Richard J Mouw

Review: Divine Generosity

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Divine Generosity, Richard J. Mouw. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883902), 2024.

Summary: A discussion from a Calvinist perspective of how widely God’s saving mercy extends.

There is a perception of Calvinism that believes that relatively few people will be saved and that the vast majority of humanity will be consigned to everlasting condemnation. In this concise, scholarly and accessible discussion, Richard J. Mouw makes a case for a broad, though not universal, extension of God’s saving mercy.

First of all, Mouw makes it clear that he is not a universalist, not even a hopeful one. Along with N.T. Wright, Mouw holds to the importance of an accountability before God of the persistently unrepentant, including those responsible for cruelties and injustices. He also points out the dehumanizing effects of persistent rejection of God, that there is a directional character of spiritual life where the persistently unrepentant reach the point where God says “thy will be done.” Personally, I’ve thought that the outer darkness is the mercy of God to those for whom being in the immediate presence of God would be unspeakable torture.

That addressed, Mouw turns to the question of how wide may we hope for God’s mercy to be, and what sources might be drawn upon in Calvinist theology. He engages the ideas of Hoeksema and Engelsma that God’s love is restricted to the elect by drawing upon both Benjamin Warfield and Geerhardus Vos who cite biblical examples for the love of God for the non-elect. He questions whether it is hate God has when he commands Jacob return to Esau, who welcomes with open arms and forgives Jacob.

The extent of mercy broadens further with the question of unbaptized infants, showing that from the Westminster Confession, chapter ten, “that all dying in infancy are included in the election of grace, and are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit.” Shedd and Warfield also note that the article on infants allows for adults who are “regenerated and sanctified immediately by God without use of means.” He notes evidence from the papers of W.G.T. Shedd, Charles Hodge and Benjamin Warfield that there would be a large number who would be saved. He cites the work of Amos Yong that many may be In Christ who have not had “epistemic access” to the preaching of Christ. Mouw goes on to consider his encounters with both devout Muslims and Mormons. While leaving judgment to God, he urges that our response not be to express doubt about their testimony. He explores the biblical examples of those who believe on behalf of others, and raises questions of how this may be done, including in the case of ancestors of believing persons in Asian cultures.

Mouw is clear in all these instances that salvation is through the Spirit’s regenerating work, and through the justifying and sanctifying work of Christ. It is not a result of good works or devotion. What he does is uphold both God’s justice and the greatness of God’s mercy without undercutting the importance of Christian proclamation. He avoids going beyond scripture, allowing God to be God and acknowledging mystery where it exist. And along the way, he retrieves some surprising writings of W.,G.T. Shedd as well as the 19th century “Princeton theologians” who support an expansive view of divine generosity as consistent with confessional faithfulness.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: How to Be a Patriotic Christian

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How to Be a Patriotic Christian, Richard J. Mouw. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: Navigating the space between Christian nationalism and national cynicism, explores how Christians might properly love country within their primary allegiance to Christ, focused around civic kinship and responsibility.

At least in the U.S. setting in which Richard Mouw writes, there often seems to be no middle ground between some form of Christian nationalism and a deep cynicism about any national loyalty. Mouw has navigated this ground over the course of his life, from his days as an “angry young man” protesting Vietnam and racial injustice up to the present, including experiences of tears while touring the American cemetery in Normandy and being present at a Holiday Bowl concert a few days after 9/11. He has wrestled with what the Christian’s primary allegiance to the global kingdom of Jesus means in the context of being a citizen, He invites us to wrestle with him as we consider the possibility and character of being a patriotic Christian.

He describes the basic character of this patriotism early in the book when he writes:

“But patriotism is not just about our relationship to specific government policies and practices. It is about belonging to a community of citizens with whom we share our political allegiances–and even more important, our common humanness. Patriotism is in an important sense more about our participation in a nation than it is about loving a state” (p. 14).

What Mouw argues for is our “civic kinship,” our sense of peoplehood with those who constitute our nation. He proposes that the Boy Scouts are an example of a program in civic kinship, cultivating the kind of character required in our public life with a concern for the place and the people with whom we live. He notes the evidence of the decline in the societal bonds among us and our increasing isolation from each other, and the necessity, in our season of tribalism, to cultivate room in our hearts for those with whom we differ. He appropriates John Calvin’s language of contemplating our fellow human beings in God, not in themselves.

Mouw’s focus on peoplehood and civic kinship calls into question what Mouw considers to be the role of the state. He contends that the preamble of our Constitution actually offers a good delineation of the primary tasks of government: 1) to establish justice, 2) to ensure domestic tranquility, 3) to provide for the common defense, and 4) to promote the general welfare and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. He notes the parallel with Psalm 72 in these four tasks. He cites the Catholic idea of subsidiarity, that higher authorities should not undertake what lower authorities, or even private associations or individual citizens can accomplish, which requires civic responsibility rather than dependence on government authority.

Against some who either implicitly or explicitly believe Christians ought to pursue a theocracy, Mouw supports the idea of our democratic republic, with its protections of differing beliefs rather than compelling uniformity. He believes this creates the space for people to change beliefs of their own, respecting the image of God in human beings. How then do we disagree in a plural society? Mouw encourages active patience (as God has acted toward us), genuine engagement with those with whom we disagree, and an openness that believes all truth is God’s truth, to receive that truth from wherever it appears.

How then should we think of expressions of patriotism within the confines of our church buildings, everything from the presence of flags to the recognition of national holidays? Some would see this as a form of idolatry, or perhaps offensive to those visiting from other countries. Mouw recounts such a conversation where he pushes back, contending that symbols like the flag can remind believers of their Christian calling as citizens, and that Christians in other countries may understand this because of their love for their own countries. Remember, he invited us to wrestle together–there is wrestling going on here! Likewise, there is the need to do careful pastoral teaching–what does it mean to seek the peace and prosperity of the people among whom we live (Jeremiah 29:7) while recognizing our primary allegiance to Christ and that we are part of a global people?

This leads him to consider our patriotic songs, many which invoke the blessing of God, and other civic observances with religious overtones, such as our various pledges and oaths. Is this just an invidious form of civil religion or something the Christian can embrace. Mouw notes the good of an acknowledgment of the transcendent, to which the nation is both accountable and on which it depends.

He concludes this work with four guidelines: 1) to do the work of contemplation to see people in the light of God, 2) to cultivate compassion, 3) to go deep in our quest for rootedness, in Christ, in our place, with our people, and 4) to trust Jesus, in whom are met “the hopes and fears of all the years.”

This is not a massive treatise on Christian political philosophy but a concise work of pastoral theology on what it means to love Jesus and love one’s country, particularly the United States. I affirm his restrained view of the role of the state, an absence of any language of getting the “right” people in office, and his focus on our own civic kinship and responsibility as citizens to pursue the shalom and prosperity of the place where we make our earthly home. His own unashamed expressions of his love of country and solidarity with its people reminded me of similar experiences. Most of all, I appreciate Mouw’s articulation of this rich third way of being patriotic Christians that offers an alternative to the unsatisfying and miserly binary on offer in so much of our national discourse.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Praying at Burger King

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praying-at-burger-kingPraying at Burger King, Richard J. Mouw. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.

Summary: Short essays on the life of faith in the world, originally appearing on beliefnet.com, and several other publications.

Richard Mouw is the former president of Fuller Theological Seminary and one of the more thoughtful and irenic commentators in evangelicalism today. This little book, with its unusual title and book cover is a great way to get acquainted with Mouw. He has collected a number of short (most are three pages or so) essays from contributions to Christianity Today, Perspectives, and posts on his blog and on beliefnet.com.

The essays are grouped under three categories: living, believing, and church and world. They are written in a conversational style yet cast a fresh light on some familiar aspect of Christian faith. The title essay has to do with the practice of prayers before meals, and Mouw’s recognition that Burger King is one of those places where God is indeed present and so he will keep acknowledging that. The next essay gives equal time to competitor McDonald’s and an insight of how important it is to talk with youth that translates into caring for the indifferent youth who is serving his burger the next time he is at the airport McDonald’s. Subsequent essays in this first section include reflections on Halloween, Lent, Machiavelli, integrity, greed and a number of other everyday matters from housekeeping to the “ordinary” work of a researcher. He speaks simply about how we often subconsciously bracket off the “stuff” of scholarly work from the “spiritual” life when in fact “every square inch” (as Kuyper would put it) belongs to the Lord.

In the second section, three essays caught my attention. In “Entrenched” he observes how this label is often applied to conservatives when in fact everyone is interested in “conserving something” and may be liable to trench digging. He proposes that we might consider a better, more biblical metaphor of “the way” in which we’ve chosen to walk through life, something we are all doing, whether or not we are all walking in the same way. In “He Did Weep,” he writes about Jesus not simply at Lazarus tomb, but in the manger at Christmas. True incarnation involved a crying baby, experiencing the discomforts of all human babies, contrary to “Away in a Manger.”  His sensitive response to a student’s troubled questions in “What about Hell?” and the distinction he made between those who think they are too good to be condemned by God, and those who consider God too good to punish are responses I will remember for similar conversations.

In the third section, his essay on “Eating Alone,” inspired by Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone notes the great dangers that come to us in our increasing isolation from social organizations, the mediating institutions, that once were a significant part of the fabric of belonging. I’m surprised how many writers are sounding this theme, which may truly be one of the great perils of our age. He also includes some beautiful essays about his encounters with Catholicism and some thoughts about “Patriotism” that are balanced and measured and worthy of consideration wherever you are on the political spectrum.

Mouw’s irenic voice is one we need in our time of ambivalent triumphalism on one side and anguished resistance on another. He explores the everyday acts of faithful Christian presence in the real world we inhabit. These essays feel to me to be “dispatches from another place” than where we usually live that call us to both our true selves, and the true north of our faith.

 

Review: Adventures in Evangelical Civility

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Adventures in Evangelical Civility, Richard J. Mouw. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016.

Summary: An intellectual memoir, tracing Mouw’s efforts to find common ground while maintaining reformed and evangelical convictions.

“Evangelical civility.” It sounds like an oxymoron to some. Yet for those who know Richard Mouw’s work, or have the privilege of personal acquaintance with him (which I do not), you know that there is at least one example of a person for whom both terms are true without contradiction.

In this “intellectual memoir,” Mouw shares with us his own intellectual journey and engagement with others. We have closely written chapters on his studies in philosophy and theology, his wrestling with “antithesis” in Van Til, the reformed doctrine of total depravity, and how far common grace goes in providing a basis for common ground with those who are not among the elect.

Mouw also traces his engagements with other thinkers and theologians throughout his career. Perhaps most fascinating was his relationship with John Howard Yoder. What could a Calvinist and Anabaptist find in common? In this and other relationships there were differences to be sure, and yet surprising places of common ground. This is true for him in encounters with Catholics, and more controversially perhaps, with Mormon scholars. Mouw also recounts his work at Calvin College and later as President of Fuller Theological Seminary, a place that allows for “big tent evangelicalism.” In a chapter on being a public intellectual, he writes of a non-Christian academic friend’s challenge:

” ‘You have a problem, Mouw,’ he said. ‘Right now Fuller manages to maintain the highest level of scholarship with a strong connection with grassroots evangelicalism. But that can’t last. Either you are going to start dumbing things down or you are going to move to the ‘ivory tower’ thing.’

    In candor I have to admit that my secularist friend may have been a little too optimistic in his reading of the present relationship between the evangelical academy and popular evangelicalism. There is a ‘mind’ within the evangelical movement, but there is a serious gap between what the mind says and how the rest of the body often acts. In our public life, especially in recent years, we evangelicals have consisted embarrassed ourselves by mindless behavior. My friend was offering important advice, however. To the degree that there is some mutual support between the evangelical academy and the grass roots, we need to work hard to keep the mutuality strong. If the creative tension cannot be maintained, the results will be tragic. The two components of evangelicalism need each other. Neither can sustain a healthy evangelical character without the other.”

These words give a good example of the convicted civility in search of common ground that is the thread running through this memoir. In his concluding chapter, he makes an interesting point in noting that conviction and civility are never actually in tension because the Christian is called to both and the practice of civility is itself rooted in conviction. This last chapter exhibited, to me, a great deal of vulnerability. He returns to qualms he expressed in opening pages about whether the quest for common ground concedes too much, and yet argues for this as the way of faithfulness as well as consistent with his own calling in life. And he concludes with the example of one of his predecessors at Fuller, E. J. Carnell, whose call to theological humility in his inaugural address was roundly criticized and whose life ended in a profound depression in a hotel room where ingested an overdose of sleeping pills. He quotes a portion of that address, with which I will conclude:

“Whoever meditates on the mystery of his own life will quickly realize why only God, the searcher of the secrets of the heart, can pass final judgment. We cannot judge what we have no access to. The self is a swirling conflict of fears, impulses, sentiments, interests, allergies and foibles. It is a metaphysical given for which there is no easy rational explanation. Now, if we cannot unveil the mystery of our own motives and affections, how much less can we unveil the mystery in others.”

It has been said more simply, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” (Attributed to variously to Plato, Philo, and John Watson). Perhaps this is the common ground of our humanity that calls us to civility in the hard and common battle of life. Mouw’s memoir is indeed an exemplar of civility without sacrificing conviction.

Is Convicted Civility Still Possible?

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Rev. John Home, one of the Scottish Calvinists who was friends with David Hume.

I’ve just begun reading Richard J. Mouw’s memoir, Adventures in Evangelical Civility. I suspect that some would believe that the last two words in this title are an oxymoron. What caught my attention was a discussion in the first chapter on his pursuit of “convicted civility,” a chapter entitled “Calvinists in an Edinburgh Pub.” He speaks of the efforts of a group of Calvinists including John Home to promote a more productive engagement with Scottish Enlightenment thought. One of his regular dialogue partners was the skeptic, David Hume, whose ideas gained ascendancy in most academic circles in Scotland. He asks himself:

“For all my good intentions and proper Calvinist motives, I have asked myself on occasion whether I am unwittingly giving aid and comfort to the increasing relativism of our own day, encouraging the widespread assumption that being clear about borders is not a matter of great importance.”

Mouw touches on one prong of a two-pronged dilemma for those who think convicted civility is possible. One prong is that conviction is muted by association with those who differ. Either the sense is one of “agreement by association” or that truth is relative–you have your truth, we have ours. And the point is missed that this is an engagement about questions of truth upon which we may disagree. Logic actually dictates that we both cannot be right, at least in the same way. We could both be wrong or one of us right and one wrong, or both of us partially right in differing ways, at best.

The other prong, which may be more prevalent of late, is that when we disagree about a question of truth, we cannot do so agreeably toward each other. If you disagree with me, you must hate me, and there is something morally defective with you that you would disagree with me. What we miss here is that to disagree about ideas we hold, even hold deeply, is not to disagree with us in the sense of our fundamental dignity.

Part of the problem is that it is difficult to find people characterized by “convicted civility.” It is more common to find those who are convicted but uncivil, and perhaps even more common in our “tolerant” age to find those civil but unconvicted. It has been observed by a number of people, including O’Neill’s son, that Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan were partisan foes who could fiercely disagree, then hammer out compromises, and enjoy drinks together at the White House. Convicted civility isn’t nice, but it provides the basis for a functioning civil society.

If ever there was a time for the practice of “convicted civility,” we are in one of those times. It feels to me sometimes like I live in two countries, each of which detests the other and wishes it could get rid of “them.” Sometimes, it seems that these two countries reside on my Facebook newsfeed which makes me wonder what would happen if I invited all my Facebook friends to the same party! (It also makes me wonder what it says that I somehow remain friends with these two countries!) I don’t know whether it is possible to practice “convicted civility” in this climate, but I also know that the future trajectory of the alternative seems fraught with even greater dangers.

Here’s what I think it takes to practice “convicted civility”:

It involves conviction:

  • It means that we have a clear sense of what we believe about the good, the true, and the beautiful and know what core beliefs we cannot compromise.
  • It means that we can articulate that sense in plain words.
  • It means that we can explain why we hold these convictions.
  • It means we are willing to accept the consequences of holding those convictions.
  • It means that we can distinguish between convictions on which we believe we cannot compromise and matters of application, or opinion, or even liberty where we might differ or where multiple good paths are possible.
  • It means a willingness to admit where we are wrong when persuaded because we are lovers of truth rather than lovers of being “right.”

It involves civility:

  • It means I respect the person with whom I disagree as an equal.
  • It means that I recognize that none of our disagreements undermine the bond of common humanity we share.
  • It means a willingness to find the places of common ground that arise from that common humanity, while being honest about our differences.
  • It means a willingness to grant the same level of attentiveness to and understanding of the words and ideas of the other that I would wish.
  • It means I refuse to attack the character of a person when I disagree with what they think.
  • It means that I might remain friends with someone with whom I deeply disagree, even sometimes affectionate friends.

Sadly, it appears we are in a day where those who would practice “convicted civility” face attack from both their convictional compatriots and from those with whom they differ, despite their civility. From the former, they are viewed as sellouts, even “relativists”, particularly if they acknowledge that the “others” have anything valid in their thought. From the latter, the danger is always one of being branded “intolerant” simply because they have the courage at points to disagree. Often the former attacks are far more vicious and disheartening.

Why bother then, you might ask? I guess it comes down to the fact that I’m convinced and convicted that it is the right thing to do. If we are going to have a civil society instead of civil war (without or with guns), then we have got to figure out how to do this. Short of tyranny, mass deportation, or genocide, we are not going to get rid of half the country, let alone that guy on Facebook who persists in disagreeing with us. I wonder if we have stopped to look at it that way, because if we do we might yet have a chance to back away from the precipice. What it seems that we can’t do is just think that our toxic rhetoric, and our inability to maintain any kind of civil dialogue across our deepest differences can persist indefinitely without consequences, none of them good. Alongside that, I would take “convicted civility” any day. How about you?

Review: Called to the Life of the Mind

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Called to the life of the Mind

Called to the Life of the Mind, Richard J. Mouw. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2014.

Summary: A collection of reflective essays by one of the deans of evangelical scholarship on the calling and importance of the Christian scholarly task.

This is an absolute gem of a book!

Rarely am I so effusive about a title but this short collection of pithy essays that I devoured in an afternoon is a quite wonderful gift to anyone who loves Christ and loves scholarly work and wonders what a life pursuing these loves might look like.

Mouw begins by admitting his own surprise in discovering his vocation as a scholar, having grown up in a conservative evangelicalism in which, “you don’t need exegesis, you just need Jesus.” He discusses the “accusing voices” that considered the intellectual life dangerous to the soul, concluding that while there is something to those warnings, it is possible to be both a rigorous scholar and a devout lover of God. He affirms the value of scholarship against the larger value of God’s kingdom, the importance of the tedious intellectual “calisthenics” necessary for the fruit of rigorous scholarship, and the value of not needing to make hasty applications of what we discover.

He goes on to explore how evangelical scholars engage the wider scholarly world, eschewing either withdrawal or “takeover.” He pleads for a scholarship that is both humble and hopeful, that recognizes that all the Kuyperian “square inches” over which Jesus is Lord belong to him but will only be perfectly known by us in eternity. He speaks of the communal character of Christian scholarly work, that scholars may help one another in a “shared commitment to creative teaching and scholarship.”

I found this last proposal particularly intriguing, as Mouw framed this in terms of an academic “religious order” in which Christian scholars working at Christian institutions might also encourage the “dispersed believers” working at more secular institutions. Engaging the conversation about a “Benedict option“, he calls rather for a more truly Benedictine-type engagement that both strengthens the church and has a renewing influence in the world.

The concluding essays discuss the unique opportunity of the academy as a safe place for intellectual exploration, the various roles played in academia from serious scholarship to “populizers”, the hopes and fears of academic pilgrimage with its unknowns, the dangers of critique becoming a way of life, rather than a moment during our work, and the unique perspective we have because we believe in creation–that truth is a discovery of creation and not a creation in and of itself.

In his last essays, he returns to the theme of humility and hope, concluding with these words:

“If we effectively appropriate these attitudes — humility and hope — we can display the kind of patience that is capable of tolerating complexities and living with seemingly unconnected particularities without giving in to despair or cynicism. To show forth this kind of approach to intellectual complexities is to perform an important ministry — a Christ-like ministry — in the present day academy.”

This collection of essays is one that I would suggest every Christian scholar keep handy for those moments when one may be tempted to cynicism or despair about the future of the academy or is in need of a refreshed vision for one’s calling. Joining Mouw in his reflections on the humble and hopeful task of scholarly work under Christ may be just the encouraging word needed to enable one to press on in the academic journey.