Update on The Gospel According to Jesus: What Is Authentic Faith? by John MacArthur (that I mentioned on Wed 7/17/2013 in "Training a generation of human cogs."):
I stopped at audio chapter 56, where MacArthur says:
"The remedy Luther found was the doctrine of justification by faith. His discovery launched the Reformation that put an end to the Dark Ages."
A few problems.....
1. The "Dark Ages" weren't that dark; use of that term today instead of the "Middle Ages" is often to slant the ear toward a "brighter" period afterward.
2. The Fall of Rome is generally regarded as the beginning of the Middle Ages. Some historians end the Middle Ages at Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas (1492), the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks (1453), the Italian Renaissance (14th century), or the Protestant Reformation (1517). Luther didn't usher in human re-enlightenment any more than the barbarians extinguished it.
3. And Luther didn't "discover" anything, he invented an alternative. (Some of it very interesting.)
4. And another thing: Just after MacArthur says you can't dissect parables to the last detail without damaging their intent, he goes on to dissect parables to the last detail until, if you listen for an extended time, you get the feeling that you're listening to a month of 3-point sermon on a deck of note cards laid end to end.
It may be because I have an evangelical background and have heard most of it before, but it grew overlong and old rather quickly.
Down every rabbit hole and throughout each warren, Macarthur's point remains "If you're not acting like a Christian you're not one," and every verse is interpreted to support that.
The whole book (well, up through Chapter 56) can be distilled down to "If it doesn't quack like a duck..."
There are, unfortunately, large groups of people that don't think ducks have to quack to be ducks, and this book is intended for them. The quackless ducks are Christians that go to church and claim the title but persist in acting very unlike Christians.
Most of the church is like so much Duck L'Orange - it looks great but tastes gamy and eventually goes on the list of "I'm glad I tried it but wouldn't order it again."
And that's too bad.
But I got the message, so I moved on to William Peter Blatty's Crazy, which is so far very good; a little like Catcher in the Rye.
Next up (after I find my mp3 player; it's boxed up somewhere after the move): Machiavelli in Context, or Einstein.
Hmmm... decisions decisions.
[2013-07-13]
I'm not condoning behavior that could be categorized as 'not acting like a Christian' - But if 'not acting like a Christian' means you aren't one, then doesn't 'acting like a Christian' make you one? And if so, we are working, and not relying on Grace. - Not so, comes the answer, your works don't earn your salvation, they manifest it's genuineness. Semantics? Maybe. But pragmatically speaking, is there really a difference?
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily ("if I act like X I'm an X"), because, for example, all collies are dogs but not all dogs are collies.
ReplyDelete(Thank you Mr Veith, 5th Grade math, Vernondale Elementary School in Millcreek, PA).
I heard recently on the radio an analogy: just as prevenient grace enables us to accept Jesus through faith as our savior (and so be saved), so grace enables us to perform good works that in like manner participate in our salvation.
It's therefore not a matter of earning, but of tending and fruition ("by their fruits ye shall know them.").
Chicken and egg: What came first, grace or salvation? From a human-centric perspective, they are inseparable.
(From God's perspective, that's another matter none of us are equipped to speculate.)
--c0