Philip,

There are absolutely implications of the for life in the lower story. The issue is whether those implications should be our primary aim in gospel ministry. We should first and foremost be concerned about the salvation of souls—the making of citizens of heaven. Surely there may be secondary effects of a Christian’s life on the things of this world, but that is not where his or her citizenship lies. In 2 Cor 4:18, Paul tells us that “we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” We should always place our focus on the latter. The express goal should never be to transform Greek culture and therefore transform the world. Our express goal should be to make disciples by God’s grace and for God’s glory.

We can speak about the church as both institution and organism. We can also speak about the church as both visible and invisible. Of course the church is not something that only exists during corporate worship on the Lord’s Day. However, when we start moving into areas like Word ministry, we must always be mindful of God’s design for how that ought to proceed.

When I speak about the importance of local church involvement, I’m not speaking about people attending services in a church building on the Lord’s Day (though that would be excellent!). I’m speaking about the structure and accountability of people and organizations engaged in Word ministry. God has given his church a government and has gifted and called certain people to exercise Christ’s authority in the visible church. We must think long and hard about whether how we minister is in accord with God’s commands.

But if Christ reigns, not only over his church, but over all the nations (even if not as he one day will do), then are there no implications for life in the lower story, such as Greek life?

Another question: does “church” disband after the benediction and folks leave the premises? Does “church” exist only when we “do church,” or does it also exist Monday through Saturday?

Jamie,

I sense that you consider my comments as some sort of personal attack. Let me assure you that was not my intent. This is a public forum on Reformed theology, and criticism is of the essence of a forum. I didn’t find anything inappropriate with public comment given the public nature of Greek Intervarsity. I welcome criticism, properly understood, of Reformed Forum and myself. This is precisely what you are offering in your comments 😉

Criticism is a good thing when it arises from pure motives. I made my comments for the purpose of calling all people to uncompromising obedience to Scripture. Paul’s call to be at peace with all people is predicated on faithfulness to revelation, and in that sense, we should all welcome comment and criticism so long as it’s given with the aim of bringing us into closer conformity to that Word. The Lord has provided a structure for the governing and care of his church, and the Church has a specific mandate for gospel ministry. We should seek to strive after God’s design.

I regret that we appear to disagree on these issues, and to the extent that I have offended beyond the offense of the gospel, I ask your forgiveness.

I appreciate your concerns, and I praise God for the countless individuals that are led to Christ by ministries such as InterVarsity. In fact, I find Camden’s short post more of a critique of the local church than the para-church ministries. Nevertheless, we are to judge all things by the light of scripture (Acts 17:11), and this includes how we should accurately strive towards a proper understanding of ministry and missions. Once again, I believe this post is a call to churches, in that they must ask themselves if the mission field of local college campuses is one in which the church must actively participate, or if they should not “get in the way” of the already fruitful para-church ministries. I genuinely think it is a difficult question which must be taken seriously.

We must ask ourselves in the light of scripture, whether or not the Church is the primary agent for mission work, or is it the primary recipient of missions. At the same time. I find it equally UN-biblical for the church to have an overarching sense of disdain for any ministry outside the church. It is a difficult and perplexing question in light of the genuine fruitfulness of Christ’s work through such para-church ministries. A good question to ask is whether or not the ministry as a whole should be accountable to a church, or the individual leaders themselves should be accountable to a local body. I believe this will lead the question into a more fruitful discussion.

This is also why I believe Camden highlighted RUF, in that RUF is not just supplying lip service to the local church, but that it is actually an arm of a said local church. One helpful aspect of this is church discipline and accountability for the leaders themselves. If an RUF leader begins to preach a different gospel, he is not just simply asked to leave his post at a particular campus, but even more so, he must stand trial before the church.

I appreciate your above points; however, I guess the main question I have, that I have been ruminating on all day, is “Why?” Why blog about what’s wrong with other Christian ministries? (I could understand if we were asserting a gospel of works or any other number of major issues…but we aren’t.) Why criticize? Why focus on what’s “wrong?” Why not start with “Praise God! I’m so glad some people have a heart for those crazy college students who black out three times a week and do drugs and sleep around.”

To be very honest, I find it hurtful that someone in my school community would publicly criticize my ministry. When Paul exhorted us to do whatever we can to be at peace with all people, and when Jesus prayed for us to be one as He and the Father are one…I don’t think this is what they had in mind.

Jamie,

Thank you for the response. It’s great to hear from you. I hope we can have a deeper conversation on these issues, because I think they are extremely important. To start, I should mention that I did visit the website and read about the ministry beforehand. Indeed I linked to the site so others would read as well. That being said, I believe you may have misunderstood the nature and target of my criticisms, which I believe still stand.

I was delighted to read about the desire for local church involvement on the website. But in terms of ecclesiology and campus ministry, my comments about local church involvement go much deeper into issues of special office and the nature of ministry. In a previous comment, I brought up RUF, an organization that has considered many of these issues in light of Reformed ecclesiology. For instance, local/regional church oversight ought to involve ordained ministers active in the ministry—or at the very least campus staff ministering under the oversight of elders. My presbytery is studying these very issues at the moment, and I hope we can come to a thoroughly biblical understanding of the shape of ministry in the campus context.

In terms of the poster, you wrote,

Instead, we are making the point that today’s “frat stars” are tomorrow’s leaders in government and business. If we can help those influencers to make decisions according to Christ’s model of leadership, how different our world might be.

I hope Christianity can be more of an influence in society. I think it’s a good thing, and I certainly wish cultural influencers made decision according to Christ’s model of leadership. But at the same time, I desire for us to have a biblical understanding of transformation and how we should go about it. One of my points was that if today’s “frat[ernity] stars” become Christians (and especially Reformed Christians!), they’re probably much less likely to ever become the leaders of tomorrow. More often than not, a worldly culture raises up worldly leaders.

I realize that the point of the promotional poster wasn’t the presidency per se. Though related, the evangelicals and presidency issue is tangential. I intended to draw attention to a deeper issue of cultural transformationalism—not any particular organization. We should pin our eschatological hopes on cultural transformation.

Let me echo my words in the post; I wish someone would have had more of this focus while I was an undergraduate Greek student. And so I’m applauding your work here! I simply want the Church to have that focus in conformity to Scripture.

-I wish you had attended the ministry lunch and asked these very questions. We would have been able to clarify your misunderstandings.
-I wish you had looked at the Greek InterVarsity website before posting this blog. I encourage you to visit the website and to see that one of our methods of ministry is: “Commitment on behalf of staff and students to be active in and fed by the local church.” In fact, in the four years that I have worked with Greek IV at UPenn, I can honestly say that a majority of the students I work with were not involved in a local church until they connected with our fellowship on campus. At this point I would estimate that 75% of our group is involved with the local church and the 25% that aren’t, probably wouldn’t be anyway, irregardless of their involvement with our group.

This ministry exists because we realize that many fraternity men and sorority women who have spiritual questions would never darken the door of a church for fear of being judged. When a bible study is led in their frat house, by their frat brother, they are much more likely to openly engage with God’s Word in a thoughtful way.

Finally, I’d just like to say that this promotional poster and our ministry have nothing really to do with the presidency or the presidential election. Instead, we are making the point that today’s “frat stars” are tomorrow’s leaders in government and business. If we can help those influencers to make decisions according to Christ’s model of leadership, how different our world might be.

Again, I encourage you to visit our website to learn more http://www.intervarsity.org/greek/aboutus/415 and I also ask that you would take down things in your post that simply aren’t true of Greek InterVarsity. Thank you.

Your sister in Christ and fellow classmate,
Jamie Hawthorn
jamie.hawthorn@gmail.com

Thanks for the response Bob. I should also note that Reformed University Fellowship attempts to engage in campus ministry in accord with a Reformed ecclesiology. My campus did not have an RUF chapter, so I am not as familiar with them as with other campus ministry organizations, but that’s at least one encouraging sign on the campus/ecclesiology front.

From purely empirical evidence I’ve gathered over the years, church and college ministry may be more woeful than that of youth ministry (K-12). It’s a sweeping statement, I realize, given the sad state of youth ministries across the board in evangelical churches today. But the example Camden gives of the Bible study in the fraternity and the separation from the local church is what is often generated with college ministries. That or college ministry is seen as its own church within a church. Except the end result is a church for the young, run by the young and completely cut off from the local congregation.