The Inextinguishable Blaze

Over Christmas I read A. Skevington Wood's 1960 book on the Great Awakening, The Inextinguishable Blaze: Spiritual Renewal and Advance in the 18th Century. Dr. Wood was a British pastor with a PhD from Edinburgh.

It is a marvelous and encouraging work. I love this period of history, and Wood does it full justice. I do think at times he overlooks flaws. Two examples are: 1) despite reviewing the remarkable evangelistic career of the Welshman Howell Harris, Wood ignores Harris' late-life eccentricities; and 2) though giving significant space to Edwards' Narrative of Surprising Conversions detailing the 1734-35 local Northampton revival (preceding the trans-Atlantic Great Awakening 6 years later), Wood again ignores the fact that Edwards later reflected on his account and saw that he was a bit overly optimistic about the truly spiritual results of the revival, recognizing that many had fallen away who at that time professed vital spiritual experience.

Now that that's off my chest, I loved the book. Here are 3 of my favorite chunks.

In the 1750s William Romaine was preaching in the Anglican Church in England. He was drawing such huge crowds that the embarassed church wardens refused to turn on the lights, or the heat, or even to open the doors until the very minute the service was scheduled to begin. Wood quotes G. R. Balleine, who writes:

Preacher and congregation had to wait in the street till the wooden giants on the tower had beaten out the hour of seven, and then grope their way cautiously to their seats. This was the only Evangelical service in any of the city churches, and very solemn and impressive it must have been, the crowded congregation sitting or standing in perfect darkness, while Romaine preached by the light of a taper which he held in his hand. (143)

During the Great Awakening there was, of course, lots of revival among the dissenting church, as Whitefield, Wesley and other took to the open fields. But there was also revival in the official church. One such pastor was the slightly eccentric John Berridge, whom Wood claims paved the way for Charles Simeon. One happy anecdote from Berridge's life is told by Wood as follows.

Berridge found himself on the Episcopal carpet more than once. On one occasion he was reproved for preaching at all hours of the day and on all days of the week. "My lord," he replied, "I preach only at two times." And when the Bishop enquired, "And which are they, Mr. Berridge?" he quickly responded, "In season and out of season, my lord." (212)

Finally, I love John Wesley's argument for the divine origin of the Bible. Wood cites Wesley himself explaining why:

The Bible must be the invention of either good men or angels, bad men or devils, or of God. (1) It could not be the invention of good men or angels, for they neither would nor could make a book, and tell lies all the time they were writing it, saying, "Thus saith the Lord," when it was their own invention. (2) It could not be the invention of bad men or devils, for they would not make a book which commands all duty, forbids all sin, and condemns their souls to hell to all eternity. (3) Therefore I draw this conclusion that the Bible must be given by divine inspiration. (228)

Pastoral Motivation

Excellent thought from the Jonathan Edwards blog on Edwards' understanding of what motivates ministers in their pastoral call, especially in distinction from the Puritan William Perkins. Just right on.

New Blog

So glad to see this old friend is now blogging (the one squatting, not lying down). As I told him yesterday, good blogs have two traits: frequency of posting and quality of posting. His has both. (no pressure Pop)

(photo courtesy of www.northamericanwhitetail.com)

2007: Jesus Paid It All

I have been coming back for several weeks to the words of the old hymn, which express better than anything I could say what I most deeply feel when looking back over 2007.

There have been many joys this year, but this is the joy beneath all joys. There have been many low times, but this is the source of all stable buoyancy this year. There has been lots of unmortified sin, and this is my only hope as I reflect on the pervasiveness and ugliness of my remaining rebellion.

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

Timeout

No posting for the next week or so as my family and I are in Connecticut for the holidays.

See Promises, not Providences

Grateful for this good reminder from Jon Bloom, a caution to interpret neither prosperity as God's pleasure nor hardship as his displeasure.

Velvet Elvis = Velvet Theology?

Today I read Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. Rob is pastor of Mars Hill, a church in Grand Rapids (not to be confused with Mars Hill in Seattle, pastored by Mark Driscoll).

I appreciate the book in many respects. His thoughts on living like Christ in a way that is forgiving and loving instead of harsh and judgmental; his realism about suffering; his reflections on the importance of joy in Christianity; and his emphasis on the mystery of God and the way we can never exhaust him or figure him out and bottle him up like a math problem; these are all true and worthy of reflection.

But this book is exactly why I started this blog in the first place, and it's a perfect example of why I've called it "Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology."

Time and again the book trades in our doctrinal birthright as Christians for a mess of theology-taming pottage. Bell talks about joy and about enjoying God. Yes! What a central and needed message for our age; maybe for every age. But the way he does it is by softening and fuzzying the clear contours of divinely revealed truth mercifully given in Scripture. His end is right; his means is wrong.

I'll cite two examples. In his zeal for people to know just how counterintuitive and surprising and deep and wonderful and freeing God's grace and love are--and they are!--Bell writes that "when Jesus died on the cross, he died for everybody. Everybody. Everywhere. . . . This reality then isn't something we make true about ourselves by doing something. It is already true. Our choice is to live in this new reality or cling to a reality of our own making" (145-46).

We're still scratching our heads with this, wondering if he really means it, when he follows it up with: "Heaven is full of forgiven people. Hell is full of forgiven people. Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for. Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for" (146).

I think I understand how Bell can say these kinds of things, unambiguously conflicting with biblical witness, from the second example. Bell is talking about the Christian life being more like a trampoline, which you jump on and call others to join you in enjoying, than it is a wall of bricks, with each doctrine being a brick. His point is that we ought not to worry about a single brick falling out and causing the whole wall to crumble, which is the mode in which he sees some conservative Christian operating (18-28).

Point taken. I want to call others to Christianity by enjoying it, not by battering doctrines over people's heads. Personally, I need to grow in this area.

But my response is: won't the height and enjoyment of our jumping be determined by the well-being and sturdiness of the foundational structure of the trampoline?

My conclusion is simply this. Doctrine exists for delight. Just as you don't bake a strawberry-rhubarb pie to stick it on a petry dish to analyze it, so God is meant to be enjoyed, not analyzed. But we still need to have the right recipe. The trampoline structure still needs to be secure. We won't enjoy the pie without the right recipe. Hence the importance of doctrine. It is the Holy Spirit who ignites joy, but he does it with the kindling of Scripture.

I don't want to be a theology-cop. Let's agree to spend our main energies affirming the good in people, not looking for the weaknesses, remembering how blind we ourselves are to our own errors and weaknesses. I have not a shred of doubt that Rob Bell has done TONS of good in this world. Praise God for him. May the Lord bless his efforts. But if you want your people to enjoy Jesus, Pastor Bell, you're softening the very means God has given for them to do it.

Theology exists for doxology. Doctrine exists for delight. We neither skip the head to get to the heart, nor focus on the head without letting doctrine pour into the heart. Rather we embrace and cultivate and defend doctrine, for the sake of the heart. Strawberry-rhubarb theology.

Heidelberg: Providence

Though I am born and bred on the Westminster Confession, a document I love, my favorite confession is that of Heidelberg, for reasons including Questions 27 and 28, on God's providence.

Q 27. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A. Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty--all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand.

Q 28. How does the knowledge of God's creation and providence help us?
A. We can be patient when things go against us, thankful when things go well, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that nothing will separate us from his love. All creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they can neither move nor be moved.

Lewis' Counterintuitive Relief

One is sometimes (not often) glad not to be a great theologian; one might so easily mistake it for being a good Christian.

--C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 57 (rediscovered in a citation in Michael Gorman's book on Paul, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, 131)

The best quote I've read in a year:

Jesus remained silent before Pilate so that ever after he might speak for us.

--John Calvin, Institutes