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SGI #1

Hello, from Detroit, MI at the Student Global Impact conference.  I'm sitting in a classroom at Inter-City Christian School that has been converted into a makeshift dormatory/barracks for those male attendees who aren't connected enough to have a house to stay in while here in Detroit.  But I'm fine, I am surrounded by friends and have a wireless AP nearby which will be switched on at any moment for free Internet access.

On to the conference...  SGI is for those who are interested, to whatever degree, in missionary work.  I personally have alluded in the past to an interest in teaching English in China, at least for a summer. Luckily for me, Chinese missions will be featured in a few workshops over the two-day period of the conference. Other workshops include language learning challenges, overcoming cultural hurdles, personal preparation checklists, campaigning for support funds ("deputation"), and overviews of several mission fields from the real-life missionaries of those fields.  Should be a rewarding time, as always.

The attitude of those in attendance is expectation and anticipation, excitement over what may take place; a generally positive atmosphere.  Nothing spectacular usually happens; we don't typically see visions of Mary or anything. But we desire to see God glorified and doing a work among us generally and in the hearts of those who need special prodding/poking specifically. (Those seem like misplaced modifiers, but i don't care.)

The first session featured evangelist Steve Pettit speaking from 1 Cor. 3:18.  He pointed out,in a very direct way, that in order to be changed one must behold God's Glory. He then went on to explain, or attempt to begin at possibly coming close to explaining, what God's glory actually is.  Here it is, in basic form: God's intrinsic awesomeness.  (There it is, my catchphrase. But Pettit's exact words.) Or, as I like to put it: God oozes "wow" from his spiritual pores.  He finished by asking a very simple question: do you read your Bible daily, therein exposing yourself to God's Glory?  It was just the question I needed to be asked.  At the beginning of the message, I asked myself "How often do you behold it, zach?"  It is too easy to complicate what God designed to be so simple.  Read your Bible, exposing God to those dull spiritual sensors and you will eventually be changed more into his likeness.

So, good start.  Time to sleep now. More later, I promise.

Reconciling the Church and the New Covenant

What follows is a post I wrote at Sharper Iron on the thread "Dispensationalism.  Necessary to be a Fundamentalist?" I think it deserves to be put here too. This is what I firmly believe.

The Bible describes the Church as a "mystery"; it blindsided the NT saved Jew.  God threw the Church, along with its coming Gentile constituency, into the laps of the NT saved Jews. The Church is what the the Nation of Israel should have been spiritually.  That is the New Covenant:  internalizing (making the heart of stone a heart of flesh, forgiveness of sins permanently, etc.) the spiritual principles of the Age of Law; Christ being both the fulfillment of the Law and the Purchaser of the New Covenant for all who believe in Him.  The New Covenant, shrouded in "mystery", believed in principally by OT saints, came to light with the Holy Spirit's Indwelling of Acts 2.  This event happens also to be the Birth of the Church.  The New Covenant is the Church.  The only thing that threw off the NT saved Jews was the inclusion of the Gentiles in the New Covenant.  But this was reconciled in Acts 11:1-18, esp. 17-18.

As for what happened to the Jews: when they, as a nation, rejected their Messiah, God set them, as a Covenant People (Nation), aside.  He brought the New Covenant into effect, entering into a covenant relationship with individuals (both individual Jews and individual Gentiles) through their belief in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  The spiritual community that formed as a result of entering into that relationship with God is called the Church.  The Church has lasted from Acts 2 till the present, and will last until Jesus comes in the air (pre-trib; 1 Thes. 4:16).  At this time God will resume his dealings with the Nation of Israel (The Tribulation; Dan. 9:24).  Once He is done with them after the seven years, He will come to earth and set up his 1,000 year reign (pre-mill; Zech. 14:4, 9) over the entire earth (which includes both Jews and Gentiles).

That, I guess, is the viewpoint of a historic dispensationalist who is Calvinistic in soteriology and is pre-trib, pre-mill., literal (as far as the text is literal, and who uses a best contextual guess for the metaphorical texts) hermeneutic, and who thinks the New Covenant is the Church.

You don't have to be dispensational to be a fundamentalist.  It just helps a lot when trying to be reasonable when you read the harder parts of the Bible.

Yikes!

With something as notable and such an important voice within Fundamentalism as Sharper Iron referring their readers here I ought to take off my hat to all those who visit me from that site.  With that hat comes some thoughts that I have been having about this whole "New Fundamentalism" debate.  Now I know that there is no such thing as "New anything" being passed around, but still it's easier to give the discussion a name than try to describe the debate. So, stick around and sometime during my busy schedule I'll try to write something meaningful about this whole thingy called "NF".

Team Spirit

There has been another thing troubling me lately, and it concerns my spirit. Namely, the title of this post: Team Spirit.  Now if you know me and have seen me in action anywhere where this aspect of my personality can flourish, like at The Wilds, any play time when there are kids around (AWANA, Bible Club, VBS, etc.), or at society (EZX) funtions, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and you're afraid. :)  If you don't know me and can't really picture what I'm saying take this literal picture of me as proof; you ought to be able to figure it out from there.

So what's the problem then?  Well, I don't like being known for that.  In fact, I hate it. More specifically, I don't like being known for my excitement about trivial things.  I want to be known for excitement, yes. For spirit, yes. For my craziness about Z or the Red team or the Real McCoys?  NO.  A BIG, HUGE N O.

(Here's the kicker...) To be known for an all-consuming passion for the excellency of Christ to be displayed in every single area of my life?  The biggest YES that you could ever conceive of. Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!!!  That is all I need.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with losing yourself in a cause that is greater than yourself.  It is even encouraged in the Bible.  But if that cause is anything other than exalting Jesus Christ it is at the least trivial.  And if you don't watch it, it can become idolatry.

So the hard part comes... What to do about it.  Take your exulting in Christ public.  But make sure you do it in private first.  That's your foundation. That's where your true spirit lies.

EDITED POST: 03/15/05 9:00pm
Upon noticing my blog being referred from Sharper Iron again, I immediately thought about the ramifications of my Team Spirit muse upon this whole "Fundamentalism as a movement" discussion.  Here goes:

I wholeheartedly believe in Fundamentalism as an Idea.  And to be frank, I'm less than pleased with how the Fundamentalist movement is progressing.  But when I discovered that the fundamentalist idea was different than the Fundamentalist Movement I was made very, very happy.  I, in my naivete, wanted very much to believe that the movement espoused the Idea.  But upon reading the blogs, especially Bails, Apelles, and Pensees, and seeing how the whole Fundamentalism survey turned out, and all the discussion surrounding Phil Johnson's Workshop, I saw that there was a very big difference between the two (Idea and Movement).

So, the application of "Team Spirit" to the Fundamentalist Movement?  (Look out!)  It is more important to be concerned about the testimony of the Christ that Fundamentalism professes than the testimony of any institution, personality, or church.  The spritual success of those institutions, persons, and churches depends on whether Christ is given the due honor He deserves.  When we allow concern for own reputations (whether school, church, movement, or self) to overshadow our concern for the reputation (read: Glory) of Christ we have sinned.  And we need to repent.

I'm done.

From SI

Thanks for making my site even more of a hit, Sharper Iron.  I have had in one day more than 55 hits from referrals from that site.  I hope you stay around longer to actually find out who I am and why I'm a fundamentalist.  Here's some links that I have bookmarked that have aided me in understanding the new fundamentalism and what makes me a "young fundamentalist":

• The Future Fundamentalists by Jason Janz
• A Fundamentalism worth Saving by Dr. Kevin Bauder
• What now? Initial thoughts on the personal impact of "A Fund. Worth Saving" by Apelles
• Pensees' weblog

Thanks Sharper Iron.  Keep on thinking.  Go groupthink, go!

And a word to all y'all who may read this: go to Mounty's Corner too.  He's a fellow BJ student and blogger who has some pretty good ideas on the music issue and on fundamentalism in general.

Sharper Iron

I'm not about to make any bold predictions here, or even feeble predictions, but this new site - sharperiron.org - looks promising.  I  haven't spent much time there, but the people who are hanging out there seem to be of some import.  The results of that fundamentalism survey that was taken around the beginning of the year are posted here, as well as Dr. Kevin Bauder's paper and comments about that.  These two things are making a quiet stir here at BJU, especially among those who care about fundamentalism and at the BJ Seminary.  I urge anyone who is interested in the progress of fundamentalism to take a serious look at this site.  If you liked any of George Marsden's books you'll see that his next one's research is already being taken care of: a treasure trove of fundys.  This is the Neo-Fundamentalist Think Tank.

revolutionary

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution. - Hannah Arendt

Can we say together, "the inexplainable future (and future for the past, which is now the present) of Fundamentalism".

The vow

For the past week in chapel here at BJU we've been having evangelism services. This is not to be confused with evangelistic services, as some Freshmen have taken it to mean.  A lot of 'em needed evangelistic services in the first place.  Anyways, Hal Hightower, a former pastor from Missouri, was the speaker.  He challenged us to be soulwinners while on our Winter Holiday Break.  He was a very candid and direct man, he spoke with authority and was to the point; something lacking in this semester's speakers.  Well, he gave an ivitation at the end of chapel yesterday calling for students who were willing to witness to at least four people over the Break, coming down to an average of one person per week.  I accepted the challenge and ask for your prayers as I seek to fulfill the Great Commission in this specific way.  For all you BJ students and BJ bloggers out there, I'll be praying for you as well.

On that note, after chapel and some time in prayer driving the point home in my heart, I went over to visit some friends of mine who stayed behind in the FMA to talk.  We discussed the message we just heard and I asked who had accepted the invite.  3 out of the 4 of us had.  The one who didn't gave this as his defence for not doing so:  he can't find anything in the Bible that actually encourages us to take on such vows.  I related something I read in my devotions a couple days ago, from Ecclesiastes 5:4-7 (ESV)...

 

4 When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. 5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6 Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? 7 For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.
 

It really is better to not vow and fulfill the call to witness than to vow and not fulfill the call.  The call to give the gospel is everpresent, whether we take a vow to obey it or not.  This was my friend's point, it is a valid one.  But the vow will still keep me on my toes this Holiday to witness more consistently. I'll be praying for them.

I'll keep you informed.  Look for "vow fulfilled" posts in the next few weeks.

Mounty's Fundy Article

Mounty will be writing an article on Fundamentalism soon.  It's gonna be good.  He let me in on a draft, and I encouraged him to go further.  He did.  Look for a link and review here in the next couple weeks.

Maturity is...

I'm a fairly regular poster on the IT forums here at BJU, and a topic was started with the purpose of trying to define maturity. Once consensus is made, we'd then try to apply that term to various situations. And specifically to the whole "dating with the intent to marry" discussion from which the thread topic sprung. Here is my post:

"Maturity is a definite thing in the strictest sense of the term. As a bond note or CD at a bank comes to maturity; its standard of full development is the term of the note or CD. When it comes to social, emotional, intellectual, and especially spiritual situations, however, the line is harder to draw.

Maturity isn't really a state at which a person arrives; it is more of a goal to shoot for, an attempt to meet a certain standard.

But what is the standard to which we are to attain? What is typical of one who has reached full development? As spiritual beings, and hopefully Christians, we ought to measure ourselves by Christ. He is the standard of maturity. He is the Head into which we are to grow. He perfectly fulfilled every duty mankind has been called to do. God has established standards we are to meet and Christ met them for us. Only through Christ's Righteousness working in us and through us can we have the possibility of real maturity and be on our way to getting it."

More later.