A Reformed Critique of Alcoholics Anonymous

This article was first written in 1987. It was first published in the Reformed Herald in 1989. It appears here with only minor revisions.

Since I first posted this essay on the web in 1999, it has generated more response than I expected. Before you write to complain that I have misrepresented AA or to tell me how much AA has helped you or to give me sources to read on the history of AA, please note that this is not my current field of research nor will it be any time soon. Please note that this essay is not intended as a personal criticism nor does it intend to deny that God is free to work as he wills. I understand that some have been helped by AA. That fact, however, does not change the will of God revealed in Holy Scripture (Deut 29:29). That God has used AA to bring one to faith in Jesus is a cause for thanks but it is not a reason to withhold criticism of AA. This essay is intended primarily to encourage confessional Reformed and Presbyterian churches to take up their responsibility to love sinners. Revised February, 2006.   Continue at Scott Clark

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Why (Some) Reformed People Are Such Jerks?

About as soon as I left my evangelical (Southern Baptist) congregation and started associating with Reformed folk, I began to hear this question. I remember taking someone to a Reformed congregation and afterward she was in tears. Why? In part, she said, because she had never met such a cold congregation. Over the years I’ve fielded this question repeatedly, and it came up again recently. My (partial) answer is complex, so this post is a little long.

 

We need to challenge the premise of the question. Sometimes the question assumes a model of niceness and/or sweetness that may or may not have anything to do with the biblical doctrine of charity. In some cases we’re dealing with assumptions rooted in culture rather than Scripture. E.g., When we lived in England, we found that folk never asked us about our health. It’s considered rude. The day we left England, however, as soon as we got on the plane, we were pelted with questions by an American woman who was just being polite. What was rude in England was polite in Dallas. Was she nice or not? It depends upon where one lives.

There can be different congregational cultures. Will the members “be there” when you are ill or in serious need? Perhaps that’s a better test? Are there rude broadly evangelical congregations? I guess so. Are there friendly Reformed congregations? Absolutely! There can be a real cultural shock, however, when one from a “happy-clappy” evangelical culture attends a more serious Reformed service. That can take some adjustment. The values are different. The orientation is different. In any case, there is a culture shift involved. Are the people in France more or less rude than the people in England? Who can say? They’re different cultures.    Continue at Scott Clark

The Attraction Of Legal Preaching

Scott Clark has posted an important, creative, and compelling piece on the attraction of “legal preaching.” He writes:

 

A legal preacher is a preacher who majors in the law to the neglect of the gospel. In practice, he preaches nothing but law. He thinks that mentioning Jesus periodically or even regularly means that he’s not a legal preacher and he can’t imagine that people are concerned about the tenor of his preaching because he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. It’s the sort of preaching he heard as a young man and it’s the sort of preaching he heard in seminary and it’s the sort of preaching he admires in other preachers.

He turns every passage into a law, because he doesn’t know any other way to read the Scripture and he doesn’t know any other way to preach. He preaches the law and he doesn’t even know he’s doing he it, even when, in his mind, he’s preaching the gospel. When he finds a bit of good news in his passage, he doesn’t end with that because he doesn’t want his people to get the idea that there are no obligations to the Christian life.    Continue at Tullian Tchividjian

Colson Calls for Doctrinal Boot Camp: But Which Doctrine?

In 1994 Chuck Colson attempted to convince evangelicals that the decline of the culture was so precipitous that they needed to set aside the historic Protestant doctrine of justification in favor of an intentionally equivocal statement about how we are accepted by God. That statement was called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together.” That was seventeen years ago. Just three years ago, he was still defending ECT and again in 2009. Today, however, he seems to be taking a different approach. In an essay in Christianity Today posted today he calls evangelicals to consider a “doctrinal boot camp.”

He writes:

An aversion to doctrine caused some thoroughly orthodox young evangelicals to decline to sign the Manhattan Declaration (which defends human life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty), even though the document is rooted in Scripture. As one young evangelical explained to me, “We don’t like dogmatic statements that a lot of people have to sign.” What about the Nicene Creed or the Westminster Confession of Faith? Keep Reading>>>

Harold Camping May Never Learn But Will We?

Harold Camping has shown himself to be a false prophet. He promised that our Lord would return in 1994. Jesus didn’t return. Camping erred but he remains impenitent and unashamed. Indeed, he’s now promising that Jesus will return in 2011 (HT: Austin Britton), and this despite Jesus’ clear, unequivocal teaching that no one, not even Harold Camping, knows when Jesus will return:

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man (Matt 25:36–37) Continue Reading>>>

The Scandal of Pagans Leading Worship

Collin Hansen has a fascinating series of interviews on the Gospel Coalition today asking a variety of pastors whether they allow those who make no Christian profession, who regard themselves as non-Christians, non-believers, those we used to call “heathen” or “pagans” to lead worship through leading or playing musical instruments. The responses vary from yes (Scotty Smith, a PCA pastor), to “No” (Mike Cosper, and Jonathan Leeman), and “maybe” (Zach Nielsen). This discussion was stimulated by a post by Bob Kauflin. Collin draws attention to the arguments made by Tim Keller (a PCA pastor) in favor of including self-identified non-Christians “in our services” in musical ensembles on the grounds that it fits with Redeemer’s version of the “Reformed world and life view.” Continue Reading>>>

If We Don’t Do X The Young People Will Leave

Do Reformed Christians Confess the Sabbath?

Syncretism, Kingdom Confusion, and Evangelical Niceness

Sexual Liberation, Natural Law, and the Modern Resistance to Fixed Moral Norms

In the 1960s it was common to hear American civil rights leaders appeal to natural justice and natural law in defense of the extension of civil rights to oppressed peoples, namely African Americans. Those arguments were compelling to Americans because they are fundamental to the nature of the country. Our founding documents, after all, appeal to “self-evident” truths among which is the truth that “all men,” including African Americans, “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Martin Luther King and others brilliantly prosecuted a America for her crimes against natural justice.

Since the heyday of the civil rights movement, many (but not all) of those whose voices that resonated so strongly with appeals to natural justice, in favor of liberation, have been quite resistant to the appeal to the same natural justice when it also dictates restraint. Read the rest HERE

Anne Rice is Right (and Wrong)

Moderns do identify with Jesus but only insofar as he can be put to the service of their agenda. The Jesus of modernity is a preacher of personal piety and good behavior. He is nice. He is sweet. He is gentle. He is inclusive. He is a prophet of human goodness and perfectibility. In short, the Jesus of modernity looks quite a bit like an enlightened modern.The modern commitment to autonomy is such that they are also deeply suspicious of institutions. It is widely accepted among moderns that Jesus did not establish and institution, indeed, a priori,  he could have not done. The Jesus of modernity was the first Christian who experienced God spontaneously and who rebelled against any and all institutions. Modern Christianity has sought for two centuries to recapture Jesus’ immediate, spontaneous experience of the noumenal, the divine, and/or the transcendent and it has often sought those things outside of institutions. Read the rest HERE

His Face Bound with a Linen Cloth

What Does an Alcoholic/Addict Need?

Is All of Life Worship?

On analogy, the distinction between worship broadly and narrowly considered saves us a good lot of confusion. Is all of life worship yes, but not in the same sense at the same time. That would be simple equivocation. When we are gathered before the face of God in stated services we are worshiping God in the special, narrow sense of the term. It is extremely unhelpful to equate this with the general, broader sense of worship. Indeed, in view of the reigning confusion about what Christian worship is and how it be conducted, we would probably do better not to use the phrase “all of life is worship.” If we’re going to use it then we need to qualify it very carefully so that, as a catchphrase it’s lost its vitality. Read the rest HERE

“Balanced But Biting” Really?

One of the things that worries me most lately is what might be called the Simon Cowell syndrome. I don’t watch American Idol much but even I could tell that Simon Cowell’s role on the show has been to be the one to tell the truth about the contestants. In an age where everyone gets a prize for participating Cowell looks like an ogre for daring to tell people who can’t sing that they can’t sing. This is the weird side of the Orwellian world in which we now live. The evangelical version of the “everyone wins” phenomenon is that it is virtually impossible today to tell the truth about an error without yourself coming under criticism for daring to do it. It doesn’t matter how carefully one does it. it doesn’t matter whether what was said is true. It doesn’t really even matter how much happy-talk prefaces the criticisms that are made. The sin is that the criticisms are made. Read the rest HERE

The Mystery of Children’s Church