CT has the story.

Correspondent Cory writes,

Dr. Clark,

I am responding to your email post on the tragedy in Burma. The Protestant Reformed Churches (of which i am a part) have a large mission in Burma in which there are over 20 congregations spread throughout the country. I do not know if the URC has a mission there or not [There is not so far as I know - rsc], but there are many Christians in Burma, including Reformed Christians. Please pray for them.

Thanks for your work,

Cory....

A timely reminder. Thanks Cory.

Yale University reports that B. S. Childs died Saturday at age 83.

Childs was Sterling Professor of Divinity at Yale Divinity School from 1958 to 1999. Childs was somewhat unique (speaking as reader of commentaries - not claiming any academic expertise in the state of modern biblical studies) among mainline biblical scholars in that, though he didn't fundamentally reject the modern critical enterprise, his reading of Scripture was not consumed by it. I was particularly impressed with his commentary on Exodus. He rehearsed the usual critical stuff, but he also thought it was important to get to grips with the text of Scripture as we have it, within the canon. When he was commenting on the flow and theology of the narrative of Scripture, he was brilliant.

You can read more about Childs here.

Though no confessionalist, he was not, unlike some mainliners, a bigot. Some mainline scholars hate religious conservatives and would refuse them admission to the academy. No so Childs. He had conservative students.

From the perspective of an "end user" his work was often edifying, always thoughtful and penetrating. He will be missed.

  Okay, I didn't say it here, but I did tell my students that it wouldn't be long before someone claimed that they have been healed by seeking the mediation of the late John Paul II. Reuters is reporting from Aix-En-Provence,

A French Catholic nun who said her Parkinson's disease disappeared after she prayed to the late Pope John Paul declined to call her restored health a miracle on Friday. But she insisted: "I was ill and now I am healed." ...Her recovery could be central to a drive to beatify John Paul, putting him one step away from sainthood. The Catholic Church demands proof of a medically unexplained healing to give that honor and a second such case to declare him a saint.

As Carl Trueman lamented the other day at Ref21, in the old days it used to take some time to become a saint but now Rome is "fast-tracking" John Paul and Mother Theresa. 

Two comments. I don't really care how long it takes to beatify Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) since the point is to vindicate him as miracle worker post-mortem and to perpetuate the Roman cult of saints.

The language of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is more restrained than one might expect, but shocking enough:

1173 When the Church keeps the memorials of martyrs and other saints during the annual cycle, she proclaims the Paschal mystery in those "who have suffered and have been glorified with Christ. She proposes them to the faithful as examples who draw all men to the Father through Christ, and through their merits she begs for God's favors."

Notice that departed believers are said to perform two functions: 1) to serve as an example; 2) "through their merits" the church "begs God's favors." I don't see how anyone can object to the first. The stories of the martyrs are inspiring. I often think about Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley and the many French Calvinists slaughtered by maniacal papists in 1572. I guess the Roman catechism isn't thinking of those martyrs!

The second proposed function, however, is nothing less than blasphemy. The Reformed churches confess with one voice and heart that we have only one intercessor, one mediator, one object of devotion, adoration, and worship. We have only one Savior and Mediator. The Heidelberg Catechism says:

30. Do those also believe in the only Savior Jesus, who seek their salvation and welfare of saints, of themselves, or anywhere else?

No, although they make their boast of Him, yet in deeds they deny the only Savior Jesus, for either Jesus is not a complete Savior, or they who by true faith receive this Savior, must have in Him all that is necessary to their salvation.

 

We confess the communion of the saints, but that communion does not include asking glorified Christians to do anything. First, they can't hear us. Being dead doesn't make one omnipotent or omnipresent. Second, they are busy glorifying the Savior, which is their proper vocation. Third, no one who was a saint in this life would ever want us to ask him or her to do anything for us. They would be properly horrified by the very idea. Fourth, Jesus is a complete Savior. It's not enough to say, in this context, "Jesus and..." He is a complete, successful, Savior. He completed the work he set out to do. He didn't just make salvation possible for those who cooperate sufficiently with grace.

Bob Godfrey has said that the medieval church portrayed Jesus as such stern judge, that it drove Christians to seek a more accessible and sympathetic mediator (such as Mary). The book of Hebrews (4:15) tells us that we need look nowhere else but to Jesus for a Mediator who understands us, who has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. He sympathizes with our weaknesses. He is one of us. He is truly human. He has faced everything we've faced.

The second striking thing about this story is how similar the testimony of the nun is to that of the man born blind (John 9). His testimony was, "Once I was blind, now I can see." This is the testimony of all believers. The difference between the biblical account is that the man born blind testified that Jesus, not a deceased Christian, did it.

The great Protestant issue with Rome is the question of justification, but the question of intercession is closely related. It goes to the sufficiency of Christ as our Savior and intercessor with the Father. One of the things that has struck me over the years reading Reformed orthodox theology from the 16th and 17th centuries is how often they refer to Jesus as the Mediator. At first it was a little irritating - why do they keep repeating "the Mediator"? Well, this sort of thing is the reason why.

Jesus did it all. Jesus does it all. That's the biblical faith and that's our faith. 

Recently the worldwide Anglican communion has been in an uproar over the unilateral move by the Episcopal Church USA to bless homosexual marriages.

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has a story about the controversy on their website. There are several interesting aspects to this story. The first is that, under strong pressure from African Bishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury seems to have put down his foot. The Americans are to stop blessing homosexual unions or face expulsion from the the Anglican communion.

The report says that, "The Episcopal Church is an autonomous church, and some American Episcopalians say they're getting tired of having to deal with international concerns." The ministers and Bishops pushing their radical social agenda under the cover of ecclesiastical authority are the same folk that, on other issues, want us Americans to be more solicitous of world opinion. When it comes, however, to paying some respect to creational norms (e.g., heterosexual marriage) the "progressives" will have nothing to do with "world" (2/3 world) opinion, even if it is African.

The Bishop of Pittsburgh says: "The division in Anglicanism has gone deeper. It's harder than it was when we started this meeting." Based on this report it appears that the rift is even more profound than the PBS report suggests and it seems to be getting deeper.

The point of this post is not to "cluck" about the troubles of the Anglican communion, but to note how difficult it is to be both "mainline" and faithful to the Word as it has been confessed by the historic Protestant churches. Everyone has to pick his battles. In the sideline we have our own issues and in some ways, as D. G. Hart points out in A Secular Faith, they are only different by degrees from the problems of the mainline.

The Anglicans did not get into this soup overnight. The roots of their current crisis run deep, at least to the middle of the 17th century. One of the great contributing factors was a rise of latitudinarianism. These reports should be a stimulus to us to take our confession seriously and to challenge and even discipline those in our midst who do not or it may not be long before we're having our own Gaia conferences and having to defend the very basic issues of the faith - oh wait, we're doing a little bit of the latter already aren't we?

(HT: Michael Gregga and David Alenskis)