Church and Civil Government, Part III

I was reading a blog from Pastor Doug Wilson and he wrote an excellent piece on the separation of church and state in a post. The post is in response to an atheist he has debated in the past, who is railing against the Christmas season. Here is an excerpt from the blog regarding the church and the civil government...

The United States Constitution does not mandate separation of church and state. The phrase "wall of separation" comes from a letter that Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists, and that phrase has no constitutional authority or ground. It was Jefferson's opinion, which, when he was alive, he had a right to. What the Constitution actually mandates with regard to religion is two-fold -- one, the non-establishment of a national church by act of Congress, and two, non-interference with the free exercise of religion by Congress. Got that? No Church of the United States, comparable to the Church of Denmark, or the Church of England. When the Constitution was ratified, nine of the thirteen colonies had established state churches at the state level. There is no conflict if the national bird is different from the various state birds, or the national flower from the state flowers, and so on. But if one Christian denomination were privileged at the national level, this could and would lead to conflicts with the established churches at the state level. Prior to the War Between the States, the country was governed on true federalist principles, and all this made sense. But get this down. The Constitution prohibits establishing a national denomination and supporting it with tax money. It does not require every branch of civil government, down to the smallest municipalities, to ignore the nature and will of the triune God. Still less does it require them to pretend that Jesus Christ, by His birth in Bethlehem, did not actually come to establish a new humanity in His own person and work.

Church and Civil Government, Part II

To continue from my last blog, church and state 'overlap' too much when a pastor becomes a mayor. If the argument is that pastors should not preach about politics, nations and the world we live in, I disagree. Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a kook. However that does not mean all pastors are kooks and that they all lead their flock astray. If a pastor does not lead his congregation in a certain area, who does? CNN, Newsweek? Yikes!! To expand on my earlier point...is Wright only a kook when he talks about the 'state'? Safe to say no. No matter what he is preaching on, he could be leading the flock astray. That is for the people who attended his church to decide and judge…we are commanded to…

19Do not put out the Spirit's fire; 20do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22Avoid every kind of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5 (New International Version)

The biblical references for the type of pastors I am talking about are the prophets Amos and Jeremiah. They spoke against the political establishment of their day. Their message was "knock off the sin, thus sayeth the Lord. God's judgment with fall on all of us!" We need pastors who speak the truth and declare the need for repentance to our political leaders. After all, who else will?

Church and Civil Government

I believe in the separation of Church and state…after all God ordained it. He created three governments. The Family Government, the Church Government and the Civil Government. Each one has responsibilities and duties. The civil should be separate from the church. In other words a pastor should not be the mayor of a township or the governor of a state. However the governments do overlap. Here is an illustration…lets say a math teacher goes to a diner for breakfast. He orders three eggs over-easy. Fifteen minutes later two eggs appear in front of him. He tells the cook…”Hey I ordered three eggs!” The cooks replies…”Do not tell me how to cook!” The math teacher responds with…”I’m not…I telling you how to count.” Their professions overlap. The same is true with the church and politics. When our government leaders meddle in sin we need pastors to stand up and declare God’s law and truth. When babies are slaughtered on a daily basis and marriage is redefined in this nation we need pastors to say…”Knock it off…thus sayeth the Lord!”

Pendulums and Wedding Dresses

In a recent conversation with some friends I lamented the fact that the modern church has become more and more casual in the attire of its members. This can be seen with adults, but especially with children. It concerns me with children because the message is that church is a casual place that deserves no reverence and that anything goes.

Where did the casual influence come from? I believe from two places. First, the world...specifically the business world. Work has become more and more casual and unfortunately the church has followed 'suit'. The other influence is a religious one. Modern church leaders place a heavy emphasis on a person's heart. It is the inside that matters, not the outside they tell us. God is concerned with heart issues, not with designer clothes. While I believe God starts with the heart, it is out of our hearts all things flow. That is why foul language is foul...it is a pipeline to the anger and bitterness in a person's heart.

In Matthew 23 Jesus said...
25"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

So Jesus the inside matters, but the outside does too. I believe that our clothes should reflect the condition and attitude of our heart...and often they do. Black at a funeral comes to mind. When the Saints gather to worship God on Sunday there is significance in the day. It is important. God is gathering with us and that deserves our respect. Our clothes should reflect the importance of what we are doing at church.

Often people are concerned that if visitors come in they will feel out of place if they are not dressed correctly. Specifically if they are underdressed. But I would contend that how they are treated will be the greatest factor in whether they feel welcomed to come back the next week.

There is also a concern of people faking it..dressing up for church, but being crummy on the inside. My response is that God never jumps at a pump fake. He is not fooled and usually His children aren't either.

So the pendulum has swung from formal to informal. While I do not believe church should be super-formal, I think that most modern churchs are way too informal. But does it matter? I obvoiusly think it does and I think the illustration of a wedding perfectly relates how I feel. For our wedding, Melissa wore a beautiful white wedding gown. She was adorned with simple but spectacular jewelry and her make-up along with her hair highlighted her natural beauty. Simply put she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

Now would our wedding have been less of a union with God if she was in jeans and t-shirt? Would the day have been less important? No and No. However, would it have been as sacred? as meaningful? as symbolic? No, No and No. The dress and the accesories inhanced the ceremony in my eyes and in God's eyes. There was reverence, importance and symbolism.

I believe this is a good illustration because what is the church? We are the bride of Christ. And every Sunday we should clean ourselves up from being dirtied by the world and go meet with the Bridegroom in a ceremony that is important and significant. Our hearts should be right with God and our clothes should show Him the proper respect He deserves.

Sabbath Living

Over the past week I asked God to show me where our small group should go for the next few weeks. What came to my mind was the fact that we will look at what Biblical marriage is after the new year and how that it is the opposite of what the world says. Thus to prepare us we examined antithesis and what God says about the world. Please examine the following verses...

James 4:4-10
James 1:27
Romans 12:1-2
1 John 2:15-17
John 15:18-19
John 18:36

After examining what God says about the world, look at God Himself...
Rev 1:8
Malachi 3:6
James 1:17

Next, it is important to look at the Ten Commandments...
Exodus 20
Deuteronomy 5

A personal observation is that most Christians believe and honor all the commandments sans one. Most believe is it is sin to break nine of them, but if you mention the Sabbath they say..."well that is just an Old Testament thing. Our culture is different...the world is different." But we know what God says about the world and our relation to it.

So I challenged my small group to observe the Sabbath.

Melissa and I have agreed to. On Sunday we will rest from our work, gather with the Saints to celebrate what God has done for us, to feast and to rely on Him to provide for us. I invite your families to join us. We talked in detail what we think it means to observe the Sabbath and I will share more later. Now I ask you to look at the scripture, pray and discuss it with your family to see what you think.

To go back the the original idea, this is one way we can be the antithesis to the world.

I pray that this finds you with a open heart and mind. Comment if you have any questions.

Bethel Prep and Thanksgiving

The following is from a speech I gave before Bethel Prep's Third annual Thanksgiving Celebration. Before we feasted three of our classes performed performances that displayed what they had been learning.





Greetings to each of you. For those who do not know, my name is Joe Canney and I am the Upper Grammar school teacher, which this year includes our fifth and sixth grades. I am also the lead teacher here at Bethel Prep.


Before we get started I wanted to give you an idea of what you are seeing today and more importantly why you are seeing the performances you are seeing. I would like to begin by highlighting the content of our three performances. At Bethel Prep we study the history of western civilization, our history, from the beginning, creation, up to the present. We do this three full times. Once in grammar school, once in dialectic school (our middle school) and once in rhetoric school (our high school). The performances today all come from our grammar school. In grammar school, we focus on our students acquiring knowledge – what can be called the grammar of history. So what is the grammar of history? It is people, places, events and dates. We take the history of western civilization and teach it chronologically over five years beginning in second grade. In doing so, we are laying a foundation of knowledge that will be built on in dialectic and rhetoric school. So with that in mind, the first performance you will be seeing today is our third grade. In history the focus for them is the Old Testament, Ancient Greece and Rome time period. Our fourth grade then picks up about where third grade leaves off. Today our fourth grade will share what they have been learning about the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Reformation. Our final performance will be from my class and what we studying this year – the events leading to the founding of America. My class will perform a play that will focus only on the first nine events we study this year – the events leading to the first Thanksgiving. But what is interesting to examine is that all three performances move in chronological order. Thus it is easy to move backwards in time and to realize and understand that all of the performances in order are the events that lead to the first Thanksgiving – a timeline of about three thousand years.


So that is the content of our performances, but I also wanted to mention why and how we perform. First is how. The common thread you will see in all the performances is song. Music is a powerful tool for any educator. Students in the grammar school are able to easily remember baskets full of information when it is put to a tune. But it is more than just finding a trick to get kids to remember stuff. When we sing at Bethel Prep, we make a joyful noise…it is fun. We are creating a culture where students sing everyday and multiple times a day. Many of you here attended our number parade. Some of you have seen Memory Period in action and others have heard your child singing some a familiar tune with unfamiliar words from the back seat of the car. It is fun, engaging and most importantly we use quality music. When our students attended the Veterans Day Service many of them recognized the official song of the navy – Anchors Aweigh because it is the tune we use for a science song. For me personally, many of a car ride and tubby time with my daughter Addison is spent singing the classic nursery rhymes, along with many Bethel Prep jingles. Now I do not encourage any of you to subject your children to my singing, but it has been a blessing to see how Addison has developed and interacted with us because of the use of music. It has also been a blessing to see how our students increase in memory power because of the use of songs. And they enjoy it.


That addresses one way we learn and the how to our performances. The other piece I wanted to touch upon is why. At Bethel Prep we want, Lord willing, to produce students who can articulate and communicate the truth. In order to be able to do so, they must be comfortable talking to and in front of large groups. We as educators and parents know that the best way to prepare our children to do something is to practice. That is why our students stand to speak in the classroom. It raises them above their peers and all eyes focus on the speaker. In the beginning some students are uncomfortable, but over time they adjust and soon it is no big deal to rise up and answer a question. Doing our performances today is taking it one step farther. The audience is larger and older…by larger I meant there is more of you. Again, if the students come up on stage enough, soon it becomes no a big deal. What you will notice in our final performance, which is a play, is that every student has an individual speaking part. It is part of our focus to educate the entire child and prepare them for the work God has for them.
One final note…for the performances today, we chosen to have our 3rd-6th grades perform. At Easter, our Kindergarten – 2nd grades will perform. We thought it was better to give the younger students more time to prepare. Also in the spring, Bethel Prep will be putting on a major production under the direction of our music teacher Miss Lia DiOrio that will feature many of our dialectic students.


So my hope is you understand that while today’s performances are cute and fun, that they are much more than just the opportunity to showoff. They are part of the much larger picture of Bethel Prep, which is serving God in training students to shape the future and restore our Christian Heritage with Jesus Christ at the center of everything.

Football and Classical Education

So I watched my beloved Buckeyes put a whooping on the Wolverines of Michigan. It was our fifth win over them in a row and seven wins in the last eight years, which co-insides with the tenure of Jim Tressel, Mr. Sweater Vest - The Senator.

About eight years ago, when Tressel was hired, I listened to his press conference as I drove to Columbus for the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Conference. A reporter asked the exact question I wanted an answer to...what kind of offensive system are you bringing coach?? The answer was wonderful...Coach Tressel basically said I bring no set system. I adapt to the strengths of my players. If I have a featured running back, we will feature him. If I have a strong armed QB we will take advantage of it. And if anyone has watched the Bucks for the past eight seasons, that is exactly what they have done.

Last winter Michigan decided to hire Rich Rodriguez as their coach. I did not hear the press conference when they hired him, but I doubt anyone asked what system he was bringing. Anyone who pays any attention to college football knew exactly what Michigan was getting. Rodriguez is a one system man.


So what does this have to do with eddy-cation? Everything I say. Bethel Prep (the school that employs me) is a liberal arts school. Liberal comes from liberty which means freedom. A Liberal Arts education gives the learner just that...freedom. Freedom to become whatever he or she wants because a true liberal arts education teaches a person HOW to think and HOW to be a life long learner. In other words, it is people who can adapt to virtually any situation because they know HOW to think. They can use their skills to adapt.

Contrast that with most schools, elementary through college, today. Where is the focus? In getting students on to a 'track'. Communications...education...nursing...whatever. Students take tests to determine what track they belong on (in high school) or declare a major (in college). They are then prepared for the next four to eight years to perform in exactly that field. Never mind the fact that people are switching jobs and careers at a faster rate than ever. Our schools prepare them to do a job which virtually none of them will be doing in five years.

So back to football. Who is Tressel? He is the classically educated mind. Able to think and adapt to what he has in front of him.

Who is Rich Rodriguez? He is the modernly educated child. He has one system and is unable to adapt to the resources around him.

There are many true Liberal Arts colleges still alive and producing wonderful fruit in America. What is fascinating is that they have NO (or one) major. That is it.

Calvinism vs. Arminianism

I am involved with a small group Bible study that is part of Gloucester County Community Church's Circle of Friends ministry. We have a great group that recently has been discussing God's will, what love is and John 3:16. This post is from an email exchange we have been having as a group. This is my email giving my thought to John 3:16.



Greetings,



When discussing John 3:16 I believe our thoughts are falling into two categories. One is salvation and how it works and the other is the atonement(or redemption).



Now whether we know it or not, the discussion is basically Calvinism vs. Arminianism. What has been posted so far leans toward Arminianism, naturally, because we attend an Arminian church. A brief church history lesson tells us that Calvin was a reformer of the Roman Catholic church in the mid 1500's. He, along with Luther and others, gave birth to the Protestant church. What is not usually known is two things. One, Calvin was rediscovering and reteaching the theology of one of the great church fathers, Augustine of Hippo of the late 300's. In other words Calvinism is the modern nickname for what is truly Augustinism. Arminianism came last, as a response to Calvinism in the late 1500's. John Wesley (founder of the Methodist church) was an Arminianist. An interesting note at this time of year is that the Pilgrims and Puritans were Calvinists.



So enough about history, on to the debate at hand. I will try to focus on Christ's atonement and Christ's salvation. The two are obviously connected, so some ideas will overlap.



16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.



These verses(16-17) hinge on two key words. World and Save. The Calvinist struggles to explain World in this passage and all others that use World. World can mean a lot of things, but it never means a few or a remnant. They have a hard time explaining who the World is. The Arminian has a hard time with the word Save. It does not say that Jesus will try to save the world. It does not say maybe...it says He will save the world. But we know all are not saved, so they have to water-down the word Save.



My reaction is that I take the verses at face value. Jesus does not fail. Perfection does not lose. So if it says He will save the world, I believe He will do exactly that. I believe God chooses who He wants to save. I believe He calls his children home and sets us apart to do His will. I believe His will is perfect and just. He is a fair God and I do not question that. If He damns some, it by definition cannot be unfair. I have no problem with that.



God told Jeremiah..."Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart." Does God only do that for some?



I do not think so because in Ephesians Paul says... "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." His will and plan are perfect. How can it be up to us? How can God depend on us to make the right choice? We are fallen...we are sinful...of the flesh. To say that God leaves it up to us is to argue in favor of Deism. That God created everything, put the plan in place and then sits backs and hope we choose wisely. How can the world be Saved if the Savior is not the one calling the shots? Now I know I am overstating somethings, but ponder the idea of how could God leave the decision up to us...the sinful lot? Do we, in the image of God, parent as such? Is this how we treat our children? I am reminded of Adam Sandler in Big Daddy...of course the kid will always choose junk food. Bethel Prep parents...do your kids get to choose where (and if) they want to go to school? =D But do not misread me.



I do believe in Free Will. And that is where my part comes in. Think about this. You profess to believe in Christ...you are saved...you are a Christian. Then someone pulls you to the side and says "psst...I got something to tell you...God chose you...God has a purpose for you...God set you apart to be part of His mighty salvation plan for the world." Wow...very powerful. For me, I now realize it is not up to me. I am total depravity(original sin). But I realize that in God's grace He has a purpose for me. He has, out of His Grace given me the Holy Spirit which will NOT fail. It will work in me to do His work. I am a Christian and I am marked by my baptism. I am reborn.



Another analogy came to my mind when I was chatting with Melissa. Does Addison have free will? Yes, she chooses what toys to play with and such...but does she get to choose her mother and father?


I will close with a Bible reference. John 10...the emphasis is obviously mine.



11"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 14"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father." 24The Jews gathered around him, saying, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." 25Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, 26but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30I and the Father are one."



And remember, why did the Jews not believe Jesus was the Christ? Isaiah tells us in chapter 6 and John quotes him in chapter 12:9



He(the Lord) said, "Go and tell this people(the Jews):

" 'Be ever hearing, but never understanding;

be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'

10 Make the heart of this people calloused;

make their ears dull

and close their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes,

hear with their ears,

understand with their hearts,

and turn and be healed."



So to summarize Jesus says there is one flock (Jew and Gentile) and He lays His life down for his sheep, but that those who do not believe are not His sheep. And they do not believe because He makes thier hearts calloused, ears dull and eyes closed.



Cheers,

Joe

Book Shelf

I have decided to keep a log of the books I have read. If you look to the margin you will see a new section called Book Shelf. It will be a log and brief review of the books I have read in the previous month.

Cheers!

Halloween 2008

Addy and the Toothbrush

Addison Rocks the Beach House!

Addy's First Birthday Party

Addison eating....cereal