I went looking this morning for a prayer for Mother’s Day. I guess the Puritans didn’t celebrate Mother’s Day (wasn’t Hallmark around back then?) but I did find this prayer for the family in The Valley of Vision. It is called simply “Family.”

O SOVEREIGN LORD,
Thou art the Creator-Father of all men, for thou hast made and dost support them;
Thou art the special Father of those who know, love and honour thee,
who find thy yoke easy, and thy burden light,
thy work honourable,
thy commandments glorious.
But how little thy undeserved goodness has affected me!
how imperfectly have I improved my religious privileges!
how negligent have I been in doing good to others!
I am before thee in my trespasses and sins,
have mercy on me,
and may thy goodness bring me to repentance.
Help me to hate and forsake every false way,
to be attentive to my condition and character,
to bridle my tongue,
to keep my heart with all diligence,
to watch and pray against temptation,
to mortify sin,
to be concerned for the salvation of others.
O God, I cannot endure to see the destruction of my kindred.
Let those that are united to me in tender ties
be precious in thy sight and devoted to thy glory.
Sanctify and prosper my domestic devotion,
instruction, discipline, example,
that my house may be a nursery for heaven,
my church the garden of the Lord,
enriched with trees of righteousness of thy planting,
for thy glory;
Let not those of my family who are amiable, moral, attractive,
fall short of heaven at last;
Grant that the promising appearances of a tender conscience,
soft heart, the alarms and delights of thy Word,
be not finally blotted out,
but bring forth judgment unto victory in all whom I love.

A week ago I announced a giveaway of some great books. Today I want to wrap that up and announce the winners. This month’s sponsor was Reformation Heritage Books. RHB publishes and distributes Puritan and Reformed books. Soli Deo Gloria Publications, which you know as a publisher that has done more than just about any other organization to bring Puritan writings back into print is now under the direction of Reformation Heritage.

The Prizes

3rd prize: the Profiles in Reformed Spirituality series
Profiles in Reformed Spirituality is a series of books designed to introduce the spirituality and piety of the Reformed tradition by presenting descriptions of the lives of particular Christians with selected passages from their works. This combination of biographical sketch and collected portions from primary sources gives a taste of the treated person’s contribution to our spiritual heritage and some direction as to how the reader can find further edification through works of those people treated in this series. Under the guidance of series editors Joel R. Beeke and Michael A. G. Haykin, Profiles in Reformed Spirituality promises to provide a valuable primer to our rich Reformed heritage. The 3rd prize winner will receive all four current title available in this series:

• “A Consuming Fire”: The Piety of Alexander Whyte of Free St. George’s


• “A Sweet Flame”: Piety in the Letters of Jonathan Edwards


• “Dedicated to the Service of the Temple”: Piety, Persecution, and Ministry in the Writings of Hercules Collins


• “Christ Is All”: The Piety of Horatius Bonar

2nd prize: Soli Deo Gloria selections
Soli Deo Gloria Publications has done more to bring Puritan writings back in to print than any other organization. Now under the direction of Reformation Heritage Books, SDG will continue to make these gems from the past an enduring supply of gospel ministry for generations to come. The 2nd prize winner will receive the following Soli Deo Gloria titles:

• Freedom of the Will, by Jonathan Edwards


• Excellency of a Gracious Spirit, by Jeremiah Burroughs


• Keeping the Heart, by John Flavel


• Parable of the Ten Virgins, by Thomas Shephard


• Plus the books in the 3rd prize package

1st prize: new and bestselling RHB titles
The 1st prize winner will receive some of RHB’s new and bestselling titles:

• God with Us: Knowing the Mystery of Who Jesus Is, by Daniel R. Hyde. Here is a captivating introduction to who Jesus really is. Admirably displaying his pastoral gifts, Daniel R. Hyde winsomely relates the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ to the people in the pew. The book is well grounded in Scripture, historically informative, and doctrinally precise. You will walk away from this book understanding the necessity of Jesus’ two natures for our salvation, and praising God for all that He is for us in the glorious person of Christ.


• Reformation Heroes: An Illustrated Overview, by Diana Kleyn and Joel R. Beeke. With this beautifully illustrated book, families will enjoy learning about the people God used to bring about the Protestant Reformation. This book is written at a level for older children and teenagers, but is equally enjoyable for adults. Its attractive 11” x 8.5” coffee table book format makes it a great gift, while the content is useful enough for a history text.


• Meet the Puritans: with a Guide to Modern Reprints, by Joel R. Beeke and Randall J. Pederson. Meet the Puritans provides a biographical and theological introduction to the Puritans whose works have been reprinted in the last fifty years, and also gives helpful summaries and insightful analyses of those reprinted works. It contains nearly 150 biographical entries, and nearly 700 summaries of reprinted works. If you have wanted to start reading the Puritans but do not know where to begin, this is the resource for you.
  
• Plus the books in the 2nd and 3rd prize packages

The Winners

The winners are:

• First Place - Eric Ritchie
• Second Place - Kristine Anderson
• Third Place - Larry Delozier

The winners need only send me an email and the prizes will be on the way. Stay tuned later this month for another great giveaway.

Love him or hate him, it is tough to accuse Shane Claiborne of being an armchair quarterback. He is not a man who seeks to convince people to do something that he is unwilling to do himself. Instead he calls Christians to live as radicals while he himself lives in a radically counterculture way. Claiborne is one of the founders of The Simple Way, a small but increasingly high-profile ministry among the poor in Philadelphia. He lives here in poverty, choosing to spend his days with the poor and the destitute, serving them and sharing in their trials. The Irresistible Revolution is Claiborne’s biographical account of how he became the activist he is today and it is his cry for other Christians to become “ordinary radicals.”

Much of The Irresistible Revolution revolves around Claiborne’s journeys to India, where he spent several months working with Mother Teresa, and Iraq where he came face-to-face with the devastation caused by the war in that nation. As his story has been told, Claiborne has become a kind of folk hero and especially so among young church-goers. They see in his life a way of living out Scriptural principles; they are swept away by it. A skilled writer and storyteller, Claiborne uses the book to teach some foundational ways of living life and understanding the Bible. This book is a quick and enjoyable read. Much of his critique against the North American church is accurate and even necessary. He is right that the church has become apathetic and at times overly politicized. In many churches there is far more heat than light; in many more there is neither heat nor light. His concern for those who have little or no voice in society is much needed. But even though some of what he teaches is biblically sound, underlying the book are many foundational assumptions and doctrines that are patently unbiblical and that undermine the message he seeks to share. I would like to point out just a few examples.

Claiborne advocates a kind of spirituality that is far more Mother Teresa than Jesus Christ and as he does so reveals that he is willing to bend, break, stretch and pull the Scripture to fit what he needs it to say in order to support his desires. While idealistic and radical in his interpretation of the Christian Scriptures, he is remarkably naive (at least I hope it is naivite) about other religions. When in India he often heard the “mystical word namaste” whispered in his ear. He says the word means, “I honor the Holy One who lives in you” and then teaches a brand of pantheism that has more to do with Hinduism than with Christianity. “I could see God in their eyes. … I began to understand what it meant when the curtain of the temple was torn open as Jesus died on the cross. Not only was God redeeming that which was profane but God was settling all that was sacred free. Now God dwelled not behind the veil in the temple but in the eyes of the dying and the poor, in the ordinary and mundane, in things like bread and wine, or chai and samosas.” He says also, “As I looked into the eyes of the dying, i felt like I was meeting God. It was as if I were entering the Holy of Holies of the temple—sacred, mystical.” What word is there for this but blasphemy?

Claiborne is a pacifist, teaching in several places that there are is no such thing as just war or redemptive violence. That violence can in some instances lead to good is a myth, he insists. Though he is a pacifist, he often advocates a kind of civil disobedience that seems to be in direct contradiction to the Bible’s explicit teaching that all authority is God-given and that we are to submit to authority unless it commands us to do something explicitly forbidden by Scripture. Claiborne advocates a “greater good” philosophy of obedience that allows people to disobey the government or other authorities when they are acting in a way that seems unjust. Hence he will encourage homeless people to take over a building that is not theirs and stand with them against the authorities when they seek to remove them. Yet this raises an interesting contradiction. If in his worldview violence causes further violence, how can he permit and advocate disobedience as if this will not cause further disobedience? The book is rife with this kind of contradiction.

Not surprisingly, there are problems also with the message of this book. The message Claiborne teaches, preaches and models is not a gospel of salvation through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. It is not a gospel that saves souls as much as it is a gospel that brings wealth to the poor and sustains the health of the planet. These are good and noble ends, indeed, but they are not the gospel message; this is not the message Jesus came to proclaim and this is not the message of Jesus’ Apostles. It is not the primary message of Scripture. We may tend to the needs of the poor and join them in their suffering, but our foremost concern must be for their souls. And to care for their souls we must bring to them the good news that Jesus died for sinners just like them.

And it continues. The discerning reader will find here much cause for concern. Ultimately so much of what Claiborne teaches is utter folly, even if it does sound attractive. A review published just days before this one says it well: “His theology is an unbiblical and incoherent synthesis which might be described as popularized Christian anarchism for young, disaffected, middle-class Americans.” There is little that is radical in Claiborne’s message; we have heard it all before. Though we can appreciate his concern for the poor and for the destitute, we must insist that the gospel message—the message of Jesus’ atoning death for hopeless sinners like you and me—be the message that marks us as radicals in this world.

Today those of us who are reading some Christian classics together are going to be looking at the second chapter of A.W. Pink’s The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross. You can read more about this effort here: Reading the Classics Together. Two weeks ago we began our eight-week study of this book by looking at the Introduction to the book and last week we read the first chapter which dealt with Jesus’ “word of forgiveness.” This week we move on to the book’s second chapter.

Summary

Jesus’ second saying on the cross is the word of salvation. To the thief who hung beside Him, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

The chapter follows this outline:

1. Here we see a representative sinner.
2. Here we see that man has to come to the end of himself before he can be saved.
3. Here we see the meaning of repentance and faith.
4. Here we see a marvelous case of spiritual illumination.
5. Here we see the Saviourhood of Christ.
6. Here we see the destination of the saved at death.
7. Here we see the longing of the Saviour for fellowship.

Discussion

There was a lot to take from this chapter (both because of its length and its depth). I will point to just a couple of items that stood out to me.

In the first place, I enjoyed Pink’s discussion of how a man must come to the end of himself before he can come to God. “Before any sinner can be saved he must come to the place of realized weakness.” As sinful humans we tend to rely on our own strength as long as we can, only giving up and learning dependence upon God as a final measure. We do this in salvation and continue to do it through the process of sanctification. So often God does not really begin His work in us until we have first exhausted all of our own methods. And so it was with this man. “He could not walk in the paths of righteousness for there was a nail through either foot. He could not perform any good works for there was a nail through either hand. He could not turn over anew leaf and live a better life for he was dying.” And here is where Pink makes a profound application. “Those hands of yours which are so ready for self-righteous acting, and those feet of yours which are so swift to run in the way of legal obedience, must be nailed to the cross. The sinner has to be cut off from his own workings and be made willing to be saved by Christ.” And once he has been saved, that same sinner must continue to be cut off from his own workings if he wishes to be sanctified and wished to grow in grace. It is a lifelong challenge to let go of ourselves and to depend on Christ.

Further on in the chapter I found this challenge. It is something I have thought about often and something I struggle with more then I’d care to admit.

That which makes heaven superlatively attractive to the heart of the saint is not that heaven is a place where we shall be delivered from all sorrow and suffering, nor is it that heaven is the place where we shall meet again those we loved in the Lord, nor is it that heaven is the place of golden streets and pearly gates and jasper walls - no, blessed as those things are, heaven without Christ would not be heaven. It is Christ the heart of the believer longs for and pants after - “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee” ( Psalm 73:25). And the most amazing thing is that heaven will not be heaven to Christ in the highest sense until his redeemed are gathered around him. It is his saints that his heart longs for. To come again and “receive us unto himself ” is the joyous expectation set before him. Not until he sees of the travail of his soul will he be fully satisfied.

This reminds me of John Piper’s words from God is the Gospel: “The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever say, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?” Too many Christians look to heaven for its benefits to us without understanding that the greatest benefit of all will the presence of Christ. We can long after all the good of heaven without feeling any desire to enjoy its greatest Good. And what a tragedy it is if we focus our attention and our affections on lesser treasures. To be absent from the body is to be present not with grandma or mom or dad, but first and foremost to be present with Christ. This promise should quicken our hearts and be at the forefront of our desires as we long for eternity.

And one more quick passage that caught my attention. In discussing the thief on the cross beside Christ Pink says something that stirred my heart with gratitude for so great a Savior. This thief “was an outcast from society - who would remember him! The public would think no more of him. His friends would be glad to forget him as having disgraced his family. But there is one with whom he ventures to lodge this petition - ‘Lord, remember me’.” When everyone else reviled this man, Christ still heard Him and gave Him the greatest gift. What a Savior!

Parenthetically, am I the only one who thinks Pink may rely on italics just a little bit too much? There were some portions of the chapter, particularly near the beginning, where it seems he went just a little bit crazy and it almost made it difficult to read. A small complaint, to be sure…

Next Time

We will continue next Thursday with the third chapter of the book and look at Jesus’ word of affection.

Your Turn

I am eager to know what you gained from this chapter. Feel free to post comments below or to write about this on your own blog (and then post a comment linking us to your thoughts). Do not feel that you can only say anything if you are going to say something that will wow us all. Just add a comment with some of the things you gained from the this week’s reading.

Yesterday I wrote about sin, asking if sin is primarily something we do or something we are. Some questions arose in light of that article and I wanted to carry on a bit of discussion by looking further at the doctrine of human depravity. I have shared most of this in the past but felt it was well worth covering again. It is easy to see this doctrine as one that is terribly depressing and deflating, but when we properly understand depravity I think we can also find it very liberating. It gives us cause to praise God for His grace.

Total Depravity

The doctrine of total depravity be defined something like this: “Total Depravity is a theological term primarily associated with Calvinism, which interprets the Bible to teach that, as a consequence of the Fall of man, every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin. In other words, a person is not by nature inclined to love God with his heart or mind or strength, rather all are inclined to serve their own interests over those of their neighbor. Put another way, even with all circumstances in his favor a man without God can do nothing but work for his own destruction; and even his religion and philanthropy are destructive, to the extent that these originate from his own imagination, passions and will” (I don’t recommend Wikipedia for theological precision, but in this case they offer quite a good definition). Because the purpose of this article is not to defend Total Depravity I will not offer biblical support for it. I hope to write such a series of articles in the future.

When we say that mankind fell in Adam, we affirm that as our federal or representative head, Adam’s sin was passed on to each of us. Adam represented the human race, and when he decided to forsake God, he did so on behalf of every one of us. This is similar to a head of state declaring war on another nation - his declaration means that each person within his nation, each person that he represents, is now at war with the foreign country. Job laments “Or how can he be pure who is born of a woman?” (Job 25:4) No one who has been born of man can escape this radically sinful nature. Nature tells us that like begets like; a dog can only give birth to dogs, not to cats or frogs or birds. Similarly a sinful person can only bring forth other sinful people (which helps us understand why Jesus needed to be conceived of the Holy Spirit).

Another affirmation we make in the Christian view of the fall is that there is a sense in which the first sin is ours in the same way in which it was Adam’s. While we did not actually take the piece of fruit and eat it, God foreordained our relationship to Adam long before Adam fell so that from the moment of our conception we are sinful. We are not innocent until we commit our first sin, but are condemned, sinful people from the moment our lives begin. Psalm 58:3 tells us that “the wicked are estranged from the womb; They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.” Before we are even born we are already sinful, and deliberately go astray as soon as we are able.

How Sinful Are We?

And so it is that humans are sinful from the moment life begins. But how sinful are they? Like many Calvinists today, I am convinced that a term such as Radical Depravity or Radical Corruption is superior to “Total Depravity.” I believe these terms contribute to clarifying the matter, for by total depravity we do not mean that people are as depraved as they could possibly be—they are totally corrupt in some ways but not in others. It is here that it is helpful to distinguish between extent and degree.

When we say humans are totally depraved in extent, we mean that their depravity has reached every part of their being. It extends to every part of them - their mind, body and spirit are all corrupt. When we speak of a total degree of depravity, we indicate that something is exactly as bad as it could possibly be so that there is not even a tiny bit of good left. The doctrine of total depravity speaks to extent, not to degree.

Consider an illustration of three glasses of water. The first glass contains clean, pure water and represents Adam in his perfect state before the Fall. Now consider a second glass which contains this same clean, pure water. We can put one drop of deadly poison in that glass and it renders that entire glass poisonous so that if you were to drink it, you would quickly drop dead. That one drop extended to every part of the glass even though the entire vessel is not filled with poison. This represents humans after the Fall. While they are not wholly corrupt, the corruption they do have extends to every part. And finally consider a third glass which is filled entirely with poison. From top to bottom there is nothing but deadly poison. This represents Satan, who the Bible portrays as being absolutely corrupt so there is no good left whatsoever, but this does not represent humans here on earth. Humans are not as depraved as they could possibly be.

The Equalizer

Total Depravity is the great equalizer of humans before God. Even when we compare the most sinful man to the young boy who was saved long before he even knew how to get into serious trouble, we see that all men are equal before God. The Bible teaches that we are not sinners because of the degree of our depravity, but because of the extent. The degree exists only because of the extent.

The extent of my depravity is just as great as that of the worst sinner the world has ever known. The thoughts of his heart were continually evil, and so were mine. He hated God, and so did I. As one who came to trust Christ as only a child I had little opportunity to express this hatred and resentment, yet the Bible teaches that it was there all along. Titus 3:3 tells us that “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.” These words are as true of a child as they are of an adult. Even my sweet little two-year-old redhead downstairs passes her days in foolishness, disobedience and malice towards both God and men. There are none who are truly innocent before God. Ephesians 2:1-3 tells us as much where it says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Were it not for Scripture’s clear teaching on Total Depravity, I may have cause to boast or to consider myself somehow more innocent than a person who instigated and endured much pain and suffering before being drawn to the Lord. Yet the Bible teaches me that my depravity, even as a child, was as great in extent as anyone’s. It was only His grace that kept me from being as corrupt in degree. If God delights in saving us, who are depraved in extent, we know also that God can save anyone despite the degree of his sin. If I compare myself to another and find him more in need of a Savior than I, I have made the mistake of comparing my sin to his, instead of comparing my sin to God’s perfection. God does not judge us by comparing one to the other, but against His perfect Law.

Total Depravity is not “mere” doctrine, but is truth that should and must impact every believer’s life. This truth is the great equalizer, for it shows that the best and worst of men are all equally corrupt in light of God’s perfect standard. “The man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it-he will be blessed in what he does.” (James 1:23) God had to stoop just as far to grab me as He did the lowliest criminal, for we were equally dead, equally depraved and equally in need of His grace, His life. The miracle that brought me to life is the same miracle that must bring every sinful man or woman to life. We are equal as we fall to our faces before the cross. An old song by the French Canadian band The Kry says it well:

Down at the cross come and leave your pride
Lay everything at His feet
For all of us He was willing to die
Even when we were weak
When we were still without strength
When we were set in our ways
When we were filled with hatred for Him
Still He was willing to die for you and I

Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom
Let not the strong man boast in his strength
Let not the rich man boast in his riches
For all men are equal down at the cross

This is the biblical teaching on depravity. All humans are corrupt in extent—every part of us testifies to our imperfection, but thanks be to God, not in degree. And before us lies a decision. God tells us that when we die we can anticipate either becoming perfected, so once again we will be like that glass of water that is crystal clear, free from any poison of corruption or being cast out of His presence where we will become like that glass of poison, as corrupt and evil and filled with hate as we could possibly be.

You have probably heard about the Evangelical Manifesto—a document that has received some attention in the press over the past few days. This manifesto was made public for the first time just a few minutes ago and is now publicly available at anevangelicalmanifesto.com. According to those who drafted the document, “The two-fold purpose of this declaration is first to address the confusions and corruptions that attend the term Evangelical in the United States and much of the Western world today, and second to clarify where we stand on issues that have caused consternation over Evangelicals in public life.”

An Evangelical Manifesto is an open declaration of who Evangelicals are and what they stand for. It has been drafted and published by a representative group of Evangelical leaders who do not claim to speak for all Evangelicals, but who invite all other Evangelicals to stand with them and help clarify what Evangelical means in light of “confusions within and the consternation without” the movement. As the Manifesto states, the signers are not out to attack or exclude anyone, but to rally and to call for reform.

As an open declaration, An Evangelical Manifesto addresses not only Evangelicals and other Christians but other American citizens and people of all other faiths in America, including those who say they have no faith. It therefore stands as an example of how different faith communities may address each other in public life, without any compromise of their own faith but with a clear commitment to the common good of the societies in which we all live together.

For those who are Evangelicals, the deepest purpose of the Manifesto is a serious call to reform—an urgent challenge to reaffirm Evangelical identity, to reform Evangelical behavior, to reposition Evangelicals in public life, and so rededicate ourselves to the high calling of being Evangelical followers of Jesus Christ.

The document was drafted by a Steering Committee comprised of Timothy George, Os Guinness, John Huffman, Rich Mouw, Jesse Miranda, David Neff, Richard Ohman, Larry Ross and Dallas Willard. Among the Charter Signatories are such diverse notables as Leith Anderson, Kay Arthur, Darrell Bock, Jack Hayford, Max Lucado, Erwin Lutzer, J. P. Moreland, Mark Noll, Kevin J. Vanhoozer and Jim Wallis.

I look forward to reading through it as soon as I’ve got a few minutes to do so!

As anyone knows who has studied the life of Jonathan Edwards, he dedicated a large portion of his ministry to thinking, writing and teaching about the freedom of the will. And, of course, he eventually published a classic work dealing with the subject. In writing the book he thought back to the days when revival had swept his church, his community and the area around it. And as he reflected on the individuals who had been swept up in the revival, or those who had made professions of faith in the years following, he became aware of a fundamental flaw in many of these professions. “Self-controlled individuals, as he had observed in his parishes for the past fifteen years, would acknowledge guilt for particular sins, but not guilt for their fundamentally rebellious hearts.”

Little has changed. I have met countless people who consider themselves Christians and who admit to sin in their lives and feel guilt and remorse for individual sins, but who seem unable or unwilling to admit the incontrovertible fact that their hearts are in rebellion against God. The Bible tells us in plain terms that we are not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners. And I don’t think we can overstate what a fundamental difference this is! We do not need to seek forgiveness merely for the sins we commit, but for our fundamentally evil and rebellious hearts—hearts that, in their natural state, hate God and are fully and completely and gleefully and willingly opposed to Him.

In his must-read biography of Edwards, George Marsden summarizes Edwards’ assessment of this problem. “Guided by conscience, they saw particular sins as failures of will power, which might be overcome by exercising greater self-control.” When sin has been defined merely as individual acts of the will, it is possible for humans, even devoid of God’s help, to overcome those evil acts and deeds. A man who explodes in anger or a woman who grumbles against her husband can overcome those sins in their own power. Unbelievers can throw off addiction and poor behavior through an act of the will. But they can never address the heart of the issue. While they may make cosmetic changes, they can never overcome the deeper issues because they can never change their hearts.

Those who profess Christ can do the same thing; Christians are also capable of overcoming the appearance of sin and the outward manifestations of sin in their own power. Over the past week Aileen has dedicated a lot of her time to helping a neighbor who is preparing to sell her house. They have been painting the house and it is amazing to see what a fresh coat of paint can do to “clean up” a house. But it is merely a cosmetic change. Underlying issues, structural issues, can be masked for a time, but will show up again if they are not properly dealt with. Similarly, Christians can dedicate great effort and go to great pains to remove traces of sin from their lives. But all the time they may have done this without the aid and assistance of the Holy Spirit. They may never have owned up to their fundamental sinfulness, their natural enmity towards God. They may never feel or acknowledge guilt not only for what they do but for who they are.

The evidence proves that many Christians, and most likely the vast majority of those who identify themselves as Christians, have a worldview that is functionally secular. Many people who go to church every Sunday, who read Christian books and who read their Bibles and pray every day, still think like unbelievers. Their worldview—their way of seeing and understanding the world—is no different from before they claimed to be Christians. Jonathan Edwards, looking to the refusal of the people of his day to own up to their guilt, realized that “the liberal Christianity of the new republic would be built around such moral principles.” Modern day evangelicalism is likewise founded on such lax moral principles.

A couple of years ago I spoke to the administrator of a church in the area. This person had been a Christian for several years and was active as a leader in the church. Discussing a recent and high-profile crime that had been covered by the media, this person told me, “I just don’t understand how anyone could do that. I don’t understand how anyone could be that bad. I could never be that evil!” As we spoke, I realized that this was a person who knew that he committed sins, and yet one who clearly did not understand his inherently sinful nature. He knew he sinned but refused to believe he was a sinner. Sin is what he did, not what he was. Recently my thoughts turned to a couple we know who seemed to become believers, but whose lives did not seem to show much evidence of true life change. They were quickly drafted into service in their church and were soon actively involved in leadership and service. They were baptized despite highly-visible and unrepentant sin in their lives. They became members. And yet their lives, including this one very obviously and blatantly sinful aspect of their lives, did not change at all. Neither did the church seem to require or expect them to change. They modified aspects of their lives, I suppose, but that fundamental change of heart just never seemed to happen. As of the last time we saw them, they still did not seem to think, act, talk and, in many ways, live like Christians. They knew they sinned but didn’t seem to know that they were and still are sinners.

Here is how Marsden concludes this short section of the book:

Even the most popular evangelicalism of the next two centuries tended to emphasize guilt for and victory over known sins. Although the submission of one’s will to God and a subsequent infilling or baptism of the Holy Spirit typically would be urged as necessary to achieve moral purity, God’s power was most often seen as cooperating with or working through the native powers of the sovereign individual will. While American Christianity in general and evangelicalism in particular came in too many varieties to allow easy generalization, we can at least say that Edwards was correct in identifying a trend toward what he called “Arminianism” in what would become “the land of the free.”

The foundational problem that led to this low view of sin and God’s expectation of holiness was a wrong view of the freedom of the will. People did not realize that the will is wholly bound by the sinful nature. They felt that they were able, in their own power and through their own freedom, to change their behavior. They did not understand or care to understand the depth of their depravity. They may have sought God’s assistance in doing this, but did not rely on His grace and power. God merely cooperated with man’s inherent ability. And sadly, even centuries later, little has changed across a large spectrum of Christianity. Take a book from the shelf of your local Christian bookstore and you should not be surprised to read that your fundamental problem is not your sinful nature but your individual self-destructive acts.

The solution today is the same as it was in Edwards’ day. “People needed to be properly convinced of their real guilt and sinfulness, in the sight of God, and their deserving of his wrath.” Every Christian needs not only to own up to his sin and guilt, but to admit that he is deserving of God’s wrath. No one has properly apprehended God’s grace until he has understood his own sinfulness and knows that he fully deserves God’s just and holy punishment. The evangelical church of our day is a wrathless church—a church that speaks often of God’s love and grace, but rarely of the deepest necessity of this love and grace. The church today needs an infusion of the gospel, the whole gospel, which speaks not only of God’s love, but first of our desperate need of reconciliation. The gospel portrays us as we really are—as sinners who sin because of our fundamental guilt, our fundamental hatred of God. Only when we see ourselves as sinners can we truly see Christ as Savior. Only when we have identified ourselves as fallen in Adam can we truly and properly identify ourselves as raised up and set apart in Christ.

Here is a quote from Mortimer Adler, author of the classic How to Read a Book. In this piece he explains the importance of making a book your own.

There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it. An illustration may make the point clear. You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from the butcher’s icebox to your own. But you do not own the beefsteak in the most important sense until you consume it and get it into your bloodstream. I am arguing that books, too, must be absorbed in your blood stream to do you any good.

Confusion about what it means to “own” a book leads people to a false reverence for paper, binding, and type — a respect for the physical thing — the craft of the printer rather than the genius of the author. They forget that it is possible for a man to acquire the idea, to possess the beauty, which a great book contains, without staking his claim by pasting his bookplate inside the cover. Having a fine library doesn’t prove that its owner has a mind enriched by books; it proves nothing more than that he, his father, or his wife, was rich enough to buy them.

There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best sellers — unread, untouched. (This deluded individual owns woodpulp and ink, not books.) The second has a great many books — a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. (This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance.) The third has a few books or many — every one of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. (This man owns books.) …

But the soul of a book “can” be separate from its body. A book is more like the score of a piece of music than it is like a painting. No great musician confuses a symphony with the printed sheets of music. Arturo Toscanini reveres Brahms, but Toscanini’s score of the G minor Symphony is so thoroughly marked up that no one but the maestro himself can read it. The reason why a great conductor makes notations on his musical scores — marks them up again and again each time he returns to study them—is the reason why you should mark your books. If your respect for magnificent binding or typography gets in the way, buy yourself a cheap edition and pay your respects to the author.

It is no secret that Christians have a subculture all of their own. It is an expansive subculture that for some people can encompass almost every area of life. From music to television, movies to sports, Christians can enjoy all manner of entertainment, all of it “blessed” by one Christian organization or another. While the majority of non-Christians are generally unfamiliar with this subculture, I have come across some for whom it presents something of a fascination. They wonder how Christians could have created a subculture that is so huge and yet so unnoticed by the world around. Daniel Radosh, a writer who is a secular liberal, decided to venture into this subculture and to record his journey and his observations. It has recently been published in the form of Rapture Ready.

As he journeys ever-deeper into the Christian subculture, Radosh comes face-to-face with some of its most bizarre manifestations—Bibleman live events where a Christian superhero fights evil villains while quoting Scripture passages; Christian music festivals where bands are judged not by musical talent but by the number of times they pause to pray during a performance; Christian wrestlers who act out ridiculous and violent plots but who have drawn the line of violence at intentional bleeding; skateboarding and extreme sports events sponsored by Christian ministries. Kudos go to the author for the clever chapter titles relating to the theme of each of these chapters: “For their rock is not like our rock” is a chapter on Christian music and “Give me a man and let us fight each other” is a chapter detailing the world of Christian wrestling. All-in-all, the book offers a strange look at a very strange world.

It bears mention that while the Christian subculture is indeed a parallel subculture, it is one that is parallel to many Christians as well. Though I’ve been in a Christian context for my entire life, much of this culture is as foreign to me as it is to the author of this book. But what he finds amusing I find just plain embarrassing. For those of us who have never sat through a performance by Bibleman and who enter Christian bookstores only once in a blue moon, for those of us who would never dream of going to a Christian wrestling show or visiting a Christian theme park, this book represents a world we like to pretend does not exist.

While the book is an amusing read, I was not entirely convinced that it is a particularly valuable read. After all, it takes no great skill to analyze and critique a subculture through the lens of your own. And in this case, it didn’t seem like Radosh offered a whole lot more than that. Seldom did he find much to appreciate in anything but the Christians who were most like him. He found solidarity with the Christian singers who were willing to cuss and affirm homosexuality as a valid lifestyle. He enjoyed spending time with those who represent the very fringe of this subculture, but found little of value in the substance of the Christian faith. If the book has value, then, is as an outside perspective on the often bizarre and too often embarrassing Christian subculture.

Somewhat to my surprise, I quite agreed with most of Brian McLaren’s endorsement of this book, even if it may be just a little bit hyperbolic. “What happens when a secular liberal enters a conservative Christian subculture? Yes, he’s grossed out at times, appalled at least once, amused sometimes, and cussin’ mad at [other times]—and maybe even a little scared on occasion. But in the end, he offers evaluations and insights that might be considered downright prophetic, and compassionate too. No evangelical insider could have done as good a job as Daniel Radosh. He’s a witty, energetic, and insightful writer who grabs your attention and interest on page one and won’t let go until he’s escorted you to a powerful conclusion in the final paragraphs.” I did not find that conclusion so powerful, but I did still enjoy reading the book and would recommend it such that it is. Do note that there are a few occasions where the author uses profanity (and some pretty strong profanity, at that). Taken for what it is, this book is an enjoyable enough read and a bit of a wake up call as to just how weird the Christian subculture can be.