The Laymens Lounge

Getting the Big Picture of the Pilgrims. Fact vs Fiction. Pilgrim Theological Emphasis. Theonomy Applied. Etc.

Thomas Kidd just showed me that I really am a product of the California public school system as he separates pilgrim, Mayflower, and Thanksgiving fact from fiction. It’s not just that he corrects snippets of legend-as-history, but he fills out the pilgrim experiment and gives us the big picture and goals of these "separatists." Not just "why did they leave England?" - but what did they do when they got here? What happened to them after 10, 20, 100 years of being here? Just who were these pilgrims? What was their theology? Did they read Calvin and Luther – and who are their modern counterparts (and Ill just tell you now: it might be the OPC and PCA)? What was so horrible in England that they would endure 9 months on a ship and possibly freeze to death? Did they evangelize the native population? Did they eat turkeys or fill their bellies with a big ol' plate of eel? And what became of them - are Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards and the East Coast Congregationalists their successors? Was Squanto really a figure in their lives? Did they implement the mosaic law on the colony (what would you do if you could have a fresh start and surrounded by Christians and could do anything you felt was wise), and was a man caught in bestiality stoned to death? And, of course, the pressing question: should Christians cancel Thanksgiving or redeem it?

Lim Swee Hong and Lester Ruth

“God inhabits the praises of His people” Psalm 22:3. With this verse as the Theological lynchpin, a new way of worshipping God took root, and continues to this day.

New forms of worship have transformed the face of the American church over the past fifty years. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, including interviews with dozens of important stakeholders and key players, this volume by two worship experts, Lim Swee Hong and Lester Ruth, offer the first comprehensive history of Contemporary Praise & Worship. The authors provide insight into where this phenomenon began (by the way, it was NOT the Jesus People hippies in California… But was in Jan ’46 in Canada) and how it reshaped the Protestant church. They also emphasize the span of denominational, regional, and ethnic expressions of contemporary worship, taking into account the liturgical dynamics involved it its emergence and the dynamics that led to its growth. The authors show that Contemporary Praise & Worship came about through theological reflection on the Bible, not merely as the result of cultural impulses. In this interview we hit emotionalism, hype, the goal of worship, liturgy, trinitarian theology, compelling artists (Kanye West, the Gettys, Bethel, Jesus Culture, Sandra Sandra McCracken).

15 years ago Collin Hansen identified a movement; “Young, Restless and Reformed.” John Piper, Mark Driscoll, John MacArthur were all pillars. With a heavy emphasis on a Calvinist soteriology, many of them, mostly from the Baptistic tradition, were pleased to cultivate a little bit of rootedness in the 2006 world of relativism and “you do you.” But, its been a long 15 years and now these guys have grown up. Some are now pastors, some are apostate and “deconstructed”, and no small amount have taken their own lives. There was no agreed upon natural progression of "what’s next?" and we haven't seen a cohesive YRR 2.0 planned or executed. After awhile, most of them broke out of the cage-stage and began to ask questions like “Ok, so I'm elect – what does that mean for me as a dad, as a pastor, and as someone who is still hungry for truth? What is the telos of my faith other than being theologically sound? Is Christianity just a heaven to gain and hell to shun?” 

Jonathan Edwards is still Collin Hansen’s homeboy – but so is James K.A. Smith, Charles Taylor, Tim Keller (while for others its Bavinck, Joe Rogan, Martin Luther, Jordan Peterson, Abraham Kuyper, etc.). The John Piper books are still on Collin's shelf it's just now they are covered with a light dust. Indeed, YRR was never to be the end. It was never the final word and there were still many itches that YRR didn’t scratch. Many of the ever-hungry (and dissatisfied) YRR alumni have gone the way of liturgy, Anglican/Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic. Some sought to see their faith applied to “every square inch” of their lives and so fell in with the Kuyperians (the OG “neo-Calvinists" by the way), still others became Sacramentarians, and a few to the Lutheran camp with the much-needed reality of a proper Law/Gospel distinction (especially those who thought to be "radical" meant being anything other than a pastor or missionary was sub-Christian, at best, and a "wasted life" at worst). Regardless where the YRR alum have ended up, most all of them have seen the fact that useless are the days of the “Theological cultural warrior” for the day-to-day.

Join us as we sit down with Collin Hansen and survey the YRR movement asking “where are they now?” and attempt to connect dots of progression (and sometimes the regression) from that starting point. 

A Trinitarian Theolog of Gratitude and Giving

“We swim in gifts, in things given freely by God… But you don’t feel this very often though, do you? Neither do I. The greatest irony of being alive is that we treat gifts as possessions, generosity as commonplace, grace as summer grass-something to be stepped on and forgotten with every lifting muscle… We unwrap so many gifts every moment that we forget it’s Christmas morning, that God is watching every spark of joy, and every shrug of the shoulders.”

– Pierce Taylor Hibbs from “The Book of Giving: How the God Who Gives Can Make Us Givers”

Join us as we sit down with Pierce Taylor Hibbs while helps us to major on the majors. The attributes of God, trinitarian realities, “the giving circle”, and all manner of truth that does something for our lived lives.

Join us as we sit down with Pastor Benji Magness and discuss the life of the believer and the enjoyment (or rejection?) of Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone, creepy stuff and horror films, punk rock and burning your CDs at church camp. 

Dr. Sandra Richter speaks all manner of ancient languages, has a doctorate from Harvard, is a professor, an archeologist, a leading voice in academic theological/historical/hermeneutical discussions, and she wants to help normal Christians read and understand the Old Testament. 

Dr. Richter is the author of the heavily circulated book “The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament”, it really is the go-to book for getting the big picture of the Old Testament and informs our New Testament reading as well. 

Father as “Not Begotten” – Son as “Begotten” – Spirit as “Spirated”

Join us as we sit down with the Trinity powerhouse Dr. Matthew Barrett author of “Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit” (Baker). Dr. Barrett has done the heavy lifting for us in reviewing the last 2,000 years of making sense of the Trinity and how it functions, while also dealing with some of the whack and novel ideas that have risen the last hundred years (especially the last 20 years).

“I’ve found Borger’s vocation to be more similar to a pharmacist than a bookseller. People come to Hearts and Minds [Bookstore] with one deficiency or another. After some listening, Borger prescribes just the right supplement of Al Wolters or Richard Middleton or an obscure gem hidden in a tacky dust jacket… Byron is the Michael Jordan of synthesizing ideas. Each ["BookNotes”] post is rife with connections: connections between art and faith, between politics and science, between gardening and prayer. Byron is a true interdisciplinarian, a renascence man if ever there was one.” - Dustin Messer

“Somewhere in central Pennsylvania there is a warm and inviting labyrinth called Hearts & Minds Bookstore. Byron and Beth Borger, the caretakers of Hearts & Minds, have worked there tirelessly for over three decades to create a space for serious, reflective readers. The Borgers are committed to helping their customers live out Christ’s Lordship in the midst of our highly secularized, postmodern culture. They have carried out this mission through their shop, mail-order services, and book tables at conferences around the country. Their unremitting efforts to offer quality books for thinking biblically about every area of life has inspired a volume on this, their bookstore’s thirty-fifth anniversary. One of the many ways Hearts & Minds has blessed their customers has been through BookNotes. In those reviews, Byron shares colorful anecdotes and passionate arguments for why to read books, and amplified lists suggesting what books to read. In this book, the Borger’s friends have adopted the BookNotes model and offer a defense for books in their spheres of interest, along with a number of titles for the reader to consider investing their time in for deeper study.” – From “A Book For Hearts & Minds: What You Should Read and Why”

In part 2 of our interview with Lutheran/Country Music/Vocation powerhouse, Dr. Gene Veith (part 1 is here), author of “The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First Evangelicals” (Concordia Publishing House), we chat country-music Christians (did you know Lyle Lovett and Kris Kristofferson are Lutherans?! Did you know Loretta Lynn’s had a home, now abandoned, in Hawaii a few miles from my house?!) – what do we do with polarizing Christians like Hank Williams and Johnny Cash (are they “baby Christians”? Are they even Christians? Should we even ask this question?)? We also chat “closet Lutherans”, 1 John as it pertains to naval-Gazing/fruit-Checking and assurance, the paradoxes of Lutheranism that are so helpful (Law/Gospel, Saint/Sinner, etc.), the practice of confession of sins and absolution (”I forgive you”), and a few other precious gems of reality.

To discuss the implications, get clarity, on this, or any of our episodes, head over to the Facebook group “Theology Applied” and join the discussion.

Dr. Veith, in addition to being a medium of good news, is also a medium of communicating good country music. He is the author “Honky-Tonk Gospel: The Story of Sin and Salvation in Country Music” and so he knows some proper country tunes when he hears them.

Attempting to Apply a Mystery to Daily Life

Join us as we sit down with Trinity-nuance master Fred Sanders and bombard him with questions on all things Father, Son and Spirit. Dr. Sanders is the author/editor of “The Third Person of the Trinity Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics”, the modern classic “The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything” and just released “Fountain of Salvation: Trinity and Soteriology”