RSSPlayful Calvinism
I got suckered. Darryl challenged the seriousness of FV. Harumph, said I - touchily. Of course I’m serious. I mean, I write books. How could I not be serious?
Wrong answer.
I don’t know exactly what Darryl means when he talks about our lack of seriousness, and I don’t agree that a “serious” effort at reform has to follow the channels he seems to suggest. But he’s hit on something important.
“Playful” has not been the most natural modifier of “Calvinist.” But it should be. Doug Wilson has often talked of promoting what I think he calls a “sunny Calvinism.” Calvinists above all other Christians have theological grounds to follow Jesus’ exhortation, Don’t be anxious. There should be a buoyancy and lightness to Calvinists since we believe in a God who is in absolute control over everything. Everything, literally EVERYTHING, is a gift from a God who is infinitely good and who has committed Himself with utter faithfulness to us. And knowing that God is in control relieves us of the burden of having to be. We should be the most thankful, joyful, playful of people. We have far more reason than Chesterton to remember that Satan fell by force of gravity.
Take this as another effort to describe the psychology of those associated with the FV. And with no implication that non-FV Calvinists are automatically dour. Darryl, for instance, is hilarious.
D Hart
September 30th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Thanks, Peter, but I like the doctrines of grace serious, not playful. You have laudably claimed in some of your posts FV’s pastoral side. When I’m on my deathbed, I’d like my pastor to be appropriately serious. It’s the lack of a consistent tone in FV — oh, we’re just a bunch of guys b-essing about theology vs. we want to change the church because our tradition is messed up — that prevents me from taking this seriously.
Are you guys pulling our legs or our lapels?
Peter
October 1st, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Darryl, death doesn’t make Solomon gloomy. Solomon knew all about death - the “one fate for the righteous and for the wicked,” the “evil under the sun.” He sees death and says “the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten.” They have no share “in all that is done under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:1-6).
Then he draws this inference: “Go, eat your bread in happiness, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works. Let your clothes be white all the time, and let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your life of vapor which He has given you under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:7-9).
He says, in effect: Life is a vapor; you don’t have a lot of time; (God is in control); THEREFORE, be cheerful.
Isn’t it possible that one of the things we think needs to be fixed is the joylessness of many Christians?
CBrown
October 1st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
For the record, D Hart said “serious” in connection with death, not “gloomy”. I think there’s a difference.
To the main point about joylessness, I know of many (non-FV) Reformed pastors who are aware that Calvinists should be most joyful. I’ve heard (and preached) those sermons numerous times. Joylessness and anxiety are perennial pastoral problems. I don’t see how the FV can lay claim to these things in a special way, as if non-FV Calvinists are not trying to address joylessness. You say that Christian joylessness is something “we” (FV) are trying to fix. What is unique/special about the FV remedy?
James Jordan
October 1st, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Wait a sec. :-0 Darryl asks if we are serious or playful. Peter replies that of course we are playful. Proverbs 8: wisdom plays before the face of God. Now Mr. Brown wants someone to explain why FVers are more playful or joyous than non-FVers? Peter made no such claim! I hope we’re ALL playful. In union with the Logos we are supposed to be. But it is a fact that a stoic gloominess has pervaded a lot of historic Calvinism — a fact related to its relative music-less, I’m convinced. All the same, FVers certainly have no claim to be special advocates or play or joy!
Peter
October 1st, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Pastor Brown, yes, thanks. There is a difference. And, I’m not pretending that FV is the answer to the problem. I’m only saying that playfulness and concern with the reform of the church are not mutually exclusive - as Darryl implies. (Of course, he will distinguish between playful and joyful, and so the saga continues.)
CBrown
October 1st, 2007 at 3:42 pm
While we’re on the subject, I might add that one of my favorite remedies for Christian joylessness is an ice cold beer. Alcoholic beverages have done wondrous things for the RPCNA in the past decade!
Peter
October 1st, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Pastor Brown, we have hit upon a point of profound consensus here.
James Jordan
October 1st, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Wait, though! What KIND of beer? This kind? http://www.calvinus.ch
D Hart
October 1st, 2007 at 11:48 pm
By serious I did not mean the opposite of joyful. I meant the sort of activity that used to characterize scholarship before the linguistic turn and identity politics turned the scholarly enterprise into a game — hardly joyful, mind you, since there are so many angry academics. So I see FV making theological proposals. I think of theological journals and quarterlies, or theses. But then FV comes along and says we are being playful. Playful does not fit the genre of theological scholarship. What folks do after they’ve finished their article is their own business.
Caleb Stegall
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:34 am
Charles, I know you were making a light-hearted point of consensus, and I certainly enjoy an ice cold beer as much as the next guy, but as the resident curmudgen and guarder of all thigns traditional, and as the son, grandson, great-grandson, great-great grandson, etc., of teetotaling covenanters, let me speak briefly for the old ways.
The RPCNA of my ancestors and my youth struck, so far as I can tell, a very healthy balance between seriousness and playfulness; limits and freedom; obedience and choice. The “gains,” such as they are, of the recent “wet” RPCNA, do not take into account the deep losses that come along with such “progress.” The point is not to drink or not to drink, it is that innovators rarely stop to consider what is being lost and what damage is being done. This is relevant to our FV discussion.
I can’t agree that alcoholic beverages have done wondrous things for the RPCNA. Not because I’m a teetotaler. I’m not. But because the old ways have been uncerimoniously kicked to the curb. The order has been shaken without a lot of thought for its health, only thought for our “Christian liberty.” As such, the social authority of the community to bind the allegiance and adherence of its membership has been reduced. I remember the Synod debates on this issue, and most of the arguments for change were offered in exactly the same spirit of radical liberty of conscience that Mr. Meyers has provided elsewhere in this discussion.
Sorry to throw a damper on the booze-fest, but this is an important and relevant point, I think. Now, if anyone wants to invite me to a real booze-fest, I will be an enthusiastic participant. Just ask Darryl.
CBrown
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:50 am
Thank you, Caleb, for correcting my excessive playfulness. These are important and relevant words.
Anthony Cowley
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:16 am
Caleb:
As one who is quite sympathitic to the old RP Ways, and submitted to Vow 8 for the sake of France, um, I mean, ordination, I appreciate your comments here. We should not be the Frat Boy version of FV.
On the other hand, I think that the debate and discussion on Vow 8 was carried on with due submission. Every one who was debating the issue was someone who had already submitted to the TA Vow. While I, myself, ocassionally could go too far in any direction-on the RIGHT:
I argued vehemently against allowing CROSSES in the places of worship, arguing that the committee assigned to handle this topic had short changed the Larger Catechism;
I also argued strongly to force Jack White to withdraw his signature from Roman Catholics & Evangelicals Together;
I argued strongly to have some Cornerstones Seminars (actually your mom’s) teaching at Carleton 1992 shut down, penning a resolution which was adopted (Though modified later…what they ended up doing worked out better, and was more gentle and righteous). I aruged strongly that the RPCNA should enforce its own standards on the length of creation days, etc…ALL because I believed strongly in the position of the Church on its various stated confessional and subordinate standards, though I admit that I had a conservative spin on these stances.
ON THE “LEFT”: I argued vehemently in favor of a judicial decision to stop enforcing Vow 8 in 1995. This after a number of Synods had sent down in Overture to the Sessions (note for Non RPs - the RPs don’t go to the Presbyteries to revise the Subordinate Standards which have the status of fundamental doctrine; they go to the Session so that the Ruling elders are guaranteed a full and equal vote - that way waves of novelties coming out of the seminaries, or whatever, will not overwhelm the people in their own convictions - and note - the RPCNA has done a LOT of radical revision of her views in an orderly fashion ever since she was founded, especially since 1871) the revision of vow 8, and it failed to win the 2/3 majority necessary by one split session’s vote. It was like a debate at a tennis match - is “on the line” inside or outside? But, the point was that as a court the Synod had a responsibility not to enforce something which she had determined judicially and exegetically not to be valid. Synod cleaned this up later. Yes, it was a bit hard on some of the affections of some of the members who held to the tee-total position. However, it was not hard on the people who actually subscribed to the denomination’s stated views of the matter. THe RPCNA never adopted theoretical tee-totalism. IT was always a matter of curbing the exercise of our own Christian Liberty for the sake of something seen as a social good, to take a corporate stand against drunkeness.
So, remember, Caleb, that the “Old ways” and the common perceptions of the people in the pew do not necessarily have constitutional status.
But, please recognize that some of us have a full and deeply affectionate sense of these things. I understand exactly what you are saying, and I am thankful for your guarding the old ways. But it is ironic that you (and EPC elder) and I (an ARP Pastor) are the ones concerned for the old ways of the RPs in the face of all the young RP Pastors here who didn’t live through these things the same way you did (as a kid) and I did, as a somewhat earlier member and minister of the denomination.
Ironic forms of traditionalism, eh?
Caleb Stegall
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:40 am
Tony, I had to chuckle reading your post. There is so much history here, and all intermingled with people and events we know, love, and have lived through in one way or another and seen through the lenses of our own loyalties, commitments, and situations.
I well remember the “great unpleasantness†of 1992. Believe me, you were PNG in my family for a while. But it is very good to be able to talk about these things, and acknowledge that most if not all of us on the various sides are acting in good faith to be faithful to our Lord, to the truth, to one another as best as we can, despite our failings. I believe that is true of this conversation as well.
However, this circumstance is what makes a binding tradition so important. It is like a marriage where divorce is not an option. In some respects, it frees us to fight hard and (hopefully) fair in the service of a mutually shared love and affection which will ultimately, though perhaps not in the moment, be seen to have been more important and more binding than the fight and the differences and hurts that it caused.
Absent this binding community, however, the situation either devolves into the N.I.C.E. of the evangelical world where everything is fought passive-aggressively and no mean words are ever spoken, or, the kinds of schisms that happen in aggressive-aggressive fights which are not umbrella-ed by a deeply rooted commitment to a particular historical community that is grounded in something more than ideas; it is grounded in shared memory, kinship, and mutual struggle and achievement.
I don’t disagree with some of the procedural history you give here. And I know that the “old ways†are not constitutional. That is precisely why they are important. Remember, I don’t accept a purely constitutional church.
And yes, our current situation is indeed ironic. What can I say? Life is messy.
Anthony Cowley
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:49 am
Yes - I kinda wondered about that PNG thing - it made sense, of course.
The great thing about the RPCNA is that they did (I trust still do) have a deeply-enough rooted community that has not just confessions and catechisms, but congregations and people who are deeply interconnected. Such that they can curb the young over-zealous types like myself of 15 years ago with balance and maturity. And, because it was a no-divorce situation, we all sat down for a hot coffee afterwards, most of the time.
Gotta run
James Jordan
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
I think this charge of not being serious really means that we do our thinking in the church instead of in the gnostic world of the academy. We have a conversation, but don’t do much publishing in “acceptable” scholarly journals. We’ve learned that publishers like P&R reject our books because we write things they don’t like, so we publish our own. We are interested in guarding the Bride far more than in guarding precious traditional ideas. We’re not gnostics. I’ve dealt with this in my essay on how theology is done today here: http://www.biblicalhorizons.com