Like most of you, I have been somewhat riveted by the debate of recent times spawned by the refusal of some NFL players to stand and show respect for the US Flag during the national anthem before games. The President waded into that debate over the last weekend, perhaps unwisely, but time will tell. What I want to concentrate on here is tangent to the debate, but still important. Jim Harbaugh, the Michigan football coach, responded by telling the President to read the Constitution. If I understand his statement correctly, he was suggesting that the President was violating the free speech rights of the NFL players given in the First Amendment. But this is patently untrue. It is a fallacy we all fall into sometimes. When we are debating someone else, especially if that someone else is a good debater, we resort to a false challenge. This happens a lot from those on the Left side of the political spectrum but they are not by themselves. What they are really arguing for is “freedom from criticism.” The First Amendment does not say we have freedom from criticism. NFL players who are unhappy with America have the right to criticize by kneeling down during the national anthem. Others have the right to criticize those players if they disagree. Even Presidents have freedom of speech, although we can criticize them and even vote them out of office. As a Pastor and Seminary prof, I received plenty of criticism. If we are supposed to be free from criticism, I want to pass the offering plate again. Somebody out there owes me something!
Archive for September, 2017
There is much emphasis on “gospel-centered” in the evangelical culture and scholarship of our day. I have written here and in other forums that this is not where I am. I have suggested that “Jesus-centered” is a better way to go since such an approach encompasses all that Jesus does, past-present-future, on our behalf. While the gospel of eternal life serves as a foundational truth for past accomplishment, present experience, and future blessing, it is not broad enough to integrate all that Jesus is and all that He does, from the creation of the world, provision of salvation in the Cross and Resurrection, setting up of a kingdom when He comes again, and the ushering in of a new heavens and new earth in the end – all of which combined offer more breadth than the simple gospel. This should not be taken to minimize the strategic role the gospel plays in history or in our theology.
Last week we had our annual Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics. The topic was “Dispensationalism and the Glory of God.” Much profitable discussion centered on a doxological unifying theme of the Bible (Ryrie). The Niagara Conference men of an earlier generation said the same thing but would be comfortable with the words “doxological purpose or purposes for biblical history.” I think the presentation is legitimately biblical. However, the Niagara Conference men also treated this doxological purpose for history as focused on Christology. That is, it was “Jesus-centered” as I have mentioned above. My paper on Arno C. Gaebelein at the Council was the illustration I used for this point of view.
When we ask if the Bible or biblical history or Christian life (or however we word it) is primarily soteriological (gospel-centered), Christological (Jesus-centered), theological (God-centered), or doxological (glory-centered), we are in danger of skewing the truth if we are not careful. All of these things are so tightly intertwined that to diminish one may be to diminish the others in our theological discourse. But if I had to choose, I would believe in a doxological purpose to biblical history with a Christological center. Jesus-centered to the glory of God.
