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(0)This, I think, is what makes the Gospel so applicable- even to the issue of ethnic identity.
As I was reading La Shawn's article, my mind was drawn to Psalm 16:
1 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”
3 As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.
This seems to be an apparent contradiction at first look. How can David say he has "no good apart from" God, yet he says all his delight is in the saints?
We must understand God's glory is multifaceted, in that, He can not be completely understood from one perspective. To bring home my point, let me use the Inklings as an example.
This is a paraphrase, but it's verifiable nonetheless. When Charles Williams died, CS Lewis thought and wrote, "Good! Now I can get MORE of Tolkien," but in reality, Lewis received LESS of Tolkien. Why? Because Williams was able to pull aspects of Tolkien's personality out that Lewis could never get.
This, I believe, is very applicable. What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 15:3? "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,"
The Gospel is of First Importance which means It is the focal point of our (Christian) reality. This means there is nothing that is as important (i.e. ethnicity, skin color, hair texture/color, geographic location, etc...) as the Gospel itself.
This is why Christians from any and every ethnicity, family, etc... can come together and fellowship; not like people discussing sports or the weather, but as A people who have been saved to the uttermost! (Hebrews 7:25) because "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).
So when people in churches begin to dispute about these other trivial things (tension over length of service, style of preaching and music, and even how to address the preacher) have become of first importance and have made the Gospel trivial.
This does not mean that the issues relating to ethnicity are unimportant. The Gospel puts them in their proper perspective and gives light to the answer. As a white guy, I can humble myself because of Jesus and ask sincerely, "What is really bothering my black friends, and how can I help?" "How can I understand the fundamental issues that effect both of us?" "How can I understand our great God from a different perspective?"
I, as a white man, will not understand Who God is without my black brothers and sisters to show me their perspective of Who God is- and vice versa. Because not one group of people has all the answers.
It may not be easy, but it sets us in the right direction.
To be honest, I attend a church which identifies itself as within the Fundamentalist movement. But I would not count myself loyal to Fundamentalism (or even the larger Evangelical arena), per se, only faithful and loyal in so far as the Gospel Itself is concerned, as far as It is preached and applied. And I am thankful for my Pastor's proclamation of the Gospel- in season and out of season.
My goal, as is many Fundamentalists I know, is to be faithful to Scripture, its commands, demands, and statutes in general and the Gospel specifically. This means searching the Scriptures, asking questions, and taking God at "face value" based on what we see in Scripture. This means, on a basic level at least, being looked down upon because we do not agree on various levels of doctrine.
That's fine by me.
This, I believe, is one of the reasons YF consider leaving Fundamentalism. They do not see, for instance, the doctrine of separation in its typical Fundamentalist application as the right way to apply it. This, then, can get (and does get) misconstrued by other Fundamentalists who think YF do not believe in separation at all.
YF want to be faithful to the Gospel; not Fundamentalism. Jesus died for us. Fundamentalism did not die for us. The problem, as I see it, is there is an assumed equality between Fundamentalism and the Gospel. The Gospel does not equal Fundamentalism. But if Fundamentalism equals the Gospel- no less, no more- then I will be faithful to it. And as long as that's the case, I'll just use the biblical term- Gospel.
Another reason I see YF consider leaving Fundamentalism is the seeming lack of scholarly and loving discourse. How many times have I stepped into a Fundamentalist church and heard phrases like, "Be Fundamental!!" ~ whatever that really means. Or the fact that the various Fundamentalist preachers I have sat under in years gone by were striving to be so faithful to the Written Word (which I agree!) that they leave the point of ALL of Scripture out of their messages- namely Jesus.
This is a functional denial of the Gospel, a functional denial of Jesus being our Mediator between God and man.
You will hear things like, "Be holy," "walk humbly with your God," and "take out the beam from your eye before you address the speck in another person's eye" which are all biblical things to proclaim. But when Jesus is not proclaimed in mediation of these commands, all we hear are self-help messages in Christian-ese.
After all, the mediating command which MUST be obeyed, before any other command can be fulfilled in us, is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!!" For when we obey this command, we automatically receive the righteousness of the law as if we have fulfilled every jot and tittle because Jesus fulfilled it! Conversely our sin AND our good works (which are filthy rags in reality) are placed upon Jesus Who became sin for us!
How can I be holy if Jesus is not my holiness? How can I be humble if Jesus is not my humility- after all, isn't humility slippery in that once we think we have it, we've lost it? And how can I take the beams of my sin out of my eye if I am not looking to my Standard of Righteousness Who is Jesus? Otherwise, I've exchanged my current sin-beam for a less noticeable sin- sin of and in the heart- namely pride?
Further, how can we be justified in urging people to Jesus when all we've preached is works righteousness while speaking of Jesus as a passing comment? Even in a Gospel-Saturated context, if Jesus is not preached even one time, the hearers will begin to think that they need to do whatever the exhortation is without faith in Christ. Think, "Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!"
This, certainly, is not an issue only with Fundamentalism but with any Bible preaching church- Fundamentalist or Evangelical.
How often do Fundamentalists speak against the heretical teachings of the Osteens of the world (which is needed!) but yet, they allow near heretical/heretical men who base their whole ministries on a lie and use Scripture totally out of context and misapplications! It wasn't until the one I'm thinking of was "caught" that they "separated" from him (I am still reeling after that one- to be flatly honest- and I constantly preach the Gospel to myself to combat the effects of that situation every time I think of it). The issue is that these people preach Scriptural things but from the wrong passages AND they do not preach Christ. If we're faithful to Scripture, that means we should be faithful to the context from which a sermon is brought.
Fundamentalists have their own accepted associations which, from where I sit, are equal to if not worse than John Piper in the Baptist General Conference or Mark Dever in SBC.
And lastly, I believe some YF consider leaving Fundamentalism because they see that Fundamentalism is not perfect. Granted, no church in Evangelicalism or Fundamentalism is perfect. After all, every church is filled with sinners. Fundamentalism, as a whole, may be categorized by legalism but many Evangelical churches can be characterized by license- Both need the Gospel AND law- for you can not have one without the other. If you emphasize the one without the other, you fall into error.
However, many Fundamentalists seem to give the impression that Fundamentalism is the primary group / movement in which God works.
What utter foolishness and pride.
God is faithful only unto Himself which means He is faithful to the Gospel (after all, God is the Gospel- Jesus). And God's faithfulness to us is a result of His being faithful unto Himself. It is the Gospel that is the power unto salvation- not Evangelicalism or Fundamentalism. God will bless each in so far as the Gospel is rightly proclaimed and applied.
If I may be so blunt, who cares if YF consider "leaving" Fundamentalism? IF they're pursuing faithfulness to the Gospel, then separation from the separatists may be necessary. Ironic? Maybe, but sometimes faithfulness to the Gospel demands ironic actions.
But then again, sometimes faithfulness to the Gospel demands you stay where it's not perfect to proclaim and practice the Gospel to all those who need It. Because everyone needs the Gospel- not just the people you like.
The king gazed fondly over his kingdom at the sunrise stretching over the horizon and peaking over the mountains. Longing for the illusive sleep he could not have, anxious thoughts crowded his mind. A loud knock on the door startled him out of his daze of thought. After a moment or two, he collected his wits and shuffled to the door.Another knock shook the door.
The king cracked the door open slightly and grunted at the unknown person.
"Sire, there is an issue in the courtyard of which you should be aware immediately. Some of the peasants are creating a stir."
The king grunted in recognition of the issue then shut the door. He slipped on his kingly garb and walked out onto the courtyard balcony.
A sea of people overflowing the courtyard erupted into a frenzy no sooner than the king appeared.
"Hail! King Niekru! Long live King Niekru!" one person shouted with what seemed like thousands repeating his proclamation.
The amazed king smiled in his realization that today... today marks his thirtieth year of reign. The fog he lived in was lifted for a time. He smiled and waved to his people. The cheers of the people roared on and grew in volume.
Then the unthinkable happened.
A cloaked individual released his fury from a tower on the other side of the courtyard. Two arrows pierced the king's chest interposing into his heart. A collective gasp rummaged throughout the crowd as the king slumped over the waist-level wall and soon collapsed to the ground.
The cloaked one leapt over the side of the tower as if to fly and disappeared from sight. The king lay on the ground gasping for breath after painful breath while soldiers scurried about, sounding the trumpet alarm. His eyes seemed to scream for help until help was no long needed; his body finally resting, motionless.
The gala gathering turned to mourning as the sun rose into the sky.
Stories, good stories, always borrow from the Christian worldview- always- a variation on a theme- A good and pleasant life is disrupted by some devastating circumstance that seems nigh to impossible to overcome. Evil plays its most horrific hand, yet, when all is said and done, Good overcomes Evil by direct confrontation. The heart of Evil is pierced and Evil's deathblow itself dies.
To simply say that seeing Christian themes in any story is "reading into things" is a misunderstanding of stories in general and the Christian story in particular. JRR Tolkien described the fairy-story as "one of the highest forms of literature" (Letters 220), and "a tribute to the infinity of His potential variety, one of the ways in which indeed it is exhibited" (Letters 188). This act of "sub-creation" was an opportunity for Tolkien to forge entire worlds which may not possess their own life, but would still honor the real creation of God. Joseph Pearce explains, "We have come from God, ... and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God." Tolkien himself explains, "...The peculiar quality of the "joy" in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. ...It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be "primarily" true, its narrative to be history."
"This implies the unreal fantasy world can be just as real as everyday reality, or even more so. If that is so, then the primary world must be less than real, i.e., it too must be a sub-creation, a secondary world. Reality is revealed to be just another fantasy" (George Aichele - Tolkien's Faerie Stories).
Fantasy scholar Jack Zipes explicitly states, "...The fantastic projection of religious hope in the Bible lays the foundation ... for the formation of secular hope that demands a reverence for the utterly different as good and sets ethical and moral markers to lead us to our final destination of home."
"...the fantasy of Jewish and Christian messianism, by way of its chief biblical instigators, Moses and Jesus, opens the way to paradise on earth, the promised land or
kingdom of God. Fantasy projects hope, and hope leads us home. This "solves" Tolkien's apparently paradoxical inversion of real and unreal by asserting that the presently unreal (the no-place of utopia) will become real in the future, at which time our present realities will have become unreal" (George Aichele - Tolkien's Faerie Stories).
Tolkien explained,
"… I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of truth…. It perceives– if the story has literary ‘truth'…–that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest fairy story– and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love…" (Letter 89)
He explains elsewhere,
"The peculiar quality of the ‘joy' in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a ‘consolation' for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, ‘Is it true?' . . . In the ‘eucatastrophe' we see in brief vision that the answer may be greater–it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world . . . The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels–peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: ‘mythical' in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story [i.e. the Christian Story] has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation [those who write and enjoy fanatasy literature] has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the ‘inner consistency of reality'. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true" (Peculiar Joy and the Christian Story).
The Christian story is the real mythic story- true reality. It is first the original with all other stories a copy and shadow (*2 Tim. 1:8-10, Eph. 3:8-9, 11, Acts 2:22-23). I believe Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it best, "There are not two realities, but only one reality, and that is the reality of God, which has become manifest in Christ in the reality of the world." Stories, good stories, always borrow from this Christian worldview- always. A good and pleasant life is disrupted by some devastating circumstance that seems nigh to impossible to overcome. Evil plays its most horrific hand, yet, when all is said and done, Good overcomes Evil by direct confrontation. The heart of Evil is pierced and Evil's deathblow itself dies. This, in effect, is the Gospel.
Therefore, The Chief Purpose of Life, according to J.R.R. Tolkien, "...for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks." ~J.R.R. Tolkien in a letter to Camilla Unwin - May 20, 1969. This includes creating and reading good fairy-stories.
___________
* These passages are used to demonstrate that the historical events and effects of redemption were planned and foreordained before the foundation of the world. Therefore, even though this point will be expanded upon, for now we can properly assume all other "fairy-stories" are mere copies and a shadow.
continued....
Rick over at Judah's Lion explains that when he sees Anna Nicole Smith, he sees the American church.
But do you know who I saw in Ms. Smith? I saw the American church. The embodiment of entertainment, all dressed up and living as if always on a stage, but lean and without substance in reality. Always posing and primping for the cameras and willing to be a constant source of entertainment for the world without having anything to offer but the caricature that everyone got to know. Like a living piece of cotton candy that was bright to the eyes but carried no nutrition with it, the church is willing to play the entertaining marionette forever dancing but without any eternal value. Extravagant in every way, buildings, theatre, cruises, shows, music, activities, but with precious little extravagance in sacrifice, holiness, and prayer.
(HT: Paul S.)
I wanted to draw your attention to the online-only published article from Christianity Today called Shall the Fundamentalists Win ?
I'm still digesting the article. I might comment on it, or I might not.
hint: think globally....
Horrific events occurred in London of which America is all too well familiar. Just as shock and horror filled every onlooker and forced participant when 9/11 happened in the heart of the Big Apple, a similar catastrophe inflicted London.
Questions abound regarding the what's and why's behind these bombings.
