The Center for Gospel Culture Blog

Blessings and Curses of Partisanship  

Richard LintsMay 25, 2010 

Cocoons of partisan information often leave us isolated from dissenting voices. But sometimes they enable us to privilege the relationships that matter the most. These are the two sides of information overload. Blessing and Curse. After the Fall, part of our experience is the reminder in creation of how things are “supposed to be” and also remind us that things are “not the way its supposed to be”. The ease of access to information is a terrific blessings. At our finger tips is a wealth of information about which former generations could not even dream. A terrific blessing. But the accompanying curse is that this information is too much for us to handle with care
 
On the one hand the sheer volume of information available to us today can impose arbitrary limits on the checks and balances to our own prejudices. In this instance we pay attention to information sources which we already suspect confirm our preconceived notions. We do not avail ourselves of evidence to the contrary. On the other hand the vast volume of information available to us can force us to prioritize our sources of information as well. This act of prioritizing serves as a filter to protect the loyalties that are important to us.
 
The curse on our cultural house is that information is in great supply and wisdom is in short supply. The blessing on our ecclesial houses is that wisdom does not begin with information but teaches us how to deal with information. Wisdom begins in relationships of trust. Knowing those to whom we belong, aids us in privileging the information sources which undergird those relationships that matter. And since we do not belong to ourselves, it will aid us in facing seriously those sources of information that confront our own corruptions.

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D.A. Carson: Thoughts on the Gospel Coalition  

Lynn M. DunstonMay 21, 2010 

The Center for Gospel Culture had a rare opportunity to interview D.A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and founder of The Gospel Coalition.  He shares with us here his thoughts on The Gospel Coalition.

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The Portrait of a Tenacious Persistence  

Stephen UmMay 19, 2010 

Luke 11:1-13

Our text highlights the persistence and impudence of an individual who is in need, but there is the danger of approaching the topic of persistence as a merit that is self-created rather than as a means in drawing closer to God. Luke 11 shows that persistence is rooted in two examples of a friend and an earthly father, and this is the comparison that Jesus is trying to make as he is instructing his disciples how to pray. Jesus illustrates the parallel relationships of an earthly friend (vv. 5-8) with a heavenly friend along with a picture of an earthly father with that of a heavenly father (vv. 11-13).


Three questions can be asked of the text: What is tenacious persistence? Why are we not tenaciously persistent, bold, and shameless? And how do we get this tenacious persistence, boldness, and impudence?

What is persistence? The Portrait of a Tenacious Persistence.


When Christianity teaches about persistence, it does say that it ought not to be like babbling, a repetitive mantra, or begging. In other words, approaching somebody and repeating something over and over again is merely being repetitive and not prayerful (cf. Mt. 6:5-8, “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him”). Could you imagine a marital relationship where a husband repetitively says to his wife, “How was your day? How was your day? How was your day?” And she responds by saying; “It was good, it was good, it was good.” If you were to see the couple interacting that way you would say; “That’s a strange relationship, more than that, that they’re strange people.” It is because this does not describe a real relationship.


So when we engage in repetitive mantras, when we engage in standing before something and bobbing back and forth, or when we pray with rosaries and beads, this is not a biblical description of persistence but rather a form of babbling. If we were to put it within our own tradition, culture or fixed liturgy, then the Christian can also be guilty of saying the Lord’s Prayer over and over again repetitively, but not necessarily praying the Lord’s prayer. That is not the biblical persistence that Jesus is teaching us.


So the portrait of persistence should be understood within the context of a personal relationship: “When you pray, say, Father,” (v. 2), and “friend, lend me three loaves” (v. 5). Jesus provides the picture of a petitioner who has the nerve to ask his friend for bread at midnight (vv. 6-7, “which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed”). The Greek word anaideia (v. 8) is a term that is hard to translate into English but it is probably combining the ideas of a shameless impudence and a persistent boldness. “Thus, the stress is not on persistence or repetition of the request, as much as it is on the boldness or nerve of the request” (Bock, p. 1059). So the emphasis is on a tenacious, shameless confidence as opposed to a persistent repetition. Morris states that “the man is persistent…and he will not go away, nor will he let his friend go back to sleep. And where friendship cannot prevail, his importunity (lit. ‘shamelessness’) wins the day” (213). Jesus in making his point is saying, if a reluctant friend will respond to your request out of his concern for his reputation, “how much more will your heavenly father who loves you?” (v. 13). Therefore, Christians should boldly go before God with their needs for God is far more willing and gracious than a neighbor or friend. “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (vv. 9-10).

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Cocoons of Partisan Information  

Richard LintsMay 18, 2010 

 
In a recent Op-Ed piece in the New York Times (March 12, 2010), David Brooks described the strikingly different portrayals of President Obama during his first year in office. Brooks pointed at the surprisingly entrenched partisan nature of national political discourse about Obama these days. The yearning for a post-partisan spirit in Washington as recent as the last election cycle of 2008 has led ironically in the opposite direction. One of the reasons for this Brooks supposed was that information distribution occurs in distinctive cocoons today. Partisans on the right listen only to partisan folk on the right and read only partisan blogs on the right. Partisans on the left listen only to partisan folk on the left and read only partisan blogs on the left. The analogy for our public religious discourse is straightforward. People with religious conviction tend to listen to and read others with similar religious convictions. We are not generally a people that deal with differences well, even if we seem to celebrate diversity a lot in our culture.
 
The ubiquity of information has not led to a wider and more generous public discourse but rather a more narrowly constrained partisan discussion.   Why is this? In part it is a natural response by humans that are not omniscient. As humans, we are not unlimited in our capacities for knowledge. We are made with limited resources and the result is that in the infinite information overload of the 21rst century, we inevitably filter out that which we cannot handle, which means paying attention primarily to those who already agree with us. This makes a huge difference in churches where our partisanship is both an enormous obstacle to the well being of the church, but also a safeguard against idolatry. Knowing the difference is a matter of practical wisdom and is critical for the church. We’ll look at the difference in my next blog.

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Freedom to Rest Video Clip  

Stephen UmMay 14, 2010 

In a recent visit to Seoul, South Korea, Stephen Um gives a talk on Matthew 11:28-30 titled Freedom to Rest.

 

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Friday Roundup! Week of 5/14/10  

Lynn M. DunstonMay 14, 2010 

Greetings friends! Welcome back to the CGC blog! I've got the Friday Roundup for you with two solid weeks worth of articles, blogs, music, audio clips, and sermons. Let's jump in!

 

Articles:

Kingdom of God Part 4 : Community Shaped by the Kingdom by Stephen Um

Rewoven Into the Fabric of Redemption: Section V Section Five: Whose Text? Which Redemption? Reading the Bible or Being Read by the Bible? By Richard Lints

Covenantal Shape of Redemptive History, Part 6 by Jeremy M. Mullen

Singing The Gospel by Gary Parrett

 

Audio: 

Q&A: If I am committed to someone else’s greatness, but no one ever reciprocates..? by Stephen Um

Q&A: What does it mean to pursue someone else’s greatness? by Stephen Um

Q&A: How wise is it to have a close friend of the opposite gender? By Stephen Um

Q&A: How can a critic become a truth-teller? by Stephen Um

The Tyranny of Pride 1 Peter 5:5-11 by Stephen Um

 

Blogs:

“Spiritual,” Not “Religious”: The Comedic View by Jeremy M. Mullen

Gospel Leadership in the Workplace: Neither Self-Righteous Nor Self-Serving by Jeremy M. Mullen

 

 


 

 

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“Spiritual,” Not “Religious”: The Comedic View  

Jeremy M. MullenMay 11, 2010 

 
On April 27, Jimmy Fallon opened his show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon with (among others) the following joke: “I read that 72% of 18 to 29 year-olds consider themselves more 'spiritual' than 'religious'...or in simpler terms, ‘way too hung over to make it to church’.”
 
With a young adult demographic, Fallon got huge laughs. The joke was funny, of course, because it was basically true. It unmasked the essential selfishness that marks the designation spiritual in contrast to religious. Everyone who utilizes this distinction might not be hung over every Sunday morning, of course; but it is clear that the term spiritual carries non-institutional, doctrinally flexible connotations. Recently this flexible, self-determining style – which has long been noted by theologians, social critics, and some philosophers – has been quantifiably substantiated by psychologists Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell,[1] as well as sociologists Christian Smith and Melina Lundquist Denton.[2] Smith and Denton refer to the ubiquitous religious views of most young people – teenagers in the case of their study – as “moralistic therapeutic deism.” The therapeutic designation means that they essentially see religion as a way to more fully realize themselves.
 
It’s not the term religion is necessarily more desirable. It does often carry with it the legalistic connotation of a means by which one makes him or herself acceptable to God. Rather, it is the sense that spiritual means self-determining and self-indulgent. So the irony is that the reference point for both religious and spiritual as identifying titles mean the same thing from the perspective of God. One is institutional, the other more autonomous; but both are means by which one gains something for oneself. 
 
In distinction, the gospel teaches us that we are only acceptable by God’s grace through Jesus Christ (cf. Galatians 2 – 4). While we certainly gain much in Christ, the story is not about us but about God coming for us (see, for example, the gospel summary in Acts 2 or Hebrews 1). More than that, the gain we have in Christ comes through the process of lives of self-sacrifice (2 Timothy 3:12-13). Therefore, the life shaped by the gospel is not religious in the sense that it gains anything from God; but it is religious in the sense that it centers around the people of God – the church – who live out the self-giving life together. And the gospel-life is not spiritual in the sense of autonomous; but it is spiritual in so far as it is driven by the Spirit of God – who gives us the strength to endure (2 Corinthians 4:13-18).

[1] Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (New York: Free Press, 2009).
[2] Michael Smith and Melina Lundquist Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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The Center for Gospel Culture exists to establish the centrality of the gospel as the basis for developing a gospel culture worldview in renewing every dimension of an individual's life, so that individuals would be able to think, act, and live in line with the truth of the gospel.


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