Emerging from Emergent Church Evangelicalism---from Evangel by Rev. Paul T. McCain
I came across a very perceptive and fascinating comment from a young man who has come out of the house church/Emergent church movement into Lutheranism. No, this is not a shameless plug for Lutheranism, but rather, for the purpose of this blog site, it is a fascinating look into what a growing number of younger people are thinking/feeling about much that has been popular, and still is, in American Protestantism. And so you know, Lutheranism is by no means immune to these trends: these things are Tsunami like waves washing over all of American Christianity, but there are more and more people growing tired of it all and taking another look at the historical roots of Reformational churches.
This is how I came across these remarks. Dr. Gene Edward Veith’s very popular book The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First Evangelicals has been released in a new revised and expanded edition. A comment was posted after Dr. Veith mentioned the book, by a man who identifies himself as Dan. Here is what he had to say:
“There are a few prevalent ideas that are very popular in the house church crowd, and I have fallen prey to them for quite some time. In many ways I am still coming out of all this. I’m going to answer your question about Veith’s book in a very round-a-bout way, stay with me.
“It is extremely couth to question authority and to doubt and challenge tradition in my generation. This comes as no surprise to most of you, but it is somehow embedded in my genes. In my personal observation (which may be very limited), it seems that most folks in my parents’ generation take the pastor’s word for it because they trust his authority. My generation doesn’t do that. You need to prove why I should trust you.
“After reading Frank Viola’s “Pagan Christianity,” I had a lot of questions and plenty of ammo. I went to several local pastors (a few of them LCMS) and none of them could give me an intelligible response to the book. One pastor had read the book and was questioning his own tradition as a result – we were practically in the same boat. The book really set me on a path of rejecting the institutional church for a couple of years, and it caused me to really study church history and how our Christian practices came to be. Unfortunately, it set me on the wrong path, but my studies in church history set me straight (largely due to the fact that my wife is earning an M.A. in Theology, so good church history books are abundant in our house). While Viola and Barna make profound points about some church practices, their church history leaves a lot to be desired. Their “analysis” is a mishmash of outdated secondary sources, out-of-context quotations, unsupported hypotheses, and personal prejudices. Even worse, on those occasions where legitimate experts on the field are cited (i.e., Dom Gregory Dix, Paul F. Bradshaw, Alexander Schmeman) their views are taken so out of context as to have them seemingly ally with the authors when in fact their views are quite the opposite. But no pastors were able to tell me that. I had to do my own research. Sadly, I don’t think most folks who read this book will do the same, nor do many know how.
“Despite having sorted through some of the faulty church history in “Pagan Christianity,” a lot of the ideology still stuck. Especially since it has been continually reinforced by books like “unChristian,” “Reimagining Church,” “Blue Like Jazz,” “Revolution,” “The Untold Story of the New Testament,” etc. In many ways, “Blue Like Jazz” got me started on this whole kick back when I attended Concordia Seward (prior to dropping out and leaving the church altogether). The book is still extremely popular in young adult circles, including in the LCMS.
“Only within the last year or so have I begun to deconstruct the deconstruction, so to speak. I began by reading “Why We’re Not Emergent” and “Why We Love the Church,” both by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. Those books helped me realize that “so much that passes for spirituality these days is nothing more than middle class, 20-something coffee culture. If you like jazz, soul patches, earth tone furniture, and lattes, that’s cool. But this culture is no holier than the McNugget, Hi-C, Value City, football culture that most people live in. Why does incarnational ministry usually mean hanging out at Starbucks instead of McDonalds?” (Kevin DeYoung, http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2009/01/29/jesus-came-to-save-grimace-and).
“But these books and all my research thus far still only brought me to a point where I essentially could respect the institutional church as a valid form of ministry, but I still thought it was the least effective approach and continued to hold most of my Viola/Barna-inspired prejudices.
“The two prevailing areas of cognitive dissonance that I still retained at that point were:
1. The clergy/laity distinction
2. The sacred/secular dichotomy
“These two areas are widely attacked by house church folks, and they make some pretty good arguments. Let me begin with the clergy/laity distinction. I blog frequently at prayeramedic.com, and you can actually watch my progression of thought on this issue. When first confronted with the idea that there is no hierarchy whatsoever in church leadership, and that church leaders have no authority over church members, I knew it was wrong. It went against Scripture. I immediately pointed this out: http://prayeramedic.com/2008/10/biblical-leadership/
“You’ll see that I used Scripture to demonstrate that church leaders had genuine authority and that this was God-given. But then I read Viola’s book and continued to listen to the house church crowd. I then wrote this post: http://prayeramedic.com/2008/10/secular-job/
“That’s a huge shift in a VERY short period of time. The subtle deception that I didn’t recognize at the time is co-mingling the two issues I listed above into being one and the same. In fact, I probably need to take down this blog post – but I’ll leave it up for now.
“In many ways, I was right. The things I have been griping about in the church are extremely prevalent in mainstream evangelical churches. The pastor is more of a CEO than a spiritual leader and so much of what is being passed off as spirituality is empty emotions, false hope, deception, manipulation, etc. It didn’t help that my wife and I were extremely jaded by the church. I was serving as a young adult minister in a Pentecostal church where things got out of hand and my wife was asked to leave (but I was not). To make a long story short, we left then got mixed up in a United Pentecostal cult (denies Trinity, requires baptism in Jesus’ name only), we left there and got into some wacky charismaniac groups, then we found “mainstream” churches that might as well have called their sermons “motivational speaking” or “lessons in morality.” It was all so shallow and insincere, and so fake. It’s no wonder that the house church message was so appealing.
“The postmodern mantra seems to be “authenticity,” “community,” “experiential,” “participatory,” etc. and that appeals to someone who has only seen fake, inauthentic expressions of faith that have more to do with making people feel good about themselves. I also was struggling with some major sin issues and so were many other folks I knew, but the church was not a place we felt free to confess these things. Nor was it a place where we felt welcome to be ourselves. To most folks Church is just a cultural thing, something they do, not something they are. The house church mantra cries out that the church is an organism, not an organization. This still appeals to me in many ways.
“And we can learn a lot from house church folks. But their fatal flaw is dismissing the institutional church, altogether. Both are valid ministry models that can coexist – and each has its unique strengths and weaknesses.
“Enter Veith’s book. I started looking for books on spirituality, and I found “Grace Upon Grace” by Kleinig. I started reading it and enjoyed it, but I found his writing style difficult to stick with for lengthy periods of time, kind of like reading Kierkegaard or ancient church literature. I then found “Spirituality of the Cross.” Remember that my main two issues were clergy/laity and sacred/secular.
“Veith’s writing style was so easy to read and approachable that I read the book in only a few sittings (similar to Viola/Barna books). Veith really threw me off guard by building a comprehensive model of spirituality and avoiding intellectual quibbles. The answer to the sacred/secular problem is the doctrine of the two kingdoms, and the answer to clergy/laity is the doctrine of the vocation. People had told me this before, but only in theological terms. Veith explained these doctrines in an authentic way, explaining them in a way that actually made me consider how I should live in light of these truths – not just how I should think.
“He immediately tore down the false approaches to God from Koberle: moral, intellectual and mystical. Even though I had heard Koberle’s ideas before, the way Veith explained it made me go “aha!” I got it. His talk about the presence and hiddenness of God was profound as well. I always viewed the Lutheran view of the Sacraments as being only slightly removed from Catholicism. I basically figured that Catholicism was so ingrained in Luther that he didn’t want to stray far in the means of grace doctrines. But Veith clearly explained the mystery and beauty of these means in a practical way.
“I was so confused after all of my experience with charismatic churches and the general teachings of the prosperity gospel and positive confession that are so prevalent in American Christianity. Veith really helped draw the big picture for me, what spirituality really looks like. It isn’t so much about “doing big things for God,” as it is about yielding to God in the small things and recognizing how many big things God IS DOING that we neglect, like what He accomplishes through His means of grace and regular worship.
“I felt as though I had been lied to and deceived by Christianity, as though I had fallen prey to a “bait and switch” tactic. But God had been working all along, I had simply been taught to seek Him according to my own will, not His.
“Also Veith, citing C.S. Lewis, helped me realize that by spending all my time in limbo I was missing out on true community. The entire time I thought that the traditions and customs were the culprit, but I came to realize that sin and human depravity was the real issue. I had been imposing impossible ideals on the people of God, looking for a perfect church in many ways. I didn’t think this was the case, I would claim I wanted an authentic church, not a perfect church. Veith showed me that as a child of God, I often don’t even want the right things. What I need most is often not what I desire. There’s far more authenticity in bad coffee, hard pews, and people of all generations who aren’t very cool and often aren’t very intellectual than there is in coffee shops, smartly-dressed people, and haughty lounges with only folks from one generation who think they know everything. When you think about it, the emergent church is really only a white, suburban, 18-35 yr old movement. That is very limited and is not cross-generational and interracial (issues the emergent church often critique mainstream evangelicals for). Jesus died for all people of all nations, races, and languages – not just for a select group of haughty young adults.
“All in all, Veith challenged me to think critically about my presuppositions. He showed me that I was simply chasing after another fad, setting myself up for another disappointment and further disillusionment. All the while I was seeking authenticity, truth, community, experiences with God, and to be used by God. Veith made it clear that I have been misdiagnosing the issue altogether. The problem isn’t a lack of these things, the problem is sin. The answer is the cross. This is the only true spirituality. This is the only true contentment. I must seek Christ, all these other things flow only from that. When we put the cart before the horse we end up with another man-made institution, even if it meets in homes.
“I still have unanswered questions, but these are not as important as the central issues: Jesus Christ, sin and forgiveness, the cross. I had been struggling a lot with daily prayer prior to reading Veith’s book. After reading it I came to see that in many ways, tradition keeps me safe. Tradition is not always bad. I traditionally wash every morning, and that keeps me from smelling like a farm animal. I now use “Treasury of Daily Prayer” to get in the Word and pray daily, and it works for me. Before I would have never done this, claiming it would be “quenching the Spirit” and binding me in traditions. But you know what? For all my complaints, I wasn’t praying. Now I am. The simple format makes it harder for my flesh to get distracted. I’m a lot weaker than I used to think I was. I am far more dependent on Christ than I realized. This is humbling. This is almost humiliating. But I was wrong. I NEED Jesus. I NEED His grace. I NEED structure. I NEED accountability. I NEED fellowship. And the house church movement made me doubt and mistrust the very things that could have brought me freedom. All relationships are guarded and preserved by structure. Try telling your wife after you’ve had an affair, “Come on, I thought our marriage was about the relationship, not all these do’s and don’ts.” I’ve learned to embrace the structure, rather than fight it and “deconstruct” it.
“So I am probably rambling now. The bottom line is that through reading Veith’s book, the Holy Spirit has taught me some important things (and He continues to do so). I have learned that Jesus Christ is the focal point of Christianity, not authenticity, community or anything else. This fact requires that we live differently, not simply pay lip service to this fact intellectually while practically pursuing other things. If Jesus Christ is at the center of our spirituality then a lot of things are different. I still agree with many of my gripes about mainstream churches, but the Lutheran faith offers something more stable than the changing winds of most of these groups (in most cases), it simply points me to Jesus.”
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Extended Biography of Dr. Del Tackett
Extended Biography of Dr. Del Tackett
Personal transformation through personal encounter with the living God – that’s the heart and soul of Focus on the Family’s The Truth Project ®. It’s also, in an important sense, the life-story of The Truth Project’s chief architect and major spokesman, Dr. Del Tackett. For while Del doesn’t lack formal academic credentials, it’s the experiential aspect of his knowledge that best qualifies him to act as mentor and tour-guide to those seeking a deeper walk with Christ and a more accurate understanding of the Christian worldview. He knows firsthand what it means to encounter the life-changing power of God in a deeply personal way. Born in Texas and brought up on a farm in Blackfoot, Idaho, Del remembers vividly how it felt to grow up Protestant in a solidly Mormon community. It was difficult at times, but he found ways to overcome the feelings of marginalization that go along with being the “odd man out.” Sustained emotionally by a solid relationship with his dad, he excelled in sports and academics, so that by the time he entered high school he had achieved a healthy measure of social respectability among his peers. Church, too, provided him with opportunities to “become somebody.” An active member of the Methodist youth group, he assumed leadership roles at both the local and regional levels.
During the latter part of his high school career, Del was selected to participate in “Boys State,” an American Legion program designed to give top Idaho students hands-on experience in the mechanics of state government. He thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and was eventually invited to take part in the federal version of the same exercise, “Boys Nation,” in Washington, D. C. But it was precisely at this moment of youthful triumph that God – as Del tells the story – pulled the rug out from under him for the first time. He returned home from D. C. to find the house empty and the farm packed up. His father’s employer, Phillips Petroleum, had lost its Idaho contract. The family was moving to Kansas City. That was the summer between Del’s Junior and Senior years. Just when he should have been riding on top of the world, he was suddenly reduced to the status of the “new kid on the block.” And that wasn’t the worst of it. Shortly after the move, his parents were divorced. As a result, Del was saddled with the responsibility of caring for his mother, who had grown mentally unstable as a result of her marital difficulties. It was one of the most difficult periods of his entire life. Spiritually, as in every other area of existence, he shifted into “survival” mode.
Things took an upward turn when he enrolled in the local junior college, where he met and dated his future wife, Melissa. After a temporary separation, during which she attended college in southwest Missouri and he completed a degree in computer science at Kansas State University, the two were married in August of 1972. It seemed like a season for putting down roots and making long-range plans. But God had other ideas. When Del drew a number-one slot in the draft-lottery – the war in Vietnam was escalating at the time – he immediately enrolled in a two-year Air Force ROTC program. Then, after graduating from Kansas State, earning his pilot’s license, completing a year of graduate school in the field of artificial intelligence, and receiving his commission, it was off to Reese AFB, Texas for pilot training –what the Air Force calls the “Fifty-Two Weeks of Hell.”
Hell or no hell, Del had a feeling that he was on the right track again. Not only were pilots badly needed at this stage in the war, but a pilot, as everyone knew, was an extremely significant person, and significance was something Del had been seeking ever since his days as a basketball star in Blackfoot. As the difficult weeks of the program progressed, the thrill of flying a fighter jet began to get into his blood. He enjoyed the camaraderie of his classmates and, like them, looked forward with great expectations to the eventuality of earning his wings and assuming control of his own plane.
But it was not to be. An old high school football injury raised its ugly head at an inopportune moment, and Del was permanently grounded. Once again his world was turned topsy-turvy, his ambitions shattered, his dream at an end. It was beginning to feel like a pattern. Hope, however, springs eternal; and in God’s economy, the darkest times do tend to come just before the dawn. Assigned to the chapel as a “holding duty” while the Air Force decided what to do with him, Del gradually became aware of new stirrings in the depths of his soul. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t believed in God and didn’t love the Bible; and yet somehow, as he carried out his duties as a chaplain, he began to realize that this heartfelt, childlike faith had never been connected with a clear intellectual grasp of the Christian Gospel and its implications for every area of human life. All that began to change during the remainder of the Tacketts’ stay in Lubbock.
It was in Lubbock, in 1973, that Del got involved with a home-based small group sponsored by the Officers Christian Fellowship. There he had an opportunity to see his Wing Commander, a powerful and important man, down on his knees, praying earnestly and humbly to the Lord and Master of his soul. The experience impacted the young officer at a deep level. As a result, his heart knowledge began to link up with his head knowledge for the very first time. By degrees, he began to understand exactly what Christ had done for him on the cross. Thus it came about that in Lubbock, in an empty cotton field, Del Tackett walked out under the sky and told the Lord that he wanted to appropriate that sacrifice for himself in all of its power and significance. It was a point of no return.
Transferred from Lubbock to Montgomery, Alabama, Del and Melissa began attending a Bible study group where they were introduced to the Reformed Faith for the first time. By 1978 Del’s progress in the spiritual life, particularly in the area of integrating the practical and intellectual aspects of Christianity, was skyrocketing. He had come to a point where, as he puts it, he simply couldn’t get enough of God and His Word. Entering into the first of the many spiritual “cocoons” that would mark his relationship with the Lord throughout the coming years, he wrestled with the implications of God’s character as El Qanna, the Jealous God, Jehovah Shalom, the God of Peace, and Jehovah Jireh, the Provider God. This experience, along with his reading of J. I. Packer’s Knowing God – the book that, next to the Bible, has influenced his life most profoundly – produced in him a solid conviction that all truth flows from the nature of God. Only as we gaze upon His face, Del realized, can we begin to understand who we are and how the vastly varied details of creation can be integrated into a meaningful whole.
Throughout the course of a twenty-year career in the Air Force, this zeal for learning and growing in Christ never abated. In time, it received expression in a passion for teaching. Del’s gifts as a communicator found an outlet not only at church, where he taught countless Sunday School classes and Bible studies, but also on the professional level: as a Master Instructor in computer science at Shepherd Air Force Base, he had innumerable opportunities to overcome his innate shyness and hone his skills as an effective speaker. Appointed vice commander at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base, Del was eventually called upon to serve at the White House under President George H. W. Bush as director of technical planning for the National Security Council. In more ways than one, this unexpected development proved to be another instance of God’s sovereign intervention in his life. It was during his tenure in Washington that Del entered into one of the most formative of his personal spiritual “cocoons.” Through constant exposure to the thought of America’s founders, as inscribed on the walls of our national monuments, enshrined in our foundational documents, and preserved in the writings of the Pilgrim fathers, he was struck with a fresh realization that the United States had indeed been built upon a series of assumptions regarding values and truth – an a priori notion that God has given us truth-claims in every area of life. So far-reaching were the implications of this insight that they changed the course of his life. Somehow it seemed that everything suddenly “clicked” and made sense. Once again Del felt God tapping him on the shoulder and pushing him in a new direction. He left Washington with the intention of developing more effective ways of sharing his discoveries with others. Returning to Colorado Springs, he was quickly caught up in a plan to launch a new theological seminary. The vision motivating him and his associates in this endeavor was simple but powerful. Their goals were 1) to create a program of study calculated specifically to instill a genuine love for God and a burning zeal for His truth in the hearts and minds of their students; and 2) to explore creative methods of taking theological education out of the “ivory tower” of academia and into the “field” of hands-on ministry.
New Geneva Theological Seminary, originally conceived as a branch of Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was inaugurated in 1992. Del Tackett, certified by Knox’s Board of Directors (which included among its members Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church), became one of the new school’s chief instructors. Employing an “apprenticeship model” of education, Del and his colleagues set out to provide ministerial candidates with opportunities to sharpen their practical skills in a local church setting while simultaneously fulfilling academic requirements through an online/interactive CD-ROM degree program. Alongside the standard Masters of Divinity program, they mapped out a course of study for a new Masters in Religion and Society, a degree aimed to equip teachers, legislators, judges, and lawyers with the theological tools they would need in order to address social and cultural issues from a biblical point of view.
The core of the Religion and Society curriculum was a two-semester survey of “Worldview Studies,” a course developed almost entirely by professor Tackett and supplemented with a series of individual courses designed to bring a more intensive focus to the specific subject areas covered in the survey – for example, “Social Order” or “The Philosophy of Science.” To this day, Del speaks with great warmth about the joy of watching the light go on in his students’ faces when the full implications of the Christian worldview dawned upon them. “You could visibly see it,” he says. “It usually came at some point during the second semester, and it was absolutely delightful to behold.” At such moments he was overwhelmed with a deep sense of satisfaction. Lives were being transformed before his very eyes. He had discovered God’s calling for his life at last.
But once again, the Lord had something else in mind. The road was about to take another sharp turn. Just when everything seemed to be falling into place according to plan, the Board of Directors in Fort Lauderdale threw the team in Colorado Springs an unexpected curve. They “cut the umbilical cord,” so to speak, setting New Geneva free to function as an independent institution. Unfortunately, New Geneva had no funding, no support, and no license to teach.
That was 1998. It was the beginning of another very difficult period in Del’s life. He had invested himself heart and soul in the ministry of New Geneva Seminary, particularly in the Worldview Studies course and the Masters in Religion and Society program. He was determined to bring his vision to fruition – in spite of the fact that New Geneva didn’t even have the means to meet payroll.
That’s when Del received a call from Charlie Jarvis, Executive Vice President at Focus on the Family. Charlie was leaving Focus to manage Gary Bauer’s 2000 presidential campaign, and he had very definite ideas about choosing his successor. “I think God is calling you to take my place,” he said. “I want to discuss it with you over lunch.” Del’s response was an unequivocal no. He was absolutely committed to the program he’d pioneered at New Geneva. Difficulties and uncertainties notwithstanding, he still believed in the dream. He wasn’t about to let it die. But he accepted the lunch invitation anyway – primarily as a favor to an old friend. Long story short: through a series of painful and trying events – events that Del describes in terms of “the chastening of the Lord” (Proverbs 3:11, 12) – he was eventually persuaded to accept Jarvis’s offer. But not without a great deal of personal anguish. At one point in the process, he found himself shaking his fist at God and shouting, “I didn’t ask for this!” The Lord’s response? “That’s right. You didn’t ask for this. So just think about it.” Suddenly Jesus’ words in Gethsemane came back to him with the force of a ton of bricks falling on his head: “Not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39).
It was another crossroads. Del had to admit that he could not go forward until he was willing to lay everything on the altar: his will, his desires, his zeal for the Religion and Society program, and his deep concern for the financially floundering seminary. “You’ll have to let all that go,” God said. “New Geneva is My problem, not yours.” So Del left New Geneva and assumed a new position at Focus on the Family – an administrative position that had nothing to do with teaching and theological education. The dream had died. For the next two years, Del Tackett, ever the dutiful military man, diligently fulfilled the role of a Focus on the Family Executive Vice President. He believed wholeheartedly in the mission of the organization. He enjoyed the company of his associates in ministry. He was content in the knowledge that he was in the right place at the right time, serving God where God wanted him to serve. But he saw no indication whatsoever – not the faintest glimmer of an inkling – that his work at Focus could ever be linked in any way with the vision he’d left behind.
Then one day Ron Wilson, Focus’s Vice President of Human Resources, came knocking at his door. “I understand you used to do some teaching in the area of Christian Worldview,” said Ron. “In particular, I’m told that your course included some material on the biblical view of work. I think our employees could benefit from a presentation on that subject.” Del tried to beg off. A course of that nature would require a tremendous amount of preparation, he protested. Given his present responsibilities, he simply didn’t have time to pull it off. But Ron was persistent; and in the end his persistence paid off. Del presented several lectures on the Christian in the Sphere of Labor for Focus on the Family’s executive staff. He followed those lectures with a similar series of talks for the management staff. It wasn’t long before the light he had seen in the eyes of the students at New Geneva started appearing in the faces of his fellow Focus staffers. Testimonies of altered attitudes and changed lives began filtering back to him from those who had heard his talks. Once again, things were beginning to “click.” Jim Daly, Focus’s current President, a junior executive at the time, became a solid advocate for Christian Worldview studies at Focus on the Family. Eventually, Don Hodel, Dr. James Dobson’s first successor in the role of Focus’s CEO, came to Del with a plea and a proposal. “This material is simply too good to be kept hidden under a bushel,” he said. “We simply have to find a way to get it out to a broader audience.” It didn’t take Del long to realize what was happening. The surprising, serendipitous, and sovereign hand of God was at work once again. Who could have predicted that it would move in quite this way? Del’s intensive course in Christian Worldview studies – the course that New Geneva Seminary had been financially unable to support – was about to be picked up by a well established, widely supported, and fiscally healthy ministry, an organization of worldwide reputation. The dream had been resurrected.
But Del maintained his commitment to the original vision. “This isn’t something we can turn into a product or resource,” he told Don. “A book or a video won’t do it. What we’re talking about here is the possibility of transforming people at a very deep personal level.” The solution? An interactive curriculum, captured on video, but fleshed out within the context of small-group discussion: Focus on the Family’s The Truth Project ®. The rest, as they say, is history. About the time the decision to undertake production of The Truth Project was made, Dr. Del Tackett left his position as Executive Vice President and became President of the Focus on the Family Institute. Filming of the twelve DVD installments began shortly afterwards and was completed in mid-2006. The Project launched in May of that year with a series of Training Conferences, held in a number of selected cities across the United States. And The Truth Project has been generating excitement and enthusiasm all over the country ever since.
It is worth adding that, as a professor, Dr. Tackett has taught more than thirty undergraduate and graduate courses at three different institutions over a twelve-year period. He holds three earned degrees (D.M., Colorado Technical University; M.S., Auburn University; B.S., Kansas State University) and is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
He and his wife Melissa have four grown children and reside in Colorado Springs.
Personal transformation through personal encounter with the living God – that’s the heart and soul of Focus on the Family’s The Truth Project ®. It’s also, in an important sense, the life-story of The Truth Project’s chief architect and major spokesman, Dr. Del Tackett. For while Del doesn’t lack formal academic credentials, it’s the experiential aspect of his knowledge that best qualifies him to act as mentor and tour-guide to those seeking a deeper walk with Christ and a more accurate understanding of the Christian worldview. He knows firsthand what it means to encounter the life-changing power of God in a deeply personal way. Born in Texas and brought up on a farm in Blackfoot, Idaho, Del remembers vividly how it felt to grow up Protestant in a solidly Mormon community. It was difficult at times, but he found ways to overcome the feelings of marginalization that go along with being the “odd man out.” Sustained emotionally by a solid relationship with his dad, he excelled in sports and academics, so that by the time he entered high school he had achieved a healthy measure of social respectability among his peers. Church, too, provided him with opportunities to “become somebody.” An active member of the Methodist youth group, he assumed leadership roles at both the local and regional levels.
During the latter part of his high school career, Del was selected to participate in “Boys State,” an American Legion program designed to give top Idaho students hands-on experience in the mechanics of state government. He thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and was eventually invited to take part in the federal version of the same exercise, “Boys Nation,” in Washington, D. C. But it was precisely at this moment of youthful triumph that God – as Del tells the story – pulled the rug out from under him for the first time. He returned home from D. C. to find the house empty and the farm packed up. His father’s employer, Phillips Petroleum, had lost its Idaho contract. The family was moving to Kansas City. That was the summer between Del’s Junior and Senior years. Just when he should have been riding on top of the world, he was suddenly reduced to the status of the “new kid on the block.” And that wasn’t the worst of it. Shortly after the move, his parents were divorced. As a result, Del was saddled with the responsibility of caring for his mother, who had grown mentally unstable as a result of her marital difficulties. It was one of the most difficult periods of his entire life. Spiritually, as in every other area of existence, he shifted into “survival” mode.
Things took an upward turn when he enrolled in the local junior college, where he met and dated his future wife, Melissa. After a temporary separation, during which she attended college in southwest Missouri and he completed a degree in computer science at Kansas State University, the two were married in August of 1972. It seemed like a season for putting down roots and making long-range plans. But God had other ideas. When Del drew a number-one slot in the draft-lottery – the war in Vietnam was escalating at the time – he immediately enrolled in a two-year Air Force ROTC program. Then, after graduating from Kansas State, earning his pilot’s license, completing a year of graduate school in the field of artificial intelligence, and receiving his commission, it was off to Reese AFB, Texas for pilot training –what the Air Force calls the “Fifty-Two Weeks of Hell.”
Hell or no hell, Del had a feeling that he was on the right track again. Not only were pilots badly needed at this stage in the war, but a pilot, as everyone knew, was an extremely significant person, and significance was something Del had been seeking ever since his days as a basketball star in Blackfoot. As the difficult weeks of the program progressed, the thrill of flying a fighter jet began to get into his blood. He enjoyed the camaraderie of his classmates and, like them, looked forward with great expectations to the eventuality of earning his wings and assuming control of his own plane.
But it was not to be. An old high school football injury raised its ugly head at an inopportune moment, and Del was permanently grounded. Once again his world was turned topsy-turvy, his ambitions shattered, his dream at an end. It was beginning to feel like a pattern. Hope, however, springs eternal; and in God’s economy, the darkest times do tend to come just before the dawn. Assigned to the chapel as a “holding duty” while the Air Force decided what to do with him, Del gradually became aware of new stirrings in the depths of his soul. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t believed in God and didn’t love the Bible; and yet somehow, as he carried out his duties as a chaplain, he began to realize that this heartfelt, childlike faith had never been connected with a clear intellectual grasp of the Christian Gospel and its implications for every area of human life. All that began to change during the remainder of the Tacketts’ stay in Lubbock.
It was in Lubbock, in 1973, that Del got involved with a home-based small group sponsored by the Officers Christian Fellowship. There he had an opportunity to see his Wing Commander, a powerful and important man, down on his knees, praying earnestly and humbly to the Lord and Master of his soul. The experience impacted the young officer at a deep level. As a result, his heart knowledge began to link up with his head knowledge for the very first time. By degrees, he began to understand exactly what Christ had done for him on the cross. Thus it came about that in Lubbock, in an empty cotton field, Del Tackett walked out under the sky and told the Lord that he wanted to appropriate that sacrifice for himself in all of its power and significance. It was a point of no return.
Transferred from Lubbock to Montgomery, Alabama, Del and Melissa began attending a Bible study group where they were introduced to the Reformed Faith for the first time. By 1978 Del’s progress in the spiritual life, particularly in the area of integrating the practical and intellectual aspects of Christianity, was skyrocketing. He had come to a point where, as he puts it, he simply couldn’t get enough of God and His Word. Entering into the first of the many spiritual “cocoons” that would mark his relationship with the Lord throughout the coming years, he wrestled with the implications of God’s character as El Qanna, the Jealous God, Jehovah Shalom, the God of Peace, and Jehovah Jireh, the Provider God. This experience, along with his reading of J. I. Packer’s Knowing God – the book that, next to the Bible, has influenced his life most profoundly – produced in him a solid conviction that all truth flows from the nature of God. Only as we gaze upon His face, Del realized, can we begin to understand who we are and how the vastly varied details of creation can be integrated into a meaningful whole.
Throughout the course of a twenty-year career in the Air Force, this zeal for learning and growing in Christ never abated. In time, it received expression in a passion for teaching. Del’s gifts as a communicator found an outlet not only at church, where he taught countless Sunday School classes and Bible studies, but also on the professional level: as a Master Instructor in computer science at Shepherd Air Force Base, he had innumerable opportunities to overcome his innate shyness and hone his skills as an effective speaker. Appointed vice commander at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base, Del was eventually called upon to serve at the White House under President George H. W. Bush as director of technical planning for the National Security Council. In more ways than one, this unexpected development proved to be another instance of God’s sovereign intervention in his life. It was during his tenure in Washington that Del entered into one of the most formative of his personal spiritual “cocoons.” Through constant exposure to the thought of America’s founders, as inscribed on the walls of our national monuments, enshrined in our foundational documents, and preserved in the writings of the Pilgrim fathers, he was struck with a fresh realization that the United States had indeed been built upon a series of assumptions regarding values and truth – an a priori notion that God has given us truth-claims in every area of life. So far-reaching were the implications of this insight that they changed the course of his life. Somehow it seemed that everything suddenly “clicked” and made sense. Once again Del felt God tapping him on the shoulder and pushing him in a new direction. He left Washington with the intention of developing more effective ways of sharing his discoveries with others. Returning to Colorado Springs, he was quickly caught up in a plan to launch a new theological seminary. The vision motivating him and his associates in this endeavor was simple but powerful. Their goals were 1) to create a program of study calculated specifically to instill a genuine love for God and a burning zeal for His truth in the hearts and minds of their students; and 2) to explore creative methods of taking theological education out of the “ivory tower” of academia and into the “field” of hands-on ministry.
New Geneva Theological Seminary, originally conceived as a branch of Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was inaugurated in 1992. Del Tackett, certified by Knox’s Board of Directors (which included among its members Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church), became one of the new school’s chief instructors. Employing an “apprenticeship model” of education, Del and his colleagues set out to provide ministerial candidates with opportunities to sharpen their practical skills in a local church setting while simultaneously fulfilling academic requirements through an online/interactive CD-ROM degree program. Alongside the standard Masters of Divinity program, they mapped out a course of study for a new Masters in Religion and Society, a degree aimed to equip teachers, legislators, judges, and lawyers with the theological tools they would need in order to address social and cultural issues from a biblical point of view.
The core of the Religion and Society curriculum was a two-semester survey of “Worldview Studies,” a course developed almost entirely by professor Tackett and supplemented with a series of individual courses designed to bring a more intensive focus to the specific subject areas covered in the survey – for example, “Social Order” or “The Philosophy of Science.” To this day, Del speaks with great warmth about the joy of watching the light go on in his students’ faces when the full implications of the Christian worldview dawned upon them. “You could visibly see it,” he says. “It usually came at some point during the second semester, and it was absolutely delightful to behold.” At such moments he was overwhelmed with a deep sense of satisfaction. Lives were being transformed before his very eyes. He had discovered God’s calling for his life at last.
But once again, the Lord had something else in mind. The road was about to take another sharp turn. Just when everything seemed to be falling into place according to plan, the Board of Directors in Fort Lauderdale threw the team in Colorado Springs an unexpected curve. They “cut the umbilical cord,” so to speak, setting New Geneva free to function as an independent institution. Unfortunately, New Geneva had no funding, no support, and no license to teach.
That was 1998. It was the beginning of another very difficult period in Del’s life. He had invested himself heart and soul in the ministry of New Geneva Seminary, particularly in the Worldview Studies course and the Masters in Religion and Society program. He was determined to bring his vision to fruition – in spite of the fact that New Geneva didn’t even have the means to meet payroll.
That’s when Del received a call from Charlie Jarvis, Executive Vice President at Focus on the Family. Charlie was leaving Focus to manage Gary Bauer’s 2000 presidential campaign, and he had very definite ideas about choosing his successor. “I think God is calling you to take my place,” he said. “I want to discuss it with you over lunch.” Del’s response was an unequivocal no. He was absolutely committed to the program he’d pioneered at New Geneva. Difficulties and uncertainties notwithstanding, he still believed in the dream. He wasn’t about to let it die. But he accepted the lunch invitation anyway – primarily as a favor to an old friend. Long story short: through a series of painful and trying events – events that Del describes in terms of “the chastening of the Lord” (Proverbs 3:11, 12) – he was eventually persuaded to accept Jarvis’s offer. But not without a great deal of personal anguish. At one point in the process, he found himself shaking his fist at God and shouting, “I didn’t ask for this!” The Lord’s response? “That’s right. You didn’t ask for this. So just think about it.” Suddenly Jesus’ words in Gethsemane came back to him with the force of a ton of bricks falling on his head: “Not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39).
It was another crossroads. Del had to admit that he could not go forward until he was willing to lay everything on the altar: his will, his desires, his zeal for the Religion and Society program, and his deep concern for the financially floundering seminary. “You’ll have to let all that go,” God said. “New Geneva is My problem, not yours.” So Del left New Geneva and assumed a new position at Focus on the Family – an administrative position that had nothing to do with teaching and theological education. The dream had died. For the next two years, Del Tackett, ever the dutiful military man, diligently fulfilled the role of a Focus on the Family Executive Vice President. He believed wholeheartedly in the mission of the organization. He enjoyed the company of his associates in ministry. He was content in the knowledge that he was in the right place at the right time, serving God where God wanted him to serve. But he saw no indication whatsoever – not the faintest glimmer of an inkling – that his work at Focus could ever be linked in any way with the vision he’d left behind.
Then one day Ron Wilson, Focus’s Vice President of Human Resources, came knocking at his door. “I understand you used to do some teaching in the area of Christian Worldview,” said Ron. “In particular, I’m told that your course included some material on the biblical view of work. I think our employees could benefit from a presentation on that subject.” Del tried to beg off. A course of that nature would require a tremendous amount of preparation, he protested. Given his present responsibilities, he simply didn’t have time to pull it off. But Ron was persistent; and in the end his persistence paid off. Del presented several lectures on the Christian in the Sphere of Labor for Focus on the Family’s executive staff. He followed those lectures with a similar series of talks for the management staff. It wasn’t long before the light he had seen in the eyes of the students at New Geneva started appearing in the faces of his fellow Focus staffers. Testimonies of altered attitudes and changed lives began filtering back to him from those who had heard his talks. Once again, things were beginning to “click.” Jim Daly, Focus’s current President, a junior executive at the time, became a solid advocate for Christian Worldview studies at Focus on the Family. Eventually, Don Hodel, Dr. James Dobson’s first successor in the role of Focus’s CEO, came to Del with a plea and a proposal. “This material is simply too good to be kept hidden under a bushel,” he said. “We simply have to find a way to get it out to a broader audience.” It didn’t take Del long to realize what was happening. The surprising, serendipitous, and sovereign hand of God was at work once again. Who could have predicted that it would move in quite this way? Del’s intensive course in Christian Worldview studies – the course that New Geneva Seminary had been financially unable to support – was about to be picked up by a well established, widely supported, and fiscally healthy ministry, an organization of worldwide reputation. The dream had been resurrected.
But Del maintained his commitment to the original vision. “This isn’t something we can turn into a product or resource,” he told Don. “A book or a video won’t do it. What we’re talking about here is the possibility of transforming people at a very deep personal level.” The solution? An interactive curriculum, captured on video, but fleshed out within the context of small-group discussion: Focus on the Family’s The Truth Project ®. The rest, as they say, is history. About the time the decision to undertake production of The Truth Project was made, Dr. Del Tackett left his position as Executive Vice President and became President of the Focus on the Family Institute. Filming of the twelve DVD installments began shortly afterwards and was completed in mid-2006. The Project launched in May of that year with a series of Training Conferences, held in a number of selected cities across the United States. And The Truth Project has been generating excitement and enthusiasm all over the country ever since.
It is worth adding that, as a professor, Dr. Tackett has taught more than thirty undergraduate and graduate courses at three different institutions over a twelve-year period. He holds three earned degrees (D.M., Colorado Technical University; M.S., Auburn University; B.S., Kansas State University) and is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
He and his wife Melissa have four grown children and reside in Colorado Springs.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
An Unpopular Vision
by George Grant
An obscure man changed the course of history — albeit generations later — by simply living out the implications of radical grace and covenantal faithfulness right where he was. He faced the impossible odds of a culture gone terribly awry. He implemented a generational vision that laid new foundations for freedom and prosperity simply by equipping and enabling future leaders.
Perhaps by looking back at Groote and his reforming work, we will be able to see our way forward for our own. After all, his was a distinctly biblical vision, a sound vision, and thus a rather unpopular vision. And it still is.
Read the rest
An obscure man changed the course of history — albeit generations later — by simply living out the implications of radical grace and covenantal faithfulness right where he was. He faced the impossible odds of a culture gone terribly awry. He implemented a generational vision that laid new foundations for freedom and prosperity simply by equipping and enabling future leaders.
Perhaps by looking back at Groote and his reforming work, we will be able to see our way forward for our own. After all, his was a distinctly biblical vision, a sound vision, and thus a rather unpopular vision. And it still is.
Read the rest
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