Abraham Kuyper on "Institutional Church" and Cultural Renewal

"The organic character of the Christian life must come to expression in the form of organized Christian communal activity in areas other than the institutional church (this is the Organic Church)…Christians who go out into their various vocations do so neither as direct emissaries of the institutional church nor as mere individual believers…Christian social, cultural, and political action does not flow directly from the structures and authorities of the church, but comes to expression organically in the various spheres of life as believers live out the faith and spirituality that develops and is nurtured in the church’s worship and discipline."

REDEEMING THE CULTURE

I've had questions about this issue for several years now. I remember driving to Philadelphia with my buddy Kevin and listening to a number of Tim Keller lectures about this particular topic--given at some Acts 29 function I think. I had never thought much about local churches having a responsibility to redeem culture. I had no opinion on the matter.

But what I found that day was if everything I knew about the Bible (what it says explicitly, implicitly, and the implications of both) could be compared to an airstrip, then Tim Keller's words (on this topic) had no place to land. What he said was winsome and clever, but, I don't think at least, scriptural.

Tim Keller certainly isn't the only purveyor of this idea (and far from the most radical!) and I'm not sure if he's the best conversation partner, so I'm really hoping that what I know 'broadly' of his thoughts on this issue can serve as a springboard for my brothers jumping in. I know that I won't be convinced until I have several questions addressed.

That being said, the next several posts will be questions and concerns (in no particular order) I have about the Bible's teaching on the local church's responsibility to redeem (not just citizens, but) city structures, (not just business men, but) businesses, (not just people, but) culture.

QUESTION 1.

It's true that Paul focussed on cities for his missionary work, but aren't cities in the NT only valued so far as they contain lots of people who apart from Christ are destined for hell and that they are strategic places for getting the truth circulated to other individual people who apart from Christ are destined for hell?

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM ON AUTHORITY

The enlightenment insistence on the autonomy of human reason was perhaps before all else, a revolt against all 'authorities'. The postmodern recognition that reason has its limits has not brought that revolt to an end. Instead it has given it a different dress, the inviolability of personal perspective: no-one has the right to say I am wrong. (Mark Thompson, A Clear and Present Word, 134)

PURPOSE OF A LOCAL CHURCH?

When Kevin and I started looking towards the possibility of linking arms with Grace Harbor Community Church in Providence, RI we planned a final trip to meet with their elders. They sent us a handful of questions to be answered and sent back to them before we arrived--mostly about the role of the local church, elders, etc. I'm posting some of my answers since these are such central and important questions and deserve sharpening from any brothers or sisters reading this blog. For conscience sake I didn't use any resources (save the Bible) when answering, so surely, there is lots of room for improvement both in addition and clarity.

What is your understanding of the identity, focus, and purpose of the church?

I’m baptistic in my ecclesiology because I believe only Christians are to be baptized into the church. And so I believe the identity of the church is a local group of Christians, uniting together as the body of Christ on earth, being equipped and cared for through the office of deacon and spiritually shepherded, taught, prayed for, and led by elders, assembling together for the preaching of and submission to God’s Word in everything and the observance of the two ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, caring for one another’s souls and bodies and evangelizing to an unbelieving world for the ultimate purpose of glorifying our triune God.

The purpose and focus of the church is to be the attractive bride of Christ that God through Christ’s person and work purchased Her out of the world to be and is to reflect the heart and will of God as expressed clearly to us in the Bible and the New Testament epistles in particular.

COVENANT AND ESCHATOLOGY

For some fun reading before next semester I picked up Michael Horton's Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama. His basic thesis is that the content of the Bible should determine the method for doing theology, rather than developing a prolegomenon before coming to the text.

Some notable quotes so far:

Furthermore, the covenant itself is stable, though hardly static; historical, though not historicist. The vertical "intrusions" keep redemptive history from being "one damned thing after another," while the horizontal stride keeps eschatology from being subsumed into some ahistorical event. The "new thing" is a true novum, yet not "wholly other." The new creation is both new and creation--that is, both that which transcends creation and that which renews and therefore has some considerable continuity with it.

Peter Berger as quoted by Horton says,

"In a culture where religion is functional both socially and psychologically, Chrsitian preaching itself ought to call men to a confrontation with the God who stands against the needs of society and against the aspirations of the human heart." We need to recover that sense so pervasive in other periods; namely, that even Christians do not know what they really need or even want--and that attending to their immediate felt needs may muffle the only proclmation that can a ctually satisfy real needs. Berger judges that "the more general personal consequence of the abandonment of theological criteria for the Christian life is the cult of experience...Emotional pragmatism now takes the place of the noest confrontation with the Christian message.

ROBERT REYMOND ON THE TIMING OF CHRIST'S INCARNATION

"When the time had fully come, that is to say, at God's appointed time--when the Jewish diaspora had spread throughout the Roman Empire and the Old Testament had been translated into Greek, opening the eyes of the Greek world to its theological power and beauty, when the pax Romana extended over most of the known world with great roads and the Greek language linking the empire of the Caesars and making travel and commerce possible on a scale formerly impossible, when Greek philosophical thought had atrophied into skepticism, offering no hope in human wisdom to improve the ancient world (1 Cor. 1:19-21), when the so-called civilized world as a result had sunk so low morally (Rom. 1:21-32) that even pagans were crying out for relief from the rampant immorality all around them--in keeping with the Old Testament 'promises, prophecies, sacrifices...and other types of ordinances..., all foresignifying Christ to come' (Westminster Confession of Faith, VII/v), 'God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law' (Gal. 4:4) as the Messiah and Mediator of the covenant of grace."

A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 545

Ps. This book is, in my humble opinion, the best Systematic Theology around. He's a presbyterian cat, so the chapters on baptism and church polity are off, but it is pretty helpful to see such a level-headed and clear cat propose such flat arguments for paedo-baptism and presbyterian church polity. Reading those chapters has made me feel even better about being baptist.

It's going for $23 (includes shipping) on abebooks right now if anyone wants to snag it.

ANTHONY HOEKEMA ON ESCHATOLOGY

"From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of the Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set...Hence eschatology cannot really be only a part of Christian doctrine. Rather, the eschatological outlook is characteristic of all Christian proclamation, and of every Christian existence and of the whole Church."