Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

Review of Aniol, By the Rivers of Babylon – Part 1

by

Scott Aniol’s writings about music, worship, and culture present a viewpoint that is in need of careful consideration for the health of the church. He brings knowledge of theology and a knowledge of music together in ways that many people on both sides of the debate over worship do not do. Further, Scott grounds his discussions about music in a broader, theologically-rooted understanding of culture and conservatism. I am in fundamental agreement with Scott on these issues, and so I commend his latest book By the Rivers of Babylon: Worship in a Post-Christian Culture along with his other writings on religiousaffections.org.

Despite our fundamental agreements, Scott and I disagree about some matters in the central section of this book. He tends to favor a two kingdoms approach to culture and to take a dim view of Al Wolters’s reformational approach, whereas I have found great value in Wolters and have some serious reservations about the two-kingdoms approach. I thank Scott for having Kregel send me a review copy of By the Rivers of Babylon, and I hope this review serves not only to commend Scott’s book to others but also serves to foster greater agreement between us regarding these two differing approaches to culture.

By the Rivers of Babylon falls into three general sections. The first section, chapters 1-3 evaluates the missional church movement. The second section, chapters 4-7 survey different Christian approaches to culture and present Aniol’s own proposal. The third section, chapters 8-10, focuses on Christian gathered worship. Chapter 11 wraps up with implications and applications. These three areas—missions, culture, and worship—are often discussed in isolation of one another, but Aniol is wise to bring them together one’s view in one area will have implications for one’s view on others.

Missional Theology

The section on the missional church movement provides a brief history along with a summary of missional theology. In doing this survey Aniol recognizes the difficulty of defining missional. The term is used across a wide spectrum of people and organizations that range from theologically liberal to evangelical. The treatment is careful to specify who precisely is under consideration and focuses mainly on the evangelical side of the spectrum. Aniol notes three positive contributions of the missional church movement. First, evangelism is a prominent concern. Second, the missional church movement, in theory, views worship as an activity primarily of believers and rejects the evangelism-centric services of the church growth movement. Third, the missional church movement has recognized that western Christians now live in post-Christian societies. This affects how the church functions in society. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on how the Enlightenment shaped the church in less than desirable ways. Aniol then notes three negative aspects to the missional church movement. First, it takes its critique of the church of Christendom too far, thus rejecting too much of the inheritance that Christians have from past centuries. Second, it too often assumes that culture is neutral and that church practice can be easily adapted to a wide variety of differing cultural forms without loss. Third, it maintains a close connection between worship and evangelism that at times belies its critique of the church growth movement.

Aniol’s evaluation of the missional church movement seems balanced and fair, and I think his concerns are sound. A naïve view of cultural neutrality combined with a substantially negative view of prior church practice both impoverishes the church and leaves it up to cultural corruption. One of Anoil’s most telling observations relates to the difference between the tendencies among missional theologians and practitioners: “The theologians seem to emphasize the fact that culture shapes the church (especially harkening back to the ways Christendom and the Enlightenment shaped the church in the West) and warn against being shaped by the culture in ways that ‘might be compromising gospel truth.’ Most practitioners, on the other hand, tend to minimize the possibility that any culture could shape the gospel harmfully, instead emphasizing the need for the church to engage the culture and redeem it for the gospel” (34-35). If this is the case, then the practitioners are setting themselves up to repeat the errors of the past without reaping its benefits.

Since the missional church movement is concerned to contextualize the gospel within particular cultures, chapter 3 concludes with a survey of changing definitions of culture from culture as high culture to anthropological definitions that recognize that all people groups have a culture. Chapter 4 opens with a survey of the roots of the contextualization idea in the World Council of Churches. These discussions transition to the second part of the book, which examines how Christians are to understand and relate to culture.

On Why “the Culture” Cannot Be Redeemed

by

When men dream dreams of a paradise regained by means of common grace, they only manifest the “strong delusion” that falls as punishment of God upon those that abuse his natural revelation.

Cornelius Van Til, “Nature and Scripture” in The Infallible Word, 2nd ed. ed. N. B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley (Phillipsburg, PA: P&R, 2002), 271.

Was Eden a Temple?

by

img_3163Tim Challies reviewed today a book by J. Daniel Hays on the tabernacle and temple. From Challies’s review, the book looks good, and I’ve added it to my notes on the tabernacle and temple. But according to Challies Hays makes a claim that seems to have become a commonplace among biblical scholars:

Hays begins in the Garden of Eden which so many scholars understand as its own kind of temple.

There are certainly strong connections between the garden and the tabernacle and temple, but I wonder if scholars are not being careful enough when the actually identify the garden as a temple.

beale_temple1I first encountered this idea when reading G. K. Beale’s book, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, part of the New Studies in Biblical Theology Series. I was less than persuaded by Beale’s argument. Later I found that Daniel Block, writing in a festschrift for Beale, also has some reservations about this thesis.

Beale’s argument for an Edenic temple can be summarized from the following headings in The Temple and the Church’s Mission (66-75): (1) “The Garden as the unique place of God’s presence,” (2) “The Garden as the place of the first priest,” (3) “The Garden as the place of the first guarding cherubim,” (4) “The Garden as the place of the first arboreal lampstand,” (5) “The Garden as formative for garden imagery in Israel’s temple,” (6) “Eden as the first source of water,” (7) “Eden as the place of precious stones,” (8) “The Garden as the place of the first mountain,” (8) “The Garden as the first place of wisdom,” (9) “The Garden as part of a tripartite sacred structure,” (10) “Ezekiel’s view of the Garden of Eden as the first sanctuary.”

I would respond as follows:

(1) The presence of God is the chief actual parallel. But to argue that God’s presence in Eden makes Eden a temple is to mistake the reality for the symbol. The temple is needed as a symbol of God’s presence because the reality of God’s presence has been withdrawn due to sin. When the reality is fully restored, then the need for the symbol passes away (Rev. 21:22). Thus when the reality was present in the past, there was no need for the symbol. Because the reality of God’s presence was found in Eden, Eden was not a temple. The symbol was not needed.

(2) Beale concludes from the occurrence of עבד and שׁמר in Genesis 2:10 that Adam is pictured as a priest since when these words “occur together in the Old Testament . . . , they refer either to Israelites ‘serving’ God and ‘guarding [keeping]’ God’s word . . . or to priests who ‘keep’ the ‘service’ (or ‘charge’) of the tabernacle (see Num. 3:7-8; 8:25-26; 18:5-6; 1 Chr. 23:32; Ezek. 44:14)” (67). However, this is a decontextualized reading of these terms. Beale concedes, “It is true that the Hebrew word usually translated ‘cultivate’ can refer to an agricultural task when used by itself (e.g., 2:5; 3:23)” (67). In the context of Adam being placed in a garden because the garden needed a man for certain kinds of plants to grow (2:5), it is contextually more likely that these words refer to “an agricultural task.” Daniel Block rightly observes, “Lacking other clear signals it is inappropriate to read back into this collocation cultic significance from later texts (e.g., Nm 3:7-8; 8:26; 18:5-6). The conjunction of verbs עבד . . . and שׁמר . . . in association with the tabernacle suggests that priestly functions were reminiscent of humankind’s role in the garden, but the reverse is unwarranted” (Daniel I. Block, “Eden: A Temple? A Reassessment of the Biblical Evidence,” in From Creation to New Creation: Biblical Theology and Exegesis: Essays in Honor of G. K. Beale, eds. Daniel M. Gurtner and Benjamin L. Gladd [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013], 10-12).

(3) Since the cherubim are placed to guard the garden only after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, their presence on the tabernacle curtains is probably an indication that the way to God is still barred for sinful humans rather than an indication that Eden was a temple.

(4, 5, 6) While it may be true that the lampstand symbolized the tree of life (I am inclined to think so), and while the lampstand and other parts of the tabernacle make use of garden imagery, this only demonstrates that the tabernacle and temple looked back to Eden. It does not demonstrate that Eden was a temple. Likewise with prophetic promise that a river will flow from the temple. Speaking of the river, Block says, “While these images derive from Gn 2:10-14, without the later adaption we would not think of looking for a sanctuary here” (13). Again, to conclude otherwise confuses the reality and the symbol.

(7) Beale says that the Garden is “the place of precious stones,” but the text places the stones outside of Eden in the land of Havilah. Rather than a temple connection, it is contextually more likely that a connection exists back to Genesis 1:28 and the blessing of human rule over the earth. The rivers are highways into the wider world and in those lands are natural resources to be harnessed, such a gold, a standard medium of exchange. Also, Block notes that Bdellium “probably does not refer to a precious stone” and that it is not associated with the high priest’s breastplate. Onyx is connected to “the priestly vestments,” but not exclusively so (13-14).

(8) Block says on this score, “As noted earlier, while the HB [Hebrew Bible] never associates wisdom with the priesthood, its significance for kingship is explicitly declared in Prv 8:12-21 (especially vv. 15-16). . . . To associate the wisdom motif with the law stored inside the Holy of Holies and eating the forbidden fruit with touching the ark is farfetched and anachronistic” (15-16).

(9) Beale’s attempt to connect the structure of the Garden with the structure of the tabernacle falters on the fact that the river does not flow from a holy of holies within the garden but from the broader land of Eden in which the garden is placed (Gen. 3:10).

(10) The argument from Ezekiel 28:18 is difficult to sustain. It seems best to understand Ezekiel as drawing a parallel between the king of Tyre and the cherub who was in Eden just as in the previous passage Tyre had been spoken of in terms of a sunken ship. Beale wishes to identify the cherub as Adam, but it is more likely that the cherub should be identified as Satan, as cherubs are angelic beings, not human beings. Finally, Beale wishes to identify the sanctuaries of Ezekiel 28:18 with Eden. Not only does the plural pose a problem (if there is precedent for identifying that courtyard, holy place, and holy of holies as separate sanctuaries, Beale does not provide it), but this profanation is connected to “the unrighteousness of your trade.” Thus the profanation of the sanctuaries is probably referring directly to the king of Tyre and not to an event that happened in Eden.

I think Block rightly captures the proper interpretation:

In my response to reading Gn 1-3 as temple-building texts, I have hinted at the fundamental hermeneutical problem involved in this approach. The question is, should we read Gn 1-3 in the light of later texts, or should we read later texts in light of these? If we read the accounts of the order given, then the creation account provides essential background to primeval history, which provides background for the patriarchal, exodus, and tabernacle narratives. By themselves and by this reading the accounts of Gn 1-3 offer no clues that a cosmic or Edenic temple might be involved. However, as noted above, the Edenic features of the tabernacle, the Jerusalem temple, and the temple envisioned by Ezekiel are obvious. Apparently their design and function intended to capture something of the original environment in which human beings were placed. However, the fact that Israel’s sanctuaries were Edenic does not make Eden into a sacred shrine. At best this is a nonreciprocating equation. (20-21)

In sum, though the tabernacle and temple looked back to the garden of Eden and the loss of the presence of God that occurred with humanity’s exile from the garden, the garden itself was not a temple. In the grand scheme of things, this is not a major difference of interpretation, but it is still worth maintaing precision in our understanding of these foundational parts of Scripture.

John Newton on the Relationship between Devotional and Church Life and Cultural Activity

by

John_Newton_Tony_ReinkeA simple desire to please God, to walk by the rule of his word, and to do all to his glory; like the famed philosopher’s stone, turns all the gold, consecrates the actions of common life, and makes everything that belongs to our situation in duty in civil in domestic life is part of our religion. When she is making our mending the children’s clothes, or teaching them, and when her maid (if serious) is cleaning the kitchen, or making a sauce, they may be as well employed, as when they are upon their knees or at the Lord’s Table. It is an unpleasant mistake to think all the time as lost which is not spent in reading, or hearing sermons, or prayer. These are properly called means of grace; they should be attended to in their proper season; but the fruits of grace are to appear in our common daily course of conduct. It would be wrong to neglect the house of God; it would be equally wrong to neglect the prudent management of her own house. It is chiefly as a mother in mistress of a family, that she can let her light shine to his praise. I would not have her think that she should serve the Lord better in any other station, than in the one to which his providence has placed her. I know that family cares are apt to encroach too much, but perhaps we should be worse off without them.

John Newton, Letters (Coffin), 159 in Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 169.

Bavinck on the Relationship between Devotional Life and Cultural Activity

by

The religious life does have its own content and an independent value. It remains the center, the heart, the hearth, out of which all [the Christian’s] thought and action proceeds and from which it receives inspiration and warmth. There, in fellowship with God, he is strengthened for his labor and girds himself for the battle. But that hidden life of fellowship with God is not the whole of life. The prayer room is the inner chamber, but not the whole dwelling in which he lives and moves. The spiritual life does not exclude domestic and civic, social and political life, the life of art and scholarship. To be sure, it is distinct from these things. It also transcends them by far in value, but it does not constitute an irreconcilable opposition to them; rather, it is the power that enables us faithfully to fulfill our earthly vocation and makes all of life a serving of God.

Herman Bavinck as cited in Jan Veenhof, Nature and Grace in Herman Bavinck, trans. Albert M. Wolters (Souix Center, IA: Dordt College Press, 2006), 29-30.

Tensions: Living for God in the Interior and in Cultural Life

by

bavinck-on-the-christian-lifeWhile these nineteenth century Christians [pietists] forgot the world for themselves, we run the danger of losing ourselves in the world. Nowadays we are out to convert the whole world, to conquer all areas of life for Christ. But we often neglect to ask whether we ourselves are truly converted and whether we belong to Christ in life and in death. For this is indeed what life boils down to. We may not banish this question from our personal or church life under the label of pietism or methodism. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, even for Christian principles, if he loses his own soul?

 

Herman Bavinck, The Certainty of Faith, 94 as cited in John Bolt, Bavinck on the Christian Life: Following Jesus in Faithful Service, Theologians on the Christian Life, ed. Stephen Nichols and Justin Taylor (Crossway, 2015), Kindle Locations 228-233.

Tensions: The Goodness of Creation and the Danger of Idolatry

by

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. . . . For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.

John Piper, A Hunger for God, 14

[In the sentences that I excised Piper was actually contrasting blatant and less blatant worldliness. I think he’s right that the latter may often be more dangerous because our consciences are dulled to to the latter, but it is confusing to bring up “the prime-time dribble of triviality” in this context lest “the prime-time dribble of triviality” be read as a gift of God.]

Tensions in the Puritan View of Culture

by

Puritanism and its Reformed-pietist successors constantly vacillated between whether they were rebuilding Christendom by making towns and eventually nations into virtually Christian societies, or whether they were advocating a pure, called out church. Edwards had strong commitments to both ideals. Heir to the Puritan establishment and part of a powerful ruling class, he was jealous of the privileges of ministerial prestige in town and province. He looked forward to a worldwide Reformed Christendom as the millennium approached.

Yet he was also a luminary among the international awakeners whose insistence in conversionism could—like earlier Puritanism—be disruptive of the standing order. The awakeners worked on the premise that many church members, including many clergy were unconverted. The implication seemed to be that true churches should be made up of true believers only. . . . Some had become Baptists, applying the logic of converts-only purity to both sacraments. It is easy to see why Edwards’ opponents would accuse him of moving toward separatism.

Edwards wanted rather to resolve the old conundrum without resorting to separatism. He would show how to maintain both the purity of the church and the establishment.

George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 350-51

Creation and Social Structures

by

Greg Forster has some helpful comments on how social structures are rooted in Creation while also being shaped by human action. This means that social structures are rooted in the creational order but human action can twist them in accord with the Fall or press them back toward something that conforms to God’s law.

We must avoid two errors when thinking about social structures. The first error is thinking of them as arbitrary constructs of individual human decisions. This implies that there are no limits on how social structures can be changed. We raise children in families now, but if we all decided to live differently, we could just as easily create massive nurseries and drop off all our babies there at birth. We have an economy based on ownership and exchange now, but if we all decided to live differently, we could just as easily redistribute all property to the people we think should have it, or abolish property and live communally. This is the error I described earlier as naiveté about the social nature of human beings. . . . Admittedly, there is something mysterious about this. It certainly seems like social structures ought to be infinitely changeable if they are only the result of human action. But in fact, they make no sense to us if they’re arbitrary. If we can rearrange parenthood or ownership at will just by deciding to do so, then really there is no such thing as parenthood or ownership. The reason is simple: social relationships are embedded permanently in our nature as human beings. They’re like reason and morality, which are also embedded in our nature. You can’t think logically unless you first assume, without argument, that logic is valid. You can’t think morally unless you first assume, without argument, that there is such a thing as right and wrong. Similarly, you can’t think socially unless you first assume, without argument, that social systems are real and not arbitrary. The other error to avoid is treating social structures as though they were not a result of human action at all. This implies they can’t be changed, that they’re mechanical forces that stand outside our world. They control us, but we have no power to control them. I’ve already hinted at this error, when I commented that there’s no magical force outside human will that makes people live this way.

Greg Forster, Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost Its Cultural Influence and Can Begin Rebuilding It (Crossway, 2014), 178-80.

Culture and Creation

by

Culture is what we make of creation. Literally we take the stuff of creation and shape artifacts and institutions. We build things from stone and steel. We make art by arranging colors and textures, sounds and words. And our social institutions are shaped by taking into consideration the nature of human nature. Figuratively, we make something of creation—we project an appraisal in our cultural forms of the kind of world that God has made and the kind of creatures he’s made us to be. Cultural disorders often come from inadequate or false readings of creation. Many people today deny the very existence of a given human nature, arguing that cultural institutions are simply social constructions, arbitrary and freely chosen patterns guided only by human willing.

Ken Myers, Mars Hill Audio Journal 78 (Jan/Feb 2006): 00:08-00:57