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Tuesday, May 24, 2005 posted by R.C. 10:06 PM link |
The Son of a Preacher Man Everyone worries about PK’s. They have a reputation for rebellion. Some suggest that this is the fruit of P’s not minding their K’s. That is, preacher’s kids often end up in deep weeds because the preacher is so busy tending to the broader flock that he neglects the smaller one. Others, on the other hand, suggest that rebellion is common among preacher’s kids because they live their lives in a fishbowl. Rebellion, we are to conclude, is the natural consequence of people having high expectations for you. Though my own father now serves as minister of preaching at Saint Andrews Chapel in Florida, I am not exactly a PK, but more of a TK, a theologian’s kid. Better still, my father was, and is, a warm, attentive and godly man that did not neglect my sister and I when we were growing up. The fishbowl issue wasn’t much of an issue when I was growing up, in large part because my friends and neighbors had no idea what my father did for a living. Because his visibility was more ideological than geographic, I was virtually invisible growing up. I have, of course, much that I am ashamed of in my past. My problem wasn’t, however, that I was a PK or a TK, but that I was an AK, an Adam’s kid. While my father’s reputation in our ideological circles has always been there, it is only after I have grown up that his visibility has taken off. (Keep in mind, however, that there are probably more people who know who Creflo Dollar is than know who R.C. Sproul is.) I’m not a kid anymore, but people are still watching me, because of the kind of work that I do. One of the great things about the depth to which God has gifted my father is that it puts competition out of the question. I know I can’t win, and so there isn’t much point in playing. My father and I are in the same line of work in the same way that the Space Shuttle and a paper airplane are both man-made flying objects. I don’t need to worry whether I will measure up, because no one ought to expect me to. That God is faithful to His covenants doesn’t mean that succeeding generations receive the same or even equal measure of gifting from the hand of our King. That said, there are at least two hardships to come with this blessed territory of being my father’s son. First, there are those horrible times when he gets blamed for my own foibles. I don’t want to be to my father what Servetus is to John Calvin. My father’s fame and mine are so distant that there are rather a few people who see the “Jr.” and don’t think it signifies a different person, but that it is a superfluous suffix. I don’t want to embarrass my father a bit by being me. How much less so do I want to embarrass him by being him? Those who love him and hate me I pray will not hold him accountable for my weaknesses, whether imagined or real. Second, while there isn’t much sting when people comment, “My how far the apple falls from the tree” or, “This is Sproul Jr., not be confused with his far more biblical and intelligent father…”, it does get under my skin a touch when people suggest that I’m seeking to get ahead by trading on my father’s name. The problem isn’t essentially the part about my father’s name, but this notion that I’m trying to get ahead. I’m not riding my father’s coattails because I’m not trying to get anywhere. I mean, mercy, if I thought I were on some kind of career path, don’t you think I’d at least have enough sense to play it a little safer? All of which ought to remind us again of the dangers of being too clever. I wonder how often I have looked at a family situation, a church context, a series of work relationships and determined that my keen powers of insight into the circumstance can give me a glimpse into the hearts of others. Then, impressed with my own insight, I assign and then judge motives. This kind of “insight” is a dangerous game, the gossip equivalent of prophecy, except no one gets stoned when the guess turns out wrong. Instead, they get more hits on their blog. [comments] |
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Saturday, May 21, 2005 posted by R.C. 10:01 PM link |
Going the Distance It is the work of the devil that we have reached that place where we tend to think of pastors somehow as less masculine that those pursuing other callings. Cowboys and football players have he-man reputations, while men of the cloth generally are perceived as having all the machismo of Ichabod Crane. I suppose that this confusion begins with misunderstanding the nature of masculinity. We, because we are worldly, think being a man is all about being able to inflict a whuppin’. The truth of the matter is, the mark of a man is his capacity to take a whuppin’. This is why the first Rocky movie was the greatest Rocky movie. The hero was a hero because he took a beating, and went the distance. Masculinity is outward looking, risk taking. We pursue women, not because we prefer to choose, but instead so that we take the risk, we receive the rejection. (Which is why, by the way, immodest clothing on women is at its base masculine, as it screams, “Pick me!”) We put the women and children on the boat first not because death is noble, but because men are to put themselves in harm’s way. Which is the way of the pastor. When a man commits to a flock, he commits to love the sheep. The sheep, on the other hand, tend to think like consumers. You, as the pastor, receive their love, as long as they’re pleased with what and how you’re preaching, with how well you perform your pastoral duties, with the clothes you wear. But once you fall out of favor, then half the relationship changes. The sheep start looking for greener pastures, while you still must love the sheep. You cry out to them, and they simply reject you. They move on, and your heart is broken. The true pastor is not only the one who can still take the risk by loving those who remain in the flock, and who are added to it, but who can, and will, continue to love those who have fled the flock. It is a high and hard calling. But this is the way of the pastor, the way of the warrior. [comments] |
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Monday, May 09, 2005 posted by R.C. 11:34 PM link |
An Apology I have two apologies to make. The first is comparatively innocuous, and isn’t designed to hinder the reality of the second. I begin with the lesser crime, recognizing that a greater yet looms over me. First, I was insufficiently clear in what I wrote with respect to women bloggers. While reading the first dozen or so people grumble that I was misapplying Paul’s admonition that women should not exercise authority over a man, I simply thought, “Interesting that these folks should fault my understanding of a text I did not quote, while failing to deal with the text that I did quote.” When the second and third dozen followed in the same footsteps, I came to believe that the problem was mine. I jumbled together issues of male and female roles, teaching with or without authority, Internet and in-real-life relationships, and Internet diaries and polemical blogs into one too-brief piece, and made a mush of the whole thing. For that I am deeply sorry. I misused the medium by trying to tackle half a dozen serious issues with an off-the-cuff commentary. Ironically, in short, I hit myself with my own friendly fire. The more serious confession, however, comes, again without missing any irony, from what I learned in reading sundry responses. I was familiar, before I wrote the piece, with the ministries of Deborah and Priscilla. I am well aware, as is the most ardent patriarch, that the Proverbs 31 woman buys a field. What I failed to grasp was exactly what so many pointed out to me: Titus 2 isn’t designed to be a complete list of what a woman may teach, nor even whom she may teach. Not only did Priscilla certainly bring something more to the table than “Wives, submit to your own husbands” (though I would argue that such isn’t simply a simple, discreet bit of data that we can simply learn and move on from), but I have learned from, been inspired by, and grown in grace through the gifts of women such as Elisabeth Elliot, Nancy Wilson, and, not least, my own dear wife. What I should have said is this: The Internet, because it allows for decentralized communication, multiplies the dangers that are inherent in our egalitarian age. Once upon a time, parachurch ministries, for all their dangers, had as an advantage that it took some level of financing to get the thing off the ground. That meant, however wobbly, some kind of broad accountability. Now we live in a world where someone with $15 a month can devote themselves to finding thousands of devoted students. Technology has made “Let not many of you become teachers” become a greater danger than it ever had been before. And “Do not lay hands on anyone hastily” (I Timothy 5:22) hasn’t yet been translated into “Do not add Mr. or Mrs. Self-Professed Expert to your list of favorite links hastily,” as it perhaps should be. The Internet, whatever its strengths, makes it easier for people, male and female, to “teach,” albeit without authority, and makes it easier for people, male and female, to sit at the feet of “teachers,” albeit without authority. I sinned in my own lack of care not only in how I said things but what I said. I failed not only to communicate accurately, but more importantly, to communicate biblically. Again, I apologize. Now, for all those kind folks who cheered me on through this debacle, let me say this: While I am happy now to concede that Titus 2 doesn’t give an exhaustive list of all the things of which a woman may speak, or to whom she may speak them, I’d still like to encourage folks to consider whether they are doing what they are commanded to do before they consider what else they might be allowed to do. If a woman is not first teaching younger women to love their husbands and children, to be discreet and chaste, to tend their homes, then perhaps she shouldn’t be expanding her curriculum to include other subjects. The same is true for men. We too ought to step away from the keyboard if we are not speaking the things which are proper for sound doctrine, that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience. I do ask for forgiveness as widely as my sin went forth. [comments] |
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Tuesday, May 03, 2005 posted by R.C. 9:42 PM link |
The Wars Within Our Walls It ought to demonstrate my own indebtedness to Anabaptist living that one of the internal purpose statements we used to use here at the Highlands Study Center was that we exist, “to help the anabaptist’s think like the Reformed and the Reformed live life the Anabaptists.” It has long been my contention that Anabaptists get high marks for living, if not talking, in a covenantal manner. These folks tend to raise their children in the context of their convictions. The husbands, more often than not, are the heads of their homes. They rightly eschew the wisdom and practices of the world. On the other hand, their theology is, as one might expect from radical Reformers, a-historical and leans well to the left. (And if this doesn’t describe you, well then it doesn’t describe you and you have nothing to complain about.) We who are Reformed, on the other hand, tend to practice a delicate balance of a sold-out commitment to the Bible without in turn denying the fifth commandment. We honor our fathers, and recognize that while the church is continuing to reform, God didn’t abandon the church from 70 AD to this hour. We learn from our fathers, just as our fathers during the Reformation learned from their fathers. Reformed folk, on the other hand, tend to more embrace the world and its wisdom. Our lives are virtually indistinguishable from the world around us. Wouldn’t you think a marriage would be in order here? Can’t we learn something from each other? Trouble I’m finding, however, is that the Reformed are squealing when we encourage a less worldly approach to things, (Monastics! Neandrathals! Anabaptists!) and the Anabaptists object when we suggest that they ought to leave that baby in the bath water (Crypto-Catholics! Worldly! Unbiblical!). Worse still, these two groups keep fighting with each other. The Reformed, because so many of them will not put aside modernity’s machines, like schools and sundry programs, and because they get their knickers in a twist when folks choose to drop out of these programs, just can’t understand why their Anabaptist brethren won’t get with the program. And the Anabaptists, practicing a solipsistic solo Scriptura, in turn thumb their noses not only at their fathers in history, but at the very elders who will have to give an answer for their souls. In other words, the Reformed act like cranky worldlings and the Anabaptists act like petulant and rebellious children. The Reformed are confirmed in their estimation of the Anabaptists, who return the favor with a hearty, “Told you so.” One of the things I have been emphasizing of late is the importance of looking to our own temptations. It is all too easy to worry about what the other guy is doing. At the Highlands Study Center we aren’t in any immediate danger, at least touching on the fruit of the vine, of developing weak consciences. Flaunting our liberty, however, is a distinct danger. Which means of course, that rather than worrying about what’s wrong with those Anabaptists and those Reformed folk, I need to be thinking about how we are contributing to this mess. While we’re trying to figure that out, however, we will continue to encourage our Reformed brothers to put away their cleverness and embrace simplicity, while encouraging our Anabaptist brothers to try a little respect and submission to authority. [comments] |