November 2022 Ordained Servant

From the Editor. For many years since the Reagan presidency Christians have tended to put too much trust and hope into federal elections. Ever since the evangelicals were awakened from their fundamentalist political slumbers, politics has taken center stage. Scott Meadows properly places the kingdom of God on center stage in his article “After the Election.” This will be well worth reading next Monday and Wednesday, before and after the election.

Alan Strange continues his commentary on our Book of Discipline chapters 1–2, part 2. Our book seeks to maintain a fine balance between saying too much, as a book of casuistry, and saying too little. Some ambiguities are purposeful, and others need fleshing out. In either instance each case must be considered on its own merits by our judicatories. Strange is helping us and future generations to do just this better.

Andrew Miller’s review article “The Trinity’s Biblical Foundation” looks at the value of Scott Swain’s The Trinity and the Bible. In a brief but densely packed book Swain emphasizes not only the central importance of the doctrine of the Trinity but also demonstrates how this doctrine was exegeted from the text of Scripture.

William Edgar reviews After Humanity: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man by Michael Ward. This is a detailed scholarly gloss on the text of Lewis’s famous book. One of the most memorable quotes from Lewis’s critique of the secular English school system is:

In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.[1]

T. David Gordon’s review article “Avoiding the Tyranny of the Attention Racket” reviews Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place by Felicia Wu Song. He asserts that this book is the best book on this topic of the over one hundred that he has read. As a sociologist Song is most helpful in analyzing the nature and dangers of the electronic environment and in offering cogent and thoughtful alternatives. She offers the church as a “counter liturgy,” specifying in Christian terms what McLuhan called a counter environment.

My poem “Efficiency” looks at the dangers of making a god out of efficiency—one of the main gods in the pantheon of modernity.

Blessings in the Lamb,
Gregory Edward Reynolds

FROM THE ARCHIVES “CHURCH AND STATE”

http://opc.org/OS/pdf/Subject_Index.pdf

• “Church and State in Historical Perspective.” (Alan D. Strange) 16 (2007): 93–100.
• “City on a Hill: Caesar’s or God’s?” (Richard M. Gamble) 17 (2008): 127–29.
• “The Decline of Christianity in the West? A Contrarian View.” (T. David Gordon) 16 (2007): 84–93.
• “How Does Scripture Speak to Politics?” (Cale Horne) 23 (2014): 98–103.
• “What Is the State For?” (Gregory Edward Reynolds) 16 (2007): 22–26.

Ordained Servant exists to help encourage, inform, and equip church officers for faithful, effective, and God-glorifying ministry in the visible church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Its primary audience is ministers, elders, and deacons of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, as well as interested officers from other Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Through high-quality editorials, articles, and book reviews, we will endeavor to stimulate clear thinking and the consistent practice of historic, confessional Presbyterianism.

[1] C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: Macmillan, 1957), 16.