Praise Is His Gracious Choice

Posted on July 28, 2008 by arator

The congregational singing where my wife and I worship is better than most. A good number in the congregation actually sing. We mostly sing hymns from the Baptist Hymnal on Sunday mornings, with more modern “praise choruses” mostly sung on Sunday evenings. Though it is far from the best, the Baptist Hymnal still contains many priceless gems. The title to this post comes from the first verse of one of those faithful, God-centered hymns that we sang this past Sunday morning; “Come, Christians, Join to Sing” (#231). This hymn was cradled on one side by “Praise Him! Praise Him!” (#227), and on the other by “When Morning Gilds the Sky” (#221). This is how a worship service should begin, with a call to worship, and with hymns comprising more than the insipid and nondescript “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Praise you, praise you, praise you, ohhhhh Lord.”

I haven’t seen very many posts around on the topic of congregational singing, at least not until the past week or so, and now just in the past couple of weeks there are four or five. Maybe this is a sign that some are beginning to connect the dots between the “shrinkage” problems that we now face in the SBC and the trajectory choices we have been making over the past half century in the area of congregational singing.

I first stumbled across The slow death of congregational singing in a post by Jonathan Leeman over at Church Matters. The approach to this article on congregational singing by Michael Raiter is uncommonly practical; it doesn’t criticize music style so much as it criticizes the philosophy of praise bands. Raiter argues that by its very nature praise bands drown out the congregation, and at the same time provide an atmosphere of performance, both of which discourages congregational participation. If I had to pick a one-sentence quote to sum up the whole article—which I believe defines at least one of the major problems of a praise-team approach—it would be “All the microphone does is make someone a very loud singer.”

I ran across the same article just a few days ago when the iMonk (aka Michael Spencer) used it as a spring board to his own post on hymnal congregational singing. To top that, a couple of weeks later he posted a second post, featuring a comment from his previous post. I’m not going to comment on the comment of a post of a post; well not much. These two posts pretty much say it all; well almost. My purpose here is to link you to some excellent arguments for traditional congregational singing (without a performance on stage). Spencer’s argument rightly begins with the subject of musical content:

I like a lot of contemporary worship music, but as a whole the content is different than the best older music. It’s designed for expressive presentation and not as much for edification through musical teaching or mutual encouragement. So you can have a lot of “You are holy!” and “I will worship,” as opposed to four or five verses describing the incarnation or considerations of the meaning of salvation.

Notice that Spencer is not arguing against style of music, but rather he is arguing from the angle of content; what information the song is delivering. In Spencer’s second post, his commenter, Tom Schwegler, cites five areas that make singing praise choruses more difficult, which I have abbreviated as 1) complexity of rhythms, 2) multiple “bridges” and ad-lib repeats, 3) the lack of a prominent melody to follow, 4) the lack of advance information about the music, and  5) a less precise oral transmission of music. Admittedly, this argument is based on style, but in a practical way, showing the liabilities inherently brought to congregational singing.

Now to represent the other side of the argument, at 12 Witnesses I found a link to this post called the controversial organ, in which Dan Kimball gives the history of the controversy of bringing the organ into church worship, followed by a couple of set-up scenarios. A set-up scenario, usually found in the form of a letter of complaint is one of those devices that draws an opponent in because it sounds like the crank in your church that is always complaining about the new praise song, only to find out that the letters were written well over a hundred years ago about traditional hymns you hold near and dear. In this case the device backfired because the second commenter to the post responded that he agreed with the criticisms of the two “old” hymns:

In the 19th century, there was an explosion of these kinds of sappy and sentimental songs that were lacking theologically and artistically shallow. This was the result of a confluence of a few things: 1) the feminization of the church, 2) Pietistic revivalism that sought to use music as a tool to create an emotional mood to bring about “repentance”, and 3) a turning away from traditionalism in favor of making the church mimic popular culture.

Now, I admit there is quite a bit of historical background to digest there, as well as in the rest of the brother’s comment, but all would benefit from a brief education in nineteenth-century Christianity in America. The best place to start is to familiarize yourself with the central figure of revivalism, Charles Finney. I can think of no better article expounding Finney than this article by Michael Horton. Another place to go would be to read Finney’s own Systematic Theology. There is a lot there so just read Finney’s view of justification, and if you rightly understand the gospel, you will see about what I and the above commenter am concerned. Finney influenced a multitude in his day, including many, many hymn writers.

I read somewhere the saying “We sing the faith into our hearts.” I ask you as I close, how much do you think about the content of what you sing? What is it teaching you and those around you about the truths of the faith? What faith are you singing into your and your fellow congregant’s hearts? What faith are you singing into your childrens’ hearts? Is it the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3)? We have a mandate from Colossians 3:16 to teach and admonish one another by use of faithful Christian music, as well to use that medium to sing back to God the truths about himself as a means to praise. How faithful are we to “preach” the whole council of God (Acts 20:27) as we sing in church, not just what we feel like? Do we even sing at all? Look around you this next Sunday and see.

But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
Psalm 22:3 (KJV)

Does God inhabit the praises of the assembly where you worship?

Posted in hymns | Comments Off on Praise Is His Gracious Choice

The End of July

Posted on July 27, 2008 by arator

This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post. This is just a test post.

Posted in Event | Comments Off on The End of July

Everybody’s an Evangelical

Posted on July 18, 2008 by arator

Over at Steve Brown etc. Os Guinness and Warren Smith were having a “civil” debate over An Evangelical Manifesto, a document released just this last May, of which Guinness has been the lead architect and main media spokesman. Not much of the actual debate concerned me greatly. It seems to be pretty cut and dry where the two parties were, and the actual debate wasn’t over the value and need for such a document. The debate revolved around why weren’t certain evangelical leaders invited to the drafting process. I was interested in a comment by Os that Al Mohler had been a rather vocal critic of the document, and that “he smelled universalism in it.” I do recall Dr. Mohler commenting on it on his radio show a month or so ago, stating something to the effect that the definition of evangelical used in the document was weak. He did concede that it was at least a starting point for a conversation. I would agree that the definition is a bit weak. I would have liked something just a bit more definitive, but I couldn’t say that it tended toward universalism. Guinness did make the point that it was “An” Evangelical Manifesto, and not “The” Evangelical Manifesto. In other words, If you don’t like it write one yourself. I like Mohler for many reasons, but I thought he was being a bit stodgy on his assessment of the document. I am reminded of the response that Dr. D. L. Moody gave so many years ago when criticized for his evangelistic methods. He said something to the effect “I like the way I’m doing it better than the way you’re not doing it.” It’s easy to make calls from the living-room recliner.

On the show Guinness explained the genesis of the project as the result of conversations a few years ago with dozens of leading evangelicals who were embarassed or ashamed by the term “evangelical”, or had just given up on the term altogether because its original meaning had been lost. Guinness went on to say that the “simple purpose of An Evangelical Manifesto, out of faithfulness to Christ” was 1) to reaffirm what evangelicalism is, 2) sound a call to reform in the evangelical community, and 3) challenge evangelicals to rethink their position in public life. Warren Smith—who is the publisher for the Evangelical Press News Service—has been a major critic of the document, as I have already said, mainly because a good number of leading “evangelicals” he thought should have been asked to contribute at the document’s drafting were not. I put evangelicals in quotes because I wonder if that is not at the center of the rub here. In the discussion it appeared that Smith was trying to get Guinness to admit that he did not view some of these men as evangelicals, mainly because of the political involvement and nature of their ministry; men like James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson. Guinness would not be pinned down on that point, and I couldn’t say it sounded like he leans that way, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he and the other drafters of the document didn’t ask such men to participate. The way he delineated American religious culture into three groups would seem to imply that very conclusion:

“Evangelicals are primarily theological and spiritual; we’re followers of Jesus. We’re not first and foremost cultural like fundamentalism. We’re not first and foremost political like, say, the New York Times and many others sees the evangelicals as. We’re followers of Jesus.”

I think Guinness and others sees something that few—and especially few of us in the Southern Baptist Convention—understand. An Evangelical Manifesto may not have “evangelical” defined narrowly enough to suit some, but it is defined narrowly enough that many—and I mean us—do not meet the requirements to define themselves as evangelicals. If you don’t realize it, the word “evangel” and “gospel” are pretty much synonymous, and an evangelical has the gospel—the person and work of Jesus Christ: who he is, and what he has done, and why it matters—as the defining mark of their faith and practice. If you are more worried about changing culture, or getting the right candidate in the White House than you are about telling a lost world about the Lord Jesus Christ, then you are not an evangelical. Guinness is not advocating Christians disengaging from cultural issues and political involvement, he is merely saying that we should not be equated with those things. That is what he means by repeatedly saying “We’re followers of Jesus.” When the media and the candidates equate us with a voting block, or a “moral majority,” then they obviously do not see us as primarily followers of Jesus.

Pastors need to be very careful what they preach from their pulpits. Paul’s warning in Galatians 1:8 is serious business. There are many other passages addressing this issue from several vantage points, but that one is enough to chew on for a good long time.

Posted in Christianity | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Everybody’s an Evangelical

What Is Ed Stetzer

Posted on July 9, 2008 by arator

Ed Stetzer is a Christian. He’s not a Baptist. Ed Stetzer, I believe, has never been labeled or labeled himself as Arminian or Calvinist. He might not care even to be defined as an evangelical. The most common label I hear is “missional guru,” but I have something altogether different in mind. Ed Stetzer is simply a Christian. I think it would be safe to say Dr. Ed Stetzer is a paradigmatic Christian. That is why he is able to move so freely from one narrowly-defined evangelical group to another antithetical and narrowly-defined evangelical group. Sure, he takes a little heat here and there as he takes speaking engagements just wherever and whenever he feels led, but he never really suffers for it.

Although I live only about thirty-five minutes away from this year’s site of the Founders National Conference, and I just happened to be on vacation that week, I was unable to attend. I have been pouring over the audio for the past couple of weeks, however, and will have to say there wasn’t a bad address in the conference. Dr. Stetzer’s two keynote addresses were probably the best messages of the whole conference, but Voddie Baucham, Andy Davis, and Don Whitney were close behind with a three-way tie. The remainder of the pack came in just a hair’s breadth behind those four. It was all good. A couple of things impress me about Dr. Stetzer, and so I’d like to park on that for a while:

  1. Dr. Stetzer is consistent. I have heard him on several occasions and his emphasis is always the same. The first time I heard Dr. Stetzer was a couple of years ago here in Tulsa when he spoke to our local association. For a large man, tall as well as bulky, he sure roams the stage with a vengeance. He’ll make you tired just watching him. And he speaks without ever stopping to breathe. I’m not sure how he does that trick. But back to his emphasis: he doesn’t pick an angle or tack based on the group he is speaking to. Our Tulsa association could hardly be called Calvinistic, yet he delivered the same central theme he delivered in this year’s Founders Conference that he did two years ago, as well as every other time I have heard him speak.
  2. Obviously the content of that constant emphasis is the other thing I like about Dr. Stetzer, and that is his unfading passion for the glory of God, and the presenting of the gospel to lost souls as one way to execute that passion for God’s glory. I say that because I hear so many in the SBC these days banging away on evangelisim, usually bearing down heavily on numbers of baptisms, without ever so much as a passing comment on giving glory to God. Check for yourself as you listen to speakers at your average SBC conference and see if it is not so. They will speak of evangelism as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. Sure we want people to come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ but it should always be “to the praise of his glorious grace (Ephesians 1:6).” Just listen to Dr. Stetzer’s messages at this years Fonders Conference and you will see what I mean.

I’m not sure what to make of a post I read earlier today from 9 Marks concerning some of Stetzer’s comments at the Founders Conference. In the post by Thabiti Anyabwile there was a play on words using the phrase “functional hyper-Calvinism.” I’m not sure if it might also be characterized by a smidgen of equivocation. I’m also not sure if the post was intended to criticize Dr. Stetzer, or just provoke thought. You can read it for yourself and decide. I was going to write this post anyway, so the 9 Marks post is neither here nor there. It’s just related, and I am adding the link here to augment the post.

“Building Bridges” has been a popular metaphor recently to describe various groups unifying for the purpose of advancing the gospel. For the most part these have been good, godly groups of men desiring to honor God by advancing the gospel in a lost and dying world. [Editor’s note; 2008/07/11: I apologize for the following struck-through comments. They were made as a result of personal prejudice, and a too-quick scanning of the article referenced. The statement was totally out of line and I should have never made it. Again, I apologize.] There have been some however who, with their own special flair for equivocation, have attempted to dampen the enthusiasm of these gospel-centered unifiers. I can’t imagine why. The thing that has impressesd me about Dr. Stetzer is that he doesn’t appear to be a slave to anyone, even though he has worked high up in the SBC machine for years. He’ll build bridges to any one who longs to share the gospel to the lost. I guess he’s just a Christian. May his tribe increase in our midst. Would to God that more of us would be content to be called simply “Christian.” I’ll close with a couple of quotes from Dr. Stetzer’s first message at this year’s Nathonal Founders Conference that reflects the heart of a man focused on the glory of God, and the spreading of the gospel as one way to proclaim that glory:

Let me propose a different way. Let’s learn from one another and take the best of one another’s approaches. What we need are theologically deep churches and believers with a passion for those who are far from Christ. I want both. I want it all.

Toward the end of his first message, relating the events surrounding the first worship service in a church plant, Dr. Stetzer said the following:

God reminded me that I did everything the handbook says to do . . . and in the process of doing all that I lost my attention and my focus off the glory of God and put it on the successful planting of a church. That was a turning point for my life. And it led me to be convinced that God wants churches planted throughout the United States and the world, but he wants them planted on his agenda, for his gospel and his glory. And when we try to take his glory he’ll take it back. . . My prayer through this conference . . . is that the end result will be that his name and his fame be more widely known through the planting of biblically faithful churches.

I wanted to make a few comments about the interviews conducted by Timmy Brister, but I have rambled long, so that will have to wait for another time, if I get around to it. If I don’t get around to it, lets just say they were worth the price of admission all by themselves. Go check the messages and the interviews out at Bethel Baptist Church’s website.

Posted in Christianity | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Jesus, Our Great High Priest

Posted on July 5, 2008 by arator

The offices of Christ are something we Southern Baptists seldom speak much about. Maybe we are put of by Catholic-sounding words like “high priest.” We would probably profit from it greatly if we thought about the offices of Christ a bit more often. Hebrews 7:25 says that our Great High Priest “always lives to make intercession for us.” There is something to ponder: what that constant intercession looks like.

It is a consoling thought that Christ is praying for us, even when we are negligent in our prayer life; that He is presenting to the Father those spiritual needs which were not present to our minds and which we often neglect to include in our prayers; and that He prays for our protection against the dangers of which we are not even conscious, and against the enemies which threaten us, though we do not notice it. He is praying that our faith may not cease, and that we may come out victoriously in the end.

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 403;
quoted by Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 628.

Could we bear from one another what He daily bears from us?
But this glorious Friend and Brother loves us though we treat Him thus.
Though for good we render ill, He accounts us bretheren still.

John Newton

Posted in Theology | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Jesus, Our Great High Priest

I’m Addicted

Posted on July 4, 2008 by arator

The reason no posts have appeared on this blog in over a week is not the reason for the bulk of my sporadic posting. I was on vacation last week and tried as much as possible to stay away from the computer. The typical reason I don’t post for lengthy periods is that I’ve gone on a binge again. No, it’s not cocaine or even booze; I’m addicted to WordPress – rather, I should say that I am addicted to WordPress and the K2 theme.

I, like many, began blogging a number of years ago on Blogger. One day I saw someone raving about WordPress. That was the day I began the long, lonely journey down that dark, endless tunnel. I started out with a wordpress.com account, but that wasn’t enough. As I began to record and podcast the sermons of my pastor I needed more flexibility, so I made the jump to the “org” side of WordPress. Believe me, the possibilities are endless. The only problem is that “endless” means it never ends; a new plug-in to try out; conflicts to resolve; code to figure out.

And then there is that constant revision of WordPress, which generates all kinds of special problems: a plug-in breaks; a theme no longer functions properly; a developer is slow to update, or worse yet, stops developing a plug in all together, and you’ve become dependent on it for that special look and feel, or vital feature. Now comes the search for an adequate replacement: dig, dig, dig, find . . . no – dig, dig, dig, find . . . yes, ah . . . no – dig – aw nuts!

The problems are endless, but I love it. I just love it; everything about it, I simply love it. That is why I post so seldom. I’m too busy under the hood, fiddlin’ and twiddlin’, pokin’ and twistin’. Some time I I do a WordPress post I’ll tell you about my favorite theme, K2, and why it is as bad or worse than the WordPress platform, but in a good sort of way. Maybe you’ve noticed I’ve added a little flash and glam since I last posted. K2 makes that possible, but it’s never enough. There is always something more, something you saw over at so-and-so’s site, and you’re sure you can duplicate it, if you can remember the difference between padding and margin.

This new site began for a number of reasons. At least one of those reasons was that WordPress 2.5 had come out and I wanted to try it out, but I didn’t want to mess with my other blog that hosts a regular podcast. I just noticed yesterday that the beta version of WordPress 2.6 is out. The official release is suppose to be sometime later this month. I have mixed emotions. I’m just getting settled into 2.5.1, and I like it – I think. On the other hand, I can’t wait to see what they have done this time. One last word: I’m addicted.

Posted in WordPress | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on I’m Addicted

Learning in Sunday School

Posted on June 21, 2008 by arator

My daughter is struggling with preschool Sunday school that she helps teach in her SBC church. The director finds Scripture memorization of a lesser value than “Bible thoughts” and “conversation” with the children. I fear greatly  that this is the case in too many of our Sunday-school programs. We are too busy teaching morality from Lifeway to understand the logic of learning.

The Poll-Parrot stage is the one in which learning by heart is easy and, on the whole, pleasurable; whereas reasoning is difficult and, on the whole, little relished. At this age, one readily memorizes the shapes and appearances of things; one likes to recite the number-plates of cars; one rejoices in the chanting of rhymes and the rumble and thunder of unintelligible polysyllables; one enjoys the mere accumulation of things.
Dorthy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning; a paper delivered at Oxford, 1947.

The essay from which this quote is taken sparked the home-schooling movement in America. At least one man, Douglas Wilson, picked up on the idea and wrote a magnificant book on classical education called Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning. Dorthy Sayers’ essay is reprinted in the appendix of Wilson’s book.

Oh that more Southern Baptist preachers, teachers, and parents would understand that morality lessons from the Bible cannot take the place of simple memorization of critical passages of Scripture; passages that may one day – by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit – I say may one day take root in the heart of a child to the lasting benefit of their immortal soul. Wilson’s book would be a good start towards that understanding, but God has to change the mind set of many – most in the SBC.

Posted in Education | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Learning in Sunday School

Evangelicals Awash in Bibles

Posted on June 21, 2008 by arator

I listened to Steve Brown’s podcast earlier today, where he was interviewing Daniel Radosh about his new book Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture. The book is basically a humorous look at evangelical Christians from an outsider’s vantage point.

I’m not sure if the book would be a good read or not. I’m sure it wouldn’t be humorous to Christians grieved over all of the evangelical nonsense, but one thing in the interview caught my attention. While discussing the variety of silliness in an industry grossing 7 billion dollars annually, Mr Radosh included the purchase of Bibles. I was amazed to discover that non-evangelicals average four Bibles per household, while evangelical Christians average 10.

Americans may be buying 25 million Bibles each year, but you sure can’t tell it by their theological literacy.

After Steve Brown I listened to Dr. Mohler’s radio show from Wednesday, in which the first caller asked for study-Bible recommendations. Dr. Mohler responded with six suggestions: The McArthur Study Bible, Reformation Study Bible, Apologetic Study Bible, Ryken’s Literary Study Bible, an Archaeological Study Bible, and an upcoming ESV Study Bible.

How ironic.

Posted in Christianity | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Evangelicals Awash in Bibles