Noll states early on:

The book’s main narrative describes a shift away from European theological traditions, descended directly from the Protestant Reformation, toward a Protestant evangelical theology decisively shaped by its engagement with Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary America.  It is not an exaggeration to claim that this nineteenth-century Protestant evangelicalism differed from the religion of the Protestant Reformation as much as sixteenth-century Reformation Protestantism differed from the Roman Catholic theology from which it emerged (p.3).

So why was this the case?  How did Christian theology develop in the early United States of America, and why did it develop in the specific way that it did?  Noll answers that question by postulating a particularly American synthesis of “evangelical Protestant religion, republican political ideology, and commonsense moral reasoning” (p. 9).

1. Evangelical Protestant religion.  The religious landscape of the early United States came to be dominated by Protestant evangelicals who “shared an emphasis on conversion, the supreme religious authority of the Bible, and an active life of personal holiness” (p. 11)  These Protestants were also highly influenced by the revivalism that swept through the colonies in the 18th century.

2. Republican political ideology.  An almost unique feature of American thought is the idea that Christianity and a republican form of government are compatible.  To this day in America, one is assumed to fit with the other, hand in glove. But this has not at all been the case outside the United States – in fact, in the eighteenth century “almost all observers outside the United States assumed that republican thinking contradicted the principles of traditional religion” (p. 54).

3. Commonsense moral reasoning.  American Christians in the late 18th to the early 19th century had come to rely on “common sense” to determine truth in matters of theology and ethics.  “In the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War, almost all Americans, especially Christian ministers who ventured into print, relied strategically on the weight of ‘self-evident truths’ or ‘intuitive truths,’ even as they expressed repeatedly the conviction that ‘the best reason which anyone can have for believing any proposition is that it is so evident to his intellectual faculty that he cannot disbelieve it’” (p. 95).  This was a departure from traditional Protestant ways of thinking that were much more suspicious of autonomous human reason.

Noll discusses the various historical and religious factors that led to this unique American synthesis, not the least of which is the fact that Puritan revivalism had the unintended effect of undermining the traditional link between church and society and paved the way for republican ideas to fill the vacuum.  He goes on to describe in great detail how the American synthesis shaped Calvinism and Methodism (two dominant religious traditions) in America.  The story of the Americanization of Calvinism (which was really the Americanization of Puritanism) was especially intriguing.  It shed a great deal of light on a puzzling question that I had been pondering for some time: how did Presbyterianism produce a Pelagian like Charles Finney?  The answer in a nutshell is that American “commonsense reasoning” led Calvinism in America down a slippery slope that eventually led to a practical Arminianism and ended in the denial of original sin altogether.  In the same way “commonsense reasoning” seemed to have led Methodism from its original emphasis on “prevenient grace” to a more fully Pelagian view.

Another fascinating aspect of the book was Noll’s treatment of how the American synthesis dealt with the issues underlying the Civil War.  The dominant hermeneutical grid used by Americans of the antebellum era to interpret the Bible was what Noll describes as a “Reformed, literal hermeneutic.”  Noll describes the Reformed nature of this hermeneutic (as opposed to hermeneutical principles employed by Lutherans and high Anglicans) as follows:

First, Calvinists appropriated the Protestant principle of sola Scriptura by perceiving the Bible as an authority set over against other religious authorities.  Second, Calvinists often practiced some version of the “Regulative Principle,” a position the English Puritans had developed from general Reformed leanings.  It held that believers were required to do what the Bible commands but were equally required not to do those things about which the Bible is silent.  Last was the so-called third use of the law, or the belief that, after its twofold use for restraining sin in society and for showing individuals their need of salvation, the moral teaching of Scriptures existed also (even primarily) to provide a blueprint for how Christians, in grateful obedience to God, should live their entire lives (p. 377).

He then describes the “literal” nature of the hermeneutic, which went beyond the Reformed Regulative Principle and could be better traced to American historical circumstances, particularly those that encouraged anti-traditionalism.  It was also very much tied to the idea of commonsense moral reasoning:

The assumption that people could see clearly and without ambiguity what the Bible said, and that this biblicistic knowledge qualified one to judge connections between moral cause and moral effect, was the common person’s counterpart to the Enlightenment confidence displayed by intellectual elites who employed learned formal moral philosophy to the same ends.  Democratic biblicism undercut trust in traditional interpretations of Scripture with the same force that they were being leveled by a reliance on philosophical common sense.  In both cases, confidence in present abilities overmastered confidence in what was handed on from the past.  In both cases, a liberated modern self was the starting point for biblical interpretation (p. 381).

Noll goes on to describe how the Civil War shattered the near-universality of this hermeneutic in America and presented an insurmountable challenge to the American synthesis itself, since pro-slavery arguments drew directly on the “Reformed, literal hermeneutic” and one had to step outside this interpretive framework in order to argue against slavery.   Yet to step outside this framework was unthinkable for many.  Evangelical Protestants saw the Reformed/literal approach to Scripture as having been validated by its success in evangelizing the nation and achieving widespread social transformation, and it was inextricably linked to republican ideals.  But the same interpretive principles that led to Christian republicanism and fueled revivalism also led to arguments for the enslavement of a particular ethnic group in America.

I found this book to be very enlightening as to the historical reasons why Americans think in the ways that they do about politics and religion, even into the 21st century.  The American synthesis and the Reformed, literal interpretation of Scripture no longer dominated American thought after the Civil War, but in conservative Protestant circles they certainly seem to have persisted, sometimes very strongly.  American evangelicals by and large do not see how much their theology has been influenced by the unique twists and turns of American history.  When I was growing up, a mostly-Arminian sort of revivalism was all I knew.  To me that was Christianity, and there were no other categories: there were Catholics, there were liberals (which included most Protestant denominations except conservative Baptists) and then there were Christians.  My church was a “Bible church” because we just believed the Bible, not like all those denominations out there that held to creeds and confessions.  Patriotic holidays would be celebrated in church and no one would blink an eye.  There seemed to be no question in anyone’s mind that the founding fathers had intended America to be a Christian nation and that America was in some sense special in God’s eyes.  The end of America meant the end of the world, literally.

As I eventually learned, things were not so simple.  But things make a lot more sense now.  My eyes were opened to a Christianity far more ancient than American revivalism long before I read America’s God.  But this book helped me to better understand the origins of the Christianity that was made in America, and to better understand how the current American theological landscape came to be.  If you have the patience, it is well worth the read.

We Christians should know that if God is not in the scale to give it weight, we, on our side, sink to the ground.  I mean it this way: if it cannot be said that God died for us, but only a man, we are lost; but if God’s death and a dead God lie in the balance, His side goes down and ours goes up like a light and empty scale.  Yet He can also readily go up again, or leap out of the scale!  But He could not sit on the scale unless He become a man like us, so that it could be called God’s dying, God’s martyrdom, God’s blood, and God’s death.  For God in His own nature cannot die; but now that God and man are united in one person, it is called God’s death when the man dies who is one substance or one person with God.

From Luther’s Works, American Edition 41:103-4, quoted in Formula of Concord SD VIII:44.

What’s in the Bible? is, in a nutshell, an attempt to address declining biblical literacy in the North American church. VeggieTales was an amazingly effective way to teach individual Bible stories, but not abstract concepts like sin, redemption, or God’s grace. Yet these concepts are the core of a meaningful faith. Christian colleges report that incoming freshmen—even those from Christian homes—know less about the Bible each year. And partly as a result of a lack of meaningful knowledge about their faith, 65 percent of Christian kids are walking away from the church as soon as they leave high school.

So, What’s in the Bible? is a new 13-part series that will walk kids all the way through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Call it “Christianity 101”—a crash course in our faith, presented with the same wit and whimsy as VeggieTales.

A number of introductory videos can be found here:  http://whatsinthebible.com/

I was curious as to what you all think of this sort of thing.

My first inclination is to think that, despite their good intentions in trying to address widespread Biblical illiteracy, this sort of thing actually contributes to that by trivializing the Bible and putting it on par with the latest whimsical animated Disney movie. It seems to me to be the product of a philosophy that says kids can’t learn unless they are being entertained/amused. The problem is – how does this prepare kids for serious instruction when they are older? How does one transition to something as ordinary as the Small Catechism, or serious topics like apologetics, after a steady diet of stuff like this? I’m having a hard time imagining kids taking the subjects of sin, redemption, suffering, death, and hell too seriously with this kind of presentation.

Maybe my fears are unfounded? Any thoughts?

Some of this actually sounds very familiar.

Mysticism has been practiced and promoted in American evangelical circles for years now. Thus the fact that certain segments of that population are now openly promoting Roman Catholic monastic mysticism is not terribly surprising to me. When I was an evangelical, mysticism was a big part of my spiritual life. I would have never in a million years have called it that. But looking back it seems clear and obvious.

When I was a young Christian in my late teens/early twenties I heard stories told by people in my church about their experiences of God speaking directly to them, and of the experiences they had of feeling the presence and love of God.  Various teachers that I listened to (which were looked upon with favor by my church) promoted the practice of reading the Bible in order to receive a direct message from God (while bypassing its meaning in context) – read until you come to a passage that pops out at you, and then meditate on it to see what God is saying to you personally.  The “Practice of the Presence of God” is something I am entirely familiar with because it got favorable mention at my church. I practiced journaling in such a way that I believed God was speaking to me directly through those means.  I used my imagination and my feelings in order to hear God speak to me.

An interesting side-effect of my discovery of the Reformation was that I stopped being a mystic.  The reasons why became clear later – reasons which make more puzzling and disturbing the fact that certain corners of the LCMS are now promoting such practices.

The beginning of the end of my mysticism came sometime back in the summer of 2008 when I read a particular article in Discipleship Journal.  Earlier that year, before discovering the White Horse Inn, I had subscribed to the evangelical magazine because of an ad that had promised to revitalize my walk with Christ and cure my spiritual dryness.  At the time I had never heard the word “pietism” but a few months later, devouring everything by Michael Horton and Rod Rosenbladt I could get my hands on, I realized that what I had been taught all my life could be described as a form of pietism – stressing inner experience above external promise.  And I discovered that “pietism” was a good word to describe much of what I was reading in this journal.

The author of the article wrote about how she felt like she was in a “spiritual wilderness” and how she longed for God to speak to her.  The Spirit supposedly led her to the Song of Solomon so that He could speak to her heart directly in what I would describe as a mystical experience.

Whereas previously I probably would have sought a similar sort of experience – such things weren’t foreign to me at all – now I found myself rather disturbed.  Where in Scripture does it promise that God will speak directly to our heart if we ask Him? And where in Scripture does it tell us that the Holy Spirit gives us “spiritual dry spells” so that He can lead us to be alone with Him in mystical experiences rather than convicting us of sin and leading us to repentance and faith?

The misuse of Scripture became rather obvious to me at this point.  It wouldn’t be long before I walked away from those kind of practices and never looked back.  When I discovered the external Word and Sacraments in Lutheranism it was the end of my mysticism.

All this made me wonder – why did I – or why does anyone – turn to mysticism in the first place?  What’s the appeal of it?  What drives a Christian to seek a direct experience of God?

At first I thought it was the a-sacramental nature of my evangelical beliefs. God did not have any objective means of coming to us, so naturally one might turn to mystical means in order to experience Him. But Roman Catholicism is replete with sacraments and still produces mystics galore.

The more I think about this, the more I think at least a large part of it has to do with assurance of salvation. For me the reasoning went something like this: if I can experience God directly, then I can know for sure that I am really His child and that He really has forgiven me.  If I can experience God directly, I can know that I really do have a personal relationship with Him and that He loves me personally.  I really believe that was my motivation for seeking God in such a manner.  In fact, many of my journal entries from that time bear that out.

The answer to the question of “how do I know I am a true believer?” became “because I felt God’s love and He speaks to me directly through His Word.”  It sounds innocuous but when evangelicals say “God spoke to me directly through His Word” they don’t necessarily mean “through the plain sense of the passage.” They often mean “reading my own experiences and feelings and desires into the words of Scripture, regardless of the context or plain sense of the passage.”  I vividly remember “hearing God speak directly to my heart” once using 2 Timothy 1:3-7.  I read this as a personal message from God.  Never mind that the passage was really about the Apostle Paul encouraging the young pastor Timothy – none of that mattered.  Mystical eisegesis was a small price to pay for gaining some glimmer of assurance that I was a true and sincere believer.  It must have been only the grace of God that kept me from more serious forms of error.

Like seeking such assurance through my daily obedience, such a method was bound to be a dead-end – and I inevitably discovered this.  The question always came up in my mind – how do I know all this isn’t just me talking to myself?  I grew increasingly uncomfortable using the Bible as a crystal ball.  The God that spoke to me through my journaling sounded suspiciously like me and didn’t know anything that I didn’t know.  And when I did not “hear” from God in this way it was personally devastating.  When I felt like God was speaking to me everything was fine.  But when I didn’t I wondered what God really thought about me and all the old fears about whether I was a true and sincere believer came flooding back.

When I discovered that the Gospel was entirely outside of me – and that He comes to us where He has promised to be, in the hearing of His Word and in the receiving of His Sacraments – everything changed.  I hear God’s Word confident that He is speaking plainly and that the Holy Spirit will use it to convict me of sin and point to Christ.  How do I know that I am really God’s child and that Christ’s perfect life and sacrificial death on the cross is really for me?  I am baptized into Christ and the name of the Triune God is upon me.  In my Baptism I have been buried and raised with Christ, washed in water with the Word.  How do I know that God forgives me even that sin? Because I hear from the lips of His called and ordained servant “I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  How do I know that God wants me to be saved?  “Take, eat.  This is My body, which is for you.”  “Take, drink.  This cup is the new testament in My blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”

So I can only think that those who promote mystical practices within the LCMS have lost confidence (if they ever had any to begin with) in the objective promises of God’s Word and Sacraments.  They are embracing and promoting a form of what used to be called “Enthusiasm.” Lutherans need to be aware of the dangers of such practices.  We need to cling to the words of Christ above our own feelings and experiences, regardless of how “spiritual” the latter may seem.

While Zwingli's view of the Scriptures rests mainly on the doctrine of Augustine, a certain influence of Origen and his allegoric interpretation of the Bible is noticeable.  The clarity of the Bible, however, does not mean that everyone can understand it; the Scriptures are clear and intelligible to the faithful only.  Now, faith comes from the Word of God, but only if and when the Holy Spirit moves the human soul.  Such faith is the true master of a correct understanding of the Divine Word.  Thus, Zwingli, in spite of his Augustinian biblicism, recognizes something as higher than the letter of the Bible.

Here a strong contrast between Luther's and Zwingli's understanding of the Word becomes evident.  For Luther the content of the Word is bound up with the letter.  The Holy Spirit comes to us in the external word.  In Zwingli's opinion, the external word (the letter) in itself has no power over the human soul.

Not the content of the Word as such overpowers the soul by virtue of the Spirit that dwells in the Word, but the Spirit contacts the soul directly and thus enables the soul to understand the real meaning of the Word –

So Reinhold Seeberg puts it, and underlines the parallel existing between the understanding of the Word and the Sacrament.  According to Luther, the meaning of the sacramental words can be found in those words only, since they are the words of Christ and, therefore, words in which the Holy Spirit dwells.  For Zwingli they cannot be understood from the letter, but by the Spirit, who makes the believer understand the words when he compares Scripture with Scripture and asks for the analogy of faith (pp. 116, Revised Edition, emphasis mine).

So for Luther, God's words themselves convey the Holy Spirit, but for Zwingli, the Word may or may not be accompanied by the Spirit.  Not only does this work itself out in their radically different views on the Lord's Supper, but it seems also to have very serious implications for their respective theological descendants. This is an issue of certainty – how do I know the Holy Spirit is working in my life?

For Luther it was a no-brainer – the Holy Spirit is always accompanied by the Word, and the Word is never unaccompanied by the Holy Spirit.  The two are inseparable.  For Luther Baptism was efficacious because of the Word of God in and with the water, and where the Word of God is, there is the Holy Spirit.  We receive the true body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper because of the Words of Christ.  The Word of God creates what it says.  It is living and active because it is always accompanied by the Spirit.  The person him/herself may reject that Word, but the Spirit is always present in it.

For Zwingli and Calvin et al, however, this is not necessarily the case. One might hear the Word of God, but the Holy Spirit may or may not accompany it.  The Spirit is not necessarily in the Word, but works directly upon a person's heart.  So we cannot really know with certainty that the Holy Spirit is working when one hears the Word, is baptized, or receives the Lord's Supper. 

This is basically where non-Lutheran Protestantism finds itself.  The problem with this is the resulting subjectivity.  I can hear the Word being preached.  I can see a person being baptized.  I can taste the bread and the wine in the Lord's Supper.  I cannot see the Holy Spirit working directly on a person's heart.  

As a Lutheran, I know the Holy Spirit is working because the Word is being preached and the Sacraments are being administered according to Christ's command.  If the Holy Spirit is separated from the Word of God, how can one know with certainty the Holy Spirit is working?  Only through subjective, inward-looking means.  This is true whether one is Calvinist or Arminian.  It is true whether one is Pentecostal, evangelical or fundamentalist.  The precise nature of the navel-gazing may differ from group to group but it is still navel-gazing.

Ever heard someone say this?  I have, in many different ways.  To be honest with you I'm getting rather weary of hearing people say stuff like this.

I think the name for it should be "Gospel Reductionism Lite."

It's not full-blown Gospel Reductionism like you find among the liberals – where everything in Scripture is reduced to bare Gospel at the expense of the Law, leading to antinomianism, and where the Gospel even trumps the need for faith.

Instead, the Lite version says something very much like, "All that matters is that we believe in Jesus." The idea is that doctrine beyond faith in Christ for salvation is unimportant and maybe even divisive.

Is this where the LCMS is going?

I was reading a post by Pastor Jonathan Fisk the other day regarding the changes certain people in the synod want to make – namely, altering what was up till now considered "unalterable" by changing the LCMS's confession of faith into a "confessional basis" and making the actual "confession" a rather generic statement.  It strikes me very much as an example of Gospel Reductionism Lite.

Do I believe that faith in Christ is all that is necessary for salvation?  Absolutely.  As the Reformers would say, we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone.  My question is, where does that faith come from, and how is it best sustained?

To hear some speak, you'd think that doctrine beyond faith in Christ for salvation was thought up by people who wanted to do nothing but cause division in the body of Christ.  They don't seem to realize that the doctrines many people regard as peripheral are actually quite crucial. Heterodox ideas that seem innocuous on the surface can, when taken to their logical conclusions, prove quite devastating to faith.

It makes me wonder whether Gospel Reductionism Lite is behind Lutherans dabbling with the Church Growth Movement.  Dan at Necessary Roughness had a post about this the other day.  For the CGM folks it's as though the most important thing is getting people in the door, spiritually speaking.  "All that matters is that they believe in Jesus."

Where does Gospel Reductionism Lite come from? 

I think it's a combination of pietism and a faulty view of how faith is created and sustained.  Pietism's emphasis on one's inner experience with Jesus over the objective, external Word and Sacraments might lead one to think that doctrine beyond faith in Christ is unimportant or divisive.  And if one lacks confidence in the power of the Word and Sacraments to work faith in a person, one might just be tempted to waffle on those "peripheral issues." 

If I believe that faith is something I work up – or even something that's created by a "zap from above", so to speak – then what one believes about Baptism or the Lord's Supper or the place of the Word of God in a worship service would matter very little to me. 

But if, on the other hand, I believe that faith in Jesus Christ is created and sustained by these means, then what one believes about them might matter to me a great deal.

The problem with the church today is that Luther’s problem has stopped
being our problem. Luther’s problem was the original problem of all
true theology: How can mankind be redeemed – rescued from his sins, and
the death and hell they have merited? For Luther, the question became a
very personal one: “How can I be redeemed?”

This question is really a question about God: “How can I find a God of mercy?” Today’s questions about God – if they are about God at all – are thoroughly self-absorbed: How can I find a God who can give me my best life now? How can I have a life of purpose? How can I be happy? In these questions, God is a means to an end. But God is not a means to an end. God is the end, even as He is the beginning.

I heard a church historian speaking recently about how modern
American religious thought is different from previous ages. One of the
things that makes our age unique is that nobody thinks he is going to
hell. Luther wrestled with a different kind of problem. He couldn’t see
how he wouldn’t be condemned to hell.

It occurred to me while singing the wonderful hymns "A Mighty Fortress is our God" and "Salvation Unto Us Has Come" this past Sunday that these are songs that were written by people with a deep conviction that hell, God's wrath, and the devil were real dangers.  Hell and the wrath of God were terrifying prospects and the devil was a real and powerful enemy.  Our condition under the Law is desperate, bleak and hopeless.  It is only through Christ and his perfect life, death and resurrection that we have any hope of escaping God's wrath.

To run the risk of severe understatement, one does not get this sense so much today.  Mention hell and the wrath of God and you might get dirty looks from Christians as well as non-Christians.  It's not seeker-friendly to talk about such things, and we ourselves are not so sure we're comfortable with a God into whose hands it is a fearful thing to fall.

And so in most of American Christianity, God has been reduced to a relatively benign, therapeutic figure that, I am convinced, Martin Luther and the other Reformers would not even have recognized.  Except as an idol.

How did we get to this point?

It seems to me as though the self-centered questions we ask today are only symptoms of a larger problem.  Luther and the Reformers answered the question "How can I find a God of mercy?" with the Biblical answer of the Gospel – that Jesus Christ lived a perfect life for us, died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead three days later.  The terrifying fury of the Law was answered by the sweet, wonderful news that God is for me in Christ even though I deserve nothing but wrath.

Somewhere down the line, the question "How can I find a God of mercy?" seemed to be answered by either downplaying God's wrath or eliminating it altogether as an outdated, antiquated notion.  Thus the Gospel is reduced to "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.  Sin prevents you from participating in this wonderful plan.  Accept Jesus as your personal Savior and find your purpose."

But I don't need Christ dead on a cross to live an abundant life by the standards of this world.  I don't need Christ dead on a cross to find my purpose in life.  I don't need Christ dead on a cross to be happy.  Believe it or not, there are a lot of happy, fulfilled non-Christians out there.

I do need Christ dead on a cross if my problem is sin that condemns me to hell.  I do need Christ dead on a cross if my sin has earned God's wrath and judgment.

One does not find a God of mercy by creating an idol.

I've been reading various comments from a Lutheran pietist on Twitter that seem to confirm this idea:

"Prayer opens us to our unlimited resources in Christ (Eph 1:17,18)."

"Prayer strengthens us by the Holy Spirit (Eph 3:16)."

"Through prayer we are filled with the fullness of God (Eph 3:19)."

"Through prayer we will fully understand and appreciate the love of Christ (Eph 3:18)."

"Through prayer our love for others will grow to overflowing (Phil 1:9)."

"Through prayer we will be able to discern right from wrong and make the right decisions in all matters (Phil 1:10)."

Through prayer we will be free of all pretence and hypocrisy and live a blameless life (Phil 1:10)."

First, let's look at Ephesians 1:15-23:

¹⁵For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, ¹⁶I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. ¹⁷I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. ¹⁸I
pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that
you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his
glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, ²⁰which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, ²¹far
above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that
can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. ²²And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Ephesians 3:16-19:

¹⁶I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

And Philippians 1:9-10:

 ⁹And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, ¹⁰so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, ¹¹filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

These passages teach that the Apostle Paul was indeed praying for the Christians at these churches.  But these passages do not teach what pietists say they teach.  The passages do not say, "If you pray, then these things will happen."  They record St. Paul's prayers for the people under his care but they do not teach that these things are dependent on whether or not we pray.

What are all these things that St. Paul is praying for based upon?  The forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.  How do all these things happen?  Through the Gospel.  Through the promise of the forgiveness of sins in Word and Sacrament.  

Through Christ – through the Gospel – are all these things true.  Not through prayer.  I am not knocking prayer, not at all.  Prayer is a fruit of faith created through the Gospel.  But to claim that prayer works in a sort of sacramental way – that it is a "means of grace" – is to change the definition of "means of grace."  Prayer is not something that God does, but something that we do.  If we make these gifts of God contingent on our obedience, then we put ourselves in a very bad position.  Because I do not pray as I ought, and if my pietist friends are honest with themselves, neither do they. 

My friend on Twitter says "Through prayer we will be free of all pretence and hypocrisy and live a blameless life." No, no, NO – it's only through Law and Gospel that this can be true.  When I hear people talking about how on fire such and such a person is for God, or how great of a prayer warrior such and such a person is – and I have heard many such things in my life – I can only think about how this sort of thing actually breeds pretense and hypocrisy.

But when we realize that God hears us for the sake of Christ – and for the sake of Christ alone – things are radically different.  There is no pretense, no hypocrisy.  The Law leaves no one standing – not in the area of prayer, not in any other area.  But the Gospel raises us to new life.  And we pray – not so that God will give us His gifts, because He has already given us and continues to give us His gifts.  The greatest Gift of all was the gift of His only begotten Son, dead on the Cross for our sins and raised to life for our justification – delivered onto our heads through the waters of Baptism; delivered into our mouths through the bread and wine which is His body and blood; delivered into our ears through the word of Absolution.  And from this most precious gift of the Gospel all other gifts flow.  The fruit of the Spirit is the fruit of the Gospel, because the Holy Spirit points us to Christ.

There's been a big discussion at the WT regarding female pastors and orthodox theology that I've been reading with interest.  In the course of that discussion one of the posters, Didymus20X6, said something that really struck me regarding how we view authority in America:

At the root of much of this contention is how we view authority. Scripture actually seems to place a great deal of esteem in authority. "Honor your father and your mother", the commandment teaches us. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise those in authority over us, but love, cherish, honor, serve, and obey them. This teaching is further elaborated on in Romans 13 and elsewhere in the New Testament. Scripture: authority is good; rebellion is not.

So where does this faulty idea that authority is bad come from? From narcissistic, self-serving, highly individualistic American culture. We are the country that threw off the shackles of oppression from the British king (e.i., we killed a bunch of people BECAUSE WE DIDN'T LIKE PAYING TAXES). We fought a Civil War for the sake of freedom, but how contradictory is it to defend the freedom to oppress other human beings? Point is, in America, we worship the Unholy Trinity: Me, Myself, and I. Here in America, we sing the Frank Sinatra Hymn: "♫ I did it MYYYYYYYY WAAAAAY! ♪" Here in America, authority is always bad, no matter whether God establishes it, no matter whether it is for our benefit. In our culture, authority is bad, and rebellion is good. "Woe unto you who call evil good, and good evil," says the LORD.

This, I think, is why no one likes to talk about authority, or even submission to authority.

So, in a culture built on rebellion and defiance, which exalts the will of the individual over the good of society, is it any surprise that submission and authority are such nasty words in our language?"

"A culture built on rebellion and defiance." This makes me wonder whether or not we are now reaping what our forefathers have sown.  We Americans romanticize rebellion, particularly when it comes to the origins of our country. Romans 13 applies to everything else but when it comes to the Revolutionary War, God must have been for it because look at the good results!  But I've never read anything in Scripture that tells us that the end justifies the means.  There's really no way to know what the outcome would have been if our forefathers had taken Romans 13 more seriously.

We lament the rebellion of our youth and the rebelliousness of our culture in general while at the same time praising the rebellious origins of our country.  For me, as an American (and as a for-the-most-part politically conservative American!), to even say such things seems like the civic equivalent of blasphemy.  But I can't help but think of the words of Nathan to King David, that because of the murder he committed with the sword, the sword would never depart from his house.  Maybe in a similar way rebellion will never depart from us because of our origins in rebellion.  Lord have mercy on us.

When did this become such a negative term?

You hear people saying all the time, “Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship with God.” While it is true that we Christians are in a positive relationship with God through Jesus Christ, I wonder if this sort of language doesn’t just confuse the issue.

I pretty much grew up with the idea that the definition of religion was people trying to get to heaven by their own efforts, whatever those might be.   In my mind, the use of the word “religion” in any positive sense was a sure sign that the person so using it was lost.  If such a person called him/herself a Christian, they obviously didn’t know that Christianity was all about a relationship with God and not about their works.

In my mind, however, the problem with focusing on the word “relationship” over against “religion” has to do with how our culture understands the word “relationship”.  The word “relationship” largely has a connotation of equality, if not friendship or even intimacy.  Thus “relationship with God” is often taken to mean “God wants to be your buddy” or “God wants to be intimate with you.”

I wonder if this use of the word “relationship” has not contributed to the casualness with which people tend to approach God these days.  God is my best friend, so I can approach him as casually (and dare I say flippantly) as I want.  God wants an intimate relationship with me, so I’ll do anything to “feel” His presence during worship.

But the relationship I have with God is not a relationship of equals.  I come to God as a beggar, a poor miserable sinner who does not even deserve to stand in His presence.  But He, in His mercy and grace, gives me the gift of life and salvation through His Word and sacraments.  I daresay this is not what most people in America (or the West in general) think of when they think of a “relationship”.  God is the one initiating everything in this relationship.  If there is any friendship or intimacy (and there certainly is), He is the one making it happen.  I am not free to approach God however I choose.     

So what about the word “religion”?  Why does it leave such a bad taste in the mouths of many Christians?  Why is it that if I were to tell an evangelical that I am religious, that they would likely assume that I am unsaved?  (And I am not even talking about the whole “religion” vs. “spirituality” issue – that would require a post in and of itself).

After thinking about this for quite a while, I wonder if pietism has anything to do with it.  Pietism has completely saturated American evangelicalism, and sees Christianity as being chiefly about one’s inner experience and sincere life of piety as opposed to the objective, external work of God outside of us.  I have to wonder if perhaps somewhere along the line “religion” was equated with so-called “dead orthodoxy”.  The word “relationship” is certainly more in line with those who would emphasize one’s inner experience.

Will I start using the term “religion” in a positive way?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Perhaps the term was ruined by those who sought to redefine it.  Oh, all right – Christianity is my religion.  There, I said it!

Maybe one of these days I will get past my knee-jerk negative internal reaction when I hear the word.  The pietist in me dies hard.  But that’s a topic for another post.