A Discussions On The Vacuity Of R2K

Bret wrote,

“Culture is defined as “theology externalized,” or, “the outward manifestation of a people’s inward beliefs.”

And David Rothstein responded

“As far as I know, this is not a commonly accepted definition, even among Christians, though of course you’re free to use it. I personally don’t find it helpful since most things that we associate with culture do not necessarily manifest theological systems—or at the very least cannot be fully explained in these terms.”

Bret answers,

First off, the definition isn’t mine but comes from Henry Van Til who borrowed it from Paul Tillich. You might want to interact with them and show why they are wrong on the definition of culture before you so casually dismiss it.

Here is the appropriate section from Van Til’s book, “The Calvinistic Concept of Culture.”

“It is…more correct to ask what the role of culture is in religion than to put the question the other way around, as Hutchison does, ‘What is religion’s role in culture?’ For man, in the deepest reaches of his being, is religious; he is determined by his relationship to God. Religion, to paraphrase the poet’s expressive phrase, is not of life a thing apart, it is man’s whole existence. Hutchison, indeed, comes to the same conclusion when he says, ‘For religion is not one aspect or department of life beside the others, as modern secular thought likes to believe; it consists rather in the orientation of all human life to the absolute’. Tillich has captured the idea in a trenchant line, ‘Religion is the substance of culture and culture the form of religion.’

The Westminster Shorter Catechism maintains at the outset that man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. However other-worldly this may sound to some, Presbyterians have interpreted this biblically to mean that man is to serve God in his daily calling, which is the content of religion. This service cannot be expressed except through man’s cultural activity, which gives expression to his religious faith. Now faith is the function of the heart, and out of the heart are the issues of life (Prov. 4:23). This is the first principle of a biblically oriented psychology.

No man can escape this religious determination of his life, since God is the inescapable, ever-present Fact of man’s existence. God may be loved or hated, adored or debased, but he cannot be ignored. The sense of God (sensus deitatis) is still the seed of religion (semen religionis). All of primitive religion is corroboration of the cry of the Psalmist, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or wither shall I flee from thy presence?” (Ps. 139:7).”

Second, your assertion that “most things that we associate with culture do not necessarily manifest theological systems—or at the very least cannot be fully explained in these terms,” is just plain errant. History, Law, Education, Arts, Family life, Ecclesiastical, Fashion, Architecture, and all other institutional infrastructure of a culture is explained by theology.

Bret wrote,

But I would disagree w/ you that the handling of that common reality by those committed to hostility of Christ allows them to understand the dialect with which the Christian speaks.

David responded,

I never claimed that unbelievers understand the significance of “justification,” “sanctification,” or “regeneration.”

Bret responds,

And I never said that was the dialect that I was speaking of. The Christian dialect is based on the fact that objective meaning exists by virtue of God’s reality. The Christian believes and speaks with the dialect that recognizes that, all things are what they are because of who God is. The non Christian dialect locates meaning subjectively and their dialect is based on their own fiat word legislating meaning. Because this is true when I say “culture,” for example, the Christian finds meaning in God’s word that, “As a man thinketh in his heart so he is,” and then by good and necessary consequence understands that God’s definition of culture is that it is the manifestation of men thinking in their heart (theology externalized) while the non Christian or the unbiblical Christian will try to define “culture” (our working example) based upon their own self legislating subjective fiat word.

Bret had asked,

Is the clothing that the hooker wears the same as the clothing that the pastor’s wife wears?

David responds,

I live in a neighborhood inhabited by many unbelievers, but as far as I know, none of them is a hooker. My next-door neighbor happens to be Jewish and his wife dresses much like many pastor’s wives that I know of.

Bret interacts,

And what does this prove?

It merely proves that the Jewish wife is not dressing in a way that is consistent with her denial of the God of the Bible. It is common grace that your neighbor Jewish wife is not immoral as she could possibly be given her Christ hating presuppositions. I never denied common grace.

However, that your Jewish neighbor’s Jewish wife is not dressing like a trollop is not due to the fact that she has given up her work of determining meaning by her own legislative fiat word. It just happens to be the case, by God’s common grace, that her subjective legislative fiat word coincides with God’s objective fiat word when it comes to modest dress. As Christians we are always glad for this felicitous inconsistency that results from common grace.

Bret had inked,

“Are our houses furnished the same way? I can foresee a consistent Christ hater having a secret dungeon for S & M games.”

David responded,

Again, you’re having to stretch past the edges of socially acceptable behavior for all your contrasts. I am quite certain that the vast majority of my non-Christian neighbors are apparently not “consistent” Christ-haters and don’t have secret dungeons.

Honestly, it almost seems that you can’t tell the difference between “non-Christian” and “criminal.” Prostitution is illegal, gang bangers are likely to end up in prison, and while S&M may not be as frowned upon as it once was, there is a reason why they still keep those dungeons “secret.” But most of my non-Christian neighbors somehow manage to stay out of trouble with the law. There’s no denying that certain behavior that has become more socially acceptable in the society at large is not acceptable for professing Christians, but this is consistent with the thesis of a cultural realm that is common and not exclusively Christian.

Bret engages,

First, a slight correction … “Prostitution is not illegal in some places in this country.”

This is a key point of our interaction David. Note what you have done here. You have told us that your standard is “socially acceptable behavior,” but my question in response to you is, “what is the standard for socially acceptable behavior” (?).

What is the standard for what is “criminal?”

The answer to both of those questions is God’s legislating law word. To the law and to the Testimony as Isaiah says. But you don’t like that answer because you want to seemingly want to allow “socially acceptable behavior” to be the standard. But by that standard Homosexuality and Abortion are perfectly acceptable behaviors for our social order since they are now socially acceptable and now no longer criminal.

I can tell the difference between non-Christian behavior that isn’t criminal and criminal behavior but then I have a standard that allows me to make such a distinction.

And again, I am glad that God’s common grace is operative for your neighbors the way it is but the fact that God’s common grace prevents your neighbors from being consistent in their Christ hating does not mean that such a thing as a common sphere exists that is not to be normed by God’s word.

Bret had inked,

“The non Christian, as they are increasingly consistent w/ their anti-Christ presuppositions will despoil and mar all the culture they share with the Christian who is becoming likewise increasingly consistent w/ their Christ embracing presuppositions.”

David responded,

I know that Van Til spoke in terms like these, but I’m not sure what you mean by it. If you simply mean that unbelievers abuse God’s good gifts for selfish ends, then granted. Or if you mean that anti-theistic philosophical systems are opposed to Christianity, then duh. But in what sense do non-Christians “despoil and mar” culture? (Did Aristotle despoil logic? Did Itzhak Perlman despoil violin music?)

When hip hop and gangsta rap is called “music” culture is despoiled. When modern art is considered art culture is despoiled. When homosexuality is legalized culture is marred and despoiled. When the church allows women in office the culture is marred and despoiled. When education teaches humanism culture is marred and despoiled. When law becomes ordered by logical positivism culture is marred and despoiled. When families are redefined and are fractured because of the theology of foreign gods culture is marred and despoiled. When science embraces evolution culture is marred and despoiled. Enough examples David?

In terms of philosophy, according to Dr. David Noe, one of the R2K aficionados, we are told there is no such thing as Christian philosophy.

“If by “Christian philosophy” one means philosophizing (the production and evaluation of rational arguments that deal with such things as ethics and metaphysics, for example) that deals with explicitly Christian topics, then at first glance the adjective has some salience. But deeper reflection, I argue, proves that this designation is also problematic. Presumably a very bright non-Christian reasoning consistently, diligently and with complete access to the basic data of special revelation, can more often reach sound and valid conclusions than the most devout yet dim-witted believer on the topic of our Lord’s incarnation.

If that is true, what would it be about the believer’s philosophizing that makes it uniquely Christian? If we cannot tell based on the product of his or her work whether our philosopher was practicing “Christian philosophy” even on topics that deal explicitly with matters of faith, does the noun “philosophy” receive any meaningful modification when we add “Christian” to it? Could one really be said to practice Christian philosophy in that instance? Are we not rather just back at the same point with philosophy done well (producing both sound and valid arguments that tell us something meaningful about the world), but that it is Christian when done by Christians with specific goals and dispositions motivating them and non-Christian otherwise?”

So, if there is no such thing as theistic philosophy how can there be such a thing as anti-theistic philosophy. I don’t think R2K acolyte Dr. David Noe would understand you “no duh” statement. Of course Dr. Noe’s problem is that he doesn’t take account of the fact that the non Christian philosopher takes as his starting point that the God of the Bible is not and should not be His starting point. Dr. Noe allows autonomous man to be his own authority and so questions whether or not Christian philosophizing exists.

Finally in terms of logicians like Aristotle or violinists like Christian Ferras, once again we rejoice in a common grace that results in felicitous inconsistency.

Bret had written

“The things you classify as “accouterments of culture,” are indeed a consequential manifestation of ultimate theological commitments. Will we as a culture build Tepees for houses? Will we listen to hip hop or classical? Will we fund with our taxes a gulag archipelago or will we fund interstate highways.”

David responds,

If a native American becomes a Christian, is he required to move out of his tepee and into a suburban home? What is it about a teepee that make it non-Christian, and which ultimate theological commitments are manifested in suburban homes? I don’t know that these things are patently obvious. Preference for hip hop or classical is an issue of low culture vs. high culture, which of course transcends the antithetical divide. And I don’t know what is particularly Christian about interstate highways.

I never said that Teepees weren’t or couldn’t be Christian. I said that they were consequential manifestations of ultimate theological commitments.

If you can’t see that it is patently obvious that a people who build Teepees and a people who build Cathedrals have different conceptions of God, I’m sure I can’t explain it to you. If you can’t see that hip hop is anti-music as opposed to the music of a Bach I can’t explain it to you. Some of these matters ought to be self evident to someone who believes in Natural Law.

Van Til could say this about your examples,

“It is God’s longsuffering patience which would lead you (unbeliever) to repentance that enables you to do all those things which “for the matter of them” are “in themselves praiseworthy and useful.” God intends to accomplish his ultimate end, the establishment of his kingdom. That is the reason why you are now able to contribute positively to the coming of that kingdom. The harps you make, the oratorios you produce, the great poems you have written, the scientific discoveries you have made will, with your will or against your will, all find their place in the unified structure of the kingdom of God through Christ. Now, then, in God’s name repent, for otherwise the Israelites will “borrow” your treasures and you shall perish in the Red Sea like the Egyptians (91).”

Now clearly this quote from Cornelius Van Til reveals he not hold to R2K because he understands that realities from the R2K common realm all find their place in the Kingdom of God.

Bret had wrote,

“I keep telling you that in the “already,” of the “already, not yet” the world to come is already here but you keep telling me that world to come is still all not yet.”

David Rothstein responds,

But what I keep hearing you tell me is that the “not yet” of the “already/not yet” is already here—or at least that we can cause it to arrive by being more epistemologically self-conscious. Perhaps it is a matter of differing millennial positions (though even Van Til, as far as I know, was amil).

The “already” is already here. That is why the “push me, pull you” is called “already, not yet.”

And I do believe that as we grow in faith that the Spirit who leads us into faith growth does cause us, both personally and corporately, to be transformed from glory unto glory.

Van Til was indeed amil although all of Old Westminster was postmil.

In the end David, for the Christian his regeneration is a introduction to the ability to consistently find proper meaning in everything. Outside of Christ the meaning that the pagan finds is a meaning that is autonomously legislated by the pagan’s fiat word. Once regenerated he begins to move increasingly in glad submission to God’s legislated meaning, discovering that his Redemption and regeneration has awakened him for the first time to the meaning of objective meaning.

This reality explains why the Christian can not allow any project to succeed that would allow the pagan to have objective meaning in and of themselves or by their own authority in any realm (R2K). This desire to be the one who creates or, supposedly discovers meaning, is the very thing that is in rebellion to God and has to be overcome by the Spirit of Regeneration.

This is not to say that the pagan who legislates their own meaning always gets matters wrong. Clearly they don’t. Common grace exists. It is to say that when they get meaning right they can not account, epstimelogically speaking, and on the basis of their own presuppositions, why the meaning they have assigned to this or that is the proper meaning. If even a blind old sow can find a acorn once in awhile so a unregenerate pagan can stumble on proper meaning occasionally even if they do so in spite of themselves.

Theonomy Dustup

There is, in the micro world of the theonomy movement, a conflict that is escalating between those who are invoking the ghost of Rushdoony in opposition to Ron Paul Libertarianism and those who are invoking the ghost of the great Rushdoony in favor of Paul.

The debate can be found in these two articles.

http://theonomyresources.blogspot.com/2012/03/r-j-rushdoony-versus-ron-pauls.html

Theonomy’s “Radical Libertarianism”

Of course my position is to warn against both of these positions.

I am not a big fan of the author of the first link. He seems to fail to realize that the first rule of survival when one is threatened with the suffocating danger of statist tyranny is to take any weapon at hand to beat off the tyrannical attack. Ron Paul is that weapon. Now I might wish I had a different weapon or a better weapon with which to fight for my survival but in a snow storm any Huskie will do. I support Ron Paul because he is the guy who gives me the opportunity to get the ruddy foot of the State off my neck.

In terms of the McDurmon article (2nd link) the one thing McDurmon is missing is the reality that libertarianism can not work among a people who are not self governed in terms of God’s law word. This is the fault of contemporary Libertarianism. It advances the idea of liberty but the liberty it advances is in actuality a libertinism where each man does is what is right in his own eyes.

Rushdoony did and would have used these people to advance his agenda but he never would have confused his agenda with their agenda. The people who McDurmon are writing against don’t get the 1st part of that last sentence and I wonder if people like McDurman and Marinov get the second part of that first sentence. The Libertarianism of Rushdoony clearly is not the Libertarianism of modern Libertarianism. The fact that Rush could say, “In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had,” must be read against the idea that radical Libertarianism is opposed at every point to any idea of theocracy. Rush believed that Theocracy was a inescapable reality that could not be avoided. Clearly, by radical libertarian standards Rush did not embrace radical libertarianism.

Theonomists, out of necessity and because of a common enemy, are now dining with the Libertarian Paul but it is a dining which must be done with a long spoon. Halbrook doesn’t want to dine at all. The American Visions spoon isn’t long enough given the kinds of things I’ve read Marinov writing.

The problems with Paul are not slight. They are significant. His stand on sodomites in the military is atrocious. His position on illegal immigration is no longer acceptable. Recent words lauding Martin Luther King are troublesome. I do not agree with him that abortion is acceptable on a state by state basis. However, despite all that I would vote for Paul in a heart beat because I think his agenda for governing can not work since we are a balkanized culture. Libertarianism can only work in a culture where the citizenry share a world and life view. However, a President Paul would be the best shot at allowing a peaceful breakup of these united States. That is what I believe needs to happen in order to stop the Statists and the tyrants and since the statists and the tyrants would never let that happen, I support Paul because I am confident he would let it happen upon the failure of his governing by Libertarian principles.

So, beware of both the arguments that Rushdoony was a closet Randian libertarian per guys like Marinov but also beware the arguments of guys like Halbrook who argue that Rushdoony would have had no tuck at all with a Libertarianism which he could use to advance his unique vision of a theonomic order in which a genuine Libertarianism could flourish.

Matthew Henry, Humanist Manifesto & Constitution of the USSR On Babel

While reading Matthew Henry I came across something from Henry that really flies in the face of much of what we see in our the mad pursuit of multiculturalism, or in suppositions supporting the idea that nations are social constructs that can be held together merely on the basis of propositions. On Genesis 11 (Babel) Matthew Henry can write,

1. Their language was confounded. God, who, when he made man, taught him to speak, and put words into his mouth fit to express the conceptions of his mind by, now caused these builders to forget their former language, and to speak and understand a new one, which yet was common to those of the same tribe or family, but not to others: those of one colony could converse together, but not with those of another.

Understand the implications of Henry’s statement.

When God dispersed the tongues the variation and number of tongues was equal to the variation and numbers of preexisting tribes. The fact that God dispersed them by language implies that he dispersed them by tribal identity. If Henry is correct here (and I think he is) this drives a stake through the often repeated meme of the Christian cultural Marxists that Babel was about languages and not ethnicities. Henry would have us realize that there is a nexus between the confounding of the language and the tribes to whom the languages belonged. When the languages were dispersed, Henry believed, the dispersal was tribe by tribe according to language. Precisely because it was about languages it was about ethncities.

Henry again offers,

(4.) The project of some to frame a universal character, in order to a universal language, how desirable soever it may seem, is yet, I think, but a vain thing to attempt; for it is to strive against a divine sentence, by which the languages of the nations will be divided while the world stands

If, according to Henry’s previous reasoning that the confounded tongues corresponded to the confounded tribes then Henry is telling us that ethnic homogeneity for tribes or nations is the divine standard while the world stands. By Henry’s previous reasoning the attempt to build a universal people at Babel was confounded by dividing the tribes by dividing their languages.

Current Christian Cultural Marxists, according to Herny, strive against the divine sentence when they insist on pursuing a Christianity that ignores God’s dividing of the peoples.

Now, to underscore Henry’s comments we examine how the enemies of Christianity have consistently striven against the divine sentence of dividing people’s and languages of which Henry speaks.

Humanist Manifesto II

ELEVENTH: The principle of moral equality must be furthered through elimination of all discrimination based upon race, religion, sex, age, or national origin. This means equality of opportunity and recognition of talent and merit. Individuals should be encouraged to contribute to their own betterment. If unable, then society should provide means to satisfy their basic economic, health, and cultural needs, including, wherever resources make possible, a minimum guaranteed annual income. We are concerned for the welfare of the aged, the infirm, the disadvantaged, and also for the outcasts – the mentally retarded, abandoned, or abused children, the handicapped, prisoners, and addicts – for all who are neglected or ignored by society. Practicing humanists should make it their vocation to humanize personal relations.

We deplore racial, religious, ethnic, or class antagonisms. Although we believe in cultural diversity and encourage racial and ethnic pride, we reject separations which promote alienation and set people and groups against each other; we envision an integrated community where people have a maximum opportunity for free and voluntary association.

TWELFTH: We deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds. We have reached a turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community in which all sectors of the human family can participate. Thus we look to the development of a system of world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government. This would appreciate cultural pluralism and diversity. It would not exclude pride in national origins and accomplishments nor the handling of regional problems on a regional basis. Human progress, however, can no longer be achieved by focusing on one section of the world, Western or Eastern, developed or underdeveloped. For the first time in human history, no part of humankind can be isolated from any other. Each person’s future is in some way linked to all. We thus reaffirm a commitment to the building of world community, at the same time recognizing that this commits us to some hard choices.

The 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union

ARTICLE 123. Equality of rights of citizens of the U.S.S.R., irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

We see when we compare and contrast a Father of Historic Christianity (Matthew Henry) with the 20th century Humanists and Communists we see a marked contrasts between the oikophilia (love of one’s household and one’s faith) of Christianity and the Babelphilia (love of Babel and so hatred of ethnic distinctions) of the Marxists. Now, naturally this one point of harmony of Christians and Marxist does not by itself prove that Christians who embrace a globalism that automatically attacks ethnic homogeneity in a knee jerk fashion are Marxists but it at least should cause us to ask questions.

McAtee Contra VanDrunen On Religious Commitment & Social Orders

‎”…what sort of religious commitment, if any, should be promoted or required within the social order? The answer, I suggest, is none. A crucial consideration is the fact that God made the Noahic covenant with “you [Noah and his sons] and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you” (9:9-10). The human race generally (along with the animal kingdom) is God’s covenant partner. Not a single distinction is made between believers and unbelievers, but God promises to preserve them in their common social life.”

~ Dr. David Van Drunen, 2012 lecture

How thoughtful of Dr. Van Drunen to give us so clearly and to so passionately advocate his religious commitment for the social order. Dr. VD’s religious commitment for the social order that he is advocating is that the social order should be animated by the religious commitment of no religious commitment. Another way to label his religious commitment for the social order is ” Social Order Atheism. Interestingly enough this is the exact same social order theory advocated by Marxists of all hues and stripes.

Now, some desire to answer Dr. Van Drunen by insisting that the religious commitment of the social order should be all religious commitments. In this thinking the social order should be animated by all religious commitments. This is sometimes called pluralism but I prefer to label it as Social Order Polytheism. Interestingly enough this is the social order advocated by all anarchists.

The main problem with Dr. Van Drunen’s thinking is that it presupposes that man can cease being Homo Adorans (man the worshiper) in his common realm. For Dr. Van Drunen man is no longer a worshiper as he lives and moves and has is being in the social order, and not being a worshiper man can create a social order that is not reflective of any ultimate religious commitment to a god or god concept. Such a thinking puts a severe strain on ones desire to be a irenic.

In both situations of social order Atheism or social order polytheism, even though they each being with seemingly opposite religious commitments for the social order, they end up in the same place. If the social order is to be Atheistic then it will be the autonomous man deified as the State that will create the social order and the citizenry will be required to have religious commitments to the state. If the social order is to be polytheistic then it will require some institution to set the limits on how these competing religious commitments will interact in the social order. That institutions will likely be the State. Both of these positions lead us to the outcome that in the State we will live and move and have or being for the social order.

Irrational Fundamentalism

Text — I Corinthians 15:1-6
Subject — Resurrection
Theme — Christ’s Resurrection
Propositions — Examining the modern way of thinking of Christ’s resurrection

Purpose — Therefore having looked at the modern way of thinking about Christ’s resurrection let us praise God that in the Scriptures He provides clarity for how we should think about the Resurrection.

Introduction

15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

The great premises of the Bible is that

God is real
God is Holy
Man is a sinner
Man is accountable to God
Man has sought to displace God for himself as god
God intends to judge men for this high handed rebellion
Man can find safety from that judgment in the judgment of God that fell on Christ

That God is satisfied with us because He is satisfied with His judgment that fell on Christ is attested to by the Resurrection. The Scripture’s say that  Christ

“was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

The Scripture teaches that because of Christ’s death and resurrection “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

So … no bodily resurrection of Christ, no possible sense of relief from the inescapable sense of God’s just wrath and opposition to us.

The resurrection then is instrumental to the Christian faith. Without the real live resurrection of Jesus Christ from the doldrums of the grave there is no such thing as Christianity.

Of the import of the bodily Resurrection to the bible believing Christian there can be little doubt. In this Passage in Corinthians Paul turns to the importance of the resurrection of Jesus repeatedly.

14and if Christ hath not risen, then void [is] our preaching, and void also your faith,

17and if Christ hath not risen, vain is your faith, ye are yet in your sins;
18then, also, those having fallen asleep in Christ did perish;
19if in this life we have hope in Christ only, of all men we are most to be pitied.

The Early Church Father Chysostom realized how important the resurrection of Christ was to the spread of Christianity.

“For in what were the disciples confident? In the shrewdness of their reasonings? Nay of all men they were the most unlearned. But in the abundance of their possessions? Nay, they neither had staff nor shoes. But in the distinction of their race? Nay, they were mean, and of mean ancestors. But in the greatness of their country? Nay, they were of obscure places. But in their own numbers? Nay, they were not more than eleven, and they were scattered abroad. But in their Master’s promises? What kind of promises? For if He were not risen again, neither would those be likely to be trusted by them. And how should they endure a frantic people. For if the chief of them endured not the speech of a woman, keeping the door, and if all the rest too, on seeing Him bound, were scattered abroad, how should they have thought to run to the ends of the earth, and plant a feigned tale of a resurrection? For if he stood not a woman’s threat, and they not so much the sight of bonds, how were they able to stand against kings, and rulers, and nations, where were swords, and gridirons, and furnaces, and ten thousand deaths by day, unless they had the benefit of the power and grace of Him who rose again? Such miracles and so many were done, and none of these things did the Jews regard, but crucified Him Who had done them, and were they likely to believe these men at their mere word about a resurrection? These things are not, they are not so, but the might of Him Who rose again brought them to pass.”

Many years later another minister commented on how central a particular understanding of the resurrection is to the Christian faith.

“This truth (Resurrection) is so important that nothing in religion can exist without it. The apostles diligently confirmed it in the first churches; and for the same reason it was attacked by Satan and denied and opposed by many. This was done in two ways: first by an open denial of any such thing – “how can some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead?” (1 Cor 15:12); and second, those who did not dare to attack it directly expounded it in an allegorical way, saying that “the resurrection has already taken place” (2 Tim. 2:18). Observe that our apostle in both cases does not only condemn these errors as false but declares positively that their admission overthrows the faith and makes the preaching of the Gospel vain and useless.”

(John Owen, Commentary on Hebrews 6)

This evening, following the Scriptures and following 2000 years of Church history we want to spend our time considering different ways the modern Church thinks about the resurrection.

The premise is that as Christians we not only have to affirm the resurrection but that we also have to affirm a very particular resurrection — the resurrection that we find in Scripture.

So what are some of the ways in which the resurrection is confessed today by the Church?

I.) Aesop Fable Resurrection Thinking or Irrational Fundamentalism

This is the way that a large percentage of the Church today thinks about the resurrection. There is a affirmation that the resurrection is existentially true (subjectively true) though it is likely false in terms of its historical reality.

In this way of thinking the resurrection (as well as all of Christianity) becomes like a Aesop fable. We can learn truth from Aesop fables but nobody really thinks the fables themselves are historically true.

We may say there is much to be learned from the Fox who fooled the Crow out of her cheese by falsely flattering her on her singing abilities but no one really believes that a Fox and a crow had a conversation regarding cheese.

Many people want to treat the miraculous accounts of Christianity in just such a way.

“Yes, yes … the lessons that we learn from letting the “truth” of the resurrection impact us are all very well and good but let us not get too cheeky in actually believing that this really happened in history.”

For these types of folks the resurrection and Christianity, as a whole, is one giant Aesop fable.

Emil Brunner, one of their wise men now long dead but still influential underscores this thinking in a couple quotes

“God and the medium of conceptuality are mutually exclusive.”

“All words have only an instrumental value. Neither the spoken words nor their conceptual content are the word itself but only its framework.”

“God can speak His word to a man even through false doctrine”

What Brunner is telling us with these quotes is that there is no getting at objective truth. And if there is no getting at objective truth then the what we believe is no longer the issue but only the “how” we believe — the passion with which we believe whatever we believe.

That this has entered into modern culture is seen everywhere. As one example I offer the film “Serenity,” a film I quite like.

In the scene where the Christian pastor figure of the crew, aptly named “Shepherd Book” dies he grabs the Captain (Mal) and says,

“I don’t care what you believe in, just believe in it.”

As your Shepherd Book I want you to know I don’t care if you just believe in something. I want to know if what you believe corresponds to what God says you must believe.

As such for these types of people it is not what is believed about the resurrection that matters, in terms of content, but rather what matters is the passion with which one believes whatever content one assigns to the resurrection, or similarly, what matters is not believing set truths about the resurrection but rather what matters is having a powerful encounter with a individually defined resurrected Christ thus coming away with a meaningful experience.

“What we require of belief is not that it make sense but that it be sincere….Clearly, this is not the spirituality of a centralized orthodoxy. It is a sort of workshop spirituality that you can get with a cereal-box top and five dollars.” Curtis White — “Hot Air Gods”

This way of thinking about the resurrection insists that personal experience and individual encounter can do for us what the divine record of redemptive history can not do for us. Why try and surmount 2000 years of History in order to find out with precision what God says happened when you can have your own meaningful experience.

Here we see that the objective content of God’s revelation in Scripture gives way to the Jesus encounter — an encounter that is each and every person variable.

Such an encounter has the advantage of canceling out the time chasm between us and the historical Christ who rose from the grave so many years ago and makes us to be contemporaries with Jesus.

Those who have a Aesop’s fable resurrection generally believe that the Scriptures are all paradox and contradiction and given such a paradoxical revelation that can mean anything, it usually does mean any number of things to different people.

And the result of this in the modern Church today does not confess the same resurrected Christ together but rather all confess different Christ’s together. We may be part of the same denomination and perhaps even attend the same Churches yet the resurrected Christ we are all confessing is, potentially, as different as each and every individual doing the confessing.

And all of this is important is because it is not that we believe in some kind of resurrection that matters but rather that we believe in a very particular God defined resurrection that matters.

Now what is behind what we have briefly discussed here happens in two different opposite ways.

1.) Assume the supernatural can’t be true. If it is not true then miracles like resurrection have to be reinterpreted

2.) Presuppose that God is so transcendent that we can’t reach Him.

So … what is the answer to this way of thinking about the resurrection?

We have to be confident in God’s recorded revelation.

1.To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. (Is. 8:20)

2. II Tim. 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

3. I Cor. 10:5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

We have to do all we can to attend and support Churches which understand what is at stake in this redefining of the Resurrection. As the years unfold and some of you who are younger look for a Church as your life takes you beyond these boundaries look for a place where the Christ of Scripture and a Historical real resurrection is a reality. Make it a matter that is non-negotiable.

This Historical real resurrection is what the Holy Spirit speaks of in I Corinthians 15. Paul there doesn’t speak of “it being true to me.” He calls forth the historical evidence. He cites the witnesses that can be called forth. He is not speaking of a resurrection that was based on the truth that Christ has arisen in his heart. The Scriptures everywhere testify to the historicity of Christ’s resurrection. He has flesh and bones that one can examine by touching. He eats breakfast with His disciples.  Christ’s resurrection is as historical as your birth.

For you parents, you must train your children to think this way. If you leave them to imbibe the zeitgeist they will very likely abandon your faith.

Teach them that the resurrection was not just spiritual but real and because it was real it had impact.

We must be careful of the “Spiritual” Resurrection that wherein we have been resurrected. There is a tendency for the Reformed to make “Spiritual” speak Plato as if to mean “non intrusive in our every day to day lives.”

We have been resurrected so that our relationship to the old Adam is superseded by our relationship to the new Adam. This explains why the expectation is that we would walk in “newness of life.” We are resurrected beings and though we are not yet all that we one day will be we are creatures who live in this present age as walking and living in the age to come. Like Legolas in Tolkien’s work we live in two worlds at the same time but the creational age in which we have been resurrected is impinging on all around us that has not yet been resurrected. In some sense then we, as the resurrected, are the bearers of resurrection life to all that we come in contact with.

This reality of having been NOW resurrected with Christ is why Paul can write about our now being seated in the Heavenlies with Christ. It is why he could write that we have been NOW translated to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son, whom He loves. It is why he could write that our citizenship is in heaven, keeping in mind that heaven is invading this present wicked age via His resurrected citizenry.

The “NOW” of our Resurrected status can not be hidden under the bushel of the “not yet.” The Kingdom as come and we are citizens of that future creational age Kingdom bringing the aroma of Christ and that Kingdom unto all we come in contact with.

Conclusion

By John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.