The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back:
Why I Switched to the NRSV


Beyond the fact that most noteworthy scholars today use the NRSV, I've got my own reasons too. Here's one:

Everyone has their theological pet-peeves. One of mine is paedo-baptism. I guess you can say that I'm just a good presbyterian working out his covenant theology to its rightful (logical) conclusion.

So, when I was counseling a diaconate candidate out of my NIV--a candiate who was struggling with paedo-baptism--and turned to Acts 16 where Paul baptizes the Philippian jailer's entire household (oikos) based on his belief, and saw that the NIV took the liberty of changing the pronoun to a plural (his to their faith, pepisteukos), and also found that there weren't any text-critical issues to speak of, well, that was "the straw that broke the camel's back." I picked up my leather-bound NRSV and put it in my backpack and took the NIV and buried it on my shelf. (Even though the NIV's proper place is in the trash, I cannot, for the life of me, chuck a Bible.)

Two Sides of the Same Coin:
The Federal Vision and Its Opponents (Part I)



Have you ever wondered why most people can't make heads or tails of the so-called Federal Vision (FV) debate within the PCA? Well, after listening to a conference hosted by Woodruff Road Prsbyterian Church entitled "Analyzing the Federal Vision," I am pursuaded that the strong opponents of the FV (Dr. Guy Waters of Belhaven College and Dr. Joey Pipa of Greenville Seminary, et al) are making the same mistake as those who unwaveringly hold to a FV theology. In my estimation, both camps' view can be reduced to one basic moderistic presupposition: radical false dichotimization!

One of the great mistakes of modernism was and is the wrenching apart of the natural and the supernatural. The postmodern critique of modernity has unabashedly used up the world's ink supply to prove this particular modernistic phonomenon as false. And it is my opinion (and the opinon of countless others) that postmodernity has won the battle with regard to this particular critique of modernity. That is to say, we've come to realize that both realms need to be held in tension.

So where do both camps find alignment? In my humble opinion, both camps fail to live in the tension that the Bible presents us with. FV proponents insist on highlighting the efficacy of the sacraments: that the Christian life begins with baptism. The FV opponents on the other hand are insisting that faith is the only necessary means to be called a Christian: that baptism means next to nothing. The apostle Paul could never tear the two realities apart. Moreover, the Reformed standards make clear that a "Christian" is one who believes in the person and work of Jesus Christ by the Spirit AND one who is baptized (cf. Mark 16:16. passim)! Remove one from the equation and you don't have a "Christian." So...

- Faith in the person and work of Jesus + No baptism ≠ Christan
- No faith in the person and work of Jesus + Baptism ≠ Christian
- Faith in the person and work of Jesus + Baptism = Christian

It's interesting that both pre-modern thinkers (Jesus, Paul et al) and postmodern thinkers find themselves more aligned on this. Therefore, it is my conclusion that both FV proponents and their opponents live on either side of the same modernistic-coin! That is, they both lack the ability to answer the question, "What makes someone a Christian, baptism or faith? as my former professor Dr. Clair Davis would have answered it. His answer: YES!

Reformed Sacerdotalism (in Practice)?



Despite the fact that Christians of the Reformed (and broadly Protestant) persuasion insist that they (we) are non- or anti-sacerdotal, a closer look into Reformed (and Protestant) practices will reveal otherwise.

Since the time of the Reformation, most Protestant churches have shifted the aesthetics of their sanctuaries. Roman Catholic churches have always placed the Eucharist at the visual center of the sanctuary. Since the Reformation, however, most Protestants replaced the Eucharist with the pulpit. This had the effect of elevating (both spatially and psychologically) the preaching of the Word over the sacraments. Peter Leithart refers to this as making the sacraments "appendixes" to the preaching of the Word. This has, according to Leithart, forced Protestants to view the Sacraments as "expendable." In Against Christianity Leithart explains:

"So long as baptism and the Supper are seen as "appendixes," they will be seen as expendable. Characterizing baptism and the Supper as "appendixes" to the Word, further, is part and parcel of a Protestant tendency toward the "primacy of the intellect." It is rationalism, in that it reduces baptism and the Supper to a means of communicating information. But that is not what rituals are for."

Generally I agree with Leithart. Protestant churches (including Reformed churches) have not walked away from the Reformation unaffected by Enlightenment categories: The material realm is unnecessary, while the immaterial realm is all we need. "Faith" is all that matters; the ancient practices of the church mean little, if nothing at all. The "noumenal" and the "phenomenal" (to use Kantian terms) cannot interact on any level. (The Apostle Paul was diametrically opposed to this Kantian/Enlightenment/(even) Reformed reality! He saw that the truth of the gospel dispelled this Hellenistic heresy.) But the truth is, Protestant practices reveal something a little different (especially Reformed Protestants!).

While most Protestants will allow their center-stage pulpits to be filled by any Tom, Dick or Harry preacher (even if just once), they WILL NOT allow anyone except a duly ordained minister to preside over the sacraments! In other words, Protestants are sacerdotal in practice as opposed to their rhetoric. Therefore, it's safe to say that Protestant churches (especially Reformed ones) may need to rethink the place (and effect) of their sacramental theology (and the ministers who administer them) in the life of the church based on the fact that we don't preach what we practice!

For Those Who Appreciate Pomp and Symbolism

If Christian culture is to be renewed, habits are more vital than revivals, rituals more edifying than spiritual highs, the creed more penetrating than theological insight, and the celebration of saints' days more uplifting than the observance of Mother's Day. There is great wisdom in the maligned phrase ex opere operato, the effect is in the doing. Intention is like a reed blowing in the wind. It is the doing that counts, and if we do something for God, in the doing God does something for us.

The poet Dana Gioia, the current director of the National Endowment for the Arts, puts it nicely in the poem "Autumn Inaugural":

There will always be those who reject ceremony, who claim that resolution requires no fanfare, those who demand the spirit stay fixed like a desert saint, fed only on faith, to worship in no temple but the weather.

Gioia acknowledges the point:

Symbols betray us.They are always more or less than what is really meant.

Then:

But shall there be no processions by torchlight because we are weak? Praise to the rituals that celebrate change, old robes worn for new beginnings, solemn protocol where the mutable soul, surrounded by ancient experience, grows young in the imagination's white dress. Because it is not the rituals we honor but our trust in what they signify, these rites that honor us as witnesses--whether to watch lovers swear loyalty in a careless world or a newborn washed with water and oil.

If Christ is culture, let the sidewalks be lit with fire on Easter Eve, let traffic stop for a column of Christians waving palm branches on a spring morning, let streets be blocked off as the faithful gather for a Corpus Christi procession. Then will others know that there is another city in their midst, another commonwealth, one that has its face, like the faces of angels, turned toward the face of God.

Robert Louis Wilken, First Things, April 2004.

Echoes of the Psalms in the Gospel of Mark

As I was preparing a Bible study for a homegroup that meets in Brooklyn, I was struck by Mark's use of, or reflection on, Psalm 23 in the sixth chapter of his Gospel. Mark is undeniably painting Jesus as the shepherd of that psalm, or we might even go as far to say that Mark is finding Psalm 23's fulfillment in the feeding of the five-thousand. For me the dead give away was Mark's mention that "Jesus directed them [the apostles] to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass" (v. 39). After noticing this, I immediately turned to the LXX to see how it rendered the green grass of Psalm 23 in the MT. Both the LXX and Mark employ a derivative of cloros. But that's not where it ends. The obvious reflection is v. 34, "They were like sheep without a shepherd," which echoes v. 1 of Psalm 23. Furthermore, v. 42 of Mark 6 says that "they all ate and were satisfied," which echoes vv. 5a and 1 of Psalm 23, "You prepare a table before me" and "I shall not be in want." It was disappointing to find that the commentaries were silent on this one (not that my commentary library is exhaustive). But I was encouraged to see that Mark Horne's excellent book, The Victory According to Mark (which I just picked up this week), does, in fact, point this up.

Argument for Infant Baptism from a Socio-Political Perspective (from Rabbi Saul's Blog)

The practice of infant baptism rules out the possibility of the Church becoming a mere voluntary society. Voluntary societies are not 'public' to the degree that the Church should be.

The State is not a voluntary society and, when the Church becomes a voluntary society it loses the power to truly challenge the rulers of this world. A kingdom or nation does not begin with the voluntary membership of its citizens. This would compromise the possibility of its being a true society. It begins with the reality of a public authority and not with the autonomous choice of the individual agent.

If God is not permitted to put His name on us in baptism until we decide that we want to let Him do so, we have made the authority of God bow to the claims of human autonomy. This lies at the root of a lot of Baptist problems: the desire to say 'I am what I say I am, not what God says I am'. Baptism does not indelibly mark you out because it is founded upon your own decision. If you ever move away from that decision any meaning the baptism had is seen to be annulled.

If the sole valid basis for receiving baptism is an autonomous decision on my part then even the Church, in the final analysis, has to admit that her authority comes from below and not from above. It becomes a human construct, rather than the new nation under Christ.

It is very important to come to grips with the fact that Jesus is Lord. These reflections appear to me to be a valuable application of that Lordship, in terms of the biblical revelation concerning the character of the Church.