what i thought about while falling asleep last night:

That every Christian is a catholic and a baptist... technically speaking, of course. Every believer is a catholic without a capital C and a baptist without a capital B. "Catholic" simply means "universal." And a baptist is someone who maintains that baptism should be practiced.

Happy Late Birthday, John Calvin

Calvin's 500th birthday was this year. There have been conferences and celebrations all over the world, and rightly so.

I'll steal wisdom from Ghandi here. Of Christianity, he said, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians; they are so unlike Christ."

I feel the same way about John Calvin. He was a faithful pastor who wanted to preach the Bible. Yet many people who want to go by his name are arrogant knuckleheads. He would've hated the title "protestant" and loved the title "reformer." He was way more Catholic than Presbyterians and Catholics are willing to admit. Timothy George correctly states that Calvin was "a theologian of both/and, not either/or: divine sovereignty and human responsibility, written Word and living Spirit, the Church invisible and the Church congregational, already and not yet."

George's full article can be read here. He discusses Calvinism as it relates to capitalism, Calvin and Servetus, and three reasons Calvin's ideas are getting traction again today.

BAPTiSTS, CATHOLiCS, and THE EUCHARiST

An interesting article by Timothy George, here.

"WALK BY THE SPiRiT" [Gal 5.16]

• The rigidity of Puritan morality.
• The extent of fundamentalism's legalism.
• The historic excess of Rome's ritualism.
• The fluidity of postmodernity's [I don't think this is a cool word anymore?] approach toward doctrine and ecclesiology.
  

I'm not saying that the above list is all bad. However, I do believe that most of any wrongness in these things comes from a specific source: a weak understanding of the Holy Spirit.

St Paul's understanding of the Spirit was that He was vital and active in the church. For Paul, the goal was never to give the Spirit a theological or theoretical head nod. I am even pressed to find an occasion where Paul's purpose is to assert the deity of the Spirit. Yes, he does write about the doctrine of the Spirit with clarity. Yes, he does hint at the deity of the Spirit in such a way that we should not question it. But what is the hub of wheel of Paul's pneumatology?

Paul sees the Holy Spirit as God's empowering presence in the community of faith. The Spirit is experienced corporately and individually as the relational means by which the covenant community lives. He gifts each member of the body for the building up of the body [1 Cor 12.7, 12.11]. 

I tend to think that a better experience and/or understanding of the Spirit's personal work in the church would have rightly nuanced the motives and practices of our friends in the list above.

Yet, we are all guilty of not yielding to His voice. May we learn to listen carefully to our Helper.

THE TRAiL OF BLOOD

Baptists are not Protestants.

This is the premise of the short little booklet, "The Trail of Blood" [J. M. Carroll]. It was first published in 1931 and has still strangely remained.

He argues, with ample historical and biblical ammunition, that the majority of the groups that were persecuted and often condemned through church history were baptistic in nature [the Montanists, Paulicans, and many others].

Cardinal Hosius was the president of the Catholic Counter-Reformation at the Council of Trent in the mid-1500s. He said:

Were it not that the baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers.

Sir Isaac Newton [1643-1727] said, "The baptists are the only body of known Christians that have never symbolized with Rome."

The Lutheran church historian Johann Laurenz von Mosheim [1693-1755] says,

Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay secreted in almost all the countries of Europe persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles of modern Dutch Baptists.

There are two extremes that should be avoided after reading these quotes. First, they're too forthright not to take seriously in some way or another. Second, they're claiming something too radical to to be accepted without reservation.

I would never say this 56-page polemic is unalloyed gospel truth. But for tons of fun, humor, and ecclesial disorientation, please make it a purchase :)

the pope got shot on the day i was born

It's true. May 13, 1981.

Hopefully that was odd enough for you to keep reading. It means nothing except that what you are about to read is loads of pseudo-ecumenical happiness.

My wife's family is diverse and fun. Most of them went to Bob Jones and are now Catholic. One of them went from BJU to Oxford and is now a Catholic priest here in the states. His name is Father Dwight Longenecker. 

Dwight and I are pals. We have good discussions about old fundamental Baptist hymns, philosophy, the sacraments, his homilies, etc. He is fairly popular as a Catholic apologist, writer, and speaker. He has written quite a few books. Even the Greenville News just did a write-up on him.

Earlier this fall, Sara's grandma celebrated her 80th birthday. We all gathered at the beach in a big house to celebrate for a weekend. Soon after this, I was informed that Dwight had written an article about me called "Sleeping With the Enemy." Sure enough. PLEASE go read it so the rest of this will make sense.

First off, I'm actually humbled that Dwight thinks I'm a nice and smart fella. Second, I like how he says that we do often agree on issues, but how we get there is a different story. I'm finding this out more and more as a teacher. I want to teach HOW and WHY just as much as WHAT.

After this though, I believe that even Dwight would admit he paints too broadly over Protestantism. He surely doesn't mean to over-generalize, but I feel he is close to it. His article is really cute, academic-sounding, and philosophical. But the bottom line is that Jesus said when we do it to the least of them, we have done it to Him [Mt 25.40]. "Dialectic" is way too big of an attempted explanation here. That is pure obedience in view of the person and work of Jesus. If you even try to qualify that it begins to lose its simplistic beauty.

Furthermore, he really wants Protestants to have a sacramental worldview. This is faintly hinted at in his article. I also know this from talking to him. And here's a shocker - I totally agree with him! If we don't believe that grace tangibly and supernaturally enters into our space, time, and matter universe then we shoot the Bible and the mission of Jesus in the foot. NT Wright says good stuff about having this kind of lens in his "Surprised By Hope."

Also, I think Dwight's soup kitchen illustration is like attempting to separate a "both/and" situation. Follow me here: Is the kingdom of God here or is it coming? Well, yeah. Was Jesus fully man or fully God? Uh... yes. Did Christ die for us or for God? Let me think - absolutely! So, in our hypothetical soup kitchen, both of us would be legit in our intentionality.

Finally, I wouldn't consider myself an apologist, a polemicist, or even a trainee Baptist pastor. I just know that living like Jesus, with Jesus, and for Jesus is our call. I believe this includes the sacraments, the pursuit of acuteness in theology, social justice, humility, and much more. I also believe with all my heart that attempts at those things unaided by the Spirit of God are vain and cloud the vision of life with God in Christ.

Owell. I think I could write forever about this. I love the Dwight. So we disagree a little.

this is theologically chuckle-worthy

My wife's uncle [who went to Bob Jones and is now a Catholic priest] rips Dispensationalism. Not really, but still fun to read from a Roman Catholic.

Here.

"holy Eucharist, batman!"

A friend of mine and I were talking about the Lord's Supper the other day and this is the fruit of that chat. Catholicism says that the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Jesus. Baptists/Menonites/Anabaptists say that the elements are strictly symbolic. Everyone in between interestingly, biblically, and/or spiritually defines their position. So, if there was a "Substance Scale" [from the Latin substantia] and Catholics were a 10, Lutherans were a 7, Anglicans were a 5-8, Presbyterians were a 4, and Baptist/Menonites/Anabaptists were a 1.... Where would you land? Obviously, where you land should not have any drastic effect on the beauty and purpose of the Eucharist. Here is a good reminder of that. It should always be a humbling act that points us to the cross. But on the scale, I myself am probably a solid 2.87.

ROMANS 5-8 and JUSTiFiCATiON

Paul’s questions in Rom 6 and following [“Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” in 6.1; or “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” in 6.13; and others] must be read with the backdrop of chapters 1-5.

If someone is “made righteous” [this is how Catholicism defines justification] by faith in 1-5, then the expectation of an upright and holy person is that they will not sin. This is what righteous means. There was only one of those persons. But what if chapters 1-5 teach that when a person believes, he or she is “pronounced” and/or “declared” righteous? If this latter proposition be true, then it must also be pregnant with questions such as “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound?"

Further still, this pronouncement is such that it is not only a counting or a reckoning of one as righteous, but it is a declaration that ensures that one day the justified individual will be completely righteous like and with Jesus. Why else would Paul say that God predestined these to be “conformed to the image of His Son”? Why else would he continue his argument to say that all God predestined, God also called; and all God called, He also justified; and all God justified, He also glorified?

Paul would never link these near the close of his argument in chapters 5-8 and ask the kind of questions he did unless the declaration of righteousness in 1-4 secures the future reality of absolute righteousness forever in the new creation.

pope john paul on EVANGELiZATiON

The “how to” of evangelization looms large in Christianity and rightly so. It is not unusual to see methods slaughter the Gospel on the altar of relevance. Whether it be a denominational program, a seeker-based approach, or an emerging watered-down gospel, everyone has a slant on how. So, I figured you’d like to know Pope John Paul’s take.

Love, Courage, Wisdom

Ammon Hennacy was a Catholic activist who lived from 1893-1970. He never payed taxes. He also said:

Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without love and wisdom is foolishness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual. But the one who has love, courage, and wisdom moves the world.

isle of my father-in-law

There is a list of various reasons why I love my father-in-law. He spit out a one-liner the other night that must be added to the list. Word for word, he said...

"I find it hard to believe that the Catholics are the only one with the magic cookie."

The context of that statement made it even more beautiful, but there's no time for that here. So, I'll just give a few more reasons why i like this guy. First, it is his birthday today. Second, he is the biggest hippie i know to ever come out of Bob Jones. Also, i feel like he respects me. I've heard this is a rare find in father-in-laws. Fourth, he and his lovely wife are moving to Florida; now my wife and I have a cheap vacation spot. Lastly, he accidentally cut an 8-inch wide and 4-inch deep hole in his leg with a circular saw and I must show you...