Fundy or Trendy?

I've just been reading a rather famous and controversial Christian blog posting that's been floating around the net for the past few weeks. I haven't read it all, but this part of the post stands out:

A recent cover story at World Magazine about "NextGen Worship" inspired a strong desire to smack the pastors depicted in the article and in the photos. The cover photo alone enraged me, with the pastor wearing baggy jeans and untucked button-up shirt with flip flops and an ear microphone. Later, the same guy is shown out front of a church holding a paper Starbucks-like cup of coffee. Could he try any harder to be lame?

I'd have liked to have taken that cup of coffee and dumped it on his head. But it's nothing personal against that guy or his beliefs or sincerity. It's an anger at something else.

I'm not going to be one of those starched-collar Christians who, based on personal preference, say that this is a sign we're going to hell in a handbasket and that all things are wrong unless they are done as they were with the Puritans. What I'm saying is that I can't stand the phoniness, or trendiness, or sameness -- or whatever I'm trying to say here -- that the church seems to catch onto at the tail end, not even aware of how lame it is. The fact that this is not only actually successful in appealing to people, but attracts them, also disgusts me.

It makes me want to throw up.

It's buying into some kind of lie or substitution of cool culture as being relevant when it isn't.

If I see another cool Bible college student or pastoral studies major wearing the hemp choker necklace, flip-flops, open-at-the-collar shirt that's untucked, and baggy jeans, saying words like "dude" and "sweet", I will kick their ass. It's like the Christian version of annoying hipsters, an overly-studied and homogenized "with-it" faux coolness.

Right on sister! I hate it when Christians get all trendy and "with it" to try to attract people. I quite often see "hip young youthworker types" wearing the clothes of young people. It makes me sick. Young people don't respond to adults wearing their clothes or listening to their music - they respond to honesty and genuineness.

Nevertheless, the comments above can also make us wonder about the appropriateness of wearing the standard fundamentalist "suit and tie" to church. Being Fundy is just as bad in my book because it adds a "dress code" to public worship - something that is not legislated in any way in the NT and is, in fact, prohibited.

The church that I go to - Charlestown Presbyterian Church - does not have a dress code. By this I mean that there is no explicit or implied code that people should abide by when it comes to what they wear. People come in wearing baggy pants, and in summer some people wear thongs (which, for shocked Americans reading this, is what Australians call flip flops). A friend of mine is often seen wearing heavy metal or skater T-shirts.

But, remember, there is no "code" that we are abiding by. The reason why people who attend our church with the clothes that they wear (and many older people dress more conservatively while at the same church service) is NOT because we have some far-out hippy trendy get-with-the-times sort of attitude emanating from people. We just wear what we wear because its comfortable.

To me, and for many Australians who attend conservative Reformed churches, we neither enforce a Fundy suit and tie dress code nor have a trendy get-with-the-times dress code. What people wear when they go out shopping is the sort of thing we do - but without any sort of explicit reason. We just do it.

Part of the reason for this is the influence of Sydney Anglicanism. The Anglican diocese of Sydney is the strongest evangelical diocese in the world. Anglicans, or Episcopalians as you call them in the United States, often wear robes and cassocks and dog collars. Back in the early 1970s, some evangelicals began not to ask questions like "how can we be more trendy" but "why should we bother wearing this garbage?". Since then there has been a revulsion towards dressing in ways that communicate self-importance.

But the other reason for this in Australia is that fundamentalism - the American variety - has never really been strong here. In the US, evangelicalism is broken up into three broad groupings: Pentecostals and Charismatics, Arminian Dispensational Baptist Fundamentalists and Calvinists and Reformed. That is a very broad group - many churches and people fit into multiples groupings. But of that group, the Baptists are the strongest while the Calvinists are the smallest. Here in Australia, the Arminian Dispensationalist Baptist Fundamentalists are the smallest group. The Pentecostals and Charismatics are the biggest group, and Calvinists are second in line but are stil substantially large. Here's a summary of that breakup:

America: 50% ADBF, 40% P/C, 10% C/R
Australia: 10% ADBF, 55% P/C, 35% C/R

This means that the whole "suit and tie" culture was never really a central part of Australian evangelicalism.

Of course, this is not to say that Australian churches don't suffer from the trendy hip get-with-the-times problem. Many do. But wearing informal clothes to church is only an issue when it is an integral and explicit part of the church community. If a pastor gets up and says "I wear baggy pants so I can get hip with da yoof!" then I have a problem with it. If a pastor gets up and says nothing about his baggy pants then that's fine. Wearing baggy pants is not the issue - having some stupid, extra-biblical cultural reason for wearing them is. Moreover, it's the same issue with wearing suits and ties.

AAAAAAAAA

A blog post with every single category marked (I'm doing this for scribefire)

An interesting correlation

Or just merely Post hoc ergo propter hoc?

Wade Burlson on Al Mohler

Wade Burlson, one of the more important "Baptist Bloggers" who are changing the life of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), does not think that Al Mohler should be voted in as president of the SBC. Here's some of what Wade has written:

Some have expressed fear of Mohler's Calvinism, but it his Fundamentalism which should cause pause when it comes to electing Al as President. Whereas Al could argue Calvinism is based upon an interpretation of the sacred text, it is more difficult to deny his Fundamentalism is based on additions to the sacred text. For example, Al has called intentional childlessness moral rebellion. Chapter and verse from the sacred text are not used for such pontifical pronouncements, and we Southern Baptists should always quickly question moral standards that exceed the sufficient Scriptures. Further, when one's orthodoxy (doctrine) contradicts one's orthopraxy (practice or behavior), confusion arises. For instance, in arguing for the moral pronouncement that intentional childlessness is rebellion against God, Mohler writes:

"To demand that marriage means sex--but not children--is to defraud the creator of His joy and pleasure in seeing the saints raising His children."

Last time I checked only outright Socinians and Open Theists - not orthodox Calvinists - believed God intends to create children but is defrauded by the saints. Orthodoxy would say that God is as sovereign over the means as He is the ends. Is it not possible that a soverereign God actually had a hand in inventing contraception? Most Calvinists I know would agree. But when Calvinism weds herself to Fundamentalism a conundrum is born.

As regular readers know, I am quite a critic of Al Mohler. In my opinion, Mohler does not practice Sola Scriptura and binds the consciences of believers with human teaching, such as the belief that drinking alcohol is always sinful, that couples who are deliberately childless are somehow sinning (as per Wade's complaint above) and that torturing terrorist suspects is not sinful.

To read my previous Al Mohler posts, click on the Al Mohler tag below.

Southern Baptist Church growth

Prof tries to help Baptists improve health.

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (BP)--Southern Baptists are 30 times more likely to be obese than non-Christians and are the most obese of any denomination studied in the United States, according to a study released by Purdue University in 2006.

Jim Florence is aware of this study. He keeps up with academic studies through his work at East Tennessee State University, where he is associate professor of public health.

But he is more concerned about the trends reflected by this and other studies because he himself is a Southern Baptist and feels called by God "to help Baptists improve their health," he said.

It's good to know that there's a growing denomination in the US that many of us could identify with...

Rules for Theological Students

Courtesy of Baptist Blogger:

33. Have a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.
34. Smoke a cigar, preferably this one.
35. Peruse every issue of National Geographic, Time Magazine, and Psychology Today. Cull them for sermon illustrations.
36. Ask no more than three questions in class per semester.
37. Completely fill out all professor reviews at the semester’s end. Write substantive comments and honest appraisals of the professor’s performance.
38. Sneak into chapel alone at odd times and preach a sermon to no one.
39. Wear shorts, flipflops, tshirts, and ballcaps to class. There’s plenty of time in ministry to wear suits, ties, and dress shoes.

See all 50 rules here.

Southern Baptist Education

Another pearl from Baptist Blogger.

...maybe we’re supposed to expect that a homeschooled boy with a Bible college undergraduate, a seminary degree in counseling, and a doctorate in evangelism is supposed to be a better equipped churchman. And just maybe a homeschooled girl with a bachelor’s degree in homemaking, a seminary degree in women’s studies, and a nonresident Th.D. from the University of South Africa is supposed to make a better housewife.

Southern Baptist Politics

Read this posting from Baptist Blogger. In it he describes how he was able to get the SBC meeting in San Antonio to vote for something important.

They even have electronic equipment for people to come along and press buttons for voting or other things. Only in America...

What's happening with Southern Baptists?

The SBC is America's largest group of evangelicals. How the SBC runs itself and what it debates will spill over into the wider evangelical world. They are one of the world's largest group of evangelicals.

But although the SBC has a common denomination, they represent a myriad of different positions. Within the SBC are Calvinists, Arminians, Dispensationalists, Premillenialists, Pentecostals and Fundamentalists.

If you're wondering how they are going, and what the current problems are, check out Wade Burlson's recent blog post. Things are not looking good at all.

Fide-o is no longer "Truly Reformed"

There are three Christian bloggers I have had issues with over the past year - Tim Challies, Frank Turk and the boys at Fide-o.

Although I have been annoyed by the shortfalls of Internet Monk Michael Spencer and the gang at the Borg's Head, I sort of began to side with them when they were being pilliored by people like Turk and Fide-o. For various reasons, I decided that I would no longer visit Challies or Frank Turk, but I kept on with Fide-o.

Fide-o are "Truly Reformed" (a Borg's head perjorative) because they were aligned closely with John MacArthur's brand of theology - American Baptist, Calvinist and Dispensationalist (ABCD for short).

I don't know why I kept visiting Fide-o but I did. I had a bad attitude towards them and occasionally vented steam at them in comments theads.

But now they are one of my "Bloggers I respect", why?

Simple - Jason Robertson, one of the Fide-o crew, has jettisoned Dispensationalism and embraced Covenant Theology.

It's a big move. Jason wrote an article in 2005 arguing for a pre-trib eschatological viewpoint, and has now changed completely.

I should've realised a month or two back when I read about Jason's rejection of abstinence that things were up - if he was a Macarthur fanboy he would've parroted Macarthur's anti-alcohol stance. He didn't. Now he has embraced Covenant Theology (with an obvious Baptist disclaimer) and rejected a theological system that had a major influence on his Christian faith and teaching.

Why? Because he discovered that Covenant Theology is scriptural, while Dispensationalism is not.

In the past, when I felt annoyed at them, I would taunt the Fide-o guys by thanking them for defending the six solas - an obviously narky response that accused them of majoring on the minors and not even living up to the stated aim of their blog's name.

Jason, like me, believes in Sola Scriptura - that the bible is sufficient. I'm fairly certain that it was Jason who coined the phrase "In the 20th century, the battle was over the Bible's inerrancy. In the 21st century, the battle will be over the Bible's sufficiency." It's an adage that I think will be borne out as the evangelical church continues to fragment and mutate in the coming years.

And, by adhering to the sufficiency of scripture, Jason Robertson has been changed. It's obviously a radical change (and one which probably goes too far since he says he believes in Postmillenialism, but I'm waiting for a detailed explanation of what he means by it).

Does this mean that Jason and the others at Fide-o are no longer "Truly Reformed"? I don't think Michael Spencer and the Borg's head guys are suddenly going to kiss and make up - although the Frank Turk / Michael Spencer joint article a while back indicates that anything could happen.

As for me, I don't regret letting the Fide-o guys know what I think. I believe they probably went too far in being too doctrine-anal and that my "six solas" taunts were justified. Nevertheless I now realise what a blessing Fide-o has become, and reminds me yet again that God often surprises us when he works.

Al Mohler says nothing again

As many of you know, Al Mohler is my bestest friend in the whole wide world.

Recently, the Southern Baptist Convention met in Greensboro. It was a controversial conference to say the least, with the rise of "Baptist Bloggers" being seen as one of the reasons why Frank Page, and not Ronnie Floyd, was elected president of the SBC.

I've been reading many of these Baptist bloggers recently and there has been a number of issues that they have raised as being rather important:

1. The re-affirmation of the SBC's stance on alcohol, namely that a resolution was passed which pretty much stated that Christians shouldn't drink alcohol. Most of the bloggers I have read are arguing that this position of the SBC - something they have maintained for probably over a century - is biblically untenable.

2. The refusal to examine the issue of integrity in church membership, namely "honesty in reporting" membership by striking off unbelievers and non-attenders from church rolls. The fact that this is not done means that a) Baptist membership statistics are continually over-inflated and not representative of the true situation, and b) many Baptist churches are reporting falsehoods, which is obviously a moral problem.

So what does Al Mohler do? He starts up a special blog called "Conventional Thinking" where he is now posting his thoughts on the recent meeting in Greensboro and the issues that have come out of it.

Except, of course, that he isn't even bothering to address the thoughts and influence of the Baptist bloggers. It's only early days yet, but I reckon Mohler won't even touch the issue of abstinence, integrity in church membership, Frank Page's controversial election and the influence of blogs.

A sad reflection on Southern Baptists

Despite being neither Baptist nor American, it is nevertheless obvious that the Southern Baptist Convention is important in the overall direction of the Christian faith generally, which is why I care.

The SBC had a recent convention where they passed all sorts of stupid stuff (such as resolving, yet again, their unbiblical stance on the consumption of alcohol) and refused to pass intelligent stuff (such as taking unbelievers off the church rolls).

This quote, from "Baptist Blogger", is telling:

The Southern Baptist Convention has relegated Christian liberty in Christ to confessional oblivion and those who are willing to engage seriously in a discussion of its meaning and limit are characterized as an ungodly, immoral, unholy, and impure bunch of bootleggers peddling liquid licentiousness. Yet when the stars and stripes are waved, or "God Bless America" is sung, tears roll down cheeks and hands are lifted high.

We are, it seems, no different that the German Church at the close of the Weimar Republic. Nationalism is our religion. The Gospel is now emptied of its power to set the captives free. This disturbs me more than the resolution itself. In fact, I could have stomached two years of the runner-up much easier than to stand in the convention hall and watch my fellow messengers rise to their feet when the death of Al-Zarquawi is announced. A soul is sent to hell, and we do not grieve. We cheer.

Hold the phone!

I love it when stats prove me wrong. One of my favourite wikipedia pages is Demographics of the United States which contains an interesting section on religious affiliation.

I've always found this article compelling because of the state of American Baptists. According to the article, Baptists in America declined from 19.8% to 17.2% of the population between 1990 and 2000 - and also declined in number by 0.4%.

It's a statistic that is quite damning of American Baptists especially the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

Given that the entire makeup of the Baptist movement is to baptise adult believers only, and the enormous power given to individual churches, one would think that the structure would be ideal for grass-roots evangelism and church growth.

Apparently not. I blame Charles Finney for most of this.

The real surprise is the growth of the Episocopal Church and the United Church of Christ. Although their numbers are small, both bodies grew at enormous numerical rates during the 1990s - 13.4% for the Episcopal church and 130.1% for the United Church of Christ.

Both denominations are very theologically liberal and their growth during this period knocks on the head predictions of their demise. No wonder they feel safe ordaining homosexuals - to them there is no link between theological liberalism and church decline.

Why is this important?

It's because here in Australia the situation is different. The Uniting Church and the non-evangelical dioceses that make up the Anglican Church are representative of mainstream theological liberalism. Both, however, are suffering terrible numerical decline. By contrast, Evangelical churches like the Sydney Anglicans are growing in number. (Interestingly, the Baptists in Australia are not growing much)

The interesting thing about comparing Australian and American religious beliefs is the large amount of people who tick "no religion" in the census. Americans of no religion increased from 6.4% of the population in 1990 to 15.0% of the population in 2000. Australia in 1996 was 16.5% non religious. So what's going on?

I wish I had the stats at hand, but I'm fairly certain that America has a higher attendance rate than Australia does. This means that census figures for America are far more accurate in terms of discerning religious trends than Australian census figures are. What I mean is that when you see churches growing or declining in American census figures, it means that those particular churches are, in fact, growing or declining. In Australia, census figures will show that Anglicans and Presbyterians to be declining in number - but denominational stats will show churches probably growing in number, there being a disparity between regular members and those who tick the box on the census form.

And I can't think of anything else to say. This was supposed to be a short post.

Schadenfreude

I believe God has a plan for people's lives, and I believe he has a plan for me.
- Bernard Ebbers pre-2001

There is something immensely satisfying when hypocrites who claim to be evangelical Christians are exposed for what they are.

Bernard Ebbers was the founder of WorldCom, one of those high flying internet companies that collapsed in 2001. Investigations proved that he was guilty of fraud and the covering up of accounting irregularities. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, he claimed innocence in front of his church. Now he's been given 25 years -which, for a 63 year old, is essentially life.

I hope he finds true faith before he goes...

From the Department of "Wha' Happnin?"