Great theological resources

So what are you listening to these days? This is a common question, right? We like to know what other people are listening to. What’s in your CD player? What’s on your playlist? What’s on your ipod? For me, I have been listening to Bob Dylan, Chris Tomlin, and Timothy Tennant. You probably know the first two guys, but who is Timothy Tennant? Is he the new lead singer for the Stone Temple Pilots? Not exactly. Timmy is a missions professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. I have been listening to his lecture series: Introduction to Islam.

I have stumbled across two wonderful places to get quality, theological teaching from biblically conservative guys who know there stuff. And let’s face it, it is easier and quicker to listen to their lectures than to read their books or obscure journal entries. These are great theological resources…it is the same stuff you would get by attending a seminary class and it is free. Here are the two links:

Biblicaltraining.org
This site is a hard to navigate, but once you register, you can download MP3s on a variety of theological topics. I have listened to one lecture by Bruce Ware and I will eventually download his whole Systematic Theology course. This is also where I got Tennant’s lectures on Islam.

Covenant Worldwide
This is provided by Covenant Seminary in St. Louis. Holy cow, there is a ton of great stuff here. It is easier to navigate and allows you to download lectures as a podcast. God bless those Presbyterians! God bless iTunes!

Lenny Bruce is dead

Tonight, I have two songs playing in my head and a lot of thoughts buzzing about. The songs are both from Bob Dylan. I have been listening to Dylan’s three “Christian” albums and drinking of Dylan’s spirituality recently. (Thanks BZ!) Dylan has always been heralded as a songwriting genius, a true poet that has crossed generations over the decades. Some of the songs that he wrote in his “Christian era” reflect a passionate devotion and faith.

The first song in my head is Lenny Bruce from Dylan’s 1981 Shot of Love…and it is not the entire song that I hear, just the first line: “Lenny Bruce is dead but his ghost lives on and on.” This song is a strange epitome for such a controversial character, but the reflective nature of the song makes me think about death, not in a morbid, self-loathing way, but in a thoughtful way. Death comes in many ways; death is not always physcial, but it always leaves a hole, a gnawing emptiness, a screaming void. How ironic that the absence of a thing like life can do such emotional violence. We must content with death and loss and change. Is there any other choice? There is no passing over it. There is no delaying it. The pain is real and must be faced. The pain of loss…what a slap in the face. What a kick in the gut. What a mastermind of the corporate fallen-ness of human pride and choice.

It could be easy for a person to crawl into a dark hole of despair. It would seem like the natural thing in the face of death, but “Lenny Bruce is dead but his ghost lives on and on.” Can there be existence after loss? Is there any hope for the destitute, lonely, confused, hurt? I find my answer in another Bob Dylan song, the other Dylan song alive in my heart tonight. For me this song is a prayer to the Trinue God…to the Father who loves me with a compassionate love…to the Son who wore my flesh and felt me pain…and to the Spirit who pours out the love of God in my heart.

Dylan’s words...my prayer…

I Believe in You (1979)
Bob Dylan

...And I walk out on my own
A thousand miles from home
But I don't feel alone
'Cause I believe in you.

I believe in you even through the tears and the laughter,
I believe in you even though we be apart.
I believe in you even on the morning after.
Oh, when the dawn is nearing
Oh, when the night is disappearing
Oh, this feeling is still here in my heart.

Don't let me drift too far,
Keep me where you are
Where I will always be renewed.
And that which you've given me today
Is worth more than I could pay
And no matter what they say
I believe in you....

Letter to the Editor on Seeker Churches

My letter to the editor about seeker churches final appeared in the Americus Times Recorder today. To get you caught up, a letter to the editor was written about the destructive nature of seeker church. I disagreed and wrote a letter in response. It took the ATR a month to print it. I had almost forgot that I wrote it. Check out my blog entries if you want to get caught up.

Original letter calling seeker churches destructive

My response which I emailed to the editor

My more detailed response that I blogged

My critique of the seeker movement

Does God want You to be Rich?

The September 18, 2006 issue of Time magazine is running a cover story on the prosperity message in evangelical churches in America. According to a CNN.com summary, the article states that in a recent poll, “17 percent of Christians surveyed said they considered themselves part of such a movement, while a full 61 percent believed that God wants people to be prosperous.”

I have grown up in churches that emphasize that God desires for his people to prosper and I attended seminary at Oral Roberts University www.oru.edu, where prosperity was a part of the ethos. I have written two academic essays ("Reconstructing Word of Faith Theology" & "P.G. Vargis and the Indian Prosperity Gospel") that deal with the subject of prosperity and I have had countless conversations about the subject. And at the end of the day, I do believe that God desires to financially prosper his people. Before you label me a heretic and start sending me flaming emails, let me explain.

I believe that there are some basic biblical principles that we all tend to agree on, most importantly that, “God is good; poverty is bad; and money can be good and bad.” Typically, Christians who argue over the issue of prosperity pile up the Scriptures on both sides and talk until they get red-faced and walk away with the issue unresolved. The arguments over prosperity are not biblical, they are cultural.

The cultural problems begin with how we define prosperity. It does no good to define prosperity as “rich,” because that only begs the question – How do we define “rich”? It is easy for white, upper middle-class, evangelical Christian to criticize the popular prosperity preachers, while they sit on their leather-covered chairs behind their mahogany desks, typing on their thousand-dollar laptops, in their air conditioned offices. (This actually describes my office, minus the mahogany desk). Are middle-class evangelicals rich because their family drives two vehicles and they live in a 2,300 sq. ft., three bedroom home? I typical American would say no, but my friends in India would say yes. I know of Indian pastors who are believing God for a bicycle so that they don’t have to walk from village to village.

So within our own culture we have to define what is prosperity. I have always liked Oral Roberts’ definition of prosperity. Roberts is the historical impetus of the prosperity message. He is the one who initially brought attention to this message in the Pentecostal/charismatic tradition. In 1963, he wrote: “Prosperity is the possession of everything you need for yourself and loved ones with enough surplus to give to those who need help. If you have only the bare necessities, you are not prosperous. ”

I have found Roberts’ definition to be balanced and biblical. If we define “prosperity” in these terms then I would say, Yes, God wants us all to be prosperous.

The biblical issue is not whether or not you have a lot of money. The biblical issue is what you do with that money and is your money the sole devotion of your life. Money has the potential to steal your devotion away from God whether you have $100 or $10 million dollars.

9/11 and the Sovereignty of God

Today is the fifth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. I returned from my first trip to India on September 4, 2001, exactly one week prior to the terrorist attacks. One of my possible itineraries had me returning on Tuesday, September 11th. Had I taken that flight from Amsterdam to Atlanta in 2001, I would have been diverted to Canada. Today was the perfect day to wrestle with the issues of God’s sovereignty and providence.

I am preparing for a sermon that I will preach at the end of the month on the subject of chance. Is there such a thing as chance or coincidence? How much of life is controlled by God? Today is a perfect day to reflect on these questions, because the terrorist attacks of September 11th raise the questions about pain, suffering, tragedy and the providence of God. I spent much of the day reading online articles and essays, mostly from Reformed thinkers, on the issues of sovereignty, suffering and evil. I then took some of these issues into a meeting with our elders where we spent 45 minutes discussing the pastoral concerns related to a biblical understand of sovereignty. I really wrestled today with an article by John Piper entitled, “Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?" I love reading Piper. I do not always agree with him at the end of the day, but I love his passion for biblical and historical orthodoxy. He is provocative and unashamed to tackle tough theological subjects.

I am still wrestling with a lot of these issues. I have no problem with saying that God works everything out for our good (Romans 8:28; Ephesians 1:11). My problem is the age-old question, “How can a loving God allow (permit or will) evil (suffering or pain)?” I have often heard it said that God does not will evil, but he permits it. The classic example is with Job. They will say, “God did not take away Job’s health, kids and stuff, the devil did.” The devil is the bad guy, not God. I have never been satisfied with that explanation, because whether God did all that to Job or allow it to happen, it still makes God look unloving. It doesn’t matter if I beat my kids or I allow my kids to be beaten – both make me look unloving.

Piper has got me thinking in another direction. What if God actual wills sin as a part of his plan? Do what? Are you kidding me??? Piper piles up a bunch of Scripture that indicates that God will’s calamity (i.e. destruction, suffering, evil). Piper writes:

For example, Isaiah 45:7 says God is the "The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these." Amos 3:6 says, "If a calamity occurs in a city has not the LORD done it?" In Job 42:2, Job confesses, "I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted." And Nebuchadnezzar says (in Daniel 4:35), "[God] does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, 'What are you doing?'" And Paul says, in Ephesians 1:11, that God is the one "who works all things after the counsel of His will."
And if someone should raise the question of sheer chance and the kinds of things that just seem to happen with no more meaning than the role of the dice, Proverbs 16:33 answers: "The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the LORD." In other words, there is no such thing as "chance" from God's perspective.

He goes on to present the strongest biblical evidence that God can will evil as he discusses the death of Christ. Piper writes, “The death of Jesus offers another example of how God's sovereign will ordains that a sinful act come to pass.”

Piper makes it clear that God is not the author of sin. He quotes Jonathan Edwards from The Freedom of the Will who writes, “sin is not the fruit of any positive agency or influence of the most High, but on the contrary, arises from the withholding of his action and energy, and under certain circumstances, necessarily follows on the want of his influence.” This is a powerful thought from Edwards that may help me understand how God can ordain (or will) sinful actions. If we say that sinful actions occur when God withholds his action and energy, as Edwards describes it, then we must assume that God this is an act of God’s will. To act or to refrain from acting requires the use of will. So God could will not to act in order to allow an evil act to take place and this can be according to his plan. So in this you can say that God willed evil. He willed it by not acting. Ultimately, he wills it to make his glory known.

If I buy in to this more reformed view, then I will have to change my definition of “God’s will.” However, if God will evil by his inaction, then I must separate God’s will (his preordained plan) from God’s desire (the things he receives pleasure in). I have often said that God’s will is the things that please him, but Piper has got me thinking that maybe God will’s things that he hates.

We cannot let this turn us into fatalists, where we go passive and ignore our responsibility to obey God. God may will evil in my life, but that does not mean that I have to passively accept everything that comes into my life, but the mystery between sovereignty and human responsibility is for another blog.

SBC leaders clash over speaking in tongues

The following is a news report about a Southern Baptist pastor who shared stories during a seminary chapel about praying in tongues. My comments are at the end...

Raging Tongues at SBC Seminary
Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson has issued an extraordinary rebuke to the Rev. Dwight McKissic, a seminary trustee and prominent Arlington pastor, for acknowledging during a chapel service that he sometimes speaks in tongues when he prays.

After Tuesday’s chapel service, Patterson issued a statement that the video of McKissic’s sermon will not be posted online nor saved in seminary archives, as are the sermons of all other chapel speakers. Patterson withheld McKissic’s chapel message from the school’s Web site, the statement said, “lest uninformed people believe that Pastor McKissic’s view on the gift of tongues and ‘ecstatic utterance’ is the view of the majority of the people at Southwestern.”

The rest of the story is at www.mondaymorninginsight.com. Southwestern Seminary went on to release a statement saying, "But “we reserve the right not to disseminate openly views which we fear may be harmful to the churches.”

Here is the comment that I posted on the mondaymorninginsight.com webpage...

I thougth the war between the charismatics and the evangelicals was over? I guess the SBC didn’t get the memo that we aren’t fighting over the issue of tongues anymore. I understand McKissic’s frustration and criticism with the IMB exclusion of missionaries who pray in tongues.

What concerns me is the seminary’s statement: But “we reserve the right not to disseminate openly views which we fear may be harmful to the churches.” First, what are they so afraid of? And second, do they believe that a theology and practice of the gift of tongues as a private prayer language of the Spirit is harmful? I can see the harmful nature of a strict Pentecostal doctrine of initial evidence, but what is the harm in tongues as a part of a Christian’s prayer life?

I have no problems with the SBC’s theological critique of the prayer language of the Spirit. Too often their prohibition of tongue-speaking is not theological, but cultural. Too often they are allowing a modern, rationally-driven mode of thinking cause them to “fear” tongues because it is non-rational. From my experience, members of the SBC have put their theological heads in the sand and ignore the tongues, instead of dealing with the biblcial material concerning the proper use of tongues.

What I mean by that is that in my experience Baptist have an underdeveloped theology of spiritual gifts, specifically related to speaking in tongues. They ignore it or they say that it passed away, but they typically do not engage the biblcial texts the talk about speaking in tongues. Furthermore, their theological distance from the issue causes a lack of experience of tongues in their churches. And when a Baptist person speaks in tongues the Baptist leaders do not know how to deal with is. When a Baptist tells me that they disagree with tongues as a prayer language, because 1 Corinthians 14 says that it must be followed with an interpretation, I ask, "Is that the way it happens in your church?"

I really do think the war between the charismatics and the evangelicals is over. The SBC just needs to get with the program. Shan-da-la-ka!

Reading Guitar Man

Today I was the "Reading Guitar Man." I was asked by Wesley's school to come sing a song that Wesley and I wrote last year about reading. (Yes, I did say sing.) I am always looking for ways to be involved with the school and I picked up on the Reading Guitar Man idea from my friend Chris Rumble, a writer, Christian speaker, and the original "Reading Guitar Man" from Atlanta. I called Chris last year to ask him how he comes up with the Reading Guitar Man songs. He said that he just took a tune that he knows and changes the words to reading. So Wesley and I took the tune from DCB's "Every Move I Make" and created "Every Book I Read." The lyrics are simple: "Every book I read, I read for fun. I love to read yeah! Every book I read, I read for fun. Big ones, small ones, blue ones too! I love to read even when I'm at school."

Wesley and I had a good time singing in front of his school. (Yes, Wesley sang too...in a microphone nonetheless...) The school's PR guy wrote a Press Release that he is sending to the paper with our picture and the following blurb about us..."On the eve of the 2006-2007 beginning of the Accelerated Reading Program at Sumter County Elementary School, students were reminded of the importance and fun of reading.... Mr. Derek Vreeland, Pastor of Cornerstone Church and his student son, Wesley, shared an original tune, "Every Book I Read, I Read For Fun." With guitar, the father-son duo involved the entire student body of the school."