God vs. State, Round 1…
January 31, 2005
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Uncategorized Feedback : add a comment
When I first saw a link to the following article, I thought it might be a fraud. But as I read, it was apparent that it is sadly true and is the kind of harbinger of the future we should not ignore.
From The Telegraph UK:
If you don’t take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits
By Clare Chapman
1/30/05A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing “sexual services” at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.
Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners—who must pay tax and employee health insurance—were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.
The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.
She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her “profile” and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.
Under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job—including in the sex industry—or lose her unemployment benefit. {Emphasis added.} Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.
The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.
When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.
“There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry,” said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. “The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits.”
Read the whole thing.
Americans think we are insulated from this kind of problem. But the kind of incrementalism that caused this in Germany is not impossible here, especially when we link it to healthcare, job, and retirement. Under this kind of “Nanny State” finagling, anything is possible if sold correctly to the public by well-meaning people. Unfortunately, we Christians continue to place too much trust in the State and not enough in the Lord.
It is not hard to imagine how this demonic ploy in Germany came about. Tax pressures, social activism, joblessness, and a leaders of low morality and conscience made it happen. It is even possible that people who knew better assented when faced with political pressure brought about by a financial squeeze.
Legislation that makes this kind of debauched socialism work always seems harmless on the surface. Forcing a reliance on the government to take care of you instantly creates a scenario like this—easily sold in a United States in which everyone has a sense of entitlement.
I have written before that I believe our rugged individualism in America is not of God. Oddly enough, as much as we worship at the throne of self-reliance, we are also very vocal in calling for handouts and entitlements. In fact, America is fast becoming a nation of people chanting, “Gimme what is owed me!”
However, this article should be our wake-up call as to what is produced when we look to the State to fulfill all our needs rather than to God working through His Church.
Christians in this country who crusade for social issues by looking to government to resolve them should wake up and see what kind of bastard child is born from that kind of union. Diligence is called for whenever we try to make the government an arm of the Church. We need to watch to see if our call for entitlements that address social needs instead enslaves us and becomes our God.
Government cannot supplant the work of the Church, nor should it. In these Last Days, we need to be aware of the issues at stake in our country and be on guard against “helpful” legislation that can turn around and bite us long term.
Wisdom is known by her children.
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Everything You Know Is Wrong
January 30, 2005
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Uncategorized Feedback : add a comment
Now that I’ve got your attention with that catchy title, I want to discuss what I believe to be the most important Christian book to hit the shelves since Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy came out eight years ago.
Total Truth:Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity is written by science writer and longtime Chuck Colson collaborator Nancy Pearcey. Her premise: Christians have abandoned a unified Christian view of reality in favor of one that is hopelessly split between the worlds of scientific truth and spiritual truth. She contends that Darwinism and neo-Platonism are as likely to inform how Christians think about facts as Christianity does. The Church is filled with people who have separated their faith from the rest of reality, making for a worldview that is no longer uniquely Christian, and which has little bearing on the “real” world.
We see the results of this every day. The Wall Street Journal (sadly) pointed out that the top execs at Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing, and Worldcom were all pillars of their evangelical churches, some even functioning as deacons and Sunday School teachers. Their tragedy—and ours—is their disjointed worldview that kept their faith from influencing their real-life work situations. Yet, the news gets worse: For every Ken Lay there are hundreds of other less prominent people who daily keep their Christianity in a crystal box they open on Sundays, all the while mentally assenting to the fallen ideologies of Darwin, Plato, Plotinus, or Marx during the rest of the week.
It comes down to worldview. Pearcey claims (correctly) that we have yet to see a fully developed Christian worldview sweep the Church, particularly in America. Without such a view, churches here will increasingly and unconsciously stray from Truth, adopting worldviews that are strictly anti-Christ. As go the churches, so go the congregants, and our society is subsequently crippled by a lack of Christian voices speaking into the public square, particularly voices with a unified Christian apologetic that explains not only the spiritual world, but the material one as well.
And what is a Christian worldview? It seeks to address all of reality in light of Creation, The Fall, and Redemption, bringing the Gospel’s answers to how we came to exist, why we experience evil, and how we can return to a state of grace. It seeks to bring a consistent theological framework to understanding the common things of life, too, like our work, our relationships, and our goals in life. As one who has been crusading to overcome the Church’s failure to address the realities of our work lives—in twenty-eight years as a Christian, I have yet to hear a message on bringing Christ into the workplace—I had to nod with every insight Pearcey brings. Her fearlessness in calling Christians to wake up and face reality is a refreshing change from the litany of recent Christian books marketed to only tickle itching ears.
I believe every Christian should make it a priority to read this book. Foundational works like this come along rarely. That Pearcey so effortlessly examines the streams of current philosophy, and so easily makes them understandable to even those of us who can’t tell Hegel from Hobbes, makes this book rarer still. A winner of the ECPA Gold Medallion Book Award for How Now Shall We Live?, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, and a former student of Francis Schaeffer’s, Pearcey brings a laudable list of qualifications, yet never writes over anyone’s head. So worthy is this book of inclusion in every Christian’s library that I am installing on my sidebar list of essential Christian books.
Read Total Truth! It may indeed reveal that everything you know is wrong.
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The Continuing Acts of the Apostles?
January 27, 2005
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Uncategorized Feedback : 4 comments
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts.
—1 Corinthians 12:27-31aAnd he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ�.
—Ephesians 4:11
This is a subject I must write about since it is creating a rift in the Church, especially the American component. I must confess it is an issue I am not settled on completely. I lean one way, but feel some discomfort in that leaning because I understand what is at stake if I am wrong.
What I am speaking of is the office of apostle and the issue of whether it is still operational today.
I have noted many times that I consider myself a charismatic. Any of you who routinely read Cerulean Sanctum are well aware that I am highly critical of today’s charismatic movement for its lack of discernment and chasing after questionable “moves of God.” I associate myself with the very conservative stream that comes out of the Welsh Revival of 1904 rather than that of the Azusa Street Revival or the more recent “Toronto Blessing.” Because of this, I have tended to be skeptical of much of the goings-on in what most people consider the predominant charismatic circles.
That said, part and parcel of charismatic thought in the 21st century is a universal acceptance that the office of apostle is still valid today. The leaders of today’s charismatic movement have made this so bedrock to their theology that everything they are pushing for today falls down if apostleship is taken away. I do not know of any well-known charismatics who would argue that the office of apostle has ceased.
However, I do know plenty of people who have traditionally opposed charismatic beliefs who also oppose any possibility that people today could be called apostles. Looking more closely, most non-charismatic Protestant denominations either side with the belief that apostleship ceased with the deaths of the original apostles or have remained quiet on the issue so as not to draw the ire of either side. I know that virtually no online doctrinal statement from the most popular denominations has any indication of their stance on apostleship.
It is into this contentious issue that I wade.
We all know the original Twelve. Judas Iscariot was “excommunicated” and the remaining apostles cast lots to select his replacement, Matthias. Many would argue that the most famous of the apostles was Paul, who was not even with Jesus during the Lord’s earthly ministry.
But are there any others besides those thirteen?
Acts 14 clearly has references to the apostleship of Barnabas—his apostleship is indisputable by any reading possible of that passage. 1st Thessalonians 1-2 includes Silas in the grouping when Paul ultimately refers to the apostles in 2:6. The same argument can be made in that case for Timothy. And a possible argument from Romans 16:7 exists for Andronicus and Junias. So if you hear that there are no others besides Paul and the original Twelve, remember—at least—that Barnabas was most definitely considered an apostle and was not part of the original Twelve.
Now some would claim that Matthias is not truly an apostle, nor are the ones just mentioned. They make distinctions between uppercase “A” Apostles and lowercase “a” apostles usually based on the idea of Jesus’ personal selection of the former and not the latter.
The problem I have with this view is that once we start making hierarchies of how people were selected, we start tearing at the Trinity. We know Jesus hand-picked the Twelve, and He appeared to Paul personally, then what of Barnabas’ being set apart as an apostle?
Paul adds a hint at the distinction in Galatians 1:1:
Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead�.
Here we have Paul affirming his apostleship. Given what we know of the Twelve and of Paul, it could be said that this passage directly addresses the fact of being chosen by Jesus and not by men. Jesus alone commissioned Paul as an apostle. (We know that on the Damascus road, Paul had a revelation of the person of Jesus Christ in which the Lord spoke to him. Acts 9 does not record the exact words of the Lord that constituted a specific apostolic calling on Paul’s life as Paul heard it—only indirectly by the words of the Lord to Ananias—but clearly that calling was proven later—see below.)
This would make an apostle unique in that Jesus would “hand-pick” him. We know, though, that Barnabas is considered an apostle, but we have no account of a supernatural revelation of the person of Jesus to him in the same manner of Paul. The closest we get would be his setting apart with Paul for ministry in Acts 13:2-3:
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
Interestingly, I could find no account in the Bible that has Paul called “Apostle” until after this event. Was Paul’s formal apostolic commissioning here? If so, then that commissioning was done by the Holy Spirit.
This is where the Trinity issue comes up. If we say that Paul’s commissioning was through the Holy Spirit by Jesus, are we making a distinction between the power of the Holy Spirit to commission an apostle and the power of Jesus to do so? This is where it gets dicey, but that is what the argument against modern day apostles must support. Does this lessen the importance of the Spirit’s commission? If Barnabas did not have a personal revelation of Jesus confirming his apostleship, is he a second-class apostle because his commissioning for the role only came by the Holy Spirit? That kind of hair-splitting and Trinity-splitting bothers me. Isn’t God God, no matter what person He assumes or through which person of the Trinity He speaks?
The problem of Barnabas’ apostolic commission is a large one that I have found is not well explored. Nonetheless, he represents a quandary of sorts. If the definition of an apostle goes beyond merely being part of the original Twelve and having a Damascus road experience, then what defines an apostle?
In 2 Corinthians we find this:
The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.
Unfortunately, this signs and wonders requirement is not complete for defining apostleship, because we see this earlier in Acts 6:8:
And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.
Note that Acts 6 specifically addresses the issue that the apostles were concerned that they were being drawn away from the work of actually being apostles by needs that could be filled by those who were not considered apostles. Stephen filled that non-apostolic role (and later confused it by having a personal revelation of the Lord right before his death! Oh well!)
Some other attributes:
While I claim to have some knowledge of the Bible after twenty-eight years of walking with the Lord, I still find this issue difficult. I believe that apostles are specifically set apart by God for a unique ministry. They are taught by God and answer to Him alone. (But they are also not perfect. Paul’s rebuke of Peter for not dealing with the Judaizers in Galatians 2 makes a case that even an apostle can wind up on the wrong side of an issue, so apostles are not immune to making mistakes.) You could argue that based on the function of the role that an apostleship combines the roles of pastor, teacher, evangelist, and prophet (though the Five-fold Ministry folks would not like that argument, I’m certain.)
Given all this—and you can certainly do more study on this as I will—is the office of apostle valid for today or is it no longer available? Those that would argue that it has ceased to exist would say that it existed only to establish the Church, to get it off the ground in the first century. But what of the early Church is considered pass�? Has the Lord changed the function of the Church or is it untouched? Cessationists would argue that the charismata have also passed away, but their arguments have always been remarkably flimsy and are not in keeping with the tenor of the entire New Testament. They would argue that the signs and wonders that accompany apostles have passed away, so apostleship has, too. If you buy into the one, you have to buy the other. Obviously, charismatics aren’t cessationist, so that leaves modern day apostleship open for them.
Where do you stand? I would love to hear arguments here both ways. Please leave a comment on this issue! I will try to come back to it in later weeks because I believe it is an important one that has enormous ramifications for the Church in these Last Days.
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Is Spiritual Growth Measurable?
January 23, 2005
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Uncategorized Feedback : 2 comments
A reader wrote me a thoughtful note in response to a post I made back in August 2004, (What Constitutes Spiritual Growth?) I started to write her an answer privately, but I thought I would instead share my answer with everyone.
Her question was the same one I asked six months ago: “How can we measure spiritual growth in people?”
This question is a profound one. I have asked many people how they measure spiritual growth and largely get blank stares and shrugs, and yet everyone agrees that it is critical. What is true discipleship if we cannot put a frame around it and how it should function? How can we teach or hope to train up people in righteousness without some defining standards? The fact that the comment section on that posting went empty was troubling to me.
Is spiritual growth measurable? Personally, I don’t believe you can measure spiritual growth like one measures IQ. Not all answers are found in pure science. A “scientific,” quantitative measure will always elude us.
Still, I believe the signs of growth are there:
1. Reproduction—I have had arguments with many Christians over this issue, but I cannot escape it. With spiritual maturity MUST come reproduction. We move from childhood to adulthood. Children do not reproduce, but adults do. We show people who do not know Christ who He is and ask them to come to Him. We teach the new in the faith so that they may grow up into adulthood, too. A parent can have a child, but part of parenting is raising that child to adulthood. So it is with the spiritually mature and the young in the Faith.
Some people are better evangelists and some are better teachers. I do not believe that one or the other is superior when it comes to reproduction. But we Christians must side on one of those two. I think a hockey analogy works here. In hockey, both the player who shoots the puck into the net and the player who passes the puck to the player who took the shot get credit for the goal. In our case, both the sower and the reaper rejoice together.
Growing Christians reproduce.
2. Fruit of the Spirit—Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Are they deepening in a person’s life as time goes on? We should be able to note this.
Stuart Briscoe of Elmbrook Church in New Berlin, WI is a prominent evangelical pastor. Briscoe once said something startling to me. He does not call anyone a Christian unless that person has demonstrably walked with the Lord for at least five years. Five years may be more than I would go, but I think it is a wise belief nonetheless for us to take care and to observe the fruits of repentance. A real conversion will “take” but a phony one will not.
Growing Christians progressively exhibit the fruit of the Spirit.
3. Gifts of the Spirit—I consider myself a charismatic, but a careful one. I think much of the modern charismatic movement has gone off the deep end. That said, I still believe that the gifts of the Spirit are an indicator of God actively working in a person’s life.
Now we know from Acts that many brand new Christians exhibited the charismata at their moment of conversion. This should not keep us from understanding that a mature Christian wields those gifts in a mature, wise way. You would not give a howitzer to a ten year old, and neither does God bestow true charismata to those who cannot handle them wisely. The Spirit of the Prophets is still subject to the prophets.
(A side note: Leonard Ravenhill, the great British revivalist, once said that a dove cannot fly without both wings. And just as a dove has nine primary flight feathers on each wing, there are nine Fruits of the Spirit and nine Gifts of the Spirit. I believe this is great wisdom and why I put both “wings” here.)
Growing Christians flow in the charismata with grace and humility.
4. Mirroring Jesus—If we know Jesus, then we know when people are becoming changed daily into His likeness. One of Jesus’ own will grow up to look like the Lord. We should be able to see that in the lives of people who are reaching maturity. He must increase as we decrease.
Growing Christians grow to resemble Jesus, their Lord.
5. Loved and Hated—People who are growing in Christ will be progressively loved by the true Church and hated by the World. This is a promise the Lord made to us. They hated Him and so they will hate us (see #4.) If we do not engender increasing opposition from the World as we live out the message of Christ, it is a sure sign that we have instead slept with it. Being a Christian costs something, and growing Christians cannot escape being hated for what they proclaim.
Likewise, the Church loves its own and recognizes its own. A person growing deep in the Lord will be loved by the saints. We Christians must also not fear being eclipsed by a younger generation if they are more vital than us in their love for Christ. Our body is not one of division, but wholeness, and we are always called to love the brethren.
Growing Christians will be loved by the Church and hated by the World.
So why do we do so poorly with this?
I believe that in large part the fault rests with leaders within the local church. I know that leaders are always an easy target, but ultimately the blame cannot go anywhere else.
We are failing in growing people to maturity largely because leaders are not actively watching their flocks. It is the responsibility of church leaders to guide the less mature. If we church leaders and are not involved in the active duty of watching to see if these five growth indicators are increasing or decreasing in our charges, then we have failed.
Deep calls to deep and the Spirit to the Spirit. Only the Spirit can discern growth in people; He is the measure of all things. But we leaders cannot do that discerning if we are not paying attention to the lives of our charges and the Spirit’s attesting to their growth (or lack of it.) It is not enough to preach a blistering sermon if we are not following up on how it affected people in their inmost Man. It is not enough to teach the Bible with authority if we do not take the time to ask the Lord to reveal the growth in the lives of our students.
With maturity comes responsibility. One of the responsibilities of the mature is to be actively involved in the spiritual growth of the less mature and to evaluate that growth against the Bible and the revelation of the Holy Spirit. If we do not do this, then we should not be shocked when so little comes of our ministry. The Church of Jesus Christ is a transformational entity charged with raising up the next generation of saints. We must know the standard and bring people to that point, drawing alongside to ensure the successful transition from childhood to adulthood in each believer. That calls for effort and discernment.
God help us all if we do not take that seriously.
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Readers, a Change in the Feed Output
January 18, 2005
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Technical Feedback : add a comment
Readers,
It was suggested by a reader that by publishing my blog to an Atom feed in an untruncated form, I was giving some people fits at some of the Christian news aggregators because some of my long posts were making it hard to find what was new on those sites. Let it be known it was never my intention to cause a problem.
I understand that some view this as an issue, and rather than make waves, I will from now on set the feed to truncated. If anyone has issues with this, please let me know.
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