A Reckoning for Josh Harris and Courtship Culture

Yet another gloating piece about Josh Harris’ apology for I Kissed Dating Goodbye crossed my desk last week, and I’m getting tired of it.

Mainstream conservative Christianity is pushing back hard against any form of courtship, the newly popular dirty word.

Here’s what I think.

Yes, Harris went overboard in swearing off opposite sex relationships completely, and overstating how damaging emotional defrauding can be.

No, his idea of waiting to date until you’re ready to marry is NOT a bad idea.

I wouldn't call it a sin to date before you're ready to marry, but I do consider it less wise than waiting.

Desiring God Ministries thought so a few years ago, too.

I bet they still do.

So what’s going on?  Why are so many so happy to hear Harris recant?

Well, there IS such a thing as an unwritten “purity culture” out there, egged on (but not truly endorsed) by books like this.  It’s an attitude among families and churches that ostracizes young people who mix too freely with the opposite sex.  It implies that if you lose your emotional purity, much more your physical purity, it’s all over for you.  You lost at the “live God’s way” game in your teens and 20s.  Grace is not preached or emphasized because that would take away the motivation of fear.  I’m against this unwritten purity culture - a form of legalism - as much as the next guy.

But I think it’s just as easy to go too far the other way and say that young people should mix socially without any regard for sexual attraction – why can’t we be friends without worrying about that? – to the point of young people of mixed genders living together, convinced that it won’t be a problem.  It’s quite an inconsistency to behold dyed-in-the-wool Calvinists who are very pessimistic about whether they can advance in sanctification at all, be completely confident that their close interactions with girls couldn’t lead to any kind of trouble.

So reveling in recantations like Harris' is just another pendulum swing away from sober wisdom when it comes to preparing for marriage and finding your spouse.

Celebrate the Resurrection - Again!

Christ is risen!

Resurrection Day is past but the Easter season isn't over.

I encourage you to continue celebrating the Easter season as a family in some way.  This season runs until Ascension Day May 30, which includes 5 more Sundays.  Here are a few ways to "keep the feast."

1. Teach your children to respond joyfully to "Christ is risen!" with "He is risen indeed!"  Say this to them a few times a day, maybe at mealtime or waking.

2. Have a special drink on the table each Sunday of the season.  Even make "Christ is risen!" the toast, so to speak.

3. Practice joy.  When you are tempted to gloominess, take a deliberately joyful act, remembering the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

4. Study the resurrection more in the Reformed confessions:

- Westminster Confession of Faith 8.4

- Westminster Larger Catechism 51-52

- Heidelberg 45

- For something different, try the Second Helvetic Confession 11.10

May the Lord give you the joy of new life in Christ each day!

On the Trinity - Book 7

Augustine spent almost 30 years writing "On the Trinity" in the early 400s.

I thought I'd make an attempt to summarize this valuable but hard-to-read treatise.

First of all, the way Augustine can flip between minute philosophical points and pious personal ones is astonishing.

In book 7, the bishop from North Africa uses the doctrine of divine simplicity to resolve a question:
if Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:30) then how can the Father and the Spirit also be the wisdom of God without there being three Wisdoms?

Answer:
Since to be God is to be wise, the Father is wisdom, and the Son is wisdom of wisdom, in the same way that Christ is light of light.  There isn't some other thing or essence that is wisdom, light, truth, etc. that the Father, Son and Spirit are made or derived from.  To be the Father is to be truth, to be the Son is to be truth, etc.

Finally, Augustine defends traditional language regarding the Trinity: Scripture does not speak of three Persons in one God, but we have to speak this way because there is no other way to maintain the unity of God as one, and the divinity of Father, Son and Spirit.

Job

Job

Something I hadn’t thought of before.

We often think of Job as vindicated at the end of the book, and God does have him pray for his friends.  But don’t forget chapters 38-41, especially 40:8.  God certainly sets Job straight.  There is an antimony (apparent-but-not-real contradiction) between two truths: 1) Job needed rebuke from God for charging God with wrong (40:8); and 2) Job spoke of God what was right (42:7, 8).  The difference is that Job repents (42:3, 6).  His friends don’t.

At first.

Here’s something else we don’t consider much at the end of Job.  His friends repent, too.

Job finds himself willingly interceding for the friends who persecuted him.  They repent, too, but God has put Job in a favored position by His sovereign choice.

Jesus is put to the test like Job.  He suffers unjustly, not just in appearance but in truth.  He opens not His mouth to charge God with wrong or to revile His accusers.  He speaks only words of faith: He knows His redeemer lives.