Rename Redux?

This week the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention approved a recommendation from President Bryant Wright and an illustrious task force of his appointment that the Southern Baptist Convention begin to employ the informal tagline "Great Commission Baptists." The recommendation is for neither a legal change of the convention's name nor a legal dba, but simply for Southern Baptists to have the option to begin to refer to ourselves as Great Commission Baptists as we may wish to do so. Presumably, the Executive Committee or interested Southern Baptists would also take legal steps to register this trademark and protect it from encroachment by available legal means.

I'm clearly on the record in opposition to the way that President Wright went about this (see here), and I stand by those objections. Subsequent events have made me only more concerned that the value of a floor vote of the Southern Baptist Convention is waning. I, for one, do not celebrate that.

And yet, those objections have more to do with the process than with the substance. I have previously expressed my skepticism that name changes will accomplish anything substantive for us. Even name-change proponents are already hedging their bets, insisting that name changes alone will not be fruitful unless accompanied by other more substantive changes. Count me among those who've been saying that all along. Furthermore, count me as someone saying that substantive improvements are effective with or without superficial actions like name changes.

All of that having been said and clarified, I think that the recommendation is pretty good. The name is doctrinally substantive. That this is nothing like "Cru" and "Converge" is a gift from God and a breath of fresh air. Furthermore, the idea of an informal name that churches and entities may use or eschew at their own preference is pretty close to the situation that we have now. Churches and entities decide whether to employ the name of the convention or not. Many churches labor hard to find the most meaningless name possible, and we have entities whose common names evoke little idea of a connection with the SBC. It was my recommendation earlier on that churches in pioneer areas, if they are concerned about the effect of the words "Southern Baptist Convention," come up with something else to call themselves as a regional moniker. The effect of this proposal is little more than that, perhaps. I believe that the task force has done a commendable job. I wouldn't campaign against this recommendation. I'm thankful that it makes an accommodation for people who will bring this up every few years until Jesus comes back if we don't do something (not that I'm confident that this accommodation will change that phenomenon). Maybe this is a good peacemaking measure and should be evaluated on those terms rather than on whether it will accomplish anything at all in winning people to Christ. The task force did a good job.

They may fail anyway. It has happened before.

In the late 1960's, the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention was concerned that "Training Union" might not be the best name for a curriculum, what with the dawning of the Age of Aquarius and all. After careful study, our best and brightest came up with a good name change for Church Training: They would market the materials under the name "Quest." That's a pretty good name. It is short. It describes a journey toward a goal (which is one way to characterize discipleship). It sounds exotic. Slam dunk, right?

Well, there was a problem. You see, in 1969 (when this proposal came to the floor), "Quest" was also the brand name of a feminine hygiene product. The convention's comfort with the old name, coupled with the potential embarrassment associated with the new name, led the messengers to reject the proposal.

People are already using the initials "GCB" to stand for "Great Commission Baptists." Unfortunately, between now and convention time, the ABC network will release one of the most despicable shows in recent memory, ""Good Christian B-----es," under the initialism "GCB." I say that it is one of the most despicable shows in recent memory, because I can hardly imagine ABC releasing "Good Jewish B----es" or "Good Muslim B----es" or "Good Hindu B----es," can you? Christianity: the one faith it's OK to hate. The central theme of the show is that Dallas-area church-going women are a collection of hypocritical, backstabbing, raging misanthropes. Not only is "GCB" not exactly the image that we want to cultivate; it is the very image that we're fleeing, isn't it?

Tweets went out the very first night of the announcement pointing out this unfortunate coincidence. I've been working on my sermon planning retreat and have been unable to respond until now. But I think that this poses a problem for the convention if we adopt this name. Most shows like this one die quick deaths. Maybe this just isn't the right time. In five years, this show will probably be long-forgotten. I do think that "Great Commission Baptists" is too good a name to abandon it (if we have to have any change at all). But I certainly don't want our church associated with this television program any more than is absolutely unavoidable.

In my opinion, it would be far better to be associated with feminine hygiene than to be associated with feminine hypocrisy.

P.S.: The convention meeting that rejected "Quest"? It was in New Orleans. Read all about it here.

Why I Am Not A Libertarian

The line between Libertarianism and non-Libertarian Conservatism has grown indefinite during my lifetime. What was originally a watchword of the Democrat Party—the slogan of John L. O'Sullivan's The United States Magazine and Democratic Review magazine, "The best government is that which governs least"—has now become the prevailing slogan of the Republican Party. This slogan can be found as the battle cry of limited-government Conservatives or Libertarians, but taken at face value it is necessarily an Anarchist sentiment. If the least government is the best, then it logically follows that no government AT all is the best government OF all.

Of course, most of the people who wield this slogan don't really mean it—they stop somewhere far short of anarchy. They mean to say that government would govern better if there were less of it than there is now. The major problem is that, while they don't really mean that government governs best when it governs least, too many of these people THINK that they really do mean that. A desperate need exists within the general landscape of political conservatism for all of us to think carefully toward the development of a consistent and comprehensive philosophy of government. For those of us who are Christians, our careful thought must also be prayerful thought, and the philosophy of government that we adopt needs to arise out of statements that the Bible has made about government.

I'm thinking that I might devote some time and some space on this blog to this topic. I will examine what the Bible says about government and interact with the major political systems of our day, hoping that we can all arrive at a better-informed and more carefully-developed concept of Christian citizenship than we might have at present.

Today, I would like to consider Libertarianism

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy accurately defines Libertarianism as "the moral view that [people] initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things." The only justification for denying full liberty to any individual person, according to Libertarianism, is in order to protect the liberty of other people. This concept of self-ownership is the foundational concept of Libertarianism without which other Libertarian political convictions are incoherent. I would encourage you to read the entire Stanford article. It is excellent and well-sourced.

I disagree with Libertarianism. I offer the following as my primary objections against this political theory:

1. As a Christian, I consider the foundational premise of Libertarianism to be a form of sinful rebellion against God. To state that individuals initially and fully own themselves is to fail to acknowledge that we exist as creations of a Creator. God is our Owner. He has authority over us. This truth is really the starting point of the gospel—if God is not my Owner, and if He does not have authority over me, then I have very little need for the gospel and very little reason to hear it.

2. As a Christian, I believe that the best government is that which governs according to the scope of authority and the purposes that have been given to human government by God. The Bible is quite explicit on this point:

   Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due to them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. (Romans 13:1-7, NASB)

   This can hardly be construed as a Libertarian manifesto. It is a statement of support for the Roman Empire! It speaks of "subjection" as something that is "necessary" from God's perspective. Individual liberty appears in this treatise absolutely nowhere. The purpose of government, according to the New Testament, is not for the protection of individual liberty. Rather, God has authorized secular governments for the purpose that those who "do what is good" might "have praise from" their government, but that those who "do what is evil" will have cause to "be afraid" of the "sword" borne by the state who, on God's behalf, is "an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil."

   Biblically, it is the purpose of government to encourage good behavior and to punish bad behavior. This purpose is derived from the One who has delegated authority to human government, from God.

   If this is the purpose of government, does that purpose exist across the entire scope of human life, or are there things that are beyond the purview of governmental authority as invested in government by God? I believe that there are limitations to the scope of governmental authority. In the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, Jesus specifically commanded His servants not to attempt to uproot the tares from the wheat field. The field, Jesus said, represents the world. The wheat are the Christians and the tares are those who are not. Jesus explicitly commands that judgment upon people for rejecting Christ not take place until the Final Judgment.

   This, the most important execution of justice, is not something that God is willing to delegate to anyone else. I'm sure that God has many reasons for insisting upon performing this kind of judgment Himself, but the concern listed in the parable is that "while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them."

   It is this parable and other passages like it that make me an adherent to Roger Williams's theory of "The Two Tables of the Law." God has not authorized government to execute justice in matters of human beings' relationship with God. God will tend to that Himself. Rather, God has authorized human governments to execute justice in matters of human beings' relationships with one another. For this reason, I support unbridled religious liberty. The concern given in the Parable of the Wheat and Tares has proven in history to be well-taken: Governments that enforce religious conformity have, without fail, been governments that have persecuted Christians who share my theological convictions. No government should ever try to enforce a good relationship with God.

   Governments do rightfully exist to regulate human relationships. Business relationships, family relationships, and community relationships require governmental restraint upon the innate wickedness of human beings. The governmental justice that comes into these relationships, being mediated by fallen human beings, is imperfect—sometimes horrendously so. The human author of Romans 13 was all-too-aware of this, having been wrongly imprisoned and brutally punished more times than we dare count. Nevertheless, he knew, as God does, that imperfect human justice, inferior as it is to the ideals of divine perfection, is still far superior to anarchy.

   It is within this scope of authority—intercourse among human beings—that government can fulfill its purpose of rewarding the doing of good and punishing the doing of wrong. This biblical philosophy stands in marked contrast against the Libertarian philosophy of protecting individual rights.

3. As a Christian, I recognize Libertarianism's exaltation of individual liberty as spiritually unsophisticated. According to the Bible, this kind of liberty is actually slavery. Whoever deprives a person of the liberty of being a Crystal Meth addict is PRESERVING that person's individual liberty, not taking it away. Libertarianism, in its most consistent forms, fails to understand this.

   The contrast between the biblical concept of liberty and the Libertarian theory is striking. Libertarianism presumes that liberty is the natural state of mankind, and that people only lose their liberty when someone intervenes. Christianity presumes that bondage is the natural state of mankind, and that people only find liberty when someone intervenes.

4. As a human being, Libertarianism seems to me a hopelessly naïve philosophy of human liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Libertarianism fails to acknowledge that the liberties most precious to most of us are inherently social in nature rather than individualistic. Among all of the other liberties that I desire, I want the liberty to live in a community where my children can walk the streets in safety. I desire the liberty to choose an environment for my family in which we will be exposed to good role models who are trying to be moral people. I desire for my children to be able to choose mates from among a pool of peers who have at least seen something of a functioning home. Libertarianism does not acknowledge these as liberties, because they are not INDIVIDUAL liberties, but are instead liberties tied to the collective state of society.

   Consider, for example, divorce. The Libertarian approach to divorce must simply be that people, being full owners of themselves, have the unabrogated right to determine that they no longer wish to be married. The Christian approach to marriage is far different. According to the Bible (1 Corinthians 7:4), in marriage each individual is owned by his or her spouse, and together they are obligated to God who has joined them together (Mark 10:9). Both of these concepts—spousal ownership and divine obligation—directly contradict the fundamental precepts of Libertarianism.

   Furthermore, as the divorce rate skyrockets (and a consistent Libertarian can only rejoice that people are exercising their individual liberties), the fabric of society is being affected by these fundamental changes. The community is different when marriage is no longer capable of maintaining order in the families of a community. But I have to live in a community somewhere. I have no choice about that. And if I have no liberty to join with likeminded people to create the sort of community that is most beneficial to us—which unavoidably means curtailing the liberty of other individuals within the community to do things that damage the collective good of our community—then the most valuable and precious elements of my individual liberty have been stolen from me. But Libertarianism expressly asserts that I do not have that liberty—it does not even acknowledge that kind of liberty as important, although obviously it is in real life. This is the point at which Libertarianism is so naïve.

5. As a moral philosopher, I consider Libertarianism to be a ridiculously reductionistic approach to morality. Libertarianism is not the alternative to the legislation of morality; it is among the most inflexible and Totalitarian moral philosophies in existence. Libertarianism takes a single moral concept—that it is morally good for human beings to be free to make decisions for themselves—and makes it the trump card over all other moral concepts. Liberty is not merely good under Libertarianism; it is the summum bonum, and Libertarianism legislates this moral viewpoint upon everyone. Essentially, all other moral concepts cease to exist in Libertarianism, except as points of internal deliberation for the individual. Libertarianism requires that all of society conform to this ordering of moral principles in practice. Talk about cramming your morality down someone else's throat!

   Is morality really this simple? Is it always the most moral thing to maximize individualistic liberty? You need not be a Christian to suspect that something is missing here, but if you are a Christian, you must admit at this point that Libertarian morality is strangely at odds with the central tenets of your faith.

For these reasons I am not a Libertarian. Although I have no idealistic supposition that human government will lead us to utopia or ever be anything other than a stopgap measure imperfectly restraining evil until the day that all will be set right, I do believe that government is, on the whole, an important blessing given to the world by God. I'm all in favor of making it the greatest blessing that it can be. Future posts on that are upcoming, I hope.

Resume Cover Letter

Here's why they'll never enlist me to teach anybody how to write cover letters for resumes.

I've been praying for God to send you the right person as a pastor. I do sincerely pray that he will send you as your next pastor someone who is better qualified and more capable than I am. The Lord knows that your church needs just the right man at this sensitive time in your church's life.

Keith Sanders has been my friend since I was twelve years old. Like good friends should, he thinks more highly of me than he ought. It is my understanding that your committee contacted him and asked him for recommendations. He has asked me to send you my resume. It's a little bit out-of-date, but not much, and not in any way that matters much. I hope that it provides you with the information that you need.

I've been at FBC Farmersville for twelve years. Dr Jeremy Roberts, whom you likely know, recently told me, "I suspect that you'll die at FBC Farmersville." I can only hope that he meant that he could see the love that I have for this church and this place, and not that he expected my imminent demise! So, you need to know from the start that, if God should lead me to your church it would absolutely break my heart. I'm praying against it, and that's no joke. We'd start off with both the new church and the new pastor grieving. I hope Jeremy is right and that God leaves me here until a ripe old age.

But, I don't get to make those decisions. As the Kingdom of Heaven goes, I'm in labor, not management. It is God who led me here, and I can only serve at His pleasure. I have a very close friend in Keith, and he's asked me to consider this. He knows me pretty well and he's a godly man. I have to take that seriously. So, I've come up with a compromise: I decided to write the most discouraging email that I could honestly write and then attach my resume to it.

I'm an average preacher at best. I'm passionate about recovering a more meaningful and more closely-connected concept of church membership (see a video about that here), and because of that we're making changes here at FBC Farmersville. You might not be comfortable with those changes. I'm very conservative in my theology. I'm a Southern Baptist because I believe firmly in our historic doctrines. I'm often absent-minded and need a good secretary in order to be competent at all. I'm not the best multi-tasker in the world; I do better if I can focus on something. If you're looking for a high-octane personality who leads quick change and charges right over people, I'm not your guy. I realize that's the style today, but that's not me. A member here once asked me, "Bro. Bart, did you want our church to do this right away, or like a year from now?" I replied, "Mrs. Donna, in my way of thinking, a year from now IS right away."

I wear a suit and tie when I preach. If I didn't, I'm afraid that my mother would find out about it. You'd need to be comfortable with my dressing that way to preach, because that's how I'm comfortable when I preach. I don't require that of anyone else. In fact, you'll see a video of myself and an associate pastor here that shows my attitude on that subject pretty clearly.

Sometimes churches have some sort of a packet that they send out to everybody who sends a resume. If you have one of those, and if you plan to send it to me, please remove from it any information that might at all be related to the pastor's salary. I have been careful in my years of ministry never to know anything about salary information of any church until after reaching a final decision about whether God is calling me there. I don't think that I would make a wrong decision just because of money, but I'd rather avoid the temptation altogether than to find out where my limits are.

The people at FBC Farmersville know every blemish and problem with me, and they love me anyway. I don't keep secrets from them, because they're my family. If you should need to do so, you may contact anybody you want in this church or in this community. They know that I hear from churches on rare occasions (I never have understood why we pretend that church members don't know how this process works), and they're pretty confident that I want to stay right here, so you won't set them off into any sort of a panic.

Wade Burleson, who was at the center of so many controversies in the SBC a few years ago, may not think very highly of me, although I don't want to put words into his mouth. He's the pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, OK. I've also had the occasional bit of tension and disagreement with Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, although he is always a perfect gentleman about it. I recommend that you call them and find out about me in the worst possible light. I'm not saying that these are bad men, but just that they are two men whom I would consider least likely to feel any pressure to make me look good in their descriptions of me.

God's going to do great things in your church. I'm confident about that. I'm praying for you to find the right man, so long as it isn't me. I really mean that: I AM praying for you.

Yours in Christ,
Bart Barber

Quick Thoughts about T.D. Jakes and Trinitarianism

No time to blog well here. I'm just going with a laundry-list

1. Jakes's statement satisfies me that he is a Trinitarian. I read him differentiating his present view from his previous view of the Godhead. He affirmed not only "three persons" but also the concept that the three persons are to be distinguished from one another. The Father is not The Son is not The Holy Spirit, although all three are the One True God. In his first reply to Driscoll, Jakes seems to have affirmed that these attributes are eternal, not just matters of assignment or appearance.

   It is certainly possible that I am just not qualified enough to see the nuance that is missing here. I do not claim to be an expert in theology. And yet, I would count what Jakes has affirmed as Trinitarianism.

2. Jakes's statement makes it perfectly clear that he used to be a modalist. He himself characterizes his embrace of Trinitarianism as a movement away from something else. Driscoll characterized it similarly, with no rebuttal from Jakes. When did the change take place? We don't have data on that, but we do know that Jakes has never clearly articulated Trinitarianism in public before yesterday.

3. This is something for all of us to celebrate. When Jakes became a Trinitarian, he became a Christian. His eternal destiny changed at that moment. Now he needs to be baptized. Again, this is something to celebrate.

4. This is a complete vindication of those who criticized Jakes's earlier theology. As noted above, Jakes himself has now acknowledged that he used to be a modalist (not that that's news to anybody who has paid attention). There will be people who will perform a lot of self-congratulatory chest-thumping over this—people who have been defending Jakes—along the lines of "See, we were right all along, you muck-raking, ruckus-loving, slander-throwing watchbloggers!" If you're somebody who has held Jakes's feet to the fire on this issue in the past, it's really important for you not to pay attention to the minions of atheology on this question and to become defensive. Close their blog and open your Bible to James 5:20. Rejoice.

5. The Trinity is a big, big deal. It's a heaven-or-hell deal. Minimizing the doctrine of God is not helpful. Anyone who has pretended that this is not important is hurting, not helping. Jakes is certainly one of those people. Although he has espoused Trinitarianism, he certainly is minimizing the importance of that, both by trying to avoid specifically Trinitarian language where he can and by calling for unity between Trinitarians and modalists. Unity between us and Oneness folks would be wrong. It would be sinful for us to be one with them. Jakes must be rebutted at this point.

   But I would not say that it is the same level of sin to fail to condemn modalism as it is to espouse modalism and reject Trinitarianism. Both are wrongful, but only one is heretical, I think. If a failure to condemn modalism is damnable heresy, then T. D. Jakes isn't the only person we have to worry about. If you say that T. D. Jakes has to have condemned modalism as heresy in order to be a Trinitarian, then we have good grounds to question the Trinitarianism of every other participant in the Elephant Room. From what I've seen in transcripts, none of the people there condemned modalism. Perhaps some of them would, in some other context, but with the topic right up there on the table, nobody said a single word of condemnation against modalism.

   This makes them all wrong, and embarrassingly so, not only in my book but also along the lines of everything that historic orthodox Christianity has stood for. But it doesn't make them people who are going to Hell. I think, if you're going to condemn Jakes on the basis of his desire for greater unity between Trinitarians and modalists, you're going to have to condemn every other person on that platform (unless you believe that they all really do condemn modalism and are just cowards).

6. This is no complete vindication of T. D. Jakes. Yes, there are still massive theological problems with Jakes. He's a prosperity preacher. He's one who still desires ecumenity with modalists, even if he no longer is one. He's a terrible expositor. I wouldn't say that he's qualified to serve as a pastor. I certainly wouldn't support his presence preaching at anything at my church, anything in my denomination, or anything I was at all associated with.

   But all of that, serious as it is, can take a back seat for at least a moment. He's not presently being proposed to preach at my church, at anything in my denomination, or at anything I'm associated with. I don't even have to think about that right now, and there's something better to think about in its place. A man who has preached heresy has, on a worldwide stage, recanted from it and has espoused Trinitarianism. He has become a Christian. Surely, whatever other problems are attendant, THAT is something worthy of rejoicing in and of itself.

Or maybe I'm just being naïve.

Is an Insistence upon Heart-Languages Biblical?

The New Testament was written in Greek. You've probably read some speculation that one or two New Testament books may have been written first in Aramaic, but it is clear that the preponderance of New Testament books were written originally in Greek and that all of them existed almost exclusively in the Greek language relatively quickly in the history of Christianity. Although it was, at that time, the ROMAN Empire, the apostles did not, as far as I can tell, make any effort to write in Latin. Although Asia Minor was polyglot and the gospel was spreading into Africa and across all of the diversity of the Mediterranean Basin, the apostles were entirely content to evangelize and disciple in Greek.

Greek was the "heart-language" of Thessalonica and Corinth, but apart from them, I'm not sure that it could be considered the "heart-language" of any of the recipients of the other New Testament epistles or books.

I'm presuming that we've all heard sermons and lectures extolling this attribute of the Greco-Roman world—the availability of Greek as a common language throughout the empire—as one attribute of the "fulness of time" that God exploited in revealing the gospel at just the time that He did. And yet, people who affirm that idea and preach that kind of sermon, we will turn right around and say with regard to this day and time that the gospel has not been proclaimed somewhere and the Great Commission has not been obeyed somewhere until we have proclaimed it in the "heart-language" of that people-group. Is it OK for me to wonder aloud whether that insistence is biblical?

Let me make some things clear:

First, I'm not saying that I'm AGAINST the translation of the Bible and the propagation of the gospel into every language known to man. I'm IN FAVOR of that. I'm contributing to make it happen. I'm a fan and a supporter. I'm in favor of a lot of things that are advantageous to the Great Commission. The question is whether translation into "heart-language" is ESSENTIAL to the Great Commission—that until you've done that, you cannot have fulfilled the Great Commission among a people-group.

Second, I'm not denying that there are people in the world who speak and understand no language whatsoever in which the gospel is available. There are people like that. For them, we must provide gospel resources in their languages or we have not obeyed the Great Commission until we do so.

So, what I'm asking is none of those questions, but this: Suppose there is a tribe of people in Central America somewhere, living in a country for which the official language is Spanish. They also have a tribal language that is, compared to Spanish, obscure. The preponderance of people in that tribe speak BOTH their tribal language AND Spanish. One might accurately describe the tribal language as their "heart-language," but they are entirely functional in Spanish, conducting their lives and business in it with regularity. About such a people-group, I ask:

1. If Spanish Bibles are available for this people-group, is it accurate to say that they have no Christian literature available to reach them?
2. If a Spanish-speaking evangelical congregation is in their vicinity, is it accurate to say that they have no Christian churches?
3. If Christians have carried the gospel to these people in Spanish, has the Great Commission been carried out and has the gospel been proclaimed to them?
4. How are they different from, for example, the Galatians, whom the apostles were content to evangelize and disciple in Greek?
5. How are they different from, for example, a tribe of Sioux in North Dakota who might have received English Bibles, may have professed faith in Christ in English, and might attend English-speaking churches?

I'm not shooting at ANYBODY with this post. It's just that, our church having embarked upon this Embrace initiative, I as a pastor am in a position to need to have thought more carefully and to greater depth about my own understandings of Biblical missiology. I'm trying to work that out, and I'd appreciate constructive dialogue.

Why Condemnations of Last Saturday's Political Conclave of Evangelical Leaders Are Dangerous

In the "Magazine of Evangelical…" um…something (Christianity Today), David Neff has taken Paul & Nancy Pressler and around 150 other evangelical leaders to task for holding a meeting last Saturday at the Pressler ranch in an effort to unite behind a single conservative GOP candidate in this year's primary elections. The title of Neff's essay was "Why Last Saturday's Political Conclave of Evangelical Leaders Was Dangerous."

Neff's piece represents well a rising sentiment among a new generation of those who attend Evangelical churches. Popularity, however, does not always correlate well with sound thinking.

Here are, as best as I can discern them, the major points of Neff's attack:

1. The meeting somehow went beyond "political action" to address "the social, economic, and moral threats to a healthy society" (which Neff affirms as something he would support) and transgressed instead into "playing kingmaker and powerbroker." The people at the meeting apparently did this by "conspiring to throw their weight behind a single evangelical-friendly candidate."
2. This is a bad thing, according to Neff, because it feeds "the widespread perception that evangelicalism's main identifying feature is right-wing political activism focused on abortion and homosexuality."
3. Please note a key facet of Neff's argument: It isn't that these brothers and sisters went about doing these things wrongly (selecting the wrong candidate, following the wrong procedure, inviting the wrong people, etc.), but that they did it at all.

I submit to you that Neff's essay represents a nonsensical halfway covenant of sorts, the main appeal of which is its vague feeling of protest, essentially against the personalities involved.

Before engaging in point-by-point analysis, we ought to take a moment to ask ourselves what really happened at the ranch in Brenham (and I was not in attendance). A group of Christians (not a church) gathered. They share a common viewpoint about what are "the social, economic, and moral threats to a healthy society." They believe that the outcome of this year's presidential election will be relevant to those concerns. Having that belief, they found themselves motivated toward "political action." Strategically, they determined that the wisest political action to address their concerns would be to select a candidate whom they could support in the primary elections. Their process for deciding which candidate to support was to conduct a ballot vote. Everyone who came to the meeting came voluntarily. No one in the meeting is in any position to coerce anyone else at the meeting to abide by the decision.

OK, so somewhere in that preceding paragraph, we have to find something that makes it all "dangerous" in the manner that Neff has alleged.

Neff's first allegation is that the meeting went beyond "political action" and transgressed into the realm of "playing kingmaker and powerbroker." How, I wonder? The substance and procedure of the meeting was no different—not one iota different—from what happened at the Iowa Caucuses or the New Hampshire Primaries. A group of likeminded people (in the case of Iowa or New Hampshire, Republicans), believing that they should, for strategic reasons, consolidate their support behind a single candidate for an upcoming election (in this case, the general election in November), hold a vote (or a series of votes, in the case of Iowa) to decide which candidate will be the one for which they will campaign and vote in the days leading up to the general election.

I suppose there is a way in which the Iowa caucuses are, indeed, instances of kingmaking and powerbrokering. The only political processes that would not run afoul of this characterization would be, I guess, political processes that never result in decisions.

Neff must LOVE Congress.

Is this process something beneath Christian individuals? Does it soil them to engage in it? If so, then we need to disavow politics altogether, and certainly we need to refrain from going to our individual polling places and casting our ballots whenever the primary elections take place in our respective states. The substance of what happened in Iowa and what happened in Brenham is absolutely indistinguishable, except for size. And if such strategic politicking is out-of-bounds for Christians, what "political action" is left over for Neff to use in his "urgent" endeavors to address the "threats" that bother him?

There's nothing out of the ordinary about the process of this political meeting, or even about the role it plays in the larger process. Neff's argument against this particular political process can hardly be anything other than an attack on political strategy in general. Neff's argument is an Anabaptist one. He should go the whole way, for the sake of consistency, and abandon secular politics altogether. I admire the Anabaptists. Although I am not convinced of their position, it is internally coherent, makes a good argument, can make some biblical case for itself, and has a certain winsome appeal to this sometimes-idealist. Neff's position is remarkable for having none of those things. His halfway covenant—that Christians should join the rest of the nation in the political process, but must do so in a more foolish, less organized fashion than everybody else—is untenable.

Or, perhaps Neff isn't opposed to such political strategy and organization, per se (and I suspect that this is the case), but is simply reacting negatively toward the particular people involved in this meeting. If so, then he should have made it clear that he was writing a personal attack rather than an attempt at a reasonable philosophy of Christian political involvement. I think we're all at the place where we have to ask ourselves, if Rick Warren had hosted this meeting at his home in California to consolidate evangelical support behind a candidate promising to wipe out AIDS, would Neff have written a demeaning attack piece or would he have asked for time off to attend?

The second grievance in the article is that such meetings (or the existence of such people?) feed what is, in Neff's estimation, a bad perception of evangelicalism: "that evangelicalism's main identifying feature is right-wing political activism focused on abortion and homosexuality." We don't have any reliable indication that abortion and homosexuality were the only items on the agenda in Brenham. Indeed, another critique from a more widely respected press organ flatly asserted the opposite today: That the reason for this meeting was explicitly to go beyond abortion and homosexuality and to meddle in economics and foreign policy and the like.

French's analysis has to be accurate. If the question were simply about abortion and homosexuality, then there would be no need for a Brenham meeting. The people who went to Brenham are all in agreement already about abortion and homosexuality. They had no need to confer about that. This was a meeting to choose WHICH pro-life, pro-marriage candidate (among several) would be the better candidate based upon their differences in OTHER areas.

So, Neff is attacking a meeting that was about neither abortion nor homosexuality, claiming that the mere existence of such a meeting reinforces a perception that evangelicals are concerned, above all else, about abortion and homosexuality. Let's ask ourselves, is this "perception" something that we might categorize as a reasoned observation or an unthinking prejudice? The question matters a great deal. If it is the former, then the fault lies with evangelicals. If it is the latter, then the fault lies with those who hold the prejudice.

I submit to you that it is the latter. By any reasonable measure (where evangelical money goes, where evangelical time goes, what evangelical children wind up doing with their lives, etc.), political engagement is far from the main identifying feature of evangelicalism. The idea that this is the primary feature of evangelicalism is nothing more than a prejudice. The funny thing about prejudices is that they require very little in the way of evidence in order to survive. Neff's speculation that evangelicals would not suffer from such humiliations if Paul Pressler would discontinue such meetings is simply that—speculation. I think it is naïve speculation at that.

In point of fact, the grave embarrassment for evangelicalism these days is Rob Bell and Mike Licona, not Paul Pressler. It is the fact that the word "evangelical" has come to mean nothing substantive. It is the fact that so many rank-and-file evangelicals have very little idea what the Bible says, have only the vaguest notions of what they believe, and have very little firm intention of living according to any of it should it become uncomfortable to them. It is the fact that most evangelicals, if they encountered the rich young ruler today, would commission a self-study immediately after the encounter to try to determine why they weren't reaching the leaders of the next generation. To suggest that evangelicalism's public-relations ills are the fault of Paul Pressler et al is wishful thinking.

Christians need not apologize for being involved in the political process. Christians need not apologize for trying to do so wisely, so long as they are doing so honestly. Churches shouldn't be endorsing particular candidates in this primary election, in my opinion, but individual Christians citizens will be, for a few seconds on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the sovereign rulers of this nation. As such, they are responsible before the Lord for everything the Bible teaches us about being good, godly rulers, so far as their influence reaches. I'm thankful that there are people who take that responsibility seriously. If a Christian can honorably vote, there's nothing wrong with campaigning. If you're going to campaign, there's nothing wrong with campaigning in an organized fashion. To pretend otherwise is to demand that Christians participate in the electoral process, but always in a passive fashion. David Neff's opinion notwithstanding, I think THAT is a dangerous outcome.

Grace, the Gospel, and Role Expectations in Titus 2

One of the erroneous assertions made about biblical prescriptions for gender roles, workplace roles, and age-related roles is the appeal to grace and the gospel as the rationale for abandoning these distinctions. The line of argumentation begins with the presumption, without scriptural foundation, that role differences are inherently enslaving and negative (rather than merely that sinful people often work sinful things through roles). It then proceeds to evaluate the gospel as entailing the obliteration of these negative roles and the liberation of those enslaved by them. And so, whether the roles be attributed to the ancient culture in which God chose to bring forth the Bible or to the prior domain of the Old Testament, gender roles, age roles, and occupational roles become "the Rules" that Grace has set aside.

And then there's Titus 2. It's a remarkably pristine piece of text, with no textual difficulties appearing at all in the apparatus. There's really no question what this chapter says, and there's no question that this entire chapter fits together as a unified pericope.

An inclusio marks the boundaries of the pericope here, bracketed by injunctions to Titus to speak clearly and forcefully in the churches, transmitting these Pauline directives:

Σὺ δὲ λάλει ἃ πρέπει τῇ ὑγιαινούσῃ διδασκαλίᾳ….

….Ταῦτα λάλει καὶ παρακάλει καὶ ἕλεγχε μετὰ πάσης ἐπιταγῆς· μηδείς σου περιφρονείτω.

In English (NASB)

But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine….

….These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Besides the inclusio, another indication that all of chapter 2 belongs together rhetorically is the presence of the particle γὰρ ("for") in the first sentence of the second paragraph (2:11). The word γὰρ is generally one of the earlier particles that students of the Greek language learn. It occurs regularly throughout the New Testament. It is rhetorically important. According to the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon, this particle simply "[introduces] the reason or cause for what precedes." Thus, in persuasive texts that frequently present lines of reasoning for things (like New Testament epistles), the word γὰρ was a handy tool for the authors and is an important key marker for the task of interpretation.

The function of this word in Titus 2 is no mystery: The second paragraph (2:11-15) provides the "reason or cause for" the first paragraph (2:1-10).

And so, we're thankful that, in this case, Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton (c1150-1228), when assigning the New Testament into chapters, listened carefully to the Holy Spirit and got Titus 2 precisely right. These two paragraphs clearly belong together in this pericope.

So, these paragraphs say something together. But what do they say?

The first paragraph consists entirely of what many must regard as a set of stern, inflexible prescriptions of biblical roles according to gender, age, and economic condition. Older men must put aside any youthful problems they had with alcoholic beverages, undignified behavior, foolishness, or fickleness and instead become temperate, dignified, sensible, and sound in faith, love, and perseverance. Older women, similarly, are to put aside their problems with alcoholic beverages, gossip, and irreverence, positioning themselves as the teachers of younger women. Those younger women, by the way, are assigned to the love of husband and children, work at home, and subjection to their husbands, among other things. Younger men simply receive the command to be sensible. Slaves are to be subject to their masters. It says something about the spread of Christianity mostly among the poor that there was no need in Crete for instructions to masters.

Along the way, several reasons appear in the first paragraph to justify the need for believers to adhere closely to these roles. Younger women must remain within these biblical boundaries of behavior "so that the word of God will not be dishonored." (2:5) Titus receives a set of instructions for his own behavior (and he, I presume, was one who belonged in the category of "younger men" although he was, by office and calling, an "elder" in the church), "so that the opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us." (2:8) In both of these cases, some argument can be made that there is room for these behavioral norms to have been conditioned by culture, although neither one really makes a good case for that as the only way to understand the passage.

The statement to Titus in 2:8 clearly has in mind the church's reputation among outside opponents. Opponents would be able to revile the church and the gospel if Titus, as the church's key missionary-leader, were, say, an example of bad deeds rather than an example of good deeds, as Paul instructed. The opinion of opponents was definitely in mind, and yet so was the matter of biblical truth. The important fact here is that the opponents, if they were to criticize Titus for bad deeds that he had wrought, would have been right! If the cultural-conditioning of this passage were the dominant factor in interpretation, one would have to conclude that, in some hypothetical culture in which the opponents valued bad deeds and criticized good deeds, Titus would have been commanded to be an example in bad deeds in order to protect the reputation of the church. Of course, that would be preposterous. The intent here is not to chase the culture wherever it goes, but to deny the culture any VALID reason to demean Christians and dishonor Christ's church.

The statement about younger women in 2:5 dishonoring the word of God when they are not workers at home who love their children and love and subject themselves to their husbands and are sensible, pure, and kind, actually uses the word "blaspheme." It is a passive construction (βλασφημῆται) that does not clearly state whether Christian women who do not live in this way are themselves, by their own behavior, blaspheming the word of God, or whether they are simply causing other people (Those who see their behavior and are scandalized by it? Their children and husbands who suffer on account of their refusal to abide by these biblical roles?) to blaspheme the word of God. And so, if this verse is considered all alone without the benefit of context, it might be equally possible that the key concern of this passage is that contrary behavior by Christian women is inherently wrong, or that there is simply a fear that other people will react wrongly to contrary behavior. In simpler words, one can, if he ignores the context, legitimately ask whether it is God or other people who are offended by young women who don't act according to these role expectations.

There is also in this first paragraph a promise to slaves that their honesty and fidelity in service will "adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect."

So, just in the first paragraph, we see that adhering to these roles prevents blasphemy against the word of God, denies opponents any legitimate criticisms to hurl against churches, and attractively accessorizes (in the fashion sense) good Christian doctrine. All of these reasons appear as asides in this first paragraph spelling out the role expectations of these early Christians, and that before we even reach the paragraph written to give the major reason for the prescription of these roles for Christian believers!

When we get to verse 11 and reach that second paragraph, we discover that the major reason for adhering to these role expectations is neither the culture nor the Law, but grace and the gospel. As we saw above, the particle γὰρ clearly, indisputably, establishes the role of this second paragraph as a delineation of the major reason for the teachings of the preceding paragraph. Indeed, it functions as the thematic rationale for the majority of the third chapter of this letter as well, which resumes the theme of submission to authority and adherence to biblical role expectations, expanding it to discuss some aspects of the role of members in the congregation.

And what does this second paragraph say? What is the reason for older men, older women, younger women, younger men, slaves and (in other places in the New Testament) masters to adhere strictly to expectations bound up to their respective roles?

Ἐπεφάνη φὰρ ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ σωτήριος πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις παιδεύσα ἡμας, ἵνα ἀρνησἀμενοι τὴν ἀσέβειαν καὶ τὰς κοσμικὰς ἐπιθυμἰας σωφρὀνως καὶ δικαίως καὶ εὐσεβῶς ζήσωμεν ἐν τῷ νῦν αἰῶνι, προσδεχὀμενοι τὴν μακαρίαν ἐλπίδα καὶ ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ,…

In English (NASB)

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,…

So, there you go. According to the New Testament in Titus 2, why should older men, older women, younger women, and younger men live according to these role expectations? Because of the appearing of the grace of God and because of the gospel of salvation that it brings.

Titus 2 is really a remarkable passage to teach us about what the New Testament means when it speaks of the grace of God. We hear a lot about grace these days. It's awfully easy to reduce the New Testament doctrine of grace down to one's own political or anthropological theory or theological presuppositions. But here are a few of the things that God teaches us about His grace in Titus 2:

1. God's salvation-bringing grace has appeared and has come to all men.
2. Grace has very much to do with prescribing rules of behavior for people and for empowering them to live according to those standards. Indeed, to preach instructing people to deny ungodliness in their behavior, to deny worldly desires in their behavior, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in their behavior is, according to Titus 2, at least a part of what it means to preach the salvation-bringing grace of God.
3. Christ's purpose of grace on the cross was not only to redeem me from Hell or from Satan, but to redeem us from every lawless deed in our behavior.
4. Additionally, Christ's purpose was our purification, not merely ceremonially, but in the reform of our behavior.
5. Christ purposed through grace to own us…to possess us, and to make us people whose internal nature and outward behavior were fitting for those who would be possessed by Christ.
6. It is the purpose of Christ in grace and the consequence of grace that we should possess a zeal about good deeds in our behavior.

And so, to live within these roles is an example, in Titus 2, of the good behavior that was the very design of the grace of God envisioned by Christ in His giving of Himself on the cross.

Of course, all of this will pose very little obstacle for a great many of the egalitarians in the world, for a great many of them do not believe that Paul wrote Titus (and wouldn't even feel all that constrained by it if he did). And yet, for inerrantists, the complementarian implications of Titus 2 would seem difficult to escape. Certainly, even if one were to argue that times have changed and the church ought to change with them, it would be absurd to deduce that the New Testament teaches that the gospel abolishes role expectations according to gender, age, or station in life when, in Titus 2, the New Testament clearly and forcefully required at least one group of people to toe the line of gender and age distinctions explicitly because of grace and the gospel.

In discussions of gender roles, 1 Timothy 2:11-15 gets a lot of attention, and rightfully so. Nevertheless, we ought to save some attention for Titus 2:11-15 in the discussion, as well.