My PhD Journey at SWBTS

Entrance Exams

The Texas sky threatened an ice storm. My wife and the storm radar confirmed it. However, my entrance exam for the PhD program at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was scheduled early in the morning. So I reasoned that I could leave early, stay ahead of the storm, and make it to Fort Worth from College Station before it got “too bad.”

Two semi-trucks flipped over in front of me. One tried to pass another going up an ice-covered hill and I was stuck in my car for a period of about 10 hours. Although freezing, I had to turn the car off to conserve gas. I missed my interview. I was so worried and anxious in the car. “What will they think of me?” My future supervisor and the interview committee were very understanding.

While stuck in the car, I decided to read my Greek Bible, attempt to memorize some Scripture in Greek, and translate (I had plenty of free time). When I was able to reschedule my interview and entrance exam for the following day, the essay question asked me to exegete the passages I memorized. God knew what he was doing; my anxiety did not.

Reading Phase

The reading seminars out gunned me immediately. Surrounded and overwhelmed by material, my first reading seminar asked me to summarize a portion of Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma for the class. I read this work while on a mission trip to South Africa with my students from FBC Bryan. Needless to say, I wasn’t very careful with my reading. I stumbled over my entire summary. The professor “requested” I read closer and come better-prepared next time. I thought, “I’m failing God in this task he gave me.”

Years later, I was asked by a person to help them better understand Catholicism and how to share Christ with their family member. I was able to walk them through Catholic theology and show them how to carefully share the need for a personal faith in Jesus Christ. God knew I needed a better mastery of the subject. He knew what he was doing; my feelings of failure did not.

The Latin Debacle

As a prerequisite to the PhD program, competency exams in German and Latin were required. German went well (I studied it previously in college); Latin did not. The Latin professor passed away the semester before we were to take the exam. Since Latin was a prerequisite, the school left us to learn it on our own. My friends and I taught ourselves ecclesiastical Latin.

I failed my Latin exam three times, once missing the mark by a single percentage point. I was so frustrated. So worried. “What will my supervisor think?” I lost a lot of sleep over the anxiety of failing. “I don’t fail tests,” was the mantra of pride.

Failing the Latin competency exam forced me develop a means of studying. I began by reading my Bible in Latin every day. I translated a large portion of Augustine’s Confessions for my own practice. As it turns out, my dissertation topic required an ability to read Latin well. As it turns out, my children are studying Latin in school, and I help teach them. God knew what he was doing; my pride did not.

Research Seminars

Research Seminars had their own speed bumps. My first attempt at reading a research paper ended in a fellow student—a “friend”—declaring me a heretic in class! There is a punch to the gut! I wasn’t very careful with some of my phrasing concerning the Trinity. I was so embarrassed. My supervisor (and professor of the seminar, yikes!!) was very kind and gracious. He walked me through the process of being clearer in my thought. He challenged me to start writing theology for myself to develop concise thought.

The tools he taught me and the personal project of writing my own theology culminated in a video project called Two Minute Doctrine. The work itself has been rewarding in our church in Summerville, Georgia. God knew what he was doing; my embarrassment did not.

Oral Exams

Oh! And the PhD comprehensive exams! What happened can only be told as a piece of theatre. Allow me to set the scene for you:

One oral exam slated after dawn,
in fair Fort Worth, Texas we lay our scene.
From forth the fatal mind of three examiners,
a young blissfully ignorant student speaks;
whose misadventured piteous overthrows
do with his incompetent answers
bury his schooling in obscurity.

Scene 1: Interior. Night. Student’s parent’s home in Denton. Only the student and the cat are present. The cat thinks the student is an intruder.

My Mom’s Cat
Do you study to offend me, sir?

Student
No, sir, I do not study to offend you, sir.
But I do study, sir.

Mom’s Cat
Do you quarrel with me, sir?

*Cat knocks study materials onto the floor*

Me
Quarrel, sir! No, sir.
But you’re keeping me from studying, sir!

Scene 2: Interior. Night. Bedroom of Parent’s House.

My Mom’s Cat
You closed this door!
I will bang on it until it opens.

*The door opens*

My Mom’s Cat
If you fall asleep,
I will jump on your head.

Narrator
Our student awoke exhausted,
the cat triumphant.
Thus, he doubled up on coffee.
Better to be juiced and ready to go, right?
The exam went pretty well, at first.
Until the Dean of the School of Theology
started throwing softballs.

Scene 3. Interior. Morning. PhD oral exam room, second floor of Fleming Hall. Across the table from left to right of Student, the Major supervisor, The Dean, the Minor Supervisor sit.

The Dean
Define the aseity of God.

Narrator
Our PhD hopeful just finished as an assistant
teachers for the Dean’s online Systematic Theology class.
He answered this question for the Dean’s own online students.
He knew the Dean would ask this question.
He prepared for this question.
He wrote down an answer with quotes.
He memorized his answer before the exam.

Slide reads: *footage of student’s definition of aseity not found*

Dean
Would you like to try again?

Student
Ah, no?
I mean, that was the definition, right?

Dean
You tell us.

Narrator
Our floundering PhD student’s minor
is in American Church History.
He loves studying American church history.

Minor Supervisor
Can you name one evangelical American theologian
in the twentieth century?

Student
Ah, no.

Major Supervisor
Surely, you know one.

The Dean
How about Carl Henry?
Can you tell us about him?

Narrator
Now, Carl Henry is one of most
famous American theologians
of the twentieth century.
Our student’s friend wrote
a dissertation on Henry.
Our student discussed several chapters
of said dissertation with his friend.
Our student recommends
Henry’s “Christian Personal Ethics” to you.

Student
No… um… I mean… Who?
I don’t know that name.

Narrator
No, if you are blissfully unaware,
is the wrong answer,
for someone trying to prove they are an expert.
To understand our student’s failure,
you may imagine the following
conversation with your own doctor

You
Can you tell me what a virus is?”

Doctor  
No… um… I mean… I don’t know any viruses?

Narrator
GET… A… NEW… DOCTOR!

END

At this point in the exam, I’ve proven either my incompetence or laziness. When incompetence is the better of two monikers, you’re not doing well.  A recommendation for you reader, don’t put your supervisor in the position of apologizing to his superior for your complete ineptitude, by blaming nerves and coffee.

The results of the comprehensive exam? The committee thought I might need a second opportunity. They assigned me to write a brief comprehensive systematic theology.

About a year after the exam, my own son was struggling with a test. He was learning math for the first time. He wanted to do perfectly. His exam didn’t go well. He was very upset. We sat together and talked about how dad likes to do well too, that it is frustrating to work hard and fail. He was shocked to hear how often his own dad failed. Together we decided that failure, whether it is our fault or not, is inevitable. That ultimately, we are fully reliant on the grace of God for our entire lives. The best we can do as his creatures is learn, adapt, and keep working hard. Whenever my son is frustrated, fails, or go through trials, he and I have a question and response time. It goes like this:

Me
Who has failed the most in this house?

Son
Dad.

Me
And who will keep working to the glory of God?

Son
We will.

God thought my four sons needed an object lesson in humility and perseverance. Here I am Lord, send me.

Dissertation Phase

My first thesis was trash. My second thesis: rejected. My third thesis needed revision. The final thesis accepted. In 2019 I was ready, so ready, to hammer out my dissertation and finish. Then the pandemic hit. During the pandemic of 2020, I got a viral pneumonia; it completely wiped me out. For about a month, I couldn’t upkeep most of my spiritual disciplines. My ministry boiled down to bedridden praying for my flock.

What ought to have taken about a year took two.

But I found I was far less anxious and worried. God not only saw me through every phase of the PhD process, he also was faithful to use every experience to his glory.

Conclusion

What did I learn? At the beginning, I was very concerned with my own glory. Even if I verbally and mentally denied it, pride ran in the background of all my programing. Yes, my desire was to learn, know Christ better, glorify God. But I also wanted to prove myself to God, to my supervisor, to myself. I wanted to no longer feel imposter syndrome. To echo Eberhard Jüngel, I was ruled by the imperious ego.

Early on in the PhD program my supervisor wrote me an email. He concluded, “God can humble you too, boy.” His pastoral words were prophetic and, in a word, necessary.

Shouldn’t you desire to prove yourself? You’re created in the image of God! You have nothing to prove. God proved your worth by sending his Son. Often the male quest to test one’s own tenacity is little more than an idolatrous question, “Can I do this on my own?”

No, you cannot.

With my defense scheduled for some time February/March and (Lord willing) graduation in May, all I can say is that what began with an ice storm ended with a pandemic. And in it all, God was glorified.

Christ must become greater; I must become less.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Meditating on death: a memorial for 2020

I could come to terms with loss,
if good-bye only meant see you next summer;
if the cold sting of death’s winter was blunted by whispers of spring’s tiding.
But this past year heaps snow upon snow, loss upon loss;
I feel like it is always winter and never Christmas.

On April 11 we held a large memorial service for all of the members of Summerville First Baptist who lost a loved one this past year.

So, I find myself still musing over death: the impact, the loss, the sorrow of never seeing precious loved ones again.

What bothers me is the finality of it all: the final haircut, final meal, final Christmas together. Worse still, the final Easter. Drumming up a grateful chorus when death marches down the isle is difficult. The hope of an unseen resurrection feels paralyzed by death’s never ending refrains: never again a father’s good morning, never again grandmother’s how are you, never again a brother’s familiar smile, never again a mother’s loving voice.

I find each funeral makes me meditate on my own death as well. With over two dozen funerals, a year long convalescence from viral pneumonia, and the family dog getting hit by a car, thoughts of death creep through my house at night and wake me up early morning.

Here is how my 3am musings play out: Verus (9mo), my son, will likely be a grandfather one day, but I will never be around to see it. The future generations of my family, infants whom I would love so dearly, care for so powerfully, regard so highly, will not know me. The grave swallows up my love so entirely that my great grand children will only wonder, ‘who was he,’ if they care to ponder at all.

And my thoughts threaten to swamp me certain days of the year. I wake up every year on January 28th realizing I don’t share a birthday with my great grandfather any longer. Two and a half decades flew away without him; now only two or three people even remember the connection.

Only one of my grandparents knows I got married; only one knows and cares that I was born. My father’s father never saw the man I’d become, because he never even knew I was born; 40s-something is far too short a time to see saplings grow into fruit bearing trees.

Amidst these thoughts, I read a tweet from one of my highly regarded mentors that simply says, “love never ends.” Out of the wells of my grief, sarcasm threatens to reply, “what a beautiful sentiment for romantics.” I want to scream at him, of course love ends! Almost every week from April to December, I buried love in a box under six feet of dust and ashes.

Then another person tries to comfort me by saying, “they live on in your memory.” I ache for the hale stalwart strength of my grandfather’s hands embracing me, not the reanimated Frankenstein of my ever decaying memory. I yearn to hear voices at the door, not echoes in the dark! “They live on in your memory” offers so minuscule a comfort, I’d rather it not be said at all.

I know the comforting words the Bible gives us. And most days I can jump right to the page of Romans 8 and declare, “death cannot separate me from the love that is mine in Christ Jesus.” There are just some days that if I jump too quickly to this chapter, I find it lacks some potency.

There are days I just need to weep bitterly, days when triumphalism resounds on deaf ears.

Thankfully the book of Lamentations validates those days.

“How lonely sits the city that was full of people!” Lamentations 1:1.

Yes! That hits the nail on the head. I see children playing outside on my way back from burying someone’s father and say, “is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.” Doesn’t anyone understand that today isn’t normal! Everyone goes about like its a normal day. It isn’t a normal day. Normal was when all the picnic tables at the family reunion were full.

I don’t always think about loss, death, and sorrow. But something always snaps me out of the haze of that dream. “Remember my affliction my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me,” I lament to God.

Lamentations teaches me that I cannot skip the lessons learned in the valley of the shadow of death. That “it is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

When I wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord, the keenness of cross of Jesus Christ cuts through my sorrow. Then the cross is not nice sentiment, not merely a symbol, a piece of artwork, a fabricated necklace. The cross of Jesus must mean the Son of God’s humiliation unto and sorrowful identification with death. Isaiah’s verse, “He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” speaks to me.

Then I read, “Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; let him put his mouth in the dust– there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his stead fast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.”

Death hunts me like a bird of prey. Sorrow flings me alive into a pit. Despair like water closes in over my head. But God does not willingly afflict or grieve me without purpose. God did not wound the Son without purpose either. The cross, the cross of Christ, is where God answers the cries of human sorrow. He replies to me, “it is finished.”

Yes, the triumphant picture of Jesus the Lion of Judah help me avoid despair. But the slain lamb, the crucified God, the resurrected Jesus, I identify with these days. Him I hear say, “behold, I make all things new. Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true. It is done! To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”

When I read these words I realize just how thirsty my tears make me. Through anguish I realize something I didn’t before. I thought the desires of my heart longed for my loved ones to return back in this life. I was wrong. I do not want them to come home to suffering, decay, and a second death. No. I want the new earth. I want my tears stored in forgotten bottles, relics of an ancient past age. I want all things new! I want the resurrections, the love that never ends.

The cross of Christ crucified death. His resurrection promises new birth. Yes, that is what the miseries of my heart desire, all things new. Jesus alone suffices to give me hope.

In the bleak mid winter
frost wind made moan
earth stood hard as iron
water like a stone

Snow had fallen, snow on snow
Snow on snow
in the bleak mid winter
long, long ago

Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign

In the bleak mid winter
a stable place sufficed
the Lord, God, Almighty
Jesus Christ

Do You Believe in Ghosts, Poem

From March of 2019 through October,  I officiated nearly twenty funerals for family, friends, and church members. Some of these dear brothers and sisters were expected passing, most were not. On top of these funerals, a mentor of mine (a spiritual giant to me) died as well. This period of mourning in my life and our church came to a head when my own Uncle passed. I was honored and thankful to take a small part in his funeral in February.

I wrote this poem reflecting on the memories of church members and family I sorely miss. I found memories of them come upon me like a flood, often at times I do not expect. These memories spring from a joy filled past, flow into a river of tears, and threaten to empty into an ocean of despair. Without the New Testament promise of the resurrection, I’d be swept out to sea. Praise God for the promise of new life in his Son!

I want to dedicate the poem to the members of Summerville First Baptist who have lost a loved one during my short tenure as their pastor. I love you and continue to remember you in my prayers. When we share those lonesome days, those days when the heart aches, the eyes tire, and strength wanes, love the Christ of the cross, gaze into the empty tomb, and anchor your hope to the resurrection.

Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Do you beleive in Ghosts?
I do.
Seeing familiar faces,

who haunt common places.
A house,
where my children once played,

a sound my son made,
an aroma,
a taste of past pleasantries,

these are my memories.
They come
Like a flood from the past.

E’er they haunt, ne’r they last.
They’re real,
but only in my mind.

Knowing not when I’ll find,
Crypt dreams.
For a short time I smile.

I beg them stay awhile.
Rewind
I plead, come quicker.

Why do these shadows flicker?
No sound.
I am told, just because

I am lost in what was.

 

Do you believe in Ghosts?
I do.
Just not what you may find.

Mine are the holy kind,
to come.
The resurrection I will cherish.

Death’s sting, let it perish.
By faith,
I know what I’ll see,

When Christ reigns eternally.
He’s risen.
And to him I strive.

My old faces, joyful, alive,
brand new.
Memories formed made real

When the dead arise,
In Christ,
When their bones come alive,

to future memories I yearn.
I’ll wait
for glory and for joy.

When my ghosts, family,
who died,
In heaven I will see.

By faith, not by sight.
By faith.
Not by haunting dreams.

Foretold this noble scene.
I see.
Not the past but future,

the Holy Ghost will suture.
My tears?
All wiped away, their fate.

For though now’s too late,
There I,
will hug and kiss your face.

Come Holy Spirit embrace.
Come Son.
Father, permit no delay.

I count God’s stars in faith.
Welcome
home promised children of Christ.

My Lord, in you I laud.

 

SBC Unity and the Unforced Error that was Resolution 9

On the heels of the controversial cinedoc, By What Standard?, which was itself a response to Resolution 9, voted upon and affirmed by the Southern Baptist Convention messengers at the SBC Annual Meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, Baptist Press released a “Q&A with the 2019 Resolutions Committee about Resolution 9,” last week. For clarification, that’s just short of 8 months after the Annual Meeting.

The Founders’ video has proven itself the burr under the denominational saddle, as it were, and does not appear to be going away any time soon. Despite the dismissive waive of the hand by many prominent in SBC leadership accusing the Founders (and others who appear to be making plans to rescind the 2019 resolution), the groundswell seems to be growing.

So, in order to quell any concerns—to ameliorate Southern Baptists’ fear that Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality [CRT/I] have invaded the thinking of denominational executives and seminaries—the committee stated emphatically: “No one is claiming that CRT/I is Christian or that all of its cultural applications are in line with Scripture.”

While the committee should be praised for this clarification, the question deserves to be asked:

Why, then, was an amendment that made that statement unmistakable and explicit deemed an “unfriendly amendment”?

I don’t ask that question in bad faith. I have a number of friends on the committee who I consider wise and godly. These are men and women of whom I have the highest regard. But the issue remains.

Either CRT/I is a worldview foreign to holy writ and must be rejected as such, or it serves as an analytical tool available for proper use by shrewd believers.

CRT/I is not merely foreign to Scripture, however; it is directly contrary to it. The use of CRT/I dismisses any insight or wisdom gained from the alleged-oppressive class in order to adopt the interpretations and beliefs of oppressed classes. At times, the very concept of genuine truth itself is jettisoned, but generally, the movement does not progress that far. Instead, it is used to impress an aberrant interpretation, while buttressing it against critiques from the alleged-oppressors by claiming a privileged status as oppressed.

Truth, in this construction, is not found in the meaning of the text, but in the interpretation of the oppressed class. The Bible is no longer seen as authoritative; instead, the authority is given to a class of people.

And if different oppressed classes come to different conclusions, the victor is determined by which group is seen as most-oppressed. (And this is where intersectionality bares its teeth.)

As I’ve written elsewhere, discussing the Bible with those from different backgrounds and upbringings can be beneficial in winnowing away cultural biases and presuppositions that we bring to the task of interpreting Scripture, but this still acknowledges that Scripture carries real meaning, and the goal of the dialogue is to ascertain the meaning—the truth—of Scripture.

CRT/I is not an analytical tool used to identify the truth of Scripture; it is a weapon of war used to determine which group is granted the authority to determine truth.

Despite the language in the resolution that claims CRT/I to be mere analytical tools that can be disconnected from their common foundational worldview, such thought seems naive at best, and potentially dishonest. More likely, the tools may indeed act as a Trojan Horse, secretively deploying an unwelcome worldview among our fellowship of believers. Note my language here, as I’m being as clear as I can. The tools may serve as a Trojan Horse. I am not accusing anyone of intentionally or maliciously scheming to that end.

Where Do Southern Baptists Go from Here?

When asked in what manner the committee believes Southern Baptists should proceed, they call us to focus on the “common ground we share on the sufficiency of the Gospel.”

More upsetting is the committee’s calling upon “our leaders to lead us with biblical courage and conviction as we face various challenges to our cooperative mission.” If they refer to the challenges of the world in which we live, I can join them in that call.

If, however, they are referring to the Southern Baptists alarmed by the adoption of Resolution 9—if the challenges to our cooperation is a veiled reference to concerned pastors and laypeople—I fear the gulf between the committee and the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention are further apart than once believed.

The Unforced Error

Ultimately, I think this article demonstrates that, while well-intentioned, the 2019 Resolutions Committee made the mistake of using Resolution 9 as a teachable moment, rather than—as is the purpose of a resolution—to express the will of the messengers.

In the article, they state their responsibility: “to help the Convention speak with biblical clarity on theological, social, and practical topics in order to advance our cooperative witness and mission.” In hindsight, it would have been better to have never brought the resolution before the messengers or to have presented it in the form submitted to the committee originally.

How Do We Recover SBC Unity?

As it stands, however, the committee’s intent to unify Southern Baptists failed and has only served to fracture our convention further. The path to unity will only be found as we commit ourselves once more to Christ our Savior and “the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.”

Our cooperation depends on a re-affirmation of the sufficiency of Scripture without any caveats, addenda, or analytical tools that undermine the very meaning of sufficiency by their very nature.

My hope is to vote for a resolution that offers such a corrective in Orlando.

Like a Broken Cup and SuperGlue

Each year, Southern Baptists gather before the annual meeting for the SBC Pastor’s Conference. During this time, Baptists are treated to some of the best preaching the convention (and often, the larger evangelical world) has to offer. This week, Baptist Press released the speaker list for the 2020 SBC Pastor’s Conference scheduled in Orlando.

But before considering the list of names published in Baptist Press, I think it’s worth considering that which is most-needed by the convention family during this time.

Our Southern Baptist family is not well.
We are wounded.

For some, the reports published in the Houston Chronicle and Fort Worth Star-Telegram re-opened old wounds. For others, it served to cast light on some shadows that had been long-forgotten or had been willingly relegated to the past. Frankly, we’re still struggling to find our feet in light of the #metoo and #churchtoo movements—how do we demonstrate genuine loving concern to those raising allegations of abuse while also protecting pastors from false allegations?

No one is suggesting that we do nothing.

But there are no simple solutions here.

Simple solutions misfire. And sadly, we’ve seen some of that too.

And as the result, many Southern Baptists are struggling to discern the way forward. Many (from all sides) feel unheard. My social media feeds are chock full of voices from every corner of Southern Baptist life all feeling ill-treated, ignored, and marginalized.

So, what is it that our convention family needs most during this time?

Unity. We need someone to take the needed and pastoral step to draw us back to unity.

And this year’s pastor’s conference was a wonderful opportunity to draw Southern Baptists back together by pointing them to that which they have in common—to point them back to the centrality of Christ and his mission.

To put our eyes back on Jesus.

And yet, the speaker list for the pastor’s conference has managed to do the exact opposite. Our divide, our fracture, our broken fellowship is only exacerbated.

Many of the names offered by pastor’s conference president David Uth are familiar to Southern Baptists: David Platt and Vance Pittman and David Hughes, Joby Martin and Jimmy Scroggins. Others may be less familiar, but still recognizable: Emerson Eggerichs and Erik Cummins Sr.

Certainly, worship leader Phil Wickham’s name (if not his songlist) is not unfamiliar to those who listen to contemporary worship music.

But the big names that stand out are both foreign and familiar. Wayne Cordeiro pastors a International Church of the Foursquare Gospel congregation in Honolulu, and Jim Cymbala pastors The Brooklyn Tabernacle. Finally, the spoken-word artist, Hosanna Wong, is listed as a teaching pastor at Eastlake Church in Chula Vista, CA.

Now, it is one thing to invite non-SBC speakers to the SBC Pastor’s Conference. This practice is common and not surprising in the least. But it is quite another to invite those who hold significant theological differences with those affirmed in our common confession.

Wayne Cordeiro pastors a Foursquare church whose doctrine denies eternal security, believes physical healing to be purchased at the atonement, and holds to the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a second blessing. Moreover, his church employee a female in the role of Equipping Pastor.

What does this mean? It means he holds significant theological differences with our common confession of faith that would preclude him from our fellowship of churches. Yet David Uth says, “I feel like they [referring to the speakers as a composite] have a message for us. I feel like God wants to speak to us through them. So my goal and my hope was that we could hear their message, we could learn from them, and we could embrace it.”

Jim Cymbala’s name is familiar to a number of Southern Baptists, likely due to his book, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. In it, he shares stories of what Christ has done in The Brooklyn Tabernacle, and calls his readers to engage in serious devotion in prayer. That which is more concerning is the manner in which he pits prayer in opposition to preaching: “Does the Bible ever say anywhere from Genesis to Revelation, ‘My house shall be called a house of preaching?’. . . Of course not. . . . ” and “We in America have made the sermon the centerpiece of the church, something God never intended” (71, 84). While his emphasis on prayer should be commended, his determination to set it in opposition to the proclamation of the Word, rather than in conjunction with it, is troubling to say the least. Could he be said to be in harmony with the Baptist Faith and Message? His remarks diminishing the role of preaching are a cause for concern, in my view. But his church’s view concerning a second blessing of the Holy Spirit would lend the discerning reader to conclude that, No. He could not be considered in agreement to the Baptist Faith and Message.

Hosanna Wong is listed as a teaching pastor at her church. The very fact that she holds the office of “pastor” in her church puts her at odds with Southern Baptists’ common confession of faith, which states, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture” (article VI. The Church). She clearly cannot be said to be in harmony with the Baptist Faith and Message.

Why does this matter?

Friends, if we are unwilling to draw a theological line at the boundary of our common confession, who is given the authority to determine which differences are important and which are arbitrary? For Pastor Uth, his selections imply that he is willing to overlook theological differences over eternal security, the nature of the atonement, charismatic gifts (and correspondingly, the sufficiency of Scripture), and the pastoral office. But, these are not minor differences.

Maybe the argument could be made that Southern Baptists would do well to hear from those with differences on these matters if we were not already embroiled in these very controversies internally!!

But we are. Perhaps not concerning eternal security or the nature of the atonement—although the pentecostal teaching of healing seems to be growing in popularity in broader circles. But the 2019 Resolution 9 has brought discussions concerning biblical sufficiency to the fore and while we confess to be a complementation denomination, we’re still wrestling over what that looks like in practice.

Now is not the time to push boundaries.

Now is the time to circle the wagons.

Now is the time to direct every Southern Baptists’ gaze to the cross of Christ and his mission—to call us to devote ourselves wholly and entirely to see that the Gospel is proclaimed to the very ends of the earth.

Now is the time to spread the superglue over the fractured pieces of our denominational family and piece us together again.

As yesterday’s announcement made evident (and all-the-more-so by David Uth’s response to the feedback), David Uth had an opportunity to do this very thing at the pastor’s conference this year.

Instead, I fear that several of his choices will only prove to fracture and divide us further.

Trusting his Unseen Hand

This past month, I had an opportunity to minister in Western Kenya by leading a pastor’s conference alongside my friend, fellow ETBU-alumnus, and fellow two-time SWBTS-alumnus, John Schultz. John leads a non-profit called Equip the Nations, inc and had reached out to me several months ago, asking if I would be interested in helping lead the conference. But in order to understand the effect of that invitation, I need to back up a bit.

In the Fall 2013 semester, a professor reminded our class that our presence on campus was not due simply to our own prowess. However capable we may be, there are others around the world just as capable as we are—some even more so—who do not have the opportunity to the education and training we were receiving. His was a call for humility and good stewardship on our part—that we did not waste the opportunity that the Lord had granted us. His words planted a seed that would sprout a few years later.

In January of 2017, I had the opportunity to travel to Malaysia and help teach a one-week intensive course at the seminary on Penang island. In preparation for that trip, we researched the state of Christianity around the world and sought how best to communicate the truths of Scripture in a cultural context distinct from our own. Much like my hermeneutics professor at ETBU, Bob Utley, taught me, I endeavored to understand what presuppositions and cultural understandings I brought to the exegetical task and, recognizing them, separate that which was cultural on my part from that which is central to Scripture. In Malaysia, I realized how much I enjoyed the work of teaching cross-culturally and I committed to make the effort to teach internationally on an annual basis

But life has a habit of getting in the way. The difficulties of the past 18 months or so had put that commitment in a holding pattern. It seemed unwise to look for international, cross-cultural teaching opportunities when I was also looking for full-time employment. How could I commit to an international trip when I didn’t know where I would be leaving from?

Two years after Malaysia, I remember confessing to my wife that I was frustrated that everything had been on hold for as long as it had been. I needed to go, I told her. The Holy Spirit had impressed upon my heart that my circumstances weren’t to preclude me from my commitment any longer. So we began to pray for an opportunity.

Only days later, I received a text from John asking if I would be interested in traveling to Kenya with him to train some pastors. While the Lord was working in my own heart, he had led John and his wife to ask me to join him.

But why do I share that?

Because while I don’t know exactly what you’re experiencing, it can sometimes feel like the world is spinning uncontrollably and I can’t seem to find solid footing. But then experiences like this happen and we’re reminded that there is a sovereign hand that still guides history.

In the same week, the Lord impressed it upon me that it was time to return to a commitment I had made and he had already worked out how I would get back to it.

And that’s encouraging, isn’t it? Because it means that, however long we may feel that we’ve waited and however long we’ve struggled, at just the right time, the Lord works things out. And while we shouldn’t try to understand it in the midst of the striving—after all, that tends to lead to despair because we simply do not know the mind of the Lord and he never works on our time-table—the Lord’s hand is always clear on the other side. Our responsibility isn’t to understand the waiting; it’s to lean into his will and to trust that he will work all things out.

Nostalgia and Why We Can’t Even

Nostalgia has a powerful effect on the twenty-first century. Having loosened the moors of Western traditions which long held our culture from drifting, we now find ourselves looking back not to our forefathers but to our fore-child: we ask our childhood to answer the adult questions of our present.

Nostalgia cannot answer the hardest questions; it cannot answer the problem of suffering because it cannot remember when it last suffered. Nostalgia remembers the Saturday morning cartoons but forgets the absence of parents; remembers the flash of Hollywood’s lights, but forgets the dark and lonely nights. How could it remember a truth it represses? This world is broken. Innocence and magic don’t exist.

Since nostalgia is a child, it does not know when to forgive or when to throw a tantrum. It sees blogposts as subject to outrage and personal sin as a journey. Nostalgia extends grace to those it  loves already, but never loves to give grace. It takes from the past but never sacrifices for the future. The time has come to stop looking into childhood vices to produce adult virtues.

The Heart of Man

So we ought to reexamine the Bible’s interpretation of reality. God’s Word teaches that the mythos of a magical childhood, the perfect innocence, and the triumph of youth is an illusion. It shows us the nasty, gritty, and viciously evil heart of supposedly civilized humanity. It tells us that our ‘FOMO’ may be envy and discontentment in disguise.

The Bible once gripped our imaginations as nostalgia does, but the Bible is so very different from the Disney and/or Pixar of our childhoods. What heroes are we relating to? David slays the giant but lusts after women. Peter courageously charges out with the flash of his sword but shrinks back into the shadows of denial. Disney Princesses range from glamorous to adorkable, but never truly wrestle with the deep issues that expose a need to look to a higher power than a genie or a magical rock. What the myth of nostalgia fails to answer the Bible gets right. The Bible displays the grotesque heart of humanity like insects on a pin board. Having nailed humanity so well, it also presents a solution that rings true.

Letting Jesus Capture our Imagination

The Jesus of the Bible is not the Jesus of nostalgia. The Jesus of our childhood nostalgia demands very little. He smiles quite a lot, helps everyone to be a better person, and asks us to do a little better (when we are able, if we feel like it). The Jesus of the Bible, however, he suffers, bleeds, dies, and confronts our wickedness head on. He turns over the tables of oppression, strikes at the heart of our legalism, and does not give into injustice. The Jesus of the Bible bears sin and suffers the evil of the world.

Jesus, the true Jesus, ought to capture our imagination. He doesn’t grant grandiose wishes, doesn’t pretend that the magic of Christmas will heal all wounds. He bears the reality of life with supernatural love. He takes up the cause of the abused, while laying humanity’s horrors upon his shoulders. “He was despised and forsaken by men, a man of sorrows well acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). If we are to answer any of life’s hardest questions for ourselves and our posterity, we need to be allured by the astounding reality of Christ not the flat fantasy of nostalgia.

Pouring Ourselves into Reality

Nostalgia devours itself ultimately; it creates unrealistic expectations on mothers to recreate fantasy in a perfect birthday party, burdens children to be consumers of their parents’ past, and saddles the family budget with todays ‘must-haves.’

Meanwhile, real life problems persist unaddressed by fantasy. Christians need to take responsibility for the state of their towns. Revitalizing a community means not pouring the greater portions of our resources into luxury. Exchange a ‘loot-box’ for providing lunches for the poor. Trade in a lavish vacation for funding a community event.

We need to stop blending into secularism. The stale Lucky Charms of the 80s and 90s can’t compare to the wedding banquet of the Lamb. We need to stop scrounging for secular table scraps and start inviting them to our Father’s table. The Bible answers what nostalgia cannot; it speaks of an eternity of wonder free from the temporal myth of magic.

Instead of encouraging children to live out a fantasy, have them write a letter to a shut in; deliver it by hand. Help them learn the joy of following Jesus. Don’t make Christmas the fulfillment of our children’s wildest dreams (or our own); make it a chance to serve the poor and the widow. Our childhood isn’t ready to make the sacrifice, but our Savior is.

“For I consider that the suffering of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. . . . What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:18, 31–32.

Harry Potter and the Old, Old Story

In a recent article published by the Religion News Service, Tara Isabella Burton introduces the Harry Potter series, writing:

It’s a book nearly everybody knows, many of us nearly from birth. We reference it in our daily lives. We use its complicated moral systems to define our social and political stances and to understand ourselves better. Once we have read it, and learn the lessons considered therein, our political attitudes alter, making us more welcoming and more caring to outsiders.
Activists quote from the stories on placards to make their points at protests. Hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of people have written their own narratives in response to these foundational myths.
I refer, of course, to the “Harry Potter” series.

She refers to the statistics that show that 61% of Americans have seen at least one Harry Potter film. That statistic juxtaposed with the mere 45% (a little more than 50% for US Christians) who can name all four Gospels is a bit shocking. She observes, “it’s no stretch to say that Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are better known in American society than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”

She offers a reason for the ubiquity of Harry Potter in that it was published during a time of a massive, earth-shaking transition. In the years before the publication of the first volume and the fourth, internet use increased 500%. So, she argues, the popularity of the fiction series resembles the Bible in that, just as the rise of the printing press enabled the Protestant Reformation to put Scripture in the hands of the masses, the Harry Potter books grew in prominence during a time when the masses were introduced to a new media—the world wide web.

And again, she’s not wrong.

Of course, she argues that this is the manner in which the Harry Potter “most resembles” the Bible. And that conclusion is where I must beg to differ.

In a 2007 article published in the Telegraph, J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, acknowledged that they were inspired, in fact, by the Bible. Rowling, who was raised in the Anglican Communion, but now a member of the Church of Scotland, was quoted as having said, “the religious parallels have always been obvious.” In a different interview altogether, she made those parallels explicit, explaining that Albus Dumbledore is “John the Baptist to Harry’s Christ.”

She explained her reasoning for avoiding the question until the moment of her interview in the Telegraph (she had just released the final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) to her attempts to avoid spoiling the ending: “I never wanted to talk too openly about [the influence of the New Testament on the series] because it might show people who just wanted the story where we were going.”

So, the argument that the Harry Potter series resembles the Bible most due to providential timing ignores the most glaring parallel—one was patterned after the other!

So, when Burton concludes that the Harry Potter series has supplanted the Bible as the common mythological foundation of understanding for the new generations, Christians should take notice—if only for the purpose of considering her claim further. She presses her argument to conclude that, in light of the obvious fantasy and fiction that describes the Harry Potter series, “fewer and fewer of us need to believe in a text to take it, well, as gospel.”

The question that discerning readers should ask is, “Does her conclusion follow from her argument?”

In a world that fails to observe the author’s own declaration that her stories (creative as they may be) are patterned after the Gospel narrative, the historical similarity between the Reformation-era printing press and the advent of the internet age seems reasonable.

But, if we allow the author’s own admission to raise the issue, it becomes more clear why this story resonates with the new generations (and many from the older generations as well)—it is built from the pieces of the story of salvation. The elements in play over the course of Rowling’s stories reflect the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Is it a simple re-telling? Obviously not.

But perhaps it resonates so clearly because it speaks to genuine needs and longings of the human heart. And the answer to those needs isn’t found in a book of spells, in the waving of a wand, or in the Room of Requirement. Harry Potter’s journey over the course of Rowling’s books (and movies) brings him from a childhood discovery of his place in the world to an encounter with evil that rescues a people with whom he identifies.

Perhaps it resonates so powerfully because it resembles so closely “the old, old story of Jesus and his love.”

Are You Consuming Food Porn?

One October at Oklahoma State University, proud I made it to class early, I walked up to the professor smiling and some students and asked what they were discussing.

Food porn.

Immediately, I knew I had walked into the wrong conversation. I awkwardly excused myself.

At the end of October the situation happened again. I overheard some of my fellow students discussing the Saw movie series as a new genera—torture porn. At this point, I no longer knew the proper use of the term porn.

I thought porn described “adult” content and movies only. I was wrong. A commercial for an enticing pizza, leisurely spinning around until its full reveal, with a hand grasping for a slice and disembodied baritone exclaiming, “oh, yeah!” That’s food porn (think every Reese’s commercial during Halloween).

The term porn no longer denotates or connotes anything sexuality explicit; porn now describes the superlative of enjoyment.This new definition of porn changes the connotation of porn from a deviant behavior to a norm. Originally, the term porn was transliterated from the Greek, pornéros. Pornéros means evil. The Greek term carries with it a connotation of malicious behavior.

Until recently, the connotation of porn has followed its literal meaning—deviant behavior. This is no longer the case. Even Christians are using the term with a positive meaning. The shift in definition rides upon the wings of the relatively new access to pornography. The old anecdote of sneaking into a (sinful) father’s sock drawer for a secretive glance at his Playboy magazine is now antiquated. What had once been spoken of in hushed tones is now played for laughs in family television programs.

The United States is currently debating the positives and negatives of porn and pornography. Some states (Utah, Virginia, South Dakota, Tennessee, Arkansas) have begun to treat the excessive viewing of pornography as an addiction. While modern psychology does not yet agree on whether porn is addictive, Zitzman and Butler (2009) concluded, “the detached, objectifying, exploitive sexuality of pornography directly impacts attachment trust, eroding any safe expectation of one’s partner being faithfully for the other.”

Zitzman and Butler help illuminate my point. Porn indulges in an imaginary world and brings harm to the real one. As we increasingly use porn to describe our food, movies, sports, and general pleasures, we are ultimately approving of overindulging in the realm of imagination—enjoying a detached, objectifying, self-indulgent, and exploitive fiction.

Porn as a superlative of pleasure replaces societies attention to true virtue with an addiction to the fictional. We no longer recognize the boundaries between the real and unreal. Once our minds have had their fill of sensuality, we are left with what we have in reality—nothing.

What porn promises is a superlative. It delivers nothing. At best, the only thing a porn-saturated culture can do is continue to push the boundaries of its own fiction, an attempt to find greater gratification. Food porn presses food beyond the necessity into gluttony. The boundaries press forward, but the fiction remains hollow. Christians, better than anyone, umderstand the fleeting nature of pleasure.

Consider Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. The Passion of the Christ was incredibly graphic, but few would describe it as torture porn. The allure of porn’s fiction and pleasure died at the cross. Jesus’s death was not imaginary. We receive no sensual gratification from it. The cross exposes the emptiness of earthly pleasure; it reveals man’s pleasures as grotesque. A porn-saturated culture counsels us to feed the hunger of our hearts with imaginary sustenance. Just as PlayMobile food feeds no one, so a porn saturated culture cannot satisfy. “For apart from [God] who can eat and who can find enjoyment?” (Ecc 2:25).

We need to mature beyond our porn culture—a moratorium on our fascination with imaginary and vain pleasures, realizing “mature content” is not mature. Our society must stop using the word porn with positive connotations (food porn, music porn, etc.). For the well-being of our relationships, we need to regard porn as one of the greatest evils to be shunned, not a superlative to be enjoyed. Instead of taking pleasure from the fictional dismemberment of people into the individual parts desired, we ought to enjoy dwelling together, loving holistically. If we would finally uncover our fascination with food porn, then only the hideous nature of gluttony would stand naked before us.