Baptist Messenger of Oklahoma

Catechesis needed!

Casey Shutt — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:37:35 +0000

Chris Gore’s editorial is a helpful reminder that the scope of the Great Commission is greater than we often assume. Too often we focus on the “going” and “baptizing,” which are only aspects of the more fundamental command to “make disciples.”

One commenter of Gore’s piece, Andrew, wonders what is the best way to step forward in accomplishing this Great Commission. Here is one place to start: Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way (forthcoming). The authors J. I. Packer (of Regent College) and Gary Parrett (of Gordon-Conwell) argue that the church is in desperate need for solid discipleship and seek to revive catechetical instruction. The White Horse Inn has an interview with both Packer and Parrett (click here). The interview is a good introduction to catechesis, especially for those that might be frightened by the term (or think we’ve gone all Catholic for bringing it up).

One thing that I suspect this book will be advocating (I have sat under several classes with Parrett) is the role of the family in discipling, and the church’s need to assist families in the disciple-making task. Instead of dropping the kids off at church in hopes that their Sunday school class will take care of that “church stuff,” the church is there to assist in a process that should be ongoing on a daily (even hourly) basis.

The Madonna and the Playboy Bunny

Casey Shutt — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:43:09 +0000

Tucked deep within the Christianity Today archives is brief article contemplating the unlikely union of two icons, the Madonna and the Playboy Bunny. Richard J. Mouw spotted these two symbols upon a single car some forty years ago and the experience, Mouw admits, threw him into a “frenzied attempt to absorb it into [his] theology.” Perhaps the uniting of these symbols was to provide an epiphany, a window into the “Spirit of the Age.” Assuming that something was to be gleaned from this odd pairing, Mouw began interpreting. Maybe this was cause to rethink H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture paradigm since here was the “Mother of Christ” and the “Pet of Hefner standing in relatively stable confrontation within a single organism, with neither one being quite dominated, or transformed by, or exalted at the expense of, the other.” Or perhaps this was emblematic of the evolution of the twentieth-century woman, from the servant Mary to the autonomous Playmate. And, in Hegelian terms, this thesis and antithesis were dueling to beget a synthesis that points “to some middle, even transcendent, way that at once embraces and rises above the conflict.” Possibly this was to be interpreted more broadly as a “prophetic-priestly clash,” Mother Mary embodying traditional morality and the bunny representing the New Morality.

Having delved into several possible meanings, Mouw concludes that this is “a case where the medium is the message.” These meaning-rich emblems are nullified by their substance, that is, “they are fashioned by…the same plastic-and-cellophane culture, a culture whose very plasticity allows for the real possibility that Madonnas and Bunnies are mass-produced in the same factory.” Mouw believes that such a culture sucks out the power of the sacred and profane to judge each other. And so it is that images constructed of such material can peacefully coincide.

The relationship between the medium and message is an important subject to consider (yet one often overlooked). Justin Taylor recently linked this video of an interview with Ken Myers (of Mars Hill Audio Journal) at Southeastern Seminary. The interview has a good, clear discussion on this medium and message subject (it begins at the 10:08 mark):

Interview with Ken Myers from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

No related posts.

Dr. Anthony L. Jordan interview

Jacob Wright — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:30:03 +0000

Dr. Anthony L. Jordan interview from Baptist Messenger on Vimeo.

Douglas Baker interviews BGCO Executive Director-Treasurer Dr. Anthony L. Jordan regarding the impact Dr. Avery T. Willis has on Southern Baptists and the world.

Dr. Avery T. Willis interview

Jacob Wright — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:21:16 +0000

Dr. Avery T. Willis interview from Baptist Messenger on Vimeo.

Douglas Baker interviews Dr. Avery T. Willis regarding orality; the changing Christian missionary force; the Great Commission Resurgence; and personal suffering.

Dr. Jimmy Draper interview

Jacob Wright — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:14:01 +0000

Dr. Jimmy Draper from Baptist Messenger on Vimeo.

Douglas Baker interviews former president of Lifeway Christian Resources Dr. Jimmy Draper regarding the impact Dr. Avery T. Willis has on Southern Baptists and the world; the coming younger generation in the SBC; and the GCR Task Force Report.

Rite of Passage: Confessions of a slow learner

Walker Moore — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:51:25 +0000

For these last 12 years, I have lived out my life before you. I have shared my heartaches as well as my joys. In my current season, God is teaching me three things: 1. Everybody matters to God. 2. Since I have God’s spirit within me, everybody should matter to me, too. 3. One day, Jesus will matter to everybody.

I am a slow learner, so my Father teaches me in small chunks. I have been making a list of everyone who matters to God. What kinds of people touch His heart?

I began my list with the book of Mark. There, I learned that fishermen, people with unclean spirits, mothers-in-law and people with leprosy all matter to Him. And that was only the first chapter! As I continued reading, I saw that a man possessed by a legion of demons, a short man, a crowd of hungry people and an epileptic boy all mattered. By the time I reached the cross, I discovered that a thief and a murderer mattered to God. All I could do was stare at my list and say to myself, “According to the Scriptures, everybody matters to God.”

I wish I had done a better job of teaching my sons this truth. In spite of my inadequacies, they have done more to live it out than I have. My oldest son, Jeremiah, came home from junior high one cold day without his winter coat. I immediately ripped into him. Quietly, he told me he had discovered that one of his classmates had no coat, so he gave him his own. Jeremiah knew he still had an old coat in our closet. He was willing to wear it so his friend could be warm.

As I type this, I still feel the shame of realizing my son had a better grasp on those who mattered to God than his dad. My younger son has the same heart. Nothing makes me prouder than them telling me about the ways they help “the least of these.”

My friend, Nathan Blackwell, is pastor of Cornerstone Church in St. Cloud, Fla. I have preached there on several occasions, and our lives have become intertwined. His daughter, Ashley, served with me in Panama and will return there in April. His son, Adrian, is pursuing a residency in Emergency Room medicine in Allentown, Pa.

Nathan and I were eating steaks at his home last week when he took me into another room to show me a recent e-mail from his son. Here’s what it said:

“I was sitting in front of Arby’s when ‘it’ walked in. This cross between a ‘he’ and a ‘she’ came through the door, a rather large person, decked out in a green hoodie, a pair of tan slacks and flip flops.

“I chuckled to myself as I made fun of what I ultimately assumed must be a woman due to the general body shape and long monster hair.

“As I waited for my sandwich, the woman sat down in the back. Several minutes later, she stood abruptly and exited, but not before digging through the trash can across from my table. She pulled out a half-empty cup of soda and slurped down its contents. The Spirit immediately convicted me of my attitude. This woman was obviously homeless and suffered from some type of mental disorder. As I watched her leave the restaurant to trudge beside the highway, my heart shattered.

“Moments later, the counter clerk called my number. I grabbed my order and ran after the woman I had scorned. When I caught up, I told her she had forgotten her sandwich.

She stared at me, bewildered. I shrugged my shoulders and told her, ‘That’s what they said at the counter.’ She smiled a small smile of broken teeth, took the sandwich and walked away.

As I shuffled back to Arby’s, something happened. Deep in my heart and spirit, I received God’s forgiveness and grace. I felt the intense compassion Jesus has for people of poverty and loss. And what little love and joy remained in my heart, I returned to Him.”

With tears of joy, the father gave me a copy of his son’s letter. We need to teach our children what it truly means to be followers of Jesus—that whosoever matters to God should matter to us. And we need to teach them to write and tell their fathers what our heavenly Father has done through . . . the least of these.

Walker Moore is president of AweStar Ministries in Tulsa, P.O. Box 470265, Tulsa 74147, e-mail walker@awestar.org, phone 800/AWESTAR (293-7827.

Guest Editorial: Don’t Stop Short

Staff — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:49:42 +0000

The release of the progress report from the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force on Feb. 22 creates an exciting time for Southern Baptists and is bound to spark discussion within the convention.

But no matter how one feels about the report itself, all agree that Southern Baptists need to be thinking more intentionally about the Great Commission. Numbers and reports will begin to circulate in the coming weeks focusing on a drop in baptisms, the percentage of church monies that actually go toward the doing of the Great Commission and other issues that will help in determining how to best move forward as a convention that is serious about the Great Commission.

But in the midst of all the discussion about the Great Commission, there is one thing that we must be careful to do, and that is to define what exactly the Great Commission is. The Great Commission comes from the seminal passage in Matthew 28:18-20. In that passage there is really only one command: “Make disciples of all nations.” The other phrases (going, baptizing and teaching) are participles meant to define how that command is carried out. So Christ tells His followers to make disciples of all nations by going, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and teaching all to observe that Christ has commanded them. My fear is that when Southern Baptists think about and talk about the Great Commission, our focus tends to be drawn toward the first two directions: going and baptizing. In fact, for many, accomplishing the Great Commission is merely a matter of evangelism, simply sharing the Gospel with the lost and getting them to profess belief and follow up that belief with believers’ baptism. But that is not where Christ stops the Great Commission.

The problem comes for Southern Baptists in accomplishing that last phrase: “teaching them to do all that I have commanded you.” It is not surprising that this is the difficult step for us because in many ways, it is the most challenging and the most demanding step in the Great Commission. The first two steps of going and telling and baptizing demand your time (and often a significant amount of it), the third step, however, the teaching step, demands your life. It is a commitment to take the new life brought forth in the going and telling and proclaimed in the baptizing, and lead that new life up into a growing faith. At some point you can look back at the first two steps of the Great Commission and check them off as completed. That is not true, however, for the call to teach the believer to observe all that has been commanded of them. The call to teach is a call to care for a new life in Christ, and is the one step that will never end this side of Heaven.

The Bible is replete with examples of the call to disciple new believers and of the urgency of that call. New believers are referred to as new born babes, as needing to grow, and believers are given the mandate to care for them in that growth. Churches must realize that this call is just as much a part of fulfilling the Great Commission as the call to go and to tell.

All you need to look at is how we determine whether or not we have been faithful to achieve the Great Commission. A cursory look will show us that our definition might need biblical adjustment. We tend to talk about conversions and give baptismal data and analyze those as markers of our faithfulness.

Are they markers? Yes, most definitely and necessary to complete the task, but they are not the sole measure of faithfulness. We find a sad commentary on our faithfulness to take up the call to teach new believers not in our evangelism numbers or our baptism certificates (although there is plenty of sadness in both), but rather in our church roles. In 2008, the SBC presented a resolution on “Regenerate Church Membership and Church Discipline.” What the SBC was pointing out is what we all already knew, our church rolls are filled while our pews are empty. These aren’t people who haven’t heard the Gospel, these are converts whom we have baptized. “Going” . . . check. “Baptizing”. . . check. These are the ones who fill our rolls and not our churches. The pervasive nature of this problem for all our churches should frighten us and surely humble us. It is a glaring indicator that although well intentioned, we have fallen short in our Great Commission task.

These empty pews and wayward members are not just numbers, they are a testimony—a testimony that says we as churches are satisfied with less than obedience to the Great Commission. Sadly, it is the very converts we seek who are left to suffer, and the Gospel we seek to proclaim that is left to wither on the vine. These new lives are a blessing from the Lord, and to not care for them is a stewardship problem of grave proportions.

Not finishing the Great Commission is to take the easy way out. I can share the Gospel in a conversation, and I can see baptism in a Sunday service, but to fulfill that final command, to teach them, will take my life, and, sadly, that is often more than I and many in our churches are willing to give. Perhaps we are short selling the Great Commission. Perhaps its call is far more demanding than we realized.

The Great Commission does not end at conversion. Until we as Southern Baptists and as churches of Christ’s body take seriously the call of the Great Commission to commit to discipling new believers—to commit not just our moments but our lives to the task—then we will never fulfill the Great Commission, no matter how many different programs or entities or how much money we give. And in the end, we might have a Great Commission resurgence, but no Great Commission fulfillment.

Yet this problem is not without hope. I am confident that if there is any group who can motivate itself toward a full commitment to the Great Commission, it is Southern Baptists. God has given us everything we need to complete the task. He has given us His Word by which we can teach them (1 Peter 2.2), and He has given us His body in whom we can stir them up to love and good works, that is to obedience (Heb. 10.24-25). If we will take seriously the Great Commission, and if we will heed the words of Romans 12.1-2 and sacrifice our lives for the good of the Gospel, then we as Southern Baptists and more importantly as Christians (who want more than anything to glorify the One who gave them life) can fulfill the task, can complete the Great Commission, and can be the people, the churches and the convention God calls us to be.

I am excited about our future, excited about what this task force might do for us, excited about where we might go. But we cannot fool ourselves, if we are going to fulfill the Great Commission, it is going to be a most difficult task. It won’t be when we give our conversations or our finances to the Great Commission, but rather when we give our lives to Christ and to the Gospel and to those Christ is changing through that Gospel. That is our great call. That is Christ’s Great Commission.

Chris Gore is pastor of Beggs, First.

PERSPECTIVE: Foundational law

Anthony Jordan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:45:03 +0000

Last week the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear an appeal by Haskell County to maintain a monument engraved with the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn with private funds. This leaves in place the decision of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which declared the monument in violation of the establishment clause in the U.S. Constitution. It appears the monument must be removed from county property.

This decision by the Supreme Court leaves much confusion regarding monuments and other items deemed to have religious significance. For example, the state of Texas has been able to leave its copy of the Ten Commandments on its capitol grounds. Confused? You are not alone.

It would seem that anything that has any connection with Judeo-Christian principles and teachings is dangerous to society. It is as if the display of the Ten Commandments is a subversive approach by Christians to convert people to the faith.

The Ten Commandments hung on the wall of my grade school foyer. They were seen as a clear guide to building strong character and giving respect and fair treatment to others. They were posted because the Ten Commandments are implicitly, if not explicitly, a foundation for our American system of law. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe having the commandments on the wall for all to see can be construed as lethal injections of religion.

It would not be surprising for someone soon to suggest that all traces of religious expression be removed from our federal buildings and monuments in Washington D.C. It does not take long when touring our nation’s capital to recognize the workmen would need to deface multiple monuments and buildings to remove references to God and quotes from the Bible.

There seems to be a continued effort to remove every hint of influence and explicit expression of the Judeo-Christian heritage of our nation. Certainly government should not ignore or impose religion on people who have a different faith or no faith at all. At the same time, history is what it is. Our nation does have Judeo-Christian roots. Display of religious items in keeping with our history and heritage should not be prohibited.
These kinds of issues will not go away anytime soon. Our culture is daily becoming more hostile and intolerant of anything that hints of the Christian faith. Many would prefer for those of us who hold to faith to remove ourselves from the public arena. They are willing to rewrite the history of our nation if it is required in order to diminish appreciation of the contribution of Judeo-Christian principles and Scriptures. But remember—truth is not erased just, for example, because the president of Iran declares the holocaust did not happen. Neither will the contribution of the Christian faith and the Bible be eradicated from history.

This decision saddens me. Yet the influence of the Ten Commandments will remain foundational—a part of the fabric of American law—whether or not a monument stands on county, state or national property. It behooves us to teach our children of the Judeo-Christian influence on the founding of our nation and its laws.

By the way, God is still on His throne.

Anthony L. Jordan is executive director-treasurer of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.

Hunt champions Word of God in seminary chapel

Staff — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:38:27 +0000

Johnny Hunt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of First Church of Woodstock, Ga., extolled the Word of God during chapel at Southwestern Seminary, Feb. 25.

“You are beyond capacity to change anybody,” Hunt said, “but I’ll tell you what I’ve seen: I’ve seen the Gospel, the Word of God, the revelation of the Bible change people’s lives.”

In his early years as a preacher, he said, the minister’s task was much simpler than it seems to be today: “You had a Bible, and you just felt that one day when you stood before God, that you would be judged based on the fact of your faithfulness with what He deposited with the Gospel.”

Hunt also insisted that the preacher is not responsible to change the hearts of the people in his congregation, but the preacher himself must submit humbly to the Word of God and be personally transformed by it.

“That may sound elementary, but I’m telling you, if you don’t believe (what you preach), and if it hasn’t got hold of you and, I mean, done a work in your heart, on the Lord’s day, you will not stand behind the sacred desk with patience and perseverance and believe that God is going to work in somebody else’s life.”

Opening his Bible to Psalm 19, Hunt pointed out that the first half of the Psalm shows how the “heaven’s declare God’s glory,” while the latter half focuses on the Scriptures, which “tell us what God did so we can share that glory.” God’s actions in the world and His revelation in the Word are consistent, since God created and controls the world through His Word. God’s Word also examines the heart and provides direction and the courage to follow God’s direction.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, flawless, complete. I’ve got a Bible that never needs revision or improvement,” Hunt added. The Word of God also powerfully turns “men and women from dark to light,” converting men and women.

“I have a lot of confidence in my Bible,” Hunt said. “I have a lot of confidence in the Gospel, and I am hooked on it. I am addicted to biblical preaching without apology.”

Hunt’s complete sermon can be listened to, viewed or downloaded from the Southwestern Seminary Web site at www.swbts.edu/chapelarchives.

Benjamin Hawkins is a writer for Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas (www.swbts.edu/campusnews).

Christianity in the Cubicle

Casey Shutt — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:37:08 +0000

Should religion and business mingle? American culture seems to be increasingly willing to say “yes.” In the last 15 years, two major business periodicals, Business Week and Fortune, devoted cover stories to the growing interest to link spirituality with the workplace. These articles, while a bit perplexed about what to make of the phenomenon, recognized that the office was indeed becoming a place more open to religion. The stories noted the benefits this trend had for business, including bolstered morale and productivity. While the articles did not make a definitive statement as to the helpfulness of this trend, they seemed overall approving of it, even if puzzled.

And this would make sense given sociologist Robert Wuthnow’s research on the subject of faith and work. In God and Mammon, Wuthnow recognizes that religion affects the way workers think about work, yet it does so in decidedly therapeutic, subjective and safe ways. Religion does not challenge the broader systems and structures that comprise the workplace, it does not encourage whistle blowing, it does not seek to correct the greed that fuels many business enterprises, rather religion seems quite content to leave the workplace as is. In this way, the faith at work movement is a fairly tame one that many workplaces seem content to tolerate and even assist with. And they have done such. Whether it is funding sessions and conferences seeking to enhance one’s spiritual life or bringing in spiritual gurus of all stripes to guide their workers through the obstacles of the contemporary workplace, businesses and corporations are realizing the importance of keeping a check on the spiritual state of their workers.

Yet there is a more controversial side to the movement. While pleased with the idea of religion, broadly defined, there seems to be great anxiety concerning any attempts to share one’s faith at work with the goal of conversion. This sentiment sprouted in the Business Week article. Referencing the comments of USC business professor Ian I. Mitroff, the article noted that a majority of those polled believed the increase of religion at work was a good thing. Yet this telling caveat was added, “so long as there’s no bully-pulpit promotion of traditional religion.” Similarly, a Boston magazine article focusing on evangelicals and their efforts to bring Christ “to a cubicle near you” sparked nervousness. One reader says, “The movement to bring Jesus into the workplace is appallingly intrusive.” Also expressing uneasiness, Sarah Wunsch with the ACLU of Massachusetts says regarding evangelicals integrating their faith at work: “I think this stuff is screwy.If you know the boss is a born-again Christian and pushing this stuff, and you are a Jew or a Muslim, it would almost be impossible not to have this affect your employment.”

These comments suggest uneasiness toward American evangelicals and their evangelistic impulse at work. These articles suggest that while expressing one’s faith at work is a growing trend, there remain certain boundaries to the type of faith one is encouraged to practice at work. The dogma that dominates workplace spirituality is not typically open to faiths that seek to convert others. While the spiritualities finding warm welcome in the workplace seem broad and open, they nonetheless appear to have boundaries that are rigorously patrolled.

But is evangelism the only goal for the Christian at work? Are the non-Christians that appear so nervous correct to think that integrating the Christian faith at work means simply evangelism? Is the Christian call in the workplace primarily an evangelistic one? Too often perhaps it is, worries evangelical theologian John Stott who has said that Christians typically reduce the workplace to a “well-stocked lake to fish in.” For the Christian, integrating faith and work are vital tasks that mean far more than simply evangelism. Oklahoma Baptist University business professor, Rich Rudebock, believes Christians must keep in mind that work is a “subduing the earth.” Rudebock is referring to what has been called the Cultural Mandate (Genesis 1:28). This mandate was given before the Fall which implies that work need not be considered a fallen activity. Yes, work’s difficulty is due to the Fall, but work itself is part of the design of creation. At work, humans are engaged in an activity that has been ordained by God. Like Rudebock, Nancy Pearcey, in her important book Total Truth, reminds that the “Christian message does not begin with ‘accept Christ as your Savior;’ it begins with ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ The Bible teaches that God is the sole source of the entire created order . . . Thus His Word, or laws, or creation ordinances give the world its order and structure.”

This Christian understanding of work as a good gift from God struggled to gain traction during Christianity’s first millennium and a half. In part, this was due to the pervasive Greek view of work. For the Greeks, work was a necessary evil. The more important activity, the Greeks believed, was the contemplative life. This Greek view of work lingered in early Christian thought, producing an interesting interpretation of the famous story of busy Martha and worshipful Mary. In this story, Jesus enters the home of sisters, Mary and Martha, and while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, Martha busily plays host by making the appropriate preparations. Jesus corrects Martha by telling her to stop her activity and consider Mary’s choice to listen.

This story was critical to early Christianity and monasticism because it became the starting point of a two-tiered system that distinguished between those who chose the contemplative life like Mary and those who chose the active life like Martha. According to this view, the contemplative life was most honoring to God. With such a view, the spiritually zealous felt compelled to retreat to the monastery and live the life of a monk.

The Protestant Reformers disagreed with this medieval perspective on work.

If work is good in and of itself, why is it deemed a worthy activity? Martin Luther stressed work as a way that individuals serve neighbors and contribute to God’s means of provision. For Luther, humans through their work actually sustain creation. While the individual is thanking God for food, asking for good health and safety from the severe weather that looms, there are other people who have devoted their working lives to making those things happen. The food on the table arrives through a series of vocations, including farmers, delivery people and grocers—all vocations drawing upon other work as well. Good health typically arrives through the work of a variety of doctors. These doctors, of course, received training from those who have devoted themselves to research and higher education. Not only does good health need doctors, but good health must be anticipated with diet and exercise, both issues relying on a number of vocations. Finally, safety from severe weather might come from a well-built home—the work of a number of workers—and the warnings from the meteorologist.

Certainly God could drop bread from Heaven, miraculously heal the sick and turn the storm to solace, but this is not the way He has created the world. Being created in the image of the Trinitarian God means, in part, that humans are social beings and humanity’s social nature is realized, in part, through work as one relates to and serves one’s neighbor.

But at an even more general level, Rudebock believes, the Christian worker’s purpose is to glorify God. Glorifying God broadens the Christian’s task at work. Evangelism becomes but one facet of the Christian’s goal at work. Other ways the worker brings glory to God include doing work with excellence, honesty, and in a way that is ethical and humane. It also means that a praise and worship accompanies Christians at work as they lovingly serve God and His creation.

This more comprehensive Christian vision of work emerges when the Christian considers the full spectrum of God’s unfolding action in the world. Ron Duggins, a graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University’s MBA program, believes Christians should remember that work is but one “domain” of life. More than simply evangelism, the Christian must understand what God’s purpose, plan and laws are for the workplace. When work is understood in this way, Duggins states, the Christian can be a force for the renewal of society.

When work is rooted in creation, the scope of work’s purpose begins to fall into place.

The Christian vision of work would be a warm welcome amidst the corporate greed and scandals that have beset the global economy. Rather than acting out of self-interest, Christians, casting their gaze to others, would transform not only the workplace, but society as well. Workers would begin to consider not what job would provide the biggest salary or prestige, but where they could best serve their neighbor with the gifts God has given them. Business decisions would orbit around what practices produce flourishing for humanity, not what boosts the bottom-line. Far from ruining the workplace, the view of work that the Christian worldview provides is precisely the kind of vision that the working world needs.