Advice to pastoral candidates

In  light of our recent search for an Assistant Pastor at Main Street Pres. I want to offer some advice for candidates preparing to apply to churches for a pastoral ministry position.

I offer the following points in all humility and in no particular order, in the hope that someone out there might find them useful…

1.  Think long and hard about different social contexts and what kind of language fits which context. What I’m trying to get at here is that Facebook and Twitter engender a certain kind of casual, light, playful informality which is perfectly appropriate in that context, but quite out-of-order when writing to a potential employer. A word to the wise: emoticons are not suitable punctuation in an email asking to be considered for a pastoral ministry position!   

2. Read your emails, Ministerial Data Forms, resume’s and any and all correspondence before you send them off to a church or search committee.  Read for spelling errors. Read for punctuation. Read for basic legibility and coherence. After all, the calling you hope to devote your life to is the verbal communication of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. Do you think sentences without verbs will commend you to your potential employer as a good candidate for such a ministry?

My advice here is to give your information to someone you trust, preferably an older person not given to Tweeting from their iPhone at Starbucks, and ask them to read it through. Ask them about legibility. Ask them about style. ‘Are my sentences cumbersome and overly complex?  Have I used correct punctuation? Am I being verbose?’

3. Practise humility. Now I know this is harder than it sounds since a resume requires that we attempt to present ourselves in the best possible light, displaying our gifts and qualifications so that potential employers can make informed decisions about us. There is a certain amount of salesmanship involved in compiling a resume. I understand.

But having just waded through a stack of them, one feature that really irritated me was the tendency to cross the line between the wise articulation of our gifts and qualifications and flagrant boasting and self-promotion. Now I may sound awfully British here, so please forgive my squeamishness over this sort of thing, but I just do not find myself drawn to people who assert, on line after line, how excellent they are at this or how finely honed their skills are in that. Just tell me what you are qualified for. Show me your experience. Outline some of your achievements and let your resume speak for itself. Being told that “Jonny is an outstanding leader” makes me suspicious. If an applicant has to resort to assertions I start looking to see if it is because they simply do not have the experience to demonstrate the point they want to make.

3.  If you have a blog or a Facebook account, be careful what you post! ‘Nuff said.

4. Try to tailor your application to the church your are applying for. The mass mail approach may get you wide coverage but it will show in your application and leave churches asking, “does this guy really want to come here?”

5. While in seminary cultivate respectful relationships with your professors, and the pastors who supervise your internships. If you are a recent graduate you had better count on it that churches will call the seminary and ask about you.  Personal recommendations to a search committee from a seminary professor or pastor count  for a very great deal.

6. Be realistic. Most PCA churches are under two hundred members and are located in the South. The competition over urban and suburban multistaff megachurches is extremely fierce so think hard about how realistic it is to apply there. Also think hard about how well prepared you will be for your next ministry position if you do go to such a church.

7. Don’t send your details to a church without calling and speaking to the pastor with whom you’d be working first. We received a lot of applications but only one person thought to call the church to speak to me. The simple fact is that most vacancies in mid-sized PCA churches will receive a lot of interest and pastors will spend a large amount of time wading through MDF’s and application letters, sifting and praying and reflecting on candidates. It is a kindness to them to phone and enquire about the vacancy first to ascertain if it really is a good fit.  You will be wasting their time otherwise. But bear in mind that a brief call will also help you tailor your presentation wisely, it will fix you in the pastor’s memory as one of the few who took the time and had the gumption to make a personal call, and it will cut down on his wading through your details if it turns out you’re not best suited for the post after all.

8. Do yourself a favor and read T David Gordon’s “Why Johnny Can’t Preach” carefully, and take it to heart.

Siouxlands Presbytery and the FV

Interesting developments in the ongoing response of the PCA to the Federal Vision, this time in the form of one Presbytery vacilating over the correct judicial response to what the General Assmebly has deemed out of accord with our Standards.

Scott Clark weighs in here

God Exposed Conference Audio

Nine Marks have posted audio of a recent conferfence entitled God Exposed: Awkward Preaching in a Comfortable Age.  You can listen to audio from day one and day two here.

More on the Supper

My good friend Malcolm MacLean of Greyfriars and Stratherrick Free Church of Scotland in Inverness has written a helpful piece on his recent communion season with insights into some of the spiritual ‘movements’ that take pace during the celebration.

Here’s a taste:

“the Lord’s Supper is a confession. Those who sit at the Table are confessing many things and here are a few of them: (1) they are confessing that they are sinners who have trusted in Jesus for salvation; (2) they are confessing that they are sorry for their sins and desire to forsake them; (3) they are confessing that they have chosen the children of God to be their friends and companions; (4) they are confessing that they are looking forward to heaven.”

Malcolm is the author of the excellent volume The Lord’s Supper which I’d recommend to any interested in thinking through the meaning and practise of the Supper in the Reformed tradition.

A good (old) question still worth asking

It was first asked of licentiates by the Presbytery of Auchterarder around 1716. In the light of ongoing disputes over, and lack of clarity surrounding, the doctrine of justification it is still well worth asking:

Do you agree that “it is unsound to teach that we must forsake sin in order to our coming to Christ and instating us in covenant with God”?

Not many of you should aspire to be teachers… Really?

I had a tremendous encouragement recently I thought I’d share with you.

I recently asked one of the leading men in our congregation if he’d be willing to teach a Sunday school class. His reaction moved me deeply. He did not strut or preen, feeling flattered that someone had, at long last, recognized his manifest teaching gifts. Instead he blinked at me and looked a little startled. After opening and closing his mouth a few times like a fish out of water gasping for breath, he asked for time to think it over.

After a few days to think and pray his response was to thank me for my ministry to him, but to confess that while he recognizes that the Lord has given him gifts, teaching was simply not one of them. Now this man serves as a key deacon in our congregation. He is an outstanding fellow, whose servant hearted ministry and quiet but real leadership gifts benefits the whole body enormously. What moved and delighted me was his recognition that he was not a teacher, did not think teaching to be his calling, and refused the attraction of the spotlight that a teaching ministry might have afforded him, in favor of his ongoing ministry of behind the scenes service.

I can’t tell you how thankful to the Lord I am for such men of God beside whom I am privileged to serve.

But something has bothered me since that conversation. There is a nagging ’something’ that rings all wrong in my head; an annoying splinter of incongruity that just won’t go away. And I have just now realized what it is…

What is wrong is not that this dear brother refused the teaching ministry he did not feel qualified to exercise. What is wrong is that I am amazed to discover someone who thinks this way at all. What is wrong is the very unusualness of his reaction. What is wrong is that I spend so much time wrangling with confident people who’ve read a few books and now think they know, “desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions”, so that when I meet someone who says instead- “No pastor, I am content to hand our bulletins, welcome visitors, balance the budget, and serve the hurting behind the scenes”- I am flabbergasted!

Now either I have become so cynical about the attitudes I expect to find among the people of God so that when I do meet godly humility I am taken aback, or I have scarcely ever met such humility.

Of course both may be true.

And that thought does not encourage me at all.

R2G on the WHI

My good friend Sebastian Heck is interviewed here by the folks at the White Horse Inn about his important ministry of planting a new Reformed and Confessional Church in Germany, starting at Heidelberg.

If you’d like to know more about Reformation 2 Germany please visit their website, pray for Sebastian and his work and give generously. Sebastian is in need of further urgent financial support if this work is to proceed.

Interview with Darryl Hart Part IV

Here’s the last intallment. You can read the others here, here and here.

Why ‘going forward’ is Biblical after all

Recently we made an adjustment to our practise of the Lord’s Supper. On alternate months we celebrate the Supper on the Lord’s Day evening, where we typically have a smaller congregation and a slightly more informal atmosphere.

Our practise was traditionally to remain in our seats as the elements were distributed among the congregation. Last Lord’s Day we had two elders stand at the front with bread and wine and the congregation came forward to receive the elements from them and return to their seats.

Now what drove the change? Was it a matter of aesthetics? Or the whim of the Elders perhaps?

Several convictions drove the change.

First, I am persuaded that the Lord’s Table is no place for a quiet time. It is not a hiatus in the corporate worship of the church in which we may pursue our private devotions in the silence.

We have somehow individualized the Supper in a way analogous to much else in our culture. We use individual disposable plastic cups for the wine, and pre-packaged, unleavened, squares of bread. It is the liturgical equivalent of a drive through restaurant where the ready-made value meal is prepared by a spotty teenager who ‘cooks’ a who-knows-what consisting of mechanically reclaimed meat. We have become accustomed to receiving the Lord’s Supper in much the same way we receive MacDonald’s. It’s entire focus is on the disposable convenience and indulgence of the individual.

But the Supper is not about ‘me’ so much as it is about ‘us’ and about ‘Him’. Coming forward in response to the call and command of Christ breaks the reverent silence with happy shuffling and sacred chaos. People are forced to look up and around instead of down and in.

Secondly the Supper is a eucharistic meal. Now hold on! Steady! Take a breath and sit down. Let me say that again. The supper is a eucharist.  

Eucharisteo is the verb used in 1 Corinthians 11:24 to describe the action of the Lord Jesus Christ. It means thanksgiving.  So the Supper is quite rightly called a eucharist. It is a time for thanksgiving. Which means that we ought not to come to it mournfully, but with celebration. We ought not to come to it mindful of failure, but of Christ’s victory over our failure.  There is a place for self examination, for repentance and mourning for sin, to be sure. But it is before the Supper celebration, not during it.  “Let a man examine himself and then let him eat”.

When we come to the Supper we are called to look out and away from ourselves to Christ, who is not being recrucified, but who now lives and reigns at the right hand of the Father, from whence he feeds us with his flesh and blood by the mysterious efficacy of his Spirit.

Coming forward at Christ’s invitation to partake of the meal he gave us is one way we have found that helps drive home that emphasis in the meal. It does not allow much time for introspection, and it forces upon us an outward perspective. What had before run the risk of feeling funereal in the silence as heads are bowed, brows furrowed, and tears shed in silent prayer, now felt much more like a celebration, more corporate. We were more aware of each other as we shuffled forward and moved past  one another.  It felt like something a family should do.

I’m not saying this is how we will always do this, but it was useful last week.

Word of wisdom anyone?

I stumbled on this quotation from Origen a while back that got me thinking: What if, having allowed charismatic brethren to set the terms of the debate, we have been led down rabbit trials and unnecessarily excluded from our piety dimensions of Christian experience that ought to be there?

Here is the quotation:

“the spiritual meaning which the law conveys is not known to all, but to those only on whom the grace of the Holy Spirit is bestowed in the word of wisdom and knowledge.” (Origin, De Principiis, 4:241)

Here the word of wisdom and knowledge is not something done by a power-evangelist from the platform where he diagnoses someones pancreatic cancer in a sudden flash of supernatural insight. Here, the word of wisdom and knowledge is insight into scripture and its meaning. Now granted Origen probably had in mind the allegorical method of Biblical interpretation that most often simply not apparent on the surface of the text under discussion (mainly because it is not there in the text in the first place). But his point is an interesting one nonetheless, don’t you think? 

It does seem to me that when  we find ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’  in the Scriptures,  for the most part they denote insight into or some aspect of the  revealed will and word of God. So what if, instead of manning the battlements of denial, or performing a veritable Riverdance of exegetical fancy footwork, we took another look at the meaning of these gifts themselves? After all, what is to be gained from denying that God, by his Spirit, may, and often does, grant to preachers special, unusual, or sudden insight into a particular text, its meaning and applications- perhaps even in the act of preaching- such that God’s people are especially helped and comforted in ways beyond the ken of the preacher himself?

Interview with Darryl Hart Part III

Here’s the next installment. You can read the others here and here

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1.Would you briefly state the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms (2K) for us?

I should have a handier definition than I do. I guess I would describe it this way.The church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ (WCF 25.2) outside of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. Communicant and non-communicant church members are part of that kingdom, the kingdom of grace (which is different from the kingdom of Satan and which is playing a part in hastening the kingdom of glory – the Shorter Catechism speaks of these three kingdoms, Satan’s, grace, and glory in explaining the second petition of the Lord’s prayer.

The kingdom of the civil realm has its own rules and sovereignty, and has criteria for membership that vary in places and across time.

The kingdom of grace operates according to the doctrine of forgiveness. The church is to minister the message of forgiveness of sins that comes through trusting in Christ and repentance from sin. The state operates according to standards of justice and is supposed, no matter how imperfectly, to punish wrongdoing.

Confusing forgiveness and justice is a huge example of category confusion. Granted, the forgiveness the church administers is premised on the justice that Christ underwent in suffering for the penalty of sin. And granted the magistrate’s ideals of justice are a type of the eschatological justice that will be administered on the Last Day.

In other words, you can’t understand the church or the state apart from God’s righteous standards, that is, his law.

But the church is involved in the work of reconciling God and man through Christ. The state has no direct role in that project of reconciliation. It may create and sustain an environment in which the church can minister. But the aim of the state is fundamentally different from that of the church. I recommend J. Gresham Machen’s essay, “The Responsibility of the Church in the New Age,” as a brilliant elaboration of this argument. It can be found either in his Selected Shorter Writings or as the appendix of Hart and Muether, Fighting the Good Fight: A Brief History of the OPC.

2. If you were to summarize the central points of debate between Kuyperians and Two Kingdoms advocates what would you say were the major areas of contention?

One major source if misunderstanding is the Lordship of Christ. 2k people want to distinguish Christ’s redemptive kingship (the church) from his creational and providential lordship (the state and the family). Kuyperians often hear 2kers as denying Christ’s lordship over “every square inch.” We don’t deny this at all. Christ is lord over all things. But we do distinguish, as Calvin and Ursinus do, for instance, between different aspects of Christ’s lordship. Confessing Christ as savior and lord (which happens in the church) is a different proposition from submitting to Christ’s rule through the work of magistrates and parents. You don’t need to confess Christ to submit to your dad. You should submit to a parent whether you are a Christian or not. And non-Christians do submit no matter how imperfectly. Plus, it’s not as if Christians are better submitters to parents and the state than non-Christians are.

A second point of tension concerns the creation mandate. Most Kuyperians appeal to Gen. 1 and argue that it is still in effect and guides the cultural endeavors of believers. 2kers tend to look at the creation mandate through the lens of the fall, and see that mandate as now being seriously altered because of sin. This means that cult (faith) and culture (secular endeavors) are now in a paradoxical relationship. In other words, you cannot chart the coming of Christ’s kingdom by looking for “progress” in cultural life. (Actually, Christians will likely disagree on what counts as progress. Does is mean a Republican in the White House, does it mean universal health care, does it mean literacy, does it mean lots of family farms and healthy local economies?) Connecting the effects of “good” culture to signs of the kingdom is a sure recipe, from a 2k perspective, for a social gospel and liberal Christianity. Kuyperians seem to be a lot less worried about this recipe because they are less willing to admit a paradoxical relationship between cult and culture.<

3. In 2K thought, Christians are citizens of both kingdoms simultaneously, right? We belong to both the kingdom of creation and the kingdom of redemption. What are the duties incumbent upon Christian citizens of the Kingdom of creation?

It depends.The early church did not have citizenship in the earthly kingdom. Paul was unusual in this regard. Christians in the United States, for instance, are members of both kingdoms. As citizens in the republic, Christians have various obligations and responsibilities, many of which will depend on their vocations. Some may actually run for and hold public office. Others might believe the state is so corrupt or has erred so far from its founding principles that they will have less to do with politics and legislation. I think one of the important contributions of the 2k perspective is to recognize Christian liberty in the realm of politics. This is a particularly attractive position at a time when the Religious Right has implied a one-size-fits-all approach to national politics, as if there is one Christian position on a host of public policy, economic, and cultural programs.

4. Whenever I’ve spoken about the Two Kingdoms I have generally been met with concern that I am advocating passivity among Christians when it comes to their involvement in civic society, or that I think the church should withdraw into some kind of religious ghetto and let the world rot. How would you respond?

First, I think it is important to acknowledge that the world is rotting and that various efforts to help humans flourish will not prevail over the rotting effects of sin. I mean, even Lazarus died after Christ raised him from the dead. I do wonder if the transformers actually see that eliminating poverty, hunger and war will not conquer the legacy of sin and its consequences which will be apparent to all people at the Last Day.

Second, human flourishing is a good thing. It is better to have lower crime rates than not. Christians working for lower crime rates is a good thing, and it depends on their vocation whether they will be actively engaged in crime prevention. After all, not everyone is called to be a cop, a district attorney, a judge, or a warden.

But the church as church, as the institution responsible for administering forgiveness through word and sacrament, is not called to reduce crime. The church actually has a much more important work to do, which is to worry about the criminals who will be facing the ultimate judge on the Judgment Day.

Inability to see the difference between eternal and temporal crimes is another case of missing what is important to the gospel and the church. If people want to the church to be engaged in civil society, I wonder if they have overestimated the importance of earthly affairs. I cannot understand how the work of the church needs to be made “relevant” by engaging in works of cultural renewal or crime prevention. If the church is ministering word and sacrament, she is doing the most important work one can imagine. If she doesn’t do it, who will? (Again, the Machen essay mentioned above is hugely effective in making this case.

5. I’ve never met a theonomist who was not also a postmillenialist (though such may exist out there someplace). Postmillenialism seems to be the only consistent eschatology for someone with a ‘transformationalist’ vision of the church’s mission. Would you say there was a similar connection between eschatology and 2K thinking? Is amillenialism a necessary implicate of 2K ideas?

Amillennialism is an acquired taste, though a form of it has been present in the church since Augustine’s arguments about the differences between the city of God and the city of man. But to recognize that God’s kingdom advances even when affairs in this world are going to hell in a handbasket (such as the fall of the Roman Empire) is crucial to understanding the work of the church and the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Supper Strife

Here are some links to interesting debates on Calvin’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Readers probably know of the debates between Nevin and Hodge, though you probably didn’t know that there were similar debates within Old School Southern Presbyerianism, refuting Cunningham (a hero of mine from the Free Church of Scotland). Check it out.

HT Scott Clark

Interview with Darryl Hart Part II

Here’s the second installment. There’s more to come. Enjoy…..

1.      Is there a connection between 19^thcentury revival/revivalism and the kind of socio-political agendas often advocated by both the Christian Right and Left today?

Definitely.  Many evangelicals and Reformed do not understand that the kind of evangelical activism they now promote or perform was first part of the Second Great Awakening – the bad one.  Not only was Finney interested in converting people, but he also wanted a righteous and just society.  Evangelicals responded by forming a ton of voluntary societies that did in many respects transform American society (if you were not a member of the Whig or Republican parties, you may not have appreciated all of these reforms.)

So the Second no-so-great Awakening drove a wedge between Protestants, those with a high view of the church (Episcopalians, Lutherans, and some Old School Presbyterians) and those with a low view of the church and a high view of America.  The ethno-cultural school of political historians has produced a body of literature on these ecclesial differences, and this work has actually informed my own writing on confessional Protestantism.  The term “confessional” itself comes from political history and it stands for high church Protestants who are less concerned about social and political matters compared to the eternal realities of the gospel.

One other historical reference worthy of comment here is that the Second not-so-great Awakening was really the soil from which the Social Gospel sprung.  I sometimes wonder why today’s “conservative” evangelicals are so willing to repeat the efforts and arguments that “liberal” Protestants were making a hundred years ago.  Also, if you look at the books written by leaders of the religious right, people like Falwell and Ralph Reed, you see the Second not-so-great Awakening cited as a model or inspiration for contemporary political activism.

As the kids used to say, “What’s up with that?”

2.      Should the church tell people how to vote for specific candidates, based on issues like abortion or gay marriage?

Definitely not.  The church may and should speak to all the laws of the Decalogue, including the sixth and the seventh.  Why the first four don’t receive more attention is anyone’s guess – could it be that social activism makes matters like worship and the Sabbath less important?  But beyond explaining what God’s word requires, the church needs to let members apply them in their lives according to the callings and consciences.  I mean, would anyone want the church to tell members never to eat meat offered to idols?  It looks to me that if Christian liberty applies to the affects of idolatry, it also applies to electoral politics and the legislators voted into office.

3.      Does the church have a prophetic voice, challenging sin wherever it finds it, even in politics and culture?

It depends what you mean.  Expounding and teaching God’s word does involve challenging sin, obviously.  But what people often mean is they want the church to apply the truths of the word to specific circumstances.  I actually think this stems from a desire for the church to be relevant, to be doing something important.  If the church is the place where the kingdom of grace is advancing, I don’t see why cleaning up pockets of cultural crime in the United States is more relevant than that.  So people need to see how amazing the work of the church is, and how trivial, ephemeral, and fading the affairs of politics and culture are in comparison.  But even so, the church has a prophetic voice simply by proclaiming the whole counsel of God.  I wonder if people who say the church needs to be a prophetic voice actually appreciate that a minister standing in the pulpit each Sunday is representing the prophetic office of Christ.

4.      Is there a place for para-church agencies and what are the boundaries of legitimate para-church work?

There has to be a place for the parachurch because the church can’t run everything.  So everything that is not the church is parachurch.

The real question is parachurch agencies that engage in religious work.  I don’t think a hard rule exists here except in those areas of evangelism and missions, work that the church is to oversee directly.  But when it comes to educational endeavors, publishing, flexibility is in order

5.      How do you respond to those who believe that the work of the church is to ‘transform society’ or to ‘bring in the Kingdom’?

First, I say that the coming of the kingdom is not evident in transforming society.  As I’ve said, the church through word, sacrament, and discipline, is advancing the kingdom of grace, which is hastening the kingdom of glory (I’m using the language of the Shorter Catechism here).  And because the church is not called to transform society – she already has enough on her plate – then she is not called to transform society.  Individual Christians in their vocations are called to a host of tasks that do, I guess, contribute to social transformation.  (I don’t like that language because it has a progressive political valence that I oppose for political and cultural reasons – both libertarian and localist and at times agrarian.)  But the church doesn’t transform society nor should she as an institution (in distinction from her members’ callings).

This doesn’t mean that some of the aspects of social transformation, such as government, policy, and legislation are unimportant or “worldly.”  They are worldly but in the good sense of the created order and the way that God superintends this world.  Society is a good thing and Christians as citizens or in other capacities should be dutiful in their obligations to neighbors and magistrates.  But social transformation is not where the kingdom of Christ happens.

6.      If cultural transformation isn’t the church’s work, what is?

The work of the church is word, sacrament, prayer, discipline, catechesis, diaconal care and fellowship.  It is not sexy and it does not generally attract headlines.  But these are God’s ordained means for building his kingdom.

Sean Lucas on Dabney and Kuyper

I recently read and highly enjoyed Sean Lucas’ biography of R.L Dabney. In the final chapter Lucas makes some excellent observations comparing and contrasting Dabney with his Dutch contemporary Abraham Kuyper.

Here’s a taste,

(T)he most consequential difference between Dabney and Kuyper was in their views on the goal of public theology. Kuyper’s worldview approach, together with his doctrine of common grace, led irresistibly to a transformationist approach to culture… The ultimate end in view for Kuyper was ‘re-Christianizing the Netherlands; the renewal of a Christian national culture.’ Hence, while his thought attempted to set forward a principled pluralism, and while his ideas were always functional in nature, Kuyper’s commitments contained the seeds of a theocratic- or, better, theonomic- temptation…

By contrast to Kuyper’s transformationist approach, Dabney’s public theology was always a defensive maneuver, not a rationale for transforming social structures. The Bible did speak to public issues, but where the Bible was silent there was liberty. Dabney claimed that all human actions fell into one of three classes: actions that the Bible commanded; actions that the Bible prohibited; and ‘actions [that] Scripture leaves indifferent.’ In the first two areas, the church courts were to follow the Scriptures and enjoin or prohibit what God did. ‘IN the third case, they are to leave the actions of his people free to be determined by each one;s own prudence and liberty, and this because God has left them free.’ The church could not bind Christian conscience if there was no biblical command. Many evangelical church leaders ‘overstepped’ the ‘metes and bounds between the kingdoms of Christ and of Caesar,’ Dabney held, ‘because there have always been churchmen greedy of power, worldly-minded and dictatorial.’…

Ultimately it was not the task of either individual Christians or Christianity in general to transform society, Dabney believed. Rather, the Christian’s sole task was ‘to deliver the whole revealed will of God for man’s salvation.’ Anything more confused the spheres of Christ and Caesar; anything less was unfaithfulness to the gospel.

Robert Lewis Dabney, A Southern Presbyterian Life, P&R, 2005, p240-241

Interview with Darryl Hart Part I

2 Kingdoms ideas and the complex of doctrinal issues that accompany them have been creating a bit of a stir of late. Among those with whom I am in contact much of the debate is generated by misunderstanding. So what else is new, I hear you cry.

Well, to help us (or help me at least) work through some of the areas of potential misunderstanding Dr. Darryl Hart has graciously agreed to answer a few questions.

Just to ease us in, today we begin with a few general comments on common features of the contemporary evangelical landscape….

1.Darryl, would you comment on the distinction that is often made in conservative reformed circles between revival and revivalism? Is it a helpful distinction?

I am inclined to think it is a distinction without a difference. It has been a way to try to distinguish the good First (Really) Great Awakening from the Second (bad) Great Awakening. I will take Edwards over Finney any day. So the theology of the First GA may have been better. But typically the assessment of Edwards and Whitefield does not go a lot farther than the 5 points of Calvinism. But what about preaching the “terrors of the law” to apparent believers? What kind of theology leads to that? And what about the frankly bizarre conversion experiences of even Presbyterian revivalists like the Tennents? And what about Whitefield’s pulpit antics (well documented in Stout’s biography)? When you look more closely at the First GA you are getting a lot more than that for which you bargained. And then there is the problem of conversion and the way that a dramatic experience became the norm for detecting regeneration and effectual calling. So in the end, I’m not inclined to think revivalism was all that hot.

2.What is an Old Side Presbyterian, and do you qualify?

An Old Side Presbyterian was a guy who opposed revivalism because revivalists were not as concerned about subscription as Old Siders were, and was opposed to the way that some New Siders completely disregarded church polity and the authority of synod and presbyteries. So if to be an Old Sider is to favor subscription to the Standards, believe in the real authority of the church, and to be suspicious of subjective religious experience, I am one.

3.Do Old Siders believe in evangelism?

Old Siders do believe in evangelism. They believe that preaching is an ordinance that convicts and converts sinners. Old Siders believe in preaching. This isn’t quite a syllogism, but you get the point. Now, because of the influence of revivalism – just as conversion has taken on a different meaning from the Reformation, so has evangelism. For many revival-friendly Protestants, evangelism is what every Christian does. My “witnessing” is apparently no different or worse than God’s appointed means (let’s not forget Romans 10) for drawing his people to himself. But if there is still room in the universe for churchly evangelism, then I believe in evangelism.

4.Do individual believers have a responsibility to engage in evangelism?

 

Not to be coy, but some do and some don’t. All believers should be able to give a defense of their faith, but I do not assume that this is the same as witnessing or giving one’s testimony. Having had to go door-to-door as a kid for evangelistic purposes I may be overreacting. But I also think that the way that evangelism is often advocated leads to Christians who are constantly on the make, looking for a way to close the deal. In other words, they don’t seem to take other people as people; non-believers are persons to be converted and then the evangelist moves on to the next non-Christian.

You see this very well illustrated in the movie, The Big Kahuna (which has lots of bad language so believers whose consciences cannot bear such words should beware). It is an amazingly sympathetic view of a born-again Christian who feels compelled to witness on the job. Not only does the movie show that sometimes this approach makes Christians look like one-dimensional people, but it also says important things about vocation. If we serve God in our work, then we don’t need to make it really religious by using it to evangelize.

So some people may be called to evangelize, others are not (some do not even have the gifts for personal evangelism). The guys who are definitely called to evangelize are preachers.

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Dr Hart is author of several books including ‘Recovering Mother Kirk’, ‘Deconstructing Evangelicalism‘, ‘The Lost Soul of American Protestantism’ , ‘John Williamson Nevin‘ in the American Reformed Biography series, ‘A Secular Faith’, and with John Meuther, ‘With Reverence and Awe’.

He is an elder at Calvary OPC in Glenside, Pa, and is currently teaching as an adjunct at Temple University. He studied film at Temple University, church history at Westminster (PA) and Harvard Div. School, and American history at Johns Hopkins (Ph.D.).

Some forthcoming projects include a new book on the Religious Right — ‘From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: The Religious Right and the Collapse of American Conservatism’, a history of the OPC for their 75th anniversary in 2011, and eventually a ‘global history of Calvinism’ for Yale University Press.

Darryl blogs at Old Life Theological Society