The Biebs Focuses Attention on a 2011 Tim Keller Marriage Book

A publisher couldn’t ask for a larger amount of publicity, especially for a title about to turn seven years old. This past week, The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller got an unusual amount of attention after Justin Bieber was seen carrying the book around following an intense emotional time with fiancée Hailey Baldwin, which caught the attention of the paparazzi and had the tabloids buzzing.

At DailyMail.co.uk it was the story lede:

Justin Bieber revealed he has turned to an incredibly conservative Christian self-help book for relationship guidance in the wake of his tearful public exchange with fiancee Hailey Baldwin.

The 24-year-old Canadian pop star, who was pictured crying while comforting an equally-emotional Hailey, 21, earlier this week, was seen carrying the religious book about marriage while out and about in New York on Wednesday

Justin seemed to credit the book with helping him to overcome ‘bad days’ as he spoke to photographers outside of Hailey’s Brooklyn apartment building – however it is unclear whether he is following all of the advice in the tome, which also tells men and women to abstain from sex before marriage, suggests that wives should submit to their husbands, and depicts the Bible’s view of marriage as being monogamous and heterosexual.

Justin did seem to suggest that he is leaning on the book heavily for guidance as he and Hailey navigate their relationship ahead of marriage, holding it up and showing it to photographers and fans when they asked about how he and his fiancee are doing after their emotional display on Tuesday…

The lengthy article is more about the book than about the couple.

Then in a sidebar, there is further description:

…In addition to discussing the relationship between a couple, and the importance of their bond with God, Keller’s book… has more than 1,000 five-star reviews, also suggests that wives must submit to their husbands, and advises men and women to abstain from sex before marriage.

Through his writing, he aims to show everyone – ‘Christians, skeptics, singles, longtime married couples, and those about to be engaged’ – what the Bible’s view of marriage really is which, according to Keller, is monogamous and heterosexual…

The article concludes,

The couple are devout Christians and have been going to church together since rekindling their romance.

But then, just when you think you know everything there is to know about the book, the same website published yet another article with the endless headline, “Inside the conservative Christian self-help book Justin Bieber is using to navigate his relationship with Hailey Baldwin – which suggests wives should submit to their husbands and warns against sex before marriage.” Yes, that was all headline for the article.

The précis in the article seems to have borrowed much material from a chapter summary by Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition and from Tim Keller’s blog.

…’Men and women each have distinct glories and we need one another. Marriage is the primary (though not only) place where those glories are blended and we are profoundly enriched.’

One chapter in the book, written by Keller’s wife, is about the different roles men and women play in marriage.

According to The Gospel Coalition, it discusses the Christian teaching that marriage is a place ‘where the two sexes accept each other as differently gendered and learn and grow through it’

Keller and his wife seem to believe that men and women are fundamentally different, and take on different responsibilities in a partnership.

It’s unclear how well that particular passage resonates with Hailey Baldwin. While the model hasn’t spoken out about feminism, she does count several feminist among her friends…

Many online publications and news sites connected with the book this week including Cosmopolitan, Billboard and a brief mention at CNN. It will be interesting to learn to what degree all this publicity has impacted sales.

 

Who Are You Sleeping With? Tim Keller at Gospel Coalition

On the one hand, I no longer give a lot of space here to what the New Calvinists are up to.  My feeling is that when they finally reach consensus on the question, “What is the Gospel?” they can send up smoke signals like they do in The Vatican.

But there’s no denying the wisdom and influence of Redeemer Presbyterian (New York, NY) pastor and author Timothy Keller.  So there was a lot of excitement over the weekend over a post by Derek Rishmawy who has a Patheos blog Christ and Pop Culture, and wrote ‘Who Are You Sleeping With?’ My Conversation with Timothy Keller.  

First, here’s the context:

…Drawing on his experience in urban, culture-shaping Manhattan, Keller responded that one of the biggest obstacles to repentance for revival in the Church is the basic fact that almost all singles outside the Church and a majority inside the Church are sleeping with each other. In other words, good old-fashioned fornication.

The major substance of the piece comes in the second section:

Keller illustrated the point by talking about a tactic, one that he admittedly said was almost too cruel to use, that an old college pastor associate of his used when catching up with college students who were home from school. He’d ask them to grab coffee with him to catch up on life. When he’d come to the state of their spiritual lives, they’d often hem and haw, talking about the difficulties and doubts now that they’d taken a little philosophy, or maybe a science class or two, and how it all started to shake the foundations. At that point, he’d look at them and ask one question, “So who have you been sleeping with?” Shocked, their faces would inevitably fall and say something along the lines of, “How did you know?” or a real conversation would ensue. Keller pointed out that it’s a pretty easy bet that when you have a kid coming home with questions about evolution or philosophy, or some such issue, the prior issue is a troubled conscience. Honestly, as a Millennial and college director myself, I’ve seen it with a number of my friends and students—the Bible unsurprisingly starts to become a lot more “doubtful” for some of them once they’d had sex.

And it makes sense, right? When you’re engaged in behavior you’ve been raised to believe is wrong, but is still pretty fun, more than that, powerfully enslaving, you want to find reasons to disbelieve your former moral convictions. As Keller pointed out, Aldous Huxley famously confessed in his work Ends and Means that he didn’t want there to be a God and meaning because it interfered with his sexual freedom. While most of our contemporaries haven’t worked it out quite as philosophically as Huxley has, they’re spiritually in much the same place.

I’ve heard it said that one of the reason people love to debate Noah and the Ark and Jonah and the Whale is because they are looking for an out. If they can find a problem with the Biblical text in one section, it absolves them from responsibility in others. So much of the debate clearly is about something other than what it appears.

In one of the comments, I noted:

I’ve heard it said that one of the reasons churches are finding it so hard to get male volunteers is because a lot of guys don’t feel ‘worthy’ because of their online addiction to porn. Someone has already noted in the comments here its possible application in this situation as well.

In other words, spiritual intensity wanes as spiritual truth comes into conflict with actual individual behavior. 

Keller’s thesis did not sit well with Rachel Held Evans.  In a piece titled Is Doubt an STD? — the title itself confuses the cause and effect — she challenges the sweeping generality of Keller’s response:

Keller seems to assume that thoughtful questioning among young people are typically the result of sexual activity and their desire to justify it. This was not true for me, and it is not true for many of the young adults who leave college with questions about science, philosophy, politics, and religious pluralism that challenge the fundamentalism with which they were raised…

…Furthermore, learning that a college student is sexually active does not somehow discredit his or her faith experience.

But while she accuses Keller of being dismissive of the real spiritual concerns of young people, I felt she was just a little too dismissive of Keller.  I wrote:

Keller is teaching us to look for “the question behind the question,” not unlike Jesus with the woman at the well in John chapter 4. I think he may be on to something; but Rachel, I agree that this approach could backfire if it is dismissive of genuine questions and spiritual concerns. I think you have to earn the right to ask someone who they’re sleeping with.

There was a lot of push-back on Rachel’s take on Keller, and so yesterday, she published some of the highlights of the critiques she received.  You can read those here.

If you don’t know it, read the story of the Woman at the Well in John 4 here.

Wednesday Link List

Monday was Thanksgiving Day in Canada, and we were away, so the list is slightly smaller. Remember to have your submissions in by 8 PM EST Monday night.

• A friend from this blog’s past, Jim Lehmer, had an interesting item about a unique concept, a U.S. Election Day Communion Service.
• Speaking of politics, on Sunday, over 1,200 American pastors deliberately violated a law forbidding them to address political issues from the pulpit.
  
• From Saskatoon, Canada; the Faith Alive Band, a church worship band, has been getting a lot of buzz for its song Open The Floodgates, but everybody will refer to the song as Let It Rain Down. 
• Two great posts from a forward-thinking Salvation Army officer who lives in my part of the world and is back to blogging: First, witnessing a witnessing at Starbucks (that’s not a typo)…
• … And second, some info about The Dignity Project, the Salvation Army’s response to human trafficking.
  
• New to my personal blog bookmarks is Bob Hostetler’s Prayer Blog in which each post is a prayer culled from a number of eclectic sources — like this one — something he’s been doing since 2005. 
• I’ve mentioned Skye Jethani in reference to the Phil Vischer podcast, but here’s a couple of short videos of Skye teaching, the first of which I was actually the first to view.
• Speaking of SJ, on his other web interest, Out of Ur, we find Ravi Zacharias kicking off a very similar series about defining the gospel.
  
• Author and pastor Timothy Keller’s newest title releases in a month, this time around Every Good Endeavor is a business/leadership book for young professionals. 
• In the meantime, here’s a small — 48  pages; under $5 — Keller book you might have missed. The for The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness link is to a British website, but the book is available to stores in the U.S. through STL.
• Over 32,000 gathered in Wembley Stadium for last month’s UK National Day of Prayer.
• Getting hit by a bus is not usually a good thing, right? Here’s an encouraging story of healing and forgiveness.
• Darrell Creswell tells the story of a brief encounter with a homeless man at a traffic light; a situation that now occurs regularly in North American cities.
• If you ever feel your life is up and down like a yo-yo; here’s someone who can empathize.
  
• Lee Younger has a pretty good definition for young people of who it is you want to marry.
  
• A mention of the Music Box movie here recently got me looking for more by the Sensational Nightingales. Turn up your speakers and enjoy Every Promise in the Book is Mine. We is having church!
  

If you blog on blogspot, you should know that your blog address here in Canada automatically redirects to a .ca ending instead of .com and manually changing links to your blog is somewhat time consuming! We’re just assuming it flips back for our U.S. readers.

Two Audiences, Two Responses

If you spend any amount of time in the Christian blogosphere, by the time Christmas rolls around, you are going to have had enough of the discussion of Christianity and Homosexuality. This blog is no exception.  Some of you are glazing over even as you read this, and a few of you have already clicked away.  Bye, bye. Try again tomorrow…

However, I was very impressed with an exercise that took place at Team Pyro (aka Pyromaniacs) (Gasp, yes, a reformed blog) over the past week, where readers were asked by Frank Turk to compare and contrast two different approaches to this problem, one from John Piper, who is speaking largely to a very loyal Christian following, and second from Timothy Keller, who attracts secularists, skeptics and seekers in rather refreshing numbers; people who, as Team Pyro pointed out, will never venture into the Christian blogosphere.

I decided the videos were worth posting here as well, but you need to (a) read Frank’s introductions and (b) read some of the comments.  So here are the links to part one and part two.  As huge as this issue is, it’s a microcosm of how we deal with similar issues within and outside the church. Jesus was rather rough on the Pharisees, but had a great deal of grace for sinners. I like what Keller did here especially and think it’s worth watching a few times. (And don’t remind me about Joel Osteen’s response.) 

Please remember if you decide to comment here, that this is about the nature of the response depending on who is the audience. Comments here (and at Pyromaniacs) should be limited to this particular focus or will otherwise be deleted.

Wednesday Link List

Church life:

• Hal West, author of  The Pickled Priest and the Perishing Parish : “No one will argue against the fact that since the beginning of Christian history there has existed a tension between two distinct groups in the church – the clergy and the laity. ”  Read what pastors don’t get and what people don’t get.
• A. J. Swoboda: “I think not having our children worship with us in worship can be dangerous. Who else is to teach them why and how we sing? How else are children to learn the ways of worship? …I wonder if something was lost when we split the family up in church?”  Read more at A. J.’s blog.
• Carter Moss: ” I desperately want to hear from God through every avenue possible. That why I love leading at a church that uses movie clips…, TV show clips…, and secular music… every chance we get.” This link has been in my files since August; read Why My Faith (And Yours) Needs Pop Culture.
• He said, she said:  “…[S]he continues to nominate women for the board of elders, something their denomination, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, allows. [Pastor] Willson has said that only qualified men can be elders at Second Presbyterian.”  A longtime member faces church discipline in Memphis.
• So if you jump through all the hoops and actually get to sing a solo at Thompson Road Baptist Church, you can’t sing a Contemporary Christian Music song or “a song that was made popular by CCM.” In other words, if Casting Crowns covers “Dwelling in Beulah Land” it’s goes off the approved list. (Click the image to isolate the text, and then a 2nd time to enlarge it.)
  
• Yours truly borrows a list of 13 signs of a healthy church, and then adds a description of a very healthy church you may have heard before; all at Christianity 201.
  

Christian blogosphere:

• Mrs. Beamish isn’t too happy with the worship style changes in her local C. of E. (Church of England). Especially the ‘friendlier’ passing of the piece and up-tempo music. A hilarious song posted to YouTube back in ’08.
  
• Lifeway Christian Bookstores are going to continue selling the revised NIV Bible after all. Yawn.
  
• Prodigal Magazine re-launches on March 1st with Allison and Darrell Westerfelt taking the reins.
• Paul Helm, who teaches at Regent College on the phrase, ‘asking Jesus into your heart‘ : “They are using words and phrases that bear a positive relation to the language in which the faith has been officially as preached and confessed by the church through the centuries, but a rather loose relation..” Pray the prayer, read the post.
• This is a new product that not even XXX.Church.Com had heard of when I wrote them this week. Check out My Porn Blocker, currently available at a ridiculously low price.
• Steve McCoy reveals where the treasure is buried: A stash of online articles by Redeemer Presbyterian’s Timothy Keller.   It was derived from a larger list featuring various authors.
  
• CNN’s Belief Blog offers an excellent profile of Ed Dobson along with a look at his latest video My Garden.
  
• I love the tagline for this blog: Was 1611 the last word for the English Bible? The KJV Only Debate Blog is a blog but it looks like the real action is in the forum. “This blog aims to confront the King James controversy head on, and evaluate the claims of KJV-onlyism from a Biblical perspective.The authors are all former proponents of KJV-onlyism. …[W]e acknowledge that there are multiple varieties of the KJV-only position.”
  
• In a first for Canada, a Teen Challenge center in Brandon, Manitoba will launch as a women-only facility.
  
• Want to understand the basics of Christianity?  The Australian website YDYC — Your Destiny, Your Choice — has a number of basic videos explaining salvation.
  
• Here’s a fun video by The Left filmed in a theater in Western Canada, enjoy Cellophane. At GodTube, they cite various faith influences, though their bio doesn’t.
  
• Today is the first day of Lent.  If you have absolutely no idea what that means, you might want to start with this introduction to the church calendar.
  
• All good lists must come to an end; if you’re an otter, don’t forget to say your prayers.
  

Friday Link List

Okay, I know what you’re thinking, “Shouldn’t the link list be on Wednesday?”  Well, these are a couple of longer items that bear closer scrutiny, and I didn’t want them to get lost in the list the day before yesterday.  So here goes…

• Left Behind Theology.  Not everyone agrees with it, but it dominates Christian publishing, most eschatological discussions, and last weekend’s non-rapture event.   Won’t we be “caught up to meet Him in the air”?  The Greek word apantesis more implies going out to meet someone on the way, the way you might walk out to the driveway to welcome the family you invited for dinner, or perhaps, the way the invited guests might line up on the road to meet the bridegroom in a Jewish wedding in Bible times.  Also, according to Matthew Dickerson, the references to Noah are key to understanding Jesus’ statements about the last days.  Check out the Christianity Today article, Who Gets Left Behind?

• Ever wonder what motivates some people to pursue the ministry ventures they do?  Pastoral callings are a little easier to understand, but callings to parachurch organizations are usually more complex.  In his continuing “five questions” series — though this one is actually nine Qs and As — Rick Apperson talks to Wess Stafford, the president and CEO of Compassion International.   Look… I know you guys aren’t big on clicking, but at least read the first question and answer, and I guarantee it will draw you into the rest of the article.  It’s a true survival story.   Check it out over at Rick’s blog, Just a Thought.

• Here’s a bonus item; someone posted this video yesterday as a comment to a rather old item here, but the video is new.  The soundtrack is Timothy Keller preaching, author of The Reason for God and The Prodigal God.  If you go to the source, there’s also a copy of the text, which some of you might want to keep on file.  [Note: Vimeo takes about three times longer than YouTube to load fully.]
  

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Songs with substance

If you check the right hand margin over at Christianity 201, you’ll see that all of the various music resources that have appeared there are now listed and linked alphabetically. Take a moment to discover — or re-discover — some worship songs and modern hymns from different genres.

Today’s links list lynx is a Canadian Lynx as photographed by Max Waugh. Click the image to link to the lynx. 

The Difference Between Religion and Christ

At least once a week, I have the opportunity to share a simple overview of the difference between religion and Christianity with someone.   I wrote about it in September, 2008, but the essence of it is:

Q. How do you spell religion?

A. D-O — Do this, do that, do the other thing. Your standing before God is/will be based on what you do.

Q. How do you spell Christianity?

A. D-O-N-E — It’s all been done for us. There is nothing we can do to earn it, it is the gift of God.

The response I’ve had to this over the years has always been positive — it shatters many false perceptions — and I’m grateful to the former YFC staff worker who introduced it to me over a decade ago.

Justin Buzzard, who blogs from California, has taken a look at Tim Keller‘s The Gospel in Life curriculum, and has extracted more detail on the contrast between religion and the Good News, and has put it in chart form on Buzzard Blog.  (Check out the whole blog!)   Here it is for your consideration:

Currently Reading: The Meeting of the Waters

When David C. Cook sent me a review copy of a fiction title last month, I immediately shrugged my shoulders sighing, “Boy, have they got the wrong guy.”   I almost felt that way with the arrival this month of what appeared to me to be a missions title.

I grew up in a very missions-focused church.    I’ve heard all the missionary stories, seen all the native costumes, listened to John 3:16 recited in the indigenous tongues, and endured the playing of familiar hymns in foreign languages with decidedly non-western harmonies on a bizarre collection of musical instruments.

In other words, I’ve grown immune to missions in general, and that’s too bad because I ran the danger of completely missing the point of The Meeting of the Waters by Fritz Kling (Cook; March 2010).

In a kind of Future Shock for the global church, Klung points out that what’s happening in missions around the world has massive implications for us in the west.   We are part of a global church where changes are taking place rapidly. Quoting hockey great (and Olympic torchbearer on Friday night) Wayne Gretzky, Kling reminds us, figuratively speaking, that we don’t want to aim for “where the puck is” but rather, “where the puck is going to be.”

Kling also turns our missions concept on its head with the reminder that we in the west are now as much a missionary-receiving culture as well as a missionary-sending culture.  His extensive experience in both the western Church and the third world gives him a somewhat unique perspective.

He also reminds us of the example of Timothy Keller, whose ministry in Manhattan was born out of a need to put a new spin on the term, “unreached people group.”  I loved this quotation from Keller:

For many outsiders or inquirers, the deeds of the church will be far more important than words in gaining plausibility.   The leaders of most towns see ‘word only’ churches as costs to their community, not a value.  Effective churches will be so involved in deeds of mercy and justice that outsiders will say, ‘we cannot do without churches like these.’  [italics added]

I started reading after lunch and — just as I’m being called for supper — I’m already half-way through.   I really hope this title doesn’t get lost in the ‘missions’ section of your local bookstore.    The full title is The Meeting of the Waters:  7 Global Currents That Will Propel The Future Church.

Late in the week, I’ll get back to the book with a look at the seven global currents themselves and why they matter.

Update:  To read part two of this review, click here.

Your Weekend Links

Some of these are really, really good.  We got the hunting dogs out this week to track down some things online you might not otherwise find.  So…take a few minutes, okay?

• A long, long time ago — Monday really, which is forever in blog time — John Shore wrote an excellent piece on the Roman Polanski story which is making headlines around the world.   While it’s more of a general news item, I’m linking to it here because of something John wrote at the end: ” Hey, if you like this piece, do me a favor, please, and do what you can to help get it read… I don’t usually say this sort of thing for my stuff—in fact, in 2.5 years I’ve never said anything like this on any of my posts—but I hate to have this one just disappear in 15 min., the way all posts do.”    You can read John’s article here.
• While perhaps it’s not as well known as “Footprints,” blogger John Leake links to Linda Ellis’ poem (and heavily merchandised website) as well as reprinting “The Dash Poem” in full.  It’s the dash between our birth-date and death-date that matters.   Also, if your pastor is the “three points and a poem” kind of guy you can send him to Jeff’s blog, The Launch Pad.
• Author Tim Keller is blogging.   Well, sort of.   I’m not sure if this is going to be a regular thing or if it’s just a one-off; but he discusses his recent visit to speak at the Willow Creek Leadership Conference.   Well, actually it’s only four paragraphs.  You can read this at the Redeemer Church Planting Center.    And watch for Tim’s new book, Counterfeit Gods, releasing at the end of this month.
• She’s a pastor’s daughter, and as she walked by the group that had set up microphones for a rather confrontational afternoon of evangelism, something didn’t sit right.   Was it their attitude?   Was it all law and condemnation without any love?   So she spoke up the best she could.   The result is posted on YouTube.   If the comments seem a bit one-sided it’s because the clip was linked from a popular “Law and Gospel” blog that sees this type of verbal witness as the only way to go about this.   Check out “Pastor’s Daughter” here.
• Jerry in New Mexico blogs at Minor Mutterings and noted the anniversary earlier this week of the martyrdom of William Tyndale.  Said Tyndale, “I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, I will cause the boy that drives the plow in England to know more of the Scriptures than the Pope himself!”  The anniversary was Tuesday, October 6th.
• Paul Dixon blogs at Youth Worship and notes his personal discovery of 143 instructional videos on You Tube that are part of the Discovering Worship channel, which are also posted on a Discovering Worship website.   Read his blog for more details.
• The website, Who is Jesus Really is basically a rewrite of the Four Spiritual Laws presentation, but allows you to click on a wide variety of languages for translation of the material.   Ideal if you connect with someone who speaks a different language but wants to understand the meaning of the cross.
• Not enough links here for ya?  Maybe you’re spending too much time in front of your computer.   However, if it’s pouring rain where you live and you must stay inside, here’s almost 100 more links for you to Christian blogs you’ve probably never seen, on the auxiliary or “friends” list of My Christian Blogs.

Tim Keller on Jesus in the Old Testament

Via Darryl Dash’s blog:

All About Him

“Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:27)

• Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us (1 Corinthians 15).
• Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out for our acquittal, not our condemnation (Hebrews 12:24).
• Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void “not knowing wither he went!” to create a new people of God.
• Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. While God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love, from me,” now we can say to God, “Now we know that you love me, because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love, from me.”
• Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.
• Jesus is the true and better Joseph who, at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them.
• Jesus is the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant (Hebrews 3).
• Jesus is the true and better Rock of Moses who, struck with the rod of God’s justice, now gives us water in the desert.
• Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer, who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends (Job 42).
• Jesus is the true and better David, whose victory becomes his people’s victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.
• Jesus is the true and better Esther who didn’t just risk losing an earthly palace but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who didn’t just risk his life, but gave his life to save his people.
• Jesus is the true and better Jonah who was cast out into the storm so that we could be brought in.

Jesus is the real Rock of Moses, the real Passover Lamb – innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so the angel of death will pass over us. He is the true temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the Lamb, the Light, the Bread.

The Bible is not about you — it is about him.

(Tim Keller, Ockenga Preaching Series 2006)