Christian Handbook is subtitled "A straightforward guide to the Bible, church history and Christian doctrine." Written by Peter Jeffrey (a pastor in the United Kingdom) the book presents a wonderful introduction to the foundations and teachings of Reformed Christianity.

The book begins with an examination of the Bible. It first examines how the Bible was written and compiled and then moves to a short overview of each of the Testaments with their settings and teachings. Almost every page contains a quote by a great Christian teacher of the past.

The second section of the book examines the church, dedicating a chapter to the first 450 years, the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Eighteenth-century revivals and finally the nineteenth and twentieth-century revivals.

The bulk of the book is contained in the third section which examines the Christian faith. It is a layman's introduction to systematic theology, beginning with who God is and ending with the end times. There is a Reformed flavor throughout and the author quotes heavily from many Reformed pastors and theologians.

The following article, entitled Take Back Your Sabbath is taken from Christianity Today.

NORTH AMERICA’S largest purveyor of Christian merchandise recently began opening its 315 stores on Sunday afternoons. Family Christian Stores touted its decision as a way to expand ministry opportunity. According to a press release, the firm sees it as a way of fulfilling its “calling to provide … Bibles, books and other Christian resources to meet their [customers’] needs—when their needs arise” (italics supplied). That sense of urgency makes them sound more like a crisis hotline than a retail store.

The media were quick to make comparisons with other Christian-owned businesses that do not open on Sundays: Lifeway Christian Stores, Mardel Christian and Educational Supplies, Hobby Lobby stores, and Chik-fil-A restaurants. Family Christian Stores did not see the parallels. “No one is going to hell if they don’t eat a chicken sandwich on a Sunday,” FCS president David Browne told The Dallas Morning News—as if souls hang in the balance because they can’t buy Max Lucado or John Eldredge between noon and five on Sunday.

Hardly anybody thinks people are going to hell anymore if they do buy a chicken sandwich or go shopping on a Sunday. But The Charlotte Observer’s Ken Garfield thinks that maybe U.S. culture is going to hell because of its surrender to the rat race. He called the FCS announcement “another sign of the culture turning Sunday into one more day in the rat race—that no matter what your faith, or even if you have no faith, life is too demanding to allow anyone to take a step back and a day off.”

Garfield hinted at the spiritual dimension of a weekly day of rest: Faith is what allows people to emulate God and rest from their works. “Life is too demanding” for those of little faith, because the inability to rest is the incapacity to let go of the illusion of control. The constant need to work, shop, and meet demands can be a practical denial that God is in control. Conversely, a spiritual discipline of regular rest from the constant drive to check items off a to-do list can be a powerful symbol of our trust in God’s sufficiency.

From Labor Law to Worship Day

The biblical Sabbath was a blend of the practical and the spiritual—a labor law for the protection of workers and a symbolic participation in the life of God. In Exodus 20, the Sabbath commandment is addressed to people who have both servants and animals working for them so that all who labor will be given needed rest. Workers do this by imitating God, who rested.

In Deuteronomy 5, the Sabbath is connected to God’s delivering his people from bondage in Egypt. Work is good. Bondage is bad. But work easily becomes a form of bondage. The Sabbath is a sign that our work is not coerced, and regular rest allows us to experience our work as free people rather than as bondslaves.

Christians today tend to connect the Sabbath with corporate worship, although the Hebrew Bible did not treat the Sabbath that way. In the Christian church, the history of Sabbath (and Sunday) is complex, but eventually the principal Christian day of worship and the principle of Sabbath rest coalesced in the church’s thinking.

That was not without wisdom. As the 20th century Christian philosopher Josef Pieper argued, true rest is not possible apart from worship. The heart of divine worship is sacrifice, and sacrifice is the ultimate antithesis of utility. “The act of worship creates a store of real wealth which cannot be consumed by the workaday world. It sets up an area where calculation is thrown to the winds and goods are deliberately squandered, where usefulness is forgotten and generosity reigns.”

Sabbath Protest

Our churches and families need to return to a Sabbath consciousness that can provide a platform for countercultural witness. Without being legalistic about it, Christians have a duty to protest the oppressive tyranny of time and productivity and an economic order that tries to squeeze inordinate productivity out of people’s energies.

Such a witness will take varied shapes, but along with church worship it should be characterized by a cessation from paid employment, a respite from commercial activity, an investment in relationships, a receptivity to divine wisdom, a celebration of creation, and intentional acts of kindness.

Churches and small groups should experiment with mutual covenants to take back their Sabbath time. And in the course of experimentation and mutual feedback, they will find a blessing.

Such efforts will take mutual support and planning, because our lives are swept along by the currents of modern culture. Our culture fosters an ethic of accumulation, which teaches us to value ourselves primarily in economic terms. It even teaches us to rate our leisure by the number and the quality of our toys rather than by the restorative quality of our play. We are also shaped by a utilitarian ethos that teaches us to justify every activity in terms of its usefulness to us and others.

There is a gratuitous quality to Sabbath rest. It is antithetical to utility. The celebration of the goodness of God and of his creation needs no further justification.

The Charlotte Observer’s Garfield suggests that, “in a twist,” the largest Christian retail chain opening on Sundays may “stir some of us to take a stand against the routine of everyday life.”

“Sunday is ours,” he says. “You can’t have it.”

Rest and leisure are God’s, we say. And the world can’t take them away.

I am changing the look of the site tonight, so please bear with me if things look a bit off for the next couple of hours.

Update. Well that didn’t take as long as I thought it might. Looks like just about everything is moved over - or at least as much as I care to do tonight. I still have to update the photos section, but that shouldn’t take long. Let me know what you think of the new look.

The Passion of the Christ goes against everything I believe in. Or more accurately, it goes against everything I was raised to believe in. In the tradition I was raised (Canadian Reformed Church) movies were generally regarded as a sinful form of entertainment. Going to a theatre was to bring oneself into the "playground of the ungodly." Portraying Christ in any way, even in a picture in a child's story Bible was considered wrong. And of course Catholicism and Ecumenicism were wrong. It seems to me that The Passion of the Christ contains all of those elements.

Movies are bad. I occasionally go to the movies and enjoy doing so. I try to be discerning with what I watch, but do not regard movies as a medium as evil. Similarly I do not consider theatres a bad place to go. So this does not concern me much. A movie with a Christian theme and message can be edifying.

Portraying Christ is wrong. I am undecided about this. Though I do find it very difficult to watch someone portray Jesus, I do understand that there can be value in this and that the Bible does not seem to specifically say it is wrong. Provided that He is portrayed accurately and respectfully I think I can live with this.

Catholicism is wrong. I believe strongly that Catholicism represents a false gospel - a gospel that conflicts with the "5 solas" that Protestantism traditionally holds so dear and that many Protestants died defending. Mel Gibson is Catholic and holds to Catholic teachings and doctrine. During filming a priest attended the location every morning to hold mass and celebrate the Eucharist. There is no doubt that Gibson is making this movie as an expression of his beliefs. It is a necessary conclusion, then, that his beliefs could come into conflict with Protestant beliefs.

Despite that, the Catholic view of the last twelve hours of Jesus' life is based on the same texts as the Protestant view. If the movie holds very closely to the account as presented in the gospels, there is little reason to think it will showcase Catholic teachings. If the Biblical account is followed with accuracy, it should not matter much whether the movie-maker is Protestant, Catholic or any other religion. The prominent concern I have in this regard is how they present and portray Mary. In the gospel account she receives very little attention and plays only a small role. In this regard a reviewer has said "It truly is a great depiction of the passion of Christ with the theological emphasis on Mary’s role in the Church, the wickedness of Satan, and the Eucharist in connection with the crucifixion itself." Reviews that include such information do little to increase my confidence. It is possible, of course, that the reviewer is interpreting what he has seen through his theological presuppositions and that a Protestant viewer would see things far differently. Still, it seems obvious that this movie will do nothing to show where Catholic doctrine is wrong and Protestant doctrine is right.

Ecumenicism is wrong. I take a strong stand against Catholicism, not because I dislike Catholics, but because to ally Protestantism and Catholicism is to ally ourselves with a false gospel and to deny the principles that led to the Reformation. This movie has already crossed denominational boundaries. The Passion Outreach site lists quotes from many church leaders, all of whom endorse this movie. The list begins with Protestants such as Billy Graham, Rick Warren and James Dobson, but then turns to Catholic Archbishops and professors. Interestingly, the bulk of the Protestants listed have in the past made it obvious that they lean towards ecumenicism. I wonder if they showed the movie to Reformed Christians like MacArthur, Sproul and Piper. I wonder what their view of it would be.

Probably my greatest concern is that there is no distinction made between denominations. If this movie is to become the outreach opportunity that many are saying it will be, it seems there is likely to be as many people being evangelized by Catholics and Protestants. Even more alarming is that no one seems to care.

I am not ashamed to say that this movie makes me nervous. I see the potential for this to be a wonderful opportunity for evangelism. There is little doubt that many people will see this movie and be stirred by it. They will be stirred emotionally and perhaps spiritually. Is it not the job of the church to reach out to these people and to provide them answers to the questions they are sure to have? Or is this just another example of Christian pragmatism where we feel that the end justifies the means? Could it be that we care less about what is Biblical than what brings results? I continue to have more questions than answers at the moment.