The Gospel According to U2, Part Six

There is one final point I want to address about my visit to Live Oak Community Church back in August. It appears to be the one fundamental flaw that destroys the whole "seeker-sensitive" philosophy. The whole idea behind the "seeker-sensitive" movement is to tailor the worship service so that it's a comfortable environment for "seekers." Then, ideally, because our church services are so non-offensive and super-friendly, people will want to become Christians and join our churches. However, to quote Keith Green, "going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger!" People become Christians through repentance and faith in Christ and his gospel, a gospel that was noticeably absent that morning at Live Oak Community Church. If we're going to make our churches "seeker-sensitive" and get them packed with unbelievers, we should at least give them the gospel! The good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is the most important thing they will ever hear, and it is the thing that they most need to hear.

We can see this taught in the Scriptures in several places. In Romans, we hear that the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes," and that "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." In 1 Corinthians, we learn that "the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." That's why Paul wrote to those at Corinth, "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." James urged his readers to "put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls." Peter, in his first epistle, refers to "the good news that was preached to you" when he tells his readers that they have been "born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God."

What are the elements of the gospel? What is it that needs to be preached to all those "seekers" in all the "seeker-sensitive" churches around the world? For that matter, what is it that needs to be preached in all churches around the world regardless of their "seeker-sensitivity"? It can be summarized well as the message of 1) God's holiness and judgment, 2) mankind's sinfulness and condemnation, 3) the person and work of Jesus Christ, including his life, death, and resurrection, and 4) the need for sinners to repent of their sins and trust in Christ alone for their salvation.

1 Corinthians 15:1-5 (ESV) - "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve."

The Gospel According to U2, Part Five

In my previous posts I have argued that a large portion of the "U2 worship service" (two of the songs and the talk) was not worship, biblically speaking. I now want to examine and question the talk further. The main gist of the message, as I've mentioned already, is that we should care for our neighbors by calling our congressmen and urging them to pass legislation to forgive debt to poor African countries. Stepping beyond the question about whether or not that's an appropriate message for a Christian worship service (which I answered in the negative in the previous post), the next question is whether the speaker at Live Oak Community Church (and Bono) are right about this issue. Should the United States forgive debt to poor African countries?

The main flaw in the talk is that it skips over several essential intermediate questions that must be answered before it reaches its conclusion. It is correct that we are taught in the Bible to love our neighbors, and we are also taught about our role as Christians in relation to the state. However, there is very little in the Bible that addresses this specific policy question. What does the Bible say about the purpose of government? What does the Bible teach about the relationships between one country and another? There is a little in the book of Proverbs that applies to this, but very little explicit instructions. Is it morally right for one country's government to forgive debt to another country's government, or is it morally indifferent or morally wrong?

If we are to assume a moral obligation to help these countries, just for the sake of argument, then we still need to address several pragmatic questions. The problem in all these countries is the poverty that many experience, so we need to find out to what extent the foreign debt causes that poverty. If we all take to heart what was said in the talk and call our congressmen and they forgive debt to these countries, will it actually make a difference to those who are experiencing that poverty? Are there other more important causes of poverty we need to address, such as lack of education or wars or corrupt governments or whatever? And if so, should we be doing something about those? Looking at examples from the Bible and from history, what "works" to raise the citizens of a country out of poverty? I don't know the answers to these questions. Perhaps Bono's example and message are right; perhaps they are not. WORLD addressed this question in an article last summer, and I've spoken about this topic with Gladman, my roommate from Zimbabwe, who also questions the effectiveness of debt relief as a solution to poverty.

But whether or not this is the right course of action, this is still an area where the Bible's teaching does not explicitly endorse one or the other course of action, and it is tantamount to putting words in God's mouth to claim that it does. It is also a very poor use of the parable of the good Samaritan, the text in Scripture referenced in the talk. The Samaritan didn't say, "Oh, look, there's a poor Jew over there that's been beaten up and robbed. Perhaps I should speak to the rulers of Samaria and see if they can forgive some debt to Judea. Then perhaps the Jews will have enough money so that they won't need to rob from each other, and stuff like this won't happen anymore." On the contrary, he personally helped the man who had been beaten and robbed. I'm also reminded of J. Gresham Machen's opinion regarding the Presbyterian Church's endorsement of Prohibition back in the day. It was reprinted in Modern Reformation a year or two back. Machen made it clear that he was no fan of drunkenness, and that it was a dangerous sin with serious societal effects. However, he believed the message that the church brings to the world should be the message of the Bible, no more and no less, and there is nothing in the Bible to advocate governmental prohibition of alcohol production and consumption. So regardless of his personal opinions on the question, the Presbyterian Church as a whole should neither encourage nor discourage Prohibition.

MR & World

The current issue of Modern Reformation begins a year-long series on the book of Romans. There are two exceptionally good articles in this one. The first is an overview of Romans by Michael Horton...

http://www.modernreformation.org/mh06romansrev.htm

The second is a sermon on Romans 1:16 by John Piper...

http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/98/062198.html

And (no surprise here), Gene Edward Veith wrote another insightful column in WORLD recently...

http://www.worldmag.com/subscriber/displayarticle.cfm?id=11431

The Gospel According to U2, Part Four

In this post I will start going over the elements of worship and seeing whether or not and to what extent the "U2 worship service" carried out the elements of worship. One element of worship is the collection of offerings, for the administration of the church, for the relief of the saints, and for the support of missions. In our church, they pass offering plates up and down the rows of chairs for people to drop in their envelopes of cash and/or checks to give to the work of the Lord. At the "U2 worship service," they never collected an offering. However, this was most likely a difference of circumstances, not elements. In all likelihood, they had a box in the back or something for people to drop their offerings in. No method of collecting offerings is explicitly prescribed in the New Testament.

Neither baptism nor the Lord's Supper were observed at the "U2 worship service." However, the administration of baptism is dependent on having people that need to be baptized, so it is quite common for baptism to be left out of the worship service. And while the Lord's Supper is prescribed in the New Testament, it's frequency is never explicitly prescribed. While I'm personally in favor of weekly observance, it's quite common for churches (such as my own) to observe it monthly, not weekly. Assuming that Live Oak Community Church does observe the Lord's Supper, whatever the frequency, there's no problem with it not being present in the "U2 worship service."

Moving on to the next two elements, though, we start to run into some problems. The next two elements I want to address can be summed up as "spoken and sung prayers and praises." In regards to the spoken side, there was a woeful shortage of spoken prayers in the service. There was no "pastoral prayer," a prayer offering praise up to God and asking for his work in the congregation, especially in regard to specific needs of specific members. If there was a prayer either at the beginning or the ending of the talk, it was forgetfully short. In regards to sung prayers and praises, the 1689 LBCF contains the phrase "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs." This is taken directly from Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, so we can take a look at the definitions of the Greek words used in the passages to get a better idea of what songs belong in a worship service. The first, "psalms," clearly refers to the songs in the book of Psalms in the Old Testament. The second, "hymns," is a song of praise to gods or heroes; in Christian worship it would clearly be a song of praise to our triune God. The third one, "spiritual songs," could refer generally to any songs that are about Christian truths. When not used to refer specifically to human spirits, demonic spirits, angelic spirits, or the Holy Spirit, the adjective "spiritual" (pneumatikos) refers to things that are real yet unseen, things that can only be known spiritually, as opposed to material things. Now, while we don't want to go overboard on our spiritual/material distinctions (that would lead to Gnosticism), it does provide a useful guideline for what songs we should be singing in Christian worship services.

There were five songs at the "U2 worship service." The second one was based on the Lord's Prayer, and the fourth one, "Let My Life Be Like a Love Song," was also a prayer. Those two certainly met the criteria to be prayers as well as "spiritual songs," so they belonged in the worship service. The third song, "40," even though it was a U2 song, was based lyrically on Psalm 40, so it qualifies. The fact that it felt odd to sing a U2 song in a worship service was irrelevant, because U2 just got the lyrics from the Bible in the first place (the question of which tune to sing a psalm to is again in the realm of circumstances, and is at the discretion of the leaders of each particular congregation). But the first song, "When Love Comes to Town," and the fifth song, "Pride (In the Name of Love)," don't appear to qualify as psalms, hymns, or spiritual songs, so they would have no place in a worship service. Singing either of those songs doesn't qualify as worship, according to the criteria established in God's word (if you're not familiar with the lyrics for either of those songs, see here and here). They each make a reference to Christ in the lyrics, but the topic of the songs is not God, the Christian life, or any general Christian truths.

It is in regard to the last two elements that the "U2 worship service" fails most significantly, though. In the pastoral epistles (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus), there are several references to the reading of the Scriptures and the preaching of the Word of God. Both of those were woefully absent that Sunday morning at Live Oak Community Church. The talk included references to the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, and several verses from that passage were read in the course of the morning. And in the video portion of the talk, Bono referred to several other Bible verses. But is that what Paul had in mind when he wrote to Timothy and Titus? "Talk to your congregation about a famous Roman poet, and mention verses from the Scriptures occasionally in your talk." I don't think so! Check out some of the instructions Paul gave to these men:

"Command and teach these things" (1 Timothy 4:11). "Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching" (1 Timothy 4:13). "Teach and urge these things" (1 Timothy 6:2). "Remind them of these things (2 Timothy 2:14). "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching" (2 Timothy 3:16-4:2). "But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine" (Titus 2:1). "Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority" (Titus 2:15).

In regards to the spoken and sung prayers and praises, the "U2 worship service" was biblical in its second, third, and fourth songs. It was unbiblical in its first and fifth songs, and a strong case could be made that there was an inadequate amount of prayer in the service as a whole. In regards to the reading of the Scriptures, the "U2 worship service" was unbiblical by lacking a reading from the Scriptures in the service. And in regards to the preaching of the word, the talk given failed to be biblical in two areas. First of all, the topic of the talk wasn't Scripture or doctrine. The topic of the talk was Bono and his work for debt relief in Africa. Sure, the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 was referred to in the talk, but there is a huge difference between the legitimate use of Bono and U2 as illustrations in a sermon on Luke 10 and the illegitimate use of Luke 10 as an illustration in a talk on Bono and U2 in place of a sermon on Scripture or doctrine. And secondly, the talk failed to be biblical because it lacked any of the reproof, rebuke, correction, or exhortation mentioned all over the pastoral epistles. The only discernible exhortation in the talk was "Be like Bono, care for your neighbors in Africa by calling your congressmen and asking them to pass legislation to forgive debt to African countries." Does that match any of the exhortation urged in the pastoral epistles? Not by a long stretch (and that will be dealt with more fully in the next post). It seems that this seeker-friendly church, in its attempts to please whatever "seekers" may have been in the congregation, failed to please God by worshiping him according to how he has revealed in his Word that he desires to be worshiped.