Will Anyone Speak Against Worldliness?

[Larry]

DMyers,

… .

In the end, it seems to me that this discussion went off track by taking an introductory comment and treating it as if it were the point, rather than focusing on the point of the article. That might actually be a profitable discussion: What is wordliness and what should we say about it?

Larry, did you read my first comment above? I had two distinct points in that first comment. Yes, the first one had to do with the quantitative issue raised by Pearson’s first sentence (and by his title for the post). But my concern was specifically that this was not only erroneous but also a distraction from what you describe as “the point of the article.” (And look what happened!)

More significantly, my second comment directly addressed (and took issue with) what I understood to be Pearson’s definition of worldliness and what he said about it. Unfortunately, Dave Doran’s subsequent comment ignored my second (more substantive) point and zeroed in on my first point, and did so (to me) erroneously and in an over the top way. I’d be very happy if that had never happened and everyone (including you) had focused on “the point.”

As for the rest of your last comment, if you don’t concede that a half dozen examples of prominent (not obscure) evangelicals is sufficient to illustrate the likely looseness of Pearson’s quantitative claim, there’s not much point in debating it further. As for the allegation of oversensitivity, I think I’ve demonstrated that that isn’t the case on my part (but may be on Doran’s), but you had your mind made up going in, so again there’s nothing left to say.

[Pearson Johnson]

Hey folks,

I missed the discussion today— I apologize (I think) for that. I definitely agree with what Sam, Tyler, and Pastor Doran said about my intent and the heart (even if some mind in specificity and clarity was lacking) behind what I wrote. My purpose was to express a genuine concern that Pastors and people alike not hesitate to speak out against world-love and to fight against it themselves. I think the general tide is against it in the American church, but I also would be glad, very glad, to know that more are calling people to holiness than I know of.

Perhaps, I should have stuck more closely to the main point of the article, which was to search our hearts with honest, Spirit-helped evaluation to check for a love of the world, evidenced in giving in to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and boastful pride. However, I often hesitate to be as honest as I should be in evaluating myself and in preaching to others for fear of being labeled by other believers (wrongly, but labeled nonetheless) in some of the ways I mentioned. At the end of the day I should confidently speak and apply the Word as a pilgrim.

My post was certainly not about movements/labels other than “Evangelicalism” as inclusive of those who believe in sin and the Savior’s death for sin and the gospel— not about Evangelicals, Conservative Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, etc. I do call for commitment to biblical separatist principles—particularly separation from the world in this case. Sorry to some that I didn’t mean more than that, and to others that it seemed I did.

Blog posts are too short to answer possible objections, give lots of examples, etc. so I definitely ask pardon for that.

Overall, I hope we can all agree on what John wrote!

Pearson: Clarifications appreciated. And we can definitely agree with John. If you have the time, I would be interested in your response to the comments above that addressed the substantive issue of your post, including this one from my initial comment:

“Second, Pearson is pretty squishy about the definition of worldliness. His first set of questions and, to a lesser extent, his third set of questions sound very much like a call to be different merely to be different. Priorities and objects of affection in common with the unsaved are, ipso facto, worldly. In other words, rather than being defined by the objective, unchanging word of God, what is worldly is defined by what the current culture favors, whether or not those things are consistent or inconsistent with the Bible. But that’s the wrong distinctive. What’s ungodly and unbiblical is worldly, not just what “the world” happens to do or love at any given time. Should I not build buildings the same way an unsaved builder builds because, by definition, his methods are worldly? Should I not watch a G-rated or PG-rated movie because it’s a blockbuster and therefore worldly because the world loves it? Pearson’s touchstone appears to be wrong, which means that either some of his applications are going to be wrong or he’s not going to be consistent with his own standard.”

Thanks.

I just googled “evangelicals against worldliness” and you can too!!! see what you find :)

I don’t know: david platt, tim keller …

Also, very interesting: go to this wiki page “List of evangelical christians” and scroll down to contemporary names, and it might be interesting to see, which those do you think does or doens’t talk about worldliness to an appropriate extent?

Jerry Bridges (the pursuit of holiness), Tony Campolo? Charles Coleson? Tony Evans? Luis Palau?

?

Personal experience here. I went to BJU for 5 yrs of college/grad, 2 or more yrs of working there … Then I become a missionary, live in another culture. And I will say, it’s not living in that “worldliness-deliniated” environment that taught me about being worldly or not. I think it must have to an extent, yes, yes, and I love that place very much.

But I have still had major struggles with accepting a lower standard of living, denying myself, accepting other’s differing views humbly, valuing the imperfect because it’s God’s work in progress, not being self-righteous or proud of myself because of this or that spiritual thing, being meek toward my children.

Learning not to worry about my husband or myself in times of risk, but really believe and live in calm assurance that our lives are in God’s hands. That He will provide for us food and clothing and accepting that this is enough rather than gathering wealth. …

It’s a lot. And evangelicals have helped me grow in these areas, too. It is a personal thing, a work that the Holy Spirit does in individuals in various ways.

So yes, I appreaciate the thought. Might have been expressed without the lables, but it’s a great thought

Мир вам! (Peace to you)

My wife and I had a discussion last night about this thread, and I decided it was probably a good idea to sleep a little before writing anything else. So if there’s an outbreak of common sense in this post – now you know why. :)

First things first. The comment about being “sliced and diced” was a reply to Dr. Doran’s comment about my rise to defend all things ‘evangelical’ (10/03, 12:32). Most of you may not remember, but in the NIU / music threads from several months ago, I wrote a little bit about my frustration with both ‘categories’ of Christianity (Fundamentalist or Evangelical). I have no patience, as I explained later on in this thread with that taxonomy because it – similar to the ‘CCM’ debates, the ‘conservative evangelical’ or ‘young fundamentalist’ label – seems to have no objective basis. ‘Evangelical’ covers everyone and everything from some orthodox PCUSA pastors to John MacArthur (and really, Fundamentalism as well). ‘Fundamentalist’ covers everyone from myself (who is probably one of the most liberal fundamentalists in terms of practice, not doctrine) to the 1611 KJV Inspired heretics. So to be lumped into the ‘evangelical’ side of the spectrum immediately, and especially as one who is ‘trigger happy’, bothered me tremendously. It especially bugs me because Dr. Doran is a key player in the BJU/DBTS “axis” of Fundamentalism, and it seemed like I was being dismissed because I was one of “those Evangelicals” (WTMA*).

As I have said before, and will continue to restate, I do not think that the splitting of the body of Christ into the two (or more) spheres of any sort is helpful at all and is actually quite destructive. As soon as we start marking and setting aside other believers – which is what all the evangelicals we’ve referred to in this thread are – on the basis of some kind of internalized and self-defined taxonomy, I fear (and believe) that we’re running afoul of passages like I Cor. 1:10-13, 3:1-23, Eph. 2:14-22, 3:1-12 and Jas. 2:1, 8-13. Jesus Christ did not enter the world to bring divisions among believers. Now, of course I am presupposing that men like Dr. Doran, Larry, myself, Pearson, Ligon Duncan, R. Kent Hughes, John Piper and John MacArthur are indeed Christians and agree on the same core doctrines (although I know that Piper is more open to some things than I’d like).

To illustrate - Two weeks ago I was talking with a coworker who is leaving my place of employment, and she had absolutely no idea about what Christians believe. She asked me ‘what I believed’, and a brief moment of panic set in. “Fundamentalist?”, I thought – no, she might confuse me with a suicide bomber. “Baptist?” was the next thought – no, because that term has no meaning to her. “Evangelical?” – well, that was the term I used because I figured that she’d might have heard that in the news or somewhere and had some basis for further discussions. She didn’t, but I was still able to give her the basics of what I believe in a way that made sense to her. But my point is that defining myself by any label we would use on this site would have brought only more confusion.

For all the comments about my using terms like “we”, “us”, “them” and other pronouns – I set them aside in quotations because I was trying to illustrate the silliness (IMO) of grouping people into subcategories within the body of Christ. Some of you picked up on what you saw as a double standard, and that was kind of my point…they’re believers, not ‘others’. Not adversaries or something else…they have the same standing and ability before God that I would as a “fundamentalist”*. So I really don’t get this whole idea that “those Evangelicals”* are different from wherever I stand. I’ve profited tremendously from the time spent with all of the names I mentioned above, even if it’s only been done by book or blog.

Now, as to the article. My first and primary objection was really more to the title than it was to the article itself. I do not think that asking if “anyone” (from the title of the article, no less!) would speak against worldliness is fair to any of the men I referenced or that Dr. Doran mentioned (or for the others that have been brought up as well, like David Platt). I mean, I’m from the ‘fundamentalist’ orbit*, and the names I cited in the first post came to mind within all of three minutes. So that was my first objection. I stand by my original statement that it makes more sense to encourage the few who ARE doing it than to stand back and mourn that only a few are doing it, especially since they’re fairly major players in the “evangelical” world*.

The second objection was already mentioned by DMyers – namely the idea of ‘worldliness’. Having grown up in a FBFI church, attended NBBC and BJU and the WILDS camp as both camper and CIT member, I already had the idea of avoiding ‘worldliness’ drummed into me pretty well. The problems that I ran into was that no one, I thought, had done an adequate job of defining what worldliness is. That’s why I have recommended Mahaney’s book on Worldliness on more than a few occasions, and it was the first thing I thought of once I finished reading Pearson’s article.

A third objection was also noted by DMyers (10/03, 3:09) – namely, that the call to be different seems to have been just that – a call to be different without Biblical definition. So it was a little frustrating to see that again.

Finally, a brief word to Pearson. First off, welcome to SI – I’m glad you’re here, even if I came across as a little bit unhinged. I appreciated your clarifications and apologize for any offense I may have given to you personally. I should have been clearer and more precise in referencing when I was talking about your article and others’ comments here in the thread. I would like to take back (as much as is possible) the post referencing the Pharisee, because I can see now that it was not your intent. I read a lot into that article that I shouldn’t have, and for that I am sorry. I do agree with Jim (10/03, 1:52) that I think that there is a lot more worldliness in the orbits that we travel in than we realize. So now let’s all work on defining that term and changing ourselves to be more ‘against the world’ than ‘of it’.

–––––

* - Whatever That Means Anymore

Larry, did you read my first comment above?

Yes. I am not sure that really helped much. You didn’t like his questions, and attributed some things to it that really didn’t seem to me to make much sense of his question. I don’t know how you got “different merely to be different” out of that. I would have never thought that about it.

It seems to me that what we do is based on what we love. And if we are doing the same sinful things (fleshly desires) that people of the world are doing because they love the world, we should at least question whether or not we are loving the same thing. If you aren’t, then answer the question, “No,” and move on. Worldliness is, at least to some degree, related to what unbelievers do because worldliness is (to borrow a definition), fallen values expressed in culture. So when a culture does certain things, they are expressing their fallen values. When we do the same things, it might be because we share those fallen values. Or to put it differently, when we look like “them” (whoever them is), it may be because we love like them.

The question as I read it was about loving the world and having fleshly desires. Those are biblical ideas, are they not? That they are compared to unbelievers is not out of the ordinary. Again, worldliness is when fallen values are expressed in culture. And comparison is one of the means Scriptures uses in various ways such as Eph 5 because these are deeds of the flesh, marking a particular way of life (the unfruitful works of darkness), or Gal 5 and the deeds of the flesh, or Rom 1, or others. Again, I wonder if you are not reading your thoughts into it, and expecting more out of the article than was intended. It seems to me that the Scripture does use comparison to unbelievers as some sort of standard of sinfulness and worldliness. When we are like them, it is because we are like them.

As for the rest of your last comment, if you don’t concede that a half dozen examples of prominent (not obscure) evangelicals is sufficient to illustrate the likely looseness of Pearson’s quantitative claim, there’s not much point in debating it further.

So you think a half dozen examples or prominent evangelicals speaking about something is proof that the threshold of “few” has been passed significantly enough to question the whole article? There are tens of thousands of evangelical pastors (maybe hundreds of thousands). I am not sure that a half dozen examples means that more than a “few” are addressing it. I don’t know how many address it, and how they address it, so I can’t either confirm nor deny the point of Pearson or you. But your support that Pearson was wrong in his assertion is, at face value, no more or better supported than his was. In fact, it may prove him to be right, if you figure out the percentage of a “half dozen examples” compared to the whole of evangelical pastors.

BTW, I think the same applies to Anne here. Googling something and coming up with a few additional names isn’t “research” and doesn’t really touch the substance of the assertion, which was a mere generalized introductory statement to begin with. It probably wasn’t intended to be mathematically analyzed. But we all agree that some people address it. The question is whether that rises to more than”few” or not, comparatively speaking.

As for the allegation of oversensitivity, I think I’ve demonstrated that that isn’t the case on my part (but may be on Doran’s), but you had your mind made up going in, so again there’s nothing left to say.

My mind wasn’t made up about anything going in. My point was that Jay and later you reacted against something that Pearson didn’t even say, and wasn’t even part of his point.

In the end, my takeaway is that we should be concerned with worldliness—the things that we love.

The Bible tells us to love our brothers and hate the world. It seems Christians in our generation have reversed that and are loving the world more and hating their brother more.

May God help us all to be better at both.

Jay,

I have no desire to go back and forth over something about which we agree (i.e., that the categories are flawed, of limited to no value, etc.), but I think it is important that your answer regarding your reaction about slicing and dicing is exactly what I was saying was the problem.

Namely, in a post which was not about categories, you read them in. In my response about not immediately reading posts like a criticism of evangelicalism as over against fundamentalism, you immediately assumed that I was calling you an evangelical or outside of some other orbit. That had nothing to do with my comment. I encouraged you not to read things through the lens which you seem determined to read them.

I know this may seem unbelievable to you, but I think it is fair to say that I have had more people question my fundamentalist credentials than you have had, and in ways that are more public and actually affect the ministry which I serve. In fact, you have, perhaps without recognizing, engaged in the same kind of pigeon-holing by placing me in the BJU-DBTS axis, whatever that is. I read stuff like that and laugh simply because all I have to do is a couple of clicks and I can find someone else pegging me for some other axis.

I am the pastor of a church and am definitely in the DBTS orbit. :) What that has to do with anything is beyond me. If we really want to get past labels and categories, it seems like the first step would be to stop interpreting all things in light of those labels and then to stop using them in our explanations.

I think the examples Jay and DMeyers have given are more than sufficient to show that Pearson has not proven his claim that no one (“Will anyone…?” implies no one has done so; if any one individual has done so, then the question would be invalid) or “very few” in evangelicalism have spoken out against worldliness.

Thought this was interesting and relevant to the discussion:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/10/04/stop-slandering-chri…

The silence has been nearly deafening. Some Christians recognize the problem and may mention it in private, yet no one in our churches has the courage to say anything about it publicly. No one—from the pulpits to the pews—seems willing to speak out about the incessant claims that the church is unwilling to speak out.

For years it was merely an overused rhetorical trope, a hyperbolic claim that followed a predictable pattern:

Step 1: Take an issue of concern for Christians (e.g., abortion, sex trafficking, global persecution, the gospel).

Step 2: Claim that no one in our churches is talking about the issue.

Step 3: Assume the dual role of educator and Old Testament prophet by explaining why the issue matters and why the church must stand up and speak out about it.

As a tool of persuasion this approach can be useful (I confess to having used it myself, and on a regular basis). But there are two primary reasons Christians need to stop making such claims…

Are there any fundamentalists writing about worldliness?

…. kind of wants to make this a non-issue, the fund vs. evangelicals, but i think the writer is making it an issue. Not the main issue, but he kind of hinges all his remarks on this intro and conclusion.

I got to wondering if he (the author) was reacting to that school who recently changed their rules on tobacco and alcohol? I don’t know. He would have to clarify himself what he was thinking when he said that (about Evangelicals and then distinguishes Biblical Separatists at the end).

Maybe a more main issue, what jay and dmyers are getting at, is that one could assert that most Biblical Separatists/fundamentalists are not preaching correctly about worldliness. … ??

?

Personally, I thought Mahaney’s book on worldliness was excellent. The text defines worldliness as selfishness, greed, envy, pride, etc. Some crusaders against worldliness would rather define it in terms of certain things, often cultural, rather than attitudes of the heart.

I think the examples Jay and DMeyers have given are more than sufficient to show that Pearson has not proven his claim that no one (“Will anyone…?” implies no one has done so; if any one individual has done so, then the question would be invalid) or “very few” in evangelicalism have spoken out against worldliness.

I wonder if perhaps the issue might be include a hypercritical generation (at least about some things) who has forgotten rhetoric and how language works. I don’t think there is anything out of the ordinary about asking a question like that, knowing that the answer is not “nobody at all,” but rather making a rhetorical point about the relative, as in “not very many.”

I do believe that the modern YRR movement in broader evangelicalism has created the old (probably caricatured) kind of fundamentalistic mindset that every single thing should be parsed to the Nth degree and if it doesn’t match up exactly, we should criticize and correct it to show how much better we are. I am not sure that’s a good thing. And often, as here, I think it leads to missing the bigger point because one gets hung up on whether or not a rhetorical point is absolutely correct.

Consider the irony of the post that Greg links to which begins:

no one in our churches has the courage to say anything about it publicly. No one—from the pulpits to the pews—seems willing to speak out about the incessant claims that the church is unwilling to speak out.

He does the very thing he is writing an article about: he makes categorical claims in an article against making categorical claims. And Greg cites it as a good article against making categorical claims. And the author even says, As a tool of persuasion this approach can be useful.

It’s odd to me that communication has devolved so much that normal rhetorical tools receive hypercritical evaluation beyond what they are intended to be used for. If a person is making a statement about some sort of mathematical relationship, then yes, the complaints here are valid (even if not accurate, which seems the case based on the evidence presented — no one has shown that any more than a few evangelicals are publicly speaking about it). But in rhetoric, questions like this partake of the category of hyperbole, in which a statement is made by asserting some out of proportion to it’s absolute reality.

Personally, I thought Mahaney’s book on worldliness was excellent. The text defines worldliness as selfishness, greed, envy, pride, etc. Some crusaders against worldliness would rather define it in terms of certain things, often cultural, rather than attitudes of the heart.

I agree, and since it comes from an apostle, I am thinking about preaching from it this fall.

Seriously, I do think it is a good book, but I don’t think we should judge the issue by who is writing books about it. I also think that many fundamentalists handle it badly. As do many evangelicals. But none of that, IMO, is the issue.

The issue is that worldliness is real, it is possible, it is dangerous, and there you have a sermon for tomorrow …

I wonder if perhaps the issue might be include a hypercritical generation (at least about some things) who has forgotten rhetoric and how language works. I don’t think there is anything out of the ordinary about asking a question like that, knowing that the answer is not “nobody at all,” but rather making a rhetorical point about the relative, as in “not very many.”

Actually, in my English classes - from grade school all the way through college - the word “Anyone” was meant to be inclusive of everyone. Not “some”, not “partially”, and not “the select few”…especially when terms in the article like these are used: “very few”, “us”, and “our”.

But in any case, I think David Cloud wrote something on worldliness a few weeks ago - “The Merging of Calvinism and Worldliness” was the exact title. Does that count, Ron?