Part Time Pop Christian Culture Scholar

We’re glued to the tube. We look and listen with interest. We, of the evangelical and reformed wing, take note of the popular Christian in the culture. Bono from U2 interviews with Christianity Today yet another time about world hunger and the church’s impotence, and like three heads on the park bench that slowly turn to watch the obese granny bend over to give her toy poodle a treat, we stop, stare and hold our breath.

Next it’s Andy Pettitte, presently a pitcher with the New York Yankees, who speaks into the microphone in the post-game wrap-up and we listen for the favored morsels of testimony, "The Lord Jesus gave me the overpowering curve and other stuff tonight."

Why are we so enamored with the center-stage Christian speaking into the culture? Maybe it’s because we sympathize with them and the anti-Christ pressure they feel in their places of limelight. They’ve earned their stripes, we think. What they have to say is well-forged, well-tested, and tried and true. They’re in the trenches of the real battle. "Listen in fellow Christian," we say to one another, "their life counts." Or maybe we pay attention to the commentary of the testimony and verbiage of Christian witness via the popular Christian personalities of entertainment because we measure success by such persons and their standards. They’ve made it big, and we want to make it big. Big? How? They are talented at what they do, we long for the same talent. They’ve worked their fannies off, we wish we had their energy. They get handsomely rewarded monetarily, yes, there’s seeming security when carrying around a few Gs in the pocketbook. They have a following, we wouldn’t mind the attention. They have a stage with a little glitz for speaking for Christ, and ours is almost altogether obscure. When a Christian makes it to the World Series or the Olympics, or sings mezzo-soprano with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, we pay attention to their walk and talk. They are in some way our teachers, and we want to be like them.

Should we take our cue from such Christians? We’re grateful for the popular teachers, but a faithful cue can be found close, right at home. There’s biblical reinforcement for the witness of the obscure life of Joe Christian Plumber. What’s the reinforcement, the equipping we need? It’s public worship, not public testimony. The world is, as Reformer John Calvin argued, the theater of God's glory. The heavens do declare the glory of God and the firmament does show forth His handiwork. The world is His theater; we can see the work of His hand, in additional to the wonders of creation around us, in the variety of persons, popular Christian ones at that. But in scripturally-mandated worship He’s the Actor within a theater of the public assembly of His people. It’s not near as lime-light fancy.

But listen to Mike Horton:

"Imagine the worship service as a magnificent theater of divine action. There is the pulpit, lofty and grand - this is God's balcony from which He conducts the drama. Beneath it is the baptismal font, where the announcement, 'the promise is for you and for your children' is fulfilled. Also prominent is the communion table, where weak and disturbed consciences 'taste and see that the Lord is good.' That which God has done to, for, and within his people in the past eras of biblical history he is doing here, now, for us, sweeping us into the tide of his gracious plan...

God has promised to save and keep his people through the means he has appointed and through no other; the ordinary means of grace are limited to the preached Word and the administered sacraments; God's rationale for these means is made explicit in Scripture. There are many other things that are essential for Christian growth: prayer, Bible study, service to others. However, these are not, properly speaking, means of grace but means of discipleship.

…God is savingly present among us through Word and sacrament. We need props to strengthen our faith, but we dare not invent our own, as Israel did at Mount Sinai, when Aaron's lame excuse for the golden calf was, "You know how the people are." Only in glory will we no longer need faith, since hope will dissolve into sight. There will be no more promises, no more anticipation. But for now God has given us his means of grace to ensure that the method of delivery as well as the method of redemption itself is his alone. Here in the wilderness God has given us both the preached Word and the visible Word (baptism and the Supper). Here is God's drama, the liturgy of life, in which God acts in saving grace and we respond in faith and repentance. Even our architecture is to be conscious of this mission to proclaim God's method of grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, delivered in the church alone, through the means of grace alone. Donald Bruggink and Carl Droppers offer a charge that could apply to any Reformation church: 'To set forth the God-ordained means by which Christ comes to his people, the Reformed must give visual expression to the importance of both Word and Sacraments. Any architecture worthy of scriptural teaching must start with the Christ who calls men unto himself through the Word and Sacraments.' In the divine drama, the 'set' is not insignificant."

See Horton’s chapter, "Setting the Stage" from A Better Way, Baker Books, 2002.

The popular witness of the Christian via countless marketplace and entertainment venues, made visible and attractive in many ways by various stories, ads, and wear, have a place for effective testimony, but they work on us causing a shrinkage of the priority and importance of public worship. God has His theater for His own attention-getting witness. He comes to be Actor each Sunday when Christians gather. He tells His own wonders through their praise, prayer, reading, teaching and by meeting with them to host His meal. Such a corporate testimony makes outsiders stop and take notice (1 Corinthians 14:25). It is God’s primary witness before the watching world. Psalm 8 has it, "Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, because of Your enemies, that You may silence the enemy and the avenger."

G. Mark Sumpter