ClarkeComments.com

Hello all:

I’m a little behind because I haven’t had easy access to a computer. I’ll try and catch up in the next day or so.

We have been commuting from Calabasis every day to the campus, because we registered two late and all of the rooms were already taken…and since I have both my four year old son and my wife in tow, things haven’t always been smooth or gone according to plan, but they have been fun.

We tried to make it to Richard Cherok’s lecture on Alexander Campbell, but missed it due to traffic. I ended up making it to Robert Hooper’s lecture of David Lipscomb, however. I had the chance to chat with Dr. Hooper for a few minutes before the lecture as we were both waiting outside the classroom while the previous lecture was wrapping up. Dr. Hooper’s lecture was very enjoyable, he talked about Lipscomb and how he is a man for our time today, which I very much agree with. Dr. Hooper announced near the end that his book Crying in the Wilderness: A biography of David Lipscomb, was going to be reissued next year, with a new introduction and some new chapters with current research. I’m excited about that and looking forward to getting a copy when it comes out.

After the lecture, I ended up having to spend a couple of hours working on Art History homework, so we missed the main lecture and several of the afternoon lectures. We made it back in time to hear Randy Harris give what he called an “unSermon” on “The Care and Feeding of Enemies.” The sermon was powerful…he started by reciting the Sermon on the Mount from memory, and then talked about why he couldn’t actually preach the text. Harris’ thesis was that man in incapable of loving his enemy, and that this can only be done with the love God through the Christian in the Holy Spirit. Harris rightfully asserted that without a deeper, biblical theology of the Spirit, we cannot truly understand or live the Sermon on the Mount. I wish my description of the sermon could give justice to what I heard.

After the keynote, I went to Bobby Valentine’s second installment on the Struggle for the Soul of Churches of Christ. Again, the lecture was excellent, and I learned alot more about our more recent history. On a side note, it seemed that throughout the week, I ran into Bobby Valentine every place I went, it appeared impossible not to, which was okay. I promise I wasn’t following you around, Bobby!

-Clarke

Hello everyone:

I am at the Pepperdine University Annual Bible Lectures this week.

We arrived a little late for the 1st nights Song Fest, but what we heard sounded wonderful. It is so great to hear a couple of thousand voices singing praises to God at once. The lecture “Turning the World Upside Down” by Donny McLaughlin was excellent. Don spoke on how the church must be a group of revolutionaries for the Kingdom of God. The message was right on, and very timely.

After the main lecture, I went to Bobby Valentine’s lecture “The Struggle for the Soul of Churches of Christ, 1884 - 1984. Bobby spoke about the Nashville Bible School Tradition versus the Texas Tradition, the personalities behind the approaches and the theology that they pushed. It was a great lecture and I am looking forward to hear the next. John Mark Hicks was unable to join Bobby as he is tied up on other affairs; I was sorry to miss him but Bobby did a great job solo.

I hope to have pictures to follow once I get back to Portland.

-Clarke

Hello:

In my last post we talked about the existence of a Magisterium in Churches of Christ. In this post we’ll examine one of the main holdings of the Magisterium: The Hermeneutic of Command, Example, and Necessary Inference.

Direct Command, Approved Apostolic Example, and Necessary Inference, or CENI as many call it, has become “our” way of reading the bible. It was taught—and still is in a few—of our colleges for many years. It is the lens through which most of our members read the bible.

This teaching states that we are to look through the New Testament, and pick out the direct commands given to us by God, his son, and his apostles, and follow those commands. Then we are to look through the New Testament, and pick out the examples provided by the apostles, and follow those examples; and finally, again we are to look through the New Testament, and pick out those inferences that are necessary to be followed.

While CENI is the hermeneutical process, there is also a set of assumptions that sit behind CENI. Those assumptions include:

That the New Testament has been handed down as new law to replace the old law.

That the new law is basically a pattern that describes the worship of the church and what a person must do to be saved.

That God expects us to figure out the biblical worship pattern, and to adhere to it.

That lack of adherence to the biblical worship pattern is sinful.

That the sin of not following the biblical worship pattern is not covered by God’s grace and puts eternal salvation in jeopardy.

While I could attack each of these at length, I will at this point just state that there is no biblical evidence that backs up the hermeneutical assumptions of CENI.

As far as the method, it is flawed in many ways. Commands are usually easy to determine.

Examples, though, are far harder. Who approves the examples? What happens when we disagree on which example is approved? A common example that Pentecostal churches follow is the washing of feet. We reject this example out of hand. Is it wrong to wash feet? Is it wrong to not wash feet?

Necessary inferences are even harder. Who says the inference is necessary? Inferences depend totally on human logic. Being a fallen human myself, I don’t know that I want to trust my salvation to how great a job I do at deducting logic problems correctly.

I’m not going to spend a bunch of time attacking CENI. Many others have done so, with great success. Brother (and bishop!)Alan Rouse has a great series on the topic if you wish to read further. What I will say is this: CENI is a snag, sitting silently on the woods, waiting to make a widow out of some unsuspecting churchgoer in our fellowships.

-Clarke

Hello all:

I just recently returned from a ten day trip to Missouri. What a trip. I celebrated my Grandmother’s 90th birthday, met an aunt and uncle and a bunch of cousins (from all parts of the family) for the first time, and met all three of my siblings for the first time (I’m adopted).

I also worshipped with a very conservative Church of Christ with my Grandmother, while one of my cousins told me all about how the church down the road where my Aunt and Uncle attend just isn’t “quite right” because they have a praise team. What fun.

Through it all, God showed me every day, several times a day, how I have it good and how my life could be much worse. Praise God for his grace!

On another note, it has been bothering me for quite some time how I am not blogging very often anymore. I am working on developing a series or two to attempt to fix that problem.

There are two main reasons I am not blogging as much: I have things to write about, but I don’t write them down fast enough and then I forgget them, and some of the subjects I want to write about aren’t related to the Restoration Movement.

There are many topics that I want to explore with writing that really don’t have anything to do with our movement. Many of them are spurred on by my orientation as a restorationist, but otherwise, there is little to no connect. In many ways, I’m not sure that I want to blog about those topics here because I have dedicated this blog to examining Churches of Christ and the Restoration Movement at large, but also because I am not sure that all of my audience, both real and potential, would appreciate these other topics nearly as much as they do this one.

So… I am contemplating erecting a second blog….or maybe even keeping this blog up in archive form, but no longer posting to it and instead turning to a second blog to persue my other writing interests. I’d love to hear your opinion on what I should do.

-Clarke