Robie and I got a breakfast to ourselves this morning at the Blue Dahlia Bistro off 11th street in Austin. This is one of the best cafe’s I’ve found in the city, quaint, quiet, tasty. What a joy to have Robie to share it with!
Worldliness
I typically stay away from these kinds of titles—Worldliness—judging the book by its title. However, 
knowing a bit about the author I decided to crack the cover. C. J. Mahaney did not disappoint; in fact, he stirred me to love Christ not “the world.” This book is sure to ruffle some feathers, and you won’t agree with everything in it, but why just read books that reinforce your opinions and worldview? Consider this excerpt from C.J.’s heart-centered view of worldliness:
David Powlison, paraphrasing John Calvin, wrote, “The evil in our desires often lies not in what we want, but in the fact that we want it too much.”10 It’s difficult to improve upon this insight. The “cravings of sinful man” are legitimate desires that have become false gods we worship. It’s wanting too much the things of this fallen world. A sinful craving is when a legitimate desire for financial success becomes a silent demand for financial success; an interest in clothes and fashion becomes a preoccupation; love of music morphs into an obsession with the hottest band; or the desire to enjoy a good movie becomes a need to see the latest blockbuster.
There may be nothing wrong with these desires in and of themselves; but when they dominate the landscape of our lives, when we must have them or else!-we’ve succumbed to idolatry and worldliness. And as Calvin says, our hearts are a perpetual factory of idols. We’re pumping out these thingson a regular basis.
Preface (by John Piper) and first chapter here.
Regrounding Ecclesiology in the Spirit
With all the pop ecclesiology floating around, I’ve begun to dig a little deeper for more biblically grounded, historically informed, theologically reflective ecclesiology. It seems like there is a new book every day that is going reform church, make it more successful, relevant, early churchish. It is remarkable how few of these books exegete biblical texts, dialogue honestly with church history, and reflect theologically. How many of them ask the really hard and helpful questions like:
- When did the Church start and how should that affect the way we are the church?
- How should the East/West division of the Church affect our understanding and practice of Christian unity and mission?
- How should the Old Testament shape our practice of church?
- What can we learn from the medieval Church besides pope-bashing?
- What is God trying to teach the Church with the shift of the center of Global Christianity from the West to the East, from the North to the South?
The Church didn’t start with Jesus, though he did speak of the Church. It didn’t even start with the twelve disciples, though they were an integral part. The church started with the Holy Spirit, yeah Pentecost, the most understated event in the non-charismatic Evangelical world. One look at the Evangelical Church and you would think that the Church started with Jesus. To be sure, he is the Head of the Body that is the Church, but he did not bring about the new creation; that was and is the work of the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit is the starting place of the Church, what would it look like for churches to be planted, not by books, manuals, bootcamps, or methods but by the leading of the Holy Spirit? What if churches decided not to “launch” because they were listening to the Spirit? What if they refused to build because they were listening to the Spirit? What if they paid no pastors? What if they built schools instead of Christian Life Centers? What if they became so united that cities were renewed and disputes were resolved? What if we planted churches by actively relying on the Holy Spirit?
There are many helpful answers to the five questions above, but interestingly, one answer they all share is the Holy Spirit. The Church started and should continue with the Holy Spirit. One of the reasons for the East/West division of the church was over the filoque clause in which the Western Church subordinated the Holy Spirit. The direct result was division not unity. A biblical theology of the church reveals that the Spirit worked in creation and the people of God throughout the Old Testament to bear witness to the coming messiah and his kingdom, of which the church is a part. Most churches today ignore or moralize the OT. The medieval church demostrated that identifying the Church with land eviscerated it of its life, marginalized the Spirit, and promoted greed and politicization of the gospel. The Western church has become known for territorialism, greed, and politics. The leading denominations of the majority Church of the non-Western world are charismatic, Spirit-led churches. If we are to reground our ecclesiology in Bible, History and Theology, it would serve us well to begin with the Holy Spirit.
Two Conversions, One Lord
Two Conversions
We are praying and laboring for two conversions—one to Christ and one to the Church. One of the problems with American Christianity is that it conceives of Christian faith too narrowly. There is far too much room for one to be a “Christian” without being part of the Church. The notion of a private faith in Christ is not found in the New Testament. On the other hand, there are far too many “Christians” who go to a church but are not part of the Church. The fact of church “attendance” should not comfort a pastor’s soul that he is, in fact, shepherding the church. Now, by “church” I do not mean a building, denomination, or membership roll. Rather, I am thinking of the people of God who confess and submit to Jesus as Lord. In other words, to be a Christian is to be converted to the Head and to the Body, to embrace the people of Christ as you have embraced the Christ of the people.
One Lord
However, we are not merely converted to Christ and consequently the Church. The reason that there is no place for private Christian faith, a faith that doesn’t embrace baptism into a body of believers is that there is one Lord. That Lord is not Jesus alone. 1 Corinthians 8:6 reads: “yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” The oneness shared between the Father and Son is expressed in a common identity as Lord. This text is a Pauline reworking of the Great Shema, the Jewish confession and daily prayer that YHWH was one: “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one” (Deut 6:4). Here Paul in locating the Jesus in the identity of YHWH; they are both Lord. This shared lordship, witnessed to by the Holy Spirit in human hearts, is proof that we are converted, not to Christ but to the triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit. True conversion, then, produces a new creation that lives in communion with the Divine Community. We are converted to one Lord who is three. We are converted to Community. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the New Testament repeatedly conceives of true community as a salvation project, something that springs from faith in the one Lord. There are two conversions, one Lord. To quote Leslie Newbigin, “true conversion involves both a new creation from above, which is not merely an act of extension of the existing community, and also a relationship with the existing community of believers.” (The Finality of Christ, 107).
Church is not Optional
Therefore, church is not optional; they are essential. Fellowship, service, love, and mission with the family of God is critical to fruit-bearing faith. Just as salvation is a community project (we rely on others to persevere in our faith), so also community is a salvation project (the gospel of Christ converts us to a community gathered around a common Lord, common faith, and common baptism, Eph 4). In other words, the gospel produces two conversions. Conversion to the Lord and conversion to the Church, but Jesus alone is the atoning power for both, with his Spirit supplying all the grace needed to love, serve, and share life with an imperfect people saved by a perfect Christ.