‘For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind’ (Hosea 8:7). Hosea’s sad, but ironic, description of the result of Israel’s chronic unfaithfulness to God is hauntingly descriptive of our own day. Unmoored from both nature and Scripture, the human family seems incapable of identifying who they are or why they exist. Social dystopia wreaks havoc in the kingdoms of this world as institutions, definitions, and expectations of the way the world should be’once shared by pagans and Christians alike’are overturned and blown away.
Our refusal to bow to God’s will sets us up for the ultimate betrayal, as old as humanity itself. The shifty serpent said to Adam and Eve that they could be like God; their bold and treasonous grasp of freedom, however, led to chains they could not even begin to understand. The confusion and desperation that mark our age are rooted in this fateful choice of our first parents. Like them, we have sought to determine our own existence, to identify ourselves, and to choose for ourselves. The result is slavery and death.
In this issue of Modern Reformation, we will focus on authority: Who gets to determine who I am? In our first feature article, Thorin Klosowski peels back the veil of commerce to reveal the character behind the curtain carefully orchestrating the effort to get us to ‘freely’ choose what we ‘want.’ How many of us realize that what we want is predetermined by brand managers, smell consultants, and musicologists!
The bell-weather issue of personal identity in our era has shifted from what we want to be when we grow up to whom we choose to love. Editor-in-chief Michael Horton sat down with Sam Allberry, minister in the Church of England, to discuss his own experience with same-sex attraction and how he understands the tension between what he feels is true about him and what God says is true. Their conversation will also air on White Horse Inn.
Our third feature article is a written conversation between Kelly Kapic (a theologian), Tim Morris (a biologist), and Matthew Vos (a sociologist), who took time away from their teaching schedules at Covenant College to engage with one another and their respective disciplines on the subject of personhood: What makes us who we are?
No Christian discussion of identity and authority can be complete without understanding the overarching plan and purpose of God. We asked our friend Lydia Brownback, a popular author and speaker, to address the question from the perspective of God’s choosing, calling, and guiding individuals into a future he is preparing for them.
Our hope for this issue is to help you think clearly about yourself! We believe that Reformer John Calvin was right when he reasoned in the opening pages of his Institutes of the Christian Religion that ‘the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also as it were, leads us by the hand to him.’ May God be pleased to lead you by his own hand to know, worship, and serve him more faithfully in this life and in the life to come
