Neo-Puritanism

Labels are both unnecessary stumbling blocks as well as tremendous time and ambiguity savers. I use them for function B. If anyone asks what I "am" at the end of the day, then I am a Christian [1 Cor. 1:10-13]. So don't get carried away. I only want to lay out the distinctives of our vision of what the church ought to be and what our church, by God's grace alone, will be. Therefore, what I am calling Neo-Puritanism is a combination of all six points below:

1) Christian Hedonism - The chief end of man is to glorify God and (by) enjoy (ing) Him forever. This is true, as it turns out, because God's chief end is to glorify Himself and enjoy Himself forever. This reflects the Greatest Commandment [Mk. 12:29-30] where God's one singular Trinitarian passion spills over into our passion for His glory with our whole being. And this two part singular Commandment, Jesus defines as the essence of Christianity. We are more like God (personal) when we more perfectly reflect His passion for His own glory--Hence, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. This is inseperable from Calvinism, which teaches us that God demands of us what we cannot produce on our own; and what He demands of us is nothing short of our whole soul's approbation of His worth. This sets the gospel at warp speed, both in the church and to the unbeliever.

2) Reformed Theology - This includes both the Covenantal/Federal overarching schema of scriptural interpretation as well as the vaunted Five Points of Calvinism. Christian Hedonism is the matador's red flag for which Calvinism is the bull. When we are liberated to discover that God's central concern for His glory and His design for me to tend toward happiness are the object/subject aspects of the same chief end, then we see God as the gospel and ultimate satisfaction as our life's pursuit. But then, at once we are crushed by the bare fact that we do not in fact pursue our satisfaction in God as He demands. The bar and the stakes of both sin and conversion are raised by infinity, and the Five Points are seen in 3D and color, where once they were merely a creed that one could not intellectually discard. Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and the Perserverance of the Saints are bigger facts about reality for people who do not desire God as they ought than anything else in creation, indeed, bigger than creation itself, since to "get behind" the doctrines of grace to a "superior" missional-creational context is to be guilty of the arrogance of what Luther called the Theology of Glory, when everything must be seen dimly through a Theology of the Cross.

3) Gospel Shepherding - the Puritans understood that the gospel is not simply a marketing slogan to attract people to a building, but it is an infinite well of life that saves the believing/perservering ones [Rom. 1:16, 1 Cor. 15:1-2]. Because the gospel alone has this power, then we not only evangelize with it, but we counsel with it, we relate to each other with it, and we discipline with it. Thus, the more practical-counseling material of Bridges, Tripp, Welch, Powlison, Mahaney, etc. present answers to life's more day-to-day questions by advising us to "preach the gospel to ourselves every day," which amounts to transfering the root of our assurance and answers to our guilt not in our performace but in Christ's finished work. Every mundane problem is seen through cross-shaped lenses. This is one of the main reasons I call this entire approach "Neo-Puritan," because these guys seem to understand the gospel the way that the Puritans did, and apply it to all of life's various problems the same way that those old saints applied it from the pulpit. The gospel is a shepherding thing, and so its content is indispensible if the believer is to...well, believe, and keep on believing.

4) Classical Apologetics / Worldview - I couple the words apologetics and worldview here because I am not as concerned with apologetic method (in a local church context) per se as I am with the freedom and ability of leadership to put first things first in all things, in other words, to take Colossians 1:16-20 seriously in both Bible study and church vision. When the clear and distinct ideas presented in general revelation and in Scripture, concerning the Being and Attributes of God, are compromised or moved to the periphery by those with undisciplined minds, then the whole mission of the church is endangered. As a case in point, Open Theism exists because we are not permitted by the new orthodoxy to set the didactic statements of God's classically defined attributes as determinative over narrative portions where God appears to be taking on human characteristics (anthropomorphisms)--that is, we are not to allow syllogisms (or anything like them with more steps) to be a part of "biblical theology." But this is to nueter the Word's ability to speak for itself from itself. It is to deny the coherency of revelation. Like it or not, the one who graps the four classical non-negotiatbles as proven and invincible (cf. Sproul's Classical Apologetics or Defending Your Faith) will be set to grasp everything else that we are talking about here, and the one who does not (including those who gravitate toward the ill-conceived Reformed model of Presuppositionalism) will have more difficulty. There may be exceptions (i.e. Frame's arguments against Open Theism and charity toward contemporary church practices have been helpful), but thus far I have not found many.

5) Missional Ecclesiology - In spite of going through Acts29 as The Well is, we would place our missional plank down at fifth for the reasons we have just set forth. It is just as indispensible, since the mission of the church flows forth from the missio Dei [Jn. 20:21-22]. However, if we attempt to see the mission of God apart from those cross-shaped lenses I mentioned above, we will distort it into this or that creational/pro-creational/re-creational program that assumes a posture more indicative of a pre-fall Adam then a sin-ridden church and culture. Reformed Theology precedes Missiology, not because God is more God-centered than He is about His mission. Rather, it precedes because God's God-centerdness is His mission, and sinful human beings (including Christians) are not fond of this. Having said that, however, it remains true that as the Father has sent the Son, so He sends us. The church is sent. The whole church (every Christian in it) is on mission, or else, they lack evidence of their conversion--which is to be converted not only to Jesus, but to His mission as well. The Western church has reduced missiology to the compartment of the one brave soul that we ship off to Zimbabwe more to assuage the guilt of our affluence and lukewarm faith than to reproduce God-centered worshipers. For our church to be a missionary in our culture, we must exegete that culture, each Christian identifying his "tribe," and bringing the first-century gospel to the twenty-first century context.

6) Modified Charismatic Practice - None of these things could be possible if in fact the only thing the Holy Spirit does to us or in us is to convict of sin at the outset and illuminate the mose base level meaning of the text of Scripture. That level of Cessationism is a practical atheism. Moreover, Cessationism is hung by its own noose. It argues that a) the baptism of the Holy Spirit refers to every Christian's inclusion into the body of Christ (which I agree with); b) the endument of power aspect of the Spirit, manifested by "sign-gifts" was only for the apostles; c) Jesus connects that baptism with that endument [cf. Acts 1:4-5]. Conclusion: Every Christian is an apostle! How inconvenient! Believe me, no one wanted to believe Cessationism more than I did when I fled the AG as an early Christian because of their rampant anti-intellectualism. The case just cannot be seriously supported by the standard 1 Corinthians 13 and Hebrews 2:4 "sign gifts" routine, even though I wanted it to be true so I could just get on with my bookish fight of faith. I found that having begun by the Spirit, I could not be perfected by the flesh [cf. Gal. 3:3], and that to attempt it was sheer arrogance. We need the empowering ministry of the Spirit to be His flaming witnesses, though it will not look like the modern Charismatic movement, where experiences are sought after as an end in themselves. We believe in the continuation of the gifts, though we do not pretend to know exactly how and why they are to be used in all cases. We can see that they are for the edification of the body and the glorifcation of Christ. The word must be kept central in Christian worship (not experience), but the true word will produce an experience that will not be able to lay dormant and live with no expectancy for revival!

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