Hyper-Evangelism

In this article I intend to propose a term for the practices that have long been (at least in this post-Finney period of redemptive history) regarded as normal evangelical efforts. Such practices and efforts Charles Finney called the "new measures". These new ordinances included the alter call, and the sinners prayer, and the method of their administration was not gospel proclamation but "preaching" the Law of God so as to insight fear in the heart and a desire to change one's own behavior. The term I propose for these practices which unfortunately remain a large part of 21st century evangelical heritage is, "hyper-evangelism".

Contrary to all that, in the middle of the 1770's God blessed America and the world with what we call "The First Great Awakening". Men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield were on fire with the gospel of God and they lowered their flames to catch fire to the souls of sinners who God had humbled by His grace. As mentioned before, in regards to the Finneite heresies, the second work that must be considered in the realm of Christian history is what is commonly referred to as "The Second Great Awakening" which took place about a half century later in the early 1800's, and from which the Christian Church is still recovering. In my opinion that second work was not an awakening at all, at least not an awakening to God and His gospel; it was more of a revival of externally moralism than anything else, and I would prefer to call the work God did through Edwards and Whitefield "The Great Awakening", and the events that occurred in America under the influence of Finney, a "Second Sinai" because of its emphasis on Law without gospel and the failure of its participants to see that the Law of God does not redeem it only condemns.

I justify the use of the labels hyper-evangelism and hyper-evangelistic based on the historical use of the terms: Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism, evangelism and evangelistic. Calvinism is a term describing the biblical position which systematised five points of soteriological doctrine that resulted at the Synod of Dort from the discussions of Jacob Arminius' proposals against reformed thinking, but hyper-Calvinism rightly describes an unbiblical position loosely based on historical Calvinism but misapplied and drew unbiblical and illogical conclusions from the historic Calvinistic position. likewise, historically, evangelism is a term which describes the biblical methodology of spreading the kingdom through the means of gospel preaching, but the term I propose, hyper-evangelism, is a term I am using to describe an unbiblical method of evangelism which is loosely based on the historical, biblical method, but it either goes too far or not far enough.

Furthermore, Calvinism is the modern name that has been given (due to John Calvin’s debates with Jacob Arminius over the nature of election and saving grace) to this system which attempts to describe all the relevant biblical data concerning the sovereignty of God over all his creation and creatures, over all of history and his decree of those things. On the other hand, hyper-Calvinism is not so much a system, but rather a dogma which takes the Calvinistic understanding of election and predestination and, instead of building an understanding of all related doctrines systematically, it twists those doctrines to fit an illogical outworking of predestination and election while ignoring relevant passages stating the contrary, thus skewing one's evangelistic methods.

Likewise, evangelism is a word used to describe the act of bearing witness of the Christ of history, what he did in time and why. Historically speaking, the method of doing so is built on a systematic approach to all the biblical texts relevant to the nature of God, the nature of man, his relationship to man, the commands pertaining to said method, historical accounts of what God has done, and the weight of future events. On the other hand, hyper-evangelism also describes a method of bearing witness but it is not a method firmly tied to a systematic which considers all the relevant biblical texts but instead, it focuses exclusively on the "offer" of the gospel and the responsibility of all sinners to “accept Jesus Christ”. It does have a skeletal framework on which it bases its methods, that God is asking all men to embrace him, and that everyone God asks to come, has the natural ability to either accept or decline the invitation, and that if one experiences sufficient regret, then their prayer to God obligates Him to extend to them His grace.

The alter call, the “sinner’s prayer”, a fixation on “numbers”, “seeker sensitivity, a bare-bones presentation of the gospel (in fact the removal of God’s holiness and wrath from the gospel presentation all together), no or very little discipleship, no church discipline, a focus on false worship, a confusion of indicative and imperative passages and of law and gospel, a denial of perseverance (Christ’s lordship and the believer’s security), the promotion of the believer’s “temporal prosperity”, and in the most severe cases, a denial of original sin are either, symptoms of, or practices resulting from hyper-evangelism.

Hence a Paradox

As we debate one another over various things, we engage in arguments in order to prove our position to be true, or to prove the position of our opponent to be false. Within this realm of discussion, discourse and dialogue we find what are called syllogisms. Syllogisms are defined by Princeton this way: "deductive reasoning in which a conclusion is derived from two premises." Although a syllogism may be formally valid and the two premises may not contradict one another, the conclusion of a formally valid syllogism may still be false because one or both of the premises is untrue. For instance:

God has created everything that exists; Christ exists, therefore God created Christ.

I believe we can all see how the syllogism "makes formal sense" if both the premises are assumed to be true, but the conclusion is false because the first premise is false; the first premise is this, God has created everything that exists, the second premise is, Christ exists. While the second premise is true, that Christ does exist, the first premise is false, God did not create everything that exists...God exists and He did not create Himself!

Another concept we encounter as we engage others in matters of debate is that of contradictions and paradox. These two concepts are easily confused; sometimes persons think an idea or two premises are contradictory when they are actually only a paradox.

First, let's examine the two terms:

1. Contradiction - This literaly is a combination of two words, contra (which means against), and diction (which comes from the Latin word - dictio - which means words, speech, or to speak), so the word contradiction means - to speak against. The law of non contradiction states that "A" cannot be "A" and non "A" at the same time and in the same relationship. Aristotle put it this way, "one cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time".

2. Paradox - On the other hand, a paradox (a compound word combining the idea of coming beside and speaking well of) is the combination of two or more premises which appear to be contradictory on the surface, but with further clarification (perhaps with the introduction of another premise) investigation may result in the combination's exoneration of the charge of contradiction. For further definition, this word comes from the Greek word, paradoxos which means seemingly absurd or, contrary to expectation. Below, I will use the example of a particular car and its characteristics to demonstrate the difference between a contradiction and a paradox.

And now, imagine a car, half of which is red, half of which is blue.

Premises Developed About The Car

True premises:

1. The car is blue


2. The car is red.


3. The car is blue and red.

False premises:

1. The car is not blue.


2. The car is not red.


3. The car is not blue & red.

If this was my car and it was not in view, but I attempted to describe it to you, I could state any of the 3 true premises as fact. It would be a statement of truth if I told you that my car was red. It would also be a statement of truth if I told you that my car was blue. It would also be a true statement if I told you that, my car was red; my car was blue, hence the paradox: the car is red, and the car is blue, at the same time; both statements are true and do not contradict one another because the car is painted half red and half blue. A contradiction would occur if I told you that my car was red; my car was not red, at the same time and in the same relationship.

Eight Revealing Questions: Questions #3 & #4: Installment #5

Revealing Questions Concerning the Will of God Over His Creation:
Installment number five: Question #3

In the following discourse, I have also answered the next question in this discussion as well, question #4, Why do I choose what I choose? The answer to this is very simple as it was answered in installment #4 as we discussed question #2, I choose what I want to choose, well...because I want to; because that is my strongest desire.

The primary question to be answered in this installment is this: can I be forced to choose something I do not want? Ultimately I would say no, not if I have the capacity to do that which I desire. Following are three examples used to illustrate this point.

a. Perhaps one day I decide I would like to fly by my own power, no assistance, no wings, and no devises. Right up front we must acknowledge the fact that I do not have the capacity of unassisted flight and my shear willing it to happen is unrealistic and irrational. So if two choices are before me, under normal circumstances I will always choose that which I most strongly desire; that to which I am most strongly inclined. But this situation is abnormal. Nearly every kid has at one time or another wanted to simply jump into the air and fly. He may even have a very strong desire to fly. However, he may not legitimately choose that which only seems to be his strongest desire because he is not capable of choosing it. He may have a powerful inward desire to fly but he is incapable of inclining himself to fulfill it. This leads us to a consequent question, can one actually desire most strongly, that for which he has no natural capacity? I may have a strong inclination toward flying, but I have no empathetic understanding of its mechanics, thus I do not understand what it would really mean to fly; I am not actually aware of the work and effort that would be involved, therefore I do not actually desire to fly, but what I desire is my understanding of what flying is. I desire a caricature of flying, but not flying itself. So I conclude that one cannot most strongly desire that for which one has no natural capacity to do or to even understand. I call this the futile wish, and it is most probably relegated to the human race and a condition of the fall, as a consequence of our depravity, because we know that we will not be able to desire anything we cannot do or have in the eternal state with God. Perhaps Hell, at least in part, consists of eternally unfulfilled futile wishes and unsatisfied desires.

b. The second example is only slightly different. Imagine being tied to a chair by an abductor. This illustration tries to answer the question, what if I can’t do what I want. This example illustrates both a lack of capacity and a conflict between what I call contiguous desires, or desires that appear to be very close in intensity or strength, with a nearly inappreciable difference. In this situation, you would obviously have a very strong desire to be free. On the one hand, you may actually be able to free yourself from the chair when your abductor turns his back or leaves the room but the success of this venture may result in having to pull one of your wrists out of socket, or cut off your hand by vigorously rubbing it against the cords with which your hands are tied. So your choice now is between your desire to be free and your desire not to remove your hand. Even these choices lend themselves to a degree of capacity—can you actually pull your wrist out of socket, will the cord cut through your hand, or can you twist your arm enough to pull your hand off at the wrist. If you are able to do either of these things, would you desire strongly enough to do so, or would your desire to not pull your wrist out of socket, cut it or pull it off out weight your desire to be free? Even if you are able to free yourself in one of these ways, you must also consider what would happen next. Will you bleed to death from your wounds? Once you are free from the chair will you then be able to defend yourself with such a handicap? At this point (assuming you can break free by removing your wrist) and weighing all these nuances together, it becomes more a matter of discretion than capacity. Though you have a very strong desire to be free from the chair you choose not to remove or dislocate your hand because keeping your hand intact in the end was a stronger desire than your desire to free yourself in that way. Though you very much want to be free, your stronger desire is to leave your hand attached to your arm, so in the end you chose the strongest between several contiguous desires, thus the rule was not violated—you were not actually hindered from doing that which you desired most strongly, it only appears so because, of the choices you had, the two strongest desires were so close in strength, but in the final assesment you chose according to your strongest desire, thus you were not made to choose something you did not want to choose.

c. Here is the third example which describes how we all choose accoding to our strongest desire and we are never compelled to choose something outside of our nature, thus we remain volitional creatures as God has created us:

Imagine I am driving down the road with every intention of taking a right at the next stop light however, as I sit in line waiting for the light to turn green a man jumps in the back of my car and while holding a gun to my head he demands that I turn left at the light and insists that he will kill me if I don’t do as he says. I now have an added element in the choice I would make. Had the man never jumped in my car I would have turned right because that is the direction I most strongly desired to go. But now, because of the threat to my life (which will end up being a determining cause in my choice) I choose to turn left. Does this mean that I have done something that I did not want to do? While I would have had the desire and the capacity to turn right at the light, my stronger desire was to save my life by turning left. Because of the introduction of another efficient cause (the threat to my life) the formal cause (my motivation) was altered, thus the conflict was no longer simply between turning left or right. The conflict would then have been between turning right (as I initially intended) and turning left in order to preserve my life. Because I more strongly desired to preserve my life than to turn right, I fulfilled my stronger affection toward one of two contiguous desires by turning left. So again, I surmise that I cannot ultimately be forced to do something that I don’t want to, and I cannot actually desire that which I have no capacity to do.

For a little background, a philosopher named Aristotle lived in the 4th century BC and was the teacher of Alexander the Great, and the student of another prominent philosopher named Plato. It was in that environment where he developed the "four causes of nature" as an answer to the question: why does anything exist rather than nothing? I used these ideas to help answer the question in the previous paragraph. The four causes are these: material, efficient, formal, and final.

1. The material causes of my choice to turn left were the things that had to exist for my choice:

my existence, the road, the intersection, etc.

2. Some of the efficient causes for my turning left were:

the threat to my life, the place I want to go, etc.

3. Some of the formal causes were:

all the motivating causes like, the gunman and my desire to preserve my life,

4. The final causes for my choice to turn left:

my stronger desire to turn left over my weaker desire to turn right, and ultimately, and at the same time, God's decree for me to turn left.

The Seed of Substitutionary Atonement is Sown in the Soil of Covenant Theology

Preface

The truth of the substitutionary atonement is at the very heart of the gospel, and this truth cannot exist consistently except in some degree of the acceptance of federal theology; a theology that affirms Adam's failed representation of the entire human race in the covenant of works as our federal head, and Christ's successful representation of the elect as a fulfillment of the covenant of works, also as our federal head.

From the beginning (Genesis 3:15) redemptive history has foretold the coming of The Seed of Abraham, Jeshua ha Messiah, God among us, The Anointed One, The Holy One of God, the Christ through the prophetic Word of God and that history has also shown all of us pictures of this Coming One through: the types and shadows of Old Covenant symbols. So even Adam and his immediate posterity had, through God’s curse of the Serpent, the gospel, a promise of good news and ever since then, God by His merciful grace has progressively revealed to the world this Jesus through His special revelatory work.

Perhaps most eloquently summed up in the words of Paul to the Corinthians, substitutionary atonement is described this way: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21). So the idea invested in the term substitution is that Christ did not merely do this thing for us—so as to only set an example, or to us—so as only to provide the foundation for a righteousness which in us would inhere. Certainly He did do it for us and eventually by His Spirit, to us, but not only that, He has done this thing in our place so we would not have to, and because we could not do it, even in the slightest. Substitution is that doctrine which teaches that, because of our deadness to spiritual things, Christ obeyed the commands of God’s Law perfectly—for us and in our place; He fulfilled the Law in every respect, and He endured all the wrath of God that would be due every elect individual had God not predestined them to good works and glory.

Covenant Theology

Christ came as the second, or last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:44-46); in that passage, Paul shows us the progression of the “two Adams” from the natural to the Spiritual. Christ fulfilled the covenant of works on our behalf—in our place. That which Adam failed to do in the covenant God made with Him, Christ succeeded in doing by His life of perfect obedience and His death of satisfaction which in turn displayed the intentions set forth in the covenant between The Father and Son and Holy Spirit for redemption. In the quote below, John Owen speaks of this eternal covenant:

“The will of the Father appointing and designing the Son to be the head, husband, deliverer, and redeemer of his elect, his church, his people, whom he did foreknow, with the will of the Son voluntarily, freely undertaking that work and all that was required thereunto, is that compact (for in that form it is proposed in the Scripture) that we treat of.”

The Covenant of Works

The covenant of works, or the covenant of life some have called it, is that covenant made with Adam and through which God offered life to Adam on the basis of Adam’s obedience to the law which God had revealed to him. The conditional nature of this covenant can be summed up in the formula, “Do this and you shall live”. Much like the covenant God made with Israel’s representative head Moses on Mt. Sinai, God promised Adam life if he obeyed, if he would not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; conversely, God promised to curse Adam and his posterity if he did not live up to the stipulations of that covenant. Before Adam had fallen, as he had been created by God, he had the ability to sin and the ability to not sin. Augustine of Hippo termed his state in Latin as, posse peccare, posse non peccare. We know Adam had the ability to sin because he did sin. We know that Adam had the ability to not sin because God created man and said His creation was very good; God created Adam and Eve holy and happy as the catechism says. We know that Adam failed to uphold the stipulations of this covenant but that Christ fulfilled them.

The Covenant of Grace

God made another covenant with man, this time with the man Abraham specifically and the promises of this covenant are to all his seed in Christ. We call this covenant the covenant of grace, and this covenant is unconditional. We know by the comments God made to Abraham in Genesis, and the nature of the cutting of the covenant itself that, God intended to fulfill the stipulations of this covenant on our behalf. As a luminous picture of this trans-historical covenant, God commanded Abraham to take his only son Isaac, his heir, heir of the promise to the top of Mount Moriah to sacrifice him on an alter for worship. Unknown to Abraham, God had prepared a substitute for Isaac. So after that day, Abraham and all subsequent generations of redeemed individuals are called to look upon this picture and see, first: that God the Father sacrificed God the Son on the cross, and that the knife blade that was raised to cut us off was stayed, we were loosed and taken down off the alter and Christ was bound, beaten, and cut off in our place.

The Grand Inconsistency

When those who have no idea what covenant theology is or those who berate covenant theologians co-opt the concept of substitutionary atonement, they do so at the expense of inconsistency in their own systems (or lack thereof). The inconsistency is this, that many who have rejected the covenantal view of redemptive history: that Christ merited the grounds of our justification by being the substitute Law-abider; He did this by meeting the stipulations of the covenant of works, the same covenant Adam failed to fulfill thus plunging his posterity into death, consequently will normally support a "Dispensational" system: that God relates to men in different economies of time by giving them specific revelation, conditions which they (even though by God's grace) are required to meet in order to please God and thus the end of such an economy usually occurs near the time when God determines that the stipulations of His special revelation of law has been adequately violated and/or disregarded, yet dispensational theologians still embrace the doctrine of substitution even though they largely reject the idea that a particular covenant and the trans-economical continuity thereof, was made with Adam (wherein he represented the entire human race) which he disobeyed as our representative, and that Christ (being the "Second Adam") obeyed all the stipulations of that covenant as our representative and effected redemption for His people. So you see that the idea of substitution grows out of the covenantal concept—Christ obeyed for us the covenant that Adam disobeyed for us. On the contrary, historic dispensational theology obviously does not sow in the soil of federal theology, nor do they have the grounds to systematically affirm Christ’s work as our substitute in covenant with God. I suppose in one sense this inconsistency is good, I'd rather see many redeemed and inconsistent evangelical dispensationalists who dislike "Covenant Theology" proper (for whatever reason) but who love the reformed doctrine of substitution than to see many consistent evangelical dispensationalists who reject, in hatred, the idea of substitution.

On the Taxonomy of Terms in Historical Theology:

The definitions of a few fallacies :

A common example of a straw man fallacy is one used by Arminians and anti-Calvinists alike, frequently charging Calvinist with the teaching that God drags the elect kicking and screaming to their predestined position in Christ; because we say man is dead in trespasses and sins and does not seek after God and that the redemptive grace of God cannot ultimately be resisted, then therefore, God drags those He had elected into the Kingdom against their will. Likewise (as the straw man goes) we teach that there will be persons in Hell who desired God and obeyed Him but God didn't save them because they were not numbered among the elect. Nothing could be further from the truth ans no Calvinist would say (or even draw the conclusion systematically) that God drags persons into the Kingdom kicking and screaming—so the anti-Calvinist builds up a “straw man” (the conclusions with which straw men are made, even their Calvinistic opponents would disagree) which can be knocked down with ease, QED, the Calvinistic position is wrong...so goes the straw man argument.

A red herring fallacy is where someone side-steps the real issue. For instance, I can discuss the points of historic Calvinism with my non-Calvinist friend and, inevitably he will bring up the “fact” that Calvin had persons burned at the stake for not believing as he did, thus everything Calvin taught is invalid. All historical absurdity and misrepresentation aside, we need not conclude that Calvinism is formally invalid because of this objection—in fact, my friend’s argument is formally invalid because he has not dealt with the issues Calvinism raises biblically, nor has he accurately represented the history of Calvinism or John Calvin himself but instead, he has introduced information that has no relevance to the validity of Calvinistic doctrine.

The fallacy of equivocation is where one changes the definition of terms mid argument, and it might look like this, I say to my dispensational friend that, because we are made the children of Abraham at our rebirth, the Church is the Israel of God and he replies by asserting that, because we do not become ethnic Jews at our spiritual rebirth, the church is not the Israel of God. We can see that the term being equivocated is the "Israel of God". I have made no indication in my statement that I am talking about the physical, ethnic nation of Israel, in fact I have qualified my use of the term in question by stating that we are Abraham's children but my friend redefines the term thus rejecting my premise due to his faulty argumentation.

Another, perhaps clearer example of equivocation is this: non-Calvinists agree that the bible calls the unbeliever dead in his trespasses and sins, but they also say that the unbeliever is not so dead as to be rendered incapable of seeking God. In this example, the equivocation occurred in the word "dead". It is one thing to say that the unbeliever is dead in his trespasses and sin, we all agree on that, but to assert that the same dead man is capable of seeking and even choosing God in his state of deadness is to redefine the meaning of dead as contextually defined in the first premise and thus formally invalidates the non-Calvinist's position on the deadness of the unbeliever.

On the Taxonomy of Terms in Historical Theology

I have recently had some time to consider the fact that the historical definitions of the theological terms within a debate are not necessarily paramount on the mind of its participants. I don't mean to say that I have never been guilty of this negligence, but I would like to believe that in the past five years or so, as I have studied and strongly debated amongst friends the issue of Calvinism (more specifically—monergism versus synergism) I have developed a greater sensitivity to the importance of historical definitions in the taxonomy of theological distinctions. In his book, Getting the Gospel Right, R.C. Sproul has this to say, “Words are the key to knowledge. They are a form of the science of taxonomy or classification…The simple process of such classification, which is the root of all knowledge, is the process of noting similarities and differences.”

Taxonomy is contextually defined in the Sproul quote as the study of similarities and differences, and that is the differences between two or more words, and for our purpose it is the similarities and differences between two or more words/terms which symbolize (or describe) theological dogmas or concepts.

Words are like symbols, and on a “molecular” level they are in fact made up of the combination of smaller symbols—letters. Can you imagine a world of debate, instruction, or apologetic endeavors where the participants of that debate or the author of that polemic decided that the historical use of the symbols (or the letters) of the language in which he was writing were not so important, or worse—irrelevant? No one would understand what he trying to say; he would have to define (or redefine) every combination of symbols—terms—that he was trying to use to prove a point. That sounds absurd I know, but it is very much the same as what takes place when someone engages in a theological debate and is either ignorant of the historical theology that surrounds the issues or worse, he decides to disregard the proper historical use of those terms and import his own meaning, and this may be done for various reasons. One instance of this is provided in a book written by Norman Geisler called, Chosen But Free, wherein he labeled historic Calvinistic belief as “extreme” or “hyper” Calvinism, and took the classic five points of Calvinism and so redefined them as to appropriate their revised meanings and then he referred to himself as a “moderate Calvinist”. But in his fallacious process of equivocation, Geisler only co-opted the names of the five points to describe the same old, popular non-Calvinism in a different way; in an attempt to avoid what he referred to as “extreme” Calvinism and “extreme” Arminianism, he instead adopted another extremity—extremely fallacious argumentation.

I realize the example above is extreme in degree, but in the present American theological climate it is wide spread in its sort. In Geisler’s case, he was not only partly ignorant of the way Calvinism had been historically defined (or simply incapable of understanding how it had been described in the sources he chose to research) he also rejected that definition to serve whatever his motivations were. The point I am trying to make is that when one neglects or refuses to understand the historical categories and terms that surround a presently debated theological topic, or they do understand the historical theological issues but decide to ignore them, then they will inevitably commit the “straw man”, “red herring”, “equivocation”, and “false dilemma” fallacies, thus rendering their own arguments invalid.

As we employ the historical understandings of current theological debates (because we know that, even if one generation rejects heresy it does not mean that it will not be recycled by the next—though not all debates are between heresy and orthodoxy, sometimes there are intra-orthodox debates) we must be careful not to argue fallaciously ourselves; we must not make an “appeal to history” as a sole proof of orthodoxy because we know that the Word of God is our only authority in doctrine and practice, nor should we ignore the evolution of definitions, understanding that over time the meanings of words do have a tendency to change; we must differentiate between classical and current definitions of a word. But this evolution happens quite slowly and gradually, and one’s awareness of historical theology is not an option—it is imperative! Even so, there will always be those who, for whatever poorly examined reasons, wrongly reject history (particularly in the forms of creeds and confessions) in the defense of sola scriptura, and who opt for a “macro-evolutionary” or “inter-special” approach to the definition of terms over time.

Eight Revealing Questions: Question #2: Installment #4

Revealing Questions Concerning the Will of God Over His Creation:
Installment number four: Question #2

If the answer to the first question, “does God know our future choices” is yes, then the second question is begged, were our choices really free? To adequately answer this question we must define what is meant by “choices” and by “free”. Briefly, our choices encompass all the decisions we make, whether as individuals or part of a larger cooperation; the actions we determine to take and all our preceding ruminations regarding the action—action being defined as some sort of speech or movement. The word free may herein be defined as the ability and necessity of making a choice based on our desires and affections. Thus we are free to choose according to our desires, so it could be said that we always choose freely, according to our greatest desire, and our desires are necessarily limited by our capabilities, whether mental or physical. Consequently, the puritan Jonathan Edwards wrote broadly on this very topic in his work, “The Freedom of The Will.

Over against the Reformed/historical (and I think biblical) view of God’s providence, we sometimes hear explanations like this, “Well, we know that God could have created a world in which He retained His sovereign control over the will of man but we know that He decided to withhold His sovereign reign over the will of man and His choices in order to establish human culpability and to protect Himself from being charged with evil. The evidence for this is the fact that evil exists at all.”

So the answer to question two is yes, God can and does know what I will choose and the choices I make are also free, because my freedom is established (not denied) by the fact that I choose according to my strongest desire; my choices are governed by my affections. As a mater of fact, I always choose based on my strongest inclination. My will not only influences my decisions, it (in the immediate sense) determines them. The fact that I always do what I want also establishes the compatibility between God’s ordination and knowledge of my future choice and the freedom of my choice. Remember Genesis 50:20:
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

In that verse we see how Joseph’s brothers did as they pleased, they desired to sell Joseph into slavery; they were not forced to do so. At the same time, God had ordained all those events and meant them for good; so we can see that the same event can be purposed for wickedness by evil men, and purposed for good but a holy God. So God has done as He pleased and accomplished what He had determined from before the foundation of the world, not acting in response to what Joseph’s brothers had done, and Joseph’s brothers freely chose to act upon the evil intentions of their hearts, thus human freedom (the ability to choose according to our desires) and God’s sovereign ordination are compatible.

The Fama Dei of Politicology

In academic or scholastic theological circles, we speak of the “three legs of the theological stool”: historical theology, biblical theology, and systematic theology. I am suggesting another category, which may or may not fit under or along side one of the three legs as a category or sub-category. I must also note that I have not fully researched and studied the distinctions I just mentioned, so if there is a name which exists to describe the following, then I am not aware of it and I ask your forgiveness because I may be repeating the work of previous generations.

First things first, what in the world does “fama Dei” mean? Fama is a Latin word which means public opinion, talk, report, rumor or tradition. According to the definition given by the Online English to Latin dictionary sponsored by the University of Notre Dame, the Latin word fama means, “fama -ae f. [talk , report, rumor, tradition]; 'fama est', [there is a rumor]; [public opinion; standing in public opinion, repute], good or bad.” Dei of course is a derivative of the Latin word for God, so the term fama Dei literally means talk, rumor or public opinion about God. I will use the term to more specifically describe what may have been previously studied as “popular theology”, and I may use the two terms interchangeably; so the term in this context can be taken to mean, the widely accepted and public opinion about theological issues.

Another and more specific way to put it is this—the popular, “Christian” opinion of a particular doctrine (including the biblical interpretation from which the doctrine is derived and its application in practical life). What I mean in the previous definition by “Christian” is—all those who call themselves Christians; and are those who have likely been counted in a “Barna Poll”. An example of an American (and perhaps wider) fama Dei of end times would be that, because ethnic Israel is a political state God is preparing the world for its end. Another simple example would be the current, popular theology of alcohol which is, that Christians don’t drink it. In other words, one could often say that fama Dei, or popular theology refers to what the World thinks “Christians” think about topic “x”; so it is different than orthodoxy—which largely reflects the consensus of what actual Christians actually believe about a particular doctrine in a particular generation—in that it is instead, a consensus of ideas about a doctrine held by believers and unbelievers that may or may not be true, and may or may not be held by actual believers.

Perhaps a more complex example is the fama Dei of political “involvement”; the research and study of political positions and ones implementation of the resultant views into life and practice—and for this complicated concept I may use the term, politicology. So, politicology would refer to political science, and its application; the study of: government, political affairs, and affairs of state, governmental policy, political beliefs, opinions, principles and views and also the necessary, subsequent adaptation of those issues into ones psyche which, consciously or not, one uses to filter information and opine about every topic encountered.

While not being healthy in the body of Christ, it is quite popular these days, at least on American soil, for one to falsely equate the political movement called Conservativism (or even Republicanism) with Christianity, denying the possibility of a Christian Democrat or a Christian who does not fit easily into the mold of popular Conservativism—many would say that the two are quite contrary, thus they must be contradictory. While it is true that some doctrines widely held by the Democratic Party so alienate them from Christian theology that it makes the promoters of such dogmas not Christians, or at best very immature Christians. Of course I am speaking, in one case, of the policy of “choice”; the woman’s right to kill the baby with which she is pregnant, this teaching is contrary to Christianity all together and it must be said of one who holds that abortion is not a sin is thus not a clear thinker; they either are not thinking clearly about Christ, therefore they are not Christians in the first place, or they are not thinking clearly about abortion, therefore they hold to a contradiction in their view of reality. That aside, the fama Dei of politicology (specifically the American type) is: pro war, pro family, and pro death penalty, pro free firearms distribution, pro Israel/ anti Palestine, and anti abortion, etc. It must be said that some of these planks are right and are Christian and some of them must be held by the one who aims to please Christ, but my point is that the fama Dei of politicology is that Christians are by definition, well-to-do American Republicans.

It is not uncommon today to see a Baptist, or a “fundamentalist” Christian pastor, or in some cases even a Presbyterian man in the political spotlight today. The popular theology of politicology has escaped the bounds of simple interest in the lives of many Christians today. One would find it difficult to turn on the TV or radio and discover a Christian program that wasn’t focused in some way on the political application of our inheritance with Christ. In some small way I place the blame on our dispensational brothers, who have so emphasized the earthly aspects of the inheritance of those in Christ, or have confused the promises of the Mosaic covenant with the promises of the New covenant, that the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of man on God’s behalf, that their focus has unfortunately been relieved of Christ’s Kingdom by the kingdom of the perishing; the kingdom of this world.

The right and true ordinances given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself were Baptism and the Lord’s Table, both physical pictures of the spiritual reality of our citizenship in the everlasting Kingdom of heaven. While many ecclesiastical leaders today would (not formally of course) have us to ultimately become, citizens of the Kingdom of American, or democratic freedom, worshiping the idol of capitalism through the sacraments of:

1. Voting (like baptism it is an identification with the “right” party) and
2. Boycotts, with which one practices communion with the greater good of Conservativism; it is an expression of being together with a group; fellowship in the rejection of the same things; “...we are all together against the same worldly evils...”, and so on.

It is easy to see that this view of Baptist and communion are not born out of the covenantal understanding of the ministries ordained by God but their understanding arises from a false interpretation of symbol, one which sees baptism as little more than an outward and visible expression of a prayer which was recited some time before, and one which sees communion as a simple rejection of perceived “sins”, but not real sins, just the rejection of conventional taboos—whatever they may be; a rejection of the common, subjective moralistic code instead of adherence to the objective Law of God. In the absence of true Law, some ruling force must come into power to frighten the people, and we must set aside a time to commemorate our agreement upon these surrogate rules by our consumption of the tactile symbols of Christ’s work, we somehow mysteriously acknowledge that we are capable of living up to them, but we haven’t, and that is why we should repent. (There is heavy sarcasm here if you didn’t notice).

In the end, in order to counteract the fama Dei of politicology, I think we need a new fundamentalist. Not like the first, like Machen, who countered the liberals who were his contemporaries, but one like Jesus, who countered the pharisaical hypocrites. What we need is a “neo-fundamentalist movement” which will counter the “religious right” and the so called, “conservative Christian” with the objective Law of God, which will also counter the moralistic, conservative, republicans in Christian clothing with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and may the Lord either soften their hearts with salvation or so harden them so that we may easily tell the difference. It is the meek who inherit the Earth, not those who possess political savoir-faire.