Thanks for your thoughts (for those of you who need to be caught up, please see the response comments to Christianity on Pause). I suppose I allowed the conversation to drift away from it's original intent with my last comment. As a result I’m afraid there might be some misunderstandings. Allow me to attempt a reply/introduce some new thoughts...
The thoughts from Dr. Perry's lecture simply conveyed this: we have victory in Christ over the principalities of this dark world and over the ungodly thinking therein. Let us, therefore, exercise that power. By spoils I simply meant the victory of Christ's life and death… the final conquering of sin, death and temptation. As victors over such, we have the responsibility to live as victors. We are enabled to show forth the power of Christ in our daily lives. To both spiritual and physical forces we have the opportunity to proclaim the power of Christ. What does this look like? Simply living out our faith on a daily basis. It means living out our faith today, because our faith is not simply intended for tomorrow. We are called to, right now, live out our faith before all men, angels, demons and authorities.
However, as part of that victory I do hold firmly to a conviction that in Christ all of creation has been redeemed (for a great read on this idea see the work Creation Regained by Albert Wolters). Gnostic notions and Platonic ideals that have crept into the church over the past 2,000+ years insist that this is not true. Theses ideas insist that the physical is basically bad, therefore why is it worthy redeeming?
Contra these ideals, we have been given the freedom to live in freedom. But it remains true that while "all things are permissible, not all things are beneficial".
I also strongly believe that part of the wonder to be found in the gospel is the freedom has been given us to delight in God’s creation and in the created order. God wants us to delight in his trees, mountains, lilies, rhododendrons, and golden retrievers. Yes, nature is oft distorted into a pantheisitc warehouse of idol worship. Pantheism, by infusing everything with a god, devoids "god" of any meaning. Everything, then, is the same… there is no uniqueness in pantheism. It is a clear violation of the created order. God never intended us to be pantheists.
But he does intend for us to worship.
Here’s where the difficulty arises. God intended for us to worship him. But we’re constantly turning other things into gods. Our status as a nation, our beliefs as a church (whether a particular denomination or as a church whole) can become idols. Do we completely separate ourselves from all computers, creation and coffee as a result? I hope not. Men have fashioned many good tools and invented many wonderful creations with no direct intent for them to be “used for God’s glory”; can we then not use them for God’s glory? Again, I hope not. Man, as a creation created in God’s image, loves to create. Though he remains a non-christian, he still retains the image of God in him. He is a fallen, sinful creation and the image is, therefore, marred, but it is still a reflection of God’s image. How could it be anything less? This is how man was originally created. With that said, fallen man still creates beautiful things. He makes useful things. And while these things may have been created with worldly purposes in mind, God still owns them!
So then, here is where the mystery of the gospel comes in. Our hearts have been made to worship—and we are prone to worship other things. But does God then MAKE us worship him? No. He allows us the opportunity to fail. He affords us the opportunity to disobey him and turn to other idols. He doesn’t make all things off limits, but he restores our mind, will and emotions (in our union with Christ) so that we may chose to worship him. In Christ he gives us the power to NOT worship other idols. And in Christ, he forgives us when we fail. It is also my firm belief that we do an injustice to one another if we seek to impose on one another what “things” we can/cannot use because we believe they will lead to idolatry. If any particular object leads its possessor to idolatry, then that person—and that person alone—can determine what sort of distance (whether completely or in moderation) he/she needs to keep from it. We cannot decide the limits for one another. When we do that, we create laws that God never created. This we do to the detriment of ourselves as well as one another.
Perhaps I’m not saying anything that you disagree with… I’m not quite sure. However, I’ll be interesting in hearing any responses you might have.
11 comments:
I thought this entry was awesome. I have read the original posting "Christianity on Pause," and followed anonymous's thoughts as well. It seems there might be some pet issues with anonymous, though his or her actuall entries are very interesting. His or her first two replys appeared to be conserned with the promotion of antinomianism. That is to say, if the opposite of "Christianity on Pause" results in going too far in the direction of "Christians gone wild" then is this really better? However Matt, I feel your present entry is very helpful, and I posted comments on the original quote of Dr. Perry.
thanks for the clarifications david. i agree with you on both points. for me, the first is a given (but that doesn't go without saying). i don't believe in preaching a prosperity gospel (the gospel does not equal unfettered personal greed in the name of "fulfillment"). fulfillment in Christ must first mean that we are delighting in HIM ("delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart" Ps. 37). when our delight is in him, our fulfillment is never in things, they are in Christ first. whatever "things" we enjoy, we enjoy to his glory. i've said enough about this already in my post above.
on second matter, we must live in community with other believers. we must live out our sanctification in the context of that community. amen and amen to those thoughts. we don't simply define our Christian conduct determined by what our own individual conscious. we must also often determine our activity based on the people we are with at the time (1 Cor. 9:19-23). even then, we don't alter our activities for the sake of holiness, only for the sake of the "weaker brother". other than that, our actions must be governed by the law of love.
Nice job, Matt, in responding. Sorry it's been so long since I've written.
It is because I believe God has made man in His image - that He has made man creative - that man should actually create things that magnify God and not man, that extend His mercies as comfort and not comforts as mercies. Our drives should differ supremely from those of the primal consumer, producing and consuming with incorporate compassion. As Aldous Huxley once wrote, "Written propaganda is less efficacious than the habits and prejudices...of the readers."
It is important for us to realize that as Christians we have been elected to inherit the earth, created good and redeemed, as you've rightfully said. But because of this we should be most zealous to cultivate communities that have and foster a deep awareness of the suffering of others coupled with the wish to relieve it with the Gospel of our Lord, with jealousy for Christ that compels us to revoke even the semblence of an autocratic agendas similar to the status quo. Our fashion and fashioning should be more than emblematic service - theologically correct one-liners flung from the hip. We should create communities victorious over the temptations of bottom line profitability, efficient sin (without the nasty aftertaste), driving the image factory printed in magazines, appealing to man's rebellion against God, the establishment of a suburban Babel. As Tim Keller has said, we only end up creating a Church made in the image of the world, a weak replica at that. Through faith are we saved, but sweat we must (1 Corinthians 9:26-27) because faith produces love. If I can tell anything from your blog, you are a lover of family. Well, Christ's family is still out there, brother.
Our clothes were probably made by children. We barely paid the workers for our coffee. Do I enjoy these wonderful gifts from God? As much as I don't like falling asleep naked on the subway. I recognize that clothes were fashioned as a covering. As such, they are some of many post-creation mercies. But it is in no way Gnostic to buck up as a Christian and realize that the Church in America is slumbering in a Gingerbread House while our brothers and sisters suffer and our enemies see us as the most carnal civilization that ever dictated hearts and minds. America is powerful because we have been blessed with resources. But what are we sourcing?
The solution is not dichotomous. We must hate the one or love the other (Matthew 6:24). Ironically, it is a mark of Gnosticism's infiltration into the church that Christians find individuality a freedom, the Lordship of Christ over all creation a fallback non sequitur. Christ is both the wine and the master of the feast. But our Bridegroom yet returns. Creation continues to suffer. The idol factory that Calvin talked about is most efficiently externalized.
We are not obliged in the name of Christ's Lordship to take whatever we want from the buffet. We can eat pig, but we shouldn't eat with them. As we await the return of our Lord, we should be working as those with passion, those willing to sacrifice and suffer (decreasing ourselves, increasing Christ), to bring all things under subjection to His kingdom come. But this is not as vague as simply "living out faith" - it is as complicated as redeeming the time, because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:16). Dissipation is not only at the bottom of the bottle. Dissipation has become our vogue: wasteful consumption and expenditure; dissolute indulgence; amusement; divergence. See verse 16 and following. Interestingly enough, while Reformed folk have made pop-icons of the Puritans, they would have responded to our libertarian lifestyles with a statement like this from Puritan Samuel Bolton in his book The True Bounds of Christian Freedom: "If civil freedom is so precious and is to be maintained, how much more is spiritual freedom, the freedom wherewith Christ make a man free! A freedom dearly purchased by the blood of Christ! We esteem our civil freedom the better as we remember that it cost so much of the blood of our ancestors to obtain it. It would be baseness in us to be careless of that which cost them their blood. How much more then should we esteem our freedom which was purchased by the precious blood of Christ!"
Indeed, our liberty is in Christ, liberty from sin. The manufactures of this world are not sterile, but purposed. We ought to be very careful in using mirrors fashioned for vanity, swords hammered into instruments of death, in our effort to mortify sin and glorify Christ. Our holiness should be surgical, without anesthesia. For inasmuch as we have the mind of Christ and we are His Body, we share in His sufferings in fellowship with Him. He ate and drank with sinners, not as a sinner. He condescended to lift us from our worldy pleasures to experience the taste of heavenly fruit. “Man walks into a bar” always has a punchline. Even Christ said, “For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” In retrospect, this statement was sheer poetry. So is our communion with Him. We share in His cup of suffering as our joy because it promises the kingdom.
It is quite telling that the Church is most comfortable today, even in our Reformed circles, stalwartly bellying up to the bar of God's creation for a stout. If anything stinks of vagrant Pantheism, its that sort of Christian liberty. I like what you've written. I don't disagree. I think that we should be vigilant and suspicious of anything a market, driven by sinners, designs for my use.
It doesn't turn the tables to make moneychangers Christian. "If we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." But we should not rest as the world's richest, for we are passionate to "store up for ourselves riches for the coming age" (1 Timothy 6:8-10). Christ is the "river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells" (Psalm 46:4). He is not the slough that makes glad the city of the godless. Never the twain shall meet. If we put new wine into the world's wineskins, they should burst with new creation. That's our challenge, brother. It's all God's creation. Yes. He has redeemed it, as you said. But it is an already/not yet. He is also redeeming it. "Behold, I will create a new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind" (Isaiah 65:17). For we are "waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:12-14).
So we must enjoy all things - yes - but in the company of this procession, in the joy of such sobriety. A drink on the way, a song in the wing, and a story to keep us on our way. May we learn to fast as Christians again. May we stop justifying our lifestyles with weak analogies to antiquity, academically flipping through our Greek and Roman playing cards to find go-to straw men to trump challenges to our comfort. May we see the new faces of the ageless deception encircling us. Characteristically, they are in every camp. May faith-inspired hope - that He has gone before us just as He is coming for us - purify us, even as we are pure (1 John 3:2-4), as children of God, partakers in the divine covenant, cleansing the Temple that Christ restored: "And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb" (Revelation 21:22). Padding the gospel is not good creativity, whether it be to "get converts" or to "apply practically". For while it is true that we are saved, the wrath still comes. We should be found in a dead run when Christ returns. THAT is Christian liberty.
By the way, nice name for the blog. Where did you get it? Also, where you been? You haven't written for a while.
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