Chapter Eleven, "The Other Six Days"

You Can Find This on iTunes

You just have to be glad there is an Aimee Byrd on the planet. She was featured recently on a Mortification of Spin podcast that I was able to import to iTunes and listen there. In such a relaxed manner she discusses verbal abuse of wives by their husbands. Someone has to speak up about the abuse of submission! The two hosts tease her about finally getting running water in West Virginia where she lives. The podcast is fun and significant. The blog also has the 28 minute tape and it is HERE. Aimee was asked how pastors need to be aware of a wife's verbal abuse by husbands and how that pastor can help. She points out it is easy to get used to a lifestyle a wife shouldn't get used to. She points out that love has a theological side and both men and women are equal under Christ. It takes a lot of wisdom to be a good helper and men need instruction in the proper care of their wives. Carl Trueman says that some men use their authority over the woman inappropriately and that the elders and deacons need to know the church members well so they can find instances of verbal abuse. Aimee says we need to ask leading questions. Carl suggested that men's pornography can ruin marriages and might be connected to verbal abuse. I did not find a lot of specifics here, but am glad that Aimee in her calm, sensible voice can raise awareness here.

Do I have verbal abuse from an Alzheimer's husband? Yes, I do at times. I let it roll off my back because I have learned what is happening to his brain. His anger is the disease talking. Then he forgets what he said to me and is very loving. His reality has changed. Some wives in the Alzheimer's Association Support Group do have very abusive husbands and have had to put them in locked-down nursing homes. I desire for my husband to be home all his days and I realize that my loving my husband is a way I show my world and my Plant City Lady and Friends blogging world what a Christian marriage is.

Back to the book, Housewife Theologian,  and the eleventh chapter. The Journaling Questions from pp. 225-226 are in red and my answers are in black.

• Though the source is actually debatable, a quote often attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi says, "Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary use words." What is wrong with this quote? We need to be ready at all times to give a defense. 
• Do you struggle with what it looks like to be a Christian in your vocation? I guess my faith shows. I was asked if I am a Christian rapper. I answered, "I am a rapper who happens to be Christian." Now mind you, this rapping thing just happened. I perform one of my wholesome raps at the end of good classes when I substitute teach.  How can you glorify God in your daily work? Through prayer and doing quality work, but then also accepting my limitations when I can't do quality work.  What are some of your struggles? I am so not perfect and at times I really get on my own nerves. 
• How are you personally humbled as a Christian living your daily life? All the time I am humbled. Think about your daily tasks, relationships, and goals. I so miss the mark, but am learning to deal with imperfection and will be until I see Jesus in His Holiness in heaven or the new earth. 
• Jesus tells us that we are the salt and the light of the earth (Matt. 5:13-16). What does that say about the world? There is so much depravity out in the world. What properties do salt and light have? Salt brings out flavor and light illuminates. 
• Think back to the first nine chapters of this book and the first nine months of your study. What privileges have stood out to you that we have as women to give that taste of Christianity to the watching world? I blog about my caregiving responsibilities and I also gently share my faith when I substitute teach or teach an occasional class for DUI offenders. What have been your biggest challenges? Last week I mentioned not being politically correct in public school and a bright young woman said there is not such a thing as "being politically correct" and that it is OK to mention God's Word which I did briefly in a rap I give at the end of the class. Here is the ending of my rap I often deliver in public school when I substitute:
  So use your mind
  Be careful with emotion
  Get your education
  Get your heart right
  Heed God’s Word
  Your future will be bright
  
  
  You all have our prayers
  You all have our devotion
  
  
  First use your mind
  But not your emotion
  This is, young friend,
  Life’s magic potion. 
  
  
  My rap is really rooted in Romans 12:2--to be renewed in your mind. I am not ashamed of the gospel, as Paul writes in Romans 1:16, because it is the power of God. 
• Do you find a lot of "holy prefixes" in your community's activities? Yes. There are probably more Baptist churches per square mile here in Plant City than any other town. But I haven't done the statistical research on it, but they can do things like drop Easter eggs from a helicopter on Easter. What can be some good responses that we can give to some of these invitation? I don't have time to run to every gospel concert or egg dropping. 
• How is a Christian plumber different from a good, upstanding, unbelieving plumber? I can ask this about the man who volunteers around our house--mowing the yard and fixing things. He may be thinking he is winning his way to heaven, but this is not the case. He is anti-church and yet says he prays and believes in Jesus Christ. Should there be any differences in their abilities? There may not be on the surface, but there would be in the obedience to God's Word. How about their code of conduct? Our gardener shows much moral responsibility and charity; we have bartered for his services my giving him equipment. Is it the responsibility of the Christian plumber to share the gospel with every customer before leaving his or her house? No, but the Christian needs to be aware of opportunities and also be a good steward of her working hours.*
• What differences are there between worldly success and how the Christian would define success? Is it difficult for you not to get caught up in worldly ambitions? Personally, I have really struggled in the area of ambition. . . . Aimee continues this with some of her struggle being a mom and finishing Housewife Theologian. When I ambitiously wrote my book in 2009, Getting Off the Niceness Treadmill, my husband was more cognitively aware at that stage of his dementia and he helped me by listening to me read it to him and offering suggestions. Now with the stress of being a caregiver I find that I am not caught up in worldly ambitions to my knowledge. Many times I wish I had more motivation and ambition, but do see that it is okay to accept my senior years the way they are now. Aimee writes: As I strive to live a life according to the gospel, my message to others is not "look at me." My life is not the gospel. Rather, my aim is to point others to Christ. (p. 212) Amen, Aimee! I think that even in the church there can be worldly ambitions and some churches are "seeker friendly" and driven by numbers. 
• What challenges do you find in selecting the best education for your children? What are you doing to combat the difficulties in the decisions you have made? Do you find yourself being judgmental of other Christians who make different decisions in this area? Since I am not a mom, I will just have to share my perspective. I do see Christian moms being torn up about educational decisions--whether to home school or to choose public school. Not all woman may have the ability to teach or be organized enough to homeschool. Not all families can afford private Christian education, probably the next best. The family may need the mother to work. As a public school substitute teacher and retired public school teacher, I can see problems of public school from the inside--namely what is taught and peer influence.  Yet I see Christian students thriving and sharing their faith in a public school while I see students homeschooled in a Christian home not picking up the faith. 
• Are there any other areas of our common culture for which you find a Christian adjective to be somewhat helpful? Maybe not. As Aimee wrote: we need to participate in humility in the place God has called us while he faithfully brings the full number of believers into his redemptive kingdom. Hopefully, I have already made my case that the gospel message challenges us to much more than slapping a Christian prefix in front of our daily activities. . . . Our cultural engagement is significant as Christians. It is something we should all wrestle with. But I don't think it's by "redeeming" yoga, plumbing, or politics in such a superficial way. (p. 208) Now in my case, I am trying to apply Christian principles to being a caregiver. 

*Incidentally, we are going to receive the free gift of a Christian plumber from our local Baptist church where the Alzheimer's Association Support Group meets.  He will be here next month to install grab bars to help with my husband's mobility in the bathroom. The staff member who called to set this up with me asked point blank if I am a Christian, taking advantage of that church's community outreach to senior citizens. Had I not been able to tell him about my faith, I am certain that he could have given out the gospel message. Thank God for the Southern Baptists! 

The Brouhaha Over Calvinism

 

Fresh off the press from CruciformPress.com . . .

Killing Calvinism. The subtitle is "How to Destroy a Perfectly Good Theology from the Inside." I needed someone to write such a book and thankfully Greg Dutcher has. Now Pastor Dutcher is not trying to kill Calvinism, but is looking at what Calvinists are doing that is clearly bad press for the church.

Drucker says that Calvinists are shooting themselves in the foot by first of all loving Calvinism as an end in itself. Dutcher points out:

All around the world blogs, study groups, conferences, podcasts, and unusual little publishing houses are churning out material on election, justification, covenantalism, ammillennialism, postmillennialism [the earlier subject of this blog--see Origin above for history], Christo-centric hermeneutics, Augustine, Calvin, Luther, and, yes, even the differences between infra-, supra- and sub-lapsarianism. Frankly, it is indeed cool to be a Calvinist right now, and more resources are available to the "Young, Restless, and Reformed" crowd than ever before. (p. 16)

Click on three red sites in this paragraph that illustrate the above point. The first is this Countering Calvinism which sets out to destroy Calvinism.  Another Calvinistic site posts "this week in Calvinism". Meanwhile this summer the Southern Baptists have a series contrasting Traditionalists and Calvinists with David Allen urging on July 4th deliver us from attempting to Calvinize or de-Calvinize the SBC.

In chapter two Dutcher contends that Calvinists are becoming theologians instead of disciples. He points out how knowledge puffs up (I Cor. 8:1), but that he himself also used to enjoy setting an Arminian straight while he was woefully neglecting things like mercy, kindness, and servanthood (p. 29).

Chapter three is on loving God's sovereignty more than God Himself. In this chapter he references cage-stage Calvinists who should be kept in a cage so they do no harm. He points out that joy, pride and anger might be reasons for the cage-stage. No one is really born, born again or elected as a Calvinist and I certainly find this is correct in my pilgrimage; my conversion was as a child so naive about theology but so happy to be in God's kingdom. I have always gone to Philippians 2 for work out my salvation and it is God who is working in me--two sides of the coin. Yes, God's sovereignty is reassuring, but being WITH our LORD is really more important than being a theologian IMHO. Our LORD wants to be with us. I have blogged about this discovery here, With Part One and With Part Two. This is so important and I am delighting in my devotional and prayer life more than other typical Reformed issues now. My faith is not all about theology. Quote me Scripture that says something different and I will love that you are quoting Scripture and we both can agree that we are growing through Scripture.

Losing an urgency in evangelism is the focus of chapter four. I noticed this immediately when because of my marriage I was thrown into a Reformed congregation where evangelism didn't seem to be the norm.  I found it very hard to criticize Billy Graham dismissing him as Arminian as some Calvinists do. Let the elect find their own way to Christ? Dutcher rather says that like Paul we need to believe 100% in evangelism and 100% in election.To me Graham was in the same camp as the Reformed D. James Kennedy and his Evangelism Explosion. I am not a charismatic, but just like a charismatic I pray Lord, whom do you want me to speak with today, and now as a Reformed believer thank You that You can use me however You will.

Learning only from other Calvinists? In chapter five Dutcher points out how he learned by radio from someone who was not a Calvinist. I heard Chris Fabry on Moody radio interview Skle Jethani and that made me want to read Jethani's book that I have reviewed here. Now Jethani is an editor with Christianity Today, not the reading source of many of my Reformed friends. Actually I want to learn from Scripture itself, and not through the lense of the Westminster Confession or Christianity Today only. I want to keep learning period--Scripture and maybe some creeds, confessions, biblical books and blogs.

The next chapter on Tidying up the Bible's "loose ends" contends that "Calvinists get the order backwards, letting their theology determine what the Bible says or does not say (p. 71)." I noticed on the SBC site that the Scripture quoted is different from what Calvinists use. Of course! Each has their own point to make.

Being an arrogant know-it-all is the subject of the seventh chapter. Notice the emphasis in Reformed circles on T. U. L. I. P. People in my extended family (both pro and con on Calvinism) pointed this out to me and suddenly my joining the church of my husband was suspect to my extended family. Would I become one of them--you know--a know-it-all. At first I had to study just to keep up and really this blog was part of that search. Now I just want godliness,  wisdom from Scripture, not merely knowledge. On the back cover to Killing Calvinism Sam Storms writes that a "healthy dose of Dutcher's wisdom will go a long way in bringing spiritual health to the young, restless, and reformed." Might I add to any one of my senior citizen age as well.

The final chapter of this short book takes on Calvinists for scoffing at the hang-ups others have with Calvinism. Dutcher pastors a church where Calvinism is not an issue because, although he believes in this theological system, he doesn't push it down the throats of those he preaches to. He says my congregation is learning the content of Calvinism without some of the offical labels. . . . All we are trying to do is unpack Scripture. (p. 101) Love it!

Baptist Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile of The Gospel Coalition on the back of the book sums up the value of this book:

"This book blew me away! Greg Dutcher skillfully diagnoses how I kill the very truth I love by my hyposcrisy, pride, anger, and judgmental attitude. This book will serve a young generation of Calvinists. But the older generation had better heed it, too. There's medicine here for all our hearts, and taking this medicine will make us more joyful and more humble when making our glorious God known."

Contest:  The first person to carefully comment on five different posts on Millennial Dreams will win a free copy of Killing Calvinism. If you are first to do that, contact me at the e-mail in Origin of the Blog at the top. Note that one of the five comments can be on my other blog. The comments will all come in order on my e-mail.  Looking forward to mailing you Killing Calvinism. Hopefully you will appreciate this book as much as I have and then you will not have to order a minimum of five paperbacks which is the usual Cruciform Press policy. Of course the book might make some mad. No spam, though, as I can take that off of this blog and spam won't count.

Cordially,
Carol