Worship, Music, Culture, Aesthetics - Religious Affections Ministries

The Separatist Approach to Culture

Scott Aniol — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:59:28 +0000

The Anabaptist approach to culture finds its clearest representation today in the Amish, Mennonites, and Brethren, but other groups manifest the general Christ against culture model in various ways as well. Like their forefathers, the Amish and Mennonites concern themselves not with national or cultural identity with others around them but rather “on honoring their parents for their faithfulness in recovering and preserving the faith of the Anabaptist forebears.”^¹ James Juhnke summarizes the typical Anabaptist position, specifically related to political involvement, as expressed in modern day Mennonites: “The traditional Anabaptist-Mennonite position, shaped by the persistent theological distinction between church and state and by a history of governmental persecution, is one of noninvolvement in political affairs.”^² The Mennonites, however, began a slight compromise in areas of voting and office-holding in the early 1800s,^³ while the Amish have maintained a more thorough separatist approach.

There has also been a rise in recent years of a group identified as Neo-Anabaptists, who continue to perpetuate the separatist two-kingdom approach of their namesake. Authors in this group include Harold Bender (The Anabaptist Vision), John Howard Yoder (Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of Christ and Culture), Stanley Hauerwas (The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church), Shane Claiborne (Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals), and many of the emergent church authors. These Neo-Anabaptists specifically denounce American Christianity for what they claim is its capitulation to the American political system, argue that the church is a community rather than an institution, and advocate social reform.

The greatest strength of the separatist position is its recognition of inherent corruption in the world’s system and its insistence upon complete separation from that world. However, its preoccupation with establishing God’s kingdom of earth leads groups like the Amish toward an extreme isolationism and the Neo-Anabaptists toward a sort of liberal socialism. What this position lacks is recognition of God’s common grace to mankind on the one hand and of the sin that still wars even within believers on the other hand. The Anabaptist position naively assumes that Christians can obey God’s laws inherently and thus can exist in perfect community.

Endnotes:

Juhnke, A People of Two Kingdoms, 1.
Ibid., 4.
Ibid., 11.

Resources against musical relativism

Scott Aniol — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:59:48 +0000

Someone emailed me recently asking for a list of articles that refuted musical relativism. Here is my reply:

Really, I think the issue comes down to whether there is any universal meaning at all in music and whether any of that meaning is inappropriate for Christians.

Of course, my two books both deal with the subject extensively, and Appendix C in John Makujina’s book does an excellent job dealing with it as well.

I’ve dealt with the subject from various angles in some articles:

I deal with the issue in my series on Christian rap.
I presented this paper at BJU Seminary for several years.
In this article, “Musical Relativism in Pelagian,” I like to the lecture series given by Makujina at DBTS and then give an argument myself (which may be somewhat of a repeat of the argument in the Christian rap series). I’d recommend Makujina’s lecture series as well, of course.
Speaking of Makujina, he presented this paper at a regional ETS that deals with the issue from a similar perspective.
I presented this paper (audio) at the Preserving the Truth Conference a few years back, in which I deal with the issue tangentially.
This paper (audio) on form in hymnody deals with the issue of meaning in music.
I deal with the issue from a multiculturalism perspective in this article. That whole series is worth reading in this regard.

Conclusion

David de Bruyn — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:00:11 +0000

In considering how the imagination of a child is shaped, we have discussed parental piety, parental roles in the home, routines, rituals, family worship, corporate worship, music, poetry, literature, the plastic arts, the Christian tradition, and language itself. When considered together, shaping the imagination is not an activity here or there, but the bulk of life lived as a family. In the words of Deuteronomy 6 again, we shape our children to love God when we rise up and when we lie down, when we go and when we return. The goal is nothing short of how a child understands and judges reality itself. A child’s interpretation of the world does not come through the objective sensory data supplied by the eyes and ears. Interpretation and understanding comes through images – images supplied by example, exposure, art, history and language.

To this, we could mention other matters which shape one’s picture of God, oneself and the world. Anthony Esolen, in Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, mentions matters like play, outdoors life and love of nature, and working with one’s hands. Kent Hughes, in Disciplines of a Godly Family, repeats these and adds matters such as fostering good etiquette, travel, hobbies and athletics. While these are not as formative as the matters we have considered, they still play a role. Remember, our goal is not the secularists’ shallow vision of a ‘well-rounded child’ (whatever that is); we Christians hope to use all lawful means to shape our children’s idea of reality.

If a child’s image of God, the world, and himself is fundamentally different to that portrayed in the Scriptures, not only will he think wrongly about God, himself and the world, but he will feel wrongly about them. His response to the universe will be one of wrong desires. These wrong desires will warp his thinking, and lead him to all the wrong conclusions. Romans 1:18-32 will play itself out in a similar fashion in his life.

Let me put it in everyday terms. If he imagines God as a granddad, the world as a bank to be plundered in his pursuit of pleasure, and himself as a preciously good and lovable person, you will be hard-pressed to tell him that he is a sinner deserving death, that he has abused creation, and that God will judge him. He will reason that God can be trifled with, or that He may be ignored altogether. He will feel little awe towards God, little fear of judgement, and little joy at the thought of grace. And though he may have heard the gospel hundreds of times, (and possibly ‘prayed the prayer’) he will announce that he is ‘agnostic’ when he is nineteen. Parents will weep, pastors will shake their heads and counsel more prayer, and everyone will insist upon the need for more programs in church. Peers will be blamed, conversations will rue the movies and music of our day, but it will all amount to more excuses for another soul lost. If we are serious about our children’s souls, we must become serious about the problem of the imagination.

I am a parent. I know that nothing except the undeserved grace of God can regenerate my children and keep them faithful. But I also know that the Spirit uses means. For that reason, I wish to use as many of the means discussed in this series to shape my children’s idea of God, themselves and the world. I do not think that the gospel truths will convert unless they are correctly seen, which is to say, correctly imagined. So I labour to prepare the hearts of my children to see the unseen as well as unbelievers can, so that the quickening Spirit may open their eyes to Christ. I see this shaping of their imagination as Elijah’s preparation of the altar. I will do all I can, and trust God to send the fire.

Martin Luther’s Approach to Culture

Scott Aniol — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:59:28 +0000

When Martin Luther (1483–1546) begins making reforms in the church, one of the most significant issues he faces is the relationship between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Thus, Luther articulates an understanding of antithesis and commonality that in many ways reflects what came before him but in such a way that he is often credited as the first to express a robust two-kingdom doctrine. Luther, like Augustine before him, articulates a doctrine of two metaphysical kingdoms, one comprised of believers and the other of un-believers. And, as in the Epistle to Diognetus and City of God, he argues for a strict antithesis between the two kingdoms: “There are two kingdoms, one the kingdom of God, the other the kingdom of the world. . . . God’s kingdom is a kingdom of grace and mercy . . . but the kingdom of the world is a kingdom of wrath and severity.”^¹ However, he also adds thought different from Augustine in that he draws connections to two institutions as well, governments that God has placed over the two kingdoms, the church for the spiritual kingdom and civic governments for the temporal kingdom.^² The ecclesiastical realm is ruled by Scripture alone and has responsibility over spiritual matters; the civic governments have jurisdiction over temporal matters and are ruled by natural law.

This combination of an understanding of Diognetian/Augustianian metaphysical kingdoms with articulation of separate governments provides Luther with a way to articulate the tension between antithesis and commonality, something that had been more difficult for Augustine. A Christian, according to Luther, is a member only of the kingdom of God and is thus subject to ecclesiastical authority in spiritual matters. However, as one who lives now upon the earth, a Christian should also subject himself to civic rulers in temporal matters for his own good and the good of those in the society around him, even though he is not a member of the kingdom of the world. He insists, “If you see that there is a lack of hangmen, constables, judges, lords, or princes, and you find that your are qualified, you should offer you services and seek the position.”^³ Yet he maintains a careful distinction between kingdoms and their governments, arguing that each government has jurisdiction only in matters given to them; he insisted that temporal authority may “extend no further than to life and property and external affairs on earth, for God cannot and will not permit anyone but himself to rule over the soul.”^⁴ However, Luther did associate the visible aspects of the institutional church with the earthly kingdom (since they are temporal after all), and thus he saw those aspects to be under the jurisdiction of the civil powers.

Endnotes:

Martin Luther, “An Open Letter On the Harsh Book Against the Peasants,” in Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Jan; Oswald Pelikan and Helmut Lehman (Philadelphia and St. Louis: Fortress and Concordia, 1955), 46:69.
Martin Luther, “Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed,” in Luther’s Works, ed. Walther I. Brandt (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1962), 45:85–92.
Ibid., 45:95.
Ibid., 45:104–5.

The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk

Jason Parker — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:59:26 +0000

“In the United States at this time Liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition,” Lionel Trilling famously declared in 1950. There was truth in what Trilling said, but not the whole truth. Three years later a young professor from Michigan State University conceded, “For a century and a half, conservatives have yielded ground in a manner which, except for occasionally successful rear-guard actions, must be described as a rout.” Yet the very book in which this concession was made proved to be a major force for conservative ideas in the second half of twentieth century America. The Conservative Mind continues in print to this day and continues to inspire those who love enduring verities.

The book discusses “British and American thinkers who have stood by tradition and old establishments,” particularly from the time of Edmund Burke. But if you think that this means a blind faith in the status quo, then you really need to read this book. Kirk argued,

Conservatism is not a fixed and immutable body of dogmata; conservatives inherit from Burke a talent for re-expressing their convictions to fit the time. As a working premise, nevertheless, one can observe here that the essence of social conservatism is preservation of the ancient moral traditions of humanity. Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors…; they are dubious of wholesale alteration. They think society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine.

Kirk delineated six cannons of conservative thought (which he later expanded to ten).

Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems….True politics is the art of apprehending and applying the Justice which ought to prevail in a community of souls.
Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrow uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems….
Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a “classless society”….
Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all.
Faith in prescription and distrust of “sophisters, calculators, and economists” who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs. Custom, convention and old prescription are checks both upon man’s anarchic impulse and upon the innovator’s lust for power.
Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress. Society must alter, for prudent change is the means of social preservation; but a statesman must take Providence into his calculations, and a statesman’s chief virtue…is prudence.

If these cannons have any purchase on your soul, then you just might be a conservative! Reading this book will deepen your love for the garden of life that you have inherited, as well as your ability to cultivate it well. But even if you are not a conservative, reading this book will serve you well by freeing your mind from bondage to the contemporary “right” and “left” parties, pointing you toward the Truth which endures beyond all immediate issues.

Herman Dooyeweerd’s Approach to Culture

Scott Aniol — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:59:03 +0000

The first of Kuyper’s direct followers to explicitly transition away from the Reformed doctrine of two kingdoms was Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977). Building on Kuyper’s ambiguity, and parallel to Barth’s own views, Dooyeweerd further develops the idea of worldview as the center of antithesis^¹ and roots the Son of God’s relationship to cultural matters in redemption rather than in creation.^² Thus he understands there to be only one kingdom of God in Christ manifested in different spheres. He establishes a new “Christocentric” basis for common grace and develops the Creation-Fall-Redemption paradigm for understanding God and man’s work in the world.^³ Involvement in the civic and culture spheres for Dooyeweerd is redemptive work for the sake of God’s kingdom. In fact, he calls for Christians to “strive for the consolidation of power in organizations that aim at applying Christian principles to society.”^⁴

The impact of Dooyeweerd’s thoughts cannot be overestimated with relation to the church’s responsibility toward culture. Dooyeweerd’s heritage is evident especially in North American Neo-Calvinism, largely through the influence of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. This begins first with Henry Stob (1908-1996), a student of Dooyeweerd and a professor at Calvin College. Stob agrees with Niehbuhr’s categorization of Calvin as a transformationalist and ignores the Christ and Culture in Paradox paradigm altogether.^⁵ He strongly influenced his students Cornelius Plantinga and Albert Wolters, both who later returned to Calvin to teach and influenced Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen.

Endnotes:

Herman Dooyeweerd, Roots of Western Culture (Toronto: Wedge, 1979), 5–6, 14–15.
Ibid., 137–47.
See Dooyeweerd, Roots of Western Culture.
Ibid., 66–67.
Henry Stob, Theological Reflecteions: Esssays on Related Themes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 129–30, Theological Reflections.

The Technology of Thought

David de Bruyn — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:00:46 +0000

To understand reality, a child must think. Thinking that brings understanding is not the thinking that a cow does when it notices a car passing its pasture. It is the kind of thinking about ideas. To think about ideas, a child must know language. Language is the technology of thought.

Language, as we are using it here, does not refer to a vast set of names about the world. Chimps and dogs can be taught certain names and verbal commands. Language as the activity of God’s image-bearers is a matter of making predications, statements about things in the world. Real language does not simply name things, it tells us something about them. Only when we are telling – describing, valuing, explaining, relating, comparing, contrasting – are we using language as persons made in God’s image.

Human language is an extraordinarily fine tool for this task. We can explain actions in the past, present, or future. We can suggest the action was conditional, imperative, or definite. We can describe the action as progressive, completed or incomplete. We can make a subject responsible for an action or the recipient of it. We can choose from a bewildering variety of synonyms to find the particular shade of meaning we need. Our world of ideas, from the child’s first book to the most obscure philosophical textbook, exists only because we are able to use language.

What happens to the soul whose technology of thought is broken with flawed grammar and a skeletal vocabulary? His range of ideas is immediately limited. His potential to weigh, discriminate, judge, contrast, and make the kind of fine distinctions necessary to wisdom is greatly diminished. His disordered language reflects disordered ideas, and disordered ideas do not represent the orderly universe God made.

If we wish our children to embrace the reality of God according to Scripture, we must prepare them to do so with careful attention to language. Not only do we want them to be competent readers of Scripture, we want them to be competent thinkers. They will only think clearly when they have received more than passing attention to grammar.

Here I insert my preference for an education that drills children in grammar and syntax. When the connections between words are understood, a clarity of ideas emerges. When the child thinks that his words just refer to things, he is less particular about weighing ideas, and all the more likely to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.

It is no secret that serious discourse is almost dead. Read the arguments in the comments section of most blogs. Listen to political rhetoric. Read columnists, and yes, sadly, listen to more than a few sermons. Precision of thought has been replaced by platitudes, unchallenged assumptions and fictions. Disciplined reasoning and coherent discourse has been replaced by wild gesticulating, and wide-eyed defenses of cherished prejudices.

In the resulting fragility, the truths and ideas of the gospel may not be as clear and reasonable to young minds, if those young minds have not been taught to think clearly and reason well. If we are careless about language, we throw our children to the lions of pluralism and incoherent discourse, and possibly cripple their ability to rightly view the ideas of the gospel.

William Logan on Medium and Message

David Oestreich — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:00:47 +0000

(Note: For anyone who’s been missing them, I plan to return to sharing insights from Tozer over the coming weeks.)

Any review of The Cantos‘ visual form, intimately involved with Pound’s acquisition of a typewriter during 1913 or 1914, cannot proceed without examining the letters in their library caches. In the interest of economy, the editors of his letters have “standardized” Pound’s idiosyncratic spacings and indentations. Only a facsimile edition could indicate where the habits of expression accorded with habits of mind, where they had been tested in the letters before tried in The Cantos. Is it only in art that the appearance of the message is assumed to be part of the message? Pound was fortunate such editors did not “standardize” The Cantos as well.

Apart from a few poems well known as exemplars of Imagism, I have found the work Ezra Pound to be quite difficult. In order to work up to a minimally informed reading of his most ambitious work, The Cantos, I am consulting a few resources, one of which is poet/critic William Logan’s essay (excerpted above), “Pound at the Post Office”, which is collected in his book, Desperate Measures. Therein, Logan suggests that Pound’s various correspondences are extremely illuminating to understanding The Cantos, both in content and technique.

As an example of the latter, Logan cites, as you have read, peculiarities of “spacing and indentation” present in both the letters and the poems. Realizing that the intent of such peculiarities is more easily recognized in the simpler, informal context of correspondence, one can estimate the benefit in comprehension the reader of (the original versions of) those letters reaps when reading the poems, which, of course, are more complex.

What struck me, however, when reading the excerpt above, is Logan’s unquestioning assumption that the appearance (or form) is intended to convey meaning, indeed, is a part of the poem’s full meaning itself.

This is a basic axiom of art.

Abraham Kuyper’s Approach to Culture

Scott Aniol — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:59:34 +0000

The history of Christian approaches to culture clearly enters a stage of transition in the work of Dutch Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920). VanDrunen argues that Kuyper retained enough of the important categories of two-kingdom theology to be categorized squarely in its line of thought. In fact, even one-kingdom proponents such as Jeremy Begbie acknowledge this, especially citing the fact that Kuyper grounded culture in the created order rather than in redemption.^¹ Others, however, disagree, arguing that Kuyper moved significantly enough away from two-kingdom thinking, especially with his view of natural law. John Frame, for example, calls VanDrunen’s claim a “very implausible position.”^²

Despite this debate, Kuyper at very least serves as a transition figure between typical two-kingdom articulations and more of a transformationalist approach. He certainly articulates several things differently than two-kingdom theologians before him, such as explaining that the antithesis that exists is between worldviews,^³ articulating the commonality between kingdoms in terms of “common grace,”^⁴ and differentiating between the church as institution (which is limited to specific ecclesiastical matters) and the church as organism (which encompasses all of life for the Christian and extends to any sphere in which he finds himself).^⁵

Where Kuyper especially begins to blur distinctions between the two kingdoms is with his argument that Calvinism is an entire worldview that applies to every aspect of the Christian’s life. He resembles the two-kingdom doctrine with his idea of “sphere sovereignty,” teaching that each sphere of human activity, including the ecclesiastical and civic, was distinct from every other sphere and exerted no authority over another. But he also argued strongly that Christ exerted Lordship over each sphere. Likely his most famous quote articulates his conviction on this point: “Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”^⁶

This in itself was no different than Luther and Calvin’s beliefs that God instituted and rules the governments of both kingdoms, but where he begins to be somewhat ambiguous is when he discusses how Christians relate in non-ecclesiastical spheres and the relationship between common grace (which accounts for commonality between kingdoms) and special grace (which specifically involves spiritual matters). Kuyper teaches that when a Christian involves himself in civic or cultural matters, he is operating as the organic church in a realm governed by common grace, yet as a Christian who has been influenced by special grace, he can exert that influence of saving grace even upon otherwise common spheres.^⁷ Carson summarizes Kuyper’s point here:

Because all truth is God’s truth, because nothing we legitimately study is unrelated to Christ, Kuyper felt compelled to demonstrate how Christ’s sovereignty operates in every sphere. At least during the first half of his career, Kuyper pursued these lines while insisting on the distinctiveness of the church, on the uniqueness of the special grace that Christian alone have received. By setting up a Christian university and by establishing a Christian trade union and a Christian political party, all the while underlining the Christ is Lord of all, he was simultaneously insisting that there is unique insight in the Christian revelation and that Christians are mandated to affirm Christ’s Lordship in every sphere. The result is a vision that emphasizes the uniqueness of the church and of what is now often called special revelation, while equally underscoring the importance of what was later called the cultural mandate.^⁸

This allows Kuyper to posit the possibility of a “Christian society,” or at least “Christian” aspects of a society.^⁹ By this he does not mean that every person, or even a majority of persons, in such a society would be Christians, but rather “it means that in such a country special grace in the church and among believers exerted so strong a formative influence on common grace that common grace thereby attained its highest development.”^¹⁰

VanDrunen sees this way of articulating things as dangerous since it blurs the dual mediatorship of the Son of God that Calvin articulated. By using “Christian,” Kuyper is arguing that that the Son is exerting rulership over the civic sphere as “Christ,” a title that refers to his redemptive role rather than simply his role as creator. This ambiguity, VanDrunen suggests, leads Kuyper’s followers to transition their understanding of the Son’s relationship to culture as one of redemption rather than simply creation. Whether Kuyper was a two-kingdom proponent who articulated some of his beliefs ambiguously or a emerging transformationalist, there is no doubt that how he articulated the relationship between the church and culture significantly influenced future generations and did impact the popularity of the transformationalist approach.

What is particularly interesting in Kuyper’s work is that he is the first in the present survey to discuss “culture” per se, the idea having only recently reached its present form in the work of British anthropologist Edward Tylor (Primitive Culture, 1871). Prior to Kuyper, discussions of Christian interaction with unbelievers referred primarily to political, civic, and social issues; Kuyper continues these themes but adds specific reference to culture.

Endnotes:

Jeremy S Begbie, “Creation, Christ, and Culture in Dutch Neo-Calvinism,” in Christ in Our Place: The Humanity of God in Christ for the Reconciliation of the World : Essays Presented to Professor James Torrance, ed. Daniel P. Thimell and Trevor A. Hart (Allison, Park, PA: Pickwich, 1989), 126.
John Frame, The Escondido Theology: A Reformed Response to Two Kingdom Theology (Whitefield Media Productions, 2011), 148n6. For a fuller evaluation of this claim, see Timothy P. Palmer, “The Two-Kingdom Doctrine: A Comparative Study of Martin Luther and Abraham Kuyper,” Pro Rege 27, no. 3 (March 2009): 13–25.
“School will form itself against school, system against system, world-view against world-view” (Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931], 117).
“We must distinguish two dimensions in this manifestation of grace: 1. a saving grace, which in the end abolishes sin and completely undoes its consequences; and 2. a temporal restraining grace, which holds back and blocks the effect of sin. The former . . . is in the nature of the case special and restricted to God’s elect. The second . . . is extended to the whole of our human life” (Ibid., 168).
Abraham Kuyper, “Common Grace,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. Mr. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 194–99.
Abraham Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. Mr. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 488.
“The institute does not cover everything that is Christian. Though the lamp of the Christian religion only burns within that institute’s walls, its light shines out through its windows to areas far beyond, illumining all the sectors and associations that appear across the wide range of human life and activity. Justice, law, the home and family, business, vocation, public opinion and literature, art and science, and so much more are all illuminated by that light, and that illumination will be stronger and more penetrating as the lamp of the gospel is allowed to shine more brightly and clearly in the church institute” (Kuyper, “Common Grace,” 194).
Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited, 214.
“The church as organism may even manifest itself where all personal faith is missing but where nevertheless some of the golden glow of eternal life is reflected on the ordinary facades of the great edifice of human life” (Kuyper, “Common Grace,” 195).
Ibid., 199.

Relevance is irrelevant (Part 4)

Ryan Martin — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:18:27 +0000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

I believe that the first three chapters of 1 Corinthians ought to guide our thinking concerning the relationship of our efforts to minister the grace of Jesus Christ and so-called cultural relevance. This series has been slowly working through those chapters, seeking to understand the words of Paul, and then apply them to our own ministry practice today.

In part 3, we saw how Paul contrasts worldly and godly wisdom. Worldly wisdom seeks to understand the world apart from God’s revelation. Christ is the wisdom of God, especially in the focal point of his person and work, as seen in his death and resurrection. Paul says in 1:22-23,

The Jews demand signs

and Greeks seek wisdom,

but we preach Christ crucified

a stumbling block to Jews

and folly to Gentiles,

but to those who are called,

both Jews

and Greeks,

Christ

the power of God

and the wisdom of God.

Here is the message no worldling could ever invent. The fancy of natural men is piqued by all sorts of different things (here signs for Jews and wisdom for Greeks), but the revealed message of God concerning the redemption for men through the crucified Christ is the only hope of salvation.

Paul’s main point remains that it is the preaching of the cross that works effectively in bringing men and women to Christ. In mere preaching God wants to bring wretched men and women to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. As I said in part 2, the message of our preaching points to Christ and as such sets him before sinners as the only hope of salvation, and thus in the foolishness of preaching God works to bring men to Christ. Preaching here is the proclamation of the revealed message of God that salvation comes through the crucified Christ.

Having shown that in mere preaching God brings sinners to himself through Jesus Christ, he now turns to the Corinthians themselves as hard evidence that God’s ways are not man’s ways. This too emphasizes the contrast between worldly wisdom and godly wisdom.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God (1 Cor 1:26-29).

Paul says to the Corinthians, “Look around you. Look at the kinds of people who fill your pews. Not many of you are philosophers or smart, not many of you are doing miracles, and not many of you have ‘blue blood.’” If we were trying to construct our own religion, and we could pick anyone we like to join our cult, we’d want people with prestige, power, and academic brilliance among the people we chose to join our ranks. But God doesn’t work that way. Even in the kinds of people God is working to save, God is showing that he does not work according to man’s vain wisdom. By saving the unexpected, God glorifies himself and his own wisdom above the empty opinions of men.

Frankly, I think it is amusing how worked up Christians get when they find out some celebrity or professional athlete or renowned scholar is a Christian. It’s as if this paragraph was never written. But we look at such phenoms as a kind of bolster for our own faith. We so rarely see the important people of this world confessing Christ that we think that those who are important somehow vindicate our beliefs. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is of God’s great condescension and mercy that even saves celebrities, actors, professional athletes, or renowned scholars. Ultimately, this fawning over Christian celebrities betrays our own lack of faith in God. We ought to believe God’s message about Christ simply because it is the message that has come to us from the greatest being in the universe, the Almighty, All-wise God himself. Christianity’s truth has nothing to do with the celebrities who profess Christ. It has everything to do with the God who has revealed himself in Christ.

That said, I am grateful for celebrities who happen to be Christian and I pray that they humbly and faithfully serve the Lord and Master and seek to defray human glory in an age that worships it. Moreover, Paul’s words in vv 26-29 do not mean that God never chooses those who are wise, powerful, or well-born, but that, as a matter of fact, it is not his custom, in order that he might always get the glory.

Unfortunately, American evangelicalism has tried to leverage worldly celebrity culture for evangelism as well. We see churches scheduling big names to draw a crowd and thereby bring men and women to Christ. This practice directly contradicts Paul’s message in 1 Corinthians 1. God doesn’t care about worldly celebrity. He wants to glorify his Son. God wants it so that “no human being may boast in the presence of God” (1:29). Woe to us if we regard the celebrity that God deliberately avoids, even if we regard the celebrity in order to save souls! We are not desperate people, for the message of the cross is the power of God (1:18). We do not need to stoop to these tactics. Of course, despite our best efforts to mess up the stewardship God has given to us as his ambassadors in the use of such gimmicks, God still genuinely and graciously saves men and women. But even such genuine fruit does not justify the methods employed.

God wants to turn worldly wisdom on its head. See the proof again when you gather with your fellow believers this coming Lord’s Day. Your pews will be filled, not with the smart, nor with the miracle workers, nor even with many well-born, but with simple, ordinary sinners, all of whom have experienced the saving power of God through Jesus Christ crucified.