Where should a new Christian start reading systematic theology?

Someone asked the above question. Here's my reply to him, though I've added a bit more than was in my original reply. And my reply reflects my Reformed commitments, though of course there are many other good resources for evangelicals in general (e.g. Millard Erickson, Alister McGrath, Norm Geisler).

The Life Of A Soldier

Scripture likens believers to soldiers (Philippians 2:25, 2 Timothy 2:3-4, Philemon 2). And we're often told that we're pilgrims passing through a foreign land and that our citizenship is in heaven rather than on earth (Philippians 3:20, Hebrews 11:9-10, 11:16, 12:22, 13:14, 1 Peter 1:1, 2:11). Paul wrote, "No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier." (2 Timothy 2:4)

Read what Jesus said in the gospels, over and over again, about the sword of division, how he would divide families, how his followers must take up a cross, and so on. Jesus was crucified, and Paul was beheaded after spending a lot of time in prison, for doing highly controversial Christian work.

What if the Christians of past generations had behaved the way you do? Future generations are going to be affected by what you're doing today.

Faith and fathers

“The demographic characteristics of the linguistic and religious groups in Switzerland” by Werner Haug and Phillipe Warner of the Federal Statistical Office, Neuchatel. It appears in Volume 2 of Population Studies No. 31, a book titled The Demographic Characteristics of National Minorities in Certain European States, edited by Werner Haug and others, published by the Council of Europe Directorate General III, Social Cohesion, Strasbourg, January 2000.

All this information is readily obtainable because Switzerland always asks a person’s religion, language, and nationality on its decennial census. Now for the really interesting bit.

In 1994 the Swiss carried out an extra survey that the researchers for our masters in Europe (I write from England) were happy to record. The question was asked to determine whether a person’s religion carried through to the next generation, and if so, why, or if not, why not. The result is dynamite. There is one critical factor. It is overwhelming, and it is this: It is the religious practice of the father of the family that, above all, determines the future attendance at or absence from church of the children.

If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.

If the father is non-practicing and mother regular, only 2 percent of children will become regular worshippers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children will be lost completely to the church.

Let us look at the figures the other way round. What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or non-practicing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goes up from 33 percent to 38 percent with the irregular mother and to 44 percent with the non-practicing, as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility.

Before mothers despair, there is some consolation for faithful moms. Where the mother is less regular than the father but attends occasionally, her presence ensures that only a quarter of her children will never attend at all.

Even when the father is an irregular attender there are some extraordinary effects. An irregular father and a non-practicing mother will yield 25 percent of their children as regular attenders in their future life and a further 23 percent as irregulars. This is twelve times the yield where the roles are reversed.

Where neither parent practices, to nobody’s very great surprise, only 4 percent of children will become regular attenders and 15 percent irregulars. Eighty percent will be lost to the faith.

While mother’s regularity, on its own, has scarcely any long-term effect on children’s regularity (except the marginally negative one it has in some circumstances), it does help prevent children from drifting away entirely. Faithful mothers produce irregular attenders. Non-practicing mothers change the irregulars into non-attenders. But mothers have even their beneficial influence only in complementarity with the practice of the father.

In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between a half and two-thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally.

A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children never darken the church door. If his wife is similarly negligent that figure rises to 80 percent!

Mothers’ choices have dramatically less effect upon children than their fathers’, and without him she has little effect on the primary lifestyle choices her offspring make in their religious observances.

Her major influence is not on regular attendance at all but on keeping her irregular children from lapsing altogether. This is, needless to say, a vital work, but even then, without the input of the father (regular or irregular), the proportion of regulars to lapsed goes from 60/40 to 40/60.

https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-05-024-v

Discipling Asian-American millennials

1. Here is a transcript of the conversation.

2. I think I most appreciated what Alex Choi said in his first response. To put it another way, I don't think the rest of the comments (apart from Choi's first response) are necessarily unique to Asian-Americans. At least my impression is things like a "lack of community" and trying to "reclaim" one's conversion experience are common in other races/ethnicities cultures too.

3. The term "millennials" sure does seem to cover a lot of years generation-wise. Aren't many if not most millennials now at least age 30? If so, perhaps we should consider doing the discipling rather than being discipled! (Granted, everyone is always a "disciple" but I'm speaking in terms of leadership roles in the church.)

In fairness, if what Choi says about Asian-American culture, marriage, and adulthood is true, then the fact that Asian-American millennials and later generations are getting married at an older age might have a significant impact on discipleship as well.

4. I believe at least two of the guys are Korean-American. Perhaps all three.

In any case, there are some significant differences among different Asian-American peoples and cultures. Take Chinese-Americans. There are Chinese-Americans whose families have originally come from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, as well as various Southeast Asian nations (e.g. Chinese-Americans with roots in Vietnam). For example, one wouldn't necessarily deal with a Chinese-American with parents from communist China in the same way as one deals with a Chinese-American with parents from democratic Taiwan.

More generally, there are differences between East Asians and Southeast Asians. Simply consider how many East Asians have had to interact with socialist and communist ideologies in their modern history (e.g. the Korean war, communist Chinese today). Consider how many Southeast Asians have had to face persecution by Muslims in their own nations (e.g. Malaysia, Indonesia). Persecutions from communists and persecutions from Muslims.

Consider each nation's broader ideological perspective. The Philippines has a Catholic background. Malaysia and Indonesia are officially Muslim. Mainland China is atheist and communist. S. Korea has a strong Protestant Christian influence. Vietnam has a Catholic heritage but became communist, which many Vietnamese-Americans share. Japan is secular. And so on.

Of course there are also Asian-Americans who have only ever known the US. For example, many Asian-Americans can trace their family histories back to the Gold Rush era (c. 1849) and transcontinental railroad. They may have been in the US as long as many Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans, among others.

Asian-Americans have families which come from one or more of these backgrounds.

Winning yesterday, losing tomorrow

There's some concern that the SBC and PCA are drifting to the left. A quick observation: there's a sense in which there are no closed questions in theology. Nothing is ever settled for all time. That's because the younger generation is a blank slate. It wasn't born knowing the answers and the supporting arguments. It didn't live through theological controversies. So you can never take the younger generation for granted. You can never coast on past victories. 

The younger generation must be shown the "received answers," and moreover, we must provide the younger generation with the reasons to back up the received answers. Otherwise, many members of the younger generation will be swept along with the current of the Zeitgeist. 

Some Catholic apologists will exclaim: "Ah ha! That just goes to show the necessity of a Magisterium!"

But that's no alternative:

i) The Catholic church is hemorrhaging young cradle Catholics. 

ii)  In many respects, the Magisterium is leading the charge to the left.

iii) I didn't say there are no good answers. We don't have to start from scratch every generation. If there are solid stock answers and supporting arguments, we can rehearse that material. 

We must also be adaptable to new challenges. Take transgenderism. Because that's a recent fad, there aren't standard answers and arguments, so we have to think on our feet. 

Teaching teachers to teach

Francis Chan has talked about this on a number of occasions: 

https://www.charismamag.com/video/35243-francis-chan-my-church-saved-100-people-and-that-s-a-failure

There's definitely some truth to what he's saying, but it needs to be more qualified:

i) From what I've seen, he left a very "successful" megachurch because he has a heart for urban evangelism. I suspect that's due in part to the fact that he has a hard scrabble background, growing up in the Bay Area, and goes back there to rescue people who mirror the lost condition he was once in. He favors a grass roots model of the church. He thinks we're more likely to see God in action when we take risks by prioritizing Christian mission over financial security. And he has some great testimonies about God's special providence.

ii) There's a paradox about Francis Chan. On the one hand, he's embarrassed by his popularity. On the other hand, it's because he's popular that people listen to his message. It's like he's telling listens to stop listening to him! It ties him in knots. 

I appreciate his humility. He's not a huckster like too many Televangelists. And I think he's found the right niche for his particular talents. He's doing what he does best. 

However, I think his philosophy of ministry is defective. It would be a mistake to extrapolate from his example.

iii) Apropos (ii), he's too self-conscious about his popular appeal. He doesn't think he deserves it. 

But even though that's a tribute to his modesty, and he's to be commended for his capacity for self-criticism, a minister who happens to be popular shouldn't feel guilty about his popularity, so long as his message is solid. Fact is, some men (and women) are more winsome public speakers than others. That doesn't make them more deserving in the sense of making them more virtuous or holy. But instead of fretting over their popular appeal, they should take advantage of that to reach more people for the Gospel. That's not something to bemoan. 

Even if some people listen to them for the wrong reason, due to the cult of celebrity, they can still benefit from what you have to say. And you can be their gateway to others. You can point them to other good resources. 

iv) On the one hand, it's true that some Christians and churchgoers are overly dependent on their pastor or some Televangelist. They cling to their every word. Many Christians need to broaden their data-base. 

On the other hand, the church is comprised of different kinds of people, with different abilities. Due to natural aptitude and formal eduction (or self-education), some Christians have a much better grasp of biblical theology than others. Every Christian is not cut out to be a philosopher, theologian, or Bible scholar. There's nothing wrong with a degree of intellectual indebtedness to others. Even Christians in one field of specialization are indebted to Christians in other fields of specialization. For instance, OT scholars are indebted to NT scholars and vice versa. No particular Christian, however gifted or knowledgeable, is one-stop shopping. We need a varied diet. Have more than one item on the menu. 

Puppy love for Jesus

I'm struck by how some pacifists identify with Jesus. It's like those "Jesus is my boyfriend" worship songs that normal men find repellant. As if true Christian piety is about falling in love with Jesus. 

In that regard it's interesting to contemplate just what it would it be like to hang out with Jesus. Be one of the twelve disciples. Was he approachable? 

Imagine Jesus as an American teenager c. 1950-2015. Suppose he attended public school. Would he join the football team, or wresting team (or Lacrosse or ice hockey)? Would he have that natural inclination for male camaraderie? Would he go surfing with his homiez? 

Would he hang out with friends to humor them? Be a good sport? Play long with their interests? Or would he get something out of it? 

In the Gospels, Jesus can be passionate and compassionate. But he can also be distant. Emotionally detached. 

He's constantly aware of things the disciples are not. And he always stands apart from them. His primary relationship isn't with the disciples, or his mother and stepbrothers, but with the Father. That's the center of gravity. That's the primary emotional bond. That's what he defaults to when he's not engaging other people. 

There's a sense in which he is out of his element here. He will never fit in. He understanding is unique. His vocation is unique. 

It's like SF stories about alien saviors. The alien savior didn't come here to make friends or put down roots. Didn't come here to start a family. Although he may end up making some human friends, that's temporary. Those are not long-term relationships.

The alien savior was sent here from Alpha Centuri to save the human race. Our species is at a fork in the road. One turn leads to extinction. If we can get through this final crisis, we will survive and thrive. 

The alien savior is here on a mission. When complete, he will leave us behind and return to Alpha Centuri. That's home. 

Of course, that's a just an analogy. But there's a sense in which Jesus is psychologically isolated. The ultimate outsider. One of a kind. 

Yes, he's truly human. Yet humanity in combination with divinity makes him a class apart. In that respect he is not one of us. Especially in John's Gospel, there's the longing to go home. Return to the Father.

What A Layman Can Accomplish: T.S. Mooney

I first heard about T.S. Mooney several years ago from Alistair Begg. What's stood out most to me about Mooney is how he died, a topic I wrote about earlier this year. Something else about him that stands out in my mind is how much he accomplished relative to his low status in the church and society.

I recently read a book about Mooney, written shortly after his death by several men who knew him. The book is titled Mission Completed (T.S.M. Books, 1986). Here are some excerpts, and be sure to read my post linked above about Mooney's death as well:

A Good Life Makes A Good Death More Likely

In September of 1979, I spoke at a conference in the Scottish highlands. There I met a man by the name of T.S. Mooney. He was from Ulster and was well known as a Christian layman in the Presbyterian Church. He befriended me, and I enjoyed his company….He was in his seventies…

Celebrity converts

He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil (1 Tim 3:6). 

Conversion stories can be edifying. And to some extent, Christians have a duty to bear witness to their faith.

However, the Christian media has a bad habit of touting celebrity converts. When a celebrity converts to Christianity, they often become instant spokesmen (or women) for their newfound faith. They are interviewed in both Christian and secular venues. They appear at Christian events as keynote speakers. That sort of thing. But there are three or four obvious problems with this:

i) If they are new to the faith, they lack the theological knowhow to be a spokesman for the faith. Minimally, they need at least a few years to bone up on basic Christianity theology and ethics. Bible study.

ii) In addition, they may simply lack the intellectual aptitude to be a public spokesman for Christianity. 

iii) But there's a deeper problem. Today's novice may be tomorrow's apostate. New converts are too unstable to parade around. They need some shakedown time. Time to get rooted in the faith. Time to develop a tested faith. 

The passage of time is a winnowing process. It deepens the faith of some converts while weeding out rootless converts. 

Seedtime is not a good time to distinguish the tares from the wheat. Wait to watch them grow. Do they flower or wither? Are they fruitful or fruitless? 

iv) The very act of showcasing a newbie convert is destabilizing. This positions them for the fall. They aren't ready for the spotlight. Too much attention can be destructive. 

Take up your cross

What makes the journey of a pacifist long and hard is because of course you are swimming upstream in America, and sometimes you are swimming against a torrential flood in the other direction… Some days I feel like moving to Switzerland, but then I remember, I am the loyal American opposition, and even if my voice is drowned out I still have a vote and a right to be heard…Some days I feel like John the Baptizer— a voice crying in a brutal wilderness.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2012/10/03/the-long-journey-of-a-christian-pacifist/

I can barely express my boundless admiration for BW3’s high-minded pacifism. Such is the depth of his self-sacrificial conviction that, if push came to shove, he’d be prepared to leave the comforts of home far behind and move to the outback of Switzerland. Truly the cost of discipleship rarely exacts a higher price. Wasn’t Switzerland where Brezhnev would banish dissidents, to send a blood-curdling message to other would-be dissidents? Imagine BW3, in his hairshirt, having to tough it out in a chalet overlooking Lake Lucerne, on a diet of chocolate-covered locusts and wild honey-peach cake with sugared pistachios. What a cross to bear! Would that more Christians had his humbling spirit of self-denial. His example reduces me to tears.

Parents And Youth Pastors

Wintery Knight recently posted some comments from a youth pastor in Canada. I don't agree with everything the pastor says, and I'm not in much of a position to judge some of his comments. But I agree with a lot of what he says, and I think there is a tendency to criticize churches too much and not criticize parents enough.

That may be due, in part, to the fact that the Bible often holds religious leaders (priests, Pharisees, etc.) to such a high degree of responsibility for the evils in a culture. However, the fact that religious leaders have often been at the forefront of societal problems in the past doesn't prove that we should always assume that they're primarily responsible for problems in the modern world. For one thing, our circumstances today are significantly different. In a nation like the United States or Canada, the large majority of people are literate. We live in an information age, in which people have easy and free or inexpensive access to a lot of information. Etc. In some ways, people aren't as dependent on church leaders today as they were in the past. The degree to which different groups are to blame for societal problems differs from one context to another, and I think religious leaders often get too much blame today while others aren't blamed as much as they ought to be.

Here are some of the youth pastor's comments:

Sending children to a youth ministry is pointless if the parents aren’t actively discipling their kids during the week. Christianity just won’t stick. For example, why do the kids of most immigrants lose the mother tongue of their parents? Well, because they spend at least 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, at school taught in English. All their friends speak English. All the media they watch and listen to is in English. The only time they even hear their mother tongue is at home. And unless the parents make a concerted effort to teach the language and to emphasize its importance, the child will lose the language. They may understand it. But they will barely be able to speak it, it won’t impact their lives, and they will most definitely not pass it on to their kids.

The same thing goes for Christianity. If the parents aren’t actively, every day, teaching and discipling their kids in Christianity it’s content and its importance then there is almost no point in sending them to a youth ministry. If the parents aren’t every day praying with their kids, teaching them how to share their faith, giving them good reasons to be Christians, etc. they are not being good Christian parents....

It has been my experience that the youth with non-Christian parents are often much stronger Christians than those youth who have Christian parents who are failing as Christian parents (which is most of them). See, a youth with non-Christian parents has a good reason for why their parents don’t disciple them in Christianity: they’re non-Christians! Thus, the bad example of the parents only reinforces in the youth that they need to use their own initiative to learn about the Christian faith. But if a youth has Christian parents, and the Christian faith isn’t the most important thing in the parents lives, the youth is going to learn that Christianity is really not that important. If the parents never read their Bible, the youth is going to think that is acceptable. If the parents emphasize school more than Christ, the youth is going to think school is more important, no matter what the parents say about Jesus. If the parents emphasize sports more than Christ, the youth is going to think sports are more important, no matter what the parents say about Jesus. The hypocrisy of the parents will destroy their child’s faith….

As a final point, I’m not saying youth or children ministry is pointless. It is incredibly important. Let me say it again: youth ministry is incredibly important. But there is no reason to spend thousands of dollars hiring a youth pastor in a church that doesn’t already have parents doing their job. Until that happens, save your funds, and use dedicated lay leaders.

Where Do Sheep Get Fed?

I am going to post here something I posted to Chuck Colson's "Speak Out with Chuck" page, because it's been on my mind for a while and I think it's applicable to a wider audience:

Mr. Colson,

I believe that your ministry is vital, just as many parachurch organizations are vital today (in the interests of disclosure, I do work for a parachurch organization myself). However, in the ultimate sense, I wish that you (and I) didn't have to be here. It would be great if the church was doing her job, thus making us irrelevant.

Sadly, most modern churches have become seeker-centered places for Christians to starve to death. Under the guise of evangelism, the church has watered down everything to the point that it is almost impossible to be spiritually fed. The Biblical mandate of the church is to feed the sheep. If the church becomes a mission field, where is the believer to go to get fed? And if he is not fed, then he is tossed by every wind, having no root.

If you want to become depressed, go to the average church in the average town and ask the average Christian, "Suppose I have three minutes left to live. What must I do to be saved?" Then watch the deer-in-the-headlights glaze come over their eyes, or the sputtering of anti-Biblical heresy.

We don't teach the flock how to be sheep, and then are surprised that they act like goats.

Yet God always has His remnant. He is faithful, and He brings up people such as yourself. So stay strong and be encouraged. The church in the West may be imploding, but A) it's not impossible to change course and B) the church in other parts of the world is strengthening even now. When we can get the Western church to recover the Gospel and to take her job at training the sheep seriously enough that Prison Fellowship and other parachurch organizations are put out of business, then we will be a healthy church once more. If God brought about the Great Awakening, He can do it again.

Here on Triablogue, I would like to emphasize that the Biblical role of the church is not to evangelize the lost. It is to train up disciples of Christ who can then go out and evangelize the lost. Any church that expects unbelievers to show up to hear the Gospel is already a deluded church. Sure, a handful do show up from time to time--but they're usually the handful who thinks they are saved when they are not. It is precisely for that reason that they need to hear what true Christianity is.

A church that never preached a sermon with an altar call, but who instead equipped believers with the true power of Christ, would have a greater impact and "save more souls" than a thousand of our "model" churches today.

Additionally, I'd also like to take a moment to thank Dusman for what he does with his church. While I haven't had the opportunity to visit his church (it's a bit of a commute), I can tell from many of the videos that I've watched of him, as well as the posts he's done here, that those in his church are getting well-fed spiritually.