Thread by @RScottClark

Thread.

In 1976 I was first introduced to American evangelical Christianity by a layman in a mid-sized SBC in my hometown on the Great Plains. He was zealous and kind and influenced by the Navigators.

Soon I was introduced to the Nav approach to Bible memorization and “the quiet time,” which is the true sacrament of Pietist evangelicalism. The is much to be gained (esp now) by being quiet, praying, and reading Scripture but the quiet time was more than that.

It was regarded *the* mark of the Christian par excellence. We kept track of our QTs and organized them by the use of books such as 9:59 With God (or for the more spiritual 29:59 - digital clocks were new and high tech).

We also worked through various “discipleship” books, mainly from the Navigators. I would read an assigned passage or verse and then answer questions. I recall thinking that the expected answers did not always seem to come from the text

but I also thought I should submit to the “spiritual giants” (that was the language we used) who had written/designed them. What did I, a mere novice, know anyway?

Part of the QT process was to listen for “still, small voices” from the Lord. We read Rosalind Rinker’s book on prayer as a conversation. We pray and then wait to hear from the Lord. It was expected that God speaks semi-audibly to every true Christian.

The Lord was always telling the Christians around me directly about this or that. We weren’t really reading narratives or paying close attention to the text in context. Most of the time it was assumed that the text was about me (the reader). That was the important thing.

It never occurred to me, nor was I told, hat the text of Scripture really organized around a central promise (the Seed of the Woman to come). Scripture was a sort of Talisman for my daily life. The chief end was an un-mediated (immediate) encounter with the risen Christ.

We were certain about the pre-trib, premillennial, rapture and the whole scheme. It was taken as basic and obvious. The gospel was preached but typically as an appendage to the sermon or as part of the altar call, which invariably happened and lasted for some time.

We needed no special revivals. Every Sunday was a revival. The evangelical Christianity that I met in the mid-70s embodied the QIRC (fundamentalism) and the QIRE.

heidelblog.net/2013/07/the-qi…

heidelblog.net/2014/07/is-the…

All this to consider this add from NavPress, which illustrates the modern (post 18th century) dialectic in American evangelicalism:

In the mid-late 1970s Nav was Dawson Trotman (I devoured the 1974 biography, DAWS (which reminded one of JAWS, which was published the same year). I more or less idolized the Nav leaders, Leroy Eims. I rode in the back of a postal Jeep to Oklahoma City to listen to Gene Warr

talk about the Christian life, discipleship etc. It was all about Bible memorization. Flash forward to 2019. NavPress, the child of Trotman, Eims & co is now selling Lent and Ash Wed.

What does it mean? It prob means that Nav has followed the currents of American evangelical theology, piety, & practice but it also means that the Pietists will *always* look for a new device, a new instrument, some new way to encounter Christ.

In other words, of course NavPress is selling Lent. The Pietists were always monks without cloisters. The Reformation had a Christ-centered reading of Scripture, a consciousness that the Spirit had inspired all of Scripture and it had a unified story (not national Israel).

The monks without monasteries put me under the law of the QT the law of memorizing fragmented (disconnected/de-contextualized bible verses) with good intentions but with bad assumptions. The turn to Lent is just another facet of the QIRE.

Lent is where the theology and piety of “Shine, Jesus, Shine” and “Like a Sloppy Wet Kiss” leads. It’s an attempt to connect to the past but it skips the divinely instituted instruments and means of piety: Word and the two dominical sacraments (Baptism & the Supper).

Those are not dramatic enough and American revivalist pietism needs drama. Ashes on one’s forehead are dramatic. They are transgressive but not so transgressive that one cannot be seen on Fox News with them. Our (conservative) culture leaders have them. They’re cool.

This is why I complain about the dialectical movement from flannel graphs to icons. They are essentially the same. The latter is an older, less tacky version of the former. Neither are authorized by God but both produce intense religious experiences.

Of course folks from Crusade, tired of the the new “two-tier” approach to Christianity (on-staff and not on-staff) traded that in for an older version.

This is why fundamentalists who adopt predestination stop at the theonomic/deconstructionist/Federal Vision toll booths (sometimes never to leave) on the way to Geneva (if they even know that’s the definition). It’s the most like what they just left w/better aesthetics.

These are all varieties of the same phenomenon. Genuine, confessional Reformed Christianity is a true alternative to the QIRC & QIRE, but it requires a paradigm shift, not just a shift in aesthetics. It’s a much tougher sell.

Notice that NavPress opted to sell Lent, not Genevan Psalms sung a capella. There’s a reason for that. It says something about what it means to be Reformed in Sister Aimee’s America. It really is her country. American evangelical religion is her religion.

Confessional Reformed folk live her but fundamentally we’re not of here. In a sense, inasmuch as the 1st “Pretty Good” awakening (@oldlife) set the pattern for American evangelical theology, piety, & practice, we’ve been aliens here from the beginning.

Aspects of “colonial Puritanism” weren’t exactly congenial either, so that we could trace our alienation to the early 17th century. it’s interesting to imagine what might have been had Ames come to the New World but he didn’t.

Genuine Reformed piety is a pilgrim piety. There aren’t many shots of adrenaline or endorphins built in. It’s simple and designed for pilgrims on their way to the heavenl city. It’s not that we haven’t tried, at times, to build an earthly city we have. Nostra culpa.

When Reformed piety was being formulated, contra the popular story/myth, the Reformed were mostly pilgrims and martyrs. Great lots (tens of thousands) of us died for the gospel in the 16th century, many in one week in 1572.

Genuine Reformed piety is quiet, patient, and committed to what we call “the ordinary means of grace,” i.e., those ordained instruments through which the Holy Spirit has promised to work:

In the Belgic Confession we speak of the “pure preaching of the gospel” and the “pure administration of the sacraments.” We think that God operates through prayer to do marvelous things but we know that we aren’t apostles.

The marvels we expect and see regularly include covenant children being brought to new life and true faith through the “nature and admonition” of the Lord, in the covenant community. We see neighbors & friends brought to faith through quiet, faithful witness.

In other words, the Reformed are not very good at the spectacular. We do it badly when we try. At our best, we’re all about the ordinary (that which God has explicitly ordained in his Word).

We want God’s people to read his Word and to pray but we don’t expect audible words of direct revelation. The Spirit helps us to understand Scripture but he does so in the communion of the saints (in the church), as we read Scripture with the church.

We expect the Spirit to be working in us, as we say, mortifying the old man and vivifying the new but without the burden of perfectionism and the holiness tradition.

In short, Reformed piety begins with the public assembly (in Am. evangelical piety the personal is prior to the corporate. The corporate is really a second blessing of sorts) and overflows to the private but the private is just that, private. It’s personal time, it’s family time.

Reformed folk will (or should) pass Ash Wednesday and the rest of Lent the way we pass any other day of the week that isn’t Sunday (the Christian Sabbath, our only “holy day”). In the service of God and neighbor.

Lent is ostensibly about mortification but, for Reformed folk, *every day* is about mortification, dying to sin. Every day is about being made alive by the grace of the Spirit. Sanctification isn’t a season. It’s the Christian life.

correction: “told that...”

Correction: “that’s the destination...”.