Personally, I have found that Piper hugely misstates what Lewis said about pleasure. Lewis wrote strong objections to pursuing pleasure. Lewis liked to think that God allowed pleasures to happen to people, like giving them little gifts all the time. But Lewis thought people who pursued pleasure were being greedy and demanding of God. Piper chooses not to use those sentiments from Lewis.

One place to read some of what Lewis said is at http://thefaithfulword.org/chfaqspage2.html#Q33

You may be right, I may not be interested in joining a church that emphasizes Calvinism or Christian Hedonism. I definitely wouldn’t be interested in joining a church that requires that I believe those things in order to become a member. But I’ve been a member of churches that have some ideas that I don’t agree with - I don’t agree with everything at Crosspoint. I can tolerate that, and I’d like to hope that churches can tolerate a few disagreements from me, too.

We should be united through Christ, not through any minor theological details. One of the greatest things about churches, in my opinion, is that it unites people that wouldn’t otherwise fit together.

I appreciate your concept of a closely knit band of brothers/sisters (and I think that just happens naturally, honestly), but we should never forget that we are part of something bigger than that.

Do you really believe that a pastor ascribing to Christian Hedonism is similar to a mechanic knowing how to start a car?

I really would like to hear about the history of Christian Hedonism. It’s a concept that I’ve never heard outside of Piper.

I went to the Provident website and skimmed through the doctrinal statement. Neither of the two ideas you are discussing here are explicitly treated in that statement from what I read, though I can see that perhaps a great deal of it may spring from them, particularly the Dutch Calvinist slant. And, I must admit that a great deal of it is probably lost on me, as I am not student of either Piper’s Christian Hedonism, or Calvinism.

Nevertheless, and more to the point of your post and question… I suppose I tend to agree with lex, generally speaking. It’s certainly within the purview of the leadership of Provident to determine what their doctrinal statement will be. And, those who engage with Provident, and the membership process in particular, may choose to agree, join, and participate fully, or disagree, not join, and leave or perhaps participate as a non member, presumably as some lesser level (otherwise what would be the point of membership). All of that is fine and good.

As for me, however, I prefer that we keep our core as tight as possible. Or, if you prefer, to close our fist around as few things as we may. To this end, I am a huge fan of using something like the Apostle’s or Nicene Creed as a doctrinal statement. It seems to me that the further you get from those basics, the more your statement of doctrine will contain theological theories and constructs that may or may not be accurate, and certainly would not be considered essential to be considered a follower of Christ.

If a church community wishes to require things in terms of belief for it’s formal membership that are beyond that which is required to be a member of the Universal Church, that is to say, beyond that which is required to truly be a Christian, then they may certainly do so. My question would simply be why?

And… that leads me to a related, but important question. What is the purpose and point of an individual church body’s “formal” membership? At Provident, for instance, what about all those folks (more than half) that are a part of the community but not members? What are they not able to do, or what are they forfeiting by choosing to remain non-members?

By the way, my church (and I am a leader/pastor of my church) also has a doctrinal statement that is, in my opinion, too long, containing too much (though it is about one third as long as Provident’s). And, we have a “formal” membership as well, and like Provident it is much smaller in number than the actual participants in our community.

That is, in part, my way of saying that I am not dogging Provident at all… it looks like a cool place, and I pray for it’s success as another community hub of the Church in which we all share membership.

Another point I neglected to emphasize more is the nature of membership at Providence. It’s not just a label saying you are a part of this church, but it’s a covenant commitment stating that you are an active participant in leading this church in it’s direction. Members are required to be in small groups, serve in ministry, invest in each other, and sacrifice for one another. None of these things are options, they are vows. A better label I would say is “core group” membership. This is the group that the church looks to for eldership, leadership, and staff. With that said, I think a little more that faith in Christ should be required of a core group member. The question is, how much? I’ve got that Augustine quote written in a journel of mine. The issue is what you consider essential. Obviously, salvation by faith is the only essential in the grand scope of things, but when you are talking about church, trying to bind together a tight band of believers, isn’t it ok, if not helpful, to want that band to believe in the same things? isn’t it ok to acknowledge the fact that churches need to be different in what they believe and how they want to minister to it’s culture?

i guess what makes my angle unique is my belief that Christian Hedonism and Calvinism are not only biblical, but also foundational to my Christian spirituality. I don’t know where I’d be if I thought that God wasn’t sovereign in my salvation and that God is not the source of happiness. I’d be a completely different person and I would be going to a different church, and that’s ok…..I’d still be a believer. Since I regard these things as foundational to my faith personally, it’s only natural for me to want to join a membership made up of people who share the same foundation. if I thought Christian Hedonsim and Calvinism weren’t a big deal in the Bible, my faith, or in general, I wouldn’t have made this post. “Doubtful things” should be treated with liberty, but I don’t have a lot of doubt about these things, and neither does my church membership. If you owned a car repair shop, wouldn’t you want your mechanics to agree on the fact that turning the key in the ignition starts the engine?

The beauty of all this is the fact that nobody is forcing anything on anybody or “shutting anybody out”. The pastor doesn’t cram those theologies down people’s throat, the leadership doesn’t strongly urge it’s attenders to become members and believe these things. it only asks that if you wish to be a moving force in the spiritual, theological, and missional direction of this church, you need to make sure you believe some of the same (what we think are essential) beliefs.

I’ll make my case for the pre-Piper existence and “popularity” of Christian Hedonism at another time. Piper may be a great theologian in my mind, but he hasn’t really come up with anything original. He’s just articulating some things that have been forgotten by our culture. Again…some other time.

Good stuff.