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Punk rockers (or, perhaps better, protest rockers) always need something against which to fight: the “establishment,” social prejudices and inequalities, war, puritanical parents, whatever, something. Punk, in other words, is a parasite. It thrives when its host thrives. It dies (or flies) when its host dies. So, for example, when government officials declare war, many punks discover a renewed vibrancy, for the host on which they feed and nourish themselves has itself been renewed. One consequence of the parasitic punk is that its chief mode of being is violence, attack. I sense something similar is going on in some Christian Reformed circles.

I have always admired Reformed folks (of the Westminster Seminary variety) for their fervent and unswerving dedication to faithfulness in proclaiming the true Gospel and preaching the Scriptures accurately, but, through prolonged exposure, my admiration has gradually given way to weariness. I have grown tired, not of their passion for truth but, of their consistently draconian denunciations of those they (usually rightly) oppose. Indeed, it seems to me that the entrenched method of these reformers is to express their allegiance to the truth through critique as opposed to something like fides quaerens intellectum (‘faith seeking understanding’). Attack mode is default mode. They gain nourishment through sound refutations, confident condemnations of wayward doctrinaires (e.g. Joel Osteen), and the occasional, snide (but clever) cheap shot on those outside the inner ring. This tradition, as it presents itself to me in southern California, has little by way of independent life. It feeds off the host of heresy, impropriety, and tomfoolery. One gets the impression that Christianity began (or began again) with the Reformation or, more specifically, with Reformational criticism of the Roman host that lost its way.

Of course, the parasite analogy only goes so far. Surely, there are positive contributions, besides good objections, provided by modern Reformers (just as there may be some positive musical contributions made by punk rock), but the overwhelming spirit and source of being is (permit me a weak metaphor) that of intellectual hatchet throwing, not theological home building.

Protest rock, from time to time, might be useful in combating societal and political ills, but in itself it is a weak musical genre. It lacks that self-sustaining quality that gives things lives of their own. The same goes for some forms of Reformation Christianity. Don’t get me wrong. Every community of Christians must, in this world, be actively engaged in theological, cultural, and philosophical criticism. But that engagement ought to flow out of the life of the Church, not constitute it.