Everything but Plowshares

"Evangelical Christianity—like all branches of the historic church—maintains a tension between the "already" and the "not yet" of this kingdom. That tension seeks to avoid bringing the kingdom too near (in utopianism or political gospels) or keeping it too far (in prophecy-chart fixations or withdrawal from society). From the apostolic age to the digital era, the "already-not yet" tension has proven difficult to understand. But it's really no more complicated than reconciling Jesus' declaration that the "kingdom of God is in your midst" with the fact that two millennia have passed with swords still used for everything but plowshares. The difference between what's "already" and what's "not yet" is summed up in the question, "Where is Jesus ruling now, and how?" The kingdom comes in two stages, because King Jesus himself does."

--Russell Moore

What Should We Do with our Frozen Embryos?

Russell Moore responds to this question from a conscience-stricken  father.

http://www.russellmoore.com/2013/04/17/what-should-we-do-with-our-frozen-embryos/#more-10558

Why Christians Should Read Fiction

Do you think reading fiction is a waste of time? Read this article, and think harder.

http://www.russellmoore.com/2013/03/25/why-christians-should-read-fiction/

Should a Christian Dentist Fire His Too-Hot Hygienist?

Russell Moore discusses a thorny ethical question that was in the news recently.

http://www.russellmoore.com/2013/03/11/should-a-christian-dentist-fire-his-too-hot-hygienist/

Fornication is Blasphemy

Great article from a great author excerpted from a great magazine.

"Fornication, quite simply, isn't merely "premarital sex." It isn't only a matter of impatience. It is not simply the marital act misfired at the wrong time, a kind of, as it were, premature ejaculation. Yes, it is true that the sexual act in fornication is, or at least can be, the same sort of physical activity as wedded sexuality. And it's true that, in fornication, the couple involved may be doing that which they would be qualified to do if they were a married couple (which would distinguish fornication from, say, sodomy or incest). But fornication is, both spiritually and typologically, a different sort of act from the marital act, and is indeed a parody of it.

Sexual union is not an arbitrary expression of the will of God (much less of random Darwinian processes). It is instead an icon of God's purposes for the universe in the gospel of Christ. Paul's classic text on the one-flesh union of marriage from Ephesians 5 makes no sense if it is presented as it is too often preached: as a set of tips for a healthier, "hotter" marriage. Instead, this passage is part of an ongoing argument about the cosmic mystery of Christ, a mystery "which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit" (Eph. 3:5).

The Genesis 2 mandate to leave father and mother, to cleave to one another, and to become one flesh is a "mystery" and "refers to Christ and the Church" (Eph. 5:31–32). The husband/wife union is a visible representation of the Christ/Church union—a covenantal bond in which, as a head with a body, Jesus is inseparable from his bride, a bride he protects, provides for, leads, disciples, and sanctifies. He is as inseparable from his Body as a human head is from a human body—a truth the apostle heard from the voice of the Galilean himself, when Jesus asked the persecutor of the Church on the Road to Damascus, "Why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4).

Fornication pictures a different reality than that of the mystery of Christ. It represents instead a Christ who uses the Church without joining her, covenantally, to himself. It is not just "naughtiness." To use another word Christians find awkward and antiquated, it's blasphemy.

This is why the consequences for fornication in Scripture are so severe. The man who leads a woman into sexual union without a covenantal bond is preaching to her, to the world, and to himself a different gospel. He is forming a real spiritual union, the apostle warns, but one that is of a different spirit than the sanctifying Spirit of God in Christ (1 Cor. 6:15–19)."

 -Russell Moore, "Sexual Iconoclasm," Touchstone Magazine, January/February 2013, 

 - See more at: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=26-01-020-v#sthash.lSiJDh2N.dpuf

Baptists and Divorce

From an assignment I am currently reading for Russell Moore's class on sexual ethics.

"How can Southern Baptists and other evangelicals—whether on the right or the left of the political spectrum—speak to issues of social justice and the common good without addressing what is no doubt the leading cause of “widows and orphans” in our midst? Why would Southern Baptists think and speak in one way (“muted” and “ambiguous,” in Wilcox’s words) on the issue of divorce, and quite another (full volume and unambiguous) on an issue such as homosexuality? Wilcox suggests, and I think rightly, that Southern Baptists and other conservative  Protestants have been “far from untouched by the dramatic increases in divorce since the 1960s.” Wilcox writes: “It may well be that leaders and pastors are more comfortable confronting homosexuality, which probably does not affect many people in the pews, than confronting divorce, which does.” To put it bluntly, we have many more “out of the closet” multiple divorcees than “out of the closet” homosexuals in our churches. At issue here is pastoral courage. John the Baptist would put his head on a platter to speak truth to power that not even a king can have another man’s wife. John the Southern Baptist is too often not willing to put his retirement benefits on the table to say the same thing to a congregational business meeting."

 --Russell Moore, "Southern Baptist Sexual Revolutionaries," 

http://moodle.sbts.edu/file.php/14845/RDM_-_SWJT_-_Southern_Baptist_Sexual_Revolutionaries.pdf

Did Jesus Ever Get a Stomach Virus?

This piece by Russell Moore is now the foreword for Patrick Henry Reardon's new book The Jesus We Missed: The Surprising Truth about the Humanity of Christ.

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-We-Missed-Surprising-Humanity/dp/1595553711/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330290712&sr=1-1

"Several years ago, a brutal stomach virus crept through the seminary community where I serve as dean. One day, knowing that most of the students in my classroom were on the upswing from this sickness, I posed the question, “Did Jesus ever have a stomach virus?”

On a more typical day-a day in which the question of such illness would have been a more abstract reality-I doubt there would have been anything less than consensus. Of course, these future pastors would have asserted, Jesus assumed everything about human nature, except for sin.

But this wasn’t an abstract question. These students were still reeling not just from the discomfort of the stomach flu, but also from its indignity. They had been wracked with vomiting, diarrhea, fever, and chills. They still smarted from the sense of having no control over the most disgusting of bodily functions.

So when I asked this question, these ministers of the gospel hesitated. The stomach virus wasn’t just awful; it was undignified. And thinking of Jesus in relation to the most foul and embarrassing aspects of bodily existence seemed to them to be just on the verge of disrespectful, if not blasphemous.

Why is it so hard for us to imagine Jesus vomiting?

The answer to this question has to do, first of all, with the one-dimensional picture of Jesus so many of us have been taught, or have assumed. Many of us see Jesus either as the ghostly friend in the corner of our hearts, promising us heaven and guiding us through difficulty, or we see him simply in terms of his sovereignty and power, in terms of his distance from us. No matter how orthodox our doctrine, we all tend to think of Jesus as a strange and ghostly figure.

But the bridging of this distance is precisely at the heart of the scandal of the gospel itself. It just doesn’t seem right to us to imagine Jesus feverish or vomiting or crying in a feeding trough or studying to learn his Hebrew. From the very beginning of the Christian era, those who sought to redefine the gospel argued that it doesn’t seem right to think of Jesus as really flesh and bone, filled with blood and intestines and urine. It doesn’t seem right to think of Jesus as growing in wisdom and knowledge, as Luke tells us he did. Somehow such things seem to us to detract from his deity, from his dignity.

But that’s just the point.

The very beginning of the Christ story itself tells us that part of the sign of the Messiah is that he is wrapped in cloths (Lk. 2:12). Why do you wrap cloths around a baby? For the same reason you might diaper your infant, or wrap her up in a blanket. The point is to keep the baby warm, and to keep him dry from waste. From the very beginning Jesus is one of us, sharing with us a human nervous system, a human digestive system, and as we’ll see every aspect of human nature.

It didn’t seem right to the world to imagine the only begotten of the Father twisting in pain on a crucifixion stake, screaming as he drowned in his own blood. This was humiliating, undignified. That’s just the point. Jesus joined us in our humiliation, our indignity.  In this Jesus is, the Scripture tells us, not ashamed to call us brothers (Heb. 2:11).

I thought intensely about this as I was asked to read, and write a foreword, for my friend Patrick Henry Reardon’s new book on the humanity of the Lord Christ, The Jesus We Missed: The Surprising Truth About the Humanity of Christ (Thomas Nelson). This is the best contemporary treatment of this subject I’ve ever seen.

This book prompted me to think and to ponder. But, more than that, this book prompted me to pray and to worship, to see the Jesus it is so easy for me to forget: the Jesus who was really and truly one of us, so that we might be, with him, the heirs of the Father and the children of God. The one who took on every aspect of our flesh and blood in order to redeem us from the power of the devil (Heb. 2:14-15).

Reflecting on the humanity of Jesus always drives me to see what I’ve missed in my own humanity. Too often, we’re tempted to excuse our own bitterness, our rage, our lust, our envy, our factiousness as “only human.” The mystery of Christ shows us that such things aren’t human at all, but satanic. We define humanity in light of our brother, in light of the alpha and omega point of humanity-Jesus of Nazareth.

Reflecting on our Lord’s humanity can drive you to the Jesus you might have forgotten or, might never have seen. It can also propel you with longing-for the day spike-scabbed hands wipe away your tears as you hear a northern Galilean accent introduce himself as your Lord, as your King, but also as your brother."

The Susan Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood

See Russell Moore's article in Christianity Today about the Susan Komen Foundation's backtracking on Planned Parenthood last week.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=95231

Family Tensions and the Holidays

Great article by Dr. Russell Moore.

http://www.russellmoore.com/2011/11/21/family-tensions-and-the-holidays/

Bumper Sticker Evangelism

"As I write these words right now, I’m sitting in a coffee shop in my community. Outside my window there are two cars, one brandishing a bumper magnet of a “Darwin fish,” the early Christian emblem of the fish, growing legs with the word “Darwin” inside. Next to it is a car, I’m guessing owned by a Christian, with a bumper sticker of that Darwin fish being devoured by a larger Jesus fish. Is this really an evangelistic tool?

Has there ever been an atheistic evolutionist who has seen such a thing and concluded, “You know, Darwinism is crazy. Where can I find a gospel tract showing me how to believe?” I doubt it. Instead, much of our rhetoric is less about persuading unbelievers, or maintaining the faith of believers, than about, as Thomas Merton put it a generation ago, our search for an argument strong enough to prove us ‘right.’ That’s why we caricature the views of our opponents that can get loud ‘amens’ in our own settings but leave our children completely unprepared for the more careful, nuanced arguments they find when they actually encounter the viewpoints we’ve lampooned. What is the end result? The end result is a self-referential Christian rhetoric that not only fails to persuade outsiders, but also fails to protect our own children and grandchildren from what we’re afraid of exposing them to in the first place.” 

--Russell Moore, Tempted and Tried (2011 A.D.)   

They Don't Realize They're Future Meat

Dr. Russell Moore is the Dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, where I am headed in a few short weeks. This comes from his excellent book Tempted and Tried. 

“The first question the devil asked [Jesus] was a hidden one, wrapped in the first clause of an offer: ‘If you are the Son of God…’ This is precisely the opening salvo the demonic powers launch to this very day. The factory farm wants the cows to see themselves as pets or as companions, or simply as ‘free’ and alone. What they don’t want the cattle to recognize is that they are future meat. Identity confusion is the reason people are able to affirm one thing and do another. And it’s the reason more worldview training on how to think like a Christian doesn’t stop people from wrecking their lives. 

Most people don’t ‘choose’ fiery tempers of alcoholic binges or torturing prisoners of war or exploiting Third World workers or dumping toxic chemicals into their community’s water supply. Most people don’t first conclude that adultery is right and then start fantasizing about their neighbor swinging from a stripper pole. Most people don’t first learn to praise gluttony and then start drizzling bacon grease over their second helping of chicken-fried steak. It happens in reverse. First, you do what you want to do, even though you ‘know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die’ and only then do you ‘give approval to those who practice them’ (Romans 1:32). You start to see yourself as either special or as hopeless, and thus the normal boundaries don’t seem to apply.” 

Russell Moore, “Tempted and Tried” (p. 36)  

http://www.amazon.com/Tempted-Tried-Temptation-Triumph-Christ/dp/1433515806/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321620822&sr=1-1

Seven Reasons Halloween Judgment Houses Often Miss the Mark

Russell Moore lays it out in this article.

http://www.russellmoore.com/2011/10/24/seven-reasons-halloween-judgment-houses-often-miss-the-mark-2/