Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

D. A. Carson

Popular Culture’s View of Love

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Don Carson, who doesn’t sharply distinguish between popular and high culture, opens his book Love in Hard Places (2002) by summarizing some points from The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (2000):

First, popular culture saunters between a sentimental view and an erotic view of love. The erotic view is fed by television, movies, and certain popular books and articles; the sentimental view is nurtured by many streams, some of which we shall think about as we press on, but the result is a form of reductionism whose hold on the culture is outstripped only by its absurdity.

  1. Applied to God, the sentimental view generates a deity with all the awesome holiness of a cuddly toy, all the moral integrity of a marshmallow. In the previous lectures, I briefly documented this point with examples from films and books.
  2. Applied to Christians, the sentimental view breeds expectations of transcendental niceness. Whatever else Christians should be, they should be nice, where “niceness” means smiling a lot and never ever hinting that anyone may be wrong about anything (because that isn’t nice).
  3. In the local church, it means abandoning church discipline (it isn’t nice), and in many contexts it means restoring adulterers (for instance) to pastoral office at the mere hint of broken repentance. After all, isn’t the church about forgiveness? Aren’t we supposed to love one another? And doesn’t that mean that above all we must be, well, nice?
  4. Similarly with respect to doctrine: the letter kills, while the Spirit gives life, and everyone knows the Spirit is nice. So let us love one another and refrain from becoming upright and uptight about this divisive thing called “doctrine.” (pp. 11–12; numbering added)

Cultural and Theological Conservatism

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D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 470 (emphasis in original):

Churches that are faithful to the apostolic gospel are sometimes also the ones that are loyal to a culture becoming increasingly passé. In such a situation cultural conservatism can easily be mistaken for theological conservatism, for theological orthodoxy. In an age of confusing empirical pluralism and frankly frightening philosophical pluralism, in an age that seems to be stealing from us the Judeo-Christian worldview that prevailed for so long, it is easy to suppose that retrenchment and conservative responses on every conceivable axis are the only responsible courses for those who want to remain faithful to the gospel.

In various ways I have tried to show in this volume that such a course is neither wise nor prophetic. Sometimes it is not even faithful. The church may slip back into a defensive, conservative modernism that is fundamentally ill-equipped to address postmodernism.

Popular and High Culture

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D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 46:

I do not want to succumb to the elitism that makes sharp distinctions between popular and high culture.

[Footnote] See, for example the telling review of Kenneth A. Myers, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture (Westchester: Crossway, 1989), written by William Edgar and published in Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991): 377–80.

From Bill Edgar’s review:

Despite the many attractive features of this book, and the welcome emphasis on apologetics for the ordinary modern person, this reviewer has serious reservations about some of its basic assumptions. The most questionable is the concept of popular culture itself. Myers divides the cultural world up sharply between those things that belong to basically good high culture, and those that belong to basically problematic popular culture. He equates high culture with tradition, and attributes to it such characteristics as focusing on timelessness, encouraging reflection, requiring training and ability, conforming to the created order, referring to the transcendent, etc. (p. 120). By contrast, popular culture focuses on the new and instantaneous, is a leisure activity, appeals to sentimentality, is individualistic, and tends toward relativism. [Read more…] about Popular and High Culture

Video for Don Carson’s The God Who Is There

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“Free audio and HD video downloads are now available for Don Carson’s 14-part overview of the Bible titled, ‘The God Who is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story'” (TGC announcement). Previously, only 10-minute video previews were available.

D. A. Carson. The God Who Is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010.

Leader’s Guide:

Related:

  1. “The God Who Is There“
  2. Recommended Resources in Carson’s Leader’s Guide: Introduction | Chapters 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10–14

Carson’s Commentary on Matthew

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The second edition of Carson’s commentary on Matthew just became available this week:

D. A. Carson. “Matthew.” Pages 23–670 in Matthew–Mark. 2nd ed. Expositor’s Bible Commentary 9. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010.

It’s bound with the commentary on Mark by Walter W. Wessel and Mark L. Strauss (pp. 671–989).

It’s not drastically different from the first edition (1984), but the entire commentary is updated to some degree in both content and wording. It’s about fifty pages longer than the first edition because it adds new discussions that interact with secondary literature over the past quarter-century.

Related: Zondervan also just released a superb commentary on Matthew by Grant Osborne in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary series, which uses a format that serves preachers extremely well.

A Former Slave-Trader’s Sanctified Self-Assessment

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John Newton (cf. Google books):

I am not what I ought to be. …

Not what I might be …

Not what I wish to be. …

I am not what I hope to be. …

[But] I am not what I once was, a child of sin, and slave of the devil. …

I think I can truly say with the apostle, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’

D. A. Carson: “That encapsulates Christian sanctification in pithy statements better than anything I know.”

Update (8/17/2015): Tony Reinke explains Newton’s statement in his book Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ, Theologians on the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 267–69:

newtonTo explain the riddle of the Christian life in all its shortcomings and its hopes, John Newton penned what has possibly become the most famous sermon outline in church history. He had been asked to preach a little homily in the home of a friend, which he happily obliged. He chose for his text 1 Corinthians 15:10: “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” All that remains of Newton’s living-room message is an outline, written down by a nameless note taker in attendance. Over time, the sermon outline morphed and merged into this remarkably concise summary of the Christian life on earth:

I am not what I ought to be. Ah! how imperfect and deficient. Not what I might be, considering my privileges and opportunities. Not what I wish to be. God, who knows my heart, knows I wish to be like him. I am not what I hope to be; ere long to drop this clay tabernacle, to be like him and see him as he is. Not what I once was, a child of sin, and slave of the devil. Though not all these, not what I ought to be, not what I might be, not what I wish or hope to be, and not what I once was, I think I can truly say with the apostle, “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10).

[Note 5: My paragraph blends the two published versions of what Newton reportedly said. …]

The parallels and contrasts within Newton’s statement become clearer when decorated with visual cues to highlight corresponding clauses:

I am not what I ought to be.
Ah! how imperfect and deficient.

Not what I might be,
considering my privileges and opportunities.

Not what I wish to be.
God, who knows my heart, knows I wish to be like him.

I am not what I hope to be;
ere long to drop this clay tabernacle, to be like him and see him as he is.

Not what I once was,
a child of sin, and slave of the devil.

Though not all these,

not what I ought to be,
not what I might be,
not what I wish or hope to be, and
not what I once was,

I think I can truly say with the apostle,

“By the grace of God I am what I am.”

Related:

  1. John Piper wrote the foreword to Reinke’s book.
  2. Tim Challies interviews Reinke about his book.