‘Till We Have PCA Faces

Our brother Kenneth Kang-Hui over at the Reformation in the City blog has been writing a few worthy serials on issues of the 38^th GA of the PCA. I wanted to call attention to his work and respond to an excellent post at some length greater than usually welcomed for blog responses to a post. His post was itself a response to a post at Stellman’s Creed Code Cult on Over-Strategizing. In addressing two PCA adoptions initially set somewhat as alternative to one another, Kenneth wisely cautions of the danger of talking past each other regarding PCA strategies. It brings to mind my favourite of C.S. Lewis’ works, ‘Till We Have Faces, where two loving sisters are at odds over what they see, over what is real and what is imagined, over expressions of love, and over expressions of ‘God’s’ providence and grace.

We ought always to value the importance of listening, of being quick to hear and slow to speak (thank you, HS (Holy Spirit), James (1:19), and mom). Forgive me, I realise talking past one another in assumption is a most usual problem and convenience common to humankind. We want others to answer to us, to affirm our assumptions, rather than dissolve our assumptions and presuppositions in a process of mutual understanding and enlightenment, to being answered, to properly seeing one another’s genuine face.  We have a ready response to a supposed belief or argument, and we think this is in keeping with the Biblical teaching of always being ready to defend or reprove or exhort (2 Tim.4:2 ; 1 Pet. 3:15). And yet, as prepared as we may well be to defend our stance, to reprove error, and exhort to righteousness, we are too often ill prepared to hear the account for the hope that is in someone else, with gentleness and reverence, to consider the one to whom we preach or instruct with great patience. To me, that’s the distinction of talking past someone rather than having a real dialog. We respond to what we expect rather than what we encounter, and we frame what we encounter as though it were what we have expected. We hear such often in the venues of evangelism and debate, and it’s a considerable impediment.  Two of my regular noting in ongoing debates are Debating Calvinism {five points, two views} with Dave Hunt and James White, and that whole Clark – Van Til Controversy, both of which topics remain with us to this day, even age-in and age-out, dating back to Augustine and beyond, even back to the Garden and “Hath God said…?”

Netiquette and the Well-Meaned Christian

So I’m thinking the previous blog may have been a little tough, in pondering the appropriateness of claiming the name Christian while splintering Christ’s Church asunder. I mean, there are right ways and wrong ways to offer a critique, constructive criticism meant to win a brother – which brings me to Christian netiquette. Again, I’m too often as failing in this regard as many, but my heart sinks at some of the things I read from Christians, who use the same faculties in offer of adoration to God as in being rude, crude, and disrespectful of Scriptural guidance in loving communication (cf. Matt. 5: 21-24, 1 Pet. 1:13-23).  In fact, though I mostly associate with Christians on the Web, Christians on the Web seem especially to violate both civil discourse and every specific of Christ’s teachings on Christian fellowship (cf. Matt. 5:43-48, 22:37-39, Jn. 13:34,35).

Unity: Are Presbyterian & Reformed Churches Christian?

"In remembrance of Me"

A man we simply called the “General”, a calmly reassured man with broad shoulders, a full beard, and the knowing look of an ancient burning bush in his eyes held aloft a large, thick, well-worn Bible and plainly spoke, “This is not the Word of God.” I was never quite sure those words were for the dramatic effect they had, as he went on to explain how Jesus is the Word and, while certainly precious Scripture, his black-bound behemoth of a book was so much paper, ink, and animal skin that would one-day pass away. And, while we rightly defend the Bible as God’s written revelation and more than mere symbol and image, we ought never to view it as too holy a thing to touch. The Eastern Orthodox poured over what is to be meant by an icon of worship, even reversing the course of their confessing once or twice, but I think we’d all agree that Jesus as Word is gloriously beyond the measure of Scripture as Word.

But I told that to brace the impact of questioning if P&R’s are  Christian.  I’m not even very qualified to make all but the most rudimentary and flawed assessment of someone’s Christian status, let alone assail denominational confession of Christian faith. Still, I know, as John records in 13:35 of his Gospel, that Jesus says, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (ESV), to the laying down of one’s own life in the cause.  And it seems a key focus of Jesus’ prayer in the Garden, “that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may [continually] know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (NASB, 17:22b-23).

God’s Canon

I’m by no means alone in valuing the Christian Bible as my most prised possession, nor am I the only soul still gently harbouring the very first one given him as a child.  I’ve since gained some increased proficiency of wisdom and knowledge regarding the Word, particularly of its many English translations and published editions, with a personal collection of well over a hundred varieties of the same, old and new. But all I possess is born of the tender love and spiritual care those first motherly teachers bestowed to my reward, a most marvellous tome in heart and hand, quickened by God Himself.

PCA Pickles (not 38 by the GA barrel, but a few)

-  To Some of the Gherkins I’ve Loved Before -

Again, I’m late to the blogosphere (you may have noticed I use a hot-air balloon, which is quite a step up from flying a kite or simply throwing myself up into the air, but a far cry from the warp drive engines some folk use; I mean, the greater weight of heavy launchers have been hovering in the air for as much as a decade over some of this, and many at least thought enough to comment about it immediately before the happening of it, on account of properly being prophets (or reading the handouts), to say little of those of you who politely waited ‘till after the event to blog about it, but still are at least a bird or a baseball to my balloon. Oh, and you may as well get used to the lilting lingering of me parenthetically interrupting myself, ‘cause I’m old and at least a bit Irish and that’s just one of the things we do best. (Has anyone seen my balloon keys?)) concerning the ‘big-dog’ of the, ahem, conservative General Assemblies, the PCA‘s 38th.  I’m so thankful for the GA Junkie, but I mostly like how viewing the many other blogs (for example, see Silvernail’s comments) from my balloon helps me take in all the grandeur and quietly reflect while sipping tea.

Calvinised

    

Defining Calvinism and the illusive nature of being a true Calvinist has again become quite a challenging growth industry. Bless his heart, in his own lifetime even Calvin found himself struggling with his legacy, the masthead of the movement of Calvinism. I suppose the same might be said of Luther or Anglic (ah, the illusive Anglic), but I don’t think it’s simply my sensitivities of being Calvinised that dampens a realization of various Lutheran traditions, of say, full 95-point Lutherans, 57-point Lutherans, Lutheran Baptists (oh wait, there are a number of those), Neo-Lutherans, or the New Lutherans. No, even the Charismatic Movement has nothing on the diversity of the Calvinistic spread across denominational barriers. I think the nomenclature deserves a new front-runner – Calvinised (or Calvinized, for the Yanks). It’s much more illusively particular than being a Calvinist (or true Calvinist), and so is much more honourable and accurate a term for the ravages of age affecting Calvinism and the Calvinist.

In the Beginning…

… was the blog?  Well, this is new for me, and I don’t mind sharing that I’m none too happy about having a blog.  Not only am I quite late to the game, I never quite got over the name.  Blogging sounds as if I’ve just vomited into your lap, which, though it’s very close to the last thing I would wish upon you, upon deep consideration is exactly what blogging is and was always intended to be. So, maybe you’ll find a chunk or swirl of something that if properly cleaned and processed won’t be found to be completely disgusting. I’ve heard spraying Windex on it helps.