There are very few books that I look forward to reading. I mean really look forward to, like the way a tweenie looks forward to the next Twilight. Though not so much interested in adolescent vampire fiction there was one book published at the end of last year that I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into: Vern Poythress’ In the Beginning Was the Word: A God-Centered Approach to Language. (You can grab a free PDF of the entire book through Poythress’ site.)

Having come through the undergraduate linguistics program of a state school I can tell you that the last thing you’re going to hear in any linguistics classroom is a God-centered approach to language. The only mention of God you’re likely to hear is a confused reference toGenesis 11 and the tower of Babel. Linguistics is very much a natural science.

This is why I greatly anticipated Poythress’ work. If well-done, this book could be a valuable contribution to the field of linguistics and give voice to an alternative viewpoint that’s all too often not even considered. A God-centered approach to language makes sense given that the universe itself is God-centered, something most Christians will willingly concede over against a strictly naturalistic cosmology. Also, there’s a certain apologetic force to a God-centered approach to language that could really put a pebble in the shoe of the relatively unchallenged notion that language is the happy result of evolutionary processes. Yes, there is something inexplicably preternatural about language that points to the triune God.

Poythress in In the Beginning Was the Word, however, fails to harness the full force of the sleeping beast on which he rides. All in all I was greatly disappointed by In the Beginning Was the Word and would be surprised to find it having a lasting impression on the field of linguistics outside of Christian circles and even within. We need a book like this, but we need it to do more, and to do it more convincingly.

In the Beginning Was the Word

First

First, I was disappointed that in the book Poythress fails to interact with contemporary linguists and linguistic theory, not merely because this is the kind of thing that good scholars do, but more so because I believe there’s much in contemporary linguistics that could be used to bolster support for Poythress’ argument that a divine origin of language has more explanatory power than the strictly naturalistic explanations that prevail today. It should go without saying that a book published today on language should interact with Chomskyian linguistics, especially a work that bears much in common with and could find much support from his nativist approach to language. Chomsky has been called a “closet creationist” for instance. Steven Pinker in his The Language Instinct has to go to some surprising lengths to try to convince his readers that universal grammar is still compatible with the theory of evolution and that people needn’t run hastily to God for answers. This seems like an appropriate place for someone like Poythress to step into the discussion and proffer God. Instead, In the Beginning Was the Word strips itself of much of its potential power by not taking a broader look at what a God-centered approach language entails. Poythress commendably reasons from the Scriptures but in only doing so he fails to employ all available arguments for a God-centered approach to language. So much more could be said that the book’s almost a frustrating read.

Second

Secondly, prior to reading I had in mind to offer the book as a giveaway at a linguistics meeting on campus I was planning and even possibly to send a copy to one of my old college linguistics professors. After reading, I felt uneasy doing so and thereby endorsing the book for the simple reason that the argumentation within is incredibly weak. For example, consider the analogies Poythress attempts to draw between language and the triune God in order to establish the thesis that a biblically-faithful approach to language will start with communication between the persons of the trinity:

Let us now focus on the character of the rules of language. They reveal God in some striking ways.

First, the rules of English hold wherever English is spoken…Spoken English, and human knowledge of English, are not omnipresent. But the rules are.¹

In the above language is thought to reveal God on the following logic: God is omnipresent. Rules of language can be thought of as omnipresent. Rules of language therefore reveal God. I don’t find this as striking as the author does. It could be argued on this thinking that whatever is omnipresent “reveals God.” Seems like a stretch to me.

The author continues this way showing rules of language to be omnipresent, eternal, immutable, invisible (“We do not literally see the rule that ‘moved’ is the past tense of ‘move.’ We see and hear only the effects of the rule on our use of language. The rule is essentially immaterial and invisible . . . Likewise, God is essentially immaterial and invisible, but is known through his acts in the world.”²), truthful (“Real rules, as opposed to linguists’ approximations of them, are also absolutely, infallibly true. Truthfulness is also an attribute of God.”³), powerful, immanent and transcendent, rational, good, and beautiful.

Then watch his conclusion to this chapter:

“Rules for language are a form of the word of God. So they reflect the Trinitarian statement ofJohn 1:1, which identifies the second person of the Trinity as the eternal Word. . . .

Man is made in the image of God, and so his language is in the image of God. And so his language reflects the Trinitarian pattern.”⁴

I find this argument very unsatisfying for two reasons: (1) again it seems like a stretch and (2) so what? What’s the importance? It seems to me to belabor the thesis to multiple evidences by stretching analogies. The thesis is straightforward enough that in my mind little is gained by the above evidences.

Third

Third, I have a very hard time swallowing many basic statements in the book that attribute to God everything from etymology to grammar to the correspondence between the signified (a dog) and the signifier (“dog”). Are we only able to trust language if we endow words with a logical, God-established connection to the thing for which they stand? I think not. Again, I see little gained when Poythress asserts that God has designed the contemporary English word “dog” to represent perfectly the idea of a dog. I see no need to be this specific in a God-centered approach to language, especially on a matter on which we cannot be certain (regardless of the view of divine providence one subscribes to). I see no damage done to a God-centered approach to language by granting the abstract relationship between words and concepts.

Additionally, denying the abstract relationship between what we call a dog and the English word “dog” flies in the face of every and any linguistics book you’re likely to come across. Fair enough they are not working from a God-centered approach to language, but I’ve yet to come across any linguist finding rational links between signifier and signified (the small number of onomatopoeia excepted of course), something one would expect if indeed God has linked them together on rational grounds. Therein would lie great apologetic force if such a link could be observed. We must, however, look elsewhere for hints of God in language.

Fourth

Seventy-five percent of the book is only tangentially related to language or linguistics. Of the six parts, the book could conceivably be condensed down to the first section (pp. 1-78), the sixth section (pp. 289-297) and the appendices. The rest is largely unnecessary, especially part two.

Conclusion

I hope I have not been too harsh in offering my thoughts on In the Beginning Was the Word. If I am wrong or misinformed or misguided on any of the above, I will gladly and humbly lend my ear to the many whose understanding on the subject surpasses my own. As I have not come across any reviews of the work I hoped to present my thoughts in order to offer some follow up to the hype the book enjoyed in the weeks leading up to its publication. Finally, if I come across as harsh, it’s only because I had high expectations for this work.

Call for Review

In the interest of fairness I want to do something a bit different. If you are a linguist and have not read In the Beginning Was the Word and would like to read it and review it, I will send you my copy for free. You must only agree to read it, review it, and have your review published on my blog. Easy enough, right? But, if you’re a linguist and you’ve already read it, I’m still interested in your thoughts and/or review, although nothing free for you.

 
photo credit: krisdecurtis

We woke up yesterday and went to church here in Williamsburg where we’re vacationing for the week. I employed the best method possible in finding a solid, evangelical church to worship at on the Lord’s Day: the phone book. Flipping through, we had an extended list of almost every conceivable denomination. We decided that we wanted to do something a bit different and go to a service at a denomination of church that none of us had ever visited.

I was immediately partial to a Coptic Orthodox church, but my sister-in-law wasn’t so sure about the possibility of incense. I then suggested we go Presbyterian. Still, so many to choose from. Is it the PCA or PCUSA that are the more evangelical, missions-minded denomination? We went with a good orthodox sounding name:  Grace Covenant. We like grace and I’m interested in covenant theology. It seemed like a good fit.

Great service. I was struck by, and this is the main purpose of this post, the singing of carols after Christmas. All except for one of the songs sung yesterday morning were Christmas carols. They’re hymns nonetheless, but they’re primarily now known as Christmas carols.

Doesn’t it make all the sense in the world to sing most of our carols after Christmas rather than before? They tell of the newborn babe lying in a manger. If the purpose of Christmas is to re-live the advent of the Savior, then the month leading up to the Day should be spent reading prophecy and the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke, stopping short of the actual birth narratives. The songs sung should be sung to match. Instead, we sing of the Savior’s birth before we celebrate it happening. Yesterday morning, it was refreshing to reflect on the birth of Savior through Christmas carols after we had celebrated it–or should have–on Christmas Day.

There is so much theology packed into these carol-hymns. Check out the last verse of Hark, the Herald Angels Sing:

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
O, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.

Let’s spend the month of January singing about the new-born King rather than jumping straight to Easter.

photo credit: law_keven

Exodus 3:8 (RSV)

I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Exodus 2:5-10 (RSV)

Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, and her maidens walked beside the river; she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to fetch it. 6 When she opened it she saw the child; and lo, the babe was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away, and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. 10 And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son; and she named him Moses, for she said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”

Coming down, seeing, taking out of current affliction, bringing up into luxurious foreign land (Pharaoh’s household for the infant). Similarities notwithstanding, the lexical parallelism is largely lacking in the Hebrew; still found it interesting.

photo credit: bartvandamme

Edward VIII was an unlikely third Adam.

In December 1936 Edward VIII, King of England for less than a year, chose to abdicate his place as king in order to marry American socialite Wallis Simpson.

Our first father Adam similarly abdicated his throne to chase after a forbidden love.

Christ temporarily abdicated his to win a people for himself, fallen kings.

Doesn’t your unhappiness point to a previous kingship? Pascal thinks so.

Who would indeed think himself unhappy not to be king except one who had been dispossessed?

My family has deep Anabaptist roots dating back as earlier as I can tell to the mid-18th century. The Mausts then (spelled Mast but pronounced “mahsht”) sailed to America from Western Europe on the Charming Nancey in the year 1737, seeking not so much religious freedom as economic opportunity. These Masts were Amish.

Both my paternal and maternal extended families today are still almost entirely Mennonite. When they made the transition from Amish to Mennonite, I’m not entirely sure. But last week the enduring kinship between the Amish and Mennonites afforded me an opportunity to talk with an Amishman about theology, homiletics and culture. I wish I would have recorded the conversation, but I’ll try my best to recall the more interesting bits for you now.

Greenhouse Benny

So, while visiting my (Mennonite) grandpa in Pennsylvania last week, my dad and I stopped in at an Amish greenhouse to speak with a prominent Amishman in that small, everybody-knows-everybody community in Somerset County named Benny. My dad, who speaks Pennsylvania Dutch as his first language, first broke the proverbial ice with Benny and his grandchildren by speaking dietche. Fortunately for me, having had two semesters of German and the fact that linguists refer to Pennsylvania Dutch as Pennsylvania German, I was able to follow the brief introductory conversation and finally derail the conversation into the world’s favorite lingua franca, English.

Contemporary Amish Theologians

The question I posed to my dad earlier in the day was, Who are the Amish theologians or authors writing today whose works I could pick up and read? He didn’t know. This initially was the reason why we stopped in to see Benny and this was my first question for him.

To my surprise, he didn’t know of anyone. Of course, there are English (non-Amish) who write about the Amish, just as I’m doing now, but he seemed a bit perplexed by the phrase “contemporary Amish theologians.” He was unable to give the name of any Amishman writing about theological matters. No Amish publishers either as you can imagine. But my thinking is that even if there are no publishers in one’s community, surely this does not keep budding authors from writing down their thoughts, it only keeps them from disseminating their written thoughts. While I don’t doubt there are Amishman who write (maybe even theology), it does seem nothing is yet in print.

I was and still am a bit disappointed, but, honestly, what did I expect? “Oh yeh, Abel Zook is the Rick Warren of the Amish community. You haven’t read him yet?!” That would have been a real surprise.

I next asked Benny what he reads, if anything. The Bible, he said, as well as various Mennonite bulletins and periodicals, one of which is printed at the Mennonite Publishing House in Scottdale, PA.  But, again, he reads nothing decidedly Amish. He seemed content with reading Mennonite publications. Hearing this made me the Amish less sectarian in my mind. They didn’t have to listen only to Amish voices. He didn’t see a problem with reading Mennonite publications.

Theology and Culture

Here’s a brief sidenote. I could tell that several of my questions reminded Benny of times people had treated him and his fellow Amishmen as less than human. He told the story of a young English boy who once quipped that he knew the difference between Benny and himself. Benny, surprised, asked what that difference was. The boy responded, “Well, you’re Amish and I’m human.” Benny told this story as a funny anecdote, but not without meaning for our conversation I’m convinced.

Unprompted Benny began talking openly about his faith. He said it made him upset when young Amishmen said that they had the Amish religion. “I have the Christian religion, the Mennonite faith, and Amish culture. This [grabbing a hold of his plain shirt] is not who I am. This is my culture and one day I won’t wear it anymore.” He then smiled and lightly chuckled as he thought about the future state. This doesn’t sound sectarian either does it? I was pleased to hear him speak thusly.

Seizing the opportunity, I posed this all-important question, “What is the gospel?”

I don’t recall much time passing before he responded, “It’s the road map to heaven…and I hope you believe that, too.” This answer was just fine for me though I was trying to get him to outline the content of the gospel, the kerygma. Nonetheless, I was a little surprised by his bluntly turning the question around on me to say that he hoped I believed the gospel was the road map to heaven also. Amish evangelism?

Homiletics

“Benny,” I said, “I’m curious what resources a young Amish preacher would consult when preparing his sermons.”

He thought about the question for a bit and then started in, “Well, of course, the primary resource is going to be the Bible, Luther’s German translation that is, and then I imagine they would use the Martyr’s Mirror and Josephus. But, other than that, I’m not really sure.”

Interesting. I figured on the Bible, but Josephus? I’m not sure if he was just trying to name-drop as I randomly put the question to him, but I sincerely doubt the extended and regular use of Josephus in anyone’s sermon preparation. I, however, wasn’t as surprised to hear him mention Martyr’s Mirror, a seventeenth century Dutch book documenting the stories of Anabaptist martyrs. The full title of the book is The Bloody Theater or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians who baptized only upon confession of faith, and who suffered and died for the testimony of Jesus, their Saviour, from the time of Christ to the year A.D. 1660. I can see how this book might be used in the pulpit to give illustrations or examples of courageous men and women of faith, but, again, would one regularly consult this in sermon preparation?

“What about the works of Jacob Amman or commentaries on Scripture?” I replied.

“No. I don’t even know where you’d get those,” Benny admitted.

Recognizing the dearth of bound resources for Amish preachers, I next asked if he went to church just that past Sunday. I was surprised when he said no.

“You missed church last Sunday?”

“It was our week off.” He then began to explain how his congregation shares a meeting house with another congregation and how they alternate Sundays. The Sunday your congregation is off you meet at each other’s home for fellowship. Sounds cool.

“What was the sermon on when you went last?”

He couldn’t really tell me. He went on to tell how they alternate preachers from within the congregation and the particular guy who preached last Sunday was of late having bad health problems. Consequently, the sermon, Benny added, was jumbled and didn’t really have a point to it. On the one hand, I thought, what else should you expect if the poor guy has nothing to go off or any resources to consult. But, on the other hand, there are many pulpits all across America that suffer pointless sermons from vocational preachers who have bookshelves full of the most scholarly works available. The plight of pointless preaching is pervasive, Englishman or Amishman. Would that we spent more time preparing expository messages from the word even if all we had for preparation was the word!

“Do you take notes at all during the sermon?” I was quickly running out of questions.

“Yeh, sometimes. We are pretty normal you know. I keep a little notebook in my breast pocket.” I think this is the point where he shared the story about the boy who thought he knew the difference between the English and the Amish. He then told how he occasionally found a sermon especially insightful and would write down notes or Scripture references to look up later. Sounds pretty normal to me, too.

“Doesn’t it seem kind of a shame not to have those sermons you found especially insightful preserved for future generations?” I was feeling daring.

“I never really thought about it, but yeh, it does seem kind of a shame.”

“And what if preachers today could read sermons of yesteryear?” was my next logical thought.

“Yeh. That’d be great. I guess I’ve never really thought about it before.”

Time Magazine’s “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now” is truly an interesting topic as well as courageously prophetic; but, hey it’s journalism and it’s captured my attention for one.  Idea number three is what they term The New Calvinism. It’s funny that it’s been termed “new.” Only thing new about this Calvinism is that it’s in the 21st century instead of the 16th or 18th. Time’s short synopsis of the movement is a good read and worth your five minutes.

Update: Fallen and Flawed has a beginner’s guide to New Calvinism. Read it, too, if you’ve got seven minutes to spare instead of just five.

If you really want to follow the development of conservative Christianity, track its musical hits. In the early 1900s you might have heard “The Old Rugged Cross,” a celebration of the atonement. By the 1980s you could have shared the Jesus-is-my-buddy intimacy of “Shine, Jesus, Shine.” And today, more and more top songs feature a God who is very big, while we are…well, hark the David Crowder Band: “I am full of earth/ You are heaven’s worth/ I am stained with dirt/ Prone to depravity.”

Calvinism is back, and not just musically. John Calvin’s 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism’s buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism’s latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination’s logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time’s dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.

Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation’s other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don’t have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by “glorifying” him. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism. Yet it was soon overtaken in the U.S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinist-descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) discovered other emphases, while Evangelicalism’s loss of appetite for rigid doctrine — and the triumph of that friendly, fuzzy Jesus — seemed to relegate hard-core Reformed preaching (Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist) to a few crotchety Southern churches.

No more. Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don’t operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today, “everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world” — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle’s pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom’s hottest links.

Like the Calvinists, more moderate Evangelicals are exploring cures for the movement’s doctrinal drift, but can’t offer the same blanket assurance. “A lot of young people grew up in a culture of brokenness, divorce, drugs or sexual temptation,” says Collin Hansen, author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists. “They have plenty of friends: what they need is a God.” Mohler says, “The moment someone begins to define God’s [being or actions] biblically, that person is drawn to conclusions that are traditionally classified as Calvinist.” Of course, that presumption of inevitability has drawn accusations of arrogance and divisiveness since Calvin’s time. Indeed, some of today’s enthusiasts imply that non-Calvinists may actually not be Christians. Skirmishes among the Southern Baptists (who have a competing non-Calvinist camp) and online “flame wars” bode badly.

Calvin’s 500th birthday will be this July. It will be interesting to see whether Calvin’s latest legacy will be classic Protestant backbiting or whether, during these hard times, more Christians searching for security will submit their wills to the austerely demanding God of their country’s infancy.

Iain Murray’s summary of Edwards on free will in his biography Jonathan Edwards:

“If man is without the power to repent and turn to God, as the orthodox believed, how can he be held responsible for remaining in sin? If human inability were true, said the Arminians, then man is no longer a free agent, but acts under compulsion. Man is free, replies Edwards, in the sense that he has all natural faculties–mind, will, etc.–and this constitutes his responsibility. Man’s utter incapacity to do spiritual good does not arise out of a physical lack of faculties, but altogether out of the wrong moral disposition of those faculties. In this way he explains how man, though totally corrupt in his nature, is still a responsible free agent” (pp. 425-426, emphasis mine).

We sin because we like it.

Jonathan Edwards caused quite a hubbub with his congregation around the year 1749 after the death of the previous pastor, his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard who was “so great and eminent a divine” in Northampton. Edwards as the new pastor felt convicted to tweak the qualifications for full membership (i.e., taking the Lord’s Supper). Stoddard had led the church to practice an open communion, believing that the unbeliever could be converted in receiving the elements as had been his conversion experience. Edwards disagreed with such an open view of communion and attempted to lead the congregation back to what he considered a more biblical reception of the elements. But seeing as his grandfather was so well respected in not only the church but also in the community, Edwards was met with staunch opposition. Who do you think you are, Jonathan, to try and change what your sagacious grandfather had taught? He would eventually be relieved of his duties.

Edwards didn’t give up without a theological fight however. In 1749 he penned An Humble Inquiry into the Rules of the Word of God, Concerning the Qualifications Requisite to a Complete Standing and Full Communion in the Visible Christian Church. This was meant as a sort of tract for his opponents to read and see if they be not swayed to his understanding. It wasn’t especially well-received. Only about ten copies sold after it had been published and printed. People complained it was too difficult to understand (Edwards? Difficult to understand? Ha!). What was meant to assuage the debate and ill-will toward the humble preacher was largely brushed to the side in favor of siding blindly with his grandfather.

In the preface to An Humble Inquiry, Edwards makes a point concerning the adoption of another’s theological views which I believe should be well-heeded because much wholesale theological adoption takes place today. For example, without a doubt one of John Piper’s main effects on evangelicalism is the resurgence of Calvinism among my generation. Books have been written on this so-called “New Calvinism” (e.g., Young, Restless, Reformed). With such a rise in popularity of a theological persuasion comes the risk of its unexamined wholesale adoption. Do you believe in a limited atonement because the scriptural evidence leads you in that direction or because it’s the view of your favorite preacher and you like everything else he has to offer? If it’s the latter, Edwards has the following words of corrective caution to offer:

“I [Edwards] ought not to look on his [Stoddard's] principles as oracles, as though he could not miss it, as well as Nathan himself in his conjecture about building the house of God; nay, surely that I am, even to be commended, for examining his practice, and judging for myself; that it would ill become me, to do otherwise; that this would be no manifestation of humility, but rather show a baseness of spirit; that if I [be not] capable to judge for myself in these matters, I am by no means fit to open the mysteries of the gospel; that if I should believe his principles, because he advanced them, I should be guilty of making him an idol. Also he tells his and my flock, with all others, that it ill becomes them, so to indulge their ease, as to neglect examining of received principles and practices…”

Edwards in making a case for the reasonableness of differing with his grandfather over the proper recipients of the Lord’s Supper gives a word of caution that should find wider application.

John Piper is not God. His principles are not oracles. He can miss it. The budding theologian is to be commended for judging and examining a man’s theology and searching the Scriptures. Further, it’s not humble to say, “I believe in a limited atonement because that’s what Piper holds to”; it’s base, it’s stupid, Edwards says. (Of course, none would admit that they believe something simply because a favorite theologian believes or teaches it; but, trust me, that temptation is always there and it happens far too often.) The temptation exists because it’s easier to import wholesale someone’s theology whom you respect than to formulate your own based on a careful exegesis of Scripture. Edwards, however, warns against such indulgence of ease and neglect of examination. Moreover, great theologians will almost certainly be against such a wholesale adoption of their theology without prior examination..

Edwards concludes as much when he writes later in the same paragraph:

“Thus, I think, he [Stoddard] sufficiently vindicates my conduct in the present case, and warns all with whom I am concerned, not to be at all displeased with me, or to find the least fault with me, merely because I examine for myself, have a judgment of my own, and am for practicing in some particulars different from him, how positive soever he was that his judgment and practice were right.”

You would be confused if you took away from this post the idea that we needn’t bother with (eminent) theologians. Notice that in this post we are learning from Edwards, examining what he says, and finding that it makes sense. It would be backwards for me to say, “Because Edwards was the greatest theologian born on American soil, we should adopt what he has to say on such and such a subject” and not encourage the comparison of his thought with Scripture. Edwards would not want this, nor, if I may be allowed to speak for Piper, would John Piper. Guard against therefore blind acceptance of any particular minutia of theology because so-and-so believes it. That so-and-so believes it may be a good starting point, but don’t end there.

By the way, I love Piper and am very grateful to God for his introducing me to Calvinism (and Edwards!) through his sermons and books. I often here Piper bashing; that is, bashing of John Piper. I trust this post will not come across as such. It just so happens that he, however so unfortunate, immediately comes to mind as one from whom one may liberally adopt theology blindly, as has been my personal temptation. Other examples would be Paige Patterson (especially at SEBTS), Oprah (ha!), and Rob Bell.

The above quotations of An Humble Inquiry are from A Jonathan Edwards Reader (Yale University Press) page 180.

Today and tomorrow in 1855 townspeople in Devon, England, reported very peculiar cloven hoof tracks in the snow that went on in a straight line for 100 miles, even traversing housetops. The phenomenon has since been known as The Devil’s Footprints.

The footprints were so-named because many of the more superstitious townspeople believed that the footprints were the work of Satan, since they were allegedly made by a cloven hoof. There were many attendant rumors about sightings of a “devil-like figure” in the Devon area during the scare. Many townspeople armed themselves and attempted to track down the beast responsible, without success (Wikipedia).

Let’s get this straight: on February 8-9, 1855, English townspeople found peculiar tracks in the snow which continued for 100 miles. They popularly thought it to be the Devil. What they posited as the cause has something to say for intelligent design.

What Caused the Footprints?

You can probably see where this post is headed: they see prints, so they think there must be a printer. Yes, overall that’s my point. But you may object and point out that they posited a “superstitious” creature as an explanation. Ultimately, yes. But, initially can you not imagine the men of Devon arguing over whether the tracks could be that of a deer, or a field mouse, or a cow? Using what they know about tracks they would have narrowed down their options.

“Could it be a cow?”

“No, how would a cow get onto the roof?”

“What about a field mouse?

“I don’t think a little field mouse can walk for over 100 miles in one right.”

Secondly, even with positing the Devil as causing the footprints, they are still positing a being doing the tracks.

Theories Solving the Mystery

The Wikipedia article lists several proffered theories of explanation for the queer tracks:

1. Wood mice – proposed in March of that year
2. Kangaroo – proposed also in March of that year as having escaped from a private menagerie
3. Weather balloon
4. Bizarre meteorological phenomenon
5. Mass hysteria

If I say by way of argument for intelligent design, “See, the townspeople thought the tracks to be the work of a sentient being such as mice or a kangaroo,” I imagine you would object and rightly point out against intelligent design, “But the remaining explanations include non-sentient objects such as a balloon and a meteor.” Right, you are but these two latter explanations are just as superstitious has positing the Devil. A cloven-hoof balloon or meteor doesn’t square well with what we’ve observed about either of the objects.

So What that We Don’t Have an Explanation

Yeh, so what; but observe that the townspeople were immediately drawn to explanations of intelligent design: some sentient being made these tracks while going somewhere. Among the posited theories, unsurprisingly, time and random chance are not included. Picture the serious conversation wherein townspeople offered explanations and one man suggesting time and random chance.

“What about a kangaroo escaping from Mr. Smith’s private little zoo?”

“Possibly. We’ll have to ask him.”

“I think time and random chance could have produced these tracks.”

“Are you serious?”

When we observe “phenomena” such as tracks in the snow, our minds immediately begin thinking of beings that could have done such work; we don’t immediately despair and claim, “It happened randomly! There was the right mixture of natural elements and wha-bam, tracks appeared.” The townspeople are a case in point.

photo credit: mnadi

It’s not that you have a place “around the table” of Christianity, for there is no table. There’s a person, Jesus Christ. We don’t gather around, rally around, an abstract idea or a metaphorical table but a person. He is the what we gather and rally around. We should then ask ourselves whether we have a place around Jesus to discuss the things of Christianity, not whether we have a place at an abstract “table.”

Several semesters ago during the presidential forum at Southeastern (SEBTS) the question was asked of President Danny Akin whether Arminians had a place at the table of Southern Baptists. His response was to the effect that if you can affirm the Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M), you have a seat around the Southern Baptist table. You see within the BF&M is contained the basics (and not so basics) of what it is to be a Southern Baptist and on many counts what it means generally to be a Christian. What Akin is driving at is if you cannot afirm along with those with whom you wish to fit in that which they affirm, you have no place around “the table.” A place at the table is contigent upon like affirmation.

So, to find out if you have “a place at the table of Christianity,” ask if you affirm the basic teaching(s) of Christianity: the gospel. I am a sinner in need of a savior. Jesus Christ is that savior. From there, there is much to learn as the whole of the Bible testifies to; but starting here, one gains a seat around Jesus Christ whom we love and worship. He’s the around-which we should be looking to gather.

It is with this understanding of Christianity that we can proceed to enjoy the multiethnic beauty of Christians that make up his body. One musn’t have completed seminary to have a voice. Neither must one be Caucasian, nor must one be non-Caucasian. You gather around him because you love him, and you there (read: at him) find others around him much (un-)like yourself. What this all means completely I’m not quite sure; but that’s OK. It’s a good place to re-orient one’s thinking to.

(Reading The Mission of God has inspired this post [Chapter 1]. Yes, you should own it. Thanks, JBA!)