hear in Keller’s transformationism, or in crasser propserity gospels. What I hear is the opposite: “Believe and things will only get better…for you and the world around you.”

“I also want to express huge support of Keller and others who point out that the Gospel has lost its credibility, comprehensibility, and plausibility in the West.”

Mee, too. I just don’t think what he proposes as an alternative is really any different. He wants to exchange the crassness of an institutional “outside-in” transformationism with a kinder, gentler “inside-out” form. I am happy for the reprieve of being burned-over by the former. But kinder forms that tell us we can transcend our humanity are still not the Gospel and still have no grasp on biblical notions of sanctification.

Steve

First, let’s agree on the spelling of “altar.” Okay, snide comments done.

When I said I didn’t find “transformationalism” enlightening I simply meant the term. I’m breaking into the middle of this discussion. Having given up on online conversation during the Secular Faith discussion.

Wouldn’t you agree, though, that the Gospel offers transformation: of individuals (partially and imperfectly now, fully and utterly in the eschaton) and the world (ditto)? The Gospel that I preach promises resurrection, not simply the intermediate state. I agree that the Gospel (which I assume you are referring to when you talk about “Christianity,” a fraught term itself) is not a worldview–at least it is not a “this-worldview”. It does involve a vision of the coming age, and ourselves within it. And Scripture gives us glimpses of what it means to live the eschaton before the eschaton, in places like Acts 2.

I am conservative enough to agree with T. S. Eliot that “there are no lost causes because there are no won causes,” and with the O’Donovans that society exists in the “bonds of imperfection”. I am also confident that the eschatological vision of the Gospel radically critiques the pretensions of every society and family, and that it gives it hints toward a chastened version of itself. Dualism in the guise of heavenly-mindedness bothers me: the idea that a living community that witnesses to the eschaton in the middle of this world’s fractured communities will not/should not/cannot affect those communities.

I also want to express huge support of Keller and others who point out that the Gospel has lost its credibility, comprehensibility, and plausibility in the West. I do not see in history of the ancient church our forefathers making it their priority to transform/bring under the kingship the institutions of society. Instead, they made sought to “do good to all men, and especially the household of faith”, so that in “the very thing in which they revile you” the pagans would give glory to God. An example: slavery. Many decry the early church’s failure to demand the abolition of slavery. This is a patronizing anachronism, and should embarrass those who say it aloud. But the church did not simply approve or ignore it: it understood that all human relations are (as Oliver O’Donovan puts it) “either community-building or exploitative” and they said so. In speaking the truth about human relations (which is the only proper power of the church in any age) they undermined the traditional and philosophical foundations of the institution. In the relevant passage in *The Ways of Judgment* O’Donovan goes on to say that it is the task of the church today to do the same with capitalism exchange-contract practices.

That kind of bringing the eschaton to bear on the the world through truth-telling seems exactly right to me. The Gospel is a message of judgment, decisively on the cross and finally in the parousia, as well as a message of grace. Keller makes a great point when he says that all theology must be an explication of the Gospel. O’Donovan has begun to do that in politics.

So, my thoughts for now. In retrospect it was a little silly to suggest on a blog that we stop arguing. It reflected my aforementioned disgust with the medium rather than a studied hippie sensibility.

A favorite prof of mine in college once described his relationship to his wife with hand gestures: with one he made the “come here” gesture and with the other he made the “go away” gesture.

From this defeated and defensive Calvinist’s view, it seems unclear to me how the language of transformationism and neo-Calvinism can be so odious to you when you seem to believe that the Gospel has “a direct and obvious bearing on this temporal life.” If so, what is so bad about these sorts of systems? I find nothing wrong with them, more or less, if such a view of the Gospel is assumed.

If you mean by “countercultural” the fact that the Gospel and its necessary consequence to produce covenant-keeping believers and is antithetical to absolutely every worldview conceivable, I agree. But if you simply mean it will produce a very particular worldview that looks oddly and suspiciously like any number of traditions of men, no. Those looking for worldviews ought to be monumentally frustrated when the Gospel is held out. For my own part, the life I lead as a believer versus the sort I did as a reared unbeliever is very much “counter.” But the fulcrum of that counter-ness is the Gospel, not how I raise my family or approach society (even as my approach to those things is different per my belief). This is why I say that while Christianity certainly and necessarily has a way of life resident within it, it is not at all a way of life (or worldview). To my mind, this is where the subtle yet vast difference seems to lie. The Gospel, as you suggest, does break into this life. But like Mandy Patinkin said, “You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.” I think when transformers hear that the Gospel has no direct bearing on this life they hear it said that it has no power or reality, etc. But that certainly is not what I mean by such a phrase; that would be absurdity. What I mean is that it absolutely does not serve any here and now interest of man or help him in his programming to satisfy the CoW. To suggest, as I contend that transformers do, that the Gospel lends us any measure of knowledge or ability to improve upon this life and gain any measure of reward (and necessarily punishment) is counter-Gospel. And with all due respect, I find it a bit dismissive to suggest that such difference of views ought to be dropped so we can get on with things, especially when your last line seems to more than imply that what we are getting onto is a transformationist agenda. It’s a bit like arguing Calvinism versus revivalism, where the latter tells us to just drop it so we can get on to the alter call or anxious bench. I’d be happy to move on, so long as we eliminate such activity as the bench. But my revivalist friend won’t have that…so we must go back to the theological drawing board since the non/action we are called to still demands definition and we are both very much opposed. How about we drop it and move on to holding out the Gospel instead of being a “counterculture for the common good”?

Steve

In addition, I applaud Andrew for his rejection of the modern “empty sky”.

The language of “transformationalism” does not enlighten me. It reeks of a neo-Calvinism that I still think is full of flaws (including an undervaluation of the eschaton, which I don’t accuse Andrew of). But does anyone seriously intend to convey that godliness holds no promise for this life? That the church holds out no alternative way of family and sociality? That its witness to the life to come has no impact on this life?

I hear angry, defeated, defensive Calvinists. At a certain point we must give up arguing and start serving, leading the church from within to become a counterculture for the common good.

(Thanks again for correcting my blogging blunder…)

1) Quite simply, no. From my POV man simply cannot get away from God and the natural programming God gave him. In an odd way, nobody is really “running away from God” no matter how popular such a sop-sentiment seems to be, which seems pretty clear from your words you have been hornswagled into believing. Rather, man is running *to God* (where else is there to go?), not on God’s terms (i.e. faith), but his own. That’s the difference. A bee can’t help but to make honey and man cannot help but to justify himself–he was made for it.

Show you an unbeliever who does this? I’ll do you one better: take your pick. And I don’t care how much he doth protest this to be the case.

2) Oh, Andrew, you poor dear.

GAS,

For my part, I think I will stick with the objective/subjective categories. (Ultimately, we are in fact speaking of soteriological matters. I am never quite sure why those categories get conveniently set aside or quarantined. It’s like the expositor who says, “I will now talk about love, so open your Bibles to Corinthians…next week we do theology and we will examine Romans.” This compartmentalizing seems odd. But no matter how far you want to get away from it you still have that category tied to your heel and whatever moves you make effect it.)

Maybe you want personal/corporate categories because you still are sympathetic to subjective transformationism(?). I don’t know, but it does seem that those who are exhausted by the burned-over effects of objective transformationism (like Keller is) offer up a kinder, gentler form which tends pretty heavily on things “personal.” Just read his little tract called “The Missional Church.” He’s had it with Christendom’s tactics. He’s burned out, but who isn’t? I think even Andrew shows his hand with this when he tells us he’s not so keen on the Religious Right, despite whatever admitted co-belligerency.

But what Keller offers up is still the idea that ours is to change the world. He’s still been bitten by the “salt and light” bug. We seem to do the world a favor by existing in our transformed selves, not by holding out the Gospel to sinners by and as fellow sinners. It’s very personal in this way. Eventually, because it’s all really the same, it will come to the end of its rope, just like conventional Christendom has, and be utterly burned over. It will look around and have very little to show for itself. Transformers might do well to observe Liberals, who have come to their own dead-end and are looking at each other in the midst of their own failed projects wondering what’s next. At least they are honest about their state right now. The title of ex-Liberal Thomas Oden’s “After Modernity, What?” seems to say it all.

Steve

Hear, hear!

Non sequiter, Steve.
Perhaps the terminology of objective v. subjective is confusing the matter?
Since we are not speaking of sotriological matters I would suggest that a better way to differentiate is by corporate v. personal categories. It is also not surprising that the Arminians you listed would conflate the personal and corporate distinctions. Kennedy, as a minister of the gospel, should preach only the 1st and 3rd uses of the law, but if he is so concerned about the 2nd use he should step down from the pulpit and enter politics.

What concerns me about the Klinean model is that it appears to be a Reformed version of a baptistic/dispensational worldview at best and doectic at worst.

If we want to make it really interesting we should consider A.A. van Rulers thesis that politics is what Christianity is about.

1) Find me an unbeliever who is trying to graduate from the probationary period by fulfilling the cultural mandate & I’ll reconsider my position. Are not unbelievers, rather, trying to live as if this world is all there is? Are they not trying as hard as they can to forget God and the thanks (for their creation) they owe him? They are seeking their own righteousness, that is, the rectitude of life that they have chosen for themselves as good. It is the pursuit of knowing in the sense of determining what is good and what is evil.

2) Scripture is clear that believers are to “lay up our treasures in heaven,” to run the race to attain the prize and to perservere and overcome to attain a crown of glory. I have been arguing that the cultural mandate has been incorporated into the economy of grace. Deal with the scriptural arguments please.

stevez
July 17th, 2007 at 2:56 pm e
“Well, the cultural mandate was always supposed to be carried out with respect to God’s glory. All law if not obeyed for the right motives is sin. Without faith it is impossible to please God. So…only believers can carry out the cultural mandate. Unbelievers don’t even try.”

Andrew,

If this is true, what is it exactly that’s going on in the buzz of the world? If that’s not the quiet hum of persons trying to justify themselves or pathetically trying to yet graduate from the probationary period, what is it? What are unbelievers trying to do exactly? Is it arbitrary activity which has no meaning whatsoever?

And as long as Darryl wants to reference his WCF, if we are truly Reformed in the HB’s sense of a life of gratitude where true works are only done from faith (and even then horribly mixed up with sinful pride) as a pure response to God’s Gospel, how does that really jib with the cultural mandate’s inherent message to “do this and live”? That is, one seems entirely backward looking and response-driven and based upon a work done entirely on our behalf by God alone and naturally promotes only thanks, while the other seems entirely forward looking, expecting reward based upon might (or its antithesis of punishment) promoting only self-glory.

Steve

Yes, I would have predicted your co-belligerancy take. That makes sense to me. But, wanting to be as Presbyterian as I can, thanks for contributing to the spirit of “all things in a good a decent order” and making it a matter of record!

But I see no difference between the proverbial left and right, as they are called. They both play by the same rules. I don’t see how, depsite each’s absolute yet predictable conviction otherwise, one is righter than the other. Both are, as they say, out to lunch…and quite irrelevant to the Gospel and actually work against it. In fact, like Peter Berger famously said, “neither the left’s nor the right’s political agenda belongs in the pulpit, in the liturgy, or in any statements that claim to have the authority of the Gospel. Any cultural or political agenda is a manifestation of ‘works-righteousness’ and ipso facto an act of apostasy.” And to add a touch of shame, as Darryl responded once to that observation, Presbyterians shouldn’t need a Lutheran sociologist to tell them that.

Steve