The March edition of Comment magazine—yes, I'm a little late in picking up on this—has three articles dealing with each aspect of the biblical story: creation, fall, and redemption. Understanding the biblical narrative in this way is characteristic of the school of thought known as neocalvinism, which Comment roots itself in. All the pieces in this three-part series are excellent, and all worth your time (as is Comment as a whole—incidentally, Comment publishes five times more material online than in print if you wanted to read it on a regular basis). A taste of each piece follows.

First, Al Wolters writes on a biblical view of creation:

The first thing most people think of in connection with creation is the so-called 'natural world'—that is, the physical and biological world. We think of stars and galaxies as well as molecules and atoms, of trees and flowers as well as birds and beasts. But that is a very limited view of creation. In the biblical view, creation is everything which God has ordained to exist, what he has put in place as part of his creative workmanship. To be sure, this includes the great variety of physical entities and processes, and the enormous diversity of flora and fauna that God has created 'according to their kind,' but it also encompasses much more. Creation includes such human realities as families and other social institutions, the presence of beauty in the world, the ability to appreciate that beauty, the phenomena of tenderness and laughter, the capacity to conceptualize and reason, the experience of joy and the sense of justice. An almost unimaginable variety of objects, institutions, relationships and phenomena are part of the rich texture of God's creation.

Then David Naugle addresses the consequences of the fall:

[The fall] is the second 'act' in the overall narrative of the Scriptures, the next major theme in a biblical view of life and the world. First, there is the good news of creation, but now we have the bad news of the fall. It introduces fundamental conflict into the biblical drama, which must be resolved before God's story ends. It shows, contrary to other worldviews, that evil is not rooted in creation itself, but in the moral rebellion of the human race against the divine authority of the holy God. I sometimes call this episode the 'uncreation' because of the damage it did to God's very good world: how it twisted his intentions for humanity, for our knowing and loving and culture-making, and for all the earth.

And finally Jamie Smith paints a wonderful portrait of God's all-encompassing redemption:

Our good Creator has not left us to our own devices. While we ruptured the plenitude of creative love, our condescending God has also ruptured our brass heaven, along with our desire to enclose ourselves in immanence, appearing in the flesh—our flesh—as the image of the invisible God. Jesus of Nazareth appears as the second Adam who models for us what it looks like to carry out that original mission of image-bearing and cultivation. The Word became flesh, not to save our souls from this fallen world, but in order to restore us as lovers of this world—to (re)enable us to carry out that creative commission. Indeed, God saves us so that—once again, in a kind of divine madness—we can save the world, can (re)make the world aright. And God's redemptive love spills over in its cosmic effects, giving hope to this groaning creation.

So our redemption is not some supplement to being human; it's what makes it possible to be really human, to take up the mission that marks us as God's image bearers. Saint Irenaeus captures this succinctly: 'The glory of God is a human being fully alive.' Redemption doesn't tack on some spiritual appendage, nor does it liberate us from being human in order to achieve some sort of angelhood. Rather, redemption is the restoration of our humanity, and our humanity is bound up with our mission of being God's co-creative culture-makers.

Be sure to read all of the articles in their entirety. It is this three-part framework (alternatively construed as wonder, heartbreak, and hope) that forms the point of view from which Comment looks at the world, a point of view which, my friend and the magazine's editor Gideon Strauss writes, manifestly reveals the love of the triune God. This love "evokes—from our whole person and in unity with the whole people of God—a life of worship, a love of our neighbours, and a respectful caring and disclosure of all of creation. Lives ordered by the love of God are ordered well, and can be lived well."

Abraham Kuyper, in that oft-quoted dictum, rightly declares that all of life is to be lived under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Our worldview needs this truth as its foundation. We do not begin to live our lives well, to borrow Gideon's words, unless we begin with the recognition of His total claim over all of creation and His holistic work of redemption. Indeed, as Cornelius Van Til once said, "Man cannot be man unless God is God."

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I have a number of reasons for blogging. However, I have never intended this blog to be a place to air grievances, a means of exposing "heretics," or a forum to tear down brothers and sisters in the church. Sadly, this is what a lot of blogs are used for.

Last week, Bruce Waltke resigned from his position as professor of Old Testament studies at the Orlando campus of Reformed Theological Seminary. It was quite clear from the outset that his sudden resignation was linked in some way to a video he had appeared in posted by the Biologos Foundation, in which he argued for the necessity of accepting theistic evolution, although there was no official statement released giving the details of Waltke's resignation.

Not surprisingly, then, the blogosphere lit up as many took the opportunity to offer their opinions and speculations (disguised, of course, as factual statements) regarding what happened. Also of little surprise were the scathing remarks the vast majority of these bloggers had for RTS claiming that the seminary had forced Waltke to resign and criticising the school both for its limiting of academic freedom and for its adherence to a position regarding creation that science has proven to be untenable.

A lot of us around the campus spent time last week trying to figure out exactly what had happened because we were not being given many details. Having only received a very short email from the administration saying that Waltke had resigned, and nothing more, we were especially confused when the reports started coming out that RTS had forced Waltke to step down. I expressed my desire to some of the staff members at the seminary to see an official statement filling us in on the details. On the one hand, this would make us aware of what was going on, and on the other hand, could prove the wide-ranging speculations being promulgated on the internet wrong, which they later did. You can find chancellor Ric Cannada's statement here, and Uri Brito has also posted a letter Waltke himself wrote to his colleagues regarding the situation.

The best report available online right now is provided by The Aquila Report, who the other day posted this extensive and helpful statement. It was affirmed by some of the staff at RTS that this is indeed the most balanced and fair treatment of the events that have transpired in the past few weeks, and although there are some minor factual inaccuracies (the details surrounding the relationship of Enns and Waltke, I have been told, are somewhat inaccurate), it largely avoids the mud-slinging and finger-pointing that have characterised so many of the others "reports." To that end, I ask that you please read this report instead of the incorrect and speculative posts you find on most blogs, including the unhelpful piece Inside Higher Education recently posted

As with almost everything else, there is an ethic when it comes to publishing information, be it in a newspaper or magazine, or on a personal blog. Perhaps the power to click the "publish" button on the bottom of the screen overrides better judgment in some cases, but unfortunately there is no way to control who is publishing what online. One of our professors was remarking yesterday that actual investigative reporting is on the wane these days. Reporters now have their sources in various places and use the information they receive from these sources to make their reports. While these are often regulated as much as possible with the necessary checks and balances to ensure factual accuracy, this can hardly be said for the blogosphere. Using wisdom and abiding by an ethical standard becomes solely the responsibility of the blogger. More often than not, then, Lord Acton's dictum rings true: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Being a student at RTS Orlando, this hit very close to home. I was deeply saddened to hear of Waltke's resignation. Not only have we lost one of—if not the—most preeminent Old Testament scholar alive today, but we have lost a man whose love for the Lord was without measure, whose love for the church was inspiring, and whose love of the Word of God was infectious. One example I can share that demonstrates his character comes from working in the bookstore at the seminary. A number of times, Waltke has purchased some of his own books and shipped them, at great cost to himself, to pastors in countries in the developing world who had little or not access to good theological resources.

I do not believe the issue surrounding Waltke's resignation warranted such drastic action. While I do not adhere to theistic evolution myself, Waltke was clear in his affirmation of God as creator and of the historicity of Adam and Eve. As such, I do not think he falls outside the bounds of orthodoxy. It has been said a few times in the past week (though as far as I know, it remains unverified) that even one of the stalwarts of Reformed theology, B. B. Warfield, was an adherent of theistic evolution.

I never had the privilege of having Waltke as a professor, due to scheduling conflicts with my classes. But he has been an immense blessing to our community here at RTS, and to me particularly in his writing. Sad as we are to see him go, we wish him the Lord's richest blessings in whatever endeavour he undertakes next.

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One of Eugene Peterson's concerns in his book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, is to get us to see that creation is sacred—all of creation. It is easy for us to look at the grandeur and beauty of the mountains or to bask in the warmth of the spring sun and recognize the beauty of creation. Yet, when we find ourselves looking at the pinnacle of God's creation, humanity, that is not often the case."There is a great deal of so-called creation  appreciation, or 'love of nature,'" Peterson writes, "that prefers to look the other way when men and women appear on the scene." But, he argues, Genesis 2 won't allow us to do that because of how integral humanity is to creation.

Peterson tells this story to make his point:

Several years ago one of my students who lived a distance away and rode a crowded bus to the college each day said to his wife as he went out the door one morning, 'I'm just going to go out and immerse myself in God's creation today.' The next day his parting words were the same. On the third day, she called him back, 'Don't you think you ought to go to class today? A couple of days walking in the woods or on the beach is okay, but don't you think enough is enough?'

He said, 'Oh, I've been going to class every day.'

'Then what,' she said, 'is all this business about immersing yourself in creation?'

'Well, I spend forty minutes on the bus each morning and afternoon. Can you think of a setting more thick with creation than that—all these people created, created in the image of God, created male and female?'

'I never thought of that,' she said.

'You mean you've never read Genesis?'

As big of a challenge as it is, we need to learn to see the beauty in the broken. "I'm not suggesting it is easy," Peterson concludes, "...I'm only insisting that it is necessary" (82-83).

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Regeneration, for Herman Bavinck, is not a matter of something entirely new being created within us, but instead is a re-formation of human nature to what it was originally intended to be. There is no new substance added to what is already there, he writes in the first chapter of volume four of his Reformed Dogmatics. He then extends the discussion to creation, and makes this profoundly important point:

Finally also the re-creation that will take place in the renewal of heaven and earth (Matt. 19:28) is not the destruction of this world and the subsequent creation out of nothing of another world but the liberation of the creature that is now subject to futility. Nor can it be otherwise, for God's honor as Savior hinges precisely on his reconquest from the power of Satan of this human race and this world. Christ, accordingly, is not a second Creator, but the Redeemer and Savior of this fallen creation, the Reformer of all things that have been ruined and corrupted by sin. Neither, for that matter, is sin a substance, but consists in lawlessness (άνομια); it is an actualized privation (privatio actuosa) that has indeed violated the form (forma) of the entire created world but did not and could not destroy its substance or essence. Hence, when the re-creation removes sin from creation, it does not deprive it of anything essential, nothing that was essentially and originally characteristic of it (though it was "by nature") and belonged to its essence. For sin is not part of the essence of creation; it pushed its way in later, as something unnatural and contrary to nature. Sin is deformity. When re-creation removes sin, it does not violate and suppress nature, but restores it.

This point cannot be made strongly enough, especially in evangelical circles where creation is often not of great concern. But the fact is, as Bavinck so clearly states, that if creation is not restored, sin gains victory and the Lordship of Christ is rendered null and void.

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You will have undoubtedly noticed the absence of a post yesterday yet again. What I will do today as a result is not post on the next point on the list but instead revisit, to some degree, the very first point in the series, which had to do with theme parks.

Recently, I finished reading Andy Crouch's book, Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling, and was interested to notice that he had something to say about theme parks midway through the book. In chapter six, he is discussing humanity's rapidly increasing isolation from the wilderness of the world as technology develops at an astonishing rate. To illustrate the point, he writes:

This extraordinary isolation from wilderness deserves a name. It is what makes our generation's moment in history so different from our ancestors', and quite possibly from our descendants'. Let's name it after Walt Disney's masterfully modern cultural invention: the theme park.

In the theme park, culture's triumph over nature seems to be complete. Indeed, the theme is more powerful than the park: Even the shrubs at Disney World look like Disney characters. All the vestiges of wildness have been carefully pruned. You have no more to fear from the Shark Tank than the Tower of Terror—you may get a thrill from each, but the theme park is carefully designed to eliminate all real risk.

The theme park is a much safer place to be a human being than the wilderness. Or is it? It may be harder to be a human being, as Genesis understands a human being, in a theme park than anywhere else. For if human beings are made in the image of God, creative cultivators of God's creation, the theme park gives them precious little space for such image bearing. There is nothing for me to create or even to tend at a theme park—employees (or to use Disney's term, 'cast members') do the creating or tending for me. Unlike the Garden, the theme park is not a place where you can get hurt—or if you do, it's not your fault, and you can sue. And to keep you from getting hurt, in the theme park, you are never alone. Not only are you accompanied by throngs of other park guests but by omnipresent representatives of the theme park corporation, there to ensure and (if necessary) enforce enjoyment of the theme park on the owners' terms.

The critique of theme parks is spot on, but does this mean that Crouch is advocating a return to the wilderness? Not at all. The Garden, though it is a place where God as Creator has given mankind all he needs to have a good life, remains an uncultivated wilderness, and it is man's responsibility to make something of it (a calling to culture, as Crouch says). But, he adds,

only because of [God's] gracious and terribly risky withdrawal does the serpent have the opportunity to tempt the man and the woman. And only in the provisional absence of the Creator do the human beings have the opportunity to twist and degrade their divine image by reaching for what the serpent craftily and deceitfully describes as 'be[ing] like God, knowing good and evil' (Gen 3:5)—as if creativity and cultural responsibility were not much more deeply 'like God' than mere knowledge.

This leads Crouch to conclude that neither theme parks nor wilderness are good places in which to be human.

Both may be enjoyable to visit (though I have my doubts about theme parks), but our ability to enjoy them actually requires qualities that only culture, the garden of humanity, can provide. Woe to the traveler who ventures into the wilderness without taking advantage of cultural resources like maps, compasses, hiking boots, tents and accumulated millennia of wisdom about ways to survive in the trackless world. Woe to the tourist parents who have developed no capacities for creativity and cultivation in their own children—they will wander through Disney's surgically sculpted paradise fending off endless complaints of boredom.

Our world is unevenly divided, to say the least, between wilderness and theme parks. Most of humanity lives all too close to wilderness, at the mercy of a creation whose original good wildness has been made implacably hostile to human flourishing by the Fall. A privileged billion or so can choose to live in theme parks, where neither the dangers nor the beauty of the created, fallen world intrude on a manufactured environment of amusement. But we were made for neither theme parks nor wilderness—we were made for a place where we are challenged to become creators and cultivators. We began as gardeners.

Since this is getting lengthy, I will stop at this point. What do you think? Do you find yourself living in the theme park or the wilderness? Is Crouch's distinction helpful in understanding our calling as Christians?

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