New Warhorn Media post by Tim Bayly:
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My review of You Are What You Love:
âSome good ideas, but this book is basically Thoughtful Evangelicalism⢠crossed with Portlandia.â
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LOL thatâs exactly right.
Did he perform a gay âweddingâ too? I thought he had but now I canât find anything online.
Asking because our headmaster is sending out articles going through one of Smithâs books (which I actually kind of liked). He was surprised when I told him that Smith is⌠not great.
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Are there any good critiques or counterpoints to Smithâs philosophy by trusted men out there? Smith gets referenced in quite a few different places (Iâve seen him referenced by Revoice authors, Keller-esque âmissionalâ pastors, as well as seemingly solid PCA teaching elders) and its challenging to trace exactly what the influence is.
Hereâs my serious response to your question:
FROM JUDE:
They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children; forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.
These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been reserved. For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.
For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.
It has happened to them according to the true proverb, âA DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,â and, âA sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.â
Some would say such a response is not serious, but characteristic of those who are lazy, intellectually, and unwilling to put in the time to mount a serious critique. For myself, wasting time on mounting a philosophical defense of Godâs sheep from Jim and his effete philosopher friends is a foolâs errand. Itâs answering fools according to their folly.
What the church needs is men willing to meet the false shepherds eating the sheep with barks and growls and warning; men willing to humbly copy the barks and growls and warnings Scripture uses in places like Jude. Sure, sometimes we must debate them, as the Apostle Paul did in the Areopagus. But spend time debating guys like Jim? Mounting a serious critique of such a manâs intellectual preening for his peers?
We live in an evil day. Letâs lower ourselves to silencing such menânot dignifying them with our critique. On the other hand, I admit that Iâm just a shepherd. Love,
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Tim, I deeply respect your opinion and trust your judgment. Having reread your original blog post just now I am able to see why you responded the way you did to my question. And I donât disagree, but I do want to know what else informs your decision here? Even your blog post asked the hypothetical question, âIs any publisher there in the homeland of Continental Reformed faith seeking to acquire a manuscript which will expose this wickedness as precisely and firmly as Calvin and Luther exposed Romeâs sacramentalist idolatry?â That question itself does not automatically remove critique from the table.
But my main point and question is that I want to be able to make the same connections you are making with the confidence with which you are making them. In the Smith tweet I see a guy showing off his niceness on social media. You mentioned this in your tweet today about the âgiggling excitement over fashion.â I see a guy who presents himself as an intellectual with all the accoutrements. From that, I can extrapolate pride and arrogance. I also see the tee shirt message with the false teaching of LGBT affirmation. But when you say âsilence himâ and talk about ânot dignifying them with a critique,â I want to know that we are responding to the same things because if I oppose Smith to someone who is trying to promote his writing to me, I need to give a confident answer. And if/when Iâm asked to give a critique I want to be confident in withholding it.
Some of this may be the wisdom of age and experience, being able to see âtypesâ through a handful of surface clues. Some of it may be the fruit of who likes Smith and cites him. Maybe youâve read one of his books or have seen a review of one. But youâre also referring to him as âJimâ which implies you may know him or have some personal association through colleagues or mutual friends. I donât know if this is out of line but I guess Iâm just asking for a bit of a diagnosticânot just for Smith, but for others who present like he doesâthose whose words we may not know in-depth, yet we can still quickly and (I hope) accurately discern how to warn others.
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what else informs your decision here?
To some degree, I suspect itâs judgments learned from a lifetime living with academics. Their discussions are academic, as it were. Only rarely do they have external motivation or purpose. They are simply self-justifying. Itâs just like Scriptureâs description of Athens. Beyond my own lifetime of work, I donât think the influence of my father can be overstated in demonstrating himself that discernmentâs purpose is to warn the sheep rather than use knowledge, vocabulary, and logic as tools to build oneâs reputation.
Even your blog post asked the hypothetical question, âIs any publisher there in the homeland of Continental Reformed faith seeking to acquire a manuscript which will expose this wickedness as precisely and firmly as Calvin and Luther exposed Romeâs sacramentalist idolatry?â That question itself does not automatically remove critique from the table.
Yes, youâre right to point this out, dear brother. But lurking slightly beneath the question wasnât a plea as much as a shaming. The Dutch are gone. Dead and deep into the rottingâ especially in Grand Rapids. Especially their higher ed and publishers and denomination.
In the Smith tweet I see a guy showing off his niceness on social media. You mentioned this in your tweet today about the âgiggling excitement over fashion.â
Heâs preening himself in front of his audience, and his preening is focussed on showing his niceness, compassion, and love for those given to sexual perversions of various sorts. Heâs also preening himself over being a courageous defender of these souls in bondage by standing against those calling them to repentance, whom he slanders as âhaters.â
In truth, he doesnât give a rip about them. He loves his own image and it furthers that image he wants for him to put on the costume of a lover of the LGBT crowd. Truthfully though, he himself hates them. What else could we possibly say about a man who announced to the sheep standing in the crosshairs of our cultureâs rebellion against God and His Law that they are a persecuted minority, that those warning them away from their sinful perversions are haters?
Things are the exact opposite of what this wicked philosopher at Calvin says through his words and accoutrements. We know it on a visceral level, but we also know the response to our simply declaring it by men and women who have settled in to the niceness of sending gays and lesbians on their way to Hell, declaring that sendoff to be our niceness and compassion. Even those who somewhat (or even mostly) agree with us will be revulsed at our declaring the truth. We are a people of lies and exposing liesâany liesâis the ultimate sin of our time.
This is what the brilliant and wise gay philosopher at Univ. of Chicago, Allan Bloom, saw over thirty years ago, and warned of in his book: the only âvalueâ (a word he abhored for its communication of moral relativism) left in America is being nice, getting along with each other.
I see a guy who presents himself as an intellectual with all the accoutrements. From that, I can extrapolate pride and arrogance. I also see the tee shirt message with the false teaching of LGBT affirmation. But when you say âsilence himâ and talk about ânot dignifying them with a critique,â I want to know that we are responding to the same things because if I oppose Smith to someone who is trying to promote his writing to me, I need to give a confident answer. And if/when Iâm asked to give a critique I want to be confident in withholding it.
Actually, Iâd say your critique is to tell him to be quiet because heâs destroying souls. To tell him to be silent because he is a false shepherd, then simply stating that he hates sexual sinners and is helping them on their way to Hell. End of statement.
Then, of course, heâd huff and puff and try to blow your house down, but youâd remain unflappable and not take his bait. Not give him any argument. Simply reiterate that you had already said what needed to be said.
Heâd froth at the mouth and say you are an enemy of the people (Ibsen), at which point you would have garnered the attention of the men of the Areopagus and start your sermon on lust and modesty and holiness and the bondage of those poor souls caught in these sins God calls âabominations,â and the love of Christ constraining you to see to their welfare and healing, rather than their damnation, calling them to repentance and faith, and so on⌠Not an argument so much as a simple condemnation in one direction, but a preaching of the Gospel in the other.
Some of this may be the wisdom of age and experience, being able to see âtypesâ through a handful of surface clues.
I wouldnât say a handful of surface clues, but rather a plethora of graphical and verbal evidence of his own deep bondate to arrogance, self-delusion, and deception. Again, he says heâs nice and a lover of those in the bondage of LGBTQ perversion and he says those warning and calling them to repentance and to flee those perversions are haters. But itâs the very opposite; heâs the hater and those others are the godly and the only ones who love the LGTBQers. As Holmes would say, itâs elementary my dear Perkins. Or as others would say, KISS. Smile.
Life is short, too short to argue with vain, deceptive, arrogant, haters with the terminal degree posing as Christian intellectuals at Christian colleges charging Christian parents $50,000 per year to betray their children to the wolves.
One final thing: arguing with Smith, Trueman, Keller, and their fan-boys inevitably becomes an effort on our part of learning what words to use and what rhetoric to employ and citations to make and authorities to quote and Joan Didions to publish pics of and profess eternal love to in order to be taken seriously by our interlocutor. This may be time well spent if we are Luther engaging Erasmus, but meawhile, Scripture is filled to the brim with simple silencings adorned by preciously simple condemnations and warnings with a few arguments interspersed. Take Galatians, for instance.
Well, hope that gives a glimpse into my thinking on these things. Long ago, I committed myself to writing for the sheep to be warned rather than writing for the bright boys to be feted by them and included in their cliques. And I have never had the slightest regret in that matter. If Iâm called to use the sword, I want it bloody, not polished and on display for those willing to pay the price of entry to the museum. Love,
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This is extremely helpful. Thank you for taking the time to put these things down in writing.
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⌠We are a people of lies and exposing liesâany liesâis the ultimate sin of our time.
In a similar vein, George Orwell (attrib.): âDuringďťż times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary actâ.
I had the opportunity to skim through James K.A. Smithâs book Whoâs Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Baker Academic, 2006). I thought I would share a few quotes and thoughts to further prove Timâs point and to serve as an example of what Smith felt compelled to write for pastors, students, and lay Christians back in 2006.
Whoâs Afraid of Postmodernism? is basically a defense of postmodern philosophy as an essential thing for Christians to embrace and learn from because Smith claims he is following in the footsteps of Francis Schaeffer who âtook philosophy seriously.â With that, he happily commends the work of the emergent church, especially Brian McLaren (who also endorsed the book).
Smith says:
This book is an attempt to make off with postmodern loot for the sake of the kingdom. In particular, I suggest that this unholy trinity of Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault might in fact push us to recapture some truths about the nature of the church that have been overshadowed by modernity and especially by Christian appropriations of modernism.
This tells you what heâs up to and the concessions he is going to make throughout. He says the problem with Christians treating postmodernism as a boogeyman is that the church has âbecome so thoroughly modern.â He doesnât define what he means by that so I believe heâs just being cleverâdecrying the use of one dog whistle by using another. Itâs a bait and switch to chastise Christians (like D.A. Carson) for their âsimplisticâ warnings against the emergent church.
There are several moments where he wants us to admire his clever reversal of our expectations. For instance, he maddeningly tries to argue that Derridaâs statement ânothing outside the textâ is actually a similar sentiment to the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura. He claims that this should cause us to reclaim the centrality of scripture in the life of the church but doesnât do that in any of his analysis. Obviously this is all just word games and self-gratification for him. He offers no substantial interaction with the Reformers or the Bible as far as I could tell. Only broad brush self-justifications, assuring us that he is just helping Christians know that its okay to be postmodern if they want to be.
One thing he said is a statement that I have seen as a fundamental part of the âmissionalistâ project within the PCA and elsewhere:
Of course, since none of these theorists are Christians, we should also expect some points of fundamental disagreement as well as the necessity to critique some of their conclusions.
This is exactly what Nate Collins said when he used radical feminist theory to utterly redefine gender in All But Invisible. This is exactly what Keller said when he argued that Christians should use Critical Theory to help us have a better understanding of our calling. This is what others like Anthony Bradley claimed when they rushed to defend Keller. They claim to use the theory that burns others so easily, yet they are able to come through unscathed. If only we will learn from them how to do it!
This idea that there are âsome points of fundamental disagreementâ (of course, that Smith never exactly defines but merely alludes to their existence) begs the question of why we would allow ourselves to be deeply shaped by people we know will fundamentally lead us astray? I would expect that Smith has âsome points of fundamental disagreementâ with Hitler tooâbut what I would not expect is to see him claim that Hitler has some important things to teach Christians about the true nature of the church. Who cares what Hitler got right when we know what he got wrongâand how wickedly wrong it was?
There are plenty of other items I ran across that I will withhold. They simply are not worth ruminating on. But if anyone needs any further evidence of the intellectual arrogance and foolishness of Smithâs book, I will end with this quote from the first chapter:
I will argue that the postmodern church could do nothing better than be ancient, that the most powerful way to reach a postmodern world is by recovering tradition, and that the most effective means of discipleship is found in liturgy. Each tour of a postmodern church [that takes place at the end of each chapter in the book] will give a concrete picture of what Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault might mean for how we worship.
As with the rest of the now spiritually shipwrecked emergent church that Smith apes for the entire book, this is the kind of statement made by someone bored with Jesus and His Word.
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Thank you, M.D. Very helpful. Keep at it. This might be your gift to us! Love,
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The Liturgence â˘
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What happened to all the emergent guys? They all just seemed to fade out between 2012 and 2016. Are they all teaching at universities now like this Smith fellow?
They are still around and fully in the âprogressive Christianâ camp. Many are still writing books. I donât think many of them ended up in universities but I donât know for sure.
But this question requires some research and probably a dedicated thread of its own. I have started to look into it and will post something more detailed in a few days.
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MD - Look for something called âEmergent Villageâ, and specifically a Tony Jones, as being the starting point for what we now call Progressive Christianity. Emergent was eventually subsumed into it, from what I can see.
I recently heard a pastor give a summary of this book. Your review here seems fitting. Very anti-consumerist but with a predictable high church edge. Even though Smith uses liturgy loosely (like his whole âliturgy of the shopping mallâ analogy) he seems to really present formal church liturgy as the saving grace of the Christian life.
From the descriptions and quotes I heard, Smithâs book sounds like a fruitless intellectual exercise. Deuteronomy 6 already told me everything and more I need to knowâand with the weight and authority of God behind it rather than the effete ponderings of a professional academic.
Ironically, if Smithâs main point is true (that we are what we love) then a philosophical treatise about that is not really what anyone needs. Instead we need to be exhorted and stirred to love and obey God which comes by the preached Word. But I would wager that Smith is probably no great fan of Reformed preaching, despite being at an institution named in honor of John Calvin.
GK Beale wrote a pretty definitive treatment of that biblical theme in âWe Become What We Worship.â Brilliant biblical theology, from what I remember.
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