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The What You Think Matters site has just passed its first anniversary.

In that time we’ve been visited 68,819 times (or 188.5 times per day), and in those visits people have viewed 155,813 pages (an average of 2.26 pages per visit). This suggests that however you arrive on the site, something keeps you interested enough to read at least one other page, and one in four of you then go on to read a third page.
 
We’ve published 248 articles, of which 16 are papers, 14 are by St Stuffed Shirt, and a vast swathe of the rest are by Andrew ‘I’d rather blog than sleep’ Wilson! (But some of the rest of us are also blogging elsewhere!*)
 
Our visitors have come from 146 countries from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe (but mostly the UK and USA) and other than our own blogs, google, facebook, etc., our biggest referrers have been The Gospel Coalition, Trevin Wax, First Things and Patheos.
 
In my very first post on this blog I wrote that we were aiming to produce material that was interesting, cogent, real, had a dash of humour, and was wholesome. I think that – by and large – we have stuck to these objectives. If you’ve been following us for the past twelve months, or have just stumbled across the site, thanks for dropping by. I hope we see you again, and that WYTM manages to make it to its second birthday!
 
 
*Editor’s note: Some of you are also tweeting, which we notice Andrew hasn’t yet tried…

Should women be elders/overseers in local churches? That, in a nutshell, is the question that separates so-called egalitarians, who would say yes, from so-called complementarians, who would say no. (I say ‘so-called’, because lots of people who represent each of these positions think the terms are unhelpful and a bit annoying – but until new terminology emerges to the satisfaction of everybody, I’ll stick with the existing labels).

This isn’t the only issue that egalitarians and complementarians debate, but in a conversation where there are countless different positions and nuances, it’s the clearest area of disagreement; you’d be very unlikely to find a self-identifying complementarian who argued for female elders, or an egalitarian who didn’t. Stating the question like this has the added benefit of avoiding endlessly confusing discussions about ‘women in ministry’, ‘women preaching’, ‘women in leadership’ or whatever, when what people are actually talking about is whether women should be elders/overseers in local churches. I, for one, passionately support and encourage women in ministry, prophesying, deaconing, worship leading, preaching, teaching, leadership, missionary work, church planting and so on – as, I would argue, the New Testament does (Luke 24:10; Acts 18:26; 21:9; Rom 16:1-16; 1 Cor 11:5; Php 4:2-3; 1 Tim 3:11; Titus 2:3-5; etc) – but I still believe that only men should be elders. This post is a brief attempt to explain why.
 
My claim, building on my previous two posts on myths and facts in this debate, is that those who submit to the authority of God in Scripture should operate with the presumption of complementarianism. That is, the default setting of an evangelical ought to be that women should not serve the church as elders, and the burden of proof rests with those who would argue that they should. This burden of proof may or may not be met – that is exactly what the discussion is about – but unless it is, we should function as complementarians on the question of eldership. This is a very controversial claim today, but I make it for four and a half reasons.
 
Firstly, there is the presumption of obedience. Simply put, this is the hermeneutical conviction that, because of the shape of God’s big story in Scripture, we should assume that instructions addressed to New Testament believers are for us to obey today, unless we can be sure that they are not. I summarised this idea in my series on Scripture a few months ago:

Taking all these ideas together, then, I am arguing for something like a Five Act Play view of God’s story, and a commitment to obeying the imperatives addressed to new covenant believers, with the exception of commands clearly related to specific individuals (e.g. 2 Tim 4:13) and commands which clearly applied for a limited period (e.g. Matt 10:5-6; Acts 15:19-21). In a handful of cases, this may mean finding different physical symbols to express the spiritual reality the scriptures were highlighting. But usually, it will mean nothing more than hearing the words of God, and putting them into practice. Kind of like a man who built his house on rock.

 
So when we come across an instruction like “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man” (1 Tim 2:12), we operate with the assumption that we are to obey it, unless it is clearly limited to specific individuals or a specific period of history. We don’t ignore it until we’re persuaded that it applies to us; we follow it until we’re persuaded that it doesn’t. So unless it can be clearly shown, from the context, that Paul was aiming his instruction at some individuals and not others (like his “fetch the parchments” in 2 Tim 4:13), or that he expected it to be superseded within a few years (like Jesus’ “go nowhere among the Gentiles” in Matt 10:5-6), then we should assume that we should obey it. Even if, as with head coverings and brotherly kisses and the like, this requires translating the externals into our contemporary culture.
 
Secondly, there is the presumption of history. All other things being equal, if a debate is underway within evangelicalism, and the church through history has almost universally been on one side of the debate until the last few decades, then I would argue that the presumption ought to be that the church through history has been right. Previous generations of believers had the Holy Spirit in their midst, and read the Bible carefully and faithfully for centuries, and almost all of them concluded that women should not be elders/overseers in local churches; this carries weight, particularly since, as CS Lewis pointed out, older writers are often very good at pointing out ways in which our modern perspective can miss or even distort things in Scripture. That does not mean, of course, that the weight of opinion in church history has always been right (Luther springs to mind, along with many others). But it does mean that when the new idea comes along, the burden of proof rests with the new idea, not with the old one.
 
Thirdly, there is the presumption of specificity: the more specifically a New Testament passage addresses an issue, the more weight it should be afforded in deciding what to do about that issue. This should be common sense, really; there are two passages in the NT that clearly address the question of who is qualified to serve as an elder/overseer in a local church (1 Tim 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9), so these should be the starting point for determining who is qualified to serve as an elder/overseer in a local church. (Not that you’d know this from reading the two heavyweight tomes on this subject, mind you: Piper and Grudem’s Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and Pierce and Groothuis’ Discovering Biblical Equality have fifty-five chapters and two appendices between them, on a wide variety of biblical texts, yet none of them focus on either of these. What is all that about?)
 
The point is: both of these passages list their qualifications on the assumption that the elder/overseer will be a man. I find it hard to believe that, if God had wanted women elders/overseers in the church, he would have inspired the two passages that address this topic most directly to include several specifically male qualifications (faithful to his wife, managing his household well, keeping his children submissive), with qualifications for women coming later in each case (1 Tim 3:11; Titus 2:3-5). And I also think it improbable that this would have cropped up in two separate letters, had it not been standard practice (Paul includes almost identical requirements for villages across Crete as he does for the Artemis-worshipping metropolis of Ephesus). So in our church, when appointing elders, we pretty much go down these lists, and if someone fulfils all the qualifications - above reproach, faithful to his wife, managing his household well, not a lover of money, not violent, and so on - then they are qualified to be an elder/overseer. If they don’t, they aren’t.
 
Fourthly, there is the presumption of compatibility; the principle that statements which were compatible in Paul’s mind can and should be compatible in ours. If Paul felt able to (a) commend women deacons and co-workers, and celebrate the truth that in Christ there is no male or female, and yet also (b) urge that wives submit to their husbands, and women not teach or exercise authority over men, then it would appear that he did not see (a) and (b) as incompatible. That is, it does not work as a counterargument to complementarianism to say (as is so often said), ‘But in Paul’s gospel, there is equality between men and women.’ Of course, there absolutely is; but for Paul himself, this was not incompatible with insisting that particular roles be played by both genders in the home and in the church. If we were to parachute into Ephesus or Crete in the 60s and observe the churches there, we would presumably see communities in which men and women were esteemed as completely equal in the gospel, as well as communities in which the eldership authority rested with men. If Paul did not see those two as impossible to reconcile, then no matter how strong the cultural pressures, neither should we.
 
Fifthly, there is the very subjective, nebulous and touchy-feely presumption of counterculturalism (which I highly doubt to be a real word). This one won’t persuade anyone intellectually, I’m sure, but I’ll throw it in because at an emotional level, it may resonate with many. My idea here is that when two ideas within mainstream evangelicalism are in opposition to each other, all other things being equal, the more countercultural of the two – the one which the contemporary culture regards as the least acceptable – is likely to be correct. I say this because those on the unpopular side of the debate are, in all probability, only holding to their position because they are convinced it’s what the Bible says, whereas those on the popular side of the debate have not just their conviction about Scripture, but a host of other advantages when it comes to attracting people, evangelism, contextualization and cultural engagement, which may in some cases skew their interpretation. (The very laudable desire to end up with a Bible that is not sexist, for example, could cause people to raise the bar higher for complementarian arguments than for egalitarian ones, and I suspect it sometimes does). Put differently, I can imagine that many advocates of complementarianism, and young earth creationism, and [insert culturally unthinkable theological position here], would emotionally prefer not to hold the view they do, yet they do so anyway out of biblical conviction. That obviously doesn’t mean they’re always right – it might just mean they’re weird – but it nudges me towards presuming that they are, in cases where I’m not sure. And it certainly makes me very nervous of mocking them or attacking them for it; I don’t think 1 Corinthians 11 means Western women today should wear head coverings, but when I go to churches that do, I find myself filled with respect for their commitment to live biblically in the face of unpopularity.
 
Taken together, and with significantly more weight on #1, #3 and #4 than on the other two, I think these four and a half presumptions – of obedience, history, specificity, compatibility and counterculturalism – add up to the presumption of complementarianism. Egalitarians may be right that God wants women to be elders/overseers in local churches, but I think the burden of proof rests with them, and despite encountering many excellent people and many excellent scholars, some of whom are good friends of mine, I am not persuaded that they are. I will continue to listen, read, talk and write, and I am always open to further discussion, but for the moment, I will continue to pray that my daughter will prophesy, lead, teach, preach the gospel, lead worship, plant churches and reach nations – but not that she will be an elder. And I think she’ll be OK with that.
           

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Andrew’s next book, If God Then What? Wondering Aloud about Truth, Origins and Redemption, will be released in April, published by IVP.

I recently left my job as an administrative assistant at New Community Church so that I could concentrate on finishing my PhD. As a leaving present, I was given a Kindle: a fantastic gift for, as my colleague pointed out, ‘you read all the time’(!) Once you own a Kindle, there are two things you must do: browse the ‘Free Book’ section and download as many Dickens' as you have not already read/do not own, and check out the special offer section. One such book on offer was entitled Genus by Jonathan Trigell.

It’s about a not-so-future society where a genetically enhanced human population is slowly taking over the nation, whilst the ‘Unimproved’ are slowly marginalized and vilified.  Oh, and because of the growth of Islamic terrorism, religion has been outlawed.  It’s not a great book to be honest: it is essentially a postmodernist comment on the emptiness of modern society…I think.  But what I found interesting was this theme of progress/modernism/the future being synonymous with the rejection of religion.  For many people, there appears to be a linear and inevitable ‘progression’ from the dawn of rationalism that emerged during the Enlightenment, that demands the triumph of secularism, atheism and the exposure of religion as, at best, the ‘opium of the masses’, at worse a sinister, destructive force bent on breeding hate, division and thwarting progress and civility.
 
I have always found it interesting that the term ‘Enlightenment’ denotes not just the 18th century movement that promoted human reason as the ultimate means to a better society (and essentially in direct opposition to established religion), but also refers to the acquisition of spiritual knowledge.  Two ideas that are in essence at odds with each other labeled with the same word.  Christians don’t tend to like the term ‘Enlightenment’ because of its anti-religious connotations, or because of its association with Buddhism or other new-agey mystical religions (shudder).  But the more I think about it, the more I feel that we, as Christians, should reclaim the word ‘enlightened’, if we take it to mean understanding things more clearly, of receiving knowledge of truth, and of being truly free.
 
In his essay, Was Ist Aufklärung, Immanuel Kant described Enlightenment thusly:

Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! “Have courage to use your own reason!”- that is the motto of enlightenment.1

 
Massively simplified, the indication here is that to be enlightened, one must think for oneself in order to acquire knowledge and truth.  It is in this process that true freedom is found.  Now it’s not my intention to get into an in depth critique of Kant or his fellow ‘Enlighteners’.  I for one agree wholeheartedly with the concept of thinking for oneself.  It certainly separates the wheat from the chaff.  However, one can read here an implicit criticism of a) submission to anyone other than oneself – MY mind and MY opinion become the ultimate authority - and b) a suspicion of anyone who claims to have all the answers.  Kant’s Enlightenment thinking by definition demands a rejection of ultimate truths fed to us by any authority other than ourselves. 
 
And this thinking has definitely saturated into our culture and society today.  This is why we don’t like the government telling us what to do.  This is why we want the choice to do what we want and no-one can tell us we’re wrong.  This is why religion should be private and not be imposed on other people.  Again, this is a massive oversimplification of some very complex issues, but my point in writing this blog is to state why, as someone who is a Christian and submits to an institution and accepts the teaching of it (the Church) and believes I have one ultimate authority in my life, external to what I think and what I want (God), I still consider myself to be ‘enlightened’.
 
Being a Christian flies in the face of ‘modern’ concepts of freedom.  The Bible says “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)  Paul refers to himself as “a slave (servant) of Christ Jesus” (Romans 1:1).  And when Jesus calls us to himself he says “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).  An easy burden, but a burden nonetheless: a burden of submission to God, of accepting his will, his discipline and his guidance.  Yet at the same time, being under the authority and hand of Christ is exactly what sets us free and ‘enlightens’ us.  Jesus said he is “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). He is the only, ultimate, objective truth: the truth is not something we come to ourselves – it is only Jesus, in any time, any circumstance, any experience.  The Bible says “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).
 
There are countless references to freedom in scripture – but one way in which we are free is that we KNOW the truth, we KNOW the answer.  The message of the Gospel is not incompatible with modernity/progress/the future.  As the truth it is universal.  There is a massive freedom in knowing we have had a revelation of truth.  This is one thing we never have to doubt, and it is the truth we can build all other things upon.  Unlike those who are forever wondering and questioning, we have reached the end of searching.  And to me, this seems like a pretty good definition of ‘enlightenment’. 
 
So thank you Enlightenment philosophers for encouraging us to think for ourselves and seek truth.  Turns out Jesus is the answer after all…

Just before Christmas, a brief thought-experiment by Doug Wilson precipitated a fascinating discussion about the nature of poverty, to which (I'm told) we're going to return shortly. But arguably, before you can decide what poverty is, you need to decide what wealth is. So it's handy that the impishly insightful Idahoan has just posted a witty and simple answer to that question, which made me laugh, think and wince all at once:

Wealth is made up of goods and services. One kind of money, the real kind, is a measuring stick for those goods and services ... As an example of the [other] kind of money, if two boys were playing in the backyard, and one of them bets a trillion dollars that his team is going to win the Super Bowl, only an idiot would then add that trillion dollars to the GDP. Nothing was created, no wealth came into being. The only thing that was added was fuel for the second boy’s daydreams. That’s it; that’s all.
 
Wealth can be destroyed, of course. This is something that hurricanes do, and wars, and floods. That is one kind of economic set-back. But there is another kind of economic set-back, which is what happens when the foolish boy who thought he had a trillion dollars discovers that he doesn’t, and moreover, that he never did.
 
When a lot of people discover this at the same time, there will be economic consequences—but they do not necessarily result in the destruction of wealth. More often they result in the rearranging of wealth—barring an asteroid landing on Manhattan, the wealth is all still here. If a lot of people believed the miscreants, then you can have massive reallocation of wealth, which is a different thing altogether. This is what happens when someone makes real commitments on the basis of false promises. If a lot of people have done this, the upheaval will be enormous.
 
So here is the final note. The “lost” money that we will all be lamenting sometime in the near future is money that we never had, that never existed. Unfunded pensions come to mind, as do unfunded entitlement programs. The news stories that cover them will describe them all as “lost trillions,” but it would be better to describe them as “newly-discovered as non-existent from the git-go” trillions.
 
Only Christ holds the future. Only Christ governs compound interest. Only Christ can tell you to lay up treasures in Heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal, and where this kind of legalized plunder has no place. These economic bubbles that are bursting all around us are actually revelatory of a basic theological problem. When men believe the state is God, they come to believe that this state should have the prerogatives of Deity. They want to say of their god, and do say of it until they are let down in some grotesque fashion, that they know not what the future holds, but they know what holds the future. And then, wham.

 
Now, it’s fairly obvious that the distinction between these two types of money is not as hard and fast as this, and I doubt Wilson actually believes it is. But if we accept it for a moment - money backed by something that currently exists, whether gold or grain or whatever, versus money that is backed merely by the hope that gold or grain will exist in the future - then there is an uncomfortable similarity between the boys and the banks. There also seems to be a disconcerting resemblance between the premises of capitalism in general, whether practised by Christians or not, and the presumptuous attitude condemned in James 4:13-17. Or have I missed something?
     

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Andrew’s next book, If God Then What? Wondering Aloud about Truth, Origins and Redemption, will be released in April, published by IVP.

A fascinating editorial in The Times on Boxing Day, on the subject of the persecuted church in China, contained some remarkable one-liners. Some of them sounded like they came straight out of 1 Peter, or Tertullian, while others displayed an insight into atheistic idolatry, and the moral fog that it engenders, that you don't typically find in a secular newspaper. I've highlighted a few soundbites, but the whole piece was interesting (and incidentally, for iPad users, there's a free thirty day trial for the app at the moment):

Any secular ideology claiming a monopoly on political authority feels threatened by religious belief. More than a century ago Marxism set itself up in opposition to the “opiate of the masses”, and Soviet communism, for more than 70 years, attempted to eradicate Christianity and other religions from Russia. Only the State, Lenin and his heirs insisted, could guarantee human salvation. China, under Mao, was equally vicious in its persecution of religion, focusing especially on the traditional beliefs of Confucianism …
 
The party sees religion, and Christianity in particular, as a threat because it worries about the existence of a rival organisation whose members have a different loyalty and are guided by priorities set by others. And as a younger Chinese generation loses its fear and proves less amenable to manipulation and propaganda, party magazines warn that the erosion of traditional atheism will create splits within the party organisation. Indeed, it appears that the recent toleration of religion has led to a growing number of party members themselves becoming believers.
 
The real problem for China, however, as it was for the Soviet Union, is the growing cynicism and spiritual vacuum in public life. This makes it increasingly difficult to underpin standards of ethics or to enforce respect for social norms. The Russians, in the dying days of the Soviet Union, attempted to commandeer the Russian Orthodox Church as a way of enforcing moral standards to underpin communist materialism. It did not work, as the Church proved the more powerful and in the end became one of the forces undermining communism ...
 
The persecution of Christians will almost certainly fail. As so often, it may instead strengthen the faithful in their beliefs while winning converts from those looking for spiritual renewal. Christmas, a time of traditional celebration, may prove in China to be a test of faith, resilience and endurance that few Christians face elsewhere.

 
This is a really helpful reminder that Christianity is inescapably political. If Jesus is Lord, then nobody else is, whether they are transcendentalised or not.
       

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Andrew’s next book, If God Then What? Wondering Aloud about Truth, Origins and Redemption, will be released in April, published by IVP.

One of the books I currently have on the go is the autobiography of Paddy Ashdown, A Fortunate Life. I was never that convinced by Ashdown the politician, but he certainly had a fascinating life prior to politics, as an officer in the Royal Marines, member of the Special Forces (based in my home town of Poole of course!) and then agent for MI6. It is all real James Bond stuff.

One story Ashdown tells is of active service in Borneo in which he recruited a band of ‘irregulars’ from the local tribe. These men were head hunters by tradition and after one expedition “produced a bag out of which rolled four human heads.” Ashdown protested about this, but the men explained that without the evidence of heads they would be unable to prove their prowess. As a compromise, they settled on merely collecting the right ear of their victims, a compromise Ashdown considered fair, but which he recognises would have caused a scandal had it become known in Britain.

This story put me in mind of the recent scandal of US Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan – an action that drew unequivocal condemnation from all quarters. It also put me in mind of David cutting the foreskins from 200 Philistines as a bride-price for Saul’s daughter Michal. (I’m not sure I would appreciate that exchange for one of my daughters, fellas!)

The way in which a culture treats the dead speaks volumes about that culture – which is why the burial rites of ancient civilizations is always of such interest to archaeologists and anthropologists. Whether it is the charred remains of Viking longboats, pyramids in Egypt or barrows in Dorset, the rites of death tell us much about the attitudes of the living; and an important corollary is how dead enemies are treated.

Objectively, urinating on a dead enemy (or lopping off his ear) might seem a lesser indignity than killing him in the first place. Given the choice, I’d rather lose an ear than my life. (Didn’t Jesus say something along those lines too?) But to treat the dead with dignity – even dead enemies – is a sign of one’s own civility. Even in the blood and filth of battle the knowledge that the dead will be honoured rather than desecrated is somehow civilising, and to defy this convention is to in some way dehumanise oneself.

Ultimately, our concern for the dead illustrates an underlying assumption that this body is not merely so much organic matter but a being of ultimate significance.

I took a funeral today, at the end of which I pronounced the words of committal:

Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to receive to Himself the soul of our sister here departed, we therefore commit her body to be consumed, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our earthly body, that it may be like His glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself.

Ultimately, a body – even a dead one – has God’s fingerprints, and God’s claim, all over it.

This morning a friend sent me a link to a couple of Youtube clips. When that happens, I usually know what to expect – some new music recommendations, a comedy clip, a dazzling insight from Keller, or a dog on a skateboard (depending on which friend it is!) I was, therefore, a little bemused to find two videos of a mathematician doodling pictures in order to explain the Fibonacci sequence and the shape of pinecones.

I’m not entirely sure what made him think of me: I’m inept at maths and have never owned a plant that’s lived longer than a fortnight! I can only imagine he’d spied some of my inane doodles on post-it notes and felt I needed some extra help…
 
But for some reason I watched the videos and found myself captivated.
 
Why not take a few minutes to check out the two videos and consider the creative genius who put these patterns together. Imagine the childlike joy He may have experienced as He pieced together the first pinecone, or spoke the first plant into being. Picture him holding the first artichoke in His hand, chuckling as He imagined generations of people wondering “How on earth are you meant to eat this thing?” and mathematicians trying to unravel the secrets of its leaf arrangements.   
 
I never thought I would see the day when I was waiting with baited breath for part three of a mathematics tuition video. But I defy you watch these videos and not (a) be impressed, (b) at least entertain the idea that there may be a plan behind such complexity and order and (c) make your own phi-angle-o-tron!

I’m going to make twenty statements, seventeen of which are fairly uncontroversial, two of which are disputed, and one of which is highly controversial. To call them ‘facts’ is, perhaps, slightly provocative, but I felt that calling them ‘statements’ was a bit bland, and ‘theses’ made me sound like Martin Luther – the disputed ones (#9 and #12) cannot really be called ‘facts’ but they appear likely to me, and the highly controversial one (#20), though I emphatically regard it as true, would not be accepted by any scholar who did not see Scripture as divinely inspired. As far as I can tell, though, the other seventeen reflect the best biblical scholarship available, and would be widely agreed upon by leading egalitarian (Fee, Wright, Marshall, Keener, Towner, Witherington, McKnight) and complementarian (Moo, Schreiner, Knight, Blomberg, Carson, Mounce, Köstenberger) scholars. Here goes:

 
With the exception of the last one, these statements are essentially exegetical judgments: decisions about what authors and texts meant in their original settings. The last one is more a presupposition about Scripture; but although I said it was highly controversial, it is in fact likely to be affirmed by all self-identifying evangelicals, since it is nothing more than an application of a general evangelical conviction (the consistency and clarity of Scripture) to a specific issue. So frankly, there’s an awful lot for evangelicals to agree about.
 
The main reason for laying them out like this is to show, once again, how much agreement there can and should be amongst egalitarians and complementarians. (Many will be surprised to find that Gordon Fee and Phil Towner agree with Bill Mounce and Andreas Köstenberger on #17 and #18, for example, or that Tom Schreiner and Doug Moo agree with Scot McKnight and Tom Wright on #8 and #10). This, following my previous posts on how much we agree on marriage and the myths in the gender debate, is therefore intended to provide a platform for two further Wednesday posts, on hermeneutics and application, which move from exegesis (on which there is huge agreement) to how these passages should be applied (on which there is huge disagreement). See you next week.
     

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Andrew’s next book, If God Then What? Wondering Aloud about Truth, Origins and Redemption, will be released in April, published by IVP.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a more helpful book on sexual ethics than Sex Talks by our very own Matt Hosier. You should all read it. And then you should give it to your teenage children, so they can read it as well.

Sex Talks began life as a series of seminars at Newday, the Newfrontiers event for 12-19 year olds, so the heart of the book is pitched at teenagers. The first half tackles all the subjects you’d expect in a book on sex aimed at contemporary young people, and does so with appropriate bluntness, great wisdom, catchy chapter titles from pop culture (‘I kissed a girl and I liked it’), and an impishly humorous writing style. It’s the sort of book I wish had been available when I was fifteen; whether or not my parents would have been too middle class to give it to me is another matter!
 
But the real power of Sex Talks, and the reason I’m reviewing it here rather than on the Newday website, is the remarkable second half of the book. It takes the form of a massive Q&A, with every conceivable question being raised, and without exception answered well, wittily and wisely. But the questions are not just those of the very blunt teenager (‘Is anal sex OK within marriage?’, or ‘Is it wrong to date a lesbian while she is dating another girl?’), but also those which come up all the time in pastoral ministry and to which, if we’re honest, we all wish we had better answers. Some are painfully personal (‘In the eyes of God, are rape victims still virgins?’), and some helpfully confrontational (‘What would your response be to a married couple who use pornography?’) Many are, if anything, more applicable to pastors than teenagers (‘How does a Christian cope with being accused of homophobia if they take a biblical stance on homosexuality?’, or ‘What about gay churches?’) Matt also puts his years of experience in teaching ethics to good use, giving a carefully considered perspective on many tricky sexual ethical questions – IVF, gay adoption, and so on – which all of us will encounter sooner or later. You may not agree with everything he says, but you will hugely benefit from the experience of working out why.
 
And if you’re still not convinced you should read this book, then I can only assume that people in your community don’t think sex is that big a deal. Anyone? Didn’t think so …
 
You can get hold of the book here.
   

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Andrew’s next book, If God Then What? Wondering Aloud about Truth, Origins and Redemption, will be released in April, published by IVP.

During the brief reign of Francis II (July 1559 – December 1560) the French court was increasingly dominated by the king's uncles, the Guise. It was in this period that Calvinism became highly politicized, particularly through the Conspiracy of Amboise which was instigated by Louis, Prince of Conde. The Conspiracy was an attempt to abduct the young King, Francis II, and arrest the leaders of the Guise faction, thus freeing France from the extreme anti-Calvinist policies that had been pursued. Calvin knew of the plot but disapproved which was one of the reasons it failed so dismally.

However, the plot was opposed by Calvin not because it involved armed resistance, per se, but because the resistance was not led by Anthony of Bourbon, King of Navarre. According to Antoine de la Roche Chadieu, following the line taken in the 1559 edition of the Institutes that resistance was legitimate if it was led by a “lesser magistrate” i.e. A prince of the blood, Calvin had said: -

“If some great man of the King’s Council, someone who has a right to be at the head of the kingdom… declared himself… then it would be proper for such a man to take control…”

 
However, Calvin, to be fair, also warned: -

“Once a single drop of blood was spilt, the gutters would run red with it everywhere, and that nobody would be able to prevent the most horrible disorder, and that it would be better for us all to die than to bring the Gospel into such disrepute…”

 
Calvin showed a similar ambivalence in his sermons from 1 Samuel, preached in 1562-3 but unpublished until 1604. In his 29th sermon in which he describes the ungodly rule of King Saul, he addresses the precise question of resistance to a tyrant stating: -

“People have a duty of patiently submitting to the yoke.”

 
But, almost in the same breath, he adds: -

“If the supreme magistrate should fail in his office and if we have been granted inferior magistrates as part of God’s gift to us, then they are able to constrain the prince in his office and even to coerce him in the name of upholding good and godly government.”

 
Maybe by this point Calvin was unable to exercise control over his more radical followers – it is a moot point. From hereon in Calvinism was on a course towards civil war which lasted, off and on, from 1562 to 1598. At the end of the French Wars of Religion the Calvinists had gained a measure of toleration, though on far from equal terms with Catholicism but, more to the point, it was tainted with blood. The Calvinist Churches never grew beyond the numbers they had attained in 1562 whereas, on the eve of civil war, it had seemed like the conversion of the whole of France was a distinct possibility.

Mark Driscoll is in trouble again. Not only has he just released a very controversial book on sex, which has many of his supporters asking some searching questions, but he has apparently lambasted British preachers in this month's edition of Christianity magazine, much to the consternation of - well, pretty much everybody. The quotation which is grabbing headlines is as follows:

“Let’s just say this: right now, name for me the one young, good Bible teacher that is known across Great Britain. You don’t have one – that’s the problem. There are a bunch of cowards who aren’t telling the truth.”

As a young Bible teacher who speaks across Great Britain, I ought to be offended, not just on my own behalf, but also on behalf of many of my friends who I regard as good, young Bible teachers. Krish Kandiah certainly was, and immediately wrote to say so; he will doubtless be followed by many others, particularly after the offending article is published this week. But I’m not. So here’s a few words on why.

Firstly, full disclosure: I am personal friends with Krish, Justin Brierley (who did the interview) and Ruth Dickinson (who edits Christianity). I’m also a consulting editor for Christianity, although that sounds grander than it is (I don’t get consulted before publication, for example). But for all the things about Mark that I find challenging and sometimes infuriating - and I dare say I’d have said the same about Martin Luther, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon and lots of others - I find him to be a compelling preacher who loves Jesus and loves the gospel, a deeply courageous man, and an inspiration. All of which makes me want to think well of him when he says things like this.

Secondly, I simply do not believe that the sentences I just quoted mean that Mark thinks all young British preachers are cowardly and rubbish. This is how some are choosing to hear what he said, but I’m certain that Mark would regard Joel Virgo, Tope Koleoso and a bunch of other young preachers he knows as courageous, gifted communicators who are passionate for the gospel. What he said was that none of them were known across Great Britain. And on that, he’s probably right: Joel might preach to 7,000 at Newday, and Mike and Andy Croft to 30,000 at Soul Survivor, but the reality is that hardly anybody in Britain, outside of a small Christian bubble comprising up to 5% of the population, has ever heard of them. Like it or lump it, but the mainstream exposure of our American brothers - Rob Bell, Rick Warren, Francis Chan, Driscoll himself, and a fair number of others - dwarfs that of our most well known British preachers. In that sense, Mark is just pointing out a fact that many of us don’t like hearing.

Thirdly, there is a flipside to this in what Mark said, which is that those British preachers and church leaders who are well known in the secular space - which is not many! - are not, by and large, young and courageous. (Listen to Thought for the Day for a week, or read the “Faith” op-ed pieces in the broadsheets, and you’ll see what I mean; few contributors would qualify as young, even if they were courageous and clear on the gospel, which sadly they often aren’t). The fact is, there is a lack of clear, young, gospel-articulating Christian voices in Britain amongst those whom the society around us would recognise as speaking for the church. That may not be the fault of anyone in particular - Rico Tice and Krish can’t help being largely unknown in contemporary Britain, any more than Rowan Williams or Tom Wright can help being (relatively!) old - but it may well contribute to the relative dearth of young men in the church, which is what particularly animates Mark.

So I’m not offended. If I was a Martian looking at British Christianity, I would conclude that in most places, it was still generally perceived to be something for older rather than younger people, and women rather than men. And while we’re on the subject, I’d also be struck by how many spokespeople for Christianity wore cassocks and beards, rather than the things that normal people in Britain wear (which was another one of Mark’s throwaway broadsides).

But although I’m not offended, I still think he was somewhat clumsy in what he said (which, when the dust settles, he may well happily concede. Do enough interviews, and you’ll say some silly things on occasion). You see, Mark Driscoll is not a Martian, so he can’t talk about British Christianity as if he were. He knows enough about the UK to know that there are lots of good young preachers who articulate the historic gospel courageously, week in and week out, and that their not being noticed, in comparison to the US, is the result of a far lower Christian population and a disinterested-to-hostile media when it comes to robust evangelicalism. There are happy exceptions, as Liam’s recent article pointed out, but most opinion forming newspapers in the UK do not give column inches to the faithful proclamation of the gospel, even when it’s being done by hip young men in jeans and funky glasses. Similarly, the fact that British books do not sell in their millions like Crazy Love or Real Marriage does not indicate that there are no young writers prepared to articulate the gospel boldly and clearly: it just indicates that there are nearly one hundred times as many professing evangelicals in the US as in the UK, so getting on the bestseller lists is significantly harder. So to contrast the courageous young men we need with the cowardly dress-wearers we have (which is implicitly what Mark was doing in his comments, both in the interview and his follow up blog post) is not, in my view, to diagnose the problem correctly. The young men are there - Joel, Tope, Krish, Rico, and the many you have never heard of and never will - and they are doing exactly what they should be doing: preaching the gospel faithfully and clearly, whether the headline writers talk about them or not.

One further point, which was made by the ever-insightful Carl Trueman over at Reformation 21, is that Mark’s comment reflects an unspoken assumption that what we need are (a) individual leaders who are (b) young and (c) famous. These, he wryly remarks, are three things that the apostle Paul was not unduly preoccupied with, as far as we can tell. Fair point.

With all that said, Mark and I agree on the key point he was making, whether or not it was expressed in the ideal way: both of us would love young proclaimers of the biblical gospel to be more widely known, if only because that would mean the gospel was getting more deeply into the culture; and we’d be even more keen to see the widely known Christians in the UK articulate the gospel, along with (where necessary) some of its less culturally palatable implications, more clearly and courageously. Mark Driscoll, for all the controversy he attracts, has done both of these things with passion and fervour, and has blessed many of us in the process. If he’s a bit clunky and offhand about British people sometimes, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.

“That wasn’t handled very well…” Anyone who has been in church leadership for longer than a week will have had this said to them.

It can be disheartening when someone says this to you (assuming they you really do have peoples best interests at heart and are not just lazy or indifferent) but it goes with the territory I’m afraid. A large part of being a leader is disappointing people. I’m not sure anyone explained this to me before I entered church leadership, but I have found it to be consistently true. People get disappointed because you do not promote them, or because you promote someone else. People get disappointed because you do not share their enthusiasm for a particular pet project. People get disappointed because they feel you haven’t given them enough attention. The list goes on. Sometimes people get disappointed simply because you are disappointing; which is a disappointing reality!
 
And of course, often the boot is on the other foot – when those who have leadership over us don’t handle things very well, which also happens on a routine basis.
 
Another thing I have learned, however, is that it is usually not so much how things were handled that counts, as how we respond. There is not much I can do about how someone has handled an issue, but there is an awful lot I can do about how I respond to it.
 
Because of my pride (Adam’s root sin that has infected us all) my perception automatically tends to be that if someone does something with which I disagree then they have “handled it badly.” Conversely (and still because of my pride) when someone does something with which I agree I tend to think they have “handled it well.”
 
Actually, there are four possible scenarios in how this might play out:
 
1.    A situation is handled well, and I agree with it

2.    A situation is handled badly, and I disagree with it

3.    A situation is handled well, and I disagree with it

4.    A situation is handled badly, and I agree with it
 
So, perversely, my natural, prideful, response will be to be happy (and feel that something has been handled well) in both scenarios 1 and 4, and I will be unhappy (and feel that something has been handled badly) in scenarios 2 and 3. Which simply illustrates that it is my response that needs attention more than how the thing was handled.
 
Getting this right requires real maturity, but I have seen even very senior church leaders responding badly. And it requires constant vigilance – just this week I was on the end of a “handling” to which my first (prideful) response was, “that wasn’t handled well,” until I pulled myself back to reality and saw that it was actually my response that needed working on, rather than the way the thing had been handled.
 
Of course, this is not to say that we should be casual about how we handle things. As pastors our aim should be to handle people and their issues with grace and wisdom – but even the most gifted leader never gets it right all the time, and this should be acknowledged.
 
So whether you are the one who has disappointed someone else, or is feeling disappointed by someone else, the key thing is how you are handling it.
 
Repentance and forgiveness in Christ seem to me to be the only appropriate response!

The William Lane Craig (WLC) Reasonable Faith Tour is drawing to a close. Craig has been visiting different major cities across the UK over the last few weeks, debating with the academic elite for the existence of God and the historical reliability of Jesus’ resurrection.

He debated Stephen Law, lecturer in Philosophy at Heythrop College, London and editor of the magazine of the Royal Institute of Philosophy THINK on 17 October. He invited Richard Dawkins to debate ‘Is God a Delusion?’ on 25 October. Dawkins’ refusal has caused some to accuse him of cowardice, although he has made a public statement asserting that he would refuse to debate anyone who is an ‘apologist for genocide’. Bloggers in the Telegraph and The Guardian joined a throng of voices questioning Dawkins’ reason for refusal.
 
The publicity of this event has caused bloggers, journalists, tweeters and academics to respond with a flurry of publications, articles and statements; opinion is polarised and some positions are aggressively entrenched.
 
As I have watched the dialogue unfold, and have read and engaged with different positions and opinions on the matter, I have begun to appreciate the very great need for Christian leaders who are ‘as wise a serpents, but as innocent as doves’ (Matthew 10:16). I increasingly believe that our generation need these leaders in greater and greater numbers.
 
I attended the bethinking.org conference in London on 22 October where Craig encouraged us to think about our faith and prayerfully ask God that we might be able to represent Christianity as an intellectually viable option in our generation. I am pleased that young Christians are being encouraged to engage Christianity’s critics. It is very much needed.
 
But as the debate becomes increasing public and, dare I say it, political, I believe we need those that are not only intellectually capable of defending Christianity, but those that God has gifted with the wisdom to respond appropriately. We need those with an ability to meet the challenge we are given, but also to do so innocently and with integrity, aware that we represent our Lord. 
 
I will end with a question. I have been unable to answer this for myself, so perhaps you may be able to help me. I have come across Christians who feel that the advertising for the WLC Tour has been appropriate, and those that have thought it has not. Interestingly, I believe it may depend on what you think being ‘as wise as serpents, but as innocent as doves’ actually means in practice. Publicity for the WLC Tour has been a ‘responding in kind’. Dawkins publicly denounces and discredits Christianity to the point of making a mockery of our faith, and therefore the WLC Tour has been public in its criticism of Dawkins and his followers. A few years ago Ariane Sherine, who was supported by Dawkins, used bus advertising to promote the motto: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. Therefore, in response to Dawkins refusal to debate WLC, the organisers used a bus to advertise the words: “There’s probably no Dawkins. Now stop worrying and enjoy 25 October at the Sheldon Theatre’. This video shows further advertising for the WLC Tour.
 
In many ways we are responding in kind and sticking up for ourselves. But I have heard some say that they thought it went a little too far. I am undecided. Perhaps we are just not used to sticking up for ourselves, and are a little shocked by the result? Should we, then, present ourselves less aggressively by flapping our innocent wings and cooing gently, perhaps?   

Last week, I made reference to the fact that I don’t like using the labels ‘Calvinist’ or ‘Arminian’ because I agree with three and a half of the Calvinist five points, and three and a half of the Arminian ones. This prompted a few people to ask: which ones? And why? So I’ll try and explain my current perspective, as briefly as possible. (Like all the posts at whatyouthinkmatters.org, this only reflects my personal view, and not those of the contributors, let alone everyone in Newfrontiers).

Firstly, I need to define some terms. When I refer to the five points of Arminianism, I mean the Five Articles of Remonstrance agreed upon by the Remonstrants in 1610. The five points of Calvinism refer to the Canons of Dordt, which are the decisions of the Synod of Dordrecht on the five disputed points of doctrine in the Netherlands in 1618-19. The latter are usually known by the acronym ‘TULIP’: Total depravity of man, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints. The former, perhaps less neatly, are sometimes known by the acronym ‘FACTS’: Freed by grace to believe, Atonement for all, Conditional election, Total depravity of man, and Security in Christ.
 
The sharp-eyed among you will notice that one of the five points is common to both acronyms: the total depravity of man. Here’s how the Articles of Remonstrance expressed it (article 3):

That man has not saving grace of himself, nor of the energy of his free will, inasmuch as he, in the state of apostasy and sin, can of and by himself neither think, will, nor do any thing that is truly good (such as saving Faith eminently is); but that it is needful that he be born again of God in Christ, through his Holy Spirit, and renewed in understanding, inclination, or will, and all his powers, in order that he may rightly understand, think, will, and effect what is truly good, according to the Word of Christ, John 15:5, “Without me ye can do nothing.”

 
Because the Canons of Dordt were a response to the Articles of Remonstrance, they only disagreed with them where they felt the Articles were inadequate. On this point, they didn’t, so they affirmed it (and, in a manner that is often true of Reformed theologians, expressed it at considerably greater length!) This means that both Calvinists and Arminians believe that man, since the Fall, has been dead in his sins and unable to save himself. It also means that even the most diehard five point Calvinists are, if you like, at least one point Arminians.
 
For those who are mathematically troubled by my seven point Armalvinism, that explains how you can believe in six of the ten points. But how can you believe in seven? Where else might duplication be found? The answer is in the way the Remonstrants explained their fifth article, on security in Christ:

That those who are in corporated into Christ by true faith, and have thereby become partakers of his life-giving Spirit, have thereby full power to strive against Satan, sin, the world, and their own flesh, and to win the victory; it being well understood that it is ever through the assisting grace of the Holy Ghost; and that Jesus Christ assists them through his Spirit in all temptations, extends to them his hand, and if only they are ready for the conflict, and desire his help, and are not inactive, keeps them from falling, so that they, by no craft or power of Satan, can be misled nor plucked out of Christ’s hands, according to the Word of Christ, John 10:28: “Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” But whether they are capable, through negligence, of forsaking again the first beginning of their life in Christ, of again returning to this present evil world, of turning away from the holy doctrine which was delivered them, of losing a good conscience, of becoming devoid of grace, that must be more particularly determined out of the Holy Scripture, before we ourselves can teach it with the full persuasion of our mind.

 
Translation: nothing external can stop a believer from persevering, and we’re going to read our Bibles very carefully before teaching confidently whether anything internal can. I think that’s brilliant, humble and thought-provoking; and interestingly, it is not contradicted by any of the nine ‘rejections of the errors’ included in the Canons of Dordt on this point. So I believe in the perseverance of the saints as expressed in the Canons of Dordt, but I also give a point (literally, in this case) to the Articles of Remonstrance. That’s how six becomes seven.
 
As such, there are only three areas of direct disagreement between the two sets of statements, and not five. They are:
 
1. Is election unconditional (Calvinist) or conditional (Arminian)?
2. Is atonement limited (Calvinist) or unlimited (Arminian)?
3. Is grace irresistible (Calvinist) or prevenient (Arminian)?
 
As some readers of my last post guessed, I (like many Calvinists, and arguably John Calvin himself!) find unlimited atonement to be a much more biblical idea than limited atonement, even though I understand where the logical impulse to define the atonement as ‘limited’ comes from. If I’m honest, I cannot see any of the verses usually cited in support of limited atonement – the idea that Christ only died for the elect – carrying the weight they are asked to, and find myself wholly in agreement with the second Article of Remonstrance:

That agreeably thereunto, Jesus Christ the Savior of the world, died for all men and for every man, so that he has obtained for them all, by his death on the cross, redemption and the forgiveness of sins; yet that no one actually enjoys this forgiveness of sins except the believer, according to the word of the Gospel of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  And in the First Epistle of John 2:2: “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

 
On election, on the other hand, I find the reverse: I understand the quasi-logical impulse to believe in the Arminian conclusion, which is conditional election (as I talked about a bit last week with reference to Roger Olson), but find the biblical material to support the Calvinist one, which is unconditional election. That could be the subject of a post (or a book!) in itself, so I won’t go into it here. But it does show why, despite my seven points being split 50/50 at the moment, I would still see myself (and others would still see me) as more Calvinist than Arminian – unconditional election, probably rightly, has been seen as the key area of debate between the two camps, and it was the first article in both the Articles of Remonstrance and the Canons of Dordt.
 
So, finally, why the half points? What could be wrong, I hear many ask, with the doctrine of irresistible grace? And what could be right with prevenient grace? Haven’t you read Tom Schreiner’s chapter in Still Sovereign?
 
Well I have, and I agreed with virtually all of it, and that’s why I would never give a point to prevenient grace in the Wesleyan sense. It’s also why I give half a point to the Calvinist doctrine of ‘irresistible grace’: God’s saving grace, when it operates on somebody who is dead in their sins, is irresistible, and turns them from corpses into children of God, by not just enabling faith, but effecting faith. (Again, I could quote lots of scriptures here, but this post is long enough already). Well, says the Calvinist, you have no business handing out half points then: you are a four point Calvinist, so you might as well lump it. But oh, those pesky Articles of Remonstrance, with their seemingly unachievable brevity and theological precision! Here’s what article 4 actually said:

That this grace of God is the beginning, continuance, and accomplishment of all good, even to this extent, that the regenerate man himself, without prevenient or assisting, awakening, following and cooperative grace, can neither think, will, nor do good, nor withstand any temptations to evil; so that all good deeds or movements, that can be conceived, must be ascribed to the grace of God in Christ. But respecting the mode of the operation of this grace, it is not irresistible; inasmuch as it is written concerning many, that they have resisted the Holy Ghost. Acts 7, and elsewhere in many places.

 
And I agree. Nobody can do any good without grace; grace is that which awakens, follows, cooperates and empowers the believer. But is all grace irresistible? It doesn’t seem to be in Acts 7:51, where Stephen accuses not just the Sanhedrin, but generations of Jews, of resisting the Holy Spirit. And it doesn’t seem to be in Paul; sections of his letters (Galatians 5, for instance) seem to be addressed precisely to those who are at risk of resisting the grace of God in the sense expressed in the Articles, even if not in the sense meant by all subsequent Calvinist theologians. In that sense, while saving grace is irresistible, I don’t think the scriptures say that all grace is. (And in fairness, the Canons of Dordt don’t argue that it is; to be scrupulously even-handed, I should probably treat them on their own terms, and affirm four of their five points. But then that would make me a seven and a half point Armalvinist, and that would be just plain silly.)
 
So there you have it. T, U, P, A, T, S, and half a point each for I and F. Some call it fractional Calvinism, others call it Armalvinism, but I (following the acronym) am thinking of calling it STUPIFAT. I wonder if it will catch on.

Here's a fascinating discussion on multi-site with Darrin Patrick, James Macdonald, Mark Dever and Thabiti Anyabwile, who disagree graciously on a number of things. Well worth a look:

9Marks at Southeastern 2011 - B21 Panel from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

The recent posts and paper on the question of how reformed we are have been really engaging. One way in which the term reformed is used is to describe a theology that is strongly influenced by the protestant reformers, particularly John Calvin and Martin Luther. If this is the case, then I would definitely value the designation of ‘Reformed’. But there is a potential category error with the notion of being reformed. The idea of the Church being reformed gives the impression that it no longer needs reforming.

I realise that this fact is widely recognised and might possibly be seen as a question of semantics but it is nevertheless an important point. Many might agree that the Church cannot simply base its teaching on a static theology that derives from the 16th century. Newfrontiers, as a movement, is hopefully not static! This is especially the case in light of its openness to newness in the Spirit. I would suggest that what should be aimed for is a balance between being reformed and reforming. One can, that is, continue to affirm those doctrines that are considered sacred, that were highlighted during the reformation and that are fundamental to what might be expressed as a biblical Christianity. One may also, though, see the need to critically engage with the reformers in the reforming task (as Matthew Hosier and Andrew Wilson model) even on those issues that we affirm as central. Further than this, the reforming task is one that takes seriously the fact that the Spirit is at work in the Church of the present as that which brings truth and clarity.
 
There may be a number of aspects of reformation theology that are foundational to the self-understanding of Newfrontiers. For example, many might want to say that the insights of John Calvin on God’s sovereignty and election or Martin Luther on Justification are fundamental and need to be retained.  Even then, though, it might be recognised that there is more to say than either Luther or Calvin said on these two doctrinal issues. Using those two doctrines, (election and justification) I will attempt to show what a reformed and reforming attitude might possibly look like. It should be noted that my suggestions are not meant to be taken uncritically; particularly with reference to those theologians that I draw from who others may not agree with. However, those who do not agree with me on particularly doctrinal issues may hopefully feel that the methodological points that I am making are of value.
 
To take the first example on election, it might be emphasised that, with Calvin, election is that which is from all eternity a gracious act of the sovereign God as opposed to something that the human can do for him- or herself. As Calvin says of the doctrine:

“It is useful, necessary, and most sweet. Ignorance of it impairs the glory of God, plucks up humility by the roots, begets and fosters pride. The doctrine establishes the certainty of salvation, peace of conscience, and the true origin of the Church.” (Calvin, Institutes, Chapter 21)

 
One might also suggest, though, that there are certain aspects of this doctrine that need to be further developed; elements that Calvin, as it were, leaves undone. The trouble is, as soon as I make this suggestion, I find it very difficult not to in turn undo Calvin’s explanation of the doctrine. My personal proposition is that, on this issue, Karl Barth provides helpful solutions (though I acknowledge that others may strongly disagree with me here). He too explains election as ‘the sweetest of all doctrines.’ He affirms with Calvin that election is entirely God’s free decision and that humans are not capable of choosing God for themselves. Barth, however, provides a helpful corrective in that he shows that election is not just about a sovereign decree directed toward humanity. Rather, election is something that should always be thought of Christologically. Election, for Barth, involves Christ as the electing God and the elect man. What Barth adds to the reformed understanding is a making of election something that is not just a result of a divine dictate to humanity, but rather a divine involvement with humanity. So Barth:

 
“In the beginning, before time and space as we know them, before creation, before there was any reality distinct from God which could be the object of the love of God or the setting for His acts of freedom, God anticipated and determined within Himself [...] that the goal and meaning of all His dealings with the as yet non-existent universe should be the fact that in His Son He would be gracious towards man, uniting Himself with him” (Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/2)

 
One might say that there is room for this understanding within Calvin’s basic framework but that he just didn’t fully explore this Christological dimension. With regards to a reformed and reforming theology, we may say that Barth provides one possible avenue for developing Calvin’s understanding in that he is working within the reformed and reforming framework. He is, therefore, someone useful to be interacted with.
 
With regards to justification, and here I will be more brief (possibly at the expense of clarity), we may agree with Luther’s basic insight that justification is a gift from God and that there is no biblical basis for a justification by works. We may also listen, though, to N.T. Wright, for example, who wants to remind us that justification is tied up, in the historical context, with Israel, and subsequently the Church, in terms of her covenantal membership with God and calling to be a righteous community. Admittedly, as several of Andrew’s posts have illustrated, Wright’s presentation has led to confusion over whether he is advocating a view of justification as imparted rather than imputed. But this is where the awareness of the need for a reformed and reforming understanding comes in, as does the need to be biblical. To what extent are we willing, that is, to have our dearly held reformed principles rocked? I, for one, do not fully agree with Wright on this issue, but my basis for that should not be that I hold Martin Luther’s view uncritically or without openness to the Spirit’s leading. I should, therefore, be open to having my view unsettled by someone like Wright. This is further the case in the context of agreeing with so much of what he says elsewhere.
 
The illustrative examples are not meant to be exhaustive but rather act as pointers toward what a reformed and reforming theology might look like. In other words, my suggestion is something of a methodological one as well as a specifically theological one. The reformation theologians can, I would suggest, be seen as touchstones for our present and future exposition of biblical themes. They are, if you like, our accountability measure or safety blanket. We should, though, be willing to swim in the risky waters of modern theology at large in order to ensure that we are fulfilling the reforming task by the Spirit.
 
Alister McGrath helpfully points out the following with regard to Calvin:

“His ‘theological heritage’ has proved fertile perhaps to a greater extent than any other Protestant writer. Richard Baxter, Jonathan Edwards, and Karl Barth, in their very different ways, bear witness to the pivotal role that Calvin’s ideas have played in shaping Protestant self-perceptions down the centuries.” (McGrath, The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism)

 
To a large extent I agree with McGrath’s insight, though again I would also encourage us to be willing to risk certain static forms of Reformed theology for the sake of the continuous need to be a spirit led reforming community.

I'd always assumed that the differences between Calvinists and Arminians came down to exegesis.

That is, I figured that Calvin, Edwards, Hodge and Piper believed what they believed because they had carefully studied the scriptures and concluded that it’s what they taught, and that Arminius, Wesley, Booth and McKnight believed what they believed because they had studied the scriptures and concluded that it’s what they taught. I thought people changed their minds sometimes, and that this was because they studied Romans 9, or 1 Timothy 2, or whatever, and concluded that their exegesis had been wrong and they needed to change it. In other words, once all allowances had been made for the influence of the theological system you were brought up in and so on, I still thought exegesis - the careful analysis of what the biblical writers said, and what they meant in their original setting - was the driving force behind the theological positions that people came to.
 
Which is why it’s intriguing to hear these very honest thoughts from the veteran Arminian theologian Roger Olson, whose book Against Calvinism has just been released as a pair with Mike Horton’s For Calvinism. For Olson, the difference does not really come down to exegesis, but to presuppositions that run much deeper:

I’m beginning to think even more than before that most 5 points Calvinists I know approach the Bible very differently from most non-Calvinists I know ... For example (I’m musing here because I’m not sure about this): It seems to me that most 5 point Calvinists I know seem bound and determined to believe anything they think the Bible says regardless of how horrific that may be.  In other words, IF they became convinced that somehow they had been overlooking something in Scripture (as they think I do) and, in fact, God and the devil are actually the same being such that God is evil, they would believe it because the Bible says it.  I, on the other hand, presuppose that God cannot be evil; that goodness and being belong inextricably together or else there is no ground for basic trust.  This is why Wesley said of Romans 9 (paraphrasing here)–whatever it means it cannot mean that!  He means, no matter how much Romans 9 (and other Scripture passages) SEEM to say that God selects some people to save UNCONDITIONALLY, leaving others WHO HE COULD SAVE (because election to salvation is unconditional and saving grace is irresistible) to eternal torment in hell, it cannot mean that.  Why?  Because God is good.  Even Calvinist Paul Helm, a leading evangelical Calvinist thinker, agrees (as I show in my book) that “goodness” attributed to God cannot be totally different from every understanding of goodness (and love) we know of.  When Wesley rightly said of Romans 9 that it cannot mean “that” (what Calvinists believe it means) he wasn’t dismissing Romans 9 as uninspired, not part of God’s Word.  He was saying IF it means that (and fortunately there are other valid interpretations than the Calvinist one) God is not good but a monster worse than the devil because at least the devil is sincere.  (Wesley is talking about God’s universal will for salvation–1 Timothy 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9, etc.).  To those of us who are not Calvinists this seems right.  That’s why we cannot be Calvinists–because IF WE believed what Calvinists believe God would not be good and therefore could not be trusted.  We realize that Calvinists (at least most) do not believe God is a monster, but we are saying if WE believed what they believe we would find it necessary to think of God that way–as indistinguishable from the devil.  I find most (all?) Calvinists simply sweep that aside as unworthy of consideration and fall back on quoting isolated Bible passages that they think prove their view of God and salvation, etc.

 
The capital letters notwithstanding, this is an extremely interesting argument from one of the most prominent advocates for Arminianism in North America. Before responding, a few quick comments. Firstly, I don’t know Roger Olson personally, but from what I’ve read of him, he strikes me as a sincere, honest, thoughtful and humble theologian and brother in Christ. Secondly, I don’t have a particular axe to grind on the wider theological debate he’s talking about here; with regard to soteriology, I used to be an Arminian, then I became a Calvinist, and now I wouldn’t particularly use either label, since I agree with 3.5 of the Calvinist five points, and 3.5 of the Arminian ones. (That sentence will cause consternation for some who have studied theology, or even maths; as Chandler from Friends put it, “can open, worms everywhere”). Thirdly, I’m not assuming all, or even most, Arminians argue in the way Roger Olson does. And fourthly, the quote you’ve just read is an excerpt from a longer blog post which makes some very insightful comments on the Calvinist-Arminian debate, and is well worth reading, along with the comments, to get a sense of how what I’ve quoted fits into his argument.
 
With all that said, there are several things about this article which cause me some concern. The first, despite its apparent appeal, is Olson’s statement that the way Calvinists and Arminians read the Bible is fundamentally different. According to Olson, the difference between a Calvinist and an Arminian is fundamentally that the former believes whatever the Bible says no matter how appalling it might seem, and the latter constrains their reading of the text by assumptions about the goodness of God, which might force interpretations of certain texts that would not otherwise be the most obvious.
 
The problem here, I think, is that the differences between the two camps have been exaggerated (at least, insofar as many proponents of each position are concerned). I am sure that five point Calvinists reach their conclusions on the basis of what they believe the Bible says, whether or not it involves a radical rethinking of what constitutes “goodness”, or “justice”. But I think many Arminians do, too. Unless motives are being deliberately concealed by an awful lot of people at both academic and popular levels, then it would seem that plenty of (most?) Arminians are perfectly prepared to concede that the Bible might teach something which reconfigures their idea of goodness or justice - we are fallen creatures, after all, and one of the Fall’s most insidious consequences has been the calling of good evil and evil good - but reach Arminian conclusions simply because they believe the Bible teaches them. I don’t think anyone could accuse David Pawson, to take one of British Christianity’s most ardent Arminians of recent years, of basing his argument on the foundation of what he thinks God should or should not do. Olson is implying that Pawson, along with many other Arminian theologians and teachers, is reasoning like this:

The Bible appears to teach unconditional election; but
Unconditional election would make God a monster; therefore
The Bible does not teach unconditional election.

 
From my reading of them, however, Pawson and others are arguing very differently:

The Bible could conceivably teach both unconditional election, and the goodness of God; in which case
Unconditional election and the goodness of God would not be incompatible; however,
The Bible does not teach unconditional election.

 
In other words, many are compelled towards Arminian theology by Scripture, not by an assumption that what seems unjust to them must necessarily be, in fact, unjust. (It’s just as well, given a Bible in which human reasoning about God is so frequently shown up for being limited!) That’s not to say that no Arminians reason like Olson says, of course; Olson himself obviously does, he quotes Wesley in agreement, and my guess is that Clark Pinnock and a number of others would as well. Nor is it to say that the Bible presents a view of goodness that is “totally different” to any we know of. It is merely to say that there might be times when man feels like asking, “is there injustice on God’s part?”, and the correct response is, “by no means!”
 
At the same time, although I am sure that Arminians are committed (with Olson) to the presupposition that God is good, and to the notion that anything which Scripture teaches must be in line with this, I am also certain that Calvinists would agree. The goodness of God is a foundational aspect of his character throughout the scriptures, and consequently it has never been plausibly suggested, to my knowledge, that first century scripture-believing Jewish Christians like (say) Paul of Tarsus did not presuppose the goodness of Israel’s God - which means that our interpretation of Pauline theology is shaped by this presupposition, along with many others. Were one of the apparently Pauline letters, then, to contain the phrase “God and the devil are the same being” (Eph 7:1), as per Olson’s slightly odd thought experiment, the church fathers and everyone since would surely have concluded that it was inauthentic, since no first century Jew would say such a thing (we conclude that, for example, the final saying of The Gospel of Thomas did not come from Jesus in precisely this way). And, of course, every Calvinist would agree with this assessment. Yet Olson presents this as a specifically Arminian conclusion: “I, on the other hand, presuppose that God cannot be evil; that goodness and being belong inextricably together or else there is no ground for basic trust.” As reassuring as this is, I cannot think of a Calvinist who wouldn’t share his presupposition here.
 
The explanation for Olson’s slightly surprising comments, I expect, is found in his brief discussion of Romans 9, which is the second cause for concern. For Olson, if the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 9 is accurate, and God unconditionally elects some people to salvation and draws them with irresistible grace, then God is “a monster worse than the devil”. This is not the place for a detailed engagement with Romans 9; the passage is not straightforward, and in some ways it does not matter which interpretation is the right one for the purpose of this discussion. What matters is that Olson has raised the stakes dramatically here, and in a somewhat problematic way. Sorry to enumerate again, but his argument consists of three premises and a conclusion:
 
1 If Calvinists are right, then Romans 9 teaches a God who unconditionally elects some people to salvation, when he could elect everyone to salvation.
2 A God who unconditionally elects some people to salvation, when he could elect everyone to salvation, would be evil, and worse than the devil.
3 But biblical interpretation is guided by the presupposition that God is good, and therefore is not evil, nor worse than the devil.
4 Therefore God does not unconditionally elect some people to salvation, when he could elect everyone. Romans 9 must mean something other than what Calvinists say it means.
 
Olson talks as if he, and Arminians, take #3 to be axiomatic, while Calvinists do not. But I would have thought it fairly obvious that Calvinists do not disagree at all on #3, differing with Olson merely over #2 (and thus also the conclusion, #4). And since what he is arguing is not self-evident to many Christians, nor substantiated in this post, and is expressed in a way that is polemic to the point of being incendiary, it would seem unwise to write like this. Especially since both the Arminian, and the five point Calvinist, have to wrestle with how a God who is both loving and sovereign can allow people whom he could save to perish, and differ only on what greater concern causes him not to (typically, human free choices for the Arminian, and God’s greater glory for the Calvinist).
 
My third concern is more fundamental, and has nothing to do with the Calvinist-Arminian debate. It is that, in reasoning as he does, Roger Olson is making space for what I have previously referred to as “the death of exegesis”. What I mean by that is not that Olson thinks exegesis is unimportant, but that (in his argument here) he implies that exegesis is no longer the primary way we establish what a biblical text meant in its original setting. For me, for most Calvinists, for most Arminians and for most of those who use neither label, the way we establish what a text meant in its original setting is through exegesis: grammatical, historical, lexical, literary and theological analysis of a passage in all its contexts. For Olson, it appears (and he cites Wesley in support), there is a higher court of appeal than that, which is the interpreter’s own view of what would be compatible with the goodness of God, whether or not this view is shared by the biblical writer in question.
 
That is the key difference between Olson’s view of Romans 9 and the Calvinist’s view of the hypothetical Ephesians 7:1. In the latter case, we (a) do careful exegesis of Paul’s theology, not least in Ephesians itself, and (b) conclude that the historical figure Paul of Tarsus would certainly not have written something which equated Israel’s God with the devil, which leads us (c) to regard it as inauthentically Pauline. In the former, however, the driving concern is not whether Paul could have regarded unconditional election as compatible with the goodness of God, but whether we do. Effectively, in Olson’s framework, we are left saying that because we cannot conceive of unconditional election as in any way good, therefore Paul cannot have either, so he must have meant something else, no matter how clear he was on the issue. (As I say, what constitutes the best exegesis of Romans 9 is not my concern here). In this view, critical scholarship is helpful to a point, but if it results in a Paul, or a Peter or John or Luke, who advocates conclusions we find unpalatable, or inconsistent with our understanding of God, we will reinterpret the text until it fits our theology. And that, without wanting to sound too apocalyptic, is effectively advocating the death of exegesis as the primary way we establish what an author meant.
 
Frankly, I find all three of these conclusions unpalatable, and would love to reinterpret Olson’s words until they fit my theology. But I’ve got to let Olson be Olson, and do my best to understand him in his own context. Perhaps exegesis is still alive, after all.

Above everything else he achieved theologically, it was the Institutes which first established Calvin's theological reputation, and it is the Institutes which still today he is best known for. It is difficult to over-estimate the importance and significance of the Institutes. It is the seminal work of Protestant theology. It stands on a par with Augustine's City of God as a theological classic and it is as foundational for the French language as the King James Version of the Bible is for the English language.

The Institutes were first published in March 1536. Calvin had been forced to flee Paris in 1533 because a friend of his, Nicholas Cop had preached a sermon which, whilst not thoroughly Protestant, certainly had enough evangelical content to get him into serious trouble with the extremely conservative theology faculty at the University of Paris, the Sorbonne.
 
In his writing of the first edition of the Institutes whilst in exile in Basel, Switzerland, Calvin was acutely conscious of the plight of his fellow evangelicals in France. The French king, Francis I, initially had been ambivalent towards the reform of the Church. He was sympathetic towards Erasmus and the Christian humanist reform programme, but deeply suspicious of Lutheranism. At this stage, however, it was far from clear where one ended and the other began. Francis’s hand was forced, however, in 1534 by the “Affair of the Placards”. On 18th October 1534 Parisians woke up to find Protestant placards or broadsheets posted around Paris which told them that the Mass was a priestly sham which “seduced” people and would ultimately destroy the world. Some placards had even found there way into the king’s chateau at Blois. Imagine how Francis I felt when he woke up one morning to find attacks on the doctrine of transubstantiation posted around his chateau! He was not amused to say the very least. This incident released a wave of repression across France. Francis urged all his subjects to denounce “heretics.” On 21st January 1535 six evangelicals were burnt at the stake and many more followed in the next six months.
 
It was the suffering of his fellow countrymen & women for the Gospel that spurred Calvin on in his publication of the Institutes. The Institutes were never cold, abstract theology. Calvin is often depicted in popular mythology as a cold hearted individual – perhaps because he was rather shy and reserved -  but Calvin’s theology was rooted in his pastoral heart for God’s people, particularly his fellow Frenchmen.

But lo!, (Calvin writes), while I lay hidden in Basel, and known only to a few people, many faithful and holy persons were burnt alive in France… It appeared to me, that unless I opposed [the perpetrators] to the utmost of my ability, my silence could not be vindicated from the charge of cowardice and treachery. This was the consideration which induced me to publish my Institutes of the Christian Religion… It was published with no other design than that men might know what was the faith held by those whom I saw basely and wickedly defamed.

Calvin begins the 1536 Institutes with a preface to King Francis in which he defends the evangelical cause with deference and respect but, nonetheless, with passion and conviction. He refutes the charge of innovation. There is nothing “new” about evangelical doctrine – it is the authentic apostolic doctrine of Paul - that Christ “died for our sins and rose again for our justification.” He refutes any suggestion of hesitancy and uncertainty amongst evangelicals. They have faced death itself and eternal judgment without fear. Moreover, Calvin rejects the suggestion that evangelicals imply that the Church has been dead for a period. The Church can exist even when it has no visible form and that the Church exits not so much as an institution, but wherever the word of God is preached and the sacraments are rightly administered.
 
Thus Calvin is beginning at the tender age of 27 to offer a depth and breadth of leadership to the fledgling evangelical Church in France which is out of all proportion to his age or experience. He was, at this stage, one of the least conspicuous French Protestants. It was the Institutes that established his reputation as one of the leading and, ultimately, the leading spokesman for French evangelicalism. When Calvin was passing through Geneva a few months after publication, intending to stay there for no more than 24 hours, it was because of his reputation as the author of the Institutes that Calvin had his arm twisted to stay and lead the Church in the city.

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser.” - Richard Dawkins

I imagine you’ve heard this quote before. If not, you’ve almost certainly come across its sentiment. Sadly, this kind of view of the God of the Old Testament is increasingly common, and regularly cited in debates about faith. It’s not restricted to atheistic antagonists either; many within the church struggle with some of the difficult, disturbing or confusing aspects of the Old Testament, and what they imply about the character of God. I was thrilled, therefore, to hear of Paul Copan’s latest offering, Is God a Moral Monster?
 
In this book, Copan interacts with the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris in a gracious but firm way, seeking to put the record straight about the God of the Old Testament. On the whole, it’s a well-written and brave book for which I am extremely grateful. Copan does us a great service by seeking to explain and celebrate many of the aspects of the Old Testament which might seem offensive, intolerant or downright weird.

His book’s detailed, highly readable and a great resource. He doesn’t ignore or avoid difficult texts. You’ll find gems left, right and centre, and the sheer robustness of his research should send a strong message to the New Atheists that we are willing to engage with their difficult questions, and the God of the Old Testament isn’t some peculiar relative of whom we’re slightly ashamed, and who, given half a chance, we would happily eradicate from the family tree! He’s the same holy, righteous, perfect, merciful God we see in the New Testament, revealed through Jesus.

You can read a brief summary of the kind of ground Copan covers here. I echo the many recommendations, but would just like to register a reservation or two:

Information Overload

This is possibly more of a problem with my limited mind than it is with Copan’s book. After all, I’d always rather there was too much info than not enough. This book is a vast sea of information, statistics, citations and theories, which gave me a couple of problems:

How on earth do I remember this stuff? I struggle with dates and names at the best of times (I still have to count on my fingers to remember my own age, and I haven’t even made it out of the 20s yet!) and there’s absolutely no hope of me remembering even a fraction of the panoply of details mentioned in the book. Thoroughness is no bad thing of course, but in amongst the vast sea of facts, I could have done with a few more clearly set out discussion points, broad principles or key questions to ask. The Study Guide is helpful for further reflection, but I could have done with a cribsheet. But then maybe I’m just lazy!

Also, I’m not likely to go away and check his sources since I don’t have copies of the Near Eastern Law Codes just lying around in my house! In fact, many of the ancient sources aren’t footnoted anyway. So whilst I trust the guy (he’s on my team after all!) I don’t feel I can replicate his arguments with full conviction.

This simply left me wondering: which of Copan’s arguments are worth me remembering and rehearsing, and which I’d feel comfortable using in discussion. I’m not one to gripe about thoroughness! I just think there’s a lot of supplementary thinking and reading work required if you want to apply some of this material with full conviction.

Caught in a Webb

My second point of concern was the reliance on William J. Webb’s Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic. If you’re not familiar with Webb’s work, I won’t try to unpack it too much here. Check out comments in Andrew’s post the other day, and reviews of Webb’s work by Wayne Grudem and Thomas Schreiner. Copan uses Webb’s trajectory hermeneutic to argue that God makes incremental steps towards the ideal, and we must read the OT laws in that light. It’s an attractive idea, and potentially a powerful way of dealing with some of the more tricky aspects of the OT! But for many of the reasons Grudem and Schreiner point out, I’m not fully comfortable with it as a hermeneutical tool, and if I’m not happy to use it in my everyday hermeneutics, I fear it would be duplicitous to do so in my apologetics!

Now obviously there is some value to Webb/Copan’s line of reasoning (see Jesus’ own words on divorce in Matt 19:3-12), so again, some further thinking will be required to determine how willing you are to use this line of reasoning, lest it take you on a trajectory towards some theological conclusions you may not be comfortable with! I’m not entirely sure I know the answer to that yet…

Also, just a word on tone: if we’re not careful, rather than sounding like an incremental improvement towards an ideal, it can actually come across like an incremental decreasing of compromise on the part of God; like He was happy to let things slip early on and do some dubious stuff, but after a while He decided it was time to stop compromising, pursue integrity and tell us what He really wanted all along! Obviously that’s something of a caricature, and not at all what Copan is suggesting… but if we aren’t careful in the way we frame a point like this, we can sound like we are dissing God’s character. So a little caution and careful wording would be advisable!

Dialling Down the Judgment

Thirdly, I felt that there were a few times when Copan was a little too quick to dial down some of the numbers and details in order to present a historical reconstruction that was a little easier to stomach. Whilst some of his comments on ANE bravado and hyperbole and the usage of ‘all women and children’ language were helpful, I’m not sure I fully bought all of his historical reconstructions. You have to have quite an imagination to read texts like Deuteronomy 25 and 1 Samuel 15 and come to the conclusion that ‘all’ really just means a few military men in a soldiers’ camp and absolutely no innocent civilians. Also whilst some theologians do claim that Onesimus was not a slave, but rather Philemon’s estranged biological brother, I’m not sure that’s the best way of dealing with the subject of slavery in the New Testament; dialling it down by removing one example!

Copan’s arguments were useful and generally well backed up, but I wouldn’t want to dial down the OT stories of wars and punishments so much that (a) we look like we’re in denial and (b) we lessen the force of texts that speak of God’s right to punish disobedience in this life or the next. On which, see Peter Leithart’s Jesus and the Ogre. 

A Regrettable Absence of Genital Mutilation

Not a sentence I ever thought I would write! But one of the subjects (perhaps the only subject) I felt Copan missed, and wished he had covered was that of circumcision. Hitchens is particularly vocal on the matter, especially in videos like this where he takes a rabbi to task in a rather personal and graphic manner for practising circumcision and making an unfortunate un-wise-crack about the subject! I wish Copan had taken a moment to deal briefly with this objection, which does carry some force. 

Conclusion

All in all, I would highly recommend the book, and I have no doubt that much of the material will be helpful to many of us as we increasingly interact with these kinds of questions. But it’s not one of those books that will be immediately ‘regurgitatable’. It will require some thinking to decide what principles you’re happy to use, which sources you’re happy to cite, and what language you will use as you put across the arguments. If you’re ready to put in the work, I’m sure you’ll benefit from it… Then if you can produce a slim pocket-guide for oafs like me, I’ll be exceedingly grateful! 

In the ancient world, boats had a captain and a helmsman. The captain set the course and decided where the boat was going, and it was the helmsman’s job to make sure they got there. So when Paul referred to the spiritual gift of kubernesis (1 Cor 12:28) – steering, being a helmsman, managing, administrating, governing – it wasn’t a typo, or a confusion of categories. He was making the fairly obvious point that in the church, you don’t just need people who know where they’re going; you also need people who know how to get you there. Deacons. Administrators. Organisers and planners. Those sorts of people.

More colourfully, here’s Doug Wilson:

Mission cannot be accomplished without visionary leadership. Mission cannot be accomplished without a supply corps, and working supply lines. Without the supply guys, the visionary is Napoleon marching on Moscow. Without the visionary, the administrator is an undersecretary for Garbonzo bean subsidies in eastern Washington, involved in a desperate turf war with the Chickpea guy for northern Alabama.

 
And nobody wants that.